Epiphany

Epiphany gives us three stories of showing forth, when you bring the Eastern and Western traditions together, three stories in which the nature of Jesus is revealed in surprising and unexpected ways.

Today we start with the story of the wise men following a star to find the new king. The first visitors to the infant Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel are the wise men. Whoever they were, they were Gentiles. So, even though Matthew puts Jesus very much in a Jewish framework and his infancy stories are about portraying Jesus as the new Moses, Jesus is manifested first to foreigners. And that says that Jesus is for us too, all that he was, all that he did, all that he taught, was for us, for those who come because they have enough wisdom to follow the light and make the hard journey to come and kneel before the true king.

Then we get the story of the baptism of Jesus. The accounts show God proclaiming that Jesus is his son, and he is the Beloved, and God the Father is very proud of him. In all four Gospels, the baptism manifests Jesus’ divine origins.

And the triptych is completed with the story of the wedding at Cana, when the wedding feast, the messianic banquet, is enlivened by the new wine. Jesus is the one who transforms the ordinary water of our worship into better wine that you have ever tasted. Jesus brings in the kingdom of God which is fulfilled in the heavenly feast.

A thoughtful post at "Thinking Anglicans." Read it all here.

Something to think about...

You've seen the bracelets with the initials WWJD, "what would Jesus do." Have you ever given much thought to a year spent living this out. Here is an excerpt from a recent article describing one man's attempt to do just that...

"I've concluded that I am a follower, but I'm not a very good one," Dobson said. "If you get serious about the Bible, it will really mess you up." He has witnessed for Jesus in bars, picked up strangers needing rides and voted for a Democrat who he believes best reflects Christ's teachings. During recent Christmas celebrations, as Christians worshipped the Christ child born in a manger, Dobson appreciated more than ever the man who preached love, only to die on a cross...

Read it all here. It's very interesting.

Cantuar's New Year's Greeting

Here is a taste of Archbishop Rowan's new year's greeting...

It’s always a relief to have a bit of space after the busyness of Christmas to relax at home and mull over the past 12 months and the hopes and possibilities of the year ahead. The prospect of this coming year, though, is one that produces a lot of anxiety and insecurity for countless people. There are fears about disappearing savings, lost jobs, house repossessions and worse. While the headlines are often about the big figures, it’s the human cost that makes it real for us...

Read it all here...

Happy Christmas...

This is my favorite Christmas Carol. I guess I want to use it to say merry Christmas to all of you. What a blessed season it is...

Peace.

Thinking about Christmas

Last night, December 21st, was the longest night of the year for me and for everybody else in the northern Hemisphere. It was also the coldest night we have had in a while. Fitting, I guess. Fortunately I was snuggled up warm next to my wife in our living room watching a movie and feeling little if any of the affects of the winter weather just outside.

Even though this has been a rushed year and a rushed Advent, it has been a good one nonetheless. The gifts are purchased or made, the house and the Church are now decorated. There is little to do but wait...wait for the crowds to gather, wait for the carols to be sung, wait for hearts to me made joyful once again by the story of the Christ child's journey into this world so long ago and into our lives today. I hope all of you will have a merry Christmas and a truly happy new year.

Chrismas Greetings from a Welshman

My hope and my prayer for you all this Christmas-tide and always is that you will welcome Jesus, the light of the world, into your hearts and minds, and that you will allow your own lives to be used to bring light to others. Enjoy your celebrations of the coming of the light, be good news for others, and remember that the kingdom of God is present when little things are done in love. God bless you and strengthen you to do such things and to be an instrument of that Kingdom. And, if you are among those who are passing through darkness, may your needs be seen and answered in genuine love and real care.

Read all of Bishop John's message here.

Scottish Christmas Tidings

As Christians gather in worship we celebrate the way in which the birth of Jesus makes access to God open to all. ‘This is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us.’ That love of God is for all humankind and we are bound into an equality of need and the chance to respond. The Christmas story makes this real in a number of ways.

Read the rest of the Christmas message from the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church here.

++Rowan's View

Take a look at this from a new article featuring
Archbishop Williams...

One friend suggests [Rowan's] refusal to "speak out" is a reflection of Jesus's own approach, especially when Christ refused to answer Pontius Pilate's questions at His trial, as described in Mark's Gospel. "I think that, again, one of the things the Gospel ought to do is make us question the way we put our questions," Williams says. "So that, right throughout the ministry of Jesus as well as at His trial, a hostile person sitting there could say, 'He never gives a straight answer to a straight question: "Do we pay tribute to Caesar?"' And Jesus pushes it back and says, 'What are we really talking about?' I think it's always important to ask before we make the snap answer: what are we really talking about?"

Read it all here. It's worth the time.

Christmas is just around the corner...

Always a holiday classic. Thanks to Stan, one of the members of my Altar Guild, for this nugget.

Cantuar's Christmas Blog

God chose to show himself to us in a complete human life, telling us that every stage in human existence, from conception to maturity and even death, was in principle capable of telling us something about God. Although what we learn from Jesus Christ and what his life makes possible is unique, that life still means that we look differently at every other life. There is something in us that is capable of communicating what God has to say – the image of God in each of us, which is expressed in its perfection only in Jesus.

Read all of the Archbishop's Christmas message here.

It takes a community...

My salvation coach raised an interesting question. Salvation is a central theme of the Christian faith. Salvific themes of the Old Testament include escape from captivity, freedom from oppression and hope for a transformed and reconciled world.

In the New Testament Jesus announces the coming of God’s kingdom by forgiving sins and healing the sick. This is the work of salvation, which the Church would continue, instituting a new Heaven and a new Earth.

At least three things stand out. The first is that this salvation is experienced corporately, not individually. The Old Testament writers speak in terms of a community in which the presence of God could be experienced within a fellowship bound together by devotion to God. For the writers of the New Testament, Jesus was never to be thought of as a personal saviour, as though He were our personal toothbrush.

We are not saved individually, as though by some private act of divine indulgence. It is within the community that we can find forgiveness for the past, and hope for a way of beginning again.

A great read from the Dean of Perth. Read it all here.

A word from the Bishop of Washington

What Duncan and Minns propose – that Duncan become the Archbishop of a newly minted non-geographical province with the support of GAFCON primates such as Peter Akinola of Nigeria and Henry Orombi of Uganda – is a rejection of the respectful diversity and generous orthodoxy that defines the Communion. It is a repudiation of the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury in our communal life. It flies in the very face of what it truly means to be an Anglican. For Minns to suggest that he is leading a “new reformation” is ludicrous and demeans the historicity and value of the real Reformation as we know it and live it. The movers of the proposed new province embarrass themselves, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion by the self-serving media coverage they have worked so hard to achieve. The news of the proposed province appears at a time when more than 28 million Americans are living on food stamps, one out of every 10 new mortgage holders is facing foreclosure, unemployment is at its highest level in decades, the auto industry is “tanking” and the real danger of deflation or a possible depression looms large on the horizon. In the global south, millions live on $1 a day, and wars, ethnic and religious violence, poverty and the AIDS epidemic continue to wrack the African continent. To learn in this context that Duncan, Minns and their allies think that the most important issue facing the church is the sexuality of the Bishop of New Hampshire suggests a level of self-absorption that is difficult to square with the teachings of Christ. And to learn that the New York Times considers the complaints of these deposed, retired and irregularly consecrated bishops to be front page news suggests a fixation on “culture wars” reporting that deprives readers of a true sense of the challenges facing the church in this country…

Read it all here..

Lines in the sand...

Where do you draw the line? Well, you might reasonably reply: 'What sort of line?'

All over our beloved creaky Anglican Communion, we find lines, borders, boundaries: 'The Bible plainly says so'. 'That's not part of the faith once delivered to the saints.' 'You must assent to these things to be part of the Anglican Communion.' Where, many of us have often lamented, is classical Anglican ambiguity? Shades of grey? The fabled 'large tent', in which paradoxical tensions can presumably sup together, at the Lord's table? We've seen lines drawn even there. Who on earth wants to do any more line drawing?

A great front page at Anglicans Online this week. Read it all here.

Early Church Fathers

I began teaching a new bible study today to a group of local pastors. From the aspect of church background, this is the most diverse group I have worked with in awhile. Their desire, to learn more about the Early Church Fathers.

Today I gave an overview of what the next few weeks will look like including the divines we will focus on. In dividing up the material, I made up 3 categories, the apostolic fathers, ante-Nicene and post-Nicene. Then I said, "studying the Apostolic Fathers will make you better pastors, the Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene's will make you better preachers." Why? Because the early fathers where for the most part ministering to a people under marginalized by persecution, and the Nicene's were working out the finer points of the Incarnation and the Trinity while working on the unity of a Church taking on global leadership post Constantine.

Whether you agree or not, it made for some interesting discussion. And hopefully it will make a better pastor out of me.

No to new Province says Rectors

This just out from The Living Church Online...

While understanding that for some conservative constituents another path may soon be chosen, the advisory board of the Communion Partner rectors said recently that a new Anglican province in North America “is not something we desire or a structure in which we wish to participate.”

The Communion Partner rectors met Nov. 6-7 at St. Martin’s Church, Houston. The initial list of rectors has grown from 17 parishes representing 25,000 communicants to 45 parishes representing 42,000 communicants, according to a news release prepared by the group.

The group said that although they appreciate the “serious challenges of this present season in our greater Communion and The Episcopal Church,” they were “firmly committed to remain in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, respecting and honoring the proper authority of our bishops and working in concert with them to strengthen our voice with the church.

“We wish to support and encourage the Windsor process, the development of an Anglican Covenant and the Instruments of Communion. We believe this is the path Christ is calling us to follow together with faithful leadership throughout the world-wide Anglican Communion.”

It seems that Pope Bob the Great of Pittsburgh doesn't have the support he thinks he has...

Three Cheers for the Level Headed!!!

Remembrance Day

New Crusade

Fr. Giles Fraser shares in his recent column...

I spoke at a small day-conference for members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem last weekend. Founded after the end of the first crusade in 1099, the Order was originally intended to be a military presence at Christ’s tomb.

In the 19th century, however, it was given new instructions by Pope Pius IX. No longer would its members be a quasi-military reli­gious army in the Holy Land. Instead, they would guard Christ’s sepulchre by expressing their solidarity with indigenous Christians. Today, this means activities such as raising money to plant olive trees and supporting Bethlehem University.

Read the rest of this great column here...

St. Paul-Quincy to remain in ECUSA

Lines are being drawn in the church between liberal or moderate factions and traditional or conservative ones. Arguments center on the national church’s decisions to allow women in the clergy, which occurred in the 1970s, and to promote an openly gay minister to a bishop’s post in 2003.

The schism widened when the national church appointed Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to the job. The Quincy Diocese, which numbers 24 churches (including those in Moline, Rock Island, Silvis, Geneseo and Kewanee) and 1,800 members, has never allowed women or gays to be part of the clergy.

“We are working to assist in the reorganization of diocesan affairs,” Schori said. It now appears that four churches, including St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Peoria, Ill., the largest in the diocese, will continue to align with the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Diocese of Iowa, which includes churches in the Iowa Quad-Cities, has no intention of leaving the national affiliation, officials have said.

Read the whole article...

Homecoming

On Saturday 8th November 2008 the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS) reburied the remains of its first Archbishop, the late Most Rev. Elinana J. Ngalamu, in a grave behind All Saints’ Cathedral, Juba, Southern Sudan. The first Archbishop’s coffin, originally buried in Khartoum in October 1992 following his death there on 29th September 1992, was exhumed on Thursday 6th November 2008 and flown to Juba with an accompanying delegation on Friday 7th.

On the morning of Saturday 8th a brief burial ceremony was conducted by the current Archbishop, the Most Rev. Dr. Daniel Deng Bul, accompanied by the bishops of Khartoum, Rokon, Lainya, Rumbek, Ibba, Rejaf, Mundri and Lui, the assistant bishops of Torit, Bor and Juba, and the retired bishop of Mundri. Archbishop Daniel, sighting Moses’ reburial of Joseph’s bones in Canaan after his return to the Promised Land from exile in Egypt, prayed that Archbishop Elinana’s “homecoming” be symbolic in the hearts of Sudanese Anglicans in all marginalised areas as a final homecoming. He pleaded that never again should the Church have to flee from these areas as Archbishop Elinana fled from Juba to Khartoum in the 1980s to die in exile in 1992. He thanked God for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the 21-year civil war in 2005 and allowed the homecoming of the first Archbishop.

Read more here...

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