Ponder: "Lo,' he said, 'the lamb; there is no longer need of the goat."

Now the the garment of mourning is rent; we have put on the white robe
Which the spirit has woven for us from the lamb’s fleece of our Lamb and our God;
Sin is taken away, and immortality is given us, our restoration is clear.
The Forerunner has proclaimed it.…

O, the message of the Baptist, and the mystery in it!
He calls the shepherd lamb, and not only a lamb, but one to free from mistakes.
He showed the lawless that the goat which they sent into the desert was ineffective.
“Lo,” he said, “the lamb; there is no longer need of the goat;

Put your hands on him,
All of you who confess your sins,
For He has come to take them away, those of the people, and of the whole world.
For lo, the One whom the Father has sent to us is the One who carries away evil,
Who appeared and illumined all things.”

Romanus Melodius, Kontakion for Epiphany.

Comfort and the Cross

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”  St. Luke 14:27

Last Sunday after the 8:00 service, Ralph Tildon came up to me and told me that my sermon had reminded him of a movie.  “We’re No Angels,” was based on the passage about welcoming the stranger that I had taken as my text.  I don’t expect you’ve ever heard of the movie either, as it never broke number 8 in the box office listing when it came out in 1989.  But it was a slow Sunday evening, so Allison and I watched it together. 

The movie tells the story of two bumbling convicts who escaped from a prison and were taken into a monastery, after being mistaken for famous Biblical scholars.  The convicts are played by Sean Penn and Robert DeNiro, and for me it was worth the cost of the rental to see Robert DeNiro trotting around in an old fashioned priest’s cassock and biretta.  The plot plays out as you would expect when two semi-illiterate, chain-smoking cons try to pose as holy men in the midst of a massive manhunt. 

The climax of the film comes when Father Brown, aka Jim the convict, is spontaneously invited to give the sermon at the monastery’s annual festival.  Jim is Sean Penn’s character, a relatively kind hearted fellow who looks about fourteen.  By this point in the movie, you know to wince when he opens his mouth, but you’re also on his side. 

Ponder: The Debt that Must be Paid

"The loss of joy has many causes, but chief among them is a certain impotence in us, which derives from of our inability to shed the guilt that plagues us, to discharge the debt we bear (whether we know it or not, and we mostly do not) on our hearts, an incapacity that has arisen precisely because we have become too “advanced” in our power and knowledge to know what to do about the hard and immutable truths regarding sin, guilt, and atonement. It is a cruel but common illusion for us to think that joy is our natural state, and automatically results from the banishment of those alien and inhuman concepts of sin and guilt. Something closer to the opposite is true. Sin is the debt that must be paid. Our moral nature demands it. Which is why only the frank and humble acknowledgment of guilt, and a full embrace of the means available for our cleansing of it, can open us to the possibility of joy. That may be the one possibility that our secular age is unprepared, and unwilling, to admit."

Wilfred McClay, "Some Reflections on Joy, Happiness...and Guilt" (2014)

I believe in One Church

Jesus said, "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” John 17:20-21

I am grateful that so many of you have gathered today to listen and reflect and pray about this theme of being Christ’s Church, “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.”  Lent is a traditional time for returning to the basic teachings of our faith.  Since the early Church, it has been a time of catechesis: instruction and training of candidates preparing for Baptism at the great feast of Easter.  Most of us were baptized long ago, but those statements of faith we professed or that were professed for us at our Baptisms still define the life we live through Jesus Christ.  The Creeds tell the story of the God whom we love, and owning them for ourselves is part of that deep loyalty that we should have for God who has blessed us so richly. 

This Lent we will be focusing on one phrase from the Nicene Creed, that creed we have said so many times, Sunday after Sunday at the Eucharist: “We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”  The phrase has been with us for a very long time, since 381, when it was added to the original creed of Nicaea by a major church council at Constantinople.  This phrase is an ancient one, rooted, as we will see, in the even older descriptions from Scripture of the church and its relationship to Jesus. 

We Have Failed, But He Has Triumphed

“He has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Hebrews 9:26

Yesterday, the government of Singapore hosted a historic meeting between Xi Jinping, the president of Mainland China and Ma Ying-jeo, the president of Taiwan.  Technically, China and Taiwan are still engaged in a civil war, and it was the first meeting between the leaders of the countries in sixty years.  Many people are hoping for reconciliation.  China and Taiwan share a common language, history and culture.  Both are important economic powers, and there would be advantages in trade and security cooperation.

But with a bloody war and decades of hostile rhetoric behind them, it’s almost impossible for the leaders to know how to speak with each other.  They agreed not to call one another president, because that would suggest that both lead legitimate governments.  No flags can be displayed.  Neither president has the freedom to promise another meeting or to make substantial proposals for common action.  The words they do use must be chosen with extreme delicacy, because anything either leader says could call up old associations and deeply offend the other, perhaps touching off internal scandals that would only make things worse.  In its impotency, its nervous gesturing, what it most reveals is just how far off the goal of normalized relations really lies. 

Commentary: Four Books of Contemporary Liturgical Theology

From The Living Church, Sept 20, 2015

Within Christ’s sadly fractured body, it has been some consolation for the past few generations that at least the liturgists could sing from the same hymnal.  The convictions and priorities of the Liturgical Movement have reshaped the Sunday gatherings of most Christians across the Western world, drawing us together through the use of shared texts, calendars and lectionaries, as well as a common emphasis on active lay participation. 

The Second Vatican Council’s liturgical reforms reclaimed the centrality of baptism, simplified ceremonial and symbolism and exalted early Christian liturgies as a model for contemporary use.  The Roman Catholic Church’s revised liturgies, which debuted fifty years ago decisively shaped a wave of new liturgical resources throughout mainline Protestantism, including the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer (1979).  With perhaps the sole exception of biblical studies among the other theological disciplines, liturgical scholars have been educated together and continued in dialogue across confessional borders, working together to institute change within their respective church bodies. 

But that longstanding consensus is clearly beginning to fray.  The grand promises about reformed liturgy’s capacity to reenergize Christian mission and catechesis have worn thin in the advancing days of secularism.  Historical scholarship has undermined earlier confidence about unified patterns of liturgy within the early Church.  Texts, music, and aesthetic idioms that were exciting and innovative 50 years ago now largely seem banal and gauche.   Roman Catholicism’s most recent liturgical developments have been oriented toward reclaiming Latinity, while mainline Protestants have consistently pushed the envelope in the direction of inclusivity, stressing pastoral concerns.  Evangelicalism’s relative growth has popularized casual and emotive forms of worship untouched by the Liturgical Movement’s influence.