SJEC Blog

On Thursday, we celebrated the Feast of the Ascension.  It came just as I was also preparing to discuss the Resurrection in my Intro to Biblical Literature courses at Furman. Thinking about both, and reading again the gospels’ accounts of the Resurrection, reminded me of both the importance of the Ascension, and our faith’s uncertainty about it.

Only the Gospel of Luke (and its related work, the Book of Acts) clearly report on the ascension. Luke 24:51 reads in part “he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. Acts 1:9 says much the same thing. What I find interesting is that in contrast to Luke, neither Matthew or John say anything about the ascension. John uses the language of “being lifted up” throughout the gospel, but it always refers, at least in part, to the crucifixion.

What Matthew and John agree on is that Jesus appeared to his disciples in Galilee and that he gave them some final instructions. Matthew’s version is what we call the Great Commission. Jesus sends his disciples out into all the world, to teach, make disciples, and baptize. And he concludes that commission with the promise, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

What intrigues me is that this promise of Christ’s continuing presence with his disciples is in some way a direct contradiction of the notion that in the Ascension, Jesus returned to heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God.

In the end, the Ascension is about both Jesus’ presence, and his absence from us.

Someone asked me to explain the place of the saints in the Episcopal Church. First, a little background. In the New Testament, “saints” was a generic term, used to refer to Christians, members of the body of Christ. Quickly though, some Christians began to receive particular honor, especially after their death, and especially if they were martyred. In the Early Church and in the Middle Ages, whether someone became a saint or not was largely a product of the initiative of those who were devoted to them. Over time, however, the Catholic Church began to develop a process for determining whether someone was a saint. Now that process involves a fairly rigorous investigation that includes medical and scientific analysis of alleged miracles.

In the sixteenth century, the saints came under fire. Most Protestants saw devotion to the saints as misguided or as downright idolatry. In the English Reformation, many of the local and obscure saints were removed from the calendar. The Roman Catholic Church elevated no one to sainthood for most of the sixteenth century.

In Anglicanism, “sainthood” isn’t really an official label. We call people saints, like the Twelve Disciples, or Mary, or prominent church figures from the Early Church and Middle Ages, like St. Francis. We tend not to call people “saints” who have been elevated to sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church since the sixteenth century unless we are very Anglo-Catholic.

The Episcopal Church, and indeed the Anglican Communion, no longer elevates people to sainthood. However, in the Book of Common Prayer, there is a calendar that provides dates to commemorate not only the saints of the New Testament and Church History, but also people who have led exemplary lives in more recent times. The daily office calendar provides biographies of these people. You can find it here. Additions to the calendar are made by General Convention.

On Sunday afternoon, St. James received a wonderful gift–choral Evensong sung by Furman’s Chamber Choir, accompanied by our own Dr. Charles Tompkins. Evensong is one of the greatest contributions of Anglicanism to Christian worship. Its roots lie in the monastic hours of the Middle Ages, but when Thomas Cranmer prepared the first Book of Common Prayer, he sought to make the discipline of daily prayer available for all Christians. So he collapsed the monastic hours into two services of Morning and Evening Prayer and designed them so that all of the Psalter would be read in a month, and most of the Bible in a year.

Evening Prayer, or Evensong, as it came to be called, became one of the most popular services in many Anglican churches. In the cathedrals, where there were choirs and musicians available, Evening Prayer came to be sung, hence the name, Evensong.

Done well, as it was this past Sunday, Evensong is inspiring and spiritually rich, inviting the listener into a conversation with God through music. Many thanks to all who were involved–especially Dr. Karen Eshelman who organized it; the Furman students who sang, and senior Adam Pajan who took a seat at the organ for the postlude, to Dr. Bill Thomas, who directs the choir, and to Dr. Bill Allen, who was cantor.

I would hope that at some point in the future, St. James could put on its own Evensong and perhaps even make it a regular event.

The BBC broadcasts Evensong each week. Recordings are available here.

I taught for a year at the School of Theology of the University of the South (Sewanee). During that time, and for the next year, too, I made a habit of attending Morning Prayer at the seminary. It is one thing to say MP for oneself; it is quite another to do it regularly in community. I quickly came to love one of the collects for mission that includes the phrase “you stretched out your arms on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within your saving embrace.”

At Eucharist last night, I talked about the meaning of the cross. The lessons were 1 Cor. 1 “I preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” and Jn 12: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

It seems to me that so often the cross is a divider, a sign that is meant to create boundaries, to delineate who is in and who is out, but in the collect as well as in John 12:32, the cross is a uniter. I’ll be pondering the meaning of the cross more in the next days, and will probably preach on this in some way on Good Friday.

The gospel appointed for Monday in Holy Week is John 12:1-11–the story of the anointing of Jesus at Bethany by Mary. While all four gospels have versions of this story, the four diverge dramatically in details. John sees the significance of the anointing in light of the crucifixion. When challenged by Judas about the expensive perfume used, Jesus replies, “she has anointed me beforehand for my burial.

Monday in Holy Week is also the traditional day in our diocese for the annual reaffirmation of ordination vows and the chrism mass, when the bishop consecrates holy oil and distributes it to clergy for use in the coming year. I’ve never attended this service; it comes on a day when I teach, and besides, my ordination vows are still recent enough that they don’t need to be recharged.

Yesterday, I visited a parishioner who’s been in the hospital for over a month. She is probably in the last stages of her life. While I was there, I anointed her with oil for healing, but as I thought about it, and as I pondered the gospel in preparation for the evening service, I wondered whether I was also anointing her for burial. Perhaps I was doing both. As I put oil on her forehead, I thought of Mary’s anointing of Jesus, and I thought as well of Jesus suffering on the cross. It was one of those moments when the little things we do are powerful reminders of our connection with the stories in the gospel and with the whole church. The anointing at Bethany was also the anointing in Greenville, yesterday.

A lot has been happening in Anglican-land, and perhaps an update is warranted. You may have heard in the news that Bishop Schofield and the Diocese of San Joaquin voted last December to leave the Episcopal Church and join the province of the Southern Cone (Latin America). That action, which is illegal under the Constitutions and Canons of the Episcopal Church led to Bishop Schofield’s deposition (removal) from the House of Bishops this week. In the meantime, the National Church is working hard to reconstitute the Diocese of San Joaquin with a new bishop. A diocesan convention will be held on March 29 to do the work of rebuilding the structures of the diocese.

Although lay and clergy delegates to the diocesan convention in December voted overwhelmingly in support of the action, surprisingly it seems that many parishes and more than 1/4 of the diocesan lay membership will remain Episcopal and participate in some form in this new convention and the new diocese.

The issue is the same as the issue with parishes. Individuals, lay and clergy, may leave the Episcopal Church, but neither parishes nor dioceses can. Parishes are created by dioceses, and dioceses are created by the General Convention.

There was also considerable discussion at the House of Bishops meeting concerning the Lambeth Conference coming up this summer.

For complete coverage of these stories in the blogsphere, check out

http://episcopalcafe.com

http://episcopalchurch.typepad.com/episcope/

http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/

Amidst all of the other news and noise, you may have heard something about the massive study of religious life in the US undertaken by the Pew Forum. Among the key findings: almost 30% of Americans have left the religion in which they were raised for another one, or for no affiliation. If one includes movement within Protestant denominations, that percentage increases to 44%. Almost 1/4 of young adults (18-29) claim no religious affiliation and although a third of American adults were raised as Catholic, only 1/4 of adult Americans are Catholic. This significant loss in numbers would be even greater if not for immigration. You can read more about the survey here.

Such surveys provide useful information for us as we think about St. James’ ministry in Greenville. While we live in an area that is more Protestant and more Evangelical than the rest of the country, Greenville is changing rapidly. The growing number of religiously unaffiliated people and the frequent movement between denominations and religions pose challenges to the Church. How can we reach out to those who are unaffiliated, especially those who have become disaffected from their religious upbringing? How can we make our worship, parish life, and ministries attractive to newcomers and visitors?

I haven’t read the report closely–my eyes often begin to glaze when dealing with too many statistics–but I am familiar with other surveys that focus on baby-boomers and post baby-boomers. Remarkably, these surveys have shown clearly that when following people over periods of time (longitudinal studies), many people move in and out of involvement in religious communities. We know that young families seek out the church, but these studies have shown that many young families disengage, and people later in life re-engage with the church. That’s partly why the Pew Survey found such a low affiliation among young adults.

We are living in a religious marketplace, and how the church responds to that reality will be key to its survival, both on the local and the global level.

One of the reasons I enjoy wearing a clerical collar is that it leads to interesting conversations and interactions that otherwise would not take place. Today, it was Friday in the second week of Lent, I dropped by the Fresh Market to pick up some things for dinner. As I approached the check-out, the man in front of me turned and said, “Hello Father” in what was clearly a Northeastern accent (Pennsylvania, perhaps). After exchanging pleasantries, he began pointing out his purchases.

“I’ve got some prosciutto, here; some cappicola, a little salami.”

I couldn’t resist the temptation. “You’re obviously observing a Holy Lent,” I said.

He didn’t miss a beat. “It’s Lent?” he asked.

“You could have said that you were buying these things for tomorrow,” I replied. “But then you’d have another sin to confess.”

Quickly, he countered, “That’s right, we’re having fish sticks tonight.”

By then, we were both laughing and I said, “Don’t worry. I’m Episcopalian. We don’t take all that too seriously.” I didn’t mention that I avoid eating meat on Lenten Fridays. I will probably never see him again, but I’m sure I made a lasting impression on him and perhaps, he will wonder where the life of faith might be leading him.

During Lent, many people adopt a discipline of reading, selecting a book or books that either explore spirituality or deepen their understanding of the Bible or the Christian tradition. Among my favorite choices during Lent are classical Anglican authors like John Donne, George Herbert, or Jeremy Taylor. There are several good anthologies of Anglican spirituality available. I would also draw your attention to the following titles: 

Borg, Marcus and Dominic Crossan. The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem. Harper One. ISBN 0060872608 Available here. Borg and Crossan are two of the leading scholars of the New Testament and have collaborated closely over the years. This book is their reconstruction of the last week of Jesus’ life, from Palm Sunday to Easter, based on the Gospel of Mark. There is a great deal here of historical interest, but the authors also engage questions of contemporary faith and life.

Crafton, Barbara Cawthorne. Living Lent: Meditations for these Forty Days. Church Publishing. ISBN 0819217565 Available here: Crafton. Crafton, who visited St. James last year, wrote this book as a Lenten devotional, drawing on the Church’s hymnody. 

Kugel, James. How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. Available here. I’m reading this wonderful book right now. James Kugel, an Orthodox Jew and Harvard professor writes here on two very different ways of interpreting scripture, especially the Hebrew Bible—the first is that of ancient readers, both Jewish and Christian, the second is that of contemporary scholarship. He lays out each approach to particular texts and demonstrates that both are interesting and instructive.

Williams, Rowan. Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0664232132 Available here. This book is drawn from a series of sermons the Archbishop of Canterbury gave during Holy Week 2005 and are based on the ancient creeds.

If your Lenten discipline includes financial restraint, at least the Borg/Crossan and Kugel volumes are available from the Greenville County Libraries, which is how I gained access to them.

Months ago, when I invited Dr. Shelly Matthews to preach on January 27 I had no idea what else would be going on. Oh, I knew that there were two organ recitals scheduled, but it was only later that we decided to focus on Children’s Church at the 9:00 service. The senior EYC lock-in that was scheduled for the 19th and 20th was postponed until this weekend. I ended up spending about as much time at the church this weekend as I would from Good Friday to Easter.

But it was a wonderful weekend. The recital was beautiful, both times–in fact I heard it in full only on Sunday. I had to slip out early on Friday night to help with final preparations for the reception. I was especially taken with the Bruhns from the first half of the concert, and the Durufle at the end. It was also great to see Hal Gober again, and to meet his wife. Karen and the organ wow’ed all of those in attendance.

At 12:15 AM on Sunday, I celebrated the Eucharist with around 25 of our young people. It was a beautiful night as I drove up the mountain. The moon was shining brightly which gave me an idea for some comments on the gospel I made at the Eucharist. Yesterday’s readings were from Isaiah 9 and Matthew 4, which quotes the Isaiah passage “the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

Then at 9:00, we worshiped with Children’s Church and gave our first and second graders prayer books to celebrate their completing the course on the meaning of the Eucharist. It was great fun to watch all of the kids participate in our worship so enthusiastically and I must say that several of them are almost ready to become readers for our regular services. The energy and excitement during the service was wonderful.

I would like to thank everyone who worked so hard to make this weekend the huge success it was. Karen of course; the members of the organ committee–especially Albert Blackwell; Corrie who put on the reception Friday night and Karen Hipp who did so much to help; the women of the ECW who did the reception on Sunday; Laura Lipscomb and Jennifer Jerina, who organize children’s church and organized as well the children’s participation; Shelly Matthews who preached a fine sermon, as always; Katie, who organized and survived the lock-in, and the staff of St. James, who worked so hard behind the scenes to make the weekend a success: Dena, Becky, and Mike. Great job, everyone!