CWOB - Communion without Baptism?

 

                                   Communion Without Baptism?

     This summer (2022), the Episcopal Church will convene its once every three years General Convention.  Typically, a multitude of resolutions are proposed - some of which enter into the life and practice of Episcopal congregations, and most of which do not move forward.  One resolution which has been proposed suggests that the requirement to be baptized in order to receive Holy Eucharist or Communion be removed.  

     As you might imagine, this has generated significant reaction and response from around the Church.  Here are links to several sources including a paper from an impressive gathering of scholars who teach at our seminaries. HERE  It argues strongly against changing the practice.  Also below is an article from the Episcopal News Service which explores the issue.  HERE.

    Both sides are strongly persuaded of rightness of their own position, and the proposed resolution has generated a number of questions for me.  Here are some of my questions:

    *The Church, like most organisms, needs healthy boundaries and identifying marks.  Does the requirement for Holy Baptism to partake of Holy Communion strengthen or undermine our boundaries and identity?

    *Would this action strengthen or diminish the centrality of Holy Baptism? What about Confirmation?

    *Would this increase the trajectory toward Church as a spectator sport with no real commitment required or does it give a wider on-ramp?

    *Is evangelism ever an appropriate use for the sacraments?

    *  Is this a capitulation to a culture of low to no commitment where nothing is off-limits or is this the equivalent of removing the requirement of circumcision to be a Christian? (see Galatians.)

    *  What about the example of Jesus' baptism as he began his ministry?  What about his command to baptize?  Also, consider the response of the Ethiopian eunuch and the jailer upon hearing about the Good News of God in Christ Jesus for the first time.

       All of these questions and more need to be carefully considered in making a decision like this which is such a break with our tradition.  Here is the bottom line for me...    One has to ask, "what is the problem they are trying to solve?"  I think CWOB is being proposed as a form of welcoming evangelism and suspect the proponents are asking, "how can we grow the Church which seems to be dying - especially in the wake of Covid?"   I believe they are asking the right question but proposing the wrong remedy. 

The truth is, I believe we need to make the case for faith community ALL OVER AGAIN!  American Christendom is gone (TBTG).  Perhaps, we need to start with house churches.  Who knows? 

I'd be interested in what other people think.

Holy Innocents - May 24, 2022

 

                                                         Icon written by Suzanne Zoole

O Lord, you welcomed little ones with open arms, may we remember today all the children  who have been victims to gun violence so that those who weep for the little ones they have lost may not be alone in their sorrow.  And, dear Lord, may you give us wisdom, courage and the will to act to remove this sickness from our land. Amen. 

A Blessed Fifty Days of Easter to You!

 

Almighty and Everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation:  Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

A Blessed Great Fifty Days of Easter to You All!

A Blessed Holy Saturday to You

 

From Jeremy Thomas at JEREMY THOMAS ART

 

Awkward - Maundy Thursday Meditation from Ronald Rolheiser

 

The Humility of Jesus - Lance Brown

                                                            A Basin and Towel

We might find it curious that on Holy Thursday, when we are celebrating the institution of the Eucharist, the Gospel is taken from John’s version of the Last Supper. Where the other Gospels have Jesus taking bread and wine and consecrating it, John has him taking a basin and towel and washing his disciples’ feet. What has this to do with Eucharist?

Everything! Scholars estimate that John’s Gospel was written somewhere between AD 90–100, seventy some years after Jesus’ death. John (if he himself actually did the writing) would be a man well into his nineties, and he would have been a man who had now seen more than seventy years of church life. Seventy years of church life then were like seventy years of church life now. They fought about almost everything! Not least, about the Eucharist. How often should it be celebrated? To what aspect of Jesus’ life and teaching should it be most attached? Who presides? By the time John wrote his Gospel, there were already different and competing theologies about the Eucharist in the early church.

Hence, rather than highlighting the bread and wine at the Last Supper, John highlights instead the basin and towel. By doing this, the ninety-something beloved disciple, in substance, is saying: This is what the Eucharist means. It asks us to move beyond our divisions and reach across our differences by this kind of humility.

As a priest, I have always found the actual ritual of washing feet during the Holy Thursday liturgy to be awkward. There is no aesthetic way of doing this. For years, I hated the ritual until one day I realized that awkwardness was an essential part of it. It is meant to be awkward because it is awkward and uncomfortable to reach across to others when there are differences. We do it anyway, because it has everything to do with Eucharist.

Fr. Ronald Rolheiser

Ronald Rolheiser, OMI, teaches at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas, where he served as president for fifteen years. His books are popular throughout the English-speaking world, and his weekly column is carried by more than seventy newspapers worldwide.

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National Champions, Baby!

     So proud of the Gamecocks!  Well done, you awesome women!

Growing Up in Georgetown - Remembrances from my Mother.

 

Clock Tower, Now Rice Museum - Georgetown, SC

Photo by Tony Morano

   My mother, Sarah Bull Clarkson, (1926-2021) grew up in Georgetown, SC and penned this piece in 1993 for her high school reunion - Winyah High School- Class of 1944.  What an endearing glimpse of small-town life! 

Growing Up in Georgetown Was....

Having an entire town and county to roam totally unconcerned about safety.

Leaving doors unlocked.

Playing out after dark.

Going for Sunday afternoon rides around the Boulevard.

Attending Daily Vacation Bible School at the Baptist Church.

Meeting everybody in town in curlers and robes at house fires; the fire alarm being the town clock which gave the location of the fire.

Having the ice wagon come every day, and groceries delivered from C. L. Ford Mercantile Company.

May Day parades down Front Street ending at the Turner's big yard on Prince Street for the May Pole dance, games and costume contest.

Going to the Strand Theater every Saturday; being in love with Gary Cooper, trying to walk like Bette Davis, and wishing I could look like Loretta Young. All the while avoiding the gum stuck under the seats.

Being scared of our Principal, Mr. Bynum, or "Gum Shoe" as we called him very privately.

Taking half-dead cats to Dr. Phillip Assey, M.D. for medical care.

Remembering Halloween night as a young child, dragging trolley cars made of shoe boxes with tissue paper stain glass windows and a lighted candle inside. In later years, harassing the neighbors by ringing their doorbell and hiding. There were no treats, only tricks.

Seeing the wash women walking with huge loads of laundry balanced on their heads with all the dignity of African queens.

Living in peace and harmony with our black neighbors literally neighbors - for most of those years.

Waking up in the dark dawn on Christmas, hearing the black people singing carols as they walked through town.

Remembering teachers Misses Minnie and Birdie Condon, and Miss Ethel Bellune.

Remembering the Gladstone Hotel, the Atlantic Coast Lumber Company, Buster Brown shoes, Fogel's Department Store, and Mr. Maness’ unisex barber shop.

BEING A WINYAH HIGH GATOR WAS:

Cheering the football team on Friday nights. We knew that our team (1943 — 44) led by Jack Miller and "Bird" Bourne was the very best ever.

Detesting every teenager in Andrews sight unseen.

Mr. William Young's Latin class.

Being compared unfavorably with my older and smarter siblings by Miss Sadie Hazzard.

Aggravating Miss Pence during Glee Club practice so that she stamped a foot breaking off a high heel much to our delight.

Being in the Miss Georgetown beauty pageant and losing to a beautiful and blonde Frances Cameron.

Remembering the time Jane Woodcock turned up with orange hair having washed it in Octagon soap and then sat in the sun.

Playing "spin the bottle" at Janie Harrelson's house.

Remembering a very hip Jack Blount and his band.

Decorating the high school gymnasium with crepe paper festoons.

Yearning for the Evening In Paris in the window of Isman's Drug Store. The cobalt blue bottles of cologne and boxes of powder nestled in white satin evoking dreams of romance.

Sitting in the porch swing at the McKinney's, sipping blackberry acid with Mary, Johnnie Doyle, and Jane Skinner.

Dancing the Big and the Little Apple at Pawley’s Island Pavilion.

Milk shakes at the Milk Bar after school.

Drinking cherry cokes with ammonia at the drug store.

Dates at the Whistling Pig Drive-In.

Riding in the rumble seat of Bobby Mahon’s cool Ford Coupe.

BEING IN GEORGETOWN DURING THOSE YEARS WAS:

Living with a large assortment of interesting and eccentric people; some of whom today would most certainly be in the mental health system. Learning tolerance, understanding, and appreciation of the infinite variety of the human family that made up Georgetown.

Like most of our families enduring the poverty that was the Depression, and at the same time being wealthy beyond belief in everything that was of any importance whatsoever.

Written April 1993 on the occasion of the reunion of the classes of Winyah High School

Georgetown, South Carolina

1943 and 1944.

Sarah Bull Clarkson

Class of 1944