‘Holy Ground” is the new name of the Episcopal-Lutheran young adult and

campus ministry in Long Beach, sponsored jointly by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church and led by the Rev. Sean Lanigan.

“We chose the name Holy Ground to rep-resent our desire to intentionally create sacred space for encounter with God, neighbor, and our deepest selves,” said Lanigan in a letter announcing the change, which took place on the first birthday of the ministry. The program formerly was known as “Beach Progressives.”

In August, Holy Ground launched a Sunday evening worship service, featuring “relaxed li-turgical worship with a contemporary beat,” at 5 p.m. in the chapel at Our Saviour Luther-an Church, located at 370 Junipero Avenue

in Long Beach. Holy Ground also continues to gather every Wednesday evening for study, formation, prayer, and fellowship. “We also plan to add additional gatherings and oppor-tunities for community outreach in the near future,” Lanigan said. “Holy Ground partici-pants now come not only from Long Beach, but also from San Pedro, Downey, Hunting-ton Beach, and Highland Park — please con-tinue to help us spread the word!

Holy Ground also has an active presence at Cal State Long Beach, and will focus this year on the CSULB Interfaith Project. “Last year, interfaith events were our most popular offerings, so we’ve decided to orient all of our energy in that direction,” Lanigan notes.

For more about Holy Ground, visit its website at www.holygroundlb.org. ?

WWW.EPISCOPALNEWS.COM SERVING THE SIX-COUNTY DIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES OCTOBER 19, 2014

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Students, young adults find ‘Holy Ground’ with Episcopal-Lutheran ministry in Long Beach

Bishop’s Guild marks 100th yearThe Bishop’s Guild, which has aided the bishops of Los Angeles for a century, and has for many years offered financial and spiritual support to seminarians of the diocese, held its annual garden party in 102-degree weather on Oct. 4 at the Pasadena home of Bishop Jon and Mary Bruno. Above: About 80 guests had opportunities to bid on artwork created by children attending Episcopal schools in the diocese. At right: Donna Keller, Bishop’s Guild president, watches as Bishop Bruno addresses attendees. Keller presented Bruno with a $6,000 check for seminarian scholarships. Some 15 seminarians attended the event to thank the guild for its support.

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L.A. Bach Festival begins new life at All Saints, Pasadena

The Los Angeles Bach Festival, the oldest fine arts cultural event in Los Angeles, is

reborn this year at All Saints Church, Pasade-na, under the direction of James Walker, All Saints’ music director and Bach Festival ar-tistic director. The festival, founded in 1934, was previously held at the First Congrega-tional Church of Los Angeles.

This year’s festival will offer three concerts:

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, 4 p.m.Organ Recital by Szymon Grab

Grab will perform Bach’s Concerto in D Minor (transcribed by Bach after a concerto grosso by Vivaldi), Trio Sonata in G Major, chorale preludes, the cherished Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and — arguably Bach’s crown jewel of the major organ works — Pre-lude and Fugue in E minor (The “Wedge”).

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 10 a.m.Young Person’s Concert

This event is designed for public school children, who will be bused to the church.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26, 4 p.m.Choral/Orchestra Concert

The program will feature Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor, and the Magnificat. The majestic D Major suite is scored for strings, trumpets, oboes and timpani. The B minor suite is a “concerto” for solo flute and strings, com-prised of several virtuosic dance movements. For the second half of the program, the festi-val chorus and soloists will join the orchestra for the Magnificat, one of the great monu-ments in all choral-orchestral literature.

Tickets for the October 19 and October 26 concerts are on sale through the festi-val’s website at labachfest.org. Parking will be available at the church’s north lot and on the street; the Plaza las Fuentes will have parking available for $5.

For more information, email to mhayes@allsaints-pas.org. All Saints Church is located at 132 N. Euclid Avenue, Pasadena, 91101 (across Euclid from Pasadena City Hall). ?

800-366-1536ext. 254

www.efcula.org

Did you know?The Diocese of Los Angeles has a full-service Credit Union.

The Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union has been in existence since 1994, and any Episcopalian in the diocese can join.

ECFCU offers a full line of financial products:Saving and Checking AccountsFree Income Tax Preparation Holiday Club AccountsDebit/ATM CardsIndividual Credit Counseling24-Hour Telephone InformationOn-Line Banking

Bill PayAuto LoansSignature LoansBusiness LoansWire TransfersFinancial Education

With the question put to Jesus in today’s lesson from Matthew’s Gospel (the

purpose of which was to entrap him, we are told!) comes the huge risk to Jesus of either alienating the crowds or publicly proclaiming a treasonous point of view. But the question phrased Is it lawful? is meant to test Jesus’ re-ligious acumen as well. In the Torah, it is for-bidden to sell the land of Israel to outsiders. It rightly belongs only to God, states Leviti-cus (25:23). Thus, from a strictly literal view, the Emperor, as an illegal usurper of God’s holy land, was clearly not entitled to collect taxes or tribute from God’s people.

So when Jesus says, Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax — and they immediate-ly produce such a coin — Jesus has already trapped them. He shows them that they have already bought into the political regime by using Roman coinage. The excruciating pre-cision of Pharisaic obedience to the Torah would forbid the observant from handling Roman coinage, much less dealing with it.

But not only that. As cleverly demonstrat-ed by Jesus in the continuing discussion, the emperor’s likeness is stamped on these coins — a violation of the law against graven im-ages. He puts his questioners on the defen-sive (one of the traditional rabbinic response techniques) and asks them to identify the likeness on the coin. Jesus then declares that they should give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.

If we think that this passage provides us a basis upon which to argue any aspect of the separation of church and state, we’re wrong. We’re wrong because, like Jesus, we’re always left with that struggle in how we live out our lives. The relationship between church and

state was a very real issue in first-century Palestine, and it is today. But Jesus was not concerned with politics — he was con-cerned with justice. He didn’t want to bring the Kingdom of God into Roman-ruled Pal-estine. He wanted Roman-ruled Palestine to help him bring in the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ vision was not just another version of po-litical and cultural organization: supplanting the Roman state with a Jewish state, or even a United States. Jesus weaned people away from the spirit of power and awakened them to the power of the Spirit. Jesus wanted to wake people up to the possibility that there was so much more available to them: more love, more joy, more justice, more power — through a right relationship with God and with neighbor. Give to God what is God’s does not imply a separation of church and state; it is a radical mandate for a re-evaluated life and renewed creation!

The truth is that the church itself is in dan-ger of perceiving Jesus as the Pharisees did. Like the Pharisees, we sometimes think that Jesus had some kind of hidden agenda that we should be able to co-opt for our own ben-efit. We’ve tried to make Jesus into a liberal or a conservative, a Marxist or a capitalist, a Baptist or an Episcopalian, a rebel or a dreamer. But Jesus was none of these. What Jesus was, and is, is the living Son of God, the Christ, the Savior — and that is a category that lies far beyond the scope of political cor-rectness. Jesus came and lived and struggled and loved and ministered and died and rose again to show us a way of life beyond the strictures of both institutional politics and institutional religion. That Way, that Truth, that Life, is Jesus himself. ?

Beyond church and stateBy Mary D. Glasspool

— SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 — 3 p.m. Celebration of a New MinistrySt. Luke’s Episcopal Church122 S. California Avenue, MonroviaReservations: info@saintlukesmonrovia.org

4 p.m. Jazz Vespers St. George’s Episcopal Church 23802 Avenida de la Carlota, Laguna Hills Information: 949.837.4530

4 p.m. The Encore Saxophone QuartetSt. Gregory’s Episcopal Church6201 E. Willow Street, Long Beach 90815Information: 562.420.1311

4 p.m. ‘Welcome Home,’ a musical revueSt. Augustine’s Episcopal Church1227 4th Street, Santa Monica 90401Information: 310.395.0977

6 p.m. Diocesan AIDS Mass Church of the Holy Nativity 6700 W. 83rd Street, Westchester (Los Angeles) Information: 310.570.4777

7 p.m. Concert Reading: Girl of the Limberlost St. Mark’s Episcopal Church 1020 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale Information: 213.617.8109

7:30 p.m. In Celebration of a New PianoSt. Bede’s Episcopal Church 3590 Grand View Blvd., Los Angeles Information: 310.391.5522

— SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 —7 a.m. Richard Selje ‘Ride 4 Recovery’ The Gooden Center 95 N. Madison Avenue, PasadenaInformation: 626.356.0078, ext. 204 Registration: bit.ly/1yDOdKA

10 a.m. - 2 p.m. LGBT Summit All Saints Episcopal Church 132 N. Euclid Avenue, Pasadena Information/Reservations: GALAS@allsaints-pas.org

More listings may be found at www.ladiocese.org.(Calendars >Arts | Liturgy | Music)

A R O U N D T H E D I O C E S E

Episcopal News WeeklyEditor: Janet Kawamoto, editor@ladiocese.org Correspondent: The Rev. Canon Pat McCaughan, revpatmccaughan@aol.comArt Director: Molly Ruttan-Moffat, www.mollyruttan.comAdvertising: Bob Williams, media@ladiocese.org

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