LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI - THE OPEN HEART

This homily was delivered at Christ Episcopal Church in Yankton, South Dakota on January 7, 2018, the First Sunday after Epiphany.

Lex orandi, lex credendi is a Latin phrase that comes to us from a little known fifth century theologian, Prosper of Aquitaine.  The literal translation of this phrase is “The law of prayer (is) the law of belief,” or “What we pray reflects what we hold true in our hearts.” Lex orandi, lex credendi is part of our Christian and Anglican heritage. 

During this interim period, while we are searching for a rector, I would like to share some reflections on this heritage by taking a closer look at the prayers we use and probing some of the  nooks and crannies, maybe even a rubric or two, found in the Book of Common Prayer that tell us something about ourselves.

Our Book of Common Prayer identifies churches of the Episcopal Church, first and foremost, as places of Prayer and Praise. We take seriously what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew (quoting the prophet Isaiah), “My house shall be called a House of Prayer.”[1]  

Prayer shapes us and how we see and interact with the world we live in. What we say also says something of who we are. Corporate prayer is a shared intercommunicative process that presents us as a unit in an intentional act of communing with God. In other words, coming together in a service like Morning Prayer or Holy Communions adds a deeper dimension to communing with God, as doing so involves communing with one another as the body of Christ. 

Corporate prayer and worship enacts what Jesus said is the greatest commandment: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind’ and the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” [2] Our coming together to worship and pray is a visible sign and symbol of such love in the world.  This is perhaps the most important gift our small congregation offers our community and those seeking to better know the God who knows us better than ourselves – the unifying love of God in Christ

In our increasingly polarized world where we can find ourselves divided on so many levels, it is in our common prayers that we find common ground and common purpose. Our prayers cross boundaries and collect us into a unified voice regardless of any apparent differences that exist. It is in the prayers that have be said by Christians throughout the ages that give us the assurance that differences can be set aside in the face of the mutual needs and  in expressing gratitude  for the grace of God that sustains us in faith. 

The prayers in our prayer book are made up of canticles, collects, confessions, litanies, prayers of the people, sacramental prayers, suffrages, thanksgivings, and much more. All the prayers are highly crafted and present an economic use of words; saying a great deal in a few short statements. 

One of the advantages to the prayers in our prayer book is that they can be said with great intention. You can study them, meditate on them, and think them through before saying them.  Taking a few brief moments before the start of the service to look at the Collect for the Day and the other prayers allows one to say those prayers from the depth of one’s heart and with the totality of one’s mind and soul.

Prayer is also a kenotic act – an act of emptying ourselves – of letting go and letting God.  Anyone who has been involved in Centering Prayer or any form of contemplative prayer has experienced this practice of mindfully letting go and letting God.  In corporate worship, the use of liturgical prayer is likewise intended help us let go of the smaller self, the ego, in order to engage the large self, the Body of Christ.

So I want to start this series by briefly examining the familiar kenotic prayer said at the beginning of every Holy Eucharist service, a prayer we should be familiar with: 

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid:  Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord.  Amen[3]

This prayer is all about the heart, the core of our being.  And by core of our being, I mean that the heart is where our God- image dwells – the essence of that being in which we move, live, and have our being.[4] So it should not come as any surprise that our hearts are open to God; that God knows our desires better than we can express them, that there is nothing to hide from God and nothing that can be hid from God.  

Although God is addressed as Almighty, we know that God is mightily in love with us – loves us deeper than we can love ourselves. In this prayer, we acknowledge God as intimately knowing us beyond the limited perception of our minds. There is no need to fear God knowing our desires and secrets. Rather, we should feel a sense of comfort in knowing that we don’t have a need for pretense or trying to find the right words to express what it is we desire when seeking God’s help.  

This prayer then asks that our hearts be cleansed- emptied of the bothersome clutter of our thoughts – the anxieties, the emotional baggage, the fear, the hatred and the wrong-minded desires and have them be replaced with the breath of our origin – the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – the purity of our original being. In that perfection – the perfection of God’s image – we can love God as our true parent, and in that love, encounter a love for all, that Love which words alone cannot express. 

We end this prayer, as we end most collects as the collective body of Christ, whose name we bear as our own – the name of Christ who claims us as his own. 

This is why we come to this place.  This is why we worship:

To empty ourselves of all that is selfish and small minded; 

To find our true made-in-the-image of God selves, to reclaim and proclaim our original state of grace, to be renewed by God’s life-giving Spirit;

To commune with our larger self, the Body of Christ;

To love God perfectly, if only for a moment;

And this is why we keep coming:

Because once we walk out of these doors, we will encounter a world that is alluring, deceptive, and imperfect; in short, a world of our making that needs much forgiveness, much healing, and much love. 

And if during this next week we are inspired by this brief moment to bring about such forgiveness, healing, and love for just one person; if we garner in these brief moments of prayerful worship enough personal integrity and faith to kenotically dispense the grace offered us here to others, the world will be a better place.

Amen.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

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[1] See Isaiah 56:7 and Matthew 21:13

[2] Matthew 22: 37 - 39

[3] “The Book of common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church together with the Psalter or Psalms of David”  according to use of The Episcopal Church, The Church Hymnal Corporation, New York, 1979, page 355.

[4] Acts 17:28

PRAYER - LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI

This post marks the beginning of a series of posts on prayer.  The small Episcopal church I attend is in the process of searching for a new priest as our former priest has retired.  As a result, the laity of our church has had to take on the role of conducting worship services in the form of Morning Prayer, a particularly familiar service to those in the Anglican Communion.

As my church's organist, I usually don't officiate, but I frequently give the homily during Morning Prayer.  During this interim period between priests I am working on a series of homilies based on the prayers found in The Book of Common Prayer.  I have named the series, "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi" after the phrase coined by Prosper of Aquitaine, a disciple of Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century. I will be sharing these homilies or portions of them in this series. Before doing so, however, I would like to explore the topic of prayer and the manner in which I am using Prosper's phrase.

WHAT IS PRAYER?

Prayer is defined in many ways:  a conversation with a divine or spiritual other, contemplation, intercession, meditation, supplication, worship to name a few.  Prayer is many things to many people. To define prayer, I am compelled to speak of it from a personal perspective in order to talk about it in a broader context.

FOXHOLES

What jumped into my mind as I began thinking about prayer is the saying,  "There are no atheists in a foxhole."   While the veracity of that saying is questionable, what brings this admittedly odd thought to my mind is that the foxhole represents the isolation that we humans face if left to fend for ourselves. Such a situation calls to mind the Impulse of Religion, the need of each other or the need of an other as a means of coping with an unembellished reality and the frailty of existence which we mostly go about ignoring until we find ourselves in one of life's foxholes.

Of course most people don't need a foxhole to bring them to prayer. The dramatic image of the foxhole, however, underscores the influence that human experience has on our attempts to reach beyond ourselves in order to appeal to and access a power beyond our collective and personal capabilities.  Prayer projects one to the position of a observer of a condition that is either personal or involving others or both.  All prayer has this projecting, observational quality.

To carry this analogy a bit further, the foxhole experience for the person on side A is like or likely to be a similar experience as the person on side B is having.  They may be considered enemies, but they are entangled by virtue of their mutual situations that has placed them in such a miserable sympathetic position.  Each understands the other's sense of deadly responsibility, misery, loneliness, vulnerability and desire for an end to being in a foxhole.  Over time and if in close proximity, their conditional mutuality can lead to a conversant camaraderie, even if for brief periodic moments, as was noted in accounts of those stuck in foxholes and the trenches of World War I.

ENTANGLEMENT

Entanglement is a term associated with Quantum Physics in which particles interact with each other even if divided by great distances so that if one particle reacts to a stimulus the other also reacts even though it wasn't subjected to a stimulus.  That's as far as I will delve into  quantum physics, but entanglement phenomena would appear to have relevance in the macro world we live in.  If this phenomena exists on a micro level, does it not carry over and exist on a macro/human level?  Science has yet to explain why two particles theoretically separated by light years will react simultaneously if only one particle is being stimulated.  What is their connection?

I believe prayer intuitively expresses this mysterious phenomenon in the form of a person being affected in some reciprocal manner by reaching out to one another by appeal or prayer.  One can call this reciprocal reaching out intentionality.  Naturally, this raises the question of  whether prayer is effective.

It is to those who experience it as such and that's as far I can go regarding its effectiveness.

There is no scientific proof that prayer is effective, but then again, there is no empirical answer to the question why particles at the quantum level react when separated by great distances at the same time or the ultimate why of me or the why of you; or the ultimate why I am sitting at my computer writing this post or why you are reading it at this particular time on the other side of the globe, and so it goes on and on.  The simple, unexplainable inference is that we are interconnected in various ways and at various levels with each other and the entire cosmos.

A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

As a Christian, I have come to see prayer as an intimate experience that oddly is not so much projected out into the macrocosm as it is projected into the microcosm of my own being.  I have come to appreciate that at the core of my being lies a repository of human experience embedded in my made-in-the-image-of God-self that I share with others .  I believe this is true for all humans and for all creation. In other words, connecting with my own microcosmic (personal) experiences ultimately puts me in connection to that Being in which we all live and move and have our being.

This is not always how I understood prayer.  For most of my life, prayer was something I projected out and "up" to an imaginary realm of God and an imaginary image of what I thought God must be.  I say imaginary because that was the only way I could visualize who God is and where God resides. I have since moved away from such imaginary visualizations and pay more attention to what I feel.

Today, prayer for me is personally directed to the seat of my feelings, the heart which I will talk about further along in these posts. For me, God is not only out there and all about but is both intimate and imminent - a heartbeat away and as near as my own breath.

I find that prayer deepens me as I get older.  I find myself easily conversant with the God-particle of my being.  I think this is because I have come to experience many things and I am now at an age and in a position to examine the value of those experiences as the transfiguring moments they were which have brought about a deeper understanding and appreciation of the life I am part of. Prayer comes quickly and is done quickly.  I'm a minimalist when it comes to prayer, perhaps that is because I am influenced by my Episcopalian affiliation. 

I belong to the prayer group in my church.  When there is a request for prayer, the information is about as sparse as it can be unless the person making the request wants to forward specific information about a need, but for the most part the only information the members of this group receives is a first name and request for comfort, guidance, healing, peace, and God's presence. 

That's it, and that's all we need.  We don't need specifics.  I don't need to know who the person is in any detail beyond being a person; an individual made in the image of God like myself. All I need is a name, and a request for prayer.  After all the named person shares this life with me and whatever her or his need is I have only to delve into my inner experiences with doubt, suffering, anxiety, the will to carry on experienced in faith, the longing for resolution experienced in hope, and the type of pain experienced in deep love will fill in the blanks; for these feelings are ever-present in a request for prayer.  And in no time at all, I am finding myself one with that person and the person's loved ones which leads me to breathe a word of prayer for all concerned.

CORPORATE PRAYER

What about corporate prayer?

As an Episcopalian and part of the broader Anglican Communion, I am very fond of the Book of Common Prayer.  It's prayers; particularly, its collects are well-crafted, saying a great deal in a few short statements.  The prayer book is, itself, a study in prayer and its very forms.

Prayers in the Book of Common Prayer are brought to the level of a fine art. If you want to know what we Episcopalians believe and how we see the world; how we understand God, how we relate to Christ Jesus, read our prayers.  What I find intriguing in corporate prayer and especially in the well-crafted prayers found in liturgical services known as collects, litanies, suffrages, and other prayers of intercession and thanksgiving is that they shape the perspective of the person who prays them.

Formal prayer is not everyone's cup of tea.  The notion of spontaneous prayer has been promoted by some as being more heartfelt and more directed in its intentionality to a specific need of a person or congregational concern.  Let me be clear that I do not object to spontaneous prayer, but I would point out that such prayers seem, at least to me, to have a form and prescribed manner that identifies them as being spontaneous which in turn, permits one to readily identify the person's denominational affiliation.

Formal prayer runs the risk of being said with little or no thought, but for those of us who use them regularly, we know when they're missing or a word is changed, which is to say that these prayers become part of who we are which brings me to Prosper's statement. 

LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI

The law of prayer (is) the law of belief. 

Where was Prosper of Aquitaine when the Council of Nicea met? 

He was on to something that the council could have used; that prayer and our beliefs are enmeshed.  Lex orandi, lex credendi is a bit ambiguous.  What Prosper was getting at is that how we pray (and he gives prayer a broad definition that includes liturgical worship) shapes what we believe.  Being equivalent statements, however, permits one to reverse the order and conclude that what we believe shapes our prayers and the way we Christians worship.

BELIEVE AND FAITH

As most of my readers are aware of by now, I am cautious when it comes to using words like belief and believes in my theological musings, but one cannot escape its relevance in Western Christianity and Western thought.   To recap my cautious approach to using belief-language in theological discussion is that it skews the meaning of faith-language (trusting without knowing) found in the original Greek texts of the New Testament where faith is used as a verb, which then became translated in Germanic and Latin languages as believe. In its Greek verb form, faith is not synonymous with believe.

Having said that, believe has become the predominant term used to express the active form of faith in Western thought. It was obviously used in Western Christianity by Proper's time in the fifth century.  What is important to understand is that the reason for the odd correlation between believe and acting in faith is the connection both terms have with the heart. Believe is Germanic in origin and is etiologicaly connected to beloved,as something loved in the heart.  Credo or credendi is also etiologicaly connected to cor, the Latin word for heart. Faith as trust is also more a matter of the heart than of the head. The problem is that the terms believe and belief  have evolved in Western thought to become matters of the mind rather than the heart. 

A MATTER OF THE HEART

Lex orandi, lex credendi is best understood as a matter of the heart. The equivalency of these two terms allows for a circular interplay between them.  What brings us to prayer are our deepest, heartfelt needs that engage the affective elements of life in Christ described by Paul: faith, hope, and love.  When cognitively engaged, these elements bring us to God in the form of prayer where heart and mind meld intentionally.   As such, prayer becomes the deepest expression of faith. Prayer is the most personal form of creed. Ultimately, prayer shapes one from the heart up.

COLLECTED

The same principles mentioned above are involved in corporate prayer.  The term Collect is used to describe a prayer in liturgical worship that is a collection of short petitions intended to be said in a collective setting such as a congregation. One of the subtle and most important aspects of these ancient and thought-through liturgical prayers is that they break down the ideological  barriers that separate us.  They collect us as one heart, one mind, and direct our collective attention and intention in common purpose.  They have been said for centuries and remain relevant in every age they are said and that is why I find them so meaningful and important in this age.

This coming together in prayer is demonstrated in the Episcopal Churches I know and in most liturgically-based denominations.  The Episcopal Church was once noted as being "The Republicans at Prayer."  That is no longer the case. 

The Episcopal Church in the U.S. is very diverse today and in those brief and treasured moments of worship an interesting phenomenon occurs.  No matter what our political, social, economic, or even our religious views are we become collected as a family of faith directing our intentions in common purpose as expressed in our ancient, traditional prayers, and that is a beautiful thing to behold and be part of.

Prayers that are thoughtfully written serve as a catechism on life, a life grounded in source of our being, God, and for Christians, grounded in the experience of Christ Jesus.  Ultimately, such prayers, as do all prayers, finds their effectiveness in shaping who we are as individuals and collectively as a world.

Until next time, stay faithful.

KEEPING FAITH IN GOVERNMENT - Standing with the students of Douglas Stoneman High School

The students from Douglas Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida are an inspiration to all U.S. citizens and to all who care about the liberties defined by our nation's Constitution.  After the devastation experienced at Sandy Hook Elementary School  in Newtown Connecticut, I had drafted a letter that I didn't send because I thought two things:

First, that it was pointless to send it to my state's congressional delegation because it would fall on deaf ears.

Second, I was convinced that given the horrendous impact that event had on this nation, something surely would be done.  I was wrong on both accounts.

I have kicked myself for not sending that letter ever since, not because I believe my letter would have changed the minds of the congressional leaders of my state, but because in not saying something I was doing nothing and caving to a sense of hopelessness that can become pervasive if not checked.

What has checked my sense of hopelessness is the courage demonstrated by a group of high school students directly impacted by the horror of seeing their classmates gunned down.  What has given me hope in their generation is that when others attempted to vilify the shooter as "crazy" or a "monster," some reacted with anger and shock at the use of such language being applied to another human being. 

What has given me faith and has given me hope in and for our nation is the students of Douglas Stoneman High School who have taken up the issue of gun violence in the public space in a way that is not only poignant but influential and powerful.  Their appeals to their own state legislature and to the governing entities of our nation is truly inspiring.  More importantly, their ability to listen to those opposing gun regulation and reason without anger or vitriol demonstrates a level of maturity that often is lacking in the halls of government. 

This time I cannot sit back and say nothing while these courageous students take up a cause they shouldn't have had to.  So I am compelled by conscience to stand with them, and to that end I have sent the following letter my state's congressional delegation in Washing D.C.:

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Dear Representative Noem, Senator Rounds, and Senator Thune

In January 2013 I started to write a letter to our state’s congressional delegation after the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  I never sent that letter because I felt that surely something would be done to protect the public from a lone shooter with an automatic gun.  Nothing was done.

Since that time there have been multiple incidents of mass shootings:  of congregants having a Bible study at church in North Carolina, of patrons of night club in Orlando Florida, of an audience at an open air concert in Los Vegas, to name a few.  Here we are, five years Sandy Hook, talking about another school shooting, this time in Parkland Florida at the Douglas Stoneman High School. 

Each time something like this occurs, I go back to our nation’s Constitution and wonder why its Preamble receives such little attention in the debate about gun regulation.  

“We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity, do ordain and establish the CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.”

The Preamble to the Constitution is the one part of the Constitution that is sacrosanct and unamendable; that should it change the Constitution would be void.  Every other part of the Constitution is contextual both in its history and in its applicability, including the amendments known as the Bill of Rights.  As such, the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights is also contextual both in its history and applicability.  Unlike the Preamble, the Second Amendment is not sacrosanct nor is it unamendable.  

If the Second Amendment is to be protected, it must answer to the context of the age in which it is being applied.  Congressional failure to address gun violence and regulate the proliferation and sale of military-grade guns such as the AR-15 to our nation’s civilian population is a failure of constitutional proportions. 

That Congress has done nothing to stem the sale of military-grade guns serves only to undermine the purpose of the Constitution stated in its Preamble.  As such, Congress appears negligent in establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and in securing the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity.

When this nation lacked a standing military force and adequate law enforcement entities in the late eighteenth century, Congress relied on the local citizenry to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility as mandated by the Constitution because it did not have the means to do so nationwide.  At that time, Congress acted responsibly in ratifying the Second Amendment.  A historical fact relevant to our time is that the Second Amendment was written at a time when guns were single-load weapons.

Today, we have a standing military, established law enforcement agencies, and military-grade automatic guns designed to cause massive casualties being legally marketed and sold to our civilian population with very little legal oversight. We also have a civilian population periodically targeted by individuals to whom these guns are being sold to.  The type of guns being sold and the unlimited amount of guns that can be legally owned by an individual is, in itself, a dramatic contextual shift from the time in which the Second Amendment was ratified.

When the Second Amendment was drafted, gun ownership was a necessity in providing for a well-regulated militia.  That context has change, and Congress must, for the sake of our constitutionally ordained liberties recognize the glaring fact staring our nation in the face:  It is easier to regulate things than it is to regulate people; in particular, the individual armed with an automatic gun.  This fact, so readily dismissed by many in Congress has been well established by other liberty-loving, democratic nations who have strict gun laws which have greatly reduced gun violence in those nations. 

Our mental health system certainly requires help, but improvements in mental health alone will not prevent an undetected psychopath armed with such a weapon who is intelligent and has no regard for his or her own life or that of anyone else; who if faced with the prospect of being killed will likely take out as many people possible, as was notably demonstrated in the case of the Los Vegas shooter.

What Congress can immediately do to curb gun violence is to regulate guns, a creation we humans made and something we can control.  Guns, per se, are not protected by the Second Amendment.  The Second Amendment is there to protect the basis upon which the Constitution was written, its Preamble.  In today’s context, such protection extends to the regulation of military-grade guns being sold to civilians.  

The ignored reality is that the legal sale and proliferation of military-grade guns has resulted in allowing individuals to act as militias unto themselves, vigilantes who take it upon themselves to right the wrongs they perceive others have done to them.  Any person who commits such horrendous acts will be likely diagnosed after the fact as having some form of mental health disorder that went undetected or untreated.

Perhaps the broader mental health question applicable today is why any civilian would own such a gun as an AR-15; much less numerous guns of that type.   Is it because they are led to believe that our government is the enemy or could become the enemy as some militant groups do – a sign of paranoia?  Is it the thrill of watching things being decimated for the sake of recreation as some claim – a sign of underlying insecurity and/or an expression of delusional fantasy?   Is it because Congress does nothing but tell the People of the United States that we must fend for ourselves (as in arming public school teachers) because it lacks the will to regulate a thing made by humans to cause massive casualties?

I respectfully ask you to act and end gun violence by fulfilling the mandate of our Constitution’s Preamble in this age by regulating the sale and proliferation of military-grade guns to civilians.  I am confident that the force of law will prove more effective in protecting our public spaces from gun violence than relying on the use of force by civilians armed with automatic weapons to do so. 

Sincerely,

Norman Wright

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Until next time, stay faithful.