Out of the Ordinary

Picture from My Christmas in the Oasis

2011-12-29T07:01:00.000-05:00

A Christmas Message from Bishop Council Nedd II, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church

2011-12-24T12:31:00.001-05:00

These remarks were delived by the Most Rev. Council Nedd II, The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church (Anglican) at the Chapel of the Living Water, in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Dearly Beloved in Christ,

As we celebrate the Nativity of our Savior Jesus Christ, I bring you greetings in the name of our savior.

With the birth of Christ befalls on all of us a grace. This grace that is given to us provides for us a life to be lived in service and love to our God and to fellow man. Jesus gave us two commandments, the love of God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and the love of our neighbor as ourselves.

The grace that God gives us makes it possible that we celebrate Christmas as we come to worship and adore Mary’s child Jesus, born at Bethlehem. This special child born to this family seemingly from the most humble or origins is Emmanuel, God Among Us.

The angels welcomed the birth of Jesus signing: "Glory to God in the highest heaven". Later, the crowds would welcome Jesus to Jerusalem, saying, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

That peace of God grants life. A life experienced in all its breadth, richness, and fullness in harmony with the will of God. The angelic songs are the clarion call that true peace on earth is available to those with the good will to receive it and by doing the will of God, thus giving Him glory.

We have an obligation to not close the doors of our hearts to Jesus looking for a place to be reborn in our lives? We have an obligation to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ. We have no right to be indignant about Joseph and Mary being left in the cold in Bethlehem, when we have no room in our own hearts for Jesus appearing to us in the form of the needy.

We need to reverence each human life, and love our neighbors as ourselves. Having no thought for the lonely or unemployed, ignoring the old, showing contempt for the poor, is ignoring those individuals with whom Christ has most closely identified Himself. Hence, we all need to examine ourselves daily about the doors we close to Jesus.

Western Christianity is a very easy thing. In fact, Western Christianity is so easy that we who live in the West assume that our experiences, understanding and free and open practice of our faith is the norm throughout most of the world – and it’s not!

Nothing could be further from the truth! One need look no further than the evening news at the unrest in Syria and Egypt, two countries with the some of richest and longest ties to Christianity.

I call on us all to meet Jesus the Emmanuel – God among us. In each of our hearts there is an incredible hunger to be in the presence of God. We can find what we are seeking through Jesus the Emmanuel which was given to the world when Jesus Christ was born. When we are lonely, frightened, in trouble or in sorrow – God is with us. God has spoken to us and he continues to speak to us and guide us. The only question is, are we listening, and if so, how closely are we listening?

May this Christmas be a joyous day for you, your family and all those around you.

In Christ,

+Council

Easter III

2011-05-16T10:05:00.000-04:00

By Bishop Council Nedd II

Today’s Gospel as well as those for the next several Sunday’s all come from the same section of St. John. They are portions of the long address that Jesus makes to his disciples at the Last Supper. When we think about the Last Supper, we are most likely to remember how Jesus set up Holy Communion -- taking the bread and the wine of the Passover seder and saying, "This is my body ... this is my blood."

However, St. John tends to do things slightly differently. St. John talks about Holy Communion in connection with one of Jesus' feeding miracles. St. John's tale begins as Jesus is washing the feet of his disciples. Jesus Illustrates for the disciple how they are supposed to serve one another, rather than try to control and dominate one another. This is something that every priest and deacon knows, but too few demonstrate. He continues with a speech several chapters long, and then ends with a prayer he addresses to his Heavenly Father.

Today he is trying to get the disciples ready for the fact that he is about to leave. By now, it should surprise none of us in this church that the disciples are having a hard time figuring out what Jesus means. He has repeatedly told them that he is on his way to Jerusalem to suffer and die and rise again, but they have continually resisted any such notion.

Jesus says, "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." Jesus is talking about two separate events. First, the disciples will not see him for a little while after he dies and is buried, and then they shall see him again on Easter. Secondly, they will not see him when he goes away into heaven at his Ascension, and then, after a rather longer little while, the disciples and we will see him at the Last Day.

The disciples cannot get their heads around this concept. They say to one another, "What are these little whiles? What does he mean about seeing him and then not seeing him and going to the Father? We can't tell what he is talking about at all -- we cannot tell what he is saying."

They may think they have hidden their puzzlement from Jesus, but he knows exactly what they are saying to one another. He says, "So, you are asking each other about little whiles and seeing and not seeing? Let me paint a clearer picture for you of what I mean.”

"Here is how it is going to go. You will be sad, and the rest of the world is going to be happy. However, then your attitude will turn from sorrow to joy." Jesus is following along with what I explained before. When he is executed on the cross, his disciples will be sorry, but his antagonists will be glad. Then the disciples will be happy again when he rises from the dead on Easter.

The second part of this is that, forty days after Easter, they will feel deserted when he goes back into heaven to be with his Father. However, he will turn that sorrow into joy in two ways. First, he will send them a comforter, the Holy Ghost to keep them company. Then he himself will come back to earth after a little while. By the way, this little while has lasted about two thousand years.

Jesus goes on to say, "If that doesn't help clear it up, then think about this. The pains of labor are a horrible thing for a woman going through childbirth, but the joy of the first glimpse of the newborn overwhelms the memory of the pains of labor.”

"When I rise from the dead, when the Holy Ghost arrives, and when I come back to earth, you are going to be so happy that you will forget about whatever sorrow you endured because I was away. Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and let no man steal your joy."

At the beginning of today's epistle, St. Peter addresses the Christians he is writing to as "Strangers and pilgrims." That gets to the heart of the point that Jesus is making. In a literal since, in the time of Jesus and for hundreds of years after his death Christianity was new and Christians were trying to find their way. People all of a sudden found themselves as strangers in their own home towns.

Today Christians again often find themselves as strangers. Christians face physical danger in many parts of the world. For the last couple of weeks Christians in Cairo have been in the streets chanting “with our souls and blood we will sacrifice ourselves for the cross.” It sounds more poetic in Arabic. This isn’t something we hear in the streets of America. While there is a threat to Christianity, we don’t face physical danger, but for some reason we Americans are hesitant to proclaim our faith.

In this world, we Christians are in an interim state. We know our sins have been forgiven, but we know we are not yet perfect. We known that Jesus conquered death for us by rising from the dead, but it hasn't happened to us yet. God has promised us that we are going to heaven in the end, but we are, quite clearly, not in heaven yet.

We are trapped in a state of being perpetually in between -- we are in the midst of an extended "little while." It won't go on forever, but we still don’t know when exactly it will end.

This is not our real home. This is our temporary home. We don't really belong here. We are only strangers. We are not expecting to hang around here forever. We are pilgrims – only passing through on our way to somewhere else. This life is exactly what the Prayer Book says it is, transitory and passing away.

Through baptism and confirmation Jesus gives us his Spirit to keep us going until the last little while has ended. His Spirit is the Holy Ghost, the presence and power of God in our hearts, working on us from the inside to change us into exactly what he wants us to be. Let’s allow his work – all of the work that he does for us to take root in our hearts.

Good Shepherd Sunday

2011-05-13T15:22:00.000-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

Every day when my Uncle Leslie would leave the house, he would tell all of us kids to be kind, courteous, tenderhearted and pitiful. As a kid and even as a teenager, it seemed like a funny thing to say. To this day, he still says it to his grandkids, which now look at him with the same bewildered look.

Really what Uncle Les was saying to us, in this daily admonition, was…to be more like Jesus.

Today, the Second Sunday after Easter, is nicknamed Good Shepherd Sunday. In the epistle, St. Peter says that Jesus' death and resurrection have brought us all back to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. In the gospel, Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd."

Reading the Old Testament, you quickly discover that the economy of ancient Israel was based on raising and herding sheep. Many of the major male characters in the Old Testament were literal shepherds: Abel was a shepherd, Abraham was a shepherd, Isaac was a shepherd, Jacob and his sons were shepherds, later on Moses was a shepherd and King David was a shepherd.

Since shepherding was so much a part of the everyday life of the Hebrew people, it was the next logical extension to use imagery borrowed from shepherding in a poetic fashion to speak about human existence. In the Psalms in particular, a fundamental idea is that people tend to act like sheep, and God always acts as a shepherd does.

The good shepherd protects his sheep, even if it means he becomes food. Some bishops use this Sunday as an opportunity to puff out their chests, as the proud and valiant defenders of their sheep and the Church. However, these lessons, like most lessons in the Bible illustrate the standard to which we should be holding ourselves – but fall short of. When measured against the standard Jesus sets, all Bishops fail miserably, myself included. For me, this is a day to hang my head a bit rather than to puff out my chest. It’s not a day for self aggrandizement, but a day to get small before the Lord.

Pondering the epistle for the day, the Good Shepherd doesn’t merely defend the sheep…he guides the sheep. What do I mean? For answers to that question we need look no further than Psalms 23.

We know that if we have faith in the God of King David, then we know the Lord is our shepherd and we shall truly want for nothing. He provides green pastures on which we can rest and leads us beside quiet waters and restores not only us, but our souls. He always shows us the right way to go. However, if we don’t follow his instructions and we end up in trouble, he is right there with us, and we truly have nothing to fear, because we are protected and defended.

We shall never hunger, even when faced with tribulations or an actual physical attack. And we will get a fresh anointing for every day’s duties. But not just a fresh anointing, but an over abundance of blessings and people will see and realize this and it will cause goodness to take root in the hearts of others around me. And when I die, I will be with God for ever.

On the first Sunday in Lent, I mentioned that fasting, and experiencing hunger brings one closer to God. It is hard to not to experience hunger and not turn to a higher power to get through the tough times. It might be the peacetime equivalent of, “there’s no atheists in foxholes”. Similarly, if you do something good, truly altruistic, and you are punished for it, this also draws you closer to God. As we learn today, it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering -- because he is conscious of God.

Today’s lesson says that if we do bad and are punished, that is nothing particularly remarkable. However, suffering for something you didn’t do, or being punished for an altruistic act, is a whole other matter and these things allow us a glimpse into what our Lord suffered for us, so that we might have eternal life.

However, we also have the example of how to behave when faced with unjust persecution. When they hurled their insults at Jesus, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. Jesus was guilty of no sin and when they came for him, he behaved in a dignified manner.

Clearly Jesus still shepherds his people through his church, too. We call the clergy pastors. When I ordain Deacon Fred a priest, I will admonish him with these words, 'Feed and provide for the Lord's family... seek for Christ's sheep that are dispersed abroad ... how great a treasure is committed to your charge ... they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood."

God promised that he would someday send his people a proper shepherd, who would take care of them and never let them down. Jesus says that he is the one God promised in the Old Testament. "I am not like all the bad shepherds, I am the good shepherd." Jesus is, of course, the good king and the good priest too.

Jesus contrasts himself with a hired man. When a wolf attacks a herd of sheep, a hired shepherd will run away, because the sheep don't belong to him. The good shepherd owns the sheep, so he knows them just as they know him. The good shepherd does not run away and leave his sheep to the wolves, he stays and risks his life to protect the sheep and keep them safe.

When I was consecrated bishop, Archbishop Waterman shook me and told me quite bluntly, "Be to the flock of Christ a shepherd, not a wolf: feed them, devour them not." The EMC came to being because of a plague of bad bishop’s in the Episcopal Church.

But the EMC’s good shepherds remain faithful. If we trust in God’s love for us and try to do what he wants us to do, we will have the courage and the ability to raise-up trustworthy shepherds so the sheep of God can be fed and cared for properly.

Nothing is more important, because he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For we were like lost sheep, but now we have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Bishop Nedd Applauds the Swift Egyptian Government Response

2011-05-08T15:33:00.000-04:00

Statement by Bishop Council Nedd II

"I would like to applaud Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf for taking swift action to ensure that events like those of yesterday are not repeated. While the damage from Saturday cannot be undone, compensation for the families of the deceased and injured is an unexpected and positive step.

Strict new laws banning protests outside of religious houses and the arrest of 190 people, to be tried in military courts sends the right signal.

I know the people in Egypt that I call friends are sincere when they say that the Christian community is an important and welcomed part of Egyptian society and culture. I also believe that this view is held by the majority of Egyptians as I was greeted with نوّرت مصر “nawwart masr” over 100 times per day while in Cairo. I want people in the West who have never visited Egypt to see the Egypt I visited, not the one that has been portrayed in the news as of late."

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The Right Rev. Council Nedd II is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church a continuing Anglican Church. He is serving as the interim rector of the Chapel of the Living Water in Al Ain, UAE.

Bishop Council Nedd II on the attacks at St. Mena Coptic Church, Cairo Egypt

2011-05-07T23:50:00.000-04:00

The Right Rev. Council Nedd II, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church, on the attacks at St. Mena Coptic Church, Cairo, Egypt

"My heart goes out to the families of the dead as well as to those who were injured at the St. Mena Coptic Church. I will pesonally be praying for calm and healing in Egypt and that the Egyptian government will re-establish safety and control to the levels in place prior to Mubarak's ouster.

May the souls of all the faithfully departed in Christ, rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them."

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Low Sunday (Easter I)

2011-05-02T11:33:00.000-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

At the Last Supper Jesus said to his disciples, "in the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

This statement is a perfect expression of the completely realistic attitude toward life that Christianity promotes. Life in this world and in this society is full of difficulty and trouble, we all know this, and there is no way around it. However, in his death and through his resurrection, Jesus has beaten the world. The beautiful thing about Easter is that it illustrates for us that difficult times and trouble don't last forever, and life’s difficulties don't even get the final say on the matter.

Those ideas constitute what we might call, an Easter attitude. This is what St. John talks about in today's Epistle. St. John tells us that by faith and by the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us, we can all share in Jesus' victory over the world. It is a similar idea to what St. Paul said in last week's Epistle, "if ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above."

Living in the power of Easter and basking in its glory begins by accepting, not only the teaching, but, the fact that Jesus Christ, who was dead on a Friday, was alive again in his body on Sunday. The story begins there but it does not end there. The next step in this process comes in applying that teaching to ourselves.

Because we have been joined to Jesus' body in the sacrament of baptism, we have God's most blessed assurance that what happened to Jesus is precisely what will happen to us. Jesus was born, we are born. Jesus lived, we live. Jesus died, and if he doesn't come back first, we shall die.

Jesus rose from his tomb in a transformed body, we shall rise from our graves in transformed bodies. Jesus went to heaven to be with his Father forever, we shall go to heaven to be with both of them forever.

What does this mean? This means that in the long run, everything is going to turn out wonderfully. God guarantees us no glories in the short term. He tells us that we have seasons and that we will face tribulations. We have the guarantee of God’s love and his presence, but no guarantee about how things will turn out while we are here on earth.

However, we have a guarantee about our long term prospects. We can look forward to resurrection in our bodies – made perfect, and life forever in heaven where, "God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes."

The trick for us Christians is to somehow live our lives with the two realities in front of us. Jesus on the cross and Jesus off the cross. Jesus on the cross reminds us that this world brings tribulation. Jesus hung on the cross both to forgive all of our own co-operations with tribulation, and to break the hold tribulation itself. The empty cross tells us that the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross and the despair of the world ended on Easter morning when God conquered death through the body of Jesus.

The Easter attitude which I mentioned earlier is, "trouble for awhile, rest for awhile, life in heaven forever." The church is the way God recharges his Spirit in us so we can have that Easter attitude more and more and in increasing abundance. Good cheer in the face of the tribulations of this world will bring good cheer, because Jesus has overcome the world for us.

However, the Easter attitude is more than merely a mental thing. It’s not merely a way to reprogram your mind. The Easter attitude involves a series of commitments. It involves a commitment to action coupled with a commitment to belief.

It took a little time, and a bit of convincing, but after Jesus had the disciples pretty well convinced that he was really alive again in his body, Jesus needed to figure out a way in which the experience of the resurrection could be passed on into the future. The original disciples could tell people they had seen Jesus dead on Friday, and alive again on Sunday. But forty days later Jesus was going to go back to heaven, so the evidence that convinced them would no longer be available for inspection by others.

On Easter night Jesus did two things to ensure that the experience of the resurrection will carry on into the future. Because, as we know it has been passed along for two thousand years since it happened. The first thing Jesus did was to set aside a group of people whose main job is to proclaim the resurrection and keep it alive in their preaching and teaching.

The witnesses of the resurrection are the church's apostles, or, the ones sent out. On Easter night Jesus breathed the breath of God which is the Holy Ghost onto the original eleven – thus making them the church's first bishops. They went out and made other bishops who made other bishops in an unbroken line of apostolic succession which stretches from the original eleven down to me and my fellow bishops.

Bishops have a number of responsibilities. One of them is to confirm people, (as I am here to do). However, my main obligation is to tell you that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. I also have to tell you that if you are in him, you will rise from the dead too. A church which tolerates bishops who deny the resurrection is not Christian by definition.

The other main way we experience Christ's resurrection is through forgiveness. Jesus died to reconcile us to God by forgiving our sins. He rose from the dead to become our mediator and advocate. Jesus is the one who pleads our case before God…and the only case we have (you and I have) is – "Jesus died to forgive me."

As Jesus sent out the apostle bishops to proclaim his resurrection, Jesus also gave these bishops the power to forgive sins, saying, "Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained." Your weekly experience of the resurrection comes when you confess your sins and receive absolution. You leave the world of sin and death behind and enter the new world of forgiveness and life everlasting.

Let’s be clear, the power to forgive sins is not some sort of dark, medieval, Roman Catholic addition to some original simple faith. It is a power Jesus gave all the apostles on Easter night and which they passed on through their own hands. In our Prayer Book's service for the ordination of a priest and I quote this passage from St. John as I share with every new priest my own apostolic power to forgive.

We live the resurrection by being members of the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church. As St. Paul puts it, "In that Christ died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Forgiveness is the path by which the once and for all accomplishments of Good Friday and Easter extend into time…until his coming again. We cannot see Jesus alive as the first century witnesses did. However, we come closest to the direct impact of the resurrection through Jesus forgiving our sins.

Jesus also expresses the Easter attitude in a rather more forbidding way. If the worst thing something or somebody can do to us is kill us – take our lives, we are silly to waste our time being scared. It is better to focus upon a healthy respect for God, whose power to punish extends far beyond the grave.

Jesus speaks, "I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more than they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell. Yea I say unto you, fear him."

That is just a more somber, though no less effective, way of saying, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer…I have overcome the world.

deliverd on Low Sunday at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Hillsdale Michigan.

Easter Sunday Sermon

2011-04-25T09:06:00.000-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

There really is no end to the trepidation I feel about preparing a sermon for Easter Sunday morning. You want it to be a great sermon…in fact the funniest, wittiest, most insightful and inspiring sermon of the year – and people expect that too. When really the message and point is simple and clear.

Jesus Christ who was dead on Friday is alive in a body on Sunday. Christ is risen from the dead. If you are baptized into his body, and if you believe that he died on Friday to forgive your sins, then you will rise from the dead as well. We no longer need to fear death. Jesus has solved the problem of death by rising from his tomb.

That’s it.

However, please allow me to belabor the point by talking about Job.

God puts the most basic of all human questions on the lips of the Old Testament character Job. Job agrees with the Prayer Book that this life is transitory. Job is meditating on the impermanence of human existence, in words we use for the same purpose at a Prayer Book funeral. Job says, "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down, he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not."

Job finds more to be hopeful about in the cyclical processes of nature than he does in what looks like the doom of mankind, saying, "There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease ... but man dies and wastes away: man gives up the ghost, and where is he?"

Then Job finally gets around to asking the ultimate question, if a man dies, will he live again? The answer to Job’s question comes in the Easter proclamation and the answer is, yes – most definitely.

Jesus Christ who was dead and buried on Friday was alive again on Sunday and risen out of his tomb in a transformed body.

The disciples were shocked by the post-resurrection physicality of Jesus, so he ate a piece of broiled fish and then some candy to show that he wasn't just some sort of ghost or hallucination.

And then Jesus asked the disciples, why are you so troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Jesus said, look at my hands and feet, it really is me. Don’t be afraid, touch me – know that I am real, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you clearly see that I have.

Because we have been joined to Jesus' body in the sacrament of baptism, we have God's most blessed assurance that what happened to Jesus is precisely what will happen to us. Jesus was born, we are born. Jesus lived, we live. Jesus died, and if he doesn't come back first, we shall die.

Jesus rose from his tomb in a transformed body, we shall rise from our graves in transformed bodies. Jesus went to heaven to be with his Father forever, we shall go to heaven to be with both of them forever. As St. Paul tells us this morning, "When Christ, who is our life appears, then you shall also appear with him in glory."

Job asks, "if a man die, shall he live again?" The Spirit of God replies, "In Adam all die; however in Christ all shall be made alive."

Now let me end with the words of St. John Chrysostom that he used to close his most famous Easter sermon:

May the Lord fill us with joy as we remember these truths and may the Lord help us live in the victory of His conquest over sin and hell. In Christ’s resurrection we are freed from the slavery to sin and liberated to truly live in His abundant life, to become who He created us to be. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Easter Message

2011-04-21T08:42:00.002-04:00

Long ago, the Lord placed in my heart a call to defend Christianity against the onslaught of the extreme left which has been attempting to remove God from the fabric of American society. In just a matter of days in the life of our savior, the call went from “Hosanna in the highest” to “Crucify him”. Sadly, two thousand years later, in many sectors of American society, among those who think they are more enlightened than the rest of society, the call is now, “there is no God.”

Unaccustomed as I am to living in a place that still routinely gets snow in April, it was difficult for me to get into the spirit of Easter. I was feeling like I was living in the land of endless Lent. However, as usual, God granted me another grace to help me better frame my mind for the approaching celebration of Jesus’ resurrection.

I have recently returned from the United Arab Emirates where I was the guest of a Christian hospital that is not afraid to proclaim the Gospel of our risen Lord in the place, and to the people, where St. Paul first went after his conversion. They graced me with the invitation to preach for Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday. The blessings I received, though, occurred away from the altar and pulpit.

• I met a hospital staff that primarily serves a Muslim population in a hospital where you can find Arabic language versions of the Bible throughout. Each month the hospital “loses” about 32 copies of the Bible, as patients and visitors discretely slip them in their bags.

• I met an American, fluent in Arabic, who had been involved in a dialogue for months with an individual who wanted to know more about Christ. They would meet for their discussion far away from town.

• I had dinner alone one night in a local restaurant. That night they were having a half-price dinner for teachers. There was a table with a couple hundred books for the teachers at greatly reduced prices. Interspersed among those books were Christian-themed book that were available at no charge.

• When it was announced at this dinner that there would be a special Easter Sunday brunch for the teachers and that their children are invited for free, a discussion began at the next table. One of the two Muslim women sitting with an American began asking questions about Easter, its importance and significance.

• I was fortunate enough to meet the Crown Prince HH Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and spend the afternoon as an honored guest at his majlis (royal court). While there, I was involved in a conversation with the HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the hospital CEO. I was astounded to learn that 26 different churches are meeting on the hospital campus, and Sheikh Mansour responded that this is a good thing.

If the Christians I met are not afraid to proclaim Christianity on the Arabian Peninsula, why are Christians afraid to proclaim Christ in the West?

Jesus not only humbled himself to become a human being, but he also became a servant. Not only did he become a human servant, he did everything his Father asked him to do from becoming man and dwelling among us through to the ugly, ignominious, dirty, spiteful death St. Matthew describes.

We need to begin anew proclaiming the crucified and risen Lord. If you have never talked with one person about your faith, pledge now to try it once. If you have not done it in a while, try it again. We don’t have to be “obnoxious” for the Lord, merely faithful – which includes proclaiming that He is Risen.

One of the UAE Princes attended a service at the non-denominational church in the region. The one comment he came away with was, “why do you Christians approach God in such a casual manner?” We traditional Anglicans can never be accused of such a crime. However, we just need to trust that the Holy Spirit will give us the grace to have the right words at the right time.

If you think it is beneath you to proclaim the risen Lord, St. Paul says, "Take a look at the crucifix, and remind yourself that that is God himself hanging up there -- and he is hanging up there for you."

Jesus, by what he has done for us, has done what the prophet Isaiah had predicted. Jesus has poured water on a thirsty land. And we are that “thirsty land.”

If we believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died for our sins and that he is going to come again, we will be afforded the opportunity to be with Jesus in Heaven. However, if we believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that he died for our sins and is going to come again, we will read, learn and inwardly digest what he teaches us and we will work that much harder to do what is pleasing in his sight.

Jesus was obedient unto death. Shouldn’t we be a little bit more obedient in proclaiming His resurrection?

The Right Rev. Council Nedd II
Presiding Bishop
The Episcopal Missionary Church

Palm Sunday

2011-04-20T14:09:00.000-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

Palm Sunday in the UAE (celebrated on Thursday April 14, 2011)

Lord, my desire tonight at this Palm Sunday service is that you would give us a heart for worship. Lord, I am not high minded, I have no proud looks. I do not exercise myself in great matters which are too high for me. But I refrain my soul and keep it low, like a child that is weaned from its mother. Lord, I live only to see your face, so shine upon me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen

I believe there is some divine providence in the fact that I am here in the UAE, during this particular time in the history of this region, celebrating Palm Sunday.

Those who know something about me know I have always been fascinated by, and had an interest in politics, the types of governments, how they come to power, but also, how they act once in power. The word politics comes from two Greek words, poly meaning many, and ticks meaning blood-suckers. There is no more apt description for what is about to unfold in the story of Yeshua or rather Jesus the Christ on Palm Sunday and the Easter Sunday.

The ability to canvass public opinion quickly and in great detail is something that is integral to the work and livelihood of politicians. Where many of us may look at a situation and think, who cares or I have nothing to do with that situation. Many of us are under the false impression that leadership which is driven by public opinion is a very recent phenomenon – we learn today that it is not.

Most of the drama of Palm Sunday and Holy Week is tied up with the first-century equivalent of governing by poll numbers. What happened to Jesus on the last Sunday of his earthly life, and what happened to him over the next few days, and finally what happened to him on the day he died were all driven by what various people thought the crowds were thinking, or rather, by public opinion. The mood of the crowd, or more accurately, the perceived mood of the crowd, determined the actions of the Jewish leadership, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and yes, even Jesus himself.

Allow me to set this scene. It’s Passover time in Jerusalem and people have come on pilgrimages from all over the known world to celebrate Passover in the holy city. With all the crowds, the streets are filled with excitement and with people looking for amusement – and Jesus shamelessly plays to that crowd on this, the first Palm Sunday.

The crowd by now has, no doubt, heard that Jesus might be the savior-king the Old Testament prophets spoke of. Jesus intentionally manipulates the crowd's emotions by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. He fulfills Zechariah’s prophesy of centuries earlier. Zechariah said when the true king of Jerusalem finally comes into his capital city he will ride a donkey. The donkey ride has the exact effect Jesus was hoping for, because the crowd cheers him as their king.

So one might ask, who cares if Jesus calls himself king? There are other Jewish leaders, he would just be a different one. Lost to most modern languages, and in particular to English, are many time honored definitions and explanations of functions. For example, the generic function of a priest is to offer a sacrifice. A priest is not just a minister or pastor, each of which have their own definitions. A priest offers a sacrifice. In the case of priests in the Christian church, we offer bread, wine, alms and oblations (which are money and prayers).

The generic definition or function of a king is that he leads his people into battle. Which is why most royals have multiple titles, and the titles relate to the multiple and varied functions they might have.

The Jewish leaders hated Jesus and wanted to kill him to shut him up. Jesus coming in as king, coupled with his popularity with the people, threatened the cozy relationship the Jewish leaders had with the Roman occupying forces. If, God forbid, Jesus really were the Messiah, he would stir the crowd up further, lead an army against Rome, and generally cause enough upset that the Jewish leaders would be of no further use to the Romans and they would lose their jobs.

Up until Friday, the Jewish leaders' reading of the crowd was that the masses are on Jesus' side completely. The only way they are going to get away with arresting him is if they do it away from the crowd. The Jewish leaders reading of the crowd led to the now infamous payoff to Judas of thirty pieces of silver. Judas knew where they could arrest Jesus quietly. Then the leaders could arrange the clandestine arrest Maundy Thursday night and the secretive trial on Good Friday morning.

In fact the crowd's opinion about Jesus was changing as the week wore on. Jesus' poll numbers, as it were, were in a free fall.
• The crowd expected armed rebellion, but Jesus gave them extra Bible study.
• The crowd demanded brutal combat, but Jesus gave them intellectual debate.

So by Friday morning the crowd was very susceptible to further manipulations from the Jewish leaders and they finally turned completely against Jesus. They asked Pilate to release a small-time rebel named Barabbas rather than Jesus. When just a few days before Jesus’ ratings had been so high.

When they were asked what they wanted done with the man who said he was their king, the crowd yelled, Kill him, get rid of him, crucify him. They then laughed at the man they were ready to follow and they mocked him and made fun of him as he took-up three hours of their valuable time before he died.

So what happened? What changed?

All the Governor Pontius Pilate was hoping to do was get back to his Mediterranean villa in Caesarea as quickly as possible with a minimum of upset. Pilate had no investment whatsoever in the religious squabbles that seemed so important to the Jews, and he dismissed their leaders' case against crowd-pleasing Jesus.

When Pilate realized that the crowd was, in fact, not with Jesus and that he would make a calm outcome far more likely by letting Jesus be executed, he said, "You go ahead and do it yourselves -- don't blame me."

Of course, Pilate did not have to go home with the crowd or with Jesus. Pontius Pilate had to go home with Mrs. Pilate, and his wife had talked to him about Jesus, saying, "Have thou nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." With that Pilate now famously, and literally, washed his hands of the matter.

In this depressingly human story, the crowd represents us. We are not allowed to say if only I had been there, I wouldn't have betrayed Jesus or I would have understood what that sweet man was really all about. But the fact is none of us would have understood any such thing. We are all just part of the large unthinking crowd of humanity which, on most issues, and pathetically, even on the most important issues, just gets blown around by what we have most recently read and what we see on television and whom we want to impress.

When God allows something to happen that we don't much like, or when his actions puzzle us, or when God doesn't seem to be able to see how much better things would be if he just listened that wonderful Bishop Council more, then we turn against him just as the crowd did in between Sunday's "Hosanna," and Friday's, "Let him be crucified."

We are no better than that crowd. And that is exactly why Jesus "humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Jesus died for the sins of the fickle crowd that turned on him. He died for us so that we can have eternal life and because of that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Now please allow me to shift gears just a bit.

The gospels give us the high points. However, they give us very little of what I call direct interpretation. Direct interpretation would be, here is what happened, now here is what it means. We get very little of that from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, though somewhat more of it from St. John.

So we need answers to two crucial questions. What does all this mean and, what does all this have to do with me? To get the answers, we have to turn to the letters of St. Paul. To say that is not to speak ill of the gospels. The letters of St. Paul without the gospels would not be enough either. The gospels and the epistles work together -- a tribute to the genius of God the Holy Ghost who moved the church to write and to choose the books of the New Testament.

In several short verses in today's epistle to the Philippians, St. Paul explains:
• What Jesus' birth means;
• He explains what Jesus' life was all about;
• He interprets today's gospel, which is St. Matthew's account of Jesus' final suffering and death; and
• He explains Jesus' subsequent resurrection and ascension.

And if that weren't enough, he also tells us how his explanation should affect our own daily behavior.

St. Paul is trying to get the members of his church in Philippi to try to get along with one another and take care of one another. Everyone in that church thinks they are better than everyone else. St. Paul tells them, just before today's passage begins, "Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

That is an incredibly difficult teaching to follow. Humans are not terribly humble or much inclined to self-sacrifice. That innately selfish sinfulness is exacerbated by the acquisitive and competitive nature of our society. We resist humility and we don't like to put others ahead of ourselves.

St. Paul says, so you don't want to be humble or unselfish, then how about taking a look at Jesus? Jesus was God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, in existence from before time began.

Jesus has been the active agent in the whole creation from "Let there be light" until now. That position and that accomplishment compares favorably even with the greatness and wonderfulness that make us think we are better than everyone else is.

But Jesus did not think that his position was something he had to hang onto. When his Father asked him to do it, he poured out of himself all of his godly position and all of his divine power, and he became a human being and dwelt among us. Not that there is anything wrong with being human…but it is a bit of a step down from the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus not only humbled himself to become a human being, but he also became a servant -- not an emperor, not a president, not a religious leader, not a prominent figure in the community, not even terribly middle class -- but a servant.

And not only did he become a human servant, he did everything his Father asked him to do. And that turned out not only to include the humiliation and suffering St. Matthew told us about this tonight, but also the ugly, ignominious, dirty, spiteful death he also described.

So you think you are too good to try to put other people's needs ahead of your own selfish concerns? -- you're above reaching out and helping? St. Paul says, "Take a look at the crucifix, and remind yourself that that is God himself hanging up there -- and he is hanging up there for you." So "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."

Yeshua, by what he has done for us, has done like the prophet Isaiah has had predicted. He has poured water on a thirsty land. This church here is living those words and is the fruit of that tree.

If we believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died for our sins and that he is going to come again, we will be afforded the opportunity to be with Jesus in Heaven. However, if we believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that he died for our sins and is going to come again, we will read, learn and inwardly digest what he teaches us and we will work that much harder to do what is pleasing in his sight.

Jesus was obedient unto death. Shouldn’t we try a little bit better to listens to the words that he plants in our hearts?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Passion Sunday

2011-04-10T09:48:00.002-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

As the deer pants for the waterbrook, so pants my soul after you God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Several Sunday’s ago, on the third Sunday in Lent, I made a startling admission to my parish in Pennsylvania. It was an admission, that an Anglican and certainly a bishop, should be ashamed to admit. I admitted that I had only ever read one CS Lewis book, The Screwtape Letters. I talked about The Screwtape Letters in the context of the lessons for that day regarding the devil.

When I was in seminary, my now deceased former mentor and bishop gave me a copy of Mere Christianity. So last week I dusted it off, took it out and devoured it. Having recently read it, I cannot say that I do not know of a clearer or more direct presentation of the essentials of Christian belief. You don't need to be a priest to understand it. In fact not being a priest probably helps.

I am telling you this now because C.S. Lewis lays out the same issue that this morning's Gospel presents. Lewis’ argument goes essentially like this: based on what Jesus says about himself in the New Testament, we are left with only three choices: either he is the devil, the father of all lies; he is crazy on the level of Mr. Fruit from the Pat Conroy novel; or Jesus or rather Yeshua is exactly whom he claims to be.

If Jesus is a liar or a madman, then Jesus and the church he founded represent the most successful and pervasive con game ever perpetrated on mankind. However, if Jesus is who and what he says he is, then everything about him is of infinite and eternal importance and we should all listen intently, learn and inwardly digest what he would have us to believe.

In today's Gospel Jesus proclaims that he is God. This morning he doesn’t allude to it in some clever fashion, make riddles, or show his hands for inspection. This morning he proclaims it in a bold and direct fashion for the authorities to believe or disbelieve.

Some New Testament scholars deny that Jesus ever said any such thing. They argue that what we hear in St. John's gospel is part of a deceptive process by which a peace-loving, gentle, wandering, first-century rabbi was made into a deity by his superstitious and paranoid apostles.

However, the Jesus of the New Testament is the Jesus whom the church worships. We don't have available to us some different, more rational or less supernatural Jesus. We are denied a safe middle-ground position. We have to choose. Jesus is either a liar, madman, or God. Those are the only three choices we have.

The action in today's Gospel lesson is the end of a particularly heated and vitriolic exchange between Jesus and some of his Jewish opponents. The gentle accommodating Jesus that many people hope to find in the New Testament is notably absent from this story.

Jesus is argumentative and confrontational, and he baits his opponents into ever-increasing levels of antagonism and anger. They call him a devil and they cast doubts upon the legitimacy of his birth. He tells these people, the scribes and priests, who have made religion their profession, that they haven’t a clue as to who God really is, and that every time they open their mouths about God and the nature of God, they are only trapping themselves in a stickier web of lies.

In turn, they ask Jesus, "You say if people pay attention to you, they will never die. Who do you think you are? All of the greatest heroes of our religion are dead -- the prophets and Abraham -- do you really think you are greater than they were?" However, also implied is, Jesus, you’re just a backwoods hick from Nazareth, why would anyone of any importance ever pay attention to you?

Knowing full well that Abraham lived about two thousand years before the first century, Jesus replies, provocatively, "Abraham was the happiest man in the world the day he met me." As you can imagine, the crowd was aghast.

Now according to our best estimates, Abraham lived sometime between 2000 and 1800 B.C. Jesus lived in the first century A.D. That makes him about as far removed in time from Abraham in one direction as he is from us in the other. So it is no wonder that after Jesus said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." The crowd takes the bait and says, "You aren't even fifty -- how can you dare to say you met Abraham?"

Jesus ends the discussion phase of this encounter by saying, "I am telling you the truth-before Abraham was, I am." With this statement by Jesus, the let’s kill him phase of things, really heats up.

You see, Abraham had come into the conversation because of another of Jesus' outrageous statements. His enemies had been insulting him, saying, "You're a dirty old Samaritan, you have a devil," and he snapped back at them with, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death -- whoever obeys my teaching will never die."

His enemies responded, "Now we know you have a devil -- we're sure you're crazy. Everybody knows that the greatest heroes of our religion -- including Abraham and the prophets -- are all dead. Are you saying you are greater than they are? Who do you think you are, anyway?"
Jesus had already had a discussion with his fellow Jews about the dead people in Israel's past history. Last Sunday’s lessons, after he fed a crowd of five thousand with a small amount of bread and fish, they came back the next day and asked him to perform another parlor trick for them – suggesting that the feeding had just not been quite enough.

They reminded Jesus that they had seen food tricks before, God had given their forefathers manna from heaven. Manna is miraculous food with which God fed the Israelites during their wanderings. Jesus said, "Yes, they ate the manna, but they all died later on anyway. The real food from heaven is my flesh and blood – if you eat that, you will never die."

The clinching line of today's argument is what Jesus says in response to the charge that he is too young to have known Abraham. He tells the crowd, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am." "I am" is the personal name of God the Father. When Moses met God at the burning bush of Midian, God told him to go back down to Egypt and lead his people out of their slavery. To which, Moses asked, "When I go to them, to whom shall I say I was talking?" God said, "I am that I am. Tell them 'I am' sent you."

So Jesus is not only being so bold as to utter God’s name, which was taboo, but he compounds the infraction, by also applying God’s name to himself. He says, when you want to know how I can make all these outlandish claims, and say I knew Abraham, and I can give you my flesh to eat, and if you obey me you'll never die? I can say all those things because I am God, that's why."

Later on the crowd picks up stones again and threatens to beat in Jesus' head with them agian. He asks, rather condescendingly, "I've done quite a few good works here. Tell me, for which of them do you want to stone me?" The crowd replies, "We don't want to stone you because of your good works. We want to stone you for your blasphemy, because you are only a man, and you are trying to make yourself into God.

The proper punishment for blasphemy under Hebrew law was stoning -- blasphemy was a capital crime. There is no doubt at all that Jesus was formally guilty of that crime. He uttered God's name -- I am, Yahweh; he applied the name to himself; and he said that he and the Father were one.

The passion of Jesus, specifically, his suffering and death, was not a mistake. On Good Friday, the Jews in the crowd who hate Jesus will tell Pontius Pilate, "We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." The crowd may have thought Yeshua was both a liar and a madman, but they had absolutely no doubt about what he was claiming, and they weren’t going to pass his claims off without responding to them.

The claims that Jesus made before the crowds in Jerusalem in the first century are the same claims Jesus makes before us today. "Before Abraham was, I am." "if a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death." And so he asks us exactly what he asked his disciples, "What do you think about me?" "Whom say ye that I am?"

Our answer should be, you are Yeshua Adonai , Jesus the Christ.

Having said all that, let us think a bit more about God's name. I am – I am that I am. Another transliteration is “I shall have been what I shall have been”. These are all possible ways of translating the Hebrew word "Yahweh," often mistakenly rendered as "Jehovah."

The most significant thing about God is that he is. He was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. In the sacraments of the church and in the teaching of the New Testament, God offers to share his being, or for lack of a better English word, his “is-ness” or his everlasting life with each and every one of us. And he shares this with us, not only collectively, but individually.

When we are baptized we become part of Jesus. We share his eternal life. We share his endless being from that point forward. We are in eternal life now. It doesn't wait until we die for it to begin. We renew the eternal life of Yeshua in us when we receive Holy Communion. When you receive communion listen to the words that are commanded by the celebrant, or rather should be commanded.

“The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which is shed for you. Preserve, thy body and soul into everlasting life. Take and eat this is remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.” If I see you on Thursday evening, pay attention to what I say when I give you the Body and Blood. We are living forever already, because we are united to the eternal existence of God himself and those words are a reminder of that.

Shortening it from the command to just the mere statements, “the Body of Christ” or “the cup of Salvation” or whatever happens to be in vogue is a disservice. I liken that abbreviation to what they said in the musical 1776, it’s a lot like calling an ox a bull, he is thankful for the distinction, but much rather be restored what is rightfully his. There is a fullness of God, which is missing from other words of institution, which we humans need constant reminding of.

Of course, that doesn't mean we won't die physically. Unless Jesus comes back first, we surely will. But our eternal life in God persists even through physical death. Jesus says, "I am." And Jesus makes it possible for each and every one of us in this room to say, "I am too."

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

London Waiting

2011-04-09T03:44:00.002-04:00

London – Waiting for the delayed flight to Dubai.

As I mentioned in the Tweet, the only reason I have to time to write this now is because of a delayed flight to Dubai, and the kindness of a London taxi driver who took pity on a foreign clergyman.

My flight landed late in London, because in part because of a late start leaving Newark. We landed in London. I didn’t realize that the flight to Dubai, was in a completely different terminal.

So, I landed late. They said, you’re going to miss your flight, because you need to take the train to the other terminal, or a taxi. However, I didn’t have any British currency. The recommended that I take a cab, as that would be quicker. All the taxis refused to take me to the other terminal because they didn’t want to lose their spot in the queue, didn’t want to take a credit card, or didn’t want American cash. One driver, persuaded is his fare to let me ride along.

This ride was at least a 20 minute high speed cab ride (and he didn’t charge me, but I did give him a nice tip). I made it to the terminal. But they had closed the gate. However, some very kind people persuaded whomever to let me through security.

Luckily the flight was delayed. So now here I sit waiting for my flight to Dubai.

Feast of the Annunciation

2011-03-25T10:58:00.000-04:00

Feast of the Annunciation

2011-03-25T10:57:00.000-04:00

The First Sunday in Lent

2011-03-16T14:58:00.000-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

Today's collect refers directly to what St. Matthew is describing in today's gospel. The collect says that Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights "for our sake." He did it for our benefit--to do us some good. He fasted first of all to teach us a few things.

In 1990, on the first Friday in Lent, I was interning at the National Museum of Heath and Medicine. For some reason, all the photocopiers in the building were broken except for one. I was standing in line waiting my turn with about 30 other people. Right behind me in line was female Navy Seamen holding a cup of water and waiting her turn. (This was before the invention of individual plastic bottles which everyone now carries). Despite the fact that she was about 6 inches taller than I, I thought she was cute with a cool accent, so I struck up a conversation. As it turns out the sailor was Greek Orthodox and she was planning to consume only water for the forty days of Lent and breaking her fast only on Sundays.

We believe that the Christian church is the continuation of Judaism. That claim is clearest in our teaching that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. Jesus is the Savior of Israel that God promised in the Old Testament. And, the fasting and temptation in the wilderness is one way St. Matthew presents Jesus as the man who relives the whole of Israel’s history in his life of thirty-some years.

Before Jesus’ fasting, John the Baptist baptizes him in the Jordan River. That event corresponds to the Exodus and when God led Israel out of her captivity in Egypt through the Red Sea. Afterwards, Israel spent forty years in the wilderness being tested by God, so Jesus spends a corresponding forty days in the wilderness being tested. All of these things help us to understand that that Jesus is the one who was supposed to come.

Another central point of church teaching is that Jesus is not only God, but also a human being, real flesh and blood, not unlike anyone of us here in this building today. It would be difficult for us to believe that Jesus is truly human if we could not see that he experienced life in way very similar to how we experience life.

Today's gospel focuses on a familiar aspect of the human existence. Today we focus upon what we might call testing. When Moses explained to the people of Israel why it took them forty years to walk from Egypt to the Promised Land, he said it was because God was testing them. God sent Israel hardships so he could find out how they would respond, and whether or not they would be faithful to his commandments.

The biggest problem with the people of Israel in the Old Testament was that they did not trust God. They did not trust God even after all of the great things he had done for them. He led them out of slavery in Egypt, and they repaid him by spending the next forty years complaining about their food and their living accommodations.

They had manna from Heaven but always complained of hunger. They were left alone for a while, and they created a golden calf and claimed it as their new God.

God led them across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land, and they showed their gratitude by taking up the pagan religion of the people they were supposed to conquer.

Our life isn’t all bliss, but rather it is coupled with a series of tests and hardships. God wants to see what we are made of. He wants to watch how we will react. He wants to see whether we will try to figure out what he wants us to do, or whether we will go off on our own and try to handle things and reject the help that he is offering.

God tested the Jews and God tests us. The Epistle to the Hebrews says of Jesus, that he "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." So if that is the test of humanity, then Jesus was clearly human.

The difference between Jesus on the one hand, and the Jews and us on the other hand, is that Jesus passed the tests and resisted the temptations that were placed in front of him. Jesus is the only one who knows how strong testing and temptation truly are, because he is the only one who resisted them completely.

Right now, God is the only one who knows how long I can keep up my Lenten fast of not letting any food pass my lips before sunset. And God is the only one who truly knows and understands my love of, and longing for, bacon and other pork products, which I have given up until Easter

Reading again from Hebrews, "Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of his people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted; he is able to succour them that are tempted."

The three specific temptations and trials Jesus goes through in the wilderness all come from the devil. When the devil gets after us, we can resist him with Jesus' help. However, if we forget Jesus, we stand no chance resisting the devil. The devil knows this, and his strategy is to get our attention off of Jesus. It is the only way the devil can win.

With Jesus the devil tries
• First to get his attention off of God and onto how hungry he is.
• Then he tries to get Jesus into an absurd situation to test whether or not the words of scripture are literally true.
• Finally he offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world.

All three are temptations not to trust God.

While Jesus' temptations are somewhat more dramatic than the ones we come up against on a regular basis, his three temptations boil down to three tests we all know about:

• First, not to trust that God will take care of our material needs;
• Second, not to trust in God's general good will toward us; and,
• Third, not to trust that it is better to obey God than to have the power and the pleasure the world offers if we disobey.

Because Jesus went through what we go through he understands us and comfort us and get us through all the trials and temptations life brings us. But we cannot do it without his help.

So we dare not forget these words of St. Peter: "God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him: because he cares for you."

Sexagesima

2011-03-02T19:29:00.000-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

One of the most reassuring things we can learn from the New Testament is that there was never a golden age in the life of the church. Fortunately, St. Alban’s and every parish with which I have been directly involved has been relatively free from strife and turmoil. However, as a bishop I have had to deal with several contentious situations and with difficulties within other congregations.

The same problems that plague congregations today plagued congregations in the first century. The New Testament describes bickering, power plays, arguments about preaching and prophesy and people fought about how the service is conducted. In the New Testament you can find attacks on clergymen, stinginess with financial support, petty jealousy, cliquishness and people wanted to be called Christians without letting moral standards interfere with their lives.

I was recently talking with a friend who is reading the letters St. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. Corinth is a port city in Greece. The Book of Acts tells us how St. Paul established the Christian church in Corinth. The Bible contains two letters that he later wrote to the church in Corinth.

My friend remarked that she thought the Corinthian letters seem different from most of the rest of St. Paul's writings in that they seem wrought with hostility and emotional turmoil – and she would be right.

St. Paul's relationship to the church at Corinth was very contentious. The people in Corinth did not want to behave themselves and St Paul was always telling them to get their act together and they resented being told what to do.

Some might consider the Corinthian church a place of great extremes.

• One man was carrying on openly with his father's wife,
• people were coming to communion drunk,
• parish suppers dissolved into competitions over who had brought the best food, and
• members of the parish were hauling one another into court.

And yes, I have actually seen all of these things happen in churches. However, I would argue that the church in Corinth was extreme, but rather archtypical. We have their situation as an example of what not to do…but then resolve into that sort of behavior anyway.

However, there were some weightier issues going on there as well like their general disbelief in the bodily resurrection of Christ, their chaotic worship services, and their open contempt they are showing towards St. Paul. Open contempt for your bishop is a really bad thing.

Today, St. Paul comes as close as he ever comes to completely losing it. He has sent the Corinthians one letter already to try to sort out things, but that was to no avail. So he pulls out the big guns – and he threatens to come and see them again, and he suggests that it would be better for them if his next visit were in a friendly and peaceful spirit. Some leaders of the church continue to make personal attacks on him, and this morning he replies.

St. Paul loves the people in Corinth. He loves all the people in all of his churches and what he cannot understand is how they can follow people who are hostile to him and hostile to his teachings. He describes the church as a bride he has betrothed and presented to her husband. St. Paul’s feeling for them is as tender as what a father feels when his daughter gets married. Unless you’re from Cambria County and your daughter is marrying an Anglican – Anglican being a euphemism.

After a sarcastic laden opening, St. Paul compares his credentials to those of the rival church leaders whom he calls false apostles and ministers of Satan. He says he is a good a Jew, as they are, and if they are claiming to be ministers of Christ they must be having similar experiences and tribulations.

St. Paul describes in graphic detail the various things he has had to deal with, punishment by both Jews and Romans, shipwrecks, constant danger, and annoying physical discomfort. He ends his litany this way, "Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches." Allow me to transliterate. He seems to be saying, "Shipwrecks and starvation are positively pleasant when compared to dealing with people like you." Keep in mind that these people annoyed him this much without the aid of fax machines, cell phones, email, blackberries or air travel.

Last week St. Paul talked about the virtue of persistence and the importance of continuing to run the race. The Christian race is about making it to the finish line. The Christian race is not about how fast you get there or getting there before someone else, but merely crossing the line.

St. Paul had plenty of trouble with the Corinthians, but he didn't let it get him down. Rants like the one today helped him let off a little steam. However, St. Paul was also convinced that God had reached out of heaven to give him a specific task. This is why St. Paul continued to put up with whatever he had to put up with. In scripture there is no suggestion that St. Paul might go back to full-time work as a tentmaker or retire to a quiet life in one of the many beautiful port towns he visited on his journeys.

God has a purpose for every one of us. We may not all be called to be the greatest apostle ever sent out. God wants us to do whatever it is he has called for us to do and to remain faithful while doing it. And if we were to somehow get sidetracked or discouraged, we need to get back on track and persevere until we make to the end and we will surely receive our reward.

The Epistle to the Hebrews gives us another model, when it says, "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Egyptian Armed Forces Fire At Christian Monasteries, 19 Injured

2011-02-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

Assyrian International News Agency
Egyptian Armed Forces Fire At Christian Monasteries, 19 Injured
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Posted GMT 2-24-2011 3:6:34

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(AINA) -- For the second time in as many days, Egyptian armed force stormed the 5th century old St. Bishoy monastery in Wadi el-Natroun, 110 kilometers from Cairo. Live ammunition was fired, wounding two monks and six Coptic monastery workers. Several sources confirmed the army's use of RPG ammunition. Four people have been arrested including three monks and a Coptic lawyer who was at the monastery investigating yesterday's army attack.

Monk Aksios Ava Bishoy told activist Nader Shoukry of Freecopts the armed forces stormed the main entrance gate to the monastery in the morning using five tanks, armored vehicles and a bulldozer to demolish the fence built by the monastery last month to protect themselves and the monastery from the lawlessness which prevailed in Egypt during the January 25 Uprising.

"When we tried to address them, the army fired live bullets, wounding Father Feltaows in the leg and Father Barnabas in the abdomen," said Monk Ava Bishoy. "Six Coptic workers in the monastery were also injured, some with serious injuries to the chest."

The injured were rushed to the nearby Sadat Hospital, the ones in serious condition were transferred to the Anglo-Egyptian Hospital in Cairo.

Father Hemanot Ava Bishoy said the army fired live ammunition and RPGs continuously for 30 minutes, which hit part of the ancient fence inside the monastery. "The army was shocked to see the monks standing there praying 'Lord have mercy' without running away. This is what really upset them," he said. "As the soldiers were demolishing the gate and the fence they were chanting 'Allahu Akbar' and 'Victory, Victory'."

He also added that the army prevented the monastery's car from taking the injured to hospital.

The army also attacked the Monastery of St. Makarios of Alexandria in Wady el-Rayan, Fayoum, 100 km from Cairo. It stormed the monastery and fired live ammunition on the monks. Father Mina said that one monk was shot and more than ten have injuries caused by being beaten with batons. The army demolished the newly erected fence and one room from the actual monastery and confiscated building materials. The monastery had also built a fence to protect itself after January 25 and after being attacked by armed Arabs and robbers leading to the injury of six monks, including one monk in critical condition who is still hospitalized.

The army had given on February 21 an ultimatum to this monastery that if the fence was not demolished within 48 hours by the monks, the army would remove it themselves (AINA 2-23-2011).

The Egyptian Armed Forces issued a statement on their Facebook page denying that any attack took place on St. Bishoy Monastery in Wady el-Natroun, "Reflecting our belief in the freedom and chastity of places of worship of all Egyptians." The statement went on to say that the army just demolished some fences built on State property and that it has no intention of demolishing the monastery itself (video of army shooting at Monastery).

Father Hedra Ava Bishoy said they are in possession of whole carton of empty bullet shells besides the people who are presently in hospital to prove otherwise.

The army attack came after the monks built a fence for their protection after the police guards left their posts and fled post the January 25th Uprising and after being attacked by prisoners who were at large, having escaped from their prisons during that period.

"We contacted state security and they said there was no police available for protection," said Father Bemwa," So we called the Egyptian TV dozens of times to appeal for help and then we were put in touch with the military personnel who told us to protect ourselves until they reach us." He added that the monks have built a low fence on the borders of one side of the monastery which is vulnerable to attacks, on land which belongs to the monastery, with the monks and monastery laborers keeping watch over it 24 hours a day.

The monks of St. Bishoy are now holding a sit-in in front of monastery in protest against the abuse of the army by using live bullets against civilians

Nearly 7000 Copts staged a peaceful rally in front of the Coptic Cathedral in Cairo, where Pope Shenouda III was giving his weekly lecture (video), after which they marched towards Tahrir Square to protest the armed forces attacks on Coptic monasteries.

By Mary Abdelmassih

Project 21’s Council Nedd Offers Alternative Opinion on Muslim Brotherhood

2011-02-23T19:05:00.001-05:00

Project 21’s Council Nedd Offers Alternative Opinion on Muslim Brotherhood
Feb 23, 2011 at 3:59 PM
David W. Almasi in Conservatives, Foreign Policy, Project 21, Race, Terrorism

It’s still very uncertain what kind of government will end up running Egypt since dictator Hosni Mubarak’s ouster by popular uprising.

One obvious concern is that Muslim fundamentalists along the lines of those who prevailed in Iran in 1979 may yet end up running the land of the pharaohs.

With all due respect, Project 21 member Council Nedd II tends to differ with many conservatives, saying that his friends and experiences tell him that — at least in Egypt — the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood has less standing than perceived. Fixating on them, Council suggests, only legitimizes the group and helps the radicals get a firmer toehold into the transition process.

Council says:

I still maintain friendships with Egyptians I met during past visits there. Knowing them and speaking with them about their recent revolution, I am dismayed when my conservative friends fixate on the threat of a monolithic uprising of Muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East.

As a black conservative, I know I do not speak for the whole of the black community any more than Jesse Jackson represents the views of all blacks. However, I do firmly believe that some of my conservative ideas resonate with various parts of black America for varied reasons. By the same token, I have heard Jesse Jackson say things that I have not totally disagreed with.

With that in mind, it is my belief that conservatives may be doing themselves a disservice by fixating on entities such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

In policy debate terms, the events in Tunisia were a spark — one event that caused a chain of events to occur. But they are not mirror images of each other. While Tunisia, Libya and Egypt are neighbors, their internal political issues, culture and the ethos of the people in these countries couldn’t be more different. When you throw Saudi Arabia into the mix, the commonalities shrink that much more.

The only real commonality is the fact that the majority of the residents of these countries are Muslim — but they often practice their shared religion in different ways.

Controversy is the fuel of talk radio. However, if the goal of my fellow conservatives is to ensure that there are friendly governments in that region when the dust has settled, fueling the fires of a speculative Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the Middle East is not the way to go about dealing with the problem.

When I talk to my Egyptian friends, they think it’s funny that all Americans seem to focus on is the Muslim Brotherhood. And the American obsession with the Muslim Brotherhood is, in fact, giving the group more life.

Let me draw an analogy to Haiti and the Tonton Macoute. Tonton Macoute, or Uncle Gunnysack, was an evil creature in Haitian lore that snatched kids and threw them in his satchel to consume later. The dictatorship of the Duvaliers gave life, substance and power to this bogeyman by calling its secret police by the same name.

The American hysteria over the Muslim Brotherhood, coupled with African and Asian concerns about U.S. hegemony, is giving substance and form to the Muslim Brotherhood that it would not normally have had.

Archbishop Council Nedd II is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church.

Septuagesima, February 20, 2011

2011-02-23T18:53:00.006-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

Both of the lessons for today can help us answer the question, "Is life fair?”

Is life fair? Fairness is a concept most people have drummed into them when they are children. We all have some sense of what fair-play is and what a fair distribution of the cookies and candy looks like. If we have brothers or sisters, we run up against the question of fairness as we watch our parents deal with them. "You let him do things you never let me do”.

Much of the public business of our society is devoted to resolving issues of fairness. The criminal justice system is supposed to treat everyone the same way. We don't want people deprived of opportunities for reasons over which they have no control.

Today's gospel is one of Jesus' parables which tells us what the Kingdom of God is like. The concept "Kingdom of God" has several different meanings in the New Testament. Heaven, of course, is the Kingdom of God in the final and ultimate sense. But the Kingdom of God also refers to what things are like here on earth when God is in charge.

If you allow God to be your king – that is, if you try to let his teachings guide what you think and say and do, then you are in the kingdom of God already. When God's will is done, his kingdom is present. That is what we mean when we say the Lord's Prayer when we command for his kingdom to come, and we admit that the best way we can help make that happen is to do his will -- as everyone in heaven does.

Judging from this morning's parable, things in the kingdom of God are not exactly fair. If someone works twelve hours performing the same task at which another person works one hour, it seems only fair that he should get twelve times as much pay. But everybody in the story gets exactly the same amount of money at the end of the day no matter how many hours he worked. It just doesn't sound fair.

In this morning's epistle St. Paul is talking about himself -- one of his two or three favorite topics. His big concern, this time, is the danger that even after he has worked as hard as he has for God and put up with all that he has suffered, at the end he might not make it into heaven. That really wouldn't seem terribly fair either.

The short answer to the question, "Is life fair?" is, quite obviously, "No." It doesn't take a membership in Mensa or a degree in theology to see that some people are better looking, some people die before their time, some people get horrible diseases, some people have trouble with their children, some people just seem to glide through difficulty, some people can eat and drink a lot and never get fat, some people just seem to get all the breaks. There's nothing fair about any of that.

I don’t know if you remember the TV show Laverne and Shirley. There is a line in the opening song that mentions a schlemiel and a schlimazel. I remember once asking my father what that was. He explained to me that it was Yiddish, and the a schlemiel was a guy at a party who went around spilling his drink on everyone…and the schlimazel was the guy at parties who always got drinks spilled on him.
Life isn’t fair.

We may decide God is not fair because he makes everybody's life different – and that he could have been a bit fairer to me, but the fact is that on the only issue of lasting importance, God is better than fair. He doesn't stop at evenhandedness or giving us our just deserts – he is positively generous.

The parable of the workers in the vineyard is not about labor economics, it is about salvation. At the most obvious level the parable means everybody's reward from God is the same no matter when he lets God into his life. You can't have more or less heaven, or more or less forgiveness, or more or less reconciliation to God.

In the parable, the people who worked the longest should have been glad, rather than resentful. They represent the people who have a relationship to God throughout their whole lives.

If we really think friendship and kinship with God is a good thing, we shall want to have it as long as we can – we won't think we are being victimized just because it is possible to get into heaven through a death-bed conversion.

By now, most of you have heard this story about my evil Aunt Rennie. Aunt Rennie, was the most charming woman you have ever met…and as close to pure evil as I have ever glimpsed. She did so much calculated wrong to so many people, myself included, that when I found out that she was dying of cancer about 10 years ago…Let’s just say, I was not that sad. In her last few weeks, she was cared for by my saintly Aunt Louise.

The only reason I am telling this particular story is to illustrate a point. Occasionally, over the last ten years I wondered about Aunt Rennie and what it was like to actually burn in hell. One day, about three years ago, I was driving my Aunt Louise somewhere and the subject of Aunt Rennie came up. Aunt Lou mentioned Aunt Rennie’s dying moments and when Aunt Rennie jumped up in bed, gave a spontaneous confession of all her sins, asked God’s forgiveness, thanked him for His forgiveness and then died.

That really wasn’t fair.

St. Paul says that life is like a footrace. In a normal footrace, all of the contestants work hard and go into training, but only one of them can win. In the Christian race, everybody who makes it to the finish line is a winner. Is that fair?
He is trying to tell us that we need to train for the Christian race, even though victory in it is not only to the swift. The kind of training he means involves all the things the Prayer Book talks about -- weekly church attendance and praying and studying the Bible and giving money away and trying to help other people.

But at the same time St. Paul knows that no matter how much he trains himself and no matter how much he may do for God, if he doesn't hang on, all the way, and until the end he will be lost, and he won't go to heaven. All his accomplishments will count for nothing if he has turned away from Christ at the end. It is all about getting there -- not about how you do it.

So, what can we conclude? Try to get yourself straight with God as soon as you can so the blessings will start to flow. Don't be resentful toward other people who seem to have things easier than you do. Take Christian discipline seriously for the long haul -- so you will still be committed when you die.

Jesus reminds us, "Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life," and, "He that endureth until the end will be saved."

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Epiphany V

2011-02-06T06:15:00.000-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

The epiphany in this morning's Gospel is Jesus manifesting himself as a rabbi or rather a teacher. There can be no doubt about it, he was a teacher. But some people like to suggest that Jesus was a teacher and only a teacher and therefore they treat Jesus with respect for that reason. Some go further and even revere him as a prophet. However, to revere Jesus as only a prophet and a teacher is not enough. Benjamin Franklin said in the musical 1776, it’s lot like calling an ox a bull, he is thankful for the distinction, but he would much be restored what is rightfully his.

Jesus was a wise and clever teacher, but that is not why we should revere him. The teachings of Jesus demand our attention because he is the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God. It is true that he is a teacher, but he is so much more than that.

Today Jesus returns to what he does so well, teaching in parables. His parables are stories that make points about God and our relationship to him and attempt to put our relationship with God in the proper perspective. Jesus tells us that the most important purpose of the parables is to separate those who get it from those who don’t get it.

Today's parable describes how things are in the real world and by extension, how things are in the church. In the back of the Prayer Book there is something called the thirty-nine Articles of Religion. It is possible that you may never have noticed them. I am going to assume that my sermons are not boring. I also know for certain that my sermons aren’t too long. So I will take some pride in the fact that it is possible that you may never have stumbled across them while I was up here droning on. The articles are essentially the answers that the Church of England’s formulated to the questions raised by the English Reformation.

Article twenty-six makes the point that if some particular clergyman is a moral degenerate or holds weird theological views, those things in and of themselves don't make his sacramental acts invalid. If you go to a church that is officially apostolic and orthodox, you can be sure that the Holy Communion the priest gives you is real, even if he is a cattle rustler and a Unitarian who hates the Pittsburg Steelers.

Regardless, Article 26 begins like this, "Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good". And that is something most of us should already realize, that in the visible church evil is always mixed with good. This is also precisely the point of today’s parable. Today Jesus tells about a farmer who sows good seed in his field, but at night his enemy comes and sows weeds in the same field.

When the wheat and the weeds begin to sprout together, the farmer then realizes that one of his enemies has done this to him. When his farm workers ask if they should root up the weeds, the farmer says, no. Because there is no way to be sure what is what. So the farmer says to let them grow together and harvest time and the reapers will separate.

Jesus realizes that this is a fairly simple proverb and even Peter can understand this one. Jesus sows the good seed, and the wheat that comes up are his people. The enemy is the devil, and the weeds he sows are the people who belong to him. At the final judgment the angels will separate the wheat people from the weed people. The wheat people will be in heaven, and the weed people will not be. In case you drifted off, yes, I did say wheat people and weed people.

There are some lessons in this parable beyond the most obvious one. As we have discussed in recent weeks and during Advent, there will be a Judgment at the end, and as a result some people will go to heaven and some will not.

However, the other point I would like to make is that Christians should never be surprised at the presence of evil in the world or in the church.

Once we get over our tremendous shock that other people can actually act out of their selfish interest then we have to face the fact that we may not be as discerning and clever as we think we are when it comes to telling the difference between good and evil and between the wheat and the weeds.

The kinds of weeds Jesus is talking about look a lot like wheat. The line dividing good and evil is often rather more blurry than clearly defined. Therefore we should all be very careful about the kind of moral crusading that would suggest that we have some sort of divine knowledge and are absolutely sure who and what are as pure as the driven snow and who and what are pure evil. Jesus tells us not to worry about this sort of thing, because he has a plan for sorting it all out in the end.

In today's epistle, St. Paul suggests that we need to realize that in the church we are all part of the same body. We are members of the same organism. To do right by another member of the body is to do right by ourselves. To be just and fair to another member of the body is to just and fair to ourselves. To be mean and cruel and petty to another member of the body is to be mean and cruel and petty to ourselves. This is because we are interconnected.

The most important matter is forgiveness. Jesus forgives us despite all of our failings and therefore we have an obligation to forgive others. Charity is what holds everything together, and to have charity is to do what is best for the others. Let’s be clear, charity is not necessarily the same thing as being nice (so maybe we can take some comfort in that). Charity more often takes the form of refusing to allow our friends and people to keep on with their own destructive and uncharitable behavior. Keeping quiet while a friend is doing something stupid is not being a friend and being an accomplice in such activity when you know better is worse than the act itself.

St. Paul says that we should let the peace of God rule in our hearts. Whenever we have to make a judgment call, try to resolve it in favor of what will most promote peace. Figure out what will be most like what Jesus would do.

So "Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good,"… "yet do all in the name of the Lord Jesus," and "in the time of the harvest (he) will say to the reapers, 'Gather ye together the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"

Epiphany II

2011-01-20T18:54:00.001-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

The gospel readings for the Epiphany season describe the various ways Jesus revealed himself to the world. These revelations or showings are called epiphanies. On Epiphany itself Jesus is manifested to Gentile wise men, showing that he is not only the Messiah of Israel, but also the savior of the whole world. Last week he showed himself to us as an intelligent twelve year old boy who goes to the temple to assert his connection to his heavenly father.

The epiphany today takes place at Jesus' baptism. Jesus is manifested not only as the Messiah, but also as the Son of God and the second person of the Holy Trinity. The baptism reveals the two things the church claims regarding Jesus. First, Jesus is the savior the Old Testament promised. Second, Jesus is God become a man.

Jesus submitted to a baptism by his cousin John the Baptist. John had been saying that the long-awaited Messiah was about to appear and that people should be preparing for his arrival by turning away from their sins. John said that best way to show the intention of turning away from sin was to get dunked in the Jordan River. John baptized on the spot where Joshua had led the Israelites into the Promised-land thirteen centuries earlier.

John also said, and this may be the more important reason, that the other reason he baptized was because God told him that while he was baptizing he would find out who the coming Messiah really was.

John the Baptist tells his followers, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God."

What John says about the baptism of Jesus can help us understand how it connects to the baptism that the church administers to people. John says that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Ghost. Jesus tells us that you cannot go to the kingdom of heaven unless you are born of water and the Spirit. At the end of St. Matthew's gospel, Jesus tells the disciples to go and teach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

We Christians baptize people because Jesus tells us to. We use water, because Jesus tells us to use water. We baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity, because that is the formula Jesus tells us that we are to use.

Our baptism with water, in the name of the Holy Trinity is the baptism Jesus brings to the world. Let’s be clear, and let’s not confuse it with the mere water baptism John administered to Jesus and to the crowds at the river Jordan. Our baptism is with water, but through the Holy Ghost.

John's baptism did not change the people whom he baptized. It merely demonstrated the individuals desire to be cleansed of sin. The baptism of Jesus, that which the church administers, causes a fundamental change in the person being baptized.

The newly baptized becomes a member of the body of Christ, or rather the church, in much the same way my arm is a member of my body. A baptized person is now an organic part of the body through which Jesus does his work in the world.

In baptism we die the death we deserve which, is the death that is the punishment for our sins of disobeying God. After we are baptized, whether we realize it or not, we live by the power of the Holy Ghost. From that point forward we have eternal life, because we are living God's life, and God's life is never ending.

The big question that people really want an answer to is this, if you are baptized, does that assure you of a ticket to heaven even if you make no further Christian effort in your whole life? Clearly the answer to that question is, no. Baptism is necessary, but it is not all that is necessary. There is a slightly longer answer to this question that we can explore another time.

But back to my point.

We Anglicans baptize babies in our church. We do that because it is the New Testament practice. We do that because it was what everybody did until the sixteenth century, and it is still what the vast majority of Christians continue to do now. However, both Jesus and St. Paul say, that to be saved you have to make an adult commitment to Christ, by proclaiming your loyalty in public as soon as you know what you are doing. We Anglicans accomplish this through the sacrament of Confirmation.

Salvation and going to heaven come down to this. One must have a relationship with God through Christ. Your relationship with Christ in many ways is just like any other, you have to keep the connection alive and nurture it on a regular basis. We keep this relationship with God alive by confessing our sins week by week and claiming the forgiveness that Jesus Christ won for us on the cross. We keep the relationship alive by talking things over with God in prayer and in Bible study. We keep the relationship alive by getting our eternal life recharged receiving the body and blood of Christ.

Baptism is the first step on the path to heaven. However, we have to let the Holy Ghost keep us on the path. That is why the baptism service in the Prayer Book does not proclaim "This is it," but prays, instead, that this person may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning.

Black Conservatives React to House Repeal of ObamaCare

2011-01-20T18:46:00.000-05:00

Black Conservatives React to House Repeal of ObamaCare

Washington, D.C. - With the U.S. House of Representatives voting today to completely repeal last year's legislation to begin a federal government takeover of the nation's health care apparatus, members of the Project 21 black leadership network are reacting:

Bishop Council Nedd II: "Today's bipartisan vote in the House to repeal ObamaCare is not an end to the debate but a beginning. It is the clarion call for a larger effort to begin improving our health care system using free market solutions such as tax incentives that promote individuals' choices, tort reform and an end to mandates that put bureaucrats in control of personal health choices." (Project 21 member Council Nedd II is a bishop with the Episcopal Missionary Church who lives near Pittsburgh.)

Cherylyn Harley LeBon: "While we recognize that the repeal of ObamaCare will face an uphill battle, we need to remember the reasons why it is necessary to do it: repeal will promote job growth by preventing the implementation of mandates and penalties; stop an additional $500 billion increase in new taxes and prevent a massive new entitlement our country simply cannot afford." (Project 21 member Cherylyn Harley LeBon is a former senior counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee who lives in northern Virginia.)

Ak'Bar Shabazz: "Although conservatives likely have little chance of completely overturning the liberal power grab they called health care reform right now with this particular bill, the symbolism should be applauded. Government spending over the past few years, and especially under President Obama, is threatening to surpass legal levels. Having the federal government additionally assume control of over nearly 20 percent of the existing American economy is a measure that is sure to end in costly inefficiencies, fraud and unsustainable debt that will cripple future generations." (Project 21 member Ak'Bar Shabazz is a small business owner who lives in the Atlanta metro area.)

R. Dozier Gray: "ObamaCare ought to be repealed, but not because of the results of the mid-term elections nor current political polls. ObamaCare needs to be repealed because the bill passed last March is flawed, partisan and premised on -- to put it mildly -- questionable constitutional grounds. Lawmakers must go on record now and often to advocate the repeal of all or parts of this scheme. The debate must not die. Those who want to kill the debate prematurely do so only because they realize the truth is not on their side." (Project 21 member R. Dozier Gray, is an analyst who lives in northern Virginia.)

Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives since 1992, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org).

Time for a New Attitude

2011-01-10T17:52:00.001-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

The word epiphany means a manifestation or an appearance. Not coincidentally, in today’s gospel Jesus appears at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus is supposed to be in a caravan of people returning home to Nazareth after Passover. However, the Holy Family notices that young Jesus is not with the group. His parents are frightened and they begin to undertake a search and start backtracking. They finally find him in the temple where he is teaching and debating theology with the chief Hebrew teachers. Jesus doesn't seem concerned about any distress he may have caused his parents.

King Solomon built the temple around 1000 B.C. Tradition tells us that the temple was located on the spot where God called Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. This was important because Hebrew worship revolved around sacrificing animals to God. Solomon's temple was the only place in the world where the Hebrew people could carry out God’s specific regulations regarding this form of sacrifice which he laid down for them in the Old Testament.

The Epistle to the Hebrews explains the crucifixion of Jesus in terms of the animal sacrifices which the Jewish people would understand and be familiar with. The epistle says that the death of Jesus on Calvary was the sacrifice to which the Hebrew animal sacrifices were foretelling all along. By Jesus offering himself, he offered for mankind the perfect sacrifice. Not only were no more sacrifices necessary, but God no longer wanted them.

In this morning's epistle, St. Paul is talking about sacrifice. He assumes the readers know about the connection between the Old Testament animal sacrifices and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, so he takes that teaching and connects them.

He says that Christians also have the obligation to sacrifice to God. We are obliged to offer God ourselves. He writes, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

Some of us, hopefully none of us here in the room, may be called upon literally to give our bodies for God as martyrs. That does not seem like a possibility in the America that we currently know. Then again, I never would have imagined events like those that happened on September 11th. St. Paul defines our sacrifice in somewhat broader terms. He writes: "Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."

The type of sacrifice to which St. Paul was referring involves having a new attitude. The new attitude comes from looking at everything in terms of God and what he wants of us, instead of looking at everything from the self-centered perspective which comes to us naturally.

This new attitude involves asking such questions as, "What does God want me to be doing?" "How should a Christian respond to this situation?" "How might I best serve the interests of this other person?" And, most applicable to me at the moment, "What is God trying to tell me by allowing these things to happen in my life?"

During Advent we talked some about how the service of Holy Communion essentially drills us through what will happen to us on judgment day. We go through the cycle of being convicted of sin, repenting, confessing, getting forgiven, and experiencing the new life through Jesus Christ.

What St. Paul teaches about the sacrifice of ourselves is also part of the celebration of Holy Communion. In the Prayer of Consecration beginning on pages 80, we begin by representing the sacrifice of Jesus in the forms of bread and wine.

After the Word and the Spirit have made the bread and wine his Body and Blood, we join our sacrifice of ourselves to his sacrifice of himself. The dramatic climax of the prayer comes when I raise my hands to God, and then place them on the Corporal and I say on behalf of all of us, "And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee."

The point being, we can never transform our minds and take-up the new attitude without help. The power we need to want to make that sacrifice and to actually go ahead and do it, comes from God.

That power we need to make the sacrifice flows from Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, and we literally eat it and drink it at the altar rail. Later, we ask God to give us the help we need "to do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in." You can only do those good works after you have made your own sacrifice through the transforming of your mind and the offering of your whole selves; your souls and bodies.

Hebrews places on the lips of Jesus the words of Psalm 40, which summarize our point, saying, "When Jesus cometh into the world, he saith (to his Father), 'Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo I come to do thy will, O God.’"

Let's Count Our Blessings

2010-12-24T16:18:00.002-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

This time of year we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ the true gift giver, not to be confused with Santa Claus. Oftentimes people get their roles reversed. Jesus paid the price on Calvary so that we may have, what we need – eternal life. Santa Claus is our imaginary friend who, if we are good, brings us what we want – but he doesn’t actually.

When we were children, many of us believed in Santa Claus because we understood as a child. However, as we got older we put away childish things and we developed an adult understanding of the facts and who actually paid for our new bicycle or cabbage patch dolls.

Rebecca and I are having a financially trying year, and occasionally it gets a bit distressing. Wednesday night Rebecca and I were out running some errands including picking up 60 pounds of apples to make applesauce and apple butter to give out as gifts to family and members of St. Alban’s. We decided to stop at Denny’s for some late night coffee and dessert.

We were at the table lamenting some things, and I dare say we were feeling a little sorry for ourselves. However, I looked up and noticed the woman who was eating at the next table when we walked into the restaurant. She was done eating and was visibly distraught. As it turns out, on this cold snowy night, three days before Christmas this woman was homeless without a place to go.

Despite any individual frustrations that any of us may be feeling at any given time, there is always someone worse off. Occasionally, we all need reminding and prodding that we are to give thanks to God when things are going well, but it is particularly important that we give thanks to God when things are not going as we had hoped – because God is among us.

How do we know this? We know this because Jesus is the sign of God and the Son of God. Jesus reveals to man a glimpse of the true nature of God. This time of year we rejoice. We rejoice because the birth Jesus sparked on earth the sense of new possibilities like the birth of any baby brings to a family.

Joseph and Mary as well as the shepherds working in the nearby fields were products of the most sophisticated religious culture in the history of the civilization. They lived a religion which was ordered and shaped by personal and direct contact with God himself.

The problem with the God of Israel was that the Hebrew people could not get their hands on him. He spoke and He acted and he moved, but He never stayed around. Contact with the God of Israel was unpredictable. They were so afraid of giving the appearance of attempting to control Him that they wouldn’t even say His name.

It was a rich, powerful and life changing system, but it didn't really work. They understood and had God above us and God greater than we. What was missing was a sense of Emmanuel, God among us, and with us to stay.

Jesus is Emmanuel and he has been with us since his birth in Bethlehem, he has never left us alone, and he never will. St. Paul astutely calls Jesus, "the image of the invisible God." Jesus is the picture of the one who could never be pictured. Jesus bears the name of the one who could never be named. And Jesus makes this clear to us when he says, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."

O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. So, the last few nights, after we were finished making apple butter, apple sauce or apple dumplings we were able, as Bing Crosby or Diana Krall might croon, to fall asleep counting our blessings. Merry Christmas everyone.

Advent III

2010-12-12T19:56:00.001-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

The word "Advent" means "coming." In the season of Advent we consider the various comings of Jesus Christ. We look at those comings through the lens of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Two Sundays ago we considered Death. Last Sunday we considered Judgment. Today we shall consider Heaven.

We all probably know a lot more about heaven than we think we do. In the Lord's Prayer we learn that heaven is the place where God the Father lives, and it is the place where his will is always done. He gets what he wants all the time. From the creeds we know that heaven is also the place where Jesus is sitting down at his Father's right hand, waiting to come back to earth for the judgment we discussed last week.

We know that heaven is away from the earth, because when Jesus went back to heaven he went up into the sky. From other parts of the Scriptures we know that heaven is a place where God is being praised and sung to much of the time and that it is like a wedding banquet. We know it is also a city, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of the sky at the end of the world.

However, the most important thing we know is that heaven is the place where we want to be in the end. Let me be clear, it is pointless to be in church if you don't want to end up in heaven. Heaven is the place where we shall be in the presence and comfort of God for all eternity. Heaven is the place where God will wipe away all tears from our eyes-where we shall not hunger or thirst, and it won't be too hot.

Last week, when we talked about judgment, I suggested to you that one reason we can believe in the judgment that will come at the end of the world is that we see judgment happening now. We can accept the idea that it will happen in a final sort of way at the last day, because we experience it now.

Heaven is the same. We can believe in a heaven at the end, because we have experiences of heaven now. Neither of today's lessons talks specifically about heaven, but both of them talk about the kinds of earthly experiences which give us a foretaste of heaven and help focus us upon it.

St. Paul was not particularly popular with the Christian congregation in Corinth. He was their bishop. Problems between them arose because people from the congregation loved to keep him posted on what was going on there that was wrong -- flagrant fornication, drunkenness in church, spiritual pride, and factionalism of the most obnoxious variety.

St. Paul did not hesitate to write to them to try to set them straight. It should not surprise you that they did not like it very much. In today's epistle tells them that he doesn't care what they think about him. His job is not to be popular with them, but to be faithful to God.

He says that he can't think of anything he has done wrong in his ministry toward them, but that it doesn't matter what he thinks, because the only person whose assessment of him matters is the Lord. He cautions the Corinthians not to be so sure that they know enough about everybody else to judge them, because when the Lord comes he is going to make everything clear. He is going to reveal the darkness that is in human beings and what is really going on in their hearts. When that happens, everyone will have the evaluation from God he really deserves.

St. Paul is not just advising you to put up with your clergyman whether you like him or not as long as he does what he should. He is saying that you will never be contented in this world until you realize that the only person you need or should want to please is God. God knows all about you. He knows things you don't even know about yourself.

If you can't know yourself fully, how can you think you know the whole truth about anyone else? Heaven on earth is looking at yourself as God looks at you. Heaven on earth is realizing that you need to repent and shape up. Heaven on earth is getting Christ's forgiveness in the church.

Today's gospel is about John the Baptist and his doubts about Jesus. John baptized in the wilderness, because God told him if he did he would show him who the Messiah was. Later on he called the king an adulterer accurately -- and he was in jail facing death. He wasn't sure Jesus was the one-that it had all been worth it -- so he sent his disciples to find out.

Instead of saying, "Of course I'm the one, don't you remember the dove that landed on me when I was baptized?" Jesus says, "If John wants to know if I am the one, tell him what is going on." All the things Jesus said were happening were the things the prophet Isaiah had said would happen when the Messiah finally came: hearings, and the preaching of good news.

So experiencing heaven on earth is tied up with recognizing that Jesus is the one. To be in heaven right now is to focus yourself upon Jesus-what he has done for you, what he wants from you, what he promises you. Having a realistic assessment of yourself, and knowing Jesus are two ways to heaven on earth. We believe it will happen later, because we can experience it now.

The word "Advent" means "coming." In Advent we consider the various comings of Jesus Christ. We look at those comings through the lens of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Two Sundays ago we considered Death. Last Sunday we considered Judgment. Today we have considered Heaven.

Advent II/Bible Sunday

2010-12-04T13:28:00.002-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

The word "Advent" means "coming." In Advent, we consider the various comings of Jesus Christ. We look at those comings through the lens of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Last week we considered Death. Today we consider Judgment.

The Advent collect is quite clear. It says, at the last day, Jesus will come in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead. Jesus came quietly the first time. The next time Jesus will come in such a way that no one could possibly misunderstand or ignore what is happening. Next time he is going to judge the living and the dead. Next time we will all discover who ends up in heaven and who ends up in hell.

The lessons for this morning are, in light of this overall theme, really rather encouraging in tone. St. Paul tells us this morning that if we read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the scriptures, then the Bible will comfort us with hope for our future.

In the gospel Jesus talks about the horrible calamities that will take place in the sky and on the earth just before he comes again. But he tell us not to fret. When all these things start happening, don't go hide, in the bunker or move to Cambria County. Instead, we should look up and lift our heads, because along with the end of the world is the coming of our redemption. Jesus says, that when he returns, we are all going to heaven with him and there is nothing to fear.

The hopeful and positive spin that Jesus and St. Paul both place upon the coming end of the world clearly suggests that we should make it through the judgment successfully. Then you may be asking, what will final judgment be?

The judgment that Jesus will bring at the end of the world will be no different from the ones you are experiencing this morning.

Oh, you didn’t know that you were experiencing judgment this morning?

Allow me to fill you in about the judgment that you are experiencing this morning.

First of all, you are judged by the Summary of the Law. You shall love the Lord with all you heart soul and love thy neighbor as thyself – and we are expected to do this all the time and without exception. When we measure ourselves by that standard, we experience God's judgment.

Then come the lessons, the collect, the epistle and the gospel. Do we live up to, do we manifest, that which the collects pray? Do we understand the epistle and the gospel enough to live by what they say? Measuring yourself by the proper lessons is a further experience of God’s judgment. Did you live up to all of them at all times or not? If not, are you sorry you didn’t?

The most unambiguous judgment will come later on when I recite the conditions under which you can presume to come to the altar rail to receive Holy Communion. We must repent of our sins, we have to be in love and charity with everybody else, and we have to intend to lead the new life. And I am purposely saying the new life not a new life.

The new life is the life we live in obedience to God's commandments rather than in slavery to our own id and our own self-centered whims.

That is what the judgment is. The judgment at the end of the world is going to take place after a dramatic light show and the raising of all the dead from their graves in new bodies, and it will be before the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ who will come back to earth in real flesh, in a real body and on the clouds. And he will be looking each one of us directly in the eye.

The judgment in the end will take place under far more exciting circumstances than a quiet and chilly Sunday morning at a beautiful little church in central Pennsylvania with mostly padded kneelers, the lovely Prayer Book language and incredibly charming, disarming, baby-faced archbishop standing in front..but it will be fundamentally identical.

The question at the judgment is the same as the question the Prayer Book service asks, "Did you keep all God's laws perfectly?" And we know the honest answer is, "No. I did not." My point is, the judgment on everyone is the same. We cannot escape the truth. St. Paul says, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." What is most unfortunate about that, is that all includes me. I don’t get special consideration for being a bishop.

We cannot escape or evade the judgment. The verdict on everyone is, guilty as charged. We can plead all we want about all the good we did. We can blame it all on our parents, baby brothers, our ill-advised marriages on our financial situations or on the fact that we thought God didn't really mean it when he said to go to church on Sunday and pray daily and to read, learn and inwardly digest the scriptures, but it won’t matter. Our favorite rationalizations, excuses, self-delusions and denials will not work.

The issue will not be, "Am I guilty?" Let’s be clear, you are. The issue during the judgment will be, "Do you admit it? Are you sorry about it? Are you willing to accept the fact that the only way you can escape the consequences of God's guilty verdict is to say, "Jesus died for me. Jesus already took the punishment I deserve"?

Whether you realize it or not, when you come here every Sunday, you are practicing for that judgment. We say it in the confession when we acknowledge that our bad behavior has provoked most justly God's wrath and indignation against us. And then we ask God for mercy, and we claim it with confidence when we say,"for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ's sake."

The judgment at the end will be like the judgment now. The way to find that out is to read the Bible on your own, study and pay attention to what is going on Sunday mornings. You are here and we are here, to get ready for the end. You are here to get used to facing the final judgment of God.

The word "Advent' means "coming. In Advent we consider the various comings of Jesus Christ. We look at those comings through the lens of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Last week we considered Death. Today we have considered Judgment. Next week we shall consider Heaven.

True Story: The King of Mann

2010-11-30T00:37:00.002-05:00

by The Right Rev. Council Nedd II

Imagine what it must be like as an average American, living with your young family in an average American town, and one day get a call from someone you’ve never met, calling you from England and informing you that you are a King. It’s the stuff of movies – you know the one… the comedy where the entire British Royal family is killed in a freak accident and the only living heir to the throne is a hapless Vegas lounge singer?

Only in the real-life version, the King ends up being auto service center manager whose daily activities are divided between making sure all his employees show up to work on time with meeting the needs of his customers – most having no idea that the person who just sold them their new set of radials is also a Royal Prince. This is the life of my friend David Howe, or as he is known by his official style and title, His Royal Highness Prince David of Mann.

Since 2007, when HM Queen Elizabeth II’s paper of record, the London Gazette, made public David’s claim as the head of the House of Stanley, much has been written about David in newspapers and posted in various blogs, message boards and websites. Naturally, a good bit of it has been devoted to creating controversy regarding his rights as the de jure King of Mann. Of course, the sources of the contentious material do not have any academic, noble, royal or legitimate chivalric credentials to speak of, unless of course having served on the local town council or working as accountant somehow qualify.

I do not wish to seem like I am diminishing anyone who serves their community in local government or is employed as an accountant. Both are necessary and worthwhile pursuits but neither provides an individual with any unique or specialized insight into the matters of Royalty, Nobility and Knights any more than a trained surgeon would be qualified to fly a fighter jet based on having a degree in medicine. But, this is in fact what the so-called “experts” that have spent a great degree of time and Internet bandwidth in dedicating their contrary “authoritative” opinions and attempts at character assassination regarding HRH Prince David would have you believe.

Who am I and what makes me different than the types of people I have described above? I am an Anglican Archbishop also serving as the Bishop of the Diocese of the Chesapeake. In addition, I have been involved with Royal and Noble families serving in various capacities as both representative and ambassador and serve several Chivalric Orders in the capacity of US Prior and Grand Chaplain. But, probably the most important qualification I possess is the discernment regarding both targeted and random postings on topics of Royalty, Nobility and Chivalric Orders. It may not be apparent to someone new to this area of study on the Internet but typically a person’s frequency of postings in newsgroups and the like is inversely related to their actual knowledge in the real world of Royal and Noble families and their practices. And, despite however many self-published websites they may graduate to in attempting to assert their opinion regarding all things Royal, Noble, Chivalric or an individual’s lack of a right of succession, it still does not make them any greater qualified than they were simply as a frequent newsgroup poster.

History of the Kingdom of the Isle of Man (Mann)

Historically ambiguous as the Kingdom of the Isle of Man and its succession may seem, the following is meant to provide a brief history as well as a logical look at Prince David’s succession as the de jure King.

The Stanley Kingdom of the Isle of Man was created through a Royal Grant by King Henry IV of England to Sir John Stanley in 1405 and, in 1406, included succession rights for his heirs for life. The grant acknowledged the Island’s history and provided that the Isle of Man was a sovereign kingdom recognizing Sir John Stanley as King with all the rights, privileges and recognitions appertaining thereto. While it could be argued that the Isle of Man shared a suzerain relationship with England, namely its Kings were citizens of England, the grant fully recognized it as a sovereign kingdom.

Subsequent King’s, and latter Lords of Mann, in the Stanley line ruled the Isle of Man until the 1765 Act of Revestment, by which the British Parliament seized the Island giving control to George III. Scholars and historians are divided on the issue but there are many that do not view this as having been a voluntary surrender of sovereignty, sighting that the Island was surrendered to George III only after a blockade of Island ports restricted trade. Given that the Sovereign of Mann, the Duchess Atholl, did not have the ability to defend Mann from the British navy, she was forced to surrender under this pressure. Subsequent payments made to her by the British government for the Island could be viewed as simply a matter of formality. While the Duchess received some compensation, Parliament couldn’t violate sovereignty if it had been purchased, or at least this was the intent.

Some historians have maintained that the Act of Revestment was, in effect, 18th Century window dressing for what was really a hostile seizure. Despite the British government’s view of this being a legal action, a modern day equivalent of this would have British Parliament passing an act to revest the United States of America. As ludicrous as this may seem in present day, some have proposed that this is exactly what happened and was a clear violation of sovereign rights even after the checks were drafted and deposited. This is important in establishing future de jure rights. If the Island was purchased in a legal and honorable transaction by the British government then no de jure rights remain. If, however, the Kingdom was the victim of a hostile aggressor and the forced removal of the sovereign, then de jure rights remain.

In 1821, 56 years after the British government assumed control of the Isle of Man, and on the occasion of the coronation of King George IV, John Murray, Duke of Atholl and son of the Duchess Charlotte, gave TWO MANX PEREGRINE FALCONS to the new King. This was in keeping with the only condition set forth by Henry IV’s grant to Sir John Stanley; the gift of two Manx Peregrine Falcons on the coronation day of each new Monarch of England. The gift to George IV could be viewed as a ceremonial gesture as well as a protest. Either way, it was most certainly a sovereign exercise.

Monarchy Succession History and the Isle of Man

Using England and Scotland as examples, historically, succession rights to the monarchy were void of any fixed rules. A claimant could have relied on inheritance, statute, election by parliament, nomination by a reigning sovereign in his/her will, conquest and so on. It was seldom clear which of these issues would have a greater significance over the others, but almost always the political following of a claimant mattered most.

Of course, in more modern times, and as the importance of a stable government became paramount, several acts and laws of Great Britain came to establish the rules for succession. Specifically, the 1701 Act of Settlement, the 1800 Act of Union and the 1689 Bill of Rights have all come to collectively establish the British line of succession. However, none of these acts or laws applies to the Isle of Man because the Isle of Man is not part of Great Britain nor is it considered part of the United Kingdom. Instead, the Isle of Man’s relationship to the United Kingdom is referred to simply as a “Crown Dependency.” In practice this has come to mean that the Island is self-governed but at the pleasure of the British Monarch. Regardless, no laws of succession or any laws relating to the dissolution of the de jure sovereign rights of the House of Stanley were ever passed. These have all simply and, according to international law standards, incorrectly been assumed since the 1765 Act of Revestment.

Presently, all living branches of the House of Stanley (defined as descending from Sir John Stanley, King of Mann), including that of the Earl of Derby, are considered cadet branches and no one branch is senior to another. However, regardless of the assumed sovereignty over the Isle of Man by George III and that of subsequent British Monarchs, the rights of the Royal House of Stanley, and specifically the rights of fons honorum (font of honor), that were created as a result of the 1405/06 grant, remain intact so long as there remains a living descendant. These rights have long been affirmed by international law. See THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITIC LAW, J. J. BURLAMAQUI, [1748]. CHAP. IV. Paragraphs IV. and VI.

Claim of HRH Prince David Howe of Mann

In 2006, David Howe, an American descendant of the House of Stanley, was promoted by group of British citizens interested in supporting the House of Stanley and wanting to recognize him as the head of the formally ruling House of the Isle of Man. The basis for promoting David’s claim as the head of the House of Stanley rested with several factors and included the following:

Under international law, de jure sovereignty remained intact

Independent verification of the genealogy established David was a direct descendent of Sir John Stanley, King of Mann

David met the succession requirements under Henry IV’s grant

No law or act by British Parliament relating to succession applied to the Isle of Man or the House of Stanley

And, with all these issues addressed, nothing restricted David from assuming the de jure Sovereign rights as the head of the House of Stanley.

As a result, David’s claim was presented to representatives of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Subsequent to a 4 week investigation into David’s claim, on 16 January, 2007, the Queen’s representatives acting under her authority published David’s claim in the Queen’s paper of record, the London Gazette, assigning David as the head of the House of Stanley and right of fons honorum in accord with Henry IV’s grant of the Kingdom. This effectively established David as the head of the House of Stanley and gave him the full rights of a de jure sovereign under the generally accepted and historically established practices.

Since that time, David has been assigned the official and correct style and title of His Royal Highness Prince of Mann. Additionally, David has received the international support and recognition of several well established and recognized royal and noble houses as well as the support and recognition of various chivalric orders.

Advent I

2010-11-24T15:01:00.004-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

The word "Advent" means "coming." In Advent we consider the various comings of Jesus Christ. We look at his comings through the lens of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Today we shall consider Death.

This morning's gospel describes our savior Jesus coming into Jerusalem for the last time. He has visited Jerusalem many times before, but never with any particular fanfare. However, today is different. Today he comes to town quite publicly. He arrives to screaming crowds, and he is riding on the back of a donkey while people throw palm leaves in his path.

Jesus uses the donkey quite deliberately, as a way of fulfilling a prophecy. How do I know this? I know this because in addition to be God, Jesus was a good little Jewish boy. The prophet Zechariah had said many centuries before that when the true king of Israel appeared, he would ride into his capital city on a donkey. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew exactly what reaction his grand donkey ride would provoke.

And Jesus being the son of God knew something else which no one in the crowd knew. Jesus was not Charlemagne and neither was he Che Guevara. Jesus knew that he was not coming into Jerusalem to be anointed king, and neither was he coming to be acclaimed as a guerrilla leader who would fight against the Romans. Jesus was coming into Jerusalem to die.

One decided advantage Jesus had over us is that he knew when he was going to die. He talks all throughout the gospel of St. John about his hour, and how his hour has not yet come. On Palm Sunday he told his disciples that his hour had finally come. He had come to Jerusalem to die.

Quite unlike Jesus, we echo King David's psalm, when we ask God, "Lord, let me know mine end and the number of my days, that I may be certified how long I have to live." Or rather, "please God, tell me how much time I have left to live. Tell me when I am going to die."

And God replies to us as he replied to David -- with silence.

In today's epistle, St. Paul reminds us that we are constantly facing a spiritual deadline. He is telling us that now is the time to make the decision to give ourselves wholeheartedly to Christ. Now, not some other time later on when we don't have so much else going on in our lives.

St. Paul is an alarm clock for us, he is our clarion call. He says that if we know what is really going on we will know that it is time for us to wake up. The opportunity for salvation is right here, right now -- not some other time in the future or in some other situation. We do not know when we are going to die, and by then it might be too late. We do not know when Jesus is going to come back, and by then it may also be too late.

Events that occur later on in the church year assure us that we do not need to be afraid to die. Death is not oblivion or an abyss, death is the gate to heaven and to the fullness of eternal life. Death holds no terror for or power over those who are prepared for its coming.

Are we prepared for death? Do we realize that we could die this afternoon? St. Paul says that being ready to die is as simple as getting up and putting on fresh clothing. He tells us to "cast off the works of darkness". We shed our sins by admitting them, saying we are sorry for them, getting God's forgiveness, and then we try to do better next time.

St. Paul tells us not to stay naked but, rather, to get dressed – "put on the armor of light." Do not do anything you would be ashamed to have other people see. That’s what is meant by "walk honestly, as in the day". For we Christians to dress up in light means to try and look like Jesus. If we dress up like Jesus, if we pretend that we are what he is, then the Holy Ghost shall help us become more and more and more like him. So "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ."

The word "Advent" means "coming". In Advent we consider the various comings of Jesus Christ. We look at those comings through the lens of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

Today we have considered Death. Next week we shall consider Judgement.

TSA and Full-Body Scans

2010-11-20T10:37:00.001-05:00

Statement by the Right Rev. Council Nedd II
Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church
On TSA’s Recent Use of Full-body Scanners
And Intrusive Searches
November 19, 2010

In its efforts to “provide for the common defense” of our nation, we generally applaud the measures our government has put in place since the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. The fact that no terrorist activities have caused airline crashes during the last nine years can be attributed in large part to the effectiveness of these measures.

We must also address the reality that no system, no process is perfect when designed and carried out by anyone other than God. As our nation has responded to the ever-changing threats of those who act on their wish for our destruction, errors and abuses have been known to arise. Sometimes these need to be challenged, and other times they must be stopped completely.

The latest measures put in place by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security, are of the latter category. Known by various names, we will refer to them as naked-body scanning and sexually inappropriate pat-down searches. For the most part we agree with those who object from a practical standpoint that these measures are ineffective, from a legal standpoint that they violate the US Constitution, and from a strategic standpoint that they are just the current move in a progressive game of leapfrog with the growing creativity of terrorists. Yet, were these the only grounds, we would remain largely silent and allow those who specialize in law, debate, and diplomacy to spar in those arenas. We will instead address the fundamental issue of God’s will for us as revealed in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

As men and women created in the image of God, we have the obligation, by the mercies of God, to present our bodies holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship (Romans 12:1). To consent to a naked-body imaging process, or to allow government employees to commit acts of sexual molestation, in the name of a promise of safety and security -- a promise that cannot be kept -- directly violates the appeal made by St. Paul.

As husbands we are under the dual obligation in Ephesians 5:25 to love our wives and to protect them -- with our lives if necessary. When a government employee uncovers the nakedness of a man’s wife, he has fallen tragically short of the expectation of this verse. Equally serious is when the wife is forced to witness her husband’s nakedness being uncovered by the molestations of a government employee. The docile submission of one domestic partner to this sort of invasive and intrusive search can, in our opinion be the occasion for much marital tension on the part of the other partner.

We, as many of you, have viewed the scene in which a three-year-old girl is sexually molested by a TSA official as she screamed for her parents to save her from this brutality. The parents on whom she had for three years depended for safety and security have shown themselves either unwilling or impotent to protect her from a demon in uniform. Psychologists, hopefully during her childhood only, will be an excellent resource for her to rebuild her respect for her father and mother. Hopefully, the mother and father will come to terms with their own need for future marital counseling as well. All three will over the years be forced to redefine their concepts of forgiveness, respect, and trust.

The similar constructs are in place for unmarried men and women, in that the bodies they present to their spouses on the wedding night will have been subjected to public display in a number of outlets.

The elements of sexual molestation, pedophilia, and pornography cannot be denied. It is documented fact that TSA has lied about the extent of the pat-downs, the high-resolution detail available from the scanners, and the non-publication of the images. This provides ample evidence that the decision-makers are taking their directions from the Father of Lies.

Just with all sin from Adam until now, responsibility and consequence rest both with the one committing the sin and with the ones who provide the perceived coercion. We ask each of you to examine your conscience and determine for yourself whether the convenience of flying to your vacation, or the requirement to fly on that business trip, justifies giving some government employee permission to uncover your nakedness or that of someone you love.

Jesus never said life in the faith would be easy. In Mark 8:35 he said that whoever will save his life shall lose it. It takes strength to stand fast in a world that hates someone who has faith in Christ, but he reminded us that the world hated him before it ever heard of any of us. But he also said that though we will have tribulation and persecution in the world, we can be of good cheer because he has overcome the world. And he said that if he is the one who makes you free, then you are free indeed.

Grace and Peace,
++Council

Trinity XXIV

2010-11-15T08:42:00.000-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

Have you ever wondered why Indian ran dances work? It’s a very technical and complicated process, but goes something like this. Indian rain dances work, because Indians believe they will work and they don’t stop dancing until it rains.

If you ask God to do something for you, your chances of getting what you want improve if you believe God can actually do it. St. James tells us, "When you pray, you must believe, and not doubt at all." And St. Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing”.

Two of Jesus' miracles illustrate this point. A local muckity-muck asks Jesus to raise his daughter from the dead. While Jesus is on his way to the man's house, a woman comes up behind him and grabs the hem of his cloak, and says to herself, "If I can touch the hem of his garment, I shall be whole."

Jesus heals the woman and tells her, "Your faith has made you whole." When Jesus finally gets to the man's house the crowd of paid mourners mock Jesus. However, Jesus brings the young woman back to life anyway. And just like the other two resurrections, this one is performed for the benefit of a family member of the dead person. In this story, the young woman's father, who has the confidence that Jesus can heal, is the one who is rewarded.

Today is the two hundred and twenty-sixth anniversary of an important event in the history of our church. Looking at it through the lens of confidence in prayer, we have to say that this event did not reward the faith of everybody who prayed about it. Why? Because not everyone wanted it to happen. Why God chooses to do what he does in any given situation remains a mystery.

And as they would say Monty Python, one of my favorite shows of old…And now for something completely different.

Since 1607 there have been Church of England clergymen and Anglican churches in America. The resistance of colonists who belonged to dissenting Protestant churches was the main reason American Anglicans never had a bishop of their own during the colonial period. It was one of those, “God bless our bishop and keep him far from us” situations. A lot of Anglican clergymen were happy to have an ocean between them and their bishop. As a result, few Americans were ever confirmed, and it was the rare and wealthy individual who traveled to England to be ordained.

In the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, American Anglicans had some major decisions to make. If they were to remain true to the Christian tradition of the last eighteen centuries they would need some bishops. However, they were faced with another big problem. The Americans had just beaten England –the nation most likely to supply their bishops.

Some American Anglican leaders believed the church would be fine without Bishops, at least for a time. While others were appalled at the prospect of giving, even for a moment, the historic succession of bishops which comes down from the first apostles.

Connecticut clergy decided they would not be passive participants while things unfolded, and elected a priest named Samuel Seabury to be their bishop. However, being elected is only a part of the process. Bishops are elected to their administrative jobs, but they have to be consecrated by at least three other bishops to actually become a valid bishop in apostolic succession.

So, Seabury went off to England and asked the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London to consecrate him to the Episcopate. Like numerous Archbishops of Canterbury of the last several decades they looked for a way to avoid dealing with a sticky political matter. They hid behind a Parliamentary statute which said that no Church of England bishop could consecrate someone who refused to take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. For obvious reasons that was not an option.

Seabury was also a physician and had studied medicine decades earlier in Aberdeen, Scotland. Scotland was the home of an Anglican Church that had broken off from the Church of England a century earlier. “ The issue was the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which Parliament fired the legitimate King, James II, and replaced him with William and Mary who came from Holland.”

“Much as they deplored James II's attempts to make the Church of England Roman Catholic again, loyal English bishops believed they could not swear allegiance to a new king while the one to whom they had sworn allegiance already was still alive. They became known as "Non-Jurors" or "Non-Swearers." After they were kicked out of the Church of England, the Non-Jurors established the Episcopal Church of Scotland.”

Bishops in succession to the original Non-Jurors consecrated Samuel Seabury as the first Bishop of Connecticut and as the first Anglican bishop in the United States. This consecration took place in Aberdeen, Scotland on November 14, 1784, 226 years ago today. The consecration of Samuel Seabury was promptly denounced by George Washington, John Jay and other Virginia Anglicans.

Eventually, those who wanted no bishops capitulated. Parliament also eventually relaxed its rules, and bishops for New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania were consecrated. A gentleman who is in my line of apostolic succession named William White was consecrated as the first Bishop of Pennsylvania and became the first Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

Because of Samuel Seabury and the Non-Jurors, American Anglicanism has bishops -- bishops to whom many of my fellow EMC bishops and I stand in direct succession. God has been faithful to us in giving us apostolic ministry. Let us be faithful to him in using it properly.

Kingdom Thinking

2010-11-13T21:20:00.001-05:00

by Bishop Paul Hewett

A clericus, or a synod, helps lift everyone into “Kingdom thinking,” seeing more of the matrix within which our ministries are set. Consecrating a church building or blessing a home or holy water is a way of “staking out a claim” for the Kingdom, making explicit the return of creation to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Our Lord said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the Gospel,” (Mk. 1: 15) and Mark’s Gospel is an expansion of this verse.

Kingdom thinking helps get us beyond “jurisdictional thinking” about our own parishes, dioceses and provinces. Jurisdictional thinking is good, and important, but it must open up to Kingdom thinking, so that we can transcend our own frames of reference, and see more of the big picture, as God sees it. The doctrine of the Communion of Saints helps us here, because the saints come from times and places that include our own, and go beyond. We have lavished some extra time on Benedict, Alfred and Winston. The Church is an organic whole, through time and space, and the Church is the Sacrament of the Kingdom. The Eucharist is the Sacrament of the Kingdom, as Fr. Schmemann taught us.

The Church extends the Kingdom, and cures souls. This means that mission comes first, and secondly, maintenance of structures and institutions, through conciliar governance, in accord with the ancient councils. And the Holy Spirit, seeing a region like a metropolis, a county or a state, knows all about the various jurisdictions in it, but sees it primarily in terms of all the souls who need the Saviour. The mission is to present the claims of Christ to every human being in the region, by every means available, with everyone else who is doing that. This mission necessarily involves society, to pray, vote and work so that the civil law corresponds with God’s moral law.

John Wesley engaged in Kingdom thinking with his motto, “the world is my parish.” My parish is my world can lead to a bunker mentality, although it goes without saying that we must have a starting point, a vantage point, and a family base. Even so, with parishes, it is an old custom in England (which we have adopted) to always list the name of the place the parish serves first, and then the name of the parish, to show that we are here as the Church to witness to and serve the people of this place. My first parish was listed as “Wandsworth, St. Faith’s.” And from ancient times the Church adopted the radical view for mission that the smallest unit of life in the Church is not the parish, but the diocese, because we are staking out a claim for the Kingdom not just for a neighborhood, but for the entire metropolis.

Many of our traditional Anglican dioceses are “affinity based” and not yet geographical, so the emphasis is back on the parish. And amazingly, we can shift to a yet smaller level. Our Lord said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” (Lk 17: 21) The ladder to the eternal Kingdom is inside the Christian’s heart. +PCH

Bishop Paul Hewett is the Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Holy Cross

Open Letter to the Bishop of Fulham

2010-11-09T11:21:00.001-05:00

From Bishop William Millsaps

Right now, and I think for the rest of my life, I am in agreement with Fr. Coady. On the music part, there are some good hymns that did not make it into the 1940 Hymnal and there are some other songs as well which edify people. The Book of Common Prayer is a treasure in my life, but I also respect those, like the late Dr. Peter Toon, who saw a need for providing some services in contemporary English. There is no question in my mind that the Authorized Version of the Bible is superior to any one modern translation, but many of my hispanic friends and also some of our young people struggle with it, so we provide other versions as "helps."

But Rome is so big that they have crises which mount and mount. They create more crises, such as the recent fiasco about Israel where you have the first German pope in many lifetimes appearing to sponsor a new wave of anti-Israel propaganda. He did NOT sponsor it, but try and tell this to those who did not realize that certain bishops were seizing an opportunity to spout off.

My prayers are with Benedict XVI and with his desire to bring Christians together. But putting LaVeda in charge of the new Consistory seems unwise.

So Episcopal/Anglican of the continuing "brand" is my choice. I respect +John Broadhurst in his choice, and I respect the others who are making the same choice. At the same time there are others coming across the bridge toward us. Frankly, a lot of those coming our way are those, male and female, who have been wounded by Roman Catholic clergy. Pastoral Letters are important, but good pastoral care is far more important.

In the United States, we do not have an "Established Church." But we have plenty of problems of our own. Smug, we must never be. Arrogance is never healthy. May God have mercy on us all,and may we learn what it means to be merciful to each other.

+William Millsaps

Pastoral Letter from the Bishop of Fulham

2010-11-09T11:19:00.002-05:00

My resignation has been formally announced. I know that for many of you this will be not unexpected but for others it will be a shock. I have thoroughly enjoyed being your Bishop and have thought it a great privilege. I remain utterly committed to our Catholic and Anglican heritage.

The Bishop of London intends to replace me and I hope that you will get a Bishop who is able to minister to you faithfully in the deteriorating situation in the Church of England.

It has been my great joy to work in three different Dioceses and in each of them I have felt welcomed and affirmed. I will miss many colleagues and the priests and parishioners of the parishes it has been my privilege to serve for more than 14 years.

My personal future is that I intend to enter the new Catholic Ordinariate being set up by the Pope. For 40 years I have been committed to the ARCIC process in which the Church of England seeks to unite with Rome. Recent decisions in our own church have made a positive outcome to these talks less and less likely. The Holy Father has made what seems to me a positive and generous offer to Orthodox Anglicans and I do not feel any choice but to accept. The consequence of this will be that our Catholic and Anglican heritage exists in two different places. It is important that we all remain friends and do not do anything to undermine or criticise each other. I am very grateful for the affection and love which Judi and I have both found in all the parishes. Many thanks for everything that you have done over the years and for all that we have achieved.

My final act as a Bishop will be to celebrate the Mass at Gordon Square on the eve of Christ the King, Saturday 20th November at 12 noon. I hope to see many of you there.

Every Blessing,

Yours as ever,

+John

Sermon for Trinity XXIII

2010-11-09T11:15:00.001-05:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

In the last line of this morning's epistle St. Paul is writing to the church at Philippi, and he says, 'Our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed unto the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself."

What he is saying is that we should not allow ourselves to get dragged down by our associations with people who think this world is all there is. Knowing that there is a life beyond this one; knowing that it doesn’t all end with a slow ride in a hearse is one of the things that sets us Christian saints apart from the rest of the world.

St. Paul says while we do live on this earth, we really belong in heaven. And we Christians look to heaven for Jesus to come again and take us with him. When Jesus comes back he will raise us up from the dead and change our mortal bodies into immortal bodies just like his. That will happen because he said it will happen and he has the power, ability and inclination to do it.

Why am I spending time talking about this today? Because this line from Philippians is quoted in one of the most significant places in the Prayer Book. That is the sentence of burial that is read over the deceased at the grave. Please indulge me while I quote these dramatic words of committal in full.

"Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed, and we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the earth and the sea shall give up their dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his own glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself."

Listening to the sentence of committal -- especially when it is being read over someone you love and mourn deeply – is a major test of how much you truly believe this core Christian teaching about life and death. If you think Jesus has power over everything and that he can subdue all things unto himself, as St. Paul says, then you will indeed believe that doesn’t mean good-bye, but rather, see you later. You will also believe that all of us will be raised from the dead when he comes back and then we shall all go to heaven to live together forever and ever. Amen.

On one level, that celestial note seems rather far afield from the more mundane concerns of today's gospel. Then again, the epistle is about death and the gospel is about taxes the two things we are repeatedly told that no one can escape. However, both the epistle and the gospel condemn people who are content not to go beyond merely earthly things.

During the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry there were three major groups of people who went out of their way to make Jesus look bad in front of his supporters. We know, because we have talked about it often, that Jesus finesses quite cleverly each of the three questions, and then he asks his opponents a Bible question of his own that leaves them embarrassed, stammering and angry. That is when they decide that the best way to deal with Jesus is to kill him and they proceed to conspire to do so.

First a group of Pharisees and some Herodians go after Jesus. The Herodians were the special political partisans of the family of Kings Herod. The Herods' claim to the throne was supported by their alliance with the Romans, rather than upon a connection to an original, legitimate or Hebrew monarchy.

After a clumsy attempt to butter up Jesus, the Herodians ask him, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or is it not?" If Jesus said, "It is lawful," he could be accused of betraying his people and collaborating with the Romans. If he said, "It is not lawful," then the Romans would call him a rebel and insurrectionist.

We learn from St. Matthew that Jesus was not fooled, and asked, "Why are you trying to trip me up, you hairsplitting legalists? We can easily clear this up if you show me one of the coins in that are used to pay Caesar’s taxes. He takes the coin and pretends to examines it and asks, whose picture is on this coin and whose name is on this coin?

The Herodians reply, correctly, "Caesar's name and picture are on it." Jesus says, "If his name and picture are on the coin, then the coin must be his -- so it must be proper to give it to him. But similarly, you also have to give to God what belongs to God."

Following the same logic used with the coin, what belongs to God has to be what has his name and picture on it. What has God's name and picture on it is we baptized people, or rather saints. Genesis tells us that we are made in God's image. We get God's name on us when we are baptized and he adopts us as his children and gives us his name.

There should never be a conflict between meeting our legitimate earthly obligations and meeting our obligations to God. However, if there ever appears to be a conflict between our duty to God and country, it is our obligation to let God win out, no matter what the consequences for us may be.

"For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."

The people have spoken?

2010-11-03T19:43:00.003-04:00

by Bishop William Millsaps

How often have you heard the phrase, “The people have spoken!” used after an election? It is one of those phrases like ,”There are two sides to every story.” We use such phrases almost without thinking about whether such a phrase is even true, much less accurate in the context of the moment.

In the case of elections, we surely know how few eligible voters even vote. This week we concluded what is called a mid-term election. Personally, I am glad it is over. Now we will get a chance to see how well the people who got elected perform. We know how they campaigned, but campaigning is one thing and serving in office is quite another. According to the religious traditions which most of us have in our families around this part of our country, we know we are instructed to pray for those in authority. Some people find this burdensome. My own conviction is that if St. Paul could pray for Nero, we are without excuse. Please know I am not saying any present office-holder is a “Nero,” I am just trying to put things in perspective.

Our country has a sound tradition, and has had only one real big shooting war, the name about which we still cannot agree. I officiated at a beautiful wedding in late September in Pennsylvania. It was in a lovely Seminary chapel on Seminary Ridge. Right near there a series of famous battles took place, and an oil painting is there which is said to be one of the largest in the world. You have guessed that it is Gettysburg. As I walked over the grass I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that here brave men fought and many died. When I grew up every school child, even in Mississippi,
had to learn the speech Abraham Lincoln gave there on November 19,1863, four and a half months after the end of the those three fateful days in July. It came to be called “The Gettysburg Address.”

How superficial our situation in 2010 is in the United States, compared to the world in almost any other time in history, and compared to what Iraqi Christians face and other minority groups face in so many countries. $ 4 billion spent on this fall’s dust-up.
No bargain to anyone I know, but at least it is over. Let’s get on with our lives.

Trinity XXII and Christ the King

2010-11-01T11:45:00.001-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

If somebody does something to me over and over again, how many times do I have to forgive him? Do I have to do it as many as seven times? This is the question that St. Peter asks Jesus in today’s gospel lesson. Peter clearly thinks that if he were to forgive somebody seven times, it represents a colossal effort for which he should be congratulated, admired and emulated.

Jesus tells him, "You don't have to forgive seven times, you have to forgive seventy times seven times." Biblical literalists need to be wary at this point and we need to be worried about Biblical literalists at this point. Jesus does not mean that when someone has done something to you for the four hundred and ninety-first time, you are then permitted to withhold forgiveness.

There is no limitation on our obligation to forgive other people. Why? Because God forgives us without any limitations. When Jesus died on the cross for us he did so that our sins would be forgiven. We are to forgive others without limitations, because Jesus died for us and he forgives all our sins. That belief is at the core of the Christian religion.

When you think of a saint what comes to mind for most people is a person who puts up with someone or something that is more than they would be willing to handle. Becky will probably be hearing this a lot, if it hasn’t started already…"she is a true saint to put up with that impossible man."

To others, the word "saint" conjures up a pious person who is not quite of this world, very churchy, and who probably lived back in the old days…or at least in Calcutta. If we just so happened to run into such a person on the street, we would try to be respectful, but religious fanatics are always slightly embarrassing, and we'd probably prefer that no one actually put us in any such category.

But in the sense of the New Testament a saint, and indeed, in the All Saints' Day sense, a saint is merely a baptized person. So, with no exceptions that I know of, everyone here is a saint. The word "saint" is connected to the Latin word "sanctus," which means "holy." Holy means set apart or consecrated or differentiated.

The way in which we Christians are "holy," is not that we are necessarily better behaved than others we need look no further than some of the violence and atrocities that have been committed in the name of Jesus. We are not necessarily smarter – there are lots of people who love the Lord yet can’t read and write. It is certainly not that we are more pious than other people. Despite the fact that I am now the archbishop, no one my entire life has ever referred to me as pious. We are saints, we are set apart, because we are forgiven seventy times seventy times seven times and a few times more when necessary – and this forgiveness come without hesitation from the grantor Jesus Christ.

On All Saints' Day we celebrate the fact that God binds all us baptized and forgiven people into a community which goes beyond the limits of space and time. The collect's words on this matter are particularly memorable, "God has knit together his elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of his son Christ our Lord."

As I said last year on All Saints’ Day, we are all in this together from the first century until now, and all over the planet in all times and in all places. And what we are in together is the blessed company of all faithful people and Jesus Christ is the head and all baptized people are the body.

What Jesus wants for us is to love one another the way he loved us. To love is always to do what is best. And what is best is to be forgiving with others like Christ is with us. St. Paul tells us that God has committed to our hands the ministry of reconciliation. We are God’s saints because God forgives us. We act the way saints are supposed to act when we repent of our own sins and forgive others.

Heaven is where we saints will go at the end of all time. We shall go there, not because we have been good and deserve to go to heaven. We will go to heaven in spite of the fact that we have not been good. We will go to heaven because Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins.

If we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died for our sins and that he is going to come again, we will go to Heave. However, if we believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died for our sins, we should work that much harder to do what is pleasing in his sight.

We know from St. John that when Jesus first appears in the throne room of God in heaven he is a lamb that had been slain. Jesus was a lamb who was killed and then came back to life. One of the delicious paradoxes of heaven is that we saints will appear before God's throne in white robes, washed not in bleach but in the blood of the lamb.

And then the Lamb will take us fragile human creatures – we free, we forgiven, we set apart, we washed-in-the-blood saints on a cool and pleasant journey – a journey which never needs to end. St. John says, "The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed us, and shall lead us unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes."

Heaven and Hell (Humor)

2010-10-28T11:03:00.000-04:00

While walking down the street one day a Corrupt Senator was tragically hit by a car and died.

His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.
"Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."
"No problem, just let me in," says the Senator..

"Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from the higher ups. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."
"Really?, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the Senator.
"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."
And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.
Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.
They played a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and the finest champagne.
Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who is having a good time dancing and telling jokes.
They are all having such a good time that before the Senator realizes it, it is time to go.

Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises...
The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens in heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him, "Now it's time to visit heaven.."

So, 24 hours passed with the Senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.
"Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."

The Senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell..
Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with bio-hazard waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above.

The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulders.
"I don't understand," stammers the Senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?"

The devil smiles at him and says, "Yesterday we were campaigning ...
Today, you voted.." Vote wisely on November 2, 2010

AREA BISHOP NAMED PRESIDING BISHOP IN NATIONAL CHURCH SYNOD ELECTION

2010-10-25T13:57:00.004-04:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STATE COLLEGE, PA – The Right Reverend Council Nedd II, PhD, Bishop of the Chesapeake and Northeast in the Episcopal Missionary Church, and Rector of St. Alban's Anglican Church, Pine Grove Mills (State College), in Central Pennsylvania, has been named the third Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC). Bishop Nedd succeeds Bishop William Millsaps, of Monteagle, Tennessee, as the Presiding Bishop of the traditional Anglican jurisdiction.

The EMC's General Synod was held Friday, October 22, 2010, at Christ Church Cathedral, in Monteagle, Tennessee. Bishops, clergy and lay delegates of the jurisdiction from across the United States met at Monteagle to elect the new presiding bishop and to conduct other church business.

Other business of the Synod included voting to continue dialogue leading to a full union between the EMC in the United States and what was the Diocese of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa and is now called the Episcopal Missionary Church of South Africa.

The EMC is one of several “continuing churches” in the Anglican tradition. The jurisdiction was formed in 1992 when a split occurred in the Episcopal Church USA over the ordination of women to the priesthood. The EMC is among those Anglican churches in the United States, Canada, Australia, Africa, and elsewhere that continue to maintain the traditional male priesthood and use traditional language in its liturgical services, specifically the Eucharist and Morning Prayer.

In 2006 the EMC became a member jurisdiction of the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas.

Presiding Bishop Council Nedd II, is an American political, religious and cultural commentator who continues to serve as the Bishop of the Chesapeake and the Northeast in the EMC. Bishop Nedd is the first-born child of Council Nedd of Sumter, South Carolina and Gertrude D. Nedd (née Anderson) of Steelton, Pennsylvania.

Previously, Bishop Nedd was involved in the public policy arena in a variety of capacities. He served as a senior legislative staff member for three Members of Congress, including Rep. Bill Clinger (R-PA), spent two years teaching United States history and policy debate at a charter high school in Washington, DC, which worked with children from underserved communities in the impoverished southeast section of the city. Bishop Nedd has frequently commented on public policy, social and theological issues, and has appeared on, C-SPAN, CNN, NBC, MTV, Fox News, and numerous national syndicated radio shows as well as in print media.

In addition to his work for the church, Bishop Nedd is Chairman of the Alliance for Health, Education, and Development (AHEAD)and In God We Trust. AHEAD has sponsored senior and community health fairs around the United States to educate clergy and seniors on health care options. In God We Trust was established to push back against those in the United States that seek to remove God from the fabric of American society.

He has also advocated at the World Health Organization to help eliminate the scourge of counterfeit prescription medications that are raveging the developing world. As part of Bishop Nedd's work, he heads a variety of ministries to the Kenyan, Sudanese and Ethiopian diaspora in the United States.

Bishop Nedd has been knighted several times. His awards include the Grand Cross of St. Thomas the Apostle, the Grand Cross of the Royal Confraternity of Sao Teotonio, in which he serves as Chaplain of the General Prior for the USA, the Grand Cross of the Order of the Well of St. Maughold and holds the rank of Grand Officer in the Order of the Eagle and Seamless Tunic of Our Lord. He was bestowed the rank of Senior Chaplain and Knight Commander in the Order to Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem; is a Knight Commander and US Prior for the Royal Sovereign Military & Hospitaler Order of St. John of Jerusalem; is a Knight Commander in the Order of the Star of Honor of Ethiopia; and was made a knight in the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, in which he serves as a Deputy Grand Chaplain for the United States.

Bishop Nedd serves on the Board of Directors for The Alzheimer's Association of the National Capital Area. The American Autoimmune Related Disease Association, The Alliance for Health Education and Development, and In God We Trust, and serves on the board of trustees of the Good Samaritans of the Knights Templar Foundation.

Bishop Nedd is married to Rebecca Donahue-Nedd of Patton, PA in Cambria County and they split their time between their homes in Harrisburg, PA and Monroeville, PA.

St. Alban's Anglican Church, in Pine Grove Mills near State College, Centre County, Pennsylvania, is a parish of the Episcopal Missionary Church. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer remains the liturgical standard at St. Alban's. The Holy Eucharist is celebrated Sundays at 10:00 AM.

# # #

Synod Acceptance Speech

2010-10-23T16:19:00.003-04:00

by Council Nedd II

I was sitting in the back of the Sunday School working on my comments and Abraham Bailey (the 12 year son of Fr. Ken Bailey)came up to me and said, "you seem kind of lonely". He was right.

I’m honored and overwhelmed.

As just about everyone here has heard me say in the past, attending an EMC Synod is a treat for me, because our Synods are much more like family reunions than other Synods, and I hope that continues long after I am no longer Presiding Bishop and is always the culture of the EMC.

Just as liturgy frees us to worship God, without trying to figure out what to do next in a service and whether something is edifying in God’s sight, Anglicanism and our system of governance allows us to have a smooth transition of power.

When Bishop Lindsey, whom I love dearly and was one of my consecrators, decided to retire, the process worked to elect a new suffragan bishop for the Diocese of the South, Bishop Ron Kuykendall. I hope this transition from Bishop Millsaps as PB to me also proves to be a smooth transition.

What we do, and how we do is not for the glory or edification of any individual or individuals, but we do it for God’s glory and because of his love and faithfulness to us.

This is the first time that anyone has heard any of what I am about to say. Why is that? Well, I woke up this morning at 3:00 specifically to pray about this and begin to think what to do next. Rest assured, me waking up at 3:00 wasn’t an act of piety, I was just too tired to work on this last night. I have a very dear friend who wakes up at 4:30 every morning to pray, for the record that’s not me.

But my point is that despite the fact that several of our most senior bishops kept telling me that, I was going to be the next presiding bishop, the fact is, I was not yet the presiding bishop. There is a process, and the process works, and I also believe that the process that is in place works and is blessed.

On October 15th, 1978 Carol Wojtyla didn’t start making plans to reorganize the Vatican and the Catholic Church, because he had not yet been elected and elevated to the office of Pope. That was not false humility, that is merely a recognition, understanding and acceptance of the current situation or current state of affairs.

My first official acts as Presiding Bishop is to state my intention for Christ Church Cathedral in Monteagle, TN to remain as the National Cathedral for the EMC.
I would also like Bishop Millsaps to continue as the endorser for military chaplains and to continue to serve for the time as the Episcopal Visitor to the Diocese of the West.

As the new presiding bishop, I would like, for the time, to serve directly as the chief ecumenical officer for the EMC. However, I would like Bishop Ron Kuykendall to work closely with me on this as well as Bishop Dale Howard.

The EMC is and has always been a missionary church. I think the EMC has a lot to offer Anglicanism. Will the broader Anglican Community listen to the EMC, probably not? However, I believe our true mission field lies outside our doors – outside of Anglicanism in lots of little churches and some big churches that have never heard of the EMC or in some cases Anglicanism. There are lots of Pentecostals and Evangelicals in the US and abroad who are discovering the early church fathers and are trying to figure out how to put that faith and liturgical worship into practice and I believe we are called to assist them in this.

To that end, I would like our new bishop, Bishop Ron Kuykendall to work with Bishop Dale Howard in spearheading this effort. Bishop Howard probably has more experience with just this sort of thing than anyone I know. I believe our first order of business in this regard is to make contact with Bishop Albert Shange and the Episcopal Missionary Church in South Africa and schedule a time to meet with him in person.

I am officially establishing a Commission to examine the Constitution and Canons of the EMC. Our Constitution and Canons are fine pieces of work. However, there are some technical issues that need to be fixed, as some of us recently discovered. I would like Fr. Len Giacolone (St. Francis, Austin TX) to Chair this committee, as he originally drafted the document, and I would like Fr. Mike Cochran (Christ Church, Columbus, OH) our provincial chancellor, and Fr. Brian Turner (Christ Church, Warrenton, VA), my diocesan chancellor to work on this committee as well. I would also like a layman to be involved in this process as well and if someone has a suggestion, please let me know.

Also, I would like to thank the anti-choir for singing this morning. The anti-choir you may be asking yourself. Bishop Millsaps didn’t want to have a choir per se as everyone at Christ Church Cathedral sings. However, I thought it was important to get people together who share the common interest in, and love of singing – people who may not necessarily have met, or known that they had something in common. Also, I know at least in our diocese of the Chesapeake and Northeast with the exception of Fr. John Karanja’s parish Baltimore which has a praise and worship team, none of our churches have choirs.

With music in mind. I would also like to establish a Commission on Church music. I will not take a lot of time on this right now, but there are a lot of wonderful hymns and songs that are not in our beloved 1940 Hymnal and I would like a group of people to look into this. You will not be starting from ground zero. I had the pleasure of attending an APA synod in 2006 where I first met Beth Egen and they had a session on church music which I sat through from beginning to end and I was convinced that they begun a great work.

Also, Mother Jean Zampino at what used to be called the Life In Jesus Community of the Charasmatic Episcopal Church began a hymnal project in 1997 which incorporated contemporary and traditional hymns. I have not seen or spoken to the Zampinos since 1999, but I am assuming the project is completed by now. Both of these were thoughtful projects undertaken by thoughtful groups of people and may prove a good starting point. I will butt out of this for now, because as the people from St. Alban’s (State College, PA) can tell you I know nothing about music.

I would like Mrs. Beth Eagen (St. Joseph of Arimathea, Montgomery, AL) to chair this committee and working with her I would like, Bishop Douglas Pieper (Holy Family, Clarksburg, MD), Fr. Paul Oxner & Joan Oxner (Christ Church Cathedral, Monteagle, TN) and William & Ana Glass (St. Andrews, Gainesville, FL).

I also have a couple of closing comments. The first resolution I intend to present to the Synod is a resolution naming Bishop Millsaps the Presiding Bishop Emeritus (which later passed unanimously). I would like all of the clergy to make sure that we have your email addresses, so that we can all communicate better with one another. Mrs. Joan Oxner will gather and compile this information.

Distance and money makes it difficult for all of us to meet more regularly as bishops, dioceses or even as friends. While we bishops generally stay in contact with one another, I would like us bishops to begin having quarterly conference calls, so that we can better stay in touch as a group. This is something that I have recently started in my diocese and I will say with some success.

The Ember day letters are fine, but us being together on a conference call is a way for us to ensure that we stay in touch with one another, and better know what’s going on with each other. I would encourage the Diocese of the South and the Diocese of the West to do the same.

We will be celebrating Holy Communion today at 5:30. There are a number of people, including Bishops Craig, Pieper, Whatley who are not with us today that have asked us to pray for them. I would like a list of some sort in that back of the church, where anyone might add the names of people to pray for at our service of Holy Communion.

There are several other things going on today that Bishop Millsaps does not know about, and they will be revealed as this Synod unfolds. So everyone, please be patient, if you see me suddenly interrupting things at various points.

In closing, if we remember who we are and why we are here, the Lord will remember us and the Lord will continue to bless the Episcopal Missionary Church.

Synod 2010 Sermon

2010-10-23T15:25:00.003-04:00

Repent Now!
by Bishop Council Nedd II

Lord, I live only to see your face, So shine on me. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Fairytales do not teach children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairytales simply remind adults that dragons exist and they teach children that dragons can kill.

In today’s Epistle St. Peter reminds us that we are to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins and we shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. If I were to walk away with one message and only one message from today’s Epistle, and dare I say, the entire book of the Acts of the Apostles, it would be the importance of repentance.

We are instructed in Matthew chapter three to repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.

Beyond salvation probably one of the greatest gifts God has given man is the ability to repent. Without an ability to repent man would be unable to enter in to the Kingdom of God. Repentance leads us to a better state and always precedes a greater measure of the Presence of God in our lives.

Repentance means to turn around. It means to go 180 degrees not 360 degrees. Although most of us are, we are not supposed to be spinning in circles. It means to turn to God from whatever is taking His place or distracting us from Him and His call on our lives.

That statement illustrates a whole number of issues, it goes beyond obvious sin – it includes – substitutes for God. This would be those things that capture our attention and affection. A perfect example would be my love of reality TV and specifically, Big Brother, Survivor and the Amazing Race.

However, it goes beyond that because when I was in the hospital last month. I spent an entire day watching a Jersey Shore marathon, when I know that every single other TV show that was on any channel at any time was more edifying. For the record, I find that show a bit like the book Bonfire of the Vanities, I can’t turn away because I have this belief that at some point at least one character will turn out to be likable. But I digress.

• True repentance produces change.
• The sinner must repent before they receive salvation.
• The saved must practice repentance if they are to enjoy unbroken fellowship with God.
• What do I mean when I say practice repentance?
• That means do it over and over again.
• Why?
• Often time we Christians, in particular the more sanctimonious among us, want credit with God for sins we have no desire to commit and we are quick to find fault in the lives of everyone around us.
• We brag about all of the great things that we do in God’s name as if it grants us some special favor in his eyes – when it is humility that we should be demonstrating.

Repentance is a gift for all of us. Anyone can seek it from God at any time. This applies to the non-believer and the believer alike. The difference is that the believer should already know this and attempt to seek repentance regularly.
Repentance gives us three things:

First, repentance refreshes us.

Picture a person overcome with fever and gasping for air. Without air the physical body dies and without the breath of the Spirit we suffocate spiritually. Repentance allows us the ability to refresh our lives.

Secondly, repentance brings us restoration. It returns us to a better state.

In our lives we have lost so much through the consequences of sin. We are broken, dysfunctional or prideful, self aggrandizing and defective in our ways. We are defective in our thinking and our view of ourselves. We are bound by brokenness, emotional scars, hurts, rejection and habits. Through repentance, through confession and looking to Jesus “the author and finisher of our faith” we can be restored.

Now do we believe that repentance is worth our time?

Lastly, Repentance brings Revival.

As St. Paul said in his second letter to the Corintians:
2 Corinthians 7:8-9
“…for even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it. For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing.

The context here was the first epistle to the Corinthian Church where Paul addressed a number of issues regarding sin and their response to it. The amazing thing is this:
1. They did not realize their depth of sin
2. They thought that real love ignored sin and its consequence
3. Sin in our lives can ruin people and things more than just ourselves.

The letter had brought about a repentant spirit resulting in a fruit of zealousness for the Lord. The amazing thing is that we can be so blind to these things in our own lives and not have a repentant spirit. Repentance brought revival.

God wants us to repent not regret!

Repentance produces a strong desire to correct wrongs. It brings a realization that our great God is Holy and is offended by our sin. True repentance propels us to action – not to more of the same behavior. And spirit of repentance prepares the way for the coming of the Lord.

It is easy to be like the Pharisee and boast and stand before God and talk about how wonderful we are and all the great things we have accomplished and will accomplish, even if we do accomplish them in God’s name.

I take great pride in a lot of things, and occasionally I am quick to boast. However, ask me about watching too much TV or lots of other things in my heart that are known only to God…and notice how quiet I become.

Momentarily we will have a general confession and absolution and receive the body and blood of our savior Jesus Christ. Why not make this a time to turn over a new leaf. If not now, when? If not now, why not now?

Dragons exist. Dragons can kill. The devil takes many forms, yet it is always the devil.

Let us Pray.

As Job prayed:

I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.
[You asked,] ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
[“You said,] ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”

In the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen

Sermon for Trinity XX

2010-10-17T07:14:00.002-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

Currently, the U.S. has troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. At various times, we have prayed for safe returns for particular individuals associated with this building. Today St. Paul tells us a Christian is like a soldier. At times in the church's history when pacifism and other sorts of anti-war feeling get stirred up, the idea that a Christian is a soldier is not a very popular one.

By saying that a Christian has to conduct himself like a soldier, St. Paul is not making a commentary about war. He is merely stating a fact – because everything that goes on in this world is the continuation of a war that began in heaven.

The war in heaven was fought between angels led by St. Michael archangel and angels led by Satan, that old serpent that deceives the whole world. The war between St. Michael and the devil is still going on now, and the battle is fought out within the heart of each one of us.

St. Paul says, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." What he is saying is that our real enemies are not other human beings, our real enemies are demons. However, demons can and often use people for their own purposes.

If you are going to be in a fight you have to be prepared. Don’t be like my stepson, who, when he was going to get into a fight with a kid who is a foot taller, decided that he should put his brand new glasses on so he could better see his opponent. But that’s a story for another sermon.

In a spiritual fight you need both defensive protection--the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation--and an offensive weapon--the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Often when St. Paul is depicted in art, he is carrying a sword. That sword is the sword of the spirit. This in no way suggests that St. Paul was a professional soldier, rather he was a soldier of Christ who tells us that we have to be soldiers of Christ also.

This Monday, October 18, we celebrate the feast of one of Christ’s soldiers, St. Luke the Evangelist. Then on Thursday, October 28, is the feast of two more Christian soldiers, St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles.

St. Luke's most lasting accomplishment was writing his gospel and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. The Prayer Book's collect for his day talks about his description of Christ's love and healing power, and prays that the same power may continue to be manifested in the church.

All four Gospel writers speak about healing. However, what makes healing of particular interest in St. Luke's writings is that he was a physician. The most dramatic moments in the Acts of the Apostles come when St. Luke describes how the apostles are able to heal people by the power of the Holy Spirit just as Jesus did in the gospels. Proving what Jesus said last week, that he left the same power he had to his church.

St. Luke accompanies St. Paul on his journey to Rome. St. Paul's letters say that St. Luke was his constant companion during his imprisonment. He is unique among the four gospel-writers in some of his details about the annunciations and births of both Jesus and St. John the Baptist. This tell us that St. Luke was an cherished friend of the two most important human beings in the Bible, St. Paul and the Virgin Mary.

We don't have as much information about St. Simon and St. Jude as we do about St. Luke. Simon and Jude are in all the lists of the twelve disciples in the gospels. Simon is known as "the zealous one," and Jude is also called "Thaddeus”. There is a New Testament "Epistle of St. Jude" which he probably wrote, and tradition has Simon preaching in Egypt before they were martyred together in Persia which is modern day Iran.

In the Prayer Book lessons for their day, St. Paul addresses the church to say you "are builded on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."

If the people in the church are like a building, the foundation is the apostles and the prophets. And I don’t mean the apostles and prophets as merely founding and continuing leaders, but what the original apostles and prophets taught. We find their teachings in the Old and the New Testaments. Jesus is the corner-stone that holds it all together.

St. Paul goes on to say that the church is organic--a growing building. If we are willing to rest upon the foundation and the corner-stone, then the building can grow grander until it can become a proper place even for God himself to live. St. Paul writes, "all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit."

We are all Christian soldiers. We are all also bricks in the wall of God's temple. Some of us are also healers, writers, preachers and martyrs. We are all called to play a role. So, as St. Paul tells us, "My brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil."

Sermon for Trinity XIX

2010-10-10T06:47:00.001-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

Today's Gospel tells us about another of Jesus' healing miracles. Jesus meets a paralyzed man. Jesus tells the paralyzed man to get up, pick up his futon that he was carried in on, and go home – and the man picks up his futon and goes home.

Jesus had promised his disciples at the Last Supper that when he went to heaven he would send them the Holy Ghost – the comforter. And when the Holy Ghost came down on them they would be able to do all the miracles he did – and some even greater ones.

I do my best to believe in the promises of Jesus – in particular with regard to healing. Jesus told his apostles that they would lay hands upon the sick and that the sick would recover. The Epistle of St. James commends prayer and anointing for the sick by the eleders.

Sacramental healing either by laying on of hands or by anointing is part of what you are entitled to as a member of an apostolic and Bible believing church. We might be tempted to associate anointing with Roman Catholics, and the laying on of hands with trailer parks in the deep South and television evangelists. And people tend to equate the whole matter with oddness, eeriness and hocus-pocus. However, both practices are properly Anglican. They are in the Bible, and they are in the Prayer Book.

I can tell you about instances of absolute, flat-out, instantaneous cures I have seen. I can point to numerous individuals who will tell you they are alive and in as good shape as they are because of someone’s ministry of healing. But anointing someone and the laying-on hands is a matter of obedience. We do it because the New Testament tells us to do it. Not necessarily because we understand why or how it works or because we are putting God's promise to some sort of test.

What distinguishes the miracle in today's Gospel lesson is the teaching about how sin and sickness are intertwined with one another. Sin is the word the Bible uses to talk about the general imperfection of our human existence. Sin is the condition of rebellion against God brought about by the original disobedience of Adam and Eve.

Sin is manifested in many different ways and is a disease with many symptoms. One symptom of the condition of sin is sickness. Adam and Eve did not need an HMO and neither did they need the Obama health care plan…at least not at first.

There are many symptoms of sin. They include death, how hard it is to earn money, grow food or deal with labor pains. The symptoms of the disease of sin with which we are always in touch are our own personal and individual acts of rebellion against God. If we don't actively and continually work to get rid of our sins, they will surely block the flow of God's grace to us as well as his healing power.

In the context of that background, let’s look more closely at today's story. Some people carry in a paralyzed man who is lying on a mat and place him in front of Jesus. They assume that Jesus is going to pray for his healing in some way. Always one to look for the “cringe moment” which is now so popular on reality TV, Jesus says, "Don't worry son, your sins are forgiven."

St. Matthew doesn't tell us how the young man or his friends reacted to the words of Jesus, but we can assume they thought something like, "We didn’t ask about sins, we want our friend to walk again."

The Scribes were the enemies of Christ. We do know how some of them reacted. They thought Jesus was out of line in saying the man's sins were forgiven because only God could forgive sins and by claiming one of God's powers for himself, Jesus was committing blasphemy of the highest order.

Jesus knew exactly what the Scribes were thinking, so he said, "What are you upset about? Which do you think is easier -- to say 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk?"'

Now let’s attempt to answer his question for ourselves. It is obviously easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven," because there is no way for anyone to know for certain. If you say, "Get up and walk," it will quickly become apparent whether you can, or cannot, actually command it and make it happen.

Regardless, Jesus goes on to say, "I will show you that I have the power to forgive sins." That is when he tells the lame man to get up and go home, and he does. What do we learn from this? By Jesus' own testimony, his power to bring healing reveals his power to forgive sins.

Illness and individual sins are connected because they are both symptoms of the condition of sin. As I said last week Jesus conquered the condition of sin. He broke the power of the devil once and for all when he was sacrificed on the cross. He shares this victory with his church in countless and many ways. The paralyzed man's forgiveness and healing are the ones today's Gospel reveals.

That is why the ministry of healing takes place most often and most effectively at Holy Communion, where there is always a confession of sin and an absolution. When healing is ministered outside of Holy Communion, we rely on the Prayer Book's prayer that the person needing healing be released from sin.

The larger insight here is, of course, that a human being is not just his body, and not just his mind, and not just his spirit. The sum of a human being is far greater than its parts. All three are intertwined and intermingled to make up the whole person. It follows that if there is trouble in one area, it will affect the others.

Toothaches make it tough to think straight. Depression can make you physically ill. And unabsolved sins and unworked-through problems weigh on every aspect of your life. Jesus wants to heal you. Confessing your sins and asking for healing are the right way to start getting what he wants you to have.

Trinity XVIII

2010-10-03T16:14:00.000-04:00

By Bishop Council Nedd II

Today's gospel lesson is one of my favorites. The fact that it is one of my favorites helps me understand why the sin of idolatry is so dangerous to us all. We all have a tendency to want to remake God in our own image, that is, we like to think of God as being pretty much the same kind of person we are.

After we have decided that God is just like us, we then begin to walk around with the confidence that God will then overlook our shortcomings. We think if God is as sensitive as I am, then of course he'll understand the occasional slip-ups. Unfortunately, that attitude is as foolish as our tendency to like God most when he does for us, what we want him to do. This is also why we question him most and get upset with him when he acts without paying attention to our best advice.

Draw your own conclusions from my next statement, but I like today's gospel because it shows Jesus as a clever and witty Bible teacher. The story is set during the last week of Jesus' earthly life, the lead-up to the crucifixion. Each of the three major groups within the Judaism of Jesus' time takes one last crack at him to try to humiliate him in front of the throngs of people.

Last week we saw the Pharisees put Jesus in a no-win situation regarding healing on the Sabbath. St. Matthew tells us that the supporters of King Herod tried a similar approach regarding paying taxes, and the Sadducees, the Jewish equivalent of the Unitarians, the religious liberals, tried the same thing regarding the afterlife.

However, in today's gospel, as if there can’t be any more of a set-up, a Pharisee lawyer asks Jesus the seemingly innocent question, "Of all the magnificent commandments in our magnificent Law, which one do you think is the most magnificent?" The trick here was that Jews were supposed to think that the Old Testament Law was all one piece. To take one aspect of the Law and set it above all the others was like pulling a thread at the bottom of a sweater – the entire structure unravels.

The Pharisees had probably spent a good deal of time thinking up this question which they were sure would make Jesus look bad. But Jesus doesn’t even hesitate as he sticks it right back in their faces. He tells them, "There is not one greatest commandment, there are two — love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself. The demands of the entire Hebrew Bible can be summed up in those two commandments."

Next Jesus gets a measure of revenge as he probably puts on his best innocent choir boy face and says, "Now let me ask you a question. When the Savior of Israel comes, the Messiah, the Christ, from whom is he going to be descended?" The Pharisees answer correctly, "The Messiah will be a descendant of King David," but their correct answer entangles them further in the spider web Jesus is spinning.

Jesus goes on, "Then, if King David is the Messiah's ancestor, why does David call him 'Lord?', because we know people don’t generally call anyone younger than he his lord." Jesus cites the first verse of Psalm 110 as evidence. Everybody agreed that King David wrote Psalm 110 about the coming Messiah.

Psalm 110 begins with David's saying, "The Lord (that is, God) said unto my Lord (that is, the Messiah), 'Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool." Jesus asks, "How can the Messiah be a descendant of David and David's lord at the same time? If you lawyers and Pharisees know the Bible so well, tell me how the Messiah can possibly be both older than David and younger than David."

The Holy Ghost has helped us all be bright little Bible students too, so we know the answer to Jesus' question. The Messiah is both older than David and younger than David because he is God — the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. He is David's Lord because he existed from before the beginning of time. He is David's son, his descendant, because he became a full human being a full thousand years after David lived and died.

It is possible that the Pharisees saw what Jesus' question implied, and didn't want to put tongue to it since they believed that the idea that God could be a man was blasphemy. It is also possible that he had them absolutely stumped.

In any event, St. Matthew tells us, in this delectable understatement, "And no man was able to answer him a word; neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions." Jesus' opponents realized finally that they were never going to make him go away by beating him in a debate and that the only way to make him go away was to kill him.

So, while I engage in a bit of idolatry by congratulating Jesus on his brilliant teaching style, let’s not forget that the content of the debate is as important as the debate itself. The demands of God are two: love him. What do I mean? Obey him and trust him to work things out. Also, love your neighbor. Help other people. Do what is best for them. Every bit of the Old Testament can be summed up in those two commands.

Lastly, Jesus was trying to get the Pharisees to see that the Old Testament was not just about ethics and morality as important as ethics and morality are. Jesus was trying to get them to see that the logical conclusion of the Old Testament was that God would come to earth as a man to save everyone and forgive everyone for all the ways they did not and do not keep the law.

The enemies of mankind are sin, or rather disobedience, which leads to death, and Jesus crushed sin for all of us.

So King David writes, "The Lord said unto my Lord, 'Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool'."

Sermon for Trinity XIV

2010-09-06T22:37:00.003-04:00

by Bishop Council Nedd II

Lord, you have done so much for me that I cannot tell it all. You are faithful, truthful and boundless in all you are, You are wisdom, righteous and vision for all who see. I will worship you in the beauty of holiness. In the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen

My wife Rebecca knows that I love her very much, but she likes to hear me say it from time-to-time.

Last week Jesus held up a Samaritan as the perfect example of how to obey God's commandment to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This week, out of ten people who have received a miraculous physical healing, a Samaritan is the only one who bothers to thank God. But the fact that they are Samaritans gives each story some extra bite, because the people who were around Jesus hated Samaritans.

There was a tremendous amount of ethnic prejudice in first-century Israel, the society in which Jesus lived. Various Hebrew laws taught the Jews that anyone who was not a Jew -- that is to say, anyone who was a Gentile -- was unclean, and that associating with a Gentile could make a Jew unclean also.

The New Testament tells us that the Jews reserved their harshest ethnic prejudice for a group called the Samaritans. Given human nature, it is probable that the Jews hated the Samaritans particularly, because they were both so much alike.

That is the same phenomenon I often recognize in myself when I am out in the world and doing what I do. If I am at a political fundraiser or some sort of cocktail party, if somebody says to me, "I am a Methodist" or "I am an atheist" or "I am a Roman Catholic," I am likely to smile and say, "Oh, that's nice." But if someone says to me, "I am an Episcopalian," I find myself more than ready to show them the real Bishop Council. I immediately get on the defensive with my hackles up, and am ready to go from cute and charming to belligerent in the drop of a hat. We tend to have the hardest time with people who are like us, but not completely like us.

This morning, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem from his home territory of Galilee in the northern part of Israel. As he goes into a village along the road he sees ten lepers. The Old Testament had more than a few rules and regulations to cover people who had skin diseases. One rule was that the lepers were to avoid contact with people, as not to contaminate others. So, as St. Luke reports, the lepers "stood afar off."

From their position afar off, they yell over to Jesus and say, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." They are asking Jesus to heal them. What Jesus does not say is almost as remarkable as what he does say. He says to the lepers, "Go show yourselves to the priests." He does not say, "Be healed," or "Ephphatha," or even "Your sins are forgiven."

Telling them, simply, to show themselves to the priests is a test of their confidence in him. People with strange skin diseases were not allowed to worship with the rest of the community. When they thought they were over their illness, they had to get the priest to check them out and then readmit them officially to the larger community.

If they went to the priest before they were actually healed, they would contaminate him, which would get them into further trouble. For them to head off to the priests just because Jesus said so showed their tremendous trust in his power to heal. Their trust was rewarded, for, as St. Luke tells us, "It came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed."

If the story ended there, it still would have made several very telling points. First, the story confirms the idea that Jesus can heal. He has given the same power to the church. We should be as confident when we ask for his healing power today as the lepers were then.

Next, we see that Jesus works his miracle through their obedience to him.
They ask him for healing; he tells them what they have to do;
they do it; then they get what they want.

All too often we want God to performs miracles for us when we are not willing to obey him or do our part.

We ask God to change the behavior of our family members and other difficult people without wanting to be involved in any messy confrontations.
We ask for good health while we continue to abuse our bodies.
We demand that he save us from financial predicaments while we refuse to tithe.
The obedience of the lepers sets the proper example.

But the story still does not stop with the obedience of the lepers. One of the ten lepers who is on his way to the priests realizes that he has been healed. He turns back to Jesus; throws himself down at Jesus' feet; praises God; and thanks Jesus for the miracle that Jesus has done for him.

Jesus, not passing up an opportunity for a bit of sarcasm, asks, "Didn’t I heal ten of you, where are the other nine? I healed ten people and the only one to take the time and give praise and thanks to God for what he did was this 'Samaritan-of all people." Then he tells the Samaritan, "Get up and go about your business. Your faith has made you whole."

Only a real cynic, or someone like me, would imagine that when the nine got to the priests they had leprosy all over again because they weren't properly grateful. St. Luke tells us no such thing, of course. However, Jesus is making a significant point about faith in what he says to the Samaritan.

Christianity is all about establishing a relationship to God. The heart of true Christianity lies in each individuals struggle to grow closer to God – whatever that may look like. That relationship is called faith. God is our father. We have confidence and trust that he loves us and he always forgives us; and that he is watching over us and that he is encouraging us and helping us to do the right thing; and that he intends to take us to heaven in the end where we can see why the events in our lives unfolded as they did.

But, like all relationships, a relationship is a two-way street. God wants us to thank him for what happens in our lives. He wants us to thank him for the things we like. That way we won't forget where they came from, but only so we can go back and ask again.

And he wants us particularly to thank him for things we don't like so much.

If we believe that everything that happens to us is something God either causes or allows, then we have to believe that everything--like it or not--fits into his overall plan and makes sense, or rather, is of God.

So to thank God for whatever happens--especially something we don't like or don't understand--is not to deny what we really think, but instead to begin to say, "I don't know exactly what you are up to here, God, but I have faith that you are doing something that is ultimately good--so please show me, guide me and help me."

The Samaritan liked what had happened, but he still closed the loop by thanking God and Jesus. So he didn't go home thinking he deserved what had happened to him. Instead, his faith had made him whole.

Rebecca knows I love her, but she like to hear me say it and so does God.

In the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen

Reflections on a Collect for the Transfiguration

2010-09-01T18:52:00.002-04:00

by Bishop William Millsaps

The influence of a person is often unknown in his lifetime. There are exceptions to this, of course. Mother Teresa was perhaps better known in the Western world than in the huge city in which she lived, Calcutta, India. Her death was overshadowed by the tragic death of Princess Diana in the same week. Some people are famous for a time and then become the subject of the game, "Whatever happened to...?" Others make wonderful contributions, and yet their names are seldom remembered. We often benefit from the determined effort of one person.

The Rev. Dr. William Reed Huntington was an Episcopal clergyman who lived in the 19th century. One of his achievements was to reclaim the Feast of the Transfiguration. The Eastern Orthodox Church had kept this day on August 6th for fifteen hundred years. This day commemorates the events recorded in Chapter 9 of the Gospel according to St. Luke, and also in St. Matthew, Chapter 17 and St. Mark, Chapter 9. St. Paul expounded on the Transfiguration in his second letter to the Church at Corinth.

What happened was that Jesus took Peter, James and John up a mountain to pray. If you read the Gospels you will see that this was after Jesus' ministry in Galilee had come to its conclusion. It was to earthly appearances a failure. The people who had at first received him gladly had turned away because they had been looking for one who would lead a revolution and overthrow the Roman forces who occupied their land. The leaders of his own people had begun their plots to destroy him. Even among the twelve there was confusion. When they got to the mountain top, Jesus prayed. It seems that Peter and the others fell asleep. When they awakened they saw Jesus transfigured, that is, in a radiant light. Even his clothing was "white and glistering." With him were Moses and Elijah. They were talking about the death of Jesus. Of course, this was beyond the understanding of the disciples. Yet they wanted to hold on to this moment. Peter blurted out "Master it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Mark's Gospel adds, "He didn't know what to say, They were terrified."

The point of the Transfiguration seems to be that Jesus clearly understood that he was the fulfillment of the promise of the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah). His obedience to his Divine Sonship would bring salvation, but it would be at a great cost, his own death at Jerusalem. The great artist Rafael portrayed the whole scene, and the story which follows in Matthew, in one of the most famous paintings in the world.

Over the years there have been special services on mountains, including the plateau on which I live, to commemorate the Transfiguration. On one of his visits to Mt. Sargent in Maine, the Dr. Huntington to whom I referred earlier wrote the following prayer:

"O God, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thine only-begotten Son wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistering; Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may be permitted to behold the King in his beauty, who with thee O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, world without end. Amen."

What a wonderful prayer to offer on Transfiguration or for that matter on any day! Thank you, Dr. Huntington. We needed that.

Sermon for Trinity XIII

2010-08-30T19:18:00.002-04:00

By Bishop Council Nedd II

As the deer pants for the waterbrook, so pants my soul after you God. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen

The most important character in this morning's gospel is a man who has no name other than "a lawyer." The lawyer has been listening to Jesus preach, and he decides that it is now time to find out how clever Jesus character really is. So he asks Jesus, What do I have to do to get eternal life? And that’s really not a bad question at all.

Jesus says, "You're a bright boy -- you're a lawyer -- tell me what the law says." The lawyer replies, "The law says to love God and love your neighbor as yourself." Sitting here today, we should all find those words rather familiar. Jesus replies, that is exactly the right answer -- if you do that, you will have eternal life for sure."

St. Luke says that the lawyer was, "willing to justify himself." What he means is that the lawyer wanted to believe that he was already doing all that the law demanded. The lawyer wanted to go away from his conversation with Jesus with the confidence that he did not have to put forward any more effort than he was already doing.

So he asks Jesus to define the word "neighbor" for him. He is obviously hoping that the definition will be quite narrow -- ideally that it will be limited to the people the lawyer already loved.

Jesus tells him a story which answers the question, "How does a loving neighbor act?" rather than the lawyer's question, "Who is my neighbor?" We know his story as the parable of the Good Samaritan. The victim of a mugging is lying by the side of a road. A priest and a Levite excuse themselves from helping him.

Then a Samaritan goes out of his way to take care of him, and so provides the perfect practical definition of what it means to love one's neighbor. The story gets a twist from the fact that Jesus' listeners hated the Samaritans and would never have looked to them as moral examples.

So Jesus' story quite pointedly does not answer the lawyer's self-justifying question, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus asks, instead, "Who acted as a neighbor to the beaten man." The lawyer has little choice but to answer, "The one who showed him mercy." So Jesus concludes, "Go, and do thou likewise" -- go out and do the same thing the Samaritan did."

The parable of the Good Samaritan in fact answers the lawyer's first question, which was, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus is telling the lawyer -- if you want to earn eternal life, then you must act toward everyone just as the Samaritan acted toward the beaten man.

If we place today's epistle alongside the gospel we will see that the lawyer was asking an impossible question. In Christian terms the proper answer to the question, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" is "Nothing -- there is nothing you can do to inherit eternal life."

Not even the most self-satisfied and self-justified among us would dare to stand before God and claim that every thought and every word and every action in his whole life has met the standard the Good Samaritan sets. If acting as the Good Samaritan did is the only ticket to heaven, then we are all surely going to hell.

St. Paul looks at the issue of eternal life in a completely different way. He talks about promises -- specifically the promises God made to Abraham in the Old Testament. God promised Abraham two things -- land and descendants -- which meant his family would always exist and would always have a place of their own in which to exist.

The Old Testament law -- which included the commandment to love God and love one's neighbor -- came along four hundred and thirty years after the promises -- Moses lived that much later than Abraham. People like the lawyer in the gospel began to think that to receive the promises they had to keep the law.

But St. Paul says "If you have to do something to get what has been promised to you, then you are not talking about a contract -- not about a promise." God gave the law not to put conditions on what he had promised, but to help us realize that no one can keep the law -- that, in terms of today's gospel, there is nothing anyone can do to earn eternal life.

The promises to Abraham were for his descendants -- the Jews. Jesus is a descendant of Abraham. We Gentiles get in on the promises through him. When we are baptized we become members of Jesus' body, and that makes us into descendants of Abraham.

The Jews saw God fulfill his original promises to Abraham in a never-ending family tree and in the specific mid-eastern territory we call Israel. The New Testament reveals that God promises all his people -- Jews and Gentiles alike -- even more than that. He promises us not only descendants, but also everlasting life. He promises that we shall live out our everlasting life in heaven, which is the true Promised Land.

A promise is a promise, and God is the sort of person who keeps his promises. The way to inherit eternal life is to trust God to keep his promises. If we believe he keeps his promises, then we can start trying to act as the Good Samaritan did.

We will want to be Good Samaritans not because we have to be, but because we are grateful to God. We should be most grateful to him for what St. Paul tells us. "The scripture has concluded that all are under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe."

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Behavior Modification or Transformation: What does Yeshua (Jesus) Want?

2010-07-31T18:10:00.003-04:00

I encourage everyone to listen to this wonderful and devinely inspired sermon by Fr. Vinch McLaughlin, an associate at Christ Church Anglican in Warrenton, VA and the academic dean of Valley Forge Christian College, Woodbridge, VA campus.

The sermon was delivered at St. Andrews Episcopal Missionary Churh, where Fr. Ron Kuykendall is the Rector

www.standrewsgainesville.org

Bone Marrow Donor

2010-07-15T13:02:00.002-04:00

Apparently, in 1996 I registered to be a bone marrow donor. There is a three year old girl with Leukemia who needs a bone marrow transplant, and I am a perfect match.

Tomorrow I am going to get my blood tested.

Bishop Council Nedd Calls on President to Celebrate National Day of Prayer Despite Court Ruling

2010-04-16T19:03:00.002-04:00

For Immediate Release: April 16, 2010

In God We Trust Calls on President to Celebrate National Day of Prayer Despite Court Ruling

The national advocacy group In God We Trust today called on the Obama Administration to continue to vigorously defend the National Day of Prayer in court and for the President to issue the traditional Presidential proclamation next month despite a court ruling yesterday that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional.

“Prayer is never unconstitutional,” says Bishop Council Nedd, In God We Trust’s National Chairman. “American Presidents have led this nation in prayer since its founding. Yesterday’s court ruling declaring the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional is one of the most egregious examples of out of control judges making law from the bench. To say the President of the United States cannot say a prayer, or lead the nation that elected him in prayer, is violating his first amendment rights. Celebrating the National Day of Prayer does not force anyone to believe in anything. It is simply recognizing the fact that an overwhelming number of Americans believe in God and that prayer plays an important role in American culture. The Administration must appeal this decision and the President should still issue the traditional proclamation next May. Anything less will be considered a slap in the face to American people.”

The lawsuit that resulted in yesterday’s ruling was filed by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the nation’s preeminent atheist group. The FfRF is a member organization of the Secular Coalition of America whose representatives met with members of the White House political staff last February. “I hope the President will stand up to his atheist allies and stand up for the American people by defending the National Day of Prayer,” Nedd says.

In God We Trust is a national political advocacy organization with over 70,000 supporters of various faiths. Council Nedd is a traditional Episcopal priest and serves as the Bishop of the Chesapeake and Northeast for the Episcopal Missionary Church. On the Internet: www.InGodWeTrustUSA.org.

###

Abuse scandal imperils pope’s crusade to reclaim Europe

2010-04-13T14:00:00.000-04:00

A Post Easter Slump?

2010-04-10T12:19:00.000-04:00

by Bishop William Millsaps

First, you should know that you should correct me and tell me this is not "post Easter," because Easter is a Season, according to the teaching of the Church through the years, and not just a day. However, the truth is the greeting card people and others have the upper hand, and if you were to say, "Happy Easter" on next Sunday to people, even in your church parlor or parish hall, they would probably look at you like you had lost your mind.

In most years you can, in fact, keep two "Easters" simply by going to a church of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition after your own "Western Easter" has passed. This year the two coincided, which is very special indeed. My friends in the Israeli Army usually have to protect Christian pilgrims on two different Palm Sundays, two different Good Fridays, and two different Easter Days. They do it with dignity, and, no matter what your politics, you know protection is often needed by pilgrims and just plain tourists.

But the protection you may need right now is protection from letting normal emotional letdowns keep you down. Read on.

Two of the most popular columns I have ever written were about hummingbirds. Those little creatures bring joy to so many and their return to the plateau is an event to which many look forward each year.

This year the magazine we all get from our local electric power company features the Purple Martin and some places in Tennessee where thousands of these wonderful birds return each year. The Purple Martins like to have some open space and a nearby lake. Yet some people get them to overcome their preferences and accept a house or gourd in a city backyard. These birds seem to like people they are another way our spirits can be lifted if we are fortunate enough to have good vision and the good sense to open our eyes to watch their antics.

Some other members of the swallow family, the Barn Swallows have decided they love our Christ Church. In fact, they seem to think our Sunday School addition was built for them. I did have to tell them that when they built their nest over the door that their "poop" was a possible health problem to people, and that there were other better places to sleep and lay eggs and raise their babies. They laughed at my rubber snakes. They snickered at my plastic owl. We reached a compromise, however, and are living happily ever after. I know it is my imagination, but they seem to be saying, "Christ really is risen! And we will entertain you and celebrate will you all Spring and Summer too."

Some Thoughts about Easter

2010-04-10T12:15:00.000-04:00

by Bishop William Millsaps

Easter Day in the Western Church is kept on the first Sunday following the first full moon that occurs on or next after March 21st. The Orthodox tradition keeps a different calendar, and while there are few churches of that tradition in Middle Tennessee, there are many millions of Orthodox in the Western world and there are many many millions more in the East. Who is right about the date of Easter? That depends on whom you ask. The good thing is nobody goes to war over this sort of thing, at least anymore. Most Christians in the world are just happy if they can safely travel to worship and not find their churches vandalized or feel unsafe while they are worshipping. I know that most American Christians scarcely think about such things, and maybe one of two people reading this will doubt that any person puts himself or herself in danger by going to church. But many do put themselves in danger. Isn't it funny that we use this term "going to church," when we the members of the Body of Christ are the Church? The buildings are where the Church meets. More people would agree with that than would agree about the date of Easter. In fact, believers who don't even keep the liturgical or Christian calendar would agree and some would think that they are the only ones who understand that – the bit about the members and the building. But there is, in fact, wide agreement on that.

Many Christians have only "house churches," and yet as soon as they feel safe they seem to understand that there seems to be even more safety in numbers and they tend to want a fixed place to meet. There is a desire to offer to God our best, and to have some sense of beauty beyond what most of us can have in our own homes. Church buildings are a good sign of stability and safety for most of us.

What do flowers have to do with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ? Nothing really, and yet, in my opinion the symbol of the Easter lilies is not only not harmful, but is a beautiful adornment in our churches and our homes. And before Easter comes Palm Sunday. Folks, did Jesus say. "Put those silly palms down or you will irritate the Roman government?" No, he did not say that.

One of my treasures is a somewhat sentimental poster reproduction of a 19th century painting showing Our Lord riding into Jerusalem with children surrounding him with waving Palms. It has virtually no monetary value and yet, as the familiar credit card ad says, it is "Priceless" to me.

So another Holy Week is here and another Easter Day is coming. The flowers of Spring lift our spirits after a long winter. But it is the telling of the "theme in glory…the story of Jesus and His love" which is the heart of the matter. It is the reason that people, from the time of ancient Rome until today, who have been truly touched by it, want to celebrate and share the hope that is within them.

News From Christ Church Cathedral

2010-04-01T10:43:00.002-04:00

To a few of the good men and women of the EMC and others in close fellowship with us:

Don't forget we have two more fine men about to be ordained: see the emchome.org

Through Bishop Nedd we are really helping some folks in Haiti. He has not gone himself but has helped has helped send a group who will be working in an orphanage. The group led by Pastor Rich Wilson, will be building beds, a new shelter and digging a new well.

Hopefully, we will have another Anglican deacon soon. Canon Kuykendall has just returned from doing a mission in Singapore. Through Christ Church here you are helping some folks in jail who are growing in Christ in a beautiful way. I have seen miracles and I don't know any other way to put it .

Bp. Douglas Pieper's wife Carol is having surgery. Pray for them. Fr.Pete Minton is much better and back in harness. Deacon Lynn Blackburn had successful heart surgery.

Send this around if you wish. Also edit it anyway you wish.

Pray for each other. Pray for me and for Martha too. We pray for you.

If you need me call me. Otherwise have a glorious week and beginning of Eastertide!
Bp. Millsaps

Some Thoughts about Easter

2010-03-27T07:38:00.000-04:00

Why Bother? Holy Week and Weekday Services

2010-03-22T15:58:00.000-04:00

by Bishop William Millsaps

It happens almost every year. At least one really caring person tells me I should not bother to offer weekday services each day in Holy Week. "Very few people come, and it must be discouraging," is usually what is said. It is meant as a practical suggestion and a kindness, and I always take it as such. Having been in a situation without a church building for more than eight years, where we felt blessed to be allowed to have a Maundy Thursday service and a Good Friday service at all, we rejoiced to be able to open the doors of Christ Church often.

Palm Sunday is always such a glorious day. During the years we were in seminary in New York City we used to enjoy getting on the subway after services and seeing hundreds and hundreds of people with their palms. "In Christ all races meet, their ancient feuds forgetting" is a line from a famous hymn. As I have prayed for the people of the world especially in these years since September 11th, 2001, I have thought of the images from those Palm Sundays, in such contrast to our present situation where we are likely to be somewhat nervous in large crowds. But only two years ago millions of people who saw the movie, "The Passion of the Christ", said they were deeply moved by the message of Jesus' love.

The truth is, that secularism in Europe and the rise of a jihadist Islam have been strange twins and formed an incestuous breeding ground for all kinds of bad feelings. Just think about it. If there were ever a time for pointing people toward the very picture of God's love through Jesus it is now.

The human heart is fickle and can go from "Hosanna" to "Crucify him" in minutes. But the grace of God still changes hearts, and Palm Sunday and Holy Week form a crucible for change. I am not naive enough to think that, even if every church held services all day every day, sin would be stamped out and we could "bring in the Kingdom." That is in God's hands. What is in our hands is how we may make a witness to our own faith. The keeping in a special way of the memory of the last week of Jesus' life, and the preparation for his "mighty resurrection and glorious ascension" has been a tradition in the Church for centuries. I am not inclined to let go of something so many Christians have found helpful. Of course, the work hours and other responsibilities make it difficult for many to attend, but the "open door" of the church is an important symbol. And it was never about numbers in the first place. It was, and is, about love. If we love God making the effort to attend a few extra services of worship during one week of the year is a very small gesture towards manifesting that love. At the same time I am happy to see new faces and faces I see only once in a while on Easter Day. So invite everyone you know to worship with you in this season. Even those who can't accept will be grateful.

The Glorious Announcement, and the "Yes" that Changed the World

2010-03-22T15:55:00.001-04:00

by Bishop William Millsaps

March 25th was New Year’s Day for hundreds of years in England and until 1752 it was kept as such on this continent. In other words, if you had said "Happy New Year" on January 1st to George Washington during his boyhood he would have wondered if you were French, if he understood your greeting at all. In Christian teaching, March 25th made a lot of sense. Richard Hooker, in his Ecclesiastical Polity, written in 1594, wrote, "We begin therefore our ecclesiastical year with the glorious announcement of His birth by angelical embassage." Have you ever thought of angels as ambassadors for God? Our ancestors did. After Christmas had been set on December 25th it was clear that the annunciation had to be celebrated on March 25th. In Spain there was great resistance to celebrating on this date because it almost always falls in Lent. But gradually this feast began to be kept by the Church in many lands and the Church in Spain acquiesced. Sadly, few churches of any flavor take any notice of the date today and I think I know why, but that is for another day.

The lesson from the Old Testament read on this day has been from Isaiah 7 from the earliest time of keeping the feast. Even in apostolic times it was used as a prophetic witness to the Virgin Birth of Christ.

The Gospel from St. Luke, chapter 1 tells the story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary. Even in its beauty it is quite matter of fact. The "yes" that changed the world is set forth in very simple terms. Mary does ask, "How can this be, seeing I know not a man?" But, having asked a logical question of a presence which,
to say the least, must have been overwhelming (when is the last time such a high ranking angel came to you?) she responds to the angel’s explanation
with, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word."
The Gospel recounts, "And the angel departed from her."

You might be surprised at how many clergy-to-be who have been asked to tell this story associate "the Magnificat" or "the Song of Mary" with the Annunciation. I have asked scores of seminarians over the years the question, "And then what happened?" And I have gotten the wrong answer. I have to say ,"No. no, no." Those wonderful words come from Mary’s visit with Elizabeth.

Just remember to let the Annunciation be what it is. Think again about what Mary said to the angel. The musical group, "The Beatles" were pretty wild young men, and arrogant too. But as Mother Teresa said, "God uses broken pencils to draw straight lines." Profound things are sometimes hidden in pop culture. I remember the first time I heard Paul McCartney's "Let it be." It hit me with an emotional impact I still feel when I listen to it.

When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me,
Speaking words of wisdom,
"Let it be."
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me…

And when all the broken-hearted people
living in the world agree,
there will be an answer
"Let it be."

In point of fact, Paul McCartney's mother died when he was a boy and her name was Mary. But there is no doubt in my mind that he was speaking about Our Lord’s mother, and saying that her pattern of acceptance is the way to let our hearts be made whole. How much anguish she must have suffered watching her son suffer and die ("a sword shall pierce thy soul also"), but she trusted from the Annunciation the words of the angel that that holy child was the Son of God. He was her Lord too. We do well to echo the words of the angel Gabriel, as they have been paraphrased through the years, "Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with thee." You don’t have to be a "catholic" to say the "Hail Mary" anymore than you have to be a football player to know what the term means in football. Throw the ball in faith. And try to live it too.

Has Rangel Lost Touch? Black Conservatives Speak Out on Rangel Ethics Rebuke

2010-02-26T14:13:00.000-05:00

Has Rangel Lost Touch? Black Conservatives Speak Out on Rangel Ethics Rebuke

Washington, DC: Members of the Project 21 black leadership network are speaking out about the congressional "public admonishment" of U.S. Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY), the chairman of the powerful tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, for going on trips to the Caribbean paid for by corporate sources in violation of House rules.

Bishop Council Nedd II: "Contrary to what Charles Rangel believes, common sense dictates that adults, and elected representatives of the people in particular, need to be held responsible for their actions. Has Rangel completely lost touch with the real world? I have never been on a trip and not known who was paying for it. And if someone was paying for me to go on trips to the Caribbean, I don't think I would ever forget them." (Bishop Council Nedd II is the bishop of the Chesapeake and the Northeast for the Episcopal Missionary Church, a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network, and author of the New Visions Commentary "Rangel Ethics Mess Feels Like History Repeating Itself.")

Jimmie Hollis: "As a lifetime politician, Charlie Rangel didn't seem to think the rules applied to him. They do, but it looks like he will be receiving the minimum punishment. It's a sad commentary on congressional ethics and on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's campaign promise to clean up Congress. Is this the way it has to be?" (Jimmie Hollis is a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network.)

Bob Parks: "I'm amazed it took 18 months for lawmakers to find wrongdoing, but not amazed at how long it took Congressman Rangel to blame it on his staff." (Bob Parks is the moderator of the web site "Black and Right" and a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network.)

Darryn "Dutch" Martin: "That Chairman Rangel refuses to take responsibility is bad enough. But the fact that he sees fit to blame his staff - who presumably take orders from him - is just lame. Yet again, liberal orthodoxy states that the rules that apply to everyone else do not apply to Rangel and his ilk." (Dutch Martin is a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network.)

The House Committee on Official Standards, better known as the Ethics Committee, has concluded Rangel improperly accepted trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008. The Ethics Committee opened its investigation after receiving information from the National Legal and Policy Center, a group that promotes ethics in public life through research, investigation, education and legal action.

Rangel reportedly will be forced to repay the cost of the trips. He is blaming the error on his staff, telling reporters, "Common sense dictates that members of Congress should not be held responsible for what could be the wrongdoing or errors of staff unless there's reason to believe that the member knew or should have known - and there's nothing in the record to indicate the latter."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spoke out in support of Rangel and against the proposition that lawmakers are responsible for their own activities, saying, "I think it's quite a statement to say that lawmakers can be held accountable for what their staff knew." She also has declined to ask Rangel to step down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rangel was elected to House in 1970, replacing Adam Clayton Powell, who also faced ethical problems, including questionable travel to Florida. Powell was stripped of his committee chairmanship.

Project 21, established in 1992, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org), a non-profit foundation established in 1982 and funded primarily from the gifts of over 100,000 recent individual donors.

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Obama Administration Ripped for “Historic” Meeting with Atheist Anti-Religion Hate Groups

2010-02-26T09:56:00.002-05:00

The advocacy group In God We Trust today ripped the Obama administration for meeting to plot political strategy with 60 atheist activists representing organizations comprising the Secular Coalition of America.

“It is one thing for Administration to meet with groups of varying viewpoints, but it is quite another for a senior official to sit down with activists representing some of the most hate-filled, anti-religious groups in the nation,” says In God We Trust’s Chairman Bishop Council Nedd.

Tina Tchen, the director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, will meet with representatives from groups that comprise the Coalition. The Coalition’s sponsoring organization’s include American Atheists, founded by Madalyn Murray O’Hare and the Freedom from Religion Foundation which is campaigning to stop the post office from issuing a stamp honoring Mother Teresa.

“President Obama seems to believe that it is a good idea to have a key senior aide plan political strategy with people who believe faith in God is a disease,” Nedd says. “Some of the people in this coalition believe the world would be better off with no Christians and no Jews and they aren’t shy about it. The fact that this meeting is happening at all is an affront to the vast majority of people of all faiths who believe in God.”

According to the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s President Dan Barker, “Christianity is an enemy to humanity, and the antithesis of freedom.” (Dan Barker, Freedom from Religion Foundation Co-President in Losing Faith in Faith Page 255) and “Religion also poses a danger to mental health, damaging self-respect, personal responsibility, and clarity of thought.” (Losing Faith in Faith Page 217.)

Madalyn Murray OHare declared, “Ours is a time when successful struggle against this reactionary philosophy requires more than a petulant argument over the authorship of the Gospels, more than a negative attack on the totalitarian and monolithic authoritarianism of conventional religion, but rather an aggressive action program to spread the positive philosophy of materialism.” (Source: American Atheists website.)

“The President should tell the American people whether he believes these groups’ hate-filled views to be ‘mainstream’ and worthy of his supposedly inclusive administration,” Nedd says.
In God We Trust is a national political advocacy organization with over 70,000 supporters of various faiths. Council Nedd is a traditional Episcopal priest and serves as the Bishop of the Chesapeake and Northeast for the Episcopal Missionary Church. On the Internet: www.InGodWeTrustUSA.org.

I had to post this link

2010-02-23T09:52:00.001-05:00

http://jamesgarrettphoto.com/2010/02/rebecca-council-engagement/

Fr. Jim Bristow

2010-02-22T17:44:00.000-05:00

Fr. Jim Bristow died in peace on Saturday. At Holy Cross in Franklin, Tennessee, where Fr. Bristow previously served as rector, Bishop Lindsey will celebrate at the Requiem tomorrow (February 23) at 11:00 a.m. I will be the preacher. I will speak of Jim+'s witness to the Christian faith over the many years of his ministry. The sermons Jim+ preached were always thoughtful, filled with deep thoughts about God and His Church. His sermon's conveyed the love of God for his children, yet he also was often prophetic about the disobedience he saw and knew he had to address. He kept his humor during his long and often painful illness.

If any of you have personal words about him or memories you wish to share, please send them along as soon as you can so I can have them and give them to his family if I do not use them.

I often asked Jim+ to preach at ordinations and synods. My trust in his theology and sound doctrine was always returned. His humanity and understanding of what his gifts were and even his understanding of his limits were truly remarkable. Several times during his illness he had good times, and he was very glad he got to come to synods and be with other clergy of the EMC. He was an encourager and a true friend.

Bishop William Millsaps
Presiding Bishop
The Episcopal Missionary Church

Quinquagesima Sunday

2010-02-15T15:53:00.001-05:00

When I was a relatively new priest and I was serving as a chaplain in a nursing home, a crotchety gentleman who attended my services asked me on this very Sunday 8 or 9 years ago, "What are you going to say about the fact that Sunday is Valentine's Day and the epistle is First Corinthians 13?" With my natural perversity and contrariness, I decided to preach on the Gospel that particular Sunday.

However, as a newlywed, but still slightly perverse and certainly contrarian, I guess I will preach the sermon that I might otherwise have preached if Emmitt hadn’t started in on me that day almost a decade ago.

Thanks to greeting card, chocolate, jewelry and perfume salesmen, and bed and breakfast proprietors, and the natural guiltiness of the male of our species, Valentine's Day is the day we set aside to exalt romantic love. Oh, and when I was describing myself earlier, I left out cynical.

One of the clearest signs of the degeneracy of our epoch of history is that almost all modern translations of the New Testament use "love" as the translation of the word in today's epistle which the King James Version renders as "charity."

Charity and romantic love are not the same thing…

…which can lead us into possible confusion concerning the different kinds of love. The Greek language solved the problem by having five different words which were not at all interchangeable. Those words are philia, eros, agape, storge, and xenia.

• Agape (ἀγάπη agápē) means love in modern-day Greek. It generally refers to a "pure," ideal type of love, rather than the physical attraction. It has also been translated as "love of the soul."
• Eros (ἔρως érōs) (from the Greek deity Eros) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing.
• Philia (φιλία philía), is a dispassionate virtuous love, and this concept was developed by Aristotle. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. It can also mean "love of the mind."
• Storge (στοργή storgē) is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.
• Xenia (ξενία xenía), hospitality, was an extremely important practice in Ancient Greece. It was an almost ritualized friendship formed between a host and his guest, who could previously have been strangers. The host fed and provided quarters for the guest, who was expected to repay only with gratitude. The importance of this can be seen throughout Greek mythology—in particular, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

Furthering the confusion is the fact that First Corinthians 13 has become a sort of all-purpose scriptural reading on all sorts of improbable occasions. I think it must be because people think it sounds so sentimental and non-judgmental--unlike other, more obviously threatening, Bible passages. There is, for example, no mention of the dreaded word J-E-S-U-S.

The fact is that First Corinthians 13 is one of the most damning passages in the entire Bible. It tells us that by his Holy Spirit, God makes available to us the gift of charity. To show charity is to act for the good of another person no matter what it may cost us. Unlike romantic love--which is in no way a bad thing in itself--charity is not mainly a matter of feelings; charity is a matter of will and action. It is about what you actually do.

Charity is the gift which has the least to do with my favorite topic me. Charity is interested only in the welfare of other people and what I can do to promote it. To show charity is to act at all times just as Jesus did.

To paraphrase St. Paul: a person who has charity puts up with everything and everybody in a kind and generous spirit; he never wants what he doesn't have already; he doesn't put himself forward or brag; he doesn't keep a list of slights; he takes no salacious interest in the wrongdoings of others or schadenfreud. If that is the standard by which God measures our behavior, we are all in big trouble.

Ash Wednesday is upon us and with it the need to consider how we are going to discipline ourselves in Lent. The Prayer Book tells us that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are fasts--days on which we are to eat nothing. It also tells us that the forty days of Lent are days of abstinence--days on which we should cut back on our normal intake of food and drink. Sundays are never days of fasting or abstinence, because Sunday is always first and foremost a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.

Along with the fasting and abstinence disciplines, we should consider taking something else on--more physical exercise, perhaps, since the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost; or maybe you need to get serious about your prayer life and personal Bible study. We all miss out on so much if you don't pray every day and read at least something from the Bible every day.

You certainly need to make a thorough examination of your conscience--asking "What is there in my life that is keeping me from a full commitment to Christ and the church?" "What can I do to get those distractions out of the way?" "Whom do I need to forgive and with whom do I need to get myself reconciled before it is too late?" I am always available to talk with you about any of these things.

I guess the vestry should meet again sometime in the near future, but we will try to have Bible study every Sunday in Lent. And on some Saturday during Lent I would like us to have a parish day of reflection and prayer. During the prayer day I will be giving some instruction, but the main idea is to be quiet for awhile. There is too little opportunity for silence in the lives most of us have laid out for ourselves. We need time to shut up, turn off the TV and the radio, park the RV, be quiet, and let God talk to us.
If you say, "I'd love to come, but I have too much to do," you are only proving my point. Is three hours really too much time to devote to God? If you cannot come because of the distance, make some time for reflection and payer at home

In the charity epistle, St. Paul puts all spiritual discipline into perspective. He says that no matter how much we do--run ten miles a day, avoid red meat, give up smoking, stay away from alcohol, never think once about the President, and read only religious tracts--no matter how good any of those disciplines may be in themselves, they are worthless if they don't make us more charitable.

The ultimate point of spiritual discipline is not Bible information, or greater self-awareness, or lower cholesterol, or the better opinion of your children. Good as all of those things are in themselves, the only worthwhile point of any of them is to help us want to serve other people, and then actually go ahead and do it.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Lent gives us the chance to prove it.

National Religious Freedom Group Condemns Atheist Campaign to Desecrate Roadside Crosses

2010-02-10T12:03:00.000-05:00

In God We Trust

For Immediate Release: February 10, 2010
Contact: Jim Crumley 703-690-1247 jcrumley@triostrategies.com

National Religious Freedom Group Condemns Atheist Campaign to Desecrate Roadside Crosses

The Rt. Reverend Council Nedd, II, National Chairman of the national advocacy group In God We Trust, publicly denounced today an anonymous atheist Internet campaign that urges activists to tear down roadside memorials to individuals killed in car accidents. The AtheistActivist.org website even goes so far as to recommend specific contractor-grade power tools for cutting down crosses constructed of metal.

The controversial website may be found at http://www.atheistactivist.org/Roadside.html.

The site calls the memorials “macabre eyesores and dangerous distractions that invite rubbernecking and visitors to already hazardous roads.” and “Atheists and other non-christians find them offensive, annoying and depressing … There is nothing stopping us from taking down these religious symbols. We don't need any new laws, we need direct action.”

The website goes on to instruct activists to purchase heavy-duty power cutting tools made by Dewalt or Makita in order to cut crosses made of rebar or metal.

“This campaign is an affront to common decency and the cowardly individuals or groups who are behind this campaign should let the American people know who they are,” says Nedd. “I dare these people to even try to take down a memorial to someone’s loved one in front of me,” Nedd says. “The atheist movement is becoming more and more like the eco-terrorists who advocate spiking trees and burning down housing developments that are under construction.”

The website provides no way to contact or identify the individuals behind the anti-cross effort other than through a form for submitting an email. The site however, does quote Robert R. Tiernan, an attorney from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the nation’s largest atheist group, justifying the destruction of roadside memorials. The FfRF is know for promoting a radical atheist agenda that recently included protesting the U.S. Post Office’s issuing of a stamp honoring Mother Theresa.

In God We Trust is a national political advocacy organization with over 70,000 supporters of various faiths. Council Nedd is a traditional Episcopal priest and serves as the Bishop of the Chesapeake and Northeast for the Episcopal Missionary Church. In God We Trust can be found on the Internet at www.InGodWeTrustUSA.org.

Homily at the Funeral of Del Boarts

2010-02-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

St. Paul says that we should not be ignorant about those that are asleep and that we should sorrow not, because unlike those who do not believe in anything, we all know that he has gone to a better place.

Christians do not have to be ignorant about the dead, so we have no reason to be sorry about where they are or where they are going to be. We would have to be sorry about the dead if we had nothing about which to be hopeful. But we do have hope, and the hope we have is what gives us the comfort and strength that helps us face what has happened to Del. Because someday soon, we will all be in heaven together.

But we do feel a little cheated because we don't have Del’s company any more. If we feel sorry because we didn't get more time with him, then we are showing a lack of gratitude for the time we did get. Del isn't being cheated at all. He is at rest in the Lord. The hope we have is that at the end God will bring us all back together again.

I first met Del, as the guy who would mysteriously make things happen here in the church. Despite the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, Del never attended a service here, he made the bulletins every Sunday, and I would communicate with him via e-mail. Whenever something needed to be fixed here in the church, sometime it would just mysteriously be fixed, and I would later found out that Del fixed it. When we needed a new subwoofer for the sound system, one magically appeared, along with photographs of what controls what on the mixing board.

He also delivered to me via email and via Vonny, lots of interesting reading material that I was hoping to would be able to discuss with him. We had also planned to have discussions on millennial prophesy and contemporary politics. Unfortunately, that conversation will have to wait a little while. However, that conversation will happen.

One of the major differences between God and me is that he sees all of history – from Adam and Eve to the second coming – as one continuous and simultaneous event. He is not limited – as we humans are – to seeing each thing that happens as a separate bead on a string. God sees it all at once.

St. Paul promises us that at the end we shall be able to see exactly what God has seen all along. We shall see everything -- each happy event, each tragedy, each mundane and daily and unremarkable happening -- as something that has contributed positively to getting us where we will be at the end.

God does not promise us that everything he does will make immediate sense. He does promise us that at the end we shall be able to see that it all has made sense. Living in the tension between long-range trust and immediate uncertainty is what Christian faith is. Christian faith means acknowledging that God is in control, and that it is better to have him in control than to have each or everyone of us in control… as painful as it may be to admit.

I am also told and witnessed that Del was one of the sweetest and most compassionate and passionate people, and that’s what people will remember and miss most about him. I also believe that his kind spirit and zeal is why God will warmly receive him into his loving arms. I spoke with Vonny late yesterday afternoon and she told me about a condolence note from Jerry James which said, Perhaps the Lord had something that didn’t work, and he knew just the man to fix it.

Farewell, Del. Your loved ones are looking for to seeing you again and I am included among them. Amen.

Canda Commentary

2009-12-10T12:40:00.000-05:00

by Joanne Canda

October 20, 2009, the Roman Catholic Church announced an historic new policy toward conservative Anglicans worldwide. The church has created a new entity a “personal ordinariate” to receive Anglicans into Roman Catholic communion. This includes married priests, who will be able to minister to their Anglican flocks using their familiar liturgy under the supervision of former Anglican prelates who have converted to Roman Catholicism.

This is a step deeper into acceptance of conservative Anglicans worldwide. In 1994, Pope John Paul II created the “Pastoral Provision to the Anglican Usage of the Roman Rite.” This was for American Anglicans who had become disenchanted with the Episcopal Church and felt they had no place to turn.

The chatter among Roman Catholics turns to worry (or cheer) that this new development will eventually lead to the elimination of the required celibacy for Roman Catholic priests, but the Church has been accepting married priests and protestant ministers into the priesthood on a case by case basis for years.

What has probably caused the furor is that the number of Anglican clergy and faithful laity who might “swim the Tiber” as the English put it, may be significantly greater this time around.

In the 1970s, with the acceptance of a new prayer book, American Episcopalians first saw the handwriting on the wall. In the case of my husband, it wasn’t the modern language; it was the subtle changes in theology that alarmed him.

Of course it took the ordination of women to cause our family to resign from the Episcopal Church. I was a new convert at the time and didn’t quite understand the furor. My questions to various clergy about this subject got different answers. Biblically, women have had important roles in the church despite not being priests. Priests represent Christ during the Eucharist (Holy Communion.)

Another reason for continuing the old way that holds sway for me when all else fails is that the female priesthood divides the Church that Christ wants united. But a female priesthood is a symptom of a greater divide in theological threads. God created the sexes because he wanted to do so. Throughout the Holy Bible, God is called Father. Christ could have been born a girl just to even things out and tell us the sexes were interchangeable, but he turned out male, also. Finally, the Bible explains how Mary got pregnant by saying she was “overshadowed by the Holy Ghost,” making no bones about gender there, either.

Sexual confusion has caused so much trouble in the church that homosexuality, quite literally condemned in the Bible, has been accepted by the Anglican Communion in the strongholds of the West. Thank heavens for the southern hemisphere, where the faithful are remaining so.

Conservative American Anglicans split from the Episcopal Church beginning in 1976. The groups that formed were a motley crew of personalities. In fact, I heard the Episcopal Church was just as happy to have us out of there!

We “continuing Anglicans” believe that we are the true church, that the Episcopal Church left us. Some of the fragmented Anglicans died off as churches. Some have continued. Some are joining together to make a larger body and have joined with the conservative Anglicans in Africa, India, the Middle East and South America.
Episcopalians who have just now seen the light will have accepted so many theological compromises with the godless world by now, that it is hard to see how they will make the jump into Roman Catholicism.

I think it will be those who have lived painfully churchless over the past twenty to thirty years who will be grateful for Rome’s invitation.

As one who has worshipped in basements of strange churches at weird hours of the day or night with only occasional visiting priests, as someone who has had to raise five children in the faith only to see them go off to places where they have no traditional Anglican place to worship, as one who has endured synods full of opinionated discontents and egotistical neo-Anglican bishops—and stayed faithful to the Anglican tradition, I believe that it is too soon to give up and become Roman Catholic.

The Roman Catholics were the ones who moved from the ancient church first of all. In the early church, there was no edict about priestly celibacy. Paul was clear about that in the Bible—some are called to it, others need marriage. Paul didn’t know how long the church on earth would have to continue. If he had had that insight, I believe he would have been even more favorable to a married priesthood. Bishops or presbyters are to be “husbands of one wife” according to the Holy Bible.

The infallibility of the pope remains a huge stumbling block for the most catholic of Anglicans. I have heard it cited more than any other reason for non-conversion.

The three main branches of the orthodox, apostolic church are the Orthodox, the Roman and the Anglican branches. The only way to unite us is to take away the non-biblical, non-ancient do-dads the three churches have added on to themselves through the years, and to which all of us adhere out of true belief and culture.

The priestly celibacy is one of those, as is papal infallibility. On the Anglican and Roman fronts, perhaps there should be some discussion about the Nicene Creed on the Holy Spirit’s proceeding from the Father, not the father and the son. Our orthodox friends need to take a look at their Byzantine (excuse the humor) marriage for clergy rules.
If we do our best to divest ourselves of our beloved conceits, it is not too hard to see that someday we may again be One Church.

The Protestants are starting to get over some of their hatred of “popish practices.” I would love to see the day Baptists bend the knees and bow their heads at the name of Jesus. That is certainly a biblical command.

In the meantime, our family plans to slog through the frontier of the ancient church as traditional Anglicans. Right now, we travel 120 miles to receive communion. When that is impossible, we follow my husband as he leads us through Morning Prayer, trying our best to follow the church year from afar.

I know that in the end, we will fulfill our Savior’s desire for us to be one Church. I applaud the Roman Catholic attempt toward this end for what it is, and I know it will be a saving grace to many, worldwide, who might otherwise give up worship altogether.
But the Anglican way has true apostolic tradition and ancient practice. It is too soon to throw it away. Keep the faith.

Joanne Canda is a writer living in rural Colorado. She is a longtime traditional Anglican who has written Sunday School and youth curriculum (including five original VBS programs) and worked as director of Christian Education and Youth at several churches around the country.

Coming Soon!!!

2009-12-04T18:33:00.001-05:00

The Canda Commentary

On the Dr. Nancy Show

2009-12-03T17:03:00.000-05:00

National Advocacy Group Condemns Efforts to Escalate “War on Christmas”

2009-12-02T14:38:00.001-05:00

The national advocacy group In God We Trust today condemned efforts of national atheist organizations and left-wing legal groups aimed at terrorizing Americans into not celebrating Christmas.

“Americans have become accustomed to the whining and calls for censorship of anti-religion activists during the Christmas season,” says In God We Trust’s Chairman Bishop Council Nedd. “However, this year opponents of the holiday are escalating their ‘War on Christmas’ to a whole new level. Their goal is harass, mock and scare people into censoring themselves and hiding their Christmas celebrations.”

Nedd specifically points out that the national atheist group the American Humanist Association has launched an unprecedented national advertising campaign mocking the meaning of the Christmas holiday. In Washington, state officials have banned all holiday displays from the state Capitol. Additionally, in Loudoun County, Virginia, government officials have banned any type of Christmas or holiday displays including Christmas trees and menorahs from public property fearing attacks from anti-religion activists.

“Americans are being terrorized into banishing Christmas from public life,” Nedd warns. “The hate and venom spewing from some of these anti-religious groups is so great that some jurisdictions are tearing down even secular Christmas displays as fast as they can.”

In God We Trust is a national political advocacy organization with over 70,000 supporters of various faiths. Council Nedd is a traditional Episcopal priest and serves as the Bishop of the Chesapeake and Northeast for the Episcopal Missionary Church. In God We Trust can be found on the Internet at www.InGodWeTrustUSA.org.

'Tis the Season

2009-12-01T12:56:00.000-05:00

by Bishop william Millsaps

If I were to ask twenty people to complete this line, my guess is that they would say, "to be jolly." But this would be limited to the English-speaking world. Trust me, if you were in Russia at the train station in St. Petersburg waiting to meet loved ones on November 28th you would not give that answer. What if I were to have asked the people of Mumbai at this time last year? Tragedy endured keeps human beings, for a time, from the trivial and the superficial, into which we slip so easily.

Last year, as we were gathering for celebrations of Thanksgiving, including Community Services of worship, terrorists were making their way to cause suffering and death in India. That they chose a Jewish Center along with luxury hotels and the lovely train station and a historical monument was no accident. They wanted to send another signal that Israel is a target and that those who trade with Israel are in the cross hairs. In Russia this year it appears that the terrorists were home grown, and that has happened here, on occasion, as well. Some group will probably announce the cause in the name of which this horror was brought about. For the most part we seem safe and secure in our towns and cities right now. I am not an alarmist. I just want us to be a people mindful of our blessings, and mindful to be vigilant as well.

I was honored to be asked to be the preacher at the First Baptist Church in Monteagle last year on Tuesday, November 25th. I mentioned that we had two men who were headed for India for preaching missions and asked for prayer for their safety. I also mentioned that among the things for which I am thankful that last year included a very special trip for my wife and me to Israel, and for my friendships with Jewish chaplains in our Armed Forces over the years. I told a story of how the transition in endorsers for one of the branches of Judaism took place in Washington, D. C., and how I was privileged to see the beauty of the love for the United States in the way in which these men were willing to serve. They were even eager to learn from me, an Anglican bishop, how to do the Last Rites for a Roman Catholic soldier if there was no Catholic chaplain available. Believe me, when I tell you the Catholic chaplains know how to help with Chanukah preparations if no Jewish chaplain is nearby. Of course, situations like this are unlikely, but it was also unlikely that a 29-year-old rabbi from Brooklyn and his wife would be tortured and murdered in Mumbai. Their Indian nanny, a Christian named Sandra Samuel, bravely rescued their blood-covered two-year-old child, risking her own life. I understand she is still helping care for the child and has stayed with the child's relatives in Israel. You do not have to be a prophet to know there will be more terrorist attacks in 2010, if not some more before this year's end.

In the Christian tradition of the historic churches we are now in the Advent Season. There is supposed to be a solemnity about it, as we reflect on what is sometimes called the Second Coming. This refers to the return of Christ who comes this time not as a little child but as our Judge. My own faith teaches me that I am accountable. It also teaches me that I am saved by Grace. Is this contradictory? No, but it is a reality held in tension. Do we use our freedom of speech wisely? We do if we choose to speak up against those who refuse to respect life and are eager to destroy what others have worked hard to build and to transmit to their children. Could Sandra Samuel have imagined what she would be faced with and would do? For her last year it was the season to be tested and to pass the test. It is unlikely you will face such a test, but it is likely you will have opportunities this December to do many kindnesses, to decide who and what you value. Tis' the Season to seize the opportunities to reflect on what you really believe and to learn more about the rich faith traditions that are our heritage. If I don't wish you a Merry Christmas until a little later in December, just chalk it up to my desire to keep a bit of Advent, as a separate and kind of fall-training season, so that later, when I do wish you a "Merry Christmas," it will for me be more than just a catch phrase. But one thing is sure, if you choose to wish me a "Merry Christmas" anytime, I will be grateful for your good thoughts and rejoice with you.

The Lady Who Wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb

2009-12-01T12:53:00.000-05:00

By Bishop William Millsaps

This is a slightly revised column based on some others I have written previously for the Thanksgiving season. Before going on, however, I want to say that I hope my readers will remember those who mourn especially the families who lost loved ones at Ft. Hood in that traitorous massacre, and also remember all who mourn in a season when most of us are celebrating and having fun. I ask for special prayers for our chaplains many of whom will spend Thanksgiving Day going from room to room in a hospital or in other settings where they are doing ministry. USA Today did a fine job in an article published on November 16th recounting just few stories about this ministry.

But to go on with the subject of this column I will ask, “Have you ever heard of Sarah Hale?” She is not exactly a household name. But you have heard of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”? -- which she wrote! In addition, she was the editor of a well-known women’s magazine called Godey’s Lady’s Book. She was also known as “The Thanksgiving Lady.”

In 1828, Sarah decided that Thomas Jefferson had made a terrible mistake when he discontinued the practice of George Washington, who had proclaimed Days of Thanksgiving. James Madison, who followed Jefferson as president, had also issued a Proclamation of Thanksgiving for Peace after the War of 1812. Sarah Hale used these as precedents.

It should be noted that Jefferson was not opposed to giving thanks. He just associated Proclamations of Thanksgiving with kings, and he believed if they were to be made at all, it should be by the States. It is a fact that on many occasions Days of Thanksgiving were proclaimed in England when the king or a member of the royal family recovered from an illness. After such a long period of not having a National Day of Thanksgiving, and with such a distinguished citizen as Mr. Jefferson having been on record as opposed to the idea, it seemed that the subject was closed. But, as every happily married man knows, when a woman is determined a subject is never closed, unless it is closed by the lady herself. It is a good lesson, and it is a better world for it.

Jefferson died in 1826. Even so, Sarah Hale was one determined lady! She wrote letters and waited outside the offices of Senators, members of Congress and Presidents. She wrote stories of the first Thanksgiving and kept the idea alive until Abraham Lincoln listened seriously to her. In 1863, she presented a plea that the President ask that the armies in the field "lay aside enmities and strife" on a certain day. She even had a day in mind. It was to be the fourth Thursday in November. Her research and her determination can inspire us in this difficult time. She believed that Almighty God had watched over the founding of this Country and that a lack of gratitude had been one cause of the strife which led to the horrible war. She spoke not of something new, but of the restoration of something precious. She reprinted George Washington’s Proclamation time after time and mailed it to national leaders for over thirty years with personal hand written letters. Whenever you get discouraged, you may take some comfort from Sarah Hale’s story. Perhaps the most outstanding thing about Sarah Hale is that she didn’t care who got the credit. She cared deeply about the principle.

The better known story of the American Thanksgiving is traced to Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts. During the Winter of 1620-21, the first Winter in the new land, half of the Pilgrims had died. When Spring came, they cleared land and planted fields. Some of the Indians, especially Squanto, helped them both with farming and hunting. In the harvest season, they reaped an abundant harvest. Their Governor, William Bradford, proclaimed a Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God. Great preparations were made and the Indians were invited to share in their feast. There were church services, and instead of one day, they spent three days in feasting. The Indians brought wild turkeys and venison as their contribution.

The first idea of a national Thanksgiving seems to have come from George Washington. As we have seen, his proclamation of Thanksgiving for the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 was remembered by James Madison who proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving for peace at the end of the War of 1812. Many of the individual states had their own annual Thanksgiving days. As stated above, it was Abraham Lincoln who named the last Thursday in November 1863 as a Day of national Thanksgiving. This custom continued until President Franklin Roosevelt named the next to last Thursday in 1939. In December 1941, an act of Congress declared the fourth Thursday in November as a national holiday.

Latin Mass Appeal

2009-11-30T13:03:00.000-05:00

by Kenneth J. Wolfe

WALKING into church 40 years ago on this first Sunday of Advent, many Roman Catholics might have wondered where they were. The priest not only spoke English rather than Latin, but he faced the congregation instead of the tabernacle; laymen took on duties previously reserved for priests; folk music filled the air. The great changes of Vatican II had hit home.

All this was a radical break from the traditional Latin Mass, codified in the 16th century at the Council of Trent. For centuries, that Mass served as a structured sacrifice with directives, called “rubrics,” that were not optional. This is how it is done, said the book. As recently as 1947, Pope Pius XII had issued an encyclical on liturgy that scoffed at modernization; he said that the idea of changes to the traditional Latin Mass “pained” him “grievously.”

Paradoxically, however, it was Pius himself who was largely responsible for the momentous changes of 1969. It was he who appointed the chief architect of the new Mass, Annibale Bugnini, to the Vatican’s liturgical commission in 1948.

Bugnini was born in 1912 and ordained a Vincentian priest in 1936. Though Bugnini had barely a decade of parish work, Pius XII made him secretary to the Commission for Liturgical Reform. In the 1950s, Bugnini led a major revision of the liturgies of Holy Week. As a result, on Good Friday of 1955, congregations for the first time joined the priest in reciting the Pater Noster, and the priest faced the congregation for some of the liturgy.

The next pope, John XXIII, named Bugnini secretary to the Preparatory Commission for the Liturgy of Vatican II, in which position he worked with Catholic clergymen and, surprisingly, some Protestant ministers on liturgical reforms. In 1962 he wrote what would eventually become the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the document that gave the form of the new Mass.

Many of Bugnini’s reforms were aimed at appeasing non-Catholics, and changes emulating Protestant services were made, including placing altars to face the people instead of a sacrifice toward the liturgical east. As he put it, “We must strip from our ... Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren, that is, for the Protestants.” (Paradoxically, the Anglicans who will join the Catholic Church as a result of the current pope’s outreach will use a liturgy that often features the priest facing in the same direction as the congregation.)

How was Bugnini able to make such sweeping changes? In part because none of the popes he served were liturgists. Bugnini changed so many things that John’s successor, Paul VI, sometimes did not know the latest directives. The pope once questioned the vestments set out for him by his staff, saying they were the wrong color, only to be told he had eliminated the week-long celebration of Pentecost and could not wear the corresponding red garments for Mass. The pope’s master of ceremonies then witnessed Paul VI break down in tears.

Bugnini fell from grace in the 1970s. Rumors spread in the Italian press that he was a Freemason, which if true would have merited excommunication. The Vatican never denied the claims, and in 1976 Bugnini, by then an archbishop, was exiled to a ceremonial post in Iran. He died, largely forgotten, in 1982.

But his legacy lived on. Pope John Paul II continued the liberalizations of Mass, allowing females to serve in place of altar boys and to permit unordained men and women to distribute communion in the hands of standing recipients. Even conservative organizations like Opus Dei adopted the liberal liturgical reforms.

But Bugnini may have finally met his match in Benedict XVI, a noted liturgist himself who is no fan of the past 40 years of change. Chanting Latin, wearing antique vestments and distributing communion only on the tongues (rather than into the hands) of kneeling Catholics, Benedict has slowly reversed the innovations of his predecessors. And the Latin Mass is back, at least on a limited basis, in places like Arlington, Va., where one in five parishes offer the old liturgy.

Benedict understands that his younger priests and seminarians — most born after Vatican II — are helping lead a counterrevolution. They value the beauty of the solemn high Mass and its accompanying chant, incense and ceremony. Priests in cassocks and sisters in habits are again common; traditionalist societies like the Institute of Christ the King are expanding.

At the beginning of this decade, Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) wrote: “The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself.” He was right: 40 years of the new Mass have brought chaos and banality into the most visible and outward sign of the church. Benedict XVI wants a return to order and meaning. So, it seems, does the next generation of Catholics.

Kenneth J. Wolfe writes frequently for traditionalist Roman Catholic publications.

Trinity XXIII

2009-11-30T11:52:00.001-05:00

By Bishop Council Nedd II

Lord, be gracious with the light of your countenance, for I live only to see your face, so shine on me. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I raise my hands and bow my head.
I’m finding more and more truth in the words written in red.
They tell me that there’s more to life than just what I can see,
Oh, I believe

Maybe you know this, and maybe you don’t but the country music singers Brooks and Dunn are on their farewell tour. They have a song out now, called Believe which is about faith in the afterlife, faith in the belief that there is something bigger out there.

Today’s epistle and the gospel condemn the shortsighted individuals who are content not to see beyond merely earthly things. In the last line of this morning epistle, St. Paul is writing to the church at Philippi, and he says,

“We however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly await for our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ to come from Heaven. He will take our weak mortal bodies and make them like his own glorious body, using that power by which he is able to bring all things under his rule.”

His point is, that we should not allow ourselves to get tethered to this world, or dragged down, by our associations with people who think this world is all there is. Knowing that there is a life beyond this one is one of the things that sets us Christian saints apart from the rest of the world.

St. Paul says while we currently live on this earth, we are all truly destined to be in heaven. And we look to heaven for Jesus to come again. When he comes back he will raise us up from the dead and change our mortal bodies into immortal bodies like his own body. Why will that happen? It will happen because he has power over everything in the universe, and he can subject any and all of it to his will. So, it will happen because he wants it to.

This line from Philippians is quoted in one of the most significant places in the Prayer Book. That is the sentence of burial that is read over a body at the grave. Those lines go like this.

"Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed, and we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the earth and the sea shall give up their dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his own glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself."

Listening to that sentence of committal when it is being read over a loved one is a major test of how much you really believe the primary Christian teachings about life, death and the afterlife. If you believe Jesus has the power over everything and that he can subject everything to himself, as St. Paul says, then you will indeed believe that Rascal Flats are wrong, and Here Comes Good-bye is only a temporary situation. Death doesn’t mean good-bye it means, I’ll see you later. You will also believe that we will all be raised from the dead together when he comes back and then go to heaven together to live forever.

Today’s epistle is about death and the gospel is about taxes, the two things we are constantly told we can’t escape. However, both the epistle and the gospel also condemn people who are content not to go beyond merely earthly things.

Jesus has three major groups of enemies. Each of them go to him during the last week of his earthly life with questions. Questions, they hope will make him look bad in front of his throngs of supporters. In typical fashion, Jesus, quite cleverly, finesses each of the three questions. He then he asks his opponents Bible questions of his own and leaves them speechless. The groups are so frustrated and mad at the sanctimonious, self-righteous, holier-than-thou, smug and pious backwoods hick from Nazareth that they decide the best way to outwit him is to not outwit him at all. They will just kill him. And they proceed to conspire to do so.

The Herodians sidle up to the Pharisees and piggy-back on the Pharisees attack on Jesus. The Herodians were political partisans of the Herod family who had ruled Israel for quite some time. The Herods' claim to the throne rested solely upon their alliance with the Romans, rather than upon any connection to the original, legitimate Hebrew monarchy.

They butter Jesus up for a few nauseating moments, then the Herodians ask him, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or is it not?" If Jesus answered, "Yes, it is lawful," he would be accused of treachery to his people and branded a collaborator with the Romans. If he said, "No, it is not lawful," then he would be branded a rebel and an insurrectionist by the Romans.

We know from St. Matthew that Jesus was not fooled, and said, "Why are you trying to trip me up, you hairsplitting legalists? We will easily clear this up if you show me one of the coins that are used to pay the taxes. Whose picture is on this coin – whose name is on this coin?"

The Herodians answer, correctly, "Caesar's name and picture are on it." Then Jesus says, "If Caesar’s name and picture are on the coin, then the coin must be his – so it must be proper to give it to him. But you also have to give to God what belongs to him."

Following the same logic used with the coin, what belongs to God has to be what has his name and picture on it. What has God's name and picture on it is you, me and all the rest of the saints, and we know from the last couple of weeks, that the saints are all the baptized Christians. As the book of Genesis tells us we, each of us, are made in God's image. We get God's name on us when we are baptized and he adopts us as his children and gives us his name.

There is never a conflict between meeting our legitimate earthly obligations and meeting our obligations to God, key word being legitimate. However, if there ever appears to be a conflict between our duty to Caesar and our duty to God, it is our obligation to let God win out, no matter what the consequences may be.

"For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ."

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen

Sunday Before Advent

2009-11-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

by Bishop CouncilNedd II

Praise the Lord, O my soul. All my being, praise his holy name. In the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen

Welcome to the last Sunday of the Christian year. I have a close friend named Mike Scalzi, who is the presiding bishop of the American Catholic Church which is a very liberal denomination with an agenda. I was hanging out with my friend and one of his seminarians a few years ago on this very Sunday, when the seminarian announced that he loved Advent because it is the Christian festival of lights. Mike and I just looked at each other and laughed.

While there are Christmas lights around during Advent, the season of Advent is all about the coming of the Messiah of Israel, and today's lessons give us a glimpse of what the Messiah is going to do when he finally appears.

Jeremiah the prophet preached mostly during the seventh century before Christ. Israel split in two kingdoms after King Solomon’s death, about 350 years before Jeremiah. The northern kingdom, called Israel, was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. Jeremiah lived in the southern kingdom, which was called Judah.

Judah was more or less under the control of the Babylonians, The Babylonians empire succeeded Assyria as the major power in the Middle East. Jeremiah didn’t make any friends by saying that Judah was doomed to destruction because it kings refused to obey God, and they refused to conduct their foreign policy as God wanted them to.

Various rays of hope for the future were interspersed among Jeremiah's unpleasant predictions. Jeremiah suggested that even though Judah's bad behavior was going to bring God's wrath down upon them in the short term, the prospects for the long run were positive. This is because the people of Israel and Judah were still God's chosen people, and he still wanted what was best for them.

Today's lesson is a similar such ray of hope. God speaks through Jeremiah and says that someday be is going to send his people a good king. King Zedekiah of Judah, whose names means “God is Righteousness” was a puppet of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. So, understandably, King Zedekiah was a bit upset when Jeremiah promises a king whose name will be "The Lord our Righteousness," but this time the name will be accurate rather than ironic.

The coming king is going to be a descendant of King David and more specifically, he will be from a righteous branch of David's family tree. Jeremiah prophesies a successful reign for him, during which he will enforce judgment and justice, and both Israel and Judah will be safe. They will be safe, presumably, from the foreign aggressors who had caused both nations so much trouble.

Jeremiah then makes the jaw-dropping prediction that the righteous branch from David is going to do something so grand that he will make the chosen people revise their whole idea and understanding of who God is.
You see, until this point in history, if anyone in Israel were asked who their god was, they would have replied, "Our God is the one who brought us out of Egypt in the Exodus."

The Old Testament always describes God in terms of what he has done or what he is doing in Israel's history. Jewish Biblical thought does not conceive of God as an abstraction or a theoretical philosophical principle. God is not love, or justice, or even goodness. God is, not necessarily wrongly, the one who acts in history. The most significant thing God ever did in history was to get his people out of their slavery in Egypt, around 1400 B.C., which is why he was described as such.

Jeremiah says that what the Messiah is going to do will be so great that he will make people forget about the Exodus from Egypt or, probably more accurately relegate it to one of God's lesser feats. The Messiah is going to reunite all of God's chosen people. The Messiah is going to bring back together his people from all of the places where war and other turmoil in the holy land have driven them, and he is going to have all the people live together again in their own land.

As Christians, we know that Jeremiah was talking about is Jesus – a descendant of David from a righteous line who expands the membership of the chosen people to include Gentiles and the safe place where all God's people will live together is heaven, the ultimate promised land.

Israel knew that the Messiah was going to be a collector, one who gathers up, one who will put fragments together and bring scattered people back into one place.

St. John tells us at the end of the feeding of the five thousand, which is the miracle in today's gospel lesson, that Jesus told the disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." The disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread. Twelve is the mystical number of the chosen people, because Israel had twelve tribes.

The people who saw today’s miracle did not only see the a magic trick, the remarkable feat of feeding lots of people with only a little food. They also saw in the cleanup an indication that Jesus, the miracle worker, was the one about which Jeremiah had spoken. They saw the one about whom the chosen people will say, "The Lord liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither (God) had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land."

Jeremiah is talking about Jesus and about what Jesus is going to do for us at the end of time when he takes us to heaven to be with him and the Father forever. And so we cry, "O come, o come, Emmanuel; come again, o Jesus, the righteous branch of David, the Lord our righteousness."

In the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen

Denia Reese Awarded Cup of Wrath

2009-11-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

By Bishop Council Nedd II

November's Cup of Wrath Award is presented to Catoosa County Florida School Superintendent Denia Reese for banning the Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School cheerleaders from running through a banner adorned with bible versus before school football games.

Despite the fact the cheerleaders had been unfolding the paper banners as part of their pregame ceremony since 2001, Reese quickly banned it after receiving a single complaint about practice claiming the cheerleaders signs were clearly illegal.

According to Reese, a staff attorney told her the cheerleaders were breaking the law and that the school system could be sued. Despite the fact that no lawsuit had, in fact, ever been filed and the fact that banning the signs could just as easily result in a lawsuit being brought against her school district by supporters of the cheerleaders, Reese seized the opportunity to stop the tradition.

To make matters worse, Reese then proclaimed in perfect Orwellian fashion that, “I regret that the cheerleaders cannot display their signs in the football stadium without violating the First Amendment. I rely on reading the Bible daily, and I would never deny our students the opportunity to express their religious beliefs.”

For decreeing that 16 year old girls who wear school cheerleader’s outfits have no right to express their religious beliefs, Superintendent Denia Reese has earned herself a full draught from the Cup of Wrath.

Sermon for Trinity XXII

2009-11-08T07:37:00.001-05:00

By Bishop Council Nedd II

Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me a sinner. In the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

It’s a good thing that God is not like me. I try to be Christ like. Actually, to be more accurate, I try to try to be Christ like.

In today’s parable Jesus addresses the issue of forgiveness. Forgiveness implies misbehavior or a mistake on the parts of others. We have all heard the clichés that have crept into our way of thinking about misbehavior.

"Mistakes were made."
"We want to put this behind us."
"He wants to get on with his life."
"Everybody does it."

Not long after creation was created, God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He told them they could do anything they wanted – except eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because if they ate from that tree they would die.

Adam and Eves response to God establishes the pattern of all human sin. First they convinced themselves that God didn't really mean what he said to them about dying. And despite the fact that Adam and Eve are the only two people in existence, they convinced themselves that if that death part were true, it didn’t apply to them.

Then comes the actual act of open rebellion and disobedience. However, to them, it didn't really feel like open rebellion, because they had already convinced themselves that what may be sinful if done by others was perfectly fine in their special set of circumstances.

Next comes the cover-up. They throw up a smokescreen hoping that God and anyone else who might be have been wronged wouldn't notice. In the book of Genesis, this scene is played out with Adam and Eve's wearing fig leaves and skulking about in the bushes when they heard God approaching.

Lastly, after the rationalization, the disobedience, and the cover-up comes the last inevitable act in the process of sin, which is shifting the blame. Adam and Eve did not want to admit they had done anything wrong, and they certainly did not want to accept responsibility. So, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the snake.

The story of Adam and Eve poses an important question for each one of us. The question is, can we face the fact that the story of Adam and Eve is a story about me? You see, as it turns out, everybody does it. Everyone follows the same mind numbing and blatantly transparent pattern of rationalizing, disobeying, covering up, and shifting the blame.

We call that pattern original sin precisely because it is so basic to our nature. It provides and explanation as to why things are not the way they ought to be. Original sin is what separates us from God and from one another. The individual sins we commit every day are symptoms of the overall condition.

This is a realistic and honest view of human nature. Belief in original sin is fundamental to the Christian perspective on the world. If you don't believe in original sin and that it is not just everybody else who is infected with it -- you cannot possibly appreciate what Jesus has done for us.

I began by saying that God is not like me. Some time ago, I was wronged by a very dear friend. Someone for whom I cared deeply. I was madder than I have ever been in all my forty-one years. While I was still bishop and more importantly a Christian, I was still human – at that time. I knew that I had an obligation to forgive her. But as a human, I was not interested in forgiveness – I wanted justice. I went about trying to inflict that justice in the swiftest and cruelest ways I could think of and I did this knowing full well the consequences of my Judge Dredd impersonation. The consequences were that my zeal for justice would consume me and destroy the fiber of the better parts of my humanity.

One of the most moving passages in the New Testament appears in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Paul is as committed and informed a believer as anyone could possibly hope to be. Paul gave his new life for the cause of Jesus the Christ. Despite this, when he looks honestly at himself he sees this same ugly pattern of original sin still working and this was despite his constant efforts to combat it with the help of the Holy Ghost or comforter.

Paul cries out, "O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this self destruction?" Paul then answers his own question, saying, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Paul knows that Jesus is the cure for original sin and the medicine of Jesus’ cure is forgiveness.

It should be obvious that there is no forgiveness without judgment. Judgment is how we know we have sinned. Judgment is how we know that we have done something for which we need to be forgiven. God gives us the standard that we should follow or emulate. He also gives us the inclination and the ability to measure our lives by that standard.

You will hear me say this a lot. You heard me say it last week, and you may even hear it again next. If you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died for our sins and that he is going to come again, you are going to heaven. However, if you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died for our sins and that he is going to come again, you will work that much harder to do what is pleasing in his sight.

The death of Jesus on the cross guarantees that God forgives us for whatever we have done that defies his standards. The crucifix reminds us that God doesn't hold anything against us. We can easily get ourselves back into a proper relationship with God any time we are willing to face up to our disobedience and then turn away from it and face him.

What goes along with that remarkable guarantee is an obligation to forgive other people and to be channels of God's forgiveness. That alone is the point of the parable in today's gospel. God, our Heavenly Father and creator has forgiven each of us an enormous amount. He has forgiven us so much more than the accumulation of evil any single person on earth can possibly have done to us. Truly accepting God's forgiveness means that we must forgive other people. "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

If you won't forgive, you remain in prison, just like the servant in today’s parable. You remain imprisoned by your own resentment and imprisoned by your obvious inability to accept the fact that God has forgiven you.

When I was seeking justice, I too was following the pattern of original sin. I rationalized it, I was disobedient, I tried to cover it up, and I shifted the blame back to her.

So if you want to put the past behind you and get on with your life, you first have to admit that mistakes were made, and that you were the one who made them and you made them on purpose, but that you are sorry for them now. Everybody does it, and that is precisely why Jesus had to die on the cross for each and every one of us.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Mrs. Griffin Says

2009-11-03T11:22:00.001-05:00

My friend Brice sent this out and I am posting this with her permission

Friends,

Whether you are Catholic or not, please take a moment to read this and make your voice heard in this crucial issue.

As you know, the debate on healthcare is quite serious. Currently included is the mandate to use federal funds to pay for abortions (which is contrary to our current federal law), and force health care workers and Catholic medical institutions to perform medical procedures in violation of their religious conscience. The Bishops have spoken clearly in opposition and the faithful are being called to voice our opposition as well.

Please click on the below link to the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops' website which explains the Church's teaching. You will have an opportunity to EASILY contact your House Representative and Senators (simply click on the "Email Congress Now" link) to voice your opposition to government funded abortion currently included in the House bill. If you are in North Carolina, Senator Kay Hagan's prompt will ask your phone number. Please forward to others.

http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/

God Bless,
Brice

Orthodox head brings 'green' views to D.C.

2009-11-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

Julia Duin

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of the world's 250 million to 300 million Orthodox Christians, arrived in Washington on Sunday night bearing the standard as the world's foremost religious leader on environmental issues.

But one of his first tasks in the areawill be a visit to a Greek Orthodox parish in Annapolis on Monday, where he will celebrate the 18th anniversary of his enthronement to his Istanbul-based See.

"It's like the pope coming to our church," says the Rev. Kosmas Karavellas, protopresbyter (pastor) of Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church on Riva Road, who will also host a dinner for 500 guests. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our church."

The 69-year-old patriarch, who has been touring the United States since Oct. 20, spent the first five days of his 18-day visit leading a "Religion, Science and the Environment" symposium in New Orleans. It is the most recent of many efforts that have earned him the sobriquet of the "green patriarch." During a 1997 trip to the United States, he hosted an environmental summit in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he called the destruction of the environment "a sin" and offered "a vision of repentance" for those who have acted as "materialistic tyrants" toward God's creation.

The six days he will spend in Washington, including a Tuesday lecture at Georgetown University and a Wednesday speech at the Brookings Institution, will also deal with the topic. His web site, www.patriarchate.org, has a link to a Facebook discussion on Orthodoxy's contribution to the environmental movement and links to several YouTube videos of the patriarch, including Bartholomew's recent speech at the New Orleans aquarium.

On Oct. 25, the Wall Street Journal printed his guest editorial that called for believers and nonbelievers in God alike to work together to save the earth.

"The natural environment unites us in ways that transcend doctrinal differences," he wrote.

He will visit President Obama at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, after the Brookings speech, he will attend a lunch in his honor on Capitol Hill, meet privately with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attend a dinner in his honor hosted by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at the vice president's residence.

Interspersed with his many official activities will be private visits with some of the 1.5 million Greek Orthodox believers in the United States.

"He wants to be with the people," said the Rev. Mark Arey, general secretary for the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas. "He is extremely vigorous. I dare anyone to walk down the street with him and keep up.

"His visit will highlight environmental responsibility, include meetings with religious leaders and greeting his own faithful," he said.

The patriarch spent last week in New York - with a quick side trip to Atlanta - including a visit to the United Nations, a meeting with Jewish leaders at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, a chat with former President Bill Clinton and the acceptance of an honorary degree at Fordham University.

Bartholomew does not accept all honorary doctorates offered him, but he did want to accept Fordham's offer as an outreach to Catholics, Father Arey said.

"He wanted to set the tone for Roman Catholic-Orthodox relations," he added. "We are trying to heal the breach to be one indivisible church again."

The Annapolis event will be one huge exhibition of Orthodoxy with 50 to 60other hierarchs and priests in attendance. The 65-year-old Sts. Constantine and Helen is Maryland's second-oldest Greek Orthodox church and one of nine Greek Orthodox congregations in the state.

The patriarch will preside at a prayer service before coming to the dinner, which will also include several state elected officials.

"For five hours, we will be the center of the Orthodox world," Father Karavellas said. "This is the first time a religious dignitary of that stature has entered Annapolis."

All Saints' Day Sermon

2009-11-01T14:57:00.000-05:00

By Bishop Council Nedd II

I am grateful that God has let All Saints' Day fall on a Sunday this year. That means we have the maximum number of people together to celebrate it. Having as many people around as possible matters in particular on All Saints' Day, because All Saints' Day is a celebration of the church or if you will, the church-village.

The New Testament's definition of a saint is a baptized person, or rather, a church member. The communion of saints which we mention in the Creeds, is the community of saints. Each and every Christian is connected to every other Christian at every time and in every place.

By the power of the Spirit of God, we are just as connected to Christians of the third and eleventh centuries and to Christians in Asia and Africa as we are connected to the people in the next pew. Just like Christians 200 years from now will be similarly connected to us.

The church-village is not merely global, it encompasses and embraces centuries of history. The Holy Catholic Church which is the body of Jesus Christ and the communion of saints is not limited by space or time. As they said in High School Musical, we are all in it together. And we are all in this together no matter when we are or where we are.

Today's collect addresses, "Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord." Today's Collect calls the church "the mystical body of God's son, Christ our Lord." St. Paul teaches that the church is like a human body. Human bodies are run from their heads; the head of the church is Jesus Christ. We know human bodies are alive because they are breathing; the church lives by the breath of God which is the Holy Ghost.

A human body has many organs and other body parts. Each of them has a function to perform to help the body work smoothly. In the church, we individual Christians are the members of the body – each of us has an organic purpose, if you will -- a function we perform for the good of the whole body. Just being here and worshipping and praying is the beginning.

I generally lead the service, but if I’m not here Vonny or Ed do. Vonny and Bill makes sure that things run smoothly during the service. Bill and Inez and Joy will be teaching the younger people like Saran, Alex, Jillian. The Damus family bring new blood, youth and vitality. Maybe someday Jillian will be playing the piano here regularly sitting right in front of Ellen who always lifts my spirit and Stephen who lets me know if my sermons were on point, Gloria who I think I am the most like and Bob who, along with the other Bob and Rosie and Ann quietly work behind the scene to make sure things get done. We then have the institutional memories of Bill and Amelia and Barb, so that we don’t make mistakes that had been tried in the past. Steve, who was a constant reminder to me of the need to institute Bible Study. Rachael brings, and brings us an appreciation for the esoteric which is lost in most western Christianity but alive and well in the east. And last but not least Peggy Jane who reminds us all to go with God.

Christianity was never intended to be a solitary experience.

That is worth repeating, Christianity was never intended to be a solitary experience – something you can do on your own – just you and your Bible; you and your favorite TV preacher; or you and your own private God, in glorious and splendid isolation from that problematic category of existence we call "other people."

The Epistle to the Hebrews warns us that we must not "forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is." Or to put it into plainer English, “not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” Jesus ordained that the obligatory and necessary week-by-week, year-after-year experience of his continuing presence among us is eating his body and drinking his blood in Holy Communion – holy community – together with all the saints.

I do not apologize to anyone for the size of our congregation – St. Alban’s is doing miraculously well. The greatest advantage of our size is our close knittedness, we are a very functional church family. Because of our size it is possible for me to know all of you and for each one of you to get to know just about everyone else in our church-village.

Solitary Christianity is impossible, and I suspect that anonymous, face-in-the-crowd, Christianity winds up being about the same thing. We learn to be Christians by living the Christian life with people we can come to know and observe and with whom we can have genuine relationships. That is part of the glory of All Saints.

One of the remarkable things about the mystical body is that people don't lose their membership in it just because they happen to be dead. The mystical body of the church includes not just the Christians we see around us here, but everybody who has ever been baptized any time, any place.

Again, in the All Saints' Collect, we ask God to give us the help to "follow thy blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living." That is very much like what we say in the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church when we say of the dead, "give us grace so to follow their good examples." Our first obligation to the dead is to thank God for their lives and for what we learned from them. A proper All Saints' meditation is to think about the dead Christians who have had the greatest influence in bringing you to where you are on your Christian pilgrimage right now.

Our second obligation to the dead saints is to look forward to the day when we shall see them again. That mind-expanding promise is what makes today's Epistle and the All Saints' hymns especially exciting. While we are locked in time, only God can see the whole church -- we can only see the portion that is actually living right now. God always sees us all together, and he promises us that we will go to heaven all together.

The picture our Bible readings give us today is of suffering in this world – Jesus is honest about that in the gospel – but unspeakable joy and pleasure in the afterlife. The thrill of finally being in heaven will make whatever sufferings we have endured seem worthwhile, and it will be so wonderful that, as the Lord promises, we shall not remember the suffering anyway.

We need to make a specific and more determined effort to focus our attention on heaven. If you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died for our sins and that he is going to come again, you are going to heaven -- there is no way God will keep you out -- he wants you to be there.

But if you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died for our sins and that he is going to come again, you will work that much harder to do what is pleasing in his sight.

You should make a conscious effort every day of your life to say, "I am going to go to heaven." You'll begin to get a handle on what St. Paul means when he says, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed to us."

And, speaking of glory, I don't think there is much in the remainder of the Bible that can measure up to what St. John promises us about heaven in the Book of Revelation – so let's listen to it once more: "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

Rally has a lot of salt, but little pep

2009-10-30T15:44:00.001-04:00

Rally has a lot of salt, but little pep

By Dana Milbank
Friday, October 30, 2009

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi led her House Democrats down the Capitol steps Thursday morning for a health-care pep rally, the sound system began to crank out . . . wait, that's not U2's "Elevation," is it?

Alas, it was.

I need you to elevate me here

At the corner of your lips

At the orbit of your hips

Eclipse, you elevate my soul

I've lost all self-control . . .

Okay, you can stop blushing now.

Whenever politicians stage pep rallies to roll out the details of a new policy, the proceedings should be taken with a grain of salt. But Thursday's effort by House Democrats came with six 50-pound bags of salt -- ice-melting salt, to be specific -- placed on the bases of the six U.S. flags on the stage to keep them from toppling over in the wind and marring the event with unwanted visuals and ruinous metaphors.

The Democrats' preparations were elaborate. They chose a spot, on the West Front of the Capitol, near where Newt Gingrich announced his "Contract With America" 15 years ago. They had red, white and blue convention-style signs that, instead of displaying the names of states, offered messages such as "Expand coverage" and "Strengthen Medicare." They shared the stage with about 30 "real people," flown in from around the country, who could tell tales of health-care woe. One Capitol police officer, claiming that she was acting under instruction from Pelosi's office, even kept Republican staffers from entering the event.

But for all the precautions, policy pep rallies have a way of taking unwanted turns, and Thursday's did so almost immediately after Pelosi stepped to the microphone. "Nancy Pelosi, you'll burn in hell for this," said a voice, amplified by a bullhorn, from about 50 yards away.

"Thank you, insurance companies of America," Pelosi replied to the man. Actually, they were abortion protesters, and they were loud.

"In this legislation, we will immediately begin to close the doughnut hole," the speaker proclaimed.

"We won't pay for murder!" a heckler heckled.

"Prevention and wellness are an important part of this legislation," the speaker declared.

"We won't pay for murder!" the heckler repeated. Finally, police were able to silence the activists, who held a gruesome poster showing an aborted fetus and signs demanding "Kill the bill."

Pelosi and her lieutenants did an impressive job of putting together a health-care reform compromise that probably has enough support to pass. Her watered-down version of the "public option" -- leaving the government insurance plan to negotiate rates with providers rather than imposing Medicare rates -- meant that Thursday's rally included a few moderates from the "Blue Dog" coalition along with liberal Democrats.

But Pelosi's legislative finesse was not matched by her skills as a pep rally organizer. Only about 80 House Democrats, about a third of the caucus, were on the stage on the cool and gray morning. The others, Pelosi tried to explain to the crowd, "are in hearings, because the work of Congress does not stop just because we have an important message to give to you."

Another possible reason for the sparse attendance: Health care may be hugely important, but it's hard to get fired up about the nitty-gritty of policy. "The uninsured will have access to a temporary insurance program -- we're calling it a high-risk pool -- from the date of enactment until the exchange is available!" Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn (S.C.) told the rally.

A small number of people, many of them paid staffers standing off to the side, offered polite applause for the high-risk pool.

"From the date of enactment, we'll hinder price-gouging with sunshine requirements on insurance companies to disclose insurance rate increases!"

Light applause for rate-increase sunshine requirements.

"From the date of enactment, COBRA health insurance coverage will be extended until the exchange is available and displaced workers can have affordable coverage!"

Modest ovation for temporary COBRA extension.

Speakers were told to limit themselves to a minute apiece, but no attention was paid to the rule, and by minute 50, the rally had lost the little bit of pep it had at the start.

Still, there were moving moments, as when Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio) spoke of her battle with multiple sclerosis. And Rep. John Dingell (Mich.), who succeeded his father in Congress in 1955, recalled the birth of Medicare in 1965.

"I did have the privilege of sitting in the chair when we passed Medicare," he said, and "I used this here gavel to preside over the House." The audience gave a hearty cheer this time when he held up the instrument. "And I'm going to lend it to whoever it is who gets to preside over this legislation, because a good piece of wood doesn't wear out with one great event."

It was a powerful image. But then it was time for the lawmakers to walk back up the steps into the Capitol, and the sound system piped out another U2 song, "City of Blinding Lights," with another unhelpful message:

The more you see, the less you know

The less you find out as you go

I knew much more then than I do now.

Abortion Addiction

2009-10-30T15:33:00.000-04:00

An addiction that only motherhood could cure
Irene Vilar tries to explain the pathology that led her to abort 15 pregnancies

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

The two little impossibilities want Mami's attention.

Loretta, a self-assured and quietly focused 5-year-old, hides squiggly line drawings under the furniture at a relative's home in Alexandria. Lolita, a high-spirited 3-year-old, sways to Beethoven's "Für Elise."

Mami scoops up both daughters. They tumble into the soft embrace of the couch, all squeals and nuzzles and squirmy delight. The girls start wriggling loose, and Mami pulls them back. One more hug. For an instant, it's as if releasing them would somehow make them disappear, would confirm their utter impossibility.

That Irene Vilar embraces the role of motherhood is a grand incongruity, a mind-blower. She has just published a precariously nuanced, intellectually ambitious and unnervingly frank memoir titled "Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict." In the book, Vilar writes about a "shameful" period in her life -- before she became a mother -- when she says she underwent 15 abortions in 15 years. What she now sees as her "nightmare" began with a teenage affair with a Syracuse University professor who was 34 years her senior.

The almost unimaginable claim -- vetted by her publisher's attorneys, who say they have been able to confirm all but two procedures done in now-defunct clinics -- places Vilar at the outer extreme of the phenomenon of multiple abortions. It has also made her a sudden target of blogospheric vitriol and disapproval.

Yet, in Vilar's deft hands, her story of serial abortions mostly bypasses the volatile abortion rights standoff, instead plumbing her "self-mutilation," her "pregnancy fantasies" and multiple suicide attempts, her conflicts over submission and control, and, ultimately, her healing. She wants to steer readers to a subtler point: that abortion was, for her, an addiction, a warped and tragic vehicle to assert control over her life.

Years ago, she wrote that an 11-year period in which she had 12 abortions was "the happiest" time of her life. Looking back, she diagnoses the person she was as "a deluded creature in suspended animation."

Now she can impose a sort of logic on what happened. "When one is looking for a strategy of survival one uses what makes sense, with whatever limited tools one has, in a sick way," she says in an e-mail one evening after returning to her home in Colorado. "Abortion happens to be the target of my addiction, or to be more precise the target of my pathological adolescent rebellious strategy."

Vilar's sense of herself was once as conflicted as her native Puerto Rico's search for its place in the world, a quest intertwined with her family history. Lolita Lebron, who will turn 90 next month, is not only Vilar's larger-than-life grandmother but also an icon of nationalist pride in Puerto Rico. In an act that would be hard for any grandchild to reconcile, Lebron and two colleagues shot and wounded five congressmen during a quixotic attack inside the U.S. House chamber in 1954.

Lebron is wont to call the people of Puerto Rico her "children and grandchildren," but she can be a distant, estranged figure in her own family. She left Vilar's mother, only a child at the time, with relatives to pursue revolutionary dreams in the United States and seldom speaks with her granddaughter.

Like Lebron, a jarringly beautiful puertorriqueña with fiery eyes, Vilar turns heads wherever she goes. But when she settles into conversation, she beguiles with a blushing vulnerability. At lunch in downtown Washington one afternoon, the busboys halt and fumble when Vilar -- a willowy 40-year-old with dark brown eyes and a musical Puerto Rican accent -- slinks past. A sliver of midriff peeks above the waistline of a pair of snug slacks. She smiles coyly.

Between sips of a Montepulciano, Vilar says she knows that as she arrives in any town -- she visited Washington on her decidedly low-key book tour -- she is "fated to be misunderstood." Her book, she says, is an exercise in "self-accountability," a chronicle of what she calls a "shameful" period of "recklessness and stupidity" when she "abused her rights."

"The ultimate goal," she says, "was to write a testimonial that was empowering to young women, by giving them a model for thinking about their actions and their unconscious actions." She talks softly in long, complex observations. One moment she is the self-assured intellectual, confident and matter-of-fact; the next, she is shy and blushing, lowering her eyes and searching for the right words.

Her book is less ideological than personal, and so original that she thinks her story might actually engage the two sides of the abortion debate that rarely agree on anything. "It could be a pro-choice extreme," she says. "It could be an argument for abortion foes."

Teacher's pet

Vilar was 8 when she saw her mother, Gladys Mendez, die. They were coming home from a wedding when Mendez -- who, according to Vilar, was sexually abused as an adolescent -- went flying out of the door of their moving car. Police said it was an accident; Vilar says it was suicide, a claim that has caused a rift with her deeply religious grandmother, Lebron.

Vilar left the island at 15, a precocious overachiever, to attend Syracuse University. It was there that she met a Latin American literature professor, a man she would come to call her "master."

She was 16 and he was 50, Vilar writes, when she unbuttoned her blouse to reveal her cleavage before visiting him in his office.

"You are a seducer," Vilar remembers him saying. And he was right, but it would take him a while to know for sure.

A friend, she writes, warned her about the professor's reputation for womanizing, but "the more of a wolf he became, the more I wished I could be a lamb." A year and a half later -- in the fall of 1987, and a few months after she turned 18 -- they had sex for the first time, she says.

"I recruited him," Vilar says, when elaborating recently on her book. "I staged a drama and I chose him." And it was all technically acceptable in that era's university environment. A Syracuse spokeswoman says there was no "formal policy" regarding consensual student-teacher relationships until 1993.

Vilar decided not to reveal the professor's identity -- it's a memoir, she insists, not an indictment. But she does sprinkle the narrative with more than enough clues that it is easy to identify him as Pedro Cuperman, a longtime professor who still teaches at Syracuse. Cuperman, who married Vilar when she was 21 (they divorced in 1998), did not respond to a written interview request and hung up when contacted by phone.

Cuperman, a popular and well-known figure in the Syracuse arts community, runs a small gallery called Point of Contact that hosts well-attended book readings and art shows. Tula Goenka, a friend of Cuperman's and fellow Syracuse professor, calls him "extremely charming." She describes him as a "gentle soul," steeped in the ways of India's holy city Varanasi, where he once spent time. Now, Cuperman hangs out at a Starbucks across from campus, Goenka says, and always greets her by saying "namaste."

Cuperman appears "romantically wounded," Goenka says. She knows little about his relationship with Vilar, but says professors and students fall for each other at Syracuse "like at every university."

"The power dynamic of it is very skewed," she says. "I always think male teachers tend to get away with it more" than female teachers.

Robin Morgan, a feminist author who wrote the foreword to Vilar's book, says "consensuality is impossible in that situation because of the power imbalance."

Vilar draws a portrait of Cuperman as a handsome, manipulative, intellectually uncompromising, relentlessly controlling figure, who told her he preferred young women because they are "unformed" and "unwounded," as she recalls. He had already been divorced four times, and told Vilar that all "his love stories" -- his romantic relationships with women -- had been killed by his wives' and lovers' desire for children, according to her memoir. She is a vulnerable young woman, but she wants him to think of her as someone sturdy, someone of substance. She dreads being labeled a coward, and somehow he persuades her, by her account, that becoming a mother would be a cowardly act that would compromise her artistic bona fides.

In the memoir, the professor/paramour calls Vilar his "alma gemela," his soul mate, but he insists, "if you are with me, you have to endure the burden of freedom, and that requires, in part, remaining childless." Vilar is constantly afraid of losing him, entranced by "his freedom, intellect and guts," and immersed in his world of famed authors and artists.

The leap into abortion

Not long after their first sexual encounter, Vilar becomes pregnant and schedules her first abortion. Over the next 15 years, she seesaws between taking birth-control pills and "forgetting" to take them. She returns time and again to abortion clinics despite the pleadings of doctors and friends. In a convoluted way, she feels a sense of control because she can start a pregnancy and she can end it.

She spends time briefly in a mental institution, and in one particularly furtive phase from January to August 1995, she has an affair, three car accidents, two boat collisions, two abortions and a suicide attempt.

During a trip to Puerto Rico, she has a moment of clarity, concluding that she is addicted to the cycle of pregnancy and abortion in the same way that two of her brothers are addicted to heroin and her mother was addicted to Valium. Sometimes she feels a "high" before becoming pregnant, "waiting for a missed period, my body basking in the promise of being in control." Sometimes the high comes during pregnancy -- she often would place baby clothes on layaway -- and other times when she leaves the abortion clinic, "feeling that once again, I had succeeded in a narrow escape."

Eventually, it is Cuperman -- her master -- whom she wants to escape. She makes him variously aware of her pregnancies and that she's ending them, but it's a topic they avoid. During particularly awful stretches of their 11 years together, she twice has an affair with another Syracuse professor whom she refers to by a pseudonym in her memoir. She describes a sexually rambunctious campus; the professor with whom she cheats is also involved with a graduate student.

In 1994, during their annual summer retreat on his boat, she notices Cuperman "becoming frail" at age 60 -- and their relationship was, too. Her intellect becomes her way out.

She begins to assert her own voice, selling a book about her family, "A Message From God in the Atomic Age" -- later reissued as "The Ladies Gallery: A Memoir of Family Secrets." She senses Cuperman, who edits a literary journal but who she says has struggled for years with his own novel, is jealous.

Her life, she writes, is a "pathetic drama." But the day is coming when her master can no longer control her.

The tug of motherhood

A sense of finality comes to her when she is alone.

"I sat on the toilet, pregnant for the twelfth time and fallen out love," she writes.

By 1998, the marriage is over. Her next relationship is with a man she meets in the frozen-food section of a grocery store. She becomes pregnant three times before leaving him, and has abortions 13, 14 and 15.

Her addiction is at its most twisted and perverse: The man actually wants a child; he calls her "selfish and insensitive." She has "maternal desires," but she can't break out of the pathological quest for a high that comes with starting and ending pregnancies.

Finally, in 2003, Vilar begins to bring order to her life. She meets another writer at a conference in Vermont. Within months, they marry and settle in Colorado. He is a father of two, and he wants more children. Amazingly, despite the abuse Vilar says she has inflicted on her body, an exam shows that her cervix is healthy. She can conceive, and for the first time, she sees the pregnancy through. Loretta arrives six weeks early. Vilar writes that, to comprehend it all, she had to sit and rock the infant "until I understood she was born."

Her husband Dan -- he asked that his last name not be used because of concerns for their safety following publication of the controversial book -- was her sounding board as she polished her manuscript on a laptop, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a walk-in closet.

Vilar says she was rejected by 51 publishers over a 1 1/2 -year period before her manuscript was accepted by Judith Gurewich of Other Press, a small house in New York that has scored successes with the memoir "Hurry Down Sunshine" and the novel "Meritocracy: A Love Story." Gurewich, a trained psychoanalyst, says she was drawn to the manuscript by Vilar's courage and decided to publish it, even though she doubts it will be a big seller.

Vilar says she is donating one-fourth of her royalties to Sisterhood Is Global Institute, an international women's rights organization that counts Jane Fonda among its board members.

Vilar's husband says he's read some, but not all, of her book. "I wonder, if in part, I feel I can support her better in her new life if I don't get too mired in the details of her old one," he says via e-mail, in the first public comments he's made on his wife's story.

Attacks in the blogs

Lately, he has tried to shield her from "violent, hateful and utterly un-Christian comments" on blogs, he says. On the Internet, she has been called a "monster," "scuzzy," a "skank." A poster at USbacklash.org wrote that she is "one of the sickest people who ever lived, including Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, or any other murderer I can think of! Too bad one of her suicide attempts didn't take. . . . We hope she keeps trying!"

At the same time, Vilar has not necessarily been heartily embraced by the abortion rights movement. "I can understand the nervousness of some feminists because they think it will be used against the pro-choice movement," says Morgan, the feminist author, who calls the book a "crucial" work for vulnerable young women.

Vilar will return to Colorado warily. She has removed her name from as many public records as possible, saying she is "worried about the kind of people who killed the doctor a few months ago," a reference to the May slaying of George Tiller, who performed abortions in Kansas. "You know -- the people who would call me a 'baby killer.' "

In her bathroom, Vilar keeps childhood photos of Loretta alongside ultrasound pictures of her 18 weeks before she was born. "The ultrasound images show clearly a miniature head tilted back, an arm raised up, with the hand pointing back toward the face," Vilar writes. "It would have been possible and permissible to end her life at this point."

As reflective as she is, Vilar says she doesn't dwell on what might have become of the fetuses she aborted or the lives each could have led. Only twice, she says, did the little possibilities inside her seem more tangible to her; those abortions took place 16 and 17 weeks after conception. "With one, I felt movement" inside her, she says matter-of-factly. "With the other, I almost died."

Indeed, Vilar says if abortion were illegal, she would probably be dead now, because she would have resorted to unsafe, unsanctioned abortionists or perished after a self-induced puncture. (Did she consider finding adoptive parents as a way out? "Many times," she says.)

She's unabashedly supportive of abortion rights, but says her addiction to the cycle of pregnancy and abortion meant that she wasn't really choosing to end her pregnancies. "In a pathology, you don't have choice," she says. "I come from a culture that cultivates mixed messages," she says, quiet for a moment on the couch in Alexandria. Then she softly starts to sing.

"Te amo muchisimo/Por tu bien te digo, 'Adiós.' " -- I love you very much. For your own good, I say goodbye.

"You see?" she says. "Mixed messages, even in our songs."

She says children are the great joys of her life now. She bought supplies for two full Montessori classrooms, and used them to convert a large portion of their house into learning spaces to home-school her daughters. "I just so much enjoy being with them," she says. "Very shortly, they'll be grown up."

Vilar says she is working on a book about motherhood, and she would like to have one more child. She feels the tug.

Pope’s Anglican gambit a tactical move against Islam

2009-10-27T21:53:00.001-04:00

By Rabbi Ben Kamin

Some dismissed him as a scholarly shadow after the charismatic and warm John Paul II. Others, including in this corner, have been concerned about his seeming insensitivity to Holocaust-related issues (he has since demonstrated magnanimity and public contrition). In fact, Pope Benedict XVI has now demonstrated a particular shrewdness, applauded here, that potentially grows his Church and secures all of us from a common foe.

Surely, most Catholics themselves do not understand the intricacies and the politics involved in the Holy Father’s invitation to disaffected Anglicans. He has reached out to them and offered them a place in the Church, or as Ross Douthat wrote so effectively in The New York Times, “an Anglo-Catholic mansion within the walls of the Roman Catholic Church.” While this was quite a contentious move, though not entirely without historical context, it was not followed by a series of fatwas, beheadings, suicide bombings, or mass killings. It remains to be seen if a few Anglicans will actually convert to full Catholicism or if the papal note will inspire millions. But no one is too concerned about bloodshed—even the ones accusing the Pope of pilfering. (It is a matter of greater gravity than that).

But the real question is, why aren’t people in Europe and Africa—the continents where intra-church tensions most simmer—making more noise about this bold exploit? One reason may be that since the 1960’s, there actually has been an improvement in ecumenical discussion and relations and that the Catholic Church has proven its relevance by spending a lot of time on pertinent issues such as the environment, social justice, and world peace. The other reason, not spoken out loud perhaps: Islam.

Pope Benedict XVI, sometimes awkwardly, has not spoken softly about the Muslims and their threat to civilized life. In Germany, 2006, he openly disputed “Islam’s compatibility with the Western way of reason” [Douthat]. This verbal challenge resulted, not surprisingly, with a cascade of Muslim riots about the globe and an untold number of deaths.

Some criticized the Pope; it’s three years later and all we have are heaps and heaps of more dead (most them of Muslims killed by Muslims) and so many systemic suicide bombings in so many places that they are read by news reporters like so many traffic dispatches. Osama bin Laden of 9/11 remains at large. The United States is more at risk in Taliban Afghanistan and Pakistan than ever.

The Anglican Church, meanwhile, continues to be one of those good-hearted Christian bodies that seek conciliation with the Islamic world. A number of sources have reported that the Archbishop of Canterbury has even speculated about the eventual acceptance of sharia law in the United Kingdom!

Maybe the Pope is trying to pull together the Christian world for a very real and significant reason.

www.benkamin.com

The ACNA Kool-aid drinking?

2009-10-26T15:40:00.003-04:00

The following was in a fundraising letter that the ACNA has been sending out to anyone in the States who considers themsleves an Anglican, rather they have a church home or not:

"No Christian body in North America has the treasure of the Christian faith in a more accessible form than we do. No group of believers better understands how to put the timeless Gospel of Jesus Christ into pastoral action for the transformation of a broken world. No Church better knows the attractiveness of true community in congregational life, the community for which the young of this age long. No tradition has a stronger grasp of what worship can do to transport the faithful into the experience of heaven breaking in."

National Seniors Council Calls $250 Payments to Seniors a “Not so Cheap Trick”

2009-10-15T15:36:00.001-04:00

For Immediate Release: 10/15/09
Contact: James Crumley
Trio Strategies
703-690-1247

National Seniors Council Calls $250 Payments to Seniors a “Not so Cheap Trick”

National Seniors Council Chairman Council Nedd today condemned the Obama Administration’s plan to issue one-time payments of $250 to seniors citizens as a “not so cheap trick aimed at conning Americans into overlooking the administration’s anti-senior citizen policies.”

“America’s senior citizens are outraged at the administration’s reckless and irresponsible spending policies, its attempt to gut Medicare as part of its health care reform proposals, and its continued refusal to protect the Social Security Trust Fund from Congressional spending sprees,” says Nedd. “This one time payment is clearly a cynical attempt to trick the elderly. While the President is proposing to hand out $250 bribes with one hand, he is picking the pockets of senior citizens by looting Social Security to pay for more and more government spending and slashing Medicare to pay for his government takeover of the health care industry. The National Seniors Council vigorously opposes this scam.”

The National Seniors Council is a national grassroots senior citizen organization committed to protecting the government benefits earned by America’s seniors through responsible market oriented reforms.

www.nationalseniorscouncil.org

October and Columbus Day

2009-10-14T22:16:00.001-04:00

by Bishop William Millsaps

Never again will the public schools of this country have the naive celebrations of Columbus Day they had even thirty years ago. Whether that is bad or good, people will have to decide for themselves. Emotions run high when it comes to politics, and for some people everything is political. They are willing to hit you over the head with their non-violence. They believe vandalism is their right. They will tell you that their suffering is so great that you must suffer too. Yet people who have really suffered sometimes turn it into something positive. That is a "teaser"for a future column I intend to write after I have finished a new book I just bought. But for now consider October and Columbus Day. The government's decision not withstanding, it really was set on October 12th for a reason.

October may not be everyone's favorite month. In the minds of some, April and May and even June may outrank October. But there is something about October with its' turning leaves, clear days and cool nights that says "fest" even to teetotalers. In many American cities it also says, Columbus Day!

On October 12, 1492 Christopher Columbus, a weaver's son from Genoa, sailing under the banner of Spain, or more properly, under the patronage of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Castille, set foot on the coral sand of a tiny island in the Bahaman chain. He thought he was just off the coast of Asia. He was seeking a shorter routs to the East and found a new West. In 1992, when the five hundredth year of Columbus' voyage was being celebrated, especially by Italian Americans, several of the so-called "mainstream" Protestant churches took it upon themselves to "debunk" Columbus. The National Council of Churches issued a decree: "In consideration of the genocide, slavery, ecocide, and exploitation that followed Columbus, the quincentenary should be a time of penitence rather than jubilation. Wheat some historians have termed a discovery in reality was an invasion and colonization with legalized occupation, genocide, economic exploitation, and a deep sense of institutional racism and moral decadence." All this from an organization which could never quite bring itself to condemn Joseph Stalin.

I am not a specialist on Columbus; although, I have probably read five or six books about him, which is probably five or six more than his detractors. He certainly was not a good governor, nor even a good administrator. He underestimated the circumference of the globe. But he was a navigational genius. We can scarcely imagine the barrier that the coral reefs posed. In fact, the windward side of San Salvador is strewn with the wrecks of ships which came long after Columbus. By the time he reached Cuba, and certainly Hispanola, he began to think this was not Asia but was, instead, a "new world." Columbus spoke several languages fluently, and had some knowledge of others including Arabic, French, German, English and Hebrew. He could read Latin and Greek, and even wrote in these ancient tongues.

In a time when anti-semitic feelings were rampant, he chose Luis de Torres, a Jewish physician to accompany him. Ironically, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand had expelled the Jews. Very well, Luis would go with Columbus. A few historians believe that Columbus had Jewish ancestors, but, in any event, it is to Torres that we owe the name of our Thanksgiving bird. When he saw the strange huge fowl for the first time, he shouted, "Tukki", which is the Hebrew word for big bird. The other sailors took up the word, and the bird has been a "turkey" ever since. Now you know it has nothing to do with the nation of the same name.

Columbus was a man of strong faith. Samuel Eliot Morison (one "r" is correct) wrote, "This conviction that God destined him to be an instrument for spreading the faith was far more potent than the desire to win glory, wealth, and worldly honors, to which he was certainly far from indifferent."

Even after five hundred years, there is still legitimate debate with regard to Columbus. But I'd still rather eat spaghetti with the Knights of Columbus than suck lemons with humorless prattlers.

Gearing Up for All Saints’

2009-10-14T22:09:00.002-04:00

by Bishop William Millsaps

October is a favorite month for many on the Cumberland Plateau. The leaves are changing. Every year we are reminded that there is a special beauty about Autumn. The days are cooler, and the evenings are perfect. Here, as elsewhere, however, just as we relax a little from the remembered heat of Summer we are suddenly put upon by images of skulls and witches.

The dominant holiday is All Hallow's Eve, though many do not know that this name is taken from the major Christian feast day now called All Saints', November 1, which has been kept in some form since the third century. The church in Antioch, where "they were first called Christians", kept a feast day on the Sunday after Pentecost to remember all who had preceded in death. They gave thanks for the faithful witness of all the believers who had gone before them. They used the term "saints" in the way it is used in the New Testament, thirteen times in the book of Revelation alone, as those who name Jesus as Lord. When All Saints' Day was kept it was to commemorate all the faithful. In our area we come pretty close to this in what is called Decoration Day, when hundreds of people still go to cemeteries and place flowers on the graves of their loved ones. They are certainly not worshiping them, but they are honoring them and remembering them with gratitude.

In recent years, no doubt Halloween has reverted to a day associated more with evil than with good. In many communities, valiant attempts to overcome the imagery of ghosts and ghouls with more healthy activities abound. In some ways, however, I am reminded of an occasion when my father was visiting us and a lady stopped by who was wearing a copper bracelet. He said bluntly, "You are wearing that bracelet in the hope that it will help you with your arthritis. It won't." The truth is, he had tried it and didn't think it had helped him. Halloween is not going away, and we cannot really shield our children from this culture. It is possible to teach them history and give them some positive images.

October is a wonderful month filled with dates associated with great historical figures. One of those people is Francis of Assisi. Among the others are Remigius, William Tyndale, Robert Grossteste, Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, Thomas Cranmer, Ignatius of Antioch, Luke the Evangelist, Henry Martyn, James of Jerusalem, Alfred the Great, Simon and Jude and James Hannington. Yes, there is also the controversial Christopher Columbus the subject of another piece.

Some of these may be just names to many of us, but the were all real life heroes, and there are many heroines as well. The best known is perhaps Teresa of Avila, whose mystical writings are still read by Protestants and Catholics alike.

The point is, we do not need to whine about the abuses of Halloween so much as we need to reclaim our heritage.

October 13, 1307 a tragic day

2009-10-13T10:43:00.000-04:00

From Wikipedia

The final fall of the Templars may have started over the matter of a loan. The young Philip IV, King of France (also known as "Philip the Fair") had needed cash for his war with the English and asked the Templars for more money. They refused. The King assigned himself the right to tax the French clergy, and he tried to get the Pope to excommunicate the Templars, but Pope Boniface VIII refused, instead issuing a Papal Bull in 1302 to reinforce that the Pope had absolute supremacy over earthly power, even above a king, and excommunicated King Philip instead. The king responded by sending his councillor, Guillaume de Nogaret, in a plot to kidnap the Pope from his castle in Anagni in September 1303, charging him with dozens of trumped-up charges such as sodomy and heresy. This outrageous incident inspired Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy: the new Pilate has imprisoned the Vicar of Christ. The people of Anagni rose up and rescued the aged Boniface VIII, but he died only a month later from shock due to the ill treatment.

Pope Boniface's successor, Benedict XI, lifted the excommunication of Philip IV but refused to absolve de Nogaret, excommunicating him and all the other Italian kidnap co-conspirators on June 7, 1304. Benedict died just eight months later in Perugia, perhaps from poisoning by an agent of Nogaret. There followed a year of dispute among the French and Italian cardinals as to the next Pope, before deciding on the non-Italian Bertrand de Goth (Clement V), a childhood friend of Philip, in June 1305. Clement withdrew the Papal Bulls of Boniface VIII which had conflicted with Philip IV's plans, created nine more French cardinals, and, after a failed attempt to unite the Templars and the Hospitallers, agreed to Philip IV's demands for an investigation of the Templars. Pope Clement also moved the papacy from the Italian Anagni to the more palatable (and controllable) French Avignon, initiating the period called the Avignon Papacy.

King Philip had other reasons to mistrust the Templars, as the organization had declared its desire to form its own state, similar to how the Teutonic Knights had founded Prussia. The Templars' preferred location for this was in the Languedoc of southeastern France, but they had also made a plan for the island of Cyprus. In 1306, the Templars had supported a coup on that island, which had forced King Henry II of Cyprus to abdicate his throne in favor of his brother, Amalric of Tyre. This probably made Philip particularly uneasy, since just a few years earlier he had inherited land in the region of Champagne, France, which was the Templars' headquarters. The Templars were already a "state within a state," were institutionally wealthy, paid no taxes, and had a large standing army which by papal decree could move freely through all European borders, but had no presence in the Holy Land, which left the army with no battlefield. These factors, plus the fact that Philip had inherited an impoverished kingdom from his father, and was already deeply in debt to the Templars, were probably what led to his actions.[8][9]

At dawn on Friday, October 13, 1307, scores of French Templars were simultaneously arrested by agents of King Philip, later to be tortured in locations such as the tower at Chinon, into admitting heresy in the Order. Over 100 charges were issued against them, the majority of them identical charges to what had been earlier issued against the inconvenient Pope Boniface VIII: accusations of denying Christ, spitting and urinating on the cross, and devil worship. The main interrogation of the Templars was under the control of the Inquisitors, a group of experienced interrogators and clergy who circulated around Europe at the beck and call of any European noble. The rules of interrogation said that no blood could be drawn, but this did nothing to stop the torture. One account told of a Templar who had fire applied to the soles of his feet, such that the bones fell out of the skin. Other Templars were suspended upside-down or placed in thumbscrews. Of the 138 Templars (many of them old men) questioned in Paris over the next few years, 105 of them "confessed" to denying Christ during the secret Templar initiations. 103 confessed to an "obscene kiss" being part of the ceremonies, and 123 said they spat on the cross. Throughout the trial there was never any physical evidence of wrongdoing, and no independent witnesses; the only "proof" was obtained through confessions induced by torture.[7] The Templars reached out to the Pope for assistance, and Pope Clement did write letters to King Philip questioning the arrests, but took no further action.

Despite the fact that the confessions had been produced under duress, they caused a scandal in Paris, with mobs calling for action against the blaspheming Order. In response to this public pressure, along with more bullying from King Philip, Pope Clement issued the bull Pastoralis Praeeminentiae, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets.[10] Most monarchs simply didn't believe the charges, though proceedings were started in England, Iberia, Germany, Italy, and Cyprus,[11] with the likelihood of a confession being dependent on whether or not torture was used to extract it.

The dominant view is that Philip, who seized the treasury and broke up the monastic banking system, was jealous of the Templars' wealth and power, frustrated by his debt to them, and sought to control their financial resources for himself, by bringing blatantly false charges against them at the Tours assembly in 1308; it is also likely that, under the influence of his advisors, he actually believed many of the false charges to be true. It is widely accepted that Philip had clearly made up the accusations and did not believe any of the Templars to have been party to such activities. In fact, he had invited Jacques de Molay to be a pall-bearer at the funeral of the King's sister on the very day before the arrests.[12]

The arrests caused some shifts in the European economy, from a system of military fiat back to European money, removing this power from Church orders. Seeing the fate of the Templars, the Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem and of Rhodes were also convinced to give up banking at this time.

Princess Magdalene of Prussia died

2009-10-12T17:20:00.000-04:00

Her Royal Highness Magdalene, Princess Hubertus of Prussia, died on Saturday, 10 October 2009, in Schloss Löwenstein in Kleinheubach. She was 89 years old.

Princess Magdalene Pauline Reuss zu Köstritz was born at Leipzig on 20 August 1920, the eldest daughter of Prince Heinrich XXXVI Reuss zu Köstritz and his wife Hermine, née Princess von Schönburg-Waldenburg; Princess Magdalene had a younger sister, Caroline, Countess von Wedel.

On 5 June 1943 Magdalene married Prince Hubertus of Prussia in Schloss Prillwitz. Hubertus was the third son of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and of his wife Crown Princess Cecilie, née Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and grandson of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II; Prince Hubertus was previously married to Baroness Maria von Humboldt-Dachroeden, from whom he had divorced some months before the wedding to Magdalene.

Hubertus and Magdalene had together two children, both daughters: Princess Anastasia and Princess Marie Christine. The eldest, Anastasia, was born in 1944, and is married since 1965 to Fürst Aloys-Konstantin zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg; the youngest daughter, Marie Christine, was born in 1947, and died aged 19 in 1966 from the injuries resulting from a car accident.

Prince Hubert died of appendicitis in 1950 in South Africa, aged 41, leaving Magdalene alone with their two daughters; Magdalene never remarried.
Princess Magdalene will be buried next to her husband in the St.Michaels Bastei, near to Burg Hohenzollern.

To learn more about the Prussian Royal Family look at this thread; to read the announcement of her death look at the official website of the Prussian Royal Family.