LOVE IS THE LANGUAGE SPOKEN HERE | |
STANDING FOR JUSTICE, LIVING IN GRACE
We believe worship and justice go hand in hand.
Find your voice and your place at St. Luke’s.
| | |
A Christmas Message to the People of St. Luke’s
Dear Beloved St. Luke’s,
As we step into a new year together at St. Luke’s, I’ve been reflecting on a meditation by Father Richard Rohr that feels especially timely. It comes from his daily email published by the Center for Action and Contemplation, where many of the reflections draw from or are adapted from his books.
The December 31, 2025 meditation is adapted from Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go (revised edition, Crossroad Publishing, 2003). I’ve shared the reflection below for you to read, along with a link to sign up for the CAC’s daily emails. These meditations are offered free of charge, and I find them a rich resource for daily prayer and reflection.
In the last post for 2025, Father Richard suggests something quietly surprising: perhaps what the world most needs right now is not more love, but wisdom, the kind of wisdom that teaches us how to love well.
I believe that distinction matters. Many of you already carry profound love for one another, for this church, and for the wider community. Linda and I have witnessed and experienced your deep love for one another and for this church. St. Luke’s has never lacked compassion, generosity, or a willingness to show up. What wisdom offers is a way of holding that love so it can give life rather than wear us down.
One of the consistent threads woven through the sermons you’ve heard from me this year is the belief that we are beloved, that we are worthy, that our lives matter, and that we belong. I have also preached my belief that God does not ask us to have everything figured out before we act. Faith, as Jesus teaches it, is not about certainty or moral scorekeeping. It’s about learning how to stand faithfully in a world that is always a mixture of grace and struggle, wheat and weeds growing side by side, not only out there, but within us as well.
That image can feel like a relief. It does to me! Wisdom does not demand perfection from us. It invites patience. It teaches humility. It allows us to live honestly with our limits, our questions, and even our mistakes, trusting that God is still at work in the field.
Richard Rohr reminds us that Jesus offers “an alternative consciousness,” a way of seeing that is not driven by fear, ideology, or the pressure to be right. That way of seeing creates solid ground under our feet, even when the world around us feels uncertain, especially in this liminal time of transition. Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus refuses quick fixes. He chooses presence over power, relationship over control, and quiet faithfulness over loud certainty. Scripture also reminds us time and again, “Do Not Be Afraid.”
This is a wisdom St. Luke’s already knows something about. You have lived through change. You have learned how to hold memory and hope at the same time. You have discovered, sometimes the hard way, that the work God gives us is often small, steady, and unseen. Jesus calls it being salt, leaven, and light, not dominating the whole loaf, but quietly helping it rise. I believe it's easy to lose sight of the wisdom we have acquired through our past experiences and can get stuck in old patterns of decision making and behaviors that no longer work, but we continue on that familiar path anyway.
So, as we look ahead, wisdom may invite us to trust a little more deeply. To let go of the need to rush, judge, control, or compare, especially out of our fear of the unknown. To be comfortable, as Rohr puts it, “not being sure that we’re sure.” That kind of faith is not weak. It is spacious. It leaves room for God to act.
Perhaps our prayer for this New Year of 2026 could be as simple as: understanding that we will not always get everything right, but that together as followers of Jesus and members of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C., we will keep offering our bit of light. That we will listen carefully, love wisely, and walk together with patience and courage. God has not finished with this church’s story yet. And the light, even when it feels small, is enough.
With Love & Prayers for a Happy & Blessed New Year!
John +
| |
| | |
The following is the Center for Action and Contemplation’s
daily email meditation for December 31, 2025:
Wisdom for a New Year from Father Richard Rohr
“[Jesus] burnt himself out totally, like a candle, to give light to the people living under the power of darkness.”
—Choan-Seng Song, Jesus, The Crucified People
Father Richard encourages us to find the wisdom revealed in the paradoxical nature of reality.
On the last day of the year, I generally withdraw to pray. A few years ago, I asked myself: What should I pray for this year? What do we need in these turbulent times? Naturally, I was strongly tempted to pray for more love. But it occurred to me that I’ve met so many people in the world who are already full of love and who really care for others. Maybe what we lack isn’t love but wisdom.
We all want to love, but as a rule we don’t know how to love rightly. How should we love so that life will really come from it? The answer to that question requires wisdom. I’m very disappointed that the Church has passed on so little wisdom. We’ve typically taught people to think that they’re right—or that they’re wrong. We’ve mandated things or forbidden them, but we haven’t helped people enter upon the narrow and dangerous path of true wisdom. On wisdom’s path we take the risk of making mistakes. On this path we take the risk of being wrong. That’s how wisdom is gained.
It looks as if we will always live in a world that is a mixture of good and evil. Jesus called it a field in which wheat and weeds grow alongside each other. We say, “Lord, shouldn’t we go and rip out the weeds?” But Jesus says: “No, if you try to do that, you’ll probably rip the wheat out along with the weeds. Let both grow alongside each other in the field till harvest” (Matthew 13:24–30). We need a lot of patience and humility to live with a field of both weeds and wheat in our own souls.
Jesus came to teach us the way of wisdom. He brought us a message that offers to liberate us from both the lies of the world and the lies lodged in ourselves. The words of the Gospels create an alternative consciousness, solid ground on which we can really stand, free from every social order and from every ideology. Jesus called this new foundation the reign of God, and he said it is something that takes place in this world and yet will never be completed in this world. This is where faith comes in. It’s so rare to find ourselves trusting—not in the systems and -isms of this world—but standing at a place where we offer our bit of salt, leaven, and light. Even then, we have no security that we’re really right. This means that we have to stand in an inconspicuous, mysterious place, a place where we’re not sure that we’re sure, where we are comfortable knowing that we do not know very much at all.
Use the link below to subscribe for the Center for Action and Contemplation’s FREE daily email meditations:
https://email.cac.org/t/d-l-gtkkhhd-tlkrijulhd-k/
| |
A CHRISTIAN'S CALL
TO CONTEMPLATION & ACTION
| | |
CHRISTMAS EVE - DECEMBER 24, 2025
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
1Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
Theme ~ "Love is the Language Spoken Here."
Christmas is not about escape, perfection, or certainty. It is about God choosing presence over power and love over fear. The light of Christ comes quietly, tenderly, and right into the middle of real life and calls us to live that love in visible, practiced ways.
Key Points
- The lighting of the Christ Candle reminds us that God comes not as a blaze or spectacle, but as a single, steady light that must be tended with care.
- God does not wait for ideal conditions. Jesus is born into uncertainty, displacement, and vulnerability, just as God still comes to us now, in the midst of unfinished lives and imperfect churches.
- Christmas welcomes the whole truth of our lives: grief, fatigue, worry, hope, and longing all belong in the presence of God.
- The first word spoken to the shepherds (ordinary people working the night shift) is “Do not be afraid.” Faith begins not with certainty, but with courage and willingness to “go and see.”
- Christmas love is not sentimental or decorative. As the letter to Titus reminds us, the grace that appears in Jesus trains us for a way of life; lived daily, quietly, and sometimes at a cost.
- “Love Is the Language Spoken Here” is not a slogan, but a calling to speak and practice God’s love in a world shaped by fear, division, and weariness.
Questions for Reflection
- Where in my life do I need to stop waiting for ideal conditions and trust that God is already present?
- What fears might God be gently naming and softening with the words, “Do not be afraid”?
- How is the light of Christ asking to be tended (not admired) from Christmas into the ordinary days ahead?
- Who might God be inviting our church, and me, to notice, welcome, and love more intentionally?
Invitations to Action
- Tend the light: protect it, share it, and carry it into everyday moments where gentleness and patience are needed.
- Practice holy listening during this season of transition, pondering and treasuring rather than rushing to answers.
- Let your heart widen: look for concrete ways to live love beyond words, especially toward those on the margins.
- Choose hope that lasts, not shallow optimism, but trust in Emmanuel, God with us, who remains faithful to this community and its unfolding future.
Christmas does not promise that everything will be easy. It promises that we are not alone. And that is enough to begin again.
| |
FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS — DECEMBER 28, 2025
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Psalm 147:13-21
Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
John 1:1-18
Theme ~ "Clothed in Light, Called by Name"
The Christmas story does not end at the manger. It deepens. In the Incarnation, God not only enters the world but re-names it and us. We are clothed in dignity, called beloved children, and invited to live from a worth that is given, not earned.
Key Points
- The readings invite us to linger with the meaning of Christmas rather than rush past it. Isaiah speaks of garments, crowns, and new names, images of dignity bestowed, not achieved.
- God clothes us in grace before we feel ready or worthy. Love comes first; growth follows.
- In Jesus, the Word becomes flesh, fully human, vulnerable, and present. God does not save us by rejecting our humanity but by inhabiting it.
- Paul’s language of adoption is radical: we are no longer slaves defined by performance or fear, but children and heirs whose worth is secure.
- The light of Christ is not fragile. It shines in real places of pain, change, and uncertainty, and the darkness does not overcome it.
- Christmas is God returning again and again, not because the world is perfect, but because love insists on presence.
Questions for Reflection
- Where do I still live as though I must earn my worth rather than receive it?
- What name has the world given me that God may be gently undoing?
- Where have I seen light persist, quietly and faithfully, over the past year?
- What would it look like to live one ordinary day as a beloved child of God?
Invitations to Action
- Name dignity. Offer a word of blessing, especially to those who are often overlooked or unseen.
- Choose presence over answers. Sit with someone who is grieving, lonely, or overwhelmed, and let listening itself be light.
- Serve locally. Engage in one concrete act of care in our neighborhood: through food, clothing, companionship, or advocacy.
- Carry the light outward. Begin each day asking, Where might God’s light need a body today?
Christmas does not end on December 25. It deepens. We are clothed in light. We are called children. And the quiet, steady light of Christ now longs to shine through us.
| | | | |
