The News from Camp Allen

All cartoons aside, I find myself of (at least) two minds about the latest communication from the House of Bishops, in which they explicitly rejected the idea of a Primatial Vicar for dissenting dioceses and parishes asked by the Dar es Salaam Communique and (I believe) indicated at the very least an implicit rejection of the other requests of the Primate.

On the one hand, as I indicated to my own bishop before he made his way to Camp Allen, that the time for Episcopal cleverness is clearly past, and that we should speak honestly and clearly about what we intend to do. No more cute "well we didn't authorize the rites used for the blessing of that gay union" for instance.

Well, be careful what you wish for. I seem to have gotten it.

And yet, as a catholic-minded Anglican, I receive this news with great pain. To be catholic-minded in at least a synchronic sense is to be committed to live into what might be deemed the two poles of catholic concrescence: the local eucharistic community and the widest global fellowship. Leaving aside for the moment the question of where local concrescence occurs, the diocese or parish, I have held for some time that it is the global communion that represents the highest level of catholic reality for the Anglican. (Even here, this level of ecclesial existence is called to serve the even large catholic canvass, but the ecumenical question will need to be posed another day.)

But to be an Episcopalian this day is to believe ecclesial concrescence subsists in the national church, as I indicated in at least one other post below. It is thus a step away from being catholic.

The lost of a catholic ecclesial identity is disorienting and excruciating.

The Latest from the House of Bishops

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Reflections on a Memorial Service

I had the occasion to attend the memorial service for a young man who was tragically killed in a car accident. While it was in a church and presided over by two local pastors, it was in essence a secular service. Oh, there was an opening and closing prayer of indistinct liturgical and theological derivation, as well as a very poor congregational rendition of “On Eagle’s Wings.” But there was no scripture and no homily. All the speaking was from friends and family. While the reasons for this remain obscure to me, one of the pastors intimated that it they were trapped in some family politics and a negative memory in the town of another funeral for a high school student that was considered offensive because of strident fundamentalist sentiments expressed. Better no God than to offend the mourners. I feel sorry for the bind that the pastors were in and give thanks that I can always fall back on the Book of Common Prayer to offer Christian content.

My reason for noting here this service is not to complain about the de-Christianization of the liturgy, but rather to note a strange dynamic that emerged in numerous comments people made that afternoon. What happened several times was that people spoke a message from the deceased from beyond the grave. It was not “If John were here I think he would tell us….” Rather “John speaks to us and wants us to know….” It was more the language of séance than that of memory. And it was peculiar in its specificity. It was also couched in therapeutic language.

On the one hand, it was just downright creepy, and presumptuous. Yet it also suggested to me that at this critical moment in people’s lives we need more than words of love, support, and comfort. We need a message from beyond the horizon of this life to break through the hopelessness, especially when a young person dies. A word from outside needs to break through the pall.

That afternoon we longed for a word from outside, but as God had been banished we heard from John. Or rather, we heard from ourselves, and put it in the deceased’s mouth.

I bring this up because this should embolden us to speak the true word from beyond the horizon of death, that of our Lord. It is absolutely essential that the voice of Jesus is heard: “I am the resurrection and the life;” “I go and prepare a place for you;” “the sheep hear my voice;” “no one comes to the Father but by me.” Here is something solid and abiding: the Word spoken by one who died and lives again. One who has the authority to speak from beyond the horizon. Any words about the deceased only have meaning if spoken from within this gospel context.

I have never had any complaint about preaching on the death and resurrection of Jesus at a funeral, even when the one who died or those who grieve had a less than firm grasp on that truth. To use Kyle’s phrase, people want a God who raises the dead. A Christian funeral is the place where those other gods meet their match. The victory is won, and people are glad to hear it. No, they need to hear it.

But what of the offensive Christian funeral, the type of which so affected the family of the young man we mourned? While I wasn’t at the specific service the pastor referenced to me, I have been to others of that ilk. The problem lies not in the scandalous particularity of the gospel itself, but in making the death of the person a cautionary tale for others. The outline is simple: we have confidence that our loved one is with the Lord. Why? Not generally because God raised Jesus from the dead, but because the dead person accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and savior. And if we want to see him again, we had better do the same before our number is called.

The result of this sort of proclamation is a strange one. First, it has the effect of marginalizing the action of God. The focus is on the decision made by the deceased. Even if the preacher mentions that Christ died for the person’s sins (usually omitting the resurrection, by the way), the emphasis is upon the act of faith itself. To a good extent, the word from beyond the horizon is not offered, or if offered, it is obscured.

Secondly, even the deceased recedes into the background, since his life is rendered insignificant except for that one epiphenomenal moment, that blink of an eye, when he accepted Jesus. The result is rather Gnostic. A whole life is rendered inconsequential. The proclamation of the work of God in the passion and resurrection exalts the life of the one who has died as the story of an object of eternal love redeemed and sanctified in a way that utilizing the language of personal decision cannot.

Let us be bold to proclaim Christ at funerals. Let our “alleluias” for what God has done shake the rafters at the same time our tears flow like a river. Let us hear the word of promise calling out from beyond the horizon we both long to peer over and are terrified to approach.

On Reading Old Journals

This morning after praying the Office and reading a selection from Merton's No Man is an Island I found myself reading back over a number of my spiritual journal entries from the past two or so years. It was an interesting and instructive experience, both in a negative and positive way.

In the negative sense, one thing that caught me up short was how the besetting sins and weaknesses that I found to be such a vexation several years ago still dog me today. I found myself wondering if I had progressed at all in the process of sanctification. Why the same stuff over and over? I would like to be able to be done with something and move on to other issues with which I wrestle from time to time. Can I be done with fear that I may go on and deal with, say, sloth or avarice? It would seem not from what I read this morning. My own pen judges me.

In response, however, several things occur to me. First, that I am an impatient creature. Sanctification is a process for the long haul. Two, or even ten, years are not adequate to gauge the purificating work of the Holy Spirit. (And as I continue to inch toward the Tiber, I wonder if even the span of a lifetime is a broad enough perspective. Purgatory? God be praised! What grace! But that, obviously, is another post.)

Secondly, my besetting sin is just that, a besetting sin. It is not something I will get over. It will dog me until God's work is finished. It is the thorn in the flesh. It is my addiction. To suggest final triumph prior to Glory is to be beguiled by my own sense of accomplishment and ability. It is to be like the alcoholic who thinks he doesn't need to practice the 12 steps anymore.

But the place of my besetting sin is also the place where the grace of God in Christ Jesus is manifested with the greatest power. It is the place where the earthen vessel is chipped, thus revealing the surpassing weight of Glory.

Now to the positive experience:
I was actually quite taken and moved by the insights and graces God has shared with me in the last few years as they were recorded in the journal. There was some wonderful stuff in there, thoughts and reflections of beauty and grace that had been long forgotten. But the greater grace was reading this thoughts as though I had first taken a deep draught of Lethe. I received them without a sense of ownership or pride. These reflections were not mine, they were a gift from God and, how do I say this?, another me, one who is undoubtably a part of me and has made me who I am (for good and ill!), but also speaks to me from outside. Thus the insights are received as sheer grace, free from any demands that my proprietary ego might make.