Skip to main content

Rend the Heavens: Advent Day 6

Rend the Heavens text: May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. – Psalm 72:4

Prompt: Yearn

God in heaven, what would this look like?
You withstood David’s murder of Uriah and his adulterous tendencies, allowing the img_7470defenseless Bathsheba not only to be raped, but to experience the death of her child.
You allowed Solomon to conscript his own people for the building of the temple- a building meant to honor you, but raised on the backs of people with choices take away.
Constantine was permitted to use your name and your story for the shaping of his own plans and expectations, forever altering how those who follow you would be viewed- within and without the Way of Christ.
So many have hung their harps on the willows, unable to sing your songs.
So many have screamed to the winds for you to dash the descendants of their enemies against the rocks.
So many have wept and wept and waited for joy in the morning that did not come.
Can you not feel the yearning of your creation? Do you not feel our strain and grief for healing and resolution and all that you have promised?
“How long, O Lord” is too stale a question now? We peer into the depths out of which we cry, listening to our own echoes, and wonder if you are there are at all? If you are planning to act ever? If you have forgotten your covenants, your end of all the bargains, your own character?
I yearn not to be your defense lawyer, your apologist, your witness.
I long to be overwhelmed by your power, your action, your holy fury.
Lord, hear our prayer.
And in your mercy, answer us.




Originally written for and posted to RevGalBlogPals.org

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I'm In

A few weeks ago ,  I was using voice-to-text to compose some prayers. After I was finished speaking the whole list, I was proof-reading the document and   realized that everywhere I said “Amen”, the voice-to-text wrote “I’m in”. “Amen” essentially means  “may it be so”,  but what would it look like to end our prayers with “I’m in”. What would change if we rose from our knees, left our prayer closets, closed our devotionals, and moved with purpose toward the goals for which we had just prayed.  Lord, in your mercy:  Grant justice to the oppressed and disenfranchised (I’m in) Cast down the mighty from their thrones (I’m in)  Console the grieving and welcome the prodigal (I’m in)  Welcome strangers and attend to the marginalized (I’m in)  Grant the space for the silenced to speak… and listen (I’m in)  Fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty (I’m in)  Forgive others as I am forgiven (I’m in) Be merciful as God in h...

The Reign of Christ and the Long Defeat

At one point in The Lord of the Rings, the royal elf Galadriel describes her life and experience and says, “… we have fought the long defeat.” Galadriel, like other elves and the Hobbits and many others, is depicted as being on the right side of things in the books. The Company of the Ring (the Fellowship) wins and defeats the forces of evil. Why would she consider this a “long defeat”?  Furthermore, why would J.R.R. Tolkien, the author, apply the same term to himself. He wrote in a letter, “Actually, I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a 'long defeat’ – though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.” (Letter #195) Tolkien, a Brit, fought in World War 1. Though he was on the side that “won”, he saw the devastation following the war on all sides- how the “winners” struggled with what they had seen and done and how the “losers” were galvanized to see ...

Top Ten Things to Learn from the book of Job

Readings: Job 1:1-22; Job 38:1-11; Luke 8: 22-25 10. Job contradicts Proverbs.   The writer of Proverbs offers the hope and consolation that people who live wisely and faithfully, according to the will of God, will flourish and prosper. The very first chapter of Job says: it ain’t necessarily so. You may well live righteously and with great integrity and, still, terrible things may happen. A faithful life is not an automatic buffer to calamity. Due to this contradiction between the books, both of which are categorized as wisdom literature, we are reminded of all those who have gone before us who tried to make the Bible speak with one voice. It doesn’t. The Bible has many voices, some of which are quite dissonant together, but they sing one song about the presence and providence of God.  9. Job is an old story, but a young book, relatively speaking. Since Job doesn’t mention Abraham or Moses or the laws or the Temple, some interpreters have considered it the oldest story ...