"Season of Love" Sunday, December 19, 2021, Advent 4, 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.
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!
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.
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.
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 Spiritand 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."
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.
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 tonguesof 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 partand 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.
• “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson
• “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”- Saint Francis de Sales
• “Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.” —Helen Keller
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:
"Season of Love" Sunday, December 19, 2021, Advent 4, 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.
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!
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.
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.
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 Spiritand 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."
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.
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 tonguesof 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 partand 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.
• “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson
• “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”- Saint Francis de Sales
• “Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.” —Helen Keller
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:
"Season of Love" Sunday, December 19, 2021, Advent 4, 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.
CLICK HERE for Audio
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:
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