Advent 5…A Season of Metaphor

The power of metaphor is strong in the human psyche. Metaphor brings to life a truth we already know, a truth that suddenly sits up and shouts in the recesses of our minds…compelling us to pay attention. (See, it just happens…)

Groucho Marx…even before the Affordable Care Act:

A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.

Winston Churchill was also a master:

Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is--the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.

Metaphor strikes me in today's readings. Amos first…speaking for God:

I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me.

What? How does clean teeth and no bread inspire a return to God? Beyond me…completely.
Jesus' parable of the vineyard is beyond the Pharisees. Upstart prophet! Who does he think he is!

So, we start with Psalm 18, and all the psalms, really, are metaphors. The images for the LORD who is our Rock, our fortress, our deliverer…nice. The images for the angry God thundering around in the heavens in anger (a "hot nose" in the Hebrew language…that's what it literally says) are less familiar, strange really. Smoke coming up from God's nostrils, God riding on a cherub, flashing lightning and shaking the foundations of the earth in his anger…certainly more like a movie than real life.

The season of Advent is full of metaphor, "light shining in darkness," "hope of the world," "a season of waiting." Do you ever wish we just said what we meant?

Problem is, we mean God. God's reconciling work. God's in-breaking. God incarnate. Anyone who has had an experience of God will tell you it is a lonely place to be. You cannot explain it to anyone in a way that communicates the power  and grace you experienced. You can try, but it never feels like it is enough. So you resort to metaphor.

[The LORD] reached down from on high, he took me; he drew me out of mighty waters, He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me; for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity; but the LORD was my support. He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me… (Ps. 18)

Advent is the season of metaphor because it is hard to put into words the gift we have received, the gift we anticipate will be ours again and again and again.

The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb. May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. (Ps. 126)

I know…I don't get it fully either. But I hear the prayer, the promise, and the willingness to wait.

Advent, the first metaphor of the Christian year.

Food for thought. (Couldn't resist one last metaphorical shot!)