Our online dictionary defines this as “refusal to change one’s views or to agree about something.” I hate to say it, but this pretty much defines the perspective of a large portion of Christianity – the Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Churches including the Episcopal Church, the Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Methodists. But the old (pre-COVID) world out there is rapidly fadin’ and we “better start swimmin’ or we’ll sink like a stone” as Bob Dylan said, for the “times, they are a changin’.”

Good afternoon everyone. I hope that this new year finds you healthy and hopeful. I would like to spend a few minutes talking about the social contract under which we live and the relationship of organized religion with that contract.

In a recent interview, actor George Clooney was asked what he hoped he would give to his children as a legacy. He said that he hoped they would stand up to and challenge those in power and help those who had no power. This desire strongly reflects God’s preferential option for the poor.

I thought it was odd today in Morning Prayer to read about the betrayal of Jesus when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then I read the “Commemoration” which is a day on the church calendar when we remember the lives and witnesses of various people ancient and modern. Today, we remember Juan de Ypres y Alvarez who was born in Spain in 1542 during a period when the Protestant Reformation was ramping up in northern Europe and England.

No, we are not talking about diminutive odds makers. These are short little books of the Church of England Eucharist as it was celebrated in Scotland by “nonjuring” Anglicans in the 17^th and 18^th century. Key portions of the Scottish “Wee Bookies” were included in the American Book of Common Prayer. How this happened is part of our heritage.

A friend told me the other day that he was so isolated, he might as well join the monastery. So, perhaps we should take a moment to reflect on what is often called the “religious movement” or monasticism.

Every good Episcopal or Church of England seminarian is required, sooner or later, to read Richard Hooker’s five-volume series, “Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polite” (completed 1597). The prose is turgid, dense, and academic. The tomes pose a critique of the raging Puritanism at the time. His sermons and teachings offered reasoned, heavily informed reason against the Puritans with their doctrines of predestination and exclusionary notions of salvation. (Note that some of these controversies are still with us today.)

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.