Feigning Piety

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:07:27 -0500

"I will not ask and I will not put the Lord to the test." (Isaiah 7:12)

The words sound good. So righteous. So pious. So noble.

They belong to Ahaz, the young king of Judah (8th century B.C.) Ahaz is in the midst of a political storm. Assyria is a threat to the north. The kings of Israel (the northern kingdom) and Aram have approached him to join an alliance against Assyria. If he refuses to join them, they threaten to topple his kingdom and set up a puppet king who will do their bidding.

Isaiah, the prophet, has promised Ahaz that God will shield him from the two "smoking firebrands." He has assured him that the kingdom will stand if he, Ahaz, resists the temptation to take matters into his own hands and puts his faith in God.

Isaiah even offers the guarantee of a sign: "Ask of the Lord anything you want, Ahaz. Ask for a sign in the highest heavens or even in the depths of Sheol. The Lord wants you to know beyond all doubt that He is faithful to you. All he wants is for you to be faithful to Him."

That's when Ahaz replies that he will not test God in that way, that he will not ask for a sign.

So noble. So pious. So righteous.

The truth is that Ahaz does not want assurances from God. Ahaz does not want a demonstration of God's faithfulness. Ahaz does not want to "risk" faith when he has already decided what he will do.

Why place your faith in the unseen God when you can trust your own abilities, your own plans, your own agenda?

Ahaz has already plotted to join the king of Assyria against the kings of Israel and Aram. (II Kings 16) Ahaz already knows what he wants and what he will do.

We might think that Ahaz is a fool. Why any one of us- when given the option of trusting God or trusting ourselves- would trust God...wouldn't we?

Well...wouldn't we?

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For resources related to the season of the church year or the Revised Common Lectionary go here.

For a series of questions for personal reflection/small group discussion on the RCL texts for the week go here.

A Season of Yearning

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:03:20 -0500

I am often put off by some of the Christmas songs because they are so sentimental, so romantic and so not-my- experience.

Sometimes I feel as if I am going to blow if I hear one more song about holiday cheer, faces all aglow, happy shoppers on their way down glistening, snow covered city sidewalks.

I live in the Atlanta area. The last time we had snow at Christmas was around the time the Magna Carta was being signed. And as for happy faces all aglow....ha!...I say, "Ha!"

I see harried faces (even hairy faces!), distracted faces and most of them anything but "all aglow."

I live in the suburbs. You see tail lights all aglow. You see strip malls. You see enough concrete and black top to cover Rhode Island. You see power cable, telephone lines and litter.

To many Christmas songs I say, "Bah!"

Unless....unless I hear those lyrics not as descriptions of what is but as yearnings of what could be.

Maybe there could be a day- even here in the 'burbs of HOTlanta"- when there is snow on the ground, happy people scurrying here and there with nothing more than a "Merry Christmas" on their breath.

Hearing those songs in that way may just rescue me from my humbuggery.

Reading the Isaiah texts in the Revised Common Lectionary is really what has rescued me from another season of singing, "Bah, bah, bah, bah, baaaah.." instead of "Fa la la la laaaa."

Listen to these words about the coming the Day of Lord...

"He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn more any more." (2:4)

Or read these words and just imagine...

"The wolf shall sleep with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze together, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (11:6-9 NRSV)

I suspect there were those who first heard Isaiah's words with a "bah" and a "humbug." They read the paper like everyone else; they watched the evening news. They worked in the sweatshops and traversed the market places.

No more war? No more studying war? No more tragedies? No more "nature red in tooth and claw."

Bah!

All those folks are gone. However, the words of Isaiah still stand and give their hope.

Isaiah expresses a vision. However...and this is important...Isaiah's vision is not simply the poetic expression of wishful thinking or overwrought romanticism. Isaiah is not Mel Torme sitting at a piano in California in the heat of summer writing about "chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

Isaiah speaks to human yearning, yes.

But the word Isaiah speaks, the vision that Isaiah describes is not Isaiah's word and not Isaiah's vision. His word and vision are not simply the yearnings of one man or the whole people.

This is the word and the vision of the God who is faithful and who will do what God promises.

Advent is the time of yearning...ours and God's!

Advent is the time when we are reminded that our deepest longings, the ones we offer up to heaven, will be met (and then some) by the God who never leaves us nor forsakes us!

James 24:7 - Hope

Feigning Piety

A Season of Yearning