90 Years of Glory to God!

It was such an amazing & extraordinary honor to serve as the keynote speaker for the 90th anniversary celebration of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Gary, Indiana! I was baptized at St. Aug's, most of my relatives have been baptized there, married there, served there and/or were buried there, and my great-grandmother Anna Washington was one of the church's prominent founders in 1927! Thanks be to God for the wonderful continuing legacy of St. Augustine's in Gary - the first and only predominantly black Episcopal church in The Diocese of Northern Indiana and (I'm told) in the entire state of Indiana!

It is such an honor to be here for this incredible event, to celebrate the anniversary of our beloved church, St. Augustine’s. It is so good to see all of you here, to celebrate, to remember, to give thanks and to prepare ourselves for the road ahead as we mark this 90^th year of our little church on 19^th street that continues to bear witness to Christ in what our Presiding Bishop reminds us is this Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement. This week, which happens also to mark the great feasts of All Saints and All Souls, I am especially reminded of that great cloud of witnesses, the myriads and generations of those who came before us, those whom we remember with fondness and those whose names go unrecorded, those whose acts of generosity, of stewardship and of leadership carried on the faith and brought us to where we stand today.

I’ve said often that I’ve been a member of St. Augustine’s even since before I was born! By that I mean that my family has had the enormous honor to be part of this church for now four generations, going all the way back to its founding 90 years ago. My father grew up here, my grandparents were married here, my great-grandmother is memorialized here and I was baptized here. St. Augustine’s is quite literally in my blood! Love of this place, our church, flows through my veins so deeply that now as the first clergyman in our family, I intend to celebrate my first Eucharist as a priest right there at St. Augustine’s! Our church is a special place, a very special place and we must never forget it.

So as I’ve promised Fr. Hyndman, I’m nor going to preach, I didn’t come for that today! I am however, going to speak on a text, and say a few words on a scripture that is near and dear to my heart, that I think sheds some light on where we are and where we ought to go from here. So I want to attract our attention to the 6^th chapter of Deuteronomy, going back to the Old Testament, and the end of the great story of the Exodus, the escape of the Israelite people from slavery in Egypt and their wandering through the desert for 40 long years. Now, the people at this point find themselves at the edge of the desert, preparing to cross the river into the Promised Land, and Moses, now aged and long in years stands at the top of the mountain and gives the people a long discourse on what to do and how to conduct themselves after he’s gone, and a new leader comes to carry the people on to their next journeys in the land of Canaan. And this is what Moses says:

Read Deuteronomy 6:10-15a

All of us, the daughters and sons of St. Augustine’s are the inheritors of a great legacy. We, standing 90 years after the founding of our beloved community, have all been blessed to inherit in St. Aug’s houses that we did not build, vineyards we did not plant and cisterns we did not hew. Even the eldest among us here weren’t yet even born or at most were little children in 1927.  It was those who came before us, those who are no longer here who came up to Gary, largely from the cotton fields of the south on which they and their parents had labored in slavery. It was they, who arrived here seeking jobs, a better life, and maybe even an ounce of relief from the brutal racism of the South. They whose faith in God carried them through that great Exodus and once they had arrived in this place, built a temple to God where future generations would worship Him in centuries yet to come!

The author Ann Lamott, is known among many things for saying that when it comes down to it, all prayers come down to three words “wow” “thanks” and “help”. That at the end of the day, our expressions to God are either (1) expressions of pure amazement, wonderment, straight dumbfounded energy at the radiance of God’s work in the world, (2) Gratitude – thanksgiving for those works of God and for God’s love in our lives, and (3) supplication, asking God’s and God’s people to intervene in our lives and in the lives of one another.

So when I think about St. Aug’s and all that we are and all that we have achieved, the first thing I can say is just Wow! Wow that the sons and daughters of slaves and sharecroppers were so filled with the spirit of Christ that they built this first and only black Episcopal church in this diocese and in this state! Wow that its architecture is a recognized historical treasure and a lighthouse for the love of Jesus! Wow that its founders were the first generation of black college graduates at the height of segregation. Wow that those great matriarchs and patriarchs passed down so much of themselves and their histories and their legacies that generations later we can gather to celebrate all that they accomplished. Wow! And so we stand in awe of all God has done and continues to do in the lives of this church an in our world.

And in those 90 years, so many saints of our church, beloved souls have come through this place. They mothered and fathered our beloved congregation, starting ministries and serving the poor, giving rest to the weary and clothing the naked. This place has borne witness and even led in the great histories of the last century and of this century. It was the parents and grandparents of my generation, many of whom are here in this room, who fought for civil rights, were black pioneers in their fields. It was they who raised up and led alongside good clergy to raise up younger generations in the faith – some of whom are in this room and some of whom have gone on to proclaim and serve God in other places.

Many of us who sit here today are the children of those generations – I think of people like my grandmother Jane Graves Hill and my uncle Tid Washington, People like Ms. McCants and those who donated what they had in life an even in death to keep our beloved church strong through the generations. Some of us here were peers of those women and men, people who dug with them the wells from which my generation is now blessed to drink. People who planted the olive trees from which I and my generation now gain shade, from whose fruit we are nourished. They, and many of you here, year after year gave of yourselves day after day, in the heat of the sun and in the freezing Indiana winters, to maintain and improve this place for 90 long years.

And so for this we tell God not only Wow but Thank you! Thank you God that you’ve provided and inspired people through the generations to strengthen this church that we celebrate today. Thank you that the storms of all these decades have not dampened our devotion or wearied our spirit. Thank you that the love of Jesus is as manifest today as it was in 1927 and before. Thank you that when the first black Presiding Bishop was looking for the best congregation to visit in Northern Indiana he looked no further than here to St. Augustine’s in Gary, Indiana! Thank you that there are those of us here who are willing and able to carry this place for decades more into the future! Thank you!

And so, I want to return for a moment to the Deuteronomy text from the 6^th chapter and the 20^th verse. Moses continues and he addresses what to do with the next generations of the future of the Israelite people saying:

Read Deuteronomy 6:20-24

Teach your children and grandchildren of all that God has done for them through all these many years! Teach them to love and serve God and one another and the legacies of their ancestors. As Moses says elsewhere in Deuteronomy, take God’s word and strap it to your foreheads and tie it to your arms. Wear it around your necks and nail it to your doorposts. Read it as they wake up and as they go to bed. Rear them in the faith as many of us were reared in the faith. When they ask you “what is the meaning of these things” tell them. And do not just stay in our building, no matter how beautiful it may be, but go out into the world, teaching not just your children, but those children in your neighborhoods, communities, schools and programs. Reach out to those around you - get out of your comfort zones and interact with those whom you would not otherwise interact. Build connections to young and old alike, and let nothing – not one thing – stop you from sharing the love of Jesus Christ in this world. Continue to share and give generously, be stewards of this Church as our predecessors were stewards to us.

Above all, be builders of the Church and builders of the Faith! Join me in digging wells from which others will drink, planting trees under which others will receive shade and harvest their fruit, build the City of God in ministries through which others will live and love and raise their families! It is my hope, my conviction that Our church – beloved St. Augustine’s – will last long and strong after every one of us here has left this life for the next. And it will be left to those behind us to carry on that joy, that responsibility and that promise into a future yet unknown.

And so the final prayer I have for you and for God today is simply “help”. Help join with me, with your priest and your bishop, to carry this church into a future we cannot know. Help me in recommitting ourselves and our church to the stewardship not merely of a building or an institution but of the people of Jesus Christ in Gary, Indiana and beyond! And may God help us every moment of every day, every sunrise and every sunset, to carry on that legacy as Moses taught us more than 3,000 years ago, that Jesus taught us 2,000 years ago, and that our ancestors taught us 90 years ago! May God guide us and St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, not only into another 90 years and another century, but into countess generations in the movement of Jesus Christ.

Amen

All Hallows

Charles Graves IV

Sermon October 29 2017

Church of the Advent

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

AUDIO HERE

Halloween is by FAR my favorite holiday. I’m one of those people who starts working on my what to wear several months in advance, who attends a half-dozen Halloween parties in multiple different costumes. But I don’t just love Halloween for the unusual clothes, or the haunted houses or the pumpkin carving, or even the cute kids trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. I also love Halloween for an even more important reason that actually has a lot to do with why we’re here today. 

You might know that what we call “Halloween” is really “All Hallows Eve”, or “the Eve of All Hallows”. What does that really mean? Well All Hallows is really just another way of saying All Holies! You remember that every week we say “our Father who art in heaven HALLOWED be thy name” “or Holy is Your name”! All Hallows is the day of All Holies, or All Holy People – also known as All Saints!! And All Saints Day, which is actually one of the major celebration feasts of the Church every year is always on November 1^st, which makes October 31 the eve or the night be fore All Saints – All Hallows!

You see what we’re really doing is celebrating the back-to-back related but actually separate feasts of All Souls and All Saints. The feast of All Souls, which is what the Church officially calls October 31^st, is when we honor all the “faithfully departed” – those who were near and dear to us who have passed away, and whose presence we remember throughout our lives. We think of departed parents, grandparents, friends, loved ones, mentors, and those whom we miss every day of our lives. From there you can begin to see how the day took on this spooky element where the day becomes associated with the souls of the dead and the sometimes thin curtain that we feel between this life and the next. And then there’s the even greater feast on November 1^st of All Saints, when we remember all those departed people whom the church remembers as particularly holy and the countless throngs whom the whole world remembers as models of Christian holiness for all generations. 

THAT is why I love this time of year – these dual feasts when we’re surrounded by this great cloud of witness, from our own departed family members and friends, to the great teachers, leaders and martyrs of the Church, to the Apostles, the Prophets, and even our Israelite ancestors who wandered from the land of Egypt so many years ago! This season of All Saints and All Souls is a holy occasion! Through them – through all those people who have gone before, we ourselves learn how to be followers of Christ, the beloved of God, to be the hands and feet of the Almighty in this world. For them, we pray for their eternal rest and that their memories may inspire us to do better and live better every single day. And With them we await the day when we will be united with them in Glory everlasting. 

Even our story from Deuteronomy reminds us of that today. Now for whatever reason, the story of Moses’ death is not mentioned in Exodus, so we make a big leap forward today into Deuteronomy, which retells much of the Exodus story, sometimes with an extra bit of added detail. So Deuteronomy tells us that God takes Moses to the top of Mt. Nebo, on the edge of the Jordan River so that he can see out into the land of Canaan, the promised land for which he and his people have journeyed for decades through the desert. And yet God tells Moses that he will not live to cross into that land but that those who come after him will inherit that land and that a new leader, Joshua, will lead God’s people into a new world across the Jordan. Deuteronomy even gives a nice little Eulogy for Moses: 

Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.

Moses left a legacy for his people, and for the countless generations of us that follow him, and for the generations that follow us, even those who are not yet even born. It was this passage and on that legacy of Moses  from which Martin Luther King drew these most famous words: 

We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

We too are called to draw from the legacies of all those people who came before us, of all those women and men, those people who paved the way for us to be who we are as followers of Christ in the world. Our job as long as we are alive is to keep learning, never stop learning from those people who came before us, and to keep moving forward, building a path for those who come behind us. One of the ways we do that is through stewardship, through generosity just as previous generations were generous stewards to us, building up the church and the faith for thousands of years. 

So this Halloween, this All Hollows Eve, All Souls & All Saints, however you prefer to call them, remember the legacies of Moses and all the holy people who witnessed to God and testified to Christ in your life and throughout the generations. And endeavor with me to follow their witness, for all those who will live to remember us when we are no longer here. That’s what Halloween is really all about!

If we are a Christian Nation..." on Immigrants in America

I preached this sermon at St. James Episcopal Church in Cincinnati on February 5th, 2017 immediately following the newly announced immigrant ban announced by the President of the United States. Two weeks after that sermon, I led a discussion forum at St. James on how to best support immigrants and refugees in our local  communities. 

Preaching (on an earlier occasion) at St. James, Cincinnati

It’s been an extraordinary week for those of us in this country and around the world. We have been besieged relentlessly with the news of our new president’s ban on immigration from a number of predominantly Muslim countries, with the prospect of even more countries being added to the list (although thankfully that executive order has been put on hold for now). We have heard daily of the rampant Islamophobia in hate speech and hate action and yes, hateful public policy besetting our nation and so much of our world. We have seen in the faces of our Latin American immigrant brothers and sisters the horrific fear of families being torn apart by detention and deportation, simply because they had the gall to flee a civil war that would have taken their lives within days.

Perhaps worst of all is that so much of the disgusting actions we have seen against our Muslim, our Latnino/a, our immigrant brothers and sisters, against LGBT folks & more have been perpetrated in the name of “religious freedom”. This idea of wanting to bring this country back to its “Judeo-Christian roots” is so toxic and so baseless that we have no choice but to forcefully reject it. Friends, let me be very clear, if this is the sort of “Christianity”, the sort of “Judeo-Christian faith” that our nation is said to have been built on – I want no part of that kind of Christianity. I want no part of a Christianity that slams the door on peace-loving Syrian refugees, leaving them to brutal death at the hands of terrorism, just because of our own baseless fears.

Into this, the words of the Prophet Isaiah today could not be more perfect. Isaiah is talking to his Israelite people, who by the way, are in exile in Babylon, the area that is modern-day Syria & Iraq. Isaiah notices that the people claim to be practicing their religion and following God, but they have actually fallen into a way that is oppressive and ignores the true justice of God’s word.

Announce to my people their rebellion,

to the house of Jacob their sins.

Yet day after day they seek me

and delight to know my ways,

as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness

and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;…

Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,

and oppress all your workers.

Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight

and to strike with a wicked fist.

Such fasting as you do today

will not make your voice heard on high.

Folks, these words could have been written to America in 2017. This could have been written directly to a nation, or a national political and religious framework that claims to uphold Jesus, who by the way was himself a Child refugee in Egypt fleeing the wrath of Herod with Mary and Joseph, but then delights in slamming the door on Middle-Eastern refugees! It could have been written to a government that claims to give a preferential option to “religious minorities” that is in actuality a cover for discrimination.

Will you call this a fast,

a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and BRING THE HOMELESS POOR INTO YOUR HOUSE;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

This is a sermon that preaches itself. This is the loving, liberating, lifegiving way of Jesus Christ! On Friday, as a sign of solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters, I attended Friday Du’ah at the Clifton Mosque, just a few minutes down the road from here. Du’ah is the main prayer service of the week, something akin to Sunday morning in the Christian world. Praying shoulder to shoulder alongside some 300 or 400 of our Muslim neighbors, people of every race and color, immigrants and native-born, led by Imam Ishmail (who happens to be an Irish American white guy), I remembered the one-ness of our sacred faith. I watched as they wash their hand

s before worship, much like in the Jewish tradition and in our own as the priest’s hands are washed before celebrating the Eucharist. I prayed the prayer positions with them – positions much like ours – orans, kneeling, standing reverently with folded hands.

 

Guest preacher Hassan Shibly, a civil rights lawyer from Florida, said in his sermon to the gathered assembly that in spite of it all, this country, the United States of America remains one of the freest places for Muslims and people of all faiths to practice our religion, of any country in the world. He reminded all of us not to lose heart, not to lose faith, but to lose our religion, but to hold stronger to it. He told all of us, Muslim and non-Muslim, to hold fast to the “deen” - an Arabic word that roughly means our true religion, our true faith, the way of peace and submission to God. That word “Deen” is the same as the Hebrew word meaning judgments and righteousness that we pray often in the Psalms, promising to hold to God’s “righteous judgments”

Guess what, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us to do precisely the same thing! “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. What Good is our religion if it no longer leads us to the way of Justice and peace? What good is our “American Christianity” if it leads us to create injustice rather than breaking it down? You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

This is the time, perhaps now more than ever, to let our light shine. This is the time, Christians, followers and lovers of Jesus, to let our love shine for all to see. We MUST be a lighthouse to the refugee and the immigrant because we too were refugees and immigrants ourselves. We must be the lighthouse because that is what Christ not urges or suggests, but Requires us to do. I hope you will join me after church as we discuss and prepare to fulfill this sacred duty together. 

What was it like? Episcopal Service Corps in Cincinnati

My year as a Brendan’s Crossing fellow was incredibly formational and important for my personal and ministerial formation as a lay and now clergy leader in the church. From September 2016 to June 2017, I had the honor of serving three unique ministries while living as a member of the Brendan’s Crossing community on a non-residential basis.  Primarily I was based at Christ Church Cathedral, serving as host of the Cathedral Café and as a worship leader of the Tuesday Evening Prayer services and dinners. Both of these roles were directed especially toward engaging the local homeless community while being open and available to all. I also served as a tutor for the Ministerio Latino (Latino Ministry) program in Price Hill on the West Side of Cincinnati. In this role I engaged my Spanish proficiency to help teach a range of elementary and middle school subjects to children of primarily undocumented immigrants. In these diverse roles I was undoubtedly able to both experience and grow in my relationship to God and also to help others to experience God’s love by serving those most in need.

At the altar of Christ Church Cathedral

At the Cathedral, my two roles as café host and worship leader were a wonderful match for my growing ministerial skills and as preparation for my vocation in ordained ministry. Far more than merely serving free coffee to those who were unable to pay, my café became a pastoral space for those with few people to listen and pray for them. Twice during my year there, homeless men remarked to me that they had gone into treatment and become sober because of the pastoral conversations we had at the Cathedral Café. Another woman moved beyond serious suicidal intentions to find a stable job and seek mental health treatment following a series of conversations we had at the Café. Many of these same guests would also worship with us regularly on Tuesdays before dinner at the 5,000 Club. There I preached, led worship and held pastoral conversation & prayer with congregants each week, building up a steady core of worshippers and a congregation of about 50 each week. Working with three other liturgical ministers, we were able to build a choir of ten that went from shyness at publicly singing at all to belting the Nunc Dimittis in Latin and joyfully offering solos by the end of the year. I was blessed to preach or lead worship on most weeks, including sometimes offering prayer in Spanish when we had Spanish-speaking guests and making intersession with them through a wide range of extraordinary struggles.

This wonderful ministry at the Cathedral led naturally to my work with the Latino community in Price Hill. More than merely tutoring in various subjects, this work took on new importance, especially after the increased governmental scrutiny of undocumented immigrants beginning in January 2017. Working with this population allowed me to also help teach classes on what to do if parents were detained by authorities, and to assist in getting passports for American-born children of immigrants so that the children could prove their legal status if needed. So significant was this ministry to me that I became a member of the Diocesan Latino Ministry Commission and a member of the Cincinnati Sanctuary Coalition to continue this critical ministry beyond my year in Brendan’s Crossing.

"The House" is this extraordinary home of Brendan's Crossing

All of these remarkable opportunities to serve local disenfranchised communities were highly formative in my Brendan’s Crossing year, but the intensity if that year may have been overwhelming if I did not have the remarkable support system of the Riddle House family. Simply having these four house residents, along with Aaron Wright with whom to share one another’s joys, burdens, stresses, questions, meals, activities and extraordinary hospitality was the keystone of my year in this program. That bond, forged through days, evenings and nights of many kinds of formation, held together not only our community but also our spiritual and mental health during the course of that year. One night in November, our souls were heavy and our spirits were feeling crushed on the brink of despair. Aaron called together an open Safe Space dinner where we could be free and safe to share, sit, laugh, cry, process and support one another anyway we could. That day was the darkest and most vulnerable of that year for me, but that evening gave me exactly the space I needed to begin to move beyond the state of anxiety I was experiencing through those days.

Without question, the greatest day of my year in Brendan’s Crossing was the day of my ordination to the diaconate on June 3^rd. The entire Brendan’s Crossing community had been so supportive of me during the course of the year, including agreeing to host my ordination party that Saturday afternoon in the large Riddle House backyard. Being able to share such an incredible life-changing moment with my dear friends, supporters and family was an incomparable emotion-filled experience that I will never forget. Having all of them present with me on that day helped to make it a nearly perfect start to my vocation in ordained ministry.

I am extraordinarily proud to have been part of the Brendan’s Crossing family. The skills I gained in that program continue to benefit me daily in my ministries in this diocese, and it has helped to change lives of people across our region. Brendan’s Crossing is an excellent program, especially for the growth of young clergy and lay leaders in our diocese. I continue to strongly recommend Episcopal Service Corps and particularly Brendan’s Crossing frequently to others, and likewise I hope that the diocese will continue to strengthen and support this program for future years to come.

The missing year: Brendan’s Crossing 2016-2017

This is my first blog entry in nearly an entire year. I never thought I’d be the type to keep a blog at all, and so it shocked me that I’d even want to write any more than I was absolutely required to do. Stranger still that I’d find myself missing it, wishing to find something worth saying, worth sharing with the certainly paltry sum of sleep-deprived narcoleptics whom I could only imagine were hoping my various ramblings would help them find their way off to dreamland at last. After I stepped off that airplane jetway in August 2016 once again on American shores, closing the book on my amazing, exotic year as a missionary in Italy, I could not imagine that whatever lay ahead for me on this side of the ocean would be nearly worth dedicating to paper (or digital media for that matter). After all, who would be waiting to read with rapt attention of my daily goings-on in Southwest Ohio with the same “ooh la la” as befits a new life in one of the world’s most famously beautiful and historic cities?

Canoeing during Brendan's Crossing orientation, September 2016

So I returned to Cincinnati after a month’s vacation – and somewhat by surprise - I leapt at my bishop’s invitation to join Brendan’s Crossing, a small community of young adult believers in ten months of service, discernment, and in my case final preparations to take on the Holy Orders that I had been seeking for years. I’d expected, honestly to find a job either in the Episcopal Church world nearby or at worst take up a secular post somewhere while staying constantly tied and involved with my churchwork nonetheless. This “intentional community” thing was pretty new to me, even though I’d been invited to join a similar group years before as I was starting to discern God’s call to ministry in the first place. I found that my year in the Collegio in Rome (the dorm-style apartments that I shared with Carter, Paola, Maiga, Julia and Margaret at St. Paul’s as we learned about God and ourselves while serving in the church) was basically an intentional community in all but name! And I’d lived a similar life as a residential seminarian for three years before, never once realizing that I could’ve well been a member of the Episcopal Service Corps with the lifestyle I was leading!

Brendan's Crossing fellows on retreat in Kentucky, April 2017

Within three quick days I learned that I would be joining the program, called Brendan’s Crossing & based out of a large white house just blocks from the University of Cincinnati, talked on the phone with their director Aaron, whom I would soon come to adore as an incredible friend and supervisor, and unexpectedly secured a service placement at Christ Church Cathedral where I had already been a member for nearly eight years. All of a sudden, my whole life would seem to revolve around the Cathedral, as it was my sponsoring parish for ordination, my ministry site, the home of my church membership, the nearest church to home, and even my polling place all at once! Soon it was arranged – I would help with the Cathedral’s Tuesday homeless ministry, take part in a “café” that I didn’t quite fully understand, and practice my Spanish skills with the Diocesan Latino ministry twice a week on the West Side of town. I didn’t know what any of that would mean, but I knew that a sacred and unusual journey was about to begin, and I had no idea what to expect next.