OUTREACH participating in ministries of compassion, justice, and advocacy

{Outward}

OUR MONTHLY MISSION FOCUS is United Methodist Family Services. We help them put hope into the holidays for children and families in Virginia. The $1450 already given is a grace-filled sum! Don’t let the “gifts of hope catalog” confuse you. These are for information and inspiration. Address your gift to the church. We will then write one check from Boulevard’s checkbook and deliver it on Monday, December 14.

WITNESS telling our stories, offering expressions of faith, being Christ-like

{Together}

GIVING BEARS WITNESS to an attentive and generous God; as does offering to read Scripture or greet/usher (via SignUp Genius or by calling our office).

Ministry Costs Your Contributions November 1 - 21 10,537 8,819

The flowers are given to glorify God, in memory of Eric and Charlene Suter.

UNITED METHODIST CHURCH We make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world (Matthew 28).

Boulevard United Methodist

Church

Untangling punishment from purification is a difficult task and an urgent one. When I read or hear of God in the same breath as “fire,” or “burning like an oven,” I think of condemnatory preachers identifying the wicked people who need to be punished (and it’s never the preacher’s own self).

Nanette Sawyer

December 6, 2015

321 N Boulevard Richmond, Virginia 23220 www.boulevardumc.org

Order of Worship

(UMH) - The United Methodist Hymnal (TFWS) - The Faith We Sing

* Please stand, as able.

Gathering

Opening Words

*Call to Worship UMH 208

*Hymn Blessed Be the God of Israel UMH 209

Words of Welcome

Prayer

Proclamation and Response

Time with Children

First Reading Malachi 3:1-4

Gospel Reading Luke 3:1-6

Anthem There’s a Voice in the Wilderness

Scripture Lesson Isaiah 22:15-17; 20-25

Prayer UMH 211

Sermon Rev. Rachel G. May

*Hymn What Feast of Love vv.1-2 Insert

Thanksgiving and Communion

Please remain standing. Prepare to come forward (gluten-free friends at the front of the line) to receive the elements. An offering plate is positioned along the way. The Lord’s Supper is for everyone present.

Offertory Let Us Talents and Tongues Employ

Prayer

Sending Forth

*Hymn Come Thou Long Expected Jesus UMH 196

*Advent Dismissal with Blessing

NURTURE caring for one another, for our space, and for our growth as disciples

{Inward}

O CLAVIS DAVID—O Key of David—is the fourth of the seven O Antiphons of Advent, which are based on Isaiah’s messianic vision. Traditionally sung in Latin, today, these Antiphons are more often spoken in prayer.

Advent 1 O Sapientia Wisdom November 8 Advent 2 O Adonai Lord November 15 Advent 3 O Rex Gentium Ruler of nations November 22 Advent 4 O Radix Jesse Root of Jesse November 29 Advent 5 O Clavis David Key of David December 6 Advent 6 O Oriens Light from the east December 13 Advent 7 O Emmanuel God with us December 20

WE ARE PRAYING for David McConnell, Jamie and Lanier May, June Robinson, Joe Morgan and family, Jane Frisa and incarcerated residents of metropolitan Richmond. Wish to add or restore a name? Say so via the offering plate or the church’s e-mail address.

REVISED COMMON LECTIONARY READINGS typically shape our order of service, including the sermon. However, next Sunday’s texts are a blend of the appointed ones and those that pertain to “Light from the east”: Isaiah 12:2-6, Isaiah 60:1-6, and Matthew 2:1-12.

PLEASE USE SIDE AISLES in the sanctuary this morning. That is not to say the center aisle is off-limits to all people! It is, however, an acknowledgement of the Advent wreath’s purposeful placement.

Crossing Boulevard

with Rev. Rachel

6 AND ALL FLESH SHALL SEE Luke 3

Some Sundays you go home worried about the folks who are going to have to dig themselves out of the mess you just made. That was last Sunday. How did it go, Rach? Just didn’t get the job done this time, Dad.

Preachers are self-conscious; at least those whose company I keep. We know when we miss the mark. When folks, for whatever reason, aren’t with us, we feel it. We play it over in our minds and sigh the deep sighs.

Here, try this on for size, is a fair invitation to issue from the pulpit. It functions best, however, when accompanied with a little tidying up on the part of the dressing room attendant! I’m sorry. What I left strewn about:

Root of Jesse stuff - I spoke of the root but not of Jesse. Jesse is the father of David. God promised to care for the ancient Israelites through Jesse’s family tree; put another way, through a descendant of David.

The utter chaos and ruin experienced in Jeremiah’s day was not the end of God’s covenant with creation, according to that same prophet. What remained would root downward and bear fruit upward (2 Kings 19:30). The root of Jesse, then, was symbolic language for how God was going to keep God’s word. It remains a metaphor for God’s ability to redeem anything and everything.

Christ will come again stuff - I imagined out loud how easy it would be to poke fun at churchgoers. Maybe I should have prefaced that by stressing that getting one’s jollies at the expense of others is never okay.

The intent was to gaze upon the many verses that seem to indicate that Christians waged it all on the return of Jesus in their lifetime; then, to come back to that conundrum and celebrate the fact that faith is not all hung on that one peg. Methodists are practical theologians, for goodness sake! We listen for the Word in texts that were inspired by God, but also written for ancient audiences. We honor context. Then, we ask the Spirit to help us extract what is timeless and therefore applicable life and life together.

This week, this flesh (v.6) sees the relentless return of Sunday differently. It looks potentially salvific. It looks like grace.

Luke 3:1-6 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’

Isaiah 22

15 The Lord God of heavenly forces says, Go now to this official, to Shebna, who is in charge of the house, and say to him: 16 What do you have here—and whom do you have here— that you have hewed out a tomb for yourself, you who cuts his grave on high and carves himself a home in the cliff? 17 The Lord is about to hurl you down, mighty man! 20 On that day, I will call my servant Eliakim, Hilkiah’s son. 21 I will give him your robe and wrap him in your sash, and I will hand over to him your authority. He will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 I will place the key to David’s house on his shoulder; what he opens no one will close, and what he closes no one will open. 23 I will fasten him securely like a tent peg, and he will be a throne of honor for his ancestors’ house.

24 All the honor of his household will hang on him, the offspring and the offshoots, every little dish, every bowl, every jar. 25 On that day, says the Lord of heavenly forces, the peg that is fastened securely will give way; it will be cut down, and it will fall, and all the load hanging on it will be lost. The Lord has spoken.

10:00 on Christmas Eve morning

at 321 N Boulevard

A chapel service that is less and yet more.

Long ago they called it a

And so shall we.

There will be Moravian Sugar Cake.

Classical guitarist Rafael Scarfullery joins us.

It’ll be earnest and honest and gracious and humble.

It’ll be what we, collectively, manage to give and to receive.

Come.

Eat.

Give an old, old story the chance to be bread for the journey.