Dear Calvary-St. George’s

Is it me or does it feel like May 47th?  I have spoken with many of you and the consistent experience at this time is that the days seem to blend together.  In the midst of quarantine, it is hard to find a rhythm to life.  A Christian practice that I have found helpful during this time  is the implementation of A Rule of Life.  The idea of A Rule of Life developed in Christian monastic communities, the best-known of which is that of Saint Benedict, dating from the 6th century.  Many people mistakenly see a Rule as a set of commands that restrict or deny life.  They see A Rule of Life as a ladder to flex their pious muscles and improve their personal holiness in order to please God.  That type of Rule is unhelpful and never lasts.  Instead a Rule of Life should serve as a framework for freedom. Rooted in scripture, it should point us to Christ and enable us to live out our various vocations (husband, mother, teacher, devotion group leader, employee) with intention and for the sake of our neighbor (spouse, children, student, fellow parishioner, employer).

In the opening days of the quarantine, between church and family, I almost ran myself ragged. However, over the last month I have tried to implement a Rule of Life in order to bring some semblance of sanity and routine into this new life.  The Rule revolves around the truth that Christ is at the center of everything: in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). I am not implementing the Rule to make Jesus happy, but so that he might more freely work through me and sustain me.  Then I divide the day into four essential categories:

Worship

I try to read some scripture daily and say my prayers.  Sometimes they are really short, such as “Good Lord Deliver Us.”  Other times I dig into the Book of Common Prayer and will walk through the Great Litany or say Morning Prayer with Ben on FaceBook.  

Work

This is a given, but I can’t give 80 hours to it, and neither should you.  A lot of people who still have their jobs are finding themselves being worked to the nub.  This in the end is a recipe for not only burnout, but idolatry.  There is only one savior and you are not it. As New Yorkers, we all understand deadlines, but sometimes it is good to walk away and save it for tomorrow.

God Lord Deliver Us

Relationship

Relationship:  I take some time to check in with the ones I love, especially when work is overbearing.  I have a cup of coffee with Mel and go for walks with my kids.   Many of you, like me, are zoomed out so it doesn’t have to be a zoom cocktail or themed hang. It can be just a quick call to maintain a relationship and say I love you (Stevie Wonder). 

“I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart”

Rest

This is so much more than laying on the couch and watching T.V. until 2 a.m.  In fact that is not rest at all.  Rest involves maybe breaking up the Netflix series I am ploughing through (currently it is Life After Death) and going to bed at a reasonable hour.  I have been exercising to clear my head.  I try to have one meal with my family and find the joy in cleaning the kitchen.  

I once heard it said that a Rule is like two things: a banister railing and a sign post. It provides support and stability as we make our way through the tricky parts of the highs and lows of life while at the same time pointing us away from ourselves so that we might fixate on the One who is actually upholding us through the journey. It is my hope that a Rule of Life will also function as a pair of lenses: bringing perspective and clarity during this confusing time and making the most of this great gift called life that God has given us.  Even if it is confined to the walls of our apartment.  

God Bless you all.

Pax,

The Reverend Jacob A. Smith

During this time, you can tune into our livestream events via calvarystgeorges.org. I also encourage everyone to join us on our Zoom conference calls from Monday to Friday at 6 p.m. If you need pastoral care, please call the church office on 646-723-4178 or email us at info@calstg.org.

Dear Friends,

When most New Yorkers think of gates they think of exclusion. They think of keeping people out: particularly the poor, the intellectually disadvantaged, people who look different than us.

In this Sunday’s Gospel lesson, Jesus says that he is “the gate.” This might cause some of us to put up our defenses: “Is this one of those ‘Us vs. Them’ passages?”

Well, in a way, it is, but probably not the way you’re thinking. Right before this text, Jesus healed a blind person. Having received his sight, the man presented himself to the religious authorities. Learning that it was Jesus who healed him, the religious leaders reject the man and tell him that he is still lost in his sins. Returning to Jesus, he is received and welcomed into the community of faith. 

It is in light of this event that Jesus presents himself as the gate. Not as a wall to keep out the less fortunate, but a fence to keep out “robbers and thieves”: false teachers who “steal, kill, and destroy.”

Who are the “robbers and thieves” of our own day? The first folks that come to mind are certain TV preachers. Those who, like the leaders of old, say that if you are not healthy you simply don’t have enough faith. 

Whoever these folks who would exclude you from God’s kingdom may be, the Good Shepherd is not one of them. So no need to put up your defenses, the true high priest says “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

Thanks be to God,

Ben

Stay Connected.

Our clergy and staff have created ways for us all to stay connected during this season. Monday through Sunday we are here for you!

Pray with us.

Do you have a prayer or concern you would like to share. Monday through Friday a prayer meeting takes from at 6 PM with the intention to receive your prayers and concerns. Message info@calstg.org to receive a zoom invitation.

Worship with us.

Did you know this weekend is Good Shepherd Sunday? You’re not going to want to miss Morning Prayer as we are assured of God’s goodness to us.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:11-18

Joining us for worship is easy. Simply log in HERE and download your bulletin to get your Sunday started. Morning Prayer goes live at 11am.

Sundays for kids.

We may not be together in one building, but we can still connect through our new Sunday offerings with Director of Youth and Family, Chelsy Haynes. Each week families can tune in, learn, and create together. This Sunday families are invited to dig into Genesis and the great account of Noah. Link in HERE to join the fun every Sunday at 10 am.

Devotion Groups

Are you looking for more ways to stay connected? Now is a great time to join one of our many devotion groups. If your looking to get plugged into our community reach out to Rev. Ben Dehart at ben.dehart@calstg.org for more ways to get started.

We are here for you…

And remember if you need pastoral care during this time we are just a phone call away. Call the church office 646-723-4178 or email us at info@calstg.org. We would love to hear from you.

It’s a simple story. Two people are walking home at the end of the day. They’re joined by a stranger. They tell him that they’d gone to Jerusalem to see a man named Jesus. They say to the stranger, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

“We had hoped…” Barbara Brown Taylor says of this verse, “Hope in the past tense, one of the saddest sounds a human being can make.”

We had hoped. That’s the cadence these two people are counting on the road - the road that Taylor describes as:

“…the road you walk when your team has lost, your candidate has been defeated, your loved one has died, the long road back to the empty house, the piles of unopened mail, to life as usual, if life can ever be usual again.”

Here is a photo of the ruins of a 2,000-year-old Roman road just outside of Jerusalem. If it’s not the actual one these two men were on with the stranger, it’s one that is similar.

As you look at this road, imagine yourself walking along it with your own “We had hoped” list:

• We had hoped that Calvary-St. George’s had enough money for air conditioning in the sanctuary and a parking lot in Gramercy Park.

• We had hoped that Smith’s/DeHart’s/Munroe’s sermons were so profound that all my questions about faith would be answered forever.

• We had hoped that Democrats and Republicans would learn how to work together.

• We had hoped that the coronavirus would go away quickly.

• We had hoped that our friend wouldn’t get sick from the virus.

• We had hoped that the one we loved more than life itself would not die of COVID-19.  

Walking along this road, the stranger says to the men, “How slow you are…”  - and I bet he says it with a sweet, forgiving, gentle smile.

Look at this road again and imagine the stranger saying to you, “How slow you are, my sweet, forgiven child, to see that the messiah is not the undefeated champion but the suffering servant - not the one who ascends the throne, but the one who ascends the cross - not the one known by his muscles, but by his scars.”

You know how the story ends. The stranger has dinner with the two men. As he breaks bread, they see that it’s Jesus. And the passage doesn’t say it, but I think that when Jesus breaks that bread, they see the scars of the nail holes on his hands.

And then… heartburn. They run back to Jerusalem saying, “Our hearts are burning!”

So join us at 11 AM this Sunday for the livestream service from Calvary Church. Bring your “We had hoped…” list with you - and get ready for holy heartburn.

- Jim

Dear Friends,

What do you do when you’ve been exposed, when you’ve been caught in the act, when the people closest to you find out you’ve been a fraud? 

Maybe you lied to make yourself look a little better and it came back to bite you. Maybe you revealed a friend’s secret and they found out. Or maybe you weren’t there for someone when they needed you most, and you can’t bring yourself to face them. 

The first thing Jesus’ disciples did after abandoning him was hide. The text makes clear that they hid for fear of the authorities, but what’s left unsaid is that they were hiding for fear of their Lord. They’d heard the rumors. He might not actually be dead. 

What was the last act the greatest of the disciples had done for his friend? He’d denied him in his hour of greatest need. So if there were any truth to the chatter about Jesus' resuscitation, what would they say to their “best friend for life” if he were to confront them? Being dragged out into the streets by the religious authorities might just be better than facing the man they’d betrayed.

Without warning, Jesus appears! The man they’d abandoned right there in their midst. His words: “Peace be with you.”

The resurrected Jesus returns not in vengeance but with forgiveness, not with a sword but in peace.

Maybe, during this present crisis, you’ve felt abandoned and betrayed by those closest to you: “No call. No text. Where the hell is he?”

Or maybe, for you, it’s the other way around: “I really should have reached out. It’s too late now. I’ll never be able to face her.” 

My friends, the truth is that we’ve already been exposed, but the message of this text is that the resurrected Christ has come not to condemn but to save, not to shame but to extend his peace. 

May this same Lord, who is living and active through his Spirit, birth in us repentance, forgiveness, and that peace “which passes all understanding.”

Grace and Peace,

Ben

Dear Calvary-St. George’s,

Yesterday was an important holiday in the Christian year, The Feast of the Annunciation. This day marks our commemoration of the Archangel Gabriel, visiting the Virgin Mary and announcing that she would be the mother of Jesus, the Savior of the World and Mary’s faithfulness to be the “handmaiden of the Lord.” From the earliest days of the church, this was an important feast. We learn that Christ was begotten at the same time as his death, which was during the Jewish month of Nissan, which always overlaps March and April in the Gregorian calendar. So count nine months out from March 25th and you get Christmas on December 25th. Until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, for many Christians, March 25th was New Year’s Day. In fact, it was England’s official New Year’s Day until 1752. 

I want to share with you three things we learn about God from the Annunciation that speak to us in the midst of a quarantine, when we are sequestered away and life is anything but normal.  

Credit: Matt Veligdan

First, we learn that God never forgets his promises.

It was over 400 years since God had last spoken to his people and while, from our standards, that is a really long time, it does not change the fact that he had not forgotten his promises.

Second, we learn that God always works in ways that go unnoticed by the rest of the world.

Nobody in the Roman World knew that the Archangel Gabriel had visited a Jewish teenage peasant girl. Nobody noticed that the Savior of the World entered it through the womb, in a backwater town in the backwater part of the Empire.

When God works, he always does big things, in small and insignificant ways.

One of the things that I am trying to stay focused on during this time is where I see God at work right now. I will be honest. It is not in the big things; it is in the little things, such as:

• a woman buying a homeless man who hadn’t eaten since Monday a sandwich today at the bodega,

• unnoticed stories about how people have exercised extraordinary acts of kindness and care in hospitals across the world,

• all of you who have been gathering online to pray and encourage one another with the presence of the church and the hope of the Gospel.

Third, we learn that God is not afraid to get messy and gets in our messes.

Someone told a colleague of mine, “I am so angry at God right now because everything in my life is falling apart.” If you are angry with God right now that is fine; he can handle it. However, never forget:

Jesus did not enter into our world to make our lives necessarily better. He entered into our world to make it brand new.

The Annunciation reminds us that Jesus has even stepped into this mess, and while we may have no idea what the future holds, you can trust that, in Jesus, while it may not be better, it will most certainly be brand new.

During this time, you can tune into our livestream events via calvarystgeorges.org. I also encourage everyone to join us on our Zoom conference calls from Monday to Friday at 6 p.m. If you need pastoral care, please call the church office on 646-723-4178 or email us at info@calstg.org.

Pax,

The Reverend Jacob A. Smith