January, 2006 Calendar In This Issue: Origin of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” The End of Anglicanism A Jewish Response to Christian Arrogance… At the Turning of the Year… Twelfth Night and the Feast of the Epiphany

by The Rev. Hartshorn Murphy

An off hand comment from a member of our Vestry (Board of Directors): “where is what we do here heading?” and the cartoon that appears in the printed edition of this newsletter (it’s of a clergyperson sitting at her desk with a sign behind her that reads: “the customer is always righteous”); caused me to try to be more explicit about Christian ministry at this, the turning of the year.

Two years ago, the clergy and vestry gathered for a day long visionary retreat. The methodology was to project ourselves, in our imaginations, ten years into the future (2013) and to describe in some detail what St. A’s looked like; who was coming, what were their ages, how many were here and so on. What is ever fascinating about this exercise is the surprising unanimity of the vision that emerges from 15 very different people who enter into this process prayerfully and open to the promptings of the Spirit. Such a “vision” is God given; it is received, not crafted.

Proverbs 29:18 says that “without a vision, the people will perish.” Vision provides direction, channels our energies and efforts. It may cause us to change but it also creates, when shared widely, a powerful sense of unity.

A true vision also calls for discernment as we begin to say “no” to those distractions which pull us away from moving towards the vision. Sailors often say it this way: “without a destination, every wind is a fair wind.”

George Barna, the evangelical researcher and pollster, defined vision “a clear mental image of a preferable future, imparted by God…” (Italics mine).

I believe our Vestry, two years ago, had a small glimpse of the future God prefers for us at St. A’s but I suspect that we did not ask the right questions; we did not go deep enough. In addition to a vision of “demographics” and variety of “programs,” we needed also to ask the question: “what was happening in the lives of these people as a result of their being here?”

The overwhelming majority of people who come to our church (although this is likely true of most churches) say they come seeking a sense of community. We live in a disconnected age. Few of us know our neighbors well as a result of American compulsive mobility. Few have deep relationships in the workplace as a result of greater competitiveness, downsizing and outsourcing, manic productivity and less leisure in the work setting to build trust and intimacy. Churches can provide, uniquely, that arena in which people from many difficult backgrounds and viewpoints can gather together. But our question must be that of the precocious two year old: “…but why mommy?” (For what purpose).

Each week, in our prayers of the people, we recite our mission statement. We pray first for the mission (purpose) of the church universal, which is “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (BCP pg. 855). The ministry of reconciliation – the overcoming of the estrangement and alienation of people with God and each other – is the central work of the Church. Thus struggling to build, maintain and extend community here is not simply about feeling less isolated or lonely. Nor is it about receiving a “shot in the arm” to get through another tough week (church as “filling station.”) Rather, it is about capturing on earth a sustaining vision of life in God’s Kingdom – a foretaste if you will – of that place in which people from many tribes, languages, cultures, colors and nations gather around the throne of God. It is to enter deeply into the dissonance of that heavenly vision of perfect unity and our very fragile and imperfect earthly community and to be, by that tension, renewed and energized to strengthen and extend our church community until, in consort with the whole Church, the people of the earth and creation itself, comes to full restoration with the Creator (“thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”) Our own mission statement seeks to spell out how we try to live into that broader missional commitment of reconciliation: by being inclusive, by living in grace rather than under law and by seeking to be better disciples who follow Christ.

But the most profound question we can ever ask is: “what does God yearn, in God’s very heart, for this world to be like and what does God yearn for me to be in it?”

Which brings us to the cartoon. Far too many people in American culture treat the Church like any other consumer item. Gone forever is any concept of parochial boundaries in which people who live in a certain area were obligated to attend the church in their community. Gone too is any denominational loyalty. Thus churches compete with one another for parishioners and income. This tends to reinforce a consumerists mentality in which people judge a church’s worth in light of a perceived value to them. (What’s in it for me?)

In truth, the churches universally are competing with what broadly is called “secularity” by which is meant the values of a consumer culture that preaches that you are what you consumer, possess, own, earn, look like and the rest. The congregant is, in fact, not righteous and our struggle and the Church’s (clergy and laity) is for the very salvation (saving) of individual souls who seek to feed a deep spiritual hunger with materiality (Augustine: “Our souls are restless until they rest in You.”)

We compete for folk’s attention in the marketplace of slick distraction, for example, in calling people to quiet and reflection in a world of busyness and noise. We call people to generosity in a culture that preaches security through selfishness, caution over compassion. No, the people aren’t righteous (behaving rightly in accordance with God’s intentions for the ordering of human life on this planet) and our infighting over orthodoxy (right belief) amongst ourselves and other Christian traditions needs to be more and more a struggle over ortho-praxis (right behavior – or better still, right living.) Because we live by flawed consumerist values, our relationships are fractured, our family life threatened and we find within ourselves little lasting peace.

Where is all we do headed? We seek nothing less than the reclaiming of human lives from the crucible of death which comes from living a driven, competitive and fearfully anxious life; by calling people into “new life” as God’s own redeemed people. An thus reclaimed and “born again,” we envision, and seek to live into, a renewed world of justice, reconciliation and peace.

It is a high calling. But nothing less will do for those of us who know ourselves to be pilgrims in a foreign land.

In this light, we offer to you this New Year’s Prayer at the turning of the year.

“Lord, I confess before you that:

I have had longings and nudges from you,
which I did not translate into action.

I have made decisions without consulting you,
then have blamed you when
things went wrong.

I have said that I trusted you, yet have
not turned my affairs over to you.

I have been greedy for present delights and pleasures,
unwilling to wait for those joys
which time and discipline alone can give.

I have often sought the easy way, have
consistently drawn back from the road
that is hard.

I have been fond of giving myself to dreams
of what I am going to do sometime,
yet have been so slow in getting
started to do them.

Forgive me for all the intentions that
were born and somehow never lived.

And now I claim your promise to change me.
Do for me what I cannot do for myself.
Lead me into a new tomorrow with a new spirit.

Copyright © 2006 St. Augustine by-the-Sea