A Leveling for
Wholeness
by the Rev. Ashley
Taylor
Luke 3:1-6
As we reflect on the natural calling to care for and restore the
earth, the gospel’s words about the earth’s terrain particularly catch my
attention. In Luke, John’s proclamation of “a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins” is likened to what the prophet Isaiah imagines as a
dramatic leveling of all barriers for the Messiah’s presence. Unlike the
prophet’s vision of wholeness, when we see valleys being filled, mountains
being made low, crooked ways straight, and rough places smooth, it means that
modern day Herods and Roman Empires have been polluting, extracting,
exploiting, and compromising the earth’s limited resources.
Surely Luke was not calling out bulldozers, dynamite, and atomic
bombs to clear a path for the Messiah. But the prophets of whom Luke tells, and
every event in Jesus’ ministry, cry out for us to thoroughly live in the ways
of justice and faith in God’s design for wholeness.
If the Advent invitation is for us, in this age, how can the
gospel’s imagery spark a transformative moment? How can this season be the time
to “repent,” (to acknowledge the whole truth, experience the impact of the
truth, and allow the transformation God leads), and practice forgiveness in
such a way that our inner landscape appears leveled – and whole?
Prayer: Radiant One, may the mountains be leveled, not by mining
companies stripping the earth, but by your courage in us to remove the obstacle
of greed for more than the earth can sustain.
May “all flesh see your
salvation” – the wholeness that is your great design. Amen.
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The Rev. Ashley Taylor is pastor with the North Highland
Presbyterian Church in Denver, CO. This congregation is re-creating “church” by
becoming a neighborhood center that helps develop local, small businesses,
bartering, urban gardens to feed the city, and spirituality that can help
sustain and inspire varieties of people.
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