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Which is the real Easter: a day or a season?
In this week’s Question + Response for St. Paul’s, I explore the pressing question of what is Easter, really: that one Sunday, the season, or is it something way bigger than that? Easter is our favorite. Many of us like Christmas, too. But Easter takes the cake. A born Jesus is nothing compared with a…
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The Messy History of the Sacraments in 6 Questions
[This is the second of three posts about the sacraments. Check out the first and the third.] As we explored yesterday, our Sacraments, primarily Holy Eucharist and Holy Baptism, are a physical and spiritual means of receiving grace. Today, we’ll have a small taste of the messiness around the living out of the Sacraments. There is…
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What is a Sacrament?
[This is the first of three posts about the sacraments. Check out the second and third.] What do we mean when we call something a Sacrament? According to the Book of Common Prayer (pp. 857-8): The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by…
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For My Son: Changing the Lord’s Prayer
Right off the bat. I have to confess that I am predisposed to the modern Lord’s Prayer. Even better are some of the rewrites I’ve heard in the last year or so. Some really good praying is happening. Tonight, I’m now all in. Here’s why. Praying with my son. I used to argue that we…
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time to ditch the old church language
One need not pray in another person’s language The language of the King James Bible and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is not ours, it is theirs. It doesn’t define church for me; it defines 17th Century English church. And it is alien to the 21st Century North American church. I have a devoted Rite…
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Deliver us from the presumption of pardon and not renewal
a Homily for Proper 11B Text: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 [Sunday I preached without a script. This is an approximation of what I preached.] Sabbath Coming back from vacation, it is appropriate to get this gospel pericope about rest. Or lack there of it. It was just two weeks ago when we covered the story of…
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The Imperfect Science
God is perfect, but our worship isn’t, despite what we might think. The seemingly fixed nature of our worship belies the truth: worship throughout history has been spontaneous and full of joy. We have gone through eras, particularly the medieval period, in which liturgy (the work of the people) was done in a language unknown to its…
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To Bless or Not To Bless
That is the question I have for Monday. For the liturgical snobs out there, I know that it is Lent and we aren’t encouraged by Michno to bless in Lent, but to recite a “prayer over the people,” as was the most ancient custom of what would become the blessing much later. It is a…