April 19, 2024

 

"We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?"

 

There may be no greater challenge in scripture than Christian precepts regarding the poor, including this passage from the First Letter of John (3:16-17). Citing the sacrificial example of Jesus, John places our obligation in some perspective: Jesus gave his life for us; we ought to be prepared to do the same for one another; surely helping our brother or sister in need is a minimal expectation.

 

Some of the greatest saints we know have given away everything they have to follow Christ: Anthony of the Desert, Francis and his followers, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Calcutta, among many others. In truth, though, these folks are widely identified as saints precisely because they constitute a minority even among us Christians.

 

For most of us, rising to the challenge of Christian charity requires time and practice. I've found my own biggest hurdle to being truly generous is anxiety: Do I have anything to give? Is it enough? Will it infringe on my own safety or comfort in some way? Will the beneficiary use it wisely? 

 

A little bit of prayer and reflection usually reveals these anxieties to be irrelevant or illusory. If you're finding an act of charity to be a bit daunting, make an effort to overcome it, and see if God doesn't bring you joy, as promised (see, e.g., Luke 6:35). Try not to worry about becoming a great saint overnight; practice being a minor saint, a bit at a time.

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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April 12, 2024

 

I very nearly buried the lede of this reflection, which is - the list of

St Andrew's Church committees for 2024.  As always, folks wind up on committees for a variety of reasons - volunteering directly, or having been on one in the past, or someone thought you'd be good at something, or the priest drafted you! Give the list a look, and if you've been placed on a committee in error, or if you've been left off of one you'd like to serve on, please let me or a vestry member know. Thanks everyone, for your work, your commitment, and your stewardship!

 

A thriving church is a busy place: Worship services engage the efforts of the altar guild, musicians, readers, vergers and acolytes, ushers and greeters, webcasters, and of course, everyone in the congregation. Fellowship afterwards calls on the work of the hospitality committee. A healthy church keeps its building and grounds attractive and its space welcoming to a diversity of groups that meet and use the space. All of that of course takes money, so that means a treasurer (thanks Carol!), a finance committee, a stewardship committee; and of course, a vestry must encourage and coordinate all of these myriad activities.

 

The secret behind all this activity is that we are about the work of caring for one another. Every worship service, every choir rehearsal, every gathering, every celebration, and every committee meeting or work session is ultimately about the presence of God in our midst, and our love for one another. Again, thanks everyone - "Oh how good and pleasant it is, when brothers and sisters live together in unity!" (Psalm 133). 

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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April 5, 2024

 

Our next Adult Formation Series begins Wednesday evening, April 24.  Mark your calendars now for "Parables from the Gospel of John" with guest instructor Dr. R. Alan Culpepper. We're excited and privileged to have Dr. Culpepper, the retired founding Dean of the McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, and a widely renowned New Testament scholar and theologian. His latest book, The People of the Parables, can be found here.

 

Hartwell PRIDE is Saturday, 13 April, 12:00 - 6:00 PM at Railroad Street Park. This is their third annual event, benefitting the Hartwell Food Pantry. Volunteers are needed! The Volunteer Registration Form is here - we'd be glad if St Andrew's can make a good showing.

 

Bishop Rob Wright has been nominated for Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. You can find the slate of nominees and additional information here. Please maintain Bishop Wright, all the nominees, and the bishops and deputies of the General Convention in your prayers.

 

Episcopalians are people who say "Merry Christmas" all the way to January 6th, and "Happy Easter" for weeks - all the way to Pentecost! You can let folks know that if attending church at Easter is their practice, they've got Sundays through May 12 to go - we look forward to seeing everyone!

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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March 29, 2024

 

Alleluia!

Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us; *

therefore let us keep the feast,

Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, *

but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia!

 

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; *

death no longer has dominion over him.

The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; *

but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So also consider yourselves dead to sin, *

and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia!

 

Christ has been raised from the dead, *

the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For since by a man came death, *

by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, *

so also in Christ shall all be made alive.   Alleluia!

(1 Corinthians 5:7-8; Romans 6:9-11; 1 Corinthians 15:20-22)

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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March 22, 2024

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Deb likes to read a book once, straight through. She’ll remember a book she likes in detail, and it will remain in her head for a long time; but she’s more interested in reading the next thing than revisiting a book she’s already finished. I like to re-read familiar books that I have enjoyed. After several readings I’m likely to pick a book up and re-read particular chapters that I liked.

 

Deb prefers a story that will surprise her: she sees little point in a movie like “Titanic” or “Gettysburg” - “You already know what’s going to happen,” she’ll tell me. In contrast, I’ve watched “Apollo 13” more than a dozen times. Are they going to make it? I still get a thrill from wondering!

 

Of course all of us who have participated in Holy Week at church over the years are familiar with the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, his betrayal and death, and of course the resurrection. In one sense, all of us have “already read the book,” and it is a source of both wonder, despair, and relief to review it again. In another sense, the story is continuing to unfold - we are by no means done with the glorious mysteries of God’s work in the world, or with Christ’s work in us.

 

Where do we pick up the book from here, and how shall we continue to read it?

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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March 15, 2024

 

The collect for the Liturgy of the Palms on Palm Sunday sets the tone for a week of prayer and observance:

 

Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.



Our Easter celebration at St Andrew's begins with our service at 10:30 a.m. on Palm Sunday, 24 March. We'll gather in the parish hall for a blessing of palm branches, followed by a procession into the church, commemorating Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem. 

 

Though the Passion Gospel is read in many churches on Palm Sunday, we'll omit this, in the expectation that all of us will engage during the week, to the extent we are able, in our own re-enactment of "those mighty acts."

 

On Thursday, the 28th, we are invited to St Alban's in Elberton for the Maundy Thursday Eucharist at noon. At 6 p.m. we'll hold an agapé supper at St Andrew's. An agapé supper is a "love feast" - from NT Greek agapé meaning "love" in the communal sense. We'll share a meal of Mediterranean fare - bring olives, hummus, lentils or similar dishes - the church will provide fish. The mood is intended to be one of "sober joy." On your arrival, we'll offer to wash your feet, if you like. All are requested to stay afterward for a meditative service in the church, followed by the stripping of the altar.

 

On Good Friday, the 29th, the church will be open for prayer and meditation throughout the day, beginning at 6 a.m., until our Good Friday Liturgy at 6 p.m., including a choral reading of the Passion Gospel.

 

This cycle of observances will bring our Lenten solemnities to a meaningful close, in the company of Christ and one another. I look forward to sharing the journey with you all.

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Blessing and Peace - Reid

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March 8, 2024

 

This Sunday's gospel has Jesus comparing the Son of Man - that is, himself - to the bronze image of a serpent that Moses "lifted up" for the people of Israel as they travelled in the wilderness. John 3:14, Numbers 21:9.

 

Both the story of the bronze serpent in Numbers and the reference to it in John are, to my mind, esoteric and obscure, and I'm still uncertain how I might preach on them. Read the passages through prior to Sunday and wrestle with them yourself just a bit. It can only help if, come time for the service, you are as bewildered as I am!

 

How is your progress with your Lenten discipline? Did you adopt one? It's actually not too late! One of the great things about adopting a practice of intention is it can succeed even when it fails. The exercise of giving some thought to an area of our lives that needs attention is valuable in and of itself. Any effort toward the goal is rewarded, and even abject failure gives us deeper insight into how we really think and move in relation to God and our neighbor.

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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March 1, 2024

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St Andrew's has just filed its annual Parochial Report - a report required of all parishes in the Episcopal Church by our canons. Clergy, Vestry, and Staff of the church are encouraged in the report to participate in answering question 39: "We invite you to tell stories of how you have spent the last year naming, addressing, and dismantling the injustices of racism in yourselves, congregations, and your communities."

 

This question is asked year by year, and this year it prompted a deep and lengthy conversation among the vestry. Here is the response we filed:

 

As we noted last year, racism is a challenge for us in rural northeast Georgia. To our own disappointment, there are no black or Asian people in our congregation, and only a tiny minority of congregants of Hispanic origin. Many of us are making individual efforts to re-focus and reform our own thinking and beliefs, and many are engaged in individual projects to broaden our own horizons and community. We nonetheless have a lot of work to do to place this issue in our congregational consciousness.

 

How might we go about making the dismantling of the injustices of racism a project of the whole congregation?

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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February 23, 2024

 

Our Wednesday night adult forum series during Lent is a study of the Seven Deadly Sins.

 

What most people now refer to as "the seven deadly sins" has developed over time. There is no list so named in Hebrew or Christian scripture, though one can certainly find various enumerations - for example, the ten commandments (Exodus 20:2–17, Deuteronomy 5:6-21, and see Exodus 34:11-26). The New Testament has a number of lists to which the seven deadlies bear resemblance, notably Mark 7:21-22:

 

"For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (See also, e.g., Galatians 5:19-21, 2 Timothy 3:1-5).

 

Tertullian (ca. 202) and Evagrius (ca. 399) developed lists of seven and eight deadly sins, respectively. Pope Gregory the Great (r. 590-604) organized these into the list of seven most commonly recognized today: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) adopted this list and described them as "capital" sins - that is, having their origin in the head or mind. Aquinas contrasted these sins against seven virtues, which he organized as "theological" - faith, hope, and charity - and "cardinal" - temperance, justice, prudence, and fortitude.

 

Lists of the Seven Deadly Sins continue to be variously ranked, described, and ordered in devotional literature. For purposes of our Wednesday night class, we're referring to the 2014 revision of Saint Augustine's Prayer Book, edited by David Cobb and Derek Olsen (my seminary classmate!), and published by Forward Movement. Saint Augustine's has an extended section on "Penitence and the Sacrament of Reconciliation" that includes a number of Psalms, passages of scripture, and prayers in connection with the rite of reconciliation (known in Roman Catholic tradition as "confession"), and offers a "Form of Self-Examination Based on the Seven Deadly Sins," enumerated as: Pride, Anger, Envy, Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Sloth.

 

An important note in a penitential season: We should be careful of scrupulousness and the form of religious pride (itself, of course, a serious sin) that rejects or fails to rely on the grace of God and the mercy of Christ. All of us are sinners: none of us is beyond redemption. The purpose of prayer and self-examination is greater intimacy with that God who forgives all our sins.

 

Remember you are trying to recall and confess [your sins], not to be condemned, but to be forgiven. "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." - Psalm 51:18. (Saint Augustine's Prayer Book, 122).

 

Be awake, by all means; but also be merciful to yourselves, and abide in peace.

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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Feb 16, 2024 

 

Mark, breathless chronicler that he is, moves us in three very short paragraphs from the baptism of Jesus to the temptation in the wilderness to the ministry of proclamation in Galilee. Though his is the least detailed account of the temptation of the three synoptic gospels, Mark does include all the characters - Jesus, Satan, the wild beasts, and the angels - and lets us know that it was 40 days of desert living.

 

We don't know from Mark the details of the temptations that Satan offered - those are found in Matthew and Luke. Our own temptations are usually pretty modest in scale - anger at a friend or loved one, or the kind of self-satisfaction (pride) that prevents us from caring for someone in need, or the bad behaviour towards a neighbor that is prompted by our envy. We might not even give much thought to these petty sins. 

 

Forty days of silence and prayer might reveal our sins with a bit more clarity, and of course this is precisely what Lent is for. Remember that our busy-ness is not only a distraction but a trap for our unwariness. Perhaps we use the coming few weeks to identify opportunities to be more loving, more hopeful, more faithful. I pray blessings on your journey and success to your Lenten discipline.

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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Feb 9, 2024

 

This coming Sunday we'll read from the Gospel of Mark (9:2-8) an account of the Transfiguration of Jesus. This story appears in all three of the synoptic gospels, and we'll have heard each of them in the space of only one year. On February 19 of last year we read it from the Gospel of Matthew (17:1-8). Then it happened, on August 6, that the Feast of the Transfiguration fell on Sunday. The Transfiguration is a "Feast of our Lord" that "take[s] precedence of a Sunday" (BCP p. 16), and consequently we read the story from the Gospel of Luke (9:28-36) in place of the usual cycle of Sunday readings in ordinary time. After this, we'll give it a rest until March 2, 2025 (Luke, again).

 

The Transfiguration is always read on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany - from Matthew in Year A, Mark in Year B, and Luke in Year C of our three-year lectionary cycle - as well as on the fixed feast day of August 6. As we know, the word "epiphany" comes from the Greek word epiphaneia meaning "manifestation." Since the Transfiguration is a central manifestation of Christ as the incarnation of God, it makes sense that our lectionary is constructed in this way.

 

The Transfiguration is a rich, multilayered story, linking Jesus with Moses and Elijah, with exodus and ascension, and with baptism and resurrection. A complex and intense event, the disciples could make no sense of it except in retrospect, after Jesus' resurrection. My hunch is that many of us can think back on some central event or turning point in our own lives, filled with meaning, that brought us to the place we are now, and sheds light on "who we really are." I encourage you to meditate on this, and see what perspective this gospel may bring you.

 

Blessing and Peace - Reid

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Feb 2, 2024

 

We still have some days, dear ones, to consider a Lenten discipline. Often people think of this as "giving something up for Lent" - and indeed we might well want to give up our anger, or our intemperance, or our pride, as opposed to, say, chocolate or fizzy drinks or the internet. 

 

The idea of a Lenten discipline is not the mere giving up of a luxury or a bad habit; but rather to expand our devotion. The giving up of a thing is intended to create space for prayer or reflection - so, for example, one year I gave up dipping into the candy jar at Canterbury House. Instead, every time I reached for the lid (that is, every single day and more than once!), I remembered to leave the candy alone, and instead to recite the "Jesus Prayer" ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner").

 

Many people choose to "take something on" for Lent as an alternative discipline. Reading one or more of the Daily Devotions (pp 136 ff. of the Book of Common Prayer) is a good example. A new volunteer undertaking, addressing poverty or age or loneliness, might be another.

 

Your priest is a resource for helping to decide on a discipline. In addition, I'm available for the rite of "Reconciliation of a Penitent" (see BCP p 446), either as Lent approaches or during the season. Blessing and Peace is perhaps the most valuable thing any ordained person has to offer. May these be yours in abundance!

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Blessing and Peace - Reid