Epiphany Blessings!
The feast of the Epiphany, January 6, celebrates the wise men, or "Magi," (from which we get our word, "magic") who traveled from the East to celebrate Jesus. This Sunday at Christ Church we have some of our older kids offering an Epiphany play they put together to put us in the spirit. Sally emailed me to ask whether Altar Guild could leave up the crèche and the answer was a very happy yes. Christmas season ends this Sunday, but we can still enjoy those sights as part of it.
They came from "the East," shorthand for "Really Far Away." The birth of Jesus Christ is good news for every person, from every place. It's not the location that's important; it's the way "The East" represents the whole world. Jesus wasn't born just for those in Jerusalem, or just for the people who follow the law, or even just for the people of Israel and the Gentiles in the region. Jesus was born for ALL of us-just another way our faith teaches us to be more open, more expansive in our own quest for truth.
Epiphany continues the "Incarnation cycle" of Advent and Christmas-the time of year we observe with special attention God's birth with us. It's a time of paradox and grace. How to fully apprehend that intimacy, that grace? Where are the "other" places we're now invited to seek the truth? Where are we called to go, embodying the Magi ourselves? Or whom are we called to welcome to offer us good news and great joy?
Listen with me to Peter Chrysologus, who was Bishop of Ravenna in the 5th Century.
In choosing to be born for us, God chose to be known by us. . . Today the Magi find, crying in a manger, the one they have followed as he shone in the sky. Today the Magi see clearly, in swaddling clothes, the one they have long awaited as he lay hidden among the stars. Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, humankind in God, God in human flesh, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body.
Heaven on earth and earth in heaven, God hidden among the stars come near to us. They were not far away from Bethlehem, and will not stay far from us. God comes home to us; literally as well as symbolically. An old custom in the church has been to bless homes. Marking the doorpost with chalk, you write the year, the sign of the cross, and the Chi Ro, an early Greek symbol for Jesus, on the door frame (people of faith have an even longer history of writing on their doors--something for another day).
I'll share a short liturgy you can do at home on our website (the communications page)--maybe we can even bless some chalk together on Sunday!
Blessings,
Sara+
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
From 12 27: The Work of Christmas
A version of last weeks email ran as an editorial in the Waltham News Tribune on December 21; read it here.
Rev. Sara is with her family until Jan. 2; she leaves the following passage from theologian Howard Thurman.
The Work of Christmas
by Howard Thurman
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins.
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoner,
To teach the nations,
To bring Christ to all,
To make music in the heart.
Rev. Sara is with her family until Jan. 2; she leaves the following passage from theologian Howard Thurman.
The Work of Christmas
by Howard Thurman
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins.
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoner,
To teach the nations,
To bring Christ to all,
To make music in the heart.
From 12 20: The Christmas Moment
Dear People of Christ Church,
It's so nice to be back writing to you, particularly knowing how well things have gone in my absence! I am so thankful to Rev. Norm Faramelli for holding down the fort, and to Sharon in the office for managing everything so smoothly behind the scenes. And there are not enough thanks and blessings for Jonathan, your senior warden, Victoria, and all the vestry! At the root of it all is my gratitude to God for all the ways God has made this such a strong church and to each of you who make it what it is. Since it's the end of the year, I also offer thanks to those who have made financial pledges for 2013-get those cards in!
So what have I been up to?
My initial goals were writing poetry and singing, and for September, November, and December, I was immersed in those projects. I met with teachers affiliated with Bethany House of Prayer (for poetry) and Episcopal Divinity School (for singing), and have collected a few things I've written which hopefully soon will reach the light of day and into a readable form. I attended church on Sundays with my family at Grace Church, Medford, where Noah is the rector, and sang in the choir there, which was so much fun. So. Much. Fun. I was happy to see many of you when I came to church on December 2 before taking off for Africa. My trip to Tanzania and Uganda was amazing-beautiful, heartbreaking, fascinating-the adjectives continue. I wrote and posted pictures whenever I had internet access at my personal blog- www.saraiwrites.blogspot.com -and you're welcome to take a look.
Finally, Christmas. Throughout my time in Africa, my thoughts returned often to all the hustle and bustle that must have been taking place at home, none of which was evident where I was. I did, however, see Christmas everywhere. Why Christmas? Because Christmas is the time when we look to God, most ultimate power of the universe, born in powerlessness.
In this Christmas moment, God has chosen the weakest possible place to show us who God is. At Christmas we learn that God will always go to the place of the least power. God will go to the kids we met in Tanzania who have no access to health care within 100 miles. God will go to the Ugandan teenager whose parents have died of AIDS and whose grandmother is dying too and can't take care of her. To the twelve year old who doesn't have enough food and gets dizzy from his HIV medicine. To the fifteen year old who has become the head of her household and goes out to sell charcoal before school.
To Newtown, and to all victims of gun violence. To the new immigrant struggling to learn English and the elder who stretches to make ends meet by the end of the month. To the gay teenager coming out to his parents, unsure of how they will react. All of those places of weakness and struggle are where God will be born. All of those people will not be abandoned. God will be born, too, in places of justice-making. Where Ann Nyangoma, the director of the education program we visited offers comprehensive family support and school tuition to sponsored students. Where Bishop Maimbo of the Anglican Diocese of Tanzania helps his parishes start microcredit programs and build capacity for local hospitals. Where the Community Day Center of Waltham offers a refuge from the street. All of these are images of Christmas, where a different vision of power comes to be. Not the power of wealth or influence, but the power of vulnerability and love.
There is nothing wrong with presents at Christmas. But that version of giving isn't the whole story. Christmas isn't just about giving. It's about being changed, top to bottom, and bringing that change into the streets. Celebrating the birth of God born in a truly marginal place-among people who are oppressed, who society turns away from-how will we be moved? How will we turn away from imaginary conflicts over public displays of religion and look at where God can actually be found?
How will we hear what God asks of us, and how will we respond?
Blessings,
Sara+
p.s. Visit www.maserekafoundation.org for more on the group we spent time with in Uganda; my
blog is at www.saraiwrites.blogspot.com
It's so nice to be back writing to you, particularly knowing how well things have gone in my absence! I am so thankful to Rev. Norm Faramelli for holding down the fort, and to Sharon in the office for managing everything so smoothly behind the scenes. And there are not enough thanks and blessings for Jonathan, your senior warden, Victoria, and all the vestry! At the root of it all is my gratitude to God for all the ways God has made this such a strong church and to each of you who make it what it is. Since it's the end of the year, I also offer thanks to those who have made financial pledges for 2013-get those cards in!
So what have I been up to?
My initial goals were writing poetry and singing, and for September, November, and December, I was immersed in those projects. I met with teachers affiliated with Bethany House of Prayer (for poetry) and Episcopal Divinity School (for singing), and have collected a few things I've written which hopefully soon will reach the light of day and into a readable form. I attended church on Sundays with my family at Grace Church, Medford, where Noah is the rector, and sang in the choir there, which was so much fun. So. Much. Fun. I was happy to see many of you when I came to church on December 2 before taking off for Africa. My trip to Tanzania and Uganda was amazing-beautiful, heartbreaking, fascinating-the adjectives continue. I wrote and posted pictures whenever I had internet access at my personal blog- www.saraiwrites.blogspot.com -and you're welcome to take a look.
Finally, Christmas. Throughout my time in Africa, my thoughts returned often to all the hustle and bustle that must have been taking place at home, none of which was evident where I was. I did, however, see Christmas everywhere. Why Christmas? Because Christmas is the time when we look to God, most ultimate power of the universe, born in powerlessness.
In this Christmas moment, God has chosen the weakest possible place to show us who God is. At Christmas we learn that God will always go to the place of the least power. God will go to the kids we met in Tanzania who have no access to health care within 100 miles. God will go to the Ugandan teenager whose parents have died of AIDS and whose grandmother is dying too and can't take care of her. To the twelve year old who doesn't have enough food and gets dizzy from his HIV medicine. To the fifteen year old who has become the head of her household and goes out to sell charcoal before school.
To Newtown, and to all victims of gun violence. To the new immigrant struggling to learn English and the elder who stretches to make ends meet by the end of the month. To the gay teenager coming out to his parents, unsure of how they will react. All of those places of weakness and struggle are where God will be born. All of those people will not be abandoned. God will be born, too, in places of justice-making. Where Ann Nyangoma, the director of the education program we visited offers comprehensive family support and school tuition to sponsored students. Where Bishop Maimbo of the Anglican Diocese of Tanzania helps his parishes start microcredit programs and build capacity for local hospitals. Where the Community Day Center of Waltham offers a refuge from the street. All of these are images of Christmas, where a different vision of power comes to be. Not the power of wealth or influence, but the power of vulnerability and love.
There is nothing wrong with presents at Christmas. But that version of giving isn't the whole story. Christmas isn't just about giving. It's about being changed, top to bottom, and bringing that change into the streets. Celebrating the birth of God born in a truly marginal place-among people who are oppressed, who society turns away from-how will we be moved? How will we turn away from imaginary conflicts over public displays of religion and look at where God can actually be found?
How will we hear what God asks of us, and how will we respond?
Blessings,
Sara+
p.s. Visit www.maserekafoundation.org for more on the group we spent time with in Uganda; my
blog is at www.saraiwrites.blogspot.com
Thursday, July 12, 2012
From July 12: News from the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church
Dear People of Christ Church,
Prayers today for the wrap up of the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. For the last week-plus, representatives from every diocese in the Episcopal Church (which includes Episcopalians both in the US and parts of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe) voted on a raft of resolutions and elections to keep the church moving into the twenty first century strong and focused. A few highlights:
+ the adoption of resolutions D019 and D002 that incorporate “gender identity and expression” into the non-discrimination canons for access to the ordination process and lay participation in The Episcopal Church—see some lovely work on the transepiscopal blog on that and check out the Out of the Box short documentary on youtube if you haven’t seen it
+Votes in favor of “positive investment” in Palestine (not divestment in Israel as some have called for) as well as a resolution asking bishops and dioceses to raise money for the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, whose United Nations funding was unexpectedly cut in May.
+ Formation of the nomination committee for the next Presiding Bishop, as Katharine Jefferts Schori’s term ends at the next GC, including our own Bishop Tom Shaw and Canon Mally Lloyd; Election of our own dioMA (and state representative from Roxbury) Byron Rushing to the vice president of the House of Deputies (the other side from the house of bishops in our bi-cameral electoral system; the HoD has priests, deacons, and lay people from across the church)
+Conversation and vote (but no timeline for action) to sell the Episcopal Church Center (815 Second Ave, New York City)
+Budgets, budgets, budgets!
+The adoption of the trial liturgy for The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant (i.e., the blessing of same gender unions) which may be used as a liturgy for the celebration and blessing of a (legal) marriage in states like ours. The resolution has a provision that requires a bishop’s permission to perform the rite (so in dioceses where the bishop is against it, the clergy will not be allowed to do it). Our diocese has officially permitted same sex unions for many years (and since Advent of 2009 we’ve been allowed to officiate at same sex marriages), so it’s nice to have the rest of the church catching up, while more conservative places are still in dialogue. The liturgy was well-received amongst participants—an ENS article reported that The Rev. Jack Zamboni, New Jersey, recalled playing the part of the “groom” in a test run of the liturgy. “My reaction after having participated in that liturgy was that I wished [my wife] and I had had this liturgy when we were married six years ago. It’s a wonderful piece of liturgical work.” To see some of the excellent work the team did on the “theology of blessing” you can download the whole text of the resolution and supporting materials from the blue book at http://www.generalconvention.org/gc/prepare
So there’s the news from Indianapolis—and a lot more than that happened, too! I encourage you to check out the links listed to hear from the folks who were actually there.
Blessings,
Sara+
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
From July 5: Connecting to Faith, Hope & Vulnerability
Dear People of Christ Church,
Happy-belated-fourth of July. This Saturday we'll observe the holiday somewhat in our service of 1792 Morning Prayer for Historic Waltham; we're doing the readings for July 4. Please come!
On this past Sunday we had our magnificent annual Church in the Garden service. One of the particular pleasures of it was the freedom in preaching a little differently; I'm usually not much of an experimenter with my sermons, but I invited the congregation to a special moment of reflection and prayer along with our Scripture. One of the great things about the Bible is that the stories aren't dead; they are in the past, yes, but they are still full of living and breathing insight. The Holy Spirit animates those people from far away just as we are made alive in our own faith. The Gospel was the story of the healing of Jairus' daughter and the healing of a woman who had had incurable hemorrhages for twelve years. Both stories of healing are hope-against-hope situations; Jesus is their last possibility.
All three of the main characters in the story-the woman, the girl, and Jairus himself-are people who are kind of coming apart. We don't have a lot of space in our culture for vulnerability like this. We want to be (or at least appear to be) perfect, organized, confident. Ideally, untouchable. But the situation is so dire for these folks that they've dispensed with all of that. They know the depth of their need, and they are determined to ask for help. So my invitation on Sunday was this-what would one of those three people pray for you? What word of encouragement would that girl give, what strength would her father offer, what love for Christ would you hear in that old woman?
For me, it was about the woman. I don't even know for sure if she was old-it just said she'd been dealing with the flow of blood for twelve years. For twelve years she would have been considered ritually impure; that's a lot time to be apart from your community, never mind how sick she must have felt. My sense of her was the way I imagine Mother Teresa-loving, but also kind of hard and commanding. Particularly earlier in the week when I was focused on work and getting everything done quickly, she followed behind me pointing out the good things I was missing. Health. Connections with others. Attentiveness. Really good leftovers for lunch. So often in getting bogged down by tiny, annoying details-children who track sand everywhere, the fan that doesn't cool you off enough, whatever-we miss the beauty that is all around us. It's like sitting on a train that travels through the countryside, but rather than look out the window your eyes are fixed firmly on the door to a dirty bathroom. So for several days now, the woman who had been sick for so long, who finally was healed, keeps coming up to me and turning my head to the side. Don't look there. Look there, she says.
Where do you need to look? What's happening?
Blessings,
Sara+
Happy-belated-fourth of July. This Saturday we'll observe the holiday somewhat in our service of 1792 Morning Prayer for Historic Waltham; we're doing the readings for July 4. Please come!
On this past Sunday we had our magnificent annual Church in the Garden service. One of the particular pleasures of it was the freedom in preaching a little differently; I'm usually not much of an experimenter with my sermons, but I invited the congregation to a special moment of reflection and prayer along with our Scripture. One of the great things about the Bible is that the stories aren't dead; they are in the past, yes, but they are still full of living and breathing insight. The Holy Spirit animates those people from far away just as we are made alive in our own faith. The Gospel was the story of the healing of Jairus' daughter and the healing of a woman who had had incurable hemorrhages for twelve years. Both stories of healing are hope-against-hope situations; Jesus is their last possibility.
All three of the main characters in the story-the woman, the girl, and Jairus himself-are people who are kind of coming apart. We don't have a lot of space in our culture for vulnerability like this. We want to be (or at least appear to be) perfect, organized, confident. Ideally, untouchable. But the situation is so dire for these folks that they've dispensed with all of that. They know the depth of their need, and they are determined to ask for help. So my invitation on Sunday was this-what would one of those three people pray for you? What word of encouragement would that girl give, what strength would her father offer, what love for Christ would you hear in that old woman?
For me, it was about the woman. I don't even know for sure if she was old-it just said she'd been dealing with the flow of blood for twelve years. For twelve years she would have been considered ritually impure; that's a lot time to be apart from your community, never mind how sick she must have felt. My sense of her was the way I imagine Mother Teresa-loving, but also kind of hard and commanding. Particularly earlier in the week when I was focused on work and getting everything done quickly, she followed behind me pointing out the good things I was missing. Health. Connections with others. Attentiveness. Really good leftovers for lunch. So often in getting bogged down by tiny, annoying details-children who track sand everywhere, the fan that doesn't cool you off enough, whatever-we miss the beauty that is all around us. It's like sitting on a train that travels through the countryside, but rather than look out the window your eyes are fixed firmly on the door to a dirty bathroom. So for several days now, the woman who had been sick for so long, who finally was healed, keeps coming up to me and turning my head to the side. Don't look there. Look there, she says.
Where do you need to look? What's happening?
Blessings,
Sara+
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
From June 28: Church Inside Out
Dear People of Christ Church,
This Sunday we have our first day of our combined service at 9:30 (instead of 8:30 and 10), and so we gather in the garden. We've had church in the garden on the Fourth of July weekend for the last two or three years, and it's always a nice way to spend some time in a sort of "essential church" mode-reading the Bible, eating bread and drinking wine, just being together. When I was in the Micah Project, the diocesan intern program, one of the places I worked was ecclesia ministries, home to common cathedral, outdoor church that meets for Eucharist on Boston Common. Many of the members are homeless, and many of those homeless are those who stay out on the streets rather, even, than find shelter space. The founder of the organization, Rev. Debbie Little, began walking the streets and meeting people where they were, offering socks and sandwiches and a listening ear. On Easter Day, 1996, they had their first service, and somewhere between Debbie wondering whether she'd do it again and everyone she saw on the street saying they'd see her the next Sunday, a new church was born.
Beginning to learn to minister in that context was amazing; I had a job in an "inside church," too, where there were also homeless members, so it wasn't so much the fact that people were homeless was such a difference between my two site placements. A lot was exactly the same-people learning to live in community with each other, amidst different understandings and hopes and fears and dreams. Being a church that met outside, though, you were forced to really internalize the idea that the church is the people of God, not a building. As much as we might "know" that church isn't a building, it's easy to act that way. Those four walls offer a certain shorthand for who we are and what we believe, but don't tell the whole story.
So, this Sunday, we'll be outside our own walls. It's unlikely to revolutionize anything, but hopefully it will be a moment of slowing down and looking inward, receiving the simple grace of blooming flowers and buzzing bees and simple music. At the same time, pray, too, for the institutional parts of our church; General Convention begins next week on July 5, so many people will be traveling between now than then to Indianapolis. I'll write more in this space next week about that-more news to come!
Blessings,
Sara+
This Sunday we have our first day of our combined service at 9:30 (instead of 8:30 and 10), and so we gather in the garden. We've had church in the garden on the Fourth of July weekend for the last two or three years, and it's always a nice way to spend some time in a sort of "essential church" mode-reading the Bible, eating bread and drinking wine, just being together. When I was in the Micah Project, the diocesan intern program, one of the places I worked was ecclesia ministries, home to common cathedral, outdoor church that meets for Eucharist on Boston Common. Many of the members are homeless, and many of those homeless are those who stay out on the streets rather, even, than find shelter space. The founder of the organization, Rev. Debbie Little, began walking the streets and meeting people where they were, offering socks and sandwiches and a listening ear. On Easter Day, 1996, they had their first service, and somewhere between Debbie wondering whether she'd do it again and everyone she saw on the street saying they'd see her the next Sunday, a new church was born.
Beginning to learn to minister in that context was amazing; I had a job in an "inside church," too, where there were also homeless members, so it wasn't so much the fact that people were homeless was such a difference between my two site placements. A lot was exactly the same-people learning to live in community with each other, amidst different understandings and hopes and fears and dreams. Being a church that met outside, though, you were forced to really internalize the idea that the church is the people of God, not a building. As much as we might "know" that church isn't a building, it's easy to act that way. Those four walls offer a certain shorthand for who we are and what we believe, but don't tell the whole story.
So, this Sunday, we'll be outside our own walls. It's unlikely to revolutionize anything, but hopefully it will be a moment of slowing down and looking inward, receiving the simple grace of blooming flowers and buzzing bees and simple music. At the same time, pray, too, for the institutional parts of our church; General Convention begins next week on July 5, so many people will be traveling between now than then to Indianapolis. I'll write more in this space next week about that-more news to come!
Blessings,
Sara+
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
From June 14: Politics and Privilege
This past Tuesday, I attended the annual meeting of Episcopal City Mission a group that works for social justice in partnership with parishes and in funding new projects in local communities. Each year, ECM gives out awards for groups or individuals who have done notable work over the year to promote justice. One award was given to the outgoing chair of Morville house, an affordable housing complex that ECM owns for seniors in Boston. Another went to Marisa Egerstrom, one of the first organizers of the "Protest Chaplains," a faith presence at the Occupy movement for income equality that began last September. She’s a PhD student in religion at Harvard and in discernment for the priesthood and goes to the parish that sponsored me for the priesthood, St John the Evangelist, Boston.
Both here in Boston and in the original Occupy Wall Street site in New York, Marisa was instrumental in telling the story about how Christians care about inequality (in all honesty, this should not be news). In her acceptance speech, she talked about how we long for the Kingdom of God--how it is an almost physical, palpable longing. She also thanked ECM for acknowledging the Spirit in people who look different from the way church people often do, and in places where the Church often does not go. The Protest Chaplains had the opportunity to communicate the Gospel in a new way to people who, perhaps, had given up on the Church. That felt, physical longing for justice that buzzed in the air at Zuccoti Park and on the Greenway was a refusal to settle for the status quo as we have become accustomed to it. It was a declaration that we as a society can do better than homelessness and better than billionaires. That longing, the Protest Chaplains offered, is a longing for God--a longing many of the people there would not have labeled as such because religion as they have seen it has been about telling people that they are insufficient, not that they are blessed. It was evangelism as well as activism.
At the same time, I've been getting ready for our screening of Love Free or Die. In preparing to write this morning, I had this background buzz in my mind--"Really, Sara? Really? Do we have to talk about sexuality AGAIN?" It's an excellent movie, but maybe you are feeling the same in wondering whether you will attend tonight. The thing is, as I sit here behind my computer on my suburban couch before leisurely driving into work, the fact is that I have the luxury to even ask that question. A teenager whose parents have kicked him out of the house for being gay, a mother whose ex-husband is trying to take away shared custody of their children because she's a lesbian, service members who are finally, finally able to be honest about who the are--they don't have the choice. And, so, it falls to each of us to tell the story, again and again, of God's love for everyone--everyone, yes, even those who disagree about the issue in the first place.
In a video I posted recently on our facebook page, a seminary friend of mine talks about how the Church needs to be a sanctuary, but a particular kind of sanctuary, one of safety, not avoidance. Michele is currently embroiled in the debate over a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota. She and her partner have been together for more than ten years, and she has a clear stake in the conversation. But she also is advocating for church to be a place where people can love each other across their differences, to respect one another deeply and even, still, be able to disagree. Church is a sanctuary, but not away from the "dirty" things of the world like politics. It's a sanctuary from the dirty things of the world like contempt and fear. We are in dialogue not so much to change each other but to hear each other.
So hopefully I’ll see you tonight—whether you’re all settled on the question of sexuality and the church or whether you’re still discerning—and I hope that you’ll pray for Marisa, and Gene Robinson, and all those people who pose hard questions to easy comfort.
I’ll close with this Franciscan blessing:
May God bless us with discomfort, At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger, At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears, To shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness, To believe that you can make a difference in this world, So that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.
Blessings,
Sara+
Both here in Boston and in the original Occupy Wall Street site in New York, Marisa was instrumental in telling the story about how Christians care about inequality (in all honesty, this should not be news). In her acceptance speech, she talked about how we long for the Kingdom of God--how it is an almost physical, palpable longing. She also thanked ECM for acknowledging the Spirit in people who look different from the way church people often do, and in places where the Church often does not go. The Protest Chaplains had the opportunity to communicate the Gospel in a new way to people who, perhaps, had given up on the Church. That felt, physical longing for justice that buzzed in the air at Zuccoti Park and on the Greenway was a refusal to settle for the status quo as we have become accustomed to it. It was a declaration that we as a society can do better than homelessness and better than billionaires. That longing, the Protest Chaplains offered, is a longing for God--a longing many of the people there would not have labeled as such because religion as they have seen it has been about telling people that they are insufficient, not that they are blessed. It was evangelism as well as activism.
At the same time, I've been getting ready for our screening of Love Free or Die. In preparing to write this morning, I had this background buzz in my mind--"Really, Sara? Really? Do we have to talk about sexuality AGAIN?" It's an excellent movie, but maybe you are feeling the same in wondering whether you will attend tonight. The thing is, as I sit here behind my computer on my suburban couch before leisurely driving into work, the fact is that I have the luxury to even ask that question. A teenager whose parents have kicked him out of the house for being gay, a mother whose ex-husband is trying to take away shared custody of their children because she's a lesbian, service members who are finally, finally able to be honest about who the are--they don't have the choice. And, so, it falls to each of us to tell the story, again and again, of God's love for everyone--everyone, yes, even those who disagree about the issue in the first place.
In a video I posted recently on our facebook page, a seminary friend of mine talks about how the Church needs to be a sanctuary, but a particular kind of sanctuary, one of safety, not avoidance. Michele is currently embroiled in the debate over a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota. She and her partner have been together for more than ten years, and she has a clear stake in the conversation. But she also is advocating for church to be a place where people can love each other across their differences, to respect one another deeply and even, still, be able to disagree. Church is a sanctuary, but not away from the "dirty" things of the world like politics. It's a sanctuary from the dirty things of the world like contempt and fear. We are in dialogue not so much to change each other but to hear each other.
So hopefully I’ll see you tonight—whether you’re all settled on the question of sexuality and the church or whether you’re still discerning—and I hope that you’ll pray for Marisa, and Gene Robinson, and all those people who pose hard questions to easy comfort.
I’ll close with this Franciscan blessing:
May God bless us with discomfort, At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger, At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears, To shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness, To believe that you can make a difference in this world, So that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.
Blessings,
Sara+
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