Reading Ahead -- Pentecost 5

This week's reading from Genesis is about Abraham and Sarah's visit from three strangers. They come to Abraham's tent under the oak at Mamre, he feeds them, and they tell him they will return in one year and his wife Sarah will have a son.

This famous icon, after the one by the Russion iconographer Rublev, pictures the three visitors as the Holy Trinity, gathered in community around a table. When you ponder this image, what does it say to you about the nature of God? What do you feel about God as you consider the icon? How does it mirror your own experience of God as relationship, as conversation, as concern?

If you click on the image, it will appear in a separate window, larger and easier to view. Spend some time in contemplation of this icon, and see what windows to God are opened to you.

Summer Reading Groups

If you have some reading planned for summer, the adult ed committee has picked out some books you might want to read and talk about. The books are set out in the Abbot Road entrance on Sunday mornings with a sign-up sheet. The idea is that you sign up for the book (or books) you want to read, and someone on the list agrees to take responsibility to gather the signees for a discussion sometime this summer.

The discussion can be one or several times. It can be at church, in someone's home, in a coffee shop or in a restaurant. It is up to the group how they want to meet.

The books cover a wide range of Christianity and spirituality. Some are fun, some are informative, some are deep. Here's a quick look at them.

Lamb, by Christopher Moore, is an irreverent but well-researched novel that wonders what Jesus did during those years of his youth, prior to beginning his public ministry. It purports to be written by Biff, his childhood pal. ("Biff" is the Hebrew word for the sound made when someone gets slapped upside the head.) Very funny, but not for the easily offended.

Speaking of Faith, by Krista Tippett, lets the radio host share what she has learned about faith and her own spiritual journey by hosting the public radio show "Speaking of Faith" and conversing with spiritual leaders like Thich Naht Hahn, Elie Weisel, Karen Armstrong and others. She is wise and honest about herself and her own journey, and what she has gleaned along the way. This is also proving to be one of the most popular reads in our summer sessions.

A Generous Orthodoxy, by Brian McLaren, is one of my very favorite books. In fact, I can't find any of my copies of it to put out on display, because I keep loaning it to people to read. Written by one of the leaders in the Emerging Church movement, it offers a readable, engaging theology of faith. He offers a way forward for Christians of many denominations and persuasions to focus on what they have in common -- a faith that moves beyond "us and them" to a focus on "we" who love Jesus and want to follow him in embodying his love. Also, a sticker on the book promises that if you don't LOVE this book, it's free!

The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs, is both hysterically funny and deeply informative. In it, Jacobs, a secular Jew, decides to read the Bible for himself and to try to follow every precept in it. The big ones, like "love your neighbor" and also the small ones, like "stone adulterers" (the stoning section is too, too funny!). He also does lots of research on these traditions, finds spiritual guidance from Jewish and Christian experts alike, and in the process of making us laugh, teaches us a whole lot about the Bible and the way different faith traditions read it. Yes, he visits snake handlers, too.

Jesus for the Non-Religious, by retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong, is an excellent choice for people who struggle with some of the claims of Christianity, and who especially struggle with the conservative, fundamentalist interprestation of those claims. Bishop Spong has helped many people (including some All Saints' folks) come back to faith and to church with a sense of intellectual integrity that allows their reason and their faith to co-exist. If you have never read any works by Bp. Spong and wonder what the fuss is about him, this work is a good survey of all his thinking over the last several decades.

Abraham, by Bruce Feiler, is a search for the founder of three world faiths -- Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Feiler travels the Middle East, speaking to rabbis and imams, patriarchs and monks, Israelis and Palestinians, in his search for how these three faiths find their common heritage in this one shared ancestor. Feiler's writing is engaging and accessible, and his journey is enlightening. Also, he's giving me lots of insights for Sunday's sermon!

Happy reading, and happy discussing!

+ Kit

Saint of the Week -- Boniface

Boniface was born in England around 675, with the given name of Winfred. It wasn't until he went to Rome to get approval from Pope Gregory to become a missionary that he got his new name. Gregory sent him to evangelize Germany and gave him the name Boniface. He worked the rest of his life in Germany, establishing Christianity, becoming a bishop, then archbishop of Mainz.

He retired his office in 753 and went back to his missionary work. On June 5, 754, he and his companions were murdered by a band of pagans as he waited for a group of converts to arrive for confirmation.

Thomas Merton's Prayer

This has always been one of my favorite prayers. I love the idea of being led by the right road, although I may know nothing about it. That God is working the best for those who desire to serve and please God ... even though we may not see it at first, and that we'll be led by the right road, even if we don't see it.

+ Kit

My Lord God ... I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.

And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road although I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. AMEN.

Reading Ahead -- Pentecost 4

The Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you."

In this week's readings, we hear the call of Abraham (still known as Abram) to leave everything he had ever known in Haran and head out to seek "the land that [Yahweh} would show".

We don't learn of any reason that Abram would have to leave his homeland. He probably had many reasons to stay. He was incredibly old, for starters. Also, in a kinship-based society of the Middle East, leaving the intricate web of family relationships would be seen as foolhardy at best. He did take some family with him -- his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot. But mostly then, they were on their own.

What is your own personal Haran -- the place where you are comfortable and secure, which girds you around with support and relationship? Has God ever called you to step away from that place? Why would God want you to go? Would you be willing to go from there, if God wanted you to? What would it cost you to leave that place of comfort? What would you gain by going?

+ Kit

Pasta With Pastor Kit (and Sheila)

In what is developing into an annual event, All Saints youth and Christian Formation teachers joined me and Sheila, our Coordinator for Youth and Children's Ministries, for an afternoon of hanging out, games and a pasta supper.


There was croquet, a really curious water fight with teeny tiny squirting animals, lots of pasta and then ...

sack races!

I'm already looking forward to next years' event!

+ Kit

Go Ye Into All the World

That's what you look at every day for three years as a student at Virginia Theological Seminary. The far wall of the seminary chapel (circa 1880, and neo-Gothic in a creaky, worn-out sort of way) is dominated by a large stained-glass window of Jesus giving this direction to the eleven disciples just prior to his Ascension.

Now once you get past the intriguing question of ... is that apostle there to the left really Peter, or Robert E. Lee standing in for Peter, and doesn't that bearded one up on the right look like Stonewall Jackson? Once you settle down for three years' worth of pretty solid Morning Prayer done with little to no fanfare, there's not much to do but focus on that wall and focus on those words.

The message was originally placed there to inspire generations of budding clergy to a kind of evangelical zeal. But in later years, the message confronts others, not just candidates for ordination ... lay students working on Masters of Theological Studies degrees, Christian educators working on Masters in Christian Education degrees, parishioners at Immanuel-on-the-Hill Episcopal, who worship in the seminary chapel, family members -- spouses, partners, children, parents -- who join their seminarian for worship, visitors from the wider Anglican Communion, bishops and presiding bishops.

The message is not just for Jesus' first disciples. It's not just for priests from Virginia Theological Seminary. It's a message for all of us.

+ Kit