January 31, 2025

All Saints Gazette: Dust and Candles

This week at All Saints:
Every M to F, 9:00 and 18:00: Daily Prayer on Zoom
Sunday, 2 February, 17:30: Eucharist at Vrijburg! If you can, bring a dish to share and a candle to bless.
(Links to online events on the church calendar)

I don’t know how much space I should devote to what is happening in the US. We are not a US church, even if some of us have strong connections there. But what we seem to be hearing from many of you is that this is on our hearts. We are scared of what the brutal and capricious actions of the U.S. executive branch in the last two weeks mean for people we love everywhere, not just in America.

So I want you to know that we see and hear that. We feel it too.

These rapid actions were clearly meant to overwhelm people of goodwill in the US and elsewhere. So I am going to offer you two things.

Keep teaching, healing, and casting out demons

Earlier this week, our daily lectionary gave us Mark 6:1-13. After some time spent traveling around with his disciples teaching, healing and casting out demons, Jesus sends the disciples off in pairs to do those same three things.

For reasons far upstream for their individual choices, the lives of some people are “political” in the extremely impoverished sense this word has taken on. Merely living, surviving, and trying to thrive is a challenge to the powerful and to the very power that shapes what we are able to understand. These lives offer an invitation, as do lives lived in solidarity with them. Jesus was such a person. Power as it was manifested locally and geopolitically reacted violently not so much to anything that he said or did, but to who he was, and who he showed God to be: a God whose manifestation in creation is presence in the struggle “for the life of the world” (John 6:51). If we are joined to Jesus in faith and baptism, then we are in that struggle, and we are receiving his life, offering his life, and extending an invitation. This sort of life teaches, heals, and casts out demons.

Shake off the dust

This kind of life also collects other people’s dust, and you shouldn’t keep carrying it around. That’s not how you help them.

In his instructions as he sent these disciples off, Jesus said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”

The invitation that life in Jesus extends to others is often rejected, and you have to move on to the next place. You don’t stop loving, but we have to learn how not to take their dust with us. I think that nothing shakes dust off better than daily prayer. But I bet our community knows more! So share!

Candlemas Eucharist—Come on Sunday, Bring a Candle to bless, and a dish to share if you can

The Feast of the Presentation (February 2) falls on a Sunday for once! We commemorate the Holy Family’s visit to the Temple 40 days after Jesus’ birth. This story is bound up with lots of things. It’s about the Jewish rites of redeeming the firstborn son and the purification after childbirth (contemporary Jews have many different takes on this—as on everything else. Here is an accessible essay by my friend Cara Rock-Singer, who studies feminist reclaiming of these rituals). It’s about politics, as Jesus is recognized as the liberator of the occupied and colonized Jewish people. And it has come to be an important marker of holy time: the feast is halfway between Christmas and the Annunciation and thus (approximately) between the winter solstice and and the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere. The year is like a baby that has survived its first 40 days, and we now present it to God.

This is symbolized in some traditions by blessing new candles made from the previous year’s beeswax. We will include that blessing in this week’s liturgy, so feel free to bring a candle!

Daily Prayer Continues

Every weekday at 9:00 and 18:00 there will (almost) always at least one other person online for the daily office. Join in when you can! If you want to pray the office on your own, you can do it with a prayer book or any of several online resources. Let Mpho or Kyle know if you’d like a quick tutorial!

Two Clippings from the Convocation Newsletter
(subscribe here)

Beloved Community Presents their APL: “All Saints Are Welcome”

Saturday, February 22nd, 10:00-12:00
(Online)

Racial Justice Beloved Community, in partnership with EICS, presents a second session of their APL series "All Sinners Are Welcome", encouraging and teaching how to explore radical hospitality, self-reflection, and the pursuit of Beloved Community within the church. 

Through panel discussion and interactive small group sessions we will discuss “Who is the Church For?”, examine “What Does Welcome Mean?”, and explore “Becoming Beloved Community.” 

Here’s the link to register.

European Institute of Christian Studies

Lenten APL: Episcopal 101
March 11 - April 1, 19:00-20:30

This Lent EICS will present a 4 week series on “Episcopal 101,” an online course meant to introduce newcomers or re-familiarize long-term members with core tenants, traditions and beliefs in the Episcopal Church.  Each week will have a separate theme, and each requires individual registration. Each session is independent of the other, join 1 or all as you wish!

Individual registration links:

March 11: History
March 18: Polity and Mission
March 25: Liturgy and Sacraments
April 1: Anglican Temperament and Spirituality

Enough and Some to Share!

Please invest what you can in the community you want, and try putting in just a little more than you first feel comfortable with (without causing yourself hardship, of course). There is enough if we share! Please hold our upcoming pledge drive in your prayers, in addition to supporting us as you are presently able.

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, and pray about what you are called to pledge when we have our winter pledge drive.

Bank details
All Saints Amsterdam
IBAN NL32 TRIO 0320 8657 62
BIC TRIONL2U

Two Videos This Week

If you’re more in a music and prayer mood, this one is really good (content note: it has a bit more “Lord” and “Father” language than some are comfortable with):

If you’re more in the mood for a bishop explaining something with patience and nuance, here’s a video Mpho shared with our WhatsApp group, “not because of the American politics of it all but because it offers a clear explanation of who we are and for whom we exist…and who is welcome here.”

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