To the Emery's & All Holy Families

What kind of family do you want to become?

On Sunday, we will celebrate the First Sunday after the Epiphany. The Sunday is celebrated as the Feast of the Holy Family and as the Baptism of our Lord. As we celebrate this Sunday, I am mindful of all the images of the Holy Family. Having just finished Christmas, we can freshly remember the scenes. We remember the plastic, wooden, and porcelain creches at home and at church. We remember the rogue sheep, wandering child star, and the off centered halo from the Children’s Pageant. We can still remember the scene of all of us gathered to pay homage to the newborn king. We remember the Holy Family gathered lovingly under stars as folks came to visit them - angels, archangels, shepherds, wise men, family guests, visitors from near and far. We remember how we gathered together with them on Christmas. All of us young and old, heavenly and earthly, wise and common, magi and shepherd, male and female, ancient and new, white and black, new friends and strangers, conservative and liberal. We remember in that moment of Christmas how the roof of that Creche held all of the created world under it. And, how, in that moment the whole world was united as family under the Prince of Peace. No one in a nativity scene is ever looking anywhere other than towards a God of love represented in the form of a baby.

It is through Christ we are united. It is through Christ we become siblings in a family of love. When I was growing up, our church’s tag line was “First Christian Church: A Family of Faith.” Today, I find myself thinking about the profound ability we have to choose what kind of family we wish to be. How we can make the decisions to turn our focus inward towards the Prince of Peace or outward towards a world of chaos, anxiety, stress, and stuff that doesn’t much matter. We have the tremendous choice and ability to shape our lives to focus on Jesus peace and love.

The gift of Holy Family is a tremendous gift. In families biological, social, and church we are given a profound gift to help the world heal.

In our church year today, we celebrate a family who continues to help the world heal one hundred years after their presence with us. Today, we celebrate the life of Julia Chester Emery (1852-1922). Julia fell in line after her sister as the second Secretary of the National Women’s Auxiliary, now known as the Episcopal Church Women (ECW). She founded the United Thank Offering (UTO) which is still a tremendous ministry one hundred years later. Julia did amazing things. However, she is rarely mentioned without the rest of her family. Her two brothers who were priests. Her sister Helen who started a hospitality home. Her other sister Mary, who started the ECW as mentioned above. The whole family together leaves an extraordinary legacy of Christ’s love and service. What kinds of focus did that family have towards the Prince of Peace that they left such an amazing legacy? What was their home life like? Their spiritual life like? Their daily prayer life like? We don’t know, but I imagine most of them had their attention focused on Jesus with the intensity of a Christmas Nativity scene.

Last Sunday, we baptized infant Claire into our community. The day was filled with love and joy. As our prayer book reminds us, “Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.” (BCP, 858). It is also that by which we take up Christ’s ministry in the world. As we baptized Claire, we welcomed her into our own Holy Family and into the greater scene of that Holy Family gathered with the baby Jesus, common shepherds, wise magi, humans and angels, old and young, and all those who gathered before us and around us. We promised to help her grow into her life with Christ and be her holy siblings.

As we go throughout our days, there are so many choices we have about how to be. As we journey away from the manger and out into the world, where will our focus be? Will we remember the sweet baby? How we were all gathered under the Prince of Peace? Will we remember that heaven and earth stopped to adore love incarnate? Will we be distracted by all kinds of things in the things in the world as we travel home by another road? In the example of the Emery’s, I pray we will remember to focus on the Christ. I pray we will be a Family of Faith. I pray we leave a lasting impact that heals the world forever.

For more information on Julia Chester Emery - http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Julia_Chester_Emery.htm

Listen Up!

On Sunday at Saint Andrew’s, David, a member of our Stewardship Team talked about the power of listening to God’s still, small voice. He mentioned the many times in his life when he has heard God’s voice directing him which ways to go and which ways not to go. And how, when he follows that voice, it always leads to great and wonderful things for his life.

Those of us on a spiritual journey know what that sort of discernment looks like in our own lives. The feelings, nudgings, voices, dreams, and wonderings that cause us to follow the voice within. A still, small voice that says, “Talk to that person.” A good nudging that says, “Move to this new town.” A powerful moment when we feel pulled to a new job, community organization, or task. It is in these times we lean into the still, small voice within. We learn to trust what the Spirit is asking us to do. We learn to lean into the wonderful promise of life, wholeness, joy, and fulfillment that the Spirit has for us.

This season at Saint Andrew’s we are using Prayer form VI from the Book of Common Prayer. The last line of that prayer is, “Lord, let your loving kindness be upon them; who put their trust in you.” Leaning into that still, small voice is just one way we learn to trust in God. And every single time we do it, we seem to discover more and more kindness of the Divine.

Yesterday, was the feast day of Elizabeth and Zechariah. We know the story presented in Luke 1. If there were ever people who were able to lean into God’s still, small voice within and trust God, we believe it would have been them. If there was anyone who lived in the spirited joy of God, we would have expected it to be them. Scripture tells us they lived a godly, holy, and righteous life. He was a priest. They prayed, followed the commandments, and lived blamelessly. They were good people who went to church a lot. And yet, despite doing all the right things they were unable to have children.

As Zechariah was always in church, he found himself doing his normal priestly job one day. I’m sure Zechariah had fired the incense up more times than he could count. It is reminiscent of our routines - the hundreds of times we have shown up to church to clean the altar, or set up for Sunday, or count money, or practice our guitar solo; or our daily routines of morning prayer, yoga, meditation, and nature walks. Jeremiah had done this task thousands of times. It was a normal day. Like most of us, he probably would have considered it a blessed day if he heard a still, small voice inside. And yet, on this day, God makes Godself known in extraordinarily powerful ways. This day’s voice is not still and small. Instead, it is a full angel who is standing in the presence of God and who is a direct conduit communicating directly from God to Zechariah. And, the message the angel has for them is beyond belief, beyond anything Zechariah or Elizabeth could have asked or imagined.

Not only will Zechariah and Elizabeth have a son, which will fill them with joy and gladness, but that son will be filled with the Holy Spirit, return people to a relationship with God, become a great leader, and prepare people to hear the good news of God. I’d say that is a great, wonderful, and amazing thing! It is beyond their wildest imaginations.

That’s how God’s vision for our lives always works. As we say in morning prayer, “Glory to God whose power, working within us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever” (Ephesians 3:20). God certainly did more than Zechariah and Elizabeth asked or imagined, God certainly spoke in ways which were new, different, and powerful - ways that they had not heard before. 

So, if you find yourself listening to the still, small voices, if you find yourself learning how to discern and trust in God a little more each day, be watchful! For it is highly possible that God is about to show up in ways beyond imagination to surprise us, to startle us, to direct us, to speak to us, and to bring us joy and gladness. Friends, go forth to listen!

Retiring to Purpose

What are you retiring to? A few years ago, I had the great pleasure of working with a colleague who always asked this question of those who were about to retire. He never asked, “What are you retiring from?” He always asked, “What are you retiring to?” It is an important question.

At one point in our lives we all need to retire. In its root form, the French word means to retreat or withdrawal. Depending on our life circumstances withdrawing looks different. For some of us this means paid job responsibilities at age 65. Others of us need to retire to our couches to take an afternoon nap, or take an actual sabbath one day a week, or spend time daily resting in God’s presence. But we all need to retire.

Retiring has a way of making us more focused on the work that we have to do. Today our community remembered Vida Dutton Scudder - educator, peace maker, and social advocate. You can read more about Vida here.  Vida was born in India to Christian parents in 1861. Later she was confirmed as an Epsicopalian. She was a good student. She loved English Literature and had a profound love for God. Her education, spirituality, and advocate spirit led her to do many great things. However, at age forty Vida found herself broken down and in the middle of a mental crisis because she had taken on so much. She was tired, broken, and ended up taking two years off of life.

I have a feeling we relate to Vida. We try our best to balance jobs, work, family, spirituality, our sense of purpose in the world, and daily tasks. We often feel like we have too much. We often feel as if we need to retreat. Vida knew she had taken on too much. So, she retired at forty for two years. She healed and she came back stronger than ever. She started countless support groups for women, immigrants, and union workers. She became a pacifist during World War I. At a normal age, she took real retirement. And then, she authored sixteen books on spirituality and social consciousness.

Vida knew about the importance of rest and retreat. She knew that the more we find holy rest, the more we come back empowered and renewed to the work that we are called to do. Those who practice Eastern religion have a wonderful word - Dharma. The word has meaning meanings, but one of them is the actions of living rightly so that one might fulfill the purposes of the divine in their life. As we are all different, we as individuals, are the only ones who can decide what that purpose is. As Christians, we might translate Dharma as vocation. We recognize that at our baptism we were called into the ministry of Christ and that God has gifted us with unique gifts that allow us to do God’s work in the world. Using those gifts is our vocation.

Often our daily lives get busy. We forget that in the midst of the chaos, todo lists, appointments, and tasks that we have a life’s calling to fulfill. Returning to God through rest, retirement, respite, and retreat refocuses our energies reminding us that we are called to do God’s work in the world. No matter how busted we are retiring and retreating has a way of rejuvenating and energizing us for the work ahead.

May we follow the example of Vida Dutton Scudder and retire greatly, redirect ourselves, and then get back out there to love and serve the Lord and do the work we are called to do.

Good luck ya’ll. Get to retiring.

Only Two People

Years ago I was on retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani when I was approached by a Cistercian Monk named Brother Renee in the hallway. When a monk has taken a vow of silence and when you find yourself in a space that has “Silence spoken here” and “Please be silent” written at every turn, it is odd to be approached for casual conversation by a old monk with a cane. It must have been important.

“Amanda?” Brother Renee asked.

“Yes, you are correct, my name is Amanda. Good to see you Brother Renee.”

“Amanda,” he said. “What would Jesus say, if I took this cane and hit you on the head?”

“I honestly have no idea,” I replied.

“He would ask me, why did you just hit ME on the head? Dear Amanda, on the day I entered this abbey, the abbot told me I would only find two people here. Myself, and Jesus. To this day, I have never met anyone else.”

And with that, Brother Renee returned to silence and continued his walk. Leaving me with the profound thought - in life we only meet two people, ourselves, and God in our midst.

At Saint Andrew’s we are celebrating fifty days of Easter, the days between Easter Sunday and the fiftieth day after Easter, Pentecost. During this time our community is reading stories about how the Risen Lord shows up. On Wednesday, we read Mark’s version. In Mark 16, Jesus appears first to Mary Magdalene as she was grieving, then to two disciples as they were walking on the road, then to the apostles as they sat down to dinner. All of these are mundanely ordinary experiences. While we often expect the Risen Christ to show up on mountain tops, church camps, fancy retreats, religious pilgrimages, and in splendid Cathedrals, this passage of Mark reminds us Jesus shows up in the overtly normal things we do every day. While we are in grief, while we walk, while we eat, while we talk amongst friends, Jesus shows up.

Jesus shows up when two or three gather in his name. Each Wednesday and Sunday, our community gathers to give thanks and to take in the body and blood of Christ. As we meet at the altar of the Lord, we consume all of Christ’s goodness, mercy, and grace in the form of a small wafer, the bread of heaven. As such, each of us are filled up with a little bit of the Risen Lord, each of us become more and more filled with the power of Christ.

That means, that when we return to our seats, we hold Christ within us. We hold Christ within us, and the neighbor sitting next to us holds Christ within them. If we open ourselves up to them by introducing ourselves, by inviting them to tell us their story, by being brave enough to listen, by dining with them, by sharing our grief with them, by simply living the normal everyday life stuff with them, the Risen Christ becomes present.

Brother Renee was right, in church and in the world, we only find two people - ourselves and Christ.

After Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation." And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it. - Mark 16: 9-15, 20

May we see Christ. May we proclaim boldly the good news everywhere, while the Lord works with us daily to confirm the message of grace and love.

Greetings. Do Not Be Afraid!

One of the things I strive to do constantly is check my fear. I am always telling myself things like, “Don’t react in fear,” Or, “Amanda, don’t make a fear based decision.” In observing my own life, and the life of many religious communities, I find that there is rarely any good outcome that comes from a fear based decision. And yet, I find myself having to check my fear daily, primarily because I am not very good about not living in it.

Myself and many of whom I work with are lucky enough in life that we can chose to not live in fear. For us, not living in fear is a privileged choice. We are housed, we are fed, we are relatively safe. And yet, fear creeps in to all sorts of parts of our lives causing us to chose things which are not always life-giving. We fear we will not have enough, so we hold on to money, possessions, and things. We fear we will be not be accepted, and do all sorts of things to our bodies for reasons that do not ever lead to wholeness. We fear we will lose everything if our particulate candidate does not get voted into office. We fear no one will love us and go to ridiculous lengths to prove ourselves. We fear because the news media and advertising industry tell us to be afraid. We fear for no rational reason, but we fear.

In this season of Easter our community is focusing on the ways the Risen Lord showed himself to the Disciples. I am mindful of how many times the Risen Christ shows up and asks his follower to not be afraid. In Matthew’s account, the Marys arrive at the tomb to experience an earthquake and angel descending from heaven. The sight frightens the guards. They seize up and become “liked dead men.” But an angel appears and says to the women, “Do not be afraid.” When Jesus shows up in Matthew’s account he says to the women, “Do not be afraid.” (Matthew 28: 1-10). In Mark’s gospel the risen Lord says, “Do not be alarmed” (Mark 16:6). In Luke and John Jesus shows up with the words, “Peace be with you” (Luke 24:36, John 20:21, 29). Wherever the Risen Lord shows up, he reminds us to breathe deep peace and to live without fear.

Where Jesus is there is peace. Where Jesus is there is a voice that says, “Do not fear.” For those of us with our basic needs met, fear is a pretty good indication that we may not be aligning ourselves with that which is holy. Fear calls us away from that which is life-giving, abundant, and whole and into that dark place where we believe things are dying and resources are scarce. Living more fully into our fear we go inward, believing we are doing what is best to preserve ourselves, often without regard for the greater world around us or for God’s call for our lives.

Matthew 28 is a good case in point. While Jesus is calling to the women to be at peace and to not be afraid, those religious leaders who sought to kill Jesus the first time are falling back into their fear based traps. Those who love Jesus are learning not to live in fear, while those who are seeking to destroy Jesus just keep driving and living into it. They begin paying off people to be quiet, telling them to lie about the resurrection. They strike fear into their employees, saying that if they do not lie, the governor will be angry. Just like the first time around, everyone is afraid of Jesus and everyone is acting in fear. That is what living into fear often does, it puts us in the position of those who are trying to kill Jesus. It puts us in a position to kill the voice of Jesus within our lives.

In his book The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen offers the following story about a fear based decision -

One day a young fugitive, trying to hide himself from the enemy, entered a small village. The people were kind to him and offered him a place to stay. But when the soldiers who sought the fugitive asked where he was hiding, everyone became very fearful. The soldiers threatened to burn the village and kill every man in it unless the young man were handed over to them before dawn. The people went to the minister and asked him what to do. The minister, torn between handing over the boy to the enemy or having his people killed, withdrew to his room and read his Bible, hoping to find an answer before dawn. After many hours, in the early morning his eyes fell on these words: “It is better that one man dies than that the whole people be lost.”

Then the minister closed the Bible, called the soldiers and told them where the boy was hidden. After the soldiers led the fugitive away to be killed, there was a feast in the village because the minister had saved the lives of the people. But the minister did not celebrate. Overcome with a deep sense of sadness, he remained in his room. That night an angel came to him and asked, “What have you done?” He said: “I handed over the fugitive to the enemy.” Then the angel said: “But don’t you know that you have handed over the Messiah?” “How could I know?” the minister replied anxiously. Then the angel said: “If, instead of reading your Bible, you had visited this young man just once and looked into his eyes, you would have known.”*

So often our fear keeps us from seeing the risen Christ amongst us. Rather than being open with our fears and turning to God and community for help, we often turn inward believing we have the best answers to protect ourselves.

In this Easter Season may we have the courage to look outward. The courage to be in conversation and community. May we breathe deep peace. May we not be afraid. And may our eyes and ears be open to seeing the signs of the Risen Lord among us. The same Risen Lord who always breathes peace in the midst of fear and says to us, “Greetings. Do not be afraid.”

*Nouwen, Henri J. M. The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1994.

Fully Seen and Fully Known

This week, I watched this video about Community First! Village in Austin, Texas. Community First! Village is a 51-acre planned community for the chronically homeless. It provides permanent housing, job opportunities, arts, support groups, medical services, and education for its residents. At the core of Community First! Village is, as the name might suggest, community.

The three minute video features testimony from the founder Alan Graham, and formerly homeless, now permanent resident, Richard Devore. Graham speaks on the power of relationship. He states, “Mobile Loaves and Fishes is laser focused on lifting the chronically homeless… into a place they can call home.. It is all about relationship here. [The residents] are going to see people at the kitchen, at the community market spending time with each other… building community through valuing each other as human beings.” For Graham, the success of the housing community has relationships at the core. Hence, the name, Community First! Village. As he states, each of us desires to be seen: “In each of us there are two fundamental human desires: to be fully and wholly loved, and to be fully and wholly known.”

The community strategy seems to be working! Resident Richard Devore states that being seen as a whole person is a path towards healing. We do as a society, have a tendency to see only one aspect of a person - skin color, addiction, sexuality. And as with so many of our marginalized friends, I imagine Richard’s experience of being homeless, left him feeling like he was only seen as a homeless person, and not as “Richard.” As he says, “Here they are really trying to bring you together. They don’t make you feel like you are a homeless charity case being helped out. We are just treated like normal people and I mean that certainly helped me change a lot.” Seeing Richard as an integral part of the community, in all the roles that he plays, as a full person seems to not only be allowing him to heal, to find permanent housing, but also seems to be allowing him to thrive and grow.

In our readings for Wednesday, we read Acts 3:1-10 which also speaks to being fully seen and known. In that story, Peter and John were going up to the temple for prayer when they ran into a man who had not ever been able to walk. Everyday he had folk bring him to the temple so that he could beg for money. When the man saw Peter and John he approached them, just as he approached everyone else, with a request for money. The text says, “Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong” (Acts 3:4-7, NRSV). Christ’s healing was activated by the two parties looking into one another’s eyes and seeing each other.

As Jesus saw the Samaritan woman at the well and knew everything about her (John 4), as the residents at the Community First! see one another and know one another, Peter and John heal a man simply by looking at him and saying, “Look at us.” To see each other is to know each other and heal one another. These are examples of being fully and wholly loved, and fully and wholly known.

In the season of Easter, our community is reaffirming our baptismal vows. As part of those vows, we affirm that we will seek and serve Christ in all persons, and love our neighbor as ourselves. And, that we will strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. As we do so, we are promising to see. To see, to respect, to fully know and to full love those which cross our paths each day. And as we do so, I believe we tap into Jesus’ healing power. The power of Community First!, the power of the living water, the power of disciples who can heal.

Basking in the Light

On Monday, I traveled in a car with a Republican, an Independent, a Democrat, and other people whose political affiliation I don’t even know. If pushed, one of us would have claimed Libertarian and another one of us Socialist. The youngest of us was twelve. The oldest of us was in their 40s. We were united by one goal: THE LINE OF TOTALITY.

None of us had ever seen a total eclipse. Our hometown was scheduled to experience 98% coverage and we were skeptical of driving two and a half hours to see totality. Nevertheless, we persisted, without a plan. We knew we wanted the longest possible full-coverage view without driving more than three hours, or getting stuck on an interstate. So we took off driving to Tennessee as one of us navigated the back roads of pig paths (a term I was unfamiliar with). When we got close to the line of totality, we saw a sign for a state park and pulled over. The state park was full, we were redirected to the overflow, a podunk air strip in the middle of somewhere Teneesee.

There we set up make-shift camp with 300 strangers. 100 of them had flown in on private jets. Some of them were in beat up, barely running pickups. There were pregnant women, there were newborns, there were those at the end of their life. There were Kentuckians, Tennesseans, Northerners, and Southerners.

And it was safe. The entry to the airfield was marked by make-shift plastic with a handwritten sign and a volunteer asking people not to walk out on the airtsrip if they didn’t have a plane. The twelve-year olds roamed free while interviewing folk for their YouTube Channel. There was no chain-link, razor-wire, armed guards, or riot gear. We were just there, one humanity, to experience together the extraordinary gift that Mother Nature was about to offer.

I’ve seen a lot of natural phenomena in my life. Moonbows, moon rises, sunrises, sunsets, dust storms, canyons, waterfalls, and all that God’s creation has to offer. None of it compares to a total eclipse.

At 1:31, the sky went completely dark. Folks took off their glasses and looked at the sun with naked eyes. There were oohs, ahhs, gasps, yells, tears, cries, yelps, and silence. The sight was so breathtaking, that hundreds of people let out emotion in whatever way they felt led, and they did so without judgement. For two minutes and thirty-one seconds we stood together. There was no male, female, black, white, or brown. There was no rich or poor, alt-right or alt-left, there was no straight, gay, transgendered, or bisexual, pro-choice, or pro-life.There was no Christian, no Atheist, No Muslim. There was just humanity, basking in the presence of an inexplicable phenomenon which caused the day to be night, and the sun to be viewed with the naked eye, and a 360 degree panoramic sunset of extraordinary and unbelievable colors.

On the ride home, we seemed changed. We seemed different. No one commented on the National Guardsperson, was a National Guardswoman, or the fact that she was clearly born in a country other than America. No one mentioned the transgendered woman and her partner who were in the car next to us. No one wondered what life on a private jet was like. Or, why the family next to us didn’t have enough funds to buy a car that like it ran. Despite our age, we spoke the same language of music. We listened to a podcast on breathe and life together. We tried, unsuccessfully, to explain our experience.

This Sunday, in the Episcopal Church, we will pray a prayer that says, “Grant, O merciful God that your church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name.” For those of us studying Track 2, we will read the words from Isaiah 51, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” They are deep words that remind us we were all created from one place, one rock, one earth.

For just a moment on Monday, we were gathered in unity. We remembered we were all hewn from the same rock. We sat in awe, united by the beauty of creation. I pray we have the courage to stand in the light and remember in the days to come.