View archived edition here.

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Are you ready? This Sunday begins the greatest week of our religious year. This Sunday we’ll gather ‘round and tell the story of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. We’ll wave our blessed palm branches and reenact the carnival procession. Then, just when we’re getting into the swing of things, we’ll come face to face with the dark week ahead. While the palms are the hallmark of this Sunday, it’s the Passion reading that is its heart. This Sunday we’ll hear the story of Jesus’ last hours. We’ll receive those words with silence, then celebrate the Eucharist together and go forth into this week of weeks.

It is very important that you are a part of this week. I’m not trying to drum up attendance here, I just don’t want you to miss hearing our story. If you can’t be physically present at Christ Church, be present where you are. If all else fails, the scriptures of this week are out there on the internets for you to read. Spend at least a little time each day considering Holy Week, and what it means to you, and what it means for all of us.

Holy Week is a stark place. It is a time of death and life, both in a physical and literal sense, and in a greater spiritual sense. In this week to come, where is death? Where is life? For you, what is God calling you to die to? What is God calling you to do that gives life? Perhaps more important that our personal answers to these timeless questions are our community answers. We are not simply individuals who happen to wind up in the same building most Sunday mornings. We are a family of God. Where is our death in this Holy Week? Where will we find life? To what is God calling us as a community of people searching for faith?

So, are you ready? I confess that I don’t know what I’m asking with that question. I’m not sure how to be ready for God’s intrusion into our lives. The Spirit moves where it will and the Son of God is not beholden to our schedules or conveniences. Biblically, those who were best at hearing God weren’t necessarily ready as much as they were willing to not blink—willing to see God’s arrival as the thing that was happening right then and to act accordingly. May we be so willing when God happens to us.

Peace,

Ben.

View the archived edition of this week’s eClarion here.

The Friday Letters

19 March 2010

St. Joseph

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

March 19^th is the feast day of St. Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus. Everything we know about Joseph we learn from the first couple chapters in Matthew and Luke, plus a couple passing references in John to the “father of Jesus”. Mark never mentions him at all.

Here’s what my go-to online reference for saints has to say about Joseph:

In the face of circumstances where a man of lesser character might have reacted very differently, Joseph graciously assumed the role of Jesus’ father. He is well remembered in Christian tradition for the love he showed to the boy Jesus, and for his tender affection and care for Mary, during the twelve years and more that he was their protector.

Joseph was a pious Jew, a descendant of David, and a carpenter by trade. Because of the silence of the Gospels, and because Jesus entrusted Mary to the care of John, it is generally believed that Joseph died a natural death after the visit to Jerusalem when Jesus was twelve, but before the Baptism of Jesus when He was thirty. Joseph’s influence during those early years must have been tremendous. When Jesus spoke of God as being like a loving Father, He was using a word that he had first learned as a child to apply to Joseph. Joseph stands as a testimony to the value of simple everyday human things, and especially that human thing called “fatherhood.”

There are two things about Joseph that make me love him. First, he gets so little face time, and it’s not like his role was minor. He’s kind of the underdog of the birth narratives, so I like to root for him.

Second, while Joseph is recognized for his qualities as a father, I am constantly reminded that his defining characteristic was that he wasn’t Jesus’ father. Not biologically, anyway. I think Joseph should be the patron saint of adoptive fathers, of men who love children because they need to be loved, even when most of us would forgive them for choosing to not love quite so much. God bless those among us who love where love is needed, and not just where it’s easy.

O God, who called your servant Joseph to be the faithful Guardian of your incarnate Son, and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to follow his example in constant worship of you and obedience to your commands, that our homes may be sanctified by your presence, and our children nurtured in your fear and love, through the same your son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Peace,

Ben.

View the archived edition here.

The Friday Letters

12 March 2010

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I was moved by today’s reflection printed in the ERD “Lenten Meditations” book. I quote it here in its entirety,

Blessed be the God of our salvation: Who bears our burdens and forgives our sins.

Alienation. It’s part of the human condition—part of the mixed bag we get along with memory, reason, and skill. It’s that nagging sense that we’re all alone in this mess and nobody, but nobody, will be there for us.

Faith comes next. Faith that even if our colleagues, friends, and family fail us (and they sometimes will), there is someone—something—bigger that we are, who will not.

Gratitude follows faith. We don’t have to bear it alone. We don’t have to do it alone. When disaster strikes, or illness, or loss of work, we have an advocate who bears our burdens with us. When we have botched the job, we have an advocate who forgives us, and encourages us to do better the next time.

I am thankful for this reminder that faith comes from alienation just as often as it does from other places. I sometimes feel guilty that Sunday morning church is so joyful. There’s nothing wrong with joy, obviously; we have gathered to share in a foretaste of God’s heavenly banquet. There should be joy; we ought to be celebrating. Then again, sometimes we aren’t joyful. We’re only human—alienation (not to mention pain, despair and regular-old sadness) are part of our lives. I am thankful for this reminder that faith springs forth from these darker places within us just as readily as it does from the joy and celebration we long to find.

Bless the Lord, who is God of our joy and sadness.

Peace,

Ben.

You can view and archival edition of this week’s eClarion by clicking here.

The Friday Letters

5 March 2010

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures this third Sunday in Lent begins thus:

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.

This is a well known Bible story if any of them are, having benefited from portrayals in numerous movies. During our Wednesday evening sessions the past two weeks we’ve been watching a video about the history of the Davidic Kingdom. Last week there was much time spent on Moses and I was impressed again (I’d seen the video before) by how emotionally powerfully they had portrayed Moses.

It’s hard for us to think of Moses as anything but the first amongst prophets, the mighty wielder of God’s own staff, the one chosen to lead God’s people out of slavery and into freedom. He is that, true, but he’s also something else, especially at the beginning. When Moses spots that famous burning bush, that flaming shrubbery, that incendiary topiary, he is not the greatest prophet Israel has ever known. Then, he is a fugitive. A murderer and escaped slave. He doesn’t even have his own sheep for crying out loud. He is the ancient world’s equivalent of a freeloading son-in-law given some menial task in his new wife’s father’s company.

Then he meets an angel of The Lord, and all changes. It is a powerful moment, not just spiritually but emotionally. Our history video also made much of another moment, some forty years later, when Moses stood overlooking the promised land that he had led his people to through much trial and tribulation. He’d spent every moment of his life since encountering the burning bush working to get to that promised land, and at the very end, with milk and honey in sight, God said no. No, you will not enter. Your people can go in, but you will die here.

Put that way, it’s hard not to shed tears for Moses. No doubt Moses did shed tears, though perhaps he was beyond them by then. The Rabbi on the video tried to make us feel a bit better about it. He said something like, “It’s true Moses never got to enter the promised land, but he’s also the only man in history who ever got to see God face to face. I guess you take what God offers.” The Rabbi makes a good point, though as far as I can tell, as soon as Moses saw that bush he was a dead man. He received a forty year stay of execution, but his life as he knew it was then and forever forward over. I think he knew it too, as he tried to get out of the job while standing next to the bush and at other times throughout his career.

Moses stands as an icon of our faith not only because of his own story but because of how his story informs our own. Have you been as low as Moses was? Convicted, guilty, and run away into shame? Have you been called by God and known that call was the end of your life as you knew it? Have you spent the precious years of your life trying to get to the promised land only to find that you weren’t going to get there? That’s OK. Sometimes, getting to the promised land isn’t as important as finding God on the journey there.

Peace,

Ben.