Have I Told You About My Diet?

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Erik Meyer, our music director, told me a great joke: An atheist, a vegan, and a cross-fitter walk into a bar. How do I know? Because they told everyone within two minutes of entering the place.

The joke was told because the staff and I were talking about the zeal with which people share what diet they are on. There are some things people love to share; diets, vacation locations, good books, good movies, and the list goes on.

“Imagine if folks shared about Jesus as much as they shared about their diet?” I wondered out loud eliciting warm laughter around the staff lunch table.

Clearly we are more comfortable on the topic of food than discussing our relationship with “the true bread that come down from heaven.” Why is that? Diets are scientific, you might say. Diets make me feel good, you might say. Diets address things we all share in common, you might say.

The faddish quality of diets makes me doubt the first objection. The second objection makes me wonder if our relationship with God also makes us feel good? For the third, if our faith does not address things we share in common, then what good is it?

So what is it? I would propose that elite cultural despisers (Schleiermacher's term, not mine) have taught us to be ashamed to admit we are people of faith. Every time I study the Bible I hear a voice in my head saying, “Only stupid people read the Bible!” Lord deliver us from “sitting in the seats of the scornful (Psalm 1),” I pray. In addition, some of the loudest voices of Christianity today are repellant and I completely understand people wanting to avoid an association with that version of the faith. Finally, it is hard to overestimate the damage the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Church and now the Southern Baptist Convention rightfully does to the reputation of the church. If I risk opening my mouth about God’s love, will I be forced to give a long defense for everything Christianity has done wrong?

The onus is on us to find a reasonable account of the faith that is in us. The time is ripe for us to learn this skill. In fact, it is crucial. Our approach to the faith needs to be represented because it brings liberation to the oppressed, good news to the poor, release to the captive, and loving embrace to the outcast. When we avoid representing a sober and reasonable faith in the world we leave the most vulnerable in the hands of the most vicious.

How do we start? We practice. Try it out with someone you trust and love. Explore the words that best describe your experience of God even if it means bumbling and stumbling and babbling for a bit. Identify what you might need to learn to better articulate what you believe. Talk to the clergy if you feel like you have this gift or an opportunity to try it. We will help and we are learning too!

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

What's your experience of God? What story would you share with others? Tell us in the comments below!

So, my child is an atheist…Now what?

Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

So, your child has declared that they are an atheist. What do you do? Before you begin, remember the first words of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “Don’t panic!” Why not panic? For many reasons including; 1. The happy news that your child is thinking about such matters in the first place, 2. The fact that you are not the first or only parent to experience this challenge, and, 3. The opportunity to engage your child in an ongoing conversation.

What I most often say in these conversations is simple, “I don’t believe in that god either.” The god our children reject is often a god worth rejecting. Like garbage in a sandbox, our kids pick up notions of god that have nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Secular culture and the culturally dominant strands of Christianity communicate a dominating, controlling, puppeteer God who is cruel, judgmental, and capricious.

The first step is to ask for their objections, take those objections seriously, and share how you respond to such challenges in your faith. In my household we allowed for atheism as long as it was not ignorant atheism. My kids were required to put in the effort and engage the subject. I would always say, “I will respect your position when you can keep up with me in a discussion.”

For example, I will ask my children: “Where did you get that idea about God?” “Does God have to be that way?” Then I will share that I have struggled with these objections too and here is where I came out. My child would ask, “Why does God allow suffering?” Excellent question is the immediate answer. Then you might say, “How might you design a different world? What would that be like?” The most important follow up question is this, “Are any of those forms of suffering more powerful than love?” And then, “What if God wants that world you designed too?”

We believe in a God who took the place of the victims of this world, the position of the most powerless, and felt the suffering of oppression, rejection, torture, and execution. Our God does not stand aloof from suffering but tries to remedy it from the inside through always faithful, never failing, unbreakable love. Our God cries out against the unjust suffering and pain of human self-destruction because our God feels it too. Our God does not impose this suffering. God gave us a good creation that a long history of abuse has made toxic and harmful to human flourishing. Our God has even experienced death and turned it into a pathway for renewed life. Everything we experience as an enemy of life our God has redeemed.

That is a long answer and not totally appropriate for kids. However, it is very important that parents and grandparents show the example of educating their faith if they wish to guide their children. Which leads to a crucial point; you are the adult and you are smarter than your child. You have more life experience. You can absorb their rejection of things you hold dear if you remember that you are helping this child mature and they have a long way to go.

It only feels like rejection of you because it is. Our kids need to reject us and betray us to get the separation necessary for individuation. Trust that they will come back and lay the seeds of that return by engaging them in a gentle, open spirit now. Faith is a gift from God. We cannot control its transmission, but we can give our children the formation they need to know the true God - and avoid the false gods - when the time is right.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

Shabbat Shalom!

Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

The community of faith that is St. Martin’s causes me to feel heart-bursting pride on a regular basis. That feeling welled up again on Friday evening last week when at least 30 of our members joined Shabbat services at Germantown Jewish Center.

We began by standing along the sidewalk on Ellet Street to express our solidarity and care for our Jewish neighbors. We were warmly welcomed by the congregation as they arrived. The grief caused by the atrocity in Pittsburgh was palpable and worn openly on the faces of our neighbors. Our presence was a response to that pain. Our ministry was to reassure, comfort, and accompany a vulnerable community in fear for their safety and in worry for their future.

At 6 p.m. we filed in to join Shabbat worship lead by Rabbi Adam Zeff. Lovely, heartfelt singing and prayer, even dancing, lit the synagogue up with a radiant spirit! Joy, love, and peace were celebrated as God's wish for us and in resistance to the forces of violence, hate, and misery that threaten our neighbors.

Shabbat Shalom! The peace of the sabbath was richly celebrated as God's restoring and life-giving gift. My spirit was refreshed by such faithful and energized invocation of God's promises.

St. Martin's parishioners at GJC.

As in so many cases, I left feeling entirely blessed by the experience. I had gone to be a help, and I left as the one who was helped. Thanks be to God!

Reflecting on that evening, so much of our ministry was on display. Deep relationships empower us to do bold ministry with our neighbors. Intentionally building those relationships in our neighborhood opens the way for healing and reconciliation, the ministry Christ gives us. Let’s not forget the legacy of antisemitism in Chestnut Hill where Jews were systematically excluded from its earliest days. Or, the long and sordid history of antisemitism in the Episcopal Church and white-anglo-saxon-protestant culture in general. By moving across the divides caused by our history of prejudice, we put a stitch in the ripped fabric of our community and joined God in God's work of mending the world.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel, rector



Find your fellow parishioners’ reflections on Friday’s shabbat service on this Facebook post - or add your own!




Save the Date for this upcoming series with our neighbors at Germantown Jewish Centre

God's Country? A Jewish-Christian Text Study on "the land" in Scripture
Sundays in February: 3, 10, 17, 24 from 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Germantown Jewish Centre, 400 West Ellet Street, Philadelphia, PA 19119

Rabbi Adam Zeff of Germantown Jewish Centre and the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel of the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields invite members of our faith communities to gather around sacred texts to explore the meaning of the land of Israel in our respective traditions. While in that land conflict rages, lines are drawn, and sides are taken, Rabbi Zeff and Rev. Kerbel intend to create a space of understanding, deep listening and dialogue where peaceful practices of conversation lay the foundation for peaceful outcomes not yet imagined. Rabbi Zeff and Rev. Kerbel have studied scripture together for five years and share a love for textual interpretation and an abiding concern for allowing concerns to be articulated in their full complexity with disagreements noted and respected. Texts will come from the Hebrew Bible, the Greek Testament and the Talmud. We will meet four times, every Sunday in February starting the 3rd from 1-2 p.m.
Registration coming soon!