Advent 3A
image: John the Baptist in Prison from www.LumoProject.com
516: Advent 3A (12/11/2022)
Mason Parks, New Journey AME, Moline, IL
Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, Psalmimmersion.com, @pomopsalmist, Patreon
Sean Andreas, @afterconnery
Musician: Christopher Grundy, “Drawing Nearer”, YouTube video of his Advent song. christophergrundy.com, @ChrstphrGrundy
Richard Bruxvoort Colligan,Psalmimmersion.com, @pomopsalmist, Patreon
Matthew 11:2-11
Initial Thoughts
All of these readings crank up the theme of “coming Messiah”
James is about patiently waiting
Isaiah is about the road prepared.
This passage helps define the expectations of the Messiah.
“These readings have a vivid sense that God’s coming, or the coming of the Messiah, will be profoundly transformative. The Bible is relentless in its conviction that nothing that is skewed and distorted and deathly need remain as it is. God’s power and God’s passion converge to make total newness possible. The promises of messianic possibility work against our exhaustion, our despair, and our sense of being subject to fate” (Texts for Preaching, Year A, p. 19).
Bible Study
Literary Context
Chapter 10 includes the calling and sending out of the 12. This includes warning about how things are not always going to go well. Jesus includes instructions on how to deal with harassment and cities that do not accept their teaching.
After the calling, he reminds them that “Don’t think that I’ve come to bring peace to the earth…”, but then also reminds them of the rewards of following.
“When he was finished teaching the twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the cities.” It is here that John, now in prison, gets word of what Jesus has been doing.
In Matthew, John gets arrested in chapter 4, immediately after Jesus’ time in the wilderness.
In 14:1-12 we learn why John is in prison, and how he is killed by Herod.
Arrested for speaking against Herod’s marriage.
Killed at request of his step-daughter.
This is the second time disciples of John come to Jesus with a question. Other is 9:14 “At that time, John’s disciples came and asked Jesus, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees frequently fast, but your disciples never fast?’”
Jesus’ response was “The wedding guests can’t mourn when the groom is still with them…”
Why John’s change in heart?
Last time we saw John he was speaking boldly of Jesus’ power. Now he is questioning.
Situation certainly would have an effect on him. It is hard to be positive about the future from jail.
“John seems uncertain, not because of his own plight but because of what Jesus is reputed to be doing. He is not turning out to be the kind of Messiah John expected.” (Texts for Preaching, Year A, p 26).
Jesus is not axing enough trees
Jesus redirects John and reminds him of what a Messiah is really supposed to be doing.
Jesus then comments on how great John is. Jesus is not making “a rebuke of John, but an acknowledgment of the surpassing character of the new age dawning in the person of Jesus.
Jesus understands that he might not have been what they were expecting, and has a blessing for those who follow anyway.
Thoughts and Questions
Is this Christmas going to be “profoundly transformative”? What may be transformed? Your heart, your spending, relationships, your church, your community, your work? All of these things may or may not be in need of transformation, but the coming of the Messiah is meant to be a wake up call. This is actually something that Christmas culture gets. Nearly every movie about Christmas involves some kind of transformation. Scrooge, Buddy’s Dad, the Grinch, George Bailey, Santa (stops being a jerk to Rudolph). If there is not evidence of profound transformation - not just superficial charity and niceties - then what is the point?
Do you want to keep Christ in Christmas? Then Be Christ in Christmas. Be Christ by doing the work that he names - heal the sick, bring the excluded and marginalized back into community, help people see goodness in the world, make known the sound of joy, breathe life into that which is thought to be dead, be good news to the poor.
“In embracing hope, Christians are distinguished from both the despairing, who believe nothing can change, and from the self-sufficient, who believe they themselves will work the newness” (Texts for Preaching, Year A, p. 19).
Disappointed with God at Christmastime. Feeling disappointed with God is not such a strange feeling, perhaps especially at Christmastime.
“If we don’t speak to people's disappointments as well as to their dreams, we fail to take their lives seriously. Maybe that’s why the beloved Christmas carol sings that “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in him tonight.” (David Lose, Working Preacher)
“At those moments, we know that whatever our misgivings, whatever our disappointments, God is not disappointed in us and comes to us anyway, eager to join us in our weakness, to hold onto us in our insecurity, and to comfort us in our fear. For God in Jesus came not for the strong and the proud but the weak and vulnerable. God in Jesus, in other words, came for us.”(David Lose, Working Preacher)
Isaiah 35:1-10
Initial Thoughts
Beware pointing to modern examples of the desert blooming without knowing the full story.
Bible Study
Context
This is the whole chapter
Probably from 2nd Isaiah (displaced along with the preceding chapter)
Written from exile
While the “transformation of the desert into a lush land of blossoming flowers is a metaphor for the grand restoration of Israel..that is prophecy os the work of Second Isaiah…is not entirely certain.” Robert Alter, Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, vol 2, p. 734
The crocus or rose is actually an unknown flower- same work is used in Song of Songs 2:1
You better watch out- God is coming to town!
Good News for the oppressed and downtrodden
Hope and new life are given the the lifeless deserts
The weak are made strong, the feeble are made firm and the fearful are encouraged by the presence of God
“God has not given up on God's original purpose for creation; the intrusions and breaks that are caused by sin are met with God's judgment as the way is prepared for salvation.” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration.
Wilderness
Not forested wilderness- desert wilderness: lifeless, barren, empty
Place of testing- of learning who God is and who we are as God’s people
Place where we often do not see or hear: Isaiah 6 (deaf ears and blind eyes)
Healing
Be attentive to how your congregation will hear these words:
The person who accept their differences not as disabilities but as a unique characteristic
The person struggling with macular degeneration
The person with a severe spinal cord injury
Foretells good news to those of limited ability but also of spiritual ability
We will finally be able to see and hear what it means to be a faithful people
We will walk in the light of God on the highway of God
We will no longer be blinded, deafened and crippled by sin
What are we held captive by that we need to be liberated from?
Politically, economically, socially, relationally, etc.
Holy Way
What about the unclean?
No more unclean- the unclean: blind, deaf, lame, weak, mute, fearful have been made clean
Perhaps the unclean are those who refuse to walk the road with those whom they deem to be unacceptable
Broken people have been made whole
All people are God’s people and all people are invited to walk on God’s Holy Way- but it is up to us whether we choose to walk with God
Fool’s journey
What does it mean that fool’s cannot go astray? Does this mean we are all on the Holy Way and have no choice?
I think it refers to God’s grace- no one is outside it, or perhaps looks forward to a time when all are on the road together - either way it is a message of hope for those of us who often feel foolish and go astray
Song - this passage begins and ends with glad song (v. 2 and 10) - the earth sings as it is replenished, the exiles sing because they are restored- what does restoration look like for our earth? For our nation? For our congregations? What would the land and the exiled (marginalized?) to sing together?
Thoughts and Questions
God is coming! Unlike Santa God is not bringing presents to the good boys and girls, but to all people and the present is new life, liberation from sin and oppression, and the freedom to live as God intended: in loving relationship with all creation. How might our Christmas season look different if we prepared for God to come to town?
One of the problems with God’s way is that we do not get to decide who is welcome and who isn’t. We do not get to choose our travel companions. Perhaps this is why we so often choose roads other than Gods to walk.
Isaiah reclaims the old promises and tells a story of future hope. How might we this Advent and Christmas season reclaim some Good News of old to inspire hope for tomorrow?
James 5:7-10
INITIAL THOUGHTS
This reading is very much “on the nose” for Advent.
Seems to be pulled out of its context because it fits so perfectly with the Advent theme of waiting.
At the same time, this does not fit well at all with “Joy” or “Gaudete Sunday.”
BIBLE STUDY
Start of the conclusion of the letter
Chapter 4 has several warnings.
Warning against bad teachers
Warning against jealousy and selfish ambition.
Warning against stirring up trouble.
Warnings against rich and powerful.
After warnings come call to patience
Patient like a farmer
“The chief Judean wheat harvest ran from mid-April through the end of May. The crop was valuable; farmers’ lives depended heavily on good harvests…. Judea’s early autumn rains fell in October and November; the winter rains (roughly ¾ of the year’s rainfall) fell from December through February. But the late rains of March and April were particularly needed for the main grain harvests.” (NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes p. 2195)
Patient like the prophets
Lectionary ends before the mention of Job. He is lifted up as the model for patience.
Is patience the same as passively waiting?
“Is James now proposing that we simply "hope" for some future coming, eyes directed heavenward, as if we did not have to be concerned about this life? Definitely not! The key passage that eliminates a pie-in-the-sky hope (waiting for Jesus to return on the clouds of heaven and make everything "right") is verse 9, ‘Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged’... The hope that James describes is not looking upwards to some heavenly salvation nor is it looking inwards to some spiritual illumination but it is looking the other, our neighbor, directly in the face." (Dirk Lange, Working Preacher)
Patience is not simply waiting. Patience is the endurance to keep going even when the results are not obvious.
“"Strengthen your hearts...", James continues. This strengthening of the heart comes as the community lives and witnesses together. The patience in suffering is lived together as members of the community of faith watch over and care for one another. No words of slander, no grumbling, no back-stabbing, but always speaking and doing the good for the neighbor.” (Dirk Lange, Working Preacher)
Patience and “the Lord is near” seem to be at odds.
“How is it possible to be patient if the coming of the Lord is indeed at hand? The urgency that pervades the Son of Man sayings in the Gospels or the eschatological language in Paul’s letters is missing here. Why encourage patience in this situation?” (Beverly Gaventa, Texts for Preaching, Year A, p. 24)
The farmer waiting for the crop is much different than the “thief in the night” or questions from prison. The farmer waiting for rain has done the work, and is now trusting that God will come through.
“For the author of James, the parousia has less to do with God’s invasion of the world as it is than it does with the absolute reliability of God’s promises. Like the farmer who relies on God to send the needed rain, the faithful may and must rely on God. Patience derives from that certainty about God’s character.” (Gaventa, ibid).
THOUGHTS and Question
For the second week in a row, we have a reading from the conclusion of a letter. First, Paul’s letter to the Romans was summed up last week with the short passage that reminded people to welcome each other as Christ welcomed you. This passage is again about how the people in the community should treat one another. These letters, full of deep theological truth about sin, grace, works, and faith, are often caricatured as being “opposites.” Martin Luther loved Romans, not so much James. Yet in the end, they are summed up in very similar ways. As we move closer to Christmas, perhaps we should take note that both Paul and James tells us nearly the same thing: treat each other well, the rest is just details.
Thanks to our Psalms correspondent, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (psalmimmersion.com,@pomopsalmist). Thank you to Scott Fletcher for our voice bumpers, Dick Dale and the Del Tones for our Theme music (“Miserlou”), Nicolai Heidlas (“Sunday Morning”,"Real Ride"and“Summertime”) and Bryan Odeen for our closing music.