Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ

Thursday, February 8, 2024

Genuine love

The Rev. Aaron B. Jenkyn

Candlemas in the snow.

Full text of the homily given at Thursday's Healing Eucharist:

Once, at a community program I worked at, I encountered an unhoused man, who, as it turned out, had a particularly hard week after his wallet had been stolen. I didn’t have a chance to talk with him myself, but others did what they could to help him and sent him on his way. But then, later that week I ran into him again as I walked through town and he sat on a street corner begging for money. 

I hadn’t planned to run into him with my lunch in hand. I hadn’t planned to run into him on my work break. I hadn’t planned for God to put me in that place at that time. But there I was, carrying my five dollar coffee and my twelve dollar lunch, standing there talking to this man who had nothing, uneasy with the space between us. He was about the same age as me, which somehow made it all the harder to engage with him. He reminded me of the many young men, boys really, that I went to high school with, the ones who in the days after September 11th enlisted in the army and had their lives forever changed. It was something about the way he carried his gear that told me he had been in the service, that told me that there in his pack he carried the burdens of our country, that he fought for our freedom and lost part of his in the process. 

I could feel the ache growing in my heart - do you know the one I mean? That sort of heart ache that lives on the edge of sacred and profane, sorted to one side or the other only by the choice you make to engage or not. That blurry feeling between disdain and empathy, the one we never want to admit we have. 

The urge to walk by was real, but the nudge from God was stronger still, and and so I stopped. As I stood shoulder to shoulder with this man he was playing his part, and I was playing mine. I was ready to do the charitable thing, to help him in the way that I knew how, to offer the prescribed gift card and to move on with my day feeling good about having helped. I asked him his name, without even a thought of telling him mine, and then he gave me a story, the same story I am sure he said to everyone else that walked by that morning, it too felt predictable and prescribed. After a few minutes I was about to hand him the gift card that I had tucked away in my pocket, when the space between us shifted. He looked at me, stopped talking and took a deep breath, he looked away, and then looked up to the sky and swallowed in that way one does when they are trying not to cry, and after what felt like an eternity, he asked, “can I have a hug?”  

“Can I have a hug?” were the last words I expected him to say, and yet somehow they were the exact words I needed to hear that day. It was as if in this simple request he had said “here I am, and there you are, and we need each other.” They were the exact words that I needed to call me back from the edge of the profane, that place of distance and prescribed charitable formulas and predetermined roles, of loved doled out in socially acceptable doses. His words called me into a sacred space, a place that is beautiful and messy and holy, a place where love is abundant and genuine, good and mutual and full of hope.  

And so there we stood on the street corner, two strangers, no longer shoulder to shoulder, but heart to heart. No longer pretending, no longer playing parts, but fully present to each other. As we embraced, in what felt like a radical act of hospitality, he asked me what my name was, and I mumbled a response, embarrassed that I hadn’t thought to tell him before. 

We talked for a long time that morning. He told me his story. He was in fact a veteran and had served many tours in Iraq, Afghanistan & Kuwait. He told me about the love and loss in his life. Of the ways drugs had taken so many from him. He talked about how hard it is to live on the streets. How he ended up there in the first place. How he never saw it coming. We sat together, in righteous anger. And when it was time for me to go, I got up and walked away, and forgot to give him the gift card. I came back later, to give it to him, because I had it to give, but it’s value held nothing on what we had shared. It’s value held nothing on what he had given me. 

Each week at our Thursday service we remember that Jesus said that all the law and the prophets hang on two commandments: love God and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40). We hear these words, we speak these words, we know these words and yet it is so hard to abide by these commandments. 

Paul understood this. In his letter to the Romans that we heard this morning, Paul is writing with the assumption that his audience knows that they are supposed to love one another. Just as we know that we are supposed to love one another. But he exhorts them to make their love for each other genuine and real. 

His language and the images he leaves us with are powerful: let your love be heartfelt; be eager to show each other honor; be set on fire by the Spirit; be devoted to prayer; contribute to the needs of the saints, and pursue hospitality always, he says. 

There is clearly a material element to the work of love. To “contribute” or “participate in” the needs of the saints, in the needs of others, is to give of your own resources to help those in need- resources like money, food, clothing, and shelter. But genuine love, the kind of love that Jesus commands us to do, to be, is so much more than that. Genuine love requires us to live alongside and engage with others in a full-bodied, full-hearted, full spirited, kind of way. It requires us to show up, to be present, to listen, and learn and share something of ourselves with the other. It requires us to love even (perhaps especially) when it’s inconvenient. This is not a love that we speak or feel, but a love we live and do and are. It is love in action. 

It is so easy to say the right words, we can even set our hearts to auto pilot and do the right thing, but to be genuine in love in the way Paul describes, in the way Jesus commands us, takes a different kind of presence, a different kind of effort. Which is why we come here each week, we need each other, and we need God. We read the scripture, we say the prayers, we bless the bread and the wine, we listen and share and support each other and we receive the unconditional, unending, love that is our God, not just through the bread and wine, but in the outstretched arms of the one sitting next to you, longing for a hug. It is only because we are loved that we can love. Here in this place, we are given an incredible gift, and it is not ours to hoard. We must go out and put that love into action, in the ways we love and serve others, and in the ways we care for each other and the world around us. May all those we encounter know what it is to be loved, and may our hearts be open to experience the genuine love of others, even (especially) when it is unexpected, and not at all convenient!

Amen.

Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ

Friday, Feb. 2, 2024

celebrating Candlemas outdoors at home

The Rev. Aaron B. Jenkyn

Celebrating Candlemas at home is about honoring the light and gathering with friends and family to bless the candles that will warm our hearts in the seasons to come. The magic of wintertime in New Hampshire makes this celebration especially beautiful to celebrate outdoors, as we mark the changing of seasons from darkness to light.

Blessing candles outdoors can be as simple as placing a taper candle or tea light in snow or as sophisticated as making an ice lantern or earthen candles  to gather around. If you are able, purchase additional candles in advance that might use on your dinner table, or for birthday celebrations, throughout the year, whether you are 6 or 86 you will remember blessing them on Candlemas every time you light them.

As the daylight fades, gather outside and read together as much, or as little,  of this liturgy as works for your family. The words have been adapted from the children’s book In the Candles Glow. The words are important, but not as important as the time you are spending gathered together, celebrating Jesus as the light of the world.

A reading from the Easter Exuslset:

On this, your night of grace, O holy Father, accept this candle . . . the work of bees and your servants’ hands . . . for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious . . . Though [the bee] be tiny in the smallness of her body, she revolves prodigious knowledge in her tiny breast, weak in force but forceful in abilities. She, having determined the change of season, when winter has deposited the hoary frost and then the moderating climate of springtime has swept away the glacial feebleness, she immediately feels the need to come forth to her work.

God of all Creation - we ask your blessing on the bees, and the beekeepers, the flowers and the fields, the land and water, and all Creation. Bless the candles that we use at home and at church, that they may illuminate the way for us today and everyday.

Read the Story of Simeon and Anna found in Luke 2:22-40

Light the candles and pray together:

We thank God for sending us light to help us see in so many different ways. We light this candle to say thank you for its flame which changes into light. We light this candle to say thank you for the moon and stars which light up the night sky and show travelers the way and to say thank you for the sun which gives us day and helps us to see all the colors of the rainbow. And we light this candle to say thank you for Jesus — the Light of the World who came to show us the way to God. Amen.

Sing (or listen to): This Little Light of Mine

Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Candlemas

The Rev. Aaron B. Jenkyn

Candlemas in the snow.

The full text of the homily preached at Thursday’s Healing Eucharist:

In the Episcopal liturgical calendar there are three celebrations of light during this darkest time of year. The Nativity, Epiphany and Candlemas, which we celebrate today (note that Candlemas is actually on February 2, but for liturgical purposes we are celebrating at our Thursday Eucharist).  When you add in Advent, this season stretches from the end of November to the beginning of February, which coincides with the ten darkest weeks of the year here in the northern hemisphere. Which means, as we celebrate Candlemas today, we have made it through those darkest days - thanks be to God!

As we think back, we recall the ways that the darkness sets in during those early days of winter and the ways the season of Advent calls us into stillness, as we watch and we wait with patient hope for salvation to come. Then as the winter solstice and the longest night passes we celebrate the glorious Feast of the Nativity, the birth of Emmanuel, God with us.  As we move into Epiphanytide the celebration continues with the revelation that Jesus is the son of God, the salvation we have been waiting for, and we look for new revelations, signs of God, with us in the here and now. The stars glimmer overhead and the moon glows in the cold night air as we watch in wonder. And as this season comes to end, with the Presentation of Jesus at the temple, we bless and light candles, to carry us forward into a new season, to remember that Jesus is the light of the world.

You see, Candlemas is also a turning point in the church year. Even as we celebrate the light of Christ in the world, we start to look ahead to the darkness of Lent, Good Friday and the cross. Even as Simeon held the infant Jesus in his arms, he foresaw that his way would be difficult and painful. But the candles we light remind us that darkness does not triumph – the light cannot be put out.

More than a decade ago, I  became a mom during the season of Advent. The stillness and rest of the season, and then the celebration of the Nativity and light that followed carried me through those early days of parenthood, surrounded by family and friends, and immeasurable amounts of love. But as I think most new parents can relate too, there was a moment in which I realized that this child of mine, this being that I grew and carried and loved more than anything, would one day have to go out into the real world, which suddenly looked very different to me as a new mom, than it had just a season before.

I can only imagine what Mary and Joseph were holding in their hearts when they heard Simeon’s song, knowing what was ahead for Jesus.

"This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed-- and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

This life that Mary and Joseph were called to would be filled with both joy and sorrow, hope and pain. This life we are called too, is filled with both joy and sorrow, hope and pain. And when we give birth, when we become parents, when we love someone, the hope and pain, joy and sorrow is magnified exponentially.

It was during those first months of parenthood, after the Christmas decorations came down, and our visitors had left, and my maternity leave was coming to an end, that the world began to feel so dark and I didn’t want to let my newborn go into it. And in that strange way that God works, I happened upon the story of Anna and Simeon, Mary and Joseph, and in the turning of the pages, and the turning of the season, I began to realize that I was not alone. That Mary and Joseph walked this path before me, and because of that, my son would never be alone. And so on a cold winter night in February, I slipped out into the dark and lit a candle on my snow covered porch as a reminder of the great light of God’s love for us, made incarnate in Christ.

With every Advent, with every birthday, with every Candlemas, I remember that feeling I had as a new mom and I find myself ever more grateful for this tradition that calls us to bless and light candles to  carry forward into a new season, remembering that Christ is the light of the world.

I still light candles outdoors each February, and as my kids have gotten older, our celebration and creations have become ever more elaborate. We light candles in the darkness, and bless the ones we will use at the table each night, we read the story of Simeon and Anna, and we offer thanks for the traditions of our church, for the work of the bees, and farmers and those that care for the land and for those who have made the candles. And we pray that the light of the world would break through the darkness and reveal to us the continuation of God’s promise. Let that be our prayer today as well. Amen.