Gospel

visit with us, too

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
​The Meeting of Mary and Elisabeth, Bloch 1866, wikimedia commons
 
Lord Jesus, this advent season we remember
  the visitation of Mary and Elizabeth
    both women miraculously pregnant.
We delight as we recall John the Baptist leaping for joy
    inside Elizabeth’s womb!

Make plans to visit with us too,
   that we might be filled with joyful expressions!
Impart within us the same awareness that John had
    that we might always sense your presence.
Bless us with the same knowledge
    that you are truly the lamb of God
        who takes away the sin of the world;
    that you are the Messiah, and we are not;
    and that you must increase, and we must decrease.

Invite us to join with John and prepare for your coming.

Eric Mathews
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Luke 1:41-44

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
    the baby leaped in her womb,
    and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
In a loud voice she exclaimed:
    Blessed are you among women,
        and blessed is the child you will bear!
    But why am I so favored,
        that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
    As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
        the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

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When have you rejoiced in God’s presence most vividly?
What aspect of your life needs to decrease 
    so that the influence of Jesus can increase?

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help us walk with Joseph

/ Eric Mathews / 1 Comment
The Dream of Saint Joseph, Champaigne, c.1642, The National Gallery UK
 
Help us to walk with Joseph
   into the darkness,
   the not knowing.
Having to marry the mystery
   before everything else.
Surrendering all claim
   to outcomes or knowledge of them,
committing to the love at hand,
   and it was enough.
The very undoing that confounded him
   was the love that found him.
The answer he sought was no answer,
   but only presence,
this woman who also could not be afraid,
this child who could not be revealed
   until after he said yes,
this God, who was not at the end of the journey
   but his companion on the journey
   and the dark road itself, Emmanuel.

We have to say yes
   before anything, don’t we?
Joseph, walk with me.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes, American Methodist pastor
unfoldinglight.net
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Matthew 1:20

But after he had considered this,
an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,
    because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
 
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When has God brought you to a place that was unknown to you?  
Looking back, how did God shape you on the journey?

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Create in me an empty space

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
mosaic by Christ City Church, Memphis, TN
 
 
With prayerful pleas
   and Advent songs of longing,
   I await the birth of God’s Anointing One.
Come, O Gift of heaven’s harmony,
   and attune my third ear,
   the ear of my heart,
   so that I may hear,
   just as Mary, faithful woman of Israel, heard.
O God, the time is short,
   these days are too few,
   as I prepare for the feast
   of the birth of Mary’s son.
Busy days, crowded to the brim,
   with long lists of gifts to buy,
   and things that must be done.
Show to me, also your highly favored child,
   how to guard my heart
   from noise and hurry’s whirl,
   so that I might hear your voice
   calling my heart to create an empty space
   that might be pregnant with heaven’s fire.
Quiet me within,
   clothe my body in peacefulness,
   that your Word
   once again may take flesh-
   this time, with me-
   as once it did in holy Mary,
   long Advent days ago.

Edward Hays 1931-2016 American Catholic Priest
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Luke 1:34-35

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered,
The Holy Spirit will come on you,
    and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
___________________________
 
How do you quiet your heart to hear God’s voice this advent season?
Plan a time this week to pray and listen for God to speak to you.

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Give us faith to believe what is true

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
The Annunciation, Caravaggio, via Wikimedia Commons
 
O Holy God of Promise,
    we so often place our trust in the things we can see,
    and touch, and easily believe.
But you did not ask us to believe what is easy,
    you have asked us to believe what is true!
Forgive us, Holy One, when we doubt the ways you work.
Forgive us when we find it hard to believe an ancient story.
Forgive us when we question how you chose to enter the world,
    born as one of us.
Forgive our lack of faith and belief
    in ways which seem so impossible to believe.
Help us to look in faith, open our belief, and set aside our doubts
    that you sent your Son, born of a virgin –
        the one who has come to set us all free.
We offer these prayers in the name of your Son,
Emmanuel, God with us.  
Amen.

Jan Brooks, Presbyterian Pastor in Kansas
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Luke 1:26-29
 
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, 
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 
    to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, 
    a descendant of David. 
The virgin’s name was Mary. 
The angel went to her and said, 
    “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words 
    and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 
 
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What part of the Christmas story is the most difficult for you to believe?
Share this with God, and perhaps a trusted friend.

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Psalm of the Razor’s Edge

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Knife’s Edge, Katahdin by , via flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
 
 
The path we walk to you, O God, is narrow,
    as narrow as a razor’s edge.
The Way is only as wide as a human hair,
    and many are those who lose their balance.
    on such a thin and uncertain edge.
Each day, like a circus aerialist,
    I walk the tightrope of the command,
    “Come, follow me.”
Who can stride safely on such a narrow bridge,
    which swings between heaven and earth?
Downward is the pull of self;
    it tugs at me: “for me, for me… me.”
Heavy the gravity of the urge:
    “I want, I want, I want.”
The Way is narrow and high:
    holy and brave are those
    who climb upon the razor’s edge,
    swaying from the left to the right or right to left,
    straining too hard or relaxing too much.
Holy are those who fall
    but rise again
    and climb back upon the narrow edge
    and begin again and again.
The Way is narrow and high,
    and high are those who walk it,
    one small step at a time,
    intoxicated by risk,
    joyous at the fine balancing line
    of the razor’s edge.
 
Edward Hays, 1931-2016, Catholic Priest in the Archdiocese of Kansas City
 
__________________________
 
 
Enter through the narrow gate. 
For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, 
    and many enter through it. 
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, 
    and only a few find it.

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Prayer before reading Scripture

/ Eric Mathews / 1 Comment
Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles, by Duccio via Wikimedia Commons
 
We praise and thank you
    glorious Lord Jesus Christ,
    for being present among us and in us.
In us you praise the Father
    with the voice of the Spirit,
    whom you have given us.
Lord, may this voice of the Spirit
    be roused in us
    as we listen to the words of Scripture
    in a manner that is worthy and fitting,
    appropriate to the meaning of the text and
    in harmony with what is revealed to us.
Make us ready to recognize
    how we can correspond
    to the teaching and example proposed to us.
For you are God, living and reigning
    for ever and ever. Amen.
 
Carlo Maria Martini, SJ, 1927-2012,Italian Biblical Scholar
 
________________________
 
 
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. 
He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. 
He will tell you about the future. 
He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.
All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said,     
  ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’

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Come Holy Spirit

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Pentecost Light by Lawrence OP via flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
 
Come, oh come, most gracious comforter of afflicted souls
    and helper in tribulations.
Come, cleanser of sins and healer of wounds.
Come, strengthener of the weak,
    comforter of the downtrodden.
Come, teacher of the humble
    and destroyer of the proud.
Come, devoted father of the orphan,
    gentle protector of widows.
Come, hope of the poor, reviver of the sick.
Come, stay of the navigator,
    post of refuge for the shipwrecked.
Come, singular glory of those who live,
    singular salvation of those who die.
 
Come, most Holy Spirit, come,
    and have mercy on me.
Make me fit for you.
And graciously reach down to me 
    so that my insignificance 
    may be pleasing to your greatness,
    my weakness to your strength,
    according to the multitude of your mercies
through Jesus Christ my Savior
who lives with the Father in unity 
and reigns forever and ever. 
Amen.
 
Anselm of Canterbury, c. 1033-1109, Benedictine monk and archbishop
 
________________________
 
 
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, 
    how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

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Spirit, breathe your story of truth into ours

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Geralt via Pixabay
 
Truth-telling, wind-blowing, life-giving spirit –
    we present ourselves now
        for our instruction and guidance;
    breathe your truth among us,
        breathe your truth of deep Friday loss,
            your truth of awesome Sunday joy.
 
Breath your story of death and life
    that our story may be submitted to your will for life.
We pray in the name of Jesus risen to new life –
        and him crucified.
 
Walter Brueggemann, 1933 -2025,  American Protestant Old Testament theologian
Prayers for a Privileged People
 
________________________________
 
 
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. 
He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, 
    and he will tell you what is yet to come. 
He will glorify me because it is from me
    that he will receive what he will make known to you. 
All that belongs to the Father is mine. 
That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.
 

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Prayer for renewal

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image by Bill Kasman, CC BY-SA 2.0

 
Comfortable and well-worn are my daily paths
    whose edges have grown gray
    with constant use.
My daily speech is a collection of old words
    worn down at the heels 
    by repeated use.
My language and deeds, addicted to habit,
    prefer the taste of old wine,
    the feel of weathered skin.
Come and awaken me, Spirit of the new.
Come and refresh me, Creator of green life.
Come and inspire me, Risen Son,
    you who make all things new:
    I am too young to be dead,
    to be stagnant in spirit.
High are the walls that guard the old,
    the tried and secure ways of yesterday
    that protect me from the dreaded plague,
    the feared heresy of change.
For all change is a danger to the trusted order,
    the threadbare traditions that are maintained
    by the narrow ruts of rituals.
Yet how can an everlastingly new covenant
    retain its freshness and vitality
    without injections of the new,
    the daring, and the untried?
Come, O you who are ever-new,
    wrap my heart in new skin,
    ever flexible to be reformed by your Spirit.
Set my feet to fresh paths this day:
    inspire me to speak original and life-giving words
    and to creatively give shape to the new.
Come and teach me how to dance with delight
    whenever you send a new melody my way.
 
Edward Hays, 1931-2016, Catholic Priest in the Archdiocese of Kansas City
 
__________________________
 
 
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. 
Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out 
    and the wineskins will be ruined.  
No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.

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On shore

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Christ Appears on the Shore of Lake Tiberias – James Tissot via Wikimedia
Meal of Our Lord and the Apostles – James Tissot via Wikimedia
 
The blame forgotten,
shame covered,
Peter leapt into the sea.
Where tears once drowned hope
and denials became despair and self loathing,
his eyes had seen that figure on the shore,
that body once strung across the stained wood of execution.

A revived fishing business,
the dull depression of remembered cowardice,
of failed courage,
bad dreams of abandonment,
a deep sea of pain,
now splashed with new hope.

Peter would make it to the shore.

He is risen.
Peter is risen from the dead.
Three times denied.
Three times invited to love again
by him who three times prayed his own despair
and, three times mocked ‘mid three crosses,
in three days rose to resurrect Peter.

Peter made it to the shore.

Others made it to the shore.
They ate together,
a fellowship of grace and rehabilitation,
of forgiveness and hope,
a symbol of the persistence of divine love,
also for you and me.

 
William Loader, 1944- , Australian minister and professor
 
_____________________________________
 
 
Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee.
It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), 
Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.
“I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” 
So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, 

    but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”

“No,” they answered.

He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” 

When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” 

As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” 
    he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.
The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, 
    for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.
When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

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