Letter from Amy: October 29, 2025
- Amy Rowe
- Oct 29
- 4 min read
Dear friends,
On Saturday, I wrote you a letter (emailed directly to your inbox) with some reflections on the recent, heartbreaking news about the Anglican Church in North America. If you didn’t receive that letter, please let me know; I’m happy to send it along. I invite you to continue to pray for all those who have experienced harm in the church, and for justice, repentance, healing, and renewal in the leadership and structures of our church.
***
On Sunday night, I worshiped with Holy Comforter in Hyattsville for our 10th (!) monthly service. As usual, we tried a few new things in the liturgy (my favorite: praying the Collect for Purity and the Psalm in both Spanish and English, a gesture of hospitality to the church’s Latino neighbors). And as usual, the worship was marked with a scrappy reverence; the sounds of children, occasional flubs and laughs, lots of good-natured adaptation along the way. And as usual, we had a few visitors.
While I was listening to Katie preach (her sermon was, as the kids say, fire), a thought began to form in my mind. I thought: I have no idea what our visitors think about the music, the liturgy, the preaching, the female priests, the presence of children, or anything else. But I feel pretty certain that anyone visiting this church will think that these people are really serious about becoming holy.
By holy I don’t mean holier-than-thou or self-righteous or flashy external signs of Christian zeal. I mean holiness in the way Jesus articulates it, when a rich young man asks what he must do. “Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’” (Mark 10:21) Holiness is a single-minded desire for treasure in heaven, a desire that moves us to give our lives away and follow Jesus.
And I mean holiness in the way Paul articulates it in a letter to the Colossian church: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:12-14) Holiness is a lived-out love for God and others, made visible in relationships marked with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forgiveness.
God is holy, and being in his presence stirs a desire in us to become holy, too. This holiness is mostly expressed in the ordinary stuff of our lives. That’s the type of holiness I experienced at Holy Comforter on Sunday, and it was beautiful.
But sometimes the church looks . . . ugly. That is painfully obvious in the news of the past week; in the countless books, podcasts, and documentaries about church failures; and in the stories and wounds that many of you carry.
What do we make of this ugliness? Of this scandalous lack of holiness in Christ's one, holy, catholic, apostolic church?
Without minimizing the pain or rushing to quick answers, I want to offer a few reflections:
The church is beautiful and holy because it is the body of Jesus Christ, who is beautiful and holy. But this is a heavenly, yet-to-be-revealed beauty. The earthly reality is often ugly: broken, sinful, corrupt human beings and systems. Jesus' incarnation shows us that the holiness of God chooses to inhabit human weakness all the way to death, and to resurrect us (his redeemed people, the church) to new and beautiful life in him.
Jesus told us that the wheat and the weeds will grow up together in the church (Matthew 13:24-30). We might be discouraged by the presence of the weeds, by how unkempt our field looks to a watching world, by the threat of encroachment. But God is not discouraged, and God is not surprised. God is patient. One day he will harvest the field, and he will separate wheat from weeds with perfect justice, wisdom, and compassion. In the meantime, we labor in his field, holding fast to the promise of Psalm 126 that those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy.
The wisdom of God is foolishness to people (1 Cor 1:25, 27), and I think there’s a special kind of divine foolishness to the church. Why in the world did God choose this institution as his chosen means of redeeming the world? I don’t know, but in God’s unsearchable wisdom, he has. And I believe, help my unbelief, that at the end of all things we will behold the glory of this mystery made known called the church, and we'll get it. (I also believe we will laugh! A deep, cathartic, teary-eyed, joyful laugh as we finally see the cosmic story unveiled. Again from Psalm 126, we will enter eternity with mouths filled with laughter and tongues with shouts of joy.)
This Sunday is All Saints Sunday, the day we remember our earthly participation in the heavenly church, the ordinary saints who have died and are now forever praising God around his throne in heaven. It’s a “thin” Sunday, when the barrier between heaven and earth feels especially porous. It’s also a Sunday that gives voice to our grief for all those who are no longer with us. And it's a Sunday that calls us to holiness. I love it, and I’m grateful to celebrate it with you.
With love,
Amy
p.s. My friend and clergy colleague Peter Frank shared this reflection on the ACNA, which I appreciated and commend to your reading for those interested in following denominational news.
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