Encouragement

The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling                                    

1 Thessalonians 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.”

I posed the question, ‘What exactly do you need?” to the vestry members of St. Peter’s Church in Cambridge yesterday. While God knows our needs before we ask, it’s good to verbalize them to ourselves and to others. 

It was November of 2012 and I had just written a letter to the good people of St. James Episcopal Church in Glastonbury, Connecticut. I had served as their rector for ten amazing years and felt that God was calling me (and them) to something new. I knew not what. I knew not where. I just knew it was time.

That very same month, Brother Curtis from the Society of St. John the Evangelist, in Cambridge, Massachusetts (SSJE) had been invited to Connecticut to offer some reflections at our clergy day. I had never met him before and to this day I still remember his words on encouragement. Who knew that 8 years later I would be living right down the street from SSJE and Brother Curtis? Who knew that those were the very words I needed to hear then and now?

Encouragement is a matter of the heart, coming from the French word “coeur.” We look for courage within us, perhaps saying to ourselves in a moment of challenge, “With God’s help, I can do this!” Or, as a community, we look for encouragement, saying to each other, “Together, we can!” Without encouragement our hearts become hardened. With encouragement, our hearts are softened, healed, and strengthened for God’s mission of love and reconciliation.

Brother Curtis suggested that there are two groups of people who need the grace of encouragement: (1) the least, the lost, and the last; and (2) leaders. God knows there are plenty of us who feel least, last, and lost. God knows that the leaders of our churches, our communities, our nation and our world need the grace of encouragement now more than ever. Indeed, St. Paul knew it when he wrote his letter to the Thessalonians in the 1st century.

Encouragement dissipates fear. “What do we need?” To lean forward in faith into the unknown mystery of the future. We need the grace of encouragement.

Revelation

The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling, All Saints Sunday

Revelation 7:9-17: After this I, John, looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

The Rev. Cathay Venkatesh recently offered some words of wisdom to our contemplative prayer group. “Abnormal and extraordinary acts of hate and violence are often what is communicated in the news,” she said. Or as many people are fond of saying, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Terrorism and violence have been with us for a very long time. No news there. And yet, it still horrifies us. It is still abhorrent. 

So, in the news, we recently heard of the presumed terrorist attack on three people in the basilica in France. We heard of the shooting and violence in Philadelphia, where another black man was killed by police and rampant looting and deaths ensued. We heard of an abandoned newborn in an Australia airport and the subsequent invasive body checks of women taken off the plane. There is political and religious vitriol. These are people that come from “every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.” And while it may seem like the “new normal”, it’s not.

Lamenting is frequent these days. We grieve the loss of our loved ones from the pandemic. We cry for our beloved country and our world. We are poorer in spirit if not in our bank accounts. We remember our lives before COVID-19; and we want to go back to those ways in which we “lived and moved and had our beings.” “Blessed are those who mourn;” said Jesus, “for they will be comforted.”

We are people who have “gone through a great ordeal.” The vast majority of us routinely offer acts of love, mercy, and kindness. And so we persevere, buoyed by our faith, hope, and love. Created as God’s beloved, we have been knit together in one fellowship, a common communion of humanity, that spans all time and space. All Saints’ Sunday reminds us of this eternal truth.

And John reveals that vision of hope. On that day, when we approach “our God who is seated on the throne” we “will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike us, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd, and he will guide us to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes."

Bring it on, I pray. Ineffable joys. Maranatha.

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.