The View from Bolton Street
Dear Parish Family,
I am excited about the start of our Lenten Supper Church activity tonight! I’ll open the Upper Parish Hall early, so you can come in as early as 5:30PM to bring whatever is your contribution for supper, and then we’ll get started at 6PM. In addition to what I hope will be a sweet time of fellowship and a simple supper, we will be celebrating Holy Eucharist as an integral part of the meal. Daviedra and I will teach you some new and simple songs as we go along, and we will go without bulletins by using projected images of the music and simple liturgy.
We will have a short reading from one of Martin Luther King Jr’s sermons, and we will conclude at 7:15pm. As always, we can use a little help setting up and cleaning up afterward.
The purpose of these programs is to enjoy one another’s company and perhaps get to know someone a bit better with whom you have not had conversation before. But the Lenten Supper Church gatherings have an additional purpose. I hope you will come to see every meal shared with another person as a holy meal. While the ritual meal of Holy Eucharist is central to our worship in the Anglican tradition, my opinion is that when Jesus distributed the bread and wine to his friends in the upper room, he really meant “whenever you do this, do it in remembrance of me.” I think Jesus wished that whenever the disciples took nourishment together they should think of him and how he nourished them with the spiritual food of living water. I believe that is meant for us as well.
My hope for you is that the Holy Eucharist will become internalized, and you will be nourished routinely by sharing a meal with a community that loves you.
So off we go, into the wilderness with Jesus…
Love,
Pan +
The View from Bolton Street
Dear Parish Family,
You may think I am writing these E-Pistles only for you, but the opportunity to reflect on the Holy Scriptures really grounds me. Time in prayer and reflection is a gift that God has invited us to receive, and I am grateful for that respite each day.
On this day, I am thinking of Moses, whose face shone because he had been talking with God. I wonder…would someone be able to tell from looking with me that I have been talking with God?
When I was in high school, I was very active in the youth group at my church. We had a huge songbook, and I loved these songs. One of the favorites, “We are one in the Spirit,” had a memorable refrain “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, and they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
We are taught that the sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. I wonder…does our sacramental theology leave room for the possibility that we are also living sacraments—outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace? I wonder if the canonical sacraments are meant to remind us that WE are God’s living sacramental gifts?
Clearly I have music on my mind today, because I would point you to another song, “This little light of mine.” I commend this article about the song’s origins: https://balladofamerica.org/this-little-light-of-mine/. This song is a defiant declaration that “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
This is a time when we need to turn up the light. It would be a sorrowful thing for Church in America to leave a legacy that Christians are known for their white Christian nationalism rather than our love and our light. Shine on, people!
Love and Light,
Pan +
