Author Archives: djgrieser

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About djgrieser

I have been Rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, WI since 2009. I'm passionate about Jesus Christ and about connecting our faith and tradition with 21st century culture. I'm also very active in advocating for our homeless neighbors.

Gregory the Great, March 12

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Today is the commemoration of Pope Gregory the Great, one of the shapers of medieval Christianity. A member of an old senatorial family who rose to the top of the imperial hierarchy in Rome, he withdrew from public service, founded a monastery in one of his family’s homes in Rome. But his education and diplomatic expertise pressed him into service as a papal legate to the Emperor in Constantinople. He returned to Rome and was acclaimed pope in 591.

Among his achievements: the mission of St. Augustine of Canterbury to England, liturgical revision (the common name for medieval chant “Gregorian” chant bears his name). He was  profound theologian, exegete, and pastor. His On Pastoral Care shaped the ministry, his Moralia in Job a model of biblical scholarship for centuries. He used his family’s wealth to feed the Roman people during famine and pestilence, and his administrative skill secured papal primacy in the west.

Among the most popular legends of Gregory in the later Middle Ages was the story that once as he was celebrating mass, he heard someone deny transubstantiation. Praying for a sign to prove the reality of the bread and wine becoming Christ’s body and blood, suddenly an image of the crucified Christ appeared before him and all the people. Here’s artist’s rendering of that legend:

Reorienting my priorities

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I’ve been at Grace now seven months and I’m settling in somewhat. I’ve learned a great deal about the parish, the job, and about myself in the process. One of the things I’ve learned is that my day is quickly filled with routine administrative tasks–everything from dealing with tension between volunteers and staff, thinking about issues in the homeless shelter or security, or of course financial matters. And then there’s the dishwasher.

What that has meant is pastoral care has played a minor role in my work so far. A large reason for that minor role is the fact that Grace has a cadre of Eucharistic Visitors who regularly take communion to our homebound and hospitalized members. In addition, we have a very gifted and energetic deacon who has taken responsibility for much of our pastoral care needs.

I finally made space today for making some pastoral visits of my own. It’s about time, after seven months. I spent the morning with a parishioner in his home, admiring his art collection, getting to know him better, and sharing our interests in the relationship of body and mind, and our concern for the homeless.

This afternoon Deacon Carol and I made the rounds of Oakwood. We spent a lovely afternoon with parishioners who are rarely able to make it to services. I got to know them a little bit, we shared something of our lives, our interests, our hopes and fears. And at the end of it, I was totally exhausted, as drained as I would have been had I spent the afternoon going over our financial statements (which I had done on Tuesday). But I was also exhilarated by the opportunity to get to know people, make connections, and think about ways of spending time with them on a regular basis (as I was coming home, it struck me that a monthly service at the facility where we spent the afternoon today, would be a great way of connecting regularly with our parishioners there.

And, OK, since it’s Lent, I’ll make a confession. I’ve got two close relatives, a brother and sister of my dad, who are in difficult medical situations. Feeling helpless to respond to their situation, it’s probably made it more likely that I would reach out to people I can visit.

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, March 7, 2010

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It seems like it’s inevitable. Every time some great tragedy happens, whether it be 9-11 or hurricane Katrina, or the earthquake in Haiti, Pat Robertson is going to make news for saying something outrageous about how this event is God’s punishment on someone.

But it’s not just Pat Robertson and it’s not just great disasters like those I’ve just mentioned. We do it too. We do it when we seek an explanation for the suffering of a friend or loved one, ourselves, or even a stranger we hear about it. What did they, or we, do wrong, to deserve this?

Continue reading →

Crazy Heart

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I saw “Crazy Heart,” the Jeff Bridges movie, for which he has received well-deserved plaudits. In many ways, it’s a typical Hollywood film about a musician. The plotline is familiar from the Ray Charles and Johnny Cash biopics of a few years ago: a great singer has a rotten personal life and eventually gets it all back together. But this movie does have its charms. Maggie Gyllenhaal, for example, no matter how unbelievable the notion of her falling for a drunk, has-been country singer is always luminous on-screen.

Bridges himself, who brings intelligence and sensitivity to a role that in those other movies I mentioned seemed somewhat lacking. And, Robert Duvall. He was one of the producers. I love watching him, especially at this point in his career, where it seems like he is just having a great time (kind of like Paul Newman’s late performances).

I’m somewhat curious why in Hollywood redemption for middle-aged or late middle-aged men always seems to involve much younger women. In this case, however, Bridges didn’t get the girl in the end, even if their relationship was a catalyst for his transformation.

The music is pretty good, too. I’ve not been listening much to country music of any sort in the past few years. There was a time that my hour-long commute was accompanied by tunes from WNCW, so from the late 90s through say 2005, I got to know lots of alt country. I realized today, I kind of miss it, but lacking a commute, I’m probably not going to have the opportunity to listen to the likes of John Hiatt, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and all those other artists I enjoyed during those years.

John and Charles Wesley, March 3

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The Wesleys might well be the two most influential figures in the history of English-speaking Christianity. I suppose that’s debatable, but certainly the shape of Christianity would be dramatically different without them. Sons of an Anglican priest and educated at Oxford, after travels to colonial America, they became leaders of the Evangelical Revival in England. John was the elder and more responsible for the theological and structural basis of what would become Methodism; but it might be that Charles, through his thousands of hymns, had the greater impact on the religious lives of English-speaking Christians over the past two and a half centuries. His hymns are probably in the hymnals of every Protestant Church, and generations of people undoubtedly knew many of them by heart.

They were often criticized in their own time for the kind of emotional responses evoked by their sermons and in Methodist prayer meetings. Hogarth’s engraving captures anti-Methodist sentiment:

Much of the opposition could be attributed to class issues–the Methodists target working and middle class people–and to their tactics. They adopted George Whitefield’s practice of preaching in the open air, held meetings outside of regular church hours and in places other than churches, and they licensed lay people to preach.

From a twenty-first century perspective shaped by contemporary Christianity, what may be most surprising is the social justice emphasis of the Methodist revival. John Wesley opposed slavery and one of the last letters he wrote before dying was to William Wilberforce who was leading the campaign for abolition in Parliament, urging him to persevere in his efforts.

I can’t think about the Wesleys, though, without thinking of their hymns and beginning to sing them: “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” or “Love Divine, All Loves’ Excelling.

George Herbert

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Yesterday in Lesser Feasts and Fasts, we remembered George Herbert (1593-1633). Herbert is chiefly known for his poetry, especially The Temple and The Country Parson, but neither appeared in print during his lifetime. Apparently he struggled with a call to the ministry and was only ordained a priest in 1630. The Country Parson seems to have been written as something of a guidebook for him to follow after he took up his cure, so it doesn’t reflect his practice of ministry. It has had a profound effect on Anglican priests over the centuries, and probably on laypeople as well. Several of his poems appear in The Hymnal 1982 and his poems continue to capture the imagination of readers today.

Among my favorites:

Prayer: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/983.html

And in honor of the season of Lent:

Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authority,
But is compos’d of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
To ev’ry Corporation.

The humble soul compos’d of love and fear
Begins at home, and lays the burden there,
When doctrines disagree,
He says, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandal to the Church, and not
The Church is so to me.

True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unless Authority, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it less,
And Power itself disable.

Besides the cleanness of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulness there are sluttish fumes,
Sour exhalations, and dishonest rheums,
Revenging the delight.

Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
And goodness of the deed.
Neither ought other men’s abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.

It’s true, we cannot reach Christ’s forti’eth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Saviour’s purity;
Yet we are bid, ‘Be holy ev’n as he, ‘
In both let’s do our best.

Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn and take me by the hand, and more:
May strengthen my decays.

Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast,
As may our faults control:
That ev’ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlour; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.

From: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lent-2/

A visit to Milwaukee

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I’ve lived in various parts of the US (Ohio, Indiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee and South Carolina) and traveled more widely across the States than that. There’s something about being a tourist or visitor and encountering the various ways a community tries to market itself to attract visitors that I find interesting. Take Atlanta for example. There are a few vestiges of Old Atlanta that might attract a tourist’s attention, but having visited it dozens of times over more than twenty years, there’s nothing that really sets Atlanta apart from any other southern city. Charlotte, for example, is hardly distinguishable, although it has no street, or boulevard, or avenue, named Peachtree, while Atlanta has dozens. Atlanta, since 1996, has the Olympic venues and a couple of good museums, some really fine restaurants, but very little that sets it apart from any other city in America, or the world.

Corrie and I went to Milwaukee today. It’s an interesting place. We went to an Italian deli, to Will Allen’s “Growing Power,” to the Public Market, where we had a pretty good fish fry, and drove along the lake front. Along the way, we stopped in what’s left of the German section–Usinger’s and a couple of tacky-looking German restaurants.

None of it seemed authentic: not the Italian deli, although Corrie felt reminded of Boston’s North End, and certainly not the German block. Yet I wonder how much more authentic a German city, or Italian city would feel in 2010. Neither of us has spent time in Europe in the last decade. We had a week in Frankfurt in 2008 and then it seemed more authentic than my memories of it from 1980. But of course the US Army was no longer ubiquitous.

On another level, there was in our visit, deep authenticity. When Corrie said she felt like she was back in the North End, she was attesting to the authenticity of Italian-Americans creating space and a new culture for themselves in America. They succeeded in Boston, and in Milwaukee.

Why I blog

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The article in the Wisconsin State Journal prompted me to think about this question. I’ve been doing it since 2007, but I’ve been much more active as a blogger since moving to Madison than ever before. One reason for my increased presence as a blogger is that I have more time. But it’s also about communication. There are various ways in which pastors can communicate with their congregation. The most obvious is the sermon. There are also newsletters, items in the service bulletin, announcements and the like.

A blog is another way of communicating. There are things that come up in the course of a day, or a week, that don’t merit a great deal of attention–items of curiosity, interest, or confusion–that seem worth a hundred words or so, but don’t deserve a sermon. There are also things that don’t need “official” sanction or items that need immediate attention or ongoing reflection–certainly developments in the Anglican Communion belong to this category–for which parishioners might like some informal input to help understand.

There are also things that I simply want to make a quick, or more reflective, comment on. I blog for all of these reasons and sometimes, simply because I’ve got something I want to say, and I don’t really care whether there’s anyone who will read it.

Decline and decline

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Two news items this week point to the difficulties facing Episcopal congregations in the twenty-first century. Kirk Hadaway reported to a meeting of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church on the continuing decline in membership and Sunday attendance at Episcopal Churches. Overall membership declined from 2,285,143 in 2007 to 2,225,682 in 2008. Average Sunday attendance declined from 768,476 to 747,376.  Often that decline is attributed to the conflict over sexuality, but there are other issues involved.

Hadaway suggested that “if we’re going to turn this around — or at least turn around the decline — more attention needs to be paid to the things that result in growth, rather than to the broader cultural factors that are affecting our current patterns.” Those cultural factors include such things as an aging population with declining birthrates and an increase in the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation.

“The base problem is the fact that so many of our churches don’t know why they’re there,” he said. “It’s a caretaker sort of ministry, which is good and helpful, but it’s a prescription for continuing decline.”

The full article is here, including links to more information.

One underlying reason for the decline in membership in the Episcopal Church, and indeed in all churches, is the declining involvement of young adults in organized religion. The Pew Report released its study of young adult spirituality which shows that of people aged 18-29, fully one in four are unaffiliated with any particular faith. Results of the survey are here.

Within the sobering statistics lie several interesting tidbits. In fact, although institutional affiliation is down, young adults continue to believe in God in high numbers and at least claim that they pray regularly. There is a long trend in American religion moving toward greater individualism and this survey probably captures another stage in that process.

The Great Litany, 2010

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I posted on the Great Litany last year and wondered whether there was anything interesting and new to say about it. Whether it’s new or interesting, I don’t know, but I have been reflecting throughout the day on my experience of it. Part of it is doing liturgy in a new and very different context. Madison’s Capitol Square is a radically different place than Piney Mountain Road in Greenville, SC. I was very conscious as we were chanting it today how a newcomer or visitor might have reacted. It’s not user-friendly, it’s very much niche marketing (I suppose there are those to whom the traditional language, piety, and chanting might appeal, but that can’t be a large demographic).

In the nearly 20 years I’ve been attending Episcopal churches, I can’t recall a single one where the first Sunday of Lent didn’t include the Great Litany and I was preparing for the service today, I didn’t give its inclusion in both services a second thought. Still, I wonder about its utility and meaning in the twenty-first century.

At the same time, I’m quite aware that our worship is counter-cultural on almost every level and in a way it is appealing for that very reason. We don’t construct our worship to get an audience; we worship the way we do because it is a bond with Christians throughout history. The sursum corda, “Lift up your hearts,” goes back to the very earliest extant Christian worship. In the same way, the Great Litany is part of the unique Anglican tradition of liturgy, with its origins in Thomas Cranmer’s work in the 1540s. For that reason alone, it may be worth dusting off every year.

Moreover, it may be that the catalogue of petitions is appropriate from time to time. We seem to pray for everything and everyone, and that in itself is a reminder of our place in God’s universe, and our dependence on God. The repetition of the petitions and the congregation’s response, “Good Lord, deliver us” and “We beseech thee to hear us Oh, Lord” help us to understand our relationship to God more profoundly than many other liturgical actions.