Author: Church of the Nativity

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Glad Tidings

Caring for our Couple Relationship: Celebrating the Holidays

Coming up soon, we will begin our celebration of Advent and Christmas. How will we be celebrating this year in the midst of Covid-19 and the restrictions that are necessary for our safety and the safety of others? This is a difficult question for couples and families. It is important to talk about this time as a couple and to review our traditions and our hopes for this year.

What traditions from the families that you grew up in were important to each of you? Share these with one another. What did you enjoy and find meaning in? What was fun and life giving to you?

Now each of you look at the holidays from the past few years, what did you do? What has changed over the years? Again, share these with each other.

Looking forward to this year, what will you be doing differently? What are the important elements for you? What will you be changing? What are the feelings that you have about the changes that you will make to adjust to this time? How can you incorporate some of the most important things to you in an adjusted way?

Gift giving is usually part of our traditions. What are the gifts that you can give that may not require going out to buy a gift, but are gifts of your presence and care for each other? Maybe it is a back rub, maybe it is a quiet time together to share your love and appreciation for each other. Perhaps you can make a card. Take a walk just the two of you and talk about the gifts that you give to each other all the time, such as helping with household chores or taking the car to the shop, etc. Give a gift from the heart.

It is important to remember to have some fun during this season. What can you do to make you laugh and let go? Could you play in the leaves? Dance? Watch a fun Christmas movie? Play games?

Talk about your spiritual traditions. What will you do this year? Attend services online. Spend some time as a couple or family reading the Nativity story in the Bible. Music is often a part of our worship. What music can you play to provide quiet moments of reflection or joyous moments that overflow with hymns like “Silent Night” or “O Holy Night”.

Your homework is to find a time soon before you get caught up in the season to talk about and plan what you want, especially this year.

 

Carl and Nancy Terry

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Glad Tidings

Reaching Up Reaching Out: An Update

Reaching Up Reaching Out: An Update

I know I sound like a broken record, but my gratitude for the continued generosity of this congregation is giving me life and sustaining my hope in my Covid-19 pandemic fatigue. Not only have many of you kept your commitment to funding our annual operations, we also continue to receive your contributions towards the Capital Campaign, Reaching Up Reaching Out. With your help, we made another significant payment towards the principle of the mortgage. Here is an update regarding the campaign from George Douglas and Pete Crow, the campaign co-chairs.

-Stephanie+

We are writing to thank you for your continued support of our Reaching Up, Reaching Out capital campaign, especially during this difficult and challenging year. Your Vestry has just recently made another significant payment from our campaign fund to the mortgage, reducing the principle to $314,000. In addition to telling you how grateful we are, we wanted to take this opportunity to give you an update on the progress we have made since the campaign began in June 2017.

As you may recall, the purpose of the RURO campaign was to (1) install solar panels on the roof of the Michael Curry education building, to conserve energy and reduce our operating costs; (2) to replace the total HVAC system in the church offices and kitchen in Estill House; and (3) to reduce our mortgage, which in early 2017 was approximately $611,000.

Thanks to the incredible support of our church community, we have accomplished the following to date:  (1) The solar panels were installed by the end of 2017 and have provided significant savings to reduce our electricity cost; (2) the HVAC system was replaced before the end of 2017; and (3) we have reduced our mortgage from $611,000 to $314,000 as of August 1, 2020. When all of the pledges have been fulfilled within the next year, we hope to reduce the mortgage to less than $250,000!

Many thanks to all who have continued to fulfill their pledges and all who have made contributions to the campaign during the past three years. If you are a newcomer and would like to contribute or get more information about the campaign, please contact George Douglas, our campaign chairman, at gbdouglas3@gmail.com.

Please know that your love and support will allow us to keep the Nativity community together and strong for years to come!

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From the Clergy Uncategorized

A Light in the Darkness

The day after Halloween, one of my neighbors put their Christmas tree up in their front windows. I saw the twinkling lights lighting up the darkness the evening of November 1 when I was out walking the dog before bed. Not the day after Thanksgiving. The Day after Halloween. Clearly we are all ready for 2020 to be over, but what is 2021 going to look like? What are the lights shining in the darkness that our weary souls can carry into the new year?

Church of the Nativity has been a shining light for me. Our online worship gets better and better. Worshipping outside has been spiritually moving and uplifting in the full glory of God’s creation.

We serve as a light to our community. When others were cancelling their outreach programs and pulling back on funds, you helped out even more. We honored our commitments to the organizations we support, including Rise Against Hunger. I received dozens of calls from you all looking to donate extra funds to help people who might be struggling to pay rent and utilities and buying groceries.

You shine your light toward each other. Yes, the prayer list continues to grow. We are praying for over 100 people now on that list. You want your friends, family, and neighbors to know the love and care of God. You are taking meals to fellow members who are recovering from illness or surgeries. You are making phone calls and checking on each other, reaching out to those who are lonely and scared during uncertain times.

Our children and youth shone brightly as they jumped into Zoom calls for formation, working on the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle farms this summer, and connecting safely this fall in person while most everything else in their lives was virtual. As much as we worry about our kids, they have been lights of hope to us, exhibiting resilience and finding joyful moments as they adapt to every new circumstance the pandemic has given them.

The light shines through our hard-working staff, who keep finding new ways for us to experience church. The light shines through our Vestry as they make decisions about our operations and guide us into a new way of relating to church.

How do we keep the light shining through the darkness? We keep following Jesus. We keep supporting our church community. For all that you have given, through your service, through your financial gifts, and through your prayers, I say “Thank you.” Would you please keep giving that same amount in 2021? If you didn’t make a pledge in 2020, would you prayerfully consider making a pledge for 2021?

You may easily complete the online pledge form right here.

A pledge is a light, and a promise. As always, should you find that you need to pull back from your pledge or make an adjustment during the year, that is okay. It is still light in the darkness. We carry one another as needed.

For those of you ready for Advent and Christmas, here is a song from 2015, and yet still resonant for Advent 2020.

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Glad Tidings

Reverse Advent Calendar Part 2

I laid out my idea to Stephanie – we’d begin on November 29, the first Sunday of Advent. Every family participating would pick up an empty box at the church (to decorate at home however they chose), a daily check off sheet and a list of suggested items. On the last Sunday of Advent, December 20, the filled boxes would be brought back to Nativity where my husband and I would collect them and deliver them to the, as of that time, unknown recipients.

Stephanie suggested I contact Peggy Wade, who has several families that through her have a connection to Nativity. Perfect!

Peggy and I had a wonderful conversation. She was excited when I outlined my idea to her, and she offered some great suggestions. The 14 families that she looks out for are all on food stamps; she schooled me on what can and cannot be bought with food stamps; some I was aware of, others were a shock. Food stamps cannot be used to buy coffee or tea, toothpaste, bath soap or toilet paper (really, no toilet paper!?!) and the list goes on. She suggested we collect cleaning products, paper products, personal hygiene products, interspersed with holiday treats like Christmas candy and cookies.

My idea was now a plan on its way to becoming a project. Back to Stephanie. She suggested we ask the families to say a prayer each day for the family they are filling the box for, as they add another item to the box. On December 20, when the boxes are returned, we gather them in the Narthex for a blessing before we deliver them to their families.

For more information, to become a part of this outreach, please contact me at cherylww1127@gmail.com.

Cheryl Waechter

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Glad Tidings

Reverse Advent Calendar

It all started with a book. A good friend, from EfM, had been telling me for months, “you’ve got to read Take This Bread, by Sara Miles, you’ll love it!” I bought it. It sat on my desk for months. One day in early summer he asked if I’d read it yet. No but, I have it! Later in the summer I looked at it on my desk, staring back at me reproachfully. I picked it up, opened it and began to read. I. Could. Not. Put. It. Down! This is the story of Sara’s spiritual journey from growing up in an atheist household to covering revolutions around the world as a freelance journalist to early one morning stepping into St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, taking communion for the very first time and finding herself transformed.

She had witnessed crushing poverty in war-torn places around the world, remembered the poorest of the poor sharing their bread with her. At St. Gregory’s she found God feeding his people with spiritual food and made a connection. She, with the support of the members of St. Gregory’s, began a free food pantry with food piled on and around the altar to feed the hungry in their San Francisco neighborhood. Eventually that first food pantry gave rise to almost a dozen food pantries in the poorest areas of the city.

I was fired up! We, at Nativity, need to start a free food pantry! Wait, how does that happen during a pandemic? I tucked the idea away.

While scrolling through Facebook one day my eye was caught by a post for an Advent project, a reverse Advent Calendar. Instead of buying an Advent calendar, opening a little door each day, and taking out a chocolate or other small treat you would be creating something to be given away. This caught my attention.

Starting with an empty box, each day of Advent a non-perishable food item, such as a box of cereal, can of soup, can of vegetables, etc. would be put into it. Then on Christmas Eve it would be delivered to a food pantry. This is a project we can do, even during a pandemic! I had some ideas about how I might adapt the project to make it more personal. Time to call Stephanie!

Are you curious? Come back next week for the rest of the story.

 

Cheryl Waechter

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From the Clergy

Wake, Awake!

This week, as we await results of the election, I find myself drawn to Sunday’s gospel — the parable of the wise and foolish virgins at the wedding feast (Matthew 25:1-13).

Many themes emerge in this story: a festive wedding banquet; light vs. darkness; waiting; drowsiness; preparedness; judgment. Supposedly it is intended to warn us to remain alert, ready for Jesus’s return; but there are numerous other messages as well. Stay tuned for Stephanie’s sermon next Sunday!

Now I invite you to travel with me to the year 1597 and Unna, a remote village in the north German state of Westphalia. Here’s an all too familiar story: a terrible plague had hit the countryside. Philipp Nicolai was pastor of the local church. His parsonage overlooked the cemetery, where new graves were being dug daily. As many as 170 of his parishioners died in a week, 30 on one terrible day, until 1300 residents of Unna had perished.

In the midst of this horror, no doubt in between funerals, Nicolai wrote a series of meditations entitled Die Freudenspiegel, or “The Mirror of Joy.” Joy? How can we come to joy in the midst of great suffering? This is an important question for us, as we deal with the turbulence of a pandemic and a greatly divided country. Nicolai obviously was wrestling with that dilemma. He said, in his preface, “There seemed to me nothing more sweet, delightful and agreeable, than the contemplation of the noble, sublime doctrine of Eternal Life obtained through the Blood of Christ. This I allowed to dwell in my heart day and night, and searched the Scriptures as to what they revealed on this matter. . . .Then day by day I wrote out my meditations, found myself, thank God! wonderfully well, comforted in heart, joyful in spirit, and truly content; gave to my manuscript the name and title of a Mirror of Joy.”

In an appendix to “The Mirror of Joy” he included the text and tunes for two poems. These have become great hymns of the church. One, inspired by the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, is Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme — “Wake, Awake, for Night Is Coming,” number 62 in our hymnal. A century later, Johann Sebastian Bach, a devout Lutheran, composed one of his more than 300 church cantatas on it. His harmonization of it is hymn number 61.

Nicolai based his text on the parable in Mathew 25, as well as two other scriptures (Isaiah 52:8 and Revelation 19:6-9). Taking Nicolai’s text and tune, Bach composed his seven-movement cantata for the Sunday in which Matthew 25:1-13 was the Gospel. So it would be appropriate for us to sing that cantata this coming Sunday – if we could!

  Here is the best-known movement of Cantata 140. I’ll bet you have heard it! As you listen to it, release your tension and let the Holy Spirit speak to you through the music. May you share in the joy that Philipp Nicolai and J. S. Bach found through their faith.

 

Blessings and peace,

David

Categories
Glad Tidings

Evening Prayer

It gladdens my heart to announce that we will begin to meet together for Evening Prayer beginning on November 11 in the Nave of the church. Following the Bishops’ guidelines, a limit of 25 people in attendance applies. Signing up to attend this service will work in the same way as signing up to attend an outdoor Eucharist. Of course, social distancing and mask-wearing are also necessary for the safety of everyone.

When we began our customary Evening Prayer series for the season of Lent, I had no inkling of what was about to befall us. But we’ve continued to meet together online, and pray, supporting one another and holding the community in prayer as we have weathered these strange and unsettling seven months. The rhythm of praying together, even virtually, has borne up my spirit in these troubling days.

Evening Prayer will still be live streamed on Wednesday evenings, so if you aren’t yet comfortable being in the Nave for a service, you won’t be left out.  We will begin with a live stream on Facebook and hope to start a companion live stream on YouTube as soon as possible. In the meantime, the service will be uploaded to YouTube later that evening.

We will move through these waning days of Ordinary Time together in prayer, and begin a new church year meeting through the season of Advent.  The final Evening Prayer service of the year will be held on December 23.  After this, we will allow the service to rest and resume in the season of Lent on the Wednesday following Ash Wednesday.

Pax Christi,
Jeremy Clos

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From the Clergy

For all the Saints

I have discovered a new word that I really like: cruciform. It’s not really a new word to me, but I find myself thinking about it a lot lately. It means cross-shaped, shaped like a cross. Which then makes me think about being shaped by the cross as a disciple of Jesus trying to live in a global pandemic.

To be cruciform shaped is to be formed by a pattern of living, formed by following the steps of Jesus. It means patterning our lives as a disciple on his life, and remembering that sacrifice is essential to this shape. We are formed in this shape not only by the pattern of Jesus’ life, but also by his sacrificial death on the cross and his glorious resurrection on the third day.

This weekend we enter the three-day remembrance of the church of all the saints. All Hallow’s Eve on October 31 was traditionally a time to allow the boundary between death and life to be more porous. The Feast of All Saints on November 1 is a time to remember and celebrate the saints who led exemplary lives following the pattern of Jesus, and to make their example our own. And finally, on November 2 is All Souls’ Day when we remember all who have died, all the faithful departed.

I think the communion of saints is also cruciform shaped. The people whose lives offered in the service of Jesus. The saints understood the sacrifice of the cross. All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints’, and All Souls’ reminds us that we can do so, too. Or, as the song reminds us, “for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one, too.”

We remember too – especially living in a global pandemic, living in a politically divided election season, living in a time of high tension around racial justice, living surrounded by the reminders of lives lost because of Covid-19 – that the cross is shaped by love.

Though there may be a great deal of uncertainty next week, we are still shaped and formed by love.

No matter what you read in the news, we are still shaped by love.

Even when the world feels darker than ever before, we have been, are, and will be shaped by love.

Look around you. Where do you see the saints at work? Where do you see cruciform-shaped lives? Where do you see the patterns of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection at work in the world?

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From the Clergy

The Waiting Room

I feel like my whole life is about waiting these days. Waiting to see what the newest news is. Waiting to see what case numbers are doing today. Waiting to hear further guidance from the Bishops. Waiting for… I don’t even know what all I’m waiting for, but I know I’m busy right now waiting.

The season of Advent will be upon us soon, and Advent is a season all about waiting. Waiting to celebrate Christmas. Waiting for the Lord’s return. Waiting for….It isn’t Advent quite yet, and yet, we are already in a season of waiting.

In the meantime, while we wait, we continue to hold our primary worship service at 10:30am online. We are working on expanding the ways folks can access that service beyond Facebook. (One of the issues with Facebook seems to be that every other mainline Protestant church in the US is also streaming or premiering their service at 10:30am on Sunday mornings.) We will offer an outdoor Eucharist service on Sundays at 8:00am, 9:30am, and 4:30pm until November 22. If it rains, the service will be cancelled.

Speaking of Advent, beginning with the first Sunday of Advent, November 29, our Advent services will be online. There will be some special offerings along with the principle worship service at 10:30am on Sundays. The staff and Vestry are brainstorming special ways we might celebrate Advent and Christmas both in person and online in new, creative, and socially distanced ways.

What about indoor, in-person worship? We will start experimenting with holding small worship opportunities inside starting with Evening Prayer on Wednesday nights. More information about that and what it will look like will be coming soon, but we are going to start small.

Will we have indoor, in-person worship in January? I don’t know the answer to that right now. It all depends upon what the positive case percentage and the number of new cases will be in January. It also depends upon what we as the Nativity community feel comfortable doing.

More waiting, I know. I wonder though, as we wait, do we see God in unexpected places? Does sitting in the waiting room help us to notice what we didn’t see before? Where do you see God as you wait? What newness of life might you anticipate?

In peace,

Stephanie

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From the Clergy

Joy: Rejoice in the Lord!

Last week, Stephanie encouraged us to take as a mantra Paul’s marvelous words: “Rejoice in the Lord always. . .” (Philippians 4:4-7). I support that heartily.

When the Apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians, his life certainly was not perfect. He wrote it from a prison cell; his work was constantly under attack, by the Jewish establishment as well as by competing evangelists, and, after many years of hard work and travel in the service of Jesus, he might have welcomed some relief. Yet the entire letter exudes happiness.

The key for Paul — and for us — is the critical phrase “in Christ.” Paul uses this expression eight times in Philippians. He connects it to: believers (1:1); joy (1:26); glory (3:3); faith (3:9); hope (3:14); peace (4:7); reward (4:19); and citizenship (4:21). He is fully grounded in Christ; this undergirds his happiness.

The theme of joy — joy in the Christian life — permeates the letter. Within its four chapters, the words “joy” and “rejoice” are found sixteen times. Paul speaks of joy in suffering, as Christ suffered; of joy in service; of joy in believing; and of joy in giving.

Joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness is triggered externally – when things are going well, when life is good. But joy comes from within — even in the most appalling circumstances. Paul tells us that joy is a gift from God, one of the gifts of the Spirit – a gift which is there for the asking.

I believe we can indeed find joy through suffering. How can this be? Paul reminds us of the redemptive power found in the suffering of Jesus, reflected in Paul’s own sufferings, and in ours. We experience joy when we feel connected to others — and to what is genuinely good, beautiful, and meaningful — which is possible even in pain. Through suffering, we learn compassion, which leads to fulfillment and ultimately to joy. This is definitely food for thought!

I have always felt a great deal of affection for this little book, which provided the Epistle readings for four recent Sundays. My father, a Baptist minister, preached a sermon based on Philippians 1:21 (KJV): “For me to live is Christ; and to die is gain.” I heard that sermon many times as I was growing up, and I was delighted to find and listen to a tape recording of it recently. As a church musician, I have always been drawn to two wonderful texts: Philippians 2:6-11, the “Christ hymn,” which we sing as hymn 435, “At the Name of Jesus;” and Philippians 4:4-7, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” which inspired the composer Henry Purcell to create a marvelous anthem.

Many other themes appear in the letter to the Philippians: the Incarnation; humility, coupled with love; fellowship, essential as we support one another in a loving community. It is a genuine treasure. I encourage you to read it, many times and in many different translations. I really believe it will inspire and comfort you, as it has done for me. And do take “rejoice in the Lord always” as a mantra!

With Paul, I offer this blessing, from Philippians 4:7: May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

David

https://youtu.be/v7weD9D0XGQ