10 Things I wish every Episcopal priest knew about the Episcopal Church

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Last week an article circulated online entitled “10 things I wish everyone knew about the Episcopal Church.” You can read it here. The author had been asked to write an article explaining the Episcopal Church briefly to those from outside the tradition. While I don’t agree with everything in the article, I do think it serves to dispel some popular misperceptions about our church. Still, as I thought about the ten things listed, I began to wonder if we as clergy might be responsible for many of the misperceptions people have about our church (I think we are). So here is my alternate list of 10 things I wish every Episcopal priest knew about the Episcopal Church:

  1. We don’t need to be ashamed of our English heritage.

It’s no secret I am a proud Anglo-phile. I loved Downton Abbey. I loved the Vicar of Dibley. But the British show that I loved most of all is Call the Midwife, specifically because Call the Midwife portrayed the true story of how a group of Anglican nuns ministered the gospel in one of London’s poorest neighborhoods. It reminds me of why I am a member of this particular branch of Christ’s church: not because I love tea and biscuits (though they are lovely), but because I love Jesus and I am frankly proud of some of the ways that the Anglican Church has sought to spread the knowledge and love of Jesus throughout the world. The fact that the Anglican Church can be found worldwide and that the Episcopal Church itself is found in several foreign countries is evidence of the fact that Anglicans have always had a concern for sharing the gospel of Christ with people of differing races, languages and cultures. In fact, Pope Gregory the Great sent Saint Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, to England with specific instructions to incorporate local customs into his preaching of the gospel. Diversity is not a modern phenomenon.

To say this does not mean that we do not recognize the many ways in which we have failed God’s people throughout the centuries. The Anglican Church, just like every part of the church, protestant or catholic, has sins for which to atone. We need to do that, but in doing so we needn’t overlook the many and powerful ways that our church has been a vehicle of grace and reconciliation. It is true that the Anglican Church was far too involved in British Imperialism, but it is also true that that same church inspired the faiths of individuals like William Wilberforce, who fought and succeeded in abolishing the slave trade. I love tea and cake, and I love a good British television show, but I could still have those and go to any other church (or none at all). I am committed to the Anglican Church not because I love those things, but because I am committed to God’s Kingdom and the Gospel and I am convinced that the Anglican Church, at its best, can give God’s people a glimpse of both.

  1. If we are people of the book then we need to do a better job of making it come alive for people.

Speaking of great things that the Anglican Church has given to the world: having the bible readily available in the English language is one of the great triumphs of the English Reformation. It is true that we spend a lot of time during our Sunday worship reading the scriptures and having a lectionary means that we cannot simply pick and choose the scriptures we wish to read; however, if we think that merely following the lectionary and reading the scriptures on Sunday morning is enough, we are sadly mistaken. In the first place the lectionary leaves things out all the time; important things; things the congregation probably needs to hear even if it makes them uncomfortable. In the second place, it is very hard if not impossible to understand the various books of the bible if you are only getting snippets every Sunday morning without the in-depth study and background that comes from having real bible study.

As priests one of the vows we take is studying the scriptures. This is a lifetime commitment. It is a practice that forces us to listen to the voices of our ancestors in the faith. If we aren’t immersing ourselves in the scriptures regularly how are we ever going to make them come alive for our congregations?

  1. If we are people of the Book of Common Prayer, then we damned well ought to be using it.

Rite III and creative and experimental liturgies have a place in our church, they really do, but that place is NOT the main service on Sunday morning. I would also add that gatherings of the diocese (e.g., conventions) and clergy are not the place for them either. There are plenty of creative things that one can do within the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer without completely concocting something new of our own. If we are going to tell people that “praying shapes believing” or that “our prayers shape our beliefs” then we need to prove it by not doing the opposite (using our beliefs to shape our prayers) every time we get the opportunity.

  1. We need to stop dumbing down our liturgy in fruitless attempts to reach the unfamiliar and unchurched.

Everyone appreciates having a friendly waiter in a restaurant, but let’s face it, if the food is no good we aren’t likely to go back, no matter how good the customer service is. Be who you are. Offer people authentic worship and don’t worry so much about the people who don’t get or understand everything that you are doing. Just allow them to be. Allow them to watch and allow them to observe without being forced to participate in a way which they may not feel comfortable. Some of the worst sins against visitors are committed in the name of being “welcoming.” Here are some examples of things NOT to do:

  • Do not force a visitor to stand up in front of the entire congregation and say their name and where they are from (seriously this happened to me in an Episcopal Church recently)
  • Do not force non-communicants to come up and receive a blessing if they don’t want to.
  • Do not treat visitors as “fresh meat” that are roped into a committee before leaving their first Sunday. Presumably they came to worship God, let them do that.

It is ok for people to be a little lost, but if they are actually being fed by the liturgy, they are more likely to return and eventually they will learn, and that is the point after all, isn’t it?

  1. We believe in God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and a whole lot more…

One of the more memorable quotes from our Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry this summer was that he can: “say the entire creed without my fingers crossed behind my back.” It was a great moment and a great quote, but what is most revealing is that it needed to be said at all.

It is one thing to deeply question core tenets of the faith while sitting in the pew; it is another thing entirely to do so while standing in the pulpit or at the altar. Unfortunately public perception is often shaped by the people who speak the loudest. In recent years, the voices getting the most press or airtime in the Episcopal Church have often been the voices that have minimized the importance of, if not flat out denied, core, creedal Christian doctrines (you know, things like the Resurrection). It is no wonder then that people around this country and around the world wonder what, if anything, we believe. The Nicene and Apostle’s Creeds are part of our daily and weekly worship. They aren’t listed under the “historical documents” section of the prayer book. They are meant to be said because they are meant to be believed, not once upon a time, but here and now. It is ok to have doubts and questions and to struggle with faith, but at the end of the day if I can’t stand up with integrity and proclaim the faith of the church, I would look for another job.

  1. We need to talk about Jesus more.

People aren’t pressured to go to church anymore. There is no societal expectation. There are also plenty of other organizations out there that a person can devote their time and money to. If they like good music they can go to the symphony. If they like to help others they can volunteer at a shelter or join a not-for-profit. If they feel passionate about liberal causes or conservative causes there are multitudes of organizations out there that will be more than happy to welcome them. If all we talk about are issues and causes of the moment, we are always going to be fighting a losing battle, because people simply don’t need us for that. We are not here to be the liberal church or the conservative church. We are here to be the church of Jesus Christ, offering Christ to the world. Jesus is the one thing that we have to offer that the rest of the world can’t. If we aren’t talking about him, we are wasting our breath.

  1. Our church was not founded in 597, 1534, or 1789. Our church was founded in 33AD.

Our church has been reorganized a few times over the course of its history, but it has never been “refounded.” We are still the same church that was founded by Jesus Christ. When Christian missionaries (from both Roman and Celtic expressions of the faith) first came to England they became the church in/of England. Throughout our history there has been reorganization and reform, but we are still that same church. The Roman Catholic Church has reorganized and reformed several times as well. In every reform good decisions were made, and bad decisions were made and yet still the church marched on. We need to have a little more faith in the resilience of Christ’s church.

  1. The church needs to be bigger than the booze.

I remember the famous southern comedian Lewis Grizzard once said that the Baptists in his town were getting very liberal: they were starting to wave at one another in the liquor store.

The Episcopal Church is not going to be one of those churches that condemns the drinking of alcohol. Nobody wants that, and it usually just leads to hypocrisy anyways. But if all we are offering people is a place where they can drink without being judged, then they could just as soon go to the bar down the street. We need to be a place where people feel they can come to meet Christ, whether they choose to drink or not. We don’t need to banish alcohol, but we do need to confront the perception that that is what we are all about. Enough with the jokes. They aren’t really funny anyways.

  1. Your church is a part of something bigger, but ultimately that something is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ. Everything in between is just middle management.

I may not do things just like my colleague in the next village. I may say mass facing East and my Roman Catholic friends across the street may say it facing the congregation. I may be a gay man and my bishop could be a straight woman. There are lots of issues that we as a church are just not going to agree on. We need to focus on what unites us. There is only one Jesus and he only has one church. Regardless of how we like to separate and sort ourselves, let us always remember who we really work for.

  1. We worship Christ in community; we do not worship THE community.

I can dream of a day when we are all joined together in glory as the one church triumphant gathered around the throne and worshipping together the majesty of God. That will indeed be a glorious day. But as long as we are on this earth, and separated as we all are by time and place, Christ’s church will never be gathered together in one place at one time. We have to learn to remember that we are part of the church even when we aren’t gathered together with it. Yes, we do have private baptisms, we always have, but we are not creating solitary Christians. Whenever you baptize someone you are doing it on behalf of the entire church of Christ and they are being baptized into the entire church of Christ. The church is not someplace we gather on Sunday mornings…it is who and what we are. Each of us has the responsibility to represent the church in the world: wherever we go and whatever we do, but we don’t do this to get people to join our club. The church exists not to point people to itself, but to point people to Christ.

Work is good; teamwork is better, but only grace can save us. Sermon for August 2, 2015

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Sermon for August 2, 2015

Readings:

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
Psalm 78:23-29
Ephesians 4:1-16
John 6:24-35

Text of sermon:

Work is a good thing. At just about any age, I think we humans benefit greatly from having responsibilities and from keeping our minds and our bodies occupied. Of course, not all jobs, not all work is paying work (a stay at home parent may not be getting paid, but is working just as much, if not more, as your average CEO) but still having a job and having work, it gives you a sense of accomplishment, that sense of self-worth when you step back and look at something you have done and say to yourself….yes…I did that. Work can give you pride, and self-worth and self-confidence and for that it is very important.

Sometimes in life we learn that our work alone is not enough. Some projects are too big for one person, even simple projects. No matter how hard I try, I am simply not going to get a sofa up my staircase at home. It is just too much for me. And no matter how hard I tried, I simply cannot play the organ, sing and administer communion all at the same time. I don’t have all those gifts, and even if I did, I am just one person, and there are limits to what I can do by myself. Sometimes you learn that you have to work with others to accomplish more than you can do on your own. All of us have individual gifts and skills and sharing them with each other helps to make us collectively stronger. It helps us to accomplish bigger things than we could do working on our own.

But even when we are working together, there are still some things that are so far outside of our human capabilities, that no amount of teamwork or collaboration is going to help. There are some things that we cannot do on our own. Some things are so great we cant work for them at all. Some things simply have to be given to us, and recognizing that helps us to balance that self-worth and self-confidence that work gives us with humility and gratitude. No matter how big we are, or how capable we are, there are some things that we cannot do or accomplish on our own. Sometimes you have to learn how to receive something that you didn’t work for, couldn’t work for, and probably don’t even deserve. Those moments are called grace. To be given something that you didn’t work for and that you don’t deserve: that is called grace. Grace is about the graciousness or the generosity of the giver, not the worthiness of the recipient. With grace it is the giver who does the real work, the receiver simply chooses to either accept or reject the gift.

The Christian story, the gospel, the good news, is about the grace of God. It is about the graciousness shown to us by God by giving us something that we could never work for. No matter how hard we tried, either working alone or working together, we humans are not going to save ourselves. We just don’t have the power. It is something that has to be given to us. The gospel is how we believe that God did that. The good news is about how we believe that God has saved us and central to that story is the life of Jesus Christ.

Jesus came to a people who had been trying for a long time to save themselves. He started preaching, performing miracles. Last week we heard about him feeding 5000 people. The crowds got excited… they began to say to themselves: surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world. Surely he must know what we need to do to save ourselves. He must have the answer, oh and he did have the answer, but not the one they were looking for. They began to talk about this story that they knew, that they all collectively knew, about Moses and freeing the Israelites from Egypt. They started talking about this story, and Jesus starts to question them about it. Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and when they were wandering in the desert and hungry did he feed them? No! He didn’t feed them. Moses didn’t toil and sweat to make the manna fall from the sky. God fed them. That food, which was their salvation, that was a gift from God. No amount of work or teamwork make that happen, it was a gift from God.

Then Jesus said the most powerful thing to them. He says to them: that is what I am to you. I am like that bread from heaven. I am living bread that has come down to you from God for your salvation. You want to know how you can work for this. You want to know what you can do to make this happen, but the answer is nothing. Just as Moses could do nothing to make the manna come from heaven, you can do nothing to produce the salvation that I bring. The work you have to do is this: accept the gift, or reject it. Receive the grace that God is offering you, or go on trying in vain to save yourself.

Work is good, teamwork is even better, but only grace can save us. God has given us something in Jesus Christ that we could never work for: he has given us salvation. Don’t get me wrong: we as Christians have work to do and God has given us gifts and skills to do it. There are things that we can do in this world, working on our own or working with each other, that can help build the type of kingdom that our Lord preaches about; there are things that we can do that will make us holier people; there are things that we can do to make our societies more just, and we need to do those things, but that alone won’t save us. Our true work is in helping the world to see and accept the salvation, the grace that has already been offered us. Let us begin by showing the world what our God is like. Let us begin by showing others the grace that our God has shown us. Let us being by spending less time talking about the work that we are doing in the world, and more time talking about the work that God has already done for us.

Here is Water: A Call for Open Baptism

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In one of my favorite scenes from the movie “O Brother Where Art Thou?,” three escaped convicts: Ulysses, Pete and Delmar, encounter a church congregation gathering at a river to perform baptisms. Delmar becomes so excited he jumps to the front of the line to have the preacher baptize him too. After Delmar comes up from the water he yells back to his friends on the shore:

Delmar:          Well that’s it, boys. I’ve been redeemed. The     preacher’s done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting’s my reward.

Ulysses:          Delmar, what are you talking about? We’ve got bigger fish to fry.

Delmar:          The preacher says all my sins been warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.

Ulysses:          I thought you said you was innocent of those charges!

Delmar:          Well I was lyin’. And the preacher says that that sin’s been warshed away too. Neither God nor man’s got nothin’ on me now. C’mon in boys, the water is fine.

Pete enthusiastically takes Delmar up on the offer and is baptized too. Ulysses remains skeptical and dry. Later after the trio pick up a hitchhiker named Tommy, who tells them that he sold his soul to the devil to learn how to play guitar, Ulysses states: “Well, ain’t it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete and Delmar just been baptized and saved. I guess I’m the only one that remains unaffiliated.”

Ulysses could be anybody. In many ways his character gives voice to the “nones” of our world: the people who are unaffiliated with any religion and who are often content to remain so. Ulysses represents all those that avoid issues like sin and repentance and even God, because they are convinced that they have “bigger fish to fry.” You expect to find such attitudes in a secular society, but finding indifference to baptism in the church is another matter entirely.

When the Book of Common Prayer was revised in 1979 much effort was expended by the scholars and liturgists involved to place a renewed emphasis on baptism and its importance in the life of the worshipping community. Baptism was no longer envisioned as a private service for the Christening of newborns, but instead was seen as a public proclamation of faith, made by adults as well as children. Rubrics were written suggesting (although not, as some think, requiring) that baptism be performed at the chief service on Sunday morning, and then only on four occasions a year (more about this hated rubric later). Now, after 36 years of public baptisms and renewing of Baptismal Covenants, we have a vocal minority in the Episcopal Church that insist that baptism is not essential to participating in the life of the church, particularly in partaking of the Holy Eucharist. Somewhere the message about the importance of baptism did not get through.

Now we are told that withholding communion is unwelcoming and inhospitable, and every three years at General Convention someone proposes a change to canon law to allow the unbaptized to receive communion (communion without baptism or CWOB for short). The primary problem with CWOB, as I see it, is not that it desecrates the Holy Eucharist; the real problem is that it desecrates Baptism. CWOB trivializes baptism; it turns our primary act of union with Christ into an optional rite of initiation. If we are eager to give the stranger in our midst communion, but somehow less eager to invite them to be baptized, what does that say about our belief in baptism?

I don’t know any priest who has ever asked about someone’s baptism at the altar rail. I certainly have never withheld communion from those who have come forward wishing to receive it, but to actively teach people that it doesn’t matter is another thing entirely. That, in essence, would be allowing them access to one sacrament, but withholding from them another: encouraging them to take Christ’s body, but without encouraging them to become a part of it.

How have we gotten to this point where CWOB can even be seriously discussed? It seems that despite the changes made in the 1979 Prayer Book, we actually value baptism less now than we did then. I know of one church in particular that prides itself on offering communion to anyone, regardless of baptism, yet turns away individuals wishing to be baptized, unless they are available on one of the four times a year that the prayer book recommends doing it. Just exactly how is this radically welcoming? What does it say if we will offer anyone communion but put strict limits on when and where we will actually offer people union with Christ through baptism?

For too long we have talked about baptism as if it were a community event. We have treated baptism like it is an initiation into a club, and not a sacred moment in the life of an individual. I cringe when I hear people say: “I was baptized an Episcopalian,” or “I was baptized Roman Catholic.” People now think that baptism is about joining a church, when in reality baptism is about joining the Church, not a group of Christians worshiping on this corner in this town, but the mystical body of Christ which is made up of all believers from all time. To be baptized is to be forever affiliated with Jesus Christ. It shouldn’t matter if the individuals we baptize never darken the door of our church again. Baptism is not about making new church members; it is about making new Christians. I understand the reasons why the liturgists of the 1979 Prayer Book wanted to make baptism a Sunday event, but I am not convinced that putting limits on baptism has been an effective means of calling people outside of our churches into a life in Christ.

We need to get serious about baptism. If we want to be radically welcoming of the strangers in our midst, then let’s start by welcoming them at the font; better yet, let’s take baptism outside the church: let’s wade into the water with God’s people in rivers and lakes and streams. Whenever we find someone that wishes to follow Jesus, let us show them just how welcoming our church can be by baptizing them then and there. We don’t need to turn every sacred moment into a bureaucratic process. When our Lord gave his disciples the great commission in Matthew 28:19 he told them to: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” When one of those disciples, Phillip, met an Ethiopian Eunuch that wanted to follow Jesus in Acts 8, he didn’t wait until Sunday or a special feast day to unite him with the Lord; he did it as soon as they found water. If we are serious about following this Jesus, obeying his commands, and getting people to affiliate with God, then we need to get serious about his command to baptize.

We have no bigger fish to fry.

There’s a reason for the things that I have on…

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A friend of mine once said: “we are really good in the church at creating professional clergy, but we aren’t very good at creating ministers of the gospel.” Hearing her words made me think of my own time in seminary and the different ways in which I was and was not prepared to be spreading the gospel. During my last year in seminary, the then dean, Joseph Britten, sat the senor class down one day and passed out a piece of paper. One of the topics for discussion that day was clerical dress. The dean began by saying that we could talk about the historical and cultural reasons for clergy to wear black, but that we would never have a better excuse than the words on this piece of paper. Printed on the paper were the lyrics to the Johnny Cash song “Man in Black”:

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,

Why you never see bright colors on my back,

And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.

Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,

Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,

I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,

But is there because he’s a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,

Or listened to the words that Jesus said,

About the road to happiness through love and charity,

Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me.

Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose,

In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes,

But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back,

Up front there ought ‘a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,

For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,

I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,

Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,

Believen’ that the Lord was on their side,

I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,

Believen’ that we all were on their side.

Well, there’s things that never will be right I know,

And things need changin’ everywhere you go,

But ’til we start to make a move to make a few things right,

You’ll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day,

And tell the world that everything’s OK,

But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,

‘Till things are brighter, I’m the Man In Black.

If I learned nothing else in seminary, that day I began to grasp what it means to be a minister of the gospel and not just another specialized professional in a suit.

Those years in seminary were the days when I longed for the day when I could officially wear a clerical collar. It was a symbol of what I was working towards; it was a symbol of my burgeoning identity; and, yes, it was also a symbol of authority. I can remember the excitement of actually getting to wear a collar for the first time as an ordained person and the amount of pride that I took in dressing for the role of deacon and priest, but that was a long time ago.

In the eleven years since I was ordained, the clerical collar has lost the mystique that it once had. As a good Anglo-Catholic I still wear it the majority of the time when doing anything official (and yes, I only wear black), but I must admit feeling a great sense of relief at the end of the day when I take it off. I even find myself looking for reasons or excuses NOT to wear the collar sometimes. Quite a change from when I first put it on.

What many people do not understand is that wearing a clerical collar and dressing as a priest, very often changes the way people look at you and the way they treat you. Introverts (like me) can find all that extra attention exhausting, but even some of the most outgoing people I know can get tired of being seen as Father of Mother so and so ALL the time. I have found myself in recent years to be reluctant at times to wear my collar when going in to Manhattan (I live on Long Island). I find myself wanting to take it off or change my shirt, so that I can travel around like everyone else without the extra baggage that the clerical collar brings with it. Recently I was heading into Manhattan from my office and I paused for a moment thinking that I might take off my collar before I left, but for some reason (a still, small voice) I decided to leave it on.

When I walked up to the train platform I was stopped by a man who looked like he was waiting for a train in the opposite direction. Now my gut reaction whenever anyone stops me on the street or in public is to expect one of two things: 1) to be asked for money, or 2) to be asked a theological question that deserves a complex answer by someone that expects a simple answer usually agreeing with their own viewpoint (seriously, this happens). Call me cynical.

The man started by apologizing for taking up my time. He said that he was Jewish and not from my faith but respected what I did and recognized me as a person of prayer. He told me a story of how he had just been diagnosed with an inoperable cancer, was afraid of losing his vision and dying, and really wanted someone to stop and pray for him. That was it. He didn’t want money. He didn’t want to monopolize my time. He just wanted reassurance of God’s love from someone he recognized as a minister.

It took less than a minute of my time to give this gentleman everything that he wanted. After we said a brief prayer together there on the train platform he walked on. It was just a brief moment of grace punctuating a rather ordinary day, but I walked away from the encounter feeling quite different than I had just a few minutes before. He may have been the one who asked for prayer, but I may have been the one who was healed.

This whole encounter which changed my day, and undoubtedly changed his too would not have happened if I had taken that collar off as I had originally intended. I was wearing a symbol of my office and it was that symbol that helped to create the space where that encounter could happen. I realized that I had begun looking at the collar as a professional clergyperson; as a symbol of work that can at times be exhausting. What the collar became for me in that moment was a tool to be used in the ministry of the gospel, and that made all the difference in the world.

The signs and symbols we use in the church have great power, even to people who are completely outside our faith. Even people who never cross the threshold of the church can recognize a priest on the street. They may not understand me as an individual, but they know what I represent and that still means something.

We do damage to the ministry of the gospel by dismissing the tools that God has given us to spread it. By saying that “style doesn’t matter” or that something is “merely symbolic” we casually dismiss the powerful tools that we have to tell the world about Jesus Christ and the love he has for it. When we are more focused on the tools than we are on the mission, then we revert back to being professional clergypersons, but when we are using the tools to further our mission, then we become effective ministers of the gospel.

As an Anglo-Catholic I love the symbols of my faith. I love the bells and smells. I love the gothic architecture and the beauty of the language used in the King James Bible. I love all of those things and I use them, not because I am clinging to something I grew up with (I didn’t). I use them because I am convinced that they are still effective tools for taking the gospel into a world that still needs to hear it.

Hanging on the wall in the rectory bathroom are the framed lyrics to Johnny Cash’s song. I reread it often, because I find that I need to be reminded of the just how important the symbol I am wearing on my back or around my neck might be. It isn’t a fashion choice to be worn by a professional priest; it is a tool to be used by a minister of the gospel. I thank God for reminding me from time to time that there’s a reason for the things that I have on.

What we have; What we lost; What we need

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If the church were more like Oxford University:

Subfusc is a Latin term used to refer to a specific type of academic dress worn by students at Oxford University. It is a black gown of varying lengths and shapes worn over formal attire by students during examinations, some lectures, dinners and numerous other occasions. If Oxford were like many other universities, subfusc, would be a period costume and nothing more: something one might expect to see depicted in movies like Brideshead Revisited or the Shadowlands, but not an item of contemporary apparel. Thankfully, Oxford is not like any other university.

Last week as I was having breakfast in a hotel in Oxford’s city centre, I could see outside the window phalanx of students, impeccably dressed and donning their subfusc, heading into an austere stone building to take their examinations. This was not some historical reenactment of life at Oxford in the 1920s; this is life at Oxford now and if the students have anything to say about it, it will still be life in Oxford for many years to come.

Last week the Oxford Student Union held a referendum. The question it posed: Should students still be required to wear subfusc on the usual occasions? One of the university’s vice presidents proposed that this was an archaic tradition that the students would be glad to get rid of. The result: more than 75% of the student body voted in favor of keeping the unusually shaped black gowns as required apparel for Oxford students. The students who actually live their lives in and out of these garments expressed a strong desire to maintain this centuries old tradition. This does not mean, however, that Oxford students are simply intransigent and unwilling to adapt to the modern world. In 2012 rules regarding the type of subfusc that each gender was permitted to wear were lifted, but the general rule that students must be dressed in some type of the uniform were maintained, proving that it is possible to adapt a tradition to modern needs without throwing it off entirely.

Oxford University takes modern youth, from a variety of backgrounds and races, and invites them into a different life. It is a life steeped in centuries of tradition, where students know that they are a part of something much larger and more significant than just the concerns of the present age. But because its life is comprised primarily of the young, Oxford is always confronted with new ideas and new thoughts. So what you end up with is a city and a University that is at once extremely old, while at the same time being eternally young. It has both the reverence of ancient tradition and the vitality of new life, and that is, in my opinion, exactly what the church should look like.

The ability to adapt tradition without dispensing with it, has proven to be Oxford’s strength and the Church’s weakness, and this is crucial because it is that very ability that will lie at the heart of any successful prayer book revision.

The next prayer book revision needs to take a close look at three critical questions regarding the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: What we have; what we lost; and what we need.

What we have

While I admit that I am not the biggest fan of the 1979 prayer book, there is much there that works and works well. Some of the prayers are clumsy and dated, but some work very well. Overall, the 1979 prayer book, when it is actually followed, can produce beautiful and wonderful liturgies in worship styles that range from high Anglo-Catholic to low protestant and everything in between. It is imperfect, but for many of us in the church now it is the tradition that has formed us, and that is not to be taken lightly or easily dispensed with.

What we lost

All revisions and reformations have a tendency to go too far. Things get pushed aside or left behind in one generation that the next generation finds itself in need of. Any revision of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer needs to look backwards as well as forwards. We need to look back at previous revisions and identify places where something of value was lost. How can a new prayer book connect modern Christians to ancient rituals and beliefs? How can we help today’s worshiper feel that oneness of spirit with Christians in every other generation? If we can accept that merely casting off old traditions is not an acceptable solution to moving forward, can we look back and identify some traditions that previous revisions dispensed with in too much haste?

What we need

Much has changed in the last 30+ years. Technology is vastly different. The battlegrounds within the church and within the world have all changed. A new prayer book must take into account the world it is being sent into. It must be able to invite individuals from every background, race, gender and sexuality into the life of the church. This will mean adding and altering some services and it is here principally that the ability to alter traditions without dispensing with them altogether will become key.

There are many reasons why I would propose that now is not the time to be contemplating prayer book revision in the Episcopal Church, but my primary reason that I pray we hold off, is that we simply have not done the work of finding out from our youth and young clergy what the answers are to those three questions: what we have; what we lost; and what we need. Like the students at Oxford wearing subfusc, it is the young in the church that are going to have to actually live with and in any new revised prayer book, so any discussion of revision must begin with them.

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