This Sunday, December 4, the 2nd Sunday of Advent, is our Communion Sunday of the month and immediately following worship we will have a special coffee hour featuring some fun crafts for all. Come and be blessed and have some fun.
Next Sunday, December 11, we will be decorating the sanctuary for Christmas, and the plan is to order some pizzas to enhance the fellowship fun.
Also, we're making a special effort to collect food for the poor this month. We have a special reverse Advent calendar that offers suggestions of one item for each day (canned and dried goods). You can email the office for that list, or just make up your own. Get a box and drop in an item (with a prayer) throughout the month.
Blessings all around,
Pastor Sean
Second Sunday of Advent
A Service of the Word
December 4, 2022
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
*CALL TO WORSHIP:
One: Awaken to a season of anticipation.
God is offering peace within and among us.
Many: How good it is to gather in God’s house!
God draws us together for this time of worship.
One: God calls us to celebrate our diversity.
Differences shall no longer divide us.
Many: We want to see one another through God’s eyes.
We will look for the good in our neighbors.
One: Seek the highest and best for each other.
Come to the mountain of God’s love.
All: We will follow in the paths where God leads.
Our ears are open to hear God’s instructions.
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
Come Spirit of God, to rest on our community, embracing the poor, bringing equity to the meek, turning
away all expressions of evil. Come into this congregation to enliven our worship, to immerse us in
righteousness, to prompt our faithfulness. Rain on us your hope and joy and peace, filling the whole
earth with your glory.
LIGHTING OF OUR ADVENT WREATH
Leaders: The Spirit of God is in our midst, as peace enters in.
Many: The promised Christ is full of wisdom and
understanding in the Spirit of God.
Leaders: Fear will fade and comfort will come.
Enemies will be transformed into friends.
Many: As we trust in God, we find our peace.
Let us – with peace – kindle the light of the Lord.
(The second candle is lit)
Leaders: Let us pray to our God-with-Us:
ALL: Heavenly One, Author of Hope and Peace, we seek your peace that passes all
understanding. Come and comfort. Come and heal. Help our hearts be transformed by
your grace. Saving God, lead the people in the ways of peace Amen.Come Spirit of God, to rest on our community, embracing the poor, bringing equity to the meek, turning
away all expressions of evil. Come into this congregation to enliven our worship, to immerse us in
righteousness, to prompt our faithfulness. Rain on us your hope and joy and peace, filling the whole
earth with your glory.
Silent Prayer
Lord's Prayer:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily
bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS:
Isaiah 11:1-10
❖ Psalm 72.1-7, 18-19
❖ Romans 15:4-13
❖ Matthew 3.1-6
SERMON:
“Pause for Peace”
Yesterday, I took a training course called “Mental Health First Aid.” It was offered by the NY Conference and
ran from 9:00-3:30. It highlighted the need, even in congregational life, of better mental health for all. A statistic that was offered was that 1 in 5 people, and now with the pandemic it’s thought that 2 in 5 people, suffer from a mental ailment, such as anxiety or depression, which gets little attention and is often met with social stigma.
The course was particularly timely as this season, Advent, tends to be one that can be fraught with triggers and challenges that put people on edge, and knock them for a bit of a loop.
Perhaps you’re one of the fortunate ones this Advent. You have just enough on your calendar, but not all that much. You’ve got a bit a shopping to do, but not all that much. Your Christmas is already well planned, complete with the menu or what you’re bringing elsewhere. It’s all well under control. Then there’s the rest of us. Advent brings more responsibilities. To-do lists. Must-do lists. Christmas planning. Christmas shopping. Concerns. Insecurities. And there are aches. And even when not aches, doctors’ appointments. Plus, when you’re called to be agents of your own hope (a nod to last week), that’s a little bit of work, of thinking, of doing. There’s stress. Sometimes just we don’t have it in us. What then? And then we pause. We pause for peace. Or so goes the hope.
But can we? Can we genuinely pause for peace? How do you just tHow do you just take a time-out, a voluntary one, (rather than one of compelled sitting on the stairs after a pointed finger in the face), especially with all of that? Once you pause, even for a moment or two, then what?
Experts will suggest various methods for a good timeout. Meditation is a regular on the list. They’ll also tell you meditation is enhanced with visualization. Pastors will suggest that you consider making it spiritually enhanced: Meditation with a holy aspect. And don’t you just know, the first reading provides one of the best visual layouts for both visualization and a holy aspect.
It includes some of the most beautiful imagery of the Bible, complete with a beloved verse: The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. It speaks of a peace that settles in and days that are marked by a harmony of total nonviolence.
The hope is that the pace of the season won’t be too much for you to be able to genuinely enjoy it. And if it gets to feeling like it’s a bit too much, the hope is that you will take a pause for peace and reconnect with God, and recenter.
As it happens, today after worship, with thanks to Sandy and Jane, we have a special coffee hour with crafts. Crafts and puzzles are another key way to get engaged in a genuine pause for peace. When we get doing some totally other, it takes us out of our worry zone, gets our mind focused on something else, and allows us to catch our breath and recharge a bit.
Another exercise that may be helpful this season as you take a pause for peace is that of holy remembrance and a self story-telling of sorts. This is where the Gospel lesson fits in. If you get to fretting a bit too much, pause and remember you’ve long navigated the season well. If you get to worrying about how things will play out, turn out, go to the good in your imaging, in the story you tell yourself of how it will be, and stop there. Matthew the evangelist, the storyteller, recalls John the Baptist. He paints a wonderful picture of a holy one, John, who proclaimed the nearness of the kingdom of God. The riverside wildness was his setting, and people
flocked to him. They found peace by confessing their sins, knowing God forgave them, washed them, and they were baptized. It’s a solid good-news account.
Or so it is, provided we pause where we did today. For the second part of the account includes John’s less than welcoming words to the Sadducees and Pharisees who arrive (he calls them a brood of vipers), and talk of the wrath to come and unquenchable fire.
Sometimes when we get fretting over what’s to come, and that isn’t limited to Advent events but includes a host of other items from tests for students, to outcomes of medical procedures, we don’t allow ourselves to stop, to land, on the good picture. Instead, we continue on into the negative zone. But pause on the good. Pause for peace, and let that settle in.
Here at church, we’ll be offering other nice opportunities for you to take a pause and to get out of the hustle and bustle and worry of life this season. Join us for pizza next week after church as we get to decorating our sanctuary. Come on the 18th and sit for bit and listen to some favorite carols that George will play on the organ. Take the deep breaths of the pause for peace this season, and let God’s blessings fill you.
*BENEDICTION
