FIRST SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

Psalm 148

Galatians 4:4-7

Luke 2:22-40

Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, you wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and yet more wonderfully restored it. In your mercy, let us share the divine life of the one who came to share our humanity, Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
   and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
   and her salvation like a burning torch. Isaiah 62:1.

Jerusalem is no less in need of vindication and salvation today than it was in the time of the prophet. The city’s religious significance, limited in Isaiah’s day to a small band of Judean exiles, is now global. For Jews, Jerusalem is the City of David, the site of Solomon’s temple, the place where Abraham nearly offered his son Isaac as a burnt offering and, according to some Jewish traditions, the site of creation. For many Muslims, Jerusalem is the third holiest city after Mecca and Medina. It is the place to which the prophet Mohamed was transported during his “night journey.” Of course, Christians know Jerusalem as the place where Jesus entered in triumph, was arrested, crucified and raised from death. Numerous unholy crusades have been launched and brutal wars fought by these faith groups for control of this holy city.

But religion is not the only factor driving the violence infecting Jerusalem and the holy land generally. In fact, for centuries, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in the region of Palestine peacefully. Then, after centuries of violent persecution culminating in the Holocaust, a group of Jewish leaders finally came to the conclusion that a people without a country is no people and that the world will do nothing to prevent its extermination. So the state of Israel was born in Palestine and, for the first time in centuries, Jews had voice in the global community of nations. Now, in a cruel and ironic twist of fate, Palestinians-likewise a stateless people-are experiencing state sponsored violence at the hands of the Jewish state with little to protect them beyond toothless UN resolutions. The potential for ethnic, cultural and religious violence is always amplified when matters of national sovereignty are thrown into the mix.

And there is the matter of oil. The governments of many Middle Eastern nations with horrendous records of human rights abuses receive western support and a pass on their barbaric conduct because they protect the flow of petroleum from the world’s biggest oil reserves to Europe and the United States. American foreign policy requires balancing support for Israel, its most loyal ally in the region, against the need for stable relationships with oil rich Arab countries. The geopolitical stability resulting from this precarious balancing act comes at the expense of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank who, being stateless, have no government to represent their interests and thus no say in treaties, defense agreements and economic pacts that have profound consequences for their lives.

Meanwhile, the Christian population in Jerusalem, most of which is Palestinian, continues to decrease. Feared by the Israeli government as terrorist sympathizers and distrusted by their fellow countrymen who question their loyalty to the Palestinian cause, Christians are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the polarities of the region.

Beyond the obvious humanitarian concerns plaguing the middle east, should Christians care about Jerusalem? Does the fate of Jerusalem matter any more than the fate of any other city in the world? Wouldn’t the gospel be the gospel whether Jerusalem thrives or perishes? I think not. The three Abrahamic religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity have this in common: place and time. Our beliefs are grounded in historical events that occurred in specific places. Ours is not a religion of pure spirit divorced from the things of the world. The career of Muhamad, the saga of Israel and the life and death of Jesus and his disciples’ witness to his resurrection are not mere historical accidents illustrative of but not essential to larger moral and spiritual truths. They are intertwined with and inseparable from our teaching, faith and practice. It is no accident either that all three of these faiths intersect at Jerusalem. Though this holy city has been at the center of some very bloody and unholy conflicts throughout history, that should not and need not be so.

The Hebrew Scriptures speak of Zion as a mother whose children include Egypt, Babylon, Ethiopia and Tyer. See Psalm 87. Jerusalem and Mount Zion is to be the source of a salvation that will embrace the whole world:

“In days to come
   the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
   and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
   Many peoples shall come and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
   to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
   and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
   and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
   and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
   and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
   neither shall they learn war any more.” Isaiah 2:2-4.  

The New Testament concludes its witness with a description of the New Jerusalem, which, renewed as it is, remains firmly grounded in the symbols and history of both Israel and the church:

“And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Revelation 21:10-14.

Nonetheless, the holy city is open to all peoples: “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.” Revelation 21:24. There will be no closed border for “[i]ts gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.” Revelation 21:25.

The New Jerusalem is everything the current Jerusalem is not-but might be. Might be if enough Jews, Muslims and Christians own up to all that Jerusalem means to them; if enough ecumenically minded representatives of all three faiths can help us all see beyond the ancient blood feuds, global politics, conflicting claims of sovereignty to a different way of honoring the holy city; if our longing to see a Jerusalem that reflects God’s future prevails over the cycles of retribution that entrap us in our violent past, then we might just catch a glimpse of that holy city God is so eager to give us.

Here is a fine old hymn featuring Jerusalem and all the symbolic, metaphoric and allegoric power it carries. It was written by Johann M. Meyfart in 1626 and translated from the original German into English in 1858 by Catherine Winkworth. It did not make the cut for our more recent Lutheran Hymnals. Would that the holy city of Jerusalem someday reflect in some small measure the mercy of God and the oneness of humanity shared by all of the Abrahamic faiths!

Jerusalem, Thou City Fair and High

1. Jerusalem, thou city fair and high,
Would God I were in thee!
My longing heart fain, fain to thee would fly,
It will not stay with me.
Far over vale and mountain,
Far over field and plain,
It hastes to seek its Fountain
And leave this world of pain.

2. O happy day and yet far happier hour,
When wilt thou come at last,
When fearless to my Father’s love and pow’r,
Whose promise standeth fast,
My soul I gladly render?
For surely will His hand
Lead her with guidance tender
To heav’n, her fatherland.

3. A moment’s space, and gently, wondrously,
Released from earthly ties,
Elijah’s chariot bears her up to thee,
Thro’ all these lower skies
To yonder shining regions,
While down to meet her come
The blessed angel legions
And bid her welcome home.

4. O Zion, hail! Bright city, now unfold
The gates of grace to me.
How many a time I longed for thee of old
Ere yet I was set free
From yon dark life of sadness,
Yon world of shadowy naught,
And God had given the gladness,
The heritage, I sought.

5. What glorious throng and what resplendent host
Comes sweeping swiftly down?
The chosen ones on earth who wrought the most,
The Church’s brightest crown,
Our Lord hath set to meet me,
As in the far-off years
Their words oft came to greet me
In yonder land of tears.

6. The partiarchs’ and prophets’ noble train,
With all Christ’s followers true,
Who bore the cross and could the worst disdain
That tyrants dared to do,
I see them shine forever,
All-glorious as the sun,
Mid light that fadeth never,
Their perfect freedom won.

7. And when within that lovely Paradise
At last I safely dwell,
What songs of bliss shall from my lips arise,
What joy my tongue shall tell,
While all the saints are singing
Hosannas o’er and o’er,
Pure hallelujahs ringing
Around me evermore!

8. Unnumbered choirs before the shining throne
Their joyful anthems raise
Till heaven’s glad halls are echoing with the tone
Of that great hymn of praise
And all its host rejoices,
And all its blessed throng
Unite their myriad voices
In one eternal song.

Source: The Lutheran Hymnal, (c. 1941 by Concordia Publishing House) Hymn # 619. Johann Matthäus Meyfart (1590-1642) was a German Lutheran theologian, educator, minister and musician. The son of a minister, he was born in Jena and studied at the University of Jena from which he graduated in 1603. He went on to study theology at the University of Wittenberg in 1614. In 1633 Meyfart was appointed professor of theology at the University of Erfurt. He served as rector of the university in1634. Throughout his final years he served as a minister at the Predigerkirche (“Preachers’ Church”) where he was buried when he died in 1642. Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878) was an English teacher and hymnwriter. She was born in London to a wealthy silk merchant. Though born into wealth and privilege, Winkworth was an opponent of worker exploitation common to the industrial revolutionary era in which she lived and a fierce critic of British colonialism. She was also an advocate for wider educational opportunities for women and girls.  Winkworth translated the above hymn of Johann Meyfart as well as many other German hymns into English, thereby enriching the worship life of English speaking Lutherans.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Luke 1:46b-55 or Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26

Romans 16:25-27

Luke 1:26-38

Prayer of the Day: Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. With your abundant grace and might, free us from the sin that would obstruct your mercy, that willingly we may bear your redeeming love to all the world, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Luke 1:38.

A couple of years ago a heated argument exploded over social media among clerics over the merits (or lack thereof) of the then (and perhaps now) popular song, Mary Did You Know[1] The lyrics question Mary, asking if she knew the eventual significance and salvation her son would have for humankind and the miracles he would perform. Some of my colleagues maintained that the song prompts salutary reflection upon Mary and the extent of her insight into the destiny of her holy child. Others felt it amounted to condescending “mansplaining” that denigrated Mary. I happily determined this to be one of the many issues upon which it is quite unnecessary for me form an opinion. If you have not heard the song, I invite you to click the above link and decide for yourself-or not.

I believe it is quite impossible for us to “get inside the head” of Mary the mother of our Lord, or anyone else for that matter. Nonetheless, I am confident that Mary understood what every expectant mother living in Gaza right now knows, namely, that the life of a woman is expandible and a small price to pay for gaining military advantage, advancing ideological agendas and maintaining geopolitical stability. I am sure Mary would not have been surprised by a nation that rewards a rapist and confessed sexual predator with the highest office in the land. She would not have been shocked by government regulation of women’s bodies and health. Mary knew that the world is a dangerous place for women-to say nothing of the infants in their care. She understood the world into which her child would be born-and said “yes, let it be.”

Some question the genuineness of Mary’s consent to the will of God. What was left to which she could consent? She was not asked, but told by an angle of God what will happen to her. She will bear a child. How will this happen in the absence of a husband? The answer might sound more like a threat than a promise. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…” Luke 1:35. It is not hard to see how a survivor of sexual assault or abuse might find this gospel text troubling. There is no real indicia of consent here. Nonetheless, this troubling text reflects a truth too often suppressed and denied by Americans like us who like to make much of our freedom, autonomy and agency. The truth is, we do not get to choose the nation, neighborhood or family into which we are born. Events beyond our control set our destinies on trajectories we could never have foreseen. Even the decisions we think we understand sometimes take us in directions we never anticipated. Did any of us married folk know to what we were committing ourselves when we promised to join with our spouse and share with them in all that is to come? Seemingly insignificant choices, such as deciding to skip the book club so as to take in a ball game might lead to life changing encounters. Of course, there are events that are disruptive and life changing by their very nature. Such is the occurrence of pregnancy.

The coming of a child brings about profound changes in the life of couples who will soon find themselves walking a cranky baby late at night instead of sitting with friends around a pitcher of beer at the local sports bar. The advent of a birth threatens to upset the established family constellation and ignite new levels of sibling rivalry. I remember all too well how the birth of my younger sister forced me to realize sooner than I would have liked that I am not the center of the universe or even the sole object of my parents’ attention and affection. And this is under circumstances where the pregnancy is anticipated and welcome. Our gospel text deals with an unplanned, unanticipated and problematic pregnancy, which makes it exponentially more disruptive. It is an event that shatters expectations, hopes and dreams for the future. Mary’s pregnancy will shape her destiny in ways she might not even suspect. Yet, she says “yes, let it be.”

So what are we to make of Mary’s assent? Was it real? Could she have done otherwise? I believe that Mary could have rejected God’s purpose and intent. She did not have to recognize her pregnancy as the work of the Holy Spirit. She did not have to embrace the hope represented in the angel’s pronouncement concerning her child. She might have viewed her pregnancy as a curse, an embarrassment and a roadblock to the way of the life she had been anticipating. To be sure, God would have continued to work God’s will for Jesus without Mary’s consent. But the church, the world and Mary herself would have been poorer for it. As it was, Mary did give her assent and embraced wholeheartedly the promise of hope planted in her womb. She embraced her vocation as the Mother of God, whether she understood it as such or not.

American poet, biographer and journalist Carl Sandburg once said that “a baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” By extension, one could say that every woman’s fierce determination to care for, nurture and protect her baby, even at the cost of her own life, reflects her faith that it will. It is just this sort of faith required of us in these days when it sometimes feels as though the world is coming apart at the seams. In that respect, nothing has changed. The future looked pretty bleak for Mary and her kinsfolk, living as they did under military occupation run by a governor that did not shrink from killing innocent people worshiping peacefully simply to make a point. See Luke 13:1. Yet Mary was able to say yes to her pregnancy and the seeds of promise it held because she could see beyond the gloom to the day when God “scatter[s] the proud in the imagination of their hearts,” “[brings] down the powerful from their thrones and lift[s] up the lowly,” “fill[s] the hungry with good things” and “send[s] the rich away empty.” Luke 1:51-53. The fact that Mary’s song of praise just cited employes the Greek aorist[2] tense where I employ the future tense emphasizes that God’s future is a present reality even now breaking into our world.

A call to embrace the future is admittedly a big ask. Frankly, I am appalled seeing the political star of a presidential candidate rise higher with every ugly, racist and xenophobic remark he makes. I am horrified by state governments that are regulating women’s bodies to the grave with restrictions on lifesaving medical treatment. I am grieved at attempts by illiterate fanatics like Moms for Liberty to limit our children’s access to works of literature deemed unfit according to their narrow, bigoted and ill-informed world views. I would love just to say, “to hell with it.” I would love to cancel my subscription to the papers I read, turn off the news, grab my camera and spend the rest of my life traipsing around in the national forest taking pictures, savoring the change of seasons and watching birds. But the birth of a child, the birth of this one child convinces me that God has not given up on the world. So how can I?

Here is a poem by Wendell Berry reflecting ambivalence about bringing children into the world and the hope that will not allow for regret.

To My Children, Fearing for Them

Terrors are to come. The earth

is poisoned with narrow lives.

I think of you. What you will

live through, or perish by, eats

at my heart. What have I done? I

need better answers than there are

to the pain of coming to see

what was done in blindness,

loving what I cannot save. Nor,

your eyes turning toward me,

can I wish your lives unmade

though the pain of them is on me.

Source: The Peace of Wild Things, (c. 1964 by Wendell Berry; pub. by Penguin Random House 2018). Wendell Berry (b. 1934) is a poet, novelist, farmer and environmental activist. He is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of The National Humanities Medal and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He is also a 2013 Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. You can read more about Wendell Berry and sample more of his works at the Poetry Foundation website.

  

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[1]  Lyrics written by Mark Lowry in 1984 and music written by Buddy Greene in 1991. The above link is to a recording by Carrie Underwood.

[2] In New Testament Greek the aorist tense describes completed events or conditions in past time. However, it is often idiomatic to use the aorist to refer to present time. Thus, the aorist is used as much or more to denote the quality of action as its location in time.  

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Psalm 126 or Luke 1:46b-55

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Prayer of the Day: Stir up the wills of your faithful people, Lord God, and open our ears to the words of your prophets, that, anointed by your Spirit, we may testify to your light; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.” John 1:6-7.

Who was John the Baptizer? Numerous trees have been felled to accommodate production of scholarly tomes aimed at answering that question. Sadly, this ruthless deforestation has given us little in the way of understanding. For a brief, but thorough discussion of the various theories concerning the origin and message of John the Baptizer and his significance for the early church, see Brown, Raymond E., The Gospel According to John 1-X11, (Anchor Bible Commentary, Vol. 29; c. 1966 by Doubleday). Brown’s commentary remains, in my view, the best overall treatment of the subject in brief. Yet whatever the Baptizer’s message, motive and ministry might actually have been, it is clear that, for John the Evangelist, his role is simply that of testifying to Jesus, the light of the world. As Jesus’ mission and ministry gain momentum, John’s must necessarily wane.

It strikes me that John the Baptizer’s mission as depicted in John the Evangelist’s gospel is a good parable for that of the church. The great pastor, theologian and teacher Karl Barth once said that the church is but the crater left by Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. Or I suppose one could say that, without Jesus, the church is nothing more than a hole in the ground. I think the church is prone to forget that. It seems to me that a lot of what passes for evangelism involves selling the church rather than proclaiming Jesus. Pick up any local periodical, turn to the section advertising religious services and chances are you will find a plethora of ads trumpeting the virtues of the churches placing them. They tout their programs, activism within the community, their heritage and pedigree, their worship styles, their warm and welcoming atmosphere, their progressivism/traditionalism, etc. Very little mention is ever made of Jesus.

Sometimes it seems as though Jesus is largely irrelevant to the life of the church in the view of a good many believers. In the wake of the Trump election in 2016 when anti-immigrant sentiment and fear of undocumented residents was at a fever pitch, I posted on my church’s marquee Leviticus 19:33-34 which reads:

“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

A member of my church approached me following the Sunday service thereafter and asked if we could meet. I agreed, of course and we got together at a local diner. “I think you need to lay off the politics and stick to preaching the Bible,” he told me after an exchange of pleasantries. He regaled me with a long line of talking points which I gather he picked up from Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. “The country is being overrun by thousands of Mexicans thronging across an open border on a daily basis,” “Illegal immigrants are responsible for most of the murders in our country” “Illegal immigrants are taking away our jobs,” etc. I replied that I did not think his information was accurate but that, even if it were, Jesus calls us, in accord with the biblical injunction, to welcome and treat kindly the alien. My exasperated parishioner fairly shouted back, “I don’t care what the Bible says, this is my country and I’m not letting a bunch of wet backs take it away from me!” Sometimes you find yourself at a loss for words-as was I as I asked myself how we got from “Pastor you need to stick to preaching the Bible” to “I don’t care what the Bible says.” When it comes to weighty issues like national security, it seems that Jesus does not even fit into the equation.

Lest anyone think I am singling out conservative Christians, let me share just one more anekdote. Toward the end of my ministry I was attending a workshop sponsored by my church focusing on ways toward spiritual renewal for our congregations. For an hour and a half we engaged in exercises designed to stimulate conversation, discussion and strategizing for church growth. Toward the end of the meeting, one of the facilitators asked if we had any questions or comments about this proposed program. I raised my hand and asked the facilitator whether she was aware that not once during the entire process did the name of Jesus come up and whether that was inadvertent or intentional. (I thought about adding that I was not sure which answer would be the more disturbing). She did not have much of an answer. Another facilitator finally spoke up and said in a decidedly irritated tone, “I don’t think it is necessary to invoke the Trinity after every single paragraph. (For the record, I do not recall any references to God the Father or the Holy Spirit either.)

I know some folks will object that, if the church is about what Jesus would have us do, you know, justice, peace, reconciliation, advocacy, etc., it should not matter whether we reference him by name. Not according the John’s gospel. “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine,” says Jesus, “neither can you unless you abide in me.” John 15:4. If we are not grounded in Jesus, we are just dead wood. As it turns out, Jesus’ way into justice, righteousness and peace is radically different from typical human means for pursuing them. The way to overcoming evil and achieving the good passes through persistently returning compassion and forgiveness for violence and hatred. Following Jesus means refusing, as did Jesus, to resort to violence or coercion, even in self defense, to achieve some greater good. That is what differentiates Jesus’ way from that of so many others pursuing noble ends. For most of the world, the ends justify the means. According to Jesus, the ends are the means.

That important distinction has never been more crucial than today, when we find Orthodox Christian Ukrainians and Orthodox Christian Russians killing each other over their respective national claims of justice. Today it is not uncommon to see churches flying Israeli flags while Christian students sport Palestinian flags-as though justice depends on the side taken in these homicidal conflicts. Noticeably absent from the heated arguments among Christians over who did what to whom, who is in the right, and how, if at all, the United States should be involved is any reference to Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount or the “new” commandment to love without restraint. When I attempt to bring Jesus into such arguments, I get the usual response, “So are you saying the Ukrainians should just let Russia walk over them? Do you think Israel should just ignore brutal terrorist attacks on its citizens? Should the Palestinians passively submit to the brutal occupation of the Israeli government?” My response is always the same. I am not telling any country or people what to do about anything. But I believe Jesus tells his disciples how they ought to conduct themselves. Quite simply, they must be outspoken against injustice, tirelessly advocating and caring for the oppressed and, in the face of violent opposition, accept that justice, truth and peace are worth dying for-but nothing is worth killing for.  

Professor Stanley Hauerwas has said that Christians are those people whose lives make no rational sense apart from Jesus’ resurrection. Therein lies my defense of pacifism. Christians worship a messiah whose life mirrored what he preached in the Sermon on the Mount. That life ended, quite predictably, in his being persecuted, rejected and put to death. That much confirms what most the rest of the world believes: “Nice guys finish last.” Jesus was, to use the words of a certain former president who shall remain nameless, “a loser” and anyone following him must be doubly so. But God raised Jesus from death and that changed everything. Turns out, the losers are those on the wrong side of history. Those who imagine that it does not matter how you treat the illegal immigrant, the prisoner, the uninsured, the homeless, the victims of the all powerful market, the refugees seeking relief in our country and all the rest of the “least” among us find themselves at the end struggling to explain their conduct. So, if asked how I can maintain a position of unqualified non-violence in the face of aggressive evil, why I can hold my home country wide open to all seeking refuge there, where I get the idea that all people are owed by their governments food, shelter and medical care, my answer is “because Jesus-not Caesar, not General Patton, not Ronald Regan, not anyone of power, fame or influence-was raised from the dead.” At the end of the day, that is the only answer I have and the only one I really need.

Maybe I go a bit overboard by saying that the church without Jesus is just a hole in the ground. Churches do perform a lot of socially useful and beneficial services. But so do a lot of other civic organizations. Moreover, truth be told, there is not much churches do that governments, schools, hospitals and international aid organizations cannot do even better-and should be doing. There is just one exception: we are the people who witness to Jesus. No other organization does that. We are the people who embody, however imperfectly, the new way of being human to which Jesus calls us. The way of Jesus is a long one. It calls for patience. As Saint Peter reminds us, it is not God’s will that any should perish, but that all should come to eternal life. II Peter 3:9. We often lack the kind of patience required to wait with Advent anticipation for a day when all people (and I do mean all) are reconciled. Wars spring from lack of patience. Destroying our enemies seems a much quicker and easier way to peace and security than trying to reconcile with them-and perhaps losing our lives in the process. But the way in which Jesus leads us is the slow, difficult, painful and frustrating way of reconciliation. It is the way of the cross. We are here to warn the world that the violent, dishonest and unjust means it would employ to achieve a quick and easy peace, meet just objectives and establish a longed for security lead only to death and destruction. As counterintuitive as it may seem, only the slow way of the cross leads to life.  

Advent
 
They say the hour’s getting late
The day of judgment will not wait.
Soon the dawn of doom will come
And darkness swallow up the sun.
So turn from earth your wandering eye
And fix your gaze upon the sky;
So when the Son of Man comes again,
He’ll find among us faith in men.

Yet if the end does not come soon,
We might yet colonize the moon,
Set our flags in the sands of Mars,
From there set sail for distant stars.
Given ten thousand years or more,
We might break down the last closed door,
And with your great machines transverse
The breadth of this whole universe.

Still, however far we roam,
No matter where we make our home,
We’ll meet again at each new shore
The Galilean troubadour
Whose troubling song will hound our race
In every coming time and place.
If God the end of time should save
For people in this distant age,
Will the Son of Man e’en then
Find among us faith in men?

Source: Anonymous

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Isaiah 40:1-11

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Mark 1:1-8

Prayer of the Day: Stir up our hearts, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son. By his coming strengthen us to serve you with purified lives; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Prepare the way of the Lord,
   make his paths straight” Mark 1:3.

As with Mark the Evangelist’s gospel generally, the account of John the Baptizer’s appearance and message is tersely stated. In the illustrative words of the Prophet Isaiah, John comes to “prepare the way of the Lord,” to proclaim a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” The other gospels tell us more about John’s preaching and ministry, but I prefer to stick with Mark’s stark portrayal. Mark’s gospel frequently leaves us plenty of space to ponder the mysteries recorded on its pages, room for the imagination to fill in the blanks.

The story spills out of an ancient proclamation by the prophet who saw in the turbulent geopolitical clash of empires in the sixth century the hand of Israel’s God working liberation for his exiled people in Babylon, creating for them the opportunity for return to their ancestral land, opening up the way into a new beginning. That good news might not have seemed particularly good to many of the Babylonian exiles. They had been living in Babylon for half a century. To the younger generation, Babylon was the only home they had ever known. Over time, these captive peoples had become accustomed to living in a foreign land that was gradually becoming less foreign. Many of the exiles had settled into a comfortable existence. Some had even attained a degree of prominence in Babylonian society. Why leave the comfort and security of an established existence only to start over again in a land full of ruined cities and inhabited by peoples who would be none to happy about their arrival?

Clearly, the people would need a change of heart. That is where the preaching of repentance comes in. In common parlance, the word “repent” conjures up images of sorrow, remorse and breast beating. While repentance might indeed invite such a response, that is not what it is. To repent, in simplest terms, is to “turn around.” It involves a radical change of direction as the result of being confronted with a completely new reality. The prophet would have Israel know that history is not finally driven solely by the emperors and their armies. God is at work in the clash of superpowers causing even human wrath and malice to serve God’s purpose and rebound to God’s praise. Psalm 76:10. John would have us know that, under the shadow of Rome’s cruelty and brutal occupation of Israel, God is working yet another act of liberation for God’s oppressed people, the “least” of humanity.

John’s call to repentance is therefore more than a plea for personal moral and spiritual reform. It is an invitation to turn away from life lived under the fear of tyrants, a life lived in a state of compromise with the machinery of oppression and acceptance of the status quo as inevitable. It is a call to begin living into the reality that God, not Caeser, is Lord; that God is the God who choses and liberates slaves and brings great empires and their privileged beneficiaries to naught; that the power vaunted by the kingdoms of this world is finally impotent. Living as though all of this were true will likely place one on a collision course with the imperial forces that maintain order by the threat of crucifixion. But as Mark’s gospel will show us as his story unfolds, that threat is as empty as the tomb on Easter morning.

Volumes have been written by scholars and critics about how alien the Bible is to the modern mind. Whereas we view events through the lens of news media obsessed with real time reporting and getting the facts straight, the biblical authors and editors were chiefly concerned with getting the meaning of events right and fitting them into the grand narrative of God’s redemptive work for Israel and the Church. We scrupulously divide our libraries into fiction and nonfiction sections. Biblical authors recognized that truth is more than the sum of the facts. They did not draw such fine distinctions between truth as revealed in historical recollection and that expressed through hymns, poems, preaching, parable and fable. We, by contrast, find it hard to imagine living without those distinctions.

All that being said, I do not believe our difficulty with the Bible arises from the historical and cultural distance between the Biblical writers and ourselves. Our chief difficulty is the sociological distance between us. The Hebrew scriptures grew out of the ashes of a nation militarily crushed and whose people were driven off their ancestral land into exile. The New Testament was the product of small communities on the margins of society practicing an illegal religion in the shadow of an oppressive empire. These people worshiped a God who chose slaves over the sons of empire, “sinners” over the moral authorities, outcasts over the pillars of society, the poor and vulnerable over the wealthy and privileged. The power of their God was made known not by the strength of its patron’s armies, but in the “weakness” of God’s love for the poor, vulnerable and persecuted. I Corinthians 1:18-31.

Since the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine, the larger part of the church has served as the official religion of empires and nation states. As such, it has been tasked with grounding the nation in divine mandate, aligning faith in God with allegiance to country and enforcing national/community standards of morality. In so doing, the church has all too often morphed into precisely the kind of institutional machinery that crucified its Lord. Such was the cost of institutional success. But there was just one problem: the Bible. This book testifying to God through the struggles of slaves, outcasts, the impoverished and persecuted was a poor fit for the religion of empire designed to protect wealth and privilege. That is why the church’s imperial career was forever being punctuated with various monastic movements, sectarian schisms and sporadic efforts to return it to its life of discipleship.

The most remarkable testimony to the Bible’s heart and soul resides in the Black church in the United States. It is hard to imagine an enslaved people showing any interest in or desire to know the religion of their enslavers. Yet African American persons brought to this country as human cargo and born here into slavery, despite their being forbidden from learning to read and write, internalized the Bible and recognized in it, not a religious tome sanctifying the status quo, but a revolutionary text on liberation from oppression. They were able to see themselves and their struggles in the biblical saga in a way that their white contemporaries could never have done. For more on that, see Bowens, Lisa M., African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance and Transformation, (c. 2020, Erdmans Publishing Co.).

I believe that those of us who have known only privilege, who have never been driven out of our homes at gunpoint, who have never faced forced labor or starvation, who have never known a day of homelessness, who have never been discriminated against, who watch the carnage occurring throughout the world on televisions and computer screens have a difficult time seeing ourselves in the biblical drama. I think perhaps that is what lies behind the Sunday School material with which I grew up showing Jesus as white and his disciples as bearded, white guys in bathrobes. We needed this religious artwork to see ourselves in the biblical story because we could not recognize ourselves in the text. Praying for daily bread hardly makes sense when you already have bread for the next month in the pantry. Turning the other cheek hardly registers where nobody is throwing any punches at you. Praying for persecutors is hard when you do not have any. So we spiritualized the Sermon on the Mount. We turned salvation into a private individual matter of accepting Jesus as one’s personal savior, an event having nothing to do with outside “worldly” matters. We transformed bearing the cross of Christ from suffering persecution for one’s witness to the reign of God into a mere metaphor for a nagging relative, a bothersome neighbor or a bad back. How else can you make the Bible’s message relevant to the privileged?

Well then preacher, are you saying that the Bible has nothing to say to those of us you call “privileged”? Are you telling us that God has no interest in us? No. Quite the contrary. John’s message is focused on us with laser sharpness. “Prepare the way of the Lord”-means for those of us who know only privilege, dismantling the structures of oppression that keep those people for whom God has a special concern in misery. Relinquishing privilege is the way in which we repent, turn around, go in a radically new direction. There are many concrete ways to go about this, both individually and corporately. For example, see Open Letter to the ELCA Presiding Bishop and Synodical Bishops: A Modest Proposal for Reparational Tithe. By becoming attentive to the Bible’s witness to the One we confess as God, even more opportunities for repentance will reveal themselves.

Here is a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar recognizing in the Exodus the struggle of his people in America.

An Ante-Bellum Sermon

We is gathahed hyeah, my brothahs,
In di howlin’ wildaness,
Fu’ to speak some words o comfo’t
to each othah in distress.
An’ we choose fu’ ouah subjic’
Dis—-we’ll ‘splain it by an’ by;
“An’ de Lawd said, “Moses, Moses,”
An’ de man said, Hyeah am I.'”

Now ole Pher’oh, down in Egypt
Was de wuss man evah bo’n,
An’ he had de Hebrew chillun
Down dah wukin’ in his co’n;
‘Twell de Lawd got tiahed o’ his foolin’,
an’ sez he: “I’ll let him know’
Look hyeah, Moses, go tell Pher’oh
Fu’ to let dem chillun go.”

“An’ ef he refuse do it,
I will make him rue de houah,
fu’ I’ll empty down on Egypt
All de vials of my powah.”
Yes, he did—-an’ Pher’oh’s ahmy
Wasn’t wurth a ha’f a dime;
Fu’ de Lawd will he’p his chillum,
You kin trust him evah time.

An’ you’ enemies may ‘sail you
In de back an’ in de front;
But de Lawd is all aroun’ you,
Fu’ to ba’ de battle’s brunt.
Dey kin fo’ge yo’chains an’ shackles
F’om de mountains to de sea;
But de Lawd will sen’ some Moses
Fu’ to set his chilun free.

An’ de lan’ shall hyeah his thundah,
Lak a blas’ f’om Gab’el’s ho’n,
Fu’ de Lawd of hosts is mighty
When he girds his ahmor on.
But fu’ feah some one mistakes me,
I will pause right hyeah to say,
Dat I’m still a-preachin’ ancient,
I ain’t talkin’ bout to-day.
But I tell you, fellah christuns,
Things’ll happen mighty strange;
Now, de Lawd done dis fu’ Isrul,
An’ his ways don’t nevah change,
An’ de love he showed to Isrul
Wasn’t all on Isrul spent;
Now don’t run an’ tell yo’ mastahs
Dat I’s preachin’ discontent.

‘Cause I isn’t; I’se a-judgin’
Bible people by dier ac’s;
I’se a-givin’ you de Scriptuah,
I’se a-handin’ you de fac’s.
Cose ole Pher’or b’lieved in slav’ry,
But de Lawd he let him see,
Dat de people he put bref in,
Evah mothah’s son was free.

An’ dah’s othahs thinks lak Pher’or,
But dey calls de Scriptuah liar,
Fu’ de Bible says “a servant
Is worthy of his hire,”
An’ you cain’t git roun’ nor thoo dat,
An’ you cain’t git ovah it,
Fu’ whatevah place you git in,
Dis hyeah Bible too’ll fit.

So you see de Lawd’s intention,
Evah sence de worl’ began,
Was dat His almight freedom
Should belong to evah man,
But I think it would be bettah,
Ef I’d pause agin to say,
Dat I’m talkin’ ’bout ouah freedom
In a Bibleistic way.

But de Moses is a-comin’,
An’ he’s comin’, suah and fas’
We kin hyeah his feet a-trompin’,
We kin hyeah his trumpit blas’.
But I want to wa’n you people,
Don’t you git too brigity;
An’ don’t you git to braggin’
“Bout dese things, you wait an’ see.

But when Moses wif his powah
Comes an’ sets us chillun free,
We will praise de gracious Mastah
Dat has gin us liberty;
An’ we’ll shout ouah halleluyahs,
On dat mighty reck’nin’ day,
When we’se reco’nised ez citiz’
Huh uh! Chillun, let us pray!

Source: Johnson, James Weldon, The Book of American Negro Poetry (c. 1922 by Harcourt Brace & Company). Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906) was one of America’s first influential African American poets. He grew up in Dayton, Ohio where he lived with his widowed mother. His poetic skill became evident already in high school. The only black student in his class, he was elected class president and class poet. Though he was never able to obtain a college education, he read voraciously. His early poetry gained the admiration and respect of influential poets such as James Whitcomb Riley. With the support of Orville Wright, then in the publishing business, Dunbar was able to publish his first book of poetry. His popularity continued to grow and in 1896 he was invited for a six month reading tour in England to present his poetry. He returned in 1897, married fellow writer Alice Ruth Moore and took a clerkship position in the U.S. Library of Congress, a job that left him time to continue his writing career. Tragically, Dunbar’s physical and psychological health began to deteriorate in 1902, leading to his eventual divorce. He became fatally ill in 1905 and died in February of the following year.

You can find out more about Paul Laurence Dunbar and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.