The Readings for Lessons and Carols on January 4, 2009
Posted by Priest on January 4, 2009 under Staff Blog | 
Read the First Comment
A reading from Genesis 1:1-2:2a (excerpts)
A reading from the writings of Julian of Norwich
And He showed me more, a little thing the size of a hazelnut, on the palm of my hand, round like a ball. I looked thoughtfully and wondered, “what is it?”and the answer came, “It is all that is made.” I marveled that it continued to exist and did not suddenly disintegrate; it was so small. And again my mind supplied the answer, “It exists both now and forever, because God loves it.” In short, everything owes its existence to the love of God.
A reading from Genesis 3:1-13, 22, 23a
A reading from the writings of Leontine T. Kelly
We violated our faithfulness to God. We have not been God’s clear witness of healing and wholeness for all nations and all peoples. We dare to determine who is worthy of God’s love and claim reward for goodness that is not evident in our society as a whole. Too few of us acknowledge God’s sovereignty, too few live in obedient stewardship of God’s world, too few care that we need God’s mercy.
I am reminded by a little boy who heard the creation story. The teacher told the story, “and God did this on this day and it was good, and God did this on this day and it was good.” And the little boy finally said, “If it was all so good, what happened to it?” We have to admit we happened to it.
A reading from Micah 5:2-25
A reading from the writings of Richard Holloway
How can you account for that mysterious sense of moral outrage if the universe is indifferent to value? Because, say the wise, there is a source of transcendent value beyond all of us which lays its claim upon each of us.
But what are we left with? A hypothesis, a supposition, an idea? Our mind has gone to work and it has produced a theory […] You are letting your idea of God limit God’s freedom if you deny the possibility of divine self-disclosure. If God there be, would it not be strange if God did not seek us out? […] The great prophets who have deepened our idea of God do not claim to have thought up something new: they claim to have heard the word of God.
A reading from Mark 1:1-8
A reading from the writings of Barbara Brown Taylor
God is greater than my imagination, wiser than my wisdom, more dazzling than the universe, as present as the air I breathe and utterly beyond my control. […] I have faith. I lose faith. I find faith again, or faith finds me, but throughout it all, I am grasped by the possibility that it is all true: I am in good hands; love girds the universe; God will have the last word. […] While fame and fortune deliver their instant reward, faith sows its seeds much deeper down. Its roots may grow a long time in the dark before anything shows on the surface, and its leaves may be mistaken for crabgrass or thistle. When its fruit finally appears, there may not be much demand for it, since those who eat it do no become fat but thin, thin and somewhat daft by the standards of the world.
A reading from Luke 1:26-33
A reading from the writings of Madeleine L’Engle
This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there’d have been no room for the child.
A reading from Luke 2:1-7
A reading from the writings of Desmond Tutu
By becoming a real human being through Jesus Christ, God showed that he took the whole of human history and whole of human life seriously. He demonstrated that he [is] Lord of all life, spiritual and secular, sacred and profane, material and spiritual. [Scripture] and the main stream of Christian tradition and teaching know nothing of the dichotomies so popular in our day which demand the separation of religion from politics. […] Our God cares that children starve […]. [If] God did not care about these and similar matters, I would not worship him for he would be a totally useless God. Mercifully, he is not such a God.
A reading from Luke 2:8-20
A reading from the writings of Gordon Light
Draw the circle wide. Draw it wider still. Let this be our song, no one stands alone, standing side by side, draw the circle wide.
God the still-point of the circle, ‘round whom all creation turns; nothing lost, but held forever, in God’s gracious arms.
Let our hearts touch far horizons, so encompass great and small; let our loving know no borders, faithful to God’s call.
Let the dreams we dream be larger, than we ever dreamed before; let the dream of Christ be in us, open every door.
Draw the circle wide. Draw it wider still. Let this be our song, no one stands alone, standing side by side, draw the circle wide.
A reading from John 1:1-5, 14
A reading from the writings of Michael Ingham
Christmas, at its deepest level, is about God making a home in the world. It’s not simply about shepherds and angels and lights on the tree. It’s about the mysterious coming together of different dimensions of reality that, to all rational thought, ought mutually to exclude each other. For this is [Christmas]. That God entered the world in the form of the child Jesus. God so loved the world that the Creator of the universe took human flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. [Christmas] brings together two intellectually irreconcilable things: the created and the uncreated, time and infinity. [At] a single point in human history that which lies beyond time and space became intimately connected with us. […]Because God thinks you and me, and all of us, are so colossally worthwhile that infinite grace is now part of us, unconditional love is inseparable from us—this single fact changes everything.