Fr. Dunbar gave today's sermon and gets 5 stars (out of 5). What a wonderful statement of Advent as a way to think of Christian hope. He gave us the story of the angry king who was given a ring with the "This too shall pass" inscription as a means to make the king spare his people and "think positively." Bobby even brought to mind Patangali's aphorism of ripples in the lake or mind that distract from one's focus on God. With Fr. Dunbar's advice, we should look past the ripples of the past week, and look at the big picture. No matter which side of the fence you are on in the Episcopal Church, we should recognize the need to see the "big picture." It is too easy to ride the waves. It is not helpful to be a generator of waves. I long to see a peacemaker who can still the troubled waters. It looks like the way of peace for the short term may be through division. Division may not seem to be guided by scripture, but let us await the big picture or long term outcome. With God's help, truth should reign victorious.
I'm afraid that we are already seeing the big picture and the current division IS the long term outcome. This dispute is not about +VGR or any sexuality issue. It's about a church which has chosen to go down a non-biblical, new age path of moral relativism, reaching back at least to 1978 and the issue of WO. Many would say that the dispute goes back to 1955 when +Pike publicly declared that he no longer believed in the doctrine of the trinity, no longer believed in the resurrection or the virgin birth and the national church was unwilling to discipline him. We have received the same unitarian/universalist blather from +Spong, +Swing, +Chane, +Bruno, ad nauseam. It seems the chickens have come home to roost.
ReplyDeleteThe big picture sees the small minds of the chickens running around pecking at scratch and thinking they have it made when their future may be in the frying pan.
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