Loading...What a heavy and grief-laden story. And told on a morning when I feel so light and full of joy. But isn’t that the way of salvation: all inclusive.
I feel joy to be here at St. James Episcopal Church, Pewee Valley. I’m so thankful to be here today. I am so thankful to be your new rector. I am so thankful for the feeling of belonging which you have given me.
There’s so much parking here! And so many trees! And there’s grass!
So much of what we appreciate about life depends upon where we’ve come from. I mean that both geographically and spiritually. I am coming to you from having worked downtown at Calvary. Calvary does have parking! And downtown is so full of urban grit and rubble it makes 401 LaGrange Rd look like heaven. Again, salvation is all inclusive.
Right now I live on Brownsboro Rd, across the street from Ballard High School. I hope to make my home nearer St James once my son Aidan graduates from Ballard. Over time I will share more about the path that led me to be your rector. I want to learn where you’ve come from and what you appreciate both about your journey and about what God is doing here at St. James - and because of St. James in the community and beyond.
Perhaps the most important work we will do together is to share what makes us feel most grateful. Let’s just see what that is.
For now it’s Holy Week and there are some important stories to appreciate, and to make us feel uncomfortable. This is the week we tell the stories most people don’t want to hear. I don’t blame them. “It’s depressing,” says one friend of mine.
Depressing or not, these stories are ours to tell. And as Episcopalians we tell them in many ways. Most notably we use a Book of Common Prayer which lays out the salvation story in all its gory detail. Every Sunday we recite a very uncomfortable story about a virgin who has a baby who doesn’t belong to her husband. Then the story goes on to tell of a Father whose son is executed so that people who hate him can be saved from their hatefulness. We recall how his friends treated him in his darkest hour. We recall how the Father raised him from the dead and how his friends behaved after that. Then we have the nerve to say we want to behave differently because of the story. So we say prayers and shake hands with peace and eat bread and drink wine and take our newly refreshed helping-of-hope out the doors to our families, our friends, strangers. Representing such a hope can, under certain circumstances, feel uncomfortable as well. Maybe not as uncomfortable as marching in the cold rain down streets of urban grit and rubble like yesterday at the March for Our Lives. Who got to go? Connie, Susan, loads of other from the Diocese of KY both here in Louisville and in Washington DC. Brrr...was it ever cold.
There are so many uncomfortable stories to tell. Some are about violence and loss. Some are about marriage and death. Some are about children and estrangement. All of them can be gathered together into the most uncomfortable conversation I have ever had -- it is however a conversation which has opened the door to freedom for me as an adult. The name of this conversation is more to be feared than #gunsense or #abortion or #fairhousing or fill in the hashtag of your most uncomfortable conversation. What troubles you most? I would bet my life that it’s also the conversation that holds within it the promise of eternally abiding comfort. The name of THE most uncomfortable and most powerful conversation is #grief.
There is a code phrase for people who are yearning to share the story of their grief. If you’ve ever spoken the words, “It is was it is,” you have stepped up to the threshold of a story you are desperately yearning and possibly terrified to tell. Will you enter in?
Some, like me, may argue that the reason Christians form congregations is to establish a portal for entering into the conversations that convert ; in just the same way Jesus entered into the dead end that is death and established it as a portal for endless hope.
In all the efforts I’ve made to do so, I don’t know that I have ever experienced grief resolved. I have learned how to respect grief. That’s what we do. Here. As Christians. Everytime we tell the story of the saviour who’s Father handed over his son to die a death no one asked for and many even mock. We can’t explain the mystery. We can understand the sorrow.
In the week to come I hope you will join me in crossing the threshold of grief, sharing your story in prayer and maybe even in person with someone. Here at St James we are going to keep telling the most uncomfortable parts of the story of salvation. I trust that as you participate in the telling God will transform your discomfort into comfort, even assurance and yes, freedom. Big words. Big promises. That’s what you get when your uncomfortable story takes a mysterious twist on Easter Sunday. That the day when death and resurrection give grief the respect it deserves and grief is met with a big fat surprise ending. Ours is a story worth belonging to.
