Going home is never as easy as it seems it should be. Sometimes we feel like we’ve outgrown those who are at home; sometimes home evokes memories of failure or neglect or abuse. When we celebrate home at this time of the year, we need to be aware that there are many who are not excited about the image or that idea. So, how do we embrace them and redefine home in a new and more kin-dom-like experience of peace and hope?

This week, we want to provide an opportunity to face a difficult past and find grace and forgiveness and an opportunity to start anew. We can face our fears if we know we have the support of the loving community of faith. We can redefine home into something more accepting, more loving, if we live that experience whenever we gather for worship and fellowship in this place, with these people. It’s good, after all, no matter our past; it’s good to be at home.

Meditation for Gathering

When Power Is Under Negotiation
(Luke 3:1-6)

In the fifteenth year
During the reign
When he was governor
And he was ruler of that region

And he was in charge of that place
During the priesthood
Under the leadership

The Word of the Lord came

The word of God always comes in the year
During the reign
Under the leadership
During the priesthood
When that one ruled there
And this one was in charge here

It always comes in particular places,
When power is under negotiation –
When we don’t know whether to trust
The people with power, or the power itself

In the fifteenth or twelfth or second year or month or season

Repentance is the order of the day, and we all need to repent

Because the word of the Lord comes to call us to repentance,
To make the crooked straight
The mountains low
The valleys high
And all of us look
For God’s salvation

In the fifteenth year

The second month
The third day
This very moment

Valerie Bridgeman Davis, The Africana Worship Book for Year C (Discipleship Resources, 2008), 24-25.

Call to Worship

Pastor: O come, O come, Immanuel,
People: And be light for our darkness.
Pastor: Be comfort in our grief,
Pastor: Be a friend for our loneliness,
People: An oasis for our searching.
Pastor: O come, O come, Immanuel,
People: Restore our joy, heal our wounds, and bring us peace.

Dr. Derek C. Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries, Discipleship Ministries of the UMC

Choral Reading

One Day
(Luke 3:5)

(Requires 4 readers; may be used as a Call to Worship with the congregation joining readers 1-4 on the last line of each stanza.)

Reader 1: One day
Readers 1 and 2: One day
Readers 1, 2, and 3: One day
Readers 1, 2, 3, and 4: One day every valley gonna be filled.

Reader 2: One day
Readers 2 and 3: One day
Readers 2, 3, and 4: One day
Readers 1, 2, 3, and 4: One day every mountain and hill gonna be made low,

Reader 3: One day
Readers 3 and 4: One day
Readers 1, 3, and 4: One day
Readers 1, 2, 3, and 4: One day all the crooked gonna be made straight,

Reader 4: One day
Readers 1 and 4: One day
Readers 1, 2, and 4: One day
Readers 1, 2, 3, and 4: One day all the rough ways gonna be made smooth;

Reader 1: One day
Readers 1 and 2: One day
Readers 1, 2, and 3: One day
Readers 1, 2, 3, and 4: One day God’s gonna do it! We’re all gonna see it!.

Tony Peterson, The Africana Worship Book for Year C (Discipleship Resources, 2008), 113.

Waiting for Jesus: A Prayer of Lament

“The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—
indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.” Malachi 3:1

Lord Jesus,
many of us are waiting for you:
the war-torn are waiting for peace,
the hungry are waiting for bread.
the refugees are waiting for a homeland,
the sick are waiting for healers.
Have you forgotten us?
O Lord, come quickly, we pray.
Amen.

A prayer from Sudan, 21st century. Posted on Bruce Prewer’s Homepage, http://www.bruceprewer.com/b_her.htm Reposted: https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2015/09/prayer-waiting-for-jesus.html.

Advent Prayer

God in this season
suspended between hope and fulfillment,
let us never forget what you have done.
May we be overwhelmed by your mercy,
which flows in wave after wave.
May we be honest about the darkness within us,
and perceptive of the light around us.
May we make straight the path for the Lord,
that together we may see God’s glory revealed.

Adapted from weekly Advent reflections by Mark Pierson, http://adventinart.org. Reposted: https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2013/08/advent-prayer-between-hope-and.html

Prayer of Invocation

(inspired by Isaiah 40:3-5, Mark 1:2-3, Luke 3:4-6)

Loving God,
be to us as a bulldozer of the spirit.
Clear your road in us;
clear a path through the detritus of possessions and obsessions.
Thrust aside our divided aims and devious games.
Topple the ramparts of pride and the doubts that deride.
Make a highway on which Christ may come
and take possession of the whole territory of our being.
To the glory of your name, we pray.
Amen!

Written by Bruce Prewer, and posted on Bruce Prewer’s Home Page, http://www.bruceprewer.com. Reposted: https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2012/11/opening-prayer-prepare-way.html.

Closing Commissioning

Can you be a voice crying in the wilderness?
Can you proclaim that God is active in the world?
Maybe?
The time is near, of the crowning of the year.
We sing with angels,
setting the roadways and the buildings humming
As people who are being changed,
we go into a world that is being changed.
Ready to share the Good News
that the long-expected Jesus is coming,
that we are being freed from whatever binds us.
Glory be to God!
Who walks with us, sings with us, and struggles with us,
each and every day. Amen