The Mid-Week Missive is based on Community Rules: An Episcopal Manual by Ian Markham and Kathryn Glover, both administrators at Virginia Theological Seminary.  I am working my way through this book, reading and writing  through the lens of our Life Together as part of the Christ the King Episcopal Church family, as well as part of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. 

Rule # 6: Acknowledge the Other Person’s Experience and Perspective. Markham and Glover’s reflection on this rule can be found in their book, which can be purchased here. 

How does this rule apply to our Life Together at Christ the King? This rule implies that, even in in what oftentimes end up being relatively homogenous Episcopal communities, we will encounter the “Other Person,” and he/she/they will have a different experience and perspective from our own.

The first church I served was founded in 1816 and the second was founded in 1922. They were similar to one another in that they both served as the home parish for generations of families in particular neighborhoods - one out in horse country of Baltimore County and one on Ortega Island in Jacksonville. They are difficult to get to if you didn’t know where they are located, and they both have extremely strong “insider” bonds that run deep and old. It is easy to be one of the “other persons” at these parishes by virtue of not having grown up in the neighborhood and/or being a multi-generational member of the parish family. So the challenge for these two parishes was to find a way to authentically integrate “the other” into the parish family. The thick boundary between outsider and insider wasn’t intentional – it was an organic matter of history and location.

At Christ the King, our context is very different from my previous two parishes. Our “boundary” between insider and outsider is not nearly as thick as those others. I would be naïve to claim that such boundaries don’t exist at CtK, but they are much less ingrained and much more fluid. But what that means for us is not that “others” don’t exist at CtK, but rather, we are, in some ways, “other” to one another.

One example is that we have a healthy population of “snowbirds” who integrate into our parish family for the winter. I think that many of our snowbird brothers and sisters truly consider CtK to be their parish “home away from home” as opposed to simply a church they visit on vacation. But they are still “the other” in our midst. While I personally have enjoyed getting to know many our snowbird friends, I haven’t truly acknowledged their experience and perspective as well as I could have. They are a valuable resource for us – almost like a cadre of in-house “consultants” from afar - who could offer feedback on their experience at CtK while sharing with us helpful ideas from their home parishes. Our snowbird friends are “the other” from whom we can learn a lot, and I look forward to making a more concerted effort to do so in the future.

Another example of “the other” in our midst is our Parish Day School. Now don’t get me wrong - The Treehouse Episcopal Montessori School is wholly owned by Christ the King Episcopal Church, and is a mission of our parish. So in that sense, the Treehouse is not “the other.” We are different parts of the same body, each with our unique purposes and functions. Our “otherness” has been and continues to be a true gift. But, as we have experienced in the recent past, our “otherness” can pose profound challenges. I think one key to holding this “otherness” in a healthy, life-giving tension is to embrace Markham and Glover’s 6th Rule for Communities: Acknowledge the Other Person’s Experience and Perspective. Before we get bent out of shape by someone or something we see as “the other person,” let us first acknowledge their experience and perspective. My recent experience has been that the more I remember to do this, the more fruit it bears for me personally as well as for our church family.

Pax,

Richard+

Sermon for 3 Lent, Year C

As we draw near to the mid-way point through our Lenten journey, we are given scripture lessons that invite us to wrestle with the age-old question about connection between sin and suffering. Beginning in ancient times, and continuing to the present day, many people have often attributed illness and calamity to punishment for one’s behavior. And on the other side, people have been wont to attribute good health and prosperity as reward to for their good behavior.

Well I have some good news and some bad news for us today. Since it is Lent, I’ll start with the bad news. The bad news is that no matter how good we are – or how good we think we are – we will always fall short of being good enough to merit the love, mercy, and grace that God gives us. The good news is that in the live, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we are all made worthy of God’s love, mercy, and grace.

The message that Jesus has for us in our Gospel lesson is this – “Get over yourselves, and quit trying to play like you are God. Quit trying to convince yourselves that you are in control of everyone’s salvation” Or in Jesus’ own words, “Unless you repent, you too will perish.”

Jesus says this to the people who approached him with the news of some Galileans who had been executed by Pilate’s regime. Jesus goes on to refer to the 18 Jews who had died the tower of Siloam collapsed. At that time, a number of Jews attributed the death of those 18 to God’s punishment – since they were working for the Roman government to build the tower, which was being paid for by money from the Temple.

Whether it was these 18 people or the others who were executed by Pilate’s regime, the people in this passage are coming to Jesus looking for answers to the tragic deaths of their brethren. And as is oftentimes the case with anxious people in anxious systems, they start with blame. Whose fault is it? Who can we blame? What behavior can we blame? How can we make sense of this tragedy in a simple, cause-and-effect way?

We saw this sort of behavior early on with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when the disease was blamed on the behavior of those who contracted it. And we saw it with Hurricane Katrina, where we heard things like, “Sin city had it coming sooner or later.”

Whether it is those who were looking for answers in their conversation with Jesus, or those of us today trying to make sense of tragedies that befall us, Jesus’ response is for us to quit pointing fingers, quit blaming others, and for all of us to take a long, hard look at ourselves. Regarding the tragedy at the Tower of Siloam, Jesus’ response was, “do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."

We are given this passage during the season of Lent because this is the time of year when we are invited to examine ourselves, and to repent – to turn back around towards God. And this is hard work. It can make us uncomfortable. Not many people look forward to spending 40 days prayerfully examining where they might have gone astray; or what idols have crept in to our lives; or how we have may neglected to love God and our neighbor.

But as I have said before, the gift of this season is that we don’t spend this time of self-examination in a vacuum or silo. We do it together in our church community. There is comfort in the fact that the person to my right and the person to my left aren’t worried about me and the ways I might have fallen short because they are too busy examining themselves.

But please, don’t fall into the trap of believing that our repenting – our turning around back to God – is an inoculation or vaccination against illness, tragedy, or death. Jesus makes this clear in our lesson today. Jim Rice reminds us that “the tragedy that befell the workers at the Tower of Siloam was in no way related to their moral state. And despite the temptation to believe otherwise, the same is true for us today.”

Today’s Gospel lesson ends with Jesus framing the call to repentance with hope. Jesus tells a quick parable about a man and his fig tree. He is annoyed that after three years, the tree hasn’t produced any fruit. So he asks his gardener to cut it down. But the gardener convinces the man to give the tree one more year. The gardener knows that tree much better than the man who owns it. The gardener sees it and waters it every day. And though it hasn’t yet born any fruit, he believes that it will. He’s not ready to give up.

The disciplines we take on during the season of Lent – prayer, fasting, spiritual reading, almsgiving, and repentance – aren’t for their own sake. Their purpose isn’t to make us so pious that God will love us more. God already loves us more! And they certainly won’t earn us salvation. That has already been done. And as I mentioned earlier, they won’t protect us from illness, disease, or disaster. So what is the purpose of repentance? I think the purpose is so that our relationships with God and our neighbors will begin to bear fruit. As such, we are living into our baptismal calling to be co-creators…participants with God in ushering in God’s reign here on earth. Such a life is one that bears fruit – that embodies and shares the Good News that, as our psalmist says today, “God’s loving-kindness is better than life itself.” Thanks be to God!

We are continuing our journey through the book – Community Rules: An Episcopal Manual by Ian Markham and Kathryn Glover, both administrators at Virginia Theological Seminary. There are 52 “Community Rules,” which fit nicely into a one-rule-a-week rhythm over the course of a year. So I am going to be working my way through this book in 2019, reading and writing  through the lens of our Life Together as part of the Christ the King Episcopal Church family, as well as part of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. 

Rule # 5: Be Sensitive: We Are All Different. Markham and Glover’s reflection on this rule can be found in their book, which can be purchased here. 

How does this rule apply to our Life Together at Christ the King?  Let me start by saying that I like the spirit of this rule, but I don’t like the wording. If it were up to me, I would have worded it this (much more long-winded) way: “Assume the best in one another – and try to see others as God sees them. In doing so, we might find that as different as we may be from one another, we are all children of God, and as such, we are the same in God’s eyes.”  Seeing others as God sees them is impossible for us, because we simply do not have the capacity to offer love, mercy, and grace at the level that God does. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try.

At our Vestry meeting last evening, we examined a list called “12 Marks of Healthy Behavior” and collectively listed what we thought were our “top 3” and our “bottom 3” for Christ the King. One of the 12 Marks of Healthy Church Behavior is “Manages Conflict: Conflicted situations are managed with practices/processes that foster and reflect a theology of reconciliation.” This category was not in our bottom 3, but it was close. What that told us is that while we might have made some progress in this area, there is still work to do. Conflict is inevitable in church families, so the goal isn’t to eliminate conflict, but rather, when it arises, to deal with it in a healthy way.

One way to reduce the level of conflict is to “be sensitive” as Community Rule #5 says. Or as I re-worded it – “assume the best in one another - and try to see others as God sees them.” Seeing and treating one another as a fellow child of God, and trying to first assume that others are well-intentioned can go a long way towards healthy relationships. Communities that operate out of a hermeneutic of suspicion, where the intentions of others are not trusted, are communities that struggle the most with conflict.

Our class that meets after Noonday Prayer on Wednesdays is currently reading “Joy in Confession: Reclaiming Sacramental Reconciliation” by the Rev’d Dr. Hillary D. Raining. In this book, and through our discussions, we are exploring what reconciliation means and looks like, both between God and our neighbor. Much of what we are discovering is that reconciliation with God leads to reconciliation with our neighbor. By sacramentally being reminded how God sees us (as God’s beloved), we are empowered and liberated to being our attempt to see others as God sees them. It is a lifelong journey indeed! But it is a journey to which we are called through our baptisms, and one that we take together. During this season of Lent and beyond, let us continue our good, holy work towards being a church family that handles conflict in a healthy manner.

Pax,

Richard+

 Thought, word, and deed. When Episcopalians hear these three words together, our minds likely go straight to sin, as in, “Most merciful Father, we confess that we have sinned against thee, in thought, word, and deed…”. This opening line to our prayer of confession names three ways that we embody sin. But thankfully, thought, word, and deed are not just criteria for sin…they are also criteria for conversion and covenant.

Our lesson from Genesis today is a remarkable story of conversion and covenant. When Abram has a dream in which God tells him his reward will be great, Abram pushes back and asks God rather incredulously, “What will you give me, for I remain childless?!" Based on Abram and Sarai’s current situation, he has a hard time believing God’s promise.

So God invites Abram to look up at the stars in the night sky, and likens that to how many descendants he will bless Abram and Sarai with. And at that point, something changed with Abram. His hardened heart softened, and he believed. There, in the midst of this dream, Abram experienced a life-changing conversion. But God’s promises didn’t stop there. He went on to promise Abram not only countless descendants, but also land…and lots of it.

Then, it appears that  doubt was beginning to find its way back into Abram’s heart – after all, old habits are hard to break – when he  asked God how he was to know that he would possess the land that God promised him.

And as God is apt to do, rather than answering the question directly, he gave Abram a very specific and elaborate to-do list. It’s almost like God believed that the best way to answer Abram’s question would be to ask Abram to make this very elaborate sacrifice to God. But the sacrifice would actually be as much for Abram as it would be for God. After all, God doesn’t have to have sacrifices made to him to maintain his God-ness. But for Abram, the task of locating, corralling, and slaughtering a three year old heifer, goat, and ram, with a turtle dove and pigeon thrown in for good measure would certainly have given him ample time ponder his relationship with God. By that point, he might have even been irritated with God for requiring such a sacrifice. One thing we do know is that after all of that corralling and butchering, Abram was exhausted, as any of us would be. So he fell into a deep sleep. And it was in then that God sealed the covenant with Abram with the smoking pot and flaming torch passing in between all of the butchered animals. Once again, Abram believed.

As is always the case, this covenant was initiated by God, but in order to be a covenant, it required Abram’s consent and participation. And for this to be true for Abram, he had to have a conversion of heart. Remember, back in those days, it was believed that thoughts generated from one’s heart, not their brain. So conversion was more of a heart thing than a mind thing.

The covenant also involved word and deed on behalf of both God and Abram. God initiated by speaking to Abram in a dream. But Abram continued the conversation. And when God told Abram to make a very specific type of sacrifice, Abram responded by doing so, even if while he was doing it, he was wondering what the point was, or if all of this was really necessary. And through the mutual thought, word, and deeds of both God and Abram, the covenant was sealed.

Jon Levinson asserts that “God’s offer of covenant is a mysterious, unmotivated decision of God, without regard to the merit or sins of Abram.” Michaela Bruzzese points out that God and Abram “trusted one another for no obvious reason, and their mutual faith has formed the blueprint for the Judeo-Christian understanding of covenant to this day.”

Psalm 27 is a poetic example of what the covenant between God and God’s people looks and feels like when embodied:

  For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe 
in his shelter; *
he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling
and set me high upon a rock.

Even now he lifts up my head *
above my enemies round about me.

Therefore I will offer in his dwelling an oblation
with sounds of great gladness; *
I will sing and make music to the Lord.

But as we all know, God’s people have always struggled to uphold their end  of their covenant with God. This lapse of fidelity is what St. Paul was constantly wrestling with in his various congregations. In his letter to the Philippians, which we hear from today, he is calling some of them out for apparently upholding the “word” part of the covenant, but not the thought and deed part. In other words, they were claiming to be followers of Christ, but their actions proved otherwise. Their lives were not an embodiment of the covenant of which they were a part.

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus is calling out the Pharisees as well as the religious leaders of Jerusalem for their skewed understanding of covenant. By their strict adherence to the law, they claimed to be righteous. But their actions said otherwise – namely, killing all the prophets who publicly condemned them for their neglect of the sick, the poor, and the widows. So once again, we have a covenant that is only partially being honored. The Pharisees and the ruling elite in Jerusalem were big on words, and maybe even their thoughts, but they came up short when it came to their deeds.

So what might we glean from these lessons today? It seems to me that the reason we might have been given the story of the covenant between God and Abram is so that when we read about or encounter situations where God’s people have sinned – like in our New Testament lessons for today - we can frame sin within the broader context of covenant. That gets us out of the petty obsession some people have with sin for the sake of sin. What makes sin a sin is the way in which it damages the covenantal relationship we have with God and one another.

Both sin and covenant are embodied through thought, word, and deed. But I don’t believe that the season of Lent is about sin. I believe that it is primarily about covenant. It is about remembering the covenant that God made with God’s people, and the renewal of that covenant in Jesus Christ. And during the season of Lent, we are invited to faithfully and honestly re-commit ourselves to embody the covenants of which we a part, and to embody them in thought, word, and deed. This faithful embodiment includes our baptismal covenants, but also our marriage covenants for those of us who are married. If we are able to faithfully engage the call of re-examining our lives this holy season through the lens of holy covenant, the reward won't be that we will become less sinful. The reward will be the steadfast love, joy, and peace that comes from faithfully living in covenantal relationship with God and our neighbors.

We are continuing our journey through the book – Community Rules: An Episcopal Manual by Ian Markham and Kathryn Glover, both administrators at Virginia Theological Seminary. There are 52 “Community Rules,” which fit nicely into a one-rule-a-week rhythm over the course of a year. So I am going to be working my way through this book in 2019, reading and writing  through the lens of our Life Together as part of the Christ the King Episcopal Church family, as well as part of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. 

Rule # 4: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. Markham and Glover’s reflection on this rule can be found in their book, which can be purchased here. 

How does this rule apply to our Life Together at Christ the King? The Episcopal Church takes great pride in our commitment to be a welcoming Church…so much so that our slogan is “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.” When surveyed about the particular characteristics of their parish, most Episcopalians say that theirs is a warm, welcoming, friendly parish. Of course, those who are filling out the surveys are those who are most active in their parish – those who have had enough of a positive experience to remain engaged.

But being a truly welcoming parish or community is difficult work. There has to be a commitment from a large number of people to make the act of welcoming newcomers and guests a priority. In the coming months we will be working on making our website more welcoming, inviting, and informative. The same goes for our Sunday bulletin and other printed materials. We will also need to look at our signage to make sure newcomers know where to park, where the nursery is, and how to navigate our campus.

But all of these administrative, structural efforts need to be coupled with a commitment from each of us to be observant. If we see somebody who might need help finding the nursery, or finding the right page in the Prayer Book, or standing/sitting alone at coffee hour, how might we summons the courage to lend a helping hand or offer a warm welcome? A hospitable smile and a genuine interest in others can go a long way towards truly becoming a welcoming parish.

Perhaps a Lenten discipline for us to try could be to speak to one person you do not know prior to speaking to your friends/family at coffee hour. Such a simple gesture of welcome and hospitality might make a profound difference in someone’s life. Let’s give it a try!

Lenten blessings and peace,

Richard+

The Season of Lent invites us into a new rhythm, a new way of engaging our faith. For those who attended worship at Christ the King this past Sunday, you may have been thrown off by the way we began. Instead of being greeted with words of welcome and announcements, we were asked to kneel down and join in the biddings and petitions of the Great Litany…not to mention that we were doing all of this with one hour’s less sleep!

Those at the 10:30 service likely noticed the shift in rhythm into which the Rite I language invites us. We have to slow down a bit because Elizabethan English doesn’t flow off of our tongues as easily as our familiar contemporary language.

 Those of us who attend the daily Morning Prayer service at Christ the King have also been presented with a new rhythm during Lent – Rite 1 language, opening the service with the Prayer of Confession, and reciting the penitential Canticle 14 after the first reading each day. It feels and sounds different from our usual pattern to which we have grown accustomed.

 In fitness training, it is good to “confuse your muscles” from time to time. That is what allows them to grow. And the same goes for worship and prayer. Familiar rhythms and patterns are a hallmark of the Anglican liturgical tradition – it is a pillar upon which we stand. But even those patterns need to be shaken up so that we can re-engage our prayers and liturgy with curious, open minds.

I invite you to engage in this and all of the other rhythms that the season of Lent invites us into – particularly the rhythms of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. And may we all be blessed by these holy, sacred, ancient rhythms.

Lenten blessings and peace,

Richard+

Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. (John 4: 4-26)

We are continuing our journey through the book – Community Rules: An Episcopal Manual by Ian Markham and Kathryn Glover, both administrators at Virginia Theological Seminary. There are 52 “Community Rules,” which fit nicely into a one-rule-a-week rhythm over the course of a year. So I am going to be working my way through this book in 2019, reading and writing  through the lens of our Life Together* as part of the Christ the King Episcopal Church family, as well as part of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. 

Rule # 3: All People Deserve Respect and Appreciation. Markham and Glover’s reflection on this rule can be found in their book, which can be purchased here. 

How does this rule apply to our Life Together at Christ the King? This is the first community rule we’ve encountered that isn’t unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Respect and appreciation for others is a universally recognized (albeit not always practiced) value for communities. Within the Christian tradition, I think that it is helpful to frame this “rule” along the lines of a spiritual discipline. We know that all people -generally speaking - deserve respect and appreciation. But when it gets to specific people and situations, it can be more difficult.

The media has done a masterful job of pitting people and groups against one another, and feeding the innate human tendency to vilify, scapegoat, and blame others. But the media didn’t create this dynamic…it existed long before radio, television, and the internet.

When we find ourselves lacking respect and appreciation for others, I think that the spiritual discipline we can engage is that of “starting small.” Begin with those closest to you – your family, neighbors, co-workers, and members of your church. That is a gracious plenty! If we can prayerfully and gracefully work towards respecting and appreciating all the people in our smaller sphere of life, the practice will begin to expand and reach a broader sphere of folks. Just like the Parable of the Mustard Seed that I mentioned last week, through the grace and power of God, what starts out as small can grow beyond measure!

Pax,

Richard+

* “Life Together” was the theme of our recent Diocesan Convention, and will remain as our theme as we enter into our 50th year together as the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. 

As I mentioned last week, I recently picked up a new book – Community Rules: An Episcopal Manual by Ian Markham and Kathryn Glover, both administrators at Virginia Theological Seminary. There are 52 “Community Rules,” which fit nicely into a one-rule-a-week rhythm over the course of a year. So I am going to be working my way through this book in 2019, reading and writing  through the lens of our Life Together* as part of the Christ the King Episcopal Church family, as well as part of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. 

Rule # 2: Remember that People are Made in the Image of God.Markham and Glover’s reflection on this rule can be found in their book, which can be purchased here. 

How does this rule apply to our Life Together at Christ the King? Christ the King members and Diocesan Convention delegates Tom Huff, Richard Jacobs, Joyce Waters-Smith, and I recently participated in the 48thannual Convention of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. One of the highlight for me was that during our daily worship together (Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, and Evening Prayer), the preachers were lay people from around the diocese. And let me tell you what…they were absolutely incredible! 

What was most impressive to me about each of their homilies was their authenticity – they were vulnerable, funny, honest, and willing to witness and testify to two things in particular: (1) they have experienced the transformative power and love of God in Jesus Christ, and (2) they experienced this life-changing love and community in an Episcopal parish. Each of these faithful, courageous people had a story to tell – stories of hardship, rejection, fear, and life-threatening illness. And they found a community of faith who listened to their story and welcomed them into the family. They were reminded that they are precious and beloved in God’s sight, and created in God’s very own image.

Their stories were inspiring and hopeful for all of us. Their stories were not stories of a church that is dying. Their stories were stories of resurrection, new life, and the Way of Love. My hope and prayer is that we at Christ the King can strive to see God’s image in every person who enters into our midst (as well as in those of us who are already here). The more we see God’s image in one another, the more likely we are to treat each other as beloved children of God. If we make that a priority, our Life Together as a parish family will grow deeper and wider and bear fruit for many generations to come!

* “Life Together” was the theme of our recent Diocesan Convention, and will remain as our theme as we enter into our 50thyear together as the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. 

I recently picked up a new book – Community Rules: An Episcopal Manual by Ian Markham and Kathryn Glover, both administrators at Virginia Theological Seminary. There are 52 “Community Rules,” which fit nicely into a one-rule-a-week rhythm over the course of a year. Rule # 1 is: Christ is the Foundation of Christian Community, and Markham and Glover’s reflection on this rule is as follows:

 When Paul writes to the divided church at Corinth, he explains that in the end there is just one foundation to all Christian community. He writes, “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). Christ is both the inspiration (after all, we are followers of Christ) and the presence (for the resurrected Christ holds Christian community together). When we gather as a Christian community, it is Christ who is in our midst. As Jesus puts it, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:20).

How does this rule and reflection apply to our lives together here at Christ the King? 

Many voices in the “Christian” media today focus on threats from the outside – whether it is other religions, secularism, the political correctness movement, or other forces related to the “powers and principalities” of the world.

 But I think the greatest threat to the Body of Christ comes from withinour own Christian communities. We are oftentimes our own worst enemy. Our well-intentioned passions and interests can devolve into agendas propelled by the very secular and worldly ethics of scarcity and competition. 

Within this worldview, there simply isn’t enough; so we feel compelled to compete for what we perceive to be limited resources whether it be love, grace, mercy, approval, space, money, or time. We grow anxious and reactive when we feel like we might be left out. James and John did this when they asked Jesus to grant them seats next to him in his kingdom. And it still happens today.

 But it doesn’t have to be this way. God showed us another Way through the life, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ. God’s abundance never runs out, and as such, Christ’s kingdom was not (and is not) of this world. Jesus showed us what this abundant love looks like, and through our baptisms, we have been called and blessed to carry on his counter-cultural mission in the world. 

 But this calling to be Christ’s Body in the world can feel overwhelming, even grandiose. That is why Christ called us to be in smaller communities (like the local parish church). That way we can come to know, love, support, and trust one another as we journey together as followers of Christ living into God’s abundance. If we can model the counter-cultural God’s abundance within our own homes and our own parish family, Christ’s kingdom will be that much closer to being realized. 

 We start small, just like a mustard seed. But it all starts with Christ. He is the foundation upon which we are to build our community and our lives. If we keep our focus on Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, then the house that we build will house us all as members of Christ’s family, and it will stand strong for generations to come.

We have many mechanisms for telling time. Who’d have guessed that perhaps the most common means for checking the time or setting an alarm would be via our telephones?

We also have many mechanisms for markingtime. Again, many people these days (myself included) keep their calendar for appointments, birthdays, and special events on their cell phone.

In the church world, we have other means of telling and marking time. The liturgical calendar helps frame the biblical narrative for us, so that one way of telling time is through the stories of our faith. When we start hearing the stories of John the Baptist, we know it must be Advent/December, and we know that the story of the birth of Jesus is approaching. How disorienting would it be to hear these stories in the middle of the summer?

One way that the Church marks time on an hourly basis is through praying the Daily Office (the pattern of Morning, Noonday, and Evening Prayer and Compline). When we hear/say the opening refrain for Morning Prayer - “Lord, open our Lips…And our mouth shall proclaim your praise” - we know that it is morning time. And when we hear/say the antiphon for Compline - “Guide us waking O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in peace” –  we know that the day is done and it is time for bed. We tell time through the prayers of the Church. 

 We can even come to learn what day of the week it is by reciting the Canticles for Morning Prayer. If you are praying the Morning Prayer service and after the first reading, you stand and say “Arise, shine, for your light has come…” (from Canticle 11 – The Third Song of Isaiah), you will come to know that it must be Wednesday! And the more your pray the Office, the more you will fall in to the rhythm of these particular Canticles marking the specific days of the week. On Saturday (the final day of creation), we recite Canticle 12 – A Song of Creation, which makes perfect sense. 

We will always need our secular clocks and calendars to mark time, events, and seasons. But the Church gives us other ways to tell and mark time, throughout the days, weeks, months, and year. I encourage us all to develop the rhythm and pattern of telling and marking time through the Daily Office. After all, Mondays don’t have to be a drag. What if Mondays came to be known not as the first day of a long work week, but the day when we stand up and say, “Surely, it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid.” (Canticle 9 – The First Song of Isaiah).