A little lower than the angels

Robert Winston Brownlee Sharon and I remember Robert Winston Brownlee as the person waiting here in this nave after the first liturgy I celebrated here on June 1 of 2008. Most of the congregation had moved by that time to the Great Hall for coffee hour. Bob lingered; he seemed to want to greet us, and so we went to him. We had conversation, and Bob made us both feel very welcomed. After that encounter I went away thinking: “I just met another reason I’m glad to be here”. One day more than two years ago Bob came in to share with me his plans for his Burial Eucharist. They were well-laid liturgical plans, and you are experiencing them today. Another day Bob arranged a visit to the parish office to show me the guide to flower arranging published by the Flower Guild of the Cathedral Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, otherwise known as the National Cathedral. What would I think of St. Paul’s Flower Guild taking inspiration from this book? He asked. Having a clear sense that a great gif...

Proper 24, Year A October 16 2011 St. Paul's Church Once again we meet Jesus today in the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem where he is parrying off challenges from the religious leaders who are in charge of the Temple They finally figure out how to get him in deep trouble Sending a delegation, they flatter him, then pop the question: Tell us, then what you think, is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? It's a trap, of course. If he says “no”, the Herodian party who are in close league with the Emperor will be able to charge him with sedition. If he says “yes”, the Pharisee party will be able to accuse him of betraying the Jewish people by collaborating with Rome. So Jesus' answer is deft. “Show me the coin used for the tax.” And here the hypocrisy of his interlocutors is put on full display. “Whose image is on this coin?” he asks, “and whose title?” There they are, bearing within the Temple precincts a graven image in contravention of the First Commandment ag...

For November 2011 “Messenger” Last month in this space I wrote of faith in God, drawing upon some insights of theologian Nicholas Lash in his criticism of the brand of atheism touted by Richard Dawkins. Now let's talk a bit about atheism and agnosticism. In so doing, let’s avoid the kind of brittle defensiveness that sometimes characterizes the speech of Christians in this regard. I see this currently manifested in reactions against the loss of the institutional power of Christianity in our time. In a moment of serendipity, a parishioner recommended to me this week a book entitled Patience with God by the Czech priest Tomáŝ Halík. It is a wonderfully wise appreciation of the struggle of many people to believe, and a mature Christian appreciation that this struggle comes out of the common experience of the hiddenness of God which – if we are honest – is the experience of many characters in Scripture. After all, it is Moses who is told in no uncertain terms that he can only see ...

For October 2011 “Messenger” Last month in this space I wrote of being a discerning community listening for God's direction. Now let's talk a bit about “God”. A new strain of militant atheism is out there, typified by Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion , a book in which the biologist argues vociferously against the idea that 'there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us.” Dawkins has his critics, including the atheist Michael Ruse, as well as philosophical theologians like Nicholas Lash, whose book Theology for Pilgrims I picked up at the Durham Cathedral bookstore last Wednesday. The latter theologian brings a lifetime of careful work in theology to bear on Dawkin's claims, zeroing in on what he considers the fatal flaw in Dawkin's argument. That flaw is in Dawkin's definition of the word God quoted above. Where the grammar of the word 'God' is concerned, D...