May 13, 2012

For us news junkies, there were plenty of headlines this week.  Voters in France and Greece threw out their governments.  J.P. Morgan Chase lost a couple of billion dollars.  President Obama changed his position on same sex marriage.  Governor Romney was reminded of some bad behavior in high school. As big as these stories were, however, they didn’t come close to the one that touched Kathy and me the most.  On Tuesday, Maurice Sendak, the celebrated children’s author and illustrator, died.  Sendak’s genius—displayed in books like Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen– was that he was able to tap into both the beautiful and terrifying parts of the child’s imagined world.  He believed, as I have come to believe, that where children are concerned, honesty is always the best policy. Both his parents were Holocaust survivors, but they never talked about their experience.  Sendak always regretted their reticence.  He said: “Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve convinced myself — I hope I’m right — that children despair of you if you don’t tell them the truth.”

This week, NPR rebroadcast several interviews that Terry Gross did with Sendak over the years on her program Fresh Air. Here is my favorite anecdote—a story about growing up as a Jew in a multi-ethnic New York neighborhood:

And we lived in a part of Brooklyn which was teeming with immigrants, either other people from Eastern Europe, Jews – or Sicilians, and I couldn’t tell the difference. . . . We lived next to the Sicilians  . . . And I used to run across the hall because they had un-Kosher food, which was much better, much better than Kosher food because it was – it was pasta. It was great Italian cooking. And they laughed, and they drank wine, and they grabbed me, and I sat on their laps, and they had a hell of a good time. And then you come back to my house and you have this sober cuisine and not so rambunctious family life. And I really did have a confusion that Italians were happy Jews, that they were a sect. And that I would have a choice – that I would have a choice after my bar mitzvah to belong to either the sober sect or the happy sect. [Fresh Air 2003 Interview, published May 8, 2012]

Now this may strike you as a curious way to begin a Mother’s Day sermon, but Maurice Sendak’s announcement that “children despair of you if you don’t tell them the truth,” along with his exuberant childhood verdict that “Italians were happy Jews”—both these observations strike me as profound insights about the pain and joy of being human, and they remind us that the Gospel’s truth comes to us precisely within, and not in spite of, the deep truths regarding the stuff of life.  Samuel Johnson said, “Love is the wisdom of fools and the folly of the wise.”  If that’s true, then we see love’s foolish wisdom enacted most obviously within the sphere of the family. That does not mean that our earthly mothers and fathers are perfect.  But it does mean that it is possible for us, even amid evidences of parental imperfection, to discover the depth and breadth and height of what it means both to love and be loved.

Today is the Sixth Sunday of Easter, a day on which we continue to live into the resurrection and its implications for our lives.  Today is coincidentally Mother’s Day, a holiday our culture sets aside to honor mothers and to thank all of those who, of whatever gender, have nurtured us on our life’s path.  As we gather on this Sunday, I invite you to think about Mother’s Day from a new perspective, from Jesus’s angle of vision.  We often tend to use this day as a time to think about our own mothers, to remember their strengths and shortcomings, and to recall how we have either been cared for or neglected as we grew into maturity.  Today I would like to ask us to reverse that process, and to think not so much about how we have been mothered but rather about what kind of mothers we–both women and men–can be ourselves.  As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  At the heart of God’s call to follow Jesus is a call to be a giver, a doer of love.  If Mother’s Day makes any sense to us at all in 2012, it does so as a warrant for loving engagement with those we find in our own households and beyond.

The adult Jesus did not live in a nuclear family.  Instead, he gathered a community of companions—men and women who shared his ministry and his table. It was a new kind of community:  egalitarian, mutual, and compassionate. It rejected the hierarchical social arrangements of both Rome and Palestinian Judaism. In today’s Gospel reading we hear Jesus tell his companions what the most important aspect of life in this new community must be.  He tells them, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  Jesus does not mean this in any sentimental way.  In saying that his companions should love one another, Jesus is setting out the most important quality of any household.  A family, a Christian community–these are fellowships held together not merely by common ancestry, associations, values, or goals.  What makes a family or a household Christian is the presence of love.  The kind of love Jesus talks about is the kind of love witnessed in his love for his companions.  “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  Love, in Jesus’s terms, has little to do with warm, gooey feelings.  Love, in Jesus’s terms, has everything to do with acting–either in wise folly or foolish wisdom–on behalf of another, with putting another’s welfare first, with seeing another’s happiness and well-being as central to one’s own.  “Love one another as I have loved you” is at once the noblest and hardest commandment there is.  A family is a place where people may disagree, may argue, may not even like each other at times.  A family can be exuberant or sober. But a family is a place where the highest and most authentic kind of human love can bloom because it is a place where parents and children–as complicated as their relationships may be–it’s a place where parents and children can enact their deep and improbable love for one another.

So as we think about Jesus and his companions and what they have to say to us on Mother’s Day, the first point is this:  our job, as Jesus says, is to love each other the way he has loved us.  Speaking to each of us as adults, Jesus suggests that our job is to love each other the way parents love their children:  selflessly, sacrificially, sometimes foolishly.  Speaking to each of us as children, Jesus means that our job is to love each other the way children love their parents:  trustingly, creatively, generously.  On a day when our culture asks us to be thankful of and respectful towards our mothers, our Gospel goes us one better:  it asks us all to see ourselves as mothers, to realize that if we want to follow Jesus and know God, the surest way to do that is to be agents of generous, selfless, risky love.  To some extent each of our earthly parents lets us down:  no human being can ever live up to the expectations which we as children project on them.  But the way forward to a free and joyous and abundant life does not involve trying to make up for all the nurture we may not have gotten when we were small.  The way forward into hope and happiness lies precisely through the hearts of those whom God has given us to love in the here and now.  “Love one another as I have loved you” is not just a commandment, it is a gift.  We repair our hearts not by revisiting the past but by reaching out in the present.  We are all of us called, this Mother’s Day, both to thank those who have nurtured us, and to forgive those who haven’t.  But more than that: we’re called to live out God’s love towards those we encounter in the here and now.  In following that commandment, we will be given a joy and peace which transcend whatever it is we may not have gotten in the first place.

“Love is the wisdom of fools and the folly of the wise.” We are gathered this morning both as a human community and as a group of Christians who seek transformation into the joyful risen image of Jesus Christ. The One in whose name we gather has given us a new commandment:  we are to love one another, just as he has loved us.  The first thing that means, as I have said, is that we are all called to be loving mothers of each other, just as our own mothers, and Jesus in his own way have lovingly mothered us.  And here’s the second thing that means:  that along with Jesus and his companions, we are being asked by God–no, we’re being commanded by God–to expand the circumference of the circles we would draw around our families, our community, our world.  “Love one another” is not just a commandment for the household, the church, or those with our values.  Jesus’s commandment is not a demand that we love those who are like us, genetically, politically, or culturally.  Jesus’s commandment is a demand that we break open those circles, that we seek to mother not only those near us but those who are far off:  the people in our workplace, the people in our city, the children in our schools, even those who look and act like our enemies.  Only a dose of the most authentic love, the love which children and parents have for each other, will redeem and transform our community, our nation, and our world.

Whether you live in a family that hides or tells the truth, whether you inhabit a household of somber or happy people, love will continue to be the wisdom of fools and the folly of the wise.  May each and all of us, in the wisdom of our folly, and in the foolishness of our wisdom, love each other as mothers love their children, as Jesus loves his companions, as his companions have gone on to love and serve each other and the world.  In so doing we will be acting as Jesus would act in a broken world.  In so doing we will be following, finally, the only commandment we have that really matters.  Amen.

We are a community of Christian people from diverse backgrounds gathering around God’s table in communion.  We seek to be an inviting, inclusive, and welcoming community.  We extend an invitation to you to come with us and explore what God is doing in your life.  There is a place for you here at God’s table.

The Episcopal Church has always been a comprehensive tradition, honoring the liberty of the individual’s conscience and the breadth of theological affirmations.  Some of us are more Protestant, some more catholic; some liberal, some conservative.  All of us understand prayer, service, and fellowship as the activities that bind us together.

For adults we offer Sunday morning and mid-week education offerings.  For children we offer weekly Sunday School formation.  For middle and high school students we offer an acolyte program, Confirmation class, and a youth group. For Adults in their 20′s and 30s, we offer a Sunday night Lex Orandi service. And there is a wide range of service and fellowship activities for people of all ages.

We worship using the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.  Our music is varied and dynamic.  Our principal weekend liturgies are:  5:00 p.m. Saturday, 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. Sunday.  The Sunday 8:00 service is said and uses Rite I (early English).  The Saturday evening and later Sunday morning liturgies use Rite II (modern English) and employ a range of liturgical music.  Most Saturdays/Sundays the sung services use choir and organ.  On the third Saturday/Sunday of each month we are led by a contemporary music ensemble.

We are committed to being a faith community that explores the riches and depth of the Christian tradition in worship, ministry, and fellowship with each other and the world.  We invite you into our church community in hopes that the depth of love, acceptance, and forgiveness you experience here will empower you to be an agent of love, healing, and grace in the world.

Sincerely,

The Reverend Canon Gary Hall, Ph.D.
Rector

Photo by Edward Mullins

Susan T. Mosey, President of Midtown Detroit, Inc. will speak at Christ Church Cranbrook’s “Building HOPE Series” – a lecture series with prominent thinkers and community leaders addressing the larger conversation about regional revitalization, and the future of Detroit. Sue Mosey will share her views and vision in a presentation Wednesday, June 20 at 7pm in Christ Church Cranbrook’s Hospitality Center. Under Mosey’s leadership, Midtown Detroit, Inc.’s creative projects have included new streetscapes, park development, greenways, residential and commercial real estate development, and signature events like Art X Detroit and Noel Night.  Current initiatives include a walkable arts district, historic structure renovations for mixed-income housing, and the Live Midtown Residential Incentive Program that encourages employees to move to Midtown. (Former Building HOPE Series speakers include journalist, John Gallagher and Kresge Foundation President, Rip Rapson). www.christchurchcranbrook.org 248-644-5210. All are welcome!

Work Day at Glazer Elementary

(in the Focus:HOPE Neighborhood, Detroit)

Christ Church Cranbrook volunteers, along with parents, students, teachers, the principal and neighbors gathered together to paint the auditorium at Glazer Elementary School on Saturday, May 5 and Sunday, May 6.  To see pictures from this outreach effort, please click on the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/christchurchcranbrook/sets/

Click on the picture set titled Glazer Elementary School.  While you’re there, open the picture set entitled, March 2012 presentation of fundraising check to Glazer Elementary School.  This took place in March, so you can see the before and after pictures!

Thank you to the many, many volunteers from Christ Church Cranbrook who joined with volunteer teachers, parents, administration and students from Detroit’s Glazer Elementary to renovate their school auditorium! Blessings!

Work Day Project Coordinators:

Gretchen Lambert

Tom Lloyd

Brian Sarver

Saturday shift included:

Henry Barta

John Bell

Rachael Duggal

Kathy Hall

Clare Kabel

Gretchen Lambert

Bill MacAdam

Marian Randall

Brian Sarver

Coco Siewert

Robert Siewert

Beth Taylor

Sunday shift included:

Janice Benkert

Dennis Berg

Gay Berg

Elizabeth Briody

Michael Froehlich

John Lloyd

Marcie Lloyd

Tom Lloyd

Karen Martin

Kathleen Robinson

Felix Rogers

Scheduled volunteers that we did not need Sunday PM (ended ahead of schedule!):

Chris Austin

Michael Froehlich

Leslie McNamara

Steve Perhacs

Waiting list volunteers:

Joyce Adderly

Mike Elledge

The Fitzgerald family (Craig, Gwen and Matt)

Eric Fris

Shelia La Voie

Amy Stevenson

Donations (food, supplies, and monetary) along with loaned equipment contributed by:

Janice Benkert

Henry Barta

Gay Berg

Peggy Dahlberg

Rachael Duggal

Gary Hall

Kathy Hall

Mary Kroneman

Gretchen Lambert

Susan Varbedian Lucken

John Lloyd

Marcie Lloyd

Tom Lloyd

Eric Plowman

Linda Popoff

Brian Sarver

Felix Rogers

Bill White

[April 23, 2012] Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will conduct a conversation about mission with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a live webcast on Saturday, May 19 at 3:30 pm Eastern (2:30 pm Central, 1:30 pm Mountain, 12:30 pm Pacific, 11:30 am Alaska, 9:30 am Hawaii).

The live webcast will be available at no fee on the website of the Episcopal Church www.episcopalchurch.org<http://publicaffairs.createsend1.com/t/r-l-dklyktd-sjrdhvtr-d/> and will be available on demand afterwards.

Hosted by Washington National Cathedral, the event will be moderated by David Crabtree, news anchor at WRAL-TV in North Carolina and an ordained deacon.

Framing the conversation on the Anglican Five Marks of Mission, the questions to be explored are: “What does Mission mean to me”; and “What does mission look like in the world.”

“I look forward to a stimulating conversation with Archbishop Tutu, and am very grateful for this opportunity to prompt wider conversation about God’s mission,” Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori stated.

The May 19 event is the first in a series of discussions about mission with the Presiding Bishop and other prominent religious leaders.

The event is ideal for congregation and group viewing, adult forums, discussion groups, etc.

Archbishop Tutu
A 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Tutu is well known in the Anglican Communion and throughout the world. A leader of peace, he was born in 1931 in Klerksdorp, Transvaal, and in 1954 he graduated from the University of South Africa. He was ordained as a priest in 1960.

In 1975 he was appointed Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg, the first black to hold that position. Between 1976 and 1978 Tutu was the Bishop of the Anglican Church in Lesotho and the General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. In 1976, protests in Soweto over the Apartheid government’s enforcement of Afrikaans as a compulsory medium of instruction in black schools culminated in the massacre of dozens of students, which triggered widespread unrest and world outrage.

Tutu had become increasingly outspoken about Apartheid and the privations suffered by blacks. Although his criticism was unflinching, he constantly urged reconciliation between all sides. Like many who spoke out against Apartheid, he was harassed by the state security police and his passport was confiscated.

Desmond Tutu continued to speak out against the injustice of Apartheid and in 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, the first South African to receive the accolade since Albert Luthuli in 1961.

In 1985, he was appointed the Bishop of Johannesburg and a year later became the first black cleric to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa when he was named Archbishop of Cape Town. From 1987 to 1997 he served as president of the All Africa Conference of Churches.

Archbishop Tutu urged foreign disinvestment in South Africa as a way to pressure the government to dismantle Apartheid, and was the focus of harassment by the security police as a result. Like murdered activist Steve Biko, he also urged civil disobedience. It led to events such as the “purple rain” protest in Cape Town in 1989, where protesters were sprayed with purple dye to identify them to the police for arrest later.

Following the democratic elections in 1994, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up to bear witness to, record and in some cases, grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations.

http://www.tutu.org/bio-desmond-tutu.php<http://publicaffairs.createsend1.com/t/r-l-dklyktd-sjrdhvtr-h/>

The Anglican Five Marks of Mission
The Five Marks of Mission were developed by the Anglican Consultative Council between 1984 and 1990 and have won wide acceptance among Anglicans, and have given parishes and dioceses around the world a practical and memorable “checklist” for mission activities.

The Five Marks of Mission are:
1. To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
2. To teach, baptize and nurture new believers
3. To respond to human need by loving service
4. To seek to transform unjust structures of society
5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

The Five Marks of Mission: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/page/five-marks-mission<http://publicaffairs.createsend1.com/t/r-l-dklyktd-sjrdhvtr-k/>

Washington National Cathedral
Washington National Cathedral is called to be the spiritual home for the nation. It seeks to be a catalyst for spiritual harmony in our nation, renewal in the churches, reconciliation among faiths, and compassion in our world.

Washington National Cathedral: http://www.nationalcathedral.org/<http://publicaffairs.createsend1.com/t/r-l-dklyktd-sjrdhvtr-u/>

Links:
The Episcopal Church: www.episcopalchurch.org<http://publicaffairs.createsend1.com/t/r-l-dklyktd-sjrdhvtr-o/>
Washington National Cathedral: http://www.nationalcathedral.org/<http://publicaffairs.createsend1.com/t/r-l-dklyktd-sjrdhvtr-b/>

Everyone is invited to Regional Confirmation at Christ Church Cranbrook with our Bishop, The Right Rev. Wendell Gibbs, on Saturday June 2 at 11:00am. Those being confirmed must be here at 10:00am for a rehearsal. We have a number of youth and adults being confirmed this year. Please join us for a reception to congratulate them afterwards in the Guild Hall.

VBS/Vacation Bible School Counselors Wanted! June 25-29 – If you are interested in being a Counselor/Helper at Vacation Bible School this summer, please contact Jessica Neeper right away. 248-644-5210 x 30 or jneeper@christchurchcranbrook.org The theme this year is SKY! We need lots and lots of assistants to help pull off this amazing week-long experience. We’ll also have a Youth Party on Wednesday of that week. To be on the planning team, please contact me right away. 248-644-5210 x 30 or btaylor@christchurchcranbrook.org

CAMP COMPASSION – July 15-22, 2012 “Changing the World One Week at a Time”- Camp Compassion is the Annual Diocesan Youth and Young Adult Mission Trip. It is open to Youth and Young Adults starting with incoming High School Freshmen. During this week long, mission, participants get to experience being the hands and feet of Jesus in the world.

Past experiences included Post Hurricane Katrina Relief work in Mississippi, various sites in Pontiac, and home restoration in the Appalachian Mountains. In 2012 we will be staying at the Emrich Retreat Center in MI and doing restoration work around Livingston County. In 2013, the plan is to go to the Dominican Republic and help build a church. For forms and information, contact me. The cost is $275 for the week. Scholarships available.

BASS LAKE- August 3-6, 2012– I hope we can take a BIG group of you this year to Bass Lake Camp (UP NORTH), for youth entering 9^th-12^th grade – Camp Michi-Lu-Ca. I have registration forms. Over 300 kids come to this weekend – bands, swimming, small groups. We have a great cabin this year. Save the date, and let me know if you’d like to come. For forms and information, contact me. The cost is $49 for the weekend. Scholarships available.

Questions?: The Rev. Beth Taylor 248-644-5210 x 30, btaylor@christchurchcranbrook.org

Please join JJ Benkert, Peggy Dahlberg and others on Saturday, May 26, 2012 as the Christ Church Cranbrook Race for the Cure team! This will be our 6th year participating in the “Race” (we walk…you can run if you want) and it would be wonderful to have you join us! Bring a friend too! You don’t need to do any fundraising if you don’t want to, just come out and walk! We meet in the CCC parking lot and car pool to Detroit. It is about a three mile walk and then we go out for breakfast. The experience of this day will stay with you forever! Do something good for yourself while doing something good for others!

There isn’t one person who has not been touched by breast cancer – here is a way that we can make a difference! Registration information will be available soon.

The Komen Race for the Cure Series raises significant funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer, celebrates breast cancer survivorship, and honors those who have lost their battle with the disease.
For more information, please contact JJ Benkert bbjjb@comcast.net or Peggy Dahlberg at 248.644.5210, Ext. 12 or at pdahlberg@christchurchcranbrook.org.

May 9, 2012 at 4:00 PM in the Guild Hall

Finvarra’s Wren is one of North America’s most exciting Irish quartets. “Making the kind of music you’d only hear on the west coast of Ireland”, this Detroit based band has an intense dedication to their instruments and to Irish music. As a family based group, Finvarra’s Wren is capable of playing with a tightness and effortlessness that often evades other ensembles. Their performances at many of North America’s top music festivals and venues have been described as “a swirl of musical tradition and performance energy.”

The band is led by Detroit Irish music stalwarts Jim Perkins and Cheryl Burns, well known for their sensitive vocals and the inventive musical weaving of Jim’s guitar and Cheryl’s mountain dulcimer and bodhran. Brother-sister duo Asher (button accordion and concertina) and Alison Perkins (vocals, fiddle and tin whistle) are world renowned for their award winning playing. Each member of the family has enjoyed successful careers as musical performers, teachers, and recording artists.

All are welcome! This concert is free, but donations are appreciated.