The Catholic faith has continued in the churches of the Anglican Communion from the early days of the English Reformation through the Caroline divines, the Non-Jurors, the old High Churchmen of the 18th and early 19th century in England, America, and the colonies, the Oxford Movement, the Ritualists, and the Prayer Book revisers of 1892 in America, and the late 1920's in England, Scotland, South Africa, India, the West Indies, and America. Bishops Seabury and Hobart, Schereskewsky in Shanghai, Gore and Frere in England, and a host of others wintessed to that faith. I learned that faith from my father and seek to witness to it in our own time.
Prayer Book Catholics find the fullness of the Catholic faith taught in the Book of Common Prayer. That faith has not been without its critics from Calvinists, Latitudinarians, and Roman Catholics. Some want to substitute for the Catholic faith taught in the Book of Common Prayer the latest teaching of the Bishop of Rome; others prefer some form of individualistic Protestantism, be it biblically conservative or rationalistic liberal.
This blog aims to be a witness to that faith as taught in the Book of Common Prayer. In the many editions of the Prayer Book a common faith can be discerned - along with some statements that can be seen from a respectful distance to be clearly culturally limited.
My name is Thomas Nelson Rightmyer. My late father, the Rev. Dr. Nelson Waite Rightmyer, (1911-1983) was professor of church history, canon law, and liturgics at the Divinity School in Philadelphia and at the Ecumenical Institute of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Seminary in Baltimore, author of The Anglican Church in Delaware and Maryland's Established Church and many scholarly articles. I am a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and the General Theological Seminary, and hold graduate degrees from St. Mary's and the Graduate Theological Foundation. I have served in the Episcopal dioceses of Maryland, North Carolina, and Western North Carolina.
Sermon preached for Pentecost 19, Proper 22, October 3, 2010 Part One
ReplyDeleteAlmighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Lamentations 1:1-6
Psalm 137 Page 792, BCP
1 2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:1-10
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” In the 17th century physicists could not agree whether light is particle (as Isaac Newton said) or wave (as several Dutch scientists argued). Albert Einstein in 1905 said light has properties of both. “Light can be labeled with a wavelength, frequency, velocity; it can reflect, refract, interfere, and diffract. In those (and other) respects, light behaves like a wave. But light also has a certain amount of energy depending upon its frequency, and it also has momentum. In those respects, it acts like a particle.”
Faith is like light. Faith is both an action at a particular point in time and a quantity that appears to increase and decrease. We come to faith; we come to believe in God’s work in Jesus Christ, and this moment of faith is continually renewed. Our faith seems greater at some times than at others. We experience faith tested by circumstances; sometimes we feel triumphant, other times defeated. Our faith and trust in God may wax and wane, but God’s faith in us, God’s eternal grace continues.
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” They ask in response to some of Jesus’ hard teachings. After the story of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar we heard last week Jesus continues, “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard!” We have learned of clergy criminal sexual abuse of adolescents and even children. Others are guilty of similar crimes, but the claim of Christian service makes it worse. And not only the young in age but new Christians of all ages have been led away from Christ into personality cults. Remember November 18, 1978? That’s when over 900 people were murdered in Jonestown, Guyana by the Rev. Jim Jones. The events have faded in memory but we continue to say, “drink the Kool-Aid.” The temptation to misuse power is strong. We need to pay careful attention to Jesus’ warning, “Be on your guard” or in the King James version, “Take heed to yourselves!”
To this command for prudence and self-control Jesus adds a command to forgive. “If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you 7 times a day, and turns back to you 7 times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” St. Matthew 18 has Jesus saying to Peter, “forgive 70 times 7 times.” Forgiving is hard work. It seems easier short term to continue in resentment and in guilt. But in the long term for our soul’s health we follow Jesus’ command and forgive – and keep on forgiving – with faith in God’s grace.
Sermon preached for Pentecost 19, Proper 22, October 3, 2010 Part Two
ReplyDeleteJesus taught us to pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” The first Prayer Book over 450 years ago had a general confession and absolution before communion. We’ve been confessing our sins and receiving God’s forgiveness ever since.
Two more comments on forgiveness and then back to faith. First – we forgive others their sins against us, and we receive God’s forgiveness of our sins against God – and ourselves. There is no victimless crime; our sins leave a stain on our hearts, a stain that has been washed clean by the blood Jesus shed on the cross for us. He has taken the burden of guilt from us and we are to accept what Jesus has done and not take up again that burden of guilt. Second – the Holy Spirit, the spirit of prudence, requires us to do what we can to avoid situations where we can again be sinned against. I’ve been told that on average an abused spouse makes 7 efforts to get out before she succeeds. That’s enough and too much.
Back to faith. The disciples heard Jesus commands: “woe to those by whom occasions for stumbling come . . . “Be on your guard,” “Take heed to yourselves!” and “you must forgive.” No wonder they prayed, “Increase our faith.” Jesus’ first response is hyperbole, way over the top, “"If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.” The commentators note that the mulberry has deep and extensive roots. Jesus reminds the disciples and us that God provides for us each day and in each situation the faith we need to claim his grace and do his will – in careful self-awareness and forgiving others and ourselves.
Jesus continues with a command about spiritual pride, “when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’” This verse, found only in St. Luke, was used in the Reformation as a proof-text against the medieval theory of the Treasury of Merit. The theory of the Treasury of Merit is that the works of the saints, called works of Superrerogation, accumulated merits to be spent by the church as indulgences to release the dead from Purgatory. Article 14 of the 39 Articles of Religion says, “Voluntary Works besides, over and above, God’s Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly, When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.”
God’s grace received in faith is sufficient, sufficient for eternal salvation, sufficient for a daily life of prudence and self-control, sufficient to forgive. We have only to receive, to come to the communion rail with open hands and hearts, to make the act of faith that Jesus died for our sins and rose to give us new life and then to continue in that faith until Jesus comes in our last days.
Faith is like light. Faith is both an action at a particular point in time and a quantity that appears to increase and decrease. We come to faith; we come to believe in God’s work in Jesus Christ, and this moment of faith is continually renewed. Our faith seems greater at some times than at others. We experience faith tested by circumstances; sometimes we feel triumphant, other times defeated. Our faith and trust in God may wax and wane, but God’s faith in us, God’s eternal grace continues.