Reflection from Bishop Kara
We had church on our front lawn this month. It wasn’t even my idea, nor was it organized through my office, and there were no planning documents or a bulletin. At our neighborhood end-of-summer picnic one of my neighbors (who happens to be a member of Christ Church in Pittsford) asked if I could bless her dog. Tyler is apparently a little too excitable to attend church with other dogs.
Nicole created a flyer and purchased St. Francis medals and colored hearts to give our multi-faith neighbors a choice. I invited the Rev. Julianne Buenting to bless animals also, so the local of their local parish might lodge in their memories. It was a beautiful fall day and we timed the blessing to correspond to half-time for the Bills game.
And they came! Dogs who knew each other from morning walks, dogs who were blessed a little further from the group because they needed their space, a cat on a leash, and half a dozen pictures of pets that Nicole had collected including a dog in a cone still recovering from surgery. It could have been a scene from Bambi, but the squirrels and deer were blessed in absentia. The dogs sniffed and played, the humans talked, and there was even coffee hour in the form of Milk Bones and a crystal candy dish of water. Just as we were packing up a neighbor drove by exclaiming, “We’re late, can we still bring Henry?” “Of course,” I said, and minutes later mom and daughter brought an enthusiastic Portuguese Water Dog. “My daughter would not let us miss this,” she said.
This was church, the way church can be, I think. Someone has a need and they ask for help. A leader responds with, “Yes!” but rather than privately attend to that need they realize together that others may have the same need. They invite other leaders in; they communicate with the community. They consider what it means to welcome all - how can the most people be included? People from other faiths? People with mobility or health issues? They remember to ask what is going on in the world that might prevent people from participating and adjust plans. They consider hospitality - how will we give tangible signs of our love?
And people show up! Children demand to come along. People (and other living creatures!) share their lives with each other, are cared for, and fed. We are reminded of God’s love and blessings, and that we have been given all we need to take care of each other. But these things don’t just happen – it was my neighbor’s idea, her expression of need, her willingness to organize and promote along with my and the local priest’s “yes!” that sparked the action.
Isn’t this what we are all meant to be seeing and doing in the world each week? How on Sunday mornings, or at vestry meetings are we sharing the need we experience in our own lives and in the lives of those we encounter? Can we ask for help? Are we willing, not just to pull ourselves up by our own spiritual and physical bootstraps alone, but to create a team to do the same for others? If there are two or three gathered with a vision and a purpose are we, as leaders, willing to risk the yes? As a wise priest once asked, how many women said no before Mary said yes? If we do, we just might find church forming on our own front yards, at the grocery store, in the waiting room, on a plane or in a park. And when two or three are gathered we know the power that is in the midst of us. Or as we pray in the words of our Book of Common Prayer:
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
