Shepherd Behavior: A Model for Today's Shepherds

When one engages in the discipline of daily Bible study, there are times when the familiarity of the verses seems to be more of a hindrance than a help. The mind drifts off as the eyes scroll down the page, and before you know it you are at the end of a chapter, and you realize that you took nothing away from the page or screen. At other times, something either jumps out or steps in and brings you back into focus giving you pause to reflect. A structured way to help develop this focus is lectio divina, but most of us probably will never make the effort to do anything more than letting our eyes rest from time to time as we read the Bible, and we will more than likely stop and think only about those verses we are least familiar with or those parts with which we struggle the most.

What could be more familiar than the following passage from Luke Chapter 2,
  

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, 

“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” 

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 

“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” 

So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.   Luke 2:8-20 NKJV

I found myself scanning through this section of Luke on Epiphany. The Christmas stories were all fresh in my mind from hearing them in church, so I found myself drawn to the story of the shepherds and how Luke might be giving us a pattern upon which shepherds of the Church might model their behavior.

• 1) "... and they were greatly afraid." Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7, 9:10, Psalm 111:10). 
• 2) Listen to what angels say when they speak to you.
• 3) Verify, go ahead and prove for yourself that which the Lord has revealed. Find Him where the Gospel stars point. 
• 4) Make this revelation widely known.
• 5) Return to the Lord and praise him for all the things you have heard and seen. 

It all seems rather simple doesn't it? Note that there is nothing in there about the shepherds creating a new revelation more in keeping with the current worldview, and then trying to place that in the manger all the while pointing to it and saying,

"Look at what we have found! Let us write a book, get it into the Episcopal church Publishing Catalog, and maybe get asked to speak at a Kanuga conference, or make a video for the Discovery Channel." 

Nope, none of that. Maybe I should add,

• 6) Expect no financial reward from the owner of the sheep. 

Salt of the Earth, Think of the Love God Savors If it Holds its Flavor

Today's sermon focused on the Gospel reading which contained Matthew 5:13,

"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."

I never thought that salt could literally lose its flavor, and I realize that Jesus was referring to people and their faithlessness, but can salt really lose its flavor?

Common salt occurs when one atom of sodium and one atom of chlorine join up in an ionic bond. The resulting compound is referred to as sodium chloride or NaCl. A pile of crystalline salt may get contaminated with something that spoils the taste, and Jesus may be referring to this as salt that has lost its savor, and that is a scary thought for the world is always trying to stir in things, additions, novelties, or new teachings to spoil the faithful.

Thankfully, we have the Master Chemist who can separate wheat from tares, and who can restore the savor to salt that has lost its flavor.

Pray, Lord Jesus, save us, restore our faith, and preserve us as we swim in this salty world.

Just a little drop [atom] of chlorine, valence minus one
Swimming through the sea, diggin' the scene, just havin' fun
She's not worried about the shape or size of her outer shell--
it's fun to ionize
Just a little atom of chlorine with an unfilled shell.

Somewhere in that sea lurks handsome sodium
With enough eletrons on his outside shell plus an extra one
"Somewhere in this deep blue sea, there is a negative
for my extra energy
Yes somewhere in this foam, my positive will find a home"

Then unsuspecting chlorine felt a magnetic pull
She looked down and her outside shell was full!
Sodium cried "What a gas, be my bride,
And I'll change your name from chlorine to chloride!"

Now the sea evaporates to make the clouds for rain and snow,
Leaving her chemical conpounds in the absence of H2O
But the crystals that wash upon the shore are happy ones,
so if you never thought before,
Think of the love that you eat ... when you salt your meat!

by Kate and Ann McGarrigle

Ye are the salt of the earth. Think of the love God savors if ye keep your flavor.

Foundations Built On the Shifting Sands of the Heart

As I lay awake one long and restless night pondering how to get a boat off of a beach that it had grounded itself upon during a storm, I devised many ingenious solutions. I thought about how to jack the boat up so that it could be hoisted it onto a trailer, and I envisioned the construction of ramps to help slide it into the water. I realized that the main problem in any engineering solution I came up with was the sand on the beach. I would have to deal with the friction and damage caused by sand scraping the hull, but what I needed most was a firm footing on this sandy beach in order to get anything done. Even if I were to try to bring in a crane, its base would need to be secure before any kind of lift could be attempted.

Sleepless nights are often times of prayer, and on this night the following words of Jesus came to mind:

"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it." Matthew 7:24-27 (AKJV)

After first securing a firm foundation, the solution to my problem became apparent and the job was accomplished with the barest minimum of hand tools, rope, and a few "Heave ho's".

Where am I going with this you may ask...

The Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina has taken the past year and a half trying to solve the problem presented to it by the authorization of a rite of same-sex blessings approved by the General Convention of the Episcopal church. Right now, our Bishop is putting the finishing touches on his
"Biblical, Theological and Pastoral Reflection (not a letter to be read in church) and "six-week curriculum with 1-3 additional session options for deeper study and reflection" (overdue) which will purport to show how his solution will keep the diocese off the rocks with both oars in the water pulling in the same direction.  

A year and a half of work by the Bishop on top of a decade of efforts by TEc...  Shouldn't the solution be easier to find?

I suspect the problem of justifying the "facts on the ground" is that there is no firm ground upon which to build a theological argument to bless something the Bible condemns. Re-writing the Bible cannot be justified. Ramps, jacks, cranes, and slipways won't move Holy Scripture. A new foundation must be laid by those who would declare blessed what the Lord and his Apostles consider sinful. As we have heard in the past, we will probably hear a primary appeal to the heart as the foundation upon which our Bishop's solution to the same sex blessing problem is based.

Such an appeal would seem squishy to me.

Can a foundation of human hearts and emotions alone support a Church?

Can it keep the walls together?

What theological flying buttresses will our modern day Church engineers come up with to try to keep the whole thing from imploding?

 

The Holy Game, The Eternal Dance

In the final chapter of "The Problem of Pain," C.S. Lewis develops several difficult to follow arguments when he tackles the subject of Heaven. For example, his thoughts about sentient animals and whether or not the family pet goes to heaven are admittedly speculative given the lack of a Biblical basis for his and our "old maid" desire to be in heaven with the animal that we cared for during life.

As Lewis plays with the subject of Heaven he scores some points when he writes about giving up the "self". His imagery makes me think of the Holy Trinity.

"The golden apple of selfhood, thrown among the false gods, became an apple of discord because they scrambled for it. They did not know the first rule of the holy game, which is that every player must by all means touch the ball and then immediately pass it on. To be found with it in your hands is a fault: to cling to it, death. But when it flies to and fro among the players too swift for eye to follow, and the great master Himself leads the revelry, giving Himself eternally to His creatures in the generation, and back to Himself in the sacrifice, of the Word, then indeed the eternal dance 'makes heaven drowsy with the harmony'." C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" 1940. Harper Collins  2001 edition p.158.

This seemed appropriate to post on a Candlemas/Groundhog Day/Theological Education/Super Bowl Sunday as one tries to juggle all the games that the false gods of the pantheists, the Presiding Bishop, and the NFL are throwing at us to try to keep us from focusing on the master of the revelry Himself.

1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
   O Lord of hosts!
2 My soul longs, indeed it faints
   for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
   to the living God.
3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
   and the swallow a nest for herself,
   where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
   my King and my God.
4 Happy are those who live in your house,
   ever singing your praise.
         
5 Happy are those whose strength is in you,
   in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6 As they go through the valley of Baca
   they make it a place of springs;
   the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength;
   the God of gods will be seen in Zion.
8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
   give ear, O God of Jacob!
       
9 Behold our shield, O God;
   look on the face of your anointed.
10 For a day in your courts is better
   than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
   than live in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
   he bestows favour and honour.
No good thing does the Lord withhold
   from those who walk uprightly.
12 O Lord of hosts,
   happy is everyone who trusts in you. Psalm 84

Proof of Principle

As proof of the Pewster principle that,

"Theological and Biblical ignorance in the pews pays for and promotes theological and Biblical ignorance in the pulpit, in the House of Bishops, and in the seminaries all of which serve to perpetuate theological and Biblical ignorance in the pews."

...the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal church has let it be known that, by virtue of General Convention Resolution 2006-D008, tomorrow is "Theological Education Sunday", and each congregation is asked to commit 1% of their annual discretionary income to the accredited theological education institutions of the Episcopal church.

How dumb does she think we pewsitters are? Pretty dumb I guess... asking us to send money to institutions such as the Episcopal Divinity School whose president and dean claims,

"These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done." (Link to StandFirm in Faith article)

Are we dumber than a box of rocks?

If the money rolls in, then we are, and the Pewster principle is validated.

Five Dollars and a Tank of Gas

There is an old saying around this part of South Carolina to explain why West Virginians seem to move here, and it goes something like this,

"That's about as far as you can git with five dollars and a tank of gas."

Before I get any angry comments, let me assure you that I'm just reporting what ex-West Virginians tell me.

The implication of the saying is that there were no jobs in West Virginia, the immigrants were poor or on the run, and that maybe West Virginia might not be the best place to settle if one were to consider reverse migration.

Traditionalist Episcopalians in Upper South Carolina might be labelled with a similar saying if they seek refuge in the lower half of the state (DSC) from Bishop Waldo's march towards the approval of same sex blessings in his diocese (EDUSC).

I can hear it now,

"Good riddance, that's about as far as they needed to get with a Bible and a tank of traditionalism." 

Until the Diocese of South Carolina starts planting missions here in Upper South Carolina, most of us will have to rely on a hundred dollars and a tank of gas to travel to the Holy City of Charleston once a year to recharge our batteries at the Mere Anglicanism conference which this year was on "Science, Faith, and Apologetics." A record number of attendees (photo album here) came from as far as Canada and California to worship and to hear the following speakers and their topics,

• Dr. C. John “Jack” Collins “How Majestic Is Your Name in All the Earth!” and “Get Ready to Meet God!”
• Professor John C. Lennox “God and Stephen Hawking: Much Ado about Nothing?” Professor Alvin Carl Plantinga “Science and Religion: Where the Conflict Really Lies” 
• Dr. Stephen C. Meyer “Darwin’s Doubt” 
• Dr. Denis Alexander “Human Evolution, Adam and Eve” 
• Professor Michael J. Behe “The Edge of Evolution”
• Dr. C. John “Jack” Collins 
• Professor Peter John Kreeft “C.S. Lewis and Scientism”
• Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali “Catching Up: Science and Christian Moral Thinking”
• Professor John C. Lennox “Engaging with the Culture: The Challenge of Science, Faith and Christian Apologetics”

(The Anglican Curmudgeon's report can be found here)

Sadly, representation from the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina was virtually non-existent. It is almost as if there is an iron curtain dividing the state in half. Not that Bishop Waldo has ordered his clergy to not have anything to do with the Diocese of South Carolina, but there is the very real threat of being defrocked if they dare to teach, preach, or otherwise share the Gospel of Christ in one of DSC's churches (yes, this has already happened).

The real reason Upper South Carolinian clergy have erected an Episcopal Wall that they dare not cross is that they fear honest theological discussion, and that they abhor the mission of Mere Anglicanism which is,

 "Mere Anglicanism’s vision is for a reformed, renewed orthodox Anglicanism within North America. We recognize that to achieve a restored and faithful Anglicanism, many battles must be fought, many lessons learned. Seminaries must be re-made with faithful, godly deans and teachers. Orthodox Anglicans must be re-connected with one another and learn to work together strategically and tactically. Dioceses and parishes must develop the right conditions for re-growing believing, discipled Christians—including choosing the leadership of orthodox bishops and priests. Even our publications and media—magazines, websites, journals, curricula, devotional guides, and more—must communicate truth with clarity, beauty, and a passionate Gospel commitment.
Central to all of these efforts are educated, authentically discipled, active Anglicans—both lay and clergy—who are prepared and formed for leadership. And that is Mere Anglicanism’s purpose." (From here)

That language really drives revisionist bishops and clergy up a wall because they understand that they are the polar opposite of what Mere Anglicanism is hoping to produce.

What else could they be afraid of?



  

Parish Budget Blues

This Sunday was the day for our annual parish meeting. Each year new vestry members are elected, committee reports are presented, the total number of bums in the pews is summarized, funerals, baptisms, and weddings are tallied, last year's budget is laid to rest, and the new budget is presented.

Today we were also presented with a "Strategic Plan" which said a lot of good things but said nothing about spreading the Gospel of Christ to an increasingly hostile world. Any plan that fails to bring in the great commission (Matthew 28:16-20) is destined to fail.

Last year's news was not good as attendance dropped 17.8% from 8,482 in 2012 to 6,970 in 2013. Baptized members dropped 22% from 454 to 353. Baptisms fell from 6 to 2. There were zero confirmations, zero reaffirmations, zero weddings, and 12 funerals in 2013. 2 people transferred in and 14 transferred out and 55 were moved to inactive status.

Despite this terrible news, the church was only $8,995 in the red for 2013 (out of a total budget of $442,910). I am not sure why people applauded when these numbers were presented. I guess it wasn't as bad as everyone thought it would be.

The budget for 2014 projects a $53,710 shortfall.

In 2009 this church made "draconian cuts" when faced with a  $621,137 budget and a similar projected shortfall.

This year, the people are asked to give more money.

Yet there is room for cuts to be made.

In the past, this parish has withheld its pledge to the diocese when we needed belt tightening.

The Bishop's current take is $40,000/yr.

That $40,000 gets you less than absolutely nothing. It gets you a "Task Force on Unity" which will only accelerate the decline in baptisms, confirmations, and marriages by allowing the blessing of same sex couplings to take place in the church. That money also helps feed 815 and its lawsuits against your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Back in 2009 I wrote the following about that remarkably prophetic annual parish meeting,

A recommendation from the floor was approved by a narrow margin for the vestry to send any end of the year surplus in 2009 to the diocese to make up for the "shortfall." I am aware that one person objected because they were afraid that the next Bishop of the EDUSC might try to lead the diocese towards SSBs and a new BCP. 

BINGO!

That next bishop turned out to be Bishop Waldo who is leading the diocese down that very path.

The Sunday Budget Blues are not unique to this time or place, so I am sticking with what I wrote in 2009,

"If you preach the Word of God, it will come." 

The corollary is also true,

"If you preach any other gospel, you will be left singing the Parish Budget Blues.

And how much does it cost to preach the Gospel of Christ?

"If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe betide me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel..." (1 Corinthians 9)