Incorporeal Works

Today was the feast of Pentecost, when the infusion of the Holy Spirit into the Disciples lent them eloquence in every language, the better to spread the Gospel. St. Paul’s was decked in liturgical scarlet, even to the dominant color of the altar flowers, with red balloons tethered to the first few pews in the nave.

For the second lesson, members of the congregation who were if not fluent, at least able to speak with appropriate accents, several languages, recited in turn the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, recounting the wind of the Holy Spirit, and the confusion of those that heard the babel of languages coming from the fisher folk and common men that Jesus had chosen.

Continue reading ‘Pentecost’ »

My Easter was a mixed bag, with my aversion to crowds fighting with my desire to attend a service. I delayed getting up until the early service was unavailable, so I showed up at St. Paul’s Chattanooga at nine o’clock, to find every pew filled, folding chairs in the side aisles filled, balcony filled, and no room at the Inn. I could have perched on a chair in the back aisle, where folks could trip over me, but the flesh was weak, so I dropped my offering in the plate and picked up a bulletin, returning home where I listened to a delayed broadcast on the radio with my beloved Babs, whose sleeping hours are permanently wrecked by a second-shift job at the mental hospital locally, so she was just getting up.

We enjoyed the service.

Later we walked Lucy the Wonder Dog through our neighborhood, where the dogwoods, azaleas and a profusion of bedding plants made a cool and sunny Easter a delight in the great nave of Nature’s Church. Then we went out to lunch at a friend’s welcoming joint, and so back home.

Not a bad day after all, considering. During the sermon on the radio, we learned that a long-time communicant at St. Paul’s, a sweet lady who was a chalice bearer, office volunteer and a kindred spirit had departed. I served with this lady many times as chalice bearer and lay reader. I am sorry to see her go on before me, and hope to see her again.

I noticed in checking the Episcopal Lesser Feasts lectionary that today commemorates the Salvadoran priest, bishop and martyr, Oscar Romero, gunned down as he celebrated a funeral Mass in the Chapel of Divine Providence Hospital. I remember the stories from El Salvador during those years, marked by increasing violence against poor and dissident Salvadorans. I remember the story of the slain Archbishop, and the disintegrating public order that followed. That followed with support from the government of the United States, especially once Ronald Reagan assumed power. Eventually, after years of bloodshed, the forces of revolution (Reaganites would say ‘marxists’ ) won free elections.

Almost the last words spoken by Archbishop Romero:

Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ
will live like the grain of wheat that dies…The harvest comes because of
the grain that dies…

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, marking the twelfth day of Christmas, and traditionally the arrival of the Magi to view the new King of the Jews. I will later today serve as lector for the noon service at St. Paul’s in Chattanooga, and depending on the preferences of the officiating priest, may read the great words of Isaiah:

Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the LORD will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.

A day of illumination. Light both seasonal and internal, of the spirit.

Not coincidentally, I suspect, the featured poem on Garrison Keillor’s NPR show, The Writer’s Almanac for today is “What to do the first morning the sun comes back” by Roseann Lloyd. A greeting for the sun now rising earlier each day, since just before Christmas. The poet concludes:

It will be a short day.
Sit in the kitchen as long as you can, reading and writing.
At sundown, rub a smidgen of butter
on the western windowsill
to ask the sun:
Come back again tomorrow.

A fitting contemporary epiphany, Lloyd’s poem is a good companion to Isaiah.

December 24, 1968 around 9:30 p.m. est approximately, in a broadcast from Apollo 8, during the ninth revolution around the moon, Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders took turns reading the following:

William Anders
“We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell
“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman
“And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas “ and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

I saw this television broadcast that Christmas Eve, shortly before leaving for Christmas Eve service at St. Paul’s Chuch.  The sight of the Moon, with those words being repeated at that great distance, impressed me as few other things had that year of epochal happenings, that annus horriblis. After war, assassinations, riots, chaos in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic convention, that two minute broadcast was healing.

In the continuing struggle within the Episcopal Church over ordination of openly homosexual priests and bishops, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and several other dioceses Wednesday, December 3, released a draft constitution for a new Anglican organization to replace the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. The Common Cause Partnership, composed of dissident Episcopalians unwilling to acknowledge homosexuals as full members of the church, was formed in the wake of the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson in New Hampshire in 2003.

The canonical legalities of what the rebel congregations have done will be debated, condemned and fought over. The central question for me, as a reasoning human being, a Christian and an Episcopalian, however, is how should I view others in accordance with my faith. The recusants of this latest schism have rejected some Episcopalians on the grounds of their sexual preferences. Citing biblical authority for denying consecration or ordination would be more convincing if there were really any definitive statements on those questions in the bible.

Another front in the war on homosexual participation in religion is marriage between persons of the same sex. A featured story in Newsweek this week addresses this topic, timely because of the approval by California voters of Proposition 8, banning such unions. A pertinent statement from “Our Mutual Joy,” the article by Lisa Miller, religion editor for the magazine:

…while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

The article examines in some depth what the Bible actually says, and what it omits to say, on the topic of marriage in general and specifically the lack of specificity on the question of same sex marriages.  Very well worth reading, although as Editor Jon Meacham notes in his column, The Editor’s Desk, regarding likely reaction to Newsweek making this topic their cover story,

Let the letters and e-mails come. History and demographics are on the side of those who favor inclusion over exclusion.

I hope so. Reason as well as compassion would seem to make inevitable the acceptance of all persons into a compassionate church.

CHANTILLY, Va. (AP) — A new drug store at a Virginia strip mall is putting its faith in an unconventional business plan: No candy. No sodas. And no birth control. Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy is among at least seven pharmacies across the nation that are refusing as a matter of faith to sell contraceptives of any kind, even if a person has a prescription.

There have been a number of stories over the past few years about pharmacists refusing to fill contraceptive prescriptions. As far as I know, this is the first story not involving a national chain, such as WalMart or Walgreen’s or CVS. I see that seven, “at least”, other pharmacies are known to be doing this.

Defenders of the pharmacy cite the businessman’s right to define what will be sold and what will not. I am not versed in the regulatory or ethical strictures on licensed pharmacists in this sort of case. I suspect such standards vary from state to state. If there is no regulatory or ethical violation of public or professional standards, I suppose the decision not to provide birth control products, prescribed or OTC, to customers is permissible. Even though the reasoning ignores scientific facts of fertilization in describing birth control pills as “killing babies.”

Interestingly, the store also does not sell condoms. And a Roman Catholic bishop blessed the new store, sprinkling holy water about the premises. Do condoms also “kill babies?”

It will be interesting to see if this store, and others like it, can attract enough customers to stay in business. I personally would not shop at such a store, although I am out of the procreation business myself, being somewhat aged. I don’t consider the underlying motives consistent with my beliefs about the relationship of belief and compelled behavior.

This morning St. Paul’s Episcopal church in Chattanooga hosted a guest preacher, Nadim Nassar, an Anglican priest who is a Syrian Christian, born to a Presbyterian father and a Greek Orthodox mother. Father Nassar is director of the Trinity Institute for Christianity and Culture, an organization for broadening understanding between Christians and those of other religions. In a world increasingly subject to cross-currents of different faiths, family backgrounds and cultures, the Reverend Mr. Nassar is a walking sampler of diversity. His message, as he preached on the Gospel reading for today, Matthew 9:35-10:23, was one of a unifying commitment to the message in the reading, described by Reverend Nassar as “this tough Gospel.”

Drawing on his experiences growing up in a fragmented and increasingly violent part of the world, the preacher stressed what he meant by the “toughness” of today’s Gospel. Jesus in the Gospel is commissioning his new disciples to minister in his name and carry his message throughout the world. The message is one of love and acceptance of each person’s access to the grace that through Jesus is being offered without purchase or cost other than acceptance. Jesus, as Father Nassar said, was not the sanitized, ethereal figure of conventional popular convention. He fully understood the perils and difficulties his disciples would face from hostile audiences whose lives were being challenged, and from leaders of existing synagogues, from under whose feet the message of Jesus would cut the ground away, and shake their world to its foundations. Jesus cautioned his followers, “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

An odd combination of similes, but the allusions and evocations are very apt, and cut to the thorny heart of the Christian message as understood by Father Nassar. Love that cannot answer hate and violence in kind, but which must find another way, reaching even the most implacable of enemies if possible, and withdrawing from direct conflict while still preserving the message the disciples are charged to deliver.

The terrible images of the civil war in Lebanon and elsewhere summoned up by the preacher, who had lived through them, including the 1967 Lebanon war, were delivered with urgent passion and compelling relevance for us in the wake of September 11, 2001.

I heard Father Nassar preach at the 8:00 a.m. service, then listened on the radio to him again for the 10:30 a.m. service. Preaching without notes, Father Nassar varied slightly in his two versions of basically the same message. In the earlier sermon, he cited the Iraq war as an example of the wrong response to violence, aiding rather than hindering the terrorists. This reference was not present in the later address. Considering that we are in a presidential campaign featuring sharp differences on this very subject, perhaps the Reverend Nassar decided that such a topical reference did not aid his central message. I thought it quite relevant, myself.

My lumbering description does not do justice to this wonderful sermon, one of the better I have ever heard anywhere. Selah.

The latest chapter in the Obama Pastorgate led today to Senator Obama leaving Trinity Church in Chicago, his spiritual home for many years, after a second minister made inflammatory comments from the podium.

Father Michael Pfleger, a white Catholic priest, lampooned Senator Hillary Clinton last Sunday, intimating that Sen. Clinton was outraged that a black candidate threatened to seize the nomination from her. Giving a highly emotional performance which drew approving response from many in the congregation, Father Pfleger mocked Sen. Clinton’s supposed sense of entitlement to the Democratic nomination for President, suggesting that she felt that as a white liberal, she was entitled to the nomination.

Continue reading ‘Two Nations Divided’ »