GREETINGS IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD, JESUS CHRIST



Greetings in the Name of our Lord, Jesus Christ!

 

There can be few people of any post-Great Depression era who cannot whistle a few bars from “The March of the Swiss Soldiers” in the overture to Gioachino Rossini’s opera, Guglielmo Tell, even though this reference will strike most as at best obscure. The music most folks know is the theme to “The Lone Ranger,” and both the music and the character have become cultural icons of sorts, which may well makes us pause to ask “Can a Christian be a ‘Lone Ranger’?”

Early Christian doctrine as formulated by St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) taught Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, “Outside of the Church there is no salvation.” During the Protestant Reformation this formulation changed radically in the popular mind, for a keystone of the Reformed understanding of doctrine is that faith involves a personal response to God’s call, and that we are “justified by faith” in Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. In this understanding salvation outside of the Church is possible. But how much of this understanding turns on what we want to hear, anyway (e.g., that it is “about me”)?

When St. Paul writes about justification by faith at Romans 3.21–31, justification is connected with “righteousness,” with God’s righteousness being manifested. Theologians have argued for centuries about what Paul means by dikaiosynē, which can be translated variously as “righteousness,” “uprightness,” or (adverbially) as “rectifying rectitude”. Regardless of arguments, the points that can be agreed upon are that righteousness refers to a fundamental attribute of God (whether or not this is imputed to believers), and that this attribute can be characterized in part as God’s faithfulness to His own promises. God is faithful to His promises; His plan. The covenant to which He called Israel remains, and when we read Paul’s argument in Romans carefully (and thus realize that chs. 9–11 integral to his argument), it becomes clear that what Paul teaches is this: 1. God is faithful to the promises He made to Israel. 2. Through Jesus Christ these promises are extended to all people–not just to Israel–and all who believe in Jesus Christ are saved as included in covenant relationship with God.

What does this mean in terms of the practice of faith? By focusing on faith as an individual response, and on justification as resulting in God’s righteousness being imputed or imparted to believer’s because of Jesus’ sacrifice, theologians have tended to frame debate as an “either/or” opposition between faith and works of righteousness. As long ago as the Letter of James, the apostle pointed out that this distinction is not valid, when he wrote, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves ...” (1.22), and “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith” (2.18). Which brings us back to the Lone Ranger.

On our own any one of us can respond to Jesus’ call. On our own we can respond in faith and in works. But, on our own our response in incomplete. We are called together to respond in and as one Body. In Paul’s own words, also from Romans, “[W]e, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (12.5). As one body, elected into one covenant by God’s call first, and our response second; it is then that we live into the fullness of faith, into the fullness of works of righteousness, into the fullness of new life in Jesus Christ.

Which brings us back to the Lone Ranger. In the original radio version of the Lone Ranger, each episode began with the words “In the early days of the western United States, a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice.” In other words, even the Lone Ranger worked with somebody. The Lone Ranger and Tonto sought, and sought to effect, truth and justice. As the way, the truth, and the life (John 14.6), Jesus incarnates ultimate truth in His Body here on earth, in us when we gather in His Name. As the way He leads us into truth together. As the life He effects God’s saving promises: he brings us into covenant relationship with God as a people, not as individuals. Let us gather in His Name. Let us “... do the work [God has] given us to do ...” (BCP 366). Show your faith in how you gather in God’s Name, and in how you respond to His call.

Yours in Christ Jesus,

The Rev. Dr. Karl C. Schaffenburg

Rector

Vestry Highlights: (financial data as of 28 January)

Kyle Chandler IV, Melissa King and Ron Powell were elected to three year terms at the parish annual meeting. At Vestry on 24 January it was agreed:

▪ Carolyn Jane Hay was elected Senior Warden

▪ Kyle Chandler III was elected Junior Warden

▪ Thomas Easterling was elected Clerk

▪ Debbie Chandler was elected Treasurer

▪ The Vestry will hold a retreat on 13 February to engage in ministry planning.

▪ Vestry members will be assigned to Sundays throughout the year to have additional “management” on site. This will allow the rector to focus more on Christian Education.

▪ Oversight portfolios for Vestry reporting were agreed.

1. Operating account: $ 11,366.19 2. Capital account: $ 3,990.62

3. Rector’s Discretionary Fund: $5,823.24.

Attendance: Sunday attendance: 2011: 221 2010: 296

These figures “compare apples to oranges,” for 2010 includes a Sunday of the bishop’s visit and 2011 includes one Sunday when the rector was away from the parish. All that being said, recall that in 2010 our attendance declined by 10%. Let’s keep worship as the priority each Sunday.

Men’s Fellowship will meet on the third Monday of the month (in order not to compete with Valentine’s Day). We will meet on 21 February, at 6:30 p.m., at the Falkner camp house. Please join us with your favorite item to grill and your favorite beverage.

Episcopal Church Women: ECW met for the first time in 2011 on January 13 at the Trulove House. Discussion centered on the successful greenery sale (profit of about $3600.00), Patricia’s upcoming ordination, the new parking lot sign soon to be installed, and hostesses signing up for coffee hour and luncheons (sign-up sheet in the kitchen). Our next meeting will be Thursday, April 14, at 7 p.m. at the home of Susan Chandler. All ladies of Incarnation are urged to attend.

2

Episcopal Youth Community: As reported at the annual meeting on 23 January, EYC will focus on one or two charity projects this term, plus at least one overnight trip. The curriculum for Sunday mornings is focusing on taking part the gospel lesson for the day, and relating insights to decisions faced every day.

Grace Notes

Music: Easter falls late this year (24 April), and so throughout February we remain in the season of Epiphany. We recently heard 1 Cor. 1.18 (“the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God ...”) as part of a lesson. This theme is echoed in hymn 441, In the cross of Christ I glory. John Bowring was the fourth governor of Hong Kong, and wrote this hymn in 1825, on seeing the cross atop a burned-out church while sailing past the Chinese coast.

Hymn 427, When morning gilds the skies is a hymn by Robert Seymour Bridges (d. 1930). Bridges was a physician who became poet laureate of Great Britain. This hymn speaks of a personal response to the glory of God as experienced in nature, but at the end of Epiphany the lessons speak of God’s revelation, and so the hymn focuses on the gift of Scripture. In no. 632, O Christ, the Word Incarnate, we have words of William Walsham How, a nineteenth century English bishop who is best remembered in hymnody for For all the saints (no. 287), described by Bp. N. T. Wright as one of the best summaries of what the Bible teaches about the afterlife. The music to this hymn is from seventeenth century German chorale harmonized by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, himself a convert (grandson of one of the most famous Jewish philosophers) who described his conversion experience as being effected by a close study of Scripture. His harmonization of this hymn was one of his last works of composition before his untimely death in 1847.

At the end of the month we are treated to a favorite hymn by one of the princes of hynody, Charles Wesley, in no. 657, Love divine, all loves excelling. Wesley published this hymn in 1747 in Hymns for Those that Seek and Those That Have Redemption in the Blood of Jesus Christ. The revival of hymnody under Wesley came to full flower in the nineteenth century, in no small part due to the availability of singable tunes. We sing this hymn to the Welsh melody “Hyfrydol,” but it is also sung to four other tunes (two others also being Welsh). “Hyfrydol” was written by Rowland Huw Prichard (d. 1887), a loom-tender’s assistant at the Welsh Flannel Manufacturing Co. at Holywell, remembered for his songs for children.

Holy Days: Two important feasts (as classified under the rules of the Calendar of the Church Year (BCP pp. 15–33) fall in February. The first is the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple (2 February) which falls on a Wednesday and will be observed at the Holy Eucharist that evening. This feast is, in fact, defined as a “Holy Day” (i.e., a feast of our Lord as opposed to a saint). “Presentation” was known until the 1979 prayer book as “The Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary” (see Luke 2.22-38), and is known popularly as “Candlemas”. The popular name derives from the tradition of blessing candles for use throughout the church year on this day. This tradition probably deriving from the Christian supplantation of the Anglo-Saxon pagan practice of bearing torches on this day in honor of the earth goddess, Ceres.

The second important feast is that of St. Matthias the Apostle (24 February, observance transferred to 23 Feb.) When the apostles met and prayed in the nine days between Jesus’ ascension and the day of Pentecost, St. Matthias was selected to replace Judas Iscariot. This story is found at Acts 1.21-22, which tells us nothing more about Matthias. Traditionally, Matthias is remembered as an example to Christians of one whose faithful companionship with Jesus qualifies him to be a suitable witness to the resurrection of our Lord, and one whose service is unheralded and unsung.

3

Another Anglo-Saxon day that has become associated with a Christian saint is 14 February, St. Valentine’s day (which is not on the Church Calendar). St. Valentine was a third century martyr in Rome,

and his life bears no connection with traditions of romantic love and betrothal. However, on the Anglo-

saxon calendar this was the day when birds were thought to select their mates, and the saint’s feast

“baptized” this day into a Christian consciousness, furthered by the growth of the idea of romantic love in Medieval times. The Church observes 14 February as the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, apostles to the Slavs (and inventors of the Cyrillic alphabet as used in Russian).

Lesser feasts in February include those of St. Anskar, missionary to Denmark and Sweden (d. 865), The Martyrs of Japan (5 February, commemorating the massacre of Christians at Nagasaki in 1597, when foreigners were expelled from Japan, and the country entered a period of isolation maintained until 1853) and St. Scholastica (d.543), the first Benedictine nun (10 February). To this day all Anglican nunneries follow some form of the Benedictine Rule. Finally, on 23 February falls the feast of St. Polycarp of Smyrna (martyred 156). Polycarp was an important father in the Church, one who as a young man learned from the Apostle John, and so one who forms an improtant link in the chain of apostolic succession and witness. Polycarp was burned at age 86 for refusing to renounce the Lord of his life.

4.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download