Trinity Stories

Dear Friends,

In her 2009 book, The Case for God, Karen Armstrong argued that religion is a practical discipline that teaches us to discover new capacities of the mind and heart. What new capacities of the mind and heart might we cultivate during the holiest week of the Christian Year?

Holy Week begins this Sunday, Palm Sunday. Most of the scriptural “airtime” on Palm Sunday is given over to the stories of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his subsequent passion, suffering and death. Because of this, we might miss the practical discipline St. Paul offers us. In his letter to converts in Philippi in what is now Asia Minor, Paul quotes a hymn that was, evidently, already well-known to Christian communities. Armstrong writes, “. . . from this very early date (c. 54-57) Christians saw Jesus’ life as a kenosis, a humble ‘self-emptying.’”

Here’s what Paul wrote to the Philippians – in contemporary English: “Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death – and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.”

This coming Sunday morning, bread will be broken, and wine poured out in remembrance of the one who emptied himself for our sake. He did not seek to save his own life but lost it and is alive for evermore. If we can begin to imitate Jesus’ kenosis – his self-emptying – in the details of our own lives, our hearts will open in response to Christ’s great love for us. They will open to the pain and suffering we see all around us. They will open to those who are on the margins of society. And they will even open to our enemies and those who wish us harm.

Imitating Christ is not without cost, but Jesus tells us that “those who lose their lives for my sake, and for the sake of the Good News, will find them.”

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate

Dear Friends,

The three traditional practices for Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I want to talk about the first of the three – prayer.

Each Sunday, the person leading the Prayers of the People references those on “the Trinity prayer list.” I thought recently, “I wonder where that prayer list is and who keeps it?” Yes, I’m in my sixth month as your interim, but I’m still discovering things about the way Trinity works. (Remember this when your new rector arrives – it will take time for them to learn about the parish’s people and practices. There will be a learning curve!)

I decided to find out more about the parish prayer list. So I conducted an investigation. Guess what? We don’t have one. The reference in the Prayers of the People is a vestige of another time in Trinity’s life. This discovery was enough motivation for me to address this absence and the need for a simple way for parishioners to request prayer.

People preparing for confirmation or reception in the Episcopal Church often are taught the acronym, ACTIP, as a way of remembering the different kinds of prayer. Here’s what each letter stands for: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Intercession, and Petition. Our Prayers of the People are prayers of intercession – we pray for the church, for our nation and those in authority around the world, for those who suffer in body, mind or spirit, and for those who have died.

One of the bishops in whose diocese I served was adamant that people should stand for the Prayers of the People. He believed that lay people were exercising the priesthood of all believers as they prayed on behalf of others. So, they should stand just as priests stand to celebrate Holy Communion. I am less concerned about people’s postures and more about whether they have what they need to perform this very important ministry. Some adjustments are in order.

Here are the adjustments I’m suggesting we make:

• We re-establish a parish prayer list. We’ll make it easy to request prayers for people or situations through our website: www.trinitytoledo.org or by emailing or calling the parish office. Email is trinity@trinitytoledo.org. Phone is (419) 243-1231.
• When a request comes in, it will remain on the prayer list for four weeks before it’ll be taken off. Requests can always be renewed or submitted again. However, having an “expiration date” will prevent the list from overflowing with prayer requests that are out of date.
• When a request is received, the requester will be asked whether they want it to appear on the public prayer list, which will be read out loud at Sunday services, or be added to a private list. In order for a request to be included in the public prayer list on Sunday, please contact the church office no later than the end of the day on Wednesday. And if we’re praying publicly for someone you know, be sure you’ve gotten their permission to be named aloud.
• If the request is designated to remain private or discrete, the parish clergy and a small prayer team will offer prayer. The request will not go public.
• A small prayer team has already agreed to say prayers of intercession. The team members will pray on their own for now. This is not a closed group. You may ask to join the prayer team by emailing me at stephen@trinitytoledo.org.

The goal is two-fold – to make it easier for people to make prayer requests and to involve more parishioners in the practice of praying for others.

Let me end with a portion of a prayer written by the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor, author, and public theologian. Her online publication, newsletter, and community is called “The Corners.” It’s a reminder to me that nothing is out of bounds when it comes to praying for others:

“Bless the things we mistakenly think are already dead. Bless that which we have already begun to carry out of town to bury. Bless our rocky marriages and our college age kids who smoke too much pot. Bless the person at work who we love to hate. Bless the young adult who wonders if they are too young to really be an alcoholic, and bless the 6o year old woman who’s had too much work done. Bless the public school lunch ladies and the guy who stole my kid’s bike. Bless the chronically sick. Bless the one who has no one. Bless what we call insignificant and which you call magnificent. Bless it all and love what only you can love: the ugly, and abandoned and unsanitary in the wash of humanity upon which you have nothing but a gleaming compassion when we have none.”

And let us all say, Amen!

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate

Dear Friends,

Since Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has so much going on, I’m not sure when he has time to sleep.

Professor Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Most people know him from the popular program, “Finding Your Roots,” which has been broadcast on PBS since 2012. In each episode, celebrities learn about their ancestral histories, discovered by a combination of paper trails, DNA analysis, and forensic genealogy.

“Finding Your Roots” is only one of Dr. Gates’ projects. He’s been the executive producer, host, and writer of “The Black Church,” in which he traces the 400-year history of how Black people have worshiped in America.

His most recent offering is, “Gospel,” a program that honors the legacy of Gospel music in America. Trinity’s staff is tired of hearing me tell them to watch the four-part series, so I’m expanding my evangelistic efforts to you – the readers of Trinity Topics. My message is simple: Spend the four hours it will take you to watch all four episodes. You’ll be glad you did. It’s streaming on PBS Passport, or you can find it here: https://www.pbs.org/show/gospel/.

As a lifelong Episcopalian, I didn’t grow up with Gospel music in church. We sang hymns from the Episcopal Church’s hymnals and anthems from the English Choral Tradition. This genre of music is beautiful, and I will love it to the end of my life. For years, this was the only music one heard in the Episcopal Church. “The Republican party at prayer” is the way Americans used to snicker at the Episcopal Church, the snobby, worldly US branch of the Anglican communion. But the church, like this country, has changed. It’s becoming multi-cultural – thank goodness! – more open and inclusive. And that includes the music we sing.

My introduction to Gospel music happened when I served my first interim assignment at St. Andrew’s Church in Cincinnati. The Director of Music there was Mrs. Irma Tillery, a force of nature and one of the editors of our church’s African American Hymnal, Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Although Trinity doesn’t have these hymnals in pew racks, Chelsie and Grace draw music from the book all the time – songs like “Precious Lord, take my hand,” and “I come to the garden alone.” But Mrs. Tillery took things a step further. She designated the first Sunday of every month as Gospel Sunday. On Gospel Sunday, Mrs. Tillery turned over the keyboard to Jerome, picked up her tambourine (although she was 80, she still played a mean tambourine), and sang in the Gospel Choir. Like the choir here at Trinity, the Gospel Choir at St. Andrew’s regularly brought down the house.

I’ve learned a lot about the origins of Gospel music from watching Dr. Gates’ series – about the emergence of Gospel music in Chicago and then, Detroit – and about the key figures in its development: Thomas A Dorsey, Jr., Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland, Sister Rosetta Tharp, Aretha Franklin, the Winans, Andre Crouch and many others; and about its power to comfort, inspire, and empower.

If you’re looking for a different way to observe Lent, “Gospel” might be just the thing.

And again, when does Henry Louis Gates sleep? All these PBS programs and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses at Harvard. Wow! I look forward to the next project he has in the pipeline.

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate

Dear Friends,

Spring training began this past week as baseball teams reported to Florida – the Grapefruit League – or Arizona – the Cactus League. Pitchers and catchers always show up first. Then the position players arrive, some of them grizzled veterans, some of them rookies hoping to be in the lineup come Opening Day.

I’ve loved baseball since I was a boy. My grandfather Applegate was a huge baseball fan. He spent summers living with us for several years, and he parked himself in front of the TV set in the living room so he could see and hear the games. Although he wasn’t totally blind or deaf, his eyesight and hearing had suffered considerable decline in his old age. One didn’t need to be in the living room to know what was going on with the Yankees. Mel Allen, Red Barber, and Phil Rizzuto’s voices on WPIX could be heard throughout the house.

These days, I rely on the MLB app on my phone, or watch one of the games on MLB.TV to get my baseball fix. A recent email reminded me that I needed to update my credit card so my subscription will renew without interruption.

Here’s a story about spring training and Lent that’s circulated for a long time: Many years ago, a popular Roman Catholic priest was invited to celebrate Mass for a men’s club as they were entering the season of Lent. Like most people, the men thought of the 40-day period as just a time for increased prayer and fasting. The priest changed the thinking of the men that evening as he presented a talk on “Lent, a time of spring training for people of faith.”

“Lent is like spring training in baseball,” the priest said. “We get out of spring training what we put into it. We need to do this yearly to be on God’s team.”

You may not be a baseball fan, or even pay any attention to the sport, but it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how much eye-hand coordination it takes to hit a sphere that’s only 9-9.25” in circumference traveling at you from 60’ 6” away at 100 mph.

Instead of seeing Lent as a dreary season when we give up things we like for reasons we don’t understand, I’d like to offer another view of Lent – a view from our National Pastime. Lent is the time to ensure that our spiritual life is in top-notch coordination. But in the case of our spiritual lives, it’s not eye-hand coordination; it’s mind, heart and hand coordination.

In place of taking batting practice and fielding ground balls as players do during baseball’s spring training, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are the essentials of spiritual spring training. They result in the coordination of mind, heart and hand.

Opening Day will be here before you know it, and so will Easter. Will you be ready when the umpire says, “Play ball”?

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate