[Propertalk] Intro

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

I'm still working on reading through and making a few changes to the 
actual sermon. In Advent traditionally we enter the worship space in 
silence, we light candles on the wreath, after a short reading from 
Scripture, then the Sunday School children put symbols of Jesus' 
ancestry on our Jesse tree, a living deciduous tree which is planted on 
the church grounds after Epiphany. Often I make a short introduction for 
any in the congregation who're visiting or may have forgotten what we're 
doing.

I've written this as out introduction this week. Thought I'd share it.

Bob


Introduction to our worship.

	Across the country today congregations and clergy are struggling with 
what happened last week and how to mark it. The events of Tuesday and 
Friday are too disturbing, too horrific, to ignore. Something has to be 
done to remember and pray for those who mourn, those who are 
traumatised, those who sit at some remove from the local sites.
	We WILL do this this morning. But part of what those who inflict terror 
on others are trying to accomplish is to disrupt our lives, to force us 
to give up on our routines and our cherished beliefs and practices.
	What I’ve decided we’ll do this morning is to follow the pattern we’ve 
been using for Advent, beginning with a short Scripture passage and the 
lighting of three candles on the wreath. The third one, for this Sunday, 
is rose coloured, signifying hope, hope in the midst of tragedy and 
confusion. Then some of our youngest members will place symbols on the 
Jesse tree, just as they have for the past two weeks, and in previous 
years, symbols placed by children younger than those killed in Newtown, 
symbols speaking of the way in which God has acted in the past, and 
promising that God will continue to act with and for us, even in 
mind-numbing tragedies.
	Throughout this whole act of worship, feel free to think how our words 
of prayer, of Scripture, of praise tie us to God and God to us; tie us 
to one another and others to us; tie us to those who suffer and them to 
us.
	On the Sunday after Christmas Day the Gospel read is always from the 
opening of John’s testimony to God’s Love in self-revelation in the 
Person of Jesus. In that reading are the much loved, comforting words: 
“In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.  And the light 
shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.” The 
Light for which we hope will never go out.


Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)