The gospel text for the First Sunday after Christmas tells of Jesus and his family’s flight to Egypt -- a trek necessitated by Herod’s quest to destroy what he thinks is a potential threat to his throne. Just days after celebrating the Christ child’s birth in the Bethlehem Inn’s homeless shelter, now Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are on the move again... becoming refugees (albeit temporary) in a foreign land. As team member Chris Keating points out in this installment of The Immediate Word, the Holy Family’s hazardous journey mirrors the plight of millions of refugees in our time, who also must flee unspeakable violence often rooted in the fear and megalomania of despots trying to retain their power. Like Jesus’ family, many of these folks have to depart at a moment’s notice -- leaving behind their homes and bringing along only whatever possessions they are able to carry with them. As Chris notes, this is a bracing reality for us to confront on a Sunday when we typically are in a festive mood. But just as with the nativity (and with Jesus in his mature ministry), the scriptures force us to come to grips with the predicament of outsiders in our society. Yet, as Chris reminds us, this also offers us an opportunity to keep the Christmas message in the forefront of our lives, rather than packing it away in the attic with our seasonal decorations.
Team member Dean Feldmeyer offers additional thoughts on those who speak with authority as God’s messengers. As Dean notes, angels often serve as God’s “official” messengers -- particularly in various parts of the Christmas narrative -- yet in this week’s Isaiah reading we are told that “it was no messenger or angel but [the Lord’s] presence that saved” his children. Thus, Dean points out, it’s not just the message itself but the presence of those who speak and represent it with authority that matters. And that’s certainly a paradigm we see at work in the message President Obama delivered this week, in the form of the official delegation named for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. As numerous commentators have observed, Obama is delivering an unmistakable statement by sending two prominent gay athletes (including tennis/women’s rights icon Billie Jean King) while not including any government officials higher than a former Secretary of Homeland Security and an obscure deputy Secretary of State. Dean asks us to consider the message that we are sending with our lives -- are the choices we make simply about ourselves, or are we cognizant of the signals we send as God’s ambassadors in the world?
Fleeing Christmas
by Chris Keating
Matthew 2:13-23
In all likelihood, Joseph would have given anything for a good night’s sleep. First there was an angel describing Jesus’ miraculous conception, and now comes the news that he should grab his young family and hoof it out of town to avoid Herod’s death patrol. When it comes to sleeping, Joseph isn’t worried about his sleep number as much as he is troubled by angelic interventions.
This time the nightmare doesn’t end when Joseph wakes up.
Jesus has been born -- though now it seems as if he’s born to run. With the lingering scent of frankincense mixed with odeur d’shepherd still in the air, Mary and Joseph must flee. Quickly grabbing their son, they run to Egypt to escape Herod’s murderous threats. Their family’s safety is at stake.
Matthew’s account of this vulnerable family’s plight is also a call to listen to the stories of modern displaced persons who must flee brutal dictators and cruel atrocities. Their stories mirror the plight of the Holy Family, and their agony matches Joseph’s bad dream. With the crisis in Syria surging to historic proportions, now is the time to consider how Joseph’s nightmare is reality for millions of starving refugees.
Leaving Christmas behind is more than packing up decorations and returning sweaters that don’t fit. On this first Sunday after Christmas, it is also time to consider all those who -- just like Jesus -- find themselves on the run.
In the News
Our world is saturated with persons who have been forced from their homes.
A few days before Christmas, the United Nations refugee agency released reports indicating that numbers of displaced persons have reached record highs in 2013. In the first half of the year, nearly 6 million persons worldwide were forced to leave their homes. Syria was by far the biggest producer of refugees -- exporting at least 2.3 million persons to other countries during 2013. New reports suggest that as many as 6.5 million Syrians are internally displaced -- creating a hunger crisis of epic proportions.
In Lebanon, almost one in five residents is a Syrian refugee.
Widespread hunger, disease, and plunging temperatures add to the crisis, which some say could create serious instability within the already at-risk region. In some cases, refugee encampments are beginning to look like permanent cities. It’s clear that the presence of so many refugees has created a crisis. The long-term impact of so many persons living in cramped, unhealthy, and unstable conditions is not so clear.
One report indicates the crisis could be the tipping point for more conflicts. A UN official told NBC news that this could be the greatest humanitarian crisis of our age.
“If the conflict continues, the refugee crisis could cause serious instability throughout in the region -- the outcome could be catastrophic,” Matthew Hollingworth, the United Nation’s World Food Program (UNWFP) Country Director in Syria said. Over a billion dollars of aid has been sent into the country, but Hollingworth indicated the ongoing war makes it unsafe for humanitarian agencies to provide assistance: “A huge number of people need our help, and we also face the security challenge working with various different sides to make it safe for us to work on the ground.”
Efforts to bring food and assistance to displaced persons have been hampered by both government and insurgent forces within Syria. Winter’s arrival adds to the refugee’s misery.
And, just like the story of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, it seems that children are the ones most at risk. About 78 percent of the refugees in Lebanon are women and children. A new threat has been a surge in polio -- a disease which many had thought was eradicated. In recent months, Syria has had an increase in polio, with 17 children reported paralyzed so far. As the UN attempts to vaccinate children, the squalor of the refugee camps poses additional threats. It’s the perfect breeding ground for all types of disease.
“As if children in Syria had not suffered enough, they now have to contend with yet another threat to their health and well-being,” said Maria Calivis, UNICEF’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Herod’s bloody rage led to the slaughter of innocent children. Today, children are also suffering. They’re called the “lost generation” of the Syrian conflict. Lacking resources, unable to attend school, and in poor health, the children of Syrian refugees struggle to maintain hope.
Australian correspondent Hayden Cooper caught up with 14-year-old Boushara Darwish, who wants to become a teacher. Yet Darwish has been unable to attend school for two years and shares a cramped UN-provided tent with her family. “I used to love learning. I really hope that I can go to school here because I already lost two years and I don’t want to lose more,” she said. Darwish and her 12-year-old sister smile for photographs, but their father said the two are ill most of the time. He told reporters he cannot afford to pay for medicine.
While the Middle East may be ground zero for the refugee crisis, other countries are also feeling the impact of displaced persons. Millions have fled to Turkey and southern Europe. In Bulgaria, a nation already struggling with poverty, “reception centers” are understaffed, cramped, and often unsanitary. While the nation has received only a relatively small number of refugees, it seems to have been completely unprepared for the crisis.
It’s a complicated, global crisis. Stories about refugees detail what they have lost -- homes, lives, stability. Their exodus has been painful, uprooting them from the futures they had planned for themselves. For one elderly refugee, leaving his homeland in Syria has forever changed his life, though not his faith. Consider the story of Abdul Rahman Ahmed, an elderly farmer interviewed by The Independent:
Ahmed lived for most of his life in the Syrian village of Elmah, where he was a farmhand tending wheat, lentils, chickpeas, and watermelons. Then the war came, and his house was destroyed by bombs. Now he lives in a 20-foot trailer among 120,000 other Syrians crammed into the sprawling chaos of the Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan. Most elderly refugees worry about doctors and healthcare and spend a lot of time at the camp’s medical clinics. Not Ahmed. He feels great. He says he has never been to a doctor in his life. “God will take care of me,” he says.
In the Scriptures
Joseph’s trust in God’s provision is what propels the narrative in Matthew 2:13-23. Following the departure of the mysterious magi, Joseph receives another revelation from God. While his first dream (Matthew 1:20-23) brought words of assurance in a time of crisis, this dream issues a warning. Joseph needs to protect Jesus. The Holy Family’s exodus thus offers an allusion to the first exodus, a potent image of God’s protection against tyrants.
The dream sequences are critical to understanding God’s providential care. The first dream announces that the child will fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah, while the second provides further instruction to Joseph. His role is clear -- faithful, righteous-minded Joseph must do what he can to avoid Herod’s brutality. Like contemporary refugees, Joseph and Mary pick up and flee the wrath of a treacherous tyrant.
Commentators note the link to the patriarch Joseph in Genesis, emphasizing God’s actions in preserving the child: “Just as the Old Testament Joseph and his father, Israel (Jacob), went to Egypt for safety from a famine in their land, so now Joseph takes God’s Son, Jesus, and once again travels to Egypt to escape danger at home” (Laura C. Sweat, “Matthew 2:13-15,” in Feasting on the Gospels -- Matthew, Vol. 1 [Westminster/John Knox Press, 2013], p. 22).
If God’s plan of provision for Jesus is clear, it is less clear for the innocent children slain by Herod’s henchmen. There is no passing over for them. Not unlike the millions of internally displaced children of Syria, their situation seems particularly bleak. Aware of this theological contradiction, Matthew laments their death by way of another Old Testament allusion. Rachel indeed is weeping for her children, loudly and inconsolably.
Jesus is protected from the wrath of the world’s corruption -- for now. In time, of course, he will stand before the authority of Rome. Trounced by the powers of the world, he is now safely secreted in his parents’ arms. Later he’ll be on the run again, but for now the refugee baby sleeps quietly under Joseph’s watchful and unsleeping gaze.
In the Sermon
When our daughters were little, the Christmas season would invariably find them huddled under blankets in car seats as we paraded around town looking at Christmas lights. As decorations disappeared in the weeks following Christmas, one of our daughters would always ask: “But where do they go?” Even to a little child, the message of “what happens after Christmas” was important.
As Mary, Joseph, and Jesus flee Christmas by disappearing into Egypt, perhaps it is time to answer the question “Where did they go?” Even more powerfully, perhaps it is time to name them for what they are -- refugees from a wicked despot, a vulnerable family buffeted by corruption and threats of murder.
Interspersing the story of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt with stories of contemporary refugees offers fresh possibilities for reflecting on God’s providence. The shepherds are gone, and the magi too. All that remains is a family struggling to find a place of refuge. As Anne Lamott remarks in her latest work, Stitches:“In the cold wind, if you can lean against others, none of you will blow away. You keep each other from falling or help each other get back up. Someone holds out a hand, or even scared old you may hold out a hand, and a person in need reaches for it and hangs on.”
Or, as Thomas Troeger suggests:
Perhaps we should put away the shepherds (Luke) because they returned to their fields, and put away the magi because they returned to their distant home, but we should keep out Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Just the three of them, all alone, facing the terrors of a brutal despot. No visitors. No sheltering barn. No cuddly-looking sheep. No friendly oxen. Then we should move the Holy Family to another location in our church or our home. Perhaps to a window looking out on the larger world, the world where there is still violence and repression and terror, and where there are refugees fleeing, needing protection, human beings in whom the Christ is crying to us for protection.
(from Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary -- Year A, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration [Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010])
In a cold, cruel world, the family learns to follow God while it is on the run. Perhaps it was a story Mary and Joseph told their son over and over again as he grew.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Who Speaks for Whom?
by Dean Feldmeyer
Isaiah 63:7-9
Plenipotentiary.
A great word, isn’t it? Long, hard to pronounce, full of importance. Plen-i-po-TEN-chee-air-ee.
It is usually used as an adjective. It describes one who is sent and speaks with the full authority of the sender.
Ambassadors are plenipotentiary representatives of their governments, as diplomats usually are.
The Secretary of State is the ambassador plenipotentiary of the United States and the President.
In scripture, angels often function as plenipotentiary messengers from God, and we see a lot of them in the Christmas story. Zechariah and Elizabeth are visited by an angel. Gabriel speaks to Mary. Joseph sees them in his dreams twice. The shepherds see and hear them.
In each case, the angel speaks with full plenipotentiary authority.
In the Hebrew scriptures, when a prophet declares “Thus says the Lord,” the prophet is speaking as a plenipotentiary messenger of YHWH.
In the News
Last week President Obama announced that he will not be attending the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Neither would he be sending the Vice President, the Secretary of State, or any person as his plenipotentiary representative.
While he said publicly that this was due to his schedule, it is widely understood to be Obama’s way of subtly showing his disapproval about the oppressive Russian attitude and laws that have been recently enacted toward lesbian and gay persons.
In short, Article 6.21 -- a law banning the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors” that was passed by the Duma (the Russian parliament) and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin on June 30, 2013 -- says this:
Propaganda is the act of distributing information among minors that 1) is aimed at creating non-traditional sexual attitudes, 2) makes non-traditional sexual relations attractive, 3) equates the social value of traditional and non-traditional sexual relations, or 4) creates an interest in non-traditional sexual relations.
If you’re Russian: Individuals engaging in such propaganda can be fined 4,000-5,000 rubles ($120-$150 in US dollars), public officials are subject to fines of 40,000-50,000 rubles ($1,200-$1,500), and registered organizations can be either fined 800,000-1,000,000 rubles ($24,000-$30,000) or sanctioned to stop operations for 90 days. If you engage in said propaganda in the media or on the internet, the sliding scale of fines shifts: for individuals, 50,000-100,000 rubles; for public officials, 100,000-200,000 rubles, and for organizations, one million rubles and up or a 90-day suspension.
If you’re an alien: Foreign citizens or stateless persons engaging in propaganda are subject to a fine of 4,000 to 5,000 rubles, or they can be deported from the Russian Federation and/or serve 15 days in jail. If a foreigner uses the media or the internet to engage in propaganda, the fines increase to 50,000-100,000 rubles or a 15-day detention with subsequent deportation from Russia.
President Obama was not satisfied to let his absence speak for him, however. Instead, he asserted his privilege as president to name the members of America’s official Olympic delegation and added two prominent former athletes -- both openly gay -- to the roster.
Tennis star Billie Jean King and hockey medalist Caitlin Cahow will join the current participants: King at the opening ceremonies, and Cahow at the closing ceremonies. The American delegation to the opening ceremonies will be headed by Janet Napolitano, the former Secretary of Homeland Security who is now president of the University of California system; Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns will lead the delegation for the closing ceremonies.
By contrast, Vice President Joe Biden led the American delegation to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and first lady Michelle Obama attended the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games.
In the Scriptures
The Old Testament text for this week comes from what biblical scholars know as Second Isaiah, the second half of the book which expresses the joy that was felt by the Hebrews when it was announced that they could return from Babylon and Persia to their homeland in Israel.
In these three verses Isaiah reminds the people that God did not send an ambassador, even a plenipotentiary representative like an angel, to make this possible -- God sent God’s full self to save the people: “It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old” (v. 9).
When this verse is read at Christmas, we recall that God invested God’s full self in Jesus Christ, the son. Jesus was not simply a messenger, even a plenipotentiary messenger, but the very incarnation of the loving, saving, redeeming God.
It is the birth of that savior, that “God with us,” which we celebrate in this very brief season.
In the Sermon
President Obama understands the importance of presence. And so do all of us too, if we but think about it for a moment.
When we are sick or injured, we are healed most by the very physical presence of those who love us, who come to our bedside and place their cooling hand upon our fevered brow.
When we are imprisoned -- whether by bricks and mortar or by our past mistakes, our sins, and our errors -- true reconciliation is found not in the impersonal note or message but in the very physical presence of those with whom we hope to once again come together.
And we know that we cannot at once condemn an action, an attitude, a policy, and remain standing in its midst. Finally, the only way we can truly voice our disapproval is with our absence. We must remove ourselves physically from the presence of that which offends our Christian ethos.
As the old year passes away and the new year approaches, we will be faced with new decisions and new actions about where we will invest our personal presence.
Let us pray that we choose wisely -- so that in all things we will be recognized not simply as our own agents, but as the plenipotentiary ambassadors of God.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Isaiah 63:7-9; Matthew 2:13-23
Unlikely Messenger
Valerie Segrest says a plant was a messenger for her -- one that led her to better health, and then to her work. Her first cup of nettle tea changed her life: “I am a Muckleshoot Indian, but other than the occasional seafood dish, little of what I ate then bore much connection with the landscape I lived in, which had fed my ancestors for many generations. My body immediately responded to this tea. It was as if I were remembering what it was like to feel well. I was rooted and energized.”
She adds that more than her health changed as a result of this unusual messenger: “I call nettle my first plant teacher. From the moment I drank the juices of this plant, I became an advocate, passionate about the native foods of the Pacific Northwest. Currently, my work as a nutrition educator takes me to tribal communities throughout Washington state. Everywhere I go, I hear stories about the ways native foods heal people. Elders remind me that problems like diabetes and heart disease were almost non-existent in our communities until we began to lose access to foods like salmon, huckleberries, elk, and wild greens. These foods are nutrient-dense, and they bless us with a true sense of place.”
Drawing on her heritage, Segrest says that plants and animals are our teachers, if we’re listening.
*****
Isaiah 63:7-9; Matthew 2:13-23
Getting the Message
President Obama’s choice of Billie Jean King to lead the U.S. Olympic delegation to the Sochi games was designed to send a message. Other athletes recently spoke at the United Nations with the same message. As the Washington Post reports: “Former professional basketball player Jason Collins and tennis great Martina Navratilova on Tuesday urged world sports bodies like the International Olympic Committee and FIFA to take gay rights into consideration when awarding major sporting events. The two openly gay athletes spoke at a special United Nations event celebrating International Human Rights Day.”
The two spoke about the need to consider where high-profile sports events are held, and the message that sends to other countries. The two athletes also joked about phone calls they’ve received. The Post article quotes Navratilova: “When Collins came out this year, he got a phone call from President Obama congratulating him. Well, in 1981, Reagan was president. I didn’t get that phone call.”
*****
Isaiah 63:7-9; Matthew 2:13-23
Wrong Number
Sometimes even the wrong number can have a message.
When San Diego real estate agent Virginia Saenz listened to her messages, she could hear the desperation that Lucy Crutchfield was feeling. Crutchfield was trying to call her daughter to tell her that she could help her with money for food -- but then wouldn’t be able to make her mortgage payment. She dialed the wrong number, and the message ended up on Saenz’s answering machine. A local media story reports that “Saenz did the only thing she could think of -- she called Crutchfield back and said not to worry. Crutchfield would pay the mortgage, and Saenz would handle the groceries. For Crutchfield, it was a holiday miracle. Her house is already in foreclosure. Her mother recently passed away, and Crutchfield is now trying to pay off her house. She had a money order prepared to make a mortgage payment on that house -- but was going to cash it in when her daughter called asking for money.”
Saenz called the daughter to ask what she wanted, and what her young children liked to eat, and the only request was for eggs and milk. “So Saenz went grocery shopping on Thanksgiving morning with her 14-year-old son in tow to tell her what kids liked to eat. They bought food for a Thanksgiving dinner and enough groceries to get Crutchfield’s daughter through the end of the month -- her next payday.”
The message on the wrong machine turned out to be the right machine after all.
***************
From team member Ron Love:
Isaiah 63:7-9
In his Christmas sermon to the Curia, the highest ruling authority in the Roman Catholic church, Pope Francis cautioned Vatican administrators about a lack of professionalism and gossiping. But in a conciliatory note to those gathered before him, emphasizing that they were not all self-serving, the pope broke from his prepared text and said, “There are saints in the Curia!”
Application: We can recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, and those gracious deeds performed by those who serve the Lord.
*****
Matthew 2:13-23
During his homily celebrating his 77th birthday, Pope Francis modestly reflected on the role of popes in the world, saying, “Let the Lord write our history.”
Application: Christmas is the declaration that God still is writing the history of the world.
*****
Matthew 2:13-23
An extensive article in the New York Times reported on how unpredictable the outcome of an NFL game is, especially when it’s a close game in the final minutes or a post-season playoff game when everyone is exceptionally nervous. A staff of 20 coaches strategizes during 16-hour days to prepare plays for every contingency, yet in the final moments their “überorchestrated” plan often fails. Brian Billick, a Super-Bowl-winning coach with Baltimore and now an analyst for Fox Sports, mentioned that a University of California professor calculated all the variables that could occur in the final minutes of a football game -- and, Billick said, “it came out to like 150 million combinations. As a coach, I always felt like I covered 149 million possibilities, but it was the last million that killed me.”
Application: As Joseph learned in his dreams, there is nothing certain in life.
*****
Matthew 2:13-23
The Associated Press recently released its list of the top ten news stories of 2013, as voted on by a national panel of editors and news directors. Based on the poll, the AP identified the year’s number one story as the difficulties associated with open enrollment failure for the Affordable Care Act, followed by the Boston Marathon bombing and the changeover in the Vatican with Pope Francis now leading the church.
Application: The story of Christmas, Herod, and Jesus -- like the stories of health care reform, the Boston bombing, and Pope Francis -- continues still this day.
*****
Matthew 2:13-23
Last year, the Associated Press’s list of top ten stories was initially headed by the November 2012 election. But the day after balloting ended, the killing of 26 schoolchildren and staff in Newtown, Connecticut, occurred -- so the AP decided to allow a re-vote, resulting in the Newtown shooting becoming the top-ranked story for 2012.
Application: The story of Herod and the slaughter of the innocents will always be with us.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Leah Lonsbury
Words for Reflection
What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love. Faith is recognizing that what makes God is infinite mercy, not infinite control; not power, but love unending. Faith is recognizing that if at Christmas Jesus became like us, it was so that we might become more like him. We know what that means: watching Jesus heal the sick, empower the poor, and scorn the powerful, we see transparently the power of God at work.... We know that our lives too can become channels for divine mercy to flow out to save the lost and the suffering.... Make love your aim... [for] if we fail in love, we fail in all things else.
-- William Sloane Coffin
OR
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
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 [all people],
To make music in the heart.
-- Howard Thurman
Call to Worship
(adapted from Isaiah 63:7-9)
One: Remember the gracious deeds and praiseworthy acts of God. Think of all God has done for us.
All: We serve a God of mercy and abundant, steadfast love.
One: God shows up and claims us.
All: God’s presence saves us in our distress.
One: God’s love redeems us, lifts us up, and carries us today and all our days.
All: Thanks be to God!
Gathering Prayer
Emmanuel, God With Us, help us to realize that Bethlehem is where we live, that the stable is really our town, and that you are being born now, here, each day. Help us pay attention. Help us to carry your Christmas spirit into our every day and be bearers of your light. Amen.
OR
Light of the world, we have come to seek your presence and bring you the gifts our hearts and lives. Reveal to us what we need to know to love you and serve your people. Strengthen us with your truth. Give us courage and hope that we might make your welcome and saving love manifest in our lives. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Beckoning God, you have called the rich to travel toward poverty, the wise to embrace your folly, the powerful to know their own frailty.
All: Forgive us when we cling to the status quo and fail to comprehend and follow when you are busy turning the world upside-down.
One: Welcoming God, you gave a sense of homecoming to strangers in an alien land and blessed stargazers with true light and vision as they bowed before your glory.
All: Forgive us when we lose our sense of wonder and close ourselves off to your signs for us.
One: Re-creating God, you attempt to stir us with holy discontent over a world which gives its gifts to those who have plenty already, whose talents are obvious, whose power is recognized, and still we continue to resist your change and add to the imbalance.
All: Forgive us when we fail to live and love in generous ways. Rise within us like a star that makes clear your way for our journey together.
Assurance
(from Isaiah 63)
Hear this assurance from the prophet Isaiah...
It is no messenger or angel but God’s presence that saves us. In love and compassion, God redeems us. God lifts us up and carries us all our days.
Thanks be to God!
Ideas for Time with Children
Matthew 2:13-23
Talk to the children about how Joseph had to be brave for God’s love to make its way in the world (for Jesus to survive). Ask them how we are asked to be brave for love. Invite them to think with you about what helps in situations that require bravery. Remind them that we have just celebrated Jesus’ birth and have been singing and talking about Emmanuel (God with us). It’s easier to be brave when we have God with us.
Consider with the children the “Words for Reflection” (above) from Howard Thurman and/or William Sloane Coffin. Translate Thurman’s and Coffin’s words into language that is accessible for the children, or invite the older kids to do it with you for the younger kids. Ask them what it means to do “the work of Christmas” or what these words from Coffin might mean or look like in our lives -- “if at Christmas Jesus became like us, it was so that we might become more like him.” Talk to the children about Christmas really not being over despite all the presents being opened and the flurry of excitement starting to die down.
Prayers of the People
God of all light, we know you are with us even in the shadows of life. We pray yet again for the world of your making. O God...
We pray with hope for the breaking in of your light.
Hear our prayers for our world.
(Silence)
God of abundant life, we pray for those who struggle with hopelessness, depression, loneliness, disease, addiction, violence, and oppression.
We pray with hope for the breaking in of your light.
Hear our prayers for your people who struggle.
(Silence)
Careful God, we pray for those who slip through the cracks of our human systems -- those without health care, homes, enough to eat, peace, or provision. We pray for those without community or family to surround, love, and support them.
We pray with hope for the breaking in of your light.
Hear our prayers for our human family.
(Silence)
God of peace, we pray for our warring world. For those who have lost their lives in battle -- soldiers and civilians. For countries devastated and dreams destroyed. We pray for those who react in violence, those who are consumed by prejudice and hate that is enduring and deep. We pray for ourselves in these same ways.
We pray with hope for the breaking in of your light.
Hear our prayers for peace.
(Silence)
God of all goodness, we pray for those in this place, in our hearts, and across our world who need healing, simple understanding, or care. O God...
We pray with hope for the breaking in of your light.
Hear our prayers for your healing connection.
(Silence)
God of our hearts, answer our prayers with the actions of our lives, with the words from our mouths, and with your love from deep within us. Make us not simply hearers, but doers of your Word, your Good News that brings us and the whole world life.
We pray with hope for the breaking in of your light.
Hear our prayers for your kin-dom.
(Silence)
We lift these prayers as we join our voices, Jesus, God’s light for the world...
(All join in the Lord’s Prayer)
Prayer of Thanksgiving
God With Us, take these offerings and bless them to carry out your Christmas vision: a vision of all people fed, a vision of all people safe, a vision of all people housed, a vision of all people thriving in your love. Through this act of giving, bless us again to do your work, the real work of Christmas. Amen.
Hymn Suggestions
“Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light”
“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”
“In a Byre Near Bethlehem/For the Good of Us All” (Iona)
“Joy to the World”
“When God Almighty Came to Be One of Us”
“O God of Earth and Space”
“He Became Poor That We May Be Rich” (Iona)
“Jesus Entered Egypt”
“Child in the Manger, Infant of Mary”
“In Bethlehem a Newborn Boy”
“Oh Sleep Now, Holy Baby”
“Heaven Shall Not Wait”
“The Tyrant Issues His Decree”
“Remember God’s Love”
“Meekness and Majesty”
“Come, O God of All the Earth”
“The Trees of the Earth”
“Glory to God Above!”
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Going with God
Matthew 2:13-23
Object: a world map
Have any of you ever gone to a foreign country? (Let the children respond by raising their hands.) What country did you go to? (If any answered affirmatively, let them tell you where they went and find that country on the map. If none of the children have traveled beyond this country and you have, share something about the country you went to visit.) Going to a different country can be an exciting adventure. Sometimes a different country can be very different from everything we know in this country. The way people speak may sound strange to you. The kind of foods they eat may be quite different. The way the people live may seem most unusual. Going to a new country is much like going into the new year.
This coming week will begin a new day of a new week of a new month of a new year. There are many things about the new year that we are uncertain of. We may well wonder what 2014 will be like. We can only guess. There will be things we are used to and that are familiar, and there is much that will be new -- just like going to a new country.
Jesus did many new things. When he was very young, his parents took him to a different country -- Egypt. Does anyone know why they had to leave their homeland and go to a different country? (Let them answer.) It was to run away from the king -- Herod -- who was jealous of Jesus and wanted to kill him.
God was with Jesus and his parents, and protected them. God warned Joseph in a dream to move out of Israel and go to Egypt.
God is with you in this brand new year. Many new and exciting things will happen to you in 2014, and some scary things may happen as well. There is one thing we know, though -- and that is that God is with us every hour of every day of every week of every month of this brand new year.
Prayer: Dear God: Thank you for being with us. Thank you for the old year behind us and the new one to come. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, December 29, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
