Juneteenth

By Brother Josias Morobi, OHC, Mariya uMama WeThemba Monastery in Grahamstown, South Africa

I understand today we celebrate the Juneteenth. In the next two days most people in this country will be celebrating and honoring the African American heritage by commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the US. I know that most if not all of you know the story behind this celebration so I will not re-tell it to you. Instead I will tell you another story.

In South Africa June is marked as the youth month. In particular June 16, is the national youth day. This is the day we remember the SOWETO (South Western Township) uprising, which was the series of protest led by high school students in 1976.

The black high school students protested against the Afrikaans medium decree of 1974 which forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English as languages of instructions. (Afrikaans is a West Germanic language descended from Dutch, it is mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia). The association of Afrikaans with apartheid prompted the black South Africans to prefer English. In the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu "Afrikaans is the language of the oppressor." Our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters had to learn mathematics and social studies in the language they did not like.

June 16 is therefore the day we remember the courage of young people who protested against the language they did not like. It is also a day that the South Africans recognise the value of the young people in the country. The remembrance of June 16 has become a motivational story for us as young people in South Africa. It encourages us to stand up for our rights. It is the story that give us strength to make our voices heard. It is the story that tells me that I need to be free.

I need freedom to be me - so that I am not just a figment of somebody's imagination, but an actual person who cares and is cared for. I need to get involved in life, not just to be an onlooker. I need to get close to life, feel it, smell it an sweat over it.I need to be free. Free to laugh or cry; free to live or die; free to be responsible and care. I want to dig into freedom. I do not want the things that the other person wants. I do not believe in someone else's values. I can not live on other persons terms. Some people say they want to help, but what they really mean is that they want to stay on top, and hand out their welfare and clothing, while we smile and act nicely saying things like " Thank you sir or thank you Ma`am'. Well, I do not want anybody on top giving me anything. I want to be on top myself, helping myself, giving myself what I need.

Remember we are all made in the image of God. Which means that we are free to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God.

You don't ask for freedom, you take it. I do not ask for something that is already in my possession.

Paul in his letter to Galatians writes: It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love.(Galatians 5:1, 13). This is our freedom. This is our calling. Freedom to serve one another humbly in love.

Allow me to read the ' General Order No3' that was read by the General Gordon Granger on the 19th June 1865, on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa.

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves ....

This statement for me is in line with what Paul is saying in his letter this morning: From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 2 Corinthians 5:6-10,[11-13],14-17.

I understand the Juneteenth has become the story of the nation. It is the story that the black people of this country will never forget. It is the story that shall not be forgotten by the people who work for justice. The black people in South Africa have forgiven the apartheid system, but we will never forget what it did to us and our loved ones.

These kinds of stories are good for us because they help us to find our way in life.They act as landmarks to guide us. The beginning and the whole purpose of our continuing relationship with God lies in our story. What ever the story may be. The meaning and the destination of our lives lie in the way our story connects to Jesus and the Gospel of redemption.

I will like to invite you therefore to reflect on your story, because I believe that is where you will most easily find the traces of God's action in your life.

During the next few days or weeks, try to take a little time in prayer just to remember your life and the making of your faith story so far. Imagine your life as a mountain pathway you've climbed. What crags does the path run through? What special views along the way have left you with a sense of joy and wonder? What major milestones have you passed, and how do you feel about them? What important discoveries have been along the path? Where did the path begin, and where is it leading you? What baggage are you carrying, do you ever wish it were not so heavy? What landmarks have guided you on your journey? Was it an easy journey? Is it an easy journey? Can you honestly say that you are free?

© 2012 Br. Josias Morobi, OHC

Healing of Bart

By The Rev. Diane Riley

I am delighted to be here today and I want to thank Rev. Poppe and Martha Gardner for allowing me to come and preach and participate in a forum where I can share my work with you. I work for The Apostles House in Newark. This is a familiar entity no doubt to many of you especially long time members as St. Georges’. Twenty five years ago St. Georges in collaboration with four other churches was founded the Apostles’ House family shelter. Today we have many programs that serve the poor in Essex beyond the shelter, there is transition housing, continuum of care services for those moving on to independent living, a home for teenage mothers and their children where they can continue to go to school and learn how to raise strong children even as they are moving out of their own childhood. And of course our Food Pantry. I work program within our food pantry in an educational program that allows me to visit communities to raise the awareness of one of the most basic problems we encounter, the problem of hunger. We have one of the largest if not the largest food pantry in Essex. We served over 10,000 people last year. As you might guess the problem of hunger has been exacerbated by the economic crisis. We are very near to serving 10,000 people as of the end September and traditionally the last quarter of the year is when we serve the most people (almost 50% of those we served last year, were served in the fall). So thank you for all you have done and thank you for all you continue to do to help. You are our partners. Today as you walk you not only raise money for the hunger but you stand in solidarity and witness to those that are not always seen and helping others to “see” the problem of hunger. The work I do also allows me to help people “see” the not only the demand but to raise the awareness of the big picture and the actions that we can take to get at the root causes of hunger so that we can get to the point where we end the problem of food insecurity. A time when emergency food providers like our pantry will truly be called on only in cases of emergency and not as a way of life. So if you can’t be here for the seminar than please stop by and allow me to give you some info to take with you.

I am a vocational Deacon in this diocese. St. Georges’ has been blessed with several Deacons as part of your worshiping community, Kathleen Ballard and most recently Chris McCloud. And so you know that we are ordained to the ministry of service. Our ministry is first and foremost to model an active care ministry. Care of individuals as in pastoral care and also care of the community through social ministry. All of the deacons in this diocese are very different. You can see that in their day jobs. Some are nurses, chaplains, managers of social service organizations, teachers, or anti-hunger advocates. Having said that the heart of our ministry is the same. We all see the world in through the same lens – we see the world through the lens of vulnerable people. Sometimes those people are what the gospel calls “the least of these” and their needs are easy to spot – the hungry, or those that need shelter or those that are sick. Sometimes their needs are not so easy to see, like their sense of isolation from others in their community, or maybe just their sense of isolation from God. Perhaps loneliness is the most common unmet need. Our sense of separation is the most common denominator for all God’s people. Here is where it comes together for me. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me... “We participate in our own reconciliation, in mending our own relationship, traveling that distance to God when we take the “risk” of a relationship with the least of these... So there really is mutuality about serving that I want to talk to you about today. I may be meeting their needs but they are also meeting my needs. It’s a connection. In the entirety of the Bible we hear in people’s experience of God that God wants only for his people to be connected to each other; to care for each other and to find God in those caring connections.

That is not always easy even for Deacons. I’ll start with a confession. Every week on the way to work, I drive on 280 and get off of exit 15 in Newark and always I get stuck at the light at the bottom of the ramp. It a long light it turns onto Rt. 21 which is a very busy road. Sometimes I am get stopped almost making it to the turn and so I am first waiting for the light to change, and so often I am the second or third car up that ramp. Usually at this time a person appears, seemingly out of nowhere. A beggar someone who is looking for change and comes up to my window. Here comes the confession. If I am three cars back I have time to pray before they come up to the window. I pray not that we can deliver the people who live in poverty from poverty, not that maybe this person who may have a drug problem or other problems that are barriers to them becoming whole can get the help they need. No I pray that the light will change before they reach my car. I just can’t deal with it that early in the morning. I get angry that I have to. I get angry at them for not fixing their problems. I get angry at society for not helping to fix their problems. Most times when they do manage to reach me and I can’t avoid it I reach down in my purse and give them some money. I don’t always look in their eyes. This act doesn’t alleviate my anger. I still feel angry because no matter how much I work at alleviating the problem of poverty it assaults me and I feel like a failure. And then when the light changes and I am safely away from the confrontation. I feel ashamed and I begin to feel guilty at myself for having all those feelings.

As I pull into the parking lot and I finish my journey to work I say a different prayer, “Jesus, Son of God have mercy on me a sinner.” This prayer, “the Jesus prayer” or the “prayer of the heart” is not new it has been used for centuries by Christian communities as a first step. It is the simplest most desperate prayer when you are at the end of your rope -- a surrender prayer. It’s a prayer where I acknowledge this “true confession” to myself and then offer it up to God. In those moments I recognize that I have a way to go to be a follower of Jesus but … that I have take a step toward getting there.

Today’s Gospel gives us that prayer as part of the story. It is the last healing story in the Gospel of Mark. The last public healing, after this story Jesus moves on to Jerusalem and toward the cross. This in effect is the last statement given by our Gospel writer about Jesus ministry and so it is really a statement about what his ministry means. It is also the culmination of the stories about discipleship and what it means to be follower. Jesus is traveling and blind beggar named Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) is on the side of the road begging. The name has meaning, Bart-teymeh means “son of poverty” in Aramaic. This man immediately shouts to Jesus “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” People around Jesus, you know his entourage tell him to stop and be quiet but he shouted even louder. “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stops and stands still and he tells them to call him over. And they turn towards him and say “Take heart, get up, he is calling you”. I love that. Take heart, get up, he is calling you. That’s the line that stops me in this story. All a long I have been somehow not identifying with the son of poverty the blind beggar because I am not poor and I can see. But when I hear that line, I identify with poor Bart. Even my name for him in my mind changes to a nickname of a friend a kindred spirit. I want to desperately to be in his shoes. I want to hear someone say to me, “take heart, get up, Jesus is calling you”. Me personally, someone who can’t bear to look at the beggar outside my car window. Jesus have mercy on me, a sinner. If we can agree that sin really anything that gets in the way of me relationship with God. I can say my sin is one of surrendering to hopelessness and letting fear and apathy creep into my heart. In those moments when I stare straight ahead I have clearly turned away. I don’t have the courage to turn towards that beggar. Who is not Bart at all but a disciple telling me that Jesus is calling. I don’t have the courage to believe we are deeply connected and to stop thinking of it as his problem, or society’s problem, and not my problem, our problem. To turn towards the relationship that Christ offers and affirms, I am a sinner, known and still deeply loved. Mark starts out his Gospel with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. And ends his teachings by telling us to “Take heart, get up, Jesus is calling you”. If God knows all this about me and still calls. That is good news.

Truth is we need help in believing in this News. All are worthy and we are all responsible but that there is joy waiting in this connectedness and responsibility. What do I want? I want what Bart has. I want to feel what Bart feels. I want to throw off whatever I need to throw off (my pride, my money, by cloak or whatever keeps me from) feeling that deep sense of acceptance that knowledge of being known and loved and jump up with the enthusiasm and energy. The energy that has him leaping to his feet with, joy just at the invitation. When asked, “Diane what do you want me to do for you?” I want to answer to clearly and firmly. “I want to see again”. Lord, help me to see the truth again. Help me to believe in that reality. Heal me so that I can “see” that. Truth be told we need serve not just as duty because the Bible tells us to help the poor, we need the connection to the “least of these” to address our own deep need for connection with God. They help us understand what we cannot see.

Nora Gallagher is a writer and a reporter and she wrote a book that chronicles part of her journey of faith through a year seen through her eyes in the life of her Episcopal parish in California. She talks about the ordinary days within the entire year and her connections with people there and her work in the soup kitchen. “Things blind us, crowd our vision… In our midst is a man without a blanket and shoes too large for his feet. We have organized our lives so that he is hidden from us. He lives, like God in invisibility. But when we do see him, I think tonight, we keep a rendezvous. In the seeing is a glimpse, a foretaste of the kingdom: it will be a place where everyone is seen, including us. Here we are together in Ordinary time, learning how to see.”

I have not met a person who volunteers in a pantry, soup kitchen or any outreach effort that actually meets and talks to a people they serve that does not come away changed. Amazed by their stories, amazed by their hospitality, and more often than not amazed by their faith and belief in the hopefulness of the world and the unfailing love of God.

Jesus ends his public ministry to us today with one more story about a marginalized person. Someone who is poor and outcast. Like all the others it is easy for us to see that he needs help. Like all the others Jesus reminds us that he is the “first” to get that. Because he is vulnerable he has no illusions about it. We are reminded one final time that though we are “last” to get this the invitation is still open. He calls us not son or daughter of poverty. He calls us, child of God. So take heart, get up, have courage to turn towards that persistent knocking on your window and follow.

©2009 The Rev. Diane Riley

God-Shaped Leadership

A precis of a sermon preached by The Rev. Robert Corin Morris
Executive Director of Interweave

….But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.— Exodus 1:8-2:10

When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples,"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" Simon Peter answered,"You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."—Matthew 16:13-20

“Who do people say the Son of Man is?” Jesus asks his disciples. He’s introducing a conversation about leadership. “Son of Man” and “Messiah” — don’t think these are just theological terms. To give you a fancy word, they are theo-political, terms about leadership that will lead the people to some better form of God-shaped, God-breathed, God-inspired common life.

Questions of leadership are in the air today, as the Anglican Communion struggles with its divisions, as Russia, Europe and America redefine their relations, and as the Presidential campaigns settle in for the last lap. Just when you’ve gotten caught up on your sleep from watching Michael Phelps win gold after gold, you may be about the plunge into one or both of the party conventions. At so many levels in our world, beset as we are by multiple crises, the question surfaces: Who are the best people to lead our church, our community, our world toward a better future?

Questions of leadership were just as intense in Jesus day. The Romans now occupied half the land of Israel and ruled the other half through surrogate kings, the descendants of their puppet, Herod. People were divided about who best embodied God’s will for Israel: the high priestly party of Sadducees who dressed like Greeks and collaborated to keep the peace? the Zealots, who would take up arms to liberate Israel from pagan oppressors? the Essenes out there near the Dead Sea, who were abandoning a society they saw as hopelessly corrupt, waiting for the angelic armies to kill the unrighteous? or the party of the Pharisees, who wanted to avoid confrontation with Rome and create a holy people through intense obedience to the commandments?

Jesus may not be running for President in his day, but he is promoting himself as the leader Israel needs—at the very least the leader of a religious-social-political movement to change things for the better. His message, concerns, and mission are not purely religious, but concern what we call “the common good.” Get out of your mind that stock Christian sermon about how the Jews were “expecting an earthly messiah” but Jesus came “as a spiritual leader.” That’s just plain wrong. Read the Gospels if you don’t believe me. No, Jesus did not come to be a military leader to throw the Romans out, but his concerns were deeply earthly. They didn’t kill him for kissing babies. They didn’t kill him for saying be kind to people. They killed him because he was a threat to the existing social and political order. They killed him for political reasons, because he led a movement to change the way things were being done.

Since these lessons deal with leadership—Jesus’ leadership qualities, and the subversive leadership of those Hebrew midwives who, by their guile, saved the Hebrew boy babies—it’s worth pondering what some of the major marks of leadership are in the Scriptures. What are the marks of a good leader, a God-shaped leader?

There are three characteristics I see:

• A vision of the possible good, with the shrewdness to pursue it effectively.
• Authentic enfleshment of that vision in both life and methods.
• Seeking to reconcile as many people as possible around that vision of possible good.

A vision of the possible good, with the shrewdness to pursue it effectively.

Contrary to popular belief Jesus not an idealist, but a hard-headed realist. What he proposes are not ideals to be lived up to but real-life challenges to be lived into. His way is hard, but all the other alternatives are harder.

Take his insistence on a non-violent approach to the Roman occupation. “Turn the other cheek,” as Gandhi saw, is a political strategy for an oppressed people. It’s addressed to the hot-heads who want to retaliate for every Roman insult. “If the soldiers slugs you,” Jesus is saying, “stand tall, maintain your dignity, look him in the eye, and turn your other cheek to him as well. If he makes you carry his shield and spear for a mile, go an extra mile. If you fly off the handle, you’ll die, and your whole village may be pillaged.” On other occasions, he clearly opts for assertiveness, as when he overturns the tables of the money changers in the Temple, a symbolic act of judgment on the Temple leadership. He’s a shrewd strategist, looking to maximize the good in specific situations. As it turns out, his lead was not followed. The hot-heads took over three decades later, and led Israel into a suicidal revolt against Rome, leading to 2000 years of exile for the Jewish people. Jesus’ was is hard, but the alternatives are much harder.

Or take the call to implement the prophetic legislation of the year of Jubilee, which calls for the complete remission of all debts every fifty years. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” is not just about our emotional injuries and debts, but about the Jubilee. This is designed to keep a pre-mercantile class-structured society from slipping into a permanent class of indebted poor and land-owning rich, to reset the balance every two generations. It would be hard way, but the alternatives are much worse for the common good.

Or take forgiveness of injuries and love for the enemy. Desmond Tutu saw that this was the only practical way forward for South Africa. The Truth and Reconciliation Commissions promoted confession and reconciliation, rather than grudge-bearing and retribution, and helped save South Africa from a blood-bath. A hard way, seldom chosen, but easier in the end.

This is all in the service of the possible good, just like the marvelous female conspiracy against Pharaoh’s genocidal order in the Old Testament lesson. The Hebrew midwives shrewdly outfox Pharaoh in great style: “Lawsy mercy me,” they say, “we just can’t do anything. Those Hebrew women are just so lively.” And Pharaoh’s daughter hides a Hebrew child in the shadow of the palace and gives the young Moses protection.

Authentic enfleshment of the vision.

A leader leads by example not by force.
Sun Tzu - Leadership - Encouragement

Secondly, Jesus walks his talk. He embodies the vision he presents. He is the Way he invites others to journey down. I don’t think this means he was humanly perfect, at least not in the way usually mean that. “Perfect” people don’t usually get invited back to dinner after one experience of them. Looking for perfection in a leader is foolishly romantic, but seeking some real measure of authenticity, some core of values that shines in their decisions and behavior, a moral message and moral backbone is not only reasonable, but essential.

Humanly speaking, Jesus of Nazareth was a genuinely good person, who delighted in the good, loved the good, and gave his heart, soul and finally his life to increase the good. He may well have made mistakes. Good leaders do. I can’t imagine Mary never had to correct the young Jesus, nor that he never regretted anything he ever said or did. When we say he was without sin, we mean he never failed to respond to God’s call in his life; he didn’t swerve the from the path of his service, not that he never had change his mind, apologize to another person, or reconsider an action. God’s goodness had captured his heart, and won out over all opposition.

Part of his genuine goodness was because he dared to face his own dark side. We need leaders who know, and are able to navigate, the dangerous waters of power. In the wilderness temptation tale we see Jesus facing leadership temptations—the temptation to offer quick fixes and illusory solutions (turning stones to bread), the temptation to get drunk with power (offer of all the kingdoms of the world), and the temptation to let power make you feel invulnerable (jumping off the temple). Jesus faced his own power temptations and illusions honestly, and repeatedly, not just at the beginning of his career.

We get authentic leadership when leaders know themselves this way. The temptations of power—delusion, isolation, a sense of being above the law—are gigantic. It’s a wonder any of our leaders make it through unscathed. Just think of the kamakaze dives some of our leaders have made recently. At least John Edwards had the grace to acknowledge he was fell into such narcissistic isolation he thought he could “do anything” and get away with it.

Look for leaders who know their own clay feet. Look for leaders—and look to be a leader if you are one—who has bested the temptations of power and is a servant of the good.

Seeking to reconcile people around the vision of the good.

Finally, in their pursuit of the greatest possible good, Biblical leaders rally as many people as possible around a shared vision of that good. Who knows, for example, how many women those Hebrew midwives inspired in their campaign of active resistance to Pharaoh’s policies?

New Testament scholars have a terrible time locating Jesus in the wide spectrum of first-century Jewish thought. Some say he is a maverick Pharisee. Others see in him an example of the “ascension” mysticism of the Second Temple period. Still others cite similarities with the radical Essenes, and, even though Jesus is clearly committed to a non-violent movement, some scholars see connections with the Zealot movement. Jesus also has some clear personal connections with people close to the high priestly Sadducees he criticizes so strongly. Parallels to Jesus’ teaching can be found in each of these segments of first-century Judaism. So, the scholars fight with each other about which segment he “really” belongs to.

I think we can’t pin down Jesus because, well, he’s a politician. Seriously, I think Jesus is reaching out to all these segments of Jewish society to build a coalition of devotion to God’s way of just and compassionate community that will be as big a “tent” as possible. That’s why you find one part Essene, and six parts Pharisee, and half a pint or more of Zealot and sixteen parts of the prophetic heritage they all share in common.

The clearest sign of this, for me, is the make-up of his “cabinet,” his council of Twelve. He’s got Judas Iscariot, who may well be from Judea and connected with the powers that be in Jerusalem. He’s got middle class businessmen like the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James and John. He’s got Matthew, a former tax-collector for the Roman occupation government. And he’s got Simon the Zealot sitting across from Matthew the collaborator—men who ought to be at each other’s throats brought together around the possible good, but he’s brought them together.

And the early Church expanded that vision. Not only did it have all these different kinds of Jews gathered around Jesus’ vision of God’s will for human community, but began to include non-Jews as well. Yes, they squabbled about it, but the vision of bringing diverse people together prevailed.

Looking for leadership

Through the fog of American politics it’s hard to discern leadership. We might have harbored hope for a real debate on the pressing issues of our century, and as yet we aren’t getting it. But we’re yearning for good leadership and hoping to find it—leadership that helps our community, our church, our nation face the real and pressing challenges before us in this century.

It’s not my place—nor the place of the pulpit—to tell you who to vote for. But it is my place as a Christian and a priest to urge you not to separate your faith from your political decisions, and to make sure your vision of the good is informed by Christian values as your continue to grow in understanding of them. It is our job as Christians to discern the good as best we can and follow it, and to elect, or to be in our own localities, leaders who embody it.

So as we plunge from the Olympics to the Democratic and Republican Conventions and the last leg of this endless Presidential campaign, I hope you will resist succumbing to the fog-making elements. American political campaigns have had their share of mud-slinging and slime since the 1796 election. I’m sure this crowd is intelligent enough not to be taken in by the barrage of attack dog commercials that poison the atmosphere. Guard yourselves against the poison.

More subtly, please don’t make your decisions simply by voting for your “team,” whether it’s the “red” team or the “blue” team. Observers have pointed out that the viciously polarized politics of the last two decades, a polarization that seriously cripples the Federal government, has intensified “team loyalty” among strong partisans. The common good is too precious to squander over a competition that evokes our most primitive tribalistic passions.

What leader is best suited to cooperate with the energies of the realm of God, the kingdom of just and compassionate community Jesus taught, lived, and gave his life for? And, in the realm of your own life, whether your leadership is in family, work, church, community or beyond, what kind of leader do you need to be to embody those energies best?

The world is shaped by our answers these questions.

© 2008 The Rev. Robert Corin Morris

Homily for the Ordination of Christian Carroll to the Priesthood

By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven

Numbers 11:16-17, 24-25
Philippians 4:4-9
John 6:35-38

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.... The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." May I speak in the name of the Living God. Amen.

We come here today in this season pregnant with transforming grace to make our request known to God. We come expectantly: to ask God to send down his Holy Spirit upon Chris and make her "a priest in Christ's holy catholic church." We come, just as Moses and the 70 elders came to the tent of meeting - that the Holy One might "talk to [us] here," might take some of the Spirit that God has given to those called to lead God's people in the past and put it on Chris. It is, as it was in the book of Numbers, a one-time event. It is, like baptism, unrepeatable, indelible, an eternal change.

People sometimes refer to ordination as being "set apart." We clergy find that somewhat flattering until we find out that "set apart" can quickly become "set aside." "A priest is not 'set apart,'" Dean Fenhagen of General Seminary used to tell us with some frequency, "but 'set within.' Priests only make sense 'within' a community of faith" - whose life they are called to nurture by Word and Sacrament and within whom they stand as icons of the sacred calling to sacrificial love and service to which the whole Body is called. (The Rev. Jim Fenhagen, paraphrased from conversations with him at GTS, 1985-1988, author of Mutual Ministry.) Ordained ministry is not 'set apart' from lay ministry but set alongside it in a relationship of mutual ministry - as the dean's book on the subject was later called. We're all in this together.

It is such a leap of faith what we do today - on your part, Chris, and on ours! We ordain you to be a minister of Word and Sacrament among us: Word in a world where words can so easily seem just words; Sacrament in a world of such suffering that water, a bit of bread, a sip of wine, the touch of a thumb in oil can seem small indeed. Still against all odds, with a certain disarming foolishness, we do what Christians have always done: taken certain people of our community, set them in the midst and called upon God to empower them to help midwife us into the full measure of the stature of Christ. We say to them: live out among us what we say we believe.

Beneath the surface of things we believe that God created us in love, by love, for love - that God is with us, for us, just as we are not as we might have been. We believe God is at work in our lives blessing, healing and transforming us - turning guilt into gratitude, fear into forgiveness, birthing joy from the wreckage of despair. We believe we have a mission in the world, that our lives serve a larger purpose, that we have a destiny beyond the merely personal having been knit together into the Body of the Risen Christ and filled with his Spirit and sent in his power.

We believe that there is more to life than meets the eye. But it is easy to forget that we believe that because what meets our eye is war in Iraq and Afghanistan and shootings in a mall in Omaha. What meets our eye is homelessness and hunger, racism, sexism, and bias against those who differ from us, politics fueled by expedience and self interest, blatant disregard and contempt for the least, the lost, the lonely and the left behind. We see all this but we believe something else. We hope something else and we need your help in remembering it.

Chris, please stand up. We're not ordaining you to run a church - though churches need running and some of those tasks you'll do. We're ordaining you because the community needs help in keeping its memory and its hope alive and you're it. You're the one God sent. "Tell me the old, old story of Jesus and his glory," the old hymn goes. "Tell me the old, old story of Jesus and his love." That is your vocation among us: to remind us of whom we are and whose we are, to keep us from veering off into lives of fantasy, futility or despair, to keep what we believe in our hearts, by the grace of God, before our eyes.

Be on the lookout for grace among us. Show us where you see green points poking up out of the ground - and do your best to keep us from stepping on them. Look for your story within THE story and help us to do the same. Help us to see ourselves as God sees us not perfect but "very good" - "and God looked at everything that God had made and lo it was very good." Encourage us. Challenge us. For goodness sake, do us all a favor and shake us out of our individualistic mindset - introduce us to the fact that we have some 20 centuries of company steeped in this same life giving scripture, seeking this same obedience to Christ, sustained by this same saving life giving bread and wine. We are never in this alone no matter how it may appear to any one of us from time to time. In a similar vein we rarely have a "lock" on the truth. Teach us how to tell one another the truth in love by telling us the truth in love and then do your best to listen when we try to tell you. We're all in this together. We all need help expanding our vision and turning our worries into prayers. In the words of The Message, "It's amazing what can happen when Christ replaces worry at the center of your life."

"Let your gentleness be made known to everyone" but don't let gentleness and humility be the bushel under which you hide your light. Let your light shine. Let your light shine before all people. Christianity has been shaped by such wonderfully arrogant men - like St. Paul and St. Augustine - that all of us are constantly on the lookout for the sin of pride. Women tend more toward the sin of self erasure. You are a curious and dedicated student; be an equally curious and dedicated teacher. Share what you do know and HAVE found because your job is to devote yourself with real intention to these things. There are other jobs - we will be doing many of them - but this is yours. We have much to learn from you: your palpable prayerfulness, your dependence on God, your relationship with Chris, your integration of contemplation and justice.

You've labored as a social worker - digging deep and getting dirty. Help us to put our hands and feet where our hearts and minds are. Help us to do more than talk a good game. Call us to service beyond self - to strive for justice and peace among all persons loving our neighbors as ourselves. Help us to embody hope - to one another and to the world. There will be days when we miss the mark and wander off the way and not want to hear it. There will be days when you will do the same and not want to speak it. Do it anyway. Baptize us, marry us, preach, preside and pray - in season and out of season when you feel inspired and when you do not. You are a priest: Carry us in your heart as Christ carries you. This is your ordination vow. This is your calling among us.

"Rejoice in the Lord always" and thank God for the self evident charisms with which God has equipped you for the work of this ministry - three master's degrees, in social work, psychology and divinity - all of which will prove useful for it has been wisely observed whenever two or three are gathered together there will be problems. Thank God for your pastoral abilities - healing and profound and desperately needed. Thank God for all that has taught you to be aware of the dark and unafraid to sit in it. It is a gift that will cause many to rejoice and deeply, especially if, as I hope you will, you offer yourself as a spiritual director.

"Finally, Beloved" Chris, though there will be many temptations to do otherwise, resist the demons of negativity that seek to pull us down and away. "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence - any at all! - if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me" - keep on offering yourself to God, keep on consecrating your life to Christ, day after day after day - "and the God of peace will be with you." "The Lord is near" - loving and upholding you now and always.

Remember in whose strength you go. In Christ's name we wish you joy.

© 2007 The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven

Children's Sabbath

By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven

May I speak in the name of the Living God by whose grace we are "holy partners in a heavenly calling." Amen.

I am very glad to be with you this morning on behalf of North Porch and at the request of Lindsay McHugh, my dear friend and long time president of the North Porch Board of Trustees. Thank you for inviting me and for choosing Children's Sabbath to highlight the ministry of North Porch Women and Infant Centers. St. George's has been a generous and faithful supporter for more years than I can count. North Porch could not do what it does -- which is provide emergency supplies for some of northern NJ's most vulnerable children -- without you and others like you working with us. Together we truly are, as Lindsay just read, "holy partners in a heavenly calling" (Heb 3:1).

I come before you today as a priest, a member of the North Porch Board of Trustees and a mom and must admit figuring out what to say to you this morning was an unexpected challenge. Is this a sermon? An introduction to North Porch? A plea from a mother on behalf of other mothers who cannot address you themselves? The answer is I hope it will in a way be all of those.

For those of you who may not be familiar with us, North Porch Women and Infants' Center is an emergency service organization providing 7 day supplies of formula, baby food, diapers, clothing, bed linens and other supplies to needy mothers and infants from birth to age 3. It is a ministry of the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of Newark. The name comes from the ancient custom of the church to regard the "north porch" of the church as a refuge and gathering place for women.

I explained this to our son who was then about 4 when I joined the Board who from then on referred to North Porch as "the church babies." "Are you going to the church babies meeting?" or "You can give my bottles to the church babies because I’m a big boy now." I love that. Though North Porch helps mothers (and fathers) of every faith and of no faith to me, and I expect to others, all the children who come to North Porch needing our help are God's children. I joined North Porch because Lindsay invited me to -- never underestimate the power of an invitation! -- and because it enables me to serve the Holy One who came among us as a child, poor and in a manger, in a way that even a child can understand. It's small. It's tangible. I can make a difference. What, I wonder, draws you to this ministry?

North Porch has 3 Centers to which mothers and babies can come for aid. The first opened in Newark in 1984 and is located in the former St. Philip's Academy building at 2 Park Place opposite the Cathedral. The Paterson Center opened in 1990 and operates out of St. Paul's Episcopal Church Paterson in conjunction with St. Paul's Food Pantry. Our third center opened in 1998 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Dover.

Mothers find out about us through our contact organizations such as hospitals, health depts., churches, women’s shelters etc. with whom we’ve made a cooperative agreement and to whom we've given referral forms that the clients bring with them when they come. The families can come once every 6 months to get their 7 day supply from the Center nearest them.

The Centers themselves are overseen by a volunteer Board of Trustees -- on which Lindsay and I serve -- that meets monthly. The North Porch Dover and Newark Centers have part-time paid managers and the Paterson Center is staffed by volunteers who are assisted by the men from the Homeless Shelter that’s part of St. Paul's Community Development Corporation. The managers North Porch has hired are women who are only steps away from needing the assistance North Porch provides. It has been gratifying to be able to help them as they help us in turn help others.

It's gratifying to make a difference in people's lives -- like the father who came for assistance for his baby when he found himself out of work and then three months later returned to North Porch with a bag full of groceries: You were there for me when I needed it. I'm back on my feet and want to return the favor. Or to see a delighted 7 year old girl who'd come in wearing sandals in December try on her "like new" winter coat from North Porch beaming saying: O I LIKE this! I LIKE this! As her mother knelt alongside her saying: "Honey I TOLD you God would provide! Honey I TOLD you God would provide." God did provide. You helped.

The funding for all this comes from people like you. North Porch receives assistance through the outreach efforts of many parishes -- such as St. George's -- and various organizations, from interested and concerned individuals and granting agencies. Many supplies and all clothing are donated. We serve around 1100 mothers and their babies each year through our three centers.

North Porch was originally conceived as providing a stop-gap for mothers waiting for their next welfare check. With the transition from Welfare to Workfare, North Porch clients today are often employed but making so little money at minimum and low wage jobs that they can't get above the poverty level. These are people who tend to live from paycheck to paycheck and they are extremely vulnerable to disruptions like the recent rise in the cost of heating, gasoline, or an unexpected medical expense. North Porch is reaching out to try to ensure that fewer of these people fall by the wayside. The need is ongoing and great.

In an effort to address the deepening need North Porch has started a North Porch Future Fund, a trust fund that will allow North Porch to continue to serve needy women and children for many years to come. The Fund is invested with the Diocesan Investment Trust and proceeds from donations are currently being reinvested. Although our need for regular day-to-day contributions continues to be great, the Future Fund is helping us build for the future hopefully to enable us to expand our services. We'd like to be able, in the words of my godfather Bishop Paul Moore -- the father of 9 children -- to move "beyond charity to justice." To "establish justice in the gate," in the words of Amos. We hope one day to do more to help lift these women out of the circumstances in which they find themselves to make better lives for themselves and for their children -- even as we will continue to provide for their most basic needs. We have, in our own small way, as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, "a dream." We invite you to be a part of it.

The work that North Porch does is so important. We wish it weren't. We wish, more than anything, that there were simply no business for us and that we had to fold up our tents and go home. But that's not what's happening. People -- babies and young children are going hungry in our communities. They shouldn't in this land of plenty, but they do and so long as they do North Porch plans to be there with assistance you help provide. In short we need you. We need your donations and your checks -- and we need you. We need you to pray for us, to sit on our Board, to help us with the nitty gritty work of caring and the o-so-vital work of envisioning what’s possible. Everybody's contribution is welcome and needed. No one else can bring the gift you have to bring.

I can't help but wonder, given the gospel for today, what might have happened if the passion of that rich young man -- who came running to Jesus falling at his feet -- had been channeled into following him? I wrote a poem about that once -- for New Testament class right before Christmas break -- what a difference each person makes.

No leafy boughs,
No glowing lights,
No ho ho ho
No Christmas night

No shining star
For kings to see
No manger bed
No calvary

Had one young maid
Like a rich man said
I cannot, Lord,
And hung his head.

God seeks "holy partners in a heavenly calling." We are so glad you're ours. Together we can make, literally, all the difference in the world. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about North Porch. Above all, thank you for helping us able to make God’s love visible to the mothers and babies who come through our doors. God bless you.

© 2006 The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven

St. George's at 100!

By The Rev. R. Craig Burlington
Rector 1974-1992, Curate & Associate 1969-1974

What a privilege to be invited to preach at St. George's in Maplewood on the conclusion of your one hundredth birthday. My thoughts range far and wide on this weekend of a Festal Evensong and gala party last night. Oh, how I think of the saints of the past who I pray are with us in spirit as I speak.

• Instantly Margaret Sidford comes to mind, born in 1910 and baptized here;

• Jean Stafford born in 1908 and baptized here;

• Erk Runcie born in 1912 and baptized here.

Those three "originals" on my watch have now gone on to their reward after faith filled lives lived at St. George’s for almost the whole 20th century.

• And of course, Hubert, born in 1923, baptized here as well, who is still holding forth into the 21st century, praise God.

So, people in the pews fill my initial thoughts, people of huge character and devotion, about whom a book could be written for each.

Too bad we didn't note these characters with sketches of their lives and their offerings for the good of the church while they were still alive.

• Who could forget Margaret holding up her hand at announcements twice each and every year to warn everybody of the approaching seasonal time change? "Don’t forget to turn back your clocks," she would admonish us!

• Or Jean sticking up for "her boys" if anyone dare comment that two gay men were moving into positions of leadership, one saving the hallowed bazaar from extinction by his extraordinary zesty devotion, and the other, filling the place with a zeal for justice that absolutely enfleshed the gospel?

• Or Erk, bank president, always so calm and trustworthy as treasurer of the church as well?

Those were the "originals," I liked to call them, but so many others fill an honor roll of loved ones in my life that shape me forever.

Then I think of the clergy: AOJ first of all, of course, because he was my mentor. Fourth rector serving from 1949-1974, Albert Ormsby Judd was a tall, handsome, witty gentleman who most people thought was quite reserved, and yet would come to know as a caring and devoted man of faith, quite capable of mischief in his own way! He was the godfather to our fourth child, born and baptized after Bert retired, who along with his attractive wife, Beatrice, would write notes to John Paul that are so exquisitely faithful and poignant that they are a treasure for us to this day.

Bert had picked up the mantle of leadership at St. George's on the heels of one Francis H. Richey who had served as rector since 1918, retiring after 31 years, but who remained in town and assisted at St. George's until he couldn't stand and read the Gospel anymore. Therefore, the spirit of Mr. Richey was still very much alive when I came to St. George's as a deacon and curate in 1969. Many parishioners and townspeople told stories of Mr. Richey that made you realize he was a force to be reckoned with, and a memorable character. His daughter, Martha Neubert, continued as a parishioner for many years, and is buried with her husband, Tony, in the Cloister Garden.

My connections to the Richeys continue to be very deep, as I have come to know and love their great granddaughter, Sharon, in my current parish in Rhode Island. I had the unbelievable privilege to baptize their great great granddaughter, Callan Rose McCarthy, seven years ago. My dream to bring Callan, and her mom, back to St. George's is fulfilled today! I want to show Callan the picture of her great, great grandfather that hangs in the hallway outside the rector's office to this very day. Life in the church is totally amazing when you consider how we are all so interrelated, not only through the Communion of Saints, but lovingly bonded through life in the Body of Christ that brings blessings in so many ways.

I used to love saying "I was only the third rector in the space of seventy five years of St. George's life" when I was called to Rhode Island almost fourteen years ago. I always thought the stability of the place, and its firm foundation had to do with long term leadership, both in the laity as well as in the clergy. St. George's had, and has, a deeply faithful "angel" that hovers over it and makes its blessings known through the ministry and mission of its people who pray here. Many are the causes for justice and truth that have been played out in this parish's ministry:

• Mr. Judd's time was known for his championing of fair housing back in the days when that was not so easily accepted.

• Women became vestry members, and then wardens, during his tenure, Mary Rankin first among them.

• Page Bigelow was ordained deacon in 1974 right as Mr. Judd was retiring, and then priested at St. George's on the Feast of the Epiphany 1977, right after it was legally allowed in the Episcopal Church.

Page's discernment of the call to ordained ministry was deeply nourished and encouraged by the fourth rector, even if the fruits of that ministry were most fully experienced during the term of the fifth. It was the greatest sadness, yet a deep privilege to return to Page's funeral just months after we moved to Rhode Island. Page had served so faithfully right up to her last celebration of the Eucharist on the fifteenth anniversary of her ordination. It occurred in her living room in January of 1992, when she could hardly manage the manual acts because of her Parkinson's, but no one present doubted in the least the deep and abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. The magnificent Eucharistic vessels presented to her by the parish at her ordination were given to me by her husband upon her death and now are among my most prized possessions. Someday they will be back at St. George's. Today Debbie Venezia, on her last Sunday here, embodies that same ministry of women priests sent out from St. George's that Page began 30 years ago.

I could write a book about the joys and challenges of ministry at St. George's in almost one quarter of a century of its life. Having kept its ministry and people so much in my heart and mind over the last thirteen years, and having known its forebears so well for so long, I feel like I'm becoming a kind of grandfather to the parish as I turn the very age Bert Judd was when I first came to Maplewood.

Bill Andersen was a handsome, bushy eye-browed buck of 34, in charge of youth ministry, and was the first person to escort Adelene and me into the beautiful worship space of this church on the day of our first interview in April '69, over thirty six years ago. I still get a chill remembering what that meant to us, and still does. This space seems to me so charged with the Spirit in a way that our daughter, Jenny, would say "shows that people pray here."

When I think of all the prayers prayed before this beautiful reredos with those outstretched hands of Jesus, I am overwhelmed with thanksgiving and awe.

I know how much this space meant to Bert Judd, and it came to mean the same for me. I believe it is coming to mean the same thing to the present rector, "Bernie, the Seventh," as I like to refer to my former student and colleague. I love telling now how it was I who submitted his name as a candidate for rector a few years ago. He just seemed to me to have the characteristics I believed would be appreciated by the people of this particular house of prayer, characteristics deeply in accord with the "angel of the parish" I had come to know and love in my own time in this beloved place.

It may not be generally known, but the last gift AOJ gave to St. George's, in the weeks before he retired, was the ambry at the foot of the cross over the altar, reserving the sacrament for the ministry to the sick or troubled. It is dedicated to the memory of his beloved parents. It always struck me as the ultimate sign, not only of a rector's devotion to his church of so many years, but as a testimony to the faith of a parish founded on the rock of Christ's presence in our midst.

I salute the present congregation, under Bernie's able and loving care, on your significant anniversary. I bring you love from all the Burlingtons, and all those with whom we ministered here, whose roots will always be entwined with the heritage of our beloved St. George's Church in Maplewood. Amen.

© 2005 The Rev. R. Craig Burlington