Today in Mass (a glorious day replete with the stunning Vierne Kyrie, Litany in Procession, Comfortable Words, Prayer of Humble Access, and more) we read the Exhortation on page 316 of the Book of Common Prayer.  

For those not familiar, it is a wonderful articulation of the basics of Christian living and Anglican doctrine.  I would encourage any parish to use it every once in a while, especially in Lent, as the lead-in to Confession.  I reprint it below without much additional comment as I think it speaks quite well for itself and I simply want to bring it to the attention of those who may not have encountered it before.

For those looking for a short exposition on Anglican Eucharistic theology, there are far worse places to begin than with the Exhortation.  It has been part of our Prayer Books since 1549 and encouraged careful and thoughtful preparation to receive the Sacrament.  It was to be read the Sunday before Communions were to be offered so that people had ample time to pray, reflect, confess, and prepare to receive Christ at the Altar.  Later, in the ’28 Prayer Book, it was designated that it be read on First Advent, First Lent, and Trinity Sunday.

In its earlier 1549 form, it included the rather more dire warning that those not in a state of charity with the world and fellow man should not come to receive unless “the Devil enter into him  as he did into Judas, to fulfill in him all iniquity, and to bring him to destruction, both of body and soul.” The 1979 Exhortation, while less colorful in some ways, is no less powerful.  Its tone is deeply pastoral and contains within it words of grace, pardon, reconciliation, hope, and forgiveness.

In a day of drive-by encounters, it is a powerful reminder of the dignity of this Sacrament and, moreover, of the dignity of our union with Christ which we should treat with the utmost reverence, care, and honesty.

Again, I commend it for any Christian to read and ponder this Lent.

An Exhortation

This Exhortation may be used, in whole or in part, either during the Liturgy or at other times. In the absence of a deacon or priest, this Exhortation may be read by a lay person. The people stand or sit.

Beloved in the Lord: Our Savior Christ, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood as a sign and pledge of his love, for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of his death, and for a spiritual sharing in his risen life. For in these holy Mysteries we are made one with Christ, and Christ with us; we are made one body in him, and members one of another.

Having in mind, therefore, his great love for us, and in obedience to his command, his Church renders to Almighty God our heavenly Father never-ending thanks for the creation of the world, for his continual providence over us, for his love for all mankind, and for the redemption of the world by our Savior Christ, who took upon himself our flesh, and humbled himself even to death on the cross, that he might make us the children of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, and exalt us to everlasting life.

But if we are to share rightly in the celebration of those holy Mysteries, and be nourished by that spiritual Food, we must remember the dignity of that holy Sacrament. I therefore call upon you to consider how Saint Paul exhorts all persons to prepare themselves carefully before eating of that Bread and drinking of that Cup.

For, as the benefit is great, if with penitent hearts and living faith we receive the holy Sacrament, so is the danger great, if we receive it improperly, not recognizing the Lord’s Body. Judge yourselves, therefore, lest you be judged by the Lord.

Examine your lives and conduct by the rule of God’s commandments, that you may perceive wherein you have offended in what you have done or left undone, whether in thought, word, or deed. And acknowledge your sins before Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life, being ready to make restitution for all injuries and wrongs done by you to others; and also being ready to forgive those who have offended you, in order that you yourselves may be forgiven. And then, being reconciled with one another, come to the banquet of that most heavenly Food.

And if, in your preparation, you need help and counsel, then go and open your grief to a discreet and understanding priest, and confess your sins, that you may receive the benefit of absolution, and spiritual counsel and advice; to the removal of scruple and doubt, the assurance of pardon, and the strengthening of your faith.

To Christ our Lord, who loves us, and washed us in his own blood, and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory in the Church evermore. Through him let us offer continually the sacrifice of praise, which is our bounden duty and service, and with faith in him, come boldly before the throne of grace [and humbly confess our sins to Almighty God].

_________________

My writing will taper off a bit in the coming weeks as I have some other projects to which I need to devote serious energy.  I look forward to writing more soon.

Robert+

Recently, I have talked with those considering calls to the priesthood who were turned away because they also happened to have a call to an academic vocation as well. They were told that they were too academic to pursue a call to priestly ministry and that they would have to choose either a vocation to the priesthood or an academic career.

One of them was told that the church needed to find people who were interested in doing things not just thinking about them. Others on another committee mused that they had professors in seminary who were priests as well and just couldn’t understand why they were priests (because they worked as full time academics).

When I went through the ordination process, we were literally told to hide any hint of an academic vocation from the committee so that they would not hold it against us. When I did let slip that this might be something I was considering, I was told dismissively, “We don’t ordain Jesuits in this diocese.” In other words, I had better choose.

In my opinion, this is an incredible waste and a disturbingly shortsighted view of priestly ministry. We need priests and pastors with an academic background just as we need academics with the training and experience of priestly ministry. We are off in a dangerous place when we decide that some of those coming forward are too smart to be made priests.

There is a general anti-intellectualism in American life. Of course, in the Episcopal Church, we pride ourselves on being exempt from such a thing. We are all too happy to talk about not having to “check your mind at the door” when you come to our churches. Yet it seems that you better be ready to do just that if you want to enter the ordination process in some of our dioceses.

We scoff at those who read Scripture literally. Yet we are going to create a Church where the only fundamentalism we embrace is that of individual feelings.

Doctrine – and sound training in doctrine – is essential for priestly ministry.  It is part of what differentiates us from the spiritual but not religious.  I think poor training in doctrine is at the root of why so many are now calling themselves spiritual but not religious.  We need a generation of clergy ably trained in doctrine who can articulate what it is about our particular faith tradition that is unique and life-giving.  Moreover, this cannot be done in isolation from training in other fields like psychology, philosophy, the arts, science, and more.

We simply cannot offer any answer worth hearing if we do not have priests trained to think theologically and who can delve into our tradition in creative ways to answer complicated questions and profound doubt.

How do we answer questions of life and death with no grounding in eschatology? How do we talk about our understanding of ordination and ministry without preparation in ecclesiology and sacramental theology? How do we defend our view of baptismal ecclesiology without adequate training in incarnational theology? How do we talk of Body and Blood without using all of our gifts of history and theology to articulate where we stand as Anglicans?

These are not esoteric questions being asked only on the close or the quad at our seminaries. These questions are at the heart of pastoral ministry.

When someone asks you, “What happens when my mother dies?” When someone asks you, “Why is this happening?” When someone asks you, “Why should I baptize my child?” When someone asks you, “Am I a bad person for seeking a divorce?” from an abusive spouse. When someone asks you, “Why all this sacrificial language?”

There are innumerable questions and there are those hard stories we all hear that challenge our faith.

When a gay teen is beaten in the name of religion, when our fellow men and women are tortured in our name, when women are profoundly mistreated, when poverty is allowed to grow unchecked and unquestioned – when these and countless other sins abound, the only answer we have is sound doctrine.  This is the kind of teaching that throws down the mighty from their seats – and we need priests and pastors who can offer just such profoundly grounded wisdom.

When someone faces these deep questions, the only thing we have to rely upon is the faith we have received. The faith that is the product of the movement of the Holy Spirit over generations of believers and is ours to offer – yet we have to work to understand what it is we are offering. Just as we might agree that faith without works is dead – faith without inquiry, study, reflection, and intellectual engagement is just as dead.

These questions are profoundly theological ones and sound theology is the most pastoral thing we can offer. Of course this does not mean a dry recitation of Augustine on just war. Nor does it mean vague, wan sharing of our feelings about things that make us sad. It requires a meaty answer that is simple in its articulation and deep in its grounding – it requires the kind of answer that Jesus or his disciples would have given.

Doctrine is not about right answers – it is about right relationships.  Doctrine is that which encodes our relationship with the Triune God and with one another.  It is our ultimate guarantee of dignity for it lays out our compact as the beloved of God.  Sound doctrine defends and defines the fullness of human nature and worth.  Without it, we only have human perception to rely upon which too quickly turns to manipulation and capitulation.

We need priests passionate about asking deep questions about doctrine and dignity. We need academic priests.

Especially in a time when we are wrestling with just how many parishes can afford a full-time priest – we are almost deranged to turn away those who might have a gainful way to support themselves while at the same time enriching the lives of their faith communities by their learning. We need many other kinds of priests as well but we are doing serious harm to our Church’s future and our ability to have any kind of relevant voice in the theological questions of the future without raising up a generation of scholar-priests who are faithful, curious, and spiritually grounded.

We should be seeking out faithful academics to call into priestly ministry and supporting priests who might have an academic vocation in every way possible. We cannot afford to have an academy divorced from the day-in and day-out practice of ministry and we cannot afford to have priests who are not devoted to faithful inquiry.

As the bumper sticker says, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

Robert+

As the Diocese of Connecticut is revamping its ordination process, I am a part of its new Commission on Ministry. We have been watching videos from prospective postulants who are interested in being part of a provisional phase of that process. They are really wonderful testimonies to the faith, witness, and hope of each of these people offering themselves for service in the Church. One of the metrics I developed as I watched was what I call the “J Count”.

The J Count is simply how frequently does the applicant mention Jesus in some way or another. It gets a little more complicated in that my formula also scales the points based on how early in their presentation the count begins.

Now I have thought of this as purely a matter of interest. Yet, it was indicative of something deeper. Those candidates I found myself most drawn to were those who had something to say about Jesus. Something about Jesus had drawn them in and was calling them to serve him in a new way.

Recently I have read a few articles from Episcopalians on the future of the Church. Some of them are good and interesting. Yet they have no “J Count”. I don’t see in them a clear and compelling vision beyond a mission statement that the United Way might offer. I read a strategic plan for a parish that had lots and lots of talk but almost no J Count.

I realize that many will say that it is implicit in our conversation. It is assumed. People know that’s what we’re talking about.

Yet, I think it is a deep oversight on our part and a troubling one. In this culture we can no longer afford to assume anyone knows anything about Jesus. We have the obligation as the Church to say more about him (and less about us). Being Church will no longer be about educated and previously formed Christians choosing this or that parish based on their programmatic offerings. Those churches that thrive in the new environment will be those that offer a compelling reason not only to follow Jesus but to become a part of the Body of Christ.

I realize this puts us in the awkward position of making some unique claims about Jesus. Make them.

Make the unique claim that the life of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the Resurrection of Jesus, and the reign of Jesus are unique and all consuming. The Episcopal Church may operate in a pluralistic culture yet we are not a pluralistic body. We are one body with only one claim to uniqueness in our cultural landscape – we offer unity in holiness with Christ.

As I talk with folks from around the Church interested in starting young adult service programs like Saint Hilda’s, one piece of advice I give them all is that if it is not going to be about forming faithful Christians, then why bother? The same goes for the Church. If we cannot, with boldness and foolishness, proclaim the saving power of the resurrection then why would any other claim we have, any other assertion we can possibly proclaim, have any validity or value?

No claim of the Church can be offered without the imprimatur of the cross and without finding its heart in the unique proclamation of Christ. Our calls for justice can only have as much force as our assertion of the uniqueness of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. The love of one another is the response to God’s love for us in Christ. It is the love of Christ poured out on the cross that provides our model for mission and evangelism in the world. We cannot allow ourselves to believe that there are cultural, religious, or political limitations to the love of Christ which we are bound to share with the other.

For missionary churches in the post-colonial era, there is a degree of guilt present in the collective consciences of those sensitive to the evolving awareness of our collective guilt for the abuses of the past. This awareness is, in some part, a healthy regard for the other and a movement toward accepting the legitimacy of a variety of worldviews and histories without seeing them as invalidating one’s own. However, this awareness has also resulted in, what some would argue, is a potentially crippling reluctance to engage with the other in an open and honest way for fear of reenacting historical abuses or reinforcing past prejudices.

By neglecting fulsome, on-the-ground evangelism efforts in favor of grant-giving or charity, the church has engaged in behaviors of dysfunctional rescuing, avoiding contact, and denying differences. Mission and evangelism are our Church’s Confession that we still have much to learn from the world around us, that we are willing to be vulnerable to the work of the Spirit, and to admit that our blindness, fear, or even laziness have habituated our institutions to simultaneously old and new forms of discrimination.

The missionary enterprise, rooted in the open and confessing spirit, expressly engages the other, recognizes differences, and seeks reciprocal friendship rather than the false hope of “rescue.” Our amendment of life takes place in moments when we act in love, partnership, and openness with others. This joyful amendment of life, in the constant reflection and refraction of the confessing spirit, reverberates through the web of individual relationships the Christian is blessed to be a part of.

No act can be more respectful of another than to share with them that which is most essential to our identity. Pretending that our faith does not call us in specific and powerfully unique ways does a disservice to us and to those with whom we would be in relationship. Evangelism need not be the powerful overwhelming the less powerful.

It must be the encounter of the vulnerable sharing a Good News which has opened their heart and soul to the world around them in new ways – ways we can scarce contain. It must also be listening for the Good News others are sharing with us as Jesus continues to speak in ways we often least expect.

The challenge of evangelizing in a world of difference cannot be met by indifference to that which is essential to our faith – the person of Jesus Christ. This is the heart of any Christian ministry – Jesus has so changed us and called us that his name is on our lips. His life is ours to know. His cross is ours to carry. His resurrection is ours to proclaim. His love is ours to share.

Robert+

Maybe it’s because I have a penchant for quixotic causes, but I have always felt that King Charles I deserves a place in our Kalendar in the Episcopal Church.  Despite our anti-royalist lineage and republican heritage, it would be of benefit to look again at the case for including Charles in our list of remembrances.  I think this is especially so in light of the many, many commemorations added through ‘Holy Women, Holy Men’.  Some of those added were people of rather unclear faith and some were added whose faith might lead them to revolt at the idea of their names being included in a kalendar of saints.

Charles’s witness to the catholic faith, in many ways, preserved the order of the Church that we now call home.  His intransigence set firm the orders of bishops, priests, and deacons as integral to our identity as the Church in England.  Of course, there were excesses in the Episcopate that Charles was defending and yet there was a fundamental character that was worth protecting and defending.  Our identity as an Episcopal Church rests on our conviction, in the Anglican tradition, that bishops form part of the historic and ongoing definition of Church.

We, as Episcopalians, maintain that the episcopate is vital and necessary to the future reunion of the Church Catholic.  We say so clearly in the Prayer Book.

We affirm on pages 876-877,

“…that the Christian unity . . .can be restored only by the return of all Christian communions to the principles of unity exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first ages of its existence; which principles we believe to be the substantial deposit of Christian Faith and Order committed by Christ and his Apostles to the Church unto the end of the world, and therefore incapable of compromise or surrender by those who have been ordained to be its stewards and trustees for the common and equal benefit of all men.

As inherent parts of this sacred deposit, and therefore as essential to the restoration of unity among the divided branches of Christendom, we account the following, to wit:

1.    The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the revealed Word of God.

2.    The Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith.

3.    The two Sacraments,–Baptism and the Supper of the Lord,–ministered with
unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.

4.    The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the
varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church…”

Essential not only to our identity but the whole identity of the historic Church is the role of the Episcopate.  It is this office and order that Charles died defending.

He died with his heart and mind fixed on his faith and defending his Christian duty, as he saw it, as his final words attest:

‘I have a trust committed to me by God, by old and lawful descent, I will not betray it, to answer a new unlawful authority; therefore resolve me that, and you shall hear more of me. I die a Christian according to the profession of the Church of England. I have a good cause and I have a gracious God.’

‘I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown.’

‘REMEMBER!’

J. Robert Wright, professor of Ecclesiastical History at The General Theological Seminary, cites historian Kenneth Hylson-Smith’s writing on Charles’s martyrdom in his case for the commemoration of Charles.  He writes that Charles is

“an example in faith and conduct of that Churchmanship which emphasizes catholicity: continuity with and descent from Christ and his Apostles; the central importance in the life of the Church of episcopacy; a deep concern that the worship of the Church should be of prime importance in the life of the Church, and should be conducted with reference and awe; a focus on the altar, in churches furnished and adorned in such a way as to enhance the beauty of holiness and stimulate worship; the centrality of the sacraments, and a doctrine of the Eucharist which stresses the presence of Christ, but which admits of neither the transubstantiation of Roman theology nor of the consubstantiation of Luther; and an affirmation of the English Church as part of the historic Church, joined still, in spite of outward division, by the one Catholic faith.”

With the breadth of commemorations we now observe and propose to observe, it seems a good and natural thing for us also to remember the faith and witness of King Charles whose contributions to our order and doctrine of the Church are lasting and vital ones.  Is Charles a perfect saint? No. But if we looked only for perfect saints, we would have a small sliver of faithful men and women praying for us in Heaven.

Robert+

For more information on Charles see the following:

“The Case for Charles” by J. Robert Wright

The Society of King Charles the Martyr

“Remember!” A Sermon by the Rev’d Tony Jarvis

 

Recently, we have undertaken a new outreach program at our mission in the Hill neighborhood called GARLiC (Green Art Renewing Life in Community). Its purpose, as outlined ably by its program director Sarah Raven, is “to encourage ‘upcycling’ and green art as a means to reduce consumer spending, increase art appreciation, and help the environment by reducing municipal waste in ethnically diverse, low income, urban neighborhoods.” Essentially we are working to take that which is being discarded and using it to create something beautiful.

I have been thinking about the implications of this sort of work for the broader life of the Church and keep wondering what it is that we are throwing away in our rush through modern life? Are there people, institutions, liturgies, prayer practices, and more that we are ignoring in our attempt to find something new that seems more relevant?  What do we make of these disparate pieces?

My sense is that we are moving into an age of what I might call mosaic ministry. A mosaic takes bits of that which is broken and creates a work of art – sometimes even sublime and breathtaking art. How can we, as a community of believers, take the pieces of our history and stories and arrange them alongside new ones to form an icon of Christ in the world. Just gluing together broken pieces in an attempt to hold on to an old form creates a cracked (and unstable) replica of the former rather than a new work of beauty.

As we look around the Church there are troubling signs abounding. All of us know the challenges of declining budgets, decreasing attendance, strained volunteers, and compassion fatigue.

Yet I wonder how much of all of this is linked to the simple fact that church, as we know it, doesn’t work? There are pockets of success to be sure, but all around us we are witnessing the geography of our society shifting dramatically and unceasingly. This doesn’t mean that the Church doesn’t work – but that our understanding of what it means to be the church is cracked, breaking apart, and no way of gluing it together will force it to hold its old form in the face of new stresses.

We are entering a time of mosaic ministry – a time when the pieces have to be gathered up and put back together to form some new work of holy beauty that shows forth the image of Christ anew.

Our society is one that is hyper-individualized and networked rather than organized. The cultural trends are such that any church that is simply an institution that one signs up for is bound for failure. The same organizations that once represented the backbone of civic society (clubs, fraternities, civic organizations, boards, &c) are facing similar decline. How many people are flocking to join the Elks? Sure they do great work and have a storied history and yet they are on the downward slope of decline.

Most fraternal organizations have seen a decline of a third of their membership or more, while others, including the International Order of Odd Fellows, have seen a membership decline of almost 98 percent in the past century. Yes, the Church is not the Elks club, but it is facing the same cultural headwinds that these sorts of organizations face.

Our task is in some ways much simpler – we have to rediscover our identity as a people who are always seeking the answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Ever more elaborate churches, over history, have been designed to make visible the invisible – to say something of the glory of the Holy One, the mystery of that Being, and the coming together of the divine and the human. As we focus our common life on answering anew who Jesus is, we can build a Mission-Shaped church that, by its life and witness, makes Christ known as it works, prays, and gives for the glory of God.

The structural, programmatic, and institutional answers to our dilemmas will be almost irrelevant (or at least as relevant as choosing the kind of marble for a tombstone) without serious work as a community of faith to offer a compelling answer for ourselves and for the wider world about our belief in the person and power of Christ in our individual and common life.

Who do we, as a community and as individual believers, say Jesus is? How we answer that question will shape, guide, and direct mission and ministry. How is he reaching out to us (and us to him)? Who is he calling us to reach out to as his Body? Where is he leading that we fear to follow?

More important than what God is calling us to do is who God is calling us to be as a people formed in the image of Christ. How do we live into the reality of Baptism as a community in this day?  How do we see ourselves fitting into the mosaic image of Christ in which each piece helps form an icon of Christ’s living Presence in the Body?

We can thank God that we have the pieces all around us, especially as Anglicans, to face the challenges of the day. We have a rich liturgy, an appreciation for complexity, a respect for individual conscience, an identity that stretches back into the deepest parts of the Christian tradition, and an understanding of God’s action in the Sacraments. Most importantly we have the witness of Jesus Christ to fall back on when the challenge seems too daunting.

These and many, many more pieces are all about us waiting to be put together in new and creative ways that tap into the richness of our shared history to offer a still more excellent way of being the Church. People are aching for a Church that is less a monument than it is a movement and is less entertainment than it is a way of life.

Robert+

Normally, I would not devote Christmas to writing a blog post.  But thanks to the miracle of modern technology and the dependable lack of dependability of our domestic air carriers, I am currently bestranded at the airport with not much else to do but write!

Yesterday, on Christmas Eve, my wife and I visited Lucibello’s Bakery in New Haven.  We were looking to pick up cannoli for Christmas.  When we arrived, we found quite the scene!  We were number 52 and they were on number 5!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No one there seemed particularly perturbed to be waiting, in fact everybody was in pretty good spirits.  As I was waiting, I began to listen to the folks talking in line.  One said, “Oh, I remember when this was on Chapel Street, going in as a kid” another said, “This was always part of our Christmas.” People walked out with boxes stacked high, full of pastries of all sorts.

While in line, I happened to read a piece from the New Haven Register about the bakery.  There were a number of lines that jumped out at me about this 80 year old bakery.  The article reads, “Customers who have been frequenting Lucibello’s Italian Pastry Shop for years — many long-time shoppers who came as children now visit with their own kids in tow — find a menu there today that remains true to the store’s origins.”

The owner says of the shop, “We just never changed anything. Everything is still made by hand, from scratch…” That, he said, has been a key to the business’ longevity.

My favorite line in the interview was when the owner attributed the success the bakery has seen to “keeping up with tradition.”  He says, “From what everyone tells me, nothing has changed from when they were little.”

I love the phrase “keeping up with tradition.” There is something marvelous about the notion of studying, praying with, reading, and taking in the traditions we have as if they are living, vital things and not merely the remnants of a charming but bygone era.  In an institution like the Church, keeping up with tradition is our role and duty as we curate the mysteries we have been handed.

Of course, there are alterations and advances in the life of the Church that we should welcome.  But there are also such departures from the history, theology, and tradition of the Church that the believer is left lost and without any significant tie to or understanding of what and who we are.

It is our role, as leaders, to keep up with the tradition.  To know it so well that when we must make alterations or innovate, we know exactly why and how and what the intended consequences are and what unintended consequences might be wrought.

I am convinced that there is a deepening desire among many for places, experiences, and encounters that resonate with authentic history and communicate something deeper than what can be found in the mass market.  Lucibello’s, the bakery, is a wonderful example.  It is locally owned, the owners live in the community, they are steeped in a long history, they understand the tradition, and more importantly they understand just what that tradition means to their customers.

The owner might rather like to innovate with some new pastry, and says he has slowly added an item or two here and there, but the root of their success is their understanding that their customers are coming to be part of an experience – something that hearkens back in time and place and tells a much longer story.  He says, “It is rewarding, he said, to see the loyalty of Lucibello’s customer base. The bakery has become part of family traditions for generations of local shoppers…”

Moreover, they specialize in what they do well.  We could learn from this as a Church.  We will probably never do certain things as a church that other churches seem to do so successfully.  The key to our longevity will be knowing what we do well and doing it with intention, reverence, and care.  The key will be keeping up with the tradition.  At Lucibello’s, “We’re kind of unique here,” says the owner, specializing in only several certain items rather than many different types of cookies, cakes and pastries.  ”Customers like knowing they can find their same favorites at the shop that they did years ago. It’s the memories…”

Another customer recalled, “It was old-fashioned — cakes in the window, glass cases all over the place,” he said, adding little has changed over the years.  The article closes, “The day before Christmas, it’s ridiculous,” he said referring to the crowds.  Faggio said he looks forward to the holidays, when it is not uncommon for customers to be lined up early in the morning waiting to buy family favorites. “That’s when you really see the tradition,” Faggio said. “We have lines out the door. It’s amazing.”

It really is amazing.

As I celebrated mass yesterday and read Luke’s account of the Nativity at the midnight mass, I couldn’t help but reflect on the nature of tradition.  How we pass on from one generation to another that which is holy and vital in our faith.  We keep alive this story of God with Us in a way that renews the promise of the creche in each of our lives and homes.

There are many of us who love the new in the Church.  I am one of them, I am always looking for some new program or project that we can take on to deepen our missional engagement with the city around us.  Yet no new program, project, or liturgy or can have any meaning without a connection to the deeper tradition of the Church. Without a grounding in what we have received we are simply making up the faith we would like to have rather than deepening our life in the one we have inherited.

For example, when someone decides to innovate and design their own liturgy without the benefit of the centuries of liturgies we have been handed, they are selling short the movement of the Holy Spirit over our history – a movement which has brought together the strands of theology, prayer, and reason in countless ways.  It is not ours to decide, on our own, if it is somehow outmoded.

Those coming to our churches, like those to the bakery, are looking for that which draws them back.  They are searching for that thing, that intangible and indescribable experience that they once knew.  They are looking to be part of something larger than themselves, deeper than their knowing, and stronger than their fears.  They will not return if they find the slipshod, the careless, or the needlessly “innovative.”

I think of my family’s return to the Church.  It was through Rite I morning prayer with hymns and anthems and an East-facing celebration of the Eucharist.  Anything more innovative than that would have sent us searching again – for what we could not have said – only that we kept not finding it.  The generation before us has dedicated itself, in so many ways, to undoing the traditions of the Church.  In many ways this has been necessary and healthy.

The new task is the more complicated and deeper one – reconstructing that which has been lost and rediscovering those elements that could be carefully and lovingly restored.  Let’s commit ourselves to keep up with the tradition – to dwell in and with it so that we can draw others into its mystery and welcome still more home.

Robert+

 

 

 

Recently I sat down for a lovely conversation with Richard Mammana (of Project Canterbury fame) and The Living Church to talk about ministries at Christ Church, New Haven.  Below is a snippet of said conversation and a link.

What are your hopes for the Episcopal Church?
“My hopes for the Episcopal Church are that we can recapture two things that I think we have had in our history. One is an evangelical zeal. I think we need to recapture the sense that what we do matters because souls matter. And the other is that we can recapture the catholic senses of discipline, worship, adoration, and service. My hope for the future of the Episcopal Church is found in that blend of evangelical Catholicism that is at the heart of any great period of the Church’s history.”

‘Souls Matter’ – From the Living Church

This post comes about from a conversation among the clergy here about just how long and how boring a sermon one could preach at the Christ Mass before a riot broke out…

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,

Mabel was stirring and shouting “Oscar you lout!”

For Mabel intended midnight mass to attend

and no lazy husband her plans would upend.

So into the Crown Vic they did clamber,

surprised by each light, bemoaning the clamor.

Mabel knew that this night could not get much worse

for there was no parking unless driving a hearse.

Yet park they did and the hike they made

trundling up stairs, through red doors, and into the nave.

Yet worse got this night for Mabel did read that tonight she would hear

Neither Healy nor Wilan but MacMillan, O Dear!

Suddenly her nose did pucker and tingle

for the smell of popery with pine did mingle

Wide swung the doors and poor Mabel near cried

for from the deep of the church incense she spied

She commenced to cough, and to wheeze and to mumble,

“From bad to worse does this old church a-tumble”

With organ alive and banners held high the procession commenced

and dazzled many an eye

Yet Mabel, unmoved, narrowed her gaze

for this night would get worse, just let her count the ways

The subdeacon chanted, the choir sang

the procession formed, making its way

Of course next to Mabel did the deacon plop

He commenced to chanting and swinging, and just wouldn’t stop

Then Father took to the pulpit and starting all mild

bid the people to ponder the mysteries of a child

On and on Father seemed to go,

When would this end Mabel wanted to know

Yet Father had fixed in his mind that what the people did need

was to know the meaning of Christmas, of the Incarnation, and the Creed

So on and on did Father soar

filioque, and Arians, and Gnostics, and more

A five and twenty minutes did Mabel grumble

At thirty, she thought she might surely crumble

At last at forty she could take no more,

A hymnal took flight, through the air it did soar

It struck poor Father square in the nose

And gobsmacked he paused, he simply quite froze

Yet Mabel was not done,

not yet and not quite

For she knew that she must,

simply must save this night

A riot she led, down came the greens

out went the banners, for that temple she’d clean

Amid the din and the clamor did Father escape

yet not without losing his lovely long cape

Afraid for his life, into the night he ran

wondering how this all went so very off plan

Yet Mabel, good Mabel went home on that night

knowing that she’d saved Christmas and sent popery to flight.

Tonight, I went over to a nearby church’s brief prayer service for the victims of the school shooting in Newtown.  We sang “O God our Help in Ages Past” which is a hymn that I love.  Yet, when we got to the line, “A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone” my mind and heart clinched up a bit.  I wondered if a thousand ages are so fleeting, then what matter are 5 years or 10 years?  For a moment, God’s seeming indifference to the life and death of kindergarten children was overwhelming in its utter silence.

We sang hymns and said prayers but I just heard great silence.

I listen and I hear quiet.  I hear pain.  I hear loss.  I hear anguish.  I hear dreams gone dim and hearts made still.  This is a time when words ring false—when songs grate—when bells ring hollow.  Today I hear great silence.  A silence in which we listen for the voice of God, the whisper of the comforter.

The question deafens in the silence though.  Why?  What kind of God allows this?  Our answers and questions are drops in a pool, in the tide of that same question asked over and over in myriad ways across the centuries.  The distance between life and death seems enormous and yet they are woven together in these instants when we are made numb by the news.

We, and all who have come before, and all who come after face life’s fearful symmetry.  Life’s fearful symmetry – all are born in joy and all go down to the grave.  Often, in the face of loss, I say empty things and am speechless.  And we are all often speechless in those times.

Yet God is not speechless.  God speaks through and in tears. God speaks to us constantly waiting until we hear him.  When our hearts ache, when our eyes dry up, when we don’t know if we have another day left in us…there is Christ, there is God, there is humanity.

Where is God, we ask ourselves, to let this happen – to let loss come upon the innocent?  God is here.  God is now and with us and in us.  God was on the cross and is the victim on the altar and is in the hearts of those who mourn.

We belong to a faith that marks the full measure of shed innocent blood.  The answer we have is proclaimed loudest in the starkness of the cross.  In its fearful symmetry we find some measure of God’s answer – for in that moment of Christ’s seeming stillness awakened unending life.  There are no easy answers to life’s hard questions – and the silent cross is perhaps the hardest and most unnerving of answers to the flood of questions we would pour upon God.

From creche to cross, this is the symmetry of Emmanuel – God with Us.

That same God who is in us knows our sufferings and shares in them when we are broken; he is there to hold us together in sorrow and triumph. When we suffer and when we help others through their grief, we are taking on the mantle of Christ whose wounds are our healing.

The final judgment is presented as an instant, a moment in time that shatters time.  “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Death too comes at an unexpected hour.  It catches us unaware – especially when it takes the young.

It calls us up short in what seems an everlasting instant.  But just as death comes at an unexpected hour, so too will joy.  So too will new life.  So too will resurrection for us and for those we love.

We know this great hope and yet we also know anguish and pain.  For those who love much will grieve much.  It is in the pain of loss that we know we have loved deeply that we have been loved in the way God calls us to love.  It is in our knowledge of loss that love – and love’s often painful price – is all too often revealed.  This is the painful symmetry of love and loss.

The Old Testament promises that mountains and fields shall break forth into song and the trees of the field will clap their hands together for they are the scene of salvation.

One day we shall hear those songs of joy.  We will hear the clapping of the trees.  We will sing out, “Where, O death, is thy victory?  Where, O death, is thy sting?” Trumpets will sound, cymbals will ring, bells will peal, shouts of joy will echo through the hills and halls of Heaven, and the Angels will thunder out “Alleluia!”

And over all that joyous noise, through all that loud celebration, we will hear the voice of those we love whispering, “You are home.  I am with you.” This is God’s joyful symmetry.  Even as we go down to the grave, we make our cry – Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Today I hear silence though.  And I pray for the confidence that the silence will one day lift and we will hear, feel, taste, and see the joy of the Lord with us.  I am listening, in the silence, for the sound of God mourning with us.

Robert+

I have been pondering the intersection of prayer, authority, and justice lately. There seems to be an increased need for an honest conversation about what a more just society looks like – as there is always a need for such conversation. Within the Church, we are often conflicted about how to respond to the demands of injustice.

We take particular holy days and make them statements, for example, turning a Stations of the Cross into a protest against the death penalty (let’s set aside for a moment what an interfaith Stations of the Cross is) or we make Good Friday into a day to talk about Earth Day. I am not opposed to using liturgy to address the deep needs of the world but it has to first express our deepest need – union with Christ and one another.

With the advent of Enriching our Worship and other options for worship, individual communities often seek to use their liturgical time together to speak truth to power in some way and to remind themselves of their Christian obligations to strive for the dignity of every person. The problem is the increasing disconnect between what worship is and what its purpose is.

Ultimately, worship is an expression of our desire to be united with Christ. In Baptism and the Eucharist we are given the most fleeting of glimpses of the deepest permanent reality – that we are at one with Christ. All we can do in worship is give thanks – to lay ourselves at the foot of the throne of grace and offer all that we are.

Worship is not meant to be a didactic exercise by which we talk about justice – it is designed to so clothe us in the fullness of Christ and be doing so empower us to proclaim justice at every turn of our lives and beyond.

Last year, a popular article that seemed to be making its way around clergy circles was one that exhorted Christians to get out of their churches, not to worship, during Holy Week because the world’s needs were simply too great to waste time on such a thing as worship.

This is incredibly privileged.

It is privileged because it assumes that we are all at some elevated state of grace that will enable us to do justice without ever being truly formed in what righteousness is. Every member of our congregations is being formed for the work of justice with each and every act of adoration. Worship and adoration lay the groundwork for a full sense of belonging in Christ that can shine forth.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels went down to die because he knew that the Magnificat was calling him to go from strength to strength. It is not vague calls for justice that will truly transform an unjust world but an understanding of our fundamental unity with one another in Christ that will. God is at work in the world – we need to trust that enough to not think that acting justly means acting incessantly. The work of justice is, necessarily, the work of common prayer.

John Macquarrie writes of Baptism, “Sin, or rather the conviction of sin, is the presupposition of baptism. We have a sense that all is not well with us.” The baptismal mystery is that we understand ourselves to be washed from sin in Baptism. Yet, we also recognize the reality of sin in our lived Christian experience. How do we hold onto that centered place in which we find ourselves at one with Christ, literally donning Christ at the font?

It is only through ongoing Communion, as the whole gathered Body, that we can constantly claim and reclaim the fullness of Baptism.

Justice cannot be studied in isolation from the rest of the Christian Sacramental life. To do so is to impart a magical quality to the moments and to disconnect them from our encounter with the world rather than framing them in the totality of belief, practice, life, death, hope, regret, grace, and pardon. Each Sacrament must be taken as part of the whole of the experience of Christ’s presence in and with us. Baptism, that moment of washing and donning, cannot be a moment but must be at once a beginning and end of the migration of lived Christian pilgrimage – a pilgrimage made as the whole Church.  Our entirety is baptized. Every aspect of our lives is knit to the divinity in Baptism and we are provided a divine source from which true justice can flow.

The individual believer or even communities are ill-equipped to do this work on their own. We are not meant to be lonely charity workers – we are called to be the Body – to see and know the world in the light of the Cross.

When our own self and the fundamental essence of the other are viewed in light of the Cross, they take on inviolability. That inviolability is inherited, for the Christian, at baptism and defines us and the other as linked to the Creator in such a way as to soften the need for competition and redefine common interest and true community.

This True Community, the Church, is one that is ever on the cusp of revelation and is ever-called to greater depths of relationality. Such relational reality is truly possible with honest appraisal and examination and constant rebinding to Christ. We have no source to understand justice other than Christ. Of course, there are other social and religious models for what it means to act justly. But the Christian is given one name by which they call themselves and by which the whole of his or her life is formed.

That encounter with Christ takes place within the gathered Body. It takes place within the shared hopes, memories, and aspirations of a people. It takes place within and beyond history. It takes place before and after death. It is always being offered. It takes the whole of the Body of the Church to begin to express our thanks for the gift offered in Christ – it takes the whole Body of the Church with one voice offering thanks and receiving new hope. It trains us to see all of Creation through the light of God’s ideal.

I suppose this brings me back to the title – the Prayer Book leads us to a more just Church. Justice is not each of our individual conceptions of right and wrong being traded about until someone makes better choices. Justice is not being made to feel bad so that we take part in wan acts of charity. Justice is the whole turning of our selves, our communities, and our Church to the will and mind of Christ. It is finding such unity with Christ and one another that we can do nothing but act justly.

This will not happen via antiseptic, didactic chats about God.

Our shared language, in the Prayer Book, is the expression of our communities’ many different hopes over the centuries. It is that which articulates the shared knowledge that we are being brought to our perfection in Christ.

Justice is not revealed by us to the Church – it is revealed by the Body to us. When we walk the Stations of the Cross, we are becoming that story. We are becoming self-offering so that we can be likewise to the world. This is not the product of an instant but is the result of a lifetime of worship with so changes us that we are a true community – not for the sake of getting along but for the sake of Christ. This necessarily demands a discipline on our part and a willingness to not hear every pronouncement we want to hear from the pulpit or in our prayers.

Every community that abandons the Prayer Book abandons our deepest hope for a more just Church for they have distanced themselves from the whole body. The cost of proclaiming one’s presumed enlightenment is often to be self-separated from the community.

A Church like the Episcopal Church that is without precise doctrinal articulation or a magisterium cannot allow itself to spin apart in the pursuit of theological or social agendas. The source of unity we have, as a worshiping body, is the Prayer Book. It is our means of offering the praises of Christ that we have offered through the centuries and beyond. It is our theological affirmation as a whole gathered Church beyond time and place.

The question “Where am I?” cannot have merely spatial meaning in the Sacraments. The question must be understood in relation to where one is in relation to the very divinity one is encountering in the Mass when and where one is always and everywhere giving thanks and praise. The memory of the believer and the memory of God become a shared space in which the believer and the divinity seek unity, calling and responding to one another. The journey of Baptism requires that we always are asking, “Where am I?”

The Church is the workshop of the soul where we are ever molded and formed in Christ’s own image. It is the answer to the question “Where am I?” for we are home in Christ. The soul is the site of our participation in God. That soul is burdened by the super-impositions of the individual that distance them from understanding their life in, with, and of the divine.

We ask God to make us aware of our begracement, and to free us of the need to acquire new forms of self-definition which propel us toward sin and away from true self, other, and God. This can only happen in the context of community – and not just our local community but the whole Body of the Church – and it is the heart of justice.

In a time of increased theological confusion, and even deeper confusion about just who Christ is, theological or creedal waffling will hardly suffice – and will in fact do profound harm. When each community takes it upon itself to change the worship of the Church, they are contributing to injustice for they are weakening the claim of the whole Body to offer one voice. Moreover, they are declaring the inability of the whole Body’s common life and prayer to be a means of grace and to offer the hope of glory.

There might be better prayers to pray. More we can be doing in liturgy. More modern language we could use. There might be many good and reasonable alterations that could be made to the Prayer Book to make it a better book. Yet it is not ours to change alone – it is the collected longing and debated theological reckoning of this Church. It is the expression of the movement of the Holy Spirit across our history that speaks to and through us to this day.

It is designed to change us. The purpose of worship is the adoration of God. A lifetime of shared adoration will change the Church. The Prayer Book can change the world.