Brian McLaren with us the next two days

Author-speaker Brian McLaren to be with us Saturday and Sunday

A few years ago I came across the writings of Brian McLaren, and then I saw him on a webstream as he addressed the Anglican bishops at their worldwide gathering at Lambeth in 2008, a once-every-ten-years convocation of hundreds of bishops. I was quite taken by Brian's vitality, creativity and his ability to make recast ancient concepts, and make them alive in our complicated multi-cultural chaotic world.

I've been trying ever since to get him to come to St. Paul's. And he will soon be with us!

Brian McLaren will conduct an all-day workshop called "Why Everything Must Change" this Saturday March 3 from 9 am to 3pm (lunch on your own), and he will preach Sunday March 4 at 8 am and 10 am. He has a book by that title that I would recommend reading before he comes. We are then planning to build our Sunday Lenten adult education around what we hear from Brian and the issues he raises. I am very excited, and if you are in our area, I hope will come. His appearance is made possible for us by the Koinonia Foundation.

Let me also recommend another book that is terrific, and take a deep breath -- it has a long title that by its length tells you something of his perspective: A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/calvinist + anabaptist/anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + depressed-yet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished Christian.

The First Sunday of Lent: Prayerful paths and slowing down

Lo, we descend into the valley of Lent…

This is supposed to be a time of simplicity, introspection, fasting and penitence. But it gets complicated quickly at St. Paul’s.

This morning we will chant the Great Litany, as complex an opening to worship as ever there was. We will be commissioning our new pastoral care Stephen Ministers at 10 am, and Pastor Ann Willms will be preaching today.

Later in the day, I will be offering the first in a seven-week course leading to adult baptism, confirmation or reception into the Episcopal Church.

Meanwhile, Pastor Heather Warren will be offering an introduction to the work of author-speaker Brian McLaren who will be joining us next Saturday and Sunday.

Lent is supposed to be a time of slowing down, but it does not yet feel that way for me. So I feel somewhat hypocritical in urging you to slow down and have a Holy Lent (as my mother used to put it, “Do as I say, not as I do”). So please let me offer a few brief ideas about what Lent should really be about, and I offer this to you much as a reminder for myself:

Lent is a gift to the heart. Lent can be a time not of obligation but of careful and prayerful discernment about our life path, and how God is calling us to live our life of faith in the world. It is a time of confession, of looking honestly at where we have fallen short. It is also a time to feel reconnected in our deepest self to God our creator and celebrate the gifts God gives us. This can be a time a feeling affirmed on our path, or feeling called to new directions, or maybe a combination of both.

Traditionally the Church asks that we “give up” something for Lent as a way of focusing on what is truly important. Fasting can nudge us into being less self-indulgent and more aware of the needs around us and the places God is calling us to go. Fasting that is falsely pious is no fast at all.

My suggestion is to make your fast something important and hard. Maybe instead of giving up chocolate, give up fear. Or instead of giving up meat, give up gossip. Or instead of giving up ice cream, give up petty complaining.

Lent is a time for renewal of prayer. There are many ways to pray, but all require practice. Find a regular time in your day to pray that works for you and stick to it. Get up earlier if you need to, or turn off the television or computer earlier in the evening. Use the prayer book or pray spontaneously from your heart. Reading the Bible daily in small doses can enrich your prayers and your life. Rather than getting hung up on the factoids of the Bible, let you imagination find the Holy inspiration between the lines.

You can get instant help on this: We’ve provided a series of reflections for each day of Lent written by members of St. Paul’s, and each reflection is connected to the Scripture readings for the day. All of this can be found on a special blog by clicking HERE, and the blog has links to each day’s biblical passages.

Sometimes the biblical passages fall flat with me, and that is perfectly OK. But sometimes they touch my deepest core. Today’s Epistle from 1 Peter 3:18-22 is written in coded first century language, but decoded it is a declaration of hope, that no one is beyond grace and redemption, that Christ went to the grave to find people in the grave:

“He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison.”

Finally, let me leave you with a poem for Lent that I rather like, by Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007), whose writing reflects her deep faith and her interest in science.

For Lent, 1966
By Madeleine L’Engle

It is my Lent to break my Lent,
To eat when I would fast,
To know when slender strength is spent,
Take shelter from the blast
When I would run with wind and rain,
To sleep when I would watch.
It is my Lent to smile at pain
But not ignore its touch.
It is my Lent to listen well
When I would be alone,
To talk when I would rather dwell
In silence, turn from none
Who call on me, to try to see
That what is truly meant
Is not my choice. If Christ’s I’d be
It’s thus I’ll keep my Lent.

+ + +

May your Lent be filled with holiness and hope.

Brian McLaren to join us at St. Paul's

A few years ago I came across the writings of Brian McLaren, and then I saw him on a webstream as he addressed the Anglican bishops at their worldwide gathering at Lambeth in 2008, a once-every-ten-years convocation of hundreds of bishops. I was quite taken by Brian's vitality, creativity and his ability to make recast ancient concepts, and make them alive in our complicated multi-cultural chaotic world.

I've been trying ever since to get him to come to St. Paul's. And he will soon be with us!

Brian McLaren will conduct an all-day workshop called "Why Everything Must Change" on Saturday March 3, and he will preach March 4. He has a book by that title that I would recommend reading before he comes. We are then planning to build our Sunday Lenten adult education around what we hear from Brian and the issues he raises. I am very excited, and if you are in our area, I hope will come. His appearance is made possible for us by the Koinonia Foundation.

Let me also recommend another book that is terrific, and take a deep breath -- it has a long title that by its length tells you something of his perspective: A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/calvinist + anabaptist/anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + depressed-yet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished Christian.

I am very excited that we will be hosting him and I hope you can join us.

Brian McLaren: Unboxing the Bible

Brian McLaren is amazing to me. He has become something of the sage of the "Emerging Church" of the 21st century, that is to say, he has a gift for seeing the trends in our culture, in our lives, and in the Church as it lurches along trying to be (as the apostle Paul would put it)  "all things to all people." Brian will be speaking at St. Paul's next spring, and more on that as we get closer.

Last month, Brian spoke at the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina, a gathering of Emerging Church thinkers. Here is a video of some of his remarks, along with a few from Phyliss Tickel and a few other interesting folks. It is worth five minutes of your time and a lot more than that in your thought and prayers:

General Convention: A generous pastoral response, we pray

ANAHEIM -- As we prepare to depart California, please let me offer a few last thoughts on the General Convention that is now finished. Many words have already flown, reaction in some quarters is already extreme. Yet, there remains many conversations ahead, more than a few questions and much work to be done.

The biggest development coming out of the Anaheim convention, the one with all the headlines, is that our Episcopal Church took two significant steps to fully include gays and lesbians in the full life of the church. The convention declared, in effect, an end to the moratorium on ordaining new bishops who are openly gay. The other was to approve a resolution providing for a "generous pastoral response" around same-sex blessings. What that phrase will mean in our parishes remains the work of all of us and our bishops.

The convention also declared its willingness to remain fully engaged in the life of the Anglican Communion, but clearly understood that a cost will be paid in our relationship with the communion. How that will play out remains to be seen. Commentators will note that the Windsor Report is all but dead, but that has been true for some time. Perhaps it never had a chance; I will leave that to another day.

I am mindful that many people read this blog, and I do not want to put words into the mouth of our bishops. They speak for themselves, and will return home to answer questions and clarify the meaning of their work and words. I hope that our bishops will issue a pastoral letter clarifying what they mean by a "generous pastoral response" on same-sex blessings. I hope each diocesan bishop, including ours in Virginia, will write such a letter to their respective diocese explaining the way ahead as they see it; some bishops have already done that before leaving Anaheim.

And I hope we will give our bishops and our deputies a generous pastoral response. They worked very, very hard, grappled with difficult issues, and somehow managed to keep their respect for each other and their sense of humor.

The major reason I go to General Convention, even though this time around I had no official role, is to experience for a few days the breadth and diversity of our church. Worshipping with strangers from Missouri and Alaska just took my breath away. I heard some of the most moving and prophetic preaching of my life from our own Presiding Bishop Katharine, and Stephen Charleston, and Mike Kinman and Brian McLaren.

We sang favorite old hymns; worshipped with a big jazz band; danced to rock music; chanted Taize, and sampled worship forms that I am not sure yet have a name. Some will be lasting, others will fade away, and all were delightful and genuine attempts at loving God.

The Exhibit Hall was worth the trip by itself. The hall was filled with displays not just by vestment vendors, but by religious orders and educators and artisans. Military chaplains, including my friend Col. Carl Wright, had a booth, and they wore dress uniforms and fatigues. They reminded me that the gospel is preached on battlefields and in dangerous places by courageous people.

The work of convention seemed crushing, and deputies and bishops often looked exhausted. The Episcopal Church budget endured huge cuts -- Bishop Katharine said it would feel to many like they "had a heart attack," and it indeed it did. But the budget also presented a huge opportunity to focus our church on mission to the wider world, to truly look at how we are called, in Katharine's words, to "speak a word of healing to a world desperately in need of it."

We also revisited the e-word -- evangelism. We were told once again that we are called to be more than simply "an ancient service organization that meets once a week to do good works." We are called to change lives and save the world by recruiting people to the way of Jesus. Brian McLaren, who is a dynamic non-denominational evangelist from Maryland, told us how we need to retake the word from shabby television hucksters and street hustlers. "Evangelism means recruiting people and transforming them to defect from the old order," he said.

McLaren also thanked us for being willing to pay the cost of broadening who is included in God's church. Yes, there are those in the rest of the Anglican Communion and in Christianity who disagree with us. "You are doing a service by wading into turbulent waters," he said. "Every moment of Episcopal crisis is a moment of Episcopal opportunity."

Finally, Bishop Katharine reminded us "these resolutions only have life as they are implemented around this church. Your job is to go home and help this work we have done become food."

Amen.