December 4 – The Second Sunday of Advent

Fr. Cal Calhoun

In the Name of Jesus the Christ: who comes to us once again in this Holy season of Advent. Amen.

Our reading from Isaiah this morning sets the stage for what is coming. A shoot shall come from the stump of Jesse. Jesse was King David’s father. So from the line of David this “little child” who will lead them shall come. For the same reason, our reading from Romans is chosen which quotes Isaiah about the root of Jesse.

Anyone ever heard that David wrote the psalms?  That David wrote the psalms has long been tradition as many of the psalms are full of the kingship theme, and some clearly relating to the challenges and perils of an earthly king. Truth is we don’t know the author of the psalms. We don’t know if David was literate. Remember, when he enters the story he in the fields tending the sheep. We do know that many of the psalms are about David, which as the first leader in Israel to organize society such that he could employ scribes, makes sense. Most scholars today would say the psalms had many authors. Whatever the case, many of the psalms are about David and many of them are about kingship in a general way.

Today’s psalm has such a theme. Now those of you who like to pay attention to the details will notice that some of the verses of this psalm are missing from our reading today. Some of those verses, like verses 12 and 13, echo what is said here:

12 For he shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, *
and the oppressed who has no helper.

13 He shall have pity on the lowly and poor; *
he shall preserve the lives of the needy.

And there are some verses that relate much more to an earthly king like verses 9 and 10:

9 His foes shall bow down before him, *
and his enemies lick the dust.

10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall pay tribute, *
and the kings of Arabia and Saba offer gifts.

I bring this up to show that the folks putting the Lectionary together are trying to point us, not to a King David earthly kind of king, but a coming Messiah kind of king.  A different kind of king. You see, kings weren’t generally concerned with the poor, they were more concerned with winning wars, defending territory, keeping the peace for the sake of prosperity. Because if people aren’t making money, it is pretty difficult to tax them.

What do we have going on in the psalm?

1 Give the King your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the King’s son;

2 That he may rule your people righteously *
and the poor with justice.

3 That the mountains may bring prosperity to the people, *
and the little hills bring righteousness.

4 He shall defend the needy among the people; *
he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.

The emphasis here is for this king to be different. One who raises up the poor and needy and actually crushes those who oppress others.

Let’s shift back to Isaiah, things are clearly going to change when the child who leads them is to come. Wolf and lamb, leopard and kid, calf and lion shall lie down together. “The lion shall eat straw like the ox.” This new kind of peace will not just be a ceasing of violence among humans, but all creation will be affected. “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord. “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Part of the reason I bring this up is to point out God’s vision for the future from these Old Testament texts. Sometimes we struggle with the God we hear about in the Old Testament. We can be tempted to talk as if there are two God’s, one of the Old Testament and one of the New Testament. It is one and the same God and if we look at the overarching theme of the Old Testament, we will see a God of love, forgiving and returning to God’s people, even if he wasn’t too happy with them. God’s vision for how God wants creation to evolve is there from the beginning.

Now, fast forward to the New Testament, to our Gospel reading. John the Baptist is preparing the way for the Messiah. Again, we hear from Isaiah as Matthew quotes, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” The most interesting thing about this passage is the wild and crazy John and the details about his dress and diet. And we get a glimpse into what he thought of the Pharisees and Sadducees. “You brood of vipers!,” he called them. But I want to talk about is the much less interesting topic of John’s beef with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Remember Jesus’ primary beef with the Pharisees and Sadducees? He was concerned that in their religious leadership and authority they were too concerned with keeping the law to the exclusion of the point of the law, which was the care and prospering of ALL the community, including the orphans and the widows, the poor and the needy for whom there was no safety net. I think we Americans have a blind spot with respect our interdependence. Our national identity is all about independence. Independence and individual responsibility might be the primary characteristics as we evaluate the worthiness of someone else. Now, don’t get me wrong, independence and individual responsibility aren’t bad things, quite the opposite. But neither are they everything. We often overlook our interdependence. We need each other. We might have had an ancestor somewhere who was a subsistence farmer, but no more. Anyone want to live without electricity? Anyone want to live without the love and touch and company of our loved ones? Jesus was all about the interdependence, helping those in need. In her book Viral Justice, Ruha Benjamin argues that our interdependence is indeed sacred, a holy thing. By understanding that ALL our forms of existence are inextricably linked, we become better stewards, caregivers, joy-spreaders and justice-spreaders. And we recognize that our participation in an unjust system, even if it is not unjust to us, makes us all sick. This idea is so well illustrated in our familiar parable of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite pass by the injured man in the ditch. The excuse sometimes given is that touching a corpse would leave them ritually unclean and unable to perform their duties in the Temple. That is precisely the point of Jesus’ issues with the religious leaders of his time.  In the moment, they have missed what was most important, not only to the one injured, but indeed to God.

And John, when he chides the Pharisees and the Sadducees, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he is talking about just this thing.

In Advent we are watching, and waiting, and preparing for the one who is to come, the Christ Child.

And we are watching, and waiting, and preparing for Christ to return.

Br. Curtis Almquist of SSJE, asks: “in Advent, are we waiting on God? Or is God waiting on us? The answer,” he says, “is ‘yes.’” If we choose to follow the little child who is on his way to us, each one of us will be challenged to completely change direction. That will mean something different for each one of us. Jesus never stops calling us to follow him.

As we wait and watch and prepare for the arrival of the Christ Child, what is it God is waiting on us to do? What is it God is waiting on you to do? That is central to what Advent is all about.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Year A  –   The Second Sunday of Advent  –  December 4, 2022   –   The Rev. Cal Calhoun