Skating Toward Where the Puck is Going to Be

Last week my friend and fellow blogger Nick Knisely (Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix and short-list nominee for Bishop of Kentucky) posted an essay on the speed of technological change viz a vis mobile networking (using the incipient release of the iPad as the springboard for his reflections). He suggested that it would behoove churches (among other societal institutions) to try and get ahead of the change curve in the area of information technology, rather than always bringing up the rear. To illustrate his point, he alluded to legendary professional hockey player Wayne Gretzky’s response when asked to account for his astonishing performance in the NHL: “I don’t skate to where the puck is, I skate to where it’s going to be.”

That quote immediately arrested my attention, and I’ve been pondering it for several days. In fact, it’s almost hijacked my thought processes. I have a deep intuitive sense that there is a profound truth here that applies to a lot more than hockey in particular and sports in general. The ability to recognize changing circumstances, adapt to them quickly, and take it a step further by anticipating their implications is, I would suggest, the better part of what distinguishes good and great leaders from mediocre and incompetent leaders.

This is a subject of some importance to me because I am, among other things, a leader. I’m a parish pastor, and I have vestry members and parishioners who look to me for leadership. I’m among a group of leaders in my diocese, by virtue of serving on the Standing Committee, the Commission on Ministry, and the Examining Chaplains, to say nothing of a stint as General Convention Deputy. And simply on the basis of that last office, I guess you could say that I am—in a broad sense, at least—a leader in the Episcopal Church. Some might suggest that my presence in cyberspace over the last few years also qualifies me for the designation “leader.” While greatness as a leader is obviously beyond the range of my giftedness, I surely do aspire to be a good one, or at least to avoid being an incompetent one.

So what does it look like for a responsible leader to skate to where the puck is going? This is neither a whimsical nor an abstract question. The institutional contexts in which I exercise leadership are in distress. The level of conflict in my parish is not crippling (or even close), but it’s certainly sharper than the kind of background noise an experienced cleric learns to accept as a baseline norm. We halted a precipitous numerical decline that began in the middle of the last decade and continued until my arrival in mid-2007. But in the wake of last summer’s General Convention, there is once again evidence of erosion. My diocese is a demographic microcosm of much of the Episcopal Church—slowly but steadily declining Sunday attendance, slowly but steadily rising median age, fewer and fewer full-time clergy positions, only about a third of our congregations able to afford a full-time priest, and some of them only marginally so. And the Episcopal Church itself, of course, is in numerical and financial free-fall, on a glide path toward institutional meltdown.

None of this is particularly news, or course. As a pastoral leader, the sort of of response I have advocated and tried to implement has included several components:

• A robust liturgical life that embodies the breadth and depth of our Anglican tradition, leading to the sanctification of matter, time, space, gesture, and action; rich symbolism and vibrant sensory experience. This includes music of a variety of styles, but always done with an unfailing standard of excellence.
• Engaging preaching that opens up the scriptures, sets forth good news with consistently compelling clarity, and calls people to ever-deepening discipleship and stewardship.
• Leadership that persistently casts a vision of communal dedication to mission—both spiritual and material.
• Strong and challenging programs of Bible study and Christian formation, for both adults and young people.
• Pastoral care that makes no pretense of being a therapeutic milieu, but winsomely leads people, in their hour of need, to a connection with Jesus, their suffering and crucified and risen Lord, the true “Shepherd and Bishop of their souls.”

This is how I attempt to ply my trade, to exercise my craft as a priest. I’ve done it this way for twenty years. It’s all I know how to do with any confidence. At some level, these things define my very sense of self, they are central to my vocational identity. And I’ve been modestly successful with them, relatively speaking. Treading statistical water certainly conveys no bragging rights, but in a larger context of accelerating decline, it is, so to speak, nothing to sneeze at.

What’s been bothering me the last few days, though, is the growing sense that operating in this area of my competence and comfort, even if I do it well, even if I were to do it better than most of my colleagues and peers (a big “if”), is still just skating to where the puck is, rather than to where the puck is going to be. And I have a suspicion that there are plenty more where I come from, that there are a great many Christian pastors and lay leaders who can readily find themselves in the bullet points listed above. If so, we’re all skating toward the edge of a precipice, and Wayne Gretzky has a word for us.

As pastoral leaders, we need to lay hold of a fresh vision for our mandate. This is, of course, where the lights start to get dim, but those of us who are members of a “developed world” western culture can start by really acknowledging that the era of Christendom is over. We’ve been talking about this for decades now, and while we’ve been talking the death spiral of Christendom has accelerated exponentially. Even while acknowledging this reality, we’ve been engaging in largely rear-guard action, trying to cope with and manage the situation, hoping, perhaps, to slow down the process a bit. If we’re going to skate to where the puck is going to be, however, would it not make more sense not to merely accept it, but to embrace it? Rather than trying to hang on to vestiges of cultural Christianity as long as we can, would we not do better to proactively cast them aside? The culture we want to engage is one that only recently was the stuff of jokes: People who really don’t know the difference between Easter and Groundhog Day, art students who would really ask professors why the Louvre holds so many paintings of a mother and child, store clerks who would really tell a shopper, “Yes, we have several crosses to choose from; some are plain and some have a little man on them.” These are not aberrations to joke about; this is our world.

There’s no shortage of ideas about what Christianity 4.0 will or should look like. Brian Mclaren’s A New Kind of Christianity takes on the subject, and is all the rage at the moment. (I haven’t read it yet, only about it.) Walter Russell Mead offers a biting analysis of the mainline church scene in this op/ed piece, which I have read, and partly agree with and partly take issue with. Thinking strategically about how to do church in a post-Christian culture is, as they say, above my pay grade. If I were to forget myself for a moment and transgress the boundaries of my station in life, I might venture the suspicion that it would not require us to jettison the beliefs and practices enshrined in that benchmark Anglican document, the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.

But, alas, I’m a mere line officer, and must ultimately confine myself to tactics. Mead, in the essay referenced above, posits that all churches will of necessity emulate a model that is drastically less dependent on “professional” leadership than most churches are today, with much more informal and decentralized structures of governance. By analogy, he offers that Americans (and all denizens of western liberal democracies in general) now consult the internet where they once would have phoned or made an appointment with a professional. We take responsibility for gathering our own information and making our own decisions. Cyberspace enables the democratization of information, including theological and spiritual information. We have Wikipedia, so who needs a priest?

Ah, my sarcasm betrays my bias. Mead’s prescription may work for those Christians who are inclined to embrace only the first two of the Chicago-Lambeth 4. But Catholic Christianity (by which I mean, at the very least, those communities that order their life, wittingly or not, according to all four, though I would probably want to put an even sharper point on it than that) is an inherently communitarian enterprise. It is its own culture. It takes seriously St Peter’s declaration that we are a chosen race, a holy priesthood, God’s own people (I Peter 2:9). It has ways of doing things that are not immediately or intuitively clear to the uninitiated. It has a technical vocabulary. It should strive very hard to meet people where they are (and has largely failed to do so, which explains a big part of the mess we’re in), and then it should strive even harder to bring them to a very different place. It’s called evangelization, formation, and catechesis, and if it was once as simple as teaching a child to memorize the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments (though it never was actually that simple; we just acted like it was), then it is infinitely more complex in the post-Christian world, where art students no longer have a context for understanding the tradition of which they are an extension, and people see the cross as nothing more than an item of jewelry, and they do so not out of rebellion or even intellectual laziness, but out of invincible ignorance.

So a proactive tactical response to the demise of Christendom, by which I mean one that aims at where the puck is going to be rather than where it is, invites us into a delicate dance of discernment: Among those things that we are in the habit of doing and saying (and singing), which are part of our Christian (counter-)culture—the lore and technical vocabulary of our community into which we must form and initiate people—and which ones represent truly excess baggage (what Mead in his essay calls “crap”)? This is difficult, because it’s important that we not err too far in one direction or the other. I was recently in a Facebook exchange extolling the merits of some liturgical music that is much beloved among many American and Canadian Anglicans (Healy Willan’s Missa Sancta Maria Magdalena). We were having a fine time until another commenter chimed in with “This is 2010! Get over it! Time to move to something more contemporary!” (or words to that effect). I happen to love this music, and have eventually taught it to every congregation I have served. But is it part of that sacred deposit of Catholic Christian culture into which we need to form the catechumens from our post-Christian world? Probably not, I’m sorry to say.

The discernment dance involves thousands of little steps just like that one. Some items are essential. They will seem quite foreign to “seekers” and not make any sense to them. (“The hell you say? No sex outside of marriage?!”) But discipleship is neither seeker-driven nor particularly seeker-friendly, so this is when we trust the Holy Spirit to work on a person’s heart and mind. Other items may be cherished treasures, but will need to be laid aside lovingly (and perhaps indulged in from time to time by those who are inclined to do so—“Choral Evensong with Howells Collegium Regale? Sign me up!”) for the sake of the essential mission of the church.

Perhaps the biggest horse pill we need to swallow is letting go of the notion that Sunday morning worship is our show window to the world, the place where we meet those whom God is preparing to respond to the gospel in our midst. This is such a “Christendom” assumption, and one we need to let go of. Before Christendom (that is, before Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in the second decade of the fourth century), the Sunday Eucharist was the last place Christians expected to meet a “seeker.” Might we need to re-engineer the social architecture of our church communities such that potential new members find us and are integrated into various aspects of our common life even before they have ever darkened the door of the nave on a Sunday morning? A great deal of thinking-outside-the-box is called for here.

Honestly, I don’t much like where the puck is going to be. I don’t even like where it is. I much prefer it where it used to be! But I’m wearing these skates and I have this stick in my hand, and it’s my job to get in the game.

Jesu, mercy.

Mary, pray.

Come Fly With Me …

… to the Holy Land, about 50 weeks from now.

Bishop Ed Little is leading a pilgrimage to Israel next year, departing February 21 and returning March 2. I am privileged to be among those assisting him in this effort, and would love to have you join me. Most of the pilgrims will be from the Diocese of Northern Indiana, but the trip is open to anyone.

We will see Nazareth, where Jesus was raised, other towns in Galilee, where he ministered, and take a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, which figured so prominently in his life and teaching. We will visit the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and, of course, Jerusalem, the holy city where Jesus suffered and died and rose from the dead. And there’s some great stuff I’m not even mentioning here.

And it’s a bargain—estimated price (pending locking in airfare) is $2,899 per person, including all travel (from Chicago), lodging, and meals. Only taxes and tips will be extra.

I made an exploratory trip a year ago. See here (and then go to the posts that follow) for my reflections at the time. It was a life-changing experience that I am still unpacking in my mind and heart.

If you’re interested, and would like more information, please shoot me an email or give me a call (564.699.3266).

Something Old, Something New

Today is the lesser feast of John & Charles Wesley, Priests. They are claimed by Methodism as founders, though they both died as presbyters in good standing of the Church of England. As a musician, I must confess myself more drawn to Charles. Though he may be the "lesser light" in terms of leadership genius, he is certainly the "greater light" as a poet. So many of his hymn text have wormed their way into my heart, but none perhaps moreso than Love divine, all loves excelling... . There are a number of very fine tunes to which this hymn has been sung. The two best ones happen to be Welsh (serendipitously so, since St David's day was only two days ago): Hyfyrdol and Blaenwen (the latter much more well-known in Britain than here). But I recently ran across this more contemporary setting, which I find really quite moving (and not only because I'm a soft touch for young people's faces while they're singing). The opening conversation with the composer leads to a performance by the National Youth Choir of Scotland. Enjoy.

A Lenten Thought

In my cycle of reading, it's time for some fiction. So I picked up a volume that's been sitting on my shelves for a number of years (well ... decades), and been moved from house to house several time, but which I have never read. It's nothing famous, and I don't remember where I got it, except that I didn't buy it new. It's called In This House of Brede, the work of Rumer Godden, published in 1969. The action takes place in an English Roman Catholic Benedictine convent in the late 1950s.

I'm not far enough into this book to know whether it's much good, but the opening lines of the Prologue show some promise:

The motto was 'Pax,' but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Pax: peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort, seldom with a seen result; subject to constant interruptions, unexpected demands, short sleep at nights, little comfort, sometimes scant food; beset with disappointments and usually misunderstood; yet peace all the same, undeviating, filled with joy and gratitude and love. "It is My own peace I give unto you." Not, notice, the world's peace.

Learning to identify the "world's peace," and then repeatedly renounce it, is, I would say, always on the task list of a Christian disciple.

Making Friends with the Mother of God

(Now appearing on my parish website, and soon to be in the March newsletter.)

In the stream of Christianity where I first learned to “swim” spiritually, Mary the mother of Jesus showed up for Christmas pageants—the “yon virgin” of “mother and child” fame—but otherwise kept a low profile. We were a little skittish about her, not on her own account, actually, but out of a desire to distance ourselves from Catholics, who appeared (literally) to idolize her.

After I embraced the Anglican stream of Christianity in early adulthood, Mary began to appear more prominently on my spiritual “desktop.“ Several times a week, at Evening Prayer, I said or sang the canticle Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), in which she gives voice to her conviction that “all generations will call me blessed.“ If you repeat something enough, it eventually sinks in! I listened to sermons and read articles about how Mary is an example for us all in her unreserved “Yes” to God (“let it be to me according to your word”).

In time, I learned to pray the Rosary, which, while focused ultimately on Christ, approaches him, as it were, through his mother. During my seminary formation years (1986-1989), we paused three times a day to pray the Angelus, a devotion that is rooted in the appearance of the angel Gabriel to inform Mary of God’s plan for her life (and for the life of the world).

Somewhere along this path, what began as mental attention to Mary evolved into heartfelt love for Mary. I can’t say exactly when this took place, but I can recall when I became intently aware of it. In Mel Gibson’s compelling and controversial 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, our Lord’s mother is shown watching him cautiously from the shadows as he is whipped almost to death, and then prominently, in full view, as he hangs on the cross. In what is apparently an effort not to scream in anguish as she watches her son’s suffering, she squeezes pebbles in her hands, and it seems as if the sheer energy of her pathos will surely turn them to a fine powder.

It is certainly possible for devotion to Mary to be carried too far. There’s a joke that has Jesus walking into a church and trying to get the attention of the proverbial “little old lady” praying in the front pew. She gives him an annoyed look and says, “Don’t interrupt me! Can’t you see I’m talking to your mother?“ Yet, I would say that Episcopalians are, by and large, a pretty safe distance from letting devotion to Mary eclipse devotion to Jesus. Our problem is quite the opposite. Our spiritual lives, individually and corporately, are more likely to be impoverished because we have not made room in them for the Mother of God.

Mother of God? Is that expression not a little over-the-top? It can certainly be confusing, at least. It can sound as if we’re saying that God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, was brought into being through birth to a human woman, which is, of course, a ludicrous notion. But the expression “mother of God” is not an attempt to say something about God the Father, and still less about Mary. It’s an attempt to say something very important about Jesus. The Greek word that lies behind it is theotokos—literally, God-bearer. It came into use during the early theological debates in Christianity (we’re talking second, third, and fourth centuries here) over the affirmation that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. To say that Mary is the God-bearer is to say that the one whom she bore is indeed God. That may not be controversial among Christians today, but it was in the early years, and they felt that the expression was an important element in orthodox christology. Theotokos got rendered into Latin as mater dei—hence, “mother of God” in English.

Do we pray to Mary? Certainly not in the same sense in which we pray to God. Yet, we are within the Christian mainstream when we invite Mary (or any of the saints, for that matter, both those who are presently 98.6 and those who have moved into eternity) to offer her intercessions on our behalf. This expresses our belief, which we affirm every time we say the creeds, in “the communion of saints.“ Surely the prayers of the God-bearer are heard favorably by the one who is himself God!

In our Prayer Book calendar, there are three major holy days that are focused on Our Lady. On March 25 we celebrate the feast of the Annunciation, commemorating the angelic announcement of her impending pregnancy. On May 31, we keep the feast of the Visitation—Marys’s visit to her relative Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. On August 15, there is a generalized feast of St Mary the Virgin. This is the dedicatory feast of our lovely chapel here at St Anne’s. This year, however, it falls on a Sunday, and in keeping with Prayer Book rubrics (rules, stage directions), we will break with our usual summer Sunday routine and observe it in grand style. Though not officially a part of our Episcopal Church calendar, many Anglicans also observe the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, which honors the pious customary notion that Mary was “pre-sanctified,“ made sinlessly holy by the grace of her Son, retrospectively applied, in order to make her an appropriate vehicle through which the Incarnate God to arrive in this world.

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

For Local Consumption

My blogging is, among other things, a calling. It is part of the larger package that goes with a vocation to the priesthood. According to the liturgical formularies of the church in which I was (an am) ordained, one of the expectations the church has of me as a presbyter is that I will “take [my] share in the councils of the church.” One of the ways in which I am gifted to “take my share” is through writing, and in 2010, the “wild, wild west” of cyberspace is where the sort of writing that seems to be my niche mostly happens.

My blog posts cover a variety of topics, but the vast majority concern the macro-issues that confront Anglican Christianity during a time which is characterized by what is arguably an unusually high degree of stress and conflict. These issues are not rocket science, but they are complex and full of details and arcane vocabulary and a fairly long list of dramatis personae. So, for the most part, I write with the assumption that those whose lives are so vacuous that they have nothing better to do than read my blog are up to speed on all these things. From time to time, I may offer a bit of a refresher mini-course (“previously on Confessions of a Carioca”), but this is not a frequent or regular occurrence.

But as I have repeatedly made clear, blogging is a secondary (or even tertiary) element of my vocation. My “day job” is as a parish priest, and in that role my daily fare is rather more mundane (and I mean that in a good way) than what I usually write about in this space. It concerns real people with real lives who are trying with varying degrees of intensity and varying degrees of commitment, and at various levels of formation, to be disciples of Jesus in a world that makes that task pretty challenging. My job is to lead them in that effort and guide them on that road.

Ironically, when I blog, I usually don’t have my own parishioners foremost in my mind. Why? I suppose it’s because I presume that they are pre-occupied with questions that are more immediate and concrete than the ongoing Anglican travail. In my pastoral work, I almost never talk or write about that kinds of issues that concern me in my blogging. I want people to see and know Jesus, and not get distracted by the vexing complexities and inconsistencies of life in Anglicanland. Of course, it’s because of my sense that those very issues ultimately impact people’s ability to see and know Jesus that I get involved in them, but the impact is several links down the chain removed  from what is on the hearts and minds of most “people in the pews.” It’s complicated.

But I’m fooling myself, of course, if I don’t remember that some of those with whom I have an actual face to face relationship, people with whom I exchange the Sign of Peace and into whose hands I regularly place the Body and Blood of Christ, also know me when I’m wearing my blogging hat. Lately, there have been some developments that cause me to want to share a word with just these people. For a change, then, they’re going to be the ones I have primarily in mind, and everyone else is invited to eavesdrop if they’d like, or go watch the Olympics.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an event in Texas. It was sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas and the Anglican Communion Institute, which might be described as a sort of “think tank” devoted to reflection and discourse on the polity and relationship dynamics within and between the various entities that make up the Anglican family. At this conference, various Episcopal scholars and leaders, along with ecumenical guests from the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Methodist, and Presbyterian traditions, presented talks and papers, and participated in panel discussions on the general subject of “hierarchy” in the Episcopal Church. This is a timely subject because of recent divisions among Anglicans in North America. Many have left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada and formed alternative church structures through which they have expressed a desire to retain an Anglican identity. These developments present fresh challenges to Episcopalians, especially as we try to remain true to our own founding documents and pastoral practices and traditional polity. You can see the text of one of the papers here, and another one here, and yet another one here.

Most of the expenses of my trip were paid for from the Continuing Education line item in our parish budget ($500) that is part of my compensation package. There are no specific agreed-upon guidelines about what constitutes an appropriate use for these funds, but an academically-oriented conference, with presentations by two revered seminary professors, a retired seminary dean, an attorney who specializes in canon law, the pastor of a leading Presbyterian congregation in Dallas, and two learned lay women representing the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox jurisdictions in that area, in my judgment, arguably falls under that umbrella.

I do not contend that the ACI is a neutral observer. It has staked out a position of advocacy in favor of a covenant that clarifies the relationship between the constituent member churches of the Anglican Communion (of which the Episcopal Church is one), and it has questioned the rapidly-evolving understanding of authority that has been purveyed by the current elected executive leaders of the Episcopal Church. The ACI is one voice of “loyal opposition.” It is a voice that I am personally in broad agreement with.

The conference formally concluded at noon on Saturday, February 6th. After lunch, there was a two-hour presentation by another organization called Communion Partners. This was an optional extra, and was attended by only about half the number who were at the ACI conference. The aims of Communion Partners are generally congruent with those of the ACI, but it is a more “on the ground” and practically-oriented group. It was originally a fellowship of bishops within the Episcopal Church who found themselves marginalized by some of the decisions of recent General Conventions that they fear place our standing within the Anglican Communion in some jeopardy. In time, membership in CP was made available to rectors, and, more recently, to all clergy and lay persons. Their goal is to maintain a viable and vibrant witness within the Episcopal Church, and work cooperatively with Episcopal church leaders and leaders of other Anglican provinces to ensure a continuing relationship of full communion for all Episcopalians for whom that is a concern even in the event that the Episcopal Church as a whole finds itself in some state of formally impaired communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I am in agreement with these objectives, and am a member of Communion Partners. But, while I was present for most of this two-hour session (I had to leave before it concluded in order to catch my plane home), this was not a “Communion Partners meeting.” There wasn’t even any discussion, let alone plotting and planning. It was purely informational. I should also point out that Communion Partners is not some veiled attempt to facilitate yet another round of departures from the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church has plenty of exit doors, and there’s no need for another one. Quite the opposite is, in fact, the case. Most of us in Communion Partners have friends who have left TEC, and, in many cases, continue to bear their scorn for having discerned that we are not called to accompany or follow them. In any case, had the whole three days been devoted to a “Communion Partners meeting,” it would not have been appropriate for me to use continuing education funds to cover my expenses, and I would not have done so.

I hope this clears some things up. As always, I will bend over backwards to accommodate anyone’s desire to discuss these issues with me. Just let me know where and when.

Now back to regularly-scheduled blogging.

Ashes to Go?

 

The photo above is of the Rev. Lane Hensely, rector of the Church of the Transfiguration in Palos Park, Illinois (a southwest suburb of Chicago), imposing ashes on the forehead of a commuter at the platform of the local METRA rail station. Yesterday’s Chicago Tribune carried a story about Father Henley’s presence at that location on Ash Wednesday, offering ashes, presumably along with the customary reminder of one’s mortality: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The Episcopal Cafe blog reports that similar efforts took place in several other locations.

At one level, this is admirable, appealing, and winsome. It is a proactive missionary tactic. Any time anyone in the church gets the fact that the “if you build it they will come” era is over, that’s a good thing for the cause of the gospel. It reminds me of the matching T-shifts I once saw on a church youth group at an airport as they were getting ready to embark on a mission trip: “What part of ‘Go’ do you not understand?”

At another level—a much deeper one, I would say—this is profoundly troubling. The imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday is a potent symbolic ritual act. It is accessible on a very intuitive and visceral level, not requiring a lot of rational explanation. For that precise reason, those who are its stewards bear a responsibility for seeing that the power of the act is not abused. The tool by which this stewardship is exercised is the community of the church and the “work” of that community, the liturgy. Both normatively and normally, the imposition of ashes takes place in the context of a celebration of the Eucharist, after the Word of God has been read and proclaimed homiletically, and right before Psalm 51 is prayed, and a corporate confession of sin voiced. It isn’t even the central act of the gathering, and is, in fact, optional.

The imposition of ashes can be said to be, in a broadly generic sense, “sacramental.” But it is not a sacrament, and it is not an entitlement, an inherent privilege of all the baptized. Its significance is revealed only in its native liturgical context. Removed from that context, it quickly becomes incoherent. Apart from the communal character of public corporate (and eucharistic) worship, it easily becomes trivialized, sentimentalized, privatized. It becomes “all about me,” just like most everything else in our hyper-individualized culture. It becomes a very attractive tail with no dog to wag it.

Do Christian communities need to be imaginative about how we display the message of good news that has been entrusted to us? Yes. Absolutely. But we need to do so coherently and thoughtfully, not just looking for a feel-good freebie.

Some Pertinent Historical Analysis

I am pleased to see that the Anglican Communion Institute has published what I found to be one of the more insightful papers that were presented the week before last at the conference they sponsored in Dallas, and which I attended. It is by the Revd Dr Robert Prichard, esteemed professor of Episcopal Church History at the Virginia Theological Seminary.

I find particularly interesting the light Dr Prichard's work sheds on the evolution of the office of Presiding Bishop, and, more recently, the office of President of the House of Deputies--indeed, of the House of Deputies itself as an entity that more and more has a "life" outside the two weeks out of every 156 when it is actually assembled in General Convention. All this, in turn, has a rather direct bearing on the revelations made last week (see the post before last) with respect to 815's legal strategy in the Diocese of South Carolina.

It is tempting to say that the Episcopal Church is in the midst of a constitutional crisis, but that would be to say, simultaneously, both too little and too much--too little, because there's a lot more going on than differences over polity (like cultural and demographic forces that are a lot larger than any of our current fights over "hot issues"), and too much, because our polity is not based on any outside point of reference (in secular parlance, the "rule of law"), but is intrinsically and thoroughly political, which is to say that those who have (or arrogate to themselves) responsibility for implementing and enforcing the constitution and canons have as much leeway in the interpretation of those documents as their political base (ostensibly and formally General Convention, but it's more complex than that) is willing to afford them, and at the present time that political base seems to have written a blank check to the Presiding Bishop. No amount of legal analysis proving she is wrong in her reading of the canons will be of any avail as long as the ecclesiastical equivalent of her "job approval rating" remains high. There are no "civil" procedures by which to challenge her in church courts, because the only courts we have are ad hoc and are convened only in response to "criminal" allegations ... and her political base is so strong that those who are in a position to formally accuse her of of misconduct are strongly disincentivized from doing so; the personal risk is great and the hope of success slim.

On Deep-Toned Organ Blasts (etc.)

In search of a Friday-afternoon spiritual pick-me-up (and a little nostalgia, perhaps), I am sometimes wont to sit down at the organ console and play/sing  through selections from the Hymnal 1940, of blessed memory. I try not to just brush by hymns I’m not familiar with (which is the very definition of obscurity), but, rather, to attend to them in an attitude of receptive prayer.

Hymn 283 is one such. The tune is a Bach chorale that carries the appellation Steadfast, but it was certainly once linked to a German text and had another name. Like all of Bach’s work in this genre, it is a gem, but the dynamic interplay between folk art and fine art in the German chorale from Luther to Bach is probably the subject of one more doctoral dissertation I will have never written. So I will say no more on that here.

The text is from 1925, by one Edward Grubb, who, by the definition above, is officially obscure. It is from the “General Hymns” section, and, like many from that section and (especially) from that era, it is all about “God,” about which there is assuredly nothing wrong, but it is short on the Paschal Mystery (never really gets around to it, actually), which, all else being equal, I find a trifle annoying. The gospel is too often unwittingly reduced to mere ethical theism (especially among us crytpo-Pelagian Anglicans), with no use for the second or third Persons of the Trinity.

My approval, however, can be bought, and, since I am a fan of fine church organs of all sorts, he pulled just the right stop with these line from the third verse:

All beauty speaks of thee: The mountains and the rivers, The line of lifted sea, Where spreading moonlight quivers, The deep-toned organ blast That rolls through arches dim Hints of the music vast Of thy eternal hymn.

A competent organist (i.e. someone other than me) could surely arrange for some quite attention-getting effects on the words I put in bold typeface. What fun that would be!

Not too long ago, I preached on the text from John’s gospel that tells of the wedding miracle at Cana. The evangelist tells us that this was the first of Jesus’ “signs” and that in that sign he “manifested his glory.” And as a result of that manifestation of glory, “his disciples believed in him.” In 2005, my wife and I climbed to the Whispering Gallery in the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. From those dizzying heights, we could see some of the 32’ pedal pipes, laid horizontal on mezzanine levels that would not be visible from the nave. Then somebody started demonstrating the organ, and we heard some deep-toned blasts that we shall never forget. Yes, “all beauty” speaks of God. But for some of us, it is particularly present in deep-toned organ blasts rolling through dim arches.

More to Chew Over

So ... just a couple of days after proclaiming that the habitually troubled Anglican waters are lately ominously placid, we get a couple of real hot potatoes: the debate in the Church of England's General Synod on relations with the ACNA, and revelations from the Diocese of South Carolina on more legal skulduggery emanating from 815 Second Avenue.

As regards the latter, I'm going to reserve extensive comment at this time, not so much out of caution as out of recognition that Bishop Lawrence's letter does a masterful job nailing the crux of the matter. The bullseye quote is this:

[Thomas Tisdale] may be an attorney retained by the Chancellor for the Presiding Bishop, but it is hardly accurate in regards to the polity of this Church to claim to be an attorney of The Episcopal Church, as if the parishes, Standing Committee and Bishop of South Carolina are somehow something other than The Episcopal Church...

The polity of the Episcopal Church, demonstrably different from that of most other Anglican provinces, has been a much-vaunted notion over the last several years, generally in the context of TEC "progressives" lamenting that "they just don't understand our polity" when "they" make certain requests of the Presiding Bishop, or the House of Bishops, or the Executive Council, or whomever. What we see shaping up now, however, is a conflict in which the purveyors of this line of thinking are the ones themselves who do not understand our polity. To suggest that "the Episcopal Church" can be reified, separated somehow from its concrete local expression in parishes and dioceses, is ludicrous on its face.

The motion passed by the C of E's General Synod is kind of a mess, but it's a pretty interesting mess, all of which is to say that it's quintessentially Anglican, as fine a batch of fudge as has ever been confected! Here it is:

This Synod, aware of the distress caused by recent divisions within the Anglican churches of the United States of America and Canada, recognise and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family; acknowledge that this aspiration, in respect both of relations with the Church of England and membership of the Anglican Communion, raises issues which the relevant authorities of each need to explore further; and invite the Archbishops to report further to the Synod in 2011.

This is an amended version of a resolution that originally contained this language:

‘That this Synod express the desire that the Church of England be in communion with the Anglican Church in North America’

Let's look first to the starboard side of the Anglican barque, including those who are part of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). In this company, there are those who are utterly thrilled by the motion just as it carried (by a large majority). See examples of that attitude here and here. These folks see what happened as a giant leap in a trajectory that ends with the ACNA as a full constituent member in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Others, however, have a diametrically opposite assessment; see here for the most concisely articulate example. From this perspective, the amendment took all the teeth out of the original motion, reducing it to a gesture of politeness, a mere acknowledgement of an aspiration.

Eyes left now. Of course, no one on this side of the vessel can have anything positive to say about the phrase "Anglican Church in North America" even appearing in print on the legislative agenda of General Synod. So, watered down or not, they find it troubling--more troubling than they are generally willing to say publicly, I would suspect. Look here for a fine dose of liberal erudition, and here for an honest and generally charitable attempt at even-handedness by a prominent "progressive." Because the very subject is anathema to them, liberals are necessarily disposed toward spin over substance, as this headline exemplifies.

As far as I can tell, everybody is pretty much correct in what they're saying. So were each of proverbial blind men whose collective task was to describe an elephant. As long as we can be selective about a word here and phrase there, the Synod's action can mean whatever we want it to mean. Its eventual significance will be revealed in its interplay with subsequent events. It is now a "fact on the ground," another data point, another thread in the narrative. For example, if Mary Glasspool is eventually consecrated Bishop Suffragan of Los Angeles, or if the 2012 General Convention declines to adopt the Anglican Covenant (or, more tellingly, if the former occurs but the covenant is adopted), the significance of this week's action will loom large as Anglicanism collectively takes stock of its North American operations. On the other hand, if Canon Glasspool falls short in her consents (an unlikely eventuality, in my opinion), then the Lorna Ashworth motion will be yesterday's news.

As always, time will tell.

Status Check

It’s not like Anglicanland is no longer interesting, but it does seem a good bit less dramatic than it has been at most times during the years I have been watching events play out. And my choice of words—not carefully considered in the moment--is a telling reflection of how things are: events are playing out. Most of us no longer expect to be shocked or surprised by anything. Events are playing out. It’s as if they’re following a script leading to a foregone conclusion. We may not have a clear view of just what that conclusion looks like, so there’s still a whole lot to be curious about, but it feels like a conclusion that is nonetheless foregone, inexorable. The bold moves have mostly been made, or so it seems, at any rate. All the sabers that are going to get rattled have been rattled. All the triggers that are going to get pulled have been pulled.

We are not bereft of mystery: How will the various courts decide the pending litigation? Which provinces will adopt the Covenant? At what rate will the Episcopal Church’s financial and numerical decline increase? Will the ACNA become regularized as part of the Anglican Communion? (Indeed, will they be able to form a cohesive provincial church out of their quite disparate elements?) There are probably some I’m forgetting. But more significantly, it seems like all the high cards have been played. The strategic weapons have been fired; only tactical ordnance is left. And while we may not know the precise outcome, there’s not much for most of us to do but watch the hand play out.

I find in all this cause for both consternation and relief. And then some more consternation. Let me explain.

The first wave of consternation is basically withdrawal from the adrenaline rush of sustained drama: constantly “breaking” news, a flurry of press conferences, news releases, dueling blog posts, and always the next meeting of [fill in the blank] to look forward to. It’s a heady atmosphere to which one can easily become addicted. I haven’t exactly had to go into rehab, but there are moments when I miss the drama.

Then comes the relief. I didn’t make a commitment to become a disciple of Jesus in order to fight with other disciples of Jesus. I didn’t embrace (more like yield to the seduction of) Anglican Christianity more than 35 years ago because I thought it would have more exciting conflicts than the Grace Brethren or the Assyrian Orthodox. It is the joy of my life to do what I do as a pastor and priest—to lead God’s people in worship, to serve as a conduit of sacramental grace, to break open the word of God to them, to share their joys and sorrows as we grow together into the image of Christ. So, if the reduction in macro-drama allows me to be more present to the micro-drama of my ordinary life, I’m not going to whine about it.

But the reduction in intensity of conflict is itself cause for concern. If it’s nice to have a break from the clamor of battle, it also means we are no longer engaging our opponents. A few days ago, a former student of mine in my former diocese (now part of the ACNA) emailed me with a technical question about liturgy. In trying to answer, I was struck by the reality that, absent the context of presumed accountability to the constitution and canons of the same church, it’s difficult to talk about faithfulness to Prayer Book texts and rubrics. I felt a divide between me and this person of a sort that I have not felt before, and it was not a feeling I enjoyed. At the same time, while I still subscribe to the HoB/D, I’m feeling more and more disconnected to the people who post there and the things they’re interested in (most recently, the dismissal of nine workers in New York because their employer’s cleaning contract with the Episcopal Church Center was not renewed). We’re supposedly in the same church, but it doesn’t feel like it, and I can’t even muster the energy to tell them that and hope they care enough to ask why. Throughout our conflicts, I have repeatedly urged all parties to “walk apart together,” to burn no bridges, and, when possible, to hold hands even across the divide. Binding ties that can be broken in an instant of passion can take centuries and more to re-grow. Ironically, the very absence of drama enables us to slowly forget about one another, to think in terms of “them” rather than “us,” to let our binding ties atrophy and dissolve from lack of use.

Quick. Somebody pick a fight. We’re family, and if we can still fight, it means we can still love. God help us if we stop caring enough to fight, because it will mean we’ve stopped caring enough to love.

Trying to Get Back in the Saddle

This has not been a planned hiatus from blogging. I'm tempted to say something trite like "It just happened," but I think I'm smart enough to realize that nothing "just happens." It just seems that way because we're rarely aware of all the myriad influences on our behavior.

To my conscious perception, it appears that the immediate instrumental cause of my absence from this corner of cyberspace is found in the demands of "real" life. Parish ministry is demanding, and certainly "outranks" my blogging activity. I have a wife, and three grown children (two of whom live a mere 120 miles away with their spouses), and a 14-month old granddaughter who provides more than ample incentive to escape to Chicago during the day-and-a-half of time each week which I can in some sense consider "free." I'm also aware that I've growth slothful in the intellectual and spiritual discipline of reading. Sure, I guess you could say I get a lot of reading done by "surfing the 'net," and much of that reading is quite valuable. But I need to read ... you know ... actual books, if I don't want to stagnate and become all self-absorbed--indeed, if I want to have anything of substance to post on places like this blog. And for those reasons, I've been devoting more time to reading lately.

When people perfunctorily ask me, "How are you?", I often respond along the lines of "There's nothing wrong in my life that about eight more hours in a day wouldn't fix." I really do envy those who can get by on just a token amount of sleep each night. I'm just not one of them. And so part of my absence from blogging can be explained by decisions I make about spending time in ministry, spending time with family, and spending time just resting and "re-creating." It's foolish to demand so many golden eggs that you kills the goose that lays them.

So ... I will be back, and sooner than later, I think. Just last week I attended a conference at which I was reminded by many that what I do here really is a ministry, indeed, a calling. I have not lost my sense of vocation. An unplanned abandonment of a discretionary activity always raises the question whether that particularly activity has just run its course, had its day. I don't have that sense about my blogging. There may come a time to move on. It's happened to others much more prominent than I am. But I don't think that time is here yet.

Stay tuned.

A Christmas Gem

This is one of my Christmas favorites, from

the 1959 cantata Hodie by Ralph Vaughan

Williams. Here's the text (the first verse is

anonymous; the second is by the composer's

wife, Ursula Wood Vaughan Williams):

No sad thought his soul affright
Sleep it is that maketh night;’
Let no murmur nor rude wind
To his slumbers prove unkind:
But a quire of angels make
His dreams of heaven, and let him wake
To as many joys as can
In this world befall a man.

Promise fills the sky with light,
Stars and angels dance in flight;
Joy of heaven shall now unbind
Chains of evil from mankind,
Love and joy their power shall break,
And for a new born prince’s sake;
Never since the world began
Such a light such dark did span.

O Emmanuel

… and finally:

O Emmanuel, our King and our Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their Salvation: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

…and the very familiar:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

It’s been 23 years, but I remember enough of my seminary Hebrew to be able to see each part precisely: “with – us – God”, customarily (and more felicitously) rendered, “God with us.”

For the first time since 1988, I’m not preaching on Christmas (or the eve thereof) this year. I have a homiletically competent (and then some) Assistant who needs the experience, so it just seemed the right thing to do. In thinking back over the preparation and delivery of twenty Christmas sermons, I’m aware that I’ve never taken my cue from the actual gospel reading for Christmas Eve—the familiar account from Luke (that still sounds not-quite-right in anything but the King James translation), with its decree going out from Caesar Augustus and its full-up inn, and its shepherds keeping watch, and its manger and swaddling clothes. This is where the narrative poetry is, and I love poking around in it.

But for preaching? For preaching, I’ve always been inevitably drawn to the cosmically mystical (mystically cosmic?) poetry of the prologue to John’s gospel, which is appointed for the Mass of Christmas morning, and for the following Sunday. At Lessons & Carols this past Sunday night, I read it, and could barely keep my composure. This is the gospel, not of a nativity, but of an incarnation. It doesn’t run the risk of ever being thought of as cute, and I can’t imagine how anyone could ever work it into a children’s pageant. But it is as shattering a piece of literature as has ever been penned. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt (literally, “pitched his tent”) among us.”

In what seems like a previous lifetime, in the early-to-mid 1970s, I was a graduate student in musicology. I wrote a 200-page thesis on twentieth century musical settings (unaccompanied) of the texts of the Latin Mass. In the roughly 500-year history of the Latin Mass as a musical form, certain stylistic conventions became virtually de rigueur for composers of different nationalities and different eras. The strongest of these conventions concerned the section of the Credo (Nicene Creed) that speak of the Incarnation. From et incarnatus est (“and he became incarnate”) through et homo factus est (“and was made Man”), the most complicated polyphony would suddenly slow down and become crystal clear, as if to say, “Listen to this. This is the really important part!”

So, in the years when it falls to me to seek a homiletical Muse for Christmas Eve, I invariably end up asking myself, “How can I explain the Incarnation in some fresh way? What image or metaphor can I use that will get through to somebody who’s maybe never thought about Christmas in this way? What can I say that will at least evoke the shocking enormity of the scandal—the scandal of the infinite becoming finite, the eternal becoming time-bound, the omnipresent occupying a quite definable set of coordinates on somebody’s GPS system, the scandal of the God who made us becoming one of us?"

Emmanuel. With us … God.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

O Rex Gentium

The penultimate of the Great O Antiphons:

O King of the nations, and their Desire, you are the cornerstone who makes us both one: Come and save us all, the creature whom you have fashioned from clay.

…and its metrical paraphrase twin:

O come, Desire of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid thou our sad divisions cease,
and be thyself our King of Peace.

The Magnificat, to which the seven antiphons are attached in their native environment, is one of the most political texts in all of holy scripture. It speaks of the powerful being cast down and the humble being raised up, of the sated being deprived and the hungry being filled. And of the seven antiphons, this one is perhaps the closest match to the canticle in its political overtones.

To the ears of a 21st century American, steeped since childhood in the values of democracy and egalitarianism, any political system that involves a King (“Rex”) is suspect from the get-go. And if that monarch purports to rule over “the nations,” the problem is only compounded. We are fond of peace, but fonder still of liberty, having witnessed the character of peace that is purchased by the acceptance of despotism.

That said, we’ve got some serious problems, and perhaps ought not to be picky about the form in which help arrives, even if it takes the form of a King. We are, in the words of the collect from four Sundays ago, “divided and enslaved by sin.” We experience this division and slavery in every dimension of our lives. We witnessed it last week in the enmity between developed and developing nations at the climate change summit in Copenhagen. We witness it when an estranged mother and father square off in a courtroom over custody of the child whose parents they are. It’s a pervasive fact of our lives. It’s a political problem, and a political problem needs a political solution.

We need to be “freed and brought together.” And in the providence of God, the vehicle of our liberation and reconciliation is the “gracious rule” of Christ our King. Whatever our political conditioning may be, in our heart of hearts, we know this to be true. Indeed, we yearn for it. As many of us sang two days ago, we know Jesus to be the “dear desire of every nation” and the “joy of every longing heart.” (Hymnal 1982, #66) Unlike the iron grip of tyranny that established the Pax Romana in the first century, which established peace by means of rule, Christ establishes his rule by means of peace. Reconciliation is his calling card (“the cornerstone who makes us both one”), which explains why he is the “Desire of nations.”

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

O Oriens

And now we come to number five of seven:

O Dayspring, brightness of light eternal, and Sun of Righeousness: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Or, in the familiar parlance of the hymn version:

O come, thou Dayspring from on high,
and cheer us by thy drawing nigh;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death’s dark shadow put to flight.

I’m not a morning person. Truth to tell, the most difficult decision I make on any given day is to get out of bed. Still, there’s something compelling about a sunrise. Living on the western edge of the eastern time zone, it’s not hard for even a slacker like me to be up at the crack of dawn. I snapped the picture above out the bedroom window with my iPhone a few days ago at about 7:30 AM, realizing that it was a fragile fleeting moment.

Sunrise is not only luminous, but also numinous. To our primordial forebears, every evening must have been traumatic. They eventually learned that what goes around comes around, but that initial panic over the onset of darkness attached itself to an unsuspecting strand in our communal psychic DNA. So we have a subliminal squeamishness, at least (for some it’s an abject fear), about darkness, and a corresponding relief when that darkness disappears.

One of the skills that one develops in the practice of Christian prayer is to hallow the cycles of time. If every sunset is a trifle annoying because—who knows?—maybe this time it’s permanent, then every time we lay our heads on a pillow and allow ourselves to fall asleep, it’s a risky move, because—who knows?—maybe this time it will be permanent. Every act of falling asleep is, in effect, a rehearsal for the Big Sleep. Since, barring an imminent parousia, it’s an inescapable eventuality, we could probably do with the practice.

But if that much is true for every sunset, then there is a parallel truth in every sunrise. The Monday collect for Morning Prayer cuts to the chase:

O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night, and turns the shadow of death into morning …

Every sunrise is a foretaste of “that great gettin’-up mornin’” (I’m obviously married to a choir director). Every time we entrust ourselves to sleep at night and, in fact, do wake up the next morning, it's an anticipation of the resurrection of the body that we proclaim in the creeds. Every time my feet hit the floor as I roll out of bed (always reluctantly), I’ve conditioned myself to sign myself with the cross and recollect my identity as one who has been baptized into the dying the rising of Christ. A little while later, during the Morning Office, these words from the Song of Zechariah cross my lips:

In the tender compassion of our God * the dawn from on high shall break upon us, To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, * and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Cranmer’s original Anglicization of this text rendered “dawn” as “dayspring.” In the conventional sense, I’m still not a morning person, and that isn’t likely to change. But scratch the surface, and morning is my favorite time ever, because I have been claimed by the Dayspring from on high who has broken in upon us.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

O Clavis David

The fourth of the seven Big O’s:

O Key of David, and Scepter of the house of Israel, you open and no one can shut, you shut and no one can open: Come and bring the captives out of the prison house, those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

…and the same thing paraphrased for rhyme and meter:

O come, thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heavenly home;
make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery.

In the summer of 1987, after my first year in seminary, I spent the better part of three months as a chaplain intern at the Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. (It was part of wretched exercise called Clinical Pastoral Education, still required of most seminarians across denominational lines.) The patients on my unit were there because they were deemed to be a danger either to themselves or to others. In other words, they were real nut cases: schizophrenia, bipolarity, paranoia, multiple personality, various delusions, and some stuff I’m probably forgetting.

As crazy as they were, however, most of them were able, at any given moment, to interact with one another and with staff members in ways that seemed quite … well … normal. Now, combine that with the fact that some of the staff were pretty crazy themselves, and the situation gets very “interesting.” A neutral third-party observer might have been sometimes hard pressed to distinguish the patients from the staff! The only way to tell for sure was to watch and see who was able to pull a key out of his or her pocket and exit the building.

I, of course, had a key. And I have to say, every time I used that key and left the building, I did so with conscious gratitude. During those three (long) months, it never got routine. I was always aware of how privileged I was to be able to leave the surreal world of the mental hospital unit behind me for a few hours. Ironically, it was in the act of leaving them that I felt the most compassion for the patients, none of whom had asked to be paranoid or suicidal or sociopathic. But there they were, locked in. And there I was, holding a key.

On a more cosmic scale, however, I’m just as much a captive as those mental patients, and the key I used to separate myself from them would be of no avail to me, or to anyone else, in the captivity we all share as human beings. The “prison house” in which we are held is built of pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice (greed), and sloth. Its walls are lined with deceit, theft, adultery, and murder, and reinforced with resentment, bitterness, exploitation, and oppression.

There is only one key that can unlock its door—the Key of David, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Anointed One of God, the Messiah. We who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death eagerly—no, anxiously—await the arrival of that Key, the Key who will both liberate us from our captivity and permanently “close the path the misery.”

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

O Radix Jesse

Great O Antiphon number three:

O Root of Jesse, you stand as an ensign to the peoples, before you kings will shut their mouths, and nations bow in worship:  Come and deliver us, and tarry not.

or (from the hymn version) …

O come, thou Branch of Jesse’s tree,
free them from Satan’s tyranny
that trust thy mighty power to save,
and give them victory o’er the grave.

The first rendition is perhaps truer to the original Latin (radix=root), but the metrical paraphrase may be more symbolically accurate. Jesse, of course, is the father of proto-messiah King David, and a distant ancestor of Jesus. So Jesus can be understood as proleptically “contained” in Jesse, the one who is his “root,” and because of that “containment,” Jesse can be understood as “an ensign to the peoples” (Isaiah 11:10).
Jesus, then, in the terms of the hymn version of the antiphon, is the “branch of Jesse’s tree.” “Branch” could just as easily be rendered “shoot” or “rod.” The picture at the top of this post—snapped during my visit to the Holy Land last January--is of an olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the east wall of Jerusalem. Olives have been cultivated there continuously for at least 3000 years, so the tree in the photo is of the same genetic stock as the ones that stood there in the time of Jesus, and, a millennium earlier, in the time of David. Look closely and you’ll see exactly what inspired Isaiah’s poetic oracle—an old and gnarled trunk (the “root”) out of which springs a younger branch heading straight up (the “shoot”).
This third of the seven antiphons definitely takes the latent sense of urgency implied in the first two and “kicks it up a notch.” The human race is in a world of hurt. Call it what you will—Satan, the power of Sin and Death, tyranny, oppression, exploitation, the White Witch of Narnia—it matters little. And we’re tired of it. We want something better, and we know something better is possible. “Come and deliver us,” we cry, “and tarry not.” The “branch and flower of Jesse’s stem” (Hymnal 1982, #307) is indeed our hope and our salvation.
Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

O Adonai

The second of the Great O Antiphons:

O Adonai, and Ruler of the house of Israel, you appeared in the bush to Moses in a flame of fire, and gave him the Law on Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

or…

O come, O come, thou Lord of might,
who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height
in ancient times didst give the law,
in cloud, and majesty, and awe.

If my Baby Boomer generation has trust issues (see one post upstream), we also have issues with authority. We have a “hermeneutic of suspicion,” a default inclination to question authority figures and their authoritative statements. So if you want to interest us in God, portraying God as a law-giver is probably not your best angle.

And I’m not only a Baby Boomer, but the product of the vigorous trans-denominational (and non-denominational) evangelical subculture of DuPage County, Illinois in the 1950s and 60s. I cut my theological teeth on the Reformation nostrums of “grace alone” and “faith alone.” “The letter [i.e. the letter of the law] killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” (II Corinthians 3:6) Law is so … “Old Testament.” Christians are saved by Christ through faith. What use do we have for the law? We have read Galatians, after all.

So here I am, a Baby Boomer child of “grace and Spirit” evangelical Christianity. What am I to make of a liturgical text that celebrates the giving of the Law to Moses “in cloud, and majesty, and awe”?

Getting past “authority” and “law” in a fruitful way requires what we used to call (back in the ‘90s) a “paradigm shift.” It requires breaking the association we have between those words and the answer our parents used to give whenever we asked “Why?”—“Because I said so, that’s why!” It requires breaking the association we have between those words and the image of Bull Connor using fire hoses and attack dogs on non-violent civil rights protesters in Selma.

Instead of picturing “authority” as a parent, or a university administrator, or a sheriff wearing mirror sunglasses and a Smoky Bear hat, we do better to picture one who is “a leading authority in her field,” or better yet, an author. God has authority, not because he arbitrarily arrogated it to himself, or because he’s omnipotent and can “smite” anybody who opposes him, but because he’s the Author. He wrote the story. He conceived the plot. He named the characters. He made the props. It’s his theater and his show. That’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It just is. I may find John Grisham more appealing than Dan Brown, but if I want insight into The DaVinci Code (perish the thought!), it’s Dan Brown that I need to be talking to, because he’s the author of the book.

So, instead of thinking of “law”, then, as a a statute in some criminal or civil or ecclesiastical code, we do better to think of “law” in terms of “the laws of nature.” For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. A molecule of water consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The square root of nine is three. These laws are neither good, bad, nor indifferent. They just are. They mediate reality, and when we understand them, they enable us to bend reality to our benefit.

From this perspective, for the Author to “give” us the Law is a consummate act of love and mercy. It is literally an apocalypse—an unveiling, a revelation. The transaction between YHWH and Moses on Sinai’s height is an emblem of God’s desire for us to have the tools by which to successfully navigate the cosmic reality (that is, both physical and spiritual) in which we live. Per St Paul, the law is not the means of our deliverance from the dominion of sin and death. But it’s not a bad measure of our progress toward that end. It’s an invaluable roadmap of the territory in which we live and move and have our being.

Now bring on Psalm 119. “The law of the Lord is dearer to me than thousands in gold or silver.” (v.72)

O Sapientia

Today marks what we might think of as the “home stretch” of the season of Advent, the final run-up to Christmas. It’s the day when, in the great western liturgical tradition, we begin to include the Great ‘O’ Antiphons in our prayers—classically framing the singing or recitation of Magnificat (Song of Mary, Luke 1:46-55) at Evening Prayer (Evensong, Vespers).

These texts are veritable treasures of concise spiritual insight. They are compelling expressions of the barely-contained yearning for the revelation of God’s glory and God’s kingdom that is the Church’s corporate formal mood and attitude during the days prior to the feast.

Today’s antiphon is O Sapientia:

O Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and reach from one end of the earth to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Or, in the form in which we know it from the familiar hymn to which all seven have been adapted:

O come, thou wisdom from on high, who orderest all things mightily; to us the path of knowledge show, and teach us in her ways to go.

At one level, wisdom is standard equipment to human nature. The taxonomical name for our species, indeed, is homo sapiens, which might plausibly be paraphrased as “Wise Guy.” It’s part of the mark that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. It testifies to the imago dei—the image of God—which we all bear by default. We are able to contemplate our own identity, and integrate our past, including the past of our forebears that we experience only vicariously, with the present and the future. This is beyond the reach of the canines and felines that share our homes with us, and even beyond the great apes who are our closest biological relatives.

At another level, however—and obviously—we are anything but wise. The imago dei is severely damaged by the primordial act of imprudence that is represented by the tale of a serpent and a piece of fruit. At this level, wisdom is some dynamic combination of innate gift (have we not all known children who are “wise beyond their years”?) and acquired virtue (itself the product of another dynamic combination of “hard knocks” experience and infused divine grace).

Never has information been as readily available as it is today. Wisdom involves knowing what to do with the information we have. And never, it seems, has wisdom been in such short supply. As a child in Sunday School, I was taught to admire the young King Solomon for choosing the gift of wisdom over the gift of wealth, and reminded that, because he chose wisdom, he was given wealth as well. In middle age, I see the … well, the wisdom of Solomon’s choice ever more clearly. Mine is the generation that said, “Never trust anybody over 30.” Until we all turned 30, that is. Then it was quickly, “Never trust anybody under 30.” And that threshold keeps getting raised the older I get!

Alas, I am lately aware that my world and my country (and, to a lesser extent, my church) are being run by people who are significantly younger than I am. This is scary. I’ve always thought it was the “grownups” who are in charge, and the “grownups” are older than I am. They have the wisdom to know the answers, to be able to use information properly. But the “grownups” are mostly now either pushing up daisies or playing Bingo in Florida.

So this prayer for the wisdom of the Most High to come and take charge is probably more palpably important to me than ever. There’s an awful lot that needs to be “mightily and sweetly” ordered.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

And the Beat Goes On

The news is barely more than a day old and I already feel like I'm Johnny-come-lately by weighing in even now. I'm not sure I have anything original to say on the matter, but, if not, then it's still a chorus that needs to be joined.

The Diocese of Los Angeles elected a second Suffragan Bishop yesterday, the Reverend Canon Mary Glasspool of Maryland. It would be largely unremarkable but for the fact that she is an open and partnered lesbian, and so the event of her election is the next large domino to fall in a chain reaction that was set in motion nearly seven years ago with the election of Gene Robinson in New Hampshire.

I have to say at the outset that Mary Glasspool is a gracious and competent woman and I have no reason to doubt that she has substantial gifts for ministry. I got to know her just a bit at General Convention in 2006, when she served as a legislative aide to Special Committee 26 (Inter-Anglican Relations), and she and I shared a brief reminiscence of those heady days just this past July in Anaheim. So there truly is "nothing personal" in anything that follows.

A really telescoped selective history: In 2006, General Convention said, in effect, "Oops, we goofed. We made Gene Robinson a bishop without taking fully into account the effect our action would have on the rest of the Anglican Communion. Our bad. Sorry." (A160). We also said, in effect,"We're going to hold off on doing it again. For a while, at any rate." (B033) Then, in 2009, we said, "Hey, let's get real. We all know that God has called partnered LGBT people to the episcopate before, and will probably do it again. When that happens, we're going to be ready." (D025)

Now, before we formally debated D025, the Archbishop of Canterbury told the convention, in effect, "I really hope you don't do this. In fact, I'm asking nicely: Please don't do this." After we went and did it anyway, the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies (aka the Co-Primates) fired a letter off to Dr Williams (who had since returned to Lambeth Palace) earnestly denying that D025 actually changed anything, that it was manifestly not an abrogation of B033. "The moratorium won't be lifted until we actually do something that lifts it," they said (once again, in effect).

Well, "something" has now been done. At least by the clergy and lay delegates of the Diocese of Los Angeles (the diocese in which, for the record, I was confirmed in 1975). Before the moratorium of B033 can be said to have been formally lifted, Canon Glasspool must actually be consecrated, and before that can happen, a majority of the Standing Committees and a majority of the bishops-with-jurisdiction must consent to the election.

It was with these contingencies in mind that Rowan Williams issued a statement only some eleven hours after the election. It is uncharacteristically brief and to the point:

The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.

The process of selection however is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications.

The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.

The nub of the matter is this, I believe: The Archbishop is asking--one might even say "pleading with," given his proclivity for British diplomatic understatement--those bodies and individuals with a role in the consent process to withhold such consent, for the greater good of the unity and vitality of the rest of the Anglican Communion.

As one might imagine, Dr Williams has already been excoriated by both the left and the right. The left considers him a quisling, a moral coward, lacking the courage of his convictions, kowtowing to the forces of bigotry and fundamentalism of the worst sort. The right considers him a toothless dog who barks at all the right times (though someone timidly, so as to raise the suspicion that he's not really doing so with conviction), but is incapable of chomping down on an intruder's leg. Lots of talk, but no follow-through.

Sadly, this is a script--both Rowan's statement and the responses to it--that could have been written accurately before the events actually transpired. There is nothing here that is new or surprising. (Even the election itself was a virtual foregone conclusion; if not Mary Glasspool, it would have been somebody else later.) This is why it has all the qualities of few more frames in the slow-motion train wreck that is the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. One may criticize the Archbishop's words and deeds--as indeed many are; Rowan is taking hits from both directions--but he certainly cannot be faulted for lack of consistency. The conservatives who complain, "Great bark, but we'd like to see some actual biting take place" are quite correct in not expecting their worthy opponents to be displaying Canterburian toothmarks any time soon. From Day One it has been Rowan's position that, if any "discipline" is going to take place, it will be exercised by the organic processes of the whole communion, and not by the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury. At present, those organic forces are following a trajectory that will lead to an Anglican Covenant. That is the mechanism by which TEC will suffer any consequences for her recalcitrant behavior. Some may argue that the Covenant will end up as toothless as the Archbishop, and they may well be correct. But for the time being, the Covenant is the next vessel with which the Episcopal Church is on a collision course. If the election of Mary Glasspool hastens that collision, perhaps it is an occasion for gratitude, even among those whose default inclination is to be dismayed by it. We can't start picking up the pieces until the debris stops flying.

A Question for Debate

RESOLVED: "Anglicanism is the least religious religion."

From here.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

On the Importance of Small Stuff

A sign in the sacristy of a church I once served in says, “Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.”

True enough, I think, when the nerves of a rookie acolyte or Eucharistic Minister (or priest, for that matter) are on edge. But a series of conversations, both on Facebook and in person, over the last several days has got me thinking that it’s perhaps not a maxim we would want to apply universally.

As is often the case, the impetus for deeper reflection came from a source that it in itself of less than eternal significance—namely, the appropriate observance of the season of Advent, extending even to the particularity of what color the candles in an Advent Wreath should be. Nothing over which the blood of martyrs should be shed.

Allow me to wax autobiographical for a bit: I grew up in American suburbia in the 1950s and ‘60s, and in the sub-culture of free-church evangelicalism. Christmas was a pretty big deal—culturally, and in my church, and in my family. Our minds began to turn Christmasward around the beginning of December. Most everybody put up their Christmas tree somewhere near the middle of the month, give or take a few days, and left them up until New Year’s Day or so. In school, we sang Christmas carols in music class, and had some sort of pageant or program, in the final days prior two a two-week recess. There was usually something similar at church, and it was “Christmas” in church on the Sunday before and the Sunday after the actual holiday. (One of my most unpleasant memories is having been made to play “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” on the french horn at a Sunday evening service right before Christmas when I was in the eighth or ninth grade.)

In college, I discovered the great western liturgical tradition, via Anglicanism. In graduate school, I embraced that tradition. Part of that inheritance is the liturgical calendar, and the liturgical calendar begins, of course, with Advent. At first, I surmised that Advent must be a churchy way of saying “Christmastime,” and provided respectable cover for the familiar decorations, music, and festive social gatherings associated with the season. But we certainly weren’t singing carols in church, and it wasn’t all decked out in wreaths and garlands and bows. In fact, it looked rather more austere than usual. And when I snooped around the territory of Advent, I ran into the unsettling imagery of the Parousia (“deeply wailing, deeply wailing, shall the true Messiah see”) and the in-your-face polemic of John the Baptist. Only on the Sunday right before Christmas did we finally hear about an angel and a virgin, and usually sang “O come, O come, Emmanuel,” which, even though in the Advent section of the hymnal,”counts” as a Christmas song in the popular imagination.

In time, I fell in love with Advent. I fell in love with the “begin with the end in mind” first Sunday, and all of its apocalyptic overtones. I fell in love with Isaiah and John the Baptist. I fell in love with the Anglican warhorse hymns of the season: “Hark, a thrilling voice is sounding,” “On Jordan’s banks,” “Lo, he comes,” “Creator of the stars of night,” and more recently, “Savior of the nations, come” and “Prepare the way, O Zion.” Of course, “Veni Emmanuel” was already permanently ensconced in my soul, but discovering the Great O Antiphons on which it is based, and actually using them liturgically with the Magnificat at Evening Prayer the week before Christmas, has been an immeasurable boon to my spirituality.

Further investigation yielded the information that the “excruciatingly correct” way for an Episcopalian to keep Advent is to defer putting up any decorations until Christmas Eve day, if possible, and to eschew festive social gatherings to the extent possible without giving offense. Then, after the Mass of Christmas Eve, it’s not only permissible, but virtually required, to “let it all hang out” with festivity—liturgically, decoratively, and socially—for the twelve days that follow (i.e. the actual “twelve days of Christmas”), until Epiphany on January 6, at which time all greenery comes down and is brought to the churchyard, where there is a huge bonfire after the Mass (a sign of connection, no doubt, with the Druid strand in the DNA of Anglicanism!).

In our family, the family in which we raised our three children, we actually tried—and, for the most part, succeeded—to live that way. In so doing, we have never been under any illusion that we were not swimming decidedly upstream against the current of not only the secular culture, but the non-liturgical Christian culture as well. Over the last twenty years or so, for whatever combination of reasons (the retail industry being the prime suspect), what used to be known as “Christmastime” has morphed into “the holidays,” and its commencement has progressively invaded all of December, and has, only this year, it seems, broken the “Thanksgiving barrier.” What’s next? Hallowe’en? Labor Day?

Alas, the older I get, the more I discover that the classical tradition is not only ignored, but virtually unknown, even among Episcopalians, even among clergy! We have been assimilated into the Holidays Borg. Hence, my reputation for being the Advent Grinch, or the Advent Nazi.

Is it such a big deal? It is, after all, “small stuff,” when the grand sweep of the Paschal Mystery is considered. The answer is … No … and Yes.

Failure to keep an Excruciatingly Correct Advent will certainly not keep anyone out of the Kingdom of God. It won’t, in and of itself, subtract one gem from anybody’s heavenly crown. And I don’t think Jesus even gives it a second thought (though, I would like to think, party animal that he was while inhabiting this planet in human form, that he might not be above engaging in some playful repartee on the subject).

That said, we do well to remember the purpose of any feast day, fast day, or liturgical season—Advent, Christmas, or the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost—or, for that matter, any liturgical practice, discipline, gesture, or posture. They are all tools. They are all means to an end. They are, along with the sacraments, the scriptures, the prayers of the saints, and the communal life of the Church, means of grace that are intended to perfect our holiness, to make us more like Jesus, to fit us for life in the unfiltered presence of God, to enable us to look the Father in the eye and not be pulverized because when he sees us he sees his own Son, into whose image we have been perfectly configured.

As a pastor, it is my duty to keep all the tools sharp, oiled, and in good working order. Some of them are used everyday and are effective with a majority of the souls entrusted to my care. Others are used less frequently, and may work only with a limited number of people. As a pastor, it is my duty to encourage people to make connections between what they do in church and how they live in their homes and in the world, to see a coherence between liturgy and life. Holding up the formative value of keeping Advent and celebrating Christmas in the traditional manner is part of both those duties. Yeah, it’s small stuff. But sometimes small stuff is worth breaking a sweat over.