You are warmly invited to attend this contemplative service of prayers, readings and music, and a time to acknowledge the “blue” feelings we have at Christmas time. Together, we’ll reflect on the pain, the loneliness, and the sadness we may feel and offer it to God for healing and transformation.
Sunday, December 18th, 5 PM
Church of the Ascension, 253 Echo Drive
It’s just about six weeks ago that I wrote to you and borrowed Bruce Epperly’s phrase “living a holy adventure”, expressing hope and excitement that our journeys had been linked and that we were embarking on a “holy adventure” together.
Today, as we approach Thanksgiving weekend, I write to express gratitude for the unfolding of our “holy adventure” so far. I give thanks for the ways that you have all welcomed me with such openness and warmth. I give thanks for our worship together, and for the ways we have navigated the change in the pattern of our Sunday morning worship, moving from a morning of both Zoom and in-person worship, to one service at 10 a.m. I give thanks that we were able to respond to volunteer fatigue with this change, and I am grateful for the understanding of those for whom Zoom was meeting a need on a Sunday morning. Part of living a “holy adventure” is living with eyes, ears, hearts and minds open to opportunities to move with God already at work, and we will continue to do that with all things, including being open to opportunities to connect on Zoom. I give thanks for the ways we are getting to know one another in community, in meetings, and one-on-one as our
“holy adventure” continues.
Last Sunday, I preached about “and”, suggesting that it is one of the most important words we have as human beings. Life is full of “ands”: joy and sorrow, praise and lament, faith and doubt, celebration and conflict. “And” frees us from striving for either/or and helps us to move between these things. We are both ourselves and an interconnected collective. We live both inner and outer lives. We are each uniquely and wonderfully made, and we are inextricably linked in the great collective of creation. “And” helps us to be in the midst of difference and diversity. I give thanks for “and”!
It is “and” that makes community – all of you, and me – and community includes both “being”and “doing”. We’re going to stay after the 10 a.m. service next Sunday (October 16th) for a Volunteer Fair. We will celebrate the dedicated group of volunteers who are already “doing” on a Sunday morning: taking on the roles and responsibilities that combine to make our Sunday morning worship what it is. Heartfelt thanks to them! We also need to do some rebuilding and expanding of our volunteer groups. I invite you to do some discerning about what you are “doing” at Ascension. Please do plan to stay after church next week. There will be lots of space for questions, and for “demystifying” what you’ll be getting into if the Spirit moves you to take on more “doing” on a Sunday morning.
This Thanksgiving, I give thanks that Ascension is a place where we can meet one another and feel all the “ands”, together. I give thanks that it is a place where we tend to both our inner and our outer lives, balancing being and doing. I give thanks that God is with us and we are with each other in the “ands”, on this “holy adventure”.
Blessings to you and yours this Thanksgiving, and always,
Victoria+
All material, readings, songs, etc. will be presented to you on screen. Just join us and follow along. See you there.
God is Community – Three-in-One and One-in Three
a last sermon at Church of the Ascension
The Rev’d Rhonda Waters
Today is Trinity Sunday, set aside to consider the mystery of the Trinity – three-in-one and one-in-three. The Trinity – that great theological formulation that just gets more and more confusing the more you try to pull it apart.
Which is the point, really. You can’t pull apart the Trinity. It’s not an engine, or even an organic body – you can’t disassemble it in order to see how it works: separating the Source from the Word from the Holy Spirit and tracing the tubing that connects them. It’s not an organization that you can diagram, drawing the org chart and mapping the flow of authority and accountability and responsibility through the parts.
The Trinity is a whole, indivisible and complete in itself. How it works or what it is – these are the wrong questions. The right question is why. Why does God reveal themselves to us as Trinity, in addition to revealing themselves as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? What truth is given to us about God’s nature through this particular mystery?
And in a rather breathtaking act of hubris, I will tell you:
God is community. It’s not just that God likes company or that they enjoy collaboration.
It is not just that God is in community.
God is community.
God is not unitary because their very nature is community – but not just any community. They are a community of mutual love and delight and faithfulness; a community of equals that cannot be separated or ranked; a community of difference that cannot be reduced or assimilated.
When God was all that existed, before the beginning of time, before the beginning of creation, this is what existed: this community of perfect love. St. Augustine’s image of the Trinity remains the best: the Lover and the Beloved and the Love, each distinct and necessary to the full expression of each even while the distinctions blur in the living: the lover loves the beloved loves the lover loves the love loves the lover – and on and on in perfection.
And so it was that love poured out at creation and brought all things into being, God delighting themselves in the joyful act of bringing the world into existence and inviting all creation into community with them; into the community of God.
And it was that love that poured out into us; breathed us to life and created us in their own image.
Which means we are created to be community. In a very real way, there can be no such thing as a solitary person. This is why solitary confinement is such a cruel punishment; why neglect takes such a toll on children – and not only children; why loneliness can drive people to despair. It is not good for us to be alone – because we are made in the image of God who is community.
And yet, over and over again, we turn away from our true selves and from God –in fear, in shame, in pride. We create communities in our image instead of in God’s image and end up lost in idolatry; drawing borders and making false distinctions that reassure us of our own belonging at the expense of someone else’s. We see difference and we think it needs to be managed – or erased – rather than embraced. We see plurality and we want to make sure we are the one at the front of the line…but there is no line for the many is perfectly united in the One.
And so love poured out yet again and God came to us, sending their Son (who is still entirely God, don’t forget) to not only invite us into community but to demonstrate what that means; becoming not simply one with us but one of us even while still being one with the Father and with the Spirit. We, by our very human nature and not in spite of it, belong to the community that is the Triune God.
And, when we dwell in that community, in that perfect love – the love pours out in acts of creation, bringing forth art, friendship, science, technology, literature, family, gardens, music, feasts – and community. Community that seeks to reflect the image of God and so to grow, pouring love out in welcome as ever more people are gathered up into God’s perfect love, one with creation and one with God who is One with themselves.
The above sermon and the hymn text below serve as a sort of “Rhonda’s theological key points”, offered with thanksgiving for all I have learned and all I hope I have shared with Church of the Ascension. May we always live in the Community of God.
The Kingdom of Heaven (It is Near)
Words: Rhonda Waters (1978- )
Music: William Howard Doane (1832-1915) (To God be the Glory)
The kingdom of heaven is like a small seed,
which planted in darkness becomes a great tree.
It grows even taller its branches reach wide;
the birds of the air find their shelter inside.
It is near! It is near! Christ bids us to see.
It is near! It is near! Turn around and believe.
By love we are welcomed, by love we are called.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for all.
The kingdom of heaven’s like yeast for the bread;
the smallest amount and then all shall be fed.
Mere flour and water take on a new form
and call us to table where we are transformed.
It is near! It is near! Christ bids us to see.
It is near! It is near! Turn around and believe.
By love we are welcomed, by love we are called.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for all.
The kingdom of heaven, God’s glorious dream;
within us, around us, it’s here to be seen.
In small acts of kindness, in great feats of faith,
the kingdom of heaven breaks forth in this place.
It is near! It is near! Christ bids us to see.
It is near! It is near! Turn around and believe.
By love we are welcomed, by love we are called.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for all.
Come, Holy Spirit, Come
a sermon for Pentecost
The Rev’d Rhonda Waters