Our
readings today began without could have been understood as a formulaic
profession of faith, “You, God, are our Father.” But it’s not just a statement
of fact. Actually, in the Hebrew that verb “are” isn’t there, the reading would
just begin with a list of titles for God: “You… God… our Father! Redeemer! (so
named for ever)… Why do you make us stray from you, God?” It’s a long
introduction to a question, a long crying out to God, to God whose absence is
felt very keenly.
The
reading probably comes from just after the end of the exile, when the people
have come back from their captivity in Babylon and have discovered that the
task of rebuilding life in Jerusalem would be really really hard. They had felt
so far from God in exile, and had kept alive that hope that God would bring
them home, but were discovering that just being back in the Holy City wasn’t
enough. They still didn’t have the closeness to God they longed for. I imagine
this lament, tearful, being prayed in the ruins the Temple, still not yet
rebuilt. The plea continues: “Return.” Come back to us. The exile lasted about
a lifetime. The people who returned knew of what life was like in their own
land with their own Temple and their own king in his palace from stories their
grandparents had told them. “Come back to us, make it how it once was.”
The
people expand on that call to return, making it vivid: “Rend the heavens” –
break a whole in the sky – “and come down!” Be God with us, be with us. And
then they pray: “Would that you would meet us doing right!” It’s the same
prayer for God to come and be with us, but expanded again. For not just any
meeting with God is desired, but a meeting in which God delights in being with
us. It’s the child who’s desperate for their parents to be at their recital or
game. Be with us, and see us doing good! But, it’s not a boast, for the very
next line confesses, “We are sinful.” It’s not a boast, it’s a prayer. It’s a
prayer not just for God to come but for us to be ready for God to come. For God
to delight in us. That we would be delightful. It’s a prayer that cries out for
God’s presence, and is very hopeful about human capacity to delight God, and
totally realistic about the ways we cause Him sorrow over us.
And it’s
a prayer, an emotional prayer, not a theological treatise, but I wonder if some
of the reasoning behind that request is contained a little later on, when the
people confess, “You are the potter, we are the clay.” An artist is known in
her art. We know God in each other. And if we want unity with God, if we want
closeness with Him, we serve one another. “Come, meet us doing right!” We do
meet God, when we treat one another with the reverence and love befitting God’s
creation.
Our
collect, the opening prayer for Mass, is full of very similar requests. We asked
God to give us the resolve to “run forth to meet Christ with righteous deeds at
his coming.”
“Run
forth” – let’s start there – God has come, and God will come again. And just
like the returned exiles, we so want that closeness with him, want it so much
that we want to run to him, and we know we can’t do that without God’s help, so
we ask for it. Advent is meant to be all about waiting. But this prayer tells
us what that waiting is meant to look life. It’s not calm, passive, bored
waiting. It’s running. It’s running to meet Christ.
And then
we ask to run to meet him with righteous deeds. And that’s not a two-step
process, as if we accrue enough righteous deeds then we get to cash them in and
meet Christ. No, as we heard in last week’s reading, we meet Christ in the poor
served, whatever we do to the least of these, we do to Jesus. The righteous
deeds are the running, and the righteous deeds are the meeting. And yes it’s
furtive, it’s still kind of hidden, it will be more glorious at the end of
time, and we long for that. The Sacred Heart litany calls Christ the “fiery
furnace of charity,” and a fiery furnace is different from a little candle
flame. But a candle flame is real. And we really meet Christ when we serve the
poor.
Here in
this Eucharist, in every Eucharist, we come to offer to God all that we’ve
offered in the past week. It’s not just the bread and the wine that get
offered, that get transformed, that God uses to feed us, to meet us. At Masses
this weekend, we get extra symbol that when we’re offering the Eucharistic
Prayer, we’ll be surrounded by the gifts that you’ve brought to share your
Christmasses with those in need, which are a helpful reminder of all we offer
in addition to the bread and wine. When in the Eucharistic Prayer I say, “look
upon the oblation of your people” (the oblation, the offering, the gifts), I’m
not just talking about the bread and wine, I’m not just talking about the
presents, I’m talking about all the ways we’ve given of ourselves. “Meet us
doing good” we’re praying. And God says, “Gladly!” And bread and wine become
Christs’ own body, blood, soul and divinity, that we might be fed with him and
meet him in that most intimate of ways. And all of our other offerings are transformed
too, rejoiced over, and are ways God meets us.
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