The Annunciation to Mary

Since being moved by my bishop to a regular parish-church setting, I have had the great pleasure and privilige of planning for worship services each and every Sunday, and for this reason I've spent much more time working with The United Methodist Book of Worship (UMBOW), the official liturgy and worship book of our Church. This book, in addition to our full services for the Lord's Day, the Sacraments, and the major rites of the Church such as marriage and funeral, also contains numerous prayers, collects, and liturgies for use throughout the Christian year. Many of these prayers have roots in The Book of Common Prayer and other classical liturgical sources, while others are more recent.

In the Advent section, I discovered resources for two "Marian" feast days (focusing on Mary, the Mother of the Lord) traditionally celebrated by Anglicans, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics: The Annunciation to Mary, and the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. These feasts are not traditionally observed during Advent, but since that is when our lectionary and preaching is most likely to highlight the texts dealing with the Incarnation of the Word through Mary, that is where our worship book has them (UMBOW 256-257).

I have argued before that we Protestants, if we are serious about pursuing Christian unity with our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters, need to find ways to highlight and celebrate the unique witness and work of the Virgin Mary, while remaining true to our own convictions that the Triune God alone is the proper object of worship and prayer and that Jesus is our only mediator with God and our only Savior. The editors and compilers of our United Methodist Book of Worship have done exactly that - prepared liturgical resources that celebrate the Biblical witness to St. Mary's role in God's plan of salvation, without going beyond what the Bible teaches.

Today, March 25, is traditionally celebrated as the Annunciation by the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary (Luke chapter 1:26-38) because it is exactly 9 months before Christmas Day on December 25.

To commemorate the Annunciation our Book of Worship offers the following (UMBOW 256):

Suggested Readings: Isaiah 7:10-14; Psalm 40:1-11; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:26-38

Suggested hymns from The United Methodist Hymnal: 199, 198, 200, 215, 197

Prayer:

Holy God,
the mystery of your eternal Word took flesh among us in Jesus Christ.
At the message of an angel,
the Virgin Mary placed her life at the service of your will.
Filled with the light of your Spirit, she became the temple of your Word.
Strengthen us by the example of her humility,
that we may always be ready to do your will,
and welcome into our lives Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Williams announces he will step down

As many expected he would do this year, Rowan Williams has announced earlier today that he will in fact step down as Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world's Anglican Christians at the end of the year. He will return to academia, becoming master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Read the NPR story here. While some see the traditionalist bishop of London, Richard Chartres, as a potential successor others think it may be the evangelical archbishop of York, John Sentamu (who would then be the first black Archbishop of Canterbury).

"Hobbit" star joins in supporting "Hobbit" Pub

The Saul Zaentz Company, which owns the rights to various "Hobbity" things, is suing a pub in England that has been called The Hobbit for 20 years. Stephen Fry, a star in the upcoming Hobbit movie, has spoken out (well, actually Tweeted) in defense of the Pub. The full story is here.

The Bilbo Baggins Pub (which may be even older) in Bossier City, Louisiana better watch out! Lawsuits sometimes seem designed to destroy everything fun in life. Remember when fast food places actually had playgrounds? Plus I've no doubt that Tolkien would appreciate a good pub.

Pope calls for Catholics to defend Marriage

Pope Benedict XVI's probing theological reasoning was in the news again this weekend.

In speaking to several bishops from the US Midwest, Pope Benedict XVI warned of "powerful political and cultural currents" seeking to legalize gay marriage in the United States. He called for "defense of marriage as a natural institution consisting of a specific communion of persons, essentially rooted in the complementarities of the sexes and oriented to procreation". Read the full report here. Despite the tone of some news articles (perhaps attempting to sound "objective"?) the pope's position comes as no surprise at all unless one is completely unfamiliar with Roman Catholic (and all traditional Christian) sexual morality.

One rather expects this issue to become more prominent in the various media as we Americans move into a presidential election cycle later this year, though the "same sex marriage debate" seems rarely to move past oft repeated but seldom explored assertions about "rights" or about "definitions." I believe that, given the current cultural climate, 'traditionalists' on this issue need to do a better job of trying to explain in a detailed and coherent (and winsome) way the "why" of our position for legally maintaining the classic definition of marriage. Then, at the very least, we might actually have the possibility of a true debate, a real dialogue of ideas. But, then again, it is an election year, and TV spots only last 30 seconds and presidential debate answers only last 2 minutes... Maybe television simply isn't well-suited to mediate a substantial and probing debate of ideas. Online social media perhaps?

As an aside, though not so often mentioned in public statements by our own bishops or general agency staff, the Pope's position is perfectly congruent with that of The United Methodist Church since, according to paragraph 161.B in the 2008 Book of Discipline, "We support laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman."

Prayer for the third Sunday in Lent

From the United Methodist Book of Worship (#336):

O merciful Father, in compassion for your sinful children, you sent your Son Jesus Christ to be the Savior of the world. Grant us grace to feel and to lament our share in the evil that made it necessary for him to suffer and die for our salvation. Help us by self-denial, prayer, and meditation to prepare our hearts for deeper pentience and a better life. And give us a true longing to be free from sin, through the deliverance won by Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen.

"After-birth abortion"?

"You shall not kill." -Exodus 20:13 (RSV)

"Do not commit murder; do not commit adultery; do not corrupt boys; do not have illicit sex; do not steal; do not practice magic; do not practice witchcraft; you shall not murder a child, whether it be born or unborn. Do not covet the things of your neighbor." -Didache 2:2 (a late 1st or early 2nd Century Christian guidebook)

Drawing upon Scripture and Christian Tradition, Christian ethicists have condemned an article published in The Journal of Medical Ethics in which Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva argue that newborn babies do not have a “moral right to life” because they are not “actual persons” but rather “potential persons”.

Read more at Christianity Today or at FoxNews.

You may need to re-read that because it is truly shocking. These medical ethicists are in fact arguing that it is perfectly acceptable to kill human babies, based upon a narrowing of the definition of "person." According to their argument laid out in the well-known British academic journal, there is a difference between a human being and a human person. Not all humans are, by their philosophy, "persons" in the proper sense. The Journal of Medical Ethics has even defending publishing the article, after some questioned why a prestigious academic journal would promote such an idea in the first place.

I would hope it was obvious that such an approach to ethics is extremely dangerous, not to mention completely contrary to the Judeo-Christian moral tradition that has insisted that there are certain absolute rights and wrongs that are derived from the commandments of our Creator God. It is dangerous because it means that nobody's right to life is safe (the most basic of all rights, the one upon which all the other rights depend). Once you have allowed that someone can be a human being without being a "true person" then it only takes a few jumps of rationalization to define people of a certain age or of a certain intelligence level as "non-persons." It is only a little past that to define people of low income or education levels as non-persons ("since they cannot fully value or appreciate their lives" seems to be the argument about the babies). Of course, such a view naturally raises the question "who gets to make that determination anyways?" The academics? Those with power? Those who can win a majority vote?

The Judeo-Christian Scriptures as well as the Enlightenment tradition enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence hold that the Creator God has fashioned humans such that we all (regardless of age or intelligence) posses an inherent sacred worth, to use the Scriptural language, we are created to bear the image and likeness of God. That sacred worth is the foundation and root of our notions of human rights and dignity. One of the problems with fully secular and god-less theories of human rights, as I have discussed before, is that they do not actually stand upon any firm and universal foundation. Universal human rights simply exist so long as we all (or the majority of us) agree that they exist. This is a subtle form of "might makes right" however, and it begs the question of what happens if we, or the strongest among us, decide that they no longer exist for certain elements of the poplution - as the Nazis once did.

Perhaps it should come to no suprise that the source of this dangerous and radically "anti-Christian" re-defining of "personhood" emerges from a largely atheistic academy in a Europe where religious perspectives have been somewhat marginalized. It is not that the people who make up this academy are necessarily malicious or bad (they may often be friendlier and more pleasant than many religious believers you'll meet) it is simply that their worldview does not provide that firm foundation for absolute human rights and dignities for all people, or absolute moral imperatives; instead their "ethics" are built upon shakier ground. And ideas always have consequences.

The Christian faith, drawn from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments has from very early on made the defense of the weak a core value of our faith. All people are created to bear God's image (Gen. 1), all people are loved by God (John 3), and each person is one for whom Christ has undergone passion and death (1 John 2). Those who have no one to speak for them, those who are on the margins or are not valued by society - the widows the orphans, the infant and indeed the unborn - have always been considered the special responsibility of the followers of Christ, who so often showed care for the unvalued. The early church surprised many ancient pagans by the ways that it valued babies (who were often thrown away if their sex was not "acceptable" or if they appeared to be otherwise "imperfect"). Infants are even capable of being baptized into the membership of the Body of Christ. The Didache is one early example of the Church's rejection of abortion and infanticide, which are now both being advocated by a "respected medical ethical journal."

It is difficult to believe at times how much our world has changed since my parents were born. Our moral consensus has collapsed into a mire of competing ideas; and now the Church must with clarity and grace, and with the authority of divine love stand up and say "I will show you a still more excellent way..." We must not only oppose any force, any idea, that preys upon and destroys the weak; but we must positively show the truer, holier, and happier life that is founded in love as the way, the only way, to Peace.