First Sunday of Advent
LK 21:25-28, 34-36
The apocalyptic tones of today's gospel are an unusual and challenging place from which to start our Advent journey; I typically imagine Advent as a fairly gentle season of preparation for the coming of Jesus at Christmas, but this gospel is, strangely (?), warning us about the coming of the end of the age: the whole world in disarray and a time of terror and urgency.
At one level, such a violent text is a far cry from the birth of a child in the most unremarkable of circumstances in the forgettable little village of Bethlehem, but we remember the stories enough to know that the world that Jesus entered was deeply violent - the wailing of mothers at the deaths of the children of Bethlehem and the desperate escape to Egypt are the first stories to follow his birth. Violence shadows Jesus throughout his ministry, from the murder of his friend John the Baptizer to the religious leaders of his time repeatedly conspiring to put him to death, and ultimately succeeding in doing so in league with the forces of the Roman Empire, which may not have invented cruelty but went a long way toward perfecting it. There is no shortage of similar depths of violence in our world; the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem is repeated in Yemen, Syria, and too many other places around the world, and stories of the Holy Family fleeing persecution in Egypt are all too familiar as we see images of parents dragging their children away from tear gas canisters at our own border.
At the same time, that political violence targeted Jesus because of the threat that his imagination posed to the religious and imperial powers of his time (and ours). The world he imagined and preached and anticipated shakes our world to its foundations: forgiveness of debts, radical hospitality, and leadership rooted in service and humility rather than boundary markers and status hierarchies.
But have our hearts not "become drowsy from...the anxieties of daily life"? Somehow Advent has become a sleepy few weeks of counting down to Christmas, with the help of colored candles and, if we are lucky, a daily piece of chocolate behind little paper doors. We don't often seem to act like the coming of Jesus is going to change much of anything, or like Advent is a time for us to participate in that change. But what if Advent were not just a time of waiting? I propose that it is precisely a time of bringing about something truly new - dismantling and disengaging from what theologian Walter Brueggemann calls "technological therapeutic military consumerism" - a global system which rewards apathy, normalizes cruelty, and makes promises of happiness and community which it cannot keep.
In the coming of Jesus we see the coming of a new era, but it does not come out of nowhere; a beloved community of respect for human dignity, care for creation, and particular concern for the poor and vulnerable grows out of our work to reflect the gospel in our public lives and the ways we organize our world, as well as our private and spiritual lives. Let us begin this Advent with a long, loving look at our world and ask how these next four weeks can be a time to refocus on building a more loving and just society.
Patrick Cousins is Assistant Director in the Department of Campus Ministry.
The apocalyptic tones of today's gospel are an unusual and challenging place from which to start our Advent journey; I typically imagine Advent as a fairly gentle season of preparation for the coming of Jesus at Christmas, but this gospel is, strangely (?), warning us about the coming of the end of the age: the whole world in disarray and a time of terror and urgency.
At one level, such a violent text is a far cry from the birth of a child in the most unremarkable of circumstances in the forgettable little village of Bethlehem, but we remember the stories enough to know that the world that Jesus entered was deeply violent - the wailing of mothers at the deaths of the children of Bethlehem and the desperate escape to Egypt are the first stories to follow his birth. Violence shadows Jesus throughout his ministry, from the murder of his friend John the Baptizer to the religious leaders of his time repeatedly conspiring to put him to death, and ultimately succeeding in doing so in league with the forces of the Roman Empire, which may not have invented cruelty but went a long way toward perfecting it. There is no shortage of similar depths of violence in our world; the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem is repeated in Yemen, Syria, and too many other places around the world, and stories of the Holy Family fleeing persecution in Egypt are all too familiar as we see images of parents dragging their children away from tear gas canisters at our own border.
At the same time, that political violence targeted Jesus because of the threat that his imagination posed to the religious and imperial powers of his time (and ours). The world he imagined and preached and anticipated shakes our world to its foundations: forgiveness of debts, radical hospitality, and leadership rooted in service and humility rather than boundary markers and status hierarchies.
But have our hearts not "become drowsy from...the anxieties of daily life"? Somehow Advent has become a sleepy few weeks of counting down to Christmas, with the help of colored candles and, if we are lucky, a daily piece of chocolate behind little paper doors. We don't often seem to act like the coming of Jesus is going to change much of anything, or like Advent is a time for us to participate in that change. But what if Advent were not just a time of waiting? I propose that it is precisely a time of bringing about something truly new - dismantling and disengaging from what theologian Walter Brueggemann calls "technological therapeutic military consumerism" - a global system which rewards apathy, normalizes cruelty, and makes promises of happiness and community which it cannot keep.
In the coming of Jesus we see the coming of a new era, but it does not come out of nowhere; a beloved community of respect for human dignity, care for creation, and particular concern for the poor and vulnerable grows out of our work to reflect the gospel in our public lives and the ways we organize our world, as well as our private and spiritual lives. Let us begin this Advent with a long, loving look at our world and ask how these next four weeks can be a time to refocus on building a more loving and just society.
Patrick Cousins is Assistant Director in the Department of Campus Ministry.
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