HELLO!

I was surprised how many people were with us in-person this morning. I noted many of our younger families were absent for the long weekend, but several people invited their friends to join them, so there were plenty of new faces and even more people who have been coming for the last several weeks. Bethe and I love meeting new people! It was great to see several people who have been part of Woodlawn United for decades, who have been unwell, and returned this week. If you missed the service, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwKzjzQTQA4

In my sermon I mentioned a diner in downtown Bangor Maine that offered a hearty lunch, homemade soup and chilli, fresh homemade bread, all by these Friars, priests whose mission it is to create radical hospitality, insisting customers not use their phones and sit with someone they have never met. They believe we, as God’s children, are called to meet strangers, become friends, create community. Their restaurant, the Friar’s Bakehouse, had a most diverse customer base, students, professors, seniors, low-income residents in subsidized housing, business people, bankers, etc… My two clergy friends and I would enter, after listening to lectures on theology and preaching, and sit with locals, but always someone new, with a story we had never heard before.

Recently these Friars moved to another part of Maine, they now brew their own beer, their restaurant more of a late afternoon, early evening destination. I assume the mission remains the same. I have never been there, but members of a church I once served did eat there and they returned to Halifax with glasses featuring the brewery. Whenever I think about John 17’s call “that all may be one”, I think about those long wooden tables, the people sitting across from one another, making conversation, sharing, listening, learning, laughing, sometimes crying.

I hope our church is such a place, a welcoming and safe space for the building of community. Here Bethe and I are completely on the same page, we are both committed to this vision, and more importantly, we try to live it out. There are so many witnesses to this vision at Woodlawn, they inspire Bethe and I. We are blessed by how you live out the Gospel.

At one point in the Hall today, after church, as I was speaking to a senior with some physical challenges, Sam appeared with a chair, offering her the opportunity to sit, as our circle was sharing in ministry. No words said, just an attentive presence, a spirit of care. Peace, Kevin