Dear People of Christ Church,
As you know, next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, but there is some partying to be done before then. We're doing both jazz Mardi Gras (Friday, 6pm, Steve Taddeo concert) and taking up the traditional English practice of eating pancakes before Lent, using up the indulgent eggs and butter before the Lenten fast. On Sunday, we also celebrate and offer our thanks to Bishop Shaw, who retires this year, along with our partner congregation, St Peter's Ugandan Anglican, who will join us for worship.
Ash Wednesday morning, we begin with ashes at the train station. This year, we're partnering with Chaplains on the Way, which I particularly appreciate since, as a mostly-homeless ministry, the street is their church. I wonder about how many people, who, for whatever reason, don't feel comfortable coming into a church, and how powerful a witness it is to leave our comfort zone of having people come to us. Will someone have a more "deep" experience in coming to church? As a priest I'd probably hope so, but I also shouldn't make assumptions about what happens between an individual and God, no matter where they're standing. I heard a quote about meditation once that said that you could open the window, but you couldn't make the breeze come in. That probably applies here-when fewer and fewer people having traditional church backgrounds, we need to throw open as many windows as we can.
It's not an easy question, though-how far can you go from tradition before you've lost the center of what you're committed to in the first place? What are we inviting people toward if we compromise too far? How much do we ask of people who come to have a child baptized? Do they have to come for a few weeks, months, a year? Do they have to officially join the parish by making a financial pledge? What about receiving communion? It's the practice in our diocese in many places, including Christ Church, to offer communion to everyone, whether or not they're baptized. The prayer book and church canons say baptism should come first. Here, again it trying to open the windows.
Adherence to tradition is one of those places where we strive for faithfulness, not necessarily the 100% always-and-everywhere-iron-clad rule. Faithfulness, it seems to me, is deciding which side you're going to err on. Will we be devoted to orthodoxy or openness? What's at stake on both sides? There are a lot of times when I defer to tradition-the Nicene Creed, for example-but here, I think there is actually something to say for asking what Jesus would do. His first goal, most often, was to get people to the table. Once you're there, you can talk more, debate, pick sides. As the parable in Luke 14 tells it, when the nice, qualified guests wouldn't come for the feast, the host told his servant quite unequivocally: "Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame." When he does that and there's still space, he goes out to make everybody else come in. Would it have been a better party if the well-educated and polite people had come? It's completely possible. Would they have appreciated the expensive wine more? Maybe. But that's not what God's table is about.
I do appreciate, though, that it's a discussion to be had. It's not an uncontroversial stance, it's not an "of course!" moment. And once-if-this gets settled, there will be something else to struggle with. As we grow into the church we're called to be, we are trying to follow a Jesus who's always just a little ahead, taking us a little further than we thought we could go.
Blessings,
Sara+
PS: For a more general intro to Lent piece about Ashes to Go, see my editorial in the Waltham News Tribune today!
Showing posts with label Ash Wednesday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ash Wednesday. Show all posts
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
From Feb 7: Ashes to Go
Dear People of Christ Church,
Our chaplain in seminary used to say that it was God’s cruelest joke that so many clergy are introverts. God gets you into this ministry—you imagine quiet moments of prayer and solitude, mulling over sermons and preparing liturgies. Then you get thrown in front of a church and your inner panicker goes into high gear. Church is great—but there are people everywhere. I love my work—and I love being the priest at Christ Church—but I will say that a quiet room and a book or a blank page are high on my list of favorite things.
It is, then, maybe God also getting a kick out of our discomfort with a new movement in the Episcopal Church: ashes to go. No music, no liturgy, not even a roof: clergy and lay people taking to the streets and standing in prayer with anyone who comes by. Last year, I remember hearing about churches doing it, and it seemed like a nice, but impractical, idea. We Episcopalians have not often aligned ourselves with people walking around the sidewalks announcing the end of the world—are we slipping into some apocalyptic rabbit hole? Surely we don’t want to be unnecessarily confrontational, do we?
Maybe, maybe not. I am inclined to say, though, that we make an awful lot of assumptions in thinking that all that is right and true can be found within our four walls. While we may be intellectually open to the strengths of other traditions, but when it comes to participating in church, we expect people to get with our program. I recently read a piece by the Rt Rev Stephen Lane, the Bishop of Maine, in which he asks the question: where is the “frontline” of your church? It got me thinking—most of what we do here happens, well, here. At 750 Main Street in Waltham. Our church is wonderful and grace-filled, but we also tend only to share that with those who come to us, rather than the church going out to meet the people where they are.
That was not exactly Jesus’ style. Last night, as the parent helper in my daughter’s Godly Play class at Grace Medford, where my husband is the rector, we heard the parable of the Great Banquet. Putting out the familiar pictures and green felt, the storyteller began. Someone wanted to have a party, and invited all of his friends, but they wouldn’t come. They had to take care of their property. They had just gotten married. Another had to check on some livestock they were buying. So what does the host do? Get more people to come in. The poor, the blind, the sick, the outcast. And when there's still room, he casts the circle wider. The banquet grows and grows. No longer confined to those they already know—the ones with the right job and the right views—now, absolutely everybody gets in.
Too often, the church does not tell the story of a Great Banquet—too often, we are an intimate dinner party, entranced by our own cleverness and style. I don’t know what Jesus would have said about taking our ashes to the streets—I don’t know what he would have said about ashes in the first place, since he was pretty clear on instructing people not to look dismal about fasting and prayer—but I am confident that whatever the church can do to come near to others is the path that Jesus would have us walk on. Would it be “better” if people came to an hourlong liturgy and had time for music, reflection, and a sermon about the tradition and theology of the day? Quite probably. The liturgy for Ash Wednesday is a great service. And surely, I hope all of you who are reading this go to church…
But for the tired commuter who doesn’t know how she will make it through the day without eighteen cups of cofeee, for the homeless person as they walk from the shelter to breakfast at the Salvation Army, for the man who stopped going to church after his wife died, for the boss who has to fire someone and the employee who’s worried the pink slip is coming, for the mom who is worried that her kid will get sick at school and she’ll have to leave work early—for all of those people, we’ll be there on Carter Street. No judgments, no strings, no gimmicks. Just the dust we came from and a prayer for God’s grace—an opening of our hands and one deep breath of hope.
Blessings,
Sara+
Want to help? We need volunteers to take the 8:30-9 shift or a second set of 2-3 who would be willing to host a station by the bus stop right outside Christ Church.
Our chaplain in seminary used to say that it was God’s cruelest joke that so many clergy are introverts. God gets you into this ministry—you imagine quiet moments of prayer and solitude, mulling over sermons and preparing liturgies. Then you get thrown in front of a church and your inner panicker goes into high gear. Church is great—but there are people everywhere. I love my work—and I love being the priest at Christ Church—but I will say that a quiet room and a book or a blank page are high on my list of favorite things.
It is, then, maybe God also getting a kick out of our discomfort with a new movement in the Episcopal Church: ashes to go. No music, no liturgy, not even a roof: clergy and lay people taking to the streets and standing in prayer with anyone who comes by. Last year, I remember hearing about churches doing it, and it seemed like a nice, but impractical, idea. We Episcopalians have not often aligned ourselves with people walking around the sidewalks announcing the end of the world—are we slipping into some apocalyptic rabbit hole? Surely we don’t want to be unnecessarily confrontational, do we?
Maybe, maybe not. I am inclined to say, though, that we make an awful lot of assumptions in thinking that all that is right and true can be found within our four walls. While we may be intellectually open to the strengths of other traditions, but when it comes to participating in church, we expect people to get with our program. I recently read a piece by the Rt Rev Stephen Lane, the Bishop of Maine, in which he asks the question: where is the “frontline” of your church? It got me thinking—most of what we do here happens, well, here. At 750 Main Street in Waltham. Our church is wonderful and grace-filled, but we also tend only to share that with those who come to us, rather than the church going out to meet the people where they are.
That was not exactly Jesus’ style. Last night, as the parent helper in my daughter’s Godly Play class at Grace Medford, where my husband is the rector, we heard the parable of the Great Banquet. Putting out the familiar pictures and green felt, the storyteller began. Someone wanted to have a party, and invited all of his friends, but they wouldn’t come. They had to take care of their property. They had just gotten married. Another had to check on some livestock they were buying. So what does the host do? Get more people to come in. The poor, the blind, the sick, the outcast. And when there's still room, he casts the circle wider. The banquet grows and grows. No longer confined to those they already know—the ones with the right job and the right views—now, absolutely everybody gets in.
Too often, the church does not tell the story of a Great Banquet—too often, we are an intimate dinner party, entranced by our own cleverness and style. I don’t know what Jesus would have said about taking our ashes to the streets—I don’t know what he would have said about ashes in the first place, since he was pretty clear on instructing people not to look dismal about fasting and prayer—but I am confident that whatever the church can do to come near to others is the path that Jesus would have us walk on. Would it be “better” if people came to an hourlong liturgy and had time for music, reflection, and a sermon about the tradition and theology of the day? Quite probably. The liturgy for Ash Wednesday is a great service. And surely, I hope all of you who are reading this go to church…
But for the tired commuter who doesn’t know how she will make it through the day without eighteen cups of cofeee, for the homeless person as they walk from the shelter to breakfast at the Salvation Army, for the man who stopped going to church after his wife died, for the boss who has to fire someone and the employee who’s worried the pink slip is coming, for the mom who is worried that her kid will get sick at school and she’ll have to leave work early—for all of those people, we’ll be there on Carter Street. No judgments, no strings, no gimmicks. Just the dust we came from and a prayer for God’s grace—an opening of our hands and one deep breath of hope.
Blessings,
Sara+
Want to help? We need volunteers to take the 8:30-9 shift or a second set of 2-3 who would be willing to host a station by the bus stop right outside Christ Church.
Friday, February 19, 2010
The invitation of Lent
A blessed Ash Wednesday to you. I'm in between our services now--we have one more coming, at 7 pm. We had a nice turnout at noon--about half from St Peter's Ugandan congregation--so it was nice to celebrate together. Well, I guess Ash Wednesday isn't celebratory, exactly-but maybe it should be. Lent isn't so much about renunciation and leanness as it is about making room for God's love to come at Easter. We get tangled up in wanting to punish ourselves for being bad, while that can sometimes just turn us more deeply self-ward, rather than God-ward. A friend of a friend on facebook, also a priest, commented on "that great English tradition of thinking ourselves virtuous when, in point of fact, we're merely uncomfortable." Ouch.
As we've been planning, we don't have cut flowers on the altar or in the baptistry this year. Several years ago, Sheila Gillen donated several crown of thorns plants for the Lenten altar. For a while they were in my office, but when one of them died it seemed like the sacristy might be a better place (there's more light--and also I am not great with plants), so it has really grown well. Maybe too well--almost like nature joking with us in our solemnity, last week it also sprung two tiny flowers. You can only see them up close, but it's almost as if we are being told that there will be some tiny sign of new life, even in this dark winter.
What will really bring you new life in Lent this year? What will clear open the space to meet the joy of Easter? One theme that I always come back to again and again is forgiveness--forgiving myself, as much (if not more than) forgiving others. This Sunday, we'll meet upstairs in to watch "The Power of Forgiveness," a documentary on forgiveness in its many shapes, with stories from Northern Ireland, Post 9/11/01 New York City, the Middle East, and more.
I'd like to share a poem (of sorts) that I mailed out last year as well--I'm not sure where it comes from. A friend sent it to me and I thought it captured well the invitation of Lent.
This Lent...
Fast from suspicion and feast on trust
Fast from complaining and feast on appreciation
Fast from judging others and feast on Christ within others
Fast from idle gossip and feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from bitter anger and feast on forgiveness.
Fast from discouragement and feast on hope
Fast from worry and feast on trusting God
Fast from unrelenting pressures and feast on prayer that sustains.
Fast from lethargy and feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from emphasizing the differences and feast on the unity of life.
Fast from thoughts of illness and feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude.
Fast from hostility; feast on nonviolence.
Fast from self-absorption; feast on compassion.
Blessings,
Sara+
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