The View from Bolton Street

“Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”

1 Samuel 3:1

The introduction to Samuel’s “call story” (how he came to follow God) says quite a bit in only a few words. 

Vision is rare. Gods presence is lacking. Certainly much the same could be said of this day and age. We see few leaders casting visions of a hopeful future and more and more threatening the return of a problematic past.  We see fewer and fewer leaders listening for God’s word and more and more telling God what to say. 

What do we make of this modern world? Where everything is fixed, and any change - from positions to opinions to work to life - is seen as a threat? What do we do with a culture where mystery is frowned upon and the divine is increasingly circumscribed to a few hours on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday depending on the flavor of your faith? 

From time to time it is good to remind ourselves that we are not robots. That, in spite of our widget producing society, we are all thinking, feeling living beings who are filled with emotions, opinions, ideas, dreams and fears. That a call moment, like Samuel has here, can be a destabilizing moment.  And that God’s intervention in our ordered lives is likely to feel destabilizing, disorienting, confusing. 

Maybe you are feeling some or all of those emotions right now. Maybe God is calling you to something new. Maybe it is time to call back and say “Lord what would you have me do?” 

If you are interested in dipping your toes in the water, now is as good a time as any to explore some new volunteer ministries at Memorial. Have you ever considered what the view is on the other side of the altar rail? Could you serve as an acolyte? Aa chalice bearer? In the altar guild?

Is justice your passion? Talk to Lateya about joining the reparations committee? 

Are you a planner? Budget finance and buildings and grounds all need assistance. 

We are a small church - but a vibrant community. To stay that way we need everyone to pitch in and volunteer one way or another. So please prayerful consider how God may be seeking to use you at Memorial in the coming year.

The View from Bolton Street

2024 - Epiphany

“This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine”

We are watching my two year old niece this week and so I find myself singing a lot of old songs to her. There are of course classics like “bananaphone” and “row row row your boat”, and some family favorites like “the Marvelous toy” and “the unicorn song”, but one that really resonates with me this season is “this little light of mine.”

Maybe it’s because we are entering Epiphany, maybe it’s because we haven’t taken down the Christmas tree yet, maybe it’s because the Presiding Bishops movie is coming out soon, or maybe it’s because we are having a successful stewardship season and Memorial’s light can shine a little longer.

But I’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, it is because when everything is dark, and clouded and confusing a little light is a massive act of resistance.

Light in the darkness. It’s why I love silent night on Christmas Eve, it’s why the Gospel of John still sings to us, and it is how we offer hope to a hurting world.

By being the light.

I hope you will join us this Sunday and all of 2024 as we continue to bring light to Bolton Hill, West Baltimore, and the world.

The View from Bolton Street

If you spend time with children, you are familiar with the notion of “big feelings!” Young children (and sometimes children of all ages) have trouble managing their emotions sometimes and express them in less than helpful ways. During the Holidays many of us have “big feelings” whether it is because we are grieving, regretting, hurting or hiding. We might need a place to put those emotions, because tantrums aren’t nearly as acceptable as they were when we were little.

So thank you for joining us this evening as we gather to offer up our worries and concerns and hurts and wants this season and ask for a little bit of peace and light this Holiday season.

This service is intended as a moment apart from the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season to help us prepare spiritually and emotionally for the coming of Christ. So that we are able to open our hearts to receive the love of God.

In Christ,

The Rev. Grey Maggiano

The View from Bolton Street

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:16

Everything is so busy right now!  It seems like December is just flying by! It will be Christmas before we know it.  And then 2024. And then Lent! And Easter! And…

It is hard to even pause to catch your breath.

So let me ask you a question… are you taking time to rejoice? To rejoice always? 

Because this is what God asks of us. To rejoice always. To pray without ceasing. To give thanks in all circumstances.  And yet…. Often… we are just. Too. Busy. Too stressed. Too angry. 

So as we find ourselves in the midst of the Holiday season lets consider some of the barriers to our rejoicing. What is stopping us? What is stopping you from rejoicing? 

Well  (gestures all around) have you seen (pointing wildly at the world) all of this!?! How can we rejoice with so much pain and hurt in the world? I read about another church suggesting Churches should not light the candle for the second sunday of advent, the Peace candle,  in honor of the war in Gaza.  And you might like that idea because everything seems so important, so immediate, so NOW. That, at least is something we could do. Right? Some action, however anemic, that we could take. 

Let us consider, however, all the other wars that have gone on during Advent. From year 2 to today.  We would be hard pressed to find a period when there was not a war going on, some of which our country was deeply involved in.  Yet we still kept candles lit.  We still prayed for the birth of Christ.  We still found light in our hearts.  We didn’t do this because we were ignoring violence, but in spite of it.  The light is an act of resistance against the terror and fear of this world. As you look around at all the terror in the world today (and it is terrible) from war in Ukraine and Israel to starvation in Afghanistan to deforestation in Brazil and Genocide in the Sudan, look also for the light.  

In the beginning, there was light. And it was Good. And that light continues to shine.  It shone after the floods. It shone ahead and behind of the Israelites as they moved from slavery to the land of promise. It shown around the city of Jericho and on the mornin when they found the empty tomb and in so many other times when things seemed very dark indeed. It shines inside each of us, and it shines out there amidst the peace makers, the tree planters, the life givers, the creators and sustainers of God’s creation.  Look for them. Be them. Share their stories and their work. 

Don’t turn out your light. 

The View from Bolton Street

Comfort, O comfort my people,

says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that she has served her term,

that her penalty is paid,

that she has received from the Lord's hand

double for all her sins.

Isaiah 40:1

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, her penalty has been paid.

When it comes to Israel and Palestine these days, there is not a lot of space for tender words. There is judgment. Anger. Invective. Hate. Mockery. Tears. Pain. But very little tenderness.

Perhaps, to borrow from Otis Redding, we should try a little tenderness.

In this small piece of land live around 7 million Jews, the largest concentration in the world, with the United States not far behind. Those 7 million are European, African, Arab, and Asian. In addition, there are another 2 million or so Arabs of other religious backgrounds in Israel proper, and another 5 million in the West Bank and Gaza. There is a broader population of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and here in the United States who are in some status of exile or self-exile.

Fighting over this piece of land does indeed go back to Biblical times. These words from the prophet Isaiah speak of the pain of the people of Israel being held captive in Babylon and their yearning to return home. It has been variously conquered and colonized by Muslims, Christians, The Ottoman empire and the British. Since the founding of the State of Israel after the Holocaust there have been peaceful times and there have been violent times, and it must be said we are in a very violent time.

I do not write today to try and convince or convict you to take one side or the other in this conflict. I do not write to prove how one side has the superior claim to the land, or the better human rights record, or to prove who has suffered the most.

I also do not write with a grand proposed solution of how this all should work out. You could draw up a hundred different plausible scenarios but the real people involved would have to actually be willing to talk to each other to make any of that happen and right now that is not the case.

I write simply to encourage you, to encourage us as Christians, to try a little tenderness. Have compassion for an occupied people with corrupt leadership. Have compassion for a people who experienced a massive terror attack on civilians, where everyone knows someone who has died, and are now in the midst of a 2 month long hostage crisis. On one side of the fence people feel they have no home because it is no longer safe, on the other side they feel they have no home because it is no longer there. A population who feel it is a miracle they even survived a holocaust, and a people who feel like it will be a miracle if they can survive the night.

People who, on both sides, feel like no one believes them, no one listens to their story.

People who have been so hurt they see their neighbor as their enemy.

Comfort, O comfort my people,

says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that she has served her term,

that her penalty is paid.

There were no simple solutions to the Middle East conflict before October 7th. Things certainly have not gotten simpler since. But one thing we can do is to offer words of comfort. To reach out to people that we care about and listen to their stories. To hear their voices. To share the work of peacebuilders- like the Arava Institute, or Roots, or the Gaza Youth Committee, or the work of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. Reaching out in love, especially across barriers of time and distance and difference, will have a much bigger impact than getting angry with people here.

Speak tenderly to those who are hurting right now. Be a bridge not a wall. This is the work that Christ calls us to do.

The View from Bolton Street

“Hurry up and wait!” 

Advent is a season of expectation. Which is a nice way of saying we are just standing around waiting. Waiting for Jesus. Waiting for Christmas. Waiting for the return. 

But it occurs to me that even as we are waiting for the coming of Christ, you all may be waiting for others things as well. 

Waiting to hear back on a job.

Waiting for an answer to a prayer. 

Waiting for peace. 

Waiting for healing. 

Waiting for hope.

Waiting for (fill in your own expectations here). 

And maybe you are a little like me where WAITING is not easy! You’d rather not wait! You want the answer now, the solution now, the present now, the celebration now. 

So perhaps we can consider Advent a season of practice waiting.

After all, we know what comes on the other side. Christmas! And then a whole new liturgical cycle. And because we know, we also know how to prepare, how to wait. 

One weekend you may get your tree. The next weekend you decorate outside. Then inside. Then you bake the cookies, and prep the meal and then you are READY - whatever happens. 

So about that other thing you are waiting for? How can you get ready for that. How can you adjust, modify, shape your life so that you are ready for those changes in your life as well? 

And what about that other big change? That second coming of Christ? 

Well maybe we leave that preparation for another day. 

See you in church! 

The View From Bolton Street

Moses said to all Israel: For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.

Deuteronomy 8:7-8

We gather tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving across this country and honestly it could not come at a better time.  Don’t you feel like there is more tension than usual in the air? Elections, violence, Israel-Gaza, Russia-Ukraine, interests rates rising, businesses closing, and everyone increasingly at each others throats.  Everything seems so….scarce.  

Yet look around at how much we all have!  We live in a land of immense opportunity.  In spite of all the challenges in America people still seek to come here from around the world because we are the land of opportunity.  This is the message that Moses offers to God’s people before they enter the promised land, and one that continues to resonate for us today.  We are incredibly fortunate to have been given so much by God.  Everything we have, our homes, our families, our joys, our jobs, all of the many gifts we have been given however big or small, come from God.  All God asks of us in return, all God ever asked, from that first day, is to share it with our neighbor.  To not be jealous of what others have and to not hold too tightly to the things that are ‘ours’ because they all came from the same place.  

Yet everywhere today we see fights for stuff. For land. For water. For polítical, social, religious power.  And then we see the fights about the fights.  Who did what. Who started it. Who is to blame.  Conflict breeds more conflict.  Violence begets more violence.  

You and I cannot do much about how other people act.  But we can do a little bit to quell violence, to tamp down anger, to serve as a buffer against hostility.  A really important way to do that is to remind yourself first just how blessed you are. Look at all you have! Look around at the people who love you.  Consider the things that bring you joy. That fill you with light, with hope. Begin there. Why? 

Because we are blessed. And we absolutely do not deserve it. 

Which means that those who are suffering, whether they are dealing with addiction in Baltimore, violence in Gaza, or terrorism in Israel, also don’t deserve it! As Children of God they are no better or worse, no closer or farther from the divine than you or I. 

Their situation is not a problem that we can solve. But it is a reality that we can recognize. Humanize. And seek to understand. 

Monica always makes fun of me because she will start telling me about some challenge or frustration and before she is even finished speaking I am ready to jump in with “Well here is what you should do!” It is not unlike the random person posting on twitter - “maybe Israel and Palestine should just each get their own country?”  We always would love for the problem to be simple, to be solvable. 
A few years ago I was part of a group that met with Tal Becker, one of the chief negotiators for many years in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He said something that has always stuck with me, (paraphrasing) “If it was as simple as just divvying up the pie, we could have solved this years ago. The problem is each side will only feel like they are winning when the other side suffers.” 

Sometimes it doesn’t feel enough for us to be happy with what we have.  We want someone else to hurt in the process. And sometimes, in really dark moments, the only thing that we feel will make us happy is for someone else to hurt. 

Which is why this is exactly the perfect time for thanksgiving. 

A time for all of us to step back. To take stock. To recognize how blessed, how truly blessed we are, and to give ourselves permission to believe that that alone is enough. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. 

The View from Bolton Street

Psalm 123

1 To you I lift up my eyes, *
to you enthroned in the heavens.

2 As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, *
and the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,

3 So our eyes look to the Lord our God, *
until he show us his mercy.

4 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy, *
for we have had more than enough of contempt,

5 Too much of the scorn of the indolent rich, *
and of the derision of the proud.

There is a lot of anger out there.  A lot of confusion. A lot of disagreement. Israel and Hamas. Republicans and Democrats. Cars and Bike Lanes.  Where should our attention go? Perhaps we should take the advice of the psalm and direct our eyes (and our hands and our hearts) to God. Not to pull ourselves OUT of the conflict of this world, but rather to give us the strength to engage deeper with those in conflict.  

You see, when we experience conflict in one part of our lives, we are tempted to take and spread that conflict to other aspects of our life and our community.  This phenomenon, called displaced aggression, is very common and yet not always recognized by the one doing it. 

So let me just say that all of us do this! This is why it is so important to be intune with our emotions and feelings so that we catch ourselves before we transfer the anger, frustration and hurt we feel onto others. 

It is why we should look to God.  To share that anger vertically instead of horizontally.  

Maybe this week you too have had more than enough of contempt. Are tired of the scorn of the indolent rich and the derision of the proud?  If so you are in good company. Offer all that frustration up to God, and know that God grieves with you, sits with you, and prays with you, especially in those difficult times.    

The View from Bolton Street

“Five of them were foolish, five of them were wise.”

Matthew 25

What a great stewardship gospel! The foolish bridesmaids – forgetting their oil, not being ready for the coming of the King. So we too, should not be foolish with our resources!

Except, of course, that Jesus time and time again is encouraging and uplifting people to be… foolish with their resources. Mary with the perfume, the multiplication of loaves and fishes, eating and drinking on the sabbath, destroying the fig tree… over and over Jesus reminds us that God’s economy is not the same as Christ’s economy. That the economics of the Kingdom are not the same as the economics of the empire.

So which is it? Responsible, sober, calculated common sense spending? Or just toss it all out there as God’s call us?

Okay, so maybe it is neither of those. Or some combination of the two.

Of course we do need to be careful and responsible with the resources that we have, so that we can best serve God’s Kingdom. That is why we have spent the last year rebuilding our finance team, revising our investments and taking a hard look at both our revenue and spending projections here at Memorial. We have sought outside grants from a number of institutions, right-sized our staffing and our programs, and begun to work hard to activate our space so that we can increase our building revenue.

But we also must ensure that our resources are doing Kingdom work and not Empire work. For this reason we have allowed ERICA to use the Rectory to house an Afghan Family for a small reimbursement, and why we continue to make investments in our reparations work in Baltimore with our time, talent and treasure.

“Rooted in abundance” doesn’t mean – spend like there is no tomorrow – it means we should trust that God has already given us everything we need. And usually that has nothing to do with money! We have an increasing cadre of volunteers and supporters to help with events, outreach and worship. Thanks to our new facilities manager, we are able to better manage repair and maintenance work and enlist volunteers to help with large and small projects around the Church. And our vestry is fully engaged in both the business of Church (the balancing of the books, the payments and debits, and the finances) as well as the business of Church (being Christ’s hands and feet in the world).

And if you are someone who is interested in being a part of either of those activities, please reach out, we could use you!

I hope you will consider joining me at R house in Remington this afternoon at 5:30 pm to further discuss the future of Memorial, or join us at Amy Rial’s home next Saturday the 18th for a similar conversation. We will bring the lamp oil.

The View from Bolton Street

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 

1 John 3:1

There is power in a name.  It means something to be recognized. To be seen.  To be heard.  Last night during trick or treating it was beautiful to watch hundreds of little kids yell ‘Miles! Miles! Miles!” at our youth minister as he handed out candy. They didn’t all recognize Miles Weeks, but they did recognize his Miles Morales Halloween costume – a young black child turned superhero in a parallel universe where something like that is possible - because it doesn’t always seem that way in West Baltimore.  

It means something that God knows our name.  This is why we read the names of those we love but see no longer on All Saints Sunday.  The good and the bad, the recently deceased and the gone for many years. We say their names to remind us that God says their names, and that God says our names too.  

You are not alone in this world. 

This is the promise of the resurrection. The promise of Christ on the Cross. Because Jesus became human and dwelt among us we know that God knows who we are, what we are like.  

As a kid I hated when people got my name wrong.  Hated it when they got it wrong on accident and more when they got it wrong on purpose.  I have said “Grey like the color” more than I have said probably any other phrase in my life - including “our father, who art in heaven…”  So imagine my relief when as a young person I stumbled upon this verse from 1st John - “we should be called Children of God.”  Suddenly I had a new name.  A name no one could touch. I was God’s child. 

BUT! And this is a big but… 

So is everyone else.  

That’s right. Everyone else.  You see it is tempting to read this as “The world” is everyone else and I am a child of God.  Or worse, “The world” is everyone I don’t like, and my friends are children of God.  But we need to read “The World” as Paul talks about the world and powers and principalities.  These are spiritual forces of evil beyond our human understanding that seek to divide, destroy and manipulate us.  There is no “us vs. them”, there is no “bad vs. good”, there is no haves and have nots, or oppressor and oppressed, or black vs. white. There is only one category of humans on this planet - children of God.  And thanks be to God we are counted among them.  

Now this does NOT mean that there is no such things as oppression, or evil, or racism, or bad things in the world.  The world is full of those things.  But these things don’t come from God and so they can’t come from the Children of God.  But they do exist - and they tempt us.  To grab power, prosperity and wealth.  To lie and cheat and steal to get what we want from someone else.  We convince ourselves that there is a conspiracy afoot, and this gives us the right to do wrong to another.  

But that is not God’s will. You can call it the devil, or evil, or hell, or whatever words you want to ascribe to those powers and principalities but the effect is the same.  Since the days of Cain and Abel jealousy has attempted to lure us to doing wrong to our siblings in order to take what they have.  

So when we read these names we are reminding ourselves of our collective status as Children of God.  In the same way as when we read the names of those killed by violence in Baltimore, or by Hamas terrorists in Israel, or by Israeli bombs in Gaza.  When we put names to tragedy and loss we remind ourselves that those names belong to God. and that we should mourn their loss, even when it is uncomfortable, especially when it is uncomfortable.  

On this November 1st, feast of All Saints, please know I am also praying your name.  And every other name in our parihs directory - because you too belong to God.