All Recordings from The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

11 years ago my family and I walked into a theater and watched what would become one of the most significant movies of the last several decades. Of course I’m talking about Frozen. It became the highest grossing film of that year, the highest grossing animated film up to that point, and singlehandedly re-established the cultural relevance of Disney’s animated movies.

But more important than all that, Frozen brought the song “Let it Go” into the world. Everything else about Frozen’s impact pales in comparison to this. “Let it Go” won an Oscar, a Grammy, and sold nearly 11million copies in one year. Even if you have never seen Frozen you have heard this song. And if you have had a child, grandchild, godchild, or are friends with anyone who has had any of these in the last decade, you know this song. It is impossible to overstate its ubiquity in our culture.

Let me step back for a moment and acknowledge the obvious. Yes, I am still a priest and this is still my religious podcast. And yes, I am an adult. And yes, in the midst of some of the most interesting and trying times in recent memory, I am here talking/writing about a Disney movie and one of its songs. Stick with me. Jesus will be here soon.

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Kindness is the conscious decision to humanize the person right in front of you, to at least seek to empathize with them, to insist that they matter even when you don’t want them to.

The temptation to hate is so strong. I am speaking about myself here as much as I am speaking about anyone. I do not believe kindness comes naturally when we feel threatened, when we are hurting. We are in a time of upheaval and great cultural division, fear, and animosity.

Some are grieving the results of this election, and some are celebrating – and if you look at the numbers, it’s a fairly equal portion of both. We cannot say that our country is united behind Donald Trump. That would be a lie. We could not have said the country was united behind Joe Biden after his election. That’s not how this works in real life. We know that politicians like to speak in sweeping terms about the electorate. I think those broad declarations about us are disingenuous – wishful thinking. “America has spoken!” they will often say. Have we? Our winner-take-all mentality insists on a narrative of unity that does not reflect our experience. And our binary thinking requires good guys and bad guys for us to be able to function. This is fertile ground for hatred to grow.

We are fractured, and the breach runs deep. I am not at all sure it is reparable. We all belong to each other, but we don’t act like it, and often we don’t even believe it.

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Well, this is the last blog I will publish before the election. I am aware that nothing I could say at this point would sway your vote one way or the other. I think most of you who know me and have read my writing have your own guesses about how I will vote. And I don’t pretend that anything I’ve put out there has had much of an influence on your vote. So I will not be using this platform to tell you for whom you should vote, or even to tell you to vote at all.

But I am thinking a lot about November 5^th. I believe it is the most consequential election of my lifetime so far. I care deeply about what happens. And also, beyond casting my vote, I have no control over the outcome.

What I also believe is that there will be a November 6^th. And a November 7^th. And hopefully many days after that. And I believe that, regardless of the outcome of the election, we will still all belong to each other. And we have some work to do in order to act like that’s true.

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Your salvation is not about you. It is about God.



Now maybe you're not wealthy. Maybe money is not the issue for you. I invite you to close your eyes for a second and think. Like think about what are the things that you lean on to make sure you know that you're okay.



What are they?



Probably is money for a lot of us. You can open your eyes when you want. I grew up, um, I didn't grow up very much. I grew up short. Um, I was, I was, I was always the shortest kid in my class, um, I was never very athletic, I was never like, like one of the cool kids in that way, right? But I could talk myself into and out of anything.



And I find myself even now trying to talk myself into and out of my own salvation. That's the way that I, that's the way that I know that I'm okay. So when I actually practice silent prayer, and I learn to shut up. God shows up and reminds me, I'm not talking my way into heaven. Heaven is showing up in my heart and in my life, if only I have eyes to see it and am willing to acknowledge my need for God.

Join us for worship this Sunday, October 13, for Holy Eucharist, Rite II with music. with The Rev. Herschel Wade, Celebrant and The Rev. Philip DeVaul, Preacher.

This worship service is also available live at 9:00 am on Sunday, and as a video following that at https://www.redeemer-cincy.org/online-worship/

When we wrote that line, about 7 years ago, I thought I knew what we meant by “every”. In my mind, I was thinking primarily about Republicans and Democrats, and a good mix of independents that included moderates, libertarian types, and some socialists for good measure. This was the scope of my thinking, and I thought that was pretty broad. That was everyone.

It feels naïve now. Sunny, even. It’s not that I didn’t realize other ideologies and perspectives existed – it’s that I assumed the rest to be so extreme as not to need to be acknowledged or discussed. But in the intervening years, Christian Nationalism has emerged as an apparently acceptable perspective. Many legislators openly and comfortably proclaim themselves as Christian Nationalists. Shockingly, frighteningly, it is not a disqualifying proclamation.

It should be.

Christian Nationalism is antithetical both to America and to Christianity.

Christian Nationalism insists on creating legislation based on one particular interpretation of religious belief. That is patently unamerican. Our country has in its founding documents a refusal to establish a state religion. You will sometimes hear adherents to Christian Nationalism try to sidestep this by talking about “Christian values” as the backbone of America’s creation. This is also patently false. For all its faults, our country’s desire to exist as a place free from religious coercion is imaginative, noble, and courageous.

America is not a Christian nation. We were not founded by Christians, but by a mixture of Christians, Deists, Atheists, Agnostics, and Unitarians. Our founding documents are not Christian. While some of the values they promote may be compatible with Christian thought, they are not themselves inherently Christian. Pretending otherwise is just that: Make-believe.

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We all know that divorce happens. It happens to married people. It happens to siblings. It happens to friends, and neighbors, and communities. It even happens to countries.

Divorce, or the act of separating ourselves from one another, is the result of human error in understanding God’s intentions for humanity.

Divorce is a common response to our amnesia (or defiance) of the reality that human beings were made for relationship and that we actually need one another. We always have.

You know who knows this?

Children.

Join us for worship this Sunday, October 6, for Holy Eucharist, Rite II with music. with The Rev. Philip DeVaul, Celebrant and The Rev. Melanie Slane, Preacher.


This worship service is also available live at 9:00 am on Sunday, and as a video following that at https://www.redeemer-cincy.org/online-worship/

“So are there other Republicans at the church?” he asked me. And I laughed.

I laughed because it was a great question, asked directly, and without a hint of irony or cynicism. My breakfast companion was sitting across from me at a local diner when he asked this question. He is getting to know Church of the Redeemer, but he’s been an Episcopalian for his whole life – maybe longer. And as a Republican, he knows the drill. There are, for the record, plenty of Republicans at Redeemer, and in the Episcopal Church. 39% of Episcopalians, to be precise, identify as Republican. Not a small number. But compared to, say evangelical Christians, 56% of which identify as Republican, Episcopal culture simply feels a little more politically liberal. Plus, Cincinnati is a Democratic leaning city in a Republican leaning state. So that skews our congregation’s numbers a bit as well.

I laughed because, it was a lovely, vulnerable question. We live in such a heated and politically divided time. And I won’t even bemoan that. I think it makes sense that things are heated and divided. I don’t like it. But I think I get it. To many people – myself included – it feels as if the soul of our country is currently on the line, and how we navigate these next few years will be profoundly decisive. At the same time, we are getting more and more accustomed to living in self-selected bubbles based on common interest or affinity. So if he’s getting to know Redeemer, he wants to know if it’s a bubble. And that is a vulnerable question, because he’s sitting there over his eggs benedict asking, “Is there a place for me?” It takes courage to wonder that aloud, and it filled my heart with love.

I laughed, because, and I told him this immediately, not two minutes earlier, another Republican parishioner had just texted me to congratulate me on my 8^th anniversary of ministry at Redeemer. “See?” I joked, “Republicans!”

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In the business world I lived in, When someone said the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, that was not a good thing. That was talking about things falling apart pretty quickly. But here I believe Jesus is speaking with hyperbole, delivering a powerful message for us. To give our attention to whatever we are doing.



What our hands are doing. Where our feet are carrying us. What our eyes are focused on. To be awake within ourselves and in our interactions with others. To not fall into or be in default ways of being that set up stumbling blocks for others, and that do not follow Jesus path of love. The path is made by walking.



Walking makes the path. Sometimes it's clear when we're starting a new path. Choosing a new school, a new work position, retirement, sabbatical, being in a committed relationship, suffering, suffering a, a deep loss. New experiences with some direction to them. Sometimes they are anticipated, they are thought through over time, and sometimes they happen spontaneously.

Join us for worship this Sunday, September 29, for Holy Eucharist, Rite II with music. with The Rev. Philip DeVaul, Celebrant and The Rev. Joyce Keeshin, Preacher.


This worship service is also available live at 9:00 am on Sunday, and as a video following that at https://www.redeemer-cincy.org/online-worship/

Last week I insisted that, as a Christian who is American, I must understand myself as Christian first – that my Christian identity supersedes my Americanness. There are, of course, problems with this assertion.

In his arms, he holds an infant, and he says, “Be like this.”

Innocent, and dependent upon one another, unstained by the world; and open to being formed.

Be like this.

Curious seekers with BIG emotions.

Be creative and adaptable; imitating me. Someone you can trust.

Welcome the vulnerable into your midst, and be like them.

For the leader among you is like the one who serves.

There is a reason why, in the Gospels, Jesus implores his believers, his followers to be like little children.

Born anew to a living hope.