The Spring of Faith: An Easter Message

[This is excerpted from the 2011 Easter parish letter. It is an invitation to faith, to Christ, and to experience the Resurrection...]

The pages of history are full of worthy women and men who tell us God’s greatness, who enlighten us and point to the Salvation of God. Mohandas Gandhi, Moses the Law Giver, St. Francis of Assisi, the Buddha, St. Benedict of Nursia , the Prophet Mohammed, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the mystical, poet, Rumi, are just a few sources of great inspiration and spiritual practice. Through their lives and teachings many have cultivated a deep spirituality and religious practice. And then there is Easter…

Easter is not a person, of course. It’s an event - the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Why compare an event with a list of people? Because we so often become fixated on teaching and practice as the core of Christian faith. We believe Christianity and Christ are things of which we must learn and do. Yes, it is true. Our faith results in understanding and action, but to make these our central focus is to forget our Faith.

In truth, the source of Christian Faith is experience! Faith springs from an encounter, an experience of the Risen Christ. Easter is about God doing something BIG, something death-defying and mysterious, something beyond words. What’s more, God isn’t doing that something in the greater cosmos or in timeless eternity. God is acting right here in humanity, in our history, in our finite little selves. Imagine! This is not something we make happen. We don’t even have to understand what’s happening or why. We just get to experience it, to receive it! All the rest just follows.

I, therefore, invite you to experience Easter once again. Experience new life and renewed faith just as Christ did on that innocuously cataclysmic morning. Experience the mystery not by your own effort, but through by grace and gift of God. You don’t have to do anything. There is no obstacle course to run or test to study for. You don’t even have come believing in anything. Just come. Experience faith and life. Experience the Risen Christ. Come and see…

Our Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia! 

Beginning the Great 50 Days

One of the spiritual joys of the liturgical calendar is an unhurried schedule. For many of us, life is crammed with things to do, deadlines, things we want to accomplish, and perhaps not a few “should do’s”. I find keeping the liturgical calendar (through prayer and devotional reading) provides a beautiful counterbalance.

For example, in the world Easter has come and gone. It is finished. It is now time to move on to the next holiday marketing opportunity. But in the Church, we celebrate the Great Fifty Days of Easter! We have seven weeks to reflect and meditate on the Resurrection and our new identity as baptized members in the Risen Christ. 

Perhaps this is another great difference between Christ and the world. The world wants our time, wants to take it away, telling us there is never enough time. Christ wants to give us time. Christ wants to give us eternity. 

The Demise of the Episcopal Church

Prologue

In his blog post "Reversing the Numerical Decline of the Episcopal Church", the Rev. George Clifford makes a prophetic call for turning around the declining membership of the Episcopal Church. Clifford accurately highlights the dismal stats and dim prognosis of TEC (The Episcopal Church) that has become all too familiar rhetoric for those of us Heaven-bent on renewal. He also gives a vision of hope. I commend the post to you. And I want to add my own observations.

Maundy Thursday

We are approaching Maundy Thursday when Jesus forms the community of the Church centered around the Passover, the commemoration of the first and greatest trauma that birthed the People of Israel - namely a story of trial, success, oppression, slavery, revolt, exodus, and rebirth.

We all wish wish to escape this. We want to go from "glory to glory" (II Cor. 3:18, KJV) and we pray "save us from the time of trial" (The Lord's Prayer, contemporary). But I don't think we in TEC will escape, nor should we.

I believe the Way of Resurrection is to be had in the Way of the Cross. I believe suffering and death, when borne in connection with doing God's will, leads to God's active re-creation of us. In terms of the TEC, parishes will decline and close. History, traditions and theologies may be abandoned (at least for a generation or ten). Our image and identity will change. We will lose much. But, in walking the way of the Cross we are also promised much!

Our Time is at Hand

I sometimes play a little mental game. If the house were on fire and I had only a few minutes to grab a few things (and all my family were safe) what would I take? Pictures? My computer? Memorabilia? Jewelry?  I think this is not a mental game for TEC. The house may not be on fire, but it is crumbling. Our time is at hand - not for the glory of worldly success, but for walking with Jesus the way of the Cross.

The house, our house, can no longer stand as it was once built. Parts will crumble. What will be saved? We can lose ourselves in trying to save the house or we can choose the few, most important things to keep. What does Christ call us to hold on to and what does Christ call us to let go of? The Cross looms in front of us.

Jesus faced very similar decisions on Maundy Thursday. His time was at hand. The Cross was looming in front of him. The disciples still didn't understand. What else could he say to get through to them? What else could he do? The house was coming down. There was precious little time. What are the essentials? What can be saved?

The answer we make together in TEC and how we determine that answer will determine our common future. My own recommendation is to follow Jesus' actions at the Last Supper and the Garden of Gethsemane. Whatever we do, I don't think we can take the option to run from the Cross, to escape "decline". If we run we might escape death for the moment, but will we gain the Resurrection? Will we be truly Christian?

For the TEC, it's time to own the Cross, to make Christ's Way, our Way, to be the People of the Cross that God might also make us the People of the Resurrection.