It's now been 20 years since that bold redheaded girl announced that she expected that really meeting Jesus would scare us silly.  These last two weeks, following the death of my mentor who I first met when he was the supervisor for my seminary parish internship, and the rector of this redheaded girl, I've been remembering and missing, again, the people I went to school with.  And with increased honesty I've recalled, too, the early fantasies we shared about this ordained vocation.  We imagined having hours and hours to sit in our incense-laden offices - Gregorian chants whispering sacred secrets to us in the back ground, while studying, meditating and dreaming up cutting edge programs and liturgy.  Of course, all the parishes we served would be fully endowed from generation to generation, and people's lips would flow with milk and honey-especially after our brilliant teaching and preaching!  The youth would be waiting with baited breath to serve in the parched deserts of mission and outreach to the untamed outcasts, eager to witness with their voices of justice crying out in the wilderness, to a world ruled by on-line shopping malls.  We want to see Jesus!

What's profoundly different at this point in my life and vocation is the realization that we didn't want to see Jesus at all, as Jesus really is - the one who threatens all that is status quo.  Rather we wanted to wallow in our fantasies of how the world, especially the church, would be if we were in charge of it all. Nevertheless, I know that there have now been hundreds and hundreds of times that I've sat in empty cathedrals and parishes, soaking in silence and the sounds of religious life, praying, setting my center, getting ready to preside, so that I could prepare, somehow, to see Jesus.  Some of my favorite sounds of encountering Jesus come with choral vespers in the background, or the tap- tap- tap of shoes on stone flooring or soaking in the choreography of a lone altar guild member, so wrapped up in getting things set for the next service, that each movement and breath, reminds me that Jesus is already in our midst.

I realize how deeply I'm convinced that simply to be in church with regularity on Sunday means that we've already chosen to believe in more than "nothing in particular."  And the fact that we reach out our hands and ask to be given "the bread of heaven" and the "cup of salvation" during communion means that we've taken a step towards openness to something more than an "unknown god."  Whether we sing in the choir or serve on a committee, wrestle with the budget as vestry or bring our gifts to the parish as teachers and acolytes, I believe there's in each of us a bit of desire to see Jesus.  Will he appear today? If I hold the elevated bread for just one more second this morning, the fraction suspended in grace-- will he arise from the body broken for us, prostrate in mid--air?  The older I get, the more I realize that Jesus really does show up --Sunday after Sunday--scaring the be-jeeby out of us, not because God is scary, but because immersion in Anglican liturgy surrounds us with the presence of God.  And this God cares for each of us, individually, no matter what, and this same God shows up here with us Sunday-by-Sunday to give us strength for the journey, comfort and provocative inspiration!