Of Thunder of Spring

This Sunday is one of those marvelous pivots of the church year. We’ve come almost to the end of Lent proper, and we start to look towards the momentous events of Holy Week.  In about a week’s time, we will sing Hosanna and hear the passion of our Lord being read. To riff a little on T.S. Eliot’s words in The Waste Land, we are in that space:

Before the torch-light red on sweaty faces
Before the frosty silence in the gardens
Before the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains

Great things, terrible things, world changing things, are about to happen.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that don't want to look at death. It's hard to face the reality of the cross in our religious lives. I know that I would much rather stay on the mountain peaks, in any place where I am not pierced to the core by horror and sorrow, where I am not faced with the reality of the human condition - quite especially my own. And yet here we are.

Here we are, standing at the pivot between the sign of the Easter to come that we hear on Sunday in the story of Lazarus, and the darkness of Holy Week that we walk through first. Christ is the one who in that darkness is raised up as the hope of the world.  He is the rejected one, the one who will travel down into the shadows of the dead, the one who will walk in the company of the dead and the lost and yet will not be destroyed.  He is the one who takes death within himself, the one who offers new life and hope.  

“I am about to do a new thing,” he says.

Just wait.

Yours in Christ,

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector

P.S., Consider this also my yearly reminder to make attending Holy Week services a priority. The liturgies of the great three days — Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil — are the very best of our tradition, and the story these services tell is life-changing and life-giving.

P.P.S., on a more personal note, I recently recorded a podcast on Karl Barth and you can listen to it on my publisher Wipf & Stock’s website at the link below.

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.

From the Holy Land

Sunrise Eucharist in the desert

To the good people of Trinity in Princeton,

I always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in my prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father our work of faith and labor of steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Trinity pilgrims arrived safe and sound in the Holy Land! Our days have been filled with sights and sounds, people and landscapes that have truly been a blessing from God. We have joined with thousands and thousands of other pilgrims who have come from every corner of God’s creation to this beloved and sacred land. We, and they, come seeking insight, healing, courage, and guidance. Together, we come to experience, as we say each Sunday, “an encounter with the Holy One, the Risen One – the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Yesterday, we traveled to the desert for a sunrise eucharist. We then continued on to Jericho, the Mount of Temptation, and finally to Nazareth to visit the Basilica of the Annunciation.

Mount of Temptation

The Basilica of the Annunciation, Exterior

The Basilica of the Annunciation, Interior

On Thursday morning, we departed at 7am make our way to the River Jordan to renew our Baptismal Vows and then off to Capernaum, Peter’s house, the Mount of Beatitudes, and a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee.

Renewal of Baptismal Vows at the River Jordan

Capernaum and St. Peter’s House

The Mount of Beatitudes

Holy Eucharist on the shore of the Sea of Galilee

A boat ride of the Sea of Galilee

Each day has been an opportunity for blessing. Each moment offers the possibility of something sacred, transformative, and life-giving.

As we continue on our journey, I bid your prayers. May our travels be safe, our relationships enriched, and our faith renewed.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Peace & blessings to all!

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector

This Is My Body

On Wednesday, we gathered to begin our Lent series on being human in the body of Christ. It was a wonderful evening with an enthusiastic group, and we enjoyed an excellent dinner thanks to our intrepid Vestry. If you missed last week, please do join us next time. In our program, we began by talking about the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist that we receive every Sunday, and what this might tell us about our own lives as human beings who are body-havers and not merely brains in jars.

Christian history is littered with examples of heretics who taught that only the spirit is good, while material creation is somehow evil. But when God created, God named that creation good. And God comes to us not as an idea, or as a concept, or as a nebulous presence, but as a child - as the Word made flesh. And that taking-on of our fleshly nature shows us God’s care for all of us, not just part of who we are, because God meets us where we are.

The logic of the incarnation is also the logic of the sacraments, where God promises to meet us in material stuff - in water, bread, wine - and impart grace through them. In his wonderful book Why Sacraments, our CTI friend Andrew Davison writes this:

Why should we bother with the sacraments? Well, why would God bother with them? The answer is that God thought it fitting to reach human beings in a human way. Calvin approached this with his idea of ‘accommodation’: in his action towards us, God accommodates himself to what we are.

He continues by quoting the 20th century Anglican mystic Evelyn Underhill, who wrote:

In the Eucharist (as in other sacraments) God the Supernatural seeks man [and woman, of course] by natural vehicles and lowly ways, and man, the creature of the borderland, makes his small response by the same means … and thus man learns to recognise the constant mysterious intermingling, yet utter distinctness, of his natural and supernatural life.

Because we are creatures who encounter the world through our five senses, that is how God encounters us. As sacrament-shaped people, we regularly meet God in the places where God has promised to be. And then, we are sent out as those who are ready to see God at work in the world around us and to share the news of what God is up to.

Will you meet me this Sunday where God has promised to meet you?

In Christ,

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector

Doubt, Our Faithful Companion

Our faith journey can be somewhat circuitous. In fact, it is, more often than not, a very circuitous journey. We seldom, if ever, take the most direct route to God. Our path is winding and twisting. It sometimes leads us to dead-ends, and other times we journey for years only to find ourselves back in the exact place we started. The life of faith is not easy. It ebbs and flows. There are seasons of abundance and scarcity, times of nourishing rain, and devastating drought.

But what do we do in times of scarcity and want, confusion and doubt? Our beloved Nancy Hagner sent me a book by Brian D. McLaren, Faith after Doubt. A lifelong Christian, pastor, teacher, and author, McLaren noted that we don’t often know what to do when our faith seems to fail us. What do we do when suddenly we find ourselves questioning and doubting? What does it mean? What’s wrong with me? Is my faith not strong enough?

McLaren points out that doubt is an essential part of faith, “eventually, I came to realize that doubt was a companion, every bit as resilient and persistent as faith, and she wasn’t going away. I realized that she had some things to teach me, and I decided since I couldn’t shut her up or drive her away, I might as well learn from her. She’s turned out to be a tough but effective teacher and a difficult but faithful friend.”

Let’s face it, what we believe is hard to believe. Theologian Paul Tillich writes, “Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith … Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.” In our state of “blessed unrest,” we must allow ourselves the freedom to inquire, explore, and wrestle with our faith. I believe that the Holy Spirit is fully alive and at work in our doubts leading us to new and previously unexperienced and unexpected places on our journey, offering the possibility of growth and understanding on our way to greater spiritual maturity.

Forward we go, fellow sojourners, with honesty about what we believe and where we struggle and question and doubt, trusting fully that God is at work!

Peace and blessings,

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector

Getting Ready to Get Ready

It’s Shrovetide!

(Yes, that’s a real thing)

Dear friends,

Did you know that last Sunday began a season-within-a-season in this season of Epiphany? Gesimatide, or Shrovetide, began on February 5, the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday. That Sunday is called Septuagesima, from the Latin meaning “the seventieth.” The following two Sundays are Sexagesima and the majestically named Quinquagesima – marking very roughly 60 and 50 days respectively before Easter.

The 17 days of Shrovetide are a time of spiritual preparation for Lent, gently easing us from the joy and glory of Epiphany to the somber reality of Ash Wednesday. According to the First Council of Orleans in 511 AD, it was a time when “many pious ecclesiastics and lay persons of the primitive Church used to fast seventy days before Easter, and their fast was called, therefore, Septuagesima, a name which was afterwards retained to distinguish this Sunday from others.”

And while I’m not going to fast right now, and I’m not telling you to do so either, it is a good time to begin taking stock, to ask ourselves what God might be calling us to do, or not do, during Lent. I think it also fits in with the dullness of February, this time when we are waiting for the end of winter and the beginning of spring. We are getting ready to get ready, slowly taking stock of what we might need to make part of our spiritual spring-cleaning.

Join me these next 2 weeks in praying that God will help each one of us to get ready, so that we will be ready to enter into the reality of Lent together, and to prepare eventually for the great Paschal feast.

Yours in Christ,

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector

P.S., One of my favorite YouTube videos of all time is this piece on February by local St. Louis journalist Kevin Killeen. I hope it gives you a laugh too.

Oneness

Dear Good People of Trinity Church,

Julian of Norwich, a 14th-century mystic, is an iconic example of Christian mysticism's power and gift, transcending the confines of time and location. Hugh Hildesley writes in his book, Journeying with Julian, “It is my conviction that the reason Julian’s theology has recently acquired so much attention is that it speaks precisely to our time and that many of the pressures we face are remarkably similar to those … of the time and place in which Julian lived and wrote. Julian suggested the principal message and purpose which God has for us is love, a love that cannot be overcome by the powers of the world.” ¹

What, do you wish to know your Lord’s meeting in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love.” ²

At the heart of Julian’s way of life is a desire for oneness with God, an ultimate and intimate connection with the Divine. She calls this oneing, “that all might be one as the Father and I are one.” (John 17:22) ³  Julian describes the oneness or spiritual marriage to be like “the rain falling from heaven into a river or stream, becoming one and the same liquid, so that the river and the rainwater cannot be divided; or it resembles a stream flowing into the ocean with cannot afterward be disunited from it.” ⁴

The church, she believes, plays an integral role in our quest for spiritual union with God. It may even be said that this is our “primary task…to enable broken human beings to be made whole in the love of God.” ⁵ This is at the core of the way of the Christian mystic, as Carl McColman writes, “What do Christian mystics tell us? That the wisdom they offer us can literally unite us with God – or at the very least, give us such a powerful experience of God’s presence that it can revolutionize our lives. The purpose of such transformed lives is not primarily to achieve a goal (like enlightenment or spiritual bliss) but rather to participate in the Holy Spirit’s ongoing activity – embodying the flowing love of Christ, love that we, in turn, give back to God as well as to ‘our neighbors as ourselves.’” ⁶

May we open ourselves to true oneness with the Divine so that we may more fully live into our call to participate in the Holy Spirit’s ongoing activity. Trusting always in God’s goodness and love that, All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

Peace and Blessings,

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector

1. C. Hugh Hildesley, Journeying with Julian, p. 96

2. Hildesley, p. 96

3. Hildesley, p.163

4. Bernard McGinn, The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, p. 457

5. Hildesley, p.163

6. Carl McColman, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, p.16

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