O Almighty God, from whom every good prayer cometh, and who pourest out on all who desire it the spirit of grace and supplication: Deliver us, when we draw near to thee, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind; that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affection we may worship thee in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
–William Bright
For thou, O Lord, art my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth. Upon thee I have leaned from my birth; thou art he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of thee.
–Psalm 71:5-6
Defying President Obama and other world leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday moved toward the annexation of Crimea by declaring it a sovereign country independent of Ukraine.
The Kremlin said Putin’s decree recognizes the will of the Crimean people, who voted Sunday to join Russia in a referendum that the United States has declared illegal and illegitimate.
President Obama on Monday called the referendum “a clear violation of the Ukrainian constitution and international law” and announced a series of economic sanctions and travel restrictions aimed at Russian government officials, including some of Putin’s top advisers.
Patrick was 16 years old in about the year 405, when he was captured in a raid and became a slave in what was still radically pagan Ireland. Far from home, he clung to the religion he had ignored as a teenager. Even though his grandfather had been a priest, and his father a town councilor, Patrick “knew not the true God.” But forced to tend his master’s sheep in Ireland, he spent his six years of bondage mainly in prayer. He escaped at the suggestion of a dream and returned home.
Patrick was in his mid-40s when he returned to Ireland.
Read it all and for the ambitious there is a lot more there.
Because thy steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise thee. So I will bless thee as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on thy name. My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat, and my mouth praises thee with joyful lips, when I think of thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the watches of the night; for thou hast been my help, and in the shadow of thy wings I sing for joy.
–Psalm 63:3-7
An 8-year-old’s “heart of gold” has touched people all over the world with a campaign he recently launched to help pay for lunches of students from low-income families.
Donations have increased tenfold since Cayden Taipalus ”“- a third-grader at Challenger Elementary School — launched a campaign two weeks ago called “Pay It Forward: No Kid Goes Hungry.” His mom, Amber Peters, said nearly $7,000 worth of donations have purchased hot lunches for more than 300 students with plans to reach another 5,000 this week.
“I am so very proud of my son,” Peters told ABC News today. “He is only 8 years old and to grasp the concept around this is just amazing in my eyes. He has a heart of gold.”
[George Carey’s] …latest tour de force, in The Times, comes in response to the 27 Anglican bishops who have advised David Cameron that the rise of the food bank represents a “national crisis”, and that with more than 5,000 admitted to hospital last year with malnutrition, he has “a moral duty” to address the hideous effects of benefit cuts.
With wonted grace, Carey concedes that mass hunger is a seemly matter for clerical concern. Where he and his brethren differ is over the analysis of the cause. Carey believes that the root of the problem is nothing as fanciful as people not having the money to buy food; but the breakdown of family networks, “in which such basic skills such as cooking”¦ are no longer passed down the generations”.
Perhaps he is right. Perhaps those people became malnourished after spending weeks bemusedly shifting their glance between a prime rib of beef and the oven, vaguely aware the two might somehow work together to produce a meal, but wholly baffled as to how.
Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that we who are called to the course of the Christian life may so run the race that is set before us as to obtain the incorruptible crown which thou hast promised to them that love thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
–The Rev. James Mountain (1844-1933)
“Independent Ukrainian news station Espreso TV is broadcasting live from the clashes in Kiev” here
Live Updates from BBC here
Another TV feed from Hromadske TV from another location here
The Final Achievement of The Law: Transformative Life-Giving Grace
Sermon given by Dr Christopher Seitz at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Dallas from the Sermon on the Mount
Matthew 5:17-37 and Deuteronomy 30:15-20
You may know the joke about God giving the commandments from Mt. Sinai. First he offers them to the Canaanites. They look them over and say, “actually, adultery is one of our favorite activities, no thanks.” So he goes next to the Hittites, and they say, “no thanks, you know stealing is one of our main occupations.” At last he comes to the children of Israel and says “I’ve got some commandments.” “Are they free?” they ask. “Yes,” God says. “Great, we’ll take ten.”
It’s a good joke but it also has some deeper truth inside it. God gave Israel the commandments freely and out of love. Israel received them as a gift, like a ring on a solemn wedding day. Binding Israel and God together. Indicating love and limit, compassion and constraint, both.
The ”˜until death do us part’ character of the law Jesus underscores today. Michael thought we ought to hear it twice, this Sunday and last, and I agree. Not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, not one comma or dot over the ”˜I’, will pass away. God gave the law. Jesus is its embodied guarantor, its best man, now standing before you and me who were not Israel but were always where God was headed through them, to us here this Sunday, February 16, at Good Shepherd, Dallas. Straight into that place inside of us where we decide, and choose, where we love and hate, where we envy and brood and plan and worry and hope.
God did not give Israel ten laws only but in fact more than 600. 613 to be specific. Jesus picks out 6 of them to make a point in the Sermon on the Mount, and four of the six he refers to today. Two are familiar from the top ten list Israel freely received. Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Two others are less so. A certificate of divorce you shall write (from Deuteronomy 24). And this is how vows are made (from Leviticus and Numbers).
Why does Jesus revisit these laws and insist our righteousness must exceed that of the legal experts of the day?….
Michael has reminded us of the context. Jesus is setting apart a people for himself just as God did secretly through him at Mt. Sinai in days of old. He has us climb a mountain and listen to him as did Israel with Moses of old. He begins this solemn discourse””covering 3 chapters of Matthew’s Gospel””with the beatitudes. God’s kingdom is for those who mourn, who long, who hurt, who suffer indignity. In other words, those of us who come in need. Not legal experts who know a lot but don’t know what it means to come to the end of themselves.
A church father once said, “I have listened to all the wise philosophers and poets and from them I learned much. But not one of them ever said, come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” This is the new law-giver offering us new life, a start-over, new kind of life.
A quest for higher righteousness, you might well think, does not seem restful, but sounds like hard work. So here the question properly arises, what is hard about it? What makes it hard?
The answer is found in the contrasts Jesus makes. The old law regulated murder. That lets most of us here off the hook, and thank God for that. But God sees into the deeper places, the hateful triggers that fester and if unchecked could go, and do go for some, all the way to taking life. Murder is the final place where hate and ”˜you fool’ started. Adultery is the final step for a heart that lusts and prefers the other woman over the one solemnly chosen. The law was given so that we might be exposed before God and a new life in him given, as was Israel of old released from bondage in Egypt and given a fresh start. That reality, that law of new life, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will ever pass away. It belongs to God’s deepest purpose for us.
Divorce and vow-making are realities that already assume something is broken or threatens to be. But God never so intended it. Our Yes should be our Yes, and our No our No. So what is it that has gone wrong in us that it is not simply so? How can we find the higher righteousness that Jesus insists is to be ours in him? He is raising the stakes by turning on a searchlight that shows us all in need of some higher remedy and saying that is what God was doing at Mt Sinai and today, this morning, here and now.
The Law is not a set of 613 rules to obey, for which we get a grade depending on how many we get right, but a searching out of us at our deepest parts where we live and wrestle to follow God and find life in him.
The story is told about the man driving through rural West Virginia. Every barn he sees has a shooting target on its side; the dead middle, the bull’s eye, has been hit solidly and the rest untouched. He saw a farmer, stopped, and remarked at what good marksmen the men of the area must be. He said, “that’s easy, we shoot first and draw the target afterwards.”
The lower righteousness, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is something like this. It consists of congratulating ourselves that we have hit the target because a lot of God’s laws we know we faithfully follow and so take our reassurance that we are getting a good deal right in the end. On balance, we are trying hard or intend to shortly. But the not one letter, not one stroke of a letter that will not pass away is the law’s intention to give us life, not give us a way to justify ourselves. That is not the life Christ died to give us with God.
In the portion of scripture from Deuteronomy chosen for today, Israel is called to choose life. Yet if we read on, into the chapters that follow, we learn that the law of God asks us to choose life but also foresees that we will fail at that.
The thing that is hard about the higher righteousness is that we cannot actually choose it or will it. It must be given to us by the law-giver himself. And that path of that gift runs straight to the cross of Christ and another mountain called Calvary. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ takes his Cross inside the deepest places of our individual lives before him. We do in fact hate, and speak improperly, and judge, and lust in our heart, and make complex plans and vows when a simple Yes or No ought to do. This is who we are. This is what the scribe and Pharisee believe we can target and through hard work succeed at eliminating. But that is what makes their righteousness incomplete. It is shooting first and drawing the target after.
The righteousness that is higher is in fact too high for us in our flesh. Jesus will have to carve it out for us, and give it to us. And so he does. He will choose the hard and higher righteousness. He takes upon himself all that the law requires, and that we have failed at and will fail at. Nothing will be lessened or lowered. All that the law saw in us, he sees in us, and takes upon himself for us. And in turn he clothes us in his righteousness and makes us right in him. He hits the target at the dead middle, and gives us access to a life where we might follow in his victory.
It is here that the words of our collect for today strike home.
Mercifully accept our prayers, and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, clothe us in your higher righteousness, so that walking in your way we might keep your commandments and please you in will and in deed. And when we fail, teach us to return to you alone, the giver of all life that never fades away. Let us find in you a fresh start and a fresh hope and the life of your higher righteousness.
This isn’t just a nice piety we use to paper over our shortcomings, but one that takes seriously how deep the problem is that Christ has come to address in us, and how successfully and permanently he has done just that. We have the law’s obedient keeper as our Lord and giver of life. In him we are exposed and loved and set on a new path as new born children all at the same time. We are given the new clothes of his righteousness to put on. The old ones of the old Adam are to be put away, set on the curb. As we in turn receive his transforming, higher-righteousness, life-giving grace. That is the final accomplishment Jesus speaks of today as the law’s abiding purpose. For you and for me.
AMEN
The Rev. Canon Dr. Christopher Seitz serves as Canon Theologian in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas and is senior research professor of biblical interpretation at Toronto School of Theology, Wycliffe College
The winter storm has brought a round of massive power outages to Dorchester County.
There were more than 28,000 power outages in Dorchester County as of Noon, according to the South Carolina Electric & Gas website.
When some of us think of Sunday school, we envision a group of children in child-size chairs listening to an adult read a Bible story. Behind them is a bulletin board filled with maps of the Holy Land and the children’s art work, with a chart on the wall boasting lines of gold stars for each child’s attendance. Everyone colors in a workbook and can’t wait to take home the handout that the teacher distributes.
The reality is much more varied and uncertain. As an editor and Christian formation specialist, I hear teachers report that “faithful families,” those that used to attend once a week, now attend only once or twice a month. The children are less willing to sit quietly listening to one adult and are eager, accustomed to and restless for programs that involve them in active, participatory roles. And no more two-sided text-heavy handouts. Any hands-on materials must compete or coordinate with technological and media entertainments. Now we see Sunday school curricula marketed with pop music CDs, cheesy videos, Internet companion sites and cheap trinkets””all to make the lesson entertaining and easy to use.
Archbishop Justin visited HEAL Africa in Goma today with the Archbishop of Congo and the UK’s Minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds, to learn more about the devastating impact of sexual violence in conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and see how the Anglican Church is working to end it.
HEAL Africa, a hospital which provides medical, psychosocial, spiritual and economic support to survivors of sexual violence, is run in partnership with the Anglican Church of the Congo and Tearfund.
The Archbishop is on the final day of a week-long visit to Anglican leaders in South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda and the DRC.
How do Americans feel about the economy? That depends on how you ask.
A strong majority of Americans think the U.S. economy remains troubled, but they also are growing more optimistic about their personal financial situations, an NBC News/Marist Poll released Wednesday found.
About six in 10 Americans””up from 54% last July””say the U.S. is still in a recession, and 63% think the country is moving in the wrong direction. (Officially, the recession ended in June 2009.)
While I doubt that pastors and leaders intentionally hang up the phone on individuals who disagree with them or lack power and influence, that’s often what the experience feels like. True diversity”“of race, gender, education, and economic means”“distributes power and creates a more balanced system. A church that invites a diverse group of individuals to govern it and then affirms their voices prevents toxic leaders from gaining inordinate power in the first place.
If you are part of a leadership team, look around the room and ask the simple question, “Who’s missing?” Are the diverse voices of the Body of Christ truly represented by your team? In addition to the “visible” minorities, have you made space for the single parent, the disabled, the elderly, or other folks who are often pushed to the margins?
When a leader or organization begins to exhibit symptoms of toxicity, our voices can serve as a powerful antibiotic. Silence often empowers toxic leaders. (This is not to imply that any abuse of power is the fault of the victim or that speaking up will necessarily go well. It often goes so poorly we may regret that we didn’t simply keep quiet.) By raising thoughtful questions”“What would be the long-term impact of that change be on our congregation?”“and sharing concerns”“I don’t think those expectations are realistic”“parishioners and co-leaders eliminate the possibility of silence being interpreted as agreement.
Look upon our lives, O Lord our God, and make them thine in Lithe power of thy Holy Spirit; that we may walk in thy way, faithfully believing thy Word, and faithfully doing thy commandments; faithfully serving thee, and faithfully serving our neighbour; to the furtherance of thy glorious kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
–Diocese of York
“I think that historically, the institutional church teaches a broad principle politically. But its primary vocation is, of course, to proclaim the gospel, to evangelize and to disciple,” he said.
Churches support, encourage and guide believers, but Christians have a responsibility to form their own political ideologies, he asserted.
“The more specific vocations for the details of politics are primarily left up to the Christian lay people,” Tooley said. “Sometimes, we confuse those vocations, but I think it is an important distinction.”
Read it all and there is much more there and here which on the bishop’s blog begins this way:
It was announced at 10am this morning by 10 Downing Street that I have been nominated to become the first (Anglican) Bishop of Leeds for the new diocese of West Yorkshire & the Dales. The Archbishop of York is to present me in Leeds before we then go on a tour of the cathedrals in Wakefield, Bradford and Ripon. Tomorrow I will visit the three diocesan offices before then, finally, starting my sabbatical proper by going away for a few days.
Why is Oklahoma so Republican? Why is Maine so white? And why is Pennsylvania so haunted?
Not to be too Benedict Anderson about it, but if there is such thing as a national psyche, that thing is ably documented by Autocomplete. Do a Google search for “Why is Mississippi so…,” for example, and you will be greeted with…
Read it all and check out the map.
…after 35 years as a Baptist minister, [Malcolm] Marler is now an Episcopal priest. In 2004, he married Mary Bea Sullivan, and they were members of Baptist Church of the Covenant near the UAB campus. In 2007, Sullivan, raised Catholic, told Marler she missed church liturgy. They became Episcopalians.
“I believe you can find God anywhere,” Marler said.
Sullivan felt called to the priesthood, and recently graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary. Marler looked into the possibility of becoming a priest. Since he already had a master’s and doctorate in theology from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., he enrolled in a special study program with the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama.
“They were very gracious to me, and welcoming,” Marler said. “I met with a priest on a monthly basis for a year. My bishop was really willing to be flexible.”
O God, who knowest that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but that all our sufficiency is of thee: Assist us with thy grace in all the work which we are to undertake this day. Direct us in it by thy wisdom, support us by thy power; that doing our duty diligently, we may bring it to a good end, so that it may tend to the greater glory of thy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Do not forsake me, O LORD! O my God, be not far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!
–Psalm 38:21-22
[Thomas] Ogletree, 80, is a Yale Divinity School professor emeritus, veteran of the civil rights movement and lifelong member of the Methodist tradition. Ogletree is declining interview requests at this time.
But, in May, he told United Methodist News Service that as a professor, he rarely has been asked to perform weddings. When his son asked him to officiate, he said he felt “deeply moved.”
He said in a statement released Jan. 17 that “I could not with any integrity as a Christian refuse my son’s request to preside at his wedding.”
“It is a shame that the church is choosing to prosecute me for this act of love, which is entirely in keeping with my ordination vows to ”˜seek peace, justice, and freedom for all people’ and with Methodism’s historic commitment to inclusive ministry embodied in its slogan ”˜open hearts, open minds, open doors.’”
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
–Ephesians 4:1-7
Employers added just 74,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department said Friday, the weakest hiring in nearly three years and less than half what was expected, abruptly halting a string of recent rosy reports about the labor market and economy.
The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to a five-year low of 6.7% from 7%. But that’s only because workforce participation tumbled, pushing the participation rate back to 62.8%, the lowest since 1978. If it had held steady since December 2007, the jobless rate would be 11.2%.
Hours worked fell 0.3% in December, the worst drop in three years. Meanwhile, hourly earnings grew just 1.8% on the year.
O God, who by the leadings of thy providence didst bring wise men from far to give homage to Jesus, born to be King of all: Help us, who by various ways are led to Christ, humbly and thankfully to adore him with our gifts, and as our costliest treasure to present before him ourselves for his honour and service, now and always.
In just nine months Pope Francis has almost trebled the size of crowds attending papal audiences, Masses and other events in Vatican City.
Before 13 March last year, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was expecting to spend his next Christmas in retirement – in an old people’s home in the Buenos Aires district of Flores, where he was born 77 years ago.
But now he carries the hopes and fears of more than a billion Roman Catholics.
What explains this suddenly renewed interest in Catholicism? What need is Pope Francis meeting in people?
First of all, there are many competent scholars who would not place the gospels of Matthew and Luke as late after Jesus’ earthly ministry as Rev. Jones does. Matthew was an eye-witness to what he wrote about, and Luke was a methodical historian who, as a contemporary of Paul, researched eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. Again, many scholars have clear reasons for accepting the validity of the gospel accounts.
Second, the virgin birth has nothing to do with normal conception. It would be more proper to consider it creation rather than conception. Another gospel writer, John, reminds us that Jesus Christ was pre-existent, was the Word who was God and was co-creator with God.
John says the Word was made flesh and lived among us. Luke’s point in including the virgin birth seems to be that this “God made flesh” grew and developed as any other human being.
Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
for he will speak peace to his people,
to his saints, to those who turn to him in their hearts.
Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,
that glory may dwell in our land.
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
Yea, the Lord will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him,
and make his footsteps a way.
–Psalm 85:8-13