Daily Readings: Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 146: 3-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11

Don’t put your life in the hands of experts who know nothing of life, of salvation life.

Mere humans don’t have what it takes; when they die, their projects die with them.

Instead, get help from the God of Jacob, put your hope in God and know real blessing!

God made the sky and soil, sea and all the fish in it. He always does what he says – he defends the wronged, he feeds the hungry. God frees the prisoners – he gives sight to the blind, he lifts up the fallen. God loves good people, protects strangers, takes the side of orphans and widows, but makes short work of the wicked.

God’s in charge – always. Zion’s God is God for good! Hallelujah!

Psalm 146:3-10, The Message

Sewing new valances for the kitchen windows; reformatting a year’s worth of curriculum and writing another; canning the two pounds of cranberries sitting on my cupboard. There’s nothing wrong with working on such projects, as long as I realize and accept that none of them are going to matter much beyond a limited number of people for a short period of time. There’s an impermanence about them that cannot be changed – foolishly denied, yes, but not changed.

What if I embrace the impermanence, seek to make of my work and life something beautiful, holy? I guess that life would reflect God’s priorities: defending the wronged, lifting up the fallen, freeing the prisoners, feeding the hungry. Such a life may not be considered successful or even worth much by the larger society, but what do cultural experts know of true life?

I want my life to be a sand mandala. I want to create it out of love and care and live it as a spiritual practice. When the time comes, I want to say a prayer, draw a line through it, and let it be swept away.

Sand mandalas are created by Tibetan buddhist monks as a spiritual practice and a reminder of life’s beauty and impermanence.

Daily Readings: Psalm 146:5-10; Ruth 1:6-18; 2 Peter 3:1-10

One day Naomi got herself together, she and her two daughters-in-law, to leave the country of Moab and set out for home; she had heard that God had been pleased to visit his people and give them food. And so she started out from the place she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law with her, on the road back to the land of Judah.

After a short while on the road, Naomi told her two daughters-in-law, “Go back. Go home and live with your mothers. And may God treat you as graciously as you treated your deceased husbands and me. May God give each of you a new home and a new husband!” She kissed them and they cried openly…

Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye; but Ruth embraced her and held on. Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law is going back home to live with her own people and gods; go with her.” But Ruth said, “Don’t force me to leave you; don’t make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I’ll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; where you die, I’ll die, and that’s where I’ll be buried, so help me God – not even death itself is going to come between us!”

When Naomi saw that Ruth had her heart set on going with her, she gave in. And so the two of them traveled on together to Bethlehem. Ruth 1:6-10, 14-18, The Message

Three deaths and a famine in a foreign land – that’s what Naomi faced. Dead husbands and a famine – that’s what Orpah and Ruth faced. Three women dealt a hand that could very easily win them death or a life on the streets. The best option was for them to return to their families – Naomi’s in the land of Judah, Moab for Orpah and Ruth.

After a lot of crying, Orpah did the sensible thing and returned to the protection of her family – and to the possibility that she might marry again. Naomi did the sensible but hazardous thing, heading back to Judah and whatever family she had. Ruth, did not. Ruth chose to leave the safety of family ties and head to a land and a people that had no vested interest in her life. Out of love for her mother-in-law, with trust in Naomi’s God, she set out for Bethlehem.

Against all common sense and odds, it worked out. Naomi introduced Ruth to her relative, Boaz. A few batted eyelashes and some negotiations later, Boaz and Ruth are married. A few months later, Obed is born. What could have ended in tears and tragedy ends in joy.

Obed grew up, married, and had a boy named Jesse; Jesse grew up and had a boy named David, who later became king. Naomi and Ruth’s road trip, their love and care for one another, blessed the world (as all instances of love and care do, even if they aren’t written down).

Not from Moab, and not because of a famine, but from Nazareth and due to a Roman census, two more people set out on the road to Bethlehem. That trip, care for one another, and trust in God that their journey would lead to something good led to another baby being born in Bethlehem. And to this Advent journey we take every year…

Image by Margaret Hill, in whom God delights.

Daily Readings: Psalm 21; Genesis 15:1-18; Matthew 12:33-37

If you grow a healthy tree, you’ll pick healthy fruit. If you grow a diseased tree, you’ll pick a worm-eaten fruit. The fruit tells you about the tree.

You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It’s your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation. Matthew 12:33-37, The Message

We are all beautiful creatures of God and the Spirit, just like trees bearing beautiful fruit, gifts from God. Like trees we require care and guidance to be able to grow and flourish.

There is that phrase often shared and taught by our parents, grandparents, guardians and teachers : Think before you speak. These 4 simple words hold true each and every day, not to be forgotten, but to keep in our hearts and minds always, gently, whenever and wherever we are.

Words can be hurtful if not thought about carefully, leaving a terrible taste like rotten fruit; still, our words can leave a lingering feeling of joy and happiness when spoken with love and caring, like beautiful healthy peaches on their well-cared for trees.

As a classroom substitute, I am especially mindful when helping the 7 young students in their small classroom, with the words I choose when speaking to them, asking how and if I can assist them with their work. Each special needs student is different and needs to be spoken to in an individual way, with a calm and patient tone. There is no place for anger or intolerance, only total understanding of their needs. The students’ classroom teacher has an amazing ability and gift to speak to and teach each of her students in this way; she is an amazing role model for others. She has been a great role model for me as well.

Jesus, when we read his parables through the gospels, continues to be our role model for thoughts, words and actions. With our spoken words chosen with thoughtfulness and kindness, we can all be like healthy trees, bearing vibrant fruit.

Offered by Robin Nielsen, in whom God delights.

Daily Readings: Psalm 21; Isaiah 41:14-20; Romans 15:14-21

I need your help in carrying out this highly focused assignment God gave me, this priestly and gospel work of serving the spiritual needs of the non-Jewish outsiders…

I have no interest in giving you a chatty account of my adventures, only the wondrously powerful and transformingly present words and deeds of Christ in me that triggered a believing response among the outsiders. In such ways I have trailblazed a preaching of the Message of Jesus all the way from Jerusalem into northwestern Greece. This has all been pioneer work, bringing the Message only into those places where Jesus was not yet known and worshiped. My text has been,

Those who were never told of him – they’ll see him! Those who’ve never heard of him – they’ll get the message!

Romans 15: 16, 18-21 The Message

It took him time, a blinding come-to-Jesus experience on the road to Damascus, and the courage of Ananias, but Paul got there. He found his mission from God: reaching out to the non-Jewish community that for most of his life he had no wish to encounter much less serve.

I don’t know that it will be the same for most of us, but we share a vital something with Paul’s experience: our mission from God will move us beyond where we think we belong, and teach us to love people we never thought we could, would, or should.

Daily Readings: Psalm 21; Isaiah 24:1-16a; I Thessalonians 4:1-12

One final word, friends. We ask you – urge you is more like it – that you keep on doing what we told you to do to please God, not in a dogged religious plod, but in a living, spirited dance.

I Thessalonians 4:1-2, The Message

After these words, it’s about sex – or, more precisely, not having sex in a way that harms us physically, emotionally, or spiritually. It’s a plea to take into account the whole person you get naked with. Then it becomes a request to take into account the rest of the community members – even those we don’t know particularly well. In short, live and act as if your life and the lives of all those around you matter. Because they do.

It’s easy to misunderstand what that really is: a full, vibrant, connected life. It’s not a lesser, boring life that pleases God; it’s not giving up the things that bring us pleasure – it’s making sure that pleasure is found within the larger context of a joyful life for everyone.

A good life isn’t a long slog on a rocky road. A good life is a turn on the dance floor. Unpredictable. Breath-taking. A joyful moving in the company of others.

Enjoy!

Daily Readings: Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

While Jesus was living in the Galilean hills, John, called “the Baptizer,” was preaching in the desert country of Judea. HIs message was simple and austere, like his desert surroundings: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.” Mt. 3:1-2, The Message

The popular notion is that John came into Jerusalem wearing the classic sandwich board, “Repent!” We imagine that the Baptist stood on the streets of Jerusalem in front of Herod’s fabulous Temple, across from the Jerusalem Museum of Fine Art and the First Judea Bank building with a bullhorn, shouting, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. . . . You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

But it didn’t happen that way at all. It’s much more fascinating. Matthew is quite clear. “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea.” That’s where he was proclaiming, “Repent.”  So, was he a “voice in the wilderness,” as we say—a lonely coot preaching to the wind and the sand and the bitter rocks? Hardly. “Then,” Matthew says, “the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” 

The topography of this spiritual encounter is hardly a chance feature of Matthew’s story. Notice the symbolic movement: You have to move out of the city . . . cross a river . . . and enter a desert. And there you will meet a very strange man who will offer to plunge you into the water in an act of purgation, cleansing yourself for your encounter with God.

The call of John reminds me of those early Desert Fathers in Egypt, the first Christian ascetics who went out into the desert. They weren’t just leaving the city and its culture; they were leaving the church. By the time Anthony the Great moved into the desert in 270, the church was already not-enough. Nothing wrong with it, just not-enough. Just gradually getting institutionalized. Again, nothing wrong, but in spiritual development terms, the church was mostly about first-half-of-life issues. Building a moral foundation, rehearsing right from wrong, learning impulse control, making and keeping basic commitments, being a stand-up man, a dutiful woman. 

But when that program crashes, as it always does on the rocks of the middle voyage, we’re ready to hear John. And that is what people like Anthony the Great did. They listened to his call and literally went out into the desert. And, just as the crowds followed John into the wilderness, so ordinary Christians in the third century went streaming out into the wild to sit and pray with Anthony, with Paul of Thebes, and eventually with the Desert Mothers—or ammas—like Sincletica of Alexandria and Sarah of the Desert.

Many people have suggested that we are on the cusp of a new monastic movement, that the weakness of the contemporary church is pushing people out onto the margins—sometimes literally into the wild—to find that something more. Advent is a perfect moment for each of us to hear John’s call and find some wild place where we can encounter the fullness of God. 

Offered by David Anderson, in whom God delights.