Fourth Sunday of Advent - C1

Year C
Micah 5:2-5a

Without asking for it or even dreaming about it, a currently insignificant spot is incorporated into an integral part of a new story. A king's birthplace will become an anti-king's birthplace.

Where a king brings order and pacification, an anti-king brings peace and energy. Both bring forth "security" after their own kind. Security has again raised its head as an eternal quest object only to be obtained by leaving it behind.

As we finish off another time of waiting for a reincarnation of the past or a harbinger of the future we still look for security in the dead and gone or the not yet conceived and horizonless. We re-fight a last war and prepare against a previous attack, obsessing our remembrances and compulsively narrowing down future options. We yearn for sentimental warmth of mangers past and for cold judgment coming on a storm cloud.

If a little town of Bethlehem can birth kings and anti-kings, there is no security as usual. We've been looking for security in all the wrong places. Micah asks us to imagine government and religion not being about order and indestructibility, but about justice coming forth based on having experienced injustice in exile and under our own leaders. The peace of Bethlehem is a renewal of justice.

= = = = = = =

o little house of bread
how easily distracted
by fancier fare
perhaps
"... an undigested bit of beef,
a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese,
a fragment of underdone potato"

dream of ghostly transformation
through past mistrust
current misery
future emptiness
prayerfully concluded
"God bless us, everyone!"

dream deep
house of bread
of but a little wine and
a creation beginning song
"Peace on earth, goodwill to all"

dream of a feast of love
with thou and thou and thou
each feeding each
in pastures of plenty
'til exiled justice
is welcomed home