From the Psalter:
The Lord has set his throne in heaven,
and his kingship has dominion over all.
Bless the Lord, you angels of his,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
and hearken to the voice of his word.
Bless the Lord, all you his hosts,
you ministers of his who do his will.
Bless the Lord, all you works of his,
in all places of his dominion;
bless the Lord, O my soul.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Psalm 103:19-22 (BCP 1979 version) – January 7, 2013.)
Last week the senior seminarians of the Episcopal Church, those who will graduate in the spring and shortly thereafter be ordained to the transitional diaconate, sat for the General Ordination Examination. This mutli-day test is something like a Bar exam for the clergy of our denomination. Each day, after the testing was concluded, one or more bloggers were posting and commenting up on the questions.
A test question in the area of cross-cultural ministry asked about the theological, pastoral, and practical issues a parish minister might face when asked to permit the use of his or her church facility by a yoga group, a Muslim congregation, or a group of Zen Buddhists. In a Facebook discussion, I suggested that it was an unrealistic question, that it might be of interest as a hypothetical to academics, and might possibly describe a situation a priest in a cosmopolitan urban parish might face, but that it was not going to be a problem for the great majority of our clergy who will minister in smaller cities, small towns, and exurban and rural areas, places where there are few Muslims or Zen Buddhists. As the discussion went on, I realized (once again) that there is a great divide in the Episcopal Church between our leadership, drawn mainly from and headquartered in the coastal urban centers and our academic seminaries, and those of us on the ground and “in the trenches” in the small parishes of the midwest, the plains, the Rockies, the deserts, and the rural South. I later posted this comment as my Facebook status: “The academic and urban elites that run the Episcopal Church should stop flying over the middle of the country. They should drive through it and spend time in the small communities in the midwest and the great plains.”
Since doing so, I’ve received plenty of affirmative responses from colleagues ministering in Wisconsin, Nebraska, elsewere in Ohio, Kansas, and other midwestern, southern, and southwestern communities. From colleagues in large urban areas on both coasts, however, I’ve received sarcastic comments about midwesterners being persecuted by New Yorkers and apparently earnest comments describing midwesterners as “ignorant” and isolated but not responsible for “the way they are.” Point illustrated, perhaps?
I bring this up again here today because the psalm reminded me of the discussion: “Bless the Lord, all you works of his, in all places of his dominion.” In all places of his dominion . . . . It truly does seem to me sometimes that leadership of the mainstream denominations, my own Episcopal Church among them, get focused on the urban centers and bound up in the problems that urban life presents. It often seems to me that leaders focus on the ministries of large parishes and tailor church programs to their needs. But, important as those centers and those parishes are, they are not the only places of God’s dominion, nor are they the norm.
We hear over and over again in the church press about the “average Episcopal church” . . . which has about 80 people in attendance on a Sunday, which has a budget of only slightly more than $100,000 per year, which is unable to sustain full-time ordained ministry, and which has fewer than ten children in Sunday school and not enough teens to field a youth group. We have this average because many (probably most) of our parishes are in smaller communities in the midwest, the plains states, the Rocky mountain states, the rural south, and the desert southwest. We have members and congregations in all places of God’s dominion, not just in the urban centers of the coasts.
If we are to bless the Lord in all the places of his dominion, the church (in all its denominational varieties) needs to begin paying attention to all the places of his dominion!
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
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.
Recently, following the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, a bunch of Christian “leaders” (Mike Huckabee, James Dobson, Bryan Fisher, to name a few) have basically said, “God has been taken out of the schools,” or “God has been taken out of our society,” or some variation on this theme. This, they say is, the reason the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place. Because of God’s supposed absence (voluntary on God’s part, it would seem) the horror took place. They seek to blame those who have “put God out,” but the way they make this argument really places the responsibility on God who apparently made the decision to stay away; either that or they are describing a God who is powerless in the face of some alleged official refusal to “allow God in” because our Constitution prohibits state-prescribed sectarian prayer in the schools.
This is the part of the Maundy Thursday – Good Friday story that breaks my heart! I so identify with Peter; he’s such a bumbling fool on so many occasions and Jesus just keeps on holding him close, knowing that eventually he will pull through. I know that I would have done no better than Peter in those dark hours of Thursday night. I might not even have done as well as he did; I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to follow Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard!
Day before yesterday, I had a pretty good day in my ministry as rector of my parish. An Episcopal Church Women event went very well; we all had fun in what we were doing. I got home in the late afternoon and took care of a couple of personal matters, called my wife about the possibility of a “date night,” and when she said “Yes” I made reservations for dinner. I took the dog for a walk and, after my wife got home from work, we went out to dinner at our favorite local restaurant. When we returned home, I turned on my computer, checked my email, took a look at Facebook . . . and learned that Deb, a long time friend, a singer of great skill, and an occasionally very funny woman had passed away. It more than ruined the day.
“This election is the most important, ever. If that candidate is elected, it will be the end of the world!” The first time I heard that was during the campaign of the first presidential election I paid attention to: the race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. I heard it as my family watched the televised debate; it was said by my older brother who was then a freshman studying history and political science at the University of Texas, so of course he knew everything. “That candidate,” by the way, was Richard Nixon. We heard it again in 1964; remember the television commercial with the little girl plucking petals from a daisy and the atomic explosion? “If Barry Goldwater is elected,” it suggested none too subtly, “it will be the end of the world.” We hear it every election, “This election is the most important election of our lifetimes.” And, to be honest, that is a correct statement. Those in the past are no longer important; they’re done and other with. Only this election can impact the future so, at this time, up to now, it is the most important. But truth be told . . . none of them, including this election, are really all that important in the grand scheme of things.
This is from one of today’s psalms for Evening Prayer. What got my attention and caught my imagination is the Psalmist image of unspoken thoughts being painful and bursting into flame demanding to be spoken. While it is intended to be a positive image of trying to not engage with the wicked until one can no longer refrain from doing so, until one’s righteousness is kindled against them, I could not help but be reminded of James’s words:
