On Not Taking Offence When I Am Not Invited to Communion

Since I soon won’t get many chances to check out non-Episcopal churches I decided to attend two neighborhood churches a couple of weekends ago. On Saturday evening I attended the Roman Catholic church that is literally around the corner from where I live now. On Sunday I attended a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Church a few blocks down the street from the Catholic church. If you don’t know much about the WELS, neither do I, except that they have a reputation for being even more conservative than the Missouri Synod Lutherans (e.g., while, like the Missouri Synod, they do not recognize women’s ordination, unlike the Missouri Synod, women are not able even to vote on church matters in the WELS.)

I knew going in that neither of these churches would be OK with my partaking of the Eucharist/Communion. And that was OK with me. I want to explain why since it seems to irritate or offend a lot of people when they attend churches whose understanding of the Eucharist, communion, and belonging don’t fully include them.

Respect

Whether I agree with the limits this or that church puts on who is welcome to receive Communion, it is respectful to abide by their understanding when I am in their place – their house, their rules. Just as I take my shoes of when I visit a mosque and am not offended by their expectation that I do so, I am not offended by the expectation that I not receive communion when visiting the RC or the WELS. Abiding by their rules allows for and respects their otherness.

It also respects the reality that the Church is divided. That we are not one is a scandal, but we ought not to pretend the scandal away by ignoring it. It would be presumptuous and dishonest for me to partake as if those divisions did not matter – even if I did not think they mattered or understand why they mattered. Nor will I presume that the fault for our lack of unity lies alone in those with whom I disagree. So, rather than being put out when I attend churches whose Eucharistic discipline is less open than mine, I am inclined to pray God’s forgiveness for us all for the mutual pride, ignorance, and willfulness that has led to our divisions.

Communion

It is important to note that the communion we are about in Communion or the Eucharist is not merely a personal communion with God. It is communion with God in Christ, but it is also communion with the body of Christ, i.e., members of the Church. It is not an exercise in individualistic piety. It is not just about me and my time with God on my terms. I disagree with both the RC and the WELS about the terms of that communion. But, I agree with them that Communion is not just about me and what I think or want. Or what I think God thinks or wants.

I am persuaded that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican tradition have it right that baptism is the sufficient (and essential) threshold for entering the body of Christ and communing with that body. But, the RC expect more in this regard. They expect one to belong to (be in communion with) the Church of Rome. I get that. And since I am not in communion with the Pope, I am OK with not pretending otherwise. I am also not in communion with every doctrine and discipline of the RC. If their understanding of participating in communion is that it suggests that I am or aspire to be, it would be false of me to do so. And it would be an assertion of my own willfulness.

The WELS expects an even more precise doctrinal conformity of those who commune together. I do not think I would meet those expectations. And, in any event, I have reservations of my own about a church that feels free to edit the Nicene Creed as they do (changing “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church” to “one, holy, Christian church”) and I profoundly disagree with their teaching on the place of women in church. So, again, it would be false and willful of me to commune with them given their understanding of what that means.

[A bit of an aside – though I was not invited to take communion, I was invited to contribute money to both churches. It seems to me that if one of our concerns is to be more hospitable, a good place to start would be to stop hitting up visitors for cash. I would start there rather than changing church doctrine or discipline, or disregarding church canons. We did not pass the plate at St. Barnabas, Glen Ellyn. Rather, members know that belonging – communing – includes financial commitments and know where and how to give.]

I am glad that members of the RC and the WELS would be welcome to commune at an Episcopal church. We recognize their baptisms and that is sufficient. But, humility requires the acknowledgment that THEY MIGHT BE RIGHT. So, I took the opportunity, while others were communing, to contemplate what it means to belong and the cost of discipleship and community.

Boundaries

I do not share our cultural allergy to boundaries. Any body, whether biological or social, needs boundaries to flourish. Boundaries are what enable a sense of identity and integrity. They give definition to expectations and obligations. Denial of this on the biological/personal level wreaks all sorts of havoc – co-dependence, borderline personalty disorder, disregard for otherness, etc. There are similar problems with the denial of boundaries in social bodies. And it blinds us to what bodies (powers and principalities) we might actually belong to or into which we have been subsumed. 

While I disagree with the boundaries the RC and WELS set for Communion, I do not disagree that boundaries are good. So, when they name a boundary and ask me not to cross it, I am not offended. It’s not about me anyway.

I know that there are folk who have experienced painful exclusion. And I have heard of examples of priests, pastors, and lay people in both of these traditions being obnoxious about their boundaries. That does offend and grieve me. But, I do not think that acknowledging boundaries is necessarily obnoxious. It can be done in ways that are not so. 

Actually, in neither of the churches I attended was there in any instruction one way or another, written or verbal, as to who was invited to participate in Communion. As a visitor, I actually found this rather confusing and thus inhospitable. This was especially so in the WELS church. Toward the end of the service, but before the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper as printed in the bulletin, and with no instruction as to what was happening, the ushers dismissed folk pew by pew. But not everyone left and some appeared to come back in or move toward the front for what was a rather perfunctory reciting of the words of institution followed by Communion. Had I been an uninformed visitor I would have had no idea what was going on or what might be expected of me. In any event, I chose to abide by their discipline as I knew it, remained seated where I was, and did not commune.

I will likely attend the neighborhood RC church again. I am less likely to go back to the WELS. But, when I attend the RC, I will refrain from partaking of Communion though I could probably do so without anyone knowing I am not RC. It just seems the respectful thing for a guest to abide by their understanding in their place.

Top 10 Posts of 2013

Here are the ten Into the Expectation posts that received the most traffic in 2013:


1. Preoccupation with Material Things

 

2. Only what is Said Kindly is True

 

3. God is the interesting thing about religion

 

4. Refrain from Trampling the Sabbath

 

5. Getting Off the Fence: Reclaiming Self-control

 

6. N.T. Wright's Justification

 

7. A Summary of the Gospel

 

8. “Reading” St. Barnabas

 

9. Luther & Scripture as the swaddling-clothes

    and the manger in which Christ lies                  

 

10. Funny Jesus Songs for Bright Sunday

Binding, binding heart to heart!

Today is the twelfth and last day of this Christmas season.  But, that does not mean we must leave Christmas utterly behind. The one who was born on Christmas all those years ago is alive and comes to us every day binding heart to heart. And it remains true every day of the year that “where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

 

Christmas Meditation

 

He who by a mother's love

 Made the wandering world his own,

 Every year comes from above,

 Comes the parted to atone,

 Binding Earth to the Father's throne.

 Nay, thou comest every day!

 No, thou never didst depart!

 Never hour hast been away!

 Always with us, Lord, thou art,

 Binding, binding heart to heart!

 – George MacDonald

 

The good news will triumph!

For the eleventh day of Christmas, here is something from Brother Geoffrey Tristram, superior of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE), an Episcopal religious community in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

We are here to celebrate Good News – wonderful, joyful good news – not make-believe or wishful thinking.  The good news is this: that “the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (Jn 1:5)

Yes there is darkness – God knows there is darkness – darkness and all sorts of sinful, hurtful and shameful things in all of us, and in our society, our world.  But the good news is that when God looks closely at you he is not like the tabloid writer looking for scandal, for bad news.  When God looks at you, he looks at you with the eyes of love, just as when you look at the person you love, you see how lovely they are – all that is beautiful and good about them.

And when the person we love: our spouse, our children, our partner, our brother – when they are in trouble, or mess up, or fail and exam, or lose a job, or do something stupid and wrong, we don’t point the finger at them, or condemn them, or tell everyone about it, like the newspapers.  No, we love them even more, and we do everything in our power to help them because we love them.  And when things go wrong, we love them even more.

And when God looks at you and me, and sees how silly we often are, how we mess up, how easily we fall and sin: how we hurt each other, and ourselves, how we damage our beautiful world, our environment; when God looks at his beloved children in Iraq, Afghanistan, shooting and burning and blowing each other up, when he sees his beloved children in this country hurting and damaging and destroying each other, he doesn’t condemn them and say, “You human beings are bad news.  I wash my hands of you.”  No!  God loves us all the more.  God so loves us that he sends his only Son Jesus Christ into the world at Christmas.  But God didn’t send Jesus to us in order to look for the bad news about us.   St. John writes in his Gospel, chapter three:  “Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

God sent Jesus into the world at Christmas to share what it is to be human: to experience in his body the terrible, hurtful and sinful things that we can do to each other – and yet to carry on loving us, and forgiving us and redeeming us: restoring us to who we are meant to be.

And that is very good news.  However dark life can be, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  However bad the bad news is, the good news is better, is stronger – the good news will triumph!

(Read it all here)

Recovering our true humanity

For the tenth day of Christmas, more from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

“And in the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Henceforth, any attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all that bears a human form. Through fellowship and communion with the incarnate Lord, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time we are delivered from that individualism which is the consequence of sin, and retrieve our solidarity with the whole human race. By being partakers of Christ incarnate, we are partakers in the whole humanity which he bore. We now know that we have been taken up and borne in the humanity of Jesus, and therefore that new nature we now enjoy means that we too must bear the sins and sorrows of others. The incarnate Lord makes his followers the brothers of all mankind.”

― The Cost of Discipleship, Chapter 32

“The Incarnation is the ultimate reason why the service of God cannot be divorced from the service of man.”

― The Cost of Discipleship, Chapter 32

Here lies the only remedy

Something from Dietrich Bonhoeffer for the ninth day of Christmas:

“God sends his Son – here lies the only remedy. It is not enough to give man a new philosophy or better religion. A Man comes to men. Every man bears an image. His body and his life become visible. A man is not a bare word, a thought or a will. He is above all and always a man, a form, an image, a brother. And thus he does not create around him just a new way of thought, will and action but he gives us the new image, the new form. Now in Jesus Christ this is just what has happened. The image of God has entered our midst, in the form of our fallen life, in the likeness of sinful flesh. In the teaching and acts of Christ, in his life and death, the image of God is revealed. In him the divine image has been re-created here on earth. The Incarnation, the words and acts of Jesus, his death on the cross, all are indispensable parts of that image. But it is not the same image as Adam bore in the primal glory of paradise. Rather, it is the image of one who enters a world of sin and death, who takes upon himself all the sorrows of humanity, who meekly bears God’s wrath and judgment against sinners, and obeys his will with unswerving devotion in suffering and death, the Man born to poverty, the friend of publicans and sinners, the Man of sorrows, rejected of man and forsaken of God. Here is God made man, here is man in the new image of God.”

The Cost of Discipleship, Chapter 32

Honey, Music, and a Shout of Joy

The eighth day of Christmas is the Feast of the Holy Name. As Bernard of Clairvaux said,

“Jesus is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, and a shout of joy in the heart.”

Here is what the Bible says about the name:

She [Mary] will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

(Matthew 1:21)

 

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

(Luke 2:21)

 

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

   who, though he was in the form of God,

   did not regard equality with God

   as something to be exploited,

   but emptied himself,

   taking the form of a slave,

   being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

   he humbled himself

   and became obedient to the point of death—

   even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him

   and gave him the name

   that is above every name,

   so that at the name of Jesus

   every knee should bend,

   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

   and every tongue should confess

   that Jesus Christ is Lord,

   to the glory of God the Father.

(Philippians 2:3-11)

That shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality

The seventh day of Christmas comes on the cusp of the secular new year. Here is a quote from Sydney Carter:

I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality.

One of my favorite Christmas carols plays with the image of Jesus dancing:

 

1. Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;

 I would my true love did so chance

 To see the legend of my play,

 To call my true love to my dance;

 

Chorus:

Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,

 This have I done for my true love1

2. Then was I born of a virgin pure,2

 Of her I took fleshly substance

 Thus was I knit to man's nature

 To call my true love to my dance.

Chorus

3. In a manger laid, and wrapped I was

 So very poor, this was my chance

 Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass

 To call my true love to my dance.

Chorus

 

And Sydney Carter himself wrote this familiar song of Jesus, the ‘Lord of the Dance’:

 

And here is one more song the plays with the image:

 

May your  2014 be full of the Dance.

The undefeated heart of weakness

In the Incarnation God comes to us in humility and simplicity searching for an answering gaze. For the sixth day of Christmas, here is a poem by J. V. Taylor:

 

Let not my humble presence affront and stumble

 your hardened hearts that have not known my ways

 nor seen my tracks converge to this uniqueness.

 Mine is the strength of the hills that endure and crumble,

 bleeding slow fertile dust to the valley floor.

 I am the fire in the leaf that crisps and falls

 and rots into the roots of the rioting trees.

 I am the mystery, rising, surfacing

 out of the seas into these infant eyes

 that offer openness only and the unfocusing

 search for an answering gaze. O recognize,

 I am the undefeated heart of weakness.

 Kneel and adore, fall down to pour your praise:

 you cannot lie so low as I have been always.

 

“Christmas Venite”, A Christmas Sequence and Other Poems (Oxford: The Amate Press 1989) p.15.

  

Where thrones shake, the mighty fall, the prominent perish

On the fifth day of Christmas, something from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails them, of which they are afraid deep down in their souls, from which they shy away. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ. No powerful person dares to approach the manger, and this even includes King Herod. For this is where thrones shake, the mighty fall, the prominent perish, because God is with the lowly. Here the rich come to nothing, because God is with the poor and hungry, but the rich and satisfied he sends away empty. Before Mary, the maid, before the manger of Christ, before God in lowliness, the powerful come to naught; they have no right, no hope; they are judged.

– God Is In the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

The Scandal of Christmas

The fourth day of Christmas is the Feast of Holy Innocents which reminds us that the world into which Jesus was born was marked by violence and injustice. Those who, like Herod, had power and privilege took advantage of those who had neither. And they would tolerate no threat to that power and privilege.

Sadly, the world is still marked by violence and injustice. The weak and poor are still taken advantage of by those with power and privilege. The innocent are still slaughtered.

The scandal of Christmas is not the virgin birth but that God’s redemptive work defies the Herods of this world – not just kings and presidents, but anyone who clings to power and privilege at the expense of love.

– Charles Moore, The Scandal of Christmas

God's way of being human

For the third day of Christmas here is a portion of Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby's Christmas sermon:

God's way of being human shows us what being human means. According to the gospel of Jesus Christ to be human means being vulnerable, not safe. Our pride is humbled by God needing swaddling. Our wisdom is confounded by the foolishness of God's baby cries. Love is demonstrated not by grasping power but by lowering yourself so you can raise the fallen.  The humility of God provokes us to seek to awaken what is best, in every person we meet, every group that we encounter.

God's vulnerability is seen in overwhelming self giving. When as individuals or societies we grab for power, compete for resources and neglect the weakest and most vulnerable amongst us we neglect Christ himself. Where people are measured in their worth only by what they can produce, what economic value they have, then Christ is denied and our own humanity corrupted.

The great ikons of Christ for us are all those of vulnerability; a baby, a man dying abandoned on a cross, bread and wine that can be crushed and spilt. Yet from the  vulnerability we get life complete, eternal.

 

The full sermon can be found here.

 

Ye who now will bless the poor

The second day of Christmas is the Feast of St. Stephen. One of my favorite Christmas carols is Good King Wenceslas which is set on this feast day. It reflects what it means to live out the implications of the Incarnate God coming to us among the poor and humble.

 

 

Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
shall yourselves find blessing.

God with an umbilical cord

Merry Christmas! The consumer Christmas season ends today. But, on the church calendar Christmas season begins today. As I have done the last couple of years, I will post a quote each of the twelve days of Christmas expressing some aspect of the joy and wonder of the Incarnation. For the first day of Christmas there is this reflection by mid-wife, Lois Williams which I received via email at the beginning of Advent:

 

It was mid-December and I was driving to a birth in the Pocono Mountains. It was late and light snow was falling. I searched for a radio station and found one playing Christmas carols. As is my habit on the way to a birth, I began to pray for a smooth, uncomplicated labor and a healthy baby.

As the carols played in the background, I prayed aloud, “Please, Lord, let the baby be born without any cord complications; let the placenta come out without difficulty; please, no extra bleeding…”

As I prayed, the words of the carols and my thoughts about the very real process of childbirth merged in my mind. I found myself imagining the birth of Jesus, his tiny head squeezing through Mary’s birth canal, his fragile body still warm from Mary’s, the way he must have “rooted” at her breast, the umbilical cord reaching from his body back up inside his mother, connecting his life to hers. God with an umbilical cord. I pulled over to the side of the road as my eyes filled with tears.

God with an umbilical cord. That is the Incarnation. That is Christmas. Our Christmas cards are so unlike real childbirth. Mary is clothed, serene. She looks as if she never even broke into a sweat. The infant Jesus appears to be about 6 months old. There is no blood. No placenta. No umbilical cord. None of the pain of Incarnation.

But God really did make his way into the world by squeezing through the narrow doorway of a woman’s bones. And when we can pause in wonder and worship of that fact, we have come close to comprehending the real meaning of Christmas.

– Lois Wilson, God with an Umbilical Cord: An Advent Devotional

 

“I could not rest until I found a church like that”

Frederick Buechner was a guest lecturer at Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL in the fall of 1985. While doing so, he attended St. Barnabas. He later wrote about his time here:

I also found myself going to an extraordinary church or, with my rather dim experience of churches back home, one that was extraordinary at least to me. Its name was Saint Barnabas, and it was located in a small town nearby called Glen Ellyn. It was described to me as an evangelical high Episcopal church, and that seemed so wonderfully anomalous that what took me there first was pure curiosity. What kept taking me back Sunday after Sunday, however, was something else again. Part of the service was chanted at Saint Barnabas, and I discovered that when a prayer or a psalm or a passage from the Gospels is sung, you hear it in a new way. Words wear thin after a while, especially religious words. We have spoken them and listened to them so often that after a while we hardly even hear them anymore. As writer, preacher, teacher I have spent so much of my life dealing with words that I find I get fed up with them. I get fed up especially with my own words and the sound of my own voice endlessly speaking them. What the chanting words did was to remind me that worship is more than words and then in a way to give words back to me again. It reminded me that words are not only meaning but music and magic and power. The chanting italicized them, made poetry of their prose. It helped me hear the holiness in them and in all of us as we chanted them.

. . . .

They also used incense at Saint Barnabas. They censed the open pages of the Gospel before they read from it, and even in the midst of a midwestern October heat wave, the church was suddenly filled with Christmas. The hushed fragrance of it, the thin haze of it, seemed to say that it is not just to our minds that God seeks to make himself known, because, whatever we may think, we are much more than just our minds, but to our sense of touch and taste too, to our seeing and hearing and smelling the air whether it is incense that the air is laden with or burning leaves or baking bread or honest human sweat. “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” says the 34th Psalm, and it is not just being metaphorical.

. . . .

And I remember too that the last time I attended a service there, there were real tears running down my cheeks at the realization that the chances were I would probably never find myself there again. When I got home, I thought I could not rest until I found a church like that.

Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets,
(New York: Harper San Francisco, 1991), p. 82-86

"Reading" St. Barnabas V

This is the last in the series of reflections on the symbolism built into the worship space of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

Sanctus Light & Tabernacle

The Sanctus Light, or Presence Lamp, which hangs behind the altar, burns when there is any "reserved sacrament" near the altar. The Reserved Sacrament is Bread and/or Wine which has been blessed, but not consumed, at Holy Eucharist. The Bread is also called the “Host” from the Latin hostia which means victim.

The reserved Sacrament is kept in the wooden Tabernacle suspended beneath the Sanctus Light.

In our sacramental understanding, God uses physical objects as means of conveying grace. The bread and wine, once consecrated at the Eucharist, continue to be active agents of grace and are worthy to be reserved and venerated.

It is customary to bow reverently when passing by the Reserved Host as an acknowledgement of the presence of the Holy Gift.

Stained Glass Windows

St. Barnabas has two stained glass windows. Like the Baptismal Font, Altar, and Processional Cross, these were designed by liturgical artist, Richard Caemmerer.

The stained glass window behind the altar is the Pentecost Window. This window depicts the flame of the Holy Spirit and the flames that danced above the heads of the disciples in the Upper room on the first day of Pentecost. May that same Spirit enflame the community that worships here.

The stained glass window at the entrance is the Resurrection Window. This window conveys a sense of dynamic upward sweep that culminates in a crown, signifying that Jesus Christ is risen as Lord of lords and King of kings. It reminds us that every Sunday is an Easter celebration of the resurrection, the foundation of our faith and hope. May it encourage us to live as resurrection people.

“Reading”St. Barnabas I

"Reading" St. Barnabas IV

Another in a series of posts identifying some of the symbolism in the worship space of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Glen Ellyn, IL.

Altar

Like the Baptismal Font, the altar was designed by Richard Caemmerer. It is the focal point

of our worship space representing the centrality of worship at St. Barnabas. Those who were here at the building’s groundbreaking tell us that the first spade of dirt was turned where the altar was to be. Unlike many churches, St. Barnabas intentionally has one altar and one main cross (the processional cross) emphasizing our unity around the one sacrifice of Christ.

The theme of eight recurs around the altar. The railing has eight sides, and the brick foundation of the altar is three tiers with eight sides each. This reminds us again that as we receive the Sacrament we are incorporated into the promise of the eighth day and new creation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lantern

Above the altar is the "Lantern", a circular, lit, white pointed ceiling drawing our eyes upwards to “the things that are above” (Colossians 3:2). The white circle, with its two rings of light, represent the purity, light, and eternity of heaven.

Below the lantern is an uneven circle of wood representing the world as we know it – uneven and broken by sin. Sixteen wooden beams (8X2) radiate from that uneven circle making it into a symbol of the Crown of Thorns Jesus wore at his Passion in which he identified with and transformed the brokenness, suffering, and sin of this world.

 

Processional Cross

The St. Barnabas processional cross stands next to the altar reminding us that the Eucharist is a participation in the one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  The cross was also designed by Richard Caemmerer.

On the horizontal arms of the cross are the Greek letters, Alpha and Omega (the equivalent of A and Z), reminding us that Christ is first and last, the beginning and the end. (Revelation 1:8)

At the top of the cross is the Chi-Rho, an ancient Christian symbol made of the first two Greek letters in "Christ" – ‘X’ and ‘P’ (rho, or ‘r’ in Greek) - superimposed on each other.

At the bottom is another ancient symbol, a Christ monogram. It is a combination of the ‘I’ (iota) and the ‘X’ (chi), the first letters of Jesus Christ in Greek.

In the center of the cross is the body of Jesus – the corpus (body). The presence of the corpus makes this a crucifix. It is a reminder that in the incarnation, God came to us enfleshed as a human body. In the Passion, Jesus shared in real bodily suffering; and in his resurrection, Christ rose bodily from the grave conquering death and establishing the promise of new creation.

The placement of the cross next to the altar signifies that the Eucharist is always a participation in the one sacrifice offered by Jesus. And it reminds us that we can bring all our needs to the foot of the cross and that we are called ourselves to take up the cross and follow Jesus.


"Reading"St. Barnabas V

"Reading"St. Barnabas I

"Reading" St. Barnabas III

This is the third in a series of post looking at the symbolism in the worship space of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, IL.

 

Circular Seating

The seating is circular reminding us that God calls us into community where we are bound to one another. The pew design – open at the ends – underscores our mutual connection. We sit together such that we see one another even as we direct our attention toward the altar. Thus, we hope to discern the body of Christ both in the bread and wine of Eucharist and in the members of the gathered body of Christ.

 

This arrangement reinforces the fact that Christian worship is inherently communal. It is neither entertainment nor the activity primarily of the clergy. It is performed by everyone gathered. Liturgy means the work of and for the people.  The word is Greek, a compound of the word for people (laos)

and the word for work (ergon). It was not originally associated with worship, but with any work undertaken or paid for by private citizens for the benefit of the people.  In the New Testament, Christ is said to perform a liturgy:  “Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry [the Greek word here is litourgia], and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises.” (Hebrews 8:6). Christ’s life of obedience, death on the cross, and resurrection is the Christian liturgy. It is public work done for the benefit of the people. Our service of worship is a “making present” and participation – together – in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. In worship, we appropriate Christ’s liturgy as our own and are shaped by it. Our worship space encourages that shaping.

 

Pulpit

The pulpit mirrors the design of the altar rail, reminding us that the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are fundamentally one liturgy. The pulpit repeats the theme of the eighth day and new creation. Of necessity, the pulpit is only half of an octagon, but it suggests the whole. It was designed by Fr. Matt Gunter in consultation with the Saint Barnabas Liturgy Commission.

The design of the pulpit reflects the importance of scripture in our common life. Attached to the front of the pulpit is a stand for the Gospel book, which is left open during the sermon, showing our intention to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. The two candles on the pulpit symbolize the light of Christ and our hope that his Word will illuminate our hearts.






"Reading"St. Barnabas IV

"Reading"St. Barnabas I

"Reading" St. Barnabas II

Continuing the series on the worship space of St. Barnabas, Glen Ellyn, IL where I have been the rector since January, 2000.

The Lion’s Head

Just inside the main doors, on the wall to the right, is a lion’s head. The lion is the classic symbol for St. Mark and is a reminder that St. Mark, Glen Ellyn was instrumental in the founding of St. Barnabas. Around the lion’s head is a reference to Acts 15:36-39 which refers to Mark’s companionship with Barnabas in mission. It recognizes that our congregation is part of a web of other congregations and that to be a Christian is to be part of a larger community and a longer story.

It also calls to mind Revelation 5:5, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed.” 

The lion will make many at St. Barnabas think of C. S. Lewis’ Aslan.

 

 

 Eight Days a Week

One of the distinctive and pervasive symbols in the worship space at St. Barnabas is the number eight. Eight walls enclose the space and the octagon recurs in other places. For Christians, eight has symbolized the conviction that new creation has begun through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because it is the day of resurrection, Sunday became understood as not just the first day of the week, but also as the first day of the New Creation. As such, Sunday became known as the “eighth day”. In an early Christian text that was not included in the Bible, we read,

. . . when giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead.

– Epistle of Barnabas, 15:8 (c. 100 A.D.)

Thus, worship on Sunday is a present invitation to enter into the new creation in Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17). It is also a call to live in expectation of the new creation promised by God and inaugurated by Jesus. (cf. Isaiah 65:17-19, 22-25; Revelation 21:1-5)

Baptismal Font

The Baptismal Font, designed by liturgical artist, Richard Caemmerer, is one of three focal points, the other two being the altar and the pulpit. It is octagonal, symbolizing that through baptism we enter the eighth day and the beginning of the new creation.

However, the base of the font is a cross, reminding us that the Church’s one foundation is the cross of Jesus and in baptism we are summoned to take up our cross and follow him.

 

The baptismal font is placed at the center of the entrance to the worship space. This reminds us that “Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ's Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God” (BCP, p. 858). In the water of Baptism “we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit” (BCP, p.306). It is therefore customary to dip a finger or two in the water and cross oneself when entering or leaving as a reminder of our own baptism

Paschal Candle

The Paschal Candle stands near the Baptismal Font, except during Easter season when it is near the Altar. Paschal, derived from the Jewish Passover, is the classic term for Easter. The candle is lit when there is a baptism and reminds us that in baptism we have new life through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Light of the world. May the light of Christ gloriously rising dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.

 

 

"Reading"St. Barnabas III

 

"Reading"St. Barnabas I