NEWS AND NOTES FROM THE RECTOR’S DESK

A supplement to the Parish Calendar

Kenneth L. Schmidt

16 May 2012

NETS FOR LIFE: Many of you participated in our 2012 Lenten program which included an appeal for Nets for Life, sponsored by Episcopal Relief and Development. Nets for Life is a nation-wide project which provides mosquito nets, costing $12 each, to help eradicate malaria in sub-Sahara Africa in response to our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. How proud I am to report that we doubled our goal! Members and friends of All Saints’ contributed $3,480.00, which will provide 290 nets. Of course, more nets are always needed. If you did not have the chance to participate in the appeal, you can still contribute by putting a check in the offering plate at Mass on Sunday (or mailing it to the church office), made out to All Saints’ Episcopal Church, with “Nets for Life” on the memo line. THANK YOU for your generosity!

FAREWELL TO LAURIE RUS as Verger: At its meeting in May, the Vestry accepted with great regret the resignation of Laurie Rus as the parish Verger. The Vestry also passed a resolution of great thanks for the service she has provided for the past sixteen years. The Verger, who lives in the garden apartment of the Rectory, oversees the use of the Church by both parish and neighborhood groups by scheduling all activities and working with the Junior Warden and the Building & Grounds Committee to create meeting places that are both welcoming and secure. The Verger’s ministry is critical in maintaining our programs and ministry to provide hospitality to the Haight Ashbury as a Neighborhood House for many non-profit groups and organizations. We have not yet set a date to thank Laurie for her ministry at All Saints’, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do. (Most likely it will be a reception after the 10 a.m. Mass in late June or early July.) All are welcome to pay tribute to Laurie in thanksgiving for serving the All Saints’ and Haight Ashbury communities for so long!

WELCOME TO BILL VISSCHER as the new Verger: At its May meeting, the Vestry also voted to offer the position of parish Verger to Bill Visscher, our Minister of Music. Bill has accepted the position and will begin serving as Verger at the beginning of July. There is precedent for the Minister of Music also serving as All Saints’ Verger. Laurie Rus’ brother, Charles, served as both Minister of Music and Verger for several years in the early 1990s. Thanks to Laurie and Charles for recommending Bill; thank you Bill for serving All Saints’ and our neighborhood in your new role as Verger.

GODLY PLAY: At the annual parents and childrens’ meeting over dinner at the Conover-Klingensmith home in April the families present decided it was time to restart the Godly Play Sunday School program at All Saints’. Our plans at this point are:

Godly Play will meet the second Sunday of every month, during the 10 a.m. Mass, beginning 14 October. Heather Horsfield will oversee the preparation of both the Godly Play and child care rooms. Nancy Lawson will coordinate the scheduling for Godly Play, inviting all former teachers to join the new program and all parents to volunteer as assistants.

We will continue our program of special events, with the Christmas Pageant and the Easter Egg Hunt. Thanks to Doug Conover and Katherine Klingensmith for their hospitality, and to all the parents and children who were able to attend on such short notice.

VESTRY NEWS:

At its April meeting, the Vestry accepted the resignation of Rob Speaks, who now lives in Rancho Mirage in Southern California, and elected Larry Hilty, former Senior Warden, to finish Rob’s term as a member of the Classof 2013.

At the Vestry and Officers’ retreat in April, the Vestry and officers decided to focus on three concerns this next year: Parish stewardship and finances, long-range planning, and the spiritual leadership of the Vestry in parish life.

At its May meeting: As mentioned above, we accepted the resignation of Laurie Rus as Verger and offered the position to Bill Visscher. We also decided to make some changes in how we conduct vestry meetings to help us fulfill our responsibility as a spiritual body:

• Vestry members and officers will attend the Monday evening 6 p.m. Mass on the evenings the Vestry meets and bring a bag supper to eat between Mass and the Vestry meeting.
• Opening and closing devotions will be led by members of the vestry and officers.
• We will pray for the work of the vestry and officers in the Prayers of the People the Sunday before the Vestry meets.
• Members and friends of All Saints’ will be asked to pray on a set rota for the vestry and officers during the actual time of the Vestry meeting.
• We will conclude our meetings with Compline or some other service of prayer.

DAVID C. DUNCOMBE, 1928-2011: We recently learned that The Rev. David C. Duncombe died at his home in White Salmon, Washington, last year on 11 June. An ordained Minister in the United Church of Christ, David and his wife Sally attended All Saints’ from 1984-1993 while David served as the head of the chaplaincy program at UCSF. Sally wore many hats here at the parish as a member of the Vestry and as Junior Warden. A frequent preacher at All Saints’, David fasted regularly, sometimes for extended periods of time, for personal spiritual growth and as a means of social action. You can learn more about David by googling his name on the internet. Here’s an excerpt from his personal testimony about “linking contemplation and social action”: There are two reasons that I am fasting. The first is quite personal and based on my religious faith. As I have grown Older and have seen the world in a broader perspective, it has become increasingly apparent that we have fundamentally undermined God’s will for Creation. God has given us a world of great abundance to share with one another, and we have not shared. Instead there is hunger and starvation among many of God’s people, so I must share in that. I have lost the desire to eat when others cannot . . . and the will to benefit from their poverty.  The second reason I am fasting is rather public. It is to put a living face on starvation . . . I am in my starvation, representing millions of faceless, voiceless and powerless people, thousands of whom are dying each day . . . I am no statistic hobbling into their [U.S. Congressional] offices. I cannot be dismissed and forgotten as a meaningless number. I am a person, and will remain a person, to whomever tries to put me out of their mind or memory.

Give thanks to God for David ministry, praying that “light perpetual will shine upon him” and his wife Sally, who predeceased him several years ago.

SAN FRANCISCO AND THE BAY AREA: THE HAIGHT-ASHBURY EDITION, by Dick Evans: We gave this book to Larry Holben as a thank-you for his visit on Sunday, 6 May, to celebrate and preach at the 10 a.m. Mass. I first learned of this coffee-table size book of stunning photographs of San Francisco and the Bay Area when a member of the staff at Booksmith on Haight Street called the church office to invite me to a book-signing because one of the photographs in the book is of All Saints’. How delighted I was to see us in print once again, this time a picture of the church façade against the background of a cobalt blue sky. I purchased two copies of the book, one for Larry and another for the parish archives, which now include eight books published over the last 25 years that feature All Saints’. San Francisco and the Bay Area: The Haight-Ashbury Edition is published by Booksmith and is available at the store. (You can also buy it online.)

PENTECOST 2012, 27 May: Our annual celebration of what is sometimes referred to as the “birthday of the Church” is just a week from this coming Sunday. The Gospel will be read in many languages as a sign of the out-pouring of God’s Spirit on the whole earth. So far members and friends of All Saints’ have volunteered to read the Gospel in English, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Old English, Russian, German, Spanish, and French. Please call the parish office if you can read a language other than those mentioned. We will be happy to supply you the text. Texts are also readily available on the internet. (Please note you will have to come to a rehearsal prior to the 10 a.m. Mass, at 9:15.)

HAPPY PENTECOST!

Kenneth

WELCOME TO BILL VISSCHER as the new Verger: At its May meeting, the Vestry also voted to offer the position of parish Verger to Bill Visscher, our Minister of Music. Bill has accepted the position and will begin serving as Verger at the beginning of July. There is precedent for the Minister of Music also serving as All Saints’ Verger. Laurie Rus’ brother, Charles, served as both Minister of Music and Verger for several years in the early 1990s. Thanks to Laurie and Charles for recommending Bill; thank you Bill for serving All Saints’ and our neighborhood in your new role as Verger.

Special Liturgies and  Events

Continuation of “Fragments of Your Ancient Name” Easter  Education Series
Wednesday  Evenings, 7 – 8:15 p.m.

A series of Easter meditations on six names for God from Fragments of Your Ancient Name: 365 Glimpses of the Divine for Daily Meditation by Joyce Rupp.

2 May “Good Shepherd”                                                          16 May “Way”

9 May “True Vine”                                                                   23 May “Life”

 •   If you can come early: Mass at 6 p.m. and Bag Supper at 6:30

WELCOME TO

The Rev. Lawrence R. Holben

Priest-in-Charge of St. Barnabas Church in Mount Shasta as our Guest Celebrant and  Preacher

Sunday, 6 May, at the 10 a.m. Mass

• A member of All Saints’ from 1995 to 2004, Larry is the author of our parish history For All the Saints: The First Hundred Years of All Saints Episcopal Church, San Francisco, published in 2010.

 • Copies of For All the Saints will be on sale in the Parish Hall after Mass ($25) and Larry will be available to  sign and personalize copies.

SAN FRANCISCO DEANERY
Saturday, 12 May, 9 a.m. to Noon
Parish representatives and clergy will attend the deanery convocation at St. Gregory of Nyssa Church, 500 De Haro Street.

ROGATION SUNDAY
Sunday, 13 May
Regular schedule of Masses, with the annual blessing of the Parish Garden after the 10 a.m. Mass.

ASCENSION DAY
Thursday, 17 May
Low Mass with Hymns at 6 p.m.

ANNUAL NEWCOMERS’ PARTY
Thursday, 22 May, at 7 p.m. in the Parish Rectory
A welcome to all people new to All Saints’ since our party last May.
A special invitation will be sent to all newcomers with more information.

DAY OF PENTECOST
Sunday, 27 May
At the 10 a.m. Mass the Gospel will be read in several languages.  If you would like to read the Gospel in a language other than English, please call the Church office by Tuesday, 22 May.

Weekly Events

• SUNDAY MASSES at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.
• CHOIR  REHEARSAL Sundays at 9 a.m. and Thursdays at 7 p.m.
• “GODLY PLAY” CHILDREN’S PROGRAM As announced
• OFFICE HOURS Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 1 p.m.—5 p.m.
• WEEKDAY MASSES Monday through Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Lady Chapel; with Evening Prayer on Fridays.
• RECTOR’S DAY OFF Friday
• SATURDAY NEIGHBORHOOD BRUNCH PROGRAM — 10:30 a.m. in the Parish Hall, Sponsored by the Haight Community Services Committee

Monthly Events

• VESTRY MEETING Monday, 7 May at 7 p.m.
• BUILDING & GROUNDS COMMITTEE Tuesday, 22 May at 7 p.m.
• ELDERCARE MINISTRY  Sunday, 27 May at 2 p.m. at the Grove Street Extended Care & Living Home

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia.

MARY MAGDALENE: The Gospel reading from the Gospel According to St. John which I just read to you recounts the story of Jesus’ first appearance as the risen Christ. It is not to a man, but a woman. Not to someone revered as holy, but to a person seen as a notorious sinner. Not to someone expectant with hope, but a follower of Jesus overwhelmed with grief. How poignant is their initial conversation:

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him . . . “Rabbouni!” . . . which means Teacher . . .

It would be a very natural thing in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus to honor Mary Magdalene. She is the first person the risen Christ appears to. She is also the first apostle: “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.”

As I mentioned in an Easter homily a couple of years ago, the account of the appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene has special resonance to us at All Saints’ because of two remarkable renditions, both the results of mistakes. One was the time a Pastoral Associate read the story on the Feast of Mary Magdalene in July. Someone had forgotten to put the ribbon marker in the right place, so when she opened the Gospel Book, it wasn’t there. So she did what most of us couldn’t do: she told the story in her own words as stories would have been told by the first Christian for several decades until any of the Gospels were written. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as we heard the story unscripted, told by a master story teller who brought us deeply into the joy Jesus and Mary Magdalene experienced when they met in the garden where he had been buried.

What stands out for me, though, is another time of telling the story. Its power comes from my failure to tell it right when I taught it at our Godly Play children’s program. There I was on the floor with the children in the Godly Play room, doing all the things the instruction manual dictates with the felt landscape, the papier-mache tomb, and the figures of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. All was going quite well, I thought, . . . until the figure of Jesus toppled over when my sleeve brushed against it. The accident led one of the children to exclaim, “Oops, he died again!” Of course, he didn’t. But I did!

MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS: Making a mess of telling the story of the risen Christ’s meeting with Mary Magdalene embarrassed me. But most likely it would not have bothered Filipino Christians at all. Not because they don’t also honor Mary Magdalene. But because they assume the first person to whom the risen Christ appeared was his mother, the Virgin Mary. So in spite of the fact that there’s no account in any of the Gospels in the New Testament of an appearance of Jesus to his mother, a distinctive liturgical custom has developed in Filipino Roman Catholic churches across the globe in which the risen Christ does just that: he appears first to Mary, his mother.

Here is one account of the liturgical practice honoring Jesus’ appearance to his mother, taken from a web site called the Jesuit Gourmet, which concludes its account with recipes of traditional Filipino Easter foods:

The celebration starts at dawn just before sunrise, with two different Processions that start at different points. The first one consists of [an] icon of the risen Christ carried by men while the second consists of the Blessed Virgin Mary [covered by a veil to denote her mourning] carried by women.Precisely at sunrise, the two processions meet at the church courtyard. . . At the center of the courtyard, the icon of Jesus is faced with the icon of Mary under a canopy . . . At this point, the ceremony of the meeting begins with the choir singing alleluias as Mary approaches Jesus. Under the canopy, an angel descends on top of the head of Mary and lifts the black veil from her; exposing a happy mother who is seeing her son.Uproar of Jubilations is heard from the crowd and confetti fills the air and the choirs would hail the risen Christ and sing songs of joy. Then the ‘Dawn Mass’ is said to the crowd in the courtyard.

CONNECTION: The Filipino name for this celebration of the meeting of the risen Christ with his mother is salubong, a word used for “meeting someone who is arriving.” There is no real English equivalent to the word. The best usually offered are words like ‘meeting’, ‘encounter’, and ‘connection’. As helpful as these words are, they don’t bring out the way in which the meeting, encounter, or connection is something that is expected, even anticipated, and actually hoped for.

Still, I like the word connection, even though it can sound too sterile. I like it because it conveys not just why the risen Christ appeared to his mother in the salubong but why he continues to appear to you and me: to connect with us so we can better connect with each other. That’s why I can say without any qualification that when you truly connect in your thoughts, words, and deeds with another person, there the risen Christ is present. And even more, it is the risen Christ who has actually brought that connection about.

Against great odds. Especially today. For in spite of all the technological advances which have created a global culture, too many of us use them to retreat into a private world that separates us from each other, rather than making connections. As suggested by a cartoon in the recent issue of The New Yorker where someone in a conference room is standing alongside his Power Point screen, telling the people gathered, “First, I want to give you an overview of what I will tell you over and over again during the entire presentation.” He is trying to connect, I guess. But failing miserably. Because the eyes of every one in the audience have already glazed over, as mine do, as soon as I see Power Point equipment in any meeting or conference I attend. It’s just like the old days when I entered a meeting room and saw the easel with a newsprint pad hoisted on it. I want to bolt.

AN EXODUS TALE: However often the connections we want to make fail, still we want to make them, whether or not we see them as the appearance of the risen Christ. And I cannot say what joy it gave me when I read this past week an article called “An Exodus Tale Ends in an Interracial Reunion in Indiana” about the connection recently made between two religious communities in Indianapolis, the African-American South Calvary Missionary Baptist Church and the Etz Charim Synagogue.

The members of the two communities used to connect all the time. They lived in the Southside section of the city and even though each community kept to itself in many ways, they shopped in the same stores, walked the same streets, went to the same theatres. But then they separated. Upward mobility gave many of the young people

the opportunity to move to the suburbs. The building of a football stadium gutted the neighborhood. And what was left of it was divided in two by the construction of Interstate 70.

And so, never the twain did meet. Until an anthropology professor at Indiana University-Purdue decided to find former Southsiders in an attempt to restore through various social events and worship services at the Baptist church and the synagogue the former ties that had formerly connected them.

This is how the article I read recounts one of their most recent connections: After the church service ended and the Southside alumni settled into a kosher lunch together, Jacqueline Belamy, 62, added her assent. “Most times, people of two colors, two religions don’t come together,” she said. “To see how it’s blossomed to this is like ‘Wow!’” What was impossible to foresee was the depth of the individual connections that have been re-established. Ms. Profeta and Cleo More . . . discovered that their families had lived at different times in the same house . . . Beatrice Miller and Gladys Cohen renewed a friendship from their work at Head Start almost a half-century earlier. Henrietta Mervis, 92, met the long-ago customers of her parents’ grocery store. She was not even the oldest participant at the service. That honor went to John M. Calloway, 96, who let it be known that he is still a ballroom dancer.During a bus tour of the old neighborhood . . . Beatrice Miller said something that she probably meant in jest. But under the circumstances, it sounded profound. “On the Southside,” she said, “every key opened the same doors.”

OVERWHELMED IN RAPTURE: I imagine that there are very few places in your life and mine today where “every key open[s] the same door. And probably we wouldn’t want it that way either. After all there are connections we desire and connections we don’t. But in those times and places where we want connections, I recommend for our celebration of the risen Christ’s salubong with his mother a poem called Easter Hymn, from the far East, not from the Philippines, but from Korea, by Ku Sang. Who lived from 1919-2004. Dates which show how much disconnection he and every Korean has lived through for far too long. And equally how much he has desired the risen Christ to connect with him. So that he might, in the risen Christ’s name, connect with all who need connection.

On an old plum tree stump,

seemingly dead and rotten,

seemingly dead and rotten,

like a garland of victory

flowers gleam, dazzling.

Rooted in you, even in death

all things remain alive;

we see them reborn, transfigured.

How then could we doubt

our own Resurrection since

by your own you gave us proof.

Since there is your Resurrection and ours,

Truth exists;

since there is your Resurrection and ours,

Justice triumphs;

since there is your Resurrection and ours,

suffering accepted has value;

since there is your Resurrection and ours,

our faith, hope, and love, are not in vain;

since there is your Resurrection and ours,

our lives are not an empty abyss.

In this lost corner of the earth,

dappled by the spreading spring,

as I imagine that Day’s world,

made perfect by our Resurrection,

I am overwhelmed in rapture.

So let yourself be overwhelmed in rapture today. Make connections in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. By those connections you’ll learn that our lives are not an empty abyss; our faith, hope, and love are not in vain; suffering accepted has value; and that justice triumphs, and truth exists.

May Easter be for you a true salubong! Amen.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia

The Easter Vigil

Several years ago, on a hot day in late summer, I watched a grass fire sweep across one of the rolling East Bay hills. The grass was tinder dry and the wind was high. The flames spread with astonishing speed. Fortunately, there were no homes or people or livestock on that hillside and crews arrived quickly to contain the blaze. Who knows how that fire had started—perhaps a spark from a truck lumbering along the road at the base of the hill; perhaps a cigarette carelessly tossed from a car window. Perhaps a shard of broken glass lying in the weeds had acted as a lens that focused the sun’s rays to burning intensity. However it began, what had started as a single flame quickly grew to engulf a great swath of ground. Within minutes the face of that hillside was completely transformed by flames born of a single spark.

Tonight, as at every Great Vigil of Easter, we have struck a spark and spread its flame from person to person across this assembly, as Christians have done for centuries. Tonight we celebrate the light of Christ which broke forth from a garden tomb and transformed the face of the world. Standing here, more than twenty centuries from the events of Good Friday and that first Easter Day, it may be hard for us to grasp just how swiftly and with what intensity resurrection fire swept across the ancient Roman world. Within a generation, there were Christian communities—resurrection communities—in virtually every major city of the Mediterranean basin. Within three generations, the story of Christ’s death and resurrection had kindled Christian communities in all but the farthest outposts of the Roman Empire.

Why did this story of the death and resurrection of Jesus strike such fire? We know that the religions of the ancient world were replete with myths of gods who died and rose with the annual cycle of the seasons. And there were stories of mortals raised from death in reward for their valor in battle or simply for their beauty in the eyes of the gods. There has been great debate among scholars of comparative religion about the significance of these mythological parallels. Egyptian, Greek, and Mesopotamian religions all had them. So the story of someone rising from death would not in and of itself have astounded men and women of the first century world. What made the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection so powerfully different? C. S. Lewis, who was himself a student of the religious lore of the ancient world, wrote that unlike other stories of dying and rising, “this one actually happened.” The story of Jesus is not the story of a timeless mythological figure but the story of a real flesh and blood human being who lived in a particular time and place.

What sparked the fire that transformed the world, I think, was not only that a real human being had been raised from death, but that it was this human being, this man Jesus, who was raised. This man, who called God “Father” and who taught his disciples to begin their prayers in the same way. This man was raised to life, who embodied the deepest imperatives of his own Jewish heritage—to love God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself—and lived them out in still profounder ways. This man, who in the name of God transgressed boundaries of class and race and gender in order to change lives. This man was raised, who treated women as people, who loved the poor and broke bread with the disenfranchised, who said no to false piety and religious hypocrisy. This man was raised, who so believed that God loved the world that he became willing to lay down his own life for his friends. The power of the resurrection story to galvanize hearts and minds of those who first heard it and to set the world ablaze was that it was this man, with all that his life and work embodied, whom death could not hold.

Tonight we ponder this astonishing story of Jesus’ resurrection as twenty-first century men and women. We hear the story as citizens of the world’s most economically privileged society. We have rights enshrined in law. We are freer to chart our own courses in life than any people in history have been. Those men and women in whom the resurrection story first struck fire could not have imagined such an existence as ours. Consider that as much as twenty per cent of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves, people who had been uprooted from their homes and cultures by Roman armies and force-marched into involuntary servitude. Across the Empire, the chasm between rich and poor was wide and fixed. The poor got by as best they could. The patchwork of indigenous cultures that made up the provinces of Rome was riven by sharp internal divisions of caste and class. The life you were born into was the life you would almost inescapably lead. Life for huge numbers of human beings of the first century world was, to borrow Thomas Hobbes’ phrase, “nasty, brutish, and short.” And death was its inescapable terminus.

So imagine for a moment what it meant to those people to hear that Jesus, this man who proclaimed that the reign of God was at hand, who loved the poor and healed the sick and lifted up the fallen, had been raised to life again. This man in whose face those who knew him best saw the face of God—imagine what it meant to hear that this man had overcome death. If that had happened, what else might be possible? What lesser but seemingly inescapable hard realities of life might be overcome? Might cruelty and ignorance, poverty and division, be overcome? Might resignation be supplanted by hope? Everywhere resurrection fire spread, men and women who believed the good news began to come together to ask, “What else might be possible?”

They began to organize so that the poorest of their number were cared for. Rich and poor began to pray and break bread together. They began to try to live as if they and every human being were worthy of respect because God loved them. They began to understand that justice and dignity are the birthright of every human being. They began to see that God’s love would not be constrained. They did none of these things perfectly in those earliest Christian communities—far from it. Nor have Christians in the twenty centuries that have followed. Nor have we. Christians have been on the wrong side too often and we’re still trying to get it right. But this Easter, in the light of the resurrection, it is still our charge and our joy as Christians to ask, “What else might be possible?” If in Christ death has been overcome, what else might be overcome in our own lives, in the life of our parishes and the whole Church, in the society in which we live, and in the world at large? What else might be possible?

To be clear, what I am suggesting is not that we adopt the easy-breezy “possibility thinking” of some contemporary spiritualities. There is scarcely a person here, or in any church tonight, who has not or will not one day find themselves up against daunting personal challenges which cannot simply be wished away by the power of positive thinking. But it is possible is to meet them with courage and grace. A hard look at the state of our increasingly uncivil society, to say nothing of the conflict-riddled international scene, is enough to give any thoughtful person of faith reason to wonder if justice and lasting peace can finally prevail. There will be no easy answers to such questions. But resurrection fire still burns. It burns most fiercely, as it always has, among people where life is toughest, where justice and equality are still unrealized, and hope is hardest to come by.

Throughout Lent and Holy Week we have sought to walk the way of the cross with Jesus. The cross of Christ calls us to selflessness and sacrificial love. It has been our template for service to the world. But just as in the cross of Jesus we find our mandate to compassionate service, in the resurrection of Jesus we find our moral imperative to work for justice and peace. You and I have the joyful privilege to be ambassadors of possibility. Because Christ has overcome death we dare to ask, “What else might be possible?” An end to malaria and AIDS and tuberculosis? An end to the exploitation of workers? Might there be an end to the marginalization of women and minorities? Might universal health care finally become a reality? Might devotion to the common good somehow overcome partisan rancor? And might those who live in the valley of the shadow of death come to believe that death does not have the last word?

Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed. This holy night, let that resurrection flame burn bright in us again. Let the questions come. What, by the power of God, may yet be possible? We can start small if we need to—there are possibilities for just beyond our doorsteps. What do we have power to do, with God’s help, to make them realities? “Glory to God, whose power working in us, can do infinitely more than we ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus forever.” Amen.

The Rev. Thomas W. Traylor

Good Friday

I see the cross as a symbol of God’s eternal love and of our calling to love as Jesus loved. For me, the cross represents the refusal to bow to the evils of domination, violence and oppression, the faith that even in the midst of these evils, the God of Love is with us to the end. Christians all across the world use the cross to represent the heart of our faith, and thus I would like to believe that all people, in seeing the cross on the doors of our churches and above our altars and around our necks, see the cross as a symbol of submission to God’s love and commitment to justice in the name of God’s love. But I wonder? If all the people of the world were asked to describe what they think of when they see a cross or a crucifix, what would they say?

After all, the cross in the form of the Chi-Rho has adorned the shields of crusading warriors furthering the reaches of oppressive empire, has burned with flames of hatred in front of the homes and churches of black Americans, and has decorated the Bibles of Christian pastors who, long before the concentration camps and mass graves, systematically re-interpreted scripture to strip Jesus of his Jewishness and present him as Aryan.

For some the cross represents selfless love, the mystery of God’s grace, and the possibility of new life beyond death’s gates. For others the cross represents forced conversions, violent oppression and the denigration of non-Western cultural practices and values.

The cross is a symbol weighed down by its own history. At times the cross has been a symbol used to call for the release of all people from injustice and violence, at other times the cross has been a symbol used to oppress and dehumanize. And thus, we who strive to be bearers of the cross must bear the heaviness of its real history, not just the feather-light weight of an ideal.

And when we gather year after year to hear again the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, we must hear not just the words on the page; we must also hear the uses these words have been put to – in particular, John’s use of the phrase “the Jews” has at times been a weapon in the service of hatred.

John’s use of the term “the Jews” is complicated. Who exactly is John referring to? If he’s speaking of some particular group of Jewish people, why does he use this blanket term? How would listeners in John’s time have understood this phrase? There is significant scholarly debate regarding whether John’s Gospel is anti-Jewish and if it is what that even means given the vastly different ways we now understand religious and cultural identifications. We can never fully understand the original meaning or intent in John’s use of the phrase “the Jews” – our cultural and religious distance from that time is simply too great. We can be clear on a few points – Jesus himself was always part of the Jewish community and always identified positively as a Jew, even though he may also have had gentile followers. Jesus was a Jewish teacher and leader who engaged actively in public conversation and debate within his Jewish community about the interpretation of Scripture and the particulars of religious practice. And finally we must acknowledge that John’s Gospel in numerous places employs stark language of us versus them, light verses dark, and good versus bad, and these words have been used to sow hatred – especially against our Jewish brothers and sisters.

In reading John’s gospel, I am reminded of how we humans like to reduce complex realities to clear categories; I am reminded of how seductive it is to see our perspective as right and others’ perspectives as wrong, how bewitching it is to view ourselves as righteous and others as evil. I am reminded of dangerous scripture is in the hands of those who either do not love it or do not seek to bring love from it.

One of the primary ways human beings have of justifying violence towards one another is by stripping individuals of their uniqueness and describing them by a group label – the Jews, the Muslims, the blacks, the illegals, the welfare moms, and then with words, images and silent complicity, we dehumanize that group until hatred and violence against them is widely accepted. Violence nearly always begins with the pen and the mouth, with the video and the internet, before it is realized in crucifixions and fists and bullets and bomb-carrying drones.

And so I come back to the cross, back to Jesus trudging the path to Golgotha forced to carry the instrument of his own torture and death. It is difficult to understand how this could have anything to do with love; it is difficult to understand how this could have anything to do with justice. For us as Christians, Jesus was not just a human being who gave up his life in an attempt to free others from oppression; he was and continues to be the Christ, God incarnate in a human body, a human person, a human soul. But it is not enough to conclude with a statement about Christian faith in the divinity of Jesus, for even this doctrine of incarnation, a radical expression of God’s love for humanity, has been used to destructive ends.

To understand the relation of Jesus’ crucifixion to the love of God we must experience the cross as both a mirror and a window – a mirror in which we see our own fear, our own loneliness our own distrust of the fullness of God’s love, a mirror in which we truly see the suffering of our neighbors, a hard surface against which we hear the echoes of their cries for help, upon which we hear the reverberations of our own words of fearful distrust or even hate: “no I cannot help you,” “we have to make a preemptive strike,” “they should just help themselves,” “they should just go back to their own country.” In the cross we must see how we are exactly like those we condemn, no more worthy of God’s love than those we label “enemy.”

But we must also experiences the cross as a window – an open window through which we feel God’s love, God’s grace, God’s mercy – we must feel their reality, the way fresh air rushes into a closed-off room when the window is suddenly thrown open. Saint Augustine addressed God saying, “You are good and all-powerful, caring for each one of us as though the only one in your care, and yet for all as for each individual.” If I truly believe that God can and does love me with total abandon, as if no other existed and loves all people in this same way, then I do not need to convince myself that I am somehow more deserving of God’s love than others nor do I need to lament that God does not have enough love for me In the mirror we see our need for God’s grace, through the open window we receive it.

We cannot have one image of the cross without the other. If we experience in the cross only a mirror in which we see our own or others’ sinfulness, then we are too apt to think redemption is found in seeking our own suffering or causing others to suffer. This is to worship a God of punishment. If we experience in the cross only a window open to God’s grace – we are too apt to distance ourselves from or own and others’ suffering – we easily convince ourselves that God’s love is something we’ve earned and others have not, we become easily convinced of our own righteousness and others’ sinfulness.

This night our souls bow or kneel before the cross, before the body and soul of Jesus, sagging and suffering from the heaviness of his flesh and the weight of his longing. We (look) at our souls to view the deep corners where we hide the resentments and hatreds of self and other, where we stow the desire to dominate and dehumanize others, where we file away the instances of turning away from our own and from others’ suffering. We listen for the echoes to find hard places in our hearts – the hard places that treat the message of God’s love for ourselves and for others as foolish, the hard fearful places built up against hope. But our souls also bow and kneel before the cross, before the body of Jesus as before an open window, inviting in God’s grace and love into the deep corners of our souls that we might be renewed, that we might remember the truth we have forgotten, the truth about how opening ourselves to the endless depth of God’s love enables us to pour love out without ever being emptied.

On this night especially we are reminded that we are to be bearers of the cross. But I have come to believe that I must study the cross I’m bearing – I must know its size and shape, its dimensions and its density, lest I nail things to it that I am not meant to carry, things that are contrary to the love of God. The only cross we are called to bear is the one that compels us to hand ourselves over the love of God again and again– and this handing ourselves over to the love of God is a form of submission –it is a submission we choose – but it is a submission nonetheless, for it is contrary to some parts of our human understanding. And so on this Good Friday the question I’ve come to ask myself is not, “am I carrying the cross?” but “Is the weight I’m carrying truly the weight of love or is something else?” And I think I’ve learned that sometimes I have to put the cross down and gaze and listen and wait to feel again the rush of God’s love coming in before I can sure that cross I’m carrying is really the cross of the love of God in Christ and not some other cross that needs to be laid down, like a shield laid down in the battlefield where we finally realize that we do not have to go on fighting.

Maundy Thursday

I thought about how to tell this story delicately, in a sermon, on Maundy Thursday no less. But it is an image about love that struck me at the time, and continues to inform what I think about it. Many years ago, when I was very young and wide-eyed, and bushy-tailed a person who was very close to me was about to get married. She was quite a bit older than I, and had surfed in on the outer edge of the sexual revolution. Which means that, in her own way, she had missed it entirely. She was wildly in love, or something. We’ve all seen that starry-eyed enrapturement either in ourselves or in others. Persons in this state can be difficult to be around, impossible to have a conversation with, and certainly have no room in their calendar for you. I hope you are getting a picture of this, because I’d be a little embarrassed to think that I’m the only one who has had this experience with a person “in love”.

She was, and I believe her, celibate. She was, in her words “saving herself” for marriage because, she told me at the time, that “giving yourself in that way is the highest gift that you can give to another person.” That’s a whole other sermon, but moving on, she did marry, had children, struggled with money, life and relationships. And then, in the prime of her days, she became very ill with a progressive and debilitating disease. She struggled on bravely, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that her body was failing her. It was painful to watch her try and navigate stairs, open a jar, pick up a small item from a table, hold her children.

There came a time when I was visiting her and was walking past her room. She was sitting on the edge of her bed and her husband was kneeling in front of her gently helping her put on her stockings, something her twisted and painful hands were unable to do.

It reminded me of the tenderness and compassion with which Jesus knelt before his disciples and washed their feet. And I remember thinking “what is the highest form of love you can give?” I have never asked her if she has changed her mind about that, I don’t know if she even thinks about it anymore. But I know this: love doesn’t always look the way we think it should, the way our culture tells us it should.

As this week progresses we will have the opportunity to look even more deeply into the love of Jesus and what he was willing to do. Paul starts us off with the description of that first Eucharistic meal. But what we didn’t read was Paul’s rebuke of the Corinthians who had lost sight of what the Eucharistic meal was, an agape meal. Already they were dividing themselves up into “haves” and “have nots”, worthy believers and not-so-worthy believers. Or, as in a comic this week with a man standing before Peter at the Pearly Gates making his case for entry, is told: “You were a believer, yes. But you forgot about the ‘don’t be a jerk about it’ part.” The Corinthians were saving the best part of the meal for those of higher status. The poor were going away hungry while the rich were eating their fill and getting drunk.

Paul is telling us that the “love one another” piece goes beyond the boundary of those whom we generally think of as our neighbor. Even the disciples struggled with this in the early days of the church. Was Jesus talking about Jews? Or did he mean to include everyone else too? Even the uncircumcised? Paul took this love of Jesus throughout the Mediterranean, to other nations, peoples. All were invited in. Today our boundaries have grown much farther than even Paul could have imagined. I’ve been to Africa, for heaven’s sake, I’ve sat in a village with no electricity or running water, and sat in prayer with the people there and called them “sister” and “brother”. Do I understand them and their culture? I was often aware that I was in a foreign land, that the language spoken was different in ways that transcended simple grammar. Was my love for them of the starry-eyed version of the person I described in the beginning? No. And loving the neighbors in the far-flung reaches of the world may have nothing to do with what I generally describe as “friendship” or “compatibility”.

We have just concluded our Lenten series this year, with the theme of “Healing the World”. We approached it in kind of a roundabout way. We didn’t necessarily talk about all the things in the world that need healing. We hear about those things all the time. Rather, we were looking at issues around WHY we need to heal the world, what in our Christian tradition compels us to do that, and what in our past, our outlook, and even our relationship with our Church, keeps us from living fully into that healing work that Jesus is beckoning us toward.

In our Lenten series we were really trying to take a hard look at ourselves, what we bring to the table, how do our ingrained perceptions form us and cause us to act or not act. In thinking about the story tonight, I think we could also say we were trying to look at how we are clean, and maybe not so clean. When it’s all over, who do you identify with the most? The disciples? Or Judas Iscariot?

There was an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune this week about the Catholic House of Bishops. The writer noted that the Bishops had been vociferous in their condemnation about the provisions in the Affordable Care Act which provided contraception services to women, even if that condemnation jeopardized the provision of health care to millions of people who would otherwise not be able to get it. But even more telling was the silence from them this week about the proposed Ryan budget which would severely cut funding for services for the poor and the mentally ill. They had the chance to stand up for the poor and the suffering, and they didn’t do it.

This is not what Jesus was talking about when he said to love one another as I have loved you. This was a failure of love, but lest you think I’m holding the poor Bishops up for condemnation, I know that there is plenty of failure to go around. Our own church is riddled with a less than stellar history in standing up for issues of social justice. We were a little late to the party over the issue of slavery during the Civil War, feeling that it was more important to stay “in communion” with the churches of the Confederate South than to take a stand, as an institution, on the most important issue of the day. Today we struggle with the rights of women in our church and in the rights of LGBT persons, and while some still struggle I think we are moving toward getting it right. Time will tell. As Martin Luther King Jr. says “the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice”.

I had my own little epiphany this week, about the meaning of life, in thinking about what drives me to do what I do in life. One part of my brain insisted that I believe that my actions matter, that I believe how I act should leave the world in a better place than I found it. And I really try to do that. But I realized that I also have to look at my own complicity in systems and behaviors that do not mirror the love that Jesus was showing us in this ritual act that we memorialize tonight. I had to look at the many acts, both conscious and unconscious, that do the exact opposite. The many unkindnesses and thoughtlessness. My consumption habits. My taking more than my fair share habits. The not standing for justice when I get the chance. The times when I, like the Bishops, have not been a voice for the voiceless. The many things that are out of my control yet that I benefit from that has been bought or produced at the expense of the well-being of another. Jesus is calling us to “love one another as I have loved you”, but until we get our heads straight about what love really is, we’re going to have a hard time doing that, and we, like the poor Bishops, are going to screw it up.

I’m not sure what I can do about all these things. But tonight our feet will be washed. And I will wash yours. And I will try to follow Jesus and love one another as he has loved me. Because here’s the thing: we don’t get loved because we deserve it. There’s a betrayer in all of us, that should come as no surprise. Loving as Jesus loved us is hard to do. But back to my earlier story. Love isn’t necessarily filled with songbirds and passion. More often than not it’s not particularly pleasant at all. It’s staying up with a sick baby. It’s recycling. It’s not cheating on your taxes. It’s buying a mosquito net. It’s holding people that you may never see or personally know in one’s circle of love, doing your best to insure their well-being. It’s patiently helping your wife put on her stockings so she can feel pretty and put together.

We wash each other’s feet in so many ways. Tonight we can think about this legacy that Jesus left us as a command. Or, we can think of it as a parting gift. Love. Love one another. Love one another as I have loved you, and live into the fullness of your being. This is your salvation.

Sermon Passion Sunday All Saints 2012

On my altar at home there is a nail crusted with rust obviously forged by hand a very long time ago. It was given to me by a woman in her mid 90’s a dozen or so years ago. She found it on a trip to Jerusalem in about 1950 somewhere near Golgotha. Over the long years of her remarkable life, she grew into a deeply spiritual woman. Virginia was as close to being a mystic as any woman I have known. When I hold the nail, I think about it as a symbol or representation of injustice and suffering and ultimately, of hope.

The nail is the same as the bullets that kill the innocent in today’s world. It is the same as words and internet images that destroy lives. It is the same as the silence that ignores injustice of any kind. The nail is the same as indifferent attitudes and behaviors to violence and racism. It is the kiss of betrayal.

When I hold the nail, it reminds me that weakness can be strength. That suffering may lead to deeper insight and self-awareness .That death can lead to new life. That none of us has escaped pain – our own and the things we humans do to cause pain in others. Through suffering, we bond with all humanity – past, present, and future. The same way Jesus bonded with us as he cried out on the cross.

Patti Smith captured some of this meaning for humanity in the Passion narrative when she wrote these lyrics to her song, Easter.

I am the spring, the holy ground,
the endless seed of mystery,
the thorn, the veil, the face of grace,
the brazen image, the thief of sleep,
the ambassador of dreams, the prince of peace.
I am the sword, the wound, the stain.
I rend, I end, I return.

Jesus of Nazareth, was executed because he dared to call attention to the needs of all people including the marginalized, the poor, woman, and the sick. In so doing, he upset the status quo. The people in power were threatened enough to take action. It is an old and familiar human story.

To complicate matters, many people at that time believed that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah, God’s beloved Son. The face of God on earth. Those in power regarded such belief as blasphemy. The Passion narrative leads us to imagine the fear and disbelief at such claims as they listened to Jesus’ persistent message for transformation and repentance.

Love God and neighbor. Forgiveness of sins. Equal Justice for all. Peace in the world. These were old theological and biblical commands. What was new was that these imperatives for a new way of life were emphasized and coupled with Jesus’ proclamation that the Kingdom of God had come near, believe in the good news of God in Christ. And his admission before the high priests that he was indeed the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One.

The tragedy of that horrific event is not confined to the past. We relive it every time we settle for something less than the way of life Jesus taught. Every time we turn our backs on violence and cruelty. Every time we opt to preserve the status quo. We are all guilty.

Once a year in Holy Week we all need to hear the story of how the people refused to listen to Christ’s teaching, how some ran away in fear in spite of their love and faith, how some betrayed, and how weakness and fear led otherwise decent people to kill an innocent man. And Holy Week gives us an opportunity. An opportunity to do the hard inner work of turning ourselves around to God and to live into loving our neighbor. It can start by questioning to accept the status quo in our society. It can start by engaging in the conversations about racism that Trayvon Martin’s short life has sparked and to work with others to rid ourselves of this systemic national evil. It can start by opening our hearts to God’s love for us. A love so embracing and so totally enfolding that God sent us Jesus to walk with us on this often lonely path filled with the paradox of both suffering and joy and to lead us to newness of life.

Joan Chittister wrote “ When Jesus said, “Follow me”, Jesus was really saying that salvation is incomplete until it lives in us. The truth is that people put Jesus on the cross, God did not.”

One would think by now I would have gained greater knowledge of God. Some clarity, theologically speaking to explain the paradox of God’s love and the crucifixion and suffering in general. Something like the theory of gravity, for example, that one can so easily demonstrate.

All I know about God comes from living. I have felt the presence of God, but I know even less than I did 25 years ago about that great mystery.

But life, after all these years, is something I do know about.

The story of the Passion is filled with every conceivable emotion and experience of life. It resonates with life as I know it. There is not one character in this story that is not a recognizable part of the human experience. I imagine we all have a bit of Judas and Peter in us, and the weakness that comes from the seduction of power like Pilate, and the cynical prisoners and bystanders, as well as the forgiving peaceful nature of Jesus in our finer moments.

Although Jesus walked to his suffering and death with dignity and acceptance, it was not passive or without anguish. His death made the rising to come possible. It gives all of us hope for our own risings.

There was a trust in God so pure in Jesus that it sustained him throughout the ordeal of the arrest, the trial, the rejection and betrayal of friends, the people gathered to watch the way some people are attracted to fires and accidents, and the searing indescribable pain of the crucifixion itself.

In the courtyard at Holy Innocents in Corte Madera was a crucifix. The figure of Jesus slightly curled in agony was armless and legless. The wood scarred, the paint cracked and faded, the face of Christ worn by weather and wind.

It was beautiful because it compelled me to acknowledge human suffering in its rawest form and then look deeper to see the face of hope. And that Jesus’ suffering transformed so many hearts and minds over the centuries to this moment in time when the light of Christ’s redeeming love is so desperately needed in us and throughout the world.

When the Allied forces entered into Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1945 they found this Welcoming Prayer somewhere near the front gates. I am grateful to a friend who sent it to me this past week because it is an amazing tribute to the strength and love that resides in the human spirit and gives us direction and hope for the future.

O Lord, Remember not only the men and women
Of good will, but also those of ill will.
But do not remember all the suffering they inflicted on us;
Remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to
This suffering–our comradeship,
Our loyalty, our humility, our courage,
Our generosity, the greatness of heart
Which has grown out of all this, and when
They come to judgment let all the fruits
Which we have borne be their forgiveness.

Amen

A supplement to the Parish Calendar

Kenneth L. Schmidt
21 March 2012

CATCH UP: It’s been a couple of months since I wrote a NEWS and NOTES so some things here are somewhat old news.

That doesn’t make them any less important. Like giving a great  THANK YOU to all who responded so generously to our annual Opportunities for Christmas Giving  appeal. Gifts continued to come in well past Christmas into the New Year, bringing the total of the appeal close to $25,000.00. Donations ranged from $25.00 to $5,000.00 and were designated for operating expenses, the Memorial Fund (the parish endowment), the Haight Ashbury Community Services Committee food program, the Jackson Building Fund (for building maintenance and improvements), sacristy needs, the Rector’s Discretionary Fund, and a new fund soon to be set up for the repair and renovation of our stained glass windows.

Also, CONGRATULATIONS to all who were appointed and elected at the ANNUAL MEETING, and the VESTRY MEETING afterwards, on 4 February :

• .John Prescott, Senior Warden
• Margaret Taylor, Junior Warden
• Mark Patterson, Treasurer
• Jean McMaster, Stewardship Officer
• Vestry, Class of 2015: Myron Chapman, Dewayne Tully, and Edwin Waite
• Trustee of the Memorial Fund: Lindsey Crittenden
• Parish Representatives: John Chase, Darien DeLorenzo, Seth St. Martin, and Sally Schweikert
• Clerk of the Vestry: Rhonda Lee

HEALING A HURTING WORLD: Many of you are participating at church and at home in “Healing a Hurting World, “ our  2012 Lenten program, by attending the Wednesday evening  education series led by Margaret Trezevant and Edwin Wait, using the booklet of daily Lenten Meditations provided by Episcopal Relief and Development [ERD], and contributing to the  Nets for Life appeal.

As you know from the Parish calendar,  Nets for Life is a nation-wide project sponsored by ERD to provide mosquito nets, costing $12.00 each, to help eradicate malaria in sub-Sahara Africa in response to our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. So far members and friends of All Saints’ have  contributed $2,548.00, which will provide 212 nets.

That surpasses the goal we had set for ourselves. But more nets are always needed. So if you have not yet participated in the appeal, please contribute by putting a check in the offering plate at Mass on Sunday (or mailing it to the church office), made out to All Saints’ Episcopal Church, with “Nets for Life” on the Memo line. THANK YOU for your generosity!

WEB PAGE NEWS: Check out some (relatively) new items on the web page:

We received from the Grantz-Condes family a video of the  Children’s Christmas Pageant from last December. Initially I felt should wait to post it until this coming December as PR for the Christmas 2012 Pageant, but Kevin Crispin-Alfieri, our web designer, thought people from the parish would like to see it sooner. So there it is, a delightful touch of Christmas in Lent, now listed under Archives, February 2012.

Kevin has also recently posted a “Stages on Life’s Way” page, giving information on baptisms, marriages/unions, and funerals at All Saints’. Thank you to Lindsey Crittenden for writing the text, and to Kevin for designing the pages and selecting appropriate pictures of Clayton Condes’ baptism, Lindsey’s and Craig Schillig’s wedding, and the columbarium in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.

And starting this Holy Week and Easter we will begin posting holy day sermons, with the help of Nick and Olivia Morawiecki.

SAN FRANCISCO DEANERY NEWS: John Chase reports the following news from the March meeting of the San Francisco Deanery held at St. Luke’s Church: an update was given about the efforts to build a deanery-wide database on the various outreach services offered by churches in the deanery; the Executive Council reported that St. Dorothy’s Rest (a retreat center operated by the diocese) received a one million dollar donation to purchase an additional 500 acres, and that Bishop Marc has proposed the establishment of a diocesan youth program based in Oakland; a grant was made to the chaplaincy program at San Francisco State University (a grant of $500.00 was made by the deanery to All Saints’ food program last November). reports were given by representatives of Episcopal Charities and Episcopal Community Services on on-going programs and new initiatives.

Thank you to the deanery representatives and clergy who attended the meeting: John Chase, Seth St. Martin, Sally Schweikert, Margaret Trezevant, and Elizabeth Welch.

NOW WE ARE SIX: Several people asked me for information about the poems I read in the sermon I preached on Sunday 4 March. They are all from Now We Are Six, by A. A. Milne, available in the children’s section of your local library or bookstore. There’s no room here to quote them, but the titles of the four I read excerpts from are: “The End,” “Solitude,” “Twice Times,” and “Explained.”

LOOKING AHEAD to HOLY WEEK and EASTER: The schedule of services for Holy Week and Easter was printed in the March calendar and will be repeated in April. The Book of Alternative Services of the Anglican Church of Canada givesa superb synopsis of the significance and history of the most holy week of the Christian year (page 296):

The glory of Easter is the heart of the Christian gospel. It is the centre of the Church’s faith and worship. In the earliest days of the Church it was the only Christian festival: an annual celebration, in one act, of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and his sending of the Holy Spirit. The celebration lasted fifty days in one continuous festival of adoration, joy, and thanksgiving, ending on the feast of Pentecost. By the fourth century, the Church was adding to its celebration of Easter aweek-long commemoration of the events which preceded our Lord’s resurrection, beginning on Sunday with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Christians would recall the final meal Jesus had with his disciples and his institution of the Eucharist. On the Friday they would commemorate Christ’s agony and death on the cross. On Saturday night they would gather for the reading the scripture, for prayers, for the baptism of new converts, and then, as the day of the resurrection dawned, for the joyful celebration of Easter. The week before Easter became known as Holy Week. The focal points of this week [are]: The Sunday of the Passion with the Liturgy of the Palms,Maundy Thursday, with foot washing and a thanksgiving for the institution of the Eucharist, Good Friday, with a veneration of the cross, [and] Easter Eve, with the Great Vigil, paschal fire, initiation, and the Easter Eucharist.

PLEASE JOIN US to CELEBRATE a BLESSED HOLY WEEK and a HAPPY EASTER

Kenneth

Please join us for a blessed Holy Week and a Happy Easter

SUNDAY OF THE PASSION: PALM SUNDAY—Sunday, 1 April

• Mass with Blessing of Palms at 8 a.m.
• Solemn Mass including Liturgy of the Palms and Passion Gospel at 10 a.m., with The Very Rev. Judith G. Dunlop, D.D., Pastoral Associate at the Church of the Epiphany, San Carlos, as guest preacher

.MONDAY, TUESDAY, & WEDNESDAY IN HOLY WEEK—2, 3, 4 April

Mass at 6 p.m

MAUNDY THURSDAY—5 April

Solemn Mass with Foot Washing at 7 p.m. followed by the Stripping of the Altar.
The church will be open for the Watch at the Altar of Repose from 8:30 -10 p.m.

GOOD FRIDAY—6 April

• Watch at the Altar of Repose; 6 a.m.–Noon
• Stations of the Cross at 12:15 p.m.
• The church will be open for prayer and Rite of Reconciliation until 3 p.m.
• Mass of the Pre-Sanctified with Passion Gospel and Veneration at 7 p.m.

HOLY SATURDAY & EASTER EVE—7 April

• Office of the Lord’s Burial at 10 a.m.
• The Great Vigil of Easter at 9 p.m., followed by Festal Reception

EASTER DAY—8 April

• Mass at 8 a.m.
• Solemn Mass at 10 a.m., followed by Easter Egg Hunt in the Parish Garden

“Fragments of Your Ancient Name”
Easter Education Series

Wednesday Evenings, 7 – 8:15 p.m.
A series of Easter meditations on six names for God from Fragments of Your Ancient Name: 365 Glimpses of the Divine for Daily Meditation by Joyce Rupp.

• 18 April “Risen Christ”
• 25 April “Bread of Life”
• 2 May “Good Shepherd”
• 9 May “True Vine”
• 16 May “Way”
• 23 May “Life”

If you can come early: Mass at 6 p.m. and Bag Supper at 6:30

Dinner and Planning Meeting
for all Parents, Youth, and Children of All Saints’
Tuesday, 17 April at 6:30 p.m. at the home of Douglas Conover and Katherine Klingensmith.
Please see special invitation for more information

Vestry and Officer’s Retreat
Saturday, 21 April, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

The Rector, Vestry, and Officers at All Saints’ will attend our annual day of reflection and planning at the Church of the Advent of Christ the King.

Weekly Events

SUNDAY MASSES at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.
CHOIR REHEARSAL Sundays at 9 a.m. and Thursdays at 7 p.m.
“GODLY PLAY” CHILDREN’S PROGRAM Special events as announced
OFFICE HOURS Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 1 p.m.-5 p.m.
WEEKDAY MASSES at 6 p.m. in the Lady Chapel, Monday through Thursday, with Evening Prayer on Friday
RECTOR’S DAY OFF Friday
SATURDAY NEIGHBORHOOD BRUNCH PROGRAM  10:30 a.m. in the Parish Hall, Sponsored by the Haight Community Services Committee

Monthly Events

VESTRY MEETING Monday, 9 April at 7 p.m.
ELDERCARE MINISTRY Sunday, 22 April at 2 p.m. at the Grove Street Extended Care & Living Home
BUILDING AND GROUNDS COMMITTEE Tuesday, 24 April, 7 p.m.

ALL SAINTS’ EPISCOPAL CHURCH

1350 Waller Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
Telephone 415.621.1862
Facsimile 415.624.7008
E-mail: info@allsaintssanfran.org
Website: www.allsaintssf.org

ALL SAINTS’ MISSION STATEMENT

All Saints’ is a progressive Episcopal church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. In the name of Jesus, we strive to build a spiritual home rich in worship, parish life, and community service in gratitude for the fullness of God’s love. Please join us in our prayer and work:

Sustain us, O God, in your Holy Spirit. Give us an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.