we're moving...

I have started a new blog for our Silver Spring Cooperative Parish: "Inside-out Church" Come on over and see what's happening...

A Good Friday

To observe Good Friday, folks from Woodside and Hughes UMC, as well as some friends from the community walked through downtown Silver Spring observing a version of the stations of the cross. We called it "The Way of the Cross" and we stopped at various social service agencies, ministry partners and public places to read scripture, pray and sing. We lifted up the homeless, the poor, the sick, the disabled, the lonely, friends and strangers alike. We prayed for the righteous, the servants, the followers of Jesus who provide home, food, a place to belong and Christ's love to our community.

It was a gorgeous day and we passed people out for lunch, construction workers, and lots of traffic on Georgia Avenue. Some greeted us with smiles, some observed us with curiosity, some looked away uncomfortably. I overheard a child ask her father, "what are they doing?" We are witnessing to the love of God.

At Silver Spring Interfaith Housing Coalition, our reader's voice cracked with emotion as she read Jesus' command from the cross to his disciple to take his mother into his home, and our command to serve: "Do we notice the homeless men, women and children in our community? Or do they remain hidden from our eyes?" Some unhoused neighbors and a staff nurse joined us at Shepherd's Table. And when we got to the Easter Seals Intergenerational Center, some of the seniors and staff came out onto the porch to be part of our reading. I saw one woman from the staff wiping away her tears as we finished and walked away.

A couple of weeks ago, a little girl at church asked me: Why do we call it Good Friday? Now we know. Because the suffering of the cross was brutal, but out of that came the greatest gift the world has ever known. And out of the suffering that is all around us, there are, yet and still, signs of hope.

Just Because It's Holy Week...

the baby got sick and had to stay home from daycare for three days, and the dishwasher broke.
Is there something I am not doing right?

Bunny Week

Bunnies Gone Wild
Originally uploaded by Bakerella

So it's HOLY WEEK...the culmination of Lent, and the holiest week of the Christian year when we remember the Last Supper, the trial, suffering and crucifixion of Jesus and we await the coming HOPE of Easter with prayer, fasting and penitence.

And my four-year-old daughter Nora came home from preschool today with a calendar of her week's activities announcing this week's theme: BUNNY WEEK.

Perfect.

Now, let me just say, it's a wonderful preschool. I adore Nora's teachers and she is thriving there. And it's not a religious school. Not at all, in fact. I learned this the hard way back in December when they invited parents to come in and share about family holiday traditions and Nora wanted to bring in her nativity scene, which was fine, I was told, so long as we didn't mention Jesus. You have got to be kidding me...

So I am not expecting them to get into the religious significance of the Easter season. But it does concern me a bit that the most important Christian holiday (more important, even, than Christmas), is (hard) boiled down to eggs and bunnies. If that's not evidence that we live in a post-Christian, neo-pagan culture, I don't know what is.

It's just also a good reminder to me, as a person who seeks to follow Christ, and also to raise my children in this faith, that it's so important to really enter into the story of this whole week. I can't just go from Hosanna! to Hallelujah!, omit all that comes between, and really expect that the resurrection will have any impact on my life or faith.

So may Jesus keep me, and you, near the cross this Holy Week.

PS. I did feel a little better knowing that the kick off to "Bunny Week" was reading The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown, which, if you haven't read it lately, you should, because it's a sweet story and one of the best metaphors for God's persistent love there is!

On Collars and Titles

Collared
Originally uploaded by Gary McMurray

One of my Lenten disciplines this year, in addition to blogging regularly, has been to wear my clerical collar once a week. I try and wear my "clergy uniform" on days when I am going to be away from the church office and out in the world. The whole point is to try and remember that I am a minister of God at all times and that my speech, behavior, even my driving (yikes!) should reflect the image of God that I hope others will see. It's been humbling, and, I will admit, fun to see people's reaction. Today at lunchtime, as I was walking out of a restaurant with my rabbi friend, a man who was coming in audibly gasped when he saw us. Maybe he thought it was one of those bad jokes (a pastor and a rabbi are eating sushi...)

But the other piece of this is that I am constantly wrestling with my pastoral identity and the whole mix of pastor, mom, human being that I am everyday. When I put on my collar, the first thing that people see is my pastoral identity, but I am still all those other things, too, and those identities are just as important to me.

Today someone suggested to me that I shouldn't let people at church call me just "Rachel"; that I should have people call me Rev. Rachel at least, so that they show respect for the office and my role as pastor. I have never had a problem with people calling me by my first name--I want to be accessible and don't want titles to stand in the way of relationship. I have accepted the responsibility and privilege of being "set apart" for this work of God. And yet, I feel that I must earn people's respect--that it shouldn't just be given to me because I have a certain degree, title or shirt.

I hope that people will offer me respect just because I am a child of God and because all people deserve compassion, patience, love and mercy. And I also hope that whether or not I am wearing my collar, my words and deeds will show that I am someone who seeks to follow Jesus everyday.

Snow Day

I am reading a new book by Brian McLaren called Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices in which he declares that Christianity should be more of a way of life than a set of beliefs. He encourages a return to "the way" through the ancient practices of pilgrimage, fasting, sacred meals, common prayer, giving, Sabbath keeping and the liturgical year. So far I think this book has got a lot of good ideas that I'll be blogging about here, but today I want to celebrate Sabbath. After all, what's a better sabbath than a snow day?

What Not To Wear

Clothes Show Live Fashion Catwalk 2007
Originally uploaded by beckfish

I love this picture, by the way. "Fashion is the new religion"? Seriously?

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
--Colossians 3:12-14

I got to celebrate a wedding today and the bride and groom chose this scripture to be read. It is a great passage for a wedding, because so many people spend so much time thinking about what they're going to wear at their wedding, but what do you wear to a marriage? Or to any relationship for that matter?

Compassion. Kindness. Humility. Gentleness. Patience. Forgiveness. Love.

Sometimes we forget that these spiritual garments are essential items in any wardrobe. We get so caught up at times in how we look on the outside and forget that we need dressing on the inside, too. And there are times when we need people to be honest enough to say to us, "Hey, you have a bit of selfishness stuck to your shoe." Or, "That anger and resentment really doesn't look good on you. How about trying a little patience and forgiveness?"

Those kinds of things never wear out; they never go out of fashion. They are appropriate for every season.

Ash Wednesday

Fire and Water
Originally uploaded by peasap

Sunday's palms are Wednesday's ashes as another Lent begins; thus we kneel before our Maker in contrition for our sins. We have marred baptismal pledges, in rebellion gone astray; now returning, seek forgiveness; grant us pardon, God, this day! (From the hymn "Sunday's Palms are Wednesday's Ashes" words by Rae E. Whitney, tune: Beach Spring)

The fire took quickly to the well dried palms, and I could feel the heat as the flames burned higher. The strong wind blows great wafts of smoke heavenward and the smell clings to my hands and hair. I now understand why the ancient traditions use incense to lift their prayers to God. As the flames die down and the fire smolders, all that remains is ash. It is the darkest black imaginable, and messy. The tiny flecks stick to everything.

One by one they come forward--a homeless woman and a district superintendent; the man and the woman who have lost their jobs; the woman whose marriage is faltering; young people with heavy burdens and old people afraid of death. Before the altar, all of this falls away and we are simply reminded that we are dust. Once again the breath of God breathes new life into us, and we are forgiven, redeemed, set free.

We set our feet on the path of Christ. We will not shy away from the cross this year, for we know that there are things that are some things worse than death. And our God will not allow death to have the final word--no, not ever.

May you keep a Holy Lent.