Sacraments and Healing

““Even if we do not fully understand the sacrament, grace has been promised to us through reception of the sacrament.””

— Fr. Bill Breedlove

Episcopalians are sacramental people. That is, our spirituality is one that involves the regular and frequent use of the sacraments of the church as a central and necessary aspect of our lives as the people of God. Our word sacrament comes from the Latin sacramentum which itself is a translation of the Greek word musterion meaning “mystery, something hidden, not obvious to understanding.” The Book of Common Prayer defines a sacrament as an “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” Stated otherwise, sacraments are physical representations, signifiers, and the means by which God’s grace is given with certainty to God’s people. As musterion, “the what is happening and how does that work” of a sacrament may not be obvious or understood, but it is our faith that Christ gave us the sacraments as a pledge of his love for us. Even if we do not fully understand the sacrament, grace has been promised to us through reception of the sacrament. Their efficacy does not rest on our understanding or much else about us, but in the love, promise, and faithfulness of God. 

Many people are familiar with the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Both involve the use of physical things that signify the granting of God’s grace upon the recipient. The water of baptism signifies being united with Christ in his baptism, his burial and his resurrection. The sign of the cross with chrism oil on the forehead of the newly baptized signifies spiritual regeneration and new life in Christ as a member of God’s household. But more than simply signifying some change, sacraments bring about the change to which they point. Baptism is a healing sacrament in that our sins are forgiven, we are united with Christ, and our spirits are regenerated. Renewing our Baptismal vow is a way of reclaiming that blessing and recommitting our lives to that life in Christ. In the Lord’s Supper, bread and wine become for us in our prayer of Thanksgiving those things Jesus offered to his disciples on the night before he died for us. They are physical means by which we are assured that the love of God, the forgiveness of sins, and strengthening are given to us. In the Rite I prayer, we give thanks for the “innumerable benefits” given through receiving the body of Christ, for the forgiveness of sins and “all other benefits of his passion.” Our faith and Eucharist prayer say that whatever it is that you need from your loving Father in heaven, you are given in the Eucharist: forgiveness of sin, strengthening of faith, the grace to work reconciliation with another person, the healing of your body or mind or spirit, or some other benefit from God who seeks to give all good things to his children.

A lesser known sacrament, but one especially related to healing the sick is that of unction. You can find the liturgy for unction in the Prayer Book under the heading Ministration to the Sick. That liturgy includes the confession of sins because sin can be an impediment to healing, and then the laying on of hands and the anointing of the sick person with holy oil. The words spoken by the person who anoints may be very few such as those stated in the Prayer Book, “I anoint you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” It is our faith in God’s love, our faith in the effectiveness of confession, our faith in the sacraments, and God’s faithfulness, not the wordiness of our prayer, that matter. 

We are sacramental people. Come in faith and receive the sacraments as means of healing. They are God’s gifts to the church for the regular and frequent use by God’s children.

Grace and peace,

Fr Bill+ 

Reconciliation

“The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.”

Our Prayer Book catechism answers the question “What is the mission of the Church” with the bold reply “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” That mission of the Church is lived out in many ways in our parish including worship, Christian formation experiences, our community life, and outreach, among others. In worship, we recall who we are as the people of God, we confess where we have fallen short in our relationship with God and others, as a sign of being reconciled we pass the peace, and then as reconciled people we gather as one around the Lord’s table. In our Christian formation experience, we learn more about and draw closer to God. Our life together in community is a way of expressing and growing our unity. Our outreach to others is a way of showing our gratitude for our being reconciled and to offer that same grace of reconciliation to others.

While this is the ongoing mission of the Church, the season of Lent has traditionally been a time where reconciliation is given special emphasis. It is a season of the Church year that begins on Ash Wednesday with a reading from the Gospel according to Matthew. We hear Jesus speaking about the pious practices of almsgiving, prayer and fasting that the reading suggests he assumes people are doing. Done in the proper spirit, these practices are seen by our Father in heaven and result in a store of heavenly treasure, the greatest being eternal relationship with God. Jesus recognized in his day that so much of what people should have been doing to seek unity with God was instead directed to gain the praise of others and the treasures in this world. The reading directs us examine our lives - our almsgiving, our prayer life, all the various things which we have come to enjoy too much and from which we might need to fast - to make amendment of life where necessary, and in some cases to seek reconciliation with God through the Rite of Reconciliation beginning on page 447 in the Prayer Book.

The Episcopal view on private confession with a priest is that “all may, some should, none must.” This is something I will be doing for myself and I invite all who feel called to make their confession to take advantage of that Rite this Lent. I have scheduled Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week, 10:00 am-Noon to hear private confessions. If you have not made your confession before, I am happy to talk with you about your preparation.

In Christ’s service,

Fr Bill+ 

Why Lent?

Deriving its name from the Anglo-Saxon word “lencton” - meaning lengthening - the season of Lent occurs at a time of year when the days are lengthening. It is a most appropriate name for that reason but even more so because it is the time of year in which the Light that has come into the darkness is made most manifest in the Passion of Jesus Christ and it is the time of year during which people turn toward and make preparation to receive that Light anew on Easter Sunday. Because it is the season of reparation and preparation, it became the time in the Church year in which notorious sinners underwent public penance and were readmitted to communion before the Easter Feast and the time of year in which those seeking for the first time admission into the Church would undergo their final preparation for baptism at the Great Vigil of Easter. While the Church has moved away from ex-communicating and then readmitting “notorious” sinners (who has clean hands anyway?) the feel and themes of Lent remain penitential and it is now the whole body of the faithful who share in corporate confession and reparation. With practices brought forward from the Old Testament, where repentance is given symbolic expression in the donning of sack cloth and ashes, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday with the declaration that God hates nothing that God has made and forgives the sins of all who are penitent, and the imposition of ashes for those desiring an outward expression of their inward penitence. While sack cloth is not in keeping with current fashion, churches do something parallel in the veiling of crosses and statuary and the use of unbleached linens. In our readings for the season, we listen for, hear, and reflect on messages of conversion, baptism, and the promise of new life.

This Ash Wednesday we will again take blessed ashes out of the church into the world for those whose work and whose school schedules keep them from attending either the noon or 7:00 pm services that day. Please join us at 7:00 am in the courtyard if you are in that former category and invite your friends to Ash Wednesday at Good Shepherd. During the forty days of Lent we will gathering on Wednesday evenings at 6:00 pm for a simple supper and a teaching on the “Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell” - very appropriate for the season of Lent when we consider again matters of sin, death, judgment, and the gift of God in Christ that gives eternal life. Holy Week is the final week of Lent. Thanks to the great work of so many last year, I am anticipating this year another deeply spiritual Holy Week that takes us from Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday through his death and burial on Good Friday and the Great Vigil of Easter where we welcome back the Light of Christ. Keep an eye on the announcements and newsletter for information on these and other opportunities to experience the meaning of Lent. And because it may be the most appropriate time for them to do so, I encourage you to invite someone you know who has slipped in their faith journey to reconnect with God this Lent. Invite them to come and see, and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

“I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” - Book of Common Prayer, p. 265. 

Grace and peace,

Fr Bill+

The Life of the Church

“Yet it is important to understand that with that blessing comes a challenge.”

It is apt that Scripture speaks of the church as the body of Christ. Like a body, we understand the church to be composed of many parts with many functions. Like a body, we understand that church has needs that must be met if the church is to remain healthy. Like a body, the church has a purpose and thrives when properly exercised and applied toward those things for which it was meant. And also like a body, the church is born, grows, and changes. The church, like a living thing, has a life cycle. While there are limits to this analogy, understanding the church as a living thing should keep us mindful that birth, growth, and change are normal experiences for the church. Good Shepherd is blessed to be a healthy and vital church, and to be a church that is on the cusp of potentially significant growth. Yet it is important to understand that with that blessing comes a challenge.

Church growth experts would tell us that Good Shepherd is at a transitional point in its life cycle. In terms of our current average worship attendance, Good Shepherd has grown beyond what is called in the church literature a Pastoral Church, but has not reached the size, organizational structure and full functioning of a Program Church. Operating in between those two types of church, we are currently living with two sets of cultures and expectations. A Pastoral Church culture places the minister at the center of community life. The minister is expected to be involved in all decisions, attend all events, and personally handle all pastoral calls. Delegated lay leadership and programs are not expected features of the Pastoral Church but they define the Program Church. In the former, decision making and management of decisions happens at the vestry level while in the latter vestries are visioning bodies who set the course for the direction of the church and who help ministry heads develop strategies for reaching that vision. In the former, it is the minister and relationship with the minister that matter most while in the latter it is the quality and diversity of programs that bring people together that matters. 

The transition between the two kinds is the most challenging place for a church to be and is the environment that can most quickly burn out leadership. Most churches do not successfully grow from Pastoral to Program because it is a painful process for both the laity and the clergy. Growth may mean that the church will no longer be a place where everyone knows who you are. Growth may mean losing personal access to the minister. Growth may mean that a ministry dear to your heart will no longer receive the same attention as before. In this kind of culturally conflicted church environment, people may become unhappy and leave. Consequently, transitional churches rarely make the transition and typically regress back toward a Pastoral sized church. This is the challenge of the blessing we now hold.

Your vestry and I are committed to honoring that blessing and seeing Good Shepherd through the transition. We invite your participation. Let us be a church where all members are Christ’s ministers set out to build the church. We invite your encouragement. Stay connected with each other and reconnect with a friend who you have not seen recently at church. Ask what you can do to serve them and invite them to come and see the good things happening here. We invite your prayers. Let us all give thanks for the many blessings we share as members of this parish. There is much to commend about holding an attitude of gratitude. And now we pray, “God make your name hallowed in this place, your will be done in and through us, allow us the blessing of participating in the building of your Kingdom.”

Fr Bill+

Eucharist

“When we gather for Eucharist we offer our own thanksgiving. ”

Holy Communion, Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, the Great Thanksgiving. Different terms for an act of worship that the Book of Common Prayer presents as central to our identity as Episcopalians and our worship of God. Probably because of my childhood experiences in the Roman Catholic church, to do church has always been to celebrate Eucharist. However, it was not until much later that I even thought to ask questions about Eucharist, its meaning and its liturgy. What I have found so far in my study is something more profound and mysterious than I could have imagined.

The word Eucharist comes from the words Jesus spoke at the Last Supper, that Passover meal where we are told that he took break and gave thanks, broke the break and gave it to his friends. The Greek word for giving thanks is Eucharist. When we gather for Eucharist we offer our own thanksgiving. In Eucharist to God, we present our offerings - called “oblations” in churchspeak - of bread and wine and the fruit of our labors. In our Eucharistic prayers, we give thanks for what God has done for us in salvation history, for forgiving our sins and for granting us eternal life. And in thankful obedience we do what Jesus commanded us to do in remembrance of him. That is, recalling his words, we take bread and wine, give thanks for those, and break and share them as one body gathered around one table. 

Unfortunately, this remembrance has been a source of heated debate and division in the church. Some think of remembrance in the common sense of “to recall or bring to mind” and so think that Jesus is saying something like “do this so that you do not forget me.” To those who think this way, the Eucharistic meal is a memorial service. Yet, for Jews to recall an event like the Passover was not merely to remember but to make something from the past present to them in the current moment. Thought of in this way, when we remember Jesus’ words we are remembered with Jesus and the disciples at that Last Supper evening and with Christians everywhere with whom Christ is present in the celebration of Eucharist. For this reason, some say they believe in the “real presence” of Christ at the Eucharist.

The Episcopal tradition has been to teach the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist but not to have an official or authoritative explanation of how that happens which must be believed in order to be a member of this church. As a broad and inclusive church that stands between the Roman Catholic and Reformed Churches, what you will hear in our Eucharistic liturgy is something that embraces both traditions. “These are the gifts of God for the people of God. Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you.” “This is the body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”

Now, if any of this has piqued your curiosity, days off purgatory are offered for locating in the Eucharistic prayer the “sursum corda,” “sanctus,” and “epiclesis.”

Fr Bill+ 

Reading and Praying the Bible in the Anglican Tradition

“The Bible is to be used in prayer and liturgy to help us hear God speak, to shape and maintain our relationship with God. ”

I have recently been doing a lot of thinking about and study of the classical Anglican tradition. It has been a wide ranging project where I have spent some time looking again at how Anglicans read and interpret the Bible, how Anglicans understand the sacraments, and how Anglicans function as a hierarchal church. In this article, my focus on the classical Anglican approach to the Bible, how we interpret the Bible and what we believe the Bible is for. Before getting into that, I should preface my comments with two important thoughts. First, some may be wondering why I am using the term Anglican rather than Episcopal. In the Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church is the official representation of Anglicanism in the United States. We simply go by the name Episcopal, as does the Church of Scotland, the Church of Brazil, the Church of the Philippines, and the Church of Jerusalem and Middle East. Second, by using the term classical I am referring to what those who set the foundation for a unique Anglican way believed and taught. That way was one of being both Catholic and reformed. It was one that was intentionally a via media or middle way between the faith and practice of the Roman Catholic Church and that of the more radical protestant reform movements like Puritanism, Presbyterianism, and Calvinism. 

When Thomas Cranmer wrote the first Books of Common Prayer in 1549 and 1552, he turned to the ancient Benedictine traditions of the monasteries and convents in England. In those places, the Bible was used for lectio divina or sacred reading and for the celebration of Eucharist. What Cranmer recognized is that the Bible’s purpose in the ancient practices of the monastics, practices that when back to the very beginning of Christianity, is spiritual. The Bible is to be used in prayer and liturgy to help us hear God speak, to shape and maintain our relationship with God. Cranmer’s Prayer Book sought to give the common person that same experience and so he crafted a book that is saturated with scripture and meant for use in prayer. We are correct when we say that the Book of Common Prayer is the Bible organized for worship. For classical Anglicanism, reading the Bible is a form of prayer and our Book of Common Prayer facilitates that practice.

What this should also tell us is that classical Anglicanism did not see the Bible as concerned with many of our contemporary debates. They saw the Bible as a vehicle for prayer, not one on which to base morality. For classical Anglicans, God gave us reason and it is by the use of reason that we know the basic principles of morality. The Bible’s role in this is to continually reconnect us with the revelation of God’s grace. Lastly, it should remind us that contemporary concerns over the validity of Bible - either a fundamentalism that claims literalism, inerrancy and infallibility, or a liberalism that seeks to trim the Bible of what is not scientifically verifiable - are foreign to the classical Anglican tradition. Rather, the classical Anglican approach is to read, pray, and understand the Bible as containing symbolism, metaphorical language, and mysteries that lead us into a deeper relationship with God. 

As Episcopalians who are inheritors of this great classical tradition, we are a people of prayer. I encourage you to read and pray your Bible reading. It is through praying scripture that we reconnect with God’s grace and with Anglicans throughout space and time. 

Fr Bill+ 

A Deeper Blessedness

In my Bible reading over the past year, I have been struck by the number of times the text has spoken to me about sacrifice, dying to self, taking up the cross, and following Jesus. The text, of course, says many things besides these, yet this is what the eyes of my heart have received and most held onto. I wonder about experiences like this and I am reminded that the way of being a disciple is not for those seeking the easy way, but it is rather the blessed way of Christ shared with fellow pilgrims. What I have learned, but need to continually relearn, is that the way of blessedness is one in which letting go those things I want for myself and letting go of the many gifts God has given me is the way into a deeper experience of blessedness. So, in what may sound strange to modern consumerist ears, I can say I am grateful for what my journey from the halls of the College of Charleston to the pulpit of Good Shepherd has cost. I am grateful for being able to give back to God in some modest way the gifts given to me. The giving back has freed me from hanging onto things that had or would have grown old. It has led me to new places where I have seen God in alien faces. It has emptied my hands of many of the things I held precious and allowed them to grasp the hands of new friends and a new blessedness. 

You may have heard before the saying “we give, not because God needs it, but because we need it.” There is a deep truth in that. There is a deep challenge to each of us to not be held prisoner by the blessings we have been given, but to practice ever deeper forms of letting go. Christians confess that all good things are from God as gift. It is a challenge for us to live out that confession and return love for love, giving back to God with gratitude and joy. 

Of the many offertory sentences provided by the Book of Common Prayer, my favorite is the one I think most challenges our response to God gracious provision. “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.” In those words, I am convicted that my gratitude is not yet where it should be and that my sacrifice is woefully inadequate. I know there is more work to be done and I ask your prayers for myself, my family, and this Good Shepherd family that we might all experience a deeper blessedness through our sacrificial response to God’s gifts to each of us. 

What do Episcopalians Believe?

I was having dinner with a clergy friend recently when the question arose, “What do Episcopalians believe?” He said that were he answering that question for someone from his denomination, he could point to their Augsburg Confession of faith. Episcopalians, unlike the Lutheran Church and the Reformed Churches, do not have a formal confessional statement of what the church, its congregations, and its members believe. Nor do we have official teachings, like in the Roman Catholic church, about what one must believe in order to be saved. For Episcopalians, there is no one definitive set of statements or set of teachings by which we can say “This agrees with Episcopalianism, but that does not.” That, however, does not mean Episcopalians either believe nothing in particular or, on the other hand, that Episcopalians believe everything. Rather, it means that the Episcopal tradition and the Anglican tradition of which it is part has not held to the practice of saying what each of its members must confess in order to be a member of the church. No one is required, for example, to profess a belief in the virgin birth of Jesus or that the bread and wine of communion is in real substance the actual flesh and blood of Jesus. 

So, what do we believe? Episcopalians have looked to the early undivided church and the early church councils for providing a variety of statements of what Episcopalians believe. You can find the results of that investigation in our current Book of Common Prayer. On page 845, you will find the Outline of the Faith which is a set of questions and answers about what the church believes. In several locations in the Prayer Book you will find the ancient creeds of the church which are compact statements of our basic beliefs about God. In worship, we use two of those creeds: The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. Our Eucharistic prayers also convey what we believe in their accounts of creation, sin and our redemption by the grace of God through the ministry of Jesus Christ. Among the Historical Documents section of the Prayer Book, you will find both the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and a statement from the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886 and 1888. These documents clarify where the Episcopal tradition differs from others churches but also where we seek to find common ground. I suggest to you that you read or re-read the Prayer Book with an eye for what it says about what we believe. It is simply not the case that Episcopalians believe everything that might be believed about God and the Church. 

In Christ’s service, 
Fr Bill+ 

Conspiring Blessing

The Bible tells us that in the beginning God spoke all that exists into existence. After each time God spoke and something came into existence, God saw and blessed what was. This creation account is not meant to be a scientific account, but theological. It tells us about God. It is God’s revelation of Godself and who we are in relationship with God. It tells us about the importance of the act of speaking and blessing. In church, we often talk about offering a blessing as giving the benediction. The final blessing for our Daily Office and Holy Eucharist liturgies are benedictions. That is, they are “good words spoken,” which is what benediction means. When God speaks, God breathes out blessing. Each time God says, “Let there be ...” something good is expired into being. The goodness of what exists is confirmed when the breath of God expires the words “it is good.” When God created humans in God’s image and gave us life, that same breath of blessing was spoken into us. The breath of blessing that God exhaled is what God used to give us life, to animate and inspire our being. Made in God’s image, we are vessels of that same breath of blessing. Gifted with this breath of blessing, we conspire with God in speaking blessing into the world. 

It seems to me that so much of what we hear reported about the world around us is the absence of blessing. We hear instead bad news about misbehaving people, bad news about someone’s economic condition, bad news about someone’s health. Bad news about our church and political leaders. Bad news about the leaders of business. Bad news from nature or about the environment. Bad news from abroad. Bad news about bad people who seem intent on doing bad things to our nation. All this bad news certainly can lead to a sense of pessimism if not outright fear. One might wonder where is God’s blessing in all this. I suspect it might be closer than we realize. In fact, it might be at the tip of our tongues. As those created in the image of God and blessed with the breath of blessing, we should speak more good words. It would probably do all of us some good, and some of us a lot of good. 

May God bless us as we speak blessing into a world that needs to hear a good word. 

Fr Bill+ 

Elements of Worship

The Episcopal Church is blessed to be comprised of worshipful folks who bring with them the customs of their previous church and denominational affiliations. This adds a richness to the texture of our liturgical practice, but may also lead us to wonder at times what exactly it is that we should be doing. “Should I stand or kneel for prayer, or can I sit?” “Is it okay to genuflect when I enter and exit my pew?” “Do I make the three crosses at the announcing of the Gospel reading?” “Should I reverence at the name of Jesus or the Trinity?” “My back is aching and my knees hurt. Can I stand to receive the host?” The short answer is that these are individual acts of piety, which often become part of the collective customs of a worshiping community, and which are often given a theological explanation. As acts of piety, the rule should be to do what makes you feel closer to God. Do what ritual action you hope will bring you closer to God, whether you feel it or not, but in a way that is considerate of those around you. That said, here are some historical data that may be helpful. 

In the early church, no one sat in pews, no one kneeled, and there was no altar rail. Fixed pews did not enter the church until some time before the Reformation. They were in response to the development of lengthy sermons. In the early church, prayer was done in the traditional Jewish manner: standing, eyes open, head raised to heaven, and arms extended. You still see this in the Episcopal tradition when the priest says the Eucharistic prayer. What the modern church has come to recover is the understanding that the whole of the worship gathering is liturgy, where “liturgy” means the work of the people. That means that it is not just the priest who prays, and it is not the role of the priest to do the work of prayer on behalf of the people. Rather, all the gathered are called to participate in prayer. Imagine the early church where all the faithful would stand with their hands raised in a communal act as the priest reads the Eucharistic prayer. Kneeling during worship was actually forbidden by the Council of Nicea in 325AD. That was the council that gave us the first version of Nicean Creed. Being that the Feast of the Lord’s Day celebrates his resurrection and our redemption, it was to be a joyous rather than penitential affair. Later, in England, kneeling to receive the host was banned in the Anglican Church by the Protestants who were in power at that time because they saw it as too Catholic and expressing the wrong Eucharistic theology. 

The modern church certainly has its customs. Sit to listen, kneel to pray, stand to sing, for example. In some churches, they kneel for all prayer during the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent, but stand during the other seasons. In others, they never kneel or they never stand. The Episcopal custom has been to look to the early church and its practices, but it has also been a church of the “via media” or middle way between piety of Roman Catholicism and that of the reformed Protestant churches. As a via media church, we welcome various acts of personal piety. Mine happens to include standing for prayer because I want to be connected with ancient practice standing during communal worship. Believing penance has its place, I kneel for confession and during penitential seasons. I encourage you to think more about what brings you closer to God and to practice those things. And let us all be gracious toward others who have different expressions of piety. 

In Christ’s service, 

Fr Bill+