Advent Devotions

Today’s author is Prince of Peace member Carol Swanson.

Three New Testament texts that I find central to who God is are these:
“God is love.” (I John 4:16b)
“For ‘In [God] we live and move and have our being.’” (Acts17:28a)
“Love is patient; love is kind; …It does not insist on its own way’ …It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (I Corinthians 13:4a–8a)

Marjorie Suchocki writes in her book, In God’s Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer,  

“…that prayer in a universe with a relational God who shares power and freedom with a people [as seen in biblical texts] is quite different from prayer in a universe where God can at will override all persons and situations. It feels riskier to be in a world where our power and freedom are real—there is a wistful preference for a sense that God is waiting in the wings to whomp on all evil, just waiting for the right moment—a right moment somehow always a bit too late for the victims of this world. Perhaps it is a riskier world, after all. But paradoxically enough, it seems to me that there is more hope in a riskier world than in that other.

“So imagine with me the dynamics of relationship between God and the world. Think of it as a dance, whereby in every moment of existence God touches the world with guidance toward its communal good in that time and place, and that just as the world receives energy from God it also returns its own energy to God.” (p 24)

“If the God to whom we pray is a relational God, pervasively present in the universe, what is this praying that opens us to God and gives us to God? What is this praying that changes the way the world is, and therefore changes what God can do with the world? …God works with the world in the context of the world’s own power, its own freedom. God’s creative power works with the world’s creative power—and sometimes against the world’s resistant power. For the world can resist God. It cannot eliminate God, and it cannot change God’s self-chosen character; it cannot defeat the divine faithfulness, and it cannot rid itself of the divine presence. But the world can distort the guidance of God; it can refuse the possibilities given for its transformation. It can reject God moment by moment. Alternatively, the world can open itself to God, becoming a co-laborer with God, exercising its influence in conjunction with God’s greater aim toward deeper modes of human communities of caring. The world can respond to God in love, and know its own love to be a uniquely creative reflection of God’s deeply wooing love. …

“…prayer is God’s invitation to us to be willing partners in the great dance of bringing a world into being that reflects something of God’s character.” (pp28-29)

From Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness, by Nan C. Merrill: Psalm 104:1-13, paraphrased:

Bless the Radiant One, O my soul!
O Heart of my heart, You are so very great!
You are clothed with justice and mercy,
arrayed in Light as your fine attire.
You stretch over the heavens like a tent,
Your Radiance covering the waters;
You shine through the clouds, and
ride on the wings of the wind;

The wind, like the Breath of Life, carries your Word,
Fire refines the dross of our souls.
You set the earth on its foundations,
strong and secure.
You covered it with the deep like a garment,
with many waters that life might come forth.

At your Word, the waters divided,
becoming rivers and lakes and mighty oceans;
storms came to ensure the balance and to renew the earth.
The mountains rose, the valleys became low
in the places that You did appoint.
You brought harmony to all the earth,
That life might spring forth in abundance.

You created springs to flow into the valleys;
they flow between the hill,
Giving drink to every creature of the field,
quenching their thirst as your Living Water quenches ours.
With the air, You have given birds their habitation;
they sing among the branches.
The majesty of Creation is seen throughout the land, 
the sounds of Creation mingle with the music of the spheres.

(These books are in our Prince of Peace library.)