The Reflectionary – Week of November 24, 2019

Advent 1

Text: Jeremiah 33:14-18

“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.

“‘In those days and at that time
I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
he will do what is just and right in the land.
In those days Judah will be saved
and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it will be called:
The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’

For this is what the Lord says: ‘David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of Israel, nor will the Levitical priests ever fail to have a man to stand before me continually to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to present sacrifices.’”

Reflection

This text for the first Sunday of Advent is short and sweet. In it, the prophet Jeremiah speaks these hope-filled words of God – words of promise that God’s people do, in fact, have a future. As Christians, we read these words as ones that anticipate the coming of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. As Christians, we have the gift of hindsight. But Jeremiah? Jeremiah writes these words in the midst of what looked like an impossible situation.

The previous chapter sets the scene. In it, we learn that Jeremiah is being imprisoned by Zedekiah, who was the king of Judah, the southern kingdom. At the same time, the Babylonian Empire, the most powerful empire yet to be seen, was in the midst of laying siege on Jerusalem. Things were not looking good. Jeremiah knew what had happened to the northern kingdom of Israel when Assyria came in and took them captive, and the ten northern tribes had been essentially scattered to the winds. Jeremiah had been warning Zedekiah of Judah’s impending similar fate, which angered the king and consequently led to his captivity.

As Jeremiah was held in confinement, Judah’s fall was imminent. The people would be expelled from the land. They would be driven into exile.

And then a strange thing happens. A relative of Jeremiah comes to him with a proposition – to buy the field at Anathoth. God tells Jeremiah to do so. Jeremiah does. So what’s so strange about this transaction?

Remember, Jerusalem is currently besieged by the most powerful empire they’d yet seen. The city’s fall was all but inevitable at this point. Why in the world would Jeremiah invest in property that was about to be lain to waste? It would be like someone saying in the midst of the Syrian civil war, “I think I’d really like to invest in property in Aleppo.” Or maybe like someone else saying, “Gaza is where I’d like to buy land.” It just makes no sense given the current reality of violence and destruction in those regions.

But Jeremiah buys the field and takes the deed to the land and preserves it in a clay jar. Then he awaits the utter destruction of Jerusalem and of the kingdom of Judah at the hands of Babylon.

To buy the field is an act of complete trust and hope in God’s grace. It is to look squarely in the face that which seems to be the end of the world and to say, “God’s not done with us yet.” It is to see that the death that is surely coming is not the last word. And so, Jeremiah’s act of buying the field leads us into these words of hope in Jeremiah 33:14-18. The fall of Jerusalem and Judah is not, in fact, the end for God’s people!

This passage reminds us that God’s grace is always at work. It reminds us that God’s work is never finished. It reminds us that God is never, ever, done with God’s people. Even when it feels like there is no hope, like death is closing in, or like there is no escape from the darkness and brokenness we are experiencing, God gives life.

Jeremiah trusts so fully in this promise that he invests in land that is about to be destroyed. He sees life, even when faced with death. I don’t know about you, but I long to be able to see with Jeremiah’s eyes, and to trust with Jeremiah’s heart. I long to be able to have that kind of unreserved faith in the promises of God.

This season of Advent that we are entering into is a season where we look expectantly to the promises of God in Jesus Christ. I challenge you to look to those promises with the eyes and the heart of Jeremiah.

Ponder

o   What words, phrases, or images from the text speak to you? What thoughts or feelings do they evoke?
o   Where, in your life, have you or are you struggling to find hope?
o   Where have you witnessed God’s faithfulness in your life?
o   What words do you need to hear from God today?

Challenge

Acquaint yourself with the practice of the Ignatian Examen. You can find many resources online, but here is one simple one: https://jesuits.org/Assets/Publications/File/The_Daily_Examen.pdf Each day this week, consider these two questions before going to bed: When, today, did I feel most disconnected from God? When, today, did I feel most aware of God’s grace?

And/or

Think of someone in your life who might need some encouragement – someone who might need to be reminded of God’s promises. Write a card, give a phone call, take them out for coffee, go visit. Remind them that God has more for them.

Prayer

God, you are the one who speaks life in the midst of death. You are the one who brings light in the midst of darkness. You are the one who brings healing in the midst of brokenness. Speak life, and light, and healing into my life and into the lives of those around me. Help me to utterly trust in your promises through Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

-Cindy+

The Reflectionary – Week of November 10, 2019

Text: Isaiah 5:1-7; 11:1-5

I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.

“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?
Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it.”

The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are the vines he delighted in.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

_______________________________

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

Reflection

I was recently listening to NPR when they were doing a story on how the wildfires in California were impacting vineyards and the production of wine. Naturally, wildfires are a huge threat to productivity, when they can completely wipe out a vineyard. But as I listened, I also learned a little bit more about the care and management of vineyards. Cultivating healthy grape vines is actually quite a fine art that takes a lot of care, patience, wisdom, and, of course, cooperative weather/soil/environment, etc. There are many things that can go wrong in the process that can lead to a failure to produce good, healthy, and flavorful grapes. I imagine that it must be highly stressful work to be a vintner. You have to work hard to manage the “just right” conditions, and even if you do everything according to plan, wildfires (among other things) can still come along and mess everything up.

In the Isaiah 5, the prophet begins to sing a song about a vineyard and a vintner. This vintner loved his vineyard and put everything he had into it. He managed to get the “just right” conditions. He built a watchtower so he could see and protect the vineyard from anything that threatened to come in a wipe it out. The vintner did everything according to plan. And then… and then… the time came for the crop. The grapes should have been perfect. But the grapevines yielded only bad fruit. It was all sour grapes.

In v. 3, the text shifts from the prophet singing a song about a vineyard and a vintner to God speaking in the first person. We realize that the vintner is God, and God is angry about the failed crop of the vineyard that he so carefully and attentively cultivated. God is ready to destroy the vineyard. He’s ready to let the proverbial wildfires come in and make it a wasteland where only briars and thorns can be found. In v. 7, we find out that the vineyard is representative of the southern kingdom of Judah (which is where Isaiah did his prophetic work).

But what exactly was the “bad fruit” of Judah? What was it that made God so angry with his people? The prophets in both the northern and southern kingdoms tended to have two main criticisms that they articulated over and over again: the people needed to stop worshipping idols and the people needed to stop inflicting injustices upon the vulnerable. In this instance, the accusation against the people of Judah falls in line with the second of the two criticisms: where there should justice (mishpat), there is bloodshed (mispakh), and where there should be righteousness (tsedaqah), there are cries of distress (tse’aqah).

Justice here does not simply mean appropriate punishment for wrongdoings. Justice, in the biblical sense, has a much greater breadth of meaning. Justice is about the world being as it should. It is about wrongs being made right. It is about a vision of a society where the vulnerable are no longer vulnerable, and rather than exploitation, there is equity. Justice is about a social order where all of God’s people flourish.

Similarly, righteousness also has a social component. While the word “righteousness” for us often connotes a sort of personal purity and piety, in the biblical sense, righteousness is also relational. It has a connotation of “doing right” by one another.

If justice is about creating a right order where all people can flourish, righteousness is about each person looking out for their neighbors. That sounds like the kind of world I want to be a part of. That is certainly the kind of world God hoped his people would work to create. But instead of finding justice and righteousness, God finds bloodshed and cries of distress. He finds manipulation, exploitation, and everyone only looking out for number one. Let the vineyard be destroyed, God declares.

But then, a few chapters later, we shift metaphors, but we see that God does not leave God’s people to be destroyed, after all. Instead, we find God proclaiming anew the vision of justice and righteousness that God has for God’s people. God has not given up hope!

Some days, when I look at the world around me, I become overwhelmed. On those days, I become pessimistic at best, and nihilistic at worst. I get angry at all of the ways in which we, as human beings hurt one another. I feel rage at the evil we commit. I feel like I understand Isaiah’s vineyard song.

But God doesn’t leave us with the vineyard song. God leaves us with the image of the shoot that comes out of the stump of Jesse. God leaves us with new life coming out of that which appears to be dead. God leaves us with the vision of his kingdom – the kingdom of Jesus Christ, which is good news to the poor and needy. It’s good news to those who are crushed beneath the wheels of injustice. It’s good news to those who are trampled by unrighteousness. God leaves us with the vision of his kingdom – one that comes into existence through the gift of the Spirit. As you meditate today upon these words of Scripture, may God instill in you the vision of the kingdom and courage of the Spirit to work toward its reality.

Ponder

o   What words, phrases, or images from the text speak to you? What thoughts or feelings do they evoke?
o   Where, in our world, do you see injustice and unrighteousness?
o   Where do you catch glimpses of God’s kingdom being made a reality? What can you do to be a part of that?

Challenge

Enjoy some grapes, or fruit, or other type of food that comes from the ground. As you eat and taste the sweetness of the food, meditate on this passage again. As you think on it while engaging your senses in this different way, pay attention to what new insights or thoughts God might be showing you.

And/or

Consider an injustice that is occurring in your own community. It might be related to food security, access to medical care, or any number of things. Identify one thing that you can immediately do about it, and then do it. It may be as simple as taking food to a neighbor who sometimes goes without or driving a friend to a doctor’s appointment. It could be volunteering with an organization that directly addresses social needs. It might even be working to change or create laws that care for the most vulnerable.

Prayer

God, you are the great vintner and you continue to nurture your vineyard. You want your vineyard to be a place where all vines can flourish. You want your vineyard to be a place where all may find the sweetest of fruit. Cultivate me, that I might be a vine rooted in Jesus Christ. Prune me, that I might bear the good fruit of justice and righteousness. Through your Spirit, may I work with you, as you give me a vision of your world. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

-Cindy+

The Reflectionary – Week of October 27, 2019

Text: 1 Kings 18:17-39

When he [King Ahab] saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?”

“I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

But the people said nothing.

Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God.”

Then all the people said, “What you say is good.”

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” So they took the bull given them and prepared it.

Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”

“Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.

“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.

At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

Reflection

One chapter prior to this one, the prophet Elijah mysteriously makes his entrance onto the stage of the northern kingdom of Israel, while Ahab is king. From the get-go, Elijah positions himself as one who stands against king and royal household. He makes it known that he (and God) want nothing to do with the ways of King Ahab, his wife Jezebel, and the worship of Baal and the other Canaanite gods and goddesses that Ahab has allowed to permeate his kingdom.

For Elijah, the problem of Baal worship was not simply that it was worshipping a false god. The problem of Baal worship was its social implications as well. As the scholar Walter Brueggemann writes in his commentary of 1 and 2 Kings (Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary, 2000),

The caricature that dominates Israel’s imagination is that Baalism is a socioreligious system rooted in the capacity to secure life for self by the manipulation and control of the gifts of the creator, by self-centered management that inevitably leads to an antineighbor ethic… it is a rather deep and costly conflict between two contrasting perspectives on reality that are deeply rooted theologically and highly visible in the life and social practice of the community (219).

In other words, the conflict was about more than just paying lip service to false gods. It was about the ways in which that falsehood becomes embodied in concrete ways in the life of the people of Israel. For Elijah, the people of Israel cannot have things both ways. They cannot worship God and worship Baal. The two loyalties are mutually exclusive. It is time for Israel to make their choice.

The contest itself begins. The prophets of Baal do their best. They work themselves into a frenzy, shouting, cutting, dancing zealously, waiting for their god to answer with fire. They get nothing. Only silence. Elijah, on the other hand, goes out of his way to make it clear that when God answers, it is God and God alone. He douses the altar not once, not twice, but three times until it is saturated with water. When the fire comes from heaven, there can be absolutely no confusion. The God of Israel is the one who decisively answers. Fire comes down and consumes the wood, the stones, the soil, and even the water.

The people of Israel are reminded of God’s power. They had been seduced and subdued by the myth of Baal – that by calling upon the false god, people could control and manipulate the world for their own benefit. In this decisive act, they are called back to the affirmation and proclamation that the world is not actually theirs for the taking and bending to their own will – the world belongs to God, and God alone.

We live in a different time and place today, but in many ways, we struggle with the same temptations of Israel in Elijah’s day. We want to profess faith in God, while at the same time, we seek to lay hold of God’s creation, manipulating it and exploiting it for our own benefit. I share this further commentary from Walter Brueggemann because he articulates it so well:

…We may see that a sense of the world as a mystery from God marked by a neighborly ethic is in deep dispute, in our own day, with the reduction of life to a manipulation of technical knowledge… I should imagine that medical research, the potential of military devastation shamelessly embraced, the industrial destruction of the ecosystem, the cheapening of the life of those who are not productive, all suggest that this profound contest is replicated and reenacted often among us in policy disputes as well as in more daily decisions about neighbors (229).

For Elijah, there is no middle ground. Phew. What a challenging passage and what difficult ideas to ponder! I invite you to wrestle with them along with me.

Ponder

o   What words, phrases, or images from the text speak to you? What thoughts or feelings do they evoke?
o   Where do you see this contest played out in our society today? How are you personally challenged?
o   How do you hear God calling you to care for your neighbor today?

Challenge

Consider the ways in which our society constantly seeks to manipulate and exploit creation for our own benefit. What is one issue that you want to learn more about? Perhaps it is about water security and safety. Perhaps it is about energy resources. Perhaps it is about carbon footprint. Take some time this week to begin learning more, and what steps you might be able to take to move away from destructive practices that affect that particular part creation.

And/or

Spend time out in God’s creation. Simply rest and appreciate that which God has made in whatever way feels best to you.

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, you are the one true God. You were present at the creation of the world, and all things have come into being through you. Help me to care for all that you have created, recognizing that it belongs to you and not to me. Show me the places in my life where I am following “two opinions.” Speak decisively into my heart, that I may be transformed by you and for you. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

-Cindy+