Week after week, we will cry out: Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! We say these words when they reflect our own joy, and we also say them as a resistance to the nihilistic voice in this world trying to pull us into deathly despair.
Welcome Home!
Welcome Home Sunday is more than just an invitation for those who have been away to come back to church; it is an invitation for all of us to come home to God. St. Augustine said “our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God.” Welcome Home Sunday is not just about joining us physically or virtually for a worship service and some fellowship time; it is a day set aside to reflect on our spiritual lives and to try and rest our hearts in God.
Read Bingham’s entire reflection by clicking “read more.”
Perseverance and Imagination
Fifty Days of Easter
I encourage you to celebrate Easter as profoundly as you embrace Lent. It is quite common to take on a Lenten practice or two. These practices in Lent help us to fulfill the invitation at Ash Wednesday to observe Lent “by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.” These practices are wonderful; I have been spiritually nourished by them over the years. I wonder sometimes, though, if we should consider adopting Easter practices. Not practices of fasting, but of feasting. Not practices of asceticism, but practices of flourishing. Not practices of inward self-examination, but ones that make us look outward, reaching out to one another, connecting and deepening relationships, seeking new life through Christ’s resurrection.
Read Bingham’s entire reflection by clicking “Read More.”
Reflections on Lent
Lent is upon us. The forty days of Lent are modeled on the Jesus’ 40 days in the desert, preparing himself for ministry. We take these 40 days to prepare ourselves for the central moment of our faith: Easter. Early in the life of the Church, Christians would set aside this time before Easter to prepare themselves with acts of fasting, charity, prayer, and study. In other words, to work on their “holy habits.”
To read Bingham’s entire reflection, click “Read More.”
What time of day is it for our community?
At a recent gathering of clergy, we were asked the following question: What time of day is it for your community? One person said that it felt like it was five minutes before midnight. Another said it was five minutes after midnight. One person said it was high noon. My response was dawn. Here’s why.
Rector's Closing Thoughts: Rest and Refreshment
Rector's Closing Thoughts: Drawing Closer to God
As we begin our third pandemic Lent, I’m feeling like the pandemic is more akin to the forty years the Israelites wandered in the wilderness than the forty days that Jesus spent out in the desert! And yet, one of the great themes of Lent is that God is with us through the difficult times. God taught Noah how to build an ark for the stormy forty days. God nourished and guided the Israelites for those forty arduous years of struggle and longing. The angels tended to Jesus during those forty days of deprivation and temptation.
To read Bingham’s entire article, which was originally printed in the Lent Bellringer, click “Read More.”
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is an Advent movie?
After setting all of the clocks, they have 37 seconds remaining. Mahoney says, “Great, well done. Now we wait.” Mr. Magorium responds, “No. We breathe. We pulse. We regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. Thirty-seven seconds, well used, is a lifetime.”
Click “Read More” to read Bingham’s entire Advent reflection.
Happy Pentecost
“The Holy Spirit is about life. In Hebrew, Greek, and Latin the word for spirit and the word for breath are the same. In the ancient story of creation, God breathed life into Adam, God gave him Spirit. Just as breathing is necessary for us to live physically, the Spirit is necessary for us to live spiritually. When the Spirit is mentioned in scripture, it is about giving life, about empowering, about liberating people from death and destruction. Living spiritually is about a life attuned to the life-giving divine action at work in this world. And it is about helping others do the same, allowing for the flourishing of all of humanity and creation.”
Click “Read more” to read Bingham’s entire Pentecost reflection.
A Season of Hope
Epiphany - A Season of Integration
The Practice of Showing Up
Summer has been a great time to practice sabbath, that gift of rest that God built into the very order of creation. Embracing summer as the practice of sabbath allows it to be a time of rejuvenation and renewal. The pace is a bit slower. School is out. Many take vacation. Some travel. I love summer, but there is a downside: I miss everyone! I am gone more, you are gone more.
Sharing Our Faith Experiences
May Only God's Word Be Spoken
An Easter practice
Lent isn’t the only time we could adopt practices to deepen our faith. This month, we will also begin the 50-day season of Easter. I have been wondering lately about the idea of taking on a practice for Easter. What would an Easter practice look like? If our Lenten practices reflect time in the desert with Jesus, an Easter practice would somehow reflect the resurrection and post-resurrection life with Jesus. An Easter practice would reflect new life, helping ourselves and others flourish. An Easter practice would bring us closer together to other people, fostering friendship and reconciliation. An Easter practice would help us live into the baptismal covenant.
Giving Up and Taking On - Lent
During Lent, people usually take on special practices to help grow in their faith. Traditionally, these include fasting, prayer, reading Scripture or spiritual books, and giving alms to help those in need. Sometimes people talk about these as practices of “giving up” and “taking on.” We engage in practices of “giving up” to make more room in our life for God; we engage in practices of “taking on” to fill that space with something that draws us closer to God.
Reconciliation
I have been thinking a lot about sin and confession lately. No, not because I have done anything particularly wrong recently. I have just been a run-of-the-mill sinner like most of us. Rather, it was on my mind because I was invited to go talk to one of the youth Sunday School classes about the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which is often colloquially called Confession.
Christian Practices
Practices are informed by beliefs, but go deeper. They are a way of understanding faith that is more grounded in action, what we do regularly and intentionally to live our faith. At their best, practices shape our lives and nourish our faith. At their best, practices help humanity and all of creation to flourish. At their best, practices are little inbreakings of the Kingdom of God.
On Fellowship
Fellowship isn’t just good because it supports other ministry. Fellowship is good in its own right. We need a Theology of Fellowship that reminds us that Jesus called us into friendship with him and with each other. Friendship entails being together not only while working together, but while celebrating and relaxing. Fellowship is about deepening relationship.
