A Sermon Preached on the Occasion of the Feast of Lancelot Andrewes on September 26th, 2017

Yesterday, Sunday September 26th, was the feast of Lancelot Andrews. Below follows a sermon I preached for that feast. This was my Senior Sermon at The General Theological Seminary given on Tuesday, September 26th, 2017. 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Please, be comfortable, Good evening. For those of you who were here for morning prayer, thank you for giving me a second chance. For those who weren’t, I promise not to sing. 

 

I make no secret of it, I love the saints, not the New Orleans football team, although I was pleased to read that ¼ of the team “took the knee” during Sunday’s game to protest police violence against black lives. But rather the saints who surround us, that great cloud of witnesses we read about in Hebrews 12:1. I love the Roman saints like Theresa of Avilla, and Martin de Porres, or the contemporary ones the Romans haven’t gotten around to canonizing yet like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. 

 

I love our own Anglican saints, those like Constance of Memphis, Henry Hobart, and Alexander Cummwell whose Christian witnesses we’ve heard about so recently from this very pulpit. And I must admit a special devotion to our one “officially” canonized Anglican saint, Charles I, King and Martyr. I especially love the multitude of early saints; those martyrs who likely existed, like Sebastian, or Lawrence, and the many others like Christopher or Catherine of Alexandria who probably didn’t. I love their hagiographies, filled with amazing miracles, and pious legends, narratives that read like adventure stories or fairy tales. 

 

One of the wonderful things about celebrating the daily Eucharist, and following a developed ordo calendar, is having an opportunity to commemorate and hopefully learn something about the multitudes of Christians who came before us. After all, that is a primary purpose behind remembering them, as exemplars of the Christian life. Fr Kevin and the Sacristy team try hard here at the Chapel of the Good Shepherd to include on our ordo calendar a wide diversity of Christian witnesses, trolling Lessor Feasts and Fasts, in its latest version, for those who are underrepresented, for women, for people of colour, and for those from non-western European backgrounds. 

 

That being said, today we commemorate Lancelot Andrewes, one of the folks my woke millennial Sociology classmates at Temple University would probably refer to dismissively as a “Dead Straight White Dude.” Now, don’t get me wrong, all followers of Christ, even the admittedly overrepresented straight white dudes, are our brothers and have their place in that Cloud of Witnesses where there is no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer male and female, but where all are one in Christ Jesus. 

 

On September 25^thof 2015, my Junior year at GTS, I was asked by Fr Clare McPherson to officiate for the first time at Friday’s Evening Rite; a more informal and sometimes a little experimental evening prayer service where we were encouraged to include poetry or other readings. As I looked for a poem or reading for the service, I remembered that the next day, Saturday the 26^thwas the Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, I had my poem. I won’t repeat it now, you had to be there, its your loss if you weren’t, but Lancelot Andrewes is definitely a White dude worth remembering. And it stricks me as a bit coincidental that I was assigned the Feast of Lancelot Andrews for my Senior sermon.

 

Andrewes was born in London in 1555, and came from an academic family. He grew up during the reign of Elizabeth I, and received his higher education at Cambridge. Andrewes can be seen, with a handful of others, as the perfect exemplar of Elizabeth’s Via Media, a High Churchman who defended the independence of the English Church against Rome, while at the same time defending the rights and traditions of the Crown, the Episcopacy, and the Church against more radical Puritan reformers. 

 

In correspondence with one Roman Cardinal, Andrewes wrote of the Eucharist, “As to the Real Presence we are agreed; our controversy is as to the mode of it. As to the mode we define nothing rashly, nor anxiously investigate, any more than in the Incarnation of Christ we ask how the human is united to the divine nature in One Person.”

 

Andrewes was a gifted linguist, who was conversant in many European languages, as well as the more scholarly Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Ordained to the priesthood in 1580, his clerical and academic careers were moderately successful under Elizabeth, but took off meteorically after the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne as James I in 1603. Andrewes assisted at the Coronation of the new king, and became a close member of the king’s court.

 

As James imagined his new translation of the scripture, it was Andrewes' name that was listed first among the divines appointed to compile the Authorized Version of the Bible. He headed the "First Westminster Company" responsible for the first books of the Old Testament, not just the Torah, but up to and including 2 Kings. In addition to this responsibility Andrewes acted as a general editor for the entire project. As such Andrewes hand and skill are said to be visible throughout the King James Version of the Bible.   

 

Andrewes was elected in 1605 to the see of Chichester, the bishopric of Ely followed in 1609. With King James, Andrewes laboured unsuccessfully but tenaciously to re-establish the Episcopacy in Scotland, where the Presbyterian Church had been in control for decades. From 1619 to his death in 1626 he served as bishop of Winchester, and Dean of the Chapel Royal, preaching on a daily basis to the King. 

 

Today Lancelot Andrewes is best remembered by many as a preacher and a translator; a large number of his sermons are easily available, and his prayer book, originally compiled for his own personal devotions and only translated and published posthumously, Preces Privatae or Private Prayers, has had a abiding effect on generations of High Church and Anglo-Catholic Anglicans. 

For those of us unfamiliar with his sermons or writings, perhaps we should remember him with gratitude for the part he played in creating the Anglican Church as we know it today, a church boldly treading the Via Media, a path neither Roman or Reformed. 

 

As we celebrate Feasts and special commemorations, I sometimes wonder at the scripture passages appointed in our lectionary, often looking in vain for connections, or patterns, but it seems to me that those for Lancelot Andrews are rather clear. From 1st Timothy we read – “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”

 

Andrewes, while supporting both Elizabeth and James, did not hesitate to speak truth to power, counselling peace and toleration within the church. Our Psalm reminds up of the importance of Andrewes’ private prayer life. He could truly say with the Psalmist, “I will bless the lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. And in the selection of the Gospel, the very words Christ himself taught us to pray. What better reading for a man who through his original works and translations also taught us to pray.

 

Andrewes sermons, prayers, and poems are much of their age, and the writing styles of the 16^thand 17^thcentury no longer enjoyable or even easily understood by many of us. But I would like to leave you with a Profession of Faith taken from Lancelot Andrewes’ Preces Privatae that in its 1840 translation by John Henry Newman seems remarkably modern.  

 

Godhead, paternal love, power, providence: salvation, anointing, adoption, lordship; conception, birth, passion, cross, death, burial, descent, resurrection, ascent, sitting, return, judgment; Breath and Holiness, calling from the Universal, hallowing in the Universal, communion of saints, and of saintly things, resurrection, life eternal. 

 

Amen

 

A few thoughts on Bible study by The Most Reverend Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

    The Bible is not just a collection of historical documents, but it is the book of the Church, containing God's word. And so we do not read the Bible as isolated individuals, or in terms of current theories about source, form, or redaction criticism. We read it as members of the Church, in communion with all the other members throughout the ages. The final criterion for our interpretation of Scripture is the mind of the Church. And this means keeping constantly in view how the meaning of Scripture is explained and applied in Holy Tradition: that is to say, how the Bible is understood by the Fathers, and the saints, and how it is used in liturgical worship. 

        As we read the Bible, we are all the time gathering information, wrestling with the sense of obscure sentences, comparing and analysing. But this is secondary. The real purpose of Bible study is much more than this - to feed our love for Christ, to kindle our hearts into prayer, and to provide us with guidance in our personal life, The study of words should give place to an immediate dialogue with the living Word himself. Whenever you read the Gospel, says St Tikhon of Zadonsk, Christ himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking to him. 

- Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (1995)

A Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, 2016

RCL Year A 
Isaiah 11.1-10
Romans 15.4-13
Matthew 3.1-12
Psalm 72.1-7, 18-19

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

How often in life in life do we say ‘I’m sorry?” How often do we think it even if we don’t say it? For some of us, including me, saying I’m sorry” becomes such a part of our common everyday vocabulary of courtesy, we say it so frequently, that the words themselves almost loose their meaning. Maybe its our upbringing, our attempt to be good little boys or girls, maybe its just something in our personalities, I don’t know, but it is a habit that certainly annoys some of my friends and family, and like all habits it’s hard to break. If someone bumps into me – my immediate response is to say, “I’m sorry,” someone steps on my foot – again “I’m sorry.” A friend complains about the weather, “I’m sorry,” - as if I had anything to do with the weather or any control over it. But other times our “I’m sorry”s are not just words, they are more heartfelt, more sincere. We say, “I’m sorry” when we’re late, “I’m sorry” when we’ve forgotten a commitment, or when we’ve spilt someone’s drink. Sometimes, usually those times when it is most needed, ‘I’m sorry” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily. Sometimes it involves struggle, and real sorrow; when we’ve either intentionally or unintentionally hurt another’s feelings, when we’ve disappointed a loved one, been careless, or let down a friend. These apologies can involve real soul searching, real pain.

“In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” You, like me, may be more familiar with the reading “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” John stands on the fringes of society, both literally and figuratively to proclaim, “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is almost here and you might miss it!” What does John mean by repent? Does he mean that we should be sorry for the bad things we’ve done, or for the careless way that we’ve lived? Perhaps, but in English we often muddy the words and loose the distinction between being sorry and being repentant; they are not the same. Being sorry, or to use an old-fashioned word “contrite” is not what John the Baptist is demanding. Contrition is a feeling of remorse over something that we have done, a grievance we’ve caused, or to use a not very popular word, a sin that we’ve committed. Contrition is to have an awareness of one’s guilt, and while it is the vital first step in repentance, it is just one step. There’s an ancient Christian prayer called the Act of Contrition, many of you who grew up in the Roman Church will be familiar with it, but for us Anglicans it still exists in our prayer book as the General Confession. We use it at the Eucharist and in our daily prayers. It reads, “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.”

“We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.” Here are those words again, sorry and repent, and they are each quite distinct.  John proclaims, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The original Greek word used in Matthew’s Gospel is Metanoia. It doesn't mean to be sorry, it means instead to have a radical change of mind, a reorientation, a fundamental transformation of one’s outlook, of one’s vision of the world and of oneself, it means to turn away from a path that one was on and to head in another direction. John is calling us to follow a new and unknown path; submitting our will to the will of God.

Most of us find it relatively easy to say we are sorry, and even, unless we’re sociopaths, to realize and openly acknowledge when we’ve done wrong. I can clearly see an interaction in my head. “Mom, I’m sorry.” I’d teased my brother, not cleaned my room, or committed some other childhood infraction. “It’s nice that you’re sorry, but don’t let it happen again” my mother would reply. Why is the memory of that interaction so clear? It’s because it did happen again, one thing or another, again, and again, and again, and I wasn’t even a particularly bad child. We are much the same with God and our prayers for forgiveness. We are truly sorry, but we commit the same old wrongs, the same old infractions, the same old tired sins, again, and again, and again. Why? We know what we should do; we think we know what we want to do. Why then? Because we’re human, because we’re weak; we try to stand on our own feet and find our own paths, following our own habits, and customs of doing things. We are sorry, but we forget that bit in the General Confession about walking in God’s way, about repentance, about metanoia, about turning from our own course and walking in God’s path.

Being sorry is easy, metanoia not so much. And when it comes down to it, are we really even sure that we want to change our direction; after all we kind of like our path, our plans, our independence. How committed are we to “Preparing the way of the Lord?” In his wonderful little book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis tells of a person trying to follow Jesus. “Imagine” he writes, “ yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

Have you ever lived in a house undergoing renovation? Even a bathroom remodel is painful, but a whole rebuild of our cozy interior house into a palace for God, that is something else entirely, and just as in Lewis’ example, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” We each have maps and blueprints we’ve laid out for ourselves, but when John calls, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” he calls us to turn away from our own paths, plans, models, and blueprints, only then can we prepare God’s way; only then can we allow God to prepare his way in us. But we cannot make that radical turn through our own abilities; we can only do it is only with God’s help and through God’s mercy. God’s grace alone can allow us to make it happen, to stay on that new path, God’s path, and to walk according to God’s plan. Paul tells us that the steadfastness and the encouragement of scripture, necessary for living in accordance with Christ Jesus come as gifts from God.

John calls the Judeans of his day to a ritual cleansing, not a baptism in the Christian sense, but to a repeatable public act of reconciliation with God. Like John’s baptism, we too are offered a repeatable ritual of reconciliation with God; you can find it in the prayer book on page 446, the Reconciliation of a Penitent, or in older terms, Confession. It is a rite that Christians have used in one form or another for centuries, particularly in Advent and Lent. If this is new to you, when you have a few moments, take a look at the notes, read the words of the ritual. Talk to a priest. I guarantee that if you avail yourself you will find it a blessing. To paraphrase a common Anglican saying regarding Reconciliation, “All may, none must, most should.”

After all being sorry is easy, metanoia not so much. But metanoia is what we must have, what we must find through the grace of God, if we are to reach it, the kingdom of God, the city on the hill. And it is near at hand, just over that hill, just beyond the bend, a kingdom where the wolf lives with the lamb, where the leopard lies down with the kid, and the calf with the lion; where a little child leads them all.

May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A Homily for Evensong: Monday, November 21st, Proper 29, Year Two

A short homily on Galatians 6.1-10

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

In 1873 a group of Anglican nuns, the Sisters of St Mary, arrived in Memphis, Tennessee to open a school for girls. Although Memphis suffered regular outbreaks of yellow fever, in early August of 1878, the city was hit with its worst ever epidemic. Those who could fled the city, leaving behind large numbers of the poor. Also staying were the Sisters of St Mary, led by their school’s headmistress Sister Constance. Working together with Roman Catholic nuns, a handful of Episcopal and Roman clergy, a few remaining doctors, and even the owner of a local bordello, the sisters labored tirelessly to care for the sick and dying. By late August an average of 70 persons a day were dying. In house after house the sisters found victims, often abandoned and without medical care. By mid-September 5,150 had died, including 38 nuns, among whom were numbered Sister Constance and several of her companions. The Episcopal Church remembers the sacrifice of these “Martyrs of Memphis” on September 9^th.

How do we bear the burdens of others?

In 1940 with the German invasion of the Netherlands, many Christian families made the dangerous decision to help their Jewish neighbors hide or to attempt escape. One such family was that of 80-year-old Haarlem watchmaker Casper ten Boom, and his two daughters, Betsie and Corrie. When the German occupiers announced that Dutch Jews must wear the Star of David, Casper donned the Star himself. As persecution intensified, the ten Boom’s built a secret room in their home in which to hide transiting Jews.  In February of 1944 the family were found out and they, along with 27 others present in their house, were arrested. Due to his age and poor health Casper was given the opportunity to return home, he replied, “ If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door to anyone who knocks for help.” Casper ten Boom died after 10 days in Scheveningen Prison, Betsie died 11 months later in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, only Corrie survived.

How do we bear the burdens of others?

In addressing a conference on Anti-Semitism last week here in New York, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in his opening remarks, “ If one day Muslim Americans are forced to register their identities, that is the day that this proud Jew will register as Muslim…making powerful enemies is the price one must pay, at times, for speaking truth to power.”

How do we bear the burdens of others?

These are dramatic examples, and thankfully most of us will never face being thrown into prison, or tortured for our faith. We may never be called upon to lay down our lives for our friends, much less those we’ve never met. Nevertheless each and every day we have the opportunity, through a smile, through a word, through prayer, through simple acts of mercy and kindness to lift those who have fallen, to bear a part of their burden. Teresa of Avilla wrote, “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” We might add, ours are the shoulders that carry not only the cross of Christ, that carry not only each our own cross, but can also carry the crosses of others. 

I ask each of you tonight to consider, how do you bear the burdens of others?

January 1st, The Feast of the Circumcision of Christ

Circumcision of Christ -- by Bartolomeo Veneto

Louvre

     After almost a year in abeyance the time has come, with the New Year, to take up this blog yet again. 2012 was an eventful year, and in the next few posts I would like to explore the past year. I’ll write about some of the exciting and life changing events that have come to pass, as well as towards the future, and the bright hopes that it holds.

Part I

     Although I was an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I did not have a regular parish home. I had reached a point in my life where, as much as I love the Eastern Church, I was unable to reconcile my firmly held beliefs regarding my own homosexuality with that Church's increasingly reactionary attitudes towards the same. I certainly had never expected the Eastern Church to be affirming, but with the conversion of many Protestants fleeing progressive changes in their own denominations, it seems that the Church has, over the past two decades, become more aggressively and vocally anti-gay. Sordid gay sex scandals in the highest ranks of some Orthodox Jurisdictions, notably the OCA, heightened that sense of intolerance. These scandals also made clear to me the disordered nature of the Eastern attitude (an attitude shared with the Roman Church) that homosexuality was an illness to be struggled against, much like alcoholism or drug addiction. By choosing to live in a monogamous same-sex relationship I was a recalcitrant and confirmed sinner, whereas had I claimed an attempt to be celibate while engaging in fleeting gay sex acts I would have been guilty of sin, but like any sin, one that could be confessed and forgiven. I knew that my relationship with my partner was not intrinsically sinful, why should I confess something I believed not to be a sin? I knew that God had created me as a gay man. I also knew that I was not called to a life of celibacy. For many years I had been completely open about my sexuality with my family, with my friends, and in the work place. In all these venues of my life my partner was welcomed as such, and appreciated for his individual talents, and the love and support he gives to me. The only exception was within the Church. Why did I have to compartmentalize my life, to go temporarily back "into the closet" in order to participate in corporate worship and parish life? Why couldn’t I participate with my partner standing proudly at my side, just as we stood proudly before God?

February, 24th. The First and Second Findings of the Venerable Head of S. John the Baptist.

The Reading from The Synaxarion;

The first finding came to pass during the middle years of the fourth century, through a revelation of the holy Forerunner to two monks, who came to Jerusalem to worship our Saviour's Tomb. One of them took the venerable head in a clay jar to Emesa in Syria. After his death it went from the hands of one person to another, until it came into the possession of a certain priest-monk named Eustathius, an Arian. Because he ascribed to his own false belief the miracles wrought through the relic of the holy Baptist, he was driven from the cave in which he dwelt, and by dispensation forsook the holy head, which was again made known through a revelation of Saint John, and was found in a water jar, about the year 430, in the days of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger, when Uranius was Bishop of Emesa.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone

The Forerunner's sacred head, having

dawned forth from the earth, doth send

incorruption's rays unto the faithful, whereby

they find healings of their ills. From on high

he gathereth the choirs of the Angels and on

earth he summoneth the whole race of

mankind, that they with one voice might

send up glory to Christ our God.

Kontakion in the Second Tone

Since we have obtained thy head as a most

sacred rose from out of the earth, O

Forerunner of grace divine, we receive sure

healing in every hour, O Prophet of God the

Lord; for again, now as formerly, thou

preachest repentance unto all the world.