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.

Reflections on Holy Week

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This was my first Holy Week as a priest, but my sixth since I’ve been in the ordination process and working in churches. I noticed in the days and weeks leading up to it that I was approaching Holy Week with a different frame of mind than in the past. On the liturgical side of things there was an intense bustle of activity as we tried to make sure in advance that all of the services went off without a hitch. On the personal side, I sensed a new burden. One part of being a priest is that we are partly responsible for shaping the spiritual lives of our parishioners.

I suspect that the reason I felt that burden so strongly this year was because of the role Holy Week played in my becoming an Episcopalian. I remember the awe that I experienced the first time I participated in the Triduum: the spectacle of Maundy Thursday with the stripping of the altar, the solemnity of Good Friday, and the wondrous drama of the Easter Vigil. That first experience proved to me the power of liturgical worship and exposed depths of my soul I hardly knew existed.

To participate in creating such experiences for others is humbling and challenging. At the end of Easter Sunday, I felt little more than exhaustion and relief that it was all over. Thankfully, Monday was a holiday at Furman so I could have an extra day to recover.

On pulling dandelions in Holy Week

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Nearly two years after purchasing our new home, we have finally turned our attention this spring to the lawn. Last year, we did an incredible amount of work in the yard. I made raised beds for our vegetable garden; we put in a dry creek bed to deal with drainage issues; we planted trees and lots of shrubs. But the lawn was, and remains, a mess. We weren’t even sure what kind (or kinds) of grass were planted. In any case, there was as much crabgrass and dandelions in spots as there was grass. Corrie did lots of research online and talked to people all over the country. We finally decided that we would plant some more fescue but mix it with clover. Clover stays green during drought and it also is beneficial for the soil. But what to do with the dandelions?

We didn’t act early enough to use a pre-emergent herbicide and we are trying to be as close to organic as possible, so we decided the only option was to pull them. So, for the last few days, I’ve been pulling dandelions in my free time. There is something wonderfully therapeutic for me about mindless manual labor. It gives me the opportunity to get away from the computer and from books and to think, even meditate.

We are in the midst of Holy Week, my first as an ordained priest. I have been surprised by how deeply moving it is to celebrate the Eucharist in the context of this holy time. Celebration is always awesome for me, but there is something even more significant about the words and gestures as we move toward Good Friday. I find myself caught up in the experience, caught up in the language and emotions of this week. The hymns on Sunday took me even further. First we sang “Were You there” a capella, which always evokes the Mennonite Church services of my childhood and youth. Then, as our concluding hymn, we sang Johann Herrmann’s beautiful, “Ah, Holy Jesus.”

Those hymns were in my mind as I pulled weeds yesterday afternoon. It is a mundane, homey, gesture in the midst of these deeply meaningful days, but a gesture that has its own significance. One of the puzzles as a person deeply involved in the ritual life of the Church is the odd juxtaposition of the sacred and the ordinary. It can be amusing when we continue celebrating the twelve days of Christmas long after most people have taken down their decorations. It can also be jarring, even offensive. I remember once in Sewanee returning home after the Good Friday procession to hear the frat boys next door playing rock music. We live in between the sacred and the ordinary and we do well to practice those disciplines that allow us to see the sacred in the ordinary. Like pulling dandelions, I suppose.

And now, O Father, mindful of the love

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One of the legacies my father left me was a love of Church hymnody. I grew up singing hymns unaccompanied, in four-part harmony. My dad had a beautiful voice and for many years led the singing and directed the choir in his church. But he didn’t sing only on Sundays. As I remember, he was almost always whistling or humming, or even singing hymns as he worked during the week. In fact, it was one of the things that annoyed me when I was a teenager. He was a carpenter and I grew up spending time with him on the jobsite. As soon as I was big enough, I began working with him. Every summer from junior high through high school, and on into college, the day after school was over, he would wake me up and put me to work.

That was bad enough; but usually from Monday through Friday, as he worked, he would be whistling, or humming, or singing, one of the hymns that had been sung in church on Sunday. And more often than not, it was a catchy tune, with words that seemed to me less than adequate theologically (yes, I became a critic quite early in life). I would get so annoyed by this, that by the middle of the week I would try to think of an alternative, more suitable hymn, and try to outsing him, or at least get him to make a change.

I thought of that today. On Sunday, as we were preparing the altar, Karen played variations on one of my favorite hymns, and then at the 11:00 service, we sang it as one of the communion hymns. It’s a text by William Bright and the title is “And now,O Father, mindful of the love.” The tune is beautiful, but on Sunday I had the opportunity to sing the words and to look closely at them during the service. I especially love the second verse:

Look, Father, look on his anointed face,
and only look on us as found in him;
look not on our misusings of thy grace,
our prayer so languid, and our faith so dim:
for lo, between our sins and their reward
we set the Passion of thy Son our Lord.

Bright’s words evoke the concluding collect of the Good Friday liturgy:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, we pray you to set your passion, cross, and death between your judgment and our souls, now and in the hour of our death. Give mercy and grace to the living; pardon and rest to the dead; to your holy Church peace and concord; and to us sinners everlasting life and glory; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and for ever.

I suspect that for my father singing hymns throughout the week wasn’t just about the music; it was a form of prayer. It is a real gift to my spiritual life and to my journey toward Holy Week, that since Sunday, the tune of that hymn has been going through my mind, becoming my prayer of preparation for this most holy of seasons.

O, Gracious Light

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This evening, a small group of us gathered for a service of Contemplative Vespers, organized by Dr. Karen Eshelman. There was a small choir of people who had prepared the chants as the evening shadows lengthened we sang the ancient hymn Phos Hilaron, O Gracious Light. The simple service, with voices chanting unaccompanied by any instruments except the occasional bell was a lovely opportunity to recollect oneself at the end of an exhausting day. The ancient chants allow one to hear the psalms in new ways. It was a service that combined the meditative feel of Lent with something else, a celebration of the Annunciation. March 25 (exactly nine months before December 25) is the date on which the church celebrates the coming of the Angel Gabriel to Mary to tell her that she will give birth to Jesus. In the midst of the penitential season of Lent, and as we begin to look forward to Holy Week, we took time this evening to remember the first sign of Jesus’ coming into the world.

What a joyous luxury it was for me to worship in that way this evening; in a small group, with a simple, profound service, with silence, broken by the sound of bells and unaccompanied voices. Being responsible for the liturgy means that most of the time as I celebrate, or even when I am only assisting, my focus is on the logistics of the service–what comes next, what to do if something goes wrong, and the like.

If you would like to experience something somewhat similar to what took place this evening, you should think about attending the Tenebrae service on Wednesday evening of Holy Week. The chants will be similar, but the service will be quite dramatic as the candles are extinguished in the course of the evening and we will leave the church in darkness.

The Bishops have spoken

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Last night, the bishops, meeting at Camp Allen, Texas, released three resolutions in response to the Primates’ Communique. It will take some time to digest the document, but after a quick read, it seems clear that a majority of the bishops have rejected the recommendations put to them. The first resolution affirms their desire to remain in the Anglican communion, states that only General Convention can speak for the Episcopal Church, and urges Executive Council to reject the Primates’ proposal for pastoral oversight. The second resolution very wisely, requests “face time” with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates’ Standing Committee. It is indeed odd that the Archbishop of Canterbury has not met with the Bishops or Executive Council since 2003.

The third resolution states something of the Bishops’ reasoning. I will quote from it:

“First, it violates our church law in that it would call for a delegation of primatial authority not permissible under our Canons and a compromise of our autonomy as a Church not permissible under our Constitution.Second, it fundamentally changes the character of the Windsor process and the covenant design process in which we thought all the Anglican Churches were participating together.

Third, it violates our founding principles as The Episcopal Church following our own liberation from colonialism and the beginning of a life independent of the Church of England.

Fourth, it is a very serious departure from our English Reformation heritage. It abandons the generous orthodoxy of our Prayer Book tradition. It sacrifices the emancipation of the laity for the exclusive leadership of high-ranking Bishops. And, for the first time since our separation from the papacy in the 16th century, it replaces the local governance of the Church by its own people with the decisions of a distant and unaccountable group of prelates.

Most important of all it is spiritually unsound. The pastoral scheme encourages one of the worst tendencies of our Western culture, which is to break relationships when we find them difficult instead of doing the hard work necessary to repair them and be instruments of reconciliation. The real cultural phenomenon that threatens the spiritual life of our people, including marriage and family life, is the ease with which we choose to break our relationships and the vows that established them rather than seek the transformative power of the Gospel in them. We cannot accept what would be injurious to this Church and could well lead to its permanent division.”

In the coming days, we will hear more about the resolutions, about the internal discussions that led to the resolutions, and a great deal about the response by all of the parties who make it their business to respond to such things. I will be very interested to hear what Bishop Henderson has to say about all of this. In general, though, I am greatly heartened by the bishops’ stance. They have reaffirmed their desire to remain in the Anglican Communion but they have also expressed themselves unwilling to compromise certain basic principles of our church, including this one: “it sacrifices the emancipation of the laity for the exclusive leadership of high-ranking bishops.” You may read the entire press release here

The Work of the Church

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The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion continue to be in the news and in the blogsphere. Last week, Mark Lawrence did not receive the number of consents required from Diocesan Standing Committees for his consecration as Bishop of South Carolina (“the lower diocese”) to go forward. He needed 57, apparently he fell short by one. This week, the bishops are meeting at Camp Allen in Texas, where they will be discussing their response to the Primates’ communique. Our bishop has made a preliminary statement about that meeting which can be seen here. Meanwhile, there was an article in today’s New York Times about the financial importance of the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Communion. We bankroll approximately 30% of the Anglican Communion’s budget, and of course contribute mightily to relief and development efforts all over the world, including in many places where bishops and primates claim not to be in communion with us. Only one of those provinces refuses to take money from Episcopal Relief and Development. The article is here but you need to register to read it. The authors of the article make clear that in spite of the conflicts within the Anglican Communion, there has been no effort on the part of the Episcopal Church to hold back funding either for Anglican Communion offices or from the very important relief and development work that is taking place.

So the work of the church goes on. There have been scattered reports of African dioceses severing ties with individual dioceses in the American Church, sometimes with devastating results for the programs that have been receiving financial and other support. But it seems to be the case that whatever the politics, the money keeps flowing. The theological consistency and political wisdom of this may yet come under scrutiny.

Last night at St. James, we had a presentation from an employee of “Homes of Hope,” an organization in Greenville that rehabs mobile homes and houses, and builds houses for low-income people. The work is done by men who are slowly putting their lives back together. Most of them are recovering addicts or alcoholics who are receiving vocational training as well as a support system as they turn their lives around. It’s an amazing story and program and I hope that St. James can find a way to participate. For more information, you may speak with our parishioner Gale Garner, who is employed there or access their website here.

Lord, have mercy

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Our observance of Lent at St. James brings sin to the forefront of our consciousness. We begin each service with the Penitential Order and in one of our Lenten programs we are studying Dante’s Divine Comedy. Last night in our discussion, we noted that Dante has a very different hierarchy of sins than ours. In our culture, sexual immorality seems to be the most offensive, while for Dante, the lustful were confined to the third of nine circles. Below them suffered (among others) misers and spendthrifts (in the fourth), flatterers (in the eighth), traitors (in the ninth). One of the fun things about reading The Inferno is noticing Dante’s changing attitude toward the suffering he is observing. Initially he sympathizes with the sinners; over time he comes to detest them and even occasionally add to their suffering. As his guide, Vergil tells him “piety lives when pity dies.”

It’s easy for us to say the words of the confession of sin and conclude, from the priest’s absolution, that we are OK. But sin isn’t only about acts we commit; sin is also about who we are. We are fallen human beings in need of God’s grace. This week I saw Little Children, a movie presented by the Upstate Film Society. Among the most deeply moving and disturbing films I’ve seen in quite some time, it is an examination of the emptiness of suburban life, in which lonely people seek meaning in broken relationships. One of the most poignant scenes is of a date between a convicted sex offender and a woman who suffers from mental illness. The two make a profound connection through their brokenness but the date ends in catastrophe. The film depicts raw humanity at its bleakest with no hint of redemption. Sarah, the leading character who sought release from the prison of suburbia through a desperate affair and planned to escape with her lover, in the end abandons her plan and returns to her suburban existence. Her only hope for survival seems to be in the love she shares with her daughter.

One of the great benefits of communal worship is the shared experience of confession, forgiveness, and grace. At the altar, we see ourselves and each other as we are, fallen human beings in need of, and receiving God’s grace. As I’ve reflected about the sinners I read about in The Inferno and in Little Children, and as I reflect on my own existence this Lent, I realize how very little separates me from them. It isn’t the gravity of the sins that sets me apart, but the fact that I ask God’s forgiveness.

Hear us, O Christ

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On Sunday, we began all three services with the Great Litany. The majestic cadences and beautiful language of the Litany transported us back 450 years to the very beginning of the English Reformation. It was the first portion of the liturgy that Archbishop Cranmer translated into English in the 1540s. The version we used is considerably modernized, yet it retains the penitential feel of the original. As I led the congregation in the Litany at the first two services, I reflected on the power of its words to shape my understanding of my self as a sinner. Later, the cantor who sang at the third service, remarked to me, “It doesn’t let us off the hook.” What he meant was that in the series of petitions, we give voice to all of our sins, and we also give voice to all of the ways in which we need to repent, and in which we need to receive God’s forgiveness.

One of the first things that attracted me to the Episcopal liturgy was the simplicity and beauty of the confession: “we have sinned against you, in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” That pretty much covers it. But it doesn’t end there. The priest’s absolution reminds us that God forgives us for all of our sins. Still, even though we say the words of that confession every Sunday, it is good to be reminded occasionally, as in the Great Litany, that our sins go deeper than the words of the confession.

Lent provides us an opportunity to take our religious lives more seriously than we are wont to do. We often symbolize that by giving something up, something dear to us. In my case, I have given up bourbon, and I have again, as I often have in the past, vowed to give up meat on Fridays. But spiritual discipline does not only mean giving something up. It can also mean taking something on, trying something that one might not otherwise do, like the daily office, or a regular regimen of prayer, reading, or even works of mercy.  In Lent, we can try something on, see how it fits; sometimes, we might discover that the practice we take on quickly becomes a habit, part of us.

One of my struggles as a priest is finding space to worship in the midst of distributing ashes, leading the congregation in the Great Litany, or celebrating Eucharist. Often worship takes place in small, unguarded moments, when I catch the eye of a parishioner as I am making the sign of the cross with ashes on their forehead, or as I place the Host in their hands. Occasionally, though, as I am saying the words, the prayer I am saying for the congregation beomes my prayer: “In all times of sorrow, in all times of joy, in the hour of our death and at the day of judgment, Savior deliver us.”

The Great Litany reminds us of our brokenness, as individuals, as families and congregations, as a church, a nation, and a worldwide community of life. To acknowledge that brokenness and our own responsibility for it is one of the great lessons of Lent. As I was leading the Litany on Sunday, I realized again how much of our church’s and our world’s problems are created by people who recognize the sin in others, but seem unable to acknowledge or admit the sin in their own. My prayer for this Lent is that I pray with utter sincerity: “Grant me true repentance, forgive us our sins of negligence, and ignorance and our deliberate sins, and grant us the gracec of your Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to your word.” Amen.

Fr. Jonathan

As the dust begins to settle …

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In the adult forum on February 18, I said that we still did not know the outcome of the Primates’ Meeting. Today, the dust still has not settled. There is plenty of spin to go around, lots of people making statements, but from what I can tell, very little has actually changed. There are, however, some ominous signs.

Of the things we do know, the sub-group given the task of assessing the response of the Episcopal Church to the Windsor Report gave a largely favorable report. The sub-group stated that the Episcopal Church had taken Windsor seriously and had responded positively to Windsor’s recommendations to express regrets for its actions at General Convention 2003 and to refrain from consenting to the election of bishops in same-sex relationships. The one area in which the sub-group expressed concern was in the blessing of same-sex relationships. You can read the full report here:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/25/acns4249.cfm

We also know that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts-Schori was “in the room.” There was considerable discussion before the meeting that conservative Primates would refuse to meet with her. That did not happen. Instead, she participated fully in the meetings and in the end was elected to the Standing Committee of the Primates. Some of the Primates did refuse to take communion with the rest of the group.

On the last day of their meeting, after lengthy delays, the Primates produced a Communique which can be read here:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/50/acns4253.cfm

It makes fascinating reading because it is clear from the document that the Primates agreed on very little with regard to the Episcopal Church. At the end of that document appears a schedule of recommendations. The one that has received the most attention is the recommendation that the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church agree to refuse to authorize same-sex blessings by September 30, 2007.

Finally, there was the publication of a draft Covenant for the Anglican Communion. You can read it here:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/50/acns4252.cfm

What does it all mean? Who knows? It is quite clear by now that few people are happy with the results. Conservatives did not get everything they wanted; liberals are distressed by the Presiding Bishop’s willingness to sign off on the communiqué. By and large, we are where we were before the Primates Meeting: a fractured communion, a fractured church. There are deep divisions in our church over sexuality, but it is becoming increasingly clear that there are also deep divisions over theology and over polity—how we structure the church. It is that question that most troubles me. The Primates and many other Anglican provinces, and indeed, many Episcopalians seem not to understand how the Episcopal Church is organized. We are not ruled by a Primate; we are governed by General Convention. Only the national church, representatives of laity, clergy, and bishops, meeting together, can decide matters of doctrine, worship, and discipline. A promise made by our House of Bishops does not have the force of law. It is roughly equivalent to a non-binding resolution passed by the U.S. Senate.

The structure of our church is not simply historical accident, although it was shaped by the same people who were involved in the framing of the U.S. Constitution. It reflects a deep theological commitment to the ministry of all the baptized. We are all members of the church, whether we are bishops, priests or deacons, or laypeople. We all bear responsibility for its vitality, its faithfulness, and its future. To place all responsibility for the life of the church in its bishops, or its Primates, is to infantilize, indeed, to dehumanize all of those baptized members who are created in the image of God. Democracy may be a messy way to run a nation or a church but the alternative, as we have seen in the past, leads inevitably to despotism and tyranny.

Fr. Jonathan

Reflections on Eucharistic Sharing

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Reflections on Eucharistic Sharing

One of the biggest stories to come out of the Primates’ Meeting in Tanzania last week was the news that a number of the primates refused to receive communion at the Eucharist in the presence of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts-Schori. In a statement signed by seven archbishops, they defended their refusal to share with two arguments: first, that the New Testament teaches that before sitting at table with one another, we must be reconciled (referring to Matthew 5: 23-26 and I Corinthians 11: 27-29); and second, by quoting the Book of Common Prayer’s Exhortation to Communion which includes the statement “Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways; Draw near with faith.”

There had been much speculation about this in the weeks leading up to the Primates’ Meeting, in part because it became known after their last meeting in 2005 that almost a third of the Primates refused to participate in joint Eucharists. We do not know yet how many withdrew from this expression of unity in Dar es Salaam, but it seems to be the case that the number this year is far fewer. Their actions are a reminder that Christian unity is a fragile thing and that it founders, not only on grave matters of doctrine and practice, but also on much more human faults—pride and self-righteousness.

My understanding of the Eucharist has taken shape over the years, beginning with my experience growing up in the Mennonite Church, where, when I was a boy, communion was used as a tool of discipline. One of my earliest memories as a baptized member of the church was the members’ meeting held several days before our semi-annual celebration of communion. I remember vividly how the clergy cited the roll of those who would be excluded from communion, excluded from membership because of their sins. Several years later, I remember as well how one elderly man would demonstratively leave the church service before the beginning of communion to make clear his conviction that our church was no longer the pure bride of Christ it needed to be.

Those members’ meetings lost their force over the years of my membership in that church, but they continued to hold power over my imagination and over the imaginations of much older members. I recall going through minutes of members’ meetings from early in the twentieth century with my aunts. We were amused by the infractions which led to excommunication—attendance at the County Fair was among the most grievous sins. But we were most surprised to see, in the report from one meeting in the 1910’s mention that my grandfather had been reinstated into full communion, though his infraction was not specified.

One of the reasons I became an Episcopalian was because I found in the celebration of the Eucharist, in the reception of Christ’s Body and Blood, a symbol of God’s gracious acceptance of me, a sinner. The words of the Confession, the Priest’s absolution, and our approach to the altar, is potent evidence of the power of God’s grace to overcome our sins, and to overcome our broken-ness as a community.

A few weeks ago, a Catholic visitor to St. James asked whether he needed to make his confession before participating in the Eucharistic celebration. I responded to him with a resounding “Maybe”—maybe, if his personal spiritual journey required that step. But I also said to him that the Eucharistic table was not our table, it is our Lord’s, and just as Jesus ate with sinners in his own lifetime, we come to the table, all of us, as sinners, all of us needing God’s grace. To deny access to the grace of the Eucharist for any reason, is to deny the power of repentance and to deny the power of God’s grace to make of each of us, each day, a new creation.

Fr. Jonathan