First Communion Celebration May 6, 2012

Twenty-eight (28) children from St. Mark’s Sunday School Class participated in Communion Celebration during two services on Sunday, May 6.

Children from the First Communion Service in Spanish also joined in the celebrations on May 6th.

First Communion Service in Spanish

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Glen Ellyn

“Bishop! Let’s eat!”  The young man, ten years old at the time and the rector’s son, had waited long enough to dive into the coffee hour food that filled the extra long table in the parish hall.  It was the Sunday of the bishop’s once every two year visit, and there had been a baptism, a longer than usual sermon and other fanfare associated with this special Episcopal welcome.  Following the recessional hymn and dismissal, the bishop got bogged down at the doors of the church with those wishing to say hello and a word in with him.  Meanwhile, children and adults, but mostly children, had gathered around the coffee hour table in the parish hall, anxious to taste the delicious looking finger sandwiches, cakes, brownies, cookies, candies and other mouth-watering delicacies.  But no one was allowed to touch a thing until the bishop had said the blessing.  The coffee hour hosts patrolled the perimeters of the table with menacing looks and prison guard-like seriousness.  Even Jack, the rector’s son, did not dare cross the table cloth threshold.  When the bishop finally arrived, and didn’t seem to notice the tension and urgency around the food, that was when that famous command blurted out of the young man’s mouth.  He was only echoing what had been said by everyone just a short while earlier – “Let us keep the feast, allelulia!”

Today, many of us will be looking forward to and enjoying an Easter brunch or dinner.  At your table, there may be ham or roast lamb, both traditional main courses, as well as potato salad, hard boiled eggs, green bean casserole, and for dessert, lamb cake, cheesecake and multi-colored foil-wrapped chocolate easter eggs.  If you’re getting hungry, that’s a good sign.  Because Easter Sunday is a day to be hungry, for food of course, and for the good news of resurrection and renewal and hope which this news brings to our individual lives and the whole world.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection pivots around food.  In fact, all of salvation history is framed by food and moves around people coming together for meals.  According to the Biblical record, humanity got itself in a mess over food.  It was not so much a meal as a snack.  The man and the woman in the garden shared the off-limits fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden.  If food got us into this mess, food will get us out.  Our Scriptures, as we have heard from Isaiah, put food as the centerpiece of our ultimate salvation.  The prophet sees a vision of a magnificent table  set for the entire world.  For all peoples.  If you don’t think God is a Universalist, read the Bible.  God as chef will prepare a feast of rich foods and as vintner will serve, well-aged, i.e. investment-grade wines.  And like Jack at the bishop’s visit, we will have waited and will be glad and rejoice in God’s salvation.

Jesus’ death and resurrection are also framed by food.  What we call the Last Supper was of course a meal with Jesus and his disciples.  It was a Passover dinner  that included bread and wine during which Jesus taught  his closest friends the summary of his entire ministry, by washing their feet and teaching them the words and actions for future meals together.  “Do this in remembrance of me,” he said – which meant not just for keeping a memory of their Last Supper, but a way to make Jesus present again with them whenever and wherever they gathered.  And they did exactly what he asked them to do, which we continue to do to this very day when we eat bread and drink wine, the Holy Communion.  But before there was another Supper, there was a first post-resurrection meal that you may not have heard about.   The Gospel of Mark ends with three women running from the tomb in fear and amazement, and adds this detail – they said nothing to anyone.  The author of Mark’s Gospel is very clever.  Instead of telling us what happens next, he wants us to use our imaginations, motivating and inspiring us to continue the Gospel story with our own lives.  Did the women really tell no one?  If not, how would Mark have written his Gospel?  How would we be here today celebrating Easter?  Of course the women told other people.  And how do you think they did it?  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome returned to the homes where they were staying and prepared the First Breakfast.  Just as important as the Last Supper, this little known breakfast was a gathering of hungry disciples, women and men, to tell each other what they had seen and heard – the stone rolled away from the tomb, the young man who greeted them, and his news that Jesus was raised.  They shared food, bread, fish, nuts, and dried fruits that would nourish their bodies, minds and spirits for the work ahead of them.

Food was, is and will be a sign and means of our salvation.  At that First Breakfast, those disciples were realizing that the world had changed, and today we see for ourselves that the world is still changed.  There is an important difference between being changed and being fixed.  Today’s Easter lilies and soaring brass melodies are not meant as whitewash on a rotten fencepost.  The alleluias are not a denial of the world’s brokenness.  But they point to the feast that is here now and the feast that is yet to come, when one day, all will be sorted out, all will be well, and God’s justice will be complete.

On Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, my sermon message was that we are in a mess, the world as a whole and each of us as individual parts of it.  But in that mess, God is present, in fact, as close as the hand in front of your face.  During Lent, it is not our mission to be closer to God or to gain God’s love.  In fact, we hear God saying to Jesus at his baptism that “you are my beloved; in you I am well pleased” – which is not just for Jesus, but each of us.  But during Lent and anytime of the year, we can experience and show more love.  That is our mission.  Now on Easter morning, with the shadow of Lent scattered, the mess is still with us.  The mess is global – war in Afghanistan, epic famine across nations in West Africa; brutal repression in Syria against those who seek political reform; economic freefall in Greece and Spain.  Closer to home, there is an epidemic of violence and shooting, with over 600 young people killed in the Chicago area since 2008.  With former governors in prison, political gridlock continues as solutions to pension and budget deficits are nowhere in sight.  The mess is here among all of us, because right here, there are those who have cancer, some are struggling with depression, others are unemployed and have been looking for work for a very long time; others are struggling in school, or in marriage or at work.  There is loneliness.  One of the ironies of Glen Ellyn is the beautiful exterior.  Behind the beautiful homes and well-kept gardens is as much misery and mess as anywhere else.  The mirage of control is pursued with all our might, sometimes felt to be achieved, but never a reality.  Control and order are illusions in a world that in reality is broken in its very heart.  Friday and today are both alike, and to pretend otherwise is a lie. But a truth remains intact – that God is as close as your hand in front of your face.   Like Jesus, you are beloved, and in you God is well pleased.  And therefore, our mission hasn’t  changed – to experience this love that is ours and share it with others.

Today’s morning Eucharist is a Last Supper that has become a First Breakfast.  Like those first disciples, we take in the news that Jesus is raised and gain strength and courage for the work ahead.  It is absolutely essential that each of you know that God and this church invite you to this feast, symbolic as it is.  The bread and wine. the body and blood of Christ, are freely offered, without conditions or exceptions.   For two thousand years, Christians have seen the risen Christ made present with them in this feast.   This celebration of food has given them comfort, courage and strength to be disciples in and for the world, showing love and finding it within themselves.  It is powerful food, because the world is powerfully broken.

It is perhaps ironic and sad that just as food is a sign of God’s salvation and presence with us, there is so much hunger in the world.  It is a problem that is overwhelming and can easily make each of us feel helpless.  Even hunger in West Africa that affects a million people isn’t in the news.  Nor is the story of hunger right here in Glen Ellyn.  Twenty years ago, churches in Glen Ellyn came together to form the Glen Ellyn Food Pantry.  An office and its mini grocery store are located at Grace Lutheran Church on Forest Ave, just north of the Metra tracks.  In recent years, demand for the Food Pantry’s services has grown dramatically. The pantry is operating at full capacity with 250 families served in February, and all February appointments were filled before the beginning of the month.  Each participating Glen Ellyn church is designated a month of the year to make a major push for food donations.  April is St. Mark’s month.  As you leave the church this morning, you will pass by a table with empty brown grocery bags.  On each bag is stapled a white piece of paper which lists the items that the Food Pantry needs.  If you need food for your family, please take this bag and go to the Food Pantry, because they can fill it up with food that you need.  If you can give food, please take a bag and fill it with as much food as you are able.  Return it to St. Mark’s and we will make a combined delivery to the Food Pantry later this month.  May these our actions, one bag of food at a time, be a feast of getting, giving and sharing, a sign of God’s salvation at work in the world’s mess today.

Happy Easter to each and everyone of you!  In the words of our Communion, “Let us keep the feast, alleluia!” and in the words of young Jack, “Bishop, let’s eat!”

Professional performer and musician, John Campen is the Director for this week-long camp.

More about camp Director: John Campen

John has been an active performer and musician since he was a small child, and he has formally studied voice and acting for nearly half of his life. He began his training as a young teenager when he took up voice lessons with Myron Myers, head of Vocal Studies at NIU. He has trained with Broadway legend Judy Kuhn and with Maitland Peters, the head of the Voice Department at Manhattan School of Music. His college days were split between time in the music conservatory atWheaton College and in Arena Theater, the college’s theatrical studies program. He also spent time training in the improv trenches at Second City in Chicago. After he got his feet wet in the professional theater scene in Chicago, John moved to New York City to pursue his passion further. While living in New York, he spent his time studying acting with master teacher Michael Howard, a longtime student of the great actor and teacher Sanford Meisner and a member of the famed Actors Studio.

John has been seen on a variety of different stages, from off-Broadway theatres to Chicago’s finest musical theatre houses to charity work at nursing homes and convalescence centers.  Vocally, he is comfortable in a number of genres and styles. He has performed the classics from the musical theater canon, fronted a bluegrass trio, written and performed his own singer songwriter music, been featured as a big band soloist, and hollered with his share of gospel choirs. Professional credits range from the classical to the contemporary and include work as diverse as the baritone soloist for Brahms’ Requiem; as Grantaire in Les Miserables at Marriott Lincolnshire (Jeff Award – Best Musical); as Young Scrooge and Fred in A Christmas Carol at Drury Lane Oakbrook; and as John the Baptist in the original rock musical For Christ’s Sake, which had its world premiere in NYC. In 2008 he was also a finalist in a major opera competition, the Chicago Union Civic and Arts League Classical Competition.

John continues to work as a soloist, actor, voice over artist and performer throughout the Greater Chicago-land area. He teaches voice privately and does vocal coaching for plays and musicals. He is also available to conduct workshops on acting for singers, on the connection between breath and presence, and on speaking and singing with power and support.

Help support our companion parish, San Marcos in Nigromante, Mexico, and the 2012 Mexico Mission Trip. Click here for more information.

Women and girls carry water home in Geles, an Arab village in Darfur

Please join us as a walker or sponsor in the annual Glen Ellyn / Wheaton Area CROP Hunger Walk on the afternoon of Sunday, May 6 at 2:00 PM at Gary Methodist Church in downtown Wheaton. CROP Walk benefits the work of Church World Service, a cooperative ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations, providing sustainable self-help and development, disaster relief, and refugee assistance in some 80 countries. In addition, 25% of the money raised in our local walk supports four local organizations, including two of our core outreach organizations – People’s Resource Center and the Glen Ellyn Food Pantry. Last year, 18 St. Mark’s parishioners joined with members of 13 other religious groups in Glen Ellyn and Wheaton to walk and raise a total of $28,400. We’ll have two routes to choose from – a 6-mile route and a shorter, stroller-friendly route of 3 miles. Join us this year for another fun walk!

Some of our walkers at the 2011 CROP Walk

This year, we are again hoping to move as many donations online as possible, as we are participating in the Feinstein Foundation’s Spring Campaign to Fight Hunger. All donations that we receive online by April 30 will be applied to the Feinstein Foundation’s $1 million challenge – the more we raise by April 30, the more the Feinstein Foundation will donate to our CROP Walk. You can sign up or donate online at http://www.churchworldservice.org/goto/stmarksglenellyn or look for information in the Narthex. For more information, please contact Don Sutherland at (630) 469-8284 or drsmps@sbcglobal.net.