Septuagesima Sunday - Rector's Rambling for 2/16/2025

     As human beings constrained to time and space, we are “calendar” people.  In other words, we are people who keep time.  The Church Year helps us to do that.  We started with Advent and then had Christmastide and Epiphanytide, and now have yet another new season, known as the Gesimas.

This is the Pre-Lenten season, which you can read more about in the teaching notes on page 4.  We are using three weeks to ease into the full-on onslaught of Lent.

At first thought I would say that I don’t want to be scheduled, but in reality I crave having a set framework to work within.  The looseness of scheduling of pastoral needs and emergencies is guided by the firm scheduling of the Daily Offices and Daily Holy Communion Service.  Having the regularity of the later helps to form and inform the former.  I do that part of my vocation better because I am regular about prayer.

And even though life can be hectic, and unexpected surprises can throw one for a loop
, the regularity of the calendar keeps me focused on the big picture, and well as all the little things contained in it.

The Pre-Lent, Lent, and Passiontide seasons are a perfect example of this.  We know that Easter is April 20 this year.  Ash Wednesday is March 5.  We have from now until Ash Wednesday to prepare for Lent, the first five weeks of Lent to be thorough about our devotion and self-evaluation, and then it gets ramped up another notch when we get into Passiontide (the two weeks before Easter).  And then we have the uber-intensity of the Sacrum Triduum (three Holy Days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday) to take us to the finish line!

In the coming weeks the liturgy will reflect these different stages: purple vestments, disappearance at different stages of the “alleluias”, the Glory be to God on High, choir and server surplices and cottas, and flowers on the altar.  Eventually the “Gloria be to the Father…” goes away and we are faced with the starkness of those last days.  Be ready to follow along as we head toward the Resurrection!

 

Absalom Jones - Rector's Rambling for February 9, 2025

     On Thursday we celebrate Absalom Jones, the first black American ordained priest in the Episcopal Church.  Following is a biography of  him, cobbled together from www.satucket.com and 1997 Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

"In 1786 the membership of St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia included both blacks and whites. However, the white members met that year and decided that thereafter black members should sit only in the balcony. Two black Sunday worshippers, Absalom Jones (1746-1818) and Richard Allen (1760-1831), whose enthusiasm for the Methodist Church had brought many blacks into the congregation, learned of the decision only when, on the following Sunday, ushers tapped them on the shoulder during the opening prayers, and demanded that they move to the balcony without waiting for the end of the prayer. They walked out, followed by the other black members. 

     Absalom Jones conferred with William White, Episcopal Bishop of Philadelphia, who agreed to accept the group as an Episcopal parish. Jones would serve as lay reader, and, after a period of study, would be ordained a deacon (1795) and a priest (1802) and serve as rector. Allen wanted the group to remain Methodist, and in 1793 he left to form a Methodist congregation. In 1816 he left the Methodists to form a new denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).

 Jones was an earnest preacher.  He denounced slavery, and warrned the oppressors to “clean their hands of slaves.”  To him, God was the Father who always acted on “behalf of the oppressed and distressed.”  But it was his constant visiting and mild manner that made him beloved by his own flock and by the community.  St. Thomas Church grew to over 500 members during its first year. . . Jones was an example of persistent faith in God and in the Church as God’s instrument."

 St. Thomas African Episcopal Church continues to this day as a congregation in Philadelphia, their website being  www.aecst.org.  Today (February 9) at 4 PM Christ Church in Detroit is hosting the diocesan Absalom Jones celebration and all are invited.

 

APM then and now - Rector's Rambling for January 26, 2025

     Today we have our 165th Annual Parish meeting after the 10 AM Service in the Undercroft here at St. John’s.

The First Annual Parish Meeting occurred on Monday, November 21, 1859.  The chapel, having been consecrated the Thursday before, the Vestry and Wardens had to be formally re-elected, and pew rents set for the year.  

Until 1937 St. John’s, like most parishes, had a system where you rented the pew for the year, rather than the passing of a collection plate.  Once this could be established then a budget could be set by the Vestry.  At that first meeting they ran into a unique problem.  The new chapel, which sat 125 people, had an initial request to pew rental by 600 people!  The first building they hoped would serve a growing parish out in the parish for the first 5 to 10 years was already too small!  A week later the Vestry voted to begin fundraising to build the larger church building, and our grand church was completed 20 months later! 

At that first meeting Henry Porter Baldwin, who had donated the land, blueprints for the chapel and church, the former rectory, and considerable funds for the founding and building of our parish, was re-elected Senior Warden, a position he would hold for a total of 34 years until his death in 1892 (current church canons allow for a 3 year term, with at least a year off between terms).  He served as Senior Warden even while in Lansing in as the governor of Michigan, and in Washington, DC while in serving in the U.S. Senate.

We gather today in thanksgiving for another year of worship and service to God and his people.  Once again we see that the bills have been paid and we have a budget based on faith and hope that our Lord will continue to direct the parish in how we should glorify Him and serve Him as we come to know Christ and make Him known from this corner of Woodward Avenue in Detroit.

 

Rector's Report to the 165th Annual Parish Meeting - January 26, 2025

 Rector’s Report to the Annual Parish Meeting

January 26, 2025

 

                As Christians and as Churchman, we thank GOD for our strong assurance and conviction, drawn on past history, that the Protestant Episcopal Church, for whose communion this building will be reared, is so grounded on the one foundation, JESUS CHRIST, so true to Him, in the ministry, the doctrine, the Liturgy, the sacred year, the entire system which she has inherited; so careful of His complete Gospel; holding each and every part thereof, in its own due proportion and harmony; that however we and those who shall follow us may prove unworthy of her and of her Lord, among all the changes and chances of this world, she will remain, in all essential things unchanged.

 – Fr. William Armitage, St. John’s Cornerstone Dedication 1860

 

2024 has been for me a year of recollection.  In May I celebrated the 30^th Anniversary of having Holy Orders bestowed upon me, and with the retirement of one of my classmates in June I became the last member of my seminary class still in active ministry in the Episcopal Church.  In June I attended my 40^th high school reunion, seeing many men I haven’t seen since we were students in Orchard Lake.  In November Jennifer and I celebrated our 30^th wedding anniversary.  How have the years gone by so quickly?

By God’s grace I am completing my 24^th year as the Rector of St. John’s and continue as the longest serving priest in this diocese in the same position.  It seems like just yesterday that I mounted the pulpit here for the first time, Quinquagesima Sunday, and prayed that God would bless our time together.  He certainly has.  And who would have imagined all the remarkable things that have happened in our parish, neighborhood, and country since February 2001.           

We see from the reports in this booklet the many active things that the ministries in this parish has accomplished.  Outreach, Social Events, and Educational Opportunities are natural appendages to what is our primary purpose – to glorify God by worshipping Him, to come to know Him better, and to share the good news with others. 

The worship at St. John’s is sublime with our choir supporting the timeless Anglican cadence of prayer and praise of the Book of Common Prayer.  The social time after worship, as well as special events uplifts and encourages us.  Sunday School, the Alpha Course, Adult Education (Dante’s Inferno), and the Daily Morning Mediations are wonderful opportunities to learn the faith.  Our outreach work through things like the Baby Shower for Pregnancy Aid, Support of the Church in Malawi, support for local ministries through the Outreach Committee, the School Supplies gathering and October Food and Coat Drive, the Giving Tree and Warm Fuzzy Tree in support of Georgia Street Community Collective are all remarkable ways that we look outside ourselves to aid others in gratitude for all the blessings God has bestowed upon us.  2024 was a remarkable year for all of the above. 

Also this past year I have been involved in the community development planning for projects that could make a major impact on the neighborhood around St. John’s.  Plans are moving forward to place a cap over I-75 next to the church and other parts of the freeway nearby, making green space and walking space over the concrete chasm.  Planning is also underway for a complete rebuild of I-75 involving the removal of I-375 and reconfiguring the Vernor/Gratiot/I-75 turn and exit to our east.  If both these projects achieve their funding goal it will make for remarkable changes for pedestrian and bicycle traffic coming to St. John’s. 

When Fr. Armitage, the Vestry, and parishioners of St. John’s placed in the cornerstone the words quoted above, they could not have imagined what Detroit and The Episcopal Church would be like 165 years later.  I can hardly believe the changes I have seen in just 24 years.  But we continue to be convinced of another phrase quoted in that dedication document. 

We are conscious and confident that we are building that which will outlast ourselves; and we rejoice in the hope that, within the walls we are permitted to raise, thousands, in successive generations, will worship GOD, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; and confess our LORD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST, in the Sacraments and ordinances of His Gospel; and partake of all the blessings of membership in His Church, which are precious to our souls to-day. 

Epiphany Proclamation 2025 - Rector's Rambling for January 19, 2025

     

We are now once again into a ‘green’ season as we continue our way through Epiphanytide.  During this time we look at various ways God is made manifest, and it is also a looking forward as we dive into the new church year.  Below is the Epiphany Proclamation, declaring for us the dates of the Church Holy Days upcoming.  Since the date of Easter is set by a lunar calendar, the ‘moveable’ Feasts are set by when Easter is set for the year.  Christmas is always December 25th, but Easter can be anytime between March 22nd and April 25th.  The Prayer Book tells us it “is always the First Sunday after the Full Moon, which happens upon or next after the twenty-first day of March; and if the Full Moon happen upon a Sunday, Easter Day is the Sunday after.” (1928 BCP p. l)

So instead of having to do the math ourselves, figuring out when that Full Moon occurs and then figuring out 9 weeks before Easter is Septuagesima and that Trinity Sunday is 8 weeks after, the Church publishes this time of the year the Epiphany Proclamation of the dates so you can mark your calendar at home. 

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer actually has another index that lists Easter going back to 1786 (when the Episcopal Church was constituted independently of the Church of England after the Revolutionary War) and projected out to 2013.  Newer prayer books project out to 2089.

Of course in our modern day we can just pick up our smart phones and go to google and type “when is Easter this year?” and have the answer at our finger tips!

 

Home Alone - The Rector's Rambling for January 12, 2025

     Reprinted from 2020.  It is hard to believe it has been 5 years since we were just learning about a virus that was about to upend the country!

Over the holiday season I had a chance to watch portions of the original Home Alone movie.  Hard to believe that the movie was released nearly 30 years ago (1990).  It has spawned several sequels, and the original has most definitely stood the test of time and has become a Christmastime television staple.

Home Alone comes to mind every time I hear today’s reading for the First Sunday after Epiphany.  In the movie, Kevin is left home in the chaos of a large extended family’s rush to get to the airport for a Christmas vacation, and then has to fend for himself as the house is targeted by thieves who assumed that the house would be empty over the holidays.

Extended family is most likely the excuse for Jesus being left behind in Jerusalem.  Traveling in a large pack to celebrate the Passover in the holy city, he tarries behind and his parents assume that he is among the group as they head back home.  It happens.

Of course, once Mary and Joseph realize he is not with them, they turn about and head back to find him, and they find him in the Temple.

The Bible tells us that this was a yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and we know that historically the city was swollen with pilgrims for the Passover celebration.  The city would be just as densely packed with people from surrounding cities and towns 21 years later for the Passover, when some would be proclaiming him Messiah on Palm Sunday, and others would be calling for his crucifixion on Good Friday.

The terror and chaos of a lost child is summed up in the frantic greeting of his parents in that they basically say, “where were you?  We were worried sick about you.”

Jesus, not meaning any disrespect, is a bit stupefied that his parents wouldn’t assume he would be in the Temple attending to the things concerning God.  But at 12, it wasn’t really his time for public ministry and he submitted to his parents and returned home.

This is all we hear about Jesus until the time would come at the age of 30, when he would be all about his and his Father’s business for us and for our salvation

 

Epiphany Eve - Rector's Rambling for January 5, 2025

     Today is the 12th Day of Christmas and tomorrow we begin a new Church season with the Feast of the Epiphany.  Tomorrow’s feast day has two names, but both mean the same thing.  To have an “epiphany” is to have something made manifest, or to have something shown to you.  In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer the title for tomorrow’s feast is The Epiphany, or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.

In the Christmas story we hear that the shepherds in the fields heard, by the proclamation of the Angelic Hosts, the good news of Jesus’ birth.  The shepherds represent the people of the Jews, since there would surely have been Jews in that region.  They come and adore Jesus.

The Magi (Wise Men or Three Kings) are not Jews, but Gentiles.  We hear in scripture that these wise men came from the east, having seen in the stars an amazing, celestial event which they understood to be the portent of the birth of a new king.

So, they went to Herod, assuming that this would foretell the birth of his heir, but of course there was no baby there.  Herod, whom secular history confirms was a man of great jealously and wrath, tries to convince these men to let him know when and where they have found this king (“…bring me word again, that I may come and worship him”).  Obviously Herod had a poisonous intent; not to worship but destroy him.  However, the Magi were warned of God in a dream and Herod’s plan was thwarted.

As the shepherds represented the people of the Jews coming to worship Jesus, since it is the fulfillment of the promise to them to send a Saviour, so the Magi represent the rest of us.  Gentile basically means, “not Jew”.

Jesus’ birth is Good News not only to the Jew, but the Gentile as well.  He is Lord of all, and all are included in the New Covenant sealed in His blood on the cross.  He was made manifest to the Jews in the persons of the shepherds, and to the rest of us through these wise men who also came to worship.

And the wise still come and worship Him!