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When we en­counter snarling, bit­ing be­hav­ior, in­stinct may prompt us to re­act in a sim­i­lar way, or to keep a pro­tec­tive dis­tance or maybe even flee the scene. Yet Je­sus taught us an­oth­er way: to re­spond with love.

Some­times we do need to get away from aw­ful sit­u­a­tions – cer­tain­ly from abu­sive re­la­tion­ships, where the pow­er of an­oth­er is caus­ing harm, in­clud­ing phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, and spir­i­tu­al dam­age. If you or some­one you care about is in such a re­la­tion­ship; know that there are peo­ple of love and trust who can help. Let’s all try to con­nect with each oth­er and look out for the vul­ner­a­ble among us.

Most of us see an­oth­er kind of be­hav­ior every day, mul­ti­ple times a day, that nips away at us, wound­ing the world in which we live. These are the nasty com­ments, the growls, the cranky at­ti­tudes, the peo­ple who seem to con­stant­ly tear things up. We may try to walk away, we may be tempt­ed to engage.

Un­der­neath such be­hav­ior, if we can look past the bared teeth and bark­ing, we usu­al­ly find fears; be­hind fear, there are of­ten wounds, hurts, and ne­glect and hungers of var­i­ous kinds.

Je­sus showed us a way to face fears and the bar­ri­ers that can come be­tween us – and it may take only a tiny bit of faith – to reach for un­der­stand­ing and re­spond with love. Some­times all it takes is a gen­tle touch, a soft­er voice, an in­ner calm, a will­ing­ness to lis­ten. We may help in­ter­rupt, change di­rec­tion, and guide the way to an­oth­er path.

And we don’t have to try this alone. We have been called to walk in com­mu­ni­ty with oth­ers, to share in the prac­tices of Je­sus, side by side. Some of our com­pan­ions on this way have two legs and some, we may find, have four. Through them, may we learn to trust a lit­tle more in the love of God we have been giv­en and fol­low in the foot­steps of Je­sus Christ.

T+

Some sto­ries have nice, tidy end­ings. This is not one of those. In the East­er sto­ry, the end­ing is more of a be­gin­ning, and the mid­dle chap­ters are still be­ing writ­ten. Through­out this sea­son, Christ re­minds us and re­veals to us that the res­ur­rec­tion is our birthing and our eter­ni­ty, it is who we are – a peo­ple rec­on­ciled and re­stored to new life, a peo­ple ever rising.

This is the sto­ry we are in­vit­ed to enter.

This is not an event we re­call, but a way of life we are called to live. As a body of be­liev­ers with ques­tions and doubts, ideas and opin­ions, hope and con­fi­dence – as Beloved Com­mu­ni­ty – we are called by God to con­tin­ue this sto­ry in our com­mon life. In so do­ing, we be­come signs and in­stru­ments for oth­ers to know Christ’s ex­tra­or­di­nary love for us. The way we live our lives, in­di­vid­u­al­ly and as a com­mu­ni­ty, can ex­press our in­ward un­der­stand­ings of life and death, of love, and of our faith in God for the rising.

No mat­ter how hard the falls, no mat­ter how im­per­fect our lives, no one is be­yond the reach of God’s grace and love. We live, al­ways, in the promise of ris­ing with Christ. How we live, in com­mu­ni­ty with oth­ers, is in­tend­ed to be life-giv­ing, life-restoring.

Grace Epis­co­pal Church is a sign of God’s love es­tab­lished more than 150 years ago – pos­si­bly the old­est, con­tin­u­ous­ly open church in Al­len­town. We are a com­mu­nity of pas­sion­ate peo­ple, striv­ing to live out our faith in an ever-​chang­ing down­town, an ever-chang­ing world. Our life to­gether, and our life in ser­vice of God’s mis­sion, are nur­tured and nour­ished by the pres­ence of Je­sus Christ among us. We break bread to­geth­er and prac­tice lov­ing one an­oth­er. We prac­tice ris­ing to new life with Christ.

It is here – in our re­la­tion­ships, in the church, and out into the streets – that we are called to bear wit­ness to the risen Christ’s love for all. Here, all are wel­come. Come as you are, with all your pre­cious gifts, all your scars and wounds and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. Come to love and be loved. Come, rise up, and ex­pe­ri­ence the liv­ing sto­ry of God’s grace.

The Rev. Twila Smith – East­er 2016

Grace parish­ioner Jef­frey Kem­mer­er is the fea­tured blog­ger for our dioce­san pil­grim­age, in this sea­son af­ter the Epiphany. You can fol­low his dai­ly blog, which will con­tin­ue un­til Lent.

I am a parish­ioner at Grace Al­len­town. One of the no­table fea­tures of the church is the lack of pews. Wor­ship is con­duct­ed in a cir­cle of chairs or at the al­tar. There is nowhere to hide. We are for­tu­nate to have our youngest parish­ioner with us most Sun­days. She is a one year old tod­dler who is re­al­ly sur­pris­ing­ly coör­di­nat­ed and steady on her feet. She has amaz­ing pa­tience and sits qui­et­ly for much of the service.

Many Sun­days, there comes a time when her ex­u­ber­ance (or per­haps her break­fast calo­ries) over­pow­ers her pa­tience and she is off on an ad­ven­ture, ex­plor­ing the church and her fel­low parish­ioners. Cast­ing cau­tion aside, she races from place to place, ex­am­in­ing all the won­ders she dis­cov­ers — won­ders that are in­vis­i­ble to us old­er folk. In her trav­els, she aban­dons her cau­tious and ef­fec­tive stride — it is too lim­it­ing. She glad­ly ac­cepts the risk of bumped knees or head and re­lies on fel­low parish­ioners to keep her from any real harm.

“Let the lit­tle chil­dren come to me, and do not hin­der them, for the king­dom of heav­en be­longs to such as these.”
– Matthew 19:14

I plan to fol­low her ex­am­ple in my posts these next few weeks. I will fa­vor won­der over re­straint and will like­ly bruise a knee or two.

Per­haps she is also a mod­el for our dioce­san pil­grim­age. We can let go a bit and rely on our en­thu­si­asm to car­ry us on an ad­ven­ture to dis­cov­er new and over­looked won­ders. We might risk the oc­ca­sion­al bump or bruise while re­ly­ing on each oth­er to avoid harm.

“For where two or three are gath­ered in my name, I am there among them.” – Matthew 18:20

On this day we set aside for Sab­bath rest, and nor­mal­ly gath­er as beloved com­mu­ni­ty to give thanks to God and of­fer sup­port to one an­oth­er in our spir­i­tu­al jour­ney, let us be mind­ful that “gath­er­ing” can be in a place of the heart. If we can come to­geth­er as com­mu­ni­ties via so­cial me­dia (and go­ing back to the days of par­ty-line phones and print­ed news­pa­pers!), we can sure­ly gath­er on a snow-packed Sun­day – in Christ’s name and deeply com­mit­ted to the life and min­istry God calls us into.

Three thoughts have been on my mind in the midst of this snow storm: One comes from my re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ty back in Ok­la­homa, one from the con­cepts of sab­bath and re­treat, and the oth­er from our scrip­ture read­ings ap­point­ed for this day.

One of the found­ing and still-fre­quent con­ver­sa­tions in the Oak­er­hater Com­mu­ni­ty – named for St. David Pendle­ton Oak­er­hater, who car­ried the Epis­co­pal Church to what was then In­di­an Ter­ri­to­ry – is about be­ing the church across space and time. We rec­og­nize that “church” is a move­ment and a great gath­er­ing of re­la­tion­ships in Christ, rather than a spe­cif­ic place. Most of Oakerhater’s fifty-plus years in min­istry could be de­fined as car­ry­ing the church, car­ry­ing Christ, in his very be­ing, while walk­ing around the Plains of west­ern Oklahoma.

It is now more than four years since I left the close, day-by-day, phys­i­cal pres­ence with mem­bers of my re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ty, and I am still learn­ing what it means to be in com­mu­ni­ty with them while half a coun­try apart. Yet they are a spir­i­tu­al life­line for me, speak­ing the truth with great love, and help­ing me up when I fall. De­spite the miles be­tween us, our re­la­tion­ships grow as we pray and serve God in the places to which we have been called, and they con­tin­ue to teach me to walk in Christ’s Way. Ab­sence from them in phys­i­cal form has opened my eyes to new un­der­stand­ing, new ways of be­ing. Each per­son, in their own ways and with their unique gifts, re­mind me of God’s faith­ful­ness, of full ac­cep­tance and for­give­ness, of gen­eros­i­ty, com­pas­sion, and great love. They re­mind me of Christ, whose mind and heart I seek to know and fol­low, more and more each day.

So, for the com­mu­ni­ty that nor­mal­ly gath­ers as Grace Epis­co­pal Church, at Fifth and Lin­den in down­town Al­len­town, re­mem­ber with me that be­ing mem­bers of the Body of Christ is not de­fined by our phys­i­cal pres­ence, and “church” reach­es far be­yond our phys­i­cal meet­ing spaces. We are nour­ished by be­ing to­geth­er in ways we can see and touch, and we con­tin­ue to be fed as we up­hold our com­mit­ments to prayer and as we tend to our re­la­tion­ships with God and one an­oth­er in the times between.

The sec­ond stir­ring of my heart is about the con­cepts of sab­bath and re­treat. Oh, how hard it can be to keep sab­bath! And oh, how I of­ten long for re­treat! I will con­fess here and now to my strug­gles with both. While I hold fast to my Mon­day sab­bath day (since Sun­days are, well, full and sel­dom rest­ful), the laun­dry piles up in my apart­ment, gro­ceries need to be pro­cured, and some Mon­days the best I can seem to do is to keep a morn­ing ap­point­ment with God, my jour­nal, and a cup of cof­fee. I’ve been in silent re­treat, which I know can­not si­lence the voic­es clam­or­ing for at­ten­tion in my mind.

In this snow, we have been giv­en en­cour­age­ment for sab­bath, for re­treat, for re­new­al in God’s ten­der care. Yes, there are dri­ve­ways to clear and home fires to stoke. And many peo­ple are at work on roads and side­walks, and re­spond­ing to emer­gency calls, staffing cof­fee shops and gro­cery stores, and … Most of us have been hand­ed a spe­cial snow sab­bath. Meet­ings have been can­celed. No one ex­pects us to get out, to show up. Po­lice are im­plor­ing us to stay off the roads. How of­ten have you longed for such time?

As I walked over to the church this morn­ing, to look in on neigh­bors and check on the build­ing, I ex­pe­ri­enced the phys­i­cal force slow­ing us down. I don’t do well with stay­ing still. Heavy coat, boots, trekking pole, and off I go … And so, when the cleared side­walks around my apart­ment and the PPL Cen­ter took me to deep­er and deep­er snow, I kept trudg­ing on – forced to slow, but re­fus­ing to stop. Un­til I hit a drift that could have swal­lowed me up.

There are metaphors here in the snow and wis­dom for our pondering.

We all know that some­times we need to as­sess where we are and con­sid­er a dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion. And some­times we need to sim­ply stop. I have been med­i­tat­ing on my ten­den­cy to plow on through, and con­sid­er­ing the wis­dom of God that comes when I at least slow down and give time for God to en­ter in.

That leads to the fi­nal med­i­ta­tion on my heart this morn­ing. In our scrip­ture read­ings to­day from Ne­hemi­ah and Luke, God’s wis­dom is re­vealed – not with new words, in this case, but words the peo­ple had al­ready heard. They are fi­nal­ly able to hear them anew, and un­der­stand­ing comes to them. What was dif­fer­ent this time? What are the pos­si­bil­i­ties for us?

I en­cour­age us to take breaks in our shov­el­ing out of this storm, to see the sab­bath time we have been giv­en, and to hear God’s Word that con­tin­ues to come to us, as fresh and deep as the snow. Lis­ten to the words of scrip­ture. Lis­ten for the wis­dom of God. Just be­cause we have been trav­el­ing on this spir­i­tu­al jour­ney awhile, pray­ing the prayers and read­ing the lessons, doesn’t mean the way will al­ways be clear. We will hit an im­passe now and then. And there are new routes God is call­ing us to trav­el. Let’s take some time to­geth­er to lis­ten for new un­der­stand­ing be­fore we at­tempt to forge our own way ahead.

Which brings me back to com­mu­ni­ty. Whether we are with one an­oth­er in phys­i­cal pres­ence or miles apart, we are one in the Body of Christ, one in Beloved Com­mu­ni­ty. There is time to plow out of our present con­di­tion. There will be time ahead for us to push forth on this mis­sion to which God calls us. But for this morn­ing, may we stop and re­mem­ber that it is through our re­la­tion­ships, with God and one an­oth­er, that we grow in un­der­stand­ing and wis­dom and great love.

Grace & Peace, T+

The Rev. Twila Smith

Let us re­mem­ber to give thanks to God for emer­gency work­ers and the many peo­ple who are clear­ing side­walks and roads, in­clud­ing the crew that be­gan shov­el­ing around the church while the bliz­zard was still in progress.

From Com­pline, in The Book of Com­mon Prayer:

O God, your un­fail­ing prov­i­dence sus­tains the world we live in and the life we live. Watch over those, both night and day, who work while oth­ers sleep, and grant that we may nev­er for­get that our com­mon life de­pends upon each other’s toil; through Je­sus Christ our Lord. Amen.