SOME OF THE MUSINGS, observations & reflections of an Anglican parish priest in the North West of England. Please feel warmly invited to leave comments or questions - I’ll reply wherever possible
Entries in ECUSA (5)
LOOKING UPWARDS
WHAT WOULD JESUS SAY? – my friend Bill would almost always interject … sometimes to the considerable chagrin of one or two of us … who were very probably articulating our current flight of fancy at the time. What would Jesus say?
And the painful answer often was, and is, that we’re not entirely sure! And this is sometimes the more acutely painful because our human conditioning makes of us a people who want to be sure what we’re about, what we’re doing, what we’re believing. And – to complicate matters further – there are some folk who, in addition, want to be sure what others are about, or are doing, or are believing. This is real human commerce! This is the stuff of what it means to be community … to live together.
Archbishop Rowan speaks words of counsel to us in his The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion. (see Ruth Gledhill)
Meanwhile in parishes around the globe we chatter about “Fresh Expressions”, of “Looking Outwards”, of “Justice” and of “Peace”; of mission and of schism, of unity and of disunity; of straight and of gay. And in all of this, and more, I’m endlessly interrupted by Bill’s “What would Jesus say?”
And difficult though it be I know that I ought to have a better idea of what Jesus might say to the Church in our day. I ought to have a clearer idea of what Jesus is saying to me. And so, deep down, I know that I must spend less time looking backwards, forwards, outwards, inwards or sideways, and learn to look upwards.
I’ll come to a clearer understanding of Jesus’ view of things when I study the Scriptures and share in the Sacraments with that openness of mind and heart that is invoked by true “worship in Spirit and in truth” … and when I remember, amidst the clamour and the clatter of life in the Church and in the world that whatever Jesus would say, whatever Jesus is saying, HIS tone is a “still, small voice of calm”.
Let me then pay more attention to “looking upwards”: more to worship, and to prayerful listening, than to soapbox flights of fancy … or good old (bad old) religiosity …
What would, what does, JESUS say?
Fr Simon Marsh
in Church of England, ECUSA, Anglican Communion, People, Christian Faith
|
1 Comment
DON'T YOU CARE?
‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’
WE’VE ALL SEEN IT: dozens of times. Little girl, maybe little boy, takes a tumble. The piercing howl of startled indignation, fear and pain — and the sound of a mummy, or a daddy, an aunt or an uncle, brother, sister or old, wise, friend — rushing headlong to the rescue …
“There, there, little one. Ssssh now. Everything’s gonna be OK. Ssssh darling. Don’t cry. Naughty old pavement! Better soon.”
Like Jesus. The One who comes to our rescue, the One who rebukes the “wild storm”, the One who asks us, like Corporal Jones, not to panic!
How often we see fear and panic in the Scriptures …
Jonah, running away from the call to Nineveh; Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus dies; Jairus; High Priests, Pharisees and Scribes; Pilate hurrying to wash his hands; disciples in a boat … you’ll be able to add to the list all day …
God! Jesus! Teacher! Don’t you care?
“Peace! Be still!”
And there was a dead calm. He said to them
“Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Or how about
“Lazarus. Come out!”
How often we see fear and panic in the Church …
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop-elect of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, said (in a stormy environment) this week:
“If you and I are going to grow in all things into Christ, if we’re going to grow up into the full stature of Christ, if we are going to become the blessed ones God called us to be while we were still in our mothers’ wombs, our growing will need to be rooted in a soil of internal peace.”
That kind of “internal peace” comes to us only when we hear and know that God does care; when faith assures that there’s no-one he doesn’t care for … not even those with whom we may most be at odds in the eye of this life’s storms … so:
Saints who toil below, adore your heavenly King, and onward as ye go some joyful anthem sing. Take what he gives and praise him still, through good and ill, who ever lives.
Fr Simon Marsh
in Spirituality, Church of England, ECUSA, Anglican Communion
|
Post a Comment
NOT AGENTS OF FEAR
THE RIGHT REVEREND Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop-elect of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, preached at the morning Eucharist on the last day of the Church ’ s General Convention. “Can we meet in a stance that is not tinged with fear?”, asks the Bishop. Well, I believe that, in every corner of the globe, we’ve no choice. We must. May God sustain humankind as we learn to love more perfectly. And may that learning, and may that loving, create and allow space for different people, and for different nations, to walk along different paths for a while, if need be, though all be intent on the same destination.
Maggi Dawn’s Unbelieving Priest story the other day told of the delighted response of a person who’d just learned, from her, he said, that it’s OK for Christian people to admit to divergent paths and to struggle and doubt. Difference. Struggle. Doubt. That’s the name of the game. Be it in education, be it in marriage, be it in employment, be it in friendship, be it in team-work, be it in partnership, be it in a federation or a Communion - be it wherever and whatever you will: the learning that arises from differences, struggles and doubts is all part of the game-plan for a people called out from the places of darkness to live in Christ’s own marvellous light. Today seeing darkly … some day seeing face to face.
Here’s Bishop Katharine’s sermon:
This last Sunday morning I woke very early, while it was still dark. I wanted to go for a run, but I had to wait until there was enough light to see. When the dawn finally began, I ventured out. It was warm, and still, and very quiet, and the clouds were just beginning to show tinges of pink. I ran by the back of the Hyatt just as two workers were coming out one of the service doors. They were startled, I’m afraid, but I nodded at them, and they responded. I went west over the freeway, and encountered a man I’d seen here in the Convention Center. Neither of us stopped, but we did say a quiet good morning. Then I found a lovely green park, and started around it. There was a man with a reflective vest, standing in the street by some orange cones, as though he were waiting for a run or a parade to begin. I said good morning, and he responded in kind.
Around the corner I came to a bleary-eyed fellow with several bags who looked like he’d just risen from sleeping rough. I said good morning to him too, but I must admit I went past him in the street instead of on the sidewalk. Then I met a rabbit hopping across the sidewalk, and though we didn’t use words, one of us eyed the other with more than a bit of wariness. Around another corner, a woman was delivering Sunday papers from her car. She was wary too, and didn’t get out of her car with the next paper until I was a long way past her. Back over the freeway, and a block later, two guys seemingly on their early way to work. We nodded at each other.
As I returned to my hotel, I reflected on all those meetings. There was some degree of wariness in most of them. There were small glimpses of a reconciled world in our willingness to greet each other. But the unrealized possibility of a real relationship - whether in response of wariness, or caution, or fear - meant that we still had a very long way to go.
Can we dream of a world where all creatures, human and not, can meet each other in a stance that is not tinged with fear?
When Jesus says that his kingdom is not of this world, he is saying that his rule is not based on the ability to generate fear in his subjects. A willingness to go to the cross implies a vulnerability so radical, so fundamental, that fear has no impact or import. The love he invites us to imitate removes any possibility of reactive or violent response. King Jesus’ followers don’t fight back when the world threatens. Jesus calls us friends, not agents of fear.
If you and I are going to grow in all things into Christ, if we’re going to grow up into the full stature of Christ, if we are going to become the blessed ones God called us to be while we were still in our mothers’ wombs, our growing will need to be rooted in a soil of internal peace. We’ll have to claim the confidence of souls planted in the overwhelming love of God, a love so abundant, so profligate, given with such unwillingness to count the cost, that we, too, are caught up into a similar abandonment.
That full measure of love, pressed down and overflowing, drives out our idolatrous self-interest. Because that is what fear really is - it is a reaction, an often unconscious response to something we think is so essential that it takes the place of God. “Oh, that’s mine and you can’t take it, because I can’t live without it” - whether it’s my bank account or theological framework or my sense of being in control. If you threaten my self-definition, I respond with fear. Unless, like Jesus, we can set aside those lesser goods, unless we can make “peace through the blood of the cross.”
That bloody cross brings new life into this world. Colossians calls Jesus the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn from the dead. That sweaty, bloody, tear-stained labor of the cross bears new life. Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation - and you and I are His children. If we’re going to keep on growing into Christ-images for the world around us, we’re going to have to give up fear.
What do the godly messengers say when they turn up in the Bible? “Fear not.” “Don’t be afraid.” “ God is with you.” “You are God’s beloved, and God is well-pleased with you.”
When we know ourselves beloved of God, we can begin to respond in less fearful ways. When we know ourselves beloved, we can begin to recognize the beloved in a homeless man, or rhetorical opponent, or a child with AIDS. When we know ourselves beloved, we can even begin to see and reach beyond the defense of others.
Our invitation, both in the last work of this Convention, and as we go out into the world, is to lay down our fear and love the world. Lay down our sword and shield, and seek out the image of God’s beloved in the people we find it hardest to love. Lay down our narrow self-interest, and heal the hurting and fill the hungry and set the prisoners free. Lay down our need for power and control, and bow to the image of God’s beloved in the weakest, the poorest, and the most excluded.
We children can continue to squabble over the inheritance. Or we can claim our name and heritage as God’s beloved s and share that name, beloved, with the whole world.
May praying Christian people everywhere unite to cast out fear.
Fr Simon Marsh
in Spirituality, ECUSA, Anglican Communion
|
1 Comment
|
1 Reference
PRESIDING BISHOP FOR ECUSA
Fr Simon Marsh
in Church of England, ECUSA, Anglican Communion
|
Post a Comment
DE PROFUNDIS
BRAMHALL’S ECUMENICAL CLERGY meet together every Thursday morning for prayer and reflection. For me this gathering contains the very stuff of “the balm of life, the cure of woe, the measure and the pledge of love.”
Pastor Jonathan Dawson gently led us through 1 Thessalonians 5 this week … “Do not quench the power of the Spirit”. Sometimes the gift of another’s ministry roots me to the spot. I was headed for the Funeral of a dearly loved fellow pilgrim, our friend, Dorothy Laidlaw. And to add to heaviness of heart I’d read a few of the early reports coming out of ECUSA’s General Convention.
Dorothy now knows God’s reward for her. The Funeral Thanksgiving reiterated our faith and hers. But the tearing in the heart of Christ’s Anglican Communion today, and the fault all unjustly laid upon the doorsteps of such a precious few, leaves me longing, still, for an end to these long running battles, each purporting to fight for the purity of our Christian faith.
Let me not forget, then, the power of the Spirit! God grant me to be faithful in the task of doing “good to one another and to all.” For though I can’t see a way out of the present impasse … and am quite obviously not alone in this inability, Pastor Jonathan reminded me that “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this”.
May the Lord heal and anoint his hurting people. May we rejoice in any and all who seek to praise God and tell of his great and redeeming love. May Christ inspire us again to hold in check our all too ready willingness to judge others. May he gently enable us to deal quietly and effectively with the mote that blurs our higher vision.
The bird on the branch, the lily in the meadow, the stag in the forest, the fish in the sea, the countless joyful creatures sing, God is Love. But beneath all these sopranos, as it were a sustained bass part, is the De profundis of the sacrificed, God is Love.
Søren Kierkegaard
Fr Simon Marsh
in Spirituality, Church of England, ECUSA, Anglican Communion, People, Christian Faith
|
Post a Comment