"Being the Church is Difficult"

Looking outside of oneself. Serving someone beyond the self. Putting aside personal comfort and coming often to the cross. This is what being the church means.

It means worshipping all together without segregating by age or interest (e.g. “contemporary” or “traditional”). It means preaching the whole counsel of God, even the unpopular bits. It means fighting against homogeneity and cultivating diversity as much as possible, even if this makes people uncomfortable. It means prioritizing the values of church membership and tithing, even if it turns people off. It means being OK with the music that is played even if it’s not your favorite style. It means sticking around even when the church goes through hard times. It means building a tight-knit community but not an insular one, engaging the community and sending out members when mission calls them away. It means bearing with one another in love on matters of debate and yet not shying away from discipline. It means preaching truth and love in tension, even when the culture calls it bigotry. It means focusing on long-term healing rather than symptom-fixing medication.

None of this is easy, and none of it is comfortable. But by the grace of God and with the Holy Spirit’s help, uncomfortable church can become something we treasure.

Read it all at Brett McCracken's blog.

The Office: The Moral Subtext

The Office ended yesterday and while there were wonderful moments throughout "No Place like the Office," the closing sequence was surprisingly moving, from Andy's lament: I wish there was a way to know you're in the "good old days" before you've actually left them, to Creed's philosophic: No matter how you get there or where you end up, human beings have this miraculous gift to make their place home.

The best, however, was saved for last and (appropriately) for Pam: There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn't that kind of the point? Could this be the reason why The Office struck such a chord in a decade so racked by political polarization and anomie? Far from being larger than life, the characters of The Office were all too human. For all their foibles and flaws, ordinary people living humdrum lives showed a degree of loyalty and commitment to fellow members of their community that compared favorably with the world at large.

The undoubted humor of The Office frequently obscured its moral subtext, yet in "No Place like the Office" the viewer was reminded of its importance.

Well worth watching in its entirety, the final sequence appears below.

NBC no longer provides a link, but there is a Youtube version here.

Public Opinion Nailed Me to the Cross

Don Camillo threw out his arms impatiently."Lord, I'm only telling you what I hear. People . . ." "'People?' What does that mean? 'People' as a whole are never going to get into Heaven. God judges 'people' individually and not in the mass. There are no 'group' sins, but only personal ones, and there is no collective soul. Each man's birth and death is a personal affair, and God gives each one of us separate consideration. It's all wrong for a man to let his personal concience be swallowed up by collective responsibility." Don Camillo lowered his head. "But, Lord, public opinion has some value . . ." "I know that, Don Camillo. Public opinion nailed Me to the Cross."

Giovanni Guareschi, Don Camillo's Dilemma (1954), 156-157

O Christ the Same, Through All Our Story's Pages

Timothy Dudley-Smith is arguably best known for his two volume biography of John Stott, but this hymn - which we sang yesterday at St. Matthew's for Remembrance Sunday - struck a chord.

O Christ the same, through all our story's pages,
our loves and hopes, our failures and our fears;
eternal Lord, the King of all the ages,
unchanging still, amid the passing years:
O living Word, the source of all creation;
who spread the skies, and set the stars ablaze;
O Christ the same, who wrought our whole salvation,
we bring our thanks for all our yesterdays.

O Christ the same, the friend of sinners, sharing
our inmost thoughts, the secrets none can hide,
still as of old upon your body bearing
the marks of love, in triumph glorified:
O Son of Man, who stooped for us from heaven,
O Prince of life, in all your saving power,
O Christ the same, to whom our hearts are given,
we bring our thanks for this the present hour.

O Christ the same, secure within whose keeping
our lives and loves, our days and years remain,
our work and rest, our waking and our sleeping,
our calm and storm, our pleasure and our pain:
O Lord of love, for all our joys and sorrows,
for all our hopes, when earth shall fade and flee,
O Christ the same, beyond our brief tomorrows,
we bring our thanks for all that is to be.

Timothy Dudley-Smith (1926)

Believing in the Face of Doubt

This is a most unlikely sentiment from a Fabian like Edith Nesbit, but it's remarkably apt (and I never noticed it when I first read The Railway Children).

Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing the book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right - in the way that's best for us." "Do you really believe that Mother?" Peter asked quietly. "Yes," she said, "I do believe it - almost always - except when I'm so sad that I can't believe anything. But even when I can't believe it, I know it's true - and I try to believe. You don't know how I try, Peter."

On Perikles

To my mind, Mary Renault remains one of the finest novelists of the classical period of Greek Civilization and The Last of the Wine, set during the dying days of the Peloponnesian War, when the hubris of Athenian expansionism was broken by Sparta and her allies, is perhaps the greatest of her literary endeavors. In this excerpt, Alexias, the narrator, and his comrade and lover Lysis, in service on the island of Samos, ponder the justice of the Athenian cause and Lysis recalls the influence upon him of Perikles' famous Funeral Oration, delivered in 431 BC.

He turned the wine-cup in his hand. The black of his eyes, which had been wide open, grew small from looking at the flame, and the iris pleated, like grey and brown silk catching the light.

"They held an Epitaphion at Athens," he said, "in the first year of the war, in honor of the fallen. The ashes and the offerings were carried in state along the Sacred Way, with an empty bier for the bodies that were lost. It was only a few months before your birth; perhaps your mother carried you in procession. I was seven years old. I stood with my father in the Street of Tombs; it was cold and I wanted to run off and play. I stared at the high wooden rostrum they had built for Perikles, waiting for him to climb it, as children wait for a show. When he appeared, I admired his dignity and his fine helmet; and the first sound of his voice struck a kind of thrill upon my ear. But soon I grew tired of standing with cold hands and feet, and doing nothing; I thought it would never end; the weeping of the women had disturbed me, and now the people listened in so deep a silence that I was oppressed by it. I stood staring at the gravestone of a lad carved with his horse; I can see it to this day. I was glad when it was over, and if you had asked me a year later to quote the speech of Perikles, I doubt if I could have fished you up a dozen words. So before I left, I looked it up in the archives. And there were the thoughts that I had supposed I owed to no one. While I read, I still could not remember hearing Perikles say these things. My soul seemed to remember them, as Sokrates says we remember music and mathematics, from the days when we were unborn and pure."

I told him I had heard of the speech but never read it; and he quoted me as much of it as he could remember. Since then I have read it many times. But since I never knew Perikles, to me it is always Lysis who is speaking; I see not the tomb and the rostrum, but the lamps of Samos through a doorway, his shadow thrown big upon the wall, the piled armour shining beside the pallet, the black glossy wine-cup, and his hand, with an old ring of plaited gold on it, touching the stem.

"Men are not born equal in themselves," he said to me after, "so I think it beneath a man to postulate that they are. If I thought myself as good as Sokrates I should be a fool; and if, not really believing it, I asked you to make me happy by assuring me of it, you would rightly despise me. So why should I insult my fellow-citizens by treating them as fools and cowards? A man who thinks himself as good as everyone else will be at no pains to grow better. On the other hand, I might think myself as good as Sokrates, and even persuade other fools to agree with me; but under a democracy, Sokrates is there in the Agora to prove me wrong. I want a City where I can find my equals and respect my betters, whoever they are; and where no one can tell me to swallow a lie because it is expedient, or some other man's will." (Emphasis added.)

From: Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine (New York: Vintage Books, 1973; orig. pub. 1956), 271-273.

Alas, How Swift the Moments Fly

If you haven't ever visited NetHymnal it's well worth taking the time. It's a wonderful resource for identifying both popular and obscure hymnody, complete with musical accompaniment. This morning, I located a piece which had peculiar resonance for me.

Alas! how swift the moments fly!
How flash the years along!
Scarce here, yet gone already by,
The burden of a song.
See childhood, youth, and manhood pass,
And age, with furrowed brow;
Time was—Time shall be—drain the glass—
But where in Time is now?

Time is the measure but of change;
No present hour is found;
The past, the future, fill the range
Of Time’s unceasing round.
Where, then is now? In realms above,
With God’s atoning Lamb,
In regions of eternal love,
Where sits enthroned I AM.

Then pilgrim, let thy joys and tears
On Time no longer lean;
But henceforth all thy hopes and fears
From earth’s affections wean:
To God let votive accents rise;
With truth, with virtue, live;
So all the bliss that Time denies
Eternity shall give.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)

Timely Words from Bishop Mark Lawrence

No matter how pressured we feel by the events around us, (and they are there to be sure—as individual priests and deacons, as a Church, as a diocese—within and without—and in each of our parishes); no matter how buffeted we have been by our calling—the weariness of our ministry; the hours of silent toil; those weeks when the Word seems silent; those Saturday nights when sermon work and study have yielded what seems like only a thin broth (we’ve all been there), and you plead with a seemingly cold heaven for a word to give to your people; when the faithful in your flock seem to have no patience with solid food and itchy ears for whatever is new; when you are heartsick from your own sin; parched and dry throated in your own personal spiritual desert—it is then you dare not forget that this ministry is given to you by the mercy of God. That is, your calling is not only rooted in the mercy of God, it has been given to you as God’s mercy—to you. And remember this: it is not only given to us who are ordained; it is the case for all who have been called into relationship with Jesus Christ—who have come to know his saving grace—the forgiveness of sins. We all have this ministry by the mercy of God. It is only the wonder of this mercy that can sustain us when we are tempted to neglect our duty, or grow weary in our work.

Certainly if you are an academic you can preach powerfully with an academic bent. If you are a poet you can preach with a poetic grace. God will honor what he has made. But you cannot seek to create a favorable opinion of yourself and at the same time preach the gospel. To be truthful with God’s word is to let the truth of Jesus Christ—his cross, his resurrection, his Lordship—take center stage. You see, we each face a decision. We can put ourselves on the center stage of our ministry and we will bring people to ourselves, perhaps for a season; or we can put Jesus Christ on the center stage of ministry and bring people to him for all eternity. But we cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive. We know well enough self will feed neither ourselves nor those we are called to serve.

Read it all at http://www.dioceseofsc.org/mt/archives/000402.html

Notable and Quotable

There will come a time, God willing, when we can look back on these years with some measure of detachment and perspective, and consider ourselves wiser and maybe even holier for having lived through them. May that day be hastened.

Fr. Dan Martins

http://cariocaconfessions.blogspot.com/2008/10/naming-names-as-sadness-continues.html

The Gathering Shades

I came across this only recently but it seems so pertinent to the season that I place an extract here. I suspect that others are experiencing the same emotions.

Comfort, content, delight

The ages' slow-bought gain

They shrivelled in a night,

Only ourselves remain

To face the naked days

In silent fortitude,

Through perils and dismays

Renewed and re-renewed.

Though all we made depart,

The old commandments stand:

"In patience keep your heart,

In strength lift up your hand."

Rudyard Kipling, "For All We Have and Are" (1917)

Of Heaven and Hell

"The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven; the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, 'We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,' and the Lost, ' We were always in Hell.' And both will speak truly. "

Extract from C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce. (New York: Macxmillan, 1946), 68.

Depth Perception

"He who has seen one cathedral ten times has seen something; he who has seen ten cathedrals once has seen but little; and he who has spent half an hour in each of a hundred cathedrals has seen nothing at all. Four hundred pictures all on a wall are four hundred times less interesting than one picture; and no one knows a café till he has gone there often enough to know the names of the waiters."

Sinclair Lewis, Dodsworth (New York: Signet Classics, 1967; orig, 1929), 201.

The Church and the Perils of Party Strife: A Cautionary Note

"In the first place the parochial organisation should always be attacked, because, being a unity of place and not of liking, it brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity the Enemy desires. The congregational principle, on the other hand, makes each church into a kind of club, and finally, if all goes well, into a coterie or faction. In the second place, the search for a 'suitable' church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil. What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false and unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise - does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going. (You see how grovelling, how unspiritual, how irredeemably vulgar He is!) This attitude, especially during sermons, creates the condition (most hostile to our whole policy) in which platitudes can become really audible to a human soul. There is hardly any sermon, or any book, which may not be dangerous to us if it is received in this temper.

I think I warned you before that if your patient can't be kept out of the Church, he ought at least to be violently attached to some party within it. I don't mean on really doctrinal issues; about those, the more lukewarm he is, the better. And it isn't the doctrines on which we chiefly depend for producing malice. The real fun is working up hatred between those who say 'mass' and those who say 'holy communion' when neither party could possibly state the difference between, say, Hooker's doctrine and Thomas Aquinas', in any form which would hold water for five minutes. And all the purely indifferent things - candles and clothes and what not - are an admirable ground for our activities. We have quite removed from men's minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials - namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples. You would think that they could not fail to see the application. You would expect to find the 'low' churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his 'high' brother should be moved to irreverence, and the 'high' one refraining from these exercises lest he should betray his 'low' brother into idolatry. And so it would have been but for our ceaseless labour. Without that, the variety of usage within the Church of England might have become a positive hotbed of charity and humility."

Extracts from C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters. (New York: Macmillan, rev. ed. 1982), 72-75.