Much has been afoot of late at St. Aidan’s, especially as the fall approaches, bringing the new school and program year. This coming Sunday we’ll celebrate the feast of our patron, Aidan of Lindisfarne. We’ll celebrate at both the 8 and 10am services. Preparations are underway, including the return of Alison Wood’s beautiful creation season wreath, this year hung on the back wall, framing our St. Aidan icon. We’ll also have new worship booklet covering the next several weeks as Aidan’s Feast launches us into a season of honoring Creation in all its beauty, complexity, and vulnerability. 
 
This past Sunday we were already stepping into this new time as we concluded our service with a “blessing of the backpacks.” There was quite a pile of backpacks and other bags in front of our altar as we celebrated the turning of the school/program year. In our family our kids are reconnecting with friends who were away over the summer, adapting to new classes, new teachers, new learning. It’s a momentous time for many, both exhilarating and stressful. We all need God’s blessing as we step into the fray. 
 
In the news we also continue to hear of momentous events in our nation and the world, many of them alarming and outright dangerous. The fires in the Amazonian rainforests continue to wreck havoc. Hurricane Dorian is approaching Florida, with Puerto Rico thankfully spared from a direct hit. The Trump administration just announced a relaxing of rules about the regulation of methane gas by energy companies, even as some of those companies don’t necessarily welcome this shift. The new regulations are not yet final, and indeed will likely be challenged in court. 
 
This week also included an anniversary that displays what the Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas called the “warring soul of our nation” in a powerful piece in Religion News Service. Yesterday marked the fifty-sixth anniversary of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. And on that same date eight years earlier, fourteen-year-old Emmet Till was brutally murdered by white supremacists for purportedly “flirting” with a twenty-two-year-old white woman.As Dr. Douglas wrote, “the resurgence of deadly, bigoted violence in this country, recently seen in El Paso, Texas, and in Gilroy, California… reflects the hard truth of this nation’s origins and the ugly unresolved dilemma of its very soul. The notion of innate Anglo-Saxon white superiority can erupt with little provocation, especially when it comes from the highest offices of the land.” We will begin discussing Dr. Douglas’ book, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God this Wednesday, September 3^rd after our 6pm Communion.
 
In the midst of the week’s events and anniversaries, I was struck by Lent-feeling gospel passage assigned for today, Mark’s version of the scene at Gethsemane. Jesus says to Peter, James, and John, “Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” I notice several things about this charge. First, it can be so tempting to go to sleep when things are overwhelming. Jesus means it literally in this scene, but it also carries the deeper meaning of not closing our eyes in the midst of adversity. Second, I notice the call to pray. Pray, indeed, without ceasing. Finally, I’m struck by the object of that prayer: not to come into the time of trial. This phrase closely echoes the Jesus prayer whose Lukan version we heard on a Sunday morning just a few weeks ago. The word word “time of trial,” peirasmos, features in both passages. Sometimes it is translated “temptation.” It refers to being tried, tested. It can also mean adversity, or even enticement to sin. Of course, the disciples did not stay awake. They fell asleep more than once, and they did come into the time of trial, into adversity. They fell seriously short. And so do we— I know I certainly do. 
 
It feels to me that we are very much in “the time of trial.” It feels to me like the charge to keep awake and to pray that we not succumb to that trial is very relevant. 
 
Yet, another striking aspect of today’s assigned gospel passage is the hope that cannot be extinguished by adversity. Prior to their arrival at Gethsemane, before his pointed words about staying awake, Jesus made it clear that he knew full well the disciples wouldn’t stay with him (Mk 14:27). They didn’t want to believe it, but he knew. His message was that after this, on the other side of all the peirasmoi, “after I am raised up I will go before you to Galilee.” The phrase “after I am raised up” comes across almost like an afterthought in this sentence—resurrection isn’t his main point here. Going before them is. The trials they were going through were horrific. They were worth praying not to have to endure. They were ordeals to stay awake through. AND…even on the other side of the horror, Jesus wanted them to know he would still lead them forward. No trial could contain him. No instrument of death could have the final word. He spoke this to the disciples in the midst of the storm, when they could barely take in his words. He told them the truth, even when they didn’t want to hear it, not to undermine their determination in the here and now but to ultimately bolster their hope, to keep them going even if and when they would discover that they had fallen short.
 
So, my friends, here we are in a time of global, national and regional trial. Here we are struggling not to be overcome by all that is happening. Jesus’ words to his disciples are very much spoken to us as well. We are called to stay awake. And we are called to pray not to succumb to adversity even as we are surrounded by it. We continue to be in all of this, amid all of our varying circumstances, together. And God is with us, leading us through it.