Dear Friends,

Many of you know that Thomas and I had the wonderful experience of spending some time in London during the week after Easter. And I am happy to report that we were personally greeted by Elizabeth! She could not have been more gracious.

She happened to be sitting in the pew behind us at church on Sunday. As you can probably guess, we were not at the royal chapel at Windsor or at Westminster Abbey. We were at a parish church.  And though her name is Elizabeth, the woman who greeted us  was not of royal descent.

Receiving communion at St. James’s

She was a member of the parish who, at the offering of the peace greeted us with Christ’s reconciling love. When the service was over, she introduced herself to us and welcomed us to St. James’s. In our conversation, we  learned much about her and the parish, which she had been a part of for over 30 years. Among other things, she told us that it was a parish that had struggled with declining membership and significant building problems, but which was growing in numbers and in faith.  Sound familiar?

After our conversation, she ensured that we made our way to the Coffee Hour. There, we were introduced to several other folks, greeted by the clergy present that day, and reminded in ways both subtle and significant that we were welcome as brothers in Christ amidst their gathering.

No, I did not have a chance to see or meet the Queen. But I was greeted by Elizabeth. What a gift that was.  I thanked God for her that day. And my prayer for us is that each of us will demonstrate that kind of hospitality whenever someone is sitting in front of us, behind us, or beside us. It is among the simplest and most significant things we can do.

Faithfully,

Tom

Dear Friends,

 “But he started it!” How often have you heard that phrase when you are trying to resolve a fight between two children? When I was an elementary school teacher, I spent a fair amount of time settling disputes between angry students in which each claimed to be innocent, fighting back only when the other had initiated the struggle.

I don’t need to tell you that we are hearing those kinds of comments in our current political discourse. Candidates promise that they will not resort to negative campaigning, and then the attack ads begin. Other candidates accuse one another of inciting anger, hatred, and even violence.  But who started it?

It’s not really the best question to ask. To the extent that any one of us has contributed to disrespecting those we disagree with, or cheering on someone who is appealing to our lesser angels, then we have contributed to the problem. A better question to ask might be, “Who is ending it?” Who is stopping the rancor, the accusations, and the implicit, if not explicit endorsement of violence?

Many of the world’s Christians are about to walk again with Jesus through the last week of his life, as the services of Holy Week and Easter begin. In the momentous events of that week, we see a person who, when confronted at every turn with evil, hatred, and persecution, chose to end the spiral of violence.

Jesus lived in a time when the Roman Empire exerted its force with brutal and capricious violence. Yet when Roman guards came to arrest Jesus, he told one of his disciples to put away his sword.  When brought before his accusers, he did not respond with taunts toward them. And when ultimately, he was led to his death as innocent victim, among the last words ascribed to him were these: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Caught in a downward spiral of violence, Jesus chose to respond with love – not a sweet and sentimental love that denied the reality of evil, but rather with a fierce, insistent love that has resonated through the centuries.  In his death on the cross, he was not looking out at the world and saying, “Who started it?” Instead, he was proclaiming, “This is the way to end it.” This is the way to end our rancor, our hatred, and our diminishment of one another.

The weeks and months ahead present a significant challenge for us as a nation. We can and will argue about “who started it.” More importantly, we can each make a commitment to speak, to listen, and ultimately to vote in such a way that we are ending, rather than beginning a debate that diminishes us all. May the Holy Week ahead remind us of our particular vocation as Christians to bear witness in the world to Jesus Christ, whose own witness and way overcame every evil, and even death.

Faithfully,

Tom

Dear Friends,

This Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, is often referred to as Rose Sunday, or Laetare Sunday (from the Latin for the phrase “Rejoice, O Jerusalem”). In the midst of the season of Lent, we are offered glimpses of the joy that we will experience at Easter.  This a “Refreshment Sunday.”

This Sunday also reminds us that the world that the lives we live are not easily divided into good times or challenging times, even as our worship is not simply divided into seasons of penitence or seasons of praise.

Yes, our liturgy during Lent invites us to walk with Jesus, both through the wilderness of his temptation and his road to the cross. We rightly use words like “repentance” “discipline” “fasting” and “sacrifice” during the season. We refrain from using that joyful “A word.”

But that does not mean that our liturgies, or our lives for that matter, are walled off from joy, praise, and gratitude. Those expressions of our life with God continue to well up in us. And if we happen to be in the midst of the wilderness, they can be  as cool and refreshing as the water of an oasis. According to the gospel of John, when Jesus was gathered with his disciples on what he knew would be the last night of his life, he was yet able to say iin the midst of the pain and fear of that evening: “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11)

J. R. R. Tolkien, the British author of The Lord of the Rings, was a devout Christian. In writing about Jesus Christ, he noted, “This is a story that begins and ends in joy.” Here we are, liturgically speaking, between the beginning and the end of that story. It is good for us to observe a holy Lent. We can smile at each other as we forget and catch ourselves at the end of the service starting to say, “Alle…..”.  But let us not forget that joy, gratitude, and praise should not, and cannot be contained, even in the midst of this holy season of Lent.

Faithfully,

Tom