Dear Friends,
We had such an amazing Easter celebration last Sunday! It was great to have two completely packed services. It was a blessing and privilege to share our nave with so many family members and friends as we rejoiced in the Resurrection.
As we approach the mysteries of Holy Week, my thoughts journey back to the Holy Week moments that have stayed with me, from years long ago.
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Dear Friends,
One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is found in Exodus 3: 1-15. Moses is tending his father-in-law's sheep "beyond the wilderness" on Mount Horeb when he suddenly encounters God speaking to him from a burning bush. God tells Moses that he is to lead the Israelites from captivity in Egypt to a "land flowing with milk and honey".
Dear Friends,
One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is found in Exodus 3: 1-15. Moses is tending his father-in-law's sheep "beyond the wilderness" on Mount Horeb when he suddenly encounters God speaking to him from a burning bush. God tells Moses that he is to lead the Israelites from captivity in Egypt to a "land flowing with milk and honey".
Dear Friends,
One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is found in Exodus 3: 1-15. Moses is tending his father-in-law's sheep "beyond the wilderness" on Mount Horeb when he suddenly encounters God speaking to him from a burning bush. God tells Moses that he is to lead the Israelites from captivity in Egypt to a "land flowing with milk and honey".
I love the season of Lent! It’s not just that it provides us with a time for the spring cleaning of our souls, or that it has some of the most beautiful music of any of our liturgical seasons. For me, Lent is anything but a sorrowful and sad season, but quite the opposite. There is a quiet joy that pervades. What I love most is that this season is about undergoing a transformation. Lent provides the structure for self-examination in the midst of our chaotic world. It provides that opportunity to re-order our lives, to put our focus and energy into that which is truly important - our faith in God…
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I’m fairly used to spending most of my time inside these days. And, at this point, imagining a forty-day trip into the wilderness feels downright bucolic. I can imagine the beauty of those desert afternoons—the evening breeze through the dunes at sunset, the stars multiplying in the sky as the blue of eventide fades into violet. And, as the night darkens, I imagine a new moon revealing the cascade of the milky way across the sky. I feel a deep sense of peace, outside in creation.
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This Sunday is the Last Sunday after the Epiphany and the final Sunday before the Lenten season begins. It is also Social Justice Sunday at Saint George's. We will be blessed to have the Reverend Melanie Mullen, Director of Reconciliation, Justice and Creation Care for the Episcopal Church, USA, as our guest preacher and forum speaker. Melanie is on Presiding Bishop Michael Curry's staff. I hope that you will be able to come to a service as well as the 9:30 a.m. forum to hear about the vitally important social justice ministry of our National Church.
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Dear Friends,
I am really looking forward to the diocesan diaconal ordination on Saturday, March 2nd at 10:30 a.m. at Good Shepherd, Burke. Saint George's is blessed to have three of the five ordinands, Crystal Hardin, Daniel Johnson and Amanda Kotval. Crystal is a former Senior Warden and discerned a call to the priesthood here. Daniel is our current seminarian and has been with us for the last two years. Amanda was with us last summer. It is great honor for all of us to be a part of shaping these future priests.
Saint George's has a long history of having wonderful seminarians…
Our text this Sunday is the story of the Beatitudes from Luke’s Gospel, chapter six. Before Jesus’ speech gets underway, we are told about the crowd: “They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases”
It is easy to feel overwhelmed by difficulty or disease. For me the Beatitudes are a reminder that even in the midst of difficulty, God can still bring healing and new life into our world. St. George’s is thriving. We are blessed with so many kind and thoughtful individuals who give their attention to effective and powerful service. There are a variety of gifts here, all being woven together in God’s good purposes. Haley and I are thrilled to share that we are expecting a second child. Life is beautiful and good. I hope you can join me in saying, in the midst of our challenges, “Thanks be to God.”
One of the reasons I chose my profession over others was because I loved to sing. But more than just loving to sing, I loved to sing with others, especially when it involved hymns. As a young child, I was immersed in the great four-part Lutheran hymn singing tradition. It was both mystical and robust and it made a lasting impression on me. And though I didn’t realize it in my youth, it was something that I physically felt and profoundly holy experience. I still do today.
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This Sunday our 2019 vestry will be commissioned after spending Friday and Saturday at Roslyn Retreat Center in Richmond. Please pray for our vestry as we begin this new year together. We have a wonderfully diverse leadership group: Mary Yuhas, Anne Norloff, Seton Droppers, Ed Mott, Katie Wells, Manuel Figallo, Lyn Crawford, Suzanne Stephens, Ike Emejuru, Preston Findlay, Margret Hjalmarson and Mike Giaquinto.
My first experience with Evensong was an online broadcast from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. I was fresh out of college serving a large Lutheran congregation in North Dakota which served as the center of music and arts for a large area. I started listening because I was curious about this Episcopal service that had such a cool title. But mostly I was looking for repertoire ideas, and wanted to hear some good organ playing. I didn’t think it was possible to worship remotely, so I wasn’t prepared when I found myself captivated and moved by this service. The music was glorious, but what I found especially moving was how the profound mystery and presence of God emanated throughout the service in a different way than it did in our Eucharistic liturgy.
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Dear Friends,
It wasn’t until a couple years after Seminary, that I was able to fully understand the exchange between Jesus and his mother in our reading this Sunday from the second chapter of John’s Gospel. I was attending a friend’s Catholic wedding, and the Roman Catholic Priest officiating the service was the one who finally helped me understand the exchange. The text gives us a window into a rather public “difference of opinion” between Jesus and his mother. Jesus was of the opinion that “My hour has not yet come”, while Mary knew that it was time for Jesus to begin his public ministry. And, rather than continuing to argue with Jesus directly, Mary sends a message through the servants, telling them to “Do whatever he [Jesus] tells you”—trusting that Jesus will listen to his mother and start the very thing that he was perhaps hesitant to undertake.
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This Sunday will be a wonderful day in our life together. We will have our Annual Meeting at 9:15 a.m. in the parish hall. I hope you will come to elect new vestry members and hear about all of the wonderful things that God has been doing in our midst- everything from amazing stewardship news to meeting our new Director of Operations to an exciting Organ Report.
This Sunday is also the Feast of our Lord's Baptism. We will reflect on the meaning of Jesus' baptism when a voice from heaven declared "You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased" and think about how our baptisms signify that we are each God's beloved. We will have the great joy of baptizing Elliott and Alice Debevoise at the 10:30 service. We'll also recognize the 10 people who were confirmed and received at Saint Michael's last Sunday.
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This Sunday is the Feast of the Epiphany. The story of the wise men from Matthew 2: 1-12 has been the inspiration for many artists, poets and theologians over the 2,000 years of Christian history.
The wise men represent our yearning for God, that desire that each of us is born with to experience the infinite in this finite world. T.S. Eliot captured this longing beautifully in his famous poem, The Journey of the Magi, written in 1927, a year after he began an intentional journey of Christian faith.
Advent 4 beckons and the Nativity of our Lord awaits! This Sunday we hear the story of Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth's house. The two women are both expecting and they invite us to anticipate Christmas with wonder, love and praise.
I always marvel at the mystery of Jesus gestating in Mary's womb. To think that God chose a human being to literally bring God's Son into the world. That is stunningly beautiful and mysterious. We are invited to ponder these things between now and Christmas.
On Christmas Eve at 9:30pm, as a prelude to our Festival Eucharist the Saint George’s Choir will sing Bach’s famous Cantata 140, “Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme” (Sleepers, Wake!). It is a truly glorious and beautiful work packed with rich symbolism that probes the mysteries of our faith. I love how Bach accomplishes this in an adventure-filled journey complete with a chase scene of Hollywood proportion, gorgeous love duets, and a festive bunny hop.
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I am feeling very grateful for Abraham Lincoln's 1863 proclamation making it a national holiday set aside for giving thanks for all of God's blessings. It is such an enduring gift to us. It's especially significant that he issued this proclamation in the midst of the Civil War. He had the sense that setting a day apart for giving thanks was especially important during such a protracted time of intense suffering and divisiveness. …. It's important for us to remember the origins of the national holiday this Thanksgiving, especially given the fractiousness of our times. …. Gratitude is a wonderful way to counter divisiveness. When we live from a grateful center, we have the strength to face the challenges of life without losing hope. When we really focus on gratitude, the light of Christ encircles those challenges and helps us to see that God is with us through every joy and every challenge.
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I am feeling very grateful for Abraham Lincoln's 1863 proclamation making it a national holiday set aside for giving thanks for all of God's blessings. It is such an enduring gift to us. It's especially significant that he issued this proclamation in the midst of the Civil War. He had the sense that setting a day apart for giving thanks was especially important during such a protracted time of intense suffering and divisiveness. …. It's important for us to remember the origins of the national holiday this Thanksgiving, especially given the fractiousness of our times. …. Gratitude is a wonderful way to counter divisiveness. When we live from a grateful center, we have the strength to face the challenges of life without losing hope. When we really focus on gratitude, the light of Christ encircles those challenges and helps us to see that God is with us through every joy and every challenge.
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