NO CHURCH OF ONE

At Trinity Episcopal Church, on Sunday 2C, Caminante preached from the words of Psalm 84. The psalm begins:

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
Happy are those who live in your house,
ever singing your praise.

Caminante's sermon is lovely. It's worth reading in its entirety. The words I quote below resonated especially with me.

What brought you to church this snowy morning? What compelled you to shovel out, drive through the mush to arrive here to sit on hard pews cushioned by futons? More aptly asked, who brought you here this morning? Can you feel in your heart the words of Psalm 84, ‘How lovely is your dwelling place...’?
....

There is no church of one. We can pray alone at home, outdoors, in whatever place we call sacred but finally we need to come back together. This community, the church, is a sanctuary where we can become vulnerable and search for deep intimacy with God.
No good thing will the LORD withhold from those who walk with integrity.

Shoveling out is not one of my before-church chores, but other than the snow, Caminante describes my reasons for attending church. "...who brought you here this morning?" We can pray anywhere, any time, and God is with us, but we need the time of coming together. At church, I may brush up against fellow parishioners with sharp elbows. Other times it's my sharp elbows that poke the others. Still I cherish the gathering for worship, for hearing the words of the Scriptures and the sermon, and for sharing the Eucharist around the Lord's table. "There is no church of one", but the many become one as we gather in the presence and the name of the Lord.

Carnation milk - 65 YEARS AGO ...

A little old lady from Wisconsin had worked in and around her family dairy farms since she was old enough to walk, with hours of hard work and little compensation.

When canned Carnation Milk became available in grocery stores in approximately the 1940's, she read an advertisement offering $5,000 for the best slogan. The producers wanted a rhyme beginning with 'Carnation Milk is best of all.'

She thought to herself, I know all about milk and dairy farms. I can do this!

She sent in her entry, and several weeks later, a black limo pulled up in front of her house. A man got out and said, 'Carnation LOVED your entry so much, we are here to award you $2,000 even though we will not be able to use it!




Don't blame me. Blame Bob. He twisted my arm.

Britt Hume, Tiger Woods, Bill O'Reilly!

Three guys to whom I never wanted to give space on my blog, and here I am doing it. I mean EVERYONE is talking about Britt Hume's commentary.



If you were Tiger Woods, and you heard Hume's advice, wouldn't you convert to Christianity on the spot?

The transcript of the video is at Think Progress along with good commentary.

Fox prides itself on being “fair and balanced.” Will it now give equal time to other religions for proselytizing, or is it comfortable becoming the next Christian Broadcast Network?

Paul (A.) sent me the link to Bill in Portland Maine at Daily Kos. Should Tiger choose to convert to Christianity, Bill says:

Generically urging a Buddhist to convert to Christianity---as the Fox Conservative Opinion Channel's Brit Hume urged Tiger Woods to do Sunday on Fox Conservative Opinion Channel Sunday---is like telling a child to trade in his dependably-yummy carrots for a new vegetable. If you gorge on a really crappy one willy-nilly and it makes you throw up---I'm looking at you, Brussels sprouts---it can leave a spiritually sour taste in your mouth. So you have to pick your brand of Christianity carefully---sniff it, squeeze it, bang it on the table, see if the dog likes it, throw it in the microwave and see how long it takes before it explodes and, finally, drown it in ranch dressing and try a nibble.

Tiger must choose wisely.

I'm Episcopalian, mostly because God gave us the power and the glory to ditch the vegetables and instead put on the best pancake suppers on Earth. ("Why, yes, it is real Maine maple syrup. What's that? The Lutherans use that Mrs. Butterworth goop? And sausage patties instead of links? Heathen.") Plus we have Bishop V. Gene Robinson on our team, and I believe that makes us the coolest denomination by default.

And ain't that the truth?

David Gibson, at Politics Daily, without question, has the best headline:

Brit Hume: Jesus Can Tame You, Tiger

Britt Hume is a senior religious political analyst at Fox News.

Bishop Charles Jenkins Retires

Crozier in hand, Bishop Charles Jenkins on Wednesday entered his cathedral for the last time as head of Louisiana’s 18,000 Episcopalians, leading a celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany that closed, at least temporarily, a 12-year Episcopal career both ruined and transformed by Hurricane Katrina.

Jenkins’ retirement, effective Wednesday, is coming earlier than it should. At 58, he has stepped down on orders of doctors who diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the storm.

Locally and nationally, Jenkins has described how the post-Katrina suffering of poor New Orleanians transformed his ministry and awakened him to the broad social and economic inequalities of life in New Orleans. But he has said the aftermath also left him medicated, prone to depression and frequently unable to focus on administration.
....

...although he opposes gay marriage and the ordination of partnered gay clergy, since 2003 Jenkins has been among a small cadre of Episcopal leaders who urged the national church to hold together despite its deep and apparently irreconcilable differences over those questions. He has argued that living together with confusion is preferable to living apart in schism.

In 2007, when Episcopal bishops from around the country met in New Orleans with the archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the 70 million-member Anglican Communion, for a showdown over homosexuality that some thought might blow up the communion, Jenkins worked behind the scenes with liberal Bishops John Chane of Washington and Jon Bruno of Los Angeles to fashion a temporary compromise.

“Charles Jenkins was a key, key player in that meeting, aside from being its host,” said Jim Naughton, a liberal Episcopal writer from the Diocese of Washington, D.C. “He was this reconciling figure, and he as much as anyone made that happen.”
....

Jenkins said the diocese closed only two parishes after the storm. He frankly acknowledged that given his own post-Katrina conversion experience, he was little interested in assessing the vitality of 55 congregations and helping them rethink their future.

“Instead, I was pretty drawn to doing prophetic work and the work of justice,” he said. “I was much more interested in that than whether St. Swithin’s somewhere should stay open.”

How many bishops would be as honest and forthcoming? Not everyone in the diocese was pleased with Bishop Jenkins choice of priorities, but I admired him greatly for making the choice to focus on those who were suffering the worst hardships after Katrina and the federal flood. As always, in the worst of times, "the least of these" have the hardest time of it. Bishop Jenkins looked and did not look away but went to work organizing and working to relieve suffering.

When our bishop spoke the words below in the liturgy for his ordination to the office of bishop, he meant them.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, I, Charles Jenkins chosen Bishop of the Church in the Diocese of Louisiana, solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation; and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church.

I admire Bishop Jenkins' loyalty to the church in which he was ordained a bishop and his efforts at reconciliation amongst those within the church with opposing views. To my regret, I did not attend the service and reception, but I'd like to have been there to wish our bishop farewell at his retirement ceremony. I was on grandmother duty today.

UPDATE: Oh dear! I left out the link to the article in the Times-Picayune.


From Ormonde, our on-the-scene reporter:

Mimi, I was there and saw your priest, who as always had a twinkle in his eye. The mass was extremely moving, although at two hours it stretched my capacity for endurance. I thought the best part came at the end, when Irvin Mayfield played "Amazing Grace" on his trumpet. Then we all dashed for the reception. A priest came up to me and said, "I hear the wine is a côte du Rhone." My reply: "I don't care if it's Chateau Tchoupitoulas." (An inside joke, for those who know the names of our streets.)

I'd love to have heard Irvin Mayfield play "Amazing Grace" again. Did Mayfield play the Elysian Trumpet? And it's true that my priest always has a twinkle in his eye. So, Ormonde, another missed opportunity for a face-to-face meeting with you. So near and yet so far.



Jazz trumpeter Irvin Mayfield plays Amazing Grace during a September 23 [service] at Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans.

The piano player in the video, Roland Markham, is right up there with Mayfield.

EPIPHANY - KING CAKES - PARTY TIME

From Mardi Gras Unmasked.

Pictured above is a king cake or gateau du roi, a tradition associated with the feast of the Epiphany, which is celebrated in south Louisiana, French Canada, and France. At king cake gatherings, whoever gets the tiny baby hidden somewhere in the cake must provide the next king cake. The bakers no longer put the baby in the cake, because they fear litigation from folks who choke on it, swallow it, or break a tooth on it. The buyer assumes the liability of putting the baby in the cake. This is what our litigious society has come to.

I was going to write about the Carnival season in New Orleans, but then I found these lovely words from Rmj at Adventus:

Today begins the season of Epiphany: celebrated by some; ignored by others. The "original Christmas," some say. Maybe; maybe not. It is a season separate from Christmas, but related to it; and in France and Cajun Louisiana, it is celebrated itself with King's Cakes and Gateau du Roi and parties and celebrations, right up to Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, when the shriven season takes over and Lent begins. It's the English who called it Shrove Tuesday, and taught that name even to my all but non-liturgical Presbyterian church of childhood, the day to "shreve" the cupboard of fats and oils in preparation for the fastings of Lent. The French Roman Catholics had the better idea: to celebrate the 5 or 6 Sundays of Epiphany, and carry it out right up to the last possible minute, the first stroke of midnight on Ash Wednesday morning. Jesus, tradition says, was born at midnight on Christmas Day. We don't know, so why not sanctify the whole day? So, also, Ash Wednesday begins at midnight, but until then: celebration!

And him a Texan! Besting me at my own game! It's humiliating. But I figured why strain to write something original when I can steal this. No Shrove Tuesday for us. It's Mardi Gras, the party of all parties. And then, but only then, we get serious about Lent.

I love the church seasons, and I like having the season of Epiphany as a prolonged celebration of the Incarnation - of Emmanuel, God with us. Although, as children, we were taught that the greatest feast day was Easter, (a hard sell to the kids) I thought then, and I think now that the Incarnation is the great event. God become one of us! As someone once told me, "Without the Incarnation, there would be no Resurrection!"

(Reposted from last year around this time.)

"THE YEAR OF THE TYGER"

Mark Harris posted an excellent essay at Preludium titled The Prophetic Spirit and the Year of the Tyger:

"The Episcopal Church has for too long suffered a failure of nerve, one that has been costly to its missionary efforts and its ministry in a suffering world.
....

That ailment, I suggest, is that the Episcopal Church is sick at heart because it longs for an easier, surer and safer time. But no dosage of ancient orthodoxy or modern interpretation of faith will deliver the cure for that longing. Indeed what we long for in that longing is death disguised as life.

If we are to set our hand to the plow, our hands and hearts must take courage in God's presence, always both present and going before us giving us clues of the Way. The only cure for what ails us is to renew our confidence in the plowing, in the belief that with all its struggles, God is working a new thing, and at the same time the oldest thing of all, the making of creation.
....

Anglicanism as a community of poetic sensibility, I believe the way forward concerning the Anglican Covenant, relations with Anglican communities not part of the Anglican Communion (which by the by might at some point include this or that current province of the Anglican Communion), and all other matters of ecclesial and ecumenical dance, is best found in our willingness to find in every one of us a sense of the poetic call to prophetic voice. All our sacraments point to that prophetic spirit, all our best preaching proclaims it, all our poets live into it. They all point towards a unity that is not about conformity or sameness or even coherence. They point to a unity that is first seen in God's compassion towards us in Jesus Christ. We are one not because we all have the same vocation and task, we are one because God has already done for us what we cannot do for ourselves - made us one in God's compassionate gaze.

Do read Mark's entire essay. For me the piece was a tonic for my soul.

You know, perhaps I am too drawn to speak and act precipitately, but I've sensed in the Episcopal Church that once we move forward in a manner which seems good and right, we hesitate to take the next step. Well, we've done that, so let's wait a bit before we move on. Mark's metaphor of plowing a field brings to mind Jesus' use of the same metaphor and his caution against looking back after putting a hand to the plow.

FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY

PERUGINO, Pietro - "The Adoration of the Magi" (Epiphany) - c. 1476
Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia

Readings:

AM Psalm 46, 97; PM Psalm 96, 100
Isa. 49:1-7;
Rev. 21:22-27;
Matt. 12:14-21

Isaiah 49:1-7

Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, ‘You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’
But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
and my reward with my God.’

And now the Lord says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honoured in the sight of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
he says,
‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’

Thus says the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
the slave of rulers,
‘Kings shall see and stand up,
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.’

If we believe that the Scriptures are God's living word, then the "you" in the passage refers not only to God's people Israel in Isaiah's day, but also to God's people today. And who are God's people whom God called by name? Who are God's people who were formed from the womb to be his servants? You and I, and when you and I and the multitude of God's people gather in God's name and labor in God's name, then surely we shall be "as a light to the nations" so that God's "salvation may reach to the end of the earth".

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

(Micah 6:8)


PRAYER

O God, who by the leading of a star manifested your only Son to the Peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

And oh my! Isn't Perugino's painting a manifestation of the glory of God? The infant Jesus seems to raise his hand in blessing over the kneeling Magi-king-wise man. And so Jesus blesses you and me today.

Image from Web Gallery of Art.

UPDATE: Today is also the anniversary of Ann Fontaine's ordination to the priesthood. Read about her call to serve God as a priest at The Daily Episcopalian at the Episcopal Café.

Congratulations and blessings, Ann. May you have many more happy years serving God and God's people.

PHONES IN CHURCH????

A man in Topeka , Kansas decided to write a book about churches around the country. He started by flying to San Francisco and worked east from there. Going to a very large church, he began taking photographs and making notes.

He spotted a golden telephone on the vestibule wall and was intrigued with a sign, which read "Calls: $10,000 a minute." Seeking out the pastor he asked about the phone and the sign. The pastor answered that this golden phone is, in fact, a direct line to heaven and if he pays the price he can talk directly to GOD.

The man thanked the pastor and continued on his way. As he continued to visit churches in Seattle, Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and many cities and towns all around the United States, he found more phones, with the same sign, and the same answer from each pastor.

Finally, he arrived in Louisiana, upon entering a church in the beautiful Delta region of Louisiana, behold - he saw the usual golden telephone. But THIS time, the sign read "Calls: 35 cents".

Fascinated, he asked to talk to the pastor, "Reverend, I have been in cities all across the country and in each church I have found this golden telephone and have been told it is a direct line to Heaven and that I could talk to GOD, but in the other churches the cost was $10,000 a minute. Your sign reads only 35 cents a call. Why?"

The pastor, smiling broadly, replied, "Son, you're in Louisiana now.... You're in God's Country. It's a local call."

American by Birth - Louisianans by the Grace of God.

And why do Louisianans go barefoot? When you're in Louisiana you're on Holy ground!

Thanks to Frank.

'HELP!!! I'm Being Mauled By A Troll!'

'Ahhh, the fresh, relaxing aroma of feet.......'???



'Harlem Globetrotters here I come'



'Uh, cat? What cat?'




Thanks to Doug.

Episcopal Diocese Of Oregon Elects A Bishop

From Oregon Living:

Clergy and delegates from throughout western Oregon elected the Rev. Michael Joseph Hanley, 54, rector of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Roseville, Minn., as the 10th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon Friday during their 121st diocesan convention.

Hanley was elected in a second round of voting, with 104 of the 132 clergy votes and 146 of the 198 lay votes cast. A simple majority is required in both categories. The Rev. Anne Bartlett, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Ashland and vice president of the standing committee, made the announcement at about 10:20 a.m., evoking cheers from the electing convention.

Sharon Rodgers, president of the standing committee, had called Hanley, who was at home in Minnesota waiting for the phone to ring.

"This may have been the most significant phone call I've ever made," Rodgers said. She informed Hanley of his election. "Quite honestly, we were both choked up," she said. "What would you like me to tell the people of Oregon?" she asked him.

"Tell them, 'thank you, thank you, thank you,'" Hanley replied. "We are so looking forward to being in Oregon and ministering to you."

From Bishop-elect Michael Joseph Hanley's message to the diocese:

I believe as we start walking together, side by side, our conversations will enable us to share a common vision for mission and ministry. The Reign of God is in our midst, and we are invited by the Holy One, to experience that God blessed life, in this time and place. I feel very blessed, I thank you for the invitation to be with you in ministry and I am ready to put on my walking shoes to discover the Christ in your midst.

Will you walk with me?
Michael

Habemus Episcopum! Deo gratias!

Thanks to Ann for the news.