Bonnie Bivins: Connections to General Convention and Lambeth Conference

Over the past few weeks we have had a rare blessing.  While uninvited we have, perhaps because of Covid-19 or simply the expansion of modern technology, been able to watch the proceedings of both the Episcopal General Convention and the Anglican Communion Lambeth Conference.  Both are circles of our world as Episcopalians, Anglicans, and Christians that we rarely have the opportunity to observe must less participate in.  However, what happens in those meetings has bearing on our parish life. On the lighter side it gives un an opportunity to have a sense of the people guiding us.  

Off and on I watched the General Convention to observe where the Holy Spirit was guiding the Episcopal Church. Then I had the distinct blessing to observe in living color the whole (almost) Anglican Communion who came together with their differences and led by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby discussed their context and theology with each other in love if not agreement.  One felt the embrace of God’s love for all gathered and the strong encircling bond of the children of God from their own context greeting each other as fellow disciples.  

Unfortunately, the General Convention was mostly the business of running the Episcopal Church. The Lambeth Conference was something different with three keynote addresses, a Bible Exposition of 1 Peter led by Justin Welby, and a number of Plenary sessions that brought together the contextual experience of the breadth of the Anglican Communion.  

I saved for myself and now share with you the YouTube links, so you can watch some of these extraordinary events. Only the General Convention opening sermon from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is included in the links. You may possibly find other sessions from the General Convention on YouTube.

The links of the Lambeth Conference are in order (i.e. top down), from the start to finish of the conference. Other news and comments from the Episcopal perspective you will find on the Episcopal News Service news@episcopalchurch.org. 

Peace,
Bonnie Bivins

Why the Lectionary?

 

Recently, a wonderful question landed in my email inbox:

Why do we read the Old Testament, Psalms, Epistle, and Gospel every week in church?

One of the gifts of our liturgical tradition, a gift that we share with the Orthodox, Catholics, Lutherans, and others, is the use of the lectionary. Every week, a cycle of readings prescribes what Scripture we hear in church. While some of the details of the how the lectionary works have changed over the years, one thing has stayed the same. The church, not the clergy, chooses the Scripture we read publicly in worship. This means that what we hear proclaimed as the Word of God isn't down to our whims or personal preferences - we all have to wrestle with the Bible together, in its entirety. What's more, using the lectionary means that we hear from all parts of the Bible, and not just our favorite bits.

We read the Old Testament…

…because it is the story of God's enduring faithfulness in choosing Israel to be his people, and as Christians we read the Old Testament as those who in Jesus Christ are grafted onto the promises of Israel. Not to take them over, but to take our part in a conversation and a covenant that has been going on long before us. The Old Testament also reminds us that there is one God, and that the God we see revealed in Jesus is the same God who called the prophets and let Israel out of bondage.

We read the Psalms…

…because they are our greatest treasury of songs of worship. But they also remind us that the life of faith is a life of joy and sorrow, anger and reconciliation, tears and shouts of joy. John Calvin says that in the Psalms, "there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror." Another very ancient way of reading and hearing the Psalms is to imagine that Jesus is the one speaking. Try it sometime and see if your experience of the text changes!

The Epistles…

…connect us to the very earliest churches, and in them we see that the first Christians encountered the same challenges that we do today. They are some of my favorite parts of Scripture, as they set out what it means that God is with us and for us in Jesus. When we say that they are "the Word of the Lord," we acknowledge that they are inspired by the Holy Spirit and can speak to us now, just as they did for the first readers.

Finally, we hear the Gospel —

…the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. We stand for the Gospel reading as an acknowledgement of their place at the heart of our faith. But, having heard the other Scriptures read as well, we also acknowledge that they don't stand alone. They stand within the story of God's acts: past, present, and future. Scripture helps us to interpret Scripture, and the more we can explore the relationship between the texts in the Bible, the more we can grow in relationship to the one who inspired them.

Do you have a question about the Bible, theology, or the church? Email me!

The Challenge of Baptism

Grace and Peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ!

I am writing to you from Bethany Beach, Delaware.  Being able to come out here and decompress, if only for a few days, is such a gift.  Sitting at the water this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about baptism – and not just because we have a baptism this Sunday (everyone get excited!  It is always a great gift to welcome a new member of the family).  Our Gospel reading this Sunday mentions baptism as well: Jesus foreshadows his Passion, saying, “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”  More on that in the homily on Sunday. 

One other thought on baptism: in his final sermon before his assassination, titled, “I Have Been to the Mountaintop,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. details the struggles of the Civil Rights movement and the Poor People’s Campaign.  About halfway through the sermon, King speaks specifically about the encounter with the notorious Bull Connor in Birmingham.  In what amounts to some of his most apocalyptic rhetoric (ask me more about that in person), King writes:

I remember in Birmingham, Alabama … by the hundreds we would move out.  And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around.”

Bull Connor next would say, “Turn the fire hoses on.”  And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn’t know history.  He knew a kind of physics that didn’t relate to the transphysics we knew about.  And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out.  And we went before the hoses; we had known water.

What King is talking about here is exactly the power of Baptism, or rather, the challenge of it.  In baptism, we, as St. Paul puts it, die to ourselves and are born in Christ.  We are baptized into his death and his resurrection, which means that the whole world is transformed.  King knew the stakes of his baptism.  He had lived it for years.  But he also knew its promise: that he would not be overcome, for Christ had been raised from the dead.  No water could harm him – he’d already known it.  Death was no threat.  In baptism, Christ’s resurrection had annulled all fear of it.  And as King’s life is an ever-present witness to, when the fear of death is taken away, so too is the fear of the Enemy.  And there, exactly there, is where baptism works: it frees us to love our neighbour. 

I can’t wait to see you on Sunday.  Enjoy your forgiveness – and your freedom!

Peace in Christ,
David King, PTS Summer Intern

Kickoff Sunday with Kaya Oakes

 

It's a tremendous joy to announce that our Kickoff Sunday speaker for 2022 will be Catholic author, journalist, and academic Kaya Oakes. Here's a bit of the profile from her website, oakestown.org:

Kaya Oakes is the author of five books, most recently including The Nones Are Alright (Orbis Books, 2015) and Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church (Counterpoint Press, 2012). The Defiant Middle: How Women Claim Life’s In Betweens to Remake the World, was published by Broadleaf Books in 2021. Her sixth book, on the limits of forgiveness, is forthcoming in 2024.

Kaya’s essays and journalism have appeared in The New Republic, Slate, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Sojourners, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, Religion Dispatches, Tricycle, On Being, America, and many other publications.

Since 1999, Kaya has been a faculty member in the College Writing Programs at UC Berkeley, where she teaches creative nonfiction, composition, and research writing. She has also been a distinguished visiting writer in nonfiction at St. Mary’s College as well as guest faculty at Bellarmine University and The Jesuit School of Theology at the Graduate Theological Union. Kaya was born and raised in Oakland, California, where she still lives.

Kaya's own journey has taken her from an Irish Catholic childhood, to atheism, and back to the Catholic Church as an advocate for social justice and marginalized voices within the Church. She is also a faithful friend to Christians of all denominations who works in both ecumenical and interfaith contexts. Please join us Saturday, September 10 (time TBA), and Sunday, September 11 (at the 9:30 forum) for a special East Coast visit with Kaya Oakes!

Find out more about Kaya's books here: oakestown.org/books

And read some of her articles here: oakestown.org/essays

Backpacks for Homefront Kids

Needed by August 15!

We a seeking school supply donations to pack 30 full backpacks to donate to Homefront. We have purchased the backpacks and now are calling on any who can help purchase school supplies for us to fill them. This is a quick campaign as they need the backpacks by August 15.

Please see the list below. We would like to fill each backpack from the list of supplies listed as "All Ages." If you wish to donate supplies, please leave them in the slype near the coat racks. We are also going to set up an Amazon order list as an eblast on Monday so stay tuned.

Please contact Ann Zultner or Phil Unetic if you have any questions.

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