BLOG 12/13/15. ARROGANT WEALTH … OR STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE?

BLOG 12/13/15. ARROGANT WEALTH, OR STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE

On this third Sunday of Advent I am struck by an easily overlooked contradiction in so much of our celebration. The dominant public media focus of the moment is on loud, wealthy, powerful, prejudiced, personalities and influences in determining our cultural and political agendas.  It is easy to overlook one of the basic presuppositions of the whole advent of Jesus as God’s anointed as we celebrate Advent. From the 7th century BC prophets comes the note that this One who was to come would not judge by what everyone else sees, but will judge the poor and needy with righteousness. And what does that say about the proud and self-satisfied and prosperous? It’s worth reflecting upon. More than that, it’s enormously sobering.

When Jesus began his public ministry in his home synagogue, he read from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the (probably economic-financial) captives, the opening of the prison to those who are bound (again, probably those who are in debtors prisons); to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (the Jubilee year when all debts are forgiven and land returned to its original owners); to comfort all who mourn …” (Isaiah 61:1-2; Luke 4:18-19).

And we should not lightly skip over Mary’s Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord and rejoices in God my Savior, … He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their heart; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones (maybe the 1% who control the wealth, and too often the decisions that have to do with the welfare of the majority of the citizenry?) and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. …” (Luke 1:46 ff.).

It is also, perhaps a bit subtle but also significant, that the angelic announcement of this huge cosmically transforming moment of Advent should be announced to a bunch of what we would call faithful minimum wage workers: shepherds keeping smelly sheep and having to spend nights in the fields with them.

And note that the whole of the earthly ministry of Jesus was a demonstration of his priority on the underside of society. He didn’t court the rich and powerful, he fed the hungry, taught economic justice and peacemaking, healed the helplessly infirm, and brought hope to those surviving by just barely hanging-on.

It is easy to forget this context while observing Advent in prosperous church institutions populated by so many who can be so indifferent to the marginalized all around them. More than that, it is quite too easy to be blind to them. It is easy for me to be blind to them, alas! I live right next to the community of Clarkston Georgia, which is probably the most international city in North America, and where a majority of the young people in the school system speak English as a second language, and where their parents came at great cost to this country seeking to have some economic hope. We have public figures denouncing the huge tide of refugees seeking to survive the violence and persecution and destroyed economies of their native communities, and who propose building all kinds of barriers to escape our human responsibility to this tragic tide. Christ’s people, if they understand the teachings of Christ, can never accept this.

And its Advent when the Eternal God gave us the gift of gifts, his own Son. And with that gift comes a New Creation that calls its citizenry to justice and generosity and love, … to sacrificial hospitality and peacemaking, to ministry to those unjustly imprisoned, or reduced to hopelessness by the prejudices of too many of the ‘mighty.’

The Prince of Peace is also the Righteous Judge. Welcome to Advent and the consequences thereof.

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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