Psalm 122
Advent 1 - Year A
To be ready for the unexpected runs the danger of readiness fatigue.
To have too-clear a vision of the future runs the danger of not being ready for an even better future and missing it when it is available.
Both of these dangerous approaches to Advent are needed and both raise a larger danger of setting one against the other in a battle to an unnecessary death. There may be a third way that brings out the best of both. The Psalmist sums up this non-doctrinal formula relationally—“I will seek your good.”
In today’s world of reading silently to one’s self, the Matthew and Isaiah passages are about individuals. However, when Matthew speaks of being ready he uses an irregular plural of “you” and Isaiah speaks of the whole house of Jacob as walking together in light. To be progressive in today’s world almost requires an ear for the corporate, the community, and not the individual. In time to come this will probably become as perverted as an overblown individualism is today and progressives will be those holding up the importance of a depth of psyche. But, for now, listen first for where the community might be better held together. This is our great need today—an irregular plural.
Our readiness for the future and our walking a better way in today’s light can both be assisted with a reminder that we only get to that better future together. This requires us to seek the good of another in order for either and both of us to progress toward a time of wholeness, of peace.
Imaging Jerusalem as “a place of wholeness”, we find it appropriate that those who would pray for peace as a significant part of wholeness would prosper, would not learn war anymore, would be ready for an unexpected experience of community beyond any arbitrary decision resulting in some taken and some left behind.
Then we run again into the tension and/or balance of Advent.
For the sake of others I will say, “Peace be within you.”
For the sake of G*D, “I will seek your good.”
May peace be within G*D’s place and may we seek the good of others. In these two we find all the law and prophets. In these two we find our past-future and our future-future come together in a very present-future that is quite manageable. We can bless G*D and bless one another—a bit now, a bit more later, and, eventually, with an exclamation point! or three!!!
For the sake of G*D, “I will seek your good.”
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Advent: a joyous time. A virtual "Jerusalem" is available. We are there and not there. This may be the best of times.
Our feet are standing in Jerusalem even if our heart is slow or hard and our head is up our butt.
The foundation is present. The past has been prelude to the present and the future is anticipated in as mysterious a fashion as has been the journey from then-to-now. Now-to-when promises as much as we have received.
So pray for the peace of Jerusalem that the rest of us can finally catch up with our feet. May love prosper or bring together the separated parts of ourselves and our worlds.
We've got a foot in the door, now let's close the deal by seeking good - good for G*D, good for ourselves, good for neighbors, good for enemies.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/november2004.html
Psalm 122
Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44
A back story to our work this year is encouragement to see Peace and Security as parallel realities. Our current world tends to separate them so a focus on Peace leaves us insecure and an emphasis upon Security keeps us from hope or trust.
For Jerusalem to be Jeru-Salem these issues of Peace and Security need, as the Psalmist says, to be "bound firmly together." Isaiah is clear that the light of the Lord will lead us to finding Security only in the Peace of swords turned to plowshares and Peace only in the Security of the whole and not just our part.
Matthew has an intriguing image follow after examples of usual places of togetherness --around table and in "marriage". Togetherness is swept away when we divide ourselves up - in the midst of everyday life, one is taken way and one is left behind. We are usually told this is about a second-coming and judgment day but it makes as much sense to consider this behavior as the result of our choosing sides against one another or allowing our house to be broken into by dividing Peace and Security.
Judgment against our current divisions is already evident and we are encouraged to work against our desires for privilege and exemption from common work alongside one another.
As the rich get richer and the poor poorer, as some earn their keep through interest from money and others provide for themselves by their labor, we loose the bonds of two becoming one and find two dividing into two.
Advent places before us a choice for a different future where, instead of being separated from the world by an attempt at renewal, Noah-style, two by two, we are ready to set aside separation and quarreling to respond to a call from our descendents, Children-of-human-style, to, one by one, rebind Peace and Security.
- - -
May peace be our life
among family, friend, stranger, enemy.
May security be our heart
among our common house and common good.
May these gifts give light on our way
among ancestral dreams and coming hope.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html
One taken; one left. This is a formula that begs for revision. In this Psalm the movement is from "I" to "we". This begins giving one hint about the intent of Advent - to move us from our divided, individualized lives to that of community.
This process moves from the first two verses of Psalm 122 to the last two. For community to be realized there needs to be an understanding of being joined with others for a common good of peace. For the sake of family (self), neighbors, and G*D we not only say "Peace" but seek the good upon which it is based. Words and actions need to come together.
One of the practices of Advent is that of tearing away the excuses we have cultivated that separate our words and intentions from our actions and results. When we have reduced our hypocrisy we will find that we are able to interchange "I" and "we", for to live for one is to act for the other.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/11/psalm-122.html
To be ready for the unexpected runs the danger of readiness fatigue.
To have a clear vision of what needs to be runs the danger of not being ready for a different future and missing it when it is available.
Both of these dangerous approaches to Advent are needed and both raise a larger danger of setting one against the other in a battle to an unnecessary death. There may be a third way that brings out the best of both. The Psalmist sums up this non-doctrinal formula relationally – "I will seek your good."
The tendency we have in today's world of silent reading is for us to read the Matthew and Isaiah passages as individuals. Strikingly, when Matthew speaks to us of being ready he uses an irregular plural of "you" and Isaiah speaks of the whole house of Jacob as walking together in light. To be progressive in today's world almost requires an ear for the corporate, the community, and not the individual. In time to come this will probably become as perverted as an overblown individualism is today and progressives will be those holding up the importance of a depth of psyche. But, for now, listen first for where the community might be better held together. This is our great need today – an irregular plural.
Our readiness for the future and our walking a better way in today's light can both be assisted with a reminder that we only get to that better future together. This requires us to seek the good of another in order for either and both of us to progress toward a time of wholeness, of peace.
Imaging Jerusalem as "a place of wholeness" we find it appropriate that those who would pray for peace, as a significant part of wholeness, would prosper, would not learn war anymore, would be ready for an unexpected experience of community beyond any arbitrary decision resulting in some taken and some left behind.
Then we run again into the tension and/or balance of Advent.
For the sake of others I will say, "Peace be within you."
For the sake of G*D "I will seek your good."
May peace be within G*D's place and may we seek the good of others. In these two we find all the law and prophets. In these two we find our past-future and our future-future come together in a very present-future that is quite manageable. We can bless G*D and bless one another – a bit now, a bit more later, and, eventually, with an exclamation point! or three!!!
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html
The New Community Bible comments: “It is a fact that true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth (Jn 4:21), but they are still flesh and blood and God often waits for them at the end of a march without which their effort would not have been a real one.”
We do affirm the engagement of our bodies in life. Direct action is not just a social change tactic, but one of living life to the full. We engage in spirit, truth, flesh, blood, and more. Taking any of them away leads us to an ending with a whimper, not a bang. To find your engagement in life is finding a spoonful of Mary Poppins' medicine—it helps every aspect of life when there are expected and unexpected consequences in an unfated universe.
Shifting Advent to a waiting game that we will win or lose “at the end of a march” is to denigrate the communal nature of creation and its impetus to call out “Let it be”.