Please join us in the virtual world of Second Life each Sunday at 2pm Pacific/ 5pm Eastern time. Download the interface at Secondlife.com, create your avatar, and join us at Sunshine Cathedral.
Call to Worship
Because too many people are wandering in the wilderness, because too many people are sitting in the valley of the shadow of death, because too many of our conversations are laced with conflict and rancor, we light candles…
Because people all over the world are suffering, and we’re too often distracted to notice, we light candles…
Today we stop everything and light these candles: one for hope, one for peace, one for joy, and one for love… (Light the fourth candle in your Advent wreath.)
May the light from these candles overwhelm the world.
May the light from these candles illuminate the valley of the shadow of death.
May the light and fire from these candles burn away everything that is preventing God’s love from being born among us.
Friends, be not afraid, even now — even now — God’s love is overwhelming the world, on earth as it is in heaven!
https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/11/17/advent-candle-lighting-litanies
Opening Prayer
Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your holy Spirit that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy names. Amen.
The Lessons
CLICK HERE for Audio of the Readings
The Wisdom of Blessed Oscar Wilde
Who, being loved, is poor?
The Wisdom of St. Mother Teresa
Love cannot remain by itself – it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service. The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved. If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
CLICK HERE for Audio of the Gospel
A Reading from Luke’s Gospel (1.39-46)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."
And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord…”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. BK Hipsher
CLICK HERE for Audio of the Reflection "Season of Love" Advent 4 2021
Today we arrive at the beginning of the final week in our journey to the manger. We have looked at the value of hope, the necessity of peace, the function of joy and logically we arrive at the reality of love in this final week of Advent. Today we’re going to look at what the word love means.
Love as a noun includes these meanings:
So without even considering the word love as a verb we have a LOT to think about when we consider the question, “What is love?” I think it’s important to look at this question in the context of the entire Advent season. There’s a reason why the Sundays in the Advent season have specific themes attached to them, specific themes in a specific order.
The theme for Advent 1 is Hope. I think we can all agree that if we are living in despair we have triggered our evolutionary survival behaviors. We are hard wired to do anything and everything we can do to survive. That means our concern for others becomes secondary to our own survival. And in extreme cases of despair we can even become convinced that living is not worthwhile. Hope is absolutely essential to our ability to be empathetic to others. So hope and our ability to feel empathy for others is really a necessary component of our ability to feel and express love for others, for ourselves, for the planet, and for God.
Even if we have hope for the future we also need peace of mind and the theme of peace for Advent 2 builds on the presence of hope. Even if we have hope for the future we also need peace of mind so that we can let go and let God work in our lives. This requires us to quiet our minds, quiet our spirits, and make space to listen for the still small voice of God speaking to us through other people and in the Holy Spirit’s voice within. It is very difficult to hear the still small voice when the noise that results from a deficit of peace in our hearts prevails. So achieving the will to welcome and work for peace of mind is such an important part of our journey.
Last week we had the theme of joy for Advent 3. At first look it may seem like joy is the result of hope, peace and love. But in fact, joy is a contingent element in love. Have you ever been really angry with your partner and tried to get in touch with the love you know you have for them? I contend that unless we can find some measure of joy we are incapable of truly experiencing love for humanity. Anger blocks love, lethargy makes us indifferent to taking action that mobilizes love in the world.
Love is not a passive emotion that comes and overwhelms us from a source outside ourselves. Love can be experienced as a feeling or emotion that is the result of hope, peace, and joy. But at the end of the day, love is not just a feeling. Love is evidenced by the action we take in relation to our fellow humans, creatures, the earth… all of creation.
In our reading from Mother Teresa we heard, “Love cannot remain by itself – it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service. The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved. If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
Let’s just be really clear and honest with ourselves.
We don’t need to judge people when we live in hope.
We don’t need to judge people when we have peace of mind and spirit.
We don’t need to judge people when we are capable of really experiencing joy.
So let’s add one more reading to our service today, what I believe is a definitive reading on the topic of love, found in 1 Corinthians 13, “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Perhaps the best definition of love as an emotion is what we feel when we look into the face of a newborn baby. That is what Christmas reminds us of… the love that wells up inside us when we encounter the vulnerability, the hope, the peace, the joy of a newborn baby. As we enter this last week of Advent let us cultivate the ingredients that motivate us to take the action of love that makes a difference in the lives of people in the world. Let this be our meditation as we spend these last days leading to Christmas Eve.
May we all welcome the birth of love in the form of a tiny human newborn baby. My prayer and gift offered for each and every one of you this week is that you experience these things.
These are my gifts to you in this season. May the blessing of God rest upon you and upon all those whom you love. Amen.
For a list of music suggested to meditate on for this service click the link below:
"The Work of Christmas" Sunday, December 26, 2021, Christmas I, Sunshine Cathedral of Second Life
Please join us in the virtual world of Second Life each Sunday at 2pm Pacific/ 5pm Eastern time. Download the interface at Secondlife.com, create your avatar, and join us at Sunshine Cathedral.
Sunshine Cathedral is a different kind of church where the past is past and the future has infinite possibilities!
This is the day our God has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Opening Prayer
Eternal Spirit, we give you thanks for the birth of peace in the world again this Christmas. The joy we feel as we kneel at the manger is overwhelming. The love that blooms in our hearts flows out into the whole world. May we never let go of the hope this day brings to the world and may our lives unleash your goodness. Amen
CLICK HERE for Audio of Opening Prayer Christmas I 2021
The Lessons
CLICK HERE for Audio of the Reading from Isaiah
A Reading from Isaiah (9.2-7a)
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as [people] rejoice when dividing… plunder…
[Y]ou have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.
For all the boots of tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting [Parent], [Sovereign] of Peace.
[The people’s understanding of God’s] greatness will grow continually and there will be endless peace… justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.
CLICK HERE for Audio of the Gospel According to John
A Reading from the Gospel According to John (1:1-18)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a parent's only child, full of grace and truth. (John testified to this and cried out, "This was the one of whom I said, 'This one who comes after me ranks ahead of me because this one was before me.'") From this one’s fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through the Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Child, who is close to the Parent's heart, who has made God known.
Reflection by Rev. Dr. BK Hipsher
CLICK HERE for Audio of "The Work of Christmas"
Merry Christmas! In the world, today is the day AFTER Christmas. But in the church today is the 2nd day of the 12 days of Christmas and the first Sunday in Christmastide. So here we are, decked out, “Christmasing” our way through these last days of the year. When the world stops celebrating we are just beginning!
Each year at this time I renew my quest to really understand the true meaning of Christmas. In the Advent season we get the clues each week, hope, peace, joy, and love. But these are abstract concepts. I want to know how to make them real in my life. I want to know the true meaning of Christmas.
The easy way out is to look to the manger, to the child newborn, wrapped in strips of cloth and laying there in the hay for warmth. When we imagine this scene our hearts fill with love, we see the adoring parents, the animals drawing near to the smell of something new that has come into their midst. It would be easy to Vew this scene, just as you see in the creche and say this is Christmas. Yet I want to know the true meaning of Christmas.
We can imagine ourselves as shepherds in the fields, watching our flocks, looking out on the beauty of the landscape in the night as the sky covers us with the blanket of stars spectacular in their light show against the night sky and then a cloud moves and we see for the first time the star of Bethlehem burning in the night sky. As shepherds we know the sky as we know each of our sheep and when we see the magnificence of the star the excitement we feel runs through our body like electricity! Wonder fills our minds and joy fills our hearts. But I want to know the true meaning of Christmas.
In our reading from the Isaiah chapter 9 we read about the prophecy of a light coming into the darkness of the world, giving us hope. We read of boundless joy, of burdens lifted. We read of an end to war and a leader rising to teach us how to live in endless peace, how to live with justice and with righteousness… forever.
There are those in the Christian community who use this scripture to support their supersessionist belief that their faith supersedes all other faith traditions, making them irrelevant and in error. For my money this does NOT seem like a good start on bringing peace to the world, disrespecting all other faith traditions. Clearly this idea that the birth of Jesus renders all other faith traditions unworthy of respect cannot be the true meaning of Christmas.
What then? Is there nothing in the Christmas story that is relevant to our lives, in this pandemic weary world, in these last days of the year? What can we learn from these ancient tales that can give us hope, that can let us rest in peace, that will fill our hearts with joy, and make us overflow with love? You see, this year I want to know the true meaning of Christmas.
Maybe it’s all here and still coming into being. Maybe it’s like the ingredients of a recipe laying on the kitchen counter ready to make the meal. Yes that’s it! The ingredients are here for us but where is the recipe? How do we put it all together? Ah THIS is the true meaning of Christmas. It is left to us to make the meal to feed the hungry, up to us to make peace with ourselves and our neighbors, up to us to spread God’s love in the world. Warriors boots and blood soaked garments will not burn unless we throw them into the fire.
Christmasing is not just one day a year, one season a year. Christmasing is a way of life, one day at a time, every day of every year for all our lives. That is the magic of Christmas… not that everything is made right on one day but that we work every day to bring hope, peace, joy and love into being for ourselves, our family, our clan, and the whole world. We must combine the ingredients, we must do the work to make the meal that feeds the hungry.
Let us leave each other today with the words of the great Howard Thurman who said, “When the song of the angel is still, when the star in the sky is gone, when kings and princes are home, when the when the shepherds are back with their sheep, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among people, to make music in the heart.” Amen.
For a list of music suggested to meditate on for this service click the link below:
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