December 2, 2021
God calls us to God’s presence
An excerpt from Malachi 3:5-7 (NRSV)
For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?”
Reflection from Dennis Fey:
Malachi means “my messenger.” Accordingly, this last of the literary prophets of Israel recalls us to comport ourselves into the at once last and first orientation of our existence, the very disposition of Advent. “How shall we RE-turn?” We can refuse a thing external to us, some object we have foregrounded to our discretion, but can we recuse ourselves from answering the summons that is at the very constitution of ourselves? “For I the Lord do not change; THEREFORE you...have not perished.”Turn again to the Lord, and the Lord, who is always already “for us,” will right us, our eyes, ears, hands, feet, serviceable unto the love of God that first and last joins us to Godself and enjoins us one to another.
For further study and prayer, the readings assigned for today are:
Luke 1:68-79; Malachi 3:5-12; Philippians 1:12-18a
“Hashiveinu” Traditional Israeli folk song,
arr. Michael Ryan, sung by Kathryn Duncan
“Hashivenu Adonai elecha, venashuva
(Turn us back, O Lord, to You, and we will turn.)”