God...is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
-Philippians 2:13
"God at Work," the signs say on the fencing around our church. Indeed, God is at work, in ways visible and nearly invisible.
Every day as I make my way from Back Bay Station to the Rectory offices, I "lift up my eyes" to see what next steps are being taken in the work on our beloved church building. Keen eyes can see what is different day by day. Steadily and surely, a little bit at a time, the work of God progresses.
Every day, as I walk by, I lift up my heart in thanks to God for you and for the generosity you are pouring out through the Capital Campaign that enables this work to be done. And especially this week, as we anticipate Labor Day, I give thanks to God for the skills, the courage, and the dedication of the workers, laboring on our behalf to firm up the foundation (and the walls, and the roof) of Trinity Church.
But some of the work on the church is not so immediately visible. Much of the work has been going on behind scrim. In those places one has to train one's eyes to look more closely to catch a glimpse of the work being done, and of the ones doing the work.
"Looking behind the scrim" is becoming a metaphor for me. It invites me to look behind the immediate surfaces, training the eyes of my soul to look for the sometimes mysterious and not-immediately-visible ways God is at work here in our midst at Trinity, and beyond this sacred site.
Several in particular come to mind for me:
God is at work through you, as you give yourself to prayer.
Through praying, you are living out God's deep care for this parish and for people and situations as far flung as Houston, Charlottesville, Nigeria, or Afghanistan. There you are, behind the scrim, praying: on Sundays in church, daily on our Facebook page "Daily Prayer with Trinity Church Boston," through your sotto voce assurances of prayer at the door on Sundays, through the parish's prayer chain, or through a phone call, or an emailed or hand-written note.
God is at work through you, as you give your time and talents through ministries and committees.
Just this week, I have seen you embody the work of God by ministering to one another in the parish and to those beyond: in the joyful gathering of the Nigerian Fellowship, in serving dinner at Rosie's Place, in the newly-formed Pastoral Care Council, in the clean-up day at the McCormack School, in the creative strategizing of Stewardship Committee sub-groups, and in the Vestry's careful discernment about the make-up of the Profile and Search Committees.
What about you? Is God inviting you to look behind the scrim and see where God is at work: in your personal life, in the life of Trinity, in the wider world? And what about the next step? In this new program year about to start at Trinity, could you not only look behind the scrim but venture behind it in body and spirit to join God in some work of ministry here in the parish or beyond? God is at work, but God needs you for that work. For as St. Teresa of Avila wisely 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,
Y
ours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands
with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
At one with God-in-Christ and at one with you, in joyful prayer and work,
Interim Rector
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