Upfront warning: Some may think that I am being blatantly political in this article. In our culture, that is how you earn the title “Bad Pastor” from some. I would counter that my message here is only peripherally about politics. It is primarily about faithfulness and justice. However, when we talk about feeding the hungry (a command from God throughout the scriptures) we often end up treading on matters related to the King, the President, the Governor, or the Legislature.
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The ancient Church adhered to a tradition of publicly announcing the dates of Easter, along with other festivals that lacked a fixed date. Given that the Epiphany (January 6) is a fixed date and it marks the final significant fixed-date feast before transitioning into the Easter cycle, characterized by moveable dates, it served as an opportune moment to declare the dates of Easter and other moveable observances.
The theme we have selected for Advent this year is a prayer, a plea, an appeal, for God to come and be with us. Emmanuel (no matter how you spell it) means, “God with us.” So, this most recognizable of Advent entreaties is a simple call for God’s presence. It is a cry of hope, with more than a hint of desperation included. Being thankful seems such an important thing that we have a national holiday dedicated to gratitude! For many, it involves gastronomic excess, time off from work, and football. This holiday is our expression of something humans have been doing since the pre-winter harvest and hunt took place for the very first time, I imagine. We have our American version of the feast, but it is a universal impulse to give thanks for the bounty we humans receive regardless of clan, nationality, time, or place. “It is right to give our thanks and praise,” as our worship proclaims. On Paul’s missionary trip through Macedonia, he encountered people who were suffering a “severe ordeal of affliction,” and living in “extreme poverty.” (II Corinthians 8:2) If anyone needed help, it was these folks. Yet, Paul tells us, that when they found out about the suffering and famine in Jerusalem and the offering Paul was taking to meet those needs, listen to what they did: “… they voluntarily gave according to their means and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the favor of partnering in this ministry to the saints…” (2 Corinthians 8:3-4). In the Western world we have a dominant worldview. An integral part of our dominant world view is capitalism, which is based on quid pro quo, reward and punishment, and justice as retribution. If I want X number of widgets, I will need to provide Y amount of payment. We are unaware of how this fundamental worldview affects our relationships, our basic self-image, and actions. Phrases like “I deserve”; “You owe me”; “I will be generous if it helps me, too” seem to dominate our conversations. It also gets built into faulty foundation for our relationship with God. In the fourth chapter of Genesis, Cain kills his brother, Abel. Murder and violence enter the human story. God finds Cain. “Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9) Am I my brother’s, my sister’s, my neighbor’s keeper? It is a rhetorical question, not an invitation to debate from scripture’s perspective. The answer is a resounding, “YES!” |
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