The Personal Nature of Temptation

I'm continuing the discipline of reading the Gospels with Bishop Gray this Lent. We are currently more than halfway through the Gospel according to Matthew. With a handful of exceptions, I don't know who all has taken this on as a Lenten discipline (I'm told that over 900 people have registered to receive Bishop Gray's reflections on what we're reading via e-mail). Even so, I quickly discovered that this has given me a sense of connection with my bishop and with others around the diocese (and beyond). I think this is a wonderfully fitting thing for a bishop to do!

I was recently struck by Bishop Gray's reflections on Jesus' temptation in the wilderness in Matthew 4:1-11. He wrote:

Matthew gives us the specifics of Jesus' temptation and trials in the wilderness. The depiction of Satan as a companion with Jesus in the wilderness is troubling to many. And yet, the gift of the tradition in portraying the tempter as a person is a reminder that the temptations in our lives to turn away from God are all very personal. There are very few generic temptations in my life. What is held before me as an alternative to God always speaks to the particulars of my life. Evil always seems to be very personal with a knowledge of my very particular weaknesses. The personal figure of Satan seems to fit that reality quite well.

"There are very few generic temptations in my life. ... Evil always seems to be very personal with a knowledge of my very particular weaknesses."

This strikes me as a truthful corrective to those who balk at the very idea of Satan. It is also a helpful entryway into the work of self-examination.

What are the particular weaknesses in our lives that create opportunities for sin? And what needs to change so that, following Jesus' example in the wilderness, we can resist those very personal temptations?

St. John Chrysostom on Fasting

Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works.

If you see a poor man, take pity on him.

If you see a friend being honored, do not envy him.

Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye, the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all members of our bodies.

Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice.

Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin.

Let the eye fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful.

Let the ear fast, by not listening to evil talk and gossip.

Let the mouth fast from foul words and criticism.

For what good is it if we abstain from fowl and fishes, but bite and devour one another?

~ St. John Chrysostom (347-407)

The Creed is Not Your Faith

"When we stand up in church and recite the Creed, we often say 'that is my faith.' Whereupon someone draws the conclusion that the Christian faith consists in the proper recitation of an ancient formula. The Creed is not your faith – it is an expression of your faith. Your faith is in God, not in any combination of words, however venerable they may be. In a derivative sense you may speak of ‘the faith once delivered to the saints,’ meaning thereby that body of doctrine which expresses the foundation upon which your faith rests. But your faith is always in a Person."

~ Frank E. Wilson, Faith and Practice (1967)

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent 2012

Year B: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38

“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A while back I came across a publication entitled Church Songs. It includes a number of well-known hymns, but the titles and lyrics have been revised to purportedly make them more palatable to some segments of the population. Let me share just a few of the revised hymn titles with you:

“A Comfy Mattress is Our God”

“Joyful, Joyful, We Kinda Like Thee”

“Be Thou My Hobby”

“O God, Our Enabler in Ages Past”

“What an Acquaintance We Have in Jesus”

“Where He Leads Me, I Will Consider Following”

“Lift Every Voice and Intellectualize”

Here’s a good one for Lent:

“I Lay My Inappropriate Behaviors on Jesus”

And perhaps my favorite:

“There is an Alibi in Gilead”

Obviously, this is satire. It’s poking fun at tendencies in our culture to reduce Christianity and spirituality to the therapeutic values of comfort, self-esteem, and warm, fuzzy feelings. Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with those things. They have a rightful place in our lives. But if they become the sole values that guide our choices and determine how we understand the Christian faith, then we run the risk of failing to hear and respond to the message at the core of the Gospel. And that message is grounded in the way of the cross.

Today’s Gospel lesson from Mark hammers that message home. The action takes place immediately after Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah. Peter gets it right: Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One of God, the One through whom God will deliver people from bondage to sin and the fate of eternal death.

In response to Peter’s confession, Jesus explains to the disciples what it means for him to be the Christ. He tells them that he must undergo great suffering, be rejected by the religious establishment, be killed, and after three days rise again. And Peter, who has just made the good confession, immediately lays into Jesus, saying: “No, Lord! This must never happen to you!” And in response to that outburst, Jesus publicly rebukes Peter, calling him “Satan” and ordering him to stand down.

It’s hard to imagine a clearer example of how it’s possible to say all the right words about Jesus and yet still miss what it means to be his follower. And just to clarify what discipleship entails, Jesus says: “If you want to be my disciple, then you’ve got to deny yourself and take up your cross. Then and only then are you ready to follow me.”

“Deny yourself and take up your cross.”

That doesn’t sound like fun, does it? It sounds difficult. It sounds painful.

It would be so much easier if I could have my own personal Jesus! My personal Jesus would not only love me unconditionally; He would also insure that I’m happy, prosperous, and well-liked. My personal Jesus would always conform to my expectations and never ask me to do anything difficult. He would affirm that sin isn’t really a problem in my life so there’s no need to repent and, with God’s help, live a life of holiness and righteousness. I’m fine just as I am!

Today’s Gospel reading confronts me with the fact that I tend to want a Christianity without sacrifice, discipleship without cost, and a faith that not only affirms all of my yearnings and desires, but that also reflects my values without ever challenging me to change. But the real Jesus we encounter in the pages of the New Testament will have none of it! He continues to say to me and to everyone attracted to him: “If you want to be my disciple, then you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”

So where is the Good News in that?

There’s a prayer in The Book of Common Prayer appointed for Fridays in which we ask God to “mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace” (BCP, p. 99). That’s an important prayer, because our knee-jerk response to Jesus’ words about self-denial and carrying our cross may be to run for cover. We may fail to see the Good News that the way of the cross is not about punishment, shame, and guilt. The way of the cross is Divine Medicine.

If, as Christianity claims, the right diagnosis of the human condition is that we are infected by the predisposition to seek our own wills rather than God’s will, then the way of the cross is the antidote. Taking concrete form in practices such as self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, giving to the poor and needy, and meditating on Holy Scripture, the way of the cross is the path of healing that leads to new life beyond our wildest dreams. But receiving that new life requires completely surrendering ourselves to the care of Jesus the Physician of our souls.

In his classic book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis puts it like this:

Christ says, 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.'

The goal of the Christian life is to so receive the healing of God’s grace that, dying daily to self-will, we become more and more like God. God’s desire is that we become little Christs. And that only happens as, one day at a time, we walk the way of the cross. Yes, God loves us as we are. But God also loves us too much to let stay the way we are. God has far bigger and better things in mind for each of us.

Once again in the words of Lewis, God wants to transform each of us “into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly … His own boundless power and delight and goodness.” That is the true self God created each of us to be.

The way of the cross is the central paradox of the Christian life. It says that we find our true selves by denying our selves, that we save our lives by losing them, and that we enter eternal life by dying. The way of the cross is so deeply counter-intuitive, and runs so hard against the grain of our natural instincts for self-preservation, that many balk at it. “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,” writes the Apostle Paul. “But to us who are being saved” – for us who have found the way, the truth, and the life in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus – “[the cross] is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

As we continue our journey through these 40 days of Lent, may each of us discover the healing power of God’s grace by walking the way of the cross in the footsteps of our Lord. And by God’s mercy, may we find it to be none other than the way of life and peace.

Communion is Fundamental to the Church's Vocation and Mission

"Doctrinal incoherence and an ecclesiology shaped by the ethic of autonomy produces a Church which merely echoes modernity and its discontents. Communion, given expression through conciliarity, is fundamental to the Church's vocation and mission amidst the fragmentation of modernity."

~ BC at Catholicity and Covenant

John Henry Newman: "No One Will Find Happiness in Heaven Who Is Not Holy"

"If holiness be not merely the doing a certain number of good actions, but is an inward character which follows, under God's grace, from doing them, how far distant from that holiness are the multitude of men! They are not yet even obedient in outward deeds, which is the first step towards possessing it. They have even to learn to practice good works, as the means of changing their hearts, which is the end. It follows at once, even though Scripture did not plainly tell us so, that no one is able to prepare himself for heaven, that is, make himself holy, in a short time; - at least we do not see how it is possible; and this, viewed merely as a deduction of the reason, is a serious thought. Yet, alas! as there are persons who think to be saved by a few scanty performances, so there are others who suppose they may be saved all at once by a sudden and easily acquired faith. Most men who are living in neglect of God, silence their consciences, when troublesome, with the promise of repenting some future day. How often are they thus led on till death surprises them! But we will suppose they do begin to repent when that future day comes. Nay, we will even suppose that Almighty God were to forgive them, and to admit them into His holy heaven. Well, but is nothing more requisite? are they in a fit state to do Him service in heaven? is not this the very point I have been so insisting on, that they are not in a fit state? has it not been shown that, even if admitted there without a change of heart, they would find no pleasure in heaven? and is a change of heart wrought in a day? Which of our tastes or likings can we change at our will in a moment? Not the most superficial. Can we then at a word change the whole frame and character of our minds? Is not holiness the result of many patient, repeated efforts after obedience, gradually working on us, and first modifying and then changing our hearts? We dare not, of course set bounds to God's mercy and power in cases of repentance late in life; yet, surely, it is our duty ever to keep steadily before us, and act upon, those general truths which His Holy Word has declared. His Holy Word in various ways warns us, that, as no one will find happiness in heaven, who is not holy, so no one can lean to be so, in a short time, and when he will."

~ John Henry Newman

"Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness"

Musical Interlude with Ben Harper: "Don't Give Up On Me Now"

Time it opens all wounds
And trust gonna put me in the tomb
The world isn't mine
The world isn't mine to save
I can't afford to lose
What you easily throw away

And I don't even know myself
What it would take to know myself
I need to change I don't know how
Don't give up on me now

It's not what we do
It's what we do with what we feel
Takes all you have to stare him down
And whisper "Devil, no deal"
I don't want to fight
Don't want to fight my father's war
You can wait your whole life
Not knowing what you're waiting for

And I don't even know myself
What it would take to know myself
I need to change I don't know how
Don't give up on me now


Lyrics source and credits

George Herbert: Of a Pastor

"A pastor is the Deputy of Christ for the reducing of Man to the Obedience of God. This definition is evident, and contains the direct steps of Pastoral Duty and Authority. For first, Man fell from God by disobedience. Secondly, Christ is the glorious instrument of God for the revoking of Man. Thirdly, Christ being not to continue on earth, but after he had fulfilled the work of Reconciliation, to be received up into heaven, he constituted Deputies in his place, and these are Priests. And therefore Saint Paul in the beginning of his Epistles, professeth this: and in the first to the Colossians plainly avoucheth, that he fills up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh, for his Body's sake, which is the Church. Wherein is contained the complete definition of a Minister. Out of this Charter of the Priesthood may be plainly gathered both the Dignity thereof, and the Duty: The Dignity, in that a Priest may do that which Christ did, and by his authority, and as his Vicegerent. The Duty, in that a Priest is to do that which Christ did, and after his manner, both for Doctrine and Life."

~ George Herbert, The Country Parson (1633)

Reservations about "Ashes to Go"

Last year I posted some thoughts in response to Episcopalians taking the Ash Wednesday imposition of ashes to the streets of San Francisco. I noted that there is something moving and even courageous about Episcopalians leaving the relative safety of church buildings to go out into the streets. But I also shared some of the things I found troubling:

Taking the imposition of ashes out of a liturgical context that includes scripture readings, the invitation to a holy Lent, and the litany of penitence, there is no insistence on the reality of sin or any call to repentance. ... To be sure, this confronts people with their mortality. But it leaves out Ash Wednesday's pointed emphasis on sin and repentance, as well as the liturgy's emphasis on God's desire that sinners "may turn from their wickedness and live" (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 269). ... Ironically, without the Ash Wednesday liturgy, the imposition of ashes becomes a kind of implicit affirmation of persons as they are.

Since that time, the idea of "Ashes to Go" seems to have become more popular. I've recently seen a lot of talk about it on Facebook, and I'm aware of several churches around the country that did it this past Ash Wednesday (including an Episcopal Church here in Jackson, MS). But I still have reservations about it.

In a blog posting entitled "Ashes-to-Go: A Salvation that Remains," Fr. Robert Hendrickson shares his own reservations about this practice in ways that resonate for me. He writes:

My concern about Ashes-to-Go is that it sits apart from the fullness of the Christian message of new life and reconciliation with God and one another. Those receiving ashes hear and receive only one part of the message – they are marked with the sign of sin and death without its being situated within the context of the pledge of our redemption. The sign seems ill administered without the Sacrament.

It becomes a reminder of only one part of the Christian story. Moreover, it is a quick reminder of a much deeper process and imparts upon the reception a singular and momentary quality that invites one to a speedy Lent rather than a fuller examination of conscience and amendment of life.

The Prayer Book continues, “And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.” Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the work of Lent and is meant to initiate a deep engagement with the self, the other, and God. We hear in the liturgy that, “it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life.” Ashes-to-Go does not offer the chance to situate our repentance within the grace of Christ’s great gift.

It is as if we were to only say “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” from Psalm 51 without hearing “Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.” Within the fullness of the liturgy we are able to say, with confidence, “Deliver me from death, O God, and my tongue shall sing of your righteousness, O God of my salvation.” For we hear of the rest of the story – that God’s saving action will never let dust, ashes, sin, or death be our end. Ashes-to-Go ends the story entirely too quickly for we do not hear and know the assurance that “He pardons and absolves all those who truly repent, and with sincere hearts believe his holy Gospel.”

I worry that we are sharing only the mark of our separation from God rather than our conviction that God dwells ever with us and that this very dust that we are may be hallowed, sanctified, blessed, and even assumed. This reconciliation of ourselves to God brings with it the welcome to live in the fullness of the Christian life. We are given the hope that “being reconciled with one another,” we may “come to the banquet of that most heavenly Food” and receive all of the benefits of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. Ash Wednesday is not about our sins alone but about our life in and with the Triune God who calls us into true life – a life free of the mark of death.

This simply cannot be communicated in a drive-by encounter. The sign of death is decisively stripped away in the Sacrament – it is that encounter with the Christ made known in the Body at the Altar and in the Church that is the point of Lent as we are brought into Communion and community.

My worry about Ashes-to-Go is that it reinforces the privatized spirituality that plagues much of the Church. “I” do not get ashes. “We” get ashes so that we may know ourselves, as a Body, to be marked for a moment but saved, together, forever. ...

On the plus side, I think it is absolutely vital for the Church to find ways to engage the changing world. This may be one such way – yet I cannot quite get comfortable with it. I am increasingly leery of the Church’s desire to find ways to make the work of the Christian life easier or faster – especially as it pertains to this most sombre and needful of seasons.

Read it all.

When we impose ashes with the words prescribed by the Prayer Book ("Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return"), the message we give each person who receives them is: "Remember that you are going to die." Isolated from the context of the Ash Wednesday liturgy - which includes the call to repentance, a stress on God's desire that sinners "may turn from their wickedness and live," the reminder that "it is only by [God's] gracious gift that we are given everlasting life," and the Holy Eucharist's affirmation that "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again" - the message "Remember that you are going to die" is very bad news!

Perhaps there are ways to take the imposition of ashes to the streets that include the fullness of the Gospel message. If so, it may be worth exploring. That's another point on which I agree with Fr. Robert: we need to find creative, faithful ways to do church in an increasingly post-Christian context.

But if we're talking about isolating the imposition of ashes from the liturgy and from communal support and accountability ("drive-by ashing"), then we may fail to communicate the Gospel in its fullness. Indeed, we may fail to communicate the Gospel at all. However, when it comes to faithfully living our Baptismal Covenant promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, we cannot afford to "half ash" it!

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Be sure to not miss the reflections on all of this at Catholicity and Covenant's posting entitled "Left as consumers?"

Ash Wednesday Sermon 2012

[Listen to the sermon here.]

“Rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing” (Joel 2:13).

Those ancient words from the prophet Joel go to the heart of the reason why we gather on Ash Wednesday. And that reason can be summed up in one word: repentance.

Repentance. That’s a word that may make some of us nervous. Perhaps it conjures up images of televangelists or street preachers hammering home fiery messages of condemnation while wielding big black Bibles. Talk of repentance may evoke feelings of guilt or shame. And we may wonder why anything like repentance is necessary in the first place. After all, doesn’t Jesus love us just the way we are?

And yet, it is Jesus himself who stresses the need for repentance. In his first appearance in the first of the Gospels, his first proclamation includes the exhortation: “Repent.” And the call to repentance remains central to his message thereafter.

Ash Wednesday confronts us with the stark truth we may try to whitewash or deny: that we are sinners who need to repent of our sins. Beneath the surface of the image of having it all together we project out into the world, we are desperate cases. We have a problem that no amount of education, therapy, or will power can eradicate, a predisposition to seek our own wills rather than the will of God, even when doing so causes pain and grief to ourselves and others. It’s a sickness unto death that goes to the very core of our being, distorting and at times severing relationships with God, with other people, even with all of creation. Again and again, we fail to do the good we know we should by falling back into the very patterns of thinking and behaving we know we should reject. And we are powerless to cure ourselves.

The call to repent is a call to healing. And the first step on the journey of healing is to take a hard look at the sin sickness that infects our hearts. The “Litany of Penitence” we will shortly pray serves as a mirror in which we can really see this truth about ourselves. It’s not a pretty picture. It shows us just how much cleansing and healing needs to happen.

That’s not about piling on guilt and shame. That’s about right diagnosis. For without the right diagnosis – without a true account of our condition in the presence of the One before whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid – we can’t take even the first step back home to God.

It’s only after seeing our true condition for what it really is – and just how deeply each one of us needs the healing of God’s grace – that repentance comes in. For repentance is about acknowledging the reality of the sickness that infects our hearts. It’s about admitting that we need change and transformation. Repentance is about turning away from paths that lead to death back to the way of life. It’s about forsaking self-destructive habits and behaviors. It’s about letting go of the futility and despair of trying to fill the emptiness of our lives with money, pleasure, power, or “getting it right.” And it’s an admission that we are not self-sufficient, that we can’t do any of this by our own strength, that we cannot cure ourselves.

We need help. We need someone we can completely trust to direct our lives along the paths of wholeness and righteousness. We need someone who sees inside our hearts, someone who knows the truth about who we really are and yet doesn’t turn away, someone who loves us so much that He’s willing to give his life that we may live, someone who has the power to touch, cleanse, and heal us.

We need a Divine Physician.

We need a Savior.

We need Jesus.

My friends, the season of Lent is about going back home to a gracious and merciful God. But in order to get there, we first have to come to terms with the path that takes us back to the Father’s house. That path is the way of repentance – the way of honestly admitting our sin sickness and turning our lives over completely to the One who alone has the power to heal us. That One is Jesus Christ.

To paraphrase St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Jesus is the physician who comes to the sick. He is the redeemer to those who have been sold, a path to wanderers, and life to the dead. Jesus is the One who casts all of our sins into the depths of the sea and who heals our diseases. And when our strength fails and we cannot carry on, Jesus is the One who carries us on his shoulders back to the source of our original worth.

During this season of Lent, may each of us encounter Jesus anew. May his healing love, mercy, and grace empower us to do the work of repentance. And as we make the journey back home, may our Lord set free us from the bondage of our sins, creating clean hearts and renewing right spirits within us, that we may come to know the joys of new and abundant life.

Reading the Bible with the Bishop During Lent

My bishop, the Rt. Rev. Duncan M. Gray III, has invited our diocese to join him in reading through the four Gospels during Lent. According to Bishop Gray: "This Bible reading initiative, begun at Fort Washington, Pennsylvania and endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, our Presiding Bishop and other archbishops and bishops from around the Anglican Communion, is an effort to invite serious and rigorous reading of scripture." The reading is designed to be more reflective than a traditional Bible study, much like the process lectio divina or holy reading. Perhaps once a week or so, those who are joining the bishop in this endeavor will receive via e-mail a reflection from him on what we've been reading. He modeled what that will look like at our recent annual Diocesan Council meeting, and it was very insightful and contemplative.

As part of my Lenten discipline, I have accepted Bishop Gray's invitation (the reading schedule is available here). We started today with the first chapter of Mark. I am using the Orthodox Study Bible (which includes the New King James Version, as well as notes, commentary from the Church Fathers, and beautiful icons).

Reading through Mark 1 this morning, I was struck by some of the Orthodox Study Bible notes. For instance, here is Mark 1:35-38:

Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him. When they found Him, they said to Him, "Everyone is looking for You." But He said to them, "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth."

Here's the study Bible's notes on these verses:

Mark is the only Gospel which gives us a full 24-hour day in Jesus' life, a day built around prayer and ministry. Jesus is the model for both, and He does not separate them. Jesus' priority is prayer to His Father: prayer before service. He goes to a solitary place (v. 35) to be free from distraction, despite the multitudes' need of Him. His ministry come out of His relationship with His Father, not foremost out of people's need. Here He moves along to the next towns (v. 38). He knows His task, and performs it although the crowds clamor around Him.

Holding up the vital importance of "prayer before service" and grounding ministry in relationship with God rather than in people's needs are two things I do well to consciously address during this season of Lent.

I'm also struck by the Orthodox Study Bible's notes on verses 40-45 (the cleansing of a leper). There we read:

As the dialogue between the leper and Jesus demonstrates, Jesus heals from compassion - not from duty or a need to prove Himself, or in order to gather a following. Jesus' authority is comprehensive: (1) in teaching, (2) over demons (vv. 21-28), and (3) over sickness - powerful testimony to His divinity.

This expands and deepens the focus on grounding ministry in prayer and relationship with God by rooting it firmly in selfless compassion rather than (conscious or unconscious) attempts to meet self-centered needs. And this model for ministry is itself grounded in the example and authority of One who is not merely human, but also fully divine.

None of this, of course, is totally new to me. But it's precisely because it is so basic and, in the busyness of everyday life and ministry, so easy to neglect, that it needs to be highlighted again and again. I'm grateful that, taking on the bishop's invitation by using the Orthodox Study Bible, that reminder has come to my attention on the very first day of Lent.

Ash Wednesday and Lent in Two Minutes

I don't care for the music, but otherwise the following video is helpful. Here's the description:

A brief kinetic type video explaining the what and why of Ash Wednesday and Lent, from the history of wearing ashes dating back to the Old Testament, to the practices of Catholics and [other] Christians during Lent. (from the editors at BustedHalo.com)

Lent blessings to you all!

E. B. Pusey: "We Have Need of Patience"

"We have need of patience with ourselves and with others; with those below, and with those above us, and with our own equals; with those who love us and those who love us not; for the greatest things and for the least; against sudden inroads of trouble, and under daily burdens; disappointments as to the weather, or the breaking of the heart; in the weariness of the body, or the wearing of the soul; in our own failure of duty, or others' failure toward us; in everyday wants, or in the aching of sickness or the decay of old age; in disappointment, bereavement, losses, injuries, reproaches; in heaviness of heart; or its sickness amid delayed hopes. In all these things, from childhood's little troubles to the martyr's sufferings, patience is the grace of God, whereby we endure evil for the love of God."

~ Edward Bouverie Pusey

quoted in Daily Strength for Daily Needs

At the Heart of a Classically Anglican Christian Faith

A posting by Fr. Jonathan at The Conciliar Anglican entitled "A Checklist for Finding a Classically Anglican Parish" recently caught my eye. In it, Fr. Jonathan suggests several important questions for an inquirer to ask the rector of a parish as part of the process of discerning whether or not the parish in question is, in fact, "classically Anglican."

Here's the first question Fr. Jonathan suggests asking:

Do you believe that Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead and that it’s only through faith in Him that our sins are forgiven and we come to be saved?

Fr. Jonathan's explanation for putting this question front and center hits the nail on the head:

It is appalling that we live in an age when we cannot take the answer to this question for granted, but there we are. If the answer to this is anything other than an unqualified “yes,” turn around and walk right back out the door. This is a good question to ask because it saves you time on having to ask a whole bunch of other questions about the creeds, the scriptures, etc. If the answer to this question is yes, you can be pretty well assured that the answers to all those other questions will be the right ones.

God was uniquely present in Jesus. And the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the central miracle of the Christian faith, the chief premise of Christian teaching, and the foundation event for the entire Christian religion. Everything hinges on the resurrection.

So Fr. Jonathan is right: the uniqueness of Jesus and the reality of his bodily resurrection lie at the heart of a classically Anglican understanding of the Christian faith. And so failure to affirm the uniqueness of Jesus as the Savior and his bodily resurrection from the dead signifies a departure from "classical Anglicanism." Even more, it signals a departure from the Christian faith itself.

From time to time, I hear persons in the Church (lay and ordained) suggest or outright state that such things don't really matter. They say that it's doing the Church's mission a la Matthew 25:31-46 and faithfully living the last two questions of promise in the Baptismal Covenant that are really important. As long as we can agree on that, we can disagree on things like the Person and Work of Jesus and still call ourselves "Christian."

What a sad state of affairs!

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Speaking of our Lord's resurrection, check out N. T. Wright's paper recently delivered to the Conference of Italian Bishops entitled "Christ is Risen from the Dead, the First Fruits of Those who have Died."