Katie shared these images as an aid to contemplation during her sermon on Sunday (Bonhoeffer's 1940 Christmas homily), two variations on the theme of Christ being found amidst our rubble. Left: Heilige Nacht (Geburt Christi) by Albrecht Altdorfer (1511); Right: Christ in the Rubble, Kelley Latimore (2023)
Dear Incarnation,
I'm writing a day early this week, as tomorrow is a day off for our staff (and hopefully for you, too!). But holiday or no holiday, it seems fitting to write to you on the final day of 2024, as I've been reflecting a lot this week on the past year together as a church.
As I wrote in our year-end finance letter, this has been a year marked by "amazing developments that we couldn’t have foreseen": a growing community in Maryland, an emerging new worship location (and friendship) at Beverley Hills, a flourishing ministry of prayer and discernment, and so many ordinary miracles of healing, forgiveness, deliverance, addiction recovery, sacrificial giving, and spiritual growth that I couldn't possibly name them all. God-With-Us has been so visibly, experientially, abundantly with us in 2024.
Meanwhile, it's been a turbulent year in our world, full of still more unforeseeable developments in national politics and global tragedies and ever-shifting world conflicts. And God is with us there, too, right in the midst of the world's great pain and confusion. In fact, Christmas tells us that this is precisely where God chooses to dwell. He "knows the smell of hay," as I preached on Christmas Eve.
As we close out 2024, I invite you to reflect on the year that has passed and the year that is coming. Weber led us beautifully on Sunday in a contemplative year-end Prayers of the People based on the Ignatian Examen. We always pray this examen on the Sunday closest to the new year, and I always appreciate the space for reflection. If you weren't there on Sunday, or if the "silent contemplation" wasn't quite silent or long enough for you, you can revisit those prayers here. (As for that noisy "silence": wow, those are some acoustics at Beverley Hills!) I also recommend this Great Annual Examen every year at this time as a more in-depth resource for reflection.
This Sunday will conclude our Christmas worship. Through a strange confluence of the liturgical/secular/lectionary calendars this year, we'll celebrate Epiphany a day early on Sunday, January 5 (technically, Epiphany is January 6). Epiphany, which means "revelation," is the day we remember the visit of the Magi to Jesus' home. For that reason, it is also a traditional time for home blessings, and we will bless chalk and provide take-home liturgies for a simple home blessing and door chalking. (No idea what I'm talking about? Come Sunday and see!) This is a fun, weird-enough-to-be-interesting tradition to invite curious friends and neighbors of any faith to join!
For those of us who live in the DMV, January 6 also brings memories of another sort of revelation: the violence of this day in 2021. These memories are more visceral and charged for some than for others. But for all of us, they serve as reminders of the persistent and deep political divisions in our country. Last month's election was another reminder.
I wrote a letter to you on the day after the election with some early thoughts on the outcome. I had hoped that with more time and reflection, I might have something more insightful or profound to share later. But later has come, and, well, . . . I don't. As we look to 2025 and all the uncertainty it holds (not only in our politics, but in our church, our lives, our broader world), these reminders from November are still true, if not particularly profoud. So I'm sharing them again, slightly edited, as a final call to ordinary faithfulness in the coming year.
We do not put our trust in princes or presidents, but in the Lord our God who will reign forever with perfect justice. Our ultimate hope is in Jesus, and he will one day set the world right.
No leader, no administration, no legislation, no election, no resource constraint can stop us from loving God and loving our neighbors.
I believe the days ahead will uniquely call upon us to be peacemakers. We can practice now by confessing our sins, forgiving our enemies, and repairing wrongs.
If the news or social media heightens your political anxiety (and there's ample evidence it does), consider adopting habits of restraint. Pause, pray, wait before going online. Almost nothing is as urgent as our digital overlords would have us believe. Look for ways to live in the embodied world of living, breathing, beyond-our-control things (pets, trees, old books, big skies, friends, children, the Spirit of God) rather than in curated online spaces.
We see now through a glass dimly. There is so much we do not understand.
Church must not become another place that feeds the perpetual outrage machine, but the place we go to have our outrage healed, together, at the table of Jesus.
I am reminded of a vestry member's description of Incarnation's worship as "joyful gentleness" — and I believe our world is aching for the joyful gentleness of Jesus. (I am also reminded of Wendell Berry's great line: "Be joyful / though you have considered all the facts.")
Now is the time (it is always the time) to become the kind of people Jesus calls us to be in his gospels: disciples ready to drink the cup and throw off our cloaks and give our second coat and follow Jesus on his way of cruciform love.
Sometimes following Jesus is incredibly lonely. The road is narrow, friends. But we walk it together, and God walks with us.
"The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our Friend.
He knows our need— to our weakness is no stranger."
and also:
"Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease."
God loves you.
God is still in all our rubble. God still knows the smell of hay. Merry Christmas!
In wonder,
Amy
p.s. It's the last day to give in 2024! As you make decisions about charitable giving this year, I hope you will consider a gift to Incarnation. We're also keeping the Advent-Christmas offering for Casa Chiriliagua open through Dec 31. They're doing great work with immigrant families in the neighborhood where we've been worshiping the past 3 weeks! You can give to both here. THANK YOU for your generosity this year!
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