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My Deliverer Is Coming
The angel of the Lord appeared to the [wife of Manoah] and said to her, “You shall conceive and bear a son. It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” – Judges 13:3-5, excerpted (NRSV)
We all long for a deliverer, at least once in a while: someone to untangle a problem we cannot resolve, someone to provide a haven when we are weary, someone to tackle a mountain that threatens our wellbeing. The longing for deliverance is common, and it permeates our stories.
Fairy tales are full of deliverers, often armed with magic or cunning or righteousness. Political discourse rallies around deliverance, whether this country is vowing to “rescue” another country or a politician is promising to “save” voters from [insert scapegoat here]. Novels and movies love a redemption story with a victorious ending. Deliverance is also the overarching narrative of scripture.
“From whence will my help come?” we ask.
The ancient Israelites cried for relief from their ongoing conflict with the Philistines. God sent an angel to Manoah’s wife to advise her of the exceptional child she would deliver for the people’s deliverance. Her son, Samson, grew up to be a folk hero of the people—fighting Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone and killing lions with his bare hands.
“Deliver us!” we cry.
“Next-day delivery,” we specify.
Ah, but God is not Amazon Prime. God’s deliverance comes at the speed of a baby growing to adulthood: simultaneously endless and fleeting. God’s deliverance comes at the pace of a folktale, repeated and renewed over generations. God’s deliverance unfolds with the tempo of a song, with the seasons of an oak tree, with the hindsight of freedom, with the slow rise of yeast and the quick breaking of bread.
Prayer: Be our deliverer, O Holy Child, through the moments that feel like an eternity and in these lifetimes of ours that fade like grass.
cross-posted with the UCC Daily Devotional
The Mess of Money
Hear this, you that trample on the needy, saying, “When will the sabbath be over so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit by selling the sweepings of the wheat.” The Lord will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation. – Amos 8:4-6, 10a (abridged)
Money is fake. (Hear me out.) It’s an imaginary language we invented to communicate our needs and desires and their respective values.
Subsequently, economics is a series of fictional stories we’ve conjured to assign social purpose to the value of need and the value of desire, stories that manage our collective expectation of wellbeing.
Stories like: your credit score is a measure of your worth. Stories like: healthy, fresh foods are bougie. Stories like: you should be grateful to have a mere 10 days of PTO each year. Stories like: everyone should have a side hustle to make ends meet. Stories like: an executive is more valuable than a teacher. Stories like: you can become a millionaire if you just give up your morning coffee.
Stories like: if we just squeeze more value out of a limited quantity and more labor out of fewer workers, our bottom line will improve. Just shrink the dry measure of the ephah, as they were doing in the time of Amos, dilute the contents of the ephah with some milling dust from the wheat, and then increase its price tag by a few shekels.
Bottom lines make a mess of relational lines. Fake stories about value make a mess of the ancient story of holy value. Nevertheless, our days are shaped by these fictional stories, and our bottom lines are very real. The tale entitled, “Economics,” is one in which we all take part.
Money may be a reality of life, but that doesn’t mean money tells the true story of life. “Seek me and live,” God says in Amos. In the Holy One is our life’s value and wellbeing.
Prayer: God almighty, this existence of ours is messy. Daily demands and social systems so often conflict with the truth of your love. Let me believe the story of love above all else.
cross-posted with the UCC Daily Devotional
Plumb Line
I've been trying to climb your plumb line, O God, as if it is a measure of success or a ladder to security. When the wall showed signs of toppling, I leapt to the line to rise above it all. Forgive me. When the locusts swarmed and the harvest was threatened before it...
Kissing Calves
Idols of silver [are] made according to their understanding. “Sacrifice to these,” they say. People are kissing calves! Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes away early. - Hosea 13:2-3 (NRSV, abridged) I was not raised in a Christian...
Deathbed Confession
We have done our best, O God. Well, not our best. Sometimes not even a half-hearted attempt at "best." But we have done ... something ... and of course it was never going to last because time is finite and people are too, but, O God! We didn't prepare for death when...
Praying as Jesus Taught
Thirty sparrows clamor around the bird feeder while a squirrel plots its route to the same, and I wonder if this is faithfulness: to know what is needed and to crave it solely. Give us this day our daily bread, for you will give what is good, O God. Now let us be...
Complicated Gifts
We thought it was a gift, the basket of summer fruit: strawberries red as a rose, peaches wet as the dew, watermelons sweet as your love. But no, God. The basket was a judgment of all we have taken for granted and all we have coveted for ourselves. We boast in what we...
Drunken Confession
A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite. “O Lord my God, in you I take refuge. If I have plundered my foe without cause, then let the enemy pursue and overtake me.” - Psalm 7 excerpts (NRSV) Shiggaion: a drunken reel, a wildly...
If Only
if only, my god, the river of healing left its banks to come heal us where we stand with our feet stuck in the mud if only, my god, the letter of peace penned itself to the angry mobs and violent landlords who worship cruelty if only, my god, the silver coins and gold...
Of Gods and Kings
King Manasseh did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh. He built altars for all the host of heaven and served them. He made his son pass through fire. He practiced soothsaying and dealt with wizards. He set a carved image of Asherah in the house of Yahweh, provoking...
I Swear to God
Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years. Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house, “Put your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will get a wife for my son Isaac.” - Genesis 24:1-4 abbreviated...
