Dear Cathedral Family,
We begin 2022 more fully aware than we were at this time last year that life will not be snapping back to the way “things used to be.” Covid continues recurring in waves; supply chain disruptions leave us without all the things we want when we want them; disruptions of our plans are now an expectation.
And yet, signs of new life and hope are all around us in our life together. Babies are born and baptized. Children grow and flourish and delight in being together in their church home. New faces continue to appear. We receive what we need to continue in mission and ministry. I am thankful for your faithfulness in our life together—in worship and service and in generous giving.
This Sunday in our gospel reading we encounter another epiphany—Jesus changes the water into wine at the wedding in Cana, showing God’s presence and power is in him. But Jesus doesn’t provide the wine because it’s requested (even by his mother). He does it as a sign of who he is and what he has come to do.
God’s generous gifts come not according to our desires, but according to the purposes of God’s will and the accomplishment of the coming of God’s kingdom. Our stewardship theme for this year—“Every Perfect Gift”—draws on a passage from the Letter of James that says, “Every perfect act of giving, every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” And then James goes on, “In fulfillment of his own purposes he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.” God’s gift lives in us!
In our Christmas celebrations we gave thanks that God’s greatest gift has come to us. Last Sunday we acknowledged that through God’s Son we experience new birth—so that the light of his love, grace, and truth may show forth through us.
Faithfully,
Beverly+
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