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The Very Rev. N. DeLiza Spangler St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo A friend, who is both an Episcopalian and a musician, recently visited here in Buffalo. After attending both the 11:15 Eucharist and the Sunday Evensong [at St. Paul's Cathedral], she said, "Beauty is so important, so central to worship - at least for me." In that statement, she spoke worlds about being an Episcopalian. We do tend to be a people who are brought closer to Christ through not just the theology but the poetry of our liturgy, the power of music and the beauty of everything from the building to the vestments.But something which is far more unique about us as Episcopalians is that we don't claim to have a corner on "the Truth." I remember talking with a woman some time ago who had "dropped out" of her church years before. In response to her questions about the Episcopal Church, I said something about what a wonderful tradition I thought ours was but that, of course, we didn't believe we were the only true Church. She was stunned, saying that she'd never come across a Christian who didn't claim their Church was "the one." I've thought about her surprise a number of times and have decided that maybe that's one reason Episcopalians are a relatively joyful lot: we don't have to expend our energy defending our "one and only truth." That seems to me not only a very wearing task, but also a dishonest one - as if any one Christian tradition could contain the whole truth about God in Christ. Five years ago, Dr. Louie Crew, emeritus professor of English at Rutgers University, compiled a small book entitled 101 Reasons to be Episcopalian. It has statements from a variety of people, statements both profound and on the lighter side, from "When Anglicanism is at its best, its liturgy, its poetry, its music and its life can create a world of wonder in which it is very easy to fall in love with God" to "The seasons are color-coded." In his introduction, Dr. Crew states that in the Episcopal Church we believe "...God loves us before we decide whether we love God...Here it is safe to doubt, because no one will force us to claim a certainty we don't feel. Most of us can probably say the Creed without setting off a lie detector, but we rejoice that the Episcopal Church doesn't require one. Do we care about belief? Yes, passionately. Do we care about God and Jesus? Yes, passionately. But we know that we don't have a corner on the truth. We know that we don't have priority access to God and Jesus..." Being an Episcopalian is about being brought together not by a common set of "right" beliefs but by common prayer: the common worship of a God who has revealed his graciousness toward us in Christ. We need not spend our energy proving our rightness, but rejoicing in God's goodness: a God who loves us before we love him, whose grace accepts our doubts and whose love can move us through them. We rejoice as Episcopalians, not because we have a corner on the truth, but because through our tradition we have met God in the flesh in Jesus Christ. This incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ is the one Truth. It is a Truth that doesn't require us to defend our particular tradition's "rightness." It is, rather, a Truth that calls us to rejoice in what God has done for us - and for all others - in Jesus Christ. |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, June 02, 2008 ) |
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