Rector’s Corner

July 23, 2021 The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in everlasting life.  Amen BCP, p. 365 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, I have to admit, even on my best days of effort, fasting is not one of my favorite discipline actions, the ones that I lean to and reach for when I need to feel a stronger, closer, more intimate connection to my God.  I’ve never quite been able to make the leap from the empty pangs of hunger to the loving, liberating, life-giving God.  (I’m usually just cranky!)  And so, I am always relieved to make it through the two days of fasting obligation, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday! However, our Theologian-in-Residence, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle used a phrase that has me wondering about the fast in a different way.  He talks about “presence in absence,” God’s great ability to be in all things, including the…

July 8, 2021 “…they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Mark 16:18b My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, It is, after all, the last thing that Jesus speaks to Jesus’ disciples, in that fateful, fearful, appearance, some days after his crucifixion and resurrection, this great command to the disciples that the signs and symbols of their belief are to save, heal, deliver, and disciple.  Is Mark’s decisive gospel finale any different for us claimants of the great good news some 2000 years later, we who claim that same path of “Christ-bearer?” And yet, thanks to COVID-19, the plague that rides on breath, we have had to all but abandon the great gift of healing that comes through the “laying on of hands,” the gift of touch.  Of all the things that we have lost over the past 17 months, the ability to connect and heal through…

July 1, 2021 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, One of the greatest joys that I am finding as we unwind from COVID-19 is being together with people, others, the things that I am sure that I took so for granted in all of my “old” ways of being.  Sharing space, sharing breath, is really the sharing of life, the gift of the Holy Spirit, in ways that I paid way too little attention in the past.  To breathe the breath of life in, to, and through others is relational gift. And so, of all the things I want to reclaim from my former life, taking that breath for granted is one thing that I simply do not, want to take for granted. As we move back into the spaces that we occupied so faithfully, it is with renewed, life-giving breath, in the spirit of new relationship, being in relationship,…

June 24, 2021 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, I believe strongly that each and every one of us is ordained into our particular role of ministry in the body of Jesus Christ’s Church, bishops, priests, deacons, and laity.  Each has our very specific call, purpose, and function in carrying out God’s plans of salvation and redemption, and we need (desperately) each and every one of those roles being carried out, fully and faithfully, for this great endeavor to move forward!  As a reminder, as I was schooled, these roles are NOT hierarchical; rather they lie on a plane, each being specific in its own nature and function. As a congregation, we haven’t had interaction with a deacon of late, and so it bears remembering the specific call to the Sacred Order of Deacons, from the service of ordination in the Book of Common Prayer: “As a deacon in the…

June 17, 2021 I was glad when they said unto me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” Psalm 122:1 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, It is with a mixture of great joy, anticipation, and relief that I bring to you the great good news that this Sunday, June 20, the congregation of St. Thomas the Apostle Church will finally, after a long sojourn throughout the desert of COVID-19, go into our “House of the Lord,” that place where so many of you have worshipped, and celebrated, and grieved, and lost, and found, and met God, in so many different ways, for so many years!  The long winter is over; spring is finally here!  And for that, we can sing our joy with the psalmist David! As of Monday, June 14, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins lowered the COVID-19 threat level to “yellow” for Dallas County, saying…

June 10, 2021 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, Last evening, the freshly-constituted Mission/Outreach Committee of St. Thomas the Apostle met for the second time to further the process of standing in our mission statement, “Serving our community with joy, without walls,” and looking toward what avenues Jesus might be calling us, as missioners, in God’s world.  As you can imagine, the possibilities are, quite literally, endless, because the need is endless.  Being a small church with somewhat limited resource, how do we keep from being overwhelmed as we seek to find ways that we might make the greatest impact in a broken, hurting world? I believe that the most impactful things that we might do can be found in alliances, partnerships with organizations that are already about doing that great work in the world.  For so many reasons, we do not need to reinvent systems that already exist, rather…

Dear Doubters of Great Faith, This is the final week of Fr. Christopher’s vacation, and I know we are all itching to have our dear rector with us again. As many of you know, this coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is the most recent principal feast of our Church Year, but even then, it has been around for more than just few centuries! Your seminarian has been given the daunting task of bringing this week’s sermon. It should be an interesting time for the lot of us—ha! I look forward to seeing all of you this week on our virtual and in-person platforms. Due to Sunday’s feast I will be devoting much of my sermon to the Holy Trinity. Consequently, I will not be preaching about one of my favorite days of the year, so I thought I might bring it to your attention in this week’s Doubter….