Dwelling Closer to the Ground

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week we had a terrific first “Intro to the Episcopal Church” class, with about 9 people gathered to talk about our questions, curiosities, and longings for God’s “new thing” happening in our spiritual lives. It’s so exciting to see how the parish changes and grows—almost none of the 9 people gathered at that table were members a year ago, and there they all were, from Catholic and Evangelical and Lutheran and Methodist and all backgrounds in between. This thing that is the church is a living body, not a building or a list of names.

In my sermon on Sunday I was talking about how, in the Gospels we hear the story of Jesus being Jesus Christ, in the book of Acts, which we read every Sunday in Easter season, we hear the story of the church becoming the church. Rather than one single appointed leader taking the place of Jesus, it’s the church—the whole gathered body—that takes on his ministry and presence in the world. Peter and Paul and Mary Magdalene were all important, but it wasn’t just one of them who carried on the work of God in the risen Christ…that takes a whole church.

The church is the Body of Christ, and it needs all of us to be that.
God in the church needs the curiosity of those returning to faith after a time away.
God in the church needs the hunger for community of those who are looking for a place of transcendence and belonging.
God in the church needs the attentiveness to justice and peace of those who dare to ask the hard questions and sit with the hard answers.
God in the church needs your passion for the environment, for children, for elders.
Maybe most important, and first, God in the church needs just your presence. God needs your love, your reverence, your longing for stillness and simplicity.

This past Sunday in our Episcopal Church class we talked about how the basic impulse of Anglicanism, all the way back to King Henry VIII and his somewhat sketchy motivations, is about trying to dwell closer to the ground. In our governance, in our thinking, in our theology, we are all about trying to think and pray in response to the world as it is. When Christ Church developed our parish vision statement a number of years ago we settled on a description of the parish as “grounded in tradition, yet open to the world.” This Sunday, we’ll hear the story in Acts about how the early church grappled with its diversity—Jews and non-Jews didn’t eat together, ever, in ordinary life, much less form a whole community around sharing a meal! But God gives the church a vision of broad inclusion that makes space for every kind of person and every kind of food. One of the best lines in all of Scripture is in this story—“Who was I to hinder God?” Who are we to hinder God? Where is God breaking through your barriers and obstacles this week? Where are you becoming more deeply part of God’s church that needs all of you?

Blessings,
Sara+