Coming from an American-Evangelical/Pentecostal/Charismatic background as I have, the idea that a “liturgy” can really add much at all to the life of a true Christian is pretty anathema. Dead ritural or tradition that takes the place of a true experience of God, which must be “real” in the moment and from the heart – as if a liturgical expression excludes such a thing.
After a good number of years of being in a liturgical church, and particularly the past four years of being in a very liturgical church (Anglo-Catholic of the progressive kind), I am still learning the power and the prose of life within liturgy.
I like the way Rev Sam from Mersea Island, Essex, GB, on his blog Elizaphanian puts it (and this is only a small part of his complete post):

Why liturgy?
So that I can learn how to speak; and pray; and praise.
So that the centre of gravity does not lie in my own feelings and vocabulary but in the expression of the church.
It is not important how I feel when I say ‘Glory be to the Father…’; nor is it important how wholeheartedly I believe what I say. It is a question of obedience – feelings and thought will ebb and flow in my life, but the persistence of discipleship is primarily manifested through obedience.
Liturgy assumes a) that I don’t yet know all that I need to know about Christianity, and b) that the church has learnt some of what it needs to know about Christianity. Liturgy is how that learning is passed on, and developed.
Liturgy is mystery.

Via: Transfiguration Community

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John Chrysostom commenting on I Timothy 3:1 – A Terrible Temptation
“The first of all qualities that a priest or bishop ought to posses is that he must purify his soul entirely of ambition for the office… The right course, I think, is to have so reverent an estimation of the office as to avoid its responsibilities from the start… But if anyone should cling to a position for which he is not fit, he deprives himself of all pardon and provokes God’s anger the more by providing a second and more serious offense… It is indeed a terrible temptation to covet this honor. And in saying this, I do not contradict St. Paul but entirely agree with what he says. What are his words? ‘If a man seeks the office of a bishop, he desires a good work.’ What is terrible is to desire the absolute authority and power of the bishop but not the work itself.”
(On the Priesthood, 3.10-11)

Jerome commenting on I Timothy 3:1 – Ambition for Those Taking Orders
“Should the entreaties of your brethren induce you to take orders, I shall rejoice that you are lifted up and fer lest you may be cast down. You will say, ‘if a mad desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work.’ I know that; but you should add what follows: such a one ‘must be blameless, the husband of one wife, sober, chaste, prudent, well-prepared, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker but patient.’… Woe to the man who goes in to the supper without a wedding garment.”
(Letters, 14.8)
Chrysostom commenting on I Timothy 1:2a – Do Not Desire an Office If Your Actions Disqualify You
“Blameless: every virtue is implied in this word. If anyone is sconscious to himself of any sins, he does not well to desire an office for which his own actions have disqualified him… For why did no one say of the apostles that they were fornicators, unclean or covetous persons, but that they were deceivers, which relates to their preaching only? Must it not be that their lives were irreproachable? This is clear.
(Homilies on I Timothy 10
Theodore of Moppsuestia commenting on I Timothy 1:2a – Not Without Critics
” ‘WIthout reproach’ can scarcely mean ‘without critics,’ since Paul himself had such, but blameless as to living.”
(Commentary on I Timothy)
Gregory of Nyssa commenting on I Timothy 1:2a – The Analogy of the Metalsmith
“When making a vessel of iron, we entrust the task not to those who know nothing about the matter but to those who are acquainted with the art of the smith. Ought we not, therefore, to entrust souls to him who is well-skilled to soften them by the fervent heat of the Holy Spirit and who by the impress of rational implements may fashion each one of you to be a chosen and useful vessel? It is thus that the inspired apostle bids us to take thought, in his epistle to Timothy, laying injunction upon all who hear, when he says that a bishop must be without reproach. Is this all that the apostle cares for, that he who is advanced to the priesthood should be irreproachable? And what is so great an advantage as that all possible qualifications should be included in one? But he knows full well that the subject is molded by the character of his superior and that the upright walk of the guide becomes that of his followers too. For what the Master is, such does he make the disciples to be.”
(Letters 13)
Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Vol. IX; Peter Gorday editor, 168-170.
UPDATE: Jim McGreevey, former governor of New Jersey and “American gay,” is to begin seminary this fall (at my seminary) and is in the discernment process through the Episcopal Diocese of New York, for Holy Orders. Why? Maybe in time, but now? He has too much to work through concerning the profound life changes he has gone through over the past two years (and coming to terms with his own failings). What is going on?

From this morning’s Old Testament Reading:
Wisdom 1:16—2:11, 21-24 (NRSV)
But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death; considering him a friend, they pined away and made a covenant with him, because they are fit to belong to his company. For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
“Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
For we were born by mere chance,
and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been,
for the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts;
when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,
and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.
Our name will be forgotten in time,
and no one will remember our works;
our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,
and be scattered like mist
that is chased by the rays of the sun
and overcome by its heat.
For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,
and there is no return from our death,
because it is sealed up and no one turns back.

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The following comes from regular e-mail updates I get from Emergent Village (the website for the ongoing Emergent Church conversation). Brian McLeran posted about his experiences this past year traveling all over the world and listening to many different and other voices.
From Brian McLaren:

“I have become convinced of two things in this travel. First, we Christians in the West or North (and especially in the United States) live in an echo-chamber; it’s so hard for us to hear “the voice of the other” over the clamor of our own incessant and redundant broadcasting. Second, we desperately need to hear these voices, for our own good and for the potential of increased partnership in the future. I hope to introduce as many of these voices to as many people as I can in the months and years ahead.
“For example, in a recent trip to Malaysia (arranged by the hospitable and charming master-networker Sivin Kit and friends), I met a young Malaysian theologian named Sherman Kuek. Sherman sent me a piece he wrote recently on contextualization and tradition, from the perspective of someone involved in the emergent conversation in Asia.”

Sherman is an itinerant minister and an Adjunct Lecturer in Christian Theology at Seminari Theoloji Malaysia (STM). He spends much of his time journeying with his friends in reflecting on faith, life, and culture in a profoundly theological and yet simple way. Sherman blogs on www.ShermanKuek.net.
From: Sherman YL Kuek, OSL

In speaking of contextualisation, there are (rather simplistically) two trends of thought:
1) The gospel consists of a “static universal core”, a series of articulations which is time insensitive and perennially unchanging. The contextualisation project is simply about enfleshing this core with a cultural facade for the facilitation of communication and understanding. The core, essentially, does not change.
2) The gospel consists of a “dynamic universal core”, a series of articulations which is time sensitive and perennially changing with the development of our theological understanding. The contextualisation project, whilst being about the cultural expression of this “dynamic universal core”, is also about allowing the enfleshment process to provoke us to re-examine the legitimacy and relevance of the universal core. This means that the universal core, by its sheer dynamic nature, is vulnerable to being modified, changed, eradicated, retained, or reaffirmed in accordance with that deemed necessary.
I suspect that the “emerging” people are those who are more ready to embrace the second of the two approaches, and not anyone is willing to sit well with this methodological vulnerability.
But anyone who is seriously going to engage his/her context authentically would almost immediately see that the second of the two is probably the only way by which one can be authentically contextual in his/her theological methodology.
II
This section dwells on some further sustained thoughts pertaining to the “dynamic universal core”. If we posit that the dynamic universal core is “time sensitive and perennially changing with the development of our theological understanding”, what reasonable sources possess legitimate ascendancy over the dynamism of the core?
It is open knowledge that the emerging people are serious about engaging with the dominant culture confronting the Christian gospel (in the West the postmodern culture, and in Asia perhaps the postcolonial ethos). First and foremost, this engagement is about the vulnerability of allowing the dominant culture to challenge the Christian gospel with serious questions regarding the adequacy, accuracy, and even the absolute rightness of the latter.
But it is probably a misunderstanding beyond proportions that these people engaging with culture are actually permitting the culture to redefine the core. It is most likely that culture raises questions which shed doubt on the perennial universality of the core, but not necessarily that culture redefines the core.
In my observation, it seems to me that whilst culture is permitted the role of the “interrogator”, the contextual thinkers are going back into the Great Christian Tradition to seek solutions for these problems raised by culture. They do not claim that culture itself provides the answers. They seem to have an implicit understanding that the Great Christian Tradition itself possesses more than a sufficient wealth of wisdom to provide plausible solutions for challenges posed by culture. The Great Christian Tradition causes one to expand and deepen the core such that one realises that his definition and demarcation of the core may have been overly limited and unnecessarily fossilised.
Thus, it is not uncommon for contextual thinkers to move beyond the boundaries of their own limited traditions (i.e. their denominational / traditional boundaries and familiar scope of theological positions) towards other even older traditions in search of responses to the problems posed by culture. This explains the openness of the emerging people towards the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions and their willingness to listen to other ecclesial voices beyond that with which they are familiar. Again, this is not something deemed acceptable to every Christian thinker of every tradition. Some traditions are, by their sheer nature, implicitly closed to conversations which challenge the rudiments of their all-familiar categories.
The Christian faith is more than 500 years old. In fact, the memory of the Christian Church goes back beyond 2,000 years. The contextual thinker holds on to this wealth of ecclesial life and therefore understands that there is no need for theological insecurity, for he has a long, long history – a Great Story of which he is a part – consisting of multiple voices of wisdom who have come before him and who would be able to infuse wisdom and impart solutions in his endeavour to be a relevant voice within the present scheme of life. This is the reservoir of ecclesial jurors for the contextual thinker which many others fail to observe or choose to ignore all together.
For him, the challenges posed by cultural confrontations do not cause him to pander into a state of intimidation and self-preserving defensiveness, for he looks beyond himself and his restrained traditional familiarity; and behold, a world of endless possibilities is open before him as he gleans from the voices of his many Fathers who once treaded the path on which he now finds himself. Someone aptly comments (and the contextual thinker certainly mirrors it well): “It’s not about the old ways, it’s about the much older ways”.

I want to add that, and it is my humble opinion, that Anglicanism provides the medium in which all these things can be realized in a more full and complete way. Why? Because Anglicanism encompasses within itself all these indices – ancient and mysterious faith from its Catholic side going back to the introduction of Catholic Christianity in Britain during the earliest days of the Church, in its Evangelical side with the long, storied history of vibrant personal faith and missionary zeal, and in its Broad Church tradition which pushes the church to question and think diligently.
Yet, we are caught up in pulling ourselves apart because of, what? Oh, lots of reasons. The only thing that matters is that the genius of Anglicanism is being compromised and made ineffectual by those determined to do the unAnglican thing of imposing their perspective on all others. We are missing the door open to us because of our own myopia and selfishness. What a shame! What a tragedy.

Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek magazine, introduces a long article on religion in last week’s edition. Meacham is an Episcopalian and I’ve seen him on a number of television programs surrounding issues of faith. In reading is long introduction, the influence of his Anglicanism and the Prayer Book come through.
For instance, the article asks the question, “Is God real?” and then enters into a “debate” between Rick Warren, pastor of perhaps the most influential mega-church in the country – Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA – and author of the very popular “The Purpose Driven Life,” and Sam Harris, atheist and author of two books on why there can be no God (“The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation”). In his introduction, Meacham describes Warren as one who “…believes in the God of Abraham as revealed by Scripture, tradition, and reason.” (emphasis mine) This three part formula of “Scripture, tradition, and reason” will be quickly recognized as the Anglican “Three legged stool” and describes how Anglicans deal with issues of Truth.
Now, Warren may well have taken to referring to the Anglican formula as his own, and more power to him. However, I wonder whether Meacham is graciously applying his own Anglican understanding upon Warren. As an Evangelical, I don’t know whether Warren would include Tradition and Reason as two authorities in discerning Truth. Anyway, I think it great that Meacham’s Anglicanism comes through.
Second, Meacham is discussing the perennial and eternal, it seems, debate of whether God exists or not. He writes, “There are, of course, religious counter-counter arguments to these counter-arguments; the debate goes on world without end.” (emphasis mine) Again, here we see the influence of the Book of Common Prayer in Meacham’s word selection. We can also see the influence of the 1928 Prayer Book or Rite One from the 1979 Prayer Book, whether because of the poeticalness of the combination of these three words or whether he truly prefers Elizabethan English I don’t know. But again, being an Episcopalian comes through in his writing, at least for this article.
Now, Meacham quotes Harris in the introduction as saying, “I doubt them equally [the Biblical God, Zeus, Isis, Thor…] and for the same reason: lack of evidence.”
My first thought was, “It is a different way of knowing.” Meacham describes Blaze Pascal’s descriptions of his vision of God that resulted in his writing what we know as the “Pensées.” The brilliant mathematician tries to describe this seemingly unexplainable experience of the voice of God speaking to him. It is a different way of knowing.
Michael Polanyi did much research in the concept of “knowing” and how we judge what is knowledge and how we prove we have such knowledge. He came up with the notion of the “Tacit Way of Knowing.”
Polanyi said something like: in the West, this rational system we have, knowledge is judged by what we can reproduce through tests and other such “proofs.” He said that if we had to have a serious operation, we would want to make sure the surgeon was the best – that he knew what he was doing. Yet, if that surgeon where to go back and retake some of the entry-level exams during his first year of medical school – chemistry, physiology, etc. – he would probably flunk the exams. We in the West would tend to say he did not have the knowledge necessary to be a competent doctor or surgeon, yet we know he is. Polanyi then says to look at our grandmothers. They make bread by touch – no recipe, no list, and if we demanded that they write down exactly the measured ingredients and the process, they couldn’t. The bread is made through a way of knowing that the rational West has a difficult time acknowledging. Tacit knowing, intuition, and perhaps this knowledge of God.
We cannot “prove” that our grandmothers REALLY knew how to make bread if we demand a rational detailing of the process. We cannot “prove” that God does not REALLY exist because we cannot give a rational detailing of empirical facts of evidence. Knowing God is a different way of knowing than chemistry and its empirical evidences.
We want to demand that there really is only one way of knowing – Western, rational, materialistic, and empirical. In some ways, these guys are “Rational Fundamentalists” (use of the word “fundamentalist” is perhaps unfair, but…) – there is little or no recognition or allowance that there can honestly be other ways of knowing or interpretation of observable evidence. They close themselves off to perhaps a whole different means of discovery, expansion, and knowing beyond ourselves.
Meacham writes about Pascal’s Wager: “It is smarter to bet that God exits, and to believe in him, because if it turns out that he is real, you win everything; if he is not, you lose nothing. So why not take the leap of faith?”