Equipping One Another

Dear friends,

As we journey through this season of Lent, we have been considering our sacred relationships: how we are called to interact with our neighbors. We are called to be vulnerable. We are called to trust. We are called to have compassion. And we are called to equip those around us for the work and the ministries to which God calls them.

Our English word, equip, has a French etymology. The French root of this word means to prepare a ship for a voyage. This is what we do when we equip another person: we help prepare them for their life’s voyages.

Our faith is filled with this nautical imagery. Jesus said to Peter that he would no longer cast his net for fish, but he would be a fisher of people. Even the architecture of our church underscores this mission. If you look up at the ceiling of the church, it is designed to look like an inverted hull of a ship: a wooden hull and the beams that give our ship structural integrity.

When we come to church and when we interact with other parishioners, we are called to help prepare them for the voyages they will face that week. Just like sailors provisioning a ship, we are called to help equip those around us for their journeys. In the Gospel reading last Sunday, Jesus equipped the man born blind for a great ministry by giving him the equipment for his work, by giving him sight. In the reading from 1 Samuel, we read of Samuel anointing the least expected of Jesse’s children as a public demonstration that equipped David in his journey to become king of Israel.

In our lives, we are also called to help equip those around us and to be open to the suggestions of others that equip us for the work God is preparing us to undertake. God bless you this week, as you are equipped and as you are equipping.

In Christ,

Mark+