Dear People of Christ Church,
The Christmas Pageant returns to Sunday this week! 10am, all the sheep, goats, angels, innkeepers and magi lead us into the Christmas story. A few weeks ago I heard the cartoonist Alison Bechdel (most recently author of the truly marvelous graphic memoirs Are you My Mother and Fun Home) on the radio show The Takeaway. She was talking about the importance of stories to help us be ourselves—she said they help “organize our thinking.” Stories are what we tell ourselves to remember who we are, to know where we are going, to frame where we have been. She was talking about the post-election world: she needs the characters in her comics, like friends.
Sometimes, of course, stories can get in our way. If you’re wailing about some failure on someone else’s part or some seemingly deadly inadequacy of your own, chances are good that you have developed a narrative that has very little to do with reality. You have, perhaps, lectured yourself for being a hopeless idiot (you’re probably not completely hopeless). You have, perhaps, dismissed another person as incapable of compassion or sensitivity (they may, in fact, be able to muster just a little, once in a while). A Buddhist-influenced spiritual director I had once was always telling me, “Drop the story line” as a way of getting underneath my own judgmental feelings to help me reflect on what was really happening. When someone forgets your birthday, you get angry. It’s one thing, though, to be angry about one particular sadness and another thing to dismiss that person completely as a selfish monster who cares only about themselves and actively wants you to feel bad.
It’s human nature to create stories; we have narrative minds. That’s why it’s so important to be aware of our stories and choose them wisely. This brings me back to the Christmas pageant. Yes, a fun way to invite our kids into the center of our community. Yes, it’s a way to bring out performance and joy and creativity. It’s deeper than that, though. Seeing our own kids as Mary and Joseph and being face to face with Jesus with animals and chaos all around—that gets us into the story on a profoundly different level than just hearing the words.
The pageant smashes the whole story together—Joseph’s dream (the Gospel that’s actually assigned for Sunday) is in Matthew, which also gives us the magi. Luke has shepherds, magnificat, and no room at the inn. Joseph listens to his dreams. The innkeeper finds space. The magi bring gifts that symbolize power and kingship (gold and frankincense) but also death (myrrh for anointing a dead body). Mary sings about a God who comes to the help of those who are poor and suffering, not those who are rich and already have plenty. Any one of those stories could feed your spirit for a year, and there they all are all at once!
The Christmas story is about possibility, solidarity, joy, and love.
Definitely words I want to write my story with.
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Justice & Bread
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, our Advent series on Biblical values continued on the topic of justice. Last week we talked about non-judgment, and next week we tackle inclusion. One of our Scripture texts was a foundational one for me in how I try to live my life: “As you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25). Those who are suffering demand our attention not as if Christ were with them, but because Christ is there. I’m all for reading Scripture awake and searching for metaphor, but this isn’t one of those times. Matthew 25 calls for more literalist Bible thumping.
Last weekend I was with our bishops and the Commission on Ministry, of which I’m a member (it’s the team that helps interview and support people for the ordination process who want to be priests or deacons). In a serendipitous turn someone forwarded me a daily Advent meditation on the spiritual dimensions of anti racist work from one of the people we spoke to, Olivia Hamilton, who’s working with the Harvard Episcopal Chaplaincy. She shares this from Anne Braden, a white southern Episcopalian who lived in the Jim Crow south and came to devote her life to ending the culture of white supremacy she grew up in.
Braden writes:
The passage from the Bible that impressed me the most deeply in my early religious training was the one from Christ’s story of the Last Judgement: ‘ for I was hungered, and ye gave me no meat, I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not…Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.’ I thought about that passage a great deal; it worried me almost constantly. And it would have been hard not to worry about it in those days, for this was the 1930s and there was hunger everywhere. The people I knew tried, I think, according to their lights to practice what Christ taught. My family did. They fed many people who were hungry. Sometimes my mother, growing weary of it, would turn away one of the beggars who came to our door, and that would cause me a sleepless night worrying for fear she was going to hell; but most generally she fed them. Especially, she and my father made sure that the Negro family who worked for us from time to time were not hungry or shelterless or naked. If they were short on money to pay the rent, my father provided the money. The family was always clothed because they got our cast off clothes after they were too faded and old for us to want them any more. But something happened to me each time I looked at the Negro girl who always inherited my clothes. Sometimes she would come to our house with her mother, wearing one of the dresses I had discarded. The dresses never fit her because she was fatter than I was. She would sit in a straight chair in our kitchen waiting for her mother, because of course she could not sit in one of our comfortable chairs in the living room. She would sit there looking uncomfortable, my old faded dress binding her at the waist and throat. And someway I knew that this was not what Jesus meant when he said ‘clothe the naked.’ I recalled that Jesus had also said, ‘therefore all things whatsoever ye would that man should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ And I knew that if I were in her place, if I had no clothes, I would not want the old abandoned dresses of a person who would not even invite me to come into her living room to sit down. And I could not talk to her because I felt ashamed. And as I watched her, I would feel a binding sensation around my own throat. And I would feel to see if my own dress was too tight. But of course it was not. My clothes were always well-cut and perfectly fitted. Instead there was a small straightjacket around my soul. (Anne Braden, The Wall Between, 1958)
Braden goes on to talk about how she began to understand how the racism she lived in was damaging to those who perpetuated it as well as to those who experienced the more severe oppression. “Racial bars built walls…around the white people as well, cramping their spirits and causing them to grow in distorted shapes.” In our conversation about Matthew 25, we talked about the shame of living in plenty when others are suffering; the Gospel tells us that meeting the needs of others is for their material need, but it’s also for our own souls. Or, as a quote from Nicolai Berdyaev has it that José Borrás shared with me a number of years ago has it, “Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.”
Where are you finding bread of all kinds these days?
Who’s sharing with you, and who are you sharing with?
Blessings,
Sara+
This week, our Advent series on Biblical values continued on the topic of justice. Last week we talked about non-judgment, and next week we tackle inclusion. One of our Scripture texts was a foundational one for me in how I try to live my life: “As you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25). Those who are suffering demand our attention not as if Christ were with them, but because Christ is there. I’m all for reading Scripture awake and searching for metaphor, but this isn’t one of those times. Matthew 25 calls for more literalist Bible thumping.
Last weekend I was with our bishops and the Commission on Ministry, of which I’m a member (it’s the team that helps interview and support people for the ordination process who want to be priests or deacons). In a serendipitous turn someone forwarded me a daily Advent meditation on the spiritual dimensions of anti racist work from one of the people we spoke to, Olivia Hamilton, who’s working with the Harvard Episcopal Chaplaincy. She shares this from Anne Braden, a white southern Episcopalian who lived in the Jim Crow south and came to devote her life to ending the culture of white supremacy she grew up in.
Braden writes:
The passage from the Bible that impressed me the most deeply in my early religious training was the one from Christ’s story of the Last Judgement: ‘ for I was hungered, and ye gave me no meat, I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not…Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.’ I thought about that passage a great deal; it worried me almost constantly. And it would have been hard not to worry about it in those days, for this was the 1930s and there was hunger everywhere. The people I knew tried, I think, according to their lights to practice what Christ taught. My family did. They fed many people who were hungry. Sometimes my mother, growing weary of it, would turn away one of the beggars who came to our door, and that would cause me a sleepless night worrying for fear she was going to hell; but most generally she fed them. Especially, she and my father made sure that the Negro family who worked for us from time to time were not hungry or shelterless or naked. If they were short on money to pay the rent, my father provided the money. The family was always clothed because they got our cast off clothes after they were too faded and old for us to want them any more. But something happened to me each time I looked at the Negro girl who always inherited my clothes. Sometimes she would come to our house with her mother, wearing one of the dresses I had discarded. The dresses never fit her because she was fatter than I was. She would sit in a straight chair in our kitchen waiting for her mother, because of course she could not sit in one of our comfortable chairs in the living room. She would sit there looking uncomfortable, my old faded dress binding her at the waist and throat. And someway I knew that this was not what Jesus meant when he said ‘clothe the naked.’ I recalled that Jesus had also said, ‘therefore all things whatsoever ye would that man should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ And I knew that if I were in her place, if I had no clothes, I would not want the old abandoned dresses of a person who would not even invite me to come into her living room to sit down. And I could not talk to her because I felt ashamed. And as I watched her, I would feel a binding sensation around my own throat. And I would feel to see if my own dress was too tight. But of course it was not. My clothes were always well-cut and perfectly fitted. Instead there was a small straightjacket around my soul. (Anne Braden, The Wall Between, 1958)
Braden goes on to talk about how she began to understand how the racism she lived in was damaging to those who perpetuated it as well as to those who experienced the more severe oppression. “Racial bars built walls…around the white people as well, cramping their spirits and causing them to grow in distorted shapes.” In our conversation about Matthew 25, we talked about the shame of living in plenty when others are suffering; the Gospel tells us that meeting the needs of others is for their material need, but it’s also for our own souls. Or, as a quote from Nicolai Berdyaev has it that José Borrás shared with me a number of years ago has it, “Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.”
Where are you finding bread of all kinds these days?
Who’s sharing with you, and who are you sharing with?
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, December 1, 2016
The Three Advents
Dear People of Christ Church,
Continued Advent blessings!
Every year we come to this season, and every year we need the Advent call to contemplation, wakefulness, and hope like the desert needs water. This year the Advent invitation to hope, in particular seems very timely. This is the one thing we are called to do in this season: to hope in preparation for the birth of Jesus, to hope in preparation for God’s presence in the world, and to hope for God’s presence in our own lives. One of my favorite explorations of Advent comes from the medieval monk Bernard of Clairvaux. He says there are actually three Advents. The first one is the one we know: the birth of God in the person of Jesus Christ, God taking on our human flesh. We spend these days counting down, lighting candles and eating chocolates, in preparation to be ready. The third Advent is the coming again of Christ, at the end of time: as we say in the Eucharistic prayer, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” Those are visible, in-the-world Advents. But there’s an Advent that comes in between those two in our chronological time. The second Advent is is the Advent of Christ every day: in our hearts and in our world. God invites us to cultivate a space for Jesus every day, not just Christmas. Bernard tells us: “If you wish to meet God, go as far as your own heart.” Thomas Merton was a great interpreter of Bernard: he emphasizes that part of how we connect to this second Advent is in humility, to accept that we must receive all from Christ and not lean on our own power or ego.
One of the fruits of this kind of humble living, I think, is non-judgment. That’s one of the lesser-heard Biblical values we’re looking at in our Advent series. This week we read the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John. Trying to whip Jesus into their frenzy of condemnation, the scribes and Pharisees ask him what they should do to her. But he ignores them; writing in the sand he stays apart, silent. When they push him, he replies: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” One by one they leave, and she’s alone. I chose that particular story because that line is so memorable, but as we read it together I was most moved by Jesus’ solidarity with her. I pictured the woman, afraid for her life, fearful that there would be no one to take her part. She’s alone; the other adulterous participant is not named, and not anywhere present. She has no recourse for justice. Jesus takes her side. Not only will he not condemn, he does so in the face of significant pressure to do so.
This Advent, here’s my wish list: to live in hope with that woman, that Jesus might come to my side. To live in trust, with Thomas Merton, that God will give me the grace to embody Jesus’ solidarity in this fragile world. To find time for silence, to find God in my heart in today’s Advent, as well as tomorrow’s.
Blessings,
Sara+
Continued Advent blessings!
Every year we come to this season, and every year we need the Advent call to contemplation, wakefulness, and hope like the desert needs water. This year the Advent invitation to hope, in particular seems very timely. This is the one thing we are called to do in this season: to hope in preparation for the birth of Jesus, to hope in preparation for God’s presence in the world, and to hope for God’s presence in our own lives. One of my favorite explorations of Advent comes from the medieval monk Bernard of Clairvaux. He says there are actually three Advents. The first one is the one we know: the birth of God in the person of Jesus Christ, God taking on our human flesh. We spend these days counting down, lighting candles and eating chocolates, in preparation to be ready. The third Advent is the coming again of Christ, at the end of time: as we say in the Eucharistic prayer, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” Those are visible, in-the-world Advents. But there’s an Advent that comes in between those two in our chronological time. The second Advent is is the Advent of Christ every day: in our hearts and in our world. God invites us to cultivate a space for Jesus every day, not just Christmas. Bernard tells us: “If you wish to meet God, go as far as your own heart.” Thomas Merton was a great interpreter of Bernard: he emphasizes that part of how we connect to this second Advent is in humility, to accept that we must receive all from Christ and not lean on our own power or ego.
One of the fruits of this kind of humble living, I think, is non-judgment. That’s one of the lesser-heard Biblical values we’re looking at in our Advent series. This week we read the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John. Trying to whip Jesus into their frenzy of condemnation, the scribes and Pharisees ask him what they should do to her. But he ignores them; writing in the sand he stays apart, silent. When they push him, he replies: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” One by one they leave, and she’s alone. I chose that particular story because that line is so memorable, but as we read it together I was most moved by Jesus’ solidarity with her. I pictured the woman, afraid for her life, fearful that there would be no one to take her part. She’s alone; the other adulterous participant is not named, and not anywhere present. She has no recourse for justice. Jesus takes her side. Not only will he not condemn, he does so in the face of significant pressure to do so.
This Advent, here’s my wish list: to live in hope with that woman, that Jesus might come to my side. To live in trust, with Thomas Merton, that God will give me the grace to embody Jesus’ solidarity in this fragile world. To find time for silence, to find God in my heart in today’s Advent, as well as tomorrow’s.
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Still a King, Still Vulnerable and Dying
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, I’ve been fortunate enough to take some retreat days at the convent at the Sisters of St Anne in Arlington. Rather than fill this space with words, I wanted to invite you to take a minute of prayer with an image of Jesus the sisters have in their garden. Jesus, here, is pictured as a king: crown and jewels and the whole nine yards. But he’s still on the cross.
He’s not the quarterback, not the class president, not the tycoon. There is nothing victorious about this king. That’s the point.
Where do you meet Christ on the cross, still a king, still vulnerable and dying? What ministry does he make possible in you? How can you find ways to serve that Christ in the world?
Blessings,
Sara+
This week, I’ve been fortunate enough to take some retreat days at the convent at the Sisters of St Anne in Arlington. Rather than fill this space with words, I wanted to invite you to take a minute of prayer with an image of Jesus the sisters have in their garden. Jesus, here, is pictured as a king: crown and jewels and the whole nine yards. But he’s still on the cross.
He’s not the quarterback, not the class president, not the tycoon. There is nothing victorious about this king. That’s the point.
Where do you meet Christ on the cross, still a king, still vulnerable and dying? What ministry does he make possible in you? How can you find ways to serve that Christ in the world?
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Midwives of the Love of God
Dear People of Christ Church,
This morning I’m writing in gratitude for the community we share, and in hope for our God who works wonders. Last night we gathered for Eucharist in the choir, about twenty of us, praying for the vulnerable and the afraid, reminding ourselves of God’s great providence and grace. The gospel text I chose for the day was of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry as told in the Gospel of Luke:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Jesus announces that that prophecy is fulfilled in him, that as the people gather there they are seeing the good news brought to the poor and release proclaimed to captives.The oppressed are free and the blind are given sight. Jesus goes on to do those things—healing, saving, transforming. The love of God in his life was so strong, so brave, that nothing could stop it, not even death.
Hearing those words, we remembered together that the mission of the church is that same mission. Like Jesus, we occupy the place between the truth of God’s power and love and the truth of our broken and fragile world. In God’s dream of transcendent peace, Muslim women aren’t afraid to wear their veils while walking down the street. Immigrant kids don’t worry that their parents will get deported. LGBTQ people don’t worry their marriages will be dissolved. White supremacists don’t get air time next to legitimate political actors. We rest in that dream, at the same time as we live in a world where all of those things happen. One particular heartbreak and inspiration yesterday was reading the letter superintendent Echelson sent to faculty and staff of Waltham schools. Immigrant students are wondering if they should drop out of school, he said, to start making much money as they can, worried they’ll get deported. Arabic speakers are afraid for their safety. Echelson wrote, “Our students, particularly those students who might not feel safe right now because of their immigration status, perceived religion or any other variable, need us to show up for them.”
This is the transcendent, im/possible place: the place of the cross before the resurrection. The love of God is already showing up on the cross. The love of God is with the gay kid getting beat up and the woman being sexually assaulted. The love of God is incarnate in the mosque on Moody Street, at Temple Beth Israel, at St Mary’s and Sacred Heart. The love of God is showing up in Chaplains on the Way, at AA, at the Community Day Center. The love of God has always been there and will continue to be there. There are places where it hasn’t yet been born, but it is there. Our task as people of faith is to be midwives, to stand in support and accompany God’s love into the world.
We can do this: to bring that love to the desolate places, to have the courage to speak love to the dark abyss. To show up. That is our mission no matter who is president, no matter what prejudice seems to become acceptable. That is our mission, too, to those who disagree, to whom we are still bound in faith and love, who no less need the gift of God’s love.
Blessings,
Sara+
This morning I’m writing in gratitude for the community we share, and in hope for our God who works wonders. Last night we gathered for Eucharist in the choir, about twenty of us, praying for the vulnerable and the afraid, reminding ourselves of God’s great providence and grace. The gospel text I chose for the day was of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry as told in the Gospel of Luke:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Jesus announces that that prophecy is fulfilled in him, that as the people gather there they are seeing the good news brought to the poor and release proclaimed to captives.The oppressed are free and the blind are given sight. Jesus goes on to do those things—healing, saving, transforming. The love of God in his life was so strong, so brave, that nothing could stop it, not even death.
Hearing those words, we remembered together that the mission of the church is that same mission. Like Jesus, we occupy the place between the truth of God’s power and love and the truth of our broken and fragile world. In God’s dream of transcendent peace, Muslim women aren’t afraid to wear their veils while walking down the street. Immigrant kids don’t worry that their parents will get deported. LGBTQ people don’t worry their marriages will be dissolved. White supremacists don’t get air time next to legitimate political actors. We rest in that dream, at the same time as we live in a world where all of those things happen. One particular heartbreak and inspiration yesterday was reading the letter superintendent Echelson sent to faculty and staff of Waltham schools. Immigrant students are wondering if they should drop out of school, he said, to start making much money as they can, worried they’ll get deported. Arabic speakers are afraid for their safety. Echelson wrote, “Our students, particularly those students who might not feel safe right now because of their immigration status, perceived religion or any other variable, need us to show up for them.”
This is the transcendent, im/possible place: the place of the cross before the resurrection. The love of God is already showing up on the cross. The love of God is with the gay kid getting beat up and the woman being sexually assaulted. The love of God is incarnate in the mosque on Moody Street, at Temple Beth Israel, at St Mary’s and Sacred Heart. The love of God is showing up in Chaplains on the Way, at AA, at the Community Day Center. The love of God has always been there and will continue to be there. There are places where it hasn’t yet been born, but it is there. Our task as people of faith is to be midwives, to stand in support and accompany God’s love into the world.
We can do this: to bring that love to the desolate places, to have the courage to speak love to the dark abyss. To show up. That is our mission no matter who is president, no matter what prejudice seems to become acceptable. That is our mission, too, to those who disagree, to whom we are still bound in faith and love, who no less need the gift of God’s love.
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Showing Up, in North Dakota and the Voting Booth
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, so much on my mind. My husband, Noah Evans, left with a group of 12 Episcopal clergy and lay people for North Dakota yesterday morning to be part of an action to be held tomorrow to stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe over an oil pipeline that is slated to be built through sacred lands and that would jeopardize the safety of their water. (Theirs, and everyone else who lives below them on the Missouri River.) Approved by the Army Corps of Engineers without due consultation with the tribe, the pipeline is troubling for lots of reasons—it’s not just the climate change question of pipeline vs not-pipeline. Standing Rock has a long relationship to the Episcopal Church; rather than “evangelizing” from the outside as though Native people could be forcibly claimed for the church, the Episcopal Church was actually invited to be part of the reservation by Chief Gall. So their call to Episcopal clergy has some deeper resonance. A mentor of ours in seminary worked on the reservation for a number of years and we visited several times—it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. They’ll pray and listen and support. More about their trip is on Noah’s blog. So there’s that, not to mention the presidential election and 4 important ballot questions. I voted early last night and was pleasantly surprised to see the diversity of the city and patience of those gathered—it took about an hour, possibly even more than if I’d waited for Tuesday! But I’m grateful.
Fortunately, the All Saints jazz mass is on Sunday so we remember that we are not in charge over everything. As we celebrate and sing with drums and saxophone, God’s sovereignty over life and death invites us to center in the fact that even as the stakes are high, God can still work through whatever cataclysms we bring about ourselves. Whether political or environmental or otherwise, it will work itself out. My friend David from our “Two Priests and a Rabbi” interfaith open office hours had this phrase from Mishnah Avot posted on his facebook page yesterday after he voted: “It is not on you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
In my sermon on Sunday I was thinking in a similar vein, about how we don’t have to have everything completely figured out in order for Jesus to come and be with us. He called Zacchaeus the tax collector out of a tree and told him he was coming to his house before Zacchaeus set himself straight, before promises were made to repay extorted funds and commitments made to give half what he owned to the poor. The point is this: we don’t have to have it all figured out before Jesus will have anything to do with us. God wants our open hearts, not perfectly balanced moral checkbooks.
Blessings,
Sara+
This week, so much on my mind. My husband, Noah Evans, left with a group of 12 Episcopal clergy and lay people for North Dakota yesterday morning to be part of an action to be held tomorrow to stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe over an oil pipeline that is slated to be built through sacred lands and that would jeopardize the safety of their water. (Theirs, and everyone else who lives below them on the Missouri River.) Approved by the Army Corps of Engineers without due consultation with the tribe, the pipeline is troubling for lots of reasons—it’s not just the climate change question of pipeline vs not-pipeline. Standing Rock has a long relationship to the Episcopal Church; rather than “evangelizing” from the outside as though Native people could be forcibly claimed for the church, the Episcopal Church was actually invited to be part of the reservation by Chief Gall. So their call to Episcopal clergy has some deeper resonance. A mentor of ours in seminary worked on the reservation for a number of years and we visited several times—it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. They’ll pray and listen and support. More about their trip is on Noah’s blog. So there’s that, not to mention the presidential election and 4 important ballot questions. I voted early last night and was pleasantly surprised to see the diversity of the city and patience of those gathered—it took about an hour, possibly even more than if I’d waited for Tuesday! But I’m grateful.
Fortunately, the All Saints jazz mass is on Sunday so we remember that we are not in charge over everything. As we celebrate and sing with drums and saxophone, God’s sovereignty over life and death invites us to center in the fact that even as the stakes are high, God can still work through whatever cataclysms we bring about ourselves. Whether political or environmental or otherwise, it will work itself out. My friend David from our “Two Priests and a Rabbi” interfaith open office hours had this phrase from Mishnah Avot posted on his facebook page yesterday after he voted: “It is not on you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
In my sermon on Sunday I was thinking in a similar vein, about how we don’t have to have everything completely figured out in order for Jesus to come and be with us. He called Zacchaeus the tax collector out of a tree and told him he was coming to his house before Zacchaeus set himself straight, before promises were made to repay extorted funds and commitments made to give half what he owned to the poor. The point is this: we don’t have to have it all figured out before Jesus will have anything to do with us. God wants our open hearts, not perfectly balanced moral checkbooks.
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Making Ourselves at Home in the Church
Dear People of Christ Church,
First, blessings to those who were confirmed and received last Saturday! Three cheers for Mary, Susan, Jackie, Sam and David. Confirmation is the big “I do” in being an Episcopalian and symbolizes the connection of the individual with the wider church (for whom the bishop stands in) as staking our faith in the Christian faith as expressed in the worldwide Episcopal/Anglican family. It is a lovely commitment to make.
I’m grateful to God for those five, and also for the beginning of our conversations about stewardship. As you’ll read in our materials, this year the vestry is in charge of it—not one individual or household, but the whole gathered body of our parish leaders. This Sunday the Jensens will offer our stewardship reflection about belonging—we are at home at church.
Home, at its best, feels safe: that’s the gauzy Thanksgiving holiday image. The truth is, we sometimes have to work at home being home; sometimes nerves fray and tempers flare. Sometimes that deep, spiritual sense of home crumbles: we hurt each other and what is broken can’t be repaired.
I’ve been thinking about that more complicated aspect of home in preparation for Tuesday’s service of hope and healing from domestic violence. In its third year, we do this in cooperation with REACH and other interfaith partners in Waltham. It is a terrible thing that the church has, historically, been complicit in domestic violence. I’ve heard too many stories about someone’s pastor saying “But I know your spouse, they would never do that.” Or “Jesus always forgave, so you should forgive, too.” Jesus did forgive, and we also are called to that. But God never calls us to jeopardize our own safety by tolerating violence. Forgiveness doesn’t happen at the expense of personal safety. The service is a quiet one: we’ll hear survivors speak and have a chance to light candles in prayer. Alison Shea will be singing, along with Rev. Matt from Agape Christian Community, a new UCC church.
There are a lot of occasions to pray together coming up—we’ll also be offering an election eve Eucharist on November 7 at 6:30pm in cooperation with Santuario and First Lutheran. Christ Church will host, Pastor Tom Maehl of First Lutheran will preach, and Padre Angel of Santuario will celebrate communion (Angel is one of my partners in crime with Two Priests and a Rabbi). We’re also considering holding the church open all day for prayer—let me know if that would be meaningful to you (and if you’re interested in helping out—we’d need to take shifts).
Speaking of elections—this Sunday I’ll invite some conversation on the four Massachusetts ballot initiatives after church. Where does your faith have you leaning? Have you made up your mind about them all? Christians of good faith and goodwill can always learn from each other (and disagree, too). I look forward to our conversation.
Blessings,
Sara+
First, blessings to those who were confirmed and received last Saturday! Three cheers for Mary, Susan, Jackie, Sam and David. Confirmation is the big “I do” in being an Episcopalian and symbolizes the connection of the individual with the wider church (for whom the bishop stands in) as staking our faith in the Christian faith as expressed in the worldwide Episcopal/Anglican family. It is a lovely commitment to make.
I’m grateful to God for those five, and also for the beginning of our conversations about stewardship. As you’ll read in our materials, this year the vestry is in charge of it—not one individual or household, but the whole gathered body of our parish leaders. This Sunday the Jensens will offer our stewardship reflection about belonging—we are at home at church.
Home, at its best, feels safe: that’s the gauzy Thanksgiving holiday image. The truth is, we sometimes have to work at home being home; sometimes nerves fray and tempers flare. Sometimes that deep, spiritual sense of home crumbles: we hurt each other and what is broken can’t be repaired.
I’ve been thinking about that more complicated aspect of home in preparation for Tuesday’s service of hope and healing from domestic violence. In its third year, we do this in cooperation with REACH and other interfaith partners in Waltham. It is a terrible thing that the church has, historically, been complicit in domestic violence. I’ve heard too many stories about someone’s pastor saying “But I know your spouse, they would never do that.” Or “Jesus always forgave, so you should forgive, too.” Jesus did forgive, and we also are called to that. But God never calls us to jeopardize our own safety by tolerating violence. Forgiveness doesn’t happen at the expense of personal safety. The service is a quiet one: we’ll hear survivors speak and have a chance to light candles in prayer. Alison Shea will be singing, along with Rev. Matt from Agape Christian Community, a new UCC church.
There are a lot of occasions to pray together coming up—we’ll also be offering an election eve Eucharist on November 7 at 6:30pm in cooperation with Santuario and First Lutheran. Christ Church will host, Pastor Tom Maehl of First Lutheran will preach, and Padre Angel of Santuario will celebrate communion (Angel is one of my partners in crime with Two Priests and a Rabbi). We’re also considering holding the church open all day for prayer—let me know if that would be meaningful to you (and if you’re interested in helping out—we’d need to take shifts).
Speaking of elections—this Sunday I’ll invite some conversation on the four Massachusetts ballot initiatives after church. Where does your faith have you leaning? Have you made up your mind about them all? Christians of good faith and goodwill can always learn from each other (and disagree, too). I look forward to our conversation.
Blessings,
Sara+
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