Advent Prayer:

In our dark nights, we cry to you
In our bright days, we forget what we longed for

May our cries echo
May our longing be immediate

In our sharp minds, we pray for your coming
In our wavering hearts, we can't decide if the road is open or closed

May you clear the decks
May we raise the gates on our tollbooths.

Here we gather as hopeful witnesses to revolutionary birth.
Going from here we encounter oppression in mind and action.

Disrupt us to new life
Advent us to your longing for your children.

Let not sorrow be ruler.
Clear the way for Joy as the undexpected King.

Amen.

Scripture: 

Psalm 30

Advent Benediction:

A Future Not Our Own by Archbishop Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.