New Year's Resolution for the Spirit

New Year's Resolutions are a big part of conversation as the end of the year approaches.  Gyms gear up for a January onslaught of people who made resolutions to exercise more (and for the usual March drop off of many of those people).  Book stores also prepare for a rush on self-help books on a variety of topics.

If your New Year's Resolution involves your spiritual life here are some ideas of ways to pick up a spiritual practice for 2019:

You could add prayer to your day (once or several times)

·         The easiest way to begin integrating prayer is to pick a part of your day and add prayer to it.  That can be as simple as saying grace before lunch or dinner every day or saying a prayer when you wake up or go to bed.

·         Prayer, at its base, is talking & listening to God – so it doesn’t have to be formal “Good morning God” is as good a way to begin as any other.

·         Many people find that having a structure to their prayers help a lot

o   Forward Day by Day has a short devotion every day (it also lists the readings for that day at the top).  You can pick up one in any of the literature racks at church or go to http://prayer.forwardmovement.org/  There is a link to Forward Day by Day so you can read it on-line

o   Many people pray some portion of what is called “the Daily Office”  That is Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, & Compline.  You can do all of those or start with one (if you are starting with one, start with Noonday Prayer or Compline, which is late night prayer).  You can find instructions for the Daily Office in the front part of the Book of Common Prayer and a schedule of Daily Office readings in the back.  You can get a Book of Common Prayer for your kindle or on-line at bcponline.org.  If you want a hard copy you can order it from Amazon or let Pastor Vicki know and she can give you one.

o   If you want to pray the daily office on-line you can do that in a couple of places

§  Prayer.forwardmovement.org posts all four of the Daily Office prayers every day

§  Mission Saint Claire also offers the Daily Office on-line every day.  This includes some hymns that you can play if you would like - http://www.missionstclare.com/english/

o   The Book of Common Prayer also has a section called “Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families”.  It is on pages 137 – 140.  There are prayers for Morning, Noon, Early Evening and Close of Day.

·         Many people find that keeping a prayer journal if very helpful.  This can be as simple as writing down each day what you are praying about.  If you want more structure, try making four sections: People & Thinks I’m Praying For: People & Things I’m Thankful for: Things I am sorry about: Praise to God and writing something in each section each day.

You could add Bible Study or Reflection to your day

·         Reading the Bible regularly is one of the best ways to stay connected with God.

·         At the prayer.forwardmovement.org website you can find a link to a series of daily readings.

·         St. Paul’s is also doing a Bible Challenge that has readings for 6 of the 7 days of the week.  In January we are starting the minor prophets – the short books at the end of the Old Testament.  You can pick up a pamphlet about the Bible Challenge on the Way of Love bulletin boards in the hallway and the library.

·         If you want to start reading through the whole Bible, you might with the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) rather than with Genesis.  Another way to start is to read one Psalm each day (there are 150 Psalms)

·         If you are looking to purchase a Bible for you or your child, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is what we read in church on Sunday.  The Common English Bible (CEB) is a newer translation that is accurate and readable.  The CEB aims for a 7^th – 8^th grade reading level.  The NRSV is at about an 11^th grade reading level.

·         If you want to read Bible stories with children there are several good Bible story books

o   Tomie dePaola’s Book of Bible Stories (GP Putnam’s, 1990), ages 2-10.

o   Spark Story Bible: Sunday School Edition (Augsburg Fortress, 2009), ages 3-7.

o   Children of God Storybook Bible by Desmond Tutu (Zonderkidz, 2010), ages 4-8.

o   Shine On: A Story Bible (MennoMedia, 2014), ages 8-11

o   The Complete Illustrated Children’s Bible by Janice Emmerson (Harvest House, 2014), ages 7-11.

o   The Children’s Illustrated Story Bible by Selena Hastings (Dorling Kindersley, 2004), ages 8-12.

o   The Lion Bible for Children by Murray Watts, Helen Cann (Lion Hudson, 2014), ages 9-12.

o   Thank you to Church Publishing Incorporated for this list from their Way of Love for Families resource.

Worship is an important part of the life of the spirit

Gathering with other Christians to praise God and be in community is an important part of keeping our spiritual life balanced.  Committing (or recommitting) to regular attendance at worship can help ground our spiritual lives.

Rest is also a part of the life of the spirit

It is very difficult for us as 21^st century Americans to really rest.  We tend to try to schedule or program our rest.  One way to start adding rest to your spiritual practice is to pick a few hours each week (it doesn’t have to be the same time each week) where you don’t schedule anything, create a space of time where you can just be and not have to do.

Giving Thanks

This is a General Thanksgiving prayer from the Book of Common Prayer (it is on page 836)

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us.  We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things.  Amen.

This has been one of my favorite prayers for a long time.  I think it is perfect for the Thanksgiving time. 

My favorite part is the paragraph that thanks God for failure.  I rarely think about failure as something for which I want to give thanks.  But the truth is that I have always learned more from my failures then I have from my successes. 

I also like the part that thanks God for tasks that require our best efforts.  There really is nothing better then accomplishing something that is a challenge.

As we move towards Thanksgiving and we think about what we are thankful for, I invite you to move beyond the usual things that we think about and move into giving thanks for your challenges and failures too.

The Great St. Paul's Talent Search

We tried something different for our stewardship theme this year.  We gave everyone an opportunity to participate in the parable of the talents.  If you aren't familiar with it, it is found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25.

For two weeks we had envelopes with $10 bills available.  The instructions were to take an envelope and use the money to bring the presence of Christ into your world and then come back and tell us about it. 

Unlike the landowner in the parable we didn't necessarily ask people to come back with money, just stories.

Well we had some great stories:

One woman purchased fleece on sale and made 19 hats for children at our partner school in Buffalo.

One woman made pies, invited her red hat group to come and purchase slices of pie and share in a social event.  She brought back $70 as well as a story of several people going to read the parable.

One man was thinking about what to do with his $10 when he saw someone collecting cans and bottles from the trash and gave him the $10.

One woman bought gloves to hand out to homeless people.

Several people donated the money to different causes that they cared about from Episcopal Relief and Development to the Heifer Project, to other causes that they cared about.  Several of those people used the $10 as seed money and matched it with their own funds.  Some used the initial $10 to challenge family and friends to also give.

One person reached over her pew and gave the money to another parishioner who was fundraising for a cause that touched her life.

The love of Christ spread out from St. Paul's into a wide variety of places in a wide variety of ways.  We will never know how many lives were touched by all of our talents and willingness to share.

The challenge of stewardship, of course, is to consider how we use all the gifts that God has given us to bring the presence of Christ to our world all the time.  That is the most basic definition of stewardship.

As the landowner in the parable said to his servants: "Well done, good and faithful servants."

Bible Challenge: The Gospels

This week we begin the second section of our Bible Challenge. 

From now through December we will be reading the 4 books that tell the story of the life and ministry of Jesus.

Matthew, Mark, Luke & John are the four books, the Gospels in the Bible that tell the life of Jesus.

The Gospels were not written during the life of Jesus.  They were written between about 60 and 100 AD or between 30 and 70 years after Jesus had died.

Immediately after Jesus' death, Christians believed that Jesus was coming again very soon and so they focused on spreading the message of Christ.  It was only when the first generation of Christians began to die that it became important to have the stories of the life of Jesus written down.

When the debates were happening about which books should be considered Scripture for Christians between 350 and 500 AD there were about a dozen "Gospels" under consideration.  These four were chosen.

Each of the four Gospels was written for a different audience and with a different purpose:
Mark is the basic telling of the teachings of Jesus - designed for a broad audience to communicate the basics.
Matthew was written for the community of Jewish believers and focuses on showing Jesus as the promised Messiah and the fulfiller of the law.
Luke was written for the community of gentile believers and as a particular emphasis on the way that Jesus' teaching promoted justice and equality for the marginalized
John was written for a community of people who already knew the basic stories of Jesus and is as much a book of theology as it is the story of the life of Jesus.

A couple of things to notice as you read: 
There is a story of the birth of Jesus only in Matthew & Luke and the two stories are different
Notice the differences in the Easter stories in the four Gospels
Notice that some of the stories only appear in one or two of the Gospels
Look at the story of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew & Luke and how they are different.

Here is the schedule of readings for this part of the challenge

October 29 – November 4 – Matthew

Day 1 – Chapters 1-2   Day 2 – Chapters 3-4

Day 3 – Chapters 5-6   Day 4 – Chapters 7-8

Day 5 – Chapters 9-10 Day 6 – Chapters 11-12

November 5 – 11 – Matthew

Day 1 – Chapters 13-14           Day 2 – Chapters 15-16

Day 3 – Chapters 17-18           Day 4 – Chapters 19-20

Day 5- Chapters 21-24 Day 5 – Chapters 25-28

November 12 – 18 – Mark

Day 1 – Chapters 1-2   Day 2 – Chapters 3-4

Day 3 – Chapters 5-6   Day 4 – Chapters 7-8

Day 5 – Chapters 9-10 Day 6 – Chapters 11-12

November 19 – 25 – Mark & Luke

Day 1 – Chapters 13-14           Day 2 – Chapters 15-16

Begin Luke

Day 3 – Chapters 1-2   Day 4 – Chapters 3-4

Day 5 – Chapters 5-6   Day 6 – Chapters 7-8

November 26-December 1 – Luke

Day 1 – Chapters 9-12 Day 2 – Chapters 13-15

Day 3 – Chapters 16-18           Day 4- Chapters 19-21

Day 5 – Chapters 22-24

December 2 – 8 – John

Day 1- Chapters 1-2    Day 2 – Chapters 3-4

Day 3 – Chapters 5-6   Day 4 – Chapters 7-8

Day 5 – Chapters 9-10 Day 6 – Chapters 11-12

December 9 – 15 – John

Day 1 – Chapters 13-14           Day 2 – Chapters 15-16

Day 3 – Chapters 17-18           Day 4 – Chapters 19-21

How are the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches Different?

I have had about 10 people ask me to explain the difference between the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches in the last couple of weeks, so I thought it might make a good topic for a blog post.

There are a lot of visible ways that the two Churches are the same: vestments, structure of worship, etc...  There are also a lot of visible ways that they are different - women priests to name just one.  Those similarities and differences all stem from a few fundamentals.

Let's start with:
How are the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches the same?
There are three main similarities between the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches:

1. Our worship services (especially the Eucharist) follow the ancient pattern of worship that was established in the early Church.  We have the first half of the service, the Liturgy of the Word - where we have an opening prayer, hear portions of Scripture read, have a sermon, recite the Nicene Creed and join in prayers for the Church & the world.  Then the second half of the service is the Liturgy of the Table - where we bless bread and wine using the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, break the bread and share communion.
2. We have three-fold orders of ordained ministry.  We have deacons, who are ordained to bring the needs of the world to the Church and help the Church connect with the world.  We have priests (all of whom were ordained deacons first) who teach the faith, preside over the sacraments and guide congregations.  We have bishops (all of whom were ordained deacon & priest first) who guard the faith and oversee the ministry of Dioceses.
3. Our churches have Dioceses (made up of congregations in a geographic region), which are the basic administrative unit of the church.  Geographic groups of Dioceses are formed into provinces and national churches.

How are the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches different?

There are four main differences between the Episcopal and the Roman Catholic Churches:

Theology:  The Episcopal Church is a Protestant Church in terms of theology.  What that means is that in the Roman Catholic Church the magisterium (or teaching authority) of the church tells Roman Catholics what they should believe.  In Protestant theology the role of the Church is to provide boundaries for the believer, within those boundaries, the individual decides (in relationship with God) what they believe.  

For Example:  The Episcopal Church teaches that God is the creator of the heavens and the earth.  Individual Episcopalians can believe that God set off the Big Bang; that God influenced evolution; that God created the world in seven 24-hour days and a wide variety of other ways that God was the creator of the heavens & the earth - all of which are acceptable.

Eucharist: The Roman Catholic Church teaches that what happens at Eucharist is transubstantiation - that the bread and the wine literally become the Body & Blood of Christ while maintaining the outward appearance of bread and wine.  

The Episcopal Church teaches the doctrine of the Real Presence - that is that the Body and Blood of Christ are really present in the bread and wine.  How that happens; transubstantiation, consubstantiation, in some other way is something the Episcopal Church doesn't require specific belief about.

The Role of the Laity: The Episcopal Church believes that the laity have a specific role in the governance of the Church.  Episcopal Churches have vestries that are elected by the members of the Church.  Those vestry members are responsible for the budget of the congregation and for overseeing the programs of the church.  The rector is a part of the vestry and has some specific rights and duties, but the church in governed in collaboration between the rector & the vestry.  When a congregation calls a new rector it is the vestry who votes on who that should be.  The Bishop has to approve the call, but it is the vestry who makes the decision.  

The same thing happens at the Diocesan level.  Each congregation sends lay representatives to Diocesan Convention and those representatives, as well as the priests and deacons in that Diocese, get to make decisions about the life of the Diocese, including electing their bishop.

Authority - in the Episcopal Church the majority of the authority sits with the Diocesan Convention and the Diocesan Bishop.  

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church (which is made up of a House of Bishops and a House of Deputies of elected representatives, lay and clergy, from each Diocese) makes decisions about our Book of Common Prayer & the National Canons, but each Diocese decides how to implement those.  

The House of Bishop elects a Presiding Bishop (currently The Most Rev. Michael Curry) that election is approved by the House of Deputies.  The Presiding Bishop doesn't have any authority to tell Diocesan Bishops what they have to do.  He (or she) even needs the permission of the Diocesan Bishop to preside at Confirmations or Ordinations within the boundaries of a particular Diocese.  

While the Episcopal Church is part of the Anglican Communion, a coalition 38 Churches that are in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury including the Episcopal Church, The Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Australia among others, no one outside of the Episcopal Church (including the Archbishop of Canterbury) has any authority over how the Episcopal Church governs ourselves.  What this means is that each Church in the Anglican Communion makes its own decisions about our Books of Common Prayer, ordination, structure, budget etc...

For Example:  The Episcopal Church ordained women to the priesthood in 1976 and the first woman as Bishop in 1988.  The Church of England did not ordain women to the priesthood until the 1990's and didn't ordain women as Bishops until a few years ago.  The Anglican Church of Somalia still does not ordain women to the priesthood.

The Episcopal Church does not have an equivalent to the Pope, someone who has authority over the whole church all over the world and everyone who holds any position of authority in the Episcopal Church has been elected to that position by groups who include lay people as well as priests and bishops.

Obviously, this is only a basic description of the difference between the two Churches.  If you have questions or want to know more, please email me at paulsrector@gmail.com

What Episcopalians Believe

In our Small Plates adult education class over the last few weeks we have been exploring the basics of what Episcopalians believe.

We have been using the book What Episcopalians Believe: An Introduction by Samuel Wells as the basis of our conversation.

Here is the outline of what Episcopalians Believe:

The Triune God: We believe in one God: Father, Son & Holy Spirit

• God is in Christ
• Christ is God
• God is in Christ today
• The Holy Spirit is one with God and Christ

Transformation in Christ:

• God became human
• Jesus is God; Jesus is also fully human
• Jesus being fully human transformed both humanity & God
• Jesus was truly human yet did not sin
• Jesus' death paid the price for our sins
• Jesus' resurrection and ascension opened the way to eternal life for us

The People of God:

• Jesus was a Jew
• To understand Jesus we must understand
• Israel
• The covenants between Israel & God
• Exodus
• Prophecy
• Messiah

The Holy Spirit and the Church

• The Holy Spirit overcomes the distance in space & time between Christ & us
• The Holy Spirit is invoked by the Church in baptism, confirmation, Eucharist and ordination
• The Church represents Christ to the world.  The attributes of the Church are:
• Unified
• "Catholic" - universal 
• Apostolic - connected to the teachings of the apostles who walked with Jesus
• Holy - set apart for God

Creation was good and tends toward good

The kingdom of God will be complete when Christ comes again, but we can bring echoes of it to being here and now

Salvation: God enters human life & redeems it.  

The Sources of our faith are:

• Scripture
• Old Testament
• New Testament
• Apocrypha
• Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation - but not all of Scripture is necessary for salvation
• Tradition
• teachings & practices that go back to earliest time
• teachings & practices that emerged during the fist 1000 years of Christianity
• Reason
• Richard Hooker: "When reason tells you tradition is no longer applicable, disregard it"
• Look at the ways in which God is made know:
• Revelation is seen to be working within human wisdom & investigation

We live out our faith:

• Holiness - we obey God & strive to set ourselves apart for God
• Worship - both corporate & personal
• Ministry - the service we give within the church
• Mission - the service we give outside the church

The Character of Episcopal believe is shaped by:

• Incarnation - that God became human and is with us is the core theology of the Episcopal faith
• English Legacy - our faith grew & developed in England and was shaped by - among others
• The Synod of Whitby
• The struggle with the authority of the Roman Church
• The English Reformation
• The Oxford Movement
• We are an American Church also and so our structures value
• Representative democracy
• The role of lay people as well as clergy
• The primacy of the Diocese as the central unit of the church & the Bishop as the primary authority
• A relatively weak central authority

Obviously these are only the very basics of what Episcopalians believe.  If you want to go into more details, I recommend the book.   If you want to go into more detail the book Anglicanism by Stephen Neal is a good second step as is the volumes of The New Church Teaching Series by Cowley Publishing.

Bible Challenge: Torah

The first section of Scripture that we are looking at in our 2-year read through the Bible is the Torah.

The Torah is the first 5 books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  Torah comes from a Hebrew word meaning instruction or teaching. They are also sometimes called the Pentateuch, which comes from a Greek word meaning five books.

The origins of the books that make up the Torah are lost in the past.  We aren't sure when the stories in Genesis and Exodus were first told or when the laws that we read in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy were first complied.  We do know that these books were composed by multiple authors and that they were edited over time.  The books are made up of prose, poetry and law.  The stories in the Torah range from primeval history to events approximately two thousand years before the birth of Christ.

The books of the Torah were compiled and edited over a long period of time.  The first collection of the books was in about the 11th century before the birth of Christ.  The final form of the Torah was set in the 5th century (or about 600 years) before the birth of Christ.

There are six major parts in the Torah:
1. The primeval history - which is Genesis chapters 1 to 11
2. The patriarchs - which is Genesis chapters 12 to 50
3. The liberation from Egypt - which is Exodus chapters 1 to 16
4. The say at Siani which is Exodus chapters 17 - 40 and the book of Leviticus
5. The journey which is the book of Numbers
6. Moses' farewell which is the book of Deuteronomy

There are a couple of themes that we see in the Torah:

1. These are the foundational stories of the relationship between God and humanity.  We see over the course of the Old Testament a movement from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob being the most powerful God among many to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob being the only God.  Note that the first commandment says "...you will have no other gods before me..." not that you won't have other gods.

2. The creation is, at its basis, good.  That is the theme of the creation narrative, that creation is good and that human beings are made in the image of God.

3. The rules that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob give to the community of Israel are, for their time, radically just, compassionate and merciful.  We read statements like, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" as harsh and judgmental, but for their time, when an injury was addressed by wiping out an entire clan, they were radical in their moderation.

4. Over the course of the Torah we see the relationship between God and humanity move from a Covenant between God and Abraham to a Covenant between God and the family of Jacob aka Israel to a Covenant between God and the nation of Israel.

Have fun exploring the Torah - here are the challenge reading schedule (if you are behind you can catch up by reading all seven days a week, instead of the six days a week in the challenge.

September 10 – 16 – Genesis

Day 1 – Chapters 1-4   Day 2 – Chapters 5–8

Day 3 – Chapters 9-12 Day 4 – Chapters 12-16

Day 5- Chapters 17-20 Day 6 – Chapters 21-24

September 17-23 – Genesis

Day 1 – Chapters 25-28           Day 2 – Chapters 29-32

Day 3 – Chapters 33-37           Day 4 – Chapters 38-42

Day 5 – Chapters 43-46           Day 6 – Chapters 47-50

September 24-30 – Exodus

Day 1 – Chapters 1-4   Day 2 – Chapters 5-8

Day 3 – Chapters 9-12 Day 4 – Chapters 13-16

Day 5 – Chapters 17-20           Day 6 – Chapters 20-24

October 1 - 7 – Exodus & Leviticus

Day 1- Chapters 25-28 Day 2- Chapters 29-32

Day 3 – Chapters 33-36           Day 4 – Chapters 36-40

Begin Leviticus

Day 5 – Chapters 1-4   Day 6 – Chapters 5-9

October 8 – 14 – Leviticus & Numbers

Day 1 – Chapters 10-13           Day 2 – Chapters 14-17

Day 3 – Chapters 18-22           Day 4 – Chapters 23-27

Begin Numbers

Day 5 – Chapters 1-4   Day 6 – Chapters5-7

October 15-21 – Numbers

Day 1 – Chapters 8-12 Day 2 – Chapters 13-16

Day 3 – Chapters 17-20           Day 4- Chapters 21-24

Day 5- Chapters 25-28 Day 6 – Chapters 29-32

October 22-28 – Numbers & Deuteronomy

Day 1- Chapters 33-36 Begin Deuteronomy

Day 2 – Chapters 1-4   Day 3- Chapters 5-8

Day 4- Chapters 9-12  Day 5 – Chapters 13-16

Day 6 – Chapters 17-20