Weekly thoughts from the Rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, where these words remind us that Jesus’ peace goes with us into the world.

Today is Covenant Sunday, when Palmers are invited not only to worship together but also to bring their completed pledge forms with them — a spiritual practice that indicates their financial commitment to this church for the next calendar year. In the pew racks are giving cards for 2017 that can also be used to make a commitment by those who are not on our mailing list or who might have forgotten to bring their pledge form with them. There will be an opportunity in our combined liturgy this morning at 10:00 a.m. to carry those pledge forms and giving cards to the altar to be blessed as part of our offering to the Lord. Whether your household is comprised of one, two, or many, it is a humbling experience to walk with others while holding in our hands this symbolic-yet-concrete acknowledgement that our life is a divine gift.

Together we worship. Together we learn, grow, pray, eat, share, laugh, cry, play, and love. And . . . yes . . . together we give in thanksgiving for that gift of life, returning to God a generous proportion of our blessings to make a real difference in the lives of people within and beyond these walls.

If you’re a guest with us today, perhaps visiting us for the first time or friends with people in our community of faith or just someone who is curious about Jesus, do not be anxious about watching those around you make this commitment. If you belong to another church, allow yourself to be inspired to make a similar commitment to that community of faith. If you’ve never given back to the Lord out of your blessings, consider what it would be like to participate in something larger than your own needs, something that is rooted in love and that reaches into the world around you.

Lastly, guests, friends, and members of Palmer are all invited to stay after worship for a fun celebration that includes a cookout in the courtyard and live music on the lawn. I promise no pledge form is required to join that fun. Just bring yourself!

— The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, Rector

Weekly thoughts from the Rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, where these words remind us that Jesus’ peace goes with us into the world.

At the Rector’s Forum last Sunday, an architect reflected with us on the meaning of a real neighborhood, which is meant to bring together people at different stages of life. He was thinking of a question posed to Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” That image of drawing together a diverse group of individuals also describes the kind of community that Jesus creates in the church, a solidarity not of our own choosing.

An example of that is Palmer’s parish retreat. Today my family and I are away at Camp Allen for this annual event with about 70 other Palmers, who are young and old, gay and straight, married and unmarried — each one of them a child of God.

Next Sunday, October 30, is Covenant Sunday, when Palmers are invited to worship together and to bring their completed pledge forms with them, indicating their financial commitment to the church for the next calendar year. After a combined liturgy at 10:00 a.m. (Choral Eucharist, Rite I, with choir and limited incense), we’ll have a fun celebration with a cookout in the courtyard and live music on the lawn. That will be another experience of true neighborliness in the friendship of God.

St. Bede’s Chapel will be open for prayer and for two services of Holy Eucharist on Election Day, November 8. That day will begin as usual with Morning Prayer in the chapel at 7:30 a.m. After the Tuesday morning Bible studies, there will be a service of Holy Eucharist at 8:10 a.m. There will also be a service of Holy Eucharist at noon. Throughout the morning and the afternoon, the chapel will be open for individual meditation and prayer, with printed prayers for the nation available. When we leave the voting booth, we’ll leave our differences behind, if only for a moment, to gather around the Lord’s Table, the ultimate level place, and to remember what unites us.

— The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, Rector

Weekly thoughts from the Rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, where these words remind us that Jesus’ peace goes with us into the world.

Over the course of the next year, I want to encourage us to practice and to nurture a spirit of hospitality here at Palmer. New rooms signs will gradually start to appear around our campus, for example. And now that our church staff is set after a season of retirements and transitions, some of the offices have been rearranged, including the movement of Sue Howard’s office to the front area of the church office so that she can cover the front desk and welcome folks when a volunteer isn’t sitting there.

This spirit of hospitality touches everything from how we reach out to help someone who seems a little lost in the middle of a worship service to offering a kind smile to a mother with young children who might be highly anxious about their restlessness. It takes into consideration how our Wednesday night classes, choir practices, and community dinners fit together and causes us to notice when an individual, couple, or family are alone at a table in the parish hall. Pausing for a moment to imagine how the stranger in our midst is feeling can make all the difference in the world. We are to embrace that person, created in the image of God, remembering that someone in the past received us and accepted us with the love of Jesus Christ too.

That’s really what it means to practice hospitality as Christians. For those who are guests with us today, the circle of friendship in this house of prayer includes you. In addition to the greeters who will be outside the front doors of the church after this liturgy, there will also be a member of the church staff at the bottom of the stairs in front of the altar who is available to speak with you about our life together here at Palmer. Stay for few minutes, bring your questions, and walk with us in God’s love.

— The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, Rector

Weekly thoughts from the Rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, where these words remind us that Jesus’ peace goes with us into the world.

One of my favorite theologians is Miroslav Volf, an Episcopalian who teaches at Yale Divinity School. Born in Croatia, where his father was a pacifist and a Pentecostal minister, he witnessed both ethnic and religious violence as the former communist Yugoslavia split apart. Yet he knows well the goodness and the generosity of the God who created us all. In an interview about his book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, Volf said:

[O]ur gift is a seed that God multiplies for recipients as well as for givers. Notice an important contrast: When you and I exchange equivalents — say, when we barter — you get no more and no less than what has parted from me. It’s different with gifts. When I give you a gift, you receive more than the stuff that has left my hands, partly because you receive not just my gift but also my generosity. Gifts are not simply the ‘stuff’ that travels from one person to the other. Gifts are seeds that God makes grow, sometimes into a bountiful harvest. So I can give in hope . . .

Giving is a fundamental mode of human existence. When we identify it as such and nurture it, then we’ll be able to be givers in all spheres of life. And let’s not forget churches as schools of giving. I think that’s an important role of churches, institutions established to celebrate and encourage the passing on of God’s gifts of redemption and creation — including material wealth — to humanity.

If we’re honest with ourselves, what we imagine to be our giving is too often really bartering that is masquerading as generosity. That allows us to hold onto as much as possible. But it also denies us the joy and wonder of discovering a different kind of security in the God who is truly generous to all of us.  For that grace, we give thanks.

— The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, Rector

Weekly thoughts from the Rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, where these words remind us that Jesus’ peace goes with us into the world.

Hopefully those who primarily attend the 9:00 a.m. Choral Eucharist on Sundays have noticed the restoration of the psalms to those liturgies since my arrival at Palmer. The psalms are a spiritual treasure too often neglected within Christianity. Yet their words can be our own words not only in times of rejoicing but also, and perhaps most especially, when we cry out to God from the depths of disorientation and disappointment. The Men’s Bible Study, which meets at 7:00 a.m. each Tuesday morning, has been studying a wide selection of psalms over the last several months. Men who are curious about these poems, which are also prayers, are invited to join us for the final weeks of that survey as we explore psalms of “new orientation.”

N.T. Wright, a scholar of the New Testament and a bishop in the Church of England, has written a new book entitled The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential. The introduction to that book opens with these heartfelt words from him:

This book is a personal plea. The Psalms, which make up the great hymn-book at the heart of the Bible, have been the daily lifeblood of Christians, and of course the Jewish people, from the earliest times. Yet in many Christian circles today, the Psalms are simply not used. And in many places where they are still used, whether said or sung, they are often reduced to a few verses to be recited as “filler” between other parts of the liturgy or worship services. In the latter case, people don’t often seem to realize what they’re singing. In the former case, they don’t seem to realize what they’re missing. This book is an attempt to reverse those trends. I see this as an urgent task.

To that, I say, “Amen.”

— The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, Rector