Ministry

Advent 3: The Candle of Joy (or the Mary Candle)

Singing a New Song

The tradition for the third Sunday of Advent includes lighting a third sometimes pink candle that is a symbol of joy. This Sunday was traditionally called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word for rejoice.

Our focus reading for this Sunday will be Luke 1:47-55, also known as the Song of Mary. Mary is chosen by God for the special task of being Jesus’ mother. Mary is young; she has no status or power in her society, she is an unlikely person for such an important task. Mary’s prophetic song radiates love and celebrates God’s transformative vision of justice that challenges the powerful and lifts up the weak.

 This week, I would like to share with you a new song, which has been adapted for our time in Advent this year.

 Merciful God, May Mary’s song be heard through the ages, 
drowning out the din of Christmas chaos. 

This year, may it be heard by the victims of violence in the political turmoil in South Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Ethiopia, Haiti.

 This year, may it ring in the ears of the traumatised in Iran, China, and Afghanistan. 

This year, may it sing in the hearts of those stuck in the refugee camps of Pakistan, Turkey and Uganda


May it be an earworm song of hope 
for all Indigenous peoples, all standing strong for land rights. 

May it be the rally cry of peace 
for the war-weary of the Ukraine. 

May it nourish hope in the bellies 
of those fearful of failed harvests. 

May it be a song that stirs reverent fear 
in the hearts of those who assume power. 

And may the joyful promises of justice 
and overturned power fill all our hearts 
to overflowing action. 
Amen.

 

~ Adapted from a post on the Monthly Prayer page of the Christian Aid website. http://www.christianaid.org.uk/

 

This year, as we continue our Advent journey, may we find the courage of Mary to praise God for our blessings and to call out and name those places where power and injustice continue to suppress people.

 

In peace

Pastor Beryl

 

2nd Sunday in Advent: Longing for Peace

During the long December weeks of Advent, we anticipate the joy of Christmas morning. But children experience it more deeply. Do you still remember that anticipation?  That mystery?

Our traditional Christmas celebrations—the gifts, the food, the songs, the pageants, properly echo the spiritual joy we feel at knowing that God, Emmanuel is with us; that we are not alone.

But, as we have matured, we begin to long for more than brightly-wrapped gifts under the tree. With adulthood comes a keen awareness of how broken the world is. We see, in ourselves and in those we love, the deep chasms of hurt, of resignation to what we are powerless to change. We cannot wake up and turn on our phones or our televisions without being confronted by the brokenness in our world, and even within our own neighborhoods.

And so, we are filled with longing. We long, not just for joy, but for someone, something to make it all be right.  We long for peace.

In God’s kin-dom peace reigns.  And the peace that Jesus promises is more that the absence of anxiety or conflict.  The peace Jesus promises is wholeness, radical and even a little uncomfortable.

You see, Jesus’ peace exists and spreads when the hungry are fed, when someone uses ecologically sound transport to reduce their carbon footprint, when the fatherless are cared for by a loving community, when enemies reconcile against all the odds, when someone loves their neighbor etc. You know the what I am talking about.

This week, as you walk or bike through the streets of your community, or ride the bus, look for signs of life, the presence of wholeness and the absence of darkness.  Embrace the lights and decorations which you see.  Let them remind you of simpler times - back to the mystery of the Christmases of your childhood.  The mystery of the unknown yet expected.  And, if you can, think thoughts of peace.

For this second Sunday of Advent, I offer this prayer:

Jesus, we know that we desperately need peace; the kind that transforms and lasts.
Help us keep our hearts focused on what Christmas really means. 
Teach us how to maintain humility and open our eyes to see the humanity in every person.
Teach us to breath in peace and to walk in the rhythms of your peace. Amen

 

In peace,

Pastor Beryl

Jesus Started a Movement

Sometimes the things I read are so profound that I just want to share them with everyone. This week I am reading from Richard Rohr’s daily meditations which opened with the following words:

 I really don’t think we can ever renew the church until we stop thinking of it as an institution and start thinking of it as a movement. —Clarence Jordan, letter, 1967.

Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. is passionate about the church rediscovering itself as a movement of Jesus, and he said:

Jesus did not establish an institution, though institutions can serve his cause. He did not organize a political party, though his teachings have a profound impact on politics. Jesus did not even found a religion. No, Jesus began a movement, fueled by his Spirit, a movement whose purpose was and is to change the face of the earth from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends. . . .

That’s why his invitations to folk who joined him are filled with so many active verbs. In John 1:39 Jesus calls disciples with the words, “Come and see.” In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he asks others to “Follow me.” And at the end of the Gospels, he sent his first disciples out with the word, “Go . . .” [. . .] As in, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). . . .

If you look at the Bible, listen to it, and watch how the Spirit of God unfolds in the sacred story, I think you’ll notice a pattern. You cannot help but notice that there really is a movement of God in the world.

Curry identifies several characteristics of the Jesus movement : [1]

First, the movement was Christ-centered—completely focused on Jesus and his way. . . . Long before Christianity was ever called the Church, or even Christianity, it was called “the Way” [see Acts 9:2]. The way of Jesus was the way. The Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of God, that sweet, sweet Spirit, infused their spirits and took over. . . .

The second mark of the movement is this: following the way of Jesus, they abolished poverty and hunger in their community. Some might say they made poverty history. The Acts of the Apostles calls this abolition of poverty one of the “signs and wonders” which became an invitation to others to follow Jesus too, and change the world. . . . It didn’t take a miracle. The Bible says they simply shared everything they had [Acts 4:32–35]. The movement moved them in that particular way.

Third, they learned how to become more than a collection of individual self-interests. They found themselves becoming a countercultural community, one where Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and uncircumcised, had equal standing [see Acts 15:1–12].

Curry continues, taking inspiration from the early church for our own moment:

Ministry in this moment . . . has to serve more than an institution. It has to serve the movement.

If you found inspiration in these shared words, I am blessed in being able to share them with you.

And, as we enter the season of Advent in Hope, please consider this inspirational image:

We cannot see the wind, but we feel it. We recognize its presence by watching the world around us move in response to its power. At times, the movement of Spirit towards justice feels invisible and interminably slow, but like waves slowly shaping the shoreline, in time we see the fruits of God’s movement. (unknown)

In peace

Pastor Beryl, DLM

[1] Curry draws on Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s book In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, 10th anniv. ed. (New York: Crossroad Publishing), chapter 4.

Doors and Windows

Thoughts gleaned from Steve Johnston in Bumper Sticker Theology

 

“When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us”.  Alexander Graham Bell.

At face value this statement seems simple and true, but much is left to interpretation.

How do we evaluate what’s a door or window and what’s not a door or window?

What if there are multiple doors and windows?

How do we know who it is that is opening and closing?

So often we assume that God’s goals for us are the same as our own.  Like when we pray for something and then expect to get the answer we want.  This is bumper sticker theology and, if we are honest, we know that this is not how things work. It’s not how God works.

As we mature, we begin to understand and, hopefully, accept the real possibility that the prayer we want answered is not God’s goal at all and there is no window to be found.   

Sometimes we assume that, because God is sovereign or supreme, God has infinite ways to get us what we want and to where we want to be. So, when a door is closed it is not actually “no” but rather awaiting an alternative path to be revealed.

This idea is read into many verses and Bible stories such as Romans 8:28. “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” The idea read in is that since God wants good for us, if something happens to hinder or stop that, God will find a way to make the good thing happen.

Again, the problem is our idea of good—achieving our goal—may not be the same as God’s idea of good.

Finally, there is the assumption that all the responsibility to close doors and open windows is God’s and we are to just wait.

But there are those times when it is our responsibility to close a door to something in our life and to seek out that window whatever that may be.

Also, it could be that a door seems closed but we need to knock for a while or apply some effort before it will open.

The major limitation with this statement is in thinking it is all-encompassing, something to be believed under any and all circumstances.

In reality doors do close for good and there is never a window opened.

Sometimes a relationship ends and there isn’t another one.

There are doors in Scripture that at one point are open but then are closed and there is no window.

When God closed the door of the ark there was no other opened or a window for an unbelieving world.

Jesus, who called Himself “The Door,” foresaw a day when lost people would try to enter yet be unable to do so because it will be too late. The one door of salvation will be forever closed to them (Matthew 25:11).

Our assurance as believers is that God has a plan and a purpose for us and is constantly working behind the scenes in every circumstance in our life to further that plan.  But, here is the catch……we need to remember it is God’s plan, not ours.

So, living as disciples isn’t about making our plans and going through the doors and windows of our own design to accomplish what we desire. It is about coming to terms and a place of peace for God’s purposes for us.

Many of us are saddened by the closing of SWU, myself included.  Many of us are unsure of where we are headed –either as a community or on our own.

But I encourage you to take a breath, look back over the doors which have been slammed in your face over the years.

Have you not realized that, recognized and welcome or not at the time, something changed and you found yourself exactly where you were meant to be?

Yes, the vote last Sunday was disappointing.  But let’s ask God for the wisdom and courage to look towards a future yet unseen, giving thanks for works which has already been accomplished and daring to have enough faith to believe in God’s plan for what is yet to come.  Amen

In peace

Pastor Beryl DLM

 

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