(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our Circuit and with the congregation at Allerton Methodist Church led by Rev Phil Drake, one of our Circuit Ministers.
Click on the blue links to follow them for Bible readings and associated links.
When God reigns, there is room for all ages and genders
It’s Advent.
Not yet Christmas.
It’s not just time for you and me to prepare
It’s time for all the world’s different people to prepare.
It’s time to see God’s message in all living created things,
the environment around us.
It’s time to make room in our lives for all ages and all genders;
people who are overlooked, second class citizens ignored or put upon. Time to be grateful for Mary who was one of these.
Let us think, without Mary, young, pregnant and unmarried, where would we be?
When God reigns
there is room for all ages and genders.
Without that young woman who put her trust in God, what would we believe?
When God reigns
there is room for all ages and genders.
Without that commitment, that vision and faith, what faith could we have?
When God reigns
there is room for all ages and genders.
Without Mary saying yes to God and mothering Jesus, would the Saviour be ours?
When God reigns
there is room for all ages and genders.
Let us ask ourselves if we scorn and shun because of age or gender.
When God reigns
there is room for all ages and genders
We lit our first candle for you and me. We lit our second candle for people who are different from us. We lit our third candle for the environment and its care.Let us light our fourth candle for Mary and all who are marginalised because of age or gender.
Song 185 (StF) Sing we the king who is coming to reign
Prayers
As an Advent hymn says, “There’s a hush of expectation”: it is Advent and we eagerly anticipate the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Christ child. This is our God, God who made us, God in whom all things were created. The breath of God is moving in the fervent breath of prayer, and we pray that we will make ourselves ready, and be ready for God’s gift of his Son the Christ-child, his gift of resurrected life for all, of salvation for all, or life for all. In the words of the hymn writer, Maggi Dawn, “into the darkness of this world, into the shadows of the night: into this loveless place you came, lightened our burden and eased our pain and made these hearts your home. Come Lord, Jesus, come with your love to make us whole, come with your light to lead us on, driving the darkness from our souls; Come Lord Jesus, come.” Amen
Confession – using the words of StF 420
Because you came and sat beside us,
because you came and heard us speak,
and we ignored you, and we refused you,
we ask forgiveness, Lord Jesus Christ.
Because you laughed and loved the child-like,
because you lived from day to day,
and we love status and steady money,
we ask forgiveness, Lord Jesus Christ.
Because our peace was your agenda,
because you wept to see us war,
and we love power, and winning battles,
we ask forgiveness, Lord Jesus Christ.
Because your cross compels an answer,
because your love absorbs our sin,
and we are wounded because we wound you,
we ask forgiveness, Lord Jesus Christ.
Because you came at Easter morning,
because you came at Pentecost,
and in the Spirit, we are forgiven,
we live to praise you, Lord Jesus Christ!
Shirley Erena Murray
© 1996 Hope Publishing
Song 187 (StF) The Angel Gabriel from heaven came
Reflection
(humming the tune, Sing we the King….) Did you like that hymn? it’s a good sing isn’t it? So in Advent you are all getting ready for and waiting with great anticipation for….. the end of the world? No? well you sang about it, particularly the last verse: Kingdom of Christ for your coming we pray; hasten O Father, the dawn of the day when this new song your creation shall sing, Satan is vanquished and Jesus is King. We didn’t sing about a cosy stable with the baby “ no crying he makes- whoever wrote that wasn’t a parent I reckon! We didn’t sing about snow lying snow on snow, not even peace on earth and mercy mild, (which always to me sounds like an advert for Gaviscon) – and we sang a hymn, which is not about the incarnation, but the resurrection, our resurrection when the kingdom is complete.
So why do we sing that when we are all settling in for a nice cosy Chriiiistmaaaas. Well, the first thing to say is that without talking about the completion of God’s work, the kingdom of Christ, the nativity itself is meaningless, irrelevant. I remember at junior school being asked by the teacher (Mrs Corner as it it happens) “Which is the greatest feast in the church”. 42 hands shot up (yes, I got a good education even with 42 kids and one teacher!) and agreed it was Christmas. “No it’s not”, shouted Mrs Corner as, we felt neatly into her trap, “it’s Easter, because the resurrection was what Jesus came for. Christmas was just the start of Jesus life, not its fulfilment.” And she was right, although perhaps we can unpack that a little more.
The key to this is that Christ is universal. has been for all time and will be for all time, in fact beyond the dimension of time, which is a meaningless concept in the fulfilment of the Kingdom What did happen was that Christ became incarnate and, in the person of Jesus, was on the earth for a short 33 years. And in that time, the promise that we read in the prophecies was revealed, not that the work of salvation was beginning, but that we are to have the proof that the work of salvation that is Christ existing before all time, is real, and that the resurrection of Christ will be the proof of our resurrection too.
We are so often to ready to think of salvation in terms of something that has to be earned, that we have to be punished for our sins, we have to follow a set of rules so that we might not be judged and found wanting, we have to be good to avoid bad, to avoid hell, whatever that might be. How does that work when we say that not only does God love, but God is love? The love that is, as we read in Paul, patient; kind; not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Yes, God loved the world that he gave us his Son that we should have eternal life, but the God of love sent Jesus to prove that love by suffering for the revolutionary faith that threatened conventional views about power at the time, to prove the resurrection for our eternal life, not just to save us from eternal damnation.
We have a sort of duality about Christmas don’t we. We know its about the promise of God, but its also about a secular festival that has precious little to do with Jesus. Yes, there is an element of witness in our nativity plays, but if we are honest, what we really want to see is little Jason as the proud innkeeper, hoping that he knows his lines and doesn’t get stage fright, wetting himself on stage as he does so (Oh it happens!) Or about little Evie cradling the doll in a stable that looks as if it came out of a glamping brochure. And even our churches go into low gear with few services, even on Christmas day some of our churches are shut: we live with that contradiction: not having time for Jesus because Jesus is born?
Now, before I get lynched, (is it possible to be lynched on line?) let me say that taking time to be with families, spreading and sharing our own love at Christmas, in the school nativity play is good and equally, we have traditions in life of celebrating, even trying to celebrate when times are bad, we are the community of both our locality and family and friends, and the community of Christ. I get amused by those who capitalise on making Christmas such hard work: I didn’t watch the programme but there were endless trailers for Jamie Oliver’s Making Christmas Easy: we had to be persuaded first how hard it is!
But in Advent, at least we can and should spend time reminding ourselves what it is all about, so that when we do sit down our celebration at home, we have lived something of the story that makes it happen. And if we understand that, then perhaps the stress won’t make us want to say on the evening of Boxing Day, well, thank goodness that’s all over. I’m telling you, if you’re glad Christmas is over by Boxing Day, then you didn’t do Advent!
There’s a carol, one that I always find rather mawkish, but actually speaks the truth. Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine. God is love, God came down at Christmas, so I want to return to what we were thinking about a few minutes ago about salvation and love, it’s not earned, its a gift, and perhaps church is not the be-all and end-all that it often becomes. That probably needs some explanation first of all. doesn’t it?
The Pharisees and Sadducees mindful of the strict adherence to the Law contained in parts of what we now call the Old Testament, used to ask questions trying to trip up Jesus. You will probably be familiar with the one on Matthew’s Gospel, “(Which is the greatest commandment. Jesus saw the trap laid by the Pharisees, and floored them with a reply direct from the law that was such a necessity for them, their own law in Deuteronomy: Love God with all your heart mind should and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself. But he didn’t leave it there – he added a few words, words that would lift the law out of the dry book and make it real and relevant to his own mission. He added: on this hang all the law and the prophets. He was telling it straight – don’t give me all your rules about sacrifices, processions, the right clothes and not eating black pudding or shellfish, give me your love and give that love to everyone else too! In a sense, the loving God bit, going to the temple or synagogue, was almost a given, but if we look at the gospels, we see very little written about loving God, or going to church/temple/synagogue, and nowhere does it say that church every Sunday will get you to heaven. On the other hand, if you want to be a follower of Christ, what do the gospels say about loving your neighbour? It’s on almost ever other page isn’t it? The marriage at Cana, the adulterous woman, the Samaritan, forgiving 490 times, healings, blessing children, Martha and Mary….
The Sadducees also tried to make Jesus self-incriminate about the resurrection. You may remember (if you heard the set readings three weeks ago) that there was story from Luke where the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus, but quoting the law from Deuteronomy that said that if a married man dies, his brother should then marry the wife. But this man had seven brothers so they posed the ridiculous scenario of all seven brothers marrying the woman and dying, and then asked Jesus, so at the resurrection, who will be the woman’s husband?Jesus didn’t fall for that one, it was a trick question signalled by flashing lights and a siren that he couldn’t miss. He threw it back in their face. ”You’re talking of life in the resurrection, yet you can only use arguments of the present age!” Now that may seem an excuse for not answering, but it was a good example of highlighting stick-in-the-mud attitudes which not only show a lack of imagination, but also are a defence again any challenge to conventional beliefs.
Are we the same? Are we so used to reading the Bible in a particular way, the ways of attitudes, for us, particularly of the ways of Empire and colonialism? Are we stuck in Victorian attitudes to the Bible? There are so many ways in which society is changing our thinking about what is right, just and appropriate in our international relations and learning lessons from history, yet our Bible-thinking is slow in developing the same way.
Many stories in the Bible demonstrate that spirituality is transcendent, taking us way beyond the ordinary, that new life in Christ on earth is is not separate from, but part of our resurrected life. We live in the Christ that is not the merely the Jesus of 33 years, but the Christ of all time. We already have the promise of life in Christ, and Jesus’ birth was the beginning of the resurrection, because he was God beyond all time! The birth of Jesus is about the resurrection, and the resurrection of Jesus is about our resurrection, the king for whose ‘coming we pray…’
Yet we still have so many Christians who think that the way to salvation has to be earned. Have you ever been prodded in the chest and (literally or metaphorically) been asked, “Have you invited Jesus into your life?” You might be surprised to know that my answer to that is “No, I haven’t”. And before they can wipe the look of surprise and disapproval of their face, I tell them: “I don’t need to, because Jesus invited me into his life.” He said follow me, I am the way the truth and the life. Salvation is already here if you choose it. You don’t have to earn it by doing good, but you can be good because you’ve been given it. Christianity isn’t about condemnation, its about compassion, discipleship isn’t about observance, but about obedience and religion is not about righteousness but about relationship. (Robin Meyer.) Jesus said, never mind the trick questions and slavish adherence to the Law, but listen to me.
So let’s not trap Jesus in the church, in the bible study, in the house groups: yes we need those things, more than ever today, because we’re a bit like a car. You can have the newest latest model car outside your house, but all it can do is sit there looking pretty and making its owner look good, but it’s absolutely useless unless the owner puts some fuel in it, and gets into it and drive it. This church is perhaps our Sunday observance, but to be obedient to Jesus we have to use it as a refuelling station to go and live as Christians, following Jesus, not just telling him he’s good and great.
Let’s use the bible as a gift this Christmas and always, not a book of rules with punishment, but with eyes that see the promise, not the threat. As John Crossan said in 1999, “My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.” Symbols of the coming of Christ, the Christ who was, is and will be, the resurrection that is already under way.
If Christ is the Christ of all time, exemplified in human form as Jesus, then perhaps we should be turning our attention more to living in Christliness, showing the love of Christ ourselves, as shown by Jesus. Living that way is surely about love. In the hymn that follows, the final verse says “ And to those who never listened to the message of thy birth, who have winter, but no Christmas bringing them thy peace on earth; send to these the joyful tidings: by all people in each home be there heard the Christmas anthem, praise to God, the Christ has come!
Song (StF) 197 Cradled in a manager, meanly
Prayers – We pray for our troubled world, an upset world, a restless world where peace between countries is elusive, where economic conditions make life hard, unbearably so those countries where existence is already fragile. We pray that hearts may be softened to see the way of justice, that wisdom will prevail over power-seeking, that we may be agents of change and that we may be Christ’s hands eyes and love in our world
We pray for all your people who suffer in war. We pray now for the people of Ukraine, and also for those in Russia, Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan, and the very many other places where there is armed conflict. We pray that we may not forget that, living in peace, we are privileged. We are thankful for that peace and pray that we have the courage to do whatever we can in the name of peace.
We pray for our country our government, our parliament and all who hold public office. We pray for a sense of realism among our leaders, a sense of commitment to the people they serve, a sense of calling to service unfettered by political and party expediency. We pray that all who come to our country as political or economic refugees may be treated humanely, with compassion, with honesty, as people of God.
We pray for our communities in difficult times for many people, whose budgets are unable to cope with increased costs of those things needed for daily life. We pray for those who are ill or in pain, or are bereaved. May we be aware of others in need and be ready to offer comfort and help in whatever way we are able.
We pray for ourselves, that we might feel the love of God, might know the love of God, might be the love of God. remembering the prayer of Teresa of Avila, Christ has no body but ours, no hands, no feet on earth but ours, ours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world, ours are the feet with which he walks to do good, ours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. May we be blessed and strengthened as we try to live this out.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
one earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours,
now and for ever. Amen.
Our closing hymn reminds us of the the place of Christmas in God’s work of salvation, that our advent waiting for the birth is our waiting for the resurrection too.
Song (StF) 188 There’s a light upon the mountains
Closing
We are the community of Christ, we are those who are called to wear God’s face in the community, to walk with feet of Christ, to see with the eyes of compassion of Christ,. Christ born, risen and ascended has no body, no hands, feet or eyes, now on earth but ours. Let us take Christ into our community, to our homes and to our families this Christmastide and always. And we ask God’s blessing on our work, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
