Category: General Interest

Items of General Interest about liturgy, the liturgical calendar, church customs and culture, our unique “Episcopal vocabulary,” the intersection of faith and culture, and all other items not fitting into the other categories (or fitting into multiple categories).

Whom shall I send?

Continuing the conversation about music and faith, Barbara wrote (and permitted me to share) this:

My MOST favorite hymn is “Here I Am Lord”.  I used that hymn as “my song” when I gave my talk on laity at a Cursillo some time ago.  I still love it!

Here are the lyrics:

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry.
All who dwell in deepest sin
My hand will save.
I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear my light to them?
Whom shall I send?

Refrain
Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me,
I will hold your people in my heart.

I, the Lord of snow and rain,
I have borne my peopleís pain.
I have wept for love of them,
They turn away.
I will break their hearts of stone,
Give them hearts for love alone.
I will speak my word to them.
Whom shall I send? Refrain

I, the Lord of wind and flame,
I will tend the poor and lame.
I will set a feast for them,
My hand will save.
Finest bread I will provide
Till their hearts be satisfied.
I will give my life to them.
Whom shall I send? Refrain

Hymn 812 in the Episcopal hymnal Wonder, Love, and Praise
Words: Daniel L. Schutte
Music: Daniel L. Schutte

This response is part of our conversation begun on Sunday morning, September 25th. Do you have a favorite hymn or 2? Share them with the group. Let us continue the conversation that Paul started long ago by quoting a hymn in his letter to the Philippians.

What would Jerome think? St. Jerome, that is.

Today (9/30) the church remembers Jerome, “Priest, and Monk of Jerusalem,” who died in 420 CE. Among his many accomplishments was the translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into the common (vulgar) language of Latin. The Vulgate version of the Bible remains a standard text in the Roman Catholic Church and has a respected place among contemporary biblical scholars and church historians. Thus, the question, “What would Jerome think?”

Yesterday (9/29) the Episcopal News Service posted an article about a new English translation of the Bible (from Hebrew and Greek). This newest Bible is the Common English Bible (CEB). What Jerome did in his study in the early 5th century was today accomplished by “120 scholars drawn from 24 denominations” at the cost of $3.5 million over the course of 4 years. In addition, “More than 500 readers in 77 groups later field-tested their work” according to the article. Read the entire post here: New Common English Bible translation draws on expertise of 17 Anglican, Episcopal scholars.

So what would Jerome think about the choices made? What do you think? How did some of your favorite verses fare in the new translation?

Probably most of us “know” that Genesis 1:1 begins like this “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth …” (KJV) The Common English translation? “When God began to create the heavens and the earth—”

One more example, a favorite of many, Psalm 23. The final verse, which is the most powerful to me when this Psalm is used in a Memorial Service (Ps 23:6): “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.” (KJV) and “Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the LORD’s house as long as I live. ” (CEB) You can read the entire Psalm here: King James Version and Common English Bible

Thank you for being part of the Sunday Morning Forum (in real time or online). Like Jerome, we take seriously our study of the Word of God. Whether you like or appreciate the newest translation of the Bible, I do hope you appreciate how the Live Word of the Living God continues to demand our study and our best efforts to know and apply its God inspired wisdom. Leave a comment or two (below) to continue this conversation. What do you think about all this?

For further reflection and study

  • Common English Bible — official website of the Common English Bible. You will find many options to fully explore this new bible and to learn more about how it was produced.
  • Bible Gateway — a site with many different translations of the Bible including the Common English Bible; you can compare translations pretty easily.
  • Bible Study Tools — another site with an assembly of different versions of the Bible including the version we use in worship: the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Words or music? Music or words?

Sometimes the melody is all it takes to move my heart into the heart of God (or God’s heart into mine). Though I love to sing the words of this hymn and make them real by my actions, it is the melody which both embraces me and sends me heavenward.

Continuing the conversation begun on Sunday (9/25) “Be thou my vision” is the song I share today:

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
all else be nought to me, save that thou art;
thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word;
I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;
thou my great Father; thine own may I be;
thou in me dwelling, and I one with thee.

High King of heaven, when victory is won,
may I reach heaven’s joys, bright heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Hymn 488 in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982

Words: Irish, ca. 700; versified Mary Elizabeth Byrne (1880–1931); tr. Eleanor H. Hull (1860–1935), alt.

Music: Slane, Irish ballad melody; adapt. The Church Hymnary, 1927; harm. David Evans (1874–1948)

 

Don’t miss out. Follow us!

Tell your family, tell your friends, tell the people who sit in the pew with you on Sunday. Starting today (9/21/11) you will find a small “Follow” button in the lower right side of the blog window. By clicking this button once you will be asked to give your email address and when you click the “Sign me up!” button you will be placed on the mailing list for our blog. What could be simpler?

WordPress never shares your email address with others—nor will we. By signing up to “Follow” the blog you will receive an email notifying you when one of our wonderful authors has posted..

You will see this small little button in the bottom right corner. The button is mostly out of the way, but just noticeable enough before you leave.

You want to click the Follow button

When you click on the Follow button, it smoothly slides open, revealing a simple way to follow the blog without having the burden of checking back on your own to see if there’s anything new. You can put your email address in, click “Sign me up!” and you’ll be notified whenever the blog has a new post.

Let us keep in touch with you

On behalf of all our authors I look forward to keeping the Sunday conversation going well into the week. I look forward to growing up with you in Christ. ~dan

But, I’m not covetous…

The discussion in the Forum yesterday was quite lively. Understandings and opinions varied widely. Karl Jacobson, in his commentary on this parable for WorkingPreacher.org reminded us “A parable is essentially an elaborate allegory. We are invited to see ourselves in the story, and then apply it to ourselves.” I invite you to re-read the parable. Then I invite you to consider Jacobson’s commentary as you see yourself in the story and apply it to yourself.

We covet what God chooses to give to others. A parable is essentially an elaborate allegory. We are invited to see ourselves in the story, and then apply it to ourselves. The wages at stake (even at the moment of Jesus’ first telling of the parable) are not actual daily wages for vineyard-laborers, but forgiveness, life, and salvation for believers. We need not literally be laborers in a vineyard, as we are all of us co-workers in the kingdom (1 Corinthians 3:9).

And in relationship, one believer to another, covetousness is a problem. The point here isn’t necessarily that other folks receive blessings from God that we don’t — that they get more or better or lovelier gifts from God. The problem is that they get the same as us; and they don’t deserve it, do they? They are less worthy, or later arrivals, or just plain worse sinners. They don’t deserve the same as we get, do they? Not nothing maybe, but certainly not the same. The parable’s day laborers parallel perfectly with today’s forgiven-sinners in both our pews and pulpits.

We have a tendency, as the parable aptly illustrates, to covet and to be resentful of what others receive from God. The owner of the vineyard asks those who have worked longest and (presumably) hardest for him, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” The point is that God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness are God’s to give away as God sees fit.

Read the entire post at WorkingPreacher.org. “Gospel” for September 18, 2011

What do you hear in this parable? What do you feel as you listen to the story and apply it yourself and journey into the Kingdom of God where the first are last and the last are first? Leave a comment, continue the conversation.


The Will of God: A reflection from a bombed out city

On Sunday David introduced the Forum to Leslie Weatherhead and his reflection on the will of God. The reflection was given at the London City Temple during the bombing of London (1940-41). Here is the extended quote from which David spoke:

We therefore divided our subject into three as follows:

  1. The intentional will of God – God’s ideal plan for man.
  2. The circumstantial will of God – God’s plan within certain circumstances
  3. The ultimate will of God – God’s final realization of his purposes.

Once again, even at the risk of being tiresome, let us look at the supreme illustration of the Cross.

  1. It was not the intentional will of God, surely, that Jesus should be crucified, but that he should be followed.  If the nation had understood and received his message, repented of its sins, and realized his kingdom, the history of the world would have been very different.  Those who say that the Crucifixion was the will of God should remember that it was the will of evil men.
  2. But when Jesus was faced with circumstances brought about by evil and was thrust into the dilemma of running away or of being crucified, then in those circumstances the Cross was his Father’s will.  It was in this sense that Jesus said, “Not what I will, but what thou wilt.”
  3. The ultimate will of God means, in the case of the Cross, that the high goal of man’s redemption, or to use simpler English, man’s recovery to a unity with God – a goal which would have been reached by God’s intentional plan had it not been frustrated – will still be reached through his circumstantial will.  In a sentence, no evil is finally able to defeat God or to cause any “value” to be lost.

Leslie Weatherhead, The Will of God (from a series of addresses given at the London City Temple at the time of the German bombing raids)

The Forum then spoke to these questions:

  1. Have you ever said “it is the will of God” (or had that said to you) in a way that was offensive? How do you picture the will of God?
  2. How do you discern the will of God for yourself? Where is there an authoritative source for you?
  3. Ten years later, do you think the “attack on America” was God’s will? If so, how so? How about America’s attack on al-Qaida?

You may join this conversation (ongoing) by leaving a comment. Thank you for being part of the Sunday Morning Forum.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace

The Prayers of the People within the worship at St. Margaret’s in Palm Desert, CA this past Sunday began with the words of a prayer attributed to St. Francis: “Lord, make us instruments of your peace.” The prayers were part of the Service of Remembrance, Reconciliation, and Hope.

View or download the Prayers of the People used on September 11, 2011 at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, CA.

Me? Love myself?

The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Romans 13:9

In the course of our conversation on Sunday (9/4) Suzanne observed that it is very difficult to love your neighbor if you cannot love yourself. Think about it: if you have only loathing for yourself, if you’ve already given up on being lovable, if you are so acutely aware of your own shortcomings to the point that you are afraid of being revealed a complete fraud so that you do nothing and risk little, well . . . it is going to be difficult to love anyone else.

As I’ve considered this during the week (oh yeah, I listen on Sunday and think about what I’ve heard throughout the week) I was put in mind of Moses. Over the last several weeks we heard about how he came to be adopted instead of killed. Amazing. We didn’t read about his murder of an Egyptian, his rejection by his own countrymen, nor about his speech impediment, but we know his story pretty well and remember what kind of a guy he was when called to serve. So it was that two Sundays ago we read about his encounter with God at the burning bush.

God chose this ill-mannered, murdering, rejected, and self-deprecating man with a speech impediment to lead his people from slavery to freedom. If anyone had good reason to be self-loathing rather than self-loving, it was Moses. Somehow he managed to trust God’s love and God’s call (oh, he argued first, but in the end went forward) to overcome his self-loathing long enough to do the work God had given him to do. God in Moses, Moses in God, shows me the way to a healthy self-love that can actually do good—with God’s amazing grace. How about you?

Are you ready to take off your sandals and listen to the love God has for you? Can you move past your self-absorption (and deprecation) long enough to allow God’s love to do amazing things within you and for the benefit of others? I’m counting on your “Yes, I am” answer.

Who is my neighbor?

In the Forum on Sunday (9/4) we considered Paul’s wisdom “The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Romans 8:9

In a previous post I shared a “spiritual exercise” with you and invited you to, well . . . exercise. In the Forum we discussed the notion of “neighbor.” Of course, “Who is my neighbor?” was the question put to Jesus who answered by telling the story of the Good Samaritan and then asked the questioner (at the conclusion of the story) “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” Luke 10:36 “The one who showed mercy” was the (correct) answer and Jesus instructed his questioner (a lawyer) to go and do likewise.

Within the Forum as we wrestled with the question ourselves some began with the “neighbor” they could see and touch and interact with—beginning in their own families. To love this flesh and blood neighbor was their challenge. Others looked into the immediate community—the homeless, the hungry, even the violent—as the neighbor they were called to love. Still others looked into the “whole world” and included “enemies” in their neighborhood. All this to say that there are many answers to this question and that the best place to start to answer is the place you find yourself in right now.

Jesus through his stories, through his teaching, in his life and in his death opened his heart and opened his arms wide enough to embrace all who came to be in his presence, beginning with the flesh and blood family into which he was born, the flesh and blood group of disciples he gathered around him, and then he kept expanding his embrace until he opened his arms wide upon the cross and embraced us all. He sent his apostles and disciples into the whole world. Over the centuries, at our best, we the church have understood our mission as being an inclusive mission. At our worst we have drawn boundaries and counted some in and some out (and sadly this practice continues into our own day).

Let’s behave well, be on our best, as we answer the question, “Who is my neighbor” for ourselves. We have lots of information, now we need to match that with our actions.

How do you love a “neighbor” who is unlovable?

On Sunday we heard from the Apostle Paul (talking plain enough to understand for a change)

++from Sunday 9/4: Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.  Romans 8:9-10

As a way to extend the Sunday (9/4) lesson this week I invite you to try this “spiritual exercise” during the “other 6 days.”

  1. Go through the newspaper, or magazines you have lying around, photo albums, internet images whatever you have or can find and. . .
  2. . . . PICTURE (at least) 3 “NEIGHBORS” YOU HAVE DIFFICULTY LOVING. Folks or groups of folks you may even find “unlovable” period.
  3. Post the images someplace you can find so that you can see them every day, maybe even in a place you see them throughout the day.
  4. Day be day read the passage(s), that grab your attention, look at the images you have clipped, speak a short prayer in response. (See below)
  5. Write down (or not) your prayer (or anything else) as the Spirit leads you. Bring your insights (even your prayers) with you on 9/11 (to church) or share them here on our blog.

One way to begin to love your neighbor (especially the neighbor you find unlovable) is to take that neighbor with you into your prayer time with God (the exercise I have just suggested).

Complain to God (if you must, or if it just “feels” good to complain). Express your exasperation with this neighbor, detail the many shortcomings you have discovered with this neighbor, God is a good listener. Perhaps, if you listen closely, you’ll be able to hear the complaints about you made by your neighbor. Perhaps, even if you don’t want to hear it, you’ll hear the detailing to God of your shortcomings made by this neighbor you have brought with you. The two of you, or the group of you, sitting with God for a spell; sitting with the same God who loves you all equally (see Matthew 5:43ff below) — it promises to be quite an experience. And, yes, I’m doing this all week myself. More later.

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PASSAGES

++You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:18

++“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:43-48

+ + [The lawyer asked] “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, ” “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40

+ + But wanting to justify himself, [the lawyer] asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers . . . .  Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37