Dcn Susan Erickson

Dear Siblings in Christ,

St Augustine famously wrote that “our heart is restless until it rests” in God. I can certainly confess to a restless heart, one that has expressed itself in a lifetime of geographic moves:  from West Virginia, to New York City, to Connecticut, to Philadelphia, to Wisconsin, to Wyoming, to Tucson and also San Francisco, with sojourns in Germany and France.

In today’s Lectionary reading from I Samuel, the Israelites attempt to co-opt God into their own restless and wandering ways. Hophni and Phinehas, the faithless sons of the priest Eli, bring the ark of the covenant to the battlefield in hopes of defeating the Philistines. At first it seems as if they will be successful, but the Philistines prevail again, killing thousands, including Hophni and Phinehas, and stealing the ark.

But the Philistines misunderstand the power of the one true God, the Creator of all that is:  they think it resides in the ark, that it is akin to their idol Dagon. When they place the ark in Dagon’s temple, the idol falls over and shatters. Fear-struck, the Philistines treat the ark like a hot potato, transferring it from one village to the next, with disastrous results. Finally, they return it to Israel.

Yet I think there can also be something like a Spirit-driven restlessness.

Today the Episcopal Church remembers Isabel Florence Hapgood, who died on this day in 1929. A lifelong and faithful Episcopalian, Hapgood is remembered as a gifted translator of Russian literature but also of the rites of the Russian Orthodox Church, for which she had a great love. Hapgood traveled frequently to Russia and won the trust and admiration of the Russian Orthodox bishops in North America, who blessed her efforts to translate the Russian Orthodox liturgy into English.

Hapgood reminds me of another person the Episcopal Church will commemorate on October 14:  Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (1831-1906). Born to a Jewish family in Lithuania, Schereschewsky became convinced that Jesus was truly the Messiah of the Scriptures. After study in Germany he emigrated to the United States and became first a Baptist, then a Presbyterian, and finally an Episcopalian, completing his studies at General Theological Seminary. Eventually he became the Bishop of Shanghai and translated the Bible into Mandarin and later into Japanese, despite being paralyzed in the later years of his life. He died in Tokyo.

Hapgood and Schereschewsky traveled between countries and languages, religious faiths and liturgies. They were restless wanderers toward and for God, rather than away from God.

Whether we are solidly rooted or wanderers, may we never cease to look for Christ in the people who surround us at home, or the ones we encounter in our travels. And may we know that both in quiet and in commotion our true rest is in God.

Faithfully,

—Dcn Susan