Friday, May 25, Celebration of the Book of Common Prayer

I AM PRAYER
REMEMBERING THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 1549-2018

Oremus. Exultate, iusti in domino rectos decet laudatio... NO!

I am Prayer. By archbishop’s hand and king’s decree, English now my tongue shall be:

Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous;
it is good for the just to sing praises...

I am Prayer. In 1549 Ano Domini, Thomas Cranmer first prayed me. Our Lord Jesus said, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship Him.” I was composed for that cause. I have old Sarum’s Latin Rule, some Reformation theology and even Eastern Orthodoxy for my roots. Martyr Tyndale and Mr. Coverdale did provide the Great Bible from which my English came: “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallow-ed be thy name...”

I am Prayer. That Tudor king who broke with Rome had a son who sought a Prayer that would be in common for all his subjects. So Bishop Cranmer’s Prayer, not “common” by any means, became the Prayer I am, to be prayed in-common by those of the English tongue.

ALmighty God, whose kingdom is euerlastig, and power infinite, haue mercie upon the whole congregacion, and so rule the heart of thy chosen seruauunt Edward the sixt, our kyng and gouernour: that he (knowyng whose minister he is) maie about al thinges, seke thy honour and glory, & that we his subiectes (duely consydering whose auctoritie he hath) maye faithfully serue, honour, and humbly obeye him in thee, and for thee, according to thy blessed word and ordinaunce....
––In truth, a prayer for anyone who may govern, of whose authority one reigns, “knowing whose minister he is...”

I am Prayer. Poor Mary and her kin tried to destroy me and bring back Rome’s prayers again. But neither she nor Puritans grim could take away the Prayer that Cranmer began to Pray. The Virgin Queen’s “Settlement” did make me to be mostly what I remain (with some revisions, alas) for her Church of England and her present and former commonwealth to this day. I am spoken of in this fashion in “Concerning the Service of the Church.”

THERE was never any thing by wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted: As, among other things, it may plainly appear by the Common Prayers in the Church, commonly called Divine Service. The first original and ground whereof if a man would search out by the ancient Fathers, he shall find, ... they so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over every year; intending thereby, that the Clergy, and especially such as were Ministers in the congregation, should... be stirred up to godliness themselves and be more able to exhort others by wholesome Doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the Truth; and further, that the people... might continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true religion.

I am Prayer. Kings and Queens have proclaimed that all should follow me. As with Solomon, they too are wise to pray:

Let these words of mine, with which I pleaded before the LORD, be near...so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God; there is no other. Therefore devote yourselves completely to the LORD our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day. (1 Kings 8)

I am Prayer. At Shakespeare’s Stratford I am found in Elizabethan form I am on display; to note the bond of Prayer and Bard. No quote is found and yet Daniel Swift takes note of phrases here and there: “As modern readers, we may miss these echoes, but the crowds who gathered at the Globe to first hear these common phrases, as well known as any other words. The Book of Common Prayer is one of the hidden ingredients of Shakespere’s plays. It is a skeleton beneath the skin of the best-known works of our or my time.” (My emphasis)

I am Prayer. I have traveled far and wide. Just three decades from my creation I travel with Father Fletcher as Francis Drake roamed the world’s seas. So Mr. Fletcher prayed me in California first in 1579. He prayed for those in peril on the seas:

O Eternal Lord God, who alone spreadest out the heavens and rulest the raging of the sea; who hast compassed the waters with bounds until day and night come to an end: Be pleased to receive into thy Almighty and most gracious protection the persons of us thy servants, and the Fleet in which we serve. Preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of the enemy; that we may be safeguard unto our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen ELIZABETH, and her Dominions, and a security for such as pass upon the seas upon their lawful occasions; that the inhabitants of Island may in peace and quietness serve thee our God; and that we may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land, with the fruits of our labours, and with a thankful remembrance of thy mercies to praise and glorify thy holy Name; through jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I am Prayer. Under that same Majesty came I to the Eastern climes of that same American continent. Within century’s time even a German follower of Martin Luther sought me out as he sought to plant new churches in this land. Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenburg proclaimed my language could be a common bond for Christians from Germany and Scandinavia who brought Luther’s Reformation to these shores. He did borrow my Baptismal and Burial rites. First inquiring, “Wilt thou continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers?” And in time declaring thus: “We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection.” Many centuries before our Call To Common Mission, I might have been prayed by those who now share Word and Sacraments.

I am Prayer. Alas that reunion was not to be. A Revolution swept the land and I was forced to flee, as before in Cromwell’s time, carried by those who favored royalty. My public prayer was seldom heard until such time as persons loyal to my form made Mr. Samuel Seabury, bishop for this new land, and sent him to Scotland to restore me for the American form of democracy. So, the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer of 1789 sounds a bit like the Declaration of Independence:

But when in the course of Divine Providence, these American States became independent with respect to civil government, their ecclesiastical independence was necessarily included; and the different religious denominations of christians in these States were left at full and equal liberty to model and organize their respectful churches, and forms of worship, and discipline, in such manner as they might judge most convenient for their future posterity; consistently with the constitution and laws of their country.

I am Prayer. And in that revised Episcopal form I came of late to John, in 1968, a seminarian visiting an Episcopal church, my Morning Prayer he came to love:

O Lord, open thou our lips.
And our mouth shall show forth thy praise.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: O come, let us adore him.

And first hearing Chrysostom’s Collect prayed:

Almighty God, who hast given us the grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication unto thee, and hast promised through thy well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name thou wilt be in the midst of them: fulfill now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.

I am Prayer. In this new land of the free they said I needed new words to be prayed and sung. And so in in the year of the nation’s Bicentennial, in General Convention they proposed and I became Rite One for those who favored me as I was, and Rite Two for those who preferred more the language of today. ––Including, at times, a note of compromise:

In any of the Proper Liturgies for Special days, and in other services contained in this Book celebrated in the context of a Rite One service, the contemporary idiom may be conformed to traditional language.

I am Prayer. ’Twas a decade later that then Pastor John rediscovered me, in ’76's provisional form, at St. Martin’s of Monroeville in that same commonwealth where Muhlenberg first prayed me. By agreements provisional I was prayed with Episcopalians and Lutherans at Pittsburgh’s cathedral. And then by way of change of call in Kalamazoo’s cubed cathedral hall. Alas, there soon that tentative bond sundered for a time because some of Luther’s band did not want anything to do with those called “Bishops.” Neither Alden Hathaway nor George Lee had seemed such awful folk, but the bond was lost and he moved back Lincoln’s Land in southern county Cook.

I am Prayer. “Called to Common Mission” restored the bond between Episcopalian and Lutheran; but not until the eleventh year of this new millennium did John pray me again in this august company. He with roots in old Augustinian Luther’s tribe was drawn by Friday’s invitation to the church of St. Augustine in his new home. And even more he prayed me and even came sometimes to lead that Friday company in and with me, the Prayer that Cranmer made in 1549. Then, grace of Bishop Jeffrey Lee, John who found me long ago is now licensed as priest to pray all the more; loving best my Communion Prayer:

Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in His name. After which the people say:

“Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the Bread.”

I am Prayer. I place my blessings on weddings even to tis very day. And so they prayed me at Windsor last week over Harry and Meghan:

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, for you have created joy and gladness, pleasure and delight, love and fellowship. Pour out the abundance of your blessing upon HARRY and MEGHAN in their life together... ––and–-

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, bless, preserve and keep you; the Lord mercifully grant you the riches of His grace, that you may please in both in body and soul, and, living together in faith and love, may receive the blessings of eternal life.

I am Prayer.
I am liturgy.

I am rites and Sacraments. I am Psalter.

I am Articles of faith. I am history––

The Book of Common Prayer I am called. “Common” I am not. For all in common I would be. Oh, they think again to study and to alter me, to more inclusive make, and yet I live on in use –And now today the Anglican Community word-wide remembers me and sets a day apart, commemorated “on the first convenient day following Pentecost” A day to recall my history and let one pastor/priest say thanks be to God for me.

Almighty and everliving God, whose servant Thomas Cranmer, with others, restored the language of the people in the prayers of your church: make us always thankful for this legacy, and help us so to pray in the Spirit and with understanding, that we may worthily magnify your holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who abides with you and the Holy spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

John Lang +
Retired ELCA pastor
Licensed priest, Diocese of Chicago
In thanksgiving to God for seventy-three years of life and in thanksgiving to the people of St. Augustine’s Episcopal church who make me welcome.

Sunday, May 20, 2018, The Feast of Pentecost and the Baptism of Barbara Brandt

Kristin White

The Feast of Pentecost | May 20, 2018

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.[1]

—

Those words are not part of today’s readings, they are taken from the Song of Solomon. The last time we heard that passage read in worship here at St. Augustine’s was at your wedding, Barbara and Jason. And, it happens, that same passage was read again across the ocean yesterday at the wedding of Prince Harry and, now-Princess Meghan.

Love is strong as death. Passion, fierce as the grave.

—

Jesus’ words in today’s gospel are the continuation of his long goodbye to the disciples in John’s farewell discourse. “I have to go,” he tells them. “I have to go, so that the Advocate can come. And when the Spirit of Truth comes, she will guide you into all truth.”

“I have to go,” he tells them, and he tells them again. And they don’t understand. And no, in the words of today’s gospel passage, they cannot bear it.

But love is strong as death, and passion as fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire.

And the fire is coming.

Since Easter Day, the first lesson read in church every Sunday has come, not from the Old Testament, as is our custom throughout the rest of the year, but from the Acts of the Apostles. That is the fifth book of the New Testament, directly after the first four, which are the gospels, the stories of Jesus’ life: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor is a powerful preacher and an Episcopal priest, who likes to refer to the Acts of the Apostles as the Gospel of the Holy Spirit[2] – because this is the book where the Spirit shows up, lighting the church on fire for the good of the world. This is the book that tells her story.

Everything has happened as Jesus said it would, when he said, “Father, the hour has come.” The hour had come when he was nailed to the cross. The hour had come when he gave up his spirit. The hour had come, three days later, when he saw Mary at the tomb, when she heard him say her name. The hour had come, as he ascended.

And now, that hour has passed. Those disciples are gathered together in one place, in their grief, I imagine, that he is gone…in their fear at what might happen to them, now…in their confusion of all that they have seen in these past days, in these past three years, with the teacher who has called them friend.

What is this Advocate who is supposed to show up, now that Jesus is gone? Who is this Comforter, anyway, and where is she?

—

But love is strong as death, and passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.

—

And that is how God comes to them, this time. Not as a baby to hold, but as fire to be kindled, as light to be shared.

The wind fills the house where they are gathered, and tongues of fire rest on the disciples. They speak languages they do not know, and the people who do know those languages hear and understand them. They do things they cannot do, those disciples filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. At least, they do things they think they cannot do.

And when others would sneer about it, would dismiss them, Peter – the one who denied Jesus at the cross and then had the chance to reconcile, after the resurrection – Peter reminds them of the prophet Joel’s promise: “In the last days, God declares, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young shall see visions, and your old shall dream dreams.”

Yesterday, as he preached the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, our Presiding Bishop talked about the power of love, which is the power of God – the source and light of life.

If ever we need that power, it’s now…it’s here. Friday morning, another school shooting – this time in Texas, this time ten people killed. And now, Never Again has become Once Again. And as the words of the Thomas Tallis motet echoed through that beautiful chapel yesterday morning: “If ye love me/keep my commandment/and I will pray the Father/and he will give you another comforter/that he may abide with you for ever/even the Spirit of Truth…” as I heard those words, which our own choir sang here just days ago, all I could think about is the question of what comfort those ten families in Santa Fe, Texas, are supposed to find today? Where is the advocate for them, for their friends? How will we blaze a path for the Spirit of Truth in this moment, for the people of that community, or this one, or the next? For our children? For our country?

Presiding Bishop Curry preached on fire yesterday – literally and figuratively. He said that our ability to harness the power of fire has made possible so much of what we do, has galvanized us to become who we are. He quoted the priest and scientist and mystic, Pierre Teillard de Chardin, who said that if we can ever find a way to channel “the energies of love, then for a second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.”[3]

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

Barbara, you have stepped into the life of this church to make a life of your own, right here in our midst, among God and these people, as you have married your beloved Jason, as the two of you prepare together for the birth of your twins. Now you come to the waters of baptism, as Jesus did, as the disciples did.

May this sacrament you receive here today, which we will renew right along with you – that outward and visible sign of God’s inward and spiritual grace – may it galvanize you, with power, as you step into the life you are creating. Because I know that you know this already: you will need it. Because, as one of my favorite writers shares: “This life is so beautiful. And this life is so hard.”[4]May you find, like those disciples all gathered together in one place, that you are able to do things you thought you could not do. May you know that you have the power of fire, the power of love, the power of God, and all of us with you, through it all.

And so, as the Easter fire burns a little while longer in that tall candle at the font, and as the children pour water in preparation, and as Andrew baptizes you, at his first baptism, and anoints you with oil that — I promise you — smells like heaven, know that the power of our love surrounds you, and will continue to, that the power of our God enfolds you, and will continue to.

Know today, again and always, that love is strong and fierce, that it is unquenchable. Know that it is ours to kindle, ours to share, ours to carry out into a world that so desperately needs its light.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

Let us go, now, to the font of our salvation.

[1] Song of Solomon 8:6-7

[2] “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit” Home By Another Way. Lanham, MD: Cowley Publications, 1999. 143.

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/19/europe/michael-curry-royal-wedding-sermon-full-text-intl/index.html

[4] https://www.npr.org/2018/02/12/585066841/a-stage-4-cancer-patient-shares-the-pain-and-clarity-of-living-scan-to-scan

Sunday, May 6, 2018, The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Kristin White

The Sixth Sunday of Easter | May 6, 2018

John 15:9-17

Dear Sugar:

I’m afraid to be alone, and I can’t find anyone that measures up. And my friends are all settling down with their boyfriends and starting to talk marriage. Please help!

Sincerely, Scared & Confused[1]

Dear Scared & Confused:

You aren’t torn. You’re only just afraid. And fear of being alone is not a good reason to settle. Trust yourself. And know that trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true.

Yours, Sugar

—

Dear Sugar:

I’m writing this from the little couch/bed at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children’s Hospital in Atlanta. My husband and I just found out that our six-month-old daughter has a tumor. She is having brain surgery tomorrow. If there were a God, why would he let my little girl have to go through life-threatening surgery?

Signed, Abbie

Dear Abbie:

What if you allowed God to exist in the simple words of compassion that others offer you? What if faith is the way it feels to lay your hand on your daughter’s sacred body? What if the worst thing happened, and you rose anyway? Could you see the miracle in that?

Yours, Sugar

—

Dear Sugar:

What the heck? What the heck? What the heck?
I’m asking this question as it applies to everything, every day.

Best, WTH

Dear WTH:

Ask better questions, sweet pea. This is your life. Answer it.

Yours, Sugar

—

Dear Sugar:

I’m 29 and dating a man that I adore. I have family and friends and hobbies and interests and love. So much love. And I’m desperately afraid that I’m going to have cancer, as both of my parents have, as so many members of my family have. I’m terrified that sooner or later, I’ll be diagnosed.

Signed, Scared of the Future

Dear Scared of the Future:

You’re here. So be here, dear one. You’re okay with us for now.

Yours, Sugar

—

Tiny Beautiful Things is a book which is a compilation of advice on love and life from Dear Sugar. Originally an anonymous advice column, and now a podcast, the writer at the time the book was published is Cheryl Strayed – also the author of the book Wild. Now Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond, the original Sugar, share the podcast.

It’s a salty book, peppered through with language and circumstances that can make a person alternately blush or cringe or laugh out loud or weep. It’s real. It’s excruciatingly honest.

In his introduction to the book, Strayed’s colleague and friend Steve Almond writes:

“I happen to believe that America is dying of loneliness, that we, as a people, have bought in to the false dream of convenience, and turned away from a deep engagement with our internal lives.

“We’re hurtling through time and space and information faster and faster…but at the same time we’re falling away from our families and neighbors and ourselves.

“(Sugar) understands that attention is the first and final act of love, and that the ultimate dwindling resource in the human arrangement is not cheap oil or potable water or even common sense, but mercy.

“(I believe we need Sugar. We need her) because we are all, in the private kingdom of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend…someone…who recognizes that life is short and that all we have to offer, in the end, is love.”[2]

—

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” Jesus says to his disciples in today’s gospel lesson. “I do not call you servants any longer, but I have called you friends.”

Jesus is leaving, and he knows it. In the gospel of John, Jesus knows everything that will come to pass. He is the one who was in the beginning, the one through whom all things came into being, without whom was not anything made that was made. In the chapters beyond this one in John’s gospel, Jesus will not be surprised by Judas’ betrayal; he anticipates it. Later on the same Maundy Thursday that is the time of this gospel passage, Jesus will step forward in the Garden of Gethsemane, toward the soldiers and the officers, the scribes and the Pharisees. He will tell them to leave his friends alone, that not one of them might be lost. As he is crucified, he will give his own mother into the care of the disciple he loves: “Behold your son,” he will say, “…behold your mother…”.

But that is all still to come. Today’s gospel lesson is Jesus’ preparation of the disciples for the times that are ahead of them.

Scholars refer to this section of the Gospel of John as Jesus’ farewell discourse. It spans a good long length. Of the 21 chapters that comprise John’s telling of Jesus’ life and ministry, fully four of them are him saying goodbye to the disciples who have given their lives to follow him.

We are right in the middle of this discourse – his extended advice to them on how to live and who to love. We are right smack in the middle of this series of tiny beautiful things…which it turns out aren’t so very tiny after all.

At its heart, here is the advice Jesus has for the students who have become his followers who have become his disciples who have become his friends…whom he will soon have to leave: “As God has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. Keep my commandments so that my joy may be in you, so that your joy may be complete.”

It will be just a few short chapters from now that they will come for him, Judas with a kiss, and the soldiers with torches and swords. Just a little while longer, this very night, and his friend Peter will lose sight of this call to abide in friendship and trust and love…and instead, he will say three times: “I do not know the man. I do not know the man. I do not know the man.”

“Abide in my love,” Jesus tells them. “Keep my commandment, that your joy may be complete,” he promises.

In the end, it’s what we have, isn’t it? Our salty stories, peppered through with circumstances that make us blush or cringe or laugh out loud or weep. Our hopes, our failures, our denials, our dreams, and the ever-present promise of reconciliation: “Peter, do you love me?” Jesus will ask his friend, when he appears there on the shores of the Galilee, after that awful night and the three days and now this mysterious presence. When Peter responds yes, Jesus will say:  “Feed my lambs.” And again: “Peter, do you love me? Tend my sheep.” And still once more: “Peter do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

In the end, it’s what we have: at our core, the longing for a true friend. At our center, that deep desire for the promise of a love that will hold.

—

Today we will enfold and lay hands on and bless young people from this parish who will be leaving us in the months ahead. We’re preparing for the time that we will send you out into a big world of hope and possibility. You are a reminder to us, Ella, and Lucy, and Franklin, that this time we share with you is precious, that it will always feel like it is not enough. I have all these bits of advice which you haven’t necessarily asked for, all crammed together to give you, these tiny beautiful things to share: Trust yourself – go live out what you already know to be true. Ask the best and most real questions you have, the ones that scare you; and listen well for the answers. Know that you are okay with us…you always have been, you always will be, and this will always be your home. Look for miracles – because they’re right there, ready and waiting for you to see.

And I guess that inside and underneath it all is a desire for mercy. The hope of good friends. The knowledge that life is short, and that what we have to offer, in the end, is love.

“You did not choose me, but I chose you,” Jesus says to the friends he loves, the friends he will have to leave.

“I appointed you. So go. And bear good fruit, fruit that will last. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

[1] This and the paraphrased excerpts that follow are taken from: Cheryl Strayed. Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. New York: Random House, 2012.

[2] Steve Almond, ibid. 5-9.