Below is the liturgy used by the Lunenburg Lutheran Parish on Sunday, February 14th.
This year this date is the last Sunday of the season of Epiphany, which brings to a close the time of “enlightening” (which is what “epiphany” means), and we prepare to enter the season of Lent (more on that later!).
We thanks Bishop Michael Pryse for providing the sermon for this service, and we ask that God bless you all with an increased awareness of presence as you continue to live through this pandemic.
This has been a rough week, for a great many people.
The headlines of media outlets have been shouting about what happened on the steps of the Capitol Building in Washington DC. on Wednesday.
Rightly so.
But there was more, much more, to what happened in Washington that day. And much of it did not make the headlines.
And it should have.
Below is a video from Lutheran Bishop Leila Ortiz, from the Metro DC Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
She was taking part in a prayer service for peace, when the church was invaded by Trump supporters.
I will let her tell her story.
But I will say this. Give the insurrectionists credit – They recognized that what was happening in that church was indeed a threat to what they were trying to do.
Praying for peace, and letting love set the agenda for our actions, is completely countercultural in a society which prizes power above everything.
So we join our siblings in the Metro DC Synod, their Bishop, Leila Ortiz, and all other people of good will around the world:
+ in remembering our dependence, not our independence;
+ in praying for peace, not for power,
+ in serving our neighbour, not ourselves.
The Call of the Gospel necessitates our movement toward the struggle for peace, justice and abundant life for all of God’s people, for all of God’s creatures.
It is not an easy road.
But we do not travel alone.
God goes with us. Bishop Leila Ortiz goes with us.
January 6th is the day we remember the visit of the Magi, or scholars, to Jesus and his mother. We call this The Epiphany (a word which means “light”).
One way that some of us do this remembering is through what we call “Chalking the Door.”
The video below will show you what that looks like.
If you would like to Chalk your Door this year, you may click here to get a copy of the liturgy.
Attached is the service for the first Sunday of the year, which also happens to be the 2nd Sunday of Christmas.
Given the year we just concluded, I am not making any predictions about how things are going to go! We have all learned (or perhaps re-learned) that trying to do such things is pretty pointless.
However, what I can say is that we do not face the coming year alone. The Word of God, God’s self-expression, God’s very presence, goes with us.
This promise does not make life, faith and hope easier. It does, however, make life, faith and hope possible.
May you all experience the blessings of the Word made flesh in 2021.
Here is the Home version of the service we will be using at the Lunenburg Lutheran Parish on Sunday, November, 29, 2020.
It’s the church’s New Year’s Day! But instead of making resolutions which can’t, or won’t, be kept, let’s take some time to contemplate the promises of God, which can and will be kept…, and, indeed, are being kept.
