 By The Rev. Ted Thornton
The story of the Nicene Creed begins with what happened nearly three hundred years after Jesus’ crucifixion when secular and religious divisions brought the Roman Empire nearly to a breaking point. It’s a vast and contentious topic. So, I’m going to limit us to two guiding questions: What secular and theological forces were behind the formation of the Nicene Creed, and, what place should the Creed have for us in our spiritual and worship life today? Let’s begin by looking at something familiar: the Whiteman Windows behind the altar. Look behind the altar at the window just to the left of the cross at the top of the wooden arch. Can you see the ship and cross in the glass? And, can you see the Greek word in white glass just above the ship and cross? If you can’t see it, get a copy of the wonderful pamphlet describing those windows from our church website or the office. That Greek word oikoumene (Greek: οἰκουμένη) in the window is the single most important word in the New Testament for us Christians apart from the sayings of Jesus, and it’s the concept of oikoumene that guided the formulation of the Nicene Creed. Yes, by the way, oikoumene gives us our word ecumenical (also by the way our word economy: economics as an ecumenical activity? Hmm! Think about that. The root word is oikos, which translates literally as “household,” but in a wider, more global sense, the household that makes up the inhabited world. Forms of the word oikos appear 106 times in the Greek New Testament. Our New Testament writers were acutely aware how important the word is to the religious lives of Christians. The pamphlet about the Whiteman Windows will tell you that oikoumene translates as “one of many.” It’s more complicated than that. The term oikoumene is a combination of that Greek word oikos meaning “household” and another Greek word “mene” meaning “management.” Household management: this is the sense Aristotle used the word, his vision of our world as a coherent, well-managed household. Now, there is no escaping the fact that whenever the need to manage something arises, some degree of coercion usually isn’t far behind. Unity at the expense of diversity has always been trouble, and diversity at the expense of unity spells division, and division is never good. This means there will always be tension between the forces of unity and diversity. Attempts to resolve the tension have never worked in history: for starters think of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot The pursuit of perfection in human nature has always led to gargantuan amounts of bloodshed. For our purposes, the tension between unity and diversity was perhaps never so manifest as in the life of Aristotle’s most famous pupil, Alexander the Great. Alexander and his Greek and Roman successors including the Emperor Constantine used the term oikoumene to describe a vision of a global economic, communal, cultural, and political household, a universal household where unity embraced diversity and never descended into division. That was the vision. The reality was something different, as we shall see. We call Alexander’s brand of oikoumene “Hellenism,” because its cultural roots are in Greek culture, and “Hellas” is the ancient Greek word for Greece. Alexander dreamed of a unified world in which all people would share in the mutual pursuit of survival and happiness by cooperating fully with one another just as members of a single familial household ideally would. A glance at a map of the world after Alexander and his army rolled through shows the extent to which he made this dream come true. You’ll notice how many cities and regions were renamed with Greek names. Alexander wanted the world to be quite literally one big household, a vast melting pot of peoples and races all under the umbrella of Greek Hellenistic culture. To this end, he promoted racial mixing by encouraging his soldiers to intermarry with local women in conquered regions after which he gave them land upon which to build their homes. The Greek philosopher and biographer Plutarch (46-120 CE), in his treatise, "On the Fortunes of Alexander,” summed up Alexander's dream of a unified family of peoples with these words: “Brought together into one body . . . mixing all together in one loving cup.” The quest for a common “managed household” was further advanced through the institution of a universal coinage, universal use of the Greek language, compatible trade practices, and religion by importing the Greek gods into foreign cities everywhere, including Jerusalem, to the great dismay of some Jews, but not as many Jews as you might think. Much of Jerusalem was rebuilt in the Hellenistic style, and one of its most enthusiastic builders was the Jewish King, Herod the Great. Hellenistic cities were built with underground water delivery and sewage removal ducts that rendered these cities cleaner, healthier, more sanitary places to live than many others for the next two thousand years. Thanks to archaeology, today you can visit sections of these water and sewage systems that ran beneath the streets of Hellenistic Jerusalem. The famous Roman roads and postal service really did make material life better (the dark 1979 comedy movie, “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” gets it right about this), and the inescapable fact is that most folks were willing to accept the coercion it took to maintain these standards. Followers of Jesus and other rebellious Jewish rabbis were the exception. After Jesus, there were many other exceptions to the rule, hence many more gospels than the four that made the final team, and many more writings laying claim to be Christian. Thanks to the influence of Alexander, what we call the “Old Testament” or “Hebrew Bible” was translated into Greek (guess where), not in Jerusalem, but in the newly constructed city of Alexandria, built on the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Rhacotis and renamed in honor of its conqueror. It was completed in the second century BCE and bears the title “Septuagint,” Greek for “Seventy,” so named because it was thought around seventy scholars were involved in the project. For a long time, most people living under Greco-Roman rule thanked the global dream of Alexander the Great for that. And, after Alexander died and the oikoumene began to break apart it was the Romans who put it back together again stronger than ever (yes, the Romans were Hellenists, too, through and through1). In addition to the word oikoumene, the Romans used a Latin phrase very familiar to those of us who still carry dollar bills around: e pluribus unum, “out of many one.” The great Roman statesman Cicero put it this way, “When each person loves the other as much as himself, it makes one out of many.” So, why spend so much time discussing this strange Greek word oikoumene in our window behind me? Because outside the New Testament, it’s that very secular Greek word that is perhaps most responsible for creating the spirit governing the creation of the Nicene Creed and for defining ourselves as Christians: people of God who strive to live in loving communion with one another under one roof in a unified “household” governed by faith. The chink in the armor of the oikoumene was the possibility that force would be used to maintain it. Usually, it took relatively soft power to keep order. When that didn’t work, the iron fist came down. The philosophical vision of “household management” that Aristotle passed down to his student Alexander ensured that the quest for common creeds quickly became exclusionary in Christian history. The fact is, there have always been multiple creeds in Christianity. Interestingly, the Greek word that gives us our word “heresy,” originally meant “choice,” not something to be condemned. Early Christians had many choices until “management” stepped in under Constantine. Okay, so Why did Constantine call the bishops to Nicea in the first place? Alexander’s dream of a singular world oikoumene didn’t last long. No sooner had he died of fever in Iraq while marching his army back home to Macedon than his generals fell to squabbling with each other and the dominion began to fall apart. The Romans, who inherited the remains of Alexander’s empire, tried hard to keep it together, but for a while fared even worse. There was indeed a period of a hundred years of genuine peace and order under Caesar Augustus, but otherwise it was chronic instability nearly everywhere. For the next 132 years after Marcus Aurelius (ruled 121-180) until the accession of Constantine, forty emperors were either assassinated or met some other violent death, a few of them through torture. One sad joke making the rounds in those times ran that a gladiator stood a better chance of surviving his contest in the Colosseum than did an emperor of escaping assassination. In addition, the imperial bureaucracy was riddled with corruption and inefficiency. Then there were the so-called “barbarian invasions”: mainly Germans from the north and Persians from the East. These movements of people into the empire, which was roughly the size of the continental United States, put pressure on increasingly scarce resources. Described in histories as “invasions,” for the most part they resembled the recent flood of illegal immigrants across our southern border states, people seeking a better life. As if all this weren’t bad enough, the empire had recently come through a pandemic. We aren’t sure what virus or bacterium caused it but that pandemic wiped out ten percent of the population of the empire, and at its height in Rome itself it was killing 5,000 people a day. Under such conditions of extreme social stress, it became so difficult to maintain civil order that it was decided to divide the empire into four quadrants. This tetrarchy (or rule of four emperors) was established by the Emperor Diocletian in 293. Constantine became emperor in the year 306 (d. 337) and thereby inherited this mess. He immediately set out to revitalize the oikoumene and restore unity. He abolished the tetrarchy in favor of his own singular rule; and in the year 313, he propagated what was known as the Edict of Milan, proclaiming our religion as officially recognized and protected. The problem was that our religion by that time had become riven with sectarianism. This was the immediate reason Constantine in the year 325 convened an ecclesiastical council, what came to be called the First Ecumenical Council (there’s our word oikoumene again!) in the ancient city of Nicea where the Turkish city of Iznik is located today. All that was needed was a catalyst to get the ball rolling toward the Nicene Creed, and that catalyst was a theological dispute we know as the “Arian Controversy.” Arianism was a theological doctrine, attributed to a Christian Priest from Libya named Arius. He held that Christ, whom Christians proclaimed as the "Son of God," was not actually divine, but physically created and therefore changeable, not eternal. In short, Christ was mortal. And so, to dispel Arianism, the council drew up a "creed" that described the oneness of God the Father and the Son using the Greek word homoousion ("one substance" - GK, ὁμοούσιον). The scriptural reference taken to support this definition was John 10 verse 30, “I and the Father are one.” Arianism was duly rejected. The hope was that this change would lead to religious unity in the Church and and with it civil and social unity. Unhappily, that didn’t happen. Ambiguities in the homoousion ("one substance") formula sparked fresh arguments and created the need for follow up councils. A Second Ecumenical Council in 381 was held in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and that is when most of the final wording we use was put in place. But, the theological tinkering and wordsmithing continued in the Third Ecumenical Council which was held in the city of Ephesus in 431. This council featured wrangling over the status of Christ’s mother Mary. Then came in 451 the Fourth Ecumenical Council, this one at Chalcedon in the modern city of Kadıköy (Kadikoy), near Istanbul. At Chalcedon, Christ was affirmed to be one person with two full and complete natures one human the other divine. However, this formula made matters even worse because Christians to the east of Rome couldn’t tolerate the dual nature creed. Over the following centuries, other differences arose leading to the formal break in 1054 that created the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Orthodox churches in the East. Theological differences aside, the real problem was regionalism: what Christians living to the east really resented was a pope in Rome telling them what they should do and not do and what they should believe. Most Eastern Christians, then, with some exceptions, affirmed that Christ had one nature only and this nature was divine, not human. Hence, they came to be called Monophysites (Greek for "one nature"). Today, the chief examples of Monophysite Christianity are the Syrian, Armenian, and Coptic (Egyptian) Churches. So went the process we call “the Christological controversies,” which can be summed up as arguments about the nature of Jesus Christ: “How human was he, and how divine?” It may be hard for some of us to understand what caused people at the time to get so riled up over this question until we consider how the forces of regionalism in our country, for example, are pitting the urbanized coastal regions against the more rural “heartland,” as it’s called; and how political instability, immigration, and a vicious recent pandemic have eroded our own national sense of unity and mutual trust today. What’s less forgivable about all this is how the regional power struggles in Constantine’s realm corrupted perhaps the most orthodox expression of our Christian faith, a failure to accept the relationship of God, Christ, and Spirit (our holy Trinity) for what it is: a mystery, a holy mystery. It’s a failure stemming from the hubristic (prideful) sin of thinking it possible that we could ever reduce the greatest mystery of life, the nature of divine reality, to rational concepts like “substance” and “nature.” God and Christ remain a mystery, a holy mystery, in theological parlance, ineffable, that is to say, indescribable, inexpressible, undefinable. We experience this mystery symbolically and spiritually, not rationally. It can only happen when we perform what the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard called “the leap of faith.” Saying the Nicene Creed meaningfully takes a leap of faith. The Creed - any creed - functions as a holy reminder that as members of God’s creation we are part of something much bigger than ourselves, something that continues to call us into ever widening circles of loving connectedness in this “household” of ours: connectedness with God and with God’s creation. Creeds remind us that indeed there is more to life and more to reality than what meets the eye. Having seen how the Creed came to be and how it functions, let’s turn our attention now to that second guiding question: How should we align ourselves with the use of the Creed in our worship today? I don’t think there is a single right creed or any single right way to say it. I suspect I share this view with at least some of you. When it comes to the Nicene Creed or any other affirmation of faith, I don’t think a coercive common response is right. Personally, I do strive to listen carefully to every word of the Nicene Creed as I recite it because for me it’s a way I can connect with other people of faith past and present stretching back two millennia. That approach may not work for you. Sometimes as we recite the Creed my attention strays. When that happens, the sound of other voices - your voices surrounding me - calls me back and reminds me that we’re engaged in a communal act that draws us together and connects us with the voices of all the Christians who’ve come before us. In these moments, we’re no longer individuals but a community of believers, the body of Christ, one ecumenical “household.” We are at least for that moment a bona fide oikoumene. One of the obstacles preventing the Creed from occupying a more central place in our spiritual lives is our radical American individualism, which we inherited from the European Enlightenment by way of thinkers like John Locke and David Hume. The French writer Alexis de Tocqueville in his two volume Democracy in America written after his visit here in the 1830s was anxious even back then about our excessive individualism. And, in his recent (2022) book,2 Bill McKibben chides us for what he calls our “hyper individualism.” I think excessive individualism is chiefly responsible for the difficulty some of us have reciting the creed and the difficulty a larger number of Americans have belonging to organized religion in general, not to mention the political madness that is presently tearing us apart. We Americans frequently forget that we are a “household” here on what Native Americans used to call “Turtle Island.” For this reason, the best starting point isto remember that when we recite the Creed, we begin by saying, “We believe.” It's that sense of “we-ness,” the first person plural denoting connection and oneness with others, that permeates the whole recitation. Reciting the Creed reminds us of the promise we made or was made on our behalf at our baptisms: the promise that God is at the very heart of every breath we take and everything we do here in this “household” of ours. On the subject of whether the holy mysteries of our faith should be sung or recited, I’m with the late Yale Professor of Medieval History, Jaroslav Pelikan, who argued that the Creed should be sung, as we do here in this church on high holy days, not merely recited. This reminds me of the famous formula attributed to Saint Augustine, Qui cantat, bis orat: “Whoever sings prays twice.” In the final analysis, the Nicene Creed is one way, among many, we express our identity as a “household,” an oikoumene. We also call ourselves “the Body of Christ,” but I confess I like “household,” too, maybe even more. The “management” part of oikoumene and the implied threat of coercion I can do without. But, the Nicene Creed need not be the only way to affirm our faith in public worship. As I said at the outset, I don’t think we will ever resolve the tension between unity and diversity in human behavior and I despair about the presence of coercion in human relations. I do think we should celebrate the alternate creeds we recite here at Saints James and Andrew (such as the wonderful South Indian Profession of Faith we recited here in place of the Nicene Creed last week). We have many possible ways to affirm and articulate our faith. Affirming our faith in different words is good for our spiritual selves just as a varied diet of healthy food is good for our bodily selves. The Nicene Creed was an imperfect, over-rationalized attempt to express what means most to us and a response to civil power struggles and disorder. The tumultuous history out of which it emerged, including the many attempts to refine it, stands in stark contrast to its place in the hearts of many of us today and to the millions of Christian hearts that have adored it these past two thousand years. Is it time to set it aside? Constantine’s admittedly coercive attempt to impose unity has been labeled a “heresy” by his severest critics, and they don’t mean heresy in the old sense as a “choice.” Similar coercive attempts to impose unity where regionalism threatens to undo it have occurred in other religions. Unhappily, households of all kinds can slip into intolerance, authoritarianism, and repression. The dynamics of coercion and conquest remain an omnipresent threat, never far from the surface in every relationship, from family households to entire civilizations. If our guiding principle is that we love one another, as Jesus put it in his new commandment to us in John 13:34, then we must remember that Jesus took love as something we do, not something we believe: we must walk the walk, not just talk it. So, think of creeds as things that remind us what we should do in our lives, not just things that bounce around in our heads. When we say in a moment, “We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,” tell yourselves that those words translate into our commitment to act out that new commandment - to love one another - as Jesus delivered it to us in John 13:34. But. loving one another should never be restricted to any particular set of words. For this reason, I think it's spiritually healthy to prayerfully consider other ways of expressing what theologian Paul Tillich used to call the “ultimate concern” at the center of our lives. In the meantime, I hope we will continue to grant the Creed a place in our liturgical life and at the same time remain open to exploring alternatives as the Holy Spirit leads us. God has revealed Godself in many different ways beginning with how we perceive God throughout the Bible. It follows that we be drawn to a variety of ways to express how we experience divine reality. Amen. 1 Rome was perhaps the least original civilization in history. The Romans borrowed freely from the Greeks. Even the Greek gods had their temples in Rome: Zeus was renamed Jupiter, Aphrodite was renamed Venus, and so on. 2 The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon, 2022, 118ff.
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 By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector
Earlier this year, I promised to offer a teaching sermon on the Lord’s Prayer. Today we’ll focus on: how this prayer was introduced; its use within the service of Holy Eucharist; the evolution of the English translation; and finally, how the wider Church interprets this prayer today. And yes, there is a handout (see below), especially designed for the English geeks amongst us. Introducing the Lord’s Prayer Right out of the gate, there was no ‘original’ version of the Lord’s Prayer.* The prayer is presented in two different gospels: Matthew and Luke. The text of the prayer, as preserved in the gospels, is in Greek, and are themselves translations from Aramaic or Hebrew. The versions presented in Mathew and Luke are similar, but quite different. Luke’s version omits any reference to heaven or God’s will being done, and both versions omit the doxology we are familiar with. Liturgically, the Church has generally drawn upon Matthew's version. Fairly early in his gospel, as part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he tells the disciples: “Pray like this” (CEB6:9). After teaching the Lord’s Prayer, he adds: “If you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don’t forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your sins” (CEB 6:14-15). This might lead us to speculate - is God’s forgiveness conditional? If we want to think in binary terms, sure, that’s one way to read it. But we know God is the original expansive thinker, always nudging us to open our hearts, minds, and souls to see a bigger vision; a deeper understanding of meaning. Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry once preached: “Mutual forgiveness and repentance, healing and reconciliation are hard work and they often take time. Healing and reconciliation do not happen quickly. But it happens, if we are willing, to allow God’s grace to work in us, for God’s grace is sufficient. God is able.”** I think what Jesus was flagging for us is that the very act of seeking to engage in a process of forgiveness, repentance, healing, and reconciliation requires us to keep ourselves open and willing to receive God’s grace. To trust God is at work within us and within those we seek to forgive; that God’s grace is sufficient and able. Especially given forgiveness is often not a one time thing; it can be hard to give and sometimes, even harder to receive. Forgiveness is an ongoing journey of trust in God’s grace. If our hearts remain hardened, we end up closing ourselves off from God’s grace and forgiveness. Not because God is unwilling to forgive us, but because we have put up a ‘do not enter’ sign, closing ourselves off from God’s grace, of the possibility of giving and receiving forgiveness. Luke offers his version towards the middle of his gospel. “Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples’” (CEB 11:1). You might even say, they wanted a formula, and so he gave them one. But after teaching them to pray, he goes on to indicate God is always there. Jesus says: “And I tell you: Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks, receives. Whoever seeks, finds. To everyone who knocks, the door is opened.” (CEB 11:9-10). I think it’s fair to say, Jesus offers them a liturgical prayer, but also makes a point to emphasize, God answers whenever we seek God out. This may explain why so many of the phrases within the Lord’s Prayer are also found in Jewish liturgy, including prayers like, “Our Father, Our King”, the “Amidah”, and “Morning Blessings”.*** And this was quite possibly my favorite part. It means our beloved Jesus, was also a liturgist, drawing upon sacred prayers from his religious tradition and creating a new prayer with fresh language to help his followers expand and deepen their prayer life. Jesus modeled liturgical renewal from the beginning of his ministry, recognizing we can appreciate the beauty of tradition while also enlivening our prayer life with fresh language. The Lord’s Prayer within the Service of Holy Eucharist In the early Church, it was common for members to bring home eucharistic elements from the Sunday celebration. Much like today, when Kathryn Aubry-McAvoy will bring the eucharistic elements to one of our parishioners, except at this point in time, everyone could bring home the bread and wine to consume during the week. Before consuming the elements during the week, they would say the Lord’s Prayer to prepare their hearts and minds for receiving the eucharist. Which is one reason why early Church fathers believed that when the Lord’s Prayer references ‘our daily bread’ the prayer was not referencing basic daily nutrition.**** Rather they believed these words referred to the sacred meal of the eucharist. Around the time Constantine adopted Christianity, the act of saying the Lord’s Prayers as a form of personal piety was incorporated into the eucharistic service. The Lord’s Prayer has remained at this place in the Eucharistic service ever since, though the people’s involvement in saying the prayer was quite an evolution. More on that in a moment. The Evolution of the English Translation In the late fourth century, the Roman Empire split, and this led the Roman Church to transition from using Greek to Latin. While initially plenty of folks spoke Latin, the language died out around the seventh century, though it remained the required liturgical language in the Roman Church until the mid-1960s. ***** This means the early Church began using the language of the people, and slowly evolved into a language that most people did not understand. It invited and exasperated clericalism, insisting the priest was a required intermediary between God and the people. Which doesn’t exactly line up with Jesus' mission and ministry. But alas. On the very distant edges of the Roman Empire, in the Kingdom of Northumbria, which consisted of what we now think of as Northern England and the Scottish Lowlands, the Lord’s Prayer was first translated into English around 650 A.D.****** We didn’t really see other English translations, until the Protestant Reformation when the King of England, Henry VIII, left the Roman Church to found the Church of England. We know Henry’s motivations were mixed, and his decision caused a lot of political and religious upheaval. I had always been taught that this change more or less immediately led to the worship being spoken in the language of the people. But no - not the case. While Henry instigated the change, the liturgy kept being prayed in Latin for another fifteen years! Yet when the first Book of Common Prayer was published in 1549, all of that changed. A sidebar about prayer books: It’s interesting to note that the Church of England produced four different prayer books between 1549 and 1662. Because the Anglican Church is the state religion in England, prayer book revisions required government involvement, which quickly became challenging. (I mean, could you imagine trying to get prayer book revision through the American congress???) This resulted in the Church of England shying away from any further prayer book revisions, and instead creating a great deal of supplemental materials. The Episcopal Church in the United States has essentially done the same thing, producing four different prayer books between 1789 and 1979. At our 2022 General Convention, we memorialized the 1979 prayer book, and have opted to move in England’s direction of approving many supplemental materials that they expect churches will incorporate. When the Church of England first produced a prayer book in the vernacular, they also did a wild thing, they slowly began to include the laity in the prayers. Now during the service, when the Lord’s Prayer was spoken by the priest, the people concluded: ‘But deliver us from evil. Amen.’ In the 1552 revision, people were given a bit more empowerment in the liturgy and were invited to repeat each line after the priest. This remained the pattern in the two other prayer book revisions in England, and the first two prayer books for the Episcopal Church. It was not until the publication of the 1928 prayer book that the priest and the people began to say the Lord’s Prayer together. I found this to be particularly wild, that we’ve only been praying this prayer together for a little less than 100 years! While the English language and spelling norms evolved, there were relatively minor changes to the substance of the Lord’s Prayer. In 1662, England followed the Scotts in incorporating the doxology into the end of the Lord’s Prayer and it has been around ever since. The 1789 prayer book substituted minor changes like ‘which art in heaven’ to ‘who art in heaven’; and ‘in earth’ to ‘on earth’; and ‘them that trespass’ to ‘those who trespass’. The most significant change to the Lord’s Prayer took place in the 1970s when the contemporary language for the Lord’s Prayer was introduced. In many ways, the change was a long time coming. There had been a lot of change in how people spoke to one another in general. Marion Hatchett observes in his Commentary on the American Prayer Book: “In the sixteenth century ‘thou’ in English was equivalent to ‘tu’ in French or ‘du’ in German - the familiar second person singular form used to address one person, intimates, children, servants and God. It was appropriately used by those who knew themselves to be children in intimate relation to God…. The use of ‘you’ as a form of address in the rites and collects in contemporary language is the modern expression of intimacy linguistically equivalent to the usage of ‘thou’ in the earlier editions of the Prayer Book.” In other words, the shift was, in part, to ensure the prayer retained that sense of intimacy between God, our heavenly mother and father; and God’s beloved children. The second reason prompting a change, was the decision of the Roman Catholic Church to no longer require Latin in their services.******* This meant they needed English translations. Up until this point, when other Protestant churches were looking for an English translation of common prayers, such as the Lord’s Prayer, they looked to the Anglican prayer book. You can imagine why the Roman Catholic leadership would not have wanted to use one of the breakaway church’s English translations for their liturgy. So they created their own International Commission on English in the Liturgy. Meanwhile, many Protestant denominations who had long used the Anglican versions, were eager to modernize the prayers. This led to the creation of the International Consultation on English Texts, an ecumenical group charged with crafting English translations of the prayers our denominations have in common. In the early 1970s, they published Prayers We Have in Common: Agreed Liturgical Texts, which included what we think of as the ‘contemporary’ Lord’s Prayer. When the Episcopal Church revised the prayer book in 1979, they made a pastorally sensitive decision to include both the traditional and the contemporary version used by many other denominations. Today, the Episcopal Church belongs to the North American Consultation on Common Texts, which is a member of the English Language Liturgical Consultation, groups that continue the important work of giving us a common language in our core Christian prayers across denominations.*** How the Wider Church Interprets the Lord’s Prayer Today Let’s walk through how the wider Church understands the Lord’s Prayer today - briefly. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.” Scholars believe this part of the prayer could mean a couple of different things, and generally recommend leaving enough space for both interpretations. One thought is that this petition is urgently seeking the action of God - something along the lines of “...[Creator] show yourself to be the Holy One; bring in your kingdom; establish your will, on earth as in heaven.”* Another thought, is when this prayer is compared to Jewish prayers, it makes a solid case that the petition is praying for human action so God’s name may be sanctioned, God’s kingdom established, and God’s will done.* “Give us this day our daily bread;” Similarly, scholars suggest there are a couple of ways to interpret this petition, and again, recommend keeping enough space for both meanings.* The Greek word that is translated into ‘daily’ is actually a bit vague.* It may mean ‘bread for tomorrow’, as in ‘the great tomorrow’, referring to a heavenly banquet.* It also can be understood as ‘the bread which is necessary’, and given the amount of hunger in our world, there is a solid argument for this perspective too.* “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” We’ve already touched on this a bit. In essence: we are committed to the practice of forgiveness, we forgive others when they wrong us, and we ask God to forgive us when we wrong God. “Save us from the time of trial.” Scholars note two potential misconceptions that often arise. The first is that God would “tempt” or entice people to evil, and the second is to think that the original Greek word that means “temptation” means something different than simply being tempted to not sin.* The original meaning is more akin to not denying or renouncing our faith when tempted, either in the here or now, but especially in that biblical sense of the trials Christians will face during the challenges of end times written about in apocalyptic literature.* “and deliver us from evil.” This alludes to the evil powers of this world; the selfishness, fear, anger, and hate that can separate us from God and care of God’s world. “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever.” This doxology, which is a later addition, reflects the normal Jewish practice of concluding prayers of petition with a doxology of praise.* I hope our exploration of the Lord’s Prayer today, and its evolution in the Christian tradition, helps us to have a better sense of why we use the contemporary version in our primary worship service, while each individual always has the choice to pray the one they hold dear either in worship or in private prayer. As we prepare to head back out into the world today, I would invite each of us to keep reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer: How do the words of the prayer inform our understanding of God? How does this prayer bind us with other Christians across the world? Amen. * https://www.englishtexts.org/the-lords-prayer ** https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2017/05/23/presiding-bishop-preaches-on-forgiveness-repentance-healing-and-reconciliation-in-haiti/ *** https://weekly.israelbiblecenter.com/lords-prayer-jewish-liturgy and https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/text-of-avinu-malkeinu/ **** Marion Hatchett, Commentary on the American Prayer Book, p. 378, 90, 29. ***** https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL07383020/ ****** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Prayer ******* https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/international-consultation-english-texts-icet The Lord’s Prayer Matthew 6:9-13 Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. (taken from the Revised Standard Version, as found on English Language Liturgical Consultation) Luke 11:2-4 Father, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread; And forgive us our sins, For we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us; And lead us not into temptation. (taken from the Revised Standard Version, as found on English Language Liturgical Consultation) 650 A.D. - Old English FADER USÆR ðu arð in heofnu Sie gehalgad NOMA ÐIN. Tocymeð RÍC ÐIN. Sie WILLO ÐIN suæ is in heofne and in eorðo. HLAF USERNE of'wistlic sel ús todæg, and f'gef us SCYLDA USRA, suæ uoe f'gefon SCYLDGUM USUM. And ne inlæd usih in costunge, ah gefrig usich from yfle. (Bell, Laird D T. Northumbrian Culture and Language) 1549 Prayer Book - England The priest Our father, whyche art in heaven, halowed be thy name. Thy Kyngdome come. Thy wyll be doen in yearth, as it is in heaven. Geve us this daye our dayly breade. And forgeve us our trespaces, as wee forgeve them that trespasse agaynst us. And leade us not into temptacion. The aunswere But deliver us from evill. Amen. (taken from 1549 prayer book) 1552 Prayer Book - England Changed how the prayer was offered. The people would repeat each line after the priest. Spelling evolved, but same words. 1559 Prayer Book - England The people still repeat each line after the priest. Further evolution of spelling, but same intended words. 1662 Prayer Book - England Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen. (taken from 1662 prayer book; this is still the official prayerbook of England) The people still repeat each line after the priest. Spelling looks more familiar. Added doxology. 1789 Prayer Book - U.S. Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen (taken from 1789 prayer book) The people still repeat each line after the priest. Some words are changed to adapt to language norms of the time. 1892 Prayer Book - U.S. The people still repeat each line after the priest. Content stays the same. 1928 Prayer Book - U.S. The priest and the people now say the prayer together. Content stays the same. 1970 Prayers We Have in Common: Agreed Liturgical Texts was produced by the International Consultation on English Texts, and established the ‘contemporary’ Lord’s Prayer used in the wider church. They created translations used across Roman and Protestant churches, such as: Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the Gloria (Glory to God), the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy), etc. 1979 Prayer Book - U.S. Traditional Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. 1979 Prayer Book - U.S. Contemporary Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your Name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever. Amen.  by Rev. Jimmy Pickett
Today’s Teaching Sermon will focus on the end. Don’t worry, not the end of all things, but the end of the liturgy, or more accurately, how the Dismissal is an integral part of our life of faith and witness in the world. The Dismissal is not like the school bell that calls us to recess nor does it dismiss us from class or excuse us from work, it is the hinge point between our worship and our witness. As Episcopalians, one of the member branches of the Anglican Communion, we are the inheritors of a particular way of living our faith out in the world. There is a branch of Practical Theology known as Anglican Social Ethics. At its core, this particular kind of witness is marked by a constantly evolving tension, at best a life giving tension, between Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. As Fr. Richard Meux Benson, founder of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, said “the necessary thing for us is to set about old things in new ways”. I wish I could give you an easy checklist of to-do’s to make for a simple and easy Anglican Social Ethic, but our tradition is so situational that each of us needs to come up with our own list based on the situation we find ourselves in. Our list of personal and corporate prayers, practices, study, rest, and work to be done is based on particular life circumstances and the particular moral questions at hand. Scripture, Tradition, and Reason (lived experience), are the collective markers that can help point us toward the right decisions and actions. Again, there is this tension between the old and the new, the particular and the general, the personal and the communal. We lean on Scripture to learn how God and humanity interact and respond to each other. My Hebrew Scripture professor in seminary, Dr. Judy Fentress-Williams, once called Scripture a love story between the Human and the Divine. We lean on the Tradition we have inherited in our worship. The words may change from generation to generation, from community to community, but the common Ordo, or shape, of the Liturgy remains. The deep and ancient rhythm of worship - of gathering together, reading and responding to the Living Word in Scripture, praying for the needs of the world (and our own needs), confession, forgiveness, peace, the offering of our gifts, the taking, blessing, breaking, and giving of the Bread of Life, and being sent out - shapes us and points us to the dream God has for us. We lean on Reason and experience to make sense of our time and place as we share this life together with our neighbors. As Anglicans, we gather around Book, and Font, and Altar to be nourished by the Ancient and the Holy in order to go out to learn with, abide with, and break bread with whoever we meet. I’ll give you a couple of examples of what this can look like on the ground and then share my experience and then I’ll invite you to reflect on how you will go out into the world with the commissioning of the Dismissal. Dr. Esther Mombo, in her article “Doing Theology from the Perspective of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians”, describes her experience. Dr. Mombo is a Kenyan Anglican, Theologian, and Professor at St. Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya and she is a member of a community known as The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians. The Circle is an eccumenical and interreligious gathering of grassroots theologians from a diverse variety of socio-economic and cultural backrounds who are committed to living life together while critically engaging with society. They do this work by studying Scripture and culture, learning from each other in a pluralistic religious environment, focusing on formation for ministry and theological education, and listening to the stories of women in order to “do theology”. The Circle looks at structures of society and questions if they are in line with the love of God and neighbor. These questions have led to actions and social reform rooted in the continual revelation of God’s work of reconciliation. Another example: Dr. Timothy Sedgwick in his article, “The Anglican Exemplary Tradition”, explains the distinct nature of Anglican Social Ethics. The Exemplary Tradition is a way of living out a practical piety where Jesus is our great exemplar, calling us to model our lives around acts of worship and hospitality. For Dr. Sedgwick, social ethics is not just a thought experiment in a classroom or a sermon illustration, but a practical set of practices for living the Christian Life that holds a Sacramental vision for the relationship between church and society. “The final end of the love of God and neighbor is given in specific intentions embodied in particular actions such as eating and drinking, care for those in need, and prayer and worship”. Now for my own experience. A year ago, when I was in my last semester at Virginia Theological Seminary, one of my professors brought a classmate and I to Nashotah House, another Episcopal Seminary out in Wisconsin for a weekend of prayer, fellowship, and conversations. VTS and Nashotah are pretty much on the opposite ends of the theological and political spectrum from each other. While there were many differences in thought, there was fruitful conversation born out of common respect, common worship, and the sharing of meals and stories. This kind of cross political and cross theological conversation helped me to dig deeper into my own call and vocation- literally dig- of being both farmer and priest. When I was about 12 years old, I began to serve as an acolyte and week after week I would stand next to the Altar. I was transfixed on the Bread that was being lifted, and broken, and shared in blessing. My theological imagination was sparked and I could never see food the same way again. Being nourished by the Body of Christ to be the Body of Christ sent me to go study Sustainable Agriculture in college where I said yes to God’s call on my life while I stood in a field of onions with community members growing food for local food pantries. And here we are now. You've heard the basic structure of Anglican Social Ethics and listened to three stories of how we can live into the tradition we have inherited. Now what is God calling you to do with your Baptism? How is God calling you out the door to be the Body of Christ? How will you respond to the commissioning of the Dismissal? How will you come back next week, changed? Amen. By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector  Today’s teaching sermon is focused on the way we pray with our bodies during worship. This is sometimes playfully referred to as Episcopal Aerobics. We will explore some frequently asked questions, such as: How, when, and why do we…sit, stand, and kneel? …make the sign of the cross? … bow? And what exactly is genuflecting? As we explore this topic, I want to invite us to keep three things in mind.
First and foremost, any and all body prayers are meant to enhance our worship experience; to help draw us closer to the Sacred. If any of it is getting in the way, distracting us from God, then it may be time to set down that practice. Bad knees? Confused about how to make the sign of the cross? Maybe those particular body prayers or gestures are not the ones for you. On the other hand, if those gestures help draw you closer to God - please continue. The second piece to bear in mind is there are ever so many personal gestures of devotion, and they have a wide variety of symbolic meanings.* If you ask any two people what a particular gesture signifies, you are likely to hear three or four different explanations. What matters is that these gestures are meant to make worship more meaningful for the worshiper. They are a way of remembering and drawing closer to the Sacred. There is a shadowside to our rich tradition of body prayers. Some of us were taught these are ‘rules’ to be followed with an unspoken ‘or else’. As a young person, I served as an acolyte at an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal parish that regularly used incense, sanctus bells, and a whole lot of body prayers. Carl, a beloved surrogate grandfather figure, served as our church’s Acolyte Master (yes, this was a real title, that a real church gave a real person.) I still poignantly remember one Sunday when the youth acolytes met with Carl, and he was chewing us out. While I can’t imagine he actually yelled at us, that was the general tone and volume. In his eyes, we were sloppy. We didn’t take tight corners, we didn’t bow precisely, we lit the candles in the wrong order, we did not stand or kneel at the right times, and so on. I remember going home crying. While I didn’t understand it at the time, I can now see that for Carl, these rituals were important. For him, they were a way of praising and honoring the Sacred. Yet his insistence that this was the way things had to be left me feeling as though I was somehow failing at following God the ‘right way’. Yet there is no “right” way to pray with our bodies in worship. Instead, it’s personal preference. I was a bit slow to realize this, but it turns out Jesus of Nazareth did not leave the disciples a handbook about how to pray with our bodies. Rather, these gestures of personal devotion are rituals that have evolved for followers of the Way of Love over the years. All this is to say, do what is helpful, but do not worry in the least about the rest. Lastly, as Anglicans we know that the way we pray shapes what we believe. The words we pray, the songs we sing, the way we move our bodies - all of it communicates to one another, the world, and God what we know to be true. As we stay awake in our faith, we will see the Holy Spirit at work, and She will expand our theology and understanding of God and God’s world. This is why over the last few years we have incorporated more inclusive and expansive language for God in our liturgies, paying special attention to our call to tend to God’s creation and engage in the ongoing work of racial reconciliation. How we pray with our bodies says something about what we believe to be true, and from time to time, we need to reflect on our practices. We can ask ourselves: … What does this body prayer proclaim about the story of God? … about God’s relationship to the human family or creation? … Does this body prayer still reflect my beliefs? … Or has this gesture lost its meaning? There can also be some cognitive dissonance. Sometimes our muscle memory wins the day, and we keep on praying with our body in ways that no longer reflect our beliefs, but might reflect a ritual we once found meaningful, a bit of comfort food for our souls. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but it’s important to be aware of. Bearing all that in mind, here is a bit about the how, when, and why of some of the body prayers folks use in our tradition. This is not an exhaustive list, so if you see someone doing something that I don’t talk about, I would encourage you to politely inquire what that gesture means to them. Sit, Stand, Kneel We sit when we want to listen and reflect, such as during the lessons and sermon. We stand to praise God. We kneel to express our penitence, supplication, and humility. In the early Church, the entire congregation joined the priest in standing in the orans position, which is when we stand with our arms raised and extended like the letter Y, with our palms up. As the Church evolved over the centuries, more attention was focused on personal penitence, and as such, kneeling became customary in many aspects of worship. Traditionally, folks often kneel for the general confession and absolution, during parts of the Great Thanksgiving, the post communion prayer, and to receive the blessing. Yet in more recent liturgical reform, we have returned to the early Church’s practice of standing. This shifted the focus of the eucharist from personal penitence of individuals to a celebration in community. ** My former bishop in the Diocese of Maine, Stephen Lane, has been known to say, “Stop Kneeling! We’re a resurrected people!” Ultimately though, the prayer book invites us to stand or kneel—what really matters is to hold the posture that helps you draw closer to God and know that both standing and kneeling are always welcomed. The Sign of the Cross The practice of making the sign of the cross on one’s forehead dates back to the second century, and is a form of personal piety. Cyril of Jerusalem, a theologian of the early Church, wrote about the sign of the cross in the third century. He wrote: “Let us not then be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Be the Cross our seal made with boldness by our fingers on our brow, and on everything; over the bread we eat, and the cups we drink; in our comings in, and goings out; before our sleep, when we lie down and when we rise up; when we are in the way, and when we are still. Great is that preservative; it is without price, for the sake of the poor; without toil, for the sick; since also its grace is from God. It is the Sign of the faithful, and the dread of devils…”*** To make the sign of the cross, one touches their fingertips to their forehead, chest, left breast, and then right breast. Many of us also finish the sign of the cross by returning to our chest. In the Orthodox Church, you’ll see the cross be made from right to left. As we make the sign of the cross, we are praying with or without words, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” There are many times one might make the sign of the cross in our worship, such as when we proclaim God with us at the opening acclamation; at the end of the Nicene Creed; during the benedictus, when we sing, ‘blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’; whenever a pray says ‘bless us’ such as during the eucharistic prayer; before receiving the eucharist; during the blessing, and so on. Some also make the sign when they enter or leave a church, and many other instances when it helps remind one of God’s presence in and among us. We also have another special version of a sign of the cross that is used before the gospel is proclaimed. One makes a small cross on their forehead, then their lips, and finally their heart. This gesture is a prayer asking for Christ to be with us in our thinking, speaking, and understanding. Bowing Bowing is an ancient act of reverence.**** Some bow at the name of Jesus at various times in worship. Some bow when the processional cross goes by or when they approach the altar. Still others will bow at the words of institution when the bread and wine are elevated. Others bow when the mystery of the incarnation is mentioned during the Creed. These are all acts of honoring God. Genuflecting Genuflecting is an alternative act of reverence that developed in the eleventh century. This involves briefly touching a knee to the floor, while keeping one’s upper body upright, and then returning to a standing position. I’m not going to demonstrate it as I have the knees of a former basketball player who dove for balls without abandon. Though I welcome live demonstrations at Coffee & Conversation. Turning our Bodies There are a few important times when we turn our bodies in worship. By tradition, the Gospel is read from the center of the congregation, so the word of God will be proclaimed with the people, not at them. Worshippers customarily stand and face the Gospel book to signify our heightened attention to this most important reading. If you have ever been to a Jewish worship service, you may have observed how closely our Gospel procession resembles the Jewish tradition of bearing the Torah scroll into the midst of the congregation. Similarly, some folks will turn their body in the direction of the recessional, as the procession leads the congregation back out into the world. The Peace Every week our service transitions from the liturgy of the word to the liturgy of the table with the Peace. The Peace is an ancient Christian practice where we share a sign of reconciliation, love, and renewed relationships in the Christian community by greeting one another “with a Holy Kiss” as it says in scripture. These days we tend to instead offer a handshake or nod our heads and smile. During the pandemic we shifted away from our practice of handshakes or hugging, and instead began to offer one another the Peace sign or a nod. While it is perfectly fine to return to handshake, I would invite us to do so with a sensitivity and awareness that sometimes folks do not want to hug or shake hands. Make it a habit to read people’s body language, and always ask before moving in for a hug or handshake. While there are more movements we could dive into, let us leave our Episcopal aerobics there for now. More than the how or why of any particular body prayer, what I hope we might take from this teaching sermon is that:
Amen. *https://www.saintsjamesandandrew.org/sermons/instructed-eucharist-part-i ** https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/kneel/ *** https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310113.htm **** Learn more: https://www.stjvny.org/the-body-language-of-worship |