Daily office synergy

Over the years I've gained a lot of experience in how parishes can establish the Daily Office as part of the ground upon which parish life stands. I've consulted with many parishes as they in engage the practice. It’s been part of my own spiritual discipline since seminary – sometimes more fully than other times. And with the cooperation of parishioners I've been able to establish the practice in parishes where I’ve served.

The Daily Office and the Sunday Eucharist are the foundation for a parish’s health and faithfulness. The Office brings us into the pathways of grace. It roots us in the scriptures and the common prayer of the church. It is the heartbeat of the Body of Christ. It allows us to enter into the ancient rhythms of awe and adoration. It concretely connects us to the church throughout the world. It teaches us that our spiritual life is not dependent upon our feelings. 

[NOTE: This posting is a slight revision from one offered several years ago on the Order of the Ascension web site.]

 
Four interdependent elements

I have come to understand that there are four interdependent elements that help a parish maintain the Daily Office as part of its grounding.This is a mix of understandings from ascetical/pastoral theology and systems theory. In relationship to one another those elements create a synergy that can sustain a parish's public office and generally enhance a healthy cultural density.

1. Train and coach parishioners for saying the Office in their own daily life

2. Establish in the parish a public offering of the Daily Office on most days of the week

3. Keep the saying of the Daily Office in front of the various congregations of the parish

4. The clergy of the parish participate in the public office on most days it is offered

There is a synergy among these four elements. They support and reinforce one another. They energize one another. A parish where one or more of the four is weak will stand on shaky ground.

An example -- recruiting people for teams will be easier if there is a large and growing number of people saying the office on their own. They are likely to value it and will have some sense of its elements. They may be more willing to be on a team if they also sense that helping in the public office is valued - because it is kept in front of members and the Vicar is personally committed.

The task is to place the parish in the pathways of grace and we do that by grounding the parish in Eucharist and Office. It is setting lose the dynamics of health and faithfulness


1. Train and coach parishioners for saying the Office in their own daily life

Offer a substantial amount of training (2 hours +/-) every year in the saying of the daily office. It may be as part of orienting people to the life of the parish or within a broader course on Anglican spirituality. It needs to be offered every year to deal with new members and people who have come to a place in their life where they are seeking a richer spiritual life. Larger parishes or parishes just trying to get a public office off the ground might offer the program three of four times per year. 

The most effective way of doing this that I've seen is to offer the training as two 1 hour+ sessions with a week in between the sessions.

In the first session participants are introduced to several ways in which they might do the Office -- use the BCP, on the web, longer-shorter forms. An emphasis is placed on the three core components of the office -- the appointed psalms, the appointed reading(s), and the Prayers. People make a decision of the way in which they will do the office during the following week.

Participants do the office during the week. 

The second session is a time of reflecting on their experience -- how did it go for them? The stance of the coaches is as supportive guides; there's no tone of judgement. The reflection is an opportunity to learn from their experience and to receive additional coaching.

In addition to the yearly training program, people need to know that there are others in the parish willing and able to provide spiritual guidance in saying the daily prayers of the church. People often need one-on-one coaching as they take on this and other forms of spiritual practice.

Provide an invitation by affirming the Office as central to our tradition -- this is how we Anglicans stay grounded in the scriptures and prayers of the church; it is how individuals maintain a vibrant spiritual life; it is us praying the scriptures not simply studying them. We invite you to find a way to engage the daily office that fits your temperament, your circumstances and your schedule.

Think in terms of getting the parish to a position where 15 – 20% of those at the Eucharist each Sunday say the Office in some form.


2. Establish in the parish a public offering of the Daily Office on most days of the week

At the heart of Prayer Book spirituality is the parish saying the Daily Office. And the parish does that in two primary ways: one is by individuals saying it on their own and the other is by the parish’s public offering.

Thomas Cranmer didn't include the Daily Office in the Book of Common Prayer for the clergy, or laity, to use it as a private breviary. It is there for the parish’s communal use.

The structure for doing this varies from parish to parish. In some the rector sets the time, is always present as the officiant, and invites others to attend. I know of parishes where a layperson asks the rector if they can say it each day. They take on the responsibility and others are invited to come and participate.

Probably the most effective, rewarding, and powerful way I've seen it structured is by using teams. A team accepts responsibility for saying the Office for a given day of the week. So every Monday there are three to five people who come together. They rotate who officiates, reads, sets up before. and straightens up after. Others from the parish attend regularly or from time to time but the team provides the stability.

It does take a good bit of work to maintain the teams.  People have changes in their schedules and life circumstances. Some move away. Parishes need to spend energy on recruiting new people to teams each year. It’s most effective if it’s roughly the same time period each year. The Epiphany season and in early June are often good times.  In most parishes they are times that are generally free from commitments and programs. In each case it’s possible to invite people to “try on” being part of a team for a specific time period – Lent and Easter seasons, or through the summer.

There also needs to be a person that frequently participates in the Office who plays a kind of coordinating/oversight role. In most parishes this will be the rector though it also works to delegate the task as long as the person stays in touch with the rector’s thinking and desires.

This is a parish offering of the Daily Office. That differs from what may be appropriate in a monastic or cathedral tradition.  Use the Prayer Book and the appointed psalms and readings not a monastic breviary or arrangement of elements. While people may be exposed what for them is to a new way of prayer -- that way needs to be the Prayer Book's way. 


3. Keep the saying of the Daily Office in front of the various congregations of the parish

The starting place is the simplest place – have the Office schedule on the home page of the website, in the weekly e-newsletter and the Sunday bulletin, and posted in a prominent place so people walking by on the street can see it.

It also helps if: the clergy make use of sermons to teach about the office, there is a more complete description of the place of the office in Anglican spirituality on the parish website, and occasionally there are blurbs and parish newsletters about the place of the office in individual and parish spiritual life.

We need to internally market those things that are foundational.



4. The clergy of the parish need to participate in the public office on most days it is offered

Parish spiritual life is deepened by clergy participation in the public office and is deflated if clergy are routinely absent or signal by their behavior that other things were more important. I recall a participant in the Church Development Institute of General Seminary sharing his experience as a curate. The parish said Evening Prayer Monday through Friday. The rector never attended. Worse yet, the rector left his office at 6:00 pm when EP began and walked past the doors of the chapel. It was emotionally devastating to those carrying the weight of that ministry. It also undercut the authority of the rector.

The clergy play a critical role in shaping the parish’s culture. What we want is to shape parish culture based on sound pastoral and ascetical theology and practice, our disciplined reflection on our experience, and processes of listening closely to the more Apostolic members of the parish.  How we approach the Daily Office is part of that.

Edgar Schein's list of what shapes organizational culture includes rites and rituals, stories and myths, physical space, and statements of belief and values.  They are all important. But they are secondary forces. What primarily shapes organizational culture is the behavior of leaders. In relationship to the Office that means what we pay attention to, participate in, measure, reward, and work to influence on a regular basis. 

One of the most important acts of the priest to build the health and faithfulness of parish is to be at the Office most days of the week and to be part of one of the teams.

There are related actions the priest can take that will help. It's a powerful witness when someone calls to set up an appointment with the vicar and the vicar responds by saying, “That's when we say noon day prayer. How about if you come and join us and we'll go to lunch and meet after that.”  It’s a Benedictine principle that nothing come before our common worship. So, we need to ask that parish meetings not take place when the Office is being said and that the parish office stop its work and people join in the Prayers of the Church.

rag+

A FEW RESOURCES

Postings about the Office on Means of Grace, Hope of Glory

Introducing the Daily Office into a parish's DNA    

Daily Office: the priority of worship   

The Office: Daily, the Hours    

Parish development resources: Episcopal Ethos, the Daily Office    

A life, not a program    

The daily office:two experiences 

Learning how to say the daily office

Daily Office: parish - individual - cathedral - monastic - seminary

Grounding our parishes in prayer, rather than in program

The threefold rule of prayer

Developmental Initiatives on the Daily Office: action planning tools

Equipping Individuals to Use the Office

A Public Daily Office

Books

Fill All Things: The Spiritual Dynamics of the Parish Church. Sections on the Office include – The threefold rule of prayer (the Prayer Book Pattern) pp. 56 – 57, the Daily Office relationship with the Eucharist pp. 59 – 60, on pages 169 -  178 thoughts on why people say the Office, its place in parish development, how to strengthen and promote the office, quotes from various writers, stories of parishes saying the Office, and a poem by Amy Hunter.

In Your Holy Spirit: Traditional Spiritual Practices in Today’s Christian Life – pp. 43 – offers an understanding of the place of the Office in the person’s spiritual life and specific suggestions about how people can say the office in a way that takes into account their personality and life circumstances.

In Your Holy Spirit: Shaping the Parish through Spiritual Practice – Eucharist and Office pp 21 – 22, “The Daily Practice: The Prayers of the Church” pp. 43 – 51 including the primary elements, individual use, parish communal use, the importance of experimenting and innovating, and ways in which we undercut the parish’s saying of the Office.

Practicing Prayer: A Handbook – Offers ways to engage the Office along with a variety of personal devotions.

From  Saint Gregory’s Abbey -  Seven Times A Day I Praise You: Prayer Books for Daily Use

On the web

TenMarks of Vibrant Parishes – see #1 Houses of prayer for all

Daily Office inParishes  - examples 

It's a blog posting by Carl McColman -- "Seven Reasons to Pray the Divine Office - Prayer Does Not Change God — It Changes Us"

This video is part of the Society of Catholic Priests (Episcopalians) PR effort. But the story he tells is about how he and his parish engaged the Daily Office.

http://www.thescp.org/witness/priesthood-transformed-scp2014/ 

An article on Daily Office related apps

Tutorials/explanations in parish churches and other

https://stgeorgesardmore.wordpress.com/the-daily-office-tutorial/

http://www.gracetraversecity.org/study/overview/this-weeks-lessons/daily-office/

http://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/daily-offices-for-me/

http://www.christchurcheastbay.org/christ/Spiritual_Practices/The_Daily_Office/

https://www.episcopalcafe.com/?s=%22Daily+Office%22 

https://onemansweb.org/theology/thinking-on-prayer/praying-the-daily-office.html

Note - there are what I see as errors in a a few places but on the whole the material might be useful as a staring place in developing your own web pages.

A Nashotah student - The issues are very real for the student. However he misses what the BCP tradition is really about -- it's not about the priest saying his/her office, it's about the parish church offering its Office. 

A Presbyterian

Christianity Today

Learning the Ancient Rhythms of Prayer: Why charismatics and evangelicals, among others, are flocking to communities famous for set prayers and worshiping by the clock

The Rise and Fall of the Daily Office

Institutionalism vs. the Body

In most parishes, most members have a deep longing. The desire of their heart is that the parish be conventional, a decently run organization, and a place of safety and security. The hope is that the Rector will preach and lead in a manner that is generally consistent with the norms of this community, be it Seattle, Washington or Jasper, Alabama.  We don’t want to be embarrassed in front of our secular or Baptist friends in the community but we would like to maintain just enough difference to feel special. In some regions, the call will be for more requirements prior to becoming members (not quite “build the wall” but along those lines) while in other regions the ancient practice and modern research that would call for baptism before receiving communion is brushed away (odd that the advocates aren’t asking for open access to making your confession).

The parish will have a few people who would like the club to be run more like a business. If the parish is over 150 years old there are likely to be a few who think of the parish as a religious historical society. Most places have a small group pressing for more “outreach” (an awful word). Sort of a Lions Club with a big heart.

People naturally make the analogy between the Church and other groups with which they are familiar: clubs, corporations, families and so on.  References to "organized religion" or "institutionalized religion" reveal the assumption that the Church is just one more form of human organization.  While the process of making analogies with the club, corporation, etc., is inevitable, it also creates a problem. "People come to the conclusion that the Church is a 'society created by human enterprise and designed to serve particular human ends,' that it is created by the 'agreement of a number of individual persons who presumably define the terms of their association and its goals.' … 'Church means, not corporation and not club, but a collection of people who have been called out together by a voice or a word or a summons which comes to them from outside.' (Richard Norris, Understanding the Faith of the Church, Seabury Press, NY, 1979) From Fill All Things: The Dynamics of Spirituality in the Parish Church, Robert A Gallagher, Ascension Press, 2008

They don’t mind when the priest speaks of the Body of Christ. But they don’t really understand it either. But the funny language is okay, after all we are sort of a religious club.

Most members of any parish see things this way – it is conventional religion, an institutional focus; what one warden in Maine called Episcopal Lite. Martin Thornton called it multitudinism. Thornton went on: “The emphasis is numerical, membership is nominal; which inevitably means convention, respectability, Pelagianism, apathy, and spiritual sterility. The sole pastoral function is ostensibly evangelism which is so frequently reduced to mere 'recruitment'." (Pastoral Theology, p. 14)

There is no avoiding all this. It's 101 organizational psychology.  It is the church culture we live in. And like all cultures we are so used to it we barely notice. Even those with formal theological training. Even priests and bishops. It’s like the air we breathe. We don’t notice it.

Members and leaders always get absorbed into the institutional culture. Always. There’s really no choice. Over time it happens or you are expelled. If it doesn't happen the priest will be unable to be an incarnate presence. 

Here’s the good news

In all of these parishes, in every single one of them, the Holy Spirit is at work. Evelyn Underhill wrote, “In the Fourth Gospel, the strange word ‘Paraclete’ enters the Christian vocabulary as the best available term for this experience of the Spirit of God acting within our lives. Our nearest meaning for ‘Paraclete’ seems to be, ‘One who is called to stand alongside us,’ or stands by us to give us support. So, we are given the marvelous vision of the infinite Divine Charity, Giver of all life, ever standing alongside our small derived spirits in their efforts and struggles.” (The School of Charity). I recall that someplace in Bonhoeffer’s writings he noted how even the most pathetic of parish churches might produce saints as long as the sacraments were offered and the Word preached.

For Thornton, the "vision" that matters is the one toward which all humanity and creation moves -- the vision of God. And how is it that we attain such a vision? Rule, Mass, Office. And good works grounded in Rule, Mass, Office.

Some clergy and lay leaders in reaction to institutionalism have taken on a sect mental model. Some insisting on more piety; others on more activism. The latter is currently the easiest sell in the Episcopal Church. That’s in part because it allows people to maintain the underlying religious club mental model while sounding more religious in a progressive manner -- our task is to create the Kingdom on earth. And for those of us who are clergy -- to create a militant parish. Most of us are smart enough to say, "Oh no, we don't mean that." -- but it seems to be exactly what we mean. Unless we can see the alternative and give ourselves to it.

One of the lovely things about Thornton's approach is that it begins with fact, not blue sky. The fact is that there is no parish church that has ever been 100% faithful. No parish church that has ever had all its members live by Rule. No parish church in which every member of the Body was happily at mass every Sunday and doing the Office every day. No parish church in which there was 100% tithing, along with 100% anti-racism, and environmentally friendly action. There are however parishes that pretend such things. They are called sects and usually have overbearing rectors setting a high bar for everyone. 

We would seem to be left with a choice between the sect (a fantasy, illusion) and a conventional parish that doesn't matter very much in the lives of people.

Unless of course we have something like a sound pastoral theology which includes mental models such as the Remnant Theory or the Shape of the Parish Model. In which case the bar for admission is set very, very low -- baptism. And those called to Rule, Mass, Office, personal devotions (that fit personality and circumstances) are few but essential -- the heart beat that has its source in an energy not its own (Charles Williams), in which a power from the center pervades the whole (Martin Thornton), and that acts upon the world as the stream of redemptive power flows out (William Temple). It's organic, simple, efficient.

The task isn’t to abolish institutionalism. The parish is an institution and that will place claims upon leaders and members. The task is to shape the parish in such a manner so that we more fully cooperate with the Paraclete. The task is to spend more time nurturing, supporting, and coaching the Remnant, the Apostolic, and those ready to move toward that life.

And given that the natural “demand system” of the institutional parish system will draw us away from such work we need to arrange another demand system alongside that. A demand system that helps the heartbeat.

A few examples:

1. Nurture the experience of the Kingdom in parish life. People need that foretaste.

The base is Eucharist and Daily Office. The weekly practice and the daily practice. Don’t separate them. People will not get the idea of “pattern” if the priest doesn’t live and offer the pattern. And, yes, "daily" means daily. The closer you are to that the more people will begin to understand the pattern. So, no Evening Prayer or Compline just on Wednesday.

Shape a climate around and within the Eucharist and Office that is calm, patient, with focused graceful energy.

Have real quiet days at least twice a year.

Have the Reconciliation of a Penitent on the public parish calendar at least several times in Advent and Lent. 

2. Allow space so people can naturally make connections with one another, form friendships and develop cliques. 

Yes, cliques are healthy. A definition – “a small group of people, with shared interests or other features in common, who spend time together and do not readily allow others to join them.”  The first part sounds fine, the second may trouble you. But they go together. When people develop close bonds of affection along with that is a hesitation to allow others to join and possibly disrupt what is fine and good. 

That means having a coffee hour after each Sunday Eucharist. It may include a few announcements but is mostly a time for people to naturally connect with one another. So, avoid attempts at forced community, having business meetings or educational programs.

3. Provide systematic training and coaching in the ways of the Christian Life.

And repeat, repeat, repeat. Seek the long-term development of the core. Make that your measure in place of attendance at each program. Three learning what it is to live by Rule in March, followed by four others in September, followed by two in January and five in August – and after ten years you have a strong core.

Eucharistic Practices classes (not Instructed Eucharist) several times/year, that orient members to the Eucharist and teach them how to participate, not teach them about participation.

Two-session coaching sessions on “doing the daily Office on your own.” Offer three or four times per year.

School of prayer – maybe two each year on different methods (other than Eucharist and Office which are dealt with in the above) – spiritual reading, meditation, Lectio, Intercession, centering prayer, contemplation, icons, etc.

If you are to shape the parish as Body of Christ, along with attending to the institutional claims on your time, you will want to learn to see the unseen rhythms and dynamics of the Body. And you will want to offer training and coaching that supports and nurtures those rhythms and dynamics.

The rhythms and dynamics

A heart beat that has its source in an energy not its own (Charles Williams), in which a power from the center pervades the whole (Martin Thornton), and that acts upon the world as the stream of redemptive power flows out (William Temple). 

A movement between being renewed in baptismal identity and purpose and living as instruments of God’s love in daily life (Gallagher/Heyne) a movement grounded in awe and adoration issuing in service (Evelyne Underhill).

It's organic, simple, efficient.

rag+ 

Breakfast with Frances Perkins

Tomorrow is the Feast of Blessed Frances Perkins. We’re having breakfast.

I’m joining a few friends for the 9:00 am Eucharist. Afterward we’ll gather at my apartment for breakfast. It’s all a celebration of Frances Perkins.

 A time for unity

I’ve spent some energy since the election encouraging clergy to contain the impulse toward self-righteousness. Further dividing our parishes isn’t a faithful pathway. Being so right that we’re wrong isn’t faithfulness. Friends tell me of sermons intended to make the Trump voter in the parish so upset that she leaves the building. Even more frequent are the sermons that sound like a Bernie pep rally. Admonishing parishioners to love and not hate is certainly of the Gospel. However, in many of our parishes the temptation to hate is directed at people we disagree with politically. Where are the sermons to help us love our enemies?

As part of my Lenten discipline:

I decided that I need to direct my attention, my self-control and “imaginative sympathy,” toward those I most disagree with.

I decided I needed to open myself to other ways of seeing and understanding.

I needed to be curious about what truth is carried by those I fear. 

My Lenten discipline has been to get out of my own bubble.  It included reading material to engage conservative thought with “imaginative sympathy.”

I've been reading thinkers who come at faith and politics in a way that differs from my own place of comfort -- some conservative Episcopalians and Anglicans -- specifically Michael Gerson's "City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era" and John Danforth "Faith and Politics" and "The Relevance of Religion." I've also read Ken Woodward's "Getting Religion: Faith, Culture and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama" as a way of reminding myself of the shifts this society has been through.  I have also put on my phone connections to The Federalist, National Review, and First Things.

I’ve also been encouraging our largely liberal clergy to channel Vida Scudder. She gave an address in 1918 when the United States was at war and torn internally by fear of traitors and immigrants. It’s the time when what we had called “frankfurters” became “hot dogs.” There’s the Red Scare and the Spanish Flu. We didn’t trust each other.  We feared each other.                  

In her book based on that address she offered a reflection on All Saints Eve and the communion of saints. She said this --

Mechanical and automatic subjection to authority is bad, whether in state or Church; but voluntary self-control, born of imaginative sympathy, is the first qualification for democracy. A loving obedience to the will of Mother Church as she calls her children to follow the successive phases of her dramatic sequence, can furnish powerful aid in forming the interior habits which must be the strength of a socialized civilization. Our national life needs nothing so much as a sense of unity    Vida Dutton Scudder, Regarding the Church Year   -All Saints Eve

voluntary self-control, born of imaginative sympathy, is the first qualification for democracy

Our national life needs nothing so much as a sense of unity

From time to time

From time to time it’s good to celebrate our own way of putting together the faith and politics. In my own bringing together of these things I find myself convinced that responsible social policy and political action calls for attention to things like protecting and expanding the safety net, generosity toward those fleeing oppression and violence in other lands, and an emphasis on “justice for all."

If I were a parish priest with a mix of conservatives and liberals I’d probably identify a politically conservative saint and help organize a breakfast on that day, for that community.

But tomorrow – I’m with Francis Perkins. I get to celebrate my own political tribe.

Frances Perkins: had a vision

In February 1933, Frances Perkins met with Franklin Roosevelt in New York City. He had been elected President and he wanted her to be his Secretary of Labor. She arrived with her hopes written on a piece of paper.

She wanted the job and she wanted to do it her way. She told FDR what she wanted to do. The list included Social Security, health insurance, a forty-hour workweek, a ban on child labor, a minimum wage, and unemployment compensation.

At an early age Frances Perkins had developed a strong sense of social justice along with a capacity for courage and perseverance. On her graduation from Mount Holyoke in 1902 she was class president. At the final prayer meeting she selected a reading from Saint Paul. “Therefore my beloved breathen, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord ..”  The class made “Be Ye Stedfast” their motto.

She was a witness to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911. She saw young immigrant women jumping to their deaths to escape the fire. There were 146 dead. That event shifted her from the assumption that her life was to include forms of volunteer social work to having a life-long vocation. In time it brought her, and her vision, to the Cabinet of the United States. Years later she wrote, “The New Deal began on March 25th, 1911. The day that the Triangle factory burned.”

Frances Perkins: pragmatic faithfulness

In 1905 she became an Episcopalian. Kirstin Downey, her biographer, wrote:

“She sought a more structured religion with a more formal ceremony… She reveled in its elaborate and archaic rituals. They helped her remain serene and centered at times of stress. The church’s teaching also gave her substantive guidance about the right path to take when confronted with decisions, and the hopeful message of Christianity helped her retain her optimism. Her devotion waxed and waned over the years, but nonetheless served as a bedrock and a way to seek meaning in life when so much seemed inexplicable. These religious leanings became progressively more pronounced over time.” (The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR'S Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience)

Also over time Frances found her early idealism being reshaped with a new pragmatism.  She came to understand that to produce significant change she needed allies among politicians. Frances learned to work with Tammany Hall.

A few months after the Triangle fire she was working on a New York State bill to achieve a 54 hour workweek. At one point in that process she was faced with making a decision about whether to maintain her group’s position that the 50,000 women working in the canneries be included, in which case the bill was going to fail; or to accept what was possible which was to include the 400,000 women working in manufacturing.

Kirstin Downey wrote, “Frances, however, was becoming increasingly practical. … Her ability to accept human foibles, to see both failings and strengths, was becoming a core personality trait, bolstering her effectiveness. She found that making deals with imperfect people and focusing on their strengths provided a pathway to actually achieving social change.”

Breakfast with Frances Perkins

I had an icon written by Suzanne Schleck last year. In a recent exchange I told her that I was going to ask a few people to join me for breakfast on Frances' feast day. Suzanne's response was, "I'm sure Frances will enjoy being with a group of her fellow Episcopalian Democrats."

I'm glad it’s Easter and that Lent came to an end; I have gained a bit more respect for people I disagree with; and I long for a moment in which to celebrate my own preferred way of connecting faith and politics. So, here's to Frances Perkins.

rag+

He sets his body between us and the danger

The preacher offered an image: “Someone comes into the church to do violence with a gun. There is nothing to stop him. The 'gate' between him and us is the baptismal font. That’s our gate.” 

Here’s the reflection that went off in my head.

Of course, the preacher's correct. Our lives are in the hands of God. The waters of eternity are our protection. The waters have great power and there is a violence attached -- the flood, the Red Sea, death and resurrection. 

My mind went off into its own sermon. I was seeking the complexity of the situation; the paradox we live within.

I guess the other element I needed to hear, and believe others needed to hear, was an acknowledgement of the ways in which people, at risk to themselves, place themselves at the gate. And that their action is also Gospel.

So, I found it upsetting to hear. One reason for my distress was real but not very immediate. I had been reading Reinhold Niebuhr. For a fourth or maybe it was the fifth time.  I’m a citizen of a nation at war. There are people who have placed their bodies between people with guns and bombs and the rest of us. 

The second reason for my being troubled was that I knew the story of one of the people serving as a greeter that day. She was at “the gate” for this mass. She was between the preacher’s “man with a gun” and the rest of us.

On another Sunday, some months ago, she had been the greeter. She saw a man wandering around looking the church over. Looking down the pathway to the parish hall. Looking into the narthex. It felt a bit “off” to her. She approached the man and asked if she could be of assistance. This man was from Homeland Security. He was going to make a presentation during coffee hour. All was well.

Later, during his talk, he made a point of affirming what the greeter had done. He noted how she had been very polite. But he also said that he had the sense that she would have taken stronger action if the situation called for it. He went on to say that as he walked around the outside of the building he was stopped in the same manner by two others from the parish. 

“The gate” was flesh and blood. People who, if this man had been the preacher’s “man with a gun” had placed their bodies between him and the rest of us. 

That’s the kind of situation Jesus was talking about. A shepherd who might end up laying down his life for the sheep. This is a situation where the sheep pen is probably a circle of rocks made into a rough wall. There’s an opening through which the sheep enter and exit. At night “the gate” is the shepherd lying across the opening. They are safe from wandering. The shepherd will act to stop the wolf or the thieves. He will use his staff and his knife to protect the sheep. He will engage in violence if need be. The shepherd places himself between the sheep and what would harm the sheep.

That’s what Jesus does for us.

He puts himself between us and the danger. He lays down his life for the sheep, for his friends, for us.

In the Liturgy for Good Friday that last collect includes this –

we pray you to set
your passion, cross, and death between your judgment and
our souls, now and in the hour of our death.  

In the end, Jesus is pretty non-violent about it. He offers up his life.

We miss the point if we turn Our Lord’s act as being about non-violence in all situations. We confuse what is happening if we twist things to make a political point about guns or war or violence.

Jesus was more complex than that. He drives out the money changers in a fairly violent action - a whip, scattering their coins, overturning tables, driving them out of the Temple. (Mark 11: 15 – 17; Matt 21: 12 - 13, Luke 19: 45 – 46; John 2: 13 – 16). Then there’s the whole thing about the sword. It’s true that after the servant’s ear is cut off Jesus heals the man and tells Peter to put the sword away.  Jesus has decided he must “drink the cup.” 

But there’s also this – “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34); and this: “He said to them, ‘But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me: 'And he was counted among the lawless;' and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.’ They said, ‘Lord, look, here are two swords.’ He replied, ‘It is enough.’ ” (Luke 22:36-38).

There does seem to be some complexity here.

It may help to read Moral Man and Immoral Society. A 2007 article by Paul Elie in The Atlantic described the book as, “a quick, deep thrust against the liberal accommodation with evil through naïveté, inaction, and confidence in 'reform' rather than the use of force. It’s a devastating critique of the yearning for purity and the radical forms that this yearning takes.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

Most weeks I read something on the Religion & Politics web site. Yesterday I read “Reinhold Niebuhr, Washington’s Favorite Theologian,” by Gene Zubovich

The writer begins by observing how Niebuhr was an important theologian for Presidents Obama and Carter and how John McCain dedicates a chapter in one of his books to Niebuhr. 

Reinhold Niebuhr is most active in the period when the world was dealing with the two totalitarianisms: fascism and communism. His task was to develop a theological stance that undergirded the West’s willingness and ability to engage half a century of struggle. He accepted the need to at times resort to violence in the protection of democracy.

The posting includes a quote by biographer Richard Fox about Niebuhr’s role in regard to those who had to exercise power and their need to “maintain faith in themselves as political actors in a troubled—what he termed a sinful—world. Stakes were high, enemies were wily, responsibility meant taking risks. Niebuhr taught that moral men had to play hardball.”

In 1940, the Second World War was underway, but America wasn’t fighting yet. Niebuhr argued with the pacifists, the uncertain church folk, and the America Firsters over what was responsible action in the situation. He had strong words. “If modern churches were to symbolize their true faith, they would take the crucifix from their altars and substitute the three little monkeys who counsel men to ‘speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil’.”

Zubovich summarizes Niebuhr’s stance like this – “Sin, irony, tragedy. These words leapt out of the pages of Niebuhr’s books and speeches. Humanity was fallen and redeemed through God’s grace, Niebuhr wrote. But that redemption is always incomplete and we can never rise to the standards set forth in the Bible. Only by accepting our limitations could we make the best out of an imperfect situation. In a world full of evil, we must choose good, but we must accept that we can never get rid of sin entirely. The irony of our situation is that we must often do what is considered evil for the sake of good.”

Is that what Jesus did in the Temple?

It’s not just soldiers and police officers who place themselves at the gate. It can be political leaders and theologians. It can be the greeter at mass. It can be any of us.

Bonhoeffer 

I have a handmade circular ceramic plaque on my wall. It’s just above my desk. At its center is a stick figure crucifix. Around the crucifix is a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The artist lifted phrases from a longer section, “After Ten Years: A Reckoning Made at New Year 1943,” in God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

The quote helps me understand how he might have come to terms with his participation in the assassination plot. It also speaks to me more generally about what is involved in being a responsible person in a fallen world.

I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil

I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all the times of distress.

I believe that even our mistakes and shortcomings are turned to good account.

I believe that God is no timeless fate, but that He waits for and answers sincere prayers and responsible actions. 

Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer weren't saying exactly the same thing.  What they did have in common was a sense that in the face of sin and human limitation, including our own, people are called to responsible action. And that God has mercy when our responsible action involves us in evil.

I believe that the parish church has two primary functions in carry out the mission of Holy Unity. 

The first is to worship; to glorify God.

The second is to form the People of God for responsible lives in the world.

Maybe in every age it’s true, but most certainly in this age it’s true – the formation we offer in our parishes must include moral and ethical formation. And that work needs to be grounded in common prayer, a pattern of reflection, and the ability to accept the complexity of the choices before us.

rag+

Resources

Some quotes from Niebuhr 

“A Man for All Reasons” in the Atlantic, 2007  

 Obama’s decision to not strike Syria when it used chemical weapons on its citizens --  “Which Niebuhr, President Obama?” Diana Butler Bass writes of the two Niebuhr bothers differing approach’s regarding President

She seems to tilt toward H. Richard who in the lead up to WW II spoke for caution. In these matters, I believe that Reinhold sees more clearly. If in their time, we had intervened earlier might the fascists have stepped back. And in our time, is President Obama had acted back then might we    Obviously, there’s no way to know the answer to those questions. And yet, those responsible for national security must decide.

Reflection and a thicker parish culture

For about 15 years I served as the organization development consultant for a NJ non-profit that did affordable housing, ran the domestic abuse shelter in the city, and offered a jobs training program.

The former executive director and I have stayed in touch over the years. We're close friends. We e-mail relatively frequently. We've had a good exchange going all through April. It's included all the usual stuff about the weather and our health. Also some about the new President. 

She's written of her relatively new interest in meditation. She's not religious in the conventional sense though I once told her she reminds me of the Hebrew prophets.  

In her last message she sent me a link to a video by Father Thomas Keating .  It set off thinking about the relationship between mysticism and science.  "Somehow a "new" cosmology feels right to me."

Part of my response is below -- 

Thanks for the link to Keating. The videos are well done.

For many years now at the Order of the Ascension retreat - where I was last week - we'd have a period of centering prayer prior to the daily mass. Those who wished would gather. For most members those 20 minutes was what they did of centering prayer. The priest who initiated the practice, spend a great deal of time in centering prayer during the retreat. He's the rector of a parish in Arkansas. People in his parish had developed relationships among the men executed last week.  

One of the things, there are many things, that the Order has attended to has been the need for a more reflective spirit and capacity in parish churches. Last year we all read and had an email conversation on Esther de Waal's Living with Contradiction: An Introduction to Benedictine Spirituality. I had tea with her back in the 80s in Canterbury when her husband was dean of the cathedral and she had just written her first book on Benedictine spirituality. Early in Living with Contradiction she wrote --

It is very fascinating to see how, in the ten years since this book was first written, increasing numbers of lay people like myself are turning to the monastic tradition. Here they find support on their Christian journey which they often fail to find in the institutional church, where parish and diocesan life can be extremely busy, and seemingly lacking in any sort of contemplative focus.

When Michelle and I conduct workshops using our linked books -- In Your Holy Spirit -- we have an exercise that uses the five categories in the books (Heyne book; Gallagher book)




We identify five spaces in the room each connected with one of the spiritual practices. People move several times -- which is "easiest" for you, which "hardest."  The profile is always the same -- Mass and Community draw the most, then Service. Reflection is always low. 

Two of our members have started participating in training workshops on contemplation within the past year. Obviously there's a need.

Last week also included some use of David Brooks' thick - thin ideas about organizations. In general Episcopal parishes seem to be moving in thinner and thinner directions. It's unskilled and superficial thinking but many clergy get invested in what they believe will be easier and attract more people. We go in that direction even if such parishes have little impact in actually shaping mature adults -- leaving a mark on people. All related to the above on reflection - contemplation.  The Order is swimming against that tide. Makes life interesting. 

Martin Thornton, an Anglican asctical/pastoral theologian, was addressing the thinness of parishes in his Pastoral Theology: A Reorientation

It is interesting that whereas Sunday services are thought of in terms of numbers, an element of the vicarious is often imputed to the weekday Office of the priest. Yet Anglican theology insists that the creative channel of Grace in the world is not the priesthood but the Church; thus there is a most vital distinction between the priest alone and priest plus Remnant of one. There is no such particular distinction between priest plus one, and priest plus two, sixty, or six thousand. Those who are worried over lack of support might substitute ascetic for arithmetic. There is nothing so contagious as holiness, nothing more pervasive than Prayer. This is precisely what the traditional Church means by evangelism and what distinguishes it from recruitment.” 

I read a couple of journals connected to the USMC. It's partly a professional discipline of learning about the culture and dynamics of a "thick" organization to see what I can learn that might serve other organizations. It's also been a way of reflecting on parts of my life. Yesterday I read "Investing in Marines" The writer is a retired major. He makes a case for the Marines becoming an even "thicker" system in Brooks' terms. For example, he wants to keep people with one another in their units for longer periods of time to allow for more integration and skill development as a team. He also wants to drop more people early in both the officer and enlisted training programs, if they can't handle the intellectual and physical requirements. That's especially connected to the increase in technology that is used even in small units. 

Anyhow, my learning was this -- he wasn't suggesting a thicker organizational culture "just because." It was about the ability to cope with what they were facing in real life. It was about adaptation in order to fulfill the mission.  Martin Thornton who was writing in the 50's - 80's. As he got older he began to make the case that doing the mission in the modern world, being responsible human beings in daily life, required an increased need for staying grounded in the tradition (in this case through mass and daily common prayer) and reflection that helped you see more clearly and act more responsibly.

In a blog posting just yesterday I made the case that developing parishes with a denser, thicker culture included attending to our Benedictine heritage.  We might add to that helping people become more proficient at reflection.

rag+