As We Forgive Those...

WOW. This is amazing and VERY moving. Wow.

http://www.asweforgivethose.com/

Just watch.

PS - I just realized that I know Laura Waters Hinson, the Producer/Director. Very cool!

Why Ecclesiology is Essential

"Why even think about "ecclesiology" - what makes the churches "the Church" at all? If a Christian shares perspective with most forms of Protestantism, there is little reason indeed. In contemporary Christian life, it is commonly agreed that Jesus did not "found" any church at all, and that our churches are our own little man-made organizations that try to carry out the work of spreading the gospel and converting the heathen more efficient. I know this sounds glib, but that's what it comes down to: that the church exists because it is useful to our version of the Gospel (which we believe to be a separate thing from the church) simply because Jesus wants his people to "meet together."

On the other hand, what if Jesus didn't come to impart some information about God and a revised moral code? What if he didn't come with a way for us to have an individual personal relationship with God that we could practice with other people if we wanted to? What if Jesus really did found a community that really did have a real and physical existence in the world? What if being joined to Jesus through baptism and being joined to this real physical community really is the same thing, the same Godward movement that makes us alive and saves us from death?"

Kyle Potter shares lucid thoughts on the importance of doing ecclesiology. Check it out here.

Psalm of the Week - Psalm 116

Psalm 116

I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.
Because he has inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.

Then I called on the name of the LORD:
"O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!"

Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;
I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.

I believed, even when I spoke,
"I am greatly afflicted";
I said in my alarm,
"All mankind are liars."

What shall I render to the LORD
for all his benefits to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD,
I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.

Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his saints.
O LORD, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your maidservant.
You have loosed my bonds.
I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the house of the LORD,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!

History and Interpretation

Check out Chris Tilling's hilarious treatment of different scholars' differing opinions on the question: Did certain historical events in the life of Jesus actually happen?

God Toward Us, and Us Toward God

"Jesus turned toward the world is God's wisdom and power in action; but Jesus turned toward the Father is the embodiment of a sort of divine response to divine generosity, the Son turned towards the Father. The life of God is not only the outpouring gift, it's a life in which our own response of selfless gratitude and response is also foreshadowed for ever. Jesus is divine responding embodied in our nature and our world; he responds freely and totally to the gift of the Father, and that response is no less divine than the gift - a perfect response that is both human and more than human...

And if you turn to St Paul, you find there, less economically expressed, both the idea of Christ as the one who gathers up all things that the Father has made and brings them home to the Father through the work of an eternal love that has worked itself out in time and space (compare chapter 1 and chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians). Jesus Christ, the anointed monarch of God's people, stands at the heart of the twofold movement, of God's life towards the world and the world's journey to reconciliation with God."

- Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, pp. 66-67

These ruminations on God's being as giver and receiver, lover and lover, are frightening, exciting and entirely awe-inspiring. But perhaps more frightening, exciting and awe-inspiring than that is the fact that by baptism into Christ's death and resurrection, we become part of this dynamic love play that is God. As the Holy Spirit filled body of Christ, God asks us to be His representatives to the world (as the Father sent me, so I send you). He then brings us back to Himself in our lives as reconciled people.

This "twofold movement" of which Williams speaks us crystallized in our celebration of the Eucharist, the ultimate sacrifice of God for the world, and the ultimate self-offering of Jesus to His Father. We are caught up in this fluid motion, realizing that not only Christ, but our very lives as baptized people, are broken for the world and for God. And then we receive the giving and receiving life that is Jesus into us.

May Christ bring to pass by his Spirit and for His Father the goal to which we all strive, the perfect imitation of this divine reality of love.

The Long View

Check out this new year's greeting from our Archbishop, Rowan Williams.



Particularly striking is Rowan's point that our view of the material world will inevitably flow over into our view of relationships, or even God and his church. If I spend my time waiting for the newest model of the iPod to be released so I can discard my current one (which, I might add, is in perfect working condition), is there not also a danger that I will cultivate that same attitude toward people? How many more of our common practices slowly and quietly beguile us into an attitude of 'disposability' toward the earth and toward others?

Against all of our reductionist tendencies toward God's good creation and God's people stand John the Baptist and Jesus, telling us, "Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!"May the Spirit of God show us where we fail and fall, and bring us to committed and long change.

The Eucharist as Denial

The Eucharist is the definitive action practiced in the Christian community that keeps Jesus Christ before us as the Savior of the world and our Savior, and ourselves as sinners in need of being saved. The Eucharist is the sacramental act that pulls us into actual material participation with Christ (eating and drinking bread and wine) as he gives us his very life "for us and for our salvation" (Nicene Creed). Without the Eucharist as the focal practice, it is very easy to drift off into imagining Jesus as our Great Example whom we will imitate, or our Great Teacher from whom we will learn, or our Great Hero by whom we will be inspired. And without the Eucharist it is very easy to drift into a spirituality that is dominated by ideas about Jesus instead of receiving life from Jesus. The Eucharist says a plain "no" to all that. The Eucharist puts Jesus in his place: dying on the cross giving us that sacrificed life. And it puts us in our place: opening our hands and receiving the remission of our sins, which is our salvation.
- Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, pg. 203, bold mine