Dear People of St. James’,
This Sunday, we celebrate the 78th anniversary of the founding of St. James’ Episcopal Church (in its early days, The Church of the Advent). In this moment, we have an opportunity to remember all of those faithful people who have laid a foundation for our life together brick by brick: the founders who took a wounding experience of exclusion and sought through their community to teach the Episcopal Church something about what communion looks like.
It is a delight that we get to share this anniversary with our living founder, Mrs. Bertha Means. The other day at our Young Adult group, someone asked what it must have been like for a 22 year-old Miss Means, engaged at that point, to be a part of this founding community. Thanks be to God that this would become a community that would sustain the Means family and so many others who would work for the desegregation of Austin, especially by working diligently at the intersection of justice and education.
That work at the intersection of justice and education continues today through our work with Freedom Schools, Reading Buddies, advocacy for east Austin public schools, and One Human Race. As our community seeks to live into God’s call to us, this ever-changing justice and education space is our mission field in east Austin and beyond. In this new moment, the Episcopal Church is asking St. James’ to learn and to lead, to guide others in stepping into this space. Recent grants from the Episcopal Health Foundation and the Becoming Beloved Community program of The Episcopal Church signal the Church’s hope that One Human Race will help communities walk justly in a polarized world where the corrosive effects of racial bias and white privilege often go unrecognized and unaddressed. The Strategic Mission Grant for the expansion of the Freedom School Austin community challenges us not just to provide services to our neighbors, but to build missional communities, circles of families in east Austin that support and hope for each other. The Church is calling us to learn and to teach. Fortunately, this is in St. James’ DNA.
This Founders Day, let us celebrate and give thanks for the sacrificial and joyful work of our mothers and fathers in the faith who have built this special community upon love and radical hospitality, even as we look to a future filled with hope.
Rev. Eileen
