Jeremiah 33.14-16
First Sunday in Advent, Year C Plymouth Congregational, UCC Fort Collins, CO Welcome to Advent! And Happy New Year! You may remember that the first Sunday in Advent is the first day of a new liturgical and new lectionary year. We begin anew each Advent in our journey through the stories of our lives with the Holy in scripture, worship and community. The Hebrew scripture lectionary text for today sets us on this new journey following the ancient and trusted paths of God. Our text comes from the prophet, Jeremiah, who is speaking to the people of Jerusalem as they are once again threatened by the Babylonians with colonization and exile. The people are living in fear, not sure how to respond to another looming threat - yet again. Times are very uncertain. Where is God in the midst of this crisis? Is God in the midst of it? Jeremiah brings the people a word of hope. 14The time is coming, declares the HOLY ONE, when I will fulfill my gracious promise with the people of Israel and Judah. 15In those days and at that time, I will raise up a righteous branch from David's line, who will do what is just and right in the land. 16In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is what [Jerusalem, the city of God,] will be called: YAHWEH, the HOLY ONE, Is Our Righteousness. - Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 31226-31231). Jerusalem, the city of God, the dwelling place of the Holy in the temple’s Ark of the Covenant will be called: YAHWEH, the HOLY ONE, Is Our Righteousness. Jerusalem, will be a place called “God is our righteousness.” I find that intriguing! The time is coming! In those days, there will be a place called righteousness led by one who is part of the righteous branch of leaders descending from God’s chosen king, David. In fact, in some translations this leader is synonymous with Jerusalem and is also named, “God is our righteousness.” This was a word of great hope for our ancient ancestors in faith. There will be a place called righteousness! Hope in this place that you already know and call home. When our Advent candle lighting liturgy asked us to ponder where we find hope, where did you go? Was it a hard place to find? Did you go to an event? A person? An activity that you participate in regularly? A community? Did you look for God? Outside of yourself? Or did you go inside where the Holy dwells in each of us? I did not find this an easy question. And I was the one who put the question into our liturgy for today, knowing it was uncomfortable question and that I did not have a ready answer. The outcomes of the two trials that have held our national attention in the last few weeks came to my mind, the trial of those convicted of killing Ahmaud Armery and the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. One of those outcomes gave me hope. But the other did not. Then I wondered why I was always looking outside myself for evidence of hope. Do you do that? I think it’s a common practice. Then, I thought, perhaps, it would be best to begin my search for hope by going within to rest in the presence of God, then look at the world through the lens of the Holy. Isn’t that what I profess and preach and counsel - living within the steady, abundant, forgiving lovingkindness of the Holy One who lives within all of us, within all of creation and whose very being we live within? Advent prompts us to live with this uncomfortable question: where do we find real Hope? Are we always waiting for it? Is it always in those days that are coming? Or can we claim it in the present of our lives? The prophet, Jeremiah prompts us to have hope in the coming of a “place called God is our righteousness.” His geographic and metaphoric place was Jerusalem. Obviously, Jerusalem, that holy and fractured city of God, is not within our immediate geographic landscape. Where is our “place called God is Our righteousness” where we find the hope of Advent? Righteousness is a funny, old-fashioned kind of word in our times. We most often hear it used in combination with the word, “self.” No one likes a self-righteous person, someone who thinks they know better than the rest of us how to live, what decisions to make, what is definitively and ethically right or wrong for everyone else. A judgmental kind of person whom we would hope follows their own advice, yet sometimes we are not sure if they do. In the Hebrew scriptures, “righteousness” frequently used to describe God’s faithful people in contrast to the “wicked” who have departed from God. In that context righteousness does have ethical implications that can direct our lives. Yet these are encompassed in something bigger that right and wrong rules. Righteousness is the Hebrew scriptures is following the path, the way of the Holy ONE through all of life’s inner and outer journeys. As one contemporary Hebrew scholar writes, “A righteous person is not one who lives a religiously pious life, the common interpretation of this word, he [or she] is one who follows the correct path, the path (way) of God.”[i] What is the pathway of God? Scripture gives us so many images and instructions, The prophet, Micah, tells us, “To do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.” Jesus showed in his living, as well as in his teachings, how to love God, neighbor and self, how to live within the unfolding and ever-enlivening realm of God’s justice, peace and love. He followed God’s pathway through life to death and beyond to new life. Each Sunday we gather in worship to hear and to respond to another way to follow in God’s path. Each Sunday, we celebrate God’s ways are challenged by God’s ways as God’s beloved community of faith named Plymouth UCC in Fort Collins, CO. Could it be that we are already living into a place called ‘God in Our Righteousness,” our right path? In this moment of worship? This moment of worship on the first Sunday of Advent in 2021, begins a new journey through a new liturgical year. What does it mean for us to seek God’s hope in our place called “God is Our Righteousness” in our internal lives of faith and in our external life of faith in community? Lutheran pastor and author, the Rev. Heidi Neumark, loves Advent and loves to write about it. She has been the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan, NYC since 2003. Prior to that she spent nineteen years as pastor and community organizer at Transfiguration Lutheran in the South Bronx. She writes prophetically from the experience of working with the poor and disenfranchised. Her words on Advent stir me. She writes, “Probably the reason I love Advent so much is that it is a reflection of how I feel most of the time. … Advent unfailingly embraces and comprehends my reality. And what is that? I think of the Spanish word, anhelo, or longing. Advent is when the church can no longer contain its unfulfilled desire and the cry of anhelo, bursts forth: … O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”[ii] On this first Sunday in Advent we can say with longing, “Come, Holy One who became Emmanuel, God-with-us! We long for your presence to transform us and then through us to transform our world that still bends toward the violence and greed of empire, of the ruling Babylons of our day. Come, lead us to the place, the life, called “God is Our Righteousness!” Lead us to live within God’s ways and remember that God’s ways live within us. Come! We long to stand confidently within Jeremiah’s prophecy, the days are surely coming! Without reservation, we long to rejoice in the coming of God-With-Us, which has already been, yet is now, and will be again and again and again! As the days in the season of Advent literally grow shorter and hold darkness, we realize that the “dark”, often a place of unknowing, is the place that holds the mystery of God’s presence. We do not always know how to hope, yet we dare to hope for we live together God who is our right path. We do not always have the light to transform injustice into justice, but we stand with Emmanuel, God-With-Us, in the Jerusalem of this beloved community, that promises to be a place of God’s righteousness. We do not, and may not in our lifetimes, see all the transformation and renewal of our broken, yet beautiful, world that we long to see, to experience. Yet we stand in the hope of Advent, of longing, of the promises of the prophet, together with the Holy ONE and we are not alone. Others have gone before us, many others long with us and others will follow as we “trust in the slow work of God.”[iii] The Jesuit scholar and lover of God, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, reminds us, “We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.”[iv] Our longing is holy. It “trusts in the slow work of God.”[v] It anchors us, grounds us in the place within and without called “God is Our Righteousness.” It is the Advent Hope that can carry us through all seasons. Thanks be to God. Amen. ©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2021 and beyond. May be reprinted with permission only. [i] Jeff A. Benner, https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/definition/righteous.htm. [ii] Gary W. Charles, “Homiletical Perspective”, Jerimiah 33.14-16, Year C, Feasting on the Word Lectionary Commentary, edited by David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 2009, 5). [iii] https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/prayer-of-theilhard-de-chardin/. [iv] Ibid. [v] Ibid. AuthorAssociate Minister Jane Anne Ferguson is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. Learn more about Jane Anne here.
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Luke 1.46-55
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado In last Thursday’s Washington Post, there was a smallish article in the national news section. It was not considered front-page news and didn’t even make it into the New York Times. Yet, I found the headline is shocking: “Nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since the summer” and the subhead reads, “Nation’s poverty rate has risen at the fastest pace ever this year after aid for the unemployed declined.” Now, I may be alone in finding this unacceptable…clearly Congress has not yet extended unemployment benefits set to expire after Christmas or sent stimulus checks to people who really need them. In the spirit of Dickens’s “Christmas Carol,” I hope that on this day they are visited by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Accepting a rapidly growing poverty rate is fundamentally a moral issue. Something closer to home happened last week. I got an email from a clergy colleague here in Fort Collins, letting me know that the city and county were finally opening an isolation shelter for people experiencing homelessness and who have tested positive for Covid. There had been an outbreak at the temporary shelter on Blue Spruce Drive with 53 homeless folks and 8 staff members testing positive, so getting the isolation shelter in place was critical. Larimer County and the city, however, aren’t covering the cost of food for these people who are living in isolation. Instead, they are counting on a local nonprofit, Homeward Alliance, to raise between $30,000 and $60,000 to cover food costs. I’ve written to every member of city council, as well as to the county board of supervisors. While council members were concerned, the city manager’s office confirmed that Homeward Alliance will cover the food costs. I hope they are visited by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Our congregation, led by our teens, raised about $20,000 this month for homelessness prevention. We are doing our part, but we cannot do it alone. If I was a bit jaded, I might be led to believe that many people in our country, especially political types, don’t care that much about the poor. Would I be wrong in that assumption? And yet, we certainly hear some politicians crow loudly about America being a Christian nation and the perceived threat to the free practice of Christian religion in this nation. But shouldn’t Christians care about what Jesus said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled"? [Luke 6.20-21] Personally, I don’t consider it very faithful to ignore the poor and the hungry and the conditions that allow poverty to flourish. It all makes me wonder whether our nominally Christian politicians have ever heard Mary’s song, the Magnificat, which is today’s text. Any Episcopalians among them hear it as part of Evensong, but sometimes its radical message gets disguised by beautiful choral settings. Listening to some of these ethereal canticles, you would never know that Mary’s words are an anti-imperial manifesto. Her words are powerful and raw: “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.” This is a subversive song of the kingdom of God that Mary sings and that her son proclaims. This is about socioeconomic jujitsu, throwing the norms of the world on their head. This is anything but the so-called prosperity gospel…it’s not the rich and the well-fed who are blessed, it’s the poor and hungry. I wonder how many Christians this year will hear the nativity stories and wonder why God sent Jesus not to a palace in Rome, but to a Judean peasant household…not to well-educated, well-off parents, but to an unmarried young woman. And if they do wonder about such things, do they go one step further and ponder what it means for them as people of faith? What does it mean for you? What does it mean for us at Plymouth? We can look at Mary’s song and say, “Yeah…Caesar and Herod were really awful people and oppressed the poor.” And we can do that without ever wondering who the Caesars and Herods are in today’s setting. Imperialism has not died off over the last 2,000 years. If anything, it has flourished, especially among the nominally Christian nations of Europe and the supposedly Christian United States. This is not a very cheery conversation to have on the final Sunday of Advent, but it is an important part of the Christmas message that we hear Mary’s words of justice and that we don’t domesticate Jesus into baby who is perpetually “meek and mild.” We are given a choice about the path we will follow. We can follow the mainstream American path that invites us into a dog-eat-dog world of competition and survival of the fittest, where people are allowed to fall into poverty by the millions, where humans who are ill with Covid are sheltered but not fed by our government. They have made room at the inn…they just haven’t fed the hungry. You and I are invited down a different path. It is the way of Jesus, the way of Mary, the way of God’s realm, where the poor are blessed and the hungry are fed. As Christians we are called not just to acknowledge such parts of our faith, but to put them into practice and to encourage others to do the same. So, if you are looking for something to do this afternoon, call Senators Bennet and Gardner and Congressman Neguse or Ken Buck, if you’re in his district, and encourage them to restore unemployment benefits set to expire after Christmas and to get an economic relief act passed now. Consider taking action not only as a Christmas gift to people who really need it, but as an act of faith. Part of what Mary calls us to join her in doing is to magnify the Lord. The Greek word literally means to enlarge or amplify, so what might it mean for you as an ordinary everyday follower of Jesus to amplify his message? How might you turn up the volume a bit this week and act from a sense of costly love? I wonder whether any of us sometimes get caught up in a current or in an eddy tainted with the bitterness of Ebenezer Scrooge and if we need a brief visit from a spirit who shows us what the world would be like if we learned to open our hearts to one another and truly act from love and abundance. Maybe that spirit isn’t a ghost imagined by Charles Dickens. Perhaps it is the spirit of Mary, calling to us across the millennia to amplify God’s liberating realm and to rejoice in God’s presence. It has been a difficult year with the pandemic, the fires in our foothills, and political discord. And for some of us, it’s been even harder as we struggle to make ends meet and keep a roof over our heads or to find someplace warm and safe to sleep at night. And in the years ahead, this congregation will have a role to play in influencing the moral issues that we as a wider community face. Our celebration of Christmas will be different in this pandemic year. We may not be surrounded by extended family. We won’t be gathering in this sanctuary together. But we can still unite our hearts and hands and voices and sing Mary’s radical refrain. We can still worship together remotely and safely. We can look forward with hope at getting the pandemic under control. We can know that even if we are in solitude, that we are never alone. Christmas will be different, but my hope for you is that you find new meanings in God’s unique entry onto the scene of human history and that you will become part of the story. I leave you with the word of a great 20th century theologian, Karl Rahner: “Christmas tells you in your solitude: Trust your surroundings, they are not emptiness; Let go and you will find; Renounce and you will be rich. May it be so. Amen. © 2020 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal.
Luke 1.39-45
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado
Have you ever noticed that there are more than a few occasions in biblical literature when women are not the center of action or remain unnamed? We hear the story of Jephthah’s daughter, an unnamed young woman who got into the cross-hairs of her father’s promise to God that he would slay the first member of his household he saw upon going home. (Spoiler alert: While Isaac was fortunate in Genesis when God provided a ram for Abraham to slaughter, Jephthah’s daughter was not so lucky.) But it isn’t just in the Old Testament that this occurs…do you recall the anonymous woman at the well who asks Jesus for living water? …or the unnamed Syro-Phoenician woman who asks Jesus to heal her daughter? …or the unidentified widow who shows her faith by offering her last two coins at the Temple? The Bible is not alone in downplaying or sometimes ignoring the role of women. It was typical in ancient literature and it reflected social norms.
But today’s text provides a startling contrast. Not only are Mary and Elizabeth named, their pregnancies are described! It doesn’t get much more feminine that. In the lead-up to this story, Luke recounts that Elizabeth conceived in her old age and said, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people,” that is for not bearing children. (And let’s just get rid of that shame right here and now.) And the baby who leaps in her womb is none other than Jesus’ cousin, John, who will be known as the Baptizer. So, when John gives his mom a good, strong kick in utero, it is a sign that John would be the precursor to Jesus in charting a new spiritual course. And the backstory with Mary also happens just before today’s passage: “In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a own in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph” and when the angel appears, he says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God…” and you know the rest of that piece of the story. Even if you are someone who doesn’t believe it all happened in exactly the way Luke recounts it, please understand that there is a more-than-literal meaning. There is a message in this wonderful piece of Luke’s gospel that goes beyond whose sperm met whose ovum to result in the birth of Jesus. We know that Mary was faithful…she responds to Gabriel saying, “Here am I [which is how prophets respond when God calls], the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Here’s another contrast in ancient literature: The Roman historian Livy describes a foundational story of early Rome in an episode of abduction of Etruscan women that we know as “The Rape of the Sabine Women.” Unlike Livy’s tale, Luke’s story is not about violence or force or coercion: it’s about faith in the very core of a woman that engenders a response. Mary is venerated in the Christian Orthodox traditions as the “Theotokos,” or the one who brings forth God. And even if Protestants basically threw out the mother — instead of the baby — with the bathwater during the Reformation, there is much to hold dear of this faithful young woman. Our first hymn this morning speaks of her as woman of the promise, song of holy wisdom, model of compassion, and morning star of justice. You’ll hear a lot more about that next week as we explore the Magnificat. As I was thinking about Mary as the Theotokos, it occurred to me that she is not alone. And it reminded me of a story about my sons, Cameron and Christopher. When Cam was five, he was absolutely thrilled to have a new younger brother arrive on the scene. He was (and is) an amazing big brother. But being the curious and word-loving boy he was (and is), Cam asked me, “What does Christopher mean?” And I told him that in Greek it means “Christ bearer,” and he thought that was pretty cool. And then he asked, “Well, what does Cameron mean?” And I told him the truth, that in Gaelic it means “crooked nose,” at which point, he burst into tears of both anger and sadness, and said, “You named him Christ-bearer and you named me Crooked Nose!” At which point I tried to reassure him by saying, “Yes, but you have a Clan!” And when the three of us visited the battlefield at Culloden in Scotland on my first sabbatical, we were very emphatic about visiting the Clan Cameron memorial. The point is not so much about what we name our children is that you can be male or female to be one who bears Christ in the world today. None of us is likely to become pregnant by miraculous means, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. Rather, here are three ways to think about being a Christ-bearer. Theresa of Avila wrote that “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” So, what is God calling you to do with your hands, your eyes, your feet in the world today? What blessing can you bring to others in the midst of pandemic and political strife? Here is a second way to think about being a Christ-bearer. One of the well-loved hymns this congregation is “Won’t you let me be your servant?” and it offers these words: “I will hold the Christ-light for you in the shadow of your fear; I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear.” There is some light in each person listening to this service today, whether you consider yourself to hold a tiny flicker of an LED candle or a great beacon atop a lighthouse. Each of us has the light of love, the light of Christ, that we can shine into the shadowy corners we encounter. And it isn’t just our light, but the Christ-light, which we can reflect like a mirror, casting a beam into places that need more light. Where can you shine the Christ-light this week? A third way to be a Christ-bearer comes from Sister Ilia Delio in Richard Rohr’s daily meditation. She writes, “Those who follow Jesus are to become whole-makers, uniting what is scattered, creating a deeper unity in love. Christian life is a commitment to love, to give birth to God in one’s own life and to become midwives of divinity in this evolving cosmos. We are to be whole-makers of love in a world of change.” You can help make this world whole by working with a bite-sized piece of it. Maybe that means sleeping out in the cold to raise money for homeless prevention. Maybe that means supporting a kindergarten in Ethiopia. Maybe it means shoveling your elderly neighbor’s walk and bringing them a loaf of cinnamon bread. What whole-making can you help bring about before Christmas? Mary provides such a dramatic example of what a Christ-bearing life looks like, from her encounter with Gabriel and hearing his miraculous news to holding the lifeless, crucified body of her son. It may seem to you that her example is one that is impossible to follow. Last week, Richard Rohr wrote, “Our task too is to give birth to Christ. Mary is the paradigm for doing that. From her we get the pattern: Let the word of God take root and make you pregnant; gestate that by giving it the nourishing sustenance of your own life; submit to the pain that is demanded for it to be born to the outside; then spend years coaxing it from infancy to adulthood; and finally, during and after all of this, do some pondering, accept the pain of not understanding and of letting go.” Our future is pregnant with possibility…if we let God’s presence take root in our lives, not only will we be Christ-bearers for others, we ourselves will experience deep joy. May it be so in your life and in mine. Amen. © 2020 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal at plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal. AuthorRev. Carla Cain began her ministry at Plymouth as a Designated Term Associate Minister (two years) in December 2019. Learn more about Carla here.
Isaiah 64.1-9(10-12) * [text at bottom of post]
First Sunday in Advent Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson Twentieth century poet, Langston Hughes, wrote his poem, "Dreams" [1], in 1922. It was one of his earliest works and one of his best remembered.
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.
Hughes’ images are incredibly poignant for us as we enter Advent in this pandemic ridden, politically and racially divisive year. How do we hold on to our national dreams of health and peace and cooperation and justice and abundance and equality for all this Advent? Our faith dreams of building God’s realm here and now on earth? How do we dream Hope?
The ancient people of God, the Israelites of the 6th century B.C.E., were wondering the same thing when they heard the prophet cry out to God in lament, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence…” They, too, were wondering if they could dream hope and they were trying hard to hold on the “awesome deeds” of God they had experienced with surprise and joy in the past. Why was God not acting like God way back in the day when they were delivered from slavery in Egypt? Or even not so far back in the day when they were led out of exile in Babylon and back to Jerusalem to rebuild their lives in the promised land and to rebuild the temple of the Most High? Instead of flowing springs in the desert and straight highways of policy following God’s law, instead of an oasis of plenty, they had returned from exile ready to rebuild only to find strife and hardship. There were polemical factions among the differing tribes; they were short on cooperation. Physically rebuilding the temple along with new infrastructures for simply living together was much more difficult than they had ever imagined. They felt abandoned by the God whom the prophet had promised would restore their fortunes and renew their abundance. Perhaps, they didn’t have a pandemic, but they knew well the unrest of extreme civil discord at a time they needed to work together to survive. The book of Isaiah spans three centuries of the Israelites’ relationship with God. The original 8th century prophet, Isaiah, prophesied to the rulers and people of Judah when the Babylonian empire was encroaching upon them, eventually conquering Jerusalem. Much of the population was captured and taken into exile in Babylon where they learned to make their lives and honor their God in a foreign land. In the late 7th and into the 6th century B.C.E., a new prophet arose in the midst of exile writing in the name and fashion of Isaiah. These first two prophets gave the people the wondrous and inspiring poetry and prose of hope that we often hear this time of year: “the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light,” “you shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace, the trees shall clap their hands,” “the lion shall lie down with the lamb…and a little child shall lead them.” Now we hear from the prophet who is with the people after the return from exile…. things are looking very bleak….and the prophet speaking in the tradition of Isaiah loudly laments…”Where are you, God? Come down to us! You forgot us and so now we have sinned…. we are fractured as a people, hanging on by a thread… you have hidden from us and so even our best efforts are like filthy rags…we are undone!” How many times in this past year could any of us, each of us, have lifted up the sentiments of this lament to God? For goodness sake – literally ¬– Where are you, God?!? For God’s sake – literally – show yourself! Fix us, deliver us, restore us to your presence. As the poet warned us early in this sermon, without our dreams, without hope, life is like a broken-winged bird, crippled and dying. Life is barren, about to be snuffed out in the frozen depths of our deep disconnection with you, Holy One. The ancient prophet’s cry in this 64th chapter of Isaiah moves us from anger and despair, which we know all too well in our times, to broken-hearted sobbing sorrow and lament which we also know in these times of pandemic and racial violence. If it feels excruciating and you are wondering what kind of introduction to Advent is this? – you are getting it. You see, it turns out that authentic lament with all its anger and confession and sorrow is psychologically good for us and good for our souls. Bottling up all our feelings in stoic silence does not solve any issue. It alienates us from others and its bad for our blood pressure. The structure of lament is an appropriate practice for expression. Spiritually, lament breaks open our hearts before God. And when our hearts are broken as they have been in this year, broken open, our eyes and our ears can open as well. It turns out that the prophet does not leave us despairing in the dirt, fading away like dead leaves, but in acknowledging our brokenness before God, the prophet points us paradoxically to God who is with us in our vulnerability and pain. “8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father [our Maker]; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.” The ancient stories of God’s past deliverance of God’s people proclaimed by prophets are not sentimental, smothering nostalgia nor are they a delusional panacea denying the pain of the present. They are beacons of light drawn from the collective memories of God’s people as a source of hope. God’s prophets are not fortune-telling predictors of the future events. They are witnesses to God’s presence in the world and in our lives, God, who is vulnerable and nurturing and suffering with us. God who tends and shapes God’s people – ALL of God’s people, not just a special set of followers of particular religious tenants – all of the people, all of humanity, all of creation, intimately shaped in love by God’s creating Spirit, as a potter shapes clay to make useful vessels. The prophet knew that when God seems hidden, people are lonely and hurting. And this is when we act out in fear, sinning against one another. The prophet also knew that God is always hiding in plain sight in the pain of our very lives and situations. God is not a coy, disguised superhero… Clark Kent, the humble bumbling reporter, one minute and Superman saving the world the next minute. The character of God is “divine determination relating to the world “through the vulnerable path of noncoercive love and suffering service rather than domination and force.” [2] This determined loving, suffering character of God is why we can dream hope even in the worst of times. We have Love Divine with us, within us, among us, binding us together even in conflict and seeming de-construction of all that we hold dear. This is the God of the Advent call, “O come, O come, Emmanuel – God with us!”
Perhaps you saw the artwork for this week from our Advent devotional booklet in the Plymouth Thursday Overview and Saturday Evening emails. Its titled, “Tear Open the Heavens” and painted by Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman, a founding partner of Sanctified Art, the group who wrote our devotional. Look at it with me for just a moment…. What do you see? I see weeping….spilling over love, an overflowing pottery pitcher, mountains, trees, wise eyes, divine presence, the colors of love, the actions of love.
We can dream hope because God is dreaming with us as we weep and laugh and work together with God. As we sometimes rage against the pain and darkness – with God. As we sometimes hide from one another and from God. Yet God, Divine Love, is always dreaming hope and dreaming love through us, through our lives. Therefore, we can hold fast to our dreams because God is holding fast to us even when we are not watching. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” we say. And God says, “I have. I am with you. I never left.” Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
Holy One, we come before you this morning with hopes for dreaming hope, for building hope, for being hope in our corners of your world. We long to get our hands dirty with the work of hope as we raise money for homelessness prevention, as we support the immigrants in our community, as we learn together with our children and youth about the active hope of Advent, as we support one another in these difficult times – even if distanced. As our thoughts and preparations turn toward the Christmas season, keep us ever-mindful of gratitude for our blessings, ever-giving from those same gifts for you have given them to us for sharing. Bless all those who struggle with illness of any kind, those who wait for much needed surgery or procedures because the hospitals are full of Covid 19 patients who need the frontline care. Bless the caregivers of all kinds, whether in a facility or at home. Bless the children and youth and young adults as they go back to remote school. Bless those who mourn the loss of a loved one. Bless our country in this time of transition. May we all turn toward much needed healing of racial and political divides. Bless us all as we seek to participate in your hope for your creation. Hear us now as we say the prayer Jesus taught us to say, “Our Father, who art….
[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/150995/dreams-5d767850da976
[2] Scott Bader-Saye, “Theological Perspective”, Isaiah 64.1-9, First Sunday in Advent, Year B, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY, 2008, 6.)
©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2020 and beyond. May only be reprinted with permission.
* Isaiah 64.1-9[10-12]
1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence — 2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil — to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! 3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. 4From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. 5You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself, we transgressed. 6We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on your name or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. 8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people. (10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. 11 Our holy and beautiful house, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins. 12 After all this, will you restrain yourself, O LORD? Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?) AuthorAssociate Minister Jane Anne Ferguson is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. Learn more about Jane Anne here.
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Advent 4: Luke and Matthew. Mary and Joseph’s story Today’s Christmas story is a LOVE STORY. The Gospel of Luke tells the Christmas story and the birth of Jesus from Mary’s perspective. The Gospel of Matthew tells the Christmas story tells it from Joseph’s perspective. We are going to approach both today. These stories are so familiar to us. Mary was a young woman who in 1st century had no power. Not just because she is young, 12-14, not just because she is pregnant and without a husband, she didn’t have voice or consent over her body during these ancient times – others made those decisions for them. But this story, gives a young woman choice VOICE to her situation. We see evidence of this in our scripture today. The Angel of Gabriel tells Mary she will bear a son. Mary says how can this be? I am a virgin. Gabriel reassures her that this is from the Holy Spirit and Mary moves from being powerless to powerful by saying: verse 38 – “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary accepted the love of God at that moment. Joseph’s version of the birth story is covered in Matthew and it goes like this. Mary and Joseph were engaged to be married. Joseph’s plan, when he found out Mary was with child, was to quietly divorce her because he was a righteous or just man. Joseph was also heard the voice of an angel who said: ‘take Mary as your wife, what is conceived in her is by the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus.” As a just man he learned to follow the LAW in the Torah but he is torn by the message from the angel. Joseph’s quandary or his choice is this – follow the Torah (the Law) or follow God. HE was definitely in a much better situation than Mary – simply because of his gender and his family genealogy. But he still had to make a choice because his status was a stake. Joseph accepted the Love of God – accepted God’s message. So….Don’t you want to know more? Don’t you want to know more about Mary and who she was and what her relationship with Joseph was like – where did they meet, were they junior high sweethearts or was it an arranged marriage? Don’t you want to reach out and have a conversation with her and find out how she survived these ancient times? The hopeless romantic in me wanted this sermon to be a love story about Mary and Joseph – and their relationship and their unborn SON. A romantic tale at Christmas time. The reality is that this likely would have been scandalous situation! Yet, it is a love story. A love story with God and about God. Mary and Joseph each had their quandary. But as they journeyed to the first Christmas they walked into the unknown – relying on their own love story with God. The good news is that it’s not just a story of 1st century it’s a story relevant to today. It’s our story. The birth story or as Luke calls it “Mary’s story” empowers a nation to be pregnant with possibility. To birth hope, peace, joy, and love. It has the power to inspire us to rise above and be our best selves. This story affirms that God is born, conceived, birthed in all kinds of families, all kinds of situations. We don’t have to have status or power or money – we can live in the suburbs, cities, rural towns, single, married, divorced, young, old, doubtful, faithful, questioning, gay, lesbian, bi, trans – hurt, sad, - God meets you where you are. This story affirms that God comes to all of us. All of us are created by God. To say that this child is from the Holy Spirit is to say that this is a radically new beginning and that it’s God’s doing. This is a love story. This story says that God favors Mary. A poor, young Jewish girl – this was not typical in a world when this situation could have been very dehumanizing in a time when the rich and powerful were thought to be favored – and most always men. In this story, Mary was chosen instead of stoned to death and told to not be afraid. And Mary says; let it be with me according to your word. She had a SAY. It favors the unfavored. It encourages us not to be afraid in the face of a violent and frightening world because God lives in all of us. Not just in Jesus but also the likes of Mary and Joseph. She carried God within her. She birthed God. This is a radical love story. This story disrupts our thinking and asks us to open our hearts to difference, to different people and different situations. Because God is love and this is a love story. Mary was chosen because she was different. There is no one standard of people or situation that God favors. God favors ALL of us. We are invited to learn from this story. To invite the love of God into our lives – no matter whom we are or what we experience – whether we feel isolated or broken, joyous or exuberant. We learn to accept those who might be shamed or ostracized. Those who may be facing a quandary – Law or God. God wants to birth something new in us – hope, peace, joy, and love – in you and me. No matter whom we are! All of us. How will we respond to this story? How will we respond to the Holy Spirit who dwells not just in Mary and Joseph but in us within us? How will we deal with the impossible? When society says one thing and God says another? Let us look around our world. Where is the possibility? This story says that nothing is impossible. How will we rewrite our story based on the greatest story ever? If we embody the messages of hope, peace, joy and love – will we accept the challenge of the Holy Spirit? Will we see the impossible in Mary and Joseph’s situation and make it our story? Will we extend the meaning of this LOVE STORY in our lives? I hope so! Praise be to God! Amen. AuthorRev. Carla Cain has just begun her ministry at Plymouth as a Designated Term Associate Minister (two years).
Micah 5. 2-4; Isaiah 35.1-10
Zephaniah 3.14-18; Luke 1.26-38 (scroll to bottom for texts) Advent Service of Lessons and Carols Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson I listened to these ancient texts this week in tandem with hearing the news of the week: the continued debate of impeachment hearings in Congress, the naming of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, climate change activist, as Time magazine’s Person of the Year and the bullying response of the President to that news, the memory of the Sandy Hook school shooting on its 7th anniversary yesterday, December 14th, and the knowledge that families are still separated at our southern border and children are kept in cages. This is heartbreaking, fear-producing stuff. After the synagogue shooting this past April in Poway, CA, New York Times columnist, David Brooks, titled his column, “An Era Defined by Fear; the emotional tone underneath the political conflicts.” Brooks writes that fear pervades our society. That is really no news to any of us. But he lays it out so succinctly that we recognize it, especially as it is in stark contrast to the celebration of this season. Brooks tells us that politicians use fear to rise to power setting one group or tribe of people against another. Fear comes from our own personal traumas and experiences in childhood and beyond. Fear is exploited by the media to grab headlines. Fear grips our minds, making us numb and unable to hear good news. Fear makes us angry and acting out of anger produces more fear. Fear paralyze sour ability to take practical action, to get stuff done for the good of ourselves, our families, our communities and our world. Fear paralyzes our ability to share abundance, to be generous. Did you hear the word of God proclaimed by our prophets today, Micah, Isaiah, Zephaniah and the gospel writer, Luke? Each of these powerful writers was addressing a community in their time that was beset by fear. Fear of oppression and persecution, fear of failure, fear of even surviving. We are not the first generation to live in the midst of great fear. Isaiah says to the people through all that revitalizing imagery of the barren wilderness coming alive, “Be strong, do not fear! God will come to save you.” Zephaniah tells the people, “you shall fear disaster no more! Rejoice and exult. Do not fear, do not let your hands grow weak...God is in your midst.” The angel says to Mary, “Do not be afraid for you have found favor with God.” Micah promises One who is coming as a shepherd to lead and protect the people. “They shall live secure; [for] this One is of peace. “ These words are also for us in our era of fear. They are not “pie-in-the-sky by and by” words. They hold Truth that grounds us. Truth we can know through our faith, through trusting in God’s presence even in the midst of extreme adversity when there seems to be no hope on the horizon, through putting our faith into action day after day. At the end of his column, Brooks writes, “Fear comes in the night. But eventually you have to wake up in the morning, get out of bed and get stuff done.” My friends, for us that “stuff” is reading and remembering the promises of we have heard in our texts today. That “stuff” is praying with these promises in our hearts and minds. That “stuff” is our daily acts of kindness to combat the pervasiveness of fear. That “stuff” is working for justice, caring for our families, coming to worship, celebrating this Advent season of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love that prepares us to receive at Christmas and beyond, to receive again and again and again the Holy One who came to show us how to be human by being God with us. Does it seem impossible some days to keep on keeping on in the face of the fear and anger in our age? Yes, it does. But remember, the angel says, “With God nothing will be impossible.” And that, my friends, is a promise of pure joy that sustains us through happiness and sadness. Fear not! God is in the midst of you! God is with us! With God nothing will be impossible....barren wildernesses bloom, miraculous births abound, people are united in love rather than hate. God comes in human form, the baby of a poor, migrant woman grows up to show us all how to live in the transforming ways of God! Be joyful and rejoice! Amen. ©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2019. All rights reserved. AuthorAssociate Minister Jane Anne Ferguson is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. Learn more about Jane Anne here. Texts
Isaiah 11.1-10 & Matthew 3.1-12
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning Plymouth Congregational UCC, Fort Collins, Colorado Advent II Repent! That is the key message we hear from John the Baptizer. That would certainly make him popular at a church potluck or an upscale cocktail party, wouldn’t it? I’ve sometimes thought it would be really awkward to have Jesus at Thanksgiving dinner with all of our celebratory excess, but he doesn’t hold a candle to his cousin, John. Many of the paintings and frescoes I’ve seen of John portray him as something of a wild man, looking disheveled and unkempt. One of the very early frescoes labels him in Latin: Ioannis Precursor, literally the forerunner of Jesus. The funny thing for me is that I find those images appealing, because they are often so human in their portrayal. John looks like he bears the sadness of the human condition on his face. His expression seems to acknowledge that humanity is in need of a radical turn-around, and the best way he knows how to do that is to be provocative and to offer a baptism for the repentance of sins, and it is a cleansing ritual not unknown in Judaism. In last week’s sermon, I claimed that John was just the precursor and that Jesus was the one really doing a new thing, not by baptizing with water, but with fire and the Holy Spirit. The idea is that Jesus’ baptism will be transforming us, refining us, not just cleansing us…that it will instill in us a new sense of God’s presence, what Dom Crossan calls a different kind of heart transplant – not of the pumping organ in your chest, but a radical transplant of the spirit within you…that your old spirit is done and gone and that Christ’s spirit is implanted into you. And it would take something incredibly radical to disrupt the food chain Isaiah describes: Let’s face it, if you ever watched Wild Kingdom or Sir David Attenborough on TV, you know that the natural order means that wolves are meant to eat lambs, and that leopards are meant to eat goats, and that lions are meant to eat calves. It is nature, red it tooth and claw. All of us understand that the natural order is less likely to change than human behavior. Unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, we have the ability to choose our responses and our behaviors. But that is a tall order. So, what about disrupting our assumptions? Don’t most of us assume that self-interest is normal and ethical? Don’t we assume that the “invisible hand of the market” is and should control our economy? Don’t we assume that “the poor will always be with us?” and that even though we tried to end homelessness in Fort Collins by 2020, it was something of a pipe dream? (I was told as much by an older Presbyterian clergyperson back when I was on the Leadership Team of Homeward 2020.) Every year for the past 15 years, I have seen our teens sleep out to raise funds and awareness to prevent homelessness, and I’ve slept out with them three or four years…and I’m still waiting for one of my colleagues to do the same! What if one of the young people who participates gets the idea that maybe things don’t have to be the way they are? What if one of them threw everything they’ve got into dreaming up a new way to work on the root causes of homelessness and came up with a solution? With all due respect to the focus on STEM in our educational system, our ethical and social structures need more emphasis, because science and technology are clearly out-pacing economics, social relations, theology, politics, arts, and literature, and as a people, we’re suffering from it. What if parents like me did less to encourage our kids to play competitive sports and get the highest grades and spent more time inculcating the kind of values our faith espouses? What if we stopped trying so hard to make them “successful” and focused on compassion instead? What kind of world might be created if we allow ourselves to be baptized with fire and with the Holy Spirit? Nobody is going to force you to change, to repent, to engage in deep inner transformation. And the reason is simple: nobody can do that for you. Transformation is an “inside job.” And it’s right in the middle of Plymouth’s mission statement of worshiping God and making the kingdom visible by inviting people into our faith, transforming ourselves deeply, and then sending us out into the world. All of us need to work on becoming better citizens of God’s realm, and that will require some realignment of our priorities and it will require some sacrifice of the things relatively affluent Americans love most: recreation, time, privilege, and money. A few weeks ago, I saw a meme on Facebook that said, “Sometimes being a good Christian means being a bad Roman.” And what we stand to gain is what Americans talk least about — you know…the Mr. Rogers values — loving relationships with others, being spiritually and emotionally grounded, relying on neighbors, having a sense of security that does not depend on a stock portfolio, gated communities, or carrying a firearm. And most of all, it means being connected to the presence of God. Being baptized with water? That’s easy. Not so much with fire and the Holy Spirit. Imagine if you heard this prophecy: “The business magnate will support the homeless man. The Democrat shall embrace the Republican as a sister or brother. The gun manufacturer will build tools with the smithy. The Russian oligarch and the Andean farmer will work as one. The refugee and the white supremacist will be at home with one another. And a little child shall lead them.” What would you add to that list of unlikely, but desirable, events? What enemies do you wish would become lovers? What circumstances would you love to transform? God knows there is so much to be done…and there is a place to start. In 1780, John Adams (who considered studying for the Congregational ministry at Harvard before he opted for law) wrote to his wife Abigail from Paris: “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, Navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary and Porcelaine.” That is what Adams envisioned as transformation and progress, and he risked his life for it. Though you and I know that we cannot change the world overnight, with God’s help we have a place to start: with prayer. The first step is to open ourselves up the transformative power of God…to pray, to talk about, to work for a world that Jesus would recognize as God’s realm. And doing so, we must avoid falling into the traps of despair or hopelessness or lacking trust in God’s presence in the world. We have to keep the faith…just as the Hebrew people did when they were in captive exile in Babylon. You and I have the amazing privilege of getting to pray for and to work for the kind of nation and the kind of world that God would be proud of, and it starts in here. It is a nation, it is a world, that is full of pain, but those may be the birth pangs of coming into a new way of being. You and I are called to be the agents of transformation in ourselves and in God’s world, so in this Advent season of active waiting, let us keep the faith. There is a voice in the wilderness calling, so keep awake, listen deeply, and pray fervently, because the kingdom of God is at hand. Amen. © 2019 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal.
Isaiah 2.1-5
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado Advent is the time of year when we start thinking that we can fall into the same comfortable pattern of lighting candles, anticipating Christmas — and hearing endless refrains of “Rudolph” and “White Christmas” as we shop for presents. But today I’d like to suggest something a little different. The texts that we read during Advent include some familiar stories, like John the Baptizer telling us that he is not messiah…who will not baptize with water, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And during this season, we also get lots of prophecy from Isaiah, of the wolf and the lamb living harmoniously, the shoot growing forth from the tree of Jesse, and the young woman bearing a son. And on this first Sunday of Advent, we get a prophecy of peace…of an anything-but-familiar way of living in the world. Today’s text comes from the first of three sections of the Book of Isaiah, and it sounds almost like a pilgrimage psalm, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.” This chapter reinforces the idea of Jerusalem (the mountain of the Lord) is the home of God. Even though we think of God as “everywhere” not just in Jerusalem, the writer is setting the reign of God above all the empires of the earth…Assyria and Babylon, then Rome, then London, then Washington. That implies that it won’t be business as usual in God’s world…that something new is going to happen. I was struck this week by Pope Francis’s visit to Japan, especially to the atomic bomb sites of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While we were visiting my son Cameron in Japan last spring, Jane Anne and I visited Hiroshima and found it to be an incredibly moving experience. It is not easy to be an American and to visit the city that was leveled by a bomb dropped by our nation to end the Second World War. When we were there, we noticed a conspicuous scarcity of Americans, especially visiting the museum that details life in Hiroshima before, during, and after the bombing. One of the artifacts that touched me particularly was a child’s tricycle that had been twisted and burned by the blast. My dad served in the Pacific during World War II and was later a B-17 pilot, so it had some deep, personal resonances for me. Without judging whether the use of atomic weapons was an appropriate decision, all of us can acknowledge that it happened, and that there were extraordinary casualties. And it was there in Japan, the only nation to endure an atomic bombing, that Pope Francis called for a world free from nuclear weapons, saying, “The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral…we will be judged on this.”[1] That is a new thing! That is kingdom talk, not empire talk. It is a radical departure from what we consider the normalcy of civilization. Our nation spends nearly $50 billion on the nuclear weapons industry…what else might we do with that $50 billion?[2] Isaiah, Micah, and Joel all use the imagery of “beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.” And that is what Pope Francis is saying. Fifty billion dollars could build a lot of plowshares. Could we ever consider something so radical? Jesus was a radical in ways that John never was. John came offering a baptism for the repentance of sins, and Jesus came healing the sick and proclaiming God’s liberating reign…in other words, regime change…through the movement of the Holy Spirit. Walter Brueggemann, a UCC theologian writes, “being baptized with God’s holy spirit [means]…we may be visited by a spirit of openness, generosity, energy, that ‘the force’ may come over us, carry us to do obedient things we have not yet done, kingdom things we did not think we had in us, neighbor things from which we cringe. The whole tenor of Advent is that God may act in us, through us, beyond us, more than we imagined because newness is on its way among us. John is not the newness. He prepares us for the newness….Advent is preparing for the demands of newness that will break the tired patterns of fear in our lives.”[3] What are the tired patterns of fear in our nation that hamstring us? Could be find a new way, a kingdom way, to share the abundance God has entrusted to us? Could we find a new way to focus our efforts the collective good, rather than simply our individual well-being and economic self-interest? What are the tired patterns of fear in your own life? Could you find a new way, a kingdom way, of understanding and sharing the abundance God has entrusted to you? Could you let go of thinking that you are an inadequate parent, partner, student, daughter or son – and perhaps see in yourself what God already sees in you? Could you let go of some of the “what ifs” in your life and simply live in the moment? Could you let go of some of your attitude of scarcity – that there is never enough – and instead focus on the abundance that God has given you, not just in economic terms, but in terms of time, relationship, love, and faith? Are you ready for some newness to break forth in Advent this year? If so, what might you ask God to help you with? The wonder of our faith is that you are not alone…you don’t have to muscle through tough changes on your own, because God is with you every step of the way. Will you pray with me? God, we ask for you to accompany us on our Advent journey. May we take time to be present with you, with those we love, and with ourselves. May be gentle with the people around us and with ourselves. And may we be alert to the changes you may be calling forth within us and among us, and may we keep awake to the newness that Advent brings. Amen. © 2019 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. [1] “Pope Francis called for a world free of nuclear weapons” by Christopher White, Washington Post, November 24, 2019. [2] Ibid. [3] Walter Brueggemann, Celebrating Abundance. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), p. 4 AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal.
Advent 4
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson Luke 1.39-55 39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." 46 And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50 His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. It was the fourth Sunday in Advent, 1990. The sanctuary of Central Congregational, UCC, in Atlanta, GA was decorated with greens, just like ours. It is a beautiful sanctuary the slopes down to the chancel area in ancient Greek amphitheater style. The entire front and side walls are glass looking into the wonder of the North Georgia woods. The Advent candles were lit, just like ours. The scripture text for the day was Luke 1, Mary’s visit with Elizabeth and her song of joy, The Magnificat, like we have just heard. We had a three month old in the nursery and our four year old was safely ensconced with dear friends of our in the pews. We – my former husband and I – had been invited to deliver a version of the scripture in the form of a song. As he accompanied us on guitar, I began: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; and my spirit exults in God, my Savior. For God has looked upon my lowliness and my name shall be forever exalted.” There was a slight, disturbing rustle in the pew where the four year old was sitting. But we concentrated on the song. I continued. “For the Mighty One has done great things for me. God’s mercy exceeds from age to age....” The rustle grew louder. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw the four year old escape from the pew...OMG....just keep singing, just keep singing....and as we sang the refrain: “Holy, Holy, Holy is God’s name....” And then we saw him.....he was lying down horizontally across the middle of the middle aisle....which sloped down to the front of the church and slowly rolling down toward us – just as children roll down a grassy hill – only in slow motion - rolling in time to our music. What do you do? You keep singing, you try to “un-see” what you have just seen your child doing and you keep singing...and I must tell you, our harmony was never so focused, so in tune, so precise. After the service I said to our four year old wonder child...”Can you tell me why you did that? Did you want some attention? Are you feeling neglected because you now have to share Mommy and Daddy with your baby brother?” “No, Mommy! I just liked your song!” “I just liked your song!” He liked the song so he responded to it with his whole being! His whole body and heart and soul. In uninhibited four year old fashion. Oh, that we who are way past four years old could remember how to respond to the songs of God with our whole beings, body, heart, mind and soul! Oh, that we could remember how to say “Yes!” to God with our whole selves like the peasant girl, Mary, like the unfettered, freely giving four year old! Do you think we can? The late New Testament scholar, Raymond Brown, wrote that all the canticles, the songs we hear sung in the gospel of Luke, including our song of Mary, were songs of a group of first century Jewish Christians who staked their lives on God’s abundance as evident throughout the Hebrew scriptures. Throughout the stories, psalms, history and prophecy of the Hebrew scriptures God calls God’s people to move out of the myth of scarcity and into a lyric of abundance. In God’s providence there is enough for all! If we live in this lyric, we will share all the abundance given to creation and humanity. There is enough for all! These early Jewish Christians were called the “Anawim,” “the Poor Ones.” While this group may have been physically poor, Brown tells us that their name also came to be associated with “those who could not trust their own strength, but had to rely in utter confidence upon God.”[1] Living in stark contrast to the Anawim were the literal rich as well as those who showed no need for God through pride and self-sufficiency even if they were not financially wealthy. Mary’s song is a lyric of abundance, a song of the Anawim, the Poor Ones. Those who rely fully on God. Who respond to God with faith in God’s lyric of abundance with a resounding “Yes!”. Who respond with their whole being like a four year old rolling down the aisle of a church because music stirs his whole being. Mary sings: "With all my heart I glorify the Lord! In the depths of who I am, I rejoice in God my savior. Because “God has scattered [and is scattering] those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations. God has pulled [and is pulling] the powerful down from their thrones. God has lifted up [and is lifting up] the lowly. God has filled [and is filling] the hungry with good things and has sent the rich away empty-handed.” And God shows this mercy from one generation to the next.....all this has happened, is happening and will continue to happen. My friends, given Mary’s song, we have good reason to say “Yes!” to God with our whole selves. We have good reason AND it is through our saying “Yes!” that God works in our world. I believe God’s lyric of abundance persists in spite of us, in spite of the our being stuck as a people, as a culture, as the whole of humanity in the myth of scarcity. However.... God’s lyric of abundance multiplies, spreads like wind through the trees, like sun on the water, like the fertility of the earth in spring when we say “Yes!” to it with our whole beings! Then we are co-creating with God. Poet and musician, Leonard Cohen, God rest his soul, echoes the voices of the Poor Ones and of Mary in his book of contemporary psalms, The Book of Mercy: “Take heart, you who were born in the captivity of a fixed predicament; and tremble, you kings of certainty: your iron has become like glass, and the word has been uttered that will shatter it.” (Leonard Cohen, The Book of Mercy) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Listen my friends to Leonard Cohen, to Mary, to the Spirit of the Living God! “Take Heart,” my friends of God here at Plymouth, “Take Heart! We are so often stuck in our world views of not being, not having enough. We get stuck in our insecurities, our inadequacies, our sense of futility in resisting the darkness of the world’s greed and its myth of scarcity. We unconsciously live in the certainty that the world is ONLY as we see it on CNN or MSNBC, etc, etc, etc. But that is not the whole of reality, even the tip of the iceberg of reality. God’s lyric of abundance for ALL IS the reality! It is the reality our world craves. And it is within our power to say “Yes!” with abandon and joy and love to God’s abundance in the world. For our own souls and also for the sake of those who are truly poor, homeless, in refugee and immigration detention centers, in war zones. Like the first century “Poor Ones” who did not “trust their own strength but relied in full confidence on the strength of God”, like Mary, we can say “Yes!” Each time we say “yes” with our whole selves to a ministry opportunity here at Plymouth, to a volunteer position, no matter how small, to a work of advocacy for the marginalized, to the work we are called to do in the world, to the call of parenting and grand-parenting, to friendship and intimate relationships we are tapping into God’s Big Ultimate Yes to the world! Is it always easy? No, it is not. It was not easy for Mary in any way, I imagine. Childbirth, parenting, the unjust death of your son by the government....these are not easy. It has not always been easy for that 4 year old who rolled down the aisle of Central Congregational in Atlanta. At 32 this has not been an easy year for him. You all know that it is not easy to say “Yes” to God. However, because despite the tears and struggle that life brings, saying “Yes” brings Joy in the deepest sense for it is participating in Love which is God which is Source and which makes all things possible. Even the impossible possible. As we finish this Advent season today and look toward Christmas Eve tomorrow...let us take a risk and say “Yes!” in ways we have not yet imagined. Who knows what opportunity will knock that can open up our lives to deep Joy and Love? May we let our wildest imaginations pray for, intend, plan for our full participation as individuals and as a community of faith in God’s lyrically abundant justice-making Love in the new year. Remember the joy and wild abandon of saying yes to life with your whole being as you rolled down a grassy or snowy hill fully trusting the commitment? That’s it! Say “Yes!" to God! Amen. And Amen! © The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2018 and beyond. May be reprinted with permission only. [1] Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, The Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1993), 351. AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate, Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. Learn more about Jane Ann here. |
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