Diversity Sunday 2014



I have been thinking about how very blessed I am to be serving as Deacon at Christ Episcopal Church in New Brighton.  In 1997 I was ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons in the Episcopal Diocese of New York by the then Bishop, Richard Grein.  My late Mother, Florence Mary Conkling Redden, had always prayed that one of her five children would be ordained, but she figured, as most devote Irish-American mothers, that it would be her only boy-o.  She got what she prayed for, but not what she expected...sorry, Flo...stuff happens.

In the years that followed my ordination, I have served in five congregations in New York City.  I am currently assigned to Christ Church in the New Brighton section of Staten Island, a church with a long history here.  The church is  wonderful stone gothic edifice with several Tiffany stained glass windows.

Interior Christ Church/New Brighton

But this wonderful structure and its lovely accoutrements do not make a congregation.  They are the shells in which we hold our worship, but they are not the heart of our congregation. That heart can be found in the care and fellowship we share with each other. And there was no more poignant example of this then at last Sunday's "Diversity Sunday" celebration.
February is "Black History Month" in the USA.

Fredrick Douglass

  Back in the day, this was a new concept that grew of out a week in which schools did special programs and lessons around the achievements of African-Americans in our shared history. The congregant who has been doing the arrangements for "Diversity Sunday" explained that at first they would have  outside folks come in to give talks about famous African-Americans in the New York area.  That would, of course, include Fredrick Douglas, Harriet Tubman  and Sojourner Truth who all had connections to New York State.  Over the years he found people were less and less interested in these "talks" since they had all heard it before.  So, he decided to mix it up.

Thus was born "Diversity Sunday".  Members of the congregation from differing cultures came together to share food and talents with each other.  Christ Church has a great mix of folks: Waspish cradle Episcopalians, West Indian Anglicans, Liberian immigrants, recent Eastern European exiles, former Roman Catholics who might have felt disenfranchised due to divorce or sexual preferences, young families looking for a place to raise their children, African Americans living in the neighborhood, people from the nearby adult home who suffer from personal demons, all of these people have found a place in which they worship together.

And this past Sunday we celebrated our life together. We were serenaded by our Godly Play children singing "This Little Light of Mine"; we listened to a member of the congregation speak about his passion for educational equality based on his early years in the Civil Rights movement; we watched  and admired their clarity as our Rite-13 group shared their exegesis of the  banishment of Adam and Eve. We marveled at the musical talent of our young people as they played steel drums, played piano, sang solos and duets and generally amazed us with their shining smiles and sweet voices. And we sang together that wonderful Pete Seeger song,"Turn, Turn, Turn" in tribute to his work, and we realized that there is a season for everything, and for us, at this moment, it is a time for joy and celebration.