God the Potter

Dear People of Christ Church,
In the children’s sermon this past Sunday, we played with clay—our text was the passage from Jeremiah where the prophet talks about God as a potter, forming us. The scripture text gets a little dark—God tells Jeremiah the pot can be crushed, if the potter desires. It seems to come with a threat: God will “shape evil” against the people if God desires.
God might, but God doesn’t.
The Bible is a record of God’s doings in history, but it’s also a record of the people of God trying to understand their experience and God’s action in the world. Again and again, we might think that God will give up on us, or send calamity or trial or tempest. We feel like unsteady pieces of clay sometimes, going around and around the potter’s wheel. Will we be strong and perfect? Will we be weak and wobbly? Will we go astray and get flung off the wheel and into the corner? Will the potter just give up and get something better?
Here’s where the similarity to the potter ends.
I took a class once in pottery, learning the painstaking way a potter has to have just the right balance of gentle pressure. Too little support for the thin walls of a pot on a potter’s wheel, and the clay tears and falls down. Building the wall of the pot too thick doesn’t work, either—then you end up with a door stopper instead. Too little water on the pot as it spins will make it impossible to shape. Too much water will do the same. It’s a marvel any potter can make anything at all without throwing it all in the corner.
Again and again, though, God doesn’t throw the whole thing in the corner. As a not-even-second-rate potter, I gave up all the time and threw the clay back in the bin or, worse, in the trash. But God never does. This week we’ll hear the parable of the lost coin and the lost sheep. Leaving 99, the shepherd goes after the one who’s gone astray. Losing one coin, the woman turns her house upside down until she finds it—and then she throws a party! These are not the actions of a potter who’s going to give up on the clay.
This is the time of year of new beginnings. Even though it’s now been 13 years since I started a new academic year as a student, I still feel a sense of promise as the air begins to cool in the fall. This is the year, I tell myself, I’m really going to get organized. Whether I do or not, though, by now I’m beginning to learn: it doesn’t matter. I’ll do my best, imperfectly tending the garden of my life. Either way, fall will give into winter. Either way, winter will give into spring. Either way, God’s love will encircle us.
Blessings,
Sara+

Ascensiontide, Season for Uncertainty

Dear People of Christ Church,
In my sermon on Sunday I was thinking with you about the uncertainty of Ascensiontide. Not like “tide” like waves, but like time (—in the church we just stick “tide” as a suffix to whatever we want to extend past its traditional expiration date). The disciples experience Jesus as having been lifted away from them, literally into the sky. Renaissance paintings just show feet at the top of the canvas. However that spatial metaphor works or doesn’t, I said, in my sermon, there is something decidedly new in the disciples’ experience. Jesus was with them in the post resurrection experiences, and then he wasn’t. He stopped showing up with breakfast on the beach, stopped walking along with them pretending to be a stranger, stopped telling them not to be afraid. All of that just stopped. In our Gospel for Sunday we hear Jesus talking about sending the Holy Spirit, that he has to leave for it Spirit to show up. The Greek word is “advocate”—the Paraclete.

Easter season might be the liturgical season for joy, but if there were a liturgical season for uncertainty, ascensiontide would be it. In our lives, uncertainty doesn’t have a season. There is always plenty of it to go around, anytime. Just like you don’t need Lent to realize your distance from God, you don’t need a painting of the tips of Jesus’ feet to know ambiguity. The invitation to think about it in an intentional way comes from the disciples—this time of year we are trying to hang out with them for a while in this in-between space.

We’ve been doing a lot of that in Easter season, just hanging out with the disciples and seeing what’s going on. I think of that as one of the goals of preaching—to bring us all into the text and see what’s happening, listen in on those long-ago conversations and see what’s there for us. Taking the disciples up on their invitation can feel kind of like a strange choice to make, admittedly. It takes a certain willingness to suspend disbelief, not to know the answers ahead of time about what you’ll find, and just jump in. The past is the past, but through Scripture it’s a living past that touches the present in an unexpected way. We are in community with those disciples and with Jesus as we are in community with each other.

What are you finding in this season of uncertainty? Pentecost is coming up on Sunday and we turn toward the Holy Spirit, her rushing wind and tongues of fire. But we have a few more days of quiet. What have you heard here?

Blessings,
Sara+

Remember their Names

Dear People of Christ Church,
This Sunday, we’ll hear the story of David and Goliath, a story we all know by heart. David, so young and so small he couldn’t even move trying to wear armor, hit Goliath in the middle of the eyes and knocked him down. Though everyone said it would be impossible, with God it would happen. Waking up to news this morning of a shooting at a historically black church in South Carolina, American racism feels like Goliath and we are all still on our way to battle.

In the story, David uses the same strength and skill that has brought him victory over all kinds of wild beasts. David knows himself. The United States, though? We don’t know ourselves. We don’t know each other. We don’t know our own minds, we don’t know each others’ experiences to free ourselves from this toxic fog of racism and hatred that seeps in everywhere. The assailant at the Emanuel shooting sat in Bible Study with his victims for an hour before beginning the attack. It’s beyond chilling.

So I don’t have a ton of words this evening, but I do have the Gospel. We can pray, pray, pray and be vulnerable to the suffering of others. We can remember their names and pray for Cynthia, Tywanza, DePayne, Ethel, Myra, Susie, Sharonda, Daniel Sr, and Clementa, each beloved children who rest in the arms of their Creator. We can remember that Jesus went to the cross rather than return violence for violence.

We can note that the terrorism perpetrated against this church is in a neighboring town to the place where Walter Scott was murdered just two months ago by police, also viewed with suspicion and hatred because he was black. And we can also say that they were martyrs, not only victims. We can say it is terrorism. Pray that we—you and me—have the courage to face our own racism and our own quiescence in the face of this violence.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP).

Please join me and members of the wider community at Christ Church on Saturday, June 20, at 6pm for an Interfaith Prayer Vigil for Peace and and End to Racism, hosted by the Waltham Ministerial Association.

Blessings,
Sara+

Jesus' Compassion, Our Fears

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I am still mulling over this past Sunday’s children’s sermon experiment with The Jesus’ Love and Compassion Paper Shredder of Sadness and Fear (an idea I very gratefully pinched from a colleague). We talked a little about things we’re afraid of and drew pictures or wrote them down. Monsters and lions and bullies, failure and illness and grief. Inequality and homelessness and racism. We decided that Jesus could handle those things and would let us know how to help.

Our Gospel for the day was a healing story—Epiphany season is full of them, and there’s another this week. Last Sunday’s started off a bit differently, though—rather than being about illness, this one was about an “unclean” spirit. Not an easy subject—too often, categories of “clean” and “unclean” get attached to human beings and are used to judge and reject. Whether gender identity or social status or other categories, it seems like humans always are tempted to exclude each other.

In any case, there’s this fascinating bit in there about authority—the authority of Jesus. I asked the kids what that word means, and Eli said power—which is true. But the power and authority of Jesus comes from a different place than we’re used to. Often in our world, power is about domination: it’s the opposite of weakness. It’s a relative term. You can only have power if you have something another doesn’t have. The power we most often see is based in threats. Bigger bombs or bigger bank accounts. The authority of Jesus comes from a different place. The authority of Jesus is not a relationship of stronger vs weaker. The authority of Jesus is compassion—com-passion, literally suffering-along-with. The power of God in Jesus was compassion for those who are suffering. And in that compassion, he healed the person in the story.

Jesus can heal us, too—if we let him. That’s what was so important about the “authority” piece in the Gospel for last Sunday; Jesus was given authority over suffering, and that’s where healing came from. In our paper shredder experiment, we gave Jesus authority over our anxiety, too.

I don’t know what was “really” happening in the story—we can analyze back and label it epilepsy or mental illness or whatever, but what feels more important is to see that love cast out fear. As Jesus wasn’t afraid of the “unclean” person, he was able to be in community again.

This is a message I really need to take with me into the season of Lent. I need to remember that whatever sins I name on Ash Wednesday that, like that person with the demon, I can recognize the authority of Jesus to heal me from them. It’s not a passive healing, but an active participation in our salvation (though we aren’t the agents, for sure).

What do you need to hear as we enter Lent? What fear do you need Jesus to shred with love and compassion? What will help you to repent and be forgiven?

Blessings,
Sara+

Being Beloved, Being Changed

Dear People of Christ Church,
Sunday, my sermon was all about the love of God—God’s all the time, unconditional, unchanging love. It doesn’t matter how much better we could be through self-improvement—more exercise, more prayer, more attentiveness, more simplicity—still, no matter what, God loves us now and won’t love us more even if we could become “better” somehow.

This week, I’m feeling vividly the paradox of that profound truth—God literally could not love us more—at the same time as I feel the truth of God’s pull toward being, yes, better. Some of it is the New Year; writing all of our annual reports, I’m excited about what else we can do having seen how far we’ve come. Some of it is Martin Luther King, Jr Day—thinking of the “more” to which the Civil Rights Movement called our country and thinking of just how far there still is to go.

The love of God invites our total and profound surrender to God’s will. The love of God invites our perfect rest in God’s sufficiency and care for us. The love of God is a raging fire, that burns in your heart until you’ve shared it with others. The love of God is the knowledge that you are valued beyond measure and—and—for that very reason—for the very reason of your soft cuddly love of God feeling—you are also made brave beyond measure to go out into the world to make God’s dream real.

I don’t know the answer of how, exactly, to do this. I’m starting small—in how I teach my children, in how I spend my money, in how I do my job. Jesus said something about being a neighbor, loving with action and word those who are closest, allowing the sphere of our affection to broaden. Not turning away from suffering. Last week, like many were, I was swept away in the “Big Ideas” about the shootings in France while as many as 2,000 people were murdered in Nigeria with hardly a media ripple.

So I’ll soak in all of God’s love and acceptance that I know is mine in Christ. I will pray not to allow myself to feel God’s love as an insulating cocoon away from the world, but as a fire behind me that allows me to go out into the world. I will pray to be willing to face suffering and pain, knowing that God’s love will always be enough.

Blessings,
Sara+

Chasing Newness

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, we’re back to our regular schedule at 8:30 and 10. It’s been nice to have a more relaxed pace on Sunday mornings with just one service, but I miss our 8:30—it’s quiet and contemplative and I pray so well with that shape of liturgy! We’ll bless backpacks and laptops and lunch boxes and whatever else you bring—prayers for new beginnings and new endeavors.

A lot is new, but a lot is the same. Still, there is a spiritual quality to newness. Paul writes to the Church in Corinth that whoever is in Christ is a new creation. In the book of Revelation, the fantastical vision is of a new heaven and a new earth. In Ezekiel, God promises a new heart and a new spirit. Why do we need all this newness? Aren’t things fine the way they are?

Yes, yes, and no.
Putting my son on the school bus to 2nd grade this week, I was vividly aware of how much everything changes, and fast. Next fall his sister will be on that bus with him—to kindergarten—how I became the parent of school aged children already is anyone’s guess. I have a front row seat to everything new in their lives, but there’s plenty new in my life, too, and yours, I’ll bet—new presences as well as new absences. Not all the new is shiny and compelling; sometimes it’s raw and tender. When someone we love dies, we change, too. There’s newness of tragedy, too, when we thought the world was safe and it turned out not to be. The stray bullet out of nowhere and the tumor that doesn’t shrink both bring their share of newness, a kind we’d never wish on anyone, nevermind seek for ourselves.

I wonder, too, about the newness in ourselves that we don’t notice. Our brains are primed to crave novelty—we want new stuff to buy, new stuff to look at—the pleasure-centers in our brains light up and crave that kind of transient newness again and again. We can be insatiable. But it takes more sustained attention to seek the spiritual newness that, I think, is more like what the apostle Paul and the prophet Ezekiel are talking about. What’s the newness that comes when you let go of a fear? What’s the newness that comes when you make a commitment, the newness that comes out of faithfulness over time or learning something about yourself you’d never seen? What fears have you released over the years? What anxiety over status or appearance or the judgment of others have you let go?

What is the new, really new, that you’re looking for? Something more solid than novelty, but a good and life-giving change? Let me know what you’re thinking about, and let’s talk about how we can support each other in those ventures. I’m still planning for October Tuesday education, so give me your ideas.

But still bring your STUFF that brings newness on Sunday… your new diaper bag or lunch box (daughter Adah has one with a transformer on the front with flashing lights for eyes). The gear might not change your life, but it’s still fun.

Blessings,
Sara+

Racism, healing, and providence in the real world

Dear People of Christ Church,
On Sunday in my sermon, I was wrestling with the idea of God’s providence—God has a redemptive plan and will give us what we need—and the idea of our freedom, a crucial aspect of the gift of human life.  The idea of God’s will sometimes can seem like it conflicts with our will.  This came up in the context of the story of Joseph, forgiving his brothers for selling him into slavery, as he ascends to the heights of power and ultimately saves their lives when famine strikes. How does God allow terrible things to happen to people? If God was planning for him to be powerful and wealthy, couldn’t God have just as easily have prevented him from getting thrown into that pit in the first place?   Does the positive outcome outweigh the suffering?

So, too, with our Gospel on Sunday—Jesus behaves terribly toward a Canaanite woman looking for healing for her daughter—he calls her a dog. In response, she bests him—even the dogs get the crumbs, she snaps. BAM.  Even Jesus needs to be converted sometimes.  Was he testing her? Treating her cruelly to see how she’d behave? I don’t think so. Jesus’ encounter with her shows us that even the Son of God can be transformed, that transformation is essential, like freedom, to what it is to be human.

Jesus was transformed—he was pushed out of his previously narrow assumption of what he was called to do. Joseph was transformed—he forgave his brothers for their violence, and saw God’s hand in the world around him.  God was working there, but I reject entirely the notion that God intended the events that lead up to them. Our world is a place where God dances—but it’s not always God’s choreography from the beginning. 

I can point to all kinds of places I need to be transformed, and this week, I’m particularly aware of where our country needs that grace, too.  A study was released on Tuesday  that said that 37% of white Americans believe that the shooting and protest in Ferguson, MO raises important conversations abut race.  80% of African Americans think so. So, just for the record, let me say: The events of the last ten days raise important issues about race. Our country is an amazing experiment of seeking equality, democracy, and fairness (see my July post about patriotic humility). There is a lot that we get right. But the evidence at how we think about difference, and how people of different races are treated in the courts and in law enforcement, makes it clear to me that we’re not all there.

God’s providence means that there will be reconciliation, there will be salvation. But, like Jesus and the Cannanite woman, like Joseph and his brothers, we have to take some risks around vulnerability and truth-telling. What could we do at Christ Church to more faithfully embody God’s healing for this world? Where does God’s providence lead us in fighting racism and confronting prejudice?      

I’ll close with a prayer I found from the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska, and their anti-racism work:

God, Creator of all things, we come broken with a heart that has been torn like Jesus on the cross, the cross that draws together your children of many colors.
You know our suffering.
We ask in Jesus' name that you heal your people.
Where there has been unearned advantage because of the color of our skin,
give us courage to repent and to fight the injustice and sin of racism.
Holy God, who created all colors of people, allow us to honor your light in every soul.
Help us to see you in one another, to hear your voice in all people, and to work to end racism in our church, our communities, and the world. Amen.

Blessings, Sara+

Where _is_ Jesus?

Dear People of Christ Church,

This week in our Tuesday 6:00 group, we had a conversation about Jesus.  We were kind of all over the place. We were responding to this quote from our book, The Restoration
Project:  

If you were to imagine that Jesus is with you right now, where would he appear? Would he be  beside you, a companion on the way? Is he ahead of you, leading to an unknown destination? Is he behind you, holding you up in ways known and unknown? Or is he in front of you, holding you in his gaze, teaching or commissioning you for some work only you can do?  (p. 85).

Where is Jesus?   
In a literal, spatial way? I didn't quite have an answer.
The answer is...all over. Jesus is in the sacraments, feeding me. Jesus is kind of laughing at me when I spin out wild story lines of anxiety and self-criticism, gently inviting me to be quiet and be loved. Jesus might sit next to me when I meditate, when I'm fidgety and can't focus.  But is Jesus the person, the first century Nazarene Jew really there? I don't know. Where is Jesus?
I don't know...maybe he stepped out to fill the bird feeder or turn over the compost?  

It's much easier to encounter God in the abstract; praying with the Spirit who "intercedes with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). It's easier to imagine God as Creator, bringing life out of nothing in primordial banging planets, then receding from consciousness.  It's easier to imagine Jesus walking dusty roads long ago, turning upside down the consciousness of those he met. I love the Emmaus Story when Jesus walks with the disciples and they only realize it was him as they are eating-and then he disappears.  

But here's something. This morning, with the Sisters of Saint Anne, we celebrated Eucharist in the chapel surrounded by huge paintings of Jesus from artist Janet McKenzie-her rendition of the Stations of the Cross. We read her book, Holiness and the Feminine Spirit a few years ago in our daytime book group. McKenzie's Jesus doesn't have much in common with the Good Shepherd in our window. Her images are dark skinned, dark haired, dark eyed. They're honest, his face in pain but also love, a body in motion, but also deep exhaustion and a moment of rest. We don't after all, know what he looked like, but chances really are not that good that he was blue eyed and blond. It's not just the "more accurate" picture of the paintings that makes you pay attention-it's texture, nuance, and light. Jesus is somehow there in those paintings. I have traditional icons in my prayer space both at home and in the office, but I don't quite encounter Jesus like I did this morning.   

So there's that. I sometimes wish I had the kind of spirituality where I could just go for long walks and have Jesus by my side in glorious and mutual back and forth conversation.  Usually it's more subtle than that, and for the most part I'm OK with that (you may be relieved to know that the Donatist heresies settled the question as to whether the piety of the priest impacts whether the sacrament works-it doesn't-so you are all OK even if I edge into theological danger zones!)

Either way, the life of Christ in the church is as real as my own kitchen table, the pattern of death and resurrection near to me as my heart. And for that I am grateful, even if I can't put it on a seating chart, locating the transcendent love of God with the right preposition.  Maybe someday. Where is Jesus for you?

Blessings,
Sara+

Seeing and not seeing

Dear People of Christ Church,

Last Sunday in my sermon, I was thinking with you about how in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was trying to bring his listeners somewhere.  He wasn't just teaching, he was preaching.  Our selection was not the nice and warm parts we associate with the Sermon on the Mount-instead of blessing, we heard him use shocking language about cutting off hands and plucking out eyes that cause us to sin: more maniacal dictator than savior.   In doing the work of interpretation, we can hear that Jesus is offering a sermon, not an instruction manual for sound living. These wild words speak to imagination, not obedience.  Jesus is telling the people to imagine, really imagine, to know that it's possible to be free from sin.  It's not as simple as plucking out an eye, it's not even as simple as declaring that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Instead, it's possible by God's grace, in resurrection and love.  As Christians we learn that is a reality beyond sin and brokenness.  Whatever shame or violence or hatred we are stuck in, there is a way out.

Jesus uses shocking language because his listeners, like us, need a little prod to pay attention.  I recently came across a wonderful book review of Alexandra Horowicz's On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes. Realizing how city living had dulled her senses, Horowicz took eleven different walks around her neighborhood, trying to share the perspective of her companions-various "experts" from her dog, to her toddler, to a geologist and a font specialist. Her walk with a blind acquaintance is one of the most evocative.

Some of our obliviousness is a survival strategy; if my mind judged the new burger special at Wendy's to be as important as whether or not a car was turning into the street in front of me, I wouldn't live very long. I want to listen to the person in front of me talking about her family, not the sound of traffic outside, and I would be a bad priest if I didn't were putting my attention elsewhere. The problem comes when we get cagey in our selection; where our ignor-ance is willful or inflicts pain, where we don't see because we just don't want to deal.

Horowicz writes,
Right now, you are missing the vast majority of what is happening around you. You are missing the events unfolding in your body, in the distance, and right in front of you.  By marshaling your attention to these words, helpfully framed in a distinct border of white, you are ignoring an unthinkably large amount of information that continues to bombard all of your senses: the hum of the fluorescent lights, the ambient noise in a large room, the places your chair presses against your legs or back, your tongue touching the roof of your mouth, the tension you are holding in your shoulders or jaw, the map of the cool and warm places on your body, the constant hum of traffic or a distant lawn-mower, the blurred view of your own shoulders and torso in your peripheral vision, a chirp of a bug or whine of a kitchen appliance.

This awareness of our unawareness has particular theological significance.  I wonder about what would have happened between Michael Dunn and Jordan Davis if they could have seen each other more clearly, untethered by racism or anger; protesters and police in the Ukraine; or Pussy Riot and Vladimir Putin in Russia. On a personal and global scale, we need a wider lens.  

This Sunday, we welcome Allison Reynolds- Berry, a community organizer from REACH to tell us about their "Say Hi" campaign (read more below). Small actions like knowing our neighbors and actually seeing each other make for a safer, and stronger, community.   Violence at home is an isolating experience, but when people are connected to each other, it can be easier to leave an abusive situation.   How can we see our neighbors, our near ones, more clearly? How can we see the work of God around us more profoundly? Where are we not looking, and what can we see?  

Blessings,
Sara+

The power of story

December 19, 2013

Dear People of Christ Church,

The pageant is tonight! The pageant is tonight!
I'm not sure how it came to pass that churches took on the habit of having children act out the Christmas story, but I am so grateful for it. There's something about the Christmas story that's easy to think we've got it all figured out; it's so familiar and so unfamiliar at the same time.  All the heavy theology about human nature and divine nature and all of them coming together can sound so abstract as to be meaningless. At the same time, the manger where we think we've been so many times seems like the house where you grew up, knowing each loose board and creaking step all the way down in your bones.  Somehow actually acting it out makes it more and less familiar; our pageant script has a rather sassy innkeeper and innkeeper's spouse, and it just makes you wonder: What was it like to go from door to door looking for a place to stay? What did Mary ponder in her heart those moments after Jesus was born, he heart crushed by wonder and love at the same time?  Why haven't you pictured a ladybug there at the scene?

Anything in our spiritual lives that can get us to ask questions, to interrogate our habitual ways of understanding is always fruitful. Part of what faith does is to ease our pain; of course it does, and should, help us feel "better." In faith we know that love is eternal and our souls are kept safe at God's breast. In faith we know that the powers of death are already vanquished. But faith can also lead us to become too comfortable, to forget that God desires our doubts as well as our certainties.  By encountering our faith stories as story, we can be a bit more playful, letting our minds wander a little into new visions and new dreams.

Scripture is great about this; much as we forget, each Gospel treats the birth of Jesus in a different way. Luke offers us the evocative manger scene we enact at the holiday and hear on Christmas Eve.  But this Sunday, we'll also hear the first part of the Nativity story according to Matthew, in which the location of Jesus' birth isn't mentioned at all-and it's Matthew that gives us the Magi entering to visit Jesus in a house (they don't show up to the manger at all, actually).  In Mark, there's no nativity, and in John, we get that beautiful prologue about the Word and the Light shining in the darkness. Again, no manger, no magi.  Still, going toward the power of new questions and new visions, I still like the nativity scene that mashes them all together. 

So for tonight-what are those idle imaginings and questions you bring? What do you see dancing around the edges of the Christmas story?

See you soon!

Blessings,
Sara+

From May 3: Welcome to an Outsider

Dear People of Christ Church,

This Sunday at our 10 am service, we'll hear from our Costa Rica pilgrims, Emma Scalisi and Julia Wall, as well as a few of their compatriots from St James in Cambridge, as part of our usual first Sunday of the month children's service. Remember to bring your diaper donations! We'll also "pray in" Victoria Sundgren as our new junior warden, and offer thanks for the ministry of Sarah Staley who leaves the post in anticipation of her and Mike's twins, whose due date approaches. We'll also pray for Rob, Emma, and Jesse as the "part two" of our 2012 Confirmation group commissioning.

Our readings for this Sunday are some of my favorites. In Acts, we hear the story of the Ethiopian eunuch who meets Philip on the road. He's reading the book of Isaiah, and asks Philip to help him interpret it. As continue together in their chariot, they go by a body of water, and the eunuch (who isn't named) exclaims, "What is to prevent me from being baptized right now?" And, so, he does and believes and is brought into the Body of Christ. There is so much that I love about this story-the eunuch, for starters, would not have been accepted in many religious communities, and I love that it's a Christian apostle who offers him the love and acceptance that others would deny him. I love his excitement-why not now?- it's a good paradigm for us in the church today.

So much in contemporary life is about meeting others' expectations and qualifications. I find myself even being anxious about my son entering kindergarten in the fall-kindergarten!-as thought we can write off his future if his scissor skills aren't up to par. But Philip doesn't ask his new acquaintance if he's really serious about it, or whether he's thought about the future, or how he will tithe, or if he'll quit working for the queen all the way in Ethiopia. Philip most pointedly doesn't ask him about being a eunuch, even though Deuteronomy clearly says that such a man whose body had been so altered could not be permitted into the assembly. Rather than tell him he's still not good enough, Philip brings him right in, right now. It's not the eunuch's identity or experience that legitimates him, it's his desire.

Our other readings for Sunday keep the hits coming--our epistle is from the first letter of John (Chapter 4): "Whoever loves is born of God and knows God." The eunuch, no matter what was going on in his life, knew God. Finally, in the Gospel, we hear Jesus the true vine, poetically inviting us to abide, like branches in God's love, bearing fruit. There is also some language around withering and thrown into the fire: less romantic, perhaps, but it does remind us that the stakes are high.

This afternoon, take a moment to abide in God's love.

Take a moment to dwell in that place where there is nothing to prevent you from being bathed in kindness and peace and courage.

It is beyond words, it is above thought, it is below your feet.

Blessings,

Sara+