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To worry publicly about the increasing disparities of wealth and income in this country is to invite the charge of fomenting “class warfare.” Nevertheless, consider: Top CEOs earn 1,000 times the pay of an average worker—a ratio that has increased exponentially in the past three decades. Over the past 20 years the income of the top 1 percent of Americans rose 157 percent, that of middle-income families rose 10 percent, and that of people in the bottom fifth fell slightly. Forty-three million Americans, including 30 million in families headed by a worker, lack health care insurance.

The text for our meditation is Luke 3:3-5 (NRSV): “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, . . .” We could add “Mary’s Song,” the Magnificat, from Luke 1:46-55, in which she praises God for having “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.” Advent is the season for leveling and upsetting, for repentance and abasement and for getting a perspective on one’s self.