Lenten Bible Study Day 5; Luke 5

Luke chapter 5 (NRSV)

Today, as I read the fifth chapter of Luke's Gospel, right off I'm reminded that our chapter divisions are almost totally arbitrary.

As a reminder, the present chapter divisions in our modern editions of the books in the Bible come from an Archbishop of Canterbury in the middle of the 13th century. I'm thinking of that today because the fifth chapter has a veritable potpourri of vignettes of the early days of Jesus' earthly ministry. There's the healing of the paralytic let down from the roof, the healing of a leper, the call of the disciples and a parable about the nature of the Kingdom of God.

When we read the Bible in worship we don't use the chapter divisions to order our readings for this very reason. We tend to read shorter parts of the chapter, parts that constitute a story or thought unit. The scholarly term for this sort of narrative unit is "pericope". (You'll hear clergy sometimes referring to that in their sermons.)

So what jumps out at me this snowy Sunday morning in first week of Lent? It's Jesus' words to his first disciples after the miraculous catch of fish. After sending the fisherman back out into the water to let down their nets again, he tells them "don't be afraid" (Luke 5:10) before the well known line "you will be fishers of people". It's after what is given as an order, in the imperative voice, that the new disciples leave everything and follow him.

"Do not be afraid". We've heard this phrase twice already. It was Gabriel's first words to Zechariah when Gabriel announced the coming birth of John the Baptizer. It was the first words the angelic host said to the shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem the night of Jesus' birth. (Did you notice though that Gabriel didn't say that when he appeared to Mary? Isn't that interesting…?) Now today, Jesus uses the same words to the disciples. And I suppose by extension to us.

(By the way, this is not the last time we'll read these words in Luke's Gospel. Pay attention for them as we go forward together.)"Be not afraid."

In the story that Luke is relating, there's a sense that Jesus is using the angelic formula because he too is a messenger, a herald. Though he's not anything like an angel. He is both God and Human and fully present with us. There's something much greater than an angel here - as evidenced later by the healing of the leper, and even more so by Jesus' claiming God's own authority to forgive sins, and proving that he can by healing the paralytic.

But why this particular phrase? I've often thought that it is because it's fear that keeps us from doing what God asks of us. Fear that it won't work out. Fear that we'll do it wrong. Fear that we will fail. Fear that others will reject us, or that we'll lose something. In the case of the angelic messengers the phrase is a reminder that angels bring awe. They're beautiful, but it's a "terrible, awe-full and frightening" beauty. They are not at like the tame angels we see in popular art and culture. It makes sense that their first words - except in the case of Mary - are an order to "stop being afraid". But it's also interesting that, since angels are God's messengers, that these are God's words to us too. Just like we hear from Jesus to his disciples.

Here then is something to meditate on today. Jesus is telling us that, as his disciples, we must stop being afraid.

What are you afraid of? What would your life as a disciple be like if you were no longer afraid?

Lenten Bible Study Day 4; Luke 4

Luke Chapter 4 (NRSV)

Today, in chapter 4, we come across the story of how Jesus is driven into the wilderness for forty days of fasting and trial. As a preacher I've spent a great deal of time thinking about this particular story because it appears in one version or another every year on the first Sunday in Lent.

For the first few years that I was preaching I focused on the lesson, and on the struggle between Jesus and the adversary that it describes. Later on I started to focus more on the meaning of Lent and calling people to take this season as seriously as possible. I wonder if I did that in part because it was hard for me to understand the starkness of the story and the fullness of the language and scenery it describes.

A bit more than six years ago I accepted a call to serve as the dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix Arizona. I had never been to Arizona before. I'd hardly ever been west of the Mississippi. I was deeply familiar with the intimate lush green landscape of the mid-Atlantic. The desert seemed like a grand adventure.

When I first got out to Phoenix and saw the vastness of the Sonoran desert from the airplane it was hard to see anything but jagged rocks and thorny plants. I remember when we were buying a house and looking all around the valley. The real estate agent would point out that a particular house had a mountain view. I didn't want a mountain view. The "mountain" was a pile of dark brown dirt and some very jagged rocks. I didn't want to look at that every morning.

It took me years to learn to see the beauty of the desert. But eventually I came to see the fragility that was hidden in the crags. My eye learned to see the colors of a new palette. I noticed the tiny flowers hidden behind the thorns.

But I also learned to respect the desert. I used to lead hikes into the wilderness on Saturday mornings with whoever wanted to come along. On a couple of occasions people on the hike weren't working hard enough at drinking water. Dehydration comes on fast. And it's very dangerous. We had a couple of moments that were a bit more exciting than I wanted them to be.

The idea of one person spending forty days in the desert without food or water is more than I can wrap my head around. I learned from my hikes that the only way to manage in the hostile environment of the desert was to cooperate with the people around you. Those exciting moments stayed merely "exciting" because we shared our water and food with the person who had run out. I think the nomadic people's "over-the-top" sense of hospitality must come out of this same recognition. Either you cooperate with each other or you are in danger of dying.

Jesus though goes into the wilderness on his own. He is in the wilderness by himself. And Jesus doesn't cooperate with his adversary when he appears. (The name "Satan" in Greek literally means "adversary".) And Jesus is not overcome. This time of testing in the desert is not the same thing as retreat or spiritual fast - at least not according to the accounts. This is a real and desperate struggle in the starkest and least forgiving place on Earth. And Jesus both endures it and overcomes it.
In Mark's Gospel, the picture of Jesus that is presented shows us a man of great power who does things that leave the people around him amazed and confused. This story in Luke, so close to the Markan version, is a close echo of that. There's something deep and powerful at work here.

I wonder that sometimes we tame our experience of God. We reduce God to a nice manageable idea that we can get our heads and hearts around. But this story is a reminder that there is more to God and God's work among us than we are comfortable with.

Lenten Bible Study Day 3; Luke 3

 

Luke Chapter 3 (NRSV)

Today we read about the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. We hear Luke's version of John the Baptizer's proclamation, and hear how Jesus himself introduced and framed his appearance. We hear too of how the people of his own community couldn't bring themselves to believe. And how they ultimately rejected him. Their rejection is a foreshadowing of the later rejections that happen in Luke's Gospel when Jesus' people and his friends also reject him and carry out the threat to kill him that we hear in this chapter.

All of this is a reminder that the Gospel, like a piece of music, has themes that appear again and again in the narrative, sometimes with and sometimes without a resolution. We hear all this read in church on Sunday. And I'm sure you've heard wonderful sermons on these texts over the years. But what about the very end of the chapter, the part that lists the genealogy of Jesus? That's not something we ever read in the lectionary (at least not that I remember). It's certainly not something that I've preached on.

I remember when I read this the first time I was reading the Bible the whole way through. I skimmed over the names. I wanted to get back to the story. What I didn't realize at that time was that Luke didn't put anything into his version of the Gospel without a purpose. And it wasn't until years later, when I returned to this list of names and started paying closer attention, that I began to understand some of the points that Luke was making here.

One of the points being made is that you and I share common ancestors with Jesus - we too are children of Abraham. And by giving the descent all the way back to Adam, Luke is reminding us that we share a common humanity with Jesus. It's a reminder that Jesus is really like us - much more than we pay attention to in our every day lives. It's something worth meditating on.

But there's another, to me, more interesting thing in this list of names. Rather than a march of heroes from generations to generation as you'd find in other genealogies of Luke's time, there are some surprising names in the list. There are a few people who are not exactly paragons of virtue. If you have time, do a little googling of the names in the list. See what you can find out about their lives. How amazing that Jesus own story has these odd characters, these twists and turns, these mistakes in that path. That too makes him like us.

But note that Luke is taking this history, warts and all, and showing that without the good and the bad, there would have been no earthly ministry. Surely God had the choice of who and how the generations would run. And God chose this a twisty path rather than a straight one. In a sense it seems that Luke is reframing the difficult parts and giving them a new meaning. They were difficult yes, but look at the fruit they bore.

Have you ever had to reframe the story of the hard parts of your life? Have you gotten to the point that you can recognize that the person you are today would not have emerged unless the you had trodden the twisty path you did? It's something that I try to keep in front of me when I complain about things to God in my prayers. Oft times there's a pathway that is carrying me with a purpose, but as I'm walking in a deep valley, I'm not able to see the peak that is where I'm ultimately heading to.

What parts of your life have you already reframed? What parts still need to be seen in greater context of the whole journey? Isn't it fascinating that the end of the Gospel reframes the repeated rejections of Jesus, the first of which we read this morning?

Lenten Bible Study Day 2; Luke 2

 

Luke Chapter 2 (NRSV)

Once we get past the very familiar story of our Lord's birth in the first part of Chapter 2, we come to some stories that are rarely read in Sunday worship in the Episcopal Church.

You may remember the song that ancient Simeon sings when he sees Jesus brought as an infant to the temple on the eighth day after Jesus' birth (what we call Holy Name which falls on Jan 1.) That song, or canticle, is one of the most familar parts of Evensong. The story of Anna is similar to that of Simeon. In both cases we here of people who have spent their whole lives waiting to experience this apparently chance encounter with God. And having seen the infant Messiah, they know that they have completed their vigil - and essentially their life's tasks.

I've always found this sort of faithfulness and devotion inspiring. I wonder what it would be like for me to spend my whole life waiting for one vision or encounter with God - or with God's plan. I think it would be hard to have such unwavering faith in God over such a long time.

There's one time in my life that I met someone who had that sort of faith. I was a very young priest and was given the responsibility of leading a weekly bible study at a nursing home. The ladies (there were no men) who were living in the home ("for the duration" as they quipped) loved to come and sit while I read the Bible to them. We'd talk about the lesson and what it meant to them. They taught me a great deal. I made them laugh, and was happy to do that in exchange for the wisdom they shared.

There was this one person though who said something I've never forgotten. I had just read them the story of Sarah and Abraham - and how Sarah had been told that she was to have her first child in her late nineties, having waited her whole life for such a moment. Sarah laughed. I asked the ladies around the table, all of whom were sitting in wheelchairs, what they'd do if I told them that they were about to have a child. They almost all laughed too. All but one.

The one who didn't laugh looked wistful. I asked her what she was thinking. She hesitated and then blurted out that she would be grateful that God had finally answered her prayer. She was 95. She'd never had children. And apparently she was still praying every day that she might have one. She desperately wanted a child of her own to hold and to love. And even though it hadn't happened yet, she still believed that God would make it happen. She had never lost trust that God would do that for her. No one laughed. We just sat quietly basking in her faith.

I imagine that Mary, being told that she, as a virgin, would conceive and bear a child must have known that sort of trust, that sort of faith in God. I imagine that Joseph had a similar faith too. And of course Anna and Simeon are two of the great examples. Have you known people with that sort of faith?

Lenten Bible Study: Ash Wednesday, Luke 1

 

Luke Chapter 1 (NRSV)  "
Welcome.

Thank you for joining me on this journey through the story of Jesus birth, ministry, betrayal, death and resurrection; and the story of the beginnings of the Church. Together we'll be reading Luke-Acts for the next forty days or so. Today when I read the opening of Luke's version of the Gospel, I was reminded of how important it is for Luke to stress the historicity of the events of Jesus' life.

Luke begins by explaining what he means to accomplish in his writing - that this really happened in a specific place and at a specific time. Luke is making clear that he is not writing down a series of rumors or fantastical stories. He's telling us what has really happened. Then he turns to the account of the birth of John the Baptist and the encounter that John's parents had with the archangel Gabriel.

As I read these words, I'm remembering my first year as a seminarian at St. Thomas' Church in New Haven CT. My fellow seminarian decided that we should stage a dramatic reading of the birth of John as the sermon for the second Sunday in Advent that year. People dressed up in costumes and stood in front of the altar creating tableaus of the scenes that Luke's Gospel was recounting. My role was to be the archangel. I was wearing my newly purchased seminarian's cassock and surplice. We thought it would be a good idea for me to climb up a ladder behind the reredos at the high altar and to "appear" dramatically at the appropriate point in the story.

I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I decided it would be most effective if I climbed all the way up to the top of the reredos and balanced on a 2x4 on the very peak about 2 stories above the stone altar. It was certainly dramatic. I managed to climb up there without anyone noticing at first. Nobody expected to have someone standing up there so high. And then someone in the congregation gasped and pointed. My appearance was exactly what we had hoped.

People looked up in surprise and fear. They where rightly afraid that I was going to fall. (I should have been too, but I was younger then.) But the looks of surprise and fear on their faces was what I remember most about the moment. I was seeing in their faces what Luke describes in the face of Zechariah. What a moment that most have been. Suddenly all the stories, and the pronouncement of the scriptures became real to him. They weren't ancient history. They were standing right before him announcing a news that he could barely comprehend. The Gospel is like that for all of us I imagine.

How is the Gospel like that for you right now, today? What are the parts of the angelic message that cut to the core of your life? What are the parts that you're still keeping at arm's length? Why are you doing that?

Journey to Easter with Bishop Knisely and the Bible: Why & How

Each day throughout Lent Bishop Knisely will post a meditation here on our blog, which will lead us through reading all of Luke and Acts in preparation for Easter. Download the Reading Schedule and follow along day by day.

From Bishop Knisely's RISEN Magazine Article:

Recently a study was published that listed the top ten most "un-biblical" cities in the United States. Providence was number one. The study claimed that our region was the least likely place for people to take the Bible seriously, to change the way they live their lives because of biblical teaching, or to simply read the Bible outside of Sunday worship.

While there’s a part of me that wants to argue with the study’s findings, there’s another part of me that recognizes a grain of truth. I don’t think Providence is America’s least "biblically minded" city because there are no people of faith in the area. I think it stems from a discomfort with the way the Bible is often used as a bludgeon in social arguments.

So far in my experience, Rhode Islanders are an extraordinarily tolerant people. When they see intolerance buttressed by biblical proof texts toward their neighbors, what I think happens is that the biblical witness becomes suspect because of the willingness to live and let live that makes life here what it is.

But as admirable as that is for our common life, the Bible is a foundation of our common faith. When we reject the misuse of the Bible in debate, we must be very intentional about not also rejecting the Bible’s rightful role in our lives. And for us to use the Bible rightly in our common life, we must first know what the Bible is, and how powerful a witness to God its words can be.

 

I think the Episcopal Church in Rhode Island can be a leader in returning the Bible to its rightful central place in our faith. We can do that by committing ourselves to read and study the lessons it has for us, and then by working together to apply those lessons to our personal and common lives. And the step to doing that is to open our bibles and read.

 

Reading the Bible can be a daunting exercise. The word Bible means library, not book. The Bible isn’t a novel or a text book or even a single coherent story. It is a collection of stories and different forms of literature written over about three thousand years. Parts of the Bible are as different from each other as Beowulf is different from an article in the ProJo (And that’s only a time lapse of 1500 years.) You won’t pick up a Bible and find an easy read from Genesis to Revelations. It’s much better to create a plan of study that will introduce you to the major literature forms, the context in which they were written and how they have been understood differently over the intervening thousands and thousands of years.

 

This Lent I encourage you to start this process. I invite you to read with me over the next forty days, through the Gospel of Luke and its second half, The Book of the Acts of the Apostles. Or just come and listen to the Gospel of Mark read aloud in one sitting at St. St. Martin's, Providence on Friday March 8th at 7pm. Either way, it will start us on a journey of discovering what the Bible is all about and how we can receive its teaching today. It’s the most exciting journey I’ve ever undertaken, and though the end is not yet in sight for me, I invite you to join me wherever you’d like on the way.

Blizzard Nemo: RI Church Closings

Many prayers for Safety as we clean up from Nemo! Throughout the storm we will be posting our churches' closings and service cancellations here.  This page will be updated as often as we receive new info, so keep an eye on it. If you don't see your church here please also check your church's website and/or facebook page, as closing information may appear there first.

If your church is closed or if you are stuck at home, you can read Morning Prayer for February 10th online with Episcopalians around the world at Mission St. Clare


Service Cancellations:

AS OF SUNDAY 7:30am

• Christ Church, Linoln: All services cancelled
• St. George's Central Falls: All services cancelled
• Good Shepherd, Pawtucket: All Sunday services cancelled due to parking ban.
• Trinity, Newport: Sunday 8am service cancelled 10am still ON. 4pm Evensong is cancelled.
• St. Peter's By-the-sea, Narragansett: 8:00 Services and Christian Education cancelled. 10:15 sertvice is ON.
• St Elizabeth's, Hope Valley: All sunday services cancelled
• St. Barnaba's, Warwick: All Sunday services cancelled
• Grace Church, Providence: Morning services cancelled, 4pm Ordination of The Rev. Rebecca Gettel is ON.
• St. David's on the Hill, Cranston: All services cancelled
• St. John's Barrington: All Sunday services cancelled
• St. John the Divine, Saunderstown: All Sunday services cancelled due to power outage
• St Peter's and Andrew's, Providence: Annual meeting cancelled, Sunday services still on
• Trinity, North Scituate: All Services Saturday and Sunday are cancelled
• Christ Church, Westerly: Saturday night service cancelled, no Sunday 7:45am service.

AS OF FRIDAY

• St. Barnabas, Warwick: Sunday soup luncheon postponed to 2/17, services still planned.
• St. Mary's Portsmouth: Saturday 5pm service is cancelled. Sunday services still planned.
• Saint Stephen's, Providence: Saturday AM requiem for parishioner Chester A Files Jr. is postponed to a later date. Sunday services still planned.
• St. Luke's, East Greenwich: Friday night Spaghetti Supper cancelled. Sunday services still planned.

Christ Church in Westerly Welcomes First Female Rector

On Sunday January 27th, 2013 Christ Church in Westerly welcomed the arrival of their new rector, The Rev. Christine Purcell. It was a momentous day for this parish founded in 1834. Christine is the very first female rector of the church, and the decision to call her was unanimous across the search and vestry committees. Her acceptance was announced in October, at the end of a two-year search.

While her official duties did not begin until this week, the Westerly community had an exciting opportunity to meet the Rev. Purcell when she and Bishop Knisely both visited on Sunday, November 18th. Her visit happened to fall during Bishop Knisely's Ordination weekend, and he had chosen Christ Church for his very first visitation as the 13th Bishop or Rhode Island. The Providence Journal has a wonderful photo gallery of the day.

Christine comes to Christ Church from the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania where she served God’s people in a number of settings.  Most recently she served as the interim rector at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Shippensburg, PA and prior to that assignment, as the interim rector at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Altoona, PA.  She also served as primary missioner for 3 years at the Greater Lycoming Episcopal Area Ministry which is composed of 3 small churches located in and around Williamsport, PA.  Christine has served on many diocesan committees and was twice elected as a clergy deputy to General Convention in 2009 and 2012.

Former parishioners, lay leaders, and clergy have described Christine as “one of the warmest people you will ever meet”.  She has described herself as a “people person” who is a passionate preacher and wants her sermons “to connect with real life”. Christine strives at “making Sunday good”.  One of her goals for the liturgy “is that it ushers us into God’s presence by touching our aesthetic sensibilities, through its music, language, gesture and colors.

Christine grew up is Southern California and went on to Dartmouth College where she received an AB in History in 1978.  She took a job working in finance for a Fortune 400 company and continued her education earning an MBA from the University of Connecticut in 1988.

The call to serve God led her to complete a certificate of Education Ministry from The University of the South in 1995.  She continued her religious training by completing a Master of Divinity degree at The General Theological Seminary in 2004.  Christine is currently enrolled in the Doctorate of Ministry in Biblical Preaching program at Luther Seminary. This three year program is tailored for working clergy and will allow her to do most of the required course work within her home parish.  The congregation will be involved in the program as well by providing feedback to Christine on her sermons.

Christine and her husband Bob currently reside in Williamsport, PA and will be relocating to the Westerly area.  Bob is a gastroenterologist in private practice. The couple have two grown children, a son in California and a daughter in the Washington, D.C. area.

For more information about Christ Church please visit www.christchurchwesterly.org

 

 

The latest eRISEN- January 22nd 2013

You can view the latest issue of eRISEN, our biweekly email events newsletter, at the link below:

eRISEN: 1/22/2013 issue

Want to subscribe to the eRISEN mailing list? Want to submit your event or job listing? Just visit eRISEN on our website.

Get Ready: Ashes to Go 2013

By the Rev. Edmund Harris

Last year on Ash Wednesday, a handful of lay people and clergy from congregations in the Diocese of Rhode Island did something new: we took ashes outside of our church buildings and offered them to people on the streets. Of all the days in the Church’s year, we thought, Ash Wednesday is a day when God’s love and mercy meet people wherever they might be, whatever their connection to church or God has been.

Seeking to embody this, we stood at bus depots, train stations and even at the airport, imposing ashes on people’s foreheads and offering prayers. When people asked about who we were and what would compel us to stand out in the cold for hours, we told them about the Episcopal Church and invited them to come on Sunday. “Ashes to Go” was an incredibly simple, easily organized event, yet one that had a huge impact on both those offered and received ashes. The following Sunday, many of the congregations who had participated saw a surge in visitors and newcomers. One woman, who has since joined the Episcopal Church, said she saw us on the news and knew she “wanted to be part of a church that did something like that.”

This Ash Wednesday, February 13, Bishop Knisely will be participating in Ashes to go as well, and invites every congregation in the Diocese to participate by taking ashes out into their local communities. Where might your congregation offer ashes in your local community? Where are the people in your community who are not coming to church on Ash Wednesday? Are they in coffee shops? Waiting on train platforms? Hanging out on park benches? Dropping their kids off at school? We encourage you to pay attention and to consider offering the gift of ashes, your prayers and your presence. Only God knows how your encounters on Ash Wednesday will change others, yourself, even your whole congregation.

Ashes to Go 2013 is being coordinated by Church Beyond the Walls, a new ministry of Church of the Epiphany in East Providence, which is planting a “street church” in Providence that hopes to begin worship soon near Burnside Park, and encourage Rhode Island Christians to engage people outside of their doors.

Church Beyond the Walls will hold an orientation to Ashes to Go on Thursday, February 7 from 6-7 p.m. at Church of the Epiphany, East Providence. All who are interested in offering ashes are encouraged to attend.

Plan to participate? please contact the Rev. Edmund Harris, Church Beyond the Walls Priest and Lead Organizer 434-5012 #14.

For online Ashes to Go resources, visit http://ashestogo.org/.