Advent Thumbnail

Though the sun sets cold and sullen
and the moon comes dull and red,
we can all work toward a future
where the light of God still spreads.

A verse for Christ the King

"Attend neglected ones, the lost, the least;

the poor," Christ says, "approach on bending knee.

In these you find the majesty you seek,

and all you do for them you do for me."

MH, Songs for the Cycle

Christ the King

The always insightful Bill Loader ends his reflection on John 18.33-37 like this:

This subverted image of kingship, given us in the account of the crucifixion, belongs at the heart of Christian faith and community - and at the heart of God. In that sense it represents the kingdom, the kingship of God. Jesus’ ministry interprets his death and his death interprets his ministry. So this is not a passivity which surrenders, a kind of discipline which learns to find fulfilment in being a doormat through some brave self-persuasion that such behaviour is noble or blessed. It is the transforming compassion which gets on the donkey and rides into Jerusalem. It is an engaged spirituality which lives not from abject obedience to a heavenly king, but in common initiatives of creativity and hope which constitute the being of God.

It is so good to celebrate the feast of Christ the king in the context of the passion. Obsession with power so easily 'rescues' Jesus (and God) from all of this and makes the resurrection the point of return to power from the embarrassment or the stunt of incarnation. The military Jesus makes an appearance quite soon and people forget kingship is a broken metaphor which has legitimacy only in its subversion. Our task is no less today to proclaim the kingdom of God, a kingship not of this world - but here and now.

Loader's full commentary is here.

Sacred Reading

Nature is so replete with divine truth, it is silent concerning the fall of man and the wonder of Redeeming Love. Might she not have been made to speak as clearly and eloquently of these things as she now does of the character and attributes of God? It may be a bad symptom, but I will confess that I take more intense delight from reading the power and goodness of God from "the things which are made" than from the Bible. The two books, however, harmonize beautifully, and contain enough of divine truth for the study of all eternity.

John Muir, Letters to a Friend

The End of the World as We Know It

We're getting to the time of year when the readings get apocalyptic. Over the past few years these readings bring to mind Bart Ehrman--religion professor at UNC, once Evangelical, now agnostic--whom I heard several years ago on "Fresh Air" talking about how he lost his faith in part because of passages like these. Particularly ones in the Gospels.

He thinks Jesus expected the Apocalypse during or just after his life. And, because this didn't happen, it changes the way we relate to Jesus. Simply--how can Jesus be God Incarnate and be wrong? And perhaps more to the point, what use is Christianity if the savior it points to cannot save?

Even if Dr. Ehrman is right about Jesus's apocalypticism, and he may by wrong (this is a question that probably never will be answered with certainty), it says a lot more about the nature of certain ways of 'faithing' than it says about Jesus's faithfulness incarnating God.

I don't much like apocalypticism either--particularly when it comes with images of Jesus as King. Jesus seemed always to be running from those who would make him king. And always to be running toward bringing God's kingdom into reality through loving, courageous action.

Read the post below this, Michael Garrett's short bit of wisdom about the re-framing of questions. Perhaps our answers befuddle us because we need a bit more skill with our questions.

Reading for 7 Creation

Asking the right questions, instead of asking for the right answers, allows us to know the function rather than the effect of our choices. The following is a commonly posed question that reflects one’s outlook on life: “Is the glass half empty or half full?” This question presupposes that the answer can be only one of two possibilities. However, the Truth of Opposites, as I heard one elder put it, poses a different question altogether: “Is the glass the right size?” ...This is just one example of the way in which we limit ourselves through our perception of choice.

Walking on the Wind by Michael Tlanusta Garrett (A native of Cherokee)

The Widow of Zeraphath

Years of drought and crop failure and God 'commands' a widow to feed Elijah. How do you think that command came to her?

When Elijah speaks to her, she doesn't seem to know anything about it. Yet she takes the makings of what she expects to be her and her sons last meal and shares it.

Why? How do God's commands come? What constitutes a tipping point between self-protection and generosity?

How does that work?

Creation Cycle Reading

…All over the West, as in all of America, the old folkway of property as an absolute right is dying. Our mythology doesn’t work anymore.

We find ourselves weathering a rough winter of discontent, snared in the uncertainties of a transitional time and urgently yearning to inhabit a story that might bring sensible order to our lives—even as we know such a story can only evolve through an almost literally infinite series of recognitions of what, individually, we hold sacred. The liberties our people came seeking are more and more constrained, and here in the West, as everywhere, we hate it.

Simple as that. And we have to live with it. There is no more running away to territory. This is it, for most of us. We have no choice but to live in community. If we’re lucky we may discover a story that teaches us to abhor our old romance with conquest and possession.

--William Kittredge, Owning It All