How we witness the presence of Jesus

April 14, 2021
Kathryn Carroll
An exterior wall of St. Paul's Chapel covered in the shadow of a tree

Growing up in old-school Sunday school, even with a minister dad and Christian education director mom, I didn’t really put the pieces of the Paschal mystery and the Great Fifty Days together very well.

At least not in a wholistic way. It doesn’t mean that my folks were necessarily bad at their jobs, nor does it mean that I paid attention and still failed to grasp it. Back then, I think we (“progressives”) were struggling to reconcile a lot of biblical authority with mystery and with practice. Two millennia after the first Easter, disciples are still trying to hold competing ideas, humanness, and spiritual virtue together as a whole holy mystery.

Last Sunday in Godly Play, we began to literally put the pieces together. The story, called The Mystery of Easter, is told with two-sided pieces of a wooden jigsaw puzzle that are kept in a two-toned reversible cloth bag. This storytelling exercise isn’t the key to solving the mystery. Each of the pieces have unique shapes, contours, heft, and color. Just as in our Gospel reading, the process of opening to the mystery is multi-sensory and multi-emotional, which is how we will witness Jesus’ presence in these next weeks and years and millennia to come. In Luke 24:36b–48, Jesus appears to his friends, who are surprised, confused, afraid, and joy-filled, and asks them to see, touch, hear, and even taste the communion of heaven and earth. 

“You are witnesses of these things.” 

Happy Easter!

Kathryn

Kathryn Carroll is Program Manager for Children and Family Formation at Trinity Church Wall Street. Share your thoughts or questions with Kathryn, and join her Sundays at 10am for Children’s Time.

Children’s Time 

Sundays at 10am | Online

Join us for Children’s Time on Zoom. We’ll start with a brief opening assembly together and then, each week, children can choose from two breakout groups.

Godly Play (Preschool and older)
Story: Knowing Jesus in a New Way
Response Time: Drawing, coloring, and collage materials

Whole People of God (2nd Grade and older) 
Lesson Theme: Sensing Jesus
Activity: Bring a small cross, a worry stone, or prayer beads, if you have them.

Register to join.

This meeting opens early at 9:10am for the Family Service Watch Party — join us!

Discovery: Evicted in the American City

Sundays at 10am | Online

Join the Discovery community as we explore the complex causes and impact of eviction on our neighbors and consider what it means for our Christian vocation.

Over six weeks, our learning and reflection will center on Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. In his book, Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. He transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of 21st-century America’s most devastating problems. The scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible. Learn more about Desmond’s work.

We will also learn from members of the Trinity Grants team about eviction in New York City, how Trinity Church grant recipients are working to prevent homelessness, and what we can do to help our neighbors. 

Register to join.

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