Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick 

We will be offering the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick during Mass on Saturday, March 25.  Everyone is welcome to receive this sacrament. Through it we ask for God’s strength, comfort and healing for the many ways in which we do not feel whole.  You do not need to be physically or seriously ill to receive it. This is simply another facet of our faith tradition which invites all to welcome and receive the healing, strengthening presence of God's love in our lives. Invite someone you know, who might need this grace in their life, to come and experience this with you.

Understanding Islam

On Saturday, April 1 at 3:30 pm, prior to our usual 5:00 pm liturgy, we will have the opportunity to hear Dr. Bahar Bastani share with us on "Understanding the Real Islam."  Dr. Bastani is a physician at St. Louis University and leader in the local Muslim Community. 

Dr. Bastani is a personal friend of Deacon Bob Crecelius, who writes, "I believe that each day that we let pass without making our voice heard to let others know we stand with them (the Muslim community), we fail to live our vocation.  My ordination evolved and was nourished from many springs. One of these pools of water sprang from the relationship I have with the Muslim Community." 

Please join us on Saturday, April 1.

First Saturday Reception

Please join us after Mass on April 1 (no fooling) for a few minutes of refreshments and fellowship in the Fireside Room.  It is a good time to have some pre-dinner snacks and interact with community members. 

Parish Office Hours 

The Sts. Clare & Francis Office, [483 E Lockwood Ave, Ste. 3, Schultz Hall (Door B) – Eden Theological Seminary, Webster Groves, MO 63119] will be open each week on Mondays, from 1:00 – 4:00 pm and Thursdays from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm. Although someone is here more often than that, I am in and out much of the time. So I am making a concerted effort to have posted hours to be more available to people who might want to drop by. 

Thanks! 

Jim

Why Should I Reduce My Use of

Plastic Bottles? I Recycle!

In the Green motto, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," reduce is first because it has the biggest impact on consumption.  Reducing your use of some plastic items eliminates the impact those items would have had. If you must use plastic, always recycle, but think first to see if the item could be not used or reused.  

PLASTIC FACTS:  It takes three times the volume of water to manufacture one bottle of water than it does to fill it, and because of the chemical production of plastics that water is mostly unusable. 

We use 17 million barrels of oil each year just to produce all of those water bottles. 

To put it in perspective, that’s enough oil to keep a MILLION cars fueled for a whole year! 

The Earth Policy Institute factors the energy used to pump, process, transport and refrigerate our bottled water as over 50 million barrels of oil every year. That’s an insane amount of resources for something that is completely unneeded!

Join us and reduce your plastic use!

The Kiva Club will meet March 25 at 3:45 pm in the Fireside Room to extend more loans. Anyone who is interested may join us.  Check out our team page on the Kiva website: http://www.kiva.org/team/sts_clare_and_francis_ecc.

Please look around and pick a few borrowers' names, then bring those to the gathering.  If you have any questions please contact Clarence Heller (marclar123@aol.com, 636.256.6515).

Sinner, Savior, or Both: Reflections on Jesus, Salvation, and Phyllis Tickle's Memorial Service:   Part II
Eric Elnes

Continued from last week...

I watched from a distance in St. Mary's Episcopal Church while my two estranged friends, not unlike the angels of the Qur'an, humbly set aside any grounds for self-righteous indignation, real or perceived, to "bow" to each other out of recognition that they were each a beloved friend of Phyllis.

The fierce beauty of this collision between grievance and grace reminds me of a little-known and (to some) deeply embarrassing claim made by Luke's gospel about Jesus: Namely, that Jesus was simultaneously a sinner like us and the Beloved of God. (Luke 3:3, 22)

Most Christians claim that Jesus cannot be both sinner and savior. Yet when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, Luke tells us plainly that this baptism was for "repentance for the forgiveness of sins." (Luke 3: 3). Why would someone without sin undergo a baptism of repentance? Many claim that Luke was either mistaken or meant to say that Jesus was baptized for the forgiveness of our sins, not his own. They cite Hebrews 2:15 to buttress their argument, which claims that Jesus was "tested as we are, yet without sin." Yet Luke never read Hebrews. Nor was he familiar with the creeds, doctrines, and dogmas that would arise centuries later. A straight reading of Luke clearly indicates that Luke saw no problem with Jesus being both a repentant sinner and a savior (Cf. Luke 18:19: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.")

Personally, I don't feel qualified to decide between Luke and the unnamed author of Hebrews regarding Jesus' relationship with sin. I'm not sure any of us are, really. After all, throughout history we have considered certain acts to be sinful that we later regarded as innocent (e.g., same-sex marriage), while other actions that we considered innocent were later regarded as sinful (e.g., the subjugation of women). So who are we to judge?

I'm not trying to convince you one way or another about Jesus' moral state. I just find myself drawn to the idea that Jesus could be both a sinner and a savior. As far as I can tell, being "fully human," as every orthodox Christian claims Jesus was, includes struggling with sin (as the orthodox deny). While it may seem counter-intuitive, I trust Jesus - and God - a lot more if Jesus struggled with the human propensity to sin. Why?

First, I distrust the basic impulse that leads people to insist, as Satan did in the Qur'an, that anyone worth bowing down to as God's Beloved must be perfect. As a Christian, I bow before Jesus not because I have assessed his moral state and deemed him worthy, but because God declared him worthy for God's own reasons - and confirmed it on Easter. I'm good with that.

Second, whatever Jesus' relationship with sin may have been, one thing I know for sure is that I am a sinner. And I hate my sin. I hate the ways I disappoint myself and others so much, in fact, that it takes constant effort to keep my hatred of sin from veering off into self-hatred, especially since I know that God hates sin more than I do. My natural inclination, therefore, when it comes to God, is to resist any kind of relationship. I erect barriers, set up roadblocks, and do most anything in my power to keep God from drawing too close. As a Christian progressive, I can even bring science into the ruse, arguing that the universe is far too large for a "personal relationship with God" to be even a remote option. Given the opportunity, I will even go so far as to cast blame on God, insisting that even if a "personal relationship" were possible, God wouldn't want it on account of my sin.

Frankly, if the only way that God can love me is for Jesus to be without sin, taking upon himself the punishment and wrath that God intended for me on the cross, this only confirms the judgment and self-hatred that I already arrived at on my own. No need for revelation here. Only, I feel more guilty and worthless than before. As if my sin wasn't bad enough, now I've made someone else suffer for sin that I should rightfully be punished for.

Yet if God proclaimed Jesus to be God's Beloved, with whom God was "well pleased," as a fully-human sinner like you and me, then the moment I actually believe this is the moment Jesus saves me - saves me not from God's judgment and condemnation but from my own. For if God loves a sinner as extravagantly as God loved Jesus, even going so far as to raise him from the dead, then how can I go on hating myself for my propensity to sin - or you for yours?

Instead, I find myself jumping at any opportunity at all to be in deeper relationship with God. I will not hesitate because this is my deepest yearning. "You have made us for yourself, O Lord," writes Augustine, "and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." (Confessions i.1) Jesus the sinner-savior clears the way for me to find this rest.

As I witnessed my two estranged friends honoring Phyllis Tickle last Friday afternoon by passing the peace of Christ to each other, I believe that they honored God even more fully than Phyllis. For they showed that, as deep as the divide between them may be, it is not deeper than their desire to act toward each other in the same way God acts toward us, as revealed by Jesus, the beloved sinner-savior of God. In this simple yet fierce act of grace, they became for each other what Nadia Bolz-Weber might call "accidental saints."