Right This Minute

This coming Sunday, May 21, Youth Group will be leading our worship services at both 8 and 10:30am, as I’m sure you have heard by now! Sometimes, when people hear that the youth are leading a service, they imagine it will be, perhaps, a simplified and sweet form of worship. I can assure you that these services will be complex, thoughtful, and evocative.

The teenagers of Trinity have written reflections on the scriptures which will reveal to you the depth of their own spiritual perceptions and will challenge you to consider deeply what they have to say. Our youth have written prayers which will put before you their greatest concerns and will bid you to respond with action to their priorities.

Some of the most thoughtful spiritual insights I have ever heard have come from the youth and children of Trinity Church, so  I heartily commend these services to you.

Personally, I am profoundly grateful to all of my colleagues who work with the children and youth here at Trinity: Emily,  Connor, Annie, Kara, Paul, as well as our seminary interns. Everyone interacts with the kids with dignity and respect. The spiritual and personal integrity of every young person is valued. Here, our children and young people are talked to, and talked with, and never talked at, or down to. I know none of us would expect otherwise, but this doesn’t necessarily happen in every congregation. The baptismal vow to “respect the dignity of evey human being” has taken hold in this commuity, and the fruit of this committment it readily visible in the consistently growing Youth Group and the joyfully, increasingly crowded north transept.    

It is a commonplace in christian communities to say that children and teenagers are the future of the church. When I put that idea before our youth and asked them what they thought of that,  they were adamantly happy to point out they are not the church of the future, they are the church of right this minute. 

Of course, they are charming, and energetic, and creatively expressive. These are not naïve limitations; these are essential gifts. When Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them,” Jesus was not urging us to make sure kids are tolerated. Jesus is offering an admonition to recognize that young people have spiritual sensitivities — just as we had when we were young, that must not be overlooked, nor taken for granted, nor go unheard.

It will be a blessing to us all to hear directly from our youth this Sunday.

May the vitality our young people bring to worship invigorate us all with a joyous energy that will lead us all — of all ages, all together — to grow into the full stature of Christ.

See you Sunday! 

Most faithfully,

The Rev. Joanne Epply-Schmidt, Associate Rector

Last Saturday’s Stations of Reparations

Dear Friends,

This past Saturday the Stations of Reparations Liturgy was held at St Peter's Chruch in Freehold. Working with my colleagues of the History sub-committee of the Reparations Commission to create and present this service is among the most rewarding experiences of my justice amd anti-racism ministry undertakings.   Stories from five parishes in our Diocese were featured in this liturgy. There are many more stories of parish history with enslavement and racism to tell, and I believe this was an important (if small) step in our Reparations work.

Please take a moment to look at the video below — the prayers are moving, the music is beautiful, the stories are compelling, and this history needs to be known. 

The Rev. Joanne Epply-Schmidt, Associate Rector

Literal Bread, Daily Bread, True Bread

“Gracious Father, whose blessed son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: evermore give us this bread, that He may live in us, and we and Him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.”

— Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

What does it mean for us to name Christ as the true bread which gives life to the world? Three thoughts come to mind: Literal bread, daily bread, and the broken bread of the Eucharist.

Consider literal bread: There are places in our community, our country, our planet where the Lord’s promise to be bread needs to be taken in the most literal way. Any lack of  availability of bread for the hungry is a sign, a signal, a plea for justice in the allocation of resources in our world. We can help, or we can hinder. Do we use resources well? Wastefully? Selfishly? Sparingly? Responsibly? Do we nourish the world we live in, or do we run the risk of contributing towards its impoverishment? Are we “consumers” of the world’s bread?  Or might we be those are who share liberally from the abundance that we have?

Consider daily bread: Remember the manna in the wilderness? The people of Israel were charged to gather only as much as they needed for one day. To hoard God's gift was to watch it rot.  It was simply daily bread. There is so much that nourishes spiritual and physical life that must happen daily. Bread. Exercise. Prayer. Sleep. Scripture study. Community. It is the dailiness of such commitment that is the bread of life.

Consider the bread of  the Eucharist: In that upper room on the evening that we now call Maundy Thursday, Jesus bound himself once and for all to all his disciples by the simple symbol of bread — literal bread, daily bread. Now we are invited to take, eat, embrace, embody, the true bread that gives life to the world. What an exrtraordianry promise in ordinary bread.  

The paradox is this: Only when we receive this true bread within us can we live in the Lord who exceeds us. The presence of Christ in us, among us, around us, and beyond us — this is the bread’s purpose. Breaking the bread reveals its power, for its power is in being shared. Come to the table and take your part, be a portion of the True Bread that gives life to a hungry world.

Amen.

A Letter from the Rev. Joanne Epply-Schmidt

Dear Friends,

It is with fullness of heart that I write to announce that I will be retiring from Trinity Church in mid-June of this year.

It has been a great joy to have served as Associate Rector at Trinity, and I am deeply grateful to Our Lord and to you all for extending to me such kindness, support, and love throughout these six years.

Sharing and growing together in our faith in Jesus Christ through the joys and challenges of this time has been an honor for me, and is a gift I will hold in my heart and will carry forward in all my ministry to come.

Trinity is a vital and thriving church growing in meaningful and exciting ways, and it has been a privilege to serve among you in this vibrant community in Christ. I will miss all of you as I set out for a new phase in my ministry and my family’s life.

Faithfully in Christ,

The Rev. Joanne Epply-Schmidt
Associate Rector
Trinity Church

Rest

Recently, I took a trip to the Pacific coast of Canada to visit dear friends, a wonderful trip. The day I left I was at the airport at 5am, on the plane at 6am, and already for take-off, when we heard: “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain…“.

That day was January 11, the day that all the flights in the United States were grounded because of a computer glitch in a nationwide safety-critical system of the FAA. We got off the plane and waited. I decided the only thing I really could do was rest. Shortly thereafter we reboarded and were able to take-off, because Newark was one of the first airports to open when the system was up and running again.

It was good to see my friends and I did as much as I could, as quickly as I could, in as many places as I could, in the time that I had there. When the day came for me to return home, I was up at 5am and on the road in the dark to arrive at airport by 7am. By 9am, I was on board, settled in, and ready for my cross-country flight. And then we heard “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain…”.

The conveyer belt ramp which lifts and loads luggage onto the aircraft had been moved toward the plane too fast and too far, banging into it and damaging it. When does something like that ever happened!? We were informed it would be a minimum of two hours before a repair crew could arrive, and then we would see when we could take-off after that. Of course, there was the usual scramble for re-bookings, but I was fortunate to have already been re-booked: All I had to do was wait for 13 ½ hours to leave, at last, at 12am midnight.

It was actually a very nice day out. I was able to go for a walk, read a book, work on a sermon, and have a nap. When, at midnight, we finally boarded the plane, I learned why we had had a 13 ½ hour wait: the plane itself had been repaired hours before, but by the time the plane was ready to go, the crew had been on duty so long they were now mandated an eight hour rest. I felt impatient at that. I pondered that a moment, how I had to wait while they rested, and it occurred to me that, in our faith, in our scriptures, it is a commandment to rest.

Sabbath rest. And it is a commandment for a reason. It is crucial for the well-being and health of our minds, our bodies, and our souls, that we rest. Truly rest. In my experience lately, as we ramp up for the Spring Academic term, gear up to be fully functional as a community of faith post-Covid, that rest is not necessarily built in to everyone's plan. Surely, it cannot be that it is only among the flight crews of airlines that mandated rest is actually being honored!

Sabbath keeping is a religious practice, commanded by God for our well-being. But the Sabbath rest also has ethical implications that are part and parcel of God‘s commandment. Keeping Sabbath means providing rest not only for ourselves, but for other workers, and animals, and the land. Sabbath rest is a matter of honorable treatment and justice for all of creation. Sabbath rest gives time and gives space to the consideration of God’s genuine hope for the whole world.

Building a day of rest — or maybe just half of day if we need to start small, into the regular rhythm of our week-to-week lives takes planning, discipline, and the absolute conviction that it is the right thing to do. Our culture will tell you otherwise, but our God commands us to rest. There is a prayer in the prayer book, number 59 onn page 832, “For quiet confidence,“ and it is drawn directly from the Prophet Isaiah, 30:15. It reads:

Oh, God of peace, who has taught us that, in returning and rest, we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: by the might of your spirit lift us, we pray, to your presence, where we may be still, and know that you are God; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

I commend this prayer to your use and I pray we shall all find a regular rhythm to rest in the presence of God and be rejuvenated for the times ahead.

Faithfully,

The Rev. Joanne Epply-Schmidt, Associate Rector