James 2:16
Episcopalians, we are a church of The Book, and books, the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Oh, and The Hymnal. In worship we hear lots and lots of Bible readings. Sermons, homilies, almost always are based on one or more of the four readings for each Sunday. Our prayers come from the BCP so that we seldom offer and hear extemporaneous prayer or what members of nonliturgical churches may call prayer from the heart; though our prayers are from the hearts and souls, theology and faith of folks who wrote them over the ages.
Much of what we pray dates back centuries. Many of our prayers, including one Eucharistic prayer, date from Latin to English translation for Cranmer’s 1549 Book of Common Prayer. Some of our prayers date as far back and early in Christianity as the sixth and seventh century Leonine Sacramentary.
But we pray these old prayers faithfully and earnestly. Many of us grew up with them such that they’ve become core to our spirituality and we look forward to saying and hearing them again and again. I personally grew up with the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, and when it was revised into the 1979 BCP and I was unhappy with all the changes, I reminded myself that all my life I had heard Pop, my grandfather Weller, complain about changes from the 1892 BCP to the 1928 Book. Pop’s father was an Episcopal priest, and no doubt he, the Rev. Reginald Heber Weller, was upset with changes from the 1789 BCP to the 1898 Book.
Where I really mean to go with this though is about our habits and inclinations. A couple of thoughts, both somewhat in the nature of criticism.
First, that using our Prayer Book liturgies, we become so habituated with what we pray Sunday after Sunday that it becomes rote, even mindless and no connection whatsoever to human life going on around us, or in the nation and the world. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Liturgy, worship ought to lay our lives before God, but lifelong as an Episcopalian I’ve been conscious that hearing the old familiar sound, the proper prayers, intoned correctly, is more important than whatever we say and sing. That even if both are important, Image is more important to us than Substance.
No doubt this makes me an object of my own criticism! I remember years ago telling my congregation and parish choir, and I’ve said this in Sunday School and in Confirmation classes, that “Anglicanism is a Sound, a Sound in Worship”. Not a separate Christian belief system, but a Sound. It's no longer true. To my chagrin, Anglicanism ceased to exist during the late 20th century liturgical reform, when Anglican Chant went out of fashion as our sound in worship and we settled into the common denominator of public worship.
The other thing may be more serious, even a betrayal of our Baptismal Vows to Persevere and Proclaim, Seek and Serve, Strive and Respect. That our answer to life’s problems, our response to the problems of others, our action, our response to the issues of society and civilization, is to offer a prayer. Indeed, this Way is institutionalized in our classic assurance, “you are in our thoughts and prayers”. "In our thoughts and prayers" is a place of refuge for doing nothing as we go on with life, satisfied with our participation and contribution. I do not see this in our own parish, and many local area churches are deeply involved in helping people in so many ways; but it is characteristic and endemic. You are in our thoughts and prayers. James 2:16, go in peace and be warm and filled.
Yet it’s deeper, the fact is that what we want, including in answer to Black Lives Matter, is Not and Never to suffer inconvenience and upsetting action to correct legitimate grievances of decent people, but peace. We want peace. We want to settle back down and everybody get along. Our ideal is not justice and peace, but that protesters grow weary and go home, and nothing changes. Which is my 2020 prediction of what will happen across America yet one more time again.
In the end, and as some protestors' signs say, there can be No Peace Without Justice. In Time protests will raise to the level of continuing violence, civil war; which will have been completely unnecessary among people of goodwill, and which will play into the hands of the worst that we can be.
This sin, waiting confident that things will settle back down into life as usual in the racial tension in a divided society, is treachery, not keeping faith, betrayal of our baptismal covenant. It's a strange world.
T