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Can These Bones? A Reflection on Pentecost

5/25/2018

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by Mother Brenda Sol
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“To reveal God’s love by nourishing the community through worship, acceptance, and service.”  --St. Andrew’s Mission Statement--

A mission statement encapsulates, and reminds us, of our values as a community. The values we identified as core to who we are as a parish include:
  • We are an open and welcoming community.
  • We love and serve our neighbors together.
  • We care for each other as family.
  • We joyfully live out our faith, grounded in the Gospel.
  • And, we celebrate the journey!
I had been thinking about our core values in relation to Pentecost ever since I read an article from a podcast called “Can These Bones.” I can’t remember where I came across the report, but, of course, with a title like “Can These Bones” it caught my attention because I knew we’d be reading about “dem bones” in the Ezekiel passage on Pentecost Sunday.

As I read the interview with the Executive Vice President of Jet Blue Airlines, I got really excited about how the mission statement of a company in the for-profit world was so similar to ours in the not-for-profit world. Both statements are about making a difference in the world.

The Jet Blue mission statement can be boiled down to two words: Inspiring Humanity.  And the airlines very consciously intend the double meaning: both “inspiring humanity,” as in their actions inspire the rest of the world, and also “inspiring humanity” in terms of taking actions that inspire others to do things that are humane, just, true, and respectful—“inspiring humanity.”

In that article, the Jet Blue executive talked about how not only do all the employees—from the cleaning crew to the cabin crew—have the company’s core values memorized, they are empowered to take actions that might go against protocol, if those actions would better live into the company’s values. So, for instance, after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando a few years back, Jet Blue offered free travel for families of victims, back and forth from Puerto Rico to Orlando. So while increasing the company’s bottom-line is surely a desired outcome, it is not one of their core values.

When we identified the core values of St. Andrew’s, we were coached to think about what we would keep doing as a parish—as the body of Christ—even if we received negative criticism for doing so. Jesus might not have ever mentioned the words “core values,” but he certainly embodied and modeled for us the kinds of risks one ought to take when living into “kingdom values.”

Even though his actions did not win Jesus popularity contests with those in charge, he healed people on the Sabbath, he sat with the other, he insisted that people in his company care for each other—even if they were strangers to each other, because, like Jet Blue employees, Jesus had been empowered to take risks in order to better live into the values of God that would inspire humanity.

The Ezekiel story we read on Pentecost reminds us that sometimes—although the values were there all along, we require new life to be breathed into us. So that breath might be a reclaiming of sorts. It’s not that we’ve been doing church wrong, but the fabric of our culture continues to change, so we dig down deep and we find the points at which more people can access Christ’s message, and we breathe new life into the bones of our parish.
Lately life is being breathed into a national movement called “Reclaiming Jesus.” The founding group is a couple dozen clergy from a number of different denominations—from Baptists to Methodists to Episcopalians—including Michael Curry, our current Presiding Bishop. The preamble to the joint statement of faith they created on Ash Wednesday quotes Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.”

The statement includes six affirmations, each of which is counterbalanced by a rejection. I’ll highlight a couple of them that follow the thread of our core values:
  • We believe each human being is made in God’s image and likeness. Therefore, we reject the resurgence of white nationalism and racism in our nation.
  • We believe how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner is how we treat Christ himself. Therefore, we reject the language and policies of political leaders who would debase and abandon the most vulnerable children of God.
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One of our vestry members was so moved by the statement that she traveled to D.C. to be a part of a prayer vigil the Reclaiming Jesus group held outside the White House this week!

I think that sort of stirring—that feeling that “I have to be a part of this!”—is what the sense of “astonishment” must have been for the people gathered on that day of Pentecost. It’s way more than that they heard their own language being spoken. That kind of astonishment comes in the recognition that the thing that’s happening is so much larger than us, and that we are included in it. That’s the whole point of Pentecost—to alert us, to remind us, to blow through us with a Holy wind that God’s values—God’s love—is for everyone…no matter the language they speak!

This is included in a couple of our core values:
  • We are an open and welcoming community.
  • We love and serve our neighbors together.
Just as Jet Blue has claimed they are about more than simply airplanes, they’re about making a difference in the world, we are not just about this building, we are BEING church out in the world—sharing kingdom values with all we encounter.

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Resurrecting Dignity: The Voices of Young Prophets

4/5/2018

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by Rev. Richard Hogue
PictureCREDIT: Getty Images
A phrase I’ve been meditating on for a few weeks now is: “It’s easy to rush and make a mess, it’s hard to wait and give birth to a promise.” I’m someone who likes to see and get things done. I’m someone who has been too quick to answer, and too quick to move on in the face of frustration. There’s a word for that: impatient. I can be impatient about so many things in life, and I’m not the only one.

When the shootings in Parkland, Florida  rippled through the lives of the young people there, we all experienced some form of impatience. Wherever you stand on issues related to the second amendment and gun control, there’s impatience in the air. Something does need to be done, but what, and how? How do we resurrect dignity in the face of our own impatience?

The young people of Parkland spoke. They used their voice to raise this impatience. In the space filled with sorrow and anger, they used the instrument God gives to prophets. How long, o Lord, how long? They restored their dignity by speaking to vulnerability and suffering.

When I imagine impatience and waiting, I see a sort of dance. Impatience wants things done now, and waiting is okay — letting some pieces fall naturally into place. Neither is wrong, we should want things done quickly; and we need to learn to heel our expectations. All of this is wrapped in the most valuable resource we have: time. In our Greek scriptures in the New Testament, there are two words for time. Kronos (chronology) is sequential time: this happened then that happened. Kairos is opportune time: the time to act, decisive time. I’ll throw in one more Greek word for fun: kerygma. Kerygma is proclamation.

For youth and young adults at St. Andrew’s and across the United States, we are in a moment of kairos. Our confirmation class is at an opportune time to practice their (kerygmatic) proclamation of faith. This summer, the youth group will participate in a kairos moment in fire swept areas of Northern California, proclaiming a Gospel truth of God’s wish to restore us and all of creation. With some help from my fellow young adults, we will embody a moment of kairos, seeking to serve people in our age group by studying our needs and understanding what needs kerygma amongst us.

What we make of any kairos moment becomes kronos, a sequence of events, in the rearview mirror. But in this moment, we still need to listen for the Spirit, discern our call, and then act in prayer and hope. What Christians kerygmatically voice is the resurrection of dignity of all people through the life of Jesus Christ and the grace of God. We, as the body of Christ, are called to restore dignity wherever it lies in shambles, or simply needs restoring. With the example of the Parkland students in mind, may we speak boldly in this kairos moment, and may we proclaim the restoration of all people’s dignity.



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Why I Visit Those Who Need Visitors

1/24/2018

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by Marie Pike, parishioner
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Several years ago, I was asked if I’d like to visit a member of St. Andrew’s who’d had a stroke and was in a care facility. Though I’d never met her, I agreed to make a visit.

I discovered she was unable to talk and was quite emotional. I decided to go back and visit again. Knowing it was hard to communicate, I brought a small photo album of a trip I’d taken. I learned she had also taken many trips, so it gave us something in common. I was delighted to learn she understood everything I was saying/asking. As time went by, my twice monthly visits became a joy to both of us, as her speech was slowing coming back.

Last year when I got my first iPad, I decided to take it and show her how to play Solitaire. This turned out to be very successful. We both would play together, with her making the choices. She had a birthday last August and I had the pleasure of sharing a little celebration with her and her family....a lovely daughter, husband and two grand-daughters.

Since she was formerly an active parishioner, I know she misses church a lot. She still thanks me every time I leave and that’s been over three years.

Even though I did not know my friend before visiting her the first time, our visits have been so rewarding. We are both blessed.

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Gift upon Gift

1/14/2018

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PictureArtist Jim Temples hold Station 11, "Jesus is Nailed to the Cross"
​In his Washington State Cougars baseball cap and jeans, Jim Temples doesn’t look like an artist. He looks more like a track coach, which is what he was for many years, first at San Dieguito High School and later at Torrey Pines. He grew up in a household that encouraged creativity, but it wasn’t until after he and his late wife Carol visited Rome in the mid-eighties that he started seriously pursuing the craft of wood carving. He lights up when he describes the experience he had there, as he touched the hem of Michelangelo’s Pieta. “My eyes said fabric, my fingers said cold stone. And Jesus said, “Start carving, Jimmy!”
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And start carving he did, finding that he had a talent for making the wood come to life. Still, when he was approached by a group led by parishioner Nancy Aldridge to consider creating a series of carvings to mark the Stations of the Cross, he wasn’t sure he was up to the task. There were trained artists in the congregation who he thought would be better choices. Amazed that he was allowed to try to create them, he accepted the challenge and began to study.

Learning about the tradition of the Stations of the Cross was the first step. He read extensively, visited other churches, and looked at examples of the art that was used in churches in Europe. He began to form a plan: there would be 14 stations, and each one would focus clearly on the central action of that scene from the day of Jesus’s crucifixion. “A lot of the images I looked at were so complex and had so many things going on that you couldn’t tell what was really happening.”

PictureThe back of Station 9 which shows it as sponsored by the Wright family and dedicated at Harold Wright's memorial service in 2008.
While Jim was busy planning, the parish was getting excited about the project. Parishioners were able to sponsor a station, and many jumped at the chance. The stations were carved in the order they were sponsored, rather than in numerical order. The back of each station has information about the sponsor, sometimes with a photo of the person who sponsored it or to whom it was dedicated.

Jim’s gift to St. Andrew’s makes participating in the Stations of the Cross service a deeper and more soul-stirring experience. Beyond the emotion of entering into the story of Jesus’ final hours through the prayerful words and physical journey from station to station, the carvings allow you to see the passion of each scene. Jim says he still feels awe each time he looks at them, “I look at them and say ‘Thank you, God.’”

PictureDetail from Station 6, "Consoled"

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890 Balour Drive
Encinitas, California, 92024
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