Preaching Reflections for Advent

from Dr. Walter Brueggemann

A gift from Global Health Ministries

Global Health Ministries is delighted to offer this four-part series of meditations for Advent, written at our invitation by Old Testament scholar and theologian Dr. Walter Brueggemann.

Dr. Brueggemann’s reflections on neighborliness have particular resonance for GHM, a Lutheran non-profit committed to the conviction that all people, no matter how remote their village, should have access to health and the opportunity to thrive.

Theological reflections that weave together the story of Elisha, the witness of Jesus, and our call as the church
Use as a preaching help or bible study resource
Includes images for worship & social media use

Dr. Brueggemann leads us into the Old Testament Books of Kings, an inspired place to start as we anticipate the coming of the King of Kings. Jesus’ birth points, in Dr. Brueggemann’s words, to “the new world of God’s good governance” - a just world where our eyes are opened to see not scarcity but God’s abundance all around us, and a “neighborly economy” replaces the dominant, top-down economy of Jesus’ time, and ours.

Who is our neighbor? Jesus’ birth in a barn revealed God’s answer to that question.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PREACHING REFLECTIONS FOR ADVENT

A New Set of Advent Disciplines

Each of our Advent disciplines of eyes, neighborly economy, abundance, and voice is readily grounded in the narrative of Elisha:

Elisha had eyes that saw differently;
Elisha practiced a neighborly economy;
Elisha evoked abundance in inexplicable ways; and
Elisha evoked singing for an alternative world.

We are able to see as well that these same accents are generatively active in the life and narrative of Jesus:

Jesus invites and empowers an alternative vision;
Jesus practices neighborly economy as resistance to the normal world of competition;
Jesus readily performs spectacular abundance; and
Jesus evokes bold, emancipatory singing.

And now, in Advent, it becomes the good work of the church to continue to reenact and manifest these ways of making available an alternative world beyond the dominant world of fear, scarcity, and violence.

In its sacramental life, the church can see differently;
In its missional energy, the church can defiantly practice a neighborly economy;
In its love for the world, the church can engage in self-giving abundance; and
The church, whenever it gathers, can sing a world other than the one that is in front of us.

It is astonishing enough to imagine that we, in the church, may continue to manifest the world that Jesus made available. It is even more astonishing to notice that in doing so, we make freshly available the world wrought by Elisha. The church has been entrusted with this remarkable legacy that becomes for us an urgent agenda of good, trust-filled practices.