Mrs. Suzette L. Cayless
RCL - Advent 2 A - Sunday 09 December 2007
When my copy of “Southern Living” arrives, the first section I turn to is the selection of recipes for the month. For each of the recipes there is a photo of the finished dish, in color, showing what one can expect to create; then comes the list of ingredients - often unusual and intriguing; finally there are detailed instructions for actually making the dish. I have found that these recipes are reliable - they turn out to be just like the photos - and they taste delicious.
The readings for today resemble those recipes! Isaiah 11:1-10 is like the photo of a finished dish. It gives us a vision of God’s Kingdom with a new and ideal King whose rule will be shaped by the spirit of the Lord. In this Kingdom, the peaceful kingdom, “they shall not hurt or destroy.” The usual order is reversed: predators are friends with prey. Children feature three times in the passage, mingling with the animals without fear and in safety. This seems to foreshadow the words of Jesus: “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The political situation that we are familiar with is literally turned upside down. The vision of God’s kingdom requires what T.S. Eliot so movingly described in “Little Gidding” as
“A condition of complete simplicity”
adding in parentheses
“Costing not less than everything.”
In Romans 15:4-13 we find ingredients required for the creation of this kingdom: “live in harmony with one another;” “with one voice glorify ... God;” “welcome one another, ... as Christ has welcomed you, ...;” “abound in hope.” A challenging list indeed. These are not items that we would necessarily choose to select and live by. We give lip-service to them - but as for actually implementing them as the way to live - that finds us all wanting! We all know how hard it is to live in harmony, whether it is in a family, a church congregation, a monastic community. The problem is that in God’s kingdom it is God who selects the ingredients. He is the master chef who knows what will produce the desired end product. “With one voice glorify God.” And here we are, living in a church divided within itself. We try to defend God and what we believe is the righteousness of God - and ignore God’s desire for the unity of the family. “Welcome one another, ... as Christ has welcomed you.” Genuine hospitality is required of the Christian disciple - it is an essential ingredient, not an optional seasoning. It applies whether we like a person or not; whether we approve of a person’s life-style or not. It is God’s choice. “Abound in hope.” There are many nay sayers among us who see only splits in the church family and nothing good to report. But we are bidden to hope; which requires trust in God, in His (or Her) judgment and ability to bring to fruition the vision of the kingdom. We are called to embrace God’s ingredients and allow ourselves to be a part of God’s work.
Matthew 3:1-12 gives the instructions for making it all happen: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” John spares nothing in his warnings; John, who was identified with the wilderness - beyond the bounds of polite society. His call to baptism in the River Jordan was no meaningless symbol but rather the sign of a complete change of life, a cleansing to enable the coming of the kingdom. His words to the Pharisees and Sadducees, the socially acceptable people of the day, were very stern. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that befits repentance.” There can be no clinging to tradition as a way of salvation but only a total dedication to the one who comes to bring in God’s kingdom. The instructions for the making of the recipe are direct, require much effort, but are doable!
Both Isaiah and Matthew make it clear that evil cannot exist in the presence of holiness. “...he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.” (Isaiah 11:4) “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12) These are terrifying images, that we do not often take seriously. But perhaps Isaiah and Matthew are only stating the obvious! Perhaps it is that evil just cannot exist ultimately in the presence of holiness. By way of illustration I want to use part of a favorite story of mine: one of the Harry Potter books. In the first book of the series by J.K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”, Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger discover the place where the mysterious stone has been hidden, a stone that can bring immortality and therefore sought by the evil Lord Voldemort. Harry reaches the chamber to find Professor Quirrell there ahead of him. This strange man, the Defense against the Dark Arts Teacher, always wears a turban and when Quirrell unwinds this Harry sees that the back of Quirrell’s head is actually the face of Lord Voldemort who has taken possession of the man. Harry has a scar on his forehead left by Voldemort when he tried to kill Harry as a baby after killing both his parents. Now, Voldemort instructs Quirrell to attack Harry. and I quote from p. 294:
“... Voldemort screamed “SEIZE HIM!” and the next second, Harry felt Quirrell’s hand close on his wrist. At once, a needle-sharp pain seared across Harry’s scar; his head felt as though it was about to split in two; he yelled, struggling with all his might, and to his surprise, Quirrell let go of him. The pain in his head lessened - he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone, and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers - they were blistering before his eyes.In the film version of the story, at this point, Professor Quirrell crumbles into dust and is no more - a very dramatic moment. Harry survives; the stone is destroyed putting it finally out of reach of Voldemort. During Harry’s recovery from his ordeal he asks the Headmaster Albus Dumbledore why Professor Quirrell couldn’t bear to touch him. The reply was as follows,
“Seize him! SEIZE HIM!”shrieked Voldemort again, and Quirrell lunged, knocking Harry clean off his feet, landing on top of him, both hands around Harry’s neck - Harry’s scar was almost blinding him with pain, yet he could see Quirrell howling in agony.
“Master, I cannot hold him - my hands - my hands!”
And Quirrell, though pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered, at his own palms - Harry could see they looked burned, raw, red, and shiny.
“Then kill him, fool, and be done!” screeched Voldemort.
Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell’s face -
“AAAARGH!”
Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn’t touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain ...”
“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.”I cannot but be reminded of the fact that as Christians we are each marked by the Love of Jesus who gave his life for us. We bear his sign. Also, of the words in John’s Gospel 1:4-5: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Evil cannot finally exist in the presence of the holy.
We have the vision of God’s kingdom, with the usual order of things reversed; we have the ingredients needed to bring it about; John the Baptist tells us how to do it; by repenting and turning wholeheartedly to the service of the Christ. Our choice is how seriously are we going to follow the one who gave his life for love of each one of us? How deeply are we going to welcome the Christ child anew this year?
Let us pray:
May God’s kingdom come,
His will be done,
in me,
today. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment