Advent 3 Friday: The O Antiphons Begin

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, pervading and permeating all creation, you order all things with strength and gentleness: Come now and teach us the way to salvation. 

Come, Lord Jesus!

Beginning tonight, the Church's vesper prayers make use of the "O antiphons." seven words of praise and supplication which make use of Messianic titles found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Each day there is a new antiphon until Christmas Eve, when the church's prayer turns towards the birth of Jesus. 

Tonight's title is "Wisdom," in Latin, "Sapientia." It reminds us of the first verses of John's gospel: Christ comes forth from the mouth of God: he is the Word made flesh. As God's Word, he contains-- no, he embodies God's wisdom.

Wisdom is one of those slightly mischievous, slightly subversive titles for Jesus. Wisdom has a tradition of being translated into the feminine form, as in the Greek "Sophia" and the Hebrew Hokhmot.  Verbal femininity is not necessarily to be understood as female, until it is:

Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
“To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.
O simple ones, learn prudence;
acquire intelligence, you who lack it.
Hear, for I will speak noble things,
and from my lips will come what is right;
for my mouth will utter truth;

wickedness is an abomination to my lips.      Proverbs 8:1-7

There is a great and venerable tradition of personifying Wisdom female, and the case can be made (and has been made by actual scholars of Greek and Hebrew) that some of this seeps into the gospel portrayals of Jesus.

So, on this first night of the O antiphons, I invite you-- I invite myself!-- to remember the resonances of  the messianic title, "O Wisdom," as we wait with longing for the revealing of Christ.

Advent 3 Monday

Advent 2 Friday

Today's lectionary passage from Isaiah 7 contains the "money" verses of prophecy for many Christians:

¹³Then Isaiah said: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? ¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. 

Phew! That's pretty potent stuff. One little discrepancy from the way we often hear it translated-- "Behold, the Virgin shall conceive," the alto sings in the Handel setting. Trouble is, the Hebrew doesn't say "virgin." It says, "young woman."

Other interesting things in this passage you won't hear too much about in the Christmas sermon:

²⁰On that day the Lord will shave with a razor hired beyond the River - with the king of Assyria - the head and the hair of the feet, and it will take off the beard as well. 

And also,

²³On that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns. ²⁴With bow and arrows one will go there, for all the land will be briers and thorns; ²⁵and as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not go there for fear of briers and thorns; but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread. 

Oh, we Christians are so great at plucking verses of scripture out of context to support the arguments we want to make.  Please don't get me wrong: my faith is in Emmanuel, God-With-Us, in Jesus. But this is precisely the same trouble we get into when we want to enforce all the verses we think are about particular understandings of sexuality, and ignore, for instance, all the verses in which Jesus tells us what we should do with our money.

What we need, when we read scripture, is some humility. Which, in fact, I think is found in the post below, in which Dave Matthews sings a song of Jesus that gives me chills.

Hear this, and I think you hear the words of another kind of prophet.

She was his girl; he was her boyfriend
She be his wife; take him as her husband
A surprise on the way, any day, any day
One healthy little giggling dribbling baby boy
The wise men came three made their way
To shower him with love
While he lay in the hay
Shower him with love love love
Love love love
Love love is all around
Not very much of his childhood was known
Kept his mother Mary worried
Always out on his own
He met another Mary for a reasonable fee, less than
Reputable as known to be

His heart was full of love love love
Love love love
Love love is all around
When Jesus Christ was nailed to the his tree
Said "oh, Daddy-o I can see how it all soon will be
I came to she'd a little light on this darkening scene
Instead I fear I spill the blood of my children all around"

The blood of our children all around
The blood of our children all around
The blood of our children all around
So the story goes, so I'm told
The people he knew were
Less than golden hearted
Gamblers and robbers
Drinkers and jokers, all soul searchers
Like you and me

Rumors insisited he soon would be
For his deviations
Taken into custody by the authorities
Less informed than he.
Drinkers and jokers. all soul searchers
Searching for love love love
Love love love
Love love is all around

Preparations were made
For his celebration day
He said "eat this bread and think of it as me
Drink this wine and dream it will be
The blood of our children all around
The blood of our children all around"
The blood of our children all around

Father up above, why in all this anger have you fill
Me up with love
Fill me love love love
Love love love
Love love
And the blood of our children all around

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/dave+matthews+band/#share

A Christmas Song by.... Dave Matthews??

How have I never heard this until recently?



And the refrain is love, love, love.

Advent 2 Tuesday

Ah, you who call evil good
     and good evil,
who put darkness for light
     and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
     and sweet for bitter!
Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,
     and shrewd in your own sight! 

~Isaiah 5:20-21

This morning's lectionary reading from Isaiah hits me where I live.  This is my fear, that I cannot see what is good and what is evil because I am hopelessly compromised by my subjective experience. I no longer have these particular doubts in the area of sexuality (which is where one might reasonably expect me to). The theology I hold is just so clear, that a loving and all-powerful God would not create an entire class of individuals who were doomed by trying to live according to the way in which they were created. I believe we were all created, no matter where we are on the spectrum of sexualities, to live in communion and in community, and I believe we can all do that ethically and still be true to ourselves.

No, that's not the area that scares me. It's the other places-- the interpersonal relationship places, where I'm so sure I'm right, where I'm so sure I've got the wisdom, if only he/ she/ they could see with my "wise" eyes!

Advent is useful for this condition. Advent used to be considered a penitential season, as was Lent, but Advent has taken on a kinder, gentler tone in these last-- what, 50?--years or so. Instead of penance, we speak of preparation. Preparation always involves self-examination, or else it's not much help. So, on this cold and snowy Advent Tuesday, I wish you (and me) fruitful self-examination, and openness to the Spirit who will instruct us (if we could get around to listening).

I leave you with another of today's lectionary readings, a fitting blessing for an Advent day:

See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.        ~ I Thessalonians 5:15-22

Advent 1 Saturday

²On that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel. ³Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, ⁴once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. ⁵Then the LORD will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over its places of assembly a cloud by day and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night. Indeed over all the glory there will be a canopy. ⁶It will serve as a pavilion, a shade by day from the heat, and a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.             ~Isaiah 4:2-6


This is a classic early Advent text, in that it describes beauty and horror intermingled. Isaiah (the first Isaiah, writing at the time of Kings Uzziah and his son Hezekiah) warns against both Judah becoming a client state of the enormous and powerful Assyrian Empire, and against assimilation as expressed in a casual approach to worship of the one true God. Both kings ignore Isaiah until it is almost too late. Total devastation is averted. Significant devastation takes place.


So we have Isaiah describing Zion/ Jerusalem as beautifully restored and protected (about which he seems to be confident), and then, smack in the middle, the appearance of imagery that recalls the anti-woman rhetoric we find in many of the prophetic texts. The unfaithful city is a whore, its daughters are filthy. The bloodstains serve the dual purpose of reinforcing the image of the filth and also describing the devastation taking place at the hands of the Assyrians.


As much as I would like Advent to be about pregnancy and birth and awaiting in holy, candle-lit darkness the birth of this extraordinary baby, Advent forces my attention elsewhere. I can do as I did last Sunday and simply ignore it (I preached off lectionary-- after dealing with apocalyptic imagery in the Sundays of December, I needed to get to Jesus' birth). But it will not be ignored. It is the Glenn Close-Fatal-Attraction of the lectionary year: Advent will bring us images of death and destruction before it allows us to get to the baby.


That is because sea-change, world-upside-down events are believed to presage the coming of Jesus next time around. I'll say here what I say to everyone who asks (and, apparently, to some who don't). I don't believe God's plan is to destroy the earth. I believe there is too much in scripture-- including this passage-- that speaks of God's firm intention to provide us with restoration and and renewal. That God will be among us, face to face, is a firm promise. That this world will be a new creation, is set down here and in other places.


Below, my attempt at posting something that conveys both the chaos and the restoration, with the babe for good measure.

Advent 1 Wednesday

¹¹Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, ¹²waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? ¹³But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

¹⁴Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; ¹⁵and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, ¹⁶speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. ¹⁷You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability. ¹⁸But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.     ~ 2 Peter 3:11-18

~~~

I know I don't need to tell you today is World AIDS Day. I share Sting's haunting "Hounds of Winter" because it is about the loss of the beloved in this season of growing cold and darkness. The selection from 2 Peter is one of today's lectionary readings (you can find them here, every day). I find its emphasis on waiting for the coming day of God to be so beautiful, so refreshing... we wait, not cowering in our bunkers with our five years' supply of canned goods and water filled with fear (as some would have us wait). Rather, we wait at peace, striving to be kind to one another. We live in stability, not anxiety (can I get an amen there?). We wait, hoping to grow in grace and knowledge. 

So much of this speaks to our attitude as a society towards those who are struggling with AIDS, or with sexual identity, or with the private violence that plagues their lives. We strive to offer this peace, this kindness, this stability. We wait for the day of God in the same way we live: hoping, day by day, to grow in grace and knowledge. I can get behind that.