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...

I just spent a week at our Diocesan Shrinemont conference. I had a unique experience when the liturgy team asked me to celebrate the Eucharist that evening. Without a second thought I said, "Of course." A little later in the day, I was having some fun with them and asked, "This will be Rite 1 completely chanted correct?" Then I was told that we were actually using another Eucharistic Prayer, one that was composed by a female priest in South Africa. As I looked over the prayer, I found several things I wasn't all that comfortable with. The proper preface had nothing to do with the person and work of Jesus Christ. Nowhere did the prayer ask for the Holy Spirit to come down and sanctify the gifts. It hit me at that moment that I really am becoming a stickler for the book. As Anglicans, we have spent the last 500 years resisting a comprehensive confession of our beliefs. Instead we have operated under the premise that how we pray shapes how we believe. If that is th...

Quite often I feel like our Churches have confused the American Gospel with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This confusion runs so deep in some places that the American Gospel has even supplanted the Gospel of Jesus Christ and become hostile to it. This is evident in larger society when Christmas Trees and signs saying, "Merry Christmas" are banned from public areas. This is really a shame because the two can co-exist quite well. The American Gospel was actually designed to allow them to co-exist. To begin with, let's take some time and define what the American Gospel is. Much of this material I owe to John Meacham in his book, "American Gospel." The definition becomes sticky because it has changed over the past two hundred years. The American Gospel in the 18th century was articulated differently than it is today. When this nation was founded, the great experiment was one of religious liberty. Countless wars had been fought in Europe over what the official...

Sermon for 22 Pentecost Year C Christ and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church October 28th 2007 The Rev. Conor M Alexander Luke 18:9-14 What is the meaning of life? What is life all about? The great 20th Century Philosophers of Monty Python put it this way. “It’s nothing very special really. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations (The Meaning of Life).” Since you came to Church this morning, you may have some other ideas. You might quote the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Or maybe the summary of the law, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.” Perhaps I’m a bit too cynical, but I would say that life is about looking good. Life is about looking good and avoiding looking bad – and that’s what drives almost all of human behavior. Just ...

RESET and Emotional Release I just got my RESET program a week ago and I'm slowly working up to the full technique. I've been getting some pretty strong emotional reactions when I get vibrating at a high frequency. (I had the same reaction about a year ago when I first started BodyFlow.) It made me wonder about what's going on.What is emotion anyways? I think Coach Sonnon described it in BodyFlow as "Energy in Motion." The more I thought about it our emotional responses are just that - motion. When we cry our abdomen pulses in and out. When we laugh our whole body shakes. When we're afraid, or even very excited we can start trembling. Think of a three-year-old throwing a temper-tantrum. He's on the floor, screaming, kicking his legs, flailing his arms, much to the embarassment of his parents if there's company around. There's also the mental/hormonal component going on. I don't know much of the science behind it, but somehow, our nervous system...

I've often wondered why there is so much resistance in the Episcopal Church to using overhead projectors. Many other denominations use them, and have been quite successful. The few times I've brougt up the idea, I've received the most vehement reactions. While I was serving at one parish in Arlington, VA, we tried to have the Liturgy of the Word on a projector screen. One particular Sunday the equipment wasn't working, and the Priest announced that we would have to use the Prayer Book that day. At least one person began applauding. I was discussing this incident with some other parishioners, and one said to me, "I don't know what it is, but I like having the Book of Common Prayer in my hands." I thought of this incident today after my kettlebell workout. I was having a difficult time packing my shoulders down, and recovering my heartbeat in between sets. Eventually I realized that I was looking down at my watch in order to monitor my heart rate, which of c...