Each week, Vicar Jaime writes a short reflection in the "Blue Sheet" - the weekly take-home page with upcoming events and prayer requests.  Some of those reflections are reproduced below, with subject headings added.

How Does Jesus Save?  

Dear Friends,

In the mail this week I found an "Abbey Letter" from St. Gregory's, and Episcopal Benedictine Abbey.  The reflection inside is titled "Saved by the Life of Jesus," and I commend it to your attention.

The subject is how does Jesus save us?  Abbot Andrews lays out one theory of salvation: that "God had gotten into a pickle over . . . 'God's dilemma over sin.'  God had to do something about the mess humanity had fallen into, but God couldn't just forgive the sin outright because that would be unjust."  So someone had to be punished for the world's sin, and Jesus volunteered to take the punishment.

This might be the theology of the atonement that you learned.  It is the theology underlying hymns such as "Ah holy Jesus" (No. 158 in the Hymnal 1982).  "Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered."  But it is not the only theology of salvation, and Abbot Andrew shows how it is inconsistent with many of Jesus' actions and teachings, including this week's Parable of the Prodigal Son.  The Father in that Parable forgives his wayward son freely, without payment or retribution upon anyone.  "In the Gospel narratives of Jesus' death, neither God nor the devil killed Jesus.  Human beings did it, and we know the names of some of them.  Jesus' death in these narratives is not portrayed as divine necessity, but a human necessity . . ."  A human failure that is reversed by God's grace in the Resurrection.

The Trinity is one, and God the Father is not the figure of retributive vengeance that we fear but, as the 23rd Psalm teaches, the Good Shepherd; the father who welcomes us home; the "I AM" who is truly free and who exercises that freedom in love and compassion. 
Vicar Jaime

The Birth of the Church.

Dear Friends,

Pentecost is coming!  Depending on your experience of church, this phrase may be either meaningful or puzzling.  The Day of Pentecost is the Sunday when we read Acts 2:1-21, about the disciples of Jesus experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit following Jesus' return to the Father.  This was promised by Jesus in Acts 1:8.

It is this gift of the Holy Spirit that created the Church - that community of people bound together by their experience of the Holy Spirit as a gift of the Father through the Christ.  So Pentecost is called "the birthday of the Church."  It is also called "Whitsunday," probably because of the white worn by candidates for baptism.

When you read Acts 2:1-21, you may be puzzled by the first line: "When the day of Pentecost had come . . ."  If Pentecost celebrates the giving of the Holy Spirit to the disciples, why does the text refer to "Pentecost" in describing action before this event?  The answer is that "Pentecost" as a holy day predated this divine action.  It is the Greek title for the "Feast of Weeks," the Jewish offering of new grain described in Leviticus 23:15 et seq., fifty days after Passover.  In later years, both Jewish and Christian scholars referred to this festival as also commemorating the Giving of the Law on Sinai.  The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed., q.v. "Weeks, Feast of."

So the birthday of the church was not out of nothing.  It was the new grain springing out of God's grain patch Israel - part of God's continuous and universal renewing of the face of the earth and God's relationship with humanity.
Vicar Jaime