True Faith

Don’t Close the Window

First Sunday after Pentecost:  Trinity Sunday

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us
thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to
acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power
of thy Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech thee
that thou wouldst keep us steadfast in this faith and worship,
and bring us at last to see thee in thy one and eternal glory,
O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit livest and
reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

No one has an untrue faith, do they. The proof is in asking, isn’t it.  Ask anyone, anyone at all, “Do you have an untrue faith?” The answer is assured: “Certainly not.” “Is your faith true?” “Certainly.”

The Bible says (Hebrews 11:1) “εστιν δε πιστις ελπιζομενων υποστασις πραγματων ελεγχος ου βλεπομενων,” translated, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (NRSV). Key words in the verse are hoped and conviction. All well and good to be to be certain, but faith is not about certainty, faith is about hope and conviction. Each of us has different hopes and convictions that may be vital and very real to us; thus the qualifying, “it’s true for me or for us” -- which though casting a shadow of doubt, is honest and leaves the window open. Faith is hope and confidence, where confidence is not certitude.

More key words in the passage are assurance, things, and not seen. The hypostasis is more than just assurance, it’s realization. “Things” is pragmaton -- practical rather than theoretical; but in this case, things that cannot be seen. Oxygen, air comes to mind as I suck it in and whoof it out, feeling it but not seeing it. Ruach. Pneuma. The word itself contains and conveys the essence of the thing.

My true faith is my realization, with the ancients of the Church, that there is reality beyond what I see. I can believe humbly, without arrogant certitude. I can have confidence, comfortably not shakily. If I am afraid, I can put fear aside and go confidently on, both with life and into death.

A few more things come to mind this morning. One is that in Hebrews 11:1, all the words are key words. Another is that when, in Bible study, we find some key words, we like to chase around in the Bible and see how those words are used elsewhere; this often helps us understand them better. Unfortunately, the key words in Hebrews 11:1 are pretty much only used in that one verse. So one must resort to the Greek-English lexicon and to conjecture that is “reading back into” based on usages outside the Bible. Anyway, if anyone doesn’t like my early morning struggle with faith and Hebrews 11:1, fine with me.

Another thing that jumps out at me is that the Roman Catholic eucharistic doctrine of transubstantiation is entirely validated by Hebrews 11:1. The realization of reality, substance, essence, that cannot be seen. And, Articles of Religion notwithstanding, transubstantiation is not foreign to our Anglican ethos.

The other thing is that faith, Hebrews 11:1, alleviates our natural human fear of whatever comes or does not come after this life; and entirely validates our prayer in our service for the burial of the dead, “Give courage and faith to those who are bereaved, that we may have strength to meet the days ahead in the comfort of a reasonable and holy hope, in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those we love.” This is not only for the bereaved: it’s blessed hope, faith, for those of us who are dying (where the most foolish thing we utter is, “If I die”). So, we pray confidently,

... We beseech thee that thou wouldst keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see thee in thy one and eternal glory,

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Holy

In our Sunday worship the psalm follows the first reading and is meant to respond to it in some way, much as the sequence hymn is often intended to anticipate the gospel reading. The lectionary framers who matched up first readings and psalms often seem to have been pressed for imagination, but for Trinity Sunday they’ve done well. The Old Testament reading is Isaiah 6:1-8, the prophet’s encounter with The Lord. No one, especially no one who has ever read Revelation chapter four, could possibly visualize Isaiah’s scene as quiet and peaceful. God is present: storm clouds churn and boil, lightning flashes, thunder booms. Multitudes are gathered round the throne, singing praises, and the voice of The Lord is heard.

	29  Afferte Domino
1	Ascribe to the LORD, you gods, *     ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
2	Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his Name; *     worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.
3	The voice of the LORD is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; *     the LORD is upon the mighty waters.
4	The voice of the LORD is a powerful voice; *     the voice of the LORD is a voice of splendor.
5	The voice of the LORD breaks the cedar trees; *     the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon;
6	He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, *     and Mount Hermon like a young wild ox.
7	The voice of the LORD splits the flames of fire; the voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; *     the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
8	The voice of the LORD makes the oak trees writhe *     and strips the forests bare.
9	And in the temple of the LORD *     all are crying, "Glory!"
10	The LORD sits enthroned above the flood; *     the LORD sits enthroned as King for evermore.

11	The LORD shall give strength to his people; *     the LORD shall give his people the blessing of peace.

This flashing, booming, thundering, tree-splitting psalm is the people’s perfect response to and participation in Isaiah’s vision. And not only in Isaiah’s vision, but in the vision of St. John the Divine as in the spirit he steps into heaven and finds himself in the very throne room of God!

In our worship, we also enter God’s presence, and no time or place more powerfully than with our Trinity hymn “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty” and in the Sanctus of the Eucharist.

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A Beautiful Day

A Beautiful Day

Yesterday morning started beautiful. Ordinary, ordinary as could be. Beautiful and ordinary. Thirty minutes on the treadmill, speed 2.8, incline 7, something over a mile slightly “uphill.” My plan for the morning: read psalms appointed in Lectionary B for the summer and see if they have anything to do with the Old Testament lessons to which they were meant to respond. And, oh, incidentally, a drain pipe was stopped up in Linda’s bathroom upstairs and we had not been able to open it. She called Whitehead to send a plumber, he came instantly, worked at it forty-five minutes, unclogged it with a plumber’s snake and was on his way. A few minutes later as I grabbed a BCP from the trunk of my car, Linda shouted out the back door, “Water is pouring through the dining room ceiling.”

Slam went the trunk lid, “Call the plumber back,” yells I, running upstairs to turn off all the water supply lines.

During WWII this house, which began with one bathroom when my grandparents built it in 1912-1913, was converted into four apartments; three more bathrooms were installed, two of them upstairs. The offending bathroom is over the dining room. As water poured from the ceiling and down the center chandelier, we began sopping up and moving furniture. The mess in the dining room was incredible, horrendous.

The Whitehead Plumbing construction team spent the rest of the day with us. They tore off two layers of ceiling sheetrock and cut out the tongue in groove ceiling to take down the dining room ceiling and get to the problem: the seventy year old cast iron drain pipe had given out, crumbled. 

John gave me the insurance company’s phone number to call, and the insurance folks were Johnny on the Spot, coming out to inspect and get repairs lined up, and taking away for immediate attention a rug that was spoiled. They are unbelievable, and I will never again complain about my home insurance premium. 

Everything’s relative to where one is in life, isn’t it. At five o’clock, half a matzoh cracker with a thin slice of swiss cheese, with a glass of Louis M. Martini cabernet sauvignon, Sonoma County 2009. For supper, green beans and a bit of salmon. Yesterday was extraordinary and not at all dull -- all in all, A Beautiful Day.

This is a big house, and the sealing off of the dining room with workers trudging in and out still leaves plenty of rooms where one can sit quietly and study. The framers of Lectionary B did a poor job matching psalms for us to read, or sing, or chant in response to the summer Bible stories about Samuel and Saul and David and Solomon.

Life Is Good. The plumbers will return this morning to resume work in the dining room ceiling replacing all the plumbing into and out of Linda's bathroom. The insurance adjuster will be back to plan restoration of the dining room. My Laughing Place is still there. Linda and I are alive and well and looking forward to another beautiful day. And it's time for my walk.

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Discernment

1 In the year that King Uzzi'ah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" 6 Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven." 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me." (Isaiah 6:1f RSV)

A prophet’s call story might be expected to show up near the beginning of his prophecy, but Isaiah doesn’t tell his until farther along in his scroll, chapter six. Abraham’s call comes at the beginning of his adventures, as does that of Moses, his wonderful encounter with The Lord in the burning bush. The call of Jeremiah is another favorite:

4 Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, 5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." 6 Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth." 7 But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; for to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you you shall speak. (Jeremiah 1:4f RSV)

Most of the called protest with a good reason why they can’t go. Moses says he isn’t a good speaker. God says he’ll send Moses’ brother Aaron along to do the talking. Jeremiah says he’s only a boy. God says, in effect, “Don’t give me any sass, you’ll do as I say.” Isaiah is afraid he’s unclean, and that is corrected before things go any farther. Isaiah might have preferred to have his mouth washed out with soap instead of the burning coal.

Reading the call stories of Bible characters can help us in realizing our own call into -- whatever God has in mind for us. My own sense of call into my present vocation came at age ten and I accepted it; but backed away at age nineteen and did things of my own choosing, went my own way until God began yammering at me through our congregation in Pennsylvania after my Navy retirement, and I entered theological seminary on my forty-fifth birthday. Looking back, as Isaiah is looking back in our Old Testament reading for this coming Sunday, I have no regrets; rather am grateful for the adventures on my own road to where I am this morning. 

However, life is short, as our rector says in his benediction every Sunday, and there isn’t much time. Having a call story for a Sunday School lesson or a lectionary reading gives an opportunity to pause, contemplate, perhaps realize what God may be trying to get me to hear. Sometimes it takes the burning coal to get our attention: I certainly found it so in my own life.

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Trinity Sunday

Trinity Sunday coming up: one of the seven Principal Feasts of the Church, acclaimed as the only Sunday that’s about a doctrine instead of a major event. In my case, it’s my only Sunday of the year to be in the pulpit preaching about an incomprehensible while most of our congregation are across the Bay on Shell Island eating barbecue and fried chicken.

Because it’s Shell Island Sunday. Our second annual. Last year a flotilla of boats carried a couple hundred people across. A wonderful time was had by all, and there were several baptisms. It’s about the grandest way to start the summer season that one could imagine. 

For Sunday, the Weather Channel says 91F, wind W at 8 mph, 0% chance of rain.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch ...

There was a time in the Church of England, perhaps still so, when, in place of the Nicene Creed or Apostles Creed, it was the tradition on Trinity Sunday to stand and say the Creed of Saint Athanasius, also called the Athanasian Creed and the Quicunque Vult. Lengthy and ponderous, it was attributed (albeit erroneously) to Athanasius, fourth century bishop of Alexandria who helped lead the Church away from Arianism during the Council of Nicaea (325 AD). Perhaps its clearest assertion is the line 

The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.
As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible.

Arianism was the vigorously asserted, viciously defended, and then-dominant view in the Christian Church, that the Son is not of the same being as the Father, that the Son was created, that the Son was not eternally coexistent with the Father, that, as the Arian slogan went, “there was a time when he was not.” Had Arius held, Christian doctrine today would be far different to what every Sunday morning we stand and say we believe.

Perhaps we shall have a look at the Athanasian Creed together this coming Sunday morning. Or perhaps not. A poster for future Shell Island Sundays might be

Come and enjoy 

Sea and Sun 

Chicken and Fun 

on Shell Island

or

Stay back at the Ranch 

and memorize the Quinque Vult.

The Creed of Saint Athanasius is found in the Book of Common Prayer at page 864. As we stand.

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Golden Gate

San Francisco celebrated the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday. 

Smack in the middle of our 1969-1970 WestPac cruise, USS TRIPOLI (LPH-10) was found to have a cracked propeller. We were loaded up with Marines heading home from the Vietnam War and sent to homeport San Diego, thence to San Francisco for a month in Hunters Point Naval Shipyard for repairs. While the ship was in San Diego for a few days, everyone who wanted to take a car to San Francisco drove it down to the pier to be loaded onto the hangar deck. Including my 1959 Volkswagen.

It was Spring 1970 when TRIPOLI sailed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, and wonderful to have my car in San Francisco that month. Touring the city from top to bottom, one end to the other, Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Japanese shops and restaurants, driving across Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito; across the Oakland Bay Bridge to Berkeley. One of my best things to do was go to a sushi parlor, order a box of my favorites, buy a quart bottle of Kirin, drive up to Lincoln Boulevard, park on a high grassy spot overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, and enjoy my sushi and beer in total peace.

During that month, Linda and Malinda and Joe came up to San Francisco and we had a long weekend in one of the guest cottages high on a hill at the shipyard. From there we could look down into the stadium lights at Candlestick Park to the south, and watch the dozens of planes at night, stacked ascending as far as the eye could see, in landing pattern gliding down to San Francisco International Airport. Life Is Good now, and life was very good indeed that month.

The other weekends we were in Hunters Point, I flew home to San Diego in the ship's helicopter every Friday at liberty call, and back to the ship in time for muster on Monday morning. TRIPOLI returned to WestPac after the month in drydock. Sea duty and Vietnam War memories are not my happiest, but having my family at the guest cottage that weekend; and parking the VW on Lincoln way up high, Pacific Ocean in front of me, Golden Gate Bridge to my right, sushi, ice cold Kirin -- fond memories this Memorial Day Weekend. 

Our first time in San Francisco had been July 1963, enroute to Japan. And then that Spring 1970 month when TRIPOLI was in drydock to have the screw replaced, sail back out under the Golden Gate Bridge, home to San Diego, then back to the War. Years later, while on Navy shore duty, and then after retiring and starting my business, life took me back to San Francisco many times until we moved to Apalachicola in 1984. 

There have been only a few places besides St. Andrews Bay that I might choose to live. Sydney, Australia. Seattle. San Francisco. 

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Ananglican

Ananglican

Just because they say it, that don’t make it so.

There is, around the U.S., and indeed here in Bay County, a group who call themselves “Anglican Church.” It’s a breakaway body that, like other breakaway bodies, loves the name “Anglican” and so have glommed onto it. The fact is, though, that what is “Anglican” in the world is what is “in communion” with the Archbishop of Canterbury. That particular body, and its affiliate national connection, were some years ago singled out and named by the Archbishop of Canterbury as specifically not in communion. So they worship using the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church and call themselves “Anglican.” Anyone can hang up a shingle, but that doesn’t make it so any more than calling oneself Robert Frost poeticizes one’s doggerel, or walking around with a scalpel makes one a heart surgeon.

But if they want to be FoxAnglicans, who cares. 

Somewhere among Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon books there’s a story of the tiny family group that considers itself the last surviving remnant of the one true church. As those in church with them strayed into error, they have split off and broken away and split off and broken away and split off and broken away, in order to preserve pure doctrine. Every Sunday morning they arrange the dining room chairs around the living room and gather. One of the women has baked a loaf of bread which at the proper time gets passed round the circle and everybody breaks off a chunk and munches solemnly. It’s their Lord's Supper. One woman is there, the wife of a family member, who apparently is a Lutheran (or maybe Methodist, I don’t remember). When the bread comes to her, she breaks off a chuck. Instantly, one of the members leaps from his chair and snatches the morsel from the woman’s lips, shouting, “You ain’t in fellowship.” 

It’s the inhospitable nonsense of almost every Christian denomination and so-called “Non-Denomination”. You've got to be in fellowship or you cannot share the blessings. What a load.

A popularism some years ago was "WWJD?". What Would Jesus Do? When it comes to feeding and fellowship and communion, it’s no rhetorical or hypothetical question, because Jesus did do. Every time Jesus fed the crowd, he fed everybody who was there. Never once did he order his disciples, “Check and make sure they’re baptized and in fellowship before you give them bread.” He simply Took, and Blessed, and Broke, and Gave. The notion that the “Church” owns the Altar, the Holy Table, is so much stuff. If the Lord is there, it’s His table, His Altar, His Bread and Wine, His sherry and bickies, and WWJD Rules. If the "Church" announces its rules, restrictions, prohibitions and conditions in the invitation to the Lord's Supper, then it ain't His Supper; it's Someone Else's.

It’s ludicrous that a group bolts the Anglican Communion and thinks to take the name “Anglican” with them, like many of them tried to take the real estate and the trust funds and the candlesticks. But WTH do I know or care. "Just because they say it, that don’t make it so." They are Ananglican, actually.

In Apalachicola years ago, the priest at St. Patrick Catholic Church was transferred and a new priest came in. Compared to the charismatic, warm, kind and friendly priest he replaced, the new man was aloof and distant, and -- surprising, unusual and disappointing for a Roman Catholic priest -- thick and ignorant. Among other densities, he called us the Epsicopal Church and us Epsicopals. That has sort of grown on me, actually: let the Faux-Anglicans, the Ananglicans, have the name. We can be Epsicopal. Nearly Hitovity Epsicopal. It has a nice ring to it. We can be Epsicolopians.

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Pictured: AnanglicanischePauluskirche