The View from Bolton Street
E-Church 7/12 9:30am
To join us, all you need to do is click on the link below. We will have the order of service up on the screen to follow along. We recognize that all of us have different levels of comfort with technology - we will do our best to help everyone do what they need to feel comfortable and participate!
Two tips for Zoom worship:
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2) Please mute yourself unless you have a speaking role in the service. And if you find you are muted, please don’t unmute yourself unless asked. However - even when you are muted, please do respond to the prayers and readings, as we are all worshipping together.
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E-Church 7/5 9:30am
To join us, all you need to do is click on the link below. We will have the order of service up on the screen to follow along. We recognize that all of us have different levels of comfort with technology - we will do our best to help everyone do what they need to feel comfortable and participate!
Two tips for Zoom worship:
1) Let us see your face! If at all possible, please start a video feed so we can see each other face to face, even across distance.
2) Please mute yourself unless you have a speaking role in the service. And if you find you are muted, please don’t unmute yourself unless asked. However - even when you are muted, please do respond to the prayers and readings, as we are all worshipping together.
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Welcome Karen Mercer!
As a way of introduction, I will begin with expressing my gratitude and excitement to be with Memorial for my internship. I recently completed Exploring Baptism Ministry( EBM) here in the Maryland Diocese and am a member of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church- Walbrook. Prior to my membership at St. Mary’s, I was a member of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church Baltimore.
I am originally from Clarksville, TN but spent most of my adult life in Indianapolis, IN before moving to the Maryland, D.C., Virginia area in 1999. I am a mother of two wonderful adults, Hope and Michael and have three beautiful grandchildren. I am married to Charles Mercer, the Rector of St. Mary the Virgin.
I am a retired Federal employee, having worked for 29 ½ years primarily in the Department of Health and Human Services. My work history has included working with the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program at HRSA; overseeing grants to cities and states throughout the country and also with the Affordable Care Act at CMS.
I hold a Masters in Pastoral Counseling and recently closed my private practice after 13 years. I have worked with victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, and individuals with various mental health and wellness issues. I am a certified Prepare/Enrich marriage and pre-marital counselor
I have been involved in both St. Mary’s and St. B’s as a lay reader, member of Daughters of the King, and Eucharistic minister. I have developed several small group activities at St. Mary’s, have led Adult Bible Study, Morning Prayers, taught confirmation classes, lead our Back to Church Sunday each year, been involved in Ashes to Go on Ash Wednesday, developed our Blue Christmas service, and coordinated the first ever Women’s Retreat at St. Mary’s.
With all the work I have been blessed to do, I felt there was more God was asking me to do. So rather than continue to be like Martha (as we read in the 10th chapter of Luke), I heard the call to be more like Mary; to be still and listen to Jesus which is what led me to EBM. I am so glad that I took the opportunity to hear God’s call.
During my time in the EBM process, I heard the call to priesthood and am currently on a path toward ordination. In speaking with my mentors from EBM and with Bishop Ihloff, each of them expressed that Memorial would be an appropriate and rewarding parish for me to complete my internship.
I believe my purpose is to proclaim the Gospel, to lead a congregation, to bear witness to others of God’s love for us all. To share the Eucharist with others, to offer a sacred, safe place for those who are hurting is a blessing. I believe God is calling me to assist others to see the gifts God has blessed them with and to journey with them to a place of peace and joy that can only come from the realization of God’s love. I also believe I am in a unique position to lead a multi-cultural congregation and to assist in reconciliation and healing. I know that Memorial will provide me with a first-hand experience of witnessing that type of healing and reconciliation.
The gifts I bring are:
Openness
Exceptional listening skills
A calming presence
Teaching
Facilitation
Administration
Creativity
A thirst for knowledge and application for that knowledge
A love for Christ and the love of Christ
I look forward to this experience and thank you for your warm welcome.
Karen Mercer
E-Church 6/28 9:30am
To join us, all you need to do is click on the link below. We will have the order of service up on the screen to follow along. We recognize that all of us have different levels of comfort with technology - we will do our best to help everyone do what they need to feel comfortable and participate!
Two tips for Zoom worship:
1) Let us see your face! If at all possible, please start a video feed so we can see each other face to face, even across distance.
2) Please mute yourself unless you have a speaking role in the service. And if you find you are muted, please don’t unmute yourself unless asked. However - even when you are muted, please do respond to the prayers and readings, as we are all worshipping together.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84992001341?pwd=QUMvMFYzZU9HQkRLVmxISkVPRGlIQT09
Meeting ID: 849 9200 1341
Password: 563025
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Liturgy & Living, SUNDAY 6/28 10:45 - Shelley Halstead
Liturgy & Living with Shelley Halstead,
founder of Black Women Build,
After worship on Sunday 6/28 at 10:45am
Black Women Build-Baltimore is a home ownership and wealth building initiative that trains black women in carpentry, electrical, and plumbing by restoring vacant and deteriorated houses in West Baltimore.
Black Women Build-Baltimore was founded in 2017 by Shelley Halstead who believes that for black women to build intergenerational wealth, with the inherent security and prosperity it can generate, they must also learn the skills necessary to maintain that wealth. Home ownership and the ability to maintain that asset is one way this can be achieved.
Shelley founded Black Women Build-Baltimore with a strong belief in the power of knowledge, skills and opportunity to shape a woman’s life. She is passionate about creating opportunities for black women to thrive. Using an intersectional framework Black Women Build-Baltimore offers its holistic training program to capable women who are ready for change, and would not otherwise have the opportunity.
Memorial has committed to support Black Women Build, seeking to raise $6,000 to lessen the economic and social divide between black and white Baltimore. (Many of these homes are in the neighborhood around St Katherine's.) The $6,000 will support two women in getting into the program. To contribute CLICK OUR ONLINE DONATION LINK and select “Black Women Build” from the drop-down “Fund” menu.
Topic: Liturgy and Living
Time: Sunday 6/28, 10:45 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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The View From Robert Street
Should Christians take part in ‘Pride’?
This Sunday Memorial Church will celebrate PRIDE Month - with a special service, litany, and maybe even some festive virtual backgrounds. And every year around this time the question comes up... ‘Isn’t pride a SIN?’ And as a Christian who takes sin seriously, here is my response.
First of all. YES, pride as it is biblically understood is unambiguously a sin. All of the New Testament references to pride carry clear negative connotations. And while the Hebrew Scriptures are a bit more balanced, almost always pride is ‘Good’ when God demonstrates it and ‘Bad’ when we do. Even Jesus is pretty clear, reminding us that it is ‘the one who serves’ that is greater. While there is no clear biblical list of ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ - they all have roots in scripture and pride in particular is one we should be mindful of. After all it was pride that led to the Tower of Babel; pride that made Joseph’s brothers throw him in the well; pride that made Saul turn against David and try to kill his friend.
For many Christians that would be it I suppose. Case closed. ‘The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.’ And I confess the Hebrew Scriptures and how they treat pride in particularly are convicting to me. When humankind seeks to take God’s place. To act in God’s stead, that is particularly sinful.
But it is this precise argument that I believe compels Christians to celebrate Pride Month. Because this Pride is not that pride.
Because Pride didn’t start as a community celebration of uniqueness and identity. Pride started as a revolt against a man-made system that told LGBTQ people that they were disordered, wrong, sinful, a scourge on humanity, and worse. Pride started because good people of faith, Christian people, people like you and me, decided to TAKE GOD’S PLACE as judge and arbiter. We decided to systematically demonize and terrorize a sub segment of God’s Creation that is fearfully and wonderfully made. We sought to build our own Tower of Babel to demonstrate our superiority and cast dispersions on those who were not like us. And it wasn’t the first time either. Once upon a time we decided that white was ‘better’ than black. That male was ‘better’ than female. That english was ‘better than’ Latin. Or Greek. Or French. Or Spanish. We sought to subjugate God in God’s self to our own devices and desires and declare that we knew exactly what God wants for gay people. And for us.
In short, Pride started not as a celebration of pride in the LGBT community but as a condemnation of the pride of the American community. That Pride celebrations are still necessary so many years later should serve as a continued indictment of our blindness in the Christian world to our fellow siblings in Christ who so desire the love of God and of God’s Church and who we continue to leave on the margins. In 2016, I marched in the Pride parade in Jerusalem. They had to wall off the parade route because they were afraid of violent attacks. Every year in America we see stories about communities large and small hosting their first ever Pride events; the first time that people have felt the freedom to be honest about who they are or who they love. Freedom because it was almost always Christians who mocked, derided, castigated them... or worse.
I don’t expect most Christians who read this to agree with me. I recognize that as a pastor in a denomination that fully includes LGBTQ members in all of the sacraments including ordination I am in the minority, and as the pastor of a church with a significant percentage of the congregation who self identify as part of the LGBTQ community I am in an even smaller minority. I don’t expect the rest of the Christian world to wake up tomorrow and suddenly decide to be radically inclusive of the entirety of the LGBTQ community (though Jesus would truly delight in that!)
But I do hope that all Christians would see Pride Month as a time to practice their own humility. That they would remember that Tennessee Williams was attacked in 1979 after a Baptist Minister encouraged violence against the gay community. That Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder were killed by two Christian men who were ‘serving their creator’ and defended by their pastor at trial. That Sean Kennedy was killed, in 2007, in South Carolina for being gay, and was defended by a pastor who attacked Sean’s family for being a threat to the Church. That it was Christian hate that made Pride a necessity. That ‘Pride’ began as a protest against the sin of pride in the Christian community.
If you are a Christian who thinks that ‘Pride’ is wrong I agree with you. The pride that has allowed us - as a people who profess to follow a God of Love and Compassion - to look the other way as Christians hate, discriminate, attack and kill children of God because of who they are or because of who they love is absolutely sinful and needs to end. So I will attend, and participate, in Pride this year in Baltimore because as Christians we must break down the hate that divides and separates all of us from the knowledge and love of God. In the Gospels, Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus. When the rich man dies and ends up in Heaven he commands Lazarus, who he ignored, beat and starved his whole life, to get him a drop of water. But the Rich man found out as he stood up and looked at Lazarus, that ‘a Great Chasm is fixed’ between us - and that God and the prophets were on the side of Lazarus and the rich proud man was alone. I know that Jesus is always on the side of the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the hurting and the lost. And thats where I plan to be on Saturday, and for as long as I can after.
TIME CHANGE: E-Church 6/21 9:30am
Meet our guest preacher, Lauren Banks Killelea!
Lauren Banks Killelea is entering her senior year as a seminarian at Virginia Theological Seminary and is also the Director of Policy and Advocacy for the National AIDS Housing Coalition (NAHC). At NAHC she focuses her work on federal funding and policy for housing and HIV programs as a means to end the HIV epidemic. A lifelong Episcopalian, where is a native of Alabama where she worked as Chief Policy Officer of AIDS Alabama on state HIV policy, housing, and healthcare access. She also worked as an economic justice community organizer and worked with young adults on anti-racism and volunteerism. Lauren is a poet and has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Lauren lives with her wife and their two children in Alexandria, Virginia. She hopes to be ordained as an Episcopal priest in the coming year.
To join us, all you need to do is click on the link below. We will have the order of service up on the screen to follow along. We recognize that all of us have different levels of comfort with technology - we will do our best to help everyone do what they need to feel comfortable and participate!
Two tips for Zoom worship:
1) Let us see your face! If at all possible, please start a video feed so we can see each other face to face, even across distance.
2) Please mute yourself unless you have a speaking role in the service. And if you find you are muted, please don’t unmute yourself unless asked. However - even when you are muted, please do respond to the prayers and readings, as we are all worshipping together.
Join Zoom Meeting
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Liturgy and Living - Monday 6/15 6:00pm - "Just Mercy" Film Discussion
Liturgy and Living: 6/15 - “Just Mercy” Film Discussion
The film ‘Just Mercy’, based on the book by Bryan Stevenson, is a powerful reminder of the kind of systematic inequality present in our justice system, the same inequality that is driving protests all across the country.
The movie is currently streaming for free on Amazon, Google play, and Youtube. On most websites you will "rent" the movie for free.
Please watch the film on your own between now and Monday, when we will have a discussion led by Grey Maggiano and Natalie Conway at 6:00 pm on 6/15.
Click here to watch Just Mercy on Youtube
Topic: Liturgy and Living
Time: Jun 15, 2020 06:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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The View From Robert St
On Sunday we will read these two verses from Psalm 116
I love the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplication, *because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him.
How shall I repay the Lord * For all the good things he has done for me?
Now these are verses 1 and 10 of the psalm, but due to the infinite wisdom of the creators of the lectionary, we will read them in succession on Sunday, skipping the verses in between. Usually I would sneer at such a gap, but this week it feels appropriate; for these words are true for me.
I Love the Lord because God has heard my voice in a time of need, and so I am constantly asking that question - “How shall I repay the Lord?” Sometimes my answers are better than others.
Now that might not be your story today. As a city and a country we are overwhelmed by voices crying out that have not been heard. Voices for whom no ear as been inclined, no balm been offered. For whom ‘the good things’ seem very far off.
Whether it is because they are alone and scared in a Hospital with COVID 19; terrified for a family member who is ill and whom they can’t see; suddenly unemployed and hungry and scared about what comes next; fearful of police or vigilante violence directed at them because of the color of their skin; or the many many voices crying out saying ‘Black lives matter’; hoping that by yelling loud enough it will one day be true.
This week may be a good time to evaluate where you are in this spectrum today. Are you able to rejoice in good things? Are you glad indeed? Or are you still crying out asking for relief, for justice, for dignity, for hope?
If you are like me - and you Love the Lord because the Lord has heard your cries — this is a good week to spend some time listening to someone else’s cries. The cries for a just justice system, the cries for an end to system racism, the cries for more testing, more economic assistance, more access to healthcare, or simply the cry to be heard that is resonating in so many communities right now.
What do those cries call you to? Deeper prayer? Concrete action? Donating money? Poetry? Letters to the Editor? Whatever it is, listen to that voice, for it might just be God speaking to you.
And if you have found no relief? If you feel like your cries are falling on deaf ears. If you wonder where that balm in Gilead is, or are just trying to find Gilead on the map — welcome. Memorial is a community that listens and hears you, loves you and seeks to care for you, and want better for you and for all of us. God does hear, but sometimes God’s hands and feet are slow to move. Perhaps now is the time for us to do so.
E-Church 6/14 10:30am
To join us, all you need to do is click on the link below. We will have the order of service up on the screen to follow along. We recognize that all of us have different levels of comfort with technology - we will do our best to help everyone do what they need to feel comfortable and participate!
Two tips for Zoom worship:
1) Let us see your face! If at all possible, please start a video feed so we can see each other face to face, even across distance.
2) Please mute yourself unless you have a speaking role in the service. And if you find you are muted, please don’t unmute yourself unless asked. However - even when you are muted, please do respond to the prayers and readings, as we are all worshipping together.
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 852 9603 5556
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Meeting ID: 876 9436 6639
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