Monthly Archives: April 2012

Grief? No, Hope! The Executive Council, the Budget, and the future of the Episcopal Church

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Executive Council is meeting in Salt Lake City. Here’s the ENS report on today’s session. This meeting is taking place against the backdrop of the outrage over the proposed budget–both as proposed and as we are learning about it. As usual, Crusty Old Dean responds eloquently and passionately to today’s developments in that controversy.

The remarks by the leading pooh-bah’s of the EC are available from ENS as well. Bonnie Anderson reprises much of what she said at the CEEP conference I attended in March. I wasn’t impressed then. Her efforts to distinguish institutions from movements and argue that the latter is the future of the church seems to fly in the face of a long history in which every “movement” eventually institutionalizes itself. Just ask Max Weber.

The Presiding Bishop also offered remarks in which she focused on the grief we feel as a result of our loss of place in the establishment and numerical decline:

We are living in post-establishment times, and as a church, we are beginning to recognize that reality. It has brought an enormous amount of grief. The struggles over inclusion are a symptom, but only part of the response to losing a position and way of being that to many people has seemed intrinsic to being an Episcopalian. The post-establishment reality brings grief in abundance as former ways of living, governing, and privilege disappear. Like all kinds of grief, it can elicit anger, denial, and attempts to go back to some remembered golden age. None of those responses heals the grief. Nor can we fix the grief by tinkering with details. Only by living through the grief and loss, and beginning to embrace the possibilities and opportunities for new life will we ultimately find healing. We are a people who believe in resurrection, and we live in a season when acting out of that belief is absolutely essential.

I’m just not sure who she’s talking about: members of the Executive Council, staff at headquarters, bishops and deputies? Certainly not me. I have no grief for a past when the Episcopal Church was the de facto civil religion of the USA. I have no grief for a national denominational structure heavy on bureaucracy (and probably sinecures) with preference for insiders, WASPs, and those to the manor born.

I suppose because I grew up in another tradition, and drank deeply from the theology and spirituality of Anabaptism, I think a church rid of its associations with establishment and dominant culture is finally free to do what God has called the church to be. We are in a moment of extraordinary freedom, possibility and hope.

I came to the Episcopal Church because I encountered Jesus Christ in the bread and wine, in the proclamation of the word, in the liturgy, and in fellowship. I have no commitment to the Episcopal shield, or flag, the blue book, or the red book. I have no emotional attachment to General Convention, to 815 (wherever or whatever that might be). I am a priest of the church because I was called by God, and in spite of efforts by some to dismiss it, in the end the church, in a particular bishop and Commission on Ministry, heard and affirmed that call. I am a priest of the church because I believe that through my ministry in the church I can share the good news of Jesus Christ and offer new life, hope and faith in the Risen Lord in a broken and hurting world.

To do those things, I do not need a national bureaucracy or General Convention. In fact, both of those detract from my ministry because it means that money raised in my local congregation is used to support administration, bureaucracy, and a process that produces a budget with unimaginable errors.It means that energy that might be extended on thinking about reaching people with the good news in an increasingly secular society is deflected toward blog posts like this one.

To share the good news of Jesus Christ, I do need help and support: from the ministry of the laity in my parish, from my local and diocesan clergy colleagues, from my bishop–my pastor–and above all from those networks everyone is talking about, but few seem to be facilitating–networks of people in similar contexts, struggling with similar issues and imagining creative possibilities for the future.

Of the three presentations, I only found Bishop Sauls helpful in pointing a way forward. I’m ready to join that conversation he is hoping will take place, but don’t invite me to a funeral for the Episcopal Church of the twentieth century.

Bishop Stacy Sauls’ opening remarks to today’s meeting of the Executive Council:

The conversation I long to have with you is about putting everything on the table about our common life and looking at it in light of what Jesus said about survival, about how we live our lives to take up our cross and follow him, not just to Calvary but beyond Calvary to Resurrection. I want us to talk about putting everything on the table and rebuilding the Church for a new time that has no precise historical precedent. I think we should put dioceses on the table and ask how the ministry of a bishop relates to a particular people rather than to a particular geography. I think we should put episcopal ministry on the table and ask how bishops should work with each other collegially and how often they should meet together. I think we should put the exercise of primacy in our unique context on the table. I think we have to put how other clergy and laypeople participate in the councils of the church, and more importantly, are encouraged to live out their baptisms by proclaiming the good news of what God has done in Christ by word and example on the table. I think, and this is my particular concern, we have to put how we use the resource a churchwide staff to serve local mission and ministry on the table. Budgets may help us do that, or at least they may give us the occasion to do these things, but budgets themselves should never be the point of any of them. That is the conversation the staff as a whole longs to have with you.

Churches that turn inward will die. At every level, churches that turn inward will die. Those that turn outward, even at the risk of surviving, will thrive. Mission is how we do that. What serves mission will ultimately thrive. Because this is the Gospel. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?” The conversation I long to have with you is about how are we, all of us, using the tasks before us to embrace, and not to avoid, the Gospel.

 

Mistakes were made: An “official” statement on the budget

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From the Rt. Rev. Stephen Lane, Bishop of Maine. A million here or there, and then this:

Finally, the amount of $286,438 for Formation and Vocation is an error. Although Executive Council was clearly reducing the amount for this part of the budget, the actual number was lost in the complex process of combining the 15% and 19% cases the Executive Council used to build the draft proposed budget. The budget was adopted and Executive Council adjourned before the error was discovered. Questions have been asked regarding what the “real” number might have been. Council members at the Province I Synod suggested something in the range of $1.9 million. Other knowledgeable persons suggested $1 million. PB&F will need to address this matter at General Convention. Restoring funds to Formation and Vocation will require taking funds from other places.

Bishop Lane reminds us that there’s nothing to be done about these errors and inconsistencies until General Convention but perhaps much of the outrage over the last month was misguided. At the same time, one wonders about a process that allows errors or inconsistencies of such magnitude to arise and whether there ought to be some mechanism with dealing with them.

 

Behind Locked Doors: A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, 2012

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April 15, 2012

 If you would like to read my sermon on Thomas from last year, go here.

I sometimes joke with people as I’m bringing them upstairs to my office at Grace that getting into our offices is like entering a prison. There are at least three sets of locked doors; two of those sets have no glass to allow a visitor to see what’s inside. We are well protected from the outside world and whatever dangers might lurk there. The church too is locked up tightly during the week. It’s only on Sundays that we open our doors and invite people in. Continue reading →

Homelessness in Madison–The Future of Occupy Madison

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It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about homelessness. Two statistics, one is somewhat anecdotal, the other backed up by a survey. First, Porchlight reports that they saw higher numbers in the men’s shelter this winter than ever before. There were more than 150 guests many nights, which meant men sleeping on the floors of the overflow shelters, with nothing but a blanket. This, in spite of the fact that we had one of the mildest winters on record.

In addition, the current vacancy rate for rentals in Dane County is around 2%, down from 6% in 2006. Why are there homeless people? For one reason, there’s nowhere for them to go. The recession has seen a drop in home ownership, foreclosures, and the like. People who once owned homes or in a better economy might be purchasing one, are renting, putting pressure on the rental market, which means landlords can raise rents.

But there’s been an interesting development. In spite of the huge numbers of people in shelters, and the large numbers being turned away, Occupy Madison, which has been present on a vacant property on East Washington Avenue for the last six months, has become a center for homeless activism and empowerment. They approached the city about finding a new site for their tent city; testified before City Council, and have raised the issue of homelessness in a new way in this city. We’ll see what happens.

The mainstream media’s coverage can be followed here. Pat Schneider’s blog post is here.

Brenda Konkel has been following the story closely, and has offered insight into the mayor’s and alders’ perspectives. She reports on the testimony of Occupy Madison participants before the Common Council as well as other material.

The reality is that the issue is much larger than any one thing. People become homeless for all kinds of reasons–unemployment, substance abuse, family situations, crime, medical conditions–and helping people to regain stability requires intensive support from many sources and directions. The men’s Drop-In Shelter is just that, a temporary place to stay for men who are on the streets. It’s not transitional housing; it can’t provide the intensive services necessary to help men find solutions to their situations.

Just in the last couple of weeks, I’ve talked to guys who came to the shelter directly from prison, from hospitals, or because their family situation had deteriorated to such a degree that the street was a better place for them. Some of them were working, at least part time, some of them were in school; all of them wanted a little help to get them out of their immediate situation into something better. I have also heard time and again, from various sources, that one of the problems of the drop-in shelter is that it doesn’t provide the kind of community necessary to help people get out of their situations.

I’ve not visited the current site of Occupy Madison (I did when they were located closer to the square, earlier last Fall). But from the testimony to Common Council, it sounds like what has developed there is something of a community, a network of support that can sustain people in their current situation. The city, and social service providers, should find ways to support this community and help it thrive.

More on the Episcopal Church Budget debate–What is subsidiarity, why the appeal to it, and should we be worried?

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The proposed triennial budget of the Episcopal received considerable attention and criticism when it was first published last month (more here, here, and here). After that initial flurry of interest, there was something of a lull in the conversation. But things have picked up again.

Building the Continuum is collecting a number of voices that are responding to the budget (and mission priorities it reflects. Susan Snook’s blog is a must read. Here’s one post: http://goodandjoyfulthing.blogspot.com/2012/03/jarndyce-vs-jarndyce-and-short-term.html

Benedict Varnum weighs in. The heart of his piece is:

I have extensive thoughts as to what’s being cut to accomplish that streamlining, but they boil down to 1) some things mustbe cut to meet giving realities and 2) my background in formation as a youth, college student, parish seminarian working with youth, campus ministry intern, diocesan consultant for youth ministries, consultant for summer camp, and participant in national youth event planning through an Episcopal Relief and Development program show me very little that would be lost by acknowledging that the national office does very little youth or young adult ministry.

(The programs that likely will be lost with a much smaller national-level youth budget – Gather, EYE, annual conferences for campus ministers – are good programs; this falls under “1” above, though we might well have a conversation on what the network of diocesan youth coordinators who volunteer their time to these events would need to keep the programs running)

Add to that 3) the incredibly successful Young Adult Service Corps is (appropriately) being given additional funds to continue developing its work, and the budget reads to me the way it was presented in its brief explanatory document: an acknowledgment that different ministries are done more effectively on different levels, that the Episcopal Church does not – despite stereotypes – have all the money in the world, and that our funding is therefore being shifted to be used effectively.

But he also points out how the internet could be used to foster conversation and generate organized response (some of which is already happening, albeit haphazardly).

He also alludes to the principle of “subsidiarity” which is something Mark Harris has called into question:

Thus in the budget cuts some who are involved in profoundly important ministries on a local level – youth ministry, higher education ministry, christian education – perceive that they are devalued by a hierarchical system that no longer believes it has to regulate, organize or co-ordinate that work. And the proof, if needed, is that these ministries indeed seem to drop from the scope of those at the higher end of the subsidiarity system.

The whole subsidiarity idea is in for a surprise. At its core is a notion of “levels” in the organization of the church. And along with that there is the naive notion that networking on a local level poses no real threat to the hierarchical system itself.

It’s this matter–“subisidiarity”–on which I would like to focus more attention. As Harris points out, on the surface the notion that “things which should best be dealt with on a local level” are left on the local level, and things which should be dealt with universally, or nationally, or denominationally, should be dealt with there, seems eminently reasonable, even democratic.

But I’m a naive, fairly narrowly-educated guy, so I decided to do a little research on where this notion of “subsidiarity” came from. It certainly appeared in no theological, ethical, political or philosophical work I had read (carefully, I’ll qualify) from the pre-modern period that I’ve read. Wikipedia is occasionally helpful, and its definition of subsidiarity points to its origins in the late 19th century in Catholic social teaching:

The principle of subsidiarity was first formally developed in the encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891 by Pope Leo XIII, as an attempt to articulate a middle course between laissez-fairecapitalism on the one hand and the various forms of communism, which subordinate the individual to the state, on the other.

What this definition doesn’t provide in terms of context is another development in Roman Catholic (papalist) thought, which led to the definition of the doctrine of papal infallibility at Vatican I in 1871; a long-term development that saw increasing centralization of power in the church beginning with the Council of Trent, but gaining steam as popes gained increasing control over the appointment of bishops. In addition, that centralization meant uniformity in liturgy as local variation was subsumed under the uniform liturgy.

What does this mean for the Episcopal Church and for Anglicanism? The invocation of “subsidiarity” cuts two ways. On the one hand, it seems to leave to the local level those matters that are unimportant to the central organs of power, but as those central organs of power gain more power, there are fewer matters on the local level that are unimportant (take for example the regulatory power of the European Union and its effects on local traditions of food production).

By its very nature, “subsidiarity” seems to suggest that the central organ decides for itself what matters are irrelevant to it and therefore may be left to local control and initiative.

There’s something else to point out. Given the historical context in which the notion of subsidiarity arose (a papacy making ever more grandiose claims to universality at the same time that its power was being challenged by the development of nation states, especially Italy and Germany) can it be an effective idea by which to determine the relative power of the central organs of power and local communities or individuals?

Is it possible to conceive of a conversation in which the various groups competing for attention, money, and power can be treated as equal participants, when one element in that group asserts the right to determine what is decided locally, what is decided nationally or globally? It seems to me that was at the heart of the debate over the Anglican Covenant, and may be at the heart of the response to the ham-handed use of “subsidiarity” in the Episcopal Church budget.

My Lord and My God: Lectionary reflections for the Second Sunday of Easter

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This Sunday’s readings are here. My sermon on this gospel text from last year is here.

One of the things that intrigues me about this reading, especially given what I had to say about Mary Magdalene on Sunday, is the contrast between Mary and Thomas. As I’ve mentioned before, very often characters in John’s gospel symbolize or stand for whole groups of people–Nicodemus is the Jew attracted to Jesus but unwilling to make a public commitment; the Samaritan woman perhaps representing the response to the Gospel among the Samaritan community, the beloved disciple perhaps the community in which the gospel is written. So, what about Thomas?

There’s long been speculation in the scholarly community about links between the Gospel of John and gnosticism. Given the key role of Thomas in two places in John, and the existence of a “gnostic” Gospel of Thomas, the theory that Thomas somehow stands for gnostic Christians is almost irresistible. He desires knowledge, asking Jesus, “How can we know the way?” (Jn 14:5) and here he doubts the bodily resurrection, demanding not only to see, but to touch Jesus.

Both Mary Magdalene and Thomas see the Risen Christ. Thomas had asked to see and touch him. Jesus shows him his wounds, and invites him to touch them, but Thomas does not. By contrast, Jesus warned Mary not to touch him; it might more literally mean, “Don’t hold on to me.” But the two made a similar confession: Mary says “I have seen the Lord.” Thomas says, “My Lord and my God!”

In these encounters sight is inadequate. Mary at first doesn’t recognize Jesus. The disciples rejoice after they see his wounds; they were fearful before. And Jesus himself warns them and us, that sight is inadequate, “You have seen and believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” True, deep, lasting faith in the Gospel of John, comes not from seeing the Risen Christ, still less from seeing a miracle or sign. It comes from a relationship with the Risen Christ, an encounter, in which he knows and names us, and we know him (“My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Jn 10:27).

 

A Rolled-Up Ball of Linen: A Sermon For Easter, 2012

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April 8, 2012

Peter and the beloved disciple ran to the tomb. They couldn’t believe the news? Who would take Jesus’ body? They ran. The beloved disciple got there first, but he waited, allowing Peter to enter. Only then did he go in and saw what Peter saw. An empty tomb. Mary Magdalene was right. But there was more. There were the linens. On one side, a pile, and off in a corner, by itself, neatly wrapped the piece of cloth that had covered Jesus’ face. The beloved disciple, it is said, saw and believed.

What did he believe? That Jesus was risen from the dead? But, no that can’t be it, because the very next sentence says they didn’t know the scriptures that he would be raised from the dead? So what did he see and believe? That Jesus’ body was gone? Certainly. That it had been taken by someone? Perhaps.

Throughout John’s gospel, there is something of a progression of faith. Come and see, Jesus said. He performs miracles, called signs, and many believe in his name. But it’s not clear they understand who he is or have true faith in him. They know he can work miracles, but is he the Son of God?

Here in the tomb is a wrapped up ball of linen. It signifies something, but what? Earlier, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. When he came out of the tomb, he was still bound in the burial garments, and Jesus told the bystanders to loose him. What does it all mean?

Peter and the Beloved Disciple had heard the news from Mary Magdalene who had come to the tomb by herself when it was still night. They were excited enough to run with her to the tomb to see if she was right. But there the investigations ended. An empty tomb, a rolled up ball of linen, and they went back home, their curiosity satisfied.

But not Mary Magdalene. When the other two went back, she stayed behind. She lingered in the garden, and someone she thought to be the gardener asked her, “Who are you looking for?” It is a question that comes up repeatedly in John’s gospel, beginning in the first chapter. When he sees two men following him, Philip and Andrew, he asks them, “What are you looking for.” When they answer that they want to know where he was staying, he says, “Come and see.”

Nicodemus came to Jesus. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to go chapter by chapter through the Gospel of John, however much I would like to). Like Mary Magdalene, he came in the darkness. He came to ask questions, and left, his questions unanswered. The Samaritan woman comes to the well to fetch water. How many times had she come before? Every day, for years? She had come for water to do her daily chores of washing and cleaning. Instead of water, she encountered Christ, She left the well to tell everyone about who she had met, and she left her empty water jar behind. The Greeks come to Philip and tell him, “we want to see Jesus;” but we don’t know if they actually did. The Gospel doesn’t tell us.

Like those others in the gospel before her, Mary Magdalene has come. She has come to the tomb, in search of what? Solace, hope? And when Peter and the Beloved Disciple, came, saw, and went back home, she stayed behind, not satisfied, still waiting. For what? Did she know? Could she say? She stayed in the garden and she met someone who she thought was the gardener. Perhaps he could answer her questions. Perhaps he could tell her who had taken Jesus’ body, and where they had taken it.

But she was asking the wrong questions, looking for the wrong thing, seeing something she couldn’t understand. The angels told her she was looking in the wrong place, looking for the wrong thing, but their words didn’t make sense. She looked around saw a gardener, and asked him.

And then, the unimaginable, the unthinkable happened. He knew her. He called her by name, and her world, her sight, her understanding were transformed.

“Mary,” he said; and she replied, “Teacher.”

After that joyous encounter, she returned to the other disciples and told them the really good news, “I have seen the Lord!”

What are you looking for? What, who, do you hope to see? There is so much that clouds our visions—our worries for the future and for ourselves; concerns about jobs, the economy, our health, our families. But many of those are things over which we have little control. What about our hopes and fears—and all that we do to hide our deep needs from ourselves: our addictions, and not just to unhealthy habits, but our participation in a consumer lifestyle that deludes us into thinking if we only had a nicer house, or car, or an ipad 3, then things would be great, we would be satisfied. We would be happy.

What are we looking for? What, who do we hope to see? We come to church in something of the same mindset, hoping that the right word, the right experience will set everything right, make it all OK, satisfy the spiritual longings we have, longings that we often can’t articulate and express, longings for meaning and connection that we try to quench in all sorts of ways, except the way that will finally satisfy.

What are we looking for, whom do we seek? We have come to hear again the good and joyous news of resurrection, to celebrate the new life in Christ. We have come, some of us, to get a spiritual high, and some of us, in hope that what we get here today will suffice for another year.

We come, and see a rolled up ball of linen, or someone we think is a gardener, and we wonder and hope. We see what’s in front of our faces, and don’t understand the meaning, or misinterpret it. A rolled up ball of linen. What could it signify? A gardener—might he tell me what I want to know?

“Mary,” Jesus said and in that instant, her world changed. He knew her, and in that instant, she knew him. We come to this place, we come to God, with all sorts of expectations, requests, demands. We come wanting answers and help and solace. We come on our own terms. We want to encounter God on our terms, not God’s.

Mary was like us. We are Mary. She came to the tomb. She encountered a gardener. When Jesus called her by name, she replied, “Teacher.” But Jesus was much more than a teacher, and in the brief exchange that follows, Mary comes to realize what it all means, what everything means. She comes to know and believe what Jesus has been telling her, his other disciples, and us, throughout the gospel. She comes to know and understand who he is, what the crucifixion and this experience, resurrection mean. When she returns to the other disciples to tell them what happened, she makes it all clear, “I have seen the Lord.”

Here we are, all of us. We have come with our hopes and desires, with our cynicism and doubts, with our faith and with our uncertainty. We have come to this place to hear again the good news of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. We have come to experience the joy of that good news. We want it tied up in a neat package, like a rolled up ball of linen. We want it on our terms, in our categories, we want it to fill our needs.

But Jesus Christ comes to us in unexpected ways. Jesus Christ comes to us in ways we can’t imagine, in encounters we can’t control. The risen Christ comes to us in bread and wine, in the community of the faithful, and in ways we can’t express. The risen Christ comes to us, to shatter our expectations, break down the barriers that prevent us from seeing and experiencing him. The risen Christ comes to us, to remake us, to fashion us in his image and likeness. The risen Christ comes to us. Dare we say, with Mary, “We have seen the Lord?”

 

An Empty Tomb, Fearful Women: The Resurrection: A Sermon for the Great Vigil of Easter, Year B

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April 7, 2012

A few days ago, I was walking on Capitol Square. It was a beautiful day, warm, sunny, the crabapples almost in bloom. I looked up and across the square and saw in front of me two familiar buildings—the State Capitol and next to it, the steeple of Grace Church. As I looked, I was reminded of the history of those two buildings, of their long presence next to each other, of the visions of their builders to create and shape a vision of a certain kind of society and polity. I thought, too, of their intertwined history, the men who in the nineteenth century wielded power in both places—Fairchilds, Vilases, et al. From a distance, both church and capitol look solid, secure, built for the ages. Continue reading →

Holy Saturday

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Lord God our Father, 
maker of heaven and earth: 
As the crucified body of your dear Son 
was laid in the tomb 
to await the glory that would be revealed, 
so may we endure 
the darkness of this present time 
in the sure confidence 
that we will rise with him. 
We ask this through your Son, 
Jesus Christ our Lord, 
who lives and reigns 
with you and the Holy Spirit, 
one God, now and forever. 
Amen.

From an Ancient Homily:

“What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.

Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam’s son.

The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.

‘I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.

‘I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.

‘For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden.

‘Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.

‘See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.

`I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.

‘But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven. I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life. I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God.

“The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages.”

A Sermon from the Early Church Father Epiphanius is available here.

A reflection by Richard Beck.

Good Friday at Grace

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Our service was scheduled for 12 noon. At 11:00, there were three repairmen in the building. The copier guy was trying to fix the jam (unsuccessfully, we had to have the remainder of the Easter service bulletin copied out of house); the sound system was being worked on, and someone was here to fix the internet connection for the homeless shelter.

That isn’t a recipe for a successful Good Friday liturgy. But, wow! Thanks to lots of help from Deacon Carol Smith, Greg Upward, Pat and Matthew Pollock, Steph Childs, the people who read the Passion according to John, and Max Harris’s powerful sermon; the service went off without a hitch and with great power and meaning. Thanks especially to Rachel Eve Holmes for her solos (you can hear the aria from Bach Cantata #21 at her website: http://www.racheleveholmessoprano.com/live/ (It’s worth a listen).