Category: Anglican (Page 84 of 115)

Happy Holy Name Day! – From the Daily Office – January 1, 2013

January 1, 2013 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Book of Genesis:

God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Gen. 17:9-14 (NRSV) – January 1, 2013.)

Today, people all over the world go all sort of crazy making resolutions about how we will improve our lives in the coming year – it is New Year’s Day! But on the calendar of the church it is the Feast of the Holy Name, also known as the Feast of the Circumcision.

The law of Moses (as this bit of Genesis shows) required that newborn boys be circumcised on their eighth day of life. So on this eighth day after Christmas Day, we commemorate Jesus’ early submission to the law as recorded in Luke 2:21: “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” (This verse also explains the first alternative title of this day.)

It seems to me appropriate that this feast day of the beginning of a new covenantal relationship between God and one of God’s children falls on the day the secular world also celebrates a new beginning. It reminds me of Carl Sandburg’s famous statement that “a baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.” The coincidence of New Year’s Day and Holy Name Day reminds us that life in relationship with God should go on. Here’s Sandburg’s full comment:

A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on. A book that does nothing to you is dead. A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life. If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I would save what is alive. Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby. The finest of our precision watches, the most super-colossal of our supercargo plants, don’t compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable. A baby is very modern. Yet it is also the oldest of the ancients. A baby doesn’t know he is a hoary and venerable antique – but he is. Before man learned how to make an alphabet, how to make a wheel, how to make a fire, he knew how to make a baby – with the great help of woman, and his God and Maker. (Remembrance Rock, Harcourt Brace:1948)

The coincidence of the Feast of the Circumcision with New Year’s Day is a reminder that, first day of the new year it may be, we know “as of old” how to live the life it presents us. Every year we make resolutions, new covenants perhaps, to do the things we’ve always known how to do, the things we’ve always known we should do. St. Paul wrote to the Romans that “real circumcision is a matter of the heart – it is spiritual and not literal.” (Rom. 2:29) John Wesley taught that this implies humility, faith, hope, and charity. Let us resolve, let us covenant to live out these qualities in the year ahead.

Happy Holy Name Day!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Everything Becomes New! – From the Daily Office – December 31, 2012

December 31, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Second Letter to the Corinthians:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – 2 Cor. 5:16-17 (NRSV) – December 31, 2012.)

New Year's Eve Clock New Year’s Eve and our epistle lesson in the Daily Office lectionary focuses on the old passing away and everything becoming new. It’s purely serendipitous, but what an opportunity to affirm our faith in God’s on-going and constant re-creation of the world.

Yesterday on the radio program On Being the guest, a physicist, made note of the fact that change is the only universal constant. He made reference to what he called “the univeral law of impermanence.”

We make a big deal of change on the New Year. We look back at the year past and celebrate or bemoan its major events. We make resolutions (most of which aren’t kept) of changes we will make in the coming year. But, truth be told, the changing of the calendar from one year to the next is a purely arbitrary event! There really is nothing that makes this day any different than the one before or the one after or any day any time during any year. Every day is an opportunity for change and improvement!

Everyday the old passes away! Everyday everything becomes new!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

A Toy Telephone – Sermon for Christmas 1, Year C – December 30, 2012

December 30, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on Sunday, December 30, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, Christmas 1, Year C: Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147:13-21; Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7; and John 1:1-18. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Baby Girl with To Phone “No matter how big and bad you are . . . when a two-year-old hands you a toy telephone, you answer it.” That piece of wisdom showed up on my Facebook newsfeed recently and I will return to it in a moment, but first I want to share some more Christmas poetry with you.

Many of you may know the work of the late Madeleine L’Engle, the author who died in 2007. She was best known for her young-adult series called “The Time Quartet”: A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters.

She was also a first-rate theologian and a poet. Her poem about the Nativity of Christ, First Coming, is among my favorites:

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.
He did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.
He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

The first lines of that last verse speak to me most clearly: “We cannot wait till the world is sane to raise our songs with joyful voice.” Those lines speak to me of our Gospel lesson today, which is the prolog of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

John’s prologue is also the Gospel lesson, shorter by four verses, for the Eucharist on Christmas morning. It is for me a much more meaningful Gospel of the Incarnation than Luke’s sweet story of innkeepers, shepherds, angels, and the virgin birth: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (v. 1) These words speak to me of a God who communicates and through communication creates, redeems, and saves. It reminds us of the story of creation in Genesis: “God said . . . .” God spoke the creative word and everything came into being. Through the prophets and in the birth of Jesus, God spoke the redeeming word and guaranteed our salvation. When another speaks we must respond, as L’Engle wrote, “We cannot wait till the world is sane;” we must raise our voices.

On the Calendar of Saints, we remembered John as apostle and gospel writer on Thursday; his feast day is December 27. In the Daily Office readings for his commemoration we heard from the Prophet Isaiah:

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel
and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no god.
Who is like me? Let them proclaim it,
let them declare and set it forth before me.
Who has announced from of old the things to come?
Let them tell us what is yet to be.
Do not fear, or be afraid;
have I not told you from of old and declared it?
You are my witnesses!
Is there any god besides me?
There is no other rock; I know not one.
(Isaiah 44:6-8, NRSV)

Isaiah’s prophecy in the reading for John’s feastcay, underscores John’s Gospel. Isaiah, speaking on God’s behalf, demands communication from other gods who would seek to supplant the Almighty: “Let them proclaim . . . let them declare . . . who has announced? . . . let them tell.” And God reminds us that God is a communicator: “Have I not told you from of old and declared it?” Our God is a God who communicates, who is in relationship with his people, who comes among them to speak and to listen. The other gods are nothing but mute idols.

Or, at least, in Isaiah’s time, they were. Have you watched any TV the past few days? There are as many advertisements now as there were before Christmas. They are sprinkled among “new” stories of post-Christmas sales, politics, and “the fiscal cliff”. They come every 13 minutes as we watch programs and movies in which brand-name consumer goods are strategically placed on the set or used by the characters. The gods of greed and consumption are communicating most loudly; the objects of modern worship are promoting themselves wantonly.

But are they listening? Do these gods hear the cries of the poor and homeless? Do these idols listen to the moans of the hungry and the sick? Do these objects demanding our devotion pay heed to the needs of those who have no resources, who cannot pay homage in their temples of commerce?

These are gods for whom communication is one-way. They tell of themselves and they expect their worshipers to come . . . come and buy, come and consume, come and be consumed. But they do not listen. They do not listen anymore than the idols of the nations against which Isaiah prophesied. Only one God listens. Only God the Word who became incarnate in that Baby celebrated in Luke’s sweet story . . . only the God who communicates, who “became flesh and lived among us” . . . only the God who communicates, who is still speaking, listens to us. The God who communicates wants to listen to us, wants to hear from us; God would love to hear from us!

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God spoke the redeeming word and guaranteed our salvation, and we must respond. The God who communicates is calling. The Baby in the manger is a two-year old handing us a telephone . . . . and when a two-year old hands you a telephone, you answer it! You cannot wait till the world is sane! Answer the phone and “Rejoice! Rejoice!”

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

We Are Better Than This – From the Daily Office – December 28, 2012

December 28, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

Surely your waste and your desolate places
and your devastated land—
surely now you will be too crowded for your inhabitants,
and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
The children born in the time of your bereavement
will yet say in your hearing:
“The place is too crowded for me;
make room for me to settle.”
Then you will say in your heart,
“Who has borne me these?
I was bereaved and barren,
exiled and put away—
so who has reared these?
I was left all alone—
where then have these come from?”

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 49:19-21 (NRSV) – December 28, 2012.)

Holy Innocents Icon Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents and the Daily Office Lectionary again chooses lessons that underscore the day’s commemoration. In the midst of Christmas joy, we are reminded of the little children killed by Herod’s soldiers in the king’s attempt to do away with a perceived rival. I am not the first nor the only preacher or pastor to have thought of this story when, two weeks ago, gunman Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The wanton murder of children at any time makes the country where it occurs desolate and devastated. So today, again, we pray for the repose of the souls of those who died:

Charlotte Bacon, 6;
Daniel Barden, 7;
Olivia Engel, 6;
Josephine Gay, 7;
Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6;
Dylan Hockley, 6;
Madeline F. Hsu, 6;
Catherine V Hubbard, 6;
Chase Kowalski, 7;
Jesse Lewis, 6;
James Mattioli, 6;
Grace McDonnell, 7;
Emile Parker, 6;
Jack Pinto, 6;
Noah Pozner, 6;
Caroline Previdi, 6;
Jessica Rekos, 6;
Avielle Richman, 6;
Benjamin Wheeler, 6;
Allison N. Wyatt, 6

Rachel Davino, 29;
Dawn Hocksprung, 47;
Anne Marie Murphy, 52
Lauren Russeau, 30;
Mary Sherlach, 56;
Victoria Soto, 27;

And, of course, also Nancy Lanza and Adam Lanza.

We pray for their souls, for comfort for their survivors, and for sanity in our land.

I just watched a public service announcement about our need for rational and reasonable regulation of gun and ammunition sales, gun ownership, and gun use. It includes the tag line, “We are better than this.” I pray God that the makers of the PSA are right, that we are better than this. We have to be. There are too many innocents dead.

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

There Is No Other Rock – From the Daily Office – December 27, 2012

December 27, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel
and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no god.
Who is like me? Let them proclaim it,
let them declare and set it forth before me.
Who has announced from of old the things to come?
Let them tell us what is yet to be.
Do not fear, or be afraid;
have I not told you from of old and declared it?
You are my witnesses!
Is there any god besides me?
There is no other rock; I know not one.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 44:6-8 (NRSV) – December 27, 2012.)

Ruins of Masada Fortress in Israel On the third day of Christmas the church calendar directs our attention to St. John the Evangelist and, again, the Daily Office lectionary falls in line. John is the gospeller whose wonderful prologue serves as the Gospel lesson at the Eucharist on Christmas Day (1:1-14) and on the first Sunday after Christmas (1:1-18). It is for me a much more meaningful Gospel of the Incarnation than Luke’s sweet story of innkeepers, shepherds, angels, and the virgin birth: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (v. 1)

John’s prologue speaks to me of a God who communicates and through communication creates, redeems, and saves. It reminds us of the story of creation in Genesis: “God said . . . .” and everything came into being.

Isaiah’s prophecy in today’s evening reading, I’m sure, is meant to underscore this. Isaiah, speaking on God’s behalf, demands communication from other gods who would seek to supplant the Almighty: “Let them proclaim . . . let them declare . . . who has announced? . . . let them tell.” And God reminds us that God is a communicator: “Have I not told you from of old and declared it?” Our God is a God who communicates, who is in relationship with his people, who comes among them to speak and to listen. The other gods are nothing but mute idols.

Or, at least, in Isaiah’s time, they were. As I write these words my television happens to be on; others in the family are watching a morning talk show and there are advertisements sprinkled among the stories of post-Christmas sales, politics, and “the fiscal cliff”. The gods of greed and consumption are communicating most loudly; the objects of modern worship are promoting themselves wantonly.

But are they listening? Do these gods hear the cries of the poor and homeless? Do these gods listen to the moans of the hungry and the sick? Do these gods pay heed to the needs of those who have no resources, who cannot pay homage in their temples of commerce?

These are gods for whom communication is one-way. They tell of themselves and they expect their worshipers to come . . . come and buy, come and consume, come and be consumed. But they do not listen. Only God the Word, incarnate in that baby celebrated in Luke’s sweet story, “became flesh and lived among us” and listens to us. “There is no other rock; I know not one.”

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

We Are All Called to Martyrdom – From the Daily Office – December 26, 2012

December 26, 2012 / eric / 2 Comments

From the Book of Acts:

While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died. And Saul approved of their killing him. That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 7:59-8:3 (NRSV) – December 26, 2012.)

Icon of Saint Stephen On the second day of Christmas the church remembers a murder, the martyrdom of Stephen, and our Daily Office lectionary won’t let us forget it. Often the readings of the Daily Office seem to have nothing to do with the season and they seldom are tied to a saint’s commemoration, but today the morning and evening readings tell the whole story in gruesome detail.

Stephen is revered as the church’s first martyr. The word martyr in Greek merely means “witness” but the church (and thus our modern society) uses it to mean someone who has suffered and died for their faith. The Celtic church would identify three kinds of martyrdom, only one of which involves death, so-called “red martyrdom.” The others were “green martyrdom” and “white martyrdom.”

The green martyrs were those who left ordinary society for the life of a hermit on the mountaintops or islands of Ireland following the example of the Egyptian anchorites. Eventually, they merged their individual dwellings into the monastic communities which dominated the Irish church from the 6th through 9th Centuries.

White martyrs went further. They left Ireland altogether as missionaries. The first of these were Columba and his followers who founded the monastery at Iona. Others following their example went into northern Europe and beyond.

The 2nd Century theologian Tertullian said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” This is usually understood to mean that through the sacrifice of their lives the “red martyrs” led others to conversion and, on this Feast of Stephen, we see the great example of that in the eventual conversion of Saul, the zealous Jewish persecutor of the church, into Paul, the equally-zealous Christian missionary. But it seems to me that the blood of the green martyrs and the white martyrs, which was not spilled but continued to course through their veins during a life of prayer and service, was equally effective in the conversion of others.

It is not so much the blood of the martyrs but, as the original Greek word says, the witness of the martyrs, the example and testimony of the martyrs of all sorts, red, green, and white, that nurtures the growth of the church. On this second day of Christmas, we should remember that, in some sense, we are all called to martyrdom; we are all called to witness to our faith in the Child whose birth we continue to celebrate.

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Four Christmas Poems – Meditation for Christmas Day – December 25, 2012

December 25, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

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This meditation was offered on Christmas morning, December 25, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, Christmas, Proper Set III: Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-12; and John 1:1-14. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Icon of the Nativity of Christ

Light Looked Down by Laurence Housman

Light looked down and beheld Darkness.
“Thither will I go,” said Light.
Peace looked down and beheld War.
“Thither will I go,” said Peace.
Love looked down and beheld Hatred.
“Thither will I go,” said Love.
So came Light and shone.
So came Peace and gave rest.
So came Love and brought life.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

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Praise for the Incarnation by John Newton

Sweeter sounds than music knows
Charm me in Immanuel’s name;
All her hopes my spirit owes
To his birth, and cross, and shame.

When he came, the angels sung,
“Glory be to God on high;”
Lord, unloose my stamm’ring tongue,
Who should louder sing than I?

Did the Lord a man become,
That he might the law fulfil,
Bleed and suffer in my room,
And canst thou, my tongue, be still?

No, I must my praises bring,
Though they worthless are and weak;
For should I refuse to sing,
Sure the very stones would speak.

O my Saviour, Shield, and Sun,
Shepherd, Brother, Husband, Friend,
Ev’ry precious name in one,
I will love thee without end.

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I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Till, ringing, singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

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On the Mystery of the Incarnation by Denise Levertov

It’s when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.

Today Is the Day! Well, Not Really – From the Daily Office – December 25, 2012

December 25, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Zechariah:

Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord. Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in your midst. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem. Be silent, all people, before the Lord; for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Zechariah 2:10-13 (NRSV) – December 25, 2012.)

Icon of the Nativity of Christ Today is the day! . . . . Well, not really. We don’t really know the date on which Jesus was born. In our ignorance, we Christians took over a pagan feast and made it our own. The feast of Sol Invictus became to feast of the Nativity. Celebrations of the birth of the conquering sun became the celebration of the birth of the conquering Son (a pun the only works in English).

Atheists and anti-religious types like to throw that fact in our faces and claim that Christianity is just a “made-up faith” (like all religions, they claim). Or, it used to suggest that Christianity is in someway “colonial”, taking over that which rightfully belongs to others. Or, the fact that many modern Christians do not know the history of the Christmas holiday becomes an indictment against all Christians as stupid and uninformed.

If you ask me, that is all a bunch of what my grandmother called pettifogging. The importance of this day lies not in its dating but in what it stands for. We don’t actually celebrate Jesus’ birthday; we celebrate the Nativity, the birth of God among us, the Incarnation of God in all times and in all places. We give thanks for God’s promise and God’s keeping God’s promise to come and dwell in our midst. It doesn’t matter on what particular day the Child in whom that was manifest was born. What matters is that he was born, not when. Before that reality silence and awe are the appropriate response, not pettifogging and bickering over calendars!

“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given” wrote Episcopal priest Phillips Brooks in 1868 in the now popular carol O Little Town of Bethlehem. In it we sing this petition, “O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin and enter in, be born to us today.” That is a prayer for everyday, not simply on this feast of Sol Invictus. Since we don’t know on what particular day Jesus was born, perhaps we should celebrate his birth on every day.

Everyday is the day!

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

The Christmas Promise – From the Daily Office – December 24, 2012

December 24, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

From the Prophet Isaiah:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
the majesty of our God.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 35:1-2 (NRSV) – December 24, 2012.)

Wide Open Desert Horizon I was born and raised in the desert. The image of wilderness and dry land blossoming is one that touches my heart and excites my imagination. I love the desert. I love its stark and barren beauty, when the rains of spring kiss it and it blossoms . . . there’s nothing like it anywhere else.

I live in north central Ohio now, near Cleveland. It’s a claustrophobic landscape to the desert-born. Instead of distant horizons, there are hills covered with trees. They’re lovely but they block one’s view of the distance; they’re close, sometimes too close.

Several weeks ago my wife and I traveled to the desert where we both were born and raised. It was a sad trip; her father had died and we were going to his funeral. Although it was an unhappy trip, there was a point driving on the interstate heading west out of the Wasatch Mountains of Utah when the wide-open desert opened up before us and my soul soared – I was home! The landscape stretched ahead of me unblocked by any hill, any tree, any obstruction; the horizon was distant and beckoning

Christmas is like that. The Infant comes to us in the desert of the Holy Land opening the future before us; the future stretches ahead unblocked, unobstructed, distant, and beckoning.

Christmas is a promise. The promise of a wide-open future. What becomes of that promise is up to us.

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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.

Purify Our Conscience – Sermon for Advent 4, Year C – December 23, 2012

December 23, 2012 / eric / 0 Comments

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This sermon was preached on Sunday, December 23, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.

(Revised Common Lectionary, Advent 4, Year C: Micah 5:2-5a; Psalm 80:1-7; Hebrews 10:5-10; and Luke 1:39-55. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)

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Orthodox Icon of the Madonna I want to ask you to read along as I re-read the collect for the day, the particular prayer of the Fourth Sunday in Advent: “Purify our conscience . . . . ” That’s enough, just those three words: “Purify our conscience . . . . ” Don’t you think that’s asking a lot of God? I mean really . . . purify the human conscience, that place in ourselves where we know all the wrongs we have done. Tall order, purifying that! But that’s what the prayer asks and in doing so it draws on the language of the Letter to Hebrews from which our second lesson today is taken.

Our reading came from Chapter 10 of the letter, but what we heard is only small part of a longer section dealing with the efficacy of sacrifice, a section that begins in Chapter 9. There we read these words:

For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant . . . . (Heb. 9:13-15a)

But what is the conscience?

The dictionary tells us that the conscience is that “inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives; the complex of ethical and moral principles that controls or inhibits the actions or thoughts of an individual.” (dictionary.com) Another definition comes from the devotional text My Utmost for His Highest compiled from the lectures of the British Baptist educator Oswald Chambers:

Conscience is that ability within me that attaches itself to the highest standard I know, and then continually reminds me of what that standard demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either toward God or toward what we regard as the highest standard. This explains why conscience is different in different people. If I am in the habit of continually holding God’s standard in front of me, my conscience will always direct me to God’s perfect law and indicate what I should do. The question is, will I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I can live without any offense toward anyone. I should be living in such perfect harmony with God’s Son that the spirit of my mind is being renewed through every circumstance of life, and that I may be able to quickly “prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2 ; also see Ephesians 4:23).

So, then, our conscience is that sense within us which, if it is pure, directs us to do that which God asks of us. But note what our prayer asks of God . . . that the purification of our conscience has to happen everyday: “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation . . . ” and then the prayer goes on to sound an Advent note ” . . . that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.”

I was a great fan of Charles Schultz’s cartoon Peanuts. I recall a Sunday installment in Lucy and Charlie Brown were talking about cruise ships. Lucy was holding forth giving, as she was wont to do, her unflappable opinion: “You know,” she says to Charlie Brown, “there are two kinds of people who go on cruise ships. There are some people who face their deck chairs toward the stern so that they can see where they have been, and there are others who face their deck chairs toward the bow so that they can see where they are going. Now,” she asks Charlie Brown, “on the great cruise ship of your life, how do you face your deck chair?” Charlie Brown thinks for a moment, then says, “I can’t get mine unfolded!”

Focusing our conscience like “the eye of the soul,” as Chambers said, so that it looks outward toward God whom we beseech to purify it daily, is like getting our deck chair unfolded and faced toward the bow of the ship so we can see where we’re going, so that we are prepared for Jesus. I think that’s really what today’s Psalm is all about, too, especially the refrain that is repeated twice in the portion we read and is repeated again in the whole Psalm: “Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.” Purify our conscience so that we are prepared for our savior, for Jesus.

The great example of that preparation is the virgin Mary. Her trip to the hill country of Judea about which we heard in today’s Gospel lesson took place almost immediately after the angel Gabriel had visited her to inform her that she would be the mother of the savior. Her willing response to that news, of course, was, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) If we are honest in our prayer that God purify our consciences each day, then we must be willing to follow Mary’s example and accept whatever God wills for us; when God makes God’s daily visitation to us, our response must echo hers, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

The German medieval mystical theologian put it this way: “We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place increasingly, but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of Man is begotten in us.”

So it is that we pray today, “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation,” that we like Mary may be bearers of the Eternal Word. Amen.

Category: Anglican (Page 84 of 115)

Happy Holy Name Day! – From the Daily Office – January 1, 2013

Everything Becomes New! – From the Daily Office – December 31, 2012

A Toy Telephone – Sermon for Christmas 1, Year C – December 30, 2012

We Are Better Than This – From the Daily Office – December 28, 2012

There Is No Other Rock – From the Daily Office – December 27, 2012

We Are All Called to Martyrdom – From the Daily Office – December 26, 2012

Four Christmas Poems – Meditation for Christmas Day – December 25, 2012

Today Is the Day! Well, Not Really – From the Daily Office – December 25, 2012

The Christmas Promise – From the Daily Office – December 24, 2012

Purify Our Conscience – Sermon for Advent 4, Year C – December 23, 2012

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