(You can watch the readings and sermon here)
At Engadine Uniting we know all people are created lovingly and wonderfully in the image of God, and we welcome everyone regardless of race, age, ability, sexuality and gender. As a Christian Community we understand that God reaches out to us in love and acceptance and that our relationships with each other should express love and respect. Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, wherever you’ve come from, wherever you’re going to, whatever is in your heart you are welcome here.
As we walk alongside First Nations People seeking truth and justice we begin our service with our Acknowledgement of Country: As we gather in this place, we give thanks for the Dharawal people. We acknowledge the commitment their ancestors made, across the generations, to nurture this Land. Together, may we walk into the future, recognising the sacred footsteps that continue to lead us.
As we continue on our journey towards Bethlehem, we are reminded by John the Baptist to prepare the way. A unified world has been promised, and we have a role to play. As active agents of God’s peace, we are called to remove any obstacles to this vision by examining our preconceptions about others, the power systems in which we operate, and our privilege.
Sing: Let All Creation Dance, from ‘Together in Song’
Let all creation dance, in energies sublime
As order turns with chance unfolding space and time
For nature’s art in glory grows
And newly shows God’s mind and heart
God’s breath each force unfurls, igniting from a spark
Expanding starry swirls with whirlpools dense and dark
Though moon and sun seem mindless things
Each orbit sings: Your will be done
Our own amazing earth with sunlight cloud and storms
And life’s abundant growth in lovely shapes and forms
Is made for praise a fragile whole
And from its soul heav’ns music plays
Lift heart and soul and voice in Christ all praises meet
And nature shall rejoice as all is made complete
In hope be strong all life befriend
And kindly tend creation’s song
CCLI Song # 3593310, Brian Arthur Wren, © Hope Publishing Company. For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com, CCLI Licence # 31951
Call to Worship
We have come here today to pause consciously,
to seek God in the silence that whirlpools around us.
Feeling fractured or failures, we come seeking wholeness.
Feeling happy and uplifted, we come to share joy.
Feeling listless and lonely, we seek to connect.
Feeling angry or upset, we come seeking peace.
We have come as we are, however we feel,
however we look, whatever we’ve done.
We journey together, preparing the way,
Awaiting the birth of the babe, Jesus the Christ.
In the waiting, let us worship God together. Amen.
You’ll notice that this week the candle is sheathed in barbed wire in a nod to the symbol of Amnesty International. After church today we will have members and supporters of Amnesty joining us in the hall to write letters to leaders across the world in support of prisoners of conscience – thank you to everyone who has chipped in to make this annual event happen.
Advent Candle Lighting — Peace
Reader: Today is the second Sunday of Advent, a time of waiting, watching and preparing the way. As we ready our hearts to celebrate Jesus’ arrival, we quiet our thoughts and listen for the voice that leads us on.
Light the first and second Advent candles.
Reader: We light this candle of peace as a reminder that every wound shall be healed, every rift shall be mended, and every broken heart restored, for Christ is coming! Christ is coming! Christ is coming! Amen.
Sue: This week as we prepare the way for peace and unity, we have lit the candle of peace. Peace is more than the absence of conflict. It requires disrupting systems, relationships and worldviews inconsistent with God’s will. Perhaps this is why the ancient Celtic people chose the wild goose as their symbol of the Holy Spirit. Let’s look at some images from Celtic and other art of this image of the Holy Spirit, the Wild Goose. (slide show) Wisdom, or the wild goose, brings comfort and peace, but she is also a loud, honking disturbance! As we journey towards Advent, we are called to prepare the way of the Lord, and this, too, can be a disruptive process. Thankfully, the example of Jesus and our bible readings today from Isaiah and the Apostle Paul provide us with some ways in which we can take part in God’s vision of people living and working in peace.
Prayer of Confession
As we prepare for our prayer of confession, let us remember migratory birds in Australia such as godwits, petrels and little terns; how, each year, something inside them calls them home. Even though it involves a long and treacherous journey, the birds answer this call, soaring into the sky when the seasons change. Something inside us is calling us home too, and a part of that journey requires an honest reflection of those times we’ve forgotten to be loving.
Together, let us spend some time in confession:
Gracious God, As we continue on the road to Bethlehem, we recall those times we haven’t behaved as well as we might.
Generous one, we confess our lack of generosity.
Kind One, we confess an absence of kindness.
Forgiving One, we confess to withholding forgiveness.
Unifying One, we confess to feeding division. In the silence, we bring before you our personal confessions.
Have a moment of silence.
Gracious God, make us whole again. Amen.
Assurance of Forgiveness Inspired by Psalm 72
God’s mercy is like rain on the grass, like showers that water Earth.God alone does wonderful things. Praise God! You are forgiven! Amen
Sing: She sits like a bird, Together in Song 418.
She sits like a bird brooding on the waters
Hovering on the chaos of the world’s first day
She sighs and she sings mothering creation
Waiting to give birth to all the Word will say
She wings over earth resting where she wishes
Lighting close at hand or soaring through the skies
She nests in the womb welcoming each wonder
Nourishing potential hidden to our eyes
She dances in fire startling her spectators
Waking tongues of ecstasy where dumbness reigned
She weans and inspires all whose hearts are open
Nor can she be captured silenced or restrained
For she is the Spirit one with God in essence
Gifted by the Saviour in eternal love
She is the key opening the scriptures
Enemy of apathy and heavenly dove
CCLI Song # 2235806, Graham Maule | John L. Bell. © 1988 WGRG, c/o Iona Community, Glasgow, Scotland (Admin. by Willow Publishing Pty. Ltd.) For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com, CCLI Licence # 31951
Readings: Genelle and David (read, or watch on the video clip below)
The first reading comes from Isaiah 11:1–10 and describes a vision of a righteous reign of peace and unity on Earth.
1 “Like a branch that sprouts from a stump, someone from David’s family will someday be king. The Spirit of the Lord will be with him to give him understanding, wisdom, and insight. He will be powerful, and he will know and honor the Lord. His greatest joy will be to obey the Lord.
This king won’t judge by appearances or listen to rumors. The poor and the needy will be treated with fairness and with justice. His word will be law everywhere in the land, and criminals will be put to death. Honesty and fairness will be his royal robes.
Leopards will lie down with young goats, and wolves will rest with lambs. Calves and lions will eat together and be cared for by little children. Cows and bears will share the same pasture; their young will rest side by side. Lions and oxen will both eat straw.
Little children will play near snake holes. They will stick their hands into dens of poisonous snakes and never be hurt. Nothing harmful will take place on the Lord’s holy mountain. Just as water fills the sea, the land will be filled with people who know and honor the Lord.
The time is coming when one of David’s descendants will be the signal for the people of all nations to come together. They will follow his advice, and his own nation will become famous.”
Romans 15:4–13: Paul encourages the Romans to welcome others just as Jesus welcomed them.
4 “Everything written in the Scriptures was written to teach us, in order that we might have hope through the patience and encouragement which the Scriptures give us. 5 And may God, the source of patience and encouragement, enable you to have the same point of view among yourselves by following the example of Christ Jesus, 6 so that all of you together may praise with one voice the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
7 Accept one another, then, for the glory of God, as Christ has accepted you. 8 For I tell you that Christ’s life of service was on behalf of the Jews, to show that God is faithful, to make his promises to their ancestors come true, 9 and to enable even the Gentiles to praise God for his mercy. As the scripture says,
“And so I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing praises to you.”
10 Again it says,
“Rejoice, Gentiles, with God’s people!”
11 And again,
“Praise the Lord, all Gentiles; praise him, all peoples!”
12 And again, Isaiah says,
“A descendant of Jesse will appear;
he will come to rule the Gentiles,
and they will put their hope in him.”
13 May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your faith in him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The last reading from Matthew chapter 3 describes John the Baptist in the wilderness, foretelling someone greater than him:
“Years later, John the Baptist started preaching in the desert of Judea. 2 He said, “Turn back to God! The kingdom of heaven will soon be here.” 3 John was the one the prophet Isaiah was talking about, when he said,
“In the desert someone is shouting,
‘Get the road ready for the Lord!
Make a straight path for him.’ ”
4 John wore clothes made of camel’s hair. He had a leather strap around his waist and ate grasshoppers and wild honey. 5 From Jerusalem and all Judea and from the Jordan River Valley crowds of people went to John. 6 They told how sorry they were for their sins, and he baptized them in the river.
And from verse 11 (John said) “I baptize you with water so you will give up your sins. But someone more powerful is going to come, and I am not good enough even to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Reader: Through these readings we hear God speak. Thanks be to God.
Reflection and sharing: Sue (read, or watch on the video clip below, from 8.18)
One of the names given to Jesus is the Prince of Peace. What does peace mean in today’s world? It is so much more than the absence of conflict.
Today’s reading from Isaiah uses some striking metaphors to convey a sense of what peace will be like: the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat and the cow and the bear shall graze together. Then there’s the images of the innocent children and snakes, in stark contrast to the Garden of Eden story in Genesis where the snake is an agent of separation. Here, all suspicion, danger, competition and separation are dissolved; connection is restored. Both know and value one another as all are equal and at peace on God’s holy mountain. Connection is restored.
At the time of Isaiah’s prophecy, the Hebrew people were living in fear of the mighty Assyrian empire. When they heard these words about the wolf and the lamb, they probably identified with the lamb, assigning the wolf’s role to the Assyrians. Believing that they could be at peace with the people currently persecuting them must have seemed impossible, yet this seems to be God’s promise.
Consider the Wild Goose, or Holy Spirit. How nice if peace just came and settled down on us like a fluffy cloud without any effort on our part. Sometimes in our deepest personal need that is what happens, but in the context of this reading I’m talking about peace between opposing teams, factions, identities, and other ways we group ourselves. In the pursuit of peace, the Wild Goose can come into our lives as disruption, as surprise, shaking our certainty and calling us to change our perspective, our actions, to cooperate with God on a new and perhaps more challenging level.
How can we cooperate with God’s vision?
The reading from Romans tells us to welcome each other, but is there more to that than saying hello? Hear the following story, a true one (although not mine). A woman recalls: “I was sitting in the courtyard of a supermarket when a dishevelled-looking woman caught my eye. I readied myself for the inevitable question: “Do you have any spare change?” I didn’t mind being asked and was getting ready to offer to buy her some food but instead she said, “Excuse me, are you okay? You look stressed.”
She didn’t need money at all. As she sat beside me, I realised I was very stressed; I’d just been pushing away my feelings and getting on with my day. This woman, however, had seen a need in me and offered me some words of comfort, words I didn’t know I needed until that moment. We talked for several minutes, and then it was time to go. Afterwards, I reflected on how certain I’d been that she was the one in need of help and not the other way around. I had cast myself in the role of helper, of the welcomer, but it was she who helped me, welcoming me unconditionally into her presence. My assumption created a barrier to an authentic connection between us that was only broken down by her act of kindness.”
When Paul tells us to ‘welcome one another’, it requires more than being friendly to a newcomer at church. It involves allowing the other person to welcome us. There’s a second part to the instruction, too: We must ‘welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you.’ Jesus modelled his way of welcoming when he both washed the feet of his friends but also allowed the Syrophoenician woman to wash his feet. He was welcomer and welcomed, offering help and acceptance and receiving it graciously as well.
Trying to envisage peace in a broken world can feel overwhelming and hopeless. For today, let us prepare the way of the Lord by opening our hearts and asking God to help us be more loving, accepting, welcoming and receptive to the gifts of others.
Reflection Questions
Turn to someone beside you, in front of you, behind you, and welcome them, allowing them to welcome you. Last week we lit the candle of hope; this week it is the candle of peace. Share with the other person a moment of hope or peace, joy that you have experienced this year…or a Wild Goose moment of challenge.
Music Video for Reflection: Rachel Collis, Advent Hymn Promised Dawn
Short sermon: John (watch the sermon from 13.20)
Prayer for Others: Jan
Today’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is by Sarah Dylan Breuer, a writer, musician and theologian who lives with disability:
Loving Creator
We honour you, and we honour all that you have made.
Renew the whole world in the image of your love.
Give us what we need for today,
and a hunger to see the whole world fed.
Strengthen us for what lies ahead;
heal us from the hurts of the past;
give us courage to follow your call in this moment.
For your love is the only power,
the only home, the only honor we need,
in this world and in the world to come. Amen.
Offering
Giving God, You gave us your only son, an act of supreme generosity that inspires us today. Please accept our gifts of money, time and skills offered wholeheartedly for the work of your reign. We ask that you bless our thoughts, words, deeds, talents and resources. May they always be in service to you. Amen.
Sing: Holy Spirit go before us, Together in Song 420
Blessing/Benediction
Go now into the world spreading the Good News.
May the love of God sustain you,
the example of Christ inspire you,
and the honk of the Wild Goose draw you home.
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