November 29

Prayer: 
We know about your presence
that fills the world,
that occupies our life,
that makes our life in the world true and good.
We notice your powerful transformative presence
in word and in sacrament,
in food and in water,
in gestures of mercy and practices of justice,
in gentle neighbours and daring gratitude.
We count so on your presence
and then plunge – without intending – into your absence.
We find ourselves alone, abandoned, without resources
remembering your goodness,
hoping your future,
but mired in anxiety and threat and risk beyond our coping.
In your absence we bid your presence,
come again,
come soon,
come here.
Come to every garden become a jungle
Come to every community become joyless sad and numb.
We acknowledge your dreadful absence and insist on your presence.
Come again, come soon. Come here.[1]

Readings: Micah 4:6-13

Reflection: Our hope is to be rooted in God’s faithfulness. As we wait and long we must also consider the faithfulness of God to us, a faithfulness that declares generation through generation I have a plan, you are my people, you are part of my plan, and you have always been a part of my plan. It is so often easy to lose sight of the delicately woven threads together in God’s plan as it even now only begins to unfold before our eyes.

Application: Consider your life and the people brought into your life. The relationships provisioned by God and take time to write one or more of them a card this season. You might already be planning on doing Christmas cards or have even already sent them out. If so send another card or enclose a separate letter and speak to the presence of Christ they have been in your life. In doing so there is an acknowledgement of God’s provision but also your friend’s faithfulness and it speaking to this faithfulness you offer life and love back to this person. You are offering them a chance to, if you will, feast on the love and faithfulness of God in a way that they might not have been able to see. This is a tradition that can be carried on through the year, especially in seasons that may be lonely like Christmas, Valentine’s Day or even birthdays and other significant anniversaries.

[1] Walter Brueggemann, Prayers for a Privileged People. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008)

November 28

Prayer: 
Dare us to your hope.
The hope you declare, one counter to all we believe, know or think we understand.
Help us to see our places of aggression, wants beyond our needs in this time.
Remind us that it has been declared,
“They’ll trade in their swords for shovels, 
their spears for rakes and hoes. 
Nations will quit fighting each other, 
quit learning how to kill one another. 
Each man will sit under his own shade tree, 
each woman in safety will tend her own garden. 
GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says so, and he means what he says.” 
That we may desire to see the coming of Your shalom,
even as it demands that our places of peace be shown for what they are,
places of comfort and privilege.
Make us uncomfortable as we hope for you.
Amen

Reading: Micah 4:1-5a

Reflection: Privilege and comfort are words we do not often stop to dwell on. In considering Micah 4:1-5, we are privileged, not necessarily in our gender or ethnicity but in our relationship with Christ. We are privileged to know what generations hoped for, the coming of their Messiah. We live in that privileged and the privilege it is to share in the work of shalom brought to Earth all those years ago as we hope for the return of our Messiah.

Application: Consider fasting from your morning coffee or lunch for today and tomorrow or another two days in this week. Set that money aside and use it at a time in this month to take out someone with whom you have daily interaction with and do not know well or a person with whom you have a strained relationship. It may seem inconsequential or you may even that you’d be able to afford to pay for them in addition to your costs but the purpose is changing our intention as we direct our intention at our Savior who came into our lives when he could have done it with all the comforts of His position and forfeit them all.

The purpose of this act of fasting and feasting is to reframe how we relate around food. If we look at scripture, Jesus is often seen feasting with those who were on the margins of society. You might know of someone in the margins by technical terms, you may not, but consider those who are new to your community or on the margins by other definitions.

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