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Futurists are often gloomy, cherishing destruction and despair in whatever kind of apocalypse they’re selling.  The Church has yet another opportunity to be counter- cultural, this Advent, as we proclaim Hope & Harmony in end times.  We cannot deny world hostility and famine, exploitation of persons and resources, abuse and greed:  the beasts have not yet been de-clawed.  But we can paint pictures of an involved and steadfast God whose unfolding presence shelters and encourages those who wish to keep walking.  Readings for the Second Sunday of Advent offer alternative images to the doom ‘n’ gloom guys.

Isaiah of Jerusalem spoke to a people fainting with fear of the Assyrians who would eventually (721 BC) overrun the Northern Kingdom and disperse those 10 tribes to who-knows-where.  Verses 1-10 of Chapter 11 is a hinged pair of paintings, one looking for a Messianic bud from the stump of Jesse, and the other portraying a Peaceable Kingdom impossible but for the change God is making.  This Messiah will intercede for the vulnerable–the lambs, the oxen, the children–and harmonize all things in divine care.

Paul begins to wind down his doctrinal Epistle to the Romans with the restatement of his conviction that Gentiles are also part of God’s People (15:4-13).  He bookends this inclusiveness with two sentences of Hope:  “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope….May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that your may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  This hope, then, is not of our own cultivation, but rather the Gift of a gracious God.  Although not yet seen, the Messiah and the new order are a gleam in God’s Eye–and also in ours!

Matthew reminds us that John the Baptizer appeared out in the wilderness (3:1-12).  Some will say that the harshest wilderness is that within the hearer:  behind the plastic smiles of “organized worship” are thorns of loneliness and gusty winds of fear.  This Gospel is to acknowledge that we DO walk in emptiness–more times than we like to admit.  Even those who talk a good game, Pharisees & Sadducees, are confronted with their wilderness–and reminded that they too can Turn It Around.  If they “bear fruit worthy of repentance”, will these usher in the Messianic Kingdom?

Hope is an over-used word for a revolutionary idea.  To be sure, it’s more than “the sun will come out tomorrow”.  Somewhere beyond the rosy glasses must be a steadfast Creator who deals out both Justice and Mercy, and thus introduces and begins to build a world where enemies can trust, where appetites will be satisfied, and where innocence will be a norm.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

God Bless Us, Every One                       Horace Brown King

My audacious musings on the assigned lectionary readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

My son Steve’s family recently owned Callie, a very smart dog.  Among her tricks was the one where Steve would set a treat on her nose and say, “Wait…wait for it”.  When the dog heard “now”, she’d snap it up.  Well, OK, lots of dogs do this.  But when Christmas is so close that we see it cross-eyed, it’s a real trick to wait!  The Church adopts a counter-cultural stand as we insist on a four-Sunday period of anticipation.  The assigned lessons for this First Week of Advent may help the worshiper to focus on the actuality of the ChristChild, even as we wrap him in lights & tissue paper.

What, exactly, are we looking for?  Isaiah of Jerusalem begins us with some promises (2:1-5).  He speaks of the centrality of the New Zion, where the pilgrim may hear God “teach us his ways and that we may walk in [God’s] paths.”  This Supreme Judge will re-balance world affairs; and as a result, the nations will be able to “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks”.  There will be no reason to learn war anymore!  Implements for taking life are transformed into implements for SUSTAINING life….individuals, too.

Wake up! says Paul to the Christians in Rome (13:11-14).  Not necessarily a prediction of an immanent apocalypse, the message is one of alertness.  If the believer lives in a constant state of expectation, a Holy Presence may be seen all around.   Why look for the Future, since the Advent is already here?  Get on with it, says the Apostle.  Put on some serious ethics:  we’re already citizens of the new age.

The Gospel of Matthew is introduced for this Christian Year:  Jesus reminds his group that no one really “knows” the Day of the Lord–so keep awake! (24:36-44)  Lives and relationships will be changed…and are they not already?  The Disciples have asked the foil-question:  “So where IS God; and why don’t we notice more?”  The answer is one of developing faith; and in the process, becoming faithful.  Jesus turns the conversation away from the temporal to the eternal, once again transcending human measurements and boundaries.

The Advent Season does us a major favor by insisting that Good Things get even Better after we process them in a waiting period.  This concept is quite foreign to our current desire for instant gratification. But Advent is more than a parlor trick for doting relatives; we’re plunged into a period of changing our minds, again and again, about where to put the ChristChild.

God Bless Us, Every One       Horace Brown King

My thoughts about scripture lessons for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

Twenty-First Century People rarely speak of kingdoms, at least in the present tense.  Our recent trip to Central Europe yielded thousands of statues of nobility–all dead.  Who has “Kings” anymore?  But what does rule your life?  To what systems belong your allegiances?  And how do we live with ourselves while living within these mortal systems, although offering vassalage to God?  The Christian Year is completed with Reign of Christ Sunday:  dare I walk hopefully through these fearful times?

Jeremiah, speaking about 600 BC, condemned the last kings of Judah for neglecting the people and pilfering their wealth for themselves.  But “the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” (23:5)  So many aspects of our culture seem out of control–homelessness, racism and fear of the stranger cloud our national image.  What if the King has been here all the time, but we’ve forgotten the way to the throne?  Our hopeful trail of breadcrumbs has been gobbled by vultures of selfish materialism, and we tremble in the shadow of the Forest.  Hearers of this text may ask, “What little power have I?  And in whose interest do I use it?”

The author of the Letter to the Colossians writes, “[God] has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son…” (1:13)  The Greek is “methistemi”, the ancient practice of the conquering general/emperor to carry off the  populace of the vanquished area.  The image is that of a Supreme Ruler who pulls out the perishing to a new land…whether or not they knew themselves as previously enslaved.  It is we ourselves who give power to darkness through our own fear and insecurity.  Specters and demons turn to dust in the Light of Christ.

And so the “Good Thief” hopefully prayed, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:42)   The unfolding Kingdom of God rescues us common folk, announcing that we are no longer forgotten.  Minions of materialism live in ordinary time, but the Good Thief lives already in the Reign of Christ.   “…the ruler of the kingdom of God is already with you, in your life and in your dying, and with you even in damnation by sin.  Indeed, he close to you even in your distance from God.”  (Eberhard Busch, U. of Gottenburg, in FEASTING on the WORD, C 4:336)

The prim and overdressed matron was standing in the rowboat, trying to get onto the dock.  With one foot on the pier and the other in the boat, whatever would happen next was probably wrong.  Who was the Unknown Hero who grabbed her elbow and pulled her safely ashore, thus retaining her dryness and acerbity?

God Bless Us, Every One…                        Horace Brown King

My thoughts about scripture lessons for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

Well, who doesn’t?  The poet has said, “Grow mold along with me: the best is yet to be!” (sorry, Liz!)  Some of what keeps life going is the anticipation that the Present Darkness/Boredom/Captivity will someday come to an end.  Soon.  One of my friends usually greets me with “How’s it going?”, an acknowledgement that today’s in process and not at a dead stop.  Taken separately, the scriptures for the coming weekend could stand by themselves; indeed,  their first reading seems to yield no coherence whatsoever.  Yet something impels me to link them under the concept of The Journey.

Haggai, who spoke in or about 520 BC, was one who returned from the Babylonian Exile when the Persians sent them “home”.  But home wasn’t as they had remembered: time and neglect had turned the old sites of prosperity into ruin, including the Temple.  Alas!  The Golden Days of our ancestors will never be the same…  “Get real”, says Haggai.”The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.” (2:9)  Is this a political message for those today who want to turn back the clock and “make America great (?) again”?

The household congregations in Thessalonia were quite concerned about Christ’s Second Coming.  Did we miss something?  Have we slept through the revolution?  Today’s pew-sitters have pretty much dismissed this idea, and have little anticipation of an actual apocalypse, despite the movies of Summer.  The author begs the people “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.” (II 2:2)  There’s more to the passage, which dances around a bit–but the benediction, vv.16 & 17, is wonderful!  And timeless…

The Sadducees said there was no afterlife.  Live for today, because when we’re gone, we’re GONE.  (That’s why they’re SAD, You See…)  So some smarties among them asked Jesus about the wife whose husband died, thus his brother dutifully married her.  And then HE died–and all his brothers.  All in all, this hypothetical Typhoid Mary outlived seven husbands!  So in the resurrection, they chortled, whose wife will she be?  (Luke 20:27-38)  Jesus explained that marriage is an Earthly custom, and doesn’t apply in heaven, no matter what Country songs say.  You who wish to spin out the bit about Something Better should be advised to proceed with caution!

And so we wait:  for Friday, for Christmas, for the Wells Fargo wagon…  Hope, being the substance of things not seen, drives us to stay alive to perceive the wonders yet to be  revealed.  I am an idea in the mind of God, in the process of unfolding.

God Bless Us, Every One                            Horace Brown King

My reflections on scriptures appointed for the upcoming week can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com