November 28, 2021
First Sunday of Advent Welcome! We’re so glad you have joined us today! Gathering Gathering Song Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus Fernando Ortega https://youtu.be/0dmO8UPlWoo Announcements Tuesday, 10:00 AM Advent Study at Sunapee Thursday, 7:00 PM Advent Study via Zoom Elisabeth Smith is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Advent Study Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86066732644?pwd=emorNUc2RlJkWEN4UUdrZHJZY0o2Zz09 Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 One tap mobile +19292056099,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (New York) +13017158592,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (Washington DC) Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcyTFEtQFq Opening Prayer Lord, have you really been long expected, or is it part of our problem that we have ceased to expect you? That we don’t expect you to intervene in our lives or help us with our problems or show us your will for our futures? Renew our sense of expectation, we pray. Let the carols of Christmas and the stories of your birth rekindle in us a feeling for your role in our lives and for the difference you can make in our world. We pray in your name. Amen. Lighting of the Advent Candle: Peace Peace is the characteristic of Advent that stills us, calms us, and centers us in the purpose of God. The candle of peace is a light of God’s security, shining beyond all earthly guarantees. It is time we set flame to this kind of peace. We are reconciled by the grace of God to Christ. Peace enters our hearts through faith. We are called to be peacemakers, forgiving, reconciling, going the second mile, then doing it all over again. The peace of God approaches. Behold the advent of a great new day. Carol It Came Upon the Midnight Clear Jars of Clay https://youtu.be/tJbNRtPVjZI Hearing the Word Scripture Amos 5:21, 23-24 I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (NRSV) . Sermon The Heart That Grew Three Sizes 1 The Most Wonderful Time of the Year? It’s the first CD I put in the player every year on the day after Thanksgiving. The Andy Williams Christmas Album from back in the 1960s. The one I grew up listening to, the one my mom played on the record player in our living room. And the song that I listen for that makes it Christmas again? “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” And I sing along with him: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year, with the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you ‘Be of good cheer.’ It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s the hap-happiest season of all, with those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings when friends come to call. It’s the hap-happiest season of all.” But last year it was really hard to sing, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” I wanted to sing it. In fact, I started playing Christmas music at the beginning of November, not even waiting until after Thanksgiving. My Christmas tree was up and decorated in my office the first week of November. The year of COVID was so hard and depressing that I just needed something to cheer me up, some lights, some carols, some joy. But it was really hard to muster up the feelings. More often than not, what I was hearing in my heart were the words to another song. It is also a song that is heard at Christmas, on a TV special that also came about in the early 60s, when I was just a little girl. “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch, you really are a heel. You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you’re as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch. You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel. You’re a monster, Mr. Grinch. Your heart’s an empty hole, your brain is full of spiders, you’ve got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch. I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole. You’re a vile one, Mr. Grinch, you have termites in your smile. You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Grinch. Given the choice between the two of you I’d take the seasick crocodile. You’re a foul one, Mr. Grinch. You’re a nasty, wasty skunk. Your heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch. The three words that best describe you are, and I quote: ‘Stink. Stank. Stunk.’” And, truth be told, sometimes I not only heard the song about the Grinch, I kind of felt Grinchy myself. And to be quite honest, sometimes this year that Grinchy feeling has reared its ugly head, too. And I have come to realize that for many people, this holiday season is not the most wonderful time of the year that it might have been in years past. For over 350,000 Americans, there is a newly empty chair – or more than one – at the table this year due to losing a loved one to COVID. And there are other empty chairs that belonged to loved ones lost to other causes. For others, life has changed significantly due to a lost job or a change in jobs. For still others, there is less income, so there will be less gift-giving this year, which will be disappointing to children. Maybe some people are just depressed and they don’t even know why. In the story of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, we are told that the Grinch hated Christmas. He didn’t just dislike it, he didn’t just not think it was the most wonderful time of the year, he actively and passionately hated it. We aren’t told why he hated it; we are just told that he hated Christmas. As a child, I know that I was so shocked that anyone could hate Christmas! It was inconceivable to me. But it was true for the Grinch. He hated everything that he knew about Christmas, as he observed the way the Whos celebrated it. As Matt Rawle puts it, the Grinch snarled at their stockings and growled at their greenery, and he only heard noise when they sang their songs. The Grinch hated Christmas so much, that he managed somehow to take something beautiful and make it ugly. Rawle writes, “Christmas is beautiful. Christmas is profound … but the Grinch’s hate for the Whos meant that the only solution that would satisfy his small heart would be to take what they love, use it as a weapon, and forever mar their memory.” Have you ever known anyone like that, someone who could take something as beautiful as Christmas and ruin it? I have certainly heard of people like that, who somehow take delight in spoiling Christmas for those around them. Their own meanness and hatred for the spirit of Christmas provokes them to make sure that no one around them can enjoy it, and they complain or make unkind remarks or start arguments or otherwise make nuisances of themselves. It is really a sad thing for the people around them, but also a sad thing to be that miserable. The Grinch thought he had a plan to put a stop to Christmas, a perfect plan to keep Christmas from happening. He would steal the Whos’ gifts and trees and food for the feast. Then on Christmas morning, instead of their joyful singing, he would hear weeping and wailing. And so he snuck into Whoville, and went from house to house, stripping them bare of every decoration, gift, and canned good. He loaded them up on his sleigh, and removed them up the mountain. There he was ready to push them over the edge to destroy them all when he heard a sound coming from Whoville as the sun rose. But it wasn’t the sound he was expecting. Instead of weeping and wailing, the Grinch heard singing. The Whos were singing their Christmas song. Even though they had nothing with which to celebrate, they still sang with joy in their hearts and voices. And so the Grinch’s expectations were shattered. We can have our expectations go unmet at Christmas sometimes, too. Maybe every year we think to ourselves, “This will be the best Christmas ever.” But every year we are disappointed. People aren’t as excited about their gifts as we hoped they would be. Time with family isn’t as we planned it to be. Things don’t go as we want them to go. And we end up dissatisfied. What are your expectations for this holiday season? Are you setting your expectations too high, maybe because things were so less than perfect last year? I know many of us weren’t able to be with family at all last Christmas. What might happen if your expectations are not met this year? Will you get all Grinchy about it? Will you become bitter or angry? Or will you be able to allow your heart to grow another size bigger? This first Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of peace. The Grinch was not someone who seemed to enjoy much peace. He was too busy hating and plotting and scheming. The truth is, peace has to begin in your own heart. You have to make peace with yourself before you can be at peace with anyone else. The Grinch was clearly not finding any inner peace. He was too busy worrying about what the Whos were doing and not doing and how it affected him. When you can love yourself, and have an inner peace, then you can love others and be at peace with them. This year Christmas may not seem like the most wonderful time of the year. But Advent is the time to prepare ourselves to celebrate it with joy in our hearts. It’s not really about jingle belling and everyone telling you to be of good cheer; it’s not about the decorations and the gifts and the toys. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. It’s about God’s gift of love to the world. When we understand that, and realize the miracle of it, then we are able to celebrate it with the joy that it creates in our hearts. And we are able to feel the peace of God, which passes all understanding. Carol Still, Still, Still The Mormon Tabernacle Choir https://youtu.be/5rflf6NEQ6I Praying Together Concerns and Celebrations: Please share any concerns or celebrations you may have with Pastor Elisabeth. Please note if you do not want this shared with this faith community. Pastoral Prayer Come, Lord Jesus, into a world that is twisted and broken by sin, that lives in fear and hate and global pandemic. Come with your strength and honesty, your purity and power, your healing and your grace, and teach us to follow you. Give courage and vision to our leaders, that they may give us peace and not war, true leadership and not sound bites. Show us how to prefer gentleness to brutality and civility to outrage. Let us speak once more of faith, hope, and love, and follow the paths that lead to life everlasting. Come, Lord Jesus, and renew your spirit in each of us as we wait before you. Lift our hearts at the sound of your voice. Let illness flee and selfishness depart. Give wholeness and joy and a desire to love one another. Come, Lord Jesus, and let the truth of your Incarnation fill our souls and minds. Banish illusion and unveil reality to our tired lives. Let us see you in your glory, you who were born in a stable bare and crucified upon a tree. Open our eyes to angels, our ears to hymns of praise. Make this Christmas the best one ever; it is much needed by our world. Come, Lord Jesus, for we are your people and we wait for you now. (John Killinger, adapted) We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught his disciples to pray: The Lord’s Prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Responding Offertory: You may send your offerings to Grantham United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 152, Grantham, NH, 03753. Doxology UMH #95 Prayer of Dedication Gracious God, in this season of giving many of us will give a great deal to persons and causes around us. And yet, if we do not give ourselves to you, our gifts are empty of meaning. Help us now, as we bring our offerings, to open our lives to you, and worship you fully, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Carol Once in Royal David’s City King’s College Cambridge https://youtu.be/TT3cfXd3Shk Benediction Now may the God who revealed himself in a babe born in a manger reveal himself to you this week in the simplest acts and least likely people in your lives. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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November 7, 2021
Welcome! We’re so glad you have joined us today! Gathering Gathering Song For All the Saints https://youtu.be/UkaocGFsA6k Announcements Thursday, 7:00 PM Zoom Worship Here is your link: Elisabeth Smith is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Bible Study Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86066732644?pwd=emorNUc2RlJkWEN4UUdrZHJZY0o2Zz09 Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 One tap mobile +19292056099,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (New York) +13017158592,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (Washington DC) Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcyTFEtQFq Opening Prayer We give you thanks, O God, for all who have died in the faith – for the memory of their words and deeds and all that they accomplished in their time, for the joyful hope of reunion with them in the world to come, and for our communion with them now; in your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. All Saints Litany After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice saying: Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb. Let us give thanks for these brothers and sisters in Christ to whom God has granted rest from their labors. Allen DeAngelo Elaine Aho (Others from the congregation) Almighty God, we give you thanks for these your servants whom we remember today. Grant us grace to follow them as they followed Christ. Bring us, with them, to those things no eye has seen, nor ear heard, which you have prepared for those who love you. Give us faith to look beyond touch and sight, and seeing that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, enable us to run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Bring us at last to your eternal peace, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Song Tonight I’ll Light a Candle Chuck Messinger https://youtu.be/hbqmeTzItYM Hearing the Word Scripture Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1 O my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me. Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King no longer there? … The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.” Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears; I would weep day and night for the slain of my people. . Sermon A Time to Mourn Ever since September 11, I have been troubled by something. I have been upset by the fact that there is hardly any attention being paid to the fact that, as of Friday, some 747,970 Americans have died of COVID-19. I think that September 11 observances are very important and meaningful. But as I watched people gather in New York, and listened as the names of the almost 3,000 people killed that day were read, I said to myself, an average of 1,174 people have died of COVID every day since February 6, 2020, when the first COVID patient succumbed to the virus. That means that it takes less than 3 days for us to have a 9/11 in COVID deaths. Why, then, is there so little mention of their names? Why is there no memorial or monument being designed to commemorate their passing? Why have we taken so little time to mourn so great a loss? According to information I gathered from the website of the Department of Veterans Affairs, there have been a total of 658,105 American soldiers killed in battle from the American Revolution through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It took more than 200 years for that number to accumulate. It has taken less than 2 years for these 747,970 Americans to die of COVID. And it seems to me that, for a myriad of reasons, their deaths have not been acknowledged or mourned sufficiently. Drew Faust, President Emerita of Harvard University, wrote in September of 2020, “How does a society grapple with such loss? Two hundred thousand dead is not just an absence; it is a presence – the continuing reality of the hole, of the rent in the fabric of family and society, which these deaths leave behind. We struggle to find the meaning of such loss, and we seek a community of shared mourning, an acknowledgement that we are not alone in our grief … We lack both rituals and monuments to process our grief, and we improvise to name and honor those who have died. Mourning is a process that enables the bereaved to work through loss and adjust to their changed lives. In this pandemic, the mourning process has been arrested, inhibited, distorted in ways that leave us as individuals and as a nation with unresolved grief that will shape us for years to come.” In a similar vein, Evelyn Hammonds, Chair of Harvard’s Department of the History of Science, wrote in the same journal, “As the U.S. approached 200,000 deaths from the pandemic of COVID-19 I kept asking, where are the memorials? Where can we gather to honor those who have died? Where can we talk about the ways these lost lives shaped ours? … I watch news shows that end with short vignettes of the lives of people who have died and what these individuals mean to their families and communities. But I have not experienced a sense of loss on a grand scale that the number 200,000 deaths marks. I have not seen daily scenes of funerals or other ceremonies marking these deaths. Yet the death count grows daily. And of course, what has been lost is not just these specific individual deaths; it is also the bonds between all those who were connected to those who have died – their families, friends, and communities, and those who nursed them, held their hands, delivered sad news to their families and those who have performed last rites. Our world has been irrevocably changed since January (2020), and we here in the U.S. have yet to find a way to make this change visible, to deal with the loss, to grieve and to mourn … We need new rituals and new forms of community, not on screens but in public spaces where we can stand together …” As I wrestled and struggled with my own sense of mourning and grief, and with an awareness of the tremendous amount of grief being held in the hearts of people around me, I was drawn to the book of Jeremiah, to the words of “the weeping prophet.” Jeremiah lived in a time when the people were suffering and were about to suffer even more. They had brought their suffering on themselves by their sinfulness, but that did not make it any easier to bear. And it was painful for Jeremiah to have to tell the people he loved that they would suffer more in the future. It was hard for him to watch the suffering they were going through in the present. He wept and he mourned on their behalf. He said, “O my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me. Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away. “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King no longer there? … Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears. I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.” On a personal level, COVID has been responsible for the fact that people have been denied the very rituals of mourning that they need to comfort them, even if their loved one has died of something other than COVID. There could be no large gathering of family and friends at the funeral. Early in 2020, I conducted several graveside services where attendance was limited to 10 people who had to be socially distanced, even if they were members of the same family. There were no visits at the home from friends or family, no bringing of food from church members. Hundreds of thousands of people were denied proper funerals or memorial services, and their families were denied the company of their broader community. Cassandra Rollins lost her 38-year-old daughter to COVID. After more than a year, her grief is still unrelenting. She is suffering from what is called “complicated grief,” or prolonged grief disorder. She has suffered depression and panic attacks, and is fearful for the safety of her other daughters. She is afraid that someone else will die, and says that everyone she knows has lost someone to COVID. She says, “The hardest part is that my kid died alone. If it weren’t for this COVID, I could have been right there with her in the ambulance and emergency room. I could have held her hand … People holler about not being able to have a birthday party. We couldn’t even have a funeral.” At the point where we were at 500,000 deaths, researchers estimated that more than five million Americans were in mourning and more than 43,000 children had lost a parent to COVID. But those numbers may not be accurate. In a poll in March of this year, about 20% of Americans said that they had lost a relative or close friend to COVID; that would mean about 65 million people are in mourning. Holly Prigerson, co-director of the Cornell Center for Research on End-of-Life Care in New York, says that the scale and complexity of pandemic-related grief have created a public health burden that could deplete our physical and mental health for years. It could lead to more instances of depression, substance abuse, suicide, sleep disorders, heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, and impaired immune function. She writes, “Unequivocally, grief is a public health issue … You could call it the grief pandemic.” Vickie Mays, Professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA, writes, “If we don’t find ways to bring attention to the emotional suffering that people are coping with right now, it will turn into more serious problems.” And I would agree with that assessment wholeheartedly. When people are not free to express their emotions, but hold them inside, they eat away at them and seem bigger than they really are. It’s impossible to work through the stages of grief if you are not finding healthy ways to express your grief. And when our culture seems to be in a state of denial over the number of COVID deaths, or at least seems to be ignoring them, it makes it hard for those who are grieving to feel that their loved ones are being shown respect. It’s as if everyone else is only thinking about life getting back to “normal,” when they know that their life will never be normal again. When you add to all of this the political aspects of COVID, grieving the loss of someone who died from COVID becomes even more complicated. Kyle Dixon died at the age of 27 from COVID back in January of this year. He was a guard at a state prison in a conservative county in rural Pennsylvania. Kyle unfortunately had believed a lot of the misinformation that was out there: that masks don’t work; that COVID is a hoax; that only old people or people who are already sick get COVID. So he chose not to wear a mask most of the time or to practice social distancing. Kyle’s sister, Stephanie, says that even when Kyle was in the hospital struggling to breathe, there were members of the family still repeating this kind of misinformation. And his sister, Jennifer, says that she wished that they had understood what he endured before he died. When he passed away, they made a point of putting in his obituary that he had died of COVID and that he “had so much more of life to live and COVID-19 stopped his bright future.” In the midst of all of this mourning and grief, where do we find ways to express our grief in meaningful ways? Without a national memorial or monument, are their ways to remember our loved ones, to acknowledge their significance in our lives, to proclaim that they existed and their lives mattered? Hilary Krieger found a way to do it after her father died from COVID last year. She said that when her father was in college, he had invented a word to describe when a citrus fruit accidentally squirts you in the eye: orbisculate. He kept using it, and so as she was growing up, Hilary assumed that it was a real word. Then one day while eating oranges, a friend of hers from college challenged her on it. They settled their argument with a $5 bet over whether the word was in the dictionary. Hilary was shocked to open up her trusty book and discover that she had lost the bet. At the time, she was upset that her father had fooled her. But as she was telling people about her father’s death, she kept coming back to the story of his invented word. It seemed to capture his sense of humor and his quality of originality, things that she wanted to remember and communicate about him. So she and her brother decided that they were going to get this word into the dictionary. They launched what they called “Mission Orbisculate.” As part of their effort to spread the word, they decided to sell t-shirts to raise money for a charity. They are still working to get this word recognized. Not everyone has the strength or creativity to pull themselves out of grief in this manner. And some people’s grief is much more complex – those who suffer from prolonged grief disorder – and they need counseling in order to cope with what they are experiencing. But through it all, and for each one of us, there is the power of God to draw on. There is a balm in Gilead; there is a physician there. He is our Comforter in sorrow, our hope in our time of grief. And he can heal the wound of his people. Song Beauty Will Rise Steven Curtis Chapman https://youtu.be/rJynET3b3PM Praying Together Concerns and Celebrations: Please share any concerns or celebrations you may have with Pastor Elisabeth. Please note if you do not want this shared with this faith community. Pastoral Prayer Today, O God, we recognize all the blessed saints of your kingdom who have lived and gone before us into their heavenly home. Some of them, like Augustine, Martin Luther, John Wesley, and Mother Teresa, were famous. Most of them were not. Most of them were simple, ordinary folks like ourselves, people whose lives and labors were spent in quiet obscurity, without fanfare or special notice. Yet it was their faithfulness through the ages that kept the church alive and assisted in the continuous preaching of your word. They gave their time and effort and often their meager resources to guarantee the ongoing of this community we now enjoy. They loved Christ more than they loved themselves. We are vastly indebted to them. We thank you for their lives, their witnesses, and their heritage. Help us to be worthy recipients of what they have handed down to us, so that we might preserve the traditions and values of our faith for those who will come after us. Give us the same spirit of sacrifice that enabled them to fashion the church as they left it, and the imagination to represent Christ acceptably in the world. Let our lives become monuments of trust and reliability to those who follow us, in order that your kingdom may be more fully known here on earth. (John Killinger, adapted) We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught his disciples to pray: The Lord’s Prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Responding Offertory: You may send your offerings to Grantham United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 152, Grantham, NH, 03753. Doxology UMH #95 Prayer of Dedication Holy and loving God, we acknowledge that tears and smiles are both an important part of life. May these gifts be instrumental in wiping away tears and bringing smiles to your children throughout the world. Amen. Song When I Get Where I’m Going Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton https://youtu.be/yYHT-TF4KO4 *Benediction May God, who has given us, in the lives of his saints, patterns of holy living and victorious dying, strengthen your faith and devotion and enable you to bear witness to the truth against all adversity. Amen. |
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