{"id":6208,"date":"2014-11-29T18:39:25","date_gmt":"2014-11-29T23:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/?p=6208"},"modified":"2014-11-29T18:39:25","modified_gmt":"2014-11-29T23:39:25","slug":"voices-in-the-wilderness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/voices-in-the-wilderness\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices in the Wilderness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Advent<\/a> It is in rugged rises,<\/em><\/p>\n

in unweariable endurance,<\/em><\/p>\n

and in aims which put sympathy out of question,<\/em><\/p>\n

that the angel is shown.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2014 Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/p>\n

Advent cries out in two voices \u2013 a duet of harks<\/em> and clamorings<\/em>:\u00a0 the first voice is always John\u2019s, the Forerunner, the Voice crying in the wilderness; the second is the Angel Gabriel\u2019s, who looses Mary\u2019s long recitatif, her Magnificat, <\/em>singing out in grace notes the angel has proclaimed as her great virtue, the same truth that John trumpets in the wilderness.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that Advent is not chronological, not a biography. \u00a0Advent is not a lens focusing on a manger in Bethlehem.\u00a0 The readings leap backward through the prophets and forward into the time of John, when Jesus\u2019 is an adult.\u00a0 Advent, then, bids us to widen the lens of our perspective, to look at Christmas not as a moment in time but as a great arc of holiness, bending around the ages like an embracing arm; a defending arm; a strong arm; a sheltering arm.\"Advent<\/a><\/p>\n

In the tradition of God\u2019s people holy events are heralded by voices arising from the darkness, from times in which the people are lost in a wilderness, when even the law has become corrupted.\u00a0 John and Mary name the corruptions of Advent, crying out for a new spirit, proclaiming the one who is coming.<\/em>\u00a0 They are always heralding \u2013 always calling out that a new spirit and a new time is coming.\u00a0 So we do not go back to Bethlehem, but forward, for Bethlehem is to be found in a new and unknown time.<\/p>\n

But the conventional understanding, especially for Protestants, has been to focus our attention on the one moment of old, and to call it a once-and-for-all moment.\u00a0 We behold, then we move away. Both of these understandings have been at work among us in our cultural approaches to Michael Brown\u2019s death in Ferguson, Missouri.<\/p>\n

White Americans have, for the most part, used their conventional lens to look at this death as a single incident, in which the central issue has been whether the white police officer was illicit in his behavior or not, and the answer to this, for many, determined whether Michael Brown\u2019s death was an event worthy of public decrying in the spirit of John the Baptist as a watershed moment in moral history, or a personal tragedy but not a public corruption.<\/p>\n

\"REplace<\/a>Black Americans have seen Michael\u2019s death as part of a larger pattern of violence in which young black men in America are caught, a pattern that has not changed since the days of Jim Crow.\u00a0 And so the issue for them has not been focused on \u2018what did Officer Wilson do and why did he do it\u2019<\/em>,\u00a0 but \u2018why does this event keep on recurring and how do we change this pattern?<\/em>\u2019\u00a0 Lots of evidence, including data, analysis of recent legislative enactments, and analysis of police purchasing of military-style weapons, has been put forward.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here is just a little of the data, first from ProPublica and then from the Justice Department:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police. \u00a0<\/em>One way of appreciating that stark disparity, ProPublica\u2019s analysis shows, is to calculate how many more whites over those three years would have had to have been killed for them to have been at equal risk. The number is jarring \u2013 185, more than one per week.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. The Justice Department\u2019s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports\u00a0that between 2003 and 2009 there were more than 2,900\u00a0arrest-related deaths<\/span>\u00a0involving law enforcement. That\u2019s about 420 deaths a year. \u00a0Black people were about four times as likely to die in custody or while being arrested than whites.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \"John<\/a>For Black Americans, Michael Brown\u2019s death is a prophetic moment in Advent time \u2013 a time, that is, in which we all need to bend our spirits to beseeching prayers for a new justice, a new history, to be born.<\/p>\n

      John the Baptist cried out about sin and repentance, but he also named some names.\u00a0 We know he was executed for naming as corrupt, \u00a0the Herods, a puppet monarchy set up by the Roman Prefecture.\u00a0 In particular, John railed against the succession of the present King Herod to his brother\u2019s throne, through a convenient marriage to his brother\u2019s widow, soon after his brother\u2019s sudden death, which many suspected was from poison.<\/p>\n

      \"Replace<\/a>The Roman historian assigned to Israel, Josephus, records staggeringly large crowds going out to hear John, as many as 50,000. \u00a0Herod deemed such crowds a threat, and sent guards to seize John and put him in prison.\u00a0 Jesus was part of the throng who went to hear John, and John hailed Jesus as the man of the hour.\u00a0 The Spirit that came upon Jesus in the Jordan, when John\u2019s hand poured water upon him, resonated with John\u2019s discerning spirit.<\/p>\n

      In the church year Advent is always four weeks long, no more, no less.\u00a0 But the wilderness and the unknown are never predictable. \u00a0As Jesus said, neither the day nor the hour are known<\/em>. \u00a0 Jesus promises, the days are coming . . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

      \u00a0<\/p>\n

      It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction;<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

      This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly.<\/p>\n

      It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world;<\/em><\/p>\n

      This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo I am with you, even until the end of the world.<\/em>\u2013Daniel Berrigan, from Advent Credo<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

      ___________________________________________________<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

      Illustrations:<\/p>\n

      1. \u00a0Archangel. \u00a0Arturo Cosme, \u00a0National Gallery of Art, D.C. \u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/p>\n

      2. \u00a0John the Baptist baptizing Christ.<\/strong> <\/em>\u00a0Armenian Illuminated Manuscript, 1268. \u00a0Google Images. Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/p>\n

      4. \u00a0Poster, I Don\u2019t Have a Gun, Stop Shooting.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Ferguson, Missouri. \u00a0Google Images.<\/p>\n

      5. \u00a0Martyrdom and Death of John the Baptist, \u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Choirstall screen carving. 1508. Cathedrale dAmiens, France. Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/p>\n

      6. \u00a0<\/strong>John the Baptist, \u00a0Russian Icon.<\/strong><\/em> Google Images<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      It is in rugged rises, in unweariable endurance, and in aims which put sympathy out of question, that the angel is shown. \u00a0\u2014 Ralph Waldo Emerson Advent cries out in two voices \u2013 a duet of harks and clamorings:\u00a0 the first voice is always John\u2019s, the Forerunner, the Voice crying in the wilderness; the second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2483,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bites"],"yoast_head":"\nVoices in the Wilderness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It is in rugged rises, in unweariable endurance, and in aims which put sympathy out of question, that the angel is shown. \u00a0-- Ralph Waldo Emerson Advent\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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