Author: Beth

“Waiting Well”

We spend a great deal of our lives waiting.  Waiting for it to be lunchtime.  Waiting in line.  Waiting for our vacation to start.  Waiting to grow up.  And now, waiting for a vaccine.  For we creatures who exist in time, “now” is always fleeting, and it is easier to live in our minds either in the past or the future.

I envy the writers of stories.  They have the option of simply skimming over in a few sentences the time their characters spend waiting for something to happen.  At the stroke of a key, they can make days, weeks, or months go by for their people.  They only have to linger when something’s going on.  But real life often seems the exact reverse of that, isn’t it?  

In Advent, we are called to practice waiting well.  Advent is about practicing real presence in this uncomfortable, in-between time where we hold in tension the first coming of Jesus, fleshed and vulnerable as any human, and the second coming of Jesus, the Word that establishes the world, in all his glory and majesty.  The question Advent prompts for Christians is: what does it mean to wait well? 

Continue reading “Advent 2, 2020 – Sermon”

I was listening to the Mockingbird podcast this week, and the host quoted from an online newsletter called “The Unfurling,” written by a woman called Mo Perry.  In this article, Perry talks about the strange times we are living in, and how it has affected us.  She says: “Everyone is doing their own calculus when making their choices about how to live these days. Some have concluded — by evaluating their personal risk factors and interpreting the news headlines and local public health stats — that they don’t want to go into shops or walk outdoors in crowded areas. They want to get their groceries and other essentials delivered, stay in, and minimize contact with others. 

Others have looked at their own constellation of factors and needs, and come to different conclusions. There’s a huge spectrum of ways people feel about the right balance between sensible precautions and what they need to do for their own economic, mental, physical, and relational wellbeing. 

It seems to me that the vast majority of us are trying to navigate our individual circumstances as responsibly as possible, even if one person’s idea of what that looks like for them is different from another’s.  

The virus is one thing that can hurt us, but there are others. Fear, shame, loneliness, anxiety, depression, poverty, isolation…I posed this question on Facebook and Twitter: “Do you feel like you have to hide (or are less inclined to share) pleasurable or fun activities you do outside your home?” The answers were striking. The folks who said no all explained that they’re not doing anything risky, so they have nothing to hide.

A lot of other folks said yes. And the reasons they gave were only partially about [being] risk-sham[ed]; they also mentioned wanting to be seen as appropriately somber in these dark times.

All this seems to add up to a new relationship we’ve communally developed with social media. It’s a place we go to demonstrate our goodness, display our adherence to the rules, and show our fealty to the approved positions on social issues.

Our real lives — the parts that are messy, fun, joyful, playful, morally ambiguous, less than perfectly ethically vetted — stay in the shadows.”

Continue reading “Sermon – Trinity 20, 2020”

We are approaching the end of Ordinary Time.  We have been working our way through Matthew’s Gospel, and now we find ourselves near the end of the Gospel and the end of Jesus’ ministry.  Here in Matthew 21, Jesus has returned triumphantly to Jerusalem.  He has been to the Temple already, and driven out the money changers and the people selling animals for offerings.  In these last days of his ministry, he will be confronted multiple times by the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the chief priests and elders of the people.  They will try to trip him up, to make him say something they can arrest him for.  We read about the first in this set of challenges this morning.

Continue reading “Trinity 16 Sermon”

There is a video on YouTube I like to watch from time to time called “Cosmic Eye”.  It begins with an image of a smiling woman lying on the grass.  From there it pulls out, straight up into the air, and continues out, encompassing the park and city she lies in, then the continent, the planet, the solar system, and right out of the Milky Way, past our galaxy and its nearest neighbors, to what we can only guess is what the universe looks like, because it is too far away for us to ever see or get to.  The video then zooms back down to the smiling woman again, then carries on into her, through her laughing eye and into her body, carrying on down through her cells and into her DNA, and on down to the quarks we also have to imagine exist, because we can’t see them either!

Continue reading “Sermon 2020-08-16”

Beth Christianson
July 19, 2020

Well, we find ourselves well into summer today by the Earth’s-trip-around-the-sun calendar, and well into Trinity season by the church calendar.  Trinity season encompasses all the long, lovely days of summer and fall in which we slow down from our mad rush from feast day to feast day that takes up December to May, and begin our slow and systematic journey through one of the four Gospels, Matthew this year.  We move carefully through the chapters, examining the ministry of Jesus, the miracles, the sermons, and the parables.  Trinity is the season where we dig deep into what Jesus taught his followers, and through the Gospel writers, teaches us, about what it means to be Christ-followers, and to participate in God’s Kingdom.  

Continue reading “The Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat”

Sermon for Trinity 2 – June 21, 2020
Beth Christianson

When I was a teenager, there was a phrase we heard a lot in youth-oriented church ministries: being “on fire for Christ.”  Being on fire for Christ meant going to youth group every Friday, and showing up for Sunday School every week at 10 am.  It meant going to the various youth retreat weekends on offer throughout the year, and going to Bible camp in the summers.  It meant signing up for short-term missions.  Being on fire for Christ meant going to the front of the church when the worship band was playing to sing and dance, raise your hands and speak in tongues.  Being on fire for Christ meant going back from these mountaintop experiences to your school and telling your classmates about how cool God is, and how cool you were by association.  Being on fire for Christ meant being fearless.  You couldn’t care if anyone was looking at you, or talking about you.  But that’s easy, right?  What teenager cares about those things anyway?

Continue reading “The Cost of Discipleship”

May 24, 2020 Sunday After Ascension

Beth Christianson

Jesus Christ, the King of Glory,
has ascended today into the heavens.
He sits at the right hand of the Father
and rules heaven and earth.

Now all the psalms of David,
our father, are fulfilled.
Now the Lord sits with the
Lord on the seat of God.

In this greatest of triumphs
let us bless the Lord.
The Holy Trinity be glorified.
Let us give thanks to God.

That’s the English translation of a 12th century Ascension hymn called “Coelos ascendit hodie”.  “Now all the psalms of David our father are fulfilled.”  I love that line!  

Ascension Day, the fortieth day after Easter was this past Thursday.  It was lovely to celebrate the feast together, and to see Claude and Nathaniel and Gene, even if only by video.  And while I will not be quoting from Led Zeppelin, we do continue on in the same vein today with our scripture readings and our celebration of the ascension of Jesus.  These final ten days of the Easter season, between Ascension and Pentecost, really are worthy of the joyful attention of all Christians.

Continue reading “Sermon for May 24, 2020 Sunday After Ascension”

May 3, 2020, Easter 3

Beth Christianson

I’ve been reading and hearing a lot this week about the type of leadership the world is experiencing during this pandemic.  And it’s really as you might expect: some leaders are doing  a really great job.  And some leaders are suggesting we inject ourselves with bleach.  So, you know.  There’s a range out there.

I wonder if any of you have heard the quote from Silveria Jacobs, the prime minister of Sint Maarten that’s been making the rounds of the internet lately?  She sounded like every mom ever, and it was just so comforting in its familiarity.  “Stop moving,” she said.  “Simply: stop. moving.  If you do not have the type of bread you like in your house, eat crackers.”

Continue reading “The Lord is My Shepherd (and Bishop)”

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church. Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020, Beth Christianson

Well, I think this may go on record as the strangest Palm Sunday I have ever passed in my life in the Church.  Last year at this time, we were parading in St. Mary’s with palm branches, palm crosses, and banners.  We sang, we lit candles.  When I think back, my imagination conjures up sound and motion and color.  Today, I am thinking of each of you in your homes, with your loved ones.  I hope that you are singing together, and that you found something to stand in for palm branches!

Continue reading “The Mind of the Messiah”