Beloved in Christ,

When I was seven, I was hospitalized several times in a short period for a respiratory illness that was much more serious than I had any ability to appreciate at the time. I remember very little from those days in the hospital. I remember the image of my grandmother sitting in a chair next to my bed, and I remember when Pastor Van from First Lutheran Church came to visit. I found it supremely odd that the church pastor would stop by the hospital to see me. I don’t remember a single word he said. I don’t even remember what he looked like. But I remember him being there. His presence, and my grandmother’s steady kindness, have left large and lasting imprints on the shape of my whole life. Two ordinary moments, with ordinary people, exercising ordinary kindness, are among the most durable memories I carry with me.

In these present days, when there is so much pain, and fear, and anger swirling in all directions and from all sides, it is so easy to get hooked into thinking that being a force for good and hope must involve big actions fueled by righteous anger. When I find myself going to that place, as I often do, when I get tricked into thinking following Jesus is about trying to win a battle rather than participate in God’s project to heal the world with love, it’s helpful to remember that my grandmother and Pastor Van helped shape my whole life by small, almost forgettable acts of gentle kindness.

In our reading from 2 Timothy this week, the writer urges us to “be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable.” If it feels like the world is falling apart, it’s because it is, and it nearly ever has been. Our work is not to stop it from falling apart. Our work is not to be the most right and impose a new order on the falling apart world. Our job, when the weather is good and when it is very bad, is to be persistent in gentle kindness. Our job is to keep showing up in our very small communities that are dedicated to showing up as God’s gentle kindness in the world. Jesus did not take the falling apart world by angry force. He met it, as he meets it still, with persistent gentle kindness. And the resurrection we affirm as real each and every Sunday settles forever that God’s persistent gentle kindness is the most powerful force in the universe.

The kingdom of God is not ours to engineer or to impose. Rather, just as the Lake Superior tributaries have carved out the canyons that hallow and transform yet another part of our beautiful Minnesota, so our persistent gentle kindness, through small communities over a long arc, when caught up in the resurrection’s power, will flood the whole earth, and make all things new through the glorious power of love.

Grace and Peace,

 
The Right Reverend Craig Loya
Bishop X
Episcopal Church in Minnesota

Tags: Bishop Loya, kindness, anger

Friends,

Yesterday, I preached on a difficult text in the Gospel of Luke, in which Jesus says, "I came not to bring peace, but division." His exasperation, anger, and impatience are on display. We often have strong reactions to texts in which God/Jesus seem angry or judgmental -- many of us have been taught to internalize those words as shame. Many of us have been taught that those words are precisely why you shouldn't bother with Christianity anyway. In the sermon, I asked listeners to consider why Jesus was so frustrated, why people seemed to react with division to his message of peace, and how we let our own frustration and anger be a guide for our participation in the way of love. I shared a spiritual practice (hat tip to David O'Fallon, who shared it with me a few weeks ago) that can help us connect with those feelings and perhaps use them as a compass. You can find it below.

To catch up on that and other recent sermons, click here.

Along with that practice of entering our impatience and anger, people of the way of Jesus get to claim a radical hope. As our bishop put it recently:

"As followers of Jesus and heirs of God’s promise to Abraham, our call in this moment is to stand in the face of that cynicism as people of outrageous, even laughable, hope. Our call is to help lift heads hung heavy by the weight of death, injustice, and suffering, that we might all consider the stars, and make a choice to cling to nothing more, and nothing less, than the promise, most fully revealed in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, that love’s power to bring in God’s perfect reign exceeds even their seemingly endless number. Can we live in this moment with Sarah’s defiant joy, Abraham’s absurd hope, and a fierce commitment to God’s better way, anchored in an unimaginably vast horizon of hope?"

You can read the rest of his message here.

Susan+

—Spiritual Practice
Honoring the Ache | from The Rev. Cameron Trimble at Piloting Faith

This week, choose one grief you’re carrying for the world. Name it clearly. Then, without trying to solve it or suppress it, spend 5–10 minutes each day simply sitting with it.

Place your hand on your heart. Breathe into the ache. Ask: What does this pain teach me about what I love?

Then, write one sentence each day that affirms that love—something you want to protect, preserve, or praise in this world.

Let your heartbreak become a compass.

Tags: anger, Judgement, Rev Susan