I've had my public introduction to the Sand Montain area of Alabama now. I was featured in the Sand Mountain Reporter today. As someone who's worked in Public Affairs, and knows how reporters can take your comments and turn them ino whatever they want to say, I'm very grateful to George Rogers for faithfully reporting what I wanted to communicate to the people of Sand Mountain.

Donald Schell has an excellent post at Episcopal Cafe today exposing the false dichotomy between "traditional" and "contemporary." If you don't already know, our English word, "tradition" comes from the Latin word, which means "to deliver," or "hand down." In the Church, we are the latest links in a chain of handing down. But what sort of "delivery" is involved here? Are we simply copyists, doing our best to Xerox what was delivered to us, then transmitting that to the next generation? Our family's recent experience in moving from Virginia to Alabama provides a more creative understanding of this process of "Delivery."

Late in November, I accepted the call to serve as Rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Albertville, Alabama, a mere 11 hours away from the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC, where I had lived for the last 23 years. This included 14 years in our apartment. Needless to say, we had a lot of work to do as we delivered ourselves and our home to a new place.

First, we had to look at the "stuff" we had accumulated for those 14 years, and had incorporated into our home. It's always easier to add things to your home than to get rid of them. You can always find a way to make space for something new. And over time, you can adjust your own sense of personal space to accommodate the space of the stuff you've added. Getting rid of stuff you don't need takes money, because if you don't need it, chances are that nobody else needs it, and the labor involved in moving your junk out doesn't come for free.

Some "stuff" we sold, but not for too much, since out goal was not to make money, but to get rid of it. Other "stuff" we simply gave away for free. Other things however, had too much memory attached to it for us to dispose of: pictures our son had drawn, framed pictures that reminded us of where we have come from. Those were to be delivered from the previous generations to the next. One that stood out for me was a landscape, painted by my Aunt Salome, of the Alabama woods in Elmore County. Playing by the water mill are my Aunt Faye, Salome and my grandmother, Belva, along with Uncle Kearney. That painting was delivered to me, and I will deliver it to my son, though how he chooses to dispose of it will be his decision.

Finally, we were ready to be delivered from Virginia to Alabama. We arrived early this month. The next day, the delivery truck arrived with our "stuff." We soon discovered that furniture, which had fit in our old home, did not fit into this new space. More phone calls. Parishioners helping to take some of this stuff away. Some of it being put into our new garage, slated for consignment. But the pictures, the repository of our memories, remain.

The very act of "delivering" requires the deliverers to make choices: what to keep, what to throw out, and what to store for the future. In this new place, new memories will be created, but not by forgetting all that has come before. That is "Tradition." It is not about photocopying, but moving. And in that moving, we are bound by the memories of the past, but also by the demands of the present and future. And the flexibility of balancing past, present and future is something we have no right to deny to those who come after us. They too will be bound in love, for the past, the present and the future.

I'm linking to an interesting article on the Episcopal Cafe website, a short piece of history that is very relevant to who we are as Episcopalians today.

We are members of the Episcopal Church of the United States, which is the American branch of the Anglican Communion, which makes us both "Episcopal" and "Anglican." But what does it mean to be Anglican?

Essentially, the Anglican Church began in 597, when Pope Gregory the Great sent a group of missionaries to what once had been called Briton, a land populated by that ancient ethnic group known as the Celts. But by 597, the Germanic tribes -- Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc. -- had overrun the lower half of the island, and it was now becoming known as "Angle-Land," from which we get "England."

Gregory's missionaries were sent to Christianize what they assumed was an entirely pagan country. When they got there, they found two Christian churches already there. One was the remnant of the British church that had first formed in the days when Rome ruled the land, and had been pushed to what we now call Wales on the western coast. To the north was a Celtic church with its roots in Ireland, which had spread thanks to those Irish monks who, in Thomas Cahill's words, saved civilization.

The missionaries represented the "Catholic," or "universal" Church that was uniting all Christians on the European continent, but from which the other two churches had been isolated for centuries. Needless to say, arguments ensued.

We Episcopal-Anglicans are fond of our "Common Prayer" -- a liturgical language that unites us in a common form of worship that helps form a common faith. But we are also fond of the autonomy that allows each of us to raise questions, and occasionally, disagreements.

This tension between community and autonomy has been with us as Anglicans since our beginning. So has the importance of a liturgy that tries to draw from a variety of sources "whatever things are devout, religious, and right," then binds them together "as it were, into a sheaf." So said Gregory 1400 years ago, and so it is today.

The Anglican way has never been, "My way or the highway." Its has always been a little messy, a little unclear, but at its best, charitable, open and common.

In the Baptist church of my youth, Bibles with "reading plans" were popular. When I became an Episcopalian, I found that I didn't have to give up a reading plan for the Bible.

Beginning on page 936 is a two-year plan called the "Daily Office Lectionary," with readings from the Old Testament, Gospels and Letters. It also gives you a selection of Psalms to meditate on. Or you can go through the Psalter in the BCP, starting on page 585, and read from a selection of psalms in the morning and evening in a monthly cycle

Almost invariably, I find that something from the readings and psalms is exactly what I need to hear that day. And so it was this morning of November 4, 2008 -- Election Day.

One of the psalms appointed for the fourth day of the month is Psalm 20, where this morning I chanted, "Now I know that the LORD gives victory to his anointed." It is from the Hebrew word for "anointed" that we get the Hebrew term, "Messiah," which in ancient Greek was translated, "Christos."

At the end of this day, presumably, either Barack Obama or John McCain will declare victory in the race for the most powerful office in the world. Millions of Americans will be deeply disappointed, and perhaps fear for the future of the country. Millions more will rejoice for our future. There will be Christians of good conscience in both camps.

I don't minimize the hopes and fears of either. Hopefully every day we pray that "thy kingdom come." The Good News is not just a hope for salvation when our physical life is ended. "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:17). Salvation is as real in this world as in the next.

Our political choices for those who govern in the kingdoms of the earth are not irrelevant to that future kingdom where heaven and earth will be one. So, as Christians, it is right that we apply our best understanding of the Gospel to the political choices we make, hoping that those choices might advance the spread of God's justice and peace in this world.

But to whom does God give the victory? His "Anointed One," Jesus Christ. Victory does not belong to a political party, but to Christ. And that victory, sealed by the Cross and Resurrection, is assured, regardless of who becomes the President of the United States.

Of course, God gives us the freedom to assist, or hinder, the spread of Christ's kingdom. Tonight, some may feel that kingdom has taken a great step forward. Others may fear for the future of this world that Jesus came to save. But in truth, no human being knows the future. No one can "know" with certainty whether the world will be better off with President Obama or President McCain.

What we can have faith in is this: if Jesus could take the ultimate sign of defeat and transform it into the victory of God's love, then the final victory of Jesus Christ will not be stopped by the result of an election. That victory will take a different path depending on whom we, in our freedom, choose to elect. But the victory of Christ is inevitable. Nations and empires rise and fall. But Jesus is always risen. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

As we think about future, and our potential for growth, I encourage the reading of a report by C. Kirk Hadaway. In his report, FACTs on Church Growth, Hadaway summarizes the results of a study that included over 14,000 religious congregations.

I found it surprising that congregations with less of a sense of being a "close-knit family" are more likely to grow than congregations whose members described themselves as a family. It's impossible to read the New Testament and see the first generation of Christians calling each other, "brothers and sisters," as anything other than a family. It was also a growing family.

Intimacy is necessary to that fullness of life which Jesus Christ promises. Are there risks to such intimacy? Most certainly. Betrayal for one. That too is in the New Testament. Another risk of intimacy is the failure of inclusion. I suspect that it is the tendency of church families to become as closed as biological families that lies behind Hadaway's finding.

What is the answer to this tension between intmacy and inclusion? More intmacy. More openness to each other amid conflict, trusting that if we invite Jesus into our conversation, then mutual understanding and reconciliation will bloom and grow. That kind of open intimacy will always make room for new brothers and sisters in Christ.

Well, there have certainly been some changes in our worship over the past two weeks, and I very much appreciated hearing your comments. At least one suggestion will be implemented next Sunday. The cafeteria table that becomes our altar will be placed in front of the congregation, with the chairs arranged in a semi-circle around it.

As I've processed the concerns I heard this morning, they seem to revolve around, 1) the tension between habit and tradition, and 2) the tension between intimacy and inclusion. In this posting, I'll deal with the first tension. Later this week, I'll discuss the second.

Habit and Tradition
When it comes to matters of the Church, habits are customary practices that become known by a community without their always having to be spelled out. Not all habits are bad. They make it possible for members of the community to function without having to ask at every moment, "What do we do now?" But habits are not tradition.

The word "tradition" comes from the Latin tradito, which means, "to deliver." As Episcopalians, we say that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary for salvation. It is one thing to say that you agree with Holy Scripture, another to live out with other followers of Jesus Christ. As Jesus's followers have lived out those truths, they have developed practices that embody those truths. In that way, we move from a purely intellectual agreement to a living faith in community.

"Tradition" is the delivering of those practices and understandings to the next generation of Christians. As each generation lives out their faith in changing circumstances, they adapt what was delivered to them while still seeking to remain faithful to the wisdom of their ancestors in faith.

This "delivering" is not the same as photocopying. But it seeks to ensure that the "Church" of today is essentially the Church of two millennia ago.

The question remains, what constitutes "tradition" in our worship, and what is habitual? The most authoritative guide I know of in understanding the Christian tradition of Worship is Dom Gregory Dix's The Shape of the Liturgy. What Dix says about Christian worship in its earliest days in the Roman Empire speaks powerfully to our own day.

Contrary to our assumption of worship "as essentially a public activity," the Church of the Apostles "regarded all Christian worship, and especially the Eucharist, as a highly private activity." After all, the first Eucharist took place in an "upper room" of a private house (Mark 14: 12-15).

The spacious rooms of Roman nobles who converted to Christianity provided the perfect place to continue this domestic tradition of the Christian family renewing their connections to each other, and to their Lord and Savior. Even after public places of worship were built in the 3rd century, "the model seems to have been furnished by the private house and not the pagan temple or the Jewish synagogue."

In fact, for at least the first two centuries, the word "church" did not refer to a building, but to the people assembled for worship, wherever that might be, and with whatever materials the home provided.

No object is more important than a people united in devotion to God and each other as "living members" of Christ's Body. That is a "Tradition" worth delivering to our children.

To speak of the Church in these domestic, even familial terms, paints a picture of the Church as a family. This calls each of us to an intimate relationship with each other. There are two risks in such intimacy: vulnerability and exclusion. I'll explain more later this week.

What follows is the text of my sermon yesterday

The "congregation" of the people of Israel are on a journey. We as a church are also on a journey.

The People of Israel are somewhere between the land of their slavery and the Promised Land, good, broad, and filled with milk and honey. We also are in between. We are between the place that was taken from us and a "place" that none of us can see. And they, like we, have no idea when they will see that promise fulfilled, or even if they will make it that far.

Somewhat frequently, the congregation of the people of Israel wonder if they would be better off back where they come from. The challenge -- for them and us -- is to see the journey in the wilderness as the place where God who is Love calls us to be.

In last week's episode, they faced death by hunger, until God provided them food in a most unexpected way, with exhausted birds blown right to their feet, and manna that just seemed to appear in the trees in the cool dawn.

This week, they have wandered far from the oasis of Elim, with its 12 springs. Their canteens are running out, and there is no water in sight. People can survive for a longer time without food than without water. They see death staring them in the face, and they lose sight of the God who saved them from the Egyptians, and brought them quails and manna.

And once again, God brings within the range of their eyesight what was there all along, in the rock.

So, what "water" do we need? New people? Our own sacred place? Are we looking for God or someone else to provide those things? Or are they already in our midst?

Take "place." We want a place that we can call sacred -- a place where we can meet the living God and his son -- a "sacred" place. What makes a place "sacred?" Is it stained glass? Hearty looking stonework? Sturdy rich brown wood? An organ in a church with high ceilings and good acoustics? Or is it people who are committed to feeding each other, and in that feeding, being fed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

What God wants is not, first and foremost, beautiful buildings, but the hearts of the people in those buildings. And where you have such faithful people, then any place can be holy and sacred. How about a restaurant? After all, where was the first Eucharist, but in a room set aside for people to gather and eat together? How about a school cafeteria, gathered around a table? How about a home? The first Christians met in homes.

Maybe, rather than trying to recreate "church," we just need to make space where we can be the Church, not the building. Perhaps, if we think about finding the place that best allows us to feed each other with manna in the trees and water from the rock, then perhaps the water that flows from us will become a river flowing through this neighborhood. Then our neighbors may see a sacred place where they can bring their hopes and fears. And when they bring those hopes and fears, they can find that love and that peace which is beyond all understanding.

Where is our Promised Land? I have no more knowledge of that than Moses did. But until we get there, let's look to each other for the water that is in the rock.