Year A, First Sunday after Christmas

Theme: Accompaniment: It takes all of us.

Quotes

It was no messenger or angel but one’s presence that saved them.
Isaiah 63:9 Amended

Be here now.
Ram Dass

Revised Common Lectionary Readings

Alternate Readings

Words to Introduce the Readings

We celebrate a new year by singing out the old year and making commitments for the new. It is a time of reflection and celebration. And while these readings may seem total downers in the midst of this celebratory time, their intent is to lift up what is most precious to each of us: the importance of being there for one another.

For the information of the Reader

Bonnie Badenoch, Ph.D., LMFT is the co-founder of Center for Brain-Wise Living, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering awareness of the brain, mind, and relationships in the service of creating a more awake and compassionate world. You may wish to introduce this reading with the following: In this reading, Dr. Bonnie Badenoch shares why it is so difficult to connect with people who have experienced trauma. But her words extend to connecting with those we may not consider traumatized. Everyday life carries trauma within it as the result of environmental devastation, political instability, and financial uncertainties. And connection with one another is often difficult. As we enter a new year, perhaps the greatest resolution we might make is to commit to companion one another along the way.

Reading

Traumas embed when our system is overwhelmed by pain and fear without having sufficient internal resources or companionship to help integrate the experience …

[P]eople may see others being present, but as either unavailable for support or actively injurious, or the experience may have been so terrifying that even had someone tried to help, our people might not have been able to receive it …

[W]hat remains now is a sense of isolation with the remaining anguish and terror. Over the years, I have found that as soon as a sense of accompaniment enters the memory, there is a new foundation for doing the work. Just as our people have internalized those who injured them, that same capacity can bring us inside to support processing the emotions and to resolve this primary wound of being alone.

Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationship

For the information of the Reader:

Brian Andreas is an artist who began working with found wood, creating “Story People,” sculptures and adding original verse to them. His work has been collected in several art books and is available on his Story People website.

Reading

You may not remember the time you let me go first.
Or the time you dropped back to tell me it wasn’t that far to go.
Or the time you waited at the crossroads for me to catch up.
You may not remember any of those, but I do and this is what I have to say to you:

Today, no matter what it takes,
we ride home together.

Brian Andreas, Traveling Light: Stories & Drawings for a Quiet Mind

Response to the Readings

Leader: Offered as wisdom for the journey
All: May we walk in its light

Focused Moment

In a breath
life comes to us,
drawing into us the world
and all we will know, experience, love.
In a breath, life leaves us,
our hopes, dreams, possibilities
exhaled into a vast and unknown eternity.

Breathe deep the residue of what has been.
Breathe deep the essence of what now is.
Breathe deep the elements coalescing into what will be.

All resides within us,
folded into us through the living we have done,
animating us in this moment of awareness,
lifting us toward tomorrow’s light.

Breathe deep all of who we are and have been.
Breathe into all that we may become.
We breathe as those whose breath
yet calls us to tomorrow.

Amen

Full size available online: Concrete Leaves, gretta vosper.

Hymn

Come, Light’s Dawning

Tune: VENI EMMANUEL
Original Lyrics: John Mason Neal, 1851

O come, light’s dawning, burn within my soul.
The tinder of my heart, you can make whole.
O come, ignite my passion to see
the truth of who I am, who I can be.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
To fear, I bid farewell
that light may come within my heart to dwell.

O come, light’s beauty, come amongst and cheer
our spirits by your radiant presence here.
O come, ignite our passion to see
that we can live in peace and harmony.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
To anger, bid farewell
that light may come within our hearts to dwell.

O come, light’s searing flame and burn away
the stories we yet hide behind today.
O come, ignite our courage to bare
the truths of who we are with those who’ll care.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
To shame, we bid farewell
that light may come within our hearts to dwell.

O come, light’s piercing truth come and reveal
all that our planet needs from us to heal.
O come ignite our passion to see
the splendour in Earth’s vast diversity.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
To darkness, bid farewell
that light may come within our hearts to dwell.

Public Domain
Alt. gretta vosper, 2015, vs 3., 2022
(Please feel free to choose only some of the verses and to reorder them as you like.)

Thoughts and Additional Resources on the Week’s Theme Accompaniment; It takes all of us.

The concept is lifted from the biblical readings for the day which emphasize that is presence that makes the difference in people’s lives. When we are strong and well, to whom would our presence and accompaniment be of value? When we are weak and afraid, whose presence and accompaniment would be meaningful to us? How, at the beginning of another year, can we recommit to being present to one another in new ways? To those close to us in relationships? To those we know in our work or community lives? To those we do not yet know?

This may be a very sensitive subject to some and many will have just spent the holidays with extended families. Those gatherings may include siblings who feel safe sharing their stories with one another or they may be tables surrounded by people who don’t trust anyone there at all. You do not know what has happened in the lives of the people in front of you that has made them who they are today. They may have shared some things, but often they have not given themselves permission to explore their own pasts and may not be aware of things that have molded them.

Don’t protect yourself from getting personal today. Being honest about your joys and struggles builds confidence in those who look to you for pastoral support. If you feel you will not be able to share personal stories yourself without remaining focused on your congregation and in control of your own emotions, please refrain from doing so and use examples from literature to help bring your people along. I very much encourage you to reach out later to someone with whom you can build a healthy connection to your past.  


Standard Outline

Concept

Given the theme, concept, and readings, where do you want to take the message this week? When exploring it with your congregation, what is the ultimate point you wish to bring to them to consider? Think this through carefully and have a good idea what you want to say before continuing.  

Relevance: The following questions are meant to help you personalize and deepen what you will be offering your community. Because you have clarified the focus of the message already, it remains central and is strengthened when imbued with or attending to the realities in the lives of those who will hear you.  

What’s relevant in your community right now? 
Before you begin, take time to reflect on what is happening inside and outside your community locally, regionally, nationally, internationally.

Grounding: The purpose of your message is to provide meaningful insights and inspiration in the lives of those who gather before you. Closing is often difficult if times are challenging, and most of our times seem to be. This carefully but simply constructed outline gives hearers straightforward pieces to take with them and is based on consideration for self, others, and the planet. Consider that they leave asking themselves:   

Audio/Video

Some People’s Lives, Bette Midler

Further Reading

Please visit online readings by Brian Andreas and/or Bonnie Bradenoch.

Celebration of Commitment

The grand gestures of the Christmas season over,
we head into a new year of promise.
May our hearts remain committed to the tasks of
accompanying with humility,
leading with courage,
and speaking truth to power.

Commissioning

Almost every one of you has heard –
at this annual turn of the calendar page –
that this year will be better.
Or maybe, that at least it can’t be any worse.

But you know that we don’t know
and that those promises – well meant –
are only ever wishes.

So may we wish these things and more for one another:
deep connection;
rich conversation;
the courage to be honest with ourselves;
the permission to reach out to others;
the dignity of silence;
the raggedness of truth;
and the strength to be held
in community,
and by love.

Go in peace and celebration.