A Gift from the Church…

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Christ, church, diversity, Easter, gift, God, Holy Week, Jesus, liturgy, music, pilgrimage, powerful, variety, worship

Photo credit:  https://blueeyedennis-siempre.blogspot.com/2011/04/update-holy-week-poems.html

As a former United Methodist and preacher’s kid turned Episcopal priest, I have a pretty wide range of what I find liturgically inspiring.  I was raised on what I would call the “Ol’ Timey Hymns,” I discovered praise and guitar music in college, I found the joy of call-and-response preaching and participatory music at a primarily African-American church where I was a member, I discovered Anglican choral music at the Cathedral that sponsored me for ordination, I was immersed in “high church” worship during seminary where my alb constantly smelled like incense, I discovered the joys of a paid professional choir who could chant choral matins, and I have served in churches with praise bands.  I have been known to crank up the gospel channel on Sunday mornings on my way to church before listening to traditional chant during the services later that morning.

So imagine my joy when I found a church that seemed to capture a good portion of the variety and breadth of my own liturgical experience.  The diversity of worship at Hickory Neck reveals an embarrassment of riches.  We are so blessed with a variety of liturgical and music leaders that I still do not have a favorite service.  Of course, fitting that diversity into one Sunday can be tricky.  That is one of the millions of reasons why I love Holy Week so much, especially at Hickory Neck!  Over the course of a week, we celebrate Palm Sunday, we lead a quiet compline digitally via Facebook live, our Praise Band leads us in a contemplative Taize service, our Congregational Choir and local ecumenical clergy lead us in a healing service, our Choral Scholars lead us in a beautiful foot washing and altar-stripping service, we retreat into quiet on Good Friday midday, but then our youth lead us in a powerful Stations of the Cross service that night, our liturgical team puts together an amazing Easter Vigil, and then the brass rings in Easter Sunday.  In one week, we get the fullness of Hickory Neck on dazzling display.

I do not know what life is like for you these days.  But if you are in the position to give yourself the gift of Holy Week, I highly recommend it.  The full experience allows you to create a sort of pilgrimage, and certainly makes Easter Day a much more powerful experience.  But even if you can only catch a few services, realize that each night’s service is like a carefully crafted gift, meant to create an encounter between you and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Even if you have been feeling distant from God lately, I know most churches are happy to have you slip into a back pew, take in what you need, and slip back out into the world.  Lord knows I have sometimes showed up at the doors of a church not entirely sure why I was there, but left knowing exactly why the Holy Spirit had drawn me there.  If you do not have a church home and want to join us in the feast of Holy Week, you have a church home at Hickory Neck.  If you are reading from further away, I hope you will share with me your experiences this coming Holy Week.

Advent attention…

Tags

Advent, attention, God, music, pilgrimage, sacred, secular

Courtesy of http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/janet-cardiff/slideshow

This week, several parishioners and I embarked on a “mini-pilgrimage” to the Cloisters in the City.  Though I loved many parts of the Cloisters, I found that I was most drawn to a sound installation by Janet Cardiff of The Forty Part Motet.  Cardiff positioned forty high-fidelity speakers on stands in a large oval in the middle of the Fuentidueña Chapel.  The motet is a reworking of the forty-part motet Spem in alium (which translates as “In No Other Is My Hope,”) by Thomas Tallis.  One part is played in each speaker in the room, and if you stand in the center and close your eyes, you can almost imagine yourself sitting in the chancel of a Cathedral listening to those beautiful voices.  And because the speakers are setup in the Chapel, which features the late twelfth-century apse from the church of San Martín at Fuentidueña, near Segovia, Spain, you really can transport yourself into sacred beauty of the music.

Part of what I loved about the installation was the way in which it froze me in my path.  No longer was I ready to hustle through the exhibits – instead I was transfixed in one place, just listening.  And even more strange was that I was not the only one – the whole room was filled with people just standing and listening to the incredible sound.  I was fascinated by the way such beautiful music held us captive, arresting our attention.

As I venture into Advent, I wonder how we might hold on to that sense of arrested attention on God.  Advent is a season often co-opted by the world around us.  I can count countless secular things that send us into a flurry – buying gifts, decorating houses, hosting and attending parties, and generally running around chaotically.  But our sacred worlds can keep us just as busy.  I know that in our parish during the month of December we have an Annual Meeting, a Bishop’s Visit, our 50^th Anniversary Gala, the decorating our church with greens, and the flurry of Christmas worship services.

Our invitation this week might be to find small ways to commit arrested attention to God.  Maybe our way will be simply stopping for a prayer.  Maybe our way will be dropping everything we had planned and stopping to visit with an elderly person, with someone who is sick, or with a child.  Or maybe it is a more intentional commitment to being fully present wherever you are – putting aside the other forty things that also need to be done immediately, and just giving yourself over to the task or experience at hand fully.  If we can isolate our attention, and arrest our harried selves, maybe we can find our way back to the God who loves us and simply wants a bit of our arrested attention too.

Homily – Advent Lessons and Carols, December 1, 2013

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Advent, Christmas, different, Episcopal Church, Lessons and Carols, music, ordinary, quiet

My first experience of Advent in the Episcopal Church was a bit of a let-down.  In the United Methodist Churches where I grew up in, Advent was a time to sing all our favorite Christmas songs, preparing us for the great feast of Christmas.  It was sort of like turning on the local Christmas radio station throughout Advent, but only with the religious songs.  I loved the experience, and looked forward to December all year long.  So when I encountered Advent in the Episcopal Church for the first time, you can imagine my surprise and disappointment.  Not only were we not singing Christmas songs, the songs we were singing felt drab and disappointing.  Everything about the season felt quiet and reserved – nothing like the boisterous build-up I was used to for Christmas.  I found myself thoroughly confused – wondering if the Episcopal Church had not received the Christmas memo.

But slowly, as the Church usually does, the Episcopal Church won me over.  As my adult life became more frenetic, the quiet of Advent became like a precious gift.  Instead of putting me in the stable on December 1^st, the Church reminded me of the journey toward the stable – of prophecies and promises, of visitations and expectations, of hopes and dreams.  And believe it or not, slowly over the years, I found that there were actually Advent songs that I liked, and eventually came to love, cherish, and anticipate every year.  Many of my favorites we hear today:  O Come, O Come Emmanuel; The Angel Gabriel; and Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.  Not only are the words beautiful, but the music reaches something deep inside of me and invites me into a rich, reflective reverence as I block out all that beckons me into a break-neck pace of life.  I find that the music calms my spirit and invites me into contemplation and quiet before our God.

And so today, on this first Sunday in Advent, the Church gives us the gift of Advent Lessons and Carols.  Leading up to this day, many of you have asked me, on this day of joint worship, as we head into our Annual Meeting, why we would not have Holy Eucharist.  The strict answer is that the liturgy of Advent Lessons and Carols does not recommend Holy Eucharist.  But the better answer for me is that by having a service so outside our normal pattern, we are marking the differentness of this season of Advent.  By starting out the season with a service so out of the ordinary, we proclaim that Advent is not ordinary.  Our behavior during Advent will not be ordinary – at least not the ordinary of the secular world this time of the year.  As we claim this season of Advent is as quiet oasis during in an otherwise frenzied time, we shake up our senses so much that we cannot help but to set our intentions for these four weeks on a different way of being throughout this season.

I invite you today to drink in the gift of Lessons and Carols.  I invite you too soak in the differentness of this day, letting the service awaken your senses to what is to come.  I invite you to listen to the lessons, many of which you will hear again throughout Advent, remembering why the birth of the Christ Child is so momentous.  I invite you to meditate on the music of this day, letting the words speak new truth to you, and allowing the melodies to calm and renew you.  Advent is the Church’s gift to you, and our service of Lesson and Carols reminds us of the availability of that gift.  Drink from the rich, deep pools of refreshment waiting for you today.  Amen.

Homily – Psalm 150, St. Cecilia, November 21, 2013

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Cecilia, God, homily, music, praise, song

Music has a unique power in our lives.  There are those songs that remind us of a romance, those songs that we played over and over in a rough patch in our lives, and those songs that always bring a smile to our faces and make us want to dance.  Music has a similar power in our faith lives too.  There are those songs that always make us cry or remember a loved one, those songs that fill us with joy at the remembrance of a special connection to God on a retreat or revival, and those songs whose words capture what we cannot capture better with hours of trying.  Music helps us connect to the awesome power of God and to express the full range of the emotional journal of walking with God.

Cecilia, who we honor today, reveled in singing passionately the praises of God.  Known as the patron saint of singer, organ builders, musicians and poets, Cecilia is venerated as a martyr.  Of noble birth, Cecilia was betrothed to a pagan, who she eventually converted by her witness – along with his brother.  But because of their conversion and her role with them, all three were eventually martyred around 230 during a time of Roman persecution of Christians.  Cecilia’s life has inspired countless artists and composers over the centuries.

Though we may turn to spiritual music for different seasons of our lives, what Cecilia invites us into today is a passion for praise.  Now I know what you may be thinking – that I am asking you to be some constant ray of sunshine who continually pretends everything is ok.  To be honest I know some people who are like that and I do not get it.  How can anyone be that happy all the time?  Does God really want us to stuff our true emotions, pain, and hurt, and pretend all is well?

That is not what a passion for praise is really about.  The psalm we all read today is full of praise: “Praise God in his holy temple … praise him for his mighty acts … praise him with lyre and harp … with resounding cymbals.”  In these six short verses, we are told to praise God 11 times.  I think what the psalmist gets and what Cecilia got is that praise is the vehicle that gets us through pain to God.  Almost like making yourself smile until the smile becomes real, when we praise God, even if we do not feel like praising, eventually our praise overwhelms us, and we cannot help but be lead closer to joy.  Our invitation today is to a life of praise – annoying, hard, gentle, forgiving, joyful, real praise.  Amen.