“I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
from John chapter 17
Jesus is praying for you. His prayer is a reminder that what we try to live out in the Church, the attempt to live together as a community of love, isn’t just an attempt to be nice human beings. It’s much more trying to let the eternal reality of God come alive in us. And that eternal reality is the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is not just a human being transmitting nice ideas or ideals to his followers.
If you look into the face of Jesus, you see reflected the eternal life of God. And that in turn is reflected in you, not just you as an individual but you as the community connecting with each other in a time of distancing, the time of corona. And in this prayer Jesus is both hopeful and realistic. He’s praying for all those who will believe, praying for people who are not insiders as it were but for the entire potential body of believers which is anyone and everyone. He’s praying for you. Welcome to St Stephen’s.
Dear Chums,
As of this writing, last Sunday’s livestream service has been viewed 779 times. The livestreams remain viewable at any time. Here’s the livestream of the March 15th Mass: https://vimeo.com/397550214. We can all thank Jock Putney, Vestry member, for making this possible. The pandemic has forced us to be creative, and to recognize opportunities for engagement with a much wider market.
Tomorrow, we’ll be livestreaming at 10.00am from Christ Church, Sausalito. Fr Larrimore has crafted a service of Ante-Communion. Christine will officiate. Chip will preach. Jock, again, is the camera man. That service will not include musicians. On the 29th we’ll return to St Stephen’s to broadcast our livestream customary of Holy Communion, with Bishop Marc presiding and preaching. More about that anon.
What I want to write about today is you; your voices; your text messages; your emails. We need community all the time. We need the strength and the joy we gain from one another. It’s just that now, when the streets are quiet and we’re sheltering in place, the need is more felt, more obvious than ever. “Sally’s 85 years old and by herself; does she need us to bring her milk?” “Hey Phil. Hope you and Victoria are well. Anyone coordinating shopping / errands for the elderly from the church? I am volunteering if needed.” That’s you. That’s who you are. That’s what’s going on, what you’re doing in the time of corona. You’re looking after one another, calling each other, zoom virtual meeting each other to check in, to study what Joe calls Slow Religion: The Gospel according to St John and what I think of, affectionately, as John’s Gospel with Joe, with all of us Joes. (His zoom class meeting was terrific, by the way. I don’t mind telling you that it made tears well up in my eyes.)
You’re going for walks together six feet apart and closer than ever. You’re teenagers FaceTiming to discuss your baptisms. You’re taking back, some of you, all your jokes about homeschooling, or you’re making new ones about it. You’re deciding social media isn’t the worst thing to happen to the world after all. You’re working frenetically, one earbud in your left ear to join in one call, another in your right ear to join in another, drawing blood from here to Sacramento as you join the international effort to chase down a vaccine. You’re doing everything you can — even not going to church when your natural instinct is to be in church to pray — to buy time for that to happen, so the doctors and nurses and hospital workers can do their magic without being overwhelmed. You’re a Deacon working faithfully in one of those hospitals as Chaplain.
I needn’t write here to update you on how we’ve pivoted operations. You can read the St Stephen’s Central page of our web site for that, a page that we’ll be curating and updating week by week. Here I want to put in a good word for anxiety. Well-intended people, perhaps some of them clergy, are telling you not to be anxious. And while I understand the intent behind that, I want to say that anxiety is the appropriate response to what’s going on right now. It’s okay to be honest about that. It’s okay to be anxious. Also, I’ve spent a lot of time (and money) to read the Bible closely in the last 45 years. I do my best to be a non-anxious leader, and much of the time that comes naturally to me. But there is no biblical account of non-anxious leadership. The Bible is full of anxious leaders. Moses, Jeremiah, Mrs Job, David, Blessed Joseph (whose Feast Day was March 19th), the Blessed Mother, Mary Magdalene, Peter, Paul. These are the shoulders on which we stand. They all went through a thing or two.
From Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter four, verses six and seven: “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone; the Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything [my emphasis] by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
I think there is this tendency when we tell each other not to be anxious that we’re saying please just shut up. Right? Please just keep it to yourself. We don’t want to hear what you’re worried about because it will make us more worried. We don’t want to hear what you're afraid of because it will make us more afraid.
But we do, actually, those of us in this Body of Christ we call St Stephen’s, we do want to hear what you’re worried about, what you’re anxious about. So stay in touch. Keep calling and texting and emailing and zooming us. Don’t shut up.
The Lord that we worship and love, from the Altar to our dining tables, from the Font to our bathtubs, from your fridge to Sally’s doorstep, is a God with us always, a God who so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son. Bring your anxiety to God. The Most High won’t turn you away, but instead will offer you steadfast love, from this corona time forth and forevermore. God says, Come to me with your supplications. Come to me with your worries. Come to me with your anxieties. Don’t just do it yourself. Bring it to me.
—PCE+
7 Things Seen or Heard
PBS runs 5 hours of kids shows in the morning. Like his predecessor, Mister Rogers, Daniel Tiger and his family have long been a source of comfort to parents and children all over the world, especially in times of trouble.
The Advent Choir, Boston | Choral Evensong, 18th March 2020. Live recordings of The Church of the Advent Choir, an all-professional choral ensemble in Boston.
Christian History Almanac | A daily 5-minute podcast that highlights those stories—sometimes well known, other times less so—that have shaped the history of the church. Hosted by historian and author Dr. Daniel van Voorhis, each daily podcast concludes with a piece of prose or poetry.
Comfort in Covidia | “ ... you and I find ourselves ‘strangers in a strange land’ (Exodus 2:22). What we face is threatening and even frightening. Nevertheless, I’m comforted by the fact that many of the followers of Jesus have trod this path before.” Hat tip to Marjorie Sennett.
Yale Public Health | Experts address latest novel coronavirus developments.
Italians Sing from their balconies | Questo è bello! Hat tip to Karen Foss.
Worship from St Stephen’s |Holy Communion, from St Stephen’s Belvedere, 15th March 2020.