The Living Church

8/16 Readings: Unity and Dividing Walls

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 14:36:01 GMT

I11 Pentecost

Gen. 45:1-15 [Is. 56:1, 6-8]
Ps. 133 [Ps. 67]
Rm. 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matt. 15 (10-20), 21-2

We may tell the story of Jesus using the story of Joseph and his brothers.

The brothers plotted to kill Joseph, but instead, threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery. At one point, Joseph was imprisoned, another image of death. Delivered because of his dream-interpreting skills regarding an impending famine, Joseph rose to power in the household of Pharaoh and presided over a massive project to store up food during seven years of plenty. The famine arrived, and the brothers of Joseph, desperate for food, came to Egypt. Joseph, as if risen from the dead, met his betrayers, and forgave them from the heart. Is this not what Jesus did and does even now?

Seeing that we are all “disobedient,” Jesus Christ came “so that he may be merciful to all” (Rom. 11:31). “Joseph made himself known to his brothers” (Gen. 45:1). Jesus Christ makes himself known to us as a font of mercy. “[Joseph] fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him” (Gen. 45:14). Jesus is doing this for us also, coming to us, embracing us, baptizing us in the tears of his loving-kindness, and talking to us as his friends. Reaching all and loving all, Jesus creates catholic unity. In the words of the Psalmist, “Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity! It is like fine oil upon the head that runs down upon the beard of Aaron and runs down the collar of his robe” (Ps. 133:1-3f).

In Christ, the dividing walls of hostility are falling, and a new humanity is coming into being. We may not, however, sufficiently appreciate what this means until we see the thick and high walls that separate people from each other, in the time of Jesus and in our time. In a sense, we must see division before we can understand unity. A troubling work begins at this point, and a more distressing image of Jesus emerges, though it undermines nothing of his universal love.

When Jesus met a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and asked for a drink of water, she asked, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (John 4:9). An explanatory note follows, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.” A dividing wall of religion and politics separated these two peoples. In the end, Jesus revealed himself as the “I am” of both Jews and Samaritans.

In a near reversal of the above story, Jesus meets a Canaanite woman who cries out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon” (Matt. 15:22). In this case, Jesus is the one to draw back, not answering the woman at first, and then finally saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). The woman kneels and says, “Lord, help me,” to which Jesus says, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Matt. 15:26). The Canaanite woman asks for the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. Her importunity Jesus calls “great faith.” John Chrysostom says the woman exhibits great “earnestness,” “a goodly shamelessness,” “high self-command.” By resisting her, Jesus intensifies and exposes her “great faith,” a faith that will break down an opposing barrier. Strangely, this woman stands in Christ as she crosses a religious and political barrier on behalf of her sick daughter.

Look It Up: The Collect

Think About It: A godly and catholic life cannot always be meek and mild. Implore on behalf of others.

Oikos: Toward a Theology of Work

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 14:12:08 GMT

A TLC interview with Charlton T. Quaile, founder and owner of Chimneys Plus

By Michael Cover.

This interview is part of a series exploring a theology of work rooted in the home. Its title is inspired by the Greek word “oikos,” the roots of the English words “home” and “economy.”

TLC: Charlie, let’s start off with a brief introduction to your career.

Quaile: Well, it’s pretty simple. For the past 32 years my wife and I have owned and operated a niche home improvement company. We currently employ about 20 people.

TLC: The context of this series focuses on the intersection of work, faith, and home. The topic of faith and work has been growing amongst Christians in the last few years. Can you get us started with some of your journey.

Quaile: Well, my understanding of what it means to be a Christian and running a business has certainly evolved over the years. The first struggles with what it means to be Christian and have employees surfaced early on when I had an employee that held me hostage with his belligerent behavior. I was totally ill-prepared to give healthy direction. I thought everyone, if given patience and kindness, would respond with respect and goodwill. Not true. I felt like a failure not being able to reach him. I took way too long to fire him but I learned some important lessons. The biggest lesson may be that I am responsible for the culture.

TLC: Could you elaborate on what it means to build a work culture?

Quaile: One of the exercises that is helpful in establishing faith at work is identifying core values, identifying what is real in our heart as believers and then making it known to all the stakeholders. I began identifying employee behaviors that drew warning flags and then the core value that was being offended. I did some reverse engineering. My faith, my experiences, my personality all informed my core values. As a business we use these values during the hiring process, for employee coaching, and if necessary, during the firing process.

TLC: I’m curious, what are your company’s core values?

Quaile: Well, I’ve been told that we should not have too many. We have four, which are honesty, excellence, teamwork, and a servant heart.

TLC: I can definitely see how identifying those values and applying them to real life can really be instructive. Let’s shift the discussion to the tension between making money and demonstrating the love of Christ to you employees and customers.

Quaile: Personally, I have failed many times at this balance. The good news is that vulnerability, as a leader, is critical to a Christ-honoring culture and therefore repentance and forgiveness get deeply woven into the fabric of the workplace.

On the subject of money and profit — you don’t have a business without both, you just have a hobby. I have wrestled over the years with deep fears connected to business survival and the lack of money. I don’t think of myself as being motivated by money as much as I am motivated by not dying.

Years ago I remember reading an article about North Carolina’s Historic Biltmore House. The CEO of this family business said, “We don’t do historical restoration to make money, we make money so that we can do historical restoration.” That was an “aha,” hearing the clarity of purpose both about money and the vision behind the business. I remember asking myself “how does this thinking apply to being a Christian business owner?” I figured it sounds something like this: “I don’t demonstrate care in order to make money, I make money so that I can demonstrate care.”

I don’t demonstrate care in order to make money, I make money so that I can demonstrate care.”

TLC: Charlie, tell us what else you think of as part of being a Christian in the workplace.

Quaile: Much more recently I have reflected on the awesome responsibility it is to have hard-working people who choose to work at this business 40 to 50 hours every week, week after week. That’s a lot of blood, sweat, and tears working at this business. That’s more waking time that my team members have in my care than really any other activity.

I have been reflecting a lot on Psalm 127:1 which says, “Unless the Lord builds the house those that build labor in vain.” I often work way too hard only to find out that my labor is in vain. So I am super motivated to understand what it means to let the Lord build the house. I figure if he’s building the house and we are on the job site with him building, then we ought to get glimpses of God at work in our midst. So a big part of my job as a Christian leader is to call attention to those moments when I see God caring, God being excellent, God not being in a hurry yet being very efficient.

I call this type of observation “windows in the workplace.” I am anticipating God’s presence and then pause to direct attention to that window of opportunity where God is visible to us. It’s hard to put my finger on it but when he shows up, I know it.

It often means that we have to know what these people are facing when they go home at night, like sick family members, car accidents, graduations, funerals, fears and uncertainty about COVID-19. I also know that when we have our daily 7 a.m. meeting they bring much of their personal lives to work also.

TLC: Wow, there’s a lot there. With that talk about windows, you’ve got me thinking about icons. As we wrap this conversation up I have been reflecting on the word oikos which is the Greek word for “household/home” from which we get the English “economy”. What ideas do you have regarding this angle as we ponder work and faith?

Quaile: I do appreciate you giving me an oikos heads up in a previous conversation because it has given me a chance to explore the idea. I am reminded of a meeting of my company’s board of advisors several years ago. These are Christian men and women who help hold me accountable to living out my faith in our business. One gentleman made a huge impact on my thinking when he suggested that our most important KPI (“key performance indicator”) should be “how does working here impact my team member’s family?” In other words, How does life in their home improve because they work here where God is on the job?

So perhaps oikos, the true measure of a company’s strength is not business profits but impact on families and communities — i.e. the home, marriages, children, education and opportunity, financial stability, etc. Now, that is exciting. All too often we are inclined to look at employees as a means to achieve a profitable business. More than ever I see this business as a stewardship impacting the home.

This reminds me of how I am to be held accountable to my family for the impact that my commitment to work has in my home. As business owners we can sometimes spend way too much time for way too little return. I think I would have made different decisions if I had not been so infatuated by business activity rather than real positive impact on the home.

For more about Charlie’s business Chimneys Plus, and the way his values translate in practical terms, see chimneysplusgutters.com.

The Rev. Dr. Michael Cover is associate professor of theology at Marquette University. Charlie Quaile is his father-in-law.

8/10 Daily Devotional: Warring Tribes

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 07:00:36 GMT

By Chuck Alley

Reading from Judges, 12:1-7

1 The men of Ephraim were called to arms, and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites, and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house down over you!” 2Jephthah said to them, “My people and I were engaged in conflict with the Ammonites who oppressed us severely. But when I called you, you did not deliver me from their hand. 3When I saw that you would not deliver me, I took my life in my hand, and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day, to fight against me?” 4Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim; and the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because they said, “You are fugitives from Ephraim, you Gileadites — in the heart of Ephraim and Manasseh.”

5 Then the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. Whenever one of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” When he said, “No,” 6they said to him, “Then say Shibboleth,” and he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand of the Ephraimites fell at that time.

7 Jephthah judged Israel for six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died, and was buried in his town in Gilead.

Meditation

Tribalism plagued Israel. From the time of Gideon and Jephthah in Judges, to the divided kingdom after Solomon, disunity could be triggered from any direction. When not threatened by an outside force, God’s people were good at making their own trouble.

Today, we in the Church seldom shed blood in our wars of separation. We use words rather than swords. Our warring “tribes” tend to be doctrinal, liturgical, or structural rather than genealogical. The spirit of hostility, however, can be much the same. We become jealous and fearful of the power, authority, or territory of others and lash out. And think of the “Shibboleths” we use, code words, to separate out the “real” Christians from the imposters, from those not on “my” side.

It’s not that there are no false Christians, or that there is never anything to disagree about. We certainly must use discernment. The problem is the issue of addiction to discord, and whether we secretly prefer jealousy and war to the harder task of being instruments of peace. Too often we claim that our internecine wars are “holy” wars. Yet God is one and the source of unity and not disunity.

In this age, the Church will always be beset by enemies from within and without. God’s holy will for his people is to present a unified witness of his nature to the world, and we are given a way of victory by Jesus Christ. Our call to unity does not wait for the perfect Church or Church leaders to enact it. We fight one battle, under one leader, with one enemy. That enemy would like to distract us in skirmishes against one another. That is familiar territory. Let’s take the unfamiliar field in the name of the Lord.

♱

Chuck Alley is a retired Episcopal priest and an adjunct associate professor of anatomy on the medical faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University. He and his wife, Scottie, have three children and nine grandchildren.

To receive a Daily Devotional in your inbox each morning, click here.

8/9 Daily Devotional: How God Sees Us

Sun, 09 Aug 2020 07:00:31 GMT

Reading from Judges, 11:1-11, 29-40

1 Now Jephthah the Gileadite, the son of a prostitute, was a mighty warrior. Gilead was the father of Jephthah. 2Gilead’s wife also bore him sons; and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah away, saying to him, “You shall not inherit anything in our father’s house; for you are the son of another woman.” 3Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws collected around Jephthah and went raiding with him.

4 After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel. 5And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob. 6They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, so that we may fight with the Ammonites.” 7But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Are you not the very ones who rejected me and drove me out of my father’s house? So why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?” 8The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Nevertheless, we have now turned back to you, so that you may go with us and fight with the Ammonites, and become head over us, over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” 9Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the Ammonites, and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head.” 10And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will be witness between us; we will surely do as you say.” 11So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.

29 Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. 30And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, 31then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt-offering.” 32So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. 33He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighbourhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.

34 Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. 35When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” 36She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.” 37And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.” 38”Go,” he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. 39At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that 40for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

Meditation

The book of Hebrews appears to commend Jephthah as a man of great faith (11:32). How can this be?

Although we see here possible parallels to the story of Abraham and Isaac, there are three important differences. First, God did not direct Jephthah to sacrifice his only child — it was due to a vow, to Jephthah’s idea. Second, God had since made it clear that human sacrifice was unacceptable (Lev. 18:21, 20:2-5; Deut. 12:31). Third, God did not provide a substitute for Jephthah’s daughter. So can a man be commended for his faith in God even when he does something so abominable?

The answer is apparently “yes.” Yet how can we accept it? Jephthah was a “mighty warrior” who delivered God’s people from an oppressor. We must also remember that the other judges were far from perfect — and that is an understatement. This judge has also been cognizant of the Lord’s presence throughout the narrative. He knows who God is. Indeed, his great dilemma comes because he makes a promise to God. Although the vow is cruel, hasty, and ill-conceived, his respect for God is such that he views it as binding unto death. How many of us take our words as seriously?

Jephthah’s vow is bad, his motives dark, his image of God murky (Was he hoping to bribe God as the pagans did with their Baals? Who was he hoping to sacrifice instead of his daughter?), and yet he is remembered for believing in God’s authority. Along with his violence, his disturbing logic, and his terrible mistakes, God also sees Jephthah’s integrity. And the early Church remembers it, too, among other mighty works of faith.

We might ask whether we are able to see paradoxical people like Jephthah — violent and loving; cruel and faithful — as fully human, as God sees them. We might also ask, Where else does redemption happen, if not in the midst of our complexity and darkness? Does God come to save only when our stories are simple?

♱

To receive a Daily Devotional in your inbox each morning, click here.

8/8 Daily Devotional: Eaten Up

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 07:00:22 GMT

By Pamela A. Lewis

Reading from the Gospel of John, 2:13-25

13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

23When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.

Meditation

The inward and mysterious atmosphere that surrounded Jesus’ first miracle of changing water into wine at the Cana wedding feast has changed. The volume has been turned up. We are in the temple of Jerusalem amongst the animal merchants and moneychangers. We can almost smell the odors of the oxen and sheep, as well as hear the raised voices of the changers and the sound of coins hitting the tables. There is nothing unusual about this scene; it is an unchanging custom that has never been questioned or challenged. As the refrain of the opening song in Fiddler On the Roof goes, this is “Tradition.”

The sight of this activity in the temple unleashes Jesus’ devouring zeal and moves him to become a scourge, like the one he fashions from the bits of rope discarded on the temple floor and uses to whip and roust the merchants and money-changers. He is also a scourge to the Jews who question his claim that he will raise the temple (his body) in three days after its destruction. For “blasphemy” such as this, Jesus will himself be scourged before his crucifixion.

Certain of his identity, Jesus now publicly and dramatically declares that he is God’s Son, and rails against the desecration of his Father’s house. As the Son, Jesus has every right to disrupt this activity and to bring the curtain down on this “tradition.” His rebuke and denunciation of the corruption of the temple is God’s disruptive in-breaking of his presence, overturning what is false religion, unholy, and unjust.

We are now in a time of overturned tables, which is forcing us to confront what has corrupted our Father’s house. Like Jesus, will we be eaten up by zeal for this house, or will we turn those tables right side up?

♱

Pamela A. Lewis taught French for thirty years before retirement. A lifelong resident of Queens, N.Y., she attends Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, and serves on various lay ministries. She writes for The Episcopal New Yorker, Episcopal Journal, and The Living Church.

To receive a Daily Devotional in your inbox each morning, click here.

Sam B. Hulsey, III Bishop of NW Texas, 1932-2020

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 16:36:06 GMT

By Kirk Petersen

The Rt. Rev. Sam B. Hulsey, the former long-time Bishop of Northwest Texas, succumbed to cancer August 6, according to the diocese. He was 88.

After leading the Lubbock-based diocese as its III bishop from 1980 to 1997, Bishop Hulsey moved back in retirement to Fort Worth, the city of his birth, and since 2016 served there as assisting bishop.

In the Diocese of Fort Worth, he is remembered as a steadying force in a turbulent time:

In the early 2000s he was a true pastor to those Fort Worth Episcopalians seeking to remain in The Episcopal Church when the diocesan leadership was threatening to leave. After the bishop and other diocesan leaders left the Episcopal Church in late 2008, Hulsey continued his spiritual guidance of those who were rebuilding the diocese.

“His ability to remember names, his personal handwritten notes, and his sincere interest in people’s lives are nothing less than legendary,” said the Rt. Rev. Scott Mayer, who serves as both Bishop of Northwest Texas and Provisional Bishop of Fort Worth. “He was one of those rare people whose guidance and decisions changed the course of people’s lives — certainly mine included. And that puts me in a very large club.”

Before his election as bishop, he received his master’s in divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1958, and served parishes in three Texas towns and in Nashville, Tennessee.

Bishop Hulsey’s long leadership in the Church was honored in 2015 with an endowed chair in the divinity school at Texas Christian University, the Right Reverend Sam B. Hulsey Chair in Episcopal Studies. The Diocese of Northwest Texas is headquartered in the Sam Byron Hulsey Episcopal Center.

His name was Sam, not Samuel, as his longtime secretary Carolyn Hearn spent many years explaining.

Bishop Hulsey’s first wife, Linda, died in 2001 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He is survived by his second wife, Isabelle; by two children from his first marriage, Ashley and Byron; and by numerous stepchildren, grandchildren and step-grandchildren. “A memorial service will be held when it is safer to gather,” the diocesan announcement said.

8/7 Daily Devotional: Filled to the Brim

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 07:00:03 GMT

By Pamela A. Lewis

Reading from the Gospel of John, 2:1-12

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days.

Meditation

The 1987 film, Babette’s Feast, based on a short story by Danish writer Isak Dinesen, tells of a French servant to two elderly sisters who prepares a grand dinner for the small, ascetic Lutheran community in Denmark among whom she lives. At the start of the banquet, an Amontillado, a fine and costly wine, is served. When a general, an honored guest at the dinner, tastes the wine, he recognizes it immediately and is amazed, both at its quality and at the fact that it is being served in such humble surroundings. As the diners drink the wine throughout the meal, they become not so much inebriated as transformed: they forgive old trespasses, express gratitude for life’s blessings, and sense a spring of life welling up over their spiritual dryness.

Rather than some clever parlor trick to astound the wedding guests, Jesus’ first miracle of changing the water into wine (considered to be the first “sign” of his glory) is an act of transformation. Empty pots are filled to the brim with ordinary water which is elevated to the extraordinary, becoming a wine so superior in quality that the host is stunned.

However, this miracle is about more than excellent wine. It points beyond itself to Jesus, the one who transforms, restores, and renews. This miracle sets us on the road of witness to all of the miracles that will follow, through which Jesus’ full identity will be revealed and manifested.

When we reflect deeply on this story, we will see ourselves as both the guests and the ones needing transformation, as did the guests at Babette’s feast. We will all have “empty jar” moments in our lives, which will need to be refilled to the brim and then changed — by God’s grace — into something of superior quality.

♱

To receive a Daily Devotional in your inbox each morning, click here.

Archives: Atom Bomb &‘Monstrous Capacity for Evil’

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 16:57:29 GMT

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the crew of the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber dropped the first wartime atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, killing between 90,000 and 146,000 people. Twelve days later, following the dropping of a second bomb on Nagasaki, the Japanese imperial government surrendered, bringing an end to World War II. The August 19, 1945 issue of The Living Church, the first to be published after news of the bomb reached the United States, included reports of severe public criticism by church leaders about the decision to drop the bomb. The issue’s editorial, after first giving thanks for the victory soon expected, included a bracing call to moral reckoning and a bracing call to international cooperation.

“Cosmically Barbarous”

The following is from an address delivered in Trinity Church, New York, on August 9th by the Rev. Dr. Bernard Iddings Bell, of Providence, R . I.

“It is doubtful if Christian missions in the Orient, at least under American auspices, can matter ever again. The Orient has long perceived that Anglo-Saxon diplomacy is based not on Christian principles but on a canny imperialistic expediency; now it has been shown that American methods of war are cosmically and cold-bloodedly barbarous beyond previous experience or possibility.”

Development of the atomic bomb “makes absolutely imperative the ending of war,” according to a statement by Bishop Manning of New York. The statement said: “The development of the atomic bomb is one of the greatest events in all time in the world of science and in human life. It makes absolutely imperative the ending of war.

“This discovery gives man a frightful power for evil, but also an unprecedented power for good. If the faith and conscience of mankind are correspondingly awakened by this mighty event, a new day of hope will open for the world.”

Editorial: The War

The atomic bomb, horrifying in its first appearance seems to have unlimited possibilities for future destructiveness. The pride with which Americans have greeted most other developments in military science was overwhelmed in the public comment and private by the realization that the atomic future is indeed a Frankenstein monster which can destroy the United States as readily as any other nation.

The “superfluous injury” of the atomic bomb has blasted the Hague Convention into nothingness.

The bomb has to be made by men and directed by men to its goal. The monster is not the tool that man has created, but the monstrous capacity for evil of the human heart. In distant times, sword and spear and fire were capable of unlimited slaughter, and it was the custom of conquering tribes to wipe out their defeated enemies. Non-total war was a comparatively modern development; it was possible only in a society in which the warmaking will was centered in a comparatively small group of military men. Nowadays, the will to make war — offensively or defensively — is the will of the whole people. The means of warfare are directed against the will of the whole people.

The atomic bomb has blasted the Hague Convention into nothingness. There can be no doubt that the bomb belongs to the class of “arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury,” as area bombing also does, if injury to the civilian population be defined as superfluous.

But the whole moral atmosphere of the old laws of war has disappeared. One of the first and most pressing functions of the United Nations organization is to replace the concept of a nation’s sovereign right to make war with the concept of a nation’s duty not to make war for any cause except to carry out the will of the community of nations. With the advent of the atomic bomb, isolationism is no longer even respectable. It is wild and woolly international anarchism.

For let no one think that the secret of the atomic bomb can be kept. There has hardly been a discovery in physics or chemistry for years which was not made by half a dozen men working independently in different lands. The great powers have become almost as vulnerable as the little ones, in view of the destructive power which human inventiveness has found. At present the atomic bomb is reported to be made of rare materials by costly processes; but it is still in the first stages of development. Like the robot bomb, the supersonic aircraft, and other developments now in their experimental stage, it may very well be one of the standard weapons of the next war

The next war — yes, it is as likely as that, unless the great powers and the small ones can agree that no sacrifice of sovereignty is too great for the maintenance of world peace. The United Nations Council is almost outmoded before it is formally organized. For, in essence, it is a concert of the great powers rather than a representative body to which all the peoples of the world owe allegiance. The task of turning it into such a body is the most pressing one that faces the nations today; for a world community under law is humanity’s only shield of defense against the horrors of scientific war.

Podcast: Healing, Miracles, and Pandemic

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 14:07:10 GMT

Charles Martin

Healing can be a tricky topic to navigate— especially in times of great suffering. Fr. Sean Charles Martin of the Aquinas Institute joins us to talk about research around healing in the Old and New Testaments and how it relates to our current situation.

Listen here.

Say His Name

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 07:00:51 GMT

By Pamela A. Lewis

Reading from Acts, 4:1-12

4 While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, 2much annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead. 3So they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4But many of those who heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand.

5 The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, 6with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. 7When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” 8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, 10let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. 11This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’ 12There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”

Meditation

In watching over the last several weeks the many protest demonstrations in response to the recent killings of Black men and women by police, I was particularly struck by the protestors’ occasional but powerful exhortation: “Say his name! Say her name!” At that command, the crowds shouted with one voice the name of a man or woman who had been killed in an encounter with police. Their shouts could not restore to life those who had died, but they loudly insisted that the ones whose names they shouted had worth.

When Peter and John are brought before the Sanhedrin, the same group who had condemned Jesus to death, it is a near re-enactment of Jesus’ trial. This is again a scene of intimidation, at the center of which is the question about in whose name and power Peter and John heal and preach.

As guardians of the Jewish faith, the Sanhedrin, are not asking an unreasonable question; for them, names hold power and are markers of character. But they seem not to have changed since their encounter with Jesus, who has already told them in whose name and power he did his works. Thus it rests with Peter, whose own name means “stone,” to preach boldly and to teach the Sanhedrin that Jesus, the stone they had rejected, is now the cornerstone and the only way of salvation.

When making a mental list of powerful names, put Jesus at the top. Then say his name aloud.

♱

To receive a Daily Devotional in your inbox each morning, click here.

Can a Parish Thrive With a Virtual Rector?

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 19:22:08 GMT

By Mike Patterson

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Madisonville, Kentucky, population 19,591, has been without a rector for four years. Not that it hasn’t tried to find one, but after advertising, web postings and word of mouth, it’s had only one application before the search committee. That applicant withdrew from consideration.

The bright red double doors, pitched roof and dark brown cedar shake siding are as inviting as a welcome mat to the parish in western Kentucky. A video on its website features parishioners sharing how much they love St. Mary’s.

What gives?

Senior Warden Jim Love, whose family has attended the church since his father moved to the community in 1962, thinks he knows the problem.

“It’s the location,” he said. Madisonville is a manufacturing hub along Interstate 69 in Kentucky’s Western Coal Fields, 155 miles southwest of Louisville and 150 miles northwest of Nashville, Tennessee.

“They’d rather be in Louisville or a bigger city, thinking that they have more things to do,” he said in an interview with TLC. “Madisonville seems to be a place to get your feet wet and then move on to the big city.”

Church members aren’t novices at rector searches. They’ve gone through this process three or four times over 15 years. They’ve even talked to neighboring congregations about sharing a priest. No interest. “Here’s the reality kick,” Love said. “We may not find someone.”

Averaging a Sunday attendance of 40, St. Mary’s functions without its own rector through the work of a recently retired deacon, the vestry, church members and transitional and supply priests. Lately, COVID-19 has forced St. Mary’s and other churches to go virtual to protect the health and safety of congregations.

So, St. Mary’s thought, if we can run a remote service, why can’t we have a remote priest? In other words, “Is it reasonable to come up with a virtualized rector?” Love wondered.

Love is in the software business and believes that with modern technology such as Zoom, FaceTime, and cell phones “we can put a person in contact with the rector, with the community on Sunday or a prayer group.”

“I think it’s way outside the thought pattern of what churches have been,” he acknowledged. “But from my technical world, yes, relationships can be built if the parties are available and willing to learn the technology which is available to us all.”

Forced to forsake face-to-face contact during the coronavirus pandemic, St. Mary’s has adapted to the new virtual world by assigning vestry members to connect with parishioners “on a periodic basis to maintain health checks, friendships, and other needs,” he said. “Could this method of service be extended to the rector’s method of communications during this pandemic? If assets are provided to members who do not have access to a Zoom type of communication, the rector could provide face-to-to face interaction and build a relationship to communicate the message of caring.”

Other challenges facing St. Mary’s are that fewer students are graduating from seminaries and entering the ministry as well as churches in larger cities being able to offer clergy higher salaries than smaller, rural churches. “Here is the crazy idea: Do we as a community of Episcopal churches in western Kentucky need to think outside the box and return to a ‘digital rector on a horse,’ who with technology, visits a group of surrounding parishes to serve the members?” he wondered.

A remote relationship with a rector raises several interesting questions. For example, how would Holy Communion be offered? “Since the Episcopal Church desires to have Communion in person, the closest solution would be a version of an in-person Communion,” Love said. This might be accomplished by utilizing a supply priest, deacon or a layperson authorized to present the reserved sacraments. (See “Western Louisiana Bishop Authorizes, Then Rescinds, Virtual Consecration,” and several Covenant articles on the topic. – Ed.)

Another question is how a “virtual” rector could offer the personal and spiritual support sought by the congregation. How this would play out would be “dependent upon the individual’s willingness to create this type of relationship,” Love explained. “Our option at this point is no spiritual relationship with a rector.”

“But just as we have created long-distance relationships with our family members with FaceTime or Zoom-type video conferencing and calls, we have adapted. Personally, I would rather have a virtual relationship with a family member versus none at all,” he said.

Love also acknowledged that “there are a number of administrative and leadership issues that would be unique to this relationship,” especially to avoid any potential concerns or conflicts between those physically present at the church and a rector who is physically absent. “Fulfilling the role of a ‘virtual rector’ will take a very unique person but we are willing to think outside the box,” he said. “If St. Mary’s is to survive the next years,” he said, “the vestry leadership will be the key to solving this problem.”

The Rt. Rev. Terry Allen White, Bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky, told TLC that St. Mary’s is a “great place to give this a try. I’m really positive about what they want to do. This is a place with strong leadership and is willing to innovate. They are an incredibly loveable congregation for how they care for each other and the Madisonville community.” White said the lessons learned at St. Mary’s have the potential of benefiting the greater Episcopal Church by showing the pluses of a remote relationship with a rector as well as identifying things that can’t be done remotely.

The Rev. Dr. Nathan G. Jennings is an associate professor of liturgics and Anglican studies and director of community worship at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. Commenting on the general concept of a remote rector, Jennings said, “It’s clearly not ideal, but is it better than nothing?” He would “hate to throw out the precedent” of a priest living within the community and being “part of the people you’re living with. The pastor of the church is part of that church and the point person in the life of that church.”

Jennings wondered “if there is a creative way to reason out a way for this parish.” He believes something good could work out for St. Mary’s as long as the rector visits them in-person pastorally, sacramentally and in a leadership capacity at special vestry meetings on some regular basis. He suggested the rector could also visit the church quarterly or at key points in the year, such as at Christmas, Easter and Holy Week.

Jennings agreed that the question over Communion was vexing. “Sacraments have to happen in person,” he said. “That’s part of our commitment to Christ coming to us in the flesh.” In addition, “it is really hard to imagine giving pastoral care through only electronic means,” Jennings said. “A pastoral relationship to a suffering Christian is sacramental in nature.” When a person is suffering a pastoral crisis they encounter Christ through a properly ordained minister which is the means by which Christ makes himself present to those who are suffering, he explained.

Providing leadership to the vestry and congregation could also be affected by a remote relationship. “The rector has a huge role in leading a vestry,” he said. “There is a difference between leading a meeting when you are meeting in person and when you are meeting on Zoom or on the phone. We read each other’s nervous system when we are with each other. Being completely absent from that could be potentially malformative.” A remote relationship also has the potential of putting a damper on the ability of a rector to develop personal relationships with the congregation, which depend on a physical presence to flourish, Jennings said.

Looking ahead, Jennings doesn’t foresee St. Mary’s portending the future for other small churches. “I don’t think this is a trend,” he said. “This constitutes a fairly unique situation.”

“But I’m not so old-school and stodgy that we rule it out of hand,” he said. “A lot of the best moves the church has made have been done because of pastoral accommodations. I think this is a case where we are going to be challenged.”

Mike Patterson is a free-lance writer and photographer based in San Antonio, Texas. He attends St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in the rural community of Blanco, Texas.

ETHICS: Ageism and the Fear of Death

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 14:26:54 GMT

Photo: Glen Hodson, Unsplash

By Rob Merchant

Ageism allows the younger generation to see older people as different from themselves: thus, they suddenly cease to identify with their elders as human beings and thereby reduce their own dread of aging. — Robert N. Butler

Ageism, a term coined by the American psychiatrist Robert Butler in the 1960s, is a pernicious form of discrimination. Two years before his death in 2010, Butler revisited his description of ageism in his 2008 book The Longevity Revolution. He described the underlying basis of ageism as “the dread and fear of growing older, becoming ill and dependent, and approaching death. People are afraid, and that leads to a profound ambivalence. The young dread aging, and the old envy youth. Behind ageism is corrosive narcissism, the inability to accept, for indeed we are all in love with our youthful selves.”

Since Butler’s first use of the term, ageism has come to be understood as a form of discrimination that takes structural and institutional forms, as well as inter- and intra-personal ones. Perhaps the most challenging aspect for the Church is ageism’s potent element of self-hatred, denying to the person, and the community of which they are part, the journey that may be associated with a long life lived in Christ as a bearer of the image of God.

Yet this should come as no surprise to the Church. In Old Age in the Roman World, Tim Parkin quotes the philosopher Seneca the Younger, “I shall not abandon old age, if old age preserves me intact as regards the better part of myself; but if old age begins to shatter my mind, and to pull its various faculties to pieces, if it leaves me, not life, but only the breath of life, I shall leap from a building that is crumbling and tottering.”

Concern about how we age has found more recent expression in the report “Beyond Therapy” (2003) from the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics: “The desire for ageless bodies involves the pursuit not only of longer lives, but also of lives that remain vigorous for longer. It seeks not only to add years to life, but also to add life to years.”

The desire for vigor, for youthful possibility or simply for usefulness, finds expression in Scripture in the encounter of Barzillai and David in 2 Samuel 19.31-40. Here we see Barzillai, described as “a very aged man, eighty years old” who responds to David’s invitation to “come over” with him to Jerusalem by observing the impact of old age upon his senses and enjoyment of life. He asks, “Why then should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king?”

In the lived experience of Barzillai we see old age as burden and loss — an ancient echo of what satirists such as Juvenal in the second century identify with old age, a wrinkled, sagging face, a shaky voice and limbs, a bald head and toothless gums. This view contrasts sharply with Proverbs 16.31, which says, “Grey hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.”

Ageism causes age to be dreaded and resisted. In 2005, the authors of “A Terror Management Perspective on Ageism” in the Journal of Social Issues observed, “ageism exists precisely because elderly people represent our future in which death is certain.” Furthermore, as Jesus observed, ageism provides fertile ground for the structural and intuitional abuse of vulnerable older people. He warned against those who consume the houses of widows (Luke 20:47, Matt. 23:14).

It is, perhaps, the “dread of aging” underpinning ageism, affecting attitudes towards older age and, therefore, towards older people, that best summarizes the lived reality of ageism. Many different types of people, including church leaders, can experience a fear of aging. A ground-breaking report on aging from the Church of England’s Board of Social Responsibility highlighted a need for “leaders who are reconciled to their own aging journey and who understand that ageism starts with our own fear of death and change as we grow older.”

It would appear that the Church’s response to aging is to seek to answer the gerontologist Peter Laslett’s challenge: “Neither philosopher, nor social scientist, nor individual at large has yet begun to recognize the force of the comment which will be insistently repeated: Live continuously in the presence of all your future selves!”

An inability to see the coming glory of the kingdom of God in the body and life of those experiencing age points to a poverty in the Church’s eschatological vision. Ageism not only inhibits and distorts our understanding older people; it also distorts and disrupts our own journey of aging in Christ.

Yet we share a common dignity created in the image of the One who breathed life into humanity. Henri Nouwen and Walter Gaffney, in Aging, wrote, “The care of the old for the young is no different from the care of the young for the old. Real care takes place when we are no longer separated by the walls of fear but have found each other on the common ground of the human condition, which is mortal, but therefore, very, very, precious.” Perhaps when we recover sight of the common ground of our shared humanity, we might all discover a way to live in the presence of our future selves.

The Rev. Rob Merchant is director of St. Mellitus College, Chelmsford, and associate vicar of St. Mary’s, Hornsey Rise, London.

Ecce Agnus

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 07:00:31 GMT

By Pamela A. Lewis

Reading from the Gospel of John, 1:29-42

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” 35The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). 42He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

Meditation

It takes a lot of humility to step aside and let another person receive glory and honor, especially if you’re the older one who must let that spotlight shine on the newbie. John the Baptist is older than Jesus, but he knows that Jesus is the One, the Lamb of God, and is therefore completely deserving of homage. Here, John is not just a baptizer; he is the witness and presenter of Jesus, telling everyone that he has seen the truth about him and that he bears record of it.

In many of the paintings in Western art which depict John and Jesus together, John is often shown pointing to Jesus, his gesture signifying his declaration, “Behold the Lamb of God” (which later will become “Behold the Man,” uttered by Pilate). This is John’s great sentence that summarizes what Jesus’ work will be: to duel with the problem of sin that afflicts the human race. Content to make a way for Jesus, John also points away from himself, as he must decrease so that Jesus may increase, and his words encapsulate his humility in fulfilling his mission. It is likely that John always announced “Behold the Lamb of God” every time he saw Jesus, because this was the most important thing to be said about him.

Jesus is the Lamb, and the Lamb has various forms: the Lamb already sacrificed before the foundation of the world; the Lamb Abraham received as the substitute for Isaac; the Lamb of the Passover; the Lamb at the great banquet envisioned by John the Evangelist at Patmos.

Through the ages, people have come to know Jesus by way of introduction through someone else, who said, like John the Baptist and like Andrew to his brother Simon, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Let us also point others to Jesus.

♱

To receive a Daily Devotional in your inbox each morning, click here.

8/4 Daily Devotional: Not Just Another Handout

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 07:00:27 GMT

By Pamela A. Lewis

Reading from Acts, 3:1-11

1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. 2And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. 3When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. 4Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” 7And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

11 While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished.

Meditation

God wants to give us the best gifts — not the shiny, costly baubles of luxury, but wholeness, peace, and forgiveness. Instead, we spurn those and keep our wishes small and limited, as does the lame man in today’s reading. Day after day, he holds out his hand in hope of receiving a few paltry coins as alms. He expects little, and receives little — if anything at all. He is so accustomed to not having his eyes met by others that John and Peter must tell him to look at them.

Nothing has changed: We also avoid making eye contact with the poor and homeless among us. And from Peter and John the lame man expects nothing greater than he would receive from all the others who indifferently pass by.

Then, on this particular day, he receives what he wanted all along. Yet he is so inured to getting only the bare minimum that he has long since abandoned expecting, much less asking, for more. Being able to rise and walk is wonderful, no question. But we should never underestimate the gift of being acknowledged, being seen. Jesus, in the persons of Peter and John, stops, looks at the man, and puts forth his hands, enabling the man to walk among those who always walked past him.

Many of us have yet to come to the place — the place called “Beautiful” — where we expect something from God. Victims of our own low expectations, we don’t ask God for our heart’s true desires: wholeness, and being seen and known. Anything else is just another handout.

♱

To receive a Daily Devotional in your inbox each morning, click here.

8/9 Readings: Love and a Firm Grasp

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 15:36:23 GMT

10 Pentecost

Gen. 37:1-4, 12-28 [I Kgs. 19:9-18]
Ps. 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b [Ps. 85:8-13]
Rom. 10:5-15
Matt. 14:22-33

“Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age” (Gen. 37:3). Fratricide was love’s outcome, or nearly so. “When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him” (Gen. 37:11). The favored child, Joseph, did little to blunt his brothers’ hatred, giving “a bad report of them to their father” (Gen. 37:2). So, the brothers conspired to kill him, but after Reuben intervened to spare his life, they instead sold Joseph into slavery.

Family values, then as now, are complicated; love and hate have often kissed each other. From the mess of human lives and the dysfunction of human families, however, some good may come. God will do what God will do.

Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites, or, according to another tradition, kidnapped by Midianite traders. Eventually, he was sold again in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh. In Egypt, he rose to prominence in his master’s house, but then, refusing the advances of his master’s wife and accused by her of rape, he was handed over and shackled in prison. In time, however, he was set free because of his power to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. He thus was given renewed power and prestige, being second only to Pharaoh throughout Egypt. The culmination of the story was Joseph’s reunion with his father and brothers, whom he saved from starvation and forgave from the heart. “He kissed his brothers and wept upon them” (Gen. 45:15). His brothers did evil, but God brought forth good.

How do we human beings stay together? What binds us despite our pettiness, envy, malice, and hatred? What brings Joseph to his father and brothers again, and what holds them together? St. Augustine, addressing the question of how the Catholic Church of his day ought to behave toward another Christian denomination, a group church historians call “Donatist,” insisted that this “family dispute” could not break a deeper bond in Christ. “They will not cease to be our brothers and sisters until they cease saying Pater Noster.” Then he said: “Pour out the marrow of your love (medulas caritatis vestrae) to God for them” (Exposition of Psalm 32:29). This love is the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Only in the movement and flow of this love do we find each other most deeply as members of the same family. We are held together by a chain of love.

Although human families and communities are frail, they have, we dare to believe, the capacity for unity in the love which God is. This union in love is, of course, something more than goodwill and shared values and common interest. God reaches the whole human family, creating, recreating, sanctifying, and leading all to a renewed temporal good and eternal glory.

God’s saving power, however, extends not only to persons but also to all created beings, visible and invisible. The creation itself groans with eager longing for redemption because nature itself, in some sense, is disordered. The disciples out in a boat “battered by the waves” experience both nature’s fury and a metaphor for human life amid trial and tribulation. Jesus comes out to them, walking on the water. Peter joins him. Seeing the strong wind and becoming afraid, Peter sinks. Jesus extends his hand. “He reached down from on high, he took me; he drew me out of the mighty waters” (Ps. 18:16). Jesus is the mighty hand that rescues not from the storm, but in the midst of it.

A chain of love connects us, and a firm hand saves us.

Look It Up: Read Matthew 14:31.

Think About It: Jesus caught him.

Sunday School Gets a Pandemic Reboot

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 15:26:58 GMT

Asking the Right Questions About Exploring Faith With Children

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald

Community service day went virtual this year at Palmer Memorial Church in Houston | Photo: Palmer Memorial.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, getting ready for church was no easy task for the Larsen family of Wake Forest, North Carolina. It involved cajoling two children, ages six and 10, to be dressed, fed and in the car on time, including days when they’d rather relax at home in pajamas. Mornings didn’t always go as planned, which meant sporadic attendance at Sunday school and gaps in what the kids were learning.

But since Sunday school went online in March, the Larsens have participated in just about every Sunday school session at St. John’s Episcopal Church. For the first time, the kids absorbed all the events of Holy Week, not just the highlights. And now Sunday school includes their mother, Emily, who’s been learning alongside her kids, who are often still in their PJs when the Zoom videoconference begins.

“There’s no excuse anymore not to be there because all we have to do is log on,” Emily Larsen said. “I’ve learned a lot. I never really knew much about Pentecost at all. I had heard the word, but they talked about all the different symbols of Pentecost that I didn’t really know. [Going online] has definitely worked for us.”

Sunday school has been due for a reboot, if not a complete overhaul, educators say. Models forged in the 19th century have struggled to make passionate disciples systematically in the 21st. COVID-19 pandemic conditions have accelerated a process that reformers have longed to see: making Sunday school less academic, more experience-oriented, and more intergenerational.

As programs adapt, they are affirming children’s places in the Church as full-fledged participants who already have a call to ministry. That has been a welcome silver lining to an otherwise disruptive and unsettling pandemic season, said Melissa Rau, the Episcopal Church Foundation’s staff liaison to FORMA, a network for Christian formation.

“Sunday school is absolutely dead,” Rau said. “Not because it’s not worth something, but I think it’s worth more as dessert rather than as meat and potatoes of formation, which really needs to happen at the home.”

She said the Episcopal Church is facing a “discipleship crisis” that can’t be solved by sending kids off to Sunday school lessons twice a month, or however often a family can get there. Sunday school graduates have largely failed to connect the lessons they were taught as children with daily life, she said. What’s needed is more partnering with parents and other caregivers to foster faith-based conversations among family members Monday through Saturday. She sees that happening more during the pandemic because the locus of religious life has shifted from the church building to the home.

“Christian education leaders are becoming more aware and seeing opportunities for re-imagining how they’re pushing into the home now because we’re not gathering on Sundays,” Rau said.

A June 2020 report from the Church of England’s Diocese of Oxford points to how an intergenerational approach to formation has become an urgent need across Western Christianity, according to co-authors Yvonne Morris and Ian Macdonald, both staffers for the diocese. Declining attendance rates in the Oxford diocese since 2015 have been steepest among children under age 17, the report finds. Many feel a “significantly reduced” connection to the church by the time they reach age 15, according to the report.

Parents are primary influencers in laying faith foundations, the report says. But families often don’t live out their faith together. That’s because they aren’t sure what to do. Or they lack confidence to pray together or discuss matters of faith. The report calls for five cultural shifts in Church that would help children to be viewed as pilgrims of equal status with their elders, and as full participants in the intergenerational way of Jesus.

“When a church is asking, ‘How then do we now do Sunday school?’, that might not be the right question,” Macdonald said via Zoom from Oxford. “’How then do we explore faith with our children and young people?’ is a better question because it opens up more possibilities.”

He recommends that families ask this question: How then do we uncover the way of Jesus together?

To help answer that last question, one Oxford diocese parish gave its families a suggested regimen — prayers to say, conversations to have, and activities to do — that provide, in effect, what Rau calls the “meat and potatoes” of formation. In another local church, families in lock down due to the coronavirus have been giving children leadership roles. Kids lead in saying prayers, posing questions about God and giving testimonies of God’s manifestations in their lives.

“There’s been much more equality of leading, guiding and journeying together in families as they shared the joys and difficulties of lockdown and thus being a family of faith together,” Morris said. “It’s been brilliant.”

Pandemic circumstances are now greasing the wheel of change on this side of the Atlantic as well.

Love First at Home engages kids via online Sunday school at Christ Church, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. | Photo: Christ Church

At St. John’s Church in Wake Forest, Sarah Bentley Allred is delivering the Godly Play curriculum online via Zoom videoconference. The 30-minute sessions include time for check-in, candle lighting, the Lord’s Prayer, a Bible-based story told with figurines and materials, followed by breakout groups and song before adjourning.

Because Godly Play is story-based, Allred said, it’s conducive to online adaptation. If done alone, the formation impact would be limited, but St. John’s families do it in conjunction with prescribed activities that they weave into their days all week long.

These include prayers for family life in the Book of Common Prayer; reading aloud from a children’s Bible; talking about “what stood out to you” in worship or at Godly Play; sharing highs and lows of the day; leaving a painted rock in memory of a deceased pet in the church garden; and blessing each other, including parents asking children to lay hands on them for a blessing.

“Part of what we’re doing in Godly Play is helping give children some language for talking about their experiences of God, for theologically reflecting on their lives and for using the stories to talk about their lives,” said Allred, who is the director of children’s and family ministries at St. John’s, and also associate for Christian formation and discipleship at Virginia Theological Seminary.

“What’s beautiful that’s happening,” she said, “is that we are now giving that language to their parents as well. I, as the leader of this, am getting to model: how do I discuss scripture with children? Instead of just telling parents, ‘it’s important to ask open-ended questions,’ I’m actually modeling that.”

In some Episcopal settings, the Sunday school shift — away from academic-style instruction and toward intergenerational experiences of Christian living — was underway before the pandemic began. At St. Barnabas Church in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Colette Potts developed a program called Love First. It’s not a curriculum per se as much as a method for practicing in community how to love self, neighbor, and God. Children are recognized for their powers to alleviate suffering, meet needs, and otherwise serve in meaningful ways — not someday in the future, but now.

“A three-year-old can smile, and it can make an old person who’s feeling pain feel joy,” said Potts, who explains the vision in her book, Love First: A Children’s Ministry for the Whole Church. “That’s an amazing superpower that every kid has. So, we are going to point that out to kids, if they don’t already know it, and then we’re going to make them do it all the time because it’s a practice. Caring for others and loving your neighbor take practice. And we’re going to give them opportunities to practice here in our own community so that it comes naturally.”

Love First took off at St. Barnabas in 2016 after the bruising presidential primary season left Cape Cod families craving a kinder, better way of being toward each other, Potts said. Over three years, the Sunday school program swelled from nine kids to 75. She said she knows of 50 to 60 congregations across the country that now use Love First for Sunday school.

One of those congregations, Christ Church in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, has adapted it for online use in a new, open-source program called Love First at Home. Christ Church’s director of children’s formation and family ministries, Catherine Montgomery, says the intergenerational aspect is so important that she’s thinking about inviting older congregants, who don’t have kids at home, to take part when the younger ones meet on Zoom to do Love First.

“This joy that older people get from being with youngsters — maybe Zoom is a medium for that,” Montgomery said.

Though the academic style might be fading from Sunday school, opportunities for learning biblical content still abound, according to Potts and Montgomery. Looking together at Scripture and noticing such things as how God loves the outcast and the criminal can be a focusing exercise. It challenges Love First participants of all ages to be imaginative and courageous as they aim to go and do likewise.

As experimentation with Sunday school continues, practitioners are grounding it efforts that are at once intergenerational and geared to deliver memorable experiences of the gospel in action.

At Good Shepherd Church in Austin, for instance, parents of elementary-aged children and younger ones have been saying this summer: Enough of the online time. They and their children crave physical interactions if they can take place safely. That’s brought out something new at Good Shepherd: the idea of clustering families this fall by zip code in outdoor settings for small-scale Sunday school activity. Because geography will determine who gets together, further mixing of generations is almost certain.

“We could maybe meet in a park and the children could be able to sit in a circle and experience a story,” said Aimee Bostwick, director of programs at Good Shepherd. “Maybe we can create these opportunities together that everyone shares. Not just the children, but maybe the entire parish.”

8/3 Daily Devotional: Gladly

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:00:48 GMT

By Pamela A. Lewis

Reading from Acts, 2:37-47

37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” 40And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. 42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Meditation

“Repent” is probably not the answer the multitude expect to receive when they ask Peter, “What shall we do?” But they want to do something, and Peter tells them directly what they need to do. This directive extends to us also. To follow Jesus entails actively doing something; it does not just “happen.”

To repent is not to feel sorry, but means to change one’s mind, one’s life direction. Like “sin,” the word hits the ears harshly, and it often evokes guilt and punishment. But Peter purposely instructs his listeners to repent, as it is the essential first step to receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, and along with repentance, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. Peter does not limit the promise only to those who are present, but declares that all, regardless of race, nationality, social class, or age — any who would repent and believe with active faith, even future generations — would receive it.

Those who received Peter’s word on that day of Pentecost did so gladly, making a dramatic baptismal statement of their great belief in and need of Jesus as savior.

From these who were first baptized flows all that we must know about the Christian life, which is meant to be lived in fellowship. In fellowship there is sharing in the same Lord, sharing life’s joys and sorrows, sharing the same guide for living, and sharing what God has given us in Jesus Christ. May we do these things gladly.

♱

To receive a Daily Devotional in your inbox each morning, click here.