Our Annual Meeting was held Sunday January 21st immediately after the 9 A.M. Service.  It marked a time of endings and new beginnings.  Like New Year’s, it could be a time for making resolutions for the new year, but by and large it will probably be more marked by saying thanks to our Wardens, Patrick and Jim, and our Vestry members who have served these past few years and are retiring. On behalf of the congregation I do want to thank these wonderful people and to say that as the congregation has faced exceptionally challenging times, they have given exceptional leadership. I will look back on these years as a time when the strong gave much. Thank you.

The road ahead is not yet clear, nor straight. We have learned, and will continue to learn, what it means to “Live by Faith”. This does not mean that we will wait or do nothing as we wait. I still maintain that God is testing us, in the best sense. This is the time to build our church, not the building, but the people. I have said this since the Sunday after the storm. WE, the people are the church. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are to be God’s people here and now; especially now!.

In a few short months we will be back in DeMiller Hall, but will we be any different? Will we act any differently than we did before the storm? Has the generous Spirit of God, that has caused thousands of people, unknown to us before the storm, who have given up their holidays, and their money to help us; has it caused us to look at life individually, and as a community?

For many in our church family, the concept of community is still a real challenge. This week in Forward, Day by Day I read this, (commenting on Mark 3:19B-35):

How Jesus must have puzzled people, especially his family. Teens do this all the time, as they separate themselves from their families of origin, to carve a place for themselves in a world that others have made But Jesus’ pointed question to the crowd is hardly an example of adolescent rebellion. This episode in Mark reflects the dazzling of the idea of family evident in the earliest Christian communities, where all people – no matter where they came from, or how much money they had, or whether they were slave or free, male or female, Jew or Gentile – all regarded themselves as members of one family in Jesus Christ. No wonder they treasured these and similar remarks when they remembered stories about him. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Jesus’ question seems shocking, even callous to us today; living as we do in a culture that sometimes seems hostile to family life. But it must have seemed profoundly liberating at the time, when ancient kinship ties could strangle people’s freedom of movement and belief. And in our own time of brittle xenophobia, the idea that all people are one family in this Jesus Christ – that even my enemy is my brother – might be just as liberating for us as it was when Mark wrote his gospel.

As we begin the new year, a year when we will have to look at building a new church facility, it is imperative that we work together, to find a common vision, and to be the Church of the Redeemer in this place, even if it is a ‘church without walls’.

We have had a wonderful year. God has blessed us beyond our imagining. Should we be any less a blessing to God and our neighbor; our sister or brother?

May God bless you all. Harold

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Words from the Associate Priest
The Rev. Jane Bearden, Associate Priest

Praying with Psalm 139 on a beautiful Friday morning………… LORD, you have searched me out and known me; * you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

When I was in the first grade I was known as something of a troublemaker. I loved to play outdoors and the worst part of the day was the end of the lunch recess. Just when I really got involved in recess my teacher, Mrs. Clark, would blow this whistle for us to line up and come inside. I fancied myself a bit of a class leader, so when I made plans to stage a mutiny it was not difficult to get the class to go along with me. That is - all of the class except Susan. One day at the lunch recess, I convinced the class to hide behind the bushes rather than return to class – I was certain that Mrs. Clark would never find us. But those bushes were far apart and we were clearly visible. The whistle blew, and we giggled, the whistle blew again and we giggled louder. Then much to my horror I looked up and saw Mrs. Clark standing over me with Susan by her side pointing at me and saying, “She did it Mrs. Clark, Jane made us do it”. Needless to say I ended up in the principle’s office. I grew up of course and as I grew up I learned to appreciate the twinkle in Mrs. Clark’s eye that said to me, I love your spunk and I admire your ingenuity, but I cannot let you hide from me because I care too much about you.

As adults I think that we also have our hiding places. Sometimes we hide from responsibility by dulling our minds with alcohol or drugs. Sometimes we hide from intimacy by overworking or overplaying. Sometimes we hide from grief or pain by playing like it doesn’t exist until finally we can run no further and we fall utterly vulnerable and utterly lost. Sometimes we try to hide from God because we feel that our shortcomings are just so many and so bad that God could never love such a troublemaker as you or me. Sometimes we become angry because we do not understand or appreciate why God does or does not intervene in the workings of our lives and we question God's presence or interest. Sometimes we feel that we do not have the right language to use to correctly address God, and so we try to hide behind someone else’s words or gestures and fail to present our genuine selves before God.

When we use words like Ruler, Potter, Shepherd and the like we are using metaphors that describe what God is like. When Scripture describes God using metaphors like these, the image that we get is of someone that is “out there”- apart from us. It is to think of God as acting upon us from a distance. The risk is that God can become someone or something that we can blame for the bad things and credit for the good things. We risk imagining God to be so distant that we feel that we are not acceptable enough, not worthy of God's love and care. But there is another language that the Bible uses to talk about God. This language is very personal and intimate. It is a way of speaking to God that assumes God to be an all encompassing spirit and light, surrounding all that is within us. During this season of Epiphany we hear the very human encounters with Jesus at weddings, in the temple, and on the lake of Gennesaret. We cannot hide from that which is present with us and in us.

In Psalm 139 the psalmist asks. “Where can I go then from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” This writer of poetry to God imagines himself journeying through an ancient three tiered universe – climbing to heaven, descending to hell and the grave, or running away to the four corners of the world and then realizing “You” are there also and “You” hold on tightly to me. How is that possible? It is possible because there is no place that we can hide; no place that we can be outside God.

When Peter and Andrew, James and John left their nets and followed Jesus they did so because they recognized God's voice calling them to be God's messengers in the world. To be the bearers of the Good News that God is in us and we are in God through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. We too are called to be bearers of that Good News. Good News that sees God close at hand, right here – as close as our own breath. Following Christ does not mean believing in a God who may or may not be around or from whom we can hide ourselves away. Rather we have entered into a relationship with God who is right here, who knows our inmost thoughts and who loves us completely and just the way we are. We are called to do the same for all.

God's Peace be with you. Jane