P.S.

I propose that, as an Anglo-Catholic variant on the expression, "The light's on, but nobody's home," we start saying "The thurible's swinging, but the coal's gone out."

The best-laid plans of mice and liturgists

We had planned for weeks. Everything was in place. It was going to be a perfect liturgy.

And then we arrived early on All Saints Day . . .

to find that something had gone badly wrong with the organ,

and that the Deacon, who is a lovely singer and had been working for weeks to get her chanting of today's Gospel just right, was completely without a voice.

Fortunately, we had a priest pinch-hit for the Deacon at each service. And as far as the organ went, after much fiddling, we found that if we took off all the principals on the Great and coupled everything from the Swell . . .

it still sounded like crap.

Even so, it was a perfect liturgy.

Things you will never, ever see in a parish profile

(but would warm my heart):

"We are looking for a rector who will guide us into more traditional worship."

"Our favorite sermons offer Catholic theology with evangelical delivery."

"Adult education at Saint Ethelred's follows the C.S. Lewis rule: after reading a new book, we never allow ourselves to read another new one till we have read an old one in between."

"Our previous rector refused to devote adult education time to any study of the works of Spong, Pagels, Borg, and the like. We agree with this stance but remain disappointed that he did not also burst into derisive laughter at the very mention of their names."

Language in parish profiles that tells me I'm not the right priest for them

(These are actual examples, though I've changed the names of parishes.)

"Saint Hilary's preferred style of worship is strongly middle-of-the-road."

"We hope for sermons that are thought-provoking and even challenging, without being dogmatic."

The previous rector's "energetic and inclusive ministry resulted in . . . open-table fellowship at the altar." (The profile later makes it explicit that the congregation is looking for a rector who will continue this practice.)

Most of the midterms are quite good, but then there's stuff like this

"Athanasius faced opposition from the anti-Arians, those who did not believe Christ to be three in one."

UPDATE

I do quite like this explanation of modalism, though:

"There is one Person with one Nature who acts as Father for a while. Then to spice things up He turns into the Son, and then to make things mysterious He plays the role of the Holy Spirit."

Sermon for Proper 25, Year B

✠ I speak to you in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Within Anglicanism there are both Catholics and evangelicals. And it is a rough but reliable general rule that evangelicals focus on the work of Christ in the Atonement, and Catholics focus on the person of Christ in the Incarnation. Now obviously you can’t really separate the two, because the atoning work of Christ cannot be understood apart from who Christ is, and the person of Christ cannot be appreciated apart from what he came to do – but still, as a rough and ready guide, it’s quite reasonable to say that evangelicals are especially drawn to the work of Christ in the Atonement, while Catholics are especially drawn to the person of Christ in the Incarnation.

It is no great news to anyone that I am a Catholic Anglican, and there is nothing in the faith that speaks to me more deeply, that moves me more irresistibly, than pondering the amazing truth that “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” But there is enough evangelical in me that I can find the tears flowing in my eyes “when I survey the wondrous Cross.”

I say all this to explain why I’m preaching today on the Priesthood of Christ. There is no place in all of Christian theology where the work of Christ and the person of Christ, the Atonement and the Incarnation, are more closely united than in the doctrine of the Priesthood of Christ. So if you’re a Catholic with a fair bit of evangelical thrown in, there is nothing in Christian theology that will get your juices flowing any more than thinking about the Priesthood of Christ. And the great theologian of the Priesthood of Christ is the writer to the Hebrews, which means you can pretty much count on me to preach on Hebrews whenever the lectionary gives me the chance.

But I have another reason for focusing today on the Priesthood of Christ. You will remember that the Curate preached about Christ as priest last Sunday, along with Christ as Lord and as teacher. In speaking about the priesthood of Christ, he followed the writer to the Hebrews in contrasting the temple priesthood, which was priesthood after the order of Aaron, with Christ’s priesthood, which is priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. The temple priesthood had to offer sacrifices again and again and again, but Christ offered his sacrifice once for all. And then the Curate added a humorous aside, just a throwaway remark, which as I recall he only said at the 10:00 service: “And so we don’t need priests any more.”

Now wait a second. When a priest says we don’t need priests any more, something’s up. Now of course he was sort of kidding, but it’s a serious question: if indeed Christ’s priesthood is perfect, once for all, non-repeatable – if indeed nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken away – then what exactly are priests for?

Well, let’s look at Christ’s Priesthood first, and then we’ll see what we should think about the Christian priesthood.

The letter to the Hebrews tells us four things about the Priesthood of Christ – and because I’m invoking my evangelical heritage I’m going to get all alliterative on you. The Priesthood of Christ is perfect, it is permanent, it is prayerful, and it is personal.

The Priesthood of Christ is a perfect priesthood. The sacrifice that Christ offers is a perfect sacrifice, not only because Christ is perfect, but because that sacrifice is complete. From today’s epistle: “the law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.” Jesus held nothing back – nothing of his humanity, and nothing of his divinity – but offered it all up for us and for our salvation. There was no weakness, no limitation, no reservation, no deficiency, in the sacrifice that he offered, because that sacrifice was himself.

And so the Priesthood of Christ is a perfect priesthood – but it is also a permanent priesthood. We heard last week in the Letter to the Hebrews, “You are a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” And today: “The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him.” For all time – our Priest is not going to retire, or get defrocked; his sacrifice is never going to get stale; his blood is never going to lose its power. He does not go in and out of the Holy of Holies, like the High Priests of old; as the next verse after today’s reading says, he “is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven.” “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,” because that is where our High Priest is and will always be.

The Priesthood of Christ is perfect priesthood, and it is a permanent priesthood – but it is also a prayerful priesthood. What does our High Priest do, now that he has completed his perfect sacrifice and taken his permanent seat at the Father’s right hand? The writer to the Hebrews continues: “he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Isn’t it a great comfort to know that other people are praying for you? But to know that Jesus is praying for you! When it feels as though your prayers bump up against the ceiling and go no higher – when you don’t have the energy, or the faith, or the words to offer – there is a perfect priest, a permanent priest, a prayerful priest, “seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,” who lives to make intercession for you:

Jesus, hail! enthroned in glory,
there for ever to abide;
all the heavenly hosts adore thee,
seated at the Father’s side.
There for sinners thou art pleading:
there thou dost our place prepare;
ever for us interceding,
till in glory we appear.

The Priesthood of Christ is a perfect priesthood, it is a permanent priesthood, it is a prayerful priesthood: and it is, finally, a personal priesthood. The temple priests offered up the blood of animals, but Christ offers himself: his body, his blood, his life. And this is why I say that the doctrine of the Priesthood of Christ brings together the Person of Christ and the Work of Christ: what Christ does is to offer up everything he is. His priesthood is a personal priesthood.

Nowhere do we see this more clearly than we do in the Eucharist. I have already quoted one hymn, but I have to quote another – by an Anglican writer, I am glad to note:

thou within the veil hast entered,
robed in flesh, our great High Priest:
thou on earth both Priest and Victim
in the Eucharistic feast.

So it is in the Eucharist that we see most clearly the priesthood of Christ, the personal priesthood, in which Christ, the perfect priest, offers himself, the perfect victim. And that points us to the answer to the question that the Curate raised indirectly last Sunday, and that I raised directly a few minutes ago. If indeed Christ’s priesthood is perfect, once for all, non-repeatable – if indeed nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken away – then what exactly are priests for? Well, just as it is in the Eucharist that we see most clearly what Christ’s priesthood is all about, it is in the Eucharist that we see most clearly what the Christian priesthood is all about. The priest does not add to Christ’s sacrifice – for nothing can be added to it – the priest does not repeat Christ’s sacrifice – for Christ has already made “by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction” – but the priest does re-present Christ’s sacrifice.

We need that. We need the reminder. We need to feed at the Lord’s table, to be nourished again and again by the sacrifice that has been made once for all. We cannot see where Christ “within the veil has entered, robed in flesh, our great High Priest”; but through the ministry of the priesthood we can return again and again to the place where Christ is “on earth both Priest and Victim in the Eucharistic feast.”

If for nothing other than that – if only because the once-for-all sacrifice needs to be made present again and again – we need priests. But that is not the only reason – more like the reason that gives shape and substance to all the other reasons. My favorite Anglican theologian of the twentieth century, Austin Farrer, said that priests are “walking sacraments.” In believing in sacraments, we believe that God has chosen to work through the things he has created, that God does not ask of us merely to entertain abstract beliefs or to marinate our minds in noble sentiments, but that he incarnates his grace, puts flesh and bones on it, gives it substance, by using his creatures as instruments. The priest is a walking sacrament because God works in the priest to re-present Christ’s sacrifice in the sacrament of the altar, to embody Christ’s forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation, to give an earthly habitation and an audible voice to the intercessions that the High Priest is always making “at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven.”

Notice that I didn’t say the priest does any of this. Christ does it. If you run across priests getting uppity about being walking sacraments, it wouldn’t hurt to remind them of that. “Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the cross of Christ, my God,” on which the perfect offering was made by the one and only High Priest, to whom, with the Father and Holy Spirit, be ascribed, as is most justly due, all might, dominion, majesty, and glory, world without end. Amen.

The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power

Lest my brief invocation of the Andrae Crouch classic in today's sermon be lost on everyone, I provide you with a choice of four versions of the song:

With Andrae Crouch himself,

sung by Clay Aiken with his strange vowels,

sung by CeCe Winans,

and my favorite, by Selah. (I play the piano just like that guy, which goes a long way toward explaining why I've never been much of an organist.)

Sermon thoughts at 5 am

It is not possible to preach on the Priesthood of Christ, the Christian priesthood, and the priesthood of Christians in a single sermon -- not, at any rate, a twelve-minute one.

*****

Forget "three points, a poem, and a prayer." I have two points -- with four alliterative subpoints -- two long quotations from hymns, and a concluding Trinitarian ascription of the old-fashioned kind. I become more and more of a caricature of myself every day.

*****

I should probably apologize to Bartimaeus for dissing him. But I was struck by something Morna Hooker said about the location of the Bartimaeus story near Jericho as Jesus is heading for Jerusalem: "the true identity of Jesus becomes clearer the closer we move to the Cross." If that's not an invitation to talk about the Priesthood of Christ -- in which the person of Christ and the work of Christ, Incarnation and Atonement, are inseparably joined -- then I don't know what is.

*****

Oh, who am I kidding? You know I'm always going to talk about Hebrews if I'm given the chance, and sometimes even when I'm not.

*****

Also, I'm finding that the more you say the word 'priesthood', the less it sounds like an actual word. English is a strange language.

Apparently I have bad taste in preaching

I finished my sermon, sat down, and thought, resignedly,"Well, you can't win 'em all."

But people loved it.

I think you get away with a lot more when you're funny. (For those of you who've listened to my Sunday sermons: I'm only funny midweek.) In my perversity, this strikes me as a reason to avoid humor.

James of Jerusalem

Our midweek service, which has lately been in the business of grabbing the nearest major feast to celebrate, will honor the Brother of the Lord tonight. I'm preaching, and in looking around for things that might spark some words worth saying, I ran across this sermon preached at General Seminary by Bishop Marshall. Thirteen years later, its topical references are no longer so topical; but it remains a sermon very much worth taking to heart.

Sunday afternoon musings

Good, solid hymnody today: "O worship the King!" (Hanover), "From God Christ's deity came forth" (Salem Harbor), "When I survey the wondrous cross" (Rockingham), "O Love of God, how strong and true" (Dunedin), and "Spread, O spread, thou mighty word" (Gott sei Dank). There were several a capella stanzas, partly because the choir and congregation do those well and partly because any stanza on which I'm not playing is a stanza on which I'm not honking out a wrong note on the 16' Schnözzenfløven.

*****

Actually, my playing was fine, though there was one scary bit. I had shoved the Fraction Anthem up a whole step so it would be more comfortable for the cantor, and even as I put the transposer on, I thought, "Don't forget to turn this back off before the hymn." And then, as is my middle-aged way, I played the Fraction Anthem and gave no more thought to the transposer . . .

until the Communion Hymn (455) started, and as soon as I hit the first note, I knew it was still on. As I'm playing through the first line of the hymn, I look ahead and confirm what I had suspected -- namely, that the hymn is already high enough in its proper key and we really can't afford to sing it higher still -- so after the first line I break, twiddle the transposer back to home base, and then noodle a bit in the new key in a way that I hope will confuse people just enough so that they don't know what just happened but not so much that they don't know when to start singing the hymn.

I'm pretty sure there's nothing like this on the AGO Service-Playing Test.

*****

Speaking of which, have I mentioned that I have a long-standing desire to prepare for and take the AGO Service-Playing Test? There is no conceivable benefit to doing so, except that it would be very cool. (And somebody would finally have to teach me about registration, which I don't remotely understand.) Naturally, I now work at a university that doesn't even have an organ, let alone an organ professor, so I guess that won't be happening any time soon.

*****

Granted, if I were a parish musician and saw that the new Rector had an AGO Certificate, even at that level, I would figure I was in for a world of interference . . .

Coasting

As I was driving back from the gym yesterday afternoon, it hit me: I've been coasting.

I've been coasting in the classroom. Granted, I don't have much room for variety in my teaching schedule -- I'm pretty much locked into a graduate seminar in medieval and Classics of Christian Thought every fall, and Philosophy of Religion and the undergraduate medieval course every spring -- but that's not really the point. I'm still energetic in the classroom, and I still get great evaluations, but compared to what I could be doing -- compared to what I used to do -- I'm phoning it in.

I've been coasting in my research. I have all the freedom to go for broke, to try to write that really inventive book that will either fail spectacularly or actually make a difference to my little field of scholarship, but instead I keep writing the same sort of safe, competent, stuff I've been writing for years.

I've been coasting in the Church. I have a nice, safe place in a parish that asks me to do just the things I'm comfortable doing, and only as much of those things as I can easily manage on top of a full-time job. (And such is the nature of academic life that even when you're coasting, a full-time job is still a full-time job.) I could look for more things, or more challenging things, to do, but coasting is very pleasant and presents no possibilities for failure.

I dare say the coasting will stop soon, though. Maybe that grant proposal will find unexpected success. I've proposed the inventive book and asked for a year in which to write it. Getting that grant would certainly stop the coasting in my research. Then there's stuff going on in the parish that might mix things up, not least the impending departure of our Curate to be Rector of the Church of Saint Hezekiah in the Diocese of Far Far Away.

Teaching may remain stuck for a while, though. In fact, it will probably get worse, since at least this semester I have a graduate seminar in which I've gone out on a limb, teaching ridiculously obscure material with a most gratifying response from my students. Next semester, it's medieval philosophy . . . again . . . and philosophy of religion . . . again . . .

So, come to think of it, when I said that the issue wasn't really my treadmill of a teaching schedule, that wasn't quite true. How nice it would be to teach History of Ethics or Moral Theology or Ancient Philosophy or Anglicanism or History of Christianity!

There's an app for that

I'm sitting in the choir room with the Organist and a random tenor, trying to pick hymns for Sunday (the Organist has to be away, so I'm playing), and the Curate comes in. "I'm preaching on Melchizedek on Sunday," he says. "I don't suppose there are any hymns about Melchizedek. Be pretty hard to rhyme . . ."

I immediately think of Hymn 443:

From God Christ's deity came forth,
his manhood from humanity;
his priesthood from Melchizedek,
his royalty from David's tree:
praised be his Oneness.

No one else knows it, so we play and sing through it a couple of times. And everyone loves it. So I get to introduce a wonderful hymn to the congregation on Sunday.

Unfortunately, the pedal line is rather ambitious for someone as out of practice as I am.

Weird things happen sometimes in the classroom

Today's topic of discussion: what would Aelred of Rievaulx think of Facebook?

Also, one of my students apparently outed me to another after class (not that my personal life is any great secret, though neither is it something I talk about). As it was reported to me, the latter student was taken aback, though I don't know whether this was in an oh-I-didn't-realize-that sort of way or more of an I'm-scandalized-and-need-to-talk-to-my-rector sort of way.

Another student was concerned for my emotional well-being as a result of some things I said about the fragmentation of our lives in contemporary society. She came to office hours afterward to make sure I was OK.

I quoted from John Cleese's guest-starring role on Cheers to illustrate a point.

UPDATE: Here, roughly 6:10-6:24.

Notes from diocesan convention

Along with the other clergy I am vested in cassock, surplice, and stole. It's the first opportunity I've had to wear my gorgeous new red stole, and I'm quite pleased with it. Three clerics -- the Bishop, the Dean, and the Curate -- comment on it, and I remember the words of Don Armentrout, how he said, "A pretty priest is a happy priest."

*****

Lots of people cry at weddings. I cry at ordinations. "I am willing and ready to do so; and I solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God . . ." The Declaration of Conformity gets me every time. It hasn't been long since I gave those assurances and made those promises. God grant me the strength to keep them.

*****

There were two Communion hymns: "O thou who camest from above" (Hereford) and "I am the bread of life." It will come as no surprise to any of you that I'm a Charles and Samuel Sebastian Wesley guy, not a Suzanne Toolan guy, but I'm obviously outnumbered. Way outnumbered. The singing on "I am the bread of life" was incredibly enthusiastic, with hands being raised at every chorus. I loathe that song -- deep down, I hate it with greater fervor than I hate some of the major heresies -- though, as I said to the organist afterward, his playing really did take the sting out of it.

"If only they had sung Hereford like that," he replied.

*****

The Curate led Morning Prayer, resplendent in cassock, surplice, hood, and tippet. Call me Low Church if you must, but I do love choir dress.

*****

I do wish more people realized that one doesn't respond to "Here ends the Reading" with "Thanks be to God."

Things I have discovered recently

Just because we've just finished singing five stanzas of sturdy G major doesn't mean I should start the Sursum corda on a G. Sure, I'll sound like the lyric baritone I've always secretly wanted to be, and that's ever so gratifying -- but the congregational responses will sit uncomfortably high for most of the folks in the pews. And then it's All About the Priest. Get a good breath, let the G major fade, and go back to your usual F.

*****

There is no administrative task so simple that my senior colleagues can't screw it up, and no screw-up so minor that I can't get exasperated over it.

*****

The "Christian classics" we're reading in my undergraduate course -- Athanasius, Basil, Augustine, Benedict, Anselm, Aelred, Julian, and so forth -- pretty much teach themselves.

Scotus, not so much.

*****

My tendency to decorate the ends of phrases with extra vibrato may be attributable to too much listening to hair bands back in the 80s.

. . . and worship him in humbleness

I had thought I was in particularly good voice today.

Then after church a dear gentleman, from whom never is heard a discouraging word, looked at me with concern and asked, "A bit hoarse today, Father?"

Thoughts in advance of the blessing of the animals

Like so many other parishes, we're doing a blessing of the animals today.

What with one thing and another, I'm not really up to date on my Gay Agenda these days, but I'm fairly sure I'm supposed to wax indignant about how I'm allowed to bless cats and dogs but not same-sex couples. Unfortunately, I don't have it in me, and I don't feel indignation -- more like a mild and passive case of the WTFs -- and ginning up indignation for purposes of ecclesiastical politics is hardly good for the soul. So I'm off to do animal blessings.

The thing is, I still really don't care for the blessing of animals, not when done en masse and in celebration of Saint Francis of Assisi. I can't really say why that is. I quite like animals (dogs, anyway), and it's not as though I care deeply about the reduction of the Franciscan charism to going all woo-woo-woo about animals. Mind you, I do object intellectually to the reduction of the Franciscan charism, and I would be much happier if we got some serious stories about radical discipleship, or at least sat around and recounted our favorite arguments from Scotus or shared a giggle over the most outlandish Trinitarian analogies from Bonaventure, but it's not as though I have any deep Franciscan commitment that is outraged by the Sunday Kitty Parade in Francis's honor.

It's probably that I'm just too uptight to appreciate all the non-human visitors to the Choral Eucharist -- who don't even sing the responses properly -- or the simpler music that is invariably thought appropriate for the day. (Who's to say dogs don't enjoy polyphony as much as anybody else?) Last year I just avoided the service and went elsewhere, but then last year I hadn't been ordained and so had more freedom about where I spent my Sunday mornings. This year I'm actually needed for blessing purposes, especially since the Curate is away. So off I go.

I shall think of it in much the same way as I think of singing "On Eagles' Wings": it's not something I'd ever choose to do myself, and I don't really get what people see in it, but I know it's meaningful to many, many people, and I will rejoice in that, as well as I know how.

And I shall think, also, of the fact that if I had a dog, I could bring him to church with me for a blessing, whereas I can bring my partner to church with me to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus. So it's kinda hard to think M. comes out the loser in that deal.

I'm going to put this on all my syllabi from now on

"They unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injuried by us, because it is in their own hands to spare that labour which they are not willing to endure."

-- Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity I.2