Service Sheet (pdf)
We welcome you, wherever you are, to this Advent Sunday Virtual Service in Bradford North Circuit. This very unusual Advent season may be devoid of shopping in busy city centres to the strains of Mariah Carey and Slade, but I hope that this means that we will all find more time for reflection before Christmas comes upon us. We have one reading this morning about how some people greeted the birth of Jesus, and we have another from St Paul in lockdown in Corinth, pining for his distant friends in Thessalonica. We hope you will find something in the next forty minutes that will make you feel a more able to face the weeks to come.
Collect for today
Great God of Love, in this time of separation and loneliness, we pray that our hearts, our homes, and our churches, may be filled with love, so that we may shine like a floodlight over this darkening world. Amen
The Gospel
The Gospel story today from Luke 2:25-39, reports how two people greeted the baby Jesus when they saw him for the first time.
“Simeon took the baby into his arms and blessed God:
God, you can now release your servant;
release me in peace as you promised.
With my own eyes I’ve seen your salvation;
it’s now out in the open for everyone to see”
“Anna the prophetess was also there, a daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher. She was by now a very old woman. She had been married seven years and a widow for eighty-four. She never left the Temple area, worshiping night and day with her fastings and prayers. At the very time Simeon was praying, she showed up, broke into an anthem of praise to God, and talked about the child to all who were waiting expectantly for the freeing of Jerusalem.
When they finished everything required by God in the Law, they returned to Galilee and their own town, Nazareth. There the child grew strong in body and wise in spirit. And the grace of God was on him.”
Song
Now, listen to, or join in with, our first musical contribution to remind us that the Christmas Child will soon be visiting. You can find this carol: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen in Hymns and
Psalms 103.
Commentary on the Gospel
Simeon had seen with his own eyes a child whom he believed was to save his nation, from sin, error, or maybe oppressors; who knows? He was not specific. Anna celebrated the coming of the Christ Child because she saw how much change for good would result from that small baby.
Do you think that when people first saw you, they rejoiced because you were a little miracle? I am sure that they did. Never mind that such miracles happen all the time, every new life is a miracle. Each one can bring tears to our eyes when we think about the new life behind that appealing face, and about all the possibilities promised by a birth. We think: There is hope for the future!
Children can create love in those who care for them. Those of us who were loved as children are in possession of a precious gift to share with those who were not.
The Epistle
Many people will feel pain at their separation from loved ones this Christmas. The Epistle is from the first letter to the Thessalonians:
“Do you have any idea how very homesick we became for you, dear friends? Even though it hadn’t been that long and it was only our bodies that were separated from you, not our hearts, we tried our very best to get back to see you. You can’t imagine how much we missed you!”…
“What would be an adequate thanksgiving to offer God for all the joy we experience before him because of you? We do what we can, praying away, night and day, asking for the bonus of seeing your faces again and doing what we can to help when your faith falters.
May God our Father himself and our Master Jesus clear the road to you! And may the Master pour on the love so it fills your lives and splashes over on everyone around you, just as it does from us to you. May you be infused with strength and purity, filled with confidence in the presence of God our Father when our Master Jesus arrives with all his followers.”
Commentary on the Epistle
Is that how people see us? Is that how the magic little balls of needs and noise that we started life as, and that people greeted with such love, is that how we turned out? Do people wonder how they can express their thanks for our lives? Or would we disappoint the likes of Simeon and Anna? Have we realised the potential for changing the world that people wept over when they saw our puckered little faces? Have we responded to the love we have received by splashing it over everyone we meet? Or, has God done the filling with love, as per promise, and we have just pulled the plug out and let it all drain away?
We are very restricted in English, only having the one word for Love. Oddly, the pre-Christian Greeks had several just as, I am told, people who live in Lancashire have many words for rain. Maybe we have something to learn. Certainly, we do well to analyse how we should be showing love to others, and the Greeks can help with this.
Greek words for Love
Eros concerns sexual love; we don’t talk about this in church. The privilege and burden of listening and talking to children and adolescents experiencing Eros for the first, confusing, time, lies with parents, with our guide leaders, our scout leaders, our youth club leaders and our junior church teachers. What support can we give them? How much of our resources in church are devoted to young people? Or how much do we constrain them so that older people can continue in familiar comfort with their lives?
Pragma is a word for which we have no English equivalent. Pragma describes deep and long-standing affection and is applied to marriages that last the course, and to any long-standing partnerships, in which pragmatic decisions are taken with give and take. There is an implication of giving and receiving services to achieve a common goal. Even couples who have long dispensed with eros can work together, even if they can’t stay together, for the children. They each make their own contribution and work together. The Light Church in Bradford has formed, Christians Against Poverty, to help families that descend into financial difficulties, often as evidence of a lack of Pragma in relationships. What could we, as a church, do to help couples in difficulty?
Ludus is about playful love. We experience it when we play games with little children, like hide and seek, even if we don’t understand their rules; laughter is usually involved. Even grownups at harvest teas, or walkers sitting in a pub after a long hike are bound together by a playful bond of love. Members of a rugby or hockey team are bound by a loyalty around the rules of the game and stand by each other in playful mode. Is there enough playful laughter in our church? Does the laughter attract those who would like to join in? or exclude those not in the joke? How can we better experience and use Ludus?
Song
At this point, let us join in with, or read again that lovely poetic picture, the Lord of the Dance, you can find this in Singing the Faith, 247. I danced in the morning…
Philia describes the love of brothers or sisters. Perhaps The Hollies and Neil Diamond explained Philia most clearly in their worldwide hit: “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”. If you want to see Philia in action, join the flower team, the gardening team, the Wesleys volunteers, any of the uniformed organisations, and see how the members, quite apart from their stated purpose, look after each other and work together. Perhaps those who come into our church are really looking for a team to join.
Philautia is about loving one’s self. Not a bad thing at all. Jesus told us to love others as we love ourselves. Equally important. It is the sort of love that we must teach to teenagers who can have their appearance taunted on social media so much that they hate their own reflection. We have to get them to the stage of looking in the mirror every day and saying: “you are a beautiful person, a child of the universe, important to God, to your parents, and most of all to me”. I know I do. Again, the burden of this work is on parents and those who volunteer to help with young people’s organisations. Do we support young families and those with teenagers enough? Is there any more we can do?
The last one is Agape, it goes further. We demonstrate Agape when we take the principled stand of “loving by default”. It is a universal, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. This is the sort of love that a parent has for a child of whatever age, of whatever fault. It is often regarded as the word most closely describing the love that Christians have for each other, emanating from God in the life, teaching, and example of Jesus. Agape encompasses all the others and is surely what we mean by Loving God, Loving People, Loving the World. We should do more of it. Please join us in our prayers for those whose calling is to show love to us all:
Prayers for other people
We pray for all those who lead our Town Council, for the leaders of our churches, for those who run businesses, for those who manage sports teams and recreational activity, for all the many delivery drivers and for those who work in our health centres.
We pray for our District Councillors and officers who provide so many of the services that we sometimes take for granted; for those who work in our hospitals; for the farmers; the imams and the priests; for those who work with the homeless and the broken families.
We pray for those that govern the Nation; for the politicians and the civil servants; for all the pressure groups and charities that work to improve the world for our children and grandchildren.
We also pray for all those who live in war-torn areas and those who have been forced from their homes and families to become refugees.
In all these, our prayers, we ask that you prompt our actions, the way we live, and the ways that we love, so that this world may be a better place for our passing.
Amen
Please join in saying this Maori version of the Lord’s Prayer
O most Compassionate Life-giver,
may we honour and praise you;
May we work with you to establish your new order of justice peace and love;
Give us what we need for growth,
And help us, through forgiving others, to accept forgiveness.
Strengthen us in the time of testing, that we may resist all evil,
For all tenderness, strength and love are yours, now and forever.
Amen.
Thoughts about how to use the Advent season
Advent reminds us about the joy of a little baby and about the potential that the baby represents; but let’s not think about other babies, let’s take a moment to evaluate how the little babies that were us, turned out. Despite our collective, lemming-like belief that we are going to live forever, we actually don’t have that long to make an impact on the Gross Domestic Product of Love. It is not too late to start splashing it around. Extravagant love, extravagant joy, extravagant generosity; we need more of it. We wish you a great change during Advent, as we prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas. We will close this service by reminding ourselves that we can all become better people, whatever our circumstances may be. You raise me up!
Those who are listening to this service on-line are now going to watch a video of a group of young people singing a capella the Rolf Løvland and Brendan Graham song, You Raise Me Up.
When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary
When troubles come and my heart burdened be
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence
Until You come and sit awhile with me.
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be
You raise me up, Lord Jesus, if I can learn from your life, teaching and example; if I can trust in your Holy Spirit; if I can greet each new life that I meet as an opportunity for loving; you raise me up!
So, I wish you a happy, loving Advent this year, however constrained, however locked down. I wish you new ways to find to demonstrate your love for others. I wish you love for yourself. I wish you peace.
Now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now, and forever more. Amen
Comments
Post a Comment