The Island Parson

December 2, 2016     Friday after the First Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 3.8–15
1 Th 4.1–12
Lk 20.41—21.4
The text of the readings follows after the comments.

A Sketch of The Trinity, by William Blake

The thing about a lectionary is that it takes you places you don’t expect. I did not intend to spend yesterday musing about celibacy as a subversive act of faith challenging the role of marriage in a patriarchal society, but that’s where the readings seemed to lead me. And today is similar. In the second reading we find, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one of you knows how to control your own body in holiness and honour, not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one wrongs or exploits a brother or sister in this matter . . .”. So, we’re back to sex, again. So why is Paul saying this?

When I was studying Divinity in 1987 I saw a course in the calendar listed with the name: “Ante-Nicene Anthropology, Part Two” It was such a bizarre title I had to take it. It was taught by Father John Egan SJ at Regis College, the Jesuit college within the Toronto School of Theology. The subject matter was really the theological writings of Origin of Alexandria,  who worked in the early party of the Third Century. One of the things that became very clear in this course is that how we think about God has implications for how we think about human beings, and vice versa. Genesis 1.27 reads: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” As a result of this theologians have reflected over thirty centuries about what this might mean. Some saw it in rationality, others in complementary masculine and feminine aspects, some in creativity, and still others in the ability to control the environment. So our anthropology says something about how we understand God, and our theology always has implications for how we understand humanity. Origin of Alexandria had some rather interesting ideas – the pre-existence of souls, and a double creation of the invisible and visible, for example – and these were all derived from his Neoplatonic conception of God.

Human beings are inherently sexual creatures. We don’t see God as sexual, but what is common to both human sexuality and the human relation to God is desire. Sarah Coakley in her recent book God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay on the Trinity  makes this point, and according to Tina Beattie in a recent review, “Coakley turns Freud “on his head” by insisting that God rather than sex is the source and focus of erotic desire: “Instead of ‘God’ language ‘really’ being about sex, sex is really about God” (316). If genital sex occupies a less central role in this than it does in our sex-obsessed culture, the eroticism associated with sexual desire is inseparable from our experience of desire for God.”

This puts today’s passage from 1 Thessalonians into perspective. Paul knows that in the past the recipients of his letters have been pagans and worshiped idols, and either knows or assumes that they followed a sexual morality at odds with what he knew of in Judaism. To his mind this kind of lustful passion is out of control, and I find it interesting that he wants his readers to avoid wronging or exploiting another member of the church. What that suggests is that he is fully aware of both the power and the danger that comes with sexual relations, and that there is always the possibility of harming another person through sexual assault or exploitation. In the rigidly hierarchical society of the ancient Roman Empire a woman or a slave had no rights over their bodies, and their “superiors” regularly used them for their own sexual gratification. Paul, as imperfect an egalitarian as he was, had a more non-hierarchical understanding of relations, in which in Christ there was no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. In Paul’s view uncontrolled lust that led to exploitation came from worshiping idols, whereas a focus on the true God leads to the desire to be holy and honourable, with the expectation that one will not assault another person or sexually exploit them. The admonition against fornication is not prudery as such, it is about not harming another person, and about rightly using desire.

Let’s see where tomorrow takes us, eh? God be with you.

Isaiah 3.8–15
For Jerusalem has stumbled
and Judah has fallen,
because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord,
defying his glorious presence.

The look on their faces bears witness against them;
they proclaim their sin like Sodom,
they do not hide it.
Woe to them!
For they have brought evil on themselves.
Tell the innocent how fortunate they are,
for they shall eat the fruit of their labours.
Woe to the guilty! How unfortunate they are,
for what their hands have done shall be done to them.
My people—children are their oppressors,
and women rule over them.
O my people, your leaders mislead you,
and confuse the course of your paths.

The Lord rises to argue his case;
he stands to judge the peoples.
The Lord enters into judgment
with the elders and princes of his people:
It is you who have devoured the vineyard;
the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people,
by grinding the face of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts.

1 Thessalonians 4.1–12
Finally, brothers and sisters, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one of you knows how to control your own body in holiness and honour, not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one wrongs or exploits a brother or sister in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we have already told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.
Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved, to do so more and more, to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly towards outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Luke 20.41—21.4
Then he said to them, ‘How can they say that the Messiah is David’s son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms,
“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.’ ”
David thus calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?’
In the hearing of all the people he said to the disciples, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’
He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.’

Thursday December 1, 2016     Thursday after the First Sunday of Advent
Is 2.12–22
1 Th 3.1–13
Lk 20.27–40The text of the readings follows after the comments.

The passage from Isaiah inveighs against the arrogant who follow idols. The people living in Judea and Israel in the 8th century BC worshiped YHWH (the name of God in the Hebrew Bible usually replaced in English translations with “the LORD”), but they also worshiped other gods, most notably Asherah, who many considered to be the consort of YHWH. Asherah seems to have been closely connected to trees and in imitation of the trees, posts in temples. David and Solomon sought to centralize the worship of YHWH in the Temple at Jerusalem, but this was resisted by the northern kingdom of Israel that broke away from Judea after Solomon; apart from Israel’s official temples in Shechem it appears that the ordinary people continued to worship idols in groves of trees and on high hills. I think this is why Isaiah challenges the cedars of Lebanon and the oaks of Bashan, and the high mountains and the lofty hills, because they represent to him idolatry and a turning away from YHWH, the one God, who cannot be represented by an idol. I love the idea that the idols will be tossed to the moles and the bats.

We have idols today as well, only they are not Asherah. Our idols are political, economic, and sociological. And just as YHWH and Asherah were combined and many saw no problem with that, so today people conform our religion to these dominant systems of thought. However, if one takes it apart we see that it is idolatry. The arrogant pride we have in the our nations can be idolatry. The material wealth we have accumulated can be idolatry. Our physical appearance, r our standing in the world can be idolatry. What is not idolatry is our relationship with God, without which we will find it hard to see creation in the right way. If we are idolatrous, we will privilege natural resource development over the long-standing grievances of indigenous people. If we are idolatrous we will emphasise security in immigration to the reduction or elimination of offering help to refugees.

In the reading from Luke Jesus is teaching in the Temple, and a series of people seek to confront Jesus and trap him into saying something that would justify action against him. In today’s reading the Sadducees  challenge him on a point about the logic of the resurrection. Among the Jewish people in general (and the surrounding Hellenistic and Roman cultures) marriage was a central value. The purpose of sexuality in First Century Palestine was not self-expression or even necessarily joy, but the making of alliances through marriage and the propagation of those relationships through the procreation of children. Marriage was such a central fact of society and such an important value that the Sadducees could not imagine that it would not persist into the resurrection (even though they did not believe in it). So they posed their question to Jesus, and you can see the response. Basically, marriage, which seems to be such a cosmically ordained factor in human existence, just will not be of any important in the the new creation.

Marriage, which is “an honorable estate”, can become an idol as well as anything. The kind of culture Jesus was in so valued marriage that it overwhelmed many other aspects of human relationships. We might not think of this as having much to do with “sexuality” as we understand it in the 21st century, but it does – who we are as sexual and gendered beings are determined by these kinds of relationships. Marriage as understood in the 1st century was not really about love, or sexual expression, human fulfillment, or care and affection, it was about the extended family. As a result some of these other aspects were repressed.

It’s in this light that we can see the emergence of celibacy as a virtue. Celibacy was a subversive challenge to the idolatry of marriage, the belief that nothing was more important than making a good marriage and having lots of children. It created a space in which other aspects of the individual could flourish in ways that they might not in a traditional marriage. It called into question the presumptions of patriarchy and clan association.

Such was the case in the early centuries of the faith. What are the idolatries of today that need to be challenged?

Isaiah 2.12–22
For the Lord of hosts has a day
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up and high;
against all the cedars of Lebanon,
lofty and lifted up;
and against all the oaks of Bashan;
against all the high mountains,
and against all the lofty hills;
against every high tower,
and against every fortified wall;
against all the ships of Tarshish,
and against all the beautiful craft.
The haughtiness of people shall be humbled,
and the pride of everyone shall be brought low;
and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.
The idols shall utterly pass away.
Enter the caves of the rocks
and the holes of the ground,
from the terror of the Lord,
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
On that day people will throw away
to the moles and to the bats
their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
which they made for themselves to worship,
to enter the caverns of the rocks
and the clefts in the crags,
from the terror of the Lord,
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
Turn away from mortals,
who have only breath in their nostrils,
for of what account are they?

1 Thessalonians 3.1–13
            Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we decided to be left alone in Athens; and we sent Timothy, our brother and co-worker for God in proclaiming the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you for the sake of your faith, so that no one would be shaken by these persecutions. Indeed, you yourselves know that this is what we are destined for. In fact, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we were to suffer persecution; so it turned out, as you know. For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith; I was afraid that somehow the tempter had tempted you and that our labour had been in vain.
But Timothy has just now come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love. He has told us also that you always remember us kindly and long to see us—just as we long to see you. For this reason, brothers and sisters, during all our distress and persecution we have been encouraged about you through your faith. For we now live, if you continue to stand firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.
Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Luke 20.27–40
Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’
Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’ Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’ For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016     The Feast of St. Andrew
Morning:  Is 49.1–6      1 Cor 4.1–16
Evening:   Is 55.1–5       Jn 1.35–42
The text of the readings follows after the comments.

Today we take a break from Advent to mark the Feast of St. Andrew. Andrew is mentioned in the Gospels as one of the Twelve, a brother of Simon Peter and like him, a fisherman in Galilee. Whereas Mark and Matthew describe him as being called by Jesus in Galilee at the same time as Simon Peter, the Gospel of John describes him as a disciple of John the Baptist who decides to follow Jesus after the Baptist describes him as “the Lamb of God”(this is narrated in the gospel reading for today). After that there’s not much in the New Testament about him. He was one of the witnesses to the resurrection when Jesus appeared in the Upper Room, but we hear nothing after that. Pious legend suggested many things about him, perhaps the best known story being that he was too humble to suffer martyrdom on a cross that looked like the one Jesus died on, so the Romans in Greece executed him on an X shaped crucifix, instead of one that looked like the “t” of a Latin cross.  Subsequently certain nations adopted Andrew as their patron saint, including Scotland. As a result the pattern on the Scottish flag is an X shape known as the Saltire, which was subsequently incorporated in the Union Flag (“Union Jack”) of Great Britain and the United Kingdom.

As it is a feast day the Daily Office Lectionary prescribes two readings each for the morning and evening. In both cases the first readings are from what I described on Monday as “Second Isaiah” (i.e. Isaiah 40-66, or perhaps 40-55). In both cases you will see that dramatic difference between today’s readings and the passages from the past three days from the first chapter of Isaiah. Whereas Isaiah 1 is full of condemnation and warnings, here we have comfort and encouragement. The reading in the morning, Isaiah 49.1-6, is the second of the “Servant Songs”, passages which describe a servant who has suffered but who is called and exalted by God. Jewish rabbis and Christian biblical scholars have puzzled over the identity of the servant. Some have suggested Moses, maybe the prophet Isaiah himself, others a prophet yet to come, perhaps the coming Messiah, and still others see it as the personification of redeemed Israel, returning from exile to the Promised Land. Christians have always read the Servant Songs as a reference to Jesus of Nazareth, and the fourth (52.13-53.12″) seems to have influenced the narratives of the passion in the gospels.

The apostles, including Andrew, can also be seen as suffering servants. Like their master the suffer persecution for preaching the good news, and ultimately undergo martyrdom. The passage from First Corinthians echoes this theme when Paul describes himself and the other apostles: “we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.”

Both readings from Isaiah pick up on the theme of evangelism: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (49.6) and  “See, I made him a witness to the peoples . . . See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you” (55.4-5). It is truly an outstanding vision, given that at the time this prophecy was made in the 6th century BC the whole of Judaism probably numbered in the tens of thousands, and yet it looks to a time when the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be worshiped to the very ends of the earth (which I always understood to be British Columbia). This prophecy has been fulfilled.

– + –

Today is also the 40th anniversary of the Ordination of women to the presbyterate or priesthood in the Anglican Church of Canada. In four dioceses on November 30 a number of women and a few men were all ordained; the services were timed so that they all started at more or less the same time, and no one person could claim that she was the first woman to become a priest in the Canadian Church. I’m not sure why this date was chosen, as I see no obvious connection between St. Andrew and the ordination of women, so it was probably just a matter of logistics.

In November of 1976 I was quite oblivious to all this, being a 14 year old boy in a boarding school in Quebec, and I suspect the Anglican chaplain did not approve and made no note of it at the time. But I do remember meeting a United Church minister a couple of years before who happened to be a female, and even though the UCC had been ordaining women for decades it was something novel to me, and a little unusual. I did not meet my first female Anglican minister until I arrived as an undergraduate at Trinity College in the University of Toronto, and it was probably someone like Ansley Tucker (then a priest in a two-point rural parish north of Toronto) or Victoria Matthews (who I think was working on a Master of Theology). Later, when I was ordained in the Diocese of Niagara two of the first women ordained, Bev Shanley and Mary Lucas, were still very active in the Diocese –  it had still been only twelve years, after all. I say all of this because women as priests seems to be so much of a given in the Canadian Church today, but I remember when it was not. The Diocese of BC only ordained its first woman as priest in 1986, and it is only recently that we have seen women in senior church positions on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. When I arrived here in 1995 there was still a sizeable minority of male clergy who were opposed to the ordination of women and refused to accept their ministrations. That is no longer the case, but what we think of now as “normal” was something that took a long time coming.

Today, although I am still on medical leave, I’ll make my way to Christ Church Cathedral for a service marking this 40th anniversary. I will celebrate the gift that ordained women have been to the church and the many ways in which female clergy – deacons, priests, and bishops – have challenged and encouraged me. At the same time I will also pray for ongoing change, so that we do not simply have women in male-patterned roles in leadership in our churches, but that we who are male are transformed by the full inclusion of all genders within the ordained.

 God be with you! Bruce +

Isaiah 49.1–6
Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, ‘You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’
But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
and my reward with my God.’

And now the Lord says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honoured in the sight of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
he says,
‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’

1 Cor 4.1–16
Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they should be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgement before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.
I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters, so that you may learn through us the meaning of the saying, ‘Nothing beyond what is written’, so that none of you will be puffed up in favour of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?
Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honour, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.
I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me.

Isaiah 55.1–5
Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labour for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.

Jn 1.35–42
           The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

Tuesday, November 29, 2016     Tuesday after the First Sunday of Advent
Is 1.21–31
1 Th 2.1–12
Lk 20.9–18
The text of the readings follows after the comments.

1 Thessalonians 2.1-2 from the Codex Sinaiticus (c. 350 AD). http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/

The second reading is from Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. Thessaloniki (as it is now properly written) is a city in the north of Greece in what was historic Macedon (from when Alexander the Great came). Colloquially it is known as Salonica, and it is now Greece’s second largest city. There are two letters in the New Testament written to the church in Thessalonica, but it is not clear which is older; as is typical in the Epistles, the letters are arranged according to length, not chronology. My Paul professor at Trinity, the Rev. Professor John C. Hurd, believed that the Second Letter was the earlier and the First was later. Both are considered to be early writings by Paul, if not the earliest, mainly because of the emphasis upon eschatology in both of them.

1 Th. 1.9-10 gives us the background we need to understand the relationship of Paul with the church of the Thessalonians: “For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.” The Thessalonians appear to have been non Jews and pagans, worshiping whatever deities were worshiped in that region. Paul came upon them, preached to them the good news of Jesus, and they responded favourably. Paul in time left them, but is receiving reports about them. They are being persecuted in some ways, and so Paul is writing to encourage them.

Paul believed that the Day of the Lord was imminent, but somewhat postponed. The purpose of the postponement was so that the people of Israel might prepare themselves and turn to God, and so that an extension of God’s promises might be proclaimed to non-Jews, to Gentiles. Paul believed that he had been called to proclaim this exceptional extension to the Gentiles, and was racing against time to get that good news out to as many people as he could. He believed that otherwise all the idol-worshipers were condemned, for he thought that idol worshiping warped the human soul and led to grave sins. As much idolatry was tied up with the cult of the emperor, he also believed that the whole Roman regime itself was corrupted by evil powers and principalities. His was a rescue mission, and he felt the press of time.

Paul contrasts the characteristics of Christian mission with those of the corrupt pagan society:
Paul comes with “courage”, is “pleasing to God”, “gentle”, “tenderly caring”, “sharing”, has “pure, upright, and blameless conduct”, and “urges and encourages and pleads;  he does NOT come with “deceit, impure motives, trickery”, is NOT “pleasing to mortals”, does NOT come “words of flattery or a pretext for greed”, does NOT “seek praise from mortals”, and is NOT a “burden”.
Western society is so formed by these Christian characteristics that we assume that these are normal and that all would deprecate the second set characteristics, but not so. Reading through the classical epics such as The Iliad or The Odyssey I find the latter set of characteristics well entrenched and re-framed as virtues. Given the trend of politics in the world one might conclude that this set of “virtues” is also in the ascendant today, and that gentleness, sharing, and truth telling is weak and naive.

As a Christian I choose what looks weak and foolish to the world to be my strength. In the long run such a course overcomes the apparently strong and wise, the arrogant and oppressive. May God bless you on this Third Day of Advent.

Isaiah 1.21–31
How the faithful city
has become a whore!
She that was full of justice,
righteousness lodged in her—
but now murderers!
Your silver has become dross,
your wine is mixed with water.
Your princes are rebels
and companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe
and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow’s cause does not come before them.

Therefore says the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel:
Ah, I will pour out my wrath on my enemies,
and avenge myself on my foes!
I will turn my hand against you;
I will smelt away your dross as with lye
and remove all your alloy.
And I will restore your judges as at the first,
and your counsellors as at the beginning.
Afterwards you shall be called the city of righteousness,
the faithful city.

Zion shall be redeemed by justice,
and those in her who repent, by righteousness.
But rebels and sinners shall be destroyed together,
and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.
For you shall be ashamed of the oaks
in which you delighted;
and you shall blush for the gardens
that you have chosen.
For you shall be like an oak
whose leaf withers,
and like a garden without water.
The strong shall become like tinder,
and their work like a spark;
they and their work shall burn together,
with no one to quench them.

1 Thessalonians 2.1–12
You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain, but though we had already suffered and been shamefully maltreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition. For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.
You remember our labour and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was towards you believers. As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you should lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

Luke 20.9–18
He began to tell the people this parable: ‘A man planted a vineyard, and leased it to tenants, and went to another country for a long time. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants in order that they might give him his share of the produce of the vineyard; but the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Next he sent another slave; that one also they beat and insulted and sent away empty-handed. And he sent yet a third; this one also they wounded and threw out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, “What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.” But when the tenants saw him, they discussed it among themselves and said, “This is the heir; let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours.” So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.’ When they heard this, they said, ‘Heaven forbid!’ But he looked at them and said, ‘What then does this text mean:
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone”?
Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’

The tradition of the Advent Calendar goes back to German Lutherans of the 19th century. It was a fun way for children to mark the four Sundays of Advent and the days leading up to Christmas. In the post-war era the tradition has spread widely into other denominations, and thanks to commercialization, has become as disconnected from the religious origins as Santa Claus is from the birth of Jesus. Many children (and adults) will be  starting an Advent calendar on December 1 and counting down the days to Christmas, opening doors and seeing pretty pictures, or, more likely, finding and rapidly eating chocolate, or perhaps even finding  Star Wars Lego. For Christians Advent starts tomorrow (arguably this evening, at sunset) on its earliest possible date, November 27. Thus, we’ll have a full week following each Sunday, with Christmas itself coming seven days after the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

As some of you know I have been on a medical leave of absence for the past four weeks. While I am making progress, it will likely be a while before I am back to work. During my time off I have been unusually disciplined in my prayer life, becoming more deeply grounded in discursive, reflective, and contemplative forms of prayer. One of my practices is to say the Divine Offices of Morning and Evening Prayers. Part of that is the recitation of psalms, and part of that is also three readings from the Daily Office Lectionary (“DOL”). The First Sunday of Advent begins a new church year, and so tomorrow I flip from page 494 of the Book of Alternative Services to page 452, and start reading from the passages prescribed for Year 1; the DOL is on a two-year cycle, and in theory over two years almost alll of the Bible is read. There are three readings for each day – one from the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament, one from the non-gospel parts of the New Testament, and one from the four gospels. The readings are thematic, associated with the season. I usually read the first two in the morning, and save the gospel reading for the evening.

What I propose to do is write a short post each day during these four weeks of Advent commenting on one or more of the readings, a kind of lectio divina. The Lectionary is set up so that most of it is continuous reading from day to day. On Sundays the second and third readings are not in sequence with what what went before and follows in the week, but they do follow from Sunday to Sunday, on the theory that people might be attending Sunday evensong and might benefit from that continuity. There is one interruption in the lectionary for the major feast day of St. Andrew on November 30 (which, in the Anglican Church of Canada, is also the 40th anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood).

This may be my own Advent devotion of no interest to anyone else, but feel free to join in as I reflect on these passages from the Scriptures. God be with you as we prepare to remember the coming of Jesus, and may his first Advent be the reminder of our need to be ready for the second.