Building the Commonwealth of God

WE HAVE COME through a turbulent year in which health concerns, weather concerns, social unrest concerns, and more have been at the center of our thoughts. From the first time we heard “COVID-19” to the last storm of hurricane season to the deaths of many significant cultural icons in the U.S., we have found ourselves reeling—or at least I have, and so have many people I know.

Advent and the beginning of the Christmas season give us an opportunity to recalibrate and take a breath. We are into the new Christian calendar, and for Christians that reality should mean something. Expectation, hope, joy, and peace are just some of the Christian ways of leaning into life. Advent allows us to flex those faith muscles. And we need them, because, as the texts for the first days of Christmastide notes, the struggle under which we live does not dissipate. We live our Christian faith most often amid social crises. “Calm” and “peace” are aspirational at best. The reflections for this month try to make sense of how we flex those muscles I mentioned earlier. How do we participate in God’s desire for us to live together in just, holy, equitable ways? How do we hold ourselves and each other accountable to building the commonwealth of God, in which we each play our part, great or small, so that all are made whole?

December 6

Hope Under Construction

This second Sunday of Advent, as we focus on hope, I can hear in my mind Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice as I read Isaiah 40:4-5. This text is layered in good memories for me. But as I was preparing to write for this Advent season, a friend said to me, “I am feeling hopeless.” In the midst of a persistent global pandemic that has come with a fair amount of impatience and impertinence in the U.S., I understood my friend’s despair. However, the readings this Sunday encourage hope, the stubborn quality that believes in God’s persistent grace toward humans, no matter our failings. One of my favorite quotes about hope is from Bishop Yvette A. Flunder, presiding prelate of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries. She declares, “We are obligated to hope.” Hope is not wishful thinking, but an assurance that God is constant when people are not (40:6-8).

Most days I believe Bishop Flunder that our Christian faith leads us to hope. But the prophet Isaiah understood that hope could only proceed from God’s comfort. Sometimes, during turmoil and struggle, we need someone to “speak tenderly” to us, as the prophet says God commanded regarding ancient Israel. In a time of deep angst and despair for many, in a time of great loss over a sustained period, those who are obligated to this godly hope are encouraged to say, “Here is your God” (verse 9). As we absorb this hope for ourselves, individually and communally, we also are obligated to clear the path for others to experience hope, or, in the words of the prophet, “to prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (verse 3). What does that kind of construction look like when we seem more interested in barriers between us than leveling the ground so that everyone can travel, no matter their physical or spiritual abilities (verse 4)? I have no answers; I have only a deep assurance, a hope, that God will equip us for that work.

December 13

Justice-Fueled Joy

Joy, my mother often said, is based in God—not in what’s happening around you. I have lived with this idea since I was a child. I wish I could remember why my mother thought it necessary to give this definition to her children. I wonder about her words as I read Isaiah. It seems clear that for the prophet, joy is bestowed on people because of God, yes, but also because of the circumstances around the people changing. The garments of salvation (61:10) follow the prophetic actions in which oppressed people receive good news; brokenhearted people have their wounds tended; those captive—and here I would imagine captive in any way, from oppressive systems, unjust countries, addictions, and more—are liberated; and prisoners are freed (verse 1). Can’t you hear the cheers arising from those set free under all these conditions?

But wait! There’s more. The prophet proclaims a jubilee (the year of God’s favor), which for ancient Israel included freedom from unbearable debt and setting slaves free, too. It included providing for widows and orphans, for example, “those who mourn in Zion” (verse 3). It would be easy to think this call for provision is poetic and doesn’t demand anything of those who are in leadership or who claim to love God. But if you know anything about the prophetic literature, you know prophets usually are literalists when it comes to caring for the least among them.

Looking ahead, you see these commitments in the song that Mary sings in Luke 1:46-55, which includes the “reversal of fortune” theme. Some may believe it’s harsh to suggest that the rich will turn away empty; after all, why can’t we just all be among the “haves,” right? I think the joy of the exploited in the song, in which they rejoice in what has been visited on them being turned on their oppressors, is a call to repentance and empathy, fueled by God’s justice. And, maybe in this Advent season, that justice is what will bring us all joy.

December 20

Christmas is Coming

It’s the Sunday before Christmas. This last Advent Sunday reminds us that we are called to peace. But this Gregorian calendar year, the end of which is in sight, has been anything but peaceful. We have come through a difficult year rife with turmoil and dissent, with no unity of which to speak. I have wondered how we will ever find an equilibrium that includes justice, since I don’t believe peace is possible without justice. A cessation of strife does not necessarily mean people have come to good will.

Reading the gospel lesson, I was reminded that the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in turbulent times, a time when ancient Israel longs for deliverance. A young child (probably no more than 12 or 13 years old) has this visitation of “favor.” But the message, though she must bear it, is not for her alone. She will be vulnerable in every way so that God might provide for the people a king to sit on the Davidic throne. An upended life in time of turmoil is the answer for deliverance, and ultimately peace. I’m not particularly comforted by this revelation, except in this way: Peace isn’t always apparent when we yield to what we know God is calling forth from us, individually and collectively. But if it is true that “nothing is impossible with God”—and I believe it is—then yielding to the most absurd obedience is a part of it. For me that has meant praying for people not on my normal prayer list: people I disagree with politically, socially, and religiously. For me, these prayers have been as improbable as being impregnated by the Spirit was to Mary. When I find myself rendered distraught by the world around me, as I imagine Mary must have been, I remind myself that God works in and through chaos. It’s an odd way to find peace.

December 27

Regular Appearances

What does it mean to embrace Christmastide as believers? Despite the fact that “two turtledoves” (Luke 2:24) might remind you of a familiar Christmas song, there are other reasons for this text, including that Simeon desired to see God’s salvation, here as the infant Jesus, the firstborn of Mary, being consecrated to God (verse 23). Every time I read this passage I’m struck by Simeon’s words. They are pointed and, in some ways, painful (“a sword will pierce your own soul too,” (verse 35). I can testify that my inner thoughts have been revealed by how I interact with Mary’s baby. One of the realities with which we are confronted regularly is that we don’t always speak the truth or act the truth. But when truth, wrapped in swaddling clothes or in gospel, meets us, our thoughts are made manifest by our actions. When someone says, “I’m not a mind reader,” they speak rightly. And yet, we “read” people’s minds daily by what they do. Our actions reveal our thinking; our behavior uncovers our motives, even when we are trying so hard to hide our inner thoughts. Our opposition to God’s plan for all creation shows up in the way we respond to this child—represented in the faces and lives of every child, especially the most vulnerable among us.

What if in this Christmas season we remind ourselves that Jesus appears regularly to us? What if we choose not to dismiss this scripture as “merely” a retelling of Jesus’ young life, but rather as a story that appears time and again, giving us an opportunity to both praise God and ponder how our inner thoughts manifest in how we relate to one another? Simeon and Anna were serving in the temple. Mary and Joseph were following the law. Each were interacting with God’s choice for salvation in the way they were called in that moment. May our inner thoughts be revealed so that we might serve God justly or change to do so.