I am the BCP

I am prayer.

            I am community.

            I am God’s anointed.

I am the standing, sitting, processing,

            kneeling, genuflecting, all as able.

I am the gestures across the heart,

            the twiddling fingers tracing the Gospel cross

                        thrice.

            I am the stillness,

                        the stiffness,

                        the reverent,

                        the irreverent.

I am he/him/his,

            ally of her, zir, and singular them.

I am the erring and straying lost sheep,

            lost, because the resolutions rain down on me,

            the arrows of the hordes standing behind their high walls

                        their altar gates,

                                    their chasubles.

I am that oil running down Aaron’s beard,

            caressing his pomegranate skin,

                        knowing the ephod’s secrets,

                                    his cast of stones.

I am looking,

            searching for that love that endureth forever,

            searching for my “in sickness and in health,”

                        my “til death do us part,”

            searching for my dearly beloved.

Of those 1,000+ pages, where is my name mentioned?

Of the Rites, where am I a worthy partaker?

            Does not my history, 26 years and counting, give me authority?

            Does not my family of clergy and laity give me weight?

            Do not my education, my “thy before thee except after thou,”

                        my ἐκέκρικα, my experience,

                        my visions and prayers count?                      

μὴ γένοιτο!

            I am the μὴ γένοιτο.

            I am not Paul’s model:

                        the celibate man,

                        the polemical,

                        the God-damning

                        the eraser of false teachings.

I am not the good will on both sides—

            bearing torches and flaming crosses

            stabbing with my piercing tongue

            throwing brothers, sisters, siblings

                        from the rooftops,

            beating with chastening rods

                        leaving them to hang on fenceposts

                                    to give up their ghost.

I am the meek heart and due diligence,

            the people walking to the new creation,

                        el desamparado, el necesitado.

Wait, I thought I was a very well organized,

            very strategic,

            very well financed,

            very powerful hijacker—

                        then why do I get death stares?

                        Why do people want me behind electric fences?

                        Why do I have to work against the grain

                                    flailing my arms at policies smothering me,

                                                as I shout out to a panel

                                                            of men staring at each other

                                                                        while I throw the Bible right back at them?

If you know where that money is,

            show me, sugar daddy.

Nah,

I am the Texan, rising in support

            of my own voice.

I am treading the path through the blood of the slaughtered,

            facing the rising sun of my new day begun.

I am the weak theology,

            I am Te Deum, Hildegard, Bach,

                        Wesley, Willan, Price, Pulkingham;

            I am Montes, S and A’s.

I am solace, strength, pardon, renewal.

I am 高興歡喜

I am in print, featured in Church Publishing,

            not that other idea from long ago,

            left to collect dust,

            or suffer, scaffolded in irate and greedy beaurocracy.

I am página 284,

            las campanas,

            el órgano.

You can decide what you want

            in this ecclesia viae mediae,

But just know,

            I know how best to show God’s love in my life,

for I am the Book of Common Prayer.           

Day 094: Lord of the New

So the scribes and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him.  But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, "Arise and stand here."  And he arose and stood.  Then Jesus said to them, "I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?"  Luke 6:7-9

Jesus came into the world to change things, and the way he did that was very direct.

One of the things that probably separates so many of us from one another is language.  Language is something that humans use to communicate with one another, but when two people don't speak the same language, there is a stark disconnect between the groups of people.  I know that in my own family, we will switch back and forth between Spanish and English in order for others not to understand what we are talking about (at times).

We speakers of English, though, might forget that there are so many people around the globe that don't understand English.  We like to think that English is the only way to speak to one another, and if somebody can't speak English, then that person is deficient.  Historically, many cultures looked down upon the others that didn't speak the same language as they did (ever hear of the word barbarian?), but that still goes on to this day.  And, it's not only English speakers who have that prejudice.

In the same way, the Pharisees looked at Jesus.  He was doing many new things, and they were amazing, revealing the unconditional love of God for all of God's people, but the Pharisees rejected those things because they were different.  Rather than accept a new Gospel, they wanted to stick with the things as they were, even if that was actually hurting them.

Jesus challenges us every day to accept the new and the good.  The good might look very strange to us at the first glance, but if we live as the disciples did, attempting to understand every word and teaching that Jesus did, and not as the Pharisees, finding all things new to be bad, we will enjoy blessing after blessing.