Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Advent 1 – 1 December 2024 – 10am or whenever possible
You may like to light a candle during your time of worship.
Feel free to text the Peace to other members of the congregation.
During the service we will share Communion so you may wish to have the elements ready.
Introit: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” – (Words © Susan Wickham 2021 – Tune TiS 265)
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and fill our lives, all dark and fear dispel,
as once an exiled people you found,
redeemed, restored and set on holy ground.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to us and in our hearts will dwell.
Lighting the Christ Candle:
As we enter this Advent season we await Emmanuel,
and we also light this Christ candle,
reminding ourselves of Christ’s constant presence with us.
May we always seek this guiding light in our lives,
and remember that we are called to carry this same light into the world.
Acknowledgement of Country:
As we gather for worship today,
I acknowledge the traditional custodians
of these unceded lands and waters,
the Wurundjeri WoiWurrung People of the Kulin nation.
I pay my respects to elders, past and present,
and to all future leaders and generations.
As First and Second Peoples walking together,
may we commit ourselves to be people of the covenant,
listening, truth telling and seeking justice for all.
Call to Worship:
God says, “Do not be afraid.”
God says, “I have called you by name.”
God says, “I will be with you.”
God says, “You are precious and honoured in my sight.”
At the beginning of this season,
at the start of this week,
at the top of this hour,
may we wrap ourselves in these words.
May we begin again.
Advent Candle:
In a weary and worn world, how do we begin again?
Where do we start?
Let us begin with the good news!
Let us begin by trusting that we are a blessing,
loved by a gracious God.
Let us begin with music and singing!
Let us begin with warmth and welcome.
Let us begin with hope.
Yes, let us begin with hope.
Today we light the candle of hope
to shine a light in a worn and weary world.
May this be our foundation.
May this be our fresh start.
May this be our new beginning.
May hope flow forth from here.
Amen!
We Sing: “The heavens shall declare” – (TiS 746)
The heavens shall declare the glory of his name,
all creation bow at the coming of the King.;
every eye shall see, every heart will know,
every knee shall bow, every tongue confess:
holy, holy, holy is the Lord;
see the coming of the King: holy is the Lord.
Call to Prayer:
In the Gospel of Luke,
the angel Gabriel tells Mary two things:
that she is highly favoured,
and that she is going to have a child.
Mary’s response to this news is simple.
With awestruck authenticity, she asks,
“How can this be?”
Every time we approach the prayer of confession,
I ask myself this same awestruck question,
“How can this be?”
How can God’s mercy know no end?
How can God be so gracious
with someone as fickle as me?
Regardless of the week we’ve had,
this good news never changes.
It is the truth of our lives.
So let us join in prayer together,
and may the sense of God’s mercy leave us awestruck.
Let us pray …
Prayer of Praise and Confession:
God of gracious presence
we offer our praise to you
as maker of heaven and earth,
the sea and all that is in them.
We come in praise and awe at your love for us.
We praise you for the surely-coming days
when you will execute Shalom:
love, peace, health and well-being for all.
We wait in hope.
Affirming God,
Your first words to creation were words of love.
You looked at this earth and said, “It is good.”
You spoke affirmations through the prophets.
You spoke blessings over Mary.
You spoke belonging through Christ.
At every turn, you have reiterated that we are a blessing,
made in your image, held in your love.
Forgive us for forgetting this truth.
Forgive us for measuring our worth by society’s measuring stick
instead of yours.
We believe.
Help our unbelief.
In Christ’s name we pray,
Amen.
Words of Assurance:
Family of faith,
I don’t know the last time someone told you
that you are good, just as you are.
I don’t know the last time you heard that
you are loved and created in the image of God.
I don’t know the last time you trusted those words
and truly believed that you are a blessing.
However, in case it has been a while, hear these words from Isaiah:
God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name. You are mine.”
We are forgiven. We are loved. Let it leave you awestruck.
Thanks be to God! May we believe it.
Amen.
The Peace:
God is love, and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.
The peace of God be always with you
and also with you.
We Sing: “God has spoken to the people” – (TiS 636)
God has spoken to the people, hallelujah!
And God’s words are words of wisdom, hallelujah!
Open your ears, O Christian people, open your ears and hear good news.
Open your hearts, O royal priesthood,
God has come to you, God has come to you.
God has spoken …
They who have hears to hear this message, they who have ears, now let them hear;
they who would learn the way of wisdom,
let them hear God’s word, let them hear God’s word.
God has spoken …
Israel comes to greet the Saviour, Judah is glad to see his day;
from east and west the peoples travel:
he will show the way, he will show the way.
God has spoken …
Bible Reading: Isaiah 43:1-7
– Restoration and Protection Promised
1 But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you,
and through the rivers,
they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
3 For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
4 Because you are precious in my sight
and honoured and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
nations in exchange for your life.
5 Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
6 I will say to the north, “Give them up,”
and to the south, “Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth –
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”
Bible Reading: Luke 1:26-38
– The Birth of Jesus Foretold
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.
33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Reflection:
Today we step into Advent – a season of endings and beginnings. As the calendar year comes to an end, a new church year begins. As we wait again for the arrival of Christ, we acknowledge that his birth ushers us into new ways of living and loving. This Advent season is entitled Words for the Beginning, and each week we will explore themes that might also be called life lessons. Each theme might sound deceptively simple, but is sometime that can be a life-long venture to live into. The idea is that if we can live into these words, they might become something familiar to us, something like a warm, hand-made quilt, which will lovingly wrap around us, speaking words that we need to hear again and again.
Each week, along with the words, you will see a quilt square, which speaks to the theme of the week. These have been quilted by the Coffee and Craft group, with the hope that in 2025 we will join them into a banner for the community. The quilt square for this week is a simplified abstract image of the angel Gabriel who tells Mary she is “blessed among women.” May our Advent journey unfold like a well-work quilt, with each patchwork piece reminding us that with every sacred stitch across time and space, God has been moving towards us all along.
You are a blessing is what we are called to remember this week. This is quite a radical statement, for far too many people are told (implicitly and explicitly) that they are a burden instead. Our blessedness is a message that can easily be muted, trivialised, or redacted by many forces in our culture that make us believe we are not a blessing. So, how might our readings speak into this today.
The words of the prophet Isaiah we have read today are some of the most deeply comforting and profoundly transformative, written as they were to help those in exile reconstruct their identity. The prophet proclaims that the people have been created by God, redeemed by God, named by God and claimed by God, and in doing so the prophet reminds them of who they are. They are blessed simply because they are precious in God’s sight. The same is true for us, and the words of Isaiah 43 remind us that we will not be alone when we pass through deep waters or face difficulties. ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.’ (Luke 43:1-2) In a world that can be drenched in pain, suffering and injustice it is a gift to remember that we are formed and made by a God who loves us and doesn’t leave us.
In Luke’s gospel we read the story of Mary and the angel Gabriel. This story illustrates how God selects someone the world might overlook to be part of something beautiful. Gabriel’s message ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you,’ (Luke 1:28) isn’t merely a formality, but a declaration of Mary’s essential place. We are reminded that what some might see as discarded scraps, the Maker of heaven and earth calls beautiful and blessed. Mary is an ordinary girl from the obscure corners of Nazareth. She is not even one of the ‘better Jews’, coming from an area where many Jews did not worship in the temple and were known to inter-marry with non-Jews. She is not cloaked in power or prestige, but is blanketed in belovedness.
Mary’s encounter with Gabriel is a pivotal moment in the Advent story, and it marks the unveiling of a promise and prophecy of a miraculous birth that subverted every expectation of what a coming king’s arrival might look like. Mary’s response is profoundly human as she asks ‘How will this be?’, and in this moment of divine mystery Gabriel offers the reassurance ‘Do not be afraid.’ Angels are often heard to say this when they turn up unexpectedly in biblical texts, probably because their arrival is frightening. We do not expect to see angels, and neither did Mary, but Gabriel’s words remind us that God knows us, acknowledges our fears, and moves towards us anyway. I think Mary was a blessing simply for who she was, irrespective of the fact that she was able to say ‘yes’ to God’s call on her life.
Sometimes in life we feel compelled to earn our worthiness and belovedness, but the reality is that the God-One who grants us each breath affirms our inherit worth. In light of God’s infinite love we are beloved – the very fibres of our being woven with care – and we are a blessing because of this.
We can’t work out way to receiving God’s compassion because it is already there – as present as the twinkling stars in the sky, as near as the clouds of breath on a cold night. When we are facing things that are difficult, we need to remember that we will get through not because of our own power, but because of God’s grace. The fact that God is with us does not ensure that the pathway will be smooth. Mary’s path was fraught with challenges, yet the promise that we are blessed offers us hope that we do not face our challenges alone.
So if we are a blessing what does this mean for us? What difference does it make? I think it can make a huge difference to how we live if we are able to indeed embrace our inherent blessedness. Too often we can stop believing that we are a blessing to God and when this happens, we can stop believing this about others too. When we fail to see others as God does, then we are in danger of not valuing who they are.
Conversely, if we can open our hearts to recognise our blessedness, then we can more easily affirm the blessedness in others. When we live this way we can transform our interactions and our communities. This is what God invites us to do – to live out our blessedness by transforming our world with love and continuing the weaving that God’s hand began may years ago. In this way, we have a sacred place within the divine quilt.
Each of us are a blessing – known, chosen and called for a purpose. This Advent season may we boldly live into this truth, recognising and cherishing our inherent worth so that we can honour God’s image within ourselves and others. Let us trust in our belovedness as we live into the work that God has called us to.
Amen.
We Sing: “In case no one ever told you” – (Tune TiS 111)
In case no one ever told you are you have forgotten,
you are a blessing and have been since you were begotten.
Fashioned from love, sent to the earth from above,
you’re nothing short of a godsend.
You are the masterpiece born of God’s imagination,
even the parts that are crying out for restoration.
All that you are, born out of stardust and scars,
reflects God’s perfect creation.
You are uniquely created for love and belonging.
Forcing yourself to be someone you’re not is exhausting.
You are a gift, there is no box you must fit,
let your belovedness blossom.
Prayer for Others:
God of blessings,
we find ourselves standing
at the beginning of the month,
at the beginning of this Advent season.
Meet us here, gracious God, hear our prayers
and offer your words of blessing.
We bring prayers of deep gratitude
for those help us see you in our midst,
for faith mentors, friends, and all those who point us towards you.
We thank you too,
for people who have shown us what it looks like to trust our belovedness,
for those who act with bravery, trusting their call and your words of blessing.
We also bring our prayers for guidance,
for though we count this day as a new beginning,
the words and messages of the past can cling to us like quicksand.
Help us hear your words of assurance again and again.
Blessing God,
today we lift up those of us who have been told that we are unworthy
or are not enough by this world.
We pray for those of us who have ever been discouraged from chasing a dream
or have been made to feel small.
We pray for those of us who know insecurity and dance with self-doubt.
We pray for all who hear your words of blessing and want to respond, “How can this be?”
We think of those in our world who struggle with the things we find hard to imagine,
clean water, food and shelter, and other basics that sustain life.
We remember those whose homes and communities are ravaged by war,
and whose lives are under threat on a daily basis.
We bring before you those who are lives are controlled by unjust regimes,
living in countries where power and profit matter more than people,
and where the effects of climate change are being felt most acutely.
Speak into these situations in ways that we cannot imagine,
and help us see these people as your beloved too,
so that we might act to make things better where we can.
We remember too, loving God, whose who we know personally to have needs at this time,
and we name them in the silence now …
(time of silence)
Let this day be a new beginning, Creator God.
Fill our minds with the knowledge that we are all made in your image,
and let us hear your words of blessing one again.
Amen.
Communion:
Invitation to the Table
Friends, Advent is a season of waiting.
We wait for Christ to be born.
We wait for the feeling that love is near.
We wait for God’s promised day.
Advent is a season of waiting.
And while we humans are good at many things,
waiting is not high on that list.
We are an impatient and anxious bunch,
eager for the hope of what comes next.
Maybe that’s why this Table is such a gift –
for when we come to this Table,
for just a moment, the waiting stops.
When we come to this Table,
for just a moment, we get a glimpse of God’s promised day.
We get a glimpse of a world where all are fed and all are welcomed,
and for just a moment we can believe the angels when they say,
“Be not afraid.”
For just a moment, Mary’s words tumble through our minds –
words of justice and hope, words like “the humble have been filled”,
and “the humble have been lifted.”
So come to this Table and catch a glimpse of what could be.
Come end your waiting, for love is hovering close.
This is what it’s all about for God is all around us.
This good news and all are welcome here.
The Story of the Last Supper
Every time we gather at this table, we tell the same story –
the story of a Messiah who gathered his friends together for one last supper,
the story of a Messiah who loves us so much
that he keeps on offering us a seat at the table.
On the night of Jesus betrayal and arrest, as he shared a meal with his friends,
Jesus took bread; gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his followers, saying:
“Share this bread among you; this is my body which will be broken for justice.
Do this to remember me.”
When supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks and gave it to his disciples, saying:
“Share this wine among you; this is my blood which will be shed for liberation.
Do this to remember me.”
Great Prayer of Thanksgiving
May the God of new beginnings be with you …
and also with you.
People of God, open your hearts to God.
We open our hearts and lives to God.
Friends, let us give thanks to God who is the Source of Life.
It is right to give God our thanks and praise.
Loving God,
we come to this Table today longing for a new beginning.
In a world that so often feels like it’s ending, we crave the hope of a new beginning.
We long to heal from the endings and crash landings of our hurting world,
and start again, firmly grounded in your good news.
So in this spirit of beginnings, we come to your Table,
asking once more that you would meet us here.
Invocation
Pour out your Spirit on this ordinary meal,
that in this bread and cup we may glimpse a new day.
May the sight of everyone being welcomed at this Table
remind us that all are loved by you.
May the evidence that there is food for all
remind us that no one is meant to go hungry.
May the fact that our own sin, shame, and doubt do not keep us from this Table
remind us that you welcome and love us as we are.
And may all of these Communion truths serve as building blocks for a new day,
for a new beginning.
With hope in our hearts, we pray the words your Jesus taught us to pray, saying …
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name;
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.
For the Kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen.
The Pouring, Breaking and Serving
Christ is the bread of life, food for healing and wholeness.
Christ is the cup of hope, wellspring of new life.
These are the gifts of God for the people of God.
Prayer after Communion
Nourishing God,
Thank you for the gift of this fresh start
for planting hope deep in our bones,
and for meeting us in ordinary things
to remind us that it’s never too late to build your kingdom here.
Amen.
We Sing: “Shout for Joy!” – (TiS 545)
Shout for joy! The Lord has let us feast; heaven’s own fare has fed the last and least;
Christ’s own peace is shared again on earth; God the Spirit fills us with new worth.
No more doubting, no more senseless dread: God’s good self has graced our wine and bread;
all the wonder heaven has kept in store, now is ours to keep for evermore.
Celebrate with saints who dine on high, witnesses that love can never die.
‘Hallelujah!’ – thus their voices ring: nothing less in gratitude we bring.
Praise the Maker, praise the Maker’s Son, praise the Spirit – three yet ever one;
praise the God whose food and friends avow heaven starts here! The kingdom beckons now!
Blessing:
As you leave this place,
may you have the wisdom to lean on one other.
May you have the courage to hold onto hope,
the compassion to do the good that is yours to do,
and the confidence to trust
that God sees you as a blessing.
For in a world full of dead ends,
Advent invites us to begin again.
So start here. Start now.
Start with love and begin again.
In the name of Christ, our new beginning,
go in peace.
Amen.
Thanks to all those who have assisted in preparation for this liturgy with encouragement, prayers and conversation. I have also utilised the following resources: A Sanctified Art (Words for the Beginning) and WorkingPreacher.com.