Bah! Humbug! (Ashtabula)

I. THE GATHERING

Welcome & Announcements

Prelude

Call to Worship

Leader: The world tells us to hurry and count, to judge our neighbors and secure our own safety.

People: We come seeking the Peace that passes understanding.

Leader: The prophets spoke of a Prince of Peace, whose rule would be established in justice and righteousness.

People: We wait in hope for the promised King.

Leader: The Ghost of Jacob Marley warns us of the chains we forge by fear and greed.

People: We surrender our burdens, asking God to break our self-made chains.

Leader: Come, let us worship the God who is always present, offering extravagant grace!

All: Let us quiet our hearts and prepare the way of the Lord.

Opening Hymn Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus (UMH 196)

Opening Prayer

Gracious God, in this season of waiting, quiet the frantic pace of our lives. Release us from the anxiety that leads us to judge, to hoard, and to fear. Open our hearts to receive the peace that only your Christ can bring. Let the light of the Advent promise guard our hearts and minds. We pray in the name of the one who is to come. Amen.

Lighting of the Advent Candle

ADVENT WEEK 1: PEACE

This week we light the candle of Peace. Peace, much like the word past, needs some qualifiers and context. Does being at peace mean that we are not fighting? Maybe things are peaceful because people are afraid to speak up out of fear. Maybe peace represents not raising your voice or entering a heated debate or everyone simply minding his or her own business, but this kind of peace looks more like apathy, which certainly isn’t why we light candles during Advent.

Many names are used throughout Scripture to describe the person and work of Jesus—Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) to name a few. Isaiah points to peace as one of the signs that God has offered the Messiah to God’s people; but interestingly Jesus says in Matthew 10:34, “Don’t think that I’ve come to bring peace to the earth. I haven’t come to bring peace but a sword.” This offers us a clue as to what kind of peace God desires. A godly peace goes beyond lack of fighting or reservation or apathy. Peace is mentioned at Jesus’ birth when the angel said, “Don’t be afraid, . . . Glory to God in heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors” (Luke 2:10, 14). Jesus, before his arrest and crucifixion, gathered his disciples together and said, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I give to you not as the world gives. Don’t be troubled or afraid” (John 14:27). When Jesus was resurrected, he appeared to the disciples, who were hiding behind a locked door out of fear, and Jesus’ first words to them were, “Peace be with you.”

Peace is not lack of conflict. Following Jesus will result in quite a lot of conflict with the world. Jesus is the Prince of Peace because the peace he offers is the opposite of fear. We light the candle of Peace so that the light will burn away our fear of what following Christ might mean.

Gracious God, Father of the Prince of Peace, help us to follow where your light shines. Hope is the destination of our faith, and peace gives us the courage to start the journey. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.[1]

[1]Matt Rawle, The Redemption of Scrooge: Connecting Christ and Culture (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2016).

II. THE WORD

Scripture Reading 1 Isaiah 9:6-7

Isaiah 9:6–7 NIV

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Hymn of Response Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming (UMH 216)

Scripture Reading 2 Matthew 20:1-16

Matthew 20:1–16 NIV

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ “ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Sermon "The Chains We Wear"

The Chains We Wear

Let us pray. Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Scriptures are read and your Word proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. Shine your light into the dark corners of our lives, that we might see the chains we bear and find the courage to let them go. Amen.

Friends, Advent is a season of waiting, but it is not a passive waiting. It is a time for active preparation, for watching, and for listening. This week, as the church calendar turns, we light the candle of Peace. When we first hear that word, we might be tempted to think of a purely external calm: simply the absence of conflict—a quiet house, a lack of fighting, a political ceasefire. But the peace we seek in Advent is the peace of the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, foretold by the Prophet Isaiah. It is the peace of God's presence, the courage to stand against the world’s fear and indifference. It’s the peace that grounds us so deeply in God’s love that we can truly see the world around us, and then act with compassion, regardless of the chaos.

As we begin this holy season, we are embarking on a special four-week Advent journey together, both in our worship services and in our mid-week Bible study, based on Matt Rawle’s wonderful book, The Redemption of Scrooge. We are turning to Charles Dickens’s classic story, A Christmas Carol, not just for nostalgia, but as a profound theological lens through which to view our own lives and our need for grace. For four weeks, we will follow Ebenezer Scrooge as he is visited by four spirits: Jacob Marley today, and then the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. Each spirit represents a different step in Scrooge’s transformation—a transformation that mirrors the journey God invites each of us to take as we prepare our hearts for the birth of Christ.

And perhaps no one needs this powerful, life-altering peace more than the man we encounter today: Ebenezer Scrooge.

We all know the famous dismissal: “Bah! Humbug!”

It’s more than just a grumpy insult hurled at Christmas carolers or well-meaning nephews. It is a carefully curated rejection of joy, generosity, and, fundamentally, relationship. It is the perfect, chilling expression of the worldview of a man who has decided that he will only trust what can be weighed, measured, and counted. Scrooge is the ultimate self-made man, defined by columns of debits and credits, a ledger that tells him who is worthy and who is not.

This is why he clings so tightly to the memory of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley. He refuses to change the sign above the door: "Scrooge and Marley." Why cling to a dead partner, a dead partnership? Because Marley represents the only system Scrooge truly trusts: the cold, hard reality of hard work, unforgiving frugality, unflinching discipline, and, most importantly, profit. It’s the philosophy that says, "I earned what I have, and you earn what you get." It is the ultimate worship of the self as the sole source of provision.

Then Marley arrives. He’s not terrifying simply because he’s a ghost; he is terrifying because of the sheer, agonizing weight of the chains he drags—chains forged link by link in life by his own avarice and apathy. They are heavy with cash boxes, long-forgotten ledgers, and unused deeds. And he warns Scrooge, his living partner: “You are forging a chain of your own!” What chains are we forging today? They may not be made of gold and iron, but they are chains nonetheless: the chains of crippling resentment, the chains of paralyzing regret, the chains of tradition that choke out new life and growth, or the chains of isolation that keep us locked away from the very neighbors God calls us to serve. This is the condition of being bound by a worldly system that blinds us to the extravagant love of God.

The Transactional Trap

Scrooge’s entire life—his entire spiritual and economic theology—is built on the rigid principle of transaction: "You reap what you sow."

And in the world’s economy, that kind of balancing act can make sense. If you work sixty hours, you deserve sixty hours of pay. If you give fifty dollars, you expect recognition or a tax deduction. But when we apply that same human logic to our relationship with God, we fall headlong into the transactional trap. If we follow "you reap what you sow" too rigidly, we turn the Gospel upside down. Salvation becomes a reward for a life lived "in the black" of spiritual merits, instead of a sheer, glorious gift for a life lived desperately "in the red." As Matt Rawle so clearly states, salvation becomes a bank account, where we deposit good deeds hoping for a heavenly withdrawal, not a hospital where we arrive broken and receive undeserved healing.

This transactional view inevitably breeds a judgmental heart. It allows us to calculate who is worthy of our attention, our time, or our money. It enables us to dismiss the poor and the struggling as failures of the "reap what you sow" system. When asked for charity, Scrooge’s reply is cold and legalistic: "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? I help support those establishments; that is my due." He has paid his due to the structure of society, and he assumes that is enough for God.

This focus on the transactional trap doesn't just block our peace; it actively hinders our journey toward holiness. John Wesley taught us that salvation is a healing process that moves us toward perfection—not a flawlessness that implies we never make a mistake, but a state of perfect love for God and neighbor. But how can we achieve perfect love if we are always calculating worth and comparing our efforts to others? When we apply the logic of the ledger to grace, we become incapable of giving or receiving freely. We become so preoccupied with our own spiritual balance sheet that we miss the profound, simple truth: God doesn't wait for us to be worthy; God's grace initiates the conversation, the healing, and the relationship, constantly reaching out through the mundane and the miraculous alike. Our "Humbug" is often just a defense mechanism against the terrifying vulnerability of receiving an unearned, uncounted gift.

This is where our Wesleyan tradition offers a profound course correction. We must remember the ever-present reality of Prevenient Grace. God’s grace is not reserved for after we confess, or after we perform a good deed; it is always moving toward us, inviting us, convicting us, and surrounding us—even before we are aware of it. Rawle makes a striking observation: Scrooge sits in his room, oblivious to the biblical stories tiled on his own fireplace. We, too, can be so consumed by the day's constant counting, scheduling, and anxiety that we become profoundly unaware of God's presence, love, and invitation that surround us at every moment. We are simply too busy trying to prove our own worth to stop and notice the worth God has already placed on us. Prevenient Grace is God constantly knocking, and our self-absorption keeps the door closed, just as Scrooge was initially convinced the knocker was only Marley's face due to indigestion. God’s peace begins when we choose to stop counting and start listening.

God’s Extravagant Economy

The Gospel is a seismic event that shatters the entire transactional trap. To demonstrate this, Jesus tells a story that still raises hackles today: the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16.

Imagine the scene: The landowner went out at dawn and hired workers, agreeing to a fair day's wage. He hired more workers mid-morning, then at noon, then at three in the afternoon. Finally, at the very last hour of the day, five o’clock, he hired yet another group. When payment time came, he started with the last workers—the ones who had only labored for sixty minutes—and gave them a full, luxurious day’s wage. Then he paid the first workers, who were expecting a massive bonus, that very same single agreed-upon day’s wage.

The all-day laborers were outraged! They felt cheated, and rightly so, by every standard of human fairness and meritocracy. They protested, arguing that the newcomers "did only one hour’s work, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!"

We are uncomfortable with this parable because it violates our deepest cultural value: merit. We want God's grace to be earned, even if we know we can't fully earn it, because that makes it feel predictable and safe. The outrage of the early workers isn't just about money; it's about identity and perceived spiritual status. They felt their hard work gave them a superior claim on the landowner's generosity. But the landowner refuses to let their sense of entitlement diminish his freedom to love the latecomers. This Advent, we are all latecomers, and we are all those who have labored long. God's extravagant economy reminds us that Christ's birth means the rules have changed. The invitation into the Kingdom is for everyone, equally, and this truth is the foundation of the authentic, Christ-centered peace we seek this season.

But the landowner's response cuts straight through our self-righteousness: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong… Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

This parable is the toughest pill in creation to swallow when that generosity is given to someone we don’t think deserves it, or who we believe hasn't worked as hard as us. But it is the ultimate, non-negotiable depiction of Justifying Grace: God’s justice is not about mathematical fairness; it is about extravagant, non-mathematical generosity. God does not operate on an economy of scarce resources, but on an abundance of love.

The key insight is this: the wage is not the ultimate reward for the work; the work itself—the invitation to labor in the Kingdom, to be a partner in God's great work of redemption—is the reward. You cannot earn the invitation; it is a free gift offered by an extravagant Master. When we internalize this profound truth and stop counting our past merits or comparing our faithfulness to others, we are finally set free to embrace the gift. This unearned peace is the source of our courage; it breaks the chain of self-judgment and burns away the fear of what following Christ might cost us in reputation or possessions.

Mankind is Our Business: A Call to Social Holiness

If we accept God’s extravagant, unearned grace, how should we then live? What is our response to such generosity? Marley gives us the answer we need: “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business.”

This is the very essence of our United Methodist commitment to Social Holiness. Our faith is never complete or fully realized in isolation; it must be lived out in community. It is the outflow of the love we have received into the world that desperately needs it.

To fail in this mission is to commit the sin of ignorance, as illustrated in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man’s eternal torment was not simply that he was wealthy; it was his stunning ignorance. He walked past Lazarus every single day. He failed to see the child of God, the human being, at his gate. Rawle rightly names the great chasm fixed between them not as wealth or status, but as ignorance. When we fail to see the sacred worth in every single life, no matter their circumstance, we actively forge a chasm we cannot cross.

This is our call to see this Advent. Marley's message is for all of us. The chains that bind us are twofold: they are the internal chains of grief, isolation, and clinging to rigid, small traditions that keep us looking backward, and they are the external chains of comfort, privilege, and the ability to selectively look away from the suffering around us. The Lazarus at our gate is sometimes the lonely, grieving neighbor next door, and sometimes it's the systemic need of the local community we pass every day. God's grace is extravagant enough to break both types of chains. Marley asks us to use our time, our compassion, and our voice, not just our money, to close the chasm of ignorance that separates us from the people in our community, no matter where we worship.

The first act of love, the first essential step toward true peace, is simply to see the person who stands before us—to recognize their divine worth—and to act on the responsibility Marley named: that Mankind is our business.

Conclusion: Letting Go of Egypt

Scrooge was ultimately stuck in Egypt—the comfortable slavery of what was, the familiar, predictable chains of counting and profit. He had to be awakened by Marley to the possibility that God provides manna in the wilderness. The children of Israel, too, complained that slavery was better than the frightening freedom of the desert, simply because it was predictable. They chose bondage over the unknown promise of God.

Manna, the bread from heaven, is exactly what we need, given freely, day by day. And if the ancient Israelites gathered too much, it spoiled. God’s grace is exactly what we need, precisely when we need it, and it is given freely. We are free from collecting and counting, free from the tyranny of scarcity.

This Advent, as we await the Christ Child, the Prince of Peace, let us choose to let go of the slavery to what can be counted. Let us open our hands and our hearts to receive God's extravagant, unearned grace. May the light of the Advent candle burn away the fear and the ignorance, giving us the courage to see the needs of the world and to declare, with a newly forged chain of love and commitment, that Mankind is our business.

Amen.

Anthem “Will We Know Him?”

III. RESPONSE AND INTERCESSION

Transition to PrayerAs the notes of the anthem fade, we are left with that lingering question: Will we know Him? As we prepare our hearts for prayer, let us ask God for the eyes to see Him—not in power or prestige, but in the vulnerable, the quiet, and the unexpected. Let us go to God now in silence, bringing our own chains and our own hopes before the throne of grace.

Silent Intercession

Pastoral Prayer

Almighty and Everlasting God, who spoke light into darkness and peace into chaos, we come before you this morning seeking the courage to hope. We confess that we are often like Scrooge, bound by the chains of our own making—chains of fear that keep us isolated, chains of resentment that keep us bitter, and chains of busyness that keep us from noticing you.

Lord, we pray for the people gathered here and for those joining us in spirit. For those carrying the heavy weight of grief this holiday season, where the empty chair feels heavier than any chain, grant them your comfort. For those struggling with illness, addiction, or uncertainty, be the Great Physician and the Prince of Peace who whispers, "Do not be afraid." Break the chains that bind your children, Lord, and set us free to love again.

We lift up our community of Ashtabula. Give us the eyes to see the neighbors we often overlook—the "Lazarus" at our gate, the family struggling to keep the heat on, the lonely soul who has no one to call. Remind us that mankind is our business. Transform our charity into true communion, that we might not just give to the poor, but live with them in the spirit of your justice.

We pray for our nation and for the nations of the world. In a time of noise and division, be the voice that cuts through the clamor. Guide our leaders in the ways of justice and mercy. Turn our hearts from the love of power to the power of love, that we might forge a future defined not by what we hoard, but by what we share.

As we begin this Advent journey, walk beside us. Redemption is your work, O God, but the invitation is ours to accept. Help us to accept it today.

We offer these prayers in the name of the One who came to break every chain, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:

The 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 trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Invitation to the Offering: Jacob Marley walked the earth lamenting that he had missed the opportunity to make mankind his business. Friends, today we have that opportunity. We do not give to earn God's love, or to pay a spiritual tax. We give because our chains have been broken, and in our freedom, we choose to support the work of peace and justice in this community. Let us offer our gifts and our lives to God with glad and generous hearts.

Offering & Doxology “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (UMH 211 Verse 1)

Prayer of Dedication Generous God, we thank you for breaking the chains that bind us—chains of fear, greed, and indifference. We offer these gifts not as a transaction, but as a joyful response to your extravagant grace. Bless these tithes and offerings. May they become food for the hungry, warmth for the cold, and hope for the hopeless. Help us to make mankind our business, serving our neighbors with the same love you have shown us. In the name of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. Amen.

IV. SENDING FORTH

Transition to Closing Hymn: Friends, we have surrendered our chains, and we have offered our gifts. Now, the service ends, but our service to the world begins. As we go out into a world that can often feel dark with fear and anxiety, we do not go alone. We go carrying the peace of Christ. Let us stand and declare our desire to follow the One who is the Light of the World.

Closing Hymn “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light” (UMH 206)

BenedictionGo now in peace. May the chains that once bound you be broken by the grace of Jesus Christ. May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds. And may you go into this world making mankind your business, seeing the face of Christ in everyone you meet. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Postlude