Inn Keeping

 Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church

 A warm welcome to each worshiper today. We celebrate you and offer you our friendship and love. We are a congregation of people who seek to grow spiritually, to become more like Christ in His compassion and acceptance of everyone while growing more aware of what it really means to be Christians today.

As a Reconciling Congregation, EPUMC affirms the sacred worth of persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities and welcomes them into full participation in the fellowship, membership, ministries, and leadership of the congregation.

 

 

 

943 Palmer Avenue, Schenectady, NY 12309 / 518-374-4306 epumc943@gmail.com / www.easternparkway.org

Order of Worship

December 17, 2023

Third Sunday of Advent

10:00 a.m.

*You are invited to rise in body or spirit.

 

Prelude

Greeting and Announcements

Lighting of the Advent Candle

Reader 1: When God’s people were surrounded by hardship, suffering, and grief, Isaiah proclaimed,

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit (Isaiah 61:1-3a).

Reader 2: We come today as people who are also surrounded by suffering and grief. And yet, the Spirit hovers among us, tending and anointing, inspiring freedom where there is captivity, declaring blessing in places the world has cursed, and igniting fierce joy where mourning and heartache prevail.

Congregation: We wait as people who experience hardship and pain, yet we are called to witness to the persistent joy that sustains our life as God’s people.

Reader 1: We light these candles as signs of our shocking hope, just peace, and fierce joy. May our lives shine with the fierce, tenacious joy of the Light who lives in our hearts as we wait and work for the coming of God’s kin-dom on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Mission Statement: We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth disciples of Jesus Christ.

Call to Worship:

Love has come down to us this Advent Season.

Divine love which heals and transforms our lives.

With great joy, we receive that love and share it with others.

We open our hearts to all God’s children, the last, the least, and the lost, as well as those who feel privileged.

The Lord has done and continues to do great things for us.

Praise be to God who loves us so much and who challenges us to be people of joy in this darkened world. AMEN.

*Hymn                  Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus                        #196

Prayer of Confession:

Patient and forgiving God, you know how we want to be people of peace and justice, but when opportunities come to participate in groups working for justice, we turn our backs and walk the other way, or we give a token pledge and then ignore further pleas for assistance. We hide our names from appearing on roles of supporters of justice-seeking organizations. Forgive us, O God, when we give only lip service to ministries of justice rather than pledging our lives to helping all people in need. Free us from our selfishness. Banish our fears and move us in ways of peace and justice, bringing your love and hope to all God’s children. We ask these things in God’s name. AMEN.

Assurance:

Rejoice! You who once lived in darkness – on you a new light is shining and the light of God’s glory shall brighten your path. You are healed, loved and forgiven. Be at peace! Live in God’s love, and bring hope and justice to all God’s people. AMEN.

Scripture Reading Luke 2: 1-7

The Birth of Jesus

2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.[a]

Sermon                                      Inn Keeping

Friends, we’re now at the third Sunday in Advent. Some of us call this Gaudete Sunday, and most of us will notice that it’s the day we get to light the pretty pink candle. Historically, this third Sunday in Advent is associated with the spiritual value of “joy”. We call it “Gaudete” Sunday because that’s the Latin word for joy, and light the pink candle because the ancient Church associated rose with joy.

We’re continuing on in the sermon series I put together for you based on An Unlikely Advent by Rachel Billups. BUT, this will be the only week not directly inspired by one chapter of the book. She lifts up a different important character from Jesus’ birth narrative every week who isn’t Mary, Joseph, or Jesus, and who we don’t spend enough time thinking about. I’m veering off book for one week so I can stretch this out longer, this week’s chapter would have been about the Magi, but I’m saving them for Epiphany. 

Today you get to hear about a character who frequently gets depicted in kids’ nativity plays, but who doesn’t totally exist–the inn keeper. If we were putting on a play with kids, one kid would be standing under a hastily painted cardboard sign that says “the inn”, and he’d either have one harsh line (“no vacancies!”) or he’d give a whole speech about how Joseph really needed to book his hotel room for this stay from the block that was linked on that invite he got months ago to attend this giant census, because now everything’s taken. Joseph will turn red with embarrassment, and Mary will glare at him.

Whatever that kid says, they’re reading our own interpretations into this story, because Luke doesn’t give us any of that information. In fact, there is no specific inn mentioned, nor is there an inn keeper. Luke simply says “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.” It’s similar to how Luke never says anything about a donkey in this story, we all just imagine Joseph putting Mary on one because we read this story from our own experiences and feelings and we think a compassionate man wouldn’t have his very pregnant fiance walk. If we were Joseph we couldn’t afford a horse and carriage, but maybe we could bum a donkey off of someone, right? In the same vein we read this story with our feelings and wonder what kind of jerk would make Mary give birth in a barn. Then that jerk, who started off just being circumstance, has a face, a name, and a location: “the inn keeper”. 

We need to humanize our problems in order to understand them.

Even though today is Gaudete, or joy, Sunday, we’re also coming up on a natural holiday with the opposite vibe that a lot of our churches have taken to observing: the winter solstice, the longest and darkest night of the year. This natural event, coupled with the end of Daylight Savings Time, makes us look at the black sky and panic, thinking it’s midnight and we haven’t made our kids dinner yet, only to look at our phones and realize it’s 5:00 pm. Or so I’ve heard. A lot of our churches will hold a special service in the evening of the winter solstice and call it a “longest night” service if they feel poetic, or a “Blue Christmas” service if they’re feeling more folksy. Either way, we, your pastors, encourage all of you to look at where you are right now, as we dive deeper and deeper into darkness. What’s going on in your life right now? What darkness scares you? What do you need to mourn? It could be a person, but maybe not. Maybe you lost something else that you’re struggling to find again. What feels like it’s holding you back right now? And, if you can make yourself go there, where do you see glimmers of the light breaking through?

At a Blue Christmas service that I co-hosted about 6 years ago, we reflected on this scripture passage about the infamous “inn keeper”. We talked about all of our differing interpretations of this person that turned Mary away. Maybe he was a pragmatist–”Oh, sorry, we’re full”, he says while staring at his computer screen and oblivious to the puddle of amniotic fluid on the lobby floor. Maybe he was repulsed–”No way, not on my shift am I having a lady give birth in here.” Maybe he was afraid, he knew that a lot can go wrong in an instant during birth, and in that day even more so. “Uh, maybe that other hotel way down the road where I don’t have to see or hear anything has a room available?” But maybe he was as judgmental as we may fear. In other words, it wasn’t that there were no rooms in the inn, it’s that there were no rooms “for those people”. For a young, unmarried couple. Wealthier, higher status people would have the connections to prevent this emergency, even with the Emperor ordering everyone to leave town for this census. A rich couple could talk their way in with a fistful of cash. Two people higher on the social food chain would “know people”, and a friend of a friend of a friend could get them to a safe place, because don’t you know who they are? It’s Mary and Joe, y’all. They’re celebrity TikTokers, they have a million followers and that blue check mark.

Notice that, in my imagination, the inn keeper is invariably a man. That’s based on nothing but my internal biases. I want to think that no woman could look at Mary, sweating through late stage contractions, and think “nah, she’ll be just fine outside with the horses.” I want to think a sister would help another, and that compassion would sweep away all of her reservations. But, unfortunately, that doesn’t square with reality either, does it? Because our society loves pitting women against one another, and an upper crust woman, maybe a wealthy benefactor of the hospitality industry who owns this hotel, could look at these young, displaced, poor, scruffy kids and think “not in my inn.” 

So, like I did last week, with the Big Bad King Herod, once again I’ll invite you to think about this inn keeper, this character that we project so many of our own feelings and experiences on to that we’ve managed to create an entire person out of them, and I invite you to think to yourself–which inn keeper are you? Which version of this story pulls you the most?

Are you an inn keeper who spends so much time glued to their smart phone that you could straight up miss the birth of Christ if you didn’t read about it on Facebook? Does your disgust or squeamishness control you more than it should? Would you be the type of person who saw Mary in active labor with nowhere to go, and then wished you could just throw some money at the problem to make it go away instead of looking straight at Mary? Would your sorrow block your better self from coming out, because you’ve had so much to deal with this year you just don’t have the bandwidth to care about one more thing? Would you make excuses for yourself by judging Mary and Joe? This isn’t your fault, they should have planned better, they shouldn’t have traveled right now, they should have said no, they should have gotten married by now, they’re a drain on tax payers, if they can’t feed them they shouldn’t breed them?

We take our whole selves with us every single place we go, even to the pages of scripture. It’s why this is the Living Word, and not some super long, boring work of classic lit that you read for school and then stick on a shelf. These words, these events, these people, and these places all come alive in our hearts, and we sit right in the middle of the action, holding Mary’s hand while she delivers. What do we learn about ourselves in the process? What do we learn about our experiences, our trauma, our faults, and where we still need to grow? It’s God talking to you.

Whoever turned Mary and Joseph away from a safe, warm bed and out into the cold, dark, germy barn added another hour of darkness to the longest night. But even on the longest night, the Divine punches the canopy to make stars, and joy breaks through. Where did Mary and Joseph see it? Luke doesn’t say, but we can imagine. I’d say “in the eyes of their baby”, but that’s the obvious answer. Was it in their strength, and their love, which got them all the way to Bethlehem, and got their baby into the world in one piece? Was it in the odd beauty of nature as they were surrounded by farm animals? Was it in knowing that the worst was behind them? Or was it in knowing that there must have been some truth in what Gabriel told Mary nine months ago? Either way, as she sang months earlier to her cousin Elizabeth, whatever nasty names anyone would choose to call her, her soul magnifies the Lord, and all generations call her blessed.

Amen.

*Hymn                              In the Bleak Midwinter                             #221

 

Offering

Offertory

*Doxology #94

*Prayer of dedication           

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

Prayer for Advent 3A

(inspired by Isaiah 35:1-10, Psalm 146:5-10, Matthew 11:2-11, James 5:7-10)

Lord Jesus Christ,

like John the Baptist we want to know if you are the Messiah.

You tell us to listen and to take notice of you in this world,

and then, from experience, you talk about the kingdom of heaven.

Open our eyes to see the lame walking, cures occurring,

and hope rising in the kingdom that shall come,

all as evidence of your presence among us.

Stir up your power and come: Be born anew in us.

Dearest Father, your glory is made manifest

by the strength you give us as your believing people.

Fear dissipates when you are near.

Weak knees no longer tremble.

We want to sing, and joy replaces doubt.

We reach for you with our feeble hands,

but it's your hand that holds us fast.

Stir up your power and come: Be born anew in us.

Holy Spirit, we need your counsel.

We do not wait well.

Like farmers waiting for crops to ripen, we need to remember

that your time and presence saturates all of our days,

especially those in which nothing much seems to be happening.

And then you make us bloom in due season

Stir up your power and come: Be born anew in us.

We remember, Lord, that you set the prisoners free,

and gave justice to the wronged.

Now you care for parent-less children and surviving spouses through us,

your hands and heart and voice in a world

that does not see loneliness as suffering.

Be present through us as we attend to all in need.

Stir up your power and come: Be born anew in us.

As we name those whom we know have special needs for healing,

remind us of our own need to be prayed for by the faithful.

Hear us as we speak aloud, or in our hearts, the names of those who need you,

even as we whisper our very own names ____.

Stir up your power and come: Be born anew in us.

Soon, Jesus, comes the Day of Christmas, your incarnation.

Help us, like children, to feel the excitement,

for we are all children of the Heavenly Father.

Stir up your power and come: Be born anew in us.

All the earth, seas, and heavens are yours,

and we pray these prayers

because you have promised to listen to us. Amen.

~ from the Lutheran Forum website. http://www.lutheranforum.org/extras/Advent_3.pdf

Our Father, Mother, Creator God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.

*Hymn                     Hail to the Lord’s Anointed                              #203

Benediction

Postlude

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Staff

Natalie Bowerman Pastor

Betsy Lehmann Music Director

Joe White Custodian

Cassandra Brown Nursery Attendant