November 14, 2025

 

Dear Friends,


It’s hard to believe but Thanksgiving is just two weeks away, and Advent starts immediately following it. My daughters have already spotted Christmas trees in windows, and Cornell Weill has one of them in its lobbies. And the texts have taken that Advent turn, that sudden zig from parables and stories to the prophecies of doom. The Gospel text this week has Jesus telling his followers that the big, beautiful temple they see will be thrown down, and not one stone will be left on another. 

It can be hard to imagine these things. Today I had to drive my daughter to school and was listening to the radio. Sometimes a new song would come on, sometimes and old one. I began driving by the new building on Sherman Avenue, where the Packard plant used to be.  I was thinking about how I knew the neighborhood before the building went up, but many children won’t remember it at all, or will grow up in its shadow, or even inside of it, and that people who lived here for decades didn’t know it used to be a Packard showroom and service station, or what a Packard is. When the building rose, you’d be hard-pressed to believe it would become derelict and destroyed in less than a hundred years. Willie Mays used to live in the Heights and play ball at 155th Street. I suppose that in the middle of it, you’d have a hard time thinking the Giants would move to San Francisco, and the Say Hey Kid would be saying goodbye. And for some reason I started thinking about Sade, the great (and unfairly maligned—justice for Sade!) singer. I grew up listening to her songs, but there will come a day when she is gone, and I will be gone, and the things that I imagine will never be, and the things I couldn’t imagine stand in their place.

Jesus’ words to the disciples were meant to help them see through things. The disciples never knew life without the presence of the temple—forty years later it would be destroyed. The temple was a symbol of God’s permanence for them, but Jesus now promised them the permanence of it would disappear. And it is so with everything on earth, where it’s the United States of America or Sade, whether it’s my life or yours. 

I picked a hymn for this Sunday called the Canticle of the Turning, which is a version of Mary’s song, commonly known as the Magnificat. But the composer chose to highlight the social aspect of Mary’s song, and it tastefully weaves in this Sunday’s text with the Magnificat, in which Mary sings that the mighty will fall. Here’s one section of the hymn: “From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone. Let the king beware for your justice tears every tyrant from his throne.” This hymn has the texts talking to each other, and shows us the common thread: like all human works, injustice is doomed. God has willed it so. 

Thus, the texts propel us to faith this Sunday—this powerful hymn, set to a folk tune, pounds the truth straight into our souls. God is permanent, and God’s goodness is permanent, and all the powers dashing themselves against God’s goodness and love will break. It might be hard to imagine, but it’s true. Mary sang it, the prophets testified to it, and Jesus lives according to it. 

See you soon,

Pastor John

 

**********************

November 7, 2025

 

Dear Friends,

This week I’m going to be talking about imagination during my Sunday sermon—how necessary it is, how it is an exercise in both hope and persistence, but also how God’s grace does more than we can ask or imagine.

But before we get there, I’d like to talk to you about our Fall Ball.

You see, this year, someone is going to get murdered.

And the problem is: who did it? I regret to inform you that I am indeed a suspect, but upon the advice of my legal counsel, I can say no more, other than to say unequivocally that I am totally blameless, although no one would blame me if I did it, once they got the whole story.

There are other suspects, of course. Come and find out who they are…plus there will be food, drinks, a small silent auction, raffles, and lots of friendly faces. I promise only one of us is the murderer. Probably. And there will be live music.

You can buy tickets to the Fall Ball on our website, www.osanyc.org, or at the door. Doors open 7pm Saturday night. Cost is $50/ticket, and childcare is provided at $10/child.

Yours,


Pastor John

​

*******************

October 31, 2025

​

Dear Friends,

Don’t forget to Fall Back this Sunday! It’s either the ending or the beginning of Daylight Savings Time. Time, you say, is a flat circle, and the end is the beginning. All I know is that I generally get a bit disoriented whenever one of these days comes around, but at least this is the one you get an extra hour of sleep. And, if you forget to set the clock, you’ll arrive to church in time for choir practice!

One of the ways the Bible speaks about the dead is that they are asleep—asleep, resting, waiting to be woken by Christ. It’s a metaphor, that like children before the first day of summer, we will be sleeping, waiting for the voice that will call us into the light of resurrection. And like the first summer morning, the whole family will be there, all around the table. The sun will be shining, and there will be an intense and wonderful sense of freedom. We could do anything with our friends and the people we love—we will be forever in God’s house.

We celebrate All Saints Sunday this week, remembering those who have fallen asleep, and those who have yet to come. We remember the communion of saints, all of us united through the Holy Spirit into one eternal body. We remember that all of us are sinners, all have fallen short, and yet all of us have received God’s grace. I hope the feeling is one of solidarity, welcome, and praise. Grace makes a way for me, and for you, and for all whom we remember. Christ is our way to this joy. His invitation, his struggle, his welcome—they are for us.

All Saints is a moving service, one full of memory and hope. I hope you can make it.

Pastor John

 

*******************

October 24, 2025

​

Dear Friends,

It’s a whole lot starting now—Halloween is next week, Thanksgiving following not too far behind, and then Christmas. It’s a lot of human togetherness, a lot of sugar, and a lot of autumnal traditions. I’ve always loved Fall—I like the weather, the gray skies, the hot coffee and teas. Of all holidays, Thanksgiving, with its ongoing resistance to becoming commercialized out of existence, stands out as a true holiday, a space made to thank God and one another for everything, our existence, our daily bread, and all. Anyway, I’ll reflect more on Thanksgiving as the day approaches, but it’s Fall. It’s finally Fall.

That can only mean one thing that I haven’t mentioned: our Fall Ball on November 8th at 7pm. If you haven’t gotten tickets, please do so on our website. We’re trying an ‘80s Murder Mystery theme this year. I don’t know if Robocop or the lads from Miami Vice will be there, but there will be death, mystery, and lots of good food and cheer. We need some help—primarily we need some donations for our silent auction. So if you have an experience to offer, or something worthwhile, please let us know as soon as possible. I myself will be auctioning off two of my famous ugly but delicious pies (any flavor but chocolate), just in time for Thanksgiving.

On the final day of this month, Reformation Day (aka Halloween), our masons will be doing their final clean up and will leave the property. It’ll be nice to have a building that isn’t leaking everywhere, and that we can have a bit of a break until the next bit of renovating, hopefully. But if you haven’t, please take some time in our garden to look at the new stones and mortar, and to appreciate the sky without side glances at the crumbling rock. It’s been a long road this far—and more awaits, but as the Fall comes, we can celebrate how far we’ve come, and the promise of the changing of the seasons. Renewal comes.


Talk to you soon,

Pastor John

 

*******************

October 17, 2025

 

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow, Saturday, is No Kings Day—a day when people across our country are going to march for the rule of law instead of rule by personality. No King but King Jesus, we could say. There’s a lot of room for historical and theological reflection about the relationship between church and government. But I think it’s really important to notice that Jesus does not come to set up a government. You can contrast Jesus’s movement with the Bar Kochba movement about 100 years later: Bar Kochba’s movement was an independence movement, an attempt to set up a theocratic and independent state, and it worked for about two years. There were many similarities between Bar Kochba and Jesus, but the two chief differences are that Bar Kochba got an army together and fought for an independent nation, whereas Jesus said, “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over…But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” That may be the most politically salient thing Jesus ever said, and he followed it up with this: “You say that I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 

And that was the last thing Jesus said to anybody in charge, save for asking for something to drink.

This is why it is such a grievous sin to identify Jesus with a particular nation, or people, or political party. Jesus did not come to make a political movement. He came to bring people together around the truth, which is that God loves the world so much that God will save the world. The truth Jesus proclaimed is that God’s love and light and truth will drive out fear and darkness and every kind of falsehood. As fall approaches and I start thinking of Advent and Christmas planning, I recall the prophet Isaiah’s words, which we hear so often in the season: "For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.” This is ruler without an army, and kingdom without violence. Christ came to build a church, an assembly of people who belong to the truth. This is profoundly political in its rejection of violence, of oppression, and its embrace of statelessness and solidarity of all people.

That’s one of the reasons I am marching in the No Kings march tomorrow. The truth is that we face an unprecedented moment in the history of this nation: will we be a nation of laws, or will we become what they call a “competitive authoritarian” state, under the guise of so-called Christians? This is not hyperbole: it has been attempted in places like Wisconsin, North Carolina, Texas, and other states, where through gerrymandering and other political means arch-conservatives have seized the levers of political power and squeeze out any opposition. It could happen at a federal level. But more than that, I want to witness to something greater—the solidarity of every human being living in our land, our common hopes and fears, our common needs and dreams. People are best served by democratic (small d!) governance, where people work across differences and divisions for the common good. Such governance is so rare as to be almost extinct, and always endangered. But it can exist, when people of good will come together and demand it. 

Then, on Sunday, I will be joining clergy from around our neighborhood to preach on Welcome, the welcome of the stranger, the welcome of neighbor. We’re calling it the Weekend of Welcome, and we’re ending with a celebration at the Longest Table Potluck at the Y on Nagle Avenue from 3-5 pm. There, people of many faith traditions and none will come together in common purpose, of sharing food and fellowship despite our differences, to enjoy the benefits of living in peace. We don’t have to be the same—we just have to recognize the humanity in one another, and the same desire to love our neighbor.

OSA will be leaving at 10 am tomorrow to join the march, and of course, we always meet to worship at 11 am on Sundays. I hope to see you soon,

Pastor John

******************

October 10, 2025

 

Dear All,


We’ve come to that period in the year when a whole lot of things start happening in our regular church life—so today I’m just going to offer some reflections on some of them. 

First, I’m excited to mention that we have a guest preacher coming in on Sunday—I’m taking my last Sunday off for the year, and so Raquel Busa will be back to preach and lead worship on Sunday. Raquel is a native of Washington Heights and an artist. You can find her work here. It’s good for everyone to get a break from the regular voice in the pulpit. We preachers can sometimes start chasing our tails a bit, and it’s good for a reset, a new perspective, and a fresh interpretation. Come and hear Raquel this Sunday!


I’d also like to invite you to a new endeavor here at OSA: our Faith Formation Groups. We have two groups for now, Tuesday evening at 7pm and Sunday evening at 5pm, both at the church. These are small groups centered around prayer, scripture, and conversation. For a long time, we’ve been welcoming people into the church community through a process called Wayfarers—something much deeper, more intimate, more delightful than a new members’ class. Church is experience first, and doctrine later. Both are important, but doctrine without the experience of faith and grace is a very dry drink.

The Faith Formation is for us to reflect in mind and heart on the Scriptures, to listen to God’s Word as it speaks life into our weary bones, and to support one another as the Spirit moves in and among us. I can’t give you a list of three things you’ll takeaway—I hope that it’s like a very great meal for your soul, nutrient dense and full of flavor. Email me if you’d like to come on Tuesday or Sunday.

Our Fall Ball is rapidly approaching—this year we’re doing a murder mystery theme. I sincerely hope that I get to be the villain, but you’ll have to come and find out whodunit. We also—desperately—need silent auction items. Experiences, things, art—please be generous and bid generously. We need help with decorating, setting up, cleaning up, and so on—if you’re interested in helping, please email me and I’ll put you in touch with our committee chairperson.

Finally, the weather has changed! Fall is coming. That means we’re going to be celebrating Reformation Sunday and All Saints at the end of the month. But it is also a good time to reconnect, recommit, and return to worship. If you’ve been wondering if you need a sign from God to come to worship, consider the sign delivered. No matter how cold it gets outside, it’s always the perfect temperature where God is. We have a place for you, and we are not complete without you.


See you soon, 

Pastor John

 

**********************

October 3, 20205

 

Dear Friends,


Church is a lot like sailing: there are a whole lot of special words that nobody who’s not been in the boat will understand. Boats have port, starboard, gunwale (pronounced gunnel), fore, aft, stay, spreader, leeward (pronounced looward), boom, transom, jib, sheet (it’s a line, not a cloth [and line means rope, not distance between points]). Church has paraenetic, narthex, nave, chasuble, alb, ambo, choir (both a group of singing people and a location in a building), epistle, soteriological, pericope, paten, corporal (the cloth that rests under the bread), and a whole lot more. 


These words serve a purpose. It’s not just buddy-duddy history and tradition. Port and starboard mean you’re on a boat. If you’re facing fore, right and left make sense, but when you are facing sideways, and someone is trying to tell you to look on one side of the boat or the other, you need a direction that is independent of the way you are facing, one that is relative to the boat, not you. That way everyone will know which direction to face, whether it’s on their right hand or left—port is always port, starboard is always starboard.

Similarly in the church. Churchy words mean you’re in a church—for example, it’s a narthex, not a lobby. A lobby is where you drop your luggage and get your keys from the concierge. The narthex was originally the place where people who were unbaptized gathered, or people who were temporarily expelled from the gathering for some notorious sin. It is a place of preparation, to get yourself ready to enter a space of worship. 

The words remind you where you are, and what you are supposed to be doing and thinking. Now you are sailing, reading the wind and current, listening to the sails and the sheets and the rest of the boat's constant conversation. You are in a place of worship, where the transcendent God of grace meets human beings in community and in Word and sacrament. The words provide context, precision, direction. They even describe the vision each place holds.

This Sunday we will hear the prophet Habakkuk tell the prophets to write the vision of God, to make it bold. The prophets give us a vision of the world, of God’s creation, in their own distinct way. The vision God has sent them is one where peoples of every nation live together in the light of God, where all of creation, from the ant to the antelope live in harmony, and where God himself dwells with his people in peace and song. The Word of God, its specificity in a backwater peasant named Jesus of Nazareth, is the vision. It creates the context for the way we ought to direct our deeds and thoughts—in the way of service to others, of sacrifice. 

The way we speak about the world matters. Listen to a press conference, and you’ll hear first of all an insistence on the way the world is. Karoline Leavitt delivers a message that Portland, Oregon is a war-torn hellhole, so fraught with far-left violence that the only answer is to send in the military. My contacts in Portland assure me that the city is just twee and somewhat annoying, and not without its problems, but as far as war-torn, that is not the case. But in a certain kind of world, in which the democratic process is going to be disabled so that the personal vendetta of our nation’s leader may be settled, along with the complete dismantling of an impartial governmental civil service, that language orients the boat, or should I say, pirate ship.

The language of the church is a love language. It’s the language of God to his people. It’s the language of forgiveness, of consolation, of striving, of beauty. It is language that seeks to speak truth, for truth’s own sake. And thus, it reorients us. It reminds us that we are in God’s world, and in God’s hands, and no other power can take us away from them.

See you soon, 

Pastor John

​​​​​​