Posts from December 2013
Morning prayer.
God of this new morning, you have awakened me to the brightness of your dawn. I begin this day in gratitude, recalling your mercies through the night, anticipating glimpses of your glory in the hours ahead. Make my face shine today with the joy of your grace, so that another is helped to see your presence and find hope. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. (from the worship companion to Feasting on the Word, Vol 1, year A) How might…
Toward Sunday
This week our worship will be rooted in Matthew 2.1-12 and the Magi’s arrival at the birthplace of Jesus. We will celebrate Epiphany which is the day after the twelve-day celebration of Christmas (or, in some liturgical calendars, the twelfth day of the Christmas season). The English word “Epiphany” comes from the Greek word epiphaneia, which means “appearing” or “revealing.” Epiphany focuses on God’s self-revelation in Christ. On this day, many Christian traditions pay special attention to the visit…
Toward Sunday
This week and next our worship will be rooted in the account of the Magi from the Gospel of Matthew 2:1-23. “The story of the Magi ranks right up there with the Christmas and Easter stories in terms of snaring the imagination. Poets as distinct as William Butler Yeats and William Carlos Williams have wrapped words around the visit of the wise men.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, Home by Another Way. p. 27) For some this birth is a “sea…
Toward Christmas Eve
Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved. You have fed us with the bread of tears, and given us tears to drink in full measure. —Psalm 80.3, 5 The Gentle One does not cause us pain, yet all tears come from God. The joy of Christmas is the presence of Christ in the dark night of our hurt. Let your sorrows be a manger for the Christ child, a lowly resting place for the…
Love
Advent is a time to practice loving every little bit that we can, trusting the holy that we can’t yet see, loving the holy child in each beautiful, dear, precious, screwed-up person, every one a beloved child of God, so far from home. ~Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Hope on the Advent Way
May this poem from the Brazilian theologian and educator Rubem Alves accompany you on the Advent Way: What is hope? It is the pre-sentiment that imagination is more real and reality is less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress us is not the last word. It is the suspicion that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe. That the frontiers of the possible are…
Imagine
We commend this video and website to you this week as you imagine walking and turning on the The Advent Way. How does the way in which God moves to turn restore justice and set right the world make a place for you? Take time to move from scene to scene. Read the text. Imagine. The Boy
Toward Sunday
We are grateful for our time together on The Advent Way. We hope this worship series, rooted in the book of Isaiah and Matthew’s Gospel, invites reflection on how the Advent way prepares us for the beauty and mystery of Christmas. Our privilege as Christians is to receive the gracious gifts of God’s presence in Christ. Our task is to prepare for his coming so that we will not miss life’s greatest gift. Outline of The Advent Way December 1:…
God the Accompanist.
Here is an image of God. Playing along. Waiting for you to approach. Knowing your tune before you are aware. Accompanying you. What would it be like if you understood that this is how God is with us on The Advent Way?
The more we are open…
Worship this Sunday is rooted in Isaiah 35, 1-10, where the prophet describes the coming Servant of Yahweh. It is precisely this quote that Jesus first uses to announce the exact nature of his own ministry (Luke 4.18-19). In each case Jesus describes his work as moving outside of polite and proper limits and boundaries to reunite things that have been marginalized or excluded by society: the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, the downtrodden. His ministry is not to gather…
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