advent resources 3 – worship trick 51

Wt2as i said before there is a lot of good stuff  out there on advent…
i am making these three written pieces worship trick 51

reflection on mary via the oldbill

She was thirteen or thereabouts,
pregnant,
still a child herself.
No vote, no rights, no husband,
no education,
in a small village in an occupied land.
So why would you,
the Great God of the Universe,
pick this peasant girl?
Why not some queen
dressed in blue and gold
like those statued madonnas?

I think we’ve had it wrong all along.
It’s not that she was so saintly,
so pure,
so serene, so special,
but that she wasn’t special at all.
Maybe she even had zits.
It was God picking someone mundane,
to show that we are all special,
God choosing what is simple
to confound the wise,
the banal
to shock the glitterati,
the castdown
to shame the exalted.

Mary understood,
Why has God chosen me, a handservant?
To pull the mighty down from their thrones,
and raise up the lowly,
to fill the hungry with good things
while the rich walk away empty-handed.

She could have been any downtrodden woman,
broken,
child of oppression.
In fact,
that is who she always is,
always has been,
and those peasant children of hers
have been messiahs,
but we  were too busy
with our census, our mutual funds
our wars
to notice.

be the faith i need via cheryl

I’ve given up waiting, God.
It’s too hard to keep asking ‘how long?’
when I read the prophets and find their questions,
just the same as mine
but thousands of years older.

I read the paper.
I look at the world right outside my window
and even the world that’s inside me
and I have to wonder whether you’ve got it right

and to be honest,
if I’m asking the same questions as Isaiah did –
(when, God, when?) –
then what difference did this birth make?

But it’s the season for miracles

and it will probably take that
for you to wade through my weariness
and theological correctness
and endless justifications of the kind of God you are.

So in spite of my cynicism,
come, Jesus

in spite of my faithlessness,
bring love to the earth

in spite of all I know to be rational and true,
be born again.

Be the faith I need this advent.

an unwrapping via cheryl
(i absolutely love these words of invitation)

We can scarcely believe it, God,
this story of love’s birth in the world.
We rationalise and reason,
we read the headlines and we doubt
and yet, oddly, we hope, desperately,
that it just might be true.

If we’ve come here disbelieving, God
unwrap our doubt to make a space for love
If we’ve come here despairing
unwrap our grief to make a space for joy
If we’ve come here angry
unwrap our resentment to make a space for peace
If we’ve come here nostalgic
unwrap our sentimentality to make a space for life
If we’ve come here cynical,
unwrap our scepticism to make a space for hope

Let your story be real in this space tonight.
Amen.

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Phil G December 18, 2005

    there is an article in Community Care this month giving the story of Mary and Joseph and putting it in today’s context: how would social services see a 14 year old girl turn up in a new town, no father, no family and claiming she had never had sex? Interesting thought: how would the church respond?

  2. Ali Campbell December 19, 2005

    Love the “unwrapping” poem, can I use it?

  3. jonny December 19, 2005

    for sure – if people put it out there on the web use it!

Comments are closed.