Monday after Advent 1

Your coming, O God, evokes in us joy as we ponder your new rule of mercy and justice.  Your coming at the same time confronts us with a deep shattering of the way we have arranged our common life.  Grant that we may not default in joy or flinch from the shattering that your coming portends.  In Christ, Amen

Psalm 1

Amos 2:6-16 

2 Peter 1:1-11 

Matthew 21:1-11

The Gospel reading voices a vigorous welcome for the new king.  The crowd is eager for his arrival.  The juxtaposition of the Amos text and the Epistle reading,  however, suggests that not everyone gathered to cheer his arrival.   The epistle expresses an ethic that is congruent with his new rule;  virtue, knowledge,  self-control, steadfastness, godliness, and "brotherly affection with love."  The conduct of those who sign on with the coming Messiah concerns discipline that serves the common good,  brotherly affection, that is social solidarity.

That ethic, to be performed by Jesus and embraced by his faithful community, contradicts what the prophetic tradition found in ancient Israel.   Amos indicts the economy for uncaring exploitation of the poor,  for self-indulgent sexuality, and for cynical abuse of holy things for self-service.  As a contrast to such demonstrative self-indulgence, Amos cites the Nazirites,  a company of the young under strict discipline. 

The prophetic text and the Epistle reading together articulate a powerful either-or that might preoccupy us in Advent.  On the one hand, we live in a predatory economy that operates without restraint or compassion.  On the other hand, the epistle anticipates that Jesus' company of followers will refuse such a way in the world that can result only in failure and jeopardy.  The way in which we may "confirm our call and election"  is by alternative ethic that refuses the ordinary practices of our consumer economy that endlessly negates the poor.

Walter Bruggemann:  Gift and Task