Fourth Sunday of Advent - A

Year A
Isaiah 7:10-16
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25

Ready of not, here I come! So ensues another game of hide-and-seek.

Ahaz is an excellent hider. He will be diligent in finding the very best hiding place and is willing to stay there for a very long time. No matter how close a Seeker comes to finding him he will not breathe or move. (Note: This is a different category of Seeker than recent church growth folks market to.)

Trying to bargain with Ahaz is a lost cause. He doesn't respond. Even "Olly-Olly-Oxen-Free" doesn't catch his ear. If it did he would have to acknowledge something larger than his own expertise. Most folks, by the time of their teen stage know how to refuse evil and choose the good, how to not hide but be in community. But not the tribe of Ahaz - real HE-men (Hiders Extraordinaire).

So something larger is needed to restore us to our selves, something larger than ritual, incantation, creed. Something larger is needed for "resurrection" and "grace" and "revelation" (key words in the last three pericopes).

What can't be chosen by Hiders is especially offered by Seekers - "withness". After calling our freedom and not having it responded to, Seekers continue seeking for the destruction or loss of any is not a part of the game for them. They are willing to be made fools of, to be ineffective Seekers, to lose the game if that will bring a return of community.

Though this quality of intentional seeking can have a dysfunctional aspect to it, intentional, strings-free, and creation-beginning Immanuel-offering is yet preferable to leaving folks in the dark of their hidey-hole.

= = = = = = =

desperately seeking a reset button

tears as bread, tears as drink
restoration yearned for
reset needed

unknown saints, unknown beloved
resurrection ungracefully limited
reset needed

deeds of power without response
revelation missed again
reset needed

willingly seeking
intentionally seeking
persistenly seeking
seeking with good cheer
seeking with hopeful heart
seeking with open hand
seeking with a gift
"with" - reset found