In Hoc Signo

Archaeology: A Home in Nazareth

2009-12-21T06:21:00.000-08:00

Interesting article from the Telegraph on the discovering a home in Nazareth not far from the Church of the Annunciation. Maybe Jesus dropped by to the place to see his neighbors?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/6857889/House-dating-back-to-time-of-Jesus-is-discovered-in-Nazareth.html

Sermon Notes for Fourth Sunday in Advent 2009

2009-12-20T20:53:00.001-08:00

A Very Mary Christmas

Luke 1:26-56 (Read 26-38, 43-45)

Fourth Sunday in Advent

December 20, 2009

“And why is this granted to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”

– Luke 1:43

Before we gather again next Sunday we will celebrate the birth of Christ, the Savior of the world. That great feast of our faith begins with Christmas Eve, sitting under God’s word read to us, and singing with the angels of God’s new peace treaty with his fallen creatures. Micah anticipates that song with his prophecy, heralding the arrival of the One who will not simply give us peace but be our Peace. Born in Bethlehem, the One Isaiah calls ‘Prince of Peace” comes to establish his kingdom of grace.

Yet this Prince of Peace is more than a mere man. The writer of Hebrews lets us in on a conversation between the Everlasting Father and the Eternal Son, voices in heaven that echo to earth.

“I come to do Thy will…a body Thou hast prepared for me.”

In reference to the eternal, Christ was begotten of the Father without a mother. In reference to time and history, Christ is born in Bethlehem from a mother but without a father.

That the Son of God has no earthly father reminds us that he is above time and history, and truly God; that he has a true mother reminds us that he is within history, that he is truly man. Truly man, truly God; completely man, and perfect God – how can this be?

This mystery is what springs up before us in the Gospel’s account of two conversations, the first between the Archangel Gabriel and Mary, and the second between Mary and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Listen carefully to Elizabeth’s incredible experience as Mary enters her home.

I. Mary – Mother of God – Luke 1:34-35, 42-44

• Mary together with Elizabeth’s son pointing away from themselves to Jesus Christ

• Cyprian and Nestorius – Theotokos

• John leapt for Joy in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary entered the room with Jesus in her own womb! This is the authentic and original leap of faith. Faith responds to the presence of God among us, the manifestation of mystery beyond human comprehension.

The Hope of every mother for every child

II. Mary, Mother of us All – Luke 1:42

• Romans 8:29; Revelation 12:17

• Mary teaches us: rather than adoring Mary or ignoring Mary, let us with Elizabeth welcome Mary and learn from her and her song of praise.

A. Mary teaches us to Offer Ourselves to God Fully – Luke 1:34-38, 45

• This is faith – hearing the Gospel and responding in trust, placing oneself wholly in the hands of God

• Mary gives her body to God – literally!

- “He has his mother’s eyes.”

- Jesus blood, his offering for us and to us, courses through his veins because Mary gave herself to be the one by whom the Holy Spirit would prepare a body for God the Son. His offering for sin that saves is made possible by Mary’s offering of self to God

- Jesus will – again, fully human; ‘Not my will, but Thine be done.’

• Do not underestimate the great work God can do with one who is wholly his, body and soul – 2 Chronicles 16:9

B. Mary teaches us to Offer Praise to God Joyfully – Luke 1:46-47

• Not mere emotionalism, but the vibrant exclamation of God’s Greatness – his Power and Mercy overturning the sinful order.

C. Mary teaches us to Receive the Savior Humbly – Luke 1:46-49

• Mary needed a Savior and rejoiced in his dwelling within her.

• If Mary, the most Blessed woman who ever lived, needed a Savior, how much more you and me and our whole world crying out in distress today?

The Joyous leap of John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth is echoed some thirty years later in the Joyous ascent of Christ Jesus to the Cross. “For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despised its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

The physical and spiritual agony he endured there, a suffering into which Mary herself entered as witness, a sword piercing her soul as nails pierced her Savior-Son’s hands and feet, is the atonement for our sins and our only comfort in life and death. By death he destroyed death and has brought many sons to glory. The Body Mary gave him, fashioned in her by the Holy Spirit, met death – and that same body rose again in glory.

With Mary, receive his salvation;

With Mary, praise God for his grace;

With Mary, offer yourself to the One who gave himself for you.

Horns Ups and Downs

2009-12-19T19:55:00.000-08:00

Great win for the Horn's on the hardwood: nice to dunk the Tar Heels. On to bigger prey.

I really thought the Ladies had Penn State put away tonight, but it slipped away. Tough finishing second, but congrats on a BRILLIANT season and effort against a truly great team.

Hook Em!

Irenaeus on Mary as Reversal of Eve

2009-12-19T19:46:00.000-08:00

"Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it to be me according to your word."

'Thus was the knot of Eve's disobedience loosed through the obedience of Mary...as the human race fell into bondage and death through the disobedience of a virgin so too through the obedience of the virgin has it found life and been rescued...the coming of the serpent is conquered by the harmlessness of the dove, unloosing those chains that had bound us to death...'

St Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon

John and Jesus

2009-12-19T18:53:00.001-08:00

While John the Baptist is 'filled with the Holy Spirit' while in the womb of his mother Elizabeth, Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of his mother Mary. The Greater One is preceded by the lesser in birth that the servant might prepare the way of the King. John's leap in his mother's womb when Jesus within Mary's womb enters the home of John's parents is his first prophetic testimony to the Savior. The result is his mother being filled with the Spirit; John's prophetic action leads to the fullness of the Spirit for those who would receive the Lamb of God.

Garrison Keillor on Christmas (Don't Read This if You Don't Need a Laugh)

2009-12-18T13:10:00.001-08:00

Garrison Keillor is just one of the smartest, funniest people on the planet. Here he is at his (potentially offensive) best.

www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.keillor16dec16,0,225627.story

St Ephrem on the Incarnation

2009-12-17T03:49:00.000-08:00

It is right that man should acknowledge your divinity,
It is right for the heavenly beings to worship your humanity.
The heavenly beings were amazed to see how small you became,
And earthly ones to see how exalted.

- St Ephrem the Syrian

The Incarnation and Mary

2009-12-15T19:29:00.000-08:00

The Anabaptist pioneer Meno Simons held to a very odd Christology, advocated originally by Melchior Hoffman, that claimed Christ's humanity was 'heavenly flesh' that the Savior brought with him from above. In other words, he was not homoousious - one in substance - with us in our humanity just as he is one in substance with the Father; Christ was not human in the same sense that we are human. Melchior's view, advocated by Simons, is heresy of the first order, denying the true humanity of Christ - and all that doctrine means with regard to salvation.

While affirming the true humanity of Christ, most Christians don't stop to ponder the origin of his humanity - even when confessing that they believe in "One Lord, Jesus Christ who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary..." The Divine Person of Christ consists of two natures, fully human and fully divine, true God and true man united in one person through the incarnation, contra the Monophysites who held that he had but one nature. This means that in addition to being the eternal Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Christ possesses (and retains) a true human body, contra the Docetists who held he only 'appeared' to be human, and a true human mind and will, contra the Monotholetes who held that Christ had only a divine will. Fully God and fully man, just as the Ecumenical Councils of the ancient Church repeatedly affirmed.

Central to that affirmation was the description of Mary as Theotokos - the God bearer. Nestorius, a Patriarch of Constantinople, initially expressed reserve about this title for Mary, claiming that she was 'Christotokos' - Christ bearer. Cyprian of Alexandria vehemently protested Nestorius' views, insisting that confessing Mary as anyone less than "The Mother of God" called into question the Deity of Christ. The Mother gives birth to a Person not merely a nature, and the Person Mary bore in her womb and to whom she gave birth in this world was God the Son. Cyprian won the day, affirming what Christians had been saying about Mary since at least the early second century.

Again, while many will know of this and not flinch from saying of Mary that she is 'Mother of God' and 'Theotokos', they will not ponder the contribution Mary makes to the great story of redemption. Was Mary just a conduit - a very clean pipe! - through whom the Son of God comes into the world with flesh from beyond (as the heretics suggested), or does she contribute in some other way? The incarnation means that the Holy Spirit conceived the Second Person of the Trinity in the womb of Mary, uniting his divine nature with her egg - the origin of his human nature. The humanity of Christ arises from Mary. What did Christ look like? We don't know - except to say that he looked like his mother while revealing to all the Father.

Though male in every respect, all would have said of him, "He has his mother's eyes."

This applies equally to his very human will.

"Not my will but Thine be done" Jesus prays to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. How like this is to the sanctified will of his Mother the Theotokos who says to Gabriel, "Be it unto me according to Thy word."

His body and all of its properties, including his human will, arise from the humanity of Mary. The precious blood of Christ - so very human - is his as part of the gift Mary makes in the offering of herself to be the handmaiden of the Lord. It is the blood of Christ - not Mary's blood! - that saves us, but that blood which avails could only be shed on the cross because Mary said "Yes" to Gabriel's invitation some thirty years before. His blood which justifies, sanctifies, and nourishes us is ours through Mary's loving gift of self to God. What the Mother did in her surrender, the Son has done in an immeasurably greater way in his self-offering on our behalf at the Cross.

When we thank the Father for sending his Son, let us also pause to thank the Father for the Mother he chose to bear him, nourish him, provide for him, and stand by him unto death and into victory.

Let Heaven and Nature Sing

2009-12-14T05:02:00.000-08:00

In recent years, Christian thinkers have offered a variety of diagnoses concerning the secularization of Western - formerly Christian - culture. The speed of secularization has accelerated for a whole host of reasons, and some note the increasing disengagement with spiritual and ecclesiastical issues of post-modern people, especially those whose lives deal almost exclusively with technology. One referred to our worship of the idol 'Technos'. Perhaps that is overstating the case. The temptation to shut out God from our consciousness is not confined to cubicles and urban centers, though it is certainly true that dwelling exclusively with the man-made can mute the testimony to the Creator that creation sings. The comments below from Benedict XVI offer such a critique and warning, calling for a new 'catechesis', and are well worth reading.

In the technological world, which is a self-made world of man, one does not immediately encounter the Creator; rather, initially, it is only himself that man always encounters. The fundamental structure of this world is feasibility, and the manner of its certainty is the certainty of what can be calculated. Therefore even the question of salvation is not geared to God, who appears nowhere; rather, once again, it is geared to the ability of man, who wants to become the engineer of himself and of history. Accordingly, he no longer seeks his moral standards, either, in discourse about creation or the Creator, since such talk has become unfamiliar to him. For him, creation is silent with regard to morality; it speaks only the language of mathematics, of technological utility, or else it protests against its violation by man. But even then its moral exhortation remains indeterminate; ultimately, in one way or another, morality becomes identified with social acceptability, compatibility with man and his world. In this respect, morality too, has become a question of calculating the best possible arrangement of the future. All of this has fundamentally changed society. To a great extent the family, the basic sustaining social form of Christian culture, is in the process of disintegrating. When metaphysical ties do not count, other sorts of commitment can scarcely shape it in the long run. This whole world view is mirrored, on the one hand, in the new media and, on the other hand, is nourished by them. To a great extent, the representation of the world and of events in the media today makes more of an impression on people's awareness than their own experience of reality. All of this affects catechesis, which finds that its traditional social supports--family and parish--are present only in broken form. Since it can no longer connect with the experience of faith lived out in the living Church, it seems to be condemned to remain mute in an age whose language and thought feed almost exclusively by now upon experiences of the self-made world of man.

Nice Win for the Gunners

2009-12-13T20:17:00.000-08:00

Arsenal 2, Liverpool 1.

Go Gunners!

Winning on the road as well. That's a good turn around after a rough patch. I hope for more to come.

Reverence and Wonder

2009-12-13T04:40:00.000-08:00

"I took my stand half way between awe and love...with wisdom however I reconciled the two; I revered what lay hidden and meditated on what had been revealed."

- St Ephrem the Syrian

Hymns on Paradise

Heisman to Heist Man

2009-12-12T21:31:00.000-08:00

Never mind that Chris Fowler should be banned from the UT campus and suspended from broadcasting for his insulting remarks to Colt McCoy on Friday night; never mind that the ESPN talking (nonsense) heads couldn't see what McCoy did over the course of a career or in the fourth quarter of a conference Championship game. Just remember two things:

1. Vince Young sat there in NY as well - and lost the Heisman vote to that USC player; he lost the battle, but won the war in the BCS Championship game.

2. The Heisman has been transformed from a GREAT award into a laughing stock by the arrogant and reckless debasement of the efforts of the athletes. This is done constantly by ESPN and ESPN like wonks who have turned the Heisman Trophy into a weekly beauty pageant rather than a season long achievement award. After Bama squeaked by Auburn and tonight's Heisman winner Mr Ingram didn't play all that well a whole three weeks ago, the ESPN omniscient ones said he had no chance to win; in fact, he's a very deserving winner - and that is because of his play through the entire season. Even more impressive is Colt McCoy - only the winningest QB in College Football history. McCoy was robbed by beauty pageant weekly polling - and if that's how the people who vote actually evaluate the talent, then they should have their votes taken away. Ingram is a deserving winner; McCoy more so, and that just proves how ridiculous this award has become.

See you in Pasadena ESPN.

More on the Incarnation

2009-12-11T19:31:00.000-08:00

This is fine article from Fr. Patrick Reardon at Touchstone on the Incarnation. Enjoy!

www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=21-10-022-f

Sermon Notes for Third Sunday in Advent

2009-12-11T09:41:00.000-08:00

Invincible Joy

Luke 1:5-25

Third Sunday in Advent

December 13, 2009

One of the greatest atheists to ever live, and in my opinion the most influential philosopher in our time, though darkly so, was Friedrich Nietzsche. He had many withering things to say about the Church but perhaps his most brutal and attack was his most honest: “They have no joy” he declared. What a contrast to the faith of our ancient fathers and mothers - Philippians 4:4-7. Paul’s letter is not called ‘The Joy book’ for nothing; over and over words of celebration appear - and this from a man writing while he is under arrest. Do we sing hymns at midnight (Acts 16)? I have a long way to go on that score.

Joyless Christian Faith is about as sensible as dry water or freezing heat or world champion Chicago Cubs - some things just don’t match up. Joy is not the absence of sorrow or mere happiness. It is the presence of Christ in the midst of sorrows, a light in the darkness. Joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5) not an aspect of our personality. It isn’t controlled by circumstances and situation - Habakkuk 3:17ff. Indeed, the Joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10) and by Joy we draw water from the wells of salvation (Isaiah 12:6). Nietzsche saw some Christians with holes in their buckets!

“You will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice...” Luke 1:14

Zechariah and Elizabeth are all of us: barren, worn down, living with hopes we haven’t seen realized, and looking fruitless. We may even fear that the assessment others make of our lives is even more harsh than our own. What happens to move Zechariah and Elizabeth from a place of mere duty to a place of abundant joy, away from sorrow and heaviness of heart to and overflowing life with peace that passes understanding?

God’s Promise Fulfilled - Luke 1:13

Zechariah was praying at that moment - and not for a son! There’s a little more going on here. He’s a priest, one of about 18,000 at the time, so many that you were chosen only once in your life to be doing what he was doing - offering the prayers with the incense in the Temple.

-Praying he would be chosen: “Maybe today” he thought every morning for so many years.

Praying for Israel as she stood before the Lord waiting for his word, longing for deliverance: “Maybe this year; maybe in my lifetime.”
Prayer is our inheritance as well - Philippians 4:6

And then an Angel - and not just any angel!
And if the son is the fulfillment of the Elijah task, then the Promises God made to the fathers really are being fulfilled.

God’s People Prepared - Luke 1:17

Zechariah was a godly man, a righteous man, a priest - he wanted Israel to be ready for the Promised One. Perhaps he also knew that they weren’t ready.

John preparing a roadway in the desert - that could only mean a new Exodus and a new Return from Exile.
“Hey, we have to pack! Lets get going!”

God’s Pardon Bestowed - Luke 1:13-14

“John” is a name that means ‘God is Gracious’. Zechariah wasn’t going to simply celebrate the birth of a long-hoped for son, but the appearance on the scene of God’s pardoning power. It is in God’s grace forgiving our sins and renewing us with the knowledge of his love that we discover real joy.

“Do you know of the doctrines of grace?” the man asked me, a scowl etched on his face.
Grace: ‘charis’; root word is ‘char’ - joy. Where you find grace you will find joy; the two are inseparable.

David knew this: Psalm 51:10-12
Zephaniah 3:14-17 tells us that David’s experience of renewed joy can belong to all of us.

God rejoices over us!
God renews us with his love.
If God celebrates you and God loves you, then banish depression and fear; bid farewell to guilt! Pop the cork and celebrate the newness that is ours in grace.
We sing to Him because He sings over us!

God’s promise is fulfilled, God’s people prepared, and God’s pardon is bestowed because God’s presence is with us. God himself has come to us. All his blessings are in him; he does not give us things, but himself! Zephaniah proclaims ‘The Lord your God is in your midst, the Lord of Lords who saves....he will rejoice over you with shouts of joy and he will renew you with his love.’ God’s blessings are not sent via another; he comes himself, and not just for a visit. He comes to dwell with us, to be ‘Immanuel, God with us.’

That very same presence, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is very powerfully made known to us now here at this Table, in this joyful feast. Let us draw near - Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice!

Let us come to the Banquet of the Lord now with his Joy in our hearts, his Song ringing in our ears, the healing tones that turn our mourning into dancing.

Athanasius and the Battle for Salvation

2009-12-11T09:37:00.001-08:00

The Hinge of History

The arrival of God among us is the hinge of history. “He became what we are”, said Athanasius, “to make us what he is.” By this that great fourth century Bishop of Alexandria did not mean that we become divine in the same sense that God the Son is also divine; after all, he is ‘the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1). What he did mean was two fold, and it is at the center of the ancient debate at the Council of Nicea. Athanasius taught that because God had become united with mankind – one in essence with us while remaining one in essence with the Father – we are now made the children of God through adoption. What Christ is by nature we share in by redemption. “We are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus”, wrote Paul. Athanasius defended not only the deity of Christ but the salvation which is ours though Christ. If he had not been perfect man, he could not be our faithful high priest and if he had not been perfect God he could not have destroyed death and forgiven sins.

Athanasius took to the fight over the issue, seeing what was really at stake, because an elder at Alexandria named Arius taught that ‘there was a time when the Son was not’ – in other words, Christ was a created being, albeit the highest created being and existing prior to all the rest of creation. That diminution of God the Son to mere creaturely status – meaning the denial of the Spirit’s divinity as well – threw the ancient Church into confusion. The newly Christianized emperor called all the Bishops together in Council to sort the matter out and issue a statement summarizing the truth.

For Athanasius, the denial of Jesus’ humanity or divinity destroyed the Gospel and meant the overthrow of the Christian faith. He was correct. If Christ did not have a true human body and soul then he was not truly ‘one of us’, and, as was noted a century later by another, ‘what is unassumed is unhealed’. In the same way any denial of Jesus being the eternal Second Person of the Trinity, meant that God could not be love and remained a solitary figure, divorced from creation. That latter point is vital. The distinction between the Creator and the creature/creation is not the divorce of the Creator and the creature/creation. There are many down to our day who despise the creation and treat salvation in Platonic terms – escape from this world – rather than in terms of glorification, which is the salvation of people and the world to such an extent that we sing with the angels “heaven and earth are filled with the glory of the Lord.”

In Advent we prepare for the Coming of the Lord and this means the salvation of all that we are – body and soul – and all he has made so that rather than being thrown out with the garbage the creation is made new. Groaning as we do with all creation until the day that our salvation reaches its fullness, it is most appropriate that we have the joyous seasons of Advent and Christmas to mark our souls afresh with the hope of fulfillment as we look back and see that all the Father promised to Israel through the prophets he brought to pass in his Son. The One who has done this continues to ‘watch over his word to perform it’ (Jeremiah 1:12). The One who has begin a good work in us with finish it (Philippians 1:6), and he will bring this salvation to fullness in all the world so that the Kingdom of the Son is ‘from the rivers to the ends of the earth’ (Zechariah 9).

Without Athanasius we might not have known that Gospel truth. Thank God this Advent for him and men and women like him through history who stood in the gap so that we can kneel at the throne of grace.

Beyond Smells and Bells

2009-12-10T02:57:00.000-08:00

Over Thanksgiving break I had the privilege of reading a very fine little book on Liturgy designed to help people largely unfamiliar with formal worship enter into the meaning of the service. "Beyond Smells and Bells" is written by Mark Galli, the senior editor of Christianity Today. Not only will a liturgical newcomer greatly benefit from the book (which is only 125 pages, and it has big print on smallish pages), those whose faith has been nourished in the rhythm of the liturgy and calendar will find their faith strengthened and their understanding deepened as well. Galli writes in a warm, non-technical style that nevertheless manages to communicate some of the intricacies, historical development, and mysteries of formal, communal worship, together with a Biblical reason as to why the Church has always 'done it this way.' Its one of those books that you put down saying, "That was terrific!" and "Man, I wish I'd read that years ago!". Published by Paraclete Press, I'd highly recommend it to all. Enjoy!

Glorify and Guard - and God.

2009-12-08T04:49:00.000-08:00

As we prepare to take possession of our new church home we should recall the ancient words of God to Adam when he placed our first father in the garden in Eden: "cultivate and keep". This was God's calling on Adam when he made him and placed him in his new home. Let us consider this dual commission - a vocation that faces upward, inward, and outward, and in doing so points upward.

With regard to the outward dimension of our vocation, God looked at all he had made and declared it 'good'; yet this did not mean that this goodness was to be left alone - static - and viewed as complete. On the contrary, Adam was called to take hold of this good creation and 'glorify' it - to turn grapes into wine and grains into bread - and export this 'culture' (the outcome of cultivation) to the entire world. Cultivation is glorification and it leads not only to the nourishment and enjoyment of the garden residents but the salvation-glorification of the whole creation.

The garden was a sanctuary where God met with his priest-king image bearers and so Adam was likewise called to 'keep' - to 'guard' - the garden. The good creation was also home to predators, threats, and could be undone, its beauty marred or lost. "Guard the Garden Adam!" Since the future of the whole world depended on the cultivation of this space it was an area that had to be secured against the threats which might openly or more subtly rise against it to overthrow God's good will. This 'internal' direction - guarding what must be glorified - reminds us that without diligent attention to the internal dimension (whether of our hearts, see Proverbs 4:23, or of the community of the Church, see Ephesians 4:1ff or Ezekiel 33) our external mission cannot be fruitfully pursued.

This points us back to the third direction of our calling.

Psalm 127 tells us that the city cannot be built - cultivating a flourishing culture - cannot be achieved unless the Lord is the builder. The same Psalm tells us that the city cannot be guarded unless the Lord is the One keeping watch. He must glorify in our glorification and he must guard in our guarding. This points out the upward call which is ours in Christ - apart from him we can do nothing (Philippians 3; John 15). We move upward in worshipful dependence so that we can work inwardly for fruitfulness and outwardly in mission.

Glorification and Guarding, cultivating and keeping, find their source and meaning in God who made us in his image to bear his likeness. It is only in him that we find life and strength to work with the land he gives us to carry out the mission with which he has entrusted us.

No Protestant Artists? Are You Kidding Me?

2009-12-07T16:22:00.000-08:00

Sometimes one hears that Protestants don't have any great writers or painters or musicians to speak of. Um, pardon me while I stop my head from spinning on that one and answer, "Handel", and don't forget "Bach" while you're at it. OK, we're going to hear a LOT of Ave Maria this month; fair enough (and Mary doesn't get nearly enough honor among Protestants). That said, there will be a LOT MORE of Handel's Messiah about the place, and Bach remains the gold standard of the western musical tradition. The devil definitely doesn't have all the good music.

Punching Arius

2009-12-07T16:20:00.000-08:00

My Roman Catholic friend Taylor Marshall has published on his blog the story I've told many times about St Nicholas of Myra punching old Arius on the schnoz at the Council of Nicea. Taylor's Blog supplies the famous iconography for the event. Here ya go:

cantuar.blogspot.com/2009/12/st-nicholas-he-who-punches-heretics-in.html

Episcopal Mischief

2009-12-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

The Episcopal Church USA has just decided to elect to the position of auxiliary Bishop a woman who is a lesbian in an openly lesbian relationship. This in Baltimore. "Take that!" the ECUSA says to Rev Dr Williams in Canterbury. Is it any wonder that Rome appears a far better option for many in the Anglican Communion? The schismatic nature of US Anglicanism is frightening, and what we are witnessing is exactly what that pioneer of degradation Bishop Spong called for - the invention of a new kind of Christianity. Never mind that its just old fashioned mischief dressed up in colorful robes; indeed, that heightens the fear factor. Its like Halloween in December.

Just Illustrating Why I Like Walker Percy So Much

2009-12-07T07:58:00.000-08:00

"The sacraments, especially the Eucharist...whatever else they do, confer the highest significance on the ordinary things of this world, bread, water, wine, touch, breath, words, talking, listening - and what do you have? You have a man in a predicament and on the move in the real world of things, a world which is a sacrament and a mystery; a pilgrim whose life is a searching and a finding."

From his essay "The Holiness of the Ordinary" in Signposts in a Strange Land

Morning Prayer: From Weakness Made Strong

2009-12-06T05:35:00.000-08:00

Almighty God, showing your power chiefly by the weakness of the incarnation and crucifixion, come to the aid of your weak people and make us strong in your grace. We cannot hear and respond to the call of the Forerunner and turn from our sins apart from the work of the Spirit sent to transform us. Pour out on our hearts today the grace of repentance that hating our sin and loving you supremely, we may live from the heart lives which please you and demonstrate your kindness to all we meet and serve. For Jesus and His Gospel, Amen.

The Clothes and the Man

2009-12-06T05:29:00.001-08:00

If clergy attire means nothing at all, then wearing it or not wearing it is irrelevant. If it does mean something - and those who hate it obviously think that it does - then there must be a reason, either dark or luminous, for this to be the case. John the Baptist wore distinctive clothing, as did Jesus. That wasn't new - as Aaron and Elijah were well aware. Indeed, the entire Jewish nation had distinctive clothing - they were a priestly people after all. Vestment matters as every sign matters, pointing away from itself to another, to the ultimate destination while telling the story of that destination with its fibers or letters. Casual attire for work is about the culture of the company. So are collars.

When Ugly is Beautiful

2009-12-06T05:03:00.000-08:00

Big 12 Champions. Whatever else may happen, let the satisfaction of that accomplishment settle in for a day or three.

As for the game, well...

That was the worst finish for a win I've ever seen.

The whole thing was ugly. The celebration was no less beautiful. Style points don't count - except in the imaginations of ESPN commentators.

So we'll hear for a month now that the Horns have NO CHANCE against Alabama. Fine. Ask USC how those predictions turned out.

Frankly, what amazes me is that Nebraska managed to lose any games with that defense, which was just incredible. Sure, how'd they manage to win some games with that offense, which is so awful? That's a team in total turn around and has coaches taking them back to the top of the college game. All they need to do is recruit Dallas or Austin better for a QB and they'll win a Big 12 title - and maybe a national title - in the next few years.

For now however, Hook 'Em!

Auburn Avenue Pastor's Conference Registration

2009-12-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

Here's the web site for conference information. Its time to register and make your travel plans.