Justice Will Prevail

GOD’S JUDGMENT SHOWS up a lot in the lectionary passages this month, and in that I take great comfort. Let me clarify: God’s wrath is not usually my go-to for a cozy pick-me-up. But as I write these words, yet another innocent life was taken by violence at the hands of the state, and I am full of rage and mourning and an overwhelming sense of helplessness in the face of so much injustice. And so, I am comforted by these scriptures because they tell us that God has not forgotten the oppressed. They promise that justice will prevail, that those who climbed their way to the top with greed and exploitation will not stay on top. Their day is coming, but not, I think, because God is a God of revenge, but because God is a God of abundance, and everyone who has tried to limit that abundance for others will fail miserably in the end. 

I am comforted by the promise that things will be made right and that, while I have my role to play, it is also not all up to me. I am not required to force justice along like a fish fighting upstream. Instead, I am being asked to collaborate with the flow of God’s generosity as it floods into this dry and barren land like a river shattering a dam. I am not the source of the water, but I can participate in the colossal splintering of a blockade all the same.

November 1
Beware False Prophets

Micah 3:5-12; Psalm 43; 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Matthew 23:1-12

WHEN I WAS a child, I thought false prophets were scary villains who tried to get you to worship the devil. I didn’t realize that false prophets were men I called “pastor.” That to be “false” is to shout from the pulpit about all the wrong things—to warn against gay people but not about predatory loans, to rage about alcohol but not about racism, to condemn sex but never address rape. That to be a false prophet is to use scripture to bully and control or to claim the name “Christian” while behaving nothing like Christ.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been called a false prophet—for being a female pastor or a queer pastor, usually. It happened again just this week, in fact. Meanwhile, we are surrounded by actual false prophets who preach an unrighteous gospel of Christian nationalism and white supremacy and blind loyalty, when the Bible has so much more to say about leaders who perpetuate injustice than about sexuality or gender. It says that “the sun shall go down upon the prophets” who declare war against the hungry (Micah 3:5-6). One thing that is comforting about the sunset: There is no stopping it, meaning it is inevitable that the oppressors will fall. Let us heed then the words of Jesus and act nothing like the leaders who lay “heavy burdens ... on the shoulders of others” while “they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4).

to be a false prophet is TO claim the name “Christian” while behaving nothing like Christ.

November 8
Streaming Abundance

Amos 5:18-24; Psalm 70; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

ONE LESSON I was taught in childhood was that we should always be ready for the coming of the Lord—a day for Christians that would be a glorious triumph (such as what we read about in 1 Thessalonians 4). So then why does Amos say to the very people making offerings to God, “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord”? According to Amos, when God shows God’s face, it will be a rude awakening for many, and here is why: God is not interested in our outward displays of religious fervor while we “trample on the poor” (Amos 5:11) and “push aside the needy” (verse 12). What God actually wants is this: “Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

Amos’ words make me wonder about the 10 bridesmaids in Jesus’ parable. The five “wise” women with extra oil refuse to share with the five women who didn’t bring enough. Is that truly wisdom according to God’s economy or did they merely demonstrate individualistic street smarts? I think about the way patriarchy pits women against women, convincing us there’s not enough to go around. I think about how we are conditioned to believe we must compete against one another, proving our worth while beating others out. Could we imagine a different ending to this story? One in which, perhaps, oil pours like an ever-flowing stream and every woman in the story ends up drenched with abundance and belonging?

November 15
Refusing Complacency

Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18; Psalm 90:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30

AGAIN, THE HEBREW scriptures warn us of the coming day of wrath. This time Zephaniah emphasizes that wealth will have no power to save those who have been complacent in the face of injustice. If I take Zephaniah’s warning to heart as I read the parable of the talents, I’m pulled like steel to a magnet by New Testament scholar William Herzog’s interpretation. A traditional reading of this parable equates the “master of the slaves” in the story with God (gross), and the parable reads like an advertisement for capitalism. But listen to the words of the third slave: “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter” (Matthew 25:24). Does this master sound anything like God to you?

Herzog encourages us to read the parable from an entirely different angle. The third slave hides his talent as an act of resistance against an unjust slaveowner. He refuses to participate in a system that builds greater wealth for the rich at the expense of the poor. Listen to the response of the slaveowner right before he throws the slave out: “For to all those who have, more will be given ... but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” Sounds more like the words of an antichrist than a generous, loving God, don’t you think?

Advent doesn’t allow us to skip over the pain and the despair.

November 22
Reign of Christ

Ezekiel 34:11-24; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

“REIGN OF CHRIST” Sunday turns everything on its head, so don’t get it confused. Christ as king is something entirely different than your standard, run-of-the-mill monarchy. Christ as king subverts our understanding of power by exalting the lowly and caring for the battered. Just listen: “I will bring back the strays, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice” (Ezekiel 34:16). Why? “Because you pushed with flank and shoulder and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide” (verse 21).

What if all the earlier parables in Matthew 25 were leading up to this one about the sheep and the goats? The story in which it is revealed that anyone who did not care for the hungry or welcome the stranger does not know God? Meanwhile, those who cared for the stranger, the thirsty, the hungry, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned—those are the ones who, whether they knew it or not, were rubbing shoulders with divinity all along.

Easily the best part of my week is the time I spend as a volunteer teaching ESL at our local detention center. The setting is horrible. The people are divine. The glaring injustice of it all cannot outshine this truth: The face of God is ablaze in the face of every imprisoned, immigrant neighbor. In this most unholy of places, I stumble humbly onto holy ground.

November 29
Love Is Coming

Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

“RESTORE US, O GOD” (Psalm 80:3). “Do not remember iniquity forever” (Isaiah 64:9). Alas, not all is judgment and despair. There is hope for restoration, repair, and redemption. Most years I struggle with how the gospel reading on the first Sunday of Advent is so gloomy and terrifying. The earth quakes, the stars fall—nothing about the text says, “Merry Christmastide.” But on a year like this one, as I contemplate the persistent horrors of injustice raging around us, I kind of get what the gospel texts are saying. Before the sun rises, the world goes dark. Before Christ comes, the atmosphere is bleak indeed.

Advent doesn’t allow us to skip over the pain and the despair. We must sit with what is broken and feel the awful weight of it before we can move to hope. But we do get to move to hope. It is horrible out there, but the story isn’t over yet. Love incarnate is about to be born like the morning star in the darkest sky. God is faithful (1 Corinthians 1:9). Even when it seems like God has fled the scene, do not lose heart. Restoration is coming. Love is on its way. That ever-flowing stream of justice and righteousness is winding its way toward the parched land. A newborn baby will babble songs of hope, bringing us to our knees with sweet tears of relief and utterances of praise.