Lord of eons and immediacy, we wait with some impatience for Christmas celebrated while our commercial world is already at its fake celebration. Grant us patience to be geared to your time that is both slow and sure. In his name, Amen.
Psalm 119:1-14
Amos 3:12
Amos 4:5
2 Peter 3:1-10
Matthew 21:23-32
These readings seek to find a proper place for trust amid two temptations. On the one hand, there is the seduction of phony piety. Jesus warns against an eager ostensive obedience without follow-through. The prophet Amos ups the rhetoric to mock the busy routine of piety that his contemporaries love to enact. He sees, moreover, that such exhibitionist piety is readily linked to economic exploitation. The Epistle reading, on the other hand, identifies an alternative temptation, namely skepticism. The writer points to "scoffers" who mock faith by pointing out that the promises of God are never kept and that things go on and on as if they were without interruption or change.
Both of these temptations have to be faced with Christmas coming. Among us, phony piety may take the form of excessive generosity,, of giving gifts without any real passion, both gifts to those who need no gifts (whom we may not love too much) and gifts to the needy that are less than serious engagement. It is likely, however, that the temptation to skepticism about a real coming of newness is more poignant among us. The results may be just going through the motions of tired celebration.
The Gospel reading uses the term "believe" three times, describing an act of trust that leads to repentance. Christmas is properly not about phony piety or about skepticism; it is about change of heart and change of life that are rooted in trust in the promises of God that are sure as they are slow.
Walter Brueggemann: Gift and Task
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