When God Breaks In

Lessons & Carols Service this Sunday!

Katie has crafted a beautiful service to help us remember that the God who came to us in Christ, has always been in the business of breaking into the lives of God's people.  The Old Testament is one story after another based on this theme.  And our lives, if we are careful and attentive, bear out this theme.  Emmanuel. God is with us.

For the remainder of this week, I will share various readings and prayers that may begin to help us in the journey of contemplating what it means When God Breaks In. 

Gentle Us Open

Ted Loder

Lord of Life and Light,

            Help us not to fall in love

                        With the darkness that separates us

                                    From you and from each other,

            But to watch large-eyed, wide-hearted,

                        Open-handed, eager-minded for you,

                                    To dream and hunger and squint and pray

                                                For the light of you and life for each other.

Lord, amidst our white-knuckled,

            Furrow-faced busy-ness this season,

                        We realize deep within us that your gifts 

                                    Of mercy and light, peace and joy, grace upon grace

                                                Can be received only if we are unclenched open.

So this our prayer, Lord: Open us!

            Gentle us open, pry, shock, tickle, beguile, knock,

                        Amaze, squeeze, any wily way you can us open.

Open us to see your glory

            In the coming again of the light of each day,

                        The light in babies’ eyes and lovers’ smiles,

                                    The light in the glaze of weariness that causes us to pause,

                                                The light of truth wherever spoken and done.

Open us to songs of angels in the thumping of traffic,

            In the rustle of shoppers, the canopy of pre-dawn silence,

                        In the hum of hope, the wail of longing within us,

                                    In the cries of our brothers and sisters for justice and peace,

                                                And in our own souls’ throb toward goodness.

 Open us, then, to share the gifts you have given us

            And to the deep yearnings to share them gladly and boldly,

                        To sweat for justice, to pay the cost of attention,

                                    To initiate the exchange of forgiveness,

                                                To risk a new beginning free of past grievances,

                                                            To engage with each other in the potluck of joy

                        And to find the gifts of a larger love and deeper peace.

Open us, Lord of miracles of the ordinary,

            To the breath-giving, heart-pounding wonder of birth,

                        A mother’s fierce love, a father’s tender fidelities,

                                    A baby’s barricade-dissolving burble and squeak,

            That we my be born anew ourselves

                        Into the ‘don’t be afraid’ fullness of your image,

                                    The fullness of a just and joyful human community,

                                                The fullness of your kingdom,

                                                            In the fullness of your time;

                                                                        Through the eternal grace of

                                                                                    Your son, our brother Jesus.

                                                                                                Amen.