Baptism of our Lord

I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live. – Deuteronomy 30:19

 

In the calendar of the Church year, we have just celebrated the feast of the Epiphany. This Sunday, we will commemorate the Baptism of our Lord. At Epiphany, Jesus is revealed as the Son of God to the Gentiles. The question of Epiphany is: Who is this one who is shown to the gentiles, and to all the world? He is none other than the Son of God. The question of the first Sunday after the Epiphany is: What is this baptism in which we’re united to the Son of God, and to each other?

 

Baptism is about our inclusion in the household of God, to be sure. It is about God accepting us, and about our accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior. But there are also things to be rejected: the powers of death, the forces that draw us from the love of God, all those things that corrupt the creatures of God. In baptism, we say “no” to death and “yes” to life, as we pass by God’s grace through death to life in Jesus’ cross and resurrection. This “no” and “yes” is the ground of our Christian lives.

 

The 20th century Episcopal lay theologian William Stringfellow wrote that “the vocation of the baptized person is a simple thing: it is to live from day to day, whatever the day brings, in this extraordinary unity, in this reconciliation with all people and all things, in this knowledge that death has no more power, in this truth of the resurrection. It does not really matter exactly what a Christian does from day to day. What matters is that whatever one does is done in honor of one’s own life, given to one by God and restored to one in Christ, and in honor of the life into which all humans and all things are called. The only thing that really matters to live in Christ instead of death.” In Jesus Christ, God has said “yes” to us, unequivocally. God calls each one of us to say “yes” to life, to live in Christ, and to walk in love.

 

Yours in Christ,

Kara+

A New Year’s Blessing

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

As we begin this new year together, I am drawn to the words of the Irish poet and priest John O’Donohue, from the introduction to his book To Bless the Space Between Us:

“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart.
It draws no attention to itself,
though it is always secretly there.
It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty,
our desire to seek possibility,
and our hearts to love life.
Without this subtle quickening,
our days would be empty and wearisome,
and no horizon would ever awaken our longing…
We enter the world as strangers,
who all at once become heirs
to a harvest of memory, spirit, and dream
that has long preceded us
and will now enfold, nourish, and sustain us.
The gift of the world is our first blessing.”

In the days and months to come, I invite us to open ourselves to the sustaining, guiding, comforting, encouraging, and healing light of Christ—a light that is indeed present in every heart. A light set ablaze at the beginning of creation, the light from which all other light has come to be.

As the true light, it does not burn for its own glory or for praise or attention. Rather, it burns to break through the darkness. It burns to help all living things flourish. It burns to set us free, to show us the way home, to keep us warm, to give us courage, and to remind us that we are not alone. It is the light around which the cosmos revolves, and the source from which all of us find our life.

May we, this year, find ourselves illumined and blessed by this holy, subtle, sacred, blazing flame of life and love.
May it shine within us and through us—
with each breath,
each word,
each act.

Peace and blessings,
Paul+

The Time of Mary

Source: The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1899), in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

My favorite painting of the Annunciation is by the African American realist artist Henry Ossawa Tanner. In Tanner’s Annunciation, the angel appears as a column of light. As for Mary, she isn’t a demure, passive girl. She is a young woman who leans forward with a quizzical expression on her face. Tanner’s Mary has real questions, and Tanner treats the Annunciation as a real event that happened to a real person in a real place - which is what it is. This painting takes seriously the fact that in that universe-upending moment, Mary could have said no but didn’t.

 

I think sometimes people grow up with a two-dimensional, cardboard-cutout version of Mary. But the Mary of Scripture is more complicated and interesting than that. She is a woman of faith and courage. Here’s how the British Anglican poet Denise Levertov describes the scene:

 

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
  only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
the astounding ministry she was offered:
to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power–
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
This was the moment no one speaks of,
when she could still refuse.
A breath unbreathed,
                                Spirit,
                                          suspended,
                                                            waiting.
Bravest of all humans,
                                  consent illumined her.

 

In this last, suspended moment of Advent, we are in the time of Mary. Christmas is a time to rejoice in the glory of the Lord, but it’s also a time to be confronted by the very human reality of the story of Jesus’ birth. Neither Mary, nor Joseph, nor Jesus, are two-dimensional figures acting out a sentimental tale. They are real people, caught up in the most real situation possible: the situation of God’s action towards us in the Word made flesh. It is a time of awe. It is a time of joy.

 

May the blessing of our newborn Savior be with each of you this season.

Yours in expectation,

Kara+

,

Advent: The Beginning of the End of All in Us Not Yet Christ

,

Inspired by Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton, in his Advent essay Hope or Delusion, writes that Advent is “the beginning of the end of all in us that is not yet Christ.” With that single line, he invites us to step away from any sentimental or Hallmark-style picture of the season. Advent is not a time of nostalgia. It is not a gentle manger scene meant to soothe us. Advent confronts us with the truth of Christ’s birth within the broken, chaotic reality of our lives and our world.

The Incarnation is not sentimentality — it is reality. It is God choosing to enter the world as it is, not as we wish it were. And so, Advent asks us to do the same. It calls us to look honestly at who we are and the difference between our lives and the life of Christ, and at the hopes we carry. Is our hope grounded in the real, living Christ, or is it about an illusion — a kind of spiritual pixie dust we imagine will make everything right without asking anything of us?

Advent, therefore, is not sacred sentimentality or ecclesial escapism. It is a moment of truth — the truth about ourselves, the truth about our world, and the truth about what God is bringing to birth within it. Merton’s insight reminds us that Advent is both invitation and challenge: the call to let the false power of our egos fall away, and to surrender our hearts to the transforming grace of God.

So let us rejoice and give thanks in this season of beginnings —
a season that marks the beginning of the end of all in us not yet Christ,
and the beginning of Christ being born in us anew.

Advent Blessings,

Paul+

Welcome Alicia our new Administrative Assistant to the Rector!

Alicia McCarther and her family have been attending Trinity for the past 11 years. You’ve probably seen them sitting in the back row of the nave at the 10:30 service!

Alicia has served on the vestry for the past three years and will complete her term in December. She has many years of experience working in various churches as a hired singer, choir director, and youth director, and she is thrilled to bring that background into her new role as the Administrative Assistant to the Rector. Alicia and her husband, Sean, have been married for 19 years and have two children: Ian (13) and Lily (9). Alicia is incredibly excited to join Team Trinity in this new way!

Preparing a Way

Jesus said to the disciples, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. – Matthew 24:36

Last weekend, a group from Trinity Church gathered at the Community of St. John Baptist in Mendham for a time of prayer and discussion as we look towards Advent. To spend time in prayer in such a beautiful setting was a gift, and if you’re reading this I hope you will consider joining us for our next retreat in March!

During our discussion of the Advent Gospels for Year A – the readings that we’re about to hear in church between now and Christmas – we explored what it might mean to “prepare the way of the Lord” in our hearts and our lives. As we developed a list of concrete practices as a group, we thought you might find it helpful too.

This Advent, you may want to try:

·      Reading a chapter of the Bible or praying a Psalm before you pick up your phone.

·      Changing your Instagram or Spotify algorithm by following more church-related content.

·      Read the Advent devotional from Trinity (I Witness, available at church) or another devotional book

·      Listening to the podcast of Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer from Forward Movement.

·      Listening to sacred music. Try this playlist of upcoming music from our choir, or this playlist of my own favorite Advent songs.

As I have led retreats over the past few years, probably the most common insight I hear from folks is how much it changes your experience of the world to put your phone away. It sounds clichéd by now, but the presence of phones in our pockets is one of the most serious spiritual challenges of our time. This Advent may be a time to re-examine your relationship with your phone - and to reflect on whether or not that relationship needs to change. I know I will be doing that myself!

In the coming days of Advent, we will see the love of God for this world. This is a love so complete that in God’s good time, “the way things are” will be transformed into “the way things should be.”  It is a love so complete that we will know conclusively that the only possible logic of the world is one of peace, of harmony, of new life, of love and redemption. We will know this because the knowledge of God’s truth will fill the world. No longer will we see dimly or guess at God’s designs. We will know at long last what Julian of Norwich saw in her vision: “Would you know your Lord's meaning? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love.” This indeed is something to prepare for – not just by decorating our homes and getting all the festive foods ready, but by making a path in our hearts.

Yours in Christ,

Kara+

CHRIST THE KING

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

This Sunday, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, the final feast of the liturgical year. It is a day that proclaims Christ’s cosmic reign and gently ushers us toward the season of Advent—a time of longing, expectation, and hopeful preparation for the coming of the King.

Yet our human imagination often struggles with kingship. We picture power wrapped in grandeur: thrones and jeweled crowns, palaces and pageantry, subjects bowing before a distant ruler. We imagine hierarchy, dominance, and the wide gap between those who reign and those who serve.

But Christ the King redefines kingship entirely. This feast—also called The Reign of Christ Sunday—invites us to consider the day when God’s world is set right, when divine order and justice are restored. In Christ, power is never about coercion or control. It is always about freedom, healing, and liberation. As Rowan Williams reminds us, “Christ reigns not by taking power, but by giving it away; not by domination, but by self-offering.” His is a kingship shaped by humility, mercy, and sacrificial love.

Fleming Rutledge adds, “The day Christ comes in glory will not be a day of triumph for the powerful, but liberation for the captive.” It will be a day when the last are lifted up, the broken are restored, and the forgotten are brought home.

Christ the King Sunday invites us to look beyond the crowns and kingdoms of this world and to imagine a different kind of rule—one where love is the law, service is strength, and every captive heart is set free. May this vision prepare us as we enter Advent with renewed hope and holy expectation.

Peace and Blessings,

Paul+

Subscribe to Trinity’s email updates