There are a lot of websites that offer Advent meditations and resources. One of the best comes from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. There is an advent calendar, with links to interviews, meditations and the Daily Office. You can access it here.
We had quite an exciting morning on the first Sunday of Advent yesterday. As I arrived to prepare for the 9:00 service, I noticed one bank of lights in the sanctuary was out. I did a little investigation and discovered that there were power outages all over the building. We learned that there was a downed power line and prepared for a less than brightly illuminated service. Just after the completion of the reading from the Hebrew Bible, all of the lights went out. The church remained in darkness for the rest of the service.
As we worshipped, my eyes were drawn to the only artificial light in the sanctuary–the altar candles and the advent wreath. One of the themes of Advent is darkness and light. Tom spoke of that in his sermon, about the symbolism of lighting another candle each week as the days grow shorter. The flames from the candles were a reminder of the audacity of our faith and our longing for the coming of the Incarnation.
The internet is wonderful! I mentioned in service this morning one of my favorite epitaphs in a Boston graveyard. But I got several of the details wrong. First, it was in the Copps Hill burial ground. Second, the phrase I remembered was not the end of the epitaph. But you get the idea. Here’s the whole of it:
Here lyes the mortal part of William Clark, Esq. An Eminent Merchant of this Town and an Honourable Counsellor for this Province Who Distinguished Himself as a Faithful and Affectionate Friend a Fair and generous Trader Loyal to his Prince Yet always zealous for the Freedom of his Country A Despiser of Sorry Persons and little Actions, An Enemy to Priestcraft and Enthusiasm, Ready to relieve and Help the Wretched, A Lover of Good Men of Various Denominations, and a Reverent Worshipper of the Deity.
I didn’t do more research than that. I know it’s eighteenth century, and from the details, it probably derives from the colonial period (“loyal to his prince” suggests pre-revolutionary). But it does provide some interesting religious info: an enemy to Priestcraft suggests he wasn’t Anglican/Episcopalian, the mention of Enthusiasm implies he rejected the Great Awakening (i.e., Methodism), and “a Reverent Worshipper of the Deity” implies that he was moving toward Unitarianism, or at least Deism, as were many in the eighteenth century, Thomas Jefferson, for example.
I think I’ve written about what it’s like to wear a clerical collar around town. Veteran priests have warned me that a collar could cause difficulty in certain situations. I’m sure it does, but I’ve yet to experience that. Instead, wearing a collar has opened doors and led to fascinating conversations. Early this summer, for example, I was in the Home Depot buying something on my way home from the church and an employee came up to me and asked me to pray for him. We spent a few minutes talking about the things that were troubling him, and then, right there in the parking lot, we prayed.
Last night, we went to a restaurant downtown after the service. I was starved, so I didn’t take the time to change clothes. We had a lovely meal and a great time. Our server treated us like royalty and we chatted about the wine, pork belly, and all sorts of things. Eventually the conversation turned to church. I identified myself as an Episcopal priest and our server shared with us his story. As a teen he was an active member of a small parish in our diocese and he spoke with great emotion and affection for that experience. That church was open and loving, and the rector’s door was always open to a teenager who was trying to figure things out. Most memorable of all was the youth group’s outing to an AC/DC concert. He’s not a member of an Episcopal church now. Of course I invited him to our services. Perhaps we will see him one day.
We came away from that encounter curiously reassured about what we do in the church. Oh, I know, all of the church growth gurus and consultants would label this man “unchurched” but from what he shared of his life last night, he’s pretty together. I’m guessing when he’s ready to look for a church he will look first at an Episcopal parish. My prayer is that when he does, he will find one as open and loving as the one he holds in his memory. In the meantime if he approaches all of his tables with the grace and sensitivity that he did ours last night, he is already a witness to the love of Christ.
In spite of getting started late (around Memorial Day) and being in the midst of drought, our garden is remarkably productive. As of last week (July 21) we had shared over 200 pounds of produce with the Hispanic Ministry at St. Francis. That’s amazing. So far, the harvest has been squash, beans, peppers, but the tomatoes are beginning to ripen. More than ten people are involved in caring for the garden and harvesting. What a wonderful gift to St. James, and to the community.
I’ll share a couple of photos of the produce
This was taken early in the season
This picture shows last week’s haul
The bishops have been meeting all week and there has already been a great deal of speculation in the press and blogosphere. I encourage you to read the reports of the “blogging bishops.” They are often informative and full of insight into what it’s like to be meeting with 600 other bishops from across the world. The cultural, socio-economic, and even religious differences are vast, but it seems that people are talking to one another.
Of course the press sensationalizes. Thus we heard about the bishops of Sudan condemning The Episcopal Church for consecrating Bishop Robinson. What we didn’t hear in the press is that the deep ties between the Anglican Church in the Sudan and the Episcopal Church are strong and that many Sudanese bishops reassured their American colleagues of the importance of those relationships.
There is also a great deal in the press about the Windsor Continuation Group, with the screaming headlines across England: Anglicans to institute the Inquisition! The report of that group was met with considerable skepticism and will hardly be accepted as it stands.
The bishops marched in London on behalf of the Millennium Development Goals, and then they had tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
It will probably get interesting later this week when the Bishops’ discussion groups finally take up the issues of sexuality and authority. Stay tuned!
This past Sunday was the culmination of another incredibly busy week at St. James. I thought things were supposed to slow down in the summer! We had at least six visitors at the early service–hardy souls! Among them were a couple from Kansas. They were in town for a church and synagogue librarian conference. That in itself raises all sorts of interesting questions.
After the service, they made sure to meet me. She was carrying a book in her hand. They introduced themselves, saying they were from Lawrence, KS (home of the University of Kansas). The book she gave to me was one that had found itself into their church’s library, but had a bookplate identifying it as property of St. James, Greenville.
It wasn’t very old, having been printed in 2000, but I am very curious how it got from here to there. Any ideas?
By the way, I’ve been wondering about the usefulness of church libraries. Ours at St. James seems to be used primarily as a meeting room. Few of the books circulate and most of them are decades old. I remember when I was a child reading many of the books in our church library. There were lots for young readers, but they were carefully censored. Even the Laura Ingalls Wilder books had all the dirty words like “gee” and “gosh” carefully blacked out.
The Lambeth Conference begins today. Meeting every ten years, it brings together bishops from across the Anglican Communion for prayer and conversation, and occasionally to decide matters of doctrine and practice. There has already been a great deal of news about Lambeth–much of it having to do with who got invited and who didn’t, and about those boycotting.
Many of the primates from the Global South, most notably Nigeria and Uganda, announced they, and their bishops wouldn’t be attending. Others have boycotted less noisily. But it turns out that there is only one province (Uganda) with no bishops in attendance.
As always, Episcopal Cafe and Thinking Anglicans keep up with everything that’s going on. In addition, Episcopal Cafe has listed all of the blogging bishops here. Jim Naughton, one of the best Episcopal journalists is also present and blogging.
It will be interesting to follow the action, but I don’t expect a great deal to happen, especially legislatively. The Archbishop of Canterbury has made it quite clear that he wants to focus on bible study and reflection rather than on resolving the deep divisions. But we’re all likely to be surprised in the next couple of weeks.
Of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury has his hands full. The General Synod of the Church of England voted to ordain women bishops. It was a vote that sparked an uproar among conservatives, many of whom are threatening to leave the Church. There was a well-written profile of Archbishop Williams in the Guardian.
The New York Times reports on the recent discovery of a text, written in ink, in a stone, found probably near the Dead Sea. Scholars date it to the late first-century BCE, in other words, just a few years before Jesus. It is a messianic text, full of imagery derived from the biblical books of Zechariah and Daniel. The Times article focuses on one scholar’s reconstruction of the text. It’s a reconstruction because it is not quite clear what the text says at this very crucial point. He offers “In three days you shall live, I Gabriel, command you.” It may be that this is evidence of a belief in a Messiah who will die and be resurrected on the third day.
What’s significant about this is that most New Testament scholars have argued that belief in a Messiah who dies and is raised again is the attempt by Jesus’ followers to make sense of their experience after the crucifixion and resurrection, and that such beliefs did not exist prior to Jesus.
The article is available here. I’m sure there will be much more discussion of this in the media in the near future.
GAFCON has spoken. Their concluding communique is available here. The Archbishop of Canterbury has responded. So, too has the Presiding Bishop. One should probably see this as another volley in a long-term struggle over Anglicanism. From the Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement, it is clear that he has grave theological and ecclesiological reservations about the communique and about the path the leaders of GAFCON are taking.
If you want to understand something of the theological background of the conflict, GAFCON appeals to the 39 Articles and to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The 39 Articles have been relegated to the “historical documents” section of our BCP. You should read them some time. The traditionalists bring together several streams of Anglicanism. One is Reformed, Calvinistic, which emphasizes human sinfulness. Another is Anglo-Catholicism, which draws on the rich theological, spiritual, and liturgical traditions of Catholicism. These two strands are mutually incompatible and are allied only because they have a common enemy–everyone else.
The 1662 prayer book has been mentioned before as one of the marks of Anglicanism. I’m not sure why contemporaries appeal to it. In fact, there is a strong tradition of alternatives to it, beginning with the Scottish Book of Common Prayer, with which the first American prayer book of 1789 was closely allied.
Most disturbing perhaps is the discussion by GAFCON of a “primates council” made up only of like-minded primates, self-selected. What this points to is an alarming trend, not just among conservatives, but throughout the Communion, of appealing to some central, hierarchical authority, independent of any lay involvement. The church, to thrive, needs to hear the voices of lay people at every level of government. It may be messy, but the alternative is authoritarianism.
