St. Blogory's: the internet café at St. Gregory's Episcopal Church, Deerfield, IL

The Episcopal Church: Who We Are (2.0)

My friend M-J introduced me to this wonderful video from King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland, Georgia. Here's their website.

 

The Secret

In 2006 Rhonda Byrne wrote a best seller called The Secret. Thirty years ago, in the March 1979 Outlook, Bishop Festo Kivengere of Uganda titled his column "The Secret." This is the first in a periodic series of Bishop Festo's columns, with the kind permission of Keith Jesson, President of African Team Ministries.

What is the secret of keeping zeroed in on Christ in the midst of everyday pressures?

That's a million-dollar question and a beautiful one. I wish I had a very simple way of telling you. The only way I know for a distracted mind to keep zeroing in on Christ is by the work of the blessed Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

How does he do it? Some of us think it is by giving us more and more gifts. No, no, no. There is only one magnet which God uses, and the magnet is the Lord Jesus Christ. He can keep your attention when you are tending to wander. He can hold you when you cannot hold yourself. His love is stronger than death, and when it holds a poor [human] with a wandering mind and with tendencies to fall, that man, that woman, can stand through eternity.

That is the secret. The practical aspect is that I am not always full of love, not always seeing Him. I am many times thoroughly empty. But He loves to fill empties!

All you need to do is keep open, that's all. You keep open by admitting frankly how empty you are.

This is where respectable Christianity fails. God does not deal with respectability, He deals with reality. Here I am with an empty heart, or with thoughts that have invaded [my inmost self] and interrupted the flow of the Holy Spirit. The Comforter is grieved; what do I do?

Go to the hospital. The hospital has one medicine: the love of Jesus Christ. His love breaks me, convicts me and releases me all at once.

We Anglicans have a prayer in our liturgy in which we confess that we are "miserable offenders." We forget that in the New Testament sense, you can weep and laugh at the same time. In other words, Christian repentance does not include a long period of remorse, being put into a sort of quarantine, before you come into grace.

Your turn from the sin which made you miserable and to the Lord all at once. Joy comes instantly. The two go together in one act. When you are explaining it theologically, it may give the impression that repentance starts a slow process called redemption while, in the meantime, you are left grieving.

Not at all! Repenting without looking to Jesus is what Judas did. It turned him into a vacuum, into committing spiritual suicide.

Repenting which turns and sees Jesus is what Thomas did on that second Lord's day (John 20:26-29). After bitter depression and a week of unbelief, he saw the outpoured love of the Son of God in the wounded hands reaching out to him. Repentance, forgiveness, faith and flooding joy came all in one breath: "My Lord and my God!"

When I find I have not kept zeroed in, I turn from my sin or emptiness to the crucified Lord. Forgiveness and fullness come together.

Clergy Conference with Karen Ward of cota, Reprise!

Reprise Surprise!

I remembered soon after posting the Finale last night that I had taken some notes in the Orders for the Services of Liturgy booklet that Karen had put together for our "Seizing the Episcopal Moment" Clergy Conference.

Before sharing those notes and other elements from the Booklet, I'd like to revisit my 4th post on Liturgy in this series. I mentioned a few "Random Bits" toward the end of that post, including cota's Easter Wii Bell Choir. Karen commented that she had a video of the Bell Choir's performance on her Anglimergent website, so here's the link.

And now the notes.

During the final Eucharist on Tuesday noon, Karen played three Audio Parts. Audio Part 1 was titled "Befriending Aloneness." I didn't take any notes on this conversation between two men, but the Song that followed, "Taken," is a lyrical way to befriend one's aloneness, and you can listen to it (and read about it) here.

For Audio Part 2, "Light in Darkness," I recorded these portions from the two men's conversation:

We should not be surprised by evil-- we are told that the world is in the power of the evil one-- the surprise should be in our goodness. The New Testament doesn't deny that Satan is in charge of the world-- Satan offered the world to Jesus when he tempted him-- but God doesn't want the world on those terms. God came into the world as light in the darkness, and the news of the day, however bad it is, should remind us to change the world as best we can as lights in the darkness.

Audio Part 3, "Worship"

From the beginning God says "You are my Beloved" to each of us.

As humans we are both loving and wounding beings. We are wounding and wounded beings because we have needs. But God's love isn't wounded because God isn't needy [although I remembered wanting to make the homiletical point here that God's love was wounded on the cross for us].

Life is our chance to say "Yes" to God's love, that's what the Greek word kairos is about-- the opportune time to change our hearts.

Worship is saying "Yes" to God's love, saying "Yes, I love you, too."

This Audio was followed by another Song, "Broken." The last line of the song, "Praise, praise to you Lord for I never realized broken glass could shine so brightly," reminded me of this poem by Leonard Cohen:

Ring the bells you still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There's a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in.

Clergy Conference with Karen Ward of cota, Finale

For this last post on our Clergy Conference, we look at some of the spiritual underpinnings of cota's community.

Like many other Emerging Churches and Fresh Expressions, cota has developed its own unique Rule of Life. (Moot also uses the term Rhythm of Life, and you can read about it here.)

COTA Rule of Life:

1.Love God and love neighbors

2. Give invitations and provide welcome

"Invitations" being the euphemism for evangelism!

3. Engage comunity and practice faith

4. Share stories and throw parties

Karen's favorite stories are the Gospel's Wedding Banquet and Prodigal Child parables)

5. Create art and exchange gifts

"Everyone's an artist" and "Creation is the greatest art project."

6. Renew culture and steward creation

Be a Green community

The Rule of Life also includes Weekly Eucharist, Daily Prayer, Scripture Reflection; and
Hospitality
Discernment
Tithing
Confession
Forgiveness
Fasting
Feasting
Annual Retreat
Pilgrimage: going to other parishes or places

Karen then showed slide of COTA's Virtues (which used to be called their Values) and definitions:

Generosity: Living abundantly

Graciousness: Living with grace

Thankfulness: Being a priest, living Eucharist

Humility: Ability to be honest and learn

Accountability: Ability to be responsible for what you do before God and others

Compassion. Ability to walk beside

Transformation: Capacity to change and grow

Obedience: Ability to follow and listen

Courage: Capacity to move through fear

Faith:  Capacity to trust

Hope: Capacity to move forward

Love:  Capacity to give yourself away

{cota's website has another statement of values which is also worth checking out, and you can do that here.}

Karen left us with this challenge:

Ask your parishioners: "Is anyone interested in starting a new kind of church and exploring what it might mean to be an emerging church?"

Parish Newsletter

Dearly Beloved,

Our Companion Parish and "The Scandal of Particularity"

The "Scandal of Particularity" is one of the most intriguing notions I learned in seminary. It is the "scandal" that the One who created the universe was born to a Jewish mother betrothed to a carpenter in the Palestinian backwater of the Roman Empire during the reign of Caesar Augustus. These "particularities" of God's human career are all the more scandalous because Jesus is the Crucified Creator. Here's how St. Paul puts it in his First Letter to the Church in Corinth: "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" [1:23-24]. The Greek word translated "stumbling block" is scandalon, from which we get the word "scandal."

Although Jesus' life and death is the exemplary "Scandal of Particularity," there is a profound sense in which all of our lives are lesser "scandals of particularity." How is it that any of us happened to be born into our particular families, or happened to find our particular partner (or happened not to find a particular partner), or made the particular friends we did, or attended the particular school we did, or ended up in our particular career or life's calling? Or end up worshiping together as members of this particular parish in this particular denomination of Christ's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church?

And, how did St. Gregory's Episcopal Church in Deerfield, Illinois, USA, end up in a Companion Relationship with a fledgling Eklesia Episkopaly Malagasy congregation in Tolagnaro (Fort Dauphin), Madagascar? This particular "scandal of particularity" began in 1991 when the Missions Board made its first decision to support two lay missionaries, Todd and Patsy McGregor, and their two young daughters, Corbi and Charese. Eventually Todd and Patsy were ordained as priests, and in 2006 Todd was consecrated as the Assistant Bishop for the Diocese of Antananarivo, with the intention of his becoming the Bishop of a future Diocese of Toliara (Tuléar).

Working with the Sabbatical Committee, I wrote this in our application to the Lilly Endowment: ". . . one of my first initiatives as Rector was the establishment of a Parish Tithe to support missionaries, missions, and ministries beyond our parish boundaries. Over the years we have provided money and other kinds of material assistance to a wide variety of international, national, and local ministries and organizations. In most cases these have not included building the kind of long-term personal or congregation-to-congregation relationships which bring mutual enrichment. The opportunity to forge a companion relationship with a parish at its founding will build such relationships and re-energize our commitment to the Parish Tithe as a key element in our stewardship of God's abundance."

During my Sabbatical in Madagascar I attended the Synod (Diocesan Convention) that finally created Todd's new Diocese of Toliara; led a three-day training session for Todd's clergy, evangelists, and lay leaders, including Deacon Donné; and joined Todd for his first Episcopal Visitation of our companion parish, assisting in the baptism of over forty adults, children, and infants. You can see photographs from our time in Toliara on the Missions Board bulletin board between my office and the library, and in two weeks I'll begin a Newsletter series reproducing my Blog posts as a continuing introduction to our new companion parish.

Because Madagascar's poverty is so severe (per capita income is 88 cents a day, the highest denomination is worth about $5, and only 5% of Malagasies have bank accounts), we can do so much to assist them. We have already covered tuition for Donné's children and initial building costs thanks to many parishioners' generosity; through our Missions Board we can do spectacular things to support our Companion Parish's mission and ministry in Fort Dauphin. In the days to come we will also continue forging the personal relationships which Ingrid and I began with our sisters and brothers in Christ crucified.

Faithfully yours,

FALL BACK INTO FALL CLEAN-UP!

This Sunday – November 1^st – is the end of time as we have known it! Daylight Savings Time, that is. Make sure that you arrive at the church service of your choice that day by turning back your clocks one hour when you go to bed on Saturday night. Then, bring the extra energy resulting from your additional sleep to St. Gregory's Fall Clean-Up, beginning after the 9:00 service on Sunday. We'll remove the air conditioners, store screens, wash windows, dust furniture, vacuum, clean the restrooms and finish other tasks needed to ready our facility for the winter months. And, at the end of our hard work, we'll enjoy a delicious lunch together!

After church, check the "Job Board" in Founder's Hall for a list of tasks to complete, and the equipment or tools you need to do it will be in the Hall. Team up with friends or family members to accomplish your job, and the time will fly.

Buildings and Grounds is providing the main dish for lunch, but would appreciate additional salads or side dishes like chips, dips, pickles, veggies, beverages and desserts. Please leave any such donations in the kitchen and the kitchen crew will take it from there! Thank you in advance for any contributions to our lunch, which will be served when our clean-up is done.

CALLING ALL ACOLYTES!

Sunday, November 1st, is Acolyte Recognition Sunday. All acolytes are invited to be in Founder's Hall at 8:45 a.m. to vest and make a special procession into the church at 9:00 a.m. All will be inducted by Father Roberts during the service, and Ellie Christenson and Dimitri Sinnaduray will be inducted as the 2009-2010 Archacolytes.

PUMPKIN NEWS

Yes, we are still selling them! And volunteers are urgently needed for most shifts this Friday and Saturday – please call the church office or stop by to sign up to help. We will be selling on Friday night up to the start of the Troop 50 Haunted House, so we expect extra visitors to the Pumpkin Patch in connection with that. And, amazingly, many people like to buy pumpkins on Halloween itself, so that means Saturday will also be busy.

All leftover pumpkins will be gathered up by the Youth Groups on Sunday and either disposed of or used/abused in the ever-popular Pumpkin Olympics, taking place during the Joint Youth Group on November 1st. Junior High Youth Group starts at 5:00 and includes dinner and pumpkin games. Christ United Methodist's youth may join us and bring dessert!

TROOP SUPPORT WELCOMES SURPRISE VISITORS

When the Troop Support Ministry met on October 20th, there was a wonderfully large turnout of parishioners and community members, including two teachers from Shepard Middle School and several of their students. The Deerfield school has taken a special interest both in assembling the care packages and in corresponding with the troops, particularly those from Deerfield. It's always nice to have young people involved in the care package ministry.

Additionally, two Deerfield soldiers – Chris Kelly and Nathan Stopps – surprised the group by dropping by. Both young men have recently returned safely from Iraq and had even run into each other once in a shared mess hall there, but neither knew the other was planning on visiting the care package assembly that night. Chris presented the group with a framed Guidon from his Company, which is now hanging in Founders' Hall. He also relayed how much the care packages meant to his unit, and he stayed to help pack boxes for others. Nathan, who stopped by later, also told the group how much the deployed troops appreciate the generosity shown by the Troop Support Ministry and shared stories about the excitement in their mail center on delivery days. Nuala Kurokawa and Cissy Singleton write: "We were thrilled to have these two special young men come visit us and thank us in person for their care packages. … It was one of the most special and rewarding of evenings for Troop Support. … With Veteran's Day almost here, it was an up-close reminder of how much we owe to these young men and women in our Armed Forces."

CHRISTMAS BASKETS FOR CATHEDRAL SHELTER

Eight families on our Christmas Basket like are still awaiting sponsors. Can you provide them with the means to create a special holiday meal and to give at least one gift to each member of their household? Please check the sponsor list in the hallway or call the parish office to sign up. Without this program through the Cathedral Shelter, many families would have no Christmas at all, so please give this prayerful consideration.

You will receive a letter explaining how to create a basket and suggesting gift items for the members of your sponsored household. After you have completed your purchases, pack the items in small to medium boxes labeled with your household number and bring the boxes to Founder's Hall on the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, December 3rd.

Volunteers will also be needed the next day to help load the truck that carries all our boxes into Chicago. Many hands make light work in this case! Look at a later date for more information about loading.

Thank You from B'Nai Tikvah

Dear Father Roberts,

Once again, we are grateful to you and your congregation for allowing us the use of your parking lot on our High Holy Days. Please accept this donation to the church in appreciation for your graciousness.

Best wishes for a beautiful and spiritual holiday season.

Sincerely, Edgardo Imar, Director of Operations, B'Nai Tikvah.

FREE PERFORMANCE

"Easing the Distance", a 90-minute free performance, will be held at the College of Lake County on Thursday, November 5^th. This performance, cast by professional actors, shares the stories of five adults impacted by mental illness and it sheds light on the illness in society. CLC's Counseling, Advising and Training Center and the Lake County Center for Independent Living are co-sponsoring the play. CLC is located at 19351 West Washington Street in Grayslake.

In your prayers this week, please remember our companion parish in Fort Dauphin, Madagascar, and its leaders, Deacon Donné and Evangelist Tomboasy; the sick, particularly Mason Burd (father of Rick Burd/surgery), Don Caldwell (surgery/head injury), Beverly Falbe (surgery) and Earl Schaper (illness); and for the men and women serving in our armed forces and for their families, especially Robb Dunlap, Greg Hirsch, Jamie Mitchell, Brian Adamson, Daniel Fitzpatrick, Hunter Levine, Owen Leewis, Chad Field, Cary Clark, Richard Hayward and Alex Koltanowski.

Clergy Conference with Karen Ward of cota, 4

Karen described a number of liturgical approaches at Church of the Apostles, including

1. The use of an anthem as an organizing musical theme to frame the service, including the playing of background music during the Eucharistic Prayer.

Her trinity of musicians put that idea to practice during our conference liturgies. I overheard one older priest who said she didn't care for it, but I and many others appreciated the way it supported and enhanced the spoken prayer.

2. The formation of a Liturgy Guild to read through the Sunday texts and decide what theme could be modeled throughout the service.

There is risk in trusting the dynamic of the community to come together and create liturgy, but it can yield exciting new liturgies. She reminded us that liturgy means literally "the work of the people."

3. Ask the question, "Who wants to imagine a new liturgy?"

Those who respond can then pick a new time to hold the service, use a "lost" service or feast like Candlemas, and then talk afterwards about the experience.

Karen cautioned that when trusting people to come up with a liturgy it was still important for them to report in to her and have a deadline for accomplishing the task so there's time to review, rescue, or replace the liturgy.

4. Use an alternate Creed like the Australian Creed.

I tried to find this on line, and after trying GoodSearch and Google, and finding (and discarding) one from a website called Prayer Patterns, I found this one from Reconciliation Resources (whether or not it's what Karen had in mind, I liked it, and it certainly sounds like an Emerging Church Creed!

We believe in God, creator and sustainer of life, creator of the black woman and the white woman of the black man and the white man of the woman who is not quite black and not quite white of the man who is not quite white and not quite black.

We believe in God, the Creator who gave us the desert pea and the flowering gum, the Murray cod and the platypus, the Southern Cross and the Milky Way.

We believe in God, who gave us a land to keep, to reverence and to cultivate.

We believe in Jesus, born of a woman who was not quite black and not quite white, a woman who was not quite sure of who she was or who she was to be, a woman who faithfully struggled to believe.

We believe in Jesus - risen, liberator of all humanity, Emmanuel, God-with-us, God-for-us.

We, women and men of the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit, believe in the power of the Spirit to set us free to regenerate our land, to transform our world, to work for peace, to listen to the loneliness of 'the drover's wife' and the 'weeping man'.

We believe in the power of the Spirit to transform our dealings with our sisters and our brothers of other colours and diverse creeds.

Karen talked about the need to have music which mirrors how we sing. When we used to gather at home around the piano and sang from song books, it seemed natural to sing in our churches using hymnals. But what would be natural for singing in our churches today?

How can we better engage people's senses? their senses of touch, and smell, and taste? Karen's community has used Prayer Stations to accomplish this.

A cota homily is styled as "the reverb." I liked that. Reverberations from the Gospel and other readings, and verb  from the Latin word for, well, word, as in the Word of God. Sometimes she will ask lay people to give the reverb, whom she calls "Baptismal priests."

Karen also mentioned an Emerging Worship Statement she crafted with Lars Hammer, and she was kind enough to email me the text:

"Emerging worship is not so much a style as it is an approach, where the aim is the opening of space (portals, windows and passages) where an encounter with the Holy Trinity can occur.

"Emerging worship is not so much ‘led’ by ‘worship leaders or  ‘presiders’ (whether priests, preachers, or musicians/bands) but is curated, realizing that the Holy Spirit is the one who leads us, making the curates work that of helping create an environment where the Spirit can work, and making it easier (as Urban T Holmes says) to’ fall in love with God.’

"Emerging worship draws upon the ancient practices of the Christian faith (Word, Sacrament, meditation, spiritual exercises, chant, hymody, symbols, ritual...) and resources from today’s culture (new media technologies, cultural stories (movies, tv, radio, literature...), cultural formats (slam poetry, art installations, club culture, community festivals...) and current musical forms.

"The aim is less to ‘blend’ elements as much as to ‘place them into contrast and learn from the juxtapostition’: the old and new, the ‘secular’ and ‘sacred,’ the ‘holy’ and the ‘mundane,’ the greatness of God and the suffering and injustice of our world, such things, when ‘brough into proximity’ have the capacity to open new space within us, where our human striving, need for redemption, desire for hope, and hunger for particpation, and God’s profound grace, saving action invitation to the Kingdom and calling to mission, meet."

Open Space. It's a concept Karen introduced in her talk and in her conference liturgies, where she gave this rubrical explanation:

You are invited to engage the stations for prayer and healing/anointing around the room, or meditate in your place, as you like. You might contemplate or wonder: What is God saying to me in this liturgy? or what is God asking me to do or be? and how is God asking me to change? This is your time with God. We will gather back together in eight minutes.

As I encountered this new idea, I immediately recalled that the ancient Hebrew stem for the word "salvation" means "'to be roomy, broad,' especially as opp. to oppression, which is properly 'narrowness' . . . Thus [the Hebrew stem] means 'to make it spacious' for one who is constricted." [Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume VII, page 973.]

Continuing the concept of Open Space, Karen said that "Liturgy is entered by people. Our task is to facilitate an environment for the Holy Spirit to act. At cota, this is done by Worship Curators with an emphasis not on who is leading but on what is happening. The curators, including Karen, try to hang back rather than take "front stage." Using "The God Mic" means that the curators can be anywhere in the worship space.

Random Baptismal Bit: cota has rediscovered the ancient practice of giving of milk and honey to the newly baptized as a symbol of having entered the promised land.

Other Random Bit: cota used a Wii Bell Choir last Easter!

For Karen, worship relates to culture in at least four ways:

1. transcultural: e.g., we find Scripture reading, Baptism, Holy Communion, and Creeds in Christian Worship regardless of the culture.

2. contextual: i.e., worship is always related to the local culture, heritage, language, etc., but always in ways that are consonant with the Gospel.

3. cross-cultural sharing:  e.g., Anglos singing Black or Latino songs, or the use of icons

4. counter-cultural: e.g., baptizing untouchables in India, or otherwise challenging the sinful and oppressive and dehumanizing elements in the culture.

Final Random Bit: When Visitors get incorporated into the congregation they become Hosts!

Next: the cota Rule of Life

Clergy Conference with Karen Ward of cota, 3

Karen shared a few glimpses of life at Church of the Apostles (cota), beginning with her community's desire to "Engage the big questions":

1. Who is God and why does God matter?

2. Who are we and why do we matter?

3. What is our community and why does it matter?

4. What is the world and why does it matter?

For Confirmation Classes the Baptismal Covenant is written on t-shirts with "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You" printed on the back. 

Another idea for a t-shirt: "I'm religious, not spiritual!"

The first point in the cota Rule of Life (more in later posts) is "Love God and love neighbors," and the community likes to ask itself, on this and other points in its Rule, "How are we doing with that?"

The community also understands itself as "a place where we work out our struggles together."

Other questions: "How can we serve the neighborhood?" One answer: build a Youth Center thanks to a UTO grant.

Two final statements from Karen for this post:

1. People are interested in the church because the church is interested in them.

2. God is evangelizing us! Our job is to be living as Christ would have us live for the sake of the people God sends us.

Tomorrow: a look at cota liturgy

Clergy Conference with Karen Ward of cota, 2

At our first session on Monday morning, Karen asked us to gather in groups of three or four to consider three questions:

1. What do you consider some of the challenges facing the Episcopal Church?

2. What do you consider some of the opportunities for the Episcopal Church?

3. Do you recognize any Episcopal Moments?

My small group included two clergy with institutional ministries. Among the challenges, we noted first that people who are already tmembers of the Episcopal Church really love it, but there is a loss of urgency for the Gospel. What, for example, would be the Episcopal Church's counterpart to the Evangelical culture's concern for saving people from eternal death? Other challenges are the increasing secularization of culture and loss of meaning.

Opportunities include the Episcopal Church's valuing the life of the mind, as well as the life of the spirit; our ties to the ancient church; our ecumenical reach; and our ability to engage the shadow side of life, including sin (Sacrament of Confession) and death (Tenebrae, Good Friday), and the risk of faith.

We were not quite sure what was meant by the term "Episcopal Moments," but subsequently we learned that it referred to a comment by Brian McLaren ("I constantly tell people that I think this moment of ecclesial and global crisis and opportunity that we describe as the postmodern transition or the great emergence could be an Episcopal Moment.") and a "small paper" Karen Ward co-authored with Don Schell titled, "SEIZE THE EPISCOPAL MOMENT: An Emergent Manifesto of Hope for the Episcopal Church." You can download a copy by following the link here.

Somewhere along the line of this discussion I typed "Invitation to mystery and exploration" as a slogan for the Episcopal Church.

And at some point Karen mentioned this slogan used by Church of the Beloved: "Your last stop before agnosticism."

To be continued. . .

Job Restoration

+ In the Love of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Three Sundays ago Dennis preached on Job; two Sundays ago I preached on Job to put the Book of Job in a broader context; and then Meredith preached last Sunday on Job; so as this Sunday approached I was feeling saddled with the obligation to preach on Job today, with its stupid happy ending which ignores the deaths of Job’s first seven sons and three daughters, as if his second set of seven sons and three daughters could be replaced as easily as all the animals and wealth he had lost. So was feeling a little like Job to have to preach on Job, which is a nice irony.

 

In fact, the ending to Job is problematic on many levels. For example, who’s missing from the ending who was there at the beginning? {{Congregational Response}} [Satan]

 

Not only is Satan missing from the ending, but because he isn’t there, we have this verse: “they showed [Job] sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” [11c]. What a terrible slander against the God of love. And it completely contradicts the whole premise of Job, that Satan was responsible for all the evil that befell Job.

 

And the one thing I do like about the ending to Job, the one thing that I find profound and meaningful, has been omitted from this morning’s reading! So please turn in your pew Bibles to Job, chapter 42, and go to verse 7:

 

(As you find Job 42, let me say a word about Bibles which give titles to sections of passages. Please ignore them; they are usually inadequate or misleading, like this morning’s titles for the sections covering verses 7-10.)

 

“After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: ‘My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.’”

 

By slandering God, Job’s friends have sinned against God, and broken their relationship with God. But God has provided a remedy for the people of Israel to deal with their sins and mend their broken relationship with God:

 

“Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done.”

 

Two things to note. First, the fact that Job’s friends need to offer seven bulls and seven rams shows how terribly they have sinned and how much they have damaged their relationship with God. The usual burnt offering is just one animal, and during the feast of Passover seven bulls and seven rams takes care of everyone in Israel!

 

Second, Job’s so-called friends, the ones who have betrayed him and slandered him, must now go to Job and accept him as their priest in order to have their sins forgiven and their relationship mended.

 

And here’s why this passage resonates so much for me, because not only must Job’s friends do what they would rather not― depend on Job to be their priest in order to receive God’s forgiveness― Job in turn has to consider whether he is willing to do what he would rather not― be the priest for those who have betrayed him and slandered him. More than in any other way, the Book of Job shows Job’s goodness in his willingness to be priest to those who betrayed and slandered him.

 

“So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the Lord had told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.”

 

And here comes the verse that resonates with me: “And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends.”

 

The sequence of events is significant. The Lord told Job’s friends what they must do― “Go to my servant Job”― but the Lord did not tell Job what he had to do, nor did the Lord tell Job that if he prayed for his friends that the Lord would restore his fortunes. In other words, the Lord didn’t bribe Job to do the right thing, he let Job decide for himself whether he would do the right thing. And when Job did the right thing, “the Lord restored the fortunes of Job.”

 

Let me tell you a story.

 

When I came to St. Gregory’s I put my dad on the mailing list so he could get the Newsletter and follow my adventures as Rector. One day he called me to say he’d seen the name of one of my parishioners in the Newsletter, and then, after describing him to me, asked me if that was the person whose name he read in the Newsletter, and I said, “Yes, it is.” And then he said, “Well, he’s the guy who fired me.” My dad’s firing had nothing to do with his job performance or any personal misconduct, but it ended his chance to find an equivalent position in the Chicago area, so eventually he had to move our family to California for a fresh start. We never recovered financially, and it was one of the factors that contributed to my parents’ divorce a few years later.

 

So you can imagine my shock to discover that one of my parishioners had caused such pain and hardship for my family, and my struggle to decide how I could possibly be the priest for someone whose actions had brought so much suffering on my family. The reason this passage from Job resonates with me is because, like Job, I decided that this is the essence of priesthood, to offer to God on behalf of God’s people the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving which we call the Holy Eucharist.

 

Like Job, and like Jesus, we all know what it’s like to be slandered and betrayed, and perhaps this is the essence of the priesthood of all believers, that Sunday by Sunday we are all invited to come to this place to offer together the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for the sins of the whole world, for the sins we have committed, and for the sins that others have committed against us.

 

And that’s why I emphasize two words when I pray the Eucharistic Prayer:

 

“On the night in which he was betrayed, he took bread,” and “This is my Blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

 

May we, like Job and like Jesus, know the blessings that come to us when we pray for our friends. Amen.

Clergy Conference with Karen Ward of cota

Last Sunday evening through Tuesday noon, the clergy of the Diocese of Chicago gathered for our annual conference, and this year our guest speaker was Karen Ward of the Church of the Apostles in Seattle. Here's the link to the cota website. Karen brought with her three wonderful musicians who played and sang for our liturgies of Morning and Evening Prayer, Compline, and Holy Eucharist. Some of the music came from a sister congregation called Church of the Beloved in Edmonds, WA, and its album titled Hope for a Tree Cut Down. I particularly enjoyed a lovely new tune for Amazing Grace; it gives new meaning to the words, and you can listen to it here.

Over the next few posts I will share some of what I learned and experienced during Karen Ward's presentation of her community's incarnation of the Emerging Church movement.