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Advent Peace: A Candle-lighting Liturgy
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Open the heavens and come down, O God of peace.
Bring Your peace so near we can feel it
like floating weightless,
effortlessly buoyed by still waters.
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We have seen glimpses of Your peace
when we reach the point in our quarrels
where we can remember again that we’re on the same side.
When we can admit our faults and hug it out,
we know Your presence.
Teach us to be still before You and with You
in every situation—even the least serene.
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We have heard Your promises:
That you offer respite from our burdens
and that Your peace prevails in chaos and uncertainty.
Every person will be valued as the work of Your hand.
Wars will cease.
Anxiety will no longer consume our thoughts and bodies.
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Jesus, Prince of Peace, violence wastes our lands
and precious lives, and no end is in sight.
Give us peace with justice and imagination
for a world beyond tooth and nail and suppressed hostilities.
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Anoint us with Your Spirit so we may be
makers of a peace on earth that begins with You, not us.
Re-create us as we rest in You
beneath starry skies.
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We are God’s people.
We light this candle as a sign of God’s peace,
that bids us lay our grievances down
and quiet our sharp tongues and elbows
to trust a Savior so right and reliable
we have no need to jostle for power.
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O come, Immanuel.
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This year’s liturgies written with collaborative input from parishioners of Bethany Presbyterian, Seattle
Advent Joy: A Candle-lighting Liturgy
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Open the heavens and come down, O God of joy.
Bring Your joy so near we can taste it—
like eating French fries!
in Mexico!
on Christmas!
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We have seen glimpses of Your joy
not only when we visit our favorite places and people
but in some wildly unexpected places and people as well.
Whenever a child is born to us,
we know Your presence.
Where our pleasures now are partial and fleeting,
give us energy to keep up with a joy that endures.
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We have heard Your promises:
that You came to bring the great joy of reconciliation
to absolutely everyone
and that none of our faults can separate us from God.
When we bring you our grief, you collect our tears
to water orchards producing perfect fruit.
Forgiveness flowers wherever You walk.
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Jesus, You come to make our joy chock-full,
complete, whole, limit-bursting, and exuberant.
Enlarge our capacity for unbounded delight
in Your world and in each other.
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Anoint us with your dancing Spirit
to bring good news of your continued favor
to everyone muddling through the rough places.
Reconnect us to the Source of all joy.
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We are God’s people.
We light this candle as a sign of God’s joy,
that calls us out of our corners to play along,
harmonizing with an ecstatic angel chorus
jamming to the music of the spheres.
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O come, Immanuel.
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This year’s liturgies composed with contributions from the wreath-lighters of Bethany Presbyterian, Seattle. There may or may not have been a five-year-old involved this week.
Advent Hope 2023: A Candle-lighting Liturgy
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Open the heavens and come down, O God of hope.
Bring your hope so near we can taste it—
Crisp and refreshing as apples,
Warm and tingly as a spiked hot chocolate.
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We have seen glimpses of your hope in communities of solidarity and recovery
and in rich conversations with our brothers and sisters in the faith.
When the local whale watchers protected the humpback calf from harm,
we knew your presence.
Give us hope to trust you are at work in ways we cannot see,
like an ambient melody
that elevates and alters a space.
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We have heard your promises:
that you have good plans for each of us
and that you will be with us wherever we go,
in heaven, on earth, and in every place they meet in You.
Every child shall have vision for a future beyond politicking and conflict.
The young shall teach us to build one another up in mutual respect.
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Christ, our hope, make a way through the desert of despair.
Lead us to campsites in lush meadows by hidden pools.
Comfort us and give us hope,
that we may comfort others in your name.
Anoint us with your Spirit to bring good news
to those sleeping outside and suffering in war zones.
Inspire our leaders.
Restore our humanity.
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We are God’s people.
We light this candle as a sign of God’s hope
that brightens grey skies
like the rosy brushstrokes of dawn
and the glow of the turning leaves
O come, Immanuel.
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(This year’s Advent candle-lighting liturgies are crafted around the 2023 lectionary texts and input from congregants of Bethany Presbyterian Church of Seattle)
Advent Wreath-Lighting Liturgy: Hope
Jesus, as we enter again
into the odd story of your unusual arrival,
we find hope in the unprecedented.
We find hope
in the ambivalence and complexity
of words like restructuring and remission—
such open-future words
that could mean anything,
that mean anything could happen.
We find hope
in the mixed blessings
where our faithlessness and your faithfulness meet,
like our failure to care for your creation
leading to the unmerited favor
of this disconcertingly gorgeous fall.
photo by Jenn Cavanaugh
You set the lonely in families
and the rootless in neighborhoods.
You bring the wanderers
into communities of faith
built and stewarded by generations
in the hope of our coming and yours.
Awaken us to our role
as astonished agents of hope
in such unlikely places
as our own gutted organizations,
our own unsettled families,
and our own anxious minds.
We are God’s people.
We light this candle
as a sign of our hope in the God
who comes to us in our darkest hour
and makes a home among us.
O come, Immanuel
Easter Card
“Easter Chimes Awaken Nature” by Alphonse Mucha
Seraphim sing in no time zone. Cherubim see
as clearly on as back, invest acacia wood with arkhood
in their certainty; their winged ornamentation
gilds the tabernacle shade. Comprehending the
compacted plan centered in every seed, the grown
plant is no more real to them, and no surprise.
Dampened by neither doubt nor supposition,
the archangel sees with eyes sharper than ours.
For him, reality’s seemingly random choice is all clear
Cause and Effect: each star of snow tells of intelligence;
each cell carries its own code; at a glance each angel
knows from whence the crests of all the wrinkles on
the sea rebound. He has eternity to tell it all,
and to rejoice.
“Easter Angel” by Salvador Dali
But here and now in Judea, what is
this scandal of particularity? This conjunction of straw
and splendor? Of deity and agony? The echo of
sharp laughter from a crowd, as hammered nails pierce flesh,
pierces the Bright Ones with perplexity. They see
the Maker’s hands helpless against Made Wood.
The bond is sealed with God’s blood, the body buried.
In this is Love’s substance become darkness
to their light. The Third Day sweetens the mystery.
Astonished heralds now of Resurrection,
they have eternity to solve it, and to praise.
— from “Angel Vision” by Luci Shaw
Did you know that Hallmark commissioned Salvador Dali to make a series of greeting cards? I believe this must have been one of the few images saccharin enough for such a use, and yet…. Trusting the artist enough to look deeper I see that butterfly crucified and the angel meditating on the grueling and transformative power of the cross, on death and resurrection and God and humanity revealed in one body.
Happy Easter! Christ is risen!
Lenten Calendar: Releasing Captives
Today’s lectionary text from Isaiah 42 describes the Lord’s chosen servant and the gentle and faithful justice he will mete. In verse 7, God charges him:
You will give sight to the blind,
bring prisoners out of prisons,
and bring those who live in darkness
out of dungeons. (God’s Word Translation)
Jesus preached his first sermon on the first bit of Isaiah 61, and made it clear that he was that selfsame chosen servant. This is Jesus’s “life verse:”
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (Isaiah 61:1-2a, NKJV)
In exegeting another text referring to this “acceptable time” of salvation, Paul makes it clear that we are also called to be the Lord’s servants, and NOW is the acceptable time (2 Corinthians 6:1-2). God’s favor is ongoing and we are to preach this same good news. And you know what?
There’s never been a better time to set some captives free.
I realize this feels like wading into the political, but the gospel does that sometimes. Sorry. I’m just a messenger.
Honestly, though, I think we might have more common ground here than we’re told we do. We all have to reconcile in our theologies the Biblical images of radical forgiveness and “eye for an eye” consequences. We might lean ideologically toward one end or the other of that spectrum, but we can generally agree that that is the spectrum. Punishments should fit the crime. We can support a correctional system, but not institutionalized cruelty. We seek peace and justice, not perpetuating cycles of violence and vengeance.
Any one of us could think of any number of crimes that could land a person in prison, but that don’t warrant the kind of Russian roulette to which mass confinement in a time of Covid-19 has now sentenced them.
Likewise, any one of us could think of detained populations that don’t deserve to be in heightened danger. Not all of them get as much air time as nursing home residents and cruise ship passengers, but they’re often in even tighter quarters, and in less control of crucial practices of basic hygeine. Political prisoners. Asylum-seekers. Hurting people caught in possession of drugs. Folks guilty of, or simply accused of, misdemeanors. Psychiatric patients committed “for their own safety” and youth remanded to juvenile detention “for their own good.” People in jail as part of “due process,” not as the result of it.
Let’s advocate for them. Demand their release. Sponsor them. Post bail for them. Write a letter on behalf of political prisoners. Request house arrest rather than solitary confinement for an inmate with a medical condition. At least make sure they have soap. Pray for them:
“Prisoners Exercising” by Vincent van Gogh
I call for you cultivation of strength in the dark.
Dark gardening
in the vertigo cold.
in the hot paralysis.
Under the wolves and coyotes of particular silences.
Where it is dry.
Where it is dry.
I call for you
cultivation of victory Over
long blows that you want to give and blows you are going to get.
Over
what wants to crumble you down, to sicken
you. I call for you
cultivation of strength to heal and enhance
in the non-cheering dark,
in the many many mornings-after;
in the chalk and choke.
— “To Prisoners” by Gwendolyn Brooks
Lenten Calendar: Discipleship
Bare Trees by Paul Gauguin
Hymn
I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth
and go on out
over the sea marshes and the brant in bays
and over the hills of tall hickory
and over the crater lakes and canyons
and on up through the spheres of diminishing air
past the blackset noctilucent clouds
where one wants to stop and look
way past all the light diffusions and bombardments
up farther than the loss of sight
into the unseasonal undifferentiated empty stark
And I know if I find you I will have to stay with the earth
inspecting with thin tools and ground eyes
trusting the microvilli sporangia and simplest
coelenterates
and praying for a nerve cell
with all the soul of my chemical reactions
and going right on down where the eye sees only traces
You are everywhere partial and entire
You are on the inside of everything and on the outside
I walk down the path down the hill where the sweetgum
has begun to ooze spring sap at the cut
and I see how the bark cracks and winds like no other bark
chasmal to my ant-soul running up and down
and if I find you I must go out deep into your
far resolutions
and if I find you I must stay here with the separate leaves
— A. R. Ammons
Jesus is quickening the pace toward Jerusalem and the cross. What must you do to keep up?
Lenten Calendar: Call to Action
“If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people’s sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.“— Isaiah 58:9-10 (The Message)
“Georgetown Corner in the Rain” by Bernice Cross
Harlem Hopscotch
One foot down, then hop! It’s hot.
Good things for the ones that’s got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.
In the air, now both feet down.
Since you black, don’t stick around.
Food is gone, the rent is due,
Curse and cry and then jump two.
All the people out of work,
Hold for three, then twist and jerk.
Cross the line, they count you out.
That’s what hopping’s all about.
Both feet flat, the game is done.
They think I lost. I think I won.
— Maya Angelou
It’s the first of the month, and the rent is due.
Economists expect that unemployment this spring will rival that of the Great Depression. More and more of us are part of a gig economy that’s got no gigs right now. It won’t be long before people who were barely getting by can’t manage it alone, while people who have always considered ourselves financially independent will learn how financially interdependent we have always been.
What can you and I do right now to “start giving [y]ourselves to the down-and-out?” The time is right for trying on new ways of “living simply so that others may simply live.”
Organizations are reinventing their service models on a daily basis to keep people in their homes and keep the hungry fed. They probably have a banner on the front page of their website right now inviting you to consider new ways you might fit into making those new models work.
What relationships can we deepen into partnerships of mutual support? What services can you offer? Which of your own needs do you worry you will no longer be provide for yourself? Who can you talk to instead of merely worrying?
How can we direct our buying right now to best support people who use that income to support families? What resources might you have literally lying around taking up space in your confined quarters that would help enliven someone else’s?
Lenten Calendar: Meditation
Krzyż w zadymce (Cross in the Blizzard) by Józef Chełmoński
You must descend from
your head into your heart.
At present your thoughts of God
are in your head. And God Himself is,
as it were, outside you, and
so your prayer and other spiritual
exercises
remain exterior. Whilst you are still
in your head,
thoughts will not easily be subdued but
will always be whirling about, like snow
in winter or
clouds of mosquitoes in summer.
— Theophan the Recluse
A lectionary text to practice on:
I remember the days of old,
I think about all your deeds,
I meditate on the works of your hands.
I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah— Psalm 143:5-6
Read it to yourself–and do what it says.
Read it out loud–and do what it says.
Read the poem again. Read the text again. And do what they say.
Rest a soft gaze on the painting while observing your thoughts. Are they still gusting and storming? Regulate them with your breathing and by gently guiding them back to the words of the psalm:
[inhale]: Teach me to do your will,
[exhale:] for you are my God;
[inhale:] may your good Spirit
[exhale:] lead me on level ground.— Psalm 143:10
Let the words descend from your head to your heart.
Homespun 