Koinonia

Koinonia

“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”—Acts 2: 44-45.

Mac graduation Friday

In her brilliant sermon at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Patricia Matthews reminds us of the winning word in the 2018 Scripps National Spelling Bee that weekend: Koinonia. Fourteen-year-old Karthik Nemmani from McKinney, Texas, correctly spells this word of Greek origin, meaning Christian fellowship or communion with God.

It refers primarily to fellowship with other Christians in community. Patricia reminds us that this 91st National Spelling Bee, with its 515 qualified participants, was televised on none other than ESPN. In this sports network, we watch football, basketball, baseball, or soccer more often!

When I heard the winning word that weekend and Sunday from Patricia, my heart skipped a beat. Koinonia had been in my heart for almost a week. Langley, our oldest granddaughter, had just graduated from high school and was headed to the University of Georgia. I had been praying about how I could support her in this decision. The answer came as I read a review of two books about Clarence Jordan in The Christian Century.

I want to remind Langley about Mr. Jordan, perhaps one of the most outstanding graduates of the University of Georgia. His competency in Greek led him to produce his “Cotton Patch” version of the New Testament, as he strove to communicate the Bible’s message in everyday language.

Jordan also founded Koinonia Farm as a farming community of believers sharing their lives and resources, following the example of the first Christian communities. Out of this movement came Habitat for Humanity International by Millard Fuller, and later The Fuller Center for Housing, Jubilee Partners, and much support for the Civil Rights Movement.

First DOK Chapter at St. Mark’s

Also, that Sunday at our church, a group of women met to begin discernment toward creating a Daughters of the King chapter at St. Mark’s. Daughters of the King also seek koinonia—specifically fellowship with other women who want a more profound spirituality and relationship to God through prayer, service, and evangelism.

I will keep koinonia in my heart for a few more years to see if I observe any more serendipitous connections of synchronicity in our world.

Now, over six years later, that newly formed Grace Chapter of Daughters of the King at St. Mark’s numbers over 40 women who meet monthly, praying every day for every member of this congregation and the needs of the world.

During the pandemic, the Daughters began a new ministry, reaching out to women in prison who have requested books to read. The ministry is called Free Read and was the brainchild of Tandy Cobb Willis. It has now expanded to be a ministry of the whole church.

Since this writing, we have traveled to Texas, El Dorado, Shreveport, Memphis, and Springfield, Missouri, to meet with other women of the Daughters of the King.

I now love hearing about our grandchildren’s adventures and connections since we travel less and less.

 Langley has now graduated from Georgia and is finishing her first year at NYU Law School to study international law. Zoe is finishing her junior year at Tulane, where she has experienced Koinonia New Orleans’ style! Last fall, she spent a semester in Copenhagen. She travels to New York City and Stockholm for two women’s conferences this summer.

Mac graduates from the University of Georgia this month and then goes to Liverpool for a year to earn a master’s in sports management. Gray is finishing his first year at  Kentucky studying art and journalism, and Turner is finishing his first year in the honors college at the University of Arkansas studying biomedical engineering. He is off this summer to Belgium to further his studies. Elizabeth is now driving.

Our community continues to expand as we hear stories of connections from all over the country and worldwide. I have faith in the future as I see what our children’s children are doing.

The Koinonia continues.

Joanna. joannaseibert.com https://www.joannaseibert.com/

The Presence of Christ

 The Presence of Christ

“The earliest reference to the Resurrection is Saint Paul’s, and he makes no mention of an empty tomb at all. But the fact of the matter is that, in a way, it hardly matters how the body of Jesus came to be missing because, in the last analysis, what convinced the people that he had risen from the dead was not the absence of his corpse but his living presence. And so, it has been ever since.”—Frederick Buechner, initially published in The Faces of Jesus. 

We are resurrection people. I love to sing the hymn “Christ is Alive!” All our crosses are empty. I love that our tradition makes Easter not one day but a season of 50 days. Of course, we need more than fifty days to keep the resurrection in our hearts and minds, but it’s a start. 

I love the Alleluias. I need all this to store up for the dark times, to remember the story, and never forget it.

Buechner describes Easter as an event where the loving presence of Christ seems to explode all over the earth. Christ and his love are no longer present in one person.

After the resurrection, his love and presence are now all over the world in all of us. We have become his body. Christ and his loving presence are with all of us always. Never, ever forget this. He is with us now in the present time, the past, and the future, and throughout all eternity.

Josh Scott, in The Christian Century, April 7th, 2024, writes, “that the book of Acts paints a drastically different picture of the early community of Jesus followers. The resurrection of Jesus had such a dramatic and profound impact on them that they began to think differently about everything—even their possessions. Their newfound faith in the risen Jesus cultivated a spirit of generosity and compassion so incredible that it became unacceptable for anyone in the community to be in need.

 Luke doesn’t describe the community of the earliest followers of Jesus, listing doctrinal positions they agree on. He doesn’t describe them gathering in a room to argue the finer points of theology so they could agree and belong together. Instead, Acts says the apostles’ testimony to Jesus’ resurrection led to real, practical, life-changing action in the world so that ‘there was not a needy person among them.’

Perhaps this is what Easter is all about, not theory but practice. It’s the bursting into this world of a new creation that plays by different rules, where love calls us to work for the blossoming of every single person and of the whole creation.”

If you have difficulty comprehending all this, you are in good company. I don’t think anyone understands it, but we can see and believe the change in lives. So, if you have difficulty believing this, let others believe it for you. We are not called to understand but to live it, just as Christ did.

 Joanna    https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Mothers

Mothers

“On this Mother’s Day, we give thanks to God for the divine gift of motherhood in all its diverse forms. Let us pray for all the mothers among us today; for our own mothers, those living and those who have passed away;

 for the mothers who loved us and those who fell short of loving us fully; for all who hope to be mothers someday and for those whose hope to have children has been frustrated; for all mothers who have lost children; for all women and men who have mothered others in any way—

those who have been our substitute mothers and we who have done so for those in need; and for the earth that bore us and provides us with our sustenance. We pray this all in the name of God, our great and loving Mother. Amen.”—Leslie Nipps in Women’s Uncommon Prayers (Morehouse, 2000), p. 364.

many mothers

Sarah Kinney Gaventa wrote an excellent piece in GrowChristians.org called “Liturgical Trapdoors: Preparing for Mother’s Day” about how difficult secular holidays such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be for some people and how the Church can compound their pain.

Having all the mothers stand up in church can be painful for those who are undergoing fertility procedures. People with unhappy childhoods may have difficulty comparing the love of a mother or father with the love of God.

So many people come to spiritual direction to grapple with these very issues.

Gaventa offers this more universal prayer for mothers from Women’s Uncommon Prayers as a start. We know the love of God through other people, but when a standard is presented for a specific role for mother or father, and ours does not fit, we can become even more wounded.

Gaventa suggests we talk more about the feminine aspects of God and Jesus. We can discuss God caring for us as a mother without criticizing those human mothers who have fallen short.

She also reminds us that Ann Jarvis, the woman who started the Mother’s Day movement during the Civil War, was a peace activist.

So, perhaps one way of honoring all mothers might be to suggest an outreach project for peace so that mothers would never again have to send their fathers, husbands, sons, and daughters to war.

Joanna joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/