Sarx

Green Shirt Thursday

2 July 2009 - 11 תמוז 5769 by Huw

Green Shirt Thursday

Originally uploaded by w.wabbit.

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O WE WERE Sipping tea in the church, a clergy friend and I, relaxing in that most Orthodox of fashion: making Eucharist and fellowship with our ginger beer and crisps after a really smashing pot luck. We were discussing “What makes it Christian community” – that is a church or a meal or whatever. And I found myself suddenly quoting an old friend and sometime reader of these pages, Donald, who caught me in my frustration one day, in the parish office. He offered the following answer to that question:

We gather in Christ’s name to do the things he commanded us to do.

Suddenly I understood it – in the saying of it. It’s not a doctrine or a credo, but it cuts past all of those things. It allows for inclusion or exclusion (I can imagine a group doing things that clearly are not what Jesus commanded) and yet… and yet… it seems to make the widest space possible around God’s table whereat each of us is guest and all of us are host.
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Tags: doctrine, eucharist, fellowship, open communion, orthodoxy, radically open communion

Posted in emergent, orthoparadoxy | No Comments »

No Fear

30 June 2009 - 9 תמוז 5769 by Huw

TEXTS FOR Proper 8 (13), June 28, 2009
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
Psalm 130
Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24
Psalm 30
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43

Do not fear, only believe.

HIS BUILDS ON LAST Week’s readings – The disciples crossing the water with Jesus asleep in the boat. They wake him up because the storm is getting too bad – Jesus calms the storm and goes back to sleep. They come to land and very first thing is this man’s daughter, then the bleeding woman…

I said at church last week (comments not published) that I was reminded of the way we all get on with our lives – Jesus might as well be sleeping – until some crisis hits.
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Posted in contemplation | No Comments »

New Altarware…

29 June 2009 - 8 תמוז 5769 by Huw

New Altarware…

Originally uploaded by w.wabbit.

Available from the Bethleham Bible College, this altar set follows the ancient canons of not using "vessels of gold". Other canons, of course, state exactly the reverse. Sign me up for confusion: this ain’t no organised religion!

I picked this set up in Kensington Market, Toronto.

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Posted in photoblog | 1 Comment »

The Annual Birthday Bleg

29 June 2009 - 8 תמוז 5769 by Huw

UMBER 45 Is upon me! Here’s 45 Gifts and one to grow on as suggestions… if you want to shop now, that is!

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Tags: amazon, birthday, bleg

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Toronto Pride 2009

29 June 2009 - 8 תמוז 5769 by Huw

Toronto Pride6.jpg

Originally uploaded by w.wabbit.

The pictures from TO Pride are posted to my flickr now. We bought this cool toy for our cameras…. many facets of pictures.

Brodie’s pics are also posted.

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Tags: gays, pride 2009, prideto, toronto

Posted in Teh Gay, photoblog | No Comments »

Sermon for Gay Pride Sunday

27 June 2009 - 6 תמוז 5769 by Huw

Preached on 24 June 2001 at St Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco… sorry for the repost: I’m in Toronto at the Pride Festival.

t’s my sense that both these readings that we’ve heard today talk about healing of one sort or another. The Gospel speaks of an internal healing, and the Epistle talks about an external healing in the community.

In October of 1986 Rolling Stone Magazine published an article called “AIDS on Campus.” The idea was to discuss how the sexual culture on college campuses had changed in the three or four years that AIDS had been part of public discourse, at that time. At the end of the article was a section called “Strange Bedfellows,” where the writer was talking about how AIDS had created very odd friendships. And in that section was a paragraph about a gay man who was a member of a college fraternity. And the gay man shared the story of his straight roommate, who was concerned that he might “catch AIDS” as they shared a joint, back and forth.

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Tags: gays, pride, sermon, sgn

Posted in Teh Gay, orthoparadoxy | 2 Comments »

ACNA+OCA=AOCANA?

26 June 2009 - 5 תמוז 5769 by Huw

ORD ON THE Street is that Mtr Jonah of the OCA told the new Anglicans that he would break off Ecumenical Discussions with ECUSA and take ‘em up with them.

I can’t find the transcript on the OCA site and can’t bring myself to listen. So maybe. (Although in the past not finding the transcript can mean the OCA is trying to hush it up. They do still get Ecumenical liberal moneys given to various of their charities.)

Does ACNA realise that the purpose of Orthodox ecumenism is NOT to recognise a protestant group as “church” but rather to make them Orthodox? As in, “Under the Omophor of Mtr Jonah”. Does the OCA realise that, despite their homophobia, the ACNA does let women preside and even allows for a level of Protestant Eucharistic “Memorialism” found in Baptist and other such circles? Does Jonah (who must need Neocon Money of Ahmanson REALLY bad) know what it means to crawl in bed with right wing American Protestants? If he’s followed the first generation of Evangelical Orthodox into their odd form of Antiochian convertitis, maybe?

I guess the answer to all of the above is yes. So there must be something else…

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Tags: anglicans, oca

Posted in church geekery | 6 Comments »

What to do for Pride.

26 June 2009 - 5 תמוז 5769 by Huw

RODIE AND I Will be in Toronto this weekend for Pride Festivities. It’s an intense party. In fact it’s about the best one I’ve seen and I’ve been for pride in Atlanta, New York, San Francisco and a few other, smaller cities around the USA. I’m reposting this. It’s what we all need for Pride Weekend, I think.

I know no one has asked. Many of you may not even know or care to know: Sunday the 26th is Gay Pride Day (or GLBTQF&F Pride day or something) in most major cities. Some cities will have held their festival last weekend – so that more people could go to some larger festival this weekend. How do we reach them? It’s too easy for the Neocons and the Pharisees in all denominations to just write off the sinners with some well-chosen and funny words related to sex acts. One conservative Episcopal priest – now a prominent Antiochian Orthodox priest who wrote this in their own (Antiochian) magazine – “Do people actually do… that?” He calls it the “Ick factor”. (I’ll bet he is a LOT of fun in confession!)

Here are people in God’s image. What are you going to do about it?

I once preached a Sermon at St Gregory of Nyssa Church on a Gay Pride Sunday. Several blocks away were hundreds of thousands of people who don’t feel welcomed in Church ignoring not only us – a liberal Episcopal parish – but every other Church as well. How do you get the Gospel to them? If you’re in Church on Sunday, depending on what kind of Church you have and what sort of city you live in, you may see some guests – or you may not. What can you do?

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