Category Archives: community

Singleness & Marriage – Trinity Cathedral Young Adults

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This subject matter deserves all kinds of reflection and discussion (which is why it’s taken me a week to even make a draft of this post…), but in the interest of trying to say something rather than nothing, here’s a little recap of our conversation at Trinity last week, some passages we considered, and a video to stir into the mix as well.

Thinking about singleness and marriage brought up discussion about divorce, loneliness, cultural perceptions and expectations about marriage, singleness, and divorce, and concerns about intimate relationships in the church community.

Our conversation about loneliness considered technology’s impact on our culture, especially our close, or intimate, relationships; this video supplements the discussion we had very well.

With respect to marriage and divorce, we talked about the sacramental commitment made during a wedding service, and how little this covenant is discussed and emphasized in our culture–perhaps taking marriage less seriously than we ought is part of the reason for our divorce rate (though, we noted quickly, the covenant takes two people, and sometimes one is much more commitment to the sacrament than the other, and also that because we are imperfect humans, we can and do hurt each other beyond the point of relational repair sometimes, which causes divorce too).  (a sermon from last year on the subject)

Finally, and perhaps most fruitfully, we talked about how counter-cultural the church is and ought to be with respect to community.  Our blood relations aren’t our be-all, end-all “tribe” if we are Christians; our brothers and sisters in baptism are our family.  They are just as important as any person who happens to share our genes–it’s a truth that tended to mean a lot to those of us at the event who either didn’t have much family left, or didn’t have family nearby.

In sum…

We wondered:

How does being a Christian affect your life as a single person or as a married person?

How is the church counter-cultural when it comes to community?

What are we made for, as humans?

We looked at:

Matthew 19, Mark 10

Genesis 2

1 Corinthians 7

(what do YOU think?)

Whose Children Are They?

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“That which we have heard and known, and what our forefathers have told us, we will not hide from their children.” (Ps. 78:3, BCP 694)

A few years ago, while in seminary, a friend of mine and his wife welcomed their first child.  In a facebook status post soon after the birth, he said something to the effect of, “God has entrusted this child to us–he is God’s child, not ours.”  It’s stuck with me, and the sentiment in the psalm appointed for Morning Prayer today echoes my friend’s wisdom.

The speaker in this verse sounds like the generation caught in the middle, the generation of parents is very much keeping the children they bear in trust for their own elders.  Children belong not to their individual parents, but to the tribe in which they were born.  It’s not even up to the parents whether they pass along the faith and truth with which they’ve been entrusted–to teach the young about God is simply what parents owe to their own parents and forebears.

Have you ever thought of your children (or siblings, or kids at your church, or elsewhere in your life) as simply being entrusted to you by God or by your whole lineage of ancestors?  The world feels a lot more like a family when we think about our children collectively.

Bible Study Notes (Isaiah 13:1-16)

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On Mondays, a women’s Bible Study meets at my home; we’ve been winding our way through Isaiah this year, taking as much time as we can to turn the Word over in our hearts and dig into this prophet’s message for our own day.  Here are some of our gathered thoughts from this week:

The LORD declares war on the tyrants and oppressors, raising his own army to fight them (v.3,11); God is angry and fierce and full of wrath (v.9).  How does this jibe with the God we know whose “property is always to have mercy”?  (BCP 337)  We know that God is holy (this is one of the main themes of Isaiah), and so to look at this passage through God’s property of holiness, we may find that his “property” is holiness, and when holiness comes into contact–“reacts” (to use chemical jargon)–with sin and evil, the result is anger and wrath.  We throw ourselves on God’s mercy, knowing we are unworthy, depending fervently on Christ’s sacrifice to reconcile us to God.

What of the violent language used?  “war” and “armies” and “tyrants” and “fighting”?  How is this the same God who we know through Jesus Christ, who told us to put down our swords?  A clever woman amongst us (not me!) mused that this was the sort of language, the sort of bluff-calling, that was necessary to communicate effectively with Isaiah’s audience.  The tyrants and oppressors–the kings being addressed–say, “I have great armies and strong bulwarks, no one can touch me!  I am like god!”  God replies to them, “No no no–‘I myself have… summoned my warriors (v.3).’  Don’t be mistaken, there’s only one God, and it’s not you.”  Perhaps God earns respect with the kings by playing tough–speaking the truth in language prideful tyrants will understand.

Isaiah isn’t so cut-and-dry that we see those (pointing fingers) evil tyrants over there, and we are the holy people trusting in God over here.  We’re exempt.  We each have bits of hardness in us, no matter how much we love and trust God.  We’ll never stop being sinners, and we come to God again and again with our hardness and limitations–especially in our weakness and self-deception (which are times when we don’t come to God at all!).

The thing is, we live in America, we (attendees, and probably most readers…) are white and upper-middle class, we are educated and we have voices that “matter.”  We wield a staggering amount of power in our society, mostly because of our socio-economic status and because of our degree of education.  What is it that we’re doing or not doing with our power that may be making us tyrants?

 

why we should dress up to go to church.

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In August, I drove to Ohio to visit my family for a weekend and to collect the dishes my grandmother had designated for me 12 years before, when she died.  After more than a decade, I had a stable enough (read: not-a-dorm-room!) home in which to keep and use these family heirlooms.  Though we have sturdy and colorful Fiestaware, I looked forward to using this set on weekends, on days I felt extra low, special occasions, and any time I longed to feel close to my grandmother and my family again.  Especially in a time when many kids move away from ancestral homes and lands, objects like these taken on extra meaning and reverence.

I remember Thanksgiving with these dishes (I’m talking specifically about the dinner plates/serving bowl in the photo above); just seeing them immediately makes me think of my grandmother, her home, how I felt when I was there, and by extension, the rest of my family.  In a way, when eating on these dishes, I’m eating with my family–we’ve shared meals on these plates and pieces.

This is the same thing that’s going on in church–this is why Episcopalians and Roman Catholics and other churches of “high” liturgy use silver-plated goblets and plates, and why they use fine linen napkins and tablecloths.  First, the meal that we join together to eat each Sunday (or whenever you go to church and enjoy a Eucharist) is an important meal, it is a meaningful meal–like Thanksgiving, or someone’s birthday, or the night the boss comes to dinner.  Second, just like the special dishes that remind me of my family and ancestors, our special silver chalice & paten (cup & plate) are reminders of the Christians who have worshiped God for generations before us, in that very church–they were bought or given by them and passed down through the generations of Christians called to be Christ’s church in a particular place; they’re heirlooms (metal lasts longer than clay or porcelain, let alone gold’s anti-bacterial properties–spurious or not, this comforts me).  Third, we believe that somehow, this bread and this wine is different than the stuff you pick up at the grocery store, and if it is different, if it is in some way Christ’s Body and Blood, then we ought to treat it with some care, and putting it on sturdy, beautiful, set-aside-for-that-use serving-ware seems like a good way to denote its importance.

Therefore, we dress up.  What I mean is that if we notice the importance of particular meals in our daily lives (Thanksgiving, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas (!!)), ought we not remember the Last Supper in the same way?  A way for each of us to respond to God’s call to us is to present our best to him–our best clothes, for one thing.  Of course, God doesn’t love us less if we show up unshowered and with jeans on, nor does he talk about us behind our back with the Son and Holy Spirit; however, dressing up for church is a way of putting some of our own skin into the game, so to speak.  God does not require it!–but God does desire a contrite heart (and since we are not just hearts, but bodies, our clothing and how we use our bodies can be an offering and symbol of our contrition and honor and love for God).