A Communion Litany For Advent

I've put this together for use at our service this coming Sunday. Some of it is completely original, and some parts are loosely adapted from other sources. I love the hymn "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear." It's known and used as a Christmas carol, but I've always thought that it worked really well as an Advent song, and I got it into my head that I wanted to write a Communion litany for Advent using the four verses of the song. This is what came of that idea. Thought I would share.

THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY COMMUNION:

Leader: May God be with us.
People: God is here among us.
Leader: Let us open our hearts to God.
People: We open them to God and to one another.
Leader: Let us give thanks to God.
People: It is right to give our thanks and praise.

Leader: God, we give our thanks and praise to you today as we reflect upon your promise of peace to come upon the world. Through Jesus Christ you worked unceasingly to reconcile all peoples to yourself, to break down barriers and to offer to all people the hope of freedom and justice. And yet, we who speak for you today and who seek to live out your gospel, often fall prey to the ways of the world, and we fail to hear the lessons you taught.
People: Hush us, that we might hear your word:
HYMN #44 (VU): "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear" (verse 1)

Leader: God, even in the face of humanity's rejection of you and of your Son, Jesus Christ, your love continues to shine. But we have taken this world you have created, and engulfed it in chaos. We have stopped listening to you; we have stopped listening for you. We often believe you are silent, but we simply choose to drown you out with our foolishness. And yet, even over the din of competing and often angry voices, your word continues to go forth.
People: Hush us, that we might hear your word:
HYMN #44 (VU): "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear" (verse 2)

Leader: God, you have created the human family. You have called us and claimed us as your own. You love each one of us as your beloved children, and you call us to a radical and selfless love: for one another, for our neighbours and even for those we think of as enemies. But that love is difficult, and we often content ourselves with loving only those whom we feel are deserving. We resort to hatred and violence; war rather than peace becomes our norm.
People: Hush us, that we might hear your word:
HYMN #44 (VU): "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear" (verse 3)

Leader: And yet - God, you promise us new beginnings, in our lives and in the world. Long ago, in a Bethlehem stable, your love appeared in Jesus - not just to shepherds and wise men, but to us as well; not just to Israel, but to all the nations and people of the world. He lived, he loved and he died. But death could not contain him. The power of his life overcame death, and he was resurrected to glory, our hope that the challenges of this world can be overcome.
People: Hush us, that we might hear your word:
HYMN #44 (VU): "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear" (verse 4)

Leader: Now, together, hearts and souls joined with all the saints of every time and place, we join even the angels and archangels of heaven in proclaiming:
All: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Leader: We gather at this table to remember that on the night before he died, Jesus ate with his friends, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it, he broke it and gave it to them, saying: “Take, eat. This is my body, given for you. Each time you do this, remember me.” That same night, Jesus also took a cup, and after giving thanks, passed it to his friends, saying: “Drink. This cup, poured out for you, is the promise of God. Whenever you drink it, remember me.”  We remember Jesus’ death and celebrate his resurrection; we await with hope his coming again to bring peace and justice to the earth; and we proclaim the mystery of our faith:

All: Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again!

Leader: Send, O God, your Holy Spirit upon us and what we do here, that we and these gifts, touched by your Spirit, may be signs of life and love to one another, and to the world. Through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory is yours, God most holy, now and forever.

The Lord's Prayer (Sung)

The Breaking of the Bread and The Raising Of The Cup

The Invitation To The Table

The Sharing

Prayer After Communion (from the Coptic tradition):
All: O God, how great is the gift that you saved for your people. How sweet is your grace to those who love you. We thank you our Lord for looking after us. You granted us this holy food that doesn’t perish, by which you opened to us all the way to eternal life. Kindle the flames of your love in us, save the blessing of Your grace in our hearts not for judgement or to fall into judging but to receive glory, purity of soul and body and to live with you, survive for you and continue with your grace. So guide us to your holiness and fill us with your grace and consecrate us with your soul. Glory to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit now and until eternity arrives. Amen.

A Thought For The Week Of November 28, 2016

"... Moses said before the Lord, “Listen! I am unskilled in speech, so how will Pharaoh listen to me?”" (Exodus 6:30) Speaking truth to power. This was the dilemma that was facing Moses at that moment. God had asked Moses to speak the truth to power: to go to Pharaoh with the demand "let my people go." And - understandably enough - Moses was hesitant. "How will Pharaoh listen to me?" he said. And it was a good question. And it remains a good question for people of faith today - why would "power" listen to us? And it seems to me that - with tragic consequences - the question causes people of faith (and the church corporately) to react in one of two ways. First, we can become very insular. So we think only about ourselves and we care only about ourselves and we stop trying to make any sort of difference in the world around us - because why would anyone who matters listen to us anyway? Or there's the second option. Sometimes we choose to accommodate ourselves to or even ally ourselves with those in power.We become a part of the power structure. But when you're a part of the power structure it's hard to hold the power structure accountable. So we might be listened to, but what we're saying isn't the radical, world changing message of Jesus. This was the tragedy of christendom: the church gained worldly power and then compromised itself to try to hang on to it, choosing not to speak the truth to power but to turn a blind eye to power. Moses had to face this dilemma. "How will Pharaoh listen to me?" Well, maybe Pharaoh wouldn't.  But God freed the people anyway. And maybe the powers today won't listen to us. But God will still be active. We should never be afraid to speak the truth to power, or despair that we can make a difference when we do, or just give in in the hopes of sharing in worldly power. We should simply speak the truth - God's truth - to power. The results of that witness we leave in God's hands.

November 27, 2016 sermon: Preparing To Be Prepared

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. "In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!"

(Isaiah 2:1-5)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

        It’s Advent. Four weeks to go. We can all probably remember the buildup of excitement we felt as children in the weeks before Christmas - the “I’m so excited I can barely wait until Christmas Day” kind of feeling. But as we grow older and wiser, we also lose that wonderful childlike innocence and wonder that Jesus found so precious. I suppose it’s a sign of maturity when the excitement of the weeks before Christmas starts to fade and we begin to temper our expectations in the hard, cold light of reality but while it may be mature and grounded in reality, sometimes tempering expectations with reality does nothing more than shatter our dreams - and our dreams are the expressions of our hopes.

        God’s people were on the precipice of losing their hopes and dreams. Isaiah’s prophecy, which we read earlier, was offered in the midst of a great war being fought between Babylon and God’s people of Israel and Judah. Even as Isaiah wrote, the Babylonian armies were advancing battle by battle and kilometre by kilometre. The situation was desperate, and there truly seemed to be no hope. And yet, in this vision, God does offer hope to his people - not hope that the Babylonians would be stopped, but hope of what lay beyond the immediate future of defeat and exile. In this vision, God promised his people that one day God’s temple would be exalted as the highest mountain of the earth; that it would become a gathering place for all nations; that all the people of the world would come to know God and to live in God’s way; that the weapons of war would be replaced by the tools of peace. It was a vision of the future - and it’s still a vision of the future. The First Sunday of Advent is set aside for a consideration of hope - but sometimes the temptation is there to ask: what hope? As Christians, we proclaim that our hope is found in Jesus Christ; our hope is that Jesus is Lord; our hope is that he will rule as Lord for eternity. In other words, our hope transcends the generations of history that have been known or that will be known, and rests in a Kingdom beyond time - the eternal Kingdom of God, which has not yet come but which surely will come, and the anticipation of which is what Advent is all about. How do we properly await that coming Kingdom? I want to offer this advice today: Advent isn’t so much about preparing, as it’s about preparing to be prepared. Jesus once warned that people would have to be constantly ready for his coming, because there’s no way for us to know the day and hour. Not even he knew such things, he said. It’s hard to be prepared for something you’ve never experienced before, so what we’re really doing is preparing to be prepared for Christ’s coming. And yet, even as we do that, Christ shows up in our midst now, and he does so at the oddest times.

        Think about it. An everyday conversation turns suddenly serious - and Christ shows up; an ordinary worship service led by ordinary people with ordinary talents - and Christ shows up; a time of prayer not unlike thousands of other times of prayer - and Christ shows up; in the middle of mundane and often tedious chores - and Christ shows up. Even now, Christ shows up when we least expect him, and while we’re grateful for his appearance, we’re not necessarily prepared for it. Can we truly be prepared for the coming of the Kingdom? Probably not, because its timing is unknown and its glory will be too spectacular for us to imagine right now. But we can be preparing to be prepared - and that’s what Advent is about. How do we do that? We learn to ask simple but deep questions at the right time, and we avoid the temptation to give shallow answers to them. Let me suggest a few questions you might want to contemplate as the season of Advent progresses: where is Christ in your life right now, and in the events (good and bad) taking place around you? Where is Christ in the lives of your family and friends - both those who are devout and those who seem to have no interest in the faith? Is your life truly open to God’s presence and to the power of God’s Spirit, or do you close enough of yourself off from God so that God can’t really change anything about you? Would you be able to recognize Christ if he chose to appear to you? If you’re serious about using Advent as a time to prepare to be prepared, those are good starting point questions to be asking.

        And prepare to be prepared for answers that aren’t comfortable. Early on in Jesus’ ministry, the disciples of John the Baptist came to him and asked, “Are you the one who is to come …?” It’s a good question. You might say that it’s THE question. If Jesus isn’t the One, then we’ve all been duped. But if he is, then everything about life and death and eternity changed the moment he appeared, and we have to make some changes - and change is never comfortable. The Christmas tree is in a different spot in the sanctuary this year. I’ll bet that a few people here are uncomfortable about it! And then there are the things that matter. Because of Jesus, we may have to change our priorities to bring ours into harmony with his; we may have to give up some of the things we like to do because they’re not consistent with what he would do; we may have to give up cherished political or social or economic ideologies because they’re not consistent with how he taught his disciples to live. If Jesus is the One who is to come, then I might have to live my life in a radically different way. If Jesus is the One who is to come, then the church takes on a whole new meaning: no longer a religious club (which is, unfortunately, too often how it’s perceived, even by its own members) but instead a community of real and radical hope held together by its Lord, Jesus Christ. If Jesus is the One who is to come, then, as Phillips Brooks wrote in a memorable Christmas carol, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

        During Advent we are preparing to be prepared to meet a revolutionary figure who will turn the world upside down - and we don’t always want that. Over the centuries, the church has tried to domesticate Jesus so that we could be more comfortable with him; the church has tried to tame Jesus so that he would be less threatening to our preferred way of life; the church has tried to change Jesus so that we ourselves wouldn’t have to be changed by him. But the Jesus of the New Testament is not the domesticated, tamed and changed Jesus the church too often portrays. Actually, the Jesus of the New Testament is often quite disturbing in the obedience he demands and the places and times in which he appears. But it is this Jesus who demands both radical obedience and radical faith who transforms our existence into a vibrant and abundant life. The Jesus of the New Testament fills us with the hope that whatever may happen now, God will somehow see us safely into eternity. It’s time for us to prepare to be prepared.

      Although she wasn’t talking about Advent, I thought Emily Dickinson summed up the Advent hope quite well: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tunes without the words and never stops at all.” I don’t understand exactly what she’s describing - and maybe that’s the point! Hope in a world filled with apparent hopelessness is hard to grasp sometimes; difficult to catch and almost impossible to hold on to. But it’s there. And today, as the season of Advent begins, we celebrate the hope God holds out to us. Friends – prepare to be prepared!

A Thought For The Week Of November 14, 2016

"For God wants you to silence the ignorant talk of foolish people by the good things you do." (1 Peter 2:15) I've noticed that most of the time when disagreements come up we have a tendency to try to outshout each other. That doesn't work of course, especially when the disagreements are passionate. Passionate people believe passionately in what they believe! They believe that those who don't agree with them are wrong at best and foolish at worst. That makes it easy for us to begin to disrespect those who disagree with us. The end result is that we look foolish, as we try to first yell at each other and then yell past each other. All that happens is that those we're trying to appeal to look upon us with increasing disdain or even contempt. I'm thinking about this verse in the light of the protests that have been occurring in the United States (and, to a lesser degree, in Canada) since the election of Donald Trump as president a week ago. I have nothing at all against peaceful protests, but I'm not sure that those who are taking to the streets to protest the results of a completely free and fair election are helping themselves, or making their message respectable. This verse from 1 Peter seems to point us to a better way. Rather than yelling and shouting against what we see as foolishness, we could set an example by acting as God would have us act: by standing for what we believe but doing so in a way that demonstrates that we are the children of God. I'm not saying that people shouldn't protest. When we feel strongly about something then protesting is a right we should cherish and claim. But if shouting (and, in a few cases, rioting) are all that we do, it's going to be of little use. We can't simply stand against something - which is usually what protests do. We have to stand for something. As the children of God we have to stand for the way of God - revealed by Jesus: a way that seeks to change hearts by persuasion and not coercion; a way that seeks to change the world by transforming people rather than by ranting against them; a way that leads people into love and hope rather than leaving them in anger and despair.

A Thought For The Week Of November 7, 2016

"Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom." (Psalm 45:6) I held off writing this until today, after we had found out the result of the presidential election in the United States. I'm a Canadian, of course, so in some ways that election had little to do with me. Except that we all live in God's world - and whatever happens in the lives of any of my neighbours also has some affect on me. It's been an ugly and brutal campaign (I don't think anyone would deny that.) And there have been a lot of almost apocalyptic predictions made by people on both sides of the divide. This is why I think it's important for Christians to step back from the fray, take a deep breath, and reflect on God. There is no doubt that human government and human powers can do a lot of damage and cause a lot of trouble. But let us never forget that ultimately this is God's world. The fear that has seemed to characterize much of this campaign (and that to some extent raised its head in the Canadian election campaign last year) is simply the result of sin. But for those who know and have experienced the love of God, we live with the certainty that "perfect love casts out fear," and even when things happen in the world around us that make us shake our heads, we need to remember that. In a vision from Jesus, Julian of Norwich is said to have received the following message: "It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." All shall be well. Why? Because, ultimately, God reigns. Because, ultimately, in the words of a hymn, "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun does its successive journeys run." Whatever leaders we may elect, we ourselves are the children of God, and unlike earthly kingdoms - which will all pass away - God's kingdom "will last forever and ever" - and it will be a kingdom of peace, love and justice.

November 6, 2016 sermon: Rights And Responsibilities

Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise. Without having any chief or officer or ruler, it prepares its food in summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest. How long will you lie there, O lazybones? When will you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior.

(Proverbs 6:6-11)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

     Ants. They’re not exactly what you’d think of right off the top on Remembrance Sunday - but as I was thinking about what to share today I thought about this passage and realized that it had something important to say. Ants are amazing little creatures. They’re small, but they’re tough. And surprisingly enough, they’re a lot like us. They organize themselves into colonies just as we organize ourselves into nations. Different ants have different roles to play in the community, just as we have different jobs. The centre of the colony is the queen, there are worker ants whose only job is to take care of the queen, and other ants who care for eggs and larva. There are ants that hunt, and there are ants that farm - some grow fungus to feed the colony and others actually take care of little insects called aphids, like humans look after cows. There are also soldier ants whose only job is to protect the colony against invaders - whether the invaders are other ants or other animals, but except for a few very aggressive species of ants they really do just defend rather than attack. And unlike human society (at least unlike many human societies) for the most part ant colonies actually work.

     You’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with Remembrance Sunday. How are ants relevant? Well, they were relevant to the author of Proverbs as an example of how societies should function. “Go to the ants,” he said. Another way to say it would be “consider the ants” or “look at the ants.” Nature has a way of reflecting God’s ways and God’s priorities, which isn’t surprising since nature is, after all, the work of God. I wonder if the ant colony isn’t a good analogy for the Kingdom of God - and if that isn’t why the author of Proverbs refers to it. “Here’s the way things should be,” he says. None of the ants are motivated by selfishness or greed or a desire to be noticed. They just work together as a community, every ant having a part. They will rescue ants that get trapped somewhere, and they will carry injured ants back to the colony and care for them. They’re truly amazing creatures. And as I think on Remembrance Sunday of those who have served in past conflicts I wonder how much suffering could have been abated - and how much could be abated in the future - if we could have taken the advice of Proverbs seriously. If we could work together.  That, it seems to me, would be the Kingdom of God, and that, it seems to me, is what most who have experienced war would like to see.

     I know people who dislike Remembrance Day or Remembrance Sunday. They think it doesn’t belong in church because they find it too militaristic; they feel as if it glorifies war. I respectfully disagree. I don’t think we glorify war today - but I do think we honour the warriors who believed in a cause and who gave themselves for that cause. Is honouring warriors glorifying war? I don’t think so.  Over the years, I’ve known a lot of veterans. I’ve known them as parishioners. I’ve known them from having served as a Legion chaplain for a few years. I’ve know some in my own family. I’ve never known anyone who is more opposed to and appalled by war than a veteran of war. And I wonder what they would say about the generations that have succeeded them. The generation that fought in World War II was called “The Greatest Generation.” And then came the Boomers, and then came Gen X, and then came the Millennials. Each succeeding generation more distant from the experience of war, and perhaps each succeeding generation more averse to the types of sacrifice that the Greatest Generation was called upon to make. And the end result is perhaps a society less inclined to pull together for the common good or for great sacrifices and far more fixated on “me.”

     I think about that ant colony and how it reflects the values of the Kingdom of God. And then I think about Canada. What unites us as a nation? What symbolizes us as a nation? Some would say - perhaps flippantly - hockey. But there are other things. Multiculturalism? Peacekeeping? Universal health care? Perhaps all of those. But a recent survey suggested that what defines Canada is now the Charter of Rights And Freedoms - which is interesting, since it’s only been around for a little over thirty years. I value my rights, of course - but I wonder sometimes if we don’t put too much emphasis on rights, and not enough emphasis on responsibilities? We seem to be living in a society in which we all want what’s ours - and we’re not shy about demanding it - but sometimes we aren’t willing to sacrifice much so that others can have a little bit. We don’t accept our responsibilities to each other or to society as a whole as willingly as perhaps happened in the past.

     The ants don’t worry about their rights. They simply work together. They support each other. They defend each other. They take care of each other. They’re a community rather than an isolated set of individuals. “Consider the ants.” It’s an analogy for the Kingdom of God. It’s an analogy for the church. People choosing to live in community, sharing with and supporting and caring for each other, and sacrificing for each other.

     There’s no group in my experience who would like to see the Kingdom of God come more than veterans of war. There’s no group that would like to see God simply break the arrows and shields and swords and all the weapons of war (as our Call to Worship spoke of) more than veterans of war. There’s no group who understand how precious peace is more than veterans of war. When Solomon writes, “go to the ants, you lazybones,” he’s not being flippant. Neither am I when I bring your attention to those verses today. The ants - with their focus on the community rather than the individual and on the well being of all rather than on survival of the fittest or strongest or most powerful - are a wonderful reflection of what the kingdom of God will be like, and on what our society could be like, if only we as a society can get our act together and work towards it.

A Thought For The Week Of October 31, 2016

"Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way." (Exodus 33:3) I don't need Bible verses to always be comforting. Sometimes I like them to challenge me to try to figure out what exactly it is that they're saying. This is one such verse. What a disconcerting view of God is contained in just these few words: "I will not go with you." What? Really? Those were God's people, on their way to the land God had promised them, but now God was saying that he wouldn't go with them? How can God not go with them? Isn't God everywhere? Isn't God with us at all times? That's six questions marks I've used already! Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the verse is the reason that God won't go with the people. Essentially - "I might destroy you if I do because you're so bloody stubborn!" It's a very human view of God who admits that his people make him so angry that he might not be able to control his anger. I don't like the idea of a God whose anger seems to be right on the edge of raging out of control, but perhaps what I like even less is what this verse says about us - about you and about me. If God is absent - or at least if God seems absent - perhaps it isn't God's fault. Perhaps it's ours. Perhaps we drive God away - or at least perhaps we drive God out of our conscious thinking so that God seems absent. Maybe that's what's going on here. The Book of exodus is a continuous telling and retelling of the story of God's people effectively forgetting about God. Maybe here the author is reflecting on his own sense of God's absence (rather than the reality of God's absence.) His conclusion is simple. God seems absent because we're stubborn and stiff-necked. Sometimes I wonder if we make it impossible for God to act because of our attitude - similar to the New Testament concept of quenching God's Spirit. I suppose the point might be that if God seems absent - don't blame God. We need to look inside and see what is in within ourselves that's shutting God out. Because God is always present; always near to those who want to experience him.