Lectio Divina

LECTIO DIVINA

I revere your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes.  Psalm 119:48

The early Methodists believed that one "means" of encountering God's saving and renewing grace was "searching the Scriptures" which John Wesley defined as "reading, hearing, and meditating thereon" (Sermon XII, "The Means of Grace").

If we want to hear the "still small voice" of God, as Elijah did (1 Kings 19:12), we must learn to be silent.  This listening is the goal of meditative Bible reading.

Lectio Divina (Latin for "divine reading") is an ancient way of prayerfully reading and meditating upon the Scripture.   Rooted in the Spiritual practices of the ancient Israelites and further developed in the Early Church, Lectio Divina has taken many forms over the centuries, but has come to be most often characterized by the following process:
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Before beginning, still your heart and body; use a brief prayer of preparation such as the Jesus Prayer.

1. Lectio (Read) - read a passage of Scripture (not too long), slowly, reverently, listening for God's voice.

2. Meditatio (Reflect) - What word or phrase "catches your attention"? What "strikes a chord" with your spirit, your concerns, your memories? Focus upon that word or phrase, re-reading or reciting it, writing it on your heart. How does this word speak to your life?

3. Oratio (Respond in Prayer) - Speak your thoughts and feelings to God, still listening for his voice; offer to him in prayer your whole self, including any brokeness within that needs to receive the healing word he is speaking.

4. Contemplatio (Rest in God) - Silently rest in the awareness of the enveloping Presence, the embrace of the Living Holy and Triune God who has come to meet you through his Word. Enjoy the experience of being in the awesome Divine Presence.
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Though I love using the Latin names, I've often found it difficult to remember the 4 "steps" in the correct order.  Using the English terms "Read/Reflect/Respond/Rest" has made it somewhat easier for me, so maybe that will be of help to you as well.

For more info, including a process for group Lectio Divina, click here.
Note: The content of this post will remain linked on the right side-bar listed under "Liturgy & Spirituality Links"

Crown him with many Crowns

This Sunday (25 November) is the Feast of the Reign of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the Christian year.  Christ the King Sunday may seem an odd holy day, as Christ is King every day and in all eternity; and this is one of those 'ancient holydays' that dates back all the way to the 20th Century.  It serves as a bridge between the end of Ordinary Time (the last few Sundays of which are sometimes called Kingdomtide, though there is little consensus on the length of that sub-season) and Advent, which focuses on themes of the coming (again) of the King.  As many have pointed out, to call Jesus "King" or "Lord" is a far more political statement than is often realized.  It means our fealty and allegiance is given him above all other claims (be they from president, king, emperor, family, friends, ideology, political party or something else).

A while back I ran across the video below from the worship service that took place at the glorious Westminster Abbey (about a decade ago) celebrating the 50th Coronation Anniversary of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.  The choir leads the people in the great old hymn, Crown Him with Many Crowns.  The image of a sovereign head of state (who does herself wear a crown from time to time) singing Crown Him, the Lamb of God upon his throne, with many crowns is an evocative one for me (remember the stately heavenly liturgy in which those 24 elders around the throne offer their crowns to God in Revelation 4? this scene in Westminster Abbey is but a foretaste).

The video is also a reminder that, when it comes to "traditional/liturgical worship" through hymn singing, the Anglicans know how to "do it big."  While many of my United Methodist friends and colleagues seem to believe that "praise and worship" services are the future of all Christian worship, Anglicanism has remained popular precisely because they do traditional worship well.  The problem with much traditional worship in our local churches is not that it is traditional, but that the preaching, music, and liturgical leadership simply are not of an excellent and uplifting quality, whereas churches starting new ("non-traditional") services typically invest a lot of time and energy in preparing the worship service.

 

A Meditation for Thanksgiving

South Carolina leaves Episcopal Church

The Diocese of South Carolina voted yesterday overwhelmingly to leave The Episcopal Church (TEC) after several months of crisis and disciplinary action by the denomination against the staunchly orthodox and traditionalist diocese (you can find lots of info on that here).  South Carolina becomes the 5th diocese to leave since Katherine Jefferts Schori became presiding bishop, and my guess is it, like the others, will affiliate with the Anglican Church of North America.  Those conservatives and traditionalists who remain in TEC find their numbers further dwindling.  This vote comes only days after the Rt. Rev. Justin Welby was announced as the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and one wonders if he will comment on this development.   

C.S. Lewis on the liturgy

The extended quote below is reprinted from the "Creedal Christian" blog, "An Entreaty for Permanence and Uniformity in Worship."
As a United Methodist pastor interested in recovering our Wesleyan-Anglican liturgical heritage, I also appeal for greater adherence to our own Worship Book, which gives us some liturgical stability and "rootedness" in the ancient, living tradition while also allowing for a good deal of flexibility even within the "letter" of the rites.  Here is what C.S. Lewis said about constantly changing the liturgy:

“It looks as if they [the innovating clergy] believed people can be lured to go to church by incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications, and complications of the service. And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of his innovations. The majority, I believe, never are. Those who remain — many give up churchgoing altogether — merely endure.

“Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value.And they don’t go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best — if you like, it ‘works’ best — when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

“But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about the worship is a different thing from worshiping. The important question about the Grail was ‘for what does it serve?’ ‘‘Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.’

“A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the questions ‘What on earth is he up to now?’ will intrude. It lays one’s devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, ‘I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.’

“Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity. …But if each form is snatched away just when I am beginning to feel at home in it, then I can never make any progress in the art of worship. You give me no chance to acquire the trained habit — habito dell’arte.”

~ C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964)


For similar posts, see "The Liturgy questions us: What is 'relevant'?"
and "Let us Pray (with the Church)".

Durham to be made Archbishop

The Right Reverend Justin Welby, after serving as Bishop of Durham for only a year, is to be elevated to Archbishop of Canterbury.  He will succeed Dr. Rowan Williams who is generally considered a towering intellectual but whose leadership has been widely criticized as ineffective since the Anglican Communion has splintered on his watch.  Bishop Welby is considered a moderate-to-conservative evangelical.  We can only hope and pray that he will work quickly to restore clarity and unity to the Anglican Communion and trust in the instruments of unity rather than allowing them to be sidelined and ineffectual as his predessor seemed to do.  Read more here.

UPDATE: Here is a nice short video about the new ArchBishop of Canterbury-Designate (humorously abbreviated as ABC-D).

New calls for "amicable separation"

Back at the 2004 General Conference, it came to light that some conservative leaders were discussing the possibility of bringing forward a proposal for "amicable separation," splitting the church along liberal-conservative lines so as to finally (presumably) end the bitter arguing over sexual morality within the church and get on with the mission.  When the proposal became public, many people (including other conservatives) denounced the idea of schism, and the General Conference passed a resolution stating that we remain United Methodists.


Fast foward a few years.  General Conference 2012 saw a very well funded, very organized, highly vocal and strategic effort by progressives to liberalize the church's position fall short of its goals by even larger margins than in the past, despite comparatively low key efforts of conservative groups.  Why?  The demographic realities are becoming clear to everyone.  The areas of the church in the US that are growing (or simply "not-shrinking") mostly tend to be in the more theologically and socially conservative areas of the Church; the fastest declining parts of the Church tend to be in the more liberal/progressive areas, but everything happening in the US is really small potatoes compared to the massive growth in the conservative overseas regions, in Africa and Asia especially.  The representative membership of each future General Conference will reflect these demographic shifts toward the moderately conservative American South and toward the even more conservative Global South.

Because it looks highly unlikely that The United Methodist Church will abandon historic Christian teachings and Biblical interpretations on sexuality anytime in the next century we are now beginning to hear calls from progressive/liberal United Methodists for exploring an 'amicable separation' of the church.  Consider this piece by Rev. Jack Jackson, a young professor at Claremont seminary.

In his article Rev. Jackson asserts that progressives/liberals have essentially 4 options:
1) Continue to live under the current Discipline while hoping for a change that is increasingly unlikely,
2) leave the denomination for a more liberal one,
3) "ecclesiastical disobedience" (he actually uses the somewhat misleading appelation "civil disobedience") or
4) begin a conversation about a denominational split 

He notes that, while both conservative and liberal members have opted for other churches more to their liking (and continue to do so) because of endless fighting, we have in recent months seen a couple of liberal/progressive bishops and Jurisdictions calling for ecclesiastical disobedience (many of us are eager to see if and how the Council of Bishops will address this at its fall meeting, going on now).  But Jackson asks a wise question: what is the ultimate goal, what is the "end game" for that strategy?  To somehow force progressive/liberal views on an traditionalist majority that does not accept or believe in them (all in the name of 'justice')? 

Surely even a few moments of consideration can make clear to everyone that ecclesiastical disobedience (and, indeed, calling the position of the majority of Methodists 'evil') is not likely to help us remain in communion, or even dialogue, with one another.  Jackson quite rightly asserts that many traditionalists will not remain in the UMC if it reverses course on sexual issues (especially, we might add, if the decision to do so looked to have been somehow manipulated by a vocal minority).  He suggests that if even 10 percent of the active US membership left the denomination over a short period of time in response to a liberal turn on this issue, this would wreak financial havoc upon the structures of the remaining Church to such a degree that shrinking liberal/progressive jurisdictions simply could not have the resources to cope with it.  That assumes only 10% would abruptly leave, suppose it was much more?

So Rev. Jackson now advocates option 4: splitting up the church.  It seems there are some potential benefits: we might end up with two remnant churches (I'll call them "The Progressive Methodist Church" and "The Methodist Episcopal Church") each better able to clearly articulate their identity, beliefs, and mission than the UMC is now able to do; however I think such a split would further underline the serious ecclesiological deficiencies that seem "built into" Protestantism.  It seems we heirs of the Reformation simply cannot "maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" as the Lord, through Scripture, commands (whether the Roman or Eastern churches do it better is an open question worth exploring).  I don't claim to know what the best way forward is for The United Methodist Church at this moment in our history.  Considering our debilitating impasse, it looks to many as if schism is ultimately inevitable, be it a formal schism or simply a drifting away of individuals (the 'personal schism' of option #2).  As things are now, the distracting in-fighting continues to drain our energy and scatter our attention and hurt our church.

So I do not claim to know the best way forward, yet still, I know that Jesus prayed (as I do) for unity among all his followers.

Picking a new (Coptic) Pope...and President

The Coptic Church (based in Egypt) has chosen a new patriarch or pope this week.  In the Coptic selection process, the church prepares a "short list" of three candidates and then, in a ceremony at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, a blindfolded boy (believed to be guided by the hand of God), selects one name at random.  For me this is reminiscent of the selection of Matthias to replace Judas in Acts Chapter 1.  I kind of like the way that the process deliberately leaves room for the Holy Spirit to surprise everyone, while the shortlist ensures that wise and prayerful discernment by church leaders is also a part of the process (it is not completely random).  See the video below. 



The Coptic selection process makes an interesting contrast to the process by which the Anglican Communion (based in England) chooses a new Archbishop of Canterbury to lead the communion.  For Anglicans a Crown Nominations Committee meets and selects a first and second choice candidate from among the English bishops whose names are then passed along to the Prime Minister and Queen of England who confirm one of the candidates (the first choice, unless some serious reservations about him arise).  However, the Anglican process is currently bogged down as the committee - divided along progressive/liberal versus traditionalist/evangelical lines - has not been able to agree on two names. 

We United Methodists, on the other hand vote at the local level (Annual Conference) for delegates who vote at a larger Regional level (Jurisdictional Conference) for bishops.  The bishops themselves elect a president of the council of bishops from among their own number.  There have been proposals for elevating the president-bishop of the United Methodist Church to a more prominent position that would be elected by General Conference.

Speaking of picking leaders and speaking of bishops there are a couple of significant things happening this week: A Presidential election here in a sharply divided and uncertain USA and a also meeting of The United Methodist Bishops - the first such meeting since new bishops were elected this summer and since some bishops have called upon liberal clergy to disregard the Discipline of our Church where they disagree with it.  Many of us hope the bishops will address this potential crisis.

Given the big issues of these days and the great need out nation and our churches have for good leadership in troubled times, let us pray for wisdom for our nation's voters, for our current leaders, and for our church's bishops (and, indeed, for the Crown Nominations Committee).