As I sit here in my office enjoying the crisp spring air I am contemplating a box of half-eaten chocolates, a gift from my mother, sitting on my desk. For most people, Easter is over after Church on Easter Day (if they even attend Easter services at all). But the Church keeps the Paschal Feast for fifty days. These chocolates, half eaten, seem to be a symbol of our culture's idea of Easter: Not gone, but forgotten.
But we are in the midst of the feast! One of my favorite Collects for Easter is found in the book Lesser Feasts and Fasts:
God of infinity mercy, who dost renew the faith of thy people by the yearly celebration of these fifty days: Stir up in us, we pray, the gifts of thy grace, that we may more deeply know that baptism hath cleansed us, the Spirit hath quickened us, and the Blood of Christ hath redeemed us; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
We need to remember that Lent is a forty day fast that prepares us for this fifty day feast. If it is the obligation of Christians to keep the fast, it is also our obligation to keep the feast.
Keep feasting!
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Healing
The Gospels appointed for the Sundays leading toward Lent are all healing stories; stories where Jesus demonstrates his love and power by bringing the suffering into a renewed wholeness and newness of life.
Healing is all about the Lordship of Christ. It’s about who rules God’s world. It is a question of who is in charge. Healing is not simply about making us better; it is about making us whole children of God. It is not simply about taking away our pain; it is about God in Christ reclaiming God’s world from other forces that seek to diminish it.
How does God heal us? Well, at one level the answer is obvious. Healing happens when symptoms are taken away. The blind see. The deaf hear. The leperous are made clean. The grieving are comforted. The troubled find peace. And this of course does happen. (I have been witness to it.) But there is another possibility--a very real possibility for each one of us. If healing is about Jesus’ Lordship and who rules our lives, then real healing can be a defiant refusal to be dominated and ruled by our suffering. It can be a question of affirming what truly rules our life: not our sickness, not our disease, not our loss, not our pain, but over and above all else, the resurrected Christ, who lifts us up as He himself was lifted up, into a new and holy reality.
Where do you need God's healing? What will healing look like for you?
Healing is all about the Lordship of Christ. It’s about who rules God’s world. It is a question of who is in charge. Healing is not simply about making us better; it is about making us whole children of God. It is not simply about taking away our pain; it is about God in Christ reclaiming God’s world from other forces that seek to diminish it.
How does God heal us? Well, at one level the answer is obvious. Healing happens when symptoms are taken away. The blind see. The deaf hear. The leperous are made clean. The grieving are comforted. The troubled find peace. And this of course does happen. (I have been witness to it.) But there is another possibility--a very real possibility for each one of us. If healing is about Jesus’ Lordship and who rules our lives, then real healing can be a defiant refusal to be dominated and ruled by our suffering. It can be a question of affirming what truly rules our life: not our sickness, not our disease, not our loss, not our pain, but over and above all else, the resurrected Christ, who lifts us up as He himself was lifted up, into a new and holy reality.
Where do you need God's healing? What will healing look like for you?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Living in a Post-Christian Society
When you search Ebay for 'silver paten' (which is the plate used in the Holy Eucharist), 90% of the returns are Wiccan, not Christian.
There are so many indications that our culture has become Post-Christian, which means that Christianity is no longer the dominant model for religious faith--or at the very least, no longer the only acceptable option. This represents such a drastic change from the past that I don't think we as 'Church' have even begun to grasp its significance.
What does this mean for us? First, I think it calls us to strive for new ways of expressing our faith. We can no longer be certain that a newcomer to our church knows the basic story of Jesus, or any of the other 'whys' or 'hows' of our faith.
Second, it requires us to be able to articulate why our faith--and our faith community--is important to us. Do we go to church out of habit? Or are we involved in our church for deeper reasons. And if we are, what are those deeper reasons that keep us in the family of faith? We must be willing to share these things with others.
Do you agree that America is Post-Christian? And if so, what other ways does this cultural reality call the Church into new ways of being?
There are so many indications that our culture has become Post-Christian, which means that Christianity is no longer the dominant model for religious faith--or at the very least, no longer the only acceptable option. This represents such a drastic change from the past that I don't think we as 'Church' have even begun to grasp its significance.
What does this mean for us? First, I think it calls us to strive for new ways of expressing our faith. We can no longer be certain that a newcomer to our church knows the basic story of Jesus, or any of the other 'whys' or 'hows' of our faith.
Second, it requires us to be able to articulate why our faith--and our faith community--is important to us. Do we go to church out of habit? Or are we involved in our church for deeper reasons. And if we are, what are those deeper reasons that keep us in the family of faith? We must be willing to share these things with others.
Do you agree that America is Post-Christian? And if so, what other ways does this cultural reality call the Church into new ways of being?
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