Wednesday, November 01, 2006

I got nuthin'

I'm struck in my reading today that nothing seems to be jumping out at me. Sure, I'm working through Scott's response to my post yesterday, as well as the implications of the wrong widow proposition. I'm also struggling with the Church today. I posted over on a bored seminarian about this new group call The Episcopal Majority that ENS says is "standing up for 'middle' chuch". This coupled with the recent action by the KJS's new Chancellor have left me feeling uneasy. Will the tenure of the new Presiding Bishop be one of rooting out conservatives? Or will she live up to her hype as reconciler and leader? I'm nervous, too nervous to get much beyond the collect for Proper 27b.

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

We are all heirs of God. We are called to be pure. We are to strive to be like Jesus. And what do we do instead? The work of the devil; tearing down the Church, tearing down fellow believers, focusing on our own problems instead of doing the work of the LORD. Psalm 146 give us our mission:
7
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind; *
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
8
The LORD loves the righteous;
the LORD cares for the stranger; *
he sustains the orphan and widow,
but frustrates the way of the wicked.
And still we ignore it. Still we fight. So today, I've got nuthin'. I'm nervous and tired and ready for it to be over.

1 comment:

pmc said...

Steve,

Thanks for your honest post...one thing is that David Booth Beers has been the chancellor of the Presiding Bishop for at least a decade. So, this action of writing letters is under Presiding Bishop Elect Schori's lead, but Beers was around under Griswold as well. (He's also on the VTS board, so you'll have a chance to talk with him about it next week!!)

I also hope that the new direction of TEC is not to root out conservatives and I can see how this action of writing these letters could be seen as that.

It seems, however, that some of the changes to the Constitutions of diocese in TEC are perhaps outside of the bounds of the very Constitutional requirements of dioceses...

I hope that this action will have positive outcomes, but we will see!