Category Archives: Intergenerational Church

Homily, Sunday, Sept. 29

Jesus said to his friends, “Salt is good; but if salt loses its saltiness, how will it become salty again? Keep salt in yourselves and keep peace with each other.”

Let’s wonder together about what that might mean! 

What is salt? ….

Jesus says salt is good. I wonder why! 

Do YOU think salt is good? … 

How do you use salt at your house?

Do you know about any other ways to use salt?

– Melting ice… 

Do you know what it means to dissolve salt in water? …

Anybody ever gargle with salt water when you have a sore throat or a canker sore? … 

Or use a saline spray or saline drops for their nose or their eyes? 

People have been using salt to clean things and care for wounds, for thousands and thousands of years. And now that we have science to study how salt works, it turns out they were right! Salt kills a lot of bacteria. It sucks the water out of their cells so they shrivel up and die!!

Salt doesn’t work on all bacteria or other kinds of tiny things that can make us sick. So we have more effective cleaners, now. 

But people still use saline solution – which means, salt dissolved in water – for some things, like our noses and eyes and mouths, because it’s pretty gentle for our bodies. 

(Please don’t just mix salt and water and put it up your nose! Saline solution from the store is clean and safe to use.) 

 

Does anybody like pickles?

Does anybody like bacon? 

How about cheese? …

Besides taking care of our bodies, another way salt is useful is in preserving food! 

Pickles and cheese and bacon, or salted meat in general, are very old and very important. 

Think about people living a long, long, long time ago, without refrigerators or stoves or electricity at all. 

People living in warm places where food can go bad quickly.

What happens when food goes bad?…

  • It can get gross so you don’t want to eat it
  • It could make you sick if you do eat it

So for people living long, long ago: If you milk your goat, or you kill a chicken, or you pick some vegetables, you have to use them RIGHT AWAY… 

Or you have to find a way to preserve them, to do something to the food so it doesn’t go bad quickly. 

Long, long, long ago, people started to figure out some ways to do that. And salt is a really important tool. 

It kills bacteria so it helps preserve foods, and it tastes good, too. 

Pickling is a way of making vegetables last a long time. 

Salt-curing meat is a way to make meat last a long time. 

Cheese is a way to make milk last a long time. 

And all of those processes use salt. A lot of salt!

Salt really changed human history, because our long, long, long ago ancestors could save food. They could spend less time looking for food. They could travel farther. They could trade their pickles and cheese with other groups, and used those connections to learn and share. 

Where does salt come from? … 

(The ocean, or rock salt that can be mined in certain places.) 

  • Seeing salt gatherers in Tanzania

Today it’s easy to get salt. You can even get all kinds of fancy salt. 

But in those long, long, long ago times, salt was hard to get and pretty special and valuable. 

Salt was sometimes used as a kind of money. 

In some times and places salt has even been as valuable as gold!

Cities and nations that had access to salt could get really rich. 

In my research, everything I looked at said that salt was actually REALLY REALLY important for the development of human civilization around the world! 

Because salt was so important in real life, it also became an important symbol. 

Have you noticed how when something is really important to people, they start to stick ideas to it? 

One idea that people stuck to salt was the idea of something lasting forever. 

Because salt was good for preserving food, in some cultures it started to be a symbol of permanence, of eternity. 

Another idea that people stuck to salt was the idea of purification.

That’s like making something clean, but in a more symbolic way. 

Because salt was good for cleaning wounds, in some cultures it started to be seen as having the power to drive out bad energy or evil spirits, or for healing the part of us that isn’t our bodies, after somebody has done or experienced something bad. 

In some churches, when somebody is baptized, they give them a tiny bit of salt, as a symbol of purity… 

And I have heard of people, even Episcopalians!, using salt to help purify a space where something bad happened. 

So: Salt has a lot of uses, and a lot of meanings – a lot of ideas stuck to it!

Let’s look back at what Jesus says. 

Salt is good.

Now we know a lot of different ways salt is good, right? …

If salt loses its saltiness, how will it become salty again? 

How could salt lose its saltiness? In science classes we learn that salt – the kind we use every day – is made of two elements, sodium and chlorine. You can’t really un-salt salt. 

But in those long-ago times, people weren’t getting salt from the grocery store. In Judea their salt probably came from seawater, because the coast was nearby. 

So that salt might have other stuff in it – other chemicals, a little grit, a little gunk. If that salt got wet, the actual salt might dissolve into the water and flow away, and leave that other stuff behind. That would be your not-so-salty salt, that’s not good for much anymore. 

Then Jesus says, 

Keep salt in yourselves and keep peace with each other.

This is from the gospel of Mark, the earliest version of the story of Jesus. Another version of the story, Matthew, has Jesus say this to his friends and followers: You are the salt of the land.  (5:13)

Start popcorn circulating??? 

I wonder what Jesus means by, Keep salt in yourselves! 

I wonder what Jesus means by, You are the salt of the land! 

We live 2000 years later, but we are friends and followers of Jesus, too. When he says these things, he’s talking to us.  

Why does Jesus want us to be salty? What does that mean?? 

Well, there are those ideas that got stuck to salt. 

Maybe Jesus wants us to help preserve the world, like salt preserves food. 

We could be people who help fight decay and keep things whole and good. 

Maybe Jesus wants us to help purify the world, like salt cleaning wounds. 

We could be people who look for the hurt places, and try to help heal and restore… and we could look for what’s causing hurt and harm, and fight to change those things. 

Either of those could make sense. Even both of them. 

Symbols can mean lots of things at the same time.

But I think there might be one more thing.

Because I think Jesus is talking about food and flavor.

Jesus liked food. People used to get mad at him because he enjoyed a good meal. 

I am sending around some popcorn. 

One kind has salt, and one kind doesn’t have salt. 

Which one do you like better?… 

How would you describe the difference? … 

The salty popcorn tastes brighter, to me. It makes my mouth pay attention. It’s more interesting and more satisfying to eat. 

With the unsalted popcorn I don’t think I’d eat very much. It’s kind of boring. 

(Some people have to eat less salt for health reasons!) 

I wonder if, together, we can be people who do for the world what that salt does for the popcorn. Make it a better, brighter place, that’s more fun and interesting and alive. 

Now, the word salty means something in slang today. What does it mean to be salty? …

(Grumpy, sassy…) 

I wonder if sometimes we have to be that kind of salty for Jesus, too!

Last weekend we went to see a show by a group called Bread and Puppet Theater. They use big cardboard puppets to make art about the problems and possibilities of the world. 

Phil and Iona got to help with the show, that was cool!

In one act, the leader shared a quote from the head of Amnesty International, a global human rights organization. 

She said: “We are really as close to the abyss as we have ever been.”  We are really as close to the abyss as we have ever been.

That means: we live in strange, scary times. 

Like Jesus lived in strange, scary times. 

Like Esther lived in strange, scary times.

But Esther had an important role to play, a job to do, in times like that, and maybe we do too. 

The Bread and Puppet performers showed us some Anti-Abyss Calisthenics – that means exercises!

And I want to show you a couple of them. 

Because I think they are also about ways to be salty for Jesus.

This is the first one: “Hey!” 

Like you just saw something bad happen and you’re going to SPEAK UP about it!… 

Let’s try it!… 

And this is another Anti-Abyss exercise: Aaaah.

They didn’t explain things at the performance, they just showed us and let us think about it. 

I think this is a movement about finding our goodness, and sharing it with others. Finding our peace, and sharing it. Finding our hope, and sharing it. 

So let’s practice those again:  

Hey!

Aaaah. 

Keep salt in yourselves, friends! Be the salt of the land! 

Amen. 

Annual Meeting Address, January 28, 2024

This year, my Annual Meeting address is a preliminary report on the Wondering Together conversations we’ve been having.

  • Context: Awareness of need to work on medium- and longer-term financial sustainability for our life together here
  • We have been advised that any serious work along those lines needs to start from a clear sense of who we are and what we’re about, as a church
  • We’ve asked ourselves those kinds of questions before – most recently in prep for 2018 capital campaign & renovation 
  • But we’ve been through a lot and changed a lot since then.
  • Time for a renewed season of wondering together about how God is shaping us and where God is leading us. 

Wondering Conversation process 

  • Started in late summer; most recent in December
  • Have probably included about 50 people so far – in person and online, kids, youth, adults & elders, a pretty good range. 
  • I would still like to gather more input! Possible online version; maybe another couple of group conversations if people would enjoy that – it’s really rich, holy space. Let me know!

Going through the notes, SO FAR… pulling out big topics & themes. This isn’t a full report! Just some observations… 

Cluster of responses about how we worship & engage with the Bible and faith. 

Being an intergenerational church, with scope for meaningful involvement for kids & youth. 

Liturgical playfulness & intentionality

Hands-on participation & our Scripture dramas

People’s liturgical and personal quirks are welcomed 

Peaceful quiet & holy noise – God can be in both 

Someone said, “I am not comfortably bored. Ever.” 

In terms of theology and beliefs: 

Scope to question, wonder, explore, rebuild, play

Listening & learning from one another – “The Bible is in all of us” 

“Christ cares about liberation, here and now, for all people.” 

An awareness that good theology can happen on the floor 

 

A cluster of responses about the other things we do, besides worship. 

Creation care commitments. 

Caring for and enjoying our grounds; respecting our non—human neighbors like the bats. 

Our commitment to youth ministry. In one conversation folks wondered out loud whether we have a call to serve queer and unchurched youth. 

Outreach giving and volunteer opportunities to serve others. 

Someone said, “We are most ourselves when we are reaching out.” One of our young folks said, “Madison and Middleton are better because of St. Dunstan’s and I’m proud of that.” 

Our ongoing work around voluntary land tax and restorative actions with respect to the Native peoples of this place. 

 

The BIGGEST set of responses – fullest pages of tick marks and notes – had to do with how we *are* as a community, to and for each other. 

People talked about inclusive welcome.

Meaning everything from welcoming LGBTQ+ folks, to welcoming folks of no church background, to welcoming folks of all ages in the fulness of who they are. 

People said, “We allow children to be children.” And: “St. Dunstan’s listens to children.” 

One of our youth, re: inclusive welcome at youth group: “Are you part of this church? We don’t care. Are you part of any church? We don’t care. Do you play board games?  You’ll learn.”  

Many people spoke in various ways about mutual care. 

Safety, trust, respect, kindness, shared prayer. 

Someone said, “We love each other through the changes.” 

Someone said, “It’s OK to bring your feelings to church.”

Several folks talked about valuing our commitment to Zoom church: the ways it keeps people connected; the intimacy of face-to-face worship and shared prayer on that platform. 

People value a sense of room and opportunity to share their gifts and skills. One person mentioned the “non-hierarchical use of people” – if you want to lead something or help shape something, there’s probably room for that. 

Reflecting on the many ways people stepped up to make music last summer, one person described St. Dunstan’s as “this amazing thing that creates what it needs.” 

People talked about resilience and capacity to change. That we’re a church that’s dynamic, not rigid. 

Folks described a balance of comfort and growth, support and renewal, “not living in the status quo.” 

“The casualness and the messiness and the constant evolution.”

Someone said that our church at its best is “compassionate, honest, joyful, and hopeful.”

Someone said that she chose our church, and stays at our church, because it’s a place of fierce love. Fierce love. 

People are super clear that we’re not perfect! There’s a lot for us to keep growing into.  But there’s also a lot that is hope-filled and holy. 

As your pastor: I think I know this church pretty well. But there were some things in all this that surprised me! Some stuff that seems distinctive about St. Dunstan’s — the grounds and Creation Care commitments, land acknowledgment work, even our strong commitment to outreach – were mentioned often, but were not the biggest themes. 

I don’t think that’s because they’re not important to people. Maybe instead it’s because we understand that those things flow out of more fundamental things about the kind of faith community we’re striving to be, together. 

Another thing I’m learning from these data is that folks with no kids or grown kids do understand and value what we are doing in creating a community of welcome and nurture for kids and youth. It’s a big encouragement to me, to hear that. 

I want to come back to that phrase fierce love. It came up in our very first conversation; I had forgotten it. But once I read it again, it stuck in my mind. 

It was rattling around in my brain as I read a book about the Rule of St. Benedict, the week before last, in preparation for my clergy retreat. Benedict lived in the 6th century, and founded a monastic order, the Benedictines. His Rule of Life laid out how community life in Benedictine monasteries should be ordered, but Christians – and non-Christians! – who are not monastics have found wisdom and value in the Rule, as a pattern for Christian living, for fifteen hundred years now. (By the way, Dunstan was a Benedictine monk and founded many Benedictine monasteries!) 

The book I was reading quoted this from Benedict’s Rule: “Try to be the first to show respect to one another, supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior… This zeal the [community members] should practice with fervent love.” 

Try to be the first to show respect to one another… 

Supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior. Now, listen: For Benedict’s time, it was a big deal to propose that community should embrace those who were different in various ways and help them participate and belong.  

I don’t love the language of “weaknesses,” but if we shift just a little to supporting one another in our differences of body and behavior, then we’re getting really close to some things people say they value at St. Dunstan’s. 

This zeal the [community members] should practice with fervent love. When I read this, fervent love caught my attention because it sounded a lot like fierce love. 

I looked up Benedict’s original Latin for this passage. Fervent is a Latin word; it comes from the word for boiling – it has to do with heat and intensity. But in the original text, it’s not just fervent love. It’s ferventissimo love. 

Our music folks will know that means not just fervent but SUPER FERVENT. THE FERVENTEST. 

Fervent and fierce have a lot in common. They point to an intensity of love, a love that digs in and holds on; a love that’s willing to bare its teeth when necessary. 

And what Benedict names here as part of the work of community – striving to be the first to show respect to one another, supporting with the greatest patience our differences of body and behavior, with fervent love – that reminds me of a lot of what is coming up in these wondering conversations. 

I’m not saying that we should declare fierce love our new mission statement, or start printing it on T-shirts. 

I just found it to be a phrase that captures a lot of what people say they love about this church, and a lot of what you all hope, for this church. 

Fierce love is a simple phrase, but not a simple reality. 

  • On a weekly basis, I have to work to figure out where to spend my limited time and energy nurturing fierce love among us. 
  • Sometimes we need to discern, together, about direction and season, projects and priorities. 
  • And of course we don’t all see eye to eye. There can be conflicting needs and hopes, for all kinds of reasons. 
  • The Society of St. John the Evangelist, another monastic community, includes this early on in their Rule of Life: “The first challenge of community life is to accept whole-heartedly the authority of Christ to call whom he will. Our community is not formed by the natural attraction of like-minded people. We are given to one another by Christ and he calls us to accept one another as we are.”
  • Look, if something shows up in a monastic Rule of Life, it’s because it’s hard, OK? 

Fierce love isn’t simple; it also isn’t easy. 

  • We have many growing edges. Ask me and I can name a few; maybe you can too. 
  • Our resources – human, financial, strategic – are often stretched thin, and we have to make hard choices, let some things go, and live with uncertainty. 
  • I don’t think everybody here feels loved fiercely. We have ongoing work to do fully welcoming and integrating newer members, and listening to the needs of longer-term members. 
  • And let’s be honest, some folks just want to come to church. It’s OK if you’re not looking for a community of fierce love! 

Are we are fierce as we mean to be?  As we need to be, for each other, for the world? 

  • Are we ready to support our youth group making Pride signs for our lawn again this June, even if it means another month of being vigilant for potential vandalism? 
  • Are we ready to take creation care beyond solar panels and composting, to talking about how we can be advocates for, and participants in, big, systemic change? 
  • Are we ready to have hard, bold conversations about where our convictions as people of faith meet the issues at stake in the elections this year?

Fierce love isn’t simple.  Fierce love isn’t easy.  Fierce love can be hard, messy work.

But I think fierce love, fervent love, ferventissimo love, is important. Is holy. 

Might be a thing that makes a church worth people’s time and care and investment, in a season of so much struggle and change in the world around us. 

I’ll close with a favorite prayer, composed by William Temple, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury during World War II. 

 O God of love, we pray thee to give us love:  Love in our thinking, love in our speaking,  Love in our doing, and love in the hidden places of our souls;  Love of our neighbours near and far;  Love of our friends, old and new;  Love of those with whom we find it hard to bear, and love of those who find it hard to bear with us;  Love of those with whom we work,  And love of those with whom we take our ease; Love in joy, love in sorrow; love in life and love in death; That so at length we may be worthy to dwell with thee, Who art eternal love. Amen.

Epiphany Pageant 2023 Gallery

 

Advent Song Cycle, Week 0 – PREPARE

As our home-grown Advent resource this season we are offering a Song Cycle – with a song each week, a keyword, and some activity and prayer suggestions. This post is for Week 0, the week BEFORE Advent begins – November 20th through 26th.

This Week’s Word: PREPARE

This Week’s Song: “People, Look East!”

1. People, look East! The time is near of the crowning of the year. 

Make your house fair as you are able, trim the hearth and set the table.

People, look East and sing today: Love the Guest is on the way!

Read the whole poem at this link: https://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=2853

Listen and learn the tune here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SPLN1g_ZFY

People, Look East was written by Eleanor Farjeon, who lived from 1881 to 1965, and published in 1928. Farjeon was a British children’s author and poet. She wrote wonderful short stories and poems, and her Christian faith was often part of her work. She also wrote another well-known hymn, “Morning has Broken” (#8 in our Hymnal). 

In this song, Farjeon uses different images to help us think about preparing to celebrate the coming of Jesus at Christmas: Guest, Rose, Bird, Star, Lord. 

Why look East? East is the direction of the rising sun. In the Bible, many texts describe God’s salvation as coming from the East. Many churches face towards the East for this reason. 

WORD FOR THE WEEK: PREPARE 

How to say “Prepare” in ASL:  Hold your hands in front of you, a little to one side, palms facing each other, with some space between them. 

Now, keeping your hands in the same position with facing palms, move them across in front of your body, making a small loop-the-loop as you go. 

Watch the sign here at this link:

SOMETHING TO LEARN… 

Which way is East, at your house? Which was is East, at church? 

Try finding East in other places you often go. 

Notice the sunrise! 

PRAYER PRACTICE for this week…

Clean, tidy, or decorate, prayerfully. Prayer doesn’t have to involve sitting still, or reading the words of a prayer from a book. Washing dishes, clearing a table to make room for your Advent wreath, unboxing seasonal decorations, preparing food for yourself or people you love – all of these can be prayerful acts.

Just turn your heart towards God before you begin, and try to do what you are doing with your full attention, focused on the task and what it means to you. 

HANDS-ON PROJECT: Prepare your Advent wreath!

This is a good week to prepare your Advent wreath, so you are ready for Advent to begin on Sunday the 27th. Maybe you have a wreath already, and you just need to get it out and set it up. Maybe you don’t have one, and you need to get materials from church or shop for some candles you like. We have simple Advent candles, and booklets with Advent prayers to use, available at church. Reach out to Rev. Miranda if you need to pick something up, or have something dropped off! 

The Advent wreath has roots in pre-Christian Europe, when evergreens and candles were symbols of the persistence of life and light through the dark and frozen winter. In the Middle Ages, the custom was Christianized and became a way for families to observe Advent at home. 

An Advent wreath can be as simple as four candles – they don’t even have to match! Pillar, jar, or votive candles work well. Set up your candles/wreath somewhere central in your home, like the center of the table where you usually eat. You can decorate your wreath or candles however you like – evergreen cuttings, pine cones, ribbons, whatever feels pretty and special for the season. Purple and blue are traditional Advent colors, but you don’t have to use them. 

When you sit down for dinner, or at another quiet moment in your evening, light a candle (or two, or three, or four) and spend a moment praying or just enjoying the light. During the first week of Advent (after the first Sunday of Advent), light one candle; after the second Sunday, light two candles, and so on. You may add a fifth candle to light at Christmas. Adding lights week by week, as it grows darker and darker outside, helps us enter into the anticipation of the season. 

RESONATING TEXTS

These texts offer some other ways to think about preparing for Christmas.  Click the links to read the poems and texts! 

What is the crying at Jordan? – by Carol Christopher Drake; Hymn #69 in our hymnal.

Making the House Ready for the Lord (Mary Oliver, 1935 – 2019)

The Guest House,  by Jalaluddin Rumi 

Yes, by William Stafford

Homily, July 24

A homily about prayer for All-Ages Worship, based on Luke 11:1-13. 

What does it mean to pray? 

At church it might feel like praying is when we read certain things out of our booklets. But that’s only one kind of prayer.

Or maybe it’s when we place our flowers and stones in the prayer gardens. But that’s also only one kind of prayer. 

Prayer means so many things! 

Anne Lamott says anything you say from your heart to God – out loud or inside yourself! – is a prayer.

But prayer isn’t just talking.  Listening is an important part of prayer, too. 

Prayer can look like coloring or knitting or walking… It can look like laughing, or crying. It can look like sitting very still. It can look like dancing.

In the Gospel today Jesus’ friends ask him how to pray. They want to know if there’s a right way to do it. And Jesus gives them an example: “Here’s a way to pray!” 

I think he was just trying to show them that prayer can be very simple.  Not that this is the ONE RIGHT PRAYER. But his friends wrote it down, and passed it on, and over time people started calling it the Lord’s Prayer, and using it in worship, and in their daily prayers too.

The Lord’s Prayer is an example of what’s good and what’s bad about worshiping the way our kind of church worships: with set prayers that we read off a page, or memorize. The bad is that it can get boring. Too familiar.  Sometimes we’re not really praying it at all; our mouths are just saying the words. The good is that it’s always there for us. It’s an anchor. When it’s hard to find our own words, we can use these ones. 

At our church we say the Lord’s Prayer using lots of versions! Everyone can pick which one they want to use. But we still know we’re all praying the same prayer together. I know for some people it feels like a lot for their ears – maybe too much! For other people it lets them pray from their heart, whether their words match everyone else’s or not. 

We started doing this because we were using the “contemporary version” of the Lord’s Prayer from our Prayer Book – the one that starts, “Our Father in heaven…”

But some people liked the older version better – the one that starts “Our Father who art in heaven…” So they were praying that version instead. 

When I noticed this, I remembered that at General Convention, when all the Episcopalians from the United States and the Caribbean and parts of Europe and Latin America and the indigenous churches all get together, people are invited to pray in the language of their heart. It’s amazing to be in a room with two thousand people all praying this same prayer, the prayer Jesus gave to his friends, but in so many different ways! 

So we started doing it that way too. 

Today there’s a new version in your Sunday Supplement, one I learned from a member of our parish. It’s based on the Message version of the Bible. It has some beautiful and surprising language and you might like to try it out, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer later on! 

So what’s in this prayer, the simple prayer Jesus gave his friends? Let’s take a quick look – and as we go, I’ll show you the signs from ASL, American Sign Language, that some of us like to use. 

First, we pray as God’s beloved children, calling God Father or Mother. If those are difficult words for you, you could use another name for God that brings you close in love. 

Then we say, May your Name be held holy! We pray for God’s goodness and glory to be seen and known. The sign for Holy is like wiping something clean so it can shine. 

Then we pray, Let your kingdom come! The Message version says, Set the world right! The sign for Come is just like calling someone with your hands. 

Then we pray, Give us the food we need for the day. We’re not praying for a Mercedes Benz here, or a Playstation 5. We’re praying for our most basic needs. Just enough. The ASL sign we use here is Feed or Eat. 

Then we pray for forgiveness of our sins. That the things we’ve done that we shouldn’t have done, or the things we didn’t do and should have done, will be wiped away, in God’s kindness – and that we’ll do better next time. And we pray for help forgiving other people, too.  The sign we use there is like sending someone on their way. You’re free! Go in peace! 

Then – in Luke’s version of this prayer, which is very short! – we pray that we won’t face tough situations and hard times. We use three different ASL signs here! We ask for God to strengthen us … And to spare us… look, two fists together, but then one escapes! And we ask God to save us, to set us free from the grip of evil. For the ASL sign, pretend your wrists are tied together – but then someone cuts the rope!

Then we hold up all our prayers to the God who rules the Universe in love… Amen. 

But then what happens? What happens AFTER we pray?

Praying isn’t like ordering in a restaurant, where you ask for mac and cheese, and in ten minutes, they bring you mac and cheese. 

But Jesus tells us to keep knocking, keep asking, keep seeking. And he says that God knows how to give us what we need. 

I bet some of us can think of times when we prayed for or about something, and it did happen, and we were glad and grateful.

I bet there are a lot more times when we didn’t even notice when our prayers were answered – because it’s easy not to notice when you stop being sad or anxious about something. 

We can also think of times when what we were praying for, didn’t happen the way we hoped it would.  When we prayed for an egg and feel like we got a scorpion. 

That could be another whole sermon. Let me just say that I don’t think everything that happens is God’s will. The world is not the way it is meant to be. 

Sometimes, though, the response to our prayers just doesn’t look like what we expected.

At Drama Camp this week, we worked with the story of Tobit, from the Apocrypha in the Bible. Among other things, Tobit is a story about prayer. Early in the story, Tobit, who has suffered many tragedies, prays for God to end his misery. At the same moment, a young woman named Sarah is praying to be freed from her own shame and suffering. And God decides to take care of both situations at once. 

The way the story unfolds from there involves a journey, a dog, a demon, an angel in disguise, and fish guts. I can’t possibly summarize it. Look it up, or ask a kid! But there is, eventually, a happy ending for both Tobit and Sarah. 

Sometimes the resolution of our struggles or yearnings takes the long way round. I’ve lived that. Maybe you have too. 

Now it’s almost time for us to pray together, friends!…

Sermon, Sept. 19

Before I start, I want to say to the kids listening that in this sermon, I am mostly talking about you but not to you. I know that’s a little rude and I’m sorry. If you have any thoughts or ideas as you listen, I would love to hear them later! 

Alright. Let’s hear a tiny bit of our Gospel again: Jesus took a little child and put it among the disciples; and taking it in his arms, he said to them,”Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the One who sent me.”

Just 24 verses later – so close that it’s on the same pair of pages in my big study bible – we see Jesus hugging children again. This will be our Gospel in a couple of weeks but let’s hear it today. 

Mark 10, verses 13 to 16:  People were bringing children to Jesus so that he would bless them. But the disciples scolded them. When Jesus saw this, he grew angry and said to them, “Allow the children to come to me. Don’t forbid them, because God’s kingdom belongs to people like these children. I assure you that whoever doesn’t welcome God’s kingdom like a child will never enter it.” Then he hugged the children and blessed them.

I think there are a couple of core ideas in these twin passages. First, it’s the responsibility of grown-up Christians to welcome young Christians. Jesus says that – AND shows it, in his anger at the people trying to create a no-child zone around him. 

Second, grown-up Christians should not assume that children are empty containers and our job is to fill them with faith. Children have things to teach grown-ups about the Kingdom of God. There are parts of all … this … that they understand better than we do. 

Note, too, that none of this is limited to parents or family. In both of these scenes, Jesus is speaking to his disciples – his inner circle, those who will become church leaders after his death. Not to the kids’ parents or grandparents. 

In the past few decades, people studying intergenerational communities and churches have gained some insight into **why** Jesus might have stressed these things. In the mid-20th century, American churches fell hard for the idea that what churches do with kids should look a lot like public school. Age-graded classrooms, lesson plans and workbooks, attendance charts and reward stickers. All based on the idea that Christianity is a body of information that can be taught, the same way you teach long division. 

As early as the 1960s, an Episcopal priest named John Westerhoff started writing about how misguided this was. He says, Faith is caught, not taught. If we want to raise children who know and love our way of faith, we need to focus on being church together. 

Ongoing study of kids and faith have reinforced Westerhoff’s point. Being meaningfully included in faith community helps kids mature into faithful adults. Faith aside, it’s also good for kids to have grownups who know and care about them, outside their family. The reverse is probably also true!

We’re re-discovering that faith isn’t a body of knowledge but a way of living. As one recent article put it, “Congregations are not providers of religious goods and services. They are dynamic, living communities of sojourners accompanying each other in discovering a Christian way of life.” (Elton & Pinkstaff)  In such a group of fellow-travelers, it makes sense that we all – regardless of age – have experiences, skills, good ideas and fruitful questions to share. 

We’re re-discovering that liturgy is learning. Our shared worship, at its best, helps shape us, week by week, year by year, into the people God calls us to be. If our shared worship is inviting and engaging – if it is comprehensible – if what we say and do is aligned with what we believe and mean – then participation in worship is part of how kids – AND adults! – continue to grow in faith. 

We are re-learning what churches should always have known, because Jesus tells us so: that our shared life of faith is incomplete without the voices and perspectives of children. The great 20th century liturgical scholar Louis Weil says, “It is not only that the child changes by being brought into the community of faith, but that the community itself changes as the mystery of another believer’s life unfolds in the context of community.” (CAWCIB, xi) 

My friend Sylvia Miller-Mutia says, “The Spirit calls together intergenerational communities because we have gifts for each other.” 

At St. Dunstan’s, we’ve spent several years now exploring what it looks like to become an intergenerational church. To borrow words from one of the wise voices on this subject, Gretchen Wolff Pritchard, we shifted the question from “How can we keep the children from disturbing us during worship?” to, “How can we invite the children into real involvement?”

And then Covid came along, and church went online for a year. We worked hard to keep elements of all-ages participation in Zoom church – with some success. Our Scripture dramas meant a lot to kids and grownups alike. 

At the same time – we lost a lot. Some kids and households just couldn’t tolerate Zoom worship. And even with the kids who were on Zoom, the rest of the congregation couldn’t hear their chatter, or pick up a lost toy, or admire a drawing, or invite them to help with a task, in the way we could in Building Church. 

We did what we could; and we held onto hope for After. 

And now – here we are, in After. Sort of.  A tentative and emerging After, that requires continued experimentation, flexibility, discernment… and hope.  

Some of our kids won’t be back in church until kids can be fully vaccinated against Covid. And some families’ habits have changed during the pandemic, and Sunday morning church may not fit anymore. 

On the other hand: we have learned that the things we do to engage kids in worship, also work well for some grownups. Pritchard puts it this way: “I am increasingly convinced that children’s liturgical needs are not qualitatively different from those of adults.” (Offering the Gospel to Children, p. 101)

For example: as we’ve added ASL gestures to certain prayers, I’ve been tickled to discover which grownups have been itching for a chance to move and use their bodies in worship. I love it when adults take the invitation to grab a coloring page and markers – or to bring their knitting project! I love that we have both kids and grownups who really like to play the xylophones at the Eucharist. 

This fall we’re trying something new for older kids and youth – and others who may opt in: Church journals. They look like this. The idea is that kids will claim and decorate a journal. Then, every week, there will be a few questions to ponder – and answer in the journal, if you want. Some are reflective – like, What am I feeling grateful for today? Was there a time this week when I felt included – or pushed out? Some are noticing questions, like, What’s my favorite part of our Scripture story today?

There’s also a standing invitation to draw or doodle while listening or praying. I’ve always listened best while doodling, myself! 

With these journals, I’m trying to strike the delicate balance between inviting attention and making space for reflection. As I was preparing them, I remembered Father Ed Tourangeau, my priest when I was my kids’ age. Father Ed always left a little silence at the end of his sermons. He did this, he explained, because he assumed that somewhere during the course of his sermon, people would get off on their own train of thought. Something he said would lead to something they needed to think about… or maybe something else entirely would float to the surface and demand their attention. With the pause at the end of the sermon, he gave people time to wrap up their thoughts and return to the room. I love the pragmatism and generosity of that approach. 

We sometimes say that people – adults and kids – should pay attention during church. Let me be clear: I do hope you pay attention during church, beloveds. But I also hope you’re not ONLY paying attention to ME – or to whoever else happens to be leading worship at the moment. I hope that sometimes your attention will be caught by a word or phrase in a prayer or Scripture or song, and that will draw you towards something you need to think about, or something God has to say to you, deep down I your heart. I hope that sometimes your attention will drift to a loved one who’s going through a hard time, and you’ll pause to hold them in God’s light. Or you notice that some moment from the past week still feels unsettled, and you’ll dwell with whether you need to make amends, or change the situation. 

Let’s be clear: You’re not an audience or a class. And your responsibility here is neither to absorb information nor to appreciate a performance. There will  be neither quiz nor ovation. For some of you, sometimes, this set-apart time, this hour on Sunday mornings, may simply be a doorway into thanks, or a silence in which another voice may speak. (Those words come from the poet Mary Oliver.)

So with the church journals – as with many other things – planning something for our kids leads to naming something that’s true for many of us. 

Putting kids and youth at the center of our common life, alongside the grownups, rather than off to the side; and believing that we grownups can learn and practice faith with and from them – that’s one of the ways we follow Jesus, at St. Dunstan’s. 

I love these passages in Mark’s Gospel where Jesus embraces children. Jesus challenges so many assumptions in his ministry. It delights me that one of them is the idea that there are places kids don’t belong; that there are things that are too important for kids to be around.

I noticed, this week, that it’s easy to think of these stories as breaks from the urgent pace of Jesus’ march towards the cross. As warm and fuzzy “Awww!” Moments – before Jesus starts talking about crucifixion again. But thanks to re-reading the whole Gospel of Mark in Father Tom’s Bible study this summer, I’m questioning that view. Mark’s Jesus predicts his own death and resurrection three times, before he enters Jerusalem and the story begins to accelerate towards the cross. That’s where these scenes fall – among those grim predictions that confuse and frighten his disciples. 

Mark is a very careful writer. Whether that reflects the actual sequence of events or Mark’s choice: it is not an accident. These scenes are not soft-focus breaks from the urgent, building action. They’re important. As Jesus predicts that God’s Messiah must suffer and die, he’s preparing his followers for a world turned upside down: the mighty cast down, the lowly lifted up, the outsider brought in, the last made first. Old ways set aside, and new kinds of communities born. 

We don’t do what we do – our shared and ongoing work towards becoming an intergenerational faith community – because kids are cute and talented, though they are. We don’t do this because Welcoming is one of our Discipleship Practices, though it is. We don’t do this because we think it will make our church grow, though it might?

We do it because we pray every week, maybe every day, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. And this is one of the ways we walk towards the kingdom, and live out God’s divine will. Because in some way beyond our full understanding, this becoming is part of the redemptive work that God in Christ is doing in and for and through St. Dunstan’s. 

May the God who has called us to this work, give us the wisdom and will to continue it. Amen. 

Online Vacation Bible School 2020: The Story of Joseph!

Our annual August intergenerational Vacation Bible School is online! We’ll do it “live” over Zoom on Sunday, August 9, though Thursday,  August 13, from 6 – 7PM every evening. (Feel free to join over dinner!) To get the Zoom link, email Rev. Miranda at or join our Facebook group.

Kids, youth and adults are all welcome! We can’t break up by age group online the same way we usually do in person, but we’ll do our best to listen, wonder, and learn together across age groups.

We’ll also make the videos & reflection materials available online for those who’d like to participate at their own pace, or have to miss a day. The materials for each day  will be added as new links below.

The Story of Joseph, Day 1: Video on Vimeo

The Story of Joseph Day 1 At-Home Reflection Materials

The Story of Joseph, Day 2: Video on Vimeo

The Story of Joseph Day 2 At-Home Reflection Materials

The Story of Joseph, Day 3: Video on Vimeo

The Story of Joseph Day 3 At-Home Reflection Materials

The Story of Joseph, Day 4: Video on Vimeo

The Story of Joseph Day 4 At-Home Reflection Materials

The Story of Joseph, Day 5: Video on Vimeo 

The Story of Joseph Day 5 At-Home Reflection Materials 

Homily/Drama, April 28

Honoring the second Sunday of Easter as a time to affirm our youth in their wondering and seeking in faith is an idea from John Westerhoff (in Will Our Children Have Faith?, pages 101-102). We decided to try it out! Thanks to the Rev. Thomas McAlpine, the Rev. Jonathan Melton, and other conversation partners in developing these ideas. 

MIRANDA: Friends, today is sometimes called Doubting Thomas Sunday. Because our Gospel is the story about Thomas, one of Jesus’ friends, and how he came to believe that Jesus had truly risen from the dead. We get the same Gospel lesson EVERY year, even though most of our Gospels only come around every three years. It’s like our Lectionary wants to shout at us every year: DO NOT DOUBT BUT BELIEVE!

But what does it mean to doubt?  Is it OK to have questions about faith, and God, and the world? … Of course it is! Is it OK to not understand everything? …  Of course it is! But if we just say, Don’t doubt! It’s bad to doubt! – and don’t talk about what doubt really is… we might all walk around with ideas like this deep down inside:

Hold up signs: I’M A BAD CHRISTIAN, I DON’T BELONG HERE, EVERYBODY ELSE SEEMS TO GET IT; WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?

MIRANDA: So today we’re going to talk about DOUBT. We’ll draw on several Scriptures – they’re on your Sunday Supplement if you want to take a look. What does it mean to doubt? Maybe it means there are things we think we’re supposed to believe – but don’t, really. You might think you’re a Bad Christian because the church teaches that the earth was created in seven days, and that dinosaur fossils are a trick God gave us to test our faith. But you really love science, and you just can’t swallow that.

Well, good news, Bad Christian – you don’t have to! Our church doesn’t teach that the world was created in just seven days. We understand the Creation story as telling us that God is the Source of all things, and that God made all things in love – and that we’re all in this together, humans and animals and plants and oceans and stars. And science is awesome! There are lots and lots and lots of scientists who also believe in God! 

Or you might feel like you Don’t Belong Here because you’ve heard that Jesus had to die on the cross because God was so angry about how bad and sinful humans are. God was so mad that God had to punish somebody, so Jesus took the punishment for us, to protect us from God’s anger. But, man, that story does not make you feel good about God. 

Well, that one is a doozy. It’s tough because some of our prayers could point you in that direction. But good news: Your church does not ask you to believe this! That teaching is called substitutionary atonement. It is just one way – out of many – that Christians have tried to understand Jesus’ death and resurrection. But what Jesus himself says about God is that God is merciful, and loves us, and wants to be close to us.  What a relief – that angry God was pretty scary! 

It’s OK to have questions, and to wrestle with what you think about it all! Let’s hear from someone who knows about wrestling with God. This is a story from the book of Genesis. 

JACOB: Hi, everybody. My name is Jacob. I lived a really long time ago – after Abraham, but before Moses. Is anybody here a twin? … I’m a twin. I was born second, after my brother Esau. In those days, everything went to the oldest son, even if the second son was born five minutes later. I spent my life consumed by envy of my brother. He had everything – including our father’s love. Finally I crossed a line; I did something so bad that I had to run away, or my brother might have killed me.

I spent years away from home. I got married, had children, became rich. But always, I felt the pull of home. And of unfinished business with my brother. Finally I knew it was time to go home. I gathered up my wives and children and servants and flocks, and we set out. As we got close, I was more and more terrified. My parents raised me to love and trust God. But I’d spent so much time trying to take, instead of waiting for God to give. Maybe God was done with me. Maybe I’d already gotten all the good life was going to give me. 

I sent servants on ahead with gifts for my brother – goats and sheep and camels and cattle and donkeys – did I mention I was really rich? And I sent my family off without me, so that if Esau came to kill me, they could get away. And I prayed to God: ‘God, you told me, “Return to you country and your kindred, and I will do you good.” I am not worthy of the steadfast love and faithfulness you have shown to me, all these years. Save me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him!’ 

And then – someone was with me. It was pitch dark; I could not see him. But he seized me, and we began to wrestle. We struggled together all night, until daybreak. As the sky began to lighten, the stranger said, Let me go. But I said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. So the stranger blessed me, and he gave me a new name, Israel, which means: One who wrestles with God. And then the stranger disappeared. But I knew that God had been with me that night. And that day, when I met my brother, I wasn’t afraid anymore. We hugged each other, and cried, and forgave each other. 

MIRANDA: Thank you for sharing your story, Jacob! We also might think it’s Doubt when we don’t have all the answers. When there are things we don’t understand – things in the world or in our lives. Those moments when you have a friend who just found out she’s really sick, and you’re worried for her, and you just don’t understand why people get sick. Why do we have to suffer?

KING DAVID: Oh, I feel you. I remember some times when I really felt like that. 

MIRANDA: King David! My goodness! It’s an honor to meet you. You were the most famous king of Israel, and most of the Psalms were written by you or by musicians in your court.

KING DAVID: True, true.

MIRANDA: You’re telling me you had times when you were overwhelmed by suffering and confusion? But you’re famous for your deep faith. How did you talk to God, in those times? 

KING DAVID: Actually, writing poetry about it was one of the ways I handled it. Here’s a song I wrote during a tough time. You know it as Psalm 102. 

O God, hear my prayer, and let my cry come before you! Don’t hide your face from me in the day of my trouble. Turn your ear towards me; when I call, hurry and answer me. For my days drift away like smoke,  and my bones feel as hot as burning coals. My heart feels as dry and brittle as withered grass; I even forget to eat my bread; I am skin and bones. I have become like a vulture in the wilderness, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake and groan; I am like a sparrow, lonely on a house-top. But you, O God, endure for ever, and your Name from age to age. You will arise and have compassion on your people  – for now is the time to have mercy! 

MIRANDA: Wow. Thank you. I think I should read some more of your poetry. 

KING DAVID [modestly]: I have been told that many people find it consoling. 

MIRANDA: Even in your worst moments, you turned towards God. And you weren’t afraid to tell God about it when you were hurting. So… being sad and fearful and confused, and even angry, is not the same thing as doubting God? 

KING DAVID: Not at all. If I doubted God, why would I cry out to God about my troubles? I trust God. That’s why I can complain.

MIRANDA: Wait. You just said you trust God. Jacob said that too. Don’t you mean, you believe in God? 

KING DAVID: I… don’t understand the question. 

MIRANDA: Well, in modern English, to believe means that you think something is true. Like, Cheetahs are the fastest animals. True or not true? True! Trust is different. Trust means you know that somebody is there for you, you know they are who they claim to be and will keep their commitments. You could say that belief is in your brain, and trust is in your heart – and in your relationship with somebody. 

KING DAVID: Hmmm. I see the problem. In Hebrew, the language I speak, we don’t have this… brain-only belief idea. Where you say “believe” in God, our words mean: trust God, hope in God, rely on God, seek safety in God, commit to God… How can you have a relationship with God, or anybody else, with only your brain? 

MIRANDA: That’s a good question… Thank you, O King! Hmm. But if we shift from thinking about believing in God with our brains… to trusting God with our hearts and our lives… then what do we mean by doubt?

JAMES: May I be of assistance?

MIRANDA: Excuse me – who are you?

JAMES: I am James, the brother of Jesus. I wrote a letter that’s included in the New Testament…. About what it really means to live as a person of faith. 

MIRANDA: Of course! It’s an honor to meet you. 

JAMES: I began that letter by reminding fellow Christians to stay faithful in the face of persecution – and even take joy in suffering for Christ’s sake. I said, If you need wisdom, ask God, who gives us what we need with generosity. And ask in faith, without doubting; for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.The doubter is double-minded and unstable in every way. Double-minded – that’s what I mean by doubt. Split between too many things. Trying to believe two contradictory things at the same time, or believing one thing but acting like you believed something else.

I really started thinking about doubt this way after that time when Jesus called Peter to walk on the water. It worked fine as long as Peter stayed focused on Jesus. But when he started to let his attention wander, he got scared; he lost direction; and he started to sink. Jesus grabbed him, of course – and said, “Why did you doubt?” 

Jesus didn’t mind when we had questions. Sometimes he was annoyed when we didn’t understand – but, to be fair, we were pretty slow on the uptake. He was mostly pretty patient about explaining again, and again, and again. His call on us wasn’t to have it all figured out, but to put our heart into it. To commit. That’s why I think the real meaning of doubt is trying to live by two different, contradictory scripts at the same time. 

MIRANDA: I definitely know what double-mindedness feels like. And that’s probably my biggest struggle with faithful living. I trust in God’s goodness and love. I know God is here among us, right now. But… I get distracted by many things. I get busy. I lose focus and purpose. I get double-minded, and lose my glad singleness of heart. 

But what about Thomas? The one everybody calls Doubting Thomas. That’s why we’re talking about doubt today. What can we learn about doubt from Doubting Thomas? 

THOMAS: Please don’t call me that.

MIRANDA: Oh, hello! Are you… the apostle Thomas? 

THOMAS: Yes, that’s me. 

MIRANDA: Why don’t you tell us your story? 

THOMAS: Well, okay, it’s like this.  Jesus rose from the dead. You know that part, right?  Mary Magdalene told the disciples that she had seen him. But nobody really believed her. [shrugs]

Then one evening most of the old crowd got together. Suddenly Jesus was there among them. He showed them the wounds in his hands and his side – proof that it was really him, not an impostor, not a ghost. They were really happy to see him, of course!

I wasn’t there that night; I was visiting my mother. And when I heard about what happened, I just couldn’t believe it. My heart had been broken by Jesus’ death. I wanted to believe, do you understand? But I was afraid to hope. I told them, “Until I can touch the wounds in his hands, I just can’t believe that he’s alive.”

A week later we were all together, sharing memories. And suddenly – he was there! Jesus! In the room with us! Not an impostor, not a ghost.  And he walked right up to me and held out his hand. It was like he’d heard what I said to the others. He told me, “Here, touch the wound in my hand. Don’t be afraid, Thomas – trust: it’s really me.”

My heart felt like it might burst. I said, “My Lord! My God!” I was so glad to see him – and so grateful that he understood that I couldn’t just rely on second-hand stories. That I needed to see him myself. 

MIRANDA : Thank you for telling your story, Thomas! It reminds me a little bit of my own story. I grew up in church. I was always surrounded by people who believed in God – trusted in God. I heard their stories of times when they’d heard God’s voice or met God, in so many different ways. That was important for me, as I grew up. 

But it was also really important for me to meet God myself. To have my own times when I felt God close by, or heard God’s voice in my heart or in someone else’s words. 

What I’m saying, Thomas, is that what happened for you, and what happened for me, is what I want for all our kids and youth – and grownups, too! We should all have our own meetings with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. And we should be a community where we can tell those stories, and encourage each other – whether we’re wrestling like Jacob, or crying out to God like King David, or feeling double-minded, or seeking a clearer sense of God in our lives. 

Friends, we wonder about God and seek God at every age – but the teenage years are an especially important time for seeking your own understanding of faith and your own experiences of God. So later this morning we are trying out a new custom: of celebrating that we have young people moving into that exciting season, and committing to being their companions on that journey.

For our teens, Friday night youth group is their primary faith community. Some of them also participate in church on Sunday morning – but mostly at the 10am service. But some of you know some of them. And you may find opportunities to know them better, and be one of the faithful grownups in their lives. – faithful both in the sense of having your own faith story and faith questions to share, and faithful in sticking with them through the challenges of young adulthood. 

I ask you to make a commitment to our youth today: to be unafraid of questions; to speak honestly from our own lives and hearts, instead of saying what we think grownups are supposed to say; and to be brave enough to wonder with them. 

And if their questions and their vision stretches or challenges us, we will rise to it; because we love them, and we trust that God is at work in their lives, and, through them, in the life of this church. 

Friends, will we make this commitment to our young people today? 

WE WILL!

MIRANDA: Names, we acknowledge that as you move into young adulthood, you are thinking about what your church and your faith have offered you in new ways. As you think about God and yourself and the world, you’ll probably have new thoughts and new questions. Like Jacob, you may find yourself wrestling with God; like Thomas, you may find that second-hand faith isn’t good enough for you, and seek your own experience of the Divine. We, as your household of faith, affirm this journey and this work.  At your baptisms, your churches promised to do all in our power to support you in your life in Christ. Today, that means making space for your maturing, and all that it involves. 

What we ask of you is to trust us as companions on this journey. Trust us with the little questions, the things you think you’re probably already supposed to know. You’d be surprised how many of us wonder, too. Trust us with the big questions, knowing that we have wrestled with them too; and that even though some of those big questions don’t have easy answers, we find purpose and truth here. Seek out friends among the grownups of this household of faith, and call on us for support and wondering together. And if it ever starts to feel like this church is too small for you, I invite you to talk to me or another trusted grownup here; we may be able to show you doors into rooms you didn’t even know about. (Metaphorically speaking!) 

Friends, will you make this commitment today? I invite you respond, We will. 

We will. 

Loving God, we commit all our struggle, our lament, our double-mindedness and our seeking to you, trusting that Scripture, tradition, and community are worthy companions on the way; that God is mystery enough to keep us wondering for a lifetime; and that Jesus Christ is Friend enough to walk with us through this and every season. Amen. 

Sermon, Feb. 3

I’d like to ask the kids in the room to listen up. I’m going to read you something, and then I want to know what you think about it. Listen:  “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” How does that make you feel? … 

Okay, now I’m going to read you something else. These words come from the great prophet Jeremiah. He says, “The Word of God came to me saying, “Before you were born I set you apart for a special call: I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But GOD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Don’t be afraid of them, for I am with you.”  How does that make you feel? … 

Thank you so much for listening and sharing your thoughts! I’m going to keep talking now, the way that grownups do. Carry on coloring or drawing – I hope you’ll show me your work, later. 

Here’s what I notice about these readings. Paul isn’t actually talking about growing up, here. He’s talking about how we’re only able to see a little bit of God’s greater purposes, and we do not understand the unfolding of the reign of God. So we do best when we simply steer by Love, because that will always lead us true.

Paul is using growing up as a metaphor – saying that now we have a limited, “childlike” understanding of God and the cosmos, but one day we will understand fully – all those great mysteries will be opened to us. So he’s saying some wonderful and important things in this passage. But in the process, he reveals that he thinks kids’ words and thoughts are definitely second-best. I guess he’s forgotten the time when Jesus picked up a little child, and said to his friends, “Listen, unless you all change and become like little children, you’re never going to find your way into the Kingdom of Heaven.” 

On the other hand, we have young Jeremiah. This was our assigned Old Testament lesson today; we shared the Candlemas story instead. But I just told you most of it. Jeremiah was a boy when he was called as a prophet. And he says, God, I don’t know how to talk to important people! I’m just a kid! And God says, Don’t say, I’m just a kid! You can do this. I’ll be with you. 

Our Gospel story is kind of related to that Jeremiah story. Jesus – who is a grownup at this point – is beginning his public ministry. It’s a really important moment. He goes back to his hometown, Nazareth, where he was brought up. He goes to the synagogue, the local house of worship, where people read Scripture and talk about what it means together. And he reads these words from the prophet Isaiah, saying that he has been anointed to begin God’s great work of healing and redemption! And everyone’s staring at him wide-eyed, they’re really impressed; but what are they saying to each other?  “Isn’t this Joseph’s boy?”

They like what he’s saying, but they’re having a hard time taking him seriously, because they remember him as a child. They think he’s getting above his raising, for one thing. But also, a lot of people, if they knew someone as a child, have a hard time seeing them as a grown-up. How many of us have gone back to where we came from, one way or another, and found that the older generation there still thinks of us as who we were when we were six or ten or sixteen? They still see you as a child; and they don’t take you seriously, because we don’t take children seriously. 

We have this idea that kids’ words and thoughts are not as good, not as important, not as sophisticated. That grownup ways of doing things as better and more important. Jeremiah thought that. Who told him that kids can’t do God’s work? The grownups in his life, that’s who. And Paul thought it too. “I used to think like a child, but then I grew up and put away childish ways!” And we still think this. Our kids get this message over and over again. I would say that in the 21st century, we take kids more seriously than many previous generations of humanity did – but we still don’t take them all that seriously. If you raised your kids in an earlier generation, you might feel like kids today have the world revolving around them. But I promise you, these kids all know what it feels like to have their words and needs not listened to – not believed – even laughed at – because they’re just kids, and the grownups know better. 

 Paul is right in a way: kids are different from grownups. Kids are not short adults. Kids bring different ideas, perspectives, and needs; and of course kids aren’t all alike – different kids, and different ages of kids, have their own ways of being and thinking and participating. We’ve tried just inviting kids to be part of what the grownups like to do – churches have been trying that for generations, and it doesn’t work terribly well! (A friend once told me, Grownups like to sit around and talk about stuff; they should be in Sunday school. Kids like to march around, play with fire, tell stories, and sing – they should be in church!) 

Kids’ voices, kids’ calls, kids’ prayers, kids’ contributions may be different from those of grownups. It would be silly to expect them to be the same. Of course part of what’s different is that we learn and grow. As we get older, we have life experiences, we meet more kinds of people, we encounter different ideas, we reflect on it all; and our understanding of the world gets bigger and more complex. (Ideally!) But there’s something about the freedom and clarity and playfulness and truth of young minds that don’t have all that grownup stuff muddying them up yet – I think that’s why Jesus told his friends they needed to think more like little kids. 

So: Sure, kids are kids. They haven’t seen or read or done or thought about as much stuff as your average grownup has, yet. And: God can absolutely work in them and through them. God can absolutely strengthen and guide our fellowship of faith, though the presence and ministry of our kids. God can absolutely have a word for us grownup types, though the voices of our children. Liturgical scholar Louis Weil writes this about why kids belong in church: “It is not only that the child changes by being brought into the community of faith, but that the community itself changes as the mystery of another believer’s life unfolds in the context of community.” (Children at Worship, Congregations in Bloom, xi) And Sylvia Mutia-Miller, one of the wisest voices in the Episcopal Church on kids’ belonging in church, says that adults don’t often anticipate mutuality in relationships with kids. 

We expect those relationships to be one directional – grownups helping or teaching kids, and kids receiving. But, she says: The Spirit calls together intergenerational communities because we have gifts for each other. 

I’m not talking about romanticizing or idealizing kids. Yes, they say cute stuff and funny stuff sometimes. But kids’ dignity is important to them; they don’t want to be seen as just cute and funny. I’m talking about hearing and receiving kids’ questions, hopes, ideas, needs, and yes, sometimes, their prophetic words. 

And I’m not talking about privileging kids over adults. I know sometimes it probably feels that way – we are so used to adults being at the center of church life, and kids being off to the side somewhere, that moving kids towards the center – not TO the center, not even close, but closer – moving kids towards the center, naming them as full members of our faith community, can feel like adults are losing something. If you feel that now and then, dear ones, I ask you to try to trust that instead, we are gaining something. And bear in mind that as of right now, I believe *one* of our church committees has a kid member. Nearly every decision made in the life of this parish is made with little or no input from our 18 and younger population. I hope we’ll reexamine that together in the months ahead. Because that is what I’m talking about: Not putting kids and youth at the top of the ladder, but bringing them to their rightful place at the table, alongside the grownups. 

And let me be clear – I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating – that making space for kids and youth to be fully heard and fully included makes more space for many grownups, too. Here are some notable things about kids: Kids are open with their questions; they’re upfront with what they like and what they don’t; if they wonder what we’re doing or why things are the way they are, they’ll speak up about it; they usually let you know when they’re upset, and they bring their whole selves to whatever they do. 

Well: A lot Episcopal churches have a culture in which people don’t ask questions, at least not the real ones; pretend they know what’s going on even if they don’t; sure as heck don’t let people know if they’re upset;  and bring only the respectable, well-dressed, together parts of themselves to church. But kids are not the only ones who sometimes feel like they don’t have much to offer, or that they’re only welcome if they act like everybody else.

So, grownup friends in Christ, what if welcoming and including kids helps us welcome and include each other – and even ourselves! – as people who have questions! As people who have likes and dislikes, hopes and fears!  As people who wonder why things are the way they are! As people who hurt. As people who need to be able to wear their whole selves in public – here, if nowhere else in your life! – within the safety of a community of mutual flourishing and holy friendship, in which together we seek to be transformed and empowered by that Love that is patient and kind; that is never envious, or arrogant, or rude; that does not insist on its own way, and is not irritable or resentful; that never rejoices in another’s failure or misfortune. That Love that bears all things; believes all things;  hopes all things;  endures all things… and never, never ends.