Hugh Latimer (1485-1555): Prayer and the Common Good
May 19, 2011
This quote is snatched from the blissful Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness, 17-18. Taken from a sermon on the Lord’s Prayer, using the Vulgate as the base text.
“He saith not ‘my,’ but ‘our.’ Wherefore saith ‘our?’ This word ‘our’ teacheth us to consider that the Father of heaven is a common Father; as well my neighbor’s Father as mine; as well the poor man’s Father as the rich: so that he is not a peculiar Father, but a Father to the whole church and congregation, to all the faithful. Be they never so poor, so vile, so foul and despised, yet he is their Father as well as mine: and therefore I should not despise them…Here may we perceive what communion is between us; so that when I pray, I pray not for myself alone, but for all the rest: again, when they pray, they pray not for themselves only, but for me: for Christ hath so framed this prayer, that I must needs include my neighbour in it…
I desire God to comfort all men living, but specially domesticos fidei…Yet we ought to prayer with all our hearts for the other, which believe not, that God will turn their hearts and renew them with his Spirit; yea, our prayers reach so farthat our very capital enemy ought not to be omitted.
Now to make an end: we are monished here of charity, and taught that God is not only a private Father, but a common Father unto the whole world, unto all faithful;…Where we may learn humility and lowliness: specially great and rich men shall learn here not to be lofty or to despise the poor. For when ye despise the poor miserable man, whom despise ye? Ye despise him which calleth God his Father as well as you; and peradventure more acceptable and more regarded in his sight than you be….But there be a great many which little regard this: they think themselves better than other men be, and so despise and contemn the poor; insomuch that they will not hear poor men’s causes, nor defend them from wrong and oppression of the rich and mighty. Such proud men despise the Lord’s prayer: they should be as careful for their brethren as for themselves. And such humility, such love and carefulness towareds our neighbours, we learn by this word ‘Our.’”
Explorations in Mainline Campus Ministry
September 20, 2010
Well it happened like this. Sometimes blog contributor Reed Carlson had been attending St. Matthew’s Episcopal parish for a rather short amount of time but was quickly in an energetic relationship with our wonderful rector and her husband, from whom he had taken a class on Anglicanism at Luther Seminary. The Episcopal Church has some money set aside for grants for those brave enough to risk campus ministry. At the initiative of our rector, in a very very short amount of time, Reed and our friend Aaron composed a plan and vision for a campus ministry to be developed at St. Matt’s. We just so happen to be right on the border of the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota and quite near a fair number of other colleges in the area.
As it turned out, the Episcopal Church was excited enough by their proposals that we received a grant to fund the ministry! So in the matter of a few months Reed and several others organized and planned this new flowering ministry and as of a week ago we are up and running.
Via Media (who’da thunk it right?) is a gathering which takes place every Sunday evening. Starting at six we have a free communal meal – lord knows how we college folk love free food – and at seven we move to a simple service. One Sunday a month the service follows a Taize order, and the three others are an ever-so-slightly simplified Evensong, of which one includes a Eucharist. We are already a part of the various campus groups at the U of M and we even have a sign painted…as well as a Facebook page, and most importantly fancy website.
Now in our second week, we’ve already had multiple visitors.
It has been of upmost priority that this ‘ministry’ be one of the local parish and not a pseudo-para-church organization. We’ve gotten nothing but support from them and we are very thankful for it. The goal has been, not to portion off a specific age group – 20-30 yr olds – and ‘target’ them, but that this be a gateway into the larger multi-generational life of the parish.
Additionally it has been hoped that students will quickly become a part of the life of Via Media. Already a visitor from the first week has played guitar the second and we are hoping to encourage this kind of thing.
Having spent time cutting my teeth on both ‘Street’ and ‘Relational’ evangelism, this has drug all sorts of questions on missiology out for me; questions I hope in time to raise here and there on the blog.
For now, pray that we will be successful in bearing witness to the Gospel.
I wonder if any have had any experience doing this sort of thing. What were your experiences? What would you have done differently and what did you find worked well? Given that we have for a long time as the Episcopal Church relied on our cultural inheritance to the expense sometimes of evangelism, in what ways might we learn to become a missional church?
Advice For the Church of England
February 13, 2010
I’ll make this short and sweet.
The Episcopacy is Universal.
The Episcopacy is Geographical.
The Episcopacy is NOT ideological
So pick one or the other. Either you are going to let ladies be Bishops and suffer the consequences internally OR wait for now and do so at a later date.
If you sacrifice universality or geography you change the meaning of the Episcopacy. It’s not that I don’t think accomodating difference is unimportant, I most certainly do. But, I’m convinced that you’d drastically shift the meaning of having a Bishop if you created non-geographical diocese’.
That is all.
Even More ’09 Reflections, or “Futures in Anglicanism,” or “For the Love of God Please Stop”
January 25, 2010
In a previous post I reflected on a chaotic year for Anglicans. The post itself remained largely ambiguous as to whether I saw much hope for the coming year and several commenters wondered aloud what might set us back on track.
Far be it from me to miss an opportunity to wax eloquent on my own opinions. In this post I shall briefly, unsystematically and without much justification toss out some things I’ve been thinking about that, it seems to me, could contribute to a discussion on being faithful to our Tradition. There is absolutely no reason that anyone should take the meanderings of a kid too seriously so take it all with a grain of salt.
Of course there are reasons I think these things, but with homework being of much greater importance than blogging I will largely keep from any thorough justifications for my two cents.
1)For the love of God everybody stop, stop, stop with revisions of all kinds. A total moratorium on all Prayer Book, theologically informed Canon Law, Liturgical and theological revision for at least a decade. Our English is not nearly old enough to need updating, our laws left unchanged will not hand us over to chaos, our prayer and collects are and have been largely consistent with Catholic Christian practice and thought and our theology is not yet proved false. This will provide the common bonds of public trust so as to continue to enable the recognizability within our fellowship. Any priest altering a liturgy independently should be swiftly disciplined and any bishop or province should be pleaded with to just chill out: This means you Church of England with your lady bishops (and I’m all about lady bishops), you Nigeria with your canonical marginalizing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, you Episcopal Church with your endorsing diocene composition and implementation of rites of same sex blessing and consideration of Communing the unbaptized, and you Australia with your insufficient theology of Priesthood and Eucharist.
- 2) With that in mind, for now focus on those things central to our life and mission as Churches. Worship, Evangelism, Justice and Catechesis seem to be atop this list to me.
It seems that these two things will build the trust and love necessary to begin to hash out the future of Anglican practice which will largely be in reference to, either for or against, the Anglican Covenant. It’s here and it’s not going away. The one, a choice rooted in the Protestant conviction that one is at liberty to interpret the Scriptures on their own, the other a choice for that Episcopal concilarity of the first four universally regarded Ecumenical councils.
But the “Covenant” is not nearly enough. As the massive and desperately needed book “Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness” states, there has been at least since the Second World War, a general inability to understand our Anglican identity. To that end I propose a few things…
Episcopacy is absolutely central to Anglican theology and life. It must be insisted upon and emphasized that in continuity with the very early Church through the ages, we have vigorously maintained that Apostolic Succession by the reality that we have never christened a bishop without the laying on of hands of at least three other bishops so consecrated. Our Liturgies for consecration have never deviated from this. We are not Baptists with prayer books, indifferent to the right ordering of our life, neither do we think Church tradition so trite as to be of no authoritative worth. Our Articles also bear this out as we understand nothing in our liturgies to be contrary to Holy Scripture.- Related to the above…What the hell ever happened to Common Prayer? I propose the possibility of a Book of Common Prayer for use in all Covenanted churches. Or, at the very least, in terms of the liturgist exraordinaire’ Dom Gregory Dix, the “Shape” of our liturgy should agreed upon, especially our Eucharistic liturgy and the liturgies for Episcopal functions like ordination, baptism and confirmation. Parishes should not be allowed to use the Roman Mass nor neglect the Hymnal in favor of modern chorus’, or ignore the Rubrics.
- Similarly we need a Catechism. Which, though not to be used as a “Confession” in the sense that it’s contents are necessarily to be comprehended or assented to in entirety for Salvation, should be widely used and authoritative.
- Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury is fundamental to being Anglican and is one of the only “checks” against loose consularity and is essential to ecumenical dialogue with the Roman and Orthodox Catholic churches.
- Jesus loves Fender guitars
- There being a large number of Christians in the so-called “Global South” does not meant that a) those Anglicans can disregard their history b) that they cannot nor need not listen to the insights of more historic fellowships, especially the Church of England c) that they have become our rightful judges
- The idea of in-house “parties” like “Anglo-catholic,” “Broad Church” and “Evangelical” needs to become progressively left behind in favor of solidarity. Evangelicals will have been unfaithful Anglicans to the extent that they do not include the whole Christian tradition in their theology, piety and Scripture reading; Anglo-catholics will have been unfaithful to the Reformation in England if they not recognize the centrality of Scripture over all else; and Broad churches will likewise fall short if they don’t realize that there is nothing virtuous about being bland.
- All of this points to the need of a more unified practice of piety.
- If you don’t like it, become a Baptist. ***update*** (One misses the point if they think I’m using “Baptist” pejoratively. I mean only that being Anglican is not simply uniquely British way of being a Congregationalist.)
- Authority is not a four letter word.
- I am most certainly full of myself.
Responses…? Additions…? Complaints…? I want ‘em all.
2009 Reflections…
December 28, 2009
Readers will know that this last semester has drastically reduced my ability to post. I’ve been pretty weak on regularity until my recent binge with daily Propositions.
Over the short time that I’ve been blogging, blogging has helped me learn to focus my thoughts and hone my (incredibly limited) writing skills. I’ve enjoyed greatly all the interaction and pushback I’ve gotten from readers from which I’ve grown immensely.
I hope I will be forgiven then for allowing Reflections on the past year flow over into 2010. I had late finals and the Holidays have totally cramped my style. I am excited to throw out some of the things that have been rumbling inside my head.
I also hope I will be forgiven for some of the narcissistic perspective many of them will take. There are few things that will make me unsubscribe from a blog than daily spewing forth what are essentially poorly written journal entries. But, being in The Episcopal Church, and considering all that has happened in the last year, I wanted to throw out there some thoughts on what is going on in Anglicanism.
I will certainly make for these reflections to be theological, but I imagine that some will fall back into sentiment and they will have a sense of arbitrarity, for which I cannot apologize. It may seem that at times I will ramble but I hope, especially for our Anglican readership, that my fears and hopes will reveal a bit about the struggles in our Churches to be faithful both to the “gospel” as we perceive it, and to ourselves as a Communion of Churches.
I’ve grown a bit more into the role of a “Traditionalist” in matters of theological revision but I hope that I will never be received as a “Stand Firm” type. I have no pretensions about having the whole of Truth wrapped up and if I say things that are “conservative” or whatever the damn word we want to use, I am quite passionate about living together in diverse minds. But it is the width and nature of and reasons for diversity that is up for question.
Without further ado:
“My Reading and How It’s Affected Me”
2009 marks the first solid year of me reading “academic theology.” I’d read some theology before this but mostly it had been the historical and exegetical work of N.T. Wright and the theology of Walter Brueggemann.
I read a substantial amount of the work of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. I stumbled through his organized book of essays “On Christian Theolgy,” as well as most of the sermons in “A Ray of Darkness.” I was astounded at his incredibly concise but deceivingly deep account of Christian spirituality “from the NT to St. John of the Cross” in “The Wound of Knowledge.” I came to understand facets of Anglicanism (especially with his two essays on Hooker) that I hadn’t known about in his “Anglican Identities,” I found fresh air in his collection of poems and I got a glimpse into his ability to make wonderfully revisionist yet clearly insightful readings of historical theology in “Where God Happens,” which as it so happens I took to be an excellent primer on Rowans ecclesiological leadership “method.” I felt his introduction to Christian theology was just the book I would give to one to be confirmed or evangelized or an ‘old soul’ who needed to hear just how Christian theology makes any sense or difference. His book on Christ’s “Trial Narratives” also unearthed the hidden ways that we can will to power. I’ve begun but not finished his book on violence, on church history and on “cultural bereavement” and will soon take up his essays on St. Teresa Avila, Modern Theology, Christian devotion, art, Russian theology and literature and the formation of orthodoxy. There are several other books I’m looking forward to reading, he’s a rather prolific author.
All of these were an utter joy to read. I came to get a feel for his style, for his themes, for his perspective and for a deftly compelling vision of how and why to do theology. “Theology,” he says “Moves between the Celebratory, the Communicative, and the Critical styles” – On Christian Theology xiii
From my completely objective and unbiased perspective, the crown of his work that I’ve read so far and the most powerful book I read this year was his essay “Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel.” It’s a paradigm for how I should like one day to perform theological reflection. It moves almost seamlessly through the three registers of theology he spoke of above, at times fully aware of the historical-critical problems, at other times practically doxological and always conscious of being a work directed to the Church, not simply among theologians.
The Archbishop is acutely aware of our propensity to deceive ourselves into thinking we can control our safety, our identity, our orthodoxy, or even those of other peoples. So the Gospel is often Judgement, Christ is preached to those who condemned him and so condemned themselves. He extends his forgiveness to those who abandoned him and those who betrayed him. And forgiveness is nothing other than the giving of mission and restoration of trust.
Having read even this much of ++Williams’ work it is strange to me that so many find his way of being Archbishop so unpredictable, unstable and dispassionate. He has been nothing if not consistent that he is not interested in the role of condemning and controlling members of the current Communion. But, he also has an intimate understanding of how Christians have come to perceive themselves historically (see his work on Arius as well as on doing Church history). It is incredibly difficult for me not to believe honestly that God has raised up Rowan to be Archbishop at this crucial time. I am so grateful for having chosen him to read in these the formative years of my own training. I have the same feeling I had after having read N. T. Wright’s “Christian Origins” trilogy…”Let’s do that again.” And as I did just that I may run through a couple Rowan books before I move on.
At the risk of lengthening this post to an obscene length, for the sake of keeping on topic I wanted also to mention another book that was paradigm shifting for me but was not a part of my ++Williams regiment. That book is “Hope Among the Fragments: The Broken Church and It’s Engagement With Scripture” by Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner.
Radner is famous as a central voice in the Traditionalist group of pastor/scholars known as the Anglican Communion Institute and as one who has helped frame the Anglican Covenant. He has also been an incredibly creative and passionate theologian in regards to the Church, especially it’s boundaries and in discerning the “form” of Christ in diverse and sundry members thereof. In addition to this Radner has also contributed to a series of Biblical commentaries that take an explicitly theological tenor. An earlier book of his obviously provides a trajectory for this one which aims to look at how a Broken church can and should reflect theologically on Scripture. Certainly there are few churches as broken as us Anglicans right now.
Though himself a self-styled “conservative,” Radner never comes off as a biblicist. In fact it is difficult to read him as any kind of “Evangelical” conceived along any modern historical way of understanding the term. This is because he reads Scripture Christologically following the famous Anglican-Catholic theologian and influential member of the “Oxford Tractarians” John Keble, who in Tract 89 laid out an impressive vision of Patristic exegesis.
Having set out a case for Christological interpretation Radner begins to reflect on “The Form of Christ” in Scripture and in the Church covering topics ranging from diagnosis of current ecclesiological ills to homosexuality and “bad bishops.” All the while refraining from cheap biblical shots at those with whom he disagrees looking for Christ’s own form in them and in their readings of Scripture.
Keeping in mind Radner calls himself a “conservative,” and that he lays out a “traditional” sacramental reading of heterosexual marriage, it should astound “progressives” as much as “evangelicals” that he argues for the toleration of private practice and conscience in matters of sexual practice provided that the Church’s vision of Holy Matrimony is left unaltered. Not, mind you, because he is a relativist or a closet liberal or “unconcerned with sin” (or some other boneheaded conservative phrase) but because he can see Christian faithfulness even in committed homosexual Christian couples!
This book really shook me up. First, it challenged me to begin to learn to read Scripture, especially the Old Testament, Christologically. I have long been captive to a narrow view of modern historical-critical exegetical methodology but this book, along with certain philosophical considerations, has convicted me that I’ve been reading Scripture incompletely, narrowly and even biggotedly as I poured scorn on so-called “metaphorical” readings of Church fathers and even of New Testament authors.
It also confirmed in me a conviction that I need to “commit” to this Anglican mess. I must confess that even still, being a “johnny come lately” to this group of churches, finding in it a home and room to breathe, but also a gun to my head forcing me to “pick sides,” I’ve been hesitant to feel settled. I’ve often got a sideways glance to the East as fundamentalist evangelicals and liberal revisionists fight this to the bitter end. But this book stresses the virtue of “staying put” in a church. In this he is much like Hooker: Submission to a fixed law, even if perceived to be wrong, is preferable to chaos and rebellion and can even be the ground for greater growth.
Finally, and I’m pairing this with my previous thoughts on Rowan, I’ve been encouraged that our current struggles are not going to be solved by “a Pelagian ratcheting up of the theological task” (Radner, 202), as if we can just nail down this or that dogma or wing of the Church we can force the stability that we all so eagerly desire. Other Christians, even and perhaps especially those with whom we disagree strongly, cannot be seen as people and identities to bring under our control. The form of Christ in their own life must be allowed to be seen.
Toward a Theology of Nostalgia: Advent, Anglicanism, and Angst
November 30, 2009
In the penetential spirit of Advent, I offer this confession…
I am Seething Lump of Paradox
I have long been fixated on a particular paradox that in many ways defines me, and explains many of the things that I do. One way of articulating this paradox is to say that I am at once a hippie and an wanna-be aristocrat. That is to say that I am simultaneously driven by a desire to see social and economic justice done on earth, and by the lure of ivory towers, fine living, and of all the “gentlemanly” things one would expect a landed, well-bred, roman-nosed, trust-funded English baron might be interested in and driven by: wine, falconry (don’t laugh you bastards), heraldry, the “classics,” architecture, fox-hunting, mahogany furniture, etc., etc., etc.
One look inside my closet provides an example of the near schizophrenic behavior this paradox has pushed me to. Over the past 5 years my wardrobe buying patterns have oscillated between garb befitting an English country gentleman (replete with bow ties, hunting and smoking jackets [God forbid you wear your hunting jacket in the smoking parlor, or your smoking jacket whilst hunting harts in Her Majesties' Forests]), and all fair-trade, eco-friendly, anti-sweatshop attire (No Sweat Shoes, shirts made of organic cotton by a women-run co-op in Nepal).
By confessing my confusion, I hope to put my turning to Anglicanism/Episcopalianism into perspective. In Anglicanism have found an entire Communion of Christians who are living the very same paradox that is me. Torn between justice and tradition; landed and monied, serving fair trade coffee and running day centers for the homeless; mixing gothic architecture with radical hospitality; this is what being Anglican is about. Two rows behind me at church, a retired international investment banker sits next to a homeless woman whose grocery cart full of tin cans is parked next to the big red doors which proclaim to the city “this is a sanctuary for all.” Anglicanism is a way for me to live in tension with myself and not be consumed by guilt on the one hand (that hand which is elegantly gloved in black calf-skin), or self-righteousness on the other (that hand which offers a warm meal to a stranger in the park).
Nostalgia and Advent
Nostalgia is the best word for what drives my wanna-be aristocratic side. And–since I grew up in a trailer park and have no land, nor title, nor bank accounts brimming with neither old or new money–it is really a nostalgic longing for a time and place that I have never experienced first hand. I am nostalgic for some idealized version Edwardian British Imperial domesticity that neither I nor my family had any part in whatsoever. Simultaneously, I am revolted by the oppression, and the economic, environmental, and cultural destruction that such imperialism has wreaked on our planet and on my fellow human beings in places like Africa and the Indian sub-continent. Interestingly, in this huge colonial morass I come again to Anglicanism, which was, at different points in history and sometimes simultaneously, an endorser, a restraint, and a healer of this imperial carnage.
Where does this nostalgia come from? Obviously, the answer is the books I’ve read, the TV shows and movies I’ve watched. As a boy, Tolkien and Lewis colonized my imagination (they might as well have raised a British flag over it), and turned me into an insufferable Anglophile.
Whereas my nostalgia (which extends far beyond my Anglophilism) can and does get me in trouble, it is also one of the reasons Advent is my favorite season of the Church calendar. Advent is about having a nostalgia for the Kingdom Reality that one has not yet fully experienced. It is an intense longing for a time and place both in the past and the future, which drives one to work for that Reality in the present.
A form of nostalgia is also at work in the active colonization of a sacred Christian feast by the demonic forces of materialism and consumption (and so my hippie side once again raises its dreadlocked head). A highly manipulated nostalgia for the idealized Platonic Form of Christmas Past is at the very heart of the advertising frenzy which causes shoppers to literally kill each other in the race to buy things that they have been convinced will allow them to relive those glory days of Christmases gone by: when everything was perfect, everyone was happy, and the big fuzzy horses trotted by pulling a sleigh down the gas-lamplit street as snow began to fall on the head of Tiny Tim as he uttered the immortal words, “Walt Disney bless us, bless us every one.”
I don’t know anyone who has ever lived this Hallmark Channel Christmas, and yet we are all willing to sell our souls to corporate America on the promise that if we just put up the decorations early enough, and open a few more credit cards this Christmas will be the Christmas. Nostalgia is a dangerous thing.
That is why Advent is so important to me. Through Advent Christ offers me the chance to have my nostalgic imagination colonized by the Kingdom of God, rather than by the Kingdom of the World. Advent is a tool to keep my out-of-control selfishness at bay and to paradoxically allow me to live in the moment that God has given me, while lifting my head in nostalgic anticipation for the Future that brings about our collective redemption.
Miracle on Silver and Fourth Street: How the Liturgy Saved Christmas
November 4, 2009
This Advent season, I will have been an Episcopalian for one year. For those of you with the patience, fortitude, or whatever else it may take, I offer the story of my Christmas miracle. Hopefully, many of you will read this soon enough to invest serious, personal introspection into your celebration of Advent. It has literally changed my life. Like Scrooge, I was rescued from damnation by supernatural intervention – Like the Wise Men, I was led to the Truth by celestial signs – Like the shepherds, I learned to sing about joy to the world.
When I was twelve, my family’s move to a trailer park in a rural town just south of Albuquerque meant an increase in living standards. We had been living in the city’s only definable ghetto – affectionately referred to as the “warzone” by townies. Honestly, my broken family did their best to insulate me and my siblings from the gangs, drugs, and societal ills that seem to accompany poverty. I was a married adult with children before I really appreciated just how destitute my family was when I was growing up. In fact, I never knew it was odd for someone’s parents to raid their piggy bank for money in order to buy a can of soup so that the family could eat dinner until I was at a private college, rubbing elbows with students fretting about maintaining a 2.0 GPA so that their parents wouldn’t take away their Lexus and $1,000.00 per month spending allowance.
I feel like this is necessary background for appreciating the fact that I have always loved Christmas, always. My family’s inability to lavish me with gifts, vacations, and parties didn’t seem to lessen my appreciation for the cultural juggernaut that is Christmas. The sights, sounds, and spirit of Christmas have always captivated me in spite of poverty (- perhaps, because of poverty?). I am literally like the father played by Matthew Broderick in “Deck the Halls.” I have two Christmas trees, 100 wall feet of lighted garland, 5 wreaths, 48 hours of Christmas music on iTunes, a partridge in a pear tree, etc, etc that I cannot wait to dive into every year (it goes up on Thanksgiving day and stays up until well past January 1 – a fact that drives my brother absolutely insane). I am obnoxiously cheery for 6 weeks before and all the way through Christmas, and then obnoxiously depressed for all of January and February because it’s over. I think it bears repeating, I LOVE CHRISTMAS.
“There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.”
~ Erma Bombeck (1927-1996), American author and humorist.
You can probably imagine, then, the disquietude I felt over something that happened three years ago. Christmas had always been symbolic to me of the good that could still come out of humanity. Being around people who are tying to be the best they can be is intoxicating. I have always loved Christmas, in part, because it represents what humanity can accomplish under the right circumstances. My wife and I had just moved into a new house, had our second child, and I had turned our entire home into a wintery wonderland. Coming from a broken home, I was seriously under the impression that my father’s neglect would be some how atoned for by my own careful fathering. So, one night, late in December of ’06, I was struck by the onset of a harrowing realization that I had lived my life up to that point as an attempt to right my parents’ wrongs, but that such a thing could never be accomplished. Everything was about fixing my broken childhood and, therefore, counterfeit: my love of Christmas, my desire to have a healthy family, my pursuit of education, hell, even my faith seemed counterfeit. There, in my upstairs living room in front of an immaculately decorated Noble Fir that could have been in a display case at Macy’s, I began to sob uncontrollably.
“The earth has grown old with its burden of care
But at Christmas it always is young,
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair
And its soul full of music breaks the air,
When the song of angels is sung.”
~ Phillips Brooks (1835-93), American Episcopal bishop, wrote ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’.
My wife came in to check on me and we shared one of those tender moments in a marriage that galvanizes the union between two people (it was far too emotionally intimate and spiritually significant to share here – I hope, though, that anyone reading this knows what I mean from experience). She prayed with and for me, and I began a slow recovery from the shock that I experienced. However, when a year had passed, I found myself manically celebrating Christmas, desperately hoping to revive the wonder and joy that it had given me all of my life. I was pathetic. It was like watching a small child cling to the lifeless body of a parent that was murdered before their innocent eyes. Christmas was dead, and try as I might, it could not be revived in my heart. I put on the right face, I smiled and laughed at the right times, but I spent that entire holiday season in sheer terror that I had forever lost something very special to me.
“Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope.…It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.”
~ Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), Seek That Which Is Above, 1986.
This all happened to coincide with a bevy of church and professional issues that were serving to clarify that God was calling me out of the Assemblies of God. Consequently, in the fall of 2008 I began to brainstorm with my brother-in-law (who was having the same kind of church and professional quandaries) how we were going to rescue Christmas (and our own spirituality) from the clutches of the oblivion known as American consumerism. Then it happened, I latched on to the idea of attending the Episcopal cathedral for Advent services. Having only ever known Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, I thought I would have recognized the leading of the Spirit a little sooner – how’s that for irony, huh? We knew that not only our ideas of Christmas, but also our ideas of “Church” needed a drastic overhaul; and we were searching for something to fill the void. The Advent liturgy seemed like the perfect way to test whether the Church could rescue Christmas. [Allow me to make a quick aside here: the time I spent trying to resuscitate my joy for Christmas was also spent chronically attending church services, church musicals, church pageants, and every other obnoxious derivation thereof. The trite and shallow "Jesus is the reason for the season" mentality that most of those I came in contact with displayed was just as repulsive as the blatant consumerism of the secular crowd. I thought, "My God, this is our freakin' holiday - it's THE CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY and these people can't even do it with any kind of meaningful ceremony or substance. We're all screwed!"] I am pleased to announce that Christ and His Church can indeed rescue Christmas even from the clutches of consumerism.
“The liturgy of Advent…helps us to understand fully the value and meaning of the mystery of Christmas. It is not just about commemorating the historical event, which occurred some 2,000 years ago in a little village of Judea. Instead, it is necessary to understand that the whole of our life must be an ‘advent,’ a vigilant awaiting of the final coming of Christ. To predispose our mind to welcome the Lord who, as we say in the Creed, one day will come to judge the living and the dead, we must learn to recognize him as present in the events of daily life. Therefore, Advent is, so to speak, an intense training that directs us decisively toward him who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously.”
~Pope John Paul II, address delivered December 18, 2002.
Hopefully, you have caught on to the fact that I am a person moved by beauty, ceremony, symbolism, and the like. Thus, I knew it would be necessary for me to attend the high liturgy at the diocesan cathedral (which, luckily, is in Albuquerque). My wife and I chose to attend St. John’s 11:00 am service which uses a full choir, the organ, and the rite II liturgy from the BCP. The choir and congregation sang “O’ Come, O’ Come, Emmanuel” during the procession, and it was the most beautiful service I have ever attended. I still have a hard time explaining the meaning that the Anglican liturgy has for me – my language is still thoroughly charismatic, so I can only tell you that in that Advent service I experienced a “move of the Holy Spirit.” I sobbed, just like I had in my living room when I knew Christmas was dying in my heart – when I knew that my Christian walk had reached one of those pivotal points of change. I sobbed, because I knew that I had found home, because I knew that I had a meaningful way to worship again, because I knew that my family had a place to foster the joy and wonder of Christmas. The Lord, Christ, blessed me with a Christmas miracle.
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
