Fr.
Tony’s Letter to the Trinitarians
November
2018
The
Prayer Book and Our Human Hearts
When
I hear people say they do not believe in God, I usually ask them what exactly
it is they don’t believe in. Hearing
them then describe a somewhat peevish, prudish, and abusive white guy with a
beard in the sky, I often find myself agreeing, “I don’t believe in that
either!” They often add that they hate
the triumphalism, close-mindedness, and mono-manic tribalism of many
traditional Christians; I again find myself agreeing. None of these abusive and abused images of
God and faith are what Jesus taught, and they simply do not cohere with what my
experience is. The God I celebrate and worship is beneath and
behind all things, and is best seen in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Interestingly,
the affirmations and prayers we find in the Prayer Book tend more toward
simplicity, parsimony. It is more
connected to our experience and doubts by what it implies and assumes rather
than simply in what it asserts.
The
Prayer Book uses the Apostles’ Creed for the Daily Office and Baptisms. In it, we affirm our faith in God the Father
and Jesus Christ, as well as the Holy Spirit.
Affirming such as faith in and of itself tells us that we do not have
certain knowledge of God’s existence, but rather faith, what Paul calls the
assurance of things unseen. We also
affirm our faith in “the holy catholic Church, the
communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and
the life everlasting.” Even recognizing
the church as holy and universal is a matter of faith, not something certainly demonstrated
by evidence and reason. Affirming our
faith in the forgiveness of sins tells us much about our day to day tendency to
doubt the possibility of change or forgiveness.
We often pray the Collect for
Guidance: “Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We
humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the
cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that
we are ever walking in your sight.” Such
a prayer makes no sense if we did not have a near universal tendency to forget
that we are in the presence of God. It
admits the cares and preoccupations we have in daily life. Similarly, we pray in last week’s collect “that
we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command.” Again, the assumption is that we tend not to
love what God commands, and we need help to get there.
As Saint Paul writes in 2
Corinthians, we “walk by faith and not by sight.” Contrary to the usual triumphalist image of
people of faith, we do not walk in certitude, occasionally assaulted by a doubt
here or there. In day to day life, most
of us live as people of faith, dealing with real life, beset by fears, doubts,
and wondering if this is really all there is.
But moments of light and grace break in, and give us glimpses of glory
and hope. And we grab onto these and
cherish them.
And the Prayer Book helps us feel
them when they happen, and see them when such glimpses of glory flash before
our eyes.
Grace and Peace.
--Fr. Tony+
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