"...And tell of his acts with shouts of joy": in thanksgiving for Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

Let them offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving*
  and tell of his acts with shouts of joy.

So we heard in Psalm 107 today, those of us following the Revised Common Lectionary.

Today these words resonated with me in light of Rowan Williams' resignation: not because I wanted to list off his acts during his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury as a litany of sorts. I am not sure I would be able to come up with a list of singular events that would compose such a litany.

No, these words resonated with me because I would like to offer shouts of joy for his courage to fill the position of Archbishop in a time riven within tension and dismay in Church. As I read the various takes on his resignation these last couple of days- including speculations about his successor- I could not help but ask, how can we sit by while some are calling him the Archbishop who failed to heal "the schism"?

No, he did not "fix" the Anglican Communion in his time. But he gave all of himself to his position and the Church we all know he loves. Let's offer thanksgiving for his leadership in such a time.

It seems to me, at least, that there is no way forward in times of unrest except shouts of joy and thanksgiving for what we do have: communion.

Lent 3: God’s Generous and Impassioned Invitation into a Holy Life

Lent 3: God’s Generous and Impassioned Invitation into a Holy Life

The Readings: Exodus 20: 1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

“You shall have no other gods before me”

On hearing this, we might be inclined to be reminded of the beginning of our creed: “We believe in one God …”

But God’s words are not necessarily a theological statement.

They are, instead—as some commentators have suggested— God expressing his desire that we would be faithful to him alone. A desire that our God is holding because he, alone, was the one who companioned his people as they journeyed through the wilderness.

As one writer explained, nowhere in the Decalogue is a punishment ever stated. Rather, obedience to the commandments becomes the people’s  response to a desire to live according to God’s will. A response that becomes necessary because the desire on both sides – God’s and ours—is so great.

The writer Peter Rollins, in his book Insurrection,  says of desire: “It is not then our beloved’s mere existence that lights up our life with meaning; it is our beloved’s desire for us that has this luminous effect.” We discover, he says, “that our beloved is not simply the object of our desire, but the very source of it.” So he says that it is because God’s desire for our faithfulness is so great that we desire to be faithful to God.

I wonder, then, if we might understand the Decalogue as an impassioned and generous invitation from God into a holy life.

I wonder if, in our gospel, Jesus was hearing an impassioned and generous invitation to faithfulness … and if that is what caused him to respond to the moneychangers in the temple as he did.

But how do we hear this invitation?—especially when the invitation does not arrive in the orderly form of the Decalogue. In what ways do we experience God’ invitations into faithfulness?

I wonder if a way to hear these invitations in our lives is through desire – both our own and God’s.

But …

If we do hear God’s invitation through desire, then we are still left with the question of: how do we know our desire?

And that makes for two difficult questions for ourselves: first about the  invitations we are experiencing. But also, what do we and what does God desire for us and with us?

In our collect, we asked “Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls” –a phrase that could remind us to look outwardly for the invitations in our daily lives and inwardly for desire.

We might imagine that Jesus might have prayed a prayer like our collect for him to be able to discern his right action to take in the temple with the moneychangers. What would it have been like for Jesus to enter the temple and find it crowded with the moneychangers—and how could his response – driving them out—have been driven by anything but desire for God and being-in-God?

We find ourselves in the middle of Lent—halfway through the journey when it is most difficult to remember the beginning and to see the way forward. How are experiencing God’s invitation to faithfulness during this season? Or … how are you experiencing God’s desire that is that generous and impassioned invitation into faithfulness?

I invite your responses …