Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

 
 

For who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted. — Luke 14:11

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. — Hebrews 13:2

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

 

When he first learned to talk, my youngest child used to run after his siblings calling out, “Do not forget me!” He was tiny, but he did not want to be left out by the fast-moving big kids. In his own way, he understood the concept of “forsaking” which appears in this week’s text from Jeremiah. God’s message, through Jeremiah, is that the people have forsaken God for other, lesser, small-g gods. Heidi McKinnon’s quirky book, I Just Ate My Friend, looks at this concept from a bizarre angle. Monster has just eaten his friend. Well! That is a tricky situation. While eating your friend is not exactly forsaking them, it is similar enough to facilitate a lively discussion and prompt a few giggles.

In this week’s epistle and gospel readings, the themes of hospitality and inclusion are central. At Trinity, Rev. Paul reminds us each week, “at this table there are no outcasts, strangers, nor unwanted guests. All are welcome to come feast at the table of our Lord, so please do come and be fed.” Our Rector emphasizes this radical welcome at Trinity because of the radical welcome which Jesus practices and exhorts his followers to practice. The letter to the Hebrews reminds readers that by showing hospitality to strangers, we may entertain angels in disguise, or messengers from God, as in the story of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18). Kerstin Chen’s book, Lord of the Cranes, beautifully illustrated by Jian Jiang Chen, tells of a generous innkeeper who welcomes a raggedly dressed beggar. As you read, you might wonder together how this story is similar to other stories you know. How might we welcome strangers and newcomers to our church community? What would help you to feel welcome if you visited a strange place?

Jesus attends a banquet in this week’s text from Luke’s gospel. He notices how his host was treating the guests and shares a parable and then gives some very specific instructions about how to extend a proper welcome. (The assigned lectionary leaves out a few verses. If you’d like to be a biblical detective, you can hunt for this passage and read the missing verses.) As you listen to this scripture reading, what clues do you hear about the welcome Jesus received as a guest? What does he remind us to do when we host? Daniel Miyares’ hauntingly illustrated book, Night Out, explores the concept of hospitality and welcome through the loneliness of a boy away at boarding school for the first time. This book contains sparse text and rich illustrations, so it is accessible to very young readers. As you read this story, you might wonder how loneliness is connected to hospitality. You might share memories of extravagant welcoming and being welcomed. What did it feel like to offer welcome? To receive abundant hospitality? Remember, you carry that sense of welcome with you wherever you go in the world and offer it to friends and strangers. Who knows, you might end up welcoming an angel in disguise!

 

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Evening Prayer is Back

 

Daily Office Academic Year Schedule Starts Monday
It’s the return of Evening Prayer!

As you know, I'm an enormous booster for the Daily Office. It's a way of setting apart time to spend with God each day, and to spend time with Scripture. Through the Daily Office, if you come regularly you'll hear most of the Bible over the course of two years. You'll also pray through the Psalms every 7 weeks. It has really changed my life, and with the change back to our program year, back to school, and the like, I invite you to give it a try and see how it changes yours. We have some Trinity parishioners who are there every day as part of their morning routine.From here on out, we will be using a hybrid format for the Daily Office.

If you'd like to pray with others in-person, we’ll meet in the Michael Chapel weekdays at 7:45am (MP) and 5pm (EP). But if your work schedule, location, or family situation doesn’t make in-person prayer feasible, you can still join us online. You can also call in by phone at one of the numbers below. We've tried a ‘soft launch’ of this format over the past week, and it works well. We have a new crop of enthusiastic seminary students who will be leading us as part of their training for ministry. I will be there as part of my vows in the Society of St. Mary Magdalene, and I hope you'll be there too! Give it a try.

 
 
Meeting ID: 285 981 9016

Dial by Location:

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Back to School and Bartholomew

One of the side effects of the terrible life decision I made to do a PhD not once, but twice, is that I am deeply formed by the academic calendar. This time of year fills me with energy, with hope, with a sense of putting away the old and embracing the new. But I'm also reminded of something that my former colleague Lauren Winner once said: “What if our lives really were formed by the liturgical calendar as much as they are formed by the rhythms of the school calendar?”

In an academic community — in a church within an academic community — it is a truly tenuous balance. We acknowledge the changes in work, in classes, and even in the energy level in town. We see friends return from vacations and return to church. It is a liturgical time, but that of a secular liturgy.

But if we look at the liturgical days that surround this back to school time, we might just find a little inspiration from our own tradition. August 24 is the feast of Saint Bartholomew, an apostle that we don't know too much about — but we do know that he was one of the twelve, that he spread the word everywhere he went, and that he was martyred for his faith. St. Bartholomew's Day is also a day of mourning and remembrance in the Reformed tradition. It’s the day on which the French Protestants (also known as Huguenots) were massacred in 1572 for their convictions. More than 10,000 Huguenots would be murdered over the course of the next two months throughout France. On St. Bartholomew’s Day on 1662, several thousand Puritan clergy including theologian Richard Baxter were ejected from the Church of England because of their refusal to conform to the Book of Common Prayer. As I think of the apostle Bartholomew, and also of the later events that took place on his feast day, I’m moved to ask myself, “What am I willing to do in order to stand up for what (and who) I believe in?” I’m moved to pray that God will give me the courage to always do what’s right — to do his will, not mine.The second feast day that comes around at this time of year is Holy Cross Day, on September 14. One of the Scripture lessons for this day is from Galatians 6: “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!

As for those who will follow this rule--peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.” This, too, is a reminder to keep the first thing the first thing: what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, and who we are — a new creation in Christ!So while you might be packing a bag or briefcase full of new pencils, new notebooks, and new aspirations, I hope you will remember this: You are a new creation in Christ, and no achievement in this world can ever match it.

 

Yours in Christ & in Christ alone,

 

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

 

When You Remember Me

In Memoriam
Frederick Buechner
1926-2022

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

Earlier this week, the world lost an icon of the faith — Frederick Buechner. Over the years, Buechner has been for me a faithful and wise companion and guide.  Buechner touched the lives of countless believers and non-believers, seekers and sojourners.  Buechner was gifted, by the Holy Spirit, to speak to our human condition in a way that very few can. He could read your mind and know your heart as if he actually resided within the innermost parts of your truth. 

Buechner attended the Lawrenceville School, Princeton University, and Union Theological Seminary.  He was a “Presbyterian minister who never held a church pastorate but found his calling writing a prodigious quantity of novels, memoirs and essays that explored the human condition from inspirational and often humorous religious perspectives … Likened by some critics to the works of Mark Twain, Henry James, Elizabeth Bowen and Truman Capote, Mr. Buechner’s novels were admired by loyal readers for their elegance, wit, depth and force. His more homiletic memoirs and essays reached much larger audiences of Christians and consumers of religious books, even though he did not hold orthodox religious views” (The New York Times).

            On this day, I invite you to join me for a time of prayer in thanksgiving for the life of a faithful follower of Christ and a steadfast herald of God’s love and Good News.

When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

Rest in eternal grant to Frederick, O Lord;
And let light perpetual shine upon him.
May his soul, and the souls of all the departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace

In Christ,

 

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector

 
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
“Wherever people love each other and are true to each other and take risks for each other, God is with them and they are doing God’s will.”
“The world says, the more you take, the more you have. Christ says, the more you give, the more you are.”
“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me.”
“If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.”
“Go where your best prayers take you.”
“If you want to be holy, be kind.””
“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

 
 

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness. — Psalm 103:8

Jeremiah 1:4-10;
Hebrews 12:18-29;
& Luke 13:10-17

 

Can you imagine receiving a sacred call as a child? In our culture, we often ask children what they will be when they grow up, but we do not often ask how God has called them. When Jeremiah heard God’s call, he was only a boy. Initially, he protested that he was too young, but nevertheless, the scriptural account of his life as a prophet narrates how he lived into God’s call. Aileen Weintraub’s book, Never Too Young! 50 Unstoppable Kids Who Made a Difference, offers a compendium of stories about kids who changed the world at young ages. As you contemplate and discuss these stories, you might wonder how God is calling you now. Weintraub offers a few questions at the end of the book that facilitate brainstorming together. If you discern a call from God with your children or grandchildren, how might you support each other as you follow that call?

When we try to hear God, we practice a particular kind of holy listening. It can be hard to hear God’s “still small voice” amid everyday whirlwinds. The author of the letter to the Hebrews exhorts their readers to cultivate this kind of listening and writes, “see that you do not refuse the one who is speaking.” In Don’t Squish the Sasquatch, Kent Redeker and Bob Staake hilariously illustrate the consequences of not listening, of refusing the one who is speaking. Their book connects well to the warning from Hebrews, while also injecting a welcome dose of giggles for young readers. After reading this story, you might wonder together about warnings. What warnings do you hear most often? How can warnings protect us? What happened when you ignored a warning in the past, or when you followed one?

Usually, good listening requires being quiet and attentive. Because it is so hard to find quiet, some places (libraries and places of worship) are often set aside for quiet. Then, when an unexpected noise interrupts the silence, it seems like a rule has been broken! Michelle Knudsen’s story, Library Lion, takes place in (you guessed it!) a library, where being quiet is the rule. One day, the lion breaks the silence with a huge roar, and Mr. McBee, who loves the quiet of the library, throws him out. It turns out that the lion roared in order to get attention for someone who was injured. This story of a rule-breaking lion connects well to the text from Luke’s gospel for this week. Jesus breaks the rules in order to heal a woman in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Even though some of the leaders were angry with him, Jesus demonstrated that showing compassion should not be limited to weekdays. When we show compassion to those around us who are suffering, we do God’s work. Have you ever followed a rule that stopped you from showing compassion to someone? Have you ever broken a rule in order to show compassion? Has someone else ever broken a rule to show compassion to you? How did those experiences affect you?

 

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Whenever possible we’ll share links to independent to booksellers. Please consider supporting local and other indepedent bookstores.

Bonnie Bivins: Connections to General Convention and Lambeth Conference

Over the past few weeks we have had a rare blessing.  While uninvited we have, perhaps because of Covid-19 or simply the expansion of modern technology, been able to watch the proceedings of both the Episcopal General Convention and the Anglican Communion Lambeth Conference.  Both are circles of our world as Episcopalians, Anglicans, and Christians that we rarely have the opportunity to observe must less participate in.  However, what happens in those meetings has bearing on our parish life. On the lighter side it gives un an opportunity to have a sense of the people guiding us.  

Off and on I watched the General Convention to observe where the Holy Spirit was guiding the Episcopal Church. Then I had the distinct blessing to observe in living color the whole (almost) Anglican Communion who came together with their differences and led by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby discussed their context and theology with each other in love if not agreement.  One felt the embrace of God’s love for all gathered and the strong encircling bond of the children of God from their own context greeting each other as fellow disciples.  

Unfortunately, the General Convention was mostly the business of running the Episcopal Church. The Lambeth Conference was something different with three keynote addresses, a Bible Exposition of 1 Peter led by Justin Welby, and a number of Plenary sessions that brought together the contextual experience of the breadth of the Anglican Communion.  

I saved for myself and now share with you the YouTube links, so you can watch some of these extraordinary events. Only the General Convention opening sermon from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is included in the links. You may possibly find other sessions from the General Convention on YouTube.

The links of the Lambeth Conference are in order (i.e. top down), from the start to finish of the conference. Other news and comments from the Episcopal perspective you will find on the Episcopal News Service news@episcopalchurch.org. 

Peace,
Bonnie Bivins

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