Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Christmas 1 – 31 December 2023 – 10am
You may like to light a candle during your time of worship.
Feel free to text the Peace to other members of the congregation.
Introit: “Glory to God” (TiS 773)
Glory to God, glory to God, Glory in the highest!
Glory to God, glory to God, alleluia, alleluia!
Gloria, gloria, in excelsis Deo!
Gloria, gloria, alleluia, alleluia!
Glory to God, glory to God, Glory in this highest!
Glory to God, glory to God, alleluia, alleluia!
Candle Lighting:
As we come to worship we light the Christ candle.
Like the star that showed the way
to the place a child was born,
the light of Christ shines for us,
illuminating the path we are to walk.
May the warmth of this light
infuse our life and our living.
Acknowledgement of Country:
As we gather today,
I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land,
the Wurundjeri WoiWurrung people of the Kulin nations.
I pay my respects to their Elders, past and present,
and to all future generations and leaders.
As First and Second Peoples walking today,
may we commit ourselves to be
people of the covenant,
listening, truth telling and seeking justice for all.
Call to Worship:
Every year we celebrate Christmas.
Every month we break bread together.
Every week we gather for worship.
Every day we count our blessings.
Every minute God is near.
Yes, every minute God is near.
These are the rituals of our faith.
Let us worship Holy God.
We Sing: “Gather us in” – (TiS 474)
Here in this place new light is streaming,
now is the darkness vanished away,
see, in this space, our fears and our dreamings,
brought here to you in the light of this day.
Gather us in, the lost and forsaken; gather us in, the blind and lame;
call to us now, and we shall awaken, we shall arise at the sound of our name.
We are the young, our lives are a mystery;
we are the old, who yearn for your face;
we have been sung throughout all of history,
called to be light to the whole human race.
Gather us in, the rich and the haughty; gather us in, the proud and the strong,
give us a heart so meek and so lowly, give us the courage to enter the song.
Not in the dark of buildings confining,
not in some heaven light years away,
but here in this space, the new light is shining,
now in the kingdom, now is the day.
Gather us in, and hold us forever; gather us in, and make us your own;
gather us in, all peoples together, fore of live in our flesh and our bone.
Call to Prayer:
Our faith is decorated with rituals and rhythms that help tie us to God,
some are things we do alone, and other rituals happen as we gather.
Prayer is one of those rituals – we participate privately and corporately.
Each week, as we gather in this space,
prayer allows us to come before God as a community,
and to acknowledge, as best we can, who God is.
Prayer also allows us to tell the truth about our lives,
to be honest when things aren’t as we’d hope they could be.
Every week God hears our prayers and offers us grace,
in a holy dance of confession and mercy.
This is one of many rituals that it would be hard to live without.
So let us embrace this tradition together.
Prayer of Praise and Confession:
God of Promise and mysterious Light,
we come before you today, knowing that your light sustains us.
In the first act of the Creation story you called forth light,
to dispel the darkness that covered everything.
Much later, in a small town,
a baby was born to a young woman
and your light came into the world again,
the light that was shared for all people.
As we gather this day, loving God,
be with us as we continue our journey of faith.
Give us courage and hope along our way,
as your light continues to glow brightly on our path,
leading us in your way of service and discipleship.
God of rhythms, we confess:
our faith would not be what it is without rituals.
Unlike you, we depend on bread and water
to sustain us.
Likewise, we have to return to this space again and again
to hear old, familiar stories, for if we stopped,
we know it would not take long before we lost our way.
Forgive us for our fragility,
and thank you for giving us ordinary rituals
and rhythms to hold onto.
With grateful and humble hearts we pray,
knowing that you answer our prayers.
Amen.
Words of Assurance:
Friends, it is not enough to hear once a month
or once a year that you are forgiven
We need to hear it every single week –
every single week we need to be reminded
that we are held in God’s loving embrace.
So hear this good news:
no matter where you are on your journey of life, love, or faith,
and no matter what you have done or left undone, you belong to God.
So let us say these words together, reminding one another …
You are claimed. You are known. You are forgiven.
This is the good news of the gospel!
Thanks be to God! Amen!
The Peace
Christ is our light, our live, our salvation.
May the peace of Christ be with you
and also with you.
We Sing: “Let earth and heaven combine” – (TiS 305)
Let earth and heaven combine, their voices all agree,
to praise in songs divine the incarnate deity,
our God contracted to a span, income
Unsearchable the love that has the Saviour brought;
his grace is far above the reach of human thought:
it is enough that God, we know, our God is manifest below.
He deigns in flesh to appear, widest extremes to join;
to bring our vileness near and make us all divine:
and we the life of God shall know, for God is manifest below.
Made perfect first in love, and sanctified by grace,
we shall from earth remove, and see his glorious face:
then shall his love be fully showed, and we shall then be lost in God.
A Time for All:
Tonight is New Year’s Eve. I’m not sure how you will celebrate … maybe it will be a quiet night in, maybe you will gather with friends, maybe you will watch the celebrations on television? When I was a little girl we used to gather at my Mama and Bampa’s house. We would often play cards and sing around the piano, and there was always the most amazing spread of nibbles. It was one night that we were allowed to stay up really late, which was managed by the fact that we had to have an afternoon sleep. The night would end with fireworks. Watching from the second-floor landing outside my grandparents bedroom, we could see the fireworks from the city, particularly if it was a clear night.
Between 600 and 900 CE, Chinese alchemists mixed saltpetre with sulphur and charcoal. They had stumbled on a crude recipe for gunpowder and their creation went off with a bang. This “fire drug” as they called it, became an integral part of Chinese culture. China carefully guarded their secret, but it is known that Arabs were using gunpowder against the crusaders in the twelfth century.
There are many legends about the development and use of fireworks. From early notions of warding off evil spirits, to the use of tons of the stuff now to mark New Years celebrations, we seem to be fascinated with bright lights. Hundreds of thousands of people around our country go to watch the sky lit up in colours and patterns – and millions around the world do the same. New Year’s Eve wouldn’t be the same without it! That’s a big impact from one small recipe.
Fireworks on New Years Eve are something of a tradition, a ritual that helps us look to the new year with hopeful expectation. Much like people looked at a new, surprising light in Bethlehem all those years ago, a light that showed the place where God incarnate lay, we look to the light that shines in the darkness and it seems that our eyes are opened to new possibilities.
In 2024, may we continue to look to the light of Christ, and may our hearts be opened to the possibilities that God has for us as individuals and a community in the New Year.
Bible Reading: Isaiah 61:10-62:3
10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
my whole being shall exult in my God;
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he has covered me with the robe of
righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth brings forth its shoots,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to spring up before all the nations.
62:1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
2 The nations shall see your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will give.
3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
Bible Reading: Luke 2:21-38 – Jesus is Named
21 When the eighth day came, it was time to circumcise the child, and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Jesus is Presented in the Temple
22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word,
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
33 And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”
36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Refection:
Rituals form part of our daily lives and they are more important to us than we might think. Sometimes they are simple patterns we follow each day like praying before we eat or phoning to let someone know we’re on the way home from work, and sometimes they are more specialised practices or gatherings like the local carol singing we participate in each year, or watching the Boxing Day Test. We participate in many of these rituals without even considering them to be so. Think of the ones you might have participated in over the last year – weddings, baptisms, funerals, birthdays, dedications, graduations, house-warming parties, ringing a bell at the cancer centre when you are finally cancer free. Rituals can vary depending on your culture of faith community, but to quote David Brooks, writing in the New York Times, “Rituals provide comfort because they remind us we’re not alone. Billions of people have done this before as part of the timeless passage of life. Rituals also comfort because they [make concrete] spiritual experiences.”
Some of us will watch fireworks tonight as part of the ritual of seeing in the New Year. We look to the sparkles of light in the dark night sky and feel hope and encouragement that we have made it through the year and have a clean slate to move into the next one.
The light makes us feel brighter and we make New Year’s Resolutions – often more easily that we keep them – because we are hopeful. This hope helps us to see the possibilities of the future before it arrives.
Light is vital for seeing and the Bible is full of such imagery. In Isaiah, hope and encouragement for the peoples return from exile is expressed in terms of light too. ‘I will not keep silent … until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch’ (Isaiah 62:1) Earlier in Isaiah, the prophet explains that a time will come when ‘the sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light.’ This light of God is what we remember when we light the Christ candle when we begin worship each week. In this simple ritual we are reminded that Christ is with us no matter what.
In the passage from Luke, eight days have passed since the baby has been born, and Mary and Joseph circumcise their child and name him Jesus. They return to the temple in Jerusalem, from Bethlehem, to enact the sacred birth rituals of their culture and tradition. While they are doing what is customary, what is expected of them, the unexpected occurs. A man named Simeon is led by the Spirit, into the temple, and he proclaims Jesus as the ‘light of revelation’. Then a prophet named Anna suddenly approaches them; she praises God and speaks about Jesus to everyone longing for redemption.
While the gospel writer of Matthew shares a story about a flight to Egypt, Luke shares this story of Jesus’ welcome to the temple. It must have been a somewhat frightening welcome when the two ‘holy ones’ come. They have a mystic, prayerful way of looking and telling the truth as they see it. In a sense, Simeon picks up the role of Isaiah as he proclaims the new reality, in the hope of a baby. ‘I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has closed me with the garments of salvation.’
Simeon and Anna would have known these words of Isaiah well, and they moved and lived in the Spirit of these words of hope. They may have been old, but they were rich with wisdom and insight, and expectant that God would do what had been promised. So, when Mary and Joseph appear to present their son, Simeon takes Jesus in his arms and presents all who will hear with the most extraordinary message – ‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people.”
But of course the news was not all rosy. The bright light of Jesus would cast shadows. There would be opposition, trouble and pain – he would force choices and expose evil. Mary is told that her soul will be pierced and while she is still reeling from this news, Anna chimes in praising God for this baby boy.
With the mixed bag of gifts Mary and Joseph received that first Christmas, it might be that as new parents for Jesus, these sacred rituals helped give them courage for the journey ahead. On hearing that Jesus will bring restoration and redemption, but at great personal cost, it must have been wearying. I wonder whether the ritual they had just participated in was a way that Mary and Joseph could begin to make meaning of a future that was in many ways uncertain. Maybe the declaration and prophetic messages were a way to bolster them and connect them with others in their community.
Maybe this is what rituals can do for us. Maybe they can bring meaning to our lives when the future seems uncertain. Maybe they can connect us more deeply to our communities. Maybe joy is to be found in the meaningful ways we choose to mark and celebrate our lives … maybe this is how joy can be found as we immerse ourselves in ritual.
When our daughter Elizabeth was baptised, Tony and I were given some seeds by a friend. It was a gift of hope, even though the outcome was somewhat uncertain. Consider a seed … ritualistically planted in the dirt. The dirt can be a weary place, and it takes nurture for the seed to burst through the earth, pursuing the opportunity to bloom. Just like a planted seed will eventually bloom, the Word of God, given, nurtured and remembered in ritual, can bloom in each one of us. It will find ways to bloom in our words, actions and deeds.
In closing, I wonder how we might use rituals to help us bloom for God? What rituals can we immerse ourselves in to help us grow the words, actions and deeds that are part of the future God has for us? What new practices might we create together as we move forward into 2024? Whatever comes our way in the New Year, may we continue to keep our eyes fixed on the light of Christ, a light more brilliant than any fireworks we might see tonight, and the light that lasts forever.
Amen.
We Sing: “Lord, let your servant go in peace” – (Tune TiS 459)
“Lord, let your servant go in peace; Your word has been fulfilled.”
Because we’ve seen your saving grace we know that all is well.
Through all the sorrow, pain and death, we dare, O God, to sing.
For you once sent your Son to earth – and that changed everything.
There’s much we cannot understand, nor order, nor control;
we place our lives into your hands and trust you’ll make us whole.
Lord, let your servants daily know that we are not alone;
and may we find, where’er we go, you’ll lead us safely home.
Prayer for Others (prepared by Ray Michelle):
Let us pray
Loving lord Jesus we come here today, for many reasons,
to worship you, give thanks, seek companionship
and maybe even as a ritual.
The Ritual of coming each week and loving you
is one we give thanks for.
The ritual of praying and caring for others
is the example you taught us,
and we give thanks for this.
We now undertake the ritual in silence
as we think of those who need extra payer and love today,
those in our church community, those in our families,
let us name them and hold the moment for them now.
(time of silence)
We give thanks for the rituals that sustain us and provide us with the security of life.
We give thanks for the ritual of praying to you for ourselves.
We give thanks for the rituals in our family that we hold dear.
We pray for the new rituals being created in our changing families.
We also pray we will not be so bound and want to hold on to rituals that have run their time
and may be preventing new ones to be made.
As this year draws to a close, gracious God,
we pray for a world that has suffered greatly through 2023.
Places of war … Places impacted by natural disasters … Places impacted by the greed
and the arrogance of those who wield power.
We pray for those who struggle within our own country:
– First Nations people and the ongoing struggle from the Voice referendum …
– those who mistrust leaders because of broken promises or abuses of power …
– those who struggle to make ends meet or find themselves without a roof over their head.
We pray for our church
– in the challenges of the past year
– for the hope we find in God incarnate, God dwelling with us.
We pray together then as Jesus taught us …
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 for ever. Amen.
We Sing: “Shine, Jesus, Shine” – (TiS 675)
Lord, the light of your love is shining,
in the midst of the darkness, shining;
Jesus, Light of the world, shine upon us,
set us free by the truth you now bring us –
shine on me, shine on me.
Shine, Jesus, shine,
fill this land with the Father’s glory;
blaze, Spirit, blaze, set our hearts on fire.
Flow, river, flow,
flood the nations with grace and mercy;
send forth your word, Lord, and let there be light.
Lord, I come to your awesome presence,
from the shadows into your radiance;
by your blood I may enter your brightness:
search me, try me, consume all my darkness –
shine on me, shine on me.
Shine, Jesus, shine …
As we gaze on your kingly brightness
so our faces display your likeness,
ever changing from glory to glory;
mirrored here, may our lives tell your story –
shine on me, shine on me.
Shine, Jesus, shine …
Blessing:
Family of faith,
as you leave this place,
you go into a weary world –
so speak tenderly
to yourself and to others.
Do the good that is yours to do.
Choose connection.
Hold onto hope.
And remember
that Christ took on flesh for you.
You are God’s beloved.
So go rejoicing.
The world needs it.
And the blessing of God the Father,
God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
the One who Mother’s us all,
be with you always.
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 (How does a weary world rejoice?, Fig Tree Worship and Ministry Matters.
The Song Lord, Let your servant go in peace written by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette.