Christmas Letter

 

Christmas, 2025

 My Friends at St. Stephen’s,

 It’s no secret at St. Stephen’s that your priest is kind of a Grinch regarding Christmas. I’m not a big fan of the commercial aspects of the holiday. But I can say that our celebration of Christmas at St. Stephen’s makes up for it for me. I love celebrating Christmas with all of you. I am grateful to serve a congregation in which, as we commemorate the birth of Christ and prepare to celebrate all that that birth means to us, we do so recognizing that we are all fully loved and fully accepted children of God. There is something truly beautiful and joyous in that realization.   

For my part, serving as St. Stephen’s continues to be truly one of the most fulfilling experiences of my priestly life. Our life together of ministry, worship, music and outreach is always an amazing grace in my life. I love serving alongside faithful, committed people who truly do seek after God and strive to serve others.

As we move forward together into this future full of hope and potential growth, I ask for your continued prayers for St. Stephen’s and your continued presence on Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights and whenever else we gather together to worship and to do ministry.

Please know that I pray, as always, for each of you individually by name over the course of each week in my daily prayers and at the celebration of the Eucharist. Above all, know that I give thanks to God every day for the opportunity to serve such a wonderful, caring and loving congregation of people who are committed to growth and radical hospitality.

My sincerest blessings to you and to all those you love during this season of joy, hope and love and in the New Year of 2026.    

 

PEACE always,

                                               

                                                       Fr. Jamie

3 Advent

 

(Gaudete Sunday)

December 14, 2025

Isaiah 35.1-10; James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11

 

+ Today, of course, is special Sunday.

 (Every Sunday is a special Sunday)

 Only twice in the Church year do we get to “go rose.”

 Today is Gaudete Sunday.

 This my first Gaudete Sunday at St. Stephen’s in about three years.

 For these last few years, I have been Las Vegas on this Sunday.

 (people still think it’s so funny that this vegan, celibate/asexual, teetotaling, non-gambling priest enjoys Las Vegas so much)

 Last year, in fact, I was attending All Saints Episcopal Church in Palm Springs on this Sunday, and it was there that I got the idea of moving our Pledge Ingathering to Gaudete Sunday after seeing them do it. Thank you, All Saints Palm Springs!

 Today we light our pink candle on the Advent wreath in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 And we wear these rose vestments because it’s an important day.  

 Today, in the midst of the blue season of Advent (or purple of you’re more traditional), we get to rejoice—or rather rejoice a little louder than usual.

 Gaudete means “Rejoice.”

 I think that’s another great reason to move our Pledge Ingathering to this Sunday.

 We get to rejoice ay our ingathering of pledges, and in doing so we rejoice in all that God continues to do here at St. Stephen’s.

 We also get to “go rose” in Lent in Laetare Sunday.

 I love these Rose Sundays!

 [We are the only Episcopal congregation in North Dakota to wear rose-colored vestments, so I love to trot these out]

 Certainly we were the first.  

 But for now, we are here, on this Sunday. 

 And it’s very appropriate that we are rejoicing on this Sunday.

 But as we also rejoice, we draw closer and closer to Jesus’ birth, and we find ourselves with that strange, wonderful emotion in our hearts—joy.

 Real, living joy.

 After all, we feel real joy when we think about the birth of Jesus, and all that that birth means to us.

 It is a time to rejoice.

 It is a time to be anxious (in a good way) and excited over the fact that, a week from Wednesday, we will be celebrating God’s Son and Messiah coming to us.

 Or, as St. James says in our Epistle reading this morning: “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord,” and then goes on to explain how farmers wait patiently for their precious crops.

 We are like farmers waiting patiently for the seeds of our faith to grow and blossom.

 “Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

 Certainly, so far in the season of Advent, we have been doing just that.

 We have been waiting.

 Still. . . .I gotta say. . .

 On the surface, doesn’t all of this seem kind of…dare I say? Fluffy and precious?

 I mean, here we are on this Sunday, with our pink paraments, lighting a pink candle, talking about something like joy?

 Appearances are important, after all.

 On the surface, it seems we are not really embodying the spirit of what we experience in our Gospel reading for today.

 There we find Jesus discussing St. John the Baptist.

 There is nothing fluffy or frivolous about John the Baptist.

 I don’t think John the Baptist ever wore pink in his entire life!

 He seems to me kind of like a wild man, out there in the desert in his clothes made from animal hides (that man was no vegan!), shouting about the coming of the Kingdom.

 If he was here this morning, at St. Stephen’s, my reaction would be: He is not going to like all these rose vestments.

 He is definitely not going to like Deacon John’s Pepto-Bismal dalmatic!

 So, when Jesus asks the crowds, “What did you go out in the wilderness to look at?”

 Did they go out to see a reed shaken by the wind?

 Or someone dressed in soft robes?

 Did they go out to see something soft and frivolous?

 No, they went out to see a prophet.

 So, are we, this morning, not living up to our ideals as prophets by decking ourselves in these rose vestments?

 Are we proving to our critics that we are just flash and no substance?

 Awww, that’s what I love about Gaudete Sunday.

 Let me tell you, appearances can be deceiving.

 Here, at St. Stephen’s, we find something else on this Gaudete Sunday.

 Yes, it may see all pink and rosy this morning.

 But what we see is exactly what those crowds in our Gospel reading were looking for.

 We, this morning, are a community of prophets.

 We are proclaiming the coming of the Lord.

 We do it in our ministries we do here.

 We are doing it in all that we pledge to God.

 We do in the witness we make in this world.

 We do it in our welcoming and including of all people—no matter who they are—within these walls.

 For us, rose or pink of kind of a defiant color.

 It’s a kind of in-your-face reaction and push-back against fragile, toxic masculinity.  

 And doing so, sometimes means that people will look down on us.

 Sometimes people will look down on us for being welcoming, for being inclusive, for being this strange, unique place we are here.

 Yesterday was a big anniversary for us.

 Did you remember this anniversary?

 You should.

 Yesterday was the 10^th anniversary of our seeking DEPO (Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight).

 At the time in our diocese, the Bishop would not allow same-sex marriage in our diocese, despite the fact that the Episcopal Church as a whole approved it.

 We made a stand then that we did not agree and that we wanted an alternative.

Now, it was a stand we made that made us look defiant.

 But we didn’t do it to be defiant.

 We did it because we felt called to make sure that all people had full access ot all the sacraments of the Church, including marriage.

 And I, for one, am grateful we did so.

 Doing so did not cause our church to be packed with people.

 Nope, we don’t get huge crowds of hundreds of people here that some of the bigger Lutheran and Roman Catholic congregations get.

 Nope, we don’t have all the flash and bang of those churches.

 Nope, we don’t have bands playing pop hymns or screens overhead.

 Nope, we’re not here for entertainment value.

 Nor was John the Baptist  in the wilderness.

 People didn’t go out there to be entertained by the Baptist.

 He didn’t customize what he said to suit the crowds.

 But, I will repeat to you what Jesus asked the crowd: “What did you expect?”

 After all, we are not reeds shaken by the wind.

 Being prophets, proclaiming the way of the Lord, is hard.

 It’s hard, yes, being on the forefront, being different, being prophets.

 But it’s not impossible.

 We are safe on this journey, because, I can tell you, we know that our pathway is safe.

 Those images we find in our reading today from Isaiah speak loud and clear to where we have been and where we are going as we follow the path of Jesus.

  “A highway shall be there,” we hear the prophet Isaiah say,

“And it shall be called the Holy Way…

It shall be for God’s people…

No traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.”

 This path we walk is the right path for us.

 We have remained committed to our path and to our vocation as prophets, even when it all seems overwhelming.

 Over and over again, we have found that our weak hands been strengthened and our feeble knees have been made firm.

 When our hearts have been fearful, you have it heard proclaimed within these walls, again and again,

 “Be strong, do not fear!”

 We know that our God will come with vengeance, with “terrible recompense.”

 Our God, we know as prophets, will come and save us.

 And our pathway will be made straight.

 You don’t believe me?

 Well, look where we are 10 years after seeking DEPO.

 Look where we are as a diocese.

 I love the fact that people I talk to now in the diocese can’t even imagine a time like it was 10 years ago.

 Back then, we could’ve been patient.

 We could’ve bided our time and simply waited it out.

 But that’s not what prophets do.

 Prophets speak up and speak out as the Spirit of God directs them.

 And that’s what we did.

 And it made a difference.

 And now look at the path we’re on.

 This is why we rejoice on this Gaudete Sunday.

 Whenever we have doubted the path on which we talk, whenever we are tempted to stray from the road, our God who is coming to us nudges us forward toward the goal.

 That is why we rejoice on this beautiful rose-colored Sunday!

 So…rejoice today.

 I say it,  Rejoice!

 We are following the right path.

 We are doing the right thing.

 We at Stephen’s are making a difference in people’s lives, and will continue to do so.

 That is why we are out here in the wilderness, (or up here in Northeast Farg0) proclaiming God’s coming among us.

 Let us continue forward.

 Let us set our sights on our goals.

 And let us move forward.

 And let us know, as we journey, that “everlasting joy” will be on our hearts.

 We shall obtain joy and gladness in our lives.

 And we will rejoice—we will REJOICE!—because sorrow and sighing shall flee away.