Summer Birthdays

One of my circles of friends gathers for birthdays and winter holidays. Sometimes for birthdays we plan something special for the birthday person, and sometimes we just get together for dinner. Today, on the first full day of Fall, we celebrated the Summer birthdays with dinner at the recently opened Cheesecake Factory in the Danbury Fair Mall. We spent the hour wait, which we knew there would be, catching up.

This particular circle of friends also tends to exchange gifts when we celebrate birthdays. Since I've been doing a lot of crocheting lately, I decided I'd give handmade gifts this time. And rather than wait for the Hanukkah/Christmas/Solstice gathering, I figured warm gifts before the cold weather set in would be good. So here is the hat I made for Mike. It's pretty basic--half double crochet using a size I hook. I've finally figured out a way to make the seam less noticeable when I'm not using a pattern that works in the round.

This is my first cowl, which I gave to Lisa. It's a Möbius strip done in half double crochet. I used a Red Heart Super Saver color called Artist Print. I really like the way it came out. It's wide enough that it can be pulled up to be a hood, too.

And here's Lisa modeling her cowl. So much of the knitting and crocheting I've been doing for the past months has been for Grace's Shawl Ministry, so I don't really get to see what I've made on the recipient. I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of Mike with his hat on.

I already had this set aside to give to Rachel at the winter holiday gathering, but she has a couple of work-related events that will probably be before we actually have our get together. I've done this pattern before for the Prayer Shawl Ministry, but this is a single color (Caron Simply Soft Iris).  For some reason, it shows a bit more blue in the photos I took than it is in person.  This particular shawl is pretty versatile--it can even be scrunched up and worn as a scarf.

Now I need figure out what I'm going to do for the the Winter Holiday presents. I have a few ideas. I've been working on some of them, learning new techniques in several of the different crafts I dabble in. There have been some failures, but each one helps me learn.

And if nothing comes together by the Holiday gathering, there are always gift cards!

I Forgot Number 6

Another Bottom Up shawl using 1 1/2 Skein TLC Essentials Falling Leaves, a Size P Crochet Hook, and done in Double Crochet.

And this past Sunday we blessed the completed shawls. You can read about it on the Grace Episcopal Church Outreach Blog.

It’s Not a Spectator Sport

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Year A Revised Common Lectionary – Proper 18

Exodus 12:1-14, Psalm 149, Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20

Grace Episcopal Church, Norwalk, CT



May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.



When I first pulled the readings for this Sunday I had no clue how I was going to pull a sermon from them. The origins of a holiday that isn’t really ours, a Psalm with a dark side, Paul reiterating in his own way Jesus’ Great Commandment, and Jesus himself telling us how to do reconciliation. What do you do with those? Well, actually, you can pull several sermons out of them, but it takes some work.



Sermons are a lot like the shawls being created by the participants in Grace’s Shawl Ministry. In that ministry we’re given a set of instructions—or we find some. But being given the instructions doesn’t knit or crochet the shawl. We have to choose yarn for the shawl and obtain knitting needles or a crochet hook. And does the shawl knit or crochet itself then? Nope. We have to pick up the needles or hook, take the yarn and do the actual knitting or crocheting. After a while you have to stop staring at the reading and your notes and start writing because the sermon isn’t going to write itself.



During my recent stay at Holy Cross Monastery I was reminded that crocheting without television, radio, or social conversation can be a time of prayer and contemplation. So while I was in the contemplating the readings phase, I spent some time crocheting, and a phrase came to mind that shed some light on the readings as a group.



Life is not a spectator sport.



Let’s look at the passage from Exodus. God provided leadership for the Hebrews: Moses and Aaron. God plagued the Egyptians with several ecological disasters and was getting ready to visit one last catastrophe upon them. In preparation, God gave the Hebrews a set of very explicit instructions. But here’s the thing. In order for this whole Exodus thing to happen, the Hebrews had to participate. They couldn’t just sit there and wait for someone else to do it. They had to be an active part of their own deliverance. Otherwise, their own firstborn would have died that night. And more than that, if they hadn’t followed the instructions, packed up and followed Moses out of Egypt, they’d still be there.



We do have a similar history involving our own parish. Grace Episcopal Church was founded over 120 years ago by members St. Paul’s on the Green who were unhappy with the direction that parish was taking, such as the Anglo-Catholic reforms sweeping through England and the United States. If those folks hadn’t petitioned the Diocese to form a new parish, raised the money to build a new church, and walked down the hill to their new home, there wouldn’t be a Grace Church.



Life is not a spectator sport.



Psalm 149 starts out pleasantly enough. The people sing, dance and play instruments to praise the Lord. Then it turns to the people wreaking vengeance on others as part of God’s judgment. That’s something that makes liberal and most middle of the spectrum Christians uncomfortable. But it is in the Bible, and Psalm 149 is just one example of it. It’s not what we like to hear about God, wreaking vengeance. But God didn’t carry out His judgment alone. It is the people that have to “inflict on them the judgment decreed.” And even the worship and adoration in the first part of the psalm are about active participation. The timbrel and the harp don’t play themselves. Just ask the members of our music program!



And if we want to have a place to worship, that takes work, too. When we invited Betania to join us here in our building, they did not want to displace the Haitians, as had been done to them more than once. Instead, they refurbished the space in the Undercroft that had been our Children’s Chapel at one time. In fact, they cleaned and refurbished the whole Undercroft for the whole BetaniaGrace community.



Church is not a spectator sport.



In Paul’s day Christians expected Jesus to return at any moment. But did that mean sitting around and doing nothing? No. In today’s reading from Romans Paul tells them to put on the armor of light and live honorably. Yes, we are already forgiven and blessed by God’s grace, but that doesn’t mean sitting on our duffs and doing nothing. It means our lives should be changed in some meaningful way. And we should be DOING something.



And in Matthew’s Gospel today Jesus’ tells us that being the church in the world is not passive. Even to effect reconciliation among its own members requires doing something. Getting up and reaching out to the other person.



Christianity is not a spectator sport.



We keep wondering why people are not walking through the doors of our church, but when we walk out those doors, most of us simply go home. Times have changed. We no longer live in a society that expects church membership as a given and just being here on the corner of Mott and Union Park isn’t going to bring people through those doors.



Things aren’t going to change by us sitting on our duffs. God has given us leadership with vision. God has given us some instructions, although each of us may have different parts of them, and they certainly aren’t as clear and concise as those the Hebrews received for the Passover. One thing I do know, nothing will happen if we do not actively participate in the work of being a church. Of being Grace Episcopal Church and Iglesia Betania.



Doing something will mean not only doing those things we know how to do, it means learning how to do new things too. It’s what we do in the Shawl Ministry. Some of us have learned to knit. Some of us have learned to crochet. We’ve learned new skills in order to participate in this ministry. A ministry that reaches beyond the walls of this building.



Ministry is not a spectator sport.



My friends, our future is uncertain, as uncertain as the future the Hebrews faced when God called them out of Egypt. While we know the end of their story, they did not. They could only act on their faith. We don’t know the end of our story, but we can do no less. Act on our faith. Act.



It’s not a spectator sport.