Isaiah 61:1-8
1 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD . . . has
sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the
prisoners; 8. For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and
wrongdoing;
Gospel of St. Luke 1:52-53 52. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53. He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
The texts for the Third Sunday of Advent remind us that Jesus’ mission
was indeed “prophetic” and “political.” The soothsayers and false
prophets of our time are more the spokespersons for the affluent and
powerful than they are for the poor and the oppressed. Our own
government seeks to remove the tax status of those churches that would
be prophetic.
In the One-Year Bible reading for today (Amos
2:12) we read, “but you have commanded the prophets not to prophesy.”
The whole Gospel includes the call to individual and societal
transformation. When we respond to the Lordship of Jesus Christ our
personal souls and our personal practices must align with the demands of
the Gospel for holiness of character and life. Those who would oppress
the poor, who would break the hearts, the wills, and pocketbooks of the
people and create poverty and human misery, those who would create
hunger and ignorance and homelessness for a fist full of dollars, are
forever seeking leaders and pastors and rabbis and priests and imams and
politicians who will give them a sugar-coated message.
They
also seek to silence those who would dare speak God’s truth in an age of
coddling the rich and famous, or giving the best seats in churches and
synagogues and temples and mosques, to those who “sell the righteous for
silver, the needy for a pair of shoes, trample the heads of the poor,
and deny justice to the oppressed (Amos 2:6-7).” They hate the Bible
and the message that it contains, because it is uncompromising in its
clear condemnation of exploitation of neighbor and nations. Don’t buy
the popular okey- doke against the sacred Word of God, which in its
pages offers us the pathway to life and true prosperity-a world of peace
free from aggression against the life and livelihood of its people.
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