Advent 2B: As If



"Peaceable Kingdom"
John Swanson, 1994
avail. at www.stthomas.edu

OLD TESTAMENT:  Isaiah 40: 1-11

The passage that we read marks the beginning of what we commonly refer to as “Second Isaiah” (Chapters 40-55), which is probably set at the end of the Babylonian exile.  Even though the “exile” was not slavery as we know it, it was still a major upheaval in lifestyle and culture.  Most of the Israelites were allowed to have their own homes, come and go as they please, and even work and make a living.  But it was a different culture, a different homeland, and they knew that everything that they knew before was forever gone.  The “exile” was not so much one of geography, but of cultural, political, and religious upheaval. So at this point, the “former things have passed away”.  They had to think that God had truly deserted them.  And so their image of God had to be rethought and recast.  They were trying to find God in the midst of a strange, new world.

But about the year 539 BCE, Cyrus, the ruler of Persia, conquered the Babylonians.  Now he tended to be sort of a benign and tolerant ruler and so he allowed those who had been previously exiled from Jerusalem the chance to return home.  So the people are beginning to return home, but to a home that was nothing like it was before.  If you can imagine, these waves of people on this highway that leads toward Jerusalem—a Jerusalem that now lies in ruins.  Now imagine this highway, a highway through the desert that, typical of the ancient world, was originally built to accommodate royal processions.  Everything was done to make the highway smooth and clear.  And God promises a highway, smooth and clear of mountains and valleys that would impede the process.  God promises a holy highway built for a grand procession led by the Almighty God.  

So the exiles are filled with a message of trust and confident hope that God will completely end this time of despair and hardship.  Speaking to a city and a way of life that is all but destroyed, the exclamation is made that the exile is indeed about to end.  God is coming to lead the exiles to the Promised Land, bringing redemption and restoration.  In essence, God is coming to show them a new and different way to live, a new and different to look at life even in the midst of darkness.

Now notice here that God does not promise to put things back the way they were before.  God is not limited to simply rebuilding what was taken away.   No, God is recreating, making new, lifting valleys, lowering mountains, and ultimately, when all is said and done, revealing a glory that we’ve never seen before.  “See, I am making all things new.” 

The passage sets the stage for waiting for God, which is why it is appropriate for our Advent reading.  It is important to try to read it in this context rather than “reading in” our New Testament context into it.  The passage begins with God’s initiative—to bring home and comfort to the suffering exiles.  This is not a detached God, but one that is here, bringing hope to the faithful.  The end of the exile is here.  Israel has received full promise and forgiveness.  It is time to prepare for a new promise from God.  But to use the image of homecoming without remembering the despair, the image of forgiveness without knowledge of the sin, is an offer of cheap grace.  Remember…the former things have passed away.  God is not rebuilding what was there before but rather creating something new.  “Comfort”, then is not merely solace, but transformation.  God has promised a new way of being and a new way of seeing.

The French Impressionist painter, Claude Monet, is probably best known for his incredible landscapes and works of nature as well as for his paintings of those things that were a normal part of his own life.  But the most fascinating part of Monet’s work are those paintings that he did as part of several series representing similar or even the same subjects—his own incredible gardens, poppy fields, a woman with a parasol, and those unusual haystacks.

The paintings in this series of haystacks were painted under different light conditions at different times of day.  Monet would rise before dawn, paint the first canvas for half an hour, by which time the light had changed.  Then he would switch to the second canvas, and so on.  The next day and for days and months afterward, he would repeat the process.  In each painting, the color of the haystack is different not because it is a different haystack, but because the amount and quality of the light shining on the haystack is different.  The subject is the same but the perspective from which it is viewed changes with the light.

Up until this time, color was thought to be an intrinsic property of an object, such as weight or density.  In other words, oranges were orange and lemons were yellow, with no variation as to the lens through which they were viewed. But with Monet’s studies in light and how it affects our view of life, that all changed.  As Monet once said, “the subject is of secondary importance to me; what I want to reproduce is that which is in between the subject and me.”  Monet’s study was one in seeing things differently.

This study in light is such a wonderful reminder to us to be aware of the perspective through which we see things.  The writer of Isaiah knew that and, just like Monet, he painted a picture of the city illuminated by a different light.  He gave the exiles a way to look at life differently and be open to that which God shines upon them.  There is a Maori Proverb that says “turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.”  Look, the light is changing.  Look toward the dawn.

a.      What is your response to this passage?

b.      In what ways does this passage speak to you today?

c.       What is the difference between “repair” and “recreation”, between “fixing things” and true transformation?  Why are we reticent to allow transformation in our lives?

d.      What does this say about the idea of “waiting for God” that is so prevalent in this Advent season?

 NEW TESTAMENT:  2 Peter 3: 8-15a

Second Peter is one of the general or catholic (universal) epistles, along with Hebrews, James, 1,2,&3 John, 1 Peter, and Jude.  It is not attributed to Paul and essentially addresses a group of churches, rather than one in particular.  Even though it is presented as the work of “Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ”, most would ascribe the book to an unknown author writing under the name of the apostle Peter.  There are no indications that 1 and 2 Peter were written by the same author.

The passage that we read is part of a section that could be considered an apology, or a theological explanation, for why the expected second coming (the parousia) has not occurred.  The churches are here urged not to ignore or overlook God’s promise and forbearance.    We are reminded instead that life is transient, while God is everlasting.  What seems like a delay in our time is not a delay in God’s time.  We are still promised a new heaven and a new earth and God always makes good on holy promises.

Now it is probable that the author of this writing assumed that the coming of the Lord was about to happen.  But it would happen in God’s time.  It did not depend on the action of the church.  Instead, what we perceive as a “delay” is an act of patience and mercy on the part of God.  Our salvation is found not in our own acts but in God’s mercy. God is waiting for us to respond, for us to proclaim God’s love and mercy.  This is not a time of despair or darkness.  This is not an “ungodly time”.  This is a time of waiting for God.  We wait in penitence and hope.  We wait for the darkness and the evil to be pushed away by the light.

The writer’s focus is not a warning but, rather, a promise that one day the justice and righteousness of God will be all that will remain.  Transformation will be complete and we will truly know a “new heaven and a new earth”.  But in the meantime, we are called to live within that vision of what is to be.  “Waiting” for God is never a passive thing.  We are called to live “as if”—as if the coming of the Lord is now, as if heaven has already spilled into the earth, as if justice and righteousness were the only thing, and as if we knew no other way to live.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only [they] who see, take off [their] shoes—

The rest sit round it and pluck blueberries. 

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from “Aurora Leigh”)

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

b.      How does this passage speak to the concept of “waiting” that Advent holds?

c.       What would it mean to live our lives “as if”?

GOSPEL:  Mark 1: 1-8

These beginning verses of the Gospel According to Mark sort of jolt us back into that reality.  Our experience with the other Gospels, leads us to expect either a birth story, as in Matthew and Luke, or a poetic meditation on Jesus’ pre-existence with God, as in John.  But not here.  The writer of this Gospel gets right to the point, not allowing us to risk drowning and staying in the beauty of the nativity.  Here is a messenger, coming to prepare you for what will happen next.  Here is a messenger, paving the path, preparing the way for the coming of the Lord.  No Mary and Joseph, no baby, no stable, no shepherds, no magi, no angels…just…boom…the One is coming that will baptize you with the Spirit of God…the One is coming who will change your life and change your ways and change the world from what we know it to be…the One is coming who will bring us all into the Reign of God.  Hold on…get ready!

The writer of Mark’s Gospel leaves us suspended in time, waiting, rather than living through the whole story together.  Many spiritual writers call that a state of liminality, a point of being betwixt and between, the moment between what is and what will be, a place in which the old world is left behind but we’re not sure what the new one looks like just yet.  It is a point between two times that intersect and become one.  So, are you ready? Well, if you’re not, you need to get that way.  Because in this Gospel, the good news has already begun, whether we’re prepared or not.

This tone is true to the writer of the Gospel of Mark.  Throughout this Gospel, there is a sense of urgency, a sort of abruptness, that somehow compels us to get on board with it, to not tarry with things that do not matter and do not prepare us for the coming. The writer of Mark cuts to the chase:  humanity has waited and prepared itself for this for centuries.  We are reminded of that as the passage pulls in the words of Isaiah, the foretelling of that time when God would come and be among us, when God would come and save us.  Now is the time.  The Christmas celebration for all its splendor and all its beauty and all its twinkling lights is first and foremost the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation.  This IS the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The writer of Mark’s gospel sees John as the forerunner to Jesus.  Those who would repent, have their sins forgiven, and be baptized by John were those that had prepared themselves for a God who has already drawn near, already filling hearts with a Holy Spirit.  Essentially, John was providing a receptive audience for what was to come.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes the point that it is here that Advent becomes a time of self-examination.  As he says, “We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us.  We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it [stories of babies and mangers and shepherds and angels] and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.  The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience…We are no longer alone; God is with us.”

But there is another implication here.  In this Advent season, as we wait with expectant hope, we are also reminded that our expectations are limited by our own lives.  God has so much more in store that what we could ever fathom.  Maybe that’s why the writer of Mark quickly takes us to the wilderness.  You see, God will not be plunked down in the middle of the bustling city of Jerusalem.  God will not come in the way that we plan or imagine how God will come.  Rather, God will emerge in the wilderness of our lives and we will realize that God has been there all along.  We do not have to go to Jerusalem or prepare a grand entry to encounter God.  God comes to us.  We just have to be open to whatever God’s coming is.  And we have to be willing to enter a new beginning.  What we are living is not the prelude; it’s the beginning of the story.

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

b.      What concept of “waiting” does this bring about for us?

c.       What does the whole notion of “God with us” truly mean?

d.      Why is it so difficult for us to be open to God’s coming in the way that God comes?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

A dreamer is one who can find [his or her] way in the moonlight, and [whose] punishment is that [he or she] sees the dawn before the rest of the world. (Oscar Wilde)

Permit me to say without reservation that if all people were attentive, if they would undertake to be attentive every moment of their lives, they would discover the world anew.  They would suddenly see that the world is entirely different from what they had believed it to be. (Lusseyran, Jacques, 20^th century French author and political activist)

One of the saddest lines in the world is ‘O come now—be realistic.’ The best parts of this world were not fashioned by those who were realistic.  They were fashioned by those who dared to look at their wishes and gave them horses to ride. (Richard Nelson Bolles) 

Closing

 While others are making lists of things we have enough of, you come: to offer us salvation, that one gift we cannot purchase.

As the world prepares to entice us with more and more, you come: to fill our hearts with all the hopes you have dreamed about us forever.
When skepticism and fear callous our hearts, you come: to bathe us in the soothing lotion of compassion.
When stress scoops out potholes for every step we take, you come: filling the emptiness with serenity as tough as your grace.
As the clock turns faster and faster each day, you come: to swaddle us in a shawl woven with patience.
When others push past us to get to the front of worry's line, you come, so we can clasp them so close to our hopes they can hear your heartbeat…

Into the silence of chaos, your voice cried, Comfort of the Ages, your Word flinging open
the doors of goodness and beauty, the Spirit speeding over the waters to bring peace to all creation. Refusing to wait for all which you had promised to us, we made straight for death, running down the dusty road of sin. Prophets cried out to us while we were in this wilderness, but our tantrums drowned out their invitations to return to you. Since peace was your hope for us, and salvation is your steadfast gift, you sent your Child, Jesus, to become the Way for us.

So, with those who have waited in every time and place, and with those who try to lead
lives of godliness and goodness, we lift our voices filled with longing for your omforting presence: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of creation. The exiled of the world await your coming. Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is the Comfort who comes in your name. Hosanna in the highest!  Amen.

(from “Lectionary Liturgies”, Wild Goose Publications, available at http://lectionaryliturgies.blogspot.com/2011/11/second-sunday-of-advent-year-b.html, accessed 28 November, 2011.)

Advent 1B: Awake!

OLD TESTAMENT:  Isaiah 64: 1-9
In this season of Advent, we are reminded to wait and prepare for the coming of Christ.  It is a time of new hope and new birth.  And yet, these words from Isaiah sound harsh and devastating.  Has God forgotten the people?  Are the people of God too far-gone to be redeemable?  Has God given up?  But then the passage reminds us that, like clay, the people need to be molded by God into what God calls them to be.  The writer calls upon God to remember the people, to remember that they are children of God.  We are reminded how badly we need God, how desperately we need God to once again break into the darkness of our lives.

This section of Isaiah was probably not written by the actual prophet Isaiah but, rather, by a post-exilic writer that is trying to remind a struggling people that God had always been with them and would remain with them even in this time of despair.  The context in which it is set is full of hostilities.  The society is getting farther and farther away from what it is called to be.  The people have turned away.  And so, almost with a feeling of last desperation, the writer begs God to save them, to “come down” and redeem them.  There is a sense here of a removed deity, a God who is “up there”.  And yet we can identify with that feeling of God’s absence, of not being able to feel God’s Presence in our midst.  Has God deserted them? Is it, then, God’s fault that the people have turned away?

This is no different a scenario than we often experience.  We want God.  We yearn for God.  We want to be the people of God.  But often that feeling of God’s presence eludes us.  Has God deserted us?  Or have we somehow deserted God?  We want God but we want God on our own terms.  We want to somehow control the Divine and fit God into our already-formed lives.  We want to experience a Presence of God that is comfortable and familiar.

But the coming of God shatters that elusion.  God comes in ways and places that we do not expect God.  That’s what this season of Advent reminds us.  We are not called to plan for God’s coming the way we plan for our Christmas festivities.  We are, rather, called to open ourselves to the way that God will be revealed in our lives.  We, like these post-exilic people yearn desperately for God.  We beg for God to come into our lives.  And, yet, we too, are out of step.  God’s coming does not begin with light.  God’s coming begins with darkness that the light enters.  So, perhaps if we turn out all the bright lights that we insist we need, we will finally see that light that is just over the horizon.

God does not come because we are ready or because we are prepared or because we’ve gotten all our shopping done.  God comes into our waiting, into our wilderness.  So, wait with the anticipation not of how God will come but that God will.      

a.      What is your response to this passage?

b.      What gets in the way of our anticipation of God’s Presence in our lives?

c.       What does this passage say to us about waiting for God?

d.      How can this passage speak to our world today?

NEW TESTAMENT:  1 Corinthians 1: 3-9

Paul’s known letters to the people of the church at Corinth often deal with the notion of spiritual gifts.  Perhaps it was something of which they needed to be reminded.  In the first century, Corinth was a bustling city replete with wealth and material possessions.  But, obviously, that was not all they were about.  They were people of God.  God had instilled in them ample spiritual gifts for what they needed.  It is not a new theme.  We, too, have been instilled with the gifts of the Spirit.

It is a way of saying that this work of God, this Presence of God’s Spirit, has begun in us.  Like God’s vision, they are not complete.  They have to be developed.  They have to be lived out in community.  They have to be used to build up the Kingdom of God.  We still have to wait for the full revelation.  We still have to wait for the promised coming of God’s Kingdom in its fullness, but in the meantime, we have been strengthened and given the gifts that we need to live as the people of God.

Paul implores the Corinthians to wait for God but not passively.  Rather, they are called to do the work of God even as they wait for the full glory of God to come.  We, too, are called to this active waiting.  God will come when God will come.  But, in the meantime, we are already the people of God called to the work of God.  And God has equipped us for the journey.

Now keep in mind that these first-century people assumed that God was going to return any day or any minute.  The possibility that our generation would still be waiting for the fullness of God’s Kingdom would have been positively anathema to them. And as time went on, they, like those post-exilic Israelites centuries before them took matters into their own hands. Waiting is difficult for all of us though.  Our world tends to operate on instant gratification.  When we don’t get the “answer” from God that we think we need, we too tend to try to take care of things ourselves.  In fact, we admire people that “get things done,” that take hold of the situation and make things happen.  But that’s not what faith is about.  Faith is about expectation. Faith is about anticipation.  In fact, faith is about waiting.  A life of faith is one of active waiting, believing that God will come when God will come and living a life with that vision in mind, a vision of peace, and justice, and unity within the Presence of God.  But don’t wait to begin.      

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

b.      How does this passage speak to the concept of “waiting” that Advent holds?

c.       What does this notion of “active waiting” look like for us?

d.      With what spiritual gifts has God equipped our own community of faith?

GOSPEL:  Mark 13: 24-37

We begin this Year B of our Lectionary year with a reading from The Gospel According to Mark, whose writer really just sort of skips over the whole Advent / Christmas thing and cuts right to the chase. Most over-personalized readings of this Scripture leave us with a fear of what comes next. (Oh my, am I ready? What's going to happen to me?) We quickly go to visions of those who are unprepared being uncomfortably ripped from what they know or, as a series of cult fiction writings would depict it, being flat out left behind! But keep reading...this is not meant to scare us; it is meant to wake us up. Sure, it is meant to remind us that there is something coming! We do not want to miss it. But, more than that, we do not want to miss the present spiritual awakening that we are all having in this very moment.

We have skewed our understanding of Advent a bit. I think all of us know that. But, really, can you blame us? The world is so bent on being prepared for what comes next that it tends to live one season ahead at all times--the Halloween decorations go up the end of August, the Thankgiving decorations go up the end of September, and the Christmas decorations go up the end of October. The twelve days of Christmas tide, will of course, be filled with merchandise sales, a couple of unreplaced burned out Christmas lights, and and a flowering of little red hearts filled with candy to make sure we're ready for the next thing. Somewhere in there, Advent is lost. Oh, we Christians, do alright with it. We faithfully light one candle at a time while we begrudingingly ward off the singing of any Christmas carols. But Advent is not merely a season of preparation for Christmas. It is much, much more. It is from the Latin "Adventus", which means arrival or coming. It is not really meant to be only a time of shopping and checking off our "to do" list for the December 25th festival. Rather, Advent is our awakening to the realization that the Divine is even now spilling into our lives, even now a new humanity is being birthed, and even now all of Creation is being reformed and recreated.

And here’s a thought…all of those questions that we each ask ourselves when we read this passage (you know, like “what’s going to happen to me?”)…well, it’s not about us.  This passage is about seeing something beyond ourselves, about seeing something bigger than us or the little lives that we have so carefully carved out for ourselves.  It’s about waking up to the realization that God is bigger than we imagine.

We cannot live one season ahead. God will come when God will come. The full revealing of what God has in store is yet to be. But this season of Advent, this season of waiting, awakens us that we might see that it has already started to be. The feast has yet to be set but the dancing has begun. All we have to do is learn to stay awake.

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

b.      How does this passage speak to us in our world today?

c.       So what does this concept of “staying awake” mean to you?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

One needs to keep on thirsting because life grows and enlarges.  It has no end; it goes on and on; it becomes more beautiful… [One] cannot be satisfied until [one] ever thirsts for God. (Alexander Baillie)

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. (Gandhi, Mahatma)

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn. (Henry David Thoreau) 

Closing

Our God is the One who comes to us in a burning bush, in an angel’s song, in a newborn child.  Our God is the One who cannot be found locked in the church, not even in the sanctuary.  Our God will be where God will be with no constraints, no predictability.  Our God lives where our God lives, and destruction has no power and even death cannot stop the living.  Our God will be born where God will be born, but there is no place to look for the One who comes to us.  When God is ready God will come even to a godforsaken place like a stable in Bethlehem.  Watch…for you know not when God comes.  Watch, that you might be found whenever, wherever God comes. Amen.

(Ann Weems, “The Coming of God”, Kneeling in Bethlehem, p. 13.)

Christ the King A: Becoming the Body of Christ

Christ Pantocrator mosaic
Daphni, Greece (ca. 1080-1100)

OLD TESTAMENT:  Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24

The oracles of Ezekiel are often downright alarming to us.  The writer’s understanding of God often seems to us to depict a powerful and sometimes scary Holy One upon a high and mighty throne that judges and hands out punishment because of the sins of the people, so a little history would probably help us out a little.  First of all, the prophet Ezekiel was probably part of the group of those who were deported from Jerusalem to Babylon in the year 597 BCE.  So his ministry was to those who were in exile with him.  He used visions to give them hope, to remind them that God was present even in the exile with them.  But he also proclaimed that the loss of the temple and the exile was the people’s fault, rather than God’s, that the circumstances in which they now found themselves were consequences of what they had done and how they had acted.  They had heard God but had not taken God’s Word seriously.  He condemned the leaders for being irresponsible shepherds of the people and for their lack of justice toward those in their care.

So, this reading focuses on restoration.  Using the image of the shepherd, the writer depicts God as the One who will take over and rescue the sheep.  It depicts a Great Gathering.  God as the Shepherd seeks each one out and brings them to good pasture, green and lush and plenty.  The metaphor of the shepherd is a common one in the ancient Near East.  It is a metaphor not of passivity or weakness, but of a power defined by justice and compassion, which is why this reading works well for our Christ the King readings.  After the promise of new leadership, God promises a new covenant of peace.

If you read it, though, this is not necessarily an indictment but rather a condemning of the behavior of the unjust leaders (and possibly of the people themselves for following those who were not good and just!)  So God will step in.  In other words, hope is never lost.  We read the words “I will save my flock.”  There is talk of judgment, of justification, but over and above, God saves.  This is not carrying any of those so-called “hellfire and brimstone” images but rather the image of One who dispenses justice and discipline. This is not, contrary to what some would think, a God of wrath but, rather, a God of Righteousness, a God of Justice, a God of Light, lighting the way for those in darkness and shining a light on those who inflict the darkness.  But when it is all said and done, God will transform all into the flock of this righteous and just Shepherd, where they will be fed and nurtured, and live in peace.  It is the vision of the Peaceable Kingdom.  It is the vision of God.

We read this as part of our Christ the King Lection because it is a different view of the King.  The King is a Shepherd (and the Shepherd is a King).  This is not a King who rules in wrath and dispenses punishment but rather a King who rules in righteousness and dispenses justice.  And, more than that, this is a God who seeks and searches until the flock is found.  And when God starts dividing the flock, it’s not into “good and bad”, “right and wrong”, “us and them”.  Rather, it is bringing strength to the weak, healing to the injured, and “foundness” to the lost.  Any division that happens is so that God’s grace can permeate and save us all.       

a.      What is your response to this passage?

b.      What is it about some of these visions that bother us so much?

c.       What image of the Peaceable Kingdom does this passage depict?

d.      Why do we insist on dividing God’s Kingdom into “us” and “them”?

NEW TESTAMENT:  Ephesians 1: 15-23

Most scholars agree that Ephesians is considered what you could call a “Deutero-Pauline” work, implying that it is “second” or “secondary”.  (This would also refer to 2 Thessalonians and Colossians).  These letters were probably written in the 70’s or 80’s.  Paul more than likely died around 60, sometime around Nero’s reign.  So, rather than being written by Paul himself, Ephesians was more than likely written by a follower of Paul, using the format and even the style that Paul employed in his letters.  This is not plagiarism.  In that society, placing someone else’s name on a work was considered the highest form of compliment.

The main purpose of Ephesians, probably written to a Gentile audience, seems to be to remind the believers of their communal identity in their new status in Christ and to urge them to walk in ways that demonstrate this communal identity and unity.  (When you think of it, this idea of “community” would probably have been more difficult for Gentiles to grasp than for the Jews of that time, who had a sense of community embedded in their very being.)  The church here is understood as a Body of Christ that is exalted, which resonates with our understanding of the community of saints here and forever.

In this week’s reading (which is actually made up of four run-on sentences for all you English writing aficionados!), the writer describes Christ’s Reign as having by established by God’s power in the work, death, Resurrection, and spirit of Christ.  It is not a matter of placing Christ as King over other Kings.  This is not some calculated hierarchy of authority.  Rather, Christ is King…Period.  There is no other.  And this Reign of Christ IS the fullness of the Kingdom of God, when peace and justice and righteousness will finally be securely in place.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that “nothing is lost…everything is taken up in Christ, rid of evil, and remade.  Christ restores all this as God originally intended to be—without the distortion resulting from our sins.”  (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, as quoted by Jennifer M. McBride in Feasting on the Word.)  

In verse 18, “the riches of the glorious inheritance of the saints” refers to that inheritance that is extended through Christ who God raised from the dead, caused to sit in “heavenly places”, and gave authority over all things.  We are part of this inheritance.  But the reading does not end with the Kingship of Christ as one that is removed from us or one that is “out there” for us to inherit.  The reading instead closes with a reference to the church as the Body of Christ that is triumphant in all things, the point of eschatological fulfillment.  In other words, the Body of Christ is us.

There’s this huge poster way up on the wall of one of the meeting rooms at Lakeview, our Texas Conference assembly and retreat center.  If you look at it closely, you saw all these wonderful different pictures of people in ministry, doing what God called them to do.  But if you step back far enough, you realize that together the pictures form a silhouetted image of Jesus.  The point is that it takes all the pictures finally coming into being, coming into focus, and fitting with each other the way a jigsaw puzzle does, to realize that image of Christ, that Vision of God.

In this week when we celebrate the Reign of Christ, we are given a tiny glimpse of that vision that will be.  But unlike earthly kings and queens that we crown and just sit back to see what they do, the crowning of Christ as King comes one picture at a time.  What picture is yours?  What part of this vision has God called you by name to bring?  What were you created to be?

a.      What message does this reading hold for you?

b.      What image of the Reign of Christ does this reading give you?

c.       What does it mean for you to have this “inheritance”?

d.      So, what does it mean for us to BE the Body of Christ?

e.      What part of this vision is ours to build?

GOSPEL:  Matthew 25: 31-46

This passage probably makes all of us a little uncomfortable.  We’ve gotten to know this welcoming, nurturing Jesus and here, just before we read of the conspiracy to arrest Jesus in the next chapter, just before the beginning of the end, we get this.  First, we get a depiction of the Son of Man coming in all his glory.  It reflects the imagery of Daniel (7:13-14) and foretells the coming judgment.  The image seems to be a little scary.  From the throne, the King uses his authority to separate individuals like sheep and goats.  And we are told that the sheep will inherit the kingdom.  So what happens to the goats?

The issues of the final judgment and the establishment of God’s Reign were of paramount importance to the writer of Matthew’s version of the Gospel.  (So keep in mind that it’s not clear if these things were on the top of Jesus’ list!  In fact, there are some theologians that think that this prophetic writing was added to the end of the string of parables that came before it.)  I mean, think of all the ways that Jesus talked about salvation and the Kingdom.  None of them included a list of who was “in” and who was “out”.  Jesus seemed to be more concerned with showing everyone the way home.

The judgment is not based merely on doing the right thing.  In fact, both those who had done what was good and honorable and those who had not actually had the same response.  (When was that, Lord?)  That’s pretty cool.  Those who were doing the “right things” still had doubts, still had questions, still walked in faith.  But they loved their neighbor.  It was an authentic outpouring of the love of God.  Apparently, that’s what it’s all about.

But this is not a checklist of things to do so that you can go to heaven or whatever your vision of eternal life is.  This is depicting a way of living, a way of being.  This is depicting the Kingdom of God.  And getting signed on to the sheep team is not about us.  It is about loving our neighbor.  It is about being Christ in the world.  It is easy to read this and look upon salvation as something that we achieve.  But salvation is discovered (and sometimes in ways that we do not expect.)  And perhaps this writing is nothing more than a reminder of what it means to walk in the Way of Christ.  It means to love God and love neighbor.  The two cannot be separated.  As Christians (and as good Methodists), we usually default on the side of grace.  So, again, what happens to the goats?

About a week or so ago, NPR’s “Fresh Air” broadcast had an interview with Mark Derr, a naturalist who recently wrote How the Dog Became the Dog—From Wolves to our Best Friends.  In his book, Derr explores how the relationship between humans and wolves developed, and how that relationship then influenced the physical evolution of wolves into dogs.  He says that he believes that humans and wolves developed a close relationship after recognizing themselves in each other while hunting.  So, he surmises, the dog is a creation of wolves and humans—of two equal beings that came together at a certain point in history and have been together ever since.  As time went on, the physical features of the wolf began to change.  It’s skeletal frame became smaller and its jaw shortened.  In essence, the wolf became a dog by becoming a little more like its human companions.  So, maybe we’re all a bunch of goats.  Maybe the point is to become a sheep by taking on more human characteristics, by following in the way of the one who was fully human and fully divine.

We stand in a threshold between two times.  The Kingdom of God has both already and not yet begun.  We are given glimpses of what will be, but there is still much work to be done.  In Creation, God gave the gift of the very essence of God.  God spoke Creation into being and called we humans to be the very image of the Godself, full of love and compassion and righteousness and a hunger for justice and peace.  In Feasting on the Word, Lindsay P. Armstrong depicts this passage as a “wellness check and possibly even a warning to those living in unhealthy, self-centered ways.”  He says that “we may not like warnings or wellness checks; after all, they ask us to recalibrate our lives.  However, they provide a critical wellness overview that we are wise to tend, particularly since heart trouble plagues us all.”

We do not do what we do as Christians to gain salvation.  Being Christian means loving God and loving neighbor.  It means being who God meant for you to be, the very image of the Godself, in the deepest part of your being.  It means becoming a sheep and realizing that it’s about more than you and all the other goats on your team.  It’s about the Shepherd; it’s about following Christ; it’s about being the Body of Christ in the world.

This week’s Gospel passage depicts what it means to live into the fullness of this glory—feeding where there is hunger, bringing water where there is thirst, providing clothing, and help, and companionship to those in need, and welcoming every stranger into our midst.  It is that ever widening circle bringing everyone into the center and it gives us that sacramental vision to which we are called—“when justice shall roll down like waters and righteous like an ever-flowing stream, when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”  Rosabeth Kanter said that “a vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.”  

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

b.      What is so bothersome about this passage?

c.       How would we fare in our “wellness check”?

d.      What depiction does this provide for us of that Peaceable Kingdom?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

The marvelous vision of the peaceable Kingdom, in which all violence has been overcome and all men, women, and children live in loving unity with nature, calls for its realization in our day-to-day lives. Instead of being an escapist dream, it challenges us to anticipate what it promises. Every time we forgive our neighbor, every time we make a child smile, every time we show compassion to a suffering person, every time we arrange a bouquet of flowers, offer care to tame or wild animals, prevent pollution, create beauty in our homes and gardens, and work for peace and justice among peoples and nations we are making the vision come true. (Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey)

Jesus didn't come to make us Christian; Jesus came to make us fully human. (Hans Rookmaaker)

The future enters into us in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.  (Rainer Maria Rilke) 

Closing

To your table you bid us come.  You have set the places, you have poured the wine, and there is always room, you say, for one more.  And so we come. 

From the streets and from the alleys we come. 

From the deserts and from the hills we come. 

From the ravages of poverty and from the palaces of privilege we come. 

Running, limping, carried, we come. 

We are bloodied with our wars, we are wearied with our wounds, we carry our dead within us, and we reckon with their ghosts. 

We hold the seeds of healing, we dream of a new creation, we know the things that make for peace, and we struggle to give them wings. 

And yet, to your table, we come. 

Hungering for your bread, we come;

thirsting for your wine, we come;

singing your song in every language, speaking your name in every tongue, in conflict and in communion, in discord and in desire, we come.

O God of Wisdom, we come.  Amen.

                                                                        (Jan L. Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path, # 129)

Proper 28A, Ordinary 33A: Response

OLD TESTAMENT:  Judges 4: 1-7

The Book of Judges portrays a major transition in the Biblical history of Israel.  Prior to this, Israel was under the leadership of Moses in the wilderness and then Joshua in the conquest of the land in Canaan.  After the Book of Judges, Israel was ruled by kings, beginning with Saul, David, and Solomon.  This is the time in between, a time of twelve warrior rulers, called judges, who led Israel for brief periods in times of military emergency.  Most scholars think that many of these passages do not represent true accounts but have rather been reshaped and edited (redacted) and so cannot be necessarily reconstructed into a succinct historical account.

"Deborah Beneath the Palm Tree"
(James Jacques Joseph Tissot,
c. 1896-1902), now housed at
the Jewish Museum, N.Y. City, NY

This passage begins with the first phase of the story of the beginning of the decline of Israel and the decline in the effectiveness of the individual rulers.  The repeating pattern throughout judges is present here: (1) The Israelites do evil, (2) The Lord turns them over to their enemy, (3) Israel cries out to the Lord, and (4) The Lord raises up a new judge who delivers them (for a period of time).  We are not really clear here who the actual judge is.  The three characters here are Deborah, who is a female prophetess who acts as a sort of arbitrating judge, Barak, a military general, and Jael, a non-Israelite woman who kills the enemy Canaanite general Sisera when he comes to her tent for refuge.  The Jewish legends depict Sisera as a giant of a man who could destroy the walls of an enemy’s city with a single shout.  In some ways, it is another “David and Goliath” story.  Enter Deborah…sitting under her palm tree proclaiming words of wisdom, she calls Barak, an experienced military general (but probably nothing like the great Sisera!).  And she calls him to go against this great army. 

Interestingly enough, the Book of Judges contains the largest number of female characters of any book in the Bible—nineteen in all.  But Deborah is probably looked upon as at least one of the most influential female leaders in the Old Testament if not in the whole Bible.  It is actually a little unclear whether the “wife of Lappidoth” reference was referring to the name of her husband or if it means that she was “fiery” or “spirited”.  It could be either.  Regardless, though, nothing is said about her husband if there was one.  So Deborah is depicted as strong and level-headed, a true leader who advised generals and led troops into battle.  In a day when woman were considered property or chattle, when women did not speak and it was assumed they had nothing to say, when women were only there to produce children and heirs, Deborah stepped forward and led.

Deborah is often depicted as sitting under a palm—just sitting.  Perhaps that is as powerful a statement as the fact that she advised generals and led troops into battle.  Maybe that was her way of centering, of filling her life with much-needed peace.  Maybe sitting was the way she gained inner strength to do what needed to be done.  Maybe she was in prayer.  It doesn’t really say.  She just sat. 

I don’t think that this story is meant to compel us to focus on one hero.  After all, Deborah called Barak to lead and he led armies defending Israel against Sisera’s troops.  And Jael drove the peg into Sisera’s temple.  They all worked together.  This passage shows that God can work through even complex power systems with multiple leaders.  God does not command one system or structure.  God’s grace is always at work.  So, if you’re looking for a hero, maybe God is the one.

We don’t read it as part of this lection, but Judges 5 includes what we call the “Song of Deborah”.  It is a song of remembrance of what God had done through these rather unlikely people, a reminder that things don’t always go as expected, and a reminder that violence is never the ending.  Violence is still part of us today.  Surely God does not call us to violence.  Is there a way to use it for good? 

a.      What is your response to this passage?

b.      How do you see God at work in this passage?

c.       In what ways do you see God at work in the midst of our own social and political circumstances?

d.      What significance does the depiction of Deborah “just sitting” mean for you?

e.      Do you think that it is ever possible to use violence for good, to turn it around into something else?

NEW TESTAMENT:  1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11

The Thessalonian letters are witnesses to the church’s struggle with the sufferings of its members, due to separation from leaders, alienation from friends and family, and threats of persecution and even death.  The passage that we read speaks, obviously, of the coming “Day of the Lord”.  Here, Paul claims that on this Day of the Lord, God will separate the believers from the unbelievers and for this reason, the believers can celebrate even now.  But Paul continues to claim that the full consummation of the new age has not occurred and that, for this reason, believers must continue to be vigilante in the faith.

I don’t think that this is as much a “hold on, Friday’s coming”, as it is a reminder to not let the mire of difficulties and defeat get in the way of one’s true calling—the pursuit of holiness.  In fact, rather than letting them get you down, perhaps they are part of that journey itself.  And on that journey, we are called to encourage each other and help each other.  After all, we are “children of the light”.

Much of this same imagery has been used in songs (such as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”) and in a lot of slave songs, describing a future hope even in the face of darkness and persecution.  The images here are apocalyptic.  They are visions and revelations that remind us that our future is secure in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  The future coming of the Lord is not something to be feared.  It is now.  Rather than living in fear of what is to come, we are called to live in hopeful expectation for the glorious Kingdom that is breaking into our lives even as we speak.  The “Day of the Lord” is now.  Paul is not holding out something in the future but is instead trying to depict what a life pursuing holiness really looks like.

In Feasting on the Word, John E. Cole says that Jurgen Moltmann “declares that the coming of God should make believers “impatient” with the way the world is today.”  That’s probably what Paul was trying to depict.  He was not trying to scare people into repentance (in spite of what some modern-day tele-evangelists declare!); rather, he was trying to get them to see a different way and want it so badly, hold to it so tightly in hopeful expectation, that they could do nothing else but live into it, that they could do nothing else but walk in holiness. 

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

b.      Why are these images sometimes uncomfortable for us?

c.       What changes when you look upon them as “hopeful expectation” rather than fear?

d.      What would it mean for us to want God’s vision to come to fulfillment so badly that we could do nothing else?

GOSPEL:  Matthew 25: 14-30

The passage that we read is the familiar “Parable of the Talents.”  Here, though, a “talent” is a monetary unit.  Yes, my friends, here Jesus is talking about money.  Did you know that if we took all of Jesus’ teachings about money out of the Gospels, we would reduce them by more than one third?  Did you know that sixteen of the thirty-eight parables attributed to Jesus are about money?  Did you know that one of every seven verses in the first three Gospels in some way deals with money?  In fact, Jesus spoke more often about money than about any other subject except the Kingdom of God itself?  Now, my take on this is not that money is more important than other things.  My take on it is that even in first-century society, money and people’s view of money was a problem—not because it’s bad or evil, but because it is so easy for we humans to fall into the trap of letting it reshape our lives into something that it’s not supposed to be, allowing it to rise to the top of our view, clouding our judgment, getting in the way of how we see each other, and somehow convincing ourselves that there is never enough to go around.

And in this parable, Jesus reminds us that, whether or not we receive equal shares of Creation’s bounty, God entrusts all of the resources that we have at our disposal to us.  And, as stewards of these resources, we are called not to hoard them, not to let a fear of scarcity dig holes in our lives that we attempt to fill with material things, and not to let what we have deflect from the light we have been shown, pushing us out into the darkness.  We are, rather, called to a life of abundance, recognizing that everything that we have comes from God and is given to us to use in the building of the Kingdom of God.

But if we don’t talk about money, how will we know that?   Jesus knew this and he knew the difficulties that we have.  He knew that money and, specifically, the lack thereof, scares us.  But he also knew that if we lose perspective of our money as a God-given resource, as a God-shared part of Creation, as a God-entrusted tool that we are called to use to build the Kingdom brick by brick, talent by talent, and dollar by dollar, we would lose that image of the one that God is calling us to be.

How much more applicable could a passage be for us today?  We live in a world riddled with misuse of resources, saturated with greed, and filled with fear of what our economic future holds.  You don’t have to go any farther than the front page of the paper, your living room, or access to the internet to see how bad it is.  Apparently, what we need is a hero, of sorts.  (Where is that wise woman sitting under the palm tree when you need her?)  The truth is that the world around us probably makes this parable even more uncomfortable for us.  Well, it has often been said that if a parable does not make you a little uncomfortable, you have probably not gotten its point.  Several years ago at the height of our country’s economic collapse, CNN’s Anderson Cooper did a breakdown of the “top ten culprits of the collapse”—according to him the blame went to Congress, the White House, the banks, Goldman Sachs, Wall Street…I don’t know, I don’t remember the order.  The point is, it’s not important. Because, in case you missed it, the number one culprit in Anderson Cooper’s countdown was you; in other words, it was all of us.  And that third servant in the parable?  That’s the one that hits a little too close to home.  Thinking our voices too weak and our offering too meager, we are often guilty of burying those things that God has provided us.  We are guilty of being afraid to use what God has given us.  We instead hold onto what we think is “ours” a little too tightly until we literally suck the life out of it.

We do forget that everything that we have was God’s first and will be God’s when it is all said and done.  In that respect, we are middle managers, stewards of that which is God’s.  And the question then becomes, how do we as good managers invest God’s resources?  How do we use our time, our talents, and our money?  What do we do with those things with which God has entrusted us to further God’s kingdom?  That is the whole reason why we have been entrusted to be stewards of these things.  God knows that we are capable of getting it right, even if we haven’t yet convinced ourselves.  God has given us resources beyond what we can count; indeed we are dealing in what could be termed heroic measures and all we’ve been asked to do is to be who God calls us to be.

John Westerhoff defines stewardship as “nothing less than a complete life-style, a total accountability and responsibility before God.  Stewardship [he says] is what we do after we say we believe, that is, after we give our love, loyalty, and trust to God, from whom each and every aspect of our lives comes as a gift.  As members of God’s household, we are subject to God’s economy or stewardship, that is, God’s plan to reconcile the whole world and bring creation to its proper end.” (John H. Westerhoff, III, Building God’s People in a Materialistic Society (New York:  Seabury Press, 1983), 23, (as quoted by Ronald E. Vallet, Stepping Stones of the Steward (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing, 1989), 2)  

So, being good managers of God’s economy means that all that God has given us is ours to use.  It means that everything that we are should be used for God’s glory—our prayers, our presence, our monetary gifts, and our time and talents—all are used as witnesses to who God is and what God is doing in the world.  Giving back of those resources, then, is something that we are indeed called to do.  But it is more than that.  It is an act of faith.  It is the way that we prayerfully and faithfully offer ourselves to God.  It is the way that we participate in the building of the Kingdom of God.  So, what part of the Kingdom is ours to build?  There…whatever you see is the part that is yours to build.  Martin Luther said that “I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all.  But whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”

But, obviously, there is something here than money, something more than gifts.  The point is that everything is of God.  We are of God.  We are called to offer ourselves to God.  Our lives are lives of holiness.  What is God calling us to do?

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

b.      Why are we so uncomfortable talking about money, especially in church?

c.       What message does this hold for our society in light of our current economic times?

d.      How are we called to “invest” God’s resources?

e.      What part of God’s Kingdom is yours to build?

f.        How does this passage speak to that “hopeful expectation” that we talked about before?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

Every noble life leaves its fiber interwoven forever in the work of the world.  (John Ruskin)

Try, with God's help, to perceive the connection—even physical and natural—which binds your labor with the building of the Kingdom of Heaven;  try to realize that heaven itself smiles upon you and, through your works, draws you to itself; then, as you leave church for the noisy streets, you will remain with only one feeling, that of continuing to immerse yourself in God.  (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive.  (Dorothee Soelle) 

Closing

Behold a broken world, we pray, where want and war increase, and grant us, Lord, in this our day, the ancient dream of peace.

A dream of swords to sickles bent, of spears to scythe and space, the weapons of our warfare spent, a world of peace remade.

Bring, Lord, your better world to birth, your kingdom, love’s domain, where peace with God, and peace on earth, and peace eternal reign.  Amen.

                                    (Timothy Dudley-Smith, The United Methodist Hymnal, # 426)