Our Sunday group won't meet today. This is the second consecutive day celebrated as Easter that our group decided not to meet.
Last year, we did do Easter, just not together. We decided, essentially to outsource Easter. Evelyn and I and the couple who was already hosting the Thursday gathering took some residents of an assisted living facility to a traditional, Christendom, contemporary Seeker-Sensitive "worship service" with the thought that we would like that sort of thing as a change of pace.
It didn't go well. And, I think, for reasons unique to each of us. At least one of us thought, that that church's show wasn't good enough, if we were going to go to a show. None of us, by that time really wanted to be merely consumers of religious products and services. We were accustomed to being participants in gatherings.
Anyway, for a variety of reasons, none of us were interested in repeating that experiment.
One year later, as Easter Sunday approached, it happened that hosting that day would have been inconvenient for us and everyone else just said, "Oh, okay." It was no big deal. That that decision was so easy to make surprised me.
We will be spending the day with my parents and my brother and his wife. I doubt, but don't know, if anyone else will be taking in an Easter Sunday show at a local church. I tend to doubt it.
This is a good time to assess where I, at least, am on my journey compared to last Easter. And, I have to say that I am more confident than ever that I am on the correct path.
As the title of this post suggests, I live with the notion that every day, moment even, is holy. I don't think I was able to learn that until I began to work at my so-called secular job.
Every instant of my life, I am accountable to live as a subject of His Kingdom. To celebrate one day in recognition of the resurrection seems phony and even foolish to me.
Also, in our gatherings, every gathering is a celebration of others' "Holy Week." To set one week aside as holy seems artificial to me. And, I can't bring myself to do it. My conscience won't allow me to without feeling sinful.
I am not suggesting that everyone in our gathering shares all of these convictions
It has been occurring to me, especially while others are Holy Week-ing, that, in one way, we are more Roman Catholic, than those of you who deem yourselves to be Protestants.
ReplyDeleteAnd, it is for that reason that I so strongly reject what I consider to be Holy Week mumbo jumbo.
Like the Roman Catholics, our gatherings are centered more in the, I don't even know how to express this, the entire story of redemption? than in the Word.
The homily is a much weaker component of Catholic worship than the sermon is of the Protestant worship service. We take the Catholics a step further, actually, in that we don't even have a homily.
In theory, the Protestants are very much about the Word. Certainly, Evangelicals still are. Sermons reign there in worship services.
Curiously, we go to the Word, to shape our gatherings but use the word less in the gatherings themselves. We are more in the Spirit and more in the story than those of you who are Protestants.
As many of you know, one brother from church history who has strongly influenced my own journey is John Winebrenner. In 1830, Winebrenner denounced Protestantism, essentially, and called for "another great Reformation."
In that way, we are continuing his journey.
At the moment, I am at a place I did not expect to be but am happy to be there.
And, I wish you were here.
When I still was a parish priest, I, with intention, used every Advent season and every Maundy Thursday Feetwashing service to assess the state of my journey--to assess how my understanding of the Incarnation and the Atonement of Christ was impacting my life.
ReplyDeleteThough my time as a parish priest is in the past, I continue to be very concerned that I live correctly in reference to those events.
As far as the incarnation is concerned, more than ever, I am focused on bringing, through the Spirit in me, the presence of God into the world by living a lifestyle of love and mercy.
In reference to John 13, I focus less on Jesus instruction that we should wash each others' feet and more on how He did the act Himself: He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, wrapped a towel around his waist, poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, drying them with the towel...
And, I have noticed that the Philippians 2 passage, which corresponds to John 13, and details the import of the incarnation, is followed by Paul's admonition, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."
In light of the totality of Christ's submission to the will of the Father, how could I not tremble in humility when I think about my own self-centeredness and the numerous acts of my life that are fruit of it.
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It is on this point that I find Shepherd Mafia religion most inadequate: SM religion doesn't account for our need to experience fear and to tremble in the presence of the grace and mercy of the Father as it is revealed in the life, death and resurrection of the Son.