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Big thoughts from the Big Church
Jan. 21st, 2007 12:02 pmI'm lazing out here on Sunday morning, still in robe and jammies, getting me my Jesus in various electronic media. Down the hall, I've paused Shadowlands, which among other things may incorporate the entire C of E Book of Common Prayer throughout the story. You might recall, from a few weeks back, how I finally came upon this Attenborough film, almost 15 years after its making and its multiple Oscar nominations. It didn't take long after that to have the film in hand, and it really does tell a remarkable tale of Christian love- love that comes through the doing, not the rote memorization and blathering of the biblical Magical Words.
The film is paused because it got to be 11:00, and having blown off the chance for live worship, I was reminded that my old church in Rochester broadcasts its service of that hour over the internet, so I felt compelled to "visit." An odd place, Asbury is. It was pure serendipity that brought me there, 22 autumns ago, having chosen an apartment a block away from its towering spire at the far end of the street. It became my church home, the aisle of our wedding and the font of Emily's baptism. In almost ten years there, we all participated in most of the things young families were supposed to participate in; and yet, it was never quite the home that my original small suburban church had been or the more similar one the current one has become.
My current ministers know it well: several of ours were, or became, clergy there, either in one of their four full-time pastor positions (we have two) or as District Superintendent (and maybe one day, as Bishop) in the offices for those higher servants on the same grounds. When our most recent retiree accepted a one-year temporary position there, we joked with him about him going to play "the Big Church." And that's what it is- physically, numerically, historically, but with a very similar body of ordinary people, trying to do ordinary things in God's name, sometimes feeling trapped inside all the Bigness. I don't have stage fright, and can play to a full courtroom or lecture hall and even served occasionally as lay reader at Asbury itself, but all things being equal, I like my crowds small and manageable enough to make some contacts and remember some names. Emily and I stopped on the way to my sister's for one of their services this summer- the first, it happened, that our recent retiree Jim would be treading the holy boards there. He and Susan (now the senior pastor there and the minister who married us and did Em's baptism) were the only souls there we recognized and who, in turn, recognized us.
But if it's Christian academia you want, you can't beat it with a holy staff. Its weekly sermons are works of scholarship, art, persuasion- sometimes all three. In looking for the linky today, I saw they'd brought back the original senior pastor from my days there for a guest sermon at the end of August. It's transcribed here (with a few typos), and it addresses the still-vital question of religious extremism, of the kind preached against from our President's bully pulpit. It compares, but cannot really contrast, the "Islamic extremism" decried by Bush and the equally dangerous forms of extremism carried out in the name of Christ, as many now as in the days of the Crusades. I have no doubt the Bushies and the Fundies don't even see it. Kinda hard to see anything, what with that log sticking out of your eye.
A few blocks down from Asbury is the George Eastman House. Last week, it screened the documentary called Jesus Camp, about what can only be called an indoctrination session for the next generation of the Fundies. Perhaps no one could put it better than one of the kids quoted in the film, who says, of George W. Bush, "He has really brought some real credibility, um, to the Christian faith."
I hope that capital H at the start of the quote was merely to signify the start of a sentence, and not a profession of Dubya's divinity. With this crowd, though, I wouldn't be entirely sure.
Finally, as some have noted? Two years from today, a new President will be in office. Thanks be to God.
The film is paused because it got to be 11:00, and having blown off the chance for live worship, I was reminded that my old church in Rochester broadcasts its service of that hour over the internet, so I felt compelled to "visit." An odd place, Asbury is. It was pure serendipity that brought me there, 22 autumns ago, having chosen an apartment a block away from its towering spire at the far end of the street. It became my church home, the aisle of our wedding and the font of Emily's baptism. In almost ten years there, we all participated in most of the things young families were supposed to participate in; and yet, it was never quite the home that my original small suburban church had been or the more similar one the current one has become.
My current ministers know it well: several of ours were, or became, clergy there, either in one of their four full-time pastor positions (we have two) or as District Superintendent (and maybe one day, as Bishop) in the offices for those higher servants on the same grounds. When our most recent retiree accepted a one-year temporary position there, we joked with him about him going to play "the Big Church." And that's what it is- physically, numerically, historically, but with a very similar body of ordinary people, trying to do ordinary things in God's name, sometimes feeling trapped inside all the Bigness. I don't have stage fright, and can play to a full courtroom or lecture hall and even served occasionally as lay reader at Asbury itself, but all things being equal, I like my crowds small and manageable enough to make some contacts and remember some names. Emily and I stopped on the way to my sister's for one of their services this summer- the first, it happened, that our recent retiree Jim would be treading the holy boards there. He and Susan (now the senior pastor there and the minister who married us and did Em's baptism) were the only souls there we recognized and who, in turn, recognized us.
But if it's Christian academia you want, you can't beat it with a holy staff. Its weekly sermons are works of scholarship, art, persuasion- sometimes all three. In looking for the linky today, I saw they'd brought back the original senior pastor from my days there for a guest sermon at the end of August. It's transcribed here (with a few typos), and it addresses the still-vital question of religious extremism, of the kind preached against from our President's bully pulpit. It compares, but cannot really contrast, the "Islamic extremism" decried by Bush and the equally dangerous forms of extremism carried out in the name of Christ, as many now as in the days of the Crusades. I have no doubt the Bushies and the Fundies don't even see it. Kinda hard to see anything, what with that log sticking out of your eye.
A few blocks down from Asbury is the George Eastman House. Last week, it screened the documentary called Jesus Camp, about what can only be called an indoctrination session for the next generation of the Fundies. Perhaps no one could put it better than one of the kids quoted in the film, who says, of George W. Bush, "He has really brought some real credibility, um, to the Christian faith."
I hope that capital H at the start of the quote was merely to signify the start of a sentence, and not a profession of Dubya's divinity. With this crowd, though, I wouldn't be entirely sure.
Finally, as some have noted? Two years from today, a new President will be in office. Thanks be to God.