Margaret Makes The Newspaper!

While Rebecca and I were in "The California," we went with Ashley and the girls to visit the old Fransciscan coastal mission in Oceanside for the annual Ladybug Release in the Rose Garden.  A Photographer from the local paper, "The North County Times," took this picture and it ran on last Sunday's local happenings page.  Ashley and Matthew do a wonderful job of making the children aware of the heritage of their faith, and teaching them that every event of every day is a part of their Christian walk and witness.  We are blessed that they are such thoughtful and loving Christian parents.

"Brother Chris Best hands out ladybugs to Margaret Canter, 3, and her mother, Ashley Canter, from Carlsbad, in the rose garden of the Old Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside on Saturday. The ladybugs were blessed and released as part of the Founders Day celebration, marking the mission's 214th year. DEB HELLMAN | dhellman@nctimes.com"

Rector's Summer Book Picks- 2012

Rector’s Rambling- July 2012

Today it was 98 degrees Fahrenheit in Lancaster, and the humidity was stifling. It reminded me of why summer is my least favorite time of the year. But the garden is growing wonderfully, as long as it is watered heavily every day. Even the heat has its compensations in fresh vegetables and long lazy evenings. With the coming of summer, I thought it might be a good time to recommend a few books for summer perusal, and here they are:
Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers by Christopher A. Hall. IVP Academic,1998. “…Hall points out, the fathers hear music in Scripture where we remain tone-deaf…like true masters they challenge and correct our modern assumptions as they invite us to tune our ears to hear the divine melodies.”
Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness ed. Geoffrey Rowell, Kenneth Stevenson, and Rowan Williams. Oxford University Press, 2001. “The writings of the early fathers of Anglicanism have been supplemented over nearly five centuries by the thoughts of each succeeding generation. Love’s Redeeming Work brings together the central writers from each era into an outstanding collection that will introduce today’s readers to this incredibly rich and varied heritage.”
Celebrating the Saints: Daily Spiritual Readings to Accompany the Calendars of The Church of England, The Church of Ireland, The Scottish Episcopal Church, and The Church in Wales edited and compiled by Robert Atwell. SCM Press, 1998, 2004. “This selection of readings of ancient, medieval, and reformed (and occasionally, contemporary) spirituality reflects the author’s scholarly background and many years of prayerful reflection on the Christian tradition.”
The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth ed. R.A. Torrey, et. al. Baker Books: reprint 2008 of the 1917 edition. “In 1909 God moved two Christian laymen to set aside a large sum of money for issuing twelve volumes that would set forth the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and which were to be sent free to ministers of the gospel, missionaries, Sunday School superintendents, and others engaged in aggressive Christian work throughout the English speaking world.”
The Divine Hours: A Manuel for Prayer by Phyllis Tickle. Doubleday, 2000. “…a contemporary Book of Hours to guide Christians gently yet authoritatively through the daily offices.”
Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World by HRH The Prince of Wales. Harper, 2010. “Harmony exposes how the patterns of the natural world, which for centuries were woven into the fabric of human life, have been lost in the modern age. That loss has come with a price…”
The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton. Ignatius, 1993 reprint of the 1928 illustrated edition. “…it is a timeless allegory about the ongoing battle between Christianity and the forces of nihilistic heathenism.”
England’s Cathedrals in Watercolour by Peter Hume. Scala Publishers, 1999. “Hume’s paintings reveal the genius of design, quality and craftsmanship of buildings that were originally built, not as works of art but as an homage to the glory of God.”
The Literary Gardener by Walter Chandoha. Willow Creek Press, 1997. “ …a loving marriage of the written word with beautiful vignettes of flowers, fruits, vegetables, and grasses- that captures the nurturing quality in nature that has inspired poets and writers and just plain folks for hundreds of years.”
Summer of ‘49 by David Halberstam. Perennial Classics, 2002. “…classic chronicle of baseball’s most magnificent season, as seen through the battle royale between Joe DiMaggio’s Yankees and Ted William’s Red Sox for the heart of a nation.”
Seabiscuit: An American Legend
 by Laura Hillenbrand. Random House, 2001. “The true story of how three men and a great racehorse captivated the world.”

I hope that the dog days of summer might afford us all an opportunity to consider challenging new ideas and comforting old ones, all within the framework of a story told well.

Faithfully,

Bill+

Dealing with Disappointment

Proper 6B, Third Sunday After Pentecost, Second Sunday After Trinity
Preached at St. John’s Lancaster 17 June, 2012

I Samuel 15:34-16:13
Psalm 92
II Corinthians 5:6-17
Mark 4:26-34

Disappointment, and the grief it produces, can be a terrible thing. Samuel was not the only one to experience that reality. Saul had been everything anyone could want in a king, and Samuel had been especially blessed to have had a role in his call and in his training. The young monarch was good looking, strong, well spoken, and brave. And in the end those things made him trust in himself more than he trusted in God. The results were predictable: pride, followed by arrogation of power both spiritually and personally, followed by jealousy, followed by paranoia, followed by violence, followed by rejection from office by God, followed by death. Along the way, Samuel remembered the good days before all of those things started to happen, and he grieved for Saul, and he grieved, and he grieved. Have you been there? Are you there? The loss of a loved one, bad health, or difficult relationships all have the potential to rob us of joy and preoccupy us with grief over our loss and our changed situation.

I believe today’s lessons provide us with some important guidelines for dealing with the kind of grief that consumes us when we experience some great loss, and I hope you will walk through the Bible Propers with me today with an open heart, that we all might begin to receive that healing God wishes for his people.

First- we must all remember that grief is a normal response to loss. Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus. It is also an appropriate response to the immanence of a changing situation, one of those things which will change the way we have lived. Jesus, you remember, sweat great drops of blood as he prayed in the garden on that night before he was crucified. You may remember that Jesus also cried out over the city of Jerusalem, and expressed his grief over the coming destruction of the inhabitants of that city. There is nothing wrong with expressing those dreadful feelings that sometimes assail us all. Certainly we are allowed to address our emotions, and sometimes the intensity of our emotions prevents us from healing in a short period of time. I’m not a psychologist, but in one of the dark periods of my life, one told me that human emotional pain can take up to a couple of years to heal, and sometimes our lives can be dominated by grief and sorrow for weeks or even months before we begin to heal and return to some semblance of balance and joy.
With that said, how do we begin the process of returning to some semblance of normalcy after a great loss in our lives? Samuel got a good start when God reminded him that the new reality was here to stay. Saul was rejected- and that was not going to change. Sometimes I really wish I could talk with my dad again, but he is dead and I will not see him until we rise together to meet Jesus in the air. All of the wishing and crying in the world will not bring him back. I did both of those things for a while, and that was normal and ok, but in due time I had to let him go. It is the way of nature- it is the way of God. Sometimes Mom asks me why he had to die. My answer is simple. He was ninety years old and he had cancer and he died. There are many things in this sinful world that I might like to change, but I am not God. (Some of you are probably thinking that that is a good thing- I agree with you.) Reality is something that we can’t really change, and it behooves us to come to terms with it.
After calling the Prophet to a reality check, God gave him a mission. Samuel had several questions about it. He was afraid, and rightly so, because Saul was still the king and would probably see the mission as an act of treason. And Samuel really didn’t know what he was looking for in this brave new world. But God gave him something to do. There comes a time in our grieving process that we must get up and get active. It is not easy, not for Samuel and not for us. But if we sit and mope we become morbid and the willingness to live goes out of us. In the old days, there were set times for mourning where family members wore black and limited their social contacts. At the end of the period of mourning, they changed their clothes and resumed their customary activities. It was not such a bad custom, because it provided a known framework for re-entering regular human activity after setting aside time for seriously mourning the loss of a loved one. Today, we do not have formal guidelines for when we should be getting back in the saddle after a time of grief, but I am told by my friends who claim to know about such things that by the end of three of four months we should be out and active again, even though we realize that things will not be as they were.

And so lets review:
It is normal to grieve when there is a big change in our lives.
After an appropriate time of grieving, we need to come to terms with the reality that our reality has changed. That takes a bit of time, several weeks at the least.
In order to experience a return to wholeness, we should get busy in some purposeful way after an appropriate time of sorrow. While everything will not be back to business as usual, by month four, we should be beginning to return to some sense of productive purpose in our new reality.

But, grieving and facing reality and being purposely busy are not nearly enough to overcome the hurt that accompanies the significant changes in our lives. You know that and so do I. Our second lesson, the one from Second Corinthians, gives us the real secret to moving on with our new reality. It calls us to a renewed faith that God is in control and that he has a plan for each and every one of us. “We are always confident…for we walk by faith, and not by sight…for the love of Christ urges us on…he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” It is not after all about just bucking up and staying busy. That is a very shallow way to deal with grief. Those things had their place in Samuel’s life, and they have a place in ours, but the reason that methodology worked is because Samuel, like Paul, believed that God holds us all in the palm of his hand. He believed that God “keeps us as the apple of his eye and hides us under the shadow of his wing.” His faith and his experience worked together to convince him that God does love us, and that because of his love we are new creatures. In God’s love, we are able to view life with a sense of forward looking optimism which enables us to keep the events of our lives in perspective. We value the past, and we treasure much about it, but because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, we know that the death and sorrow and hurt of our past is redeemed as is his own death and sorrow and hurt. He bore our sorrows on the cross, and brought to us healing and forgiveness and hope, and therefore we live for him. We no longer see people and events in the same light. We see them in a new and blessed light, because “the old has passed away- everything has become new.”

It sounds good, but on a bad day it still hurts so bad. And that is why Jesus said in today’s Gospel that it only takes a tiny amount of faith to begin to walk into this new creation of God. Even faith as small as a single mustard seed is capable of growing into a much larger and more peace giving faith. Jesus loves you, and he wants you to be healthy and functioning, not bound by never-ending grief or morbid inactivity. He does not demand that you get your house in order to receive his gift. He merely says to believe a little, like the mustard seed. Don’t worry about what you don’t have, rather bring what you do have. You believe that Jesus died for you and was raised from the dead. And so now you can live above that human point of view that perhaps has characterized your life. You can accept his gift of new creation. There will still be days when you remember the past with fondness and some sense of sadness, because your disappointment and loss, like that of Samuel, was great. But by God’s gift and grace, you will find a spiritual peace which will enable you to experience that new creation where purpose, and future focus, and peace are the norm. And as you experience this new creation which comes from believing in Jesus, you will sing with the Psalmist our Psalm appointed for today:

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy Name, O most High:

To show forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,

Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.

For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands.

O Lord, how great are thy works!

Might God do a work in our hearts today that will make each of us abundantly aware that we are a part of his new creation in Jesus Christ. And might each of us heed the practical examples of today’s lessons and respond to his grace
By honestly experiencing our grief
By acknowledging our reality
And by living lives of purposeful activity.

In the Name of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Building Bridges Through Honest Scholarship, Well Reasoned Faith, and Love

The Rt. Rev'd Michael Nazir-Ali

Today, twelve of us from St. John's travelled to Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania to hear Bishop Nazir-Ali speak about who Jesus is.  As always, I was deeply impressed by the humility and scholarship of this man of God.  His willingness to seriously consider the beliefs of others very different from himself as he develops and shares his own faith always impresses me, and calls me to learn from others.  As he reviewed the beliefs of devout and serious scholars from Islamic, Hindu, and secularist traditions about our Lord, I could not but remember the admonition in Proverbs 27:17 that "Iron sharpeneth iron."  His review of the scholarly debate between the Cappodocian Fathers and early Islamic scholars was balanced, respectful, and profound, and at the end of the day he called us all to reaffirm the creedal faith of our Holy Mother the Church that God is One: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

I was particularly moved by his admonition that we all be willing to move from our traditional methodologies of living the Christian Faith into a new era wherein we would allow the light of Christ to shine forth through our lives by knowing when to give thanks for light in the professions of others, even when that light is incomplete or misunderstood.  He modeled for us a methodology of true dialogue.  In an age in which dialogue is seen by so many as merely an exchange of ideas, he defined dialogue is its historic sense as careful scholarly debate designed to find truth- the truth of God for all people.  He exhibited a rare ability to find the good and the true in others, and to call them to develop a deeper understanding of that truth in a way which would lead us all to God together.

Thank you Bishop, for helping me to see opportunities where so many see only difficulty and division.  thank you for giving me a concrete model whereby people of good will might seek truth together.  Thank you for acknowledging honestly the very real differences between the great belief systems of the world, and for preserving the unique proclamation of the Church that Jesus is indeed our Saviour and our Lord.

A Charge to Our Graduates

Charge to the Graduates

I Samuel 8:1-22, 11:14-15

Preached at St. John’s on the second Sunday after Pentecost- Proper 5 B

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. AMEN.

Today we honour those who have graduated from school and stand at a great milestone of their lives. I will be preaching to them, and the rest of you are more than welcome to listen in. Mr Verger, would you please escort our graduates: Ashley, Alana, and Andrew, to the seats prepared for them in the transcept? (here shall the graduates be escorted to their seats.)

I congratulate you today on the occasion of your graduation. You have worked hard, and hopefully had fun, and now you stand at the beginning of the next stage of your lives. It is only fitting that we as the people of God should share with you the wisdom of God as you begin this great adventure. St. Paul wrote to the young Bishop Timothy (II Timothy 3:16) that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God , and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Blessed Archbishop Peter wrote to the Church at large (II Peter 1:21) that “prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” And so today we look to God’s word written for direction and comfort as we admonish you on this momentous day. When St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, Wrote to the Church at Corinth (I Corinthians 10:11), he reminded them that the stories of Scripture are given us for “…ensamples, and they are written for our admonition…” St. John the Beloved, writing to the Church at large (I John 5:13) continued this theme by pointing out that “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God: that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the Name of the Son of God.”

In this spirit, we come to today’s first lesson from the First Book of Samuel, and there we see in the history of God’s people Israel a poignant lesson about how we ought to order our lives, and how we ought to make decisions about our future. Samuel was a mighty man of God, selected to lead God’s people at a critical time in their history.  As he grew older, he sought to provide for a peaceful transfer of power by establishing his sons Joel and Abiah as Judges in Israel. Unlike their father, they proved to be horrible leaders. “They walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.” (I Samuel 8:3) The leaders of the people came to Samuel with a well intentioned plan for reform, and called for the establishment of a monarchy, “like all the nations.” The old man was crest fallen. He knew that God’s plan was for Israel to be a nation set apart for great things, a nation of priests who would prepare the way for God’s grace to enter the world, to deal directly with God, and to not follow in the ways of power and pride and worldliness. The leaders of the people meant well, but they did not stop to consider the ways of God as they made their decisions, and the unintended consequences of their actions led to tyranny and oppression in Israel, and set the stage for rebellion and suffering in the years to come.

As you face the next step of your lives, away from mom and dad for the first time, it is fitting that we should examine the failure of these well intentioned people so that you might not make the same mistakes they made, and so that your lives might be lived in keeping with God’s plan for each of your lives.

Today, on this “first day of the rest of your lives,” I would admonish you to consider three things that grow out of their experience, that you might live lives of beauty and faithfulness, and be known as the children of a loving Heavenly Father


First, I admonish you to consider your motives carefully and honestly, that you might make good decisions.
Second, I admonish you to carefully consider the clear commands of Scripture, that none of your decisions would conflict with God’s word written.
Third, I admonish you to remember that you are created in God’s own image, the “Imagio Dei,” and that reason, a significant element of that image, should guide your decisions as you plan and prepare for the remainder of your life.
The children of Israel meant well, but I would submit to you that they did not adequately consider their motives as they sought to be like “all the nations” of the world. The results were disastrous and included conscription, loss of liberty, and eventually rebellion against the God who had so blessed them and set them apart for his own work in the world. Perhaps the greatest model for examining our own motives is found in the traditional marriage ceremony of the Church of England. Three considerations are proposed for those who are determined to enter into Holy Matrimony, which is after a sense one of the greatest decisions any of us can ever be called on to make. (1662 Book of Common Prayer- explanation of Holy Matrimony)
“First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to praise his holy Name.” The first consideration of you motives should be to consider your responsibility to others, and to the community at large. It will never do for a Christian to consider first how much money they should make, or to believe the lie that the end justifies the means, or that their own happiness or wellbeing should come first in the decision making process. That was the mistake made by Samuel’s sons. May you seriously consider where you start your decision making process as you determine your career, or your major, or your actions in the years to come. Your motives should always be determined by your love for God and for your neighbors. It is the responsibility of every Christian.
“Secondly, It (marriage) was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.” Your motives should acknowledge your weaknesses and you should commit yourself to a life of discipline and hard work. In your studies, and in your personal behaviour, and in your relationships, you should always remember that the easy way, the natural way, and the shortcut, will have many unintended consequences that will affect your life for years to come. The failure to remember these motivating factors was the sin of the people of Israel, and they paid dearly for their desire to be like everyone else, instead of doing the hard work of disciplining themselves to the way of God.
“Thirdly, It (marriage) was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.” It is only after consideration of others and the development of a sincerely disciplined life that the hope of human fulfillment and happiness is considered. Indeed, it is not stretching the text to say that it is only as we consider our responsibilities and discipline our lives that we can hope to find true happiness and that “peace which passeth all understanding.” (Philippians 4:7)
No greater pattern for examining your own motives has ever been devised.
Is your first desire truly to consider others and your responsibility to them?
Are you willing to discipline your life to reach your dreams?
Do you realize that it is only by putting others, and God, before yourself that you can find true purpose and joy in living?
Having examined your motives, it behooves you to consider whether or not all of your plans are in accordance with God’s word. Let me take another example from marriage. We human beings are very adept at what psychologists call rationalization. We can talk ourselves into just about anything, and convince ourselves that it is good, or at least ok. Imagine a man or a woman who after several years of marriage decides that they are not happy, and decides that it would be a fine thing to leave their spouse for a newer model, perhaps more physically attractive or with interests more akin to their own. They come up with a score of good reasons to make the change, but adultery, abuse, or desertion are not among them. Whatever their reasons might be, the Bible says that we are to stay married. And so their plan would be a bad one because it contradicts God’s plan and clear teaching. Or consider this: a student at a leading university sees an opportunity to enter a certain business or profession and make boatloads of money. But that business or profession is characterized by actions which destroy the environment, or which treats people made in God’s image as mere objects to be bought and sold for profit, or regularly takes advantage of good people and saddles them with crushing and inescapable debt. The Bible clearly says that Christians ought not to do such things, and therefore such a business or profession would not be appropriate for a follower of Jesus Christ to enter. Always check your decisions against the clear teaching of the Bible. If the Bible forbids the actions you are contemplating, you should do something else. The children of Israel wanted a king, even though God through his prophet said that to trust in a king would ultimately lead them away from reliance on God. They should have known better, but they didn’t stop to consider the consequences of their actions in light of God's stated will.

Finally, remember that you are made in God’s image, and that an important part of that image is reason. Think through the decisions you will make. Don’t live on dreams alone, but consider the consequences of your decisions. Know that all decisions have unintended consequences, and know that a thoughtful man or woman thinks through what those unintended consequences might be before committing themselves to any plan of action. The children of Israel thought it would be great to have a king like all the other nations. Samuel tried to warn them of the unintended consequences. “He will draft your sons into the army, and raise your taxes to fight unnecessary wars, and will force your daughters to be his serving girls. He will confiscate your property and give it to his friends and supporters, and you will in the end be his slaves. And you will cry out to God for deliverance, but it will be too late!” (I Samuel 8:10-18 paraphrased) But they had made up their minds in the heat of passion, and they did not think it through. They refused to listen to the prophet and they paid the price. Never let it be said that you set aside the great gift of reason that God has given to each of you. Employ it thoughtfully and refuse to let anyone drag you along through mere emotion. God has given you a gift. Use it wisely.

And now to recap:
First, I admonish you to consider your motives carefully and honestly, that you might make good decisions.
Second, I admonish you to carefully consider the clear commands of Scripture, that none of your decisions would conflict with God’s word written.
Third, I admonish you to remember that you are created in God’s own image, the “Imagio Dei,” and that reason, a significant element of that image, should guide your decisions as you plan and prepare for the remainder of your life.
Serve God faithfully all your days. Make good decisions. Remember who you are and the God who made you. And may your lives be blessed and bring glory to your loving Heavenly Father. In the Name of The Father, and of The Son, and of the Holy Ghost, one God. AMEN.

　

Flowers, and Memories of Those We Love

Yesterday morning, I harvested several beautiful yellow dinnerplate dahlias and arranged them in a crystal vase for wife Rebecca's office in our home.  She paid me one of the most wonderful compliments I could ever have received.  "Grandpa would have loved your dahlias."  I replied, "I didn't know he kept them."  She responded, "Oh yes, he always said they were as big as a dinnerplate."  I think it was the first time I have ever been cast in his shadow, and it is an honor indeed.

Ray Bonar grew up on the Ohio River and enlisted in the US Army just in time to deploy with General Blackjack Pershing's boys to Mexico in response to Pancho Villa's raid into US territory.  He was a trooper in D Troop, 12th US Cavalry, and had a horse shot out from under him during the war.  His leg wound ultimately brought him back to Ohio where he worked as a mining engineer, married Blanche, and reared three daughters, one of whom is my mother in law Twila.  Rebecca remembers him as a very old man who was quiet, squatted on the porch in a very curious position while entertaining a very special little girl, read National Geographic Magazine a lot, and was more than willing to spend time with his eldest grand-daughter, now my wife.  He chewed Mail Pouch Tobacco, and used to keep a pouch filled with prunes so that Rebecca could chew and spit with him when other adults were not around.  My wife worships his memory and treasures the love he showed to her.  I never got to meet him, but over the years I have heard so much about him.  I remember how when I posted to the 107th Cavalry and received my spur award, I felt close to him- as if we shared some common heritage or experience.  And now his little girl, my wife,  invokes his memory in appreciation of my dinner plate dahlias.  Truly, I am a man blessed by God.

Sermon for Trinity Sunday: "The Non-Negotables"

Reflection on Trinity Sunday

Preached at St. John’s Lancaster, 3 June 2012

Anglicans are Creedal Christians. I know that much ink has been spilled over the last few years in the American Church making the point that we are not “Confessional Christians,” but we do have a bare minimum that our Anglican Christian Faith calls us to believe. We believe the Creeds, and we say one or another of them at every worship service, at least here at St. John’s. For Baptisms and Offices we say the Apostles’ Creed, and for Eucharist we say the Nicene Creed. For the life of me, I can’t see much of a difference between being creedal and being confessional, unless it is that Creedal Christians vocalize their beliefs with regularity while Confessional Christians read theirs in a book on occasion. Both have something that you must believe if you are to be honestly counted among their number. It all seems pretty simple to me, but then I am not a very nuanced thinker.

Let me illustrate it this way. If I went on four legs, had a long neck, brown and orange spots, a short brushy tail, and little antennae looking things sticking out of my head, you would say that I was a giraffe. If I crawled on my belly, lived under a rock, and left a trail of slime wherever I went, you would say I was a slug. In the same way, if I believed that the Triune God created the world, and that the Father- the First Person of the Trinity, sent the Son, the Second Person of said Trinity to die and rise again for the redemption of all creation, and then sent the Third Person, the Spirit, to enable people to do wonderful things in said creation- If I confessed my sins, acknowledged Jesus as Lord and asked forgiveness, was baptized and said the creeds and received Communion, you would say I was a Christian. Now, if my attitudes and actions did not match the precepts of Jesus and the Bible, you might point out that I was not a very good Christian, but with that bare minimum of qualifications listed above, I would still qualify as a Christian.

We should note here that there are many animals which might be a bit like a giraffe, but are not giraffes. An elephant goes on four legs and has a short brushy tail, but it is not a giraffe. Without the neck it just can’t quite pass itself off as one. A snake lives under a rock and goes on its belly, but it is distinctly different from a slug. In the same way, there are many people who are devoutly religious, and who do many good things, and who help others, and who take their faith very seriously who are not Christians, because they do not believe in the Creeds. That is, they do not believe that God is Trinity in Unity, and that Jesus Christ is who the Bible says he is and did what the Bible says he did- and does. I’m not here to say they are not good people or great neighbors. I have lived by and worked with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and others who I would and have trusted with my life and the lives of those I love. They are good people, and many I count as my friends, but they are not Christians, because they do not believe those basic articles of the Creeds.

Like Kathy Heim’s former rector, now Bishop of Atlanta, is fond of saying, “There’s not a lot you have to believe, but some things are non-negotiable.”

Now for a word about believing, about having faith. I believe that the earth’s atmosphere at sea level and for several hundred feet above sea level, under normal conditions, is breathable and will keep me alive. I am not a biologist or a doctor and I have no idea how it works, but I believe it. In the same way, I believe that when a stewardess tells me to put on an oxygen mask, I had better do it, even though I have never been in a malfunctioning aircraft at a high level where anyone told me I needed to take that action. Experience and understanding might enhance my belief, but the are not necessary to its existence. In the same way, I can believe in God, and trust him implicitly for my salvation, even though I don’t have all of life’s answers, even though I don’t understand everything there is to know about God, and even though my experience of him might not be as profound or personalized as I hope it might be some day.

And so how does all of this apply to my life?
A person who is a Christian does not have the liberty of making up their faith as they go, or taking a bit here and a bit there to meet what they perceive to be their own needs. Any person can do that, but at the point that they stop believing in the creeds, they cease to be Christian. If God is who he says he is, then it is pretty important that we submit to him and live our lives on his terms. We can ask questions and have doubts, but at the end of the day we must believe in the Trinity and in the Incarnation, which are the theological names for the items covered in the creeds. To not do so is to not be a Christian. It is by definition to be something else.

As a Christian, you can expect to have doubts, and questions that just don’t seem to get answered, and times when you feel very alone. Those things are normal. Some questions will never get answered in this life, and some doubts will persist, and sometimes feeling alone is something that we can’t escape. But all of those things are based on our own powers of feeling and perceiving and understanding, and our powers are very limited. So we are called by the Bible to push through our doubts and fears and feelings to embrace the facts of the Creeds- of who God is and what he has done for us in Jesus. You see, our faith is not based on feelings or limited human reason, as good and as helpful as those things might be. They are incapable of fully comprehending the greatness of God or his plan for our lives. And so we trust him, embracing “the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.”

In just a few moments, two of our siblings in Christ will be presented for Holy Baptism, and we will all be asked to stand and renew our own belief in the Faith we have received from Jesus Christ. As they begin this life of public following of God as Christians, I hope that all of us will be able to consider anew what it means to do the same, and commit ourselves to continue in the Faith of Christ Crucified. Come to this place, to this font, to this altar with all of your doubts and imperfect understanding, but come with your faith intact. God will meet you and give you the ability to believe. Realize that that belief does not depend on your ability to form it or embrace it. It is the gift of the Holy Ghost to all who come with yearning hearts. “Consider the mustard seed, which is the tiniest of all the seeds, and yet when it is sprouted it grows into a bush which is big enough for birds to nest in.”  The act of faith- your act of faith, which among other things includes your desire to trust in a loving God, is like that grain of mustard seed. Come today with what you have, and don’t worry about what you don’t have. God’s gift will grow in your heart and mind as you follow him in obedience, and repentance, and humility.

In the Name of The Father, and of The Son, and of The Holy Ghost. AMEN.

Peace Amidst the Unexpected

This is not a picture of innocence
Rumbling Thunder, aka "Squirt" as a four year old

There are two rules that country folks take for granted:
1. Good fences make good neighbors.
2. Always close the gate.

As Rebecca and I have developed Briarwood (our home) over the last fifteen or so years, we have tried to be very careful about fencing, but even the best fences cannot do their job if you leave gates open.  Earlier this week, I opened the back gate to the main production plot on the west side of the barn to water the tomatoes, spinach, turnips, potatoes, horseradish, sunflowers, cucumbers, squash, and beans planted there.  From there, I pulled the hose to another location and hooked it into a drip irrigation system and went back to the house. 

When I got home from Columbus later that evening, I noticed that the gate was jammed open against the end of the chicken coop.  I had given her an inch and she had taken a mile.  Squirt had wedged herself between the rail fence and the edge of the barn, managed to make the turn into the production patch in spite of the closeness of the chicken coop to the gate, and proceeded to eat about a third of a row of beans.  She must not have liked them, because then she reversed her location and left without trampling anything else, and when I got home was waiting to come back into the barn for her evening ration of oats and sweet feed. 

When I was a younger man, I probably would have gotten mad, but now I am old, and so I just laughed, replanted the beans, and gave my lovely old pony her grain, along with a bit of a curry.  After all, the mistake was mine.  She was only doing what instinct and curiosity and lack of supervision dictated that she do. 

Very few things in this life are as important as I thought they were when I was younger.  I want to bring a bit of beauty to this place where God has put me.  I want to encourage people to experience the wonders of liberty responsibly and in a manner which is pleasing to God.  I want to live in a way which will encourage my children and grandchildren to want to follow Jesus and get to heaven.  I want to spend every day God gives us with my wife. 

From time to time, other ponies break into the garden of my life and make a bit of a mess of things.  I've found it best just to find the humor in it all, make the necessary corrections that I can control, and move on to do what needs to be done.  It is a formulae for contentment in life.

And next time, I'll remember to close the gate!