Padre’s Ponderings, September 2025

The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber was present with St. John’s on Saturday, August 23, and what an event that was!  I couldn’t be prouder of how our parishioner volunteers offered themselves to make St. John’s as hospitable as possible.  We had over ten folks volunteer to help attendees see their way into the building, get registered, show folks our hospitality, and extend God’s grace to all who entered our doors.  Our staff did a tremendous job cleaning and setting up chairs (Elizabeth), organizing everyone, delegating, registering folks, and doing PR work (Bianca), and getting all our sound equipment ready for Nadia’s use (Mike). 

I sat up front with Rosemary, the bishop’s staff, and their spouses/children, not because I wanted to be all the way up front, but because I wanted every inch of seating to be clear, seating capacity used for our visitors.  For those of us in the choir stalls, we saw the side and back of Nadia and were happy for others to see her front side. 

I took two takeaways from Nadia’s revival.  The first was the reminder that just because there is great suffering today, that suffering does not block out our hope.  Yes, there is tremendous suffering due to federal and state leadership.  We have much work to do because of this suffering, AND we have reason to hope based on our faith in the Risen Christ.  We are a faith that believes Jesus is present in the suffering and in the hope.  And so, we get to respond and behave in hopeful ways.

My second takeaway is the need for sharing our faith stories.  Yes, Nadia is a celebrity, but what she did with and for us on a warm Saturday evening was to share her faith story.  Yes, she interspersed her faith story with some of her favorite hymns, and singing together was beautiful and enjoyable, but at the end of it all, the core of her time was faith story sharing. 

What might it look like for St. John’s to host a faith-based story-sharing series?  The world desperately needs to hear and know our faith stories, and we need to be able to share them.  Would you dream with me how we might facilitate faith-based story-sharing through St. John’s?

In God’s Grace,

Eric L. Miller+

Rector