Our belongingness

On Wednesday we received ash crosses on our foreheads. We use ash to mark the beginning of Lent, because our ancestors used to sit in sackcloth and ashes as a sign of repentance. Ashes are all that’s left when the fire has burned out. The ash we use on Ash Wednesday is what is left of the palm fronds we spread on the ground and waved with joy when we welcomed Jesus and his reign to the city. That bonfire of joy burned out fast, and it’s humbling to remember how short-lived our commitment to follow Jesus can be.

We let ourselves be marked with an ash cross, because the cross reminds us how, to his death, Jesus embraced us and God in love and faithfulness, with words of forgiveness on his lips. We remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. We remember that we are creatures of God, made in the image of God, made for communion with God, mortal, yet forever alive in the love that calls all things into being.

Ashes and dust remind us that we are earthlings. Our story begins with God who formed the human being, adam in Hebrew, from the dust of the ground, adamah, and breathed into the earthling’s nostrils the breath of life. We belong to God and we belong to the ground from which God has made us. We belong to creation and to the Creator, and we seek to live in ways that honor our belongingness.

God planted a garden in Eden, took the human being and put them in it to work it and keep it. In English, there’s another word that reminds us of our beginnings and our belonging. The word humble comes from the same latin root as humus, meaning soil. With ashes on our foreheads, we humbly remember our belongingness. With our hands in the dirt, and our bare feet touching the soil, we humbly remember our belongingness. When we forget our belongingness, the opposites of humble emerge: we become arrogant, haughty, imperious, pretentious.

In the garden, God said to the earthling, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Our story begins with life in a flourishing garden and with a commandment, given to us humans who are to work and keep this marvel of lush life.

But there’s another voice in the garden, the serpent, more crafty than any other wild animal that God had made. The serpent doesn’t say much, only asks a question, “Did God say, you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” It’s not what God said, but the serpent continues to sow seeds of suspicion and distrust, saying, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” God did not tell the whole truth, the voice suggests, and the relationship between the humans and God begins to unravel. We’re meant to be gardeners in Eden, but we wonder if perhaps the other voice has a point … and we eat. When questioned by God, the man blames the woman, the woman blames the serpent, and the serpent is silent. Guilt and fear, shame and blame have entered the scene, and jealousy, hatred, and violence soon follow. We look around, and nothing, it seems, is the way it’s supposed to be. Long ago, Isaiah connected the dots for us, reminding us of our belongingness:

The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.[1]

Nothing is the way it’s supposed to be, our belongingness to God and creation and to each other is fractured—and that arrogant little man with dreams of empire who invades a neighboring country from north and south and east, shelling its cities and killing its citizens, making it a crime to call his war a war—that pretentious, violent little man, ruling over a house of greed and lies, he is dangerous, yes, but he’s just a little man lost in dreams of greatness.

The story of the earthling in the garden invites us to consider that the initial and most consequential crack in our fractured world is the rift in our relationship with God. And with that, we’re also invited to consider that the wholeness of life we all long for begins with the healing of that rift. It begins with our learning to trust in God who is merciful and kind. Many have been tempted to see the little tsar from St. Petersburg as the personification of evil, and that to rid the world of evil, he must be eliminated. But haughty little men with dreams of greatness will continue to rise. So we must strengthen what connects us. We must nurture what helps us cooperate. We must learn to humbly listen to each other and take each other’s needs as seriously as we take our own. We must  remember our belongingness.

Our faith teaches us to say, “We have sinned. We have not trusted you. Guilt and fear have built their walls around us, and shame has locked the door. Forgive us. Set us free. Take us home.” We learn to say, “I have sinned.” We learn to trust God’s word, “You are forgiven.” And we begin once again to live out our belonging.

When Jesus was baptized, a voice came from heaven, “You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And right there, Luke has inserted a long genealogy going back all the way not just to David or Abraham, but beyond, generation after generation, to “Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.” This genealogy is Luke’s way of telling us that Jesus is one of us, an earthling, and that the gospel of Jesus, the beloved son of God, is for all the children of Adam and Eve, for all God’s beloved sons and daughters.

In the next scene, Jesus, his hair still wet from his baptism in the Jordan, is led by the Spirit in the wilderness. Jesus is alone, and he is not. He is filled with the Spirit. He knows who he is; the voice he heard by the river didn’t mumble. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” He enters the wilderness in order to find out how to be Jesus, how to be true to the One who called him Beloved.

He enters the wilderness for forty days of walking during the cool hours of the morning and late evening, just he and the spirit-companion and the occasional animal he would encounter while getting a drink from a hidden spring. Forty days of sleeping in caves when the sun was high. Forty nights of praying under a blanket of stars, just he and his questions and worries and the spirit-companion. Until the hunger pangs come upon him with ferocious need. That’s when he hears that other voice—a friendly voice, concerned, almost caring. “Why are you doing this to yourself? You are the Son of God, why are you sitting on your hands?” This is not the river voice. Who then is this? “How about one small miracle for yourself?” the voice whispers. “Come on, help yourself to some bread. Nobody’s watching. It’s just you and me. Touch that stone and turn it into bread, and eat.” Jesus doesn’t, and he says, “It is written, a human being does not live by bread alone.” Jesus is famished, weak, and vulnerable, but he refuses to act in self-serving ways.

Suddenly he has a vision, seeing in an instant all the kingdoms of the world, east and west, north and south, great and small, rich and poor, the ones with just rulers and the others with self-serving tyrants. And he hears that voice again, the power whisperer. “Come on, take it. I can give it to anyone I please. Worship me, and it will all be yours. You’ll be in charge. Think of all the good you could do as ruler of the world. You could end hunger, injustice, and wars with a snap of your finger.” But Jesus continues to be led by the Spirit, not the power whisperer, and he responds, “It is written, worship the Lord your God, and serve God only.”

Suddenly Jesus finds himself in Jerusalem, way up on top of the temple, and there’s that voice again. “You are the son of God, are you not? Show them. Show Jerusalem and the world who you are. Just throw yourself down. It is written, isn’t it, ‘God will command the holy angels concerning you to protect you… On their hands they will bear you up so that you won’t dash your foot against a stone…’ Come on, jump and let them see you glide down on angels’ wings.” But Jesus says no. He won’t serve his own interests first, he won’t take advantage of any opportunity to rise to the top by any means in order to do good, and we won’t manipulate people with publicity stunts. Instead, he chooses to love God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind; and his neighbor as himself.[2] He chooses to honor his belongingness to God and to us and to all creation.

The initial and most consequential crack in our fractured world is the rift in our relationship with God, and in Jesus’ life of faithfulness the rift has been healed. The final clash of God’s reign and the empire of the whispering tempter happened on the cross. Again Jesus heard the voice suggesting that he use his power for himself. “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one,” some scoffed. Others said, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” And one kept deriding him, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”[3]

He didn’t save himself. He did not call on armies of angels. He did not use God for his own ends. He trusted in the faithfulness of God, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” And raising him from the dead, God vindicated him, saying yes to his teachings, his friendship with sinners, and his subversive eating habits.

The story of Jesus is the story of humanity and God, the retelling and healing of our story that begins in Eden. Jesus heard the whispers of the other voice, but he didn’t allow it to sow its seeds of suspicion and distrust. In boundless love, he humbly lived out our belongingness to God, to each other, and to the earth. And he lives so we may find life in fullness through him.

[1] Isaiah 24:4-5

[2] See Lk 10:27

[3] Luke 23:35,37,39

Transfiguration of the world

Luke 9:28-43

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up the mountain to pray. In Kyiv, for days now, thousands of women, men, and children went down underground, seeking shelter from Russian mortar shells and rockets. Many of them, no doubt, praying for the attack to end, praying for courage for their defenders, praying for their leaders who refused to leave them, praying for the lives of their loved ones. We find ourselves somewhere between that mountaintop and the underground, praying for them, praying with them. Amid the turmoil of our anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, grief, and rage, we pray. May there be a swift and peaceful end to the conflict. May hardened hearts be softened. May the brave citizens of Russia who speak up and stand up against Putin’s war find their resolve strengthened. May refugees be greeted with love and welcome. May our own hearts be cleansed of fantasies of imperial dominance. May we all learn that cooperation is a better path than domination and control. And divided as we are in this country and in other countries, may we stand united for democratic values, democratic institutions, human rights, and an international order based on the rule of law. The Council of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA invited us to pray with them, “Send your heavenly legions, O Lord, commanded by the patron of Kyiv, Archangel Michael, to crush”— and this is where we’re easily tempted to fill in  words like ‘the enemy,’ or ‘the invaders,’ or simply ‘them’ but the prayer asks God to crush “the desires of the aggressor whose desire is to eradicate our people.”[1] Crush the desires of the aggressor. Three days from today we will observe Ash Wednesday, and once again we will pray with words from Psalm 51, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”[2] As much as we pray for a change of heart for others, we pray that our own desires and the actions flowing from them may be just and kind, steeped in God’s deep compassion.

In one of Brian Doyle’s many marvelous essays, he takes us back to a dining-room scene at home, many years ago.

I was sitting at the dining-room table. My dad and my mom and my sister were sitting there also. I believe it was lunch. My brothers were elsewhere committing misdemeanor. I believe it was summertime. The room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. I believe the meal was finished, and my mother and sister were having tea and cigarettes. My father mentioned casually that our cousins were coming for dinner next Sunday or something like that. … I shoved my chair back and whined and snarled and complained. I believe this had something to do with some vague plans of my own that I had of course not shared with anyone else as yet, probably because they were half-hatched or mostly imaginary. My father said something calm and reasonable, as still is his wont. I said something rude. My mother remonstrated quietly but sharply, as still is her wont. I said something breathtakingly selfish. My sister said something gently and kind, as still is her wont. I said something cutting and sneering and angry. My mother slowly put down her tea. Odd that I would remember that detail, her cigarette in her left hand and her teacup in her right and the cup descending slowly to the table. The table had a blue cloth, and just outside the window the yew hedge was the most brilliant vibrant green. As I remember it was just as my mother was putting her teacup on the table, just as the smoke from the cigarettes was rising thin and blue and unbroken …, just as my father put his big hands on the table and prepared to stand up and say something calm and blunt to me and cut the moment before it spun out of control, that I realized I was being a fool. It wasn’t an epiphany or a trumpet blast or anything epic. It was an almost infinitesimal wriggle of something for which I don’t have good words even now. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed, though I was embarrassed, later. It was more like for a second I saw who I actually was rather than who I thought I was, or wanted to be, or wanted other people to think I was. I understood, dimly, for an instant—I believe for the first time in my life—that I was being a fool.[3]

I’ve had a few moments like that over the years, and I thank God for them. Brian Doyle called his biographical story, A Fool’s Awakening, and blessed is the fool who needs to awaken only once. I’m not one of them, and I’m grateful for each moment when I got to see who I actually was rather than who I thought I was, or wanted to be, or wanted other people to think I was. I believe that’s what I’m getting, moments of awakening, when I ask God to create in me a clean heart and put a new and right spirit within me. And I hope God will give Mr. Putin one of those moments very soon, if he hasn’t had one already, for it seems to me, he’s been awfully wrapped up in who he thought he was, or wanted to be, or wanted other people to think he was.

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. I imagine that their feet were sore, and their legs, weary. They had been all over Galilee, following Jesus who proclaimed the good news of God’s reign. Once on the mountaintop, Jesus must have been doing all the praying; the other three could hardly keep their eyes open. But before sleep could overcome them, they were startled: Jesus, who must have reached the summit just as sweaty and dirty as they did, shone with the very light of heaven. They were tired, very tired, but they saw Jesus, their master and friend, talking with Moses and Elijah, the great prophets who themselves had encountered God on the mountain, and here they were speaking with Jesus about his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. They were talking about his death on that hill outside of Jerusalem, but they did not use the word death. And they did not speak of it as something that would happen to him, but something he would accomplish. The word translated as departure is exodos, and with Moses right there, in heavenly glory, perhaps the pieces were beginning to come together for the three:

He had told them, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”[4] Jesus would go to Jerusalem, and through his death and resurrection he would lead God’s people from bondage to freedom. In this exodos the great opponent wouldn’t be Pharaoh, but all the powers that keep humans in captivity, all that keeps us and all of creation from being fully alive. Jesus’ suffering, rejection, and death would look for all the world like defeat, but it would be an exodos, with Jesus laying down his own body to part the waters, and rising on the other side, the firstborn from the dead.

The three saw the glory of God shining forth from Jesus. They were witnesses as the great prophets appeared in glory and affirmed the way of Jesus as the way of redemption. The moment was awesome and holy, and they wanted it to last; everything was beautiful and clear, bathed in the light of heaven.

“Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Don’t let this end. Let us mark this moment and make it last. Don’t let this fullness, this glorious beauty, slip away.

The weary disciples were given a glimpse of Easter, a glimpse of life redeemed from the power of sin, a glimpse of creation shining with the glory of God. But then a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were terrified. In that darkness nothing dazzled, nothing shone. Whereas before everything had been exceedingly clear, now they were completely in the dark without any sense of place or direction. They were terrified. And in the darkness they heard the voice: This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.

Just one commandment: Listen to him. Listen for dear life. Listen to words of forgiveness and mercy, promises of paradise, words from the cross. Listen without ceasing, on the edge of glory and on the brink of death.[5] Listen to him, all that he has said and all that he will say. He will say all that is needed. Listen for dear life.

The three didn’t say a word about what they had seen. They followed Jesus down from the mountain, down to the plains and the valleys of life, down to where a great crowd was waiting. And there the silence was broken by a father who cried out, “Teacher, I beg you, look at my son; he is my only child.”

The father’s cry was like an echo of the voice they had heard on the mountain, only here it was filled with pain and helplessness. And how many times is this parent’s anguish being echoed in Afghanistan and in Yemen and in Kyiv, in the underground, and on train stations all over Ukraine where mothers and fathers have to turn around because there’s no more room on the train to Romania, no more room on the train to Hungary, the train to Poland. This is where we long for transfiguration: in the lightless plains where life is threatened, violated, wounded; down here where dreams of freedom are crushed under the boots of soldiers in Ukraine and Myanmar, in Hongkong, and lest we forget, in El Salvador and Guatemala and in Chile; down here where a little man with dreams of greatness and an arsenal of lies and other weapons has furbished a nation’s fear of foreign invasion into the rationale to invade another nation with a long history of invasion and foreign control—what a perverse, deadly dance. This is where we long for transfiguration, down here where for many hope is hard to come by. Down here is where we encounter God’s Chosen One, calling us to follow him on a journey that doesn’t take us out of the world into realms of lofty, spiritual splendor, but deeper into the world. He takes us with him, and we stumble along behind him, because we trust him. Because Peter, James and John trusted him, and Mary, Martha, and Susanna and all the others trusted him, and those first followers have told us how, with the wondrous light of the resurrection shining in their hearts, their eyes were opened to see themselves truly and fully, and to see every person and recognize them for who they actually are, made in the image of God, beloved, chosen. We stumble along in the company of Jesus because his journey is about our transfiguration and the transfiguration of the world.

[1] https://uocofusa.org/news_220124_1

[2] Psalm 51:10

[3] Brian Doyle, “A Fool’s Awakening,” Christian Century, February 19, 2014,  12.

[4] Luke 9:22

[5] Heidi Neumark, “Altitude Adjustment,” The Christian Century 124, no. 3 (February 6, 2007), 16.

And he prayed for him

Luke 6:27-38

I’ve known Lenny for about a year now. He used to live in one of the camps over on Charlotte, out near Lowes and Walmart. One day he came by the church, an older man with a cane, with bad arthritis in his hands and knees, and asked for some groceries and a bus pass. I had run out of gift cards for the grocery store, so we went there together. In the car, he told me a little about himself and the hardships of life on the streets, especially for an older guy like himself. He asked me to pray for his lady friend up in Massachusetts — twice he told me her name was Edna, to make sure I wouldn’t forget — he asked me to pray for her because she had heart problems and she was afraid of Covid. Lenny gets about $600 Social Security a month, and every month he sends some of it to Edna, so she can stay in her small apartment. After we were done shopping, I dropped him off at the bus stop, and before he shut the door, he bent in one last time to thank me, and asked me again to pray for Edna, because her heart is not well and she’s so afraid of the Covid.[1]

Lenny came by the church a few more times after that, to get a bus pass or a grocery card, or just to chat. I hadn’t seen him for a few weeks, when on my way back from Edwin Warner Park yesterday, I saw a man with a cane at the intersection, holding up a cardboard sign, Thank you for your kindness. That looks like Lenny, I said to myself, but there were several cars in front of me, and then the light changed. So instead of crossing Hwy 70, I turned right, pulled into the parking lot, took some cash out of my wallet, and walked over to him.

“Hi, is that you, Lenny?” I had to ask because I had never seen him without a mask, but his eyes and bowed legs looked very familiar.

“Yes,” he said, looking a little puzzled at first, but then it clicked, and he laughed.

“I thought that looked like you,” I told him, “so I stopped to see how you’re doing.”

He was doing well, he said. “God has really blessed me. I have a little place where I’m staying, and they gave me a bus card that’s good for a year. I even had a job for over a week, but then I got Covid, so that was that.”

We continued to chat, and he told me about a guy he invited to stay at his place one night a couple of weeks ago when it was really cold. He didn’t know him, but he wanted him to be safe. So he went to Kroger and bought some chicken, prepared a nice supper, and they ate. Lenny, you will know by now, is a very generous man. The next morning, Lenny woke up, and his guest had already left – but not without taking Lenny’s money and his phone.

“Oh no, that’s the thanks you got?” There were a few more choice words in my heart; I knew how much he needed that phone, and how much it meant to him to be be able to call or text Edna.

I didn’t say any of those choice words, because Lenny responded, “Yes, I prayed for him.”

“You prayed for him?”

“Yes, isn’t that what Jesus taught us to do, Do good and pray for those who treat you bad?” He didn’t remember the exact words, but he remembered them well. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. Lenny held a cardboard sign, Thank you for your kindness, and he himself lived a kindness which Jesus attributed to the children of the Most High who is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. I’m grateful I ran into him. He told me he’d come by sometime to chat, and again he asked me to pray for Edna, Edna in Massachusetts, he repeated.

Jesus says, “Do good to those who hate you.” I’m not aware of anyone who might hate me, but I try to imagine what these words do to people who are the target of organized hate – Jewish people, black and brown people, queer folk. Jesus says, “Pray for those who abuse you,” and I try to imagine what these words do to the victims of clergy sexual abuse who are waiting for accountability, for some acknowledgement of complicity from the hierarchy, and for real reform and transformation, and not just in the Roman Catholic Church. And I think about those of you who have been abused by family members, partners, spouses, supervisors – and I wonder what hearing these words does to you. Pray for those who abuse you. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. The sayings are so short, and dangerously memorable. I say dangerously memorable, because these pithy sayings easily take on a life of their own. They float around in the mind and the culture, and without the ballast of Jesus’ proclamation of good news to the poor, release to the captives, and freedom for the oppressed — without that critical ballast these pithy sayings turn into destructive, little pills perpetuating religiously white-washed oppression and abuse.

Love your enemies. Listen to your mother. Brush your teeth. The three sound deceptively similar, but the first one doesn’t pretend to be folk wisdom. The first one isn’t time-tested advice, passed down from generation to generation, for how to deal with the bully, the batterer, the abuser. Cruel advice is hardly good news. And telling the bullied, the battered, the abused, “Love your enemy” is cruel advice. Saying it may well be the least merciful act imaginable.

Love your enemies. Jesus says it twice in this brief passage from Luke. But let’s not forget, never forget, that everything Jesus says, everything he does, is good news for the poor, healing news, liberating news.

Love your enemies. The only one who can say that is the One who did say it. The only one who can say, Love your enemies, is the One who’s done it. The One who embodied God’s compassion and mercy like no other. The One who revealed the unfathomable depth of God’s mercy in his whole life and in his death by execution. As Paul reminds us, “Christ died for the ungodly… While we still were sinners Christ died for us… While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God.”[2] Love your enemies is not some pithy adage, short, memorable, made for meme, for instagram, for the scroll-by tweet. Love your enemies is the life of Jesus in three words. It is the revelation of the heart of God.

Miroslav Volf is a theologian from Croatia who has lived and taught in the U.S. for much of his life. In the preface of his fine book, Exclusion and Embrace, he recounts an experience from the winter of 1993. It was at the height of the fighting between Serbians and Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, and Volf delivered a lecture arguing that disciples of Jesus ought to embrace our enemies just as Christ embraced us. After the lecture, a member of the audience asked him if he could embrace a četnik. Četniks were notoriously wicked Serbian fighters infamous for destroying Croatian cities, and rounding up, murdering and raping civilians. For Volf, a četnik stood as the epitome of a real and concrete enemy. Could he embrace a četnik? “No, I cannot,” he answered after some hesitation, “but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.”[3] “I think I should” describes the direction of his life and his life’s work — toward that impossible embrace. Volf struggles to fully imagine and live, what Jesus and the first Christian witnesses teach: Like me, my enemy is the recipient of God’s love and stands with me beneath the cross of Christ, both of us together in the embrace of the love that will not let us go.

Pray for those who abuse you. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. Love your enemies. These words were not spoken for easy repetition, to be passed on as pious advice. The only place to hear and ponder them is in the embrace of God’s love. And it is only there that we can even begin to think about living them.

The world says, do to others as they do to you. Jesus teaches, do to others as you would have them do to you. And then he points to the reality in which, as recipients of God’s unfathomable love, we already live, and says, do as God does to you: be merciful. And heaven knows, there’s no shortage of realities needing our best, most thoughtful mercy now.[4] I keep thinking about Lenny and his kindness, mirroring the love of the Most High who is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

[1] I’m not using their actual names.

[2] Romans 5:6-10

[3] Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 9.

[4] Thanks to Sarah Henrich for this lovely phrase; https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/seventh-sunday-after-epiphany-3/commentary-on-luke-627-38-2

Barns filled with plenty

Jeremiah 17:5-10; Luke 6:17-26

Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals.
Blessed are those who trust in the Lord.

It’s a clear choice, blessing or curse, echoing the words of Moses in the land of Moab, beyond the Jordan, before the people of Israel crossed over into the promised land:

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, … then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. … I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.[1]

Like Moses, Jeremiah presents a stark contrast, but it’s not the same as the familiar either/or that divides our world into us and them, red and blue, in and out, modes of speech and thought that provide clarity only at the cost of ignoring the many colors, perspectives, and traditions that actually constitute the world. Jeremiah and Jesus don’t peddle simplistic world portrayals. They speak with urgency about deep orientations that ultimately are either life-giving or not: life will either be characterized by lush fruitfulness, or it will represent an arid wasteland.

“Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make their flesh their strength,” Jeremiah warns his audience. Hearts turned away from God have turned away from the fountain of life and blessing, and are relying on human strength alone – whether that is economic power, political influence, military might, or technological skill – hearts turned away from God result in shrublike existence in parched places; and if that brings up pictures of drought-stricken landscapes and raging wildfires, your imagination may be on the right track.

But hearts turned toward God, hearts trusting in God, hearts open and receptive and obedient to God’s will and purposes lead to life’s flourishing and fruitfulness. Those whose hearts are turned toward God are like trees planted by streams of water. Even during a dry season, their thirsty roots find moisture and nourishment. They are not anxious when drought comes.

Now who on earth would choose a path that leads away from the source of life? Ask Jeremiah, and he’ll cry for an hour. So much depends on where the heart turns. And the heart, that part of our inner life where our intentions hatch and our decisions are made, the heart turns quite a bit. The heart is fickle, devious above all else, perverse, according to Jeremiah. “Who can understand it?” he asks, implying that no one can. The heart turns this way and that way, we don’t know how.

Most U.S. Americans would agree that every person is free to live the way they want as long as it doesn’t interfere with the freedom of others. We admire mavericks, creative entrepreneurs, and fearless explorers who boldly go where no one has gone before. We value freedom and autonomy, and we don’t want to live lives controlled by others. We follow our hearts. We create our own paths, directed by our own will and our own goals, pulled by our own dreams, energized by our own desires, in pursuit of our own accomplishments, with as little or as much concern for our neighbors as we see fit. We make our own respective self the measure of our lives. And the heart turns this way and that way, we don’t know how.

In contrast, the understanding of reality presented to us in scripture is thoroughly God-centered. Where we think of the good life in terms of self-fulfillment, the biblical witnesses speak of the purposes of God for us and for all of creation. Where in our culture prosperity has become a matter of getting as much of what you want as fast as you can, Jeremiah and other witnesses in scripture tell us of prosperity as the fruitfulness of life rooted in God. They see being autonomous as being disconnected, as being alienated not only from God, but from other people and from the non-human creation. From this perspective on life, our hearts need to turn, not like a whirligig, but like a hiker who realizes she’s on the wrong trail; we need to turn and reorient ourselves to God, and through God to each other and our fellow creatures.

“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord,” says Jeremiah, but he’s no preacher of a prosperity gospel. There are voices that promise personal fortune, such as this one from the book of Proverbs,

Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the first of all your crops.
Then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will burst with wine. [2]

But there’s also the counter-testimony by voices such as this one from Psalm 10, “The wicked boast of the desires of their heart, those greedy for gain curse and renounce the Lord. … Their ways prosper at all times.”[3] There is plenty of evidence in every generation that the ways of the wicked prosper and those who trust in God suffer.

When Jesus taught at the synagogue in Nazareth, he read from the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor”— and he declared the words fulfilled in his own mission.[4] The next time we hear Jesus teach in Luke, he has just come down from the mountain where he prayed and appointed the twelve, and now he addresses the disciples, and a multitude of people overhear his teaching, and the first words out of his mouth are, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” He doesn’t say that poverty is a blessing. He says to the poor disciples, You are blessed, for the reign of God is not a distant dream but already a present reality, and you are a part of it. You are blessed, because the brutal logic of the world is not divine law. You are blessed, because the reign of God is not a reflection of the world, but its transformation in glory, and you are witnessing the beginnings of it.

“God has a preferential love for the poor,” wrote theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, “not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply because they are poor and living in an inhuman situation that is contrary to God’s will.”[5] The world pushes the poor to the margins and leaves them out of the conversations about the future, but they are at the center of God’s attention and of Jesus’ mission. The good news proclaimed to the poor is the assurance that God is for them. In a world governed far too often by the rules of the wicked, the poor and the hungry are overlooked and forgotten, but God sees and remembers them. The good news proclaimed to the poor is that the kingdom belongs to them, and not to those who always act as if they owned the world. The good news proclaimed to the poor is the community of Christ, a God-centered, Spirit-empowered community where compassion, love, and justice are living realities.

Justo Gonzalez calls this a “hard-hitting gospel” because God’s good news to the poor is also challenging news for those who are not poor.[6] “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” Jesus doesn’t say that the rich are cursed. But he does say, Woe. Because wealth becomes a curse when it cuts us off from the needs of others, from the community of life, and from God. Wealth becomes a curse when we sit back and say to ourselves, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry!”[7] Wealth becomes a curse when the rich man leaves his house and doesn’t even see Lazarus sitting hunched over by the door, let alone offer him something to eat, a bed, or medical attention.[8]

Jesus proclaimes good news to the poor, but it isn’t inevitably bad news for the rich. It’s the good news of God’s reign: the good news of a community where compassion, justice and love are living realities. For God’s reign to be good news for the well-fed, rich, laughing, and admired, they will have to wake up and change their ways, writes Sarah Henrich.[9]

The way of proud self-reliance is cursed, and it ends in an uninhabitable wasteland. But the way of trust in God is blessed. So much depends on where the heart turns. And the heart is fickle, devious above all else, perverse, according to Jeremiah. “Who can understand it?” he asks, implying that no one can. The heart turns this way or that way, we don’t know how.

But God searches the heart; to God all hearts are open, all desires known, and from God no secrets are hid, we confess in our prayers. God comes to us, again and again; God is close to us, searching and knowing, challenging and affirming, calling us back, again and again, to the way of blessing, the way of Christ.

The real challenge, then, is to trust the One who searches and knows the heart. To trust, and not to fear, the One present among us and within us. To trust the One whose desire for all of creation is to be a communion of love.

[1] Deuteronomy 30:15-20

[2] Proverbs 3:9-10 CEB

[3] Psalm 10:3-5

[4] Luke 4:16-21

[5] Quoted in Culpepper, Luke (NIB)

[6] Justo Gonzalez,  Luke (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 93; quoted by Sarah Henrich https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-after-epiphany-3/commentary-on-luke-617-26-2

[7] Luke 12:19

[8] Luke 16:19-31

[9] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-after-epiphany-3/commentary-on-luke-617-26-2

Caught up in new life

Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11

Allison and Jared welcomed Julian, their second child, on December 17. Caitie and Doug welcomed their first child, Grace, on October 11. Abi and Quentin are expecting their first child—and “expecting” is an interesting way to speak of awaiting the birth of a little person, of witnessing a baby’s hidden growth and first movements, of swinging wildly from kinda knowing what to expect to feeling utterly clueless. And “expecting” only hints at the marvel of it all—the joy, the wonder, and the worries.

“Can we do this?” is one big question the parents ask one another. Can we be for him what he needs? Can we prepare her for the life that awaits her? What’s the world going to be like when they get older? What will become of our country? What will become of the oceans and the forests? What will become of us? Jesus teaches us,

Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.[1]

I hear you, Jesus, I really do, but I wonder if you know what it’s like to hold an infant in your arms, when suddenly the realization washes over you like a long wave that from now on this little person is your responsibility. It’s hard not to worry when you love. When things get difficult, or when we imagine them getting difficult one day, it’s not ourselves so much that we’re worried about, it’s the ones we have let ourselves be bound to in love—but you know that, of course… you know exactly what it’s like to bind yourself in love to all of us.

Simon and his partners, James and John, worried a little every time they pulled away from the shore in their boats, “Will we catch enough?” Enough to feed our families and take some of the catch to market? Enough to make boat payments and replace worn out nets? Enough to cover Rome’s fishery tax that will be due whether we catch anything or not? For them, every day, the big question was, “Will there be enough?” And that one we all know, don’t we? Will there be enough to pay the bills? Enough to stay in school? Enough to pay back the loan? It’s easy to see ourselves in one of those boats, pulling away from shore, gazing across the water, some of us wondering, others worrying, “Will there be enough?” And it’s not hard at all to see ourselves in that same boat, rowing back to shore after a long night of working and hoping, with little or nothing to show for it. We drop the little sail, we pull the boat up on the beach, and we begin cleaning the nets. And how’s that for a sad joke: we didn’t catch a single fish all night, but plenty of trash. You almost want to laugh, but you’re playing the scene in your mind of you coming home and telling your spouse and your kids that last night’s work wouldn’t put any food on the table. You hope that tomorrow will be better—and if it won’t, how will you make ends meet?

Luke tells us that Jesus was there, teaching the crowd, and that they were pressing in on him to hear the word of God. They were drawn to Jesus because he brought good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. They were drawn to him because wherever he went, life began to shine when he spoke and when he touched the sick and healed them. Jesus got into Simon’s boat, asked him to put out a little way from the shore, and then he sat down and taught. And while Luke doesn’t tell us a single word of what Jesus taught that day by the lake, he makes sure we know exactly what he told Simon, just one sentence: “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

Now you and I, we’ve been in that boat. We’ve tossed out the net and pulled it in empty, again and again, and again. We’ve rowed out on the lake with expectation and after a long night rowed back to shore with nothing but wet nets and sore arms. Frankly, we don’t know where Simon finds the grace to respond, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

We don’t know where Simon Peter found the grace in that moment to respond with such trust and obedience, but he and those with him did let down the nets and pulled in the biggest catch ever, more fish than the nets and the boats could possibly hold. Now we can see why Luke didn’t write down a single word of Jesus’ teaching from the boat: because this is the message; this net-breaking, boat sinking catch, this abundance is the good news of great joy for all the people.

Peter falls down at Jesus’ knees, knowing that he is in the presence of God, fearful that the fire of holiness might consume him. “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man,” he says. And the Lord replies, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” There is no explicit call like, “Come, and follow me;” there’s only this assurance and Simon Peter’s trust in Jesus, his simple obedience to Jesus, and a wondrous eruption of fullness.

“Will there be enough?” is no longer the big question. There is more than enough. What, then, is the big question? You may say to yourself, “Wow, that’s a lot of fish,” and your first question is, “Should I can it or freeze it?” Maybe I should get a bigger boat and some stronger nets, expand the business, you know? Perhaps a partnership? Simon & Jesus—Deep Water Fishing has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

We all know that’s not it. The gospel isn’t about inviting Jesus into your boat and enjoying a life of net-breaking and boat-sinking fishing trips. The gospel is about Jesus pulling us into his boat and taking us to vocational school for kingdom workers. The real catch that day wasn’t fish. Jesus speaks of “catching people” and that image is troubling; it smacks of entrapment. But in Luke’s story it’s the fishermen who are the ones being caught, and not in cleverly set traps or in cunningly designed nets. They get caught up in the vision of life that Jesus embodies. In the very waters we have fished all night without catching anything, waters we thought we knew like the back of our hands, there, right under the surface, in the deep, is a fullness we can barely imagine—and Jesus has the power to bring it out, to bring it up.

The crowds came to the lakeshore to hear the word of God, and hear it they did, but then they got to taste the Jesus vision of life at the all-you-can-eat grilled-fish picnic on the beach. So many people, and all of them ate, and not one of them worried if there would be enough.

Not all of them left everything and followed Jesus. But Peter, James and John did, and soon Mary, Joanna, and Susanna did, and soon many more. For them, the big question was, “How do we live fearlessly into the nearness of God’s reign? How do we live the life we have found in the presence of Jesus?”

It is easy for us to see ourselves in that boat, worrying about tomorrow after working all night without catching anything. But then there is that moment when Jesus is done teaching and he challenges us to lower our nets one more time. That moment when Peter decides, we don’t know how, in circumstances far from promising, to simply do what Jesus said.

The only reason we know this story and continue to tell it, is that those first followers trusted Jesus and found something more powerful than their fear or their worries, something more powerful than their failures and betrayals. They found life. They caught the vision of life Jesus embodied, and they lived it in the power of the Spirit.

I still worry sometimes—every day, to be honest. I wonder what life will be like when my kids will be grandparents, and it worries me how long it’s taking us to stop heating the planet. I wonder what will become of our democratic institutions and democracy itself in this age of social media, big data, and big lies, and it worries me that a so many people in this country—the children and grandchildren of the generation that fought fascism in the name of democracy and freedom—that so many of them are busy flirting with white nationalism and autocratic leadership. I wonder what will become of us, and I do worry.

But I believe in Jesus. I’m caught up in the vision of life he embodies—a life of deep compassion, faithful prayer, forgiveness, attention given to the ones habitually overlooked, simplicity and generosity, and in all things, the pulse of divine love.

Jesus has made us his own. He has bound himself to us in love. We belong to him, and through him to each other. We forget it all the time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t so. We belong to him and to each other, and Luke’s story of the miraculous catch invites us to do what the first disciples did: do what Jesus says, even in the face of unpromising circumstances, and let ourselves be awesomely surprised.

[1] Luke 12:22-23

The traveling mindset

20220130 E4C - Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 4:21-30 - The traveling mindset

“Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor,” wrote Abraham Heschel.

God is raging in the prophet’s words. In speaking, the prophet reveals God. This is the marvel of a prophet’s work: in his words, the invisible God becomes audible. Divine power bursts in his words. The authority of the prophet is in the Presence his words reveal.[1]

The prophets, all of them, it seems, aren’t eager to take the call, they resist the divine Presence that takes over their voice, their life. “Who am I that I should go to Pharao?” said Moses. “I have never been eloquent… I am slow of speech and slow of tongue… please send someone else,” he begged.[2] “Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy,” we hear Jeremiah protest, no doubt with trembling in his voice. And the Lord replies, “Do not be afraid of them,” confirming without any subtlety that there would be “they” to be afraid of, and promising, “I am with you to deliver you.”[3]

No prophet wants to be a prophet. The mission is God’s initiative, and the call is inescapable. Jeremiah groans, “If I say, ‘I will not mention [the Lord], or speak any more in [God’s] name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”[4]Silence becomes fire in the bones and speaking means giving voice to what few are eager to hear and what some clearly do not want to be audible at all. Jeremiah would speak in the name of God, and after a few episodes he would be prohibited from entering the temple, and he would tell his friend Baruch to write his words on a scroll and read them to the people coming to the temple, and a group of officials would confiscate the scroll and take it to King Jehoiakim, and the king would have the scroll read to him, and pen knife in hand, he would cut the scroll column by column and toss it into the fire.[5] Enough of that nonsense.

The invisible God who wants to become audible can count on the prophet’s dogged determination, but not on hearts even half as willing to listen as the prophet is willing to speak. Heschel wrote,

The prophet faces a coalition of callousness and established authority and undertakes to stop a mighty stream with mere words.[6]

Now let’s turn to Nazareth. Jesus had returned from the wilderness to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit, and he began to teach. He was praised by everyone, we read in Luke. His were words people wanted to hear. His were words people ate up like bread. His were words in which the invisible God became audible; his proclamation, some would soon begin to say, made the invisible God visible and tangible. His authority wasn’t based on credentials, it came from the Presence he revealed.

Jesus came to Nazareth, and on the Sabbath day he went to the synagogue and taught. He read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, beautiful words about being anointed and sent to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind and the year of the Lord’s favor—and Jesus let the Lord’s favor be the last word: he didn’t read the conclusion of the passage that announces the day of God’s vengeance. And for those with ears to hear, what he didn’t say was just as important as what he said. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And that was all he could say for a while, because the people in the synagogue were busy talking with each other about the gracious words that came from his mouth.

“Today,” he said, “fulfilled.” The good people of Nazareth loved Jesus’ proclamation of good news to the poor because they were poor, and they had waited so long for redemption and release—and there he sat, Joseph’s boy, speaking of fulfillment, announcing an end to their captivity and oppression. What a happy Sabbath it was in Nazareth! Not for long, though. With every additional word that came from his mouth, Jesus antagonized his audience. “Doubtless you will quote to me…” He talked about the proverbial doctor and their expectation that he do in his hometown the things they had heard he’d done in Capernaum. Those things, healings presumably, and perhaps even greater things since this was his home after all, they were his people, weren’t they?

But he was no doctor, he was the prophet who proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favor. He briefly mentioned a couple of stories they knew, stories about two of the great prophets of old.

There were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.

There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.

That was all he said, but it stung. The stories of God’s prophets bringing bread and hope to a widow across the border, and, in the case of Naaman, healing and new life to an enemy general—the stories didn’t stir up joy, but resentment and rage. The good people of Nazareth thought that when he spoke of fulfillment “today” it meant that “their day” had finally come, and they couldn’t bear the thought that on this day of fulfillment, their town wasn’t God’s hometown any more than the rest of the world. Filled with amazement when Jesus began his sermon, they were filled with rage when they violently ended his teaching, driving him out of the town, ready to kill him. But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way, Luke tells us.

Jesus didn’t go on his way because the people of Nazareth rejected him—it was rather the other way round: they rejected him because he refused to let himself be defined by their expectations; they rejected him because he insisted on his way of fulfillment. In a way the scene foreshadows the entirety of Jesus’ proclamation of God’s gracious reign. One moment we are amazed at the gracious words he speaks, and then we’re ready to silence him, whatever it may take, because we can’t handle the freedom of his sovereign grace and the wide expanse of his boundless mercy. We’re no less tempted than the good people of Nazareth to think of ourselves as God’s own hometown. Peter Marty writes in the Christian Century,

I’m troubled by the sharp rise of White grievance and resentment in America. It doesn’t take much to spot the politicians and pundits who use coded language, dog whistles, and conspiratorial tweets to fuel this resentment.

And for far too many, grievance and resentment have shifted to “a fear-based panic that typically involves some form of rage.” Marty writes,

It’s no easy task to propose a change of mind to aggrieved White folks. What seem to me like obvious Christian impulses for inspiring a more gracious embrace of human diversity end up having little impact on resentment-filled White people.

Sitting with that helplessness, Marty remembered a conversation he had with travel host Rick Steves. “Travel is a way to broaden perspective,” Steves said with his usual cheerfulness. “It makes us more tolerant. It challenges our ethnocentricity. It inspires us to celebrate diversity.” And then he dug a little deeper into the crisis of people scared by growing diversity and other demographic changes in our society, saying,

Fear, to me, is for people who don’t get out very much. If you take the most frightened people we know in our communities, I bet they’re the people who travel the least. They’re not interested in enlarging their understanding of others. They don’t know what it means to be surrounded by other people who look and think differently.

Steves didn’t quote Mark Twain then, but it would have been a perfect fit. Twain famously wrote in Innocents Abroad,

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of [people] and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

Talking with Marty, Steves acknowledged that, “not everybody can travel, of course. But,” he added, “there are a thousand ways to have a traveling mindset.”[7]

We aren’t so different from the good people of Nazareth. We have a deep-seated desire for Jesus to come to our hometown and do here the things we heard he has done elsewhere, but he comes to us, again and again, to invite us to be on the way with him—to bless us with the traveling mindset of those who follow him.

“Let there be a grain of prophet in everyone!” wrote Heschel. “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” cried Moses on the long journey to the land of promise.[8] And according to the prophet Joel, God declared,

I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.[9]

Jesus’ Spirit-driven proclamation of God’s gracious reign continues with those on whom God has poured out the power from on high; it continues with the multi-ethnic, polyglot, and cross-cultural traveling assembly we know as the church. Inspired to dream and empowered to serve, we are called to be on the way with Jesus.

________________

[1] Abraham Joshua Heschel: Essential Writings; quote from a review by John Dear at http://ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/abraham-heschels-prophetic-judaism

[2] Exodus 3:11; 4:10,13

[3] Jeremiah 1:6, 8

[4] Jeremiah 20:9

[5] Jeremiah 36

[6] Heschel; see note above.

[7] Peter W. Marty, “White Fear,” The Christian Century, January 26, 2022; online at https://www.christiancentury.org/article/editorpublisher/there-antidote-white-grievance

[8] Numbers 11:29

[9] Joel 2:28-29

Anointed and sent

In the gospel of Luke, the Spirit of God drives the plot. The story begins with the births of John and Jesus. John, we’re told, would be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb (1:15). Jesus’ mom would give birth to a holy child, because the Holy Spirit would come upon her (1:35). When the two mothers meet, John leaps in his mother’s womb and she is filled with the Holy Spirit (1:41). Then his father is filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesies (1:67). Then we meet old Simeon to whom the Holy Spirit had revealed that he would see the Lord’s Anointed before his death; and guided by the Spirit he comes to the temple when Mary and Joseph bring their child (2:25-27). Soon Jesus comes to the Jordan to be baptized by John and the Holy Spirit descends upon him, and led by the Spirit, Jesus enters the wilderness where he is tempted by the devil (3:22; 4:1). Then, as we heard again this morning, Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, where he began to teach in the synagogues and was praised by everyone (4:14-15). Women and men, the old and the young, entrust themselves to God’s presence and direction through the Spirit, and that is how the good news unfolds—scene by scene, generation by generation.

Jesus has returned to Nazareth where they’ve known him all his life and where they’ve heard stories, bits and pieces, about his teachings and other wondrous things he’s done down in Capernaum and other places near the lake.It’s the  Sabbath, and he’s in the synagogue, and handing him the scroll of Isaiah, they invite him to do the second reading and teach. He opens the scroll. He finds the passage he wants to read. It’s like all the movement in the opening chapters— the back and forth from Nazareth to Bethlehem, back to Nazareth and down to Jerusalem, to the Jordan and into the wilderness and back to Galilee— it’s like all the movement slows down to this moment: Jesus reads from Isaiah.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Jesus reads the ancient words of promise and hope, and then he sits down to teach. The eyes of all in the synagogue are fixed on him, Luke tells us; he wants us to notice the expectation in the room. Everybody wants to know what Jesus has to say. They are hungry for a teaching, for a word to assure them that the ancient promise is still theirs and firm, a word of encouragement not to give up hope that the day of release would come; that captivity and oppression would come to an end one blessed day, and God’s people would live in freedom.

When Jesus speaks, the first word out of his mouth is “today”— not some day or some day soon, but today. He identifies himself with this Spirit-bearer, anointed and sent to bring good news to the poor, to the captives, the blind, and the oppressed. Jesus wasn’t merely reading, it turns out, he was giving his inaugural address. This is who I am. This is what I’m about. This is my mission: Good news for the poor. Release for the captives. Sight for the blind. Freedom for the oppressed.

His Sabbath talk is short because his whole life is the teaching, because all he is and says and does and suffers is the embodiment of who God is for us, and who we are, who we are made to be as creatures made in the image and likeness of God, for a life of unending communion with God and all that God has made.

In the gospel according to Luke, the Spirit drives the plot, and in the second part of Luke’s work, the book of Acts, the Spirit is poured out, continuing to inspire and empower people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, for God’s mission. Baptized into Christ, immersed into his death and resurrection, and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, the church is called, anointed and sent to be the proclamation of good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed — the church is called, anointed and sent to embody the life of Christ.

Good news for the poor — that is as simple as Room in the Inn, as simple as making a bed in fellowship hall, so a veteran who can’t escape the ghosts of war can escape the cold and find rest for a night. Good news for the poor is as simple as the Little Pantry That Could, as simple as pushing back against the harsh logic of the marketplace with the bold witness to the abundance received and shared in the household of God. Good news for the poor is as simple as a little store where the lady behind the counter tells you to take what you need. Good news for the poor is as simple as food for the hungry, shelter for the unhoused, and a couple of nights at the inn for the man who was beaten and left for dead by the side of the Jericho road. But it doesn’t end there; it can’t end there, because the Spirit of the Lord who is driving the plot, is the Spirit of life that is nothing but life, fullness of life, for all.

When Jesus said, “Today” he meant that very day, and when we hear him say, “Today” he still means today. He’s addressing our captivity, our impaired vision, our entanglement in oppression, and he invites us to let him break our chains, open our eyes, and lead us out. Jesus invites us to let his life of profound trust in God and deep compassion for others be our life, to find fullness of life in his company.

Commenting on Psalm 19, April Berends writes,

Creation bears witness to God’s glory by living out its created goodness, each element giving praise by being what God made it to be. So it is with God’s people. Living according to God’s [torah] enables us to live as God made us to live, taking our place in the created order with eyes opened to God’s glory.[1]

The heavens are telling the glory of God, and so are we when we let the life of Christ be our life. I remember a cold fall morning, a few years ago, when the sky hung low like a grey blanket. We were driving to Chattanooga, on to Cleveland, and up the Hiwassee, all the way waiting for the sun to rise. Eventually we put in our kayaks, pulled away from the bank, and started paddling down the river— and with every paddle stroke, it was as though the clouds were thinning a little more, until suddenly the sky was bluer than anything anyone could ever dream up or find words to describe, and the light awakened the colors all around us: specks of yellow and red in the trees on the banks, hues of silver and copper on ancient rock faces, bright green meadows of eelgrass in the water just below us, and on a small patch of dry, rocky ground in the middle of the rapid flow, the bravest, brightest little flower blooming impossibly red. The rising sun had kissed the world awake and everything was singing. We were paddling down the river surrounded by an anthem of praise— but there was no speech, no words, only the lovely sound life makes when it is very good.

Kathleen Norris taught creative writing for a while at an elementary school in Dakota. She met a little girl who had recently moved there from Louisiana, and who wrote what Norris says is “the best description I know of the Dakota sky”: The sky is full of blue / and full of the mind of God.[2]

The psalmist knows what it is like when we see more than we can say, when we marvel at one glorious moment and wait for words to rise to give voice to our wonder. In the psalm we heard, the sun rises like a groom coming out of his honeymoon suite, and it runs its course like a champion, shining its light on all things under heaven. And from that lovely scene the psalmist pivots to praise with equal exuberance the perfection of God’s word which gives life, makes wise, gladdens the heart, and enlightens. God’s word instructs us to perceive the wisdom in which all parts of creation are knit together in mutual belonging. Wendell Berry writes,

We are holy creatures living among other holy creatures in a world that is holy. Some people know this, and some do not. Nobody, of course, knows it all the time.[3]

We are forgetful, easily distracted, fickle, and notoriously bad at distinguishing the living God from more convenient idols. But Jesus isn’t—forgetful, easily distracted, fickle, and prone to idolatrous confusion. And so it doesn’t end with amnesia, blindness, captivity, and oppression, because the Spirit of the risen Lord who is driving the plot, is the Spirit of life that is nothing but life, fullness of life, for all.

And so we gather again and again to listen for the word of God in the words of the witnesses. And we let the word do its work in our stubborn hearts, and we entrust ourselves to the Spirit’s guidance until with all of creation we declare the glory of God, with all that we are and all that we do.

[1] April Berends, Feasting, Year C, 275.

[2] Dakota: A Spiritual Geography (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), 21.

[3] Wendell Berry, “Christianity and The Survival of Creation,” Cross Currents, 1993, Vol. 43, Issue 2.

Two kings

It was a kind of reversal of gazing at the stars. On Christmas Eve 1968, the astronauts of Apollo 8—Frank Bormann, Bill Anders, and James Lovell, Jr.—were busy scouting landing spots on the surface of the moon for a future mission when they suddenly witnessed a spectacular moment: over the ash-colored lunar mountains, against the black backdrop of space, they saw the Earth rising like a shining, blue marble. As one writer put it,

Major Anders had the job of photographing the lunar landscape. When Earth rose, a robot would have kept on clicking off pictures of the craters. Indeed the astronauts briefly joked about whether they should break off and aim their cameras up. “Hey don’t take that, it’s not scheduled,” Commander Borman said. Then, like good humans, they grabbed cameras and clicked away.

“Earthrise” became an iconic image, something of an epiphany: Sent to examine the Moon, Major Anders later said, humans instead discovered Earth. Apollo 8’s greatest legacy turned out to be a single photograph of home, glorious and beautiful, “fragile and miraculous as a soap bubble.”[1] Over fifty years later, we know a lot more about just how fragile our planet is, and we’re still far from knowing how to be at home here, together.

Matthew tells us that in the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem. We don’t know much about them, these sky-gazing travelers from far away lands who came to Jerusalem guided by a star to pay homage to the newborn king of the Jews. And because we know almost nothing about them, we have long let our imaginations soar.

Matthew gave us an almost blank canvas, and we have gladly filled it with rich, colorful detail. First we looked at the map, and we started listing all the lands East of Jerusalem—Arabia, Babylon, Persia, India, China—from how far East did they come, these wise ones? Then we looked at the gifts they brought—gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Very expensive gifts, not the kind of stuff you can pick up at the corner market on your way to the birthday party—but hadn’t Isaiah mentioned gold and frankincense, and hadn’t he written about kings? That was when, in our imagination, they began to look like kings, royal visitors bearing royal gifts, and because three gifts are mentioned, we determined that there must have been three of them. And so we began singing songs like We Three Kings From Orient Are, but our hunger for detail wasn’t satisfied yet. How did they get from the East to Jerusalem? Certainly they did not walk all the way — but wait, hadn’t Isaiah mentioned a multitude of camels? Sometime in the Middle Ages, we named the three Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, and we saw them riding high on their camels, with more camels carrying their treasure chests.

With passing centuries, the stories of the wise men from the East became ever more colorful and elaborate — and all because of the child whose star they had observed and followed. This child arouses in us a holy extravagance of story, image, song, and gift, because in this baby and the man he became, we see the face of God. The nations are coming to the light that has dawned, and in Mathew’s story, these travelers from the East represent all of the nations, they are the first in a long procession—we come from Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, and the Americas, we all come: the whole world is gathering to pay homage to the newborn king. Matthew gives us but a hint or two, and we let our imagination run, because this child is the good king, born to bring us all together in the city of God, born to show us how to be at home, together.

What about the other king? Imagine King Herod’s face when his staff informed him that visitors of considerable wealth and status were entering the city. He was very fond of hearing his underlings refer to him as Herod the Great, but imagine the satisfaction in his eyes, imagine the regal pace with which he made his way to the palace window to see his own majesty and greatness reflected in the very important visitors from far away. They had come from distant lands to meet him and, no doubt, pay him homage, to admire the magnificent building projects under way in the city, especially the temple—he was Herod the Great, King of the Jews, the most important person in the realm, was he not? Then the foreign visitors entered and asked him where they might find the newborn king of the Jews—imagine his face now.

We hang a star in the baptistry window during Advent and Christmas. It’s beautiful, especially when it gets to shine in the darkness. You can’t miss it when you come into the sanctuary at night. It’s supposed to stand out. We hang it in the window to focus our attention on the one who was born under its light. It’s like the ancient version of a pin dropped on the map of the sky to mark our destination.

In Matthew’s story, only the stargazers from the East notice the one star among the countless others visible on a clear night. Herod doesn’t see what they see; nor do the scribes and scholars whom he consults. They talk about Bethlehem, but they can’t see the star, they can’t see the house, they can’t see God’s presence in this child, Emmanuel, God with us. Epiphany means manifestation, appearance, showing forth — but Matthew wants us to see how God slips into the world by way of a poor family in a one-light town.

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” Matthew knows the words from Isaiah by heart, and he wants us to see that the glory of God has risen, but not upon Herod’s palace or his spectacular temple, but a little ways to the south, upon a dusty hill town called Bethlehem. “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn,” the prophet declared, and Matthew shows us the nations coming to the light. “They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord” — and they do, but all Herod can see is a threat to his own reign. And as they get to represent the nations of the world, drawn to the light of Christ, Herod gets to represent the kings who aren’t exactly drawn to this light, but rather alarmed by it—we hear echoes of Pharaoh in the story, echoes of powerful men who have no use for a glory they cannot grab to polish their own. As Rome’s puppet king and client of the emperor, Herod’s task was to foster loyalty to Rome. He presided over a political system that benefited a small elite while depriving many of their daily bread. Describing Herod’s cruelty, the Roman writer Macrobius penned the memorable line that it was “better to be Herod’s pig than his wife or son.”[2] He was used to getting rid of people who didn’t serve his ambition. He had ten wives and ordered multiple assassinations, including the murder of some of his own sons to make sure the one of his choosing would take his throne when he died. No epiphany for Herod, no star-light, only fear and cunning and ruthless determination.

So Matthew’s story really is not about three kings, but about two, Herod and Jesus. The contrast between their kingdoms runs through the whole gospel, and through the long history of the kingdom of God disrupting our dreams of empire, and all the way to this moment and to us: do we see the glory of the Lord that has risen upon us? Do we see the the glory of God in the face of Mary’s boy, and do we let him dismantle our stubborn dreams of empire, or do we put the vision away together with the star and the rest of the Christmas decorations?

The background against which Isaiah calls the city to arise and shine, is ancient and disturbingly familiar: “Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.”[3] Truth stumbles in the public square – I can’t think of a better line to describe the web of lies that’s strangling our public discourse in the name of power.

[Woe to] you who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
[Woe to] you who are wise in your own eyes,
and shrewd in your own sight!
[Woe to] you who are heroes in drinking wine
and valiant at mixing drink,
who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
and deprive the innocent of their rights![4]

Isaiah knows our corruptions. Isaiah knows we have become experts at Herod’s game, whether we have power, privilege and prestige or seek them. Isaiah’s own vision is not immune to the temptations of empire. Walter Brueggemann writes,

In the past, Jerusalem has been subordinate to the nations. [But now] we are about to witness a great inversion… When Jerusalem looks around, what it sees is a great caravan of the nations, all coming to the recovering city. The nations have heavy cargo for Jerusalem… We are not told if they bring [tribute] gladly or under coercion. What matters is that … for as long as anyone can remember, Israel had paid imperial tribute to other nations — the Assyrians, the Babyonians, the Persians — all money going out. Now the process is reversed.[5]

Now the process is reversed, but the great reversal doesn’t change the underlying logic of domination and exploitation. “In its worst moments,” writes Michael Chan, “this [passage from Isaiah] is a revenge fantasy that longs for one’s oppressors to be the oppressed, for the masters to be the servants, and for the system of economic oppression to be tilted in favor of the victims.”[6] Reversal is not enough when justice is at stake. It’s like we need to remember Isaiah against Isaiah’s own imperial dreams; Isaiah who gave voice to God’s promise that they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. [7]

That is why we go to Bethlehem to greet the new-born king. That is why we worship him and not our own twisted fantasies of domination. For our own sake and for the sake of the earth, fragile and miraculous as a soap bubble, and soon, we pray, full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/science/earthrise-moon-apollo-nasa.html

[2] Warren Carter, “Between text and sermon: Matthew 2:1-12,” Interpretation 67, no. 1 (January 2013), 64-65.

[3] Isaiah 59:14

[4] Isaiah 5:20-23

[5] Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville: Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, 1998), 204-05.

[6] Michael Chan https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/epiphany-of-our-lord/commentary-on-isaiah-601-6-3

[7] Isaiah 11:9

Little like us

We have heard the story—and what a wondrous story it is of God and the baby. We have sung the carols, muffled by masks, yes, but we sang them nevertheless, with a touch of defiance of omicron’s demand to be the story; we sang them reminding ourselves and each other of the bigger story, the wondrous story of God and the baby, the story of Jesus’ birth and the life that is nothing but life, the story we continue to tell with our lives.

Her name was Sharon, John Shea tells us.

She was five, sure of the facts, and recited them with slow solemnity, convinced every word was revelation. She said, “They were so poor they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat and they went a long way from home without getting lost. The lady rode a donkey, the man walked, and the baby was inside the lady. They had to stay in a stable with an ox and an ass … but the Three Rich Men found them because a star lighted the roof. Shepherds came and you could pet the sheep but not feed them. Then the baby was borned. And do you know who he was?” Her quarter eyes inflated to silver dollars. “The baby was God.” And she jumped in the air, whirled around, dove into the sofa and buried her head under the cushion, which is the only proper response to the Good News of the Incarnation.[1]

Incarnation is a big word Sharon didn’t need in order to speak eloquently of the baby embodying God in the flesh, but the magnitude of what she had just said demanded some jumping and whirling around, and then some sofa-diving and cushion-digging. At five years old she knew what an awesome thing it is to say, “The baby was God.” Saying, “The baby was God” means that heaven and earth have not merely touched for an instant, but have come together in a human being. Saying, “The baby was God” radically changes how we conceive of and speak about God, and how we speak about and treat each other. The Word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory, and he has changed everything.

The Christmas hymn, “Once in Royal David’s City,” contains the stanza,

Jesus is our childhood’s pattern,
Day by day like us he grew.
He was little, weak and helpless,
Tears and smiles like us he knew.
Thus he feels for all our sadness,
And he shares in all our gladness.[2]

We can assume that the infant Jesus was weak and helpless, and that “like us” he grew from infancy and childhood to adolescence and adulthood, with the full range of experiences, thoughts, feelings, and reactions that are part of growing up. But the biblical gospels are almost silent on those years. And that silence was a motivating factor in the emergence of Christian writings dedicated to Jesus’ childhood years. In one of them, Jesus was Sharon’s age, five years old, when he was playing by a brook. From soft clay, he shaped twelve sparrows. It was the Sabbath when he did this, and somebody went and told his dad about it. Joseph scolded him, “Why are you doing this on the Sabbath, which is not lawful to do?” But little Jesus clapped his muddy hands and said to the sparrows, “Go!” and they flew away chirping.[3]

The writer clearly wanted to show that conflicts over Sabbath laws in Jesus’ ministry were foreshadowed when he was but a little child—a child, however, resembling a young superhero from a comic strip rather than one who, “day by day like us he grew.”

Luke’s story of the 12-year-old Jesus in the temple is the only incident in the biblical gospels about the life of Jesus between infancy and the beginning of his ministry as an adult. Luke resists the temptation to paint young Jesus as “superboy”,[4] but the scene is similar to childhood stories found in ancient biographies of famous figures. “Jesus is twelve years old, a signal to the original audience,” writes Wesley Allen, “that he is on the cusp of adulthood as defined in the ancient world … His actions on this occasion, then, foreshadow his ministry and especially his relationship with God.”[5] Just as the adult Jesus will make one trip to Jerusalem on Passover, where he will encounter the teachers in the temple and finally give his life in obedience to the Father’s will, so the boy Jesus, near the end of his childhood, makes one trip to the temple, on Passover, where he encounters the teachers. To his family, he appears to be lost, but he knows he is exactly where he needs to be.

"Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" he says to his parents, sounding a little like a sassy pre-teen, while at the same time stating very clearly to them, to himself, and to us that his life would be about the household of God and the relationships defining it.

"Why were you searching for me? Did you not know …?” These are the first words Jesus utters in Luke’s narration of the gospel. They don’t sound like Christmas, do they? But they spell out why we celebrate Christmas.

Before I get to that, let me tell you that I do not own a Christmas sweater or a Santa Claus tie. Several years ago, though, I picked up a pair of Christmas socks at Target. Black, with little green Christmas trees and a jolly, fat Santa. Every year, I wear them once, and then they go in the laundry basket and eventually back in the drawer until next year.

Why am I talking about Christmas socks? Because the wonderful passage from Colossians for today talks about getting dressed. The baby was God. The Word became flesh. We have seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Now what?

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

The baby was God, and with Sharon’s Three Rich Men we come to adore him and to offer our gifts—only to realize, be it suddenly or gradually, that Christmas is a reverse baby shower: new clothes for us. We’re invited to let ourselves be wrapped snuggly in layer after layer of all that Jesus embodies—compassion, kindness, humility, patience, forgiveness, peace.

We will soon put away the Christmas socks and sweaters until next year, together with the left-over wrapping paper and all the decorations. But the birth of Jesus isn’t about decoration, it’s about incarnation: the complete embodiment of the divine in a human being.

We know he didn’t come so we could have a day or two of merriment and nostalgia—beautiful and life-giving as such days are. He came to reclaim and fulfill all our days. He came to free us and to bind us together for good in the love of God.

[1] John Shea, The Hour of the Unexpected (Allan, TX: Argus Communications, 1977), 68.

[2] Cecil F. Alexander, “Once in David’s Royal City,” Chalice Hymnal No. 165.

[3] ​​Infancy Gospel of Thomas 2:1-4; text available at http://gnosis.org/library/inftoma.htm and elsewhere online.

[4] Eugene Boring and Fred Craddock, The People’s New Testament Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 184.

[5] O. Wesley Allen Jr. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-of-christmas-3/commentary-on-luke-241-52-5

God's magnifying gaze

Mary sings, and we just got to join in.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior,
for you have looked with favor on the lowliness of your servant.

Mary sings, I’m convinced of it, though Luke doesn’t give it to me in writing. Even when merely spoken, her words easily fall into rhythm and make the whole body search for a tune to go with her confident posture.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior,
for you have looked with favor on the lowliness of your servant.

Mary sings of the magnifying gaze of God. She sings of the Holy One of Israel who looks with favor on what is small in our eyes, on what we dismiss as insignificant, on what is often overlooked or ignored—lowliness. Mary sings of God’s magnifying gaze that has changed her life and the course of the world.

We’re told an angel came to her; she would get pregnant and give birth to a boy, the angel said, and that she would name him Jesus. And that was only the beginning of the angelic announcement; the divine surprise was still unfolding. God would give to her boy the throne of David, and of his kingdom there would be no end. And this child of hers would be called the Son of the Most High.

After dropping the news, the angel lingered a little, didn’t just return to heaven, having delivered the life-changing message. The angel waited. Clearly this pregnancy was not just a matter of divine fiat. The angel waited to hear what Mary would have to say. The angel waited because the good news for all people does not press us into service or coerce us. God speaks and awaits our response, awaits our consent to let our lives serve God’s saving purpose. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord,” Mary said. “Let it be with me according to your word.” Fully seen in our dignity as creatures made in the image of God, none of us are treated as mere means for God’s ends; we are partners whose consent God awaits and honors. Advent is a time of expectant waiting, and not just for us, but for God and whole host of heaven

“Let it be with me according to your word,” Mary said. Then the angel departed, and Mary departed as well, with haste, to go and see Elizabeth down south, in the hill country. It’s with Elizabeth, that Mary finds words beyond her courageous, “Let it be.”

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.

“The confession ‘Savior’ expresses the desperate need of the lowly, the poor, the oppressed, and the hungry,” writes Alan Culpepper.

Those who have power and means, privilege and position have no need sufficient to lead them to voice such a term that is itself a plea for help. ‘Savior’ gives evidence of one’s sense of need greater than one’s strength. The proud are thereby excluded from the beginning from the confession that leads to joy and salvation.[1]

The confession “Savior” expresses the desperate need of the lowly, but also their confident hope in the God who sees them and looks on them with favor. Mary glorifies God her Savior, because the Mighty One of Israel doesn’t act like the mighty ones of the world. Mary sings, because God’s magnifying gaze renders the overlooked visible, making seemingly insignificant people greater in status and importance, moving them from the margins to the center. Mary sings, because her life matters, her consent matters, her voice matters. She sings, because God chose her to participate in the great work of salvation. “Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed,” she declares, moving quickly from the very personal to the vast horizon of God’s promise to Abraham: all generations will call her blessed, and in the end all the families of the earth will be blessed because God is faithful.[2]

God’s magnifying gaze is by no means a new thing, it simply is the way God looks at the world. “You, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,” the prophet Micah declared, “you who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel… He shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, … he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace.”[3] Of all the towns and clans of Judah, God chose Bethlehem. Of all the sons of Jesse, God chose David. Of all the nations, God chose Israel. Of all the women, God chose Mary, a teenager from some town called Nazareth that nobody had ever heard of. Under the magnifying gaze of God, the people and needs we all too easily overlook or ignore, or are prone to dismiss as marginal or insignificant, are fully seen and recognized, and therefore honored.

Wendy Farley writes,

When we expect the power of redemption to mimic the power we see around us every day in fathers, judges, rulers, warriors, or captains of industry, it is because we have not been able to digest the shocking images of power we celebrate every Christmas and Easter. … Christ has always been a terribly offensive icon of the Holy, not least because he is perhaps the poorest display of power one sees in any of the world’s religions. In him, we see immortal, invisible God birthed into this world through an impoverished and nearly outcast young woman. We watch Jesus wander around a little rag-tag occupied country for a while and then leave it by one of Rome’s most hideous methods of execution. Although we love these stories and tell them over and over again, they capture something about divine power that [many of us] often find indigestible. Our love of power finds little satisfaction in Jesus. [4]

And perhaps because our love of power finds little satisfaction in Jesus, we are tempted, forever tempted, it seems, to fashion God for us in the image of an autocratic ruler. Yet for centuries, Christians have recited Mary’s confident and exuberant words in their evening prayers, with the desire to join her praise of God’s world-flipping redemption, and hopefully with the desire to have our own views of people and needs adjusted by God’s magnifying gaze.  

For you, God, have scattered the proud in their conceit,
casting down the mighty from their thrones,
and lifting up the lowly.
You have filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
You have come to the aid of your servant Israel,
to remember the promise of mercy,
the promise you made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and his children for ever.

Mary’s words reach far into the past, into the time of promise, and they reach deep into the time of fulfillment, even as the promise fulfilled reaches into the present with the birth of her child. We join Mary in her praise because the Spirit who came upon her has been poured out on us. We sing with her, because the God she birthed into this world is faithfully moving the whole creation toward its consummation in Christ. We sing Mary’s words of confidence and courage, because as we sing, our own hearts become a little more courageous and willing to follow Jesus on the way. We sing justice. We sing redemption. We sing the end of hunger and war. We sing the resurrection. We sing the power of love overcoming the love of power, and we say with her, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

During the years of military rule and civil war in Guatemala and El Salvador, those in power banned the public reading of Mary’s canticle of praise—they recognized it as subversive. When Martin Luther first translated the Bible into German, a number of German princes gladly supported him in his struggles with the Holy Roman Empire. But when they considered their own peasants singing along with mother Mary about the God who casts down the mighty from their thrones, they got nervous. And Luther, convinced that he needed the princes’ support, revised his German translation of the New Testament: he left Mary’s song in Latin.

Only that kind of maneuvering by those in power did not then nor will it ever prevent God’s merciful gaze from lifting up the lowly. In the late 80’s, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Christians in Leipzig gathered on Monday evenings in and around St. Nikolai church to pray for peace and to sing. They lit candles, week after week, singing songs of hope, and their numbers grew from a few dozen to more than a thousand and eventually to more than three hundred thousand men, women, and children. After the fall of the Wall, a reporter asked an officer of the Stasi, the dreaded secret police, why they did not crush this protest like they had so many others. And the officer replied, “We had no contingency plan for song.”[5]

In the deep shadows of injustice and despair, we light the candles of Advent. In the thick darkness of the world’s sinful, loveless ways, we raise up our heads and hum along with Mary’s song—already a little more confident than we thought possible; a little more courageous than we imagined. We sing the birth of Jesus. We go to Bethlehem to see what God has done for us. We will enter the house where the promise of God is fulfilled and new life comes into the world. We will kneel next to the manger, and all that is proud and powerful in us will be brought down and scattered. And all that is lowly and poor, humble and hungry in us will be lifted up and strengthened and filled. And the hungry will eat. And those who flee for their lives will find refuge and home. And those who thirst for righteousness will drink. And we will all know and live the good news of great joy.

[1] Culpepper, Luke (NIB), 56.

[2] See Genesis 12:3

[3] Micah 5:2-5

[4] Wendy Farley, The Wounding and Healing of Desire. Weaving Heaven and Earth (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 29, 96; my italics.

[5] David Lose http://www.davidlose.net/2015/12/advent-4-c-singing-as-an-act-of-resistance/