Kirkepiscatoid

We sinners do beseech thee to hear us, O Lord God; and that
it may please thee to rule and govern thy holy Church
Universal in the right way,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

Well, looks like we’re moving from “delivering” to “beseeching”!

This is kind of an interesting request here, because it’s one I don’t think much about but perhaps ought to.

I don’t worry so much about how I, as a lay person, “govern the Church Universal.” I think I pretty much confine my “beseeching God” to making sure I do a good job committing my works to the Church Local!

Honestly, although I sort of casually follow the political issues of TEC, and I certainly have my opinion, I don’t really invest myself in them. It’s too easy for them to get in the way of my faith. No one ever gets all of what they want in politics. That includes church politics. I think what weirds me out about church politics at the national level is, although I think the certainly do need to exist, and it is part of the “vehicle for change” in how we view things, I also think it’s important not to remember that individuals in prayer also change things, and all change should be considered prayerfully.

I observed a couple of very interesting things in our book club at Trinity this week. We are doing the book "Welcome to the Book of Common Prayer" for Lent, which has been as much fun for cradle 'Piskies as well as newbies, and relative newbies like me. One was someone got to discussing how the new Episcopal church in Columbia, Hope Church (Columbia, MO now has TWO Episcopal congregations) “not using prayer books and hymnals.” A projector shows the texts and hymn words. I could feel visible tension sort of fill the room, when this person just TOLD THE STORY. More on that in a second.

I could see why those of you who were in TEC in the days of transition from the 1928 to the 1979 prayer book found that time of transition a time of “hesitant transition.” To change from “familiar” language (even though “familiar” was Elizabethan English) to “unfamiliar” language, had to be a little unsettling, even if you did welcome more modern language. To change from Morning Prayer being the “usual” form of worship to the Eucharistic service being the “usual” form of worship, oddly enough, might have been unsettling. But I also realize that by the time I came along and darkened the door of the church, long after this change had been made, was precisely what drew me to the Episcopal church. I was familiar with the Eucharist being every Sunday, having been reared Lutheran.

But it was very interesting how the word “projector” literally made some in the room stiffen up. I think the BCP as a book will not be going away any time soon. You want my gut feeling? Now, remember, this is from a person who loathes "PowerPoints in church" (mostly because I have to deal with PowerPoint in teaching all week long and I need a reprieve from it) and, for the most part, can't deal well with "Praise music" (too sappy. I kind of feel about it like I do country music--I like the more mournful stuff, but the other stuff you can keep.) I think a “bookless” church would work, but only if the physical space in the room would allow the words to be projected in an unobtrusive fashion so as not to detract from the altar.

At least on Sundays, I don’t even LOOK in the BCP because the words are now committed to my heart. (Holidays are another matter.) Oddly enough, I have a feeling if the words were projected, MORE people would eventually memorize them. People would look up to sing; not down, in the hymnal. But still, the book is not going anywhere soon. Everyone is going on about the Amazon.com Kindle gizmo. A lot of people find the Kindle hard to read. But I would not be aurprised if some day, we will all have digital reading devices, and we’d all walk iinto church and plug them in at the doorway and download the entire BCP on your first visit...and maybe that would not be all bad, b/c then you would take home the entire BCP on your personal device...welcome to 22nd century evangelism, ha!

However, there is no doubt, I love the tactile aspect of a book. I love to hold a book. You don’t need batteries to read a book. You can read a book anywhere. But, I digress. Studying the BCP in the book club for Lent and getting this part of The Great Litany for reflection after the book club is a great non-coincidence.

The other thing I noticed was when the group was talking about the 1928 book, and the green book, and the zebra book, and the 1979 book, was following that business about the liturgy becoming more affirming and less penitential. It is interesting that the breakaway so-called Anglicans usually go back to the 1928 prayer book, and that they WANT to return to a more penitential state.

But I was thinking how the changes that led to the 1979 prayer book are the same as the changes in me. I am wanting myself to be more affirming, more full of joy and grace, and less penitential.

Another thing that crosses my mind, as I think about this in relation to the book club, is that “how we worship” is a driving force in “how we, as lay people, govern the Church Universal.” Nowadays, the big changes in TEC are more related to “how we affirm our Baptismal Covenant with regards to GLBT folks.” The news paints this as “political.” I keep thinking to myself, “No, this is about how we worship. Some people, for whatever reason, no matter how I feel about their opinion, have a thing with both the ‘gay cooties’ and the ‘priestess cooties’ in terms of their theological mindset. It’s ultimately about worship.” It’s ultimately on how they view their relationship with God, and their interpretation of the Bible, and if you get right down to it, in some ways the whole fight is over the speed at which things do or don’t happen, maybe not so much about the issues themselves. There’s nothing going on in TEC that doesn’t mirror society in general.

What is kind of ironic is that in my lifetime, the cultural view in the news of TEC has moved from a denomination more associated with conservatism to one assoicated with liberalism. (I think back to my late grandmother, who in my childhood once told me as we drove by St. James in Macon, “That’s where the rich Republicans go to church.”) Well, although our individual congregation is fairly liberal as a whole, I don’t think that is true necessarily in general. There are plenty of Episcopalians who are more politically conservative or moderate—if there weren’t, why would we be having the struggles over GLBT inclusion? But the conservative and moderate ones that are weathering the changes in the GLBT issues, while remaining in the church (and I think there are probably more of them than I realize, and they are silently weathering the change and we just don’t hear about them, b/c the “breakaway Anglicans” are noisier, just as the “very liberal” in TEC can also be fairly noisy) are weathering them because they are “trusting the Eucharist.” In other words, having an Anglican mindset--”In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

Let’s be real—people can get uncomfortable about worship for far smaller reasons. Some congregations would have balked at our “Liturgy at the Lake.” The year we did Morning Prayer during Lent instead of the Eucharist, and cut the music down to almost nothing by Holy Week made some people uncomfortable (mostly the people who came to church because of our choir, whether in the choir or not). I am betting if we used more of the “alternative Eucharistic Prayers” more, since we mostly do EP-A and EP-C, it would make some people uncomfortable, simply because even though they are in the Enriching Our Worship series, instead of "the red BCP." Our congregation is so used to form III of Prayers of the People; the others might be sort of uncomfortable if we used them more often. So it doesn’t have to be an earth-shaker like GLBT’s in the Apostolic Succession to put people in a tizzy—it can be far less.

I have had people from more conservative denominations sort of cross-examine me about “doesn’t it bother you about (fill in the blank about some inane remark about GLBT’s in TEC)?” and my standard answer is, “Whuuuuut? What are you talking about? I go to church, I sing, I pass the peace, I get the sacrament, I go to coffee hour...and so does everyone else. You think we have people in leather singing “YMCA” in church or something?”

But that, I believe, is the ticket. Ultimately, I think governing the Church Universal is all about worship. I have a feeling that the most important thing I can do as an individual to govern the Church Universal sounds incredibly naive but is the heart of the matter—to simply feel myself in the worship, and live by my Baptismal Covenant, and let the chips fall where they may. I need to concentrate on how I am or am not living my Baptismal Covenant, and not worry about how someone else is. Not just to talk inclusivity, but live it. Not just to hear the Gospel, but live it. Live the Great Commandment, and realize all the rest is commentary.