This Will Never Preach
I find Sarah Dylan Breuer's reflections at her Lectionary Blog some of the most insightful and challenging around. This week was no exception. In fact I think the following paragraph is nothing short of exceptional.

It's a strange accident of history that the apocalyptic texts in our scriptures were written to encourage tiny minorities at their society's margins to greet the tribulations they witnessed not with panic, but with confidence that God was working out God's purposes for peace, joy, and justice -- and that these same texts seem now (e.g., in the Left Behind series) to be read even more often among prosperous and powerful majorities as if they were written for people like them, and they are used mostly to point to current events with the loud message that people should panic, that God intends to bring chaos, agony, and unprecedented bloodshed to the world. And what these pseudo-apocalyptic visions want us to do in response isn't to change the world, but to retreat to an interior experience that will help us to leave it behind before God leaves us behind. That isn't the God I know.

What a great way to approach the Advent texts... not to mention all the New Testament apocalyptic texts. The idea behind the first such texts was that people of faith are to take heart and be strong in the midst of the times of great tribulation.

I may get in trouble for this with some readers, but in the United States I know of very few Christians who are being persecuted for their faith. I know of very few Christians who are on the edge of society, hiding from the powers that be, keeping their faith a secret, meeting in hidden places, always on the lookout for spies who will report them. In fact the ones who are crying the most about the awful state of the way America treats Christians have made a lot of money on it.

What a contrast to the baby in the manger. What a contrast to the Son of Man who had no place to lay his head. What a contrast to the early Christians who read the apocalyptic scriptures in whispered tones and coded imagery. Now I don't mean that we can never reach that point. Of course it can. But that is not- and never has been- the point of this type of scriptural text.

But that doesn't preach well in our Christian culture. We are the chosen ones. We are the ones who have the answers and the special blessing of God. We don't want that challenged or questioned or even taken back to the roots of the text. What Advent should do for us- and the coming of the Lord is part of that- is to lead us to a deeper awareness of the power of God that works in ways we can never understand. This is not an intellectual exercise in right interpretation. This is a spiritual exercise in allowing the heart of God to penetrate our heart. It is a way of keeping ourselves grounded when things around us are no longer grounded. It is a way of moving closer to God.