Scripture Readings for December 6, 2017

Isaiah 25:6-10a, Psalm 23:1-6, Matthew 15:29-37

Today’s readings are about God’s loving care for us. The Gospel from Matthew summarizes it best, “They all ate and were satisfied.” Isaiah has God not only feeding people rich food and choice wine but God destroys death and so wipes the tears from everyone’s face. These are the images of the messianic banquet where all our needs are met. It’s the time we wait for in Advent.

I am struck by the sheer, over the top, abundance described in these readings. Isaiah doesn’t just say that God will provide rich food and choice wine he has to repeat in more lavish terms that this is, “juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.” He reveals God’s empathy for the fear all people have of death and makes the removal of that fear a touching moment in which God wipes the “tears from all faces.” I think this is definitely the God “for whom we looked.” It is a God who protects us, takes away our fears and gives us more than we had expected.

Today’s Psalm reinforces this idea. It is the famously quoted Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd,” which describes God’s soothing presence, one who is a guardian in time of fear, a provider of rich and extravagant blessings so that “only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life.” Who could ask for more than that? This is the gratitude of one who lives “in the house of the Lord.”

Finally, we have Matthew’s story of Jesus on a mountain near the Sea of Galilee. This too is a story of gift and abundance. Jesus cures the sick and in so doing amazes the crowd. It is a description reminiscent of the healings that Isaiah uses to describe the time of God’s reign. Yet Jesus not only cures the lame and the blind but he sympathizes with their simple but essential need for a meal. Not only does he eliminate many of the severe and future killing major calamities of their lives with physical healings but then turns around and serves them a meal. Who acts like this? The message in these readings is clear, God does.

I think we have to take these readings seriously. If Advent is to mean anything then we have to consider that these readings tell us something about how God operates towards human beings. I want to set the challenge of evil in the world aside for the moment and just absorb the gift of these readings. Here is a message of love so clear, so strong, so plainly sincere that we need to be sure we don’t dismiss it. That we don’t write it off as irrelevant to our daily lives or a nice description of what heaven must be like. This might have been an idyllic messiah story for Isaiah or the Psalmist but when Jesus lived in this world the whole thing changed. A real human being, who was later killed, brought God’s generous, caring gifts into ordinary people lives and the world has not been the same since. Stuff changed. History was effected by Jesus, his disciples and all the myriad believers, heretics, thinkers and peasants who lived and struggled to live up to what they thought Jesus was all about. We need to embrace the love and active generosity of God. It is affecting to accept that God is trying to give us a life of happiness and joy. That is what Advent asks us to do, look ahead, see what is possible, and be willing to welcome the gifts.

Scripture Readings for December 5, 2017

Isaiah 11:1-10, Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17 and Luke 10:21-24

Today’s first reading is all about the coming of the future king and his reign. Isaiah is the ultimate Advent reading. It is the basis of Advent, telling us what is to come and what to look for. If we have mistakenly romanticized Christmas into a season of gift giving and family get-togethers, Isaiah reminds us that we are waiting for a completely different world, a paradise of peace and joy.

In terms of Advent we are still waiting for something that we think has already taken place. We treat Advent as routine, part of getting ready for Christmas. However, Advent is asking us to wait for something much bigger; not bigger than Christmas properly understood but bigger than our usual operational understanding of Christmas. Advent and Isaiah want us to see a new world that looks like Eden, a paradise. It is a world where calves and lions walk together, where children play with once deadly snakes, where the poor are treated fairly and there is “no harm or ruin” on the earth. That is the world we are looking for.

Yet in Luke’s gospel Jesus is telling his disciples that they are already seeing what the prophets wanted to see. They have just returned from their mission to spread the Gospel and they have been wildly successful, even casting out spirits. They have participated in knowing God, they have taken part in revealing God’s kingdom. However, for us, two thousand years later, this anticipated heaven doesn’t appear to be present. God’s reign is not yet. So how is Isaiah’s prophesy and Luke’s gospel helpful for us today? What message can we take away?

It is an understanding that Jesus is both the media and the message. His existence is what we need to know about ourselves and our relationship with God. When Isaiah talks about all the gifts of the Spirit that will be given to the expected Messiah, to Jesus, he is revealing what is available to all of humanity. This is also what Jesus is thanking his Father for in Luke, when he says, “you have revealed these things to the childlike,” i.e. to ordinary people, to everyone. That’s what Jesus is also saying to his disciples, when he says they are blessed because they can actually see what Jesus, the Messiah, is doing and as a result they are in a position to do the same thing. Kings and prophets before Jesus only thought in terms of a future possibility, an imagined future in which they hoped to see God act in their world. However, that’s what the disciples actually have in front of them, the living expression of God in the world.

If we believe that’s true, that the person Jesus is God operating in the world, then we are also in a position to live that reality. To spread that way of living, to act out of that love and presence which is available to us in the Spirit. No, the world is not the idyllic paradise we might imagine. Yet when and where people have lived the life of love and care for others, their piece of the planet has been changed. You know the famous examples: Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton, and the many official saints. You also probably know people you admire who have changed their part of the world, people who have made a difference. These are happy, enthusiastic, devoted people who recognize the gift they have and share it. That’s something we can all do and it can make a difference to this world’s day to day reality.

Scripture Readings for December 4, 2017

 Isaiah 2:1-5, Psalm 122:1-9 and Matthew 8:5-11

We have just begun Advent so when I heard the last line from Isaiah, “let us walk in the light of the Lord,” I thought it said exactly what we need right now. The earlier part of Isaiah says what walking in the light of the Lord is all about: putting aside hostilities, getting along with everyone and doing what God says is the right thing. It is behavior attuned to the divine that yields the peace of the Lord and builds a City of God.

The most concrete example in today’s readings is the behavior of the centurion. This man is a Roman army officer, he’s in charge of 100 men. In this time and place he could have anything he wants. He has real power over not just his soldiers but could force his will on any of the locals he chose. Yet he comes to Jesus not only respectfully but humbly. He is also apparently aware of the fact that if a Jew entered a Gentile house they were considered ritually unclean.

The centurion asks as one without power or privilege. However, he asks confidently believing that Jesus doesn’t even have to enter his house to do what he wants. This is how the centurion walks in the light of the Lord. He asks out of his concern for his servant who is paralyzed and suffering at home. He asks with no other qualifications. I think that is often hard to do, to come before God, leaving status, privilege, and one’s attitude behind. To ask out of our concern alone trusting that God can accomplish what is needed.

Our Psalm today is all about having peace and prosperity. Living in God’s city. Jerusalem is meant to be the image of what we would call heaven. I want to suggest that heaven shouldn’t just be an image we have of our life after death. But rather we must consider that Jesus and Scripture are trying to tell us something about what God wants for us here and now. Especially if you consider that most of what makes up our peace and prosperity comes from within.

The Psalm is very explicit about this when it says, ‘Peace be within you.” I think that the image of Jerusalem may well be the ideal of how changing our attitudes could change who we are and how we deal with the world and all the everyday issues that aren’t very peaceful. What if we approached life as humbly as the centurion? What if we were willing to hear what God is saying to us and were willing to accept the paths God lays out before us?

This is one of the first days of Advent, a time in which we wait for the light of Christ to be born into the world. Perhaps it’s time to consider that the birth this year could well be within us. We too can walk in the light of God and experience a birth that comes about when we, like the centurion, humbly ask for healing from whatever suffering has harmed part of our lives. Maybe then it will be easier to see and hear what God is doing for us. “Let us walk in the Light of the Lord.”