First Holy Communion

Last Sunday my eight year old nephew Michael took communion for the first time. H e worked hard to prepare for this, studying the stories of Scripture and doing lots of extra homework to get ready to receive this precious gift. In keeping with the tradition of my Italian Catholic family, there will be a big party to celebrate this rite of passage in Michael's young life of faith.

On Tuesday, SOM took his first communion during our Tuesday Church service . SOM (short for Son of Man) showed up at the service for the first time. Though I met SOM in the park over three years ago, he is now settled into the apartment where he moved nine months ago.

SOM, with his reddish grey ponytail and crinkly smiling eyes

was raised in the Jewish tradition. He knows the Bible, both testaments, inside out and he can out quote me any day.

On Tuesday, he joined our small circle of believers as we talked about sheep. As a knitter, my mind wandered to the sheep and wool festival to be held in Maryland this coming weekend.

The group brought me back to our text in John as one man said that unless sheep feel completely safe, they will not lie down. The conversation moved to the safety God offers even when trying to sleep on very unsafe streets. I thought of a man who was stabbed this past week in a shelter.

We prayed, as is our custom, and then we prepared for communion. As I was getting ready to pour the grape juice into the cup, SOM said that he could not take communion. I reassured him that the table was open to all and that I was just serving the gift that Jesus had left us on the night before he died. I also told SOM that he was free to not take communion, that it was up to him.

I took the cup and the plate and I sat back down in the circle. Suddenly SOM said, "I love this...you mean you are going to do this sitting with us...with all of us on the same level?" I nodded and he said, "I think I want to be a part of this." I brought him the bread and Spence offered him the cup and SOM said...this is the first time I'm doing this, you'll have to lead me through..."

Later, as I walked through the park where I first met SOM, I heard him talking to some guys about the service and his first communion. He was beaming.

So, this week, I celebrate two first communions...Michael's and SOM'S. And though they may seem worlds apart, this week they were joined together by the one whose arms stretch really wide to take our hands.

Michael and SOM, be made strong by that body and blood given for you, and for all people for the forgiveness of sins. And may you know many more trips to that Welcome Table!

Who Will Roll Away the Stone?...an Easter Meditation

Text: Mark 16:3 "And they were saying to one another, 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?'"

From the Gospel of Mark we hear these words, "And they were saying to one another, 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?'"

Why do you think they needed a stone to be placed in front of the door of the tomb?

Blocking the door of the tomb with a large stone was an attempt to protect the body of Jesus from thieves or from those who might further desecrate it. It was a way to keep people out of the tomb.

The way Matthew tells the story, we hear that a sudden and great earthquake took place after which an angel descending from heaven rolled away this stone and then sat upon it.

In Luke's Gospel, the women show up with their spices to anoint the body of Jesus, and then according to Luke, "They found the stone rolled away from the tomb."

But in Mark's Gospel, the one we heard today, we are told that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, on their way to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus said to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?"

Mark, writer of the shortest and probably the earliest Gospel, tells us that these three women on their way to anoint the body of their beloved Jesus...these three faithful women were worried!

They were worried!

Can you hear it in their voices? Who will roll away the stone?



The ultimate, and perhaps the earliest worry stone.

But then the text goes on to tell us that "When they looked up, they saw that the stone...had already been rolled back."

The thing that these women had been worried about was gone. And now there was nothing to keep them from standing in that place where Jesus was buried.

They entered the tomb!

So here's a thought...I always thought the stone had been rolled away so that Jesus could get out...so that the resurrection could be full and complete...

But what if that stone had been rolled away because Jesus didn't want to keep us out, but to invite us in?

What if that stone had been rolled away so that we, along with Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome could enter that place of death, and see for ourselves that there was a power that was greater than death?

The women entered the tomb and I could just imagine Jesus whispering into their ears, "See, it's okay, there's nothing to be afraid of..."

Still, the text goes on to say that after having been told the news of the resurrection and being instructed to tell Peter and the disciples that Jesus would meet them in Galilee, the women "fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."

So Mark, tells it like it was...these early witnesses to the resurrection filled with worry and then fear...but the Easter story is one that didn't end with the worry and fear but is a story that says, "To be continued"...in spite of our worries and our fears.



We rejoice this day because we have a God who so fully entered the places of human pain and suffering that there is no place or no thing that we will ever have to face in this life where God has not gone first and filled with God's love.

Not the largest stone. Not the largest worry, not the largest fear. Not even a rotting and worm filled tomb.

St Paul said it like this: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus."

Nothing.

To be a resurrection community doesn't mean that we will never be worried or afraid; rather resurrection joy means that God will stand with us in those worries and fears, loving us through those storms, and holding us close, no matter what.

So, when you came in today, you were given a rock. For today's offering I invite you to place your rock in the basket as it comes by you.

Think of the stones that have already been rolled away in your life. The worries that have been removed, allowing you to enter those places of new life. Think of those stones and give thanks.

Think, too, of those stones that still need to be rolled away. The things in your life that block you from living in the fullness of resurrection. The places of worry and fear. Those places where you need to call on the Holy One for help.

Think of those places...and with silent prayers of gratitude or cries for help, place your stone in that basket. And when all are gathered we will place these stones at the foot of our altar in confidence and trust that we are never alone.

Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Amen.

Tina

photo by The Rev. Jesse Brown


Tina was one of the first people I met at The Welcome Center.


She was also the very first person to call what we were doing "church."

Tina died last week following a long and difficult battle with small cell lung cancer. She was 42 years old.

I didn't learn Tina's birth name until her first hospitalization. Everyone on the street knew her as "Annie Mae Wilkes."When I asked her why she chose that particular name, Tina said that it was "country" and she was from a small town in Pennsylvania, New Ringgold, not far from Wilkes-Barre---which is how she chose her last name---Wilkes. But that's who Tina was...the country girl with the tough city exterior.

And there were many reasons why Tina had to be "tough." The death of two husbands, a serious accident that caused chronic pain leading to a heroin addiction which she was able to overcome, struggles in early childhood, and so much more; but through it all Tina never stopped loving and giving.

I used to tease Tina saying she was our unofficial "social worker" at The Welcome Center. She would make new folks feel welcomed and she would help others on the street become acquainted with resources and creative survival techniques. Tina organized our clothing boutique and often helped others to put together outfits; and when we first started showing movies at The Welcome Center, Tina was the one we called on to set up the VCR, fix the DVD, or do anything mechanical that we needed to be done.

I look at the afghan that is draped our one of the chairs in my office. The squares were knit by many different people from our community; but it was Tina who took charge of sewing the squares together. And that's what she did---Tina brought people together.

I remember the day Tina sat with us arond the table at The Welcome Center asking about a lump on the side of her neck. I asked Elisabeth, one of our volunteers and also a nurse to look at it. "Could be nothing," we told Tina, "but better to get it checked out." She did, but it was, indeed, something.

I spoke to Tina two days before she died. Her last words to me were, "I love you." That's something else Tina did---she loved.

Tina died in the arms of her mother, Barbara, who was there for her throughout this difficult illness. She was loved by so many, including her four children and her husband Cornell.

The photo above was taken Christmas 2008 shortly after Tina had begun chemotherapy. It was one of her favorites because she loved her "sassy and sexy" look. As independent as she was though, Tina wore the Welcome Church cross, knowing that she never was alone.

So, I share the poem that Tine wrote , hand written in purple ink for me because my name is Violet. It sits framed near my desk and I read it often:

Hello and Welcome to this Church

Welcome to this church!

Won't you come on in, Jesus Christ lives here.

He'll relieve you of your sins.

Open up your heart. Invite the savior in.

You will never find a friend as faithful as him.

knock and the door will open.

Seek and you will find.

Ask and it will be given.

And you will find great peace of mind

Give you heart to Jesus

for he cares so much for you.

He will guide and lead you

in everything you do.

Read the Holy Bible!

Learn how Jesus wants you to live.

He'll give you peace and comfort

if only your heart you'll give.

Take him at his word

Become his dearest friend.

He'll always be there for you

to the very end!!

Tina Z.

May you rest in peace, dear Tina, in the arms of love and mercy. You will be missed by many.

What's in a name?

When I meet someone I will often ask them how they got their name.

Names are important. They are part of our story. That's why at the Welcome Center and in The Welcome Church we try to learn each person's name. Not easy for those of us over fifty, but we do pretty well.

My own name is a variation of my mother's name. I am Violet and she is Viola. She wasn't crazy about her own name, but as her first born she wanted us linked in the naming. And she happened to like the flower, too.

When I was baptized, I was also given the name Mary. In the Roman Catholic tradition in which I grew up, you needed to be named after a Saint. You know, one that was canonized and recognized. Because there was no Saint Violet (and looks like I won't be the one to break that tradition !) I was given the middle name of Mary...pretty safe since there were several.

And then there was my Confirmation name. Catherine. Named after my Aunt Kitty who was my godmother. So by the time I was eight, my name was Violet Mary Catherine Cucciniello.

I kept that name even after I got married...until the IRS made it very difficult for me to just stop there; so I added my husband's last name, Little.

Ok. Violet Mary Catherine Cucciniello Little.

But not long ago I was given another name. A street name. Given to me by one of our Welcome Church friends. He told me I was "Amazing Grace Little."

He named me that because I had introduced him to jazz musician, Alex Bugnon through a free concert here in Philadelphia. And Amazing Grace Little is a jazz singer. So we were linked through our common love of jazz.

I felt like I had experienced yet another rite of passage.

But here's the thing: the other day at our Tuesday service I asked the group who they thought God saw when they looked at each of them. One person raised his hand and said, "His child."

So there it was in a nutshell. The name that tied us all together, given to each of us by the one who claimed us: Child of God. The only name that really matters, after all.

Violet Mary Catherine Cucciniello Amazing Grace Little, Child of God.

Church on Logan

Today we had our outdoor monthly service at Logan Square.

I have begun to think of these services as "Church on Logan" because that's exactly who we are--the people of God gathering at Logan Square, sometimes also called Logan Circle. Ironically, we set up our altar on the triangle called the "Sister Cities."

Street church is energizing. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Today we had at least four (known) clergy present presiding at communion, coffee, cookies and conversation. But clergy are only a small part of Church on Logan. Sami led us in the 23rd psalm, the Confirmation class from Holy Apostle's Episcopal Church helped with communion, Carl offerd prayer, folks from St. John's in Essington brought home baked treats, Dr.Joe came through toting some kind of gift basket for the group, and a woman, whose words I couldn't understand but who was happy to be there, helped with the sermon.

With street church there are no "people in the pews" because we don't have any pews.

We gather in a circle and stand together. It is s a picture of being one.

Our altar is a card table covered with a beautiful cloth given to me by a dear friend. We have a cup, a plate, a small pitcher, grape juice and wafers. Usually we have a small cross on the table, but today Dennis forgot the cross. It didn't really matter because behind us was the huge Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul with it's high cross shadowing over us. Since the cross on this Roman Catholic Cathedral was about the same Jesus who died for us all, I figured no one would mind if we shared it for an hour.

Today we opened the service with "Kumbayah," a camp-y, almost cliche kind of a song except for when we thought about what it really meant...we were inviting God to "Come by here."

Someone needs you, Lord...come by here.

Someone's crying, Lord...come by here.

Someone's hungry...

lonely...

afraid...

you name it, Lord...come by here.

And then, when we were pretty convinced that we had lured Jesus away from the Winter Olympics and into the park, we had time for confession and reconciliation, closing with the healing words of The Serenity Prayer. Not just for recovering alcoholics, but for recovering sinners (as are we all) and saints (as are we all) too.

Sami led us in Psalm 23 and I read the gospel for this Sunady in Lent. The one where Jesus tells us that God loves us like a mother, only wanting to protect us the way a hen covers her brood. Even if it will cost him his life.

And once again, we were given the chance to share in the Bread of Life, the Cup of Salvation.

Afterwards one person came up to me and said, "You know, I feel really full."

This, from someone who did not know where their next meal would come from. But from someone who did have a different kind of hunger.

Tonight I thought about his words as I sat down to dinner, and I realized that I, too, felt like I had already eaten.

And, indeed, I had been fed.

Pennies on the Altar

If I were ever to write a book about The Welcome Church, I would have to call it "Pennies on the Altar." I get this name from the very first "Tuesday Church" service I did over a year ago now.

On that day, I shared how I always seem to find pennies in the most unusual places. In the past, I would ignore those pennies because they were worth,well, only a penny. This changed, however, when someone pointed out to me the words written on the penny, "In God We Trust." Finding pennies then became a reminder for me to trust God.

The odd thing was that I would find the pennies just when I needed to hear that message. Like on the seat of a plane, before taking off (I hate to fly), or on the way to a meeting where I would learn whether or not I was going to have funding for my ministry. On one particularly shaky day, I found six pennies lined up on the street as if God were trying to make sure I really got the message!

So on the day of my first service with Tuesday Church, I invited each person to look for pennies in the upcoming week and let it be a reminder to them of God's presence in all places.

The following week, I asked if anyone wanted to share their "penny stories."

As each person told of the places they found pennies (and the presence of God) they came up and placed their pennies on our altar. This went on for several weeks, until finally, I had to place a jar on the altar to hold all our pennies. One person even shared how she started leaving pennies on the street for others who needed to find them!

The ministry of The Welcome Church is a tricky one because unlike most other developing congregations, our parishioners will not be able to financially sustain the ministry. We depend on donations, grants, and miracles to keep us going. But one thing is not tricky, and that's the message of God's love and grace that is being proclaimed to one another. The message of the gospel found on a penny. Good news popping up, even on the street and in places that most of us would not even touch.

And each week that heavy jar of pennies make my own heart grow light.

Tea Time

There is a ritual at The Welcome Center that began quite by accident.

One afternoon, in the early months of The Welcome Center, I brought out my little plastic hotpot that my husband gave me so that I might have tea at my desk. I filled it with water, plugged it in and sat down at one of the round tables where people folks had gathered, but not saying much. Though we have pots of hot water run through our coffee maker, I am one of those people who likes my tea water to be McDonald's boiling hot and not tasting like coffee.
I also brought out what our guests began to refer to as my "special tea" (peppermint) from home.

I didn't think much about this other than I was going to have my afternoon tea as I talked with some of our guests. It wasn't long, though, before people started asking if they could have some of that "special tea" made with water from my "special pot." Soon, 3:00 became known as "Tea Time with the Pastor"---a time to gather around one of the tables, choose from a variety of herbal teas (now with two special pots), share a tea-time treat, and have conversation.

I love tea-time at The Welcome Center, and on Tuesdays I move right from our Welcome Church service in the large room next door into The Welcome Center room where folks are gathered and waiting for me to join them for tea.

I love tea-time for many reasons, but mostly because it is such a normalizing and social activity.

Still, our conversations vary a bit in context from most Wanamaker Crystal Tea Room kind of talk.

Today, one person shared how he had been arrested twice this past week for loitering. Someone else jumped in to to share the frustration of shelters and cafes being too full to accommodate people during this cold and rainy weather but getting kicked out of the train stations with no other inside place to go. Another very resourceful person said that if you buy a train ticket a little after the last train, then you could stay in the station until the first train in the morning, allowing five "legal" hours inside. And someone else shared how when he was arrested for loitering, the police took away the crochet hook I had given him for the small animals he crochets because it was a "weapon."

I shared my dream of opening a drop-in center in one of the vacant shops at Suburban Station.

One guy said, "You really are crazy...they don't want us there." But someone else shared how if we did this, she thought we could get many volunteers to paint, decorate and maintain such a facility. So then someone else talked about the need for more affordable housing. And another talked about jobs and maybe a business we could start together so that they could pay for the housing...and the conversation became filled with ideas and dreams and I dare say...hope.

All this, as we sipped a very expensive brand of white tea that had been donated, and shared another misspelled birthday cake that cut to look like a fancy tea-time treat.

OK. So we're not the Crystal Tea Room. And we don't have a chandelier. But we are The Welcome Center and these folks are the heartbeat of The Welcome Church and for that special 3:00 hour on Tuesdays and Fridays, we do have a roof overhead in a lovely Center City space.

So, maybe it wasn't such an accident that prompted me to drag my little hot pot out of my office and into the large room that day after all.

Oh, yeah. We found another crochet hook for our friend to keep on crocheting his little dogs.