Trinity Stories

Dear Friends,

Happy Easter! We’re still in the Great Fifty Days of the Easter season that began on Easter Day and continues through the Day of Pentecost. This is the most joyous and celebrative season of the Christian Year! Our celebration continues this coming Sunday with four baptisms at the 10:00 am service.

St. Paul connected baptism to Easter in his letter to the Christians in Rome, “When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus.” As we do at every service of Holy Baptism, we’ll renew our own baptismal covenant and be reminded that, through baptism, we are raised to new life with Christ.

Another metaphor for baptism is re-birth. The prayer the priest uses to bless the water at a baptism service says that through water “we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” In Orthodox churches, the baptismal font is often referred to as “the Divine Womb,” since, in the font, we receive the second birth as child of God.

These female metaphors of womb and birth, borrowed from our Orthodox siblings, are a helpful counterbalance to the Western Church’s theology and symbolism which are often dominated by male metaphors.

The fact is the Good News of Easter came to women first. The Gospel accounts may differ in the details, but they agree that God chose a small group of women to share the greatest news of all time. And it was the women who told Jesus’ male disciples, “He is Risen!” Luke’s Gospel captures how the disciples responded, “they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.” Not a very good look!

In the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday we meet the apostle we know as Doubting Thomas, but Thomas was not the only one who had trouble believing. Jesus’ words to Thomas could well have been addressed to the others: ““Have you believed because you have seen me?”

Having spoken directly to the apostles, Jesus then turned his attention to us. He said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” May his blessing be on those who are being baptized this Sunday and on all of us who believe without seeing.

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate

Dear Friends,

This letter will arrive in your inbox early on Good Friday morning. Trinity is offering two ways to observe this most solemn of days:

• The Liturgy of Good Friday at 12:00 noon
• Stations of the Cross at 7:00 pm (this service will be livestreamed)

Easter is still three days away. So it seems premature to bring the Alleluias out of mothballs where they’ve been during Lent. What to write is a conundrum but let me give it a shot.

Years ago, Tony Campolo preached a sermon that has since become famous. The sermon, which later became the title of one of his books, was “It’s Friday, But Sunday’s Comin’”. For those of you who have never heard of Tony Campolo, he’s a sociologist and a Baptist pastor who has been one of the most influential leaders of the evangelical left. He’s been a huge proponent of progressive thought and reform.

Dr. Campolo’s sermon is really a sermon about a sermon. He tells the story of a “preach off” that occurred in the church he attended. A “preach off “ is when several preachers get together and try to top each other’s preaching. Of course, it’s never said that it’s a competition. It’s all for the glory of God! But every preacher knows it’s game on!

According to the story, Tony Campolo preached first and, he says modestly, preached well. He sat down after his sermon and said to the old preacher sitting next to him, “You’re turn. See if you can beat that.” The old man looked at Tony and said, “I’m going to do you in.” And that’s just what he did.

He started with the two phrases “It was Friday . . . but Sunday’s comin’” and built his sermon from there.

Friday. . . Jesus was dead on the cross, but that’s because it was Friday. Sunday’s comin’

Friday. . . people are sayin,’ “as things have been, so they shall be. You can’t change things in this world. But I’m here to give you the Good News. It’s only Friday. . . Sunday’s comin’”

It’s Friday, and they’re saying that a bunch of old people sittin’ in church can’t change the world. That’s because it’s Friday. . . Sunday’s comin’”

People of Trinity, these days it can feel like we are living in more and more of a Good Friday world. Innocents are suffering unspeakable horrors because of conflicts around the world. Bridges – both real and metaphorical – are collapsing. And, if the pundits are right, we are heading into one of the most contentious and bitter election seasons in recent memory.

But Sunday’s comin.’

For every Good Friday, God’s answer always is, “Sunday’s comin’!”

Please join us when Sunday arrives – Easter Day at 10:00 am in person or on our livestream.

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate

Dear Friends,

In her 2009 book, The Case for God, Karen Armstrong argued that religion is a practical discipline that teaches us to discover new capacities of the mind and heart. What new capacities of the mind and heart might we cultivate during the holiest week of the Christian Year?

Holy Week begins this Sunday, Palm Sunday. Most of the scriptural “airtime” on Palm Sunday is given over to the stories of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his subsequent passion, suffering and death. Because of this, we might miss the practical discipline St. Paul offers us. In his letter to converts in Philippi in what is now Asia Minor, Paul quotes a hymn that was, evidently, already well-known to Christian communities. Armstrong writes, “. . . from this very early date (c. 54-57) Christians saw Jesus’ life as a kenosis, a humble ‘self-emptying.’”

Here’s what Paul wrote to the Philippians – in contemporary English: “Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death – and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.”

This coming Sunday morning, bread will be broken, and wine poured out in remembrance of the one who emptied himself for our sake. He did not seek to save his own life but lost it and is alive for evermore. If we can begin to imitate Jesus’ kenosis – his self-emptying – in the details of our own lives, our hearts will open in response to Christ’s great love for us. They will open to the pain and suffering we see all around us. They will open to those who are on the margins of society. And they will even open to our enemies and those who wish us harm.

Imitating Christ is not without cost, but Jesus tells us that “those who lose their lives for my sake, and for the sake of the Good News, will find them.”

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate

Dear Friends,

The three traditional practices for Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I want to talk about the first of the three – prayer.

Each Sunday, the person leading the Prayers of the People references those on “the Trinity prayer list.” I thought recently, “I wonder where that prayer list is and who keeps it?” Yes, I’m in my sixth month as your interim, but I’m still discovering things about the way Trinity works. (Remember this when your new rector arrives – it will take time for them to learn about the parish’s people and practices. There will be a learning curve!)

I decided to find out more about the parish prayer list. So I conducted an investigation. Guess what? We don’t have one. The reference in the Prayers of the People is a vestige of another time in Trinity’s life. This discovery was enough motivation for me to address this absence and the need for a simple way for parishioners to request prayer.

People preparing for confirmation or reception in the Episcopal Church often are taught the acronym, ACTIP, as a way of remembering the different kinds of prayer. Here’s what each letter stands for: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Intercession, and Petition. Our Prayers of the People are prayers of intercession – we pray for the church, for our nation and those in authority around the world, for those who suffer in body, mind or spirit, and for those who have died.

One of the bishops in whose diocese I served was adamant that people should stand for the Prayers of the People. He believed that lay people were exercising the priesthood of all believers as they prayed on behalf of others. So, they should stand just as priests stand to celebrate Holy Communion. I am less concerned about people’s postures and more about whether they have what they need to perform this very important ministry. Some adjustments are in order.

Here are the adjustments I’m suggesting we make:

• We re-establish a parish prayer list. We’ll make it easy to request prayers for people or situations through our website: www.trinitytoledo.org or by emailing or calling the parish office. Email is trinity@trinitytoledo.org. Phone is (419) 243-1231.
• When a request comes in, it will remain on the prayer list for four weeks before it’ll be taken off. Requests can always be renewed or submitted again. However, having an “expiration date” will prevent the list from overflowing with prayer requests that are out of date.
• When a request is received, the requester will be asked whether they want it to appear on the public prayer list, which will be read out loud at Sunday services, or be added to a private list. In order for a request to be included in the public prayer list on Sunday, please contact the church office no later than the end of the day on Wednesday. And if we’re praying publicly for someone you know, be sure you’ve gotten their permission to be named aloud.
• If the request is designated to remain private or discrete, the parish clergy and a small prayer team will offer prayer. The request will not go public.
• A small prayer team has already agreed to say prayers of intercession. The team members will pray on their own for now. This is not a closed group. You may ask to join the prayer team by emailing me at stephen@trinitytoledo.org.

The goal is two-fold – to make it easier for people to make prayer requests and to involve more parishioners in the practice of praying for others.

Let me end with a portion of a prayer written by the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor, author, and public theologian. Her online publication, newsletter, and community is called “The Corners.” It’s a reminder to me that nothing is out of bounds when it comes to praying for others:

“Bless the things we mistakenly think are already dead. Bless that which we have already begun to carry out of town to bury. Bless our rocky marriages and our college age kids who smoke too much pot. Bless the person at work who we love to hate. Bless the young adult who wonders if they are too young to really be an alcoholic, and bless the 6o year old woman who’s had too much work done. Bless the public school lunch ladies and the guy who stole my kid’s bike. Bless the chronically sick. Bless the one who has no one. Bless what we call insignificant and which you call magnificent. Bless it all and love what only you can love: the ugly, and abandoned and unsanitary in the wash of humanity upon which you have nothing but a gleaming compassion when we have none.”

And let us all say, Amen!

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate