Anxiety and Fear (Reflections on Advent 1C)

The Gospel lessons for the first Sunday in Advent have apocalyptic themes and in preparation for preaching I wandered around the internet to experience some of what people are writing about the chaos that is and is to come.  I couldn’t disconnect fast enough … and was strangely drawn to more.

The movie 2012 was as good a place to start as any, which soon led me to www.december212012.com.  Talk about dusting off all sorts of familiar themes.  In the mid-late 1980’s, I had an employer who started to talk about polar shifts and coming disasters.  He and another staff member quit their jobs, bought a farm in Iowa, equipped it for the coming catastrophe, and taught seminars about surviving the coming apocalypse.  He died never seeing the events he anticipated.  This website collects disparate “predictions” and pulls them all together. I’m a reasonable person, and I found myself starting to think about steps to survive the coming disaster.  (Prudent preparation makes sense and I have some emergency response items already stockpiled … more for our frequent power outages than anything else.)

I read about graffiti on the bathroom wall in a High School.  “It sucks to be in the class of 2013 … what’s the point?” (Referring to the “end of the world” in 2012.)

I encountered the Psalm 109:8 “prayer for President Obama” movement.  In case you haven’t heard about this one,  people are encouraged to pray “for” President Obama using Psalm 109:8 “May his days be few; may another seize his position.”  Plenty has been written in outrage about this prayer, especially in light of the verses which follow: “May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow.  May his children wander about and beg; may they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit.  May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil.  May there be no one to do him a kindness, nor anyone to pity his orphaned children.  May his posterity be cut off; may his name be blotted out in the second generation.”  I don’t believe that’s what Jesus meant when he instructed us to “pray for your enemies”.

From there my wandering spun completely out of control, and I felt like I was in a dark alley, late at night, ready to be mugged.  I got out of there as fast as I could.

Don’t people get that apocalyptic literature is a word of hope?  Oh, that’s right, if we are Biblical literalists then these are predictions of actual events rather than poetic imagry to describe a world that seems stacked against us!  The way I read Luke 21:25-36 gives me encouragement.  By listening to and following Christ, I don’t have to wring my hands at the sexually-charged singing/dancing of Adam Lambert, or drag myself into a survivalist camp armed to the teeth against the world.  God’s purposes will be fulfilled even in the face of those things which seem opposed to God.  In Christ’s power, we will live an alternative reality that flows alongside chaos.  The good news is that even though it seems as though evil wins … it cannot.  That theme is persistent in Luke/Acts.  Why, I think that it makes a lot of sense to invite people I care about into that same alternative reality.

Take a breath folks.  Christ is alive.  Now, let’s get busy living the alternative reality feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, and giving drink to the thirsty.

Pondering Pastor

Pope Benedict agrees with me!

VATICAN CITY – An apology from a bishop who denied the Holocaust wasn’t good enough, the Vatican said Friday, adding that he must repudiate his views if he wants to be a Roman Catholic clergyman.

The statement by Bishop Richard Williamson “doesn’t appear to respect the conditions” the Vatican set out for him, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for the pope.

While the pope did not focus on the apology itself, he could have.  Not only did Bishop Williamson issue a “pseudo-apology” but he did not recant his views about the Holocaust.  Good to see he is being held accountable.

Pondering Pastor

Funniest line in an apology this week

I just ran across this incident and “apology”.

The mayor of a small Southern California city says he will resign after being criticized for sharing an e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title “No Easter egg hunt this year.”

Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose issued a statement Thursday saying he is sorry and will step down as mayor at Monday’s City Council meeting.

Grose came under fire for sending the picture to what he called “a small group of friends.” One of the recipients, a local businesswoman and city volunteer, publicly scolded the mayor for his actions.

Grose says he accepts that the e-mail was in poor taste and has affected his ability to lead the city. Grose said he didn’t mean to offend anyone and claimed he was unaware of the racial stereotype linking black people with eating watermelons.

Located in Orange County, Los Alamitos is a 2 1/4-square-mile city of around 12,000 people.

OK, the man forwards a racist cartoon.  Evidently he thought it was funny if he forwarded it to “a small group of friends” (read that … “I didn’t expect my friends to freak out about this and make a big deal about it.  It’s not like I sent it around the world!”).

He claims that he didn’t mean to offend anyone (read … “that I sent this to”).

And then in the funniest line (or lie?) in an apology this week, he claimed he was unaware of the racial stereotype linking black people with eating watermelons!  If that’s true, then he has no business being a mayor, and the resignation is appropriate.  What, pray tell, would make such a cartoon funny if one was unaware of the stereotype and you were not racist?  Would the same cartoon have been passed along if instead of watermelons it had apples?  Give me a break!

Pondering Pastor