Year
B
Proper 28
Sunday
28 November 2012
Eucharistic Preface
Let
us lift up our hearts.
........We
lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our
God.
........It is right to
give our thanks and praise.
It is indeed right to give
you our thanks and praise, O God,
for you raise up the broken and
humiliated
and seat them in honour at your banqueting table.
The
whole universe is yours, for you made it;
you set the earth in
place and filled it with life.
Through your law and prophets
you
promised a day of justice
when the hungry will have their
fill.
You sent your child, Jesus, among us
to establish a
new covenant,
leading us in the way of faithfulness
and writing
your laws on our hearts.
As a great priest, he offered a single
sacrifice for all sins,
and was thrown in to the land of the
dead,
but you raised him to new life,
opening for us a new and
living way into your presence
and convulsing the earth with the
birth pangs
of the new age of your glorious justice.
Therefore
with .....
©2003 Nathan Nettleton
www.laughingbird.net
Short
Preface
(for insertion into Eucharistic prayers with
fixed prefaces)
We give you thanks, O God, for your son,
Jesus,
our great priest, who offered a single sacrifice for all
sins,
who opened for us a new and living way into your
presence,
and who writes your laws on our hearts.
©2000
Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net
General
Prayer of Thanksgiving
(Preface reformatted for use
apart from communion)
We give you all
thanks and praise, O God,
for you raise up the broken and
humiliated
and seat them in honour in your presence.
The
whole universe is yours, for you made it;
you set the earth in
place and filled it with life.
Through your law and prophets
you
promised a day of justice
when the hungry will have their
fill.
You sent your child, Jesus, among us
to establish a
new covenant,
leading us in the way of faithfulness
and writing
your laws on our hearts.
As a great priest, he offered a single
sacrifice for all sins,
and was thrown in to the land of the
dead,
but you raised him to new life,
opening for us a new and
living way into your presence
and convulsing the earth with the
birth pangs
of the new age of your glorious justice.
Therefore,
with our hearts lifted high,
we offer you thanks and praise at all
times
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
©2003
Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net
Declaration
of Grace / Absolution
As our
high priest, Christ offered, for all time,
one perfect sacrifice
for sin.
Therefore let us have confidence to approach God
with
our hearts washed clean of all guilt
and a confident hope in God’s
mercy.
Sisters and Brothers,
........your
sins are forgiven;
................be
at peace.
©2003 Nathan Nettleton
www.laughingbird.net
Commission
& Benediction
Go out in peace, for the Lord has
heard your prayers.
Do not allow anyone to lead you astray
but
hold fast to the hope you have claimed.
Continue to meet
together,
encouraging and provoking one another
to put love
into action.
And may God be your rock of strength;
May
Christ Jesus usher you into the presence of God;
and may the Holy
Spirit write the laws of life on your hearts.
We go in peace
to love and serve the Lord,
........In
the name of Christ. Amen.
©2000
Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net
Paraphrases of the
Scripture Lections
for Proper
- Year C - Sunday 28 November 2012
Lections
from The Revised Common Lectionary.
Copyright 1992 by the
Consultation on Common Texts (CCT)
P. O. Box 340003, Room 381,
Nashville, TN 37203-0003, USA. Used with Permission.
* 1 Samuel 1: 4-20
........In
the days before Israel had a king, there was a woman named Hannah who
was married to a man named Elkanah. Hannah had never been able to
have children even though Elkanah tended to favour her over his other
wife, Peninnah, who had several children. Elkanah provided well for
both his wives and all his children, but he really doted on
Hannah.
........Peninnah used to
deliberately torment Hannah about her infertility, taunting her with
suggestions that the LORD had dried out her womb.
The nastiness was at its worst when they went up to Shiloh each year
to offer sacrifices to the LORD, perhaps because
that was when Elkanah’s favouritism was most obvious. So the annual
visit to Shiloh was always a miserable time for Hannah. She would go
off her food and be in tears all the time. Her husband Elkanah tried
to comfort her, saying, “Hannah, cheer up? Why won’t you eat
something? Can’t you look on the bright side? Aren’t I worth more
to you than a whole team of sons?”
........One
year in Shiloh, after they had offered the sacrifices and eaten a
meal together, Hannah got up and went back to pray to the LORD
by herself. The only other person in the place of worship was Eli the
priest who was sitting near the door. Hannah was at her wit’s end
and wept bitter tears as she prayed to the LORD.
She tried to bargain with God, praying, “O LORD,
you rule over everything! Have pity on me, your servant. Don’t
write me off in my misery. If you will give me the gift of a baby
boy, then I will see to it that he joins the religious order of the
Nazarites and never touch drink or drugs or have his hair
cut.”
........As she was praying
silently, Eli could see her lips moving and her tears, but since he
couldn’t hear her saying anything, he jumped to the conclusion that
she was drunk. He got up and said to her, “Time to go home and
sober up, woman. You can’t keep making a drunken spectacle of
yourself in here. On your way, and get yourself on the
wagon!”
........But Hannah defended
herself, saying, “No, Reverend Sir, please don’t write me off as
a hopeless case. I’m heartbroken, but I haven’t sought solace in
the bottle. I’ve been pouring my heart out to the LORD
— all my agony and fears — trying to get it off my
chest.”
........Then Eli answered,
“Go in peace. May the LORD, the God of Israel,
go with you and take care of whatever it is that is bothering
you.”
........“Thank you for
being so kind to me, Reverend Sir,” said Hannah. She went back to
where she was staying and cheered up no end. She even had a good meal
with her husband.
........Early the
next morning the whole family got up early and worshipped the LORD.
Then they packed up and went back home to Ramah. The LORD
remembered Hannah’s prayer and the next time she and Elkanah made
love, she fell pregnant. She gave birth to a baby boy and named him
Samuel. She often spoke of him as an answer to her prayer.
©2000
Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net
* 1
Samuel 2: 1-10
After the birth of her son, Samuel,
Hannah prayed the following prayer:
“Thanks to you, LORD,
I am full of joy;
........thanks to
you, I can stand strong and proud.
I can return the insults that
were hurled at me,
........and kick
up my heels because you have set me free.
There is no other
god like you, LORD,
........no
one who can hold a candle to you;
................not
even the ancient rock is as dependable as you.
I can tell the
proud to stop their boasting;
........tell
the arrogant to put a sock in it.
You, LORD,
know us inside and out;
........you
see whether we live up to our words.
You, LORD,
disarm the powerful,
........and
reallocate strength to the helpless.
Those who consumed to excess
are now queuing at soup kitchens,
........but
those who were deprived now feast in splendour.
Infertile couples
are having children, one after the other,
........while
those who flaunted their children find their families falling
apart.
Life is yours to take or to give, LORD;
........you
send someone to the land of the dead,
................and
you can bring them back again.
You, LORD,
can make us or break us;
........you
can put us on a pedestal or knock us off.
You lift up those who
have been trodden into the dirt;
........you
put the poor and outcast back on their feet.
You give them a place
among the guests of honour,
........a
seat with the dignitaries and celebrities.
You can do all this
because the earth is yours;
........you
set it up and wrote the rules.
To those who are faithful, you
guarantee safe passage;
........those
who are corrupt soon lose sight of any light to steer
by,
................for no matter how
strong people are, they can’t make it alone.
You are the
LORD!
........Those
who try to obstruct you
................find
that it is like standing in the path of a train
........as
you thunder towards your destination.
You, LORD,
have the final word on all that is done on earth.
........You
will give strength and power to your chosen ruler.”
©2000
Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net
* Hebrews
10: 11-14, (15-18),
19-25
........Day after
day the priests do their job, offering the same old sacrifices over
and over again, without so much as budging the problem of sin. What
Christ did as priest was quite different. He offered just one
sacrifice for sins, a sacrifice with no use-by date! Then he sat down
in the seat of honour alongside God and there he waits. It is only a
matter of time before those who oppose him run out of options and
concede defeat. As a priest he was so perfect, that it only took him
one single offering to deal with all the imperfections of all the
imperfect people who come to him wanting to be made perfect for God!
The Holy Spirit can back us up on this. First
she said in the scriptures:
........“The
new alliance I will make with the people
................will
be different, says the Lord:
........No
more writing down the rules for people to read;
................this
time I’ll write them into their hearts and minds.”
Then,
for good measure, she added:
........“I’ll
wipe the record of their failings and their perverse
behaviour;
........none
of it will ever again even enter my mind.”
So if that’s
done — if the slate has been wiped clean — then there is no
longer any need to come offering sacrifices to try to make up for
what we’ve done wrong.
........So,
my friends, now it’s a whole new ball game. Now we can confidently
walk straight into the sacred place because Jesus won us that right,
spilling his own blood in the process. We walk in via a new route.
The old way had a big curtain between us and the sacred place — on
the new route the only thing between us and the sacred place is
Jesus, and he invites us to become part of his own body and go in
that way. Add all that to the fact that Jesus himself is now our
great priest who says what goes in the house of God, and you’ll
understand what is now open to us. So let’s go! Let’s approach
God with integrity and with deep trust. Let us stand before God
knowing for sure that not only have our bodies been washed clean in
pure water, but so to have our hearts, our minds, our conscience.
........In light of all this, let’s
hold on tight to the hope that we’ve put our hands up to. None of
this on-again off-again stuff! You can’t get more dependable than
the one who has made these promises. So let’s put on our thinking
caps and come up with some good strategies for stirring one another
up to greater and greater love and more and more ways to put it into
action. Some people have got out of the habit of gathering together
as a congregation — let’s not go down that path. Gather often,
support and encourage one another. The closer we get to that final
day the more we’ll need one another.
©2000
Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net
* Mark
13: 1-8
........As Jesus
and his disciples were coming out of the temple, one of them said to
him, “Teacher, isn’t this building spectacular? Look at the
stonework and the scale of the whole place — it’s one of a
kind!”
........Jesus replied, “Do
you think this is the greatest? This whole place will be flattened.
There will be nothing left of these great stones but a heap of
rubble.”
........Later on they went
out to Mount Olives and were sitting there with a full view of the
Temple. Peter, James, John, and Andrew took Jesus aside for a few
quiet questions. “Can you tell us when these things are going to
happen?” they asked, “and what warning sign should we watch for?
What will tip us off that these things are almost upon
us.”
........Jesus began to launch
into an answer, saying:
“Be on your guard. Don’t fall for the
doomsday enthusiasts. There will be no shortage of people bobbing up
and saying, ‘Follow me! I’m the One!’ Far too many people will
be sucked into their madness. Every time there’s a new war or a
tense stand off between world powers, the fanatics will crank up the
speculation again. Keep your cool. These things will happen, but they
don’t mean that time’s up. Nations will set out to destroy each
other; there will be ethnic conflicts and civil wars; there will be
horrendous natural disasters; countless people will be faced with
starvation. This will not be the end. It’s just the beginning, the
first labour pangs of what is to come.
©2000
Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net
Alternative
Hebrew Bible Lections themed to the Gospel Lection
*
Daniel 12: 1-3
Sorry, paraphrase not yet
available
* Psalm 16
Protect me, God,
........you are my place of
refuge.
I’m acknowledging you as the one in charge,
LORD;
........you
are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I delight in
the company of those
........who
dedicate themselves to you;
................they
are the salt of the earth.
Those who worship other
things
........will have nothing but
grief.
I will not buy into their futile devotions;
........I
will not utter the names they revere.
You are all I want,
LORD, and all I need;
........you
hold my future in your hands.
You mark out the best of
everything for me;
........you’ve
set me up with a bright future.
I heap accolades on you,
LORD,
........for
you always give me wise advice;
even in the dead of
night
........you fill my heart with
your teachings.
I’ll always stick close behind you,
LORD;
........with
you near by,
................I’ll
never be pushed off track.
You fill me with delight,
LORD;
........joy
erupts from deep in my bones;
................my
body relaxes, safe in your care.
You’ll never let the grave
drag me down;
........your faithful
servants are never left for dead.
You set my feet on a
life-giving track, LORD.
........To
be in your presence is absolute bliss.
................All
I could dream of comes from your hand.
©2001
Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net