So, Here's What I Think...

Many people have criticized that phrase from Katherine Jefferts-Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. What she was referring to was the idea that salvation is God's gift to us as individuals, independent of anyone else. Here's a quote from her address to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church: "...The overarching connection in all these crises has to do with the great Western Heresy - that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It's caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of all being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention." I have mixed feelings about that. I believe that salvation is both an individual and communal event. As individuals,...

Just something cute from the grandson, S, who is nearly two. At church today, he would cheer "Yay!" after each song, and cheered again after the final blessing. Quite appropriate, I think. After all, isn't "Alleluia" just another way of saying "Yay God!"? Yay!

I liked Fr. Y's sermon this morning. Using a football metaphor, he challenged us to get out of the "holy huddle" and do something with our faith. Pretty much what James said in his letter: James 2:18 "But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.'" The medieval notion of sin, curvatos en se , is a dangerous condition I find myself leaning toward, being a reflective person by nature. I could easily spin my wheels in endless circles, pondering ponderous thoughts, and doing nothing to serve Christ -- indeed, to be Christ to someone who would have not experienced His love otherwise. We are to go out and make disciples, not in order to isolate ourselves in comfortable "holy huddles," but to go out and execute the play. Executing the play is both exciting and uncomfortable, because when we go out to do what we need to do, there is the possibility...