Redeemer Review
The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer
February, 2008
From our Interim Vicar:
Dear Redeemer friends,
It’s Sunday January 27, and I’m sitting in the office at Redeemer, watching the rain come down, and finishing
up various administrative tasks before giving Sue Clark a call so she can come over and let me give her my set
of church keys.
It’s only been four and a half months since I preached my first sermon at Redeemer, and we’ve had a lot of fun
and come a long way in that short period of time. For my part, I am grateful for the opportunity to have served
such a faithful and fun community of friends. My time spent with Redeemer has been a blessing to me, and as I
have expressed to many of you in person over the past few weeks, it is not without some sadness that I make my
way over the hill to St John’s in Ross. (And I know that Marin is small, and the distance from here to there
smaller; we’ll see each other again.)
And! It’s a good time for transition: Next Sunday (February 3) is when we hear of the Transfiguration of Jesus
(placed in the lectionary the week before Lent as a nod to medieval notions of purification). The holy fast of
Lent begins on February 6, and with it a period of reflection and deep prayer as we prepare for the high point of
the Christian year: Holy Week. Many of us grew up with simplistic notions of what it means to walk the
pilgrim’s way of Lent: usually having to do with not eating or drinking something that we really really like. The
penitential dominance of the middle ages still colors our thinking: God must want us to suffer a little bit to
prove that we’re worthy, or something like that.
But Lent isn’t about suffering. It’s about focusing our attention on the thing that really matters: God’s limitless
love for the world. Speaking for myself, my days are filled with so many distractions, and such internal chatter
fills my head as to prevent any regular acknowledgment of the most basic and miraculous fact: today I am alive
and in the presence of God.
Liturgical reformers are often accused of trying to make God “more accessible” to people. My friend Rick
Fabian has countered that, on the contrary, the work of all prayer is to make ourselves more accessible to God,
who pursues us with a lover’s fervor, endlessly making gestures in our direction which we, in our distraction,
miss. Taking time, or making space, or whatever it is that we need in order to hear the still, small voice of God
speaking peace and reconciliation to us requires a LOT of discipline. More than I can usually muster. But in
Lent we make a special pledge to do a little less — to listen rather than talk, to observe rather than comment, to
receive rather than to impose, all in the belief that as our anxieties and distractions diminish, they are replaced
with the blessing of God’s presence.
Let this season of Lent be for you a period of prayer and a welcome of the transition that God has in mind for
Redeemer: from strength to strength, from blessing to blessing, from glory to glory. I look forward to the
chance to visit with you again, and to hear great news coming from Knight Drive.
God’s peace go with you,
Father Steve
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