Finding Faith in a Netflix Binge

What does Buster Bluth have to do with faith?

Tony Hale is a successful comic actor, producer, and writer. You may know Tony from his laugh-out-loud characters Buster Bluth in "Arrested Development" and Gary in "Veep". He is also delightfully forthright about his faith in Jesus Christ. During a routinely secular interview on television, podcasts, or radio he will cheerfully share about how he depends on God.  

In one interview, I heard Tony refer to the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ from Galatians 5:22-23; “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” To his skeptical interviewer, the actor simply and gently said, “Well, I am working on one or two of those things every day. His ways are higher than my ways and that is why I need Him in my life.”

Tony says one of his favorite moments in church comes in the five minutes before the service begins. After he sits in a pew with his family, as he enjoys the quiet, he slowly scans the congregation. Sitting in the midst of a community of faith, he says, gives him an incredible feeling of support. Tony, like all of us, needs to know he is not alone as a student and follower of Jesus. One gift his fellow worshippers give him is the sure knowledge that he is not alone.

How many of us think about what we give to our neighbor when we worship and not just what it means to us? Gathering on the sabbath is a way to support each other as we seek the nurturing grace, trust, and courage we need to follow the Way of Love. When we pass the peace, when we welcome each other, when we seek out new hands to shake and names to learn, we are building the flesh and muscle of the body of Christ through relationship and through support for our neighbors.  

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

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

1619-1919: Finding Ourselves in the History of Racism

Editor's Note: This week's post is written by the Rev. Barbara Ballenger. She has helped to lead St. Martin's Becoming Beloved Community work since 2014.

St. Martin’s efforts at Becoming Beloved Community follow the lead of the Episcopal Church in its church-wide call for racial reconciliation and healing. It is part of the church’s deep reflection on its own complicity in the long legacy of racial oppression. This call is rooted in the scriptures and the Baptismal Covenant, which invite us to a new level of respect for the dignity of every human being that fundamentally challenges and displaces racism.

In August, The New York Times reminded us of a sobering anniversary, the 400th year that the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia, anticipating four centuries of race-based oppression in the United States. For Episcopalians, whose Anglican forebears built, blessed, and benefited from the architecture of slavery and its aftermath, this legacy clings to us in ways typical of deep structural sin: fostering social blindness and deafness to the experience of people of color; quieting the Gospel of Jesus and amplifying the agendas of scientific and economic advancement; and centering whiteness in everything from our religious imagery to our church structure. That is why the Episcopal Church has been leading us in a wide-scale effort of racial repentance, reconciliation, and healing. Our Presiding Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, explains this ongoing work well in this brief video.

St. Martin’s has been at the effort for a while, most recently laying out a framework to be even more intentional about how we learn, embody, and advocate racial justice and healing. This 400th anniversary does put the work in a long and painful perspective, however, and it invites us anew to take a hard look at how we engage with our own individual and collective history around racism, and how we participate in healing the racial wounds in the Body of Christ.

This program year, St. Martin’s will offer several opportunities to engage in the ongoing work of Becoming Beloved Community. I encourage you to make time to participate, bringing your insights and stories to the effort.

Here is a look at what lies ahead:

• Sunday, Sept. 29 Parish Forum (9:15 a.m.) – Finding Ourselves in the 400 Years: What the Spirit is Saying to the Church about its Legacy of Racism. Featuring a short film by Katrina Brown and a discussion of local racial history by diocesan historian, David Contosta.
• Wednesdays, Oct. 9-Nov. 6 (7 p.m. to 9 p.m.) Beginning Beloved Community Workshop. This five-week series, developed in 2015 and 2016 by St. Martin's parishioners and staff, provides an introduction to the individual and collective work of racial understanding and healing central to our Becoming Beloved Community efforts. Recommended for all parishioners and ministry leaders. Learn more and register here.
• Wednesdays, Jan. 8 -29, (7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.) Wellspring-led discussion of the book, Waking Up White, by Debby Irving. The author writes: "My hope is that by sharing my sometimes cringe-worthy struggle to understand racism and racial tensions, I offer a fresh perspective on bias, stereotypes, manners, and tolerance."

In addition to these educational offerings, committees of parishioners and staff will continue to follow the recommendations of our Becoming Beloved Community Strategic Plan, by working on the following this year:

• Developing a process for recruiting, hiring, and retaining people of color onto our program staff.
• Creating a training process for parish ministry leaders to build leadership skills grounded in racial justice and healing. This will be developed this year, and formally launched during the 2020-21 program year.
• Strengthening our public witness against racial injustices in our community, led by our Community Engagement Committee.
• Engaging all our parish committees and outreaches in the work of Becoming Beloved Community.

The Becoming Beloved Community effort at St. Martin’s is overseen by the Vestry, the clergy, and the Becoming Beloved Community Team, a committee of parishioners whose mission is to support the implementation of the BBC Strategic Plan. It is led by Justina Barrett, The Rev. Carol Duncan and The Rev. Barbara Ballenger.

To learn more about the parish’s Becoming Beloved Community efforts and find resources for engagement, visit the racial justice page under Community Engagement at StMartinEC.org.

Blessings,
The Rev. Barbara Ballenger
Associate for Spiritual Formation & Care

The Empty Wagon is the Noisiest

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Nothing rattles quite so loudly as an empty wagon. That folk wisdom came to me through the song “Little America” by REM, my favorite band from 1983 to the present. Much to my frustration, the Christianity I love and depend on for my sanity, sobriety, and hope is too often misrepresented by the loudest, most clamorous and hateful voices today. As a church striving to be faithful to the steadfast way of Jesus Christ, it is appalling that one of our greatest afflictions is the chorus of all those who misrepresent him loudly.

Why is it difficult to pass the faith on to our children? One reason, among others, it that the amplified voice of right-wing Christianity has them convinced that all christians hate LGBTQ people, want women to be subservient, deny climate change, blame the poor for their suffering, and support white supremacy. If your daily media diet is flooded by bullying voices and their often stridently simplistic opponents, then why would you risk the company of Christians in the first place?

So how do we stand up to the playground bullies of Christianity?

The Bible is a good place to start. “If I do not have love I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,” (1 Cor. 13:2) Apply the love test. Is it love or is it aggression? Is it love or is it the noise of a rear-guard fight against cultural change and the loss of privilege? Yes, some Christian traditions are being discarded and for some that feels like a fearful loss of power and position. For me, I see us discarding oppression and returning our faith to its roots in liberating love. As a white, upper-middle class, cisgender man I find this disconcerting and disorienting. But as a man of faith, I embrace the loss as the way Christ proscribes for me, “You must lose your life to find it.”

The danger of the moment is increased by noisy gongs and clanging cymbals on the liberal Christian side too. It seems to me at times that liberal Christians are so zealous in skepticism and deconstruction of the tradition that they leave us no place to stand and resist. If we destroy our moral source and framework entirely, who are we to challenge any other (supposedly) equally valid point of view? You will never hear me describe myself as “liberal” Christian for this very reason. Our tradition and scripture deconstruct me more than I them.

I certainly do not want to live in a world without the faithful, long-suffering, and steadfast church of Jesus Christ. At our best we are the moral ballast that reins in our worst collective impulses toward greed, revenge, and domination. At our best we propose an alternative world order that resists the amoral gyrations of unrestrained free markets, even when we are not sure how to completely replace capitalism with something more just.

“If it is not about love it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” says our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry. Filling our wagons with love is how we end the clanging and rattling and begin to ground our moral positions in their true and trustworthy source, Jesus Christ. What if we spoke about the love that drew us to a position of advocacy before we start to shout?

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector