The Episcopal Church occupies some pricey real estate. The “Church Center” of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America (PECUSA is our official name) is located at 815 Second Avenue, NY just behind the United Nations. We own the eleven-story building. Some of the floors are looking for new tenants as the church has shrunk since the building was built in 1963 at the peak of Episcopal Church membership nationwide. This is where the Presiding Bishop’s office is located.
Eight Inches
Imagine for a moment that the earth was reduced to the size of a basketball. Now imagine that part of the planet on/in which we “live and move and have our being.” Although the atmosphere gets very thin the higher you go, let’s consider the heights of aircraft at around 10 miles in altitude or 50,000 feet as the top. Then consider the bottom of ocean trenches at around 5-7 miles deep. From the height of aircraft to the bottom of the ocean is a layer of about 15-17 miles on a planet with a radius almost 4,000 miles.
Hopes and Dreams
I have friends on both sides of the political divide who are scared. Tough, Army veterans who were shot down behind Vietnamese enemy lines who are scared. Seniors, healthcare workers, business owners, and venture capitalists who are realistically concerned about the potential for violence. American Jews fear a repeat of Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) when, in 1938, the Nazis began the systematic destruction of the German Jewish people.[1] In the original Nazi violence, Protestants and Roman Catholics stood by, watching passively, while their Jewish neighbors and friends were rounded up and their businesses and synagogues destroyed.
Martyrs
The Greek root of the English word “martyr” is “martyrion” or “witness” in the legal sense. Most Protestants shy away from the concept of martyrs, believing it is some kind of Roman Catholic heresy – it isn’t. Jerome and Gregory wrote about it in the fourth century, and an early, Irish homily (the “Cambrai Homily[1]”) from the seventh century divides martyrs into three colors – Red, White and Green.
A Chicken Parable
Farmer Brown had a nice flock of chickens she kept in a coop and their enclosed yard. Being mindful of the wily coyote, Farmer Brown never let her flock roam freely on the beautiful grass around the barn. You might say they were always “cooped up.” The Leghorns were a fairly plain breed, mostly tan in color with little to distinguish them. The flock produced reliable eggs and that is what Farmer Brown treasured every morning.
My Back Pages
In the late 60s, the Byrds recorded a Bob Dylan song whose refrain reminds of a recent gedanken (thought) experiment proposed by physicists at Dartmouth and Santa Clara University. The line from the song is “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” I commend the rest of the song and the lyrics to you as it is as timely today as in 1968. But I digress.
Shield the Joyous
The Book of Common Prayer includes seven daily prayer “offices.” They are not really services because you can say them by yourself. They are spaced out during the day from the wee, dark hours before sunrise until bedtime. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions have similar cycles of daily prayer. Scholars have found that Jewish practice at the time of Jesus was like this as well. Interestingly, the Muslims are called to prayer five times each day.
Disinformation
All kinds of processes have some form of bias either inherent to the thing observed or introduced externally. One job of a scientist is to analyze the bias and try to remove it from the experiment or theory in progress. Clergy and theologians (and politicians) should be charged with this task as well, but, like Baruch Spinoza, I see way too many examples where clergy create or exploit bias for their own benefit.
Exegetical Underwear
I had a seminary professor who encouraged his homiletical students never “to show too much of your exegetical[1] underwear” meaning that you never want to turn your sermon into a college or graduate class on the topic of the day. I have also learned in 21 years of preaching that when a complicated idea arises, the best strategy is not to take it head on or avoid it (as many do), but to get playful and have fun with it. This Sunday’s sermon focuses on the poorly understood and under-appreciated idea of grace (I refuse to call it a “doctrine”).
Angelology
What are angels? Angels according to the Hebrew bible and Christian scriptures, are messengers sent from God to humankind. The choirs of angels serve God and are considered higher in rank (like a military rank but more on that later) than humans whether on earth or in heaven. Read more…