“But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner's fire.” These are the lines from an air in part 1 of Handel’s “Messiah.” Although it was actually written to be heard in Easter tide, “Messiah” is now often sung near Christmas. When we do hear it at this time of year, we often listen attentively to the opening tenor air, “Comfort ye, my people.” Then in our minds we rush ahead to “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.” We often miss, or we don’t pay attention to, these words from the prophet Malachi. Actually, this is a challenging air to sing. It’s even more challenging to hear. Do we really want to hear the questions it asks?
Actually, three of our four lections for today pose challenging questions, questions that are appropriate for Advent. Our Hebrew Bible reading, which we just heard sung, is from the prophecy of Malachi. Malachi is traditionally considered the last prophetic book. For Christians, it is the very last book in the Hebrew Bible. It is also the last prophetic book for Jews, although Jews place all the prophets in the middle of the Hebrew Bible, between the Torah and the other writings. Traditionally, Jews read this portion of Malachi on the Sabbath before Passover, as they look forward to hearing again the great story of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery.
Malachi was written for those who had returned to Judea from Exile, i.e., after 515 BC. Although the returnees were under Persian rule, they were allowed to restore sacrificial worship and begin rebuilding the temple. The entire book, only four chapters, is actually a dialogue between prophet and people, in which the prophet challenges the people with God’s word, and the people respond. In the section we just heard, the prophet, speaking for God, announces the coming of God’s messenger. He flings challenging questions at the people: can you stand to be in the presence of God’s messenger? How will you respond when God’s messenger lays out all the ways in which you have strayed from God’s covenant with you? The prophet then warns them that God will subject them to cleansing processes that will transform them into the people God wishes them to be. Can you picture those processes? A refiner’s fire can reach 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. Fuller’s soap is an abrasive bleaching soap. The purification process that God desires will be painful indeed. But there’s also a promise. God will accomplish God’s purposes, so that indeed the people may offer appropriate worship as they rebuild the temple. When today’s Jews hear this promise on the eve of Passover, they hear a promise that they may some day be able to build a third temple – the first one, Solomon’s temple, having been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, and the second one, having been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. (The Temple Mount in today’s Jerusalem, sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, is what remains of the second temple.)
Malachi’s questions to the people in his prophecy were explicit. In our reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians at Philippi, the question is implicit. This was probably the last of Paul’s letters. It was probably written from a Roman prison about 64 AD. As you heard, Paul thanks the Philippians for their gifts and support. Then he prays for them. As we hear Paul’s prayer, do we ourselves wonder, “Who will be ‘pure and blameless’ in the ‘day of Christ?’” Do we wonder what it will take for us to be “pure and blameless” when Christ comes to us?
There’s even an implied question in our gospel reading. At the moment, of course, we’re getting the story backwards. With the ministry of John the Baptist, we’ve jumped forward thirty years after Jesus’ birth, just before the beginning of Jesus’ own ministry. Here the evangelist shows us the adult John – the story of his birth comes before Jesus’ birth. In fact, in place of our psalm, we said what is called the Benedictus, from its first word in Latin, which is John’s father’s prophecy about John. Instead of becoming a priest like his father, John has become an ascetic. Like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he has come out of the desert to speak God’s word, to “prepare the way of the Lord,” as he says, quoting the prophet Isaiah. In preparation for Jesus’ ministry, he has called out the entire community – not isolated individuals, but everyone – to a change of heart, and to be immersed in water to symbolize their readiness to change their way of life. And let’s be clear about this: in the New Testament, “repent” does not mean feeling sorry for your sins. “Repent” means changing your entire way of life. And the questions? Surely as difficult for us as they were for those ancient Judeans. Does God really want us to change our way of life? Are we willing to do more than go down into the Jordan River? What does it really take to live differently? Hard questions all.
Advent is the time for such questions. Prophets often ask us hard questions. And often their questions inspire terror, not joy. We don’t want to hear the challenge in their questions. We certainly don’t want to undergo a painful process of letting go of what keeps us from hearing God’s words more clearly, and we don’t want to change our way of life. Yet that is our call in Advent. Advent is our time for self-reflection. It is our time to ask ourselves the questions we hear in Scripture today. It is a time for self-examination, for opening ourselves to God and allowing God to begin in us the slow work of transformation.
So what kinds of questions am I suggesting that we ask ourselves this Advent? We profess to be followers of Jesus. Does our commitment to Jesus affect our lives as citizens in any way? In the wake of the recent gun tragedies – dear God, yet another – shouldn’t we be asking ourselves whether we are doing all we can as a nation to prevent such tragedies? Or have we let the NRA buy off our politicians, so that assault weapons are freely available, and background checks virtually non-existent? Is it time to ask ourselves as a nation whether all our citizens, regardless of their income or their employer, have access to decent healthcare – like the citizens of every other industrialized nation in the world? As we beat down the doors of our stores or flood the sites of online vendors in our quest for the perfect Christmas gift, do we give a thought to the poor in this country? Ironically, today is St. Nicholas day. St. Nicholas, the ancestor of our modern Santa Claus, was a fourth-century bishop who was known for secretly putting coins in the shoes of the poor. As the climate change talks progress in Paris, are we thinking at all about creation care? Are we trying to pare down, reuse, and recycle our “stuff?”
Advent also challenges us with questions we might ask as a parish. For example, is our worship prophetic? Do our hymns, prayers, and lections enable us to hear God’s word more clearly? Does our worship provide entertainment or edification? Diversion or direction? Amusement or awareness? Most important, does what we do here on Sunday impact our lives? Does worship lead to transformation?
And what about our personal lives? Are we willing to honestly look at what needs changing in our lives and ask God’s help to make those needed changes? Many of you may be familiar with twelve-step programs. Franciscan Richard Rohr, who has had a long prison ministry, has recently been reflecting on each of the twelve steps. They provide a wonderful introduction to the spiritual life! After admitting their need for God and their obligation to make amends to those whom they have harmed, alcoholics are reminded, in step 10, “We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.” Do those of us who are sober need to take such a personal inventory? Advent is a time to do that. Remember that Advent is a gift from the church that enables us to prepare more seriously and more intentionally for receiving Christ at Christmas.
After the first performance of “Messiah” in London in 1741, Handel wrote to a friend: “I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wished to make them better.” Although by 1751 Handel was blind, until his death in 1759, he continued to conduct “Messiah” every year as an annual benefit for a hospital that served widows and orphans of the clergy. “And he shall purify the sons of Levi.” As we engage in self-examination in Advent, as we ask ourselves hard questions, as we ponder where our lives need to change, we can trust that God is at work in us. We can trust that, if we are open to God, God will fulfill God’s promises to us, in the world, in the church, and in ourselves.
Showing posts with label Advent 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Advent 2. Show all posts
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Give us Grace
“Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer….”
Does God still send messengers to “prepare the way for our salvation?” Do we even need salvation? If so, from what? Today’s Scripture readings give us vivid portraits of those sent to the ancient Hebrews and to Jesus’ followers, of those sent to proclaim God’s justice, God’s promises, and God’s consolation. What do we hear in these readings?
In our reading from the middle of the book ascribed to the prophet Isaiah, we hear words of judgment and consolation spoken in the sixth century BC to the exiles from Jerusalem, just as their exile in Babylonia was about to end. Writing to a dispirited people longing for return and restoration, the prophet alludes to the sins that caused their exile and reminds them of their frailty as human beings. But the prophet has more to say: he also reminds them, and by extension us, that God will strengthen them, and that God will provide the means for their return to Jerusalem. Best of all, the prophet invites the people to trust in God. He reiterates God’s promises to them and assures them that God’s love for them – and for all people – will endure forever.
Our psalm, especially in the verses we don’t say, i.e., verses three through seven, echoes the prophet’s message. Questioning God’s deep and justified anger with God’s people, the psalmist offers the hope that God will restore both the people and the land. Using vivid images of a restored creation, the psalmist offers a vision of God’s Shalom, a state so much more than “peace,” a way of life in which humanity and all creation live in harmony and in accordance with God’s will.
The writer of the second letter attributed to the apostle Peter echoes the messages of the prophet and the psalmist. However, instead of Isaiah, the writer draws on the message of the prophet Malachi, the last of the Hebrew prophets. In today’s selection from Second Peter, we especially hear echoes of the opening verses of Malachi 3: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” Reminding us that the Lord’s return is certain, but that we can never know when it will occur, the writer of Second Peter suggests how we are to live while we look forward to that day: we are to both wait patiently on God, trusting in God’s promise, and at the same time work actively to bring God’s day nearer.
Does our reading from the Gospel according to Mark fit with these readings emphasizing the prophetic messages? Without fanfare, without a genealogy, without a story of a miraculous birth, the evangelist here begins by announcing “the good news of Jesus Christ.” However, the evangelist bids us prepare ourselves to hear that good news by reflecting again on the prophetic message, spoken here by John the Baptizer. Make no mistake: the preaching of John the Baptizer – as Jesus’s preaching will also be -- is clearly grounded in the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Bible. The evangelist doesn’t quote exactly the text from Isaiah that we just heard, but rather conflates it with phrases from both Exodus and Malachi. Even so, the message is clear. To prepare for Jesus’ coming, John calls the people to self-examination, reflection, and confession. And notice: John doesn’t call only isolated individuals to repentance but an entire community. And the community responds: “And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” Again the message is clear. While John is not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals, it is only when people have heeded John’s message, have faced God’s judgment, and have turned their lives around that they can be ready to receive Jesus and his gifts.
“Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer….” The message is clear: our collect and the readings from Scripture urge us to heed the warnings of the prophets and examine ourselves, so that we may be ready to receive God’s salvation and restoration. Is that ancient message relevant to us twenty-first century people? From what do we need to be saved, and to what do we need to be restored? As soon as you turn on your radio or TV, or open your newspaper, smart phone, or tablet, you know the answer to that question. Our world is just as violent and unstable as the world of the Jerusalem exiles or the hearers of the preaching of John the Baptizer. We are mired in what feels like an endless war in Afghanistan, terrorists kill journalists, aid workers, and teachers, deadly viruses devastate Africa, this country still deals with a history of racial injustice despite years of struggle, and we still have the poor very much with us – in our county, our country, and the world.
Sin clearly abounds in our world. And yet, the beautiful verses from our psalm, especially the psalmist’s promise that “truth will spring up from the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven,” forcefully reminds me of the deep sin of which we twenty-first century humans are personally and collectively guilty: our trashing of creation. In our insatiable demand for energy produced by the burning of fossil fuels, our extractive economies have truly raped the earth. Strip mines, mountain-top removal, the Alberta tar sands, prime agricultural land destroyed in Guatemala and Nigeria, fracking operations in North Dakota threatening water systems: where will it end? And worst of all, as virtually every atmospheric scientist tells us, we are raising the temperature of the earth by releasing carbon into the air when we mine and burn fossil fuels. Make no mistake. Climate change is real. By the end of this century, many of our national parks will be unrecognizable or even non-existent, as glaciers disappear, coral reefs dry up, animals are forced out of their native habitats, and hurricanes tear away our coasts – all because of global warming.
My brothers and sisters, this is not God’s design for us and for our “big blue marble.” If God is angry with us, it is surely because of the way we have treated God’s creation. Our total disregard of the consequences for the earth of our behavior is the state from which we desperately need salvation – if there is even to be a planet to which Jesus might eventually return! As contemporary theologians remind us, we are not separate from nature, but rather part of a web of creation that includes the entire cosmos. And we have been part of that web since the beginning of creation. Did you know that scientists tell us there are no new atoms, only the same atoms undergoing continual changes of state. All of us have bits of stardust in us! And, if we share atoms with plants, and animals, and water, and air, then we are called to live harmoniously within that web of creation. In the end, we cannot “conquer” nature, we can only be its steward and guardian.
At this point, perhaps we should all get up, go over to the Ohio River, and confess our sins against the earth. Isaiah, Malachi, Psalmist, John the Baptizer, where are you? If Scripture convicts us of our sins, perhaps Scripture also gives us hope, hope that God will fulfill God’s promises, and restore God’s creation. And what are we to do in the meantime? We are to heed the warnings of the prophets among us, and forsake our sins. In our day, those prophets will probably not arrive wearing camel skins and eating locusts and honey. They may be scientists politicians, or community activists, whose warnings about the fate of the earth, most especially about climate change, we can actively heed. Right at this very moment, world leaders are gathered at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Lima, Peru, to address all the behaviors that have contributed to climate change, and to craft strategies that will enable nations to cooperate in scaling back some of the worst changes. Pray that these discussions may bear fruit and urge your elected officials to support their agreements. Closer to home, educate yourself about the plans to build an injection well in Racine, in Meigs County, for water used in fracking, and a receiving dock in Portland, also in Meigs County, for the purpose of receiving out-of-state fracking wastes and dumping them in Meigs, Vinton, and Athens counties. Learn about what these developments will mean for our watersheds. Join with others and learn how we may decrease our reliance on fossil fuels and increase our use of sustainable energy sources.
“Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer….” May God indeed give us grace to heed the warnings of prophets both ancient and contemporary, change our ways, and learn to treasure the creation that is God’s enduring gift to us.
Does God still send messengers to “prepare the way for our salvation?” Do we even need salvation? If so, from what? Today’s Scripture readings give us vivid portraits of those sent to the ancient Hebrews and to Jesus’ followers, of those sent to proclaim God’s justice, God’s promises, and God’s consolation. What do we hear in these readings?
In our reading from the middle of the book ascribed to the prophet Isaiah, we hear words of judgment and consolation spoken in the sixth century BC to the exiles from Jerusalem, just as their exile in Babylonia was about to end. Writing to a dispirited people longing for return and restoration, the prophet alludes to the sins that caused their exile and reminds them of their frailty as human beings. But the prophet has more to say: he also reminds them, and by extension us, that God will strengthen them, and that God will provide the means for their return to Jerusalem. Best of all, the prophet invites the people to trust in God. He reiterates God’s promises to them and assures them that God’s love for them – and for all people – will endure forever.
Our psalm, especially in the verses we don’t say, i.e., verses three through seven, echoes the prophet’s message. Questioning God’s deep and justified anger with God’s people, the psalmist offers the hope that God will restore both the people and the land. Using vivid images of a restored creation, the psalmist offers a vision of God’s Shalom, a state so much more than “peace,” a way of life in which humanity and all creation live in harmony and in accordance with God’s will.
The writer of the second letter attributed to the apostle Peter echoes the messages of the prophet and the psalmist. However, instead of Isaiah, the writer draws on the message of the prophet Malachi, the last of the Hebrew prophets. In today’s selection from Second Peter, we especially hear echoes of the opening verses of Malachi 3: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” Reminding us that the Lord’s return is certain, but that we can never know when it will occur, the writer of Second Peter suggests how we are to live while we look forward to that day: we are to both wait patiently on God, trusting in God’s promise, and at the same time work actively to bring God’s day nearer.
Does our reading from the Gospel according to Mark fit with these readings emphasizing the prophetic messages? Without fanfare, without a genealogy, without a story of a miraculous birth, the evangelist here begins by announcing “the good news of Jesus Christ.” However, the evangelist bids us prepare ourselves to hear that good news by reflecting again on the prophetic message, spoken here by John the Baptizer. Make no mistake: the preaching of John the Baptizer – as Jesus’s preaching will also be -- is clearly grounded in the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Bible. The evangelist doesn’t quote exactly the text from Isaiah that we just heard, but rather conflates it with phrases from both Exodus and Malachi. Even so, the message is clear. To prepare for Jesus’ coming, John calls the people to self-examination, reflection, and confession. And notice: John doesn’t call only isolated individuals to repentance but an entire community. And the community responds: “And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” Again the message is clear. While John is not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals, it is only when people have heeded John’s message, have faced God’s judgment, and have turned their lives around that they can be ready to receive Jesus and his gifts.
“Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer….” The message is clear: our collect and the readings from Scripture urge us to heed the warnings of the prophets and examine ourselves, so that we may be ready to receive God’s salvation and restoration. Is that ancient message relevant to us twenty-first century people? From what do we need to be saved, and to what do we need to be restored? As soon as you turn on your radio or TV, or open your newspaper, smart phone, or tablet, you know the answer to that question. Our world is just as violent and unstable as the world of the Jerusalem exiles or the hearers of the preaching of John the Baptizer. We are mired in what feels like an endless war in Afghanistan, terrorists kill journalists, aid workers, and teachers, deadly viruses devastate Africa, this country still deals with a history of racial injustice despite years of struggle, and we still have the poor very much with us – in our county, our country, and the world.
Sin clearly abounds in our world. And yet, the beautiful verses from our psalm, especially the psalmist’s promise that “truth will spring up from the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven,” forcefully reminds me of the deep sin of which we twenty-first century humans are personally and collectively guilty: our trashing of creation. In our insatiable demand for energy produced by the burning of fossil fuels, our extractive economies have truly raped the earth. Strip mines, mountain-top removal, the Alberta tar sands, prime agricultural land destroyed in Guatemala and Nigeria, fracking operations in North Dakota threatening water systems: where will it end? And worst of all, as virtually every atmospheric scientist tells us, we are raising the temperature of the earth by releasing carbon into the air when we mine and burn fossil fuels. Make no mistake. Climate change is real. By the end of this century, many of our national parks will be unrecognizable or even non-existent, as glaciers disappear, coral reefs dry up, animals are forced out of their native habitats, and hurricanes tear away our coasts – all because of global warming.
My brothers and sisters, this is not God’s design for us and for our “big blue marble.” If God is angry with us, it is surely because of the way we have treated God’s creation. Our total disregard of the consequences for the earth of our behavior is the state from which we desperately need salvation – if there is even to be a planet to which Jesus might eventually return! As contemporary theologians remind us, we are not separate from nature, but rather part of a web of creation that includes the entire cosmos. And we have been part of that web since the beginning of creation. Did you know that scientists tell us there are no new atoms, only the same atoms undergoing continual changes of state. All of us have bits of stardust in us! And, if we share atoms with plants, and animals, and water, and air, then we are called to live harmoniously within that web of creation. In the end, we cannot “conquer” nature, we can only be its steward and guardian.
At this point, perhaps we should all get up, go over to the Ohio River, and confess our sins against the earth. Isaiah, Malachi, Psalmist, John the Baptizer, where are you? If Scripture convicts us of our sins, perhaps Scripture also gives us hope, hope that God will fulfill God’s promises, and restore God’s creation. And what are we to do in the meantime? We are to heed the warnings of the prophets among us, and forsake our sins. In our day, those prophets will probably not arrive wearing camel skins and eating locusts and honey. They may be scientists politicians, or community activists, whose warnings about the fate of the earth, most especially about climate change, we can actively heed. Right at this very moment, world leaders are gathered at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Lima, Peru, to address all the behaviors that have contributed to climate change, and to craft strategies that will enable nations to cooperate in scaling back some of the worst changes. Pray that these discussions may bear fruit and urge your elected officials to support their agreements. Closer to home, educate yourself about the plans to build an injection well in Racine, in Meigs County, for water used in fracking, and a receiving dock in Portland, also in Meigs County, for the purpose of receiving out-of-state fracking wastes and dumping them in Meigs, Vinton, and Athens counties. Learn about what these developments will mean for our watersheds. Join with others and learn how we may decrease our reliance on fossil fuels and increase our use of sustainable energy sources.
“Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer….” May God indeed give us grace to heed the warnings of prophets both ancient and contemporary, change our ways, and learn to treasure the creation that is God’s enduring gift to us.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Written for our Learning
“Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Do you recognize this collect? In our present prayer book we hear it on the next to last Sunday of the Church year. This year we heard it on November 17th. However, in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, it was the collect for today, the Second Sunday in Advent. As a prayer, it actually dates back to 1549 and our very first Book of Common Prayer. It reminds us that study of Scripture must be an integral and ongoing part of our lives, so that we may truly understand what God has done and is continuing to do for us.
It’s not surprising that the church heard this collect on the second Sunday of Advent. As a prayer, it reflects the first words of the portion of Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians that we just heard: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.” The “scriptures,” of course, that Paul was talking about were the Hebrew Scriptures, since Paul’s letters antedate any of the Gospels, and since the writings that we now call the New Testament were declared canonical only in the fourth century. Now at the end of his letter, in his final exhortation to the Roman Christians, Paul reminds them that the covenants and promises that God made to the Israelites now, through Christ, also include the gentiles. More to the point, he tells them that diligent study of Scripture will enable them to maintain their hope of Christ’s coming, as they work out their differences and learn how to live in harmony with one another.
Paul challenges the Roman Christians to remember their scriptures by embedding references to those very scriptures in his exhortation. Quite likely, the “steadfastness” which he commends to them alludes to the endurance of Christ, especially his endurance of insults, shame, and death. Many think that in the allusion to Christ’s endurance, Paul echoes Ps. 69:9, a verse that for Christians describes Jesus’ travail: “It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” To emphasize God’s inclusion of the gentiles in God’s promises, Paul alludes to Psalm 18:50: “For this I will extol you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing praises to your name.” He also quotes Psalm 117:1 “Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples!” Finally, Paul quotes the end of the passage from Isaiah which we just heard: “On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.”
Paul’s acknowledgement of the importance of the Hebrew Scriptures finds an echo in the Gospel of Matthew. We are now at the beginning of the first year of our three-year Revised Common Lectionary, a set of readings from Scripture that Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other denominations share. Between now and next Advent, most of our Gospel readings will come from the Gospel according to Matthew. Written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, possibly in Antioch, this Gospel was most likely composed for a community of Jewish Christians. As such it highlights the Jewish origin and identity of Jesus and his earliest followers. For Matthew, Jesus is God’s anointed. He is a teacher as exalted and as authoritative as Moses, who was considered to be the author of the Hebrew Law.
What is more important, Matthew takes great pains to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of both the law and the prophets, and that in him all of God’s promises are fulfilled. To drive home his point, Matthew opens his account of Jesus’ life with a genealogy that firmly establishes Jesus as one of David’s descendants, thus alluding to the “stump of Jesse,” i.e., David’s father. Thereafter, he often either directly quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures or alludes to passages from Scripture. In the twelve verses we just heard, Matthew has embedded references to Abraham, and to the prophets Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. A few examples. He alludes to the prophet Isaiah to characterize John the Baptizer: “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” With John’s ascetic lifestyle, wearing camel’s hair and eating honey, he alludes to the way of life of traditional prophets, especially that of Elijah. His calling the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers” is an indirect allusion to the passage from Isaiah we heard today, in which the asp and the adder were acknowledged as former enemies of human beings. At the end of the passage, the “chaff,” an allusion to the wicked who will be destroyed in fire, is a recurring image in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Paul of Tarsus knew the Scriptures. The writer of the Gospel according to Matthew knew the Scriptures intimately. Do we? Do we have any sense of the historical contexts of our various books of Scripture? Have we encountered Jesus’ own understanding of his mission, as the Gospels characterize it? Do we know what the content of our hope as Christians really is? Do we have any clue as to what the “reign of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven,” that has now come near us, really is? Do we know what Scripture has to tell us about living together in harmony?
Scott Gunn, the editor of the publication Forward Day by Day, tells us that a “recent study revealed that Episcopalians are about the most spiritually content people around.” For Gunn, this is not good news. People who are spiritually healthy, he suggests, are not content with what they learned of God in confirmation class, especially when that event was decades ago. Rather, he tells us, “People who are spiritually healthy want to grow and learn, to always look for the next step in their journey.” That includes us. You say you’ve already read the Bible from cover to cover? You say you’ve been going to church as long as you can remember, and you’ve heard these passages from Scripture hundreds of times? Scott Gunn reminds us – and I would strongly second his observation – that “every time I study any passage in the scriptures, even one I’ve read dozens of times, I grow and learn.”1
Advent is a time a think about the promises and prophecies that God has made to us and to all people, prophecies we hear first in the Hebrew Scriptures and prophecies that are restated in the Christian scriptures. Advent is a time to wonder who the one more powerful than John the Baptizer really is. Our understandings of Jesus and God should change and evolve as a result of our life experiences. Ideally, Advent is a time to take stock, and to see whether we are growing in an appreciation of God’s love and mercy, towards ourselves and towards all people. Advent is a time to make a fresh start and a new commitment, a commitment to renewing our cooperation with God and to hearing again what God is telling us through Scripture.
So here’s my challenge to you: let’s study the Scriptures together. It’s a new Church year. Let’s make a new year’s resolution to study the Bible together. Here are some possibilities. They’re not mutually exclusive. One is an online study of a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. A second is a face-to-face bi-weekly meeting to do the same, i.e., to study the Gospel of Matthew. For example, we could meet two Tuesday afternoons a week. Another would be a period of Bible study either before the Eucharist or after coffee hour. Yet another possibility would be to make 2014 our year for the Bible Challenge, in which we commit to reading the entire Bible during the calendar year. During our potluck, I will ask you how ready you are to renew your commitment to letting Scripture instruct you.
Studying the Bible is not an end in itself. We don’t get special treatment or brownie points from God because we can quote Scripture. The Sadducees could quote the Torah, and the Pharisees knew both the Torah and the other writings. Even the devil could quote Scripture, as we learn from the stories of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
So here’s the good news. Our Scriptures are a gift from God! They were written, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to reinforce our trust in God and our hope for the realization of God’s future. They equip us to live holy lives and to share the good news with others. Most important, they enable us to show forth our praise of God, “not only with our lips, but in our lives.” May God enable us to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” our scriptures, and may the Word that we hear become flesh in us.
1. Forward Day by Day (Cincinnati: Forward Movement, 2013), Thursday, December 5.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Garments of Hope
Who are you wearing? Which designer is “you?” And, more to the point, what message do your clothes proclaim? It wasn’t so long ago that women would not have dared to come through the red doors of St. Peter’s or any Episcopal church without a hat and gloves, and men without a jacket and tie – the hat, of course, coming off at the door. What did our clothes then proclaim? Status, comfort, and wealth? In the 1970s, professional women were advised to “dress for success.” That dark skirted suit, worn with a light-colored blouse with a bow-tie collar, we were told, would surely proclaim our professionalism to our colleagues. In our laid-back culture today, does anyone still dress to impress? They do, at least in Hollywood. Every year at the Academy Awards program, the media declare the losers and winners in what the website Moviefone calls “the Super Bowl of movie star fashion.” The Moviefone writers ask, “Who sparkled? Who missed the mark?” Then they warn us that, “from stylish first-time nominees … to some of Oscars hottest couples … we've got glowing praise and brutally honest critiques for all of them.”1
Who are you wearing? On this second Sunday in Advent, the prophet Baruch poses this same question to all who are preparing to celebrate Jesus’ first coming, all who even now are seeing signs of his presence among us, and all who are waiting in hope for his return. Unless you go to an Easter Vigil service or perhaps a service of Lessons and Carols for Advent, this is the only time in the three-year Revised Common Lectionary that you will hear from this prophet. Although this prophecy is ascribed to Jeremiah’s secretary Baruch and is addressed to those in exile in Babylon in the sixth century, the book of Baruch was probably written to second-century Jews who were suffering oppression at the hand of Greek rulers. Like the Babylonian exiles, like those who heard John the Baptist’s message two centuries later, and like us, those who heard the prophecies in the book of Baruch were desperately in need of words of hope. And so the prophet tells them, “Take off your widow’s weeds, your clothes proclaiming your grief and desolation. Put on a robe and a crown, the clothes of a monarch, the clothes that proclaim hope.” Addressing the city of Jerusalem directly, the prophet proclaims the fulfillment of God’s promises, and the restoration and rebuilding of Israel. To complete the message of hope, to underscore why the people dare put on the clothing of hope, the prophet declares that God will change and restore all creation, bringing all Israel to that place of exultation and joy in the mighty acts of God.
We hear Baruch’s message of hope reiterated in Luke’s description of Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist. As you know, we are hearing the story out of order. When John comes out of the desert, Jesus is an adult, the much cherished nativity scenes well behind us. Indeed, shortly after John’s proclamation here, Jesus will be baptized by John. Jesus will retreat himself to the wilderness for forty days and then begin his own public ministry. To prepare people for the coming of Jesus, the gospel writer tells us that John proclaims a message of “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” But there’s more here than simply repentance, necessary as repentance might be. Using language borrowed from the prophet Isaiah and similar to that found in Baruch, the gospel reminds us that John’s message not only announces the coming of Jesus, it also offers us hope. In Isaiah’s language, originally addressed to those who are exiled in Babylon, John restates God’s promises of return, restoration, and the renewal of all creation. Most important, John proclaims that God’s promise of hope and restoration is intended for all – not just for those who happened to encounter the earthly Jesus.
Who is wearing the clothing of hope in our world? Whose clothing proclaims that God is at work, actively restoring God’s people and God’s creation? Who is working to rekindle hope among those whose situations seem hopeless? December 1st was World AIDS day. Two months ago, a woman named Esperança came to the health center in Cobue, a small village in a remote corner of Mozambique.2 There Episcopal Relief and Development partners with the Anglican Diocese of Niassa in running a comprehensive community health program called Salt, Light, Health. Esperança had faithfully taken her anti-retrovirus medications since she was first diagnosed with AIDS. Now she was unable to walk or sit up because of infected ulcers and bedsores and was clearly losing the battle. But Esperança lived up to her name. She had esperança, she had hope that was stronger than the bacteria that sought to defeat her. After working to clear her body of infection, clinic doctors gained approval from the national Ministry of Health to treat her with the scarce, more powerful “second-line” drugs. Though she had prepared herself for death, within a few days, Esperança was able to get up and walk. Soon thereafter she returned to joyful friends and family members who had been certain they would never see her again. The “Mother’s Union,” the local church women’s group, joyfully thanked God for her return. Esperança wouldn’t be alive today were it not for the support of all who cared for her, the availability of second-line medications, and the doctors and nurses at Salt, Light, Health. But, more than anything else, Esperança refused to wear the “garment of sorrow and affliction.” Instead, Esperança drew from her deep well of faith, courageously insisting on wearing the garment of hope. In surviving this latest assault of the AIDS virus she not only fulfilled her own hope, she also became a model of hope for others, among both her fellow AIDS sufferers and the Salt, Light, Health staff.
Who are we wearing? What message do our clothes proclaim? Do our clothes proclaim faith in God’s promises and hope for God’s restoration of our world? On Tuesday this week we took a different approach to the prayers of the people in the evening Eucharist. As some of you know, we put prayer request cards on the tables for Loaves and Fishes diners. There was a stack of them on my desk this week. I read them all, one by one, including those clearly written by children or barely legible. At the beginning of the Eucharist I passed out the prayer request cards to the people there. Instead of the set prayers of the people in the Book of Common Prayer we each in turn read out what was written on the cards. One person asked for prayers for someone newly diagnosed with cancer. Another prayed for a son just diagnosed with diabetes. “I had hoped to keep him from suffering as I have suffered,” the card said. Others asked prayers for someone with a hurt shoulder, someone needing dental work, or an uncle in jail. One prayed that the meager Christmas her resources allowed her to provide this year would not disappoint her family. Another thanked God for the healing of a spouse and asked prayers for upcoming surgery. I don’t know about what the others felt, but that evening I felt the weight of the world’s pain and grief more deeply than I had ever felt before. I also felt a deeper compassion for all those people who had opened their hearts to God and to us on those prayer cards. And I wondered: how can I, how can we rekindle their hope? How can we help clothe them with the garments of hope? How can we help them to share the promise of God’s restoration and renewal?
For, ultimately we are all called to be Baruch. We are all called to give God’s people a new hope and a new message: that they are to exchange the weeds of grief and despair for the robe of restoration and return. We are all called to be John the Baptist. We are all called to proclaim that God fulfills God’s promises. We are all called to proclaim that, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” We are called to rekindle hope in the world around us, in practical and concrete ways. We are called to look ahead to the final restoration of the world under Jesus’ reign. And we are called to proclaim that God’s promises are not meant for only a chosen few, but are ultimately given to all people.
What are you wearing? Are you wearing the garment of hope, restoration and return? Are you helping to rekindle hope in the world? As our worship ends this morning, we will sing “Fling wide your gates, O Zion; your Savior’s rule embrace. His tidings of salvation proclaim in every place.” With Baruch, with John the Baptist, with Esperança, may we too put on the garments of hope and wearing them may we proclaim glad tidings in our world.
1. Moviefone, http://news.moviefone.com/2012/02/26/oscars-2012-best-worst-dressed_n_1302709.html, accessed December 7, 2012.
2. Rebecca J. Vander Meulen, “World AIDS Day 2012: Esperança ’s Esperança,” Episcopal Relief and Development, November 30, 2012, accessed at http://blog.er-d.org/, December 7, 2012. The rest of Esperança’s story is based on this blog post.
Who are you wearing? On this second Sunday in Advent, the prophet Baruch poses this same question to all who are preparing to celebrate Jesus’ first coming, all who even now are seeing signs of his presence among us, and all who are waiting in hope for his return. Unless you go to an Easter Vigil service or perhaps a service of Lessons and Carols for Advent, this is the only time in the three-year Revised Common Lectionary that you will hear from this prophet. Although this prophecy is ascribed to Jeremiah’s secretary Baruch and is addressed to those in exile in Babylon in the sixth century, the book of Baruch was probably written to second-century Jews who were suffering oppression at the hand of Greek rulers. Like the Babylonian exiles, like those who heard John the Baptist’s message two centuries later, and like us, those who heard the prophecies in the book of Baruch were desperately in need of words of hope. And so the prophet tells them, “Take off your widow’s weeds, your clothes proclaiming your grief and desolation. Put on a robe and a crown, the clothes of a monarch, the clothes that proclaim hope.” Addressing the city of Jerusalem directly, the prophet proclaims the fulfillment of God’s promises, and the restoration and rebuilding of Israel. To complete the message of hope, to underscore why the people dare put on the clothing of hope, the prophet declares that God will change and restore all creation, bringing all Israel to that place of exultation and joy in the mighty acts of God.
We hear Baruch’s message of hope reiterated in Luke’s description of Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist. As you know, we are hearing the story out of order. When John comes out of the desert, Jesus is an adult, the much cherished nativity scenes well behind us. Indeed, shortly after John’s proclamation here, Jesus will be baptized by John. Jesus will retreat himself to the wilderness for forty days and then begin his own public ministry. To prepare people for the coming of Jesus, the gospel writer tells us that John proclaims a message of “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” But there’s more here than simply repentance, necessary as repentance might be. Using language borrowed from the prophet Isaiah and similar to that found in Baruch, the gospel reminds us that John’s message not only announces the coming of Jesus, it also offers us hope. In Isaiah’s language, originally addressed to those who are exiled in Babylon, John restates God’s promises of return, restoration, and the renewal of all creation. Most important, John proclaims that God’s promise of hope and restoration is intended for all – not just for those who happened to encounter the earthly Jesus.
Who is wearing the clothing of hope in our world? Whose clothing proclaims that God is at work, actively restoring God’s people and God’s creation? Who is working to rekindle hope among those whose situations seem hopeless? December 1st was World AIDS day. Two months ago, a woman named Esperança came to the health center in Cobue, a small village in a remote corner of Mozambique.2 There Episcopal Relief and Development partners with the Anglican Diocese of Niassa in running a comprehensive community health program called Salt, Light, Health. Esperança had faithfully taken her anti-retrovirus medications since she was first diagnosed with AIDS. Now she was unable to walk or sit up because of infected ulcers and bedsores and was clearly losing the battle. But Esperança lived up to her name. She had esperança, she had hope that was stronger than the bacteria that sought to defeat her. After working to clear her body of infection, clinic doctors gained approval from the national Ministry of Health to treat her with the scarce, more powerful “second-line” drugs. Though she had prepared herself for death, within a few days, Esperança was able to get up and walk. Soon thereafter she returned to joyful friends and family members who had been certain they would never see her again. The “Mother’s Union,” the local church women’s group, joyfully thanked God for her return. Esperança wouldn’t be alive today were it not for the support of all who cared for her, the availability of second-line medications, and the doctors and nurses at Salt, Light, Health. But, more than anything else, Esperança refused to wear the “garment of sorrow and affliction.” Instead, Esperança drew from her deep well of faith, courageously insisting on wearing the garment of hope. In surviving this latest assault of the AIDS virus she not only fulfilled her own hope, she also became a model of hope for others, among both her fellow AIDS sufferers and the Salt, Light, Health staff.
Who are we wearing? What message do our clothes proclaim? Do our clothes proclaim faith in God’s promises and hope for God’s restoration of our world? On Tuesday this week we took a different approach to the prayers of the people in the evening Eucharist. As some of you know, we put prayer request cards on the tables for Loaves and Fishes diners. There was a stack of them on my desk this week. I read them all, one by one, including those clearly written by children or barely legible. At the beginning of the Eucharist I passed out the prayer request cards to the people there. Instead of the set prayers of the people in the Book of Common Prayer we each in turn read out what was written on the cards. One person asked for prayers for someone newly diagnosed with cancer. Another prayed for a son just diagnosed with diabetes. “I had hoped to keep him from suffering as I have suffered,” the card said. Others asked prayers for someone with a hurt shoulder, someone needing dental work, or an uncle in jail. One prayed that the meager Christmas her resources allowed her to provide this year would not disappoint her family. Another thanked God for the healing of a spouse and asked prayers for upcoming surgery. I don’t know about what the others felt, but that evening I felt the weight of the world’s pain and grief more deeply than I had ever felt before. I also felt a deeper compassion for all those people who had opened their hearts to God and to us on those prayer cards. And I wondered: how can I, how can we rekindle their hope? How can we help clothe them with the garments of hope? How can we help them to share the promise of God’s restoration and renewal?
For, ultimately we are all called to be Baruch. We are all called to give God’s people a new hope and a new message: that they are to exchange the weeds of grief and despair for the robe of restoration and return. We are all called to be John the Baptist. We are all called to proclaim that God fulfills God’s promises. We are all called to proclaim that, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” We are called to rekindle hope in the world around us, in practical and concrete ways. We are called to look ahead to the final restoration of the world under Jesus’ reign. And we are called to proclaim that God’s promises are not meant for only a chosen few, but are ultimately given to all people.
What are you wearing? Are you wearing the garment of hope, restoration and return? Are you helping to rekindle hope in the world? As our worship ends this morning, we will sing “Fling wide your gates, O Zion; your Savior’s rule embrace. His tidings of salvation proclaim in every place.” With Baruch, with John the Baptist, with Esperança, may we too put on the garments of hope and wearing them may we proclaim glad tidings in our world.
1. Moviefone, http://news.moviefone.com/2012/02/26/oscars-2012-best-worst-dressed_n_1302709.html, accessed December 7, 2012.
2. Rebecca J. Vander Meulen, “World AIDS Day 2012: Esperança ’s Esperança,” Episcopal Relief and Development, November 30, 2012, accessed at http://blog.er-d.org/, December 7, 2012. The rest of Esperança’s story is based on this blog post.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
The Beginning of the Good News
Ya’acov ben Shimon was perplexed. He frowned as he looked around his village in Galilee.1 He’d heard that the Romans had started besieging Jerusalem after some radical Jewish sect started a revolt. Some people were overjoyed and said that God was at last driving the Romans out of Israel. But others said that the only way to have peace and security was to tolerate the Romans. Ya’acov had also heard that the emperor Nero had died last year. Four candidates had been acclaimed as the next emperor and then assassinated in short order. Now Vespasian, who’d ordered the siege of Jerusalem, had been crowned. How would this effect the war? And would prices finally come down?
There was conflict right here in Ya’acov’s village too. The Jews and the Gentiles were fighting about the war. Formerly close neighbors and even family members were on different sides. However, there was a small group of people who refused to fight on either side. They were followers of a Galilean rabbi named Yehoshua, whom the Romans had crucified as a rebel about forty years ago. Everyone was disgusted with these folks. The rabbis thought they were dead wrong about this Yehoshua, and those who hated the Romans were sure that Yehoshua had done nothing to help drive the Romans out. But again Ya’acov wondered. How could it be that Yehoshua’s execution was a sign of God’s favor towards both Jews and Gentiles? One day one of Yehoshua’s followers handed him a scroll in Greek with a strange opening: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.” Beginning? What was beginning, and when? Messiah? Isn’t that what all the Jews were waiting for? Son of God? Isn’t that what they called the Roman emperor?
As he read the first part of the scroll, about John the Baptizer, Ya’acov wondered where the story of the Good News really began. The scroll writer – let’s call him Mark – started with a quotation from two Hebrew prophets, Isaiah and Malachi. Is that where the story really began, all those centuries ago, when God spoke through the prophets? Or did it begin when God brought the Jews back from exile in Babylon? Or did the story begin with John? Did the story begin with the hints in John’s proclamation? Clearly Mark and his community understood that John was a herald, and that, like the prophets, he was announcing God’s plan. But Mark also wanted his hearers to understand the meaning of John’s proclamation. So he looked back to the past and used the prophet Isaiah as an analogy for John. Isaiah had proclaimed that God would rescue the Jews from exile. Similarly, Mark and his community, in their current troubled world, understood that John had proclaimed the same kind of comfort and rescue that Isaiah had.
And then Ya’acov had another question. Where did the story end? Hadn’t the prophet Malachi, who had seen the newly completed second temple, said, “See I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple”? So Mark also must have used Malachi as an analogy for John. Malachi had looked forward, although with dread, to the new thing that God was doing, to the deliverance and judgment that God’s coming would bring. Similarly, for Mark, John proclaimed a new and powerful savior, someone who would judge everyone in the world and whose coming would radically change the world, someone who would initiate a new covenant with them through the Holy Spirit. So perhaps the witness of John the Baptizer, John the herald, was the beginning of the good news, but its fullness, the end of the story, was yet to be revealed.
Now we are reading the scroll that Ya’acov read. We call it the Gospel According to Mark. As we read and reread the entire story, perhaps we too wonder just where the Good News really begins – and ends. Perhaps the whole first half of Mark’s scroll, which recounts Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and all his teachings about God’s reign, is the true “beginning of the good news.” Or maybe the beginning of the Good News is Mark’s whole scroll and the story it tells. Perhaps the story begins when it comes alive for its hearers, when it encourages its hearers both to look back to God’s saving works in the past and to look forward in hope to the new thing that God is doing. Perhaps the story truly begins when people ponder how it could or should unfold in their own lives.
The truth is that the “beginning of the good news” always begins with God and God’s works, and that story has yet to end. At the same time, the story of the good news begins for us when we see ourselves in it, when we make it our own, and we only know the true end of it when our life on earth is over. As we live in our own middle time, we can follow Mark’s example and look both back to the past and forward to God’s future. We can understand ourselves both in terms of who and where we have come from and in terms of what God has yet to do with us.
In this Advent time, we can begin by looking back to our own predecessors in faith, to those who were God’s heralds for us. Take a few minutes to ponder who first introduced you to faith, who modeled devotion to God for you. Though faith is ultimately a gift of God, few of us come to faith all by ourselves. Even if we were baptized as adults, the chances are that someone was a guidepost for us on the way to the font. Was your herald a family member or close friend? What did that person do to introduce you to God? Did he read the Bible to you? Did she teach you the wonderful old hymns? Did their lives inspire you? Did they see Jesus in the “least of these” and generously offer themselves to others? Is there any way to honor those heralds of faith? Or perhaps your model of faith a saint from the past. In addition to John the Baptizer himself, many people still find Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, John of the Cross, Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Merton, or Mother Teresa compelling examples of faith. You might ponder this too: for whom are you a herald of Jesus, a model of faith and devotion? Who would be inspired by your life? Are there areas of your life that you need to change in order to be a more compelling example of faith? Do we hesitate to even admit that we need to repent?
In this Advent time, we also continue to look ahead. Like John the Herald, like Mark, and Ya’acov, like all those who preceded us in faith, we’re also still in the middle of the story. We believe that “the Lord whom you seek” will suddenly return to his temple, to complete and restore the world. We too long for that day, even though along with Malachi we may wonder, “Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” As we continue to look forward in hope, and as we do our best to prepare for the Lord’s appearing, this Advent time is also a good time to reflect on another question. We might wonder what our place is in God’s plan. How does God expect us, both as individuals and as a parish, to partner in bringing in the reign God heralded in John and initiated in Jesus? What ministries has God prepared “for us to walk in?”
Thursday December 1st was World Aids Day. In addition to those affected by HIV/AIDS themselves, many have been widowed and orphaned by AIDS. Today, for example, there are more than 16 million children orphaned by the AIDS scourge, many of them in east Africa. While we were celebrating Thanksgiving Day, Christian and Muslim leaders in Kenya met in Nairobi to discuss how to improve their responses to a disease that is a social, economic, political, and medical issue. Katherine Jefferts Schorri, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Mark Hanson, ELCA Presiding Bishop, issued a joint statement committing both their churches on World AIDS Day to a renewed partnership in ministry to AIDS victims and their families. Meanwhile, Tennis star Roger Federer, entertainer Madonna, and Episcopal priest Bill Rankin, who recently retired as CEO of the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA), all committed themselves to continue the fight against AIDS in Malawi. Is AIDS a problem in Gallia County? Are there AIDS victims or AIDS orphans among us? How would we know? Are there prophetic voices among us who could point us to answers to these questions? Where else might the Holy Spirit lead us?
Come, thou long expected Jesus. Your story began in ages past and continues into God’s future. Come and find us ready to proclaim our thanksgiving for your past gifts, our hope for the future, and our willingness always to seek and serve you in all whom we meet.
1. The following is based on the account in Christopher R. Hutson, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 44ff.
There was conflict right here in Ya’acov’s village too. The Jews and the Gentiles were fighting about the war. Formerly close neighbors and even family members were on different sides. However, there was a small group of people who refused to fight on either side. They were followers of a Galilean rabbi named Yehoshua, whom the Romans had crucified as a rebel about forty years ago. Everyone was disgusted with these folks. The rabbis thought they were dead wrong about this Yehoshua, and those who hated the Romans were sure that Yehoshua had done nothing to help drive the Romans out. But again Ya’acov wondered. How could it be that Yehoshua’s execution was a sign of God’s favor towards both Jews and Gentiles? One day one of Yehoshua’s followers handed him a scroll in Greek with a strange opening: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.” Beginning? What was beginning, and when? Messiah? Isn’t that what all the Jews were waiting for? Son of God? Isn’t that what they called the Roman emperor?
As he read the first part of the scroll, about John the Baptizer, Ya’acov wondered where the story of the Good News really began. The scroll writer – let’s call him Mark – started with a quotation from two Hebrew prophets, Isaiah and Malachi. Is that where the story really began, all those centuries ago, when God spoke through the prophets? Or did it begin when God brought the Jews back from exile in Babylon? Or did the story begin with John? Did the story begin with the hints in John’s proclamation? Clearly Mark and his community understood that John was a herald, and that, like the prophets, he was announcing God’s plan. But Mark also wanted his hearers to understand the meaning of John’s proclamation. So he looked back to the past and used the prophet Isaiah as an analogy for John. Isaiah had proclaimed that God would rescue the Jews from exile. Similarly, Mark and his community, in their current troubled world, understood that John had proclaimed the same kind of comfort and rescue that Isaiah had.
And then Ya’acov had another question. Where did the story end? Hadn’t the prophet Malachi, who had seen the newly completed second temple, said, “See I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple”? So Mark also must have used Malachi as an analogy for John. Malachi had looked forward, although with dread, to the new thing that God was doing, to the deliverance and judgment that God’s coming would bring. Similarly, for Mark, John proclaimed a new and powerful savior, someone who would judge everyone in the world and whose coming would radically change the world, someone who would initiate a new covenant with them through the Holy Spirit. So perhaps the witness of John the Baptizer, John the herald, was the beginning of the good news, but its fullness, the end of the story, was yet to be revealed.
Now we are reading the scroll that Ya’acov read. We call it the Gospel According to Mark. As we read and reread the entire story, perhaps we too wonder just where the Good News really begins – and ends. Perhaps the whole first half of Mark’s scroll, which recounts Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and all his teachings about God’s reign, is the true “beginning of the good news.” Or maybe the beginning of the Good News is Mark’s whole scroll and the story it tells. Perhaps the story begins when it comes alive for its hearers, when it encourages its hearers both to look back to God’s saving works in the past and to look forward in hope to the new thing that God is doing. Perhaps the story truly begins when people ponder how it could or should unfold in their own lives.
The truth is that the “beginning of the good news” always begins with God and God’s works, and that story has yet to end. At the same time, the story of the good news begins for us when we see ourselves in it, when we make it our own, and we only know the true end of it when our life on earth is over. As we live in our own middle time, we can follow Mark’s example and look both back to the past and forward to God’s future. We can understand ourselves both in terms of who and where we have come from and in terms of what God has yet to do with us.
In this Advent time, we can begin by looking back to our own predecessors in faith, to those who were God’s heralds for us. Take a few minutes to ponder who first introduced you to faith, who modeled devotion to God for you. Though faith is ultimately a gift of God, few of us come to faith all by ourselves. Even if we were baptized as adults, the chances are that someone was a guidepost for us on the way to the font. Was your herald a family member or close friend? What did that person do to introduce you to God? Did he read the Bible to you? Did she teach you the wonderful old hymns? Did their lives inspire you? Did they see Jesus in the “least of these” and generously offer themselves to others? Is there any way to honor those heralds of faith? Or perhaps your model of faith a saint from the past. In addition to John the Baptizer himself, many people still find Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, John of the Cross, Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Merton, or Mother Teresa compelling examples of faith. You might ponder this too: for whom are you a herald of Jesus, a model of faith and devotion? Who would be inspired by your life? Are there areas of your life that you need to change in order to be a more compelling example of faith? Do we hesitate to even admit that we need to repent?
In this Advent time, we also continue to look ahead. Like John the Herald, like Mark, and Ya’acov, like all those who preceded us in faith, we’re also still in the middle of the story. We believe that “the Lord whom you seek” will suddenly return to his temple, to complete and restore the world. We too long for that day, even though along with Malachi we may wonder, “Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” As we continue to look forward in hope, and as we do our best to prepare for the Lord’s appearing, this Advent time is also a good time to reflect on another question. We might wonder what our place is in God’s plan. How does God expect us, both as individuals and as a parish, to partner in bringing in the reign God heralded in John and initiated in Jesus? What ministries has God prepared “for us to walk in?”
Thursday December 1st was World Aids Day. In addition to those affected by HIV/AIDS themselves, many have been widowed and orphaned by AIDS. Today, for example, there are more than 16 million children orphaned by the AIDS scourge, many of them in east Africa. While we were celebrating Thanksgiving Day, Christian and Muslim leaders in Kenya met in Nairobi to discuss how to improve their responses to a disease that is a social, economic, political, and medical issue. Katherine Jefferts Schorri, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Mark Hanson, ELCA Presiding Bishop, issued a joint statement committing both their churches on World AIDS Day to a renewed partnership in ministry to AIDS victims and their families. Meanwhile, Tennis star Roger Federer, entertainer Madonna, and Episcopal priest Bill Rankin, who recently retired as CEO of the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA), all committed themselves to continue the fight against AIDS in Malawi. Is AIDS a problem in Gallia County? Are there AIDS victims or AIDS orphans among us? How would we know? Are there prophetic voices among us who could point us to answers to these questions? Where else might the Holy Spirit lead us?
Come, thou long expected Jesus. Your story began in ages past and continues into God’s future. Come and find us ready to proclaim our thanksgiving for your past gifts, our hope for the future, and our willingness always to seek and serve you in all whom we meet.
1. The following is based on the account in Christopher R. Hutson, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 44ff.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Water for Repentance
On the day after Thanksgiving, columnist Leonard Pitts announced good news: “An average of 17.7 percent of Americans were at times unable to feed themselves in the 12 months prior to September of this year.”1 How on earth could this be good news, Pitts asked. The answer: the percentage of hungry Americans was down from 18.5 percent at the end of 2009. Pitts went on to remind us that we don’t have to go to Kenya or Haiti to find hunger. In this season of “gorging on turkeys and hams and yams and greens, potatoes by the mound, dressing by the mountain, and groaning tables of puddings, pies, cookies, and cakes,” hunger endures in this country. Even though the lieutenant governor of South Carolina likened children who receive free and reduced price lunches to “stray animals you feed at your back door,” hunger endures. Even though we work hard at providing free meals to people, even though we participate in the distribution of food, hunger endures. Is it because of the recession that we have so much hunger? Well, we had hungry people before the recession. Are hungry people lazy or dishonest? Maybe a few are, but many hungry people are disabled, mentally ill, or poorly educated. Some have lost their jobs, some will never find a job in their community, and some have a job that doesn’t pay enough to live on. (Read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickle and Dimed for more on that last reason.) And truth be told, any of us could be poor and hungry. Even middle-class people can lose their jobs and find themselves suddenly poor. Many of us are one health-care crisis away from poverty. Did you know that the majority of people who file for bankruptcy do so because of medical bills not covered by insurance?
At this point, you’re probably thinking, “What does this have to do with me? And what on earth do hungry poor people have to do with today’s Scripture lessons?” The answer is: everything! In our Old Testament reading from the prophet Isaiah, and in our psalm, we have a vision of what God intends our world to look like, of what a future of shalom, the well-being of all, might look like. In God’s shalom, all creation lives in harmony and peace. In God’s shalom that peace is a peace founded on justice, and especially justice for the poor. Hear Isaiah describing the ruler of God’s future: “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear,” i.e., he won’t be impressed by the trappings of high status or by elegant language, but “with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” The psalmist also looks forward to a future of harmony and peace: “There shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more.” And the psalmist reminds us that the ruler of God’s peaceful kingdom will “rule your people righteously and the poor with equity,” and that “he shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.” Clearly the God whose word Isaiah proclaims has a special heart, a special preference, for the poor. Could these be the same poor people about whom Pitts was writing?
Our Gospel lesson strikes a slightly different note. Standing squarely within the prophetic tradition of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Ezekiel, and all the rest, John the Baptist also proclaims God’s word. But John proclaims that a great change in people’s lives is about to occur, that the ideal king, the messiah, the just ruler proclaimed by earlier prophets, is indeed about to appear. In preparation for the coming of God’s anointed one, John calls out, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As a token of their repentance he charges people to be baptized, i.e., to be immersed in water, in a symbolic cleansing. John also has harsh words for the religious leadership – and we’ll hear a lot of this in Matthew’s Gospel. John warns them not to take refuge in their standing as children of Abraham, i.e., as heirs to God’s promises, but themselves repent and bear good fruit.
John was speaking to the people of his own time, to first-century Jews who were awaiting the coming of God’s anointed. Is he also speaking to us? Our collect for today asks for God’s grace to heed the warnings of the prophetic messengers whom God has sent and to forsake our own sins. So, yes, the Hebrew prophets, the prophets of our own day, and John the Baptizer are also addressing us. As a pastor and teacher, I especially hear John’s harsh words to the religious leaders as addressed to me, and I do challenge myself to repentance, and I ask God’s grace to bring forth the good fruit that God would have me bear. But ultimately John’s harsh words are addressed to all of us. All of us baptized Christians are also heirs to God’s covenant, along with the original descendants of Abraham. And like the religious leaders who first heard John’s accusations, we too cannot think that we are immune from any further attention to the demands of God. We too are called to repentance, and especially in this season, when we too wait eagerly for the appearing of the Prince of Peace.
“Repentance.” Now what does this word really mean? One thing it does not mean is a trip down the aisle at a revival. It does not mean solely renouncing evil in our baptisms and thinking we are done with repentance forever. No, repentance is a lifelong process, something we need to do continually. Nor does repentance mean putting ourselves on a guilt trip. Certainly, confession and absolution are good and necessary processes. But repentance really means turning around, changing direction, changing our mind-set, aligning ourselves with what God is up to in the world. And repentance is not only for individuals. Parishes, communities, even nations can repent. All of us, individually and collectively, can change course, can turn away from our own selfish desires, and begin heading in God’s direction.
How does such change come about? Ultimately, all change of heart is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. However, the Holy Spirit has many different ways of working. Sometimes we change as a result of new experiences, sometimes through getting new information, sometimes in response to prayer that God will show us the road that God wants us to travel. Most of us don’t need to “invite Christ into our lives” – we’ve probably already done that, or we wouldn’t be here today. What we do need to do is change how we think and how we act.
Can we change our thinking and our action with respect to issues of hunger in the U.S.? Dear God, you may say, I do believe that all your people, even your poorest people, should have enough to eat. How are you asking me to change my mind? What are you asking me to do? Everything you are currently doing, the Lord may say, and more! Yes, continue feeding my people in Loaves and Fishes. Yes, go across the street and help out at the Lutheran Social Services mobile food pantry. Yes, help people access benefits through the Ohio Benefit Bank. And there’s more. Consider educating yourself about hunger nationally, through organizations like Bread for the World, a Christian hunger advocacy organization. Some of you may have read in Friday’s paper, for example, that Congress passed the Child Nutrition bill to increase access to free and reduced-price meals for children. Bread for the World members educated themselves about the bill and then pressed their elected representatives to vote for it. The Ohio Hunger Alliance does the same kind of work on a state-wide level, also asking people to educate themselves about local hunger issues and to take appropriate political action. These are all good things to do, and as Christians we do these things because we understand ourselves as charged to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s future.
But one more thing I ask of you, the Lord says. Love those who are hungry as I love them. Bob Erickson was a volunteer at a free breakfast. Assigned coffee-pouring duty, he drifted from table to table “warming up cups for persons who often embody a ‘down and out’ slice of society,” people from shelters or, literally, off the streets and even from under bridges. Some were physically disabled, some had mental health issues. Few could get or hold a job. At one table, Bob tells us, he met Ben, “who had recently been freed after 25 years in prison. Gradually warming to my interest in talking with him, he told me a predictably sad story: he has no money for rent, is alienated from family, has lost his previous friends, and is aware of few resources in this or any other community, except a homeless shelter where he lives and this once-a-week service….” Yet Ben was confident he could make it, because at some point he had met someone who had accepted him unconditionally as a person, who had enabled him to feel truly loved and able to surmount the many obstacles in his life. Meeting Ben shook all of Bob’s assumptions. Bob realized that, important as our material support of people is, extending the hand of love and friendship, embodying Jesus for them, may be more important. “That someone cares enough to offer themselves -- their time, their attention, and most importantly, their heart -- may be the greatest gift we ever give…. Seeing beyond all that is obvious to criticize about the messiness of how they happen to be standing in front of us, can we accept them as they are as the starting point for who they might become? And by more than ‘bread alone,’ may we have the grace to love them and they, to accept it!”
Repent, change course, make a personal connection with the poor and needy. This is a tall order! Give us grace, O God, to heed the messages of your prophets, and to change our ways. Enable us by your grace to love those whom you love and to be the people you are calling us to be.
________________________________
1. “Amid amber waves of grain, hunger thrives,” Worthington Daily Globe, published November 26, 2010, accessed at http://www.dglobe.com/event/article/id/43356/, 11/29/2010.
2. Hunger Network in Ohio Newsletter, Fall 2010.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, “What does this have to do with me? And what on earth do hungry poor people have to do with today’s Scripture lessons?” The answer is: everything! In our Old Testament reading from the prophet Isaiah, and in our psalm, we have a vision of what God intends our world to look like, of what a future of shalom, the well-being of all, might look like. In God’s shalom, all creation lives in harmony and peace. In God’s shalom that peace is a peace founded on justice, and especially justice for the poor. Hear Isaiah describing the ruler of God’s future: “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear,” i.e., he won’t be impressed by the trappings of high status or by elegant language, but “with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” The psalmist also looks forward to a future of harmony and peace: “There shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more.” And the psalmist reminds us that the ruler of God’s peaceful kingdom will “rule your people righteously and the poor with equity,” and that “he shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.” Clearly the God whose word Isaiah proclaims has a special heart, a special preference, for the poor. Could these be the same poor people about whom Pitts was writing?
Our Gospel lesson strikes a slightly different note. Standing squarely within the prophetic tradition of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Ezekiel, and all the rest, John the Baptist also proclaims God’s word. But John proclaims that a great change in people’s lives is about to occur, that the ideal king, the messiah, the just ruler proclaimed by earlier prophets, is indeed about to appear. In preparation for the coming of God’s anointed one, John calls out, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As a token of their repentance he charges people to be baptized, i.e., to be immersed in water, in a symbolic cleansing. John also has harsh words for the religious leadership – and we’ll hear a lot of this in Matthew’s Gospel. John warns them not to take refuge in their standing as children of Abraham, i.e., as heirs to God’s promises, but themselves repent and bear good fruit.
John was speaking to the people of his own time, to first-century Jews who were awaiting the coming of God’s anointed. Is he also speaking to us? Our collect for today asks for God’s grace to heed the warnings of the prophetic messengers whom God has sent and to forsake our own sins. So, yes, the Hebrew prophets, the prophets of our own day, and John the Baptizer are also addressing us. As a pastor and teacher, I especially hear John’s harsh words to the religious leaders as addressed to me, and I do challenge myself to repentance, and I ask God’s grace to bring forth the good fruit that God would have me bear. But ultimately John’s harsh words are addressed to all of us. All of us baptized Christians are also heirs to God’s covenant, along with the original descendants of Abraham. And like the religious leaders who first heard John’s accusations, we too cannot think that we are immune from any further attention to the demands of God. We too are called to repentance, and especially in this season, when we too wait eagerly for the appearing of the Prince of Peace.
“Repentance.” Now what does this word really mean? One thing it does not mean is a trip down the aisle at a revival. It does not mean solely renouncing evil in our baptisms and thinking we are done with repentance forever. No, repentance is a lifelong process, something we need to do continually. Nor does repentance mean putting ourselves on a guilt trip. Certainly, confession and absolution are good and necessary processes. But repentance really means turning around, changing direction, changing our mind-set, aligning ourselves with what God is up to in the world. And repentance is not only for individuals. Parishes, communities, even nations can repent. All of us, individually and collectively, can change course, can turn away from our own selfish desires, and begin heading in God’s direction.
How does such change come about? Ultimately, all change of heart is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. However, the Holy Spirit has many different ways of working. Sometimes we change as a result of new experiences, sometimes through getting new information, sometimes in response to prayer that God will show us the road that God wants us to travel. Most of us don’t need to “invite Christ into our lives” – we’ve probably already done that, or we wouldn’t be here today. What we do need to do is change how we think and how we act.
Can we change our thinking and our action with respect to issues of hunger in the U.S.? Dear God, you may say, I do believe that all your people, even your poorest people, should have enough to eat. How are you asking me to change my mind? What are you asking me to do? Everything you are currently doing, the Lord may say, and more! Yes, continue feeding my people in Loaves and Fishes. Yes, go across the street and help out at the Lutheran Social Services mobile food pantry. Yes, help people access benefits through the Ohio Benefit Bank. And there’s more. Consider educating yourself about hunger nationally, through organizations like Bread for the World, a Christian hunger advocacy organization. Some of you may have read in Friday’s paper, for example, that Congress passed the Child Nutrition bill to increase access to free and reduced-price meals for children. Bread for the World members educated themselves about the bill and then pressed their elected representatives to vote for it. The Ohio Hunger Alliance does the same kind of work on a state-wide level, also asking people to educate themselves about local hunger issues and to take appropriate political action. These are all good things to do, and as Christians we do these things because we understand ourselves as charged to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s future.
But one more thing I ask of you, the Lord says. Love those who are hungry as I love them. Bob Erickson was a volunteer at a free breakfast. Assigned coffee-pouring duty, he drifted from table to table “warming up cups for persons who often embody a ‘down and out’ slice of society,” people from shelters or, literally, off the streets and even from under bridges. Some were physically disabled, some had mental health issues. Few could get or hold a job. At one table, Bob tells us, he met Ben, “who had recently been freed after 25 years in prison. Gradually warming to my interest in talking with him, he told me a predictably sad story: he has no money for rent, is alienated from family, has lost his previous friends, and is aware of few resources in this or any other community, except a homeless shelter where he lives and this once-a-week service….” Yet Ben was confident he could make it, because at some point he had met someone who had accepted him unconditionally as a person, who had enabled him to feel truly loved and able to surmount the many obstacles in his life. Meeting Ben shook all of Bob’s assumptions. Bob realized that, important as our material support of people is, extending the hand of love and friendship, embodying Jesus for them, may be more important. “That someone cares enough to offer themselves -- their time, their attention, and most importantly, their heart -- may be the greatest gift we ever give…. Seeing beyond all that is obvious to criticize about the messiness of how they happen to be standing in front of us, can we accept them as they are as the starting point for who they might become? And by more than ‘bread alone,’ may we have the grace to love them and they, to accept it!”
Repent, change course, make a personal connection with the poor and needy. This is a tall order! Give us grace, O God, to heed the messages of your prophets, and to change our ways. Enable us by your grace to love those whom you love and to be the people you are calling us to be.
________________________________
1. “Amid amber waves of grain, hunger thrives,” Worthington Daily Globe, published November 26, 2010, accessed at http://www.dglobe.com/event/article/id/43356/, 11/29/2010.
2. Hunger Network in Ohio Newsletter, Fall 2010.
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