More Xanity Design websites featured by Extensis WebINK

I am pleased to announce that Extensis has chosen another two websites I designed for their WebINK Showcase. The Xanity Design site itself was already featured (see previous blog entry); now the sites for the International Children's Fund and the Old Catholic parish of Hannover, Germany, both designed and programmed by Xanity Design, have also been added to their showcase.

Additionally, the website for Fuchs und Hase, which Xanity Design programmed and built, is also featured there.

Thus no less than four Xanity sites are now in the showcase – huzzah!

The night before Christmas (in Hannover)

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through Hannover,
Not an ex-pat was stirring, nor any Ausländer.
The stockings were hung by the flat door with care.
Pointless, because St. Nick was already there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
with bilingual names of presents in their heads.
And us in our jammies, lying down in our beds,
had just settled down from shopping 'til dead.

When out in the courtyard there arose such a clatter,
I jumped out of bed to see what was the matter.
Must be some drunks, I thought with some dread,
but I hope it is St. Nick instead.

The moon was obscured by rain clouds – no snow.
'Twas all rainy and icky. White Christmas, no show.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a guy in a St. Nick suit, and he was headed here.

Dressed all in red, from his head to his foot,
I knew in a flash that St. Nick had come to it.
But where are the reindeer, I thought to myself,
where's Dasher and Donner, or Rudolf himself?

He strolled his way towards me, his bag in his hand,
bulging with stuff, many presents so grand.
He saw I was watching, and he gave me a wink
and walked right up to me. Didn't know what to think.

And then, in a twinkling, he opened his mouth,
and out came a question, of that there was no doubt.
But it was in German, and my German is weak,
so I stood there dumb, unable to speak.

I asked, "Are you St. Nick?" and he gave me a look
and shook his head slowly, and said as I shook,
"Nein, war am Sechsten", he replied in his German.
"Ich bin der Weihnachtsmann!" Which I had failed to determine.

Then he repeated his previous query,
this time in English, since my German is weary.
"Does Family Müller live here in this house?"
"No," I said, "number seven, next door." So he turned to go out.

"Wrong number," he said with a sheepish small grin,
"I'm new here in Hannover, 'til now in Berlin."
"I'm new here too!" I replied with a smile,
"Come meet us at Mezzo! H4ES, worth your while!"

A very merry (or happy for you Limeys) Christmas to all!

The blessing of bells for our new church

After struggling for years after its founding in 1955 and drifting from church to church as guests, our Old Catholic parish in Hannover finally fulfilled the dream of having our own church, which was consecrated by Bishop Matthias Ring in September. The diocese came together to help finance the construction, which all told cost around €1 million, which all came from the parish itself, the diocese, the Bonn parish, and numerous donations from individuals.

However, the church is still lacking some things that were planned, in particular bells. If you look at pictures of the church, you can see the bell tower on one side of the roof, between the church and parish hall, but it is as of now still empty.

As a sign of the warm ecumenical relations we have with the other parishes in the area, the next-door EKD Lutheran Parish of St. James (Jakobikirche) donated one of their bells for us to install, which as it happens is g´´. We then ordered a second bell, which is e´´ and thus goes well with the smaller, older bell, and it was cast in a small ceremony. The bell will then come to join its older sister, and both will be consecrated Bishop Matthias in the name of our patron, Maria Angélique, on November 18. I'm happy to say that it was entirely financed by donations, to the tune of €12,000 -- something which I never dreamed would be possible just five years ago. But it is a further sign of how our parish is really flowering in recent years, by the grace of God and the hard work of our members, in spite of the general decline of churches in Germany and Europe as a whole.

The bells will be installed in early December this year and will be heard for the first time, fittingly enough, during the Christmas midnight mass, where we will no doubt sing "Ding! Dong! merrily on high" or something similar. (Hey, I always loved the Gloria in that hymn...one of my favorite carols.)

Sermon archive

For some years, from late 2006 to mid-2010, I was responsible for planning and leading our monthly (at times twice monthly) English-language Anglican services in Hannover. While our priest celebrated the Eucharist, for various reasons I took over all the parts that involved reading or speaking a lot of English but didn't require a priest. That included the homilies. At first, our priest would read them beforehand, but after some time as I got more accustomed to it, he generally left me to my own devices.

Many people have asked for copies of the sermons, and I generally sent them as PDFs by e-mail, but I decided to also use this blog as an archive of some of my favorites. You can find all sermons on this blog by using the label or tag "sermon" -- the labels/tags are the lists of words you see under each blog entry, which you can click on to find other posts with that same tag. Or you can just click here to find all sermons in the archive. I will continue adding some from time to time, so you can keep checking back for more.

I hope you enjoy them and look forward to feedback, criticism, debate, and cries of astonishment at their sheer excellence.

These sermons are made available under the Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

Hexham Abbey Men's and Boys' Choir paying us a welcome visit

Late last year, I had a rather unexpected e-mail from England. It seemed the Hexham Abbey Girls' Choir was on tour and wanted to know if they could sing at our church. Together with our rector, I made the arrangements, and in February we had a wonderful concert (photos here) and a Holy Eucharist service accompanied by their singing (photos here). As an additional pleasure, their priest also came along, and jointly celebrated the Eucharist with our priest – a lovely expression of the full communion that exists between Utrecht Old Catholics and Anglicans.

As noted on our parish website, the people from Hexham Abbey are again paying a visit, this time the Men's and Boy's Choir, on 22 and 23 October. The first date, at 7 pm, will be a concert, and the following day at 11 am, we will again celebrate the Eucharist accompanied by the Hexham singers. I'm quite pleased by this, and as our rector said at the last visit, it was like we were used to driving an old car, but suddenly could use a luxury model. Very apt. :)

Ordination of deacons in Koblenz, and the future of the north

Hat tip to Walter Jungbauer for the link to the photos.
Update Yet more pictures are available from Heike Kiefel. Many thanks!

On 3 October 2011, day before yesterday, three deacons were ordained by Bishop Matthias Ring in Koblenz. (I had hoped to go myself, but because of my day job and a critical deadline Tuesday, I decided against it.) One of them, Jörn Clemens, will be our full-time deacon in Hannover, which will be very welcome for our rector, Oliver Kaiser, who was under immense strain and pressure during the whole project of building the church.

Stefan Neuhaus-Kiefel, a priest and vicar in our diocese, took lovely photos which you can see on his photo album page. Additionally, Heike Kiefel also posted pictures from the service. Many thanks to both!

Not only was the planning of the church and managing its construction a Herculean task, but the position of rector of the Hannover-Lower Saxony parish was already taxing enough. Our parish has by far the largest territory of any in the diocese, essentially the entire state of Lower Saxony, and also by far the most members, around 1600 scattered around the state, with clusters in Hannover, Osnabrück, Braunschweig and East Frisia. By way of comparison, the average parish in our diocese has around 300-400 members and usually is only a few Landkreise (roughly the German equivalent to a county in the US) at most. The parishes in Nordstrand (an island in the North Sea close to Denmark) and Berlin also have similar problems, but are smaller in membership -- though it has to be said that Nordstrand's rector has to drive even farther, since his parish is responsible for mentoring the Hamburg parish, which has no rector of its own, and the small number of Old Catholics in Bremen.

Thus the situation in the northern part of Germany is particularly problematic for anyone to manage -- just plain too much area for one person to cover, in both cases of Hannover and Nordstrand. Until recently, the parishes in the north (Hannover, Nordstrand, Hamburg) were not even in their own deanery, but rather were directly under the bishop, with the vicar general (roughly the Old Catholic equivalent to an Anglican archdeacon) acting as dean.

The good news is that this is finally changing. Some months ago, right after he was ordained and took office, Bishop Matthias initiated a project that had been proposed by the rectors and vestries in the north. This project envisions a dramatic reconstruction of the parishes and their pastoral care. First and foremost, these parishes are now in the Deanery North (Dekanat Nord), and our rector was promptly elected dean. Second, the cluster in Osnabrück will be split off and made into its own parish, although the pastoral care will still be in the hands of the Hannover rector. Third, the so-called Speckgürtel (literally "bacon belt") of Lower Saxon counties adjoining Hamburg will be split from our parish and attached to Hamburg's, and eventually Hamburg will have its own full-time priest, thus relieving Nordstrand of the considerable strain of caring for Hamburg and Bremen.

Another bit of good news that is coincidental, but further helps this project, is that we have a new priest (albeit non-stipendiary) who lives in Osnabrück and who serves as a part-time priest there, saving our rector the effort of driving to Osnabrück every Sunday evening to conduct the services there (a good two-hour trip each way, roughly 160 km).

And now that we have a full-time transitional deacon, who will be ordained as a priest and become our vicar, the load on all the clergy in the north ought to dramatically lessen. Which is good, because frankly the load on the priests in Hannover and Nordstrand was downright inhuman. So I'm particularly happy that Bishop Matthias supported this project so well, and am also happy for our priest, who can now spend much-needed and much-deserved time for himself and his family.

So where to from here?

I'm hopeful that this new plan will also have a positive effect on mission work. "Mission" is a bit of a dirty word 'round these parts, but let's face it, membership in all churches here is in free-fall. It is not at all unusual to hear parts of Germany being described as "post-Christian". Many people have turned their backs to the church -- or rather all churches -- not least because of pedophilia scandals and maladroit handling of them. The deeper reason, though, is because the churches have singularly failed to stay relevant to people's daily lives and to actively reach out and spread the Gospel, rather than just sit and wait for people to walk in. The contrast with the US is striking. There, it is still common to attend church every Sunday; that is almost unheard of here, and saying that you do generally raises eyebrows.

In the US, the building of a new church would attract some mild attention, but not much, since it just isn't that unusual. In fact it seems like Americans are constantly building and re-building churches. But here, the fact that a parish is actually building a new church, in a climate where dozens of churches are being closed down and shuttered, was something of a sensation.

We got a lot of free press for it, and indeed attendance at the church's consecration was immense -- in the ballpark of 300 people. Our attendance has also noticeably gone up. Whereas our average Sunday attendance was around 17 or 18 people each Sunday, since we began using the new church at Easter Vigil in 2010, my rough estimate is that the average is now around 25 or even 30. In fact, what amuses me a little is that whenever I think our group is rather small, I count the people attending -- and invariably it's the old average, and rarely below it.

So we have lots of opportunities, and I think the hand and glory of God is clearly recognizable in all of this. We now have a great chance to stem the tide of the collapse of the church in Germany, maybe even to turn the tide, at least in our area. And we have the chance to revitalize ourselves after the strain of building our church, to reconnect with who we are and to carry the Gospel into our neighborhood. And that is all worth celebrating indeed.

Glory be to God on high, and on Earth, peace, goodwill towards men.

The problem of Jansenism

You may have noticed (of course you did!) that I renamed the link to my parish in the bazillions of links down below. Previously we didn't have a name at all, aside from "Old Catholic Parish of Hannover-Lower Saxony". Now that we finally have our very own church, it was high time to pick a proper name.

The parish has been at it for literally years, with no sign of progress and a couple reverses. But this time there was enough determination to finally just pick one that it went through. The new name is "Marie Angélique", named for Maria Angélique Arnauld. Who's she, you ask? Go ahead and read her entry on Wikipedia.

I have to say, I ain't happy.

She seems to be a wonderful person. She was the major force behind reforming the Order of Port-Royal, a nunnery that had pretty much gone all to pieces and where standards were virtually non-existent -- indeed from the sound of things, it had more to do with a home for juvenile delinquents than a nunnery, and in some descriptions it even sounds like it was practically a bordello when she took over. Thanks to her, the nunnery was thoroughly cleaned up and revitalized. Truly a remarkable feat, and one that deserves to be remembered.

But there is something about her connections that seriously bothers me. While I've talked to our priest many times about it, and have accepted that that is the new name and that's that, I still am uncomfortable with the choice because of her connections to Jansenism. You can read up about it on Wikipedia, but I'll sum up my complaints here.

Take Blaise Pascal, a close associate of hers and another leading Jansenist. He wrote (emphasis mine):

And yet it pleases God to choose, elect, and discern from this equally corrupt mass, in which he sees only demerit, a number of men of each sex, age, condition, complexion, from every country and time, in short, of all sorts. God has distinguished His Elect from the others, for reasons unknown to men and to Angels, by pure mercy, without any merit involved. [...] God, through an absolute and irrevocable will, willed to save His Elect with a purely gratuitous goodness; He abandoned the others to their evil desires, to which He could with perfect justice abandon all men. In order to save His Elect, God sent Jesus Christ to satisfy His justice and merit from His mercy the grace of Redemption...

In other words, there is pretty much no such thing as free will, at least not according to Cornelius Jansen or his adherents. Jansenism was roundly condemned by Rome as heresy, mainly because of that denial of the free will of humanity to choose to turn to God. Certainly the opposite extreme, Pelagianism, is also full of problems. But Rome and the Orthodox Church are quite clear on what they see as problematic. Take this article from +Kallistos Ware, a former Anglican who is now an Orthodox bishop and metropolitan in England, where he states:

Grace and Free Will. As we have seen, the fact that man is in God’s image means among other things that he possesses free will. God wanted a son, not a slave. The Orthodox Church rejects any doctrine of grace which might seem to infringe upon man’s freedom. To describe the relation between the grace of God and free will of man, Orthodoxy uses the term cooperation or synergy (synergeia); in Paul’s words: "We are fellow-workers (synergoi) with God" (1 Cor. 3:9). If man is to achieve full fellowship with God, he cannot do so without God’s help, yet he must also play his own part..."
[...]
The west, since the time of Augustine and the Pelagian controversy, has discussed this question of grace and free will in somewhat different terms; and many brought up in the Augustinian tradition — particularly Calvinists — have viewed the Orthodox idea of ‘synergy’ with some suspicion. Does it not ascribe too much to man’s free will, and too little to God? Yet in reality the Orthodox teaching is very straightforward. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in"(Revelation 3:20). God knocks, but waits for man to open the door — He does not break it down. The grace of God invites all but compels none.
[...]
Orthodoxy, holding as it does a less exalted idea of man’s state before he fell, is also less severe than the west in its view of the consequences of the fall. Adam fell, not from a great height of knowledge and perfection, but from a state of undeveloped simplicity; hence he is not to be judged too harshly for his error. Certainly, as a result of the fall man’s mind became so darkened, and his will-power was so impaired, that he could no longer hope to attain to the likeness of God. Orthodox, however, do not hold that the fall deprived man entirely of God’s grace, though they would say that after the fall grace acts on man from the outside, not from within. Orthodox do not say, as Calvin said, that man after the fall was utterly depraved and incapable of good desires. They cannot agree with Augustine, when he writes that man is under ‘a harsh necessity’ of committing sin, and that ‘man’s nature was overcome by the fault into which it fell, and so came to lack freedom’. The image of God is distorted by sin, but never destroyed; in the words of a hymn sung by Orthodox at the Funeral Service for the laity: ‘I am the image of Thine inexpressible glory, even though I bear the wounds of sin.’ And because he still retains the image of God, man still retains free will, although sin restricts its scope. Even after the fall, God ‘takes not away from man the power to will — to will to obey or not to obey Him’ (Dositheus, Confession, Decree 3. Compare Decree 14). Faithful to the idea of synergy, Orthodoxy repudiates any interpretation of the fall which allows no room for human freedom.
[...]
Most orthodox theologians reject the idea of ‘original guilt,’ put forward by Augustine and still accepted (albeit in a mitigated form) by the Roman Catholic Church. Men (Orthodox usually teach) automatically inherit Adam’s corruption and mortality, but not his guilt: they are only guilty in so far as by their own free choice they imitate Adam."

This quote is from his book entitled The Orthodox Way, which I highly recommend -- very interesting and insightful as an introduction to the Orthodox Church. This kind of understanding of God seems both far more satisfying and more loving than the cruel God who damns people from the get-go, while also being more rational. What would be the point of condemning people in advance? It simply makes no sense and can't be reconciled with a truly loving, caring God interested in His Creation.

Here is another quote, this time from the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), about the sin of Adam and the redemption through Christ:

The sufferings and death of Christ in obedience to the Father reveals the super-abundant divine love of God for his creation. For when all was sinful, cursed, and dead, Christ became sin, a curse, and dead for us -- though he himself never ceased to be the righteousness and blessedness and life of God Himself. It is to this depth, of which lower and more base cannot be discovered or imagined, that Christ has humiliated himself "for us men and for our salvation." For being God, he became man; and being man, he became a slave; and being a slave, he became dead and not only dead, but dead on a cross. From this deepest degradation of God flows the eternal exaltation of man. This is the pivotal doctrine of the Orthodox Christian faith, expressed over and again in many ways throughout the history of the Orthodox Church. It is the doctrine of the atonement -- for we are made to be "at one" with God. It is the doctrine of redemption -- for we are redeemed, i.e., "bought with a price," the great price of the blood of God (Acts 20:28; 1 Cor 6:20).
[...]
In Orthodox theology generally it can be said that the language of "payment" and "ransom" is rather understood as a metaphorical and symbolical way of saying that Christ has done all things necessary to save and redeem mankind enslaved to the devil, sin and death, and under the wrath of God. He "paid the price," not in some legalistic or juridical or economic meaning. He "paid the price" not to the devil whose rights over man were won by deceit and tyranny. He "paid the price" not to God the Father in the sense that God delights in His sufferings and received "satisfaction" from His creatures in Him. He "paid the price" rather, we might say, to Reality Itself. He "paid the price" to create the conditions in and through which man might receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life by dying and rising again in Him to newness of life (See Rom 5-8; Gal 2-4).

I don't know about you, but that sounds far more coherent and loving than a God that just decides to create billions of people who will burn in the fires of Hell with no chance whatsoever to change that.

Fair enough: Marie Angélique herself may or may not have had much to do with Jansen and may or may not have shared his views. She does seem to have been a remarkable and formidable woman. I've also been told that modern theologians, including Roman Catholic ones, have reappraised Jansenism and think Rome's criticism at the time was wildly overblown. The "five points" of Jansenism that she was forced to condemn were at least technically not really what Jansen himself proposed, and she was badly mistreated and unjustly abused, when there should be tolerance for other viewpoints. And guilt by association is really playing dirty pool, no matter who does it.

But given her close association with leading Jansenists, and the close association of Port-Royal with Jansenism, it still makes me very uncomfortable to say the least, especially when I read what Jansenists themselves wrote. Go to the source and read Jansen's original paper for yourself. Read Pascal's writings as well, as linked and quoted above. I think you'd have to agree than the views expressed are difficult to digest at best, and I'd much rather stay distant from such viewpoints. To make it absolutely clear, I don't condemn her, Jansen, or anyone else, and it is not my place to do so. It is simply a matter of who I want to be associated with, whose views I can support and agree with. By choosing her name, there is an implied endorsement of her views or the views of her order, and that is why I'm uncomfortable.

I would have much rather have taken a simple name associated with Christ Himself, as was the tradition in the early church. The Good Shepherd is a good example, being one of the earliest representations of Christ in iconography, or just plain "Christ Church" (which unfortunately is already taken in Hannover). One of the suggested names was "Taufe Jesu", or "Baptism of Christ", which I thought was ideal given that our church is the first Old Catholic church to be built with a full baptismal pool. And it would avoid the kind of associations that any individual saint would inevitably conjure up.

But alas, it was not to be. I missed my opportunity to raise the issue, and by the time I did so, it was simply too late to stop the momentum. The proverbial bus was long gone by the time I got there. So in a lot of ways I only have myself to blame.

Being a "good Catholic" as I try to be, I have to accept the will of the church as expressed through our parish assembly meeting, and live with it. It's not something that would make me jump leagues or whatever. But it's still disappointing. Here's hoping that she can do us some good with the Big Guy upstairs and pray for us, and forgive my doubts about her.

Queens and quandaries: Sermon for Palm Sunday, Year C

Luke 19:28-40, Psalm 118:1-2+19-29, Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 23:1-49

When I was planning today’s service, one particular phrase leapt out at me. I’m a bit of a history junkie, particularly for English history; those of you familiar with English history may well have thought the same thing when hearing that particular phrase.

The phrase I have in mind is in the psalm we heard as we processed into the chapel, Psalm 118. The phrase is, “This is the LORD’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Legend has it that this was uttered by Princess Elizabeth, upon hearing that her Catholic sister Queen Mary had died, thus making Elizabeth Queen of England. There is a special resonance to them for Elizabeth, because during her sister’s reign, Elizabeth was a constant potential rival, as Protestants in England repeatedly started uprisings to overthrow Mary and install Elizabeth on the throne. Mary repeatedly and openly considered executing her own sister, to protect the Catholic faith in England. Elizabeth had to constantly swear her loyalty and grovel before her sister to spare her own life. So with Mary’s death, Elizabeth must have felt immensely relieved – while also facing the enormous burden of ruling a deeply divided England, at war with itself over religion.

I admire Elizabeth a great deal (though I should add that my daughter having that name is actually a coincidence). You see, most people, when thinking about the Church of England, think of her father, Henry VIII. But in reality Henry, aside from severing ties to the Pope, left little trace of influence on what Anglicanism became. His son Edward VI (again the name is a coincidence, I swear) tried to radically Protestantize the church; Mary succeeded him and re-catholicized it, reversing everything her father and brother had done; and finally came Elizabeth. More than anyone else, Queen Elizabeth I left her mark on the church. “This is the LORD’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

The reason Elizabeth’s words resonate with me is because of her vision of the Church. She felt strongly that Christians should be united in one church, and also saw that the only way to do so was to tread the Via Media – the middle path between Catholic and Protestant, uniting the best of both. To this day we say of ourselves, we are Catholic and reformed.

There is a short poem attributed to Elizabeth that sums up her pragmatic way of seeing Truth in competing visions. It is about the Real Presence in the Eucharist, and goes like this:

“’Twas Christ the Word that spake it,
The same took bread and brake it,
And as the Word did make it,
That I believe and take it.”

In other words, if you believe Christ is truly present, if you appreciate the dignity of the sacrament of Communion, then you are welcome at the table.

This vision of unity, sadly, came at a price – many people resisted it, from both extremes of the spectrum. The Puritans and Pilgrims regarded anything remotely Catholic as being work of the devil; the Catholics despaired of restoring ties to Rome and the wider church, while also despairing of a more vigorous sacramental theology that they felt was lacking in the Church of England. There were still uprisings, there was still conflict, there were even plots to assassinate Elizabeth from both sides. In the end, all had to make sacrifices in order to live with the compromise that the Church of England became, which was in turn passed on to all other Anglican churches worldwide.

Elizabeth’s vision remains important even today. The Via Media, I think, offers the only hope of reconciliation of all Christians around the globe. It is more important than ever to try and find this middle path, to unite as many people as possible. The Anglican Communion is, of course, currently rocked by anger and division over teachings revolving around human sexuality, particularly homosexuality. It is also struggling with the bait placed in front of Anglo-Catholics by Rome, to lure them into a uniate Anglican church in submission to the Pope. The centrifugal forces at work are enormous. Particularly the strife over homosexuality is painful and difficult, with accusations of heresy and intolerance flying around. People claiming to be Christian seem to have nothing better to do that self-righteously hurl insults at each other. But the thing is, we all – regardless of our denominations – have a duty to try and bridge these differences, and to be united in Christ. Whether we like it or not, we need each other – Evangelical and Catholic, liberal and conservative, high church and low church. Each bit of the immense spectrum of Anglicanism carries a bit of the full picture of Christianity within, and each bit has something to contribute. Indeed Anglicanism mirrors the Church as a whole, covering the range from Catholicism to a diluted form of Calvinism.

So if we are to fulfill Christ’s final plea as He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, “that they may all be one”, then we have to accept that we all, each and every one of us, have a place in the Body of Christ – and that means being willing to compromise, to sacrifice things we may hold dear in the name of greater unity. We cannot expect the Other to make the first step; we have to individually all make first steps, to build trust, to recognize the fullness of faith in all corners of the Church, whether Catholic or Protestant or Orthodox or indeed Old Catholic.

Recently I attended an Anglican conference in Düsseldorf. As it happens, I would place myself squarely in the liberal side of things regarding sexuality and women’s ordination; I would also place myself squarely in the high church Anglo-Catholic wing of Anglicanism. But at this conference, the range of Anglicans represented was huge. The church itself in Düsseldorf was a good example – as I entered, I noticed there was no altar, just a table; and on the table, nothing except a huge Bible. No tabernacle or aumbry, either. It doesn’t get much more low church and evangelical than that.

In particular there was a fellow there I had heard about, the rector of a particularly conservative evangelical parish here in Germany. Indeed he and his parish are so angry about the liberal drift in parts of Anglicanism that they no longer call themselves “Anglican”, and have resigned their official representation at Anglican conferences (while still being observers). I had visited their website a few times, and my curiosity was piqued, particularly by the profile of the rector, who is originally a white African from Malawi, of English extraction.

It so happens that he and I ended up riding next to each other in the car to the station, and then taking the same train (he had to pass through Hannover to get to his home parish). So I struck up a conversation, and we talked about church politics.

The thing is, we come from opposite ends of the spectrum. He favors things that I disapprove of, like lay presidency at the Eucharist; he disapproves of my stance on homosexuality and the catholicity of the Church. Conservative evangelical versus liberal Anglo-Catholic. But he is a good case in point for what I am talking about, in that we need each other. He is vehemently against homosexuality. But he is also not a wild-eyed lunatic. He, like everyone else, is a rational human being, searching for the truth as best as he can. I am certainly no better than he is – we are both sinners, we both have our flaws, and we both admit that freely. And in spite of our disagreements, we both showed a generosity of spirit towards one another that is sadly lacking in the whole debate storming the Church worldwide. Meanwhile his parish is flourishing, attracting more people to Jesus. Obviously we need more like him, just as we’re doing our best here to build up the Church in Hannover. We need each other to win as many people as possible for the Gospel, because in the Holy Church of God, we have – and I say this with great conviction – the last, best hope for humanity to save itself, with God’s help.

This means we all have to be ready to make sacrifices. We have to tolerate other opinions, even ones as wildly different as those between myself and my fellow train passenger, even if those opinions may seem to us intolerant or even heretical. We have to each make the first step in de-poisoning the debate, to raise the level of the rhetoric, to love those we agree with, but more importantly, to love our enemies and make them friends. We can and must reconcile with one another, even if it takes painful sacrifices.

This is particularly true as we celebrate Palm Sunday. Jesus went to Jerusalem riding a colt through a certain gate as a way of proclaiming Himself the Messiah, by deliberately echoing a messianic prophecy. He was in effect throwing down the gauntlet to the High Priests and King Herod, knowing full well what the result would be – his certain death. They chose a particularly horrific way of killing him, by lashing him with whips, by ramming a crown of thorns on his head, by mocking him, spitting on him, then driving nails through his hands and feet to let him hang there to die, in public and in the deepest humiliation. Even his fellow victims mocked him as he hung there. Jesus despaired of the Father leaving him: Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani – my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I can’t imagine a greater sacrifice than what Jesus did, and He knew in advance that all this would happen – yet he didn’t turn back from His course. He experienced the full measure of human pain and suffering – being completely alone, lost in the world, abandoned to die. He made the ultimate sacrifice.

So if we are to fulfill His vision – that we may all be one – we must all be ready to sacrifice, to compromise, to see value in other opinions and love those whom we disagree with. The divisions in the Holy Church are entirely of our own doing, a sign of our own fallen nature – but in reality we are united in one baptism and one faith, whether we are Anglican, Old Catholic, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist and many other denominations aside. The Body of Christ is one and holy, incapable of being divided – only we fail to see past our own prejudices and wishes, and perceive division, even inventing discord in order to justify our own church’s right to exist.

In other words, we must return to Queen Elizabeth’s holy vision, the Middle Way that accommodates everyone in the Body of Christ. One baptism, one faith, one Lord. Once we escape our own self-imposed limitations, once we tear down the walls of our own making, and open ourselves to the Christ present in the hearts of all of us, then God can work His wonders through us – and we can all say, “This is the LORD’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes”. Amen.

Believing in doubt: Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

Lent is normally a somber, reflective occasion, as we prepare for the joy of the Easter sacrifice and Resurrection. Not normally the time to be telling jokes. But I’m going to be a bit different and start off by telling one. It goes like this:

Jesus is subbing for Peter at the Pearly Gates.

A Roman Catholic dies. Jesus says, “I have one question to decide whether I should let you in: Who am I?” The Catholic says, “Well, the Pope says...” and Jesus says, “No, I wanted your answer. Sorry...”

A Protestant dies. Jesus says, “I have one question to decide whether I should let you in: Who am I?” The Protestant says, “Well, the Bible says...” and Jesus says, “No, I wanted your answer. Sorry...”

An Anglican dies. Jesus says, “I have one question to decide whether I should let you in: Who am I?” The Anglican says, “Well, you are Jesus, the Christ,” Jesus says “Very good!” And the Anglican continues, “...but on the other hand...”

The reason I tell this joke is because it highlights a central aspect of what it means to me to be a Christian: doubt. Gnawing, constant doubt, about everything. We Anglicans tend to question everything, we question authority and don’t take someone else’s word for it. We reject Biblical literalism, just as we reject slavishly following an overmighty Pope or other leader.

This brings with it an advantage, of course, of being liberated from these things. We aren’t burdened with slavishly following Biblical literalism or the latest utterances of Benedict XVI. But if we want to be honest with ourselves, it has a drawback: We are left spending our lives searching for answers, and our belief is constantly being tested and challenged, and thus evolves and changes over our lifetimes. Another old joke goes, ask three Anglicans what they think the Church is, and you’ll get at least five answers. Other Christians may accuse us of building our church on sand, because we as Anglicans or Old Catholics are so reluctant to accept outside authority beyond the barest necessities, and we keep asking questions.

Today’s Old Testament reading contrasts the experience of Israel with our own. Judging from the reading, the Israelites had no doubt that God was there, because He was constantly talking to their prophets and interacting with them directly. God today seems to be harder to spot. We today are plagued by this, constantly searching for evidence that God really loves us, or that God even exists. Bad things happen like the earthquake in Haiti, or the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004, and our faith is sorely tested. We look for signs of God, and when God doesn’t quite turn out as we expect, we are frustrated and disappointed. Some of us give up entirely, rejecting the whole exercise as a waste of time.

But here, in this doubt, is the seed of our true foundation. It is in this doubt that the rock-solid foundation of our faith lies. Like the singer of the Psalm, we say to God, “You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust.” We trust in God and places our hopes in Him because our faith is constantly tested by the fire of doubt. We trust Saint Paul when he tells us, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”, and further, that “no one who believes in him will be put to shame”.

The thing is, if one relies on outside authority, that person is be making it too easy for themselves. They are taking a shortcut. That person has to constantly line up daily events or personal experience and see what their authority has to say to them about it. In a sense doing this is not a test of ourselves, but a test of God, to see if God really lives up to what that authority tells us God said. When God fails that test, as He inevitably will, it somehow becomes God’s fault.

But we don’t serve any authority but God Himself, and we certainly have no authority to question or test God, though it is of course tempting to believe that we can. As Jesus told the devil in the Gospel, “worship the Lord your God, and serve only him”. And in particular, Jesus admonished the Devil by saying, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” To think that we mere human beings can dare to test God or limit God or make God do what we want Him to do in any way is impossible. It is sheer hubris; it is folly. It is temptation of the Devil himself, who promises us the same false rewards that he promised Jesus. The “reward” of allowing our arrogance to get the better of us and to place ourselves above God is to be enslaved by our worst instincts. The temptation of certainty is what leads people astray to fundamentalism in any form, whether it is Biblical fundamentalism, ultramontane Catholicism, militant atheism or any of the other isms out there. That temptation is as evil as they come, and leads directly to war, conflict and despair.

We must be humble enough to admit that our own worldly authority might get it wrong, or that we ourselves get it wrong. Just as we must not test God by laying claim to infallibility, whether it is of a Pope or of the Bible itself, we must also be very careful not to lay claim to infallibility for our individual selves. It is through the deepest humility and self-denial that we come to experience the real divine presence that is God. Only when we are ready to renounce all preconceptions and preconditions are we ready to experience God directly. We have to play by God’s rules, not our own. Thy will be done.

On a lighter note, Casey Stengel, baseball player and legendary manager of the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, put it in his unique way: “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” We can certainly take that to heart by rephrasing it a little, “Never make assumptions, especially about God.” We have to let God define us and not the other way around, and that is the most important thing about learning how to let our faith grow on its own, rather than succumbing to the temptation of forcing the issue or of taking shortcuts. Thy will be done.

Lent is a time of testing our faith. We prepare ourselves for the triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter by spending these forty days reflecting on what we believe, and how we came to believe it. This is particularly true for our catechumens, Michelle and Jon, who are working their way towards baptism. Ideally, when we prepare for this, we fast. When we fast, we should do it not just to give up something because someone told us to. Once again that’s just following authority for the sake of following authority. Instead, we should fast because it is a way to strip down our selves to the barest essentials. To remind ourselves that we need nothing but God Himself. To reject the temptation of short-term rewards. To understand that we must be ready to give up anything and everything, just as Jesus gave everything He had when He stretched out His arms on the Cross. Above all, to understand, to see ourselves as part of the greater whole, and our place in it.

When we test our faith in this way, it is tempered, hardened, polished. It becomes something more solid than rock, harder than steel. When we are ready to test our faith to the utmost, to wear our self-doubt willingly, we come to dwell in the shelter of the Most High, and abide under the shadow of the Almighty. When we deny our own pride and hubris, and all pride and hubris around us, the door to God is opened in our hearts and the fire of the Spirit storms in. God can then work through us to save this world of ours. Each of us can become the hand of God working in our world, as an integral part of the body of Christ. It is when we seek rewards least that we gain the greatest reward of all.

When we confess our faults, our fallibility, we come to the point where Paul says in today’s Epistle: “For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.” This is why Confession is part of each Anglican service: as a reminder to deny ourselves, to accept we are flawed, to accept that only together can we overcome those flaws. We confess our faith together that God is there for us. We come together as a Church to reinforce one another in our faith, to give one another strength on the journey, to leave no one behind. We come together as the Holy Church to make the world new, with God’s help. And that nagging bit of doubt and restlessness, the thirst for knowledge, the will to know God, is the seed in our hearts to help get us to the Kingdom of Heaven itself. And best of all, we know that at the end of Lent, we are ready to personally experience the triumph over death by Jesus Christ in the Easter Vigil, gaining strength from it year after year.

Remember the joke I told at the beginning? It’s true: All you have to do to get into the Kingdom of Heaven is to recognize Jesus for what He is, and do so out of your own heart. Lent is here, so that we can learn to see Jesus all around us, including in ourselves; at the end of Lent, like the disciples at Emmaus, we recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread at Easter, when we come together as one to share – and then the door to the Kingdom of Heaven is wide open, so that we can come into the land that the LORD our God is giving us as an inheritance to possess. Amen.