Category: From the Clergy

As we move through the first week of the “stay-at-home” order for both Wake County and North Carolina, I want to fill you in on how we are proceeding with operations at Nativity.

Care of the Buildings

Robert continues to clean the buildings several nights a week. All surfaces are being wiped down carefully. Jr. Warden Rene Garces is doing a walk-through of the buildings and campus almost daily, checking on things. Rene has mowed the grass recently, and a few volunteers have been coming by to do some weeding and tending the flower beds. In addition to installing a new locked mailbox, Rene checks the mail daily and brings it to the office.

Accounting

The Counters’ Ministry will be in every other Tuesday to process and deposit any funds that arrive in the mail. Our bookkeeper, Phil, is in the office every Wednesday morning to pay bills, process pledge information, and maintain the accounting reports. Hand-sanitizers, Clorox wipes and gloves are available for anyone who comes into the building to do this work.

Composting

Compost Now continues to do a weekly pickup of our compost. Since we are not able to use the buildings as we usually do, our compost output has decreased. You are welcome to bring your compost and drop it off in the Compost Now bin located in the parking lot. Note, do not put plastic bags in the compost bin unless they are specifically marked “compostable.” Regular plastic bags will twist up the compost machinery and we will be fined!

Community Groups

All groups who rent space from us are on hold for the time being, following the stay-at-home directive. The Kinder Garden preschool and the Bulgarian Cultural Center are following Wake County Schools’ timeline for reopening. When the stay-at-home rules are lifted, we will be in touch with the other groups to resume their meeting times.

Nativity Garden

The garden will continue to grow, thus the gardeners should be able to continue as usual.

The Staff

Our staff continues their work in ministry, even though that is looking very different than it did even a few weeks ago.

Kathryn has created opportunities for our parents to meet with one another online on Sundays and Wednesdays. She jumped into action, creating unique gatherings for our younger children, our middle school girls, our middle school boys, and our high schoolers to talk, read scripture, pray, and even play games together using Zoom. She checks in with our families with children at home on a regular basis, offering pastoral care and extra time for any of our young people who are experiencing the anxiety of the loss of routine, structure, and missing time with their friends.

Jason has been busy finding music for Sunday Morning Prayer, offering an organ meditation time on Wednesday nights, and finding creative ways to incorporate singers in our live-streamed services, where we are limited in number of people allowed to participate. He gathers with the choir every Thursday evening using Zoom for check-ins and to stay connected as a community. He and I are learning that it takes twice as much time to prepare for an online service as it does to prepare a worship service in person on Sunday mornings.

Megan is working primarily from home. She is coming into the office briefly on Mondays to process the mail and prepare bills. She is available by email Mondays through Fridays. Please reach out to her with any questions you might have about what is going on and where to find information. The Glad Tidings email will be sent every Thursday with all the links and information to everything that is happening online.

Deacon David is on the phone. He is checking in with our members, especially the folks on our prayer list and anyone who needs someone to talk to during these anxious times. Thankfully, using the power of Zoom, you will see him be part of our worship during Holy Week. It has not been the same on Sunday mornings to stand at the altar without him.

As for me, I think I am finally getting ahead on my emails. I check in with the staff by phone regularly to keep us connected with one another. I have been working with our wardens to make sure operations continue, and I pray daily for the Holy Spirit to guide me as I try and figure out how to plan worship for Holy Week when we can’t gather in person. And I listen. I listen to your concerns, your fears, your anxieties, and I try to listen for what God is trying to tell us during these crazy times where nothing is normal, nothing is routine, and information changes daily.

I am enormously proud of the way our staff has quickly adapted to new ways of ministry, and I am enormously proud of us as a congregation. The Vestry and others are making phone calls to check in with our members, and as I watch all our members check in and support each other.

Should any directive from either the Diocese of North Carolina or local or state authorities change, we will make the necessary adjustments to keep Nativity, both its campus and its people, safe and healthy.

I know you have been praying for me, and I feel your prayers. Let’s keep praying for each other and our world.

I’m sitting here on Thursday morning having my fourth, fifth cup of coffee… who am I kidding? I’ve drunk essentially the entire pot of coffee and its only 8:00am. I was sitting and knitting, while drinking way too much coffee, and thinking about the word “forbearance.”

It’s a great word for right now. We don’t use it often. According to Merriam Webster, the first use of forbearance came in 1576, meaning the refraining of an enforcement, especially a debt. We currently use this meaning in modern contexts, applying it to loan forgiveness or debt repayment. We will probably hear it more in those terms in the coming days.

Forbearance also means “patient self-control; restraint and tolerance.” Again, qualities that we are going to need to survive the stay-at-home instructions, quarantines, and watching the news each day.

I would like to ask your patience and forbearance as we work through moving Nativity’s worship services online. Wednesday night, we tried to live stream Evening Prayer. The sound didn’t work. It was bad. I know. I’m sorry. We’ll try something else next week. Again, forbearance as we work through this.

Our Holy Week services will be a combination of pre-recorded video and live stream video. There are positive and negatives about both options. We will do our best. Forbearance. Internet traffic is heavy these days. Zoom gives a warning when you set up a meeting that video might not work with more than three participants. Facebook suddenly has every church in the nation trying to live stream on Sunday mornings. Forbearance. My favorite meme going around right now is a picture of Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump, sitting at the bus stop, and saying, “And just like that, we were all televangelists.” Forbearance.

Zoom meetings are being routinely hacked, so we will have to increase the security of our Nativity Zoom gatherings. You might be asked for a password or registration to join the meeting when you never have before. You might get frustrated that you can only access the meeting through the Nativity weekly email, and now you can’t find that email. Forbearance. Forbearance, and some serious prayer for those people who feel the need to ruin everything good.

I ask your forbearance with your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, the people you live with. None of us are as productive as we expect. We are not always nice. We disappoint each other on a regular basis. We are all operating under trauma, and that is going to express itself in different ways. Their ways might rub uncomfortably against your ways. Forbearance.

What I love most about using the word forbearance is the idea of debt being cancelled. What better word to consider as we enter Holy Week. This week, we will walk with Jesus to the cross, the ultimate debt repayment plan. All our sins forgiven. All our shortcomings, disappointments, and frustrations wiped cleanly away through no merit or work of our own. Simply God’s mercy at work.

So this week, may our forbearance be partnered with mercy. Mercy for each other, and mercy for ourselves. Thanks be to God.

Forbearance, my friends, forbearance.  

U2 – Love Rescue Me

What a treasure we have in the book of Psalms!  These eloquent prayers give voice to every aspect of human emotion — joy, praise, devotion, anger, sorrow, hope.  During my years as a hospital chaplain, I frequently called upon the psalms for comfort and support.  In times of suffering, fear, and loss, the psalms of lament led us from sorrow into hope. Psalm 130, assigned in the lectionary for this coming Sunday, is one of my favorites.

Psalm 130 (De profundis)

1. Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;
   Lord, hear my voice; *
   let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.
2. If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, *
   O Lord, who could stand?
3. For there is forgiveness with you; *
   therefore you shall be feared.
4. I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; *
   in his word is my hope.
5. My soul waits for the Lord,
   more than watchmen for the morning, *
   more than watchmen for the morning.
6. O Israel, wait for the Lord, *
   for with the Lord there is mercy;
7. With him there is plenteous redemption, *
   and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

Does this resonate with you?  At this strange, uncomfortable time I somehow feel “in the depths.” We have to do everything differently, isolating ourselves, removed from so much of our comfort zone.  If we are to connect, we have to communicate from a distance and grapple with unfamiliar technologies.  Fear is all around us.  It’s a dark, dreary time.

I really miss the personal interaction that gives my life so much meaning — most of all, the joy of being present with the Nativity family as we gather for worship and fellowship.  Facebook and other social media help us stay in touch; but none of these can match the physical presence of being with one another, in communion as the Body of Christ.

As we pray the psalms of lament we join in the honest complaints, tears, and anguish that they express so eloquently and know that the feeling is universal.  I am not alone; it’s not just about me.  Psalm 130, beginning with a desperate cry from the depths, then turns to hope and trust.  “My soul waits for the Lord; in his word is my hope.  With him is plenteous redemption. . . .”  There is hope.  This challenging time will pass.  We will once more be able to gather together and celebrate — in God’s time.

My initial connection with Psalm 130 was through music.  It was a favorite psalm of Martin Luther, which he turned into a hymn text and tune.  In German, the title is Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir; the English translation, with Luther’s tune, is found in our Hymnal 1982, # 151: “From deepest woe I cry to thee; Lord, hear me, I implore thee.”  It has inspired many composers, especially J. S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn, to write organ and choral settings of Luther’s text and melody.

I invite you to join me, first to lament and then to rejoice in that hope, and listen to Mendelssohn’s choral setting of Psalm 130:

https://youtu.be/m3JTqEFcnYU

May God bless us all during this Lenten fast.  My prayers are with you always.

Are you doing anything for Lent? Taking something on? Giving something up? It takes me forever to decide what I’m going to do, and sometimes I have to try a few different options to see what actually sticks. Some years, my Lenten practice doesn’t begin in earnest until the second or even third week of Lent. What can I say – we are all doing the very best we can at any given moment. Myself included.

I want to decide something good, something meaningful, but also something I will actually do. Give up Facebook? Sounds great, but not gonna happen. Give up chocolate? Sure! Until someone offers me a brownie.

I have noticed that if I can’t find a way to specifically link my practice with bringing me closer to God in some way, I’m guaranteed to abandon ship. The very best practices have been ones that bring me not only closer to God, but closer to other people as well. I remember one of my first years living in New York and picking up a Lenten devotional that had been written by members of the parish I was attending. I read it every day, and the experience made me feel closer to the church community because I knew something real about the people there. When I would meet the writers IRL (in real life) at coffee hour, there would already be a sense of connection, making the move from small talk to real talk that much easier.

Through the years, I have come to understand that although we think of Lenten practices as something individual, Lent is actually about relationships and community. The question is, what practices might I adopt that heal and support my relationship with others, and bring me closer to God? Rather than imagining I must adopt a certain individual practice, and perform it perfectly, how might I invite others in to share and support my Lenten discipline?

How is your Lent about relationships? How might you draw closer to the church community, or your other communities, during this season?

Still looking for a Lenten practice? Check out Lent Madness. You can follow on Facebook or Twitter, or you can visit the website each day to read about the saints and vote. You learn about the saints, and you become part of a funny, snarky, prayerful community that loves God, loves the church, and loves the people of God.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVVgB29wh50

There are so many options for daily Lenten reflections to help your personal practice of Lent. Here are a few choices to consider.

Lent Madness

This is a fun way to learn about the amazing saints that came before us. 32 saints are placed into a tournament-like single elimination bracket. You vote online until a final winner is determined and awarded the Golden Halo.

Forward Movement Lenten Meditation

These daily reflections for Lent, offered by well-known faith leaders, provide boots-on-the-ground stories of serving and being served by “the least of these.”

D365

Devotions will switch to to Journey to the Cross beginning Ash Wednesday and running through the Saturday after Easter.

Signs of Life

A free 5 -week offering that encourages individuals and groups to explore the riches of our worship traditions, liturgy and sacraments, and the art and architecture of our worship spaces.

Sojourner’s Verse and Voice

Each morning receive in your email a short scripture, justice quote, and prayer.

Living Compass Lent Offering

Living Well Through Lent 2020: Practicing Courage with all your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind. Sign up for a daily email reflection from Living Compass. Like the Epiphany series, there is a Facebook group you may join to continue the conversation beyond the reflections.

May your Lent be one of fruitful repentance, self-examination, and deep prayer!

Lenten Teaching Series
How to have a Holy Lent—Sundays at 9:30 beginning March 1
“I invite you, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on Gods holy Word.” We hear these words every Ash Wednesday, but how do we practice them throughout all 40 days of Lent? Join us Sunday mornings at 9:30am for deeper dive into this exhortation. What does the Prayer Book say? What does Scripture say? The history of these practices? Pieces of art or music inspired by these practices? Join us to learn more about the Episcopal Way of Lent.

Lectionary Discussion Groups—Sundays at 9:30

Mens’ Lenten Bible Study—Wednesday mornings in Lent (time TBD)
Men of all ages are invited to join the Rev. Bob Sawyer for a study of scripture during Lent. Reflect upon the upcoming gospel, pray together, and there might just be a hymn sung at the end too!

Life Transformed: The Way of Love in Lent
Lenten Quiet Day, Saturday, March 21, 9 am—3 pm. The Way of Love is a journey with Jesus. Join us for a day-long retreat for worship, study, prayer, and quiet to prepare our hearts for the journey to Easter. Email Stephanie at sa@nativityonline.org to sign up.

Lenten Devotionals
Devotional booklets available in the Narthex on February 23, and a list of on-line resources will be sent via the email newsletter and found at nativityonline.org.

Whenever I read the passage from Isaiah 58, in the lectionary for this coming Sunday, I want to burst into song with “And then, then shall your light break forth like dawn,” the concluding chorus of Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah.  It exuberantly proclaims the theme of light that we celebrate throughout Epiphany.  At Christ Church, the choir counted on my programming it regularly, usually on the last Sunday in Epiphany, just before the Lenten season.  Check out the performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on YouTube.

That leads me to think about the power of metaphor.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.”  How many times in the Bible do we encounter the metaphor of light?  I counted:  in the Old Testament (King James Version), 177 times; in the New Testament, 95.  That’s not even including related words like “lamp” and “shine.”  Each time, it reminds us vividly of the brilliance of light as it pierces the total, enveloping darkness known to the Biblical world.

Just before that verse in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth.”  We use that expression frequently and pretty much take its meaning for granted.  Or do we really know?  Think about how much flavor salt adds to our food, and how bland it tastes without salt.  (So sorry, those of you who are on a salt-free diet!  Last week, my doctor shocked me by advising me to increase my salt intake.)   If we are indeed the salt of the earth, we add flavor to our world and make it more desirable.

As an aside, from my vantage point at the altar, I look out at our congregation and see it filled with dear souls who are, in fact, the salt of the earth.  What a blessing!

Jesus provides an antithesis to each of these virtues, as a warning of how not to live.  When he says, “if the salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything” — that is worrisome.  It sounds to me like burnout, and I don’t want that to happen.  I need to be recharged — go on a retreat, take a vacation, seek a spiritual director — to restore my saltiness.

Even better, I think, is the warning that nobody hides a light under a cover (a bushel).  What good would it do then?  So, as he says, don’t be bashful.  Put your light, your special gift, on a lamp stand and let it shine before others, not in a boastful way, but by doing the good works which God has prepared for us.  Right on!

Here’s another hint from this Sunday’s lessons:  “Light shines in the darkness for the upright;  the righteous are merciful and full of compassion.” (Psalm 112:4)

To use yet another metaphor, the lessons for this coming Sunday are pure gold.  (Check them out at http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Epiphany/AEpi5_RCL.html.)  We are invited to taste the full flavor and glow in the light of God’s love, reflected in each of us.  Thanks be to God!

Now, take a few minutes and enjoy Mendelssohn’s music:

“And then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing spring up quickly. . .Lord, our Creator, how excellent thy name is in all the nations.  Thou fillest heaven with thy glory.  Amen.”  (Isaiah 58:8; Psalm 8:1)

https://youtu.be/BLmxrq_FY-o

-The Reverend Dr. David Lynch

Invitation or Command?

This Sunday’s gospel reading is the same story of the calling of Andrew and Peter that we heard last Sunday from the Gospel of John, but this week the story comes from the Gospel of Matthew. It includes the infamous phrase, “Follow me and I will make you disciples of men.” (people in the NRSV)

Jesus’ invitation is different in both. In John, he says, “What are you looking for?” and “Come and see.” In the Matthew version, it is more imperative, “Follow me.” Both are invitations rather than commands, though one might argue that “Follow me” could be a command.

The command to discipleship can be a tricky subject. For those who might come from tradition where a relationship with God was more command and threat, rather than invitation to love and mutuality, the imperative might make one fearful of not following God, or being constantly afraid of God’s reaction when the following is less than ideal.

Certainly a culture of transaction – you do something for me, I do something for you in return – makes the imperative the default. But what if we looked at the invitation to discipleship as an invitation? What might that do to our image of God, and what might it do to our relationship with God?

I suspect that it would make the relationship deeper and warmer. I think God would become a being we would want to talk with more, spend more time with, and offer more praise and adoration. Much like we do our current beloveds!

Have you ever considered if Jesus’ words are invitation or command? What do either bring to your mind and your spirit?