3rd Sunday of Advent - 12/17/2023

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Not that I’m counting, but there are 7 days until the baby Jesus is born.  The creche is out, but no baby or wise people or camels are there just yet.  Christmas preparations are under way:  decorations, gift exchanges, cookie parties, shopping, making, shipping and delivering.  Children gleefully free of school until the new year.  Holiday gatherings taking shape.  In all the doing, all the effort to create a ‘perfect’ Christmas, where is God?

2nd Sunday of Advent - 12/10/2023

Readings for today.

Watch the service.

These opening verses from Mark give us a sense of the story he is about to relate.  We jump from last week’s Gospel story from Mark that comes just before Jesus’ Passion back to the very beginning of Mark.  Unlike Luke or Matthew, Mark is unconcerned with Jesus’ birth story or pedigree.  With a sense of immediacy, Mark crafts an opening that draws in the listener, engages our minds and hearts, and moves us to action.

1st Sunday of Advent - 12/03/2023

Readings for this week.

Watch the video.

On a walk this week, I heard a snippet of a passing conversation - like you do.  Another walker was describing a spiritual vision-quest with an intention of opening themself to non-self-judgmental clarity about their feelings.  That was all I heard as we passed one another.

That brief glimpse into another life reminded me of our human desire to know and understand life and ourselves. And the courage it takes to be present and aware of all the feelings we experience.  There is something holy about softening the crusty protective shell around our hearts.  About taking the risk to acknowledge our disappointment, shame, anger, fear, sorrow and all the other feelings we have when it seems like our lives and our world are falling apart and we are helpless to stop it.  God knows what is in our hearts already - and loves us.  Our wholeness and peace come when we also know and love who we are.  

Last Sunday after Pentecost / Christ the King Sunday - 11/26/2023

Readings for today.

I find it intriguing that the final Sunday of the church year (that’s today) most often falls on Thanksgiving weekend.  We have just spent a few days taking stock of the parts of our lives for which we are grateful and feel blessed.  The orientation to gratitude and its sister generosity gets our hearts ready for the new year and the season of Advent.

This Sunday marks one of the rare times when Christianity’s two Advents come into close connection.  Yes, I said TWO Advents.  The word ‘Advent’ means ‘coming.’  The first Advent is the coming of Jesus at Christmas, and the second Advent is the Second Coming at the end of the age.  The one who rules on the ‘throne of glory’ this week is the same one whose birth as a helpless child in a nowhere town we will celebrate in a few weeks.

25th Sunday after Pentecost - 11/19/2023

Readings for today.

Back in April or May, I shared this parable with the Vestry with the sentiment that I never want to be that servant, the one who was so afraid of failing or disappointing someone that I don’t try. Together, we reflected on Trinity’s talents and generated a list of ways to multiply them.  The overall theme that emerged was Stewardship of Neighborhood: something we do by strengthening relationships, by spending time together doing things socially, and by being generous with our gifts of time and food and welcome for our neighbors. The ideas for how to live into our abundance included:

• Hosting Night Out on August 1

• Creating t-shirts to let our light shine when we go out into the neighborhood

• Making 8th Ave safer, especially crossing Cherry Street

• Meeting and interacting with our neighbors 1:1

• Gathering for fun as well as trainings to increase our feelings of safety at church

Moved beyond fear of disappointing our selves or God, Vestry leaders summoned courage and hope, committed resources, took a deep breath and started some things to see what God might do with us.

24th Sunday after Pentecost - 11/12/2003

Readings for today

Is there anyone here who likes to wait?  

Who among us revels in the feeling that someone else has all the control over what happens to you next?  And it all depends on something you did or didn’t do?  Or that whatever news comes next will be life-changing?  

If you are that rare person who enjoys waiting, please let me know; I would love to learn from you.  

We wait for all kinds of things.

The arrival of a child

Closing on our dream house

 A job offer

College acceptance letters

Pregnancy tests

Diagnoses of mysterious symptoms

Election outcomes

To see if next year’s budget requires downsizing staff

Peace instead of war

Plowshares in place of guns

For Jesus to come again in glory

Waiting causes anxiety.  Anxiety comes from fear that the thing we await will be more than we can endure, learn, deal with, survive or thrive from.  We fear the unknown. And when the answer is delayed or the waiting is prolonged, we feel even more anxious.  Why haven’t we heard?  What’s the hold-up?

All Saints' Sunday with Baptism - 11/05/2023

The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs by Fra Angelico

 Readings for today.

Coffee hour last Sunday was a glorious celebration of Trinity’s generous gifts of hospitality. I arrived a bit late and admired the delicious offerings, including a tree themed dessert table.  The chocolate trunk of the tree was heavenly!  

Beyond the bounty of food and coffee, a warm parish hall and the hum of conversation, I saw several unhoused neighbors being welcomed in.  I learned that one of those neighbors is a young woman I had seen in church.  It was really cold last weekend, and before the service, one of our congregants invited her to come in.  The same person sat near her and helped her find her way through the service.  She was invited to coffee hour, where people learned her story and that she needed a place to sleep safely.  One person went down to the WHEEL shelter to find out about shelter resources.  Upon learning that there were beds available at a nearby location, a second person walked her to that shelter.  

A cold and frightened young woman found compassion, kindness, and hope because this community together shared their gifts for welcome, and connecting resources with urgent needs, and gentle companionship.  What a beautiful, lived statement of our faith!

22nd Sunday after Pentecost / Stewardship Ingathering - 10/29/2023

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Readings for today

Listening to the news from the US and around the world this week, I have been noticing my emotions. From politics to public safety, finances to climate changes, the world feels risky, scary and uncertain.

Risky to live on this planet that is shaken by earthquakes and battered by suddenly powerful storms.

Risky to be part of a social fabric that is rent by violence and human competition for power that disregards the value of human life and dignity.

Risky to wonder if, when, where we matter and whether we can change any of the things that scare us so much.

20th Sunday after Pentecost - 10/15/2023

Image by Zoltan Matuska from Pixabay

Readings for today.

I love a jigsaw puzzle. I love the process of sorting pieces, figuring out the shading and gradations of colors, the shapes of the knobs and slots, the fragments of the picture that carry across multiple pieces. And then there’s the satisfaction of the picture coming together one little bit at a time.
It’s especially sweet if you’re working the puzzle with other people, everyone doing the parts that they see and can do.

One of my favorite puzzles is a drawing of a hedge maze embedded with all kinds of clues to solve a mystery. It’s 1,000 tiny pieces. The flowers, statues, and water features of the maze often span multiple pieces. Just one missing piece can obscure an important clue. It doesn’t matter whether your puzzle has 1,000 pieces or 50, a missing piece means the overall picture has a hole in it.

Trinity is like a jigsaw puzzle. We have many pieces of different shapes and, by some holy miracle, every piece has a place they fit. Without any one piece, the full picture of Trinity is incomplete.

New pieces are being added all the time and our puzzle is always expanding. Where we had a 3 dimensional puzzle that has pieces we can fit together, time adds a 4th dimension. Our Trinity puzzle has been taking shape, many shapes, since people began gathering informally for Anglican worship on a ship in the harbor. It has changed and grown many times. A time lapse photo across the last 158 years would show different sections coming together, all of them forming a big picture of who we are today. Every piece is needed to complete the picture, even as new pieces are being added and the puzzle is always expanding.

Over time, our ever-expanding Trinity jigsaw puzzle is immense. Bigger than we can take in. So big that we cannot see the edges, where it began or where it will end. And, as I say this, I’m not sure it’s flat. I suspect it has layers that relate and connect through space and time. And, because we are a community of faith, I am going to suggest a 5th dimension, a spiritual dimension that relates the whole Trinity that was and is and is to come to the Holy Spirit. I think I just blew my own mind.

In today’s Exodus reading, the people of Israel longed to put all the pieces together and understand what was happening to them. They wanted to understand the God who would call them out of slavery in Egypt to wander aimlessly in the wilderness. The God who invited them from a life where they had plenty to eat and drink out to a place where they wondered on a daily basis when they would die of starvation or dehydration. Sure, they had been enslaved and exploited, but at least they had fresh fruits and vegetables, and plenty of water. So where IS this God who promised a better life?

Trying to fill in the missing piece, the mysterious God they cannot see, they beg Aaron to make them a statue while Moses is away. Oooh, God is mad that the people didn’t trust God’s promise to take care of them!! Good thing Moses reminds God of how it will be hard to fulfill the promise to multiply the descendants of faithful Abraham, Isaac, and Israel to be like the stars in heaven if God kills them all!

Fast forward a few decades, and the people DO arrive at the Promised Land. Where they multiply, as promised, and thrive. In that moment, in the wilderness, they could only see their current time and place.

We only ever see where we are, and hopefully remember some of how the pieces fit together in the past to bring us to this place. We cannot see the full picture that includes the future. Only God can. God’s time is not our time. God’s time is all time all at once. We can only see what is right here and now.

People of the Exodus got worried about their future, worried about where God was, worried that they might not survive this trek in the wilderness. There was a promise of milk and honey - but WHEN? Even Moses didn’t know how long it would take. In the meantime, they were worried about their survival. If only the Israelites had our stewardship theme of Rooted in Abundance!

If we look at the bigger picture of their puzzle, which is history for us, we can see the abundance that was hard for them to recognize. Abundance of community (they weren’t out there alone, they had each other), manna (food, nutritious and plentiful even if it wasn’t really tasty), freedom from oppression, water (miraculously flowing out of a rock), all the wisdom and skills of crafts- and tradespeople, laborers, people with skills to cook, to care for children and elders, experienced and trusted leaders at many levels, and many levels of faith in God.

But they couldn’t see all those pieces working together to create a whole and beautiful image of their life together. In their anxiety about the future, when and where and how they would get there, they focus on what is missing. So they do something they had seen the Egyptians do in their worship of many gods. They create a shiny statue to worship. Something concrete to receive their offerings and supplications. They borrow something from a familiar culture, but not the culture of their faith, to assuage the discomfort about their current situation.

Moses reminds God, and the people, that there is a bigger picture, a bigger concept of time. God has promised to be faithful, and God keeps promises. God’s desire is for us to live and thrive.

Our puzzle that we see here and now is a small bit of God’s puzzle. And that the puzzle is incomplete without the unique shape of each of us. Our skills. Our time. Our life, offered with gratitude to the God who releases us from enslavement to idols and leads us toward fullness of life.

Sometimes it feels like the gifts we have to offer are too small, too insignificant to make a difference. So often when we hear stewardship campaigns, we take away a message that all that matters is how we share our wealth of money. In our social agreements, money does pay the utilities and salaries. It is one piece of the puzzle.

Without the offerings of wisdom and works, our puzzle has many blank spots. We all have wisdom, gathered from life, skills from work and hobbies, passions that ignite and engage us. Works are how we share that wisdom. Our time, as precious as any monetary commitment, offered to help complete the picture of God’s hope for us and for all the world to thrive and multiply in peace.

As you pray about God’s desire for Trinity and how you can be part of it, I invite you to listen with your heart and mind. Listen for the tabs (knobs, bumps, loops) and blanks (pockets, sockets, locks) of the puzzle piece that is uniquely you now. Not the you of the past, because we are always changing and growing. Not the you of the future, because we aren’t there yet. What part of God’s Trinity puzzle are you NOW?

I am excited to see how all of our pieces will bring the puzzle together, filling some empty spots, expanding new sections, and all with the energy of something we are working on with one another and with God.


Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.

19th Sunday after Pentecost - 10/08/2023

 

Photo by Ylanite on Pixabay.com

Readings for today

One of our younger members almost always brings me acorns, presenting them to me with wonder and delight. Acorns are amazing.  From this tiny seed grows a huge oak tree. Did you know that the average oak tree lives 600 years?  600 years!  The tree that grows from this acorn could be around for the next 20 generations!!  That’s children, grandchildren, and 18 generations of great-grandchildren.  Roughly 4 times as long as Trinity has been a congregation already. With this tiny seed of knowledge, it comes as no surprise that in various cultures throughout history, acorns are symbols of life, growth, fertility, potential, and immortality.

18th Sunday after Pentecost / St Francis Sunday - 10/01/2023

Readings for today (Track 1).

Did you know that, in 2020, Seattle had the highest ratio of dogs to people of any major city in the US and more dogs than children?  Plenty of cats here, too. 

We don’t have any pets at our house right now so when I think about animal companions in my life, I have to go back a few years.  I can see my 12-year old self, sitting in the fall sunshine on the back porch of the blue 1890s farmhouse where I grew up.  I am holding one of my 4-H chickens.  I’ve got a blue bandana triangle holding my hair away from my face, braids falling over my shoulders, wearing my poultry club t-shirt, and this bantam hen nestled in my lap.  She was a buff Brahma. She was so pretty and she had such personality!  She loved to pose on the show table.  

15th Sunday after Pentecost / Homecoming Sunday / Blessing a Marriage / Season of Creation - 09/10/2023

 Readings for the Day.

Wow!  It really feels like fall already, doesn’t it?  School has begun, or will soon.  Weather is cooling.  Days are shorter.  The air vibrates with the energy of new beginnings.  New routines.  New life and relationships.  

It is so good to see all of you here this morning.  Welcome home!!  Thank you for making Trinity part of your fall transition.  

Today is Homecoming Sunday.  We come home to this place, to this community, and to God.  Whether we have been here before or not, we come home to belonging, to being known and seen as we are - beloved and uniquely created children of God.  Imperfect and amazing.  Welcome home!!  

12th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15 - 08/20/2023

 Readings for today

“Why not?” the woman asks Jesus.

First, Jesus ignores her.  So she gets louder.  Which makes his disciples beg him to send her away.  He turns to his disciples and tells them that his mission is for ‘other’ people.  More deserving people.

Finally, she gets close enough to make her petition to Jesus directly.  In the language of those other, more deserving people, she kneels at his feet and humbly asks for his help.

Before we go on with the dynamics of this interaction between Jesus and the woman, let’s pause for a moment to notice context.

After feeding the 5,000 men plus women and children, Jesus sent the disciples ahead in a boat and went up the mountain to pray.  Then there was a storm and the disciples were in trouble, so he walked on the water to save them.  Safely ashore in Gennesaret, the healings continue.

Then, at the beginning of this chapter, the Pharisees have come to find Jesus and engage him in a legal debate about washing before eating and other purity laws.  Jesus turns the debate into a teaching moment about how keeping the letter of the law can lose the spirit of it.  

He then leaves that debate and goes much further north, into the historic Promised Land of Abraham and Sarah, near the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon. Matthew doesn’t specify why Jesus travels this far from home, though his reputation for healing clearly goes with him.

Traveling in a foreign land, the home of Jacob who became the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, Jesus brings with him an assumption, based in ancient prophesy, that his work and ministry is to bring good news of God’s remembrance ONLY to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  This woman, a foreigner to Jesus, who is ironically a foreigner in this context, does not fit Jesus’ preconceived idea of his ministry audience.

So he ignores her, hoping she will go away.  But she persists.  SHE believes in him.  People have been healed by touching the hem of his garment.  She refuses to be dismissed, dehumanized, or gaslit into believing that God’s generosity of healing grace does not include her daughter.

She believes in the kingdom Jesus has been preaching about when he isn’t healing or feeding people everywhere he goes.  A kingdom where there is justice and release from oppression, health and peace, bountiful harvests and great rejoicing.  And why wouldn’t that kingdom include her?

Her persistence as she counters Jesus’ rebuff about throwing the children’s food to the dogs recalls Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisees in the preceding passage.  Is a narrow historical interpretation of the prophecy getting in the way of the spirit of the good news?   

I wonder how long the silence stretched on as the disciples (who were never far away) watched and wondered at her chutzpah to talk back to Jesus.  As Jesus considered her words.  As she continued kneeling at his feet, in humility, desperate for her child’s life and health.  Was it 2 breaths?  10 breaths?  How long did Jesus wrestle with what he understood from tradition and this overt challenge to live into the spirit of his own teaching?

Embodying the grace and generosity of a God who desires wholeness, healing, fullness of life for every person, could he continue to say the Good News was for only some people?

I imagine that, after a tense silence, he draws a deep sighing breath, and with some admiration for her shrewd argument, proclaims, “Woman, great is your faith!”  She believed that Jesus could recognize the limitations of his own thinking and live into the spirit of grace and generosity that his ministry demonstrated in other places.  After this story Jesus returns south to his home territory around the Sea of Galilee.

How often do we get caught up in the letter of something and forget to consider the spirit behind it?

Jesus, as the power-holder in this situation, could have reacted very differently.  He could have continued to hold rigidly to his preconceived limitations, stepped over the prostrate pleading woman, and continued on his way.  Instead, He chooses vulnerability.  He chooses to hear and consider her counter-argument.  

He chooses an awkward, and grace-filled, position.  He chooses the spirit of the Good News of God’s kingdom of justice and peace and abundance.

It’s risky and vulnerable to choose to live into God’s kingdom.  It challenges us to open ourselves to uncertain and scary possibilities.  What if those ‘other’ people hear how great this place is and they want to come here?  What will happen to our known community if a bunch of strangers show up and expect to be treated like they belong here?  We might not be able to do things the way we always have?  How will we survive?

So much uncertainty.  So much possibility.  It’s hard to imagine breaking out of the safety of the letter of things.  And that’s the moment of faith in God’s promise to be with us, to extend healing and hope to ALL people, to empower us to ministry as a welcoming community of justice and love.

As we head into this fall, Trinity is looking at how to invite more neighbors to join us on this journey of faith, how to grow deeper in our own faith and share the good news of abundance that we know from our own lives.  It will be risky, and vulnerable, and awkward at times.  We will undoubtedly try some things that don’t go as expected.  We will learn and try again.  Our only failure will be to not try, to not extend ourselves in faith that God is with us as we share the good news of God’s generous grace and love with every person.

Let us pray.

Living God, you let the Gentile woman subvert your plans; give us the faith that comes from the heart and walks beyond our boundary posts that we might be surprised by outrageous grace; through Jesus Christ, son of David and light of the world. Amen.

9th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 12 - 07/30/2023

 

Readings for today (Track 1)

Do you recall a movie called ‘Amazing Grace’ that came out in the early 2000s?  It tells the story of William Wilberforce, who is remembered by The Episcopal Church today, July 30, as a social reformer. Born into wealth in Yorkshire, England in 1759. Educated at Cambridge. Elected to the House of Commons at the age of 21.  By all accounts, charming, eloquent and persuasive.  Encouraged by his colleagues in politics not to abandon his faith-fueled activism. Wilberforce crusaded uncompromisingly and single-mindedly for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade for the entirety of his 45 years in Parliament.  The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 had its final reading in the House of Commons just 3 days before his death, and became law the following year.

7th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 10 - 07/16/2023

 Readings for today (Track 1).

‘In my mind’s eye, I see today’s gospel story unfolding on a nearby beach - maybe Golden Gardens or Lake Washington.  It’s a beautiful day like today.  Jesus goes out and sits beside the water to teach the people.  When the crowd gathered becomes unmanageable, he gets into a boat and moves a little offshore.  I think it’s actually Lake Washington, fewer waves and no current so the boat stays in one place.  Jesus sits in the boat, just far enough out so that everyone can see and hear him.  He begins to teach in parables.    

Today’s parable of the sower is the first of many we will hear from Matthew in the next few months.  Using parables, Jesus unpacks the depths and richness of the kingdom with metaphors that would be familiar to his audience: farming, animal husbandry, household chores, vineyards.  Each parable is like a seed, falling on the soil of our hearts and minds.

5th Sunday after Pentecost - 07/01/2023

Readings for today (Proper 8, Track 1)

As a parent, I cannot skip over the near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis.  Reading this story several thousand years later, on the other side of the world, from a fully industrialized and city-centered life, this story is horrifying!  

3rd Sunday after Pentecost - 06/18/2023

Readings for today (Proper 6A, Track 1)

Have you ever received a gift you weren’t really sure you wanted?  A gift from someone you love and respect - and whom you think knows you pretty well - and you wonder how they could have picked this “unusual” thing for you.  And, of course, it came without a tag or a gift receipt – so you couldn’t just discreetly return it.

 

How did you react?  Did you fake loving it? Boldly ask what about it made them think of you? Or offer faint thanks while deciding in which closet to store it until the giver comes to visit?  And what about the gift that you can’t give away or hide?

2nd Sunday after Pentecost - 06/11/2023

Readings for today (Proper 5, Track 1)

What would Matthew’s story of Jesus walking along look like if we set it in our neighborhood, 7th-9th Avenues, between James and Madison?

In Matthew 9, Jesus is already well-known.  He has called the fishermen Peter and Andrew, and James and John; given the Sermon on the Mount; healed many people; stilled the stormy sea with a word; cast demons into a herd of pigs; and most recently healed a paralyzed man.  At this point, who hasn’t heard of him?

Trinity Sunday - 06/04/2023

Readings for today.

Good morning, Trinity family!  

I am so excited to welcome Easton and Charlotte into the body of Christ this morning!  As I met with their parents Matt and Kelsey and Rachael and Connor to prepare for today, we talked about their deepest desires for their children.  They shared things like:  happiness, strength of faith and morals, belief in themselves, a sense of unbounded possibility, love for themselves, agency and freedom to make their own decisions in life, a rich breadth of learning and experiences, a loving and supportive home and family. 

Through baptism, this Trinity community joins in supporting Rachael, Connor, Kelsey, and Matt as they, with God’s help, raise Easton and Charlotte to love God and all creation.  And speaking of baptism and water...

6th Sunday of Easter - 05/14/2023

 Readings for Today.

The 8:00AM service this morning started a few minutes late because at 7:55 we were calling 911 and administering Narcan to a neighbor on our front steps.  Fortunately, she was with a friend whom I noticed trying unsuccessfully to rouse her.  EMS arrived within minutes and she eventually got up and walked away.  

It was the first time I have ever administered Narcan and I was really glad for all the media coverage I have heard about it recently.  It was easy to use, and I have learned that if someone doesn’t need it it won’t hurt them.  And if they do, it can save their life.

5th Sunday of Easter - 05/07/2023

 Readings for Today.

Good morning, church!  It finally feels like spring!  Occasional sun breaks bring some much needed warmth, and send us Seattlites scrambling for sunscreen and hats.  Birds singing, pollen flying, azaleas and rhododendrons coming into full glory.  And the true meaning of ‘growing like a weed’ is evident before our very eyes!

What I love about spring, beyond the beauty of flowers and light for after-dinner walks, is the sense of renewal and rebirth.  Blinking at the bright sunlight, smelling the sweetness of cherry blossoms, anything is possible.  The unknowing, which seemed so ominous in the shorter, colder, darker days of winter, now feels hopeful.  

4th Sunday of Easter - 04/30/2023

Readings for today.

Sheep and shepherds, oh my! Happy Good Shepherd Sunday!  Just as we read about “doubting” Thomas the Twin on the Sunday after Easter each year, the 4th Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday. 

Psalm 23 paints an idyllic picture of God as our shepherd.  Often shared at funerals and other times of uncertainty, it evokes comfort and security.  Green pastures and still waters provide plentiful food and water for unhurried grazing, as do a generously spread table and a cup running over, presumably with living water.  A song of guidance, protection, and plenty that we often sing with shaking voices, soothing ourselves into calm, remembering a peace that revives and reassures us for living.

With Psalm 23 echoing in our ears, we project Jesus as the shepherd onto today’s gospel selection.  Reading more closely, in today’s reading Jesus says he is the gate, the way into the security of the sheepfold.  And the way out into the world.  

2nd Sunday of Easter 04/16/2023

 Readings

Did Jesus really appear to his disciples after he died?  If they didn’t recognize him, how did they know it was him?  Can we doubt AND have faith simultaneously?

Thomas the Twin asked these questions the week after Jesus was resurrected.  We are still asking them today.  They are particularly relevant as we baptize an adult into the body of Christ this morning.  

Easter Day 04/09/2023

 Readings (Matthew Gospel)

Happy Easter!!  

My heart is so full, seeing all of you here this morning!

For those joining us via livestream, outside, it’s a beautiful grayish Seattle day of blooming bulbs and spring green, made so by lots of rain.  

Inside, our sanctuary is awash with light and life: the glory of creation in flowers, joyful music that moves our hearts and bodies, and so many beautiful radiant faces.  

After three years in the pandemic and its shadow, it finally feels like we are emerging into new life.  We persevered through dark, suffocating days, and death.  We labored to find strength to breathe and feel alive.  We are not who we were before.  We are emerging into a new world and understanding of our selves.

Palm Sunday - 04/02/2023

Palm only Readings for today.

The Passion according to Matthew.

No, we didn’t forget to read the Gospel this morning.  With our bishop’s permission, we are using the Palm gospel from the beginning of the service as our Good News this morning.  In The Episcopal Church, Palm Sunday services typically read the Passion gospel just before the sermon.  Today we will hear the story of Jesus’ betrayal, trial, and execution as the postlude to our celebration of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem surrounded by a noisy, cloak-wearing, branch-waving crowd.

5th Sunday in Lent - 03/26/2023

 Readings for today.

Can you believe Ash Wednesday was 4.5 weeks ago?!  So much has changed in the world around us - new light and flowers and allergies, more lay-offs and financial uncertainties, and continuing wars for geography and human rights.  

Lent offers some comfort and predictability.  Back on Ash Wednesday, our worship invited us into the prayer cycle of a holy Lent.  The cycle of self-examination and repentance; action as a result of that self-learning, and; listening to the Word of God.  Spending time with Scripture inevitably leads to thinking about the connection between the Word and our lives, and so the cycle begins again.  Self-examination, prayer, Scripture.  

4th Sunday in Lent - 03/19/2023

 Readings for today.

Who sinned this man or his parents?

Do they think I can’t hear them?

I’m blind, not deaf.  With all their laughing and talking and commenting on every last tree and stone and person, I heard them coming for the last 15 minutes.  There must be at least a dozen people, men and women, in this group.  I wonder where they are going.

I hope they toss a few coins my way so I can buy some bread today.

If they bothered to ask, to speak to me like a human being, I would have told them that I was born this way.

But no, they just assume that there’s something deeply wrong with me because I’m blind.  Because the only way I can support myself is to sit here at the side of the road, all day, every day, in the sun, begging for kindness of people who would rather I disappear.

Third Sunday in Lent - 03/12/2023

 Readings for Today

Here it is the third and middle Sunday in Lent.  Two more Sundays, then Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday.  Before we get all excited for the palm procession and the Passion, it’s still Lent.  Our Lenten commitments to do, or not do, something different for 40 days are beginning to feel more like habits.

A key component of our Lenten commitment is self-reflection.  What are we hoping will happen in Lent?  What is the point of making time and spiritual space for prayer?  Or changing our habits, fasting, or taking on a discipline?

Second Sunday in Lent - 03/05/2023

Readings for the Day



What do you love about Lent?

Many of us would say, “Nothing!” Who needs an entire seven weeks of being reminded how we don’t measure up? I can work up plenty of guilt and shame all on my own, thank you very much.

Most of us lump guilt and shame into one basket of unworthiness and emotional yuck. But did you know that they are distinctly different? Guilt is about something we did or didn’t do, breaking some social norm or rule. Shame is about judging our own self-worth based on unmet expectations.

Celebration of New & Mutual Ministry - 02/28/2023

A Celebration of New & Mutual Ministry is the service where the bishop officially installs a new rector in a congregation, blessing the relationship and shared ministry of the priest and congregation.

Readings:

Isaiah 2:2-4

Psalm 96

Ephesians 2:13-22

Luke 10:1-9

The Rev. Eric Stelle, preacher

You’ve got a lot to envy, here at Trinity.

You’ve got a long heritage of faith to be rooted in and to draw from. You’ve got a fabulous building that immediately feels like church as soon as you step inside. You’ve got an actual neighborhood! (My church is just kind of stuck on the side of the road.) You’ve got a nice website. (You see the things priests get jealous of!) You’ve gotten a great rector. When I daydream about having a second priest on staff with me, it’s always someone like Sabeth I dream about.

But do you know what I envy most? Your name! You get to be called, “Trinity.” You get to be known by that aspect of God’s nature our spirits most yearn to know – this paradox of being many and being one. 

First Sunday in Lent - 02/26/2023

Readings for the Day


On Wednesday this last week, we heard the words “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

The Ash Wednesday service pivots on a soul-baring confession of the insidious and invisible clutter of our spiritual lives and our failures to recall our own faith and God’s grace. Ash-smudged, humbled and forgiven, we gathered to share a meal and recall holy Love’s power to vanquish death.

State of the Parish Address - February 5, 2023

State of the Parish Address

Trinity Parish of Seattle

February 5, 2023

Readings for today

Typically the State of the Parish Address happens on the same Sunday as the Annual Meeting.  When we held our Annual Meeting last Sunday, I was in the middle of a pernicious and humbling non-COVID virus.  With gratitude for healing rest and your patience, I have had another week to reflect on Trinity’s life and ministry in 2022 and look ahead into 2023.   

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Dear People of God, congregation of Trinity Parish, my siblings in Christ,

Greetings in the name of the one, holy, and indivisible God.  I give thanks for you every day, and for the gift and privilege of proclaiming the Good News of God’s love with you.