- This sermon by Revd Fr Paul K. Hubbard was dedicated to the Glory of God and to the ministry of our newly consecrated bishops, The Most Revd T. Creighton Jones and The Rt  Revd Thomas E. Gordon.

The Collect.

LORD of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things; Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle. Rom. 6: 19-23

I SPEAK after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Gospel. St. Mark 7:1-8

IN those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him, and saith unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far. And his disciples answered him, From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground: and he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them; and they did set them before the people. And they had a few small fishes: and he blessed, and commanded to set them also before them. So they did eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets. And they that had eaten were about four thousand: and he sent them away.

After the Manner of Men

In our Epistle reading this morning, Paul is coming to the end of his argument in Romans. By the time his epistle to the Romans is written, most of Paul’s argument has already been developed. He has spent nearly 25 years preaching it. And as the argument progresses in the first 8 chapters of Romans, you can hear his logic reiterated over and over again. ‘There are two kinds of lives,’ Paul says. There is the life in which we have yielded our bodies the servants of sin; and there is the life in which we have yielded our bodies the servants of righteousness. And we must choose, which life we want. But he warns us – the life of wantonness, the life of wickedness, the life of living for ourselves and for our own pleasures and for our own lusts and for our own devices and desires of our own hearts – is the life of death. While we are living it, we think that it is full of life, but its end, Paul assures us, is death. “For the wages of sin is death.”

The life of the “mere” man, Paul says, is not our destiny. Because we are not merely men. We are something higher than that. He wants us to look up from the constant droning of our “mere” lives and realize that mere life and all mere joys of life, as pleasurable as they might be – if they are not informed by law – if they are not informed by the Gospel – they will bring us death. Mere men look to the things of this world; but the men who have been redeemed by the Gospel of Christ look up and see that they are not made for this world, after all. The world is temporary. But they are not. The image of God in man is constantly crying out: “you are not, ultimately, made for this world.” This world will soon be gone. Your worldly life will soon be gone. A man may be compared to the beast that perishes, the psalmist says, but only for the purposes of exposing where the comparison fails. The comparison fails because as soon as we look deep within our souls, or we look up in a sky which has no ceiling, we find that we have been designed for immortality.

And yet how do we communicate this to our fellow man? The enlightened Greeks knew this to be true, but they didn’t know how to establish that it was true. And when the answer finally came – from a religion that they were hardly aware of, but because of the conquests of Alexander the Great, they were constantly coming into contact – it seemed to good to be true. And that answer was the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisaic party of Judaism saw that the resurrection of the dead was an idea whose time had come, but they had no clear basis for believing in such a doctrine. And of course, although the idea of resurrection made very much sense to the Greeks, the resurrection of the body – the same body that we had lived our transitory human life – seemed like gross nonsense to them. To them, the idea of a physical resurrection hopelessly confused the categories of that which was flesh and that which was spirit. And you can see this struggle emerge in the argument – and in the very Gospel of Paul. The flesh and the spirit. The constant warfare between the flesh and the spirit.

But according to Paul’s gospel, the problem was not that sin dwelt solely in the flesh, as the Greeks maintained. Sin did dwell in the flesh. “In my flesh dwells no good thing,” Paul said. But he also said that sin was everywhere in man. It’s in his spirit too. In his letter to the Ephesians that he is to pen just a year or two later, Paul says: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”( Eph 6:12 ) And there is no higher place for spiritual wickedness than in a man’s soul. Sin has infected everything – body, soul and spirit.

So how do you preach a Gospel like this? Paul asks. How do mere mortal men, talk about immortality, when they can hardly see it – and the path that gets them there is shrouded in the choking mists of sin? And the question is not only how do you preach the message – but how do you hear it? You remember the dilemma of Isaiah: “Woe is me – I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst of people of unclean lips. How can I preach the everlasting Gospel?” And what happened?

An angel flies down to Isaiah with a red hot coal from within the very sanctuary of God and lays it upon his lips. And his words become effective. That’s the metaphor that we have been given. No explanation beyond that. We can preach the everlasting Gospel that is about everlasting things that we can hardly hear and hardly understand because the angels are constantly attending to this process – not once or twice. But constantly. With every halting syllable of the preacher, the angel is there. During every agonizing minute of hearing an overlong sermon – the angel is there. The angels of God attend to our preaching and to our hearing because they are all at the beck and call of the Holy Spirit of God. The author of Hebrews says that this is their very purpose: ‘his angels are spirits; his ministers – a flame of fire.’ And again in the Synoptic Gospel, Jesus says of himself and also of us: ‘he has given his angels charge over us, lest we dash our foot upon the stone.’

God knows that we are but men. ‘He knows the weakness and corruption of our nature, and the manifold temptations which we daily meet with. And that’s why we humbly beseech him to have constant compassion on our infirmities and to give us the constant assistance of his Holy Spirit, that we might be effectually restrained from sin, and incited to our duty.’ This is verbiage from one of my favorite prayers from the prayer book. It comes from the Family Prayer section of the prayer book – prayers that I have been praying for decades. And how true it has been of me.

There were times in my Christian life that I literally thought that I was immune to sin. I thought that I was living a charmed life. I remember thinking during my first two years as a Christian – so what’s the big deal? This is easy. I will never make a major mistake again. My life of sin is in the past now. I see what I have done wrong. I see my agonizing life of sin and self-righteousness. I see how that my whole life prior to my conversion was as a servant of sin. And I see how there was absolutely no fruit of any consequence in my life. It was all about me. I was just a bramble. I was just a thorn. I produced nothing that could nourish anyone. I was fit for nothing but the fire.

But now that was all over, I thought, I have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. I have been given the power of the Holy Spirit. I know how I must now live. What could be simpler? I could have climbed Mt. Everest. And I did start the climb, with complete and utter enthusiasm. But if you have ever read Pilgrim’s Progress you know what happened next. And if you haven’t read Pilgrims Progress, I urge you to read it. Pilgrim’s Progress is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature. It has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print. Some say that old books eventually die – but not this one. It is was written in 1678 by a man who, like St. Paul, was in jail for his religion. The Church of England – my own church – put him there. And the reason that they put him there was because the ideas in Pilgrim’s Progress are so powerful, that the religious institution of the time could not contain them. Because what John Bunyan did was to explain how the easiest thing in the world was the hardest thing the human soul could ever do. 

And this is not a piece of complicated theology. It’s not even a complicated piece of literature. Even its old-time language doesn’t stand in its way. Someone – I don’t know who, re-wrote the story for children about 100 years ago – we have a copy in our library that is just now beginning to fall apart. This is an edition of the book that is written in all one syllable. That is, every word the author uses, besides proper names like “Christian” for example – which is two syllables – every word he uses is in just one syllable. How simple is that?

And when I read Paul’s argument, I asked the same question: “how simple is that?” And yet within a matter of two years, which is the time marriage counselors say that the first major battles begin between man and wife – many of them, fatal to the marriage – within two years, my conversion was in very serious trouble.  I had no idea how soon that my own marriage to Christ would become so desperately imperiled. And it would take everything within me – even with the power of the Holy Spirit – to maintain that marriage. And even then, I failed. Over and over again.

And yet, Christ took me back – over and over again. He re-washed me in his blood and re-cleansed me of my iniquity and invited me over and over again – sometimes day after day – sometimes hour after hour – to yield the members of my body – the members of my soul – the very members of my spirit – to a life of righteousness and holiness and joy in the Holy Ghost and the full expectation of eternal life in him.

What happened? How could I have failed so miserably – over and over again? Why do I still fail? The older I get the more and more I become acquainted with my frailty and my sin. How could I have been so blind and so brutish to have sold my soul to the devil time after time after time? How could I have taken the pearl of great price that had been purchased for me by the Prince of everlasting peace and pawned it for a few morels of pride or power or pleasure? But I did. Over and over again. I sometimes think that perhaps the Prayer Book goes overboard in its prayers of repentance: “we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things that we ought not to have done and there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.” But then I remember my constant addiction to sin. And I say, thank God these prayers are in there.

It is not all bad, of course. Paul says it isn’t. This is the reality of our experience. This is the “manner of man,” Paul says. And that’s why he speaks to us after the manner of man. The word for “man” in the Greek is anyrwpon. And what the language does here is to change “man” into an adjective. But how can “man” be an adjective? you might think. And yet that’s just what they’ve down with it. The Greeks had the brilliance to invent a word like “mannishness.” I’ve actually heard the word used in our own language – theologically – by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, who was my mentor for many years. Of course he didn’t know me. We came into casual context but one time in Switzerland – he just happened to sit down right next to me after the service. I was sitting in the very back row of a service that he had just conducted. For all I know, he might have been preaching that very Sunday on the “mannishness of man.”

In Schaeffer’s system, it was not only “errare humanum est” – “to err is human.” In his system, he very strongly urged us to consider that one of the strongest cases for having been created in the image of God is the mannishness of man. Even though the Psalmist compared us to the beast that perish; Schaeffer claimed that we can also be compared to a creature “somewhat less than God” himself. And the reason for this is that we constantly engage in behavior that makes no sense unless we somehow knew that we were destined to live forever.

For example, the human species is the only animal on earth that says: “I will love you forever.” Even though we know that we can’t – we are constantly saying this. And even though we are constantly failing time after time after time to love someone properly for even two years – or two days – or sometimes even two hours. We are constantly saying that “we will love you forever.” And this isn’t the only thing. Let me read one of Schaeffer’s most famous passages from The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century: “ If everything is put into the machine, of course there is no place for God. But also there is no place for man, no place for the significance of man, no place for beauty, for morals or for love. When you come to this place, you have a sea without a shore. Everything is dead. But the presupposition of the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system does not explain the two basic things that are before us: (1) the universe that exists and its form, and (2) the mannishness of man.  … Man has aspirations; he has what I call his mannishness. He desires that love be more than being in bed with a woman, that moral motions be more than merely sociological something-or-others, that his significance lie in being more than one more cog in a vast machine. He wants a relationship to society other than that of a small machine being manipulated by a big machine.”

Our church has just completed a tremendous ordeal of transition to new leadership. Lives have been scorched by sin. Reputations have been destroyed. Relationships have irrevocably collapsed. The vows of priests have been broken. The Church has proven again to the whole of the watching world, that we are not worthy to preach the Gospel of God. I am not worthy. But yet God has put me up here in this pulpit. Treading upon the bones of much greater men than I. Sitting on the spiritual shoulders of men who’s shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose.

And no matter how much the Church has failed, God never takes away our mandate. No matter how complete the destruction, God comes to us and asks us if we are ready to live again. And by the installation of one of our own humble priests as Archbishop of the Orthodox Anglican Communion, we have answered God’s question to us. ‘Yes we are ready. By your help, we are ready to try again. Even though the everlasting Gospel must be put in human vessels of clay, we are ready to try again. Even though we must speak after the manner of men to others, trapped within the prisons of men – their sin and their uncleanness and their iniquity unto iniquity – we are ready to try again. We will live again, but only because God wills it. It doesn’t matter what the odds are. Because we don’t serve the God of Chance. We serve the God of righteousness and the God of love. And though we must struggle after the manner of mere men by the aspirations of our own mannishness, we will bear fruit. We will be free of sin. We will become the servants of God. We will achieve holiness. We will do our duty. And we will achieve everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord – and love him forever.’ – Amen   

“I recently attended a lecture on Art and Ethics at a local Evangelical Church, the lecture was given by a gentleman from a local Evangelical Seminary.  You know, when people start getting their toes stepped on things can get interesting.  Things did get very interesting when he started critiquing the popular art of Thomas Kinkade.

He first pointed out, the ubiquity of Thomas Kinkade’s art in Christian America.  I dare say that if you went to a Christian conference and asked people to name a Christian painter you would find Thomas Kinkade tops the list.  He is America’s most collected living artist and his works hang on the walls of 1 in every 10 American homes.  You can’t go into a Christian bookstore or Christian knick-knack store without being surrounded by Thomas Kinkade art.  Paintings, prints, kitchen towels, plaques, the list goes on and on.  I attended a Christian funeral just a few days ago, and it was a hot day so the funeral provided bottled water and fans to those in attendance, Do you want to guess what the picture on the fan was?  Yes, it was a Thomas Kinkade scene.  So the situation in the popular mind is now something like this, Thomas Kinkade’s art is Christian art, and Christian art is Thomas Kinkades popular work.  In America Christian art=Thomas Kinkade like it or not.

The question this brings us to is: is this a good thing?  The content of his paintings are what his own website describes as idyllic settings that are intended for “the viewer to imagine the world full of beauty,”  You have all seen them right, the glowing cottage in the snow, the glowing cottage in the fall, the glowing cottage by the sea, the glowing chapel in the valley, etc.  They are paintings of a fantasy world, what one critic of his work has called the adult version of the young girl who hangs a picture of a unicorn with a rainbow.

Joe Carter, an Editor for First Things, and not a fan of Kinkade’s popular works wrote:

“There is nothing wrong, or course, with fantasy or with what C.S. Lewis called Sehnsucht (zane-zooked), the inconsolable longing in the human heart for “we know not what.” What makes Kinkade’s cottage painting so dispiriting is that rather than being created to challenge or even inspire, to evoke in some way the desire for Heaven, it’s intended only to comfort. It’s sentimental.

Sentimentality, as literary critic Alan Jacobs says in a recent interview with Mars Hill Journal, encourages us to “suspend judgment and reflection in order to indulge deliberately in emotion for its own sake.” Reflection reinforces and strengthens true emotions while exposing those feelings that are shallow and disingenuous. Sentimentalists, however, try to avoid this experience of reality and try to keep people from asking questions by giving them pleasing emotions they have not earned. The shameless manipulation of our emotions, says Jacobs, is the ultimate act of cynicism.

Kinkade’s cottage fantasies offer this sort of emotional manipulation. The cottages are self-contained emotional safehouses in which the viewer can shut himself off from true emotions earned through a real encounter with reality, from the rough and sometimes harsh realities of creation, and—most importantly—from other people.”

Carter is not the only critic of Kinkade’s work.  Kinkade’s works have elsewhere been compared to cotton candy: sweet, pretty, and light.  I personally don’t think there in anything inherently wrong with Kinkade’s work.  You know, cotton candy is just fine once in a while.  Cotton candy is a treat people indulge in at a county fair once a year, or the carnival once a year, it isn’t something you make a staple of your diet.  Even good things can be bad for you if you abuse them.  Carrots are good for you aren’t they?  Eat nothing but carrots for a while and your whole body turns orange.

I am more of the mindset of another person that wrote about Kinkade’s work:

“I totally understand the appeal [of Thomas Kinkade’s popular works]. His paintings are basically daydreams of a fairy-tale world, which can sound pretty good sometimes.”

I agree, life can be difficult, if a beautiful painting is something that makes life a little sweeter, that’s fine.

What I want to address today is not the paintings of Thomas Kincade or their artistic merit, but rather, something of much more importance, is this American, particularly Evangelical fixation upon Kinkade’s work symptomatic of a more serious problem?  You see, I believe this fixation with fantasy has invaded our houses of worship; it has invaded Christian worship!  Christian worship in our day has become something of a day-dream, a fairy tale world.  Worship in American has become like cotton candy, sweet, pretty, light, and Evangelicals are indulging so much in it, making it their constant diet that it is rotting their teeth, and ruining the health of many that claim the name of Christ.

Fiction, fantasy, sentimental, shallow and disingenuous worship is not acceptable; cotton candy worship is not acceptable; Christians must worship God in Spirit and in Truth.

II. Importance of Worship

Before I take that thought any further I want us to consider the importance of worship.  I will never forget a conversation I had with an older woman one day on the front porch.  She told me that she didn’t need to go to church, she had already been saved.  WOW, the statement astounded me.  I wish such sentiment was rare, but I doubt it.  In fact, I should give her credit for being honest, because I fear too many who feel that way would never be honest enough to say it to a minister.

You see, among far too many Protestants and Evangelicals church services over the last 150 years have been organized around getting people to walk an aisle, pray a sinner’s prayer, raise a hand.  Church services are often nothing more than one long evangelistic crusade.  Don’t get me wrong, evangelism is vital, preaching the Gospel is not an option, but if Church services are organized around evangelism then I dare say that that older woman knew what she was talking about.  She was saved, church services are to get people saved, and therefore she no longer had a reason to attend church services.

The 21^st century evolution in this kind of thinking is the seeker friendly services being held today.  The idea behind these church services is that if we look nothing like a church, sound nothing like a church, preach nothing about the holiness and righteousness of God, God’s holy Law, sin, judgment, Hell, repentance, and then replace these Biblical messages with good stories, self-help pep talks, self-improvement steps, entertainment, etc. …then maybe we can trick people into becoming Christians.

Listen to me folks, worship and evangelism are not the same, and if what you call a worship service is merely evangelism then you are in error.  In this mindset there is a failure to preach the whole counsel of God.   Worship is not merely an evangelistic sermon, worship is not merely singing ‘I love you’ fifty times.  Biblical worship is worship that speaks of God attributes and His acts among men.

This morning we read much of John Chapter 4, focusing on Jesus’ 1:1 evangelism with the Samaritan woman at the well, this encounter is bookended on either side by an call to explicit articulation of the gospel message in John 3 by both Jesus and John the Baptist, and in John 4:35-36, evangelism is likened by Jesus to the reaping of a harvest.

So evangelism is both the activity and the topic of Jesus’ instruction to His disciples in this section of John.  Now, let me read verses 23-24.

John 4:23-24

²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

So evangelism is an important theme in this section of John.  But why?  Why does Jesus point people to the Living Water that only He provides?  Why does John the Baptist point people to Christ?  Why are the disciples instructed to go and reap a great harvest of souls with the Gospel?  Why? Why? Why?

In the case of the woman at the well, Why did Jesus point out her sin…why did He reveal the way to everlasting life…
vs. 23 the reason is “the Father is seeking …worship[ers]” to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

When WORSHIP is exactly that in which the Lord Jesus reveals as the driving force or reason God is drawing a people unto Himself, how can anyone who claims the name of Christ put so little emphasis on their worship?  How can you have so little regard for worship itself? The answer is that you cannot! This is what Jesus reveals, the fact that “the Father seeks …worship[ers]” to worship Him in spirit and in truth, that is what drives the call to evangelize, that is the reason for evangelism, Worship!

Evangelism isn’t synonymous with worship; worship is the reason for evangelism.   Christian, your purpose is to worship God, to worship God in Spirit and in Truth, and if you aren’t doing that you are not fulfilling your reason for existing in the first place.    If you are sitting on the porch on Sunday morning or taking in pancakes at the local Perkins restaurant instead of attending corporate worship you aren’t doing what Christians were called to do, to worship.  People have mistaken the means for the end, and in doing so they fail to fulfill the reason we evangelize to begin with.  You should never minimize or underestimate the importance of your worship.

III. Worship in Truth

Jesus qualifies the type of worshippers the Father seeks, they are worshippers who worship in spirit and in Truth.  You see, the reason I talked about Thomas Kinkade paintings that are so popular among evangelicals is not because I think there is something wrong with the paintings, the reason I talked about them is because worship in our age has become far too often like a Thomas Kinkade painting… a fiction, a fantasy, untrue, unreal.

What do I mean by this.  Well let’s look at 21^st century worship.  Typically it consists of praise music and a user friendly self-help message from a guy is stylish clothes.

The lyrics of the praise music are typically a big problem, their content is pablum, very little of the biblical praise, the telling of God works and attributes.

I read a blog post this week called “How to write an awful worship song”[1] and I want to share just a bit of it with you.

So you finally learned to play the guitar and now you’re wondering, “How do I write a truly awful worship song?”

Be Vague About Your Theology

Make sure to avoid any theology at all costs. Don’t talk about atonement, wrath, or any other biblical concepts. You want your song to be all about feeling. Don’t let the mind get in the way. Repeat after me: “Worship is a warm feeling, sort of like heartburn, only better.”

Make the Song All About You

The main point of your song should be your experiences and how God makes you feel. Don’t bother with objective truth about God. I would suggest that you use the words “I” or “me” at least 12-15 times. For example, “I feel like singing, yes I feel like spinning, because You make me feel so good inside. Like it’s my birthday, but more awesome.”

It made me laugh to read it, but it really should make us weep.  Songs that do not speak of God’s works and attributes are not biblical songs of worship.

What about the message from the guy in stylish clothes?  I have often said that in our age we should be hearing the greatest preaching in the history of the Christian Church.  Why?  Because the resources and study tools available far exceed anything available to preachers of the past.  Sadly this is not the case.  You see, if the guy in stylish clothes starts talking about truth, doctrine, the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the judgment of God, sin, or repentance, it won’t be seeker friendly.  Instead what we get are self-help tips, stories about a fishing trip, pictures of his family projected on a jumbo screen, and video clips of a Dr Seuss movie.

If God is talked about, it is likely only that God loves you.  The Love of God–that is ok right?  Well, the Love of God is but one attribute of the God we worship, and if the music and message of worship is one-dimensional it is false, it is not worship in spirit and in truth.  The god that is worshipped in such a place doesn’t exist, like the seaside cottage of a Thomas Kinkade painting he is a fantasy from the vain imaginations of men intended to please, sooth, and give us happy thoughts and feelings by manufactured means, that god is a counterfeit false god, not the God of the Bible, not the God worshipped by the early church, not the Creator of the Heavens and the earth.  It is idolatry.

IV. Natural inclination to avoid true worship

You see, it isn’t surprising that we face these issues today, people don’t like the truth, they would rather have their ears tickled, nothing is new.  Jesus wasn’t afraid to tell the truth…to point to sin in His evangelism though.

John 4

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

What did Jesus do in evangelism, He pointed to her sin didn’t He?  Seeker-friendly environments don’t even like the word sin let alone pointing it out.

So when Jesus pointed out the sin of the Samaritan woman what did she do?

¹⁹The woman said to [Jesus], “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that inJerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

When confronted her sin, by truth, she reacts by inserting impersonal controversy about religion.  People don’t want to hear the truth, the Samaritan woman didn’t want deal with it, and so she attempted to sidetrack Jesus.

We live in an age when far too many who claim the name of Christ fall over themselves to accommodate people who they fear don’t want to hear the truth, and so they give them what they want, a fantasy… falsehood… worship that is not in truth.

I want to paraphrase a section of that quote from the Joe Carter article so I can apply it to 21^st century worship:

Pure sentimentality, [in worship] encourages us to “suspend judgment and reflection in order to indulge deliberately in emotion for its own sake.” Reflection reinforces and strengthens true emotions while exposing those feelings that are shallow and disingenuous. Sentimentalists, however, try to avoid this experience of reality and try to keep people from asking questions by giving them pleasing emotions they have not earned. The shameless manipulation of our emotions is the ultimate act of cynicism.

Too often modern worship offers merely this sort of emotional manipulation; participants can shut themselves off from true emotions earned through a real encounter with reality.

Sadly, I believe this is, in fact, what is going on in too many services across this nation today.

Book of Common Prayer

So what is the answer to this problem?  How can those who claim the name of Christ return to worship that is in spirit and in truth? Worship that is grounded not in fantasy but in reality… the reality of who God is, not the one dimensional false god of modern churchianity, the God of the Bible?  The reality of who you are?

The answer is in the traditional Christian worship contained in the orthodox editions of the Book of Common Prayer.  You see, in our Book of Common Prayer (BCP) worship in spirit and in truth is of primary importance.

First Things

• Our Morning Prayer Opening sentence page 3 or the 1928 BCP, 1^st page of worship sets our minds in the right place
• Our Morning Prayer 2^nd Lesson on Pentecost/Whitsunday 1928BCP, was New Testament lesson on the “Birthday of the Church”
• Our Collect (prayer) for Consecration of a Church p567, 1928BCP, Forms our prayer when opening a new house of worship.

These first things merely establish worship in spirit and in truth as a priority, the content of our worship must also reflect that priority?  Does the Book of Common Prayer reflect that priority?  Yes it does.

Consider our service of Holy Communion.  We confess our belief in and reliance upon the Holy Trinity, Father Son and Holy Ghost.  We affirm God’s Law to be holy, we read and listen to significant portions of the Bible in every service, we listen to the preached word.  We chant and sing canticles and songs that recall both the acts and attributes of God.  We confess the faith of the church in the words of the Nicene Creed, we confess our own sin and need of a Savior… but we don’t just affirm the doctrines taught in Scripture, we retell the story of greatest act in the story of our redemption, The cross of Christ is held high, a reminder that apart from the grace of God we stand as criminals before Him, and by the grace of God we are pardoned and given new life.  In the Eucharist the Word of God is joined to the sensible signs of bread and wine, and by the power of the Holy Spirit we are nourished by the body and blood of Christ Himself.

This isn’t cotton candy worship, this isn’t fantasy, the worship forms contained in the orthodox editions of the Book of Common deal with reality… the reality of God as He has revealed Himself, the reality of man’s sin, our need for repentance and faith in Christ, and our need to be continually nourished in the faith by God’s Word and Sacrament.

Christians, worship that does not contain these things is deficient at best.

V. Conclusion

I used Thomas Kinkade’s art to make a point about worship today, If you enjoy the art of Thomas Kinkade, I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with it.  Enjoy it.  But what Christians must never accept, is worship that so ignores the revealed attributes of God and His work among men that it is false.  Cotton candy worship will rot the teeth of God’s people and leave them in bad health.  Your worship must be in Spirit and in Truth.  For English speakers, the vaccination against cotton candy worship, the remedy for those suffering from cotton candy worship is the worship forms contained in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the 1928 American edition of the Book of Common Prayer.

Whatever anyone else does, you make sure that you worship God. That is why He sought you out, worship Him in spirit and in TRUTH.

 Ascription:

“And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, both now and for ever.  Amen.”

“Parish ministry is every day.  Parish ministry is ups and downs.  Parish ministry is cradle to grave.  Parish ministry is feeding the sheep.

After three years of walking, eating, and working with Jesus, the disciples had to be told to feed the sheep — not once, but three times.  The Lord is a patient door-knocker.

Orthdox Anglican priests are most often men who have led full lives as fathers, baseball coaches, farmers, accountants, doctors, engineers, psychologists, account executives, chefs, teachers, and military servicesmen, just to name a few of the things they have done up to the point of answering the call of ministry.  These men have seen your life, because they have lived your life.  They care for you because they have walked that mile in their own shoes and have experienced many of the challenges that plague and challenge the 21st Century Christian.

There is a saying, “Do not judge me because I sin differently from you.”  We are reminded of the woman saved from being stoned by those who would judge her and Christ reminded us all (and I’ll paraphrase) he who is without sin can cast that first stone.  Our ministers, like Jesus, want to meet you where you are and bring you into the fold a repentent sinner.  We won’t beat you up for your sins.  We just implore you, as Christ directed that same woman, “Sin no more.”

Real people.  Real life.  Honesty.  Forgiveness.  Pastoral care.  Every day.  Up and down.  Cradle to grave.  Feeding the sheep.

We’re looking for a few good men.”

“At creation the spirit brooded over the formlessness of chaos – not that chaos was good or bad – it was just without form. Likewise, we are created as a hybrid of dirt and spirit. The sole purpose of this earthen vessel is to give form from which, and by which our spirits might communicate with God and with ourselves. Fences, marriages and grammar are not neighborliness, love or language – but none of these can happen without these forms. Therefore St. Paul says that we should respect and obey the physical forms of government, even if they are substantially corrupt.

So whether we are talking about gentile nations, the Davidic monarchy or the apostolic succession – if these forms are not respected, then we will receive precisely what we asked for – formlessness. There will be freedom. But it will be a freedom from form. As if our skeletons were somehow suddenly subtracted from us, we fall to the ground, like Larson’s boneless chicken ranch – unable to move – unable to communicate with each other. We may have our spirituality, but it will remain in a puddle, incapable of locomotion. The Davidic monarchy and the apostolic succession have been created from the ordinary stuff of our historical material by the Holy Spirit of God.

A jelly fish can move, but only in a benign environment of water. But if the water be dried up, or in our case, the “foundations be destroyed,” how can we move? In a Christian milieu, it is popular and possible to decry the unspirituality of bricks and mortar and corrupt ecclesiastical establishments, but in a post-Christian culture, it becomes evident that these forms, however corrupt they might have been – or susceptible to corruption they will continue to be, were necessary to create anything of value. Procreation of biological offspring is possible in a tyrannous technological culture, but children – and the very sustainability of family and culture into the future are only possible by means of the prosaic vows of marriage. Thus we take vows and make promises of obedience to an ancient ecclesiastical institution because our spirituality will eventually be a formless puddle of charismatic chaos if we do not. Only a firm and unequivocal commitment to the physical form of the Church can prevent this. Tradition and the Church are not spirituality; they are a level and stable place upon which a true and lasting spirituality might be built.

It is true that today the institutional Church is not what she should be. But then, she never is. The important thing is that she is there. For all her faults, without the institution of the Church, you would not be reading this now. Just as Christ is the intersection of God and Man, and man himself is a hybrid of spirit and flesh, so the Church is both physical and spiritual. St. Paul said that “no man ever hated his own flesh” (Eph 5:29), nor should we hate the Church, however much she has stayed from the truth.

Because the Church makes it possible for two or three believers to come together in Christ’s name. And that’s important. Yes, Christ died to save the individual, but he also died to save the Church (Eph 5:25-27) It’s important that we come together for communion – for many reasons. But the most important reason is because there is communion between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

At first it would seem counter-intuitive to go to a church which is in the process of disintegrating in many parts of the world. For surely it is no secret that Anglicanism has become a scandal in recent decades. Many leaders of Anglicanism in America and in England and in Canada, for example, have formally repudiated the faith of the ancient creeds and the morality of the New Testament. But the African churches are strong. And the Asian churches are strong. And the South American Churches are strong. And the very existence of the Orthodox Anglican Church and many other worthy, continuing Anglican movements in America is proof that Anglicanism is in the process of rebirth in the Western world. And that’s a very good thing.  We should have known that as soon as anything becomes institutionalized, it becomes subject to decay and death. But it also then shares in the same process of regeneration as any other physical process. A great tree falls to the ground in the forest, and yet many seeds from that one tree immediately begin to grow, no longer shaded from the sun.

Anglicanism has always been a very strong and stable refuge from the sometimes authoritarian and doctrinally inventive Roman Catholic Church on the one side – and the many unstable Protestant denominations on the other. Anglicanism has a tremendous potential to truly connect the soul with God. We commend it to you because it possesses catholic, (that is, universal) simple, concise, meaningful and beautifully common prayers. It possesses a beautiful and fully participative catholic liturgy. It’s music is very broad and very deep. Anglicanism is intellectually challenging and emotionally engaging, enriching the soul. The form and freedom of Anglicanism has the potential to integrate all personality types and varied spiritual gifts, male and female, young and old, into a truly corporate entity.

In Anglicanism there is a tremendous sense of communion and identity with the universal church, integrating the best of Protestantism with the best of Roman Catholicism. And besides all this, there is constant exposure to substantial Scriptural content through the lectionary and the various prayers and services of the Book of Common Prayer, through sermons, and through the hymnody and service music of the hymnal.

In the final analysis, no matter how self-reliant, no matter how gifted, no matter how spiritual – there is always something that you very much need from communion with other believers. And that’s probably because Christ deliberately withholds it from you by placing it in the care of someone else. Remember how the great St. Paul was forced onward to an otherwise nameless man who lived on Straight Street? It was there he was to rendezvous with Ananias, who gave him his sight back and empowered him, by the laying on of hands, to become the greatest evangelical force the world has ever known. For the many reasons that we have presented, we commend the Orthodox Anglican Church to you. You must come to church. And the reason that you must come to Church is not only because Christ promised that the grace of God would be communicated to your soul there, but also because your Ananias worships there. And, of course, you are Ananias to someone else. Thus, I was glad when they said unto me: let us go into the house of the Lord. That’s why I went. And that’s why I am an Anglican.”

From Reverend Father Paul K. Hubbard, rector of St. Timothy’s Anglican Church in Poquoson, Virginia

“In an era of denominational distinctives, it is common for someone to say, ‘what kind of Anglican are you?’

One way of approaching such self-definition is from within our own tradition. We could discuss Orthodox Anglicanism as the great Via Media, the “middle way” between Catholicism and Protestantism—between corporate Christianity and individual salvation, between Sacrament and Word. Or again, we could discuss Orthodox Anglicanism from Anglican theologian Richard Hooker’s illustration of the strong three-fold chord of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, later cast into the familiar “Three-legged stool” of the Anglican approach to theology.

But perhaps the best way to approach the subject is from another direction. What are the bare minimum dogmatic requirements for someone or some organization to join us? What are the doctrinal principles required for agreement to bring unity between us and another jurisdiction—especially one coming into us from outside of our Anglican heritage? This is the very question faced by the Episcopal Church and the Canterbury Communion in the late 1800’s—far before the days of Episcopal Church Bishops Pike, Spong, or Jane Dixon!

Anglican leaders in that day understood the unique place we hold to bring unity to Christendom. And after much discussion and debate, they propounded a document called the “Lambeth Quadrilateral,” that laid out the minimum standards for Christian Unity. Today these same four irreformable points of doctrine are the best starting point for defining Orthodox Anglicanism, and indeed, identifying Orthodox Anglicans—regardless church or jurisdictional affiliation—around the world.

The Quadrilateral as set forth by both American and British Churches and paraphrased below, stated that Unity could be found in,

1. Acceptance of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the revealed Word of God, containing all things necessary to salvation, and being the rule and ultimate standard of faith;
2. Acceptance of the Nicene Creed as the “Symbol of the Faith,” and the Apostles’ Creed as the Baptismal confession.
3. Acceptance of two Sacraments, that of Baptism and Holy Communion—being ordained by Christ Himself—ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him; and,
4. Acceptance of the Historic Episcopate as essential to the ministry of Christ’s Church, adapted locally to the varying needs of the people of God around the world.

Let us briefly examine each of these points as they form the foundation of Orthodox Anglicanism. In our examination, we shall find that our doctrine is far wider in scope, far more universal in its application, than normally thought. By defining what Orthodox Anglicanism is, we shall also clearly see what it is not. And, by this examination, we shall also of necessity define Heterodox Anglicanism as it presently exists in the world today.

If I were to describe our Church in one phrase, it would be “Biblical Catholicism.” Of all the three great historic branches of the Church Catholic—Anglican, Eastern, and Roman—ours is the only one based squarely upon the revelation of God in the Holy Scriptures. The uniqueness and importance of the Word of God is confessed in all the writings of the Anglican Fathers—both “low” and “high” church—as well as the Articles of Religion. The Sixth Article states, “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” Thus, our reliance upon and confession of Holy Scripture as the record of God’s will for His Church, is the great dividing line between us and the Roman Communion, which has manifestly added to the biblical record. This is most easily demonstrated in the Roman requirement for salvation of belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her Assumption into heaven. These Roman dogmas are not found in Scripture, and therefore form no part—other than pious personal opinion by some—of Orthodox Anglican doctrine.

The primacy of the Word is also confessed throughout the Prayer Book. In the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church, we pray for God to “grant that all those who do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity and godly love.” Of Bishops and other ministers, we pray for grace, “that they may, both by their life and doctrine, set forth thy true and lively Word…” “True” and “lively” are descriptions repeatedly used of the Holy Scriptures in the Book of Common Prayer. In the Office of the Institution of Ministers, Holy Scripture is called the “divine Word,” and the priest prays that he might be given grace “in preaching, to give a readiness of thought and expression suitable to the clearness and excellency of thy holy Word.”

Orthodox Anglicanism is thus a biblically based Faith. By adhering to the Word of God we separate ourselves from the Eastern and Roman Communions, who are not so forthright about the Bible in their branches of the Church; and also the Protestants, who in the main have come to reject the Bible as being a reliable witness and record of the Acts of God for the salvation of mankind in human history. It is ironic that a movement that began with the Scriptures alone as a source of doctrine should end up by embracing skepticism and rationalism, yet in today’s seminaries the higher criticism of the Scriptures has now become an exercise in political correctness: the Bible is being deconstructed in order to expose its patrimonial sins and to impose a feminist gloss upon the sacred page.

Heterodox Anglicanism, too, has not only embraced such skepticism, but is leading the way toward destruction, evidenced by Bishop Spong’s book, Liberating the Gospels, the essence of which teaches that the truth of Scripture should bow to the perceived guiltdriven social imperatives of the liberal elite in the United States. Here is Spong’s view of the veracity of the Holy Scriptures: “There might well have been no such person in history called Joseph, the spouse of Mary, the earthly father of Jesus . . . . there was in all probability no manger . . . . no literal shepherds, no angels, no guiding star, no magi, and no flight into Egypt . . . . there was no Temptation during forty days in the wilderness; nor did Jesus ever preach the Sermon on the Mount . . . . There was no literal raising of Lazarus from the dead . . . . There was no miraculous feeding of the multitudes . . . .Jesus did not himself either create or deliver such parables as the prodigal son, the Good Samaritan . . . . there was no literal triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem . . . . Judas may not have been a person of history at all . . . . though the crucifixion of Jesus was real, most of the narrative events of Holy Week, including the Last Supper and the words from the cross, were creations of an interpretive liturgical process . . . . there were no literal Jerusalem resurrection appearances, in an upper room or elsewhere, no Emmaus road episode, no invitation to touch the wounds in the hands or side of the risen Christ . . . . there was no cosmic ascension of Jesus . . . . no literal Pentecost experience [of the Apostles].” Spong, of course, is an easy foil for his bombastic impudence and rancorous rejection of the Faith. The sad fact is the apparent existence of at least tacit acceptance of his positions among large numbers of Episcopalians.

One the other hand, our defense of the truth of the Bible is not to say that Orthodox Anglicans abuse the Holy Scriptures as do the fundamentalists. We insist that the Bible is an accurate Record of God’s Acts in history for the salvation of mankind and it contains the Reflections of God’s People upon those Mighty Acts. We further recognize that the sacred volume must be understood in terms of the cultures in which it was written, and that Christian scholarship has a valued place in the study and exposition of the Bible.

Hence we do not use the Bible like a cookbook or the Instructions to the 1040 tax form: they are not the property of any one person and not are subject to private interpretation. One of the Canons of the Church of England, promulgated during Elizabeth the First’s reign, in 1571, ordered that clergy were to teach nothing “but that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old Testament and the New and that which the catholic fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered out of that doctrine.” The Bible is the Church’s book. They are Holy Scriptures—sanctified and set apart for the service of the Church. The importance of this distinction will become clearer as we proceed to consider the other points of the Quadrilateral.

For the Church has authoritatively set forth scriptural doctrine in the two great Creeds of Christendom: the Apostles’ Creed historically associated as the Baptismal Confession, and the Nicene Creed as the Eucharistic Confession—the veritable “Symbol of the Faith.” Orthodox Anglicans believe the Creeds. As the Eighth Article of Religion states, “they may be proved by the most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.” We thus believe in a literal Virgin Birth, a real death suffered by our Lord, a real Bodily Resurrection, the Lord’s Ascension witnessed by the Apostles, and we await His glorious return as our Judge. The authority of the Church dogmatically set forth the Creeds, and the doctrine the Creeds propounded was made binding for all Christians at all times.

On the other hand, can you see how a rejection of Holy Scripture leads, inevitably, to a rejection also of the Creeds? There are two ways in which portions of Christendom have rejected the Creeds, and thereby separated themselves from the historic faith.  The first is the common Protestant habit of replacing the Creeds by “Affirmations”—platitudes to which individuals temporarily subscribe assent. They are the latest attempt to formulate the faith in a way acceptable to liberal social activists who control so much of the governing structures of mainline Protestantism.

The second way the Creeds are rejected is by subtly shifting the wording of them to allow theological ambiguity. This is more insidious form of creedal sleight-of-hand began with the Roman Communion’s attempt to promote modern language equivalents to the ancient liturgy after the days of the Second Vatican Council. Although these first efforts were no doubt sincere, the result has been to promote “fuzzy” theology ending finally in open heresy. A sample of this mid-sixties madness is found in a sermon preached by Episcopal Church Bishop James Pike in St. Louis, in 1964: “The fact is that we are in the midst of a theological revolution. Many of us feel that it is urgent that we rethink and restate the unchanging gospel in terms which are relevant to our day and to the people we would have hear it; not hesitating to abandon or reinterpret concepts, words, images, and myths developed in past centuries when men were operating under different world views and different philosophical structures.”

The outcome of this is apparent in the changes made in the Nicene Creed regarding the Incarnation and the miraculous Virgin Birth of our Lord. The orthodox American Book of Common Prayer states that our Lord “came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” The Episcopal Church’s Prayer Book of 1979, following the lead of Rome, states our Lord “came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” The former statement asserts that only one man in human history has ever been incarnate by the Holy Ghost: our Lord Jesus Christ. The latter statement differs not only in order but also in kind. It could be said that every human being is conceived by the power of God, and all children are the incarnation—the embodiment—of their parents. Thus, the change in the Creed only hints at a vague role for the divinity in the birth of Jesus, while retaining much of the cadence of the old Creed, and even use of the word “incarnate,” though in a different sense than that taught by the Fathers of the Church. One can stay in the pews (or keep one’s job at the church) and still confess the new “creed,” while remaining in unbelief.

St. Paul described this situation in his second Epistle to St. Timothy. He wrote, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 St. Timothy 3: 1-5).

Having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: an apt description. Especially since the Creeds, as dogmatic propositions based upon Holy Scripture, are connected with the sacramental power of the Church. The Apostles’ Creed is traditionally the Baptismal confession, while the Nicene Creed is traditionally recited at celebrations of Holy Communion….”

“It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Acts 15: 25,26

The epistle for this evening’s service is from Acts Chapter 15. It describes the first General Council of the Church and the astounding decision that was made there to allow gentile believers into what had been, up until that point, a Jewish church. In other words, the Jewish followers of Jesus as Messiah would, at this Council, with great liberality, open the doors of the church to gentile believers. Led by the Holy Spirit ‐‐despite differences in ethnicity, language and culture, much less religious background—the Church was in one accord in true unity and found the solution of bringing two very different cultures together in one Body of the Church. That they did was very astounding. On the other hand, it’s not that surprising because, you see, the Church was in its infancy. It was a small movement at the time. The Church was operating under a leadership perspective that we might consider “the family leadership” model. The Church was a family; it was anxious to grow. The decision of the first Council, however, was threatened as the Church grew and matured as an organization, as the letters of St Paul attest. The agreement made at the first General Council was not always kept faithfully by the entire Church. There was still conflict. The reason? Organizationally, the church was growing up. It was growing beyond the bounds of the family ‐led model. It was becoming a more mature organization.

I believe, at this General Convention, this example from Acts 15 contains a profound lesson for us. Because, at this moment of this jurisdiction’s history, we are faced with similar Circumstances … I believe the Lord is calling us to consider how we do stand united, how we do show strength and how we do perpetuate stability. Because we are moving beyond the family model of leadership and cooperation, our jurisdiction is maturing. So, we must ask ourselves, “Will we remain in one accord?” as they were in the first General Council.

I said there was reason to believe in dramatic growth in our church in the next to five years. I sincerely believe that. I am being contacted by clergymen of other Anglican jurisdictions, priests outside the Anglican tradition, and even Protestant ministers who are interested in becoming Anglican. The Orthodox Anglican Church is perceived as a strong, stable and safe place to be. It seems that so many other Anglican jurisdictions are bent on becoming either praise ‐and‐worship centers on the one hand, or Roman Catholic on the other. There are literally thousands of clergy and laity and, potentially hundreds of parishes, that are watching us today. We need to be prepared for a great influx into our church. We must ask ourselves now: “How can we maintain unity, stability and strength in the future?”

We need to answer this question using the widest possible horizon. So I want you to do something. Imagine a square  ‐‐just the figure of a square. I want you to label the left upper corner of that square “Evangelical”. An evangelical approach to the faith is based upon the word of God and the preaching of the Bible. It represents human free will, personal conversion to Christ, and personal holiness. It is expressed in individual relationship to God.

Label the bottom left corner of the square, “Reformed”. The reformed tradition also is based upon the word of God and the preaching of the bible. It is expressed by the profound proclamation of the sovereignty of God and everything He does: His covenants, His kingdom, His promises to His people. It understands and proclaims the grand sweep of God’s salvation and providential care of His people from creation to the end of the age.

Now, label the top right hand corner “Roman Catholic”. The Roman tradition is based upon the celebration of the sacraments, rationally defined and applied to the needs of God’s people in the Church, and maintaining the Holy Order of the church as a source of leadership and discipline.

Finally, label the bottom right corner, “Eastern Orthodox”. This tradition, too, is based upon the celebration of the sacraments. But the sacraments are understood as mysteries that defy rational analysis. In the beautiful worship of the East, the people of God are brought to an ineffable experience of worshiping the Holy, Blessed, and Undivided Trinity.

So, in your imagination you have a square labeled: Evangelical, Reformed, Roman and Eastern. These are the four great traditions of the Church. If we look at the Christian Church as a whole, we see that the way of the Church is both verbal and nonverbal. It is word ‐based and sacrament‐based. It is rational and it is ineffable. It is free and yet it is under discipline. It is all of these things simultaneously.

Now, where is Anglicanism in that square? Where do you put it? The Book of Common Prayer tells us plainly that we are committed to the proclamation of the gospel in both word and sacrament. At every ordination the new priest makes a vow to God to proclaim the Word, and to duly administer the Holy Sacraments. We use that as a tag line, in fact, for our church, “proclaiming Jesus Christ in word and sacrament”. So, in your imaginary square, draw a vertical line straight down the center, separating word ‐based and sacrament‐based traditions. Next, draw a horizontal line straight across the middle further separating the different branches of the church’s tradition. The vertical and horizontal lines cross in the center —the Disciplined Center—and that is where Anglicanism truly can be found. The disciplined center presents Christ to the world with a full expression of all the great Christian traditions. Anglicanism, done right and understood correctly, can be a source of the unity of Christendom, We can be a force for the unity of all Christians if we maintain this disciplined center.

The perennial problem we experience is when forces want to push Anglicanism into one quadrant or another of that square, and then limit it as the sole expression of Anglican tradition and history. If you think very carefully about the edges of that square, you will find that the further you go, the crazier you become. And the ultimate statement of “craziness” is, “We are the only true church”. Think about it. From the evangelical quadrant of one who appoints an infallible judge and pope of himself and becomes his own church, to the Roman quadrant of a billion Christians making one man an infallible judge and pope to them all. They both say, “We are the true church”.

Anglicanism can never claim to be the “one true church” because it is not on the edges, it’s right in the center. To understand this, embrace this, and to defend the center requires great humility. It’s very easy to make exclusive claims for yourself or your church when you’re on the edges. It takes a great deal of humility to enter into the unity of the church with a brother who comes from a different tradition. I ask you this evening, both clergy and lay leaders at this General Convention, to stand with me and to resist anyone who would come to this jurisdiction and attempt to push us to the edge of that square.

These four great traditions of the church, of course, are often looked upon as personal choices, personal prejudices, or theological battlefields. They really are not. We should look at them as the gifts of God for His people. They are God’s gifts of a full Christian “meal” for us to digest and enjoy because without one of these four great traditions, we all would be impoverished. Here is an example: When we think of a dinner, we think of meat, potatoes, veggies and a dessert. But, what if you went to a restaurant every day and they gave you only potatoes and they told you that all other types of food are suspect and probably poisonous and undoubtedly invalid as food. As if you were told, “You can eat only potatoes. That’s all you can ever have.” But another person in the restaurant is eating a steak. After a while, that steak looks pretty good to the potato ‐eater! And the steak eater says, “I wish I had a potato from that guy’s plate”!

Anglicanism is the full plate. We’re not feeding people with only part of the tradition ‐‐we present “the full menu”: the verbal and the non‐verbal; the Word‐based and the Sacrament ‐based; the rational and the mysterious. They all have a place on Anglicanism’s plate if we maintain the disciplined center. We must maintain the full plate and not subject ourselves or our parishioners to being fed simply the spiritual equivalent of potatoes, week in and week out. As we read in Mid‐Day prayer today, in the words of St Paul, “if everyone is an eye, who will do the hearing?” (1 Cor. 12:17)

Secondly, we have to realize that if there is a push in one of the quadrants of that square, to the detriment of the balance of the others, to that same extent, the faith itself is weakened. Here’s another illustration: In modern military strategy, one defeats an enemy by attacking his flanks, in other words, the edges of his line. At the flanks, he is the weakest. If you can successfully attack the flank, you can turn the whole line, collapse the forces against you and become victorious in battle. We are meeting at this General Convention in Richmond, Virginia, which was the capital of the Confederacy. The confederates did not practice modern military strategy. They practiced a very old military tactic that has been called the Celtic method of warfare. Their method of warfare was not to attack the flank, but to attack the center of the line with overwhelming numbers of men and weapons, and break the center of the line. They break the enemy in half and destroy him very quickly.

The Confederacy did this time after time and they were successful time after time after time, until they invaded Pennsylvania. Gettysburg and Pickett’s Charge will be remembered for many reasons by many people. One of the lessons that battle teaches is that a disciplined center can withstand the force of a frontal attack. The Confederates were never able to use their Celtic method of fighting again. They were actually beaten there. If we maintain the disciplined center, we, too, will be able successfully to defend against the onslaughts that will come toward us‐‐right to the middle of the line. Don’t let anyone attack us off the flank where we are weak, but maintain the disciplined center.

In your mind, you have a square with a cross. To bring your attention to remain in the center, I want you to draw a line diagonally from one side to the other, and another diagonal line from one corner to the other so that the four great traditions of the church meet in the center of that cross. In your mind, you should have the image of a “Union Jack”, a symbol of the disciplined center of Anglicanism as it should be known and practiced. Now, some of you may be asking, “Bishop, what is the width and length of that disciplined center?” I will tell you that the width and length of that center is under my guidance as your Presiding Bishop. I know there are some who wish it were broader or higher or lower. Some wish it were narrower.

I believe we must maintain this disciplined center in order to maintain our unity, our stability and our strength. Our true unity is found in very center of the center. The heart of the center is the Book of Common Prayer. Not only must we maintain balance, but also the second step to continued unity, especially unity in times of rapid growth, is to be with one accord and respect to the tradition of the church, with the Prayer Book seen as the balance, the full meal. Not the flank steak on the edge (to mix my illustrations). It is the heart of unity. I ask you secondly to respect the tradition: to know it, to use it, and to learn it from the inside out. Start using the Book of Common Prayer as a basis for evaluation of theological issues. Too often, I see clergy and laity who treat the prayer book from the outside in, bringing their prejudices against it and declaring that “it” is deficient before they know the tradition from the inside out. One of our priests recently talked with me about an evangelical leader who is converting to Orthodox Anglicanism. But, the evangelical leader had scruples with the fact the Decalogue is said on an occasional Sunday. He said,” we live under grace, not under law. Why are you reciting the Ten Commandments?” That’s fine. That’s part of the process of making sure we know and respect tradition from the inside out, and can answer that question.

I have seen former Roman Catholics, both clergy and laity, struggle mightily with the Word‐based emphasis of the Prayer Book. All of these things are to be as expected. We must insist, however, for both our laity and clergy, that they must look from the center out, from the heart out, from the thing that truly brings us unity; the unity that the Prayer Book provides to maintain balance and stability. If the Prayer Book is the heart of unity, the one way that you could destroy unity is to change the Prayer Book.

Have you ever heard of that technique before? Change the Prayer Book and you change the Faith. Change the Prayer book and you destroy unity. Liberal “prayer books” abound. But there are also prayer books which are supposedly Anglican, but they have been altered to the point that they are actually Roman. We have many prayer books today which  have been altered to the point they are actually Eastern. We have had prayer books for many years that are written in such a way as to deny the fact the word “priest” exists and minimizes the sacraments altogether. None of those things are the disciplined center. All of them are putting a bad heart in the middle of tradition.

I can tell you from very practical experience, those of you who are planting parishes that present Christ in Word and Sacrament, using the full Book of Common Prayer , not just simply part of it, will experience consistent and healthy parish growth. If you respect the tradition and if you evaluate from that tradition outwardly and you run your church accordingly, you will experience growth. However, I have also seen parishes that mix other traditions into the liturgy, so much so that it threatens to change the very nature and balance crafted into the Prayer Book tradition for nearly five hundred years. The result? No growth. No heart. No stability. No unity.

Consider this carefully: To be pushed into one quadrant of the square leads to extinction, but to adulterate the center, to alter the Prayer Book beyond its historic balance, leads to obscurity. So, respect the tradition. Look from the tradition, evaluate from the tradition. Look at it from the inside out. Ask yourself and of your parish, “Is this teaching that I am setting forward in accord with the Prayer Book and to what extent? Is this parish activity in accord with the church envisioned in the Prayer Book? Is this liturgical practice congruent with the Prayer Book? Or, is it in violation of it?” We must know, respect, uphold, and evaluate from the disciplined center, the heart of which is the Book of Common Prayer. Stand with me and resist someone who wishes to define Anglicanism in some extreme part of that square. Stand with me in the disciplined center, maintaining a loyalty to the Prayer Book as the very pure heart of what it is that we are doing in the Lord’s service.

Finally, I would ask you to look beyond the square and imagine a circle, or better yet, a sphere. I want you to embrace the international ministry the Orthodox Anglican Communion represents on this planet. The communion is growing at a great, fantastic rate. We are adding a new national church, at this point this year, of about one per month. Anglicans are joining our communion where the Union Jack never flew. We have worked hard to provide a better organized structure for overseas leadership, fellowship and cooperation. Across national lines we are seeing the fruit of that now.

The African Bishops just met in their own Provincial Council, agreed to their own cooperative efforts in ministry, and are organizing themselves according to the new Canons issued last year. With 1.5 million members of the Communion, we have a unique and precious opportunity to be an example of unity, stability and strength all over the world, not just to the troubled United States.

Embrace the international nature of this ministry. Look beyond your own local parish. Look beyond your own personal ministry. Look beyond the national church and embrace this global ministry that God has given us. More than simply sending them money on occasion; more than stories and pictures of exotic places: genuinely embrace your brothers and sisters in Christ, your fellow Orthodox Anglicans around the world.  Be pro‐active in making this international ministry part of your own. Join your parish to assist a parish overseas. Go and visit them. They would love to have you visit! You will be blessed beyond words if you visit. Don’t simply raise money to send me overseas, raise money to bring their leadership to your parish. Enter into a genuine relationship with them. Don’t keep them at arm’s length. Their churches are a lot larger than ours. And, they have much they can teach us.

What are we going to do? We’re going to maintain the disciplined center. We’re going to deliver the full menu, not just part of it. We’re going to defend the center against the onslaughts that will come against us from the Evil One. We will maintain our unity and strength and stability in the disciplined center that is classical Anglicanism, proclaiming Christ in word and sacrament. We also will respect the Prayer Book traditions at that disciplined center’s heart and keep that heart pure. We must also apply these principles all over the world.

From a practical perspective, we must do several things at once in order to be prepared for the growth to come. One, we must maintain our commitment to growth from the inside. Second, we have to have, from the entire church, a commitment to training new priests. That means, in this country, the support of St Andrew’s (and we have five theological seminaries operating around the world). We have to have a commitment to the growth of our religious orders and demand that they continue with integrity to add value to the church by their teachings, by the charisma they bring to the church, the spiritual disciplines necessary to “the full menu.” We must uphold the work of our military chaplains, understanding that the work they do will reap lifetime rewards among thousands of people who will eventually come back to one of your churches. We must pray and pray and pray for more church planters. And, we must overcome our reluctance to use new technologies in the ministry. Sign up for Twitter! Let us make a commitment to use the new technologies to teach the old traditions, because it is the only way the old traditions will stay alive.

We must also be prepared to grow from those on the flanks who are looking for a place of stability, yearning for the disciplined center. So many Anglican jurisdictions are being unwisely led into one part or another of that square. If they go, it leaves more room for us.  Be prepared to embrace those who come from the outside and incorporate them very quickly into this ministry, imparting to them the vision of the disciplined center and the pure heart at the middle of it in the Prayer Book. Embrace them, build relationships with them. Don’t be a partisan: be an Anglican at the disciplined center.

At the first General Council of the Apostles, the Church enjoyed a small, familybased mode of leadership which soon turned the world upside down. I believe we are facing the same opportunity. But, with greater numbers come greater challenges, and God’s own gift of a greater opportunity. Let us seize it. Roland Allen, in his book The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes Which Hinder It, quotes Harnack’s work on mission and expansion of the early Church. “Seventy years after the foundation of the very first Gentile Christian Church in Syrian Antioch, Pliny wrote in the strongest terms about the spread of Christianity throughout remote Bithynia, a spread which in his view already threatened the stability of other cults throughout the province. Seventy years later still, the Paschal Controversy reveals the existence of a Christian federation of Churches, stretching from Lyons to Edessa, with its head ‐quarters situated in Rome. Seventy years later again, the emperor Decius declared that he would sooner have a rival emperor in Rome than a Christian Bishop. And ere another seventy years had passed the cross was sewn upon the Roman colours.” Let us use their means, and may God, in His providence, give us the same result.

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

]]> http://orthodoxanglican.net/?feed=rss2&p=1 1