"The Seven Week Advent" by the Rev. Mike Wernick

The Rev. Mike Wernick

On November 11, 2012, the people of Holy Cross Episcopal Church and Ascension Lutheran Church (in Kentwood) will begin the celebration of an expanded, seven-week Advent. The Rev. Mike Wernick (Rector and Pastor of both) learned about and experienced this expanded Advent at Bexley Hall Seminary in Columbus, OH from The Very Rev. William Petersen (who developed the idea in 2006 as a part of liturgical renewal) and The Rev. Dr. Elise Feyerherm (who prepared some of the materials). Fr. Mike thought the people at these two parishes would appreciate the underlying theology, and so presented the idea to them some months ago.

The Rev. Petersen explained: "In its origin, the season of Advent was nearly seven weeks. The Gregorian Sacramentary introduced a four-week Advent in Rome in the seventh century, but this truncated version of the season was not widely adopted in other western churches until the twelfth or thirteenth century. The Orthodox churches still observe a longer Advent; but by the

time of the 16th-century western reformations, few remembered that Advent had once been longer; and until the Christmas culture of the 20th century gained momentum, its focus had clearly been eschatological."

The primary focus of Advent is the full manifestation of the Reign of God. This is the exclusive focus of the lectionary from the Sunday after All Saints’ Day until the last week of Advent. Only in the last week do these readings which form the thematic emphasis of the Church’s weekly worship begin to shift from a focus on eschatology to that of incarnation.

But competition from our modern culture, with Christmas decorations lurking in the back corners of supermarkets from late August, join with the surreptitiously expanding shelves of Christmas items in other retail establishments, just waiting for Halloween to pass so that they can all explode into their own full manifestation on November 1st. Add to this the unrelenting barrage of television and other electronic media advertisements and music for the holiday season, and the marketing purposes are complete.

And the Church has little defense against all of this. By the time Advent begins, many churches are already singing Christmas hymns or holding "Lessons and Carols" services; and by the beginning of December we are well on our way to Bethlehem. For all intents and purposes, then, our culture––the culture of Christmas––has effectively eclipsed the season of Advent and precluded any engagement of its primary focus.

But what is the primary focus of Advent? If it's only the Nativity or our preparation for it, then something vital is missing. We say that the season is the beginning of the liturgical year; but the original intent of the season was to begin, by looking to the end. The wisdom of poet T.S. Eliot captures some of the sense of this intent in the line, "In my beginning is my end." To apply that wisdom to the present matter is to recognize that we're better served, at the start of a new year, to look to the end, to the goal, to the eternal moment that makes sense of all our moments. And, for Christians, this means a focus first on the full manifestation, the parousia, of all that is

implied in and by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This trial use includes resources that are available online at www.theadventproject.org (such as collects, updated O Antiphons, prayers of the people, a wreath lighting ceremony, proper prefaces, and hymn suggestions, and an opportunity for feedback) and is supported by the North American Academy of Liturgy.

"Beautiful Choices" by The Very Rev. Jared C. Cramer, SCP

The Very Rev. Jared C. Cramer, SCP

Earlier this year, I spent several days at the Lilly Endowment’s Transition into Ministry Conference. I used to go to this Conference when I was a Clergy Resident at Christ Church in Alexandria, VA, before I moved back home to Grand Haven to serve as the rector of St. John’s. At the conference this year, I was invited to return as a small group leader. I was glad it fit in my calendar to go, delighted at the opportunity to spend the majority of a week reflecting with young people just entering ministry about the shape of ministry in this day and age.

And what I was particularly delighted about was the theme for the conference… beauty.

At our opening plenary, the keynote speaker told the story of a women’s group in the church that wanted to raise money for the church in Haiti.

They worked and worked and raised $1,000 to send to Haiti, to a women’s group in a church there. When the American group told the Haitian group that the money was ready and that it could be sent at any time, the Haitian ladies told the American group what they wanted to do with the money.

The Haitian women’s group wanted to use the money to take a flower arranging class so they could arrange flowers for their church’s altar. They wanted to use the money and make blue satin hats to match the blue robes that had been given to them awhile ago by another church.

And, apparently, it took a long time to convince the American women’s group that this was a good idea.

The American group wanted to do something “serious,” like dig a well. A flower-arranging task seemed… frivolous. And so they had to be convinced to still send the money.

One morning we based our conversations at the conference around Psalm 27:4, “One thing I have asked of the Lord; one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

The Haitian women wanted beauty, they wanted to create beauty in their worship. The American women didn’t think that was serious enough, they had to be convinced that these Haitian women knew what they really needed. And what the Haitian women believed they really needed was the ability to create beauty in their worship, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to seek God in the temple.

We live in such a binary world, a world that is always insisting that there are choices that must be made. We’re always being pushed to these false choices and one of the big ones is the false choice between “beauty” and the seemingly more serious need for “mission.”

What if the two are actually inter-related?

I remember when I was living in Tennessee. My wife and I were having dinner with Dan and Paul, a couple who had befriended us when we started attending the Episcopal Cathedral in Nashville. I was talking about a discussion we’d had in seminary about the possible decision to spend millions on a new building when there were hungry and poor people in need in a community. It seemed like an obvious answer to me—taking care of the poor came first. Who cares about a building?

Paul looked at me and said, “But Jared, if you take care of the poor today and don’t build the magnificent building, where will the poor tomorrow go to pray? Where will they go to experience the beauty of holiness that could have been found in that church?”

This is the thing about a false choice. It assumes that a need is singular and clear. The idea that the need is only feeding the hungry or caring for the poor—this misses the possibility that the poor may need an experience of God in a beautiful place. The idea that the need is only to build a well—this misses the possibility that they might really need to learn how to arrange some magnificent flowers.

False choices are limiting, they only see part of the truth, part of the need, part of the way that God is breaking in, part of the way that God is working out redemption.

And so at my parish we do feed the hungry. We absolutely are committed to feeding the hungry. But we also gratefully accept a gift from a parishioner who wants to spend a significant amount of money to put in a prayer and meditation garden, complete with brick paths, gorgeous plants and flower, a statue of St. Francis in the middle… so that perhaps on your way to be fed, you might experience God in the garden as well as in the kitchen.

Beauty, I sometimes fear, does not have enough advocates in the church today.

Because in the end, after every belly is filled, after every oppressed person is set free, after creation is breathed into and restored and renewed and recreated, after all this glorious redemption is done… there is one more thing that I know I’ll want. There is one more thing that I seek.

To behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

The Very Rev. Jared C. Cramer, SCP, serves as Rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in his hometown of Grand Haven and as Dean of the Lakeshore Deanery. His book, Safeguarded by Glory: Michael Ramsey’s Ecclesiology and the Struggles of Contemporary Anglicanism, can be found at Amazon.com. This essay is an edited version of what that previously appeared at his blog: carewiththecure.blogspot.com.

Staff Blog: "Our Insider Teminology by Karmel Puzzuoli

By Karmel Puzzuoli, Communications Assistant to the Bishop.

I still remember the first Sunday I stepped into the Episcopal Church. It was at St. Thomas, still my home parish, one frigid March morning in 2008.

The worship style was new, but I was taken aback by the beauty of it all, the peace and joy in the music, the beautiful words and traditions, the uplifting presence of God. I said to myself, “I never want to leave here.”

At the same time, I remember breaking into a sweat. Stand up? Kneel? Genuflect? Say “amen.” What’s that thing they do right before the Gospel reading? The Nicene what?I thumbed through the service bulletin, trying to figure out what to say, when to say it, what it meant, and how to avoid looking like a rookie.

It took several months before I felt like I had it down, but even four years later I still occasionally feel tripped up like a newbie.

I grew up in rural Kansas where my family attended a fundamentalist church called the Church of Christ, in which the underlying message every Sunday had something to do with sinning, asking forgiveness, redemption, heaven, hell and stuff like that. It was boring (for me), but easy to understand.

But the liturgical service in The Episcopal Church, which I joined at the age of 36, was completely foreign to me. It took me awhile to figure it out. Heck, I’m not even sure I have figured it all out yet.

When I see new people sitting in our pews, I wonder if they are experiencing the same sweaty nervousness that I did. What can we do to make it easier for those just getting to know us? What can we do to make it easier for people who don’t know us, but are looking at the sign “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You,” and wondering what are they all about?

I am currently in the middle of wrestling with our insider terminology. I think it can be a big barrier to those on the outside. Even our name, Episcopal, which is derived from a Greek word meaning “overseer,” and means bishops, or a system of church governance overseen by bishops, can be a little inaccessible to those who are church-shopping.

We use a lot of terms in the Episcopal Church that aren’t intuitive. A communications colleague of mine dislikes the word discernment for its lack of intuitive meaning in our churches. Stewardship makes me think of helpful folks who work in air travel. And every time I hear the word formation, I think of geese flying south for the winter, or the Blue Angels in an air show.

In fact, my friend Fr. Mark Engle, agrees. “The folks who need formation most are out there,” he said, and pointed outside. “They have no clue what we’re talking about when we say formation.”

Our dear Canon Spaid, who LOVES the traditions of the church, seems to also appreciate the difficulty in understanding TEC:

“What if you said to a newcomer, ‘Go through the narthex to the undercroft where our liturgies for the Triduum will take place,’” he joked. “There are so many words and terms that relate to the church that make perfect sense to me, and are the correct word, but people on the outside wouldn’t necessarily know them like chasuble, alb, stole, cassock and surplice, orphreys on altar hangings. Where is the clerestory? Should we use homily or sermon? Should we invite people to worship or the Holy Eucharist? Should canticles use their Latin or English titles – This Sunday we’ll sing the Benedictus Dominus Deus or The Song of Zachariah? Should we call them Canticles or Songs from Scripture? It’s the acronyms that get me: EfM, DOK, ECW, EDWM, P in C, CofE.”

LOL!

THAT’s what I’m talking about.

My new rule for myself … if I type in the word on Google, like formation, and the definition doesn’t match the one we use in the church, I choose a different word. This is my personal and professional preference.

Right now, the Episcopal Church is going through a period of reinvention, moving away from an institutional model and toward a mission-driven one. We are thinking about what we are and how we survive in a time of competitive church-going.

The challenge for us is to find ways to preserve our traditions without being exclusive and alienating potential newcomers. It's a difficult challenge, and something we need to think about.

It’s also a great time for all of us to talk about our faith, what it means to us, and how it has transformed our lives. It’s a time to be disciples, and a time to be evangelists! No insider terminology is needed to proclaim the way the Episcopal Church has transformed your life.

I welcome your contributions to this blog, as well!
Karmel Puzzuoli is the Communications Assistant to the Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan. She can be reached at kpuzzuoli@edwm.org.

Guest Blog: "The Way of Love" by the Rev. Mike Fedewa

Mike Fedewa has served as Rector of St. Andrew's in Grand Rapids since 1992.  His first assignment in the Diocese of Western Michigan was as an assistant to the rector at St. Thomas in Battle Creek from 1986-1990.  In his many years in diocese he has served on many committees.  Currently he is a member of the transition team.  Mike has been married to Linda for 28 years.   They are parents of three sons, but he and Linda  are still too young to be grandparents.  Mike was raised in Michigan and enjoys all things about living in western Michigan, especially camping, fishing, and baseball.    About once a month, Mike travels to churches around the country to preach on behalf of Food for the Poor.

As some of you know, it is the custom of the Brothers at St. Gregory’s in Three Rivers to observe silence during the meals.   While eating the brothers and guests listen to the reading of a book.   While on retreat at St. Gregory's last winter, we listened to a book entitled Peace Be With You; Monastic Wisdom for a Terror Filled World. The readings I heard during my retreat were powerful enough that I purchased the book early this summer.   I have been reading the book over the course of the month of September.

In this book, the author, David Carlson recounts visits he made some years after 2001 to various monasteries and convents located in the United States.  In this visit, Carlson interviews monks and nuns who were members of those communities on September 11, 2001.  The monks and nuns remember for Carlson how their communities reacted to the news of that terror filled days.  They also shared with Carlson reflections about how these communities, and indeed how the country and world have changed since that day.  Those interviewed bring the wisdom of their disciplined life of solitude and prayer to these reflections.

While at Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky, Carlson reflects on an epiphany written by Thomas Merton.  That epiphany occurred for Merton on March 18, 1958 at the corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets in Louisville Kentucky.   He writes “I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.”  Carlson writes that this message of radical unity is what we need to survive in a world that is splintering apart.

Later, Carlson remembers an awareness that came to him during his visit to St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville Minnesota.   Carlson writes:  The only way out, is to love our way out.  “The challenge of 9/11 is spiritual, not simply political or military.” 
As we enter the twelfth year of the wars that began soon after September 11, 2001, it is obvious that despite the trillions of dollars spent on the wars, the thousands of people who have been injured or killed, the fact remains that we have still not found our way out.   Current events in Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries of the region remind us that we still live in a terror filled world.   Violence and war escalate. We are still lost.

Only the way of love lived by Jesus, the Prince of Peace, will lead us out of the terrors of our day.  This is not a sweet and easy love that comes when we all sing “kumbaya” together.  This is the love that finds its meaning in the cross.  This is the love that comes when one lays down one’s life for the beloved.  Indeed, this is the love that comes when one gives oneself for our enemies.

How do we live in a terror filled world?  How do we live in times of fear, and anxiety?   How do we live in a world that seems to be splintering?

Carlson offers us image of our radical unity.   Those we think of as “they” are ours, and we are “theirs."

Carlson calls us to place our hope not in the power of politics or the military.   Our hope must be spiritual.   Indeed, the spiritual life offers the only true hope for the world.