Second Sunday of Advent

Year C
RCL

Sermon Audio: December 6, 2009-The Rev’d Warren Hicks

Malachi 3:1-4
Canticle 16
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6

Psalm 5, 6; Amos 3:1-11; 2 Peter 1:12-21; Matt. 21:12-22.

Lesser Feasts & Fasts: Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon.

“Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, “Be lifted up and thrown into the sea”, it will be done. Matthew 21:21
“So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” –– Peter 1:19
Psalm 6:9 “The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will answer my prayer.”

Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, was the founder of a religious community that lasted from 1626 to 1646 in England. The community devoted themselves to a life of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. They taught neighborhood children and cared for the poor in the district. They read the daily offices, including the recital every day of the complete Psalter. Day and night, there was always at least one member of the community kneeling in prayer before the altar.

We are reminded to pray. Pray without ceasing. Pray on every breath. We are reminded to read and study scripture until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts. The reading and study of scripture and prayer without ceasing will fill us and make us whole as we pattern our lives after Jesus. May we all begin again this Advent as we prepare for the coming of our Lord.

PRAYER: Lord God, make us so reflect your perfect love; that, with your deacon Nicholas Ferrar and his household, we may rule ourselves according to your Word, and serve you with our whole heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

First Sunday of Advent

Year C
RCL

Sermon Audio for November 29, 2009-The Rev’d Warren Hicks

Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36

From the ongoing global financial crisis, the humanitarian crises in Sudan, Zimbabwe and Gaza, to the specter of climate change and global warming it is easy to conclude that the world is “going to hell in a handbasket”.

We who point toward the coming of God’s Kingdom to earth we do not have the luxury of abandoning hope.  To see current realities as devoid of hope we have to live in posture where we have to look from the point of view that the height of God’s creation is going to be brought about by human will, skill and ingenuity.  The reality is other than that, however. Thanks be to God!!!!

God will usher in the kingdom at time of God’s choosing and by a means known only to God.  Our role, it seems, is to be alert and willing to do what God would have us do in helping that to happen, or at the very least not working against God’s initiative.  We are, at best, midwives in the process of renewal, redemption and recreation.  God will birth the Kingdom here.  We are to stand at the ready to be of whatever help we may at God’s request and call.

As we look into an Advent season that is meant to remind us of the coming of God’s Kingdom in a helpless, homeless and poor child, may we be ready as the Shepherds and Magi were ready to go where the angels of God call us and to behold with wide-eyed wonder the new thing that God is doing.  It will not be ours to understand, but to experience and ours it will be, not to have nd to hold but to share and revel in.

Blessed Advent…

O Come, O Come Emmanuel, God be with us.