Sunday, 1 January 2012
In the Season of
Christmas
Opening
Eternal Spirit of the living God,
be for us the fountain of water
creating and sustaining us each day,
be for us the enlivening wind
searching us out and scouring us clean,
be for us the refining warming flame
steadying and transforming our desires,
that, lovingly and truthfully,
we may pray and we may live.
Greeting
Blessed be the God of wonder and mystery!
Blessed for ever be God’s glorious name!
Through the tender mercy of our God
the day has dawned upon us from on high,
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into ways of peace.
Living Word of light and love,
taking form as flesh and blood among us,
living the fulness of our humanity,
full of grace and truth, we greet you.
A child is born to us, alleluia!
A son is given to us, alleluia!
The dream of the beginning takes shape among us. Alleluia!
The human face of God is ours for ever. Alleluia!
The heart hopes and yearns!
The downtrodden can hardly believe!
The very stones of the earth cry out!
The day of freedom dawns!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Engaging
103 Unfathomable Love
That people of faith may recognize that the God of the Psalms is for all humanity, not only for the like-minded; that we may grow in patience, endurance, faithfulness, and forgiveness.
From the deep places of my soul I praise you, O God:
I lift up my heart and glorify your holy name.
From the deep places of my soul I praise you, O God:
how can I forget all your goodness towards me?
Pause
You forgive all my sin, you heal all my weakness,
you rescue me from the brink of disaster,
you crown me with mercy and compassion.
You satisfy my being with good things,
so that my youth is renewed like an eagle’s.
There is no end to your mercy,
enduring and infinite is your love.
Pause
You fulfil all that you promise,
justice for all the oppressed.
You made known your ways to Moses,
and all the people saw your deeds.
Pause
You are full of forgiveness and grace,
endlessly patient, faithful in love.
You do not haunt us with our sins,
nor nurse grievances against us.
You do not repay evil with evil,
for you are greater than our sins.
Pause
As vast as the heavens are in comparison with the earth,
so great is your love to those who trust you.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far do you fling our sins from us.
There is no end to your mercy,
enduring and infinite is your love.
Pause
Just as parents are merciful to their children,
so are you merciful and kind towards us.
For you know how fragile we are,
that we are made of the dust of the earth.
Pause
Our days are like the grass,
they bloom like the flowers of the field:
the wind blows over them and they are gone,
and no-one can tell where they stood.
Pause
Only your merciful goodness endures;
age after age you act justly
towards all who hold on to your covenant,
who take your words to heart and fulfil them.
There is no end to your mercy,
enduring and infinite is your love.
Silence
For you have triumphed over the power of death,
and draw us to your presence with songs of joy.
We hear the echo of your angels praising you,
and the whole communion of your saints,
those who have walked in your narrow ways,
and heard the voice of your yearning,
whose food is to do your will,
and in whom you take great delight.
Pause
From the widest bounds of the universe
to the depths of my very being
the whispers and cries of joy
vibrate to a shining glory,
O God, our beginning and our end.
Silence
Creator God, as we contemplate the vast universe of which we are so small a part, swamping us with fear and despair and our insignificance, deepen our trust that the meaning of it all is Love, beyond whose reach it is impossible to fall.
Listening
Luke 2.33–35
And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own heart too.
Waymark
The stones of the first cairn in Prayer at Night (p.54) were about being open to the night and to the God of the night. The assumption was that the ‘dark hours’ have something valuable to give us and that we need not be unduly afraid.
I remembered a painting in a cottage in Langdale in the Lake District (not far from my Loughrigg Fell). A hooded stranger on horseback is emerging from the mist.
Do I expect an enemy – or at least some message of minor doom?
The stranger might be a long-lost friend. It might be a moment of recognition and wonder – we have found each other again, even in the darkness which has no visible signposts.
Or it may be the ‘strange meeting’ of Wilfrid Owen’s poem, between two soldiers, with the hard dark work to be done after the moment of recognition, “I am the enemy you killed, my friend.”
This old cairn seems to me now to have been too sunny an invitation to enter the dark. It bid me pray with open hand, not with clenched fist, but I may have to begin the journey by shaking that fist at the God of the night.
The surrender of trust may be a crucial act at some point on the journey, but not at the beginning – and not without hands lacerated by rocks.
Betrayals in the secret darkness of the past are not lightly undone.
Delighting
A Christmas Canticle
Living, loving God, embracing flesh and blood, delighting in humanity,
delivering us from the dominion of evil, pain, and death,
and bringing us in your Beloved One
into the realm of goodness and healing,
you have rescued us from the bands of slavery,
you have forgiven all our failure to love,
you have bound the powers that rebel.
For Christ is the image of your invisible being,
the first-born of all creation,
in whom the universe is being made,
the earth and the sun and the other stars,
things visible and things invisible,
through whom and for whom all things were formed,
who is before all things,
and in whom all things hold together.
Christ is the head of the body, the Church,
the beginning, the first-born from the dead.
For it pleased you, O God,
that in Christ all fulness should dwell,
and through Christ all things be reconciled to yourself.
Connecting
In Solidarity: 1
In solidarity with the body of humankind, and with the body of all creation, we bring into mind’s eye and heart’s care the needs of this planet and its peoples, allowing the energy of our concern to be charged with the Spirit of God and flow out from among us to their and our greater good. And we do so in silence, or whispering on our breath those needs and names that have been laid upon us…
Gathering
Praying in Christ
Life-giver, Pain-bearer, Love-maker,
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 the 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 severe 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 for ever. Amen.
Proceeding
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes
through which Christ’s compassion
cares for the people of the world.
Yours are the feet
with which Christ is to go about
doing good.
Yours are the hands
through which Christ now brings
a blessing.
So I promise this day to keep awake,
to live each moment to the full,
to look with eyes of compassion,
and to act with kindness.
