I’ve been holding on to an interesting post by my friend, Peter Mayer. Apparently he preached about Sabbath last weekend, and some people didn’t quite get his meaning. He writes:

I heard many people say afterwards how hard it was for them to slow down and just take time for themselves, to recharge. I think recharging is a by-product of Sabbath, but it is not the reason to do it. The reason is because God did it, it’s a gift to us from God, and we should experience it. Think of it like communion. There’s not much nutritional value in the wafer; we don’t eat it for that. We eat it to remember that Jesus gave himself as holy food for us, and Jesus asked (re: commanded) us to keep doing it. We don’t do the Sabbath to unwind, or to save energy, but rather because God rested, and he commands us to rest as well.

Some of you told me that on your “off-day”, you walk, or visit friends. Again, those things are good, but they are not the Sabbath, as I understand it. My mom and I talked about it last night, and she suggested doing a retreat on the Sabbath, so we could study it. Again, studying the Sabbath isn’t the same as keeping it. In fact, that’s probably 180 degree counter to what the Sabbath is for.

So I can tell this is going to be hard work, for anyone who takes this stuff seriously (and by “this stuff”, I mean “living a Christian life”). I know now that if I am going to be a leader worthy of this community’s trust and respect, I need to go about doing this myself. So here’s what I’m going to do. Allison and Sarah are out of town towards the end of March. I’ll pick a night when the NHL schedule is light, and go from sundown to noon the following day–nothing turned on (I’ll research whether I should turn the fridge off), no reading, no work, no phone, no baking or cooking, and let you know how it goes. And if you have ideas about keeping Sabbath, or wish to argue with what I said or have written here, please let me know. Dialogue is helpful.

I posted a snarky suggestion over on his blog, but here’s what I really think. He’s right. Sabbath is hard to keep. But it’s important, because Sabbath time renews us for our pilgrimage. We may not “rest” by keeping Sabbath, but keeping this holy time refreshes us at the deepest level. I for one am lousy at doing this, but I know that when I manage to pull it off, life is better.

I wonder what it would mean for a parish to encourage keeping Sabbath. Would we avoid scheduling meetings at certain times? Would we give ministry leaders holy time to refresh? Might we hold worship services to begin and end Sabbath time?

So now that it’s the Sabbath (yes, it’s still sundown Friday until sundown Saturday; it’s not the same as the Lord’s Day that Christians keep on Sunday), give it a try. Let Peter know how it works, or leave a comment here.

I’m not usually one of those cranks who’s out to prove that our bishops don’t believe in Jesus any more. Frankly, the charge is usually as absurd as many of the people making it. Looking at the Episcopal Church’s official website last evening, I happened to notice the list of “Priorities & Current initiatives.” One of those is a new website, Global Good.

I encourage you to check it out. It’s chock full of useful info about the Millennium Development Goals, how to achieve them, and why we should care. Great! I applaud. But there’s one problem. No where on the front page does the word “God” or “Jesus” appear. I checked. Twice.

At the risk of sounding like someone who hangs out in the cranky corner, I think I’d like this website even more if it cited “Jesus” or “the Gospel” as our mandate, rather than “General Convention” or the triennial “top mission priority.” Couldn’t they say something like, “As Christians, we are called to serve others as we offer the reconciling love of Jesus Christ to the world. Jesus himself taught us that when we serve the ‘least of these,’ we are serving Christ himself (Matthew 25: 31-46).”

I really like the MDGs. I think we can improve the lives of 100s of millions of people. This seems like a good thing for the Episcopal Church to do, and it might give us something to focus on other than who has sex with whom. But we are doing this not because of the U.N. or even General Convention. We are doing it because we are Christians. We are followers of Jesus Christ, and that is what we do.

If we don’t do this stuff for the right reasons, we are a “church” and not the Church.

Dave Walker, on his excellent website, has revealed everything we need to know about how parish churches operate.

Does your congregation have these same tunnels? I would add only “the room that everyone knows about, but that no one talks about.”

Jenny Te Paa says that the present crisis is largely driven by bloggers, and I think that’s right. Finally, we have an illustrative drawing:

You’re reading this, so you are a creature of the blogosphere. How often have you sat at the keyboard a few minutes longer than planned, so you could “correct” a stranger?

From xkcd, via Boing Boing.

There’s a thoughtful gem is on the front page of Anglicans Online this week. Here’s an excerpt:

…this week that we found the small silver charm shown [here]. IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY PLEASE NOTIFY AN EPISCOPAL PRIEST it says, echoing down the decades since its creation the firm faith and church-attachment of the person who once wore it. For all our prayer for ordinands this Embertide and all our attachment to Anglicanism, though, we’re not sure that we could ever wear such a tag in the hope that someone happening upon our unconscious bodies would immediately telephone the rector of Christ Church, Emerald City. We’d much prefer such a Good Samaritan notify a tiny handful of people: our spouses, a close friend or two, and a short list of clergy-friends with whom we’d want to spend time during a critical emergency. This is not just because we’re private and picky, but because we’re slightly afraid sometimes of the decisions made by ordination selection committees, and of the political germs that are perhaps as likely to be brought into the sickroom as pastoral care and prayer.

This Embertide we’ve resolved to do something more than only praying for those about to be ordained, or those who find themselves called to ministerial roles in the church. We’ve decided to do our best to support theological education in colleges and seminaries; to work to foster a healthier spirit in our church that may lead to lower rates of clergy burnout; to encourage urgent measures to ameliorate seminary-debt; and to communicate better with the several ministers God has vouchsafed to us—in particular by making sure that they have fresh jars of apple butter, by finding out better what they and we need for godlier life together, and by thanking them for heeding their calls.

We’re not sure that we’ll be wearing a sterling-silver Anglican dogtag come Whitsun Embertide, but we are sure that there are some positive changes to be made with respect to interaction across and among the several orders of churchfolk.

Amen, on all counts.

A couple of days ago, the Financial Times had an article by David Bowen about sundry Anglican websites and our alleged problem avoidance:

Do you work for a fractured organisation that is busy avoiding the difficult issues? Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, does which is why I have been looking at anglican websites this week. And guess what – they are fractured and busy avoiding the issues too.

Fair enough. I’m not sure his premise works though. First, my sense is that we’re hardly avoiding difficult issues. One might say we’re obsessed with them. Second, it’s true that most church organization (parish, diocese, province) websites stink. Really, really stink. So I’m not sure that it follows from seeing an absence of “sharia” or “homosexual controversy” on a front page that the church is avoiding issues. More likely is that no one has bothered to update the website since 1997. Read more »

I don’t know about you, gentle reader, but I usually picture Jesus sitting on the floor in a stone house, walking down a dusty street, traveling in a simple sail boat, or perhaps standing in some other idyllic setting. Never had I imagined that it would have been possible for Jesus or his followers to use sophisticated machines. Until this week, when I saw an old, 2006 article in The Guardian.

A 2,000-year-old mechanical computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck has astounded scientists who have finally unravelled the secrets of how the sophisticated device works.

The machine was lost among cargo in 65BC when the ship carrying it sank in 42m of water off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. By chance, in 1900, a sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck and recovered statues and other artifacts from the site.

The machine first came to light when an archaeologist working on the recovered objects noticed that a lump of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it. Closer inspection of material brought up from the stricken ship subsequently revealed 80 pieces of gear wheels, dials, clock-like hands and a wooden and bronze casing bearing ancient Greek inscriptions.

This seems like some kind of steampunk invention, but it’s apparently real. I wonder what other mechanical wonders might have been available to Jesus and his disciples? What other assumptions about the first century are wholly wrong?

Read more »

From the Washington Post Belief Blog, this just in:

It’s always intriguing to see which churches have grown and which denominations have faded in the past year. According to the 2008 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches (a Bible of sorts for us religion writers), the fastest-growing religious body in 2007 was the Jehovah’s Witnesses at 2.25 percent.

Following them were the Mormons at 1.56 percent and the Roman Catholics at .87 percent. Compare this to last year’s states that had the Catholics out front at 1.94 percent, followed by the Assemblies of God at 1.86 and the Mormons at 1.63.

The denomination with the biggest decrease is the Episcopalians at 4.15 percent.

Here’s what I’ve noticed. Most conservatives in blogospheria Anglicana like to describe ECUSA as crisis terms, doomed to near-certain extinction at any moment. Most progressives like to say that everything is just fine in Episcopal-land. Nothing to worry about here! Move along, move along. Read more »

OK, so I’m a bit of a political junkie. I enjoy C-SPAN. There. I said it. Tonight, I’ve cleared the calendar so I can watch returns from WI, WA, and HI. One of the things I do (and then wish I didn’t) is follow opinion polls. I also wish politicians would not follow them. Actual leadership is much better than sticking your finger in the proverbial wind to see which direction to go.

Polls are often wrong. For a lot of reasons. There are famous examples, and there are recent examples. Over on one of the newer blogs in my blogroll (pollster.com), there was some controversy. I think it’s sort of easy. Here’s the answer, in one handy graphic (from the Hartford Courant).

By the way, I steadfastly ignore all calls from SurveyUSA and any other polling group. So I guess I fit right into the big wedge, above.

Stephen Bates has written a great précis of the Anglican Communion’s present difficulties. Bates has also got the dynamics of Anglican meetings, money, and men (yes, the trouble-makers are all men) just right:

Thus, gatherings of Anglican leaders have become highly politicised events. What were once opportunities for prayer, reflection and an opportunity to meet, have become international gatherings reported by media and surrounded by lobbyists. Third world bishops are given mobile phones so conservatives can keep track of them, even if they are sequestered in private, and leaders such as Peter Akinola, the primate of Nigeria, slip out for regular consultations. In the February 2007 primates’ meeting in Tanzania, such furtive meetings could not be hidden and the archbishop, inconspicuous in full tribal costume, could regularly be seen to be making his way to an upper room to take advice from the conservative lobbyists gathered there. One senior Anglican engaged in the primates’ talks said that it was noticeable how much firmer and less willing to compromise the archbishop always was on his return. Two of those he was consulting: Martyn Minns, evangelical, British-born rector of one of the breakaway churches in Virginia, and David Anderson of the American Anglican Council, have become bishops in the African church. When the rest of the world’s archbishops gathered in Zanzibar for Sunday eucharist in the cathedral, built on the old slave market, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade, Akinola and his contacts stayed away.

Such an insurgency could not have been achieved without money and there is some evidence that the American conservative factions and, through them, the Africans, have been supported financially by wealthy American conservatives, who have also supported other campaigns against what they see as the wicked forces of liberalism. The amount of international travel the conservative lobbyists and their primatial contacts are able to undertake is quite considerable: Akinola seems to pop up almost as regularly in America as Abuja. British conservative organisations, such as Anglican Mainstream receive American money and the Rev. Anderson of the AAC was formerly the vicar of Howard Ahmanson, the Californian Real Estate heir, and his wife Roberta, who have funded a number of fundamentalist causes and organised courses for conservatives.

This is why Archbishop Rowan’s strategy is about right. Two weeks of secluded conversation, with no “TV moments” means that the bishops can focus on their work of reconciliation and study. It means that the Akinolites won’t have much hope of making petulant demands to alter legislation. Instead, it will all about be about prayer, conversation, conversion, and mission. Media types will be frustrated, and that’s OK. I’d rather have no coverage than the daily “how-soon-will-the-Communion-divide” articles we saw in Dar es Salaam at the 2007 Primates Meeting.

Thanks, Rowan and the Anglican Communion Office, for giving us a chance of unity. The vast majority of Anglican bishops will be at Lambeth. And the vast majority of the time can be spent doing the work of the Gospel. There’s at least the hope that the cycle Stephen Bates has accurately identified could end.

Bates’s piece originally appeared in the LGCM Anglican Matters newsletter (PDF). The photo, taken by yours truly, shows Archbishop Peter Akinola stomping through the press area on one of his visits to the conservative “war room” in Dar es Salaam.

Yesterday morning was not the best morning for me at Christ Church. Let’s just say the announcements got out of control at our 10:30 service, and leave it at that. I was in a foul mood much of the afternoon, but then when I attended our Emmaus evening service, the Eucharist did its healing thing. Just about every week, I’m grateful for our alternative/emergent service, but this week, it really helped me. It’s nice to be fed.

Anyway, our service is just about what you’d expect for an emergent service. We have candlelight, some incense, and large projected images. Most of us sit on the floor. The music is modern. We share communion, passing the Body and Blood from person to person.

So when I saw this cartoon over at ASBO Jesus, I laughed.

If they had appeared, this is no doubt what they would have looked like. I didn’t see Batman & Robin yesterday, but we really didn’t need superheroes either. Jesus was present, in the breaking of bread and in the people who gathered.

Puh-lease. Five primates, planning to absent themselves from the Lambeth Conference, have written a letter to 20 English bishops who had encouraged these primates to attend. These five primates call themselves “GAFCON” bishops. My advice to them is to come up with a new name. “GAFCON Communion” doesn’t sound so great.

Anyway, in their letter, here are some favorite bits:

We are also concerned that the invitation list reflects a great imbalance. It fails to address fundamental departures from historic faith that have triggered this crisis and yet excludes bishops of our own provinces, of Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda who teach and practice Biblical faith. As constituted, the invitations suggest that institutional structures are superior to the content of the faith itself.

They are concerned because some of their number have not been invited, and this reflects “an imbalance.” OK, so Martyn Minns and his ilk weren’t invited. Frankly, if it were up to me, I’d invite the lot of them. But that’s not what Archbishop Rowan did. In case these primates have forgotten, their favorite lightning rod, Bishop Gene Robinson was also not invited. Robinson was excluded because his consecration represented an action that was contrary to the spirit of Lambeth Resolution 1.10, and the failure to remove him is contrary to the spirit of the Windsor Report. Fair enough. But let it also be said that the Windsor Report called for primates to stay out of other Anglican provinces. So Martyn Minns et al are, simply put, not Windsor-compliant bishops. I wish Rowan had invited everyone, but he chose to not invite the bishops — on both ends of the spectrum — who are centers of controversy. Read more »