Seasonal Journal Pentecost / Ordinary Time / Christ the King Sunday June 9-November 24, 2019

“Pentecost: True Spiritual Unity and Fellowship in the Holy Spirit” by Rebecca Brogan

Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Colorado Springs, CO

Mission: To accept God’s grace and bear witness to His grace in the world

On the cover: “Pentecost: True Spiritual Unity and Fellowship in The Holy Spirit”: Rebecca Brogan, the artist who created the wonderful drawing, reports that from left to right the celebrants’ ethnicities are Northern European, Australian Aboriginal, Hispanic, Russian/Western Asian, South American, Middle Eastern (modeled after the original Christians who received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2), African, Pacific Islander, South Asian, Native North American, East Asian, and Mediterranean European. You can see more of Rebecca’s Christian-themed art at John the Baptist Artworks online. Table of Contents The Liturgical Season 3 by Joan Ray

A Pentecost Poem: Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur” 4 by Joan Ray

Pentecost: A Lesson in Active Listening 7 by The Rt. Rev. Larry Benfield

Pentecost: Leap of Faith 9 by The Rev. Tim Schenck

Trinity Sunday 11 by The Rev. Rainey G. Dankel

Ordinary Time: The Green Season 13 by The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

The Not So “Ordinary” Time 14 by The Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary 16 by The Rev. Jen Williamson

“Fear Not”: A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday 17 by The Rev. Lonnie Lacy

A “Heart Strangely Warmed” 19 by David Margiotta

Walking with the Mystics: My Journey with Saint Teresa of Ávila 21 by Nicole Hensel

Editor’s Note Bishop Kym Lucas’s Easter Sermon Song 23

Back Cover: “A Portrait of Grace,” © Poem and Drawing by GSS Parishioner, author Ronnie Lee Graham (about whose work you can learn at http://www.ronnieleegraham.com) Image of Jesus and Nicodemus, a stained-glass window at GSS, photo by Nicole Paulson Editor: Joan Klingel Ray Editorial Assistant: Cindy Page Layout and Design: Max Pearson Printed by Print Net Inc., owned by David Byers, 306 Auburn Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80909 Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church at Tejon and Monument Streets (Nave), 601 N. Tejon St. (Office), Colorado Springs, CO 80903 Tel: (719) 328-1125 http://www.gssepiscopal.org Rev. Jeremiah Williamson, Rector Rev. Brendan Williamson, CSJC Curate Pastor Jennifer Williamson, Youth Minister The Seasonal Journal does not receive funds from Grace and St. Stephen’s. The Journal’s publication is made possible through the generosity of parishioners. If you’d like to donate to the Journal’s publication costs, please note “Journal” in the memo section of a check made out to GSS Episcopal or on an envelope with cash that says “Journal Donation.” Permission to reprint: Nearly every article in this issue of the Seasonal Journal is available for use, free of charge, in your diocesan paper, parish newsletter, or on your church website. Please credit Grace and St. Stephen’s Seasonal Journal. For sermons by clergy of other churches, please contact the appropriate church. Any copyrighted image is so noted. Permission to reprint any copyrighted images must be obtained directly from the artist. Let us know how you’ve used the Seasonal Journal by emailing [email protected].

The Liturgical Season Liturgical Color As we observed in the previous issue of our On Pentecost, the liturgical color for the clergy’s church’s Seasonal Journal, the Episcopal Church’s vestments and the paraments (hangings on the altar, Liturgical Year is divided into seasons. The current lectern, pulpit) is red, symbolizing the tongues of fire as Seasonal Journal treats Pentecost and Ordinary Time. the Holy Spirit descended. During this period, we will also celebrate the feast day of Trinity Sunday and conclude with Christ the King Sunday. Trinity Sunday Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost. It is the only feast day in the church year that חגג To Celebrate Religiously: hagag The Hebrew root-verb hagag “describes “a commemorates a doctrine—the Trinity—rather than a gathering of people in order to celebrate or hold a feast, person or event. Trinity Sunday is the “Feast that specifically any of the three main pilgrimage feasts that celebrates ‘the one and equal glory’ of Father, Son, and Israel was to celebrate (Exodus 23: 14-16)” (Abarim’s Holy Spirit,’ in Trinity of Persons and in Unity of Being’” Online Biblical Hebrew Dictionary http://www.abarim- (BCP, 380). publications.com/Dictionary/ht/ht-g-g.html#.XI0SjxNKiGg Retrieved April 3, 2019). When we celebrate in a religious Ordinary Time sense, we are honoring a day with solemn rites. In the The term “Ordinary Time” does not appear in the Church, we celebrate feast days. Book of Common Prayer; however, it is addressed in the Episcopal Glossary. The term is used in the Roman Catholic Feast Days and Movable Feasts Church to describe that period after the Day of Pentecost Feasts in the Church are days of celebration with through the First Sunday of Advent, which is the beginning solemn rites. “The seven principal feasts (Easter Day, of a new liturgical year. Ordinary Time, also known as Ascension Day, the Day of Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, All Early and Late Pentecost, is the longest season in the Saints' Day, Christmas Day, and the Epiphany) take church year. We will see in our church bulletins that precedence over any other day or observance” (Book of Sundays are named in relationship to Pentecost, the Common Prayer, 15). Church Feasts are all Sundays, the previous feast day: for example, the Second Sunday after fixed dates of Christmas (December 25) and Epiphany Pentecost, the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, etc. (January 6), and the “movable feasts.” Movable feasts on “Ordinary” is likely derived from the word ordinal, the liturgical calendar are feast days that do not fall on the meaning counted. Ordinary Time—the season that begins same date each year. Easter is a movable feast, as it falls after Pentecost Sunday—is the time of year when we are anytime between March 22 and April 25. Easter’s date not commemorating the major events in Jesus’ life (his determines Ash Wednesday (40 weekdays before Easter), birth at Christmas; his death on Good Friday; his Ascension Day (forty days after Easter), and Pentecost resurrection on Easter). Instead, we are reading Scripture (fifty days after Easter, the 7th Sunday after Easter). about the life Jesus led during his time on earth in terms of what he said and did. Pentecost Pentecost, derived from the Greek word, The Liturgical Color pentecostē, meaning fiftieth, as in the fiftieth day, is a major Green is the liturgical color after Pentecost Sunday. Green feast day in the Episcopal Liturgical Year. Marking the end is the color of living, growing things; it is the color of hope of the Easter Season, Pentecost in 2019 falls on June 9 and and renewal as we celebrate the Holy Spirit in our lives. celebrates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the We are growing in our Christian lives as we learn about the Apostles, fifty days after the resurrection of Christ, as told life of Jesus Christ. in Acts 2:1. In the British Isles, Pentecost Sunday is called Whitsunday. In Acts 1, we read that the Apostles, along with Christ the King Sunday: “certain women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus,” The First Sunday after Pentecost were gathered in a room, praying. The second chapter The final Sunday of the Liturgical Year is Christ the King recounts how a sudden gust of wind filled the room, and Sunday: November 24, 2019. Pope Pius XI originally “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a instituted it in 1925 as a “celebration of the all-embracing tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with authority of Christ, which will lead mankind to seek the the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as ‘Peace of Christ’ in the ‘Kingdom of Christ’” (Oxford the Spirit gave them the ability” (Acts 2:3-4). Some Dictionary of the Christian Church). Initially celebrated on scholars interpret the speaking in tongues as symbolic of the last Sunday in October, it is now celebrated on the final the Church’s worldwide reach. For this reason, Pentecost Sunday before Advent, the first day of the liturgical year, is frequently called the “birthday of the Christian Church.” which will be year A for 2019: year A is always a year that The BCP identifies Pentecost Sunday as “especially is divisible by 3 without a remainder. appropriate for baptism” (312).

A Pentecost Poem: “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins This sonnet, a poem of 14 lines, is, to be more by Joan Ray precise, an Italian sonnet, wherein the final six lines resolve the thought or problem set forth in the first A fourth-generation New York City native, Joan has been a eight lines. In the first eight lines, “God’s Grandeur” member of our church since moving to Colorado in fall explores the relationship between God—particularly 1978 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of English at God’s grandeur—and the natural world and the way UCCS. Retired, she is Professor Emerita of English and “man[’s]” or humanity’s works are at odds with God’s th President’s Teaching Scholar. Her PhD in 18 -century work. The poet then provides a resolution in the final British literature is from Brown University. With others in the Faith-Seeking Class, she reaffirmed her confirmation six lines, showing that God’s grandeur is immutable, vows on May 25, 2019 with Bishop Kym Lucas at Pueblo’s inexhaustible—infinite. Ascension and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. In the first line, the poet confidently asserts, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” The One of the great Christian line echoes Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the poets, Gerard Manley glory of God; and the firmament shows his Hopkins (1844-1889), was handiwork,” as well as Psalm 104, a poem dealing born to a British family of with God’s majesty in creating the world, particularly the Anglican faith. While verse 24, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In studying at Oxford wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of University, Hopkins was thy riches” (KJV, which is used in this essay because drawn to John Henry that is the edition of the Bible that Hopkins would Newman’s Oxford have known). We are speaking here of God’s Movement: members were grandeur: dignity, majesty, beauty, not to be confused High Church Anglicans who with grandiosity. desired to restore the The speaker’s use of the word “charged” is a liturgical rituals and beliefs from the Roman Catholic provocative choice: “charged” is an active word, Church to the Church of England. In July 1866, suggesting an invisible electrical “charge” that is a Newman (later Cardinal Newman) received Hopkins continuous action in the world. A Victorian poet using into the Roman Catholic Church, a conversion that a word associated with electricity? It’s perfectly estranged him from his family. By 1870, Hopkins natural. became interested in the Jesuits; he was ordained a In 1600 British physicist and physician Jesuit priest in 1877, the same year he composed William Gilbert (1544-1603) coined the word “God’s Grandeur,” one of his most well-known poems. “electricity” from the Greek word elektron, meaning His fame as a poet came posthumously when, in amber. Humphry Davy (1778-1829) first 1918, his friend Robert Bridges, by this time demonstrated electricity in England in 1806. By the England’s Poet Laureate, arranged for the publication 1870’s middle-class British homes had electric of Hopkins’ poems. In addition to his deep interest in lighting. The poet, therefore, would have been Christianity, Hopkins was also fascinated with nature. familiar with the concept of electricity. Using the “God’s Grandeur” celebrates the presence of God’s word “charged” gives the opening line far more grandeur in nature, which has always led me to think potency than simply saying, “The world is full of the of this poem as both religious and ecological. grandeur of God.” This “charge” is not just a one-time The world is charged with the grandeur of God. occurrence, as the moment when God said, “‘Let there It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; be light.’” The grandeur of God is ever-present, It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil charging through the world: divine pyro-technics. Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Moreover, God is in charge. The first line stands Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; alone: the statement ends with a period. And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; Lines 2 and 3, along with the first word And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil (Crushed) of line 4, which completes the thought of Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. 8 And for all this, nature is never spent; line 3 and is followed by a period (Crushed.), are two There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; complete thoughts connected by a semicolon (;). The And though the last lights off the black West went “It” that begins lines 2 and 3 refers to “The grandeur Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— of God” in line one. In these lines, the poet illuminates Because the Holy Ghost over the bent what he stated in line one. World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. 14 4

First, the speaker states that divine grandeur a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow “will flame out, like shining from shook foil”: God’s out of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest grandeur will manifest itself suddenly, like a flame. upon him.” Jesse is the father of King David: Isaiah When I taught this widely-anthologized poem in prophesies the coming of Jesus, who is of the House freshman-level Introduction to Literature classes, I of David. In Matthew 1:1-6, we read the genealogy of had to caution my students not to interpret the Jesus: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the phrase “flame out” in the way we use it today: to lose son [descendent] of David, the son [descendent] of power suddenly and abruptly, or in aeronautical Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). Mankind ignores Jesus. terms, “when the flame in the combustion chamber of “Rod” also suggests rule: why does man—why does a jet engine being extinguished, with a resultant loss humanity—not obey God’s rule? In Revelation 19:15, of power” (Oxford Online Dictionary). we read that the rider on the white horse “will rule Hopkins, writing in 1877, uses “flame out” in them with a rod of iron.” Put simply: mankind is the sense of emitting a sudden flame. He thus invokes recklessly ignoring God. Pentecost, Acts 2:3, when God’s grandeur “flamed The poet laments how humanity has failed to out” on Pentecost in the person of the Holy Spirit: the heed divine rule in terms of what man has done to Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles as “cloven God’s Creation. “Generations have trod, have trod, tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them” have trod:” historically, mankind has slowly trampled (KJV, my italics). the earth, which the poet emphasizes by saying “trod” In a letter dated January 4, 1883 to Robert three times (trod, trod, trod). I can almost hear the Bridges, Hopkins explained that he used “foil in its incessant pounding of careless, heavy footfalls of sense of leaf or tinsel”: leaf means “gold, silver, or successive generations. The line suggests the blind other specified metal in the form of very thin foil” repetitiveness of back-breaking, mind-numbing (Oxford Online Dictionary, leaf definition 2.1 trudging over the earth. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/leaf). This is more than just a warning to keep Hopkins continued in his letter: “Shaken gold foil off the grass. gives off broad glares like sheet lightning and also, Hopkins wrote this poem at the height of and this is true of nothing else, owing to its zigzag Victorian England, a time of increasing urbanization dents and creases and network of small many and industrialization, which led to the growth of cornered facets, a sort of fork lightning too.” In other wealth and a consumer culture. Consequently, the words, God’s grandeur, a radiant force, operates like Creation bears the weight of history trampling over it sheets of gold foil that, when shaken, will refract light and crushing it. The Whole Creation is “seared with brilliantly, will shine in the way that “Shaken gold foil trade”: humanity is overly concerned with industry, gives off broad glares.” commerce, and monetary profit. Business sears God’s grandeur also “gathers to a greatness, (burns, dries, withers) the grandeur of God’s like the ooze of oil / Crushed.” When olives are creation. The trodding, trodding, trodding, the pressed, the oil oozes slowly, gradually from the searing, blearing, and smearing: all are signs of the press, and gathers in the decanter as valuable olive industrial culture where the smoke stacks of the oil. factories foul the air. In “Jerusalem” William Blake So, we have divine grandeur not only shining back in 1804 wrote of “the dark Satanic mills” that abruptly like lightning, like flames, but also oozing befoul the English countryside. This thought echoes slowly like oil from a press that is gently, slowly in the Hopkins poem, written decades later as crushing olives. These images intensify God’s increasing industrialism spread across the land. grandeur charging through the world. Line 2 states As line 6 continues, the poet despairs that “All that God’s grandeur “will flame out”: will is the future is . . . bleared, smeared with toil”: earlier in the line tense. Line 3 states that God’s grandeur gathers to a the poet said the world was “seared.” We have in a greatness: gathers is in the present tense. Thus, God’s single line the rhyming of seared, bleared, and grandeur was, is, and will be charging: in the past, smeared—internal rhyming words that suggest, present, and future. respectively, drying out, making obscure and unclear, With God’s grandeur charging through all and spoiling or making dirty. Creation, how has that creation fared under man’s / The world “wears man’s smudge and shares humanity’s “charge”? And here I use “charge” in the man’s smell”: what an indictment of mankind’s sense of mankind or humanity being in charge of the treatment of nature! Mankind befouls nature. Even world. “Why” asks the poet, does not man “reck” or heed God’s “rod”? The poet uses the word “rod” as it is used in Isaiah 11:1-2, “And there shall come forth

5 the fresh aromas of nature are tainted by human The World is body odor. Moreover, “the soil / Is bare now, nor can “bent”: bent means curved foot feel, being shod.” Industrialization treats the and morally corrupt, earth as nothing more than a repository of minerals: reminding us that we live think of the scar on our own Pikes Peak. The poet in a fallen world. The Holy concludes the poem’s first 8 lines with modern man’s Ghost / Spirit “broods” disinclination to go barefoot. Wearing shoes is just over—contemplates another sign of humanity’s disconnecting from sadly—the “bent,” corrupt nature. But don’t you love to go barefoot on thick, world. green grass? (Hopkins’ fellow Jesuits frequently But the poet also speaks of the Holy Ghost found their brother on the ground outside on all with “warm breast” and “ah! bright wings.” More fours, examining a bug or a leaf as he was connecting specifically, he uses the image of the Holy Spirit as a with nature.) brooding mother hen: when a mother hen broods she Remember, this is an Italian sonnet, where is ready to hatch her eggs and raise her brood of the final six lines resolve the problem posed in the chicks—an implied play on words. first eight lines. Line 9 in an Italian sonnet is called In Matthew 23:37 (KJV), Jesus, after the “turn” or volta. Consequently, line 9 assures us, lamenting over Jerusalem, changes his tone, showing “And for all this, nature is never spent [used up, God’s merciful love for His people, and expresses His exhausted, completely depleted].” Despite all the desire to gather them the way a mother hen gathers, bleak observations about man’s blight of nature in warms, and protects her brood of chicks: “‘O the first eight lines, Nature is ever alive, ever fertile, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, ever charged with God’s grandeur. Why? “There lives and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often the dearest freshness deep down things”: invisible to would I have gathered thy children together, even as the naked eye (similar to God’s grandeur charging a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye through the world like electricity), freshness or would not!’” Thus, the Holy Spirit, like a mother hen, spiritual energy are ever alive, ever potent, “deep protects her brood, warming them with her “warm down things.” Divinely charged grandeur in the breast and ah! bright wings.” The exclamatory Creation is inexhaustible. phrase, “ah! bright wings,” returns us to the first line The poet reassures us that although the sun of the poem with God’s grandeur charging through goes down at night, leaving the world in darkness, the the word like an electric current. That exclamatory light springs up again at dawn. This, states the poet, is “ah!” before “bright wings” suggests a sudden the work of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit: the poet realization, a moment of intense wonder. uses the image of a bird for the Holy Ghost. Think Finally, the phrase “ah! bright wings” reminds about these lines: “Because the Holy Ghost over the us that the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! hovering over Jesus when he was baptized (Luke bright wings.” 3:22) and descended on the Apostles at Pentecost “like tongues of fire.”

“ah! bright wings”

Could any image be more appropriate for Pentecost?

The Rt. Rev. Larry R. Benfield was consecrated in 2007 as the 13th Bishop of Arkansas. He visits one of the state’s 55 congregations almost every Sunday. A native Tennessean, Bishop Benfield graduated magna cum laude with a degree in agricultural economics from the University of Tennessee; he then proceeded to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania to earn his MBA. After working in commercial banking in Houston, TX, he entered Virginia Theological Seminary, where he received his Master of Divinity degree in 1990. Ordained as a deacon and then a priest in Texas, Benfield served Texas A&M University as its Episcopal chaplain. (1990-1992). In 1992, Father Benfield went to Hot Springs, Arkansas as curate and then interim rector at St. Mark’s Church. In 1996, he assumed the same role at St. Luke’s, also in Hot Springs. He worked at the Diocese of Arkansas Office as executive of planned giving and then as Canon for administration. Christ Church in Little Rock called Father Larry as its rector in 2001; he redeveloped that historic downtown congregation that traces its roots to 1839. Bishop Benfield remains in that position while also serving as Bishop of the Diocese. He currently serves as a member of the board of the Anglican Theological Review and as chair of the General Board of Examining Chaplains of the Episcopal Church.

Pentecost: A Lesson in Active Listening a narrative of destruction, because fire destroys, A Sermon Preached on June 4th, 2017, and we have destroyed much. Even our sense of Pentecost Sunday fire as purifying agent has resulted in modern At Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Little Rock© purity codes, which have kept so many people by the Rt. Rev. Larry Benfield, away from Christianity’s Holy Tables. We need to Bishop of Arkansas be focusing on real issues of everyday hurt. But I do know that something holy and In a sermon years ago during Advent, I vital for today’s church is going on in the lesson told a congregation that we need not be so from the Book of Acts. The amazement and purely Protestant1 that we forget the power of astonishment on Pentecost arise when people image as an aid to evangelism. So, for Advent, I listen to the many and varied voices. Not tongues wanted a powerful symbol for chasuble and altar of fire, but honest to goodness tongues. Perhaps frontals: a bulldozer. That’s right: a big, yellow it is time to look at the outlines of fire on the bulldozer, representing the coming in judgment altar frontal as also representing an oscillogram of all of God’s power to change the face of the of sound wave, a reminder for us to listen. earth, lowering mountains and filling in valleys, I have just returned from a meeting of the making the way level, bringing an equality to all House of Bishops theology committee. We had humans regardless of whether they grew up on not met in over a year, and as you know, a lot has the safe hills overlooking towns or in flood- occurred in this nation in the last twelve months. prone lowlands. If there is one thing the church We were trying to determine exactly what the can easily do, it is to remind us through liturgy church can do to help overcome the tension that and symbol of our call to reconcile one human exists even inside congregations over political being to another. loyalties. How can the church address the Today we celebrate Pentecost, a principal selfishness of our actions? And then there is the feast in the life of the church that may also be environmental struggle to care for creation, and crying out for even wider ways that we see more broadly, the isolation that results when the liturgical symbols in an age in which the idea of only voices we hear are chosen for us by unseen evangelism is so fundamentally changing. For algorithms designed to reinforce what we example, we no longer see it as our goal to go already believe. Everything I read or listen to evangelize the unchurched so that we can help mirrors my worldview, and there is something them become more like us. That sort of unholy about that fact. What we know is that evangelism, for example, led to the subjugation right now we are in a world of hurt. This world is of Native-Americans in our own country and the broken and sin filled. I think the anxiety that destruction of their cultures. And I want us to be almost everyone feels every day is proof enough able to see the fire of Pentecost day as more than of the reality of that statement. just flames. Subconsciously, flames can play into 7

The story of Pentecost gives us a chance Christians have that ultimately, we will be to change the status quo. The change can come reconciled to one another and in that process be from the admission that it is amazing and reconciled to God. astonishing, to use the words of the writer of the The church that is born on Pentecost is Book of Acts, to listen, to open one’s ears to new not about having as its primary focus bringing voices [Acts 2:7]. Good news comes from more people into its buildings in order to make listening as much as from talking. That is them like us. If anything, people coming into our certainly a change from how we have looked at buildings ought to teach us a few things about evangelism. what the world is really like. The church that is Pentecost is as good a day as any to talk born on Pentecost is about good news, and good about the mission of the church. After all, we like news first and foremost must be presented to to say, somewhat truthfully, that the church was people who feel that they have no good news in born on this day. Any entity needs a mission, or it their lives, whether because of skin color or lack will soon die. Our mission is no less than the of opportunity or ill health or broken reconciliation of God with humanity and human relationships or crushing debt or any accident of being with human being. Authentic birth. We who are inside this church sometimes reconciliation can become reality when we will find ourselves in one of those groups. And listen, when we converse, when we engage. thus, we need to listen to each other. When our theology committee started And for all those people outside the taking a close look at what it means for the body church, we have to go stand beside them and of Christ—and its members—to use the body’s listen to their stories and talk with them and ears to listen, we realized that it is not something engage them so that good news breaks forth that we can do while sitting in church buildings. even in the midst of a broken and sinful world. It Churches are fairly quiet places. Come here any is then that the kingdom of God becomes current weekday and experience the silence. Rather, reality. listening and conversation and engagement take On this Pentecost listen to the writer of place when the church gets out of its buildings the Book of Acts when he tells us that it is and puts its ear to the ground for a real amazing and astonishing when we hear the Pentecost experience. Hear the multiplicity of Medes and Elamites and Pamphylians2 of the languages, hear the stories of people who 21st century. Whose voices are they? That is disagree with us, hear the stories of the least and exactly why Holy Scripture is still holy; it is still the last who have never been in this room, even speaking to us right now; the Pentecost story hear the story of the earth itself as a creation— being lived out today. and the earth’s varied peoples—that continues Whose voices, whose languages, will we to groan under our poor stewardship [e.g., see hear? If we want to experience the good news, the essay on “God’s Grandeur” in this issue]. then listen to what the Spirit is saying to God’s Active listening will be painful, but if we people. And when we listen, we will be well on can so talk about tongues of fire coming down on our way to finding eternal life. Amen. people, which seems rather painful to me, then Endnotes we can push through the experience of the pain 1 The Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation (1560- of listening to stories that make us 1700) against the spread of Protestantism famously uncomfortable about our own complicity in the used art to revitalize that Church. See Bernini’s altar evils—both small and large—that make up so piece, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, on p. 21, for example. much of life. Prominent Counter-Reformation painters include Caravaggio and Titian, whose paintings hung in This is holy pain, and such holy pain can churches and cathedrals. Contrarily, Protestant lead to repentance, and repentance—not simply Churches were historically austere inside. an apology, but a turning around to a new way to 2 Medes and Elamites were early Persians (Iranians); live—starts to make real the hope that we Pamphylians were ancient Greeks.

The Rev. Timothy E. Schenck, Rector of the Episcopal Parish of St. John the Evangelist in Higham, Massachusetts, on the south shore of Boston, came to the editor’s attention by his being the founder of the inspiringly clever and literally saintly online alternative to basketball’s March Madness, Lent Madness, described as “a unique, engaging Christian formation experience. Lent Madness has been featured in such media outlets as USA TODAY, the Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, network television, and National Public Radio.” A graduate of Tufts University, Father Tim worked on political campaigns and as the Public Affairs Officer for an Army Reserve Unit in Baltimore after being trained as an Armor Officer and paratrooper. At Seabury-Western Theological Seminary (Episcopal) in Evanston, IL, he was Student Body President. Ordained in 2000, he has been rector of St. John the Evangelist since 2009. Father Tim’s blog is Clergy Confidential, and he writes a monthly syndicated column, “In Good Faith.” A runner, guitarist, and patron of Higham coffee shops, he enjoys spending time with his wife Bryna, two teen-age sons, as well as their dog and ferret. Father Tim is the author of four books, including Father Tim’s Church Survival Guide (Morehouse, 2015) and most recently Holy Grounds: The Surprising Connection between Coffee and Faith—From Dancing Goats to Satan’s Drink (Fortress Press, 2019). Biographical information about Father Tim is from his blog and his church’s website.

Leap of Faith blow the lid off our preconceived notions; it can by The Rev. Timothy E. Schenck challenge us with new ideas whether or not we’re A Sermon Preached on the Ninth Sunday after ready for them. An encounter with the Spirit in your Pentecost, life isn’t always a comfortable experience, but I find July 29th 2012 that once we stop resisting, once we stop fighting a battle we can never win, we’re often left with that There is some really bad Pentecost clip art elusive sense of peace that surpasses all human out there. I know, because after seeing someone post understanding. And we can start living again. what looked like a flaming pigeon on Facebook and I’ve been thinking about my own personal Google, I did a little poking around. metaphor for the Holy Spirit of late, and I keep Now in fairness, the Holy Spirit is hard to coming back to an experience I had about 30 years conceptualize. Traditional imagery includes flames, ago. One August I found myself at Fort Benning, as we heard in our reading from Acts, that “divided Georgia, having volunteered to go to Airborne School tongues, as of fire, appeared among the disciples.” to be trained as a paratrooper. I was an Army ROTC Wind roared, as in “from heaven there came a sound cadet at the time and afraid of heights, so naturally I like the rush of a violent wind.” A dove appeared, as decided I needed to jump out of an airplane. when Jesus is baptized and we hear that “the Holy The “friendly” instructors stress two things Spirit descended upon him like a dove.” So, wind, fire, over the first couple of weeks of ground training dove: kind of like Earth, Wind, and Fire, but different. before you make your five jumps to qualify for your All of these are metaphors, of course, as we hear the Airborne Wings: how to exit the aircraft and how to Spirit described “as of fire,” “like a violent wind,” and land. Since it’s the equivalent of jumping off a ten-foot “like a dove.” If teachers were allowed to talk about wall, you spend a lot of time learning how to land. the Holy Spirit in a middle school English class, this And it’s painful. But I want to focus on the other piece would be a textbook lesson on the use of the simile. of this — learning how to properly jump out the door. [Ed. note: For those who were absent from English There’s a training apparatus / torture device called class the day the teacher taught figures of speech, a the 34-foot tower. Why 34 feet? Because Army simile is a figure of speech that compares two engineers determined that this was the precise dissimilar things using the word “like” or “as.”] So, height where fear was maximized — you’re not so the Spirit is tough to pin down both as an image and high up that everything on the ground looks fake, and as a concept. You can’t hold onto or grab ahold of you’re not so low that it looks safe. Now, it doesn’t wind or flame, and neither can you control them. I help that these wooden towers were built during guess you could theoretically grab a dove, but I think World War II, and they kind of sway back and forth as you get the point. If there was ever a strong reminder you climb up the rickety stairs with a bunch of other that we’re not actually in control of the things that nervous soldiers. happen in our lives, the Holy Spirit is Exhibit A. When it’s your turn, you get hooked up to a The Holy Spirit blows where it will. It can churn harness and free fall about four feet before your line things up inside; it can knock you off your feet; it can catches and yanks you back down on a zip line. Chin

9 down, eyes open, feet and knees together, count to powerful feeling of discombobulation will yield to an four. Each exit gets evaluated by one of the overwhelming sense of peace. instructors, and you have to do it properly three After you leap out into that violent rush of times in a row before you “pass” that portion of the wind known as the prop blast, and you’ve gotten training, which generally ends up taking a few days. separation from the airplane, and your chute opens Anyway, when you’re actually up in the airplane and up, the contrasting silence and peacefulness of the standing in the door, it’s loud; it’s windy; it’s descent is remarkable. It’s just like what happens unnerving, and then suddenly the green light goes on, after the Holy Spirit knocks you down, and you and you leap out into what feels like the abyss. We suddenly find yourself exactly where you need to be were taught to leap out rather than to just fall out to doing exactly what you need to be doing. You enter make sure your lines don’t get caught in the big into that sense of peace and let it wash over you and propellers of that massive C-130. That would not end know that Jesus is with you. well. And in those four long seconds before your Now, the ground starts to come up awfully parachute deploys, you feel like a rag doll caught in a quick, so you can’t stay in this state of reverie for very tornado (that’s another simile for those keeping long. The whole point of military jumps is to get as score). many people onto the ground in as short a time as And to me that is precisely what it feels like possible, so you’re only in the air for about a minute when the Holy Spirit grabs ahold of you. Sometimes it before reality starts to rapidly rise up to meet you. takes you where you’d rather not go; sometimes it The Holy Spirit isn’t just about some completely disorients you; sometimes its sheer force individual personal spiritual experience. We take the overwhelms you; sometimes it makes you feel utterly experience and hit the ground running— sharing our powerless. faith with others; opening our hearts to one another So how is the Spirit working in your own life? in Jesus’ name; becoming part of a faith community It may be urging you to take a new career path or join that acts as Jesus’ own hands and heart here on earth. a ministry at church that might be out of your And so, on this day we say, whether we’re ready or comfort zone or pursue a passion you’ve neglected or not, “Come, Holy Spirit, Come.” reach out to an estranged friend or family member. Sometimes the Spirit moves like that violent wind, but sometimes it’s more of a gentle breeze. But how do you know if it’s the Holy Spirit or something of your own invention? Something you’ve made up out of thin air? A reflection of your own desires rather than God’s? That’s where listening, and discernment, and testing come in. First, we can’t listen unless we make room for some intentional silence in our lives. Second, we need to have conversations with wise friends or counselors. Third, we need to try things out. If it’s not truly of the Spirit, God will let you know. And if it is, I guarantee that

Re Lent Madness: Many of us at Grace and St. 2010 as Father Tim’s “brainchild.” Learn about Stephen’s enjoyed and learned a lot about The Lent Madness at the following site: Church’s Calendar of Saints by playing Lent https://www.lentmadness.org/bracket/ Madness during Lent 2019. Lent Madness began in

Rev. Rainey Dankel served as Associate Rector of Boston’s historic Trinity Church until retiring in March 2019. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School and was ordained priest in 2011. Her previous careers included teaching philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and working in municipal administration, including ten years as Assistant City Manager, and seven years as General Manager of WHQR, NPR’s classical music station in southeastern North Carolina. Rainey was a vocational deacon—an ordained person with a special call to care for those in need— for ten years, discerning a call to priesthood after the death of her husband in 2005. The Journal editor gives great thanks to Patricia Hurley, Trinity Church’s Director of Communications, for help above and beyond the call of duty in contacting Rev. Dankel and photographing the John La Farge Nicodemus mural for us.

of water to affirm unity and diversity. Or the three-leaf Praying in the Trinity clover or intersecting circles. I once attended a service where the preacher lobbed Three Musketeers candy bars A Sermon Preached on Trinity Sunday, May 17th into the congregation shouting, “All for one and one for 2018 all.” Relax, no such demonstrations here! by The Rev. Rainey Dankel, Instead, I am going to take my cue from the Trinity Church, Boston Westminster Divines, and point us away from an Psalm 29 intellectual exercise. The New Testament does not use Romans 8:12-17 the term “Trinity.” The three-part formula of Father, John 3:1-17 Son, and Holy Spirit occurs only a few times, and it is “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit primarily a liturgical expression: in Matthew we are bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of twice commanded to baptize in the name of Father, Son, God.” (Romans 8:15b-16). “Very truly I tell you, no one and Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians it is a benediction: can see the kingdom of God without being born from “The blessing of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. . . .” above” (John 3:3). This suggests that we experience God as Trinity through the poetic language of worship rather than discursive In the mid-1600’s, the English Parliament, under argument. the control of the Puritans, created a group called the The Scripture readings for today invite us to Westminster Assembly and tasked them with providing make this move, to understand the unfolding revelation documents for the reform of the Church of England. It of God through the eyes of the heart more than the took almost five years for the Assembly to complete its words in our head. And it seems especially appropriate work, as there was much debate over each point of for us worshipers at Trinity to experience this revelation doctrine, worship, and polity. In preparing the through prayerful worship rather than an analysis. (This catechisms (which have a question and answer format), reminds me of the tired joke about some kinds of there was particular difficulty in writing an answer to the Christians who expect when they die, not that they will fundamental question, “Who is God?” After hours of go to heaven or hell, but they will go to a lecture on exhausting debate, it is said that the participants decided heaven and hell.) to take a break from writing and turn to prayer. One of In today’s Gospel reading from John, we the men stood up and began to pray, “O God, Thou who encounter the figure of Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a leader art a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in Thy in the Jewish community, who comes by night to talk wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and with Jesus. He wants to know more about this rabbi truth….”1. By the time the prayer was over, they had the whose deeds mark him as one sent by God. He is makings of a beautiful answer. When they moved from a prepared for an intellectual discussion. But Jesus theoretical exercise to an experience of worship, their immediately moves in a different direction: “No one can hearts were opened. see the kingdom of God without being born from Today is Trinity Sunday, always observed on the above.” Nicodemus is perplexed at this unexpected turn. Sunday following Pentecost. It is the time when the He keeps trying to understand as Jesus repeats the Church celebrates the revelation of God as Father, Son, mysterious symbolic language. Nicodemus thinks he has and Holy Spirit, a fundamental expression of Christian come to this man for personal edification. Jesus takes the faith as we have received it. And for us, whose parish discussion to a cosmic level: God has come to the world bears the name of Trinity, today is the equivalent of our out of love, not to argue with, but to save us. patronal feast. It is especially tempting, therefore, for the Perhaps we are irritated with Jesus. Here is a preacher on Trinity Sunday to offer words of explanation chance for him to engage with an educated, curious about the doctrine of the Trinity, the affirmation of one person, who seems genuinely interested in learning God known in three “persons” as Father, Son and Holy about Jesus. What comes back seems unpastoral, even Spirit. You have undoubtedly heard many of these. We disrespectful. When Nicodemus is confused, Jesus says, try analogies like ice, liquid, and vapor as the three states “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not

11 understand these things?” (John 3:10). Jesus is not the life of fear and move confidently into the future to engaging in an intellectual exercise. An encounter with which God calls us. Jesus is not a lecture on heaven and hell. It is an Nicodemus doesn’t say anything further in his opportunity to encounter the transformative power of encounter with Jesus, so we don’t know how he reacts. God, the Spirit wind that blows where it will, whose We see him only two more times in John’s gospel (the source is shrouded in mystery. This encounter is so only book that mentions him). In chapter 7, when the dramatic, so life-changing that it can only be understood Jewish leaders (the Sanhedrin) are talking about with the metaphor of a second birth. arresting Jesus, Nicodemus disagrees, pointing out that Just when we are feeling dismissed or Jesus has not received a fair hearing. The last time we discouraged, Jesus turns the attention to himself, as the see Nicodemus, he comes with Joseph of Arimathea to One sent by God to embody this transformation. Jesus ask Pilate for Jesus’ body, bringing expensive spices to has been sent to be lifted up (John’s standard language prepare Jesus’ body for burial. pointing to crucifixion) to draw the world to himself, so The one who had come to Jesus in the dark has that all might be reconciled. Jesus concludes this now shown himself publicly to be one who knows and discourse with some of the most beloved words in cares for Jesus. Perhaps this is a sign of the new birth Scripture: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only that Jesus offers, turning to a new way that leaves the son, so that everyone who believes in him may not darkness of fear and moves into the light of love. It perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). seems that Nicodemus is being born “from above,” as God has chosen to identify completely with this Jesus said. The Spirit of God is blowing into his heart, messy world, this world of darkness, in which we giving him new courage and a new direction. stumble around and try to find our way. This world I love that we read this story on Trinity Sunday. where violence, greed, and hopelessness seem to be the And I love that the figure of Nicodemus greets us each dominant powers. Where we long to know that we are Sunday as we come here. One of the two murals we see beloved of God, despite the ways we fail to live into that as we enter the nave of the church shows Nicodemus in love. Like Nicodemus, we want to know; we want an his encounter with Jesus. It’s on the south wall, in the explanation. With Nicodemus, we encounter one who shadows as it faces says, “I want more than your mind. I want your whole north. I don’t know if self. Because I am offering you a different way of life. It this was an intentional is costly, because it is infinitely valuable.” The Spirit connection to the whom Jesus offers, the one he has called the Counsellor, lectionary for Trinity is his continuing presence, assuring us of God’s love and Sunday on the part of the challenging us to live into that transforming power. designers. It certainly Our reading today from Romans continues this speaks of the welcome call to transformation. Paul uses a familiar image of that Jesus offers, an being children of God, a welcome that is extended to us invitation to encounter through the Spirit: “For all who are led by the Spirit of the new life that he God are children of God.” And how does this happen? It promises us. is through the radical action of God: we are adopted by For us, as for Nicodemus, it is an invitation to God. This is not the result of our merit, our own discover God’s great love for us. To take us beyond fear struggling to be good, but out of the depths of God’s of condemnation into the warmth of transforming love. great love for us. It is symbolized as we use the words To assure us of God’s never-failing care for us. To Jesus taught us: “Our Father!” Abba! Father! We challenge us to come out of the shadows and to stand acknowledge our dependence on the source of our life. bravely in the light of that love, to work against We are called into a new relationship with God: as oppression and hopelessness, to be willing to be Father, Savior, and Spirit of Love. We open our hearts to transformed more and more into the likeness of the one God, and we discover that we belong to God as beloved who offers us this gift. To find ourselves as brothers and children. sisters in Christ, mirroring the intimacy of Jesus’ The Spirit who makes us God’s children is the relationship with God as the Father in the power of the Spirit revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who has Holy Spirit. taught us to call God Father, Mother, the loving Creator As we come into this place, to pray “Abba, of our life. Jesus, who throws himself on the ground in Father!” may we discover ourselves as newly born the dark of Gethsemane, to pray to Abba for the strength children of God, brought into relationship with Christ and fortitude to continue the fight. Jesus who assures his and with each other. May we find ourselves renewed by followers that they will receive the gift of new life on the the Spirit that helps us in our weakness and in our other side of suffering, through the Spirit that the Father confusion. May we find ourselves transformed by the sends to them. The Spirit of God empowers us to reject power of Christ’s love that enables us to share the gifts

12 we have received, so that the world may see what this Endnote new life means. May everything that we experience in 1 See The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647), Answer to Question 4: What is God?” [https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/westminster- this place speak to us, and to all who enter here, that shorter-catechism/ Retrieved April 28, 2019.] Many sources recount the “God so loves the world.” anecdote about the incident at the Westminster Assembly; see for example A.W. Tozer, The Cost of Spiritual Maturity. Moody Publishers: 2006. David James Burrell. The Laughter of God and Other Sermons. NY: Fleming-Revell, 1918: 168.

Ordinary Time: The Green Season creek that cut through the field and sustained the by Jeremiah Williamson, deer that hid among the wild briars. And of Rector course, the sun that I imagine is much brighter now in my mind than it ever was in my eyes. For me Ordinary Time is And I know there was time—that time always awash in vibrant existed back in those days. But I guess it was less greens. And it’s not just the in control. There was always some kind of beautiful vestments that I freedom in the green of summer. For three wear throughout the months, life was not ordered by alarm clocks or season; it’s not just the by school bells. Instead it felt more primal: life green that hangs from the ordered by sun and moon and sometimes by pulpit like a conquest flag rain. It was as if for this short period of time, reminding Eastertide that the fifty days have each year, God ordered our days. And it was once again been exhausted. Green is the color good. And always green. that I see in my memory when I think about And now I am older. And my alarm clock summer, the season that always nestles itself sounds even on summer days. And so that has into the wide expanse of the Church time we call changed, as everything does. Everything except Ordinary. the picture in my head: the green of Ordinary It’s the green rolling hills of eastern Ohio. Time. The hills I rolled down as a child, from my This year, once again, I will wander grandparents’ farmhouse to the ditch that was through the season, dreaming of green frogs in like a moat between yard and rocky road. And green pond slime. I will think of those vibrant my grandfather pushing the lawn mower over summers when God ordered my days. And I will the green grass for what felt like hours. And the be reminded that that is the meaning of Ordinary pond, thick with frogs and cattails and slime. Time. And I will say a prayer, a prayer laced with And I would stand by the pond and look memory and hope. And all will be good. And out over the valley. A lush valley turned green always green. by the water that spilled over the banks of the To the left is an image of the Northern Leopard Frog found in Ohio. Image and information from https://trekohio.com/2012/03/17/ohio- frogs-toads/

“The green frog is the most abundant and widely distributed frog in Ohio.”

The Rev. Denise Vaughn became the fourth rector of The Episcopal Church of the Annunciation, Vidalia, GA, in 2015. A 1976-graduate of the University of South Florida with a B.A. in Political Science, she entered Deacons’ Training in the Diocese of Southwest Florida in 1995. Ordained a vocational deacon in 1997, Vaughn served three congregations in Charlotte County, Florida, until 2005. Her ministry included recruiting and leading groups to cook and serve at the local Homeless Coalition and leading youth groups to participate in the Guadalupe Center in Immokalee, FL. She also received training and led groups in a bereavement care ministry called “Walking the Mourners’ Path.” As a deacon, Vaughn coordinated, recruited, and led parishioners on short-term missionary teams to the Dominican Republic. She served her Diocese in many ways, including as a member of the Commission on Liturgy and Music and as Chair of the Companion Diocese Commission. In 2008, Vaughn received a Master of Divinity from The Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. Upon graduating, she was ordained to the priesthood and accepted a call as priest in charge of outreach and pastoral care for the more than 1000-member Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Austin, Texas. From 2010 until November 2015, she served as the Rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Chillicothe, Missouri. Denise has two brothers, a daughter and four grandchildren in South Carolina.

2 Corinthians 4:5-12 We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Mark 2:23-3:6 One sabbath Jesus and his disciples were going through the grain fields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

The Not So “Ordinary” Time who would stand with them making their work possible. This same helper, the Holy Spirit, stands with us today A Sermon Preached on June 3rd, 2018 to help and guide us in carrying out the work of Christ. by The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn, Rector These weeks for the church in the northern Annunciation Episcopal Church, Vidalia, GA hemisphere are connected with growth and fruitfulness in the Christian life. We come to understand that through Last Sunday, we began the long Season after our “ordinary” lives we live out our Christian faith. Pentecost, which many refer to as “Ordinary Time.” Not From the beginning, the church founded at Pentecost had to say that this time will be boring or uneventful as the to grow in its understanding and it had to take in— meaning of ordinary might imply. It just refers to the assimilate—and continue the life and work of Jesus Sundays after Pentecost Sunday by ordinal numbers 1- Christ through the Holy Spirit, while actively 33. This year the Sundays number 1-27. [In 2019, the anticipating his second coming. We, too, must do these numbers go from 1 to 24.] Today is the Second Sunday same things. after Pentecost. Our task for the months ahead in this Joan Chittister, O.S.B., well known author and season, which extends to the end of November, is theologian, writes, “Each Sunday, remember, is a feast, a anything but ordinary. Our task is to look at what Jesus little Easter in its own right. . . . Each [Sunday]. A taught his disciples and see what is in these teachings for return to the core of the faith, the center of the church, us as we seek to carry out the work of the gospel today. the call of the Christian community that ‘Jesus is risen.’ Jesus promised his disciples a helper, the Holy Spirit, Week after week we go back to the center of the system,

14 not because there is some unusual event going on but part of keeping the Sabbath. They are hungry. They are precisely because this is normal to the faith.”1 The being fed. Someone needed a cure. So that person is resurrected life of Christ pours into his church! Through cured. the scriptures of Ordinary Time, we are led “along the We see Jesus breaking the Sabbath over and path of salvation history,” which makes us part of the over because the keeping of the Sabbath laws needed to crowds who follow Jesus from one situation to another. be changed to take into account human need, human Week in and week out, we enter more deeply into the hunger, to include what matters to humankind and to resurrected Christ and gain understanding of his life and God. This highly symbolic story sets the stage and tone ministry. for much of what Jesus’ ministry is all about. He is not So, let us begin this season by becoming a part recommending that the secularized weekend replace the of the crowd that follows Jesus during these 27 weeks of religious and cultural observances of Judaism. Jesus is “ordinary time,” and let us see what is in the teaching not telling his disciples not to keep the Sabbath, nor is he today that Jesus would have for us to help us live out our diminishing the importance of the Sabbath, or Christian faith. In this section of Mark’s gospel, Mark is recommending it be abolished. He is allowing it to be using a series of stories to show the way in which Jesus humanized. He knows that on the Sabbath people need begins to perplex the Jewish religious leaders and also to to be fed, with physical and spiritual food. The laws demonstrate the beginnings of opposition to Jesus and need to be broadened to accommodate human hunger. his ministry that will only grow in time. The religious We are hungry and in need of many things. We need leaders assume that they know all about Sabbath food, water, and shelter, and we also need God’s love observance and that assumption reveals their pride and and presence. We need regular contact with God and arrogance. They know the details of the law, but have God’s people in community. forgotten the One who gives it. And that is the reason we come together each When I was growing up, the observance of week to share the meal of God we call the Eucharist, Sabbath was a day when most everyone I knew went to which has very few rules that govern it. We do need church and the whole American culture shut down. It clergy and baptized people, some prayers, bread, and was a day for being, not doing, and that was part of the wine. We don’t necessarily have to dress up, but we do gift of the day called Sunday. Although for the Christian, have to be here to be fed. After we are fed, the Spirit of Sunday is our Sabbath, not Saturday as it is for the Jews, God continues its work in us. When laws fail to take into our whole culture inherited its understanding of the account human need, or violate compassion and respect Sabbath from Judaism. The way we spent our Sundays for all human life, Jesus gives us a model of change. when I was growing up, was very similar to how good And disciples continue to break laws in his name. Being Jews had kept the Sabbath for several thousand years. a Christian in today’s world is not easy. Living into the Within Judaism the Sabbath teachings were central. A Sabbath takes discipline and courage, as we resist the good Jew kept the Sabbath as a way of honoring God, as pressures to conform to the world. But as we are fed, a way of remembering God, as a way of renewing the week after week, by God’s Word and Sacrament, by human side of the God-human covenant. Rituals, God’s people in love and friendship, we find keeping the prayers, and songs expressed the teachings and Sabbath is what we know we need in order to live. spirituality of Judaism. All the gospels say that Jesus In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul went to the synagogue on the Sabbath. gives us words of encouragement for our journey as we Today if the Sabbath, Sunday, is to be a holy are reminded that God acts in ways that do not fit into day of worship and rest, we need to make that a priority. the world’s criteria, and this is what Jesus is reminding We have forgotten, me included, how to keep the us, that the Sabbath is made for us as a gift for living our Sabbath. And in a way this is what Jesus is saying and lives with each other and with God because the world doing when he concludes his incident with the Pharisees gets more and more frantic every day. Let us remember by saying, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and in these “Ordinary Days” the importance of keeping the not humankind for the Sabbath.” Yet, keeping the Sabbath, as a time for being, a time made holy to receive Sabbath in Jesus’ day was not easy either because it was and be fed, to reflect and learn what Christ would have governed by many laws. No one was supposed to do any us understand about his life and ministry. Then send us work, no cooking or selling, and a Jew could get into out Holy Spirit to do the work we have been called to trouble with the religious authorities if he or she were to do. Amen. break any of the Sabbath laws. This included a law that said you were not to help anyone in need. On this Endnote 1 particular Sabbath, Jesus breaks the laws of the Sabbath Joan Chittister and Phyllis Tickle, The Liturgical Year: The by allowing his disciples to pluck heads of grain to feed Spiraling Adventures of the Spiritual Life. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009:185. themselves, and then he heals and restores a man’s deformed hand. Jesus obviously sees these actions as

Although she is an ordained smiles and postures that are both relaxed and Pastor in the United Methodist anxious to hear. Then it begins. Sharing . . . deep Church, Jen has spent a lot of sharing. Usually there are tears and laughs, questions time in Episcopal Churches with and affirmations. No one walking into that ordinary her husband, our rector, Father room ever knows what will come, even the person Jeremiah, whom she met at Drew Theological School, Drew speaking. When she finishes, we pause, breathe, and University in Madison NJ. The then reflect on what was shared. We ask ourselves: Theological School was founded “Where does this person's story intersect with my in 1867 “to provide organized story?” “Where do I see God in what this person has theological education for shared?” Then we reflect, affirm, question, and Methodist Episcopal Church ministers” discuss out loud. Time is up more quickly than seems (http://www.drew.edu/theological-school/about/ possible. We pull out our calendars and arrange our Retrieved May 14, 2019). next meeting in one month. Somehow in that ordinary space with The Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary ordinary breathing and ordinary words, the Holy Spirit enters, and we all leave knowing we have by Pastor Jen Williamson, experienced something extraordinary. I began this Youth Minister spiritual direction group hoping/trusting that we would experience just that. I had been part of a group It is an ordinary room, with ordinary chairs like this before: a group of all clergy women whose that we arrange around an ordinary table. We bring ordinary moments in an ordinary room have stayed bottles of water, sweaters, purses: the things that with me years later. It helped me to grow, heal, and meet our ordinary needs. It takes about 15 minutes connect. before we start, as we all come from our ordinary When I started this group at Grace, I invited days filled with meetings, jobs, school pick-ups, people from the church to join by simply saying it is a errands, etc. We peel our children from our sides and spiritual direction group; it meets once per month; entrust them to the care of kind and loving only 6-8 persons can be in it, and you have to commit babysitters in the nursery, and then we begin. to it for at least one year. People trusted me and It starts ordinarily enough: making small talk, showed up! As we approach summer and reflect on silencing cell phones, breathing deeply. Our breathing the seasons we have met, we all feel like we have opens our ordinary eyes, ears, and hearts to found something valuable, needed, and special in our something more. After a brief silence someone offers time together. a short devotion she has prepared. Then silence again When I think of “Ordinary Time” in the and a simple/ordinary question, “How is it with your liturgical calendar, I think about Jesus preaching, soul?” With that question in mind, we check in with teaching, interacting, changing hearts, and speaking one another. We share our triumphs, challenges, words of wisdom and hope that were so stressors, worries, fears, doubts, and joys from the extraordinary that we are still hanging on to them previous month. We all share— except for one. We thousands of years later. There is something really pause; we take deep breaths, and when the person beautiful that can happen in the ordinary spaces of who finally volunteered to share deeply is ready, she our ordinary lives when we allow the Holy Spirit to begins to talk. move among us and open our hearts to each other. It starts off with a few disclaimers: “I will Just like wine and bread becoming body and blood, probably ramble”; “I'm not sure where I am going water becoming grace, our time together as brothers with this”; “I don't know how much you want to and sisters in Christ becomes sacred and it is hear”—as the rest of us silently nod with reassuring extraordinary.

The Rev. Thomas A “Lonnie” Lacey was called to St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Tifton, GA in 2009, after serving concurrently as the Episcopal Chaplain at Georgia Southern University and the Assistant Rector at Trinity Episcopal Church in Statesboro. He is a native of the Diocese of Georgia and was ordained to the priesthood in 2006 after graduating from the Virginia Theological Seminary. As Rector of St. Anne’s, his primary responsibilities are in the areas of preaching, worship, discipleship, and leadership development. Beyond St. Anne’s, he is a trainer for the Church Development Institute and Chair of the Examining Chaplains for the Diocese of Georgia. He and his wife Jay have two daughters.

Or maybe we see the One described in Revelation, who comes with the clouds and declares, Fear Not: A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” [Rev. 1:8. 22:13] All of that is powerful, and right, and true, and by The Rev. Lonnie Lacy we Christians look for the Day when that King will return in great power and triumph to judge the living Preached at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Tifton, and the dead. GA, on Christ the King Sunday, But no matter how we picture him, this King November 25th, 2018 of ours is not like any other king, and his power and Today is what we in the Church call “Christ triumph are not like the power or triumph that the King Sunday.” It’s the last Sunday of the Church others in this world try to wield. year, and everything begins anew next week with the We already know this King, and he has shown start of Advent. himself to be like no other. In one month on But on this day—the bridge between what Christmas Eve, we will remember that when we first has been and what will be—we stop to remind one found our newborn King, he was a poor peasant another that we are servants of the King of kings and child, lying in a manger. A few months after that, we Lord of lords. will look for him robed in glory, but instead we will Before we are Tiftonians, before we are find him naked, dying on a tree. No, when God sent Georgians, before we are Americans, before we are His emissary— when God sent us our King—some Democrats or Republicans, before we are anything would say we got less than we bargained for, but I else . . . we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. would say we got more. Who is this King of glory, and how shall we We wanted a Messiah, a warrior, a call him? strongman, a demigod to wipe out all fear and subdue Well, anyone who has ever walked into this our enemies. But what we got was a Messiah sanctuary cannot miss the fact that we at St. Anne’s who could barely speak before the court of Pontius consider Jesus Christ to be our King, for there he is, Pilate. front-and-center: our Christus Rex, hand-carved by This is our King. His power is not bluster. His former member Travis Smith, crowned with glory triumph is not fear. Given the present unrest in our and welcoming all with open arms. own country and the palpable turmoil in other nations across the globe, what we hear many people saying these days is, “We just want someone who will keep us safe. We need someone who will make us secure. We need someone who will protect us and keep us from fear.” Of course, this is nothing new. For thousands and thousands of years, people have been looking to the horizon, searching high and low with their hearts and minds set to the quest of finding that one king who would set them free, keep them safe, and release them from all fear. The difference is, you and I have already When he’s like that— perfectly lit and robed found him. in splendor—he ought to remind us of the One we see His strength is in weakness; his power is in promised in the book of Daniel [2:44-45; 7:7-28; love; his protection is in grace. 9:24-27; 12:1-4], the One to whom all dominion, Our King is like no other. glory, and power are given, that all peoples, nations, Some of you have heard me tell the story and languages should serve him. before of a man named James Hampton. Hampton 17 was a quiet, unassuming night janitor for a D.C. was—and it was—the most telling part was the government building in the 1950’s. Every morning inscription emblazoned at the very top. when he would leave his shift, he would head to this For a man so soul-possessed by the vision of garage and work inside it for hours before returning Christ’s triumphant return, you’d think Hampton home to sleep and begin the cycle again. He kept the would have been filled with dread. garage locked at all times and worked in it for But there, rendered in foil just above the crest fourteen years. Then, in 1964, Hampton died of of the throne of the Almighty, Hampton had inscribed stomach cancer, and the owner of the garage decided the two words that God’s angels and emissaries have to break the bolt and open the door. declared to his people for thousands of years: Perhaps the landlord was hoping to find that “FEAR NOT.” Hampton had been working on a car or something Who knows what was going on in James valuable he could sell to recoup some of the back Hampton’s heart and head all those fourteen years? rent. But in the end, he was right: our King is coming. . So, imagine his surprise when he threw open And when he does, he will sit on the throne of the door and found a glittering throne surrounded by the trash of our lives—for what else do we have lecterns, stands, tables, crowns, tablets, and more: actually to offer him? —to rule in justice, mercy, and 180 pieces in all. James Hampton had been building a love as no other king ever has. throne for the return of Christ, and he had been doing Brothers and sisters, on this day and every it out of aluminum foil, gold candy wrappers, day, we are citizens of the Kingdom, and we belong to cardboard, old light bulbs, air conditioning ducts, the King. thumbtacks, pins, tape, and glue. Out of the trash of our lives, James Hampton was making way for the Coming of our King. Christ has died. In his 108-page loose-leaf notebook, he called Christ is risen. it The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Christ will come again. Millennium General Assembly. To this day, it can be found on display in the Smithsonian American Art In the meantime, be not afraid. Museum in Washington, D.C.1 Amen. Here was a man who was downright “soul- possessed” by something larger than himself, grasped Endnote by the promise of a King who would not let him go. 1 I first learned of this piece through Thorne, Jesse. “Big Boi & Catherine O’Hara.” Podcast. Bullseye with Jesse Thorne. MaximumFun, 19 May 2015. But as fearsome and fantastic as Hampton’s throne Below: James Hampton’s “Fear Not” is now on display in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art

GSS parishioner David Margiotta, a lector and intercessor at the 8am service, which he attends with his wife Cynthia, is a retired United Methodist Pastor. Currently a clinical psychologist at The Colorado Mental Health Institute, Pueblo, he earned his BA in Psychology from The State University of NY at Albany, Master of Divinity from The Iliff School of Theology (Denver), and Doctor of Psychology at The Colorado School of Professional Psychology. David served as Senior Pastor at Calvary United Methodist Church and Associate Pastor at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, both in Colorado Springs, and Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Gillette, WY. David’s other professional positions include being a Chaplain Counselor at Pikes Peak Hospice and Pastoral Counselor at Samaritan Counseling Center. When he shared his Methodist history with me, I immediately asked him to consider sharing it with all of us in the journal. Methodism in the US dates back to 1736 when brothers John and Charles Wesley came to the colonies to spread the movement they began as students at Oxford University. Both Wesleys had been ordained in the Church of England. Charles Wesley experienced a conversion on May 21, 1738; John experienced his three days later. Their conversions were part of The Great Awakening or Evangelical Revival that swept through England and the thirteen colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, a movement that stressed individual piety and religious devotion. John Wesley was famous for his sermons. Charles Wesley composed over 5500 hymns. Twenty of these hymns appear in The Hymnal (1982) we use. Thanks to parishioner / photographer John Stevenson for photographing David as he serves as the Intercessor at the 8 am service on May 5.

The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M. 4 vols. London: Charles H. Kelley, 1827: I, 97, ed. boldface [May 14 [24], 1738] “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street [London], where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart.” According to James Kiefer, a prominent writer of Christian biographies, John Wesley (1703-1791) was a “powerful preacher, [who] averaged 8,000 miles of travel a year, mostly on horseback. At the time of his death he was probably the best known and best loved man in England” (http://satucket.com/lectionary/Wesley.htm Retrieved April 24, 2019). The Methodist Church “celebrates Aldersgate Day on Sunday, May 24th (or the Sunday closest), to commemorate the day in 1738 when John Wesley experienced assurance of his salvation” (http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/what-is- aldersgate-day Retrieved April 24, 2019). influence of other charismatic leaders in Protestantism, such as Martin Luther and John A “Heart Strangely Warmed”: Calvin, John Wesley, through his sermons and his A Retired United Methodist Pastor Discusses his exceptional ability to organize people in groups, Attraction to the Episcopal Church accompanied by Charles’ hymns, resulted in a by David Margiotta, further fracturing of the Church and the formation GSS Parishioner of what would eventually become a family of new denominations. Despite these unintended The Book of Common Prayer “Calendar” consequences, John and Charles remained faithful commemorates the brothers John and Charles sons (and priests) of the Church of England until Wesley on March 3 (21). As you might recall, the their deaths. Wesleys initiated a movement to refresh the life and I was baptized, confirmed, ordained, and mission of the Church of England in the 18th served as a pastor in the United Methodist Church century. The participants in this movement were (UMC). Some years ago, I retired from pastoral called Methodists, even while retaining their ministry. These days my ministry is that of a membership in the Anglican Church. Like the clinical psychologist working with the mentally ill

19 involved in the criminal justice system. It is here at part of the Lord’s day service. And Grace and St. Stephen’s that my spirit is nourished for several centuries they received it and renewed. When Joan Ray asked me to consider almost every day. . . . Accordingly, writing an article for the Seasonal Journal about those that joined in the prayers of the why I, as a clergyman in the UMC, am now active faithful never failed to partake of the in an Episcopalian congregation, it was not difficult blessed sacrament.2 to think of a plethora of reasons. But I will confine my reflections to just one central reason. As conceived by Wesley, Methodism was to When I was active in ordained ministry, I be an evangelical order within the catholic Church would often describe myself as an “Anglo-Catholic of England. Unfortunately, the Eucharistic focus Methodist”. Of course, this was not an official wing was lost as early Methodism, influenced by many or movement in the church. It did and still does, forces, developed into a more Protestant church. however, express my lifelong appreciation of the However, a 20th-century Roman Catholic historian liturgical, sacramental, contemplative Catholic and characterized John Wesley’s work as “a return to Anglican traditions, as well as the social concern Catholic doctrine in its deepest and most traditional and devotional spirit of Methodism’s “warmed form, but powerfully revived by the most positive heart.” Protestant intuitions.”3 Like many individuals at our church, I was The Eucharist can be that symbol of unity by exposed to more than one church in my youth. which Christians of all types transcend their There were the spirited hymns and Sunday School differences and divisions. The Eucharistic unity of songs ringing out from the white clapboard the church empowers our missional unity, which is Methodist church nestled in the woods beside the crucial for the healing and saving of God’s world. brook in the suburbs not too distant from New York By receiving Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, we City. And closer to downtown were the vaulted are strengthened to be Christ’s presence in the arches and haunting cadences of the Roman mass at world. St. Mary’s. In ways that I do not fully understand, For me, participating in the weekly but which I do appreciate, the gifts of both Eucharist at Grace and St. Stephen’s is a way in communities came to reside in me. which I stay in touch with the sacramental focus of For me, the heart of the Christian life is the early Methodism. More importantly, for all of us, Eucharist. The bread and wine nourish our hearts the Eucharist is a means of staying in touch with and shape our lives in the image of Christ. I pay what is the real life of all churches: particular attention to my heart because I live with a I am the living bread come down mild heart condition. My daily round of medications from heaven. Whoever eats of this keeps it working well. But once a week I care for bread will live forever; and the bread my heart by receiving what the early church called that I will give for the life of the “the medicine of immortality,” the Eucharist.1 world is my flesh. Those who eat my Through the liturgy and the sacrament, all of flesh and drink my blood abide in our hearts are steadied, renewed, and prepared for me, and I in them (John 6: 51, 56). the week ahead, which Christ invites us to live with trust and compassion. The centrality of the Eucharist was strongly Endnotes 1 Ed. Note: St Ignatius of Antioch (d. 110 CE) in The Epistle of emphasized by the Wesleys. Charles wrote over 150 Ignatius to the Ephesians, chapter 20, explains the healing power of Eucharistic hymns. John, in his address to his the Eucharist, which he calls “the medicine of immortality, and the students at Oxford, The Duty of Constant antidote to prevent us from dying, but [which causes] that we should live forever in Jesus Christ” Communion, asserted: (http://www.orderofstignatius.org/files/Letters/Ignatius to the Let everyone, therefore, who has Ephesians.pdf Retrieved 8 May 2019). either any desire to please God, or 2 John Wesley. “The Duty of Constant Communion” in John Wesley, Albert Outler ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964: 336 any love of his soul, obey God, and 3 Louis Boyer, Orthodox and Protestant and Anglican Spirituality. consult the good of his own soul by New York: Desclee Co. Inc., 1969: 192. [ Ed. note: Louis Boyer communicating every time he can— (1913-2004) was a French Lutheran Minister who in 1939 was received by the Roman Catholic Church. A prominent writer about like the first Christians, with whom Christian spirituality and history, Boyer served as a consultant on the Christian sacrifice was a constant liturgy at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).] 20

St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) grew up thinking she was great sinner. Her strict and pious father sent her to a convent when she was 16. While first despising the cloistered life, she became attracted to it when given the choice between marrying and becoming a nun: she saw how unhappily her parents were married. At the convent, Teresa practiced mental prayer—what we might call meditation—to keep, in her own words, “Jesus Christ within me.” Stricken with malaria, she ceased praying for years until, when she was 41, a priest urged her to return to a prayerful life. Teresa began to experience active spiritual enlightenment: quiet prayers during which God overwhelmed her senses, rapturous prayers when her body seemed to be raised from the ground, ecstatic prayers during which she felt God melt her soul away. While a contemplative, she also spent time and energy reforming the Carmelite Order in order to return the nuns to their Primitive Rule. In 1562, she founded the convent of Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Primitive Rule of St. Joseph at Ávila: discalced means without footwear. Teresa is unique as a writer on mystical theology [i.e., treats acts and experiences of the soul that cannot be produced by human effort even with Divine Grace] insofar as she writes from deep personal experience and made no effort to establish a school of thought. Her most famous vision was of a seraph repeatedly driving a fiery, golden lance through her heart, which she described: “I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it.” (St. Teresa of Avila The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, trans. David Lewis. NY: Cosimo, 2006: 226, which reprints chapter 29 of St. Teresa’s autobiography.) Teresa’s account inspired the great Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) to create the life-size marble statue, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, also known as the Transverberation [being pierced through] of St. Teresa, which resides in the Cornaro Chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. Art historians consider Bernini’s sculpture as the masterpiece of High Baroque Art during the Counter Reformation. Pope Gregory XV canonized Teresa in 1662. In 1970 Pope Paul VI named St. Teresa a Doctor of the Church. (Information about St. Teresa is from Benedict Zimmerman. "St. Teresa of Avila." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14515b.htm Retrieved 28 Mar. 2019).

Nicole Hensel receive her BA in English from Toccoa Falls College and her MA in English from Georgia College and State University. She taught college English and is currently working toward her 200-level yoga instruction certification. A member of our church since 2016, Nicole serves as the volunteer leader / coordinator of our church’s Women’s Fellowship and Study Book Discussion Group, where the participants read and talked about St. Teresa's The Interior Castle, a book considered to be a guide to Christian mysticism and Christian meditation. Teresa envisaged the soul as a diamond-shaped castle containing seven mansions, which she saw as a seven-stage journey of faith culminating in union with God. spontaneous trances and being suddenly pierced in Walking with the Mystics: My Journey with the heart by an angel were not regular Saint Teresa of Avila occurrences—I wanted to know what it was like to by Nicole Hensel, exist in that space, where the line between physical GSS Parishioner and spiritual is constantly being blurred, where the Divine seems to interrupt daily life with alarming When it comes to studying a mystic, in this regularity. In her book The Interior Castle, Saint case, Saint Teresa of Avila, there are seemingly Teresa leads us through a series of rooms, or endless pathways of inquiry down which one can dwellings, representing the layers of the soul. And venture. I could, for instance, examine her theology although she claims this many-faceted castle exists of the soul. Or original sin. Or angels and demons within each one of us, the territory feels at times (by which she was apparently plagued by intense wondrous and unfamiliar. Saint Teresa, a sort of visions). But I don’t have time for any of that. So tour guide for the human soul, beckons us to cross instead, I decided to take a walk with her. this internal threshold, and, with her gentle and What initially drew me to Saint Teresa was earnest guidance, to draw ever nearer to the Source, curiosity — as a person for whom things like the Divine, who resides in the center of our being.

I cross this threshold reluctantly, very much immediately understand what is happening aware of the myriad of earthly attachments that to us. We would realize that we are overly demand my time and attention. How could I attached to unimportant worldly matters, and possibly, in the midst of the chaos of everyday life, then this imperfection of ours would cause attain even a comparable degree of the daily, us more pain than whatever it was that was intentional, focused contemplation that is much troubling us to begin with. This kind of more accessible to someone who, like Saint Teresa, distress is, I believe, a great mercy from spends her days in a cloistered setting? Saint Teresa God. Even though it compels us to painfully pulls no punches in her response: confront our own flaws, we grow in We tend to get lost in our worldly affairs: humility” (76). buying and selling, grasping and indulging, As I reflected upon my own experiences, the falling into spiritual error and rising up truth in Saint Teresa’s words grew more and more again. These kinds of spiritual serpents are apparent. The various trials and seeming distance so virulent and venomous, so numerous and from God I had experienced actually resulted in a dangerous, it would be a miracle if we could profound interior transformation. Moments of doubt avoid stumbling over them and falling (56).1 (which in all honesty, I continue to experience) “Venomous serpents?” I reply. “Yikes. Well, when produced within me the unique form of humility you put it that way, the thought of leaving some of that comes with realizing one does not have all the those things behind doesn’t sound so bad. Lead on.” answers—that there will always be an element of We continue through the passageways of mystery within authentic spiritual inquiry. this interior castle, slowly making our way towards My heart enkindles anew as I proceed onward, the center. However, at about the third dwelling, deeper into the soul’s dwellings. I find myself wherein the soul draws ever nearer to the Divine pondering one of the great mysteries of Saint through prayer and focused intention, I find myself Teresa’s physical departure from this world—when wrestling with an increased sense of her body was exhumed, her heart appeared to bear discouragement. “I thought I had been here before the mark of an actual piercing, lending credibility to at one point in my life,” I lament, “but unexpected her recurring visions of being pierced in the heart trials assailed me, and I found myself completely with a spear by an angel. I can’t help but wonder: in alone in the void. I could hear the voice of God no my preoccupation with this and other extraordinary more, and I could no longer sense His guidance. I accounts of mystical experience, have I missed the doubted even His very existence, and still wonder if ways in which my own heart has been “pierced” by God, in fact, ever speaks to us in such meaningful the Divine, through trial, and testing, and suffering, and tangible ways as you describe.” leaving permanent marks of transformation? “My child,” Saint Teresa replies, “those are Perhaps we all, if we were honest with ourselves, the very circumstances in which the Beloved could find similar marks and scars, and subsequent works most powerfully in our lives.” [She healing and growth. In leading us through the explains:] We shouldn’t be surprised by our interior castles of our own souls, towards the central own suffering. Sometimes it is God’s will dwelling of the Divine, Saint Teresa shows us that that his loved ones become conscious of we are actually all mystics, if we would only their limitations, and so he withdraws his embark within. support a little. Not much of this kind of pain should be required for us to quickly Endnote 1 Saint Teresa of Avila. The Interior Castle. Trans. Mirabai Starr. come to know ourselves. We would clearly NY: Riverhead Books, 2003. All quotations from St. Teresa are from recognize our own imperfections and this edition.

Editor’s Note:

“Bishop Kym’s Easter Hymn” Concluding her sermon on Easter Sunday, Rev. Kym Lucas, now Colorado’s Bishop Kym, sang a cappella the first stanza of a hymn from her childhood, “Open My Eyes, That I May See,” earning a round of applause from the parishioners. I was sitting in the back row of the nave next to Cindy Page. As soon as Mother Kym began to sing, I softly accompanied her, as I remembered the hymn from attending Vacation Bible School as a child at a Methodist church and had not heard the song since then. This prompted Cindy to joke later that she heard this sweet hymn that morning “in stereo”! Here’s some background on that hymn.

The composer is Clara H. Fiske 1. Open my eyes, that I may see Scott (1841-1897). Born in glimpses of truth thou hast for me; Illinois, Mrs. Scott was a prolific place in my hands the wonderful key hymn writer, and the first that shall unclasp and set me free. American woman to publish a Silently now I wait for thee, book of anthems; she composed ready, my God, thy will to see. the hymn in question in Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine! 1895. Inspired by Psalm 119, verse 8 (“Open thou mine eyes, 2. Open my ears, that I may hear that I may behold wondrous voices of truth thou sendest clear; things out of thy law” KJV), and while the wavenotes fall on my ear, “Open My Eyes, That I May See” everything false will disappear. appears in 203 hymnals. In the Silently now I wait for thee, United Methodist Hymnal, the ready, my God, thy will to see. song is on page 454. Open my ears, illumine me, Spirit divine!

3. Open my mouth, and let me bear gladly the warm truth everywhere; To the left are the lyrics to the hymn. You can listen online to the open my heart and let me prepare choir and congregation of Strathroy United Church, Ontario, love with thy children thus to share. Canada, sing the hymn. Go to Silently now I wait for thee, ready, my God, thy will to see. Open my heart, illumine me, Spirit divine!

601 N. Tejon Street Colorado Springs, CO 80903

In the South Aisle of our church’s nave, we see Jesus explaining spiritual rebirth to Nicodemus (John 3:3-5) in the St. John the Baptist and the Adulthood of Jesus stained- glass window (1939). Jesus and Nicodemus appear directly below the figure of St. John the Baptist, who is depicted at the top and center. The studios of George Owen Bonawit (1891-1971) created this window. See pp. 8- 9 in The Windows of Grace and St Stephen’s Episcopal Church. Photo of detail by Nicole Paulson. The Rev. Rainey G. Dankel writes about Jesus and Nicodemus in her Trinity Sunday sermon printed in this journal. The famous John La Farge mural of Jesus and Nicodemus hangs in Trinity Church, Boston.