Reflections of an Urban Priest

Episcopal Churches here and there will declare Sunday an awareness day to educate attendees on gun violence. The clergy will sport new or died old orange vestments. No one actually looks good in orange so it won't be a fashionable affair. St. Mark's Church, Frankford is in the lowest portion of what might be called the lower northeast; we butt up against North Philadelphia and Kensington and the formerly sleepy little neighborhood, Junieta Park. Frankford has several nice quiet neighborhoods, but in the area that I serve most often that is not the case. Our neighborhood is anything but quiet. If the el is not rushing by, there is a hoopty barreling down Frankford Avenue, with occasionally incomprehensible, but generally fully articulated, music blaring. Why we are not wearing orange at St. Mark’s Church, Frankford on Gun Violence Awareness Sunday. There are several reasons for this and the first and maybe most obvious is that we, as a congregation, are intimately aware of gun...

This is not a carefully guarded secret. I use a 30" upright electric smoker set to 210 degrees Fahrenheit and hickory for pork. The flavors blend incredibly well. Hickory is also a flavor from the Ozark Mountains that I so love. Go to favorite meat market and buy as many pork shoulder as will fit with space on your grills and you need to serve, considering space for the smoke to circulate. Preheat smoker, again to 210. Allow Pork to achieve room temperature. Remove skin. Coat in mustard, a light dusting of ground cumin, and hot sauce. Place the pork in the smoker, adding the hickory shavings. Leave alone. I mean really, leave it alone, and wait 9-12 hours as the smoke blends with the flavors of the gradually heating pork. I check the smoker temperature several times, but I do not open the smoker. I replenish hickory shavings three times during the first 2 hours, but then not until I am pretty close to taking the pork off. When I take the pork off, I put it in t...

So often we see the cross as the core imagery of Christianity; in the Episcopal Church we often use a crest and shield as a symbol of our denomination. The executioners cross and the shield are images of imperialism, one of Rome and the other of the English crown.  I offer that the picture painted by Professor Osvaldo Vena, New Testament Professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and published at workingpreacher.com is one that truly resonates with me. The image he paints of basin and towel rest easy in my heart; the elements used by Jesus to wash the feet of those he loved should be the imagery of our denomination and not the marks of imperialism.