Beloved
The Advent season inaugurates the new liturgical year in the Christian calendar. And with each year, a particular gospel story is featured. This year, we will be reading through the Gospel of Mark. And Mark has an exciting story to tell. The first story to be written about Jesus, Mark is anxious we all know that Jesus is the Prince of Peace.
Mark offers as Jesus’ birth story, the tale of his baptism - a singular moment in time where Jesus came to understand he was beloved by God. Jesus’ ministry was to teach others that they were beloved by God as well. And that, in fact, all people, without exception, are beloved by God. It is impossible to extend true compassion to others until we have absorbed this foundational truth. This December 6th, we will have the chance to see how well we can bring this understanding into practice.
And please, please have a listen to Matthew Meyer Boulton’s wonderful teaching on the Christmas story. He is a captivating teacher. Matthew’s podcast runs in unison with our own.
Call to Worship, There’s a Voice in the Wilderness, Words: James Lewis Nilligan
There's a voice in the wilderness crying,
a call from the ways untrod:
prepare in the desert a highway,
a highway for our God!
The valleys shall be exalted,
the lofty hills brought low;
make straight all the crooked places
where the Lord our God may go!
O Zion, that bringest good tidings,
go up to the heights and sing!
Proclaim to a desolate people
the coming of their King.
Like the flowers of the field they perish,
like grass our works decay,
the power and pomp of nations
shall pass like a dream away,
but the word of our God is steadfast;
the arm of the Lord is strong;
God stands in the midst of nations,
and soon will right the wrong.
God shall feed the flock like a shepherd,
the lambs will gently hold,
to pastures of peace will lead them,
and bring them safe to the fold.
“Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.”
Matthew Myer Boulton’s Must Listen Advent Podcast Series
I have long been a fan of the SALT Project, a source I turn to over and over for its creative approach to all things theological. This last month, its main creator, Matthew Myer Boulton, released a four part podcast series - Understanding Christmas. If you are looking for the ultimate Bible study for the season, this is it. I offer this wonderful podcast in tandem with my own. I just know you are going to love it.
Welcome to “Strange New World,” a show about understanding the Bible, the world’s most influential, misunderstood book — a podcast tailor-made for skeptics, believers, and everybody in between.
Hosted by SALT’s own Matthew Myer Boulton, who’s spent twenty years teaching the Bible and theology to students at Harvard Divinity School and seminaries in New England and the Midwest, “Strange New World” will take a fresh look at the world’s bestselling book of all time, the ancient community library we call “the Bible.”
The show’s title, “Strange New World,” is borrowed from an essay written by a Swiss theologian a hundred years ago, in which he wrote of “the strange new world within the Bible,” a world so ancient, so different, so familiar, so strange that it presses us to think new thoughts from new points of view, “to dare and to reach,” and ultimately “to grow out beyond ourselves.”
HERE IS THE INAUGURAL EPISODE, “Understanding Christmas - Part One.”
HERE IS THE SECOND IN THE FOUR PART SERIES, “Understanding Christmas - Part Two.
December 6, National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
Please see above the virtual Sunday gathering organized by Family Transition Place in Orangeville.
You may also wish to explore below an interview from the CBC’s The Current with Monique Lepine, a nurse, and the mother of the young man who killed the fourteen women on that dreadful December day in 1989. As we gather each week to study, Practicing Compassion, we are seeing the depths of wisdom in this discipline. As spoken about in our podcast, one of the main insights one must absorb in order to cultivate compassion is to understand that all people are beloved by the universe, beloved by God. All people. No exceptions.
Monique Lepine opens up to Anna Maria about what it was like to be the mother of Marc Lepine - the man who killed 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. She reveals her struggle to make sense of how the son she loved could be responsible for such a crime.
Here is also a short documentary/interview with Monique LePine, entitled, Faith in the Midst of the Montreal Massacre you may find insightful. Compassion is something we practice.