Advent Week 3 Community Blog...
Written By Dallas Gingles
Political alliances, machinations; taxes; questions of birthplace; right to rule; terrorism – this is the story of Advent. As people who just lived through the longest political elections in United States history, these plot lines have worn thin, and we live in the self-indulged delusion that this is the reality of the world as we craft it. Advent is the confession otherwise.
Advent is political. From the little Jewish girl, Miriam's, prophetic speech promising overthrow of the ruling class, to the eastern magicians who recognize within the fabric of the cosmos a testimony to a new ruler (prompting infanticide), the story of the season is more deeply entangled in politics than the most ruthless negative ad anyone witnessed in the past two years or the most promising and hopeful of speeches.
In the Genesis account of God's creative work, the spirit is present, hovering, "brooding," and breathing into the cataclysmic "becoming" of "life, the universe, and everything," (Douglas Adams). In the Lukan account of Jesus' birth, the spirit is once again present, "come upon," the young teenage girl and bringing into the world a new reality, one bathed in the grace of liberation, the promise of hope, the promise of monetary salvation from those who have seized power in a constant succession of greed and injustice.
And, so it is that in 2008, after hearing rhetoric about all of these political realities from both sides of the aisle, that we are come to Advent, to the place of our waiting, to the place of stillness. Our vote does not count. The most powerful women and men in the world are wresting power and transferring its seat, but that does not matter. Now is the winter of the world's discontent. This is the promise, the frustration, of the Christian calendar, that every Advent we come to the end of the year, having worked, fought, pushed, pulled, wrestled with ourselves and others only to find that it matters not at all, but what God asks of us instead at this time is to wait. We are asked to see the world flung off its axis of power, and spin wildly in the cosmos as a little peasant boy is born in a barn, as a refugee, into the arms of a zealot mother who is a part of an occupied people. And, this promise looks nothing like our parades, our banners, our conventions, our so wildly misconstrued good intentions in the political system that rely on affirmation of Caesar and Herod, John Roberts and Barack Obama. We don't get a say here. We only get to confess. We confess that the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God. We confess our allegiance is to no flag, to no building, to no book, but to a baby. This is the shock of Advent. It is to us that Jesus came, but it matters not at all if we want(ed) him to come – ever. We are left speechless, wondering, in the words of Brennan Manning, "shipwrecked at the stable."
Advent is scary as hell. More, actually. "Who can abide the day of his coming?" We do not have time to be sentimental. We cannot afford the modern lie that we are people of our own destiny, makers of our own way. No one is safe: not kings, congresswomen, not you, not me. The angels themselves testify otherwise. We are instead, the ones called by the spirit to recognize the difference of power and political structure, and as the Advent hymn puts so delicately, "come peasant, king to own him."
Political alliances, machinations; taxes; questions of birthplace; right to rule; terrorism – this is the story of Advent. As people who just lived through the longest political elections in United States history, these plot lines have worn thin, and we live in the self-indulged delusion that this is the reality of the world as we craft it. Advent is the confession otherwise.
Advent is political. From the little Jewish girl, Miriam's, prophetic speech promising overthrow of the ruling class, to the eastern magicians who recognize within the fabric of the cosmos a testimony to a new ruler (prompting infanticide), the story of the season is more deeply entangled in politics than the most ruthless negative ad anyone witnessed in the past two years or the most promising and hopeful of speeches.
In the Genesis account of God's creative work, the spirit is present, hovering, "brooding," and breathing into the cataclysmic "becoming" of "life, the universe, and everything," (Douglas Adams). In the Lukan account of Jesus' birth, the spirit is once again present, "come upon," the young teenage girl and bringing into the world a new reality, one bathed in the grace of liberation, the promise of hope, the promise of monetary salvation from those who have seized power in a constant succession of greed and injustice.
And, so it is that in 2008, after hearing rhetoric about all of these political realities from both sides of the aisle, that we are come to Advent, to the place of our waiting, to the place of stillness. Our vote does not count. The most powerful women and men in the world are wresting power and transferring its seat, but that does not matter. Now is the winter of the world's discontent. This is the promise, the frustration, of the Christian calendar, that every Advent we come to the end of the year, having worked, fought, pushed, pulled, wrestled with ourselves and others only to find that it matters not at all, but what God asks of us instead at this time is to wait. We are asked to see the world flung off its axis of power, and spin wildly in the cosmos as a little peasant boy is born in a barn, as a refugee, into the arms of a zealot mother who is a part of an occupied people. And, this promise looks nothing like our parades, our banners, our conventions, our so wildly misconstrued good intentions in the political system that rely on affirmation of Caesar and Herod, John Roberts and Barack Obama. We don't get a say here. We only get to confess. We confess that the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God. We confess our allegiance is to no flag, to no building, to no book, but to a baby. This is the shock of Advent. It is to us that Jesus came, but it matters not at all if we want(ed) him to come – ever. We are left speechless, wondering, in the words of Brennan Manning, "shipwrecked at the stable."
Advent is scary as hell. More, actually. "Who can abide the day of his coming?" We do not have time to be sentimental. We cannot afford the modern lie that we are people of our own destiny, makers of our own way. No one is safe: not kings, congresswomen, not you, not me. The angels themselves testify otherwise. We are instead, the ones called by the spirit to recognize the difference of power and political structure, and as the Advent hymn puts so delicately, "come peasant, king to own him."
posted by Dale at 11:34 AM
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