Sermon for St. Teresa of Avila The Rev. Conor M Alexander Christ and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Matthew 5:13-16 October 15, 2009 I’m always amazed at how much history repeats itself. I feel like the times we are living in today are wrought with a lot of the same problems that existed during the last reformation in the 15th and 16th centuries. When I see Churches filing lawsuits against one another, I wonder if we value our power and authority more than we value charity and love. When I attempt to pray the Daily Office, I realize how far we’ve strayed from Archbishop Cranmer’s original vision of simply reading through the Bible once per year. And when I hear senior clerics preaching that it doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you’re working for justice, I really have to wonder what happened to the faith that has made such a difference in my life. St. Teresa faced a lot of these same issues in her time. When she first entered the convent at age 20, she realized how lax the ...

I'm always delighted to come across another theological concept that I haven't considered. Lately it's the doctrine of "In Persona Christi" or "In the Person of Christ." In it's most basic sense, when a Catholic Priest celebrates the sacraments, he is not celebrating as himself, but in the person of Christ - that is, Christ is speaking through the priest during the Sacraments. In his sermon for the Holy Chrism Mass in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI expanded this concept and used it to describe the ministry of all the Baptized. For it is through our baptism that we exchange our old selves and put on Christ. This time the Holy Father uses the metaphor of clothing to describe the change that's affected when we become a member of God's family - the sacred exchange. God gave up all of God's glory to become human, so that we, in our humanity may obtain that glory through grace. How much more of an insult is it when we fail to put on that glory - God e...

This post sparked a nice discussion on the RMAX forum.  I wanted to share it here. Developing Flow and Christianity I'm always intrigued with Eastern traditions like Shaolin that integrate their physical and martial arts practices with their religion. It makes me a little envious since I'm not aware of a similar tradition within Christianity. If there is I'd really be interested in hearing about it. In Medieval times people participated in bodily mortifications, but they were more intended to damage the body in order to bring it's passions under control. What I'm working on now is a way of developing a healthy body in a way that consistent with the Gospel message. The biggest impact recently on this endevor came when I read N.T. Wright's "Surprised By Hope." Wright, a Bishop in the Church of England, challenges us to rethink the point of Christianity. He maintains that it's not, "Going to Heaven when you die," but rather that at the secon...

I've always thought that a community's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. I absolutley love the fact that Eucharist is our central form of worship on Sundays. There's something very mystical and transcendent in the liturgy, and we all know that Christ is present. At the same time Eucharist requires a mediator - a priest is set aside and is the only one authorized to celebrate. If we're not careful though we can fall into a trap that you need a priest for any type of ministry. This is simply not the case because there are a great number of ministries and liturgies that can be performed entirely by anybody - praying the daily office, fellowship with other Christians, visiting a sick person in the hospital or who is homebound, leading a Bible Study, etc. It reminds me of the postion the people of Israel found themselves in when they fashioned the golden calf. At first God spoke to the people directly, and gave them the 10 Commandments. But the people b...

Sermon for Proper 19 – Year A Matthew 18:21-35 The Rev. Conor M Alexander Christ and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Norfolk, VA 23507 9-14-2008 When I was a small boy I picked up the Lord of the Rings books for the first time. As I started reading them, I became engrossed in this world of orcs and wizards and magic rings … but at the same time I felt really out of place. I was reading the first book but I felt like I had missed something – as if there was a whole lot of back story that I had totally missed. I went back to my copy of the Hobbit and skimmed through the chapters – it was entertaining but nothing there about an ancient war that’s resurfacing. There was nothing there that gave me the background relationship between Gandolf, and Sauron and Sauromon. And yet for the characters in the book, they discussed these people as a matter of course. These relationships made perfect sense to them and they proceeded with their mission. For them it was completely natural, for me it wa...

There has been quite a lot of talk about the economy lately. Perhaps its the upcoming election, perhaps the sub-prime mortgage bubble, or maybe it's because the FDIC has just stated that it may have to borrow money from the federal reserve in order to make good on it's promises. There's a lot of talk on the part of both Barack Obama and John McCain on the policies they would like to implement in order to improve our economy. The problem I see in all of this is that each candidate wants the government to fix things, so that life can go on as usual for the people in America. I think our economic problems go far beyond a deficit in the government. We are a society of excess and we're consuming all of our resources. Just look at the amount of credit card debt, mortgage debt, consumer debt, student loan debt that we amass as a society. All this in the name of 'getting ahead' and 'living the American dream.' Yes there are unscrupulous practices in the f...

Note: This post was originally done on Facebook on August 2. Although this is day 5 this will be my first post on our mission trip. It's been an interesting couple of days. We arrived last Tuesday after a day of travelling and have been spending time in Managua. Every year a group of us come down early to purchase pots and other crafts from the locals. We then send it back to Norfolk, sell it during coffee hour, and use the proceeds to fund the next trip.This is my first time to a 3rd world country so I've seen quite a bit that I'm not accostomed to. For example, you're just as likely to see automobiles in the roads as you are horse-drawn, ox-drawn, or bull-drawn carts. A good deal of Managua is built up and modern, while many of the villages have small cinder-block homes that many people live in. The other day we stopped on a highway to purchase some pewter from a local artisan. This person's store was in the front of the building. In the back was both the workshop...