how to be faithful “in the mean time”
July 21, 2009 — dpc+Over at StandFirm, in response to this article, Eddie Swain wrote:
I’m starting to see that my problem is my ecclesiology. I don’t get the whole “individual and personal goals” thing that [some are talking about]. But, that is because I think of the church as one body.
I’m not looking for me to develop a plan on my own and then follow my own personal goals . . . I wouldn’t even be all that terribly wild about a local parish plan for survival. All of that is just too “congregationalist” for my understanding of ecclesiology….
But, I have yet to be convinced that ACNA will end up being much more than “congregationalist” by the time all is said and done, though I am convinced that the goal is to move past congregationalism in some way or another.
It may be that all of our options are just too congregationalist for me, and that may be a reality that I just need to accept and evaluate my choices from there.
What I long for is a concerted effort rather than a collection of individual and personal goals that do not have a clear unified direction. That appears to be impossible on the “inside strategy,” and, if so, another reality I just need to adjust to.
Believe it or not, Sarah’s clarification [Sarah had written, the national institutions of TEC are lost forever. But then . . . we all knew that back in 2003 and 2004 and 2005 and 2006 and 2007 and 2008, right? The question is, are there portions of TEC that are salvageable. I believe that there are. But we shall see and time will tell.] may have helped, even though it wasn’t at all what I was hoping to hear.
and my response:
I too resonate with the whole subject of ecclesiology. And I too find parochial and personal plans to be nearly deficient. It has helped me to remember that “catholic” does not mean universal as so many want us to think. You’ll remember that it comes from two Greek words: kat’, meaning “according to,” and holos, meaning “the whole.” To be catholic means that every church has the marks of, the characteristics of, the whole Church. Fr. Thomas Hopko has said
The term “catholic,” as originally used to define the Church (as early as the first decades of the second century), was a definition of quality rather than quantity. Calling the Church catholic means to define how it is, namely, full and complete, all-embracing, and with nothing lacking.
Even before the Church was spread over the world, it was defined as catholic. The original Jerusalem Church of the apostles, or the early city-churches of Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome, were catholic. These churches were catholic… because nothing essential was lacking for them to be the genuine Church of Christ. God Himself is fully revealed and present in each church through Christ and the Holy Spirit, acting in the local community of believers with its apostolic doctrine, ministry (hierarchy), and sacraments, thus requiring nothing to be added to it in order for it to participate fully in the Kingdom of God.
And so the personal and parochial plan I’m engaged in is to work very hard to see that my parish has the marks—the characteristics—of unity, sanctity, wholeness and faithfulness to the Tradition. I can do that irrespective of whether the ABC and the Primates choose to recognize the ACNA, and I can do that irrespective of what 815 and General Convention do. My spiritual director reminded me to take the long view and be patient. It took from 325 to 681 for the Church to work out Who Christ is and what His nature is…
July 11, 2009 — dpc+
half the country away (only two states separate me from southern california) there are people meeting. the genital general convention of the episcopal church is meeting near disney land. it is a train wreck happening. the engine is off the track. the conductor is still sounding the “all clear.” many of the passengers are delighted at the menu items they’re seeing in the club car. they imagine they will arrive at their destination and that, besides believing they are being faithful, “all is well.”
in remembering my emotional and spiritual responses to the general conventions of 2003 and 2006, i have discerned that to follow the goings-on of this meeting is injurious to me. however, i will pray (and i invite all to pray) for those in attendance: the very few orthodox, the many heterodox, the scores of heretics, and the heresiarchs whose diverse penchants lead the unwitting astray.
may God have mercy on us. may we hear His mercy.
a very important perspective
July 5, 2009 — dpc+In my humble opinion, Metropolitan Jonah briefly describes the only direction in which the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion in general, may proceed toward life and health.
a homily for June 28, B 8
June 28, 2009 — dpc+Deuteronomy 15:7-11
Psalm 112
2 Corinthians 8:1-9,13-15
Mark 5:22-24,35b-43
In keeping with the theme of how we live the faith we hold, today we consider the way we treat the poor and needy among us, the way we exercise the spiritual gift of generosity, the way we go out of our way for others… These are the ways we show our faith in and our love for God. These are the ways we show the world that God reigns and rules over our lives. These are the ways we show the world the power of Jesus Christ, the love of God and our fellowship by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
“Deuteronomy” means 2nd law. Not in the sense that it’s a new law, but it’s the second time the people are told about it. The first time is in Exodus, and that is recounted as narrative, as a history, as the story of God and His people. Think paper back. Deuteronomy is written as a covenant between God and the people of Israel. Think hard cover text book. It begins by reminding Israel who the Lord is and what He’s done for them to get them where they are. Their ancestors wandered in the wilderness and died there because of their lack of faith in the Lord. Here Moses readies their children to move into the Land. Besides recounting their history and how God kept saving them, Moses tells the Israelites that they’re to take care of the poor and the needy, and the foreigners among them. Not merely as acts of kindness, but because it would make them remember how God took care of them, how the Lord restored them to freedom and wholeness as a community.
The passage from Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians is the follow-up to Paul’s first letter which referred to the offering that was received for the Jerusalem Church, that Paul promised Peter, James, and John. In the first 5 verses Paul is trying to arouse almost a spirit of competition between the Macedonians and the Corinthians by telling the Corinthians how generous the Macedonians are in giving; if there’s a standard of giving, the Macedonian church would be a great one: they were giving generously without being nagged or even reminded: they were begging for the privilege! They give because first they devoted themselves to the Lord. Paul explains that was to be the Corinthians’ motivation as well. In other words, the generous giving that Jesus modeled of His life offered as a sacrifice, which was the standard by which they thought themselves rich in the first place, that is the same generosity they ought to exercise.
Up to now we might draw the conclusion that today’s lessons are about how to relieve the needs of the poor and, perhaps why we should be faithful in our stewardship. But Mark moves us into a little different arena. Jesus was just asked to leave from where He’d healed the demoniac and the Legion of demons sent the herd of pigs over a bank, and they fell into the Galilee and drowned. Jesus is now back on the northwest side of the sea, Capernaum, walking through town, when the head of the synagogue, who is also the Roman administrator of the community, Jairus, comes and falls to the ground at Jesus’ feet, and begs Him to heal his daughter. After Jesus learns that the little girl has gone from ‘critical’ to ‘dead,’ He goes to the house and restores her to life.
So we hear about caring for the needy, generous giving, and supernatural power… these are the hallmarks of the people of God.
Ministry that doesn’t take care of the whole person isn’t Christian. If a church isn’t preaching the gospel and helping the poor, it is neglecting what God loves and who Jesus died for. If a church helps the poor but forgets the gospel they’ve lost their motivation and forsaken their Master. The ministry of the Scriptures to us today provides a view on how we’re to wholistically to exercise our Christian faith.
We need to recover the sense of equilibrium in our teaching, our belief, and our life. The Christian faith is that God wants us to take care of the poor and lay hands on the sick. God asks us to give our money to further the Kingdom and also to give our very lives. The Lord wants enthusiastic worship and good government and a faithful witness to the history and experience of our spiritual ancestors. And we should see results in our lives when we commit to these things.
The truth God communicates through Scripture comes in different forms for a reason: we need the various perspectives to grasp all the truth. We need to be reminded of God’s mighty deeds and how the faithful have been saved in the past. We need to see Jesus in all of His ministry. We need to know the whole history of the Church and remember how the faithful have always devoted themselves to doing good and using the spiritual gifts they’ve been given. We need the teaching of Paul and James and Peter and John, who explain to us how Jesus Christ works in the Church through the Holy Spirit. We need the witness of the Early Church to keep us straight and on the proper track, moving on the trajectory that God established, which leads ultimately to the goal of: nothing short of the reconciliation of the world in Jesus’ Name.
“Pentecost” by Metropolitan John of Pergamum
May 30, 2009 — dpc+“COME, HOLY SPIRIT, SANCTIFY OUR LIVES!”
The cry for transformation and sanctification corresponds to the deepest longings and desires of the human being. And God knows the world, as it is, and our existence, as it actually is, needs transformation. The image of God, in which we are created, knows we cannot be content with things as they are. There must be change for ourselves and the way things are; but how?
The Holy Spirit: Two Avenues
Asking the Holy Spirit to be involved in our lives in any process of transformation leading to holiness. One is to ask Him to assist with our efforts: we do the planning, we make the efforts, and the Holy Spirit is asked to help. The other way is to leave everything to the Holy Spirit. We do nothing but pray, and leave everything to the Holy Spirit. Both of these extremes are wrong; but of these two the first one is probably the one we have to watch out for more carefully at this time of widespread rationalism and planning. The Episcopal Church claiming the Holy Spirit is responsible for the “new thing” that is being done in is an example of this.
The Holy Spirit seems to have an obsession with freedom. He blows where He wills, and does not like to be told what to do. [Remember the joke about how to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans…] We must certainly try, and we must definitely do our best, but when we pray for the Holy Spirit to come we must be prepared for the unexpected. All of our best thinking may well prove to be wrong. But I for one would rather be holy than right…
Sanctification has always been associated with the specific operations of the Holy Spirit since the time of the Church Fathers. But the way this sanctification and the holiness that results from it have been understood through the centuries has turned spirituality into an irrelevant concept for the world today. A certain aristocracy and elitism are often associated with spirituality. We need to combat the lie which says the Holy Spirit transforms and sanctifies only certain individuals, with the truth that His gifts are poured “upon all flesh” as the prophecy of Joel has put it. How can we make the concept of holiness relevant today?
The Ethos of Holiness
Holiness means setting apart someone or something for God. Holiness requires an attitude —towards all that exists (our bodies, our minds, the material world, everything) — which says, “by nature, this belongs to God.” We cannot own ourselves, our bodies, our lives, our natural resources — they belong to God. Our theology says that we are in the world as the priests of creation endowed with the privilege of offering creation back to its Creator.
This eucharistic attitude is the first thing that we need today during this time of severe ecological crisis as well as when there are so many enemies and factions in our lives. This eucharistic attitude is a spirituality of holiness that flourished in the desert Fathers, but has been forgotten in the meantime. It has to be recovered urgently, now that we need to be redeemed from humanistic and human-centered attitudes to existence.
Holiness and Community
One of the greatest sins of mankind today is seen in how holiness is understood individualistically. We think of the transformation of an individual into a holy man or a holy woman and that they are characterized by certain virtues and they shine forth with qualities of goodness, humility, love, etc.
But we tend to forget that when the Holy Spirit blows, He always brings about communion and therefore creates community. There is no such thing as “holy individualism.” All holiness stems from the communion of the Spirit. That is what makes the Church holy and at the same time is so important for our spirituality and holiness.
There’s an old Latin saying that goes “One cannot be a Christian alone.” It is because of the association of the Holy Spirit with communion that the saying of St Cyprian, “There is no salvation outside of the Church,” must be taken seriously. And so we must look for a transformation of the Church even as we speak of sharing holiness and sanctification.
The structure and ministry of the community — which is visible unity — cannot be irrelevant to holiness. It is a tragic reality that Christian communities do not recognize each other’s saints, because of division at the level of both or either faith and order. Holiness and church structure cannot be separated. Praying for holiness must go together with working for unity. If we are not working for unity we cannot be holy.
Holiness and Freedom
Finally, holiness means liberation — or rather, freedom. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). Liberation is from someone or something; freedom is for someone or something. Both aspects are associated in the work of the Spirit, who is freedom. These take various forms:
- liberation from the past — forgiveness through repentance (metanoia);
- liberation from passions of egocentricity (askesis, healing one’s self);
- liberation from injustice, exploitation, poverty and all social evil;
- liberation even from decay and death — something we speak so little about;
- freedom to love, even our enemies; to allow for personal, cultural and other differences to exist; to give our lives for our enemies, even as our Lord gave His on the Cross for us.
All this means that the Holy Spirit has a great deal to say to the churches today through sanctification and holiness. We must work for a spirituality that will make sense for all human beings in all walks of life. And yet we must guard ourselves against an easy ‘spiritualism.’ We often speak too easily and too quickly of the presence and the activity of the Holy Spirit in what we are doing. We must humbly submit what we are and what we do to His purifying judgment, waiting for Him to reveal the truth.
There is always the danger of confusing the Spirit of God with our own psychological experiences or certainties. The Holy Spirit is God. He is Lord. He cannot be contained by our feelings. The best we can do is to worship Him as Lord, to pray to Him to dwell among us, and to wait patiently upon Him in all that we do.
“Believe it or not, the bishop’s an agnostic”
May 19, 2009 — dpc+Though this is in the entertainment section of the Sydney Morning Herald, this isn’t entertaining. it is frightening. the US isn’t alone in warehousing loons in collars… the man has no integrity whatsoever. had he a shred of sincerity or integrity he would leave the church immediately.
Believe it or not, the bishop’s an agnostic – Arts – Entertainment – smh.com.au
South Dakota elects
May 9, 2009 — dpc+Congrats to Fr. Tarrant. May he lead more faithfully and capably than his predecessor… for results of South Dakota’s election click here.
an email that touched my heart
April 25, 2009 — dpc+Some would prevent people like Kevin from ever being baptized…
I envy Kevin. Kevin, thinks God lives under his bed. At least that’s what he said one night.
He was praying out loud in his dark bedroom, and I stopped to listen, ‘Are you there, God?’ he said. ‘Where are you? Oh, I see. Under the bed…’
I giggled softly and tiptoed off to my own room. Kevin’s unique perspectives are often a source of amusement. But that night something else lingered long after the humor. I realized for the first time the very different world in which Kevin lives.
He was born 30 years ago, mentally disabled as a result of an obstetrician. Apart from his size (he’s 6-foot-2), there are few ways in which he is an adult.
He reasons and communicates with the capabilities of a 7-year-old, and–baring a scientific miracle–he always will. He will probably always believe that God lives under his bed, that Santa Claus fills the space under our tree every Christmas and that airplanes stay up in the sky because angels carry them.
I remember wondering if Kevin realizes he is different. Is he ever dissatisfied with his monotonous life?
Up before dawn each day, off to work at a workshop for the disabled, home to walk the dog, return to eat his favorite macaroni-and-cheese for dinner, and later to bed.
The only variation in the entire scheme is laundry, when he hovers excitedly over the washing machine like a mother with her newborn child.
He does not seem dissatisfied.
He lopes out to the bus every morning at 7:05, eager for a day of simple work.
He wrings his hands excitedly while the water boils on the stove before dinner, and he stays up late twice a week to gather our dirty laundry for his next day’s laundry chores.
And Saturdays — oh, the bliss of Saturdays! That’s the day my Dad takes Kevin to the airport to have a soft drink, watch the planes land, and speculate loudly on the destination of each passenger inside. ‘That one’s goin’ to Chi-car-go! ‘ Kevin shouts as he claps his hands.
His anticipation is so great he can hardly sleep on Friday nights.
And so goes his world of daily rituals and weekend field trips.
He doesn’t know what it means to be discontent.
His life is simple.
He will never know the entanglements of wealth of power, and he does not care what brand of clothing he wears or what kind of food he eats. His needs have always been met, and he never worries that one day they may not be.
His hands are diligent. Kevin is never so happy as when he is working. When he unloads the dishwasher or vacuums the carpet, his heart is completely in it.
He does not shrink from a job when it is begun, and he does not leave a job until it is finished. But when his tasks are done, Kevin knows how to relax.
He is not obsessed with his work or the work of others. His heart is pure.
He still believes everyone tells the truth, promises must be kept, and when you are wrong, you apologize instead of argue.
Free from pride and unconcerned with appearances, Kevin is not afraid to cry when he is hurt, angry or sorry. He is always transparent, always sincere. And he trusts God.
Not confined by intellectual reasoning, when he comes to Christ, he comes as a child. Kevin seems to know God – to really be friends with Him in a way that is difficult for a ‘normal’ person to grasp. God seems like his closest companion.
In my moments of doubt and frustrations with my Christianity, I envy the security Kevin has in his simple faith.
It is then that I am most willing to admit that he has some divine knowledge that rises above my mortal questions.
It is then I realize that perhaps he is not the one with the handicap. I am. My obligations, my fear, my pride, my circumstances – they all become disabilities when I do not trust them to God’s care.
Who knows if Kevin comprehends things I can never learn? After all, he has spent his whole life in that kind of innocence, praying after dark and soaking up the goodness and love of God.
And one day, when the mysteries of heaven are opened, and we are all amazed at how close God really is to our hearts, I’ll realize that God heard the simple prayers of a boy who believed that God lived under his bed.
Kevin, of course, won’t be surprised at all…
“How Science Fiction Found Religion”
April 19, 2009 — dpc+An interesting analysis… This article caught my attention since I’m especially interested in what they’ll do with the story line for the Star Trek prequel coming in May.
That story, though, [George Lucas] inverted. Anakin will be not the world’s savior but its destroyer, more Antichrist than Christ. He will slaughter nearly all the Jedi knights and—after almost dying at Obi-Wan’s hands and enduring a sort of rebirth as the masked Darth Vader—help remake a galactic republic into a dictatorship. Still, in one respect he is explicitly a Christ figure. A bit of early dialogue between Qui-Gon and Anakin’s mother, one Shmi—names aren’t Lucas’s strong suit, either—reveals that Anakin is the product of a virgin birth:
Qui-Gon: You should be very proud of your son. He gives without any thought of reward.
Shmi: Well, he knows nothing of greed. He has a—
Qui-Gon: He has special powers.
Shmi: Yes.
Qui-Gon: He can see things before they happen. . . . The Force is unusually strong with him, that much is clear. Who was his father?
Shmi: There was no father. I carried him, I gave birth, I raised him. I can’t explain what happened.
What did happen? Not to Shmi, whose curious reproductive history the Star Wars movies also never bothered to explain, but to the Star Wars movies themselves—whose earlier trilogy mostly avoided biblical inspiration but whose more recent installments shifted so sharply toward Christianity? More generally, why has mainstream sci-fi and fantasy as a whole become so religious? One reason may be the religious revival that the United States and much of the world have been undergoing since the 1970s. This “revenge of God,” in French scholar Gilles Kepel’s phrase, has seemingly begun to be felt even in secular Hollywood.
But another reason surely lies in geopolitics. During the sixties and seventies, popular American science fiction looked to the stars and saw a Cold War there. Consider Star Trek, the franchise that, as a TV show from 1966 to 1969 and later as a series of movies, chronicled the adventures of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and the crew of the USS—“United Starship”—Enterprise, representatives of a democratic United Federation of Planets that held an uneasy truce with the warlike, autocratic Klingon Empire. The real-world parallels were unmistakable. “Of course Star Trek was about the Cold War,” critic Paul Cantor recently observed. “The United Federation of Planets was the United States and its free-world allies, the Klingons were the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc.”
The original Star Wars films were similarly political at heart. Like Star Trek, they portrayed a universe caught between two great rivals, one free and democratic, the other hierarchical and autocratic. Not for nothing did the first film use “evil Galactic Empire” to describe Darth Vader’s dominion. (One wonders whether Ronald Reagan drew his famous excoriation from Lucas’s hit.)
When the Soviet Union began to thaw in the mid-eighties and collapsed entirely in 1991, however, that neat good-versus-evil scheme resonated less, and mainstream science fiction started to cast about for alternative inspirations. Often it failed. Star Trek, for example, continued to imitate geopolitics as it launched a phenomenally boring new TV series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, in 1987 (it would end its run in 1994). The Federation and the Klingons were now at peace, and the Enterprise resembled a spaceborne United Nations, a bustling enclave safe enough for the crew to bring children with them. So yawn-inducing was the galaxy that the show frequently sought to introduce drama with a device called the “holodeck,” a virtual-reality entertainment area where the characters could cavort in more exciting locales—the Wild West, say, or 221B Baker Street. Two more Trek series, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, tried to restore excitement—the first was set on a frontier space station, the second in a galaxy far from our own tedious one—but with little effect. Too often, the Star Trek franchise called to mind the end of history on an intergalactic scale.
