Sing alleluia forth in duteous praise,
ye citizens of heaven, O sweetly raise an endless alleluia. Hymn 619, Hymnal 1982
As we ended our glorious worship Sunday with Bishop Sutton, we recessed to Hymn 619. As we prepare for a holy Lent beginning this Wednesday, we come as a faith community to a time that we put away our Alleluias until the Great Vigil of Easter early Easter morn. So, on the Last Sunday of Epiphany this past Sunday, it is Memorial's tradition to sing as many Alleluias as possible.
This past Sunday, we had a great opportunity with Bishop Sutton here for the bishop's annual visitation. Not only did we have both the Memorial choir and the Junior Choristers singing this past Sunday, we also had Brass Reflections shining brightly and Isabella Pittmann playing the flute. We blessed our new hymnals--Lift every Voice and Sing II--which were made possible by the Barbara Swain fund. We confirmed, received and reaffirmed Dave Hansen, Myra Lawrence, Lisette Howe, Maddie Tracey, Jonathan Peake, Jamie Griffith and Erin Kelly. We started with "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus" and ended with "an endless alleluia!" And to top it off, we enjoyed Richard Brown's chili, Alice Brown's cakes and Becky and Alma's punch in the Doll punch bowl. What a Sunday!
Using the texts of the Transfiguration in Mark and Moses' original turn up the mountain in Exodus 24, Bishop Sutton talked about clouds. Being in a cloud. For a long time. Lost. Discouraged. Afraid. Not being able to see one footstep ahead. Taking these passages, Bishop Sutton talked about the great tradition and history of Memorial Church. He asked us to think about whether we might be a cloud now---as we try to see what might be our core vocations and our vision for the years ahead. This year, it seems that God is calling us to something new and also asking us to go deeper with present calls. It might be time to let go some calls of ministries that brought us joy in the past but have little energy today. A vision forward is a cause for Alleluia! As we approach Annual Meeting on March 4, the Vestry of Memorial is preparing to launch a visioning process this year to identify our core vocations--listening for the voice of God in the voices of our community. We do this while in the cloud, trusting that the cloud will lift and the vision will be illuminated before us. All we can know for sure now is to listen. Listen for God's voice.
So, as we gather tonight for pancakes as a community and for ashes Wednesday, we put away saying alleluia for 40 days of Lent. However, I will be humming alleluia in my heart as we begin listening for God's voice in the cloud. All through Lent and into Easter, the endless alleluias of community and call will be just underground, ready to burst forth on Easter Day and in the year to come.
Please join us tonight for pancakes from 6-8 in the Upper Parish Hall. Ash Wednesday services are at 7 am in the chapel, 12 Noon at Union Baptist Church, and 7:30 pm at Memorial witht he Tri-Church Community
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Please sir, I want some more.
Please sir, I want some more. That's the famous line from the musical Oliver! We'll hear it six times over the next two weekends as Memorial Players opens the 2012 Memorial musical. The musical Oliver! speaks to social issues that have beset humankind from the very beginning---poverty, hunger, domestic abuse, exploitation of the poor. When Oliver delivers the famous line asking for just a bit more gruel for his dinner, we see urban orphans exploited by adult greed. We see scarcity of nurture and love as well as a scarcity of food. Jesus' ministry was all about uncovering this underbelly of humanity that we'd rather not see, asking us to feed the hungry and clothe those in need. However, Jesus also saw beyond the very real material needs to another vital need of humanity, the need for a stabile, loving community. This is also what the musical Oliver illustrates---that however broken our families and communities are, we need them. Sometimes we settle for the brokenness of a relationship as opposed to our own health and well-being. The gospel of Jesus challenges us to bring change to the dis-health within ourselves, our relationship, our families and our communities and to commit to health and new life together.
But there is another side to the line Please sir, I want some more. For so many of us who are blessed with so much in our lives, this line digs into the American drivenness to acquiring possessions in the quest to find stabile, loving community. As Jesus tells us again and again, that will not work. In fact, he often asks us to give up our possessions in order to find new life. As we approach the Lenten season again, the Oliver tagline challenges us to remember that there is a fine line between caring for ones self and one's family and community and acquiring for self, family and community at the exclusion and to the detriment of others.
The question for all of us is: Where are we in need--truly in need--and where do we need to stop acquiring and give of self to others? How can we simplify our material possessions and agendas? How can make we space for God, find God in one another and build a stabile, loving community? Maybe spending an evening and afternoon at the theatre may spark some inner epiphanies.
Please make plans to come to Oliver! Performances are Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 pm on Feb 3, 4, 10, and 11 and Sunday, February 5 and 12 at 3:00 pm. Please bring canned and dry goods to support the Samaritan Community as part of your free-will offering to the ministry of the Memorial musical.
But there is another side to the line Please sir, I want some more. For so many of us who are blessed with so much in our lives, this line digs into the American drivenness to acquiring possessions in the quest to find stabile, loving community. As Jesus tells us again and again, that will not work. In fact, he often asks us to give up our possessions in order to find new life. As we approach the Lenten season again, the Oliver tagline challenges us to remember that there is a fine line between caring for ones self and one's family and community and acquiring for self, family and community at the exclusion and to the detriment of others.
The question for all of us is: Where are we in need--truly in need--and where do we need to stop acquiring and give of self to others? How can we simplify our material possessions and agendas? How can make we space for God, find God in one another and build a stabile, loving community? Maybe spending an evening and afternoon at the theatre may spark some inner epiphanies.
Please make plans to come to Oliver! Performances are Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 pm on Feb 3, 4, 10, and 11 and Sunday, February 5 and 12 at 3:00 pm. Please bring canned and dry goods to support the Samaritan Community as part of your free-will offering to the ministry of the Memorial musical.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Nothing is impossible with God
Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said unto him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard." Luke 1: 11-13
Yesterday our diocesan intern, Sanford Groff, preached a barnburner of a sermon about answering the call of God's angel. Sanford talked about how terrifying the angel Gabriel must have been to Mary and then proceeded to recount the terrifying calls of Zechariah (see above), Mary and the people of God. I never really thought of how the angel Gabriel might be terrifying to behold. Then yesterday our offertory hymn was Hymn 265 (Hymnal 1982) and I found myself singing these words: "The angel Gabriel from heaven came, his wings as drifted snow, his eyes of flame." Wings as drifted snow sounds like a peaceful and kindly angelic presence. Eyes of flame is a bit more disturbing. But it makes some sense since a call from God in our lives--a seemingly impossible call from God--contains both the calming peace of God AND the stirring flame of God's Holy Spirit. Paradoxically, a call from God is unsettling and deeply serene all at the same time.
Sanford went on to preach about how we turn aside from God's impossible calls in our lives. The impossible calls that come when we are just minding our own business in our everyday, ordinary lives. Since yesterday, I've been thinking about the seemingly impossible calls in my own life---calls that we all answer and calls that are particularly our own. Learning to walk is a call that virtually all of us master as a toddler...but think about it, isn't it a miraculous thing to learn to walk as an infant? Although I can't remember the urge to walk, might it not seem impossible at first? Leaving home for a full day of school is a seemingly impossible call for a 6-year old. Learning to read. Learning to write. Learning to cross a street and to drive a car. The miraculous calls just keep coming as we move into adulthood. Getting married. Having a baby. Buying a house. Doesn't it seem impossible at some early point in every call? As young children and young adults, we see possibility everywhere. When an angelic presence in our hearts and spirit calls to us to a new possibility, we may be a bit afraid, but we often give it a try.
But as we age, we often learn to turn aside from those angelic summonses. We turn aside from the snow-white wings and especially the fiery, penetrating eyes. We start to look for disappointment and failure instead of hope and possibility. Maybe the hard-knocks of life do this. Maybe we grow tired of disappointment. Whatever the reason, we learn to live into fear. We make a habit of avoiding any new idea. Somewhere along the line, we give up on those angels. We give up on believing that God has a plan for each of us. A plan that involves building God's Kingdom with God's everlasting love. We settle for the Kingdom of this world. We just try to hang on another day.
Yesterday Sanford reminded us that we not only do this with our lives, but in the lives of our beloved communities. He challenged Memorial to remain that dramatically and radically prophetic community that Memorial has been for decades. And Sanford challenged us, in these unsettling economic times, not to settle for just staying open, but to live into a vision where Memorial opens its doors in new and dramatic ways. It's a conversation worth continuing into Christmastide and the Epiphany season. It involves enfolding each other in those snowy angel wings of God's love and stirring our souls with those fiery eyes of the Spirit. That can be frightening if we tried to do it alone, but together, new calls are born.
This Christmastide, where might God be calling you to cast off fear and say YES in your life and in your community of faith. Remember NOTHING is impossible with God.
Yesterday our diocesan intern, Sanford Groff, preached a barnburner of a sermon about answering the call of God's angel. Sanford talked about how terrifying the angel Gabriel must have been to Mary and then proceeded to recount the terrifying calls of Zechariah (see above), Mary and the people of God. I never really thought of how the angel Gabriel might be terrifying to behold. Then yesterday our offertory hymn was Hymn 265 (Hymnal 1982) and I found myself singing these words: "The angel Gabriel from heaven came, his wings as drifted snow, his eyes of flame." Wings as drifted snow sounds like a peaceful and kindly angelic presence. Eyes of flame is a bit more disturbing. But it makes some sense since a call from God in our lives--a seemingly impossible call from God--contains both the calming peace of God AND the stirring flame of God's Holy Spirit. Paradoxically, a call from God is unsettling and deeply serene all at the same time.
Sanford went on to preach about how we turn aside from God's impossible calls in our lives. The impossible calls that come when we are just minding our own business in our everyday, ordinary lives. Since yesterday, I've been thinking about the seemingly impossible calls in my own life---calls that we all answer and calls that are particularly our own. Learning to walk is a call that virtually all of us master as a toddler...but think about it, isn't it a miraculous thing to learn to walk as an infant? Although I can't remember the urge to walk, might it not seem impossible at first? Leaving home for a full day of school is a seemingly impossible call for a 6-year old. Learning to read. Learning to write. Learning to cross a street and to drive a car. The miraculous calls just keep coming as we move into adulthood. Getting married. Having a baby. Buying a house. Doesn't it seem impossible at some early point in every call? As young children and young adults, we see possibility everywhere. When an angelic presence in our hearts and spirit calls to us to a new possibility, we may be a bit afraid, but we often give it a try.
But as we age, we often learn to turn aside from those angelic summonses. We turn aside from the snow-white wings and especially the fiery, penetrating eyes. We start to look for disappointment and failure instead of hope and possibility. Maybe the hard-knocks of life do this. Maybe we grow tired of disappointment. Whatever the reason, we learn to live into fear. We make a habit of avoiding any new idea. Somewhere along the line, we give up on those angels. We give up on believing that God has a plan for each of us. A plan that involves building God's Kingdom with God's everlasting love. We settle for the Kingdom of this world. We just try to hang on another day.
Yesterday Sanford reminded us that we not only do this with our lives, but in the lives of our beloved communities. He challenged Memorial to remain that dramatically and radically prophetic community that Memorial has been for decades. And Sanford challenged us, in these unsettling economic times, not to settle for just staying open, but to live into a vision where Memorial opens its doors in new and dramatic ways. It's a conversation worth continuing into Christmastide and the Epiphany season. It involves enfolding each other in those snowy angel wings of God's love and stirring our souls with those fiery eyes of the Spirit. That can be frightening if we tried to do it alone, but together, new calls are born.
This Christmastide, where might God be calling you to cast off fear and say YES in your life and in your community of faith. Remember NOTHING is impossible with God.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Patience before the Feast
They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. Jeremiah 31:12-13
Erv+ preached on Sunday about patience. About this time of year, as the cultural Christmas season is in full swing, we all become a bit weary of all the insistent over-preparation....have we bought our beloved a new luxury car yet?.....and are ready for the Christmas feasting to begin...and then a good nap to be had. Some of us just want the whole crazy celebration to be over, stop the traveling and enjoy those quiet days between Christmas Day and New Year's at home. Perhaps to settle by the fire with a good book for the quieter souls among us; to dance and sing and relax together for those who like a bit more activity without all the Christmas fuss.
There is a story told by Thomas Merton about an elderly monk at the Monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky where Merton spent many years of his professed life. This elderly monk loved to garden above all else. He liked nothing better than to putter around the garden all day in all kinds of weather---digging a hole there, pulling weeds, organzing his tools in the shed on rainy days. For a long time, the abbot of the monastery decided that this love of gardening needed some pruning in the life of this elderly monk....and he forbade him from gardening---just on monastic (and maybe puritan) principle. Finally the abbot died and the new abbot decided that this elderly monk was not going to do anything EXCEPT GARDEN. So, as Merton tells it, the monk "just gardened from morning to night. He never came to Office, never came to anything, he just dug in his garden. He put his whole life into this." (Advent and Christmas with Thomas Merton, p.29) When I read about this Gardener of Gethsemane, I rejoiced with him in his gardening life at long last, but I also wondered how he had the patience to wait out the old abbot's non-gardening decree and trust that God would see fit to have him garden once more. And I also wondered: did he ever tire of continual gardening in the days to come?
Sometimes we all just want to do what WE want to do. One of my favorite parts of Christmastide is arriving at Christmas Day afternoon when I get in my pajamas, sit on the coach and watch "It's A Wonderful Life." I don't move for hours. After the movie, I read and read and read. Nap. Watch a football game. Eat a bit. Then go to sleep (and no need to change clothes!)It is great! But I have also learned to love to wait for that moment and to delight in all (well, maybe most) of the activities that come before that. I love the Christmas eve services. I love preparing my sermon for the late service and the pastoral visiting of the week leading up to Christmas. I love that moment when I come home from Christmas Eve, prepare the Christmas stockings and watch the Pope celebrate Mass in Rome. And I even enjoy the trip to the MALL for that last minute gift that we always end up needing.
I don't think I would love these few days of Christmas at home if I didn't have the patience to wait for those days and do the work I'm called to do. If I weren't present for the days of Advent, would Christmas be a real celebration or just another tiring-thing-to-do-and-put-behind-us? And I wonder, did the elderly monk one day just get a little tired of gardening and long to be in the kitchen peeling potatoes with a few of his brother monks or in the sacristy preparing for Eucharist?
Like the Gardener of Gethsemane's abbot, I believe we all need some structure to keep us from revving up the celebration engines too high, too soon. We need the season of Advent, just as humans need the practice of Sabbath. In order to enjoy the things we love, we need the patience to wait and watch and prepare. We need to take a break from gardening, in order to love the garden. We need to take a break from the feast in order to love the feast.
So take a break from the cultural Christmas frenzy---and try not to celebrate too much, too soon. Enjoy the quiet days of waiting for the celebration. Then rejoice and sing as you are called---including wearing your pajamas all day if you like!
Join us at Memorial Church as we green the church this coming Sunday after the 10:30 service. A way to slowly begin to see the Feast of the Incarnation take shape.
Erv+ preached on Sunday about patience. About this time of year, as the cultural Christmas season is in full swing, we all become a bit weary of all the insistent over-preparation....have we bought our beloved a new luxury car yet?.....and are ready for the Christmas feasting to begin...and then a good nap to be had. Some of us just want the whole crazy celebration to be over, stop the traveling and enjoy those quiet days between Christmas Day and New Year's at home. Perhaps to settle by the fire with a good book for the quieter souls among us; to dance and sing and relax together for those who like a bit more activity without all the Christmas fuss.
There is a story told by Thomas Merton about an elderly monk at the Monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky where Merton spent many years of his professed life. This elderly monk loved to garden above all else. He liked nothing better than to putter around the garden all day in all kinds of weather---digging a hole there, pulling weeds, organzing his tools in the shed on rainy days. For a long time, the abbot of the monastery decided that this love of gardening needed some pruning in the life of this elderly monk....and he forbade him from gardening---just on monastic (and maybe puritan) principle. Finally the abbot died and the new abbot decided that this elderly monk was not going to do anything EXCEPT GARDEN. So, as Merton tells it, the monk "just gardened from morning to night. He never came to Office, never came to anything, he just dug in his garden. He put his whole life into this." (Advent and Christmas with Thomas Merton, p.29) When I read about this Gardener of Gethsemane, I rejoiced with him in his gardening life at long last, but I also wondered how he had the patience to wait out the old abbot's non-gardening decree and trust that God would see fit to have him garden once more. And I also wondered: did he ever tire of continual gardening in the days to come?
Sometimes we all just want to do what WE want to do. One of my favorite parts of Christmastide is arriving at Christmas Day afternoon when I get in my pajamas, sit on the coach and watch "It's A Wonderful Life." I don't move for hours. After the movie, I read and read and read. Nap. Watch a football game. Eat a bit. Then go to sleep (and no need to change clothes!)It is great! But I have also learned to love to wait for that moment and to delight in all (well, maybe most) of the activities that come before that. I love the Christmas eve services. I love preparing my sermon for the late service and the pastoral visiting of the week leading up to Christmas. I love that moment when I come home from Christmas Eve, prepare the Christmas stockings and watch the Pope celebrate Mass in Rome. And I even enjoy the trip to the MALL for that last minute gift that we always end up needing.
I don't think I would love these few days of Christmas at home if I didn't have the patience to wait for those days and do the work I'm called to do. If I weren't present for the days of Advent, would Christmas be a real celebration or just another tiring-thing-to-do-and-put-behind-us? And I wonder, did the elderly monk one day just get a little tired of gardening and long to be in the kitchen peeling potatoes with a few of his brother monks or in the sacristy preparing for Eucharist?
Like the Gardener of Gethsemane's abbot, I believe we all need some structure to keep us from revving up the celebration engines too high, too soon. We need the season of Advent, just as humans need the practice of Sabbath. In order to enjoy the things we love, we need the patience to wait and watch and prepare. We need to take a break from gardening, in order to love the garden. We need to take a break from the feast in order to love the feast.
So take a break from the cultural Christmas frenzy---and try not to celebrate too much, too soon. Enjoy the quiet days of waiting for the celebration. Then rejoice and sing as you are called---including wearing your pajamas all day if you like!
Join us at Memorial Church as we green the church this coming Sunday after the 10:30 service. A way to slowly begin to see the Feast of the Incarnation take shape.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Holy Anticipation
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah: "See, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'" Mark 1:1-3
So begins the Gospel of Mark. No nativity narratives. No prologue about the Word made flesh that comes to dwell among us. The Gospel of Mark, which is our Gospel for most of this lectionary Year B, is short and sweet. Just the facts. In our New Testament class, we are using Mark Allan Powell's textbook on the New Testament. Dr. Powell suggests reading the first chapters of each Gospel as a kind of overture. In a musical, the overture gives you a little bit of each of the main songs and musical themes. So what might be Mark's Gospel trying to tell us in the first chapter? There is no nativity story. The good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begins with the words of the prophet Isaiah talking about a holy messenger. Then John the Baptizer appears out of the wilderness and baptizes Jesus. Jesus is immediately driven into the wilderness to be temped by Satan and then he is off and running in his Galilean ministry---with almost nary a breath. Healing the sick, driving out demons, calling disciples, praying in a deserted place, then off again to heal and teach. In Mark, Jesus has very little of what we call "down time." What kind of model might that be for us in our ministry? However, the first chapter of Mark does begin with the words of the prophet Isaiah which speak of preparation and beginning.
Advent is the time of the church year that we set aside to prepare for the birth of Christ once more in our lives. It is a time of preparing, of anticipating. An overture does much the same thing. At the theatre, when the lights go down and we settle in our seats, the excitement truly builds with the orchestra's first notes of the overture. As we listen to the orchestra, if we know the show, we start to live into the story all over again---the tragedy, the humor, the redemption. But there is that moment before the music starts---when the theatre is quiet and still. A time of great anticipation.
That is what the season of Advent should bring forth in our souls. Anticipation. A kind of holy anticipation. Waiting for the birth of something new in our lives---in Advent, we may get just a hint of the tune of the new adventure ahead, but if we quiet ourselves, we can begin to see a path being prepared. A path which is straight and true and allows us to fully live into a new life in Christ.
In this year's issue of Weavings, a poem was on the back cover which struck me. The poem describes Holy Anticipation as "that breathtaking space inbetween what has been, what is, and what is to come." In the holy anticipation of Advent, we are called to settle into our seats before the show and listen for the first notes of the new life to come.
What notes of a new tune are you hearing in your life in the overture of Advent? The tune may not be complete---but what is coming into your vision and hearing and heart that makes you think a new life in Christ is being born in you this year?
So begins the Gospel of Mark. No nativity narratives. No prologue about the Word made flesh that comes to dwell among us. The Gospel of Mark, which is our Gospel for most of this lectionary Year B, is short and sweet. Just the facts. In our New Testament class, we are using Mark Allan Powell's textbook on the New Testament. Dr. Powell suggests reading the first chapters of each Gospel as a kind of overture. In a musical, the overture gives you a little bit of each of the main songs and musical themes. So what might be Mark's Gospel trying to tell us in the first chapter? There is no nativity story. The good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begins with the words of the prophet Isaiah talking about a holy messenger. Then John the Baptizer appears out of the wilderness and baptizes Jesus. Jesus is immediately driven into the wilderness to be temped by Satan and then he is off and running in his Galilean ministry---with almost nary a breath. Healing the sick, driving out demons, calling disciples, praying in a deserted place, then off again to heal and teach. In Mark, Jesus has very little of what we call "down time." What kind of model might that be for us in our ministry? However, the first chapter of Mark does begin with the words of the prophet Isaiah which speak of preparation and beginning.
Advent is the time of the church year that we set aside to prepare for the birth of Christ once more in our lives. It is a time of preparing, of anticipating. An overture does much the same thing. At the theatre, when the lights go down and we settle in our seats, the excitement truly builds with the orchestra's first notes of the overture. As we listen to the orchestra, if we know the show, we start to live into the story all over again---the tragedy, the humor, the redemption. But there is that moment before the music starts---when the theatre is quiet and still. A time of great anticipation.
That is what the season of Advent should bring forth in our souls. Anticipation. A kind of holy anticipation. Waiting for the birth of something new in our lives---in Advent, we may get just a hint of the tune of the new adventure ahead, but if we quiet ourselves, we can begin to see a path being prepared. A path which is straight and true and allows us to fully live into a new life in Christ.
In this year's issue of Weavings, a poem was on the back cover which struck me. The poem describes Holy Anticipation as "that breathtaking space inbetween what has been, what is, and what is to come." In the holy anticipation of Advent, we are called to settle into our seats before the show and listen for the first notes of the new life to come.
What notes of a new tune are you hearing in your life in the overture of Advent? The tune may not be complete---but what is coming into your vision and hearing and heart that makes you think a new life in Christ is being born in you this year?
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Our Lives are not Our Own
As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Matthew 4:18-20
Yesterday was the Feast Day of St. Andrew. Andrew was one of the first disciples to be called by Jesus. He is mentioned several times in the Gospels and, in three separate incidents, Andrew brings other people to Christ (John 1:41ff; 6:5ff, 12:20ff) In parts of the Anglican communion, St. Andrewstide is often observed as a special time of intercession for the mission of the Church.
Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day and therefore an apporpriate day of prayer in St Andrewstide!
The combination of Advent, St. Andrew's Day and World AIDS Day leads me to ponder what it means to follow Jesus. At our Tuesday morning Peace and Justice Eucharist this week, I was struck by the phrase in the paragraph we read about Andrew from the Anglican Church in Canada. The phrase that has been working on me is this: When Andrew left his net to follow Jesus, his life was no longer his own. No longer his own? This is decidely so deeply counter-cultural for an American individualist to consider. What does it mean to follow Jesus and accept that our life is no longer our own?
Preparing for Emily Cox's funeral tomorrow has underscored for me what it means to live a life not our own. A good funeral preparation will always do this for in preparing to celebrate the life of one of God's good and faithful servants shows what it means to follow Jesus. Emily's ninety years on this earth are testament to what that phrase means. Emily served her country during World War II and was stationed in Paris and other parts of France during her time overseas. Although she lost her husband of five years in the 1950s and never had children of her own, she considered her neice and godson as her children. She gave her life to then, her country, to the city of Baltimore and to her family and friends. She spent a good deal of time at the Waxter Senior Center playing Scrabble. She hosted large Thanksgiving and holiday dinners. And she loved her church. The fountain in our renovated garden is in memory of her husband and it was such a lovely surprise when she made the contribution that enabled that fountain to become a reality. Now, when anyone walks by our garden--a MICA student, a neighbor walking a dog, a child on the way to the pool in the summer-- and sees and hears the fountain, they are blessed with a moment of peace and hope. That was Emily. Here every Sunday and altar guild at most all Memorial Apartment Eucharists. Faithful and true. She knew that her life was not her own--but belonged to the community to show the glory of God.
In reflecting on Emily's life, it is a good and freeing thing to know that one's life is not one's own. That our lives are an intregal part of building the Kingdom of God. That we matter beyond ourselves. That we matter to God.
Join us for a Celebration of Emily Cox's life at 11 am at Memorial Church tomorrow, Friday, December 2. We also gather Friday evening for dinner together in community at 6 pm with a meal cooked with love by Earl Huch and Lois Eldred in Upper Farnham Hall followed by Advent Lessons and Carols by candlelight in the church at 7 pm.
Yesterday was the Feast Day of St. Andrew. Andrew was one of the first disciples to be called by Jesus. He is mentioned several times in the Gospels and, in three separate incidents, Andrew brings other people to Christ (John 1:41ff; 6:5ff, 12:20ff) In parts of the Anglican communion, St. Andrewstide is often observed as a special time of intercession for the mission of the Church.
Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day and therefore an apporpriate day of prayer in St Andrewstide!
The combination of Advent, St. Andrew's Day and World AIDS Day leads me to ponder what it means to follow Jesus. At our Tuesday morning Peace and Justice Eucharist this week, I was struck by the phrase in the paragraph we read about Andrew from the Anglican Church in Canada. The phrase that has been working on me is this: When Andrew left his net to follow Jesus, his life was no longer his own. No longer his own? This is decidely so deeply counter-cultural for an American individualist to consider. What does it mean to follow Jesus and accept that our life is no longer our own?
Preparing for Emily Cox's funeral tomorrow has underscored for me what it means to live a life not our own. A good funeral preparation will always do this for in preparing to celebrate the life of one of God's good and faithful servants shows what it means to follow Jesus. Emily's ninety years on this earth are testament to what that phrase means. Emily served her country during World War II and was stationed in Paris and other parts of France during her time overseas. Although she lost her husband of five years in the 1950s and never had children of her own, she considered her neice and godson as her children. She gave her life to then, her country, to the city of Baltimore and to her family and friends. She spent a good deal of time at the Waxter Senior Center playing Scrabble. She hosted large Thanksgiving and holiday dinners. And she loved her church. The fountain in our renovated garden is in memory of her husband and it was such a lovely surprise when she made the contribution that enabled that fountain to become a reality. Now, when anyone walks by our garden--a MICA student, a neighbor walking a dog, a child on the way to the pool in the summer-- and sees and hears the fountain, they are blessed with a moment of peace and hope. That was Emily. Here every Sunday and altar guild at most all Memorial Apartment Eucharists. Faithful and true. She knew that her life was not her own--but belonged to the community to show the glory of God.
In reflecting on Emily's life, it is a good and freeing thing to know that one's life is not one's own. That our lives are an intregal part of building the Kingdom of God. That we matter beyond ourselves. That we matter to God.
Join us for a Celebration of Emily Cox's life at 11 am at Memorial Church tomorrow, Friday, December 2. We also gather Friday evening for dinner together in community at 6 pm with a meal cooked with love by Earl Huch and Lois Eldred in Upper Farnham Hall followed by Advent Lessons and Carols by candlelight in the church at 7 pm.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Thanksgiving Rejoicing
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for that is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Paul's Letter to the Thessalonians 5
The wind is blowing today in Western Maryland. Most Thanksgiving days that I remember were just a bit chilly with a breeze in the air. As a little girl, I would be settled into the back seat of the station wagon as my parents and I drove from Virginia to Maryland--up the George Washington Parkway and over the Cabin John Bridge to Garrett Park, Maryland. Garrett Park was the small town where my grandmother as well as aunt and uncle lived. When I entered the house, the smell of turkey mixed with sauerkraut (a mid-Atlantic Thanksgiving tradition) bowled me over and I was swept into the Spirit of the Macgill-Rucker family atmosphere. It was an atmosphere of rejoicing, of being together. As an only child, I often hid behind my parents for a moment or two when I first walked in the door but soon joined in with my cousins playing Barbies upstairs or hide and seek in the yard.
Now, I make my way out to Western Maryland and we have a family Thanksgiving here. This year there is special excitement since in addition to the traditional feast, we also will have a feast of football with Anna's boyfriend Michael rooting on the Detroit Lions and all of us rooting on the Ravens in the Haubaugh Bowl. As I make my way inside and out preparing for the feast (including welcoming the cable guy for NFL Network), I catch a burst of the wind. I feel like kicking up my heels and rejoicing. We are healthy and happy and together. There will be much eating, much napping, a fierce game or two of Scrabble, a trip to the bowling alley for more competition and more. Such blessings are always to be given abundant thanks....since we have all had Thanksgivings when someone we love is missing for the first time or one of us is struggling with health or other issues and we have trouble rejoicing much at all. It is good to know that there will be a season of joy again.
Moreover, in my life in Christ, I find that the Thanksgiving wind also ushers in the season of Advent. The season of holy anticipation. That pause between what was and what will be. I look forward to anticipating and pausing with you as I blog and write most days.
So, take a pause this Thanksgiving. Rejoice and give thanks. Pray without ceasing. And watch for that wind of the Spirit, blowing around you, reminding you that new things are afoot!
The wind is blowing today in Western Maryland. Most Thanksgiving days that I remember were just a bit chilly with a breeze in the air. As a little girl, I would be settled into the back seat of the station wagon as my parents and I drove from Virginia to Maryland--up the George Washington Parkway and over the Cabin John Bridge to Garrett Park, Maryland. Garrett Park was the small town where my grandmother as well as aunt and uncle lived. When I entered the house, the smell of turkey mixed with sauerkraut (a mid-Atlantic Thanksgiving tradition) bowled me over and I was swept into the Spirit of the Macgill-Rucker family atmosphere. It was an atmosphere of rejoicing, of being together. As an only child, I often hid behind my parents for a moment or two when I first walked in the door but soon joined in with my cousins playing Barbies upstairs or hide and seek in the yard.
Now, I make my way out to Western Maryland and we have a family Thanksgiving here. This year there is special excitement since in addition to the traditional feast, we also will have a feast of football with Anna's boyfriend Michael rooting on the Detroit Lions and all of us rooting on the Ravens in the Haubaugh Bowl. As I make my way inside and out preparing for the feast (including welcoming the cable guy for NFL Network), I catch a burst of the wind. I feel like kicking up my heels and rejoicing. We are healthy and happy and together. There will be much eating, much napping, a fierce game or two of Scrabble, a trip to the bowling alley for more competition and more. Such blessings are always to be given abundant thanks....since we have all had Thanksgivings when someone we love is missing for the first time or one of us is struggling with health or other issues and we have trouble rejoicing much at all. It is good to know that there will be a season of joy again.
Moreover, in my life in Christ, I find that the Thanksgiving wind also ushers in the season of Advent. The season of holy anticipation. That pause between what was and what will be. I look forward to anticipating and pausing with you as I blog and write most days.
So, take a pause this Thanksgiving. Rejoice and give thanks. Pray without ceasing. And watch for that wind of the Spirit, blowing around you, reminding you that new things are afoot!
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