Words 12.9

 Words Twice a Week        12.9

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Some thoughts on some of the lessons for this Sunday – Third of Advent

Zephaniah 3.14-20

+ note that most of the book of Zephaniah is given over to words of judgement, but then here at the end is a word of joy and salvation.

+ vs 15, vs 17 – the Lord is in their midst.  How do you understand that claim?

+ note vs 14-17 are in third person, a priest or someone is telling us what is happening; then in vs 18, it switches to first person, God tells us what God is doing, will do.

+ earlier in the book Zephaniah suggest people have become indifferent to God, even in the shadow of the Temple.  (There’s a note in one of my books – “a temple just sits there; a baby gets your attention)  In fact that things have gotten so bad that God would have no option but simply to destroy it all.  I sometimes feel kind of like that, only it’s not that God will destroy but that we will do it to ourselves.

+ one writer notes “the work of the kingdom is shot through with our incompetence and sin”

+ But now – the calls for silence (1.7) and cries (1.11) are replaced with “sing aloud for joy!”

+ God will gather the people back – are we ready to be gathered back to community after the past year and a half?  Tentatively, I guess.

+ “God reigns, and will reign fully.  Because this is assured, our lives can be a celebration of hope.”  Does that work for you?  It kind of does for me, but not completely yet.

Isaiah 12.2-6

+ God, who was angry, has now become salvation.  Similar to Zephaniah, Isaiah 1-12 weaves judgment and salvation back and forth.

+ note God is our salvation, not something we are able to achieve or accomplish by ourselves.  We can do things while we wait, but basically we are waiting.  (What kind of things? Check below for what John has to say.)

+ deep joy, not just superficial happiness.  Joy even in the midst of sorrow and despair.  Have you experienced that?

+ another verb shift – vs 1 is second person singular, spoken to a person (maybe even you yourself!), vs 4 is second person plural – the word is extended to all.

+ the future hope is for God’s intervention in human experience.  How do we think about that?  Has life gotten so bad that it is our only hope?  Do you really need to hit bottom before you can hear God’s word of grace and love?  I don’t think so, but I’m sure it hits you powerfully in that case!

+ vs 3 – “You will draw water…” Is this meant to describe an actual liturgical ritual?  How might it work?

+ “Let this (God’s salvation? God’s presence in our midst?) be known in all the earth.”  What kind of witness does our waiting show?

Philippians 4.4-7

+ “Therefore” (4.1) shows that Paul’s specific guidance here rests on the more universal themes that have gone before.

+ “Rejoice, live in gentleness, do not worry, live in peace.”  Can you do it?  Yes, because “the Lord is at hand.”  Temporally? Spatially? Spiritually?  One writer notes “the Christian life is not lived as a job to be performed, but as a privilege to be experienced in relation to the person and power of Jesus.”

+ The nearness of the Lord allows us to find joy/peace even in our worries.  At least that’s what some people say.  Work for you?

Luke 3.7-18

+ Fred Craddock says that on the way to Christmas you have to go past this guy ranting in the wilderness.  What do you go past on the way to Christmas Eve service?  Hungry people? Frightened people? Sick people? Mis/Disinformed people? Abusive, controlling, powerful people?  If you switch the channel away from the Christmas Special to the news….?

+ John speaks about how to escape the wrath.  Don’t count on your ancestry, or church membership.  Altered lives is what makes the difference.  John suggests that God has standards for human life and will evaluate/judge accordingly.  In fact, even now the axe is laid to the root…!

+ But John also notes that God, through Jesus, gives the power to alter a life.

+ John notes three groups in particular, from which we can generalize -

   1) the well off should move from pure self-interest to genuine generosity;

   2) the tax collectors should move towards honesty and fair dealing.  Swanson suggests this is “working to the rule”, and that organizations (here the Roman oppressors) that experience that decline.

   3) the soldiers should move from greed and abuse of power to contentment.

+ Do you see yourself in any particular one of those groups?

+ Because of what he says, some wonder if he is in fact the messiah, the Lord in the midst of them.  All the gospel writers make clear that he is not, he is the forerunner.  Apparently some folks continued to think John was the messiah.  Is that a danger with charismatic leaders?

+ one writer notes that God created abundance, and poverty is evidence of greed (sin).

+ both John and Jesus baptize – with John it is kind of a wiping the slate clean to start afresh, with Jesus (Spirit and fire) it is the power to live a new (altered) life.

+ reading on to vs 20, we note that both John and Jesus experienced having their words rejected.

+ This is supposed to be the “Joy Sunday” of Advent.  How does this lesson fit into that?

+ this whole bit about the winnowing fork and the wheat and the chaff burning up in the fire – it’s supposed to be a joyful image, I think.  Could it be like burning autumn leaves back when we used to do that?  Could it be like having a bonfire out of leftover construction wood?  Maybe with hot dogs and s’mores?  What do you think?

Seems like a collect about hanging onto joy in the midst of sorrows, fears, reality might be a good exercise for this week.  Let’s see what we can come up with.

Anyway, that’s what I got for now…..

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