Advent 2, Week of December 6, 2009—Malachi

Malachi 3.1-4

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. (Malachi 3.2b-3)

It is tempting for me, sitting here in Denver, far removed from the conflict over land, water and religion in the Middle East, remembering the stories of suffering I heard from the people of Bethlehem, to read these words and shout……YES! At last, God will bring justice for the Palestinians! God will burn away all impurities….the fear, the hatred, the jealousy….and finally the people of Israel, transformed by God’s scorching love, will treat the Palestinians with justice and with dignity.

But the fiery conflagration Malachi promises is not for the people of Israel. It is for all of us….Jews, Palestinians, Christians, Muslims, Arabs and…..yes, Americans an ocean away.

In God’s own good time, we will all be purified—Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, and even Americans. It is my own purification the prophet foretells, God’s own fiery way of turning the world into the creation God intended, with the bounties—the freedom and security—God intended for us all.

The news Malachi tells sounds like hope to all the people who are now suffering—whether it’s having to lift your shirt for the soldiers at the checkpoint at Qalandia, or being unable to get the papers to leave Gaza for chemotherapy, or whether it is losing your baby in the unexpectedly turbulent waters as you flee across our own southern border in search of safety and a full stomach.

Malachi offers hope, but he also foresees pain. Since I’m not one of the hopeless ones, Malachi’s prophecy is a bit terrifying. What will be burned out of me?

Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be painful. If it’s my greediness, then I’ll have to give up admiring those beautiful shoes in the window in Cherry Creek. If it’s my apathy that will be refined in the fire, then I’ll have to give up my hour of Law and Order SVU. If it’s my self-righteous indignation that burns to ash in the flames, then I’ll have to give up feeling superior to everyone. Whatever is burned away, I’m sure to miss it. Or will I?

God’s refining fire promises to make all things new, but, like childbirth, even the most welcome and exciting new things do not come without the pain of change.

Photo: Ruth, one of the Women in Black--Israeli Jewish women who have been protesting the occupation of Palestinian lands at a busy intersection in Jerusalem for 30 years.

What pain would I have to endure for peace in the Middle East? Cheap gas? Admitting that the U.S. does not always have the right answers? That this “Landofthefreehomeofthebrave” has not always lived out its promise? Taking a chance that Palestinians are capable of choosing their own leaders?

God of the cleansing fire, we pray today for the flames that will refine and purify us, making us the people you have created us to be…people formed in your image We ask forgiveness for our selfish, prideful ways and ask you to use us to complete your creation, looking around us to see how we can make your world more like what you intended for us. Amen.

Advent 1, Week of November 30, 2009—Gospel of Luke

Luke 21.25-36

People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world,
For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (Luke 21.26)

What a strange way to begin our season of Advent preparation! This is certainly no stroll through the Cherry Creek Mall to admire the decorations and do a little shopping.

Jesus’ words are far removed from “Sleighbells ring, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening” that accompanies us as we prepare for Christmas with visits to Target and Macy’s. These words are not the kind of preparation for Christmas that we in America are used to! This apocalyptic language sounds very strange to us.

But as the Christians in the Bethlehem prepare for Christmas, these words describe their daily reality. Their daily routines—going to school, to the market, to work—are filled with uncertainty and fear and foreboding. Uncertainty about whether they will be able to get to work in Jerusalem in the morning. Foreboding that the soldiers will come with bulldozers and demolish their homes because they could not get a permit and so they added a bedroom and a bathroom for their growing family anyway. Fear that the helicopters flying overhead will start shooting again.

And they have a keener sense of the nearness of the dominion of God too. We, who depend on our detailed plans, our bank accounts and our calendars, do not need God’s dominion. In fact, God’s dominion will probably interrupt our plans. The coming of God’s dominion will probably interfere with the Bronco game on Sunday and our night out on Saturday.

But in Bethlehem, where getting to work is uncertain (you might be stopped by the soldiers at the checkpoint and your permit confiscated), and people are fainting in the crush of bodies waiting to pass through the Bethlehem checkpoint, and you never know when the next war will begin……these words of Jesus in the temple might actually be comforting. Because he reminds us that whatever tumultuous events happen on the earth, they are not the end of the story. God is. If your brother is arrested or your home is bulldozed, this is not the end of the story. God has promised us that. And God’s dominion, God’s rule, God’s way of life, is not far away. It is near, as near as the sprouting fig leaves in springtime. And we can be part of this new life.

If we are alert, on guard, we can give children hope for the future. We can create spaces for healing in our communities. We can give our youth a sense of their own worth and abilities.

This is what the people of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem are doing in their community. Read about their peace-building work, bringing “life abundant” to the people of Palestine: http://www.annadwa.org/ . Watch their life-giving programs scroll across your screen. Click on the icons at the bottom of the page and read about their work. And join in this work by making a Christmas gift to support their programs. Or volunteer with a community program giving abundant life to our own children, who also need more than bank accounts.

Photo shows swimmers in class at the Wellness Center in Bethlehem.

God of the roaring sea, you are our only security and your promises are sure. Keep us mindful of your faithfulness and renew us in this season of the church’s New Year, so that we rededicate ourselves to being your partners in renewing your broken world. In the name of your Son, our teacher. Amen.

Advent 1, Week of November 30, 2009—Jeremiah

Jeremiah 33.14-16

The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house or Israel and the house of Judah. (Jer. 33.14)

When I asked him how the tourist business had been this summer, our tour guide Sami said it had been slow, but that the tourist season was picking up with the cooler fall weather. In the summer, during the quiet season, he and his wife and three small children had been able to spend time with his wife’s family in Jordan. They visited his wife’s aunt, who is now 80, and she spent a lot of time telling them stories about the past—about the days of terror, when her family was forced out of their home in a small village near Ramle, on the road between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean. She remembered their long journey on foot, across the dry hills and through the desert to safety in Jordan, carrying a few possessions grabbed in haste. Thousands of families trudged this same road, carrying only what they could grab quickly, along with the keys to their homes, which they thought they would need in a few days or weeks when the soldiers left their village and it was safe to return. Many families still have their keys, and, sixty years later, in Jordan, this 80-year-old woman still carries the story, telling it for the children, so they can remember who they are, where they have come from.

Photo: Poster commemorating the 50th anniversary of the forced removals of Palestinian families from their villages and the tents they lived in while they stayed in the refugee camps.

Not much has changed in 2500 years. Today we hear Jeremiah speaking to the Israelites, who, like the 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, were routed out of their homes by soldiers, and forced to make the long march across the desert to Babylon. Sami’s aunt tells her story again and again, lamenting the loss of her home and her girlhood, separated from friends and family and everything familiar—the olive trees and oranges, the lemons and persimmons, the cinnamon and other delicious smells of her childhood.

Every Palestinian family I have met has a story like this one.

But, in this Advent season the prophet calls out to us, in our exile of broken treaties and hopeless peace negotiations, “the days are SURELY coming….” The promises of the Lord are sure, words of living water, spoken to all who long for justice in the land, all who long for a world where righteousness is lived out—where everyone lives according to the hopes and dreams God has for us. As we wait in Advent and yearn for God’s righteousness, we know God’s promises are sure…for we have met this babe that is to be born, the one “who shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” We have seen him and we know God’s promises are sure.

God of all righteousness, in this Advent season we wait…and yearn for your justice and peace. While armies bulldoze homes in East Jerusalem, we wait in exile and long for the peace you have promised, to live in safety. Help us to be your agents of change, to bring about the new day of peace for all your people. We pray this in your holy name. Amen.