Carrying the Light

The light has come. We’ve received the light and the call to bear the light to all the nations. Got it. Can do. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Right?! Well…maybe not. The rubber meets the road when we begin carrying the light into a world that likes to hide things in the shadows, push people to the margins, and threaten anyone who declares that things should be otherwise. We quickly discover that carrying the light doesn’t get rid of fear. But, as the psalmist demonstrates this week, the light does show us how to not let fear control us and keep us from living in the glory of God’s salvation. I’ll let Derek Weber’s Preaching Notes speak for themselves, but I do want to pull out a few of the themes he unpacks to inform how we plan worship this week.

First, Psalm 27 shows us that we are called to meet fear with love—not the “warm and fuzzy” kind of love, but the love of togetherness with God and one another. So, during the call to worship or opening prayer, consider how you can acknowledge the fears and troubles that congregants bring with them into the space. This might look like a liturgy of welcoming or a call-and-response prayer that names our troubles and hands them over to God, who tends and cares for the things that weigh on our hearts. In keeping with Psalm 27:4, how might you name your gathering—not the physical space, necessarily, but the people who come together in the space—as part of God’s dwelling place? How do we come home together as a community in and with God?

Second, having found our refuge in God, we respond in joyful worship. This joy is not a neglect or willful ignorance of the problems in the world, but a choice to respond in joy because of who God is and what God is doing among us. Perhaps you sing “I have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart” as a sung response during the prayers of the people, or maybe you have a witness to joy during the response to the proclamation. Or instead of passing the peace, you could pass the joy as a community. If all else fails, let the children lead. We often need the perspective of a child to help us recognize the small, everyday opportunities for joy that surround us!

Finally, seek God. Now, that probably sounds too simplistic and trite, but it is all too real. Search for God at work in the world. Remind the community that we are gathered as followers of God’s good news. Not the bad news, not the tragic news, and certainly not the “I’m giving up and moving to Mars” news. We are people of good news because our story begins, ends, and roots its meaning in God’s life-giving, never-failing love.