Deferred Maintenance, Deferred Ministry

Back in the 1970s a movement formed in the church called, “The Church without Walls.” The animating idea was to separate the mission of the church from the burden of property and its upkeep. On its face this seemed like a powerful concept. Take away maintenance costs and more resources will be available to do the work of Jesus Christ in the world!

Where are these “churches without walls” today? Very few are left and they are neither thriving nor powerful in ministry and mission. It turns out that there is a connection between place and purpose, between body and soul.


Christianity is incarnational; “The word became flesh and lived among us.” (John 1:14) Christianity affirms the goodness of physical existence; “God saw everything that God had made, and indeed it was very good.” (Genesis 1:30) Our physical being is not optional or disposable but a fundamental component of the self that God redeems and restores.

Music may exist in the mind of the composer but to be shared it at least needs lips, ears, a tongue, and lungs. To pass that music down the generations takes hands to write and perhaps pianos or an organ to support and reproduce the music. 


The key notion is “to share.” To share our faith in God and pass it down across the generations it turns out that we need sacred spaces, sacred places and bodies devoting time, energy, presence, and labor to the work. 


Our properties committee is working hard to reverse a tradition of deferred maintenance and inadequate investment in our buildings. At a recent meeting we estimated that to just complete basic repairs of our building envelope would cost between $400,000 and $500,000. You will be hearing more about this exploration but the key point here is this; it is unhealthy for our mission and ministry when we neglect the wellbeing of the physical plant that supports the mission and ministry.

I sometimes hear folks say, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could have one without the other - a church without walls”. History teaches us that this dualistic thinking ends up diminishing everything we stand for in the long run. I am excited to do both and inspired to catch up on the needs of our buildings so we can give future generations the gift of ministry and mission without the drag of deferred maintenance!

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.

Wellspring at St. Martin’s has undergone a transformation

Wellspring at St. Martin’s is entering its sixth year with a new approach to its ministry of facilitating soul discovery and spiritual growth in the parish and the community. Under the direction of Coordinator Joanne Conway, a team of St. Martin’s parishioners has been engaged in informational interviews, team formation, and prayerful listening throughout the summer.

The group has clarified the ministry’s mission, focusing on assisting the congregation and broader community in nurturing their spirits and deepening their relationships with God and one another through practices rooted in, or resonant with, the Christian tradition.

Headwaters of the Jordan River

“The exact picture of Wellspring remains an unfolding mystery, one that will take time and a great deal of listening, remaining curious, and being patient,” Conway said last spring as the new team was just forming. “We will be beginning with building our leadership team and exploring. We then will move out into the church community with questions and listening ears and hearts to find how we can best serve.”

What have they discovered in the last several months? One-one-one interviews have revealed a desire for opportunities for ongoing reflection and a hunger for small-group gatherings. Team members have embraced a call to reach into their own spiritual passions and skills to offer programs that speak to local needs.

Wellspring’s fall programming reflects this with a variety of opportunities designed and facilitated by team members. Among them will be a weekly reflection on the Sunday sermons, beginning Sunday, October 28. The discussion will be facilitated by Wellspring team members and will use a process designed to help participants listen to each other and deepen their experience of what they have heard.

Women Connecting

The ministry will also facilitate a prayerful walk in the Wissahickon (Oct. 6), an exploration of contemplative prayer with St. Martin’s Rector Jarrett Kerbel (Oct. 17-31), and a discussion of Frederick Buechner’s book The Hungering Dark (Nov. 8 and Dec. 12). For more details visit StMartinEC.org/wellspring.

Future programming will seek ways to include a wider section of the parish and community, with offerings that speak to children, youth, and families. For updates on events, as well as spiritual reflections and resources, like and follow the Wellspring Facebook page.

Wellspring will continue to offer Women Connecting, a regular gathering of women marked by prayer, silence, and deep listening, inspired by the church seasons. The next gathering is Sept. 15 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Wellspring will also continue to host area spiritual directors.

The Wellspring Team

In addition to Wellspring Coordinator Joanne Conway, the Wellspring team includes John Hougen, Elizabeth Morrison, Jenny Cardoso, Scott Robinson, Susan Cole and Barbara Dundon. Barbara Ballenger, Associate for Spiritual Formation and Care, will continue to be Wellspring’s staff liaison.

For more information on Wellspring at St. Martin’s contact Joanne Conway at joanneconway86@gmail.com.

The Advent Power of the Christmas Tree

We decorated the Christmas tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving this year.

“It seems too early,” my husband complained.

“Christmas decorations are up everywhere else, and we’re behind, ” my 14-year-old countered.

“This is the only day that the whole family will be here until Christmas,” I said, as I realized that in a few hours my son would be heading back to college after his brief Thanksgiving break. “It’s going up today.”

Settled.

I don’t know how others decorate their Christmas trees. We are great collectors of ornaments, both humble and grand. Nearly each one prompts a story that is retold every year, with titles like “The Origin of the Enormous Fake Dragonflies” or “Why We Won’t Toss the ‘Sputnik’ Ornaments Dad Made in Third Grade”.

My son and daughter aren’t little any more. They space the ornaments nicely instead of clumping them all in one place, a foot from the bottom branches. Every year their questions are more sophisticated, and they hear the stories in new ways. And so do I.

Don’t tell my kids, but putting up the Christmas tree is a rich, spiritual, and deeply powerful Advent ritual in my family. We connect ourselves to a long, complex narrative that blends family story and esoteric symbol; we construct a place where past meets future. As we navigate this overcrowded tree, we reluctantly separate out some things that are too damaged to keep or that have lost their meaning. And we keep some things for inexplicable reasons best called “mystery”. For example, the beakless, blue chicken made the cut again this year. “I like it, don’t throw it out,” someone declares. And it stays.

The lights go on, and we thrill at it. Over the next four weeks this tree will draw me. I will play with the arrangement, regularly moving ornaments around to fill empty spaces. I will sit in a tree-lit room and contemplate. I will remember. I will think ahead.

To be sure, our family has other rituals that are more specific to this pre-Christmas season. Each night we put symbols on a little Jesse tree -- origami decorations that tell the story of Salvation History and count down the days till the Christ arrives. On Sundays we light our Advent wreath and sing O Come O Come Emmanuel.

But the Christmas Tree itself does the holiday on its own terms. With its pagan past and decorations that are more reminiscent of family vacations than of the Holy Family, my tree doesn’t exactly foretell a baby born in a manger stall. In its glorious ambiguity it layers the many narratives of this time of year. It makes room for all of it in its bendy, manufactured branches. And each year there is still space for more.

In his book, The Legend of the Bells and other Tales, John Shea retells a Cherokee story, “Why Some Trees are Evergreen.” After the Great Mystery makes the plants and trees, he wants to give a gift to each according to its ability. So he set up a test, challenging them to stay awake and keep watch over the whole earth for a week. Most of the trees nod off by day three, but the cedar, pine, spruce, and fir and their kin are still vigilant when the Great Mystery returns at week’s end. Their reward is to remain green forever, so that even in the deadness of winter, animals could find warmth and sustenance in their branches.

Tell stories. Ask questions of the symbols. Hold the past in your hands. Find time. Make room. Stay awake until the Great Mystery returns. These are the subtle, Advent invitations of the Christmas tree. I’m not sure I’d be ready for Christmas Day without them.

- Barb Ballenger

Your turn! What stories does your Christmas tree tell? Let us know in the comments.

What's Next After St. Martin's?

Some years before I came to St. Martin’s, I attended three cooking classes taught by Christina Pirello, the host of WHYY’s Christina Cooks. In these classes, I learned how to cook in what Christina calls the “whole foods way”. “Cooking the whole foods way” means using fresh vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes, and avoiding processed food. I was excited to be in Christina’s class because it took me back to my childhood days when I used to watch my mother cook. Interestingly, I learned that my mother also cooked in the whole foods way. You might say that Christina’s course was an advanced version of, what for me is, back-home cooking. So her class enabled me to refine my cooking skills. In particular, I learned different ways of chopping vegetables, how to
use my intuition when combining ingredients to make a recipe, and how to use appliances like a pressure cooker. I was also excited by the abundance and diversity of vegetables and legumes: so many colors, shapes and sizes with which to experiment. My choices of ingredients expanded. I now include leeks, rutabagas, parsnips, turnips, collard greens, kale, quinoa, flax seed, and many other ingredients in my recipes. 

Christina has inspired me since I took her classes. When she was 27 years old (some 30 years ago) she was diagnosed with terminal leukemia and did the most courageous thing. She opted to forego conventional treatment because, she told us, she saw how her mother suffered as she underwent chemotherapy. Around the same time of her diagnosis she met her future husband, Robert, who introduced her to Macrobiotic cooking and the macrobiotic lifestyle. A major part of her treatment was a matter of nutrition, and she credits her healing to eating in the way Robert taught her. She went into remission after a year and a half! As a nurse I was amazed by her recovery and by her trust in the power of nature to heal. Our body has the capacity to heal itself. We all have a healer-within, if we but trust in the power of our body to heal itself. 

I’ve heard and read similar courageous healing stories like Christina’s that inspire me and my husband to adopt their eating lifestyle to complement the traditional treatment he is receiving.

Some of you asked me about what I am going to do when I leave St. Martin’s. Well, I am going to take some Sabbath time and cook. I am going to cook like I’ve never cooked before. That is, I am going to devote more time to cooking than I ever did in the past. I have a collection of recipes from a stack of cookbooks that have been on my shelf for quite a while now just waiting to be cooked! These recipes are calling to me. And I plan to create some of my own recipes as well.

Lately, I have been spending much of my time in the kitchen when I’m home. I have come to consider my kitchen a sacred space in which I prepare holy food for nourishment and healing. Cooking has become a prayer exercise in which I thank God for the abundance God has given us and I ask God to bless each ingredient I am using for that meal. I also ask God to bless the fire, the pots and pans, and my hands.

I am looking forward to new possibilities during my Sabbath time and beyond. God willing, all will be well.

- The Rev. Harriet Kollin

The Rev. Harriet Kollin, Associate Rector, is leaving her employ at St. Martin's at the end of June. We'll celebrate her ministry with us these past three years, and wish her a blessed and fond farewell at the Pentecost worship services on Sunday, June 8, 2014.