The Apprentice Priest

I got to spend some time in jail today. It was a really wonderful and blessed experience and I’ll tell you about it in a future post. However today my attention is shifting away from the sabbatical experience towards return to – and reintegrating with – Trinity Parish. The following will appear in our parish newsletter but I’m sharing it early with those of you who read this to give you some sense of what return means to me.

Reconnecting

Last month I shared a reflection (in the parish newsletter) on how, even during a seven-week absence, I maintain connection with Trinity Parish. Now, as we are entering our last week away and beginning preparations to return to Greeley, it is time to reflect on reconnecting. Before I do that, there is a subject I’ve mentioned from time to time in the last couple of years, the question of when I might retire.

The answer to that question is that I have as yet no answer to that question. For the last nearly 20 years Dorie Ann and I have intentionally given over control of where we serve to God’s direction. Each time we have moved from one congregation to another it was because of two things. First, the work I was doing was completed. Second, the call to go another place was both unsolicited and unexpected. Beginning with the latter, we’ve had no invitation to go anywhere. And I believe there is more for me to do here. Please note, this is my intuition, not God’s revelation.

Each time God has moved us, we’ve had about three months’ notice before the move. The Church Pension Fund requires a six-month notice before drawing one’s pension so God & the Pension Fund will have to sort that out between them. In short, this means we’re returning from the sabbatical with no plans other than to keep on serving at Trinity pending further instructions from the Holy Spirit.

Now on to reconnecting: while I hope you’ve remembered me fondly while I’ve been on sabbatical, it will soon be time to be re-membered to our common life. We rarely remember that the word member has its origins in the human body. To use it in any other way was to use it analogically to describe profound and intimate connections between human beings. That was long ago. Today the word member has dropped in value. We can be a member of an organization or group with which our relationship is superficial and undemanding. However, there is still one use of the word member that carries the force of the original meaning: dismember.

On the one hand that seems an over-the-top image for being away for seven weeks. On the other, particularly because I continued to hold you all in daily prayer, it did feel a little like being “dismembered.” Even daily intercession is insufficient to maintain the full connection we are to have as one Body. And this sense of disconnect is caused in part by what God has done for us in Jesus.

I do not speak here about reconciliation, salvation, forgiveness or any of the normal things we would list about what Jesus has accomplished. Instead my focus is on that one line in the Gospel of John: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) There are two thing implied in the verse that have significance for reconnecting.

First, the Word becoming flesh is no accident. A wholly spiritual God has entered into a very physical, material world in Jesus. The ancient hymn The Exultet declares that “earth and heaven are joined and sin is washed away.” The late J.B. Phillips wrote: “We shall never know, in the depths of our being, the meaning of the crucifixion, or of the triumph of the resurrection, until we see that this man Jesus was God being a man, and not in any sense God pretending to be a man.” This means for us that community is built from our material interactions. It is important that we see one another face to face, hear one another’s voice. As I discovered many years ago from the initial and ongoing failure to create human community online, if it is not local, it is not real.

The second implication of John 1:14 is in the phrase “dwelt among us.” The word translated as “dwell” is more accurately rendered as “pitched his tent” or more awkwardly “tabernacled among us.” Whichever word we use the image is of someone moving with a mobile community. Wherever we go the Incarnate Word travels with us. To reconnect using this image means me tracking alongside the rest of the Trinity community in the directions God leads you and me.

On Wednesday, November 1 I restart my work among you most appropriately at the celebration of All Saints’ Day at 6:30a with Eucharist in the chapel. It is appropriate because the theme of the day is the communion of the saints or in less religious jargon, the connectedness of our community. I would love to see any of you who can make that early hour then. But in the days and weeks to follow I’d prefer to spend as much time as I can manage chatting with you, whether over coffee or a meal, and reconnect.

I look forward to being back in our common life.

Having posted on Foundations I had intended more reflections on the third foundation, the foundation of the church. However, in working on that I realized that I need to work a great deal more on the 1st and 2nd foundations beforehand. Since that will take some time, and there are less than 2 weeks left on this sabbatical leave, I’ve turned my attention to the booklet I’ve been preparing on the Trinity Way of Life. Even that has gone in unexpected directions. The introduction has taken on a life of its own and I am posting it here to invite any comments and reflections.

How are you growing in your spiritual life?

• Rapidly?
• Moderately?
• Slow and steady?
• Contented?
• Stalled?
• Dissatisfied?
• Never even thought about the question?

It’s a question worth considering. Spiritual growth for Trinity Parish is the process of discovering God in the “tiniest infinite detail” of our lives. It means the realization that our lives have eternal purpose and that we can make a difference in our world when we connect with others on the Jesus road. Spiritual growth moves us from being a collection of individuals who may gather from time to time on a Sunday morning to being the Body of Christ – the coherent and conscious presence of Jesus in that part of our world where we live and work and play.

It is obvious that Jesus himself is central to our concept of spiritual growth. But how do we relate to Jesus? We can be an admirer as many of his followers were. That doesn’t get us very far on the Jesus road. But many of his admirer’s became disciples, a common enough word in religious jargon. The word in the New Testament that we translate as disciple simply means student. The significance of that word only becomes apparent when we look at what a student did in those days. Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, described it this way:

In other words, what makes you a disciple is not turning up from time to time. Discipleship may literally mean ‘being a student,’ in the strict Greek sense of the word, but it doesn’t mean turning up once a week for a course (or even a sermon). It’s not an intermittent state; it’s a relationship that continues. The truth is that, in the ancient world, being a ‘student’ was rather more like that than it is these days. If you said to a modern prospective student that the essence of being a student was to hang on your teacher’s every word, to follow in his or her steps, to sleep outside their door in order not to miss any pearls of wisdom falling from their lips, to watch how they conduct themselves at the table, how they conduct themselves in the street, you might not get a very warm response. But in the ancient world, it was rather more like that. To be the student of a teacher was to commit yourself to living in the same atmosphere and breathing the same air; there was nothing intermittent about it.[1]

For this reason, we use the term apprentice rather than disciple.

The Trinity Way of Life is our peculiar way of intentional spiritual growth, of being apprentices. We do this not for our own personal benefit alone, but that we continue becoming a congregation that gives blessing to our community and through whom God releases healing to the wounded and freedom to the captive.

[1] Williams, Rowan. Being Disciples p. 2

The first Sunday in October, fourteen years ago, I preached a sermon series on foundations. It was topical at the time. We were in a difficult transition in the parish. The denomination and its overseas partners were in turmoil. We were, to say the least, unsettled. It seemed a good time to look at what shape our foundation was in as a Christian community. Those of us who were at Trinity in those days may tell you they remember the series because of an illustration that stretched over four weeks. It had to do with the near collapse of Winchester Cathedral and how a deep sea diver helped save the cathedral. It’s a great story, but I won’t retell it here. If you’re interested just search for “Diver Bill” on the Internet.

The issue of foundations has been an unexpected theme in my sabbatical reading. Though Scripture tells us “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1Corinthians 3:11); in fact, a building has foundations built on the central foundation. When we were beginning our narthex expansion in 2012, we did soil sampling of the ground where we would build. That soil was found to be fill dirt and no matter how solid a foundation of concrete and rebar we could pour; the ground underneath was too unstable to build on. The ultimate foundation of any building is the solid earth itself, and that equates to the Jesus foundation of the Body of Christ.

Even though the ground was unstable we built there anyhow, but not in foolishness. Rather, the builders drove a number of “helical piers” into the bedrock below the unstable soil. Thus a second “foundation” was set into the ultimate foundation of bedrock. This leads to another use of the image of foundation in Scripture: “… the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” (Ephesians 2:20) This secondary foundation’s reference to a cornerstone has real significance in the life of a Christian community. Today, cornerstones are more decorative than functional. In the past, the cornerstone was essential to constructing a stable building. From this stone all other stones will be set in reference. That’s an excellent guideline for a church whether speaking of local congregations or denominations. As the culture in which we exist changes the practices and language of the church must adapt, but only within limits. All changes must be in reference to the cornerstone of Christ Jesus or what we build will not stand for long.

Of course, once the helical piers were in place, the foundation of the addition was next. Steel beams were placed along the piers and with rebar and steel sheets the foundation of the addition was poured in concrete. Once that was in place, the building could rise. There is one other foundation image in Scripture: “… you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”  (1Timothy 3:15) This rather ambitious description of the church makes more sense if we see it as a third foundation dependent on the first two.

A community, founded on the life, death, resurrection and ascension (enthronement) of Jesus is founded on a reality that does not change no matter how cultures and systems and theories evolve. A community building itself with constant reference to the cornerstone of Jesus can adapt to a changing world without compromising its foundation or losing its integrity. If both of those foundations hold, then Paul’s assertion about the nature of the church is quite reasonable.

It is this third foundation that has caught my attention in my sabbatical reading. I think it is important because until we grasp what it is and what it means for us I don’t think we’ll be able to fully realize our destiny in Christ as Trinity Parish.

That’s all I have for today. It will take some time to organize my thoughts. It will take a great deal of prayer to get a glimmer of what I believe God may be saying to us at this time. Don’t expect a quick follow up. But for those few who read this, I ask that you encourage others to read and reflect as well. Blogs are essentially monologues. Even the option for comments doesn’t take us very far. If this time away is to bear the fruit it should, we’ll have to move this from monologue to dialogue.

Jack asked if I would write something for his sabbatical blog so here goes.

I spent the early days while Jack was getting the basement set up for his study and prayer area working in my sewing room upstairs. It hasn’t functioned as a sewing room for many years now. In December 2007 when a burst pipe in the basement caused a flood 2 large bookcases and an armoire full of assorted papers and things were lugged upstairs to “my domain” where they sat practically undisturbed until last week. I had a lot of time for reflection as I began sorting through things from the past.

We bought this house 28 years ago in 1989. And 14 years ago this week we moved to Greeley. That was a revelation – that half of our Colorado lives have been spent in Greeley. Some of the things I found in the armoire were things that had disappeared from my life. There was a sketchbook that I had purchased shortly after Jack and I were married in 1979. I found a detailed drawing of the living room in the vicarage in Morehead, Kentucky, that included the living room window showing the large tree that dominated the front yard. (And I drew that? Hmmm.) I saw a drawing of the small cabin where we occasionally went on retreat. And lots of sketches of Jack (sitting in his lounge chair smoking a pipe; sprawling on the sofa with a cat on his lap; sitting at his desk, writing; lots of attempts just to capture the expression of his eyes.) And lots of attempts to depict Frisbee and Squeak, my 2 cats. Some weren’t bad at all and I wondered why I had left that behind. (There are lots of pages left so who knows.)

Another thing I had left behind was my sewing machine but I do have plans for that item. For some months now I’ve had the idea for a Christmas banner to go along with the other 6 banners that we hang from the choir loft at Trinity. I’d never made one for Christmas because the season is so short and we usually hang wreaths. Still it has been on my mind for quite a while. I’ve known what the message will be since last Spring but it was only this week that I saw the design and the colors in my mind. Thursday we drove down to Lakewood and I purchased the fabric. Yesterday I began cutting out the letters.

So there is a snapshot for you. And blessings from Evergreen.

Dorie Ann

Taking a break from reading may not have been God’s plan today. I was loading some recycling in the car for a community recycling event in Evergreen tomorrow when I was suddenly plunged into darkness. Turns out that a major power station on the north end of the town had blown a fuse (or something like that) and plunged over 2500 households into dimness — it was, after all, mid-afternoon. Dorie Ann was working on an entry that will be posted here in the next day or so. Thank God for battery backups. We got the file saved and the computer shut down before her work was lost.

The outage lasted a bit under two hours and with little else to accomplish we retired to the upstairs where we had plenty of light. I picked up the second book in my studies, Ian Bradley’s Colonies of Heaven, and went back to work. Dorie Ann went to the dining room to work on a Christmas present she’s making for the parish. When the power returned, Dorie Ann decided that her writing muse had taken the rest of the day off and continued on her project and I came down to type more nearly illegible notes into more coherent form.

[Warning: in addition to the book listed above I also spent some time brushing up my biblical Greek, so there will be no respite from the “present active subjunctive” and other delights of New Testament mysteries when I return.]

I did not finish the book I’d been working on first as it was only really the first section that had provided the early inspiration for exploring parish-wide spiritual formation. Martin Thornton, the author of that work, was a fairly intense Anglo-Catholic who spent a good portion of his early ordained life in a religious community. We might find some of his ideas a bit rigid today, but along the line of “not reading naively” it’s not that difficult to sort out those ideas which can be applied to a 21st century congregation.

There was, however, one sentence that stood out, particularly coming from an Anglo-Catholic priest of his vintage. I will end today’s entry with that quote, but without further comment on it. I leave it for you few, brave readers of these entries to sort out what it might mean for us in being a parish church. Your comments would be welcome. And now, here it is:

“…Anglican theology insists that the creative channel of Grace in the world is not the priesthood but the church…”

It really began yesterday . Well, sort of. I managed to plow (slowly) through five more chapters of Pastoral Theology and actually made some useful notes. Since my handwriting (or printing for that matter) is pretty awful, I spent some part of the afternoon typing the notes in while I could still remember what those squiggles on the yellow notepad represented.

It was an interesting beginning to this journey as thoughts I encountered over 40 years ago leapt out in one “aha” moment after another. It is, at this stage, primarily a theological underpinning to why the Trinity Way of Life should exist at all and what I hope it will enable us to accomplish as a parish. (More on that later on in the sabbatical.) What I’m experiencing now is a renewed understanding of where the Way was coming from, and more excitingly, where it could go.

What is coming clear at this early stage is that our identity as Trinity Parish may be far more important than I’d hitherto understood. For the moment I will note that human history comes down to Jesus and from Jesus flows out in redemption and healing and justice for our world. I’m not saying that being Trinity Parish is the cornerstone of God’s great redemptive purpose! We are but one of thousands of Christian communities across the globe. But perhaps in discovering what it means to be Trinity Parish we may have positive impact on the community in which we live and may also encourage other Christian communities, even beyond the Episcopal Church, to find their own parish identity and thus become channels of God’s grace in a grace-starved world.

N. T. Wright had been recommending reading the works of Josephus, a first century Jewish scholar, to get a feel for the Jewish world which was the stage for Jesus and the early church. A person in the audience challenged Wright by pointing out Josephus’ penchant for self-promotion. Wright countered with some self-deprecating comment about his own works and then concluded with the statement: “I hope none of us reads naively.”

That comment stuck with me in the four years since I heard it. I’ve done a fair amount of naive reading over my lifetime, mostly in books about how to grow a church. I became aware of that problem some years before hearing N. T. Wright when Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Church, made waves across denominational lines and had clergy flocking to satellite conferences to learn how to replicate his phenomenal results at Saddleback Church. That wave petered out for most all mainline clergy who tried Warren’s methods. In retrospect we forgot in our enthusiasm that Warren was a Southern Baptist, and Southern Baptist is a very different church culture than our own.

The problem of reading naively is that when the latest magic bullet fails to produce the expected results we find a thousand different reasons to dismiss the whole book itself. In fact, about 25% of Warren’s book can be relevant to churches like ours. We have to read with discernment, the opposite of reading naively.

This lesson learned comes back to me now as I re-read Martin Thornton’s Pastoral Theology: A Reorientation. It was the book that gave birth to a vision of a community in common spiritual formation and thus set me on a path that has led to, among other things, the Trinity Way of Life. Now the great challenge is to reread it with discernment. That takes time and patience.

It doesn’t feel like a sabbatical — yet. It’s not the daily labor making the house livable, creating the work space (nearly there) and the prayer and study place (complete!!). It’s more that this feels like one of the extended stays we take up here after Christmas and Easter and maybe a week in the summer. The older cat is pretty skittish, waiting to be bunged up in the cat carrier for the trip home. I sympathize.

I did no reading today, spending time in sorting out the 14 years of neglected mess and throwing a lot of things out, setting much aside for recycling and going through old cassette teaching tapes trying to determine if I would ever listen to any of them again. A few made the cut, but only a few. There was one interesting treasure among the detritus, a packet from the cruise ship we took on our honeymoon in 1979. Included in the packet were the menus from the various meals. I know we were only in our 20s but I’m amazed we didn’t need an angioplasty by the time the cruise ended.

Tomorrow is my first Sunday away from Trinity. Even on short vacations it seems odd not to be preparing for the liturgies. So the oddness today is nothing unusual. We’ll see how odd it will feel to get back into that routine come November. Tomorrow evening I’ll be moving the computer down into the work space we created this week and then Monday begins the attempt to establish a pattern of prayerful reading, prayerful reflecting, prayerful note taking and maybe even some prayerful writing. I already miss the folks in our parish and hope and pray that will discover this time apart is a wonderful opportunity exercise their spiritual authority in ministry that comes from their connection with Jesus, not their connection with a priest.

Instead of starting on sabbatical reflections I spent most of Friday afternoon locking our credit with the big three (Equifax, Experian and Transunion). Thank you Equifax. (That was sarcasm.)

However, as this time away began just this past Monday, I didn’t have much to write about. According to our diocesan sabbatical policy this is to be a “time for rest, renewal and inspiration.” I hope these seven weeks will encompass all three, but the first few days have not reflected that hope. Much of that has to do with the peculiar setting for this sabbatical. We lived in Evergreen, Colorado full time from 1989 until 2003. In 2003 God took us on what we thought was a temporary sojourn to Greeley, Colorado to work with Trinity Episcopal Church. Things did not go as planned, and thanks be to God for that. Because of the peculiar path we ended up with two homes, visiting our Evergreen residence for an overnight every other week. Most of our furniture moved with us to Greeley, so we’ve been “camping out” in the mountains when we visit.

This sabbatical is intended to be a time of revisiting many of the books that have shaped my approach to parish ministry, a time of collecting disparate writings and reflections on that journey and seeking to put all this material together in a way that can be shared by others. This is all being done back in Evergreen, but we’ve had to create a space for prayer, study and writing and that has been our work for the past week. We’re almost there and we’ve been able to walk through our neighborhood daily, listening to the elk bugling and occasional running across our local herd while keeping a safe distance.

Today we took an early break to visit the Evergreen Rotary Club where Greg Dobbs, a new inductee into the Denver Press Club hall of fame, was the speaker. I also signed up to help with their annual recycling event on the 23rd. And this afternoon I finally opened the first book I needed to revisit, Martin Thornton’s Pastoral Theology. The real work of the sabbatical starts this coming Monday.