(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Psalm 72: 1-7, 18-19 (Advent 2A)

¹Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son.

²May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.

³May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness.

⁴May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.

⁵May he live while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.

⁶May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.

⁷In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more.

¹⁸Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. ¹⁹Blessed be his glorious name forever; may his glory fill the whole earth. Amen and Amen.

This psalter is part of a Psalm that was probably read at the occasion of a royal liturgy.  The words are the petition for a leader, a good leader, a worthy leader, a leader that will bring the nation into righteousness and peace, a leader that will answer injustice with hope and promise.  It is a prayer not just for a redeemed people but a redeemed nation.  It is a prayer that the vision of the nation might be reordered into that vision that God holds for all of us.

During Advent, we talk a lot about God’s vision.  We talk a lot about the Kingdom of God becoming what it should be.  And we hope and we dream and we look for it to happen.  But do you think sometimes we’re not looking through the right lenses? I mean, I pray for this to happen.  You pray for this to happen.  And when we live in a time such as this, we wait, we wait for the world to change.  But are we hoping that will happen for us or are we hoping it will happen for the world?  I know that’s a weird question.  What if we’re so shaped right now by the difficulties we are experiencing that our view of God’s vision has become an end to those difficulties, a way of moving ourselves into a better scenario.

Years ago, in one of the large meeting rooms at Lakeview Methodist Assembly in Palestine, TX, hung a huge poster.  When you went up to it, it was this wonderful mosaic of maybe 100-125 pictures of people doing ministry, of the church being the church, of Christians being Christians.  It was inspirational.  But if you went to the other side of the room and looked back at it from a distance, you couldn’t see the individual pictures.  What you saw instead was an image of Christ.  All of those tiny pictures came together into an image of the Holy.  It was powerful.  I’ve spent years trying to find that picture.  But I’ll never forget it.  When you quit looking at the individual pictures, together they become a picture of the Holy.

Another metaphor…have you ever sang in a choir?  I’ve recently gone back to singing in a choir after “doing other things” for about 25 years.  Learning to sing in a choir is not just about learning to sing.  It’s more than that.  It’s almost kind of practice for God’s Kingdom.  Because a choir is not just a conglomeration of individual voices.  At its best (when the choir is truly at its best), you can’t hear the individual voices.  You actually hear what sounds like one multi-layered voice.  There are no individual “solos” sticking out over the music.

That’s it.  The Kingdom of God is not about me or you; it’s about us—all of us.  So, we have to back away from ourself.  We have to back away from those things that make us uncomfortable, those things that make life difficult, those things that we want desperately to control.  The Kingdom of God is not a fulfillment of all the things for which we wish.  God is not Santa Claus.  Rather, God’s vision is a reordering of Creation, a re-creation of everything. 

So, I had an interaction on Facebook yesterday.  (Yeah, I know…)  Anyway, the person wanted to give people money for food but do away with systemic programs, such as SNAP.  In other words, SHE wanted to pick and choose who deserved her money rather than at least attempting to create a system that helps that along.  Here’s where we need to back away.  Here’s where we need to see that outline of Christ.  Here’s where we need to tone our “solo” voices down and become a choral ensemble.  I don’t think God’s vision is one that gives us everything we want; I think it’s a vision that fulfills everyone’s need.  Remember that whole manna thing?  The manna came.  They ate.  And then the manna left.  The Daily Bread is given over and over.  It’s not for us to decide who gets is.  It’s not something that some will be given more.  It’s God vision—a vision where everyone is filled and no one has too little or too much–a picture that we have to sometimes back away to see.

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. (John Donne)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli