Paula Stoltzfus: A LIGHT for all

Epiphany Sunday: “Light”

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Matthew 2:1-12

Watch the video:

...or listen to audio:

...or download a printer-friendly PDF file: click here

...or read it online here:

A Light for All

In my twenties I assisted a number of trips with EMU’s wilderness seminar in the mountains of West Virginia.  One of the memories of those trips was peering up at the diamond speckled sky on the clear cold nights.  I could easily get a stiff neck just from looking up so long.

I know some of the basic constellations like the big and little dipper, which isn’t much in the world of constellations.  If one knows the stars well enough to point out the north star, one can get oriented in direction and place. Mostly I’m in awe of a clear night sky.

When our oldest son was 13, we took a road trip, during which one stop was to see my brother and sister in law who were living in the western part of NY at the time.  We were talking about shooting stars together, in which Justin exclaimed from his 13-year-old experience, that he thought shooting stars were a “scam.”  He had never seen one before and thought they were just a figment of the viewers imagination.  The rest of us, having witnessed a shooting star at some time in our lives, were trying to convince him through our stories that shooting stars were real.  We gave scientific explanations of what caused the light to shoot in the sky.  We weren’t convincing enough.

It happened to be a clear crisp night outside when we were talking about this, so we all looked up, deciding to look in the sky for a while and enjoy the stars we could see.  Soon after peering up, not one, but two shooting stars shot through the sky.  Shooting stars were no longer a scam!

Sometimes it is the case that we don’t believe it until we see it.

*******************

The wise men in our Matthew passage this morning seem to have seen a great star and did believe.

The wise men, also called Magi, were not of Jewish decent. From what we know they were from the east, beyond that scholars speculate as from exactly which part of the east.  They were known to be very wise, astrologers, interpreting dreams, and some may have predicted the future based off both.  Point being, they would have known the sky, and the stars well. 

The star that announced Jesus’ birth must have been a star like none other.  It caused this curious group of people to be on the move to discover what this star was all about.  

The wise men in Matthew are pointed as fulfilling verse 3 of chapter 60 in our Isaiah passage, that nations, indicating other than Israelites, will also come and acknowledge God’s light. 

The context of Isaiah 60 is of a time at the end of the Israelite exile from Jerusalem. They were moving back into the war torn desolate city.  When Isaiah 60 is read apart from the surrounding passages it sounds like a hopeful time.  But within the context of the preceding chapters which are characterized by gloom and despair  with a call to repentance, chapter 60 is an abrupt change to announce that “the light has come and the glory of the Lord is present” regardless of what the evidence was in front of them.

It’s like living in a deep depression and someone saying there is hope for a better tomorrow.  

Or like an immigrant family at the border seeking refuge from deep seeded systemic violence in their homeland met with a hostility and closed doors.  Then someone saying, there is hope for a better tomorrow. 

Or like an addict that has relapsed, breaking trust and relationships around them, and someone saying, there is hope for a better tomorrow.

Sometimes it is the case that we don’t believe it until we see it.  So the words of a hope for a better tomorrow can feel hollow.

For the Israelites, the significance of this announcement was that even in the midst of darkness and despair, that God was still present.  God’s presence wasn’t in the things around them.  For if that were the case, God would have appeared defeated.  No, God was shining in spite of the devastation and destruction, in spite of the despair, in spite of the appearance of no way forward.  God’s light was presence.

This is a different kind of hope.  Not a hope of what will come, but what is now.  God is in the darkness, in the hopelessness, and in the despair through God’s presence.  God with us, not God with us when we get our city rebuilt or our act together.

*****************

It is curious that the wise men knew that this new birth was the “king of the Jews.” I can only imagine that they were seekers, on a quest to discover the significance of this star.  Perhaps they knew enough about the Jewish faith that they were aware they were awaiting a king to emerge.  Or maybe they inquired with community folk or shepherds along their journey and discovered the significance of this baby’s birth, hearing he was to be the king of the Jews.  

However they discovered the significance of Jesus’ birth, they didn’t seem to clue in right away on the threat this may pose on Herod, the political leader of the area.  There was no google to seek out direction.  They had to go where information was held to find where they could locate this significant person.

Herod, perceiving the possible threat of a rising king of the Jews, elicited information from the Jewish scribes and priests, to tell him more.  And so we see Jesus’ birth become a threat from the beginning to the powers that be.

Power is a funny thing.  It can be addicting. The more one has the more one wants.  When there is a perceived threat, the temptation is to coerce, deceive, and expend others at all costs in order to maintain control.  An appetite for power can lead one to do immeasurable harm.  Herod, as a result of hearing about this kings birth, ordered the death of all the children 2 years and younger in Bethlehem causing Mary and Joseph to find refuge in Egypt with baby Jesus.

We the church like to think of ourselves as in the world but not of it because our allegiance is to God and not to humans.  But we fall to the same temptations in our use of power.  We are tempted to use our power to set rules to preserve order and uphold righteous living. This semblance of order maintains who is in and who is out, who is faithful and who is not.  It is predictable, neat, and tidy.

Now order and righteous living are not bad in and of themselves, but if their ideals are used to dominate instead of serve, silence instead of give voice, hold one in place instead of empower, hoard rather than give, then we are operating in the worldly kind of power and not the empowering relationship that God exemplified through Jesus’ faith and life, which was anything but neat and tidy.

*******************

In Isaiah, God came despite the plight of the Israelites.  God’s coming in glory was unconditional, not conditional on making it right.  

Repentance, mending of ways, and living out of justice is a response to God’s coming, not a requirement to be in God’s glory.  It is a message to draw people from all people groups, backgrounds, lifestyle, mindset, religion, into God’s light, not exclude them from it.

In Matthew, the only gospel that includes the Magi, seems to want to communicate this same message. God’s coming is for all, not just a select few. God reached out and spoke their language and they noticed.  God reached beyond the “insiders” in order that all nations may come to know the light of Christ.

*********************

We live by different calendars.  The new liturgical calendar began in Advent.  We now experience our new calendar year when the culture around us is steeped in new years resolutions.  Whether you find that practice helpful or not we are always in a moment of remembrance and new beginnings.

The Magi were well versed in reading the stars. They spent time studying and learning about them.  God reached out and spoke in a language they knew and they took notice.  

What language are you present with?  The seasons, art, music, silence, social justice, caring for others, the written or spoken word, interacting with people?  

What draws your attention?  What do you wonder? What stirs you up or generates a holy anger or passion?  What might God’s invitation be for you in this moment and time to notice?

I don’t ask these questions with the intent that you will have an answer to them, simply to get you pondering.

Communion is a time to recommit, reconnect, remember, and re-orient us to God’s light.  Appropriate for the new year, but more importantly, appropriate as we consider that God’s presence, God’s glory is right here and right now, no matter where you consider yourself on this journey of faith. 

God reaches out to the nations, to you and to me, and says, “No matter what the reality of life may be, my light has come for you.  Repent from being lured into the power of the world.   My light will overshadow your darkness.  My presence will be with you.  As you dwell in my love, my light will be made brighter in you. As you bask in my grace, my light will be made brighter in you.  And as you are filled with my Spirit, be empowered to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly as you interact with your friends and enemies. For I am with you always.”

AMEN





Communion:

Blessed are you, bountiful God,

for you made the fruit of the vine to nourish us;

you gave us this cup as a sign of your blood.

Let our sharing be a taste of the wine we shall drink

in your joyful feast. Amen.



Let us now drink the cup together.

[To leave a comment, click on "comments" link below and write your comment in the box. When finished, click on "Other" as your identity, and type in your real name. Then click "Publish your comment."]

Phil Kniss: Love and revolution

Advent 4: “LOVE: Blessing and restoration”
Luke 1:39-45

Watch the video:

...or listen to audio:

...or download a printer-friendly PDF file: click here

...or read it online here:

Fourth Sunday of Advent—Love Sunday.
Wait! Isn’t every Sunday Love Sunday?
I think we rarely, if ever,
get through any Sunday worship service,
without specifically naming and appreciating, the love of God.
As it should be.

Love is central to who God is…
Love is one word, and I think the only word,
that scriptures actually say defines God.

Yes, there are many different adjectives that describe God in scripture.
The Lord is righteous, is just, is compassionate,
is merciful, is patient, etc.
And there are many different titles attributed to God.
The Lord is the Creator, the Ruler, the Judge,
the Provider, and lots more.
But if I’m not mistaken, correct me if I’m wrong,
Love is the only noun, the only concept by which God is defined.
God...is...love.
It says it in exactly those words, multiple times.
Not just God is loving. That’s a description.
Not just God is a lover. That’s a title.
But God is love. That a definition.

So if love is so essential to understanding who God is,
and we talk about the love of God every time we worship,
then in a way, it’s a little odd
that we designate one Sunday out of four,
in this one season out of many,
as a Sunday to think about love.

So don’t expect me, in this sermon,
to say something entirely new or novel about love.
But I do hope to challenge us anew,
to help us think more deeply, more clearly,
and maybe from a fresh angle,
about the love of God, as demonstrated in Jesus Christ.
_____________________

One other preliminary observation . . .
We didn’t really set out to do this as we planned our Advent series,
but every Sunday in Advent, in every sermon,
we have lifted up the word for the week—
hope, peace, joy, and now love—
and made a direct connection between that word, and justice.
Justice is like a thread that has wound its way through this series.

On Hope Sunday,
I said how Jeremiah, and Jesus, and the mad farmer Wendell Berry
all saw, against all evidence to the contrary,
that the God of justice was coming to set things right again.

On Peace Sunday,
we examined Isaiah’s vision of the mountains being brought down,
and the valleys raised, so that the God of Justice
could come in without hindrance, and set things right.
And we heard justice in the preaching of John the Baptist,
and the song of Zechariah.

Then last week, on Joy Sunday, Moriah perhaps most explicitly
named the relationship of joy to justice.
Even her sermon title, Just Joy, made that clear connection,
and called us to do the same,
with our actions as well as words.

Well, today I want us to understand how the love of God,
is an expression of God’s promise
to turn our world order upside down and bring about justice.

And much of it comes down to Mary’s song of revolution—
a song we like to soften by giving it a lofty Latin name,
the Magnificat.
I guess it helps us keep our mind off
the disturbing, revolutionary aspect of this song,
and focus on sweet Mary magnifying the Lord,
with her humble words of praise and adoration.

But the Magnificat is anything but a sweet song.
It ought to elicit strong reactions, from everyone,
like any call to revolution would.

The Magnificat is a prediction
that the entire social order as we know it will be undone.
Will be turned on its head.

It is more than strange, don’t you think, that this song
has been written into the greatest musical compositions,
and sung in the world’s largest cathedrals,
and performed by the world’s most elite choirs,
and in the audience, applauding loudly,
have been members of royalty, the military elite,
and giants of global wealth and industry?
I guess they just don’t pay attention to the words.
The song is all about God humiliating the rich and powerful,
tearing them down from their thrones,
and sending them away empty-handed.
And putting the poor and lowly in their place instead.

This song has been set to music
by Bach, Bruckner, Vivaldi, Rachmaninoff,
and is performed frequently during the holiday season.
And, every time an Anglican or Episcopal church
holds an Evensong service,
this song about social and economic revolution is reverently sung.
Every time.
Every high-church evening vespers—Catholic, Lutheran, and more—
incorporates Mary’s song in the prescribed liturgy:
“My soul magnifies the Lord . . .
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
[God] has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.”

How many sitting U.S. presidents,
or pompous politicians or greedy Wall Street barons,
have gone to an evening service in any high church,
and were so oblivious they weren’t even offended?
The irony in that is almost beyond belief.

This song describes a world that doesn’t yet exist,
and would never exist,
if those in power, had any say in the matter.
_____________________

So what does it have to do with love?
What’s love got to do with it?

It’s not hard to find love in this song . . . if you are Mary,
or if you can put yourself in Mary’s shoes.

Mary, the unwed teenager, engaged to a carpenter,
is called to be the host for God,
and is now, obviously . . . and scandalously . . . pregnant.
Mary had always lived under the radar in her quiet hometown.
An unremarkable person,
with no wealth or power or legal standing,
in a small town,
in a little country,
under military occupation.

And here they are in Bethlehem,
sneaking around hoping for an out-of-the-way place
to deliver a baby, where it wouldn’t draw attention,
and add to the scandal.

I guess you realize the Bible never mentions an innkeeper.
We don’t know that they were sent out back to the barn.
That part is only legend.
The Bible doesn’t even say all the inns were full.
It only says, and I quote, “there was no place for them in the inn.”
That phrase could also be read to mean,
“the inn was no place for them.”
Sure, maybe all the rooms were booked.
But maybe an unmarried couple about to have a baby in public
knew that a bustling inn was “no place”
for them to quietly do what they had to do.
Maybe they never even knocked on any doors.
Maybe, on their own accord,
they were scouting around for any safe and quiet place.
A livestock barn would have been perfect.

The fact that Joseph even brought Mary along, says a lot.
Joseph had to pay the tax, not Mary.
He didn’t have to put her at this kind of risk.
But leaving her home alone in Nazareth was not safe, either—
living in shame and social isolation, about to give birth.

Not safe at home, not safe on the move.
If you want to get close to the real human experience here,
forget every picturesque manger scene
you’ve ever laid your eyes on.
Nostalgia is well and good.
But those pictures are entirely made up,
by people who don’t want an uncomfortable Christmas story.

Picture instead,
one of many hundreds of families at our southern border—
the families Moriah was talking about last Sunday.
Picture a family at the mercy of total strangers,
on the move because they have no better, safer, choice,
picture them huddled in a makeshift tent,
hoping someone might have the heart not to judge them,
but provide them food and shelter instead.

I assure you.
That picture is factually, much closer to the real Nativity of Jesus,
than any Christmas card image you have ever seen.
_____________________

No wonder Mary could sing such a song of revolution.
She was living life on the underside of the social structure,
the most vulnerable side.

So of course, that song sounds like love, to her.
A loving God sees her plight,
and the plight of her people,
and shows tender mercy to them—
provides for their needs,
removes the oppressor from them,
and fills their empty stomachs.
What a beautiful expression of God’s love!

But what about us, and I mean most of us,
who live on the upper side of our social structure,
who don’t have to worry very much about safe shelter,
or where the next meal is coming from,
or when the next person will take cruel advantage of us,
exploiting our labor,
exploiting our bodies,
robbing us of our dignity.

What about us,
the ones with power, privilege, prestige, and protection?
Does God love the rich and powerful?

Well, if we believe scripture, that God . . . is . . . love,
then God’s actions cannot be a denial of God’s character.
So all of what God does must be motivated
by God’s core defining nature—that of love.

So clearly, God loves all people, including the rich and powerful.
Sometimes we are tempted to take a story like this,
and use it to vilify the rich and glorify the poor.
That’s not what’s happening here in this story.

God is not acting out a cruel vendetta,
God is not executing punishment for the sake of humiliating anyone.
God is setting things right again.
God sees where things went wrong,
and is upsetting the structure,
so as to save and restore ALL the people.

God affirms wealth, and its capacity to do good.
That is why God has such compassion on those without wealth.
God appreciates power, and its ability to enact God’s will.
That is why God feels so tender toward those
who have power taken from them.
God is on the side of joy and beauty and abundance and freedom.
Which is why God loves the poor, oppressed, and downtrodden,
and seeks to show them the kind of life they deserve.

God does not ruthlessly seek revenge against the wealthy and powerful,
just for the sake of vengeance.
God is setting them free of the very thing that has enslaved them,
and made their lives less than
the good whole life God created them for.
The rich and powerful are also, in a real way, imprisoned.
They are captive by their own making.
They are shackled by the very injustices
they have foisted on others,
those injustices have kept the powerful from living fully.
They have lost the joy-filled, beautiful, and abundant life
God created them for.
In oppressing others,
they have oppressed themselves, without realizing it.

God is about setting everyone free.
When those with the capacity to do good,
don’t do it,
they find themselves enslaved by their own greed and anxieties,
and they fail to live out God’s purposes.
So God upsets the order of things,
and turns to those
who still have a chance of seeing a better way.

God allows
the strong to be upstaged by the weak,
the big to be shamed by the small,
the high and mighty to get lost in the shadows
of those who formerly were invisible.

I can’t think of a more poignant present-day example, again,
than our southern border.
How is it that one of the
richest and most powerful countries in the world,
would feel so threatened and anxious and angry,
that we feel it necessary to send 6,000 armed military troops,
to meet a caravan of 1,000 Central Americans
living in abject poverty,
fleeing violence in their home country,
carrying little more than the clothes on their back?

We have made ourselves captive by our own wealth and power.
We also need liberation.
A different kind, but liberation nonetheless.
We need to be freed from our anxious, fearful,
half-way kind of living,
and be freed, by love,
to open ourselves to the full life God made us for,
a life of self-emptying, generosity, hospitality.

Sadly, the number of times these days,
that the powerful have this kind of epiphany,
and voluntarily free themselves from this anxiety,
and choose love and vulnerability—
those times are few and far between.

Occasionally, this kind of love gets exhibited.
And we can point to it as a sign of God at work,
to enact restoration and salvation,
showing love for all God’s creation,
from the least to the greatest.
But more often, it’s those on the underside
that can see and name what’s really going on.
And when those persons speak,
it would be wise for the rest of us to listen.
Again and again in scripture,
the small ones shame the great ones.

This is the dynamic at work in our hymn of response,
if you’ll turn to your bulletin,
It highlights Mary and the Magnificat,
but also names other women without power and standing,
who spoke necessary truth to the powerful.

“With Mary sing Magnificat, with Miriam dance in praise,
with prophet Anna, speak a word of faith . . .”
Then it names Rizpah, a woman who suffered horrors in 2 Samuel,
and the Hebrew midwives who stood up to Pharaoh.

And I love the third verse
that invites us all into the song of love and justice—

With confidence we may proclaim Love’s liberating power,
bear witness to the saving Grace still with us every hour,
and sing with thanks, delight, and praise a new yet ancient song,
together sing Magnificat with voices clear and strong.

Let’s sing this together, in voices clear and strong.

—Phil Kniss, December 23, 2018

[To leave a comment, click on "comments" link below and write your comment in the box. When finished, click on "Other" as your identity, and type in your real name. Then click "Publish your comment."]

Moriah Hurst: Just Joy?

“JOY: Rejoicing in God’s justice”

Zephaniah 3:14-20
Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18

Watch the video:

...or listen to audio:

...or download a printer-friendly PDF file: click here

...or read it online here:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice.

The third Sunday of Advent, Joy! We get to light the pink candle, sing
cheerful songs of rejoicing and think of what is bright and light. I approached this weeks texts thinking of joy. What brings you joy, what delights you? Fluffy kittens and gurgling babies. Oh how the lectionary likes to surprise us with curve balls. I read the first few texts and heard “sing praise”, rejoicing, “sing aloud and shout for joy, rejoice always and don’t worry.

And then I read Luke. This text picks up right where we left off last week and it hit me, oao! Judgment. If you don’t bear fruit you will be cut down, the chaff will be burned. Wait a minute, this is joy Sunday, we must be confused! But there it is at the end of the Luke text, people filled with expectation as they hear the Good News. So this week we delve into Joy and judgment to see what is being offered here. Is John speaking only judgment and are these other passages just joy?

Some of you may hear these texts, and music pops into your heads of songs you have learned with the words from today’s lectionary. It happens a lot this time of year with familiar text and for anyone who knows the Messiah we can hardly stop ourselves from singing along. When I hear this passage of John’s preaching captured in Luke’s gospel, I am taken back to the Cotton Patch Gospel “You sons of snakes! Tell me, who put the heat under you to run from the fury about to bust over your heads? You got to reshape your lives, because God’s new order of the Spirit is confronting you.”

As a child I watched this retelling of the Gospel set in the south, down in 1

Georgia and this cassette would run again and again until I had much of it memorized. We don’t get much of that kind of preaching here, but maybe we need to sit up and pay attention to this text.

John is laying down some condemnation here and people were flocking to hear him. Normally when someone is condemning me or criticizing my way of life I want to turn around and run away. But these folks wanted to be baptized by John. So he stands by the Jordan River proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John doesn’t want to just symbolically wash people, he wants to see transformation in their hearts, lives and actions. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance” John calls out. Then he goes on, adapted for our Mennonite ears, You can’t just get in on the coat tails of your grandparents and your heritage – you can’t say my Grandfather was a CO and my parents did MCC. God could make Mennonites of the rocks sitting around us in the parking lot. John doesn’t mince his words at all. Any tree not bearing good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire, as the Cotton Patch Gospel puts it, a chainsaw is set at the trunk of the tree.

We may ask like the crowds gathered around John, What action is he calling for, “what should we do?” And we get the straightforward reply – whoever has two coats, share one with someone who doesn’t have one. Whoever has food share it with people who don’t have any. Oh no, I have 4 coats and a whole closet worth of clothing. I have a pantry full of canned and dried goods and a well- stocked fridge. I can almost hear the chainsaw revving its motor at my roots. Is this literal, do we take it that way?

If we look at the larger books of Isaiah and Zephaniah around the text we read today there is a lot of condemnation and judgment. John is in line with these prophets and their words. But the texts today are a small reprieve from all the judgment, they are the happy bits.

In all of these prophetic words, Where is this joy coming from? “The Lord has taken away the judgment against you” “God is in your midst and will renew you with love”

“I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise”

“Surely, God is my salvation”

God, is saving! There it is – the reason for the joy. God’s divine compassion winning over God’s divine judgment. An author I read this week told of a “fascinating exchange recorded in the Talmud – a collection of writings that covers Jewish law and tradition. A question is raised as to whether God prays. “What does God pray?” According to (Rav (Abba Arika) in the portion of) the Talmud (called "Berakhot,)" the Lord prays, “May my mercy overcome my wrath!” (b. Berakhot 7a). In other words, God prays that divine desire for compassion be greater than divine demand for justice.”
( http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3916 ) 

God is not just saving us...this salvation is for the outcast and down
trodden, the fringe dwellers and those who have been silenced with their power striped.

Last week as I reflected on peace with the MYF we talked some about the idea of Shalom wholeness peace. Part of what strikes me about Shalom is that if this is true wholeness, I can’t have wholeness if you don’t.

I can’t be at peace unless you are also at peace. I wonder if this pairing of texts is inviting us to make that same connection with joy. Can I truly have joy while another suffers?

Let me tell you a few of the spaces I’ve encountered joy in my life recently. What has brought me Joy – someone willing to work on organizing more
small groups here at church. This is something that I know we need and have needed for a while but didn’t know who had the time or energy to do it. And someone volunteered – Joy!

Joy number 2: Middle schoolers at Kids Club arriving early and staying late to help set up and clean up. I thought we would loose this group of kids once middle school rolled around but they still keep coming. We decided to get them to help and have made them Jr leaders. We got t-shirts for them, similar to the ones that the adults leaders wear. When they were given their shirts they proudly put them on and then said “ok if I’m a leader, how can I help?” My heart did a joyful leap.

Joy story three: Sitting at the Christmas parade with some of my little people yelling Merry Christmas and affirmations to every passer by. One parade participant told us that we were the most joyful group in the crowd.

Why did these things bring me joy? They were an answer to prayer for something we need. It was seeing love and community grow and young people drawn to something that is life giving, something they are willing to work for. And being together – my middle school nieces not caring as much about what others think (we were in the middle of many of their school friends) but enjoying the rush of the moment, giving way to joy.

So much of this joy is around the community of God’s people – gathering, loving each other, being together. My joy is not really about me. Where are your joy moments and why were they joyful?

In these texts we hear of rejoicing because of God’s salvation. Yet the Luke text reminds us that it is not only what we are saved from but what we are saved for.

When we hear calls to give away our second or third coat or to share our food with the hungry we don’t often picture God’s salvation or feel bursts of joy. I end up feeling guilty, like I haven’t done enough. For those of us with power and monetary privilege this stuff can hit pretty hard. But I don’t think John’s intention was to change us into puddles of guilt. Guilt shuts us down as we collapse in on ourselves.

If we look and listen again to these texts there is another theme that runs throughout, one that should be familiar to your Advent ears. “I will trust, and will not be afraid.” From Isaiah “Do not fear” from Zephaniah. “The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything” in Philippians. This message that the angels often bring to announce God’s presence – Do not be afraid!

Those hearing these words for the first time had good reasons to be afraid. There were political power plays, religious shifts, clashes between cultural groups. Sounds kind of familiar to the litany of fears we rehears today.

Again we ask – what do we do? And we hear the reply. We are able to rejoice because, God has taken away the judgment against you, removed disaster and reproach. This comes alongside God’s judgment and is part of our Advent hope. Because God doesn’t leave us in our fear and guilt. A path of repentance and forgiveness is stretched out before us.

“When repentance and forgiveness are available, judgement is good news. The primary aim is to save the wheat, not to burn the chaff.” 

(Interpretation – Luke, page 49)

We are here in Advent making our hearts ready. I think of John as a stellar 5

fireworks display and then he says, that was nothing wait for what is coming next! We are longing for the change and shake up that Jesus will bring. We are called to immediate action but also to the long view of God’s slow work of restorative justice. Zephaniah says “do not let your hands grow weak”, we still have much work to do.

John reminds us that baptism doesn’t save us but is a sign of our repentance and commitment to lead a changed life. Isaiah echoes this idea “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the Lord”

Yet I’m left asking: Is this changing us enough? Are there too many problems out there that seem far away and not our problem? This past week a friend of mine visited those from the migrant caravan who are waiting for processing in Tijuana. When I told her that I’d like to hear about the trip she replied “I'm glad to talk about the trip. They need some fierce clergy there ;-) And I would be glad to serve as your interpreter, if needed!”

This reminded me of stories I’ve heard from South Africa in the time of apartheid, where churches started committing part of their church budgets to getting pastors out of jail when they would get arrested for protesting and standing up for justice for the least of these,

I wonder what this church would do if I was arrest in similar circumstances? Are we willing to do bold and simple acts of giving coats away and sharing food? Do we need to hear more the words directed at the tax collectors and soldiers – don’t exploit your power, don’t use the poor for your economic gain.

We need to reshape our lives, so that God’s new order of the spirit can confront us.

Can we have the hope to not respond with fear but to seek the joy for all? I pray that God will come and take us – move and shake us. But more than anything I believe that God can make us anew – showing us the paths of Kingdom living, divine compassion and joy. Amen, let it be so! 

[To leave a comment, click on "comments" link below and write your comment in the box. When finished, click on "Other" as your identity, and type in your real name. Then click "Publish your comment."]