+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:
Amos 1:1-5,13-2:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, Luke 21:5-19

Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment…
Amos 1:3a

My friend, Leesy, commented on Thursday’s post, “Pre-Advent End of Time prophesy readings are tough.” She’s right: and today’s set especially.

Anglican tradition focuses not only on the First Coming of Jesus during Advent, but on the final coming. Look at the Collect (Prayer) for today which, by tradition, is also read on every day until Christmas:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

It commemorates the first coming, yes, when “Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility”. But there’s no time for manger scenes and trees and snow - and certainly no time to run to Best Buy or Wal*Mart - because the focus immediately jumps to “the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead”. We skip right over “Glory to God in the Highest” and land at the Last Trumpet. (The focus shifts the closer we get to Christmas.)

I don’t know enough about Church liturgy off the top of my head to know why the Anglican focus is so. I suspect it is something akin to the Reformers (Cramner et al) not wanting Christmas to be so very much fun. But what the heck: we go with what we have.

This Passage from Amos is NOT very comforting and I’m only going to sketch a hint of a comment because in these days one can’t be too crystal clear.

Each Gentile country mentioned is accused of a gross injustice:

Damascus has “threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron”.
The Ammonites have “ripped open pregnant women in Gilead in order to enlarge their territory”.
Moab has “burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom”.

And God promises some seriously severe retribution.

But then comes Israel’s accusation:

“they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals— they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed.” (Verses 6b-8)

After all the rape and pillage that the others did… Israel’s mere oppression of the poor (without killing them) must seem pretty petty and small. God, however, knows that he has commanded Israel to care for the poor, to deal justly in business, to be pure. God commanded Israel to love their neighbour. To whom much is given - the covenant, a land, a temple, etc - much is expected.

We shall hear of their punishment tomorrow - and all week. And the other readings in this season are equally as comforting.

How much more does God expect of Israel because they ought to know better! The Torah makes it clear - Justice, Righteousness and Love - these should be the hallmarks of a people who claim the Law of God as the foundation for their country.

How much worse will it be for a country that claims the Law of God as a foundation for its laws… and yet commits not only injustice such as Israel, but also the rape, empire building and murder like the other countries of Amos’ prophecy? Seen the news today?

Economic chaos? Revolution? Bombs? Insurgency? Plague? Loss of Power? Riots?

We should be so lucky that God would have that much mercy.

To be clear, I am not 100% sure in my faith: I don’t know how much hand God takes in the affairs of men and their nations, despite what the Jewish and Christian Traditions say. But I am sure that, should God be the sort who meets out Judgement on nations, we should duck.

Happy Advent.

Much love,

Huw

Today’s assigned readings:
AM: Deuteronomy 26:1-11, John 6:26-35
PM: Joel 2:21-27, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.”
Deuteronomy 26:4-5

I’m very aware of my family, my history: my story. Especially, yes, as we enter what Americans call the “Holiday Season”, but also always. Living where I do, family history surrounds me: from Richardson County, Tennessee, to Richardson, Texas, and north up to Manitoba; from Great and Lesser Gransden in England, to the Gransden family cemetery near Edenville, Michigan; from the Tribal homelands of North Georgia, across the trail of tears to the Muscogee reservation of Oklahoma. My family, with many roots, is geographically centred here, in North Carolina. My fathers may not have been wandering Arameans, but every one of them picked up and moved, in some way, to combine and come here, to me.

Speaking to Moses, God reminds the Jewish people that they are not only to be thankful for what they have, but for what God did for their forefathers and mothers. There is no self-made man and (as we heard last night in the sermon) there is no self-made nation either: as the Jews would not even be but for what God did for their ancestors, so we too, would not be here but for the mercies wrought for our forebears either in this land or some other. What I have - all that I have - comes to me at the hands of all my ancestors.

The declaration Moses has the Israelites make, each at his own thanksgiving, is a solemn pronouncement that here, in this abundance, God has now brought me into the Promised Land.

Now, transfer this over into the primary act of Christian Worship: that of the Eucharist, Greek for “Thanksgiving”. When we make Eucharist, when we make thanksgiving, we are - each of us - making this same solemn declaration at the altar: “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.”

But we do not do it alone, at least not by God’s command. And, by God’s command, it comes with more than just our families or even those like us. “Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.”

You - believer - shall gather with the priests and aliens (ie the Non-believers)… to Celebrate what God has given. A very interesting picture of Eucharist.

A blessed Feast to you and your family!

Much love,

Huw