Mar 31, 2021 |
Passion
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Passion
In Jesus we see the suffering of both God and humanity when God’s desire for closeness is frustrated. In Holy Week we see that God’s Love can live in the tension of desire and suffering.
Remember: We are trained by the world to believe that love is conditional and binary. So, if we are good to God, God will love us, and if we are bad to God, God will hate us. If we make Jesus suffer, then how can he still desire us? If we do not act lovable, how can we be loved? In this mindset, Jesus’ passion seems impossible to us. We stand before the cross stupefied by the idea that anyone could call this Friday “Good”.
Remember: We are trained by the world to believe that love is conditional and binary. So, if we are good to God, God will love us, and if we are bad to God, God will hate us. If we make Jesus suffer, then how can he still desire us? If we do not act lovable, how can we be loved? In this mindset, Jesus’ passion seems impossible to us. We stand before the cross stupefied by the idea that anyone could call this Friday “Good”.
Mar 17, 2021 |
Proclaim the Blessing
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Proclaim the Blessing
Proclaiming the blessing of LGBTQ+ people in this world will change us as Christians. It will change our church. It will change how we understand God. It will change how we understand one another. Every time we see blessing in someone, our experience of God’s presence is expanded and deepened. God’s magnificent Love becomes more obvious, more powerful, more clear in our lives when we see it in places we hadn’t before. And we are transformed in a way that glorifies God.
Mar 10, 2021 |
One Year
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
One Year
When I sat down to write to you this week, I was considering talking about March 8th as the last time we were all together on a Sunday in the sanctuary. But I realized that was not true: By that point, many of our parishioners living in retirement communities had already gone on indefinite lockdown. We were not “all together” without them. I remember the week before that even, as people were leaving from worship and one faithful friend said to me, “You won’t be seeing us for a while,” and I just was not ready to hear that or understand it. He saw what I did not.
Mar 03, 2021 |
Hard Times Come Again No More
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Hard Times Come Again No More
I think this is the way of things: Listening can bring comfort, to have someone else sing or say the things that are alive in your heart is a great gift. But stepping into the role of the singing or saying or playing presents a challenge and a frustration: Can I do justice to the truth of things? Can I accurately present the music I hear or the Gospel that I know?
Feb 25, 2021 |
Proclaiming Suffering, Proclaiming Joy
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Proclaiming Suffering, Proclaiming Joy
The goal is for us to have a deeper, fuller sense of the whole human experience. In Jesus, the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. This was an act of honoring and loving humanity in its fullness. God did not merely dress up in human disguise or manifest as a human for a day or two. In Jesus we see God living a human life, which means we see divinity in the broad spectrum of our feelings, in our suffering and joy, in our exuberance and annoyance.
Feb 17, 2021 |
A Vision of Beloved Community
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
A Vision of Beloved Community
Pandemic or no, we as a church can allow times and seasons and years to blend together. We can forget why we exist, forget that church isn’t just a thing that we do or even just a group to which we belong. God gathered us together. God forged this community. God put you and I – all of us – together, and God did this with great purpose. We exist to know Jesus and grow in love. We are united in order that we might grow, be inspired, and then sent into our neighbor’s lives – rolling up our sleeves and participating with God in the healing and reparation of the world.
Feb 10, 2021 |
Proclaiming the Dream
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Proclaiming the Dream
The truth of the Gospel is that we are loved as we are right now. And we don’t believe this. And we don’t act like it. During Lent we set aside a time to examine and be honest about the disconnect between what we proclaim in our church and how we live our day to day lives. But the point of repentance is not shame. The point of repentance is to turn towards the God who loves us so we can remember ourselves. Lent is not about feeling bad or indulging in shame. Lent is about moving away from the things that keep us from knowing Jesus and growing in Love. At Church of the Redeemer, Lent is about moving towards the vision we have of Becoming Beloved Community.
Feb 03, 2021 |
Update On Regathering
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Update On Regathering
I pray our shared hardship will forge a fresh tenderness and sense of interdependence. I pray we will see each other with new eyes and take nothing about our belongingness for granted. I pray we will repent of our inability to face death and learn how to grieve in real and healthy ways. I pray we will have a clearer picture of God’s presence in this world, and a deeper conviction of our role as reconcilers, participating with Jesus in the holy work of loving the world into new life.
Jan 27, 2021 |
Real Unity
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Real Unity
The Christian striving for unity is, in fact, not a striving for something abstract, strange, and unusual: it is a striving to live into what is already true, to live into reality. The Christian life is a life learning how to accept our mutual belonging. We are not trying to create a future unity, but to recognize and accept our current unity – we are already members of the same body. Now we have to act like it.
Jan 20, 2021 |
Stubborn Christians
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Stubborn Christians
A couple days ago I was watching some of the footage from inside the Capitol Building during the siege of January 6th. When the insurrectionists entered the Senate Chamber and stood like a desolating sacrilege at the dais, they began to thank Jesus for this moment. I was horrified. My stomach turned to see Jesus’ name invoked triumphantly as a part of the chaos and violence. And I can tell you with all my heart that I do not believe Jesus condones or inspires the ugliness we saw. It was, to my mind, anti-Christ. But I cannot tell you those men aren’t Christians. I don’t get to say that. And I don't get to shirk off either my connection to the Christians I don’t understand or my share of responsibility for a faith that still hurts people in Jesus’ name.
Jan 13, 2021 |
When We Repent
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
When We Repent
Like the citizens of ancient Israel, we Christians in America know in our hearts that we are not blameless when it comes to our unhappy divisions. And I’m not just saying that we’ve been mean to each other – though we have. We need to repent because we have allowed the church to be divided on issues like slavery and segregation, voting rights, and the basic human dignity of women, LGBTQ+ persons, and people of color.
Jan 06, 2021 |
Your Epiphany
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Your Epiphany
What is your vocation in this world? You have one. The God of Love created you on purpose, and for a purpose. You are no accident. You were put on this earth to receive and to give Love. Your vocation is the thing that helps make that more real, that carries you into a deeper understanding of your belongingness in this world. Now, what influences your vocation? What helps you see God? What reveals more of you to you? That’s where Jesus lives.
Dec 15, 2020 |
Rest in Peace
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rest in Peace
"In the church we say Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory, as we turn our attention towards the time when we will experience, unfiltered, the Love for which we all were made. And while I believe that in death we will know eternal life, and we will be able to rest from the pain and (often self-inflicted) strife we find on Earth, I do not believe that we have to die before we ever know what it means to rest, to let go, to say I love you and talk about what has been and what’s coming – to hold hands and remember our belonging."
Dec 09, 2020 |
Rest Dysfunction
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rest Dysfunction
But there is another side to our relationships with disorders and diseases. When we step away from what we wish were true and sit in the acceptance of what actually is, we are revealed so much about who we are. There is revelation and understanding that emerges from within the dysfunction – and it’s not just some trite generality like, “everyone has weaknesses”.
Nov 25, 2020 |
I Am Thankful for You
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
I Am Thankful for You
Naming gratitude is important because you are actively naming things that have nothing to do with what you have earned or achieved. Think about it. You don’t thank people for giving you things you earned. You thank people when they do things that make you forget about earning. You give thanks for beauty and generosity and forgiveness and kindness and friendship and honesty and faithfulness. That right there is a list of things that you cannot earn or achieve. They are living embodiments of Grace: Gifts of God for the people of God. Gratitude is the antidote to the culture of earning. Gratitude is a recognition of just how much of your daily life is a gift. Gratitude is an acknowledgment of your belonging to God.
Nov 18, 2020 |
We're Taking a Break
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
We're Taking a Break
Likewise, we take an honest look at our culture and realize that we are conditioned to believe that rest is something to be earned. This is counter to the commandment of God. God literally commands that we build regular rest into our lives, not as a reward for work well done, but as a source of strength and centering on God’s presence. And “earned” rest is counter to the Gospel that our belovedness and belonging are a gift from God, given with grace and adoration. Our decision to rest is an act of faithful resistance against the temptation to believe our worth is found in our work.
Oct 29, 2020 |
In the Hands of a Competent God
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
In the Hands of a Competent God
"I don’t want to pile onto that stress by asking you your plan for being Christian. So, let’s look at it from a different angle. My friend Jimmy likes to remind me that we are in the hands of a competent God. Your life is in the hands of a competent God, and you need to hear that during a time such as this. So, really the question is, what can you put into place in order to ground yourself in the competence of the God who loves you?"
