FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT
Prayer of the Day: Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. With your abundant grace and might, free us from the sin that binds us, that we may receive you in joy and serve you always, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
“[God] has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.” Luke 1:51-52.
This theme echoes throughout Luke’s gospel and, indeed, throughout the scriptures. God’s preferential option for the poor is unmistakable. As I have said previously, this does not mean that God cares less for the rich. It only means that salvation for the rich means being liberated from the grip of greed and from lives of ruthless consumption and exploitation. For those who have grown accustomed to believing they are entitled to more than daily bread, being reduced to a sustainable lifestyle will likely feel like being “sent away empty.” To those who imagine that they are entitled to taking what they want when they want it, having to take their place in line will no doubt seem like an afront. For those who imagine that they are “self made” and absolutely entitled to everything they own, an economy based on distributive justice will feel like robbery.
None of this plays well in a season where consumption reaches epic proportions. Every year at this time I hear again and again form some quarters, “put Christ back into Christmas.” I am not convinced he was ever there to begin with. Moreover, when I have asked people what they mean by putting Christ back into Christmas, I get answers like “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.” Keep the plastic Nativity display in the town square or that sculpture of Santa kneeling at the manger-it’s that sort of thing people imagine “puts Christ back into Christmas.” But it seems to me that if one really wants to put Christ back into Christmas-and the rest of the year as well, you take the side of the poor, the marginalized, the folks at the bottom of the social later, the victims of the world’s unsustainable practice of exploitation and oppression. Among these are migrants who are facing an unprecidented threat from the incoming Trump administration.
Jesus calls us to take sides. There is no neutrality, no “good people on both sides” waffling, no room for middle ground, not when it comes to choosing whether to stand with the oppressed or join their oppressors. Depending on whether the current administration’s threat to carry out the “greatest mass deportation” in this country’s history is just more Trumpian hot air or whether it actually will translate into policy, we may be confronted with the call to take the side of our neighbors facing deportation in some very concrete ways.
Now I will grant that it is sometimes hard to find one’s footing under these circumstances. You may find yourself asking, “what am I supposed to do?” I ask myself the same question every day. But I refuse to be cowed by the enormity of the task to which Jesus calls us and I refuse to be convinced that anything I do is too small, too late and too ineffective. So Sesle and I are starting with the opening paragraph to our annual Christmas letter to family and friends which reads as follows:
“Dear Family and Friends,
Our Lord’s Nativity reminds us that we worship as God’s Son a child born out of wedlock to a homeless couple forced to flee as refugees from political violence in their homeland and to seek sanctuary in a foreign country. So we invite you to pray with us this Christmas for all refugees in our midst who have fled persecution, poverty and violence. May they find among us a warm welcome, a helping hand and friends willing to come to their defense. May we treat these neighbors with such kindness that we shall not have to hear our Lord say to us, ‘I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.’”
This might seem like a small thing and it is. But the longer I live, the more convinced I am that tectonic changes come through the dynamics of human relationships. Attitudes toward LGBTQ+ folk change when Ms. Jones, who has played the organ and taught Sunday school from the time Adam and Eve were in the third grade, comes out. Fear of “illegals” melts away when you find out that the couple who has lived next door to you for a decade, whose children play with your children, who have been active in the PTA and organizers for the annual summer block party happen to be undocumented. Like me, you may have friends and family who see the world through the lens of right wing media convincing them that undocumented people are criminals, dangerous and need to be expelled from among us, and that people who think otherwise are “enemies from within” seeking to destroy our country. They might be surprised to learn that you, a person they know and love, are one of those “enemies from within” and that might be just enough to give them pause. It might be enough to open up the potential for dialogue and a change of heart. Very seldom does one change minds with a single letter, conversation or sermon. But sometimes it is enough to sow a little doubt into the rock hard certainty with which people hold their erroneous views. Minds often change slowly, but they are capable of change. That is why, folks, it is critical that we speak up whenever the opportunity presents itself. Substantial changes happen one changed mind at a time.
Of course, loving our neighbor requires more than talk. That is why we are also making a substantial donation to Global Refuge this year. For more than 85 years, Global Refuge has advocated for a fair and generous national culture of welcome. It is committed to dispelling disinformation and hateful rhetoric about immigrants and refugees. Global Refuge also provides resources, guidance and community to help restore a sense of home to immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Through its persistent and faithful work, 750,000 persons have been resettled in the United States where they have contributed to the nation’s society and economy. Now, more than ever, the work of this organization needs our support.
Finally, we of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) need to think long and hard about what we meant back in 2019 when we publicly declared ourselves a “sanctuary church.” According to our website, being a sanctuary church means “that the ELCA is publicly declaring that walking alongside immigrants and refugees is a matter of faith.” So far, so good. But what does walking alongside immigrants and refugees look like in the face of “the greatest deportation this country has ever seen?” We know the price paid by African Americans in the fight to win equality, human dignity and basic freedoms. The blood shed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge witnesses to the price of faithfulness, of taking the side of the oppressed against the powerful. I am not sure we possess the moral courage, spiritual maturity or theological depth to walk the walk we talk so well in our public declarations. I am not sure we are ready to “offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice” in the service of our neighbors. See Romans 12:1.
It is therefore important, I believe, that we press our bishops, pastors and lay leaders to open our sanctuaries, colleges and homes to shelter our neighbors against arrest and deportation. We need leadership to put us in touch with persons skilled in non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. The civil rights movement was successful largely because it exposed the depth of our nation’s cruelty and depravity practiced against people of color. It shocked the nation’s conscience deeply enough to turn the tide against overt discrimination. Though the struggle is far from over, there is no denying that systemic racism was delt a substantial blow through the efforts of a movement that began with and was supported largely by the Black churches.
A similar struggle may be required to turn the tide of animosity away from immigrants and refugees. I believe that our leaders genuinely want our church to walk with our neighbors in this way. But they are only human. Within our church there are many who, poisoned by disinformation, share the fear and hatred of migrants so prevalent in our culture. Bishops, pastors and lay leaders need to know that we are there to support them, that we have their backs and that they can depend on us to defend them as they seek to lead us in the way of the cross to which Jesus calls us.
I honestly hope that the threat of governmental action against our immigrant and refugee neighbors is over blown, that reasonable minds will prevail over the harsh rhetoric. But the MAGA mob demonstrated on January 6, 2021 that it is quite capable of lawlessness, cruelty and violence. A pastor recently remarked to me that she met a person who confided that he would probably need to ask forgiveness for what he would need to do as a patriot in the days ahead. Donald Trump has promised retribution against all who opposed him in the past and those of us who might do so in the future. It would, I believe, be foolish to dismiss these threats out of hand.
The good news in today’s gospel readings is that justice for the oppressed is God’s end game. No matter how the scoreboard looks today, Mary reminds us that the outcome of the game is not in doubt. The wall builders, ethnic cleansers, border hawks and America First adherents are all on the wrong side of history. The earth belongs to the bridge builders, the throng made up of every nation, tribe and tongue, those who seek first the kingdom of God and Gods righteousness. To side with the most vulnerable, join in the divine mandate to upend the hierarchies that imprison the powerless among us is to side with the God and Father of Jesus Christ.
Here is a poem/song by Bob Dylan that I believe sounds the disrupting and liberating note heard in Mary’s Magnificat.
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
Source: LyricFind © Universal Music Publishing Group. Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter and a major figure in popular culture, having risen to prominence in the 1960s. The lyrics of the above song written in 1964 became an anthem for the civil rights and antiwar movements of the Vietnam era. His lyrics incorporate political, social and philosophical influences that resonated with the burgeoning counterculture of the sixties. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded him a special citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 