Love's Light in the Waiting, with Rev. Morgan Schmidt.

Love's Light in the Waiting, with Rev. Morgan Schmidt. Series: The Gift of Advent (2024) A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon.

Join us this Sunday, either online or in-person, to hear a powerful message about the light of love in the waiting of Advent. Morgan’s got some great stories and insights you won’t want to miss. Come be inspired and find the love that’s on the way.

About the Series, The Gift of Advent (2024): Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love

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We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

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Keywords:

Advent season, progressive dinners, Red Cross volunteer, home fires, waiting practice, light from darkness, already and not yet, disaster response, love and light, active waiting, season of darkness, work of love, hurricane response, helping others, love finds you, presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Morgan Schmidt, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

Transcript

Whitney Higdon: 0:37

Welcome to worship at First Presbyterian we at first, Presbyterian practice a spacious Christianity, which means, no matter where you are in your faith journey, you belong, and there is space for you at the table, there is space for your doubts and questions. We believe doubts and questions are a gift that invite us into deeper conversations and a more authentic faith. We believe diversity is a strength. Every story is sacred, and everybody matters. We do our best to live the spacious and radical love of Jesus so that all might have a chance to flourish in this world. We are so glad to connect with you in this way. We would also love to worship with you in person if you're ever in the neighborhood on Sunday mornings at 830 or 10am and never hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about us or how we might support you. I hope you enjoy this worship service.

Becca Ellis: 1:28

Welcome. This is the season of Advent, as we make room and prepare our hearts to receive, once again, the gift of God's love and the birth of Jesus, it is our tradition to light a candle for each Sunday in Advent. On this fourth Sunday of Advent, we light the candle of love, reminding us that God's love is with us always. May we find ways to be The presence of Love that others need. Even now, we simply do not expect to find a divine love in a stable. Somehow, the setting is all wrong, the swaddling clothes too plain. The manger, too common for the like of a Savior, the straw and elegant, the animals smelly and noisy. The whole scene too ordinary for our taste. And the cast of characters is no better, with the possible exception of the kings, who, among them is fit for the night in. The shepherds, certainly too crude, the carpenter too rough, the girl too young, and the baby, whoever expected a baby, whoever expected the coming of God and a helpless child, had the Messiah arrived in the blazing light of the glory of a legion of angels wielding golden swords, the whole world could have been conquered for Christ right then and there, and we in the church, to say nothing of the world, wouldn't have so much trouble today, even now, we simply do not expect to face the world armed only with vulnerable love. But that is the gift we make room in our hearts to receive anew, the gift of love to bring to a weary world that no longer expects such gifts.

Unknown: 5:51

Hello, my friends. My name is Morgan Schmidt, and I used to be one of the pastors here at First Presbyterian. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. I'm thrilled to be back with you all this fourth Sunday of Advent, and I've been thinking a lot about my time at First Presbyterian. We used to do progressive dinners with the youth group, where we would go from house to house and have an appetizer and a main dish and then a dessert. And what I've realized is I've become progressively a worse and worse dinner guest since I left you used to be great dinner guest, I would just bring religion to the table. But then, of course, since then, I've added a political journey. So who doesn't want religion and politics at their holiday table? And then, you know, when that didn't quite come through, I thought I'd go and work for the Red Cross and add disaster to my repertoire. So needless to say, if you need you know, an amazing dinner guest. Just to take the pressure off this holiday season, I am available, and the comedy comes free. So my my first week at the Red Cross. I'm in my office. I don't really know much of anything yet at all, but I do know that when we have home fires in our community, Red Cross volunteers respond sometimes, really, really quickly. And it was my first week, and I was getting text messages, Morgan, there's a there's a house in your neighborhood that's on fire, you know, is your house okay? You know, just make sure everybody's all right. And I, you know, quickly made sure, you know, it wasn't my house, but it was a neighbor's house. And I step out of my office, I look at my colleagues and and I just say, we do something, right? We're supposed to do something. And my friend looks at me, and she just goes, Morgan, don't worry. They're already on the way. And that's my feeling about this Advent season, when we practice this season of waiting, waiting for something good that's already on the way. I need Advent this year. I don't know about you, but even the original story maybe not that relatable for us. Obviously, the in the time of Jesus, a story of a people who have an imagination for a world that looks something like God's dream for humanity, where equality and justice are the law of the land and people are treated with dignity and respect, where people have a chance to flourish and not just get by, but instead, they're living under a brutal Empire led in that region by a maniacal self serving tyrant, and it seems as though things not only are not okay, but won't be okay, nothing we can relate to in this season, but I need a time to practice that imagination, that that belief that light can come from darkness, that life can come from death, that we can go from just barely getting by to flourishing, that that's possible for us and that all will be well. The our Jewish friends call this sort of dynamic, the already and the not yet. And we live in the tension of where we already are, and that hope and longing for what can be, for the world that we can imagine creating together with God. And so how do we hold that tension? That's what this whole Advent season is for, is figuring out how we hold that tension between what is and what can be, and how we figure out waiting for the good that's on the way but not yet arrived as part of my work with the Red Cross, I had a chance to deploy to Lahaina just after the wildfire there, and true to form, like a former youth pastor would, I was in a hotel lobby, and one of the one of the residents who evacuated from Lahaina, was sitting there. She's like a probably a 16 year old young woman, and I sit down next to her, she's listening to something, and we start, you know, chatting about music and that kind of thing. And she looks at me and she says, Have you ever been to Lahaina? Have you ever been to Maui? And I thought, you know, I'm really sad. This is my first time. I've never gotten to see it as it as it was. And this young woman. Just looked at me square in the eye with with nothing but hope in her eyes. And she said, Well, front streets closed right now, but you'll have to come back when it's open again. And it was the most beautiful moment of the already, not yet in the midst of tragedy and disaster and the unthinkable. But this, this young woman already had this imagination that what was didn't have to be what would be, and that there was hope about restoration and making things new again. And I can't wait, you know, hopefully, to go back and visit as healing continues from that particular disaster. Like I said, I'm really fun at dinner parties, but everybody knows holidays, and that's why I'm so glad the church calendar has this season of Advent. We can do a day of celebration, and it's awesome, but I feel like to learn hard things sometimes we need practice. And I don't know about you, but for me, waiting is a hard thing, and I think probably most of you would agree with me, whether it's in small ways or in big ways, waiting is not our specialty in our society. One of my favorite stories, when I first started at First Presbyterian Steven invited me to hold space during a service, for for some moments of silent prayer and reflection. And those of you who know me know I'm a bit of an extrovert. Struggle with silence and reflection. Maybe not the most pastoral thing, but that's who I am and how I'm wired. And I'll never forget getting up to the front. It was, it was early in my time with with our community and and, you know, set us up for that, that moment of reflection. And then I waited, and I felt like I was waiting a an eternity, like an awkward, awkward time. And instead, Stevens in the front row, just saying, Wait, just mouthing to me, just quietly because he knew I would need help remembering to give people time to actually be present to that moment without rushing through, without wanting to get to the end, without trying to just soothe my anxiety about waiting so so for big things like, How is this a story of love and A story of how love is going to win, when things around us maybe indicate sometimes that the waiting will go on and on and on, how do we start to believe that this isn't the end of the story, but that when love wins, as Steven would say, that is when the story concludes, only when love is winning. So even if things are going great for us right now, and there are those of us right now for the holiday season, you're having a beautiful time, and I'm so thrilled about that. Nothing wrong with that. But I also want to acknowledge that there's a lot of us who maybe find this to be a season of darkness reflected in our weather and the long, dark nights, but we all have to practice this waiting because we know those seasons will come for us, and if it's not a season you're in right now, you get to walk alongside somebody for whom it is. I bet we're waiting because we have this sense when we practice Advent that something's not right, that all is not well, but that it will be. And it takes so much practice to believe that we have to practice if we're going to believe that God or love or something holy is on the way and hasn't abandoned us. And I need more than a day, more than just a holiday, I don't know about you. I need a whole season to practice with just whispering to myself that the not yet will be worth it. So I'm fun at dinner parties, and the Hallmark movies this time of year will never tell us about about waiting, about the tension, about what to do when things don't seem like they're going well, like it doesn't seem like love will win. Maybe, maybe wicked would tell us that, but not the Hallmark movies, not the Hallmark movies. And so love. How do we think about love thriving in this tension of what is and what will be? Because love is messy, right? There's no, there's no road map to it, but it does show up when everything falls apart. It does show up like light in the darkness. It shows up in disaster. It shows up when we're not sure what we're waiting for. Love meets us there. This kind of how I feel about lighting. I don't know if any of you agree with this, but like, lighting is important to me, and I can't stand like, harsh overhead lighting or, or sort of that blue tinted lighting that just makes everything look really stark and, and just, I guess harsh is the word I'd use for it. I love, I love, like thoughtfully curated warm, cozy lighting, like in my house, there should never just be, like one big light, but many small lights so you can kind of set. Light the tone of the room, set the ambience a little bit and light lighting matters, just like love always matters, even in a daylight, even when things are going well, even when the scene is perfectly set, little bit of lighting makes all the difference in the world, but lighting really matters. Love really matters in the dark. I me lately at a party has been kind of a bummer. I actually ran into someone a week ago at a party that I hadn't seen in a long time. And I don't know if you're in this season, but I don't want you to feel alone if, if, when you update people on your world right now, it just feels like a bummer, because we all have those seasons, and Love finds us in the midst of it. But this, this person I ran into said, you know, how's it going? And I said, Well, I got my heart broken this year so, so I'm really not that great. And then he said, Well, How's work going? I heard, I heard you were in Asheville doing hurricane response. And I said, Well, yeah, no, that was an honor. But I, you know, I work with, I work with a team for the Red Cross that cares for bereaved families who lost loved ones in disaster. So I try not to bring that up at parties. And he said, Well, how's buddy? I love your dog. And I said, Oh, we, we, well, we had to say goodbye to Buddy, you know, a little while ago, and and he said, Well, you love dancing, dancing, so life giving for you. How's dancing been? And I said, Well, you're not going to believe this, but, but I've injured my foot, and I'm benched from dancing for a little while. And sometimes my friends, that's that's just the way it goes. And we find ourselves in the dark longing for light. Sometimes the light returns. Sometimes you might be in a season where the lighting is perfect right now, and there is joy and love abundant, and sometimes it's so dark, we just want someone to find us with light and with love. And I promise you, my friends, love is the light that will find you. Love says good news is on the way, and it won't always be like this, because we are people who show up and we ask, what is the work of love that is ours to do? And we we ask ourselves, How can we bring love and light into the world? Because this waiting we're learning to do in Advent isn't some passive waiting. It's not, it's not just sitting back and hoping something comes to us. It can be, but it's, it's an active sort of waiting. It's a longing, it's a hoping. It's a waiting that says, In the meantime, I'm going to continue asking myself, what is the work of love that is mine to do. And if you are in a season of light and full of the energy that love brings to you right now, the invitation might be, how do you bring more love into the world with all of that extra energy, with all of your light? Being mindful, because sometimes it can be hard when when your world looks different than other people's worlds, but being mindful that others are in darkness, maybe your task in Advent, your work of love, is to remember that everything's not light for everyone, that love hasn't found your neighbor yet and or a friend of yours that would never ask, could use a phone call, but to get creative in love in this season of Advent and to practice so that we can do it all year and continue asking that question, what is the work of love that is ours to do? What? What a gift this season, and if you are in the midst of a darker season, longing for the light, my friend, love, will find you. Light will find you. And I think the invitation might be in this Advent season, what is the work of love that is yours to do? And maybe it's caring for yourself in a way that is truly meaningful for you, not in a way that is shrouded in shoulds and advice from Instagram reels, but, but in a very real way, what does love look like when you shine that light on yourself? And maybe, maybe love looks like getting brave and asking for light and asking for love from those you trust. Advent isn't passive, it isn't resigned. It isn't is it isn't a season that sits back and just sighs and says, Well, it is what it is, and it will always be, just like this. Advent is a season that invites us to remember that love and light is on the way. And if it's if it's not here yet. It's just because the story hasn't ended yet. We are made by love for love to love, and so it's this amazing season of wondering, while we wait, what we can be doing to help that love along, to help bring it, bring it into our midst, not just for ourselves. Not just for those we love, but for our neighbors and for the larger world. And when you're stuck in that, not yet and you're wondering if love really will win, we get to sort of help bring that love and light into the world. Mr. Rogers is famous for saying, you know, when things are hard or when disaster hits, look for the helpers and look for those who are bringing love and light into the world. I want to close with a story that I got to hear while I was in North Carolina responding to hurricane Helene, because it is such a stark reminder that love will find us and that the work of love we do every day matters just like good lighting matters. There's a story of an 11 year old boy named Jamie who was visiting his grandparents along with his little sister when the storm hit, and unfortunately, his grandparents home, they were just sitting together in the living room was hit with a landslide, and as you hear the family tell it everybody's okay, in case this is causing you anxiety. Again, I'm super fun at dinner parties, but this, this young boy, tells a story of just feeling the weight of his this landslide and the house itself pushing him and eventually trapping him under the stairs, under About 12 feet of rubble. His grandparents luckily made it out. Somehow. His grandma ended up on the roof. His sister ended up okay, but they couldn't find Jamie. They couldn't find him, and he describes being stuck under the stairs in complete darkness, just feeling water drip. He couldn't hear anything. He kept shouting, but he wasn't sure anyone could hear him. He didn't know if his family was all right, and up above without him knowing, until later, his dog, Tucker, would not leave the spot right above Jamie was losing his mind that his grandfather, in an interview later, says the dog was just going crazy. I didn't know what was wrong with him. I just thought he was panicking, and Tucker wouldn't leave that spot until firefighters arrived and were able to dig Jamie out and make sure that he was okay. And that would be an amazing story in and of itself, right the and and, and I could end there and just say, see the moral. The story is that love will find you just like Tucker found Jamie, but the background is makes it, you know, just a little bit cooler to me. Jamie and his younger sister, a few years prior, had pooled their bit of allowance money and gone to the shelter where Tucker was about to be put down. Just days later, and they were able to adopt Tucker and bring him home. And it's this beautiful, beautiful image of what happens when we ask ourselves, what's the work of love that is ours to do? And we see how that comes around, so that we might just find as we practice in the waiting, as we practice in a dark place where maybe we don't know if we're going to see the light that love will find us, and the love we practice in the meantime makes all the difference in the world, just like good lighting. So this Advent season, may you know that love is on the way, that light is on the way, and that the work of love that is ours to do could mean a million things, but it's ours to do. My friends, in this Advent season, with Christmas quickly approaching, may we continue to practice this sacred waiting, this anticipation that love is on the way, that something good will find us and that we get to keep receiving love, offering love and asking, what is the work of love that is ours to do, whether we find ourselves in broad daylight and beautiful lighting, or whether we find ourselves in the dark, longing for the light. May you always know that love and light will find you and that goodness is on the way.

Whitney Higdon: 28:41

Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope you enjoyed this worship service. If you would like to make a donation helping make these podcasts possible or support them many ways. First, Presbyterian seeks to serve our community. You can make a financial gift online at bend fp.org, every week, we hear from someone thanking us for the gift of these broadcasts, and what a difference they make. Your support makes that possible. Our church is committed to reach beyond our walls, bringing hope where there is despair and love where it is needed the most. Your generous support helps us to be generous in love. Go to our website, bend fp.org, and click on the link. Give online. Your support is really appreciated and makes a difference in people's lives. Thanks again. I hope to see you next week.