Advent – Page 3 – Salvaged Faith

cut and paste liturgy of JOY!

Posted on December 7, 20101 Comment

I am definately a cut and paste liturgical writer. I don’t have the time and energy most days to do the good hard creative work it takes to listen for God speaking and to craft liturgy. And there are other people out there who do it so much better than I do!

There are a few places that I typically turn for inspiration – the favorite of mine being Thom M. Shuman (TMS). Another favorite haunt is the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Discipleship and the Worship Planning Helps there. I use hymns and turn them into responsive readings. We sing. We pray. We make liturgy happen.

But sometimes, those pieces need to be all woven together. Sometimes a bit of this and a chunk of that speaks to me.

Recently, a colleague Sean McRoberts and I created a communion liturgy using the basic liturgy in the Hymnal, but incorporating the Charles Wesley classic: O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing. And when it came up as a possibility for music this Sunday as we think about the gift of JOY we await at Advent… I had to throw that into the mix, too.

So, here it is… in its fullness. The cut and paste liturgy of JOY!

Prayer of Confession

Ever Present Peace, you came to save us, but that is so hard to remember in this hectic season. Our impatience for Christmas to arrive gets in the way of listening to our children singing in their rooms. We let the blinking lights blind us to your quiet presence in a noisy world. We get so caught up in the stories of violence, we cannot hear your voice reminding us not to be afraid.

As you poured out your mercy on all who have gone before us, shower us with grace and forgiveness. Then, our eyes will be opened to all your wonders, our ears will echo with the anthems of the angels, and our emptiness will be filled with the life gifted to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. (TMS)

Words of Assurance

Dear ones of God, this is the good news: God comes to us to bring the healing of hope, the joy of justice into our hearts.
We need wait no longer. We will go and tell everyone what we have seen and heard! Thanks be to God. Amen. (TMS)

In Christ, your head, you then shall know, shall feel your sins forgiven;

Anticipate your heaven below, and own that love is heaven.

The Great Thanksgiving

The God who is coming to us be with you!
And also with you!
Lift your hearts to the One who turns barren deserts into seas of grace.
We lift them to the Lord!
Beloved of God, let us come to the table with songs of joy on our lips. (TMS, adapted)

O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace!

It is right to give you thanks and praise,
Great God of the Coming Dawn,
for in each new day you surprise the earth with splendor.
Your Spirit moves across the face of the waters and brings forth life.

At the dawn of all things in a garden you worked the earth.

Elbow deep in mud you fashioned us, gifted us, gave us work to do.
Made from the earth, Made by your hand,
We forgot who we were

We forgot who you were

and we tried to remake ourselves.

We rejected your love and fell into sin and death.

Yet even in our darkness you continued to speak light and life.

…And so we come to live on the edge of your new and promised day.

[We come to wait for your Son Jesus Christ our Lord]

[His] coming was announced by wilderness prophets
and [he] arrived to the song of angels
in the choir stall of a manger.
In Jesus you not only took our name but our flesh.
He was the One promised
He announced the new day and the acceptable year
When blind folks would see
And poor folks would rejoice
When captives would be set free
And the oppressed would once more walk upright in liberty.

In stories he spoke of waiting bridesmaids and prodigal sons,
With tears and compassion he brought a dead man to life
and gave a woman at a well the living water she sought.
With anger he overturned tables and challenged the powerful.
On the cross he revealed the power of weakness
and in the emptiness of the tomb
he gave us a glimpse of your tomorrow
that does not end in death. (AJ – see note at bottom)

He speaks, and listening to his voice, new life the dead receive;
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice, the humble poor believe.
He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free;
his blood can make the foulest clean; his blood availed for me.

On the night when he was betrayed
he sat at a table with his friends.
He took bread, blessed it, broke it, served it to them, and said,

“Take this. Eat it. It is my body, given for you. Do this to remember me.”

In the same way he took the cup,
Blessed it, served it to them, and said,
“Drink from this every one of you.

This is my blood poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sin.

Do this to remember me.”

And so we remember.

And so we offer our praise and thanks and our very selves
As a holy and living sacrifice in union with Christ’s offering for us.
[We offer our lives as he remembered that he offered his for our own.] (AJ)

I felt my Lord’s atoning blood close to my soul applied;
Me, me he loved, the Son of God, for me, for me he died!

May the gift of your Spirit, Advent’s Hope and Peace,

be poured out on the simple gifts of the bread and the cup,

and on those who come simply to find healing and hope.

And when we have been fed by your surprising grace
and filled with your peace, may we go forth to the world,
where our weak hands will become calloused by compassion;
where we will bend our feeble knees, reaching down to lift up the fallen;

where we will become fountains of living water for those parched by the wilderness of their lives.

Then, when sorrow and sighing have been chased away from us,

and we gather with all generations around your Table in heaven,

everlasting joy will be our song, and gracious hope will be our refrain,

as we sing to you through all eternity, God in Community, Holy in One. (TMS)

Glory to God, and praise and love be ever, ever given,

By saints below and saints above, the church in earth and heaven.

The Lord’s Prayer

Sharing the Bread and the Cup

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Benediction

Jesus! The name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease;
‘tis music in the sinner’s ears, ‘tis life, and health, and peace.

My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad the honors of thy name.

(AJ – Written by Alex Joyner. Advent Great Thanksgiving – Copyright General Board of Discipleship. www.GBOD.org Used by permission.)

Why we are singing Christmas carols this Advent…

Posted on November 30, 2010Leave a comment

There have been a number of interesting conversations going on around how we keep Advent and Christmas.

Taylor Burton-Edwards has suggested that what we actually experience is something more like Admastime… leaving the “vent” and the “Christ” out of it completely.

In the time that I have known what Advent was… and I have to be honest that it wasn’t really until seminary days that I started keeping Advent… I have been a stickler about waiting. I like the build-up of the moment. I think that the liturgical seasons and the calendar create a sense of movement and energy and emotion that is captured in this quote by Frederick Buechner:

The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton. In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart…The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.— Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark, pp. 2,3

While we are always, and every moment waiting for the coming of Christ… we forget. We forget the longing. We forget the tension. Advent reminds us. It reminds us that time is of the essence. It reminds us to wake up and to be ready. It reminds us that any moment might be the moment.

That is a hard state-of-mind to embody for our whole lives. It sure seems like the Thessalonians tried. They stopped everything to wait for Christ to come, and Paul had to gently remind them that they still had to work and eat and go to school. Life must go on… and yet the waiting is still in the background.

So I relish the minor keys of Advent. I find peace in the longing. I find hope in the reminders that soon and very soon Emmanuel will come. It is such a contrast to everything that skids out of control around us. And then, since I made everyone wait… we have a grand old hymn sing the Sundays after Christmas and into Epiphany.

But this year, I caved. I gave in. We are singing Christmas carols this Advent.

It was something I struggled with… but in the end, this year it felt right.

We are using the “Life-Giving Christmas” materials from the UMC & Rethink Church. And as contrived as “Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love” might be… I think the materials are really helping us to move to a different place this year as a congregation.

Advent for me has two tasks: to prepare us for the birth of Christ (which we celebrate as Christmas) and to prepare us for the second coming of Christ… the end/beginning of it all.

What I have found is that quite a few of our Christmas carols actually do allow us to take both of those things seriously. Sunday, we sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and really focused on the last verse:

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;

cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmauel! (UMH #230)

That longing for the Savior to come is the same today as it was in the days of Mary and Joseph. The child has been born and still we wait. And now that we have used that song in church… now that we have talked about waiting for THE hope of the world… perhaps when the song comes on the radio, or begins playing in the mall… the gears will shift just a little bit, the chaos will be jarred, the spirit will speak, and we will pause to wait.

running low on the compassion reserves

Posted on November 28, 2010Leave a comment

One of the reasons I have been avoiding blogging lately is because I have a lot of things I would love to write about, but I can’t.

A couple are topics and discussions that are confidential on a professional level. Some are just things that hit too close to home for myself and I’m not willing/able to take that leap of faith and just put out there for all to read what is close to my heart. They are things I need to deal with in person before I am able to properly reflect upon them. Or maybe I really do just need to take that leap, get over the fear, and put it in writing. Leave it out there and maybe that will give me the courage to have the harder face to face conversations I have been putting off.

What I am able to talk about is the touchy subject of financial outreach.

Everyone I talk to has their own take on how to best provide real financial resources to folks in need and in the past few weeks I have whittled the differences down to three categories:

1) Contributions to a community fund that pastors then refer folks to. This method is very connectional, allows for a sharing of resources, and takes the burden off of any one congregation or pastor… especially if they are not the ones actually managing the funds.

2) Congregational “Love Funds.” This money is held by a particular congregation, folks make donations to it and disbursement is at the discretion of the pastor.

3) Connections to outside agencies and networks of support. This takes a lot of legwork and knowledge by the pastor to have these contacts built up in the first place when the need arises.

4) Personal time/energy/money. Every now and then there is someone who needs a tank of gas or a meal and when we can and are able – pastors are extremely generous folks. As a colleague wrote me: what is needed and is it within my capacity to meet that need? I know of a lot of folks who go above and beyond and their mental health, energy and family suffer for it… your capacity is a lot different than your wallet.

These past two months, I am realizing how small the tanks actually are when it comes to financial assisance in our area.

I recently became the treasurer for our county ministerial fund and as soon as the cold weather hit, our funds went out faster than they could replenish themselves. We are at the point now where we can only provide assistance when we recieve a new donation, and the need really is great out there.

Our local community fund has resources, but we have limitations on how those resources can be used. Time and energy need to go into revamping our guidelines and extending our reach… yet at the same time, as soon as we do so, I know that they will be used and gone. Used for good of course, but used all the same.

My congregational fund is not yet a separate and distinct account from the rest of our finances… I am not entirely sure how previous pastors handled the situation, but since I have been there I have budgeted for a set discretionary assistance amount. I think we exceeded the amount budgeted halfway through the year and asked for a bit more to be set aside… but even if we had ten times the amount of money, we would still have folks we would need to turn away.

I reached the point recently where I almost cashed in my paycheck and gave half of it to someone who really needed it… I’m young, I have a roof over my head, I thought… but I also have a marriage to think of, and my own bills to pay (higher now that our own heat is turned on), and setting myself behind isn’t going to help anyone in the long run.

I felt so guilty that we couldn’t do more as a church or as a community. I felt personally guilty. I didn’t want to call and say no.

I think I was feeling convicted by the idea from James that if you say you will pray for someone who is hungry but don’t give them any food, then you aren’t doing anything for them.

But I think I reached a place this past week where I realized that we already were giving so much. Even if it wasn’t the money needed to pay the bills, we were giving of our time. We were praying. We were listening. We were connecting. We were building relationships. We were doing what we could with what we had. And even extending ourselves beyond those points. We were sharing the love of Christ with folks as much as we could.

Money isn’t everything. Sometimes it feels like that, but its not.

This Sunday, we lit the first candle on the advent wreath as a reminder that the hope of the world is Christ and Christ alone. Not a bank account. Not a fundraiser. Not a paid bill. But Christ.

And things out there are tough – all around they are tough. People are hurting because of broken relationships and they are struggling because of a lack of work and lack of funds. They are angry with systems that fail them and they are disappointed in the outcome of their work. And we sit and wallow in this muck and in the words of Rob Bell: yell at the darkness for being dark.

Sunday – we preached texts that told us to wake up. To stop lingering in the dark and to look towards the light. To remember that our salvation does not lie in these things. To live in the light of Christ right now. To be a community. To walk together. To live right now as if Christ had come again.

And when we do that… we have the strength to answer the phone call when the next creditor calls. We have the peace in our hearts that enables us to hold the hand of a loved one and tell them goodbye one last time. We can let go of the guilt and simply love the best we can, right here and right now.

Hope… that next year things will be different

Posted on November 28, 2010Leave a comment

Keep awake! Get ready! Prepare yourselves!

These are the words that fly at us from the scriptures on this first Sunday of Advent.

But get ready for what?

Light? Dawn? The son of Man?

Yes. Yes. And Yes.

Get ready for the hope of the world…

Will you pray with me? (adapted from Thom Shuman)

Lord of all:
you are as close to us as the breath in our lungs:
helping us to treat everyone with honor and respect;
healing us with serenity in these days of stress;
taking us by the hand to walk us home to the kingdom.
teach us all we need to know,
if we will but open our hearts, and listen to yours.
Help us to quit working the night shift in sin’s sweat shops,
but to dance in the Light of Advent joy.

How many of you have ever had a bad day? What about a bad week? Or a whole year?

Life is downright tough sometimes. It is unfair. It is cruel. We finally find the job we have been searching for, and then our spouse gets laid off. A misunderstanding destroys a friendship. Natural disasters wipe homes off the map. Children go hungry. And sometimes in the midst of all of the problems that we face in this world… the trials and the tribulations… it feels like God turns his back towards us.

And so, sometimes, in our frustrating times… in the days that seem without hope… we turn our backs on God.

We look for salvation in every place but the right place.

We look for things that will make us feel better – we self medicate with drugs and shopping sprees.

We turn towards the darkness and yell at it for being so dark.

And we continue to feel alone, and empty, and lost.

Have you ever been there? Yelling at the darkness? Do you know how much energy it takes to fight with something like “darkness”?

When I think back on the tough times that I have been through in my life… and as I have listened to folks share their own stories… the thing that finally got them out of the rut, out of that dark place, was that they woke up.

Whether or not the situation changed, they woke up. They started living their lives differently. They took stock of what was really important. They stopped being mad at the dark and started trying to let their own light shine.

It seems contrite to say that there are two ways of looking at world – either as a glass half-full or a glass half-empty… but maybe it really is as simple as that.

Either the world is a place of darkness or it is a place where the light of God dwells…

Either God has abandoned us or God is working out a plan of salvation.

Either Christ’s work is done or soon and very soon the Son of Man is coming…

Can you hear the difference in those statements?

Are we going to live as a people of the light?

Or are we going to let the dark overcome us?

That is our choice.

That is why the prophets and the apostles cry out – Keep Awake! Get Ready! Prepare Yourselves!

Stop living in the darkness, they keep saying: Let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Let us put on Christ, let us trim our lamps, lets get ready!

Sounds great… but how?

First to live in the light of hope, we need to stop living in the darkness. We need to let go off everything that bogs us down and drains us. In the words of the apostle Paul: we can’t afford to waste a minute, we must not squander these precious hours of daylight in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed!

I want you to take a minute and think about one thing that you can do differently this Advent season as you prepare for Christmas. What something that you can do that will renew your hope and your faith… instead of depleting your energy and your bank account? Maybe instead of spending all day on Saturday shopping for the perfect present, you will take some time next Saturday morning to have coffee and devotions with someone you have not spent time with lately… Whatever it is – Talk for a moment with someone near you about something you can do to “Wake Up!” this season.

Second: We have to remember that living in hope isn’t something that we have to do alone.

We all know Pollyannas and Susy Sunshines in our lives… people who are perpetually happy and optimistic. And sometimes their hopefulness is a little annoying because it doesn’t seem real, it doesn’t seem possible.

I’m not asking you to go out and look at all of the bad things in the world and pretend that they aren’t there.

Instead, to live in hope, means that we surround ourselves with people who can help us find a way out of the darkness.

When folks have a tough time, one of the first places they turn is the church. And that is because we are known for our love and our generosity. We are known for our compassion. We are known for being a people who let our light shine.

So when you are having a tough time – when you are having a hard time finding hope – then turn to those people around you who can hope for you. I know that we are a bunch of proud, do-it-yourself, hardworking midwesterners… but sometimes you need to be able to say, I need help. What better place to turn when you have no where else to go than to the people of hope?

And when you are able – you can in turn be hope for others.

We don’t do this very often, but this morning, I want to pass around our special offering basket.

There are a number of people in our community who need an extra bit of help right now. They need to see a sign of hope that next year can and will be different.

A number of our community funds are low and it is hard to give everyone the kind of assistance they need. But you can help. You can remind others that they are not alone this Christmas. You can be hope for someone through your giving right now, right here.

Lastly, to live in hope, we need to keep God at the center of it all. We need to keep the word and the path in front of us. When we take the time to seek the light of the world– then no darkness that comes will ever be able to put that light out.

I want to invite our children to come back up here and to bring their papers.

We talked about hope and transformation earlier and I asked them to help me out this morning. So they took these white sheets of paper and colored on them with white crayons.

And we wrote HOPE on these pages, didn’t we. We drew things that brought us hope.

We put the HOPE of Christ first… we put God first… so let’s see what happens when dark and cloudy and stormy times come.

(painted the white pages with white crayon with dark water based paint)

*gasp* what happened?

All of that hope keeps shining through, doesn’t it! All of the stuff that we thought was hidden and hard to see is there! And none of this darkness can take that away, can it?

Hope is sometimes hard to see. It is sometimes hard to imagine what a difference it can make in our lives. But I know that it has made a difference in my life… and I want to share with you the story of a young woman in Africa who lives in hope.

Quiet Christmas Morning

Posted on December 25, 2009Leave a comment

This has been a really difficult Advent and Christmas season for me. It is the time of light and hope and joy and peace, but I’m not quite there yet.

I want to be there. I long for the coming of true light and true hope-filled promises and true joy and true peace. I guess I did much better in the Advent time of waiting and preparation than I am on this Christmas morning. It’s quiet here, except for the wind rushing through the trees. And it seems a little lonely and sad. But for some reason, that suits how my spirit is. I am immensely grateful that I’m not surrounded at this moment by the chaos of presents being opened and sqeals of joy. That doesn’t exactly fit with my picture of the first Christmas anyways.

No, on that first Christmas… that first time that we celebrated the birth of this holy child… the first time God was worshipped in human form… was (to translate a little)… was in a dirty barn. At least that’s how the story goes in Luke. And it was just Mary and Joseph and the sheep and goats and cattle and birds in the rafters. It probably smelled like shit… not evergreen.

In the middle of the night, some shepherds rushed in. They came from the fields and were dusty – but hey they fit right in. And they walked in with their lanterns and sat down and told their story. I imagine Mary and Joseph were terrified at first and though they were about to be robbed…. and then were amazed… and comforted that they weren’t crazy… that God really did have a purpose for this special child.

And then the shepherds left. And it was quiet again. Just Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child…. and the sheep and goats and cattle.

We don’t hear about angels visiting the holy family that first night. We don’t hear about any other guests. The wisemen probably didn’t appear until a year or two later. It was on this night that the star appeared and they first started their quest.

No, it was quiet, and dark, and probably cold and still. Worship was a story of glorious revelation and quiet adoration of an infant. Maybe some bread was shared. And when morning came – when the hustle and bustle of the world began again and that village woke up… I bet no one had any idea what had taken place.

Mary and Joseph started over in Bethlehem… found a place to stay… and after some time had passed and the child started crawling and then teetering around some crazy dudes from the east showed up…. but that’s a story for another day.

My prayers are with all of you who are busy and chaotic this morning. My prayers are with all of you who are alone for the first time in many years. My prayers are with you who are always alone on this morning. May we each find peace and joy and hope and love and light in some quiet corner of this morning. And may we remember that first Christmas.

Praying for Peace

Posted on December 20, 2009Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking a lot about peace lately.

I’ve been praying a lot FOR peace lately.

While this isn’t a family that is facing conflict – many of you know that there is conflict in my family. I am wrestling with the distractions that it brings and must admit that there are days it is all I think about. I wish that there could be some kind of reconciliation or forgiveness between family members, but at the same time I deal with my own hurts and betrayals and wonder if I can forgive. My desire for my grace and healing and yet my holding of grudges and pain are incompatible. They war within me. And all I can do right now is pray for peace.

And then there is another struggle between war and peace that is a reality for us all.

A couple of weeks ago, our president spoke before the nation and an audience at West Point to announce a surge in military personnel in Afghanistan. This on the heels of being named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

The two are in so many ways incompatible. From his acceptance speech in Oslo, Obama himself stated:

Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

Some in this congregation have relatives who are serving our country right now in other nations. Others of you have friends and neighbors that they have said goodbye to far too many times. Many of you have lived through wars and have the memories of sacrifice and bloodshed ingrained deep within your souls.

The reflections of Steve Goodier have been very helpful to me this week and he includes the letter of a man who was serving on a ship anchored in Tokyo Bay in September 1945. Navy chief radioman Walter G. Germann was writing to his son to tell him that the formal surrender of Japan would soon be signed. “When you get a little older you may think war to be a great adventure take it from me, its the most horrible thing ever done by (humans),” he wrote. “Ill be home this Christmas…”

That man knew – as so many of you do – that peace is hard to come by. And even though he would be coming home for Christmas to a world at peace – he wasn’t at all sure if the ends justified the means. He, like many who serve our nation, probably came home broken on the inside – at war with himself as he tried to justify his actions in battle and the horrors he had seen.

I think of the letter of that man, who saw the day of peace dimming brightly in his future, and then I think of the faces of all of the young men and women who were in the audience for President Obama’s speech at West Point – men and women for whom the future is cloudy.

There is not one among us who doesn’t long for peace. And we are unsure whether what we are doing as a nation will get us there. We pray it will. We hope that peace and stability will come quickly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We want our sons and daughters and sisters and brothers and fathers and mothers and neighbors to come home. We watch another Christmas come and go without peace.

As Eleanor Roosevelt wrote at Christmas in 1942, “I could no more say to you a Merry Christmas without feeling a catch in my throat than I could fly to the moon!” We look around us at families with a loved one missing and we recognize that as long as there is war – there will not be peace.

This week, I read from Luke’s gospel the story of Mary going to greet her cousin. I was amazed with how Elizabeth recognized that the child in her cousin’s womb was the longing of all Israel. She was absolutely overjoyed…. and in her joy and in Mary’s song they recognized that the promise from Micah – the promise of the one of peace – was being fulfilled.

Our hearts in contrast… are jaded and worn and disappointed.

The strange counterpoint of the Nobel Peace Prize and our current wars that tells us we cannot look for peace to come from any national leader.

There was no triumphant singing after Obama’s West Point speech… and while there may have been music in Oslo at the Nobel ceremonies, Obama’s own speech tempered any bit of joy and celebration. It has been a sobering reminder that they are not our saviors and that true peace only comes through Christ. No matter the obeisance paid to our president, he is not the one we are waiting for. He, nor any other leader within our world, is not our savior. He is not the Prince of Peace.

No, We are waiting for another.

The prophet Micah describes this one in this way:

And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace. (Micah 5:4-5)

Mary and Elizabeth and the child in Elizabeth’s womb cannot contain their joy as they encounter this promise of God – yet unborn. They have been longing and waiting and hoping for so long.

As Elizabeth greets and praises her cousin, she exclaims: Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.

Blessed is she who not only believed in a miraculous birth… but blessed is she who believes that this child is the fulfillment of what God has promised.

Blessed are we who hope and pray and wait and believe in what God has promised.

I know that it is hard to do. We live in a world of cynicism and violence, a world of confusion and hatred.

And yet, we come together as people of faith and we light the fourth candle on the advent wreath because we dare to believe that the Prince of Peace will reign.

We dare to hope that there will be day when nation will not rise up against nation.

We dare to wait for the day when the powerful are brought down from their thrones and the lowly are lifted up.

Steve Goodier, also tells the story of a monument in Hiroshimas Peace Park. This particular monument is in memory of a young girl who died from radiation-induced lukemia after the dropping of the bomb. After hearing a legend that a person who makes 1000 cranes will have their wish granted, she tried to fold 1000 paper cranes. As Steve tells it, “with each crane she wished that she would recover from her illness. She folded 644 cranes before she left this life.” The monument in memory of this young girl named Sadako reads: This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world.

Now as much as ever, our cry is for peace in the world.

That might be peace in Afghanistan, or peace between you and your neighbors. It might be peace among loved ones, or peace between you and your inner thoughts.
In this season of Advent, we stand in the face of war and suffering and distress and we look for the coming of peace. We stand like Elizabeth, pregnant with hope, that God’s promises are real.
The reality that we long for this and every Advent – The miracle that we wait for this and every Christmas – is that we might wake up one morning and run outside to discover that God is with us – Emmanuel – and that the Prince of Peace rules the earth.

the one we are waiting for

Posted on December 14, 2009Leave a comment

The two are in so many ways incompatible. From his speech, Obama himself stated:

Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

Some in my congregation have relatives who are serving our country. Others have friends that they have said goodbye to far too many times. Many in my congregation have lived through wars and have the memories of sacrifice and bloodshed ingrained deep within their souls.

There is not one among us who doesn’t long for peace. And we are unsure if what we are doing as a nation will get us there. We pray it will. We hope that peace and stability will come quickly. We want our sons and daughters and sisters and brothers and fathers and mothers and neighbors to come home.

But I think what the counterpoint of the Nobel Peace Prize and our current wars tells us is that we should not look for peace from a national leader. No matter the obesience paid to our president, he is not the one we are waiting for. He, nor any other leader within our world today, is our savior. He is not the Prince of Peace.

We are waiting for another.

The prophet Micah describes him in this way:

And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace. (Micah 5:4-5)

Mary and Elizabeth and the child in Elizabeth’s womb cannot contain their joy as they encounter this promise of God – yet unborn. They have been longing and waiting and hoping for so long.

As Elizabeth greets and praises her cousin, she exclaims: Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.

Blessed is she who not only believed in a miraculous birth… but blessed is she who believes that this child is the fulfillment of what God has promised. Blessed are we who hope and pray and wait and believe in what God has promised.

In a world of cynicism and violence, a world of confusion and hatred, we still dare to believe that the Prince of Peace will reign. We dare to hope that nation will not rise up against nation. We dare to wait for the day when the powerful are brought down from their thrones and the lowly are lifted up.

Steve Goodier tells the story of a monument in Hiroshimas Peace Park. It is in memory of a young girl who died from radiation-induced lukemia after the dropping of the bomb and who tried to fold 1000 paper cranes before her death. The monument reads: This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world.

Now as much as ever, our cry is for peace in the world. And in this season of Advent, we stand in the face of war and suffering and we look for the coming of peace. We accept nothing short of peace. And we firmly believe that one is coming that will make our prayers a reality.

calls for justice in the midst of advent joy

Posted on December 8, 2009Leave a comment

This coming Sunday we will light the third candle on the Advent wreath – the candle for JOY.

We hear in the midst of this call to rejoice, however, a very startling message. John the baptist calls out to the crowds: You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. (Luke 3:7-8).

He tells people to share their coats and their food, to not take advantage of others, to be satisfied with their wages.

In many ways, that is the spirit of the season that we find ourselves in. At Christmas we collect canned goods for the local food pantry, collect coats and mittens for children who need them, we remember the blessings of this year, we look out for our neighbors. We take on a whole new attitude toward life in the month of December…

If only it would last. Before the holiday lights on the town square are taken back down, our hearts begin to grumble. Our spirits of generosity are suddenly overwhelmed by the credit card bills that come in the mail. It seems impossible to sustain that good will towards all into the new year.

But that is exactly what John the Baptist is calling for – Repent, believe the Good News – you can live differently. You can bear fruit that lasts. You can be changed.

I know I’m on a Susan Werner kick lately – only because I recently discovered her and I can’t put down the album. One song in particular has just absolutely stuck with me. It’s called “Help Somebody.”

When I hear this song, absolute joy floods my heart. It helps me to realize just how much I have been blessed. I have plenty. I have a roof over my head. I have supper on the table. I have a sense of God’s salvation working in my life. And if I have it to give – I should…. JOYFULLY.

There are a lot of places in the world where some have too much and others have not enough. We are having a huge debate over health care nationally for exactly that reason. I think all (most) of us would agree that everyone should have affordable access to care. We just don’t agree on how that happens. But if we let this song and John’s call fill our ears and eyes and hearts then the question that comes to my mind is how can I help others get what I have.

It’s not a question of whether they deserve it or not. Perhaps it’s not even a question as to whether it is right. It’s a question as to whether we want to give. It’s actually a question of joy… what kind of joy and peace and wholeness can I create in the life of another person? What kind of joy can I create in my own life through giving a little bit extra?

We could apply this same formula to anything. It’s not about what we can get, but what we can give. It’s about the joy that comes through recieving the good news of God and then not hoarding it, but changing our lives and giving it freely away. It’s the spark of life that we have to pass on.

We are going to be looking at the “Enough” stewardship/money series in January – and I think that this song is going to be our theme for the whole thing. I’m looking forward to the ways that our congregation finds joy in the good things that we have – enough joy to take responsibility for how we use our resources and enough joy that we overflow from that abundance and help others in our community and in the world.