“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Funny thing, Lord – it doesn’t quite feel like New Year’s.

But that’s where we find ourselves today, isn’t it?

The first Sunday in Advent – the very beginning of

the church calendar.

Starting over.

Looking back at the beginning again.

Yet also looking forward,

even leaning forward,

with anticipation and expectation and hope.

That’s what Advent is for us, Lord, and we’re so grateful for it.

And for the promise this season brings –

the promise of good things still to come,

the promise of the manger,

the promise of you – visiting us in some new way,

coming to us with your arms wide open,

ready to meet us, right where we live.

But… I have to admit that it’s sometimes tough to slide into the spirit

of this wonderful season when it comes

so close on the heels of the holiday just past –

we’re still full from all the feasting,

we’re still dizzy from all the football,

we’re still dealing with the aftermath of family

gatherings and conversations –

some of which were wonderful and refreshing;

some of which were exhausting and complicated.

So. Today – this morning – right now –

as we sit here with our heads bowed and our spirits quiet,

remind us again of why we ‘do’ Advent here.

Tell us the old, old story,

and open our hearts to hear it anew.

Whisper to us of starry nights,

and shepherds,

and wise men coming from faraway places.

Sing to us – and teach us to sing to one another – about

crowded inns,

and strange dreams,

and, O Lord, remind us about the angels!

Your special envoys, messengers come to tell us Big News,

Good News.

Help us to hear what the angels have to say –

what they have to say, certainly, to the lead players in the Christmas story of long ago Bethlehem –

and what they have to say to us,

today, right here, right now.

Bless and encourage our pastor Don as he brings us your word of hope this 1^st Sunday in Advent.

For that is our primary prayer this morning, Lord:

hope –

building that hope on the sure foundation of your word,

living that hope in the nitty-gritty of every day

decision making,

and relationship building,

and kid-tending,

and school assignments,

and jobs;

and sharing that hope in the hard places of our lives,

offering it to those who seem to have little of it.

So, Lord God, as we take in

the scent of this beautiful tree

and enjoy the beauty of our first lit candle,

and as we begin to move ourselves,

both literally and figuratively,

from the colors of autumn to the colors of Christmas,

call us again to hope,

hope in you.

Take the gifts we’ve brought today and multiply

them in the miraculous way that only you can do.

Build your kingdom in this world, Lord,

and use us and our gifts to help do that!

And build your kingdom in us –

heal our diseases,

bind up our broken hearts,

forgive our sins,

transform our very beings so that we might

look more and more like Jesus,

who is – as trite as it sounds! – the reason for the season,

and in whose name we pray today,

Amen.

For Communion Sunday this month, we are moving our ‘Prayer of Intercession and Dedication,’ which usually follows the offering, to our time around the table itself.

Creator God, Sweet Jesus, Comforting Spirit –

Summer is officially here now, Lord.

Holy & Magnificent Triune God,
Father, Son and Spirit;
Creator, Redeemer, Comforter.
MIghty KIng, Gentle Shepherd, Sweet Wind of Grace:
we cry with the prophets of old,
“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
The whole earth is full of your glory!”
We are glad and grateful for the fellowship you share
as One God in Three Persons,
and for your gracious invitation to us
to step into the circle of your eternal love.

We do not begin to understand the mystery of your Being,
but we are grateful for Who you are,
for how you work,
and for your presence with us.
We hold this mystery with fear and trembling
and with love and devotion,
acknowledging that you are God.
And we are not.

Forgive us for so often living as though the opposite were true –
that we are somehow in charge here
and you are some kind
of accessory,
or Interesting Idea,
or convenient scapegoat,
or junior partner in our many plans and endeavors.
We can sing so easily and beautifully that
‘we surrender all,’ that ‘we give up our rights,’
and ‘hand you our dreams,’
but we have this terrile tendency to snatch them back
when the singing stops!
Forgive us for too often forgetting to
offer you the worship you are due,
the worship of a holy and whole life,
lived for your glory,
for the service of others,
and for our own true fulfillment.

And oh, Lord God,
forgive us for searching for that fulfillment in so many other places –
in money
or family
or relationships
or popularity
or good grades
or ‘success,’
whatever that is.

We come before you this morning with contrite hearts,
some of us with broken spirits,
some with the burden of dreams unfulfilled,
or of plans unravelled.
We come with the weight of past mistakes,
of present failures,
of future fears.

And we want to take all of that ‘stuff,’
and lay it down,
right here on the table,
this altar that represents to us
who you are in our lives,
and we want to say,
“We’re sorry.”
And we want to say,
“Please help us.”
And we want to say,
“Lord, change us!”

By your Sovereign Will as Creator of this Universe,
by your Gracious Forgiveness as Redeemer of the lost,
by your Powerful, Life-Giving, Life-Changing Presence as
In-dwelling Spirit,
forgive us our sins,
help us in our struggles,
change us into holy, righteous daughters and sons of grace.

You’ve begun that work in us, Lord God.
On our good days, we know this to be true.
So, on this good day,
on this Table-of-the-Lord day,
we ask you to continue that good work,
shaping us into men and women,
students and seniors,
boys and girls,
who live lives ‘more righteous than the scribes and the Pharisees,’
as our text for today reads,
who understand more fully what it means to be a disciple of Jesus,
who seek to be among those who will be called ‘great’ in the kingdom of our God,
great because we have learned your law of love & humility
and have obeyed it with our whole hearts.

We ask these things humbly,
gratefully,
expectantly,
and hopefully,
trusting in your goodness
to forgive,
to heal,
and to transform.
For Jesus’ sake,
Amen.

Such a wonderful old hymn –
“Jesus loves even me.”
And so appropriate for all of us
today, and any day.
May we sing with joy, Lord God,
proclaiming our gladness and gratitude
that you, Our Father in Heaven,
love us so very much.
It is indeed a ‘wonder’
and the ‘dearest thing’ we read
in scripture.
Thank you that you love even us.
Thank you.

Yet, even as we relish your love for us, Lord,
we acknowledge that we need help
to love ourselves in good and healthy ways,
and to love each other as you love us.
Will you help us to be glad in that
extension of your love, please?
And to do it with joyful obedience?

We’ve glad to be here today, Lord.
Really glad.
It’s been a tough two weeks, filled with smoke and ash and bad memories.
We thank you for the valiant work of firefighters on our behalf.
We thank you for answered prayer about wind and weather.
We thank you that the worst is behind us,
that this particular group was not hit as harshly this time around.
But that is sadly not for so many others in our community, Lord God.
For 100 or so families, the mess is just beginning,
as too many of us fully know and understand.
Help us to help them –
to help them grieve,
to help them begin again,
to help them find hope.
Use us in ways that are helpful and hopeful to reach out
in Jesus’ name.

And we’re bold to ask for healing for ourselves today, Lord.
Even though we didn’t lose any structures or possessions –
and we’re really grateful for that,
honestly, we are –
still, we’ve been hit again with chaos,
with turmoil,
with momentary dispossession, and displacement,
with reminders of our own fragility,
and with echoes of terror and devastation too recently true.
So, heal our memories with your sweet Spirit,
recall to us where home truly is found,
guide us to green pastures and still waters.

We thank you today for our pastor, Don Johnson, and for his wife, Martha.
And we’re glad they are back again from a time away,
a time to weep and a time to rejoice in the life of Don’s dad.
Bless them both as they return to life in Santa Barbara,
as they continue to grieve the loss of their own parents this past year,
as they help us to grieve our own losses.

Whoever else may be hurt or feeling lost or loss today, Lord,
bring your healing presence close, please.
Open our eyes to see those around us who need an extra smile or hug.

And bless the gifts we’ve brought to you today.
Make them grow miraculously,
use them to minister to the hurting,
to spread the good news both here and abroad,
to build the kingdom of God in the here and now.
Thank you that we can give,
that we can sing,
that we can pray.
And bless us in Jesus’ name to do it all again and again and again.
Amen.

Goodness gracious, Lord –
it’s been a busy few weeks!
With Holy Week and Easter,
and 50th Anniversary celebrations
and weddings and end of term projects
and final exams.
And now here come graduations
and Mother’s Day and summer jobs…
and life feels a little crazy and scattered.

But here – right here – in the middle of all
this crazy, busy stuff,
we have … today.
Confirmation Sunday.
When young adults,
many of whom we have watched grow
from toddlerhood to now –
when these fine young men and women
affirm their faith in you
and we, by the power of
your Spirit at work within us,
confirm them as fully fledged disciples of Jesus.
And we do this together,
in the midst of the community,
in the center of worship.

So…
wlll you help us to take a deep breath,
to lean into your grace,
and to do that well this morning?

We are thankful every day
for the gift of this body,
your church.
And we are thankful every day
for the gift of generations
all around us – for senior citizens,
and middle-agers,
for married couples,
and single people,
for tiny babies
and tall college students,
and most especially today,
we are so very grateful
for junior high students,
who are sometimes wacky and
always wonderful, and
who startle us with their sudden
grace and wisdom as they stand
in these threshold years between
childhood and adulthood.

May their tender hearts and brave spirits
call forth from all of us
a sense of renewed commitment
to what we know to be truth and grace and light.
As they declare their faith,
may we re-proclaim our own.
As they are touched and prayed for,
may we sense your touch and the
prayers of our brothers and sisters.
As they are given salt and light,
may we renew our own call
to season the world around us
and shine forth with the love of Jesus.

We bring to you this morning, as we do every week,
our gifts of love and sacrifice.
We’ve dropped some of those gifts in the
offering plates that have made their
way up and down these pews.
But the greatest of the gifts we have
from you are the young people who will
stand in front of us
and in front of you this day.
We give them back to you
with gratitude
and with hope,
with full hearts
and with empty hands.
And we trust you to continue the
good work you have begun
in them
and in us.
In the name of Jesus we pray,
Amen.

adapted from the ancient prayer of the Easter Vigil, called the Exsultet. This prayer was traditionally sung late in the night on the Saturday before Easter and continued into the wee hours of Easter morning. Therefore, all references to ‘night’ or ‘evening’ have been changed to ‘day’ or ‘morning’ for our worship today.

“Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God’s throne!
Jesus Christ, our King is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!
Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor, 

radiant in the brightness of your King!
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Darkness vanishes for ever!
Rejoice, O Church! Exult in glory!

The risen Savior shines upon you!
Let this place resound with joy,

echoing the mighty song of all God’s people!”

“This is the morn, 

when Jesus broke the chains of death

and rose triumphant from the grave.
What good would life have been to us,

had Christ not come as our Redeemer?
Father, how wonderful your care for us!

How boundless your merciful love!

To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.
O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,

which gained for us so great a Redeemer!
Most blessed of all days,

chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!”

“The power of this holy day dispels all evil,

washes guilt away,
restores lost innocence,
brings mourners joy; 

it casts out hatred,
brings us peace, 

and humbles earthly pride.
Day truly blessed,

when heaven is wedded to earth

and we are reconciled to God!
Therefore, heavenly Father,
in the joy of this day,

receive our sacrifice of praise, 

your Church’s solemn offering.”

“Accept, O Lord, not only these gifts we bring,
but also our hearts,
newly aflame with love and joy
this glorious day.
May they glow to the honor of God.
Let the light in our hearts
mingle with the lights of heaven

and continue bravely burning 

to dispel the darkness of sin and night!
May that Morning Star which never sets 

find his flame still burning in these hearts of ours.

May we hear again today,
as for the first time,
the words of our Resurrected Savior
that call us to live lives of hope and joy and power.
The words of our Savior,
Jesus Christ, that Morning Star,

who came back from the dead,

and shed his peaceful light on all humanity,

your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Amen.”

It’s a funny thing about messes, Lord.
Admittedly, most of the really sticky ones
we are quite capable of creating for ourselves.
And for those messes,
for those slip-ups,
and goof-ups,
and thoughtless words or deeds,
either done or undone,
we are truly sorry this morning, Lord.
And we are sorry for the messes that result from
our quite intentional bad choices,
our thoughts or deeds of vindictiveness,
or pettiness,
or insecurity,
or jealousy.
In fact, we take this moment, right now,
to look backward over the last week or so,
and with the gentle guidance of your Holy Spirit,
to bring all those messes
both accidental and intentional,
into the light of your righteousness,
and we say, “I am so sorry.”

– Silence –

We thank you for so many good gifts this morning,
and we also thank you that the messes of our own creation,
those evidences of our sinfulness and our brokenness,
provide for us reminders of our deep need for a Savior.
So, as we receive your forgiveness this morning,
teach us gratitude for that great gift and so many others.
And we say, “Thank you.”

– Silence –

We also acknowledge to you this morning
that we, in our broken state,
also live in a broken world.
And people we love and care about
are caught in messes that they did not make.
These are the messes that come with the territory,
the creaturely territory that we all occupy.
We have friends or family,
close or distant,
or we ourselves may be among those
who are caught in the sticky, messy web of suffering this day.
Chronic or even life-threatening health situations,
deep financial concerns,
badly broken relationships,
the harsher effects of aging,
the loss of someone we dearly love.
All of these messes need
your touch,
your presence,
your redemption.
And we say, “Have mercy, Lord. Have mercy.”

– Silence –

We thank you, O God of Hope and Mercy
that you are present in the messes we make
and the messes we live with,
that you are willing to sort through them with us.
But our text for today, Lord God,
our text for today talks about messes that you make.
Jesus, striding through the temple courts, turning over tables,
scattering animals right and left,
generally making a mess of things.

And we don’t much like it when you mess up the stuff that we think
is neat and orderly and un-messable.
We don’t like it when you overturn our systems,
our accepted rituals for social interchange
or religious practice.
It makes us really uncomfortable when you mess with us.
When you stir the pot of our prejudices,
our warped values,
our small cruelties,
our deeply held convictions
or ideas about ‘how things should be done.’
Don’t mess with us, Lord.
Don’t mess with us!

But then.
But then…we look at why you mess with us.
And we remember that:
you want us to be people of prayer,
not prejudice;
you want us to be people centered on worship,
not worry;
you want us to be people carried by grace,
not griping;
you want us to be people radiating love…
love,
joy,
peace
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness,
self-control.
And we say, “Mess us up, Lord. Mess us up.”

– Silence –

We’ve brought our gifts to you again today, Lord.
Gifts and tithes and offerings.
Part of our money.
And we know you want to mess with our money.
So, will you take what we’ve brought today, Lord,
take it and really mess with it?
Use it to clean up the messes we make
and to mess up the places we protect.

Use our gifts to plant seeds of love, hope and peace
right here in this place where we are blessed to live.
And out there, in those corners of the world
where blessings are not so obvious,
where hope looks like
a warm bed in a covered place,
like clean water
and healthy babies
and educated children
and stable governments.
Thank you for the work of your kingdom that goes on
in places near and far,
and please, Lord,
mess with us when we forget that
your kingdom work starts in us.

In the name of Jesus,
who meets us in the mess and cleans us up,
and who messes with us in our stuck places
and shakes us up.
Amen.