Father Nick's Encouragement

There is this misconception that Jesus was this serene, near-emotionless presence of calm in a sea of sin and anxiety. If you go back and read the Gospels, Jesus expresses all of the emotions that we feel regularly and then some. He feels love when people show deep faith. He occasionally tries to get away and rest, gets frustrated, and even indicates outrage and flips over some tables.

I think there is this misconception that we should strive to purge stress from the holiday season. Around this time of year, I get bombarded with tips to make it through the holidays with as much serenity as the emotionless Christ of our popular imagination. As well-intentioned as this advice may be, it ultimately causes me more stress because now I am failing the impossible task of not feeling pressure in an innately stressful time.

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Bishop Jennifer Brooke-Davidson: A Meditation on Rewiring

In the house that is the Diocese of Virginia, we know that we have a solid foundation, and we know that as long as we remain firmly tied to the rock that is God in Christ Jesus, we’re on firm footing. If we remain grounded in Christ, anything that is amiss can be fixed, updated, removed, or renovated.

We can take our time with some things, budgeting time and money as we go. Other things that turn up in our house inspection require immediate action, like it or not, because they pose a clear threat to the safety and soundness of structure. Everything may look just fine, but some hidden issues can be lethal. One of those issues is wiring.

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Bishop Goff: A Meditation on the Feast of St. Luke, the Physician

Luke 4:16-21

When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

Today this scripture is fulfilled in our hearing. Whenever people go out in Jesus’ name to do the things he did, to continue the work of justice-making and peace-building or the ministry of proclamation and evangelism, the scripture is fulfilled. Today this scripture is lived out in our sight by people in this very room.

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Father Nick on Traditions

When we were growing up it was assumed that we were going to Church every single Sunday. We often hated it, but we went without fail, even on vacation. As we grew up together, we went through periods where we felt cynical about Church, and others where Church meant the world to us. When we felt cynical, we would find ways of entertaining each other that included tripping each other on the way to communion, flicking each other’s’ ears during the sermon, and competing who got to put the check in the plate.

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Father Nick on Stewardship

Dear St. Luke's,

It sure feels awkward talking about money in Church. Money often feels morally dirty, and the mention of it from the pulpit can send images of jailed televangelists into the congregation's minds. We spend all of this time convincing people that we are here to serve, and when we admit that we need money too, everything else feels fake. But of course, we need money to pay staff, do ministry, keep the lights on, and be the place where people go for meaning and help. To complicate things even further, Jesus talks about money all of the time, and he probably didn't do it to make people feel good about their wealth.

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Father Nick on Church Community

Dear St. Luke’s,

The Church is many things for many different people. For most, the Church has some element of worship, doing good, and spending time together. Some may be more drawn to leading worship, whether lay reading or singing in the choir. Others may feel more called to serve the needy, which could mean visiting homebound members or working with the homeless. Regardless of what we do, we must do it with others, making fellowship an important part of a healthy Church.

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Father Nick on Giving Thanks

Dear St. Luke’s,

I am often surprised by what turns out to be easy and what turns out to be difficult. This past year and a half, I feel like the simplest things all of a sudden became a significant challenge. I am personally tired of hearing “unprecedented” in terms of doing Church, and find myself overusing the analogy of swimming through Jell-O for doing things that seemed all too easy just two years ago. If you are wondering, I have never swum through Jell-O before, but I imagine it to be cumbersome if not impossible.

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Fr. Nick on Rituals and Traditions

Dear St. Luke’s,

Ritual and tradition are so very important. Not so much as something to appease or satisfy God, but to give us here below a chance to make meaning in our lives. I think there is good reason that people of all faiths and cultures tend to gather around a ritual when a child is welcomed, a couple gets married, or when someone dies. We have this compulsion to put these ineffably massive moments into some sort of context, and to do so within community. In many ways the past year has put us in a state of arrested development by taking away our ability to do ritual.

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Father Nick's Weekly Message

A few things happened this week where someone claimed, “you should put this in the e-news”, so I decided to consolidate all of these notices into a big reflection, so please excuse this bulleted list:

  • Someone attended the 8:00 am service this past Sunday, unaware that they were sick with COVID. The situation is well under control, and the chances that someone was exposed is nominal.

  • This Sunday is our big kickoff for Sunday School programming! I have been working closely with our Children's ministry to get ready.

  • We hired three people in the last two weeks!

  • One ministry we have put work into, but haven't quite locked down yet, is the Adult Forum.... I will be the first speaker on September 26th.

  • Do you feel like there is nothing at St. Luke’s for you? Please, seriously, give me a call, because you are the person that I want to hear from the most.

The biggest thing this week is the twenty-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I have heard from so many of you and how you were touched by that day, and I am still humbled how much that event still affects the world. I am genuinely lost for words when I think about it, which shouldn’t be surprising because I have been so consumed with the list above that I haven’t given myself time to let the reality of that tragedy seep in.

This time is exciting, cripplingly scary, exhausting, sometime rejuvenating, and we are always called put those things aside to look beyond ourselves. We must take time to remember those who died twenty years ago, and if we do not, then we cannot strive to make the world a better place in our present day. The task of being a faithful follower of Christ takes on countless forms, but it always involving taking the time to put all of those worries that weigh us down before the table of God.

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A message from Fr. Nick regarding our new program year!

Dear St. Luke’s,

I am nervous and excited as we prepare to start our program year. There are many good things in our near future. I particularly excited to see our education programs come back to life, and for our building project to come to fruition. More than anything else, I am looking forward to getting into a rhythm with you, so we can focus on the important things and spend less time worrying about the important, but more mundane, aspects of being the Church. Before we get into that rhythm, we need to figure out who we will become, and so it would be helpful to figure out who we are spiritually and practically. I am far from an expert on our financial reality and the history of our staff, but I thought it would be helpful for me to explain the situation as best as I am able.

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A Word of Farewell from Fr. Chip

One of the greatest and most precious gifts to be received as a Priest is to be held in the hearts of those to whom you minister. Not every pastoral relationship is easy. The strain of difficult times and the chances of life can sour even what is good. So to be held in love by the laity of a parish is a beautiful thing.

A gift like that is not to be taken lightly.

Thank you St. Luke’s.

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A Letter to the Parish from Fr. Nick

Dear St. Luke’s,

Locally and globally things are moving at a rapid pace. I am overwhelmed, excited and a bit nervous as we move into our first program year at St. Luke’s. While our ministries come alive, history is being made almost on a monthly basis. In the shadow of these massive events, the challenges we face can feel trivial. I have been struggling to wrap my mind around all of the big things happening at St. Luke’s, while I often find myself grieving the state of the world. With the smallest and biggest things, I am trying something different; I am trying to listen more and to listen better. I find the more that I listen, the more I realize how small I am compared to our world, our country and our Church, and this realization can be liberating and be motivation to do more for others.

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A Letter to the Parish from Fr. Nick

Dear St. Luke’s,

I have had a very eventful, joyful and hopeful couple of weeks. My time has been spent coordinating with our lay ministers about getting our ministry going this year, I have had the opportunity to reconnect with dear friends for the first time in over a year, and I even got to ride a rollercoaster with my brother. All of this has filled my heart, but it has made time a limited commodity. When I arrived for the vestry meeting this past week my head was spinning from changing gears from being family focused to Church focused, and I was eager to make sure that I had my ducks in a row during the meeting. I was trying to do the whole “calm presence”, but I’m pretty sure my anxiety was shining through. When 7:00 pm came along we asked Chip to open us in prayer. After an appropriately sanctified pause Chip began praying with the words, “Almighty God, we give you thanks for short prayers.” And everyone enthusiastically responded with “AMEN!”.

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A Word from Fr. Chip about Awareness

The word Awareness has become linked to an ethos of: topics that deserve to be better understood. We might all agree that “________ Awareness Month” is going to be filled with factoids on TV and special marketing campaigns around whatever topic fills in the blank.

We have just as surely all heard from someone that, “I wasn’t aware of that” as their excuse for something they did or didn’t do.

So what does it mean for us as Christians to make a spiritual practice of awareness part of our lives?

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A Letter to the Parish from Fr. Nick

Dear St. Luke’s,

When I first arrived at St. Luke’s in January there was a mountain of major projects, events and transitions in the pipeline, and now many of these things are coming alive. The building project has officially started, we are preparing for the calendar year, and very importantly; BBQ, pumpkins, and Shrine Mont are coming back! Seeing the effects of so much work and ministry is joyful, but in the midst of this joy is a somber change. At the end of August, Chip will be ending his ministry at St. Luke’s, and we will all have a chance to celebrate with him after the 10:00 am service on August 29th.

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A letter to the parish from Fr. Nick

Dear St. Luke’s,

It has been two weeks since I wrote to you, and it is time for me again to talk about wearing masks in the Church. I have spoken to many people about their needs, wants and fears, and there is one overwhelming consistency within our Church; we are all tired of talking about it. Everyone is craving stability, security and we are done with ambiguity and frustration, especially after the year that we have had, and everyone has a different idea on what this looks like. I hate to say it, but we are not there, but are making progress.

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A Meditation for the Fifth Week of Pentecost: David and Goliath

Everybody knows the story of David and Goliath, more or less. . .

Jesse’s youngest boy, David, had been strangely anointed in his childhood by the prophet Samuel to be the king of Israel after Saul – a fact the family very wisely kept to itself, since Saul undoubtedly had plans for his own children. Some time after Samuel’s visit, the Philistines – a group of Canaanites who appear from time to time in Israel – are on the attack. For 40 days an enormous man, a giant, Goliath, taunts the Israelites, calling them into a winner-take-all battle of champions.

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