Sincere Faith

Image description: On a bright teal blue background, which appears to be painted and
weathered concrete, there are a series of wooden blocks with letters and numbers
carved out of each one. The sizes, shapes, and colors of the wood and the fonts of
the characters vary. In the center, five blocks are positioned together to spell the word, 'faith.'

For the last few weeks, our Epistle reading came from the Second Letter to Timothy. The goal of the author is to encourage and strengthen the faltering faith of a local house church leader named Timothy. His faith is wilting under the assault of shame, public embarrassment that his mentor - the Apostle Paul - is a jailbird, and his Lord - Jesus Christ - suffered the shameful death of a criminal and rebel. Timothy finds himself in an unpopular and scorned minority accused of harboring absurd and even seditious ideas.

We need to read this letter as if it is addressed to us. Many of us are ashamed of our faith. We are loathe to mention our allegiance to Jesus Christ in polite company. We are afraid that friends and strangers will judge us dimwitted, or worse, as fellow travelers of the negative expressions of popular Christianity which flood the media with bile and hatefulness. To stand out and stand up for an alternative expression of faith that is thoughtful, gentle, inclusive, and inviting would be a terrific gift to country riven by extremes.

As Episcopalians we have prided ourselves on a thoughtful, gentle, and questioning faith. I hope we see this identity as a gift and learn to emphasize the word “faith” as much as we emphasize the word “questioning.” Our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, is certainly challenging us in that direction and I find his challenge both refreshing and disorienting. The challenge to own my faith in Jesus Christ is disorienting for me because I was raised in liberal Christianity, ashamed of my faith and trained to see myself as the sole authority who judges tradition and scripture against my own conclusions and ideas about reality. I find it refreshing because, in reality, I am much healthier and happier when I scede authority over my life to my faithful guide and steadfast savior, Jesus Christ.

C.S. Lewis said, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” While we will always be a church of curiosity, searching, and welcome for folks wherever they are on their journey of faith, we also, by necessity must be a place where the Gospel is shared with confidence in all of its illuminating and life-saving power. The most powerful way to do that is to share our story and to be sincere in our expressions of faith.

One danger of living in a distracted, fractured, and accelerated culture is that lonely people of faith will become rigid and defensive in our minority position. Scared and anxious that we are losing ground, and at risk of losing a faith and an institution we adore, we retrench and resist by staking out rigid positions, lines in the sand. Our faith inspires a more nuanced reaction. We are challenged to become more clear and focused on our mission and the good news we have to share. At the same time, that good news is gentle, welcoming, and full of loving kindness. If not, we have a real loss to mourn.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

Infinite God

“Christian faith claims that the eternal truth and wisdom of God spoke most completely in a single human life and death…. To receive his truth is neither to acquire a theory about the universe nor to escape from time into a reconciled eternity, but to embrace the struggle to be faithful to within the limits of being a creature with a body and a biography. So, in this context, not even God becomes an object that will satisfy my longing and my incompleteness. I must learn in this life to accept the fact that hunger and restlessness are part of what I am made for. To love God is not to acquire the biggest and best gratification of all but to have my whole experience of love transfigured. Instead of the manic struggle to fill the gap in my heart, which leads me to the exploitation and domination (manipulation) of others and of my whole world, I acknowledge that I am never going to feel cosily at one with myself, all desires gratified; my longing opens out on the horizon of the infinite God."

- Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams

Timber, Awe, and Wonder

"...the awe and wonder come from a deep intuition of the sacred gift of the tree."
Photo taken in the woods. There is bright green ground cover. One tall, thick,
moss-covered tree stands in the foreground, lit from the back and right side
by the sun rising through the trees at a distance to the right. The photo is
awash in the greens and pale yellows of spring or early summer.

On vacation I care for a small forest in the Maine woods. My idea of a perfect vacation day is forestry in the morning and books in a hammock in the afternoon. My favorite tool is my Stihl MS 271 chainsaw, 50cc’s of throbbing, purring power for felling and processing trees destined for our wood stove.  

Holding a chainsaw calms me. The growl of the engine muffled through ear protection, the vibrations running up through my hands and arms, the smell of fresh, tart sawdust kicking off the chain onto my jeans - focus my scattered mind and engulf me into the moment.  

When an 80 foot tree that is two-and-a-half feet thick is almost fully severed and just on the edge of toppling, time freezes and my ears perk up for the cracking of wood that presages the fall. Will it go the direction I intend or will it totter toward me? The thrill is electric and the shout of, “Timber!” is part relief and part triumph when its massive bulk plummets away from me.  

The tree thunders to the ground and strikes the earth like a massive drumstick on a bass drum. “Wump” is part noise and part feeling in my feet. My response is awe and wonder. I am not impressed by the act of felling the tree. No, the awe and wonder come from a deep intuition of the sacred gift of the tree.

For one hundred years or more that tree was growing and processing sunlight, rain, and soil into a massive stalk of wood fiber and generation after generations of leaves and seeds. From a sapling it developed into a tower of grace and beauty that sheltered the birds and squirrels and insects. The storms it witnessed. The winter weight of snow it bore. The stories if could tell.  

Sacred. The sacred gift calls out a prayer. The sacred gift calls out awe and wonder and in turn the prayer and these feelings change forever how we walk on the earth. Because we know she is sacred.

Blessings,

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Rector

Butterfly House

"I am so grateful that God reaches us through God’s creatures."
Image: A yellow morph (female) Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly perches, 
wings spread open flat, on one in a bunch of purple cone flowers.

I approached the butterfly house with low expectations. From the outside, I could not see much through the black mesh of the quonset hut at my local Watershed Headquarters. Upon entering, however, a cloud of bright, colorful butterflies fluttered all around me in an enchanting swirl of gentle wings.

My heart melted. A sense of joy and gratitude swelled. Happy tears filled my eyes and my whole face smiled.

Beauty. Goodness. Diversity. Adaptive Creativity. Delight. Gentleness. Freedom. God was powerfully present in God’s creatures. God’s gift of God’s whole self - i.e. God’s grace - resets our hearts, re-tunes our mind and restores us to our most soulful state - alive, serene, emotionally available, heartfelt, grateful, receptive, appreciating.

I am so grateful that God reaches us through God’s creatures. I am so grateful that God has flooded creation with goodness and excellence that resemble and point to the ultimate goodness of God.

When we are under stress or brought low by the assaults of bad news, it is helpful to remember that the good is there and that it surpasses the bad in every way. As people of faith in the risen Christ, we know that evil is passing away - a defeated remnant. As people of faith in our good Creator God, we know that evil has no positive existence in itself; it is only ever the negation of the good. All that really exists is what God called good and very good from the beginning.

It is no accident that butterflies are a common symbol of risen life in Christ.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector


What creatures make you think of God's creativity, love, and beauty? Let us know in the comments.

Also, please save the date for our St. Francis Day Blessing of the Animals on Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. You can find us both in Pastorius Park and right here at St. Martin's at that time.

Wonder, Love, and Curiosity

Editor's Note: The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel is away this month on his vacation. While he is away our Associate Rector, the Rev. Anne Thatcher, will be writing for the Rector's Note.

Introducing a new member of St. Martin's family: Laszlo,
a beautiful, red-coated, calm-tempered and curious Irish Doodle,
companion to the Rev. Anne Thatcher.

Introducing a new member of the St. Martin’s family, Laszlo…

My mornings now start with rising and immediately taking Laszlo, my new puppy, outside. Quick, quick, quick, before he empties his bladder on the stairs! Then our walk begins, though it is really more of a walk, wait, sit, tug, walk, wait, sit, and tug. I am rediscovering the world through the nose, eyes, and ears of Laszlo. Everything is new. I can tell when he is processing because he freezes and looks intently at an object or person or cocks his head as he listens to a sound. I can almost see the cogs in his tiny brain whirring around as he registers buses, runners, grass, sidewalks, plants, strollers, and on and on.

Upon my return from vacation, relaxed and recharged, I followed through on my plan to pick up my new puppy. I have not trained a puppy in over a decade. When I brought Leo home at fourteen weeks, he was already long-legged and had matured beyond the early chewing stages. Laszlo was both gloriously and terrifyingly tiny at nine weeks and twelve pounds when he came home. I alternate daily between amazement at how such a small puppy can be so well formed and terror at how to train such a vulnerable tiny being. I imagine that those of you who have raised children or pets have experienced that tension we carry within ourselves when we are responsible for the absolute care of another of God’s creation.

Our first walk on leash was short-lived as Laszlo - intrigued by every smell, sound, and sight - kept stopping and sitting down. Overwhelmed by the onrush of senses, he simply refused to move while he processed the experience. I was frustrated and after waiting a bit would try to urge him forward only to be met with renewed resistance as he dug in his heels. However, I have to acknowledge, Germantown Avenue is a busy, noisy place for a small puppy to experience for the first time. I went home and watched a video on puppy leash training and then we went out and tried it again.

This time whenever he froze I gave him a minute to process and then I gave him a gentle quick upward tug on his harness to bring him out of his frozen position. Sure enough, each time I did this, he would begin walking again. Once we got moving, it took us an hour to go around the block as I waited each time for him to process before I prompted him with the leash. Patience!

Being a young puppy, he is constantly trying out his teeth on anything around him including my window cranks, chairs, coffee tables, kitchen cabinets, socks, and towels. At times I find myself redirecting him to his bone every few minutes. Tom Lehrer wrote a song called “The Vatican Rag” and the last line of the chorus is, “genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.” This morning I couldn’t help but sing to myself, “redirect, redirect, redirect.”

What infinite patience God has with us! As I wait for Laszlo, so God waits for us when we wander around the world (or rush around the world), one instant hesitant to step forward, doubting and unsure (over-anxious), and in another instant moving so quickly that we miss the moment because we are over-excited. Our Christian journey is ongoing and as human beings we always have so much more to learn about how God is calling us, where we can find Christ in our lives and how we can find Christ in the lives of others. I am sure God sings softly to Godself, “redirect, redirect, redirect” on a regular basis for me when I go astray!

Puppy training is about encouraging the dog to discover, develop, and explore by its own initiative. For, if we force a puppy, it will dig its heels in and refuse. Sound familiar? We too are inclined to dig our heels in if we are forced into an action or situation not of our own choosing. But if we are open to discovering, if we are open to new possibilities, then we may choose to enter in of our own free will, or perhaps we will accept encouragement and support to step out of our comfort zone. Our faith in knowing that God is always present can be the foundation that provides us the courage to keep trying new experiences; allowing our curiosity to continue to spark our imagination and fuel hope of God’s movement in our world.

I know that God gives us a nudge when we are stuck, just as I do with Laszlo on Germantown Avenue when the bus and Mack trucks roar by. I have felt that nudge myself. Sometimes it is a phone call from a dear friend who names my resistance that I cannot see. Other times it is a song on the radio or an interaction with a neighbor who speaks a truth that I could not hear before.

As you see Laszlo and I out and about, stop by and say, “hello”. He is learning how to meet people and engage with the world and I too am learning alongside. I am sure that God is looking on with bemusement saying to himself, “my beloved, these lessons are for you as well.”

Blessings,
The Rev. Anne Thatcher
Associate Rector

Taking God on Vacation

Editorial Note: Today the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel leaves on the youth pilgrimage to Guatemala with a team of two additional adults and eight teens and young adults. Please pray for them in their travels and for safe return at the end of the month. In the meantime, we present a series of guest posts beginning with this one from our newest Deacon, the Rev. Barb Ballenger.

When I was a kid, camping was the family vacation of choice. We had a large Coleman tent that fit five of us like sardines, and a separate awning to create a dining area. My dad had crafted a camp box that held all the camp kitchen essentials, from minute rice to marshmallow forks. To this day the smell of canvas and wood smoke or the taste of Tang can make me feel at least 40 years younger. 

These trips were often long weekends in Ohio state parks; though sometimes they were multi-state excursions of a week or so. They would inevitably include a Sunday and my mom would make sure that we went to church. 

I remember them as a blur of tiny, clapboard rural Catholic churches. The smells would be different from what I was used to, the layout strange, the pews different from the large suburban church we attended at home. Occasionally we would find ourselves at a campground service, seated on cut logs in the amphitheater where we had watched “Charlie the Lonesome Cougar” the night before. 

My mother saw to it that we were a weekly church-going family, and vacation was no exception. Looking back, it was one of the few times we visited other churches, where we got a chance to explore how others marked their Sabbath, sang their songs, or arranged their donuts during coffee hour.  

There is something about summer that changes the feel of church-going. Trips, camps, even just a little time off, can slow things down or break things up when it comes to our Sunday practice. This change of pace can be an opportunity to do some spiritual exploring. For families, visiting other churches during trips can be a conversation starter about faith and religious preferences. What was the same? What was different? What did it feel like to be a visitor? Was I welcome? Did I find God there? These are good insights to bring back to your regular church experience. They are good questions to ask on any Sunday.

If summer vacation offers you the luxury of a quiet morning, consider it an invitation to explore prayer in a new way. Bring a Book of Common Prayer along (or download an app from Apple or Google) and pray morning prayer  with a cup of coffee nearby, or read the psalms to the rhythm of ocean waves or the song of gulls. Even just sitting on a familiar back patio in the presence of a garden box or hanging flowers can extend summer’s invitation to contemplate a God that reveals the divine self through the scents of flowers, the hum of bees, or the distraction of humming bird or mosquito whine. 

This summer, let your time away or your time to yourself be opportunities to rest with the Spirit and delight in the places where God waits for you. When you make it back to St. Martin’s, I’d love to see the pictures. 

Blessings,

The Rev. Barb Ballenger

Deacon and Associate for Spiritual Formation and Care

Editorial: Here are some resources to get you started!

• Find an Episcopal Church near you -- https://www.episcopalchurch.org/find-a-church
• Forward Day by Day - These quarterly booklets offer daily scripture and reflections that fit in a pocket or purse. Copies are available in the back of the church or on the table and in the rack in the Parish House lobby. Donations are welcome. Want an app for that? Download the Forward Day by Day app for your smartphone.
• The Daily Office from the Mission of St. Clare --  https://www.missionstclare.com/english/ -- gives you all you need for the prayers of the Episcopal Daily Office, including songs.
• Listen to Presiding Bishop Michael Curry's Way of Love podcasts, with new episodes posted each Tuesday -- https://wayoflove.episcopalchurch.org/
• Bible Lens app by YouVersion -- Bible Lens “transforms your everyday photos into profound, Biblically-based artistic shareable images.” Take a photo of the places that you are finding God on vacation, and then open them in Bible Lens to see them paired with Bible verses that match!
• Find the Episcopal saint of the day -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_of_saints_(Episcopal_Church)#July

What do I need to be free?

How do we get free from the pain we carry from injuries inflicted on us by people close to us? This painful and pressing question comes up frequently when I am providing pastoral care. Emotional, spiritual, and moral injuries cry out. They will not remain still. They beg to be addressed.

In the face of the painful insistence of these injuries we often provide false answers to ourselves in an attempt to get free. The instinct is correct. We want to get free of the pain. False answers, however, increase the pain and leave us with a diminished life. Examples include blaming ourselves, taking too much responsibility, pretending it was not so bad, excusing the abuser, and so on.

What we really need - what our emotional pain is calling out for - is a reckoning and an apology from the person who harmed us. Eve Ensler makes this observation in her amazing new book, The Apology. Ensler is a playwright, author, humanitarian, and a survivor of vicious childhood abuse by her father. Using her creative gifts she conjures up her dead father as the narrator of the book and uses her imagination to lead him into the reckoning and apology he owes her.

Ensler starts with the question, “What do I need to be free?” From that starting point she discovered her process. An apology from her abuser would need to have the following characteristics to aide her healing:

First, her father would need to be humble and approach her as an equal and not from above. Second, her father would need to be vulnerable, emotionally available to understanding the harm done, and ready to hear what he has done. Third, her father would need to be empathetic, ready to understand and feel the sadistic harm he inflicted from the perspective of his daughter, and what she experienced at the time. Fourth, the father would need to forsake the self-excusing amnesia of the victimizer and be ready to reconstruct the hidden, shameful history for what it is, listening to the voice of the victim especially. Fifth, her father would need to be accountable, willing to take responsibility for harm done and, most importantly, willing to become reflective enough to begin his own healing journey into his own personal damage.

The good news is that the author was able to walk this path to freedom in a conversation with a father who has been dead for many years. In her imagination she was able to dream a new reality that crossed boundaries and opened up new possibilities for empathy and healing. I would call this a form of therapeutic prayer.

We can be set free from harms that oppress us. I highly recommend this book as an aide and guide to your healing. I will plan to offer a Reading with the Rector during 2019 - 2020 on this book.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

A Peek into the March Vestry Retreat

On Saturday, March 16 your vestry gathered for our annual vestry retreat. The focus of the retreat was advancing our Becoming Beloved Community strategic framework through reflection, conversation, clarification, and delegation. By following this link you can view the full notes generated at the retreat in a format that follows the major headings of the Becoming Beloved Community strategic framework:
1. Institution: Leadership and Practice

• Training/orienting parish leaders with lens of racial healing
• Process for recruiting, hiring, and retaining persons of color to senior staff positions

2. Education: Many Points of Entry

• BBC conversation starter
• BBC basic workshop in fall 2019

3. Public Witness: Rapid, appropriate response informed by and in partnership with people of color.

• Community Engagement creates racial justice/witness process
• Add rapid response/witness to ongoing work with POWER

In the morning, we worked with a wonderful consultant named Anthony Moore who helped our leadership reflect on the meaning of diversity of inclusion for St. Martin’s. We emerged from that session with a strong sense that difference enriches our community and requires a commitment to education and growth to allow differences to feel welcomed and to flourish in the church.

A repeated theme was that we need to welcome, respect, and attend to the experience of each person simply because that experience or perspective is their own. We also need to encourage an atmosphere of mutual support and learning so we can try, fail, and succeed together and endure in community through the inevitable mistakes that come with growth. As Barb Ballenger often reminds me, having set off on the path of racial healing we will be all the more accountable and more acutely aware when we fall short. Prayer, mutual support, forgiveness, and endurance will be crucial to the path forward.
In the afternoon, our agenda focused on points 1 and 3 of the strategic framework. First we established clear definitions of racism, bigotry, and implicit bias. Then we created a list of qualities and skills to guide a future training program for parish leaders. We brainstormed factors we should consider in designing a process to recruit, hire, and retain people of color in senior staff positions at the church. We reflected deeply on authority and trust and how racism disrupts and distorts relationships by spreading distrust and diminishing authority. I reflected on how much unearned authority and trust I receive simply because I am white, straight, and male and how different it would be for a person of color in my position.

We finished a very productive day by delegating work on point three, public witness, to the community engagement committee. The vestry laid down broad-brush recommendations and the committee will design a public witness policy and procedure to present to the vestry at a later date. This work will dovetail nicely with the work we did in parish forum last Sunday. We will bring the results of this committee work to the parish for conversation and endorsement, hopefully by annual meeting on Sunday, June 9.

I could not be more proud of our vestry for such sincere, brave, and open engagement with a challenging and promising agenda that will shape the future of this parish. The vestry and all of our members have the power to shape the environment of this place toward the flourishing of each member in his or her blessed uniqueness! St. Martin’s has made an intentional choice to face our legacy of racism and to turn toward God’s path of racial justice, cultural humility, and racial healing. May God bless us on this journey.

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

Here's that link again for our retreat full minutes.

The Right Use of Moral Vision and Power

"The church is called to be engaged — to lend voice, moral authority, resources, and organized effort — to resist evil and to reorder our common life in ways that protect the most vulnerable and enhance human dignity for all people."  

- The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel from his blog post on gerrymandering

That is what I believe. What do you believe? Bring that belief to forum this Sunday as we explore the ways our church could be or should be involved in advocacy in the public square.

As a church we have a moral vision. As a church we have power. Most people agree immediately with the first statement and then become hesitant when it comes to the second. As an organized body we have people power, financial power, and spiritual power. Ideally, all three work together to shape our life together into the Body of Christ, and our surrounding community into a place of justice, peace, and flourishing approximating the vision of God for God’s world.

Peter Singer - professor of moral philosophy at Princeton University - uses “the drowning man test” to make us reflect on our power and responsibility. If you are hiking along a lake and you come across a man drowning in the water and you have the ability to swim or at least use your cell phone and yet you do nothing to help him, we would all agree that you are morally blameworthy if he is injured or dies. To observe distress and danger and to do nothing, even when you have the capability - i.e. the power - is to sin by omission, and to incur guilt.

As a church, we have power, a moral vision, and accountability before our God. Learning to exercise our voice and vision in faithful, appropriate action is certainly a learning curve. I would rather risk it than to not have an answer for God when I am asked why my brothers and sisters suffered and I did nothing.

Blessings,

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Rector

Parish Forum on Sunday, March 31:

Clarifying St. Martin’s Community Engagement Causes - Part 2

Led by the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel and the Community Engagement committee
This week the Rev. Kerbel resumes his discussion on the work done by the community engagement committee and the parish to clarify our causes. Jarrett will review the causes named but this time we’ll dig a little deeper. This week we will gauge the range of comfort levels the congregation has to advocate for these causes. What do you think the church should advocate for? Should we limit ourselves to church discussions and/or participate with others? Are you willing to write a letter, lobby an elected official, run for office, march for the cause, get arrested, or like or share a Facebook post? These are a few sample questions that we’ll act on and discuss at this forum. Wear comfy shoes as we walk around the parish hall to find out how willing we are to move for our causes.

Over My Head

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Swimming in the deep end was a rite of passage in my childhood. When could I swim well enough to slip under the floating line into the deep water where the big kids swam? On that special day when permission was given - when I graduated from the “guppy” swim class to be a “fish” - courage was summoned. Tiptoes pushed off into the mystery of swimming where I could sink twelve feet down. Confidence came from risking it. Comfort slowly followed as anxiety faded in the joy of play.

Moving into the deep end, getting in over my head, happens again and again in life. As a leader, I am not sure I am allowed to admit when I am over my head. But as a faith leader, over my head is just a fact of life. With God we are always in over our head. God is always drawing us into the deeper water of God’s mysterious inner life, so life in faith (i.e. trusting and living in Christ) will always return us to the status of beginner, learner, guppy.

One way I know that St. Martin’s is heading in the right direction is that I feel my competence challenged. I feel like I am in over my head. That is a good indication that we are in the realm of faith. Our Becoming Beloved Community work reminds me all the time that I am a beginner even though I have done anti-racism training for 20+ years. Dismantling the imprint our racist culture has put in my soul and psyche is a startlingly deep task.

In fact, I would like to suggest that the illusion of competence and confidence I carry as my “birthright” as a white male are products of unearned and unreflective privilege. So healing from racism for me will entail acknowledging this, and then risking incompetence and disorientation. Faith draws me into this in the hope that God’s will is to heal me and draw me into a more whole version of myself, stripped of the marks of sin.

Leadership means inviting you to go with me on this uncomfortable and disorientating journey of faith. You won’t be able to look to me for answers because I am in this struggle with you. We can, however, look to each other for goodwill, support, prayer, and compassion as we do some hard learning together.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

Editor's Note: 
On Sunday, March 3 at our 9:15 a.m. parish forum is an opportunity for us all to discuss this journey together during "Talking Beloved Community" with our Becoming Beloved Community team. Read more here.

Before the Crisis

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Mortality has a way of focusing our attention. Suffering, anguish, and crisis put daily distractions in perspective and focus our minds on what is essential. Most people seek out pastoral support in times of crisis. We are always here for you in that moment whatever time of day or whichever day of the week. Always make that call. We have the spiritual resources most needed in crisis - love, listening, compassion, prayer, community, and most importantly the presence of Christ in sacraments and in the midst of believing people. “Wherever two or three are gathered, I will be in the midst of you,” said Jesus.


In a sense we can be grateful for crisis and suffering when they encourage us to “wake up,” “seek help,” “go deeper,” and “depend on God.” On the other hand, I would like to advise all of us to engage our spiritual growth and development well before the moment of crisis hits. Imagine getting the horrible news that you have only months to live. Do you want to cram a lifetime of spiritual growth and development into those months when coping will be hard enough? The Good News teaches us that God will complete our healing on the other side of death. But, we will be better equipped to meet all our challenges on this side of mortality if we have embraced the learning and growing made available by grace each regular, normal day.

If I have learned one thing in 23 years of ministry it is that people who embrace the baptismal cycle of dying to self and rising to new life in Christ during their quotidian life are more prepared for the final instance of that cycle when death comes.

Perhaps it all depends on what you think the end game is. If you are only preparing for eternal life with God in the hereafter, perhaps you can leave your spiritual growth to the last minute. On the other hand, if your desire is to witness to the Gospel in this life - for your life, your love, your energy to radiate the life-shaping freedom of the Good News now - then we need to delve deeply into prayer, scripture, community, service, and intentional spiritual reflection daily.

The latter path requires virtues acquired through habit, through practice. Only through daily prayer, weekly study, steady service, and ongoing, faithful relationships do we build a heart attuned to what God is saying to us. Such a life of habitual approach to God both requires and builds up the virtues of endurance, perseverance, courage, and patience in us. These virtues bring a steadiness to our life that we desperately need in tumultuous and distracting times. Reacting to every provocation, chasing every fad, making every minute productive, chasing immediate gratification - these habits pull our souls apart, leaving us exhausted, fragmented, and ungrounded. The Good News is that we know a better way.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

Connect into the community of faith:
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Contact the clergy in crisis:

Rev. Jarrett Kerbel, rector
jkerbel@stmartinec.org | 215.247.7466 x101 | 215.704.5499 cell

Rev. Anne Thatcher, associate rector
athatcher@stmartinec.org | 215.247.7466 x105 | 509.876.1924 cell

Rev. Carol Duncan, deacon
carol.duncan8031@gmail.com | 330.705.4795 cell

Barbara Ballenger, associate for spiritual formation & care and postulant
bballenger@stmartinec.org | 215.247.7466 x102

Thank God for Ear Worms

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Some people sing in the shower. I confess that I sing in the car.

When I sing along with the car radio, my son Tim likes to ask me, “Who sings this song?”

“Bob Dylan,” I answer.

“Let’s keep it that way,” responds Tim.

I laugh and, much to his chagrin, I keep on singing.

Even worse for my children is when my wife and I both sing along to songs we love from the 70s. We know every word of every AM radio hit of that decadent decade. Queen, Frampton, Bee Gees, the Spinners, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, and Springsteen; we know every word, chord change, tempo change, and grunt. Never did we study or even glance at the lyrics. Yet we know every word.

This is the power of music. It is the same reason that School House Rock engraved the Preamble of the Constitution in my memory forever. Music is the greatest teaching device ever gifted to us by God. At church, our hymns serve to praise God and they also serve to form us, imprint in us the story of God’s love and grace. Hymns are marvelous delivery devices for knowledge of God, that, if we are lucky, stick with us through every stage of life.

Church attendance for my children was non-negotiable for just this reason. My wife and I wanted them to stew in the rich broth of hymnody and prayer so it would be there when they need it. More about God was communicated to them by hymn singing and choir anthems than any argument or testimony we had at home.

Our work with our children is to expose them to what we know is good food so they develop a taste for it that outlasts their love of mac and cheese. Baptism is the first step in the pickling process, where the new life of grace infuses their lives, and ours, transforming us from cucumber to pickle across a lifetime of growth. Be sure to immerse yourself and your family in regular baths of great hymnody and prayer so we will all be able to sing along with the angels and archangels when the time comes.

Blessings,

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Rector

Check out these opportunities this Advent season to immerse yourself and your family in song. Don't forget to share them with your friends, too!

Carol Sing - 9:15 a.m. Sunday, December 16

Messiah Sing Along - 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, December 19

Read Erik Meyer's blog about Advent Hymns here

Christmas Worship - visit StMartinEC.org/christmas for the full schedule

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

Space for Conversation

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

"We need less religion, less politics, and more culture," said the Rev. Mitri Raheb when I met with him in Bethlehem this summer. For just this reason, the college he founded is devoted to nurturing art, dance, music, theater, poetry, and the culinary arts. His objective is to develop the bonds of civil society in the West Bank so Palestinians can become a unified people without resorting to religious or political extremism.

I heard this idea expressed by a number of Palestinian leaders including a young man in Hebron who had organized a co-ed 5k run. Predictably, the co-ed run had provoked a clash between more traditional Palestinians and more modernizing Palestinians. The young man took this in stride as the cost of progress. His goal was to carve out a secular space for civic activity that could build the health of his people.

Do we need less religion, less politics, and more culture here in the United States? Would a resurgent or newly conceived common culture mitigate the intensity of our political and religious polarization? I will not pretend to have complete answers to these profound questions but I do have some themes I would like to explore.

Over-confidence in religious beliefs is often named as a major contributing factor to disputes that resist resolution. The corrective is said to be a healthy skepticism and doubt of any value or assertion that comes from a religious worldview. Unlike Palestine, the United States has a long history of a secular civic space and we cast the fantasy that religion has nothing to say in this space. The problem is; how does a religious person leave their religion behind when making moral decisions that shape our common life through politics?

Professor Jeff Stout, recently retired Professor of Religious Studies at Princeton University, puts it this way: "The line between church and state does not run through the heart of a believer." I agree with Jeff - one of my intellectual heroes - and would add, "If I call Jesus Lord, how can he be Lord of only one facet of my life? Mustn't I seek to follow him in every place I make decisions that effect my neighbor?"

My answer to those who counsel doubt and skepticism in religious belief is to wonder why religion should be the thing we doubt most of all. When we are honest, we admit that we do not live each day doubting the values and beliefs that make our day functional. We believe our car will run without knowing the first thing about engineering. Really what we need is to simply be upfront about our commitments, wherever they come from, and contribute them as a way of enriching the moral discussions that form our life together.

Some will object that politics is corrupt and selfish and I want religion to be pure and transcendent. My gentle reminder is that we follow a God who took on incarnate life and battled sin hand to hand to the point of a sordid and disgraceful death. Perhaps we need to follow him into the muck and the squalor for the sake of love of neighbor and God?

If you're interested in further discussion around this topic, I highly recommend that you join us on Sunday morning, October 28, for Parish Forum at 9:15 a.m. Chris Satullo will lead us in the first of a two-part series on Conversations Across Differences. See you in the parish hall!

Blessings,
Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Rector
Parish Forum - Sundays at 9:15 a.m. in the Parish Hall
Oct. 28: Conversations Across Differences
The common denominator in all of our communities is they are divided by differences of all kinds. How do you get people to discuss their differences and put their solutions into action? Our guest speaker at Parish Forum this week is Chris Satullo and he's an expert on the subject. Chris is the co-founder of the Penn Project of Civic Engagement and is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He will demonstrate how faith plays as important a part of breaking down barriers as anything else does. Join us for the first of this two-part series this Sunday at 9:15 a.m. in the Parish Hall.

Chris Satullo

Nov. 4: Conversations Across Differences, Part II
This week Chris Satullo continues his discussion on how faith can play a role in slicing through differences we face in our communities in part two of this important series. Today he’ll discuss strategies to start conversations, arrive at solutions, and put those solutions into action. We can save the world one small piece at a time. Your first lesson awaits you at Parish Forum.

Aesthetic, Ethical, or Religious?

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

I apologize in advance that this Rector’s Note is rooted in the writings of Soren Kierkegaard. On sabbatical in the library at Princeton Theological Seminary, I renewed my love for this Danish philosopher and spiritual writer. Kierkegaard observed that the spiritual life moves through three phases; the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. 

Episcopalians famously flock to the first and the second phase. The aesthetic phase is all about our enjoyment of beauty. Music, art, liturgy, poetry and literature all contribute to our immediate aesthetic experience of pleasure. Kierkegaard states - and I agree - that all of these experiences are good except when they are treated as ultimate goods in their own right. Pleasure in beauty serves its full function when it leads us to transcend ourselves toward God in praise and thanksgiving.

The ethical phase concerns ordering and shaping our lives toward right action. Many mainline Christians would identify with this phase. We want to live a good life and make good decisions and contribute to the common good. The odd problem with the ethical phase is that often we merely import our existing commitments and sprinkle the holy water of the church on them, rather than derive them from the teachings of Jesus. Liberal Christianity - which is practiced by the whole range of political stripes - goes even further and says that doubt prevents us from making any ethical claims based on our faith. More on this in my next note!

Finally, we have the religious phase. This is the phase where we orient our whole life toward relationship and ultimately union with God. Our preoccupation with self goes on the back burner and we seek God as our ultimate end. All else becomes secondary to the unmatched importance of our dependence on God. Through prayer, worship, sacrament, service, study, conversation, and contemplation we strive to accept God’s invitation to participate in God’s life. 

In my experience, this last phase is most difficult because we resist dependence and we resist submission. The gateway to God is trust and devotion to the God we know in Jesus through the Gospels. For many modern people this feels foolish and embarrassing. While I know those feelings, my life has only grown healthier and more honest, the more I put myself under the teachings of Jesus. When we embrace the religious path, we receive the aesthetic and the ethical again in a new way, with freedom, love, hope, and endurance to fuel our enjoyment and our ethical striving.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector