Redirect Our Longing?
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For December 19, 2021:
Redirect Our Longing?
by Tom Willadsen
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55), Micah 5:2-5a, Psalm 80:1-7
And woe is me, I am so homesick
But it ain't that bad
Cause I'm homesick for the home I never had
(“Homesick,” by David Pirner, recorded by Soul Asylum, 1992 from the album, “Grave Dancers Union.”)
As we’re facing a second holiday season (whoop-de-do and dickory dock) under the shadow of Covid-19, we find ourselves longing, still, for a return to the life we were living ante-pandemic. We’re nostalgic for a time when we weren’t paying attention; those were the good old days (cf. Carly Simon’s “Anticipation”) but we didn’t know it. We’ve been longing for a long time; 18 months ago our sprint became a marathon. Time didn’t wait for us, it kept on flowing. (Yes, Boston (the rock band) paraphrased, sorry.) But what if we’ve been wrong about our long longing for a long time? What if the new era that will emerge when we’re out from under Covid-19 is better than we imagined? What if the home we return to is a place we’ve never been before? (Yes, John Denver, sorry, again.)
Sometimes God has something in mind that’s better than we can imagine, but maybe we can try.
In the Scriptures
For the most part the readings today are in poetry, perhaps one should think of them as lyrics to songs. As songs are more than their words, it is wise to consider the mood and setting of these songs. Were they sung in times of joy or fear and despair? That’s not a rhetorical question: the Luke reading overflows with joy, while the readings from Micah and Psalm 80 are from more perilous, fearful times.
Look a little deeper at the text from Micah; add v. 1 to the reading. This is more than a fortune-telling proof text for Jesus’ native city. This word came in a moment when Jerusalem was under siege. The Temple was not the fortress and confirmation of God’s continued favor, what Jeremiah called “The Big Lie” (Jer. 7:4). The mighty were going down, but little Bethlehem would be the source of deliverance and salvation anyway. “From small things, Mama, big things one day come,” Okay, those are the words of Bruce Springsteen, as recorded by Dave Edmunds, but that’s the basic idea; don’t expect the big city to be the place where God works salvation and turns our expectations upside down. It’ll be in a small town.
“Restore us,” is Psalm 80’s refrain. It’s a song of communal lament. There are two images for the Lord in the psalm. In verses 1-7 the Lord is a shepherd, but not an especially good one. This shepherd feeds the flock tears. This is a far cry from the good shepherd of John 10 or the one with the green pastures and still waters of Psalm 23. The second image is one who tends vineyards, again the divine vineyard keeper is napping and the vineyard is falling apart. “Turn to us,” the people are crying out. “Tend us as a good shepherd and attentive vineyard keeper!” “Restore us!” they cry. “Bring us back, shape up, and bring us back!”
While the joy expressed by cousins Elizabeth and Mary is central to the reading, don’t forget that the Lord is behind the joy. In fact, it might be wise to look a little farther back, to the moment when Zechariah was confronted by the angel in the holy of holies. The Lord has been at work in powerful, profoundly disruptive ways throughout this story. Elizabeth was thought to be barren; Mary immediately spotted the difficulty in the plan that Gabriel conveyed to her, pregnancy wasn’t possible for a virgin. The Spirit came through, dramatically, for both women.
Pay special attention to Mary’s words. She is amazed and filled with joy that the Lord has lifted up one as humble as she. Mary also declares that the Lord brings down the mighty and powerful. These reversals are important. They foreshadow the Sermons on the Mount and Plain. They echo the call of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:10) “to pluck up and pull down…to build and to plant.” The Lord’s coming into the world means that old things have to pass away, be brought down, destroyed.
In the News
"We will not return to a pre-Covid-19 world. We won't go to the office the way we used to, we won't eat in restaurants the way we used to, we won't travel the way we used to, we won't have the comforting sense of national health and well-being that we didn't appreciate before and now yearn for." David Shribman, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Way back in March of 2020, when America shut down because of Covid-19, no one thought it would still be shaping our lives 20 months later. We figured we’d hunker down for four weeks or so, then everything would be back to normal. Shutting down was simple, dramatic and, in a way, elegant. We imagined that returning would be as straightforward. Now we know it’s too late for that. Even the phrase “new normal” has lost its resonance. Today’s third graders have no lived experience of education not being warped by Covid-19. Most of their teachers do, but what kind of cohort will appear in fourth grade next fall? Educators are facing an unprecedented and previously unimaginable challenge.
Mainline churches are in a similar situation. Even when Covid restrictions are lifted, many of our members are staying home. Some prefer the ease of watching livestreamed worship on the couch, or at a time that is more convenient than Sunday morning. Some of our members are still very fearful of catching the virus. We are finding that some of our members are comfortable jumping right into the pool, but many are sitting on the side, dipping one toe at a time into pools that used to feel as safe as their backyards.
In the Sermon
What if our congregations have been dreaming dreams that are too small? What if the return to life pre-Covid is not God’s plan for us? Suppose the Lord were to borrow a phrase from President Biden and build back better.
The pandemic has showed us how complacent most of us have been and made us aware of things we took for granted. The pandemic also exposed enormous chasms in our society between the haves and have-nots; between “essential” workers and well, is there a term for the opposite of essential worker? Unessential, superfluous, white-collar, overpaid?; between people of color and white people. We have been confronted with the underside of a system that most of us experienced as acceptable.
Could we redirect our longing? Not to status quo ante-pandemic, but to something better, fairer, less wasteful and more contemplative? Maybe God has been at work through the disruption of the pandemic, forcing us to live more intentionally, humanely, generously and kindly. Could it be — and I challenge you to imagine that it will be — that the home we long to return to is a place we’ve never been to before. The Lord who lifts up the lowly, brings down the mighty and starts the revolution not in Jerusalem, but Bethlehem, is behind something better. “Behold, I am doing a New Thing — don’t you get it?” (Isaiah 43:19 updated and improved.)
SECOND THOUGHTS
Just Like It Was…Only Better
by Dean Feldmeyer
Psalm 80:1-7, Luke 1:46b-55
Paul Tillich, taking about the experience of grace, said that, “After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed.” (Sermon: You are Accepted.)
Nothing is changed.
Everything is transformed.
You walk into a dark room and turn on the light. The room isn’t changed. But it’s transformed. You see it clearly. The ottoman is still shoved out into the middle of the room. The empty popcorn bowl is still sitting on the coffee table next to the soda glass with ice cube remnants floating in the bottom. The stray Lego block is still there on the carpet awaiting your unshod foot. The pillows on the couch are still in disarray and the dust on the end table is still, well, dusty.
But now you see it. You see the room as it really is.
And you realize that despite the flaws, despite the messiness, you love it. That’s how grace works.
Log Cabin Restored…Kinda
About 20 years ago my sister and her husband bought a small, 80-acre old farm in Kentucky. The log home had been built in 1872 and recent, modern owners had tried to remodel it. They covered the logs with sheetrock. They removed the shake shingle roof and replaced it with asphalt shingles. They installed all new electric wiring and baseboard, electric heating units. And they built a kitchen onto the back of the house and sided it with vinyl lap siding.
Lisa (my sister) and DJ decided that all that remodeling was a mistake and set out to restore the log home, instead. They decided to return it to its original state or as nearly so as possible. They called it, “just like it was, originally, only better.”
Lisa called her four brothers, of whom I am one, and we set about removing the sheetrock and the electric baseboard heaters. We left the add-on kitchen but sided it with barnwood. We hand dug a basement under the house and had a gas furnace and water heater installed. We emptied the cistern and cleaned and disinfected it. They had the chimneys cleaned and, in a couple of places, tuck pointed, and the fireplaces cleaned and tested for safety.
Finally, they decided to re-chink the logs but discovered that it was impossible to get or make the original kind of clay that was used for that. They did discover, however, that there is a modern kind of chinking clay that weathers even better than the original.
We tore off the asphalt shingles and, because the building and fire codes wouldn’t allow wooden, shake shingles, we installed a tin roof.
When the outside of the building was all but complete, they sealed the whole thing to preserve it.
Where furnishings were concerned, it would have been impractical if not impossible to use 200-year-old furniture so they furnished the home with furniture and décor that they felt honored its history.
So, did they remodel or restore the house? Lisa and DJ say they transformed it.
It’s still the basic, historic home that it was when they purchased it, complete with the names of the original builders and the date it was completed carved into one of the logs in a wall of the living room. It’s pretty much just like it was, originally…only better.
Building Years
Sports teams often speak of going through a “building year.” Sometimes this is just a euphemism for losing a lot. But often, it’s a sincere expression of a necessary phase that many teams go through. The seniors have all graduated or gone on to the pros, the veterans have retired or been hired away by other teams. Rookies and/or freshmen makeup the present team and it’s going to take time to teach and train them up to be the team that used to be.
This “building year” effort is an attempt to both restore and improve the team. The coach/manager wants the current team to be as successful or more so than the former team. They want the winning record restored to the team and the fans. And they want the new team to be just as good as the old one…only better.
The team isn’t going to be remodeled. That would be absurd. There will still be 9 players on a baseball team, 11 on a football team, 5 on a basketball team, etc. The playing positions will be relatively unchanged and there are only so many strategies these various teams can employ.
Neither is the team going to be restored. The old players are gone, never to return. The style of play may have changed, like when the jump shot replaced the set shot in basketball, or when quarterbacks started receiving the hike from the “shotgun” alignment or when the instant replay challenge was introduced.
Nothing remodeled, nothing restored. None of the important stuff is changed, but everything will be transformed. We will all see and experience the game differently, maybe even better.
The Play’s the Thing
This kind of transformation is not limited to homes and sports.
A few years ago, I played the part of Friar Lawrence in a production of Romeo and Juliet that was set as a play within a play, all taking place in a modern inner-city neighborhood. Members of the audience said that it changed the way they thought about Shakespeare’s classic. Indeed, Steven Spielberg’s new movie adaptation of West Side Story is expected to do the same for both the musical and the play on which it is based.
I once saw a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that was set in a Latin American country during a military coup. It was ground breaking and fascinating.
The bard’s language was not changed, nor was the plot changed even a little bit, but the whole play was transformed.
The classic, Academy Award winning John Wayne film, True Grit, was remade a few of years ago with Jeff Bridges in the Rooster Cogburn role originally played by John Wayne in the original. Bridges’s performance wasn’t an improvement over Wayne’s but it did transform how we saw the character and the film, which was closer to the novel it was based on.
Is this not, in fact, the whole point of music and theater performances? Every play we see, every movie we watch, every concert we attend is an effort by the artists to re-imagine, re-interpret, and transform the original material for this new audience. The goal is always to honor the original by making it just like it was…only better.
God’s Transforming Grace
Both the psalm and the gospel lessons for this day point to this transforming work of God through grace. In Mary’s aria, which we have come to call “The Magnificat,” she praises God for God’s work that, even now, is underway to not just remodel or restore the covenant relationship with Israel, but to transform it, to make it as it was…only better.
The psalmist makes the same point. The poet asks for God to “restore us,” but to what? Why, to what we were before the Babylonian exile…only better. Closer to God, closer to each other, more thankful, more dependent, more nurturing, more loving, kinder, gentler…better.
Now, as we approach the day of the arrival of the Anointed One, this is our constant prayer. That God will prepare us for his arrival not by remodeling us or even restoring us, but by transforming us. By making us anew…only better.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
Micah 5:2-5a
Dwelling secure
Micah foretells of a shepherd whose rule over Israel will be marked by the abundance of food and security. Those who have caused destruction and terror to reign will be supplanted by the one “whose origin is from of old,” who will ensure all live in peace.
For many, including millions of children in the United States, the vision of dwelling in peace and having abundant food remains elusive.
According to the Children’s Defense Fund, one in six children live in poverty in the United States, making them the poorest age group in the country. In addition, about 14.5% of adults reported in February 2021 that their children were not getting enough to eat — more than five times the pre-pandemic rate.
According to Confronting Poverty, the United States has “far and away the highest rates of poverty in the developed world.” The group notes:
Poverty has often been understood by the US public as something that happens to others. Yet by looking across the adult life span, we can see that poverty touches a clear majority of the population. For most Americans, it would appear that the question is not if they will encounter poverty, but rather, when, which entails a fundamental shift in the perception and meaning of poverty. Assuming that most individuals would rather avoid this experience, it is in their self-interest to ensure that society acts to reduce poverty and that a safety net is in place to soften the blow.
* * *
Psalm 80:1-7
Restore us, O God of hosts
Determining the full extent of devastation caused by the wide-spread tornadoes that hit the South and Midwest December 11 will take weeks, officials say. Kentucky has confirmed the deaths of 74 persons, and more than 109 persons missing. Restoration from the storms, some of which had winds in excess of 111 miles per hour, will take months — if not years.
Some of those who had been fed with the “bread of tears” gathered for worship the following day in Mayfield, Kentucky. Members of the First Presbyterian Church and First Christian Church of Mayfield, both of whose sanctuaries were destroyed, held a joint worship service in a parking lot. The Rev. Milton West, pastor of the Christian Church, told those gathered that “God has a calling for us, and we will see where it takes us.”
“We grieve, we cry and we hug and we pull ourselves together and go to the next step of trying to recover and rethink where we want to be as a church, but our people have stayed strong during all of this," West said.
Soon after the storm ended on Saturday, First Christian Church posted a photograph of its communion table on Facebook. The caption read, “The table of the Lord is intact.”
* * *
Luke 1:39-45
Filling the hungry with good things
There are more than 60,000 food pantries and 200 food banks across the United States dedicated to alleviating hunger. Between March and November 2020, these pantries provided the equivalent of 4.2 billion meals.
Dedicated volunteers are often on the front lines of hunger. For example, every day in Marion, Ohio, an 88-year old grandmother makes sure the hungry of her community receive something to eat. Pat Baldinger, a retired elementary school teacher, has been the coordinator of her church’s hunger ministry for more than 20 years. During the holidays, Baldinger says she takes extra steps to make sure families have the food they need — and sometimes even slips a few extra items into their bags. “I think the holidays can be very stressful. It’s great to be able to take a little of that stress away for people,” she said.
Other aspects of solving food insecurity include transporting persons to pantries, assisting families in enrolling for federal and state assistance, job training and education programs. There are also apps for smartphones that help food pantry clients learn how to use unfamiliar fruits and vegetables.
Afterall, not everyone has a grandmother around to remind them to eat their veggies!
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:
Luke 1:39-55
The Future
As Mary speaks to Elizabeth, she offers a prophetic vision of the future, designed by God. God plans dramatic reversals for the poor and the hungry, for the powerful and the wealthy. No one but God, and God’s prophets, could imagine such a dramatically different future. The rest of us are terrible at predicting the future. We need to draw on God’s vision.
Social scientists report that we typically believe that we’ve changed a lot in the past ten years, and also that the next ten years will be just like the present. Writer Neil Pasricha sums it up. “It turned out that no matter how old the respondents were, they uniformly believed that they had changed a ton in the past but would change little in the future. Imagine a 30-year-old guy telling the tempestuous story of his last 10 years but figuring his next 10 years would be smooth sailing. Imagine a 50-year-old woman talking about how everything had flip-flopped after she turned 40 but then assuming that at 60, she’d be the same person she was now. That was the case for everybody regardless of age, gender or personality. We all do it.” We need the visionaries who bring us God’s larger, wider, more compelling vision of the future.
Pasricha adds, “This research reminded me of an HR job I had where I had to escort bosses into meeting rooms whenever they had to fire an employee. I was there for paperwork, for witnessing, for emotional support. I was in the room when dozens of people got fired, and it was awful. There were tears and wet tissues and many afternoons when I’d be consoling someone in a freezing parking lot as they loaded up their trunk with framed pictures from their desk saying “I thought I’d be here forever” and “What am I going to do now?” and “I’ll never find another job.” Those scenes left me heartbroken. I lost a lot of sleep over them. Sometimes I’d bump into the former employees years later. And what did they tell me? “Getting fired was the best thing that happened to me! If I hadn’t gotten that severance package, I never would have had those crucial six months to spend with my dad before he died.” Or: “I traveled to Peru and became a nutritional supplement importer, and I love what I’m doing now!” Or: “I’m working at a smaller company now, and I’ve gotten promoted twice in two years!” Or: “I used my severance pay to take the time to be with my daughter and son-in-law in the months after her third miscarriage.” Why did every fired employee tell me this? Why did they all react so positively after some time had passed? How can that happen? Because we confuse the challenge of picturing change with the improbability of change itself.”
We can’t predict even our own futures. God gives us this vision of reversals, of hungry people fed and the haughty brought low, because we could never imagine it for ourselves. Mary speaks it into being for God, and for all of us.
* * *
Luke 1:39-55
Listening
After God’s messenger upends her life, Mary heads out to see her older cousin, and Elizabeth apparently has exactly the right approach. She greets Mary warmly, and then just listens as Mary gives voice to her understanding of God’s plans for the world.
In her book Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, Nedra Glover Tawwab observes that we could all learn from Elizabeth’s example with Mary. “Telling people what to do with their lives doesn’t allow them to work through their own issues.” She says the best question to ask someone is “Do you want empathy or a strategy right now?” She recently asked people if they wanted advice or listening when they’re struggling. “More than 70 percent of the 4,000 people who answered said, “B: Listening.” It seems that most of us just want to be heard.” Elizabeth has it down.
* * *
Luke 1:39-55
God Will Take Care of Us
Even in her own upheaval, Mary finds her trust in God not shaken, but deepened. We don’t hear her worry about her parents, or Joseph, or what the future will hold. Instead, we hear this song of faith and praise. The late preacher and writer Howard Thurman told a story about his mother, and the faith she had, similar to Mary’s.
Thurman wrote [in Jesus and the Disinherited] "When I was a very small boy, Halley’s comet visited our solar system. For a long time I did not see the giant in the sky because I was not permitted to remain up after sundown. My chums had seen it and had told me perfectly amazing things about it. Also I had heard of what were called “comet pills.” The theory was that if the pills were taken according to directions, then when the tail of the comet struck the earth one would not be consumed. One night I was awakened by my mother, who told me to dress quickly and come with her out into the backyard to see the comet. I shall never forget it if I live forever. My mother stood with me, her hand resting on my shoulder, while I, in utter, speechless awe, beheld the great spectacle with its fan of light spreading across the heavens. The silence was like that of absolute motion. Finally, after what seemed to me an interminable time interval, I found my speech. With bated breath I said, “What will happen to us if that comet falls out of the sky?” My mother’s silence was so long that I looked from the comet to her face, and there I beheld something in her countenance that I had seen only once before, when I came into her room and found her in prayer. When she spoke, she said, “Nothing will happen to us, Howard; God will take care of us.” O simplehearted mother of mine, in one glorious moment you put your heart on the ultimate affirmation of the human spirit!”
Thurman added, “Many things have I seen since that night. Times without number I have learned that life is hard, as hard as crucible steel; but as the years have unfolded, the majestic power of my mother’s glowing words has come back again and again, beating out its rhythmic chant in my own spirit. Here are the faith and the awareness that overcome fear and transform it into the power to strive, to achieve, and not to yield."
Mary brings us the same deep lesson of faith.
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:
Micah 5:2-5a
Restoration
When First Presbyterian Church in Arkansas burned down in 1993 it was tragic. The old building was struck by lightning and despite the lightening rod, the entire building burned to the ground. An old funeral home with the tragic past of the suicide of its former owner, the only thing it could have ever become was a church. Being only ten, I never did learn the whole story, but I knew we were sad. We were devastated that not only had the chapel burned down, but also the newly built fellowship hall. I remember everyone running in and out to try to salvage the hymnals and Bibles, a ruination of water and smoke. I also remember the memorial service on the marble porch — practically the only thing left standing of the building. We, the kids, took pieces of the ash and drew crosses and pictures of ourselves on the marble during the service remembering the building. My family was about to move away and we were at a loss of what to do next.
I remembered all the grownups talked in hushed, serious tones during this time. How would we restore this building? It would cost more to tear it down and rebuild it than to start over somewhere else. Then, a miracle. Someone was willing to donate new land, and another miracle, the insurance money would actually allow us to build a flat building, much more accessible for those of us who needed better entryways. The church had been growing (this was part of why we built the fellowship hall) and in the now burned down church we were never going to be able to build a bigger chapel space. The fire was actually an opportunity to build what we needed. Turns out we were not going to restore, we were going to renew and grow. What a miracle. My family did move, but the church rebuilt and continued to grow. It still thrives today.
* * *
Psalm 80:17
Restoration is Revelation
It’s amazing how often restoration is about revelation. When one goes about trying to restore something, it’s an art and a science. You have to go and see how things were originally put together and then replicate it as best one can. There is an uncovering. But there is also a recreating of what should have been there in the first place. Is that not what God is doing? Here is a great article of the restoration of a Vermeer that uncovers not only the beauty of the colors but an entire cupid in a window, a symbol of love, that is not only beautiful but also changes the entire meaning of the painting. How beautiful. Is it not love that we often discover has been lurking in our window all along when we look to restore things with God? How do we participate in God’s work of restoration?
* * *
Luke 1:39:45
Fill Us Up
Advent is an empty time, a hunger for all the things that we need. The promise in Luke for good things is visceral. I don’t know if I were God if I would think to make billions of good tasting things to eat. Who does that? Who makes this variety for us to try and enjoy? The fulfillment of God’s word is given to a woman and that good news is first shared with another woman. The funny thing is not only did Mary know (as in “Mary Did You Know”) but Elizabeth knew, too — immediately. How strong was the power of Jesus that even in vitro the power of the word was recognizable? How empowering it must have it felt to know that God’s word was being fulfilled in such a way that even Elizabeth could recognize it? And what did she tell her son John the Baptist? How did she teach him? Did that surge lead her to dedicate him to the Essenes as so many believed him to be? What meaning did that maternal visit make? We know one thing for sure. It was definitely fulfilling.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Advent Wreath Lighting
(This uses the psalm/canticle for the day and incorporates the collect for the day. The divisions make it easy to use multiple readers.)
Luke 1:46b-55
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel v. 1
(Light candle during singing.)
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
Let us pray:
O God who feeds your people like a flock:
Grant us the faith to believe that you are coming among us
to fulfill your plan for the redemption of all creation. Amen.
Call to Worship:
One: Let our souls magnify the Lord.
All: Let our spirit rejoice in God our Savior.
One: God’s mercy is from generation to generation.
All: God has shown strength with the arm.
One: God has brought down the powerful from their thrones.
All: God has filled the hungry with good things.
OR
One: God comes to us in the midst of our troubled lives.
All: Restore us, O God, and make us whole.
One: Our God desires to restore us and much more.
All: What does God have in mind for us?
One: God sees us and all creation redeemed and saved.
All: We welcome our redeeming God into our lives.
Hymns and Songs:
Toda la Tierra (All Earth Is Waiting)
UMH: 210
NCH: 121
ELW: 266
W&P: 163
I Want to Walk As a Child of the Light
UMH: 206
H82: 409
ELW: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
UMH: 196
H82: 66
PH: 1/2
NCH: 122
LBW: 30
ELW: 254
W&P: 153
AMEC: 103
Hail to the Lord’s Anointed
UMH: 203
H82: 616
AAHH: 187
NCH: 104
CH: 140
LBW: 87
ELW: 311
AMEC: 107
Renew: 101
O Come, All Ye Faithful
UMH: 234
H82: 83
PH: 41/42
AAHH: 199
NNBH: 93
NCH: 135
CH: 148
LBW: 45
ELW: 283
W&P: 182
AMEC: 106
STLT: 253
O Morning Star; How Fair and Bright
UMH: 247
PH: 69
NCH: 158
CH: 105
LBW: 76
ELW: 308
W&P: 230
Love Came Down at Christmas
UMH: 242
H82: 84
NCH: 165
W&P: 210
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
UMH: 240
H82: 87
PH: 31/32
AAHH: 217
NNBH: 81
NCH: 144
CH: 150
LBW: 60
ELW: 270
W&P: 185
AMEC: 115
My Soul Gives Glory to My God
UMH: 198
CH: 130
ELW: 882
Tell Out, My Soul
UMH: 200
H82: 437/438
W&P: 41
Renew: 130
Cares Chorus
CCB: 53
Our God Reigns
CCB: 33
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who feeds your people like a flock:
Grant us the faith to believe that you are coming among us
to fulfill your plan for the redemption of all creation;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you supply our needs like a shepherd feeds the flock. You come among us and bring redemption for all you have created. Help us to trust in your salvation and to share the good news with others. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our attachment to the old ways ignoring the new things God is doing among us.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are mired in the past. We look at the way things were and we long to return to them. We are like the Israelites in the wilderness longing for the flesh pots of Egypt instead of anticipating the promised land. We forget the wonders that God has promised for us. Forgive us and restore our vision that we might look with hope to the new future you have for us. Amen.
One: God is always longing to do something new and wondrous for us and in us. Receive God’s grace and join in the new world God is opening up for us.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God, creator and re-creator of all. You seek to bring us and all creation to our ultimate fullness.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are mired in the past. We look at the way things were and we long to return to them. We are like the Israelites in the wilderness longing for the flesh pots of Egypt instead of anticipating the promised land. We forget the wonders that God has promised for us. Forgive us and restore our vision that we might look with hope to the new future you have for us.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you bless us and seek for our good. You come to bring us wholeness and healing in the midst of our chaotic lives. You come among us as a poor, little infant to be one with us and to lead us back to yourself.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for those who have lost all sense of hope or of wonder in the midst of their suffering. We pray for the poor and needy; the sick and dying; the grieving and despairing. We pray for all who are waiting for the great tidings of good news.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Love Is Love Is Love
by Quantisha Mason-Doll
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
Props for service: If possible a child-friendly infographic noting the 4 kinds of love (according to the Greeks: agape, philia, eros, storge).
Today is the Fourth Sunday of Advent! Can anyone tell me what the theme is for this week? (If possible ask for children’s thoughts.) This week is all about how God’s love interacts with the world. You know the feeling of love is one of the greatest gifts God has given creation. This is because love can take many different forms and helps us to connect to each other. (Introduce the four kinds of love — feel free to omit eros — it does not factor into this story.)
Our story today models three acts of Love. The first of which is agape or God’s love for all of creation. We see this when Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit at the sight of Mary! This causes the baby she is carrying to leap with joy! In return, she praises God (our attempt at agape.)
The second is when Elizabeth praises the sacrifice Mary is making for the betterment of the world. This is a kind of philia or a devoted love that unites all of us together!
The final is Mary’s response to all that she has seen. This comes in the form of her Magnificat. (Depending on the age group there might have to be further explanation of what the Magnificat is / the importance of it as a song of praise.)
Her song is a song of love of storge or familial love. Mary deeply loves the world and is grateful for the privilege to be the mother of God.
Prayer
Loving God, help us to see all the love in the world.
Guide us as we wait for the baby Jesus to be born.
We pray this in your son’s name.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 19, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Redirect Our Longing? by Tom Willadsen — The Lord who lifts up the lowly, brings down the mighty and starts the revolution not in Jerusalem, but Bethlehem, is behind something better.
- Second Thoughts: Just Like It Was…Only Better by Dean Feldmeyer — Unlike HGTV, God isn’t about remodeling or restoring; God’s about transformation.
- Sermon illustrations by Chris Keating, Mary Austin.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: Love is Love is Love by Quantisha Mason-Doll.
Redirect Our Longing?by Tom Willadsen
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55), Micah 5:2-5a, Psalm 80:1-7
And woe is me, I am so homesick
But it ain't that bad
Cause I'm homesick for the home I never had
(“Homesick,” by David Pirner, recorded by Soul Asylum, 1992 from the album, “Grave Dancers Union.”)
As we’re facing a second holiday season (whoop-de-do and dickory dock) under the shadow of Covid-19, we find ourselves longing, still, for a return to the life we were living ante-pandemic. We’re nostalgic for a time when we weren’t paying attention; those were the good old days (cf. Carly Simon’s “Anticipation”) but we didn’t know it. We’ve been longing for a long time; 18 months ago our sprint became a marathon. Time didn’t wait for us, it kept on flowing. (Yes, Boston (the rock band) paraphrased, sorry.) But what if we’ve been wrong about our long longing for a long time? What if the new era that will emerge when we’re out from under Covid-19 is better than we imagined? What if the home we return to is a place we’ve never been before? (Yes, John Denver, sorry, again.)
Sometimes God has something in mind that’s better than we can imagine, but maybe we can try.
In the Scriptures
For the most part the readings today are in poetry, perhaps one should think of them as lyrics to songs. As songs are more than their words, it is wise to consider the mood and setting of these songs. Were they sung in times of joy or fear and despair? That’s not a rhetorical question: the Luke reading overflows with joy, while the readings from Micah and Psalm 80 are from more perilous, fearful times.
Look a little deeper at the text from Micah; add v. 1 to the reading. This is more than a fortune-telling proof text for Jesus’ native city. This word came in a moment when Jerusalem was under siege. The Temple was not the fortress and confirmation of God’s continued favor, what Jeremiah called “The Big Lie” (Jer. 7:4). The mighty were going down, but little Bethlehem would be the source of deliverance and salvation anyway. “From small things, Mama, big things one day come,” Okay, those are the words of Bruce Springsteen, as recorded by Dave Edmunds, but that’s the basic idea; don’t expect the big city to be the place where God works salvation and turns our expectations upside down. It’ll be in a small town.
“Restore us,” is Psalm 80’s refrain. It’s a song of communal lament. There are two images for the Lord in the psalm. In verses 1-7 the Lord is a shepherd, but not an especially good one. This shepherd feeds the flock tears. This is a far cry from the good shepherd of John 10 or the one with the green pastures and still waters of Psalm 23. The second image is one who tends vineyards, again the divine vineyard keeper is napping and the vineyard is falling apart. “Turn to us,” the people are crying out. “Tend us as a good shepherd and attentive vineyard keeper!” “Restore us!” they cry. “Bring us back, shape up, and bring us back!”
While the joy expressed by cousins Elizabeth and Mary is central to the reading, don’t forget that the Lord is behind the joy. In fact, it might be wise to look a little farther back, to the moment when Zechariah was confronted by the angel in the holy of holies. The Lord has been at work in powerful, profoundly disruptive ways throughout this story. Elizabeth was thought to be barren; Mary immediately spotted the difficulty in the plan that Gabriel conveyed to her, pregnancy wasn’t possible for a virgin. The Spirit came through, dramatically, for both women.
Pay special attention to Mary’s words. She is amazed and filled with joy that the Lord has lifted up one as humble as she. Mary also declares that the Lord brings down the mighty and powerful. These reversals are important. They foreshadow the Sermons on the Mount and Plain. They echo the call of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:10) “to pluck up and pull down…to build and to plant.” The Lord’s coming into the world means that old things have to pass away, be brought down, destroyed.
In the News
"We will not return to a pre-Covid-19 world. We won't go to the office the way we used to, we won't eat in restaurants the way we used to, we won't travel the way we used to, we won't have the comforting sense of national health and well-being that we didn't appreciate before and now yearn for." David Shribman, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Way back in March of 2020, when America shut down because of Covid-19, no one thought it would still be shaping our lives 20 months later. We figured we’d hunker down for four weeks or so, then everything would be back to normal. Shutting down was simple, dramatic and, in a way, elegant. We imagined that returning would be as straightforward. Now we know it’s too late for that. Even the phrase “new normal” has lost its resonance. Today’s third graders have no lived experience of education not being warped by Covid-19. Most of their teachers do, but what kind of cohort will appear in fourth grade next fall? Educators are facing an unprecedented and previously unimaginable challenge.
Mainline churches are in a similar situation. Even when Covid restrictions are lifted, many of our members are staying home. Some prefer the ease of watching livestreamed worship on the couch, or at a time that is more convenient than Sunday morning. Some of our members are still very fearful of catching the virus. We are finding that some of our members are comfortable jumping right into the pool, but many are sitting on the side, dipping one toe at a time into pools that used to feel as safe as their backyards.
In the Sermon
What if our congregations have been dreaming dreams that are too small? What if the return to life pre-Covid is not God’s plan for us? Suppose the Lord were to borrow a phrase from President Biden and build back better.
The pandemic has showed us how complacent most of us have been and made us aware of things we took for granted. The pandemic also exposed enormous chasms in our society between the haves and have-nots; between “essential” workers and well, is there a term for the opposite of essential worker? Unessential, superfluous, white-collar, overpaid?; between people of color and white people. We have been confronted with the underside of a system that most of us experienced as acceptable.
Could we redirect our longing? Not to status quo ante-pandemic, but to something better, fairer, less wasteful and more contemplative? Maybe God has been at work through the disruption of the pandemic, forcing us to live more intentionally, humanely, generously and kindly. Could it be — and I challenge you to imagine that it will be — that the home we long to return to is a place we’ve never been to before. The Lord who lifts up the lowly, brings down the mighty and starts the revolution not in Jerusalem, but Bethlehem, is behind something better. “Behold, I am doing a New Thing — don’t you get it?” (Isaiah 43:19 updated and improved.)
SECOND THOUGHTSJust Like It Was…Only Better
by Dean Feldmeyer
Psalm 80:1-7, Luke 1:46b-55
Paul Tillich, taking about the experience of grace, said that, “After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed.” (Sermon: You are Accepted.)
Nothing is changed.
Everything is transformed.
You walk into a dark room and turn on the light. The room isn’t changed. But it’s transformed. You see it clearly. The ottoman is still shoved out into the middle of the room. The empty popcorn bowl is still sitting on the coffee table next to the soda glass with ice cube remnants floating in the bottom. The stray Lego block is still there on the carpet awaiting your unshod foot. The pillows on the couch are still in disarray and the dust on the end table is still, well, dusty.
But now you see it. You see the room as it really is.
And you realize that despite the flaws, despite the messiness, you love it. That’s how grace works.
Log Cabin Restored…Kinda
About 20 years ago my sister and her husband bought a small, 80-acre old farm in Kentucky. The log home had been built in 1872 and recent, modern owners had tried to remodel it. They covered the logs with sheetrock. They removed the shake shingle roof and replaced it with asphalt shingles. They installed all new electric wiring and baseboard, electric heating units. And they built a kitchen onto the back of the house and sided it with vinyl lap siding.
Lisa (my sister) and DJ decided that all that remodeling was a mistake and set out to restore the log home, instead. They decided to return it to its original state or as nearly so as possible. They called it, “just like it was, originally, only better.”
Lisa called her four brothers, of whom I am one, and we set about removing the sheetrock and the electric baseboard heaters. We left the add-on kitchen but sided it with barnwood. We hand dug a basement under the house and had a gas furnace and water heater installed. We emptied the cistern and cleaned and disinfected it. They had the chimneys cleaned and, in a couple of places, tuck pointed, and the fireplaces cleaned and tested for safety.
Finally, they decided to re-chink the logs but discovered that it was impossible to get or make the original kind of clay that was used for that. They did discover, however, that there is a modern kind of chinking clay that weathers even better than the original.
We tore off the asphalt shingles and, because the building and fire codes wouldn’t allow wooden, shake shingles, we installed a tin roof.
When the outside of the building was all but complete, they sealed the whole thing to preserve it.
Where furnishings were concerned, it would have been impractical if not impossible to use 200-year-old furniture so they furnished the home with furniture and décor that they felt honored its history.
So, did they remodel or restore the house? Lisa and DJ say they transformed it.
It’s still the basic, historic home that it was when they purchased it, complete with the names of the original builders and the date it was completed carved into one of the logs in a wall of the living room. It’s pretty much just like it was, originally…only better.
Building Years
Sports teams often speak of going through a “building year.” Sometimes this is just a euphemism for losing a lot. But often, it’s a sincere expression of a necessary phase that many teams go through. The seniors have all graduated or gone on to the pros, the veterans have retired or been hired away by other teams. Rookies and/or freshmen makeup the present team and it’s going to take time to teach and train them up to be the team that used to be.
This “building year” effort is an attempt to both restore and improve the team. The coach/manager wants the current team to be as successful or more so than the former team. They want the winning record restored to the team and the fans. And they want the new team to be just as good as the old one…only better.
The team isn’t going to be remodeled. That would be absurd. There will still be 9 players on a baseball team, 11 on a football team, 5 on a basketball team, etc. The playing positions will be relatively unchanged and there are only so many strategies these various teams can employ.
Neither is the team going to be restored. The old players are gone, never to return. The style of play may have changed, like when the jump shot replaced the set shot in basketball, or when quarterbacks started receiving the hike from the “shotgun” alignment or when the instant replay challenge was introduced.
Nothing remodeled, nothing restored. None of the important stuff is changed, but everything will be transformed. We will all see and experience the game differently, maybe even better.
The Play’s the Thing
This kind of transformation is not limited to homes and sports.
A few years ago, I played the part of Friar Lawrence in a production of Romeo and Juliet that was set as a play within a play, all taking place in a modern inner-city neighborhood. Members of the audience said that it changed the way they thought about Shakespeare’s classic. Indeed, Steven Spielberg’s new movie adaptation of West Side Story is expected to do the same for both the musical and the play on which it is based.
I once saw a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that was set in a Latin American country during a military coup. It was ground breaking and fascinating.
The bard’s language was not changed, nor was the plot changed even a little bit, but the whole play was transformed.
The classic, Academy Award winning John Wayne film, True Grit, was remade a few of years ago with Jeff Bridges in the Rooster Cogburn role originally played by John Wayne in the original. Bridges’s performance wasn’t an improvement over Wayne’s but it did transform how we saw the character and the film, which was closer to the novel it was based on.
Is this not, in fact, the whole point of music and theater performances? Every play we see, every movie we watch, every concert we attend is an effort by the artists to re-imagine, re-interpret, and transform the original material for this new audience. The goal is always to honor the original by making it just like it was…only better.
God’s Transforming Grace
Both the psalm and the gospel lessons for this day point to this transforming work of God through grace. In Mary’s aria, which we have come to call “The Magnificat,” she praises God for God’s work that, even now, is underway to not just remodel or restore the covenant relationship with Israel, but to transform it, to make it as it was…only better.
The psalmist makes the same point. The poet asks for God to “restore us,” but to what? Why, to what we were before the Babylonian exile…only better. Closer to God, closer to each other, more thankful, more dependent, more nurturing, more loving, kinder, gentler…better.
Now, as we approach the day of the arrival of the Anointed One, this is our constant prayer. That God will prepare us for his arrival not by remodeling us or even restoring us, but by transforming us. By making us anew…only better.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:Micah 5:2-5a
Dwelling secure
Micah foretells of a shepherd whose rule over Israel will be marked by the abundance of food and security. Those who have caused destruction and terror to reign will be supplanted by the one “whose origin is from of old,” who will ensure all live in peace.
For many, including millions of children in the United States, the vision of dwelling in peace and having abundant food remains elusive.
According to the Children’s Defense Fund, one in six children live in poverty in the United States, making them the poorest age group in the country. In addition, about 14.5% of adults reported in February 2021 that their children were not getting enough to eat — more than five times the pre-pandemic rate.
According to Confronting Poverty, the United States has “far and away the highest rates of poverty in the developed world.” The group notes:
Poverty has often been understood by the US public as something that happens to others. Yet by looking across the adult life span, we can see that poverty touches a clear majority of the population. For most Americans, it would appear that the question is not if they will encounter poverty, but rather, when, which entails a fundamental shift in the perception and meaning of poverty. Assuming that most individuals would rather avoid this experience, it is in their self-interest to ensure that society acts to reduce poverty and that a safety net is in place to soften the blow.
* * *
Psalm 80:1-7
Restore us, O God of hosts
Determining the full extent of devastation caused by the wide-spread tornadoes that hit the South and Midwest December 11 will take weeks, officials say. Kentucky has confirmed the deaths of 74 persons, and more than 109 persons missing. Restoration from the storms, some of which had winds in excess of 111 miles per hour, will take months — if not years.
Some of those who had been fed with the “bread of tears” gathered for worship the following day in Mayfield, Kentucky. Members of the First Presbyterian Church and First Christian Church of Mayfield, both of whose sanctuaries were destroyed, held a joint worship service in a parking lot. The Rev. Milton West, pastor of the Christian Church, told those gathered that “God has a calling for us, and we will see where it takes us.”
“We grieve, we cry and we hug and we pull ourselves together and go to the next step of trying to recover and rethink where we want to be as a church, but our people have stayed strong during all of this," West said.
Soon after the storm ended on Saturday, First Christian Church posted a photograph of its communion table on Facebook. The caption read, “The table of the Lord is intact.”
* * *
Luke 1:39-45
Filling the hungry with good things
There are more than 60,000 food pantries and 200 food banks across the United States dedicated to alleviating hunger. Between March and November 2020, these pantries provided the equivalent of 4.2 billion meals.
Dedicated volunteers are often on the front lines of hunger. For example, every day in Marion, Ohio, an 88-year old grandmother makes sure the hungry of her community receive something to eat. Pat Baldinger, a retired elementary school teacher, has been the coordinator of her church’s hunger ministry for more than 20 years. During the holidays, Baldinger says she takes extra steps to make sure families have the food they need — and sometimes even slips a few extra items into their bags. “I think the holidays can be very stressful. It’s great to be able to take a little of that stress away for people,” she said.
Other aspects of solving food insecurity include transporting persons to pantries, assisting families in enrolling for federal and state assistance, job training and education programs. There are also apps for smartphones that help food pantry clients learn how to use unfamiliar fruits and vegetables.
Afterall, not everyone has a grandmother around to remind them to eat their veggies!
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:Luke 1:39-55
The Future
As Mary speaks to Elizabeth, she offers a prophetic vision of the future, designed by God. God plans dramatic reversals for the poor and the hungry, for the powerful and the wealthy. No one but God, and God’s prophets, could imagine such a dramatically different future. The rest of us are terrible at predicting the future. We need to draw on God’s vision.
Social scientists report that we typically believe that we’ve changed a lot in the past ten years, and also that the next ten years will be just like the present. Writer Neil Pasricha sums it up. “It turned out that no matter how old the respondents were, they uniformly believed that they had changed a ton in the past but would change little in the future. Imagine a 30-year-old guy telling the tempestuous story of his last 10 years but figuring his next 10 years would be smooth sailing. Imagine a 50-year-old woman talking about how everything had flip-flopped after she turned 40 but then assuming that at 60, she’d be the same person she was now. That was the case for everybody regardless of age, gender or personality. We all do it.” We need the visionaries who bring us God’s larger, wider, more compelling vision of the future.
Pasricha adds, “This research reminded me of an HR job I had where I had to escort bosses into meeting rooms whenever they had to fire an employee. I was there for paperwork, for witnessing, for emotional support. I was in the room when dozens of people got fired, and it was awful. There were tears and wet tissues and many afternoons when I’d be consoling someone in a freezing parking lot as they loaded up their trunk with framed pictures from their desk saying “I thought I’d be here forever” and “What am I going to do now?” and “I’ll never find another job.” Those scenes left me heartbroken. I lost a lot of sleep over them. Sometimes I’d bump into the former employees years later. And what did they tell me? “Getting fired was the best thing that happened to me! If I hadn’t gotten that severance package, I never would have had those crucial six months to spend with my dad before he died.” Or: “I traveled to Peru and became a nutritional supplement importer, and I love what I’m doing now!” Or: “I’m working at a smaller company now, and I’ve gotten promoted twice in two years!” Or: “I used my severance pay to take the time to be with my daughter and son-in-law in the months after her third miscarriage.” Why did every fired employee tell me this? Why did they all react so positively after some time had passed? How can that happen? Because we confuse the challenge of picturing change with the improbability of change itself.”
We can’t predict even our own futures. God gives us this vision of reversals, of hungry people fed and the haughty brought low, because we could never imagine it for ourselves. Mary speaks it into being for God, and for all of us.
* * *
Luke 1:39-55
Listening
After God’s messenger upends her life, Mary heads out to see her older cousin, and Elizabeth apparently has exactly the right approach. She greets Mary warmly, and then just listens as Mary gives voice to her understanding of God’s plans for the world.
In her book Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, Nedra Glover Tawwab observes that we could all learn from Elizabeth’s example with Mary. “Telling people what to do with their lives doesn’t allow them to work through their own issues.” She says the best question to ask someone is “Do you want empathy or a strategy right now?” She recently asked people if they wanted advice or listening when they’re struggling. “More than 70 percent of the 4,000 people who answered said, “B: Listening.” It seems that most of us just want to be heard.” Elizabeth has it down.
* * *
Luke 1:39-55
God Will Take Care of Us
Even in her own upheaval, Mary finds her trust in God not shaken, but deepened. We don’t hear her worry about her parents, or Joseph, or what the future will hold. Instead, we hear this song of faith and praise. The late preacher and writer Howard Thurman told a story about his mother, and the faith she had, similar to Mary’s.
Thurman wrote [in Jesus and the Disinherited] "When I was a very small boy, Halley’s comet visited our solar system. For a long time I did not see the giant in the sky because I was not permitted to remain up after sundown. My chums had seen it and had told me perfectly amazing things about it. Also I had heard of what were called “comet pills.” The theory was that if the pills were taken according to directions, then when the tail of the comet struck the earth one would not be consumed. One night I was awakened by my mother, who told me to dress quickly and come with her out into the backyard to see the comet. I shall never forget it if I live forever. My mother stood with me, her hand resting on my shoulder, while I, in utter, speechless awe, beheld the great spectacle with its fan of light spreading across the heavens. The silence was like that of absolute motion. Finally, after what seemed to me an interminable time interval, I found my speech. With bated breath I said, “What will happen to us if that comet falls out of the sky?” My mother’s silence was so long that I looked from the comet to her face, and there I beheld something in her countenance that I had seen only once before, when I came into her room and found her in prayer. When she spoke, she said, “Nothing will happen to us, Howard; God will take care of us.” O simplehearted mother of mine, in one glorious moment you put your heart on the ultimate affirmation of the human spirit!”
Thurman added, “Many things have I seen since that night. Times without number I have learned that life is hard, as hard as crucible steel; but as the years have unfolded, the majestic power of my mother’s glowing words has come back again and again, beating out its rhythmic chant in my own spirit. Here are the faith and the awareness that overcome fear and transform it into the power to strive, to achieve, and not to yield."
Mary brings us the same deep lesson of faith.
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:Micah 5:2-5a
Restoration
When First Presbyterian Church in Arkansas burned down in 1993 it was tragic. The old building was struck by lightning and despite the lightening rod, the entire building burned to the ground. An old funeral home with the tragic past of the suicide of its former owner, the only thing it could have ever become was a church. Being only ten, I never did learn the whole story, but I knew we were sad. We were devastated that not only had the chapel burned down, but also the newly built fellowship hall. I remember everyone running in and out to try to salvage the hymnals and Bibles, a ruination of water and smoke. I also remember the memorial service on the marble porch — practically the only thing left standing of the building. We, the kids, took pieces of the ash and drew crosses and pictures of ourselves on the marble during the service remembering the building. My family was about to move away and we were at a loss of what to do next.
I remembered all the grownups talked in hushed, serious tones during this time. How would we restore this building? It would cost more to tear it down and rebuild it than to start over somewhere else. Then, a miracle. Someone was willing to donate new land, and another miracle, the insurance money would actually allow us to build a flat building, much more accessible for those of us who needed better entryways. The church had been growing (this was part of why we built the fellowship hall) and in the now burned down church we were never going to be able to build a bigger chapel space. The fire was actually an opportunity to build what we needed. Turns out we were not going to restore, we were going to renew and grow. What a miracle. My family did move, but the church rebuilt and continued to grow. It still thrives today.
* * *
Psalm 80:17
Restoration is Revelation
It’s amazing how often restoration is about revelation. When one goes about trying to restore something, it’s an art and a science. You have to go and see how things were originally put together and then replicate it as best one can. There is an uncovering. But there is also a recreating of what should have been there in the first place. Is that not what God is doing? Here is a great article of the restoration of a Vermeer that uncovers not only the beauty of the colors but an entire cupid in a window, a symbol of love, that is not only beautiful but also changes the entire meaning of the painting. How beautiful. Is it not love that we often discover has been lurking in our window all along when we look to restore things with God? How do we participate in God’s work of restoration?
* * *
Luke 1:39:45
Fill Us Up
Advent is an empty time, a hunger for all the things that we need. The promise in Luke for good things is visceral. I don’t know if I were God if I would think to make billions of good tasting things to eat. Who does that? Who makes this variety for us to try and enjoy? The fulfillment of God’s word is given to a woman and that good news is first shared with another woman. The funny thing is not only did Mary know (as in “Mary Did You Know”) but Elizabeth knew, too — immediately. How strong was the power of Jesus that even in vitro the power of the word was recognizable? How empowering it must have it felt to know that God’s word was being fulfilled in such a way that even Elizabeth could recognize it? And what did she tell her son John the Baptist? How did she teach him? Did that surge lead her to dedicate him to the Essenes as so many believed him to be? What meaning did that maternal visit make? We know one thing for sure. It was definitely fulfilling.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Advent Wreath Lighting
(This uses the psalm/canticle for the day and incorporates the collect for the day. The divisions make it easy to use multiple readers.)
Luke 1:46b-55
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel v. 1
(Light candle during singing.)
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
Let us pray:
O God who feeds your people like a flock:
Grant us the faith to believe that you are coming among us
to fulfill your plan for the redemption of all creation. Amen.
Call to Worship:
One: Let our souls magnify the Lord.
All: Let our spirit rejoice in God our Savior.
One: God’s mercy is from generation to generation.
All: God has shown strength with the arm.
One: God has brought down the powerful from their thrones.
All: God has filled the hungry with good things.
OR
One: God comes to us in the midst of our troubled lives.
All: Restore us, O God, and make us whole.
One: Our God desires to restore us and much more.
All: What does God have in mind for us?
One: God sees us and all creation redeemed and saved.
All: We welcome our redeeming God into our lives.
Hymns and Songs:
Toda la Tierra (All Earth Is Waiting)
UMH: 210
NCH: 121
ELW: 266
W&P: 163
I Want to Walk As a Child of the Light
UMH: 206
H82: 409
ELW: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
UMH: 196
H82: 66
PH: 1/2
NCH: 122
LBW: 30
ELW: 254
W&P: 153
AMEC: 103
Hail to the Lord’s Anointed
UMH: 203
H82: 616
AAHH: 187
NCH: 104
CH: 140
LBW: 87
ELW: 311
AMEC: 107
Renew: 101
O Come, All Ye Faithful
UMH: 234
H82: 83
PH: 41/42
AAHH: 199
NNBH: 93
NCH: 135
CH: 148
LBW: 45
ELW: 283
W&P: 182
AMEC: 106
STLT: 253
O Morning Star; How Fair and Bright
UMH: 247
PH: 69
NCH: 158
CH: 105
LBW: 76
ELW: 308
W&P: 230
Love Came Down at Christmas
UMH: 242
H82: 84
NCH: 165
W&P: 210
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
UMH: 240
H82: 87
PH: 31/32
AAHH: 217
NNBH: 81
NCH: 144
CH: 150
LBW: 60
ELW: 270
W&P: 185
AMEC: 115
My Soul Gives Glory to My God
UMH: 198
CH: 130
ELW: 882
Tell Out, My Soul
UMH: 200
H82: 437/438
W&P: 41
Renew: 130
Cares Chorus
CCB: 53
Our God Reigns
CCB: 33
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who feeds your people like a flock:
Grant us the faith to believe that you are coming among us
to fulfill your plan for the redemption of all creation;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you supply our needs like a shepherd feeds the flock. You come among us and bring redemption for all you have created. Help us to trust in your salvation and to share the good news with others. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our attachment to the old ways ignoring the new things God is doing among us.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are mired in the past. We look at the way things were and we long to return to them. We are like the Israelites in the wilderness longing for the flesh pots of Egypt instead of anticipating the promised land. We forget the wonders that God has promised for us. Forgive us and restore our vision that we might look with hope to the new future you have for us. Amen.
One: God is always longing to do something new and wondrous for us and in us. Receive God’s grace and join in the new world God is opening up for us.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God, creator and re-creator of all. You seek to bring us and all creation to our ultimate fullness.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are mired in the past. We look at the way things were and we long to return to them. We are like the Israelites in the wilderness longing for the flesh pots of Egypt instead of anticipating the promised land. We forget the wonders that God has promised for us. Forgive us and restore our vision that we might look with hope to the new future you have for us.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you bless us and seek for our good. You come to bring us wholeness and healing in the midst of our chaotic lives. You come among us as a poor, little infant to be one with us and to lead us back to yourself.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for those who have lost all sense of hope or of wonder in the midst of their suffering. We pray for the poor and needy; the sick and dying; the grieving and despairing. We pray for all who are waiting for the great tidings of good news.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONLove Is Love Is Love
by Quantisha Mason-Doll
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
Props for service: If possible a child-friendly infographic noting the 4 kinds of love (according to the Greeks: agape, philia, eros, storge).
Today is the Fourth Sunday of Advent! Can anyone tell me what the theme is for this week? (If possible ask for children’s thoughts.) This week is all about how God’s love interacts with the world. You know the feeling of love is one of the greatest gifts God has given creation. This is because love can take many different forms and helps us to connect to each other. (Introduce the four kinds of love — feel free to omit eros — it does not factor into this story.)
Our story today models three acts of Love. The first of which is agape or God’s love for all of creation. We see this when Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit at the sight of Mary! This causes the baby she is carrying to leap with joy! In return, she praises God (our attempt at agape.)
The second is when Elizabeth praises the sacrifice Mary is making for the betterment of the world. This is a kind of philia or a devoted love that unites all of us together!
The final is Mary’s response to all that she has seen. This comes in the form of her Magnificat. (Depending on the age group there might have to be further explanation of what the Magnificat is / the importance of it as a song of praise.)
Her song is a song of love of storge or familial love. Mary deeply loves the world and is grateful for the privilege to be the mother of God.
Prayer
Loving God, help us to see all the love in the world.
Guide us as we wait for the baby Jesus to be born.
We pray this in your son’s name.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 19, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
