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Call to Worship
Click Here for Audio Advent 2 Peace
Advent 2 Candle Lighting
The first Sunday of the month is our regular Sunday for Communion. But during Lent and Advent we forego Communion Sunday until the anticipated festival, which is Christmas I on December 26. As we move into the new year 2022 we will have our communion services on the last Sunday in each month.
Today is the second Sunday in Advent, the candle of Peace…
Because of war, because of violence in our communities, because there is still so much unrest in our hearts, we light a candle of peace...
Because hatred is still so strong, because so many swords have not yet been beaten into ploughshares, we light a candle of peace…
May the light from this candle overwhelm the world.
May the light from this candle say to all that God’s peace is coming, on earth as it already is in heaven.
Friends, be not afraid, God’s peace is at hand!
https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/11/17/advent-candle-lighting-litanies
Opening Prayer
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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
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From the Writings of Baruch (5.1-4)
Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name, "Righteous Peace, Godly Glory."
Click Here for Audio of Gospel
A Reading from Luke’s Gospel (3.1-6)
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
John went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance…,
as it is written in the book of Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths clear. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
Reflection by Rev. Dr. BK Hipsher
Click Here for Audio of Advent 2 Reflection "Righteous Peace"
This is the second Sunday in Advent, the Sunday with the theme – Peace. When we lit our Advent candle today our reading for that candle mirrored our gospel reading. So often when the think of peace we first focus on that which hinders peace.
In our candle lighting we called to mind violence, war, and hatred. In our gospel reading we find a quote from Isaiah the prophet that described peace as filling every valley and smoothing out the mountains so that the way is smooth. In both of these readings we might get the impression that whatever is outside us must be calmed and smoothed and soothed before we can experience peace.
We must remember that much of how the world works and many of the passages in our sacred texts are rooted in dualism. For instance, in Romans 8:6 we read, “For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Here at Sunshine Cathedral we do not believe that we must set aside our humanness, our bodies, our sexuality in order to be righteous. We believe that human beings are made in the image of God and that our bodies are not in constant conflict with our spirits.
So our reading from Baruch reflects this wholistic view of what it means to be human but gives us some valuable guidance on what we can do to realize peace.
First we are instructed to, “Take off the garment of [our] sorrow and affliction…” We are not required to prove that we are compassionate and concerned about those who are oppressed and in need in this world by wallowing in despair. We can let go of sorrow when we grieve and we can embrace healing as it seeps into our lives. So our first act in achieving peace is to “Let Go, and Let God” when it comes to things that are out of our control. We are not required to perseverate on sadness, sorrow and pain to prove we are good people, to prove that we love God and the family of humanity.
Secondly we are instructed to take positive action, “… put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God…” This image of taking off one garment and putting on another garment is a beautiful way of describing how our internal spirit is completely integrated and connected to our human body. So what does it mean to put on a robe of righteousness. Well I think it means that we are to focus our minds on what it means to be righteous.
When we look up the word righteous in the dictionary we see synonyms like ethical, decent, just, and honorable. These words describe how we treat ourselves and how we treat others. And most of you know from doing your own therapy and self-reflection that how we treat ourselves is ultimately how we treat others.
- When we judge ourselves harshly we will inevitably judge others harshly.
- When we expect perfection of ourselves, we will expect perfection from others and we will be disappointed.
- When we disrespect our own bodies we will disrespect the humanity of another.
- When we act justly toward ourselves, we are likely to act justly toward others.
One of the most flawed people I ever knew in my life taught me one of the most important lessons of life, “Treat yourself as you would treat your very best friend.” You would forgive your best friend for falling short, for losing her temper, for being stressed out to the point of despair. And if we say to ourselves the same thing we might say to our very best friend we begin to live into what it means to be righteous.
Finally, we take the actions of removing the robe of affliction and putting on the robe of righteousness, our scripture says that God will put upon our heads (into our minds) “… the diadem of glory of the Everlasting.” We will no longer be known as someone who makes themselves a martyr to our own shortcomings and to the evils of the world. Instead we will be known by the name, “Righteous Peace, Godly Glory." People with whom we interact will know that we are centered in God’s peace not in the anxiety and stress of the evil in the world.
Now none of this means that we should segregate ourselves from reality. Perhaps we ought to limit how much news and bad news media we consume. But we still need to know what is going on the world. Keeping our mind on God does not mean that we ignore science and injustice. In fact, keeping our minds on God and living in peace means that we do everything we can to work for justice and to keep ourselves safe from CoVid and from other kinds of illness.
Our peace of mind is not divorced from our health or our mental attitudes. We are not at the mercy of circumstances. There are actions we can take to help us attain peace. On this Sunday of Peace in our Advent season let me leave you with this from Romans 14:19, “So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” When we become more peaceful that “rubs off” on those we meet. Peace spreads from one person to another even more easily than hatred and fear.
Let us focus on what we can do by treating others with respect even when they may not be acting in a respectful way, let us open our hearts to hope, let us allow ourselves to love unconditionally. This is the path to peace.
Let us pray,
God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
Courage to change the things we can,
And the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.
For a list of music suggested to meditate on for this service click the link below: