Category Archives: Faith

Thankfulness

Posted on by

In honor of the Thanksgiving celebrations of my Canadian brothers and sisters, I thought I’d play off of Richard (who has a *STUNNING* new layout created by the lovely Rachel) and his latest post.

Last November, I finally broke down and attended a small group at church after avoiding them. I was talking with our then congregational council president and she imparted a piece of wisdom that has been really meaningful this year. She said:

I Thessalonians 5:18 does not read “for everything give thanks.” It reads “in everything give thanks.” You may not be able to give thanks for everything but you can praise God in all your circumstances.

She is so right — we may not give thanks for our circumstances; but we can *always* give thanks while in them. I can give thanks even after losing my job. I can give thanks after beng denied candidacy. I can give thanks even after burying a close family member. Why? Because the God I serve is a God of justice and mercy and a God who has a purpose for everything under Heaven. That alone is worth some major thanksgiving.

The Problems With Translation Errors

Posted on by

In the sermonette for b4G, I wrote that:

[Jesus] certainly was not guilty of treason (the main reason He was up there in the eyes of the Romans) because He had not said that He was the King of the Jews — others had.

Amongst the feedback I received was this comment from Ian:

I liked your article about the Cross on b4G, but there’s one factual error: Jesus did say He was the King of the Jews in Matthew 27:11.

OK.. this was a surprise. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t make a mistake. I mean… I was the Hermione Granger of my seminary classes — I *tutored* people in Greek and Hebrew while taking the beginning classes and I also know the Word really well. But… I’m a broken and fallible human and mistakes are always possible. So… I decided to check Matthew 27:11 in all the Bibles I had available to me (that I could read). I marked the passages “Affirmative”, “Vague”, and “Vague towards Affirmative”. Here are the results (click on the more… link to see everything):

New International Version: “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. (Affirmative)

New American Standard Bible: Jesus said to him, “It is as you say.” (Vague towards Affirmative)

The Message: Jesus said, “If you say so.” (Vague)

Amplified Version: Jesus said to him, You have stated [the fact]. (Vague)

New Living Translation: Jesus replied, “Yes, it is as you say.” (Affirmative)

Continue reading →

A Hymn For Today

Posted on by

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
How pale Thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish, which once was bright as morn!

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinnersï?? gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ï??Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

Continue reading →

Musings on Faith That Have Been Ruminating in My Mind

Posted on by

I’ve had miscellaneous thoughts on faith that are kind of developing a little bit at a time. To maybe flesh them out and make space for things related to my job interview tomorrow (!!!), I’m blogging them.

  • In my devotional reading on Monday, the author commented on people who “try to live from one dramatic mountaintop experience to another”, whose relationship with Christ is “based on their feelings at the moment”, and who “go from Bible conferences to seminars to Bible studies trying to maintain an emotional high”. I tried to be one of those people and that really failed when my depression got horrendously awful during my second year of college. We in America tend to have a feelings-based faith and this is really not quite what is intended for us. Many of us don’t have to think about where our next piece of bread is coming from, so we sometimes fail to understand the whole joy concept that comes when you see God work powerfully in your life to provide that bread.

    I was talking with a friend of mine who had been to the candidacy retreat for our synod. She told me that our bishop had talked of his experiences at the Lutheran World Federation meeting in Canada and of being the room when the bishops were discussing the gay clergy issue. The bishops from Africa, Asia, and Latin America would all argue their position against gay clergy intellectually and theologically. The European and American bishops would use anecdotes and feelings in their arguments. Does anyone else see a problem here? We are having such a hard time with the issue because we aren’t speaking on the same terms. I think that we need to be more in touch with the Word in our Christian lives and not solely with our feelings. The most powerful “Jesus times” I’ve had have all been centered around Scripture either in spoken word or in music, and I think there is something to that.

  • This is probably the monthly “Jen loves liturgy and thinks it’s better than free-form worship” thought but… when I was pondering curriculum for someone I might be prepping for baptism, I was pondering how our church year is cyclical and goes through the life of Jesus and the church. It starts with Advent in late November/early December and culminates with Christ the King Sunday the next November. Advent is the Old Testament prophecies surrounding the promised sending of a Messiah; Christmas is the birth of Jesus; Epiphany is His life and ministry; Lent is his 40 days in the wilderness; Holy Week is the last week of His life; the Triduum is His death and burial; Easter is His glorious resurrection; Pentecost is the life of His Church; and Christ the King Sunday is kind of like the end of the Book of Revelation. As one of those freaks who loves Lent and Advent, this cyclical thing is cool — it serves to remind us of the story of the One who we serve and also includes us in the story.

  • We had the kick-off for choirs last night at the house of one of the couples who does both choir and bells and part of the night was going through music for the first couple weeks. We’re having to still worship in the fellowship hall because the sanctuary is still in pieces (we’re putting in a new heating/air-conditioning system and the completion date is now a month later than planned) and all our choir music has to be “piano-friendly” because of this. Much of the music we’re doing is “textually-based” as in it’s a text from Scripture put to music and as Judy (our choir director) commented, most of us can sing the lessons read in worship because we’ve sung so many texts.

    We are singing Fauré’s Requiem for All Saints’ Sunday and I’m thinking that I will so have to fly back to sing it with them if we’re at another call by that time. Judy picked it because we’ve had such a hard summer in terms of the 9 or 10 funerals that have happened since June 15th. (We had two funerals last week and we have yet another one this Sunday afternoon.) This brought back to mind the comment on how we can sing most of our lectionary and it morphed into the thankfulness that I sing in a choir whose director understands the importance of music being appropriate for worship. Granted, we do special music for that day anyway but the Requiem by Fauré is mellow compared to the Requiem by Verdi or the one by Mozart. The latter two are BIG production numbers, while Fauré’s is fit to be sung in worship.

    When in our music God is glorified…

  • Along the lines of the last musing is the thoughts relating to how essential music is to the Lutheran understanding of Christianity. I mean, we’re the church from whence greats like Bach came and most Lutherans grow up on Bach either through organ pieces in worship or through singing his arrangements of some of the hymns in the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW). Every Lutheran church has a choir and while some may be absolutely horrid, the choir sings at EVERY service and helps to lead music in the service. At Jon’s internship parish, the choir has been known to out-number the parishoners during blizzards and we definitely can out-sing them even with a full church. 🙂 Almost every Lutheran has at least 1/5 of the text of the hymns in the LBW memorized (which I can say with fairly good certainty as I watch people sing as they process up for Communion) and probably 60% of the tunes as they tend to repeat from hymn to hymn. One of the things that attracted me to Lutheranism was the fact that they have such a rich musical tradition and that many grow up with at least some musical training even if it isn’t extensive. Music is such a big part of worship that it helps me to be in a church where music is paid attention and where people understand that the lyrics of the hymns frequently are for both aesthetic and edification purposes.

    • OK… I think I should probably let my mind rest and head to bed now.

    Prayer Request

    Posted on by

    Jon’s Approval interview is tomorrow from 10-12 PST. Could y’all shoot some prayer or at least good vibes our way?

    Please and thank you. 🙂

    Being Consistent

    Posted on by

    The ratification of Canon V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire is old news now. There are some mighty irritated people and the American Anglican Council has put out a short guide for them so that nobody jumps the gun and there isn’t a mass exodus from the Church.

    Those who know me know that I watched the General Convention with great interest. After all…

  • my background has a huge amount of the Episcopal Church in it

  • the One True Church is having Churchwide Assembly right now and we usually tend to follow the same path as the Episcopalians

  • the One True Church is currently engaged in a sexuality study right now

  • this issue is one of the few things keeping me from jumping back to the Episcopal Church (the others being the fact that the candidacy process in the ECUSA is worse than ours and my love of Luther’s writings)

    • In watching all this, I was kind of half incredibly sad that Robinson was ratified because I strongly disagree with his lifestyle and half relieved that the last minute efforts to derail him didn’t pan out. The current policy of the One True Church is that celibate GLBT persons can be ordained and that if you aren’t in the bonds of traditional matrimony, you have to remain celibate. Robinson’s ratification goes against all of this.

    My problems with his ratification:

  • He divorced his wife to pursue the gay lifestyle. That doesn’t really give him much credibility to talk about the sacrament of marriage. Yes… he and his partner have been monogamous; but he still broke his marriage vows.

  • I can’t get around the fact that the Bible very clearly states that homosexuality *IS* a sin. I seriously cannot in good conscience say that it’s a matter of opinion or that it’s just a cultural more. People argue that Jesus never specifically addressed it in His ministry and the reason He didn’t is… he was speaking to Jews who all would have known the Old Testament prohibitions against it.

    • **NOTA BENE: While I disagree with the homosexual lifestyle, I still do care about and love my GLBT friends. You don’t have to agree with someone to love them as a friend. Besides, I’m called to love all of God’s people, even those I disagree with strongly.**

    I guess the thing that pains me the most is that the Episcopal Church isn’t being consistent in its mission by failing to call a sin “a sin”. What makes homosexuality OK but adultery not? What makes it any different from pre-marital sex? It’s a very lukewarm attitude, which is *not* what we are called to have. We discussed the passage I have linked (Revelation 3:14-22) in Small Group last night, and we agreed that the message here is: whether you are hot for Christ or utterly frigid, at least BE CONSISTENT. What kind of message does it send when a Church claims that the definition of sin is left up to the individual?

    I’m really struggling with the consistency issue here in my own life. I am adamently opposed to Robinson’s ratification because of his choice of lifestyle but… he has gifts for ministry that would very much benefit the people of the diocese of New Hampshire. They elected him knowing fully well that he was openly gay and not celibate and this was OK for them; but not for me or others. Given that we probably will never have to interact with him and he isn’t our authority, should we really be complaining? Yet… this also impacts the witness of the Church and also its relations with others in the Anglican Communion and the Church pretty much thumbed its nose at the opinions expressed at the last Lambeth gathering by ratifying Robinson’s consecration.

    I am muchly conflicted inwardly…

    Ideas on Worship (III)

    Posted on by

    It’s a grey afternoon preceeding a storm. Jon is doing Evening Prayer, Cullen is acting as Jon’s spiritual director, and Finian is sitting watch to make sure that I blog on something spiritual. (Our cats love to assist us with our various devotional things, which includes blogging for me. They are such pious and helpful creatures.) I am recharged after a 4 hour nap (note to self: next time get regular vanilla chai powder) and am listening to some chant, some Loreena McKennitt, some David Haas/Marty Haugen, and some Haydn (various parts of the “Lord Nelson Mass” which I sang with my seminary choir in 2001) with some Kingston Trio thrown in for good measure. All the religious music is putting me in the mood to blog on religious stuff, so… here is part III of the “Ideas on Worship” series.

    Worship Preferences
    I’m going to quote a little from an an entry on this subject that I wrote last March, so feel free to click on the link to see it in its entirety (as well as why I blogged on it in the first place).

  • Setting: The Celtic-Christian in me would probably love to be sitting in a cathedral ring in the redwoods near my dorm at UC Santa Cruz with the wind blowing and the ocean in view. The mystical person in me would prefer a stone chapel with light streaming through the stained-glass windows or an Eastern Orthodox service (minus the incense which unfortunately gives me an asthma attack). My compromise: the sanctuary of Jon’s internship congregation (when it’s put back together after replacing the heating system) which has a garden in the courtyard formed by the layout of the buildings. I know that God is wherever two or three are gathered in His name; but I have problems with modern sanctuaries because they just seem devoid of the kinds of inspiration I see in the more traditional ones. As I mentioned in my last entry on this subject, I am into sensual worship, which means that I need the stained-glass and the rest of the experience. Stone churches (especially the older ones I explored in Ireland) remind me of the divine inspiration of their creators — the hands that hewed the stone and the ones that cast the glass.
  • Structure of Worship: For those of you who didn’t know, my J is the strongest part of my INFJ status. This means that I *like* order and liturgy fulfills that for me. I have worshipped in more free-form churches and enjoyed the experience; but liturgy tends to center me and feed me. This might be because I spent my formative Christian years in an Episcopal church or it might be that Jon’s internship parish has really converted me to traditional liturgical worship to the point that I can’t even think of looking back. I also tend to go toward extremes in this regard — straght-up liturgy or straight-up praise and worship — blended services can be good but I still prefer they err on the side of liturgy.
  • Music: I honestly do prefer the older traditional hymns — the newer worship music really does nothing for me. I love chanting Morning Prayer or singing hymns like “Abide With Me” and “We’re Marching To Zion” more than I like singing the latest Hillsong creation. (The exception to all of this is most of the stuff Maranatha music puts out — their stuff is pretty wonderful across the board.) Chanting the liturgy is also a very peaceful thing for me because it is ordered, most of it (with the exception of Setting 3 in the LBW) is easy to sing, and it’s acapella which focuses me to the words and not the accompaniment.
    Contrary to popular belief, this 23 year old actually *likes* organ music provided that it isn’t something absolutely dreary. I’m grateful that our organist is my age and feels the same way. Piano accompaniment is also a wonderful thing — especially if the music isn’t of the “it’s church music so it has to be somber” persuasion. Funerals at Jon’s internship site usually have instrumental hymns as the prelude and it’s a comforting thing to hear them played on piano.
  • Sacraments: I’m Lutheran. We are reminded weekly of our baptism. We (ideally) celebrate weekly Eucharist. I remember in college when the worship team was passed over for communion and I got apopleptic — if I’m having to take Communion only monthly, I’d really like to be able to take it when it’s offered. (I cannot understand the mindset of churches that only offer it quarterly — it’s the Body and Blood of Christ and we are commanded to partake of it in remembrance of His death and resurrection.) Community Church of Joy, the church that I frequently use as my whipping post for all that is wrong with megachurches, has it as a twice-a-month “optional” part of worship — something that is just completely wrong, especially since they claim to be Lutheran. (Most Lutheran clergy with any sense don’t even consider CCOJ to be Christian, let alone Lutheran because they’re all about numbers and Walt Kallestad’s personality cult. But that’s another tangent…) I’m not going into the wine vs. grape juice battle because it’s not a faith-shattering thing for me — Jon’s internship parish offers both and most people take the wine whether it be in the common cup (the rim of which is cleaned with a peroxide soaked cloth each time) or from one of the “holy shotglasses”. (They’re about the size of a thimble and used in churches where the common cup doesn’t exist. They’re a pain to fill from the pouring chalice but hey… some people prefer using them.)
    I believe that baptism is necessary to salvation and I’m among those who believe in infant baptism. I may not believe in paedocommunion, but I do believe that baptism is the beginning of the process that culminates with Confirmation (at age 13 or 14) and then involves the confirmandi in the life of the church.
  • Language: This ain’t the “Latin vs. English issue” (from the Roman Church) or the “German vs. English” issue that occasionally arises in older Lutheran churches — this is the “inclusive language” debate. For the record, the Lord Almighty is my Heavenly FATHER. My rationale for this is that Jesus referred to Him as “Father” (well… “Abba” actually which means “Daddy” [and as Jon adds is still a masculine noun]) and that’s the proof I need. I understand that some people have issues with their earthly fathers which means that they have difficulties with God as their Heavenly Father and my answer is that God is perfect — their earthly (mortal) fathers are not. Not all men are evil and not all fathers are bad. I have issues with the Trinity as Creator/Redeemer/Sanctifier because it’s very limiting in the roles of the Persons. The Father does so much more than create, the Son does much more than redeem, and the Spirit does more than sanctify.
    Another item on my “lingusitic church irritations” is when people change the creeds and the lyrics of hymns to get rid of masculine language or to “de-catholicize” things. The last part of the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed proclaims belief in in “the holy catholic (and apostolic) church”, not the “Christian church”. The use of “catholic” connotes the universal church, not the Roman Church. (” Catholic” is Roman and “catholic” is universal. Learn your Church History people!) With regard to hymns, I offer this example: it is “High King of Heaven” in the last verse of Be Thou My Vision, not “light of my soul”. The “light of my soul” did not open a can of whupass on the hill of Slane — the “High King of Heaven” did. The concept of a “high king” is an Irish thing and therefore fits the hymn. “Light of my soul” is a very poor attempt at inclusivizing the words. (And yes, I know that most lay people don’t give a rat’s butt about hymn lyrics. This is why I’m not like most lay people.)

    • I think I’ve covered everything. Comments are always welcome. Flames will be burned and the ashes will disposed of accordingly.