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It is nearly pumpkin season, and I am quaking with anticipation in my St. Luke’s branded loafers (which you can buy here), because this is arguably the most active and joyful time of the year in the life of our Church. You would think this title would belong to one of our high holy days, like Christmas or Easter, but upon some reflection, I think this makes perfect sense.
It is a fairly common occurrence that I will surprise someone when they find out that I am a priest. I guess it is not a common occurrence to run into a clergy person, and many people tell me that they feel the encounter is divine providence. This always feels a bit off to me, because from my perspective, it is always just another day, and talking about God and stuff is pretty much all I do. The conversations are almost always very meaningful and sacred. Sometimes people tell me why they stopped going to Church, and I always make sure they know that I’d love to see them on Sunday. Sometimes they tell me about their Church, and I love to hear the reasons why they feel called to their community. Sometimes they tell me why they don’t believe, and this can often feel like an opening salvo for some sort of ideological battle. I generally counter with an invitation to our grill night and a sincere promise that I won’t secretly baptize them. This generally evaporates any perceived tension, and then we continue our conversation like normal people.
Christianity, especially it’s more liturgical manifestations, provides a tremendous constant throughout history in every culture that it touches. That constant element is the older generation bemoaning the lack of interest in Church in the younger generation. If you dig into the writings, diaries, sermons or other musing of Anglican clergy you find hundreds of years’ worth of concern that the Church will not survive the upcoming wave of apathy that seems to be rapidly approaching. This seems to be part of a much larger theme of older generations complaining the behavior of the younger, than it is about the future of the Church. Religion was all but dead in Eastern Europe, but it has experienced a resurgence since the time I was in elementary school. While Christianity still continues to decline in the West, we can see that Christianity has proven hard to snuff out, and that the Holy Spirit has a habit of reinventing her Church.
I am so excited and even a little nervous for this Sunday! This is our big kick-off Sunday where we mark the beginning of our program year. Sunday school will come to life, the J2A group and Sacred Ground will be meeting. It is going to be a joyous occasion as we celebrate all of the potential for the coming year. There will be a lot of very obvious signs that we are trying to draw people in. Probably the crown jewel of Sunday’s festivities is a Peruvian food truck that Wendy Joachim and her intrepid helpers have arranged to serve the congregation lunch after the 10:00 am service. We hope this will be a draw to get people in the door for the first time, or maybe back after a long absence. With luck and a proper welcome, they may make it to the third floor at 9:00 am to see the Sunday School rooms and meet the teachers, which is where we really hope people will end up. Unless you have a young child or volunteer as a Sunday School teacher you probably have not been to the third floor on a regular basis. Over the summer we have put forth significant effort to spruce it up, and make it look like the happy place that it is. The hallway now is missing much of the clutter that occupied it’s space, it has a fresh coat of paint, and several beautiful (and occasionally hilarious) murals made by our own Cara Omohundro. Teachers have been in the classrooms preparing for our guests, and across the board we are preparing the way for growth and vibrancy.
As of writing this reflection on Thursday morning, it feels like fall. I know it is not, but I love the cool temperature and the crisp air of early fall. I love fall activities and the nostalgia of starting school, going to Shrine Mont, or other fall memories. But, like always, I am rushing it. Fall does not officially start for almost another month. Probably next week it will be unbearably hot again, as is common this time of year.
But I cannot help it. With all seasons, I get too excited for them, especially summer and fall. I bring out all clothes I had tucked away the season before and start getting ready for all the seasonal activities I have missed.
Every spring, the Horticultural Society at River Farm hosts a native plant sale. The first of these that I experienced came at a perfect moment to have a disproportionate effect on my life. We had not been living in Alexandria very long, and I was coming to terms with the fact that my yard is less than ideal for tomatoes, which was my plant of choice before our move. With all of the chatter about local plants, a war I was beginning to wage on the wisteria that was killing our trees, and a desire to grow something fun, I was interested to see what I could learn and get from the native plant sale, just a few blocks away from our home. The biggest variable that drove me to the sale was my two year old son’s recent procurement of a riding electric John Deere tractor complete with a trailer. The weather was terrible that morning, and a long line of cars began to form to grab the few spaces that were not giant puddles, and I could not resist the temptation to have my son drive past them all on his tractor to load up that tiny trailer with whatever plants we could find. It was hilarious.
Episcopalians have saints. You might already know that or you might not. Either way, like St. Luke himself, we recognize and celebrate many saints throughout the year. There are martyrs, holy women, holy men, and doctors (theologians) of the faith who we have canonized over 2000 years of Christianity. There is value in recognizing saints in this world, who despite their brokenness, found ways to follow and serve God in ways which can be an example for us.
Since my wife’s cancer diagnosis, our house has been filled with extra clutter. Historically, clutter has been an issue that my wife and I have a habit of aggressively resolving. You might think our clutter issue is due to the vulnerable nature our of circumstance, and that housework is simply not getting done. The case is actually quite the opposite. When she began her treatment, the troops were mustered, and we have more help than we have ever had at our home. Nearly every day there is someone at our home to lend an extra hand with childcare and cleaning the home. This extra help is an outward and visible sign of the love our family, friends and thoughtful neighbors have for us, and so is the clutter.
I want to build off what Father Nick wrote about in last week’s newsletter, partly because I love hip-hop and partly because I have been watching the show Atlanta in my spare time. Atlanta, created by Donald Glover, on the surface, is a show about the career of a hip-hop artist – from struggling to start his career, all the way to post-stardom. But what the show is really about is a group of people starting their life on the bottom of the socio-economic ladder because of history, politics, geography and so many other factors. It is about how they navigate the world as African Americans, in spaces that are for them and spaces that are against them.
In 2015, I met up with my three best friends in Alabama to go backpacking for a couple of nights. The trip was great, and that is a whole story within itself, but I want to talk to you about the trip back. I carpooled with a friend, who lived close by at the time, and he insisted that I listen to Hamilton, the extremely popular musical that was exploding into the mainstream. I told him that I didn’t really care for musicals, but he insisted. To my shock, I was completely enthralled before the end of the first act, and we were both in tears by the conclusion of this masterpiece. When I got back from the trip, I was obsessed. I was so obsessed that I annoyed my wife to the point that she refused to listen to it. It took waiting until she was trapped in a car with me for a road trip (much like I was that fateful day in Alabama) for me to compel her to listen to it all of the way through, and like me she was immediately taken away with the narrative. We cried all the way through the production at the Kennedy Center a few years later, and we still find ourselves singing the songs from the musical.
Two Sundays in a row, we have had Gospel lessons having to do with soil. Two parables back-to-back of Jesus having to do with the ground and farming. Last week, we heard the well-known parable of the seeds and the various soil. And next week we will hear about the weeds growing alongside wheat and what is to be should be done about it. I love this because I am a gardener. I have a little vegetable garden that I tend to with my wife, which brings us great joy.
We have an overabundance of pianos. Well, we had an overabundance of pianos. When I arrive in 2021 the Church was shut down, and everything was out of sorts, because no one was in the Church. The narthex was largely used for storage, and I did not get a chance to see how the space was normally used. Before things got going again, we started the parish hall renovation, and when we all got back together after the worst of the pandemic and the renovation was complete, no one really knew where everything was supposed to go. We slowly figured this out, but one piano never found a home. Our organist, Kate Weber-Petrova, told me that it was too nice to give away to just anyone, but it wasn’t nice enough to replace any of our other pianos. The piano needed a good home.
Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to serve without the guidance of Father Nick. And to be transparent with you all, I was nervous. Even though in my previous call, I had led worship by myself plenty of times, I was still nervous for this Sunday. I was nervous because I did not have Nick there to whisper directions to me, when I do not know what I am doing. I was nervous for leading all three services while in a walking boot (I sprained my ankle two weeks ago). And I was particularly nervous about the 9 a.m. outdoor service since it is a unique and different worship.
Despite it all, all three services were beautiful and worshipful. Even though I messed up here and there, it did not matter. It did not matter because worship is not about being perfect, just like the Christian life is not about trying to be perfect. Service should never be a production. And this past Sunday was a great example of that. Even though I know this. This is the advice I always give to acolytes, that we are not putting on a perfect production, so go ahead, it is okay to mess up, God still loves you.
Vacations are a pain, especially with little kids. We could easily take time off, and spend leisure time in our own homes, but you rarely hear about people taking these “staycations”. Instead, we feel compelled to get all stressed out over packing lists, travel logistics, motion sick toddlers and we often spending lots of money to be somewhere else. I love working on projects around the house, and more than once, I’ve wished to spend a week’s vacation at home to knock out that one big project; however, when the rubber hits the road, I would never forego my family’s annual trip to Lake Hiawassee in North Carolina. That lake in the mountains that no one seems to know about is part of our family’s DNA, and I am determined to make sure my children always think of that cabin on the lake as a sacred spot.
Two Sundays ago, I had the opportunity to visit a friend in Richmond for her last Sunday before heading off to Seminary. She has been a lay children’s minister for three years at this parish and during that time, discerned a call to priesthood.
This week St. Luke’s Adopt-a-Kindergartener program delivered 27 backpacks to Bucknell Elementary, and 10 to the United Community Early Learning Center. Teacher’s supplies, including paper towels, Kleenex and freezer bags, also were delivered to both schools.
Feast days in the Episcopal church are not when we have lots of food together, although, they can include food. Feast days are when we commemorate biblical or other historic events in our liturgy. On most Sundays, we celebrate the Feast of Jesus Christ. We hear this in our Eucharistic liturgy as we remember Christ’s life, death, and resurrection every Sunday. But there are special Sundays in the church calendar too. There are times when we recount a saint, a season, or a biblical event like Christmas or Easter. Some of these are major feasts and some lesser feasts. The church calendar is full of saints or events we can recognize in our daily prayers or reflections.
It has been a terrible couple of weeks. Let’s start with where we are now. My wife, Leandra, has breast cancer. It is going to be a trying year, but we feel certain that she will survive, and thoroughly kick cancer to the curb. About a year and half ago, Leandra noticed something, got it checked out, and was told it was nothing. When it changed a few months ago, she went back, and test after test came back inconclusive. This went on for weeks. Almost three weeks ago we received the call to tell us that her MRI shows that she almost certainly has cancer, and more invasive tests were needed to determine the kind. To add insult to injury, this was at the very beginning of our first couple’s trip together since the beginning of the pandemic. We are planning to go back to celebrate once treatment is over. For the past two weeks, we’ve been going to appointments for biopsies and more tests, and the news we’ve received on Monday was the best we could have hoped for. The dark cloud filled with “what-ifs” that has been following us has mostly dissipated. Now, we just need to do what we are told to do, persevere, and plan on growing old together.
This past Sunday St. Luke’s had a wonderful celebration of Pentecost with our Ghanaian congregation including a love feast. It was a powerful image of what we celebrate on Pentecost, the birth of the Church, the whole Church in all its diversity and beauty. It was wonderful to intermingle with our siblings and experience a different culture, worship style, music, language and tasty food. This is part of experiencing the diverse beauty God has made the Church to be.
Friends,
I am so glad that we are not ‘those’ Christians. You know, the judgmental kind, or even worse, the ones who get a little too enthusiastic in worship. For that matter, I am overjoyed we are not ‘those’ Episcopalians. We have all of the tradition, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Clearly, we have this whole Church thing figured out, and we accomplished this just in time, because this Sunday is Pentecost!