It’s Time to Update Your Dedicaton
Dear Friends,
Each year during Holy Week, clergy across the Diocese gather for the Reaffirmation of Ordination Vows—a formal liturgy in which we step back from the daily pressures of ministry to remember the promises that shaped our call. “Will you continue to nourish Christ’s people from the riches of his grace?” the bishop asks. “We will, with God’s help,” we respond. The bishop, in turn, renews vows—prompted by questions offered by both clergy and laity.
Yesterday, at the regional service held at St. Peter’s, Richmond, Bishop Gayle Harris preached a sermon that touched many of us deeply. She named the challenges of walking through Holy Week in times like these—when fear is pervasive, when division and exhaustion weigh heavily, when it’s easy to retreat or feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of what we’re called to do. And then, near the end of her sermon, she offered us a word from Howard Thurman—a meditation on the meaning of dedication.
Thurman reminds us that amid all of life’s entanglements and pressures, “there comes a moment when we are in utter revolt… something deep within us becomes tired, weary, exhausted, and finally, outraged.” But the way forward is not in withdrawal or despair. It is in renewing our offering of self to God. In Thurman’s words: “If I make of my life an offering and a dedication to God, then this dedication will include all of my entanglements and involvements… and miraculously I am free at my center.” He continues: “It is well, again and again, to re-establish my dedication, to make repeatedly an offering of my life. I must keep my dedication up to date with my experiencing.”*
Bishop Harris invited us to see this moment not just as a renewal of vows, but as a time—as Thurman suggests—to “update our dedication.” I want to extend that invitation to you, as well.
As we move through the days of Holy week, we walk with Jesus, as a community of faith, through betrayal, suffering, death—and yes, resurrection. That journey is not about skipping to the joy of Easter morning. It is about offering our whole selves, just as we are, into the arms of the One who holds it all. And in doing so, chances are we’ll discover something in us made new.
In Christ,
Amelie+
*Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953), 45-46.
