Lent 2021

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The season of Lent is upon us once again, and while much has changed for many of us individually and as a faith community over this past year, we can look to Lent as a forty day season for regrounding ourselves spiritually by immersing ourselves in the ancient practices of our faith even in these days of COVID-19.

The forty day length of Lent draws its inspiration from the multiple forty day experiences found in scripture: Moses stayed on the mountain of God forty days (Exodus 24:18 and 34:28), the spies were in the land for forty days (Numbers 13:25), Elijah traveled forty days before he reached the cave where he had his vision (1 Kings 19:8), Nineveh was given forty days to repent (Jonah 3:4), and most importantly, Jesus spent forty days in wilderness praying and fasting before beginning the ministry that led to his death and resurrection (Matthew 4:2). From ancient times, Christians have taken on prayer and fasting in imitation of Christ as spiritual disciplines leading up to the celebration of Good Friday and the Feast of the Resurrection.

During this season of prayer, it is proper that we should do self-examination and take the steps necessary to mend our relationships with God and with our brothers and sisters in Christ. In the ancient church, Lent was a time when converts to the faith were prepared for baptism and those who fell into notorious sin were restored to the faith community by confession, repentance, and reconciliation. Lent may be for us a similar time for prayer and reflection on our relationship with God and the promises we made in our baptismal covenant. It may be a time for confession and repentance. For some, it may be a time for seeking the rite of reconciliation.

In the service for Ash Wednesday, we hear Jesus speak about proper prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. His words are both a witness to the faith practices of his day and a prescription for all the faithful in all ages. During the forty days of Lent, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are practiced that we might be drawn back to and closer to God, and that we would be prepared as Jesus prepared for the events of Good Friday and the Resurrection.

Questions you might ask at the beginning of Lent to help identify where your spiritual life might benefit from taking on a forty day discipline of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are: How am I living the Gospel in my home, in my work, in my church, in my town?

In what ways have I grown stagnant, cold-hearted, closed off, or failed to seek God?

In what areas of my life have I failed to acknowledge growth or signs of renewal, and equally failed to express gratitude for these blessings?

While we will not be able to gather this year for the annual pancake supper, I do invite you to join with your fellow good shepherds on Zoom at 6:00PM on Tuesday, February 16, to share your household pancake supper time with your friends. Watch the email highlights for the Zoom meeting ID and passcode. We will begin the season of Lent with an Ash Wednesday service at 11:00AM streaming on the parish FaceBook page. Drive by imposition of ashes will follow at noon in the parking lot. While the imposition of ashes is a tradition of the church, it is not required and in fact is an optional feature of the Ash Wednesday liturgy found in the Book of Common Prayer. Please see a separate piece in this newsletter for an alternative to the imposition of ashes.

I invite you in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial. May each of us find our spiritual lives resurrected and enriched by the experience and may we soon find ourselves safely re-gathered in that holy sanctuary where we have celebrated so many time the resurrection of our Lord.

Fr. Bill+

Happy New Year?

It may be that you and I saw or heard some of the same observations made about this past year 2020. For one, that we would just as well not gain an extra hour of that year when we set our clocks back in the fall. Google “2020 meme.” There are so many such observations and while they often sought to bring some levity to the 2020 experience, they also memorialized for us that this was for many a strange and even unhappy period. Unfortunately, it is not over yet even with the rollout of two or more hopeful vaccines. And we do hope and expect that one day this virus will be under control and we can return to whatever was our normal pattern of life. However, let us not move on too quickly and fail to do the spiritual work that both heals the known and unknown wounds to our souls that this disruption has surely caused and that honors the life we have been given to live through this time.

In the book Joshua, the Israelites come to the bank of the Jordan and ready to cross into the promised land. Remember what their journey has been. Plagues in Egypt, scarcity in the desert, complaining against Moses and unfaithfulness to God, and forty years of 2020. Yet, God is with them and directs Joshua to have twelve men take up twelve stones from the bed of the Jordan river and to set them up as a memorial at Gilgal, the place where they make their first camp in the promised land. These stones were to serve as a reminder of God’s faithful presence and grace. The text of Joshua 4:6-7 reads “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” This is not a denial of hardship and loss. They have experienced much of that, but it is a recognition of those within a greater proclamation of deliverance. Loss and salvation can both be true at the same time. As you cross over into 2021, you may find it helpful to set up your own memorial marker to 2020 with stones representing what has been lost and what has been saved.

Finally, remembering and practicing the exhortation of Saint Paul in the fourth chapter of his letter to the Philippians can be healing. He is no stranger to hardship and suffering: five times receiving thirty nine lashes of the whip; three times beaten with rods; once stoned and left for dead; three times shipwrecked, and more. Yet, Paul says “Rejoice.” “Think about what is good and praiseworthy.” “Give thanks.” This is not to deny hardship and loss, but to see that those things do not overwhelm us and keep us from seeing the good that still fills our lives even in dark times. The active affirmation of those good things is our witness to God’s faithful presence and grace. So, before moving on to 2021, review 2020. What are the good and praiseworthy things and for what do you give thanks?

As you reflect upon, memorialize, and give thanks for 2020, may the peace of God that passes all understanding bless you and fill you with a renewed hope for 2021.

Fr. Bill+

The Incarnation

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. – John 1:14

One of the distinguishing beliefs of Christianity is that God became human in a unique person in a non-recurring event. Neither as some series of humans inspired by the Sprit of God - as in the Old Testament prophets - nor as God represented through a series of rebirths - as in Buddhism, but as God in all of the fullness of all God’s divinity becoming flesh in one and only one human ever. This is Jesus the Christ. Properly understood, Christians believed it to be “the” incarnation that we look forward to at Christmas. Two thousand years ago God pitched his tent and lived among us. He carried the name Jesus and was the anointed one, hence the names messiah and Christ that are usually associated with him and his name.

John’s Christmas story, the one we hear read on Christmas day, tells us that Jesus is the son of God and has come from his home heaven and from his Father. You see, to incarnate is of course to be born into somewhere and something, but it also means to be from somewhere prior. For John, the starting place is in heaven before all things. His Christmas story appears quite unlike those told by Matthew and Luke who give us an unwed couple, shepherds and angels, an inn and a manger, and visitors from the East. Mark appears to have wanted to immediately* get on with things and so leaves out the incarnation. But for both Matthew and Luke we have genealogies and family stories about where people and Jesus are from. They are both concerned to place Jesus in the family of God’s people. As a practical matter, it is not a bad idea for God to have a home and a family if God is going to arrive as a baby. I suspect that Matthew and Luke are however thinking more theologically than practically. You may recall that Matthew provides a family history that begins at Abraham and runs through David with several interesting women named. Luke goes even further back and begins with Adam. It seems that Matthew is interested in connecting Jesus with all the Hebrew people while Luke associates Jesus with all people, Hebrew and Gentile alike. Quite the family that he was born from. And then John, likely the last of the Gospels written, goes one really big step further. The Word who was with God in the beginning, who came from God, joins the human family - his human family. The Christian family tree stretches back to David and Abraham and to Adam and Eve before that, and includes all sorts of crazy uncles and heroes and villains, saints and sinners, and finds its ultimate origin in God and heaven because God became flesh and dwelt among us.

Christmas is a time for celebration and thanksgiving, for giving and receiving gifts, but maybe this year in all that it has brought for better or worse, we might remember and celebrate the gift of the Incarnation by giving thanks for where we are from and for our families: parents, spouses, children and all those who have touched our lives. Merry Christmas,
Fr. Bill+

* Mark’s gospel is characterized by Jesus immediately doing this or that.

Children of the God of Peace

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. —Matthew 5:9

If you have been blessed with children, you may have on occasion looked at their physical features, noted their talents, observed their personalities and concluded that this or that child looks like, resembles, acts like, etc. one or another of its parents or grandparents. Children through nature and nurture are reflections of their parents. This is something that many likely heard while growing up. That they looked like or had the personality of their mom or dad, grandmother or grandfather.

When Philip says to Jesus, “Show us the Father” Jesus responds by saying “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” Such it is between a parent and a child. While I appreciate there is a difference between the relationship of Jesus to his father and us to our parents, the general principle holds: children are a reflection of their parents. In Jesus, we see that the Father is compassionate, merciful, patient, loving, healing, just and righteous, and forbearing. We see that the Father cares for the oppressed, the outcast, the sick, the poor, the orphan and the widow. If you want to know what God our Father is like, look at what Jesus did.

In his great sermon on the mount, Jesus makes use of this relationship between parent and child to remind us of in whose image we are made and therefore whose image we should reflect. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” It is the seventh of his statements on blessedness. Matthew is too thoughtful and too careful, for this to be random or a coincidence. Many will recognize that seven is a number representing perfection, completeness, and wholeness. Recall the seven days of creation and rest from Genesis. This seventh statement is about completeness and wholeness. It is about the peace that is the fruit of being complete and whole in our identity as children of God when we rest in and live out that identity.

Peacemakers - those who actively seek peace within and without - are those who will find and know what it means to be at peace with themselves and at peace with others. To be at peace and to be a source of peace, is to embrace and to enact the character of God that is already in you as a child of God. The name is “peace-makers” meaning that is an action and a way of being. Practice peace and you will know peace. Practice peace and you will find your true self. Practice peace and you will find yourself in union with the God of peace.

When Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers” he is not merely saying that they are blessed because others will know they are children of God, as if the blessing is that of a good reputation, but more so that in their doing of peacemaking they will find for themselves the blessedness that comes from being true to one’s inheritance as a child of the God of peace. And the place to start toward peace is with yourself, child of God. You cannot make the peace with others that you first do not have for yourself.

What are the things you carry within you that keep you from having peace? Judging voices and selfcriticism? Bitterness and resentment toward another? Fear, guilt, shame? Daily quiet time devoted to sitting in the presence of God to be reminded of your true self can bring you the peace you need. Make your daily sacrifice an offering of those things that burden you and may God receive them with the love of a Father for a child and fill in those spaces in your spirit with the blessedness of peace.

Shalom to you, child of God,
Fr. Bill+

Patience

“There is always the fear of self-righteousness possessing us, the fear of arrogating to ourselves a superiority that we do not possess.” - Mahatma Gandhi

As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” - John 9:1-2

A couple weeks ago a friend shared with a group some not fully fleshed out thoughts on an inspiration God had given him. He openly admitted that he was just breaking open that inspiration and what he had to share was rudimentary. I appreciate the humility and courage he showed. I suppose many, including myself, would have been compelled by fear or pride to come with something more polished or conclusive. His point was, by the way, a very good one. But the more I think about what he shared, the more it is the patience he showed with this Godgiven inspiration and himself that I find both an inspiration and a challenge. Too often, closure comes too soon. We assume we know and we reach conclusions prematurely.

The disciples ask Jesus a question: “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” They have closed off much in their question. They have decided that sin must be involved. They have decided that either the man or his parents are to blame. And assuming they have no afflictions themselves, that they are not sinners. They have painted a black and white world with good and bad people, and of course it is easy to tell who is who. This man is among the bad, hence his suffering. The only question left is who to pin the blame upon.

I wonder if we do the same? I wonder if we claim for ourselves a righteousness and in doing so deny that to others. I wonder if we occupy that same black and white world where we claim for ourselves that we are the good guys and if you are not with us, then well. My hope for myself and for others is that we might step back and not reach conclusions about others too hastily or at all.

My hope is that we would be mindful of the grace shown to us by God and not break fellowship with others. Imagine instead of such premature closure, we would instead seek to know more about another person.

Imagine the disciples going to the blind man, finding out who he is, what his life is like, and what his hopes and dreams are and then coming back to ask Jesus to help. Imagine the question turning from “who is to blame?” to “how can we help you?” Imagine instead of self-righteousness, the disciples find common humanity and a common need for Jesus.

Where and how might we do the same? You may recall that Jesus invited all the wrong people to dinner. He had a heart for fellowship and it was at such gatherings that hearts were changed. He did it time and again because it takes time to hear people tell their stories and to get to know them as people and not as portrayed in political cartoons, in Internet memes, on talk shows, and so forth. Resist the temptation to “unfriend” people, to break fellowship, to retreat into a bubble of like-minded travelers. If you are looking for Jesus, try looking among the “wrong” people.

Grace and peace,
Fr. Bill+

Send Them Away

As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food." Matthew 14:15

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." Matthew 15:23

A comedian was once talking with his audience about his experience fathering children. He had two daughters but he and his wife also wanted a son, so as his old football coach had taught him, he did. “Keep running that play until you get it right.” They eventually got their son but also more children than they had planned at the start.

Jesus seems to know that his disciples need repetition and he appears to run the same play once again. Just before the feeding of the five thousand, the disciples see large crowds and assess the situation. It is late, they are in a barren place with no resources, and it is dinner time. Their solution? “Send the crowds away!” Jesus then teaches them about the power of God to turn scarcity into abundance. Five thousand men plus women and children are fed, and twelve baskets of leftovers are collected for the local food pantry. Jesus cares for body and soul. Jesus cares for everyone because God cares for everyone, and there is more than enough.

Did they understand? Do we?

I wonder because the travel narrative continues with Jesus and his crew venturing to Gentile turf where a Canaanite woman (read: unclean outsider Gentile and a woman at that) comes asking for help. One of our Lectionary Bible Study members thought that she had perhaps been part of that earlier crowd. The Canaanite woman obviously knows something about Jesus since she calls him Lord and Son of David and has faith his healing power. But it looks like the disciples are just annoyed by her presence. “Sheesh, a loud unclean Gentile and a woman at that. She does not belong here. Send her away!” Did they not understand who Jesus is? Did they already forget what happened the last time they uttered those words? I think this woman likely was at the earlier feeding or she received some of the leftovers because she speaks of crumbs falling from the master’s table. She says that she will humbly take those crumbs. Contrary to the disciples, Jesus does not send her away.

You see, Jesus is in the reconciliation business. He is in the business of reconciling us to God and us to each other. As he shows us God’s care for the body and souls of all people, he is also showing us the care that we should have for each other. There are numerous ways of doing that, of course, and we do so at Good Shepherd with feeding and meal ministries, visitations to the sick, prayer and prayer shawls, phone calls and cards and so forth. But reconciliation extends beyond that. Reconciliation also means that we seek to heal our political and cultural divisions remembering that in God’s Kingdom there are no unclean outsiders, no one to be cast out or sent away because of their views or actions. There is plenty of room for everyone at the Lord’s table, plenty of grace for everyone, and even twelve baskets full and crumbs on the floor for anyone who missed the first call to supper.

We should remember that in the end Jesus’ desire for us to be reconciled to God and each other led him to stretch wide his arms and embrace all people and the whole of God’s creation. It is that heart of welcome and inclusion, and of reconciliation, that is the image of God we should strive for. As imperfect people, our striving toward this will always remain imperfect, but I believe Jesus showed us these things because he thought how we live as citizens and ambassadors of God’s Kingdom matters both for us and for the world watching what those Christians are doing and failing to do.

Grace and peace,

Fr. Bill+

In the end, there is Grace

I was talking recently with a small group of parishioners about some the stories in the book Genesis. Those stories can be read in many ways. Some take them as literally true and others as myths and folk tales, as stories of fictional heroes from a long, long time ago. Of course, that does not deny that they teach us truths. What I also believe is true is, while they are wonderful stories for telling us about the human experience, where all the goodness and pettiness or worse of human character is on display, there is another story running in the background. It is the story of God who makes an appearance at the beginning and reappears here and there within a narrative that generally seems to focus our attention not on God, but mostly on the characters and unfolding plots of the subsequent Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sagas. In these sagas we catch glimpses of God’s character, God’s faithfulness, and God’s enduring providence. We see that time and again, human failing does not prevent God’s will from being done. These stories show God working with humans as they really are, as real people like you and me, and not with saints and superstars. God does not give up on them and in the end we see transformed people coming a little closer to being the people who show the character of God in their lives and their relationships. The hope these stories should give us comes from believing God is still God, still having God’s way, still working in and through us, still transforming us even if slowly, and that in the end God’s justice, peace, and reconciliation will win the day in our lives and the world.

Just to note a couple examples from these early Bible stories, recall the twins Esau and Jacob. Two boys from the same mom and dad, reared in the same household, but yet so different in interests, outlooks, and character you might think they belonged to different tribes. The story suggests that Esau was dim-witted and impulsive. His brother Jacob was a crafty, manipulative, liar. Neither is the sort of person we should aspire to be. Jacob takes advantage of his brother, lies to his father and steals his brother’s blessing, and his mom helps him do it. Esau seeks to kill his bother but before we have Cain and Abel Part II, mom helps the favored son get away. This is not the first nor the last dysfunctional family. Years later, they reunite. Esau is now wealthy, as is Jacob, both have large families, and both apparently so without any mention of what they inherited from their father Isaac. So much for the material gains of that birthright that was so easily given away for a bowl of stew. You see, God made a promise to Abraham much earlier in this family story. It was a promise to bless and prosper God’s people. Family dysfunction might make us wonder if and how that promise will appear but appear it does. In the end, God’s will be done.

Likewise, we read about another sibling rivalry in the story of Leah and Rachel. These are the co-wives of Jacob, the ones he gets when the trickster himself is tricked by his maternal uncle named Laban. What goes around, right? Seems just doesn’t it? Telling the truth is not a defining family trait of these folk. Yet there is sadness too. Leah is the unloved bride. The Hebrew text says that she has timid eyes, which may be “lovely” as the NRSV translates it, but the Hebrew word suggests that Leah had already lost hope. I wonder what has caused this because the text does not say. Maybe it was all the bad behavior she had seen. On top of this despondency she gets married off by trickery, has to face the rejection she must have felt the morning after her marriage when Jacob reacts with shock to seeing her in the marriage bed, and then suffer the humiliation of knowing that her new husband was willing to accept another seven-year term of service to get what he really wanted - Rachel. “Lovely” eyes indeed. But this is all people being people, right? It is pride, and envy, and fleshly unholiness as well as, I am sure, some righteous behavior here and there. All the while, God seems to have eyes on Leah the unloved and she has many children while Rachel does not. God’s love for Leah is evident. I wonder if her eyes changed. Both sisters end up with the blessing of children and those children end up with their own sad discontent and struggles. Yet it is from this very human family that we get the line of David and the line of Jesus. In the end, God’s will be done.

I find these hopeful stories for our times. The details of where we find ourselves as families, as a community, and as a nation are different but we are not so different in our character and our struggles from Esau and Jacob, Laban and Rebekah, Leah and Rachel. God worked in and through them, often appearing only behind the scenes, but never giving up on them and so, I suppose, never giving up on us either. Keep the faith. In the end, God’s will be done. In the end, there is grace.

Grace and peace,

Fr. Bill+

Holiness and Virtues

We are called to holiness of life. We are called to a life of virtue. We are called to be saints. We are called to be a holy priesthood, serving God. How is that going?

No problem!

No problem because we have lowered the bar?
No problem because we have given up?
No problem because that is for the clergy?

God says to those who have ears to listen, “You will be holy because I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev 19:2). And he tells them what to do. They have something to do in order to be.

The early church was called The Way (Acts 9:2) because it was about a doing and a being. It was about an orthopraxy before the church turned it into an orthodoxy. The first call of God is a call to a way of life.

The church has traditionally taught the learning, practice, and development of virtues as a means toward holiness for both individuals and the church community. Virtues are the defense and the remedy for the various sins that afflict us. Pride, envy, gluttony, greed, anger, lust, and sloth are each defeated by the practices of the virtues such as humility, kindness, charity, and patience.

These are easy enough to find on the Internet if you would rather not talk to your priest about personal vices and helpful virtues. In this traditional teaching, it is pride that is cast as the chief of all vices. Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas both taught that pride is the root of all sin. C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, wrote that "Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” What is pride? It is narcissism. It is overconfidence in and boasting about oneself. It is arrogance. It is an attempt to take the place of God and so is an offense against God. The remedy? The virtue of humility.

Humility is about knowing one’s place in relationship to God. It is about letting God be God and not exceeding the bounds of our humanity and taking the place of God. It is also about recognizing our various gifts and not practicing a false humility by denying ourselves, our worth, and our giftedness. As one person put it, “humility is not thinking less of oneself, but rather thinking of oneself less often.” In that sense, and in contrast to narcissism, humility may be taken as thinking about others and how ones gifts may be of service to others in God’s name.

Holiness is a way of life, an orthopraxy, and virtues are a means to help us along the way. They are meant to be practices. Flex your virtues and let us with God’s help become holy people.

Grace and peace,
Fr Bill+

Ascended Christ Within

Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

It was neither my first nor second choice of seminaries. Nashotah House in Nashotah, Wisconsin was a place I knew of but very little about. Mostly when hoping and thinking about where we would go for seminary, we were hoping and thinking about staying close to home so Susan could visit and care for her aging and ailing parents and where being from an “owning” diocese we would have help with tuition. We got Nashotah instead. It was a long way from home and parents, a place of unfamiliar religious rituals, and costly in many ways. But, within and through that experience I learned to value something unanticipated - the feast and fast days of the church. Nashotah is in the Anglo-Catholic stream of the Episcopal Church. We observed every feast and fast day, every saint’s day, and even made one up when there was not one on the church calendar. Blessed Saint Feria of Northumbria, pray for us! I learned to value the formative nature of these holy observances, and by extension to value all the days of our feasting and fasting. They were preparation for the fasting from communion and communion we are now experiencing. I know that many of you, and likely all of you, have your own stories of times of feasting and times of fasting - times when everything seemed to be well and good, and times when a dark cloud hung overhead. They are formative experiences and with theological reflection can reveal to us God’s presence in the fast as well as the feast.

The Feast of the Ascension was observed on Thursday, May 21. It is a Principal Feast of the church taking precedence over other observances. That puts the Feast of the Ascension on par with Easter, Pentecost, Christmas Day and several others that most church people still observe. It has not been my experience that Ascension Day is highlighted on as many calendars. Given the current situation, that is a lost opportunity for a valuable theological reflection on these times we now face. In the collect for the day, we read that Jesus ascended into heaven and much artwork has tried to capture that moment with some, personally speaking, less than edifying representations showing his feet sticking out from the clouds as watchers look on. Jesus is gone home. We now fast from his presence until his future second coming one might conclude. But the prayer continues on that in ascending he filled and fills all things on earth in the present time, even his Church. The Ascension of our Lord is a crucial moment in the life of God’s people. It is as significant as the Incarnation and the Resurrection. Within the fasting of Jesus from his people until his second coming is a feasting on his presence everywhere we find two or three gathered together in his name. Jesus is gone (fast) but is everywhere (feast). And because he is everywhere, the love, peace, and healing of Jesus are everywhere. Even within you? The feast is in the fast.

And so I wonder, what do you see when you look again at what is now missing from your life and what you now miss? What do you see in your fasting from your church community and from communion, from family and friends, from the things you enjoy? There is a feast within the fast. Can you see it and what good thing is God revealing to you in these days of fasting?

Grace to you and peace, Fr Bill+

Holy Spirit

We believe in the Holy Spirit. Yes, but what does that mean? Some time ago I went with a group of friends to see the move The Shack. You may be familiar with that movie and the book by the same title which came out years before the film. Briefly, the story is about a man who loses a daughter but finds God at an old shack in the woods. This God is no old man played by George Burns. Rather, God is represented by an unexpected trinity of characters. God the Father, named Papa in the film, is played by an African-American woman. Jesus is played by a Tunisian born Israeli man, and the Holy Spirit by a Japanese woman. In the book, the character of the Holy Spirit is less human than, well, animated spirit. Some folks liked both the book and movie and others did not. What I appreciate about both is that they took a chance on trusting that while God is beyond any of our attempts at portrayal, to try to do so in a bold and fresh way may help us to grow to know God more clearly and to be drawn to love God more dearly. Our growth in the knowledge and love God is clearly part of the Bible narrative and can be seen in the creeds of the church.

Many may know that it was the early church councils who worked out an understanding of how Jesus could be both fully human and divine, and how the Son of God was both coequal and coeternal with God the Father. There were strong disagreements on these and other matters with some proclaiming their position orthodox and labeling others as heterodox. The Nicene Creed of 325 is one product of those working councils. What you may not know is that the original form of that creed ended simply with the words “And in the Holy Spirit.” What you may not know is that there was a time when some Christians denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit and so in 381 at Constantinople the church added the words concerning the Holy Spirit - “The Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, Who spoke by the Prophets.” We learn and we grow.

When I worked with youth confirmands, one exercise we did was to form our own council of the church, including adopted bishop names for each youth, and then negotiate a statement of the faith. It was an expression of what these 12-14 year olds believed as 12-14 year olds about God. I imagine they have grown beyond that statement, retaining and refining some elements and adding or deleting others. I hope that they, and all of us, find the Creeds of the church a solid foundation and returning point for our continued questioning and growing in faith. And it seems so divinely ordered that the Creeds should end with a statement about the Holy Spirit given that it is the Spirit that inspires us even to continue to pushing the boundaries of our understanding of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe in the Holy Spirit. What does that mean for you?

Grace and peace, Fr. Bill+