Sponsor a flower arrangement. Support the Flower Guild!
Flowers bring us joy, invoke memories, and remind us of God’s beauty in the world.
Would you like to honor someone or celebrate a special occasion by sponsoring an altar arrangement? Beginning with Easter, you can give a donation to help support the Flower Guild and have your message of celebration, remembrance, or honor included in the Sunday bulletin and Font.
Donation cards can be found in the pews and are to be turned in to the collection plate with the donation. Altar arrangements will be designed each week by the Flower Guild, based on seasonal availability and any other guidelines for that date. If you have any questions, please contact Susan Switzer at flowers@redeemer-kenmore.org.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
To prevent the spread all viruses, including COVID-19, do the following:
Wash your hands often for at least 20 seconds (sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”) while using soap and water.
Use hand sanitizer if soap and water are not available or in between hand washings.
Face masks are for your use only in the event of your illness to keep germs in, not out.
The common cup or communion in one kind is safer than intinction.
You may wish someone peace without shaking their hand or hugging.
If you are concerned about an oncoming illness, call a healthcare provider before going to urgent care, a walk-in clinic, or the emergency room.
Some background on COVID-19
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the outbreak of a new respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus that was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, and which has now been detected in at least 57 locations internationally, including cases in the United States. The virus itself has been named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes has been named “coronavirus disease 2019″ (abbreviated “COVID-19”).
Electron microscopic image of an isolate from the first US case of COVID-19, courtesy CDC.
The first case of the coronavirus in Washington State appeared in Everett in January 2020. On Saturday, February 29, 2020, the Washington State Department of Health and Public Health—Seattle and King County officials reported the first death from the virus in our state, a man with underlying health conditions.
Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency in response to new cases of COVID-19. He issued a proclamation that directs state agencies and departments to utilize state resources and do everything reasonably possible to assist affected communities responding to and recovering from COVID-19 cases. Such a proclamation is normative and necessary in order to activate statewide resources and access necessary funds in order to support our communities and effectively respond to needs and expand preventative measures.
Symptoms and severity of the virus
Reported illnesses have ranged from mild symptoms to severe illness and death for confirmed COVID-19 cases. Based on what has been seen previously as the incubation period of MERS-CoV viruses, symptoms may appear 2 to 14 days after exposure and include the following:
Fever
Cough
Shortness of breath
The elderly, young children, and those individuals with compromised immune systems can be especially vulnerable.
If you believe that you may be experiencing symptoms, it is very important for you to be tested for COVID-19. However, before you go to your physician’s office, walk-in clinic, or to the emergency depoartment of your local hospital, the CDC advises that you call ahead in order to speak with a medical care provider. They will want to put necessary protocols in place to receive you, including providing appropriate barrier protection in their facility and for their healthcare workers.
Healthy practices at church
Communion
The CDC has stated that “…no documented transmission of any infectious disease has ever been traced to the use of the common cup…”. This due to the fact that alcohol kills viruses. Further, the minister handling the chalice wipes both the inside and outside edge of the chalice and turns the chalice edge while wiping the edge in between serving each communicant with a clean part of the purifcator (linen).
Those receiving the cup should remember not to touch the bowl of the cup with their hands, but rather place a hand beneath the base of the chalice in order to help the Eucharistic minister guide it to the communicant’s lips.
Intinction (dipping the bread in the cup of wine) by the communicant is strongly discouraged.
Alternatively, receiving the sacrament in one kind (meaning just the bread or just the wine) has always been, and continues to be, an acceptable alternative for communicants. We want to offer this option for those who prefer it since it too has a precedent in our tradition.
The Peace
At the time of Peace, the common practice has been that members of the congregation greet each other with a handshake, or even an embrace or kiss. Unfortunately, this is a prime opportunity for the spread of germs.
Therefore, graceful understanding should be extended to those who do not wish to have direct physical contact with their fellow worshipers, either because of their vulnerability to infection or their concern about their own state of health.
Our congregants may notice that members of the liturgical party frequently bow to one another, such as when the children bring forward the offering, as a sign of mutual acknowledgement, respect, and gratitude during preparations of the altar for communion. Members of the congregation may want to consider the option of respectfully bowing towards one another at the time of Peace with this same intention in mind.
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
This Sunday, August 25, 2019, we are marking as a larger church, 400 years since the first slaves were brought to what we now call the United States. To some, this might seem like a ghoulish thing to commemorate. Since there are better things that we could be talking about, some people may say, shouldn’t we just not acknowledge this, and starve it of attention? My short answer to this is no, and here’s why.
As author Ibram X. Kendi recently observed in his new book, How To Be An Antiracist, that ignoring racism in America allows racist ideas to flourish. Racism, white supremacy, and other causes born of hate do not shrivel in the absence of attention like green and growing things. They flourish in darkness, decrepitude, secrecy, and decay. What’s required is something that we ought to be familiar with, repentance and amendment of life. It’s that second part, amendment of life, though that seems to be always our hang up. It’s hard to imagine for us how our lives need to be amended. We had nothing to do with it, right? Well, not exactly. For nearly 250 years, people were held as property in this country, and used to create the first flowering of industry, of agriculture, and of wealth in the United States. Then for another 100 years, those same populations were used, but in different ways—treated as second class citizens, without rights or recourse, to continue to drive other parts of the population to thrive and the wellbeing of the nation of the system to continue to grow. It’s only in the last fifty years that that system has been officially changed, and is still implicitly challenged much of the time.
This is not something that’s simply going to go away anymore than a relative who makes inappropriate comments is gonna stop because those comments are ignored. So this Sunday we acknowledge, out loud, that the system in which we live, and for most, experience immense privilege in, is built on, fortified by, and and ingrained in slavery and it’s other faces, white supremacy and racism, and living in that system looks nothing like the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Kingdom. We have this problem, one among many, and not addressing it will not make it go away—already tried that, and it hasn’t worked. We will try repentance, and amendment of life, and keep trying it. God knows it might actually work, with God’s help.
Aaron Douglas was an African-American painter and graphic artist who played a leading role in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. The works used, from top to bottom, are the following:
Into Bondage
The Judgement Day
Mural study
Study for aspects of Negro life: From Slavery through Reconstruction
From Slavery through Reconstruction
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Not a tour. Not a vacation. Not sight seeing. Pilgrimage is something different. It bears all the hallmarks of those other things, but it’s more.
Pope Benedict XVI said, “To go on pilgrimage is not simply to visit a place to admire its treasures of nature, art or history. To go on pilgrimage really means to step out of ourselves in order to encounter God where he has revealed himself, where his grace has shone with particular splendour and produced rich fruits of conversion and holiness among those who believe. Above all, Christians go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to the places associated with the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection.”
Former Archbishop Rowan Williams said of his own pilgrimage as Archbishop of Canterbury, “When I choose to make a pilgrimage it’s not just to make a trip, it’s not just to do some sight-seeing. With a pilgrimage you let things go so that there is enough room for the place and the story to settle in and make an impact. It’s the company, it’s the sharing, and it’s also that sense of stripping down.”
As I prepare to journey with more than 30 other people to the Holy land on pilgrimage, I am both excited and trepidatious about what that encounter will mean. Heres a brief synopsis of where we will be:
We start in Galilee for 3 days. We will visit the sites where Jesus began his ministry—Nazareth, Sepphoris, the Jezreel valley, the sea of Galilee, and Capernaum. We will spend a few days in Bethlehem, while journeying to Bethany, and spend time at the sight where Jesus’s birth is commemorated. Then we will travel to Jerusalem by way of Hebron and the Mount of Olives, as well as the Garden of Gethsemane. We will walk along that road Jesus is supposed to have walked on the way to his crucifixion and travel the road to what is thought to be Emmaus. Periodically through the trip we will meet with people doing the work of Christ here and now amidst these ancient places and we will learn more about the extremely complex day to day life of our brothers and sisters who still live in these places.
Many of you have asked if I will be at church the Sunday after we get back. I’m so grateful for that concern. Yes, I will be back. I will undoubtedly be jet lagged and awake only because of the Holy Spirit and coffee, but I feel certain I will have something to share.
Jed, along with his family, enjoy being outdoors, reading, and travel. He has also tried his hand at woodworking, various musical instruments, and triathlon.
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
The article appeared on my newsfeed on Saturday, as I was scrolling through Facebook. “Debates about LGBTQ acceptance roil Seattle-area nonprofits, churches.” The Seattle Times headline caught my eye. I started to read it, but only made it so far before I had to stop. “But in Christian circles at least,” it read “the risks [of being LGBTQ] are enormous, with jobs, funding and congregation membership in the balance.” Ten minutes later I was three hundred words in to a rebuttal letter reminding the Times that Episcopalians are indeed Christians, and decrying the article in general as lazy writing, when I paused. For all my frustration, all my angst, and the truth that the article was indeed pretty poorly researched and written without a real depth of understanding of the issue—all points that a colleague had already deftly articulated to the Times, a small voice kept asking, why doesn’t the author know about the Episcopal experience? It’s because of us.
“Don’t worry,” we want to say, “we aren’t those sort of Christians.” This runs dangerously close, though, to saying “not all Christians,” just as some are quick to say “Not all white people…” “Not all rich people…” If the best we can do in talking about the marvelous power and presence of God in our lives is to say, “we don’t agree with those people,” then we should not be surprised that articles like the one in the Times get published. We cannot expect to define ourselves in opposition and be taken seriously.
We must define ourselves by what we do believe. We believe in a God who is known in love. We believe in a God who sent Jesus to witness to that love and to become a sign of God’s faithful love for all people. We believe in God who abides with the world, who enervates all living things to lead the whole of creation into love that flows from the heart of God. We will not speak of God perfectly, but that’s not what is asked of us. It is not what we promised in baptism to do. Each of us must speak about what we believe in our lives, the good news of God in Christ that give us hope, and instructs us to love as God loves. It’s either that, or let someone else tell our story, poorly.
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
A few weeks ago a group of Redeemer-ites, and other members of the Diocese gathered in the Ed building on a sunny Saturday to attend a training called Safeguarding God’s Children/Safeguarding God’s People. The goal of the training was to understand how we can participate in making the Church as safe a place as we could for all of God’s children by creating space where people are free from harassment, coercion, and predation. I am grateful for everyone who came to do this hard and important work.
A few days before this workshop, our bishop released model guidelines for guns on church grounds, titled Gun Violence Guidelines. The model guidelines are meant to be used by churches to allow congregants, as well volunteers and staff, to carry concealed firearms on church property with the permission of the church. I have to say, when I saw the title, I did not expect what was contained in the communication—an avenue to carrying guns in church. It felt very counter to the work that I was preparing to undertake with many of you.
Jesus was quite clear on the night he was arrested by armed authorities. He told the disciples to put their swords away. And elsewhere he calls on disciples, on the church not to put our personal protection above creating spaces where God can be known in the fullest way possible. We should, we must, do what we can to make our communities safe for all people. I believe that work such as Safeguarding trainings is essential to that work. The church should also be at the forefront of advocacy for police de-escalation training, and fighting poverty by creating pathways for individuals to move out of poverty, as well as addressing the systemic issues that keep people poor. These are things that we do to make the church and the world safe. Firearms in the house of the Lord do not.
We also need to acknowledge that being a follower of Jesus is risky. Jesus is also clear about that. Jesus promises that we will be persecuted, hated, and tempted to put our own personal safety above all else. The truth is that, as a predominantly white congregation in the north suburbs of Seattle, we have already faced, in the break-in this past February, as bad an event as is likely to occur to us. I pray daily that this is true. But as long as our doors are open there is always risk. I am certain, though, that if we close the doors, lock the doors, hunker down in the name of safety, that we will cease to be a church in fairly short order.
So long as I am rector, we will not adopt guidelines about concealed weapons in church. They are an idol, of power, of control, of safety. Let me be clear. If, as a member of the Church of the Redeemer you feel that you absolutely must carry a concealed firearm in church in order to feel safe—stay home. We must do what we can to build up the church to make the church as much a place of safety as we can, and remember at the same time that we risk everything because we have everything to gain in Christ who risked all for us.
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Everyone of faith seems to have an opinion on the “He Gets Us” ads during the Super Bowl. Some are enamored with the concept of reaching out with a message about Jesus to such a broad audience, something Christians don’t seem to be able to access as much in the United States as they once did.
This is a transcription of the sermon on the First Sunday after the Epiphany, January 10, 2021, at Church of the Redeemer in Kenmore, Washington by the Reverend Jed Fox.
If the best we can do in talking about the marvelous power and presence of God in our lives is to say, “we don’t agree with those people,” then we should not be surprised that articles like the one in the Times get published. We cannot expect to define ourselves in opposition and be taken seriously.
As long as our doors are open there is always risk. I am certain, though, that if we close the doors, lock the doors, hunker down in the name of safety, that we will cease to be a church in fairly short order.
If the response to sexual misconduct at the 79th General Convention made me the most hopeful, then the issue of liturgy, particularly the revision of the Book of Common Prayer…well it showed me how far we still have to go in many ways as a church.
This General Convention might end up being known as the #Metoo convention. I have hope that we have begun the process of excising this illness and that, if the work can be completed, the church may heal and become whole.
I’ve been reflecting on my experience at General Convention since I got back form Texas. In the next several weeks I’m going to share my thoughts on some of the most important things that I think came out of the Convention, both things that I am really hopeful about and things that make me less hopeful.
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
This fall, we took a trip through the Oregon and California redwoods. As I started to look at my relationship with the church, I began to realize that the church is very similar to those redwoods, and my relationship with the church affects much more than just the church itself.
Trees take in water and sunlight to make the tree grow. The impact to the tree’s surrounding environment is huge. Just a few are: Oxygen for us to breathe, a place for plants to flourish beneath their branches, a place for critters to live amongst their branches, and even support to other trees against strong winds. There is more plant and animal material affected by the tree than the material that makes up the tree itself.
The church takes in us, our pledges, our time, and our talents to make the church grow. The impact to the church’s surrounding environment is huge. Just a few impacts are: A place to meet for many groups all throughout the week. Support to the many ministries listed in our weekly bulletins. Support to other churches through the Diocese, as well as us receiving support from the Diocese. There are more people affected by our Church than the size of the Church’s congregation itself.
Until I thought about this, I didn’t think about how many people our family’s stewardship affected. It’s like the water and sunlight to the tree. It turns our pledged money into ministry for hundreds of people. Looking strictly at a budget, we see salary, heat, lights, water, etc. But those elements are just the trunk, branches and leaves of the tree which support all of the flora and fauna around it, just as pledges to the Church of the Redeemer support all of the ministries around it.
Why, even our church itself is made of huge trees. They go all the way from the foundation to the roof. Our family’s stewardship, our pledging and volunteering provide more than just support for these trees. It provides support for all of the people affected by the trees holding our building up.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
We are currently smack-dab in the middle of two of my least favorite autumnal observances. One, the church calls a holy day, but the other is assuredly not. I am talking about Columbus Day Indigenous People’s Day and Thanksgiving Day.
The mythos surrounding both of these commemorations, that the noble Europeans came and discovered and brought light, civilization to a few benighted savages, just as God willed. These narratives, that until very recently were commonly accepted in the church and in society, have always troubled me—not because of the picture that they paint, but because not only are the pictures that they paint false but because the false narrative then gives us a false sense of self, and incorrect interpretation that things are fine and have always been…no genocide to see here. The truth is far harder. Disease, displacement, and outright war were the means used by Columbus and Plymouth Colony members (not to mention many, many other colonizing occupations from Europe) to carve out for themselves a place in the history books at the expense of millions of innocent lives.
The church itself is not immune to this truth. Many of the church buildings, Episcopal or otherwise, on this continent were placed on lands that were swindled, swarmed over, and outright usurped from the from the people who had been in relationship with that particular patch of creation for thousands of years, deep relationship, the kind of mutual care and interdependence that is the mark of true stewardship, a standard which the church has failed to upkeep.
We cannot change the facts of how we came to be stewards of the land—none of us has a time machine (and even if we did, Ive seen enough sci-fi shows to know that we’d probably just make things worse). We can, though, acknowledge the fact that we are inheritors of a stewardship that is not our own. We are not the sole owners—in fact, not owners at all, of this place that we refer to as Redeemer. We meet, Sunday by Sunday, on land by the Coast Salish nations have been in relationship with for Generations. We join in caring for this land with them, late comers to this relationship. We are now responsible that kinship relationship that they have held sacred for generations upon generations.
It may seem like a little thing, acknowledging the truth of where we are of who was here before, but its a start. And here’s another thing. For a few years now, we have been praying, during the prayers for those in authority, for Marie, Cecile, and Brian. Marie Zackuse is the Chairwoman of the Tulalip Nations, Cecile Hansen is the chairwoman of the Duwamish Nation, and Brian Cladoosby is chairman of the Swinomish Tribe and had been the President of the National Congress of American Indians. We pray for them, and the Tribal nations that they guide forward into the future. This is a beginning, an opening, another opportunity to grow into greater stewardship, a deep and equal relationship among kin, with the gifts—land, and especially people—God has given us.
—Fr. Jed Fox, Rector
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
This week’s reflection comes from Maren and Peter Donley
When Peter was just a toddler, we were at church (as usual) and it was time for the offering. At our congregation, ushers passed offering plates through the rows of chairs beginning in the front of the congregation and then brought the offering to the altar before communion. I don’t remember how, exactly, but the plates passed Peter before he realized it was time to make his offering.
When he saw the plates behind us, he turned to us with a horrified expression, and big tears welled up out of the corners of his eyes. He started to cry (loudly!) and, before I could comfort him effectively, wailed his distress at not having the opportunity to share. He yelled, “But Mommy, I didn’t have a chance to GIVE!!!!!”
Peter’s consternation was real.
Several adults around us chuckled. I’m guessing that their laughter was a slightly uncomfortable recognition of the difference between the way Peter approached offering, and their own approach.
Chris and I managed to calm Peter only when we explained that there would be many, many opportunities to give.
Peter’s enthusiastic desire to give, and his thrill at the idea that there would be “lots and lots” of opportunities to do so, called the adults around us (myself included) to account—for the reluctance to give, and for an inexplicable lack of joy in this part of the service.
In his moment of distress, Peter reminded the whole congregation that giving is a privilege actively to be sought. It’s something that we get to do with the resources we’ve been given, and it’s fundamentally joyful.
I sometimes require a reminder.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
