Beginning Again: A Reflection from Emily Rutledge

If you are anything like me honoring a contemplative and Holy Advent requires me to
a.  Plan
b.  Let go of perfect
c.  Not buy into the busy

While some are natural contemplatives and others are seasoned practitioner I feel as if I am always beginning again in my journey to slow down and savor.  To be still.

I also really like shopping which I am finding is not always the most contemplative act on my part. 

As a family with young children the noise and commercialization of Christmas is a stark contrast to the Holy waiting I hope for us during this time.  Last week we took our children to Boar's Head for a beautiful tree lighting and visit with Santa.  Jay and I couldn't wait to hurry up and be done.  It was loud.  People were angry.  Patient waiting was nowhere to be seen.  It was a reminder for me that if we want to dwell in the Holy we better make space for it... it was also a reminder that for our family the Holy is not in waiting in a long line for Santa.

If you need some direction this season, there are many resources below.  There is something for everyone but please remember that taking time to do NOTHING is often a Holy and hard practice.

..............................................................................................................

Advent Word is a creation of SSJE (Society of St. John the Evangelist) Be part of the Anglican Communion’s Global Advent Calendar. It’s an innovative way to engage in the season of Advent with people all over the world. Simply respond to the daily meditation emailed to you with images and prayers that speak to your heart. Your images and prayers will appear in the Advent Calendar with others from around the world. Join us as we anticipate the coming of Christ, the fulfillment of our deepest longings.

best for: adults, teens, tech-savvy, & contemplative types




Praying in color free downloads of printable Advent calendars created by an amazing Episcopal educator, Sybil Macbeth, that allows prayer and contemplation through coloring.  Print out the calendar and each day pray and color.  You will end up with a beautiful art piece that reflects your personal prayer life and walk through this season.

best for: all ages, the artistic, doodlers



Jesus Storybook Bible Advent Calendar a FREE downloadable Advent calendar with readings for each day from The Jesus Storybook Bible, which I consider the best children's Bible around. A short daily reading that brings you all the way to the birth of Christ.  My family uses this advent calendar with our children (5 & 2 years) along with a daily activity (this year with the kindness calendar you can find below)

best for: preschool-3rd grade, Jesus Storybook Bible needed 



Kindness Calendar gives an act of kindness for each day in Advent.  This is just one example. Families can work together to brainstorm their own acts of kindness that are meaningful to them.  A wonderful way to get even the youngest child involved. This can be done along with family living outside of the home (cousins, children at college, extended family, friends) as a way to stay connected to each other and have a unified focus of giving.  

best for: all ages, pre-school, elementary school, middle & high school, inter-generational




Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp a beautifully illustrated book that has a reading for each day as well as questions to reflect on as a family.  When you buy the book you will also receive a code that allows you to print off paper ornaments that correspond with each reading and create a Jesse Tree. You can create an actual tree from branches to use as a sacred space in your home this season and add an ornament each day as you read through this book. Beautifully illustrated, written, and executed.  Wonderful for both children and adults.  The Jesse Tree element is not necessary to benefit from this book but an added bonus for those that connect with tangible elements.  

best for: 3rd grade and up, families, individuals





The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp from the author of Unwrapping the Greatest Gift this book is geared towards adults and allows for written reflection at the end of each day's reading.  "I don't want a Christmas you can buy.  I don't want a Christmas you can make.  What I want is a Christmas you can hold.  A Christmas that holds me, remakes me, revives me.  I want a Christmas that whispers, Jesus" -Voskamp

best for: adults


Truth in the Tinsel an e-book for purchase that has daily activities that help little ones understand that this season is about Jesus.  It takes some commitment in terms of preparation and time but if your heart is behind it, it can be a wonderful Advent practice.  There are even printable ornaments you can buy if you would like to take a step away from creating everything needed.  

best for: early elementary





Watch for the Light Reflections from the world's greatest spiritual writers including Aquinas, Bonhoeffer, Gutierrez, & Merton.  Daily readings from the greats that carry through to Epiphany.  A wide range of writings compiled for reflection, education, and allowing you to await the coming of Christ. This will be my personal Advent read if you want to grab a coffee and muse over some meaningful reflections!

best for: adults

 The Giving Manger is a fun & interactive Christmas tradition that helps families focus on giving, the true meaning of Christmas and the spirit of service. Join the Rutledge Family this year as we use this as our Advent touchstone throughout the season.  

best for: preschool-3rd grade

Celebrating our saints!  

St. Nicholas on December 6th: How our family works through the 'Santa' of Christmas is to celebrate the Bishop of Turkey who gave his inherited wealth to children in need.  A few ways to do that are:

• Watch the Veggie Tales made that tells the story of St. Nicholas.  It is a well-done and child friendly way to explain St. Nick!
• Leave treats in children's shoes to mark the day, which is how St. Nicholas shared what he had with the children he helped
• This is a great day to have children go through their toys and decide what would be best to donate to others and together take them to a donation center.
• This is also a perfect day to shop for a child chosen from a giving tree

St. Lucia Day on December 13th: St. Lucia (Lucy) was a young girl who brought persecuted Christians in Rome food when they were forced underground into the catacombs.  She wore candles around her head so that she would have two hands to hold food while also being able to see.  Some ways to celebrate this day are

• Volunteering at a local food pantry to sort or distribute food and/or buying food to donate.  The most needed foods are often canned meats, nut butters, bags of fruits or vegetables, and bread.
• Educating our children about other people of faith in our community who are forced into hiding because of their beliefs and donate to them or write a note of encouragement to them, such as the Islamic Society of Central Virginia
• Be light in whatever way is life-giving and meaningful to your family. St. Lucia Day always falls near the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.  

Risking It All 11/19/17 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Matthew 25:14-30

It’s funny what lingers with you. I remember a movie I watched growing up called The Wind and the Lion. It was a Sean Connery flick about a Berber uprising in Morocco while Theodore Roosevelt was president. The uprising is led by a man named Raisuli the Magnificent, a roguish but appealing character. The insurrection fails, largely due to American intervention, but Raisuli gets away, and what I recall most vividly is the final scene. It is sunset, and Raisuli is with a close friend and follower. His friend says, “Great Raisuli, we have lost everything. All is drifting on the wind. We have lost everything.” And Raisuli responds, “Is there not one thing in your life that was worth losing everything for?” And they both start laughing, and the movie ends.

I want you to hold that question in your mind for a moment while we look at this parable from the Gospel today.

I’ve told you before we should never try to domesticate the parables of Jesus. Like they say of Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia, Jesus is not a tame lion. And his parables are not meant to be light and fluffy. But one way we try to tame them is to turn them into simple allegories, and that would be easy to do with this one. The master in the story represents God, and the first two slaves are good disciples and the last slave is a bad disciple, and God punishes bad disciples that don’t produce results. Simple and easy . . . and almost certainly not what this parable is about. For one thing, making the master into a symbol of God is highly problematic: the master is a slave owner, and a harsh one at that: not the way Jesus presents his heavenly Father at all. So let’s drop the allegorizing and just hear the story, which is challenging enough. Listening to any parable is like entering a parallel universe: it looks a lot like ours, but it’s not. So, we can easily recognize a master and slaves, trading and profits. But this master does what no master would do in this world: he hands his slaves money and then disappears. And I mean, lots of money. A talent was a weight, about 75 pounds. It would have taken the average laborer twenty years to earn one talent of silver, and this parable may well refer to talents of gold. In today’s terms, one talent of gold would be worth $1.4 million.

These guys are given some serious cash. So that third slave is handed a million bucks, and then quickly buries it out of fear. And we may well sympathize with him, but let’s take a moment to think about those other two slaves. One is given some $7 million, and the other is given around $3 million: that’s a ton of money, and the potential for disaster is high. And both of these guys double it. Now, I’m no investment guru, but if they are getting that kind of return, they’re taking some chances: they’re obviously not putting it into some kind of first-century money market account. In the story, the master acknowledges that investing safely with bankers would only have provided modest returns. But in the strange world of the parable, the issue is not the amount of money made: it is the trustworthiness of the slaves. The first two slaves take risks, and the master applauds them. The third slave is not willing to risk anything: he’s so afraid of losing that he doesn’t even try to succeed. And it is that failure to go out on a limb, any limb, and take a chance that the master condemns.

I wonder how the story would have gone if that third slave had invested his talent and then lost all the money. Would he still end up in the outer darkness, weeping and gnashing his teeth? I somehow doubt it. The master in the story is not looking for money, but for faithfulness. As Jesus tells the story, the master does not reward success: he rewards taking risks and trying. After all, he himself took a huge risk by giving them those talents to begin with. And this, Jesus says, is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.

“Is there not one thing in your life that is worth losing everything for?” Jesus talks a lot about taking up our cross and following him, about losing our lives in order to save them. The Gospel is all about taking risks for the One Great Thing, the love of God. I don’t mean some abstract or sentimental feeling, but the living power at the heart of all creation, the divine energy which is coursing through us and giving us life at this very moment, the love which gives birth to everything that is beautiful and good and wondrous and worth living for, and yes, if need be, worth dying for.

And here is the awesome paradox of this parable and of the whole Gospel: if we invest ourselves for the love of God, even if we lose everything, we gain far more than we have lost. Jesus risked everything, lost his life, and was raised to even greater life. This is the pattern for all of us. Over the years of my own priesthood, I have made countless mistakes. I could draw up a long list of programs that failed, sermons that flopped, meetings that went nowhere, budgets that didn’t balance, visions that were not fulfilled, opportunities that were wasted. But through it all, I have found this to be true: when I take risks for the Gospel, when I love and give myself away for the sake of love, wonderful and unexpected things always happen. Always. Not because I’m good, but because God is good.

And that is true for all of us. When was the last time you risked anything for the love of God? I don’t ask that to make anyone feel guilty: I ask it by way of invitation, because it’s never too late. This week, what chances can you take for God? How can you go out on a limb for the sake of love? That could take any number of forms, from helping someone you don’t want to help to battling an addiction to sharing your faith with someone to being kind to pesky relatives over Thanksgiving dinner. What matters is that we take a chance for God’s sake, and spend our talents — all of them. We might make mistakes and we might get hurt, but we would still learn for ourselves the truth of this parable: the more we risk, the greater our return. As Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel: Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back (Luke 6:38). We can’t think ourselves into that: it's not a head game. We can only experience it. And we can only experience it by taking risks and living it.

God help us to do that.

We don’t ring alone: A Reflection by Carolyn Voldrich

As hand bell ringers, we don’t play alone and can’t practice by ourselves. We need each other playing together to hear the entirety of the piece and figure out where our bell notes fit within the whole. So there is a good deal of trust that needs to happen in bell choir…trust that everyone shows up to rehearse, that we do our focused  best, that we don’t give up and leave, that our director knows how to lead the rehearsal.

Playing bells takes me out of my comfort zone. Feeling in control and relying on myself is how I function best, along with avoiding mistakes at all cost (sound familiar?).  Relying on others is always risky.  And yet… I can’t play alone, and my mind and spirit are made whole because I do this bell choir thing on a regular basis. Totally crazy, right?

So here are steps that help me endure bell choir – and as it turns out – make it possible to live a somewhat sane life:

Show up! Get to rehearsal, get out of bed.  Make sure courage and sense of humor come along.

Listen and follow your director/Director. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or wonder what the heck is going on.

Be brave, willing to fail, and know you are not alone. Pray for strength to do this!

Be flexible and ready to play any part that is needed.

Pay attention to your own part/life and resist the urge to comment on anyone else’s.

Mistakes happen – move on! Be OK with not being perfect, and strive to do better next go around.

Give thanks to God for your fellow ringers and those who travel the journey with you.

_________________________________________

My fellow bell ringers in the COOS Canterbury Bells and our fearless leader, Tom Dixon, are just the best. How lucky am I to share in the disarming discomfort of creating beautiful music with them!

You can hear us play this coming Sunday, November 19, at the 9:00 and 11:15am services.

Not Forgotten, Not Abandoned 11/12/17 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Matthew 25:1-13

I Thessalonians 4:13-18

Does the gospel sound like good news today?  The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is like ten bridesmaids who go out to light the way for a bridegroom upon his arrival.  All ten bridesmaids bring their lamps for the task.  Five of the ten even decide to bring along some extra oil which turns out to be a good decision because there’s a problem, the bridegroom is late.  And I mean really late.  So late that those young women can’t keep their eyes open and end up falling asleep in the midst of their vigil.  Until at midnight the cry goes out, Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.  The bridesmaids startled out of their sleep and hurry to get ready.  You can imagine them straightening their clothes, adjusting their hair, trimming their wicks - and then the panic that comes when five of them discover they don’t have enough oil.  The wait has gone on so much longer than expected that their lamps are flickering and just about to go out.  It seems as if the only choice is to leave their post to go and buy more oil - which they do - but by the time they return the bridegroom has already arrived.  The party is in full swing.  The door is shut.  And Jesus ends this story with the five bridesmaids shut out and turned away.   

Is that how God’s kingdom works?   Is it really true that blessed are the well-prepared for only they will be let into the kingdom of heaven?   If so, I’m sunk.  Thank God that is not the case.   We already know from Jesus himself that the God who is love closes the door on no one -  everyone, the outcast, the sinner, even the foolish are always invited, and sometimes especially invited, into God’s celebration.   This story’s purpose is not to extol the virtues of planning ahead, but to turn our attention on the delayed return of the expected one and what the bridesmaids do in response. 

Because what does one do when the wait is unpredictable or when things don’t go as planned?  That’s the challenge in any situation - what to do when life does not go as expected.  The five foolish bridesmaids and the oil in their lamps would have been just fine if the groom had arrived within the generally accepted amount of time.   Likewise, we’re just fine and our faith is able to remain secure when life goes along in a reasonably predictable way.  Now we’re wise enough to know that there are always bumps in the road.  That’s okay, we can handle that.  The problem comes when the bumps turn into something more like a broadside that we get into trouble.  For the bridesmaids it was the unexpected delay of the bridegroom that prompted a crisis.  For us it may be a job loss or a diagnosis, a broken relationship or an unexpected death - anything that doesn’t fit our general expectation of how life should go, that’s when our oil can run low and the light of our faith grow dim.  Because everyone walks around with an idea in their head about life and how we think it should be and then there is life and how it actually is.  When those two don’t match up that’s often when we struggle. 

And that’s what’s going on in our reading from I Thessalonians today.  Those new believers are struggling in their faith because the life of faith they expect is not the life of faith that actually is.  They know that Jesus died on the cross, was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven just about twenty years earlier and it was generally accepted that Jesus would be coming back shortly.  But years have passed and people are dying.  People the Thessalonians loved and cared about had already died before Jesus’ return and they are full of questions.  How can this be?  What is going to happen to them to those that have died?  Are they eternally lost because their timing was off?   

Now without diving into the particulars about Christ’s return - the cry, the call, the trumpet and the clouds - which by the way, is not to be taken as a literal description of Jesus’ second coming - the most important thing that Paul is trying to get across is the message that God has not forgotten the Thessalonians.  They are not forgotten nor the ones they love.  Even though things are not going as the Thessalonians thought they should, God can still be trusted.  And that God revealed in Christ has always been and will always be with them even when things do not go as planned.

Two thousand years later our particular concerns are likely very different from the ones the Thessalonians wrestled with, but the crux of the issue remains the same.  What are we to hold onto when life does not go as expected?   What are we to believe when God is not doing what we think should be done?  The answer is timeless.  Hear this, God has not forgotten any one of us and we are not abandoned - even when what we think life should be does not match up with how life actually is.  When things do not go as planned and when the oil in our lamps may be running desperately low, even then, the love of God in Christ is at work - in our lives, in the lives of those we love, and in the world. 

At the conclusion of the bridesmaids’ story, Jesus admonishes his listeners to Keep awake.  This, however, is not a call to a life of insomnia.  Even the bridesmaids who are called wise fall asleep.   Nor is this a story intended to encourage us to stockpile things so we are ready for all the unexpected things of life.  As easy as it is to draw a line between the wise bridesmaids and the extra flask of oil that is not really what made them wise in the end.  Although the extra oil was a good practical move, the most significant difference between the two groups of bridesmaids was that one stuck around while the other did not.  What ultimately made five of the bridesmaids foolish is that they left the scene.  They became so distracted by what they lacked that it prevented them from keeping awake to what really mattered - the coming of the bridegroom.     

For keeping awake is staying open to God’s presence, to God’s love, to God’s coming into in our lives and into the world in all circumstances.  Keeping awake is recognizing that whether it’s a delayed bridegroom or something else unexpected or unwelcomed that, nonetheless, we have not been forgotten by God.  

I wonder how would the story have turned out if the foolish bridesmaids chose not to run for more oil but instead opted to wait even with flickering or extinguished lights?  What would have happened if they had kept their focus on the bridegroom, stayed awake to that coming and, if necessary, wait in the darkness for his arrival?  I don’t know what a bridegroom of the day would have done, but I do know what our God does in such situations.   Our God, our bridegroom, always comes into our darkness with his light that shines for all.  This is the message of good news of the gospel today.  Blessed are those when life does not go as expected, when the wait is long, when the oil runs low and the light grows dim - blessed are those for their lives will shine in the Kingdom of Heaven with the brightness of their God. 

Stop the Glorification of Busy: A Reflection from Emily Rutledge

Last weekend was our Diocesan high school retreat.  A few days at Shrine Mont is always a good reminder for me that my life off the mountain runs at an unsustainable and unhealthy pace.  The standards of productiveness are different on a weekend retreat compared to my daily life.

A productive day on retreat is one spent lingering over meals, belly laughing, reading in an Adirondack chair, searching for God in moments of stillness and connection, and spending 30 minutes creating the perfect combination of duck tape and glitter on a name-tag.

We are sold a lie that busy is meaningful and busy is good.  I am the first to buy into it.  My life is covered in to-do lists and reminders and back to back meetings.  I schedule workouts and phone calls.  I mark my calendar with times for intentional prayer and plan each day by the hour.

I find myself placing my worth in being needed and productive.  I desperately want to be a person whose life is meaningful and in rare moments of rest and quiet I discover that the most meaning I find, the best me that I am, exists when I am still.


It's something Jesus knew well.  We often glance over it as we read the Gospels yet constantly Jesus is going off to be alone, to be quiet, to find peace.  Those miracles Jesus performs, the healing, the teaching, the hope... they do not come from a carefully orchestrated speaking tour or pre-planned interactions with those in need.  Jesus' ministry and life is one of presence, interruption, and self-care.

There is a element of unapproachable that occurs when we are busy.  The walls go up, the gaze becomes laser focused, and we get into go-mode.  Go-mode does not lend itself to meaningful interactions or welcomed surprises.  Go-mode leads to productivity on a task we have deemed the most important.


I am humbly aware that what I deem the most important is likely NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT.

What are we missing while we are getting so much done?

As we draw closer to holidays that make us think we must hurry and rush and accomplish I invite you in joining me in the interruptions.  I hear that's where the Holy is.  

Made Perfect in Weakness 11/5/17 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Matthew 5:1-12

I recently read a story about an obscure saint named St. Clement Hofbauer. He lived in Vienna and in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century, he was moved by the Spirit to care for children whose parents had died in all the strife and violence of that terrible time. He was out begging for donations one day when he came upon three men sitting and playing cards. He went up and asked them if they would like to contribute to the cause, and one of them stood up, cursed him, and then spit in his face. Without showing any anger, Clement quietly took out his handkerchief and wiped the spit off, and said, “Well, that was for me, sir. Now how about something for my orphans?” The man was so dumbfounded by his gentleness that he gave him all the money he had on him.

Our faith history is filled with stories like that, some more extreme than others. During an especially brutal persecution of the church in the third century, Roman soldiers apprehended the pope and seven of his deacons in the catacombs. The emperor summarily executed the pope and six of the deacons, and then demanded that the last remaining one, a man named Laurence, give him all the church’s treasures . . . or suffer an even worse fate. Laurence then led him to some of the sick and poor people that the church fed and supported, and said, “These are the treasures of the church.” Enraged, the emperor roasted him alive on a gridiron. His aim was to destroy the church; Laurence’s witness inspired the church and helped keep it alive.

Blessed are the meek. That doesn’t go down so easy. In fact, the first four beatitudes we heard today might well make us gag: Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . Blessed are those how mourn . . . Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. That is generally not what we aspire to: we don’t think of poor, grieving, meek, and hungry people as being happy. But the word we translate as “blessed” here — makarios — means just that, “happy.” According to Jesus, the way to be truly happy is to be vulnerable and in need. Obviously this flies in the face of all conventional wisdom. So many people spend their lives trying not to be poor, grieving, meek, and hungry. We acquire money, status, and power to avoid that. When there are holes in our lives, we try to fill them with as soon as we can, with anything we can: possessions, drugs, busyness, achievements, whatever. We try to present a strong and confident face to the world. We are conditioned to look down on those who are needy, giving them either pity or scorn. In our culture, there is very little room to be vulnerable. That would make losers. That would make us weak. But we could sum up the first four beatitudes by saying, “Blessed are those who are weak and know it, for they will be given strength. Blessed are those who are empty and know it, for they will be filled.”

Filled with what? With God. One of the saints in my life was a priest, named Tom, who went on to become a bishop and quite prominent in the church. He was a strong and visionary leader: people admired and revered him. But I got to know him through years of personal conversations, as a mentor and a friend. He has since died, but what moved me about him was how open and vulnerable he was. He put on no airs. He talked candidly about his failures and shortcomings. He was very upfront about being a recovering alcoholic and how that had shaped his life. He was a gay man who came out at a time when many people disapproved. He needed friends and said as much, always looking to stay connected to people who mattered to him. He was kind, but could be moody and difficult. He was just himself, but he was himself in Christ: a gifted, flawed, imperfect, and needy man through whom the Holy Spirit flowed abundantly. When I was with him, I felt close to Christ. He wasn’t really a great preacher, but when he preached, you knew God was working. In fact, he exemplified what the Apostle Paul talks about when he says that God’s power is made perfect in weakness, that when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:9-10). That is what Jesus teaches in the beatitudes: when we are incomplete, God completes us and makes us whole; when we are empty, God fills us; when we are weak, then we are strong. 

That, by the way, is what makes the last few beatitudes possible. Once we allow God to complete us and fill us, then we can be merciful, we can be peacemakers, we can even suffer persecution and mistreatment like the saints I just told you about at the beginning of this sermon because we are not relying on our own strength, but on a power infinitely greater than us, on a God who shows us how much she loves us by flowing through us — just as we are.

It is too easy to think of saints as heroic figures who achieve great feats of spiritual prowess. It is too easy to think of saints as being super human or, worse, inhuman, people we cannot even relate to. But according to the beatitudes, “saintliness” or “Christ-like-ness” is readily accessible to anyone and everyone. We don’t have to go to church multiple times a week or pray for three hours every day or fast for a month or go off to live in the wilderness somewhere. In fact, if we did that, we might think we somehow achieved some special status by our own strength and determination. And we would just be avoiding the great truth:

We only need to be ourselves, the easiest and the hardest thing of all. Easy because we don’t have to try to feel incomplete or vulnerable: we already are. Hard because we fight against that. But if we are honest with ourselves, we are naturally poor in spirit:  we don’t possess every gift; our strength is limited; we are broken and we mess up and we get hurt; and we long for a fulfillment, a wholeness, we cannot achieve on our own. Admitting all that is the first crucial step in following Christ and allowing the Spirit of God to fill our lives.

Our spiritual goal, then, is not to deny our humanity and try really hard to be saints; our great task is to be fully human and discover the saint within us. Practice being yourself in the presence of God: admit your needs, your hurts, your sins, your longings. Accept that God loves you fully as you are. And be open to God giving you strength in the midst of your weakness. Trust that. Look for that. Jesus didn’t just teach this, he lived this. And Jesus lives in us through the Holy Spirit. St. Irenaeus said that the glory of God is a human being fully alive. So be fully human, like Jesus. Let yourself be loved and filled by God, like Jesus. If you do, then whether you own the title or not, you are a saint. And every saint is a blessing to the world. 

Where the Church Is: A Reflection by Fr. David

Every Thursday morning, a group of men gathers at Church of Our Saviour at 7:00 to share breakfast and to study the Bible together. We are currently reading through Luke's Gospel, which has inspired some terrific discussions. As Luke makes clear, Jesus goes out and meets people where they are. And he calls other people to follow him and do the same thing: meet people where they are with the Good News of God's love. Which means that wherever we go, we are the Body of Christ. And most of the time we are not in a church building. Most of the time, the church is out in the world, with Jesus and those who need him.

A woman here at COOS once visited another parishioner in the hospital. They had a good talk, and then this woman came to see me. She told me about this person she had spent time with, and then she said to me, "The church really needs to visit her!" I could only look at her with bemusement: the church had visited her! The moment that woman walked into that hospital room, the church was there. And so was Christ.

Bruce Dotson brought the above cartoon to share with the men's group this morning. And now I am sharing it with you. Where the church is  . . . is wherever you are. You and I embody the church every moment of every day. Let me be clear: I don't think that means we go should go around talking about religion all the time and trying to get people to sign up. Our role is not so much to talk about Christ as to be Christ: to offer love, forgiveness, hope, and prayer to anyone and everyone who needs it. Sometimes that will mean listening kindly; sometimes that will mean going out of our way to help another person; sometimes that will mean actually praying for someone or with someone; sometimes that will mean sharing our faith and talking about how God's love revealed in Jesus has made our lives better; and, yes, sometimes it may even mean inviting someone to worship with us on Sunday so that they can "come and see."

I have no idea if that will increase church membership or not, and I really don't care. It will increase the flow of the Holy Spirit through us and it will further the reign of God in our world. Put simply, the more we let ourselves be the church wherever we are, the more we will be a blessing to others. And in the wonderful economy of God's grace, the more we bless others, the more we ourselves are blessed.