24 years as Rector - Rector's Rambling for February 23, 2025

     Twenty-four years ago this weekend I stepped up to the altar, and into the pulpit, for the first time as the Rector of St. John’s Church.  What an blessing and adventure these 24 years have been.

The opening of Comerica Park occurred the spring before I arrived.  The change in the neighborhood with the new stadium, the increase of the revenues of the parish from baseball parking income, and the installation of a new bishop for the diocese who was willing to allow St. John’s to continue as a traditional Anglican parish all came together with God whispering to me that I was finished in my last parish and should be open to a new call.  On January 5th, 2001 the Vestry formally offered me the call to be your rector and my family moved here 7 weeks later to begin this ministry.

In the first months of my arrival a large stone fell off the building, forcing us to do a $380,000  ‘deferred maintenance’ project of facade and roof repairs.  Since then we have had several large renovation projects which included heating upgrades, new signage, awnings and ironwork, landscaping, stained glass restoration and protection, and complete rebuild of the ministry center and undercroft.  In between we have had many other small and medium sized projects as well!  The building always needs attention and upgrades to be used to the greater glory of God!

Ministry opportunities continue to  present themselves in the neighborhood, especially through our Outreach Committee’s work with organizations in the community.  What a blessing this has been to us.

We have also had the spiritual challenges that came along with the attack on 9/11, the housing-financial crisis of 2008, City of Detroit Bankruptcy in 2013 and more recently the challenges of Covid lockdown and the spiritual damage done as a result. 

I am humbled to have the opportunity in 24 years to baptize, marry, and administer the burial prayers for so many.  Since my arrival we have had 271 baptisms, 96 weddings, and 132 burials.  Over 7,000 times on Sundays and weekdays the Holy Communion has been consecrated and distributed. 

God willing I look forward to many more milestones here on the corner of Woodward and I-75!

 

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.