In a Troubled World, the Church is Reborn!

A Note to the Parish:

"In a Troubled World, the Church is Reborn"

May 29, 2020

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we will celebrate the great Feast of Pentecost. In church we will hear the story of the first Pentecost, when the Spirit-filled followers of Jesus finally leave their room, head out to the streets of Jerusalem, and begin sharing the best news of all time - love defeats hate and life conquers death:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Thanks to the Holy Spirit, people from all over the place were able to hear this best news ever, and slowly the Good News about Jesus and God's Love began to spread beyond the holy city that was under the brutal hammer of Roman occupation, and out into every corner of the world.

Pentecost is rightly remembered and celebrated as the birth of the Church. But, Pentecost is not just history. Pentecost happens all the time. God gives us the Holy Spirit every day, especially in times of trouble. Jesus continues to be with us, no matter what. And, the Church was not just born once two thousand years ago on a noisy day in Jerusalem. No, the Church is reborn in every age. The Church is reborn in the water of Baptism. The Church is reborn each time we share the Good News with our neighbors. The Church is reborn each time a person hears the call and chooses to follow the Way of Jesus. The Church is reborn each time we work together to meet a need in our community or beyond. The Church is reborn each time we confess our sins and ask forgiveness, and each time we offer forgiveness. And, the Church is reborn each time it faces challenges and renews its trust in God, and its dedication to God's mission.

Our own church has been reborn so many times, hasn't it? We have been reborn in all the ways I just listed and more and, most of all, we were reborn in a spectacular way just a few years ago when two neighboring Episcopal congregations, separated by about five blocks and decades of not-so-great history, heard God's call to join together and create something new and even more beautiful than what had been before.

So, in fact, we're experts at rebirth. And, I'm convinced that, in this moment of suffering and fear, this time of big trouble, our own church, and the whole Church, are once again being reborn.

If you're like me, you haven't yet wrapped your mind around the fact that we will not be able to go back to exactly the way things were before the pandemic. Because there is still so much unknown about the virus - and because none of us can see the future - we don't know what our worship and other gatherings will be like the next time we are able to be together in person, but they will be different in ways that may be hard for us to accept.

But, the good news is our church is already transformed in ways that are wonderful and a blessing to so many. It's Pentecost again! We have left our room! We have been reborn!

Just look around at the work of the Holy Spirit! Many more people are now worshiping with us during the week and on Sundays. Even if we can't see them, we can hear them - we can read their comments - and we can surely feel their presence, praying alongside us. Parishioners are checking in with each other more regularly and more deeply than before, taking the time for long conversations. We've been given the resources to offer some pretty big help to our friends at Garden State Episcopal CDC. Family Promise is providing shelter on Storms Avenue. The Triangle Park Community Center is busier than ever, helping to feed and clothe our neighbors. And Deacon Jill has started a brand-new ministry in Hoboken, gathering goods from those who have and giving them away to those who have not, and we're looking to expand this amazing service to Jersey City.

It's Pentecost again! We have been reborn!

And, it’s not a moment too soon. This past week, we've been once again painfully reminded that the old demons of racism, hatred, violence, and ignorance are on the loose. Although we had made some progress over the course of the last century, it seems that all the ugly fears, resentments, and prejudices have risen to the surface - or, perhaps, have been raised by some for their own cynical purposes. Or, some suggest, maybe progress was always an illusion and now the only difference is that we have cellphones readily available to record at least some of the evil. In any event, there don't really seem to be words to adequately describe what it's like watching a police officer crush the life out of George Floyd on a Minneapolis street, with bystanders begging for the brutality to stop, and the dying Mr. Floyd gasping the heartbreaking and haunting (and familiar) words, "I can't breathe..." And, closer to home, in Central Park, we all saw a white woman quick to use her privilege - and the ever-present racist presumption of black male menace - to escalate a conflict about an unleashed dog into yet another potentially tragic incident.

The killing of George Floyd has set off storms of protest in Minneapolis and elsewhere, as people understandably release long-suppressed grief, frustration and rage, accelerated by some who always enjoy adding fuel to the flames. This sure would be a good time to have leaders of wisdom and compassion. Unfortunately, at the moment, those with the most power obviously have other values and priorities. On the other hand, it wasn’t that long ago that our leaders with the most power sometimes at least aspired to wisdom and compassion. And, if that didn’t make much difference, maybe it’s because our chronic social and economic illnesses are at root a destructive and deadly spiritual disease. We have refused to learn the lessons that God has been trying to get through our hard hearts and thick skulls from the beginning: we are sisters and brothers, created to love God and to love one another.

The Church has been reborn, but the world is still what it is. So, as always, the Holy Spirit must work in and through us, and with all people of goodwill.

I've told you before that I believe with all my heart that, because we are a church of many different kinds of people who love each other, we have been given a special vocation - a call from God to show the world that it is possible for us to recognize and even celebrate differences but to live together in harmony as brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, before our recent rebirth, people usually had to work pretty hard to somehow find us, tucked away on a side street, hidden behind our old walls and stained glass. But now, look, it's Pentecost again! Physical distancing has been tough but, ironically enough, it means we have left our beautiful room and gone out into the world! And, just like those first disciples on that long-ago noisy day in sorely oppressed Jerusalem, just like Christians throughout the centuries, the Holy Spirit will continue to be with us, no matter what.

So, since we have been reborn, let us go forth into our beautiful but troubled world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Your brother in Christ,

Tom

Abundance of Comfort, Abundance of Power

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

May 24, 2020

Year A: The Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 1:6-14

Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

John 17:1-11

Abundance of Comfort, Abundance of Power

            Alleluia! Christ is risen!

            The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

            It’s the Seventh Sunday of Easter – it’s still Easter, but just barely.

            We have just one more week of Easter to go.

            It’s still Easter but this past week we celebrated another big feast, one that is often overlooked because it always falls on Thursday: the Feast of the Ascension.

So, we’re in this little in-between stretch of days, the time between the Ascension and Pentecost, a time that begins with the disciples once again facing what sure looks like Jesus’ absence - and a time that ends when the disciples receive the Holy Spirit and begin to head out into the world, sharing the best news of all-time:

            Alleluia! Christ is risen!

            The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

            So, we begin with our first lesson, the story of the Ascension as told in the Acts of the Apostles.

            Now, at this point the disciples’ heads must have been spinning.

            Remember, it’s been forty days since the Resurrection, forty days since despair and fear had been transformed into hope and joy, forty days of the Risen Christ appearing, forty days of the disciples just beginning to make sense of the amazing new reality of a world where love conquers hate and life defeats death.

            When it comes to getting used to a new reality, forty days is not a long time at all, right?

            I think it took me about forty days just to get used to doing church over the phone and on Facebook.

            So, the disciples were probably just beginning to get used to their new reality when it is upended yet again!

 Jesus says good-bye again and departs from the mountain, promising that the Holy Spirit will give them power.

            Now, being a kind of glass half-empty person, if I had been with the disciples that day on the mountain I think I’d slide right back into despair and fear. I’d ask the others, “Can you believe we’re going through this again?”

            “Can you believe that Jesus has abandoned us again? How will we survive? What are we going to do now? What happens next?”

            Well, we’re told that the disciples returned to Jerusalem and gathered in their room.

            What are you going to do, right?

            But, instead of worrying and spreading anxiety – which would be my approach and maybe yours - we’re told that the disciples prayed – they constantly devoted themselves to prayer.

            And, not to get ahead of ourselves and spoil next Sunday, we know that for those first disciples in just a few short days the absence of Jesus will be filled with the presence of the Spirit.

Scarcity will be transformed into abundance – abundance of comfort and abundance of power.

            And, what was true two thousand years ago is still true today.

            A couple of months ago when we received word that we wouldn’t be able to worship in person for a while – maybe a long while – my natural glass half-emptiness seemed to drain into just plain emptiness.

            I wondered how in the world we could go forward, how would we be able to stick together, how would we be able to provide for those in need.

            Well, maybe this time I’ll finally learn my lesson, because look what has happened here over these past few months!

            Like the first disciples, our first reaction to what sure felt like absence and scarcity was to gather for prayer – our first response was to pray - to pray maybe more than we had ever prayed before.

            I remember that first Sunday when it was just Sue and me and my phone here in our church that felt so sad and empty, and as I said the words of the service I was asking myself if any of you were out there. I worried that maybe the technology wouldn’t work or you would log off and find something more interesting to do on the internet.

            But that’s not what happened.

And each week, by the end of the day, way more people have watched and prayed with us than when we were meeting in person – people next door and people on the other side of the country.

            I remember the first day I dialed into the conference call prayer service, wondering if anyone else would call in, preparing myself for the possibility that I might just have to pray alone.

            But, that didn’t happen that day and it’s never happened.

            Instead, lots and lots of people call in each day – in fact, sometimes Evening Prayer gets a little raucous and I need to use “teacher voice” to impose some order – lots of people call in, greeting people we know and people we don’t and offering some of the most beautiful prayers I’ve ever heard – prayers for our community, for ourselves, for the sick, for the doctors and nurses, for the people who must work in public to keep us fed and safe and to get us where we need to go – and each day we’ve offered prayers for the dead, including when the heartbreaking losses have touched our community and seemed almost too much for us to bear.

            Abundance of comfort and abundance of power.

            When all of this started, I was afraid that people would drift away from the church but, to my amazement, we are actually attracting new people to our community!

            Last week I had a wonderful phone conversation with someone I’ve never met in person, but she has been calling into our prayer services and worshiping with us here on our Facebook Sunday mornings – I spoke with her because she had contacted me to ask me how she could officially become a member of our church!

            Isn’t that amazing?!?

            Abundance of comfort and abundance of power.

            At the start of this time of pandemic I worried we might not be able to pay our bills and might not be able to help those in need.

            But, so many of you have sacrificed and continued to give to the church. And neighbors and friends have made some incredibly generous donations both to support the church and for us to give away to the hungry – and our skilled Finance Committee has done amazing work navigating us through this crisis and keeping us afloat.

            And, as you know, we have continued to serve some of the poorest among us down in Triangle Park. Just last Saturday we once again broke records at our Saturday food pantry with about 170 people lined up around the block.

            And, in a new twist on abundance, our own Deacon Jill and some helpers have started a new program gathering food and clothing from neighbors in Hoboken who have more than they need and delivering those items to our community center, in a neighborhood where often people don’t have enough.

            Our hope is that we will expand that program here to Jersey City, to the places in our city, including Duncan Avenue and some of the blocks around us, where people are full and are looking for easy and reliable ways to share what they have.

            You’ll be hearing more about this in the weeks to come.

            And then there’s Family Promise which has moved into the Parish House over on Storms Avenue, offering stability, decency, and privacy to our guests who need all of that more – and providing us with an unanticipated way to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us.

            Abundance of comfort and abundance of power.

            So, just like the disciples long ago, here we are, and maybe with all we’ve been through our heads are spinning.

It’s in-between time, a time between Ascension and Pentecost, a time between stay at-home and - when we’re ready and not a moment sooner no matter what anybody says - a move to whatever our new normal is going to look like.

            And, just like the first disciples, during this in-between time we have prayed, maybe not constantly, but pretty close.

During this in-between time we have been given so much abundance – abundance of comfort and abundance of power.

We do have at least one advantage over the first disciples – they have to wait a little bit to receive the Holy Spirit but, while we’ll celebrate the Spirit in a big way next week, the truth is the Spirit is already with us – just look at all the abundance!

 Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Amen. 

The Blessing of In-Between Time

A Note to the the Parish:
The Blessing of In-Between Time

Dear Friends,

Some of you know that Holy Saturday morning is perhaps my favorite moment of the entire church year. It is the ultimate in-between time, a space separating Good Friday and Easter, estrangement and reconciliation, despair and hope, death and life. I love the in-between time of Holy Saturday morning, when we can take stock of all that happened in the heartbreaking days leading up to the cross and prepare ourselves as best we can for Easter joy.

We are in a similar in-between time right now.

On the church calendar we are in a moment between the absence after the Ascension that we commemorated yesterday and the presence of the Holy Spirit that we will celebrate next Sunday. We are in the midst of a ten-day stretch of in-between time, the last days of the Easter Season, an opportunity to reflect on the best news of all time - Alleluia! Christ is risen! - and also a chance to recognize that we are never abandoned. The Holy Spirit continues to guide us, strengthen us, and protect us, no matter what.

And, this is also in-between time for all of us in the New York-New Jersey region. Thanks to social distancing and the incredible skill and dedication of healthcare workers, the rates of infection and the number of hospitalizations and deaths have all been steadily falling. At least for now, we are "flattening the curve." Hospitals are beginning to once again expand their range of services. The governors are allowing certain businesses to open. Traffic is getting heavier and, maybe it's my imagination but the air doesn't seem quite as clean as it was a couple of weeks ago. Many of us are eagerly and anxiously looking ahead to the future and the "new normal." But, when it comes to the virus and our life together, there are still many more questions than answers. Although there have been some promising studies, we don't know if a safe and effective vaccine will be available anytime soon. We don't know if the virus will flare up again in the fall, or even sooner. We're not even sure if people who have been infected are immune from reinfection. And, we have little idea when and how we will be able to safely gather once again in our beautiful church.

So, we mourn all that we've lost - so many lives, countless expectations and hopes, and our sense of security and normalcy. And, we look ahead with an uneven mix of uncertainty, fear, and hope. But, we've also been given the blessing of in-between time - a kind of Holy Saturday - a chance to reflect on what this crisis has revealed about our society, about our church, and about ourselves. We've been given this in-between time to look at how God might be at work in our time of trouble, how God is doing what God always does, transforming death into new life.

The pandemic has taught us lessons we should have already known:

The essential workers are the people who grow, slaughter, prepare, and serve our food; the people who scan our groceries and stock and clean our stores; the people who care for people in hospitals and nursing homes and the people who mop the floors and clean the bathrooms; the people who drive the buses and trains; the people who pick up our trash; the people whose job it is to run toward the dangers of crime and fire.

If one part of our society is sick then all of us are at risk. So, setting aside justice for a moment, it is dangerous when the people who serve us in stores and restaurants don't have health insurance and aren't able to take sick days. It's dangerous when our jails are packed with so many people. It's dangerous when corners of the media cynically spew out misinformation, questioning the risk of the virus while taking every precaution for themselves. And, it's dangerous when leaders ignore science and are concerned only with their political fortunes.

This pandemic has also taught us that people are good, generous, and resilient. The pandemic has revealed that our church is stronger than we may have thought. Thanks to the guidance, strength, and protection of the Holy Spirit, we continue to stick together, looking out for one another, and, yes, praying and worshiping with even more faithfulness than when we could sit beside each other in church.

So, here we are, beautiful St. Paul and Incarnation. We have been given the blessing of in-between time - like Holy Saturday or the stretch between Ascension and Pentecost - in-between time when we can look back on all we have lost and endured and look ahead to life, the new life always offered by God, the transformed world that God always invites us to help build.

Seeing the Spirit

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

May 17, 2020

Year A: The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Acts 17:22-31

Psalm 66:7-18

1 Peter 3:13-22

John 14:15-21

Seeing the Spirit

            Alleluia! Christ is risen!

            The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

            Today is the Sixth Sunday of Easter – it’s still Easter – but as you may have noticed from today’s gospel lesson - we are beginning to turn our attention to Pentecost – the great feast when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit.

            In that gospel lesson I just read, we pick up right where we left off last week.

            It’s still the Last Supper and Jesus is preparing his closest friends for the future.

            He’s already told them that they know the way to the place of reunion – and that Jesus himself is the way.

            And now, he promises that the disciples will not be left orphaned – that God will send the Spirit – that Jesus will continue to be with them – to be with us – in a new and profound way.

            These words are found in the Gospel of John, which was probably completed sometime around the year 100, long after the earthly lifetime of Jesus.

            And, so the Gospel of John includes memories and traditions about Jesus that had been handed down for several generations – and it also reflects the experience of a particular community living near the start of the second century.

            Like every community that particular group had its challenges – as always there were some internal disputes – and also some external pressures, too.

In this case, it was getting harder to be both Jewish and a follower of Jesus – people were being forced to make a difficult choice.

            We can hear some of that long-ago pain in this gospel, especially the parts that sound anti-Jewish to us.

            But, like every community, it wasn’t only trouble.

            After all, at least some people stuck around – and they remained and told and re-told the old Jesus stories because they found them to be true.

            So, when they heard the story that we just heard – the story of Jesus promising the Holy Spirit – they didn’t have to “believe” it  - they didn’t have to believe because they knew it was true.

They knew it was true because they continued to sense Jesus with them even with all their troubles – they knew Jesus had kept his promise because they could see the presence of the Holy Spirit, strengthening them and guiding them, and holding them together, especially in times of trouble, no matter what.

            Seeing the Spirit.

           

            Seeing the Spirit reminds me of the last sermon that my friend Dave Hamilton preached as rector of St. Paul’s.

            He stood up in front of us and he talked about some of the ways he had seen the Holy Spirit at work in this place.

            And, over and over, he repeated the words:

            “I don’t have to believe it because I’ve seen it.”

            “I don’t have to believe it because I’ve seen it.”

            Now, it’s possible that I may have “borrowed” that line in my sermons a few times a few times over the years – and, you know what, I’m going to borrow it again.

            I don’t have to believe in the Spirit because I’ve seen it.

            The community that first put together the Gospel of John, they didn’t believe because of stories in a book. No, they believed because, despite their troubles, they could see the Holy Spirit alive among them, holding them together against great odds.

            Seeing the Spirit.

            In today’s first lesson we find St. Paul in Athens preaching to people who probably had no idea what he was talking about. He describes to the Greeks a God who is unknown to them, a God unlike all the other so-called gods, an invisible God who created everything, a God of new life who raised Jesus from the dead, an awesome God who is so close to each of us.

            Just like everywhere Paul went preaching the Good News, he had limited success.

            We know from his letters that Paul was often frustrated, disappointed, and sometimes even angry.

            Most people scoffed at what he had to say or they seemed to forget everything he taught as soon as he left town.

            But, some people stuck around and believed – and I don’t think it was because Paul was such a great preacher or because he convinced them with eloquent arguments.

            No, they stuck around because they could see the Spirit alive and at work in this man who was on fire with the Spirit as he traveled to as many places as he could, giving away his life, tirelessly sharing the Good News.

            Seeing the Spirit.

            And, what was true two thousand years ago is still true today.

            People don’t come to put their trust in Jesus because of what they read in a book or because we are able to talk them into believing some claims to be true.

            No, people come to put their trust in Jesus because they see the Spirit at work – because they see the Spirit at work in us.

            And, I don’t have to believe that because I’ve seen it – I’ve seen it in the life of our brother Sidney King.

            I never once heard Sidney try to talk anybody into believing in Jesus but I know that I’m not the only one who could see the Spirit alive and at work in that man.

            Like Paul, Sidney was sometimes disappointed, frustrated, and even angry.

            The church can break your heart sometimes.

            But, even in those bad times, Sidney stuck around and did the work of building up the church and caring for people.

            If we could gather like we normally do at times like this – and man do I wish we could gather in our usual way – if we could be together you know that we’d hear so many stories of Sidney’s total devotion to the Church of the Incarnation and the Diocese of Newark and in the last few years our unified congregation.

We’d hear about how Sidney kept the Church of the Incarnation going especially during those five long years without a priest - the countless hours he spent on almost every committee and commission known to the church – they way he always wanted to do more ministry, to feed the hungry in the neighborhood, to welcome asylees to live in the Parish House, to take the time to get to know those men and women from faraway lands, to offer hospitality to Family Promise guests.

            If we could gather like we normally do at times like this, you know that we’d hear so many stories of Sidney’s quiet service and kindness, the calls, the hospital visits, the rides to the doctor, his devotion to Eugenia Suthern in her last years.

            Sidney didn’t have to preach about the Spirit because anyone who cared to look could see the Spirit alive and at work in this man, right to the end.

            And, I don’t have to believe it because I’ve seen it.

            Seeing the Spirit.

            It’s not Pentecost yet but we’ve already been given the gift of the Holy Spirit.

            We have not been orphaned.

            We’ve been given all that we need – all we have to do is to be like Paul and Sidney – all we have to do is let the Spirit live and work in and through us – so that even in a time of trouble – especially in a time of trouble - people will look at us and see, really see, the best news of all time:

            Alleluia! Christ is risen!

            The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

            Amen.