Advent 4: Love

This week, Christians will be focusing on love on the fourth Sunday of Advent. That’s when they will light the fourth candle of Advent: the candle of love. Many do so, believing God is love.

Almost everybody talks of love…but few can truly define it.  But what, in all seriousness, is this emotion, this virtue, this state of being called love?

I guess the simplest answer is: Love is a gift; a gift from God. We, as Christians, believe that God’s greatest gift of love was Jesus.

As we read the Christmas narrative in the gospels, an angel appears to Joseph telling him that he will have a son and instructing Joseph to name his son Emmanuel, meaning ‘God with us’. Jesus, born a baby, fully God and fully human, taught us how to love by example.

Jesus’ love was unconditional.  He taught us to love everyone (no small task).

He taught us to love our enemies. He taught us not to discriminate, not to label people, not to play favourites. He taught us to welcome strangers into our homes, to feed people who are hungry, to give clothes to those who need clothing, to visit people in prison and to give a drink of cold water to those who are thirsty.

Simply put, he modelled what it means to really love our neighbours as ourselves. We follow this model as we strive to be the Hand of God in our daily living.

I love Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

For the Fourth Sunday of Advent, I would offer this prayer:


God of all love, thank you for loving us.

Thank you for the Advent and Christmas season, which reminds us of how to love others as ourselves.

Be with all who do not feel love at this time of year; those who live on the streets and in shelters, those who are estranged from family and friends, those who are suffering from substance abuse, those who are in mourning, those who are lost and need a light, those who will be on duty through Christmas – doctors, nurses, first responders.

And God, please do not forget all your creatures, wild or homed.  May all know your love and compassion instead of abuse.

Reveal to them through us that they too are loved. 

Amen

 

In hope, peace, joy and love

Pastor Beryl, DLM

Advent 3: The Candle of Joy (or the Mary Candle)

Singing a New Song

The tradition for the third Sunday of Advent includes lighting a third sometimes pink candle that is a symbol of joy. This Sunday was traditionally called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word for rejoice.

Our focus reading for this Sunday will be Luke 1:47-55, also known as the Song of Mary. Mary is chosen by God for the special task of being Jesus’ mother. Mary is young; she has no status or power in her society, she is an unlikely person for such an important task. Mary’s prophetic song radiates love and celebrates God’s transformative vision of justice that challenges the powerful and lifts up the weak.

 This week, I would like to share with you a new song, which has been adapted for our time in Advent this year.

 Merciful God, May Mary’s song be heard through the ages, 
drowning out the din of Christmas chaos. 

This year, may it be heard by the victims of violence in the political turmoil in South Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Ethiopia, Haiti.

 This year, may it ring in the ears of the traumatised in Iran, China, and Afghanistan. 

This year, may it sing in the hearts of those stuck in the refugee camps of Pakistan, Turkey and Uganda


May it be an earworm song of hope 
for all Indigenous peoples, all standing strong for land rights. 

May it be the rally cry of peace 
for the war-weary of the Ukraine. 

May it nourish hope in the bellies 
of those fearful of failed harvests. 

May it be a song that stirs reverent fear 
in the hearts of those who assume power. 

And may the joyful promises of justice 
and overturned power fill all our hearts 
to overflowing action. Amen.

 

~ Adapted from a post on the Monthly Prayer page of the Christian Aid website. http://www.christianaid.org.uk/

 

This year, as we continue our Advent journey, may we find the courage of Mary to praise God for our blessings and to call out and name those places where power and injustice continue to suppress people.

 

In peace

Pastor Beryl

 

A Glimpse into the 1930s

Recently, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of our current building, which was then Crawford Park United Church. The other day, I stumbled across the bulletin for the service held at the laying of another cornerstone: the one at Verdun United Church, in 1930, over ninety years ago.

This was when they moved from Gordon Avenue to 650 Woodland. In fact the bulletin doesn’t even mention a street address; maybe there were so few buildings on Woodland Avenue at that time that a number would have seemed superfluous! Indeed, between Woodland Ave. and the Douglas Hospital, there would have been mostly empty fields in those days. The next two decades would see a population explosion and a building boom in Verdun.

The Cornerstone-laying service was held on September 20, 1930, and began, as these events seemed to do, with music from the Salvation Army Band. Several visiting ministers participated, including Rev. S.S. Burns of Chalmers United and Rev. G.G Burton of Centenary Church.

Rev. Isaac Norman, who had been with the congregation since 1924, saw the congregation safely into their new home. Sadly, within 18 months, he would be dead at the age of 62.

In a typed letter which seems to be addressed to then Mayor of Verdun Charles M. Allen, Rev. Norman writes, “On behalf of the Trustee Board of this Congregation it gives me great pleasure to ask you to accept this Trowel with which you are to lay the cornerstone of this Church.”

I am almost surprised that the trowel didn’t turn up in a box with the letter and the bulletin, but then, Mayor Allen would have presumably taken it away with him, so there’s no way of knowing what became of it.

This reminds me, though, of the silver ceremonial trowel that a SouthWest member recently found in her basement. It too was dedicated at the laying of a cornerstone , in this case of a Presbyterian church. I imagine the one presented to Mayor Allen may have been similar, by which I mean, better suited to serving cake than turning sod!

As we see in the bulletin, it was Mr. John Way who physically presented the trowel to Mr. Allen at the inaugural service. Mr. Way was a trustee, and an original member of the congregation: it was in his house on Church Ave./de l’Eglise that the earliest Verdun Methodist services were held in 1899. Also on the board of Trustees, as its secretary, is H.M. Way, who I believe was the son of John Way.

As Rev. Norman writes in his letter, Mr. C. Allen was the son of Mr. Joseph Allen, who had himself been Mayor of Verdun earlier in the century, and had laid the cornerstone of the second Verdun Methodist Church on Gordon in 1908.

We know that Mr. H.M. Way was still secretary of the trustees in 1937 because of the last item pictured below, a letter addressed to him and dated April 12th of that year.

“At an emergency meeting of the Choir,” writes Mrs. Wm. Marmon (Act. Sec.), “Sunday after evening service, at which Dr. Joyce and the Choir Committee were present, called to discuss the serious situation of choir members determined to stay away from choir rehearsals and on Sundays, owing to the cold condition of the Chancel, it was duly moved, seconded and unanimously agreed upon, that the Trustee Board be notified of this condition.”

Mrs. Marmon continues, “We pray and ask for their immediate attention to this serious situation which is detrimental to the choir members’ health, and affecting, in more ways than one, faithful service to the Church.”

If any response from the trustees comes to light, I will certainly share it with you.

Amy


2nd Sunday in Advent: Longing for Peace

During the long December weeks of Advent, we anticipate the joy of Christmas morning. But children experience it more deeply. Do you still remember that anticipation?  That mystery?

Our traditional Christmas celebrations—the gifts, the food, the songs, the pageants, properly echo the spiritual joy we feel at knowing that God, Emmanuel is with us; that we are not alone.

But, as we have matured, we begin to long for more than brightly-wrapped gifts under the tree. With adulthood comes a keen awareness of how broken the world is. We see, in ourselves and in those we love, the deep chasms of hurt, of resignation to what we are powerless to change. We cannot wake up and turn on our phones or our televisions without being confronted by the brokenness in our world, and even within our own neighborhoods.

And so, we are filled with longing. We long, not just for joy, but for someone, something to make it all be right.  We long for peace.

In God’s kin-dom peace reigns.  And the peace that Jesus promises is more that the absence of anxiety or conflict.  The peace Jesus promises is wholeness, radical and even a little uncomfortable.

You see, Jesus’ peace exists and spreads when the hungry are fed, when someone uses ecologically sound transport to reduce their carbon footprint, when the fatherless are cared for by a loving community, when enemies reconcile against all the odds, when someone loves their neighbor etc. You know the what I am talking about.

This week, as you walk or bike through the streets of your community, or ride the bus, look for signs of life, the presence of wholeness and the absence of darkness.  Embrace the lights and decorations which you see.  Let them remind you of simpler times - back to the mystery of the Christmases of your childhood.  The mystery of the unknown yet expected.  And, if you can, think thoughts of peace.

For this second Sunday of Advent, I offer this prayer:

Jesus, we know that we desperately need peace; the kind that transforms and lasts.
Help us keep our hearts focused on what Christmas really means. 
Teach us how to maintain humility and open our eyes to see the humanity in every person.
Teach us to breath in peace and to walk in the rhythms of your peace. Amen

 

In peace,

Pastor Beryl

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