19 Dec Online worship resources for Sunday 20 December 2020

We have begun worshipping again as a gathered community, but we know for some people, it is not possible yet to join us for face-to-worship. Below you will find an audio recording for worship at home that includes a full worship service that you are invited to participate in – with prayer, the bible readings, discussion and wondering questions for 20 December 2020. You can listen to this with others or on your own. You may like to light a candle as you begin and have paper and pen nearby to make your own notes or art responses during this worship service.

If you would like to connect with the Richmond Uniting Church community in other ways as well as in audio worship, for example for Midday Prayers or Zoom ‘morning teas’, or a theology group discussion please email richmond.uniting@bigpond.com

Mary is more than her sexual status!

This Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Advent, Rev Dr Sally Douglas invites us to dive into Luke 1.26-56. Sally invites us beyond saccharine images of Mary and the baby Jesus – and beyond obsessive focus on Mary’s sex life – to attend to the disruptive theology that Mary and Elizabeth proclaim in Luke’s Gospel.

Listen to this week’s service using the embedded player below. You can also copy this link into your podcast player of choice if you would like to receive updates as they are released: https://anchor.fm/s/c70d97c/podcast/rss

Music Suggestions for Worship:

Love came down at Christmas by Christina Rossetti
(TiS 317) This version by Ali Matthews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T1ersltSwQ

Daughters of Zion by The Porters Gate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zh9JgvRQsM

Wondering Questions

• How have the stories of Mary and Elisabeth been presented to you in church, art or popular culture? How do you respond to these presentations?
• How do you react to the idea that these accounts of Elisabeth and Mary disrupt patriarchy and privilege as we discover God collaborating with those who are considered the least?
• When you think about God’s call into love as the call to collaborate with God in the work of justice – disrupting the proud and the greedy and working to feed the hungry – how are you challenged to live (and love) differently?

Image by Ben Wildflower. Used with permission.