Hyde Park United Methodist

During Advent we are so fixated on the Christmas Carols and texts that we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Advent Carols and how powerful their meanings can be. "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is such a remarkable and classic hymn that dates back over 1000 years. But what you may not know is the hidden meaning placed cleverly amongst the words. This hidden meaning is a wonderful reminder of what the real reason for the season is.

Gratitude on a communal level means joining our resources to meet the greatest needs of our community and world. Diana Butler Bass describes this fourth quadrant in this way: “If you emphasize we and ethics, you might define gratitude as social responsibility that demands action through public commitments to charity, stewardship, volunteerism, and social institutions. You believe that gratitude is an essential foundation of civic life, taking pride in doing good."

 Living with Gratitude means orienting our individual actions toward the benefit of others, including the surrender of our personal finances to God. Gratitude is not just an emotional attenuation of the heart. It has an impact on our actions and ethical choices. Diana Butler Bass called this third quadrant the “Personal/Ethical, and described it in this way: “If you emphasize me and ethics, you might experience gratitude as a moral or ritual response to a favor extended to you. Returning dinner invitations, writing thank-you notes, and repaying personal obligations come naturally. You think of gratitude in terms of individual responsibility and reciprocity.”

On this Sunday we join with Christians around the world in a public act of corporate, emotional gratitude, as we honor the saints who have gone before us. By honoring them, we see our own place in the grand march of history and the ongoing work of God. That recognition is a humbling motivation for us to turn in our estimates of giving and contribute to the unfolding story of God’s love. 

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Living with Gratitude means opening our heart to wonder, awe, and an awareness of God’s blessings in our lives, both great and small. Diana Butler Bass describes this first quadrant of gratitude as Personal/Emotional: “If you emphasize me and emotions, you are probably attuned to the inner dimensions of awe, surprise, and appreciation and have strong feelings when someone helps you, serves you, or gives you a gift. You define gratitude in terms of delight, joy, or surprise.”

Matthew 28 contains the words of the Great Commission, the iconic final command of Jesus to the disciples. His charge to “go into all the world” to make disciples makes it a fitting text for our annual Missions Celebration Sunday. As we celebrate our partnerships with missions agencies locally around the world, this text begs the question: is there more to engaging in missions than simply supporting efforts from a distance? Was Jesus also calling us to make missions a way of being, a way of life? Those are the compelling questions that our guest preacher Rev. Dr. Martyn Atkins will explore with us. He has 40 years of experience in British Methodism and is a leader in the Fresh Expressions movement and the World Methodist Council. He is currently serving Lighthouse UMC in Boca Grande, which was severely impacted by Hurricane Ian. We welcome him this Sunday and are honored by his insights and wisdom.

Neurologically speaking, our brains do not shut down when we go to sleep, and our subconscious kicks into gear with processing the flurry of information that we wrestle with during our waking hours. Is it possible that God speaks to us through our subconscious? On this Sunday, we’ll look at various scientific and psychological studies about dreaming, and learn how to put our dreams into context. Yes, it is possible that God speaks to us through our dreams, but interpreting them requires intentionality and care, just like everything else related to listening for God’s voice.

We can all admit that we don’t like to wait. Time moves sometimes like an Arctic glacier.  The second hand on the clock seems to tick every five minutes. It’s like someone pressed the giant pause button in the sky. Or even in reverse. We are the cyber-speed, hyper-drive generation. We like our internet connectivity to be fiber optic, our exercise regimen to be done in minutes rather than months, our meals to be ready at a moment’s notice, and our online orders to be delivered when the website promises. We don’t like to wait. For the doctor, for the traffic, for our dinner, for the mail carrier … or for God. 

But as part of this series on the art of hearing God’s voice, we should acknowledge and affirm that waiting - as hard as it may be - is an essential part of trusting in and following Jesus. But with that challenge comes good news. The prophet Isaiah promises that waiting on the Lord renews our strength, enabling us to fly like an eagle, and run and walk the journey of life for the long haul. 

One of the hardest parts about hearing God’s voice is when we have to confront so much hurt and brokenness in the world. We wonder what God is doing and saying in the face of such suffering around us. The scripture reading for this Sunday is more commonly heard on Ascension Sunday, but its principles apply all year long. God is calling us to be the very hands, feet, and voice of Jesus in a world that is longing to see, hear, and experience God’s presence, activity, and voice. Jesus promised his disciples, and promises us, that the Holy Spirit is with us, empowering us to the task. On this World Communion Sunday, and in the weeks leading up to Missions Celebration Sunday on October 23, we affirm and acknowledge the part we play in making God’s love real around the world. We also remember that the communion liturgy asks God to “make [the elements] the body and blood of Christ, that we might be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.”

The author of Proverbs describes the life of faith as acknowledging God, so that God can direct our path (steps). That means trusting that God will reveal the journey ahead of us, one step at a time, so that our main job is to take a step of faith when God is calling us to do so. This does not mean, however, that we simply sit back and let God do the revealing. We have to be intentional about listening, surrendering, and watching for the Spirit, so we can “sing when the Spirit says sing,” in the words of the old spiritual. That is what Proverbs describes as “leaning not unto our own understanding.”