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Mark Wheeler
Jeremiah 33:14-16 First Sunday of Advent, 11/28/2021
“Making Room … for Hope!” Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church
MP3 – Hope Waits Accompaniment
Welcome everyone! Happy Advent!
We all know how the pandemic of 2020-’21 has laid bare, and widened, economic disparity locally and globally. As we enter the Advent season, how can our church become a house where the Holy will be born anew–offering respite, sustenance and care, opening the doors ever wider to those seeking shelter from the onslaught of life? No one church can do it all, but each can do something. As we study the biblical prophets that call us to care for our neighbors and “make room in the inn”, the lonely and frightened spaces within us are filled with the light of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.
MP3 – Hope Waits Verse 1
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Advent Song of Hope
Hope waits for us at Advent Hope waits for us to trust.
Hope waits for our commitment to a land that’s kind and just.
In this time of preparation for the work of co-creation,
for the birthing of a world that heals the ones in pain. Hope is born in us again!
Lighting the Advent Candle of Hope . . . . . . Gerri & Scott Lockwood
Scott: Today we offer the Light of Hope to illumine the Door of Welcome.
Gerri: May this light shine in our hearts, in our lives, and in our church.
Scott: May Hope awaken us to possibilities and lead us to greater hospitality.
Gerri: There IS room in this Inn, a House for the Holy.
Scott lights the Advent Candle of HOPE
MP3 – Hope Waits Verse 1
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Thank you, on behalf of our Elders’ Council, thank you for … maintaining a sense of HOPE by:
“Wearing your mask while inside the building.”
We truly want that no one should feel judged, and everyone should feel safe, so continue to be gentle with each other. Using the Philippians 2:4 passage:
“If therefore there is any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassion, make my joy full by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself; each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.” Philippians 2:1-4
We are gathered in our church sanctuary – a holy place – and it’s also a safe place – where the divine and the human connect together. Welcome to this holy sacred and safe place today.
CAMERA
Let’s take a second to welcome each other, and those in the room, look at the camera and say HI to your friends who are at home. Tell your loved ones, whoever you can see , “The Hope of Christ be with you – and also with you!”
Welcome to this “gathering” in God’s name. We are assembled in NorthEast Spokane, WA, along with people from all over the world. We are very glad you are “here” with us.
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit presence and power, in your homes, through your phones and computers, in this building here, and in your lives. Pray with us … and hear and be transformed by God’s Word.
Our opening song of praise and devotion –– #482 – My Hope Is in the Lord – led by Lilly Haeger!!Please join her and sing these words proclaiming our hope together.
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We pray with the Psalmist in Psalm 25:4-5:
Make Your ways known to us, Lord; teach us Your paths.
Lead us in Your truth – teach it to us – because You are the God who saves us.
We put our hope in You all day long. Amen.
In this Advent Season of discovering the Inn where the Holy Family was staying, of hearing that we are welcomed into the Inn that welcomed Mary and Joseph, and then of becoming the Inn where “God with us” enters into our lives and where God now dwells, and where we, in the image of God, welcome others into God’s presence with us… let’s imagine, with appropriate biblical references, Old Testament promises and prophecies and New Testament proclamations and professions, what that place looked like, what it sounded like, what it smelled like, how it felt, what it means … for us … today.
Today, from the Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah we hear recollection and that call, from Jeremiah 33:14-16 —-
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33 14 The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill my gracious promise with the people of Israel and Judah. 15 In those days and at that time, I will raise up a righteous branch from David’s line, who will do what is just and right in the land.
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16 In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is what he will be called: The Lord Is Our Righteousness.
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Jon Berquist, Old Testament professor at San Francisco Theological Seminary, in an interview about this theme, reminds his hearers that In Old Testament thought, in Hebrew Bible thought, everything gets chased back to the Law [the Ten Commandments, and more], and the Law is seen as a gift from God for the building of a strong community. It’s a gift that God takes so much time to explain to us how we should be living together. Because living together is not easy …. We will step on each other’s toes and get in each other’s way, and be a pain in each other’s backside … a lot, whether that’s family or church or society.
And so we really need instruction on how to live together, how to be good neighbors, how to take care of each other effectively.” Berquist says, “Those things that we think should be second nature, well, they’re built into us as our first nature, but that still doesn’t make them obvious until we take the time to think through.”
“So the prophets build on that tradition that everything God gives us in creation and in Scripture is a way for us to treat each other better. For us to be a more caring and compassionate community for God’s people, for God‘s creation. The prophets are the loud voices in their societies who see what’s happening and stand up and say, ‘Some of what we’re doing is wrong, some of what we’re doing is exclusive.’
“There are practices around us that are hurting people and not helping them. We have always lived in a world where some people hoard, and some go without, and where some build barns to hold an infinite and growing number of possessions and other people don’t have houses. And prophets are always calling us to make the changes to share more equitably these riches of community that are given freely.”
In this Advent Season, even with our chocolate Advent calendars and our Jesse Trees, we build expectation and anticipation for the amazing event that we know is coming, but the Church also recognizes it as a penitential season, as a time to look forward and outward, but also a time to look inward and at how we are doing inside ourselves.
And we do this at a time of year where every day gets shorter and darker.
It is good for us to have this balance of penitence and expectations, to recognize that we need to change inside as the world is changing outside.
Jon Berquist says, “The Jeremiah passage always seems stuck to me between a couple of other things. There’s this talk of, ‘I will raise up a righteous branch from David’s line,’ that echoes back to Isaiah’s prophecy, which often gets picked up in Advent. Isaiah talks about a shoot that springs forth, but it springs forth from the stump of Jesse, David’s father. And that speaks to me,” he says, “so compellingly about what happens when we can’t find that hope, when we feel like a tree that has been cut off at the stump without a possibility for life. And in this Christmas season, so many of us who’ve had troubling relationships with families have that sense of being a stump that’s cut off from the rest of what gave us life.”
During COVID, there’s this pandemic that’s gone viral, but there’s also the pandemic of loneliness and separation leaving so many feeling cut off in this economy, where so many people are cut out and left out and discarded in a time when perhaps our church is wondering if there is growth left ahead or if we are reaching an end. Right? Is this true?
Who here can relate to the idea that some days we feel like stumps? Right? But Berquist reminds us that it is precisely from the stump that the shoot and the branch can grow forth, and learning to see not just the injuries and the lack in the world, but to see the potential that exists in those stumps.
Jeremiah announces God’s gracious promise … that … I will raise up a righteous branch from David’s line, who will do what is just and right in the land. … And this is what he will be called: The Lord Is Our Righteousness.
This is where the theme of Hope comes to play: Our righteousness is not a duty. Our righteousness is what it means to come alive again.
We so often see Righteousness paired with justice, God will do what is just and right in the land. This has nothing to do with a feeling that we’re better than someone else or that we are justified in what we do. Rather, it is the process of lifting others up. It is the process of finding where people’s needs are and addressing our energies fill to those places of need. Rather than trying to make people fit into the boxes that we think people should fit into, we welcome them where they are, bringing help and growth right there. We bring the light of the Gospel, the Hope of life in Jesus.
And it’s not that God lifts us up and gets us out of the muck, and keeps us clean. It’s that we, together with God, like God did in that basement stable at the Inn in Bethlehem, we get down on our hands and knees and the dirt and we plant things that will grow like a righteous branch.
And that branch someday becomes big enough that it can provide housing.
And someday becomes big enough to provide shelter.
Someday it becomes big enough to be the welcoming Inn.
But on the day we plant it … we don’t see it.
Catch this hope: in this passage from Jeremiah, where the prophet is going with this. Because it’s in the next chapter that Jeremiah says that God will set a new covenant. And will place that new covenant in a new heart that God will place within us, Immanuel!
So, as we talk about housing the holy, the idea that God is fashioning a new heart to go inside us, we see the incarnation that this season leads to.
For Jeremiah, he’s just a chapter away from talking about that. And the righteousness leads so quickly to a new heart for everyone of us.
On this first Sunday of Advent 2021 we re-discover the hope of faithful connection with the God of righteousness, and our connections to our fellow neighbors.
As we are welcomed into God’s presence, may we be such an invitingly warm welcome of righteousness to everyone around us.
There’s real Hope in that! Amen.
13 Preparing Our Hearts in Prayer,
MP3 – Make My Heart a Stable – Advent 1
Make of my heart a stable, a house for the holy, a warm and sturdy place for hope to live and grow.
In this moment we open the doors of our hearts to honesty before God
about what we’ve done and left undone that created less hope in a hurting world.
Let us breathe out this regret… [pause to breathe out]
and breathe in the life-giving, forgiving Spirit of God… [pause to breathe in]
and out again with the Peace of Christ… [another breath out].
14 Make of my life a stable, a house for the holy, a warm and sturdy place for hope to live and grow.
In this moment we open the doors of our lives to the call of the Holy Spirit,
inviting us to become more than we can ask or imagine.
Let us breathe out our fear… [pause to breathe out]
and breathe in the courage of the Spirit of God… [pause to breathe in]
and out again, with the Peace of Christ… [another breath out].
15 Make of our church a stable, a house for the holy, a warm and sturdy place for hope to live and grow.
In this moment we open the doors of this church,
filling it with the compassion of Christ for all those who are struggling.
We remember and pray for…
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We pray this day for … [call out a name or a situation]
… those who are suffering economic hardship, and insecurity in basic needs;
may abundance be shared.
… those who are suffering mentally, finding it difficult to cope;
may paths open and hope return.
… those who are suffering illness or injury;
may healing abound.
…. those who are suffering loneliness and isolation;
may companionship and solace arrive.
… those who are suffering discrimination, fear and violence;
may they know respect, respite, and safety.
May the Advent of Compassion be born in us,
reside within us,
move outward from us,
to meet the needs of the world,
making a house for the Holy that is each and every child of God.
We pray this in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray:
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The Bible doesn’t actually mention an Innkeeper in the story of Jesus’ birth. But this popular notion is alive in our imaginations. Sometimes the Innkeeper gets a bad rap, as if providing substandard accommodations for a family about to have a baby.
But what if we saw the innkeeper as someone who, with a full house, thought literally “outside the box” to solve a problem?
What if we endeavored to do the same to provide ministry, to “house the Holy” in ways we have not yet imagined?
This Advent season may our tithes and offerings stoke the possibilities for our own hospitality.
– Offering (4449 N Nevada St, Spokane, 99207 ; or click HERE, or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)
Expedition Song – O Little Town of Bethlehem #155 –! – Mark! Each week of this series we will “expedite” with a Christmas Carol. Yes, Advent is not yet the birth of Christ. However, as we prepare our homes and this house for the Holy, we live in the “already and not yet”. We already know “the rest of the story” AND YET we have not seen the fulfillment of a time when suffering ends. Today we sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” a carol written by Phillips Brooks in 1865 after a horseback ride between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.
An original verse not included in our hymnals is especially poignant for our theme – pay special attention to verse 4 today:
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Let us remember that it was in a little and unassuming town where the Holy was housed. We too can offer light and hope and a place where “faith holds wide the door,” even and especially in our little town.
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We continue with this benediction: May God’s Door of Welcome
swing open in our hearts and in our lives.
May Christ’s humble first dwelling
remind us of the plenty we already know.
And may the Holy Spirit lead us into
more possibility and hospitality
than we can imagine,
making room in The Inn for all.
May it be so for you. May it be so for us.
May it be so for this church. Amen.
26-27 Announcements
Resources:
McFee, Marcia; “The Inn”; Worship design Studio; 2021. (Interviews with Jon Berquist and Grace Imathiu.)
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