Time and Place

Advent 2 C

“The Last Judgment” by Giorgio Vasari

Malachi 3:1-5

Luke 3:1-6

I’ve been thinking a lot about context. Our location. The time and place we live. Context can make everything more murky and complicated. Our current American context feels fractured, volatile and scary. I’ve been deeply influenced by the call to tangibly bear witness to the reign of Christ in the spaces we inhabit because our neighbors’ well-being is inextricably intertwined with our own. In the last few months, I’ve felt increasing dissonance with the half-truth that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven so politics doesn’t matter: We’re not going to talk about politics. We don’t need to worry about the outcome of the election because heaven is our true home. Christ is King so “it will all be ok.” The gospel gets reduced to a nice moral concept, without much substance, floating on a fluffy white cloud in the clear, blue sky. Upholding our comfortable lives and rational decisions. 

Absent is the acknowledgement of tension. That how we live our lives and our decisions (yes, even who we voted for) does matter. They matter to God and to our communities. To the habitats we call home. Yet we belong to Christ and His Church. As Timothy Ross and Fleming Rutledge¹ write, we have dual citizenship. “Our true home is in the future, but it is made present reality to us by the Holy Spirit, the guarantee of our redemption.”²

I spend my days as an immigration lawyer, advocating for vulnerable immigrants who are now terrified about what the incoming administration will do to punish, deport and further dehumanize them. Since November 6th, I’ve been warning my immigrant clients about the increased risks they will face in the next four years. That everyone who is undocumented will be a priority for deportation, regardless of how long they have lived in the U.S., their ties to their community or whether they have a criminal record. That the legal pathways currently available to them will likely disappear or become way more onerous. That they should consider who can care for their U.S. citizen children if they are deported. My immigrant clients, other marginalized communities and millions around the world who face war and famine don’t have the option of being apolitical. Their lives are directly impacted by our political decisions. Advent invites us to sit with this present unsettling reality. 

As we approach the second Sunday of Advent, how does the incarnate Christ enter into our present — in Word, sacrament and our everyday? How do we lean into what is in front of us, in the uncertainty of the darkness, rather than frantically trying to extract or distract ourselves?  What does it look like to cling to the expectation of the dawn, while looking unflinchingly at injustice and a world and a Church that is unraveling?

This week’s Old Testament and Gospel readings address the historical context of the good news proclaimed by Malachi and John the Baptist. A context that should sound familiar. Malachi speaks to the people of God in exile, living under the occupied rule of the Persian Empire, guided by priests with questionable conduct. He reminds the Jews of their identity as God’s covenant people, waiting for the Promise. He foretells the sending of a new messenger, John the Baptist, who will prepare the way for the Promised One, who is coming to refine and “draw near” for judgment. To judge all the ways God’s people have departed from what the Lord requires of them. He will bring justice against false prophets, adulterers, liars, employers who cheat their workers, those who use their power to oppress widows, orphans and immigrants. “Judgment,” which comes from the same root word as “justice” and “righteousness,”  is God making all things new and right.

Luke introduces John the Baptist within a time and place. John stands in the wilderness, at the edge of the Jordan River. The same river that the Israelites crossed, from the wilderness of 40 years to the promised land of milk and honey. John too addresses the people of God in their context. Under the reign of corrupt and power-seeking male authorities. Emperor Tiberus, revered by some as a deity, ruled with terror. Herod Antipas married the wife of his brother, Phillip, and later beheaded John at her request. Their father, Herod the Great, ordered the slaughter of young boys shortly after Jesus’ birth. Pontius Pilate sanctioned the execution of Jesus. High priests Annas and Caiaphas colluded with the Roman authorities and violently suppressed any dissent that threatened their priestly power, including the torture and death of Jesus. John’s visceral announcement of the Messiah and the “age to come” occurred against this backdrop of repressive power. “[John the Baptist] straddles two worlds, calling down the judgment of God on the former age but also looking forward to the redemption in the age to come,” writes Tish Harrison Warren.³  

Malachi’s prophecy that the Lord will draw near for judgment is fulfilled when “the word of God came to John” in the wilderness. John begins with repentance, the first step in preparing the way of the Lord. Not to dust off our Advent decorations from the basement. Or order Christmas cards. Or get a tree. Or make a gift list. Advent invites us first to repent. To stare at the darkness. To look at our world with all its cracks and to repent for our complicity – our participation in unjust systems that leads to misery and death.  For our addiction to carbon that devastates God’s good creation. For our struggle to forgive and love our neighbors, including those we think are plainly wrong. 

Now more than ever in recent memory, we may be inclined to only expose ourselves to those who share our worldview. Or perhaps we want to cocoon ourselves within what is known and safe and shut ourselves off from news of war, violence and ecological degradation. Post-election, I’ve succumbed to these pulls. As emails to “rise up and fight” have flooded my inbox in recent weeks, I’ve wanted to wrap myself in a blanket and read a mindless novel or binge on Netflix (which I did). Yet, I want to pay attention to the words of Malachi and John the Baptist. Advent invites us to turn around, fall on our knees and cry out for mercy and deliverance – for ourselves and our world. I want to lift up my head and be alive and engaged with the present – our context – in this particular time and place. I want to acknowledge my complicity (for my part, my blind spots as an educated, privileged person living in California) in all that divides our country and the American church. I don’t really know what that looks like. For me, I will begin by continuing to share the Table with those who don’t look like me, think like me or believe precisely as I believe and whose ideas and gestures are not exact echoes of my own.⁴ To expect Christ’s presence revealed in bread and wine, as we wait together for His return. 

Advent reminds us of who and whose we are by directing us to look back and to look forward. Central to this season is the re-narrating of the long-suffering story of God redeeming His beloved people. As exiled people living under unjust systems, narcissistic rulers and false prophets. Our story of recurring failure, recurring redemption. Christ comes to us incarnate. His presence is in the here and now — in Word, sacrament and our everyday. The crucified and risen Christ will return to reclaim His creation and to make all things right. And “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” All. Everyone. Even those who feel like our enemies. The God of righteousness, relentless love and undeserved mercy draws near. God has spoken. Get ready. Our covenant God is on His way. 

1. Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ (2018), 12.

2.  Rutledge, Advent, 12, quoting Ephesians 1:14.

3. Tish Harrison Warren, Advent (2023), 50-51.

4.  Jan Richardson, This Grace that Scorches Us.