Preparing (Second Sunday of Advent)

Advent Listening

Last week, waiting…

confessing our impatience and our longing to see what God is doing and will do… for this work of renewing all of creation is God’s work… and we get to join in.

This week, preparing.

Next week, singing.

And on the fourth week, labouring.

Advent is the beginning of the church year and a reminder of the end or the goal of creation

And so during Advent, we keep in mind the FUTURE - what is the “end” or the goal of all creation?

Past - Jesus did come… we know this story and so it affects how we tell it.

Present - where do we long for Jesus to come and make things new? What is broken? What is dark?

This season of Advent is not only a time to prepare for Christmas, but also to re-orient ourselves toward the goal of creation. A world in which all the relationships are rightly ordered. Between humans, between us and God and between us and creation.

More than just whatever you’ll do on Dec 24 and 25. More than just the arrival of an infant.

Part of our preparation - is an “accumulation of light” - from one single candle, to four, to five, to a room full of candlelight on Christmas Eve…

And one of the things this lighting of the candles does… is it invites us to notice the things that are dark. The places we are experiencing the missing right-relatedness that God promises is the goal of all of creation.

So notice the darkness. And then we’ll light a candle.

It helps us learn postures and practices that will sustain us when we encounter the darkness anytime of year. Notice. Don’t ignore it. Don’t pretend it’s not there and hope it will go way. Don’t explain it or spiritualize it.

Name it. Feel it. Maybe even share it with someone you trust.

And then rather than despairing the darkness or cursing the darkness or falling for some sort of product that promises to erase the darkness, we light a candle. We invite God to be God. We remember what God has done in the past. And what God has promised to do in the future. And remember that God is with us now. And so we light a candle. And it doesn’t erase the darkness, but we trust that it is pushing back the darkness a little at a time. Helping us to see just enough to trust the One who is God With Us.

And so, during a season which is often full of noise and lists and errands and travelling or connecting long distance, we are going to seek to slow down on Sundays during Advent.

We are going to seek to slow down.

To take time to listen. To hear the Scripture read, as we always do in our Sunday worship gatherings, but then to stop and listen again.

We will slow down and pause. To hold space for ourselves and for one another. To ask God to speak to us, and then to have the audacity to practice listening - and to do this together.

We’ll hear the text read two times. And we’ll take a slightly different posture during each.

We’ll leave some quiet space just to help us with the whole slowing down thing. Just a minute or two…to just sit. To ask God to speak to you through this text…and to tell God that you’re listening.

Then, we’ll read the passage and simply notice if there’s a word or phrase that catches our attention. If something does stick out to you, go ahead and “get stuck” there… write down the word or phrase - and we’ll take a moment after the first reading to share our word or phrase with one another, if you’re comfortable.

Then, we’ll listen a second time, and during the second reading, we’ll ask God whether there might be an invitation for us in the text. Is there something we sense that God wants us to take with us?

And if you want to share what that invitation is with us, there will be an opportunity to do that.

Holy listening, you might call this. It’s one way that we can enter into Advent and intentionally SLOW DOWN, take time, and refuse to add to the noise and sense of busy-ness that often is a reality in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

And now this week, we are 40-50 years later… the exiles have been living their exile reality. Have planted those garden and married those kids off. And now the exile is either just about to end, or has just ended and they can go home - return to Jerusalem.

But these aren’t the folks who left Jerusalem… Oh, there might be a few who remember it for themselves, but these are mostly folks who were born during the exile. And so, their memory of Jerusalem isn’t their own. It’s a family heirloom…but perhaps it doesn’t seem real.

God is inviting them to turn and listen and to enter into this new chapter.

Isaiah is the prophet God uses to send this message. A poem of hope, of persuasion, or urgency and of witness.

Exile has become comfortable. Normal even.

A new thing, while longed for, is now hard to comprehend.

Moment for quiet.

Invitation to listen and notice a word or phrase.

Michele reads.

Space.

Sharing word/phrase.

Space.

Listening for invitation. Somewhere that this text intersects with your life. WIth your story. God, speak to us…

Michele reads.

Space.

Sharing invitations.

Prayer of Confession:

ANDREA(ON SCREEN)

Prayer of Confession

Have mercy, O God:

we want to prepare the way for You,

but we don’t know which way You are coming.

Have mercy, O God:

we want to prepare the way for You,

but we are so easily distracted.

Have mercy, O God:

we want to prepare the way for You,

but if You come then we will have to put aside our agendas and our egos.

Have mercy, O God. Have mercy.

And so we come to this table. Where we are hosted by the One who was willing to lay everything aside, lay everything down in order to make all things new.

To redeem. To re-order. To renew.

The God of glory be with you. And also with you.

Lift up your hearts in thanksgiving. We lift them towards God.

Let us offer our thanks to God. It is right to give God our thanks and praise. It is right that we give you our thanks and praise, O God, creator of all things, visible and invisible. You revealed your glory in the wonders of your creation and in the way you lovingly formed people - male and female - in your image and entrusted them with the ongoing task of revealing your glory in the world. When they failed and turned from your ways you did not abandon them but spoke tenderly to them through the prophets such as Isaiah. You shaped the conviction in Isaiah's mind that the crushed and broken of the world were invited to shelter close to your heart and be comforted, like lambs by a shepherd; that the oppressed of the world would be liberated by your gracious and loving acts towards them. Did Isaiah catch a glimpse of a light penetrating every nook and cranny of the world until no more darkness was left? A light which shaped itself into a star . A light which startled shepherds and led the wise to a child lying in the straw of a manger and warmed by the breath of wondering animals. The child in whom the light of your glory is eternally revealed.

And so, with all the company of heaven and earth we praise your holy name saying: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he whose coming we await with joy. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed are you O God, and forever blessed are the people of this world since you chose to break into our history in the person of Jesus Christ. He made your extravagant love so visible in and through all he said and did, especially on the night when he washed his disciples' feet and sat down at a table to share the meal with them. On that night - the night of his betrayal - he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for everyone. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Pour out your Holy Spirit upon us, O God, and upon these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be for us the life of Christ and that we may make that life visible through serving as he served, comforting as he comforted, and loving as he loved. This we pray in his name. Amen

— Copyright © Moira Laidlaw, posted on her Liturgies Online website. Visit that site for other great lectionary-based resources.