Worship at home

Prayer:

Father God:

As we prepare for Christmas, surviving the hustle and bustle of the shops and the too-easy temptations of on-line buying;

as we reach for the Christmas carol CDs and dust off the Christmas lights from the loft;

as we stir up the Christmas pudding and roll out the Christmas mince pies,

amidst the darkness, deep down, we are looking for the light.

Help us find the truth among the stress and mess.

Forgive us if in our busyness we miss the voice of the prophet, the songs of the angels or the cry of a baby in the ruins of our world.

Hear the Good News God speaks to you: I love you; I forgive you; I restore you to new life.

We rejoice that God comes: not to condemn, but to comfort us; not to scold, but to speak tenderly to us of hope, of love, of joy. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Our gospel is read by a famous name: David Suchet

Reflection:

It’s debatable but let’s assume that Luke’s gospel was written and so heard first by groups of Christians at around 80AD. So the precise name-checking of leaders and officials at the beginning of our reading refers to events a long, long time ago even then. John is writing about who the movers and the shakers were at the start of Jesus ministry 40 or so years earlier. In chapter 2 when he wrote about Jesus’ birth, he had made reference to Caesar Augustus and Quirinius Governor of Syria! You and I might have to look it up to find out who was Mayor of Middlesbrough or Archbishop of Canterbury 80 years ago, but as 1944 is a key date in European history, with DDay celebrations only last June in Normandy, you probably are aware that FD Roosevelt, George VI and Churchill were key figures. Maybe for Luke’s early listeners both Jew and Gentile, all the names of those Romans and the Jews great and not-so-good, rang bells, after all they figure in the oral tales circulating about Jesus with which they were probably familiar but Luke’s main message comes pointedly far away from the corridors and palaces of power at the time.

Luke takes us to the un-welcoming wilderness, to an unprepossessing river and to a scruffy, soon-to-be-executed prophet John. Here is John the Baptist who, echoing the prophet Isaiah, calls for a smooth road to be made so that everyone “all people” shall see God. John points to Jesus whose birth narrative is in chapter 2. Luke’s message is: God regularly chooses people, whom the world sees as insignificant, through whom to do marvellous things. John the Baptist, Mary the illiterate unmarried teenage mother, the no account shepherds at the very bottom of the economic ladder who serve as the audience for the heavenly choir. Again and again, Luke tells us, God chooses people the world can easily ignore, to participate in God’s world-changing, world-saving activity.

His gospel has ordinary people: tax-collectors, fishermen, mother-in law, widows, women, children, lepers, servants… impacted by an encounter with Jesus. This is the “all people” of his gospel.

This reading tells us that we don’t have to be celebrities or rulers or among the rich and powerful to be used by God. Luke reminds his listeners and us, that God is eager to use our talents and abilities and gifts to change the world, even in what seems like very small ways. Luke tells us to see God at work today through ourrelationships, jobs, family and civic life and calls us to make this world more trustworthy and good. So, forget the great and not-so-good of our age, Trump or Biden, Starmer or Badenoch, King Charles III or Welby. What small acts can you do to build a way to remind others that God is at work in and through our lives, for the sake of the world God loves so much?

Prayers:

Eternal God who spoke to John the Baptist through vision and imagination

We pray for those who seek a vision of your future in our today

We pray for those who seek to be part of your eternal plan

We pray for those who put flesh on your word and turn hope into action

Eternal God who spoke in ancient times

Speak your word in our time and give us ears to hear,

Give us words to speak and guide our lives to show your love in ways however small.

Eternal God who created us to love and serve one another, give us today and in the coming week, the gifts and graces which will make us easy to live with.

Give us especially kindness, so that we may miss no opportunity to help, to cheer, to comfort and to encourage those we meet.

Eternal God, help us to live each day that the world may be a happier place because we passed through it. Through Jesus Christ our Lord

Our Father…

Hymn: Wise men seeking Jesus

https://youtu.be/lM-HzKUEvyY?si=eMgIgIKtUv5_BKFD

Members and friends of Oxford Methodist Circuit

Worship at Home - By Ruth Lewis

Preparing the Way

Prepare ye, the way of the Lord

Make Way

On Jordan's bank

Hymn: Wise men seeking Jesus

Blessing:

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