4/13/2022

4/13/2022

Dear Friends in Christ,

Many years ago, when I was in seminary, I participated in a three-week immersion in community organizing with the Diocese of Louisiana in New Orleans. This was a few years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city, and the program was born out of the need for systemic change in the devastated city. As part of this experience, we met with grass roots community organizers who rose from pre-hurricane obscurity amid the chaos and devastation of the aftermath to play a pivotal role in rebuilding and reorganizing the city, listened to the stories of how faith communities responded to the crisis, spent time with Episcopal Service Corps interns rebuilding houses destroyed by Katrina, met with homeowners who had lost their homes and businesses, and even got to help with the rebuild.

I vividly remember one evening spent with the ESC interns. We gathered in the chapel at Loyola University and prayed evensong together, before sharing a simple meal during which we told our stories. As I listened to how and why these young people between the ages of 19 and 29 had given up homes, families, college, jobs, to help this devastated city, a pattern emerged. All of them had grown up in the Church. The majority of them grew up in a mainstream faith. None of them felt their parents church had any relevance to them. They found God in helping others and lived their faith out in service. As I listened to their stories, I realized something. This was Church. What we were doing – gathering together, praying together, breaking bread together, sharing and hearing each other’s sacred stories, is unintentionally recreated what we do every Sunday.

On Maundy Thursday we will be intentionally recreating church in new and different ways when we remember Jesus’ final meal with his friends before he is crucified with our own Agapé meal - a communal meal shared among Christians which originated in the early Church and was a time of fellowship for believers, usually including the Eucharist, and first referred to in Paul’s first epistle to the Church in Corinth. The name comes from agape, a Greek term for 'love' in its broadest sense.

Although we will be gathered around tables in the courtyard (or Parish Hall if the weather is inclement), what we will be doing is just as much church as if we were to gather in the sanctuary for a traditional Eucharistic service. I invite you to come and experience church in a different way, opening yourself to new and profound understandings of the last night of our Savior’s life.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Jane+