Stations of the Cross

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, our Stations of the Cross really came home (for more Q and A about them and where they came from and why, see this from January. For pictures from St John’s Bowdoin Street and the installation at Christ Church, see my own blog, SaraIwrites.

They are striking and surprising and brand new and at the same time look like they’ve been there since the church was built. They are, in fact, from the same time period—they’re dated 1888, but the woodwork that David Moseley created for them matches the church in a completely phenomenal way. (David is a longtime friend of Christ Church—he did the repair work in our new combined outreach space for Diaper Depot/Grandma’s Pantry and is married to Cathy Hughes’ older daughter Betsy). As happens so often, the thing that surprised was not the thing that I thought would be remarkable. I expected to react more strongly to the overall sight of them, but that’s not the most interesting thing.

This week I was here for Tuesday evening formation and had my kids along. For whatever reason, the only other person who came was Andrea, so we chatted for a while but by 7:30 figured no one else was planning to come. I told my kids to pack up their stuff, we were leaving, but 6 ½ year old Adah declared that she was not ready to leave church. I asked her if it was because she wanted to have communion and she said no, she just thought we should have church. So Adah and Andrea and I decided to do the liturgy for Stations of the Cross. (Older brother Isaiah decided to hang out for a while and play video games for a few minutes, but ended up joining us later).

So, so often, my children make me see things I wouldn’t otherwise, and that’s what happened that night. After having been dragged along during the installation of the frames for two hours on Sunday, they had already spent a lot of time with the pieces and they were over it. “Art,” Adah had declared on our way to Waltham that afternoon, “is boring.” I don’t know what it was that made her not ready to leave, but as we stayed and went around the church, I heard the words of the liturgy in a different way. By the time we got to the station where Jesus meets his mother, Adah was beginning to regret her desire to stay. At that moment, though, I became profoundly grateful to be there with them. To look at Jesus trying to hold both his cross and take his mother’s arm while my own kids bounced around, I imagined her thinking of the days when Jesus was small. I thought about her wanting to protect him and being unable to. The line “A sword will pierce your own soul, too” in the prayers made me think about how much all of those we love face, and how we can’t protect them. We can only trust God for them and on their behalf.

The thing about our particular stations of the cross that continues to show me new things is how they offer a wider lens on the events of the Passion. You can see the two criminals along side of whom Jesus was killed. You can see the detail of Jesus and his mother and all the people around them. There are people everywhere all around in them—how often have you thought about all the people who just were around when Jesus was on his way to the crucifixion? It’s not just him and the Romans and Simon of Cyrene.

The Stations of the Cross do change the dynamic of the space. I suspect it will take us a while to figure out exactly what they mean. I do know that in seeing the events of the Passion displayed as they are, that I also see the events of the Resurrection in a new way. The other thing in the church that is that same light color is the baptismal font. It no longer sits by itself in the corner, but ties in with the movement around the church. Also crucially, the Stations of the Cross circle the space, but the altar is still at the center. That’s the place where we still meet Jesus in the Eucharist. By seeing the crucifixion in a new way, by really seeing it, we see the Resurrection in a new way. They go together.

Again and again, that’s what I’m most grateful for about being a Christian. It’s not some happy pastel fantasy that everything works out in the end and we should just keep our chins up. Jesus weeps and suffers. He loves. He fears. The Stations of the Cross help me see all of those aspects. We are all here because we believe, or want to believe, in resurrection. But we all also know pain. Walking the events of Christ’s passion, we see where God has gone before.

Blessings,
Sara+

Miss the sermon on Sunday, March 13? It’s here.

More pictures from moving the Stations of the Cross from St John's, Bowdoin Street, to Christ Church, Waltham!

We Are Worthy

Dear People of Christ Church,
I recently had some time to spend with my kindle, and found Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. I’ve read a lot of her stuff before, but hadn’t spent much time with this one. Brown’s research started out being about shame—our fear of being unworthy of love and belonging. Since love and belonging are two of the most central human emotional and spiritual needs, shame feels profoundly dangerous to us, and we try to avoid it at all costs. What’s worse, we have a tendency to further isolate ourselves when we feel shame, by bringing in secrecy, silence, and judgment of others to insulate ourselves from the pain. This then spirals out again, which leads to further isolating, further judging, and further suppressing of our feelings. The good news is that we can do things differently—if instead of nurturing our shame we nurture ourselves and remember our inherent worthiness, that cycle is broken. Reaching out to others, reminding ourselves that we aren’t defined by our failures, that we are worthy of love no matter what—Brown calls the capability for that work “shame resilience.”

It’s striking to think about shame in this way as we head into Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday on March 20. Though we often forget it, Scripture can be profoundly psychologically insightful. Unfortunately we often do profoundly un-psychologically insightful things with Scripture!

In thinking about the crucifixion, we sometimes say that Jesus took on our shame and sin, to offer it to God, to heal us. The liturgy for the Stations of the Cross is full of this. That’s true, but Jesus didn’t do that as though we had a dirty shirt on and he took it off of us and put it on his own body. Instead. Jesus’ transformation of our humanity comes from the inside; his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection (yes, all four) symbolize God’s insistent, constant presence with us. It’s true that Jesus’ peaceful response to the violence he faced saved us. That’s true. In a very literal way, yes, we are saved by the cross. But we’re not “more saved” because it was “more worse.” We just are saved. Because God loves us. We just are worthy. Again, because God loves us.

Much is made of the crucifixion as being a particularly grisly and fear-inducing method of enforcing capital punishment. Many people were put to death in the Roman Empire, some by crucifixion, but by no means all. Crucifixion was a warning sign—it served to instill fear. That was its purpose. Yes, it was also shameful. But to say that Jesus’ death was uniquely shameful I think misses the point. The point is that Jesus’ death was not uniquely shameful. It was a way an abusive regime kept its people in line. That’s part of what’s salvific about it—that God experienced, from the inside, the worst of humanity. And God’s love would not be defeated.

We are all worthy—shame doesn’t have the last word for Jesus or for us. I’m getting ahead of us and close to Easter—there is a ways to go—but the resurrection is always true, even in the depths of Lent.

Blessings,
Sara+

"I Will Come the Rest of the Way to You"

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I’ve been spending a lot of time with the prodigal son, part of our Gospel Passage for Sunday. On Tuesday nights our Bible study is on the Scripture for the coming Sunday, so we spent time listening for what this passage says to us now. Usually we read the prodigal son by itself, but in a happy accident we heard the parables it follows: the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the woman who has lost a coin. All three stories, taken together, have a bit of a different sense than they do individually, which is how we usually hear them.

Hearing it as we did next to stories about lost sheep and lost coins, we have an opportunity to see the story as not being about the son’s repentance, but instead about the father’s pure love and forgiveness. A sheep can’t say it’s sorry. A coin doesn’t go off and enjoy itself under the couch and then “come to itself.” Is the son actually sorry? Maybe, maybe not. What’s at stake, if so? Maybe the father loves him so much it doesn’t matter. He “comes to himself.” But maybe it’s not his volition or his repentance that are the point.
The Jewish Bible Scholar Amy Jill Levine says that we get it all wrong when we read this text by itself, because that focuses too much on the son. Instead, it’s actually all about the father. What’s more, there’s also nothing especially Christian about how he reacts; it’s not like Jesus was reflecting some new innovation in the love of God, trying to set up the father as acting somehow contrary to how he’d normally react in his cultural context. Instead, Levine says, fathers love—that’s just what they do, there’s nothing unusual about it. She quotes similar rabbinic stories like this:

Pesikta Rabbati (184–85) recounts: A king had a son who had gone astray from his father on a journey of a hundred days. His friends said to him, “Return to your father.” He said, “I cannot.” Then his father sent word, “Return as far as you can, and I will come the rest of the way to you.” So God says, “Return to me, and I will return to you.”

Returning to God, allowing God to find us, being forgiven even when we don’t repent—one of the translations we heard on Tuesday night has the father calling for the ring and the robe before the son has even had time to say anything at all. It’s just his son. He just loves him and is thrilled to have him back.

I’m sharing here images from our own stained glass windows. Yes, it might not actually be “about” the son, but look at the suffering on the younger son’s face—look at the rage on the older brother’s, seeing the party in the distance—see how broken they both were, and in such different circumstances. More than one person mentioned how we remembered former beloved parishioner Marcia Luce’s frank distaste for the story, thinking the older brother go ripped off. Maybe it’s because I identify too much with the younger brother, but I can’t muster up too much sympathy for his anger. I just love this father too much, thinking about how much I need unconditional love like that, thinking about how far God has come to find me.

Blessings,
Sara+

P.S.—thanks to Heather Leonardo, who is offering the children’s sermon this Sunday!

Blessings,
Sara+



Miss the sermon from Sunday, February 28? It’s here.

"Meet Your Muslim Neighbor"

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I’m continuing to mull over the “Meet your Muslim Neighbor” event hosted at Government Center by the new Waltham Center for Community Engagement, and the Waltham League of Women Voters. More than 100 people (including at least ten Christ Churchers!) came to learn, be in solidarity, and meet each other across lines of difference. Attendees were members of the Waltham Islamic Society, who along with the panelists shared stories of gratitude for interfaith connection. I think probably a lot of people could identify with the WIS member who had been on the construction team who said how nice it was to be at government center not trying to get a building permit!

One of the panelists, Unitarian Universalist minister Manish Mishra-Marzetti of First Parish in Lincoln talked about how we as a nation are in a spiritual crisis of fear. I haven’t heard of any stories of interpersonal violence in Waltham, but that doesn’t mean that nothing has happened. The notion that it could be said out loud that an entire religion ought to be banned from entering the United States and that such a position be taken by a leading politician reveals exactly how troubled our culture is.

We are so easily manipulated by fear, but we must find ways to be part of “stories of hope,” as Celene Ibrahim said. The sole woman in the group, she is a PhD candidate at Brandeis and co-director of the Center for Inter-Religious and Communal Leadership Education at Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological School said (she’s also Muslim Chaplain at Tufts—she is impressive!).

Not just about sharing stories of hope, but being people of hope is what, at their core, all faiths share. The thing that the event on Sunday didn’t quite get to was that being in interfaith dialogue actually makes us better at being who we are in our own faiths as well. The event on Sunday was much more about dispelling myths—speaking into the fear chamber—and that’s very important. One of the panelists pointed out that there is no such thing as radical Islam—there are only radical Muslims. People talk about it as though it’s some monolithic thing, but that really doesn’t exist. There may be a radical community or a radical individual, but terrorists don’t speak for Abdul Cader Asmal, a doctor on the panel, any more than Donald Trump speaks for me.

Chaplain Celene say that in Islam when you pray for others what you’d pray for yourself, that the angels say that prayer for you. How beautiful is that?! We are so enriched by the substance of others’ practices. Learning about others’ experience is about being in relation with each other. It’s not about figuring out who’s right or who’s wrong, or whose practice is more or less liberating or charitable. It’s about the joy of sharing in community, children of a Creator who is beyond all of our grasp.

Blessings,
Sara+

Miss the sermon Sunday, February 21? It’s here.

One Wild, Precious [Rule of] Life

Dear People of Christ Church,
Last Sunday both of our Lent groups were full steam ahead, with hearty conversations and good thinking. Our Sunday 9:15 group is on ssje.org, a series of daily videos from the brothers mailed to you on creating a rule of life. What’s a rule of life? The same idea as a ruler—it measures—a rule of life is a way of intentionally considering how you want your life to reflect your relationship with God. Crucially, though, it’s up to each individual to create their own. I could no more write a rule of life for someone else than they could move into my house and take over my spouse and children. The rule of life is about your life, to pinch Mary Oliver’s explanation, your one, wild, precious life, which is yours to do with it as you are called. That’s the thing about having a rule of life that is liberating, not confining: it’s only yours. No one can make you want to pray the Lord’s Prayer eighteen times a day or train for a marathon before you turn forty. A rule of life begins with looking at the life you actually have—that amazing gift—and listening for where God is leading you there.

In our later group (Sundays, 11:45), we listened to the first of several talks from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry about racism. Talking about the Black Lives Matter movement, Bishop Curry said in response to the “all lives matter” rejoinder, “of course all lives matter. But if somebody’s house is on fire, you have to respond. You don’t just run down the street saying that all houses matter.” As with the rule of life conversation, the most important part is the having of the conversation: no one at that table comes to it with the right answer, all ready to fix America for everyone else. White America has a lot of reflecting and repenting to do, one by one, prayer by prayer. It is, after all, Lent. And there’s a concurrent kids’ program on social justice! Come on, everybody!

Finally, the Tuesday group starts on Tuesday, pending enough sign ups! PLEASE let me know if you are interested, 7pm Lenten Bible Study. We’ll be looking at the Gospel for the coming Sunday. All ages welcome, but readers and up will be most comfortable. 7pm conversation, 8pm Eucharist, again, if there’s interest.

Continued Lenten blessings!

peace,
Sara+

ps—sermon from last Sunday is up!
soundcloud.com/sara-irwin-530951447/lent-1-c-2016

Swimming During the Rain Storm

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I’m looking forward to talking with our kids about Lent in the children’s sermon this Sunday. It’s such an interesting opportunity to think about moving toward Lent with kids, who don’t have any of the same baggage as many of us end up with about the season. We are invited to observe Lent with the same intimacy with God as Jesus did—he went to the wilderness after his baptism to spend time with his Abba. That’s what it’s about for us, too.

But… Intimacy with God for us is a bit trickier than it was for Jesus. When we enter Lent longing for intimacy, we are necessarily called to look at the things that block our closeness with God. The word for that, of course, is sin. The hard part about sin (as if there were only one) is that in trying to figure out sin, we are already wrapped up in it. It’s like trying to get dry after a swim during a rain storm—you can get out of the pool and use as many towels as you want, but it’ll still going to be raining on the walk home and you’ll get wet again. Sin gets us stuck in our own stories about our innocence and others’ guilt. In shame. In paralysis. Vulnerability is embarrassing. We don’t want to ask for help, even from God who loves us more than anything. So even in trying to look honestly at our sin, we end up doing it in kind of a sinful way. Examining my white privilege makes me feel stuck, so I do nothing. Thinking about my lack of compassion for others, I deflect blame on to their slowness, not my impatience. My car uses too much gas and I let my kids watch too much TV. I squeeze prayer in at the margins of my day, not the center. There are many sins. You have your list, I have mine.

This Sunday will be the second time we hand out “Lent in a bag” for kids at the children’s sermon. None of the symbols in it have anything to do with how terrible we are. They’ll get sand, as a reminder of Jesus’ time in the desert wilderness. Two clothespin people: one larger (Jesus), one smaller (that’s us). A seashell. Are there seashells in the desert? Nope. But the Holy Spirit always has a surprise or two up her sleeve, and we need to remember that. Also: a rock, since things can get hard, and a candle, for light. Also a heart for God’s love.

I was talking to someone recently who commented that they felt in need of Lent, that it had been feeling like a very tender time in their life. I so appreciate that articulation—when we are feeling fragile and sensitive, what better time than Lent to come and remind us of whose we are? The life we find in Lent is real—that list of sins doesn’t go away—so it’s true that it’s not all seashells and hearts and clothespin people. If we are trusting God, though, really, really trusting, it becomes possible to confront our frailties and selfishness and occasional just-plain-being-a-jerk-ness with God, rather than muddling through on our own. Trying to fix all my sinful ways on my own is a sin, too—I’m not going to be able to save myself.

Times like this, I am especially grateful for our liturgical church. I don’t have to understand everything. Next Wednesday, we’ll put ashes on our heads and pray on our knees. God will do the rest. Kids know that, and I look forward to listening with them on Sunday.

Blessings,
Sara+

Annual Meeting Blessings

A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another… We enable people to remember who they are.
—Dr Rachael Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessings

By any measure, by any definition, our work together at Christ Church is a blessing.
I am always grateful for the ministry that we share, but this year I was especially grateful as we reached the ten year mark of ministry together. Jonathan’s sermon the day of our celebration was so kind, and the book Anna and the vestry put together with all your notes was just beautiful. With Victoria and Sasha offering each of their particular mix of steadiness and brains at the helm, our vestry has been so great this year. Having Mike Hughes full year as treasurer we can see how much further we’ve come, and Sarah Staley’s grace and intelligence in our reflection on our ministry is both grounding and inspiring. Christine Dutt’s analytical firepower always saves the day.
While an annual report is in many ways primed to celebrate newness, and that’s appropriate, I also want to take a minute to thank the matriarchs. Sally Lobo once advised me to slow down and smell the roses. Like Isaiah’s toddler days, those first steps won’t last forever, she said–enjoy them, and enjoy Christ Church as my first parish–another kind of first born. So I want to begin by thanking all those who keep have for so long kept things humming and the coffee brewed and the honest feedback coming.Thank you for hanging in over the last ten years and for accompanying me in this adventure of ministry, each in your own way.
If II were to try to find a metaphor for the year 2015 at Christ Church, it would be about how seeds planted long before—maybe even without our knowledge!—come to fruition. One of the best things about being a priest is seeing how people seize hold of their baptismal vows and live into them in new ways. At a baptism, all kinds of promises are made on behalf of and in support of those who are baptized—often, when it’s a child, completely without their knowledge. Sometimes a Christian spends their whole life immersed in the life of the church—they are part of it at every level from day one and the mission of Christ just grows. More often, though, the holy oil of baptism hovers on our foreheads and takes a while to seep into our bodies and for us to hear the ministry that the Spirit longs for in us. God plants the seeds sometimes especially when we’re not paying attention.
I have seen this happen with individuals—those of you who take to a new project and the rest of us marvel at how it’s possible that you’ve not been doing it for thirty years. I commend the excellent reports from our wardens to you as they talk more in detail about our work this year. Victoria mentions that she’d never expected to take on being senior warden when she first joined and now I can’t imagine being a rector without her. Many of you are leaders in this way—you might not have expected it, but here you are and it’s a wonder. It feels like Michael Mailman just stepped into the role of convening the building committee as though everyone were waiting for him to call it forth in some mystical way. There it just was, and ten people were at the table with him! When we were making plans for the children’s play area, Jordan Shea was just suddenly there, ready to lead. The same is true for finance, for our excellent children’s ministries, for Erin and Heather who teach us all to look in a new way, for altar guild (I’m thinking of you, Mary Kerr—talk about suddenly not being able to imagine a ministry without someone!)… the joy and pleasure of leadership is such a gift. Based on our conversations at our intergenerational Advent and October education series, I’ll probably just let Eli Jensen handle the whole thing next time.
As Sasha will say, too, our finance team also had a great beginning in 2015 with Byron Garcia’s leadership—I will always be grateful for the clarity that emerged when Pratibha Harrison, at her first meeting, asked the most elegant question, “Now what is the purpose of this meeting?” and kicked our brains and hearts into action. The most important question is often the one you think everyone already knows the answer to—because quite frequently, you often don’t. Our finances in particular had an amazing end of the year with Sasha and Doug’s hard work on the roof campaign, an incredible end to a year that began with 30% higher pledges than any other time in our history.

I also have to say a word about Suzanne Hughes’ work with the Grandma’s Attic thrift shop room, which Suzanne has tended for 6 years, with monthly opening since 2010. That space has, a long long story as part of the ministry of Christ Church (In her humble way, Suzanne describes more in her report). Thank you, Suzanne, for giving it “your all,” and for your commitment to this place through thick and thin and fire and flood. Speaking of flood, the resiliency of our children’s ministries is a wonder. Even when their rooms were out of commission and their materials in boxes, our Godly Play classes continued. The way that this church has become open to the gifts and needs of children is one of the more important engines of our creativity and growth. To every parent who ever felt like their child was making more noise than anyone else, ever, please know that we are glad that you are here and that we wouldn’t exchange their rambunctiousness for silent stillness for all the world!
Finally, I should also say a word about my work in the wider church and world! This year I spent more time on my own blog, saraiwrites.blogspot.com, and had an essay from there adapted for publication in the book There’s a Woman in the Pulpit, which came out in April. I’ve also continued with the occasional piece in the Waltham News Tribune, and even had one in the Boston Globe over the summer on the death penalty. I’m now into my third year as a member on the Commission on Ministry, which works to advise the bishop and interview candidates for ordination, and I was appointed dean of the Alewife Deanery (our local cluster of 13 Episcopal Churches east to Cambridge and north to Bedford). I’ve also been glad to be able to testify at Waltham City Council on behalf of WATCH and to support the Community Day Center wherever I can, as well as serve on the board of the Parmenter House affordable housing units on Crescent St and Main St and to co-chair the Waltham Ministerial Alliance. It is a full, and generous, ministry of blessing and being blessed.