| New Book now Available Here is an anthology of over 1100 brief prayers and thought-starters, for each day of the year, with almost 400 original prayers by Bruce Prewer. Included is both a subject index and an index of authors-- an ecumenical collection of about 300 different sources. |
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| Title: Brief Prayers for Busy People. Author: Bruce D Prewer ISBN 978-1-62880-090-6 Available from Australian Church Resources, web site www.acresources.com.au email service@acresources.com.au or by order from your local book shop or online on amazon. |
Year C, Advent
4
Luke: 1:39-45. (Sermon
1: “Mother of God”)
(Sermon
2: “Two Women of Faith”)
Hebrews 10: 5-10...
Micah 5: 2-5a...
Psalm: Luke 1:47-55
PREPARATION
The love of the coming One be
with you all.
And also with you.
When God was ready to do a surprising thing, a tiny
clan, a wandering tribe called Jews, were chosen for the task.
God has chosen
the weak things of the world to put the arrogant to shame.
When God was ready to do the most amazing thing that
has ever happened , a young woman named Mary was
chosen.
Rejoice Mary,
chosen of God; the Lord is with you! Blessed are you among women, and blessed
is the fruit of your womb!
OR
The Advent countdown is now really on!
The shepherds are out under the stars with their
sheep
and even the heavenly angels
are on tip toe with expectation.
A carpenter and his young wife are nearing the end
of a tiring journey,
and all the hostels in the high
country are booked out.
But you, O
Bethlehem, are small to be among the clans of Judah,
yet from you shall
come forth One who is to be ruler of Israel,
whose origin is
from old, preceding the most ancient
days.
When the woman
who is in travail shall give birth,
lost brothers,
once given up for dead, shall return home,
PRAYER
Loving God, you have chosen the weak to put the
powerful to shame, give us the courage of your holy daughter, Mary.
Encourage us to rise above that which is deemed
normal, and beyond that which is comfortable, and to confront the future with
thanks and praise.
Then may things come to life in us that exceed
expectation, and beckon others to your glory. Through Christ
Jesus our Lord.
Amen!
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
Sisters and brothers of the church, we come to
repent, not only for our flagrant sins but those underlying attitudes and biases
which leave us open to a slow, insidious corruption.
Let us pray.
Loving God, forgive us that we have frequently been
negative and defeatist in the face of new challenges brought by the Holy
Spirit: Lord have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
Forgive us that we have worried too much about what
friends, neighbours, or workmates think, and not enough about your perfect will
for us: Christ have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Forgive us that we have been slow to obey, reluctant
to admit our errors, or too proud to seek your grace: Lord have
mercy.
Lord have mercy.
Gracious God, you offer forgiveness to the repentant
and new strength to the weak, we pray for these graces to enter and saturate
our mind and soul today. Please wash away our shame, mend our brokenness, and
help us to amend our goals and the means of attaining them. Through Christ Jesus , the Saviour who comes to live among the meek and the
poor and the merciful.
Amen!
PROMISE OF FORGIVENESS
My fellow students in Christ’s school,
hear this:
God has done great things for us; God humbles the
proud and lifts up those who are cast down. Those who think themselves rich are
sent away, but the hungry are filled with good things. Great mercy is on those
who honour him, from generation to generation and forever.
In God your sins are forgiven.
Thanks be to God.
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Just
Like You
Lord Jesus,
you started life
just like me,
as a tiny, bitsy, baby,
helpless and crying
Thanks heaps and heaps
for becoming like us
so that we can one day become
become
just like you.
Amen!
Ó B D Prewer & Open Book Publishers
CONCEPTION
This Creator-Spirit
is not cramped in rooms
or caged up in its own story,
but moves untamed, utterly free
to raise up prophets
from barren wombs.
This Creator-Spirit
shapes its own law;
ever mothering
a fractious world
and preparing ways
untrod before.
This Creator-Spirit
seeks a new-world Eve;
graces young Mary
with a Gift and task
that the strong and proud
could not conceive.
© B. D. Prewer 1993
PSALM : LUKE 1 46-55
or —
SONG OF
MAGNIFICENCE
This may be sung to the tune: Iste Confessor.
With all my being, I sing of the Mystery,
with love and wonder, I laugh
with my Saviour,
though I am nothing, God has
smiled upon me,
great is such favour.
Now is the dawning, of a new-born people,
God will be honoured, through a humble family,
tender and graceful, is the Spirit
with me,
the Love most holy.
This deed is awesome, God’s
reach is extended,
here is the wonder, leavening
our story,
disclosed is the key, cut at the
beginning,
to hidden glory.
Happy the poor ones, your new world is gifted,
happy the hungry, royal bread and
wine are yours,
happy the humble, you are high
uplifted,
God’s covenant endures.
Sing out your praises, dance and now be joyous,
no one is worthless, lost and
least shall enter first,
sing through the ages, God has
come among us,
come to the open feast!
Ó B D Prewer & JBCE © ‘ Beyond Words’ 1995
SERMON 1: MOTHER OF GOD
Luke 1: 43
Who am I, that
the mother of my Lord should visit me?
Today I offer you a Protestant sermon about a theme
dear to Roman Catholics:
“Mother of God”.
It is a theme around which Protestants have stepped
warily, fearful of trespassing into the realm of idolatry.
I invite you to put old fears aside, step nearer
with me and take a closer look.
WHAT IS MAN, THAT YOU ARE MINDFUL OF HIM?
But first, let’s start with something less
ecumenically delicate,
like the immense, mind-blowing size of the cosmos,
and, in contrast, the cherry-pip size of earth,
and the much tinier things called people.
Upsizing and downsizing:
The Hubble telescope up there in space,
and the series of space explorations undertaken by the USA,
have changed our
astronomical perspective.
Also the thoughts of brilliant minds like
Cambridge’s
Stephen Hawkins and Adelaide’s Paul Davies,
have sharpened our awareness of the awesome immensity of
things
and the apparent tiny part we play.
Documentaries on TV have made us familiar
with the cherry-pip status of our planet within our own
galaxy,
and yet our galaxy of millions of suns is only one galaxy
among 10 billion galaxies.
Long ago a song writer asked: “What is man, that you are mindful of him?”
Today there are plenty of clever guys (eg, atheist Richard Dawkins) who would quickly retort:
“Nothing! Humanity is nothing. If there is an enigmatic Beginner of this
enormous scheme of things, then don’t expect him/her/it to be personally
interested with little earthlings.
To such people our church songs about a God who knows
our names and guides our footsteps, is egotistical nonsense. As
one has warned: “We are but chance flecks
of consciousness in an unconscious cosmos.”
To such people, our Advent and Christmas
celebrations are the pathetic residue of primitive mythology. To them,
Christmas is a game we play once a year, to brighten up a
insignificant existence.
If you are among those who have fallen into this way
of thinking, then the early Christian Church says to you: “Let
us tell you about the young woman who was the mother of God.”
OLD WORLD THINKING
You see, ours is not the first era to see a deep
gulf between God and this earth, between the Divine and the human.
A long way back, the gods were thought to be high in
the blue dome arching above us, occasioanly visiting the mountain
peaks, or riding across the skies in sun, moon and stars. Much later, by the golden age of the Greek
civilisation, philosophers chose more lofty, abstract
deity. More like an Ideal than a living, loving Person. For Plato, for example,
the idea of communing with God and calling him our ‘abba’
(daddy) would have seemed laughable In the early
centuries of Christianity.
Christians had to wrestled
against forms of philosophy which declared: God is too pure to have any
intimate dealings with human beings. God was pure spirit and could not have
direct contact with the imperfect, debased, material world. Human flesh and God
could never come together.
But there could be go-betweens. In some Hellenistic
religions, they believed in superbeings (neither fully God
nor fully human) who could act as intermediaries. Nevertheless, direct
relationship between God and earthlings was impossible. Ipso
facto. Impossible. Incarnation was impossible.
Not surprisingly, some Christians who had been
educated with this philosophy (saturated with it, in fact!) tried to squeeze
Christ Jesus back into a more acceptable Hellenistic mould.
One school held that Jesus was neither God nor
human, but a supernatural mediator (demi-urge). Mary
gave birth to another class of being, who came to bring knowledge of God to
humanity, so that crude earthlings could begin the long climb to purification
and, ultimately, to graduation in the highest heaven.
Another school said that Jesus was divine but was
definitely not born of Mary. He came as a spirit in the appearance of a man. A phantom. People thought they were dealing with a man but
it was an illusion; the feet of Jesus never fully touched the corrupt ground of
earth.
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS :
STORY AND CREEDS
All this frustrated the mainstream of
Christianity. They tried dealing with
this gulf between God and humanity in a number of ways. I want to mention two
of these ways: story and creed.
One way of countering Hellenistic philosophy was by story.
Towards the end of the first century, as the
Hellenistic distortion began to arise, Christians started to speak more about
the birth of Jesus. Jesus was a real man, truly born of Mary.
Earlier, during the 20 or 30 years, Christians did
not concern themselves with the birth of Jesus.
They took that for granted. It
was his teaching, death and resurrection that occupied their worship and
preaching. In the very earliest documents of Christianity (most NT letters, and
also the Gospel of Mark) there is only one passing reference to his birth.
But by the time Matthew and Luke were writing, the
Hellenistic climate was so influential that they saw it as important to tell
the story of Christ’s birth. In different ways, Matthew and Luke describe his
beginning as a baby, child of Mary and Joseph. By this story method, they
declare that God could indeed have dealings with people. The gulf was large but
not impassable; it could be bridged by God incarnate, God enfleshed.
So in Luke’s story, when a
pregnant Mary pays her visit to her pregnant cousin (or aunt?) Elizabeth, Elizabeth
exclaims: “Who am I that I should be
visited by the mother of my Lord.” There it is! Mother of my Lord? In that sentence the
supposed gulf between heaven and earth is bridged. It is a creed in story form.
The human woman Mary gave birth to the divine Child.
Perfect human and perfect divine can meet. They do in Christ Jesus. Flesh is
not a fatal barrier to God. A woman’s body is not an impossible, nor an
unworthy, place for God to be incarnate. Mary is ‘Mother of God’.
A second way later Christians countered Hellenistic
thought was by creeds. Especially by
the 4th and 5th centuries, they tried to protect the faith in the incarnate
Christ. through formal creeds, voted on at ecumenical
councils.
During this period, the phrase “mother of God”
was written into credal texts. In doing this,
they were not giving divine status to Mary. They were definitely not saying
that Mary preceded God or that she created God. They were insisting that the
Divine Child started as a human foetus, really carried in Mary’s womb and later
suckled at her breast. God’s true Child, our Lord Jesus, was fully mothered by
Mary. She was truly the mother who bore the Divine, Son of God.
The gulf between God and earth is bridged by those credal words : “Mother of God.”
Mary was the God-bearer. Spirit and flesh are not
antagonists.
It was shocking stuff to the elite philosophers and
their followers! Ludicrous folly! But the Christians persisted: “Like it or
lump it. That is how it is. God and people are much closer than you think.
God does not despise this earth. Men and women are not too impure to have the
most intimate contact with God. God has
made us for fellowship. God loves us and treasures us.”
TIME TO AFFIRM: MOTHER OF GOD?
Traditionally, Protestants found it hard to cope
with the phrase “Mother of God.” They feared that it smacked of deifying Mary.
As I see it, they had plenty of evidence on which to support this fear. The
cult of the Virgin Mary had, in some circles, almost replaced the devotional
centrality of Christ and the welcoming embrace of God. When the picture built
up in the later church of a God and his Son enthroned in awful power and
blazing glory, the loving Mary seemed the approachable one, and she was widely venerated in popular
religion.
Today, maybe the time has come to step way from
those old Protestant battle grounds. The birth stories of Luke, and the creeds
of the fifth century, were not trying to exalt Mary into a demi-god
but to testify to the humble God who came really did among us, as one of us.
Nothing less than the Divine issued from the body of Mary. Mary was truly the
God-bearer, the mother of our Lord.
Lose this and you lose Christianity.
AS A PROTESTANT
On this fourth Sunday of Advent, as a Protestant
I
want to celebrate the phrase “Mother of God.”
First and foremost
it underlines the incomparable love of God;
the unique humility of God;
the saving beauty of God:
“Our God contracted to a span,
incomprehensibly made man.”
Secondly
it declares hope for humanity.
If
the Divine can become “incarnate in the virgin’s son,” then the human and
divine are not
poles apart.
Human
flesh is not a lost cause. God has become “bone
of our bone,
and flesh
of our flesh.”
Astronomically speaking,
we may seem just insignificant bits of chance consciousness
on one irrelevant cherry-pip satellite.
But that is an illusion.
Biblically
speaking we can be God-bearers,
made in the likeness of God.
As one early Christian put it:
“God
became human so that the human could become divine.”
“Blessed are you among woman. And blessed is
the fruit of your womb.”
SERMON 2: TWO WOMEN OF FAITH
Luke 1.
Women played a pivotal role in early Christianity.
Elizabeth and Mary are at centre stage when Luke begins to unfold his drama of
salvation to all races and classes.
We can compare Luke with compare the attitude of
traditional Jews, who each morning chanted: Blessed be the Lord God , the King of the universe, who has not made me a
Gentile, a donkey or a woman. No such scorn from Luke. For him women were close to the heart of the Gospel he
was itching to share with the world.
He seems to delight in telling the stories of
Elizabeth and Mary. His Gospel starts not with men but with women. It is true
that Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah is there. But though he is a priest by
birth, he is portrayed as a man of little faith, who needed convincing. You
will also find Joseph mentioned in the early chapters of Luke, but Joe has
little more than a “supporting role” in the drama.
TWO EMPOWERED WOMEN
Have you ever noticed how right at the outset Mary
is her own person?
When she is notified by the heavenly messenger that
she is chosen to bear a unique son, she does not consult men before saying
“Yes”. She made her decision without any reference to the socially dominant
males. She and God are quite capable of sorting this matter out by themselves.
In Luke’s story Mary and Elizabeth represent the
“nobodies”
who are empowered by the coming
of Christ. This mere slip of a teenage girl, is a very
strong character. She breaks out into the magnificent hymn of praise to a God
who uplifts the downtrodden and neglected. The Magnificat is one of the most revolutionary statements in the whole
of the Bible.
Women, who are among those commonly reckoned as the
powerless,
are now chosen to help God set
in motion the spectacular drama of salvation. These are the ones who have
faith. They believe. They trust the God who is doing amazing things.
FOR ALL WHO ARE OF LOW SOCIAL STATUS
Here I must hasten to add that Luke is not
anti-male. Luke is not some ‘cross-dresser’ with a chip on his shoulder.
While it is true that he continues to make sure that
women share the limelight in a positive way, he does not do this by rubbishing
men. Luke believes in a Christ who respects and loves all people. Christ has a
special place in his purposes for any who (male,
female, Jew or Greek, Roman or slave.Roman,) have
been pushed to the margins of society or denigrated.
As Professor Rosemary Radford Ruether
writes:
Poor women and despised men, widows, unclean women, prostitutes,
Samaritans and the Syro-Phoenecian woman. these are those in whom, the messianic
prophet [Jesus] find the faith that is absent among the ‘righteous of Israel.’
The story of the widow’s mite, the forgiveness of the prostitute who has faith,
the healing of the woman with the flow of blood, the defence of Mary’s
[Magdalene] right to discipleship, are among the Lucan stories that lift up the
typology of women as people of faith
Like Matthew and Mark, Luke proclaims that the new
age has dawned
with this wonderful Jesus. But
more than the others writers, Luke reminds us that for Jesus, women in this new
age had a large part to play. God has “exalted those of low degree.”
WERE WOMEN THE FIRST CHURCH?
Let me try out on you a possibility; a playful
hypothesis that I would like you to consider.
There is a sense in which Mary and Elizabeth are the
first church. When those two pregnant women got together in Elizabeth’s home,
they are the first people to come together in the name of Messiah Jesus. They
are the first of those who gathered by the proclamation of the Gospel in the
power of the Holy Spirit.
Theologians tend to differ as to when the church
started.
Some say it was on the day of Pentecost. Some say it
was when the risen Christ appeared to his disciples behind locked doors. Others
claim it was when Jesus first called disciples to him. Yet others argue that
the church began when Peter, in the district of Caesarea Philippi, first made
his confession: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”
But I reckon Mary and Elizabeth have good
credentials.
They are the ones who first hear the Gospel Word and
believed that the messianic age has dawned with the little babe growing in
Mary’s womb. They believed that the Messiah had come, the one who is Christ and
Saviour. They are the ones who receive the word and obey it. They are doers of
the word. They are both filled with the Holy Spirit and break out into praise
and joy.
These things are the authentic characteristics of
the church.
Therefore I put it to you: Maybe these women were
the first church?
THANK GOD FOR THE WOMEN OF THE CHURCH.
Whether this hypothesis of mine is valid or not,
does not matter.
What does matter is that these two women are
remarkable characters in the Gospel story.
As I read again the story of vulnerable young Mary
going up into the hill country to
visit, and stay with, her much older relative Elizabeth,
I take courage from her courage.
As I picture those two pregnant women spending hours
together in fellowship,
it is much more than mere a
sentimental binge I am having.
I rejoice that this is truly the way God works.
I see there in the home of Elizabeth
the first of the countless
“nobodies” whom the Spirit of God will lift up by the event of Christ Jesus.
I see them believing, rejoicing, giving God a glad
obedience.
I am also most grateful that by the grace of Christ
Jesus
I am also a part of this unique fellowship which we
call the church, the koinonia:
I too belong in this where the weak and the obscure
and the outsiders are called,
welcomed and empowered by the Spirit
of the living God.
I BELIEVE
I believe in the Living God who is directly involved
in the affairs of the world.
I believe that God chooses the meek and the poor to
shame the proud and the rich.
I believe in the incarnate Word, leaping in a
woman’s womb, cradled in poverty.
I believe in Jesus, true son of Mary, true Son of
God,
who came among us in weakness,
that we might come to know the
profound strength
available to common people
who turn to God in trust and
with love.
Yes, my friends, this I truly believe.
INTERCESSIONS
By your Spirit, most glorious Immanuel, please
continue to come among us, honouring our bodies, sharpening our minds, and
nurturing our spirits.
Loving God, please do not get annoyed by our
adulation of technology and its gadgets, but continue to nurse us as a mother
nurses her children, that we may be led by your Spirit from illusions to
truths, and from lesser truths to the ultimate truth of in Christ Jesus.
Do not weary of our injustices or despise our
political attempts to right wrongs. Please foster all that is good in our
nation, rebuke all that is evil, and by your Spirit enable our political parties
to achieve far more than they deserve.
Please do not become dejected with your inept and
divided church, merciful Immanuel. In your mercy go on
cherishing our small faith and enlarging our love. Let the Gospel of
Christ Jesus shine out from the flawed common clay of our lives.
Do not tire of the prayers with which we bombard
you. Please continue to console the sorrowful, soothe the disturbed, heal the
diseased, encourage the timid, support the persecuted, guide the bewildered,
feed the hungry, sustain the courageous, lift up the fallen, bind up the broken
hearted, and comfort the dying.
Loving God, give us the faith that was in Mary, the
mother of our Lord, that we may offer you our very body, mind and soul, to
achieve your loving purposes on planet earth. To the glory of
your holy name. Amen.
SENDING OUT
Never put your faith in worldly status,
and never underestimate your
heavenly importance.
My soul
magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
Let your trust in the coming of Christ soar within
you like wings of joy.
Go out into the world and serve one another as
God-bearers.
My soul
magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
Grace, mercy and peace, from God our Creator,
through Jesus our Saviour, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit our Nurturer,
be with you this day and evermore.
Amen!
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