The View from Bolton Street
The Feast of Absalom Jones
Isaiah 42:5-9
Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
This past week the church commemorated the Feast of Absalom Jones - the first black man ordained in the Episcopal Church. Jones, along with Richard Allen (the Founder of the AME Church), were both Methodists when they felt called to start a black church for black people. The Methodists would not allow it, so Jones became Episcopalian and founded St. Thomas Church in Philadelphia.
He must have been a patient man, because the church was founded in 1794 and he was ordained deacon in 1795. However, he was not ordained a priest until seven years later.
Many ordinands remained deacons longer than our current practice of six months to a year, but there were certainly other factors at play in Rev. Jones’ case.
I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
Certainly, St. Thomas and Absalom Jones himself still struggled for full acceptance into the Episcopal Church. But they still kept doing the work of the Gospel. During the yellow fever epidemic of the late 1790s, when white clergymen and congregations were fleeing the city to keep themselves healthy, Jones and his congregation went out and cared for the sick, white and black alike.
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
I am the Lord, that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to idols.
Jones and other were also active politically, including lobbying congress to revoke the fugitive slave act and to put higher penalties on kidnappers who would kidnap free blacks and attempt to sell them into slavery.
See, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth,
I tell you of them.
Despite growing up in the Episcopal Church, I had never heard of Absalom Jones until I was in Seminary. When did you first hear his name? How many other Black voices from within the Church are we still unaware of because of our own internal biases and blinders?
The Vestry Retreat
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the…
This weekend, your vestry will gather for the first part of a two part virtual retreat. Our retreat leader is The Reverend Alissa Newton (bio here), the program director for the College of Congregational Development.
The twelve, well fourteen, of us will gather in a virtual upper room and bring our fears, worries and trepidations as well as our hopes, dreams and joys to the table. Alissa will help us construct an understanding of what it means to be a vestry, and what it means to lead a Church like Memorial coming out of a pandemic. This is really important! Because we have a large turnover in vestry members, and quite a few who are new to this kind of church leadership. I invite your prayers for all of us this weekend as we begin this journey. For Bill, Stacy, John, Shannon, Wendy, Keenan, Alice, Sarah, Katie, Steve, Beth, Ryan, Paul and myself.
Following this weekend, don’t be surprised if a vestry member reaches out to you!
Alissa is giving us all homework to do between the two sessions, to ensure that all of you are also able to share in this work and this journey.
The Gospel verse above comes from the passion narrative in John, and is understood to be one of the most anti-Semitic verses in the text. There is a lot of discussion as to whether it should be edited, changed, or removed all together. I won’t opine on that here - but I will say that if we leave out the final word (Jews) and allow that blank space to fill in all of the fears that keep us from truly living into our own calling, to take risks, to follow Jesus - then we get pretty close to how the disciples were feeling.
It was and is a sad and symbolic example of how one class of people stood in then and now for all that is foreign, different and scary - how the Church has many times over sought to put the blame on Jesus’ death on the Jewish people rather than understand it was us and our fears that allowed Jesus to die on that cross. What is sadder is how that kind of fear based living, continues to motivate so much hate and hurt in the world today.
Because we seek to be a community of Love, we will take our fears with us on retreat - so that we can name them, claim them, and avoid ourselves falling into those familiar traps of ignorance, indifference and hurt. Perhaps you have fears, concerns and worries that have from time to time mutated into hate and division? If so, perhaps you can invite Jesus to the table to walk trough them.
After all - he showed up in that upper room when the door was locked, he certainly can show up for you too.
The Vestry
I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received
1 Corinthians 15:1
Paul certainly had a way of opening a sermon, huh? That might as well have been the beginning of the Church of Corinth's annual meeting circa 55 C.E. Christ the same yesterday, today and forever! 'Remember...' Is how we begin every service -- 'Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and Blessed be God's Kingdom now and Forever, Amen."
Today I am pleased to announce that on Sunday the 2022-2023 Memorial Vestry voted on a new slate of officers: Bill Roberts will serve as Senior Warden, Stacy Wells as Junior Warden and John McIntyre will continue in his role as Secretary while Paul Seaton continues on as Treasurer.
I am grateful for these new leaders who have taken up the Apostle Paul's call to remember the Good News and to make it true for everyone in our midst. Please join me in welcoming them and all of our new Vestry members this year - Keenan Dworak Fisher, Shannon McCullough, Steve Howard, Ryan Sturm and Wendy Yap.
The Vestry will do a virtual retreat in two parts - February and March - and between the two meetings will be 'retreating' with all of you, so be prepared to hear from a member or two sometime soon.
Holy God, the navigator of our souls, hear us as we hold up before you our annual Vestry. Be with us in our yearning to chart a course together, inspired by the presence of your Spirit. Give courage to our clergy, all of our leaders, and each of us, as we move forward with your blessing. For all we do, we do to your glory, in Jesus' name. AMEN
The View from Bolton Hill
Noisy Gongs and Clanging Cymbals
There are only a few bible verses that you can say a few words of and even nominal Christians know where it comes from, and Paul’s reflections on love from Corinthians is definitely in that canon. I am also sure that I am not the only parent for whom the pandemic has been a constant stream of noisy gongs and clanging cymbals from children spending far too much time at home. And what I can tell you, over my intensive research over these noises in the last two years is that they are…annoying!
Yet, when it is your child performing their umpteenth Interpretive dance or rock concert no matter how terrible the cacophony all you feel is love. Well. Mostly.
The difference between joy and misery is often as simple as connection. Relationship. The same thing you find endearing in one person is positively odious in another not because of how they do it but because of your relationship to them. There are a lot of definitions of love but the power to make the obnoxious beautiful may be up there.
Or better said - to love something is to love its beautiful and ugly parts in equal measure.
God loves your beautiful and ugly parts in equal measure.
This is very good news, though it is hard to believe in our instagram centered, image focused 21st century world. We convince ourselves that the things we love have to be perfect - be they sports teams, or churches, or politicians, movie stars, we ask them for perfection, demand it sometimes.
Have you ever considered that demanding perfection is the opposite of love?
If there is one part of our work on reparations and truth telling that I think has been critical to our success it is that we love this church. We don’t need it to be perfect, but we do want it to be better. Whatever we might say about racism, white supremacy, segregation or any of the other sins of division that continue to plague this city — we say it from a place of love.
We proclaim it out of a desire to be better as a church, a community, and a world. And in so doing, we recognize we are the first ones that need to change.
Loving our ugly parts doesn’t mean we want or need to keep them! But we do acknowledge they are part of us, and that we can only change the outcome if love ourselves enough to tell the truth, acknowledge what it is we desire to change, and then work together to wake up tomorrow a little bit better than today.
As our Deacon said last week, ‘No one said it was going to be easy!’ It will require us to be patient and kind, neither envious, boastful or rude. (Sound familiar) We will need to seek out new paths, we will not be swept up in our mistakes but we will take time to stop and celebrate our victories.
Please join us this Sunday at our annual meeting as we celebrate some of those victories at 10:30 am.
The Content of our Character
“It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I’m going to tell him to include women in the sequel.” Hamilton
“All men are created equal.” Thomas Jefferson
It is not currently in vogue in the progressive Christian set to talk about King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech. We are supposed to instead discuss his stance on poverty, on reparations, on socialism, on the problems with white moderates in Birmingham. Certainly all those sermons and speeches are worth your time, and I commend them to you. But the simplicity and bluntness of King’s most well known address should not be forgotten.
Because it was at once an obvious summary of the proposition of the American project from the beginning — that we are all equal, and also a tremendous threat to the status quo for all of White America.
Today, almost 60 years later, that is still true.
Because we all clap at the first line — but you scratch at the surface of any of the pieces of that speech and you STILL meet tremendous resistance. School funding, equal housing, job opportunities, an unequal justice system - we are still issuing bad checks to Black America.
The question is - why?
Because White America still has not reconciled with the fact that our own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness was and is built upon the suffering and misery of others. Martin brought this into vivid detail as he marched, prayed, preached and taught his way through a segregated America and many of us hated him for it.
We are all in for the dream, as long as it doesn’t cost us anything.
I am proud of Memorial Episcopal Church for learning this lesson and committing $500,000 to reparations here in West Baltimore, because we want to make the Dream real. This is not a check that will come back marked insufficient funds. But money is only part of the work.
One thing I continue to find amazing about King is that, like Saints Francis and Paul before him, he walked everywhere. Perhaps his biggest gift was not his words but his presence. He was always there. And right there too. Not from a balcony or a passing car but right on the ground.
He got his hands dirty. We should get our hands dirty too.
That is how we can show the world the content of our character.
Memorial Episcopal Church's 2022 Annual Meeting - January 30th at 10:30 AM
2022 ANNUAL MEETING REPORTS AND DOCUMENTS
Fr. Grey and the wardens have decided to push back the date of the Memorial Church Annual Meeting by one week with the hope that it will make it more likely that people will choose to attend in person. We believe that it’s better on many levels if lots of us are together in the sanctuary. Please move the meeting on your calendars to Sunday, January 30 at 10:30 am.
To be clear, we are not saying that we are moving the meeting date so that everyone will attend in person. We do hope that by delaying the meeting by one week there is a better chance that more of us will feel comfortable coming to church if the current pandemic conditions have abated enough by then. There will be a Zoom option, just as there is every Sunday, and we want each person to decide against in-person vs Zoom attendance that is right for them.
As in past years, we will begin the Annual Meeting by worshipping together and having the business portion after the Eucharist. I look forward to seeing all of you there, either in the church or virtually. If the date change makes it impossible for any of you to join us, please let us know. And of course, also let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you.
Bill Roberts, for the Rector and Wardens
E-Church 8 and 10:30 am - February 6
Due to Rising COVID Cases Memorial Services will be virtual
and In-Person for anyone who feels comfortable attending.
WE WILL RE-EVALUATE NEXT TUESDAY
Call In Info for 10:30 am
Meeting ID: 848 7313 8202
Passcode: 156705
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The View from Bolton Street
Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:12
Today I walked into the church to give our new Parish Administrator a tour of the facility and was immediately hit by a whiff of something rotten. This is not metaphorical - it stunk! So our tour turned into a scavenger hunt for gross smells. Quite an introduction to Memorial! But maybe appropriate for a 160 year old building.
Occasionally I, and perhaps some of you, am frustrated in doing the things that advance the mission of the church because I’ve got to hunt down a leaky pipe or a permit or something mundane. However these challenges present themselves in our lives, we want to scream “I am more important than this! I’ve got better things to do!”
And then there is that still small voice saying “we are one body…” and I remember that this is ALL THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH.
Maintaining the building, filing the vestry minutes, turning the lights off, picking up the trash, it is all part of the ministry of the Church. When we let one part of our body, community, or institution falter it makes everything else function less well.
Perhaps you are spending a lot of time doing things that are frustrating, nonsensical and far outside the mission of your work, your life, your everything. Perhaps you have been doing that for almost two years now. If you feel like you are working harder and accomplishing less you are not alone. So remember that all these efforts, even the ones focused on basic survival, are to protect your body and the entire body of Christ.
You are more productive than you could possibly realize - because you are here! All of this frustrating, repetitive and contradictory effort is holy work, done by holy people. Take some time to honor that holy work.