(Click HERE to see the FB video ,starts at 11:30, sermon starts at 24:00)
(Click HERE to donate to Lidgerwood Church’s mission and ministries)
Mark Wheeler
Philippians 1:3-11
Second Sunday of Advent, 12/05/2021
“Making Room … for Peace!”
Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church
MP3 – Hope Waits Accompaniment
Welcome everyone! Happy Advent!
Like the childhood game of “musical chairs” , we can be convinced that there are not enough places at the Table. And so we shrink the guest list or create a “kids’ table” just in case there is not enough room, and we scramble to make sure we get a seat.
And yet our Holy Bible invites us to imagine and make real the invitation to all people to the Table, dressed in the garments of a Peace that comes with justice. This is what really matters – this is the fruit of what is right and good.
This Advent season we ask, how our church can 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 2
2-3
Advent Song of Peace
Peace waits for us at Advent Peace waits for us to rest.
Peace waits for our acceptance of the truth that we are blessed.
In this time of preparation for the work of co-creation,
for the birthing of a world of gentleness and play. Peace is born in us each day!
Lighting the Advent Candle of Hope . . . . . . Pastor Kathy Sandusky & Helen Sevey
Kathy: Today we offer the Light of Peace to illumine the Door of Welcome.
Helen: May this light shine in our hearts, in our lives, and in our church.
Kathy: May Peace awaken us to possibilities and lead us to greater hospitality.
Helen: There IS room in this Inn, a House for the Holy.
MP3 – Hope Waits Verse 2
Kathy lights the Advent Candles of HOPE & PEACE
4-5
Thank you, on behalf of our Elders’ Council, thank you for … maintaining a sense of PEACE by:
“Wearing your mask while inside the building.”
This is not because we are afraid, but because we want to love our neighbors. We truly want that no one should feel judged, and everyone should feel safe, so continue to be gentle with each other. Listening to the Philippians 2:4 passage:
“ 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 2:4
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 Peace 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 –– #135 – Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus – led by Dick McCarter!!Please join hin and sing these words praying for peace together.
6-7
8
We pray today with the Jeremiah’s scribe from the apocryphal book of Baruch 5:1-5:
Take off your mourning clothes and oppression, Jerusalem!
Dress yourself in the dignity of God’s glory forever.
Wrap the justice that comes from God around yourself like a robe.
Place the eternal one’s glory on your head like a crown.
God will show your brilliance everywhere under heaven.
God will give you this name by which to be called forever:
The Peace That Comes from Justice, The Honor That Comes from Reverence for God!
Get up, Jerusalem! Stand on the high place, and look around to the east!
See your children gathered from the west to the east by the holy one’s word, as they rejoice that God has remembered them. 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 New Testament Epistle of Paul we hear promise and prayer for our Peace from God’s Holy Spirit, from Philippians 1:3-11 —-
9
1 3 I thank my God every time I mention you in my prayers. 4 I’m thankful for all of you every time I pray, and it’s always a prayer full of joy. 5 I’m glad because of the way you have been my partners in the ministry of the gospel from the time you first believed it until now. 6 I’m sure about this: the one who started a good work in you will stay with you to complete the job by the day of Christ Jesus.
10
7 I have good reason to think this way about all of you because I keep you in my heart. You are all my partners in God’s grace, both during my time in prison and in the defense and support of the gospel. 8 God is my witness that I feel affection for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.
11
9 This is my prayer: that your love might become even more and more rich with knowledge and all kinds of insight. 10 I pray this so that you will be able to decide what really matters and so you will be sincere and blameless on the day of Christ. 11 I pray that you will then be filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes from Jesus Christ, in order to give glory and praise to God.
12
Remember the analogy of musical chairs we started with this morning? Where we take a chair away and we experience a lack of seats, there’s never enough room. But in this beautiful poetry from Philippians, God’s love is becoming more and more rich. I think there’s richness there and that there is where we are filled with the fruit of righteousness. And this is what really matters. We hear God’s Word and we decide what really matters.
I think that’s one of the things that this dang Pandemic did was force us (or invite) us to think about, to discern, what really matters.
Kenyan-born, Pastor Grace Imathiu, suggests that last Sunday’s theme of Hope calls us to “make room” at our Table. And if there’s going to be a child coming to us – think “the Christ-Child” – we are forced to clean out a room because we need to make the nursery. Parents, remember that first baby?
So last Sunday, we’ve cleaned and made room. And on this Second Week of Advent there’s going to be food served. We need to make room at the Table for this new one who’s coming to be with us.
If we go with this child-of-Bethlehem-idea that yes, indeed, there is a need to make room at the Table because we will eat together (some day, we will actually sit-down and eat together – this Saturday at Frankie Doodles at 9am is one way); that’s the way we become family – we eat together, we all pull up a chair to the Table. And when a child is this beloved, it doesn’t matter how small our Table is. We will find a way to make room.
I read a story this week about a family that had triplets, and a very small breakfast nook-table – they cut three holes in the center of the table and fashioned three baby seats in the holes, so that the two very-tired-parents could watch and feed all three babies at once! Right? We find a way!
Maybe that’s why this Philippian passage is so helpful – because it’s about love. I mean, the whole Philippian letter is such a love letter.
I know that some of us approach Paul with a little anxiety. In Philippians, we just want to hang out with Paul, because he just is Paul in love with the Church. And, so, maybe that’s the beginning, letting love find a way to make room at the Table.
In our opening prayer, we read from a book that is not in our Bible; Baruch is a part of what we call the Deuterocanonical books. They’re the ones that are part of the Bible in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and were well known in Jesus’ time. There are other of these Deuterocanonical books or Apocryphal books that are quoted in the New Testament. Our New Testament writers knew this material very well. But for a variety of reasons, were not included in the Holy Canon of Scripture for us. So, while it is not Scripture – it is faithful testimony of God’s Hope and Peace. Baruch is probably extended poetry that is reflecting on the experience of exile, that is the experience of homelessness; the experience of being a refugee.
For those of you who are reading through the Bible this year, last week we should have read the book of James – can anyone tell us what James says “true religion” is? [taking care of the widows and orphans – James 1:27). I found at least 15 Old Testament passages where God commands that God’s people do just that – and at least half of these passages also include taking care of “aliens”, “soldiers”, “strangers,” “foreigners” – we might say “refugees”!
Both Baruch and Philippians lean into this theme, hard.
If we are caring for widows, children, and immigrants and planting justice and peace for them, we’re creating a community that will care for everyone and we are bringing new life wherever we go.
And so the East and the West is a reminder, I think, of the biblical call to justice for immigrants of every generation. And that again is one of these Advent themes where Joseph and Mary become immigrants that are going to become refugees (remember when they flee to Egypt to escape from King Herod’s massacre of baby boys! And Jesus will then grow up as a homeless immigrant.
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 Paul and Jeremiah, it’s about loving our neighbors so that there’s always room at the Table!
On this Second Sunday of Advent 2021 we re-discover the peace 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 Peace in that! Amen.
13 Preparing Our Hearts in Prayer,
MP3 – Make My Heart a Stable – Advent 2
Make of my heart a stable, a house for the holy, a warm and sturdy place for peace 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 peace 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 peace 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.
As Pastor Kathy leads us in prayer, listen for the prompt, and call out a name or a situation … on]
We remember and pray for…
16-18
… 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:
19 [The Lord’s Prayer]
20
Some scholars have wondered if “The Inn” and its “Keeper” were part of Joseph’s family – after all, he went back to his hometown for the census. Or perhaps Joseph’s own family did not or could not make room for them and they had to look elsewhere for a place to stay.
As many of us know, family can be complicated. We’ll never know the real circumstances of Joseph’s family relations but the story can help us gain deeper compassion for what we DO know – too many people experience rejection, even from family.
What if we endeavored to BE family to those who need it most, 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”)
21
Pastor Kathy, come and lead us in our Communion Prayer and Words of Institution
22
And so,
with your people on earth
and all the company of heaven
we praise your name and join their unending hymn:
Holy , holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
23
24
in union with Christ’s offering for us,
as we proclaim the mystery of faith.
Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.
25
Expedition Song – It Came Upon a Midnight Clear #170 –! – Deanna & Gene Peden! Each week of this series we will “expedite” with a Christmas Carol. Yes, Advent is not yet the birth of Christ. For today’s closing carol we sing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” a carol written by Edmund Sears and one of the earliest social gospel hymns written. Sears was writing from Boston in the years just before the Civil War and this hymn emphasizes the message of the angels, “peace on earth, goodwill to all.”
You can hear this especially clearly in a verse not included in our hymnals but which is perfect for our theme – pay special attention to verse 4 today:
26-29
30
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.
31-32 Announcements
Resources:
McFee, Marcia; “The Inn”; Worship design Studio; 2021. (Interviews with Jon Berquist and Grace Imathiu.)
lidgerwoodpresbychurch 