October 17, 2010

The Back of the Book

A message by Scott Cooper

Delivered October 17, 2010

St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Prineville, Oregon

Faith-- more specifically the source of our faith—is the theme of today’s service.

Listen again to these words from today’s second lesson from Second Timothy:

 “Continue in what you have learned and firmly believed…All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” 

Hear the words of Jesus from today’s gospel:

 “I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. …Always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.”

Powerful words of instruction.  Clear direction to be rooted in God’s word and to use it to minister to others.

I wonder if these were words that were familiar to the Episcopal saints whose commemoration day we celebrated yesterday.

Chances you don’t know much about these fine gentlemen unless you have a particular passion for history or Anglican religious history.  But they are very famous and rightfully so.

Hugh Latimer, bishop of Worcester, Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of Rochester and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury were exemplary in the greatest tradition of Protestantism.

Hugh Latimer served in the Anglican Church in that turbulent time when the Church of England was breaking away from the Church of Rome.  He was renowned primarily for his preaching, which was light on doctrine but heavy on making the gospel relevant to personal life.

Nicholas Ridley helped write the first Anglican prayer book. He had a great sense of humor and a heart for the poor.  He convinced King Henry VIII to convert several of his palaces into housing for women and orphans.

Thomas Cranmer was appointed by the king as archbishop of Canterbury. He is the spiritual father of Anglicanism. He rebuilt the English church from the ashes of Henry’s separation the Holy See, and he authored many of the beautiful collects that are still used in our Prayer Book today.

Life for these gentlemen was intellectually stimulating and materially rewarding under Henry VIII and his son, Edward VI.  But things got a little more dicey when Henry’s daughter Mary, known to posterity as Bloody Mary, came to the throne.  Mary was neither a fan of her father’s religion nor of the men who had helped bring it about it. She preferred the old religion, and she meant for the rest of her kingdom to follow suit.  She ordered the nobles, bishops, clergy and people alike to return to the Catholic faith—or else.

When Queen Mary ordered Bishops Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer to set the example, renounce heresy and return to the Catholic Faith, perhaps they consulted the very same scriptures we read this morning.  Perhaps they, too, pondered the meaning of “Continue in what you have learned and firmly believe” and “Be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable…” and “…Endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.”

They made their choice, and true to her word, the Queen followed through on her threat and promise. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs picks up the tale:

Latimer and Ridley went first, but even as they faced death, they thought of others before self.   As they were taken to the stake in Oxford, Ridley, ever concerned for the less fortunate, gave away his clothing to the poor. As he was being chained to the stake, he begged his executioner to plead with the Queen not to take out her vengeance on the tenants living in his various properties.

Unfortunately, for the two men, the pyre lit beneath them was improperly constructed and even though they had small bags of gunpowder tied around their necks to quicken their trip to heaven, the flames couldn’t quite reach the this small instrument of their delivery. Instead they died slowly, cruelly and agonizingly.  Yet so great was their faith that they never wavered, crying out until the very end: “Lord receive my spirit” and “Father of Heaven receive my soul.”

Cranmer was burned a while later. Not quite as brave as his fellow bishops, he complicated the question of what to do with him by wavering back as whether he might relent and give the Queen a propaganda victory by formally recanting his heresy.   Five times he started a letter doing just that.  Four times he tore it up, but the fifth time, weak and frightened, he sent his letter to the Queen. Her delight was short lived, however.  Shortly thereafter, he sent a letter withdrawing the first letter.

He apparently regretted his momentary lapse of courage. As he was tied to the stake he held up his right hand before the assembled crowd and told them, "I have sinned in that I signed with my hand what I did not believe with my heart.” and adding a final promise, “When the flames are lit, this hand shall be the first to burn." And true to his word when the fire was lit around his feet, he leaned forward and bathed his right hand steadily in the fire and never cried out until he slumped and died.

These are some serious saints.  They should be inspiration to all of us.  They held their faith deeply. They followed the counsel of Timothy and Luke to the letter. They were steadfast, and I have often wondered how you or I could ever hope to live up to their example if faced with a similar choice.

Of course one reason they held their faith so deeply is because they actually knew what they believed. They didn’t just have some vague idea that there is a God and he had a son and his son went waltzing around the world with 12 buddies suggesting people be nice to each other until the bad guys got tired of listening and put him to death—a death from which he was miraculously resurrected.

They had a little better understanding of what they believed and why they believed it.

I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when I was having coffee with a friend who has some influence in the church and our wide-ranging conversation got around to the question of what it is that we Episcopalians actually believe.  The root of the conversation was a concern that I expressed that in our eagerness to be all things to all people and to offend no one, we Episcopalians might be at risk of creating a faith which means nothing to anyone.  My friend rejoined that our church absolutely has some “sideboards” around our beliefs that constrain what we do and do not believe.  So I asked him to name one—just one—undebatable point of doctrine.  You could see the struggle in his face as he tried to come up with something.  Finally he replied, “We believe in an inclusive church”—which it seems to me kind of proves my point. 

So lacking any helpful guidance from my friend, I found myself re-debating this same question as I pondered today’s reading.  What is it we Episcopalians believe?  Where is it we find the sideboards, borders and definitions that differentiate us from the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans or the Roman Catholics?  Do we really have a unique faith or do we just choose to come here on Sundays because we like the people, we like the hospitality, we’ve never gone anywhere else or we would rather be here than somewhere else.

The answer, I decided, is in the back of the book.

Years ago, first in college in a magazine design class and later as editor of a magazine, I learned an odd thing:  When people read a magazine, they almost start at the back and work their way to the front.  Thus, when you design a magazine you always put provocative columns or important ads or other compelling content not on the inside front cover but on the inside back page.

The principle holds true with books, too.  Watch people pick up a book from a paperback rack and read a random page or two.  Think about your own behavior. Nine times out of ten, you’ll flip to the back half of the book and read something before deciding whether to buy.

This principle applies to Prayer Books as well as regular books.  Maybe the authors knew that.  Maybe that’s why in the back of Prayer book you find one of the most important sections of the book.  It starts on page 845.  It’s called “Outline of the Faith”, and strangely enough, other than children preparing for confirmation, few of us spend very little time there.

That’s too bad, because it actually has some good stuff that answers that question, what do we believe?

Let’s take a closer look, starting with the section on the 10 Commandments on page 847.

A reading of the catechism follows

Now I love this section.  It is much more useful to me than reading the commandments from the Decalogue or from the book of Exodus or Deuteronomy.  I mean, after all, I’m not in the idol-making business, my city-dwelling neighbors have no slaves, male or female, donkeys  oxen that I might covet, and neither I nor my ancestors were  brought out of bondage from Egypt. On the other hand, I DO know what it means to “love and obey God to bring others to know him.”   I DO know how to set aside regular times for worship, prayer and study of God’s ways, and I DO “know how to be honest and fair in my dealings” and, despite having held political office, I DO “know how to speak the truth and not to mislead others by my silence.”  The prayer book catechism neatly brings modern day questions of how one should live into a manageable and contemporary perspective.

Let’s try another.  Let’s try “Sin and Redemption” which comes on page 848 right at “The Ten Commandments.

A reading of the catechism follows

 Try thinking about this section in relationship to contemporary problem.  Moral questions, Environmental questions, questions about international or interpersonal relationships and put them in the framework of what you have just read:

~Are you through your actions seeking your own will instead of the will of God?

~Are you through your actions distorting your relationship other people and with creation?

~Are your actions distorting your relationship with God?

If “yes”, then you have identified “sin” in your life.

~Is there something you could be doing to bring harmony and with God, within yourself, with your neighbors and with creation?

If “yes”, then the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is calling to you, and today would be very good time to start to listen to what he is telling you.

That’s how you use the catechism.  That’s how we Episcopalians, who are different from other denominations  in that we do not have an identified and adopted confession, creed or faith statement, against which we can measure the validity of our beliefs , make sense of the world.

One last point, and then I’ll quit:  if you go back to the 1928 Prayer Book or even the 1552 prayer book—the one for which Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer were willing to burn—the catechism looks different.  It is more prescriptive. Instead of an interpretation of the 10 Commandments, it simply recites the scripture.  It was probably useful when it was written, but just as the faith has had to change—and rightfully so--to accommodate women in the pulpit, to embrace a broader view of interpersonal commitment, to relax literalism in scriptural interpretation—the catechism has changed, too.

The modern catechism is pretty much right where it needs to be to answer modern-day problems.  It provides a “livable” set of sideboards that help keep a First Century religion relevant in the Twenty First Century.

In the coming week, I hope you’ll take some time and return to the returns of this great faith we call Anglicanism—the faith for which men like Bishop Latimer, Bishop Ridley and Bishop Cranmer were willing to die.  Peruse the Catechism on your own.  Think about what it means.  Think about how you can apply to your everyday life.

Meanwhile, let’s close out by reading one more section from the catechism:  On the bottom of page 861, you’ll find the section entitled, “The Christian Hope.”  Let’s read it together:

A reading of the catechism follows

God, grant us grace to continue steadfast in the confession of faith and constancy in worship of you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.