|
WUMFSA Devotionals for Advent to Epiphany, 2003 - 2004 Wednesday, December 3 Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the earth. Luke 21: 34-35 Guard against despair! Don't let your hearts get weighed down with the worries of this life. But that isn't easy. You are alarmed, discouraged and diminished by events in the world around you. Can you be anything other than depressed? For some it's a good excuse for "dissipation and drunkenness." The world is going to hell in a hand basket; I might as well go along. Who cares? Why bother? Let's get drunk lest the world be too much with us. That's easy! A beautiful scene in "Fiddler on the Roof" has Tevye slowly pushing a cart across the stage and singing, "Little bird, little Chavala, I don't understand what's happening today; everything is all a blur." Behind Tevye the audience sees a dance pantomime in which each of three daughters breaks a marriage tradition. The first daughter abandons the tradition of the matchmaker, the second marries without his permission, the third is about to marry outside the faith. This is too much. Tevye sings his remembrance of Chava in remorse and then puts her out of his mind and life by declaring, "Chava is dead to me!" Underneath the song was a four-note pattern used earlier by Tevye when he repeatedly asked his wife Golde, "Do you love me?" Now that same question is there, but unvoiced in a persistently haunting accompaniment. Tevye does not let that question surface in his despair over Chava. He declares her "dead" and kills off a precious part of his life. When your world is coming apart, when the sky is falling, dare you let the love song surface? Who cares? Despair brings with it a loss of concern. Why bother? Depression makes it hard to get out of bed. But remember, you're not being singled out. "That day will come to all who live on the face of the earth." To paraphrase another Gospel verse, "the sky falls on the just and unjust alike." That's the way the world is. How do we choose to live in it? Today's passage advises us to be on guard, lest we fall into dissipation, drunkenness and despair! Be watchful and listen. Try to hear the question that repeatedly underlies our worries about the world. It's the question the world keeps asking us, "Do you love me?" The risen Christ asked that question and a
puzzled Peter replied, "Of course." So Jesus said to
him, "Don't despair, do something! Show some concern. Care
and bother a lot." Or words to that effect. In the Gospel
story what Jesus said was, "Feed my sheep," and we
are left to figure it out. |