Pentecost 2020

Pentecost Mobile at St. Alban's, Simsbury

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Grace Church, Hartford

Pentecost 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

In our Gospel today, Jesus comes to the disciples and tells them, “Peace be with you.” This is such an important message that he says it twice. The disciples were hiding in an upper room. They were hiding out of fear - locked away from the world (this might sound familiar to us in  our current circumstances?). 

It was not peaceful in that room. No doubt it was filled with anxiety and worry. Nor is it quiet in our lives or in the world right now.

So Jesus comes into a room filled with fear and anxiety. What does he do? Just tell them to stop worrying? Offer platitudes? Or an abundance of data to counter their fear? No. Jesus didn't try to argue them out of their fear. He just calmly stated that God’s peace was present with them in that room. 

Jesus’ statement about peace is a fitting one for Pentecost, as we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. I think we often expect the Holy Spirit to show up in our lives as if it were Pentecost. With great fanfare and in a way we understand. It would be great. It would be so helpful, if there were flames and a rushing wind. We certainly would not miss that. And then if the messages were spoken clearly and articulated, in our language, just for us, just what we needed to hear, we would be all set. But it does not usually happen that way. More often it is like Jesus quietly arriving in the midst of our anxiety to proclaim the truth of God’s peace. 

C.S. Lewis writes of this same kind of experience in A Grief Observed. He writes, “When I lay these questions [of why his wife died or why he is suffering] before God I get no answer.  But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze.  As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’”

In the midst of fear, anxiety and uncertainty in our own lives, our own communities, in our world, at this present time, we, like the disciples, like Lewis, are given the gift of peace that we may not fully understand, but it is God's peace. It is bigger than all of us, bigger than the things of the world, bigger than our fear.  

It is not a peace of easy answers or simple solutions. It is the peace that comes from letting go. The peace that comes when we stop trying to figure everything out, when we stop needing to get it right all the time. It is the peace that comes when we choose trust over fear. When we chose love over indifference. When we chose possibility over certainty. 

That is what Jesus came to offer the disciples, and that is what Jesus offers all of us. A gift of peace. It is not a gift that will always come easily to us. It is a gift that asks something of us in return. It asks us to be open to receive it. We have to be willing to let go of all that stands in our way, all that can keep us separated from God and from each other. We have to be willing to admit it is not about us, about our desires or our achievements. We have to be willing to trust that it is not even about our vision for our lives or for the world. It is about God's vision, God's dream, and how we might make that into a reality.

It is about a world where everyone, every single person, has the opportunity to know that peace of God that surpasses understanding. Where everyone knows the gift that comes from grounding ourselves in the knowledge that we are beloved of God. It is about a world where everyone can know the peace that comes when we truly are willing to let go, to live into our daily prayer that God's will be done. 

The world may seem frantic and harried. There are times when it can seem like the fear is going to get the best of us. But it need not. We have a choice. We have an invitation, an opportunity to experience the beautiful gift of knowing the peace of God in our hearts. It is my prayer on this feast of Pentecost that each of us would be on the lookout for the ways that Jesus is quietly showing up in the midst of our lives, in the midst of challenges, in the midst of our fear and anxiety. Jesus is showing up to offer us the gift of peace. May we always be open and ready to receive that beautiful gift. Amen. 

Redefining "Possible"

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom

Bertha and Ethelbert, May 27, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

I have found a line from our Epistle staying with me, “Train yourself in godliness, for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” Particularly the phrase about “physical training” being of “some value.” As many of you know, I do CrossFit, which is an intense exercise program that involves a combination of weights, gymnastic movements and cardio. I love CrossFit, and so I find myself wanting to argue with Timothy about how valuable physical training is. I want to nuance his statement, because I do not think you can separate the physical from the spiritual. 

The most profound lesson I have learned in CrossFit is not just one that can be measured in pounds lifted or time on a stopwatch. The gift that CrossFit has given me is that it redefined my understanding of “possible.” I had bone cancer when I was a teenager, and as a result I had my left collarbone removed. That happens to be a bone in your body that you can function without, so they just took it out and sewed all the muscles together. This means that I have lots of flexibility, but not a lot of stability. If you had asked me before I started CrossFit, if I could ever lift 200 lbs or climb a rope or do a pullup, I probably would have laughed. And yet here I am in the best shape I have ever been in my life. I also see myself and the world differently. I am more open to what might be possible in lots of aspects of my life, because CrossFit has given me a powerful illustration of the very important truth that the limits we put on ourselves and the world are often only in our minds. God is so much bigger than that. 

And here is the other essential thing about CrossFit, I got to where I am, because I have amazing coaches. They are coaches in the best sense of the word. On my own in a gym, I never would have even tried the things I can now do. I made progress because I had support, encouragement, instruction and the safety to do new things. Because I had people who took the time to get to know me, my very particular circumstances, and then to push me (kindly and appropriately) to see what they could see. They invited me out of the limitations I had imposed upon myself into new horizons. 

I think this is another area where our physical and our spiritual lives are intertwined. Or at least where they can inform each other. We need coaches. We need mentors. We need people with expertise who can teach us, who can see possibilities in us that we cannot see. We need people who invite us to live into a new understanding of ourselves and of the world. 

Timothy exhorts us to train ourselves, physically and spiritually. He might prioritize the spiritual over the physical, but I think we need both. I know that I am better able to deal with the mental and spiritual challenges if I am in good physical shape. Now, of course, I am not saying everyone needs to do CrossFit. Although my CrossFit community is full of a very wide range of people. With the right coaching it really is true that anyone can do CrossFit. But however we do it - I do think we need to take care of ourselves. To eat well. Get exercise. Get enough sleep. Take time off. All of those things. We need to care for ourselves as a whole person.  

And we need to take care of our spiritual selves. That doesn’t mean just time for prayer, although that is essential. It means taking time to invest in our well being. It means being open, being willing to learn. It means seeking out people who have different expertise and who see the world differently than we do. It means remembering that there is so much more to God and to the world than our own limited views. There is always more to learn, more to discover. And that new learning does not diminish us or what we already know. It is just an opportunity to expand our vision and to grow deeper in our relationships with God and with each other. 

In the midst of the stress and strain of these days, caring for ourselves, for our whole selves, is essential. And it is important for us to remember that “care” does not just mean rest and relaxation, it means learning and growing. Sometimes that is a challenge, but as Timothy reminds us the fruits of training ourselves are the fruits that endure. Amen. 

Do not be afraid

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom
Augustine of Canterbury, May 26, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’” Do not be afraid, from now on . . . Well, my friends, those might be words to live by in these days. I imagine this is a familiar passage to many of us - the story of where Simon is called away from his boat to follow Jesus, to become a “fisher of men.” And even though it is familiar, I believe it has something new to say to us in this time and this place. Think about Simon. He knew all about fishing. It was his profession, his life, his livelihood. He probably never ventured far. His life centered around his home and his boat. Then comes Jesus. This new teacher. This charismatic leader. There is something powerful, something so inspiring in who Jesus is and the message he shares, that without hesitation Simon leaves behind everything that is familiar and goes to follow him into an unknown and uncertain future.

Ah, an invitation to follow Jesus into an unknown and uncertain future. Yes, we have that too don’t we? It is becoming clearer and clearer as the weeks go by that we will not be “going back” to life as it was before. We cannot return to what is known and familiar. The way things have been. No, we are being invited into an uncertain future. The change and the “not knowing” can feel overwhelming. When and how will we travel again? What will our work lives look like in the coming months? What will our home lives look like? When will we get to have sustained opportunities to visit with family and friends? How long will it be before we can gather in large groups again?

It is easy to get our brains going on all the fear and uncertainty. There are so many rabbit holes of wondering that we can go down. But all that worrying does not serve us. There are indeed too many unknowns. We cannot figure it all out yet. For now, we have to be like Simon. We have to trust.

There is so much that is new and different in this time, I think it can make us forget that actually we know how to do this “stepping out into an uncertain future” thing. We have done it time and time again in our lives. From that first day at a new school to that first day at a new job. From moving to a new town or embarking on a new relationship. We have done change over and over again. We have moved into a future where we did not know what was going to happen. When it comes right down to it, of course, we actually do this everyday. There are, actually, no guarantees ever that tomorrow will look like yesterday. No guarantees of how long we have or how our lives will go.

Blessedly, we can often settle into predictable routines that allow us to put our trust in the regularity of our schedule, our tasks, the people we see, and the places we go. So, establishing a routine can be one of things that can help us find comfort and confidence in the midst of uncertainty. We may not have control over the big questions, but we can set our schedule and choose what we have for lunch. The little things really do help.

Creating a routine and finding the areas in which we do have freedom and control is one way to help us move forward in the midst of anxiety and uncertainty. I would guess we have many other things that have also helped us over the years. Don’t sell yourself short. We do actually know how to do this change thing. Those tried and true habits that have served us well can come to our aid again. Grounding ourselves in prayer and worship. Keeping up the spiritual practices that keep us connected to God and keep our perspective wide. Having a friend to call with whom we can process all that we are learning in our new adventure and who also can help us remember who we are when it seems like the uncertainty might expand to include our very self. Whatever has helped us before can be useful in this time too.

And it will help us also to remember Jesus’ words to Simon, “Do not be afraid.” Just like Simon we are not heading off on some solo adventure, we are following Jesus. We are not in charge of it all. Thank God! And so we can trust in God, trust in Jesus, trust in the leading of the Holy Spirit.

We do in fact have what we need to move forward. What a blessing indeed! Amen.

Swords into Plowshares

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom
Helena of Constantinople, May 22, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today we remember Constantine’s mother, Helena whose leadership fixed the spot of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. As the story goes, a woman was healed by touching a cross that had been buried at a possible building site. Helena declared that to be the True Cross, and so that is where the Church was built. It is a day for honoring the Cross as the symbol of our faith, and it is a day when the Prophet Micah reminds us that God desires to turn swords into plowshares.

So, I would like to tell you the story of a cross I have that brings these two themes together. This cross is made from the firing pins of an AK-47. It was a gift to me from a friend and mentor. It comes from the Diocese of Lebombo in Mozambique. A parish I served and my diocese as a whole have had a longstanding companion relationship with Lebombo. Through that relationship I learned the remarkable story of what happened to the guns at the end of their civil war. Their bishop started a program that quite literally turned swords into plowshares. People were invited to trade in their guns for farming equipment and tools of industry. And the people did. Over 800,000 guns were turned in. Those guns were then turned into artwork, such as the cross I have. One of our bishops has a sculpture of a saxophone player that is made entirely of gun parts.

Because of the sheer size and weight of the cross, it is not one for everyday wear. I have worn it on multiple occasions as a testimony to a different way forward, to our Gospel call to seek peace and to transform tragedy and violence into beauty and new life. My diocese (Connecticut) has done a lot of work and witness against gun violence. My bishop is a founding member of Bishops United Against Gun Violence. We have marched and advocated for changes in policy at a local and a federal level. I have worn this cross at marches in Hartford and DC. I often wore it with a photo of one of the children killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012. [See inside cover of our CT Stations of the Cross for 2013.]

As some of you may know, I had the opportunity to assist at his funeral in 2012. It was a difficult, heartbreaking day, of course. And yet, there were also moments of beauty and hope. The truth of Easter was spoken and felt, even though many of us felt like we were still living out Good Friday and Holy Saturday. One of the images from that day that will stay with me is the moment we walked out of the Church at the end of the service, singing “Joyful, Joyful, we adore thee.” Surrounding the lawn in front of the Church was a line of Boy Scouts in their shirtsleeves (in December!) standing at attention with their flags. They had been there for the entire service creating a human fence to ensure that if the rumors of Westboro Baptist coming to picket were true no one would not be able to get near the Church. That image has stayed with me as an icon of community care and support. Even in the midst of tragedy, the fundamental goodness and resiliency of the human spirit shines through.

Over and over again in our history and in our lives, God’s healing, redeeming love is at work transforming swords into plowshares. Transforming pain and tragedy into hope and new life. In these days when the realities of pain and suffering in our world are ever present, we can easily lose sight of all the signs of hope and new life that are present all around us. I hope that each of you have something like my cross in your workspace. Some small, tangible reminder of a time or a place or a way you have witnessed God’s love at work in the world. Keep those items nearby, and keep your eyes and your hearts open to discover more. They are there. Everyday. I promise.

Amen.

Cultivating Connection

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom
Dunstan, May 19, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Be ready. At first, I read our Gospel today, and I feel exhausted. Be ready? God, I am already tired or weary or whatever the word is for the kind of tired that is not just fixed by more sleep. Now you want me to get ready? That just sounds like more work, and I don’t even know what I am preparing for . . . I just know I will be blessed if I am “working” when God shows up.

And then I pause. Then I take a deep breath. I think, does work purely for the sake of work, does valuing “being busy” above all else really match up with what I know about God? No. It doesn’t. So what other interpretation might there be?

What if the “work” into which God is inviting us is not just more tasks, more accomplishments, more tangible proof that we are “productive”? What if the “work” God is inviting us to is the work of our hearts and souls? It is indeed true that we do not know what tomorrow will look like. Sure, we could make some educated guesses. We could analyze the data we have to make some logical predictions about what the future will look like. But we cannot account for all the variables, and as we know all too well, we can often get thrown a curve ball that we did not see coming. So our preparations cannot be limited to the particulars of all the scenarios we think might be possible.

The best preparation we can do is to cultivate our gifts and our habits, so that we are ready to respond to whatever the future brings. I think there are two “habits” or practices that are particularly worth cultivating in our lives, especially in a time like this. The first is being grounded.

Being grounded means that we are connected to God. We stand firm in the truth that we belong to God. We are beloved of God, not because of what we do, what kind of material wealth we have or how famous we are - or any of the ways society measures success. We are beloved of God because we belong to God. Because God loves us. Period. Full stop. We do not earn that love. It is a gift, pure and simple.

Life is full of tempests, of changes and chances, of tumultuous times that can easily knock us off that sure footing. That can temporarily (or even permanently, if we let it) blind us to that foundational truth of who and whose we are. And so we must be in the habit of cultivating our connection with God, so that we can find it quickly in the midst of a challenge.

That probably looks a little different for each of us, and yet I am guessing that prayer and worship are a significant part of that. I would also bet there is something else that helps that connects with the second “habit” we can be cultivating - each other.

That second habit is collaboration. It is connection and community. It is NOT isolation. In our land of rugged individualism, in a society that consistently rewards individual achievement, it can be easy to think that we have to do it all on our own or that it is somehow a mark of strength or superiority to be able to go solo. But it is not. Jesus didn’t. The disciples didn’t. The women at the tomb didn’t. Paul didn’t. Again and again in Scripture we are reminded of the value of having a partner or even multiple teammates in our ministry. The story of Dunstan, who we honor today, is also a reminder that we are not meant to journey alone. He revitalized monasticism in England, and set a precedent for centuries that the Archbishop of Canterbury was a monk - someone who lived in community.

We need each other. We need companions on the way. We need the wisdom and perspective that comes with shared insights and different points of view. We need the encouragement and the gift of being able to care for each other. We need the reminder that we do not ever have to bear our burdens alone. We need the reassurance that comes through holding the faith for each other in moments of fear or doubt. We need the fullness of joy that comes only through being in relationship.

I hope as we go through this week, and the weeks ahead, we will keep making space for all those habits that renew our connection to God, that help us feel grounded and rooted. I also hope we will keep reaching out, keep seeking connection, keep looking for opportunities to collaborate, so that we never feel lonely. The future is indeed uncertain, but we CAN be prepared for anything if we ground ourselves in the truth that we are, each of us, a beloved child of God. And if we keep ourselves connected to those who make the journey a delight. Amen.

Loaves and Fishes, Scarcity and Abundance

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom
Frances Perkins, May 13, 2020

May God's word be spoken, May God's Word be heard, and May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today's Gospel tells the story of the feeding of the five thousand. One of Jesus' many miracles in the New Testament story. It is a seemingly fantastic story – a story of how five loaves and two fish managed to feed more than five thousand. To our modern ears this may sound like a tall tale. We might try to explain it away by saying that there couldn't possibly have been that many people or assuming the author was just exaggerating for effect. Or we might say that everyone only got a crumb. We could come up with any number of ways to “explain” this story. But if we do that, we are missing out on the miracle and the message in the story. The miracle in the story is not about how many pieces of bread there were. The miracle is that everyone was fed. The miracle is that God created abundance in the midst of scarcity.

Jesus blessed the bread and the fishes. He invited God's blessing in and he invited all those present to share with another. Those actions transformed a time of scarcity into one of abundance.

That is a message that resonates in these days. An appropriate lesson as we honor Frances Perkins, FDR’s long serving Secretary of Labor, who helped implement so many programs like Social Security that help to ensure that no one is without a safety net. That endeavor to ensure that everyone in our society has the resources to meet their basic needs.

Most of us are fortunate enough that we probably cannot relate to the scarcity of food that the Gospel lesson describes. We have not looked into our kitchen cupboards or our refrigerators to find them empty. And even if we did, even in the midst of a pandemic, we are still able to get plenty of food. While we may not know material scarcity, that does not mean we don't understand the reality of scarcity. In fact our material prosperity can sometimes form a stark contrast with the scarcity that does exist in our lives.

Let me tell you the story of a woman I know. We'll call her Jane. Jane has every material and economic advantage. She lives in a big beautiful house. She has servants to cook and clean. Someone to drive her around. A nanny to watch over her children. She is a brilliant woman, well educated and intellectually curious. She does not need to work, and in her community it is expected that a woman of her social standing would not work. Rather she is expected to be a hostess, have hobbies and volunteer. To many it would seem that Jane had the perfect life. Where would we find scarcity in such a life? The scarcity is not in material comforts, it is a scarcity of depth and meaning. Jane wants more from life, a sense that she has made a meaningful contribution to the world. There is a hole in Jane's life, in Jane's heart, that she did not know how to fill. The pain is overwhelming, and so she does what many do. She finds ways to dull the pain. She finds it in alcohol and pain medication. But this temporary remedy only causes more scarcity as it causes Jane to withdraw from society, from her friends and even from her family. Thankfully that is not the end of the story. With the help of those who care about her, Jane gets into recovery. She stops drinking, and she stops taking medication. She transforms her life and her relationships. With help, scarcity turned into abundance.

Jane discovers that by being willing to turn over her problems, to give her scarcity up to God, she is able to invite God's blessing in and to allow healing to begin. The spiritual journey of recovery fills that hole in Jane's heart in a way that alcohol never could. Jane finds love and meaning. She finds that as she opens up to allow others to help her, not only is she strengthened by their care and support, she in turn is strengthened by the opportunity to care for others. She feels great pride in being able to help others on the journey of recovery – to share how God can turn scarcity into abundance. Jane's joy and pride does not only come from being able to help others discover the deep joy and satisfaction she now knew, it also comes from her relationship with her family. The gift of recovery means that she is now able to be fully present and engaged. Her relationships are deepened. Love abounds.

Although our own stories may be very different from Jane's, there is perhaps a universal element in the experience of scarcity and the desire to escape from it. Given the choice, we would all choose abundance over scarcity. We would choose the blessings of love and meaning, of material comfort and opportunities for education. And so when any of those things are lacking, when there are holes in our lives, we seek to fill them. We seek to escape from the reality of scarcity. Yet so often, like Jane, we seek a temporary or easy “solution” to our scarcity. We try to find a band-aid, a way to dull the pain. Maybe we fall victim to addiction as she did. Maybe we just ignore the problem, hoping it will go away. Maybe we throw ourselves into our work hoping that will provide the sense of joy that is missing in our lives. Maybe we buy more things. Maybe we do any number of unhelpful behaviors. But hopefully we have the strength and the courage to acknowledge wherever there is a spiritual scarcity in our lives, and to open ourselves up to the possibility that there might be another way forward. Like Christ did with the loaves and the fishes, we can hold our scarcity up to heaven and ask God's blessing upon it. We can ask that with grace and love, our scarcity may be transformed into abundance.


AMEN.

Grumbling into Hope

A reservoir

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom
May 11, 2020, Commemoration of Johann Arndt And Jacob Böhm
Exodus 17:1–7;Psalm 119:137–144; Mark 6:45-52

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I don’t know about you all, but I love the stories of the Israelites grumbling in the wilderness. They are so real. So human. They sound just like any long family road trip. Or our own internal monologues on days that just are not going the way we had hoped. Today we get the Israelites complaining that they don’t have enough to drink water. Recently in our Morning Prayer readings we got them talking about how slavery in Egypt was better because they had fish and cucumbers. Ah yes, I bet we have all done that. We have wished to go back, we have wished for comfort and familiarity, even when it was miserable - merely because it was a known entity.

Now, of course, we should give the Israelites some credit for asking for water. I mean, water is a necessity of life. We cannot live for long without it. They were not just asking for caviar or complaining that the soup wasn’t hot enough. They were desperate for survival. They were fearful. They had lost their perspective.

That is something else I love about these stories. That is part of why they resonate. If I find myself in a place of worry and fear, in my own places of grumbling and frustration, it is because I too have lost my perspective. My world has shrunk in on itself. I am only aware of my own needs, my own emotions, my own pain. It can feel frantic because I think I am alone, and I have to get myself out of it all by myself. Yet, nothing is further from the truth. I am not alone. The Israelites were not alone. They had each other. They had Moses. And God was with them. Oh. Right. We are not alone. Ever.

It is easy for us to forget that all important truth. Pain, struggle, fear can all feel overwhelming at times. These are indeed days when it is easy to lose our perspective. Like the Israelites we are wandering in a wilderness. The future seems uncertain, and there are moments when our very survival seems unsure. We have been, sadly, regularly reminded that these are perilous times.

That can shrink our vision. They can make us lose sight of the abundance of God’s love that is always present in our lives, if we are paying attention. God is indeed present to us each and every step of the way. Johann and Jacob, the mystics we remember today, remind us that God is indeed present in our lives, evident in the simple things, like the beauty of a sunbeam.

I hope that you can hang on to that knowledge in these days. I hope that even in the moments where your perspective has narrowed, even when the fear and sadness are very present, that somewhere in the back of your mind, in the depths of your heart, there is niggling reminder that there is more. May we see God in the beauty of a sunbeam. May we hear God in the voices of our friends, in the voices of loved ones, who gently remind us to widen our vision. Those who remind us that we are not alone. Who remind us to trust in what we know is true. God is with us. What we need is here. We are blessed with sustenance for our bodies and our souls. This wilderness may be longer and more challenging than we ever would have imagined. And yet we will not find hope and courage if we focus only on what is missing or what we wish were true.

Hope is found in letting go of a desire for everything to go as planned. Courage is found in trusting that we do not journey alone. God is with us. We have each other. Let us hold that truth together in our hearts, today and always. Amen.

Love is stronger than death

Chapel at Episcopal Church Center

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Memorial Service for Kerry
May 7, 2020

Wisdom 3:1-5, 9; Psalm 139:1-11; Romans 8:14-19,34-35,37-39; John 11:21-27

In the name of God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

We gather today as a community of friends and colleagues to remember Kerry. Many of us knew him well and had the blessing of working alongside him for years. Others of us know him only through stories. We gather today to remember him, to honor his life, to give thanks for his work with us, and to celebrate the life he now shares in the nearer presence of our Lord.

Indeed, even in the midst of our tears and grief, we give thanks. Even at the grave we make our song “Alleluia.” We give thanks for the gift of life. None of us has any guarantees of how long we will have. Each day is a blessing. If we are given the gift of years, and even decades in the company of those we love, our joy is all the more.

We give thanks for the privilege of having jobs we love and the opportunity, that sadly can be rare for many people, to do meaningful work. To do work that serves God’s people and seeks to build up God’s Kingdom in this world.

We give thanks for the gift of faith, for the gift of God’s presence with us in our joys and our sorrows. We give thanks for communities of faith, including this one, that deepen our connection to God and to each other. Communities that support us and restore our souls.

We give thanks for the profound truths from our readings today. That the death of our bodies does not mean the end of life. Kerry is with God. We mourn the loss of being able to talk with him or see him, and yet the bonds of love - the bonds of fellowship that connect us to God and to each other are stronger than anything, even death.

This is the profound truth we hear in our reading from Romans today: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

As we grieve the sudden loss of Kerry, as we are grieving the loss of other friends and family members in the midst of this pandemic, we can hold fast to this important truth. We are never beyond the reach of God’s love. That love binds us to God and to each other is an unbreakable bond. There is nothing - no tragic death, no pandemic, no challenge, no hardship, no loss, no pain, no struggle where God is not with us. Even death does not sever the connection. They may be beyond the reach of our incarnate grasp, but they have not left the chambers of our hearts. Our love does not diminish. We carry them with us. Their lives, their witness, their faith will continue to inspire and comfort us in the days ahead.

We mourn today. We grieve today. And we give thanks today. For Kerry. For all those we love but see no longer. For the gift of faith. For the sacred truth that Love always has the last word. Always. Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Wisdom from Julian of Norwich

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer, via Zoom
Julian of Norwich, May 8, 2020


May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Ah, it is the feast day of Julian of Norwich. For me, it feels like a day when I get to visit with an old friend. Julian is one of the five thinkers about whom I wrote in my doctoral dissertation. So, she is indeed an old friend who just about lived with me for years!

Given how much I value her wisdom and insight, I could probably come up with reasons why her message was relevant any day of the year. And yet she has some particularly important messages for us as the Church living through a pandemic in 2020. Just in case you don’t know much about the life or times of Julian, let me give you a brief synopsis.

Her name “Julian” is taken from St. Julian's Church in Norwich where she lived as an anchorite for many years. An anchorite is someone who lives a solitary existence in a cell attached to a church. They have a window into the Church to watch mass being celebrated and a window through which they can serve as a counselor to the people of the world, but they do not generally leave their cell. She lived like that for decades! I bet she could offer some practical wisdom to those of us who are struggling with being stuck at home for weeks.

Julian was born in the late 1300s and died in the mid 1400s. She lived through the Black Death, a plague that came multiple times in the 14th century and took approximately 40% of the population. Hear that again - 40% of the population. She would be marveling at all the advances of modern medicine and how many people are surviving and recovering from the virus. Currently the mortality rate for COVID-19 worldwide is about 7%.

Julian is famous for her writings. It was a rare thing in the 1400s for a woman to be able to read and write, but Julian was definitely a scholar who knew her Scripture and the theology of her day well. She had a series of visions during an illness which she then spent many years reflecting on and writing about. Her writings are collected in a text known as Revelations of Divine Love.

If she is known in popular culture at all, she is known for her saying, “All will be well. All will be well. And all manner of things shall be well.” Taken out of context this can seem like a pollyanna statement that seems to completely disregard the realities of the present moment. But Julian was not oblivious to the realities of pain and suffering. She knew them well in her own life, and in the lives of the people who came to her for counsel and advice.

Julian lived in a time where “death was to be met any day, around any corner.” The fragility and sacredness of life was a truth she knew all too well. Suffering and hardship were an expected part of daily life. Her conviction that all will be well is a deeply meaningful one, precisely because it is a statement of deep faith and hope born out of a daily life where things rarely went "well.” It is a statement that believes there is more to life than what we can see in the present moment. It is a belief that tomorrow can and will be different than today. It is a belief that there is always the possibility of more, the possibility for new life, for transformation, even in the midst of our darkest moments.

So I hope you hear Julian’s conviction and affirmation that “All will be well” in a new way today. It is not a platitude meant to paper over the trauma of the present moment. It is a deeply faithful statement that expresses the conviction that God is with us, that God’s transforming love is at work in the midst of whatever challenges and hardship we might be facing. All may not be well yet. It may not be well today or even seem well tomorrow or next week. And yet, we can join with Julian in affirming that “All will be well” in God’s time. Amen.

Monica: God is never far

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer
Monica, May 4, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today we remember Monica, the mother of St. Augustine. Her life and faith are worth remembering in their own right, not just because of who her son became. Interestingly, she actually has a lot of hope to offer us. There is hope in her story because it is a very human one. She struggled as a mother. She wanted her son to become a Christian early in life. If you know much about Augustine, he had quite an interesting and complicated life and did not come to faith until much later in life.

Side note here, when I spent a summer working with a chaplain in a juvenile detention center, I had a group read some excerpts of Augustine’s Confessions. He has a great story of stealing bags and bags of pears from an orchard with a group of friends in his teenage years. The pears aren’t even good. He just does it for the joy of stealing. And yet he went on to become a Saint in the Church. Made for some interesting conversation.

Back to Monica. Her parenting did not go the way she wanted. She wanted her son to change his life, but it did not happen in the time frame she desired. And yet it happened. She also had hoped to be buried in Africa, but she did in Italy and managed to make her peace with that. In fact, she told Augustine, “You will bury your mother here. All I ask of you is that, wherever you may be, you should remember me at the altar of the Lord. Do not fret because I am buried far from our home in Africa. Nothing is far from God . . . ‘

Monica’s faithfulness is an example to all of us. A willingness to trust in God, to trust that God is never far from us. A willingness to trust that hope and faith are stronger than fear.

Our readings for today can be somewhat of a challenge on this front. Hannah prayers for a child, and Samuel is born. In Luke’s Gospel today, a mother is miraculously given back her son whom she thought had died. These lessons taken on their own can be problematic. No doubt we all have things we have hoped for and wished for, sometimes so deeply it hurts. And yet they do not happen as we wish they would.

If we had only our readings for today that could leave us feeling discouraged and desolate. For our lives so often do not match up to what we wish for. So it is good that we also have the example of Monica’s life and the rest of Scripture to remind us that we are not alone in things not going the way we might hope or desire.

From Rachel weeping for her children to Joseph being sold by his brothers to the Israelites slavery in Egypt to Job’s suffering and countless psalms to the Prophets to Jesus’ own family and life experiences, we know that we are not alone in experiences not going according to our plans or our hopes.

I would guess that none of us planned or hoped to be quarantined for all these weeks. None of us wished for a pandemic. None of us wished to lose dear friends and colleagues in the midst of it. None of us wished to have our lives turned upside down or so much fear and anxiety swirling. And so it is important for us to remember that we are not alone in our struggles. It is important to remember Monica’s wisdom that nothing is far from God. Indeed, God is with us in the midst of all of this. God is very near. We need not fear the future. We do not journey alone. God is always with us.

No matter how uncertain things may seem, no matter how often things do not go according to plan, we can find comfort in knowing that we are not alone. And we can trust that God is always at work. God’s redeeming love is bringing forth hope and new life even in the midst of whatever challenges we face. That is the Easter story. That is the heart of our faith. Thanks be to God. Amen.