Advent thoughts – Wednesday of Advent 2

Don’t you just love repackaging? That moment when you are pushing your cart down the supermarket aisle and reach for a familiar product, then notice that the packaging is different. The brand group in some marketing department has tweaked the design. It’s still familiar but the graphics are not quite the ones you remember, the color palette is still the same (don’t want to waste recognizability, after all) but you know it’s different and the package even says: “New package, same great taste!”

So, why change the package? Good question. You have a sneaking suspicion that the dimensions are not what you remember. The box feels the tiniest bit thicker, but is it shorter?

If you have the time and inclination to compare the old and new packages, you may find that what has happened is that where you bought 13.2 ounces last week, you bought 12.9 ounces this week. For the same price as before. Not enough to bother about on your end, but a nice shift in margin for the manufacturer. Or perhaps amid the very noticeable label change you did not notice that the can is thinner, still functional but flimsier than before. Less expensive aluminum, more profits.

It is a small modern example of manipulating the perception of the customer in order to maximize prophet: a very ancient practice.

‘We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’ (Amos 8:5b-6)

Actually, what Amos denounced was more than manipulated perception, it was outright cheating with falsified weights and measures in order to cheat people. And most of the customers were agrarian peasants living on the edge. We will sell a scant measure, we will put our thumb on the scale, we will market inferior product, we will insist on full price. It all accumulates until the poor customer is driven into debt and bankruptcy. And then you really have them at your mercy.

Sound like the American banking system, mortgage brokers, credit card companies? I thought it might.

And God don’t like it one bit.

Turning to the Apocalypse we have the letter to the first of seven churches. Note that at the end of each letter it says “hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” Each letter, though full of details related to specific churches in John’s time, is addressed to all the churches. They still speak to us.

‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.’ (Apocalypse 2:2-4)

Because the text does not then explain what “the love you had at first” means we are left to speculate whether it is our love of Christ or our love of one another. The First Letter of John makes it clear that we really cannot separate the two. So, whether either or both, we have fallen away from love.

How easily we fall from charity. How long does it take you from receiving the Body and Blood of Christ until you make the first gossipy or unkind remark, curse or flip someone off in traffic, or wish evil on someone? Is it measured in days? Hours? Minutes? You don’t need to tell me and I’d rather not tell you, but you can guess because y’all know I’m snarky and am given to less than gentle rants.

The Anglican Communion wrestles with our inability to remain in charity because lines are drawn and folks are refusing to come to table with each other. What is or is not “core doctrine” is in dispute. Differing views on the Bible and its interpretation and application have become chasms not to be bridged instead of differences of perspective.

Jesus seems very insistent and persistent on the issue of love. He’s funny that way.

They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. (Matthew 23:5)

And don’t get me started on the puffed up and proud, especially if they happen to be clergy. A friend recently commented to me that ALL priests are vestment queens, no distinctions being made for gender or orientation. Well, yes, we are human and vain and we love putting on pretty things, even the butchest males among us. It may not be vestments, however, but the tendency to make certain that those present know who is a cardinal rector, whose numbers and pledges have grown, who got published in some Anglican quarterly that none of the rest of us reads, who has the most degrees, and who has the bishop’s ear. We are talking phylacteries a yard wide and fringes that trail behind us for half a league.

Jesus says it’s all crap.

O God, help us all to see what is truly real and what is illusion, to know what truly matters and what is indifferent, and always to show compassion and affection for one another, lest we lose our love, forsake justice, and turn our backs on you. Amen.

I will confess my iniquity and be sorry for my sin.
O LORD, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God.
Make haste to help me, O Lord of my salvation. (Psalm 38:18, 21-22)

--the BB