GATHERING AND GREETING
Advent Land Acknowledgement (By Mitchell Anderson)
Long ago, all of this land was covered by ice
Clothed in a winter without end
But God our Creator brought back the warmth
Pulling back the ice and revealing this land
Plants and animals returned to the land
And it was good
Then God gave to the land many peoples
And many peoples to the land
To care for one another
To live together
And in this time, we celebrate the gifts of the traditional and unceded territory of the K’omoks and Coast Salish peoples.
We celebrate all who make this place a home today
We celebrate together with the God of justice
As a people called to love and serve others
Called to seek justice
We eagerly await the day where the heavens are glad and the earth rejoices
Where all will share our abundance together
We work and wait for that day, when all will live together
in hope, peace, joy and love. Amen.
LIGHTING A CANDLE FOR CHRIST:
As we light this Christ candle, we honour the interconnectedness
of all creation, and our interconnectedness with the Creator and the Cosmic Christ, and we remember “All My Relations”.
All my relations.
Akwe nia’tetewa:neren
Light the candle and ring the meditation bowl.
Celtic Blessing to the Four Directions (from bayart.org)
Great Spirit of Light, come to us out of the East with the power of the rising sun. Let there be light in our words, Let there be light on the path we walk. Let us remember always to be thankful that You give the gift of a new day. Let the color of fresh rising in our lives be glory to you. Light the East candle from the Christ candle.
Great Spirit of Love, come to us with the power of the North. We come to you and ask for the strength and the power to bear what is cold and harsh in life. Make us courageous when the cold winds of life fall upon us. Give us strength and endurance for everything that is harsh, everything that hurts, everything that makes us squint. Do not let the winter blow us away. Let us move through life ready to take what comes from the North. Light the North candle from the Christ candle.
Great Life-Giving Spirit, we face the West, where the sun goes down each day to come up the next. Let us remember everyday that the moment will come when our sun will go down. You are the powerful cycle, which pulls us to transformation. Never let us forget that we must fade into you. We ask for the blessings of the sunset. Keep us open to life’s changes. Give us a beautiful color, give us a great sky for setting, so that when it is our time to meet you, we can come with glory. Light the West candle from the Christ candle..
Great Spirit of Creation, send us the warm, gentle and refreshing winds from the South. Comfort us and caress us when we are tired and cold. Unfold us like the gentle breezes that unfold the leaves on the trees. And as You give to all the earth your warm moving wind, give to us, so that we may grow close to you in warmth. Light the South candle from the Christ candle.
HYMN: MV#138, “My Love Colours Outside the Lines”
Opening Prayer
Come closer to us, O God, reconcile us to our brother and sisters. Come closer to us, O God, care for our ageing generations. Come closer to us, O God, forgive us for our wrongdoing. Come closer to us, O God, protect us from our future famine. Come closer to us, O God, draw us nearer to each other through you. Embrace with us, weep with us, that we may be family again. Amen.
HEARING AND REFLECTING
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
45 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. 3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.
4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. 9 Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. 10 You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. 11 I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.
Luke 6:27-38
27 “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Reader: Holy Wisdom, Holy Word. Thanks be to God!
Reflection: “Come Closer to Me”
All of our stories are part of bigger stories, and that’s true of both scripture texts this morning. We need to remind ourselves of the backstory in order to understand today’s readings.
Joseph is Jacob’s favoured son, and that favour is symbolized by the coat of many colours that his father gives him. Naturally, his brothers are jealous, and that jealousy is only aggravated by the dreams that Joseph shares with them. In one, the bundles of grain that his brothers have gathered bow down to the bundle that Joseph has collected. In another, the sun, the moon and eleven stars, symbolizing his family, bow down to Joseph.
As it so often seems to do in Genesis, the jealousy of the brothers takes a violent turn and they plot to kill him, but Reuben suggests throwing him into an empty cistern instead. When they spot a caravan carrying exotic goods to Egypt, they sell him as a slave and take his beautiful coat, splashed with goat’s blood, to their father to prove that he is dead.
After a spell in prison, Joseph does unexpectedly well in Egypt. When he interprets the Pharoah’s dreams and predicts seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, Pharoah puts Joseph in charge of his storehouses, and when the famine arrives there is enough grain to sell not just to the Egyptians but also to neighbouring areas.
Hearing of Egypt’s bounty, his father Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy grain. When they arrive, they don’t recognize Joseph who does, however, recognize them and puts them through several tests to judge their honesty. And so we arrive at this morning’s story, where Joseph finally tells his brothers who he is.
There is so much distance in the story of Joseph. As a youngster, his status as favourite son creates a distance between him and his brothers, and distance between his brothers and their father. That distance widens as they attack him and throw him in a well, then send him to slavery in a distant land. When they meet again in Egypt, they are separated by prestige and wealth, by nationality, and by their ignorance of the fact that this powerful official is their brother Joseph. After all the years of jealousy and estrangement in Joseph’s family, after trust is betrayed in so many ways, it looks like the damage is just too great, the wounds too deep for healing. The emotional and physical distances are so huge that it seems doubtful that they can be bridged.
Family systems theory, also known as Family of Origin theory, looks at many different family factors such as sameness and difference, freedom and responsibility, and birth order. It also tells us that we are all constantly balancing our need for closeness and our need for distance, and those needs change at different stages of our lives. What would a family systems therapist make of a family where one child is the clear favourite and knows it, where his jealous siblings consider killing him but instead sell him into slavery, where he in turn tricks them and sets them up for charges of theft?
Our lives and our world are also full of relationships damaged by distance, relationships that seem impossible to heal, and those rifts have grown dramatically during the last two years of pandemic. Physical distance to prevent the spread of COVID. Economic and political distance between ethnic groups, between social classes, between genders, nations, and faith communities. Distance between indigenous people, settlers and immigrants. Many of these rifts have also damaged relationships with family and friends.
The truth is that, being human, we often prefer some distance. John Barrymore summarizes the push/pull of togetherness when he says, “In Genesis it says that it is not good…to be alone, but sometimes it’s a great relief.” And sometimes it just seems safer and easier to stay with the people most like us, both in our basic identity and in our preference for closeness or distance.
But the conflicts we have seen lately go far beyond our natural needs for solitude or solidarity. The rifts today are challenging many of the values we have taken for granted: racial equality, respect for political differences, the basic unity of our country. We see families and communities damaged by disagreements over COVID mandates. We are witnesses to the violent arrests of protestors who are defending forests, waters, and Indigenous land rights while the forceful occupation of downtown Ottawa and border blockades in several provinces were allowed to stay in place for three weeks. We see young black and Indigenous men shot by police and civilians with very little legal repercussions.
So let’s listen again to the story: “No one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers…(He) said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer.”
“Come closer to me”. It is in this simple invitation, and in the first hesitant steps in response, that understanding and healing begin. Closing the distance between them, Joseph makes himself known to his brothers. They move closer to him, hesitantly beginning to trust him. He tells them how God is using him to save their lives, and urges them to bring their father to Egypt as well, where their families and flocks can flourish. As he outlines his plan and tells them not to blame themselves for selling him into slavery, the gulf created by years of jealousy and betrayal begins to narrow until finally the physical and emotional distance between them disappears. “And (Joseph) kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.” Broken hearts and a broken family begin to heal as a result of a simple invitation, “Come closer me”, Joseph’s human response to God’s grace working in and through him.
That same invitation is offered in the gospel of Luke, in what is referred to as “The Sermon on the Plain”. The setting on the plain is important. Much of the content of this sermon is the same as “The Sermon on the Mount” in the gospel of Matthew. But Jesus in the gospel of Luke is standing not above us but with us, and so we are invited to come closer to him. Earlier in Chapter 6, we are told that Jesus went to the mountain to pray, and after praying all night he chose the twelve apostles from among his followers. And then, in verses l7 to 20, we hear “He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people…They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases…Then he looked up at his disciples and said: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
Everything is upside down. Jesus comes down from the mountain and looks up at his disciples. And because Jesus comes closer to the disciples, and closer to us, he can ask more of us in response. Because he shares our ever-so-human fear and our anger and our desire for revenge, he can ask us to do what seems impossible: love our enemies, answer hate with good, give until you have nothing left. “Come closer to me”, says Jesus, and in that closeness you will find the grace of God that will allow you to do what you can never do on your own.
I honestly don’t know how to begin this process today. I’m finding some wisdom and encouragement right now in a book that some of you are quite familiar with: “Active Hope: How to face the mess we’re in without going crazy” by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone. Although it was published 10 years ago and its focus is the environmental emergency, it is amazingly appropriate to our times. One starting point is to recognize that we are all part of the same family that shares the same home, to recognize that we have to live together. We have to find a way to come closer. In the introduction, the authors quote Rabindranath Tagore, “The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world.”
Our scripture readings tell us that God works in us and in our world in close-up. God worked through Joseph to bring a broken family together again, to heal relationships and save lives. God incarnated in Jesus became human, came as close to us as our own flesh and blood, to heal relationships and to save lives. “Come closer to me”, says Joseph. “Come closer to me.” says God in Jesus. “Let us weep together and laugh together and get to know each other again. Then give away everything that I have given to you – love, blessings, food and clothing, even forgiveness, and you will share in my abundance.” It all starts with that one simple invitation and our response.
Let us pray: Creator and Spirit, grant us the courage to respond to your invitation to come closer to each other and to you, because it is in that tender place of intimacy and openness that relationships and lives are healed and reconciled through your grace. Amen.
HYMN: MV 169, “When Hands Reach Out Beyond Divides”
Question for reflection:
In the past two years of enforced physical distance, what other ways have you found to come closer to yourself, others, and the Divine?
WE RESPOND IN PRAYER AND ACTION
A Time for Reflection, Prayer and Offering
You are invited to reflect in silence, to light a candle or place a stone or shell as an expression of your intention or prayer.
We rely on your generous donations to support our ministry in the Denman Island community. This link will take you to instructions for donating. We are so grateful for all your contributions of time, talent and treasure.
https://denmanislandunitedchurch.ca/donate/
OFFERTORY CHORUS: VU#191, “What Can I Do?”:
What can I do? What can I bring?
What can I say? What can I sing?
I’ll sing with joy. I’ll say a prayer.
I’ll bring my love. I’ll do my share.
Offertory Prayer:
Mercy is love that demands that we put our skin in the game. We are invited to give more of ourselves, our hearts and our resources to see the Creator’s merciful love embodied in all of us.
God bless our offerings as you have blessed our bodies and lives. Amen.
Prayers of the People: “A Blessing Exercise” by Emily Eiben
This blessing exercise is modelled on the Buddhist metta or loving-kindness meditation.
Begin by settling into a comfortable position in your chair. Take a moment to relax your shoulders and let the tension out of your forehead. Take 5 long, slow breaths in and out. Center your awareness on your breathing, and let yourself enjoy a moment of relaxation.
Let’s begin by offering ourselves a blessing. Create an image of yourself in your mind—you as you are now, or maybe you as a small child, and try to cultivate a soft, loving heart toward yourself. Extend grace and love to yourself. Now, imagine yourself cupped in Creator’s loving, tender hands. Let yourself rest in God’s hands for a moment. (Pause.)
Pray: May I experience God’s love.
May I experience God’s rest.
May I experience God’s peace. (Pause for 5 deep breaths.)
Now, extend the blessing to someone you love. Imagine your partner, a best friend, a sister or brother, or even a child or parent, someone who brings you deep feelings of love, tenderness, and care. Imagine this person in your mind’s eye. Open your heart to this person and extend love and grace toward them. Now, imagine this person cupped in Creator’s loving, tender hands. Let him or her rest in God’s hands for a moment. (Pause.)
Pray: May they experience God’s love.
May they experience God’s rest.
May they experience God’s peace. (Pause for 5 deep breaths.)
Now comes the hard part! Let us extend our blessing to someone you just don’t get along with. This is someone who causes tension, anger, or negative emotions when you interact with them. Imagine this person in your mind’s eye, and try to hold them gently in your heart, with feelings of benevolence and gentleness. If feelings of anger or tension arise, try to release these feelings to God, by just letting go and opening your heart to set these negative energies free to Creator’s care. Now, imagine this person cupped in God’s loving, tender hands. Let him or her rest in God’s hands for a moment. (Pause.)
Pray: May they experience God’s love.
May they experience God’s rest.
May they experience God’s peace. (Pause for 5 deep breaths.)
Finally, let us extend God’s blessing to all beings, everywhere. All that is, all that has ever been made, all that is and was and is to come: it is all held by God, sustained by God’s love, and blessed by God’s Spirit. Imagine a beautiful, blue-green earth in your mind, full of plants and animals and so many people, so many beings—and this whole world is in Creator’s upturned palm. The whole world rests in God.
Pray: May all beings everywhere experience God’s love.
May all beings everywhere experience God’s rest.
May all beings everywhere experience God’s peace.
(Pause for 10-15 deep breaths.)
Emily Eiben is a writer, editor, and translator from Ohio, living in Germany. She is working on her doctorate at the University of Munich (Germany), comparing the Buddhist and Christian ideas of compassion.
THE PRAYER OF JESUS (Paraphrase by Jim Cotter, VU p. 916)
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be.
Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us,
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.
WE CARRY THE LIGHT INTO THE WORLD
Blessing
May the blessing of the God of Sarah and Hagar, as of Abraham,
The blessing of the Son, born of the woman Mary,
And the blessing of the Spirit, who broods over us as a mother her children,
Be with you all.
Go out into the world knowing that you are loved,
Go strengthened and eager to carry God’s love and mercy to all you meet this day.
Response: AMEN!
LEAVING SONG: “I Send my Love” (repeated with each word in brackets}.
I send my love (joy, peace, power, love) over the mountains.
I send my love (joy, peace, power, love) over the sea.
I send my love (joy, peace, power, love) into the heavens.
And it returns to me.
Unless otherwise indicated, prayers are adapted from “Fusion” www.seasonsonline.ca
