This article was originally published in our Late Pentecost edition of The Bellringer.
Come June every year, I am desperately looking forward to summer. The warmth, the produce, the relaxed pace. I need the break. Yet come September every year, I am equally looking forward to the fall! The lazy days of summer are replaced with the frenzy of fall activity. Each have value. Rest and work are both holy. The Jesus said both “I will give you rest” and “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” I am ready to get to work.
As you will read or have read in this Bellringer, this fall is full of activity at St. Mary’s. Meals together, classes, worship. The choirs return to worship services. Sunday School kicks off for the children and youth. We will have new bible studies and book groups for the adults. And lots of eating together. Treats at coffee hour, a delicious meal for newcomers, dinner together to hear from our youth about their pilgrimage this summer. I won’t go over all of the details here, but I do want to encourage you to engage, to show up to the activities and to each other.
But all of these activities are not just about filling the calendar and passing time. They are about something deeper: building a community of faith. We don’t come together simply to do things; we come together so that we might grow in love with God and each other. Relationships are not a bonus of life; they are fundamental.
And relationships happen when we spend time together. Relationships happen when we pray together and eat together and learn together and serve together. Relationships happen when we talk, listen, and laugh. I was once talking to a parishioner who had just started making sandwiches for Saturday Breakfast. She told me how much fun she was having talking and laughing with her fellow parishioners who were also making sandwiches. When I heard her story, I thought to myself: Wow, Saturday Breakfast is not only nourishing our hungry neighbors, but it is also nourishing our hungry souls!
Nourish your souls, my friends, in rest and in work. Be together. Eat together. Talk together. Learn together. Laugh together. Mourn together. Pray together. I will see you soon.
