The End? Or The Beginning?

Jesus Christ- Our King and Saviour, My Lord

Rector's Rambling: November AD MMXII

I can't say that I was stunned- perhaps saddened and sickened would be better words.  I had logged on to check my e-mail and the Anglican news servers before going to our October Vestry meeting.  What I had dreaded had at last happened.  My friends in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina had left the Episcopal Church.  In the words of one of their own officers:

"October 17, 2012

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

On Monday, October 15, 2012, Bishop Lawrence was notified by the Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, that on September 18, 2012 the Disciplinary Board for Bishops had certified his abandonment of The Episcopal Church. This action triggered two pre-existing corporate resolutions of the Diocese made on November 1, 2011 and October 2, 2012, which simultaneously disaffiliated the Diocese from The Episcopal Church and called a Special Convention. That Convention will be held at St. Philip’s Church, Charleston, on Saturday, November 17, 2012.

The clergy of the Diocese are consequently called to gather for a special Clergy Day this Friday, October 19th at St. Paul’s, Summerville. Our meeting will begin at 10:30 a.m. and conclude by 4:00 p.m. The clergy of the Diocese are asked to RSVP electronically...

Our time will be spent discussing the significance of the actions taken by the Episcopal Church, our response as a Diocese and the plans for the immediate future. You may read related documents [on the diocesan website].

In Christ,

--(The Rev. Canon) Jim Lewis, Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina"

 

 

The event, so long anticipated with dread, now seems to have been eclipsed by a strange sense of calm.  In the midst of that calm, I picked up Love's Redeeming Work:The Anglican Quest for Holiness, edited by Geoffrey Rowell, Kenneth Stevenson, and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and published by Oxford University Press in 2001.  I believe with all my heart that the Holy Spirit led me to this 788 page anthology of Anglican spiritual writings through the ages.  As I read, the question began to take shape in my mind, "what is the church, what is the real nature of Christian community?"  For me, this is not just about South Carolina.  It is about friends and family members who have followed their consciences (and I believe the leading of the Holy Spirit) to the Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic Churches.  I will never again be able to receive Holy Communion with them.  It is about friends and family members who have left Anglicanism to attend Evangelical or Fundamentalist churches.  (I believe that they too are following God's leading in their lives.)  Never again will we share that wonderful sense of awe and unity of Spirit which has so often flowed from prayer book worship in antient buildings dedicated to God.  And as the general introduction to the cited work points out, what of those neighbors and friends and others who seek God with their hearts, minds, souls, and strength who have been alienated from formal church structure by the behaviour of us who bear the name of Christ? 

 

I do not believe that "The Church" can be defineed as any mere denominational structure- particularly if that structure can only manage to draw a bit over a half million people on any given Sunday morning for worship.  But such structures may well be localized expressions of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and without organizational and institutional structures, it does not take long until the "faith received" develops into mere folk religion and good intentions.  It first ceases to be catholic, and the loss of orthodoxy, order, and loving unity is usually not long in coming. 

 

And so what am I to do?  What are we to do at Saint John's?  I don't have all of the answers, but here are a few things which cross my mind:

1. I will continue to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and that all who are reconciled to the Father receive that gift by his grace.  I will define the terms of this foundational belief in the terms set in Scripture and in the three historic creeds of the Church.

2. I will order my moral life, with God's help and to the best of my ability, after the example and teaching of Holy Scripture, and of our holy Mother the Church.

3. I will worship according to the forms and traditions of The Book of Common Prayer.

4. I will accept and affirm as fellow Christians all who exhibit in their profession of faith the threefold Johannine test (from the First Letter of St. John) of belief in Christ as defined in Scripture and Holy Tradition (the test of Doctrine), of godly behaviour as defined by Scripture (the test of Obedience), and  of mutual love- which is modeled for us by Christ and his saints in Scripture and Holy Tradition (the test of Love).

5. I will honour and respect the decisions of those Christians who believe that our sacramental fellowship and interchangability of orders must be limited for reasons of doctrine or conscience, and at the same tiime, I will maintain our open sacramental ministry at St. John's to all who have been baptised in the Name of the Holy and Blessed Trinity.

6. I will work to remain friends with adherents of other Christian denominations and non-christian faith groups, whatever events may occur, and whatever organizations to which we belong may decide to do.

7. I will not participate in or condone any actions, conversations, or gatherings public or private which exacerbate the divisions which plague the people of God.  If I find myself in a place where such things are going on, I will physically leave the gathering without any expression of anger, and will pray for all those involved in the situation, myself included.

 

Honestly, I don't know what else to do.  The Church will prosper and accomplish the mission given her by Christ, but she looks less and less like the beautiful church I once embraced.  That brings me some real sadness, but it also calls me to see real opportunity for the Bride of Christ to engage the world in new and exciting ways in a new millenium.  I pray for strength to make the transition to what will be, in the full knowledge that Christ is Victorious.  But I will always treasure in my heart the vision of what might have been.

 

To Christ- the true King!

Bill+

 

 

Facing the Darkness

Sermon for August 5th
Preached at St. John's Lancaster

The Lion of the Tribe of Judah

And Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, went down, and caused Solomon to ride upon King David’s mule, and brought him to Gihon. And Zadok the priest took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon. (I Kings 1: 38-39)

It was an auspicious day, for a new king had been anointed in Zion. It was the latest verification of that promise which had been given by God through the patriarch Joseph, “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be…” (Genesis 49:8-10) The prophet Zechariah understood the prophetic nature of these utterances about the house of Judah and of David when he proclaimed “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, o daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” (Zechariah 9:9) His understanding was vindicated and the prophecy fulfilled on that day “when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.” (St. Matthew 21:1-9)

The Jewish people suffered much in the thirteen or fourteen centuries which contained these prophetic events. There were wars and rumors of wars, slavery and deportations, famines and earthquakes and fire and flood. Invasion and economic ruin were never far over the horizon. For much of that time we might apply Churchill’s description of life in Iron Age Britain that “Life is brutal and short, and then you die.” But God’s promise prevailed, and among the people, even in the darkest of hours, that hope flickered that God would remember his chosen, and that the “scepter would not depart from Judah until Shiloh come.”

And now, by virtue of our response to God, we too are numbered among His chosen people. Because ‘we have confessed our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ (I John 1:9 sic) Because ‘we have confessed with our mouth the Lord Jesus, and believed in our heart that God hath raised him from the dead, we shall be saved.’ (Romans 10:9 sic) Because ‘we have been born of the water and of the Spirit, we can enter into the kingdom of God.’ (John 3:5 sic) Because we ‘eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, we have life in us…and we dwell in him and he in us, and he shall raise us up at the last day.’ (St. John 6:53-56 sic)

Like patriarchs and prophets and kings before us, like those who are ‘unremembered…who were men of loyalty and good deeds…, whose lives led their children to stay within the covenant of God.’ (cf Ecclesiasticus 44:9-12) we find in our lives those times of dryness and disappointment, those times of difficulty and unexpected disorder, those times of darkness. But the promises of God are true. During the years when Jerusalem was in ruins and God’s faithful people wept by the waters of Babylon, they remembered the promises (cf. Psalm 137). In the most difficult of times, when they cried “Out of the depths” (Psalm 130:1), the people of God affirmed their faith that “he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” (Psalm 130:8) Blessed Job in the midst of his infirmities and misfortunes cried out in faith “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” (Job 19:25-26)

And so should we, when life’s vicissitudes and uncertainties and unpleasantries confront us, place our hope in God, who is “our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake at the swelling thereof. Selah. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.” (Psalm 46:1)

As war descended across Europe in the closing years of 1939, King George VI addressed the people of the Empire and of the world. He quoted from a poem by Minnie Louise Harkins and said “I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown, and he replied. Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way! So I went forth and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.”

Whatever darkness my threaten you this day. Whatever sorrow you have known or whatever difficulties you face. I bid you this day to put your hand into the hand of God in the knowledge that Shiloh is come into the world and that the prophesies are fulfilled. Jesus Christ, who bid his disciples “be not afraid” on so many occasions, gives to us the same admonition today. Praised be God, who has not allowed the scepter to depart from the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and who in his mercy and grace has named you and me to be the heirs of the Kingdom of God. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN.

A Very Difficult Day

Where it all began

I fell in love with The Book of Common Prayer while attending a regimental Chapel in the early 1970's.  By the middle of that decade, I was a regular attender at Christ Church Lexington where The Rev'd Father Moultrie McIntosh inspired me to seek God's will for my life.  The music, the liturgy, and the architecture were inspiring to say the least.  It was another 15 years before Rebecca and I decided to be confirmed at Trinity Church in Columbus, Ohio.  I knew where the church seemed to be headed, but hoped against hope that either God would send a revival or that at least things wouldn't go completely south on my watch.  I really did know better, but I have always been a bit of a niave optimist.  I suppose it has something to do with my desire to avoid conflict as much as I can (and more than is healthy.)  And now here we are.

This morning, when I read Canon Jim Lewis' letter on the Diocese of South Carolina's website http://www.diosc.com/sys/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=435:bishop-lawrence-meets-with-clergy-of-the-diocese-of-south-carolina-following-general-convention&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=75, I had a gnawing sense that my world was falling apart around me.  Somehow, knowing that South Carolina was there and ever so orthodox has long been a source of comfort to me.  It seemed to confirm that my decision to stay in the church was right and true.  I am still here and so are they, but somehow the sensation of finality seemed and still seems to cover me like a shadow. 

I've spent a lot of time today thinking about what might have been.  Generally that is a very bad thing to do, but as a part of my grieving process, I decided to indulge myself a bit today.  During my musings, I came across the following analysis in The Beauty of Holiness: The Caroline Divines and their Writings, by Benjamin Guyer.  "James VI and I proactively sought peace with his European neighbors and also sought to pave the way towards an ecumenical council.  The king cultivated relations with groups as diverse as the Greek Orthodox and Dutch Reformed churches, and sought to use the French Protestant Synod of Tonneins as the basis for reconciliation between the Lutheran and Reformed churches.  He also sent a small delegation to the reformed Synod of Dordrecht (Dort) in 1618-19.  Royal involvement in each of these was due to the king's conciliarism."  Here was a good man with lots of issues and situations (King James) doing his best to do what he believed was right.  Almost none of it worked out in the long run, but he did the best of things in some of the worst of times. 

I have found real comfort in his example today.  I do hope I can do as well in being faithful to my vows as a priest as he was to his as a king.  Many years ago, I had the following exchange with Bishop Thompson:
The Bishop says to the ordinand
Will you be loyal to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of
Christ as this Church has received them? And will you, in
accordance with the canons of this Church, obey your bishop
and other ministers who may have authority over you and
your work?
Answer
I am willing and ready to do so; and I solemnly declare that I
do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments
to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to
salvation; and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine,
discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church.
Things have changed a great deal since that day.  Things changed a great deal today.  I would argue that the General Convention of the Episcopal Church has indeed "Walked Apart" and would agree with Bishop Lawrence that it would be wrong for me to act as if everything were "business as usual."  But my promise to Bishop Thompson, who stood in the place of Jesus Christ, still stands.  It is still as valid and binding as my marriage vows to Rebecca and as my vow to "Uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic." 

And so at the end of this day, I do not know what the future holds, but I know that I will be true to my vows.  I will pray for Bishop Lawrence as Canon Lewis requests.  I will be faithful to Jesus Christ and to these people among whom he has been pleased to place me.  As Martin Luther said, "Here I stand, I can do no other.  God help me."

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.

Thoughts on Memorial Day

Rest Eternal grant unto them, O Lord,
and let Light Perpetual shine upon them.  AMEN.

A friend of mine, a retired Presbyterian Pastor and former Army Chaplain, sent me the following short meditation on Memorial Day, and I thought it worth passing on to you.  He said that he preached some version of this in every town in which he ever pastored, and in a few others besides.  It was his priviledge to share it with soldiers on occasion before their deployments.  And so I send this out with many thanks to the Reverend Chaplain (Major) Keith Kivlin, 73d Infantry Brigade (SEPARATE) and 16th Engineer Brigade. 

"This is Memorial Day, not Veteran's Day.  No Vets died in any of the wars fought by our country.  Memorial Day is a memorial for the dead: those Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guards who died in the wars of our nation.  Considering the generally solemn occasion, the picnics and ball games and swimming pools and car races appear to be inappropriate ways to keep the day.  Unless... you remember the military personnel who gave their lives were all young.  The average age of an American soldier in each and all of our wars was and is 19 years.  Watching re-enactors you get the impression that the men who died fighting for our country were all a bunch of middle aged guys with beer bellies.  But that would be wrong.  They were young.  They were incredibly young.  They were amazingly young.  How do we memorialize these very young people who died fighting for our freedoms?  certainly it is wise to spend a few minutes in a grave yard and plant flags and flowers.  But after that what?  I think we have it right after all.  Keep this day the way these honored dead would have kept this day in their strength and exhuberance.  Go play some ball, deep fry a turkey, grill some burgers, splash in a pool, play some music (preferably very LOUD music), drink some beer and whiskey, play some guitars and banjos, play some golf, do some touch dancing with several beautiful girls, wash your old car in the shade of the maple tree, kiss your girl friends, wives, co-workers, etc.  In doing the above, throw a ball, kiss a girl, grill a burger, drink a beer for those who gave up all their sunny picnic days for you.  If you do some of these things today, our war dead in the Realms of Light will laugh and send a blessing our way!  Pray for Peace!  In this celebration may the Lord Jesus Christ be with you!  Amen."

Peace and Love,

Keith