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What do you think when you hear the word ‘charismatic’?

2010-02-04T18:02:54-05:00

This review (find it here) of Julia Duin’s DAYS OF FIRE AND GLORY: THE RISE AND FALL OF A CHARISMATIC COMMUNITY got me thinking.

Discussions on Covenant-Communion most often concern the boundary land between Evangelical, Catholic (NOT necessarily Roman), and Progressive Anglicans. Charismatic is rarely a category that seems to matter here.

It is interesting to note that Pulkingham’s fall revolves around an over emphasis on personal experience, a criticism Evangelicals lay at the feet of Progressives. Charismatics say of Evangelicals that their Trinity is “Father, Son, and Holy Scripture.”

The greatest tragedy of the current conflict in the Anglican world, IMV, is the breaking of bonds between Evangelical, Catholic, Charismatic, and Progressive Anglicans. Each has a critical piece to contribute, but we are no longer in any kind of place to hear each other.

Words of institution and elements ordained by Christ.

2010-01-11T16:36:39-05:00

While re- reading the final draft of the Anglican Covenant paragraph 1.1.5 gave me a moment’s pause. I have one parishioner who has a severe allergy to gulten. Gulten free wafers. What do you think? Proper matter?

Isaac, Jesus, and the Aqedah: Some Misgivings about the Adoption of the RCL

2009-03-12T16:25:13-05:00

“Immolatus vicerit”
~ Auden, Horae Canonicae (from the Pange lingua of Venantius Fortunatus)

“He conquered, in offering himself.”

Introduction

In 2006, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC) resolved “that the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) shall be the Lectionary of this Church, amending the Lectionary on pp. 889-921 of The Book of Common Prayer, effective the First Sunday of Advent, 2007.” To some this may have seemed a minor blip in light of the larger presenting issues which have hurled the Anglican Communion to the brink of ecclesial fragmentation. However, long after the current controversies have moved out of the limelight, the RCL will still be with us. It is precisely because our communal life depends on our saturation in the Word of God, our becoming a “Scripture-formed community” as Stanley Hauerwas has called it, that the successes and failures of the RCL merit our continued attentions in the ongoing work of collective reception.

At the forefront, I should say that I have general misgivings about the adoption of the RCL. Paramount in fueling my skepticism is the RCL’s departure from the Roman Catholic lectionary cycle. I know that many would point to the goal of pan-protestant ecumenism, which is a worthy goal in itself. However as we are now in full sacramental communion with the ELCA, matters on that front seem to be moving in a positive direction. On the other hand, full reconciliation between the Roman Catholic and Anglican communions looks to be an increasingly slim prospect for the time being. If we cannot share the blessed sacrament with Roman Catholics on Sundays, I pray we can at least share, to the degree offered by the 1979 BCP, God’s word.

Further and more serious misgivings arise from the oft-purported aim of the RCL to prevent the “cherry-picking” of Old Testament texts, as evinced in the BCP, which are chosen particularly for their relevance to the Gospel texts. The Hebrew Scriptures, it is argued, ought to be appreciated for their own sake, not only as forerunners of the Gospel. With this last statement, I am in full agreement; the Hebrew Scriptures bear a unique and true witness to God’s character which can be appreciated in their own theological idiom. The question is rather to what end they ought to be read on Sundays during the Mass.

How are we to answer this question? A first step could be to argue that insofar as the Liturgy of the Word takes place in the context of the Mass, it must by that same token be Christocentric. But let us not leap to so strong a conclusion; for the sake of argument, suppose we accept the premise that the relative independence of the lections from the Hebrew Bible on Sunday morning ought to be our aim, so as to avoid “cherry-picking.” Does the RCL succeed on this score?

A full-scale analysis of the RCL exceeds the scope of this essay (See the study by M. H. Mead, below). I would like to focus rather on one particular example, which is perhaps not exempla gratia: the RCL’s departure from the BCP for Lent 2, Year B (Sunday, March 8, 2009). In this essay, I will consider the changes to the first lessons in Lent Year B, and argue (1) that the RCL fails to extricate the Hebrew Bible from the shadow of the New Testament texts and (2) that it actually impoverishes the potential that the Hebrew Bible lections have for encouraging Jewish-Christian dialogue and illuminating the Gospel text.

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A Tale of Two Lectionaries

On opening my BCP last Sunday morning, I was pleased to find that Gen 22:1-14, the story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac, or the aqedah, “binding,” as it is called in Jewish circles, was set as the first lesson. It is a passage of foundational significance for the development of the Rabbinic doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, as Jon Levenson has masterfully demonstrated in his monograph, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son. Moreover, it holds a key place in the Christian understanding of the passion of Jesus, toward which all our Lenten meditations tend.

You can only imagine my disappointment, upon opening the insert in my bulletin before the service, at finding not Genesis 22 but Genesis 17, the narration of God’s changing the names of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah. To be sure, this is an important passage in its own right, although its Lenten relevance did not immediately strike me. Upon hearing the Gospel reading, Mark 8:31-38, I was struck by its seeming lack of connection with the passage from Genesis. Perhaps, I thought, this is an instance of an alternative “track” in the RCL, which would treat the Hebrew Bible with a greater degree of independence from the New Testament lessons. So upon returning home, I compiled the two lectionaries for Lent Year B to test my theory. The results are in the table below:

Lent, Lectionary B

1L (BCP) 1L (RCL) 2L (BCP) 2L (RCL)
Lent 1 Gen 9:8-17 Gen 9:8-17 1 Pet 3:18-22 1 Pet 3:18-22
Lent 2 Gen 22:1-14 Gen 17:1-7, 15-16 Rom 8:31-39 Rom 4:13-25
Lent 3 Ex 20:1-17 Ex 20:1-17 Rom 7:13-25 1 Cor 1:18-25
Lent 4 2 Chron 36:14-23 Num 21:4-9 Eph 2:4-10 Eph 2:1-10
Lent 5 Jer 31:31-34 Jer 31:31-34 Heb 5: (1-4) 5-10 Heb 5:5-10

NB: The Roman Catholic Gospel for Lent 2 Year B is Mark 9:2-10. This will be discussed below.

Several things become apparent from this data. In the first place, there is no visible attempt to mitigate “cherry-picking.” Lent 1, 3, and 5 remain the same in BCP and RCL. In Lent 2, the Gospel lection from Mark 8 is a departure from the Roman Catholic Liturgy, perhaps to avoid “retelling” the transfiguration narrative. Mark 8 was likely chosen in part because of its proximity to the original reading; it also shares some deep theological features with Gen 22. Moreover, the change in Lent 2 from Gen 22 to Gen 17 and in Lent 4 from 2 Chron 36 to Num 21 has nothing to do with a Hebrew Bible “track” (the track notion, I found on further research, is related to the “summer options”, primarily incorporated into the RCL in the season after Pentecost). The change had to derive from elsewhere.

It appears, rather, in the case of Lent 2, that the Hebrew Bible reading which speaks of Abraham’s change of name at the age of “ninety-nine years old” (Gen 17:1) has been chosen to correspond to Paul’s claim that Abraham received the promise when he was “as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old)” (Rom 4:19). In other words, the Hebrew Bible reading is even more slavishly tethered to a NT reading than it was in the BCP. Moreover, neither the first or second lesson (both novel additions of the RCL) bear obvious exegetical or theological connection to the Gospel lection, which alone is maintained from the BCP. The disjunction, in fact runs deeper, as Mark 8 seems to have been chosen as a replacement for Mark 9 in the BCP partly because of its pertinence to Gen 22. Just how closely these texts are wedded will be revealed below.

{pagebreak}

Isaac, Jesus, and the Aqedah

Let us turn now to the theological emphases of each lectionary in the Lenten context. Gen 17 and Rom 4 draw to the foreground God’s covenant with Abraham, not through any adherence to the law, but through faith. Gen 17 provides one of the important scriptural intertexts for Rom 4, but Paul cites more extensively from Gen 15:5, 6. It is not clear then the RCL highlights the most important parallel. The theme of covenant formation, however important in both Jewish and Christian tradition, seems more appropriate to the season of Pentecost, which is the festival of Covenant renewal in Second Temple Judaism and the celebration of the birth of the Church, in the descent of the Holy Tongues.

How much more sobering and centering is the aqedah with its sparse narration, “fraught with background,” to quote Auerbach. The narrative darkness draws the reader to his knees as he reads with holy terror:

wayyiqqah ’Abrāhām ’et ‘əsē hā‘olā wayyāśem ‘al yishāq bənō.

Then Abraham took the wood of the whole burnt offering and placed it upon Isaac his son. (Gen 22:6a)

Here is the image of the father of faith placing the instrument of his only son’s immolation upon his back to carry. Genesis Rabbah, the Amoraic exegetical midrash on the first book of Torah, interprets this verse famously:

And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering [and he placed it on Isaac his son]”—as one who bears his cross on his shoulder. (Gen. Rab. lvi.3)

No further rabbinic explanation of this description of Isaac is given in the text; but it seems clear that the rabbis could construe Isaac’s position as similar to that of the many Jewish martyrs who had been made to carry their own crosses by brutal Roman tyrants. From the apologetic works of Philo and Josephus, we know that Jews of the 1st century C.E. were proud to die for their laws, for Torah.

For the Scripture-formed community of Christians, reading the aqedah during Lent would seem a worthy annual exercise. It is true that the BCP lectionary provides for its reading also on Good Friday. But that provision is removed by the RCL (Isa 52 is the only first lesson provided). Moreover, the connection of Gen 22 with the Gospel lection of Mark 8:31-38 becomes only the more salient in light of the preceding analysis:

[Jesus] called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35, emphasis is mine)

Jesus in Mark’s Gospel evidently has much in common with Isaac. Both are on the road to Jerusalem, Isaac to Moriah, Jesus to Golgotha. Both are the only and beloved sons of his fathers, both will carry the wood for their own sacrifices—or, in light of the Rabbinic exegesis offered, both will carry their own crosses. Both will offer up their life out of obedience to their fathers, only miraculously to receive them back in return. The aqedah narrative sheds light on the Gospel saying of Jesus, in that it reveals Jesus’ shouldering of his cross as a part of his responsibility as beloved son; we too, who are called children in our baptism must follow him, and become obedient as Isaac, compliant with the will of our Heavenly Father. Despite their important halakhic differences, the teaching of the Rabbis sounds in concord with the wisdom of the father of Mt. Athos on this point: “Obedience is life.”

Conclusion

Of the previous two lectionaries for Lent 2, I have argued that the BCP’s far outstrips the RCL in pertinence to the season. This cannot of course substitute for an argument against the RCL on the whole. It should serve as a conservative voice of caution that change is not always for the better. The hard work of updating the lectionary cycle achieved by Roman Catholic liturgists in the mid-20th century to include three synoptic cycles and lessons from the Hebrew Bible represents a major accomplishment. In many ways, the 1979 prayer book lectionary is still very much in the process of reception, and the legislation of the RCL by General Convention 2006 represents a pre-emptive step; the RCL’s superiority over the BCP is far from established. The goal of teaching the Hebrew Bible to congregations in a more linear and holistic fashion is a noble one. It is our suggestion, however, due to the Christocentricity of the Mass, that this endeavor be undertaken in parish Bible Studies and Sunday School. A community cannot be adequately formed and saturated by Scripture during the Mass alone. Moreover, many theologians in the 20th century have argued that the Eucharist itself may be seen in its entirety as a liturgy of the Word: the Word of God in Scripture and in the Blessed Sacrament. To provide readings from the Hebrew Bible in this context which distract from rather than complement the Christological goal of the liturgical action seems to be a misguided effort.

Further Reading:
Levenson, J. (1993) The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (Yale).
Mead, M. H., Book of Common Prayer and Revised Common Lectionary Analysis (http://images.acswebnetworks.com/1/49/RevisedCommonLectionaryAnalysis.pdf). Available on the website of St. Mary the Virgin, New York.
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There’s Something About Mary

2009-09-28T23:29:21-05:00

For most of my early teens I lived with my mother in Norfolk, England. Mother was the district nurse. She visited the sick and delivered most of the babies in a group of villages. She was a single parent mother, struggling to educate me well and manage on a meager salary.She was a hurt and embittered woman who gave herself to me with a devotion which both enabled and hurt me.

I was the only server at the local parish church. The “churchmanship” as we then called it, was very middle of the road. Each Sunday there was an early celebration of the Eucharist. Sung Matins followed at 11a.m except on the first Sunday in the month when there was a Parish Communion. Evensong was sung at 6: 30PM.The parish church breathed the faith of all who had worshipped there for hundreds of years.

Our vicar was called up for six months as an army chaplain. While he was away we were served by Roger Boys, a wonderful old priest in his nineties, who attended Lincoln Theological College when the saintly Edward King was Bishop of Lincoln. Fr. Boys, who I remember daily in my prayers was a living link with the Tractarians. He didn’t impose ceremonial on us. He just lived a sacramental faith with great gentleness.

There came a Sunday when he was away. I arrived at church early to be met by the verger. “Tony” he said, “there’s a Roming Catholic priest in the vestry. Go and tell him this is the parish church. He don’t take no notice of me.”

We robed in the tower, so off I went and there stood a venerable old chap wearing a funny hat with a pom pom, a cassock with more buttons on than there seemed to be available material clutching a crumbled long white robe adorned with the sort of lace one usually saw on the back of chairs in the homes of old ladies.

I gulped and blurted out that this was the Parish Church. “Indeed” he said, “a parish dedicated to our Lady. I have come to say Mass.” “Our Lady”, I thought. I think I mumbled that he was wrong. This was Saint Mary’s Church.

Our Parish Communion that day was like nothing I had ever seen. I always seemed to be kneeling at the wrong place, offering the wrong cruet, or standing when I should have been kneeling. The villagers were astounded by his antics but won over by his lovely sermon. He had spent his life as a missionary in Africa and now was retired, living in a nearby village.

A few weeks later, he turned up early one morning at our house and informed my mother that he was taking me on a day trip to Walsingham. I had no idea why we were going to such a remote village. I was amazed that the old chap was still wearing his cassock and a funny hat. Off we went.

My day at the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham was a transforming experience. I have a devotion to the place ever since. There is an extraordinary atmosphere of holiness in that little village. Despite the memories of the destruction of the monastery and shrine by Henry VIII’s commissioners and the subsequent evidence of our “unhappy divisions’ in the presence in the tiny village of three shrines, Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox, somehow an aura of the Presence triumphs in a place dedicated to the Theotokos.

The Anglican shrine was restored by an eccentric, Fr. Hope Patten. He had recently died when I first went there. The liturgical devotions there at that time made the Pope look like a Presbyterian. Despite all its eccentricity there was something there. At the holy well people were healed of bodily and spiritual infirmities. “By their trust, “faith” we say. Well that was so with Jesus’s healings. “Your faith has made you whole” What is more excellent that that?” Ritualism and unreformed doctrine some mutter. But are we saved not by right precise doctrine but by faith, by trust in God?

When I was desperately ill a couple of years ago I sent an email to the Anglican Shrine asking for prayers. That amusing encounter fifty seven years ago has left me with an abiding devotion not only to Walsingham but to Mary.

I suppose my devotion is typically Anglican. I am vividly aware in my prayers of the presence of what the Creed terms “The Communion of Saints”. I am challenged and amazed by the faith of a young girl who submitted to the Divine Will to be the bearer of Jesus, True God and true Man. “Look at me”, she said, “I am God’s servant.” Her Son echoed her words when in the Garden he said “Nevertheless not my will but your will be done”. I pray and struggle with that defining act of submission to God. It is at the heart of what evangelicals call a conversion experience.

As an Anglican I remain uncomfortable or shall I say untouched with attempts to make doctrinal definitions about Mary. I find them unnecessary. Was Mary received into Glory when she died? Of course she was. Was she without sin? Like us all she was wa made true because of her Son’s love, as are we all by the merits of his life, death and passion and his resurrection and ascension. Certainly she demonstrated extraordinary grace by her submission, the role she played as Mother of Jesus, and her faith even when bemused by his ministry and torn apart by his death. In her devotion, even at the Cross, she demonstrates an immaculate devotion which challenges us and draws us closer to her Son. Even after the Reformation our church honored in its Calendar the Feast of the “Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary” as we did her Annunciation.

Perhaps like the Orthodox I can be drawn into a devotion to her unique role in our salvation without being persuaded by precise doctrinal definitions about her conception or the mode of her reception into Heaven. The terms by which the Angel addressed her are sufficient for me. I love the old tag, “Those who are not Marians are usually Arians.”

We live daily with Mary and the Communion of Saints. I say in the Creed that we believe that we live in that Communion. Communion means an interconnected and inseparable fellowship. I shudder when people use that term to mean a federation of autonomous entities. I belong to the Anglican “Communion”. That term doesn’t mean something like being part of the “United Nations”. “Communion” is a stronger word than “Church”, or rather it articulates practically that which the word “Church” means. If I am in communion, I belong and have a responsibility to submit myself like Mary to that vocation and calling. My little parish is a microcosm of Communion, of fellowship with the saints in light, with all Christians, alive and dead, with the Holy Church of God and with a family called Anglicanism.

Is it possible that Mary’s confession, “Look, I am God’s servant. I will be the person God has called me to be” can be a paradigm of our relationships within our temporary Anglican Communion, as well as an expression of “sweet communion, with those whose work is done.” Who ever had a work, achieved, which the maiden gave herself to and assumed when the angel said to her that she would be the bearer of the Savior of the World and she said “yes”. And so I kneel and cry “Ave Maria” and pray that I may have the grace to follow her good example as I put God’s will before my autonomy and pray that, despite myself and my falleness, people may find in my faith, the Faith of Jesus which we own, Jesus Himself?
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Why I’m glad I’m in Montana this morning

2009-08-16T10:51:41-05:00

Last week we missed church. It wasn’t on purpose: it’s because we couldn’t find the church. Having not actually gotten the address of the church in Columbia Falls before we got out of wi-fi range, the usual methods didn’t work: in the phone book, it’s just a PO box shared with the rest of the cluster, the building isn’t in the middle of town, we never saw the blue-and-white sign, and only one person we met had the slightest idea of where it might be. By that point the service at every other parish was well under way, so any Luteranische backup plan fell through too.

This week, though, we are in Great Falls, and Incarnation on 3rd Street North has its service at 9:30. So if I can just get the kids up, we’ll be there. And unless the rector has been struck by lightning in the past year, I know what we’ll get: Rite II, straight up, with hymns sung with the organ and a sermon that is entirely devoted to the text. Indeed, it will be very close to a 1979 Rite II, which is to say, the practices will be close to those of thirty years ago. When it says “prayer”, people will kneel.

For me it is a great ecclesiastical vacation. One of the things that has become a great trial back home is that when I visit another parish, I’m never sure what I’m going to get. And I don’t mean the maybe three parishes in the whole state using a missal instead of the BCP. It’s that I can show up to a suburban parish and not be entirely sure that they are going to include the Lord’s prayer (it has happened to me), or whether I’m going to get hit with one of those abominable-if-not-heretical Father-free liturgies. Out here even the liberal priests (who are numerous) do their liturgy pretty straight. Of course, there’s not as much room for experimentation out here: a really big parish has an ASA of over 100 and only two cities have two parishes. Great Falls used to have two, but St. Francis at the east end of town closed a few years back due to reductions at Malmstrom AFB. The state population has been declining. But for now, it’s a respite, where I don’t have to frisk the celebrant for theological eccentricities.

Formed by God through Scripture in the Daily Office

2009-01-31T22:48:50-05:00

Introduction

Apart from ‘Daily Prayer’, ‘The Office’ reminds me of two things: firstly, the popular English comedy series, which was recontexualised in Pennsylvania; and secondly an excellent name for a pub. If I ever owned a pub – which I am very unlikely to do - I would consider calling it ‘The Office’. Then, if relatives or friends wondered where you were, you could phone and say, ‘I’m still at The Office’.

In the wonderful collect for Bible Sunday, we pray ‘help us to hear [all holy Scriptures], to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them…’. As we say the Daily Office, we are formed by God through his Scriptures.

Officium is the Latin word for ‘duty’. Whenever we think of ‘duty’ in the Anglican Communion we also think of ‘joy’: ‘It is our duty and our joy at all times and places…’. So, at Morning Prayer, you report for duty and get your orders. At Evening Prayer you clock off, if you like, and you salute. That is one way of looking at the Office. It has got to be done. As we shall see, it is enjoined upon clergy, but also with the ‘tolling of the bell’, it involves lay people as well.

The collect for Bible Sunday uses the profound vocabulary of ‘digestion’. The Latin words ruminatio and mundicare suggest cows ‘chewing the cud’: they spend a long time digesting their food.

Robert Atwell, the new Bishop of Stockport, England, has compiled a very fine book, ‘Celebrating the Seasons: Daily Spiritual Readings for the Christian Year’ (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1999). In his introduction he states:

Our forebears’ belief that the slow digestive process of cows was well-suited to describe the process of engaging with Scripture, stands in marked contrast to the language and expectations of a fast-food generation. Their wisdom calls us to a more gentle rhythm of prayerful reading in which patience, silence and receptivity are vital ingredients. In a world of sound-bites we need to learn again the art of listening with the ear of the heart. To this end when we are praying by ourselves, reading the Bible or saying the Office alone, perhaps we should experiment with the custom of earlier generations and speak the words out loud? (p. v)

This is something I really want to encourage people to do. If you are saying the Office, or using some other sort of Bible reading system, rather than just saying it to yourself, say it out loud. It sounds very different.

At St Mary Islington in London, Toby Hole (curate) and I say Morning Prayer during the week, Mondays to Thursdays, 9.30am-10.00am, in church and we discuss the readings in depth. From 5.00pm-5.20pm we say Evening Prayer without discussion. Friday is our day off and Saturdays and Sundays we have a different rhythm.

1. Scripture on Scripture

We consider first what Scripture says about the reading of Scripture.

(a) Colossians 3:16

Paul writes: ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God.’

We are encouraged to let the word dwell in us, so the word inhabits us as we inhabit the word. In this Pauline exhortation, there is a double indwelling, which is very ‘Johannine’. {pagebreak}

Jeremy Begbie’s new book, Resounding the Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007 and London: SPCK, 2008) is very perceptive. A musician and systematic theologian, he has just moved from Ridley Hall, Cambridge to Duke University. He comments that it is very hard to draw neat lines between these three – psalms, hymns and spiritual songs - but does go on to suggest:

Perhaps ‘spiritual’ indicates that these songs were directly generated by the Spirit and thus more spontaneous than psalms and hymns. (p. 70)

(b) I Timothy 4: 13

Paul says to Timothy, ‘Until I arrive give attention to the reading…’ That is the literal meaning. It is usually translated in our Bibles as ‘Give attention to the public reading of Scripture’, which is what Paul implied. He continues ‘…to exhorting, to teaching.’

Paul is referring to the public reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. Public reading is alien to our culture: we are so used to it in church that we fail to notice this. Outside of church, where does the public reading of very ancient documents happen? Sometimes at court or at an inauguration, but it is very unusual. In church, regularly, morning and evening, we read in public.
Our Anglican ancestors, Cranmer and Hooker, were clear that the ordered public reading of Scripture is theologically prior to preaching, and provides the context and text for preaching. This public reading is actually good in itself. The corporate, public reception of the read Word of God is foundational for all our formation.

(c) Luke 4: 16-21

Jesus is in the synagogue at Nazareth:

He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

<blockquote>The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’</blockquote>{pagebreak}

In the synagogue, through the public reading Scripture, Jesus sees himself in that Scripture. The modern Morning Prayer service of the Anglican Church of Kenya (1991) includes a ‘Song of the Messiah’, which echoes messianic passages from the Old Testament. For seven years I taught and learnt theology at St Andrew’s College, Kabare, in the foothills of Mount Kenya and saw the power of this song amongst the students:

Jesus the Seed of Abraham blesses the nations:
Jesus the Prophet like Moses frees the oppressed:
Jesus the Lord of King David leads his people:
Jesus the Servant of the Lord suffers and saves:
Jesus the Son of Man destroyed and raised.

Jesus saw himself in Scripture and fulfilled it. Since we are ‘in Christ’, we can read that passage and see that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us also, clergy and lay people, to preach good news to the poor. It is not that Jesus is over there and we are over here. We are actually ‘in Christ’, and so some of the things which apply to him, apply to us as well.

2. History and Contemporary Examples

Before the fourth century, the evidence for a particular type of Daily Office is scanty. In the fourth century, the monks in the Egyptian desert recited the Psalter complete. The Holy Spirit inspired the Psalms, which was Jesus’ ‘prayer book’, and the monks got caught up in the circular movement in saying them back to God. That is the heart of the Office.

The Daily Office eventually developed into eight offices, seven during the day and one during the night. We consider now two great historical figures who were movers and shapers of liturgy, Benedict and Cranmer.

(a) Benedict of Nursia

Benedict (d. 550 AD), the founder of the Benedictine Order, maintained the Psalter being recited once a week, rearranged the offices and the readings, introduced ‘antiphons’, ‘versicles’ and ‘responses’ and set readings. Our Daily Office has its roots in the work of Benedict.

As Anglicans and Episcopalians we are Catholic and Reformed. We are Catholic especially because of Benedict. We are Reformed especially because of the second great mover and shaper, Thomas Cranmer.

(b) Thomas Cranmer

Cranmer died in 1556, almost 1000 years after Benedict. Cranmer had two influences on him as he reshaped the Office. One was a Spanish Cardinal, Francisco de Quinones, the other was a German Lutheran, Johan Bugenhagen, who wrote ‘The Daily Office for Denmark’.

Quinones wanted to reform the Daily Office. It had grown huge. He reduced the eight offices to two: morning and evening prayer. For thirty years, Quinones’ Breviary was very popular, then, in 1568, the Council of Trent published the Breviary Romanum and made the Office much more complicated again.

Johan Bugenhagen wrote the Order for Denmark in 1537, combining Compline, the night office, with Vespers, to make Evening Prayer. In 1538, King Henry VIII and Cranmer were negotiating with the Lutherans. In the end it came to nothing, but Cranmer in 1538 was also writing his first Daily Office scheme and was influenced by both Quinones and Bugenhagen.

In that scheme Cranmer reduces the Office to Morning Prayer and Vespers. Morning Prayer only used parts of Matins and Lauds, and he combined Vespers and Compline. Radically, he dropped all the lesser offices.

In the preface, he was heavily indebted to Quinones. He mentioned, ‘the thread and order of Holy Scripture should be read entire and unbroken’. He cleared everything else out of the way, having a chapter of the Old Testament and of the New Testament at each of the two services, and not much else.

Cranmer dedicated himself (cp Ezra 7:10) to working out a new lectionary. Detaching it from the Church’s year, he arranged it to begin on 1 January. In his 1538 scheme, he included the laity in the Office, stressing that the reading of Scripture should be from the pulpit and not from the chancel. In one year the whole of the Old Testament and Revelation were read once, the whole of the rest of the New Testament three times and the whole Psalter every month.

In 1549, Cranmer’s first Prayer Book was published, with Matins and Evensong giving the orderly reading of Scripture. He left out all the lesser offices and the Hail Mary. The central block was of pslams, lesson, canticle, lesson, canticle: all of them from Scripture. So people were formed by God through Scripture in the Daily Office, ‘…letting nothing interfere with the orderly reading of Scripture.’{pagebreak}

Most of the canticles came out of Luke’s Gospel: the Benedictus, the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis. Cranmer’s famous preface adapted the one written by Quinones. Quinones wrote:

There was never anything by man so well devised which could not later be rendered more perfect by the added insight of many.

Cranmer changed that to:

There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which through age and continuance of time hath
not been corrupted.

Instead of ‘later be rendered more perfect’ – a sort of Thomistic idea – Cranmer has the Reformed emphasis, ‘hath not been corrupted.’

In 1552, the his second Prayer Book, the obligation to say the Office was made more explicit:

All priests and deacons shall be bound to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either privately or openly, except they be letted by preaching or studying of divinity or some other urgent cause.

Then Cranmer added ‘to toll the bell thereto, a convenient time before he began that such as be disposed may come and hear God’s word and to pray with him’ – saying, in effect, ‘tolled you so’.

Cranmer also added a penitential section. The 1549 service of Holy Communion was so strong on people examining their own lives that it had an unintended consequence: many stopped going to Holy Communion. So Cranmer needed to update Morning and Evening Prayer as the main service, and added a penitential section at the beginning.

(c) 20th Century Revisions

The 1928 Prayer Book of the Church of England, which failed in its passage through the Houses of Parliament and so was not official, was widely used. The services of Morning and Evening Prayer began with a shorter exhortation, confession and absolution.

After Vatican II, The Divine Office was published in 1971 and translated into vernacular languages. It simplified the services and indicated that Morning and Evening Prayer were the principles services.

In 1979, The Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer included noon day and compline services, and in 1980 The Church of England’s Alternative Service Book, included shorter, as well as longer, forms of Morning and Evening Prayer during the week.

In 1992, the Franciscans in England published a very popular and influential book, Celebrating Common Prayer (CCP), whose initials reminded some of the Russian initials of the USSR. This also had a version of ‘Noon Day’ prayers and Compline.

In 2005, The Church of England published Common Worship: Daily Prayer. It is part of a series of eight books of Common Worship (2000-2007) and one of the most widely sold and used. As well as Morning and Evening Prayer, it has ‘Prayer During the Day’ at the beginning and ‘Night Prayer’ (Compline) at the end.

Finally, we return to Kenya. The Kenyan Liturgical Commission, was chaired by Archbishop David Gitari and produced A Kenyan Service of Holy Communion (1989) – which was used at the opening Eucharist of the 1998 Lambeth Conference - Modern Services (1991), and finally Our Prayer Book: Anglican Church of Kenya (2002).

In the confession for Morning and Evening Prayer, there is the phrase ‘lighten our hearts with the glory of Christ.’ The word ‘glory’, kabod in Hebrew, related originally to the word ‘heavy’ or ‘weight’ or gravitas, and then, through Ezekiel, developed into ‘radiance’.

The Kenyan confession plays and prays on this development: ‘our sins weigh heavily on our hearts’ and then later goes on, ‘lighten our hearts with the glory of Christ’ - in effect, saying ‘make our heart less heavy by something which is heavy’. So ‘lighten’ implies both ‘lift our hearts’ and also ‘make us radiant’ with the glory which comes from Christ.

Modern Services also changes the songs of Paul into vocative addresses to God. In Colossians chapter one, ‘Christ is the image of the invisible God’ becomes ‘You are the image of the invisible God…’ and in Philippians chapter 2 the song becomes ‘You, O Christ, were in the form of God…’. These echo the famous vocative shape of the Te Deum - without some of the tedium…

Concluding Scriptural Allegory

In Genesis 2:7 we read, ‘The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into this nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.’ This reminds me of 2 Timothy 3:16, ‘All scripture is inspired by God…’, which means literally ‘God-breathed’. {pagebreak}

Perhaps we may think about this passage at the beginning of our Bible in two allegorical ways, concerning both Scripture and ourselves?

Scripture may be seen, like man, as formed from the dust of the ground. It is something basic: people spoke, wrote, edited, gathered, decided, translated, bound, illuminated and sold Scripture. There is a materiality about it which is striking, but there is much more than that: for God ‘breathed’ Scripture into being and it is lively and active.

Out of the dust of the ground and by his own ‘inbreathing’, God also forms us, who say the Daily Office. When we meet in the evening and the morning of the first day and the second day and the third day etc, that is what is happening. God is actually forming us, through his Holy Scripture – from the dust of the ground and breathing into us.

God reforms us by his Word when he speaks and he renews us by his Spirit when he breathes.

We finish, as we began, with the collect for Bible Sunday, which in Common Worship is the Last Sunday after Trinity:

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and for ever hold fast
the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Canon Dr Graham Kings is the vicar of St Mary Islington, the theological secretary of Fulcrum and on the steering group of Covenant.

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Why Do We Pray for the Departed?

2009-02-27T10:53:09-05:00

Master, I am thankful that you have taught this old Wesleyan about the tradition of praying for the dead. Not sure still about how the rationale I have heard for praying for the departed seems to imply a conditional atonement. Are you implying that Christ’s presence to us in death (grace) is conditioned upon our cooperation in the life after our earthly life? So we can always blow it, so to speak? Is our relation to God dependent on our response? Does our rejection of grace determine God’s relation to us? Or does God in Christ determine to be in relation with us whether or not we cooperate? If Hell is the name we give to the life of one who rejects grace, are we saying that God has no relation (no presence in spite of rejection) to those who choose that life?

Surely, if we pray for the departed, there must be a better reason than a fear that after earthly life God might reject them because they suddenly stopped cooperating with grace. If not, then we are reintroducing the anxieties of medieval times about Granny and ourselves. Does not the Roman/Lutheran agreement on justification speak against such anxiety?

Are there other priest associations besides OGS and SSC?

2009-04-08T10:19:05-05:00

Hi everyone,

As I creep closer and closer to ordination (God willing) I’m starting to feel as though I would benefit from a community. Other than the Oratory of the Good Shepherd and SSC, do you know of any?

-Chris

~~Chris Arnold
~~CDSP/GTU MA student

Celebrating female spirituality

2009-02-24T22:32:55-05:00

Channel: Episcopal Life Online Author: Anne Carson

[Episcopal News Service] On Valentine’s Day weekend, about 1,300 participants gathered at Washington National Cathedral for the Sacred Circles Women’s Spirituality Conference, which explored the theme of love in action as a collective and powerful force that could reshape the world and save the planet.
From February 13 through February 14, the conference included such topics as Rediscovering Ancient Paths of the Divine Feminine, Inspiration from the Soul, and Dancing with Shakti, which is the Sanskrit name for sacred feminine creative power.

Since 1996, Sacred Circles has made a difference in the lives of women. Created by Cathedral senior programmer Grace Ogden to honor the divine feminine spirit, the biennial conference has grown in global dimension and historic outreach, with the presenters this year coming from as far away as Afghanistan.

Designed to celebrate all faiths, the opening plenary began with Jewish Renewal Movement leader Rabbi Phyllis Berman conducting a sacred interfaith Shabbat in tandem with cantor Holly Taya Shere, whose “Holy, Holy, Holy” chant resonated deeply throughout the cavernous Gothic spaces.

Keynote speaker Karen Armstrong, author and religious historian, declared that “unless we learn to practice the Golden Rule globally, we are unlikely to have a viable world to pass on to the next generation. . . . What we need in our world is a change of heart and mind to allow compassion to penetrate our thinking.”

Following her as second keynoter was Afghani activist Sakena Yacoobi, who has helped bring education and health care to more then 350,000 women and young girls in her ravaged country. After receiving an education at a Christian school in the U.S., she returned to Afghanistan and recommitted to Islam, to empower women with the Koran. “Every day there is danger but I know that God is with me,” Ms. Yacoobi said, to thunderous applause.

The acknowledgment of love’s fervor reached a climatic note on Valentine’s Day morning of the conference when the featured speaker, Elizabeth Lesser, co-founder of the Omega Institute, the largest retreat center in America, declared, “It was a sense of calling to come to this city, on this day, at this time. . . . Your tender heart—this is what is going to save our world,” she urged the audience. “No matter what you do in the world, you can make a difference with your heart,” Ms. Lesser concluded.

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Maggi Dawn: Why Say Grace?

2009-05-16T08:30:12-05:00

Channel: Maggi Dawn Author: Maggi Dawn

Newnham College students are all over the news this week for rewriting the grace they say before dinner. Newnham’s traditional Latin grace ends with the words “per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum” (“through Jesus Christ our Lord”). Their new grace, however, leaves out any mention of God: “Pro cibo inter esurientes, pro comitate inter desolatos, pro pace inter bellantes, gratias agimus”. (“For food in a hungry world, for companionship in a world of loneliness, for peace in an age of violence, we give thanks.”) Some have expressed the view that this non-religious form of words is an insult to God, while Newnham’s classics don Mary Beard drily commented that it’s more of an insult to Latin.

This begs the question, though, why say grace at all? If a community is so culturally diverse that to address God becomes unacceptable, why go to all the trouble of writing a new grace – why not simply dispense with it altogether?

In the Christian tradition, grace (which shares a common root with gratis and gratitude) is a thanksgiving for gifts that have been received from God. It implies first that all we have is freely given by God, regardless of whether we’ve earned or deserved what we receive, and giving thanks to God is our response. Saying grace, then, is more than a statement of belief; it’s an expression of two-way relationship. This makes it somewhat problematic to say grace if you do not believe the gifts come from anyone. Who exactly is being thanked in the Newnham grace? If I believe that I have earned my own right to be at the table, and have paid for the food I’m eating, am I somehow thanking myself? – or worse, smugly thanking an impersonal set of lucky circumstances that I’m better off than the next person?

Despite this difficulty, though, I think there are good reasons for attempting to reformulate graces if the opportunity is taken to rediscover something of their meaning and value both for the individual and the community. Colleges, like the monasteries they evolved from, are communities built on the assumption that people cannot flourish as isolated individuals, but only when they live interdependently. Without traditions and rituals to reinforce a shared sense of purpose and identity, a College becomes nothing more than a dormitory building. Eating together, then, is not just a matter of convenience, but a vital component in building the social cohesion of the group. The same is true of families, schools, churches, army units, all kinds of groups that share a common purpose – belonging to the group depends on more than signing up, it depends on what we actually do and say together to act out our common life.

Finding a form of words for shared ritual in a multi-faith community is tricky – you need something that everyone can say in good conscience, but something which isn’t so bland and vague as to be completely meaningless. The best thing about Newnham’s new grace is that without being specific to one faith tradition, it retains a certain “religious” element in the recognition of a common purpose that looks beyond mere self interest. For an academic community, that means that education and research are not undertaken purely for one’s own benefit, and that the community exists for wider reasons than merely producing people with qualifications.

It’s well documented that expressing gratitude is essential to good mental health. People who lack a sense of gratitude are more likely to become depressed – one good reason, perhaps, for continuing to teach children the habit of saying thank you properly. Graces, prayers and ritual words are also healthy for a community: with them we call ourselves to order, recognise our common life, and affirm our reasons for belonging together.

Despite the difficulties of expressing this in a multi-faith setting, then, I do think there is good reason for creating non-religious graces, although they might be better written in the language of their culture and time rather than enshrined anachronistically in an ancient language. If a non-religious grace is nothing more than a politically correct substitute for a kind of starting-pistol for dinner, then using a dead language merely covers over the inherent meaninglessness of directionless words. But a grace of any tradition will hold its value if it’s a way of recognising that good things come to us which we neither earn nor deserve, and that gratitude is the right and healthy response, even if we’re agnostic as to who, exactly, is worthy of the thanks we want to express.

Maggi Dawn is a fellow and chaplain of Robinson College, Cambridge

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