{"id":16377,"date":"2024-06-24T08:12:03","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T12:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/preventingrace\/?p=16377"},"modified":"2024-06-24T08:12:03","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T12:12:03","slug":"dress-for-action-like-an-anglican","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/preventingrace\/2024\/06\/24\/dress-for-action-like-an-anglican\/","title":{"rendered":"Dress for Action like an Anglican"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\r\n\r\n<\/head><\/a>\r\n\r\nAfter many days of distracting suspense, the Anglican Church in North America (the US and Canada) selected a new Archbishop\u2013Steve Woods. He is currently the bishop of the Carolinas, but by the end of the week, he will be functionally head of the Province. Sometime later in the year, he will be formally consecrated.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAs you have already expected, public and private online social spaces launched into their thoughts, feelings, and prayers with a frenzied fervor. Some places articulated doom and sadness. Others were euphoric. I fielded texts and kept watching Enchanted April\u2013the family movie night choice when you have four daughters\u2013which is a very Anglican kind of thing to do.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut I, even I, think it is pretty epic that the lectionary organizers picked the lections we had yesterday.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt began with Job:\r\n\r\n \r\n

Then the\u00a0Lord\u00a0answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:\r\n\r\n \u00a0<\/sup>\u201cWho is this that\u00a0darkens counsel by words\u00a0without knowledge?\r\n\u00a0<\/sup>Dress for action\u00a0like a man;\r\nI will question you, and you make it known to me.\r\n\r\n \u00a0<\/sup>\u201cWhere were you when I\u00a0laid the foundation of the earth?\r\nTell me, if you have understanding.\r\nWho determined its measurements\u2014surely you know!\r\nOr who stretched the line upon it?\r\n\u00a0<\/sup>On what were its bases sunk,\r\nor who laid its cornerstone,\r\n\u00a0<\/sup>when the morning stars\u00a0sang together\r\nand all\u00a0the sons of God\u00a0shouted for joy?\r\n\r\n \u00a0<\/sup>\u201cOr who\u00a0shut in the sea with doors\r\nwhen it burst out from the womb,\r\n\u00a0<\/sup>when I made clouds its garment\r\nand\u00a0thick darkness its swaddling band,\r\nand prescribed\u00a0limits for it\r\nand set bars and doors,\r\n\u00a0<\/sup>and said, \u2018Thus far shall you come, and no farther,\r\nand here shall your\u00a0proud waves be stayed\u2019?\r\n\r\n \u201cHave you\u00a0commanded the morning since your days began,\r\nand caused the dawn to know its place,\r\nthat it might take hold of\u00a0the skirts of the earth,\r\nand the wicked be\u00a0shaken out of it?\r\n\u00a0<\/sup>It is changed like clay under the seal,\r\nand its features stand out like a garment.\r\n\u00a0<\/sup>From the wicked their\u00a0light is withheld,\r\nand\u00a0their uplifted arm is broken.\r\n\r\n \u201cHave you\u00a0entered into the springs of the sea,\r\nor walked in the recesses of the deep?\r\n\u00a0<\/sup>Have\u00a0the gates of death been revealed to you,\r\nor have you seen the gates of\u00a0deep darkness?\r\n\u00a0<\/sup>Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?\r\nDeclare, if you know all this.\r\n\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd ended with Jesus:\r\n\r\n \r\n

\u00a0<\/sup>On that day, when evening had come, he said to them,\u00a0\u201cLet us go across to the other side.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup>And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup>And a great windstorm arose, and the waves\u00a0were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.\u00a0<\/sup>But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, \u201cTeacher, do you not care that we are perishing?\u201d\u00a0<\/sup>And he awoke and\u00a0rebuked the wind and said to the sea,\u00a0\u201cPeace! Be still!\u201d\u00a0And the wind ceased, and\u00a0there was a great calm.\u00a0He said to them,\u00a0\u201cWhy are you\u00a0so afraid? Have you still no faith?\u201d\u00a0<\/sup>And they were filled with great fear and said to one another,\u00a0\u201cWho then is this, that even\u00a0the wind and the sea obey him?\u201d\r\n\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nI have been a Christian and an Anglican for roughly the same amount of time. I was baptized in the Diocese of Oxford as a tiny infant in a tiny church. At some point along the way, spending my childhood in Mali, I looked up into the vast, African sky, and understood that God was God, and I was a mere creature who would have to take the trouble to submit to wisdom, and knowledge, and understanding. In boarding school, where the religion was mostly Baptist, out of rebellion, I carried my Book of Common Prayer to church instead of a Bible. I read the 39 Articles when I found the sermon dull. In various sojourns in the US, I got to be Mary in the Christmas Pageant, attended the Bishop\u2019s Ball, and was confirmed as an Episcopalian. In university, while the godless, pagan campus slept, I walked alone, in drifts of snow, uphill both ways, to the Episcopal chaplaincy. Which is to say, I am all in on the Anglican thing.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOnce, a long time ago, when it had become clear that the Episcopal Church had officially become apostate\u2013a fact which, as an Anglican, grieved me immensely, for I am more than happy to live with ambiguity, nuance, and a measure of politesse masquerading as good theology\u2013we finally and formally walked away, propitiously at just the moment when the Anglican Global South had weighed in. The Anglican Church of North America was formed. Though no one ever expected it\u2013least of all me\u2013the bravery and faithfulness of bishops, clerics, and lay people all converged with the providence of God to make a safe ecclesiastical haven.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOne awful thing about being an Anglican in the year of our Lord 2024 is that we had to read the entire book of Job right after Easter. Because we indulge in Zoom Morning Prayer\u2013something that came about during Covid, the strange convergence of the Daily Office App, living in New York State, and intuitively understanding that where two or three are gathered, God himself shows up perhaps purely out of curiosity to see what kind of things Anglicans say at 7 am on a Monday about some Biblical text that lies so completely outside of the zeitgeist that their eyes continually fly open\u2013we feel constantly at the mercy of the scriptures. We have to read them, because that\u2019s the deal, before we can pray.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe convergence of Job with Jesus is so unnerving. The impulse to sit in the ash heap, scraping one\u2019s real and terrible wounds, wounds measured out and governed by God, is reasonable. What else is the believer supposed to do? To whom may we complain but the Lord? But how many of us expect that God will really come and speak? How can we endure the whirlwind? the kind of answer that is Jesus himself?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAre you God? Do you know? Have you sustained the universe by your own power? Can you control the weather? Have you measured the dimensions of your life, your church, or even your own thoughts?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOf course you can\u2019t bear it. But, from the long weary road of habit, obedience, and sometimes even love, you get up in the gray dawn on the first day of the week, the day when your own Lord Jesus rose again from the grave, when he conquered death, when he revealed himself as the firstfruits of those who had fallen asleep, and you go to church. You stand there as the prayers go by, saying them, knowing them, feeling them. You kneel. You sit. You stand. You walk forward and put your hands out for the bread and the wine. In each movement of the body is the stooping of the soul before the whirlwind, the tempest, the immense and perfect majesty of God.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nDress for action\u2013for what will you do, O Anglican? O Christian? The Lord is in his Holy Temple. Let all the earth keep silent before him.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAlso, find me on Substack<\/a>, and!! check out my interview with Alisa Childers<\/a>!\r\n\r\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After many days of distracting suspense, the Anglican Church in North America (the US and Canada) selected a new Archbishop\u2013Steve Woods. He is currently the bishop of the Carolinas, but by the end of the week, he will be functionally head of the Province. Sometime later in the year, he will be formally consecrated. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2373,"featured_media":5229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-16377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-demotivations-with-anne","tag-anglicanism"],"yoast_head":"\nDress for Action like an Anglican<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After many days of distracting suspense, the Anglican Church in North America (the US and Canada) selected a new Archbishop--Steve Woods. 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