From the Rector

A follow-up to my special message after the 2025 Annual Meeting
 
My dear family in Christ,
 
My deepest thanks to all of you who reached out to me in response to my post-Annual Meeting message last week.  The energy and enthusiasm that our parish meeting and my subsequent reflections about the path ahead seem to be generating are exciting! We are already exploring opportunities to make spaces in our building available to different groups in our community who are doing work we’d like to support (and who might be able to help contribute to our parish via rent or donation), and we’re hoping to get very creative this year about putting ourselves out into the larger community around us.
 
This week, I wanted to offer a follow-up to one of the points that I emphasized in my message last week:  that we at All Saints have something that so many people in the neighborhoods and communities around us are truly hungry and thirsty for -- we have Jesus!  What I mean is that, as Episcopal Christians and as heir and stewards of the Anglican branch of the Christian Faith, we bear an authentic witness to the life, death, resurrection, and teachings of Jesus Christ as first received by the Apostles, and as guarded and preserved by the Church for two millennia. 
 
In many ways, this Jesus whom we know and seek to follow now seems rather distinct from (if not in outright contrast to) the false images of Jesus that fill up our popular culture.  Here’s an example:  part of the backlash to Bishop Budde’s homily at the National Cathedral (in which she implored the most powerful man on Earth to practice mercy towards the least powerful and most vulnerable peoples in our society) included a number of religious leaders and teachers sharing warnings against the “sin of empathy.”  Folks, there is no such thing as “sin of empathy.”  Empathy is not a sin!  It is, on the contrary, the heart of the Gospel and the key to the entire message of Holy Scripture.
 
But people who don’t know the Scriptures, who haven’t been brought up in the Christian faith and teachings of the last two thousand years, might not know that.  And if all they hear, out in public or on social media, are the rants and pontifications of self-proclaimed ministers about the “sin of empathy” … and they therefore think that’s what Jesus is all about, they will almost certainly reject Jesus and Christianity.
 
Unless someone shows them a better alternative.  A truer, more authentic Christianity, with empathy for the suffering of others not just as an allowed option, but rather as the key to the entire faith.  People are actually hungry for that Jesus! 
 
And that is the Jesus we know and seek to follow here at All Saints.  That is the Gospel we proclaim every week, all year long.  That is what we have to invite people to come be part of.
 
On the idea of inviting people to come to church with us as a challenge and a goal for 2025, let me also say this:  you don’t have to feel like you have all the answers in order to invite someone to come to church with you.  Heck, you don’t have to feel like you have any answers!  One of the great “selling points” of All Saints, and of The Episcopal Church, is that we are a place where it is not only safe but actually encouraged to ask questions and explore, even challenge, ideas! 
 
You might invite a friend to come to church, and your friend might say, “Well, I don’t know if I believe all that stuff, y’know?  I’m not sure I believe any of it.”  If that happens, let your friend know that that is a perfect place to start.  “Come to church and bring your questions, doubts, skepticism, and everything with you!”  Let them know that our parish community is a place where you don’t have to be certain about anything, and you can ask whatever questions you want.  If your friend asks you questions about Jesus, or the Bible, or anything church-related and you don’t know the answers, invite them to come to church with you to ask and explore.
 
I’ve said in many sermons that we can’t share what we don’t have.  I stand by that truth.  Maybe you’ve never (yet) had a life-transforming encounter with Jesus like our beloved sister, Faith Sealy, had and so often shared with others.  Most folks haven’t.  But what do we have?  If what we have are questions and doubts, then that’s what we can share with other people out in the larger community who are dealing with questions and doubts.  You never know how healing it might be for someone to discover that … they are not the only ones with questions and doubts!
 
And if you have happened to have a dramatic encounter with the risen Christ, then let’s definitely share that with folks, too! : )
 
The point is, inviting people to come to church with us doesn’t require us to be fanatics, or to feel or act like we have all the answers.  It doesn’t require us to be anything other than who and what we actually are, and to share a little bit of ourselves with other folks.  If we can train ourselves to do that as a regular practice, I think we’ll be in for an amazing journey in 2025 and beyond!
 
Peace & blessings,
Christopher+

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