Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
January has been like none I can remember. Temperatures colder than in recent memory. Ice and snow across the country. Violence and death and distrust. And monks. Quiet, walking monks. Monks carrying a simple sign “Walk for Peace.” Monks gracious enough to receive hospitality. To be dependent on others. To press on even in the frigid cold. And now, into February and Ash Wednesday and Lent and it all can feel so very heavy.
Michael Curry, retired bishop of the Episcopal Church, in his book Crazy Christians, says this:
I love to sing the hymn that says, “Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea, day by day his clear voice soundeth, saying, ‘Christian follow me.’” Maybe you love to sing it, too. But I’d like to change one word in that first line. I’d like it to read, “Jesus calls us; to the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea.” Because I believe that Jesus calls us not just “o’er” our life’s wild, restless sea, but straight into the middle of that restless, terrifying sea. I believe Jesus calls us, if you will, to join the crew of his lifesaving station and get out on the sea, to rescue those who [are drowning]. Jesus does not call us to serve from the safety of the shore; Jesus calls us to serve in the midst of the storm.”1
Storms seem to have become the norm. And it all feels overwhelming and our efforts seem so inconsequential. But Church, they are not. What we do matters. In our baptismal promises, we are called to “strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” Only recently has it occurred to me that our country and our community are included in “all the earth.” It seems somehow easier (and it is definitely safer) when “all the earth” is over “there,” as opposed to “right here.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The Church is the Church only when it exists for others.”2
And St. Teresa of Avila said:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks [with]
Compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.3
May we be made bold to live and love like Jesus. Stepping into the tumult, in order to help up those the world has shoved down. Person by person by person. May Lent be a time for reflection and consideration of what Jesus would have us do in such a time as this as we strive for justice and peace.
God’s peace and much love ~
+ Pr. Sara
1Michael Curry, Crazy Christians (2013), 67.
2 Ibid, 68
3 Ibid, 83