First Sunday in Advent

Happy Thanksgiving! I pray that today will be a day filled with joy, gratitude, and reflection on all the many gifts of God that surround you. I pray that no matter what the day brings, you will be able to recall some gift of grace over which to give thanks. And I want to share with you a quote from Julian of Norwich that I’ve been pondering since I read the book, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic and Beyond by Matthew Fox. (I had hoped to share it in my message last Sunday but like so many things in sermon preparation, it was left on the editor's cutting floor.) Julian saw an intimate connection between gratitude and prayer, writing, “Giving thanks is also a part of prayer. Thanksgiving is a true, inner awareness. Charged with the quality of reverence and loving awe, we turn ourselves with all our might toward the actions our good Lord guides us to, rejoicing and thanking him inwardly. Sometimes the soul is so filled with gratitude that it overflows and breaks into song: ‘Good Lord, thanks be to you! Blessed are you, O God, and blessed may you always be.” (p. 33)

Whether you are moved to break into song or not, know that to be grateful is to reflect a heart of prayer. Gratitude invites connection with our God from whom all blessings flow. I pray you will experience that intimate connection with our loving creator God and with your loved ones as you gather around a Thanksgiving table.

This Sunday in worship, we are so excited to begin the Advent journey with our Advent/Christmas message series, “Declutter Christmas”. We hope to invite you to declutter your life in such a way that the heart of Christmas, the gift of God’s love in the baby born in Bethlehem will be able to take center stage in your Advent and Christmas celebrations. There is so much about Christmas that is lovely, exciting, and just plain fun. The challenge is to be intentional in choosing to make time and space for those practices that will lead us deeper into the mystery and grace that is the coming of Jesus. What are the things that you can do, the ways that you can declutter your life, and your soul, so that your relationship with Christ and others can flourish and grow during this sacred season?

To aid you in that, you should be receiving our Declutter Christmas postcard in the mail. On one side of it, you will find important dates and times of special events at Suntree UMC during Advent and Christmas. On the other side, you will find an old-fashioned Advent calendar with practical suggestions of things you can do to help make your Advent and Christmas truly centered around the message of Christmas. We hope you will put it on your refrigerator or with your bible and other devotional materials so that you can refer to it through the season.

This Sunday in worship we begin the journey to “Declutter Christmas” by focusing on hope and the promise that not only did Christ come long ago but that someday Christ will return to complete the work of healing and transformation that began with the incarnation. (You may want to read Luke 21:25-34 in preparation for worship.) Sometimes it’s easy to get discouraged with life the way it is. But Christ’s followers live as people of hope, believing that even now Christ’s work of healing and transformation continues, and will one day be complete. Rather than fear the future, we hold our heads high, eagerly anticipating the work of Christ in the future.

Again, Happy Thanksgiving, and I look forward to worship this Sunday as we begin the Advent journey together!

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Annette

Simple Gifts: Grounded Generosity

“What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?” Psalm 116:12

For the last couple of weeks, we have been reflecting on the simple gifts that are all around us. The gifts that God pours into our lives with extravagance and faithfulness. This Sunday, we will each be invited to consider our personal answer to the question posed by the Psalmist above, “What shall I return to the Lord…?”

Somewhere over the last couple of weeks, I was reading “something” (I failed to note what I was reading at the time) and made a note of the following, “Generosity is grounded and prayer and undertaken in gratitude.” This caught my attention because of the ways I’ve experienced the truth of this statement over the last several years. The generosity of our time, our talents, and our resources naturally flow from a grateful heart that knows and celebrates the gifts of God in our lives. When we are aware of God’s blessings and gifts, when we are grateful for those gifts, we are motivated and empowered to live open-handed, open-hearted, generous lives.

At the same time, prayer invites us to reflect on the gifts of God in our lives. Prayer invites us to seek to align our lives with God’s purposes. Prayer enables us to discern where God is leading us, and how God is calling us to use God’s gifts in ways that pass along God’s blessings to others. Author Henry Nouwen talks about the relationship between prayer and gratitude, “As our prayer deepens into constant awareness of God’s goodness, the spirit of gratitude grows within us. Gratitude flows from the recognition that who we are and what we have are gifts to be received and shared.”

Gifts received. Gifts shared in gratitude. That is what faithful, God-honoring stewardship is all about. Each of us is the recipient of God’s gifts. We have valuable talents. We have the gift of time. We have the gift of resources. As God is generous, we are called to reflect that generosity in our lives. As God gives, God invites us to use a portion of those gifts to bless others and to be about God’s Kingdom work in the world.

I hope you have been praying, “God, where would you want me to be in my giving? Where would you want me to be in my serving?” I also hope you have been praying for our church and the ministry of Christ in this place. And I pray you will prayerfully complete your Estimate of Giving card and your Called to Serve Time and Talent survey. This Sunday in worship, whether you are worshipping online or in-person, there will be time for us to pray as we offer these sacred decisions to God. If you are attending in-person worship, remember to bring both these items to worship with you. If you are worshipping online, you can either complete these items online, mail them, or drop them off at the Church Office during the week.

How do we respond to the generosity of God? How do we say thank you to God? We honor God as we grow more generous in our living and giving as a response of gratitude for all the simple gifts that God has placed in our lives. “See” you this Sunday in worship as we take the next step in our journey of growth in gratitude and generosity.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Annette