All Saints Gazette: Advent Incompleteness
Greetings from All Saints!
[Note that this version of the newsletter corrects some wording regarding gifts and taxes—somebody may have forgotten what he lives in now!]
This week:
Monday to Friday: Morning and Evening Prayer on Zoom, 9:00 and 18:00
No additional Thursday Program. Enjoy pakjesavond!
No service this Sunday. Next liturgy: 15 December
For all online events, see the calendar for links.
We are now in the season of Advent, which is culturally overshadowed by Christmas and, here in the Netherlands, the Feast of St. Nicholas (for our friends reading from abroad, St. Nicholas’ Day, rather than Christmas, is the principal gift giving occasion here. St. Nicholas—Sinterklaas—as the Dutch know him is the ancestor of the American Santa Claus). But Advent is kind of awesome.
Advent is about incompleteness. We emphasize completeness on other occasions like Christmas or Christ the King. The Incarnation is a done deal; and the completion of creation at the Second Coming is a done deal that just happens to be in the future. Those things stay true. But Advent reminds us not to draw a closed circle because we don’t know what it should look like!
The next three weeks set the figures of John the Baptist and Blessed Mary before us. John, also called John the Forerunner, is the wild prophet-saint who lived in the wilderness, never changed clothes or cut his hair, and didn’t eat normal things (first vegan?). He is emphatic that he is not the Messiah, but insists that the Messiah is coming. He baptized Jesus, and Jesus honored him by saying that he was basically the greatest human being to have lived up to that time. But even John wasn’t so sure about how to close the circle, and at one point, he event sent a message to Jesus to ask if he had gotten it right.
Mary is the mother of Jesus, and thus the Mother of God. We see that she welcomes God by welcoming an unexpected human being. She knows this will have drastic consequences, but presumably doesn’t imagine what they are. Still, she dares prophecy that God will cast the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly, send the rich away empty and fill the hungry. Her life is one of both fullness and longing. She received her son at the manger, lost him at the cross, received him back again from the dead, only for him to leave again at his Ascension. Our last sight of her in scripture is as a leader of the church’s prayer, imitating what the mysteries contain and longing for what they promise.
Mary and John are often shown together, as in the deisis icon I pasted at the top. The Eastern church considers them the two exemplars of what our life is like: pointing to him, receiving him, rejoicing in his presence and yet longing for his justice, and being a bit weird, refusing to fit into a world that always wants a closed circle.
Whatever your December observances, spend a little time with these two. Join us at worship next Sunday (i.e. the 15th) if you can, and pop into daily prayer. I won’t tell you when you can or can’t sing Christmas carols and put up trees and nativity sets (mine are already up), but do also spend some time with the incompleteness of Advent.
Money Again (à propos of throwing money in shoes)
Once we have the means to store membership data in accordance with EU privacy laws, we will invite everyone to pledge for 2025. A pledge is a non-binding (but hopefully realistic) goal for your offerings in 2025.
There will never be a cost to being part of All Saints; as long as we exist, we are a free gift to everyone. God will move people to give us the resources we need as long as this work is God’s will and people value it and need it. But we do need money to keep doing this, and knowing what you intend to give (i.e. a pledge) helps us do the background work that makes things we’re actually here for possible.
As St. Theresa of Avila correctly (if perhaps apocryphally) said:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Every offering, not just of money, is honored by God. The time you spend coming to church or praying, the food you contribute, the way you show up for each other and for justice everywhere all counts! Money may not be the part of this that most of us get excited about (and we may not have a lot of it ourselves). But whatever we can give is an investment in the community we want. A strong pledge base also helps us convince funding agencies (who have more money than we do) that we believe in this enough to support it as much as we can, and they should support it as much as they can.
If you can’t pledge or give a lot, pledge and give a little. It makes a difference! If one person gives €15 a week for a year, they will have paid for a month’s worth of the hours that Mpho or I are authorized to bill (5 per week; we offer many more as a gift). €5 a week for a year pays for a month’s rent at Vrijburg. If 20 people gave €25 a week for the whole year, we would basically be in the black.
In the meantime, while we are still getting the infrastructure for pledging set up, whatever you can give now helps. And if you happen to have something leftover at the end of the year and are looking for a new home for it, consider offering it to God through All Saints. For anyone who does have taxable assets, here or elsewhere: take a look at whether you might be able to deduct them if you make a year-end gift!
Christmas Eve Service and Borrel
We can finally announce Christmas plans! We will have a Christmas Eve liturgy at 17:00 at Vrijburg on (obvs) 24 December. If you need to run immediately afterward, go right ahead. Or stay for the borrel (if you’re able, bring something to share)!
Daily Prayer
You don’t have to figure out prayer yourself! One of the gifts of the Episcopal/Anglican tradition is a template that has stood the test of time. You can use the Book of Common Prayer if you have one; you can check out any of several online resources; or you can join us on Zoom at 9:00 and 18:00 every weekday, and we’ll do it together (link in calendar). See if you can spot the ways it’s different in Advent!
This Thursday
This Thursday is Pakjesavond in the Netherlands, so we will just do evening prayer at 18:00 in lieu of a longer program.
Beloved Community Corner
Mpho is the Canon for Racial Justice and Beloved Community in the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe. You can subscribe to their newsletter. Here’s an excerpt from the latest one:
Spirituality Retreat
The Committee on the Ministry of the Baptized offers a yearly spirituality retreat for anyone who wants to explore how God is calling you to deepen your spirituality. This year it is 16-18 May in Florence and has the theme “Open to Hope in the Celtic Tradition.” Information and registration forms are here. Official deadline is month before the event, but I am told it is usually sold out much earlier.
Support our Life Together, or: Gooi wat in mijn schoentje!
If you don’t have any kids with shoes to throw money in tomorrow, here’s one for you! Use the QR code or this link, or make a transfer through your banking app (the latter saves us a few cents). Please consider making your offering recurring.
Bank details
All Saints Amsterdam
IBAN NL32 TRIO 0320 8657 62
BIC TRIONL2U
Advent Contrasts
I have long been a fan of this arrangement of Martin Luther’s Advent hymn “Nun kommt der Heiden Heiland” (known in English as “Savior of the Nations, Come”). It quite captures the mood of simultaneous presence of God and longing for God.
That’s all for Today! Want to talk to a priest? We want to talk to you too!
Website: https://allsaintsamsterdam.church
Mpho: mpho@allsaintsamsterdam.church
Kyle: kyle@allsaintsamsterdam.church
General: info@allsaintsamsterdam.church
Instagram: @allsaintsamsterdam.church
