Prophets: Advent Week One
Please enjoy the blog version of Taylor & Whitney’s first collaboration, an Advent email series written by Taylor in 2020.
Image of a dark winter sky by Whitney Leigh Carlson from her Advent Print Calendar that can be purchased on Etsy.
Take a deep breath and settle in.
Light a candle if you'd like.
Advent is arrival.
We wait in silence.
We wait in stillness.
We wait in darkness.
For our Light to come.
Scripture for reflection
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Isaiah 58: 9-12
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9: 6-7
And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
Luke 1: 46-55 (Mary’s Magnificat)
Meditation: On the Prophets
Part of me wishes we didn’t have to start here, in the beginning, with the prophets. It’d be much easier to write about something sweeter, simpler, less subversive, less offensive. But as Rachel Held Evans says, the Bible is literature for the resistance, a library of books that “brims with protest songs and prison letters, subversive poetry and politically charged visions, satirical roasts of the powerful and storied celebrations of dissidents.” Prophets not only announce the not-yet, but work to create the not-yet in the now. Historically and now, they position themselves in exile, with the outcast, decry injustice, and crash up against the status quo. Prophets are the dreamers, the artists, the poets who dare to imagine a world where there is no more hierarchy, no more hunger, no more war.
In fact, Mary’s prolific and prophetic Magnificat has been outlawed from public life in three countries, India, Guatemala, and Argentina, because the incarnation has deep and lasting political implications. Jesus’ birth was the inauguration of a new kingdom and a new King. ‘Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall’ as Psalm 46 tells us, the government is now on the shoulders of a Prince of Peace, the powerful are brought low, the corrupt kings of this world will not prevail. It is a grand reversal, this upside-down Kingdom, and it comes crashing in our midst, not without consequence.
Prophets, being ministers of justice, throughout history have been imprisoned, tortured, or worse still, assassinated. More modern examples are Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to name a few. The revolutionary truths that prophets boast of are never good news to the powerful, to the billionaire, to those who profit off the poor. Thirty-one years ago, on November 16th 1989, during the civil war in El Salvador, six Jesuit priests known for ministering to the rural poor caught in war zones, along with their housekeeper and her daughter, were brutally murdered by what was unfortunately a U.S. -backed Salvadoran military. “Haga patria, mate un cura” (Be a patriot, kill a priest) was a common slogan among armed forces in El Salvador.
These Jesuit priests were on-the-ground peacemakers, stakeholders of hope, standing against violence, pleading protection of the poor and vulnerable. Their message of a liberating Jesus was a threat to the military regime and a mighty empire, that ultimately cost them their lives. Just as it did Jesus many years earlier, in a landscape not so different than theirs.
This is why the Magnificat is so disorienting and disruptive, because it imagines a world re-ordered toward shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, completeness. On that day when Mary found out about her swelling womb, this tiny King she’d carry, her homeland of Palestine reeling under Roman occupation, economic exploitation, and violence, she knew.
Mary stood as a prophet in her own right, a song lifting in her soul, that the mighty would be brought down from their thrones, the humble given the seat of honor, the hungry filled with good things, the rich sent away empty-handed. Mary knew that every wrong would someday be righted, the broken-hearted held and restored, an anointing of the Spirit distributed among the poor. Mary, not so meek and mild, pondered all these things in her heart and bore life into the world that would make it so.
May we this Advent be expectant like Mary, as we wait the arrival of hope, being born in us anew. May we be like the prophets before her who look at a wasteland, and despite all evidence to the contrary, can see a wellspring rising up. May we believe that God quenches thirst in the wilderness still. And like Ezekiel, may we know that we too can prophesy over a valley of dry bones & watch them dance to life.
If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.
"The muse behind this composition is Ben Linder, an American civil engineer, who was killed by the Contras while working on a hydroelectric project in Nicaragua. By juxtaposing a song about human violence ("Fragile") with the innocence of the Christ-child ("What Child Is This"), Nordeman is powerfully advocating that only Christ is the panacea to human violence and cruelty." Find out more about her beautiful debut Christmas album here.
Lights for Liberty vigil, St. Paul, MN, 7/12/2019
Protest as spiritual practice
Protest can evoke a lot in us these days. The prophets’ protest songs not only teach us about sounding the alarms of what we’re against but more importantly what we’re for. If we are to invite others to participate with God in the re-making of our world, we must know in our bones what we’re for. I invite you today to sit with the words of the prophets of old and write a journal entry or poetry about how you might be an advocate of justice, peace, wholeness, and hope in your context.
Maybe in this new year, you march and protest and organize to make room for belonging and presence and peace, what Rabbi Abraham Heschel called, ‘praying with your feet.’ Protest as embodied prayer. Or maybe you participate in the work of creation and peacebuilding in other ways, whether you bake, write letters, paint, make music, tell stories, lament, lobby, open your home, pray. Anytime you bring more honor and empowerment than was there before, you are carving out rhythms of protest, letting beauty overwhelm darkness.
Prayer of petition
God who flipped tables, in Your example, we find place for protest and righteous anger. Thank you for being provision to the hungry and disorienting to those of us well-fed. May we open our hands and extend ourselves to the poor, the immigrant, the sick, and the sad this Advent. As in the days of wilderness, You have given us manna enough for today and have entrusted us to share what we have, for it is better to give than to receive. Jesus, be our Jubilee as we like ancient, urgent prophets go about revealing this good news that came to us, and is coming still. You, our light glowing in darkness, our portion in a desolate land, You- Love incarnate who became our salvation.
Alleluia.
Amen
*These closing prayers are written with similar structure and syntax as Black Liturgies, which would make a beautiful addition to your Insta feed.
