all saints

especially in modern america, where religious holidays have been reduced to consumerism for children, it is easy to lose track of the close connection between all saints day and pentecost. but the connection is real, and important. in the eastern church all saints day is the sunday after pentecost; in the west it is six months from pentecost, the other pole of the axis of the holy spirit at work in the church.

at pentecost we celebrate the first coming of the holy spirit; at all saints we celebrate the continuing coming of the holy spirit into the lives of all believers.

so, how might we celebrate this most wonderful feast? i suggest we might take some clues from the instructions our lord gave the first very small group of believers: wait and pray. so tonight i some friends and i are going to gather together and wait, praying with the saints who have gone before, waiting for the spirit which opens our eyes to see the great cloud of witnesses which surround us.

who are we, this small group of friends in one room and the great cloud of witnesses which john in the revelation reading for the feast says is "a great multitude no one could count?" perhaps we would well to see how they are described in the psalm for the feast:

"i will alway give thanks unto the lord
his praise shall ever be in my mouth.
my soul shall make her boast in the lord
the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
o praise the lord with me
and let us magnify his name together.
I sought the lord, and he heard me
yea, he delivered me out of all my fear.
they had an eye unto him, and were lightened
and their faces were not ashamed.
lo, the poor crieth, and the lord heareth him
yea, and saveth him out of all his troubles.
the angel of the lord tarrieth round about them that fear him
and delivereth them.
o taste, and see, how gracious the lord is
blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
o fear the lord, ye that are his saints
for they that fear him lack nothing.
the lions do lack, and suffer hunger
but they who seek the lord shall want no manner of thing that is good.
come, ye children, and hearken unto me
i will teach you the fear of the lord.
what man is he that lusteth to live
and would fain see good days?
keep thy tongue from evil
and thy lips, that they speak no guile.
eschew evil, and do good
seek peace, and ensue it.
the eyes of the lord are over the righteous
and his ears are open unto their prayers.
the countenance of the lord is against them that do evil
to root out the remembrance of them from the earth.
the righteous cry, and the lord heareth them
and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
the lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart
and will save such as be of an humble spirit.
great are the troubles of the righteous
but the lord delivereth him out of all.
he keepeth all his bones
so that not one of them is broken.
but misfortune shall slay the ungodly
and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
the lord delivereth the souls of his servants
and all they that put their trust in him shall not be destitute. (psalm 34, coverdale translation)

a flagrant emdorsement of the psalter

from dallas willard's the divine conspiracy: "if your bury yourself in psalms, you emerge knowing god and understanding life." (p. 65)

parochialism re-invented

i had the honour to be present last evening at the "kick-off event" for a new "church plant," which in this case took the plant metaphor seriously, with an image of a banyon tree: northwest community church.

although much of their theology i might consider far from orthodox, mainly in terms of their intense concentration on the second person of the trinity, a concentration which seems shared by much current american protestantism, there is a part of their understanding of what it means to be church that is i think very important and very orthodox and which more of the church could learn from them with benefit.

northwest community church wants to be a church in and for and with the community. the church poured out, to put words in their mouth, or in the mouth of the pastor, for the life of the world. once upon a time, before the church saw herself as so splintered, the church in constantinopole or rome or alexandria or salisbury organized herself into parishes, and saw the care of the souls within each parish as her pastoral duty. we might call this the good old days. and it seems that northwest community church is calling us again to good days. let us pray they will succeed "beyond what we can hope for or imagine."

on the reading of books: a flagrant advertisement for the daily office

i suspect that you know several people who are "short for time," who have trouble finding enough hours in a day to do all the things they want to do. perhaps you are one of those people. i have friends in that category, and i am always a bit saddened to find that they are reading books about the problems of the world but do not find time for the daily office. you know the sorts of books they're reading: jared diamond's works, or naomi klein's; the books of people who have a firm grasp of the obvious, and who have the footnotes to prove it.

my plea, my flagrant advertisement for the daily office, is that one would do much better to read books that have a firm grasp of the sometimes-not-so-obvious, but who have the testimony of the church to prove it: the books of scripture which we are encouraged to read in the daily office.

those of us who follow the two-year cycle of readings that is recommended by most of the church in north america are just finishing up micah. this is a quote from this morning's reading:

"he hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
the Lords voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.
are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?
shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?
for the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
therefore also will i make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins.
thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword.
thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.
for the statutes of omri are kept, and all the works of the house of ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that i should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people. (amos 6:8-16)

not only does it, as northrup frye says prophets always do, describe what is always true, but it starts rather than ends with the prescription for correction of the problem. since of the making of books there is no end, why not start by reading the best? books aren't read for 2600 years because they're of merely historical interest.

the mystery of faith and the election

each sunday in the liturgy, "we proclaim the mystery of faith: christ has died, christ is risen, christ will come again." this "proclamation" is not i suspect something we think very much about, although it certainly merits consideration.

i have been asking "self-professing, practicing christian " friends this question the past few days: "what is the best-case scenario you see for the next five years. i keep hoping someone will answer in terms of the mystery of faith, or in terms of what we all pray each day when we say, "your kingdom come." but i have been considerably disappointed that so far the answers have all been in terms of who is hoped to win the next u. s. presidential election and why that wouldn't be so bad as it would be if the other candidate won.

so i wonder which we have lost, the mystery or the faith? or both?