Planning - Fourth Sunday of Advent
17th Century Russian Orthodox Icon of the Song of Mary (Magnificat).
Public Domain. Note how the scope of the icon matches the scope of the song.
While Mary is in an honored place, the icon-writers portray her place
within the wider drama of salvation history her song proclaims.
For Leccionario Comn Revisado: Consulta Sobre Textos Comunes (pdf), click here.
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Longest Night, December 21, is this coming Wednesday. See our Blue Christmas resources, "Blue Christmas/Longest Night Worship With Those Who Mourn" and "Blue Christmas." There is no clinical evidence that the winter holiday season in the Northern hemisphere has a higher incidence of depression or suicide than other times. Still, for people who have lost loved ones and those who find the season emotionally difficult for whatever reason, a service given to recognizing sadness and loss may be a generous act of liturgical pastoral care.
Christmas Eve arrives next Saturday. Christmas Day is Sunday. Do consider offering worship with Holy Communion on both occasions, if possible. For many North Americans the days are short, the weather is bitterly cold, and Christmas anticipation and preparations are at their height. In our congregations, we can let the liturgy remind us that we Christians mark time differently. For us, it is still Advent -- still a time of waiting expectantly for the return of the Savior and the complete salvation of the world! We are not yet there . . . but we relish being on the edge of "the revelation of the mystery" (Romans 16:25).
Looking ahead to January: January 1 can be celebrated in a variety of ways -- as The Feast of the Holy Name, as a Watch Night (December 31), or as New Year's Day. This year, it will also be Epiphany Sunday (Epiphany itself is always January 6). Plan for your principal service to be Epiphany, and schedule a separate time for others as fits your context.
January 8 is Baptism of the Lord Sunday.
Special offerings and events for January include Human Relations Day on January 15, Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Observance on January 19, the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-25), and Ecumenical Sunday (January 22). {C}
Atmospherics: Advent 4 -- Glorying in the Promised End to Come
Every Sunday in Advent, especially in Year B, ultimately focuses on the End of All Things in the coming of Jesus Christ. In the previous weeks, we have encountered (or been confronted by) that End, and have seen it as sudden, final, decisive, re-ordering the world and our lives as disciples now already, and leading us to rejoice in the meantime. This week's texts move us from rejoicing to ecstatic praise, as we join the song of Mary and revel in the surprising news that God is and ever seeks to be in our midst, intimately involved in our lives now and in the age to come.
It may seem odd that our first reading on this fourth Sunday of Advent is from 2 Samuel, and maybe even odder the story we hear from that book. On the surface, it looks like a story of failed ambition. David, Israel's hero-king, had spent his life and the nation's resources defending and expanding the kingdom and its capital, Jerusalem. There he had built a lavish royal palace complex for himself and his heirs in Jerusalem. Having done all of this, he noticed that he had invested nothing on building projects for the religion of his people. The chief place for religious gatherings was still, literally, a tent. So he began to lay out a plan to build a majestic temple to honor the God of his people. What God would not want that, or even expect or demand that?
Not David's God, our God. Through a revelation to Nathan the prophet, God tells David in no uncertain terms that God does not want David to build a "house of cedar" for him. Israel's God, YHWH, is God on the move, among the people, protecting and defending and establishing them wherever they are, wherever they go. The portable sanctuary, the tabernacle, is more compatible with who God is. God does not want to be "established" or "located." Instead, God wants to establish the lineage of David forever!
Christians hear this text in at least three ways. First, we hear of Jesus as the one through whom David's lineage has been established forever. Second, we recognize in it the pattern of what God did in becoming flesh, fully one of us while fully Divine, in Jesus. Third, and perhaps most important for us, we are reminded of the nature of who we are as Christ's body in the world. We are not to seek simply to expand realms and build successful institutions. Rather, we are, as the people of this God on the move, to be primarily focused on being on the move with this God, revealed in Jesus, wherever the Spirit blows.
We know the rest of this story. God did allow Solomon to build a temple, a facility which ultimately became the largest religious campus of buildings on the planet in that or any time so far. It was not that God was rejecting the notion of buildings entirely, if we attend to the rest of the story. It was that God did not want to be associated with the buildings and the institutions first or primarily. This God is first and foremost out among us, would become fully one of us in Jesus, continues among us in the Spirit and in the church, and will return in decisive victory in Jesus to complete all that has been begun among us.
How do you understand your own nature as a congregation? Are you primarily located? Are you primarily "on the move" with God? How do your buildings and other institutions facilitate your being on the move? How are they keeping you located -- physically and spiritually -- and perhaps more inwardly focused than Jesus calls us to be?
At this time of the year, your worship building itself may have become a significant focus in your worship life. Great effort may have already been spent) in decorating it -- hanging greens, bringing in poinsettias, adding candles inside and lights outside, perhaps even a thorough clean-up inside in preparation for your Christmas Eve services next weekend.
But hear what this text reminds us. The God whose Advent we celebrate in Christ's coming and return is truly God on the move, in the midst of people "out there," in their daily lives. So as you are planning worship for this Sunday, how might you and your worship planning team refocus even some of your usual building-centered activities to represent in people's minds the God revealed to David by Nathan and in Jesus to all of the true character of the Coming One?
In Luke we have both story (in the gospel lesson) and song (in the Canticle responding to the reading from 2 Samuel) that call us to revel with Mary in God's revolutionary salvation and even more unusual lengths God goes to show God's longing to be in our midst. It is no less than Gabriel, an archangel in Hebrew angelology, who appears to a young, unwed but betrothed girl to announce she would become pregnant by God and thus fulfill God's intention to establish David's line forever (Luke 1:32-33). She consents to the angel's news (verse 38). We gather in worship in no small part because she did.
And the worship we offer is of the One who is as Mary sang in her song at Elizabeth's house. Quoting from the King James (since so many settings of this song have used that version):
He hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden . . .
and his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
He hath shown strength with his arm;
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat
and hath exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things;
And the rich he hath sent empty away
(Luke 1:48-53, KJV).
These are the reasons Mary's soul "doth magnify the Lord, and [her] spirit hath rejoiced in God [her] Savior. Her act of consent to God's plan to become flesh, fully one of us, unleashes not just praise in general, but praise for all that the coming birth will begin to unleash. The proud are scattered. The mighty are deposed. The humble are enthroned. The hungry are all fed, and the rich leave with nothing.
The strange, surprising beginnings of life in her, she and we have come to know and believe, will continue to stir up these results in the life of the world both in this age and in the age to come through the One stirring then in her womb waiting to be born among us. This is what this God with us, Jesus Christ, was up to throughout his entire ministry. It is what he revealed in his execution and resurrection. It is what he, ascended, and the Spirit among us continues to work out in our midst. And it is what the Triune will bring to fulfillment in his return.
We have Mary's song, the song of God's salvation, to sing, dance, and revel in today.
Where is your congregation already entering Mary's song? Who or what events among you bear witness to the strength of God's arm scattering the proud, overthrowing the powerful, exalting the lowly, feeding the hungry and leaving the rich to fend for themselves? These are ends the powerful in this world do not expect or want. But they are the ends that are better than even they could have hoped for, in the End we know in Jesus Christ.
How will your worship planning team help your congregation find compelling ways to join Mary's consent to let God be born in us and then join her song?
We are invited to join Mary's song this day. And we are also invited to join the song of Paul, who appears to be joining the song of saints and heavenly creatures in the closing benediction of his letter to the church at Rome. The end of his benediction is "glory to God through Jesus Christ forever!" This concluding paean calls to us here and now to remember who this God is and live accordingly. We are invited by this God, through Paul, to be strengthened by the gospel and proclamation of Jesus Christ (verse 25). We are reminded that this gospel is truly strange, surprising, and better than could have been hoped for -- in Paul's phrase, "the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages, but now disclosed." And why? "To bring about the obedience of faith" (verse 26).
At our first hearing, this may sound positively anti-climactic. God did all this to make us obey the faith? God did this to give us doctrinal lockstep?
That may be how many may hear those words first. That's not what they mean. Obedience does not mean "mere compliance." It means something much more like what Mary did, something along the lines of "listening consent." The Greek verb behind the noun "obedience" here is "hypakouein," in Latin "obaudire." Both mean to "hear what lies beneath," to listen deeply, and in listening so deeply, come to trust and so to follow where the one being "obeyed" leads. It means thus to let our souls be stirred and brought to life, as it were, by the one speaking and revealing. The Greek noun for "faith," "pistis" has more to do with relational trust than logical affirmation.
Why is all of this important for Advent? For one thing, at least, in Advent we are confronted with so many challenging and, frankly, frightening texts that we may be tempted either to panic, and so no longer listen well, or to reject what we hear, and so not listen at all. Paul here reminded the Christians in Rome and all the rest of us who have heard or read these words so long preserved that God truly desires for us to be recipients of the whole of the mystery in Jesus Christ -- including his incarnation, his life, his teaching, his execution, his resurrection and his return -- and to receive all of this in a way that results not in panic or rejection, but in a life transformed by the mystery so revealed. His song celebrates that possibility for us -- an end stranger, more surprising, and far better than we could have imagined ourselves.
At times the obedience of faith, as it does here and in Mary's song, can only be expressed in ecstatic song and praise. More often, perhaps, it is expressed in being with the God who is on the move, the God who acts unlike we expect gods to act to bring about a better end, the God who in Christ was already doing and in our midst continues to do the very kinds of things that Jesus preached and Mary sang until every word and every note is fulfilled at the return of Christ.
Who has a song full of such ecstatic faith? Let them sing it! Who has a witness of such obedience of faith? Let them share it, that others may sing or live this way as well! Plan your final Advent service to end on a note of ecstasy and commitment to the way of Jesus in daily life that will only continue to crescendo through Christmastide. {C}
Compass points
How will your worship team lead the people to "pray" the liturgy on this Sunday? What are the deep concerns and longings of the world as you hear them in your contact with people? How do you hear the longing and cry of the world as it comes through the newspaper and CNN or the evening news? How do the readings interpret such longings and outcries? Do people in their real needs and yearnings dare to imagine that God might be up to something in them?
David, Israel's king, is comfy in his palace and "guilty" (?) that God has no house. Mary is just an ordinary girl in a backwater town minding her business. Those are the settings where the Word of God comes. Where are the people you will lead in worship? What is going on? How do the readings and prayers of this day connect them to this perplexing God? Do we dare invite people to pray their questions ("How can this be?") and to yield themselves to the overshadowing and the promises of God?
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Embodying the Word: The Entrance for Advent Four
Entrance is the first of the four great movements of worship in what United Methodists call our Basic Pattern of Worship, and what is known more widely as "The Ecumenical Ordo": Entrance, Proclamation and Response, Thanksgiving and Communion, and Sending Forth.
During Advent, the Entrance is often marked by the use of an Advent Wreath and in some contexts the singing of one or more verses of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" (UMH 211). If you sing that ancient hymn as part of your entrance, let today's focus be on the opening words of the refrain, "Rejoice! Rejoice!" With the baptismal font as the primal symbol for entrance into the life of the church, consider the possibility of sprinkling the people with water from the font as these words, or perhaps the same words from another text or tune, are sung at the entrance this morning.
How do your people enter today? Will they come expecting grand Christmas pageantry, and find themselves reminded that the God who is with us is known first and foremost as with us, not "remotely far"? (2 Samuel) Do they come as ordinary people, with ordinary concerns, not really looking for God to do something extraordinary with them only to be met with the possibility of God being born in them? (Luke). Do they come ready and longing to sing out God's justice (Song of Mary). Do they come bored by what they think they know, only to encounter the mystery of the Holy One who will reveal a gospel that will renovate their souls? (Romans) How might the entrance today be an opportunity to embody the overall spirit of your congregation and community as it comes to worship with you today? Or how might it give the opportunity for folks to "try on" what it is like for several or all of these ways the Scriptures address those who come? Use the entrance to connect how people where you are come to worship today with these texts, and see what God begins to do as the Spirit makes these connections real and transforming in their lives!
However your team works through these ideas, consider how what you will do connects with the texts for the day in a lively and compelling way, and truly helps the people of YOUR congregation know and feel the mystery of this God whose strange surprising end for usnow and in the world to comeis far better than we could possibly imagine.
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Confession and Pardon:
Concerns and Prayers:
The Great Thanksgiving: BOW 54-55
Prayer of Thanksgiving if there is no Communion: BOW 552
Dismissal with Blessing: BOW 563
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- BOW 253 (Advent), BOW 473 (Winter, Luke), BOW 256 (Luke)
- For excellent fresh opening prayers, see Revised Common Lectionary Prayers (Augsburg Fortress), page 35.
- UMH, p. 8
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Let us confess our brokenness and sin to God and to one another:
God of David and Mary, we confess our impatience and lack of discipline.
The pace of the holidays sweeps us along like leaves before the wind.
We are set on what we want
so that we are blind and deaf to angels.
We are not yet prepared to say with Mary,
"Let it be to me according to your word."
We need moments of stillness,
even in snarled traffic or noisy store,
when Christ is conceived in us.
We yearn for love to find a home in us.
Forgive us for attitudes and anxieties that keep you out.
Turn our hearts and spirits toward you and each other
in acts of compassion and justice,
through Jesus who brings your rule among the nations. Amen.
(silence)
[Here continue with the pardon sequence as on UMH p. 8.]
- BOW 256 (Luke), BOW 255 (Advent), BOW 257 (Luke)
- BOW 527 (2 Samuel, Luke) Consider the use of visuals with this form, such as various containers including the baptismal font as both font and womb
- For an intercessory form for this Sunday, see Revised Common Lectionary Prayers (Augsburg Fortress), page 34.
- Ecumenical Cycle of Prayer: Ghana, Nigeria