[1] The church year ends with Christ the King’s eschatological lectionary readings and begins anew with Advent’s eschatological lectionary readings. We are waiting for the end times even as we are preparing to say again, Emmanuel: God is with us here and now.
[2] We celebrate Christmas in the darkest part of the year for the Northern Hemisphere. Jesus was born in a time of metaphorical darkness, a time that must have felt to many like the end of history. The Roman Republic had turned into an Empire with a ruthless dictator. Augustus Caesar claimed to be a Restorer of the Republic even as he replaced Stoic republican values of temperance and reason with a ‘might makes right’ political theory. In the days of the Roman Empire, smog from the smelting of swords hung in the air and lead poisoned the water. Mary and Joseph lived in an occupied territory.
[3] In the dark night, in a stable because there was no room at the inn, God came to dwell with human beings caught in turbulent times. This issue of JLE discusses what vocation, or calling, means in times that are especially difficult. They speak to how we might answer the call of God who comes to us where we are.
[4] The first paper discusses the calling of Isaiah in his own turbulent times. Isaiah experienced a powerful and terrifying God asking him tenderly, “Whom shall I send?” Julie Mavity Maddelena’s homiletic essay reminds us that we are all similarly called to act for justice in an unjust world. We are called with a promise that there will be help from a mighty God and a community that supports us as we are called to support them.
[5] The second paper speaks to the famous aphorism attributed to Luther that when the world is ending one ought to plant a tree. Courtney Wilder’s piece speaks metaphorically and literally of the call to gardening as a path to grow community and loving dialogue in the midst of discordant times.
[6] William G. Fredstrom’s paper speaks particularly to our human vocation in distracted times. He, using Bonhoeffer’s work as a resource, points readers to remember that we are called to care for those who are right here with us right now.
[7] Finally, Stewart Hermann dares to speak of our times as possibly true end times. His discussion confronts how human beings are called to behave even as they might face extinction at their own hands.
[8] Martin Luther claims that good theology names things as they are. These essays look honestly at our current times and offer us scriptural, theological, and ethical ways of discerning where we are each called now and here.
