Here's How You Can Help Minors at the Border

Our baptismal call is to stand up for human rights and dignity for all.

As news reports continue to uncover the inhumane conditions migrant children are facing in U.S. detention facilities, the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields shares in the national outrage and dismay at federal immigration policy. Many parishioners have asked what we can do to respond to an issue that has local, state, and federal implications.


Here are some ways to keep the call for justice for migrants and refugees before us in the coming weeks, and to commit to the ongoing work of securing their dignity and protection.

Learn and Advocate.

The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations provides several information guides and action alerts on migrant issues on its Migration, Immigrants, and Refugees page, including its most recent, “Ten Things you can do to Accompany Undocumented Immigrants.” You can also send advocacy emails directly from the site.

Information and resources can also be found on the site of Episcopal Migration Ministries.

Raise Your Voice.

Share your concerns about the mistreatment of migrants in federal detention with your elected local, state, and federal officials. Because ICE raids and detention facilities are implemented on every level, from local to federal, we can ask our officials on every level where they stand and what they plan to do.

Commoncause.org provides a search engine to help locate all your officials from local to federal.

Gather and Strengthen.

We cannot do this work alone. Plan to attend the local Lights for Liberty Vigil to End Human Detention Camps at 5 p.m. on Friday, July 12 at Lovett Park in Mt. Airy, 6945 Germantown Ave. The nation-wide vigil will bring thousands of Americans to detention camps across the country, into the streets, and into their own front yards, to protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees. More information can be found on the local event’s Facebook Page.
You can also share the resources you have discovered - from places to donate or to organize your own response with fellow parishioners - on our Facebook page.

Pray.

Both in your private prayer and in communal worship, bring the needs of our undocumented sisters and brothers before God, and pray too for the ongoing ability to take action for their dignity and safety.

Listen to Rev. Anne Thatcher’s moving June 23 sermon on how the Gospel calls us to respond.

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!

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

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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