A little lower than the angels

The following was passed on to me. I pass it on to you. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end war; For we know that You have made the world in a way Than we must find our own paths to peace Within ourselves and with our neigbors. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, To end starvation; For You have already given us the resources With which to feed the entire world, If we would only use them wisely. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, To root out prejudice; For You have already given us eyes With which to see the good in others, If we would only use them rightly. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, To end despair; For You have already given us the power To clear away slums and to give hope, If we would only use our power justly. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end disease; For You have already given us great minds With which to search out cures and healings, If we would only use them constructively. Therefore, we pray to You instead, O God, For strengthy, determination, a...

Proper 11, Year C July 18 2010 St. Paul's Bellingham 1 “ Martha, Martha, you are distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Jesus, as quoted in Luke 10:42) I did a search today on Google with the words “Martha's Guild”. I came up with about 12,900,000 results in 0.18 seconds, testifying to the popularity of this name for women's groups in the church which emphasize service to others. I notice, however, that in the very first page of listings were two for “Mary-Martha Guild”, testifying to the fact that some folk in the church are seeking to represent a balance between the ministry of service represented by Martha and the ministry of study and learning represented in this text by Mary. There's some consternation in the Church about this text. There should be, if we're paying attention! Not a few women – perhaps some here – feel slighted by our Lord's words ...

My previous bishop, Johncy Itty, once asked my colleague George Hemingway for a brief, one-side-of-one page, explanation of the Missio Dei. I think that George's response to him has some bearing on the Nature and Purpose of the Church. Missio Dei: A Brief Note The Rev. Canon George Hemingway, D.Min. The Mission of God is at root a manifestation of the Trinitarian God at work: At the beginning of all creation, God the Father sent out (missio) his Spirit upon the face of the earth, for its formation, sustenance and renewal. God the Father sent (missio) his Spirit to enunciate the coming into the world of his Son in human flesh. God the Father sends (missio) the Son to draw all humankind once again to him. The Son sends the disciples into the world, saying “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” The Father and the Son send (missio) the...

Paradigm Pioneers N. Gordon Cosby The majority of people are settlers. They like to settle a land pioneered by others. There are fewer paradigm shifters and paradigm pioneers, those who are ready, and sometimes even eager, to enter the new. The biblical understanding is that the new is always beckoning us. God, by definition, is "One who does a new thing." And our desperate need is for the new. A new neighborhood. A new city. A new world which respects and honors and cares for all of its people. The paradigm shifters and the pioneers are the ones who lead us into that newness. Source: Sermon by Gordon Cosby (September 7 1989) as quoted in a daily e-mail from Inward-Outward , a ministry of Church of the Savior in Washington, DC . Photo: sunset over San Juan Islands March 2010

"Jesus comes out of the water, drawing the world with him, as it were, and raising it up when it had hitherto been sunk in the abyss...." -Gregory of Nazianzus, Fourth Century. _________________ "A Christian parish becomes its best self when it accepts the challenge of community. The parish community, as the real expression of a local church, cannot limit its attention to the search for justice and intimacy among its own members; it must be prepared to take up the cross, standing against evil and injustice wherever they exist in the world...." -Nathan Mitchell, Liturgy , vol. 1, no. 2, 1980. Quoted in A Christmas Sourcebook (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1984), p. 146. _____________________ "The heart of Christianity is the self-emptying, kenotic humility of God expressed in Jesus the Christ... At the heart of God's humility is this: God willingly is wounded." -Maggie Ross, Seasons of Death and Life: A Wilderness Memoir . San Fra...

"A star burned in the sky more brightly than all the others; its light was indescribable, its newness marvelous, and all the other stars, along with the sun and the moon, formed a chorus around this star, the light of which reached farther than that of any other.... Then all magic was destroyed, and every bond wrought by wickedness was broken, and the ancient kingdom was razed. When God appeared in human form to bring the newness of eternal life, his counsel began to be fulfilled." -Ignatius of Antioch, Second century. _____________________________ "...In this strange land, amid these unfamiliar faces, there is a way to see the Epiphany: the way of the magi, of the strangers who came in from the night. It is to see ourselves and to recognize our condition in these otherwise alien people. It is to know ourselves compacted with them in a common destiny, the destiny of children marked for death, heirs of the promise through the Child marked for death. Before such mutual re...

As we approach the remembrance of the Baptism of Our Lord, I think back to a sermon I preached on the Fourth Sunday of Advent on the Magnificat , the Song of Mary. Let's not forget the Song of Mary as we continue the cycle of the Liturgical Year and hear again the proclamation of the Gospel According to Luke. Her Song sounded the themes Luke explores, and which appear in Jesus' post-baptismal announcement of his own ministry in Luke 4:14-21. As we seek to be faithful to Jesus' ministry in our own place and time, the Song of Mary sounds the themes that inform and empower our ministry in the world. Advent 4, Year C December 20, 2009 If you've gone to an opera or a performance of an oratorio such as Handel's Messiah, you've heard an overture. In musical terms, an overture is the first music you hear at such a performance. It is the prelude or introduction to what is to follow. It helps get you in the mood for the story, and may beg...

In a post on Thinking Anglicans , Simon Kershaw has some thoughts on how we tell the story of Christmas, and what difference our telling makes. He begins with this borrowed verse: "They sold me a dream of Christmas They sold me a Silent Night And they told me a fairy story Till I believed in the Israelite." (words by Peter Sinfield from Greg Lake’s 1975 Christmas record) He continues: "If your Christmas has been anything like mine you’ve heard quite a number of tellings of the birth of Christ over the last few weeks. Sentimental, imagined, romantic, harmonized, fictionalized, sanitized and idealized — that sums up so many of them." "...Do we, in telling the story this way, conspire with our hearers to perpetuate a fairy story? Do we perpetuate the idea that the birth of Jesus is a fairy story, just a fairy story, something that — like the idea of Father Christmas or the tooth fairy — parents use to encourage children to be sweet and good? But something which we...