Dai­ly Reflec­tion
Decem­ber 18, 2014

In this third week of Advent the read­ings offer many promis­es of future jus­tice that will be pro­vid­ed by God through an earth­ly king that lead up to a the Gospel promise of God’s actu­al pres­ence in our world.  In the Gospel sto­ry, Joseph must decide how to act just­ly in a dif­fi­cult per­son­al sit­u­a­tion.  In that crit­i­cal junc­ture God appears to pro­vide instruc­tions to guide him and to give him con­fi­dence in the path that leads to his deep­er involve­ment in the Emmanuel sto­ry.  The instruc­tions in Joseph’s dream clar­i­fy that the deci­sion of what to do about the dis­cov­ery of Mary’s preg­nan­cy was not just about his life and the life of Mary.  Instead, he was being called to par­tic­i­pate in the ful­fill­ment of the com­ing of the long-promised Cho­sen One for which he and his ances­tors had been pray­ing.  The sto­ry pro­vides a sense that after this con­nec­tion is made, Joseph gets up and steps into this call­ing, trust­ing it as the right thing to do.

In this Advent Sea­son I pray for the grace for us to see the larg­er pic­ture of the com­ing of God’s greater jus­tice in the deci­sions we face.   How might any of the choic­es we face today play into the larg­er Jus­tice project that God promis­es?  Am I see­ing that choice right now as a choice just about me or just about me and a small num­ber of oth­er peo­ple when, in fact, the choice has much broad­er impli­ca­tions for the jus­tice or love that God wants to reveal?  Can we take some time to dream and lis­ten to pos­si­ble instruc­tions from prayer or from dis­cern­ing peers?  Are we will­ing to step into those roles or call­ings when they come?  Are we free­ing our­selves from those things that would pre­vent our­selves from following?

As an elect­ed offi­cial (although noth­ing like a king), I appre­ci­ate the prayer in the Psalm for wis­dom for the king to help him bring about jus­tice.  I am grate­ful that I often feel the pow­er of prayers on my behalf as I face tough deci­sions and debates.  I urge you to pray for lead­ers– not only for the sake of help­ing them to see how to choose just­ly – but also for the sake of see­ing how your prayers and deci­sions fit into a much larg­er pic­ture of bring­ing about the broad­er jus­tice for which we long.