blog — Andy James

The Days Are Surely Coming

November 30, 2018 By Andy James

a reflection shared with The Presbytery of New Hope e-News

“The days are surely coming…” A new church year begins with these five simple words from the prophet Jeremiah that open the first reading for this first Sunday of Advent. We enter this season knowing and expecting that “the days are surely coming”—busy days of Christmas preparation, full days of joyous celebration, wonder-full days of hope and promise. And yet this season reminds us that we have been waiting for the days to come for a long time. Generation after generation hungers for something more than even the joys of Christmas can bring us.

“The days are surely coming…” The Advent longing of this season speaks to some of the deepest feelings within us: uncertainty, fear, sadness, despair, grief, pain, sorrow. Making it through to the joy of Christmas can be a balm for our spirits, but too often our need for something new reaches far beyond what we can know in a single day of celebration. A deeper, more complete transformation eludes us and our world.

“The days are surely coming…” The hope and promise of Advent is more than confidence that we will survive the busyness of the holiday season, make it safely to our many travel destinations in these days, or even find new joy in Christmas this year. We journey beyond these things of this world in this season to wait, watch, and work for “the days that are surely coming” when transformation will take hold and the reign of Christ that we celebrated last Sunday will be visible in every place.

“The days are surely coming…”So amidst everything else that fills this season, I hope and pray that you will make a little time to be about this deeper work of preparation for the days that are surely coming. Maybe this is a moment to discover new space in your own journey for living out God’s faith, hope, and love. Maybe this is the time to talk with leaders around you about sketching a strategy to participate in God’s work more fully in the coming year. Maybe this is the season to slow down just enough to mark the calendar for some of the opportunities coming in the year ahead that are outlined below. Maybe this is an opportunity to pray even more fervently for openness to the days that are surely coming for our world and our church.

“The days are surely coming…”May today and every day ahead for you be filled with peace, love, joy, and hope, until this Christmas comes and until all things are made new in Jesus Christ.

Holy Week 2017

April 7, 2017 By Andy James

written for New Hope Presbytery‘s e-News on April 7, 2017

As we stand on the edge of another Holy Week, preparing to remember the journey of Jesus from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem through his arrest, trial, and execution and finally his resurrection, there’s something almost shocking to me about the intensity and speed of all these things. Just when things seemed to be at their highest point for Jesus, just when the man who had taught as he roamed the countryside reached the big city, just when he finally would be able to bring his proclamation of the kingdom of God to the halls of power, everything came crashing down in only a few days.

Yet I think the intensity and speed at which the cries that greeted Jesus shifted from “Hosanna!” to “Crucify him!” makes the journey before us all the more compelling. These sorts of overnight shifts are all too familiar for us—maybe the friend who quickly goes from being in great health to suffering from terminal illness, or the colleague who is suddenly let go as the company’s priorities shift without warning, or the world situation that escalates almost overnight from order to massive chaos. In these moments as death seems to take hold, we experience the reality of Holy Week firsthand.

But amidst all the darkness and death in our world, Holy Week also reminds us that death is not the end of the story. To paraphrase and extend the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., I believe that death does not drive out death—only resurrection can do that. The death of Jesus changed things once and for all, but that death would not have meant anything at all were it not for the resurrection. And so it is with us, that death will not change anything in our world, either—only living as resurrection people can do that.

So as we remember this week the journey that Jesus first made from triumphal entry through execution and into resurrection, I pray that this journey might be real for us, too. I pray that we might see God walking with us in the pathways of darkness and death that stand before us so that we might live the new life of resurrection in our lives, in our churches, and in our world. Blessings on your journey this Holy Week and beyond!

Why I Sing: Brahms Requiem

January 29, 2017 By Andy James

This afternoon, I will join with over 150 voices of the North Carolina Master Chorale to sing Johannes Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. This is my first time to perform this beloved masterpiece, though I have heard recordings of it many times before over the years. This piece has a storied history of performance over the century and half since its composition, but I most remember the quickly-organized performance by the New York Philharmonic on September 20, 2001, in memory of the victims of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City just nine days earlier.

The text chosen by Brahms for Ein deutsches Requiem is not that of the traditional requiem mass but rather of biblical texts meant to offer comfort to the living. In these days of conflict and strife, words like these are all the more important to sing and share. Sometimes the words we sing and the music that makes them live are certainly enough, but today, in light of the dark clouds gathering around us, the walls being built to keep people from finding safety and hope, and the uncertainty of the coming days, I feel like I need to say a bit more about why I sing this piece today.

Today I sing for family and friends who have died, for the gift of their lives in shaping mine, and for the memories that continue to flow.

Today I sing for the victims of terrorism, on 9/11 and before and beyond, for those whose lives were cut short by violence of every sort.

Today I sing for armed forces everywhere, for police officers and firefighters and EMTs, for those who work every day to protect us and lead us and guide us.

Today I sing for government officials in my own nation and around the world who work for peace and goodwill and cooperation that sustains the fullness of life.

Today I sing for those who long for peace, even a peace that looks different from what I have come envision through my own prayer and study.

Today I sing for all who mourn death in so many ways, particularly those whose loved ones have been killed by injustice, terrorism, war, poverty, strife, and heartbreak.

Today I sing for a Church that does its best to sing for others, even though it sometimes falls short, and for my own church that is not afraid to speak up for the vulnerable and oppressed.

Today I sing for those who are afraid and allow themselves to live in fear, for those who have allowed violence to win the day by seeking vengeance, for those who seek something different but know no other way that the discord we have known and sown.

Today I sing for refugees and displaced persons everywhere, for their immediate comfort and safety, for their longing to return home, for their hope of some way out of the difficult and challenging days that they face.

Today I sing for those we are called to welcome as guests in our midst, for the stranger who knocks at our door, for the person on the side of the road who needs our help, and for those who reach out and respond in hope.

Today I sing for people who have been singled out by the world as different in one way or another, for people of color, for LGBTQ persons, for immigrants and migrants, for Muslims and Jews and Christians, for all those who need to know that God loves them and need to feel that divine love expressed in human affection.

Today I sing for my sisters and brothers who proclaim the gospel each and every day, whether they be Christian or Jewish or Muslim or other or claim no faith at all, whether they be ordained or not, whether they they use words or not.

Today I sing for all those who show that God’s love cannot and will not be limited by any limit of our human minds.

And today I sing for a new heaven and a new earth, as the little work I can do today to make a new and different way visible in the here and now, for the power of God to mold us and shape us and transform us and make us new.

Wherever you are, however you raise your voice, I hope you will sing too.

Waking Up White

January 28, 2017 By Andy James

originally shared in the January 27, 2017, e-newsletter of the Presbytery of New Hope

As we celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., last week, I decided that I wanted to do something more than just get a little extra rest or attack extra projects around the house. In light of the meaning of this holiday, I decided to do some reading, so I pulled out a book that might help me remember the origins of this holiday.

At a meeting last fall, the Co-Moderators of our PCUSA General Assembly presented everyone in attendance with a copy of Debby Irving’s Waking Up White, a 2014 book that tells the story of the author’s journey of understanding how she herself fits in the story of race. Through personal stories and honest reflection, Irving, a white woman, describes how she came to understand that even some of her most well-meaning actions got in the way of not only real relationships with people of different races but also the sort of deeper transformation that is necessary to address the challenges of racism in our lives, our church, and our world.

As I read Waking Up White on this MLK Day, I was challenged as I have been before and will be again to recognize the ways in which racism creeps into my life and work. I was heartened to learn that I am not alone in struggling with questions about how matters of race continue to need my attention. I appreciated learning more about how someone else had navigated these waters of learning and growth to be a deeper anti-racist presence. And I was grateful to read about some strategies that I can use to do this important work better.

The Co-Moderators who initially shared this book with me and others at my meeting are inviting the whole Presbyterian Church (USA) to join in conversations about Waking Up White in an initiative they have titled “One Church One Book.” The Office of the General Assembly has prepared some resources to help the church use Waking Up White for conversations in congregational settings, including videos of the Co-Moderators discussing the book, a downloadable four-session study guide, and links to other resources. The author will also be speaking at the Progressive Youth Ministry Conference at Montreat in March.

I commend this “One Church One Book” initiative and particularly Waking Up White to you as we make our way from the remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday last week to the celebration of Black History Month in February and as we claim our voice as God’s church in the changing times of our world. Our Confession of Belhar puts the challenge to us quite well:

We believe that unity is, therefore, both a gift and an obligation for the church of Jesus Christ; that through the working of God’s Spirit it is a binding force, yet simultaneously a reality which must be earnestly pursued and sought: one which the people of God must continually be built up to attain; [and] that this unity must become visible so that the world may believe that separation, enmity and hatred between people and groups is sin which Christ has already conquered, and accordingly that anything which threatens this unity may have no place in the church and must be resisted.

In these days, I hope and pray that we will all look for ways to have these sorts of difficult yet very important conversations in our churches so that we can work toward becoming the community of reconciliation, unity, and hope that God intends for our church.

A Big Move

July 28, 2016 By Andy James

While this blog has primarily been devoted to sharing sermons week after week, I’m excited to share bigger news here today. I have accepted a new call to serve as Associate Presbyter for Small Church Ministry and Technology in the Presbytery of New Hope, so I will be leaving my work as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone and stated clerk of the Presbytery of New York City at the end of August.

I am very excited about this new position, as it will enable me to bring together a number of my skills and interests in service to small churches throughout eastern North Carolina. In this work, I will be able to integrate what I have learned in working with my own small congregation and other congregations across New York City and beyond as I resource and connect congregations in this new place in the years ahead.

Leaving New York City is bittersweet. I have come to love my adopted hometown over the eleven years I have lived here. There is something very special about this place that gives it a special energy and unique vibe that just cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the world. I will miss the church and presbytery I have served, the good food and drink at nearly every turn, the amazing cultural options that have filled my spirit time and time again, and the wonderful people who have filled my days with meaning and hope. I am especially going to miss the incredible privilege of singing with the New Amsterdam Singers and the great fun that has come from being a season ticket holder to the New York Red Bulls.

There is much to do in the days ahead: celebrating, eating, drinking, packing, soaking up everything this city has to offer one more time. I know that my story with this city is not yet over—I will certainly be back to visit, especially since some of my closest friends are here! Still, as I celebrate this incredible time in this amazing city and look ahead to the exciting new things coming up, I am a bit sad to leave all this behind.

I leave New York City with eleven years of incredible memories—many good, a few not so good—but always with great thanksgiving for these days here. The words of the apostle Paul to the church at Philippi echo in my head as I remember these years here and all the incredible people who have shared even a little part of this journey along the way:

I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

For those in NYC, the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone will celebrate these years of ministry together with a festive worship service and celebration on Sunday, August 21, and the Presbytery of New York City will gather for a reception marking my three years of service as stated clerk on the evening of Monday, August 22. If you are in or around NYC and would like to attend, I would love to have you there, so let me know what else you need to know to join in!

It is great to have people walking this journey with me through this blog. While I will be preaching a good bit less, I will probably have a few more things to say about other issues in the years ahead, so keep reading along! I look forward to sharing this pathway with everyone in the years ahead.

Peace and love,
Andy