Sermon: Paschal Nebulae,Third Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2010
Have you ever chased a mirage down a desert highway?
Today, we watch Easter continue to dawn among the disciples. The collect gives us the key to the holy of holies, providing us with a lens through which to view the events in the lessons. The key is also called the practice of the presence of God.
Open the eyes of our faith, we pray. Give us second sight, insight to perceive the ways in which you make yourself known as new life, as resurrection. By your Spirit, we pray, train our attention to sense you near at work. Give us a third ear, to hear your voice in other voices. Give us a third eye, to see your face in other faces. Give us the gift, as of scales falling, as of blindfolds removed, to behold extraordinary gifts in ordinary sights, sounds, events. May we perceive your inspiration of all of life, in the wondrous ways that you break through, break bread, break fast.
Discovery Camp 2010 – regretfully cancelled
We regret that Discovery Camp 2010 is cancelled – for this year.
We have every intention of offering it next year for a week in August, and will be sending out publicity notices early next year.
Jane McDougle and Jeanne Cooper
Arts at St. Bede’s
Saturday, April 17, 7:30pm
Michele Sharik & Handbells, in The Golden Dance.
Michele brings her passion and talent for music to the ancient art of bell-ringing. She does so with a unique style that combines tradition with innovation. Like the 18th century Musical Academies, Michele will present a selection of favorite musical miniatures in a variety of styles, weaving together a tapestry of music and story that will take the listener on a journey from Renaissance England to the Golden Gate, and all points in between.
Internationally renowned for her graceful and flowing style. Michele is knowledgeable, funny, entertaining, and deeply soulful in her music-making, even as she lifts more than 250lbs of bronze in her own dance-like choreography. Michele will be accompanied by pianist, Dr. Valerie Sterk.
Free to ‘Arts of St. Bede’s Subscribers. Tickets: $25/$15. Reception to follow in parish hall.
The Great Easter Egg Hunt
Egg Gathering Rules
There are 30 kids and 500 eggs.
12 eggs per kid until everyone has 12, then you’re on your own!
Easter Sunday Sermon: Our Big Hunger
Here is a poem by Rumi, who sounds very like Holy Wisdom crying in the streets, from the pages of our scriptures.
For whatever our many reasons, it is the same Spirit that has brought us out and gathered us together in this public place today.
What are we doing? We’re celebrating the Feast of the Resurrection. And what does that mean? That is the crux of the matter. The Sand People of the Kalahari Desert make a distinction between our bodily need for sustenance, which they call the little hunger, and our need for soul food to sustain our spirits, which they call the big hunger (Smith). It is the big hunger that has assembled us to hear this story and to partake of this feast.
Good Friday Sermon: The Crucifixion Continues
But I have no tears on this Good Friday.
When I mentioned I was scheduled to preach on Good Friday a friend asked: “You’re not going to cry are you?”
I was surprised by this question. I didn’t know what to make of it. Great I thought: here’s another treasured seminary tradition for me to bungle. Luckily my friend was not advising me of how CDSP graduates are supposed to preach on Good Friday. It seems that she knew a priest who once was overcome with emotion while preaching on the crucifixion. I can understand that. Preaching requires living with and sometimes wrestling a set of scriptures, and today’s scriptures are heartbreaking.
Maundy Thursady Sermon: Re-Membering
. . . this re-membering undoes the dismembering that happens to us when we are fearful, or arrogant . . .
If this were the last night of the world, what would you be doing? Where would you be? Who would be with you?
On his last night, Jesus is at table with his friends, gathered together for an intimate meal. When I imagine this last supper scene, it is not the Da Vinci painting that comes to mind for me – men reclining all along the length of a grand table, talking amongst themselves in little groups… Jesus at the center, seemingly holding court…
Rather I imagine an even more intimate setting where all of the disciples can see into Jesus’ eyes and in the flickering light of the oil lamps, into each other’s eyes too.
We know these people – we know their stories and their foibles and their deep love of Jesus. There at the table, we see James and John, the brothers who dropped everything to follow Jesus, the ones who argued about who was the greatest, the ones who would fall asleep rather than stay awake to watch and pray.
Easter Letter from the Rector
Consider the lily, how it prays…
Beloved in Christ,
Ever since Luke’s Jesus taught the disciples with the illustration of the lily, lilies have become part of Christian iconography. Jesus’ mother, Mary of Nazareth, has been associated with the lily in all art forms since. It serves as a symbol of purity and election, for her and for her offspring. Like mother, like son.
How many centuries has the church resorted to lilies as signs of Easter joy? It probably has to do with their blooming season. Many of us, from an early age, connect the fragrance of lilies with the Easter story, with the sweet smell of new life from the mouth of an empty tomb.
In her poem, Mary Oliver admires the natural piety of the lily. Its diurnal cycle becomes a metaphor for the alternations of the human spirit. At night, the lily closes itself. She imagines the life of the lily waiting expectantly for the next call to growth, hopeful of dawn and dew. The sun’s rising prompts the lily to swell wide open in an expression suggestive of praise, taking in to the fullest extent its life energy from its radiant source. It makes me wonder if, like the lily, our very being is a kind of prayer.
