Author: Craig A. Phillips, Ph.D.

Craig A. Phillips, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in Theology at St. Anselm College and a retired Episcopal Priest. From 2002 to 2021 he served as the rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, Virginia, USA. Craig is a former Assistant Professor at Temple University. He has taught at Georgetown, Duke University, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Rosemont College, and Virginia Theological Seminary. Craig completed his doctoral work in Theology and Ethics at Duke University. He holds a M.Div. from Harvard University and an A.B. in Religious Studies and Classics from Brown University. His academic research focuses on the intersections of literary theory, philosophy, critical social theory, and contemporary theology.
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GIVE THANKS IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES

 

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In June of 2013, I flew to Belgrade, Serbia to take part in a four-day ecumenical conference in Belgrade, Serbia organized by the Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network. The conference, entitled “Religion, Authority and the State: From Constantine to the Secular and Beyond,” brought together theologians, religious scholars, and clergy from a variety of religious traditions. The conference commemorated the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan. That was the edict in which the Emperor, Constantine and Licinius, his co-Emperor at the time, proclaimed religious tolerance in the empire, allowing Christians to practice their faith openly.

Belgrade was chosen as the site for the conference because Constantine was born in the ancient city Naissus in the Roman province of Moesia, the area on the south side of the Danube River, in what today is the modern Serbian city of Nis, located about 125 miles southeast of Belgrade.

At the conference, I presented a paper entitled, “Theo-political Visions: Post-secular Politics and Messianic Discourse” in which I discussed a variety of secular philosophers in Europe who are interested in the writings of St. Paul primarily for the form of their argument and not for their religious content. (The paper later was published in the academic journal, Ecclesiology.*)

I packed my bags so that I could take my suitcase onto the airplane with me. For reasons still inexplicable to me, Air France required me to check my suitcase at the last minute.   My flight arrived late in Paris leaving me with less than forty minutes to get to another terminal and board my flight on the former Yugoslav National Airline, JAT.  JAT stands for Jugoslovenski Aerotransport. The troubled politics of the Balkans are still evident in little things such as the name of the airline. Yugoslavia ceased to exist more than twenty years ago, but Belgrade, the former capital of Yugoslavia, is now the capital of Serbia.  The Serbians have not given up their past and cling resolutely to whatever they can of their former pride.

When I arrived early on Monday morning in Belgrade my bag had not made my connecting flight. Fortunately, I had the medicine I needed, my phone, and a few electronic devices in my carry-on but some of the power cords and adapters were still in my suitcase.  If I had planned to lose my bag, I might have made some different decisions about what I packed and where I packed it.  (I might also have gotten some insurance to cover lost or delayed baggage.) As it turned out the only clothes I had on arrival were the clothes I was wearing— blue jeans and a long-sleeved dress shirt with black dress shoes.   That might have been fine if it had not been ninety-five-plus degrees with high humidity for the entire week I was there.  The heat index made it even hotter than it was at home that week, and it was pretty hot at home.

Without my suitcase, I tried to make the best of it. On Monday, I was fine. Tuesday, my shirt was thoroughly soaked with perspiration and I was miserable whenever I ventured outside. On Wednesday I bought a short-sleeved black t-shirt for around 5 dollars and a pair of sandals. On Thursday, my bag finally arrived in the afternoon, just one half-hour before I was scheduled to present my paper. I was thankful to have my baggage with a few changes of clothes to wear over the next two day until I departed Belgrade for Dulles International Airport early on Sunday morning.

Reflecting on my trip, I realized once again, in case I really hadn’t already learned this lesson, that “things do not always go as planned.” I also was reminded that it is possible to live with very little.  I do not have to have all the things that I have to live a full abundant life. In Belgrade, I did not need a full wardrobe of clothes, or even a small suitcase full of them, to enjoy the company of friends and fellow travelers. The same is true when I am home with all with which God has blessed me. These things are easy to forget.

When things do not go as planned, we can get angry, despair, or move on as best we can.  It is better, I have found if we can do so thankfully and happily rather than in disgust and bitterness.  I find great assurance in words written by St. Paul to the Christians in Thessalonica:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thess. 5).

You might ask, “how can Paul really say that I should learn to “give thanks to God in all circumstances.” In all circumstances?  That’s what Paul says and that is what he meant.  In another letter, this time to the Philippians Paul wrote the following:

…For I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need (Phil. 4:11-12).

Next time you find yourself in a situation in which things do not go as planned, remember the admonitions of Holy Scripture and try as best you can to give thanks to God in every circumstance in which you find yourself.

 

* Craig A. Phillips, “Theo-political visions: Post-secular Politics and Messianic Discourse,” Ecclesiology 10 (2014), 337-354.

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JOY

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I taught myself to play guitar in 9th grade so that I could play at the 12:30PM folk mass at my home parish in Tulsa, OK. It was the fourth worship service of the day. Often I served as an acolyte at one or two of the previous services before playing guitar and singing at the folk mass.

One of the first songs I learned to play was quite simple. It only had three chords. The 8 words of the chorus of the song, “The joy of the Lord is my strength,” were taken from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah (Neh. 8:10). The melody is nothing special, but I find the words difficult to forget. How is it that I find joy in the Lord? Where and when do I find this?  If I don’t find it or feel it, is something wrong with me? These are but a few of the questions that arise whenever this verse comes to mind. I am sure that the words are true, but I often wish that I could find that joy more often than I do.

Holy Scripture exhorts us in numerous places to find joy in our relationship with God and with one another. Saint Paul, for example, exhorts the Christians living in Philippi to “rejoice in the Lord always.” He even goes on to say that we should be thankful in all circumstances. What does he really mean by that? How can we be joyful and thankful to God for everything that happens?

St. Paul provides a hint. He writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always…. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil 4: 4-5). To experience joy, in other words, we have to let go. Joy is perfect freedom from worry and anxiety and at the same time thanksgiving and gratitude for what God already has given us. To find joy we have to learn to be thankful for what we have, not for what we don’t have. This flies in the face of our consumer culture in which advertisers continually remind us of what we don’t have and what we have to have to be happy. True joy comes from letting go of worry and learning to be happy with what we have. This takes practice.  That is why we learn to do this only as we grow and mature in the Christian faith.

Relax, count your blessings, be thankful to God for what you have and you will find that the joy of the Lord is your strength.

 

 

 

 

 

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NEWSPAPER EPIPHANIES

 

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“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you….”      Ephesians 1:18

When I was an elementary school student in Westchester County, NY, where I lived for 9 years as a child, I had my own daily subscription to the New York Herald Tribune. It was delivered to me at my school each and every weekday. So, at an early age, I learned the pleasures of reading the newspaper.

No matter how hard I try to get with digital editions of newspapers, I still prefer reading the printed page, over which I can scan my eyes all over the page or pages to find and read what interests me. It’s harder to do that when you have to hit a link for each article to show up.

One of my favorite things to do is to read newspapers from other cities and countries. When friends ask if there is something they can pick up for me on their overseas trips, I usually say, “please, bring a newspaper.” Most of the papers are in languages I can read or at least muddle through. Once, however, when I was a teenager, my father returning from a business trip bought me a Turkish paper that I was unable to read; I just looked at the pictures.

Now, of course, most newspapers from around the world can be read online. I look at the New York Times and the Washington Post nearly every day. But at night, some time before bed, I regularly look at online editions of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zürich), Die Zeit (Hamburg), Le Monde and Le Figaro (Paris), The Irish Times (Dublin), Frankfurter Allgemeine (Frankfurt), Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), The Guardian (Manchester), The Daily Telegraph (London), and The Independent (UK), along with a few papers in languages that I do not read much at all but enjoy for the challenge of parsing out the language. These include papers from Italy, Holland, and Sweden.

I’m sure that reading newspapers from around the world is a form of vicarious travel but I think it is much more than that.

The novelty of the new and the difference in perspectives is something I value. What seems so important to daily life in the metropolitan Washington, D. C. area isn’t even mentioned in the Boston, Chicago, or London papers.

At the same time, it is a chance to see that everyone doesn’t see the world just the way I do or the way most Americans do. It opens our eyes and widens our perspectives. We need that sometimes because it is so hard to get out of one’s own narrow view of things. Different perspectives challenge us to think again about our ideas, our cherished notions of how things work.

Newspapers report the context of our daily life. They often focus on things that terrify us, from acts of terrorism and violent crime to natural disasters and human frailty and corruption. There also are many heart-warming stories of human self-giving, sharing, and understanding.

When you read the papers from around the world, it becomes apparent that we all share a few things. We share the earth and we share a need for meaning and purpose.

Sometimes when we read the news it is difficult to discern the presence of  God in it. There is so much bad news. While helping the newspapers sell subscriptions, reading the news can at times be pretty depressing. It may be difficult for us to recognize the epiphanies or manifestations of God in our world.* That may be because we may be looking in the wrong places. The epiphanies of God that occur in the lives of individuals and are easy to miss.  St. Paul’s prayer for his fellow Christians is that “our inner eyes may be enlightened” so that we will be able to see the marvelous grace of God at work in the world. As we read or hear the news, we too may need to pray that our inner eyes be opened so that we may see the manifestations of God in our midst and trust in the hope to which God has called us.

With your eyes opened, who knows what you might see?

*In the season of Epiphany, we tell the story of the manifestation of Jesus Christ to the world, first to his own people and then to all the nations, that is, to the Gentiles.

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SURPRISE AND WONDER

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In the late evening of January 2nd, some years ago, I was driving a rental car to Tampa, Florida, from which my family and I were scheduled to take a flight home the next morning.  We were traveling on a barren stretch of road between U.S. 41 and Interstate 75 near Bonita Springs, a city on the southwest coast of Florida. Up ahead we saw the flashing lights of what appeared to be a police car. At first, we thought that there must have been an accident or that someone had been pulled over for a traffic violation.  We slowed down a bit but kept moving forward. When we got closer we saw two police vehicles, with lights flashing, blocking our lane of traffic and a pickup truck, also with lights flashing, moving towards us in the opposite direction.

The pickup truck pulled up beside us and the driver rolled down his window and said straightforwardly to me, “Turn on your flashing lights and pull over, we’ve got a couple of elephants coming through.” Although puzzled by the meaning of his words, I did as he asked and stopped the car, turned on the flashing lights, and waited to see just what he was talking about. We all peered through the front window of the car trying to see what was ahead of us. Out of the darkness of the night emerged a long string of elephants. The elephants—we counted 13 to 14 of them— were linked, trunks to tail in one long and impressive procession. Handlers walked alongside the elephants guiding them in a straight line with the ropes attached to them. We could not believe what we were seeing.

I rolled down the window on the driver’s side to get a better look. One of the elephants, perhaps hearing the noise of my car engine or perhaps scared by me and the others in the car peering at him/her lifted up his front foot, and made a loud noise—the kind that elephants make— and moved towards our rental car. The handler pulled on the ropes to calm the elephant down. I, for my part, quickly rolled up the window.

The elephants were followed by 20 of more zebras, one mule, and then 20 to 30 horses.   In no time the animals and handlers passed us by and I drove off wondering what in the world had just happened.

We quickly began to talk amongst ourselves, telling and retelling the story of what had just happened. We wondered aloud just how we might have explained it to our auto rental company if that disturbed elephant had stepped on top of our car.  Realizing the utter absurdity of the story, and the likelihood that we would all be judged quite insane had something like that actually happened, we laughed with utter joy and frivolity.

The most remarkable thing about this experience was that it was completely unexpected.  Nothing we had done that day could have prepared us for this event. It came as a complete surprise.

I’m sure that the earliest followers of Jesus must have sounded crazy to others when they claimed that they had found the Messiah, or when they later claimed that this Messiah, who had been crucified by the Romans, had been raised by God from the dead.

Although others may have thought that these followers of Jesus had gone off the deep end, those surprised by God’s glorious and unexpected actions, I’m sure, experienced a complete and utter joy when they told others about what they had seen and heard.

In the season of Epiphany, we tell and retell the stories of the manifestation of God’s goodness and love to the nations, particularly in the person of Jesus Christ.

These epiphanies of God’s grace and goodness, however, are not limited to the past. God’s mercy and goodness are new every day. Pay attention this season to the ways in which God moves in your life. Take time to share with others the joy and wonder of those unexpected moments in which you, perhaps for a moment, become aware of God’s grace in your life.

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THE LIGHT OF LIGHT, THE LIGHT OF LIFE — A CHRISTMAS MEDITATION

The canonical gospels tell the Christmas story in two different ways. The one more familiar to us is that of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem in Judea as told in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.  (The gospel of Mark doesn’t tell this story at all.) The second is the one told in the gospel of John. Here we find the story of how Jesus, the word of God, became fully incarnate in human flesh. It is the story of how God entered into the world in splendid light. The writer of the gospel of John writes of Jesus, “in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it”(John 1:4-5).

Later in the same gospel, Jesus says, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world”(John 9:5). And, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus is the light of the world. He is “God from God” and “Light from Light” as we affirm in the Nicene Creed.

The central Christmas message is that God became incarnate in Jesus. That is true whether it is told as the narrative of the birth of a child as in Matthew and Luke or in a more symbolic way as in John.

In the worship services of the Episcopal Church we read and tell the story of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem at our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. We read and tell the story of Jesus, as the light that enters a darkened world, being born in human flesh, on the first Sunday after Christmas. Both stories are read and proclaimed during the twelve days of the Christmas season.

We find many references to light and darkness in the gospel of John. In the first chapter of John, Jesus, the light of the world, enters a world full of darkness. The darkness now threatened by that brightness of that light is not able to overcome the power of that light, a light that comes from the very being of God (John 1: 4-5).

We can understand the darkness of the world in two ways —the first, in historical, political and social terms, and the second, in personal terms.

That world is a place full of darkness. Darkness is a metaphor for human sin, greed, corruption, and all of the things that are not in accord with the purposes for which God created them. [1]  We see the darkness of the world in crime and lawlessness. We see it in political institutions and governments. We see it in social inequality and injustice.

We also find darkness within our own selves. We see it in the sinful and self-indulgent appetites that make ourselves the center of the universe, often to the detriment of others. We see it in our quickness to find fault with others without realizing that those same faults are found in us. We see it in the dishonesty of the little things in daily life that we just let slide, saying that it is someone else’s problem and not ours. We see it in the lack of concern for the welfare of others. And we see it in our failure to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

At the same time, we find this darkness even deeper within us, in our loneliness and lack of hope. The world can be a dark and hopeless place. Sometimes, we are just a breath or two away from despair.  That is when we need to hear the good news of Christmas most of all. “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).

When hope is thin and frail, Jesus comes to us in our own dark night. He comes into the world to be near to us, to bring light into our darkness — to console us, and to save us. He comes to us in our weakness and our frailty, to enlighten the darkness within us, to bring hope. And when he comes, he brings light and peace that all may be well.

With the Mary and Joseph, the humble shepherds, and the heavenly host of angels let us give thanks to God for the gift God has given us at Christmas, the gift of God’s own self, in the person of Jesus. Gloria in excelsis Deo.

Footnotes

[1]‘Light’ and ‘dark’ are guiding metaphors for John’s gospel.  They have attracted overtones of racial bias that are inappropriate and have no place in the good news of Christ, who brings salvation to all people, light-skinned and dark-skinned alike.

 

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ADVENT— A SEASON OF PRUNING

One of the most difficult and daunting tasks gardeners face is that of pruning. After months of coaxing, tending, fertilizing, watering, and the like, working to get a plant to grow, there comes a time when the gardener needs to prune some branches. Pruning removes dead, damaged, or diseased branches from the plant and, in the long run, helps the plant to produce more flowers or fruit. Advice on when and how best to prune rose bushes varies to a degree but all the sources agree that rose bushes are fairly resilient and will recover from most pruning errors.

Over the past few years, I have been tending five rose bushes in the backyard garden. A few of them are of the sizeable Knockout variety. All spring and summer I nipped the flowers past bloom so that the rose bushes would produce more flowers. I watered and weeded around them, and encouraged them to grow. I hate to think that next spring I will have to cut some of the very branches I watched grow this year. Yet if the roses are to flourish—and flourish is the key word here—they will have to be pruned.

In his teachings, Jesus used pruning as a metaphor for the spiritual growth of his disciples.  He said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. …My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.  (John 15:1- 2; 8).

Advent is a season in which we make room for God in our lives. Advent, in other words, is a season of pruning.

For generations of Christians, prayer, fasting, various forms of self-denial, examination of conscience, and subsequent confession of sins have been integral to the preparation for major days of celebration in the church calendar. The fact that these days were called “feasts” is no accident. They were days of celebration accompanied food, fun, family, friends, and fellowship. Feasts, the church must have realized, are like flowers on rose bushes, they flourish and bear fruit most after pruning.

How, then, do we go about this spiritual pruning? We begin by turning away from the things that we know separate us from the love of God. We repent, we turn away from, things we know are not good for us, not good for those around us, and not good enough for God.  We open our hearts and minds to God and pray that God will allow us to let go of the branches in us that need to be cut and discarded.

We also may need to forgive those who have hurt us. When we are unable to forgive we carry the weight of that around with us wherever we go. We again should open our hearts and minds to God and pray that God will help us to forgive so that we can let go of these branches that need to be cut and discarded.

In one of the prayers of confession in the Book of Common Prayer, we confess the sinful “things we have done” and “the things we ought to have done.” Spiritual pruning may involve eliminating some of the internal clutter in our lives so that we are ready and able to respond to the new things to which God is now calling us. It may be painful to let go of those old branches, but when we do we are more able to bear fruit.

Pruning helps us flourish, flower, and bear fruit. Perhaps it’s time for you to do some spiritual pruning this Advent.

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OBSERVING ADVENT

Advent, the name of the first season of the church year, comes from the Latin word “adventus,” a word that refers to the “coming” of the Messiah, the Christ, first at his birth in Bethlehem and last to his anticipated Second Coming at the Great Day of the Lord.

With Advent, we begin again the cycle of seasons of the church year that helps the Christian community to remember the life of Christ, form a life of discipleship centered around him, and enter into the promises of God for us in our future.

The observance of the Advent season can first be traced to the latter half of the 6thcentury. The season arose as a parallel to the season of Lent—the time of preparation and repentance prior to baptism at the Easter feast. Just as Easter had a season of preparation, the early church must have reckoned, so should Christmas. Advent, then, was first observed as a penitential season in which festivities were discouraged, but with less strictness than with Lent.

Today the celebration of Advent has been overshadowed by the secular celebrations of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas to the point that Advent is all but forgotten. The tradition of the Advent wreath still endures in our church liturgies, but its observance sadly is in decline in the homes of Christian families throughout our nation. The same is true for Advent Calendars. Because Christmas in our culture has become so commercial and has been celebrated to such excess, we have all but lost sight of how earlier Christians prepared for the Christmas season through prayer, meditation, and fasting.

Advent is a time set aside by the church to prepare ourselves to greet the Lord at the day of his coming through self-examination, penitence, and prayer. The first half of the fifth verse of the Christmas Carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” expresses the purpose of our Advent preparations.

O Holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us we pray

Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.

To observe Advent in our world today is counter-cultural. Although the world around us is hustling madly to prepare for Christmas, Advent offers a time to take a deep breath and to slow down. It is a time for self-examination and prayer — a time to think about how we are living as a disciple of Christ and to examine anew how we respond to God’s call to us. Advent observed properly is a season of both renewal and hope.

In the booklet, for which you will find a link below, you will find a short Advent service that you can use as a private devotion or as a service with family and friends around your Advent wreath. You might even use it along with your blessing at dinner. You also will find activities for all ages.

May you have a blessed Advent season in preparation for the coming of our Lord this Christmastide.

Advent Booklet 2018

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ADVENT HOPE

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And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.   Isaiah 35:10

When I was sixteen years old, I sat on an airplane next to a man I have never forgotten. He was seated in the center seat of a crowded set of three seats. I was seated in the aisle seat. The man was returning from a trip to Venezuela where he had been given a circular brass shield, at least three and a half feet in diameter, with an intricate pattern pounded into it. The flight attendant asked me if I minded such a large object in front of my feet since it would not fit under the seat, in the overhead bins, or in the airplane closets. I said that I didn’t. Without this obstacle in front of us, we might never have spoken.

He was a balding man in his fifties with a fairly prominent nose, dark glasses, and a strong Eastern European accent. As we began to converse, we came to the topic of music. I do not remember everything that was said during our first conversation on the plane. I remember that he asked me if I played the piano. I told him that I had from the age of eight or nine until I turned fourteen and then had focused all my attention to the trombone. Somehow our conversation came around to the music of Frédéric Chopin and he asked me if I had any particularly favorite artists or recordings of Chopin. Undaunted by his presence and unaware of his musical prowess, I told him that I liked the recordings of Van Cliburn, whose “My Favorite Chopin,” a best-selling RCA album in the 1960s, was in my parents’ record collection. He seemed to wince as I told him this, perhaps, although he never said anything negative about van Cliburn, because his interpretation and playing of Chopin’s music was antithetical to his own. Little did I know that I was speaking to the Polish pianist Andrzej Wasowski (1919-1993), a man who Time Magazine in 1946 called “the greatest Chopin interpreter of modern times.”

A few weeks after the flight, I greeted him at the door of my home. After our in-flight conversation, knowing that I would appreciate his abilities, or perhaps to prove to me without words that his playing far exceeded that of van Cliburn’s, he invited me to his upcoming recital.

Andrzej Wasowski was a pianist who had emigrated to the United States from Poland. He came from a wealthy Polish noble family. His mother was a Princess and his father a vast landowner. In 1939 his dreams were shattered when the Nazis invaded his country and his family’s lands and property were forever taken from them. He told me how he was forced to play piano at the private parties of Nazi officers and on concert tours in Russia, where he was allowed to play anything but the work of Chopin, for fear that the nationalist sentiments raised by Chopin’s fiery and emotional piano music, would enflame the populace against the army of their occupiers.

Even at my young age, I sensed a certain sadness about him. I knew that the well of his emotions ran deep. The music of Chopin seemed to connect him to his lost homeland, his people, his mother, and the vast tradition of musical artists and performers. He played Chopin like no other!

I can only imagine what it would be like to have lost as much at once as he did. His sadness never seemed self-absorbed. It seemed to express itself in his music and in his kind and gentle manner to his students and friends.

As a child, I was surrounded by two very good piano players, my grand-mother Phillips and my mother.  I would play a tune and my grandmother, ever the severe critic, would tell me that I need to play it with expression. I had played all the notes correctly but that was not entirely what it was about. Expression is what separates the good piano players from the spectacular—and Mr. Wasowski was spectacular.

Maestro Autori, the Italian conductor of the Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra, lived around the corner from our house. Before an upcoming recital, Andrej Wasowski, after visiting the nearby conductor, would stop by our house and invite me and my family to attend. I still have the programs from two of the recitals we attended in the 1970s.

At the intermission of one of his recitals, my father and I went up to greet him and commend him for his artistry. He showed us an enormous fluid-filled blister on his thumb, the like of which I have never seen. It stretched from the palm of his hand to the tip of his thumb. He had practiced and practiced for the recital and had played his heart (and his fingers) out during the first half of the concert. Perhaps the Beethoven piano sonata that had been played with such vigor was the culprit. He showed the blister to us privately, as if only to us, and soon was back without the audience ever being the wiser and played the entire second half of his recital with a few encores—never telling the audience of his physical handicap that day.

Sadly, I lost track of him during my years in seminary. A few years ago, while listening to the piano music of Chopin and Scriabin, I was inspired to find recordings Wasowski’s piano playing. Much to my surprise, I found recordings of Chopin’s 51 Mazurkas and 21 Nocturnes. I bought them immediately and went home to listen to them. At the same time, I discovered that Wasowski had died in 1993 in Washington, D. C.

The memories of his piano playing and his personal kindness came back to me at once.

In the season of Advent, we read the words of the prophet Isaiah in which he foretells a time in which God will restore all things. In the midst of the world in which war, famine, torture, death, and evil abounds, the arrival of the Messiah provides hope.

In the midst of a world in which it is so easy for us to become discouraged or even to give up hope, the music Andrej Wasowski played provided hope both to himself and to others. I wonder sometimes if it was the piano music he played that kept him from despair. Andrej had a kindness and gentleness borne of the immensity of loss in his life and the fact that in spite of all that he and his wife had raised a family. Even in an undeserved obscurity in the United States, he somehow still had hope, a hope that he quietly shared with others, that is until he began to play the piano. And how he could he play!

Even now when I hear his recordings of Chopin, I hear the wings of hope ever ascending. I’m not sure if it is the music of angels, but it comes pretty close.

 

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WE ARE EUCHARISTIC BEINGS— THE IMPORTANCE OF GIVING THANKS

“Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4: 6-7

A few years I was talking to a stewardship consultant about churches and people we had met in our separate work and travels around the country. He asked me if I knew a certain priest from the Diocese of Oklahoma, the diocese in which I was ordained almost forty years ago. It happened that I did. Once, when newly ordained, I was having some difficulty in the mission congregations I served. This priest went out of his way to help me and I had not forgotten it. Even though I had not seen him since I moved away from Oklahoma in 1984, I knew that I needed to thank him once again. I certainly had thanked him at the time but I wanted to thank him once again to let him know that I had never forgotten what he had done for me. And so I called him up at the church he was now serving and expressed my thanks to him once more. We had a wonderful conversation. We caught up on what had happened to us and our families over the intervening years and we remembered what it was like for us to be young priests together in the Diocese of Oklahoma. I do not know how he felt after my phone call, but I know that for me I had completed something. I had given thanks and that, for me,  had made all the difference.

One of the things I have learned over the years of my life is that human beings are the happiest when they are thankful. Expressing our thanks to God and to one another is essential to our well-being.

Most Episcopalians know that the word eucharist is a Greek word meaning “thanksgiving.” When Episcopalians gather for worship they celebrate and offer to God a “Holy Thanksgiving,” a “Holy Eucharist.” This form of the Holy Eucharist is shaped by four actions. Jesus took bread, gave thanks to God, broke the bread, and distributed the bread to his followers. On the night before he was betrayed Jesus took bread in his hands, lifted it towards the heavens, with the usual ritual glance upwards towards the heavens, gave blessing and thanks to God. As he broke it he told his followers “this bread is my body” broken and given for you. He did the same with the cup of wine. As he offered the bread and the wine he added these words: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

When we relive this story together we often focus our attention on the suffering of Jesus. That is, of course, central to this event. At the same time, however, we often forget the central role of thanksgiving in this event. What if we were to tell the story this way: Jesus himself is a Eucharistic Being who, in thanksgiving to God, gave his own self for us and for our salvation? When we make Eucharist together we do so to give thanks to God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus who gave himself for us in thanksgiving to God. When we look at the Eucharistic event through the lens of thanksgiving it becomes evident that our participation in the eucharistic rite is an expression of thanksgiving to God.

Every time we make Eucharist together, we give thanks to the God who so wonderfully created us and to the God who so wonderfully redeems us.

When we make Eucharist together we give thanks to God for all that we are and all that we have. When we do so we are reminded that we like Jesus are also eucharistic beings, that is, we are people who are created by God to give thanks.

We Christians worship a God who is revealed in stories in which God showers blessings on the people of ancient Israel and on us in the person of Jesus Christ. God is not an abstract idea for us, but rather a God revealed in stories of love and concern for God’s people. When you look through the stories of the Scriptures you will see that God primarily is a giver. God always wants to give to God’s people. God showers blessings on God’s people because that is the nature of God.

From the earliest stories in the scriptures, God’s people have responded to the gifts God has given them by giving thanks in return. We are created by God and given life so that we might give thanks. The human being, in other words, is a eucharistic being. We are beings created to give thanks. If that is the case, then to be fully human, we have to learn how to give thanks to God and to do so in all circumstances.

St. Paul understood how important thanksgiving is to our lives. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 he writes, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” In Philippians 4:6 he writes, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” In Colossians 3:17 Paul writes, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” In all of these examples — and there are many more like it in the New Testament— the word “eucharist” is central. We are who we are because we give thanks, because we are eucharistic beings.

When you begin to realize how central giving thanks to God is to your very being, to being the full person that God has called you to be, you will find that it will change the way you live.

Remember that you were made to give thanks and then offer to God the giver heartfelt thanks for all the gifts you have been given—food, family, shelter, friends, and so much more.

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MEMORIZING HOLY SCRIPTURE

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I first became an acolyte in 1967 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  In those days the clergy, acolytes, lay readers and chalicists gathered in the sacristy prior to the service for prayers while the clergy vested and prepared for the service. Prior to the service the altar guild arranged the vestments on a vesting table in their traditional arrangement. As the clergy vested the people gathered prepared for service at the altar by confession and absolution and by the reciting of Psalm 43 in versicle and response format.  Together we prayed: “O send out thy light and thy truth, that they may lead me, and bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy dwelling; And that I may go unto the altar of my God, even unto the God of my joy and gladness….” The order for this brief “service” of preparation was posted on the wall of the sacristy and on cards we held in our hands. As a result of this time of preparation, Psalm 43 was the first lengthy passage of scripture that I committed to memory.

The prayer book of the Episcopal Church in those days was the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. What many people do not know is that the Psalter in that prayer book was not taken from the King James Version of the Bible (1611 AD), but from the “Great Bible” (1539 AD) of Matthew Coverdale, commissioned in fact by Thomas Cramner, the author of the first English Prayer Book of 1549. The official English Prayer Book of 1662 and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer were almost everywhere influenced by the wording of the King James Bible except when it came to the psalms. Here tradition prevailed. When these two prayer books were issued, people were not willing to accept the newer wording of the King James Psalter but preferred in their place the familiar wording of the psalms from the Great Bible, already known and memorized by many of them. In an age when many could not read, the church could not afford to change the wording of the psalms in every generation, and so the tradition held. Even in 1928, Episcopalians were not willing to give up the familiar words of the psalms from the Great Bible for another translation, even one as venerable as the by-then tried and true King James Version.  When it comes to our liturgical forms, we Anglicans can sure hold on to our tradition!

In his “Golden Epistle,” the 12thCentury Cistercian monk William of St. Thierry urged his fellow monks to memorize passages of Holy Scripture:

Some of your daily reading should also each day be committed to memory, taken as it were into the stomach, to be carefully digested and brought up again for frequent rumination…

William hoped that as his fellow monks ruminated on the words of scripture and committed them to memory that the desire for prayer would arise within them.

It is a great comfort in times of prosperity and adversity to be able to recall by memory the promises and assurances of Holy Scripture.  I am still working to memorize the canticles and many of the psalms from the 1979 Prayer Book.  I have learned to love their words and wonderful phrasing. At the same time, Psalm 43 from the Great Bible is still firmly committed to my memory; I can recite it today as easily as I can the Lord’s Prayer.  In times of trouble, the words of this psalm comfort me and lead me to prayer.

5  Why art thou so heavy, O my soul? * and why art thou so disquieted within me?

6  O put thy trust in God; * for I will yet give him thanks, which is the help of my countenance, and my God.