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Thursday, December 17

Author: Holly Reimer

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Reflection: v. 26, ‘Someone greater stands among you, whom you don’t recognize’

Greatness often gets mistaken for power and privilege. This has not changed. The Pharisees and Sadducees are particularly thrown by John’s words because they are concerned with their own power and privilege, and concerned for what Jesus might do to upset one or both. We are living in a world and a culture that tells us we are great when we reach that promotion, buy that new house, have a certain amount in our bank accounts, and can name a litany of things we possess. Those who would later have Jesus killed, missed the true greatness that was among them. They were blind from a fear of what-ifs, insecurities, and egoism. As a community, we believe that God is present among us. Christ was present with the poor and the marginalized. This is not simply why we believe God is present among us, but rather it reflects the faithfulness by which we engage one another as beloved children, as reflections of the one who created us. And yet, there are those who cannot see the beauty in our gathering, in the beauty of my brothers and sisters. Even now we are currently experiencing resistance to our gathering as a community. God is present, and yet there are those who can’t see it and who refuse to see God present with us. The concern and what-ifs can rob us of the chance to see something rich and beautiful. We can become afraid that a small, faithful, ecumenical community will rise up against us and rob us, both literally and figuratively, of all the power and privilege we believe makes us great. Greatness is not present in power that oppresses but in a power that liberates the oppressed. This is the greatness John spoke of as he witnessed to Jesus. Beloved brothers and sisters, we can find ourselves on a dangerous precipice that will cause us to miss the greatness of God. May we humble ourselves, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and present to something we could never fathom.

Prayer Humble us, Lord, to see you in the most unexpected places and spaces. Amen.

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Wednesday, December 16

Author: Holly Reimer

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Reflection: v. 7, ‘He came as a witness to testify concerning the light’

A love that truly comes from God is one that sees the value, goodness, and beauty in each individual, for no other reason than they are the image of God. Loving in this way means we want others to be included in the goodness of God. I think about the zeal and enthusiasm of children and the ways they are eager to share good and exciting news with those around them. In their youthful joy and childlike fervor, they are not exclusive or selective with who receives this information—it is shared with EVERYONE. John has some really good news about God’s presence among the people. There are those who don’t believe, can’t fathom, and are resistant to such news. John shares it anyway, because good news is meant to be shared. The light and love of God is meant to be shared with EVERYONE. In this particular season, and with this particular text, I am reminded of the Christmas song lyrics, ‘Do you know what I know?’ It is about knowing something really wonderful and the desire to share it—not because it makes the knower more important or powerful, but because we couldn’t think of keeping it to ourselves. It’s saying, ‘I want you to feel and experience the same joy that I do, because I trust and believe that you are just as important as I am.’ Brothers and sisters in Christ, I know something, and I want you to know it too. In a world of great darkness, there is an even greater light. This Light shows us who is beloved, and it isn’t just the rich and the powerful, but it is especially the poor and meek. It isn’t those who ‘claim’ to have it all together, but those who have messed up and made some not-so-great choices. This Light offers grace. Be a humble witness. Be an inclusive witness. The Light is too important for those of us who bear its witness to be anything other than humble and inclusive. What if we shared good news, not because it affects us alone, but because it affects someone else?

Prayer Lord, thank you for the light you have given to us in Christ Jesus. May we not do anything to attempt to diminish such a great light. Amen.

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Sunday December 13 – 3rd Sunday of Advent

Author: Holly Reimer

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Reflection: v. 8, ‘I the LORD, love justice’

Justice is something required of us, but I’m not talking about a ‘wild west’ kind of justice where we misuse Scripture to avenge wrongs done to us and those we love. Justice, as seen here in the prophet Isaiah, is about a social justice—something that fulfills the needs of everyone. Here’s the kicker: it is something God requires human beings to do—not something we lay at God’s feet and say, ‘It’s all yours!’ We are to be participants in God’s justice. So when we say, ‘Black lives matter,’ we aren’t insinuating that all lives don’t matter, or that God only cares about Black lives. But we are emphasizing the kind of justice God is bringing to light here in this passage—a justice that acknowledges there are a group of people who have, and continue to be, oppressed. When we love the ‘least of these,’ we are loving justice as God loves justice. Friends, we’ve messed up. There are an awful lot of children without parents. We’ve buried a lot of innocent Black men and women. LGBTQIA brothers and sisters are still shamed. Men and women are still without adequate healthcare and housing. We are still ‘othering.’ Enough is enough. As we meditate on Christ’s birth this season of Advent, while we await the one who is to come to remind us of love and justice, may we love the kind of justice that comes from God—that is inclusive. Let us live into a kind of justice where we dismantle fences to build bigger tables.

Prayer Thank you, God, for a different kind of justice, one that brings peace and wellness to all. May we continue to find the strength and courage to live out justice as you have called us to do. Amen.

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Advent – Friday, December 11

Author: Jerome Johnson

Isaiah 40:1-11

Reflection: v. 11, ‘like a shepherd’

I like this passage, because when I read it I think about God leading me. I think God is leading me because I have changed a lot since I’ve been coming to this church. I’m like one of God’s sheep and he’s my shepherd. I think God is saying that he is going to have mercy on me and that our sin has been forgiven. I am poor and feel like I’m down low in the valley sometimes, but I believe God is going to lift me up. I think God is leading me—he leads me here every day. I like listening to the word of God, and I think God is leading me to do what is right and make myself a better person. I’m working on myself, because I want to be a better person than I am. When I come here, I get strength. When I walk up, everybody gives me strength, and my community helps lead me, too. I’m working on getting me a place—housing. God is leading me there, too. In this passage, it says that people are like grass and the flower of the field, and one day we will die and fade away from this world when the breath of God has gone from us. But that’s not the end, because one day God will lift us up and all people, both rich and poor, shall see the glory of the Lord together. He will lead us like a shepherd and gather us in his arms, and we will forever be with our Lord.

Prayer Lead us O Lord, to places of health and wellness.

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Advent – Thursday, December 10

Author: Brittany Fiscus-van Rossum

Mark 1:1-8

Reflection: v. 3 , ‘the voice of the one crying out in the wilderness’

One of the many reasons I love our church community so much is because of the rich and diverse theological insight I witness each week I am there. Our daily Bible studies and Sunday sermon are discussion-based and incorporate extensive input from our ecumenical community—people can ask and say whatever is on their hearts and share their stories and insight in their own words. These devotionals too have become a community project that include the thoughtful contributions of many different people. When I was still in seminary, I often gave thanks for the privilege of having the perspectives of my Mercy community members informing my education alongside other scholars and theologians. Because frankly, at Mercy I have often heard good and gospel news cried out and proclaimed in ways I had never heard growing up in the institutional church. I learned hard truths and a longing for repentance in lessons the academy could never teach. Not by my own merit or righteousness, I was graced to be led out like those going out of Jerusalem, to hear voices crying out plain and true from those marginalized places we often neglect and avoid. The voices, the preaching, the theology, and the wisdom that comes out of my community continue to call me to repentance, and I am thankful and better for it.

Prayer Lead us, O God, to those wilderness places where your prophets still speak.

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Advent – Wednesday, December 9

Author: Brittany Fiscus-van Rossum

2 Peter 3: 8-15a

Reflection: v. 13, ‘a new earth, where righteousness is at home’

In its closing exhortations, the Second Letter of Peter paints an image of waiting with anticipation for the coming of the day of God and the promise of new heavens and a new earth. This imagery is similar to that used in the book of Revelation—the hopeful vision of all things being made new and right, a new earth wherein right-ness can find its abode. As I write this today (still one week before our next election), it is difficult to even dream of an earth where righteousness is at home. A vicious plague goes unchecked, powers and principalities, sworn to protect, instead endanger our basic human rights, wars rage, fires burn, families are wrenched apart, and our earth cries out under the pressures of climate change. Even within my own small sphere of influence in the community where I serve, I feel the dead and heavy weight of tomorrow’s promised thunderstorms and the growing discomfort of privileged neighbors who would rather our community gather anywhere else but within their sight. But though right now it seems near impossible to dare to dream of something better, Peter’s words to these fellow Christ-followers remind me that I must. And in that hopeful vision of a world made more righteous, I remember that that is indeed what my God desires for us. I remember that my God is steadfast, that my God stands on the side of justice, that my God loves flesh and blood human beings and will not neglect us. I remember that there will be better days, and I want to be a part of God’s work to create them.

Prayer We hope for better days, O Lord–help us to create them.

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Advent – Tuesday, December 8

Author: Brittany Fiscus-van Rossum

Isaiah 40: 1-11

Reflection: v. 1, ‘Comfort’

‘Comfort, O comfort my people,’ God says, speaking of God’s people in exile. When we are struggling, when we are experiencing oppression, when we have been pushed down by the powers that be, when we feel forgotten, overlooked, and devalued, it is good to know that God desires to comfort us. That being said, some of us can become too comfortable sometimes. Some of us grasp to cling to our privileged creature comforts as if they will be ripped away at any moment. We prioritize the well-being, success, and needs of ourselves over others as if they are rights that only we deserve. We create a false idol of perfected suburban ‘safety’ and fight for it until we push out the neighbors we are called to love—but instead fear. Too much comfort and too much complacency can be a dangerous thing if it makes us oblivious to the pain and struggle of others—if it makes us oblivious to the reality of systemic poverty and racism in our city and elsewhere. Let us remember that God speaks these words to a people experiencing exile. God declares this comfort and goodness for those left without such things. It is true that there will be times when we all need God’s mercy and comfort. But may the loving tenderness of our creator also urge us toward justice. May our own comfort move us toward compassion. May we seek and work for the comfort and wellness of God’s hurting people and never just for me and my own.

Prayer O Loving Creator, may your comfort move us toward compassion.

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Advent – Monday, December 7

Author: Brittany Fiscus-van Rossum

Isaiah 40: 1-11

Reflection: v. 1, ‘Comfort’

For many of us, 2020 has not been the easiest year. Many of us have lost jobs or housing, navigated through the difficult decisions of how to care for our children and family members, stood witness to the reality of the racial injustices in our country, and made endless sacrifices to protect one another and the vulnerable in our community. Our church community has also had its hardships. This year alone we have lost six members—six precious and valuable lives we continue to mourn together. In the past, we would have gathered for memorials in our intimate basement church room, strung with prayer flags displaying the faces of our lost loved ones. We would have sung songs and told stories and held one another close as our tears stained one another’s shoulders, giving honor to the great losses in this family we have made together. Unfortunately, this year we have also lost the ability to gather as before—to hold one another and make home for one another in our cozy crowded space. In the particular and peculiar difficulties of this season, I am thankful for a word of comfort from our God. I am thankful to remember God’s enduring presence alongside us in our suffering. I am thankful to remember that our God will not abandon us. ‘Comfort, O comfort my people,’ God says. I am also thankful that I experience that faithful word of comfort not just in the echoed words of this old prophecy, but in the embodied solidarity of my steadfast community. We may no longer crowd together and hold one another close, but in our present sufferings we continue to stand together and show up for one another each and every day. And that, dear friends, is a great comfort.

Prayer Comfort, O comfort your people, O God, and may we give comfort to one another.

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2nd Sunday of Advent

Author: Brittany Fiscus-van Rossum

Isaiah 40: 1-11

Reflection: v. 2, ‘she has served her term… her penalty is paid’

‘You are prisoners no more. Your time for freedom is now,’ is written in the margins of my bible next to this passage. I am fairly certain my co-worker and fellow pastor borrowed my bible one day and scribbled these lines as the makings of a song-response for some worship service. While I no longer remember the occasion for the song, this interpretation strikes me anew in its simple truthfulness. In this particular passage the voice of God through the prophet Isaiah declares freedom for a seemingly forgotten people in exile. God speaks to God’s children banished and home-less in a land not their own. God looks upon those poor exiled ones and speaks words of consolation and liberation. At the core and the crux of our biblical text is this bold and comforting notion that God desires freedom for God’s people—for all of us, but also particularly for the oppressed and marginalized. As followers of this audaciously loving and liberating God, we should also be compelled to want freedom for one another. God does not want God’s people locked in the cycles of broken, unjust prison systems. God does not want God’s people trapped by the ugly snares of racism and bigotry. God does not want God’s people caught in the endless jumping-through hoops of systemic poverty. God does not want God’s people ripped from their mothers’ arms to be caged, lost, and forgotten. God wants God’s people to be free. May our actions and voices cry ‘freedom’ alongside the God we follow.

Prayer Liberating God, come to release your captives and guide us, your people, to work for the freedom of others.

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Advent – Saturday, December 5

Author: Isaiah Lewis

Mark 13:24-37

Reflection: v. 24, ‘But in those days…’

It’s very hard not to think of 2020 as the end of the world. A pandemic that’s left nearly 1.5 million people dead and millions more sick. People’s livelihoods snatched away. A rise in jingoism in half a dozen countries, including our own. Police officers murdering Black people with impunity, regardless of evidence. Protests violently suppressed. Wildfires and hurricanes. In the face of so many threats, it’s hard to know what to do, let alone what to hope. So it makes sense that this is the year we’d start Advent with a rundown of the apocalypse.

The word ‘apocalypse’ means an unveiling or revelation of the way things are. In this passage, Jesus warns his disciples that terrible things are happening and that their job is to be attuned to the reality-changing entrance of the messiah into that chaos. In fact, Jesus even gives them four specific times to look for the presence of their savior. In their terror, though, they immediately start missing the cues. They fall asleep in the evening when Jesus goes to pray. They scatter at midnight when confronted with an angry mob. Peter denies knowing Jesus while waiting for the trial to end. And finally the whole community rejects Jesus, foisting him onto the empire to be executed.

Why is this an Advent story? I think it’s because God has no illusion that things have been going well for us. We’re surrounded by death-dealing power, and when we get tired and afraid, it’s easy to forget what Jesus’ revolutionary revelation looks like: the holiness of a baby, a teacher, a prisoner. God is a poor boy born in a barn and murdered by the state. And God is life, which no empire can destroy. Like the shepherds at Jesus’ birth and the disciples at his death, we’re called to keep watch.

Prayer Help us to keep watch for your advent, O God.