Preparing our hearts for God
Commentary
Object:
Happy New Year! No, I don’t have the date wrong. Today is the beginning of the new liturgical year: Advent -- the coming of the Lord, the appearance of the Realm of God on the earth. While the rest of the country is celebrating or bemoaning the election and whatever complications that will bring -- or has already, since I’m writing before the election -- we are looking toward the rule of God being made plain. While others are rushing about, driving themselves crazy planning parties, getting Christmas cards or e-mails designed and sent, getting gifts for everyone they think they should, and hiding the goodies from the kids until they can wrap them and put them under the tree, we are taking some time each day to prepare our hearts to be a place God can call home.
Right.
By the time Christmas is here, we will all be sick of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” But those hymns we love the most will be heard primarily in church, certainly not over the radio. And all those preparations will be done... or not. But when Christmas comes, the preparations will have to stop. And then we can take stock of our preparedness to accept God’s vulnerability in coming to us as an infant, helpless as any other newborn. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas.
Isaiah 2:1-5
After this election year, this Sunday probably finds most of us glad that the presidential election is over. And some of us are sure to be angry or frightened at the results. Some media have been using their extensive libraries to fact-check what the candidates were saying they have done or want to do, and now we wait for January and the inauguration of the new president. As I write this the election is just days away, and I hope that there will not be a violent reaction to the election results.
The people of Isaiah’s time had a similar problem, only in their case it wasn’t an election that had driven them to exhaustion. They didn’t have elections. The king appointed men to the jobs he thought they were suited for. Things could go much more smoothly that way, but things could decline just as smoothly -- and quickly. And the people had no say in what was happening: they had to follow orders, even when they knew disaster would follow.
First Isaiah (chapters 1-23 and 28-33)1, whom we also call “Isaiah of Jerusalem,” is the prophet of God for this troubling time in history. His advice to the king and nation was “Trust in God, for God is great and powerful. Do not turn to Assyria (the dominant nation in the area in that day) in the warfare that has Aram (Syria) and the Northern Kingdom of Israel attacking our nation, because if you rely on God, Jerusalem will never fall.” Later, when the king had become a vassal of Assyria and was considering joining one or another of the revolts being plotted against Assyria, Isaiah counseled him again to trust in the Lord.
I’m not sure we can fault the nation for not listening, even though they might have been spared if they listened to God’s prophet. After all, if you’re under attack, who would have the nerve to do nothing but trust in God? But Isaiah was right in one way -- although Judah became a vassal state of Assyria in c.705-701, and Assyria ravaged the kingdom and besieged Jerusalem, they withdrew before gaining control of Jerusalem. It is probably that alone that made the people believe that Isaiah was in fact sent by God.
In the first chapter of Isaiah, he warns the people in the most graphic terms that their trust in some other nation rather than the God of Israel has made them subject to God’s punishment. They will reap the harvest that their leaders have sown.
In this second chapter, however, Isaiah describes a vision that the Lord has given him. It is the triumph of God and the establishment of Zion (a metaphor for Jerusalem and/or the Temple, which was built on a hill to the north of “David’s City”). This is a theological construct, however, not a physical place. “The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains,” Isaiah says. The physical hill on which the Temple was built is not a mountain. As a metaphor, however, Zion is high and lifted up, as the place of God’s throne, so that people can see it from far away. This is a hint that Gentiles will want to worship the God of Israel; you and I, following the path toward that glorious sight, can see which way we are going and arrive safely in the house of God.
Those of us who were never part of God’s chosen people (the Jews) have indeed seen the glory of God, and we have been given the right to go up to the mountain of the Lord so that we can learn the ways of the God of Jacob. We rejoice in the fact that the God we have come to worship made promises that have extended to us as well as the Jews. To qualify to be a part of that stream of humanity climbing the mount of Zion, we seek the instruction that God supplies so that we will not go off on some other path. It is in that hope that Isaiah makes the promise: “[T]hey shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
I remember the shock I felt when I went to the World’s Fair in Montreal in 1967 and saw at the front of the Soviet Union pavilion a statue that illustrated this passage, with the words engraved around the bottom of the plinth on which it stood. Peace is what we all wish for, but we so seldom attain, because we want things to be done our way, not some other way. Even if that other way is God’s way.
What might it mean to trust in the Lord for our safety? What changes in policy might need to be made in order for us to live up to the slogan on our coins: “In God We Trust”? The military budget for our country is over $1,000,000,000 every day. And still there are those who claim that our military has been “stripped down,” that we are nearly defenseless.
Again, what is the truth? Whom do we believe? In whom do we place our trust? Clearly, a large percentage of our population does not trust our government. On whom, then, can we rely? This admonition from Isaiah, to trust in God rather than plots and warriors, surely rings true to us today -- or does it?
This, then, is the meaning of Advent for us this year. Isaiah challenges not only his king and the people of his nation, but our leadership and the people of our nation.
Romans 13:11-14
Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome is his most developed theology, written near the end of his life. He had been in Corinth for some time, and we have a clear enough history of his ministry to be able to date the letter to 57 CE. Paul was planning to travel to Jerusalem to deliver funds to the needy Jewish Christians there, and then to travel westward to Rome and Spain. This would have been his fourth mission journey, but instead he went to Rome bound in chains. The church was already well established in Rome when Paul was planning his mission, probably carried there by Jews who had been converted. Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because of the disturbances caused by the arguments between Christianized Jews and those who clung to their established customs and beliefs. Once Claudius was dead the Jews and Christians returned to Rome, and Paul wanted very much to visit them. Thus this letter.
The Letter to the Romans has been one of the most influential pieces of the Bible. The beliefs that Paul raises up have been the basis of the Protestant Reformation and many other renewal movements in the Church. A careful reading of the text will uncover many differences with other writings attributed to Paul. To this we have to apply a common-sense principle: as a person ages, earlier ideas and beliefs are often overturned. If we never change, we never grow.
The 13th chapter of Romans is the second of four short chapters, each concentrating on the necessity of love and obedience in the life of every Christian. Today’s selection gives the reader the reason for the urgent need to make changes in our lives. Standing at the beginning of the season of Advent, it also points us toward the Light that has come into the world at the birth of Jesus. We may be living in difficult times, but so was Paul. The early Christians had to listen to those around them upholding terrible attitudes. Rome was a huge city, complete with tenements and crime, even as our large cities today. But Paul calls on them -- and us -- to breathe in the Spirit of God. “[N]ow is the moment for you to wake from sleep,” he says. “Salvation is nearer for us than in the moment we first believed. It is time to lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Paul reminds us that the revelry and drunkenness, quarreling and jealousy that so often come to the fore during the holiday season are not the way of Christians. As followers of Christ, we are coming out of the darkness and into the light of the love of God.
It is the right time for us to stop for a few minutes each day to take an assessment of who we are and who we want to be. The gathering together of families at the holidays can cause the rifts between us to shake the foundations of our homes and relationships. Can we learn how to be kinder to one another, even when others in the circumstance are drinking too much, eating too much, shopping too much, laying too much on their own shoulders, so that they are their own worst enemies?
In the various 12-step groups that have grown out of Alcoholics Anonymous, a basic principle is that we each have to look at our own shortcomings, not those of others. It’s way too easy to see others doing the very same things we do, and to judge one another on that basis. But it’s just another way to avoid making changes in our own lives, to avoid facing our own faults.
A friend of mine and I love to watch the television show Project Runway. We love to see the interesting ideas of the designers and laugh at the drama that often goes on. On the most recent season, there was one designer who kept putting down the designs of the other contestants. With every new challenge, he would get on camera and critique what others were doing. His own performance was such that we expected him to be booted off the show himself. At last he was told that his work looked unfinished, the sewing was crooked in the front of the garment, and the judges couldn’t imagine how he was spending his time to produce something so underdone. “Well, gee,” my friend said, “could it be he spends too much time watching the others do their sewing and making rude comments to the camera?”
“The night is far gone, the day is near,” Paul’s voice echoes down the centuries. “Time to wake up and reorder your life. Aim toward God, not your next drink or next affair.”
Matthew 24:36-44
Jesus was talking with his disciples as they visited the Temple in Jerusalem. They were awed by the grandeur of the building Herod had been able to build after the manner of Solomon’s Temple. If you have ever been to a grand cathedral or basilica, either here in our own country or in Europe, you may have had your breath taken away by the soaring walls; stained glass windows; marble walls, floors and altars; and mosaics with gold leaf and precious stones. These riches can turn the mind and heart upward toward heaven, it is true, and they make the spirit soar. Even so, all of this beauty and wealth are transient. The recent forceful earthquakes in central Italy have damaged such things beyond the ability to restore them.
Jesus, because he could easily read the signs of the times, as he told his disciples, knew that all of this was about to end. He wanted them to know that no matter how beautiful the building, it will eventually crumble. That Temple fell, even as he had foretold it would, and became buried in the rubble of the city as Rome destroyed Jerusalem after one rebellion too many. “Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (24:1-2).
Out of the city they went, up the Mount of Olives, which provided a wide view of the city and the Temple. His disciples asked him to give them some advance warning; how were they to know when all this would happen? Jesus gave them some general guidelines, but then he said, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Therefore, we must always keep ourselves ready. After all, if the homeowner had known that burglars were preparing to invade his home he would be awake, armed, and ready. But God does not intend for us to know this.
What is in our future? We may read astrology columns, go to fortune tellers, call some 900-number psychic service in the hopes that they can give us a clue of what our future will look like. We may search the scriptures, counting letters and words, hoping to discover the secret code buried there so that we will be prepared for any eventuality. But here is the word of Jesus: “If God wants you to know what is about to happen, he will tell you. You don’t need tea leaves or crystal balls. You need to trust God for your future.”
Martin Luther, it is said, was planting an apple tree one afternoon when a neighbor said to him: “Father Martin, why are you planting a tree? What if Jesus were to come back right this minute and found you planting the tree instead of praying?” And Luther responded, “I would go right on planting the tree. If Jesus comes back, I am well employed. And if he doesn’t, then the next generation will have apples.”
This is the paradox of being a follower of Christ. We may speculate about heaven and hell. Jesus used many metaphors for both heaven and hell. They are sometimes mutually exclusive metaphors. That’s because we are supposed to walk by faith, not sight. We are given just enough of God’s light to see the next step in front of us, but not enough to plan our entire journey. Since this is apparently God’s plan for us, it must be that we are to lean on God and let him lead us. It is the worst sort of pride to insist, as so many of us do, that we are doing our best and God will just have to take that since we can’t do any better.
What a joke God is pulling on us! Our best will never be good enough to keep us from falling or wandering off the path. We need to reach out to God and accept that God will keep us safe if we hold on to him.
1 Isaiah 24-27 goes with Isaiah 56-66, written in the late 6th century BCE. We don’t know when it was moved to the current position. This last section is known as Third Isaiah, and was not written by the same person as Isaiah 1-23 but by one of the prophets who grew up in Babylon and followed the School of Isaiah. Jesus seems to have been particularly fond of Isaiah, as he quotes him several times in the gospels, most markedly in Luke 4:17-19.
Right.
By the time Christmas is here, we will all be sick of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” But those hymns we love the most will be heard primarily in church, certainly not over the radio. And all those preparations will be done... or not. But when Christmas comes, the preparations will have to stop. And then we can take stock of our preparedness to accept God’s vulnerability in coming to us as an infant, helpless as any other newborn. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas.
Isaiah 2:1-5
After this election year, this Sunday probably finds most of us glad that the presidential election is over. And some of us are sure to be angry or frightened at the results. Some media have been using their extensive libraries to fact-check what the candidates were saying they have done or want to do, and now we wait for January and the inauguration of the new president. As I write this the election is just days away, and I hope that there will not be a violent reaction to the election results.
The people of Isaiah’s time had a similar problem, only in their case it wasn’t an election that had driven them to exhaustion. They didn’t have elections. The king appointed men to the jobs he thought they were suited for. Things could go much more smoothly that way, but things could decline just as smoothly -- and quickly. And the people had no say in what was happening: they had to follow orders, even when they knew disaster would follow.
First Isaiah (chapters 1-23 and 28-33)1, whom we also call “Isaiah of Jerusalem,” is the prophet of God for this troubling time in history. His advice to the king and nation was “Trust in God, for God is great and powerful. Do not turn to Assyria (the dominant nation in the area in that day) in the warfare that has Aram (Syria) and the Northern Kingdom of Israel attacking our nation, because if you rely on God, Jerusalem will never fall.” Later, when the king had become a vassal of Assyria and was considering joining one or another of the revolts being plotted against Assyria, Isaiah counseled him again to trust in the Lord.
I’m not sure we can fault the nation for not listening, even though they might have been spared if they listened to God’s prophet. After all, if you’re under attack, who would have the nerve to do nothing but trust in God? But Isaiah was right in one way -- although Judah became a vassal state of Assyria in c.705-701, and Assyria ravaged the kingdom and besieged Jerusalem, they withdrew before gaining control of Jerusalem. It is probably that alone that made the people believe that Isaiah was in fact sent by God.
In the first chapter of Isaiah, he warns the people in the most graphic terms that their trust in some other nation rather than the God of Israel has made them subject to God’s punishment. They will reap the harvest that their leaders have sown.
In this second chapter, however, Isaiah describes a vision that the Lord has given him. It is the triumph of God and the establishment of Zion (a metaphor for Jerusalem and/or the Temple, which was built on a hill to the north of “David’s City”). This is a theological construct, however, not a physical place. “The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains,” Isaiah says. The physical hill on which the Temple was built is not a mountain. As a metaphor, however, Zion is high and lifted up, as the place of God’s throne, so that people can see it from far away. This is a hint that Gentiles will want to worship the God of Israel; you and I, following the path toward that glorious sight, can see which way we are going and arrive safely in the house of God.
Those of us who were never part of God’s chosen people (the Jews) have indeed seen the glory of God, and we have been given the right to go up to the mountain of the Lord so that we can learn the ways of the God of Jacob. We rejoice in the fact that the God we have come to worship made promises that have extended to us as well as the Jews. To qualify to be a part of that stream of humanity climbing the mount of Zion, we seek the instruction that God supplies so that we will not go off on some other path. It is in that hope that Isaiah makes the promise: “[T]hey shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
I remember the shock I felt when I went to the World’s Fair in Montreal in 1967 and saw at the front of the Soviet Union pavilion a statue that illustrated this passage, with the words engraved around the bottom of the plinth on which it stood. Peace is what we all wish for, but we so seldom attain, because we want things to be done our way, not some other way. Even if that other way is God’s way.
What might it mean to trust in the Lord for our safety? What changes in policy might need to be made in order for us to live up to the slogan on our coins: “In God We Trust”? The military budget for our country is over $1,000,000,000 every day. And still there are those who claim that our military has been “stripped down,” that we are nearly defenseless.
Again, what is the truth? Whom do we believe? In whom do we place our trust? Clearly, a large percentage of our population does not trust our government. On whom, then, can we rely? This admonition from Isaiah, to trust in God rather than plots and warriors, surely rings true to us today -- or does it?
This, then, is the meaning of Advent for us this year. Isaiah challenges not only his king and the people of his nation, but our leadership and the people of our nation.
Romans 13:11-14
Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome is his most developed theology, written near the end of his life. He had been in Corinth for some time, and we have a clear enough history of his ministry to be able to date the letter to 57 CE. Paul was planning to travel to Jerusalem to deliver funds to the needy Jewish Christians there, and then to travel westward to Rome and Spain. This would have been his fourth mission journey, but instead he went to Rome bound in chains. The church was already well established in Rome when Paul was planning his mission, probably carried there by Jews who had been converted. Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because of the disturbances caused by the arguments between Christianized Jews and those who clung to their established customs and beliefs. Once Claudius was dead the Jews and Christians returned to Rome, and Paul wanted very much to visit them. Thus this letter.
The Letter to the Romans has been one of the most influential pieces of the Bible. The beliefs that Paul raises up have been the basis of the Protestant Reformation and many other renewal movements in the Church. A careful reading of the text will uncover many differences with other writings attributed to Paul. To this we have to apply a common-sense principle: as a person ages, earlier ideas and beliefs are often overturned. If we never change, we never grow.
The 13th chapter of Romans is the second of four short chapters, each concentrating on the necessity of love and obedience in the life of every Christian. Today’s selection gives the reader the reason for the urgent need to make changes in our lives. Standing at the beginning of the season of Advent, it also points us toward the Light that has come into the world at the birth of Jesus. We may be living in difficult times, but so was Paul. The early Christians had to listen to those around them upholding terrible attitudes. Rome was a huge city, complete with tenements and crime, even as our large cities today. But Paul calls on them -- and us -- to breathe in the Spirit of God. “[N]ow is the moment for you to wake from sleep,” he says. “Salvation is nearer for us than in the moment we first believed. It is time to lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Paul reminds us that the revelry and drunkenness, quarreling and jealousy that so often come to the fore during the holiday season are not the way of Christians. As followers of Christ, we are coming out of the darkness and into the light of the love of God.
It is the right time for us to stop for a few minutes each day to take an assessment of who we are and who we want to be. The gathering together of families at the holidays can cause the rifts between us to shake the foundations of our homes and relationships. Can we learn how to be kinder to one another, even when others in the circumstance are drinking too much, eating too much, shopping too much, laying too much on their own shoulders, so that they are their own worst enemies?
In the various 12-step groups that have grown out of Alcoholics Anonymous, a basic principle is that we each have to look at our own shortcomings, not those of others. It’s way too easy to see others doing the very same things we do, and to judge one another on that basis. But it’s just another way to avoid making changes in our own lives, to avoid facing our own faults.
A friend of mine and I love to watch the television show Project Runway. We love to see the interesting ideas of the designers and laugh at the drama that often goes on. On the most recent season, there was one designer who kept putting down the designs of the other contestants. With every new challenge, he would get on camera and critique what others were doing. His own performance was such that we expected him to be booted off the show himself. At last he was told that his work looked unfinished, the sewing was crooked in the front of the garment, and the judges couldn’t imagine how he was spending his time to produce something so underdone. “Well, gee,” my friend said, “could it be he spends too much time watching the others do their sewing and making rude comments to the camera?”
“The night is far gone, the day is near,” Paul’s voice echoes down the centuries. “Time to wake up and reorder your life. Aim toward God, not your next drink or next affair.”
Matthew 24:36-44
Jesus was talking with his disciples as they visited the Temple in Jerusalem. They were awed by the grandeur of the building Herod had been able to build after the manner of Solomon’s Temple. If you have ever been to a grand cathedral or basilica, either here in our own country or in Europe, you may have had your breath taken away by the soaring walls; stained glass windows; marble walls, floors and altars; and mosaics with gold leaf and precious stones. These riches can turn the mind and heart upward toward heaven, it is true, and they make the spirit soar. Even so, all of this beauty and wealth are transient. The recent forceful earthquakes in central Italy have damaged such things beyond the ability to restore them.
Jesus, because he could easily read the signs of the times, as he told his disciples, knew that all of this was about to end. He wanted them to know that no matter how beautiful the building, it will eventually crumble. That Temple fell, even as he had foretold it would, and became buried in the rubble of the city as Rome destroyed Jerusalem after one rebellion too many. “Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (24:1-2).
Out of the city they went, up the Mount of Olives, which provided a wide view of the city and the Temple. His disciples asked him to give them some advance warning; how were they to know when all this would happen? Jesus gave them some general guidelines, but then he said, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Therefore, we must always keep ourselves ready. After all, if the homeowner had known that burglars were preparing to invade his home he would be awake, armed, and ready. But God does not intend for us to know this.
What is in our future? We may read astrology columns, go to fortune tellers, call some 900-number psychic service in the hopes that they can give us a clue of what our future will look like. We may search the scriptures, counting letters and words, hoping to discover the secret code buried there so that we will be prepared for any eventuality. But here is the word of Jesus: “If God wants you to know what is about to happen, he will tell you. You don’t need tea leaves or crystal balls. You need to trust God for your future.”
Martin Luther, it is said, was planting an apple tree one afternoon when a neighbor said to him: “Father Martin, why are you planting a tree? What if Jesus were to come back right this minute and found you planting the tree instead of praying?” And Luther responded, “I would go right on planting the tree. If Jesus comes back, I am well employed. And if he doesn’t, then the next generation will have apples.”
This is the paradox of being a follower of Christ. We may speculate about heaven and hell. Jesus used many metaphors for both heaven and hell. They are sometimes mutually exclusive metaphors. That’s because we are supposed to walk by faith, not sight. We are given just enough of God’s light to see the next step in front of us, but not enough to plan our entire journey. Since this is apparently God’s plan for us, it must be that we are to lean on God and let him lead us. It is the worst sort of pride to insist, as so many of us do, that we are doing our best and God will just have to take that since we can’t do any better.
What a joke God is pulling on us! Our best will never be good enough to keep us from falling or wandering off the path. We need to reach out to God and accept that God will keep us safe if we hold on to him.
1 Isaiah 24-27 goes with Isaiah 56-66, written in the late 6th century BCE. We don’t know when it was moved to the current position. This last section is known as Third Isaiah, and was not written by the same person as Isaiah 1-23 but by one of the prophets who grew up in Babylon and followed the School of Isaiah. Jesus seems to have been particularly fond of Isaiah, as he quotes him several times in the gospels, most markedly in Luke 4:17-19.
