Advent: God's Gifts...Judgment

(This year's readings will be a posted here. We will combine the stories submitted with the blog entries. If you put your e-mail in the box to the right, the post will come to your in-box.)

Week One: The Gift of Waiting...

The way of the righteous is level; O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous. In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and your renown are the soul’s desire.
Isaiah 26:7-8 

We perceive ourselves, too often, as God’s special people, insiders who hold special privilege, who receive special blessing, who are given special knowledge. In one sense, that is true. God’s work in Jesus Christ has provided for our forgiveness. We are deemed righteous when we are living in Christ. And we are lucky enough to be aware of our gift.

On the other hand, we too often think our status in Christ spares us God’s judgment. Those who are not “insiders” get God’s judgment, not us.

But it is his righteousness, not ours that sustains us. And to be perfectly honest with ourselves, with each other, with the God who loves us, we need God’s judgment. Looking at this text, I think our way is level because we travel in the path of God’s judgment.

Can judgment be a gift? To do the best theater production, you need the judgment of the director, looking at the actor’s performance, set, costume and lighting design; all must be judged and “corrected” to create a magnificent performance. Musicians who struggle with a phrase of music have a teacher spend five minutes judging and teaching a new technique, then play without struggle. The path is leveled.

In our discipleship journey, times can be challenging, difficult, dark. We travel paths full of massive rocks and steep chasms, difficult, if not impossible, to cross. And that’s where we wait for the Lord, trusting that God’s work of judgment will level our paths.

One last challenge of this text. We tend to read this as individuals, as if this journey is only about our individual spiritual path. This text was written to Israel, to a people who saw themselves first and foremost as part of a larger community. So we may want to expand our understanding. In a time where many congregations struggle and the pathway seems anything but level, God’s judgment is very much a gift to our faith communities. Instead of fighting against judgment, perhaps our challenge this Advent season is to listen purposely and carefully to our teacher, change our technique, and then continue to "play" in community with joy and thanksgiving as the path is leveled and our journey continues.

God, make us grateful for your judgment. Open our eyes, our ears, our hearts, and our minds so that we might be instructed and our path made level. Amen.