Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
The spirit of God the Holy One is upon me,
because God has anointed me,
and sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of God’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn.
— Isaiah 61.1-2
This is not political.
God’s agenda is not political; it’s relational.
The promise of Advent is not political; it’s spiritual.
God comes to judge the forces of oppression
without dilution, without caveat
that there are good people on both sides.
God comes to destroy the status quo,
to upend our world and its injustice:
to raise the lowly and bring down the mighty.
This is not political. It’s moral.
It’s about health care, mass incarceration,
racism, sexism, earth care and peace.
It’s about empowering the disenfranchised,
not blaming them. It’s about respect, not abuse.
Lying, abuse and child molestation,
demeaning people, threatening war,
robbing the poor to pay the rich,
the worship of money, sex and power,
these are not political. They are evil.
What some want to do to our government,
to our diplomacy, to common decency,
God wants to do to the structures
of privilege and exclusion. They are God’s target.
This is not politics. It’s salvation.
The gentle sweet good news of Advent is
that mountains and hills will be leveled,
valleys will be filled in,
and rough places straightened out,
and it is unwise to be standing in the way
of God’s bulldozers.
This may involve some elections,
some protests, some laws.
It will involve an altogether new Empire.
But it’s not political.
It’s cosmic.
Open your heart to the little Bethlehem star,
supernova blossoming in us.
And take it to the streets.
—December 12, 2017