Saturday, May 25, 2013

The Church Stands in Solidarity with the Kingdom of God


This past week, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend an end of the school year mass at St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church in Raleigh. I was there celebrating with a friend who was completing her studies in middle school. The beautiful service was interjected with glimpses of the Kingdom of God when the kids from the school would stand up to read the prayers, litanies and Scripture readings. As the older middle schoolers would stand up to read they’d bring with them a much younger elementary age child with them to the pulpit. In this most holy moment of generational solidarity I was able to experience the grace that keeps showing up in all of our lives.
            The Church is a movement of solidarity. The Reverend Dr. Samuel Wells describes solidarity this way, “Solidarity means all the ways we seek to make concrete the intangible links between people, links based on love and trust and dignity and understanding and respect. Solidarity is what the church is called to be – Christians standing alongside one another, standing alongside the oppressed, and standing alongside God in Christ.” At the mass we sang a hymn entitled, ‘All You Works of God.’ In the hymn, the hymnist describes all of us within our world as, “One great song of grace and love, ever ancient, ever new.”
The appropriateness of that hymn as children young and old stood together in solidarity with one another was nothing short of the future of our world in the Kingdom we pray for every week during worship. To stand in solidarity with one another, across generational differences, across socioeconomic limitations, and racial bounds is to glimpse what the fruition of God’s work in our lives will be.
Within the liturgical calendar of our year we’re currently within the season called Ordinary Time. Many also call this season Kingdomtide. I really like that mentality; we are bound for the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom is one of solidarity, justice, equality, love and grace.
One of my colleagues in ministry reminded me of the song James Taylor sings, “Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King and recognize that there are ties between us all men and women living on the Earth. Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong. We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead. We are bound and we are bound.”
            Friends, like those kids at St. Raphael’s, we are bound together and bound for the Kingdom of God. Let us stand in solidarity with one another as we proclaim God’s reign as Lord of time and space. Let us finally give thanks for that glorious day of new life in which God will bring God’s kingdom back to God’s self. Will you help make it happen?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The Community of Saints is Risky but Necessary Business


One of my favorite uses of imagery in the New Testament comes from Hebrews 12. The author of Hebrews describes a great cloud of witnesses. The author suggests that these witnesses surround us, and this is most often associated with the saints of light beyond this realm of earth. I’ve been pondering that of late, especially this week with the deaths in Oklahoma and the deaths of community members Woody Woodard and Brenda Laxton.
            Throughout life saints and sinners alike, those that are both living and dead, surround us. We are surrounded in such a way that allows us to live our lives in accordance to the grace extended to us. Frederick Buechner describes our existence and callings as a clamoring of ghosts and saints and living witnesses, all conspiring with our Creator to make our lives whole. What a beautiful thought, all we’ve done has the potential to be a culmination of those gone before us.
            This past week, I’ve been at a conference in Wingate North Carolina meeting colleagues in a program I am associated with. At the opening session, I had the opportunity to sit with two people who I now consider friends, Ryan and Emma. These two people reminded me all the more that there is more than a clamoring of saints on our behalf, there are people placed in our lives through holy coincidence or Divine providence that allow us to live out our callings more fully.
            There’s a wonderful British hymn that goes like this, “They lived not only in ages past, there are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too.”  I plan to be one too; I really hope that in my life and time I might be like my friends and colleagues in ministry who continue to amaze and inspire me through their daily lives.
            I’m not one for military strategy, that’s certainly not my gift. I do know, however, that when you are surrounded the best hope we could ever have would be to surrender. Maybe, just maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do when we’re surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. When we surrender to so great a cloud of witnesses we are enveloped in a story that has been told long before we came along and a story that will go on long after we are gone. Much like the Eucharist we are like the grapes crushed together to make the wine and bread full of wheat brought together.
            In our time, and our place, be thankful that you are surrounded. Be thankful that there are so great a cloud of witnesses to light our darkest nights. I may not be a saint yet, there’s certainly more to understand. But in our surrendering to this cloud we cannot possibly hope to understand, I have a feeling we are well on our way to the communion of the saints. 

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

May 3rd Record and Landmark Article


       I want to tell you about my friend Ethan. I met Ethan at the church I serve. Ethan is a man about town, everyone knows when Ethan is around, and he makes sure of it. This strapping young two year old is the epitome of rambunctious mischief around the church and in our community, and I adore him. He’ll always come to the church office to visit and he’ll come find me to tell the most wonderful stories about his adventures for the day. This past week, I got to have lunch with him, and I felt incredibly close to the heart of God.
            We went to a local restaurant in town and he was so excited to get to eat some good food and hang out with his family. He was sure to share his chips and salsa with us, making it easy on all those gathered round him by dipping the chip in the salsa and then handing it to each of us in order of our seats around the booth. When the food came somberness, crawled across his face, he was sure that this was a serious moment. His dad asked him to say the blessing, and he knew this was his time to shine.
            If you’ve ever heard a two year old pray, I’m pretty sure you’ve seen a glimpse of the kingdom of God. This unintelligible prayer was later translated as best they could by his parents. “Thank you God for my food, for mom’s food, for dad’s food, for Rob’s food and for the chips. Amen.” This was not an eloquent recitation of prayer we’ve all become accustomed to in Sunday worship. This was an earnest and fervent prayer of thanksgiving. I couldn’t have been more awe-inspired in that moment.
            Our daily lives are filled with moments of worship, not just Sunday mornings. For me that day, my minister was a 2 year old feeding us with spiritual food of prayer and passing out a Eucharistic feast of chips and salsa. We were in communion in one of the holiest moments of my week. We forsake these moments, don’t we? Commit them to memory because it didn’t happen in a conventional way we were comfortable grasping or understanding.
            God, in such magnificent love extends to us these worship-filled weekday moments to keep us going. We come together as a community on Sunday and worship, which is important. But those moments when we feel close to the heart of God during the week are remarkably full of grace, hope, and peace. Enjoy them, embrace them, and worship through them. Because God is there amidst the prayers of a 2 year old, and communion around a table, weaving the presence of the Divine within our daily lives. This week, find those moments and cling to them, for they are evidence of the very heart of God.