Category: Habit of Grace Presiding Bishop Curry

Habits of Grace June 5

An invitation for you, from Presiding Bishop Curry

June 5, 2020

As we learn how to adjust our lives given the reality of the coronavirus and the request to do our part to slow its spread by practicing social distancing, I invite you to join me each week to take a moment to cultivate a ‘habit of grace.’ A new meditation will be posted each week through June. These meditations can be watched at any time by clicking here.

I had intended to do our Habits of Grace earlier this week on Monday or Tuesday, as I usually do, and then so many things began to happen, both in our country and in our wider world that I wasn’t able to get to it.

In the midst of all that was going on, there were a few moments when so much was happening so fast and it was so chaotic, that at one point, I was on a Zoom call with a member of our staff and we were working on videos and interviews and it was so much and so chaotic, I remember just saying, “Let’s just stop, and pray.”

And the prayer I prayed was a prayer from our prayer book. It’s toward the end of the prayer book on page 832 called “For Quiet Confidence”. This prayer is based on a time in the life of the prophet Isaiah, when the people of Judah and Jerusalem were living in a time when their country was in turmoil and things were uncertain and chaos seemed to be ruling.

The prophet Isaiah said, “You must remember that it is in returning and rest, that you will be saved; in quietness and confidence, you will find your strength.” And this is the prayer we prayed and I offer it for all of us. Let us pray:

Oh, God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and in rest, we shall be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength. By the might of thy Spirit, lift us, we pray thee to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

God love you and keep the faith.

This post is from the Habits of Grace Series provided on the Episcopal Website

Habits of Grace May 25

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry provides weekly a video reflecting on the Habits of Grace. This week he has included a request we all unite in one common prayer.

Written “to unite us in common prayer and revive us for common mission” during this crisis in the spirit of Pentecost, Curry and his Lutheran counterpart, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, invite congregations to pray it from Pentecost through the first Sunday in September. In addition to expressing a shared desire for renewal in a troubling time, the collect also commemorates nearly 20 years of full communion between The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The collect will be used in Washington National Cathedral’s Pentecost service, during which Curry will preach.

A Prayer for the Power of the Spirit Among the People of God

God of all power and love,
we give thanks for your unfailing presence
and the hope you provide in times of uncertainty and loss.
Send your Holy Spirit to enkindle in us your holy fire.
Revive us to live as Christ’s body in the world:
a people who pray, worship, learn,
break bread, share life, heal neighbors,
bear good news, seek justice, rest and grow in the Spirit.
Wherever and however we gather,
unite us in common prayer and send us in common mission,
that we and the whole creation might be restored and renewed,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Habits of Grace May 4, 2020

As we learn how to adjust our lives given the reality of the coronavirus and the request to do our part to slow its spread by practicing social distancing, I invite you to join me each week to take a moment to cultivate a ‘habit of grace.’ A new meditation will be posted on Mondays through May. These meditations can be watched at any time by clicking here.

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s Word to the Church: What Would Love Do?

From the Episcopal News Service

In the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic, we are now at another one of those threshold moments when important and significant decisions must be made on all levels of our global community for the good and the well-being of the entire human family. In this moment, I would ask you to allow me to share with you a Word to the Church: What Would Love Do? (Way of Love companion resources available here.)A Word to the Church
The Easter Season A.D. 2020
——————–
“What Would Love Do?”Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult
of our life’s wild, restless sea,
day by day his clear voice soundeth,
saying, “Christian, follow me”Text of Hymn 549, verse 1 – Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-95), alt.

Throughout the Book of Common Prayer there are rubrics, those small or italicized words that don’t always catch our eye, that provide direction and guidance for how a liturgy or service is to be conducted.  Rubrics tell us what must be done and what may be done.  They limit us and they give us freedom.  They require us to exercise our judgment.  And when we are at our best, we exercise this judgment under God’s rubric of love.

Jesus tells us things like:  Love your enemies; Bless those who curse you; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; As you did to the least of these who are members of my family you have done to me; Father, forgive; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. This is the first and great commandment and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus makes it abundantly clear that the way of unselfish, sacrificial love – love that seeks the good and the well-being of others as well as the self – that love is the rubric of the Christian life.

This rubric of love is seen no more clearly than in the twenty-first chapter of the Gospel according to John.

When [the disciples] had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.  Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished.  But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”  (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.)  After this he said to him, “Follow me.”  (John 21:15-19)

The death of Jesus had left his followers disoriented, uncertain, and confused, afraid of what they knew and anxious about what they did not know.  Thinking that the movement was probably dead, the disciples went back to what they knew.  They tried to go back to normal.  They went fishing.

They fished all night but didn’t catch a thing.  Normal would not return.  When the morning came, Jesus showed up on the beach, alive, risen from the dead.  He asked them, “Children, have you any fish?” They answered, “No.” Then he told them to cast the net on the other side of the boat.  They did and caught more fish than they could handle.  And then, Jesus invited them to breakfast.

After having fed his disciples, Jesus turned to Peter and three times asked him, “Do you love me?”  Three times Peter said, “Yes.”  And Jesus said, “Feed my lambs,” “Tend my sheep,” “Feed my sheep.”  In this, Jesus told Peter what love looks like.  Love God by loving your neighbors, all of them.  Love your enemies.  Feed the hungry.  Bless folk.  Forgive them.  And be gentle with yourself.  Follow me.  You may make mistakes, you may not do it perfectly.  But whatever you do, do it with love.  The truth is, Jesus gave Peter a rubric for the new normal – God’s rubric of love.

Today, like Peter and the disciples, we must discern a new normal.  COVID-19 has left us disoriented, uncertain, and confused, afraid of what we know and anxious about what we do not know.  Our old normal has been upended, and we hunger for its return.

I do not say this from a lofty perch.  I get it.  There is a big part of me that wants to go back to January 2020 when I had never heard of COVID-19, and when I only thought of “Contagion” as a movie.  Looking back through what I know are glasses darkened by loss, I find myself remembering January 2020 as a “golden age.”

But of course, January 2020 wasn’t perfect, not even close.  And anyway, I can’t go back.  None of us can go back.  We must move forward.  But we don’t know for sure what the new normal will be.  Fortunately, God’s rubric of love shows us the way.

In her book The Dream of God the late Verna Dozier, who was a mentor to me, wrote:

Kingdom of God thinking calls us to risk. We always see through a glass darkly, and that is what faith is about. I will live by the best I can discern today. Tomorrow I may find out I was wrong. Since I do not live by being right, I am not destroyed by being wrong. The God revealed in Jesus, whom I call the Christ, is a God whose forgiveness goes ahead of me, and whose love sustains me and the whole created world. That God bursts all the definitions of our small minds, all the limitations of our timid efforts, all the boundaries of our institutions. [1]

Kingdom of God thinking is already happening.  God’s rubric of love is already in action.  I’ve been watching bishops, priests, deacons, and lay people of our church following Jesus in the practices that make up his way of love and doing things we never imagined.  The creativity and the risk-taking – done with love – is amazing.

We’ve been trying, making mistakes, learning, regrouping, trying anew.  I’ve seen it.  Holy Week and Easter happened in ways that none of us dreamed possible.  I’ve quietly read Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline online with you.  I’ve seen soup kitchens, pantries, and other feeding ministries carefully doing their work in safe and healthy ways.  Zoom coffee hours, bible studies, and small discipleship groups.  I’ve seen this church stand for the moral primacy of love.  I’ve seen it, even when public health concerns supersede all other considerations, including in-person worship.  That is moral courage.  Who knows, but that love may demand more of us. But fear not, just remember what the old slaves use to say, walk together, children, and don’t you get weary, because there is a great camp meeting in the Promised Land.  Oh, I’ve seen us do what we never thought we would or could do, because we dared to do what Jesus tells us all to do.

As our seasons of life in the COVID-19 world continue to turn, we are called to continue to be creative, to risk, to love.  We are called to ask, What would unselfish, sacrificial love do?

What would love do?  Love is the community praying together, in ways old and new.  Love finds a path in this new normal to build church communities around being in relationship with God.  Love supports Christians in spiritual practices. Prayer, meditation, study. Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, Rest.

What would love do?  Love calls us to care for our neighbors, for our enemies.  Love calls us to attend to those in prison, to those who are homeless, to those in poverty, to children, to immigrants and refugees.  Love calls us to be in relationship with those with whom we disagree.

What would love do?  Love calls us to be gentle with ourselves, to forgive our own mistakes, to take seriously the Sabbath.  Love calls us to be in love with God, to cultivate a loving relationship with God, to spend time with God, to be still and know that God is God.

Jesus says, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
Jesus says, Michael, son of Dorothy and Kenneth, do you love me? 
Jesus says, Do you love me?

Jesus says, Follow me, and take the risk to live the question, What would love do?

This, my friends, is God’s rubric of love.  This, my friends, is God’s very way of life.In our joys and in our sorrows,
days of toil and hours of ease,
still he calls, in cares and pleasures,
“Christian, love me more than these.”Jesus calls us! By thy mercies,
Savior, may we hear thy call,
give our hearts to thine obedience,
serve and love thee best of all.Text of Hymn 549, verses 4 and 5 – Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-95), alt.

God love you. God bless you. And may God hold us all in those almighty hands of love.

Amen.

+Michael

The Most Reverend Michael B. Curry
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

[1] The Dream of God, Verna Dozier, Cowley Publications (1991), Seabury Classics (2006)

Habits of Grace April 28, 2020

As we learn how to adjust our lives given the reality of the coronavirus and the request to do our part to slow its spread by practicing social distancing, Presiding Bishop Curry invites you to join him each week to take a moment to cultivate a ‘habit of grace.’ A new meditation will be posted on Mondays through May. These meditations can be watched at any time by clicking here.

Meeting Jesus – A message from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

There’s an interesting pattern in some of the stories of the resurrection. In Luke 24, for example, some of the followers of Jesus are traveling from Jerusalem itself to the small village of Emmaus a few miles down the road. A stranger comes up to them, walks with them and carries on a conversation with them and all along, the stranger was Jesus raised from the dead. They didn’t recognize him. They didn’t see that it was Jesus until, as the Bible says, their eyes were open as if they turned and actually saw him in the breaking of the bread and saw him alive.

A similar thing happened to Mary Magdalene in the 20th chapter of John’s Gospel, where she is frantically running around looking for his body, and she comes up to someone she mistakes for the gardener in the cemetery. It’s actually Jesus raised from the dead. But again, she doesn’t recognize him until he speaks, “Mary,” the way he always said it and he says though she stopped, and you know how we say did a double take, turned and saw that it was Jesus and cried out, “Rabboni!” That pattern may well be reminding us who hear those stories generations after it all happened that the risen Christ, that the Lord Jesus, that our God, is actually walking with us even when we cannot see, feel or sense his presence. Sometimes we just have to stop, be still, and turn and behold.

Psalm 46 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. . . Though the mountains be toppled into the midst of the sea, God is our stronghold.”

Be still and know that I am God.

In a prayer in our prayer book, says much the same thing:

Oh God of peace who has taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength. By the might of thy spirit, lift us we pray thee to thy presence where we may be still and know that thou art God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jesus said at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, at the end of the messages about the resurrection, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.”

God love you, God bless you and may God hold us all in those almighty hand of love.

Habits of Grace – a new series from the Episcopal Church Website

Habits of Grace April 20, 2020

Presiding Bishop Curry, Habits of Grace Series from Episcopal Website

The late professor Walter Wink, in one of his books, says that “History belongs to the intercessors who believe and pray a new future into being.” None of us know the mystery of prayer and how it works. I don’t know the intricacies of prayer’s mysteries. What I do know and believe, is that prayer makes a difference. It’s not a magic foot. It’s not a way to… It’s not a form of wish fulfillment, but it is a way of bringing our deepest needs and concerns and our very life into our consciousness and into the very presence of God.

There’s an interesting story in the eighth chapter of the Book of Revelation, just a few of the verses, where you have this swirling of events happening in history and a world in chaos and the text says, “There was silence in heaven for half an hour.” Walter Wink and others looking at that say that in its highly symbolic language, the Book of Revelation may be trying to tell us that even in the midst of all the chaos of the world, the prayers of God’s people actually make a difference. Because if you look at that small section of the first few chapters of chapter eight in Revelation, during that silence of heaven, it says that the prayers of the saints are mingled with the incense before the throne of God and that those prayers are taken right to God. God hears our prayers. God responds in God’s way and we respond.

Prayer matters. It’s not magic, but it makes a difference. There’s a prayer in the prayer book that I thought you might like. It’s a prayer for in times of sickness, for use by the sick person, but maybe it’s a prayer that can apply to us all.

This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever shall be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. If I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words and give me the spirit of Jesus.

What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer. God love you. God bless you and may God hold you and this whole world, the entire human family and the whole of creation in those almighty hands of love.

Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself – Weekly Meditation from Presiding Bishop Curry

An invitation for you, from Presiding Bishop Curry:

Habits of Grace
As we learn how to adjust our lives given the reality of the coronavirus and the request to do our part to slow its spread by practicing social distancing, I invite you to join me each week to take a moment to cultivate a ‘habit of grace.’ A new meditation will be posted on Mondays through May. 

March 30, 2020:  Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself

Last week I was reading in Matthew 22 and I noticed something that I hadn’t seen before. Matthew 22 is Holy Week, it’s smack dab in the middle of Holy Week. The conflict in Jerusalem is escalating. Jesus knows this and it’s at that point that he’s tested by, clearly someone who probably was trying to entrap him. He knows that. It was the guy who came up and said, “What is the greatest law in the entire legal edifice of Moses?” And Jesus responds, drawing on what Moses taught in the Hebrew scriptures, in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, “You shall love the Lord your God with all yourself, all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” And then he says, “On these two, hang all the law and the prophets.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that when Jesus said that, he was actually talking about how you live in an uncertain period of time. About how you live in any period of time. But how you navigate in particular in uncertain territory and tough territory. He was in uncertain territory in Holy Week, and it was tough territory. It wasn’t a pandemic. It was a passion. And he said, “Love God with everything you got. Love your neighbor in the same way. Love yourself.”

And so I decided last week that I was going to make sure every day I did three things very simply, or at least thought about them. How can I love God today? Very simply, nothing complex. How can I love my neighbor, others? How can I love myself? And it occurred to me that just sometimes asking the question, you may or may not have an answer, but you may figure out an answer for that day. That sometimes just asking the question can help in times of uncertainty, in days of pandemic, and in times when the days are just going to keep going on and on and on.

How can I love God today? How can I love my neighbor today? How can I love Michael today? One thing I’ve started doing in my prayer list, is keeping a list of groups of people to pray for. And I’ve been praying for first responders, folk who work in hospitals, the folk who keep the grocery stores open, the pharmacies, police officers, firefighters, ambulance folk. People we can’t even see. People who keep the Internet going. I mean all sorts of folk. And so, I would offer this prayer for all of them.

All of the people we don’t see, but who help to keep life livable, even in time of pandemic.

Keep watch dear Lord with those who work, or watch, or weep. And give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ. Give rest to the weary. Bless the dying. Soothe the suffering. Pity the afflicted. Shield the joyous. And all for your love’s sake. Amen.

Love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself, day by day.

God love you, and you keep the faith.

Habits of Grace: Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs Posted Mar 30, 2020 Back to Press Releases