Faith

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
February 6, 2021

5 Epiphany C 

          When I was a child, our parents took us to the little Presbyterian Church near our home, pretty much every Sunday as memory serves me.  My brother, sister, and I went to the preschool at the church, and my sister and I eventually sang in the junior choir.  Church was our Sunday morning activity.  When we moved to Little Rock when I was in the 6^th grade, we went to the nearby Episcopal Church, going to Sunday School each week, serving as acolytes, singing in the choir, and going to youth group.  So, on the one hand, you could say that I was churched as a child, even though our parents dropped us off at the door so as a family we were not churched.  But not until I was in high school did going to church become more than another activity like girl scouts or dance lessons.  In high school, I came to faith, largely through a group of adults who took interest in me, saw potential, showed me the love of God through their care for me, and helped a shy insecure teen become grounded in the faith and a more confident, secure human being.  My parents got me to church and the adults at church helped me form a relationship with God that grows and sustains me through the good times and the hard times.  My gratitude to my parents for taking me to church and to the people at church for nurturing me and guiding me in the faith runs deep.

          This morning, we hear how Simon Peter, James, and John come to faith, a faith that will mature and blossom over the course of their ministry.  The three have fished all night, caught nothing, and are washing their nets when Jesus asks Simon to put out a little way from the shore so he can teach the crowds on the beach.  Once he is finished, Jesus says to Simon “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”  I’m sure “try again” was not exactly what Simon Peter wanted to hear after a whole night of fishing with nothing but fatigue, dirty nets, and aching muscles to show for his effort.  The nets were now clean and cleaning them was hard work no one wanted to repeat, especially for nothing.  Jesus is asking a lot! But Simon Peter follows Jesus’ direction and lo and behold they caught more fish than their nets or the boats could hold.   Simon Peter recognizes Jesus as more than just an ordinary person and says, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  Simon Peter recognizes who Jesus is, and he is afraid for he is not worthy.  Jesus sees the potential in Simon Peter and says: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”  And the three men leave everything behind and follow Jesus.

          The image of fishing for or catching people to bring them to faith has always been a problem for me.  Fish are caught against their will, cooked, filleted, and eaten or sold for others to do the same.  For Simon Peter, James, and John, this analogy made sense.  Jesus was going to teach them to use the skills and understanding they already had as fishermen to draw people to faith.  For those of us who do not fish for a living, perhaps there is another way to understand what Jesus is up to.

          How does Jesus bring people to faith in him, particularly these three fishermen?  First, Jesus taught.  Jesus got into Simon’s boat with him, and taught the crowds, including Simon, from the boat.  We don’t know what he said, but we know that crowds gathered wherever he went to hear him so his words must have been powerful.  Secondly, while in the boat with Simon, Jesus asked him to put out into the deep water and let down the nets.  Jesus didn’t just tell Simon to do that alone.  Jesus was in the boat with him as Simon does this hard work.  Thirdly, when Simon is overwhelmed by the abundance of the catch, Jesus tells him not to be afraid and calls Simon to follow him.  Jesus does not snag or net Simon and the others.  Jesus gets into the boat with them, leads them to deep waters, and tells them to let the nets down, and they catch the fish.  Jesus brings Simon Peter, James, and John to a faith that will sustain and strengthen them through the challenge and disappointment to come.

          Throughout the gospels, Jesus brings people to faith by teaching with parables that bring the gospel message alive using relevant analogies like yeast, seeds, coins, and sheep to help people understand the Good News.  Jesus heals people who had given up hope, showing them the power of God’s love.  Jesus feeds multitudes of hungry people, showing the concern of God for everyone.  And Jesus preaches the good news with both words and actions.  Jesus is out and about, going where the people are, building relationships, and inviting people to follow him.  Perhaps in the inside out, upside down world of the gospel where the poor are rich and the rich are poor, the outsiders are insiders and the insiders are outsiders, and the strong are weak and the weak are strong, it is also the case that fishing for people is not about nets and hooks and snagging people against their will, but about meeting people where they are and building relationships. 

          We can easily think that if we just had the right space, or another program, or more varieties of worship service, or more parking, or some other tangible thing, we could bring people to faith.  While those things are all very important, and do help bring people to church, they are not the primary way people are brought to faith.  People of all ages are brought to faith or deeper faith in many cases, whether they have grown up in the church, or never set foot in a church, or want to grow the faith they already have, when we meet them where they are, whether here or in the world, build relationships, share our stories, and show them the love of God with our lives.                                                                                          Amen.                 

Donuts

 

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
January 30, 2022

4 Epiphany C

When I was first ordained, I served a very small church on the western edge of this diocese.  The church had maybe 25 people on a good Sunday but worked hard to have a big impact in the neighborhood around the church.  At one point, they did a demographic study of the neighborhood and discovered that a high percentage of the households were single parent households living close to the poverty line.  In front of the church was a school bus stop, where children gathered each morning and invariably left their trash lying around the church yard.  This was infuriating to some of the church members, who thought the kids were being disrespectful and wanted to call the school and complain.  Still others thought the church should just put a trash can out so the kids could take care of their own trash.  But then, who would make sure the trash can was set out each morning and bring it in and empty it each evening so that the church didn’t wind up with trash all over the church yard anyway.  Then one person, with four children of her own, came up with the brilliant idea to put donuts and orange juice out for the kids each morning and begin to build a relationship with them, or at least make them feel welcome in front of the church.  She wanted to show the children the unconditional love of God.  Some in the church who disagreed with this approach, thinking the church would be spoiling the kids and encouraging them to loiter in the church yard in the morning.  Really, who gives away donuts to random children? And besides, who was going to pay for the donuts?  But the woman with the idea was willing to do the work and buy the donuts, so the church began to leave donuts, juice, and a trash can out for the children each morning.  I left the congregation not long after this, so I don’t know how long the donut ministry lasted.  But I do know that even something as seemingly innocuous as demonstrating the love of God with donuts and juice can cause quite a controversy!

This morning, both Jeremiah and Jesus will cause controversy and infuriate the people. We hear the call of Jeremiah this morning and learn that God is sending Jeremiah to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overthrown, to build and to plant. That is 4 verbs about destroying and 2 verbs about building up. This is our first clue that Jeremiah’s ministry may not be a happy one. Jeremiah will tell the people that worshiping idols, neglecting the poor, and believing false prophets are not what God had in mind for God’s people, and that the consequences of their actions will be dire. The people are furious with Jeremiah, and for the prophet’s efforts, he will attacked by his own brothers, beaten and put in stocks, imprisoned by the king, thrown in a cistern and threatened with death. Clearly the people were not interested in the words God put in Jeremiah’s mouth.

Jesus also causes controversy in his hometown synagogue and infuriates the people. Last week we heard Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor." Today we hear Jesus say "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All the people in the synagogue are amazed at the words coming from Jesus’ mouth. They marvel that this is Joseph’s son. If Jesus had just stopped there, he could have gone to coffee hour and gone home in peace. But, good rabbi that Jesus was, he wanted the people to understand the words he had just spoken. The long awaited Messiah was not coming just for them. The chosen people were not the only people God loves. Jesus reminded the people in the synagogue of two Biblical stories in which the love of God touched Gentiles: the story in which Elijah, the foremost prophet of God, was sent to the widow of Zarephath during a severe famine to provide a miracle of food for the widow and her son, and the story of Naaman the Syrian, who was not just a Gentile, but an enemy of the Israelites, and who was the only leper cleansed. The people in the temple, who just a moment ago were speaking well of Jesus, are now furious and try to throw him off the cliff because Jesus is telling them they are not God’s only beloved people.

Why are the people so angry? Neither Jesus nor Jeremiah are telling the people that they are not loved by God, even though that is what the people hear. Both Jesus and Jeremiah are challenging a people who want to define the love of God on their own terms. Jeremiah speaks to a people who want the love of God to allow them to behave as they like with no consequences because they are God’s chosen people. Jesus speaks to a people who wants to believe that God loves them and no one else. Both speak to a people who are furious because they cannot, or will not, hear God challenge them to understand the love of God in new ways. Both speak to a people who are afraid because their basic assumptions about their faith have been challenged.

By partnering the stories about Jesus and Jeremiah with the reading from I Corinthians, we are reminded that the most basic commandment of God is to love God and each other. When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus will quote the book of Deuteronomy and say "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." Paul writes "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth." Both Jeremiah and Jesus are challenging the people to this kind of love- of both God and their neighbor, and to understand their neighbor as all people, not just people like them.

What the people in that small congregation came to realize is that the love of God is meant to be given away, broadly, creatively, and well beyond the membership of the church.  They embodied that love with the gift of breakfast to children they did not know, who many of them had wished would just catch the bus somewhere else.  They learned to understand the love of God in new ways.  The love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things, the love of God, extends to all people.  Our job as followers of Jesus is to make that fact known to the world, using donuts as necessary.

Amen.

Homecoming

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
January 23, 2022

 3 Epiphany C

Some years ago, I went back to Little Rock for the funeral of a dear friend.  My family moved to Little Rock the summer before I started 6th grade, and I stayed in the area through college, so going to Little Rock has the feel of going home for me even though the city is nothing like I remember.  People came from all over the country for this funeral, traveling from places like Seattle and Arizona, to mourn the loss of this amazing friend, hear the powerful words of scripture, to pray the prayers of the burial office together, and pour our grief into the familiar liturgy.  We also came to be together as none of us could bare to do this difficult work alone.  We needed to be together to hear the challenge in both scripture and our burial service to live like people who believe that death does not have the final say.  Our coming home sent us back out into the world nourished, strengthened, and challenged to live into our identity as Easter people. 

The reading from Nehemiah tells us of another homecoming, this one after the exile of the Hebrew people to Babylon in the 6^th century BC.  Some of the Hebrew people have returned to their homeland, the Promised Land.  The wall around the city has been rebuilt.  The people are home and yet nothing feels the same.  There is lots of squabbling about who was among the faithful and who was not, who should govern, how and if the temple should be rebuilt, and who they are as God's chosen people.  They are squabbling, much like the people in the church in Corinth to which Paul writes are squabbling, and in both cases, the very survival of the community is at stake.  When the Hebrew people gather at the gate this morning, they ask to hear the familiar words of the Torah, the law of Moses, read out loud for them, and to have those words explained.  Over and over again, we hear that all the people stood, all the people said "Amen, Amen," and all the people understood.  And all the people were moved to worship the Lord with their faces to the ground, apparently weeping and mourning.  They heard the challenge of the words of scripture, recognized the ways they were failing to live into their identity as God's people, and realized that their return to the Promised Land was nothing less than a gift from God who loves them and made them God's own.  And so they are able to rise up, rejoice, and make sure anyone who could not be at the gate could rejoice as well.

I am struck by the similarities between our situation in this era of Covid, and that of the Hebrew people in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.  We have been exiled in a sense from life as we once knew it, where we did not think twice about sipping from the chalice, or packing people into the Parish Hall for a meal, or singing together, or so many other things.  We have been exiled from each other as some of us choose to worship in-person, others on Facebook Live, and others not at all.  We don’t all agree about whether masks should or should not be required, whether it is safe to eat together, and how much in-person activity we are comfortable having.  We are impatient and frustrated.  We don’t have a new city wall to celebrate, but we certainly have new space.  We come home to Christ Church and things are the same, yet different.  Like the Hebrew people, we know that our life together is a gift and now is time to move forward and discover who God is calling us to be in this new era.  And, like the Hebrew people who gathered at the gate, we know that we will find both comfort and challenge in our reading of scripture.

The reading from First Corinthians reminds us yet again that we are all members of the one body and that all the members are needed for the body to function and be whole.  No one can say “I am too young” or “I am too old” or “I am too busy” or “I am too whatever” to be part of the Body of Christ.  By virtue of our baptism, we are part of the Body of Christ.  That is a fact, and we each have gifts needed for the body to function and grow.  Each of us is a piece of how we move forward together.  Being part of the Body of Christ is a gift, given to us in baptism, and as the Body of Christ, we are much stronger together than we are apart.

Jesus enters the synagogue this morning, filled with the power of the Spirit, to tell the people that the words of the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled in their hearing.  The people had gathered, as they do each Sabbath, to hear the scripture read and explained, and to pray.  On the one hand, Jesus can be understood to be saying that he is the one about whom Isaiah prophesied.  The anointed one is standing in their midst.  But on the other hand, we know that the poor are still among us, as are the blind and the oppressed, both literally and metaphorically.  So in what way could Jesus’ words actually be true?

These are the first words of Jesus’ ministry in Luke’s gospel and they set out his mission for his ministry.  But this mission is not just Jesus’ ministry.  The ministry belongs to all who follow Jesus.  The people have gathered in the synagogue to hear scripture read and taught, and then Jesus tells them that their ministry is not in the synagogue but out in the world.  Likewise, Jesus gathers us to be nourished by the hearing of scripture, the breaking of bread, and the prayers, not just as an end in itself, but so that we are equipped to go into the world and proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, bring sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed, whatever form those actions might take.  The gathering is critical and the nourishment is vital, because the work to which Jesus calls us is hard and requires both God’s strength and the heart and hands of each one of us.

On this Annual Meeting Sunday, scripture reminds us that three things are essential in order for us to be the church God is calling us to be.  One: Come home, whether in person or online, to be nourished by scripture, the breaking of bread, and prayer.  Two: Come home, either in-person or online, to know the strength we have when we all work as essential members of one body.  Three: Come home, however you come, to be sent out to be God’s people in the world.  Following Jesus may not be easy, but the instructions are simple.

                                                                   Amen

A sign

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
January 16, 2022

2 Epiphany C 

          On my tour of English Cathedrals back in October, one of our stops was at Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, England.  Coventry was a great 14^th century Gothic Cathedral until it was bombed on November 14, 1940. The current cathedral is a modern cathedral in both the architectural sense of the word as well as the historic sense.

          As my friend Anne and I walked up to the Cathedral, we saw the ruins of the great Gothic structure on the left, the current modern cathedral on the right, and the two are joined together by an outdoor entry way.  We spent some time in the peaceful ruins, then headed into the cathedral.  The cathedral dedicated itself to a ministry of reconciliation in the aftermath of the bombing and that commitment is evident throughout the church with displays that describe the various ministries of the congregation.  The bombing of their cathedral was transformational in their understanding of who and what they are called to be as the church.  My personal great epiphany came as I looked at one of the stained-glass windows, made from the shards of stained glass from the bombed-out building.  Rather than try to recreate the original windows, which were likely scenes from scripture, the new stained glass windows were simply stunning, colorful, small bits of glass, in no particular arrangement, that created immense beauty in their own way.  This may seem like the revelation of the obvious since I have been preaching this for almost two years, but somehow that stained glass window sent a powerful reminder not just to my head but to my heart that the way we are put back together is not the same as we were before. 

          While Christ Church has certainly not been bombed out, and we actually have beautiful new space now, the past nearly two years have brought radical changes to life as we knew it in early 2020.  As a church, we have had times where we could gather only online and had to restrict access to the building. We have had to find safe ways to connect with the community, opening our worship to those outside the building through Facebook Live.  I had actually gone to a workshop on using a smartphone to livestream worship in January 2020 and left the workshop thinking “We’ll never do that.”  Proof that one should never say never!  We have looked for new ways to help those in need and found new partners for our outreach efforts.  We have tried multiple different ways to provide Christmas formation for all ages via Zoom or, more recently, in-person and socially distanced.  Over and over again people have stepped up to help us connect with each other, the world around us, and with God.  But we still have a ways to go and the landscape around us continues to shift with the twists and turns of a pandemic.  If the way we are put back together is not the way we were before, how are we to figure out the way forward?

          Our readings today give us some solid footing for moving forward.  First, both the reading from Isaiah and the Psalm remind us that God is always calling us forward to a new future.  Those readings also remind us of our identity as God’s beloved people.  That identity is not meant to give us a sense of superiority in any way, but to ground us as the people God calls us to be in the world.  God’s delight in us and God’s rejoicing over us calls us to be God’s people in the world.  God’s loving kindness and God’s refuge provide us not with a place to hide, but a place from which to go out into the world.  This is our starting point for moving into the future.

          Secondly, the reading from First Corinthians reminds us that we do nothing alone.  Whatever God is calling us to do and be, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us and equip us.  We have the gifts of each one of us to draw on and we each have gifts that are essential to building up the body of Christ.  As we discern what God is calling us to do and be in this new world, each and every one of us is needed.   Some things we know we want, such as the excellent hospitality that comes from having ushers, greeters, coffee hour, beautiful flowers, amazing music, and a space that is made ready for us, our guests and for God on Sunday morning.  Other ministries we look for new ways to do to meet the new challenges of a new time such as Christian formation for all ages, outreach that connects us with those in need, and new ways of connecting with the community and sharing Good News.  This is Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend and as if we needed anything more to point out the work that needs to be done to heal the sin of racism in our country, Covid has certainly done that.  There is much gospel work yet to be done to make King’s dream a reality and we are called to find our place in that work.  God will not call us to do anything we cannot make happen if we all work together using the gifts God has given us.

          Lastly, you might wonder where the story of the wedding at Cana fits into the idea that the way we are put back together is not the way we were before.  The story of the wedding at Cana, in which Jesus turns a huge amount of water into the best wine of the party is often thought of as a miracle story and we wonder how to replicate the miracle.  However, in John’s gospel, Jesus’ actions this morning, along with feeding of the multitudes, raising of Lazarus from the dead, walking on water, and healing the sick, are not miracle stories but signs that point to the glory of God.  In the first chapter of John’s gospel, we hear that Jesus is the Word made flesh who lived among us and showed us the glory of God, full of grace and truth.  In John’s gospel, Jesus spends his earthly life showing us the glory of God.  So this morning, we see Jesus change water into wine, not as an end in itself, not to save the hosts of the party from the embarrassment of running out of wine, but to point to the glory of God.  Throughout the Hebrew scriptures, wine is a symbol of God’s love and God’s abundance, and Jesus points us to those very truths.

          Our call as Jesus’ followers has always been to be a sign to the world of God’s love and abundance.  No pandemic can change that call.  Christ Church has faithfully answered that call over the ages, through thick and thin, because, guided by the Holy Spirit, people have stepped up time and time again to offer their God-given gifts and talents.  There is nothing new about what God is asking us to do, only a new context in which God asks us to work.  As we move forward, God reminds us that the way we are put back together will be grounded in God’s love, guided by the Holy Spirit, and enriched by the many gifts and talents we have been given, so that at this time and in this place, we are an effective sign of God’s love and abundance. 

                                                                             Amen.        

Word Made Flesh

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
December 26, 2021

Christmas 1 

          “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.”  In John’s gospel, the story of Jesus begins with these words.  The story begins, not with Jesus’ birth, but with the words “In the beginning.”   John’s gospel takes us all the way back to creation, then spends the entirely of that gospel describing the way God’s grace and truth were revealed through Jesus.

          Into that story, the story that begins with creation and continues through the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, we will baptize Sofia and Anabella this morning.  In baptism, we are joined with the Word made Flesh in his death and resurrection.  Jesus’ story becomes our story and we become part of that story. Jesus’ miracles become our story.  Jesus’ teachings become our story.  That does not mean that we are capable of doing everything that Jesus did.  We certainly do not become Jesus in baptism.  But in baptism, Jesus’s story becomes part of the very fabric of our being.

How, then, do we live as people in whom the Word made flesh now dwells and through whom the grace and truth of God is revealed? 

          Our baptismal covenant, which we renew at every baptism, spells out for us some of the ways Jesus calls us to live as people who are joined with him through the waters of baptism.  Our baptismal covenant tells us that as people of grace and truth, we are to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers.   We commit to gathering for worship, prayer, and study so that we are strengthened for this life by connecting with God and each other in these ways.  When we make mistakes, we don’t run from God and the community of faith, but we turn from those mistakes and try again.  As people whose story is joined with that of Jesus, we seek and serve Christ, the word made flesh, in all people.  We proclaim the good news of God in Christ with both our words and our actions, taking care that our words and our actions send the same message.  And we respect the dignity of every human being.   Through these actions, we strive to live as people of grace and truth showing the world that the Word made Flesh continues to dwell among us.

          Into the fellowship of the Body of Christ, into the story of the Word made flesh, into the community of people who strive to live as people of grace and truth, we baptize Anabella and Sofia this morning.     Amen.

According to Plan

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
December 24, 2021

Christmas Eve

Back in the day when dresses came in large, well constructed boxes, my parents would save those boxes so that a few weeks before Christmas, my brother, sister, and I could fill one of the boxes with toys we no longer played with.  We were told that we needed to make room for the new toys we would receive on Christmas morning.  On the one hand, we rejoiced in the perceived promise that good things would happen on Christmas morning.  We did not know what, exactly, those good things would be, but we did want to be ready.  On the other hand, we were not such good sports about having to part with any of our toys.  I wish I could tell you that those toys were given to charity, but the reality is that Mom and Dad hid them away until some dark winter day in February when school was cancelled for snow and we were stuck in the house.  Then the box would be brought out and we would have toys to play with that we had long forgotten.  This was an act of self-defense on the part of my parents that brought them some sanity in the middle of a New Jersey winter.  However, the idea of making space for Christmas is at the heart of Advent, that season of making ready for the birth of Jesus.  So without even knowing it, Mom and Dad played right into the liturgical season of preparation.

I think about the practice and discipline of preparing for Christmas by making room for new toys when I hear the line in the Christmas story “And she gave birth to her first born son, and wrapped him in cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”  There are many scholarly ideas in the commentaries about why there was no room in the inn, such as that Mary and Joseph had no money to pay for the inn and they certainly could not stay for free, or that if she gave birth in the inn the room would be ritually unpure according to the Jewish law, or the fact that Mary was pregnant, they weren’t married, and the innkeeper would have none of that.  Those theories serve to perpetuate stereotypes about our Jewish brothers and sisters and are inappropriate interpretations of the story.  The story tells us that everyone had to go to their hometowns to be registered for the census, so everyone was traveling, and the hotels were all booked.  I believe that, in an act of generosity, the innkeeper made room for Mary and Joseph to stay in the barn rather than turn them out in the street.

Over the last four weeks during the season of Advent, we have prepared for the birth of Jesus.  We may have done the spiritual equivalent of putting toys away to make room for new gifts as we made room for Jesus through the disciplines of prayer, giving, study, or even other acts of preparation such as cleaning, wrapping, cooking, or finding meaningful and thoughtful gifts for loved ones.   Our acts of love for others help us make room within ourselves for the birth of the Christ child.  We have done the work of preparing and making room, and now we have gathered to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. 

However, the beauty and promise of Christmas is not that Jesus will be born in our midst just the way we planned.  If we did not know that before, we are definitely learning it this year!  Mary and Joseph had certainly prepared for the birth of this child, but not for Jesus to be born in a stable while they were out of town.  The innkeeper had no idea that the Messiah would be born in his barn that night when he made space for Mary and Joseph.  The shepherds had prepared for their work tending sheep, but not for the heavens to open and the angels to sing.  We have prepared with gifts and meals, music and flowers.  But preparing for the birth of Jesus is not like preparing to make a lasagna where we go to the store, buy the ingredients, follow a recipe, and get the lasagna we expected.  We prepare, not because we know what to expect, but precisely because we do not know what to expect.  The Christmas story tells us that the promise of Christmas is that the Christ child is born in our midst even in the midst of unplanned, unexpected, and even unwanted circumstances.  The promise of Christmas is Emmanuel, God with us, always.  Our response to that promise is to be prepared to greet the Christ child even, or perhaps especially, when things do not go according to plan.                        Amen.

A Spirit of Loveliness and Sense of Unity

Charlotte Collins Reed
Bellwether Farm
December 10, 2021

Commissioning the Bishop Search Committee

Years ago, when I was interviewing with Christ Church Hudson where I now serve, I reached out to my friend John Ohmer for some advice. John had left a large, vibrant Episcopal Church in a suburb of Washington, D.C. to go to Falls Church Episcopal.  Falls Church had been ravaged by the conflict in the Episcopal Church in the early 2000’s and was a shadow of its former self, shrinking from a congregation of 2800 to about 27 people.   As I prepared to interview at Christ Church, also a church with a difficult past, I wanted to know what land mines I should be looking for.  What words should I use to ferret out unresolved issues, and what should I expect the search committee to say that would assure me that Christ Church Hudson had become I place I wanted to serve?  What metrics should I expect and what goals would be reasonable? 

I will never forget what John said to me.  His response was “You are looking for a spirit of loveliness and a sense of unity-not a desire for unity, but real unity.”  That’s it.  Nothing about land mines to watch for or metrics to expect. 

A spirit of loveliness and a sense of unity.  I thought about my friend’s words when I read the scripture passages we just heard, which you may have recognized come from the service for the consecration of a bishop.  We are-you are-looking for more than a skill set or metrics or goals in our next bishop, even though you are looking for those.  You are also looking for that spirit of loveliness, the spirit of God in that person, leading the person to proclaim good news, encouragement, to raise up those who are marginalized, a person who brings strangers and foreigners together at the table-although not to till our land and care for our flocks- and to be a person of joy and reconciliation. 

How do we recognize such a person?  The gifts of spiritual loveliness and unity do not fit easily on the Office of Transitional Ministries many forms and questions.  On a scale of 1-10, how much would you say the Spirit of God is resting on this individual?  That doesn’t really work.  But as my children used to say when they were taunting one another with various names, “It takes one to spot one.”  The way we discern such unquantifiable gifts in a person is to cultivate those same gifts in ourselves, both as individuals and as a community.  Then we can better see those gifts in others.

As you go about your work in the coming months to discern nominees for the 12^th Bishop of our Diocese, I encourage you, and I believe God calls you, not just to look for that spirit of loveliness and sense of unity in those you meet and to do the work described in your charge, but to be that spirit of loveliness and sense of unity for those you encounter along this journey.  Your work will bear amazing and perhaps surprising fruit.

                                                                                         Amen.