Dear Friends,
I’ve just returned from a glorious week with our Rector, Bishop Wolfe, at St. James’s Piccadilly, our link parish in London. The congregation at St. James’s sends its greetings, with warmest hopes for a continued deepening of our friendship across the Atlantic.
One highlight was preaching at Sanctuary, a Tuesday evening contemplative Eucharist with strong resonances with Imagine Worship. The service indeed serves as a “sanctuary,” offering a particular space of safety and spiritual nourishment to the LGBTQ community. While St. James’s has been on the leading edge, the Church of England still does not permit full marriage liturgies for same-sex couples—an important reminder of the work still to be done. To that end, I invite you to Pride, Rage and Prophecy with The Reverend Jarel Robinson-Brown tomorrow afternoon on Zoom—a joint offering between St. Bart’s NYC, St. James’s Piccadilly, and St. German’s Cardiff.
St. James’s mission is expansive, and it was inspiring to see the ways in which they are ministering to the hungry, homeless, and downtrodden with creativity, mutuality, and resourcefulness—offering a daily invitation for those on the edges to come inside. The courtyard and gardens are alive throughout the week with street-food vendors, a free mobile counseling caravan, and Redemption Roasters, a profit-for-purpose coffee shop with a mission to ex-offenders. The weekly Monday night FEAST is a mix between a soup kitchen, fine dining, and the TV cooking show, Chopped! Parishioner volunteers receive a box of fresh produce and food from an organization called City Harvest that they use to imaginatively create a home-cooked meal for 33 ticketed guests experiencing housing insecurity. These neighbors on the margins are invited into the sacramental heart of the congregation, where they are treated to a two-course meal with table service in the altar area of the famous Wren church.
On Sunday we participated in the joyful and lively 11 am Eucharist, which featured a truly rousing rendition of “How Great Thou Art” (a nod to us Americans?), and an intimate celebration of Holy Communion in the round, a weekly fixture at St. James’s. +Dean preached a powerful sermon reflecting on the Parable of the Farmer and our call to take holy risks—a spiritual vocation embodied so boldly and beautifully at St. James’s, especially as they prepare for a £20M Wren Project to restore their buildings and advance their mission. In the afternoon, we were treated to an expert tour of the National Gallery by St. James’s Associate Rector and art historian by trade, The Reverend Dr. Ayla Lepine, who visited St. Bart’s in January.
The New Testament epistles demonstrate our need for connections like the one we share from St. James’s. The churches in Ephesus, Philippi, Colossia, Rome, Thessalonica, etc…each had unique gifts, challenges, and learnings to share with the greater Body of Christ. Link parish partnerships have the potential to become more than just pen pal relationships; they are a valuable expression of our belief in “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”
I am so grateful to Ayla, St. James’s Rector, Lucy Winkett, and the entire staff and community at St. James’s Piccadilly for their warm welcome and extravagant hospitality. I was inspired by their commitment to the city, their willingness to try new things, and their voracity in building partnerships with other organizations within and outside the church. Join me in praying for St. James’s and stay tuned for continued developments and opportunities to participate in-person and online.
