Love is not blind to flaws, but kindles tender mercies around those flaws.
Love puts its focus on what we are, rather than what we are not.
Love is unconditional.
It gives and gives…and, then it gives some more.
To make rules for love would be to dilute it.
Love is love, it is not dependent on the ‘if/and/or/but” of its performance.
Loving words have the power to make the plain beautiful, the poor rich, and bring new life and hope to those who despair.
These are the words of Fay Angus, author of the book, Heartstrings. This understanding of love seems to describe what I gleaned from the lessons and Psalm for today, God’s irrevocable love for us. The understanding I have of God’s love is that His mercy and compassion reaches beyond ourselves, our families, our communities, our faith, our culture, our race, our socio-economic situation, our prejudices, and our world view. Our lessons seem to also call us to reach out beyond what or who we are, or, what or who we know, allowing nothing to separate us from one another or our Lord.
Of course, we have a prescription for how we are to live our lives so that we might be able to live as God has called us to live. As is written in Isaiah, we are called to “Maintain justice and do what is right….” Isaiah 56:1 Our Psalm reminds us to praise God, what is also required to receive God’s mercy and blessing. And, St. Paul shares his perspective from someone who was a Christ hater who became a faithful believer in God’s love and gift of his precious Son. He expresses that God’s love is constant, that when we fall away from God, we are not rejected, but are able to receive mercy, as His love is unconditional.
The Gospel story from Matthew of the Canaanite woman really spells out what God’s ever-present love is like for us, we who are filled with smallness of vision, and who erect barriers to protect ourselves from the larger world, a different, sometimes seemingly hostile world.
As we step back to the time of Christ, we see a world firmly divided between Jews and Gentiles, a narrow worldview that was solidly in place, even for Jesus. The Canaanites, who were Gentiles, were considered by the Israelites to be a sinful race, exemplifying what was wicked and godless. So, for a Canaanite woman to have the audacity to speak out to Jesus , a Jew, regarding healing her daughter was unheard of and totally unacceptable. Yet, it was apparent that Jesus’ reputation for reaching out beyond the barriers of race, culture, socio-economic conditions, or faith traditions for healing ministry preceded him in the region. She was persistent while, at first, Jesus ignored her telling her, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Meaning that his own nation who worshipped and praised God had first claim on the blessings God brings, not those who were considered unclean, wicked, and godless, as she was considered.
This brave woman continued to shout to him, even calling Jesus “Son of David.” She then admitted that Jesus’ own nation certainly has first claim on God’s love, however, she also noted that through one’s belief in Christ and his healing Grace, even an impure foreigner may claim a few “crumbs” of the blessings the Covenant people receive. And, she was right!
Jesus, at this moment, stepped beyond the small world view, crossed the barrier of exclusive values and prejudices to express Divine Compassion to ALL who suffer, Canaanite or not. He exclaimed, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done as you wish.”
Jesus reached out beyond the previously defined community into another culture, another faith tradition, another gender, another world. He showed us that God had made a commitment to live with us, to share our sorrows, fears, disappointments, joys, frustrations – no matter who we are, what color our skin, or where we dwell. We are asked, only, that in return we believe, with our hearts and minds, in God’s irrevocable love, in our God who asks nothing of us except we love Him in return.
There are many examples today of how we have begun to reach through or overcome the many barriers we have erected through the years to share our love, to share the “tender mercies… by giving, and giving, and giving some more,” as Fay Angus wrote. I just saw the movie, “The Help,” a story that takes us back to a time of terrible racial prejudice. I felt pained, embarrassed, sad, shamed, and guilty as I remembered the days of segregation, the time when many, many barriers were erected to keep our worlds separated. We, by God’s Grace, have since learned this barrier between us was so wrong, so un-just and un-merciful, and have worked at overcoming those walls of separation, for the most part.
With God’s help, we will be able to follow the example that Christ taught us in today’s lesson. Through gratefulness and praise of God, doing what is “right,” and sharing Christ’s example of justice, we shall be able to reach out beyond our own narrow vision in love, compassion, and mercy to those from whom we have been separated. Just as Christ reached out to the Canaanite woman, I encourage each of us to reach beyond our walls into the world of hope in God’s irrevocable and inclusive love.
It is life saving. Amen.
The Rev. Carol Sims
Church of the Epiphany, Norfolk VA
Sunday, August 14th, 2011
Pentecost IX, 2011
Isaiah 56:1,6-8; Psalm 67; Romans
11:1-2,29-32; Matthew 15:21-28
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This morning’s Gospel Reading is another popular story that we all learned in Sunday School, or on which we’ve heard countless sermons. It’s called “The Feeding of the Five Thousand”, or “The Feeding of the Multitudes.”
According to the story, by this time in his ministry, Jesus has built up a large following. He’s become well-known, and apparently is followed by the crowds. In this story, he’s just worn out with the crowds. And he gets into a boat, and heads for a deserted place – somewhere further along the shore – of the Sea of Galilee. We can all identify with just getting tired of people and wanting to be alone. And they didn’t have jet planes and cruise ships back then. If you wanted to “get away
from it all”, you did what Jesus did in this story. But we’re told that the crowds followed him, on foot, around the shore line of the lake. And when he got out of the boat, there they were.
The story doesn’t say that he taught them, like he usually did. It just says that he saw them, had great compassion for them, and cured their sick. But then it started getting dark, and the crowd needed to eat. We get that well known passage where the disciples tell Jesus to send them away so that they can go buy food and eat. But Jesus knows that they don’t have the money to buy food and eat. And he tells the disciples to get together whatever food they have. And he blesses it, and they all eat, and they gather up twelve baskets of scraps.
Well, there’s actually a lot of stuff going on in this story. First, at this time in the Holy Land, the people were starving. Prior to modern irrigation and land management, the Holy land produced very little food. In fact, population was pretty well determined by available food. If the population got too large for the limited food supply to support, then they had a famine, and a lot of people died, or they migrated to places like Egypt that could support them. It was just natural population control.
But at this time in history, the Holy Land was occupied by a large Roman army. The land could support the army, or it could support the people, and you can guess which got the food. The people were starving. And as Jesus looked out on the crowd, that was probably far less than 5,000, but still a lot of people, he would have seen starving faces. And he knew that they had no money to go to the villages and buy food, and the villages had no food to sell. If they were going to be fed, he would have to do it. And he has his disciples find the few loaves and fishes, and he blesses them, and he feeds the people, with baskets left over. Now, I said that this story has several levels, and it does. One of the most obvious is that this story is seen as a “foretaste” of the Messianic Banquet, the great feast that the righteous will have with Jesus in the Kingdom of God, at the end of time.
There are a whole bunch of Biblical stories that are seen as “foretastes” to that Banquet, but this one, and the Last Supper, are the two big ones. And in this one particularly, we see the good, simple, downtrodden folk, faithful to their Lord, joining the Master for a special meal, as will happen in the Kingdom of God, at the end of time. This is a really big “plug” for the common man. This isn’t kings, and princes, and priests, and the wealthy, eating with the Messiah. This is the common, the downtrodden, the starving.
So, that leads us to another theme – what we today call Social Ministry. It becomes a basis for the church’s reaching out to the less fortunate, with feeding, and housing, and healing, and anything reasonable that can be done to make the lives of the unfortunate more bearable. If Jesus did it with this starving multitude, and it is a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet, then it’s a model for ministry by the Church and the basis for all of our outreach efforts. And lastly, this becomes a model for our Eucharist – a tiny little sip of wine, and a tiny little wafer of bread – spiritually feeding and satisfying a multitude of people. Like the Last Supper, this feeding story is part of the basis of our Eucharist, but in this case, we are the recipients who are fed and sent out to minister to those in this world who are lonely, sick, suffering, hungry, or whatever. The idea is that we are fed here on Sunday morning, so that we can go out to minister.
Well, if you read the Biblical commentators, it’s almost comical the extent to which they go to explain this feeding. There are books written on it. But last night, I was reading someone else’s on-line homily on this passage. And her position was that scholars have to explain this event rationally or scientifically, or they have to admit that a miracle happened. And for scholars, a miracle is a very frightening thing because it can’t be explained, and scholarship’s purpose is to explain. And she said: “It is frightening to stand in the real presence of the creative energy of God!”
And I really liked that. The creative energy of God is not something that can be explained. It happens because God wants it to happen, and it’s that simple. Don’t even try to explain it. It just happens. And sometimes it is frightening because we can’t explain it away.
Now, God’s creative energy doesn’t get expressed just to a group of hungry folk, standing around the Sea of Galilee 2,000 years ago. It still happens today, and it happens to us in our simple little lives. Sometimes it heals us, feeds us spiritually, answers our prayers, or fixes something in our lives. Sometimes it enters us, and uses us, as vehicles for the Creative Energy of God.
How many times have you done something very special, and you stand back, and you think, “Where did that come from? That wasn’t my idea. I don’t even do things like that? I don’t know how to tend to something like that. Well, maybe not. But God can do it through you. Occasionally we look out there at our personal multitude – something big – that is more than we know how to handle. And then, we look back down the road a little and think, “How did I ever get through that?” or “How did that ever work out?” We’ve met that Creative Energy of God, and it can be wonderful, and it can be frightening, all at once.
So, I really like this story. I don’t ever want to have it explained to me – no theories of mass hypnosis, or ideas about mistranslation, or eating wild mushrooms, or whatever. Let me just know it as a story of God’s Creative Energy acting in a situation around that Sea of Galilee, as from time to time God’s Creative Energy acts in your lives and in mine. Amen.
The Reverend Richard O. Bridgford
Church of the Epiphany, Norfolk, VA
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Matthew 14:13-21
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Our Gospel passage this morning is an interesting one. Biblical scholars feel that it’s sort of a collection of miscellaneous teachings and parables that had been attributed to Jesus. By the time Matthew wrote his gospel, these teachings had become part of the lore surrounding Jesus. Some of them may be authentic, and some of them not. But Matthew thought they had teaching value, so he included them in his Gospel.
Of course, the most familiar is the Parable of the Mustard Seed. If you attended any Sunday School as a child, you heard this parable. And it’s interesting that this parable would be so popular, since it’s so wrong. The mustard seed IS very small. But it doesn’t grow into a shrub, and especially ”the greatest of shrubs”. And certainly it doesn’t grow into a tree, and especially a tree that birds would nest in its branches. Every Biblical commentator seems to have some sort of an explanation; from the wrong seed, to the wrong tree, to a mixed simile, to you name it.
Well, I love the interpretation of this parable in the picture on our bulletin this morning. We see this great tree, with the little people under it, and he great birds with their nests, all through the tree. I think that picture is what most people envision when they hear this parable.
Now, I can’t explain away the problem of the tree for you. But even though it’s all out of whack, I think the parable says something to us. I never cease to be amazed at how the tiniest little thing can sometimes grow into something really, really big. And sometimes this is for the good, and sometimes it’s not for the good.
On the good side, we see inventors who just get a little vision of how something might be. And they begin working on it. And it grows into something so big that it’s beyond belief. Recently I’ve watched biographies on TV of some of the high-tech developers who developed huge things in our lives today, like Steve Jobs with Apple Computers, and Bill Gates with
Microsoft, and Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook. All three of these guys were in college and got this little idea of how something could be done – the mustard seed – and they dropped out of college, pursued their little ideas, and the
little seeds turned into the greatest of trees.
And this seems to be the pattern with all of the great inventors: Edison, Bell, Ford, Whitney. The great names in science and medicine: Curie, Salk, Jones. As best as I can tell, the great things that we enjoy in our lives today started as little seeds of ideas which someone was able to recognize, and grow into a great tree. Sometimes these things totally changed our entire society and culture. Ottis, with his idea of moving people and materials up and down through floors, enabled buildings to be built beyond 5 floors. Our cities would look totally differently if he hadn’t tinkered with a mustard seed of an idea. The Wright Brothers, bicycle builders who had a mustard seed of an idea that flight was possible. Can you imagine what this would be would today if airplanes had never been developed?
My guess is, that everywhere we look, a little idea started “the right person” obsessing over it, and led to changes in how we live our lives and how we see our world. And strangely, the stories of the growth of those ideas, those mustard seeds, seem as unrealistic as the mustard seed of our Gospel this morning.
Well, unfortunately, all Mustard Seeds don’t grow into wonderful trees like Facebook. Sometimes the Mustard Seed can grow into something very destructive. I’m thinking of things like rumors and gossip. A little seed, planted in the right place, can lead to incredible pain and hurt. And one of the hardest lessons of life is that perception always wins out over reality. And perception can be planted and fed. And it can grow to the point where reality is unrecognizable. This is what makes our political system so fragile. The seed of something like “Death Panels” can be planted, and it quickly becomes part of the perception, and grows into “the greatest of trees.” As we listen to the political rhetoric today, it’s almost impossible to determine fact from fiction, and that really threatens our entire way of life in this country.
I think we’ve all seen the damage that happens when a little seed is planted that someone is having an affair. It might start out as innocent fun, or a break from boredom, or a little jealousy, but it very quickly grows into the greatest of all trees, full of unfriendly birds that are eager and willing to spread the seeds. And it’s no secret that churches can be the greatest of trees for this type of thing. Fortunately, the people of Epiphany have chosen to live out their lives together with a minimum of that sort of thing. I think we have more respect for each other than to sow those sorts of seeds, and that makes me very proud of you. I’ve seen it the other way, and it’s not pretty. But it can happen in the workplace, or in families, or social clubs, or schools. And it’s amazing how fast those little hurtful seeds can grow.
So, I think our Parable of the Mustard Seed, even though factually wrong, holds an important teaching for us. Each of us is a planter of those little Mustard Seeds, and each of us supports their growth. Some should be encouraged and nurtured. Others should be uprooted and thrown away. And this is something over which each of us has a lot of control. So, let’s be aware of the power we have with the little Mustard Seeds of our lives. We can support and spread the good ones, and we can uproot and throw away the bad ones.
Looking at our bulletin cover this morning, I noticed something unique in this picture. The great tree full of nesting birds can appear as a beautiful tree of wonder full of life and color. Or, it can appear as a real scary thing, full of oversized fiery birds, bigger than even the men below. Like so much in life, it depends on our perception of what we see, and sometimes what we want to see. I wish I had little packets of Mustard Seeds to hand out this morning. But really, we all have Mustard Seeds with us, all the time. And we plant them, and water them, and watch them grow. Let’s make some special effort to help the good ones grow, and uproot the bad ones. Amen.
The Reverend Richard O. Bridgford, Rector
Church of the Epiphany, Norfolk, VA
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
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We process a lot here at Epiphany. At every service the choir and acolytes and clergy process in and process out. In Lent we chant the Great Litany while processing round and round inside the church. On Palm Sunday we process with blessed palms from the churchyard into the sanctuary. On Rogation Sunday we “beat the bounds” by processing all the way around the perimeter of the church property, thrashing away evil spirits (weeds!) and scattering grass seed on our beautiful lawn. On Christmas Eve we carry the infant Jesus in a procession to the manger. On Epiphany, we solemnly process three Wise Men to the crêche.
Today’s prelude concludes a series of pieces from Henri Mulet’s ”Esquisses Byzantine,” “Byzantine Sketches.” It dramatizes the majestic “Procession” of the Blessed Sacrament around the exterior of the Sacré Coeur in Paris on the Feast of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ) to celebrate the institution of the Eucharist. You can hear the bells ringing in the campanile and almost smell the clouds of incense from the swinging thuribles!
The communion music is “Andante soavemente a dolce” in memory of Hubert Parry by fellow Englishman Charles Macpherson. The postlude is “Epilogue” by Norman Gilbert.
At the offertory the choir sings “King of glory, King of peace” (Hymn 382) by David Walken with an interwoven descant. The text by the great Mystical Poet, George Herbert, ends:
“E’en eternity’s too short to extol Thee.”
The concludes my Music Notes for our liturgical experience from October through July. I hope you’ve enjoyed them!
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John Roberts, Organist and Choirmaster
Church of the Epiphany, Norfolk, VA
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Our church has a graceful bell tower attached to the entrance of the Parish House. It supports one tolling bell, with the pitch of C Sharp. Continuing the series of preludes taken from Henry Mulet’s “Esquisses Byzantine,” “Byzantine Sketches,” today’s is “Campanile,” “Bell Tower.” There are many bells in the tower of Sacré Coeur in Paris, and Mulet incorporates several of the actual ringing patterns used there in this descriptive aural picture.
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The communion is a little piece imitating tower bells: “Carillon,” in memory of Hubert Parry by his fellow Englishman, Herbert Brewer. The postlude is another “Carillon” by another French composer, Jules Massenet, best known for his operas.
At the offertory the choir is singing “Not here for high and holy things,” (Hymn 9), a canon or round written in the mountain folk idiom by Elkanah Dare.
John Roberts, Organist and Choirmaster
Church of the Epiphany, Norfolk, VA
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After our Colonial Anglican Church worship experience, we gathered under the shade trees for an authentic after-church picnic! Gathering for a meal after worship is historically accurate! However, our picnic menu included items the colonists would not have known, like soda, ice cubes, salads, potato chips, humus, fried chicken, folding chairs, mosquito repellent and paper plates! The grounds of St. Luke’s stretch out around the old brick church structure, and include a lovely Gift Shop, an extensive cemetery with lovely statuary and a large lawn. We set up our tables under the trees, enjoyed a slight breeze, wonderful fellowship and fabulous food!
The Rev. Carol Sims and The Rev. Richard Bridgford also explored their priestly roots with a bit of snake handling worthy of the Celtic Isles! Please enjoy the photos, courtesy of J. Rochelle!
(It wasn’t until the next day that the ticks were discovered!)
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The sign in front of Historic St. Luke’s Church said “1559 Church Service 11:00 a.m.” And a few people beyond the Epiphany faithful joined us for a dip into Colonial Anglican church history!
Sunday, June 26th, Church of the Epiphany made its semi-annual trip out to St. Luke’s, on the outskirts of Smithfield, for an almost authentic 17th Century worship service. The church was built in 1632, and served the spiritual needs of first generation Virginia colonists. These colonists would have been very familiar with the hymns and service music we sang! The old hymns are still in our hymnal and the Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Gloria were composed by John Merbecke (1510?-1585?). The Biblical readings for our Eucharist did not include the Old Testament, focusing instead on the Holy Gospel and an Epistle. Until the most recent revision to the Book of Common Prayer, the Old Testament was part of Morning Prayer, but was not included in Eucharist service liturgy. The Rev. Richard O. Bridgford received permission from Bishop Hollerith to use the 1559 Prayer Book for educational purposes. The congregation had an immersion into Elizabethan English, complete with thee’s and thou’s, and an old English font where an s looks like an f. In deference to authenticity we did use female acolytes and enjoyed the Rev. Carol Sims celebration of Holy Communion – AND enjoyed air conditioning and nearby restrooms! Enjoy the pictures of our time at St. Luke’s in the following slideshow.
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Photos courtesy J. Rochelle.
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On Sunday, June 26th, the members of the Church of the Epiphany travelled out to Smithfield, VA to worship at Historic St. Luke’s. Originally built in 1632, the chapel is the oldest remaining Gothic structure in the country. Among the Gothic features are buttresses, stepped gables, brick-traceried windows, and the medieval tie-beam timber interior roof structure. It is lovely! For more information about the construction, parish and St. Luke’s place in the history of Virginia, and our nation, visit their website: Historic St. Luke’s.
This post features a quick slideshow of the exterior of the grounds, and the “old brick church.” There will be another post discussing the worship service and the interior of the church. Special thanks to J. Rochelle for taking these photos during Church of the Epiphany’s Pilgrimage to St. Luke’s!
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The preludes for this morning and the next two Sundays are parts of “Esquisses Byzantines,” “Byzantine Sketches” by Henri Mulet. He was organist at the fantastic shrine in Paris honoring the Blessed Sacrament, The Consecrated Eucharist Bread, always in exposition for adoration by the faithful. Called Sacré Coeur, Sacred Heart (of Jesus), the shrine is built on top of Montmartre, the hill famous as an artistic and entertainment neighborhood.
Today’s prelude is a musical depiction of the “Nef,” Nave, the expansive open space for the congregation. Notice in the photo, the Pantokrator, the mosaic of Christ in the ceiling of the apse, with his right hand raised in the gesture of blessing. This is one of the many Byzantine elements in the architecture and decoration there.
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The Communion is “Adagio” in memory of the great composer, Hubert Parry, by fellow Englishman, Alan Gray. The postlude is “Paean” by a contemporary English composer, Peter Hurford.
The choir’s anthem is a joyful romp in jazz rhythm with infectious syncopation by the late American composer, Natalie Sleeth: “Happy are they who trust in the Lord.”
John Roberts, Organist and Choirmaster
Church of the Epiphany, Norfolk, VA
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One of the themes that weaves its way through our readings has to do with the Kingdom of God. It’s subtle, but it’s there – especially in our Psalms. And this being the 4th of July weekend, the theme of “The Kingdom of God” also strangely weaves its way through most of our hymns with National themes.
The Kingdom of God is a very confusing concept. For some people, and for some theologians, it is something that will happen at the end of time when all of creation is finished. We call that The Eschaton. For others, it’s an experience that we will enter when we die, if we’ve lived a moral or faithful life. For others, it’s right here on earth, right now. And that’s the camp that I personally fall into. I have no idea what awaits us after death. I’ll find out one of these days. But in my mind, this – right here – is where I experience the Kingdom of God, not because it’s so wonderful, but because it’s such a challenge.
"Epiphany" by The Rev. Nancy Mills, Thomasville GA
When we found the picture on the front of your bulletin (we’ll try to get the picture posted to the web page at epiphanynorfolk.org), I knew we had to use it today. It is certainly a strange 4th of July picture, but it said a lot to me. It’s painted by an Episcopal Priest named Nancy Mills. Strangely, it’s titled “Epiphany”, but it’s obviously a nature/forest landscape. Let me read the commentary that accompanied the painting.
“With this landscape painting Mills seeks to illustrate the presence of the Kingdom of God with us now. She used gold leaf as a symbol of the Kingdom of God the same way that gold leaf is used as a symbol of the Kingdom on halos or icons, and for the background of medieval altarpieces. In using this symbolism in a landscape painting, she illustrates the presence of the Kingdom of God all around us.
“As Mills writes, ‘If we could see it, this is what it might look like. As it is, we can just glimpse the Kingdom of God around the edges of things. But usually, we don’t see the forest for the trees.’” Mills adds, “What I’m trying to say in the painting is, if we pay attention, if we listen up, the glory of the Kingdom of God with us will explode what we too easily see as, and all too easily think is, reality.”
Well, for many Americans this 4th of July weekend, our land really is the Kingdom of God here on earth. But God’s American Kingdom on this earth is having a really tough time. Our government is bickering to the point where we’re not sure it is functional. We are trying desperately to get out of two wars, or military occupations, that have been going on for years, and don’t appear to be resolving anything. We are trying to avoid getting dragged into additional conflicts and uprisings. Our economy is a mess. We are still trying to deal with the collapse of our housing market. We’re trying to figure out what to do about immigration issues. We’ve got major problems with all of our energy sources. Almost every option seems worse than the others. We’ve got global warming banging at our door, which appears to be causing severe and destructive weather. Our schools have problems. Our courts and correctional systems have problems. We still have race issues working against us. And our population is aging, which is about to cause major changes to everything we know.
This is the Kingdom of God here on earth. And it’s enough to give you the willies. But, as we see in The Rev Mills’ painting, every one of our issues is surrounded by the holy. It’s hard to see, but it’s there.
I’ve had the wonderful privilege of doing a lot of traveling. I’ve visited a lot of places around the world, and am planning on visiting more. And no matter where I go, I’m glad to come home. All of OUR problems are so much worse, somewhere else. Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy are having economic problems that make ours look simple. Racial and tribal issues other places are so far beyond what we call racism at home. Our energy and pollution issues shrink in comparison to other nations. And I could go on and on. All of our problems and issues, are even worse in other places. But that’s no excuse for US, this 4th of July. We have a beautiful land here. In so many ways, we are blessed as no other peoples on this earth. But we are also challenged, like no other peoples on this earth because of our vast resources. Managing our blessings is perhaps a greater challenge for us than managing our problems. And this is something with which each of us can involve ourselves in some small way.
You and I can’t fix those great big issues out there. But we can’t throw up our hands, either. We each have to find little ways to contribute what we can to our Kingdom of God right here. If we each make those small contributions that we are to make, they will join with others, and become major contributions.
Many, many lives have been lost claiming and protecting this land of ours, and it wasn’t always done nobly. As much as I love the hymn “God Bless our Native Land,” which we will sing at the offertory, I have to admit that I always wince a little when we sing it. We are not native here. We conquered this land and we drove the natives almost to extinction. That’s NOT something about which to be proud. Much of what we enjoy today was built on the backs of slaves in the south, on the backs of child labor in the north, on the backs of Chinese “slaves” in the West. That’s NOT something about which to be proud.
But, you know – I am proud. I’m proud because we learned from those abuses. It’s not all fixed, but it’s better, and we continue to become more conscious of atrocities against our fellow humans, wherever we find them.
I love Nancy Mills’ idea of the gold leaf outline to everything – the holy surrounding everything. For me, this land of ours is the Kingdom of God, right here, especially with its challenges. So, my prayer for us this 4th of July weekend is that we see our challenges as a gift, and that we see the holy in everything around us, even when it’s not perfect. And that we continue to strive for justice and peace throughout the world. Amen.
The Rev. Richard O. Bridgford
Church of the Epiphany, Norfolk, VA
Sunday, July 3
Zechariah 9:9-12, Psalm 145
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