Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord or Suffer the Consequences

Every Advent we listen to the story of John the Baptist. This year, as I make my way through the Old Testament prophets, I heard the prophesy of Malachi, 

Malachi 3:1-7
New King James Version (NKJV)
The Coming Messenger 

“Behold, I send My messenger,
And he will prepare the way before Me.
And the Lord, whom you seek,
Will suddenly come to His temple,
Even the Messenger of the covenant,
In whom you delight.
Behold, He is coming,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“But who can endure the day of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner’s fire
And like launderers’ soap.
He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver;
He will purify the sons of Levi,
And purge them as gold and silver,
That they may offer to the Lord
An offering in righteousness.
“Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem
Will be pleasant to the Lord,
As in the days of old,
As in former years.
And I will come near you for judgment;
I will be a swift witness
Against sorcerers,
Against adulterers,
Against perjurers,
Against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans,
And against those who turn away an alien—
Because they do not fear Me,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“For I am the Lord, I do not change;
Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.
Yet from the days of your fathers
You have gone away from My ordinances
And have not kept them.
Return to Me, and I will return to you,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“But you said,
‘In what way shall we return?’

John echoes Malachi in the last two verses of today's Gospel reading with some words we would prefer to ignore (verse 12),

"I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Matthew 3:11-12 (NRSV)

Jesus is never reluctant to throw out a little fear of the Lord.

Caught up in Advent hope and anticipation we all too often forget that the One for whom we are awaiting is not exactly Santa Claus. For that reason, and because we love him more than Santa, Advent should also be a time of repentance and turning back from our foolish ways for,

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever." Psalm 110:10 (KJV)

And it is a time for remembering His wisdom,

 "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28 New KJV)

Fear (of the power) and love (that he would be born to die for me) bound together might describe how I feel today as I reflect on how many of God's commandments I rejected this past week.

“Remember the Law of Moses, My servant,Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel,With the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” Malachi 4:4-6

While I try my hardest to prepare in myself the Way, I understand that it is a task so monumental that I cannot possibly succeed on the strength of my will.

I need a Saviour to make straight the crooked highways of my heart.

I (trembling) can hardly wait.

It's Not Fair! Bless Their Hearts.

Like our Diocese of Upper South Carolina, the Church of England appears to be well on its way to allowing some sort of same sex blessing to take place in its temples (see T19 post about the Pilling Report). One argument you are likely to hear in favor of same sex blessings is exactly what a non-Anglican friend, bless her heart, suggested would come next when she read about our church performing a "Blessing of the animals".

“Would you rather bless a sheep and a tree but not them?" Archbishop John Sentamu in House of Lords Debate on Same Sex Marriage June 2013 

We often chafe at God's commandments. Why should He bless heterosexual marriage and procreation and not same-sex marriage? It appears to us to be a case for that childhood lament we used when our brother or sister got special treatment, "It's not fair!" I have been laboring through the Old Testament prophets this month and Ezekiel turns that argument on its head and reminds us of the need for repentance.

“Yet the children of your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ But it is their way which is not fair! When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die because of it. But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is lawful and right, he shall live because of it. Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ O house of Israel, I will judge every one of you according to his own ways.” Ezekiel 33:17-20

For more from Ezekiel 33 click here. I think he might issue a similar warning to today's Church... or maybe he already did. 

Task Force 10 to Gomorrah Part 5: An Update From the Bishop

 

Our Bishop is well on his way to blessing extramarital same-sex in Upper South Carolina with his task force happily steaming along (links to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) under his direction. The only mystery left is exactly when the task force will finally come out from under its smoke screen and start firing live ammunition at us mindless pewsitters. A few clues come from this latest signal from the Admiralty.

"The Rt. Rev. W. Andrew Waldo
November 26, 2013
To clergy brothers and sisters and to all members of DEC, 

Because we are approaching the time in early 2014 when my pastoral letter on same-sex blessings will be issued, together with the task force’s curriculum, and the process of receiving permission to bless unions will be specified, I write to give you an update. 

First, a reminder that in South Carolina the subject is same-sex blessings by the Church and not same-sex marriage. South Carolina law prohibits both same-sex marriage and same-sex civil unions. 

Second, members of the Task Force felt that, in addition to unity, the Task Force’s work has focused substantively and regularly on Christian faithfulness. To reflect that reality, one of task force’s traditionalist members proposed changing the name of the task force to the “Bishop’s Task Force on Unity and Faithfulness.” All agreed that this was an accurate reflection on our work, as did I. So, henceforth, that will be how we will refer to the task force.  

Third, at our meeting on 17 November, we assessed the status of our progress. Our goal remains to release the materials the week of 27 January, to give you time to evaluate its use in your spring programming. However, we are not yet fully confident that our materials will be completed by that date. We believe we will know if they will be ready by the end of the first week of January. On 7 January, we will provide an update on the projected release date. Our first priority is for the materials to be fully completed and reflective of the work we have done. 

Fourth, as I’ve noted at several meetings across the diocese, our work will have the following structure: 

1.     A Biblical, Theological and Pastoral Reflection (not a letter to be read in church) from me on same-sex blessings.
2.     A six-week curriculum with 1-3 additional session options for deeper study and reflection, created by the Task Force. The goal of the Task Force is to produce a curriculum that balances perspectives and offers materials that ask us all to go more deeply into the biblical, theological, traditional, ethical and ritual issues involved. Each curriculum session will include specific topics within these categories, excerpts from resources, and discussion questions.
3.     The process by which congregations seeking to offer same-sex blessings may receive permission. 

Fifth, I reiterate that no priest or congregation will be required to offer blessings, nor be “punished” for refraining for reasons of conscience. 

Thank you for your patience as we go about this complicated and yet important work. We have all been grateful for God’s presence as we’ve explored, debated, studied and prayed together. 

Yours in Christ... "

In other words, if you are sitting on a pew in your bunker thinking that the invasion will be at Pas de Calais and not at you sitting in peaceful Normandy, I hope you are studying up on how to say "I surrender" in Episcospeak.

"Bishop’s Task Force on Unity and Faithfulness" is quite an ironic name. You can't disguise false teaching with a mere change of title. The name is also part of the strategic plan. Anyone opposed to the efforts of the Bishop's Task Force will by default be considered someone who is opposed to unity and faithfulness. In reality, it is the Task Force which should bear the label of "Division and Faithlessness".

The only questions left are whether you will have these blessings in your particular church, and will folks wait until after Lent so they can do it during the Easter season?

I love spring "not-marriages".

I always cry at them too.
 

Giving Thanks For Your Episcopal Pledge: Is This Anyone's Idea of Good Stewardship?

As our parish wraps up its annual stewardship campaign, news continues to roll in from the legal front of the wars we are funding with our stewardship dollars.

Every good liberal I know complains bitterly about their tax dollars being spent on the U.S. military, foreign wars, and preparedness for future conflicts.

Yet these are the same people who happily send significant monies to the Episcopal church each year (which amounted to $387,927.00 for our diocese in 2013), and rejoice with every litigation bombshell dropped by 815's army of lawyers onto the heads of fellow Christians.

The latest waste of your pledge dollars came this week,

"Episcopal Church seeks to add Mark Lawrence, 3 others, to property lawsuit"

(Link to T19 discussion)

I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news on the eve of our national celebration of Thanksgiving, but this latest assault will probably fall apart like a Turducken on Thanksgiving Day (see the Anglican Curmudgeon's analysis).

Let us give thanks to God in all things, good and bad, that His purpose will be worked out in His time.

Forgive me Lord for I am having a hard time giving thanks for litigation.

At least the lawyers have something to be thankful about and that would be the feel of your pledge dollars in their pockets.

Is Your God an Elected God?

Today is considered "Christ the King" Sunday. It is the last Sunday after Pentecost and the Sunday before Advent.

I have often wondered if the American aversion to kings affects our feelings towards our heavenly King and His rule. For thousands of years people have lived under the rule of earthly kings and queens, and fear of the king must have been an understood and essential part of people's upbringing. The United States was formed as something of an anti-kingdom with a division and balance of power built into the Constitution of this experiment we call democracy. With the subsequent demise or decline of royal rule in other nations, more people than just Americans may live their entire lives with little or no concept of what it is like to be ruled by a king, and many will also harbor negative attitudes towards the very notion of kingly rule.

How then can we relate to Christ the King?

Look for a moment at how we currently relate to or respect the authority of our earthly governors. While some may worship our elected leaders, most of us respect their authority while at the same time deny their absolute rule over every aspect of our lives. We live in a state of both rebellion from and acceptance of earthly powers. As long as the external power does what we desire, then we will go along with it.

With Jesus as King, we are talking about a power that is far greater than that of any earthly king, queen, president, or prime minister. We have to give up our desires and yield to an awesome God's will, and that is something that is almost unimaginable to us. In fact, we will try to create something more familiar, a god who will agree with us as though He were an elected official.

No, it is not He, but we who are the elected ones. We are to bow to His desires. We are the ones who must change.

It is Christ's Kingdom to which we the un-submitting and rebellious have been graciously invited. Our acceptance of His rule demands an unlearning of much of our upbringing, our history, and our personal desire for autonomy.

Only then will we be truly free, living in a perfect freedom: a freedom to follow His commands and statutes out of love for Him, our God the King.

The Litiginous Church: There Are No Rules in a Knife Fight

Over the decade since the election of Gene Robinson (the first openly gay, divorced father, non-celibate male bishop), the Episcopal church has become a feeding trough for attorneys as dissenting parishes and dioceses have left the church. Each successive legal decision leads to more appeals and new motions, all of which keep the cash register ringing. I defy anyone to create a better perpetual money making machine than our legal system. For example,  recently there came the "Decision in Quincy: ECUSA Has no Rule against Dioceses Withdrawing." Game over, TEc lost... right? Right?

You might think that the Episcopal church would have called it quits after that decision, but there are no rules in a knife fight, and TEc filed a new lawsuit (See the Curmudgeon's take) which to my eye looks rather lame and may just be an attempt to keep 815's lawyers employed and to outlast Quincy's lawyers financial resources.

If anyone doubts that the Episcopal church would be so dumb as to believe their attorneys when the attorneys recommend they keep throwing good money after bad, then I have a health care plan that I would like to sell you.  

At this point it is no longer about church properties. Judging from the decline in numbers over the years, it is clear that the Episcopal church can never fill those pews. The money gained by selling any vacant properties might help a failing denomination for a while, but any windfalls will surely be squandered by the church, perhaps in legal fees.

The real threat to a denomination in a death spiral is the loss of people, and that is why I say the fight is not about property.

It is an unspoken but painfully open secret that the Episcopal church's strategy is to fight in such a way that it will intimidate and discourage further dissent from its agenda by any individual, any priest, any vestry member, any bishop, and any standing committee. The whole idea is to make it clear that if dissenters wish to separate themselves from the Episcopal church's mad march down the wayward path, they must be prepared to face the prospect of giving their historic church homes to a church which eschews preaching and teaching the Gospel.
If it weren't for the fact that the Episcopal church is promoting a false gospel, it might not be all that bad an idea to walk away, for it is said to be,

"Better to dwell in the wilderness,Than with a contentious and angry woman." Proverbs 21:19

Things have been pretty ugly in this fight, and it is beyond the capability of peace loving pewsitters to imagine how far the Church is willing to go in its pursuit of property.

People are dragged into a horror show, and I can't help but be reminded of Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now” who explained how he got to where he was, an animal out to wage all out, cruel, and total war.

“It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror! Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends.”

The Episcopal church has made friends with horror. Like Colonel Kurtz, it has become an ugly, insane, and loathsome distortion of its earlier well intentioned self. The end (people) has come to justify the means (litigation) which will only lead to the ultimate demise of the organization as it did for the mad Colonel.

If only the church could see itself as it has become, but as one person described the theme of “Apocalypse Now”,

“Through the eyes of the insane, a sane man appears to be crazy."

Through the eyes of 815, those who disagree with them are the ones who must be crazy, especially if they think they are in anything other than a real knife fight.

Judgment: God Can Do That With His Eyes Shut

There is no way I can say this in a non-judgmental way.

You are doomed to be judged.

Okay, what if I say, We are doomed to be judged?

Do we have a prayer at beating the rap?

Psalm 11:4 came up in my daily study last week,

The Lord is in His holy temple,
The Lord’s throne is in heaven;
His eyes behold,
His eyelids test the sons of men.

In looking through various commentaries, it looked like Calvin ignored the eyelid problem, and Matthew Henry tried but could not make it as concise as the title to this post (High five to self).

  "That this God perfectly knows every man's true character: His eyes behold, his eye-lids try, the children of men he not only sees them, but he sees through them, not only knows all they say and do, but knows what they think, what they design, and how they really stand affected, whatever they pretend. We may know what men seem to be, but he knows what they are, as the refiner knows what the value of the gold is when he has tried it. God is said to try with his eyes, and his eye-lids, because he knows men, not as earthly princes know men, by report and representation, but by his own strict inspection, which cannot err nor be imposed upon. This may comfort us when we are deceived in men, even in men that we think we have tried, that God's judgment of men, we are sure, is according to truth."

This week Isaiah 11:1-5 shed more light on the subject and gives hope to some but not to all,

There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
His delight is in the fear of the Lord,
And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;
But with righteousness He shall judge the poor,
And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins,
And faithfulness the belt of His waist. Isaiah 11:1-5

This was echoed in the last verses of today's Psalm 98,

8 Let the floods clap their hands;
   let the hills sing together for joy
9 at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming
   to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
   and the peoples with equity.

For His next trick, He will test/try/judge the sons of men with one arm tied behind His back!

I fear the outcome of that day, but despite all, as the Psalmist sings, the world still rejoices at the coming of the Judge!

Lord forgive our wickedness, may the Lord Jesus save us at the time of trial.

Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;
‘For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song;
He also has become my salvation.’
Therefore with joy you will draw water
From the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12:2-3