Rhett: 0:00
As an ordained person. If I understand my vocation correctly, it’s the vocation that Jesus shows us in the Gospels. It’s a ministry of empowerment, presence to show up, to empower God’s people to recognize that God has blessed all of us with gifts so that, as Paul says in Ephesians, we can all be gathered up into this rich ministry, this rich revelation that God has revealed in Jesus Christ.
Melissa: 0:40
Hey everyone, I’m Melissa Rau and this is For People with Bishop Rob Wright. Thanks for tuning in for this year’s Summer Shorts, where we’ll be having conversations with guests from across the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, who prepared short devotions on behalf of Bishop Rob’s For Faith devotion sent out every Friday this week. We’re joined by the Reverend Rhett Solomon, Associate Rector from Holy Trinity Parish in Decatur, Georgia. Welcome, Rhett, why don’t you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you’re about?
Rhett: 1:14
Well, I’m a priest, as you’ve already said. I think the best thing that folks could know about me is I’m also a dad of two lovely daughters who even now is on vacation with them. I’ve been enjoying them and playing games, Legos, movie nights, popcorn, swimming, all the other things. But I’m a priest and a dad. I love God and I love people. Oh, that’s great, and I’m enjoying the heck out of this vocation.
Melissa: 1:41
That’s fabulous. How long have you been with Trinity? Yeah, how long have you been with Trinity?
Rhett: 1:46
I have been at Holy Trinity Parish three years on July 15th and this year I’m celebrating what is it? 21 years in ministry, because I came to the Episcopal Church from the Baptist Church. I was licensed, ordained a Baptist minister and then I co-passed the non-denominational church for a few years before I was received into the Episcopal church in 2011.
Melissa: 2:11
Well, excellent, I’m super glad you’re joining us. So today you prepared a devotion based off of Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 3 to 14. So I’m just curious. You called it Signed Sealed verses 3 to 14. So I’m just curious, you called it signed, sealed, delivered. And I love that, because now I’ve got that song over and over and over in my head. Rhett, why don’t you share just a little bit about where you went with this? What drove you to choose this particular passage and your message?
Rhett: 2:41
Well, I think what grabbed me from the first is that Paul opens up by saying God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing, and then goes on to enumerate the myriad ways in which God has shown up and continues to show up for us.
Rhett: 2:57
And it reminded me of that old phrase that we inherited from the church fathers and mothers for us how God has been for us, is for us and will always be for us. And I’m one who is an associative thinker, and as I’m thinking about all these wonderful ways in which God has revealed God’s self to us, I’m like gosh. He signed this new covenant for us and established it for us in the blood of Jesus. He has sealed that covenant in the person of Jesus on the cross with the Holy Spirit, and in so doing, he’s delivered us from every bond that has separated us from God, from Jesus, from the Holy Spirit and from one another. So I was like OK, all right, stevie, I hear you. And what that just fired in me was here is God saying sign, seal, delivered, I’m yours, so that we, having received these blessings, having been chosen from the foundation of the world, having been redeemed through the blood of Jesus, having been given the Holy Spirit to discern God’s will for us in this time. For all time can say that back to God.
Melissa: 4:10
Amen, amen, amen. So tell me, I’m just curious about that lived reality then for you, how does one live fully into a signed, sealed and delivered type of way of being?
Rhett: 4:23
mind-sealed-and-delivered type of way of being.
Rhett: 4:33
Well, I think to understand that mind and body and spirit are one and that the spiritual blessings that Paul is enumerating are very real and present for us Prayer, faith, this community that we’ve received by grace, the common prayer that binds us, not a common theology, and to really lean into all these things.
Rhett: 4:49
So when we say we’re Christians, we’re followers of Jesus, and we hold fast to that baptismal covenant which says, okay, come together in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship in the breaking of bread and the prayers, that means we’re going to show up, that we have committed and surrendered to this lived reality that God has blessed us with in Jesus Christ, that I am a member of Christ’s body and that I can’t be who I’m called to be alone, that I’ve got to link up with other believers, link up with other human beings who may not be of the faith, and really take this thing by the horns. So I wake up, I pray every day, I meditate and I’m vulnerable. I recognize that, in as much as I do all these things, I can’t be the priest, let alone the father or friend or human being I’m called to be, unless I determine to stay connected to.
Rhett: 5:49
God and to God’s people.
Melissa: 5:51
Yeah, I think that’s a big one. Recently I heard a quote, and I don’t know if this is a Thomas Merton quote or if it’s a riff off of a Merton quote. I’m doing a spiritual direction course and I heard the phrase you alone can become yourself, but you cannot become yourself alone. Isn’t that profoundly good?
Rhett: 6:16
It is profoundly good and it helps that I do believe it is a Merton quote. His quotes tend to be profoundly good because they dig right down deep to the center of our being and in doing that they break open this revelation that, if we are aware and sensitive to it, really frames a godly, faithful, righteous perspective.
Melissa: 6:39
So can we talk a little bit more about connections, specifically, especially in a time where I think the Surgeon General came out with a report just a couple of years ago talking about the epidemic of loneliness? How do we maintain connection in loneliness in a world that is so connected via social media? But maybe that’s a bit, I don’t know, maybe it’s shallow. We’ve got a lot of people walking around feeling lonely.
Rhett: 7:06
Well, I think it has to do with prioritizing presence, real presence. I think one of the blessings of the pandemic is it reminded us, among other things, how starved we are for genuine connection. And one of the blessings this side I can’t say post-pandemic because in so many ways we’re still reeling from it, but this side of the biggest parts of it we are rejoicing in what it means to come together, in the simple things, like I’ll take my parish, for instance. I talk with my rector, greg Talon, all the time about the renewed joy we are finding in just singing together as a congregation, and I think it comes from prioritizing that. And by prioritizing I mean increasing the frequency that we are together, and I’m not just talking about as people of faith, you know, and fellowship opportunities, but with our family, with our friends.
Rhett: 8:16
You know, these last few days have been hot, to be sure, but, you know, let’s go play tennis, let’s go swim, let’s have a picnic, let’s take a hike early in the morning, so we don’t dehydrate ourselves, to be sure, but taking advantage of that blessing, because that’s the other thing. Every spiritual blessing that Paul is talking about is not just, you know, the awareness of the deep spiritual treasures that God has blessed us with, but this keen discernment that in one another God has given us gifts, gifts that we scarcely know the real value of. And so, as we covenant to show up to each other, I think we discover the kernel, the seed that, when we sow, it will bear the fruit of reconciliation that will save us from ourselves, especially in this time when the cultural and racial, and political and ethnic and other divides are turning into these really depressing cascades in our country and around the world.
Melissa: 9:39
Yeah you know, it reminds me of an idea that came to me. It’s not mine, I’m sure it’s nothing prophetic, but I noticed that there seems to be kind of a disconnect, or in many cultures or settings there is less emphasis on communal discernment for people’s gifts. You know, I think we do that really well in the church for people’s gifts. I think we do that really well in the church for people who may or may not be discerning a call to ordain ministry. And yet you were talking about connectivity and showing up to one another, and I’m curious what your thoughts might be about in this new day and age, in how we are being, how we might better help one another out, notice and then nurture some of the naturally born gifts that we’ve been given.
Rhett: 10:28
Yeah, I think and Bishop Wright is big on this we see it in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta with this renewed focus on lay ministry and commissioning lay ministers, and I think that stemmed from the fact that, if we understand our Book of Common Prayer correctly, there are four orders of ministry Laity, bishops, priests and deacons. In that order that the supreme, the sublime order of ministry is the laity, and we understand that we are all ministers. It’s coming from Luther’s notion of the priesthood of all believers. If we understand that and, as an ordained person, if I understand my vocation correctly, it’s the vocation that Jesus shows us in the Gospels.
Rhett: 11:15
It’s a ministry of empowerment, presence to show up, to empower God’s people, to recognize that God has blessed all of us with gifts that ought to be brought to bear in ministry, in our lives, in our communities, in our states, in our nation, around the world, for each other, so that, as Paul says in Ephesians, we can all be gathered up into this rich ministry, this rich revelation that God has revealed in Jesus Christ.
Rhett: 11:44
That God has revealed in Jesus Christ so understanding that, preaching that, teaching that, helping to form, that being formed by that reality. That, melissa, as you are, and I tell all of the folk in my parish you are a gifted person, fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, blessed with gifts that I don’t have, so that this rich panoply that God has created can just shine forth and, as Bishop Wright also says, testify to the celebrity of God. That God’s richness comes to the fore in you, in me, uniquely as each snowflake that falls from the sky is unique and not duplicated, so are we, and to the degree that we remember that, that we’re around people who never let us forget that the gifts that God has given us can come to the fore, can bless others and transform us, which, to my mind, are what gifts are supposed to do.
Melissa: 12:48
Yeah, I agree. Sometimes I feel like some people want to just go uncover their gifts all by themselves in the corner. You’re shaking your head, so why don’t you share a little bit about what you’re thinking?
Rhett: 13:03
We are a city set on a hill. Our light cannot, should not ever be hid, and one of the things that Jesus shows us in the ministry that he models in the Gospels is we can’t do that alone. We can’t do that alone, just like a candle doesn’t light itself, enlighten itself. Our gifts, our gifts should not, cannot and have not ever been discovered alone. We are at our best, and I think this is one of the riches of the Episcopal church. Other denominations show this to be sure, but I’m biased.
Rhett: 13:45
We’re at our best when we do things as a community, when we worship together, when we serve together, when we protest together, when we discern together, when we pray together, when we believe together and, yes, even when we say gosh. I’m feeling this nudge in this direction. Can you pray with me and help me discern if I’m hearing the Holy Spirit, righteously, faithfully, graciously, you know? Howard Thurman says it too. It’s just like that’s one of the ways that we listen for and find the sound of the genuine in ourselves and in one another, and I think that we’re at our best when we understand that for this, yes, for this God has created each and every one of us.
Melissa: 14:27
I love that, rhett. Thank you so much. Bishop Wright will often ask some of his guests if they have a particular favorite person of the Bible, a favorite verse or something that you know. What is your go-to? What’s your favorite thing?
Rhett: 14:46
What’s your favorite thing? I’ll give you two Person and scripture. You know this is probably. You know, everybody says this, but David is my favorite person. Why? Because David was far from perfect.
Melissa: 15:02
He’s so flawed, so flawed.
Rhett: 15:04
So flawed and it just gives me hope, as a supremely flawed individual, that if, through it all the ups, the downs, the zeniths, the nadirs, my triumphs, my defeats, my blindness, my discernment, through it all, if I covenant to just hold fast to God, God will always show God’s self to be faithful, trustworthy and true.
Rhett: 15:30
My provider my provision, the one who knows me even better than I know myself David, A person’s scripture. It’s 1 John. We do not know what we shall be, but we know this that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. I go back to that each and every day that I want to give up, I’m tired, I’m exhausted. We don’t know what we shall be, but God knows, and that if we hold fast to God, the Christ that will be revealed in us will show us that, as Barack Obama said years ago and he borrowed this from Alice Walker we are the ones we have been waiting for in Christ. Now, Not in and of ourselves, but in Christ, the one who shows us who we have always been called to be, as Paul says in Ephesians, from the foundations of the world.
Melissa: 16:36
Everyone, the Reverend Rhett Solomon, thank you so much for joining us, thank you for your wisdom and especially thank you for Signed, sealed, delivered.
Rhett: 16:44
Thank you, melissa, and thank you and Bishop Rob for having me this morning you bet.
Melissa: 16:51
Thank you. And listeners, thank you for listening and tuning in to For People. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright. Please subscribe, leave a review and we’ll be back with you next week.
