Sign Up for Spring Foyer

The office is forming the schedule for the Spring Foyer Term (January through April).  Foyer groups are small groups of six to eight people who meet about once a month in homes for dinner and fellowship.  It's a great way to meet and get to know other people in the parish.

To join a group just fill out the Foyer insert that has been inserted in the Sunday Bulletin or call the parish office at 817-927-5341.  Last day to sign up is Tuesday, Dec 29.  We would love to see you!

Prayer for Strength

O Strength of my soul, make Your way in and shape it to Yourself, that it may be Yours to have and to hold, free from stain or wrinkle.

St. Augustine of Hippo from his book "Confessions."

God's Healing Surgery

This is a quote from a sermon by St. Augustine of Hippo (November 13, 354 to August 28, 430 AD)

The doctor sometimes makes a mistake, but God never does.  So if you entrust yourself to a doctor who can sometimes make mistakes, you are entrusting yourself to human treatment. Won't you allow God to cut, and slice off some of your profits if, by such a check, you may have a lesson to learn?  So then, brothers and sisters, be upright of heart; that is, do not get annoyed with God for any reason.

This prayer is taken from his book "Confessions"

O my inward Healer, let my heart keep watch for Your loving mercy and Your gentle grace, through which every weak soul that knows its own weakness grows strong.

Unprecedented Support for Life!

An unprecedented coalition of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars has crafted a 4,700-word declaration addressing the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. The declaration issues "a clarion call" to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not "under any circumstance" abandon their Christian consciences.

The statement, called "the Manhattan Declaration," has been signed by more than 125 Catholic, Evangelical Christian, and Orthodox leaders, and will be made fully public at a noon press conference in the National Press Club in Washington DC on Friday.

The Document reads:

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right - and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation - to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence...

We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral.

But they also made clear that

we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriage or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.

Pray for God to work amazing power through this witness.  We should be very proud that ACNA is represented among the religious leaders.  Please click on the Manhattan Declaration Logo above to read the document and a summary.

Our Season of Advent gets it right!

Now here is a good question: "Do we Episcopalians and Anglicans believe in a type of "rapture" by Christ?  After all, many Christians do.  Are they wrong?  Well, the short answer is simply no, we do not believe in any secret return of Christ to rapture out of this world the faithful; which leads us to answer the second question, and that is yes, Christians who do believe in a "rapture theory" about a secret return of Christ have been led astray.

Now if you want to know why, read on.

Among Christians today you hear talk that Jesus Christ is coming back in a secret way to "rapture" us from the earth so to preserve us from the terrible tribulations prophesied in the Bible for the earth's last days.  This would happen sometime between His birth and His final coming as Judge.  We are to know when this time has arrived as we will notice how all faithful Christians are suddenly disappearing on a grand scale.  Gone before our eyes.  Does this sound a bit off?  It is and for many reasons.

Do we believe in the rapture?
So what about us?  Do we believe in a rapture theory?  As I said earlier, no, and we don't for two very important reasons:

1. It's not biblical. In spite of the fact that the Christians who hold firm to this view refer to themselves as "Bible Christians," both the Old and New Testaments know nothing about a third coming of Christ in secret to rapture the faithful.
2. The second reason is that for the first 18 centuries of Christian history, no one ever promoted such an idea of there being a "rapture" of any type someday.

Where did this rapture stuff originate?
So where on earth did it come from and why is it so popular among Christians?  The notion of a rapture belongs to 19th century Protestant movements in the United States and in Great Britain.  In the 19th century we find a man named John Nelson Darby, an Irish Protestant who was a leader of a Christian sect called the Plymouth Brethren.  Reverend Darby traveled extensively between 1859 and 1874 preaching his ideas about "the end times." He put together various verses of the Bible and joined his own theological scenario to form what he called "Biblical prophecy." His biblical hermenutics has shaped the personal beliefs of millions of Christians since the middle of the 19th century down to our present time!  Darby called his theological system Dispensationalism.  He divided history into seven "dispensations" or "progressive stages" showing a pattern in God's unfolding revelation to humanity.

It is Dispensationalism that promotes the notion of a secret rapture by Christ.  This idea gained a huge boost in 1909 with the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible.  Cyrus Ingerson Scofield was a serious convert to Darby's dispensational beliefs. He was a lawyer by education and had no formal theological training at all.  But in time, millions of people were studying Scofield's marginal notes and believing that they actually were explaining what was contained in the inspired biblical text. You will find in Scofield's notes how he breaks up history into these seven ages.

Today we have popular books like Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), and its sequels, and more recently the Left Behind Series and the many sequals and movies and variations that continue to promote Dispensationalism and continue to make great confusion among even "biblical Christians."

Our Creeds and the season of Advent

So where do we Anglicans/Episcopalians go from here?  We go to the Creeds and to the season of Advent to stay rooted to Christ and His teachings. Our Prayer Book addresses:

1. Our Lord's first coming which is His holy Nativity and includes His Incarnational life, Suffering, Death on the Cross, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven;
2. Our Lord's second coming when He returns to usher in the "new Heaven and the new earth."

Beginning with His Incarnational life through His Ascension into Heaven Jesus spoke of and promised that He shall return one day to earth. Why is it necessary for Jesus to return some day?  He must return some day, because His mission is not yet complete.

Our Prayer Book knows nothing of a "rapture theory."

But until He returns in all His glory Jesus does not leave us "desolate."  Rather He says: "I will come to you."  (see John 14:18).  So Jesus abides now with us and will remain until He appears as merciful Judge.

St. Bernard of Clairveaux explains this abiding presence or "intermediate coming" in this way:

We know that there are three "comings" of the Lord. The third lies between the other two. It is invisible while the other two are visible.  In the first coming He was seen on earth, dwelling among men; … in the final coming "all flesh will see the salvation of our God and they will look upon Him whom they have pierced." The intermediate coming is a hidden one; in it only the baptized see the Lord within their own selves, and they are saved. In His first coming our Lord came in our flesh and our weakness; in this middle He comes in Spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and in majesty. Because this coming lies between the other two, it is like a road on which we travel from the first coming to the last.

The formula looks like this:

1. First Coming: The Holy Nativity through the Ascension;
2. The intermediate or sacramental presence:  At Pentecost Jesus establishes His abiding sacramental presence. Becuase of the presence of the Father and of the Son that dwells in the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit; the Church is a source of spiritual renewal and great power! (see John 14:10-14).
3. Second Coming: to judge the living and the dead and to usher in the Kingdom of God.

In John 16:16-22 Jesus addresses what St. Bernard of Clairveaux called "the intermediate coming"

A little while and you will no longer see Me, and again a little while later and you will see Me. So some of His disciples said to one another, "What does this mean that He is saying to us, 'A little while and you will not see Me, and again a little while and you will see Me,' and 'Because I am going to the Father'?" So they said, "What is this 'little while' (of which He speaks)? We do not know what He means." Jesus knew that they wanted to ask Him, so He said to them, "Are you discussing with one another what I said, 'A little while and you will not see Me, and again a little while and you will see Me'? Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy. When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. (John 16:16-22)

This intermediate presence is at the heart of our Lord's prayer to His heavenly Father:

I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, so that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And I have given them the glory You gave Me, so that they may be one, as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that You sent Me, and that You loved them even as You loved Me. Father, they are Your gift to Me. I wish that where I am they also may be with Me, that they may see My glory that You gave Me, because You loved Me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know You, but I know You, and they know that You sent Me. I made known to them Your Name and I will make it known, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them. (John 17:20-26)

Jesus is speaking about His presence with us until the end of the ages: "... and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."  (Matt 28:20b).

Summary (yes, I'm almost done)
So, the Bible and our faith clearly explain that Christians are not raptured out of anything.  In fact it is only by going through the great tribulations that our robe (meaning our life and soul) is washed white (purified and made whole) in the Blood of the Lamb.  (see Rev 7:13-17).  The only way we get out of this world is through the gate of death.  Our faith is founded upon Easter morning and the fact that Christ has been victorious over death.  By means of His presence in the Church our Lord is able to provide (through the work of the Holy Spirit within us) grace upon grace so that we can live virtuiously and be victorious over our fallen nature and live the life God has ordained us to live in this world and in the world to come.

Let us also remember that in every day we have the love and the support of the angels in Heaven.  We can take great comfort knowing that since our Baptism our Lord Jesus Christ provided each one of us with a Guardian Angel. This angel remains with us throughout our lives, watching over us, and assisting us in many ways. The hosts of Heaven love and care for us!  Jesus the Good Shepherd is with us now through the power and witness and presence of the Holy Spirit.  This is His promise to be with us until "the end of the ages."  This presence is speaking about His sacramental presence in His Church and in her mission and ministry to the world; as well as in our devotional life as a disciple.

So, let us pray, "Come, Lord Jesus."

The Feast of Christ the King

On Sunday, November 22nd we celebrate the Feast of Jesus Christ being the Sovereign King, and this concludes the Christian year.  On the following Sunday, November 29th the liturgical year starts afresh with the First Sunday of Advent and once again the cycle of time begins to prepare us to meet our God in Jesus Christ.

Our faith is so beautifully expressed in the Book of Common Prayer and its liturgy provides to the world hungry for meaning the truth that it seeks which is God in Christ, who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  Jesus is the faithful Giver as He pours out His life for the salvation of the world, and in His life and death and resurrection He is the fulfillment of all time. In Jesus the whole world is being made new every second of every day.

Do you remember the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matt 22:2).  The meaning of being invited to "the wedding feast" and to receive the Bridegroom (Jesus) when He comes is for us to find love and power in being the Bride of Christ. This relationship with the Bridegroom is like an anchor for us to be tied to as time moves us always into the future and the unknown.  His love endures forever!

Through sacred Scripture, spiritual reading, and the beautiful language and services of our Prayer Book the Holy Spirit invites us to reflect on the eternal meaning of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell.  Ultimately and in some way these four last things find themselves attached to every decision and every attitude and every position we will ever hold.

Now, this fact of the presence of the four last things is not a negative thing at all, but rather it is a good thing, it is something to rejoice in, because they form a "reality check" and they are part of a greater responsible spiritual and theological system of "check and balances" that keep us honest with our self and with God so that we may be made worthy at the end of life to enter more fully into His Divine plan.

In God's view of things there is no real separation between what we call "the secular things" and what we refer to as "the sacred things."  Rather than separation God helps us to make holy those things that seem mundane and all too ordinary.  After all, they are all His as well!  In the great truths of our faith rooted to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our heavenly Father is forever making all things new.  It is that movement of "glory to glory" that St. Paul wrote about in 2 Cor 3:18.

We do not bring God into our time through our prayers and actions of "needs and wants and service." Rather its through these things in time that we discover how God is the living Author of all things; the known and the unknown, the visible and the invisible.  In essence, our creedal faith.

I invite you on this Sunday of the Feast of Christ the King to receive Jesus Christ as absolute Lord of your life; and after this in humility discover how to acknowledge Him in every part of life.  When Jesus truly reigns as Lord and God, "time" becomes a precious gift; even a wonderful gift that we use to return to Him the very life He has given us to live.

Amen

Thy Kingdom Come!

The season of Advent begins November 29th.  The word "advent," from the Latin adventus or the Greek parousia means "coming" or "arrival." The season of Advent is focused on the coming of Jesus Christ . During the four weeks of Advent our worship, scripture readings, and prayers prepare us:

1. Spiritually for Christmas and the gift of our Lord's first coming;
2. and focuses our hope on His second coming.

This is why the readings from the Bible during Advent include:

1. Old Testament passages that anticipate the expected Messiah;
2. and New Testament passages that anticipate our Lord's return to judge both the living and the dead.

"Thy Kingdom come;"
This is the third petition of the Lord's Prayer.  In this petition we learn to pray daily for the Kingdom that God has promised will come, a Kingdom that is already present to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Sacramentally, the Kingdom of God touches our lives today, even as we await its arrival in fullness in God's time.

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) Jesus deals with this.  He provides an extensive revelation of the many aspects of the Kingdom of God; and how the Kingdom is to be realized through the Body of Christ.  God's Kingdom is a Kingdom of love, justice, and mercy where sins are forgiven, the sick and suffering are made whole, enemies are reconciled and the needs of the poor are met.

The Kingdom of God includes all of these things, and so much more, for ultimately the Kingdom is Jesus Christ and all He means for us!  The Kingdom is already here because of the redemption of Jesus on the Cross.  But in another sense, the Kingdom of God is "not yet" here, since the final transformation of every person, society and culture has yet to happen in its fulness.  This is why Jesus taught us to pray daily: "Thy Kingdom come."

Pray in order to believe, Believe in order to pray.

When we can look closely at our Christian faith we will notice how it is composed of God's divine weaving of prayer and doctrine together.  Prayer and doctrine belong working together.  Liturgy is a perfect example of prayer and doctrine working in harmony together to nourish and instruct.

Our Lord asks us to believe in order to pray and pray in order to believe.  This is the integration of how we know and  love God; it's where faith and theology are joined at the hip.

Believing doctrine will naturally draw us to prayer.  In this prayer time we find reassurance and comfort because of the validity of God's revealed truths.  If we put time and effort into understanding the doctrines of our faith we will find ourselves thirsting to pray more often.  This requires study, reflection, and real effort. Prayer is a loving relationship with God, and our relationship with our heavenly Father, like all relationships require real time and makes real demands upon us.

But no love can exist without real sacrifice.

Meditation on the Movement of Faith

In the life of faith there are always two movements: God in search of us and we in search of God.  The poet Francis Thompson describes God's persistent love as the "Hound of Heaven."  God has stamped in our souls a longing for Him.  We are born with a longing for Him that cannot be satisfied by anyone other than God.  We are created to be seekers for absolute love, which is God alone.

Let us pray

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful people,
And kindle in them the fire of Your love.
Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created,
And you shall renew the face of the earth.

Lord, by the light of the Holy Spirit You have taught the hearts of Your faithful.
In the same Spirit, help us to know what is truly right
and always to rejoice in Your consolation.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

Amen

Becoming a saint.

Fr. Klein, Sermon: All Saints’ Day, November 1, 2009

Today we join with Christians all over the world to celebrate one of the seven Principle Feast days of the Christian year, the feast of All Saints. (BCP 15).

The day means a lot to us. Some of the most beautiful hymns that we have in our Hymnology have been written to honor this day and to honor God’s holy saints.

One such hymn is Hymn 293: “I sing a song of the saints of God.”

This hymn reminds us of our childhood. It reminds us of when the Church taught us that we too can become saints of God; that every person has the potential of achieving through the course of his or her life true communion with God.

But to grow in holiness we must see life through the eyes of Jesus. We must look at our daily work, even the hard labor we may face, the untimely decisions that pressure us, the things peculiar, along with the demands of all activities as God-given occasions to foster spiritual renewal and deeper union with Jesus Christ.

Now this may sound strange, especially if you think over what your average day is like. But it’s true that we are to sanctify what we do and even time itself, learning to serve God and our neighbor at any given hour.

Those daily needs of family life, what we do to maintain a healthy and committed marriage, having the moral courage to make hard decisions and raise our children in the Christian faith and life; along with all of our activities; everything is God-given to us to see as opportunities for imitating Jesus Christ: such as charity, patience, humility, diligence, integrity, cheerfulness, faith in God, and so much more. We must bring before the Holy Spirit life in prayer and discernment and ask Him to guide us, bless us and help us to be good stewards of life.

This is how saintly Christians grow in grace and holiness, each learning to work with the spirit of Jesus Christ to live life competently with the aim that through life we love God and we can reach out with Him to His broken world.

God’s hope is that we learn to approach life in this way to sanctify the world from within. Prayer becomes the venue to bring the daily structures of life into our heart, and we use this ¬life-heart connection to expose the Gospel as a living presence in all activities whether they are outstanding or humble or even hidden.

By utilizing this life-heart connection we are able to put love into life. Once we come to grips with this, and begin to do it, we are on the pathway to becoming a great saint!

There is another hymn and it’s one of my favorites: Hymn 287: “For all the saints.” Now here is a hymn. It has everything right about it: good theology, beautiful words and a wonderful composition.

This hymn was written to celebrate the rich and beautiful hagiography we discover in a vast list of thousands of souls that have been canonized or elevated to some dignity by both the Church of the East and of the West.

These dear souls are what the Book of Revelation this morning referred to as the

great multitude of people so enormous that no one could count, representing every race, tribe, nation and language, all standing before the throne of the Father and before the victorious Lamb, His Son, Jesus Christ; each dressed in a white robe holding a palm branch in his or her hand… (Rev 7:9)

And do you know that this great multitude is resting now “under the heavenly Altar of God” (Rev 6:9), resting and being healed of the wounds received during their earthly life.  Man will suffer in-one-way-or-another if he lives his life for God. But of course, it’s also true that if you don’t live your life for God you will still suffer and this suffering will only get worse and will carry over into eternity.

But for those who whose robes have been washed pure in the Blood of the Lamb the divine Physician prescribes rest.

He says to those resting under the Altar of God:

rest a little longer until the number of fellow servants and brethren, who were to be killed even as they had been, should be completed… (Rev 6:11)

Ecclesiasticus this morning calls this multitude

famous men, and our fathers in their generations. God apportioned to them great glory, His majesty from the beginning. (Sir 44:1)

The “famous men” we know about; they are people like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Moses and Aaron, Rebecca and Deborah and many others. The second part of that sentence which reads “and our fathers in their generations” are those whose names and deeds of virtue we know nothing about.

History leaves us with

no memory; they have perished as though they never existed; as though they were never born, they and their children after them. (Sir 44:9)

The end of verse 9 reads they and their children after them? This portion of the verse speaks to those who simply lived life. They lived in humble surroundings, sacrifice was a daily occupation. Some of them were obviously baptized and yet many over the centuries were not. Yet each lived and died in earnest pursuit of the good that is God alone.

A saint is a child of God, someone who has set his or her heart upon God and has released their stubborn will into His loving influence. This allows God at every time and in every place to draw close to His children.

And He does this; He speaks softly but firmly, much like what Elijah heard at the mouth of a cave (1 Kgs 19: 9-18). God calls us, He bids us to seek Him every day, to know Him and to love Him with all of our strength of heart and will.

Why should we consider this an odd thing for God to call to us, to want us? Are we not made by Him to share in His divine and blessed Life?

St. Peter writes of this in his second letter

[God’s] divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and true devotion, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and power. Through these, He has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.  (2 Pet 1:3,4 NAB)

So the way we “escape the corruption that is in the world” is to become a saint.

But here is the deal. Saints are not “double agents;” we don’t live a double life, where on the one hand, we have this wonderful spiritual life, a life of union with God and His will; and on the other hand, we live a separate and distinct professional and social or family life.

This is not Gospel living. Gospel living is all about integration. The Gospel tells us that we have just one life and that life is made of flesh and spirit… of body and soul.

This one life we have been given to live and become in soul and body, holy and filled with God.

That is our earthly calling: to be filled with the fullness of God. Our earthly life of obedience prepares us for our heavenly life of eternity.

Is there any better definition of a saint but someone who is filled with the fullness of God? By our very nature we are a religious being. We have the capability of entering into communion with God. This communion confers upon us our fundamental dignity.  In the first chapter of Ecclesiasticus we find that this desire for God (our dignity) is created in the womb. (Sir 1:14)

Closing
Because God’s saints are scattered through-out the world, nothing need be foreign to Christ’s care.

Being a saint means not fearing life but approaching life as opportunity to work with God to sanctify it.

Once our heart has matured under the Word of God, and we have felt hunger and thirst, worked with tired and labored hands, experienced the cry of a child or the sorrow of a loved one, or shouldered the burden of the suffering and cared for the dying; then we are in the position to use that life-heart connection and live as a saint of God.

Each situation is unique; each offers a unique call which we must learn how to live out; but we should live our call intensely, giving expression to the spirit of Christ

Through our life Christ is present to anyone.

So I end where I started, by saying that to grow in holiness by grace we must see life through the eyes of Jesus. We must realize that we will struggle as saints in this world.

But be of good courage my friend; the struggle is OK because it’s part of the purification process that will fix our heart upon God alone; and we know the end of the story, don’t we, that in the end our Lord has won the struggle for us.

Amen.

What Heaven Means?

The New Testament explains that Heaven is being In Christ.  Those who have died are at rest in Christ.  St. Paul explains this in Romans 6:23, that "the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  In 1 Cor 15:18 again St. Paul makes reference to those who have died as having "fallen asleep in Christ."  So being in Christ means being in Heaven.

It is good that we should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.1

Has God forgotten to be gracious?  Has He shut up His tender mercies towards us?2   We might believe this because of our tendency to live life with great haste.  Our life is fully lived sometimes before the day is over. 

Sometimes our hasty life gives us the illusion that we are cut off from the Lord.  Yet, God hears the voice of our prayer and supplications whenever we become still and cry out to Him.3

God shall avenge His own elect, so day and night we must pray to Him.4  "Day and night" here means that we must exercise prayerful patience.  We must learn how to act under the pressures of living "today" and wait upon the Lord for His help and guidance.  In patience we find salvation.5

So let us learn how to rest in the Lord, and wait for Him.  We must not be anxious when we see our neighbor prosper better then we do.6   This is not a battle that we need to fight.  Instead, we must set ourselves against such attitudes and stand still and behold the activity of God already at work in our every "today."  This will allow us to see and know the salvation of the Lord.7

In due season we shall reap what God has planned for us, but we must not grow weak.8  Remembr how the farmer must learn to plant and wait for the precious fruit of the earth.  This planting and waiting and then harvesting requires that he be patient, until the coming of the early and latter rain.9

1Lam 3:26; 2Psa 77:9; 3Psa 31:22; 4Luk 18:7,8; 5Pro 20:22; 6Psa 37:7; 72Ch 20:17; 8Gal 6:9; 9Jam 5:7;

Scripture is interpreted by Scripture.

A great many of the theological problems or innovations that we encounter today in the Church today are the fruit of a method of biblical interpretation called the historical-critical method. While there are many benefits found in using this method of critical study of the biblical text, its methodology can be overused and over relied upon when seeking a complete understanding or sense of a given passage of Scripture.

Briefly put, the historical-critical method has four components:

1. Form criticism
2. Source criticism
3. Redaction criticism
4. Textual criticism

An main assumption that lies with using these four components as a method of biblical study is the approach that there is only a rational and human development to the text of scripture as we have it.

A major problem that can develop when this method is not used correctly is to see the Bible as a piecemeal of narration. By dividing the Bible into four critical camps the one voice of the whole, the inner identity that sustains the whole Bible and binds it together is usually lost. What you end up with are interpretations that remove the transcendent and the miraculous from the Bible.

What we need to remember is that Scripture interprets Scripture. Scripture is God’s spoken Word to us. It has an underlying unity, logic and cohesion that is divinely authored for our sake. We must always labor to keep one part of Scripture always in relation to the whole, because our particular study or reading is part of a whole. When we remember that Scripture interprets Scripture we can make use of a variety of biblical tools to help us dig deeper into God Word without loosing touch with His truth that pervades it all.

The Foundation of the Nation of Israel.

Notes for Wednesday night Bible Study October 21, 2009

The Torah or Pentateuch as a whole is concerned with the establishment (or the foundation) of the Kingdom of God on earth.  To do this the Book of Genesis details the origin of the people who become the "people of the exodus."  Such people are in a sense the first citizens of the Kingdom of God on earth.  The Book of Exodus picks up where genesis leaves off and moves from "beginnings to foundation" showing the details of the origin of the people of Israel as a nation.

Some of the details in Exodus are:

1. Group consciousness is formed.  The Israelites were related by blood to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; they shared much of the same common historical and religious traditions; and their expereinces as a people progressively moved them to form a unified group.
2. Unifying experiences.  The oppression of forced labor and the execution of male children; the revolt against Pharaoh led by Moses and Aaron; the 10 plagues; the exodus; the miracilous passage through the Red Sea would be used by God (much like He did with Jacob's wrestling with the angel) to be unifying experiences that would stamp an indelible mark upon the Israelite soul.
3. System of Leadership.  Israel was ruled by God through His vicars, who would call His people to obedience and observance of worship and the Law.
4. The Promised Land.  The divinely appointed people would have a divinely appointed homeland that would be unique.

An important point that starts to develop from the Book of Exodus is that God's love for Israel is never a "political love" such has Pharaoh's and Kings would have; rather God's love is free and gracious.

The Structure of the Pentateuch

Notes for Wednesday night Bible Study October 21, 2009

The Book of Exodus and the meeting of God and Israel at Mount Sinai are significant events because they mark the beginning of the history of Israel as a people of faith. Before the call to journey into the wilderness was issued the focus of God’s relationship with persons centered on speaking to individual clans and persons.  At Mount Sinai this all changed. Now the reference is Israel as a nation that finds its unity in faith in Yahweh who forms them by a special call and a special way of life. The foundation is a single God and a single people. This unity made by God is indissoluble and forms the basis for a covenant of love.  This is all laid out by Yahweh to Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3). Yahweh reveals His Name and His plan to save His people. The revelation of the sacred Name was new to Moses. The revelation of the sacred Name displays how God seeks to reach out to people, that is in a personal way. This revelation makes a new moment of grace in time.

Background of the plagues
The narration of the ten plagues developed over a period of some time within the oral tradition of the Hebrews. This time frame can be seen using the source theory of J,E,P,D. The J and E authors are responsible for eight plagues and the P source added two additional one (plagues 3 and 6 which are the gnats and the boils). In the J and E account Moses petitions Pharaoh over and over to let the people go and Pharaoh continues to refuse to listen and instead hardens his heart to God’s request. The plagues are a response to Pharaoh hardening his heart to God's will.

Plagues 3 and 6 are unique and added by the P source (priestly source) to stress the role of Aaron as priest and the nature of each plague as a sign of God's amazing transcending power. The first nine plagues are natural phenomena and can still occur in the area today.

The sign that is discovered is not found in the plagues themselves but in the control that God exercised over the whole series to bring about His plan.  The tenth and final plague stands apart. Here we see how death will be used by God to bring about man’s liberation and a new life. This is a foreshadowing of our Lord's life, death and resurrection.

The first nine plagues are arranged in three cycles.

The First Cycle
1. First Plague: Blood. Ex. 7:14-24. The first two plagues were shrugged off by Pharaoh as nothing more than his own court magicians could do.  The Nile River turned to blood. But it wasn't just the river; it was all the water in Egypt. Egyptians would take a drink from what they thought was clean water, and it would be blood. However, when an Israelite took water from the same source, it would remain water. The plague of blood was particularly distressing to the Egyptians because they worshiped the Nile.
2. Second Plague: Frogs. Ex. 8:1-15. The land of Egypt was overrun by frogs. There were frogs in the beds, frogs in the cupboards, frogs in the pots, even frogs in the oven. And whenever the Egyptians would hit a frog in order to kill it, the Midrash explains that the frog would split into two, producing even more frogs.
3. Third Plague: Gnats or Lice. Ex. 8:16-19. This plague started to get the attention of the court magicians. They said that “this is caused by the finger of God.” To initiate the third plague Yahweh commanded Aaron through Moses to hit the ground with his staff. The dust on the ground turned to lice and spread throughout Egypt.

The Second Cycle
4. Fourth Plague: Flies. Ex. 8:20-32. The flies cover all of Egypt, including the ground, except Goshen, where the Hebrews lived. 
5. Fifth Plague: Cattle. Ex. 9:1-7. This would have been a real desecration in the eyes of the Egyptians because cattle were the very animals Egyptians worshiped as gods. The plague on the cattle also affects the livelihood of the people.

The first five plagues taught the Egyptians that their material wealth and possessions along with their Dynasty is all but lost and subject to Yahweh.

6. Sixth Plague: Boils. Ex. 9:8-12. Things continue to become worse. Both the people and the livestock are affected with painful boils. Even the magicians are affected and cannot get rid of them. The plagues now turn directly to the people and begins to show the foolishness and bitterness and stubbornness of Pharaoh.

The Third Cycle
7. Seventh Plague: Hailstorm. Ex. 9:13-35. This hailstorm knows no limits, but affects the entire land of Egypt: the plants, animals and people.
8. Eighth Plague: Locusts. Ex. 10:1-20. This is a plague of real lasting devastation.  Not much was left of Egypt by the time the plague of locust arrived. The cattle were dead, the buildings destroyed, and then the locusts arrived to complete devastation and destruction and break the morale of the Egyptian people. An enormous swarm darkened the sky and devoured anything that remained.
9. Ninth Plague: Darkness. Ex. 10:21-28. For three days, total darkness descended on Egypt. It was a darknness "to be felt."  This darkness was so intense that the Egyptians were unable to move, they could not "see one another." Jewish mystics sat that not even a fire was possible. The Jews, however, could see where they were going and were unaffected by the darkness.  The Book of Wisdom (11:15,16 and 17:1-18:4) interprets sin and darkness as a terrible abandonment of man by God. Dialogue with Pharaoh is broken down.

The Tenth Plague
10. The Tenth Plague: the death of Pharaoh’s first born son. Ex. 11:1-10. By the time Pharaoh was threatened with the final plague, his people were begging him to release the Israelites. But Pharaoh was obstinate, and would not let them go. The night that the first born Egyptians died is the first night of Passover. This was the only plague for which the Jews needed to prepare themselves so that they would not be harmed. In order to be "passed-over," Moses instructed the Israelites to mark their doorposts with lamb's blood. And in the darkness of the midnight hour all of the first born in the land of Egypt died.

Natural Law.

As Christians we have always insisted that there is a Natural Law.  The best and easiest definition of Natural Law is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It says that,

“present in the heart of each man and established by reason.” This law “is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties.”

Natural Law provides the ground and foundation to build moral truths that will inform our life together if we hope to be a truly just and free society. In Natural Law we find fundamental and foundational human rights which we insist must be recognized by all civil or positive law as rightfully belonging to all men and women.

The Message to Pharaoh: A Study of Exodus Ch. 5 and 6.

Wednesday Night Oct. 14th Bible Study Outline.  Our study covered Exodus Ch 5 & 6.  Two main points were made:

1. Israel is God's first born son, the covenant head of the family of nations.
2. Through the genealogy of Moses and Aaron (Ch. 6:14-27) with its main purpose to establish the link between the Levitical priesthood and Moses and Aaron, the people of God is called to be a "priestly nation" for all the nations of the world.

From these two points the following discussion took place:

God sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh with both a message and a demand.  The message was this:  "Israel is My first born son."

• Israel is the "elder brother" of all the nations.
• Israel will be the "covenant head" for all the nations.
• All nations are children of God, so the Egyptians (and Pharaoh) are younger siblings.
• Israel shall be a model of righteousness and wisdom.
• All nations are to look to Israel to learn how to walk in the ways of God.  This modeling is Israel's "priestly role."

The demand from God was simple and reasonable:  Let Israel go on a three day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifice to the Lord God.

• At this point Moses was not demanding the freedom of Israel.  Rather the freedom was to be discovered in the act of worship.
• Moses did not ask Pharaoh to lessen the burdens on Israel.  Israel was to find in the worship of God strength to hold up under the burdens of life.
• The worship of God is to be a religious event.

Of course Pharaoh made Israel's life harder.  The Israelites blamed Moses and Aaron.  A spiritual truth is learned.

• When we seek to separate ourselves from the world and especially "cleanse our soul" from worldly "tug-and-pull" on us the world will confront us with a variety of burdens and difficulties to discourage us so we will give in and pull back from cleansing and worshipping God.
• We often blame the "religious system" for the struggle we have in seeking participation God's life instead of seeing much oif the struggle is in our own reluctance or laziness to bear up under the burden the world (the Devil) puts on us as we try to pursue a life in Christ.

God knew the status of Pharaoh's heart and mind.  Pharaoh represented all the qualities of fallen man who remains stubborn to God's call and plan.  God's judgment on this stubbornness was clear.  Man understands the power and finality of death.  God will use death as the means to liberate.  The first born of Egypt must die so that the first born of God may be led out of slavery toward the Promised Land and live.

Sermon for Oct 11, 2009, Fr. Klein. The Parable of the Rich Man and a stubborn heart.

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus ended His teachings with the somewhat mysterious statement, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (Luke 14:35).

We hear something similar this morning in His statement, “Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God. (Mk 10:24c)… He is speaking to the difficulty we often have in actively listening to one another and to God. To take this a bit further Jesus is saying that the root of this struggle to actively listen lies in fallen man’s most common illness, and that would be a stubborn heart.

In the Gospel reading this morning Jesus encounters the rich man… and in doing so He encounters a stubborn heart.  Jesus saw much potential in this young man. It even says that He looked upon him and “He loved him.” (Can you imagine God doing that towards us? Yet, He does so all the time.)

Yet, this compassionate love of Christ can only teach or show the way. The young man himself, that is his free will must say “yes” to what Jesus was asking. So our Gospel lesson draws us into the question of actively listening to Jesus and exercising our free will properly in response to what we hear. A proper response is tied into the difficulty some will experience in entering the Kingdom of God. “Hearing” means being open to receiving spiritual truth and validating the existence of God verses those whose spiritual ears and heart are closed to God’s will and truth.

Take two different people. We can share some aspect of the faith with each person.

1. One will listen actively asking honest questions, and seeking real answers.
2. The other person simply writes off the conversation, maybe with a smile or the nod of the head, but in some way dismisses the “religious conversation” without any serious effort to learn.

Those who write Christian truth off do so with personal explanations padded with situation upon situation upon situation (situation ethics), and for me, I can always tell when the message of faith simply isn’t getting through.

Now, what prevents a person from hearing God’s call?  What prevents him or her from responding positively to God's call?  I believe the inhibiting factor is stubbornness. A stubborn heart rejects truth regardless of the logic presented. A stubborn heart was the cause of man’s fall from grace (Adam and Eve), this stubborn heart followed man out of Eden and down through the centuries from the journey in the wilderness (the Exodus) up to the present moment we live in.  Stubborness is an aspect of our fallen nature.

We also learn of an important spiritual truth. Our ears are connected to our heart.  Now this is both a blessing and a real challenge.

Holy Scripture helps us here. In Hebrews 3:7 we find, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, Today, when you hear His Voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness,” (Ps 95:7). [Speak about the meaning of “today.”]  Although our intellect is important in the process of making a decision, when the information finally filters down to the level of deciding if something may be true or not the heart often is the final authority in how well we hear the truth and influences the decision we make.

The spiritual truth found here is that spiritually speaking, our ears are connected to our heart. It’s the main way our conscience is brought into play in the decision-making process. [Talk about this a little bit].

• Here’s how this works.

A person wants something very much. But the faith may challenge the person in how to obtain what he wants or it may even inform his conscience that he should back away or even walk away from what he “really wants.”  Following Jesus Christ often means that we find our self “backing away” or “letting go” of the very thing(s) we’ve set our heart on. This reality is hard to deal with at times. So, rather than face the hard learning curve, people will avoid the truth, they will avoid any decision in order to protect themselves and keep their world view and their personal hopes intact.

We see this (compromise) all the time.

In fact, if we work at it long enough we can come up with many “good reasons” why we needn’t or shouldn’t listen to the arguments presented by our faith or theology. And of course we would be very offended if anyone were to tell us that we may be rejecting the truth God has for us to learn in favor of self-will and self-preservation. I believe we can see this in the rich man. If we look hard enough we may be able to see our self here at times too. We all compete against “deafening desires and attachments.” The bottom line: Self-deception and compromise can be defeated only as we come to love truth more than our dreams. But if we stubbornly cling to our desires, self-will will always “tone-down” and even mute the voice of God.

Fallen man has a heart condition.

So, what fallen man has is a heart condition. This condition is caused by our desires being focused somewhere other than upon God’s will and His truth.

Let me offer three factors that cause our spiritual heart condition.

• The imagination of the heart.

If we let the world with all of its promises of capture the imagination of our heart we will gradually be turned away (by the world) from the Word of God. The more we attach our hopes for happiness to the things of this world, and let this world and its commodities “take care of us and heal us” the less we will be sincerely interested in God or His spiritual truth. We can’t love the world and be a child of the world and love God and be a child of God at the same time. [God and mammon]  We can turn to Holy Scripture to receive guidance in this. Saint James explains: "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God?" (Jas. 4:4).

Saint John explains: "Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him." (1 John 2:15).  Saint Paul explains to Timothy: "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge a person into ruin and destruction." (1 Tim. 6:9–10). Please notice how Saint Paul says that it is the desire to be rich (not wealth itself), [the desire is the human element that forms the attachment of the heart to the things of the world] that causes the real problems.

James, John and Peter each explain that following Jesus Christ means facing (even daily) the ongoing struggle to combat the weeds of the world to keep them from taking root and influencing our mind, body and soul.  The question is, are using our spiritual tools wisely, are we accessing the grace of God properly to uproot these nasty weeds or are we too guilty of fertilizing them?

• The sin of pride and prejudice.

We often see these two sins joined at the hip. Pride and prejudice are like a set of earplugs. They are often present in our conversation, when we say four words, "I already know better." Pride and prejudice keep us pinned to preconceived notions. We don’t want to take the time to investigate new positions, even if another way was presented with the accurate of evidence or the best of logic.  [History is one of our most faithful teachers and yet we often turn a deaf ear to the past, even wanting to disconnect from the past because we think we know better].

Our fallen nature makes our hearing “selective” in many ways. We wear the earplugs of pride and prejudice when certain topics or ideas are brought up or when certain people speak.

• Moral Relativism.

I think relativism is probably the most devious of all reasons why Christians are experiencing loss of spiritual hearing.  Relative truth allows a person to avoid both objective truth (God) and their conscience all at one time.

• Here’s how it works.

First, you need to dismiss objective truth all together. In place of this is put “subjective truth" and it becomes the method to believe whatever is appropriate for you. Make up a new God according to your personal design. Feel free to vary His laws to fit your situation or preferences. Sin? What is sin? Who defines sin? No “authority” knows my situation. My situation allows me to disregard the faith. Because of my unique situation I am permitted even to bend or break the commandments of God.

Relative truth is very attractive, very popular today, and it is very deceptive and evil.

It’s evil because it tells good people to believe that they really can change divine truth (any truth) simply by changing their minds.  It’s evil because when people accept anyone’s version of truth as "the truth for me," what they are doing is really denying the reality of their spiritual nature, the spiritual world and the full life that God has made us for.

We’re saying, in effect, that God doesn’t exist, or that if He does exist there is no way to really know Him. Those who live in this way exchange the reality of God for fantasy all the time.  But God has spoken. The gift of the Christian faith is to tell the world that our heavenly Father speaks to us. He sent us His beloved Son: "This is My beloved Son . . . listen to Him." (Matt. 17:5). The Son in turn said of Himself, "For this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth." (John 21:37); and He also tells the Church: "If you continue in My word, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31–32).

Can we hear this truth and be liberated by this truth? Yes, absolutely.

The genius behind the ministry of Jesus Christ was that He went to great lengths to first give us Truth and then to make sure that His Truth would be handed on from generation to generation intact until His return. He accomplishes this through His Church that He said would always be guided by the Spirit of truth (John 14:16–17, 16:13). He put His anointed in charge of His Church, giving them the necessary spiritual gifts to govern with love and teach faithfully all that He taught ((Matt 28:20), and reminding them that "He who hears you hears Me" (Luke 10:16).He gave them the reassurance that "I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matt. 28:20).

To say we can’t know Jesus Christ, or that we can’t know truth is absolutely wrong. In fact, in the end on the day of our particular judgment before God we will be judged by whether or not we have sought to learned the truth of God and that we have lived by that truth to the best of our ability. (John 12:47–50)  So what are we to do about spiritual deafness? Or better yet, how could we have helped this rich young man had we been in the crowd on that day with Jesus?

We can help people like the rich man by focusing on what needs to change within us. It has been said that. Monica won the conversion of her son, Augustine, by becoming a saint herself. Suffering through necessary change and growth is not an option for Christians. It’s a guarantee. This involves the purification of our hearts.  So, our first step is making sure we believe in the existence of God and absolute truth, for that’s a basic requirement for finding Him (Heb. 11:6). Our second step would be to look at what we are really attached too. Are we choosing our own will over God’s in any area? And our third and final step would be to cultivate a real hunger for God, as opposed to being unconcerned with Him in the matters of life.

If we had been present that day with Jesus, and as the rich man left with his head down, walking in his own direction, we could have offered him this prayer that comes from Psalm 25: “Make me to know Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth, and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You I wait all the day long." (Ps. 25: 4–5).

Amen.

What we have learned in Bible Study so far!

Exodus 1-4.

The birth and rescue of Moses.

• We spent some time talking about the circumstances of Moses' birth, and that he does not have a known father nor do we know when he was born (sometime between 1700 and 1550 BC).  Like many who serve God, the personal or family details are not known as they are not of real importance.  The story of Moses is a foreshadowing of our Lord's own life in many ways.  The threat to the lives of the unborn is not a recent problem in the world.

Moses Rebels.

• This section of Chapter 2 explains how Moses as a person of privilege is called to account by the suffering of those less fortunate than himself.  Suffering opens his eyes.
• The threat the Hebrew makes against Moses is surprising on one hand but maybe it demonstrates the serious bitterness that had developed among the Hebrews against the Egyptians due to the Hebrew's fall from a privileged life to one of being a slave.

The Burning Bush:  God Reveals Himself to Moses.

• The sacred Truth God reveals to Moses by means of His Name is that He has no past and no future.  God is both revelation (totally in the present) and being itself (all things rely on Him).
• God is giving Moses the ability to callupon Him, to seek Him and His power to accomplish his many tasks as a liberator.

The Human Person: the Image of God

The human person is created in God's image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27).

1. In the human person Heaven and Earth touch one another.
2. In the human person God enters His creation; the human person is directly related to God.
3. Every person is called by Him. God's words in the Bible are valid and true for every human being.
4. Each person is known by God and loved by Him. Each person is willed by God, and each is God's holy image.

In these four statements are found the deeper and greater unity of all mankind.  Our faith explains that each of us, each individual person realizes God and has his or her origin.  The Bible says that whoever violates a human being violates God (Gen 9:5).

Human life stands under God's special protection, because each human being, however wretched or exalted he or she may be, however sick or suffering, however good-for-nothing or important, whether born of unborn, whether incurably ill or radiant with with health, each person bears God's breath in himself or herself, each one is God's image.

When a person is no longer seen being under God's protection and bearing His breath then the person begins to be viewed in utilitarian fashion.  It is then that human dignity is trampled upon.  By vice versa:  When human dignity is realized and protected under God, then a high degree of spirituality and morality is plainly evident.

Court Admits Third Parties, Sets New Hearing Date

The following Press release is from the Bishop's Office.  Again we have good news for our Diocese.  Click on this web site to give you legal clarification about what happened today.

FORT WORTH, Texas - In a hearing this morning in the141st District Court, Judge John Chupp granted the Diocese's motions for leave to file a third-party petition and for continuance (postponement) of further proceedings until January 2010. The diocese's motion for reconsideration of the Sept. 16 order on a Rule 12 motion, was not granted.

Having determined that attorneys representing both parities were present by 8:30 a.m., the judge began the hearing early.

In the absence of any objection by the plaintiffs' attorneys, the continuance was granted, moving the date for the hearing on Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment in the case from Oct. 15, 2009, to Jan. 22, 2010. Counsel for both sides agreed this period was necessary for discovery, the process of collecting evidence and depositions.

The favorable ruling on the third-party motion, which has been before the court since its first hearing on Sept. 9, brings eight persons into the suit as third-party defendants: the Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick, Margaret Mieuli, Walter Cabe, Anne T. Bass, the Rev. J. Frederick Barber, the Rev. Christopher Jambor, the Rev. David Madison, and Kathleen Wells. They are, respectively, the Provisional Bishop, Standing Committee, and Chancellor for the group of Episcopalians wishing to remain in The Episcopal Church following the diocese's realignment at its November 2008 convention.

Shelby Sharpe, representing the diocese, argued for reconsideration of Judge Chupp's previous Rule 12 order, which found that there are two dioceses and two corporations in the suit. In a memorandum submitted to the court on Oct. 1, he showed that the plaintiffs already had conceded in their original petition that there is only one Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, and he cited Texas case law requiring such admission to be binding.

Judge Chupp denied reconsideration of the previous Rule 12 order saying, "I would prefer we spend our time and resources on what happened at the November election." He adjourned the hearing shortly after, saying, "I hope to see you all soon on another motion."

Additional information, transcripts of the previous hearings, and documents filed with the court are available online at fwepiscopal.org.

Bishop Iker expressed his thanks to those who prayed and fasted this morning and encouraged their continued prayers for God's guidance and sovereign care over all these matters.

Respect Life Sunday is October 4th.

Anglicans for Life join with the Roman Catholic Bishops in the United States in setting aside Sunday, October 4th as Respect Life Sunday.

Respect Life Sunday, this year celebrated on October 4 is set aside to reflect with gratitude on God’s priceless gift of human life. It is also an occasion to examine how well we, as a nation and individually, are living up to our obligation to protect the rights of those who, due to age, dependency, poverty or other circumstances, are at risk of their very lives.

Pray for God's guidance in this matter and then be open to His leading. 

And let us always remember that respect for life and being "pro-life" means much more then standing against abortion.  It means supporting the dignity and sacred nature of human life from conception to natural death.

Anglicans for Life is the only Anglican/Episcopal, pro life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia, protecting embryos from research abuse, and promoting abstinence and adoption. We believe that, as Christians, we must follow God's biblical call to uphold the sanctity of every human life from conception to natural death. Check out their web site.

Faith gives joy!

Faith gives joy.  When God is not there, the world becomes desolate, and everything becomes boring, and everything is completely unsatisfactory.  It's easy to see today how a world empty of God is also increasingly consuming itself, how it has become a wholly joyless world.  The great joy comes from the fact that there is this great love, and that is the essential message of faith.  You are unswervingly loved.  This also explains why Christianity spread first predominantly among the weak and the suffering.  To that extent it can be said that the basic element of Christianity is joy... it is joy in the proper sense.  A joy that exists together with a difficult life and also makes this life liveable...

Faith also makes man light.  To believe means that we become like angles.  We can fly, because we no longer weigh so heavely in our own estimation.  To become a believer means to become light, to escape our own gravity, which drags us down, and thus to enter the weightlessness of faith...

Christians are not promised an "exterior" happiness but rather a deep interior security through communion with the Lord.  That Jeus is an ultimate light of happiness in one's life is in fact a part of all of this...  We are so alienated from God's voice that we simply do not recognize it immediately as His.  But I would still say that everyone who is in some sense attentive can experience and sense for himself that now He is speaking to me.  And it is a chance for me to get to know him.  Percisely in catastrophic situations He can suddenly break in, if I am awake and if someone helps me decipher the message.

Prayer and Fasting on Friday, October 2nd.

I am inviting everyone in the Diocese to join me in a morning of fasting and prayer this Friday, Oct. 2nd, as Judge John Chupp considers three motions we have put before him in the 141st District Court. The hearing begins at 9 a.m. on the fourth floor of the Family Law Center, located at 200 E. Weatherford Street (one block east of the old court house, on the south side of the street).

In the first motion the Diocese is asking leave to file a third-party petition against the persons elected as provisional bishop and as members of the Standing Committee at a meeting held on Feb. 7, 2009. This is to bring before the court those persons who have authorized the suit against the Diocese and the Corporation Trustees in order to determine the legitimacy of their election.

In the second motion the Diocese and the Corporation Trustees request that the Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (scheduled for Oct. 15) be postponed (in legal parlance, continued) until such time that all parties are in the suit and that a reasonable time for investigation of the facts has been established.

The last motion requests that the Court correct its Rule 12 ruling of Sept. 16 so that it will permit the local Plaintiff attorneys, Jonathan D. F. Nelson and Kathleen Wells, to represent only the people who have hired them, not the Diocese and the Diocesan Corporation.

Pray especially for wisdom and guidance for our attorney, Shelby Sharpe, and for clarity and truth in the decisions of the Court.

The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
Sept. 29, 2009
Feast of St. Michael and All Angels

Bishop Iker Leads Benediction Service during Walsingham Pilgrimage

Bishop Iker was invited as a special guest to this year's National Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in England, held Monday, May 25. Inaugurated on Whit Monday (the day after Pentecost) in 1938, the modern pilgrimage celebration now occurs in late May each year.

Pilgrims first made their way to Walsingham in the 11th century, after word spread that a noblewoman had seen a vision in which the Virgin Mary asked her to erect a house in the village replicating the place where the Annunciation occurred. The resulting Shrine was visited by every king from Richard I to Henry VIII, and Walsingham has been called “England’s Nazareth.” It was Mary’s promise in the vision that “whoever seeks my help there will never go away empty-handed.”

The contemporary Pilgrimage day begins with a procession from the Shrine Church to the meadow where the glassless east window of the old Abbey (destroyed in the Reformation) stands. Mass is celebrated at noon and followed by a picnic on the lawn. Following lunch this year, a sermon was preached by Bishop Lindsay Urwin, who has recently become the episcopal Administrator of the Shrine.

At 2:30 p.m., the procession returned through the streets, which are still lined with medieval buildings. Then, according to an online account, “Pilgrims crammed into the gardens as Bishop Jack Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, brought the Sacrament from the Shrine Church to the altar of Lights.” Bishop Iker also stopped to say thanks to the youth of the Sea Cadets, who are part of the official procession party. The Pilgrimage ended with a rededication of the main arch into the Shrine grounds.

For a story on this year's National Pilgrimage and the text of Bishop Urwin’s sermon, see http://www.walsinghamanglican.org.uk/welcome/the_national_pilgrimage.htm.

For more on Walsingham and the Pilgrimage, see http://www.walsinghamanglican.org.uk

Archival photos of Walsingham sites can be found at http://www.francisfrith.com/walsingham/photos/

The Success of the Cross

On the Cross, Christ saw love through to the end. For all the differences there may be between the accounts in the various Gospels, there is one point in common: Jesus died praying, and in the abyss of death He upheld the First Commandment and held on to the presence of God. Out of such a death springs this sacrament, the Holy Eucharist… Did Jesus fail? Success is definitely not one of the names of God and it is not Christian to have an eye to outward success or numbers. God’s paths are other than that. His success comes about through the Cross and is always found under that sign. The true witnesses to His authenticity, down through the centuries, are those who have accepted this sign, as their emblem…

What strengthens our faith, what remains constant, what give us hope, is the Church of the suffering. She stands, to the present day, as a sign that God exists and that man is not just a cesspit, but that he can be saved… The Church of the suffering gives credibility to Christ: she is God’s success in the world; the sign that gives us hope and courage; the sign from which still flows the power of life, which reaches beyond mere thoughts of success and which thereby purifies men and opens up for God a door into this world.

So let us be ready to hear the call of Jesus Christ, who achieved the great success of God on the Cross; He who, as the grain of wheat that died, has become fruitful down through all the centuries; the Tree of Life, in who even today men put their hope.

Intercessors, keep up the good work!

Our next target date is Thursday, October 15, 2009.  At that time the 141st District Court, with Judge John Chupp presiding will hear further arguments of the law suite filed against the Diocese of Fort Worth.

So now in the time to begin offering this up in prayer and fasting!

• Pray for God to continue to guide Judge John Chupp with right judgment and sound wisdom.
• Pray for the Diocese's lead attorney, Mr. Shelby Sharpe, that God will grant him peace of mind, and clear right judgment and sound wisdom.
• Pray for our Bishop and the leadership of our Diocese that they maintain perfect charity in all things.

Grant us, O Lord, not to mind earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to cleave to those that shall abide; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Update on Litigation against the Diocese of Fort Worth, Sept 16, 2009.

The following is a copy of the Press Release provided by the Bishop's Office.

In a hearing today in the141st District Court, Judge John Chupp granted the Diocese partial relief under Rule 12 of the Texas code Rules of Civil Procedure. He ruled that attorneys Jonathan Nelson and Kathleen Wells do not represent the diocese or the corporation which have realigned under the Province of the Southern Cone. He denied a second aspect of Rule 12 relief which would have removed the plaintiffs’ diocese and corporation from the lawsuit filed April 14, 2009.

The judge also ruled that neither the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church nor the Constitution and Canons of this diocese prohibit withdrawal from TEC and realignment under another province. Further, he found that the Diocese had done so at its November 2008 annual convention, saying that “they [the members] took the diocese with them.” The action of the November convention was not, he said, ultra vires and void, as the suit’s plaintiffs have argued. He declared, too, that the Diocese had taken its property with it in realignment. He said he did not consider any court ruling concerning a realigning parish to be applicable in the present case, and he said that he considered it “self-serving on [the part of TEC] to say that [Bishop Iker] abandoned his job.”

The hearing on the Rule 12 motion began Wednesday, Sept. 9. At that time, the judge denied a motion for continuance filed by Nelson and Wells. Each party filed a supplemental written statement in the period between the first and second portions of the hearing. The statement submitted by attorney Shelby Sharpe is available on the diocesan Web site.

Commenting on today’s ruling, Bishop Iker said, “We are pleased that Judge Chupp has recognized the legitimacy of the vote of our Diocesan Convention in November 2008 to withdraw from the General Convention of The Episcopal Church and has ruled that we had the legal right to amend our Constitution in order to do so. This a positive step in support of the position we have taken. We will continue to keep our concerns before the Lord in prayer.”

The date for a further hearing to take up the remaining Motion for Leave to File a Third-Party Petition will be set shortly. A date of October 15 has been set to hear the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgement.

Keep your prayers and fasting going!

A hearing was started last week and will continue Wednesday, September 16 before Judge John Chupp in the 141st District Court in Tarrant County.  Please keep our Bishop and our diocesan family close in prayer.  Also pray for Shelby Sharpe, our attorney.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, who sittest on the throne judging right: We humbly beseech thee to bless the courts of justice and the magistrates of this land, especially the 141st District Court in Fort Worth, the Honorable John Chupp, presiding; and give unto them the spirit of wisdom and understanding, that they may discern the truth, and impartially administer the law in the fear of thee alone: And we most humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, to send down upon our attorney Shelby Sharpe the spirit of wisdom, charity, and justice; that with steadfast purpose he may faithfully serve thee in the representation of the people of this diocese; through him who shall come to judge the quick and the dead and the world by fire, even Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

New Emblem on St. John's Outdoor Street Banners.

The next time you come to worship you may notice that we now have on our street banners the international emblem of the Anglican Communion: the Compass Rose.  This will help explain to visitors that though we have retained the name St. John's Episcopal Church, we are not a member of the Episcopal Church, USA.

Let me give you some background information on the Compass Rose.  This symbol of the world-widew Anglican Communion was dedicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the closing Eucharist of the Lambeth Conference in 1988.  He later dedicated a similar symbol in the Washington National Cathedral in 1990.  Since then the Compass Rose has been spreading all over the Anglican world.

Looking at the symbol, in the center is the cross of St. George.  St. George (along with the Blessed Virgin Mary) are co-patron saints of England.  The cross of St. George recalls our Anglican roots in the historic English Church.  Surrounding the cross of St.George is the Greek inscription "The Truth Shall Set You Free" (John 8:32); and the Compass design radiating out from the center shows the spread of Anglican Christianity throughout the world.  The bishop's Mitre on the top of the symbol empahsizes the necessary role of the Catholic episcopacy and apostolic succession of the historic Christian faith.  This apostolic and Catholic faith is at the core of the churches of the Anglican Communion.  The Compass Rose is used widely by the family of the Anglican/Episcopal churches.  It is also the logo for the Inter-Anglican Secretariat, and is used as the Communion's identifying symbol.

Update on Litigation: Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The following release has been sent by the Bishop's Office.

To the clergy, convention delegates, Executive Council, and vestry members:

In a hearing this morning before Judge John Chupp in the 141st District Court in Tarrant County, our attorney filed a motion that requires the lawyers who have brought litigation against us to prove that they had the legal authority to bring the suit. They moved for a continuance, which the Judge denied.

At 10 a.m. Judge Chupp adjourned the hearing due to the fact that a jury trial in another case was scheduled to resume in his court. The hearing on our Rule 12 motion will reconvene at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 16.

Please continue to keep this situation in your daily prayers, and pray for Judge Chupp and attorney Shelby Sharpe by name. As you did last Sunday, please pray during worship this week. For those who are able, fasting as well as prayer will be appropriate and appreciated on the 16th.

Bishop Iker

40 Days for Life Prayer Vigil

This fall, from September 23 to November 1, Diane and I will join hundreds of Christians in Fort Worth and hundreds of thousands of Christians nation-wide and participate in 40 Days for Life.  See http://www.40daysforlifeftworth.com/ for more information.

Using the spiritual tools of prayer and fasting, 40 Days for Life is seeking God's help for an end to abortion. What we do is participate in silent peaceful prayer (for one hour) outside the abortion facility here in Fort Worth at 301 South Henderson Street. This silent prayer witness will continue nearly round the clock for 40 days. You pick the day and time, go and pray for an hour or whatever amount of time you have to offer God.

In addition participants are encouraged to choose one day for fasting. One day each week for the 6 weeks from September 23 to November 1st.  Maybe it is the same day you go to pray. Fasting is an awesome prayer tool that unleashes great spiritual power in whatever you are involved in.

Join us and help us spread the Good News that life is sacred and needs to be protected from conception to natural death! Fr. Klein

Bishop Calls the Diocese to Prayer and Fasting.

The Bishop is asking that we pray and fast from Sunday, September 6 through Wednesday, September 9 and the focus of your prayer and fasting is a Court filling our Diocese is presenting in the 141st District Court for consideration to the Court by our Diocesan Attorney's.  The purpose of the fillings involves property issues.

Fasting for this spiritual need can be done from Sunday through Wednesday or for Wednesday only.  Fasting in this situation would mean a modified meal plan like we do on Fridays during the Season of Lent.  What this means is that the total amount of what we eat during the course of the day (such as three meals of breakfast, lunch and dinner) should be no more in quanity of food then what we would consume at one main meal (such as dinner).  For people 60 and older they are dispensed from fasting and any person with health needs must always pay attention to that before they modify their diet.

It is important that we not simply put all of this in the hands of the attorney's, but that we take up the spiritual tools of prayer and fasting.  Please hold up in prayer our attorney, Shelby Sharpe and also Judge Chupp, who will be hearing the case.

Ordination to the Sacred Priesthood

On Saturday, September 26 at 10:00 am by the grace of God the Right Reverend Jack Leo Iker, bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth will confer through the Laying on of Hands the historic Sacrament of the Sacred Priesthood on the Reverend Dn. Jeffery Stubbs.

A reception in Mitchell Hall follows immediately.  Be sure to be with us on this special day as our Curate is ordained to the Priesthood.