Math Adventures and Word Play

One of the great programs around St. Mark's is Mathematics Adventures and Word Play - an educational outreach to children and youth in our region. Volunteers organize and tutor those who seek educational assistance on any level. Some who receive tutoring also tutor others - of a different grade level or in a different area. It meets at St. Mark's on Saturday mornings from 10:30-noon.

What Do We Want to See?

From the Rector
Arriving in Jericho, Jesus comes upon a blind beggar named Bartimaeus. Though people try to get him to quiet down, Bartimaeus cries out for Jesus to pay attention to him.

Jesus responds to Bartimaeus and his urgency. What does he want? Jesus asks.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, Bartimaeus wants to see – to have his physical sight restored.

Of course physical sight is not all it promises to be. Many blind persons have more developed awareness and insight than many sighted people.

We only see if we look, if we pay attention.

Jesus still offers the gift of sight. What do we want to see? What will we allow ourselves to see, by God’s grace?

Most people, sighted or physically blind in our world spend a great deal of effort (sometimes unconsciously) overlooking very important dimensions of reality. A recent New York Times story told of newly wealthy Sudanese living 600 miles from earth’s greatest humanitarian disaster who are ignoring the devastation of violence and starvation in the Darfur region of their country.

What do we want to see? What will we allow ourselves to see, by God’s grace?

As Jesus gives us sight, we also receive, through grace and the Holy Spirit, the strength and courage to see, to understand, and to respond to what we encounter.

In Christ, we can really look at our lives, our relationships, our faith community, our wider neighborhood and the world.

What Interests God?

"It is a great mistake to think that God is chiefly interested in religion."
William Temple, 98th Archbishop of Canterbury

From the Rector
The great 20th century Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, directs our attention away from the established forms of institutional religion by questioning God’s primary focus. How many assume that God frets full-time over the church and its various (sometimes petty) concerns?

But if not religion, what does interest God?

God is beyond our limits, beyond our comprehension. God is beyond our knowing and beyond our direction.

Nothing limits God’s interests. We can only imagine that God is interested in what God loves – all people and all of creation in all times and in all places.

Being in relationship with God calls us to focus as widely as we can on what interests God, to pay attention beyond the restrictions of religious structures. How are we joining with God in attending to the world, to people, and to both dire manifestations of need and the vast array of creative expression?

Our religious practice is meant to direct us beyond the life of our faith community where we are formed and strengthened spiritually. Church has value as it gives us courage, insight, and passion for living life whole-heartedly with God’s unconditional love and boundless hope. Is our primary experience one of opening up, of freeing, of moving beyond constraints and limits?

Is our attention as individuals and as a faith community too small? Can we seek from God an expansion of our focus, of our interests, and of our action?

Blessing Children

From the Rector
We are accustomed to hearing about the very simple and direct action of Jesus taking children into his arms, putting his hands on them and blessing them. We have a stained glass window depicting this scene.

It is heartwarming to consider.

It was a radical act in Jesus day. It ran against the grain and mostly people would not have responded to Jesus with any positive sentiment for what he did.

He was setting the world on its ear, challenging the structures of oppression.

Children were de-valued and on the margins in Jesus’ day.

Just as they are today.

As we gather children in, meet their specific needs and bless them, we are not, by-and-large, going to be rewarded with great enthusiasm. Especially as we serve children who are not “our own” (as in homeless children in the family shelter or children who come to St. Mark’s for tutoring in Math Adventures and Word Play) people will look suspiciously at us. They will question our motives, wonder why we don’t leave well enough alone.

The simple (maybe the only) answer is that we do it because Jesus did it – and we are the Body of Christ.