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Welcome

Welcome to St. Alban’s Church! Every Sunday, and most days in between, people gather in this place to worship, to learn, to grow, to share the joys and struggles of our lives, and to seek God’s grace in the midst of our lives. We do not come because we have it all figured out, but because we are seeking light on the way. We come as we are and welcome one another.

On this website, you can find information about our worship, our classes for people of all ages, membership at St. Alban's, and about how we seek to make a difference in this world. We warmly encourage you to join us for a Sunday service or for some of the many other events that happen here. You belong at St. Alban’s.

Please fill out this welcome form to connect with us.

Contact us with any questions. Call (202) 363-8286 or email the church office.

 

Service Times 

Weekly In-person Sunday Service Schedule (Please note: Service times may be changed during the seasons of Christmas and Lent and during the summer. Please refer to our calendar to confirm the times.):

8 a.m. (English) in the Church
9 a.m. (English) in the Church
11:15 a.m. (English) in the Church
11:15 a.m. (Spanish) in Nourse Hall (same building as the Church)

Communion in one kind (i.e. wafers) will be offered at the main altar, although we will happily bring communion to those for whom steps are challenging. 

Weekly Live Sunday Services are live-streamed on our Youtube channel (St. Alban's DC) at 9 a.m. every Sunday, as is our Spanish service at 11:15 a.m. 

Evening Prayer Thursdays, 5:30 p.m. via Zoom, join us for a time of reflection and sharing at the close of your busy day. Contact Paul Brewster for the link. 

 

Directions

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church is located next to the Washington National Cathedral at the corner of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues in the northwest section of the District of Columbia.

From either direction on the north loop of the Capital Beltway/I-495 follow signs for Route 355/Wisconsin Ave south toward DC. St. Alban’s is located on the left just before the intersection of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW. Make a left onto Lych Gate Rd before you reach Massachusetts Ave. As you enter the drive, the church will be on your left and Satterlee Hall and the Rectory on the right. Stay on Lych Gate until it becomes Pilgrim Rd.

From any Virginia main in-bound thoroughfare (George Washington Memorial Parkway, I-395, Route 50, I-66), follow signs to Rosslyn and take the Key Bridge from Rosslyn north across the Potomac River into Georgetown. Go right on M St, left on Wisconsin Ave. St. Alban’s is located on the right just after the intersection of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW. Make a right onto Lych Gate Rd after passing Massachusetts. As you enter the drive, the church will be on your left and Satterlee Hall and the Rectory on the right. Stay on Lych Gate until it becomes Pilgrim Rd.

Parking is available on Pilgrim Road Monday-Friday after 3:30 pm and all day Saturday and Sunday. Parking is also available in the Cathedral’s underground garage for a fee Monday- Saturday and for free on Sunday.  You may also park on neighborhood streets according to DC parking signs.

What to Expect

Visiting a church for the first time can be a bit daunting. So we have tried to put together the answers to some of the questions you’re likely to have and to ensure that you find a warm welcome here. Click on the questions to learn more.)

How do you worship?

What time are services on Sunday morning?

How long do services last?

Where can I park?

Do you offer programs for children?

What should I wear?

Do you have provisions for the differently-abled?

For Your Kids

Children’s Ministry

At St. Alban’s, we believe that a child’s spiritual growth is just as important as their physical and intellectual growth. Our goal is to help children name and value the presence and love of God in their lives. We do this through a variety of means – by providing stable and consistent adult mentors, encouraging strong peer relationships, and supporting parents in their families’ faith lives at home.

Worship: This Fall, Children's Chapel meets during the first half of the 9:00 a.m. service in Nourse Hall (a spacious parish hall in the same building as the main worship space.) Kids and families join "big church" at the Peace so everyone can receive Communion together. To learn more, contact the Rev’d Emily Griffin.

Education: We've resumed our formation programs for the 2022-2023 period. Here’s everything you need to know:

  • Sunday School and Youth Group Classes are from 10:15 to 11:05 a.m.
  • Nursery, 2s & 3s, PreK to 1st Grade, 2nd to 3rd Grade, and 4th to 6th Grade all meet upstairs in Satterlee Hall. Youth classes meet downstairs in Satterlee Hall.
  • If you haven’t registered your child or teen yet, it’s not too late. Register in person at the start of class or click here

Questions? For children, contact the Rev’d Emily Griffin at . For youth, contact the Rev’d Yoimel González Hernández at .

Learn more about Children's Ministries
Youth Ministry

Four teen groups participate in formation classes at St. Alban’s on Sunday mornings. We use the nationally recognized Episcopal curriculum “Journey to Adulthood," or J2A. J2A has two guiding principles: 1) Manhood and womanhood are gifts of God; and 2) Adulthood must be earned. This is a strong program with over 50 youth participating, many of whom engage in a wide variety of ministries at St. Alban’s. Two or three adults mentor each of the groups for two years, sharing their own faith journeys and forming strong bonds of fellowship with the participants.Learn more about Youth Ministries

The Episcopal Church

As Episcopalians, we follow Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe God is active in our everyday lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.  

The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and with each other in Christ. The Church pursues its mission as it prays and worships, proclaims the gospel, and promotes justice, peace and love. The Church carries out its mission through the ministry of all of its members.

We uphold the Bible and worship with the Book of Common Prayer. We believe the Holy Scriptures are the revealed Word of God. In worship we unite ourselves with one another to acknowledge the holiness of God, to hear God's Word, to offer prayer and praise, and to celebrate the Sacraments. The Celebration of Holy Eucharist is the central act of worship in accordance with Jesus' command to His disciples. Holy Communion may be received by all baptized Christians, not only members of the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion with 70 million members in 165 countries.  The word "Episcopal" refers to government by bishops. The historic episcopate continues the work of the first apostles in the Church, guarding the faith, unity and discipline of the Church. Both men and women, including those who are married, are eligible for ordination as deacons, priests and bishops. 

We strive to love our neighbors as ourselves and respect the dignity of every person. We welcome all to find a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church.

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Serving the Lord in a Troubled Time

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11.13.16

Serving the Lord in a Troubled Time

Serving the Lord in a Troubled Time

Series: Pentecost

Speaker: The Rev. Deborah Meister

And after Jesus had finished saying these things, "the man asked Jesus , “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)

          This has been a hard week for many of us. In the wake of this election, most of the voters in this country have had to face the hard truth that about fifty percent of the people in this nation do not seem to share their values, care for their commitments, or empathize with the struggles of their daily lives.  People who voted for Hillary are appalled (rightfully appalled) at the election of a man whose campaign normalized racist, sexist, xenophobic, and authoritarian language and actions. People who voted for Donald are appalled (rightfully appalled) that no major party seems to have given significant attention to the plight of working class Americans in decades. The last few days have seen a surge of hate speech and attacks aimed at Muslims, non-whites, and GLBTQ people. They have also included protests by thousands of citizens who seem unwilling to accept the results of the election. And so we are left in a state of profound unease. Who are these, our neighbors, anyway? What does it mean to love them, if we don’t even like them? And do we really have to try?

          These questions are scandalous, and they press us right up against the central claim and scandal of our faith: that in Jesus Christ, God was extending his love, not only to the righteous, but to sinners. Think about that. Before Jesus came, Judaism rested upon a clear moral calculus: be righteous, and you shall live. And it was understood that you could be righteous: righteousness was a matter of will and of attentiveness, attentiveness to the world and to God’s law, which could be put into practice, no matter what circumstances you found yourself in. The work was difficult, but not impossible, and the path of love was clear: God’s love was given to those who loved God first.

          But Jesus changed all that, and the path has become much harder. When Jesus opened the doors of heaven to sinners, he created a world in which the imperative to love one another takes precedence even over the demands of morality. No longer do we have the option of loving those who share our values and live into them; now, we are faced with the much more difficult work of loving those who do not share our commitments, or who share them and fail. And if, this week, that does not feel like good news, that’s probably a good thing: it means that, for once, we are paying attention. We are seeing this teaching not only in terms of what it gives us (God’s love poured out upon every single man, woman, and child), but also in terms of what it asks of us. That’s what’s at the heart of today’s Gospel.

          This Gospel, of course, is the lead-in to one of Jesus’ most-beloved parables: the Good Samaritan. For all that we love it, it’s found in only one Gospel: Luke, the work of the evangelist who was most concerned with depicting God as a healer, pouring out his love upon the most broken among us. And so, when the lawyer questions Jesus, “What must we do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus challenges him to respond to his own question. And the lawyer replies, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus replies, “Do this, and you will live.” (Luke 10:25-28)

          Choosing God means choosing one another. Those are the terms God has set. Our neighbor stands between us and God, and if we wish our love to come to God, it must come there through our neighbor’s life. And when the man asks, “And who is my neighbor?”, Jesus responds with a tale of mercy: mercy shown by the outsider, the Samaritan, to the one who lies bleeding and broken on the road. The teaching is clear: neighbors are not given, but made. The neighbor is the one who chooses to help.

          That’s where the full horror of this election comes into play, I think: that we — all of us in this country — have been left to struggle with the question of how to be a neighbor to those who do not show compassion. What do we owe to those who have revealed themselves to be indifferent to our concerns? After all, there were three men who passed by the injured man in the story: a priest, a levite, and and the Samaritan. It’s easy to see what the injured man owes to the Samaritan, who helped him. But what does he owe to the priest and the levite, who did not?

          The parable would suggest, not much. After all, they walk down the road and pass by the injured man and vanish from the story. We don’t hear of them again, any more than we hear about the people who came to hear Jesus, and listened, and walked on, unchanged. Scripture is quite clear about that: there were people who refused to change their lives in response to Christ, and he allowed them to refuse. He did not call out after them. He did not continue to engage them. He just let them walk away.

          We don’t like to think about that, here in the mainline churches. We like to think about God’s love as all-embracing, and we try to emulate that love by welcoming everyone, no matter what, and by continuing that welcome even if their presence becomes harmful to our community. But boundaries are essential to a healthy community; and while it is true that God’s love is offered unconditionally to every single person and creature on this earth, accepting it demands a response: the response of a transformed life. If you come to the doors of this church with your heart broken, if you come to these pews with your life in a wreck, if you come here to struggle with your fear and your selfishness and your distrust of other people, then this community and its God are with you, no matter how often you fail and try again and fail again.  But if you come to a church — any church! — to satisfy the demands of your ego, if you come to that church to make others conform to your will, if you come to that church broken but refuse the healing of God, then you might as well stay home. It would be better for everyone, because then at least you would not have to pretend that you were open to God’s love, when the truth is, you are not. And that honest refusal of Christ may yet be your salvation.

          The parable gives us a snapshot of grace, but like any snapshot, it captures a moment in time. We do not actually know what happened to the priest or or the levite after the story’s end, any more than we know what happened to any of the real people who came and heard Jesus and turned away. It is possible that they remained indifferent, but the words of Jesus and the demands of human need have a tendency to fester in us, to demand a response, no matter how delayed it may be. I cannot tell you the number of times I have walked past a beggar and been haunted by that choice, or the number of other beggars who have received bread at my hand in their place. I cannot tell you the number of times I have heard a parable or read a teaching that meant nothing to me at the time, but that rose up in my mind, often years later, and changed the course of my life. The challenge of loving sinners is the same challenge that comes with being one: not to pretend that what is damaging is OK, and not to give up on one another too soon.

          Let me be very clear: We who follow Jesus are under no obligation to remain in relationship with the sinner who refuses to change his ways, but we are obliged to welcome him when he tries. God is equally clear about that, saying: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, …and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” (Ezek 18:23) Conversion is the key to fidelity, and it is where we find ourselves today: wondering what this situation is asking of us.

          The post-election unease, of course, is about precisely that.  Because we share a country with our neighbors, because we have been nurtured by a common heritage, we tend to assume that we have a common understanding of the fundamental values that structure our society.  We stand in the footsteps of George Washington’s fierce honesty, of Lincoln’s wisdom and courage, of King’s passion for justice, of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, who taught us to safeguard our magnificent natural heritage, of Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth and Cezar Chavez, who risked their lives for equality and for the dignity of every human being. Today, it feels as if that shared narrative has fractured, as if we are losing or have lost our national identity. To us who have embraced the gifts and demands of multicultural diversity, those values are bound up in the teachings of Christ, and it is wrenching to feel we are being asked to love neighbors who refuse to love one another, neighbors who beat up on and excoriate and wish to exclude the most vulnerable members of our community.

          But love does not mean uncritical acceptance. It means engaging with the neighbor in such a way that both of you are changed. When Rosa sat down in that bus, when Martin marched, when Lincoln led this nation into a war he deplored, when the men at the  Stonewall Inn decided they had had enough, they were acting as those who love this nation. They were setting a clear boundary for the people of this nation: thus far you shall go, but no farther. They knew that actions have consequences, and that unjust, cruel actions have consequences we do not wish to see, but may have to pay. As Lincoln reminded us, “The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ … Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'”(Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address)

          The covenant with God is clear: if we love God, we must love one another, and that love involves not only acceptance, but accountability. And when we fail in our obligations to one another (as we will), we are not released from our covenant with God. Rather, we are impelled to try again: to acknowledge the harm we have done, to act in ways that will repair the damage, to earn one another’s forgiveness and trust.

          So how do we live the righteousness of God in this time, our own? I would suggest four things: Listen. Reflect. Discuss. Act. This election and the divisions it has revealed are an urgent summons to Americans to listen to one another. And this is not listening for the sake of arguing back and winning, but listening to understand, to begin to be able to see the world through another person’s eyes, even a person with whom you do not agree. It may mean conversation or study, reading books like Hillbilly Elegy, The Unwinding, or Between the World and Me. Next, reflect on what you have heard. What are the key struggles and joys in that person’s life? Where do they intersect with or diverge from your own? What might you learn from them that would help you live your life better? What might they learn from you? Third, discuss what you have learned, both with people you agree with and with people you do not. How can you help one another to flourish? Why should that even be the goal? Finally, take action. It can be easy to read and think and listen and discuss and to feel you have responded to a situation, but these are all preliminary steps. Your neighbor’s pain is still unassuaged. Help your neighbor, either on his own terms, or by seeking new terms that will allow both of you to stand in a better, more graced place.

          Today, our nation and our beloved parish must both seek that new place: a place that will allow greater flourishing. And that is a frightening place to be. We know, you and I, that we do not know what will come next, but we do know it will come at a cost. It will come at the cost of laying down our hopes, surrendering what we had worked for together, of stepping out into the unknown, and of opening ourselves to transformation. 

     Over the last few weeks, many of you have said to me, “This is not right. We have all lost.” I feel that way, too, more than you will know.

          But we serve a God who redeems our losses, and if we do not know what will come next, we do know the One who will bring it to us. When the Hebrews had wandered forty years in the wilderness, God called Moses home. God looked at the man who had led his people with such faithfulness and told him, “you may not enter into the Promised Land.” It’s always been my least favorite story in Scripture. It seems so fundamentally unfair. But Moses did not sulk or storm or carry on. Instead, he gathered the whole people of Israel into a valley, and he positioned men on one mountain and on the other. And they read from one mountain the blessings promised in Scripture for those who honored the Covenant, and from the other, the curses reserved for those who did not, and Moses reminded the people who they were called to be, saying: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life, so that you and your children may live.” (Deut 30:19)       

          I am no Moses, but I can think of no better words to leave you with than his. Choose life, even when that is a hard thing to do. Choose life, even when that looks like losing. Choose life for your neighbor and for yourself, for in his flourishing is your own. St. Paul reminds us: “do not return evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another.” It is so easy to exact revenge. It is so easy to point at one another, to blame one another, to deny hard truths, to tear down the things or people that give another person joy. But revenge is cheap, and it does not lead to life. The only thing that leads to life is clarity, transformation, and renewed commitment: to one another, to our God, and to the love God has placed between us, come what will.

          We can choose to accept that love, or we can choose to squander it, but choose, we must. As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord (Josh 24: 15). And so I ask, as a gift to me, can we say those words together? "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."