As those in the Episcopal church in some dioceses learn that they can no longer be in communion with the rest of us, I have mixed feelings. My first reaction is, "what took you so long?", an uncharitable and unthinking knee-jerk reaction, however true to my feelings.
The second, more reasoned response is, how do you think the Holy Spirit works if not through science, reason, imagination, scripture, learning, study, and revelation through experience? What else can the Holy Spirit do? My understanding is that spiritual growth happens when our experience is met with God's holy intentions for us.
I believe that the church is long overdue for rethinking the abuse of people based on their sexual orientation. While psychology, human dignity, and pastoral care all tell us to love people who are downtrodden and "less than", and our baptismal covenant requires us to work for justice and the dignity of all persons, the church has had unseeing eyes, based on unhelpful and hurtful dogma about the infallibility of some words written by men some 2000 years ago, which no longer speak to our hearts or our Christian understandings. Those who hold that scripture cannot be wrong seem to me to be the extreme result of those initial reformers who were trying to deny the pope's authority by substituting sola scriptura.
So, yes, let those who cannot go forward into the Way being offered by the Holy Spirit go the way of biblical inerrancy, if indeed that is their dogma (I wonder). Let the rest of grow into the knowledge and love of God and the care for our brothers and sisters, so we may go in peace to love and serve the Lord, Alleluia.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
St.Nick--We Got to Love Him
Nicholas of Myra will be celebrated this week. In North America, his day is not so special, but in other parts of the world, St. Nicholas Day is the day children get candy and fruit in stockings or shoes left out overnight.
Nicholas was bishop of Myra (in modern Turkey) around 375 or so. We don’t know many details about him, except that he was tortured and imprisoned during Diocletian’s persecutions. In one mythical story it is said he secretly left gold in the stocking of a poor maiden who could not marry because she lacked a dowry. He is known as the patron of seafarers and children, an odd combination, to be sure. The one thing that perhaps connects them is that both groups are dependent---one on their vessels in the midst of the gigantic waves, and the other on adults for their survival and growth. Thus we connect Nicholas to acts of benevolence and protection.
Last year I was part-time chaplain at both Northwestern University Canterbury and St. Gregory’s Episcopal School for at-risk boys in K-8 grades in urban Chicago. I wanted to make connections between these two groups, so I led some Canterbury students to St. Gregory’s to have St. Nicholas Day with the children. One NU graduate student looked very much like a Turkish bishop after we dressed him up for chapel. He led the children in a teaching on St. Nicholas, while other students filled with goodies the shoes that had been left outside the chapel. After chapel, the NU students helped the older class prepare for a Hip Hop Morning Prayer at which they were officiating the next week.
As chaplain at St. Gregory School I had hoped this visit from NU students, the first encounter with St. Nick for most of the boys, would be a special event for the school, as it was. But I had not counted on the college students being moved as well, as I later discovered that they had experienced an inner-city school for the first time in their lives. I am told by NU chaplain Liz Stedman that they still talk about that trip.
While St. Nicholas may be historically obscure, the acts done in his name, of giving and benevolence, powerfully speak to us today. While we may disdain the morphing of the bishop of Myra into a fat man from a mythical North Pole, brought to us from Dutch settlers as Santa Claus, we cannot deny the gifts, both temporal and spiritual, we have both given and received, that speak of love—enduring and divine. Nicholas of Myra fills a place in our hearts that calls us to give to others unconditionally. And if we connect that giving to the ultimate gift given to us by God, then the bishop of Myra, whoever he really was, lives again, showing us a path of peace.
Nicholas was bishop of Myra (in modern Turkey) around 375 or so. We don’t know many details about him, except that he was tortured and imprisoned during Diocletian’s persecutions. In one mythical story it is said he secretly left gold in the stocking of a poor maiden who could not marry because she lacked a dowry. He is known as the patron of seafarers and children, an odd combination, to be sure. The one thing that perhaps connects them is that both groups are dependent---one on their vessels in the midst of the gigantic waves, and the other on adults for their survival and growth. Thus we connect Nicholas to acts of benevolence and protection.
Last year I was part-time chaplain at both Northwestern University Canterbury and St. Gregory’s Episcopal School for at-risk boys in K-8 grades in urban Chicago. I wanted to make connections between these two groups, so I led some Canterbury students to St. Gregory’s to have St. Nicholas Day with the children. One NU graduate student looked very much like a Turkish bishop after we dressed him up for chapel. He led the children in a teaching on St. Nicholas, while other students filled with goodies the shoes that had been left outside the chapel. After chapel, the NU students helped the older class prepare for a Hip Hop Morning Prayer at which they were officiating the next week.
As chaplain at St. Gregory School I had hoped this visit from NU students, the first encounter with St. Nick for most of the boys, would be a special event for the school, as it was. But I had not counted on the college students being moved as well, as I later discovered that they had experienced an inner-city school for the first time in their lives. I am told by NU chaplain Liz Stedman that they still talk about that trip.
While St. Nicholas may be historically obscure, the acts done in his name, of giving and benevolence, powerfully speak to us today. While we may disdain the morphing of the bishop of Myra into a fat man from a mythical North Pole, brought to us from Dutch settlers as Santa Claus, we cannot deny the gifts, both temporal and spiritual, we have both given and received, that speak of love—enduring and divine. Nicholas of Myra fills a place in our hearts that calls us to give to others unconditionally. And if we connect that giving to the ultimate gift given to us by God, then the bishop of Myra, whoever he really was, lives again, showing us a path of peace.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Thanksgiving is gone
The official day of Thanksgiving has come with a little fanfare (mostly at places where food is sold!). What if every day were a day of giving thanks:
- for the anxiety that sometimes finds us, because it reminds us that we are human, and something needs our attention
- for the annoying neighbor or relative, without whom we wouldn't be able to practice forgiveness
- for illness that keeps us humble, asking for assistance from total strangers
- for the rain, in the midst of drought, either spiritual or temporal
Today practice giving thanks for something that perks up your complacency and shows you a new face of God.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Samuel Seabury
This week we remember the consecration of Samuel Seabury.
The portion of the gospel of Matthew appointed for the commemoration of the consecration of Samuel Seabury is familiar to us:
During the exam we certainly felt “harassed and helpless.” However, at the dinner, we garnered the support and compassion of the entire seminary community, as all of the seminary community, faculty and students alike, we expected to attend the liturgy and dinner following. First and second-year students would watch us closely, and begin their own time of anxiety about the exam. Faculty would commiserate with us about unfair questions asked in their areas of expertise. We knew we were not alone, that compassion abounded for us, like the compassion of Jesus for the crowds.
We are all like the crowds Jesus encountered, harassed and helpless in some area of life, all in need of the compassion of our communities. When you remember the compassion you have received, you become more able to pass that compassion on to others in your midst. I hope this week you can be part of a compassionate presence in your own workplace/dorm/classroom of the “harassed and helpless.”
The portion of the gospel of Matthew appointed for the commemoration of the consecration of Samuel Seabury is familiar to us:
Every year at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Samuel Seabury’s day is celebrated by the Boar’s Head Dinner, held one week after the General Ordination Exam (GOE) is finished. If you don’t know about it, the GOE is a four-day written exam of 7 substantial essay questions covering the 7 canonical areas of study required of all seminary students for ordination. To say the least, it is a grueling ordeal, especially for some of us older, less physically-resilient students. The Boar’s Head Dinner, a take-off on medieval baronial feasts, complete with Elizabethan liturgy beforehand, was therefore a time of raucous partying for students.Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every
sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were
harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
During the exam we certainly felt “harassed and helpless.” However, at the dinner, we garnered the support and compassion of the entire seminary community, as all of the seminary community, faculty and students alike, we expected to attend the liturgy and dinner following. First and second-year students would watch us closely, and begin their own time of anxiety about the exam. Faculty would commiserate with us about unfair questions asked in their areas of expertise. We knew we were not alone, that compassion abounded for us, like the compassion of Jesus for the crowds.
We are all like the crowds Jesus encountered, harassed and helpless in some area of life, all in need of the compassion of our communities. When you remember the compassion you have received, you become more able to pass that compassion on to others in your midst. I hope this week you can be part of a compassionate presence in your own workplace/dorm/classroom of the “harassed and helpless.”
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Willibrord
This week we commemorate Willibrord, the first Archbishop of Utrecht, missioner from England to The Netherlands in the late 8th and early 9th centuries. He was born in Northumbria, where Celtic influences were prominent. He studied in France and Ireland, then was sent with 9 companions to Frisia in 690. We know these details of his life from The Venerable Bede’s History of the Church in England, and having no other sources, are unable to say much more about his life and work, except that it was interrupted by wars in the regions he served.
The See of Utrecht today is in full communion with the Church of England, testifying to the importance of Willibrord’s bringing Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Christianity to this region of Europe.
The collect for Willibrord, from Lesser Feasts and Fasts:
O Lord our God, who call whom you will and send them where you choose: We thank you for sending your servant Willibrord to be an apostle to the Low Countries, to turn them from the worship of idols to serve you, the living God; and we entreat you to preserve us from the temptation to exchange the perfect freedom of your service for servitude to false gods and to idols of our own devising; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
The language of this collect seems quaint to us in its use of the phrase “worship of idols”, as we now understand idolatry to be as rampant among modern Christians as among any group of “pagans” of history. However, we do serve the living God, and try to keep mindful of God’s presence in our midst, providing guidance in confusion, grace in our moments of need, and mercy when we fall. We continue to pray that God would deliver us from our penchant of serving false gods in our lives. Maybe Willibrord will help us even now, interceding on our behalf.
Have a blessed week.
The See of Utrecht today is in full communion with the Church of England, testifying to the importance of Willibrord’s bringing Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Christianity to this region of Europe.
The collect for Willibrord, from Lesser Feasts and Fasts:
O Lord our God, who call whom you will and send them where you choose: We thank you for sending your servant Willibrord to be an apostle to the Low Countries, to turn them from the worship of idols to serve you, the living God; and we entreat you to preserve us from the temptation to exchange the perfect freedom of your service for servitude to false gods and to idols of our own devising; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
The language of this collect seems quaint to us in its use of the phrase “worship of idols”, as we now understand idolatry to be as rampant among modern Christians as among any group of “pagans” of history. However, we do serve the living God, and try to keep mindful of God’s presence in our midst, providing guidance in confusion, grace in our moments of need, and mercy when we fall. We continue to pray that God would deliver us from our penchant of serving false gods in our lives. Maybe Willibrord will help us even now, interceding on our behalf.
Have a blessed week.
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