St. Joe's Weekly Dispatch | August 16th, 2024
I. From the Desk of the Vicar
Dearests -
Two weeks ago, I sat for several hours in a choir stall in the chapel at Clare College, Cambridge. That’s where I was baptized, in March 1998, and I believe I’ve not set foot in the chapel since moving from England back to New York in the summer of 1999. Two weeks ago, the chapel was empty; it was a quiet weekday morning. I sat and looked at the painting of the Annunciation, eighteenth-century, and all the dark, dark wood, and the marble floors. I hadn’t predicted that the space would feel so familiar to me, that I would feel right at home – as though I’d been there the week before; just as properly placed there as I feel when I sit in our own church pews. How can one feel such a sense of belonging in and to a space one hasn’t visited for a quarter of a century? Perhaps this is what ritual does to space – particularly, sacramental ritual. Perhaps sacraments remake the space in which they are performed. I sat in the dark wood pew, and I thought about how that baptism remade me. I was so young when I was baptized. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what I was doing, really. Yet here I am. Here we all are, Sunday after Sunday. Thanks be to God.
I’d not seen, when I was baptized, the icons that depict Jesus’ own baptism. Theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams describes them: Jesus is “up to his neck in the water, whole below, sitting under the waves, are the river gods of the old works, representing the chaos that is being overcome.”
One thing baptism does, says Williams, is beckon the baptized person to go where Jesus goes, and to go toward and with Jesus just means to go toward “the chaos and the neediness of a humanity that has forgotten its own destiny” — and also toward the chaos in one’s own life.
To think that’s what we ushered sweet baby Claire into last Sunday – a capacity to go with Jesus toward the chaos.
Baptism is one of our two chief sacraments, of course. The other is the Eucharist. We’re in a run of Sundays when we hear about the Eucharist over and over, from the Gospel of John – “I am the living bread that comes down from heaven,” we heard last week; “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them,” we’ll hear this Sunday, and again next Sunday.
My trip to Cambridge seems to have launched me on a sentimental review of my whole thus-far Christian life. This past week, I’ve remembered forcefully the season, a decade after my baptism, when I felt very far away from God, and unsure what, if anything I believed, and unsure how to pray – and I can see clearly now (could I see then? I’m not certain) that in that season, it was the regular reception of the Eucharist that kept me most tethered to something like faith. Although I couldn’t say much about God or to God, I could find my way to bodily intimacy with God in the wafer and wine, flesh and blood. Here’s the French philosopher Emmanuel Falque: “By eating his body and drinking his blood, we don’t simply celebrate the memory of an event…We drink the blood of his life that flows as far as our veins, and we eat the flesh of his body that feeds us even in our inmost organs.”
What a privilege it is to celebrate these sacraments with you. To be remade by them with you.
One note of more concrete and practical concern: beginning on Sunday, September 15, our eucharistic choreography will change. For three years, many of us at St. Joe’s have received Eucharistic wine from individual pottery cups. Those cups will be put away after our September 8 Eucharist, and we will redirect our Eucharistic practice around the common cup.
The Anglican tradition has always seen “the common cup” – the Eucharistic chalice, from which we each sip – as vital to Anglican practice. The cup offers a vinous counterpart to St. Paul’s words about bread: “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.” The act of sipping from a shared chalice knits our eucharistic participation into Jesus’ struggles in the garden of Gethsemane: “Lord, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” Finally, the common cup is a symbol of the unity we have with one another in Jesus. Presiding Bishop (and former bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina) Michael Curry likes to tell this story about the Eucharist:
There was a woman who became an Episcopalian/Anglican in the 1940’s. And she was dating a young guy who was licensed to preach in the Baptist tradition. She took him to her church. Both of them were African-American. The church where they went was all white. This was in the 1940’s in the segregated heart of America. When she went to communion he sat in the pew because in those days if you were Baptist you didn’t take communion in an Episcopal Church and vice versa. So he sat in the pew and she went up to communion as the only black person in the congregation. And he waited to see what would happen. Because, not only were they taking the bread, but he noticed that they were all drinking from the same cup. And he had never seen black folk and white folk drink out of the same cup or from the same water fountain. So she went up to take communion….And the priest was giving out the bread, ‘The body of Christ the Bread of Heaven.’ Then the priest came along with the chalice, ‘The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.’ And he got to the black woman, ‘The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ given for thee…’ That man said, any church where black and white drink from the same cup has discovered something I want to be a part of and that the world needs to learn about….This is the sacrament of unity that can overcome even the deepest estrangements between human beings.
The man and woman in the story were Bishop Curry’s parents.
The Episcopal Church suspended the common cup, of course, because of the pandemic, but our bishop has permitted, and indeed encouraged, its resumption for many months now, and St. Joe’s, in persisting with our individual cups, has become out-of-step with the churches of our diocese, and with Anglicanism’s long eucharistic practice.
So – on September 15, we will introduce the following Eucharistic choreography: If you come to the altar rail, you will be offered a single chalice from which you may sip. If you come to the standing station in front of the piano, you will be handed a piece of bread that has been dipped (“intincted” is the technical term) by a eucharistic minister in wine from a single chalice. In other words, if you do not wish to sip from a common cup, but you wish to receive wine, you can do so by repairing to the standing station. And please remember, it is the long and clear teaching of the church that you receive the fullness of the sacrament – you draw fully near to the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist — through receiving either the bread alone or the wine alone (receiving “in one kind” is the technical term); your reception of the Eucharist is not halved should you choose to receive only bread.
As always, if you’ve questions or concerns about this, please speak to me, to another member of the clergy, or to the Senior Warden or Junior Warden. For now: thank you for joining me in opening ourselves up to these sacraments — or, more to the point, opening ourselves up to God in and through the sacraments.
Those pottery cups we’ve been using are really punch cups. Their three punch bowls repose in the closet in my mudroom. I hope we can thank them—the cups—and perhaps find an occasion for punch.
With love from
Vicar Lauren
PS Please carefully review — and delight in! — the announcements below - they detail many of our fall offerings … classes, dinners together, &c.
II. Announcements
Still coming up in August…Get to know our neighborhood—or, I-Spy * Wednesday, August 21, 6:30-8:30 PM and Sunday, August 25, 12:30-2:30 PM (both sessions will be the same). What are the greatest gifts and needs in our neighborhood? Join the property discernment committee to walk the neighborhood, jot down observations and talk to our neighbors. Then we’ll reflect together on what we learned, surfacing opportunities for action. Questions? Email Deacon Kelly, deaconkelly@stjosephsdurham.org
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And: a look ahead to fall at St. Joe’s:
Study
Long-Book Book Club * Two more sessions on Miss Macintosh, My Darling: September 6, 7:00 pm- 8:30 pm, and wrapping October 4, 7:00 pm -8:30 pm - at the vicar’s house.
Spooks and Ghouls in the Bible * Monday evenings October 14, 21, 28 from 6:00 pm-7:30 pm. Ghosts! Witches! Bones & skeletons! Yes, these are Halloween decorations. They are also motifs in the Bible. CJ will lead a three-part study of spooky things in the Bible. Come to one session or all three. Location: Vicar’s House. Questions: Email CJ, cjsurb@gmail.com
Political Theology series * Monday evenings, November 4, 11, 18 from 6:00 pm- 7:30 pm. Vicar Lauren and writer and Mennonite pastor, Isaac Villegas will lead a three-part series on political theology: what has the long tradition of Christianity thought about what government is for? how have Christians responded in ages past when they think government has gone astray? Come to one session or all three. Location: Vicar’s House. Questions? Email Lauren, vicar@stjosephsdurham.org.
Book Club * Monday, December 2, 7:00 pm- 8:30 pm, Join Vicar Lauren to discuss Night Flyer by Tiya Miles — a spiritual biography of Harriet Tubman. Location: Vicar’s House. Questions? Email Lauren, vicar@stjosephsdurham.org.
Dinner
Monthly Parish Potluck Fellowship Dinner - the second Thursday of each month, beginning Thursday, September 12, 5:30 pm-7:00 pm * Join other St. Josephites for dinner and fellowship. Location: Parish house. Questions? Email Lauren at vicar@stjosephsdurham.org. And mark your calendar for the second Thursday of October 10, November 14, and December 12.
Dinner at the Benhase home * Friday, October 25, 6:00 pm at the home of Kelly and Scott Benhase *Kelly and Scott Benhase will host a supper gathering for St Joseph's folks of a "certain age" (we’re thinking 60 and up). Even if that's not your demographic, you're still welcome to join us. Kelly and Scott will provide entrees and drinks, so please bring a side dish or dessert. RSVP and any questions: Kelly Benhase, Kjbenhase@gmail.com.
Fall Festival, Chili Dinner, and Eucharist celebrating Teresa of Avila * Saturday, October 19, 3:00-6:00 pm, St. Joe’s *Fun activities for all ages, a fundraising maker fair (donated handmade goods, like paintings, weavings), a chili cook-off & desserts, followed by a 6:00 pm Eucharist in the church. * Want to help? Contact Paul, paul-siceloff@triad.rr.com, if you would like to assist with overseeing children’s activities, info booth & maker fair check-out, event set-up or take down, chili/dessert set-up or clean-up; or to donate handmade items to sell at the maker fair. Contact Lacey Hudspeth, lacey.hudspeth@gmail.com, if you would like to assist with providing a crock pot of chili or a plate of desserts.
Stewardship
As we begin to raise money for our 2025 budget, you’ll have three opportunities to join our Senior Warden, CJ, for a half-hour conversation around the vestry’s vision for St. Joe’s in 2025, and our budgetary needs and priorities.
Sunday, October 6, beginning 10 minutes into morning-service coffee hour in the nave
Tuesday, October 8, 6-7 pm, at the vicar’s house
Sunday, October 27, beginning 10 minutes into morning-service coffee hour in the nave
Questions: Email CJ, cjsurb@gmail.com
Liturgical trainings
Sunday, September 8, beginning 10 minutes into morning-service coffee hour in the nave * Join Deacon Lachlan for a licensing and training for acolytes and wine-bearers. Questions? Email Deacon Lachlan at breakfast@stjosephsdurham.org
Sunday, October 13, beginning 10 minutes into morning-service coffee hour in the nave * Join Vicar Lauren for a licensing and training for ushers and lectors. Questions? Email Vicar Lauren at vicar@stjosephsdurham.org.
Breakfast Ministry
Saturday, September 7, 10 am to 12 pm * Join other St. Josephites to bake casseroles for our weekday breakfasts Location: Parish house. Questions? Email Deacon Lachlan at breakfast@stjosephsdurham.org
Sunday, September 22, 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm * Breakfast Volunteer Training. Location: Parish House. Questions? Email Deacon Lachlan at breakfast@stjosephsdurham.org
Saturday, October 26, 10 am to 12 pm * Join other St. Josephites to bake casseroles for our weekday breakfasts Location: Parish House. Questions? Email Deacon Lachlan at breakfast@stjosephsdurham.org
Other happenings around the parish
Children’s Ministry at St. Joe’s * Saturday, September 14, 4:30 pm -6:00 pm. Join Deacon Kelly for a Children’s ministry meeting. Location: Parish House. Questions? Email Deacon Kelly at deaconkelly@stjosephsdurham.org
St. Joe’s Textile Group * Thursday, September 19, 6:30 pm- 8:00 pm at CJ’s house.* Join the St. Joe’s textile group. Beginners are welcome! Email CJ with questions and for the address, cjsurb@gmail.com (and mark your calendar for the October meeting: October 17, 6:30 pm- 8:00 pm at Deacon Jan’s house. * Email Deacon Jan with questions and for the address, deaconjan@stjosephsdurham.org)
Worship at Women's Prison * Sunday September 22 (1:45 pm - 6:30 pm) and Sunday, November 17 (4:30 - 6:15 pm). If you are interested in joining our volunteer group contact Vicar Lauren, vicar@stjosephsdurham.org.
Parish Work Day * Saturday, September 28, 10:00 am-2:00 pm. Join us to prune, plant, sweep and scrub our campus. Get to know other St. Josephites and help us care for our buildings and grounds. Questions? Contact Isaac Lund, isaaclund14@gmail.com.
Durham Pride Eucharist * Sunday, September 29, 6:00 pm at St. Joe’s. Join us for the annual Durham Pride Eucharist. Note change in Pride Parade day: This year the Durham Pride Parade will take place on Sunday, September 29, from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm on Duke East Campus. Questions? Email Deacon Lachlan at breakfast@stjosephsdurham.org
Lachlan’s Ordination * Monday, September 30, 6:00 pm, St. Joe’s. Deacon Lachlan will be ordained a priest here at St. Joe’s on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. A reception will follow. Contact Hannah if you would like to help, office@stjosephsdurham.org. All are welcome.
III. Art
IV. Community Events
Commute Death Row Event Sunday, August 18, 3:30 pm- 5:30 pm *RCND joins fellow members of NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty—on the 18-year anniversary for our state's last execution—for a program centered on the profound case for commuting NC’s death row. Find more information and RSVP here.