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08.30.05: Dirt and Labor
09.06.05: "Mama, It's Gone"
09.13.05: Cookie Sunday
09.20.05: The Power of Story
09.27.05: Of Saints and Angels
10.04.05: Rebuild my Church
Eight years ago this month, I was a pilgrim in the Italian cities of Assisi and Rome. Invited to represent the catechists from the state of Indiana, I joined with pilgrims from around the world in the Basilica of St. Francis to learn from the 
co-founders of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (the process we call “FaithQuest” at Beloved) who lectured in Italian with translations provided in both English and Spanish. It was a week of being absorbed in an environment of teaching, spiritual awakening and intense listening. There was plenty of time to reflect in this spiritually rich area of the world as we shared theological presentations about the spiritual development of the emerging child.
When I arrived in Assisi, the taxi driver motioned for me to get out of the car and walk because there was a parade honoring St. Francis coming down the road past the hotel in which I was staying. This, I learned, was the month of Francis’ death and the parade I was witnessing was remembering his final return to Assisi (where he would ultimately die on October 4, 1226).
St. Francis, the son of a prosperous merchant of Assisi, was born in this pilgrimage town in 1182. His early youth was spent in harmless revelry and fruitless attempts to win military glory. After his return from war, Francis, standing completely naked before the Bishop, totally renounced all his material possessions, and devoted himself to serving the poor. Pope Innocent the Third confirmed Francis’ simple rule for the Order of Friars Minor, friars who around the world are now called “Franciscans.” His rule focused on living simply and serving the poor. (St. Clare, a contemporary of Francis, began its complementary sisterhood). Francis is probably most well known for his intense spirituality and his ability to communicate with animals and birds. He also gave to the world the tradition of the Christmas “manger scene” (crèche), complete with living animals and people to represent the Holy Family.
What I didn’t know until I visited was that this radical change in Francis’ life came only after he heard God call him to “rebuild my church.” At first, Francis thought that meant literally to reconstruct an abandoned church building on the outskirts of town. After the reconstruction was completed, and after more prayer and reflection (often while living in caves as a hermit), he realized that God’s unique desire for him was to “rebuild” the church by serving the poor and showing others how to as well. In this mentoring of others, he would rebuild the church by making more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.
Minding my own business in Assisi one day, while I was trudging up a steep city street, I unexpectedly heard God speak to me. The words were both amazing and troubling: “Rebuild my church….as a priest, I want you to baptize, preach, teach, heal, absolve, consecrate and make disciples for me.” In order to give me a tangible reminder of this call, God shared that this call on my life would be as arduous a journey as the one a crippled woman in Assisi made every day, ascending and descending the steep hill to the Basilica where Francis was buried. In fact, God directed me to “take a photo of her so you will remember what I have said.” Upon returning home, I shared what I heard with Derek, a bit self-conscious about relaying that God actually spoke to me in the same words that he used with St. Francis. About a month later, Derek brought home the text of a sermon preached by the newly installed Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Francis (Frank) Griswold. In his sermon, Bishop Griswold shared that he, too, had heard God say to him “rebuild my church” on this very same pilgrimage in Assisi! (He had attended with a group of catechists from the Chicago area.)
“Rebuild my church.” How ironic it was two years later to recall these words when he new church committee from Charlotte called us to come and plant Church of the Beloved. “Rebuild my church.” These words are in the back of my mind as we celebrate and work together to grow this wonderful community of Christ. “Rebuild my church.” I wonder what God might be saying through these words to you?
Clifford King Harbin, pastor
10.11.05: Passion
This past weekend, our family joined with visitors and re-enactors to relive and celebrate the 225th Anniversary of the American Revolutionary War Battle of Kings Mountain. If you don’t know the story, it is virtually unbelievable. By 1780, the northern campaign of the Revolutionary War had fought to a stalemate, and England turned its military strategy to the South. The tactic seemed simple; re-establish control of the southern royal colonies with the large numbers of loyalists believed to be present there, march north to join loyalist troops at the Chesapeake Bay, and claim the seaboard. But a sudden battle in the wilderness at a place called Kings Mountain (named for a local family and not for King George III) exposed the weakness of England’s strategy and changed the course of this nation forever.
At first, the plan was flawlessly executed. Sir Henry Clinton captured Charleston in a major defeat to the patriot cause. General Lord Charles Cornwallis moved his army northward from Charleston through South Carolina with Colonel Banastre Tarleton and his dragoons protecting the army’s eastern flank and Major Patrick Ferguson, a Scotsman, with an army consisting only of recruited and trained loyalist local citizens, protecting Cornwallis’ western flank. In May of 1780, Tarleton’s dragoons and loyalists attacked 400 Virginia patriots near Waxhaw, NC and quickly overwhelmed them. When they asked for mercy and tried to surrender, he refused and oversaw their slaughter. In August, Cornwallis overwhelmed the patriot army in Camden, SC and continued his march towards Charlotte. In September, Ferguson and his loyalist army reached a place near present-day Rutherfordton, NC and dispatched a message to the patriots in the mountains: if they did not stop their opposition to British rule, he would march his army to them, hang their leaders, and “lay their country to waste with fire and sword.”
It was at this moment that the Revolutionary War came to these freedom-loving mountain dwellers. Horrified by the news of Tarleton’s massacre in the Waxhaws and filled with passionate determination to protect their families and their livelihood, they immediately decided to act. On September 26 they gathered at Sycamore Shoals (now in Tennessee) and began an arduous journey over mountains that were covered by an early snowfall. More and more ordinary folk joined along the way in this 300+ mile march that ultimately ended at “Hannah’s Cow Pens” (near Gaffney, SC). Ferguson, learning of their advance, moved his forces to the high ground of Kings Mountain, only 30 miles from Charlotte.
Fearing that Ferguson might escape, the patriots selected 900 of the best hunting riflemen to push on from Cowpens. These simple, ordinary frontiersmen and farmers rode through the night in a torrential downpour—their long rifles protected in blankets—and arrived at Kings Mountain as the weather broke in the afternoon of Saturday, October 7. They hitched their horses within sight of the ridge, diverted into columns, and encircled the steep slopes. Within an hour it was all over. Major Ferguson was dead and the loyalist army was destroyed. By the next day they were all “disappearing” back to their foothill and mountain homes. When Lord Cornwallis heard the news, he feared that it would be “the first link in a chain of evils that…would end in the total loss of America.” A year later his prophetic fears materialized at Yorktown, as he surrendered his army and his nation’s hopes for a colonial empire in America to George Washington.
What inspires me about this event is how the passionate conviction and action of ordinary folks changed the course of history. It is a reality repeated again and again in the words of the Bible and the stories of the holy saints of God. From a shepherd boy to a king, from fishermen to apostles or from a simple peasant girl to mother of the Savior, God seems to delight in choosing ordinary folk, filling them with passionate zeal, and setting them loose on the world. Like the over-mountain men, none of these people were looking to be agents of great change; rather it was in the passionate living of their lives, inspired by God’s transforming and strengthening Spirit, that the world was profoundly changed. They became the salt…the light…the leaven for the life of the world.
Do you realize that the same God who called the saints of scripture is calling you to a passionate new life, a life that will transform our world? So what are you passionate about? Who or what are you willing to die for? How will you, how will Church of the Beloved, join Jesus’ mission to change the world forever?
J. Derek Harbin, priest
10.18.05: Blood
As a teenage phlebotomist in my local hospital, charged with collecting blood samples for laboratory testing, I quickly became accustomed to the catcalls of “here comes the leech…the bloodsucker…Dracula.” I never minded it much, because I knew that the names were a way for patients to cope with their illnesses, and many dropped the practice after they saw how carefully and painlessly I was able to collect the necessary blood samples from them. Children, for obvious reasons, could not be as playful. Nothing made my heart sink like walking into the room of a child, whose blood I had so carefully and quickly taken the day before, only to have them dissolve into tears or scream in terror at the first recognition of my face!
Blood is truly miraculous. It can be cultured to determine which infections are making a person sick. Its white blood cells can be studied as an indicator of certain diseases. Its platelet count can determine whether a patient’s blood will appropriately clot during surgery or whether they will bleed to death on the operating table. Its red blood cells carry the breath of life to every cell in our bodies.
For the people of the Bible, the breath of life and the blood that carries that life, were sacred gifts from God. Every inhalation and exhalation was seen as signs of God’s presence and grace. Many passages in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) concern blood, particularly God’s prohibition against consuming this sacred fluid in meat and God’s command to use the blood of an unblemished lamb as a sacrifice to seek forgiveness for an individual’s sins.
Through the words of the New Testament, we are taught that it is the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the whole world. In the Eucharist, Christians consume the Blood of Christ that we might be filled and transformed by his divine Presence for service in the world. Yet these experiential and theological truths can sometimes make us forget the holiness and sacredness of the “ordinary” blood that flows through our own arteries and veins. Our Jewish sisters and brothers would be quick to remind us that God’s foundational gift to us is life, with our own breath and pumping heart given to us as constant reminders of the Giver.
It won’t take a long visit to a hospital emergency or operating room to see how desperately people need blood donations in order to live. As people of faith, who are called to offer God’s tangible and real presence to a hurting and suffering world, how can we not offer to others from God’s abundance to us? Join me at Beloved Garden for our Halloween Eve blood drive. Let’s give from our own veins God’s gift of life to the children and adults in our community!
J. Derek Harbin, priest
10.25.05: A Rhythm of Life
Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, Seasons, and Years…there is a rhythm to our ordered existence. For some, this routine may become rote. For children, there tends to be safety and security in the patterns that God has given us in creation. This was driven home to me last fall during the first year of FaithQuest (the mid-week Faith Formation process for children offered at Beloved Garden). Our beautiful atrium space is blessed to have two walls of mirrors and a wall of windows through which the sun bounces and brightens the room. The younger children grew accustomed to being picked up at 6pm during September and October when it was light outside. Not realizing the impact that the end of Daylight Savings would have on that pattern, I didn't caution the children that it would be dark now at 6pm. On the Wednesday after the time change, I had a room full of children convinced that their parents had forgotten to pick them up because it had been dark for an hour. Would they ever arrive? Why had they not come? Would they have to spend the night in the Atrium? The children often have "a-ha" moments and this one was mine! Forewarn that change is coming!
God gives those that worship in the Catholic tradition a wonderful liturgical rhythm as well. The children in FaithQuest have been working with a puzzle and miniature chasubles (the vestment that is worn over the priest's white garment) in the four colors of the liturgical year that helps explain the rhythm of our faith. Everything we do in worship revolves off of the two great feasts: Christmas and Easter. Christmas is celebrated on a fixed date of December 25. The date for Easter fluctuates, always falling on the Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. Some of the older (9-15 year old) children spent the greater part of a Sunday afternoon doing the long division to determine the calendar date for Easter when they are 25 (a time that is far off in the future for them!!).
White is the color the Church uses for celebration because it "reminds us of the Light" of Jesus. It is used for the Twelve Days of Christmas, the Fifty Days of Easter and other major and minor feast days as well: All Saints Day (November 1 as well as the Sunday following); the Feast of the Epiphany; the Feast of the Baptism of Christ; the Feast of the Presentation (of Jesus in the Temple, also called "Candlemas"); the Annunciation (the announcement of Jesus by the Holy Spirit to Mary); Ascension Day (always a Thursday, 40 days after Easter Sunday); Trinity Sunday; the Transfiguration (of Jesus on top of the Mountain); Saints' Days (who were not martyred); and national holidays.
No feast happens without preparation. As the atrium presentation to the children states, "No one just wakes up one morning and decides 'I think I'll have a party today.' There is a time to invite, to decorate, to cook, to clean and get ready." This happens in the church, too. Purple is the color for preparation during the seasons of Advent (before Christmas) and Lent (before Easter). (An anticipated Advent tradition will occur on Wednesday, December 21 when we gather for the "Hanging of the Greens" to decorate Church of the Beloved's worship space for the celebration of Christmas.)
The time after the feast is for growing, so the color is Green. The children observed that out of 52 Sundays, 25 are green and that's a lot of growing!! Red is the color of fire and blood and is, therefore, the color used for Palm Sunday and Holy Week (the week that Jesus prepares to go the cross); Holy Cross Day; the Feast of Pentecost ("pente" meaning "50" with the feast falling on the 50th day of the season of Easter) and for the days we remember those apostles and saints who were martyred for following Jesus (Simon; Jude; Andrew; Thomas; Matthias; Mark; Philip; James; Barnabas; Peter; Paul; James; Bartholomew; Matthew; Luke; James of Jerusalem, the brother of Jesus; the first Deacon, Stephen; and the Holy Innocents).
Even within the cycle there are traditions. Our boys, loving fire as most boys do, often ask, "Is it time to burn the palms yet?" The church encourages us to save the palms we waved last Palm Sunday so that they can be burned on the last Sunday of March 2006 in preparation for the Lenten imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. The children and adults of Beloved always look forward to the pageant that's performed in honor of the visit of the kings on the Feast of the Epiphany. This year's cast volunteers (adults and children) will sign up on Sunday, December 4 (with rehearsals for those with speaking roles on December 29 and the entire cast on January 7). It's always a full house for the pageant, which this year will include Bishop Gary Gloster (cast as a king) on Sunday, January 8. Spring Vacation for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will be radically different in 2006 so I hope that many more people will be present for the incredible liturgies of Holy Week and Easter offered by the Beloved community. The worship on Maundy Thursday with an Agape Feast and Washing of the Feet along with the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday are integral parts of the three-day ("Triduum") celebration culminating with the Great Vigil and First Celebration of Easter on Easter Eve, April 15.
Many people new to Beloved ask, "Why is your major celebration of Easter on Saturday night?" but rarely does anyone wonder why Christmas is celebrated on the Eve of Christmas. (I guess maybe Santa Claus preempts that question!) The church, remembering her Jewish roots, follows the Jewish day (sunset to sunset). Once the sun sets on December 24th, it is Christmas. Once the sun sets the Saturday before Easter, it's Easter. This Jewish method of calculating days clarifies how Jesus rose "on the third day." On Thursday after sunset, Jesus celebrated Passover and instituted the Last Supper, was arrested, tried, sentenced to death, crucified and was buried…all on the first day. On the second day, (sunset Friday to sunset Saturday) his dead body rested on a stone slab in the tomb (as he "descended to the dead," states our Creed) and sometime in the night of "the third day" (sunset Saturday to sunset Sunday), he rose. The Great Vigil of Easter begins with the lighting of a new fire at sunset as a sign of the resurrected light of Jesus illuminating the darkness in our world. Church of the Beloved will begin our Easter Vigil celebration with the lighting of the new fire on Saturday, April 15 at 7:55pm. If you've never attended this liturgy, it's beyond description and very powerful.
The greatest celebrations that occur at Church of the Beloved revolve around Baptisms. Two infant boys in our congregation will be baptized next Sunday, November 6 (our celebration of All Saints Day) during worship at 9:30am. Please make every effort to be present to witness and support Jackson (Philips) and Matthew (Cook) in their new life in Christ. Their parents have been forewarned….Change is coming! Their new rhythm as a child of God begins that day; you won't want to miss it!
Clifford King Harbin, pastor
11.01.05: Wake up!
The Holy Spirit woke me up around 5am Tuesday morning. She occasionally does this to me and I rarely know at the time exactly what God wants. Even so, what I try to do on these sleepy occasions is to follow the advice given to Samuel when he was called by the Lord out of his bed: I say “Here I am Lord; what do you want me to hear?” (1 Samuel 4:9-10) What usually happens is that I drift in and out of consciousness, simply aware of God’s presence, only later to realize that God has me pondering something I hadn’t really reflected on in an adequate way before.
Wake up! Remember that as Christians, we are never alone. Jesus has promised to be with us through the power of God’s Holy Spirit who will always be available to sustain and nourish us. Though humans have given me life and love, and though I have worked to learn and develop as a person, all my blessings have ultimately come through the Lord who knew me before I was born and who continues to call me by name to follow him. I have always disliked the job interview question: “Where do you see your career in five years…ten years?” More and more I now know why. That question asks me to decide, on my own, what I want. Jesus wants me simply to listen to his voice and follow where he leads.
Wake up! Remember that the prayers of God’s people are important. We are so blessed by the important work of the prayer team at Church of the Beloved. Remember also that prayer is not limited to those who are still alive on earth. Christians who have died stand ready to pray in the presence of the exalted Jesus for us. These saints don’t act like telephone operators to make a divine connection possible between earth and heaven. Jesus, through his death and resurrection, has already insured that that line will always be open. Instead, think of them as advocates, who call on that same phone line to Jesus asking for God’s strength and blessing upon us. I don’t know about you, but I welcome anyone who will pray for me to receive the power to be more faithful! So when I need strength to endure the hormonal physicality of two growing boys, I ask Beloved’s Mac Boylston (1947-2005) to also pray to Jesus, remembering his calm encouragement about the chaos our two boys can create that came from his own childhood experience living with two brothers. When I need encouragement in the hard work of church planting, I ask Beloved’s Jean Rose (1930-2003) to also offer prayers, remembering her keen spiritual ability to offer just the right word or gesture to lift Clifford’s or my spirits even on the darkest day. When I need perseverance, I ask for prayers from Fr. Jack…compassion and humor, prayers from Fr. Bill….courage and exuberant joy to share my faith, prayers from St. Andrew…surrender to God’s will, prayers from St. Mary.
Wake up! God has a plan for each of us and for Church of the Beloved that will exceed our wildest expectations. God has chosen us to plant this congregation and he will bring the growth. God is not asking us to figure out what it will look like next year or in ten years. God isn’t interested in what you or I want. Jesus simply wants us to listen to his voice and follow where he leads. And surrounding us are all the saints, that great cloud of witnesses who are shouting words of encouragement and praying for us to finish our work and our lives growing in obedience to God’s Spirit. Nothing that God asks us to do will we have to do on our own. It all begins by waking up and saying, “Here I am Lord; what do you want me to hear?”
J. Derek Harbin, priest
11.08.05: Taking Risks
The Bible is full of people who were willing to take risks for the sake of the Lord who called them. Noah built a ship in an area where there was no ocean. Abraham left his home in Iraq for a land that God had not yet shown him. Moses confronted Egypt’s Pharaoh and won his people’s freedom, only to have that same Pharaoh attempt to kill them all as they stood trapped against the Red Sea. David faced a menacing enemy with only a slingshot. Elijah, as God’s only faithful servant of his day, proposed a contest that would require that God send down fire from heaven to prove the Lord’s reality. Mary risked death by stoning as an adulteress in order to accept God’s invitation to bear and give birth to his Son. The disciples were told by Jesus to feed a crowd numbering in the thousands when the only food they could find was five loaves and two fish in a young boy’s lunch.
I vividly remember meeting Bishop Alden Hathaway in the early 1970s when he visited my childhood congregation and described his call to create a new seminary for the Episcopal Church. Everyone had been telling him it was too costly and too risky. There were too many chances for failure. I’ll never forget the gist of his response: God wants his people to risk everything and follow Jesus Christ. God wants his people to trust in his direction. God wants his people to listen to his voice and chance making mistakes in the implementation. This seminary would be different. It would never have an endowment. It would always require complete trust in God’s provision.
People laughed at Trinity’s beginnings…imagine trying to attract and teach graduate students in an un-renovated and abandoned grocery store in an unsavory ghetto of Pittsburgh! The beginnings were challenging. Today, laughter has been replaced with amazement at what God has accomplished.
In this frenetic, post-Christian culture, one challenge for followers of Jesus is to connect people in our community with the Savior who said, “Come to me, all of you who are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.” This Saturday’s Community Movie Night is one of the ways Church of the Beloved is trying to follow Jesus by meeting people where they are. As anyone with young children can attest, family time is at a premium and finding an affordable opportunity to relax and enjoy one another’s company can be difficult, if not downright impossible. One thousand fliers have been mailed to neighborhood households. The public information office of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has even approved the publicizing of this event. Community Movie Night fliers are being sent home to over sixteen hundred homes in student book bags this week. It is a big risk. No one knows how many people from the community, if anyone at all, will attend.
Everything about being in a new congregation involves taking risks. With no land, no building and no endowment, Church of the Beloved has none of the world’s trappings that provide the appearance of stability and security. More importantly, everything about following Jesus involves taking risks. I am proud of all my Beloved sisters and brothers who are taking this Movie Night risk for the gospel. As Church of the Beloved grows into adulthood, God continues to teach me how to give up those things that appear to provide stability and security in order to place all my hopes on the only solid foundation that exists: following the call of Jesus. My family wouldn’t miss Movie Night for the world. I hope you won’t either.
J. Derek Harbin, priest
11.15.05: Looking through Windows
11.29.05: Anticipation
12.06.05: Nicholas and Narnia
12.13.05: Christmas Traditions (part 1)
12.20.05: Christmas Traditions (part 2)
12.24.05: Keeping the 12 Days of Christmas
