Mosaic Study Guide

For Personal Reflection or Smaller Group Encounters

Advent Four
Week of 21 December 08

Questions for Everyone: How do you respond to change?  Do you pursue change?  Do you endure change?  Have you encountered significant change in this past year?  What was that like for you? 

Luke 1.46-55 (NRSV)
⁴⁶And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵²He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.’

The Message:
⁴⁶And Mary said, I'm bursting with God-news; ⁴⁷I'm dancing the song of my Savior God.⁴⁸God took one good look at me, and look what happened--I'm the most fortunate woman on earth! What God has done for me will never be forgotten, ⁴⁹the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others. ⁵⁰His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him. ⁵¹He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts. ⁵²He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud.⁵³The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold. ⁵⁴He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high. ⁵⁵It's exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

This past Sunday we watched the scene in A Christmas Carol in which Ebenezer Scrooge begins his new life as a changed man. 

Questions: How did you respond to that scene?  Do you think that such transformation is actually possible? 

On Sunday we listened to Mary’s song from Luke 1. Mary has had her life turned upside down by God’s unprovoked initiative.  Changed has been thrust upon her.  She will give birth to a child without the advantages of biological father.  You might imagine what the village folk in Mary’s day had to say about that. 

Questions: What might we learn about God from the way God enters our world?  That is, what does the fact that God chose an unwed teenage mother to change the world say about God? 

Listen to Mary’s song again.  Listen to the haunting melody of transformation.  God will bring down the mighty from their high horses.  God will raise up the lowly from the trash heap of forgotten humanity.  Mary is just one example of God’s propensity to use the lowly for God’s very best work.

Questions:  So how are we to respond to a God that works in such surprising ways?   How do relatively privileged people hear this text?  How might this be good news for us? 

We have been through quite a process of transformation on our journey toward becoming Mosaic.  Rob mentioned in his teaching that not only has our church been through a significant redesign, he himself is in the process of redesign. 

Questions: Are you allowing the process of redesign to transform you?  Are you allowing new ways of being together, new ways of engaging God, new ways of being church, to transform your life?  How are you responding to this change?  Are you embracing?  Are you resisting?  Are you ambivalent?  What might it look like for you to enter the redesign process?

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