The Dream of Advent: A Sermon for Tuesday of the First Week of Advent

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72: 1-8

Luke 10: 21-28

All Saints' Chapel, Church Divinity School of the Pacific
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Tuesday of the First Week of Advent

This fall I was given the opportunity to tutor elementary school students in a charter school in Oakland.  Last Wednesday, one of the students that I tutor was reading the Velveteen Rabbit.  While he was reading it, he started asking me a series of existential questions, “what does mechanical mean?” “what does it mean to be alive?” “why are we alive but robots are not?  Don’t we need power just like a mechanical toy?”  At first I thought he was trying to waste time as there were only ten minutes left in the session, and so I gave him a few polite answers, but he still kept pushing.  He seemed almost troubled at the thought that inanimate objects were not living things, and there was a palatable silence from my answers  which seemed to disrupt this child’s fantasy world.

Jesus said “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”

This seems to be an odd thing for Jesus to say, how do we as seminary students and professors even begin to approach such a text.  We can have the intellectual knowledge to say that Jesus is the incarnate Word, the Son of God, and the Messiah; but all of these things are mere words, built up from a Hellenistic and Jewish philosophical and metaphysical paradigm.  At the end of the day, these words they describe so little, if anything at all.  Unfortunately, It does raise a number of questions as to why we are here at CDSP studying theology and religion.

But before we run and burn all our degrees and course work to set them on fire in an anti-intellectual fervor, let us pause to consider what Jesus is saying.  Who and what is Jesus, and what does his being on Earth mean?   In Advent, we await the coming of Christ and the reign of God on Earth, in full recognition that the reign of God has already begun with the coming of Christ 2000 years ago.  Though we may attempt to try and understand what that may mean, I believe that the true meaning of the Advent of the Lord is elusive.  

When we turn the words of the Prophet Isaiah, we see a vision of the reign of God will be like.  The Prophet tells us that “a shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”  That shoot will judge the world with equity.  Not only that, the world will be reordered to reflect that justice.  Predators will lie with and eat with what was once their prey and infants will play with snakes.  It is a fanciful scene, idyllic, and dreamlike even.  

A common interpretation among Christians is that the shoot of the stock of Jesse is Christ.  As Jesus has already been born once and came into the world once, we can say that the reign of God has begun because we believe Jesus Christ is that judge.  There should be justice and equity in the world; the world should be reordered according to Isaiah.  Yet, I do not think any parent will willingly let their children play with poisonous snakes.  Nevertheless, we are presented with and confounded with a vision of God’s reign as it should be, and yet it is not.  There is still injustice and pain in the world.  How can we be living in the reign of God?  Perhaps this paradox is what confounds the wise, and yet I think we must suspend our intellectual ascent and consider the world through the eyes of a child, whom Jesus says is able to see clearly that which is hidden to the wise.

A psychologist I know told me once that the most grounded people in life are those that maintain a certain childlike curiosity about them throughout their life.  They are willing to examine and try new things, and embrace that childlike wonder and awe at the unexplored and newly imagined.  The desire to explore, imagine, and dream should never die as we transition from childhood to adulthood.

And yet as a society, I fear that we haven’t learned how to truly grow up, we have only learned how to grow old.  We are so afraid to have that childlike embrace of wonder and mystery, we are afraid to dream.  It is written off as childish pursuits in a realistic world.

Perhaps that is why Jesus says these things are revealed to infants.  The image of the wolf living with the lamb may seem like a far off fantasy dream world, and yet in a child’s imagination it is conceivable.  This is not to say that Isaiah’s vision is childish, but there is a certain child like awe and wonder at a world that has been reorder from a world of destruction to a world of peace.

Sadly, we live in a world of cynicism, fear, sorrow, hatred, and distrust, and we use all of our conceivable intellectual capacities to rationalize and explain away the deep inequities of our world.  Yet the Prophet Isaiah never promises that we will be freed completely from the evils of this world, but that there will be a judge to help us live into the vision and promise of the reign of God.  For us, that judge is Jesus.  Through Jesus Christ, through God, we have the freedom to imagine and dream of a world as it should be, and we have been granted the gift to live into and make our imagination and dreams a reality.  Christ calls us to be children once again so that we may dream of a world as it should be, and grow up to make those dreams a reality.  

This Advent, let us remember what it is like to imagine a world where anything is possible.  Even though it is childish, let us learn to dream once again.

The New Mundane: A Sermon on John 6:51-58

“My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”

May I speak to you in the name of the True and Living God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit+

In the past month we have witnessed multiple acts of senseless violence.  On July 20, at a midnight showing of the Dark Knight Rises, a lone gunman shot and killed 12 people and wounded 58 others.  On August 5, another gunman entered into a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin and open fired killing 7, including himself.  On August 13, three were shot and killed near the campus of Texas A&M University.  And August 15, a guard was shot outside the headquarters of the Family Research Council in Washington DC, thankfully, the guard survived.  We know of these tragedies, and there are countless more that are not known to us.  In cities and towns across the nation, there are people who die needless every day.  There are children who live lives where violence is just a routine part of it.  Regardless of where one stands on the issues of gun laws, we can all agree that the senseless violence that exists, whether it be in Aurora or Oak Hill, College Station or Washington DC, no matter where it is, the violence of this world, especially the violence that takes a life, is tragic.

Nothing I can say can alleviate the pain and the tragedy that the victims and families face in the wake of these events.  Nevertheless, there can be some hope in this, for death is not the end.  No matter what, no matter where, God has already conquered death.

“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;”

When Jesus spoke these words, few at the time understood what he meant or what he was saying.  Just a few weeks ago we heard of how Jesus fed the masses with just five loaves and two fishes, and now he is telling people to eat his flesh and drink his blood because he is “the living bread that came down from heaven.”  All of this seemed nonsensical.  

Time passed, and before Jesus’s death, he gathered with his friends and family one last time, and he gave some insight into what he meant that day.  He took bread and said “Take, eat, this is my Body, which is given for you."  He took wine and said "Drink ye all of this; for this is my Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins. "  This mundane bread is the body of Christ; this common wine is the blood of Christ.  No response is given by his friends and family, perhaps they know what Jesus means when he calls the bread and wine his body and blood.  Perhaps the gravity of his coming death overwhelms the situation and the room, and silence is their only response to this cryptic and unusual ritual in the midst of their Passover seder.

Soon after, Jesus is executed.  His death by crucifixion was a relatively common experience in the lives of the people of the Roman Empire.  Jesus was killed because Rome saw him as a rabble-rousing revolutionary.  Thousands before him, including other would-be messiahs, were executed in this fashion, and thousands more would be executed in this fashion after Jesus.  Crucifixion, considered one of the most excruciating and horrible forms of torture and death, is but another common event in the lives of those living in the Roman Empire whether it be outside of Jerusalem or along the Apian Way in Italy, it was meant to discourage dissent and desensitize people to violence and brutality so as to strip even the onlookers of their humanity.

Because of all of this, it is a relatively mundane story.  It’s just another act of senseless violence.  After Jesus’ death, the thousands of people in Jerusalem go about their business as if the next day is just another Sabbath day.  And the world returns to its mundane weekly routine, just like people do today.  Most of Jesus’s disciples go into hiding, or try to return to their normal lives.  The only people around to mourn his death are his Mother the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Cleophas, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and the Apostle John.  He is placed into a tomb, to be buried and then forgotten over the course of centuries like so many others before him.

But the story does not end there, death cannot contain Jesus, the Christ, the incarnate Word.  Hell and death are conquered and the tomb bursts forth as the last of the Old Creation and the first of a New Creation.  Christ is raised and dies no more.  Death no longer has dominion over Christ for he conquered it, and now it no longer holds dominion over us.

The common bread and wine, the simple Jesus and his death have become extraordinary because the extraordinary body and blood of Christ and his new life have become mundane.

God became mundane so that we may be extraordinary.

His broken body has been given to us to become our body, and his blood has become that which binds us all together into that body—we are the living body of Christ.  Every week, every day, every time we are together as a body, we are broken together and our blood is shed, only to be reformed again into a new body again, and again, and again.  We share in this so that in our mundanity, we become extraordinary.

My friends, this calls for us to be and to do more than we are because Christ is “working in us,” and he can make us “do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”  It demands a response because “his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink.”

When there is violence whether it be by a gun or by some other means, regardless of the situation, when evil enters into our lives and the lives of others, and when evil is done to someone, whether they are Christian or not, violence and harm is done to the body of Christ, for we are all one body and one family.  As Christians, we are called to stand with the victims of oppression and violence, for as Archbishop Desmond Tutu say “God is biased towards the oppressed.”  And there the body of Christ must be, with the oppressed, so as to encounter the body of Christ.

It is in that unusual paradox, the body of Christ meeting the body of Christ, that I think the true nature of what Jesus said to the crowds in the feeding of the multitudes, in the Last Supper, and in his Death and Resurrection is made known.  It is the New Creation being formed and made in the image of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  In the Beginning, God formed life from the dust of the Earth, and breathed his spirit into it.  Now, in the breaking and sharing of the Bread and Wine, the Body and Blood of Christ, we become the new breath of the Spirit, being given to the world for renewal and rebirth.

Indeed, as the Body and Blood of Christ, we can overcome the evil and darkness in this world.

In the face of tragedy, in the face of sorrow, in the face of death, the story does not end.  Death has been rendered mundane in the face of resurrection and new life, and that extraordinary reality of new life and resurrection as the body and blood of Christ has become the new mundane.

Amen.

More than speech: The effects of Chick-fil-A on the lives of LGBTQ people

The past few days have been ones of revelation regarding the popular fast food company of Chick-fil-A.  Before now, it was a generally open secret that Chick-fil-A was opposed to LGBTQ rights because of the various organizations that it donated money to.  Some worked to repeal legal protection of LGBTQ rights, and others offered and promoted psychologically damaging reparative therapy for LGTBQ people to attempt (and fail) to change their orientation.  Recently, son of the founder of Chick-fil-A and president of the company, Dan Cathy, said in an interview to the Baptist Press that when it came to supporting the so-called traditional family he was “guilty as charged.”  He later said in an interview to The Ken Coleman Show:

“I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,' and I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about,”

Dan Cathy’s statements continue a cycle of rhetorical violence that justifies the dehumanization of LGBTQ people.  Sure, Chick-fil-A will continue to sell their sandwiches to LGBTQ people, but they will continue to donate money to groups that will continue the oppression of LGBTQ people.

For over a year now, a powder keg has been building regarding those donations.  People already were committed to boycotts.  Dan Cathy’s remarks though were the spark that set off the powder keg, and now Chick-fil-A has become a symbol in the ongoing debate about the status of LGBTQ people in society.  

In the wake of Dan Cathy’s remarks, there has been an almost hesitant response from people.  Certainly Mike Huckabee and his ilk continue to defend Dan Cathy’s remarks.  And though many others have openly pledged a boycott, I have also seen responses from people who under any other circumstances would stand with oppressed people, shy away from a confrontation with the business.  Attempts are made to minimize Chick-fil-A’s donations and their president’s statements either by stating that the amount of money they donate to these groups is very small (except they have donates hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars to these groups) or point to other charitable organizations that they donate to that do not work towards the oppression of LGBTQ people. 

I do not like this line of thinking because it appeals to a pseudo pragmatic/utilitarian mentality that I find immoral.  At best, it attempts to white wash the donations; at worst, it attempts to legitimize it by implicitly saying, “well, its okay that they donate to these groups because they donate to these other groups.”

Furthermore, in response to Dan Cathy’s statements, the mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, has said he is going to work to push Chick-fil-A out of the city.  The Alderman of the First Ward of Chicago, Joe Moreno, also said that he would fight against Chick-fil-A’s attempt to get a permit to open a restaurant in that part of the city, and has the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In an article on the Huffington Post, a person on their blog crystalized the push back against the mayor of Boston’s and others statements by saying “the state is not there to arbitrate opinions, but to protect rights -- even rights of people we dislike.”  He goes on to say “If politicians who claim to be friends of the LGBT community want to really put it on the line, they should help organize a picket line and be seen there as often as possible. Use the legitimate power of boycotts instead of state power.”  This all can be translated down to saying that a community boycott is legitimate, but the state must be tolerant of intolerant people.  However, it is absurd to ask for a group that is being discriminated and oppressed to be “tolerant” of their oppressor.  The lack of sensitivity is overwhelming. 

In recent days, those elected officials have backed off on using state power to limit Chick-fil-A’s growth as a company.

Here is the problem, this is not a “First Amendment issue” or “Free speech issue,” it extends beyond that.  Dan Cathy has the right to say what he wants, he even has the right to donate money to whomever he wants, and the state will not stop that ability to donate.  But, those donations have consequences, dire ones, ones that we should not be willing to tolerate and respect.  And it is those consequences that warrant state action because people’s loves and lives are on the line. 

Over the past ten yeas, Chick-fil-A has donated millions of  dollars to groups that seek to deprive the rights of LGBTQ people.  This is beyond a simple matter of disagreement.  For LGBTQ people, organizations like Exodus International, the Family Research Council, the Marriage & Family Foundation, and the Georgia Family Council are organizations that create and maintain a climate of fear and shame for LGBTQ people.  These organizations create the rhetoric that allows for violence against LGBTQ people.  And these concerns are well founded, in the past few days, a lesbian in Nebraska was carved with a knife, a gay man in Oklahoma was firebombed, and a girl in Kentucky was kicked and beaten, her jaw broken, and her teeth knocked out while her assailants allegedly hurled anti-gay slurs at her.  This is not a matter of “oh well, life goes on,” people’s lives and safety are at risk.

Furthermore, Chick-fil-A also has a record of discrimination in its employment policies, which it does not, or should not, have the right to do.

Upon researching the Human Rights Campaign’s website, they have rated Chick-fil-A Inc. with a zero in their policies and benefits.  Meaning that they are actively discriminating LGBTQ people since they provide no benefits for LGBTQ employees or their spouses and partners, do not provide insurance coverage for a trans-persons needs, and does not have a non-discrimination policy for sexual orientation or gender identity.  Chick-fil-A in essence, is creating a hostile work environment, and in some cases is breaking the law.  However, since there is no Federal Law against the discrimination of LGBTQ people, people sometimes have no recourse because 29 states have no legal protection for LGBTQ people.  So Chick-fil-A may be covered in many states by being discriminatory, it still speaks to the greater issue of LGBTQ personhood.  One should not be fired because of their sexual orientation or gender identification; it is as simple as that. 

I support boycotting Chick-fil-A, but boycotting is not enough.  Boycotting is also a means to raise awareness so that government can step in and create a resolution to the situation.  Sit-ins and boycotts were effective tools to combat segregation in the South, but it was only with the 1964 Civil Rights Act that segregation officially ended.  This is a fair and legitimate power of the state because it ensures a certain equity for people that otherwise does not exist when we are allowed to let prejudices dictate society.  It is my sincere hope that in the wake of this scandal Congress can finally pass Federal non-discrimination legislation for LGBTQ people, that marriage equality becomes a reality, and that we can begin to work towards a better society in which none have to live in fear about who they are.

Coming home Catholic: Rediscovering my Catholic faith in the Episcopal Church

What does it mean to be catholic? Some would say that it means being Roman Catholic, being in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Others would say it means holding onto the apostolic tradition of orthodoxy. The word catholic is derived from the Greek word katholikos, which means universal. How can you call yourself universal if you deny people access to the sacraments? How can you call yourself universal if you deny that people have a call to ministry just because they are gay, married, or a woman? How can you call yourself universal when you are disconnected with the laity, with the people of God, with your flock? The answer is that you can’t call yourself universal very well. What in essence happens is that you claim to be universal, but on your terms. Universal means including all people, and inviting all people to ministry and the sacraments. It is inviting everyday people to be involved in the decision-making processes of the church. It means accepting all people as the Body of Christ

Today I have been received into the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Instantly people would think I am refereeing to the Roman Catholic Church, but I am not. Instead, I speak of the Episcopal Church. This church claims the mantle of catholic, and I have found it to be an institution that represents the catholic Church.

I grew up Roman Catholic. Though from an early age, I was endlessly fascinated with Church history, theology, and faith, I never really had the best of connections with the Roman Catholic Church. After a long period of apathy ending with the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s involvement in Prop 8, I turned from the church. I believed that the hierarchy was hypocritical and unable to recognize the harm that they cause to people.

After a period of time, I started attending evangelical churches. I enjoyed it at first, but I found the services to be distant and not really connecting to anything. I never connected with the four songs and a sermon method of worship. After being made to feel unwelcome in the churches that I attended. With no place to turn, I started attending an Episcopal Church.

When I was there, I felt as if I had come home. The warmth of the congregation, the vibrancy of the liturgy, the invitation for all to the altar, it all made me realize that this was what it meant to be universal, to be Catholic. I can never be more thankful for the priest there, and all that she did for me in those few months I was there.

In my time in Thailand, I grew to depend on the Book of Common Prayer app I had for my iPod in order to find any sense of fulfillment and discipline in my prayer life.

When I returned to Hawaii, I started attending an Episcopal Church near my home. There too did I find a sense of belonging, even though I spent a short period of time there. I am grateful for the priest there, and all she has done to make me feel like I have a home when I am there.

During my time working and worshiping at an Episcopal church, I fully embraced being catholic. They showed me that you can be catholic without Rome. And they have challenged my theology in new and interesting ways. I am gratified for the opportunities that the priests there have given me.

In this past year of attending the Episcopal Church, I have learned many things, but one thing stands out is that Jesus loves everyone, Jesus accepts everyone. Our response to this is to do the same: love everyone and accept everyone.

There is a point in the liturgy that sums up everything, the Law, the Baptismal Covenant, the creeds, everything:

“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

To follow this means we are living out the commands of our faith. To follow this means we are living out orthodoxy. To follow this means to be catholic.

We invite all people to the Baptismal font, for we are all invited to share into the death and resurrection of Christ. We invite all people to the altar because we are all invited to be the body of Christ. We are a living faith, for we are in a living Body of Christ, it means that we will grow, and change, and move more and more to that ideal of God, of the Church, and of what it means to be universal.

We sometimes fall short, we sometimes fail, we often disagree, but we still work more and more towards the ideal that Christ set forth. We recognize that compromises are necessary for unity, but that if we sacrifice people in the sake of unity, we deny our greater unity. Doctrine and theology are important, but not so important that we deny people access to the love and grace of Christ just to maintain our sense of “purity.” The Episcopal Church has made many mistakes, but it keeps moving forward knowing that: “There is one Body and one Spirit; There is one hope in God's call to us; One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; One God and Father of all.”

We are all the children of God; we are all in the family of God. And we have a responsibility to love one another. That is what it means to be catholic, to love one another, without condition. When we love one another, we love God, for as Jesus says “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” It is one and the same thing. We fulfill the catholic mantle when we do this.

And so I walk forward once again into a new beginning, into the family of the catholic Church.

An April Fools’ Palm Sunday

I cannot help but say I had a lot of fun today. This Palm Sunday was quite possibly the most joyous and exciting experiences I have had in church; perhaps in someway it reflects the excitement and joy that people had when Christ entered Jerusalem. The procession with the hymn All glory, laud, and honor set the mood for the day. And you know what, it was, dare I say, fun. And I am not just saying this because I am trumping my church’s horn; I had to keep a straight face while singing and suppressing a smile while in the procession (lest I look to happy in Christ Church). There is one thing that struck me today, today is not just Palm Sunday, but it is also April Fools’ Day. There is something to be said about that, that at the end of Lent, and in the sadness of the days to come in Holy Week, there is foolish defiance of the powers of the world in Palm Sunday that is but a foretaste of the Resurrection of Christ.

Over the Passover in Jerusalem in Jesus’s time, it is likely that the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, requested more troops to enter the city to maintain order. Jerusalem was packed with pilgrims for the feast, a feast that celebrates the freedom of the Jewish people from enslavement by another empire long ago, a feast celebrated by a people that were somewhat defiant of Roman rule. So there was probably a concern that in the atmosphere of celebrating liberation, an uprising may occur.

These troops probably would have entered in with standard military procedures and ceremony complete with pomp and circumstance, and with there commanding officers on horseback, displaying the full power of Rome. Around the same time a backwater hick from Galilee named Jesus enters in on a donkey. The donkey is nowhere near as majestic as a horse, and an animal that is known for being stubborn. Yet here he is in the midst of what must be a foolish image, a grown man riding a donkey that probably does not want to be bothered, being proclaimed King of Israel, the Son of David. The crowds lay their robes and cut palms to lay in the street and shout Hosanna in the highest! His entry into Jerusalem almost seems laughably defiant towards the powers that be; and yet his entry into Jerusalem begins to call into foolishness the powers of the world.

And yet, it almost seems foolish that Jesus is entering into the very den of those seeking to kill him. Nevertheless, he rides on. Not on a warhorse or a steed like the Romans, but on a donkey.

The foolishness of his entry seemingly becomes apparent. After his arrest, we see the crowds turn on him, people proclaiming him king soon call for his crucifixion, possibly in hopes that if they scream the loudest, no one would know they were there laying palms before his path. The foolishness of our fears is revealed. We don’t want to be seen as defiant, because defiance means scorn and derision, and in Jesus’s case, death. To soothe our fears, we call ourselves foolish for even thinking such thoughts as to challenge the status quo. We call foolish those seeking to challenge the powers of the world, and we dismiss too quickly their work, and go about our business as if nothing is wrong.

But even upon the cross, bearing the world’s pain, sorrows, sins, oppression, injustice, and evils, Christ overcomes the darkness of the world. Death could not take him, Hell and the grave could not contain him, and thus the foolishness of Hell and Death are revealed, and now are no more. What started as a foolhardy, joyous, and defiant entry into Jerusalem becomes the salvation of the world.

And so, may you all have a blessed and happy April Fools’ Day.

St...Charles Stuart?

So generally speaking, Charles Stuart is an unusual person to be considered a Saint. None of the Stuarts are memorable for being good Kings. Particularly after Queen Elizabeth, King James and King Charles had big boots to fill. And after the Interregnum of Oliver Cromwell, King Charles II dissolved Parliament and ruled as an absolutist, and King James II was driven from England by a Dutch Invasion, and never had his throne restored to him. The Stuarts were not the best of kings.

Looking at Charles specifically, he sought to rule as an absolutist monarch, he was considered to be widely unpopular among his people, he interfered with the Church of Scotland, attempted to negate the powers of the Scottish and English parliaments, continued to oppress Ireland and he presided over the English Civil War in which he ultimately lost and was beheaded on charges of tyranny.

When we look at these things, it seems on paper that to have Charles be considered saintly. Especially when we put him into the company of people like Mother Teresa, St Francis, or anyone we first think of as saints.

There has been a long history of veneration of figures within Christianity of royalty that may or may not have been the best of people. Emperor Constantine XI (Byzantine Empire), Emperor Nicolas II (Russian Empire), King Kamehameha IV (Kingdom of Hawaii), King Dagobert II (Merovingian France), and Emperor Henry II (Holy Roman Empire). Some are declared saints, others (either for political reasons or because of when and where they lived) are only remembered and venerated in prayer. These kings were remembered for their faith, but they were also made mistakes. And in the end they died, some in battle, others executed, or quietly and slowly forgotten.

History will often follow the lives of leaders, royal or otherwise, because they are visible. And because of that, more attention is given to their lives, both good and bad. For kings, there are fewer myths and more criticisms within history, particularly as history has developed to be a more critical study. But things do not exist in a vacuum, a person’s legacy far outlives them, and even more so for a king. We all make mistakes, and the magnitude of the mistakes a king can make is far greater than that of a normal person. But the magnitude of good can also be greater than a normal person as well.

So why should we remember and venerate Charles Stuart as a Saint? That is a hard question. To be sure, his legacy endures because the Church of England never adopted the Puritanical reforms of Oliver Cromwell, namely a Presbyterian polity. A Catholic character remained in Anglicanism, and it was grown by the Oxford Movement to really encapsulate the whole of Anglicanism. But all of these things, Charles did not do. They all happened after his execution. His attempts in his life to do what he wanted ultimately drove England apart.

His legacy begins with the choices he made. He was offered the chance to retain his throne and life if he abolished the episcopate, and he refused. For that, he died. It was seemingly for naught since Cromwell went and abolished it any way. And though the episcopate suffered during the Commonwealth, it survived and was able to establish itself once more during the restoration. A small minority in England and Ireland resisted Cromwell, and suffered for it. And though Charles did a lot that was wrong, it was in the moment of truth that he showed his convictions and faith.

This is where martyrdom, sainthood, and faith all converge, in the moment. Many saints lived lives that were questionable. St. Paul, St. Genesius, and others lived terrible lives, made mistakes, hurt others, and though may have done good as well, they chose at the moment of truth to stand by faith and God. Charles was not perfect, he was not a very good king, Monty Python laughs about how ‎"The most interesting thing about King Charles the First is that he was five foot six inches tall at the start of his reign, but only four foot eight inches tall at the end of it," and that "in spite of his intelligence and cultivation, Charles was curiously inept in his contacts with human beings. Socially, he was tactless and diffident, and his manner was not helped by his stutter and thick Scottish accent, while in public he was seldom able to make a happy impression." Despite that, Archbishop William Laud describes him as "A mild and gracious prince who knew not how to be, or how to be made, great." And maybe, just maybe, that humility was what helped him say yes when the question came to him.

Thus, St. Charles Stuart, King and Martyr, lives on and reminds us that even though we are imperfect, we are still capable of saying yes to God.

Storytelling and Worship

Today I was working on the bulletins for the Candlemas service for Christ Church on February 2^. Candlemas celebrates the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. As I was placing the Gospel reading into the bulletin, something dawned on me. When I was reading the story of the infant Jesus in the arms of the Simeon in the temple, and his proclamation of “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, To be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel,” I pictured in my head an elderly man, holding the infant, and seeing the baby’s story unfold before his eyes, and being at peace with the end of his story. It is all very human, so simple, so mundane, and yet so profound—the Son of God, in the form of a man, being held lovingly like any other child in the world.

It has been almost a year since I started attending services at Episcopal Churches, and in that time I have started to understand the Liturgy. Within it is something so profound and yet beyond comprehension. And though I had the Liturgy as a part of my life while growing up Roman Catholic, it has only been recently that I seen what it means to “worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” and how we are called to “offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.”

I studied history while in college, and in it I learned of the many ways to view history. One particular methodology that I have adopted in my writing is the narrative school. Stories have power, we respond to stories, we tell stories, and indeed we communicate our stories in everything we do. I believe at the heart of Christianity is storytelling. The Bible is a collection of stories, Jesus taught oftentimes in parables, and the heart of evangelism is storytelling. And that is what the Liturgy is, it is a story: it is the story of God, of humanity, of us—both our individual stories and collective stories. It begins with the sharing of stories of what once was and moves to what is where it reaches its climax in the sacrament of the Eucharist where we not only tell the story of Christ’s death and resurrection, but also call upon God to transform simple bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. The story ends by pointing us to the future and tells us where we are going. And then, should the Last Gospel be read, the entire Liturgy arcs back to the very creation of the Earth, and the story starts anew, again, again, and again. Every Mass, every Liturgy calls us through the narrative to partake in God’s redemptive work by drawing us to the altar, to God’s table, to experience the wonder of the Holy Sacrament.

All that we do, all that we are called to be, and all that we hope for begins and flows from the altar like a river from its glacial source in the mountains. As it flows, it nourishes everything it touches on the mountain. And from there, it flows out to the world.

I think at the heart of being Catholic is the melding together of our individual story into a collective story. In that call to the altar, we are not only encountering God, we are called to be with one another. All people, and all their stories are welcome to meld and merge and become the great story of God that continues to flow in the world and replenishes, renews, and restores this world.