St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Winnetka is one of the most lovingly curated public spaces I’ve ever seen. In his 11th year as vicar, after promising Bishop Jon Bruno just three years, the Rev. Gabri Ferrer has received a double portion of Feng Shui.
While everything at St. Martin’s is always in good proportion, the freshest sign is Gabri’s Chinese tea room. He showed it to me Sunday after services, where I had presided and preached, and after our delicious soft taco lunch and Q&A session with members of his congregation. Conversations with the vicar here can be 20 minutes or two hours, but one assumes, thanks to the calming appointments, that the talk tends to be as savory as the tea. Gabri said that it is considered impolite for two people to have tea ceremonially by themselves. In the photos, you will see a small hippo and snail who are always present and get the first portion each time.
Original art, selected by Gabri and his lay leaders, fills the hallways and the walls of the nave. So too at Princeton University, also thanks to Gabri. His father was Puerto Rican-born actor and director Jose Ferrer, class of 1933. When Princeton asked Gabri to help find Jose’s portraitist, he thought it appropriate that the artist also be Puerto Rican, hence his choice of Luis Alvarez Roure. In the photo block, you’ll see the artist (yellow tie) and his painting; also posing are Gabri (far right) and his siblings Rafael and Leticia.
The ministry of fine arts at St. Martin’s isn’t just paintings. Always known for its beautiful music, on Sunday, we heard music director Christian D Stendel at the organ and piano, Suzanna Giordano Gignac on violin, Shahid Yasser Osuna on flute, and folk music star Claire Holley on guitar and vocals. Devoted parish administrator Paige Deary, for two or three years my fellow Detroiter, was also my kind chaplain.
Gabri’s international superstar spouse, Debby Boone, who sometimes offers her music in church, told me she’s in rehearsals for her latest show, “A Song for You,” which she’s taking on the road soon, including to the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Oct. 30. The other big news is the launch of the St. Martin’s Salon, a musical performance ministry for neighbors and congregants, which drew 60 to its first offering, a cello concert earlier this month. This is a congregation evangelizing by reckoning pre-existing grace notes as an opportunity to make new friends. Suzanna, the violinist, is the Salon’s impresario.
I did my best to avoid losing friends while preaching on our two difficult readings. First Timothy is attributed to Paul but probably written by a late first century Pauline. Along with Second Timothy and Titus, it comprises advice for organizing churches that would last a long time, never Jesus’s nor indeed Paul’s explicit concern. Though bureaucrats at heart, its authors were right about a great many things. In part because of their work, we still have a church after all these centuries.
Our parable from Luke was about the rich man in purple consigned to Hades and seeking succor from Lazarus, the poor man outside his gate whom he had neglected. As I prayed on the parable, I realized that in my context, the closest thing to the rich man in purple was a privileged bishop with his hand out. I construed it as a case study by our Lord Jesus Christ about the effects of the searing fire of regret. “Regret over opportunities missed to love, to reach out, to call, to text, to engage, to help, to listen, to laugh, to forgive, to serve, to advocate, to sing, to dance, and to love some more,” I said.
“On the brink of retirement, I read this parable as an invitation to spend the next season of my vocation saying yes to God. Whether it’s to visit a church on a Sunday as my bishop may command, do ministry with asylum seekers stranded south of the border, or make it to a grandchild’s soccer game or piano recital, even if I have to drive for two hours or fly for five.
“For some reason, and not even because I was coming to visit today, I’ve been thinking lately about Gabri’s mother, Rosemary Clooney, and Bing Crosby singing to one another, ‘When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep, counting my blessings.’ That’s really all the rich man in purple had to do.”
