My Struggle| Legitimacy

Lately I have noticed a very serious presence of arrogance. It started around my confirmation, and is getting stronger every day.

Most noticeably, it turns up when I’m (usually reluctantly) talking theology with people. I go to a Dutch Reformed school, dominated by Catholics, and am in a Wesleyan family. Usually in these discussions I am the one defending things like apostolic succession, episcopal governance, the sacred nature of the sacraments, or why I don’t recognize the Pope as the end-all-be-all of church authority (but still think of him as a swell guy). I try to be diplomatic, but in the back of my head and heart I am secretly thinking “give up your Presbyteries, come back to the true church”

More Dangerously though, my arrogance turns up when I’ve been meeting with people to discuss and discern possible paths for ordination. I’ll ask  my questions and listen to what they have to say, and then something along the lines of “There is no way I am going to be a pastor in the Reformed Eastern Anglo-Catholic Church – Lutheran Rite, they are not truly of God” Usually my reason for thinking this is rather stupid to.

That is very dangerous. In the first example, its a simple disagreement, we all have them; Coke vs. Pepsi, Obama vs. McCain, AFC vs. NFC. Life moves on. But in the latter, Im not just waging a debate, I am dismissing an entire demographic as not being of God, dismissing their faith as a sham, dismissing them as people.

This is my struggle. If I do enter the ministry, I should go into it thinking that my tradition is the most holy way to be in communion with God, meaning that I have to denounce other traditions as insufficient faiths. How can I take this position, and still see the fact that God is at work within these other traditions, that their faith is as legitimate as mine?

+Alex Resurgent

A Personal Relationship?

As long as I can remember, I have always heard something along the lines of “You need to have a personal relationship with Jesus, thats all that matters.” And to an extent I have agreed, although at times Ive quipped that one should also have a relationship with the Father and the Spirit as well, but for the most part I’ve agreed.

Earlier I was looking up at the stars, contemplating the sheer gravity of Everything (a favorite past time of mine), and it hit me. What does that term ‘personal relationship’ mean, what on earth does it even look like.

I severely doubt it looks like the illustration above. I cant say Ive ever winked at God in my prayer times, and I sincerely hope that He has not blinked at me. I tremble at the thought of what that would mean. Come to think of it I have never felt Chummy with the Eternal One. And I dont think anybody has (except maybe the sculptor of the above).

But I must inquire further into this.

In the times when I can remember feeling fitfully close to God, it has always felt as if I was in the room with a Monarch (which of Course God is), but when I examine it, it doesn’t feel “personal”. HM Queen Elizabeth is my Queen. In such capacity we have a “relationship,” although I feel like political scientists would have a hayday trying to define what it is. It is anything but personal. I can pledge to God my life and my service in return for his wisdom and protection, but that does not cover going to a bar to chat about problems.

The only other time I can think of being close to God is at the alter receiving the Eucharist. There can be nothing more personal or intimate than consuming/being consumed. It is an overpowering feeling, but again, it is not “personal” in the sense that everyone in that congregation, diocese, province, and communion is doing the same thing. It is intimate but not personal.

Part of me believes that it is impossible to have a personal relationship with God on the same level as having a personal relationship with my best friend. Im okay with that. I am totally content with knowing that I have stood in the courts before the King of Kings. I could ask for nothing else. But part of me wonders if I am missing something. If I’m not, how many have turned away because they felt the same way?

+Alex Resurgent

Reflection in John 8:53-58

Gospel of John 8:53-58 (NKJV – Highlighting my own)

Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Whom do You make Yourself out to be?”

Jesus answered, “If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.“

Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”

Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.“

I came across this verse today, and the highlighted stuck out to me. I love the Gospel of John because of its “dark” nature. When I say dark, I don’t mean that Christ is evil in the gospel. He is more akin to Van Helsing, minus the killing, He is good, but not in the way that would expect a good guy to be. He always seems to be kinda off in left field saying profound things that, rightly so, make us feel very uncomfortable, mildly creeped out, and leaves us wishing that He would go to another block.

This is one of those passages that sent shivers down my spine.

The first shiver came at the response that Christ gave to the Challenge against His identity. Christ comes back with the claim the He knows the Father more than the teachers of the law, no biggie, we’re used to this. Then He turns to address the challenge of His greatness compared to Abraham, “who is dead…”

“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

Christ refers to the eschaton, to the end times, IN THE PAST TENSE. It is very unnerving to me to think that Christ, during His existence on earth, was already privy to, and knowledgeable about the nature of eternity. He had been there, done that, if there is a t-shirt, Im presuming He has that as well. Jokes aside, I invite you to meditate on the fact that as Christ was teaching little kids, He was already witness to the full completion of time.

The second shiver comes when Christ reveals His “age” to them with “before Abraham was, I AM.” Yes there is some crazy tense action in this passage too, but it is not what got to me. By using the proper name of God, in conjunction with His preexistence of Abraham almost gives the impression that it was Christ Himself talking to Abraham, instead of God the Father. Although this is not a view that is held as truth, knowing the Christ was at least party to the revelations in the Old Testament, via His place in the Trinity, defiantly provides a different angle to reading the Old Testament.

These verses served to me as reminders that Christ is, was, and ever will be.  To often I limit Christ to my time line of being prophesied about-living-dieing-and sometimes returning, instead of realizing that Christ was with the Children of Israel, through His relationship with the Father, and was at the day of Pentecost through His relationship with the Spirit.

The wholeness of time and space is reflected in each and every word that the Trinity has spoken.

+Alex Resurgent

Feast of St. James

The Nature of the Keys

With the Church of England’s decision to elevate women to the episcopate, there has been a lot of discussion about the nature of Holy Orders, especially the role of bishops and the life of the church. This is not of immediate concern to me, or at least, why I am spending time reflecting on this.

I am currently discerning a call into the “ordained ministry” and what that would look life for myself. For the past few years, whenever I told pastors that I was interested in becoming ordained, they would usually make a comment about how I should take time to pray and make sure it was my calling. Solid advice, but I was/am pretty sure that it is my calling. And I feel like Im making progress with pastors because they are now asking me instead “why the ordained ministry?” “Why not teach as a layman, the church has lay pastors and lay theologians. Why not do that?”

Its a valid question, and it got me thinking. I have absolutely no idea no idea what it means to be ordained, and what makes it different from a lay ministry?

Martin Luther, in his Small Catechism, states that…

The Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinner, but to with-hold forgiveness from the unrepentant…

Thus the job of the pastor is to ensure that the forgiveness and absolution of God is administered and realized on the congregation. Fair enough.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, I choose you…

The ministerial priesthood differs in essence from the common priesthood of the faithful because it confers a sacred power for the service of the faithful. The ordained ministers exercise their service for the people of God by teaching…, divine worship…, and pastoral governance…

Yes, I did open that up with a reference to Pokemon. The CCC affirms this sacred-power approach, but expands it to other things besides absolution of sins: teaching, leading worship, and sacred bureaucracy.

Next we turn ordination serive for Priests found in the book of common prayer

In all that you do, you are to nourish Christ’s people from the riches of his grace, and strengthen them to glorify God in this life and in the life to come.

Priests are to carry out a sacred lifestyle for the benefit of others.

Finally, for the win, the bible…

So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.

There were a few other verses pertaining to the mission of the church, but that one cut to the heart of the matter.

It seems that there is a mystical otherness attached to ordination. With the laying of hands, an ontological change occurs. So the change between lay ministry and ordained ministry is that lay ministry proclaims truth; ordained ministry administers truth.

Thus going back to the original question “Why not lay ministry? Why not Ordained ministry?”

I really do not have an answer that that. I really cant answer that. I can say that I want to take part in the secret things of God, but that doesn’t mean that I’m cut out for it. It almost sounds arrogant.

All I can say is that I “feel called” to it, which seems just as out there as the concept itself.

+Alex Resurgent

Random thoughts on Forgiveness

Forgiveness is something I struggle with at times. Times like now. Most sermons I hear on forgiveness tend to be the “forgive everyone, don’t let your pride get in the way of the Lord’s will” and I dont want to sound boastful, but thats really not the problem I have with forgiveness.

I have a hard time with it because I have a hard time knowing what it looks like.

On the surface (and in the depths), its the ability to admit that someone wronged you, and the ability to not hold it against them, to be able love them in spite of the past.

Okay, easy enough. Someone makes an inappropriate comment about my heritage. It hurt, but it was a slip of the lounge. I forgive them, and its forgotten within 36 hours. Next!

The tough ones are where the transgression was more personal, and im driven in one of two directions.

The first case: I had a teacher verbally abuse me in 10th grade, call me names, accuse me of things with no evidence, and then she had the moxie to “forgive” me for this “transgression” but only because she had to because her brother was “guilty” of it as well. (I cheerlead (past tense), just FYI). As you can tell there is still a little bit bitter about it. Afterwards, i did not report her, i still did work for her class. I did not plan a coups within her class. I just wanted to never have unnecessary contact with her again. Was my attitude of not having revenge enough to constitute “forgiving”, even with the lingering bitterness. Is my lack of desire to show love to this teacher a sign that i have not “forgiven” her in my heart?

Case Two: I was in a harmful relationship this past year. This person kept wronging me, and I kept forgiving them and forgetting – forgetting as in I let the transgression continue to occur. In this case I dont think there was genuine repentance on the other persons part. This for sure is not a true form of forgiveness, its a true form of stupidity.

But how does one walk that line. How does one stand up and say “I do not forgive you because your not really repenting” and do it with a pure heart, and do it lovingly? And not do it with respite or hatred or revenge? How do we remember the wrongs that people have committed against us in a neutral manor?

How does God?

+Alex Resurgent

Reflection on Prayer| Rearview Mirror (Part one)

The past few weeks have presented me with many challenges, and I’ve been trying to gleam God’s guidance in anyway that I could. I tried praying, and kept getting side tracked by random thoughts.

It wasn’t that normal “God please bless tomorrow, hmm, I need to buy that book tomorrow.”

It was more like “God, please bless tomorrow, and I wonder if there is a connection between monarchical governments and their societal level of tolerance towards tradition.”

Not So much

I tried talking to people, lots of people, lots of random people, in hopes that the Holy Spirit would move them to drop a nugget of wisdom, a casually discarded comment that would be my gold treasure.

I just got angry with people. And God.

But yesterday a cool thing happened. A friend of mine replied to an e-mail I sent her, and something in it sparked a note of gratitude, a reminder of how blessed I am, and in the process, how God got me to each of those places.

Each one of those blessings had a one common denominator: love

And when I look at the decisions I have before me, only one shares that common denominator. I feel like its the best way to go.

Ill get into this on a deeper and more personal level soon, but I guess the moral of this post is you cant know where your going if you don’t know where you’ve been. Sometimes praising God for his glory shows us his will more than any other thing we can do.

+Alex Resurgent
Canada Day 1 July 2008

That they may be one…

Due to recent events, both in my life and the life of the Anglican Church, topics of Church Structure and Spiritual Authority have been on my mind a lot, and this is probably the first in a series revolving around that. Bare with me…

An old friend of I had a good discussion about church unity, and what constitutes it. I shant bore you with the play by play details, but I think her point was that the Roman Church is the only “valid” church, and the rest of Christianity (including myself) should reconcile ourselves to Rome. There is validity to her argument. Christ Himself wished that we would be one, and that is something that we should all strive for.

But what would this “unity” look like? The Roman Catholic Church mastered this concept for millenia, with a strong bureaucracy (the Pontificate), and a universal language for worship (Latin). The Congregationalists likewise turned “unity” into an art by not having any institutional (or necessarily theologically) but still by maintaining an identity.

A few images of this unity come to mind:

Unity in Baptism and Belief in Christ
The church arguably has this already, save for a few exceptions. All Christians profess a belief in Christ, and most have been baptized. Baptism may seem like a small unifying factor, but it is also nearly-universally recognized as being valid, regardless of who did the baptism. Unfortunately the unity ends there as many Christians have fundamental disagreements about the basics of the faith, such as the nature of Christ, his work, and how it relates to the world today.

I try to keep this Unity at the front of my mind, especially when talking theology with people. I may believe that one thing is true, and that the other person is guilty of total heresy, but at the end of the day, they are still my brother or sister in Christ.

Unity in Creed or Confession
This is probably the second most prevalent form of unity; unity centered around a Confession or Catechism, and can be found prominently amongst the protestant churches (Small Catechism for Lutherans, Belgic Confession for Reformed churches, 39 Articles for Anglicans). Plus side for this is that Families of Confessions actually have a basic common faith and history, downside is that they don’t have to share a common vision on what the faith should look like. How many Lutheran/Presbyterian Denominations are there? In a way, these divisions may be even more personal that the inter-denominational divisions.

Unity in Governance
This is a HUGE one, and responsible for more divisions than any other, probably because it is the strongest form of unity, with less room for liberty. Churches united through behemoth style bureaucracies can be amazing for providing unity across states or nations. I think that it is amazing to know that, as an Anglican, I can walk into an Anglican church anywhere on earth and know about what Im going to get, and know that I have a direct institutional link with that church. I cant say that about non-denominational churches. This fact is true for Catholics and Orthodox churches, and to a lesser extent the mainline protestants. The HUGE downside is that it is very easy for the little guy to get over run.

On a side note, the Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox Churches maintain belief in Apostolic Succession, the faith that they posses an unbroken linage of Bishops to the apostles. Plus side: provides connection the past and some legitmacy of the faith. Downside is that it can be easily hijacked by wayward Bishops who can preach apostasy under the guise of legitimacy (See Liberal Catholic Churches).

I dont know what “Unity” is supposed to look like today. I dont think that my freinds dream of a universal Roman church will come anytime soon. The Second and Third views, although provides coherency in faith, also breeds division, disdain, neither of which are Christian virtues; meanwhile the first candy coats serious differences that need discussion.

Any thoughts?

+A. Resurgent

Feast of St. Peter and St Paul

Reflection on Sunday’s Reading (6 Ordinary A)

The Fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans (NKJV)

1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

I read this passage sunday during service (theres something impressive to be said about a church that allows visitors to read the epistle on their first visit, but that is another post) and something about it struck a cord. Understandably, the Priest choose to pay his primary attention to the Gospel lesson, so I would like to spend a moment looking at this.

The first two verses address, what I would consider to be, the first tenant of our faith, that through Christ we have union with the Father. Through Christ we are able to rejoice in the Father, uninhibited by our unworthiness. Verse Five says that God pours out the Holy Spirit into us, which brings us into an even more perfect union with God, and from that stems hope. Hope which further prefects our faith.

The second section of the reading is the second tenant of our faith, that Christ died for us, reconciling us to God the Father. Fairly straight forward (I feel guilty saying that)

But what strikes me interesting is order the Paul uses. Traditionally the narrative is: we are sinners, but through the cross and resurrection we have the ability to have union with God. Whereas Paul’s narrative is that we currently have union with God, thanks to the crucification. Union is not something to be obtained, it is something that currently is.

Not to down play the crucification at all, it is something for which Christ ought be praised for for all eternity, but I suggest that we start looking at this post-crucifiction world view more often. I suggest that we spend more time abiding in Gods Spirit, rather than beating ourselves senseless with the fact that we didnt deserve the cross, and trying to justify it. We can never do that.

Instead let us carry out our mission of peace and love, knowing that we are in God, and that he is in us.

+A. Resurgent

Ruling the World

I once read a book from our Church library, being a pre-owned book, there were the cursory marks, underlining, side notes, and what have you. Most of these contributions went unnoticed, save for one. In a chapter about the nature of Marriage, the author affirmed his unwavering belief that marriage is an institution solely between a man and a woman. The previous owner dashed this line out and above it wrote NO! NO! NO! underlined multiple times. This caught my eye because in doing this, the author was trying to alter reality. He or She was trying to alter the fact that a renowned theologian disagreed with his/her point of view; and simply write this fact out of the book. As if a single dash mark and child like negation bring the universe into accordance their preferred perception and of reality.

All I could do was laugh because at the end of the day, the sentence was still there. The owner had changed nothing.

I too am guilty of doing this. Many people who know me well will testify that if I can not get something I want, I will find ways to work the system to make it work for me (outright rebellion was never my style). Usually I am successful, but every now and then (aka today) I come across a barrier that I cant manipulate.

And I want to yell NO! NO! NO! to make it better.

But it wont.

No matter how far I run, how many times I try to break these walls in front of me, how many dash marks I use, I am fearful that I can’t find a way around them

And it makes me angry.

I wonder if indeed this is the greatest sin, believing that we can change reality. After all, were not Adam and Eve looking for a paradigm shift?

+Alex Resurgent