Luke 3:1-6
Advent 2 - Year C
In the third year of the reign of Emperor Bush, when Arnold was governor of California, and Rummy was ruler of Pre-emption and his sister Condie ruler of Security, and Blair ruler of Britannia, during the high priesthood of Pat and Jerry, the word of God came.
The word of G*D comes whenever and wherever repentance and forgiveness are needed, i.e., all the time. The word of G*D is present now, as then. The word of G*D comes through John's methodology of baptism and your method of ______.
What is the method of your revealing the need for repentance and forgiveness? You do have a method, don't you? The particular gift/method is quite individual in style. How are you doing it? Are you finding it effective? How do you know? What else might you try?
Talk to someone about how they see you revealing the need of the world so it might be recognized and dealt with.
Thank you for attending to this huge issue on a Monday.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/december2003.html
If you were to go into the wilderness today, where would it be. Where are folks in exile? Where are folks desert-ed?
This is where John hears G*D. This is where you will hear G*D.
Then we begin in the low dry land to find the trickle of living water. Here the word of repentance can be heard in a clearer way than when surrounded by the trappings of power, religious, economic, military, etc.
What sin do exiled, desert-ed people need to have forgiven? What change in direction do they need to make. Perhaps one thing is to stop thinking about themselves as exiled or desert-ed. Repent from not seeing GOD present in exile. Repent from not standing for your exiled self, your lonely desert-ed self. Repent from not making a pro-active choice about your relationship to power and hanging your head.
Having heard G*D's voice in the wilderness, John proceeds to cry out, where he is, what he has heard - Prepare. Repent from being unprepared - prepare, do the work, and see salvation.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/december2003.html
Last week the parentheses of life were justice and righteousness. This week they have morphed into repentance and forgiveness.
Whichever way your language preference goes, the communal or the personal, we are reminded to ground them both in the very specific realities of this moment in time.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Herod was ruler of Galilee and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas . . .
In the sixth year of the reign of President W. ... the high priesthood of James Dobson and Joel Osteen ..., etc. (you fill in the rest) there is still a need for the proclaiming of repentance/justice and forgiveness/righteousness.
There are plenty of crooked paths than still need straightening (repentance). Too many poor valleys still need filling (forgiveness) and accumulated mountains needing lowering (repentance). Crooks with guns and fountain pens still need to go straight (forgiveness) while rough violence calls for soothing smoothing (repentance). All life is intended to find wholeness (forgiveness).
Even closer to home - In the sixty fourth year of this center of the universe, etc. wrestling with matters of repentance and forgiveness is still in order. I'm still working toward these lines from Yeats' A Dialogue of Self and Soul:
"I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest."
And you?
- - -
a region around the Jordan needs a proclamation
pro-repentance means more than being a pro at it
pro-forgiveness means more than leaning in that direction
would we would learn preemptive repentance
breaking the cycle
would we would practice preemptive forgiveness
healing the cycle
what blessing there yet awaits
come
laugh, sing
we can yet learn
we can yet practice
- - -
Jeff (Reader) said...
It is Sunday morning only an hour from time for church. I read and repent. From my repentance comes a need to honor the men and women who have lived with the scripture all week. Chewing and gnawing and converting. All your post this week, are better than the most of my sermons. Thanks for your gifts, especially for engaging me with poetry for my soul. I work a full time secular job, attend graduate studies, and work among the glbt community in mcc. I've not done the work this week that I was trained to do at Candler. Your blog has brought me a moment of mercy. A MOMENT IS ENOUGH WHEN THE DIVINE IS PRESENCE.
John (Reader) said...
Well said. I enjoyed your perspective and look forward to adventing with your posts.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
As we move toward the Feast day of Saint Nicholas on December 6, it is helpful to return to John who heard his call in a desert. John is in the footsteps and advance of many with this identification of desert with receiving the presence of G*D strongly enough to change a life's direction.
Deserts come in all manner of shapes, sizes, and other characteristics. We are led to believe that John's desert was a desert desert with few resources. Emptiness begets filling. Nicholas found his desert in the midst of a rich family and his sustenance in the giving away of many resources. I expect most of us are somewhere in between the deserts of lack and abundance.
Our family's tradition of expected gift-giving migrated from the standard of Christmas (eve or morning) to that of other gift-giving traditions - December 6 (St. Nicholas) or January 6 (Magi). This took the pressure off trying to cram such an expectation into Christmas (Jesus, Mary, Joseph!) which is packed enough and can turn a Freedom of G*D into a desert of dashed expectations. Try it, you might like it.
A change John brings us from the desert of his call is the costliness of forgiveness. It comes with more than a touch of repentance, changed living. Enter the desert of forgiveness to arrive at a life of abundance. Yes, this turns the order of repentance leading to forgiveness on its head. But, why not, since that "works" related order hasn't gotten us very far as either religious or secular communities. It keeps us saint-bound to extraordinary examples and leads away from a priesthood-of-all-believers forgiving willy-nilly and all other kids.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html
At the direst of times a word is always present: “Forgive—this is the preparation needed for a new creation.”
In this scripture we hear it in the midst of occupation by an empire. In the midst of other empires, including the current one, this same word can be heard. Each and every time, though, there is an argument over the mechanism authorizing forgiveness. In this case a process of baptism and repentance are the necessary ingredients for a meal of forgiveness. There are those who claim the mechanism necessary for the result. Really?
In the presence of an American empire that threatens with a variety of powers from nuclear to economic, a word of forgiveness is still present as every sea rises and every coast recedes, weather patterns shift and drought and rain change places. Whatever the way in which forgiveness might take place, it moves us closer to wholeness and health.
To preemptively give up a claim of privilege is a way of forgiveness. This takes years of practice and comes with no guarantee of technically swaying the present. Forgiveness is the advent season of healthy living. It has happened all along and is done in preparation of this and a next opportunity.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/12/luke-31-6.html