The World Turned Upside Down to Right It –– 17 December 2023

John 1:6–8, 19–28

What God is doing in the miracle of the Christmas event has to do with bringing a new vision of justice and righteousness into the world, a vision that reaches beyond shepherds and kings, a vision that is for the captives, the oppressed, the lowly, the hungry, the prisoner, and the brokenhearted. It can be a counter-cultural shock to explore the theme of social justice on the third Sunday of Advent, but . . . try singing some of those hymns that nobody expects, to draw attention to the nature of the Christmas event as a social justice event. –– John H. Barden

1 Thessalonians 5:16–24

The charge from 1 Thessalonians. . . is an opportunity to see the good news of God's justice incarnate in the Christmas event. While it is always appropriate to expound on the personal piety of Christmas and the significance of Immanuel for our eternal redemption, the lectionary readings are giving us an opportunity to reframe this experience in a global context. What is happening in the incarnation is significant not only for those who will celebrate in abundance with presents under a tree in the living room; it is significant for those who do not have the luxury of brightly decorated Christmas trees or shiny wrapped presents or even living rooms. –– John H. Barden

Isaiah 61:1–4, 8–11

“They shall build the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations,” assures Isaiah, speaking to the community of exiles-now-returned. But what makes this rebuilding so hard to accomplish?

First . . . the image of a glorious past haunts the whole project. Once Jerusalem was intact and mighty, but now it is a ruin, a dismal reminder of what once was. . . Transfer this to the allegorical “rebuilding” of the church, and we find nostalgia for the glorious age of faith, when giant cathedrals were filled with worshippers. . . Guided by this misleading idealized picture, we miss the tale of what things were really like, and what really went wrong. We also miss the value of current accomplishments.

Second . . . what does get restored can be a caricature of what was once a complex reality. . . We can find numerous examples of this where “the restored New Testament Church” is actually “the nineteenth-century frontier American edition” of the church, rather than anything approaching the historical actuality of the first Christian century.

Third, some structures are a waste of time to rebuild at all. . . Likewise, the “renewed” church never really renews everything. Trying to kick-start some moribund organizations and activities is simply futile.

Fourth, rebuilding always includes a vision of what may be, but is not here yet. . . People can and do hold deeply differing visions of what ought to be. . .

Isaiah's returnees must have faced all these problems. The hoped-for Messiah, God's anointed, was a figure embedded in their midst. To isolate him from these other issues and challenges means to lose the full measure of what he can mean, for them and for us. –– Lucy Bregman

John H. Barden, a Presbyterian pastor, received the Angell Award in 2005 from the Presbyterian Writers’ Guild for his book of original folktales, ‘Postle Jack Tales (KiwE Publishing, 2004).

Lucy Bregman, professor of religion at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, is the author of several books including Beyond Silence and Denial: Death and Dying Reconsidered (WJK, 1999) and Preaching Death (Baylor Univ., 2011).

Homily Service 42, no. 1 (2008): 26–34.