And Now For Something Completely Different

Taking a Moment on Memorial Day

2011-05-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

The Question of Spiritual Arrogance: Christian Unity is the Cure!

2011-05-18T12:43:00.001-07:00

I am terrified by what passes among us in these days. Anyone who has barely begun to meditate…goes about proclaiming, “God has told me this,” or “I have that answer from God.” But all this is illusion and fancy – such a one has only been speaking of himself….”

-- St. John of the Cross, 16th Century Christian Mystic.

A long time ago I read an article...

...in an issue of Spirituality & Health Magazine that got me thinking – and it still does. The article, titled “A Time for Silence” spoke of the author’s personal disdain for those who claim the authority of the Almighty. At one point the author Sam Keen writes, “I confess I am irritated by the spokespersons for [God], the televangelist of Videoland, the caretakers of revelation – Jewish, Christian, or Muslim – with their unquestioning certainties and their smug claims to be in possession of the definitive knowledge of the Almighty.” He goes on to say, “When their chummy god whispers The Truth in their ears, reveals his eschatological plans and moral absolutes, I want to run away.” Here, here!

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve not abandoned my faith or the truth of God’s word. Nor have I given up on the idea of a direct personal relationship with God the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. On the contrary, it is because of this faith that I agree with Mr. Keen so strongly. Internet Blogs and Comments belie this reality. One is not Christian enough unless they use the “right” Prayer Book. One is not a true minister of Christ if one is female. One is in serious error if they do not share a particular view on the “Salvation by grace alone” issue. Worship is not genuine unless it is “old” or “new” – from the Prayer Book or from the “heart.” One is not genuinely saved unless one has been “baptized in the Holy Spirit” (according to the practice and opinion of whomever)… and so on…. All of this has to stop! Far too often I hear people claim to have heard the (final) word of God on all of these issues (and more).

Indeed, I am very cautious of those who claim to have “heard the voice of God.”

I say cautious because there have been times in my life when I have “heard the voice of God” myself. Often times these have been occasions when I really needed to hear from Him! God’s word has always been specifically personal however; not broad based, global dictates upon others. I also know how easy it is to think I’ve received an answer when I have really needed to “check it out” with trusted people. When I hear this of others the real question I have to ask is, “What is the real answer God has given you?” I do believe that God answers prayer and speaks to us, but there is a difference between seeking God’s will and blessing “our will” in His name. What I am really talking about here is in clarifying prophecy (that’s what hearing a specific word from God is) and scripture is our guide here:

2 Peter 1:20-21 tells us: “First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

Now, scripture also tells us that “prophecy” is not something we should ignore or fear – in fact it is the one gift of the Holy Spirit we are to covet! (See 1 Cor. 14:39 KJV!) Consistency is the key! In the conviction of the Christian Faith, whatever God says today will be consistent to what God has said before. Often what we hear is affirming. More often however, we are aroused to repentance, perseverance, and patience. Furthermore, there are also times when God leads us to make a choice – to go this way or that way – between His ways and our ways. Again there is a real difference between the two.

So what is all this really about?

As we approach the summer months (something I think we are all looking forward to) there is something else just under the surface that certainly will be weighing on all of our minds: What is going on in the Church? Now that the Diocese of San Joaquin has elected its fifth bishop there is still the issue of being together as one church. I personally believe that Fr. Eric Menees is going to be a good bishop for us. Indeed, our Special Convention proved that regardless of the outcome, we couldn’t lose! Yet we honestly remain divided with our own agendas and issues. Small parishes may be more concerned about Diocesan Financial support than the larger parishes. Foreign missionaries are wondering if they will continue to be supported. And of course, larger parishes will have their concerns too. The question for each of us is simply this: What are we willing to sacrifice to be one in Christ (which He demands of us)? Are we Christians are more prone to division and argument rather than seeing (or even trying to see) any sense of unity in Christ? Where exactly is the unity Jesus prayed for in the final chapters of the Gospel of John? The fact is, it is there if we will only allow it to be so.

What we all need is Christian Unity – Christ mindedness!

Three specific passages in scripture come to mind:

Rom 12:3-11 (NRSV) For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.

1 Cor 1:10 (NRSV) Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

And…

Phil 2:3 - 5 (NRSV) Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…

Christian Unity is the cure to our Spiritual arrogance; and the unity I am speaking of is not the superficial “everybody come” unity that is so often proclaimed– that’s not unity, that’s a picnic! There is a horizontal aspect to unity that brings us together in fellowship; there is also a vertical aspect that binds us to Christians past as well as to those of the future. This unity is in God not to an institution. Nowhere, does God say we will agree on everything, but to be united in the same mind and purpose! We are not the same in skills, talents, and gifts; but serve the same Lord! We should not seek to make everyone else conform into our particular expression of faith; but, love what is genuine, hold fast to what is good; and yes hate (that is, stand firm against, avoid, not capitulate, or accommodate) that which is sin.

The days are coming – even here now – when we must choose to set certain differences aside to be the icon of Christ to our broken world. The “revisionists” in our Church are counting on our failure! They are predicting that we (who are clear about who Jesus was and is) will continue to shatter. But to use an analogy, we are like a battle damaged ship on a mission. We’ve taken some serious hits but we are still on our course. There is no time to stop for repairs; we will have to make them en route. To do that, we have to work together. We cannot say to one another, “We have no need of you.” (Sounds like Paul to me!) None of our differences are insurmountable with the real guidance of the Holy Spirit! The call now is unity in Christ, to come together as ONE in the Lord.

Walkabout Reflections

2011-04-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

Well, it's now been about a week since the "Walkabout" last Wednesday for Kern Deanery in the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin. For those who don't have a clue about what I'm talking about, our Diocese is in the process of choosing its next Bishop and the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield prepares to retire in October. The Candidates have been chosen and spent last week traveling to various corners of the Diocese to meet, greet, and discuss their points of view.

If you are interested you can see all four of them at: http://dioceseofsanjoaquin.net/latest/?p=804. Click on the photo and you can read their responses to the questions they were asked.

So, anyway, I've had the week to reflect on what I heard and saw, and in all honesty I'm satisfied that whoever is elected will do a fine job for us. To their credit all have battle-scars from the war we are in with TEC - depositions, loss of property (or at least threats), etc. Yet all have a charitable spirit and love for Jesus Christ. All are good men and capable leaders. There is not a "dud" among them. The question I've been asked repeatedly is: Who am I going to support? Who do I think should be the next bishop? Well, I do have a favorite and I am especially praying for him. After hearing all their responses, I believe the best Candidate is the Very Rev. Carlos Raines (current Dean of our Cathedral). I've known Fr. Carlos for several years now and have worked with him as a fellow Dean. But friendship isn't enough when it comes to being bishop; and for the following reasons I think he will serve us best:

He knows us best. Fr. Carlos is of course the "local option" and none of the others really know us and what we are going through as well as he does. Any new bishop (including Fr. Carlos, if elected) will have to spend time getting to know the Diocese; but of all the Candidates he is the one who will most be able to get things going right away! He knows our Diocesan Financial pressures better from experience - and has handled his own parish's struggles with grace and courage.

Fr. Carlos (in my opinion) is the only Candidate of Vision for us: I asked the Vision question specifically of all four. the other Candidates answered as best they could (and gave good answers); but all of them boiled down to: "I will need to meet the people and congregations; I will teach and encourage people in evangelism; and do the things that worked for me in my parish." I think these are reasonable responses in as far as they go; but they don't say anything about what we ought to be doing NOW. Talk takes time; and frankly, the last thing I need is for someone else to come to my parish and tell me "How to do it" and by implication "You are doing it wrong. Let me teach you how to do it right!" Fr. Carlos on the other hand talked about a project we are working together on RIGHT NOW a School and Community of Spiritual Gifts. The idea is to build up strong spiritually gifted people (committed to each other through Community) who will go out to infuse new life in our Churches. Now THAT'S a VISION! Its "out of the box" thinking; the Lord doing a Holy new thing; AND an encouragement for congregations to strengthen what we are already doing right!

Related to the above... Fr. Carlos was the only one who shared a vision for going up new Churches and Church Plants by engaging gifted laity! It goes back to the Early Church and also Celtic Models - build up churches and leaders from within the community and train leaders a clergy along the way. There will still be room for traditionally "seminary trained" clergy and for those who seek that to be sent. But in the meantime, now is the time to get growing!

Well there's more to say but that's how I see it. Again, any of the four will serve us well and I look forward to working with whomever is elected and chosen. But I for one am committed to seeing us embrace the revival that is ripe around us (which is another factor that only Fr. Carlos seemed to be aware of). I liked all of these men - but it just seems to me that Fr. Carlos is clearly God's choice. The Good News in all of this is: No matter who is elected - Life the the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin can only get better!

Blessings to All,

John Riebe+

Lent 4: Situational Awareness

2011-03-31T17:23:00.000-07:00

(John 9:1-38) … As he walked along [Jesus] saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”…

Eph 5:1-2) … be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

I’d like to share a bit of my former experience with you. Up until 1992 I was an Air Force Officer, an Instructor Navigator on B-52’s and a teacher at the SAC (Strategic Air Command) Tactics School.

One of my jobs was to teach Aircrews about the things that could kill them in combat and how to avoid them. We would talk about Antiaircraft guns and missiles. We would learn about enemy aircraft that could shoot us down. But there was something else – just as deadly – that all of us instructors were expert in recognizing. It was a threat that could cause a pilot to fly a perfectly good aircraft into the ground…It could cause a navigator to direct the crew into a hazardous area or fly the airplane into a mountain in bad weather…It was a condition known as “Loss of Situational Awareness (SA).”

A person who had “Lost SA” became so focused that they were literally useless. There are a number of times (and you’ve read about them in the papers) where pilots were so concerned about a burned-out light bulb in the cockpit that they forgot to fly the plane… and crashed! That is why – as a crew – we trusted and relied on each other. Quite simply we depended upon each other to help keep us focused on what really mattered: Staying airborne and alive! It would be nice if this kind of situation only existed in battle situations. But our Gospel proves otherwise.

The Gospel of John (Chapter 9) tells us a healing event where a man – blind his entire life – has more vision than those who were supposed to be the visionaries of the community. The Pharisees were so focused on their own points of view their stubbornness became spiritual blindness. Quite simply: The Pharisees had lost Situational Awareness. But so had the disciples!

The Pharisees were pent upon proving Jesus a fraud. The disciples were sure that there must be a cause (sin) as punishment for a man to suffer blindness from birth. Yet Jesus proclaims that even a situation such as this, was an opportunity for the Glory of God to be revealed. It seems to me that the season of Lent is a time for the church to remember that we need to trust and rely on each other. While so much is emphasized on a “personal relationship with Jesus;” we have also to know that it is He who has given us to each other as the Church.

In the early days when the followers of Jesus came to be known a “Christians” originally that phrase was intended to speak of us as “little Christs.” That meant for us to be like Christ for one another. We have the gift of each other to help us see and understand the truths to which we ourselves are blind. Gentle reminders are all it takes: “Brother, how is your prayer life going?” “Sister, how is God helping you with your struggles?”

We can all lose our SA from time to time. Maybe (even in Lent) we’ve forgotten to pray as we should. Maybe we’ve forgotten that God is always there for support when we are struggling…and that at times when we’ve overstepped God’s will, God always is there to take us back through confession and repentance. St. Paul directs us: Be imitators of God! Imitate Him. Act like Him. Be like Him – in all things!

This is not some sort of “fake-it-till-you-make-it” theology; it is letting God transform us into His likeness. For if Christ is our God then God calls us to be doing what Christ did. That means we bring God’s light to those who are in darkness. It also means that occasionally we will confront – and witness to - those who need to have their own blindness revealed.

As a friend of mine says, “You are the only Bible some people will read.” How you live, act, and are is always on display (even if only to God). So we are there for each other…but remember…be careful to listen when others need to help you see through your own blindness, too! It’s not about judgment - It is about being Christ to each other. Its about the grace we all need. Thanks be to God for the Church - for you and for me. May Jesus' Name be praised!

Transfiguration this Sunday

2011-03-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

This Sunday is the Last Sunday in Epiphany. I've been much too busy lately to post; however, I was reminded that this past post is worthy to hear again! Blessings to you this Lent!

Transfiguration and the Season of Lent
On the Last Sunday of Epiphany we heard the Gospel Story of the Transfiguration, but now we have fully entered into the Season Lent. Lent is a penitential time – when the Church refocuses us on our personal need to do a bit of (or a lot of) “spiritual housecleaning!” That can mean some very hard work needs to be done; yet, the result is that we are transformed – transfigured, if you will – into what God fully intends for us. So as a Lenten Reflection for us, I’d like us to return to that mountain with Jesus and just maybe we can find reason and purpose for Lent.

Read: Matthew 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-10; Luke 9:28-36

Poor Peter! Here he is the Apostle of Apostles, the keeper of the keys to the kingdom, the rock upon which Jesus will build his church. Once again, Peter demonstrates that he is more human in his saintliness than is often depicted. I, for one, am thankful that Peter's most human moments are preserved in scripture rather than simply glossed over, cleaned up, or even left out. For those who continued to transcribe and produce our scriptures, the temptation to "fix" his apparent blundering must have been tremendous. Yet I believe that we are more like Peter than we realize.

Like Peter, we live in a matter-of-fact world. Even though our modern world is vastly different from the ancient world and we are so-called enlightened individuals, it remains true, that we still have our own particular ways of explaining the mysterious and the unexplainable. For example, through science, we now know how living creatures reproduce. From our DNA on up, we can identify patterns in a person's genetic code that indicate specific characteristics. Yet, with all of our scientific knowledge, we still can't explain what Life is! Although our species still keeps trying, we still cannot create "life" – even if we can “manufacture” important bits of it. Life is still a mystery to us – because life is more than just a biological being that pumps blood and has awareness.

Like Peter, we experience events of the supernatural with misunderstanding. Part of this is we are limited by our language. We can only explain these events in analogies; however, the importance of biblical supernatural events lies not in trying to explain how they happened. Meaning is found by seeking the practical importance of God's action. In fact, seeking importance in the Transfiguration is so significant, the church calendar requires us to focus on it twice every year. Why is that?

The yearly reading of the Transfiguration serves a number of purposes for us. First there are biblical reasons. In its context, this event is directly tied to Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. If there was any doubt remaining in the disciple's minds, the transfiguration stood to prove that Jesus is more than a carpenter; he is not John the Baptist, nor Elijah, nor even one of the ancient prophets who has come back to life. Jesus is the anointed one of God who will redeem and save creation from the power of sin and death. It was at this moment when all was fully revealed to our Lord. In a moment of seclusion and prayer, the Kingdom of God intersects human reality and Jesus speaks with the two most important figures in Hebrew history: Moses and Elijah. Though driven to Jerusalem by the Holy Spirit (knowing the prophecies about his final arrival) Jesus is now fully informed of his journey's cost. For God's beloved Son and for the disciples the events that follow will test every part of their being. Knowing the future doesn't guarantee that they will have the courage to face it.

This event served the practical and mystical purposes of giving both Jesus and his closest friends the supernatural courage to go on to Jerusalem and face the cross. This was the hardest thing for them to do. Is it any wonder that some of the earliest heresies of the church involved explaining away the agony of the cross? To some, God somehow “possessed” Jesus' body and was immune to pain. To others, Jesus' death was simply unnecessary; therefore, somehow he avoided the whole affair. One ancient legend has it that the Romans were stupid enough to crucify Simon of Cyrene by mistake, while Jesus scoffed in victory at his executioners. These heresies show how easy it is to forget the real anxiety and apprehension Jesus humanly faced on his way to the cross.All of us share the need for profound vision to carry us. The events of Jerusalem and the cross are simply too much for us to bear without it. We cannot depend on our optimism, for we are all faced with the eventuality of death. “Wishful thinking” will not sustain us when the journey becomes difficult. “Positive thinking” forces us to deny what lies ahead. The point here is that "taking up one's cross" is not possible unless God has first "taken us up" by the power of the Holy Spirit. We simply cannot do it alone. The event of the Transfiguration calls us to put the “religious experience" back into “religion”. What is it that draws you to religion? Is it an experience with the Holy?

Story of “Mary” and “Martha”
Some time ago, as part of my seminary education, I worked as a chaplain for a hospital. There were several other seminary students as well, from various other denominations. One of our responsibilities was to meet regularly as a group to share case studies and offer support. One of the students was a Unitarian Universalist and her faith consisted of a combination of Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity. For “Martha” (as I will call her), Jesus was simply a great teacher but no more the “son of god” than you and I are “children of God”. For Martha, there is no afterlife, no unity with God.I'll never forget one occasion where Martha shared a faith struggle with our group. One of the patients that she had been visiting was dying of breast cancer. The doctors had tried everything to save “Mary” (as I will call her), but the cancer had hopelessly spread throughout her entire body. All they could do for Mary was to keep her comfortable on morphine while they waited for her to die. Mary had two daughters: one a proclaimed atheist, the other a New Age mystic. Mary had begun to have visions, which deeply disturbed the atheist daughter. Mary would refer to these visions as a spiritual pilgrimage. She would be visited by and have conversations with angels. Much to the amazement of the nursing staff and her two daughters, Mary knew everything about her condition. When asked how she knew so much about her condition, her answer was always the same: “The angel told me.” The atheist daughter had come to Martha and asked in desperation, "Is my mother 'really' seeing angels, or is it the morphine?" After a short conversation with her, Martha finally answered, "I don't know."

When Martha got to our group she tearfully confessed, "I lied to her; I just couldn't tell her I believe that death is the end of all life. I copped out, there just doesn't seem to be any hope in that answer." All of us in the group tried to reassure Martha that, "I don't know" was actually the most honest answer she could have given. The rest of us also witnessed to her that our faith, the Christian faith, had a different answer. We can never really know for sure whether Mary saw and conversed with angels, but her experience with the Holy was REAL. Mary died peacefully in her sleep, knowing her destination. She simply went with her friends and this time stayed with them. I don't know how Martha's faith was changed by this event, but I do know that she was asking some very deep questions of herself after the summer was over. Mary's witness to Martha was a gift.

Peter's experience there on the mountain was also a gift. It was a gift that he would later draw upon. Faced with a community that had come to doubt the promises of Christ, Peter could state with boldness: "We were there! We saw it! We heard the voice borne from heaven!" (See 2 Peter 1:16-18) Peter states clearly: no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation; prophecy comes not from men but from the Holy Spirit. (See 2 Peter 1:20-21) If our scriptures are simply a collection of human reflection, then it is truly Peter who is wrong, and we truly do follow "cleverly devised myths". And if this is true, then there are truly no dreams left for us. The transfiguration shows us otherwise! Just like Jesus, and the disciples, we too need visions to give us courage.

Are you a visionary? What are your visions? Peter himself tells us that we are to be visionaries and it is the Holy Spirit who brings us these visions and dreams. In the Acts of the Apostles (2:17) on the very day of Pentecost, Peter quotes the book of Joel to his skeptics and says: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”

The Holy Spirit sows in our hearts and minds the seeds of dreams and visions. Life in the land of dreams and visions, with God, is a life that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. That is what Transfiguration is all about. It’s also what the Season of Lent is about: Transforming us from a life of sin by the Power of the Cross and making us into men and women of the Kingdom of God. In other words, transforming us into men and women of vision. And what is so different about being men and women of vision? Again, years ago, I read this from Pastor Dale Galloway, then Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Portland OR on what a difference visions and dreams can make:

Men and women of vision and dreams have no trouble praying because they have something to pray about.
Men and women of vision and dreams have no trouble tithing because they believe in it wholeheartedly.
Men and women of vision and dreams have no trouble believing in God for success because they know that God can do the impossible.
Men and women of vision and dreams have no trouble with drifting and laziness because they know where they are going and they're turned on for Jesus…
Our calling from God is to learn the life of the Spirit and to be men and women of visions and dreams.

I know there are visionaries here in our midst. Young and old we come together each week to experience the presence of God and to worship Jesus Christ. Sharing our visions with one another is a step in the right direction. Praying for our visions is the next. But unless we take the chance in carrying out the vision that God has given us, we are simply “dreamers.” Lent is before us to be more than “dreamers.” It’s here to make us “doers” too! Jesus, Peter, John, and James dared to climb a mountain. Their intention was to pray. Their reality was an experience of the Kingdom of God. Lent can be that for us too – if we will but dare the journey!

May your Lenten Journey be Blessed! And may you be transfigured this Season!

In Christ,

Fr. John Riebe

Christ is Born! Once again!

2010-12-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to ALL!

Fruit Worthy of Repentance

2010-12-03T14:58:00.000-08:00

This morning I’d like to tell you a story of two wealthy men whose lives came together in an extraordinary way.

Nicky and Philip were both wealthy men though they came into their means differently.

Nicky was one of those who all of us dream about. He was born into a very wealthy family and never knew want. But unlike the kind of “rich kids” we read about or hear about in “the Lives of the Rich and Famous,” Nicky was taught from an early age that one is to be generous to others, especially those in need. Nicky’s family had great wealth and yet he was not spoiled by that wealth. Unfortunately at an early age, his mother and father tragically died leaving all of their wealth to him.

Instead of squandering his wealth, Nicky decided to travel oversees to seek his education at one of the most prestigious universities of his day. And (I’ll let you in on a secret) that since this was a time before air travel, his travel was by ship. On one of his voyages he is said to have saved the life of a sailor who fell from the ship's rigging in a storm. When he arrived home (at semester break) Nicky and the other sailors decided to go to church together to give thanks to God – for you see along with a heart for the needy, Nicky’s parents were also Christians and passed their faith along to him as well. When Nicky entered the church he found that the priest had recently died – and the people (after hearing of Nicky’s heroism) decided that HE should be their new pastor! And so humbly, Nicky took the job.

Philip on the other hand, wasn’t as blessed as Nicky. Born into a poor family, Philip had to work hard for his wealth – and did so. Hard work had its rewards. As a local merchant, more and more success came his way. In time Philip, who was also a Christian, married and he and his wife had three beautiful daughters. But sadly, in giving birth to the third daughter, the mother died in child-birth leaving Philip to care for his three daughters and to raise them as best he could. And so he did.

In time the girls grew of age and hoped to be married. Now it also happened in those days the only way daughters were able to marry was to have a “dowry” – the bigger the better – the bigger dowry (usually) meant a better husband (at least in terms of providing for them). The problem was Philip’s business experienced a “recession” – in fact, in one storm all of Philip’s merchandise was lost at sea. He lost everything. Life began to be very hard for Philip and his daughters. But Philip was also a Christian – yet even so, some very difficult choices lay before him.

Without a dowry for even one of his daughters – Philip knew there were two options for unmarried women in those days: Prostitution & Slavery. Without a dowry his daughters would go without husbands (who would want them?) Prostitution was unthinkable – slavery would at least mean they’d be cared for. What’s a father to do? What would you or I do? But as a Christian in a Church, others soon heard about Philip’s plight too – including their priest Fr. Nicky.

Nicky resolved that this situation was totally unacceptable and resolved to help. Taking from his own resources and in the dead of night, Fr. Nicky tossed a bag of gold through Philips window – one each night for each of the three daughters. Legend has it that each bag of gold fell into the girls shoes by the fireplace where they were drying. For three nights it was the same thing: a bag of gold landing in their shoes.

It didn’t take long for Philip to realize what was going on – and on the third night – Philip caught Nicky red-handed! Their meeting was not unlike one of the stories of Jesus’ healings where Jesus said, “Don’t tell anyone.” Nicky made just such a plea. But Philip was so overjoyed by Nicky’s generosity that he went and told everybody. Eventually, Nicky’s generosity became so well known – when the time came it was he who became the next bishop – and we all know of him now as Saint Nicholas Bishop of Myra!

Now, perhaps you guessed early on that “Nicky” was really St. Nicholas – and perhaps I’ve taken a few too many liberties in telling his story. But that’s Okay.

Much of Nicholas’ life is surrounded by legend – but this much is certain: He really was Bishop of Myra in the early Fourth Century – and he was known throughout Europe – even years after his death – as a man of exceedingly great generosity!

Few people remember that Nicholas was tortured for his faith under Emperor Diocletian – or that he defended the Christian Faith against Arianism at the first Council of Nicaea. But Nicholas IS remembered – and celebrated for one virtue alone: His generosity! (If you want to be remembered in this world and the next – generosity will guarantee it.)

In medieval England, people heard of and remembered him as “Good ol’ Saint Nick.” When the Dutch came to America they brought with them their traditions of “Sinter Klaus” – from which (if you say it fast enough) became “Santa Claus.” – THAT is the truth.

We all have an opportunity to bear witness to the truth about Santa Claus this time of year. Saint Nicholas is certainly still alive and real – for we believe in the Communion of Saints! Each year his witness of generosity shines among Christians and non-Christians alike. When asked, “Do you believe in Santa Claus?” my answer is always YES!

Santa Clause – or more accurately St. Nicholas – is a real person – and he is alive in the Lord.

His spirit continues on – he is not a myth nor is it unchristian to foster his tradition in the Church. He was a Bishop of the Church who suffered for his faith!
And in all fairness, I think that St. Nick is probably as bothered by what the marketplace has done with his image.

And certainly, Nicholas was one who lived out what John preached nearly 300 years before Nicholas we born: Bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Many people of different walks of life asked John the same question: What should we do?
Nicholas’ answer was to live a life that put to use the gifts he had available for God’s purposes – AND his answer is simply the same for each of us!

Whoever has, must share with those who has not.
Those who deal in finances must do so honestly.
Those entrusted with power must use their power appropriately.

Can any one of us imagine what “traditions” might just spring up if we began to live this way? I dare say, St. Nicholas would not have been able to do so in his life – nor can we. Yet the time is coming when Jesus returns – He will know the good (and the bad) we have done. For in truth we are “sorely hindered by our sins” YET all the more His “bountiful mercy and grace” speedily come to our aid! The greatest mystery and fear of the Christian life is discovering that we have been forgiven – and why have we not done more in our lives to live that out?

That is indeed the meaning of “fruit worthy of repentance” that both John AND Jesus called us to. Will we listen? And will we act? When we do it will not be because of our power – it will be because of HIS.

God IS coming to us – even at this very moment – May His power be stirred among us.

Amen.

CREDIT NOTES:
Several sources were used in creating my “story” of St. Nicholas. The story is my own however the details and facts came from the Church’s Lesser Feasts and Fasts and online sources, particularly The Story of Saint Nicholas as told by Victor Hoagland, C.P. found at http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/adx/adnick.html

Veteran's Day Tribute: to the B-52 & the men who flew them!

2010-11-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

Today I remember my time as a SAC B-52 Radar Navigator/Bombardier. And I also remember the men & women who helped keep us aloft! Thanks!

Here is a great video (sorry for just of bit of language in it) and to my surprise I'm actually in some of the scenes! No, you won't see me, but I was in the bomber in the first conventional bomb drop shown. You'll also see a picture of a B-52 flying right next to an Aircraft Carrier - I don't know if I was in that pariticular plane but I was on another plane that was part of that mission. And that's a story that needs telling. Perhaps I'll post that someday. I was also involved in the testing of the Harpoon Missle to take out ships (which you'll also see in the video) - that too is part of the story that needs telling!

Just one more thing to notice - for those who think the the BUFF was just an "Aluminum horizon" and "Air-SPAM" (that is, easily shot down), just watch how easy it was for the fighter pilot to "shoot" one down. (That's just an atta-boy for my good friend, fellow priest, and EW Wes Clare!)

Enjoy! And thank a Veteran!

Always... C. S. Lewis

2010-08-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I blogged... But I was very impressed with the following article recently posted again from Bishop N. T. Wright in Touchstone.

To some degree I find Bishop Wright over-critical in places. I think he falls into the trap of intellectual arogance - a sort of "I could have said it better than he," and/or "Lewis should have said... but didn't."

There is no question Lewis was indeed a Lay Person but the Church will always be blessed by what Lewis has given us! And perhaps what may be most disturbing to Bishops and Clergy is when gifted Lay People get it so right, when they (the learned) don't.

There is always more to learn. Lewis's works aren't Gospels but perhaps they are helpful in leading to them!

(You can find the original here: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=20-02-028-f )

Simply Lewis
Reflections on a Master Apologist After 60 Years by N. T. Wright

I once found myself working closely, in a cathedral fundraising campaign, with a local millionaire. He was a self-made man. When I met him he was in his 60s, at the top of his game as a businessman, and was chairing our Board of Trustees. To me, coming from the academic world, he was a nightmare to work with.

He never thought in (what seemed to me) straight lines; he would leap from one conversation to another; he would suddenly break into a discussion and ask what seemed a totally unrelated question. But after a while I learned to say to myself: Well, it must work, or he wouldn’t be where he is. And that was right. We raised the money. We probably wouldn’t have done it if I’d been running the Trust my own way.

A Great Debt
I have something of the same feeling on re-reading C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I owe Lewis a great debt. In my late teens and early twenties I read everything of his I could get my hands on, and read some of his paperbacks and essays several times over. There are sentences, and some whole passages, I know pretty much by heart.

Millions around the world have been introduced to, and nurtured within, the Christian faith through his work where their own preachers and teachers were not giving them what they needed. That was certainly true of me.

My Oxford tutors looked down their noses if you so much as mentioned him in a tutorial. This was, we may suppose, mere jealousy: He sold and they didn’t. It may also have been the frustration of the professional who, busy about his footnotes, sees the amateur effortlessly sailing past to the winning post.

And partly it may have been the sense that the Christianity offered by Lewis both was and wasn’t the “mere” thing he made it out to be. There is a definite spin to it. One of the puzzles, indeed, is the way in which Lewis has been lionized by Evangelicals when he clearly didn’t believe in several classic Evangelical shibboleths. He was wary of penal substitution, not bothered by infallibility or inerrancy, and decidedly dodgy on justification by faith (though who am I to talk, considering what some in America say about me?).

But above all, like my businessman friend, it worked; a lot of people have become Christians through reading Lewis and, though, like me, they may have gone on to think things through in ways he didn’t, they retain, like me, a massive and glorious indebtedness. All that now follows stands under that rubric.

A Real Humility
Part of the reason for the appeal of Mere Christianity is of course that—like virtually everything Lewis wrote—it remains a splendid read. Lewis is feisty and lyrical, funny and moving, full of brilliant images, similes, and extended metaphors.

Even when they don’t work as well as they might (he regularly uses maths, or “sums” as he calls it, as an illustration, and I found myself wondering whether theology and maths are really the same sort of thing), they take our minds darting to and fro, leaping over hedges and ditches, constantly glimpsing the countryside from new angles and with the fresh air of intelligent argument in our lungs.

Reading someone like this, you want to believe him—a dangerous position, perhaps. He takes us, as it were, into his confidence, drawing us aside gently by the arm and whispering, “You and I aren’t concerned with things like that. . . .” We are flattered to be his companions on the way, to know (because he tells us) that this isn’t simply a “religious jaw” (remarkable how dated that language sounds, and yet how easily today’s reader skips over it) and that we who think like this are actually in the know while some—including some clergy, because Lewis isn’t above a quick jibe in that direction—are missing out.

And when he tells us that we shouldn’t be taken in by “soft soap,” or that we can “cut all that out,” we find it exciting, like the piano pupil whose teacher tells her it’s time to graduate from blues to Bach (or conceivably, as one hearer of this paper suggested, the other way around). Now, we feel, we’re growing up, we’re getting to the real thing.

There’s a good reason why we allow Lewis to lead us on. There is a real, not a pretend, humility about his “only-a-simple-layman” stance. For some of the time, as I shall suggest, he is a professional pretending to be an amateur; for much of the time, he’s a gifted amateur putting some of the professionals to shame; sometimes he’s an amateur straightforwardly getting things wrong (and note what he says about paying attention to Freud when he’s on his professional topic but not when he’s writing as an amateur!).

But he constantly says, “If this doesn’t help, go on to the next bit, which may,” and he seems really to mean it. In particular, when he’s talking about the struggles and strains of trying to live as a Christian, we know we are listening to someone who has been struggling and straining.
This isn’t theory; like The Screwtape Letters and similar works, this is a direct report from the Front Line. (While we’re on that subject, I don’t myself find the frequent references to the Second World War intrusive or off-putting. You would have to be quite an extreme pacifist to object to the regular military imagery, which, quite apart from its immediate appeal to his first audience, does have quite strong biblical resonance.)

Faith & Truth
There are two constant powerful refrains throughout Mere Christianity. First, faith matters more than feelings; faithfulness to the high and hard standards of Christian behavior matters more than doing what you feel like at the time. Lewis was swimming against a strong tide of popular romantic existentialism, a tide running even more strongly in our own day.
He was not, of course, opposed to feelings; but he knew, and it comes as a relief to our generation to be reminded, that if you go with the flow of feelings you will be inconsistent, unfaithful, lacking in all integrity. To realize that we don’t have to float out to sea on that strong tide, but that we can and must swim against it, is challenging but also liberating.

Second, you can understand falsehood from the standpoint of truth but not the other way around, just as someone who knows light can understand darkness but not vice versa: Thus you can understand sexual perversion once you know the norm; “good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either”; “virtue brings light; indulgence brings fog.” (Incidentally, I don’t know whether it’s Lewis or his republishers, but I am puzzled that such a great writer should have been so indiscriminate and seemingly muddled with his use of the colon and semi-colon.

So to the four different sections of the book. I rate the third (“Christian Behaviour”) as the finest; the first and last (“Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe” with its moral argument for God, and “Beyond Personality,” the closing pieces on the Trinity and on regeneration) as fascinating though in some ways problematic; and the second (“What Christians Believe”) as, worryingly, the most deeply flawed.

Even there, however, I remind myself that my millionaire friend knew some tricks I didn’t, and they worked. I also remember the apparent fact that from a scientific point of view there is no way a bumblebee should be able to fly, because its wings can’t support its body, but bees succeed not only in flying but in bringing home the honey. And if you conclude that Lewis is like the bee, and I am merely like the puzzled scientist who says it can’t be done that way, so be it.

Christian Behavior
The third part of the book, titled “Christian Behaviour,” is the most professional, and there is a reason for that. As well as teaching English literature, Lewis had at one stage taught philosophy. He knew his way round the classic discussions of the virtues and vices and how they operate. He also submitted himself to regular, serious spiritual direction, and as well as knowing the intellectual framework of behavior, both classical and Christian, he was deeply alert to the nuances of motivation and action, able to articulate moods and behavior patterns that for most people, in his day and ours, remain a mystery.

I suspect that one of the great appeals of his book, then and now, is that it gives one a grammar of everyday morality, enabling one to understand and speak a highly useful and indeed mellifluous language most of us didn’t know existed. Some of his moral discussions are small classics.

He is superb on generosity. He sticks a small but sharp pin into the system of usury on which the entire modern world is based. He is fascinating and fresh on sex (though of course even more deeply unfashionable today than then); and his reflections on marriage, despite his bachelor disclaimers, are worth pondering deeply (especially his final comments about it being important for the man to be in charge of what he calls the couple’s “foreign policy”).

He is clear and challenging on forgiveness, spot on in his analysis of pride and its centrality, and shrewd and helpful on the fact that charity is not an emotion but a determination to act in a particular way, and that to our surprise we find that when, without any feeling of love towards someone, we act as if we loved them, we discover that the feelings bubble up unbidden, so that we end by feeling in reality what before we had merely determined to do.

At this point, of course, we come up against Lewis’s implied soteriology, and I suspect that others have challenged him on this point. Several times he insists, effectively, on the priority of grace: We can’t save ourselves, but God does it, takes the initiative, rescues those who couldn’t rescue themselves. But equally often he speaks as though it’s really a matter, as with Aristotle, of our becoming good by gradually learning to do good things, and with Jesus coming alongside, and indeed inside, to help us as we do so. Salvation, and behavior, are caught by infection, by our being in Christ and his being in us.

I suspect that Lewis never really worked all this out; and I suspect, too, that the outsider looking in doesn’t need to, either. I know that’s heresy in some circles, but I think it’s important that we are justified by faith: not by believing in justification by faith, but by believing in Jesus Christ. Obviously a clear understanding of justification would help a great deal, but I don’t myself regard that as the first thing to explain to a potential convert. Sufficient to draw them to Jesus.
But does Lewis really do that? I’ll return to Part II in a moment; but first, some words about the final section, and then the first.

Beyond Personality
I find the final section of the book, “Beyond Personality: Or first steps in the doctrine of the Trinity,” brave and intelligent though not entirely convincing. To point out to those who say they “can’t believe in a personal God” that that’s all right, because God is in fact more than “personal,” is a bit of an intellectual coup. I’m not sure how convincing a skeptic would find it, but it opens up the discussion in new ways.

Lewis writes movingly in this part of the book about prayer and the Trinity, about being “prayed in” by the Spirit, prayed “with” by Jesus, and so coming to the Father. He opens up the landscape of what Christians mean by the word “God” in a way that must have been as strange and surprising to his contemporaries as it remains, alas, to ours.

In this last section Lewis does two things, one of which is an interesting attempt at a fresh proposal and the other of which shows, I think, some less-than-fully-integrated aspects of his own thought. First, I notice as a kind of running theme his attempt to steal the clothes of the evolutionists—who were, of course, as strident in his day as Richard Dawkins is in ours.
He is happy to affirm basic biological evolution, but then suggests that if the world, and the human race, have advanced in the way they have so far, we are maybe due now for a different kind of advance, a new step in which evolution itself will evolve, producing a new human race, a new kind of human being, but by a new type of step. Lewis is here, of course, stealing not only Darwin’s clothes, but Nietzsche’s, and he is well aware of that.

I did wonder how dangerous a position it was to take, but he disarms potential objections by making his New Humans not a powerful race of the species Übermensch, but actual children of God, those who have caught the “good infection” from being with Jesus Christ and who are thereby changed from being toy tin soldiers into actual warriors, from mere creatures to newly begotten sons like the Son himself.

This is where he locates his powerful and moving (and of course biblical) material about dying and rising with Christ, a major theme here and in several of his other works. I don’t know that anyone else has either advanced this synthesis of regeneration and a kind of second-order evolutionism, but it remains evocative and suggestive.

Second, however, I find Lewis frustratingly fuzzy on heaven and immortality. He clearly believes in the bodily resurrection and the essential materiality of the ultimate future world, but—quite apart from the astonishing fact that in talking about Jesus he never in this book mentions his Resurrection—he persistently refers to “Heaven” in ways that go, to my mind, far too far towards Plato.

He frequently draws back from this, insisting for instance on the importance of sacraments because God made the material world and likes it, but I’m not sure he has fully integrated his positive view of the material creation into his assumed view of heaven. He tells us that if we aim at heaven we’ll get earth thrown in, and this is not only true but appealing; but he never indicates how this works out, never engages with the New Testament’s picture of the new heavens and new earth which ultimately make sense of the whole thing.

Thus he can say, in a moving but I think deeply misleading passage, that “the anaesthetic fog which we call ‘nature’ or ‘the real world’ [will] fade away”; I regard this as a substantial hostage to Platonic fortune. This problem emerges particularly in his repeated insistence that all human beings have an immortal soul, which is the “real” part of them, and which is to be one day either a creature of loathing and horror or one we might be tempted to worship.

I simply don’t think this is either biblical or helpful, and I fear that those who read Lewis will at this point have their traditional expectations of a kind of Christianity-and-Plato reinforced where they should have them undermined.

Right & Wrong as a Clue
So to the first section, where Lewis, as often elsewhere, uses a kind of the moral argument for the existence of God. We all know the moral law; and we all know we break it; and isn’t this odd? I think this is powerful and important, and indeed I paid homage to Lewis when I wrote Simply Christian by beginning with a similar, though not identical, argument about justice, and then extending it to the puzzles we find today about spirituality, relationships, and beauty.

But I’m not sure that Lewis’s point ultimately works as an argument. I think drawing attention to this kind of phenomenon alerts us to questions that should be asked, but not necessarily to a line of reasoning that will then automatically lead the thinker inexorably upwards, as Lewis tries to do, first to the affirmation of God and then to the affirmation of the Christian God.

The virtue of this first section, I think, lies not in the fact that it makes a convincing argument as such, but that it highlights features of human existence that are puzzling and interesting and point beyond themselves. Thus this first section performs its function, it seems to me, despite its actual intention.

Lewis was trying to argue step by step, but I think he succeeds in engaging and interesting people sufficiently to move them forwards despite the fact that the logic doesn’t quite work. I would be interested to hear what other apologists say about this.

What Christians Believe
The weakest part of the book, beyond doubt, is its heart: the treatment of God, and especially of Jesus, in the second section, “What Christians Believe.” He simply does not know that Jesus wasn’t born in A.D. 1, and I have already mentioned the astonishing absence of the Resurrection.
Why was this? Not because Lewis didn’t believe it, as his other writings show. Because he thought it was a bridge too far for the people he was addressing? Surely not: He leads them skillfully across several narrow bridges spanning deep and dangerous intellectual and moral ravines.

Can it be that, though he firmly accepted the bodily Resurrection as true, he simply hadn’t, at this stage at least, thought through the way in which, beginning with the New Testament, Easter isn’t just something that happened to Jesus, nor simply something that happens to us in both the present and the future, but something that gives focus to faith and color to all Christian living?
I am not sure, and remain genuinely puzzled. Perhaps he simply had to give some talks and decided too quickly and unreflectively on which topics to treat.

But of course the real problem is the argument for Jesus’ divinity. And this problem actually begins further back: There is virtually no mention, and certainly no treatment, of Israel and the Old Testament, and consequently no attempt to place Jesus in his historical or theological context. (One of the “Screwtape Letters” contains a scornful denunciation of all such attempts, and lays Lewis wide open to the charge of ignoring the historical context of the writings he is using—a charge that, in his own professional field, he would have regarded as serious.)

I am well aware that some in our day, too, see the historical context of Jesus as part of what you teach Christians later on rather than part of how you explain the gospel to outsiders. I think this is simply mistaken. Every step towards a de-Judaized Jesus is a step away from Scripture, away from Christian wisdom, and out into the world of . . . yes, Plato and the rest, which is of course where Lewis partly lived. If you don’t put Jesus in his proper context, you will inevitably put him in a different one, where he, his message, and his achievement will be considerably distorted.

This deficit shows particularly in Lewis’s treatment of incarnation. Famously, as in his well-known slogan, “Liar, Lunatic or Lord,” he argued that Jesus must have been bad or mad or God. This argument has worn well in some circles and extremely badly in others, and the others were not merely being cynical.

What Lewis totally failed to see—as have, of course, many scholars in the field—was that Judaism already had a strong incarnational principle, namely the Temple, and that the language used of Shekinah, Torah, Wisdom, Word, and Spirit in the Old Testament—the language, in other words, upon which the earliest Christians drew when they were exploring and expounding what we have called Christology—was a language designed, long before Jesus’ day, to explain how the one true God could be both transcendent over the world and living and active within it, particularly within Israel.

Lewis, at best, drastically short-circuits the argument. When Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven,” he is not claiming straightforwardly to be God, but to give people, out on the street, what they would normally get by going to the Temple.

Lewis’s Cross
As I’ve shown elsewhere, understanding Judaism’s incarnational principle doesn’t undermine the eventual claim, nor does it short-circuit it. It places it in its proper historical context and enables it to be at once nuanced into a proto-Trinitarian framework, employing and appropriately transcending the messianic category “son of God,” which simultaneously settles down into first-century Judaism and explodes beyond it. Lewis’s overconfident argument, by contrast, does the opposite: It doesn’t work as history, and it backfires dangerously when historical critics question his reading of the Gospels.

This then plays out in Lewis’s treatment of the Cross, with Jesus as the “perfect penitent.” Lewis is right to stress that Christians are not committed to one single way of understanding the meaning of the Cross, and that as long as one somehow looks at the death of Jesus and understands it in terms of God’s love and forgiveness, that is sufficient to start with.
But his idea—that (a) God requires humans to be penitent, that (b) we can’t because of our pride, but that (c) Jesus does it in and for us—though ingenious, places in my view too high a value on repentance (vital though it of course is), implies again that soteriology is about God doing something in us rather than extra nos (though I think Lewis believed that as well, but he doesn’t expound it here), and minimizes all the other rich biblical language about the Cross, not least the Christus Victor theme.

This last is the more curious in that Lewis talks a lot more about the devil than one might expect in a book of apologetics. One might have supposed that, having introduced us to the devil before we’ve really even got our minds around God, still less Jesus, he would go on to speak of the Cross as, among other things, the defeat of the devil and the rescue of those in his grip. But he doesn’t.
In amongst his treatment of incarnation and Cross, we note, along with the astonishing omission of Easter, the complete absence of anything to do with Jesus’ announcement of God’s kingdom. This is less surprising, though still regrettable, because, to be frank, the Western church in the middle of the twentieth century simply didn’t understand what the kingdom of God in Jesus’ teaching was all about—again, at least in part, because of its relentless de-Judaizing of the whole story.

Some might say that this, too, is a topic to pick up in Christian instruction after conversion rather than in apologetics. I disagree, and I think the fruits of the omission show up elsewhere, where Lewis really has little or no concern for a social or cultural ethic, still less a political or ecological one. Omit one of the vital foundation stones and the building will lean over dangerously.

A Fine but Leaky Building
So to my conclusion. Lewis has indeed built a fine building with lots of splendid features, and many people have been properly and rightly attracted to buy up apartments in it and move in. Some parts of the building have remained in great shape, and are still well worth inhabiting. But I fear that those who move in to other parts will find that the foundations are indeed shaky, and that the roof leaks a bit.

Someone who converted to the Christian faith through reading Mere Christianity, and who never moved on or grew up theologically or historically, would be in a dangerous position when faced even with proper, non-skeptical historical investigation, let alone the regular improper, skeptical sort. Lewis didn’t give such a person sufficient grounding in who Jesus really was.

Similarly, I don’t know how his line of argument in the first part would stand up against the rigorous and relentless assault from the determined atheists of our own day. He was well used to arguing with their predecessors, of course, but I don’t think the first section would be seen in such circles as anything more than arm-waving about moral perceptions and dilemmas that today’s robust cynic would dismiss as atavistic fantasy.

And I do think he could have gone further in his understanding of the Christian hope, further towards the new creation, the new heaven and new earth, of which many of us gained our first inkling (important word!) through his writings, but which he never pulls together, and relates to Jesus and to Christian faith and life, in the way that he quite easily could have done.

Jesus Takes Over
But the bee flies, and gets the honey. Credit where credit is due. Lewis himself would have been the first to say that of course his book was neither perfect nor complete, and that what mattered was that, if it brought people into the company, and under the influence (or “infection”) of Jesus Christ, Jesus himself would happily take over—indeed, that Jesus had been operating through the process all along, albeit through the imperfect medium of the apologist.

And, as another imperfect apologist, I salute a great master, and can only hope that in sixty years’ time children yet unborn will say of me that, despite all my obvious and embarrassing failings, I too was used, in however small a way, to bring people under the influence and power, and to the love and kingdom, of the same Jesus Christ.

N. T. Wright is the Anglican Bishop of Durham, England, and the author of many scholarly and popular books, most recently Simply Christian, Evil and the Justice of God, and Paul: In Fresh Perspective. (His Judas and the Gospel of Jesus is reviewed on page 47.) ?Simply Lewis? was first delivered at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in mid-November. Readers will also find helpful his (unofficial) website, www.ntwrightpage.com.

Anticipating the Feast of Pentecost!

2010-05-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Someone set this to Music - Please!

2010-04-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

Hat tip: Titusonenine: http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php

Victory for America!

2010-03-12T08:03:00.000-08:00

Today I read (with much satisfaction) that an Appellate Court has ruled in favor of "One Nation, under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and for "In God We Trust" on our national currency; that these are constitutional and do not violate the separation of Church and State. It is my hope that Atheist Michael Newdow will turn his attention now to more productive avenues in his life.

The full story can be found here: http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_14660762?source=rss

This is what two great Americans had to say about our Pledge:

Transfiguration and the Season of Lent

2010-02-24T07:49:00.000-08:00

On the Last Sunday of Epiphany we heard the Gospel Story of the Transfiguration, but now we have fully entered into the Season Lent. Lent is a penitential time – when the Church refocuses us on our personal need to do a bit of (or a lot of) “spiritual housecleaning!” That can mean some very hard work needs to be done; yet, the result is that we are transformed – transfigured, if you will – into what God fully intends for us. So as a Lenten Reflection for us, I’d like us to return to that mountain with Jesus and just maybe we can find reason and purpose for Lent.

Read: Matthew 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-10; Luke 9:28-36

Poor Peter! Here he is the Apostle of Apostles, the keeper of the keys to the kingdom, the rock upon which Jesus will build his church. Once again, Peter demonstrates that he is more human in his saintliness than is often depicted. I, for one, am thankful that Peter's most human moments are preserved in scripture rather than simply glossed over, cleaned up, or even left out. For those who continued to transcribe and produce our scriptures, the temptation to "fix" his apparent blundering must have been tremendous. Yet I believe that we are more like Peter than we realize.

Like Peter, we live in a matter-of-fact world. Even though our modern world is vastly different from the ancient world and we are so-called enlightened individuals, it remains true, that we still have our own particular ways of explaining the mysterious and the unexplainable. For example, through science, we now know how living creatures reproduce. From our DNA on up, we can identify patterns in a person's genetic code that indicate specific characteristics. Yet, with all of our scientific knowledge, we still can't explain what Life is! Although our species still keeps trying, we still cannot create "life" – even if we can “manufacture” important bits of it. Life is still a mystery to us – because life is more than just a biological being that pumps blood and has awareness.

Like Peter, we experience events of the supernatural with misunderstanding. Part of this is we are limited by our language. We can only explain these events in analogies; however, the importance of biblical supernatural events lies not in trying to explain how they happened. Meaning is found by seeking the practical importance of God's action. In fact, seeking importance in the Transfiguration is so significant, the church calendar requires us to focus on it twice every year. Why is that?

The yearly reading of the Transfiguration serves a number of purposes for us. First there are biblical reasons. In its context, this event is directly tied to Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. If there was any doubt remaining in the disciple's minds, the transfiguration stood to prove that Jesus is more than a carpenter; he is not John the Baptist, nor Elijah, nor even one of the ancient prophets who has come back to life. Jesus is the anointed one of God who will redeem and save creation from the power of sin and death. It was at this moment when all was fully revealed to our Lord. In a moment of seclusion and prayer, the Kingdom of God intersects human reality and Jesus speaks with the two most important figures in Hebrew history: Moses and Elijah. Though driven to Jerusalem by the Holy Spirit (knowing the prophecies about his final arrival) Jesus is now fully informed of his journey's cost. For God's beloved Son and for the disciples the events that follow will test every part of their being. Knowing the future doesn't guarantee that they will have the courage to face it.

This event served the practical and mystical purposes of giving both Jesus and his closest friends the supernatural courage to go on to Jerusalem and face the cross. This was the hardest thing for them to do. Is it any wonder that some of the earliest heresies of the church involved explaining away the agony of the cross? To some, God somehow “possessed” Jesus' body and was immune to pain. To others, Jesus' death was simply unnecessary; therefore, somehow he avoided the whole affair. One ancient legend has it that the Romans were stupid enough to crucify Simon of Cyrene by mistake, while Jesus scoffed in victory at his executioners. These heresies show how easy it is to forget the real anxiety and apprehension Jesus humanly faced on his way to the cross.

All of us share the need for profound vision to carry us. The events of Jerusalem and the cross are simply too much for us to bear without it. We cannot depend on our optimism, for we are all faced with the eventuality of death. “Wishful thinking” will not sustain us when the journey becomes difficult. “Positive thinking” forces us to deny what lies ahead. The point here is that "taking up one's cross" is not possible unless God has first "taken us up" by the power of the Holy Spirit. We simply cannot do it alone. The event of the Transfiguration calls us to put the “religious experience “back into “religion”. What is it that draws you to religion? Is it an experience with the Holy?

Story of “Mary” and “Martha”
Some time ago, as part of my seminary education, I worked as a chaplain for a hospital. There were several other seminary students as well, from various other denominations. One of our responsibilities was to meet regularly as a group to share case studies and offer support. One of the students was a Unitarian Universalist and her faith consisted of a combination of Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity. For “Martha” (as I will call her), Jesus was simply a great teacher but no more the “son of god” than you and I are “children of God”. For Martha, there is no afterlife, no unity with God.I'll never forget one occasion where Martha shared a faith struggle with our group. One of the patients that she had been visiting was dying of breast cancer. The doctors had tried everything to save “Mary” (as I will call her), but the cancer had hopelessly spread throughout her entire body. All they could do for Mary was to keep her comfortable on morphine while they waited for her to die. Mary had two daughters: one a proclaimed atheist, the other a New Age mystic. Mary had begun to have visions, which deeply disturbed the atheist daughter. Mary would refer to these visions as a spiritual pilgrimage. She would be visited by and have conversations with angels. Much to the amazement of the nursing staff and her two daughters, Mary knew everything about her condition. When asked how she knew so much about her condition, her answer was always the same: “The angel told me.” The atheist daughter had come to Martha and asked in desperation, "Is my mother 'really' seeing angels, or is it the morphine?" After a short conversation with her, Martha finally answered, "I don't know."

When Martha got to our group she tearfully confessed, "I lied to her; I just couldn't tell her I believe that death is the end of all life. I copped out, there just doesn't seem to be any hope in that answer." All of us in the group tried to reassure Martha that, "I don't know" was actually the most honest answer she could have given. The rest of us also witnessed to her that our faith, the Christian faith, had a different answer. We can never really know for sure whether Mary saw and conversed with angels, but her experience with the Holy was REAL. Mary died peacefully in her sleep, knowing her destination. She simply went with her friends and this time stayed with them. I don't know how Martha's faith was changed by this event, but I do know that she was asking some very deep questions of herself after the summer was over. Mary's witness to Martha was a gift.

Peter's experience there on the mountain was also a gift. It was a gift that he would later draw upon. Faced with a community that had come to doubt the promises of Christ, Peter could state with boldness: "We were there! We saw it! We heard the voice borne from heaven!" (See 2 Peter 1:16-18) Peter states clearly: no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation; prophecy comes not from men but from the Holy Spirit. (See 2 Peter 1:20-21) If our scriptures are simply a collection of human reflection, then it is truly Peter who is wrong, and we truly do follow "cleverly devised myths". And if this is true, then there are truly no dreams left for us. The transfiguration shows us otherwise! Just like Jesus, and the disciples, we too need visions to give us courage.

Are you a visionary? What are your visions? Peter himself tells us that we are to be visionaries and it is the Holy Spirit who brings us these visions and dreams. In the Acts of the Apostles (2:17) on the very day of Pentecost, Peter quotes the book of Joel to his skeptics and says: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”

The Holy Spirit sows in our hearts and minds the seeds of dreams and visions. Life in the land of dreams and visions, with God, is a life that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. That is what Transfiguration is all about. It’s also what the Season of Lent is about: Transforming us from a life of sin by the Power of the Cross and making us into men and women of the Kingdom of God. In other words, transforming us into men and women of vision. And what is so different about being men and women of vision? Again, years ago, I read this from Pastor Dale Galloway, then Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Portland OR on what a difference visions and dreams can make:

Men and women of vision and dreams have no trouble praying because they have something to pray about.
Men and women of vision and dreams have no trouble tithing because they believe in it wholeheartedly.
Men and women of vision and dreams have no trouble believing in God for success because they know that God can do the impossible.
Men and women of vision and dreams have no trouble with drifting and laziness because they know where they are going and they're turned on for Jesus…
Our calling from God is to learn the life of the Spirit and to be men and women of visions and dreams.

Anglican work in Haiti

2010-01-22T12:04:00.000-08:00

Many are wondering what they can do to help out in Haiti - Here is some "good news" and ways to help out even more! -- JR+

Anglicans have donated more than $70,000 through the Anglican Relief and Development Fund to support immediate relief in Haiti in the first week following the earthquake that struck the impoverished island nation on January 12.

January 22, 2010

Anglicans have donated more than $70,000 through the Anglican Relief and Development Fund to support immediate relief in Haiti in the first week following the earthquake that struck the impoverished island nation on January 12.

According to Nancy Norton, executive director of Anglican Relief and Development Fund, the organization is partnering with World Relief, a large and well established evangelical Christian relief agency. Working with World Relief ensures that these donations have an immediate positive effect in Haiti, where current estimates are that more than 200,000 have died and more than a million people are without shelter in the aftermath of the earthquake.

World Relief has had a long presence in Haiti, empowering the local church with health, economic and social development projects. World Relief's Disaster Response team is providing urgent medical care to hundreds of injured people at the Kings Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's devastated capital. They have also set up feeding centers in partnership with local churches, providing thousands of hot meals to hungry earthquake survivors. Volunteers from local Haitian churches are operating the centers. World Relief can feed a person two meals a day - lunch and dinner - for less than $2. It costs approximately $375 to feed 200 people rice and beans at lunch and milk porridge for dinner.

"Thank you to everyone who contributed through Anglican Relief and Development to help in Haiti. The generosity of our donors has been overwhelming. This financial outpouring will allow us to not only assist in immediate relief work, but also to be part of the rebuilding process through development projects in Haiti later this year. The needs in this terribly damaged nation will continue," said Norton.

Donations for our continued work there can be made online at www.anglicanaid.net or by sending a check to the Anglican Relief and Development Fund at:

ARDF
PO Box 3830
Pittsburgh, PA 15230-3830

A Stunning Witness!!!

2010-01-05T14:58:00.000-08:00

Britt Hume makes a stunning Christian witness and defends his comments. Would it be that more public figures be so bold! Watch and hear what he says:

A Sermon for Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T11:37:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday there was a wonderful comic (it was ‘Pickles’) where an elderly couple was sitting together.
The husband says (something like),
“I love this time of year – it always takes me back to my childhood: sledding in the fresh snow and skating on the frozen pond.”
His wife says to him,
“You grew up in Phoenix and you used to get sunburned on Christmas day!”
“There you go again,” he replies, “ruining my memories with the facts.”

Well… Christmas time IS full of imagery, memories, and (dare I say it) magic. It’s a magical time that takes us back to our childhood. Memories of trees and gifts given; of waking up Christmas morning to find stockings filled and presents that we’ve placed under the tree for others – and of course – those that were there for us. Maybe, just maybe, not everything was as rosy as we might remember… but that’s okay. All was still in God’s hands.

Our imaginations also take us to family gatherings, meals, and times where (whether we realized it or not) God was present. In good times and bad, God was and IS present – For His name Emmanuel means “God is with us”: present tense, not “Once upon a time, God was with someone else.” And it is that “present tense” that is most important for us tonight, for tonight is really not about nostalgia – or sentimental feelings – it is in seeing and knowing the actual presence of God. For some of us that just might be the first time in a long time… but that’s okay too… for we are once again all here in the midst of God’s glory.

What are we thinking about tonight? What fills our imaginations? What fills our thoughts? What might we still be fretting over? Have we prepared for tomorrow? I know some who've been ready for months! Someone (and I’ve long forgotten who it was) commented to me back in August that all their presents have been bought and all their cards were prepared and addressed. If that was you, God Bless You! For you have truly understood what Advent has all been about!

Most of us (including myself) have saved some things for the last minute – whether we attended to them or not. Yet – ready or not – Christmas has arrived! There is no stopping it! We must be assured that in just the same way Christ is returning to us! There will come a day, suddenly upon us, when Jesus himself will be here – ready or not – here He is!

Beyond our family traditions and memories – I’d like to take our imaginations to a different place tonight. If you're thinking, “Oh, right this is church so we have to think religiously;” Well…Yes and no. What we’ve heard tonight has all been about shepherds and angels, of Mary and Joseph in a stable – the birth of Jesus in a place of poverty because no “proper place” was made available to them. Certainly there is a sermon in that alone. But perhaps a better one for tonight is why on Earth did He come to us in the first place?

Just a few moments ago we sang “In the bleak midwinter.” I hope you were listening. But just in case you weren’t its hymn 112. It is one of my favorite hymns not because it has a catchy tune – but because it is one of the most profound theologically – especially the first verse. Contrary to what many people think, the composer (Christina Rossetti) is not singing about the weather.

The “bleak midwinter” – really speaks of the time in human history before Christ.
I’m not all together certain, but I believe that it was this hymn that inspired C. S. Lewis of Narnia… You may remember – where until rescued by Aslan, it was “always winter, never Christmas.”
The “frosty wind” – was how humankind treated one another: Cold, indifferent, chilling – absent of the warmth of God’s Holy Spirit.
It was Earthen hearts that were “hard as iron” – water (life it self) was stone cold.
The “snow” is sin – for sin fell upon sin… upon sin… upon sin…
And into this reality Christ breaks in! For God’s overpowering love for us was so great that not even Heaven could contain it.

In truth there have only been three moments when the nature of the Universe – time and space – have been altered. Three times. The first was when God spoke – and the universe existed. The second time – well we just heard about it tonight. It was the time when this same God entered human existence as Jesus.

One author Monsignor Guardini Romano says it this way:
The young [child] in the stall of Bethlehem was a human being with a human brain and limbs and heart and soul. And he was God. [His] life was to manifest the will of the Father: to proclaim sacred tidings, to stir mankind with the power of God, to establish the Covenant, and shoulder the sin of the world, expiating it with love and leading mankind through the destruction of sacrifice and the victory of the Resurrection into a new existence of grace… Jesus did not “experience” God; he was God. He never at any given moment “became” God; he was God from the start.[1]

The good Monsignor makes reference to the third time – Resurrection…
…when Christ overturned death itself, and bought for all who believe in Him, eternal life…
… and it is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that is solely responsible for our even being here tonight.

You might find it interesting to know that for the first three-hundred years, early Christians didn’t celebrate a “Christmas time” at all. For them, the central moment of Faith was Easter and Pentecost. Just before and during the reign of Constantine Christians began to reflect on Jesus’ birth. And 336 AD a previously pagan winter ceremony celebrating the birth of “Unconquerable Sun”; (on December 25th) became the Christian day of the Nativity celebrating the “Birth of the Unconquerable SON” – Jesus Christ.

Our Christian hope for a fourth time is yet to come when “earth and heaven shall flee away when he comes to reign.” But for now, “a stable place sufficed – the Lord God incarnate, Jesus Christ.” It has only been in these times when the nature of human existence has unalterably changed – for God has acted – Christ has come – and He is coming to us once more.

You see, the “magic” of this time really is more mystery than anything else – a mystery we are searching for and can discover – like that present that waits just at home – a present just waiting to be opened! What will it hold? You’ll have to open it to see. And isn’t that just like God?

The mystery and magic are all about what God is doing next. The remembrance of things past pales in comparison to what comes next. Certainly the shepherds left the manger that night wondering what comes next. Mary herself would ponder this as well. Maybe that is what we are meant to be left with – what comes next? We have come to know that our God is a giving God; and perhaps that is God’s invitation to each of us – the same question Jesus’ first disciples came asking. “Where are you staying?” “Come and see.”

There is a particular question that is asked every time Christmas comes: What do you want for Christmas? Of all of our non-religious activities perhaps this question is the most holy one we – and even nonbelievers – ask. We think of the other person and consider what would bring them joy. What if we asked that of God? What do you think God would like this Christmas? Now, at first you might think that’s a tough one. I mean, it’s not even like, “What do you get the man who has everything?” It’s worse! What do you get the One who owns everything? I mean, its all His in the first place! And the hymn goes on…

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give him – give my heart
– for your heart is the only thing Christ really wants in the first place.

When we give our hearts to God – you think the Shepherds saw a party?

If Christmas time is somehow anticlimactic for you because its not a “White Christmas” and there is no snow; we can all take solace in this: there probably wasn’t snow in Bethlehem years ago, either (of course no one knows for sure).

Tonight – this silent night, this holy night – we are once again invited to hear the angels sing – to worship and adore Christ our King! To be sure the angles are singing – and to be sure Christians all over the world worship with us.

Can we hear them?

Are we listening?

For certain, they are here just as they are all over the world on this night!

What are we thinking about tonight? What fills our imaginations? What fills our thoughts? Perhaps we can bring our hearts and minds out of Bethlehem and back into [where ever you are] where we all are – for God’s Glory is not in some far away place but right here Emmanuel: God IS with US. For Christ is once again born in each of us and right before us.

Oh, little Child of [where ever you are] descend to us we pray; cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.

On behalf of my Lord and Savior may I be one of the first to wish us all…
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[1] Guardini, Romano, The Lord, pg. 16-17 slightly edited in the personal.

Beautiful and Different

2009-12-16T11:24:00.000-08:00

Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!

Some Holiday Fun - Amazing!!!

2009-12-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

The Invisible Woman

2009-11-29T16:41:00.000-08:00

You don't have to be a woman to appreciate this... and a wonderful subtle way to begin refelcting in Advent. Hat Tip: Matt Kennedy at StandFirminFaith.com.

From Youtube:
Nicole's sketch "The Invisible Woman" brings a powerful message of hope to every taken-for-granted woman in today's world. This video shared with permission from Fresh Brewed Life, Inc.

Think about the cathedrals you and I are building... and Who is watching!

Remembering All Saints Day Nov. 1st

2009-10-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

Something for an October night...

2009-10-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

Just goes to show that the two ol' guys still got it!

Today's Resolve:

2009-09-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

Somtimes the best you can do is to do YOUR BEST! And God is pleased.

“Inasmuch as I am unable to please you, Lord, I do believe that my desire to please you does in fact please you.” - Thomas Merton.

Take Time to Remember and to Pray... Today.

2009-09-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

And one from the Hymnal...

Season of Independence

2009-07-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

Saturday was of course the 4th of July, Independence Day. And while the celebrations, the fireworks, and BBQs, have now grown cold, the spirit of our American Independence has not. The popularity of "Tea Parties" around the country still prove that Americans have not lost or forgotten the principles on which this country was founded.

I was impressed by the local newspaper Opinion page on the 4th which published - in its entirety - the historic Declaration of Independence. It has long been my own personal reflection on this day to read it and remember why I am an American. But this time it was different...

As I read the declaration (which I've done countless times) this time I was struck by how similar it is to the current rebellion against the Episcopal Church and why I am now in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). That is what occurred in Texas only 2 weeks ago - we declared our Independence of the Episcopal Church USA (TEC) and our membership in the Worldwide Anglican Communion. It is no less a "revolution" of sorts, and already TEC is laughing at us - with certainly more laughter and derision to follow in the next few weeks as TEC meets in General Convention in Anaheim CA. They think we are about to fail. Well, that remains to be seen; however, was it any different for the Colonists back in 1776?

While reading the declaration again, I also wished someone would craft it to meet who we are in ACNA. I could've done so, but didn't have the time. But someone else did - and a fine job it is! Alan Haley of the "Anglican Curmudgeon" posted this piece:

WHEN in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the religious bands which have connected them with another, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these religious truths to be self-evident, that all Christians are baptized equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, which is Salvation by Grace through Faith.—That to secure these rights, Churches and their Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from God and from the consent of the governed.—That whenever any Form of Church Polity becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it; and to institute a new Church, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most conducive to their Salvation and Happiness....

Read the whole thing over at: http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-declaration-of-independence.html

Thank you Mr. Haley for this wonderful effort!

Peace to all.
John Riebe+

Letter from our New Archbishop

2009-07-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

This arrived late yesterday afternoon and for the first time publically, Archbishop Duncan thanks those of us in the Diocese of San Joaquin for being the first to stand up for the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Thank you Archbishop Duncan for your encouragement and acknowledgement!

May your days and the days of the ACNA be blessed! -- John+

1st July, A.D. 2009

TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE OF THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF SAN JOAQUIN:

Dearest Friends in Christ,I wanted you all to know that many outside your borders are praying for you in the present trying season. Please do not lose heart.

If there is anything we have learned it is that "There is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O Lord." The just completed Provincial Assembly was testimony to what our God can do with the likes of us, especially if we do not waver.

St. Paul's counsel at the end of II Corinthians is so appropriate to all the things we have faced and will face: "Be watchful, Stand Firm in your Faith. Be Courageous. Be strong. Let everything you do be done in love."

Thank you for having led the way among dioceses departing from the Episcopal Church. We have all benefited by your efforts. I will never forget the privilege of being present for, and speaking at, that seminal Diocesan Convention in 2007.

Please also know that Archbishop Venables and our brothers and sisters of the Southern Cone continue to intercede for us, even as they shift jurisdiction to these shores.Faithfully and fraternally in Christ,

[+Robert Pittsburgh]
Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North AmericaAnglican Bishop of Pittsburgh

ACNA Interview with Bishop Schofield

2009-07-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

This comes from my good friend Kevin Kallsen of Anglican TV!
Bishop Schofield covers a LOT of territory here... the new Province...
the status of our lawsuits, etc. BUT, I think we may all be encouraged by his comments:

Click To Play

For more encouraging and informative interviews go to www.anglicantv.org!

Received today! A Note of Encouragement!

2009-06-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

To The Bishop and Clergy of The Diocese of San Joaquin
Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America

Dear Brothers,
Greetings in the wonderful name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to you on the eve of the launch of the new Anglican Church in North America. You are to be congratulated for your faithfulness in the Gospel and in your cooperation with the organization of the new Province. It is likely that it will take some time before the institutional structures catch up to the realities of the present day situation in the Communion. Until that time, you can be sure of your dual status with us in the Southern Cone. This is true not only for Bishop John-David, but also all of the priests and deacons who received licenses under my authority when your diocese came to us.

You may have heard negative things about your ministries and orders from some quarters, but I can assure you of your good standing and favour with me nd this Province under me as Primate.

Last year, even Archbishop Rowan Williams himself assured me of Bishop John-David's status as a bishop of the Anglican Communion. Any other assertions are, in our view, completely unfounded. What is important is that people are brought to saving faith in Christ and to maturity in Him. We need your full energy to be devoted to that task. The harvest is indeed plentiful, and the workers few! Thank you for your faithfulness.

Yours sincerely,
The Most Rev. Gregory J. Venables
Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone of South America

My Dear Archbishop:

THANK YOU!!!

In Christ,

John Riebe+

In Response to Being Deposed

2009-06-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

Well, it finally happened...

Just before Pentecost I received a very impersonal form letter (actually it was addressed to my parish) indicating that I - along with 60 other faithful clergy - have been "deposed" from the Episcopal Church for "Abandoning the Communion." Bishop Jerry Lamb, the puppet provisional bishop set up by the Presiding Bishop was the official signatory.

Interestingly enough Lamb was the bishop who ordained me both as Deacon and then Priest in 1995. And now, 14 years later, he deposes me for standing firm on Christ and Holy Scripture and calls it "Abandonment of Communion." The irony is too thick to miss!

Yet the fact remains - and it is fact, mind you - that the rest of the bishops of the Anglican Communion including the Archbishop of Canterbury say that we are STILL priests and clergy in good standing!

So, what does this mean to me? Nothing - except that once again I feel abandoned by those who once proclaimed to be faithful followers of Jesus. It is they who have abandoned the historic faith - not us - not me. in truth it is like the CEO of IBM trying to fire the executive staff at Xerox! It doesn't work because they are not my superiors.

They have NO authority over me! They have NO authority over the real Diocese of San Joaquin and they certainly have NO authority over my parish of All Saints'.

So in response, I have a message to send to Jerry Lamb and the PB. Its a message they just don't get - but I still pray someday they will.

Memorial Day

2009-05-25T06:39:00.001-07:00

The Feast of Ascension is Today!

2009-05-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

Heading on Retreat

2009-05-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

Today I'm headed down south the go to the annual Anglican Men's Retreat put on by the men of St. James Anglican Church, Newport Beach, CA. Yes, the very same who've been under such legal attack.

This will be my third time going - and I look forward to this event every year - but the greatest blessing of all is hearing from Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda and those who come with him. For this is not a weekend of church politics (although I'm certain some of that will surface, because that is our American experience right now...) but about about our unity in Jesus Christ! this is a time that reminds me of who the Anglican Communion really is!

Nearly a year ago there was an important gathering in Jerusalem called "GAFCON" (Global Anglican Future CONference) - and nearly a year later here in North America in June we will see the birth of a new Anglican Province: ACNA - the Anglican Church in North America.

But as I head on retreat I offer you this "video portrait" of GAFCON. I know its a year old but watch it anyway; and as you do take a look at who the Anglican Communion really is! For these are representatives from nearly 3/4's of the world's Anglicans. It's a sea of color and variety, old and young, men and women, clergy and laity, those broken and on their way to wholeness, celebration, learning, and prayer.

Isn't that what the Church is supposed to be? Why is it that the Episcopal Church just doesn't want any part of it? Why is it that the Episcopal Church is so hostile to it? (Of course, you and I both know the answers to those questions, don't we?)

Our Lord is the LORD Jesus Christ! ...
... THE way, THE truth, and THE life - and THE only way to God - for a lost and aimless world!

Blessings to all!

John+

What was happening during Prayer Time yesterday...

2009-05-06T14:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a busy time of Prayer.

Knowing full well that our Anglican Chancellor (lawyer) was going before the court to argue our case - my day began (and continued) in fervent prayer.

On Monday the Honorable Adolfo Corona issued a tentative ruling siding with the "Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin" to deliver a "Summary Judgment" against Bishop Schofield. What this really means is that TEC is trying to avoid any kind of a "real trial" in trying to take over what they believe we "Anglicans" took with us when we voted out of the Episcopal Church in 2007. In their view, all the facts are self evident: They are right and we are wrong. Surely the Court should agree and simply rule in their favor.

I'm not a lawyer (I don't even play one on TV) and there is a very good reason God never called me to that profession. I have been enormously grateful to people like our Diocesan Chancellor Rusty VanRozeboom and Alan Haley (widely known as the "Anglican Curmudgeon" who blogs at: http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/) To help me along the way of understanding these legal matters. If you are interested in details Mr. Haley's blogsite has all the info you'd ever want!

Things seems simple enough in TEC's eyes - that is of course until you begin to look at the facts. And THAT is what Rusty was able to get the Judge to do yesterday. The following is from Virtue On Line (VOL) at http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=10398 and I highly recommend this article too. His staff writer says:

The law suit brought by TEC against the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin and its rightful bishop, The Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, is multi-layered and very complex. Issues include: the status of The Episcopal Church as a hierarchical structure, California's neutral principle rule of law in land disputes, Bishop Schofield's canonical status, California corporate entities, the canons and constitution of the Episcopal Church and how they are understood and applied, the understanding of canonical and legal documents, and the shifting of conflicting evidence to determine the legalities involved. The Anglican diocese feels that its side needs a fair hearing before the people of California in a courtroom setting.

As I said before, I'm not a lawyer BUT what really interests me is the power of PRAYER. I know that there were many who were praying yesterday - and I prayed without ceasing from 3:30 - 5:00 PM simply asking God to bless Rusty and his staff; to thwart and confuse the arguments of our opponents; and to open the heart and mind of the Judge to understand the deeper issues. All the time I was praying blessings - on Rusty, on our adversaries, on the Judge.

Mr. Haley says this at his site:

There are normally two kinds of outcome to this kind of oral argument after a tentative ruling. In the first, the judge listens politely to all the parties, lets them have their say, and then issues an order affirming his tentative ruling a day or so later---he scarcely changes a thing.
In the second type of outcome, the points made at the oral argument cause the judge to revise and rethink his ruling, and so he takes the time he needs to do so, whether it is one week or two, or even a month or more... I am hopeful, based on what I heard, that the second type of outcome will be closer to what happens here.

Of course we'll have to wait for the final decision, but even so the fact is our prayers were heard and answered!

There was a time in my life when I used to consider pray little better than a "waste of time" - and there are a lot of people who still think that way. BUT I'll tell you over the last 15 years or so, and even today, I truly believe that prayer is HUGE!!! God is listening and our prayers are incredibly important and powerful. Would the outcome yesterday have been any different if I hadn't lifted these people in prayer? I don't know - something tells me yes they would have. Even so, I am convinced that our prayers made all the difference!

Now, I'll bet TEC had its people in prayer too - I don't know - if they did that may account for their polished perform ace in court. But just maybe God wants us to have our day in court - that's all we want - to let our arguments be listened to and weighed according to the law. But as I've said before, "We have a 'legal' system not a 'justice' system." Our "justice" will one day come from the Lord!

For those who are on the side of Bishop Schofield and us Anglicans here in San Joaquin - please keep praying for our day in court, and for the Lord's will to be done. For those on the other side, I hope you'll keep praying too! But I would ask you why you are so afraid of letting us have "our day in court?" What are you afraid of?

What is our goal? Simply put, it is this:

The central California diocese's goal is to get its case before a jury and let
the jury decide the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin's fate based on the facts
presented to it by its diocesan chancellor and attorneys. -- (again VOL)

Read the referenced articles above and know: Our prayers make a difference! What a great and awesome God we have!

A Prayer Psalm For the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin

2009-05-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

Psa 109:26-31 ( NRSV )

26 Help me, O LORD my God! Save me according to your steadfast love.

27 Let them know that this is your hand; you, O LORD, have done it.

28 Let them curse, but you will bless. Let my assailants be put to shame; may your servant be glad.

29 May my accusers be clothed with dishonor; may they be wrapped in their own shame as in a mantle.

30 With my mouth I will give great thanks to the LORD; I will praise him in the midst of the throng.

31 For he stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who would condemn them to death.

It's Friday and it's raining in Bakersfield!

2009-05-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

I couldn't be prouder of Miss California

2009-04-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Thank you for being "Biblically Correct" and for your personal convictions! As I recall, Jesus said,
"Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Mark 8:38

Great answer! Great job!

Sermon for the Easter Vigil

2009-04-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

The Easter Vigil Sermon of John Chrysostom;
Bishop of Constantinople (~400 AD)

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Is there anyone who is a grateful servant?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!
If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that toiled from the first.

To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!

Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
(STOMP, STOMP, STOMP)
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
(STOMP, STOMP, STOMP)
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
(STOMP, STOMP, STOMP)
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
(STOMP, STOMP, STOMP)
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
(STOMP, STOMP, STOMP)

Hell took a body, and discovered God.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, O death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

ALL: AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

What Holy Week is About

2009-04-07T11:35:00.001-07:00

Meditation for Holy Week

2009-04-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

Click on the button bottom right to watch (and pray) in full screen.

May you be truly Blessed the Holy Week.

Fr. John Riebe

“The Shack”: My Comments

2009-03-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

If you’ve not heard of “The Shack”, a book by William P. Young, I’d simply like to invite you to do so. But quite possibly, you've not only heard about it but have probably read it as well. If you haven’t, I hope you will.

Let me just say at the outset that I read this book mostly on the recommendation of many in my parish, and being the kind of pastor that wants to be in touch with is people I did so. And let me add that I enjoyed it. It is a fiction, folks! Much in the same way the Chronicles of Narnia or the “Space Trilogy” of C. S. Lewis are fiction, but deal with theological issues. I thought Young did a very good job, with one or two reservations.

Let me also say that if you’ve not read the book and intend to, the following is not meant to be a “spoiler” for you (if it is my apologies) but rather incentive to read it for yourself.

What the book is about:
More than anything else this book is about (“Mack”) one man’s experience with God in dealing with the tragic loss of his daughter (“Missy”) and how he allows God to deal with his inner pain. The book makes the following points: God loves you, God cares for you, God is with you at all times, and that God deals gently but firmly with us to grow us into deeper relationship with Him. (If that spoils the book for you, again my apologies!)

Some problems some may have…
Some may have some problems that I didn’t have – and that is in dealing with a “feminine” side of God. God the Father is initially portrayed as a large, African-American woman, which reminded me of an old joke about a man who returns from death. A friend asks, “Did you see God?” “Yes, I did,” he replies. “Well, what did He look like?” “Well,” he began, “first of all, She’s black…” When dealing with the Trinity, Jesus is male (of course) and the Holy Spirit is a “wispy” sort of female. All of this feminine stuff may strike those of “traditional understanding” a bit hard to take – but not me. This is not a “chick-book” by any means. Young does a very good job of arguing that God is BOTH male and female in nature AS the Creator of both genders(which is absolutely true!); and that God appears to “Mack” in the way best that he would relate at the moment. That the Holy Spirit is “feminine” comes from the reality that the Hebrew word for “spirit” or “wind” (ruach) is a feminine noun. So…okay; it was a choice. For those bothered by that, read the book. God the Father does indeed show up as a male “Father” but you’ll get to that part. And while referring to the Holy Spirit as “She” is a somewhat “trendy” thing, it is really NOT an issue as the story unfolds. For those worried about that, there is NO “Mother Goddess” stuff to be found or encouraged – and that’s the main reason I didn’t have a problem with it.

Some moments I really liked in The Shack:
The Garden:
At one point the Holy Spirit takes Mack to a “garden” where he is to assist the Holy Spirit in some pruning, weeding, and planting. Mack takes a look at it and is surprised. “It’s a mess!” he says, to which the HS is enormously – and surprisingly – pleased (you’ll find out why later). But what I got immediately was when the HS describes “her” love of gardens and Creation as “fractals.” Now, I’m an Engineer by college degree and have a certain love of Mathematics. Fractals are mathematical BUT I’m not sure everybody understood that imagery. If that blew by you too, go here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals ) and you will see the kind of beauty that the HS is talking about.

The Cave of Judgment:
Here Mack meets God’s Wisdom personified as “Sophia” and I have to say this is one of the best and most accurate descriptions of Sophia that I’ve read recently. And here is where those of us with “traditional Christian understandings” will be most gratified. Sophia is NOT the “mother goddess” so prevalent in feminist theology – and she very clearly says so! What happens very powerfully is that Mack is offered the opportunity to “judge” God! And clearly he has “issues” with that – especially after what he’s gone through with the violent loss of his daughter. Mack moves from seeing things “his way” to “God’s way.” A very helpful thing for all of us. Here is also where he truly finds out that his dead daughter is really and actually OK and in the presence of Jesus!

The Demonstration of the Trinity:
I was actually very impressed with how Young dealt with each “Person” of the Trinity and how well that fit together. As a theologian, I was somewhat concerned at the beginning that he was digressing into what is referred to as “Modalism” (an heretical belief that the Heavenly Father, Resurrected Son and Holy Spirit are different modes or aspects of one God, as perceived by the believer, rather than three distinct persons in God Himself – see also here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modalism.) But Young navigates through that very well as the distinct “personalities” of God show through each of the Persons of the Trinity. This was possibly his hardest task to deal with to make this book acceptable to Christians and not delve into Mormon theology of “three distinct and separate gods.” (A very good thing) Young seems to draw upon C. S. Lewis’ perspectives that the Trinity is all about a relationship of love (See Mere Christianity by Lewis) and of anything else is more “circular” rather than hierarchical. All in all a good rendition.

The “Celebration”:
At one point Mack is gifted to “see” Creation and Heaven as “God sees.” Again tying to Lewis, this is very similar to how he describes the “real world” as opposed to the “shadow world” in The Last Battle. And, one can see also the influence of the “myriads of myriads” who worship God from every nation and language found in the Revelation to John. So, it is very biblical and it works well.

The image of “Paradise”:
Actually what the book describes is Mack’s own experience of Paradise rather than Heaven. Mack is clearly NOT in Heaven but his daughter Missy is! The two are separated. This might create a problem for those who hold to Calvinistic theology which says that when you die – if you are a true believer – you go straight to heaven. If not, well… you know. The idea of a “Paradise” (promised to the repentant thief on the cross) has become in Anglican Theology (although rarely really talked about) what is known in Roman Catholic Theology the idea of “Purgatory.” Paradise is where we are in the presence of God to be prepared for entrance into heaven; that is, in other words, a place in God’s presence where we can be healed of our own hurts and conditions, to forgive those we need to, and to come into a right relationship with God and others. What we read in The Shack is the process Mack goes through – in this life – to prepare him for the next. I think the general consensus from those who have read the book would say they would love to have this kind of experience with God. In reality, this is what Anglican’s really believe will happen – perhaps not in this life but in the next. Just because we die in the Lord doesn’t mean that we don’t have “healing” that only God can do before we are ready to enter heaven. Lewis put it this way (and I wish I could remember where he said this): He said something like, the idea of a “purgatory” (no matter how blissful) is still something we demand. Imagine you've been playing outside in the yard when the “Master” comes and says, “The Feast is ready! Come to the table!” And we say, “Yes indeed, but may I wash up first?” You see, we all have that “stuff” that needs to be dealt with first – and God does that in Paradise.

Some problems I had theologically with The Shack:
Okay, there are a few problems I had but they are not insurmountable.

First, I would say that (in the book) “God” is a bit too critical of the “institutional church.” Without doubt there is MUCH to be critical of!!! The Church, as an “institution” is full of flawed people who bring their flaws into the mix. And therefore, just like many do, Young finds “the Church” as an easy target. Thankfully, Young doesn’t attack the Church the way Dan Brown does in both The DaVinci Code or in Angels and Demons (soon to be released in the theatres). In The Shack Jesus is clearly in love with “his Bride” : the Church and dreams wistfully of the day when “the Church” will be presented. But in other places, God (the “Father”) includes the Church and its “rules” as man’s need to create systems of “control.” Well, I must say, yes and no. Certainly one can see there are those who see the Church through those eyes, but I don’t agree with that take completely. Remember it is through the Church that we ought to be about establishing right relationships with God and each other. That’s what happens in the best of cases through the Church. (And I’m not lifting one denomination above another.)

Second, I’m not convinced that Young deals with the concept of Justice as well as he could have. He is very clear about indicating that we MUST forgive even the most horrendous of sins against us. (Remember that the most dangerous word in the Lord’s prayer is the word “as”! “forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”) But the Bible, especially the Psalms and OT are FULL of the cries for “Justice” and that God will indeed punish the wicked. Young avoids the error of supporting Universalism when at least at one point God says the choice to live in a right relationship with Him rests solely with us.

Third, Young didn’t deal with the existence of Satan and his influences at all. With the personification of Wisdom as Sophia, clearly there was room for Young to describe the reality that Evil also has a “personality.” He didn’t need to go into a sort of, “The Devil made me do it,” approach; but Young could have strengthened the whole Cave of Judgment experience by identifying Satan as “the Accuser.” (Which he is.)

Fourth, Young makes the point that the “sin of Adam” was in seeking his own “independence” from God. While this is true – in fact very true – sin is more than that for us! The purpose of the Ten Commandments is – as Young presents – a “mirror” to reflect how we do not live in relationship with God. How these ideas square the murder of a little girl didn’t fully work for me. But you should judge for yourself. I did very much appreciate that while not very strong on the concept of “sin” Young was very strong and powerful when he shares in the story about Jesus’ act of Atonement on the Cross! This was well done!

Well, there are some of my thoughts. The Shack is indeed well worth the time to read and is accessible for almost any level of reader. As I said above, I don’t think the “problems” I had with the book are any reason not to read it. More than anything else, I hope this book will open up conversations among the faithful and non-believers alike.

Blessings and Peace in Jesus Christ to all!

John Riebe+

Sad But True...

2009-03-08T16:43:00.000-07:00

The US has discovered a new weapon that destroys people but saves the buildings...
... It's called, "The Episcopal Church."

How sad... but true.

Ash Wednesday

2009-02-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

Alpha! @ All Saints!

2009-02-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

The Alpha Course!
Starts at
All Saints' Anglican Church
3200 Gosford Road
Bakersfield CA
661-832-8582

Sundays @ 6PM March 1!

YOU ARE WELCOME WITH ALL YOUR QUESTIONS
Call to register right now!

Real Change! Real Life!

2009-01-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

The following clip was posted on two of my favortie blog sites: Babyblue and StandFirm. Even so its powerful enough to share with all of you.

Please watch this to the very end - and consider this: What do you really want God to do for you? Ask Him, have Faith, trust in His working in your life!

Merry Christmas to All!

2008-12-24T10:08:00.000-08:00

For me, this Christmas Hymn says it all!

Blessings to All!
Fr. John

Advent Reflection

2008-12-10T11:54:00.000-08:00

A New Day Dawns: ACNA

2008-12-05T10:14:00.000-08:00

From an article from Christianity Today...

"In a history-making gesture, conservative evangelical Anglicans, deeply alienated by the decline of the U.S. denomination, sounded a shofar to herald the creation of the Anglican Church of North America...

Earlier in the day on Wednesday, top leaders adopted a provisional constitution that will allow continued existence for current organizations, continued oversight by overseas archbishops from South America and Africa, the use of different prayer books, and the ordination of women.
It commits the leaders to involvement in a diocese, cluster of churches, or a church-based network within the new province. The constitution creates a provincial council, a tribunal, a joint operating budget, and the office of provincial archbishop."

A new branch of the Anglican Communion based upon relationships - with Jesus Christ and one another - WOW! This is truly something different!

Please read the whole article at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/decemberweb-only/149-43.0.html
And as always, your comments are welcome!

Blessings and Peace to All:
John Riebe+

The Eve of a New Anglican Province

2008-12-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

"The reality, as much as I or anyone else may not like it, is that geographical boundaries are no longer functionally definitive of Episcopalian identity."

-- So writes the Rev. George Clifford of North Carolina.

In a surprisingly refreshing article from a usually hostile blog-site, Fr. Clifford offers very important points of view that need to be heard throughout the American Episcopal Church (TEC). I've made these points known many times in the past two years and it is very encouraging to hear others are beginning to see the wisdom behind them.

Here are some very thought provoking points Fr. Collins makes:

1. Geographic boundaries, I realized, are not as sacrosanct as we who value tradition might wish they were... Yet nowhere in Scripture can one find a God-given plan for the organization of parishes, dioceses, and provinces... The geographic model for parishes and dioceses emerged naturally because of physical proximity, administrative practicality, and political identity.

2. ... geographical boundaries are no longer functionally definitive of Episcopalian identity. Four dioceses have already voted to disassociate themselves from the Episcopal Church and to associate with another Province... In other words, the geographic model is irretrievably broken in the United States. Those who have left believe the divisions that were the catalyst for their move are too deep, too significant to permit dissidents to continue their Christian journeys within the Episcopal Church. One can no more coerce ecclesial unity than marital unity. Even as the Episcopal Church rightly recognizes its understanding of the Bible, theology, and ethics must change with the continuing unfolding of knowledge and moving of the Spirit, so should the Church be open to revising its thinking about ecclesial structures and polity.

3. Acknowledging the reality of multiple Anglican bodies within the geographic boundaries of the Episcopal Church would introduce refreshing notes of honesty and grace into the present turbulent controversy. This step might preserve Anglican unity by abandoning the dishonest hubris of insisting that the Episcopal Church is the only Anglican presence in the United States. Recognition of another Anglican province could provide an option for individuals, parishes, and dioceses to transfer, even as clergy now transfer from one province to another. A minority who wish to remain in the Episcopal Church but are part of a parish that wishes to transfer could establish a new parish or affiliate with an existing parish. Similarly, those in a diocese who wish who remain in the Episcopal Church after the diocese voted to realign could affiliate with an adjoining diocese that extends its borders or reconstitute the disassociated diocese.

-- Thank you for these thoughts Fr. Clifford!

On the eve of the creation of a new North American Anglican Province (by whatever name it comes to be called) the basic reality is this: the borders are broken. The time is come to lay aside the arguments and fighting and move on -- move on by focusing on the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

I highly commend this article and its comments to you. The full article may be found here: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/episcopal_church/an_alterntive_province_why_not.php

Peace to All.

A Thanksgiving to Jesus!

2008-11-18T18:09:00.000-08:00

In anticipation of Thanksgiving Day and for all of the recent good news in the American Anglican Churches.

Praise be the Name of Jesus Christ!

Take 5 and enjoy!

Blessings to All!

Hope is in the wind!

2008-11-12T12:50:00.000-08:00

What an incredible last few days this has been!

On Monday, I was called up to Fresno for a meeting of the Rural Deans of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin. Monday is usually my "day off" but I sacrificed it in lieu of yesterday being Veteran's Day - so yesterday I really took a day off - a day off from blogs, news, and anything work related. But Monday was a different story.

For those of you who might be wondering what a "Rural Deans Meeting" might entail, let me just say that the area Deans (as I am for Kern County) come together to meet with the Bishop as he shares concerns and inside news that may be of interest to us and our congregations.

Some of the topics we talk about are confidential in nature - and so I am bound to respect that; however, we did talk at length about the fact that Diocese Number 3 (Quincy) has now joined us (Pittsburgh and San Joaquin) in the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone as we await the formation of a new Anglican Province here in North America.

That Province appears to be taking form and shape much more quickly than one usually expects from the Church! I often joke about "moving at the speed of Church" when it comes to church work. All too often it seems that we talk and meet, talk and meet, talk and meet, and wait for the "next meeting" make a difference. Since 2003 (and the actions thereof) there has been considerable "talk" of a this "New Province" - one that orthodox conservatives have been thirsting for - and certainly one that the Episcopal Church is certainly going to dismay and disparage!

The fact is that when the new province happens (not if) the Episcopal Church will have to deal with the conservatives on an equal basis. They will have to recognize us as legitimate members of the Anglican Communion. The hope in all of this is that this will finally put a concerted end to the infighting that has plagued both branches of this Body for years! How all this plays out remains to be seen; nevertheless, with one fell swoop it may render all of the legal proceedings against congregations and clergy, done and over!

The primary complaint and charge against us is "Abandonment of Communion;" however, when the Anglican Communion recognizes those forming this new province as legitimate (and 2/3 of the world already does!) the wind will die in the sails of the Episcopal Church. But again, we will have to wait patiently for all this to happen.

Several "meetings" have yet to occur... BUT... my prediction? I suspect we will see this become reality within six-months! It may be sooner than that - but keep your weather-eye out for the Primates Meeting in Egypt in January! (Read about it here: http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2008/11/6/primates-meeting-set-for-jan-31-feb-6)

Certainly TEC's hope will be that "nothing will happen" as they hoped would come out of Lambeth - but rest assured - the GAFCON and Global South Primates won't let that happen - No, not this time.

Remember these words of Jesus: "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Post Election Reflection

2008-11-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

Won't Get Fooled Again! - The Who

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

The Vote A Week Away!

2008-10-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

In just 8 days our nation will be choosing a new President; a very important decision as you well know. Whomever you choose to vote for is for you to decide. I would urge you to vote - however you choose to - vote your conscience and vote for whomever you believe is right for our country - but vote!

Let me just say as a veteran who served our country and proudly defended our freedoms, I have always held in the back of my own conscience the many, many, who died to make sure we have that right. Believe it or not, our system of government is still the envy of the world and most of the world aches for the right to have a say in their government like we have. To have this right and not to exercise it - to me is as close to a deliberate sin as I can imagine even though there is no "biblical" mandate to vote.

That we will be choosing a new President you well know, as I said above. And I have my own personal reasons for voting my conscience; however, as a Priest and Pastor I will never ever publically endorse one candidate over another from the pulpit or otherwise. That being the case, as I have to say I will never publically endorse a candidate I DO feel obligated to speak out on moral issues - and there is a BIG one our ballot this time! Proposition 8.

Much has been written and said in the papers about Prop. 8 and I wouldn't presume to be able to summarize them all. Having read the actual text of the proposed new law - the ONLY thing this initiative does is to ensure the California State Constitution states (and I quote from the actual text of the Proposition):
SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Those in opposition to Proposition 8 want to "redefine" marriage to mean “between two people”. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Period. That's what it is. This is NOT an issue of civil rights as we are meant to believe. Gay and Lesbian Couples have every civil right available to them already. They cannot be denied legal rights of shared ownership, medical access to partners, and any other "benefit" a traditional "married couple" has. In terms of "civil rights" I do absolutely believe they have the "right" to live in "Domestic Partnerships" should they choose to do so; but they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us. I believe their choices unwise and unbiblical BUT they have that right. But don't call it a "marriage."

I do believe this is a moral issue because even as Jesus speaks on the issue of divorce (in Matthew 9:3-6) He speaks of us being created as male and female, and "what God has joined let no one separate." These are familiar words from the Marriage Service itself. For these reasons I believe we should vote Yes on Prop. 8.

My immediate apologies to those who believe a pastor or priest should never speak out on politics – this is my blog not the pulpit.

I have a high regard (as you know) for Pastor Rick Warren. Below you will find some comments that he sent me today with a link to a very short video clip. I commend them to you as I agree with him and could not have said what he says any better.

PLEASE VOTE! THIS IS ONE ISSUE WHERE YOUR VOTE COULD MAKE THE DIFFERENCE FOR THE FUTURE. AND PLEASE – IF YOU ARE ABLE – VOTE YES ON PROPOSITION 8.

Feeling a bit like Luke Skywalker...

2008-10-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

This just in from the rumor mill...

I understand that today the "Episcopal" Standing Committee is meeting today in Fresno to Inhibit all of us rogue clergy - yes, all of us in the "Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin" who are now part of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. This "rumor" comes from +Jerry Lamb himself according to his webpage on the Episcopal San Joaquin Website. On it he says (dated 10/10/08):

"Friday of next week the Standing Committee meets in Fresno... The Standing Committee will also begin the canonical process of the Abandonment of Communion for those clergy who left the Episcopal Church and have aligned themselves with the Southern Cone or some other body. Clergy so charged will be inhibited, not allowed to function as an Episcopal Priest or be employed in an Episcopal Church. The clergy person has six months to recant and return to the Episcopal Church. At the end of the six months, the person will be removed from the ministry of this church. This action implies no moral judgment of an individual clergy person. It speaks only about the person’s relationship to the Episcopal Church. The person can of course function in another church that may recognize their ordination."

To be honest, this is something I expected would come much sooner than it has. Perhaps what is really driving all of this is that "inhibited clergy" don't count when it comes to achieving a quorum for Diocesan Convention in Hanford (of which they will be holding at the same time as our genuine Convention in Fresno next Friday and Saturday.

Be that as it may, I find it completely ironic that the Bishop who saw me through seminary, ordained me to both the Diaconate and Priesthood, and who watched me triple the size and assessment of my first parish in his diocese... will be the same Bishop to inhibit and eventually depose me for - of all things - Abandoning the Communion.

All of this reminds me of the confrontation between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back. Like Vader, +Lamb holds out his hand saying, "Join me... and together we can put an end to this destructive conflict!" Of course all of this happens while holding a charged lightsabre at Luke's chest. Regardless of the "relationship" between them, Luke won't be fooled in to forgetting the evil Vader really represents, as he says, "I'll never join you!"

Perhaps that comparison seems a bit harsh, but let's be honest. What the Episcopal leadership is doing is evil. They have denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, denied the necessity of the Atonement, denied the Holy Spirit inspiration of the Bible.... They have turned against and ignored their own Canon Laws to depose faithful Bishops, and are just pent on removing faithful orthodox believers from their parish churches through legal suits - even though TEC has never given any of them a dime to purchase or maintain their properties. Does any of that sound Gospel to you? It doesn't to me either.

Even more ironic is the fact that historically TEC has failed to deal with those who really denied the Christian Faith - like Bishops Pike, Spong, and Righter along with others. Yet, it is simply those who have and are standing fast on the tenets of Christian Faith who are now being inhibited and deposed.

So here's to feeling a bit like Luke Skywalker! TEC may think like Darth Vader, "You are beaten... it is useless to resist!" Yup. TEC is on the march denying the Gospel all the way around. Even so, the Episcopal Church today isn't the faith I grew up to know. Its not the church I was ordained in. And while TEC is quick to claim that those of us have broken our ordination vows by not acceding to the Canons of the Episcopal Church, that whole promise is nullified when a church abandons believing that the "Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God and to contain everything necessary for salvation." I'll never (re)join you. I will remain a faithful Christian Anglican.

So... let me just say this to Bishop Lamb and TEC: Whatever your actions are today it doesn't mean a thing. I'm not under your authority. I am a priest in good standing within the Anglican Communion under a recognized Bishop (no, bishop, Bishop Schofield has not been deposed!) in a fully functional and viable diocese. Your time would be better spent dealing pastorally with those who agree with you.

May God Bless and Forgive You. May God Bless and Forgive Us All!!!

Something Different???

2008-09-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking today about what happened just yesterday with the supposed "deposing" of the Rt. Rev. Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh by the Episcopal House of Bishops. I've read enough of the Canons to know that what "occurred" yesterday, in fact, did not occur because the HOB and the Presiding Bishop didn't follow their own rules.

All of this was expected to happen. Why? Because the Presiding Bishop of TEC wanted it to be so. Bishop Duncan, like Bishops Schofield and Cox, was denied the "due process" that the Canons of the Church specifically spell out. At least Bishop Schofield had the courtesy of being "inhibited" and the 60 day grace period to recant his actions (clearly something that he wasn't ever going to do). Even so, like +Schofield, +Duncan was denied any opportunity to face the "charges" against him and to give defense. Does that sound anything like a Christian approach to you? It doesn't to me either, nor will it to other Christians around the world. But TEC seems not to care about that.

From various reports, there were several attempts made before the HOBs to draw attention to these realities and provide for the "intent of the Canons." All were summarily dismissed, but again that was no surprise.

To be certain, and this is good news to the faithful in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Bishop Duncan is STILL a Bishop! When you don't follow the rules, your actions don't stand! TEC will pretend and act like they are valid, but that doesn't make them so. Like Bishop Schofield, Bishop Duncan has been received unanimously into the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone by their House of Bishops and by Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables. When Pittsburgh votes on October 4th at its own Convention to depart from TEC (as with the Diocese of San Joaquin) Bishop Duncan will return again. I hope in the meantime, Bishop Bob has time for some rest!

All this plays out almost exactly like a Monty Python sketch - except that its not funny. Not funny at all. It's sad. Sad that the grand old Episcopal Church has become like this. In truth I was actually hoping and praying that "Something Different" would happen! That the TEC HOBs would stop and reflect upon what they were doing and ask, "Is this right? Is this godly? Is this charitable? Is this legal?" But THAT would be Something Different!

So what happens now? I certainly think the time to realistically consider that what TEC is doing will continue. Although the opportunity for the Church to repent of is ways is always possible - it's just not probable.

Recently, Steve Wood (and I'm assuming this is the Rev. Steve Wood) who identifies himself as the Senior Pastor (Rector) of St. Andrew's Church in Mt. Pleasant SC recently had dinner with the Presiding Bishop in New York. He was invited because the dinner gathered representatives of the largest Episcopal parishes in the country - of which St. Andrews qualifies. To make a long story short though.... on his own blog (http://www.stevewood.cc/relationships/ny-ny) he predicts what's going to happen next:

What I think:
I think that the financial challenges facing the reorganization of the
National Church offices could be addressed with a return to creedal Christianity
and a cessation of the lawsuits.
I think that the conservative/re-asserting remnant will get their legislative
clocks cleaned at General Convention 2009.
I think that B033 is going to be repealed at General Convention 2009.
I think that the marriage (in States where the legislature or courts have
ruled this legal) or blessing of same-sex persons will be authorized at General
Convention 2009.
I think that the 2009 General Convention will modify the “Dennis Canon”,
giving the National Church property ownership (it’s hard to remember that until
1979 PARISHES “owned” their property - not the Diocese or National Church).
I think that many in leadership at the 2009 General Convention will be
content to walk apart from the Anglican Communion.
I think that based on the experience with women’s ordination the 2009 General
Convention will debate, and defeat, a “conscious clause” with regard to same-sex
ordinations and blessings/marriages.
I think that the above actions will render it impossible for anyone left from
“my side” to remain within TEC (though, of course, some will).

And so... I also hope and pray for Something Different to happen. But I think Steve is right on the money!
God bless Bishop Duncan, Bishop Schofield, Archbishop Venables... AND...
God Bless YOU!!

God loves what you love

2008-09-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was open and honest with my congregation. I was openly honest about a significant difference of opinion with my bishop.

Some people have criticized me that I go along with him on everything... but I don't! We have serious and significant differences of opinion, but there is real mutual respect.

My bishop likes opera! I like Led Zeppelin!

I respect that he likes opera and love him for it. When I'm in his house, I don't bewail and bemoan him to turn off his music and turn on mine. When he's at my house I respect him enough not to "crank up the jams!"

I know there are people who like both opera and classic rock. I love and respect you, too!

This morning I found myself in a strange reflection that 24 years ago, I came to what I believe is the greatest place to live on the planet. I've lived a number of places through moves in the church and in the military, so I know there are other great places to live... but... in my opinion I love THIS state!

24 Years ago I came to Mather AFB in Sacramento as a young Second Lieutenant. In 2006 I found my way back... not to Sacramento but Bakersfield. And years ago, I came in September!

God is so good! And God loves what I love... just as God loves what you love. If you love opera, God loves that you love it! And if I love Led Zeppelin, God loves that I love it! Anything that is not sin, God loves about you... and about me. Do I agree theologically with everything that Led Zeppelin sings about? Of course not! Would you agree with everything sung about in opera? I hope not, either!

But for those who perhaps only know what they "don't" like... and for those of you who share in loving what you do love... I offer you this video clip that I hope will brighten your day. It was the song, after all, 24 years ago, that brought me to the place I love... California.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

A Timely Old Sermon

2008-08-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

About a year and a half ago, I was asked to preach at the Service of Renewal of Ordination Vows for my Diocese. I ran accross my notes again today and found its message is just as timely as it was then. It was just what I needed to hear again. Hope so for you too... JR+

*************************
I speak to you in the name of the Living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

My brothers and sisters, I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here with you and to share with you what I believe God has placed upon my heart. In this very room, hundreds of years of experience in ministry, prayer, and faithful service come together to remember our own corporate calling as ordained ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To be honest, for me to be asked to preach today is a truly humbling moment; and there is one word that comes to mind: FEAR!

But that’s OK too! Fear is a big part of ministry, as we all know. Fear comes to us in many ways:

* Fear of our acceptance among peers,
* The real fear that next year YOU may be asked to preach on this occasion.
* Fear of wondering if our dreams and desires for the people we serve will be received,
* The fear in wondering if what we do in the service of Christ will make any difference (that’s called Gethsemane!)
* Fear in walking with our God and walking into places where He calls us to go… We know that as FAITH...

… And yet the fear that leads us to faith leads us also to courage – courage to face the unknown and to do the great things God has called each of us to do.

Nearly a year ago, when I began my ministry at All Saints’ in Bakersfield, I began with a well known passage of scripture “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And that “Fear of the Lord” is all about “Awe” – not a sense being scared – but knowing the awesome power of the true God – the one God – who leads, guides, and inspires us to do great things in His holy name. And I am certain that each one of us in our ministry experiences have witnessed the great actions of God! Those moments when God was so real and present that you knew He was doing a “great thing.” (Holy is His Name!)

Think back to your own ordination day – the first one (perhaps your only one) – when all of us who are ordained began as deacons. Some of us were deacons for a seemingly short time; others of us were to find this as our life’s vocation. Still others of us are searching out our next calling. Yet, ALL of us began as servants – willing to go where God called us!

What were your dreams then? What were your fears then? Maybe there were dreams of wearing a “purple shirt” someday? (God forbid! At least for me.) Or maybe to have widely spread respect – or power? Or maybe if not these things, simply to serve Jesus Christ faithfully no matter what?

What was the good work that began in you to bring you to THIS very moment? And if you or I were to know then what we know now – would we still answer before a bishop and the people we serve the question: Do you believe God has called you … as a deacon… as a priest… as a bishop? And answer: “I believe I am so called”? I hope your answer is still YES! For, unfortunately we all know there is a difference between being a “so called” deacon, priest, or bishop – and being REAL! The difference of course is how the Kingdom of God is measured: not by power or position – but in abiding, obedience, and service. Whatever our dreams may once have been – God’s desire was first to make us servants – as He did his own Son – and as His servants we are his friends.

Perhaps even more importantly are the questions: What are your dreams now? What are your fears now? If there is one thing for sure, the culture we live in, the times we experience, the “world” (as St. Paul speaks of it) is a place that masters the art of fear! And St. Paul reminds us “Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Elsewhere, in Ephesians, in another very popular “ordination” proper, we are told:

Eph 4:14 - 15 (NRSV) We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Doctrine of course is something we are steeped in – from our seminary educations and our own personal journeys. But as we are also well aware, there are plenty of moments that happen – God moments – that our seminary educations didn’t prepare us for...

* Like when the wafer falls down the cleavage of the low-cut blouse.
* Like when an elderly woman’s denture slips out into the chalice – and she walks away!
* Or like the time when you are visiting another parish – and the rector intending to make a very important illustration regarding Good and Evil comes out wearing a black cape and a Darth Vader helmet – and someone from the congregation calls out, “It’s bishop Spong!”
(That by the way was one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard!)

But there are other moments too…
* Like when someone responds and gives their life to Christ, or
* When our presence at a hospital bed, or in a living room, brought comfort and healing.
* When we anoint the sick and they actually get better!

Or when through our preaching and teaching a new understanding of God is understood.
Or when we prayed for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit – and they received Him.
Or even new insights into the mystery of God – like the time when a father brought his child to me after Eucharist. And the six-year old asks, “When you break the bread I see sparks fly. How do you do that?”

These things happen not because we are good, but because God is good! It is in these moments when our priesthood – whether we are laity, Bishops, Priests, or Deacons – the priesthood of ALL believers – shines. Why? Because as Jesus says: “You did not choose me, but I chose you!”

It is clear in God’s Word that God desires of us both maturity and variety. God wants for ALL of His children to mature in faith; and by the power of the Holy Spirit to discover and mature in the variety of gifts He has created in and bestowed upon us:
* Prophecy in proportion to faith
* Ministry in ministering;
* The Teacher in teaching
* The exhorter, the giver, the leader, the compassionate… And the healer, the evangelist, the pastor, and even… the apostle.

So we come here today to renew our vows – to renew our various calls to ministry – as servants of the One True God – in His One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. This calling does not come to us because we earned it, or desired it, or chose it originally; but because Jesus chose us first.

None of us can do that alone – we were not meant to. To be made new means at least to make sure that we are nourished by the Source – the Vine – who is Jesus Christ. The “power word” in our Gospel is “abide. Jesus says “abide in my love” just as He abides in His Father’s love. What does that mean?

My Greek Lexicon defines “abide” as "meno": to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy):—abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand…

Whichever, word works for you let that be your encouragement to stay and abide in Christ – and keep on, keepin’ on. Or as St. Paul would say (in the Message paraphrase translation):

I appeal to you brothers and sisters….
…. Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.[1]

[So] let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t. If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face. [2]

Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply... Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, 12cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.[3]

And by the Love of our Heavenly Father, the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the Power of the Holy Spirit, may THAT be true for us today and in the days to come.

Amen.

[1] Rom 12:1 - 2 (TMSG)
[2] Rom 12:6 - 8 (TMSG)
[3] Rom 12:9 - 13 (TMSG)

Levels of Persecution

2008-08-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

One of the things I’ve often heard about the Christian Faith is that God never promised us a "bed of roses.” Meaning, when you give your life to Christ one isn’t automatically protected from life’s difficulties. In fact, many new Christians often find that life gets “harder” rather than easier for a couple reasons:

1) Suddenly we are faced with making changes in our lives, like giving up self-destructive activities and patterns (yes, I’m talking about sin) as we allow Christ to reshape us; and as we take on new patterns of discipline: Church attendance, daily prayer, daily Bible reading, and service to others. All of this is hard work.

2) Satan is not happy about your giving your life to Christ and will do anything to thwart it. Suddenly we find out there is “Spiritual Warfare” going on – and we are the battlefield. When we “were safely in Satan’s camp” he could ignore us (for the most part), but now that we’ve infiltrated his territory (as a Child of God) he starts to step up the attack!

We need to understand that “persecution” is part of the Christian life experience – Jesus even tells us we are to expect it! He tells us that we will be called upon to witness our faith in various ways. In Mt. 24:9 Jesus tells us the world will hate us because of Him. In Mk. 13:9-13 Jesus tells us that we will be brought before “councils” as a testimony or witness of Him. We may even be betrayed by our own family members! (And there are numerous other passages, too.)

Yet, even so, Jesus promises to be with us, to send the Holy Spirit to speak for us, and most of all to bless us! From the Sermon on the Mount we hear:

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Mt. 5:11-12)

None of this is surprising to those of us who’ve been Christians for a while; however, the fact is that all of us are going to face persecution. So if we are to expect persecution what can we expect? As I see it there are four levels of persecution:

Level 1: Personal Witness:
When we proclaim Jesus we face the fact that there are those who won’t like it. At this level we can risk losing friends and relationships and even jobs when we stand up for Christ! We may be called “intolerant bigots” or religious fanatics. We risk being made fun of and isolated because of our beliefs. The risks here are real and personal. When they occur they indeed hurt our feelings, and can cost us financially (like being fired) – but rarely at this stage do we risk our personal safety.

Level 2: Judicial Persecution:
This next level turns from personal inconvenience to actual legal and official retribution. This is where we may be sued or taken to court because of our Christian convictions. The risks here are possible loss of personal freedoms. Gag-orders, jail time, loss of property, loss of professional reputation and the like are the next risks. Again, this is more serious and costly than Level 1, but rarely life-threatening.

Level 3: Life Risking Persecution:
This is the kind of persecution we begin to associate with the early church and in other countries even in our day and age. This level involves prison and torture. This is the kind of persecution where we might be beaten, deprived of food, and begin to really fear for our lives. Real suffering becomes reality – indeed we become “prisoners of war” in a Spiritual battle.

Level 4: Martyrdom:
This highest level means the loss of life as a testament of the Gospel. We remember those early Christians who were butchered in the forums of Rome; and we remember that even today in numerous places in the world, real people are killed on a daily basis (with or without due process of law). As this is the highest form of persecution, so too is it the highest form of witness to Christ. Martyrdom almost always backfires upon those responsible. Cases in point: the greatest time of growth in the Christian Church was when it was persecuted; and, examples like the Ugandan Martyrs who refused the sinful advances of the king, were put to death horribly, and yet influenced many to become a Christian testimony – whereas today the Christian Faith is incredibly strong there.

Most of us here in America – the land of freedom of speech and religion – know only of levels 1 and perhaps 2. That at least is good news – for the moment. But let’s be honest – we are undergoing persecution – yet, even so let’s not forget to pray for others in the world who have it worse off than we do! As we remember our own Christian witness may we all remember that persecution is indeed expected and part of our Christian lives. But also, let us remember that persecution finds us – the Holy Spirit will indeed place us in locations and situations where we may give our testimonies – nevertheless, we shouldn’t seek out persecution or tempt it in others. As St. Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15-16:

“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.”

How helpful do we find the (TEC) folks in Stockton?

2008-08-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

Just when you though it was safe in church...

An New Blog... A New Day!

2008-08-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

Well, hello everyone! Welcome to what I hope is a rich resource for you ... and some fun for me! If you've stumbled here by accident, well, welcome anyway.

To introduce myself (as I haven't done a profile yet) I'm Fr. John Riebe, an Anglican Priest and Rector of All Saints' Anglican Church in Bakersfield CA. And if you are wondering further, I'm also one of those "Anglican Hooligans" who've joined the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone!

I hope to say some more about that later for those who are interested. But from time to time I hope to add a bit of fun just to keep things as light as possible. If you're looking for news, well you should go over to my two favorite blogs (yes I read them too) BabyBlueOnline and Standfirm.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll come back again.

God Bless All!

JR+