Why we need to observe the Feast of the Ascension on Thursday

This coming Thursday, May 29, 2014, is the Feast of the Ascension of Jesus Christ.

And, in order to go to Mass on this day, the nearest Episcopal Church that will be observing it is across the bay in San Francisco.

There seems to be an unfortunate trend that occurs with movable Feasts, or Feast Days that just so happen to fall during the week.  I cannot discern if it is ignorance or apathy, but it troubles me that so few parishes even take note of major Feasts, particularly major Feasts of our Lord.  Like with the Feast of the Epiphany, the Feast of the Ascension will either be transferred to Sunday, or forgotten all together.  I understand, and even somewhat sympathize with communities that do this: people are too busy to go to Mass during the week, we want to include the whole of the community to celebrate the Feast, and maybe it is okay to fudge with the rubrics of the Prayer Book in these sort of instances. 

There are two things that concern me about this.  First, we seem to be developing a particular laxness about the Christian life.   Second, parishes are missing opportunities to build a stronger community.

One of the things that troubles me within the Episcopal Church is the growing sense of diluting the Christian and/or Anglican-Episcopal identity.  We see this all too frequently—communities and diocese flaunt canons of the church regarding baptism and communion; we see iteration after iteration of provisional and supplemental material being released for liturgical use that lacks any cohesive theological center; celebrants of the Mass will change language of prayers at a whim (in the name of inclusivity) that either borders on, or is explicitly heretical (for example, using Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier for blessings); and then there is the occasional rumbling that the language of the Baptismal Covenant is too inaccessible, and it should be simplified. 

We are a community that is driven by a story, a story that is ancient and yet always new, a story that though we may hear a million times over, it is always new the first time we hear it.  The story of God’s interaction with the world; the life, death, and resurrection of Christ; and the descent of the Holy Spirit is the story of the relationship between the Trinity and humanity.  It is the story of God that we have been invited to share into.  Just as the Resurrection is the promise that we too will rise from the dead as Christ did, so too the Ascension tells us that we will ascend and join with Christ who is with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  What Christ assumed, we too have assumed.  The feast marks the beginning of a waiting period of nine days for the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.  We are invited then to be faithful, like the Apostles, in awaiting the arrival of the Spirit.

By transferring, or ignoring this feast, we fall into a trap that what it means to be a Christian is something to only be found on Sundays.  Our call is to a constant life of devotion to God.  We are given an opportunity to celebrate the Mysteries of God.  This should not be a burden though, but a celebration, a Feast to celebrate the completion of Christ’s earthly ministry.  We are called to be a part of something different, something better, and sometimes it is a call to sacrifice in order to celebrate.  Sometimes it is hard to get away from work, or family life.  Sometimes it can be discouraging for a parish to have a special service if only a few people show up.  But that is not the point however, we should not be afraid, or wary, or burdened, to have this amazing opportunity to celebrate.  Here is the dirty little secret, we do not only have to go to church on Sundays, in fact our work days might be better if we took an hour or so out of it for something like this, or a weekday Mass in general.

This leads to a second concern I have.  Lately, in the Episcopal Church, there is a desire to build stronger communities.  In particular, in communities that are in decline, there is a desire to build a community that is welcoming to new people.

This is an opportunity to accomplish this, it is staring us in the face, and we do not seem to notice. 

A great way to for a parish to build community is to have a weekday service that is followed by a potluck, barbecue, a trip to the pub, or something like that.  It not only reminds us that Mass is not the sole thing we can do to celebrate the Ascension of the Lord, let alone any feast (mind you, it is one of the most important things we can do), but it allows us an opportunity to meet others in the parish and welcome new people in what might hopefully be a loving and fun environment.  Especially as we approach summer months, and when kids are out of school, this can be a great way to have family activities in the middle of the week.  Again, it gets us out of the trap of thinking that being a Christian only happens on Sundays. 

As I said before, I recognize the challenges that preclude some parishes and people from taking part of this.  I lament that the way modern society seems to sap any free hours that someone has for labor while providing less pay and less opportunity for rest.  To me though, there is no reason why parishes should stop having celebrations on weekday Feasts like this, in-fact it is all the more reason to have celebrations like this.  The church needs to offer and be an alternative to the secular society, and we can do that by celebrating our Feasts mid-week. 

In a society that demands the privatization of faith, we need to celebrate faith.

In a society that extracts more labor for fewer wages, we need to challenge this by resting from our labors.

In a society that dilutes the reasons for our joy, we need to identify more strongly the reason for our joy.

In a society that alienates us from one another, we need to welcome the stranger into our midst. 

In a society that promotes death and decay, we need to proclaim resurrection and ascension. 

May you all have a Blessed Ascension Day.

The Music of the Prophets: A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 11.1-10

Matthew 3.1-12

Church of St Mary the Virgin and St Nicholas
Littlemore, Oxfordshire

Second Sunday of Advent

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

May I speak to you in the name of the true and living God +Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Last Thursday night, Nelson Mandela passed away at the age of 95.  This is a great loss for the entire world as Nelson Mandela was a leader who strove for peace and reconciliation in South Africa after forty-six years of Apartheid.

We should not pretend that Apartheid, the systematic stripping of rights and segregation of the South African people by its white, settler minority, was this nebulous evil that affected South Africa in the past and is now gone forever.  Nor should we reduce Nelson Mandela’s legacy to a mere sense of good feeling about peace.  Both were more than that.  The evil of Apartheid, where people were categorized by ethnicity based upon the presumption that white skin and European ancestry was a sign of genetic superiority and then segregated from one another in public facilities, and where the native African population was forcibly enclosed in so-called ‘homelands’ and stripped of their rights and humanity, was the natural conclusion to centuries of Dutch and British colonialism that subjugated, enslaved, and dehumanized the African majority of South Africa.

Nelson Mandela spent much of his adult life fighting against Apartheid, both through non-violent and violent resistance against the Apartheid government.  His association with communist groups and his attempts to overthrow the South African government in 1962 had him sent off to prison for 27 years where he endured brutal conditions and treatment.  It was only after intense international political pressure that he was released in 1990 and Apartheid came to an end in 1994 with the first free, general, and open elections in South African history, which he helped to negotiate and instigate.

In Nelson Mandela’s presidency of South Africa we find something extraordinary.  His presidency was one of national reconciliation.  A truth and reconciliation committee was created to serve as a forum for people, both victim and perpetrator, to speak of their experiences and actions during apartheid.  People who worked in the apartheid system such as law enforcement officers and government officials were pardoned; national programs were set up to attempt to redistribute the wealth that had become concentrated in the white population to the now enfranchised African majority.  These programs were not initially popular, but it was necessary to heal the wounds of a nation scarred by the great sin of apartheid.  As Nelson Mandela said “courageous people do not fear forgiving.”  There could not be justice or peace without forgiveness.  Nelson Mandela gives hope that indeed someday there can be true justice in this world.  And though racism, other systems of apartheid in other parts of the world, and sin still exist, Nelson Mandela throughout his life fought to ensure that justice could be realized.

Like Nelson Mandela, there are people who have lived, and who live among us now, who somehow are more than they seem. They say and do things that sometimes may be considered strange, or dangerous, and yet they somehow are the most attuned to society around them. They can challenge the most powerful people in the world, and even the powerful can live in fear of them (indeed Mandela was labelled as a terrorist by the United States even as late as 2008).  They sometimes march to the beat of their own drum; in tune with something we cannot perceive.  The Bible refers to these kinds of people as prophets.

We often associate prophets with predicting the future, and though they serve that purpose to some extent, they speak as much about the present as they do the future.  There are many prophets in the Bible: Moses who openly confronts the Pharaoh of Egypt to free the Hebrew people from slavery, Deborah who liberates Israel from the Canaanite King Jabin, Elijah who challenges Ahab and Jezebel’s priest of Ba’al to a contest on Mt. Carmel to demonstrate the power of God, and Jeremiah who laments the destruction of Jerusalem caused by their apathy towards the poor and suffering in their midst.  Today, we hear from two very important prophets, Isaiah and John the Baptist. 

It is interesting to compare Isaiah to Nelson Mandela as they are very unlike one another.  Nelson Mandela was a political revolutionary who spent a third of his life in prison before working to transform South Africa as its first post-Apartheid president.  Isaiah by comparison, was probably in the upper echelons of the Kingdom of Judah, and had the ear of the royal court and king.  He too was willing to challenge and condemn the sins of the Kingdom of Judah such as ignoring the plight of the poor and the destitute among them.  But even when the Assyrian Empire was about to overtake the Kingdom, and all hope was lost, he delivered a message of hope to the people:

A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,

and a branch shall grow out of his roots…

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide by what his ears hear;

but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

This person is the hope that God will not abandon those who are in need.  The poor and defenceless will find equality and hope in the world.  And this hope isn’t a temporary salve or release from the bondage of this world in the next life, but the transformation of the very order of the world itself.

The wolf shall live with the lamb,

the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze,

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,

and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.

These things should not happen, and yet this vision of a world contrasts with our own where the wealthy take from the poor, where the strong oppress the weak, and where greed and power are celebrated as virtues.  What Isaiah gives us is a song of a world as it should be.  But we shouldn’t just listen to the words, but to the melody as well—the coming of the root of Jesse upends the world and creates a new Kingdom where the oppressed and the oppressor find peace with one another. 

What hope then might an encircled Judah find from Isaiah?  What hope might we find from Isaiah?  To know that hope, we need to turn to John the Baptist.

John the Baptist is a rather iconic person.  He is a bit of a recluse, living out in the desert, wearing itchy camel’s hair, eating a protein rich diet of locusts and honey, and baptising people who probably walked for many miles in the river Jordan.  He calls out to the religious leaders of his time and refers to them as a ‘brood of vipers’ because he perceives them to be self-righteous hypocrites who seem to follow the Law of Moses in exactitude whilst ignoring the hardships and burdens of people around them.  He too speaks of one who is coming, and that time is drawing near as ‘even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees’.  The world is about to be deeply, deeply, changed. 

If we were to sum up the work of all of the prophets, all that they said and did, it comes together in what John the Baptist cried out “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!”  The prophets call out to their time to remind us that God is active and in the midst of our world, and he is about to do something in it.  The implications of this though need to be considered.

In the opening number to the musical Godspell, we are introduced to various intellectual figures throughout history: Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Galileo, and Jean-Paul Sartre to name a few.  These philosophers, theologians, historians, and scientists all present their views on the nature of God, the nature of truth, and the nature of human reason.  Their messages begin to overlap with one another until you can no longer make them out, and they begin to fight with one another as climb a ladder to reach out to a light.  They can never reach the light though, no matter how far they climb.

However, the light does give a response, and it sings out ‘prepare ye the way of the Lord.’  Nothing else.

In our time, how many philosophers, theologians, historians, and scientists continue to reach towards that light?  So many seem to claim to have the answer, the right interpretation, the right insight, and the response that comes back is ‘prepare ye the way of the Lord.’  The prophets remind us that God is the one who crosses that threshold as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, Emmanuel, the shoot of Jesse, and the coming dawn upon a world covered in darkness.  The words and deeds of the prophets are the music that overwhelms the cacophony of our lives that draws us closer to God’s Kingdom.

We are not isolated from the music of the prophets.  When we share what we have with others, particularly the poor; when we show kindness to one another, particularly the lonely; when we welcome the stranger into our midst, particularly the foreigner or one who is different; and when we stand up for the oppressed, particularly those whom we might have a difficult time accepting; we become attuned to that music and can say like the prophets ‘prepare ye the way of the Lord’.  And when we accept the gifts from others, when we receive kindness, when we are welcomed, and when we are protected, we find the very kingdom the prophets spoke of in our midst.

In this Advent Season, let us join with Isaiah, John the Baptist, Nelson Mandela, and all the prophets as we let the music overtake our busy preparations for Christmas.

Let us prepare the way of the Lord.

Amen.

Can Communion be celebrated online?

The short answer is no. 

However, the fact that online communion is being practiced by a small number of communities and debated in the United Methodist Church is a curious point of discussion.

The origin of this is an article on the Huffington Post that I recently read that talks about the rise of online religious communities and the growing phenomenon of online worship.  If you are interested in reading the article, it is here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/11/online-communion-methodist-debate_n_4084854.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

Let me start by taking time to explain my own bias: I believe strongly in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the elements become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at the moment of the Epiclesis.  I am also not a Methodist,  but this phenomenon of online Communion is also happening outside the United Methodist Church, and so I think it is possible to address the issue as it is starting to enter into the wider Christian community.  This discussion therefore has implication for others as well, particularly in discussions about ecumenism and communion between denominations.

The celebration of Holy Communion is one of the oldest Christian rites.  It is first instituted by Jesus Christ, and then further elaborated and explained by St. Paul and the other Apostolic Fathers.  As time goes on, the Liturgical forms that center around the celebration of the Holy Communion, of the Holy Eucharist, take shape and develop, and the theology of the Sacrament is further clarified.  Setting aside the differences of theology behind what happens at the Eucharist in the different Christian Traditions, one of the consistent elements and themes that occurs throughout history is that the celebration of Holy Communion is connected to the gathering of the Christian community.

The word communion is derived from the Latin word commūniō, which essentially means “with gifts.”  The world also can be used to describe a joining together of some sort.  It is also related to words such as common, communicate, communal, and community.  In the celebration of the Holy Communion, we as the community brings forth our common gifts, not just bread and wine, but our very selves to become the Body and Blood of Christ.  Regardless of how one approaches the theology of the Eucharist itself, what is present is the communal body gathered as the Body of Christ.  That is what makes communion possible; it is the Body of Christ celebrating and consuming the Body of Christ.  The boundary between God and us comes down and we are joined with God in this Sacramental act.

When I was an undergrad student, one of the things that really just rubbed me the wrong way was how a few of my peers believed that there really was not a church they liked, so they would just go on their laptop and listen to a few praise songs and listen to a particular pastor’s sermon.  This is troubling in many ways.  Setting aside that there were at least ten churches in the town where my university was (including Roman Catholic, Episcopal, mainline Protestant, and evangelical parishes), it represents a growing isolation that we face more and more of in society.  This is counterpointed in the idea that I, as an individual, should go to church only if I am personally fed by it.  These two points continue to reinforce each other.  In the intersection of these two points, a church turns into a message board, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a YouTube video.  These things become very specific in their target audience and form countless little niches for each particular expression of thought across cyberspace.  

If we look at Christianity in the United States, where for much of the history the general narrative seems to focus on the individual (whether it is individual salvation, individual experience, or individual revelation), the need for community and communal acts might be considered secondary, or even tertiary in the face of this, and thus it reinforces this pattern even more.  We get inundated with media, and we specify our media to fit our individual needs and interests because what replaces community is entertainment.  Online communities can easily become insular, and isolated.  Opinions can get re-entrenched in this atmosphere because reactions to posts oftentimes are a text-based message that cannot convey an honest reaction, particularly if someone says something hurtful.  Our society pushes us more and more because we increasingly have busier schedules.  Whether it is work, school, or our additional activities, the ability to just have even a spontaneous cup of coffee with a friend is no longer possible because we have to schedule it two weeks out.  Online interactions become an easy way to maintain community when we do not have the ability to do so (I write this recognizing that as a grad-student I am often intensely busy.  I also recognize and I am saddened that in our society many simply do not have time to be others because they work multiple jobs in order to make ends meet.  Leisure and community, instead of being a right, are treated as a privilege of those who can afford it, and this is wrong).

It is no wonder then that in this environment that discussions about the possibility of online Communion can occur.  We are cheapening our communal acts because community itself is breaking down.

What makes Communion real is not just the Eucharistic prayer being said over the elements, it needs the gathering of the Body of Christ.  Even if it is happening over a live stream on the Internet, I cannot put some bread and wine in front of my laptop and have it become the Body and Blood of Christ.  Community is real because of the physical presence of people being with one another.  We are members of a community, and when members of a Christian community re-member, they remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  In short, when we remember, we remember.  We cannot truly remember if we are not truly in contact with one another.  This is not to say we exclude those who cannot physically be there, indeed another ancient practice of Christianity is for deacons to bring the consecrated elements to those who are ill or otherwise could not be there.  But even then, there is a physical remembrance occurring in the presence of Christ.  The Incarnation, and the consumption of Christ’s Body and Blood reminds is that physicality and matter matters, it is not all, as it were, up in the cloud.

We must remember that the Body of Christ is first and foremost a community gathered.  As people become busier and busier with life, whether by choice or need, we need to maintain our focus as community whether it is through gently reminding people about the need for communal action, through fighting for higher wages for workers so people can actually escape and have time for leisure and community, or providing some sort of assistance so people can join in the Communion of the community.  We also need to remember that even though the Internet can be a great medium for discussion and communication, we must remember that technology is not a substitute for the Christian community because we cannot truly remember if we are not there to remember.