Teresa’s Note: November 24, 2023

Teresa's Note

Nov 24

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Dear friends and members of University UMC:

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving week. The Advent season seems to come quick each year and that’s certainly the case this year. According to the common lectionary, Advent begins on December 3 with the 4th Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve falling on the same day. But we will observe the 1st Sunday in Advent this Sunday. Beginning our Advent journey of waiting and preparation November 26th will assist us in soaking up the weeks of Advent and keep Christmas Eve centered on the celebration and wonder of that day.

I leave you with a few readings as we look to worship on Sunday. We will light the first candle in our Advent wreath - the candle of hope and the sermon text will be based on Mark 13. The words from Psalm 126, “We were like those who dreamed,” inspire our sermon series for this season. The Advent and Christmas season is filled with dreamers. The prophets and John the Baptist; Mary and Joseph; Simeon and Anna; the shepherds; and the Magi. They all received and discovered dreams. It is true that we live at a time when our hearts are often weighed down by the worries of the world. And it is also true that dreams are still being born. If we dare to notice and wonder. If we dare to step into the mystery and awe of God’s dreams. If we dare to pray they shape our reality.

What a joy to be your pastor!

Teresa

Psalm 126: A Harvest of Joy

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter

and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then it was said among the nations,

“The Lord has done great things for them.”

The Lord has done great things for us,

and we rejoiced.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,

like the watercourses in the Negeb.

May those who sow in tears

reap with shouts of joy.

Those who go out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

carrying their sheaves.

Dream, Don’t Sleep
An Advent poem by Sarah Are
based on Mark 13:24-37

They say you will come like a “thief in the night,”

The hour unclear, the day easily feared.

But I toss these words over the edge of my tongue,

And they don’t taste right.

A thief is one that I lock out.

A thief is the one that I fear.

So I ask myself—

Did I downgrade you to no more than a thief, Great Builder?

Did you form me from the dust,

Breathe life into my bones,

And paint the horizon into the sky, all for me?

And was all of that fine,

Until you asked me to love my neighbor as myself?

Was all of that fine,

Until you said, “Dream, don’t sleep”?

Was all of that fine,

Until you asked me to wake up to the suffering in the streets?

Did I imprison you to the role of the thief

To keep you from getting too close?

Forgive me, Great Builder.

Tear down the door to my house.

Crawl through the window.

Slip through the attic fan.

Dance in the security light.

Scream through the letterbox until I hear you again.

For this house is your house.

You built it.

You belong here.

I am begging you,

Break back in.

“It is a strange way to begin this time of Advent. Beginning Advent with weeping and lament? That is unusual! And powerful. This is where we need to begin. The coming of Advent jolts the church out of Ordinary Time with the invasive news that it’s time to think about fresh possibilities for deliverance and human wholeness.”

– Patricia E. DeJong

A Word on Hope -
The First Candle We Light on Our Advent Wreath

“Hope means we have opened our eyes, hearts, minds, souls, very spirits

and now see and feel and touch and smell the joy and the agony living in the fractures of creation

that is the irony of hope

for in our yearning for it

we often walk far away from it as we try to come home to it

we often live into the small and narrow spaces of life that stunt our growth

and demand far too little of us

because far too little is expected from us

or far too little gives us comfort

hope is one more piece to the fabric of the universe