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The
Rev. Christopher Brdlik
June 10, 2007 --- Second Sunday after Pentecost
Names are important; we
value people with the gift of remembering names; and the naming of
things — persons and places — is one of the distinctive habits of
humanity, well attested in history and literature, including the Bible.
Giving something a name establishes a relationship with that something,
and gives personality to that relationship. For instance, the baptisms
we perform today are the direct descendants of ancient naming
ceremonies. For generations parents have celebrated the naming of their
newborn children. In the ceremony as we have it, the parents and
godparents present their children by name at least twice, and the
celebrant names the child twice, once with water and again with the sign
of the cross. This establishes a relationship with God, a named
connection between Creator and created that transcends simple birth. The
boy or girl is named as a child of God, adopted as a brother or sister
of Jesus, and made an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Sometimes names are
misleading, and here I am thinking of some place names in New Jersey.
The small locality of Baptisttown in western New Jersey has no Baptist
church in it. In fact the church at the center of the village is United
Methodist. Not far away is Quakertown, N.J., which apparently does not
have any Quakers in it. The prominent church there appears to be
Presbyterian. When the relationship changes and the name does not, the
name becomes misleading.
At times, too, the
naming process is not deliberate; as in nicknaming a person and it
sticks, or even (once again) in place-naming. In the 1830’s the Morris &
Essex Railroad built a long grade up the side of the Watchung Mountains
from the Oranges and Newark on its way to Morristown. At the top of the
grade, at the crest of the hill, the railroad constructed a water tank,
which their thirsty steam locomotives would need after the long climb.
On the side of the tower the railroad attached a simple sign that said
“Summit.” It stated a geographical fact, but became a name. The name
stuck. The name of our church — Calvary — probably stems from that same
geographical feature. For Calvary is another name for Golgotha, the holy
hill on which Jesus was crucified. And as the first church at the top of
the hill in Summit — in fact the first public building of any kind in
our town — the name seemed appropriate.
As you know, we are an
Episcopal church, a name that means we have bishops, and therefore some
relationship with them, and through them to other parishes. “Episcopal”
is the American name of our branch of Christianity, which is Anglican,
the Anglican theological tradition. Once again that names us, and sets
up a relationship for us. “Anglican” comes historically from the names
of one of the principal peoples who inhabited the British Isles, the
Angles. They got their name from neighboring tribes (it was a nickname,
actually) because the neighbors noticed they went fishing with angles,
or fish-hooks, on the end of a line, rather than with nets or weirs.
(This is not an unimportant detail, but you have to stay with me here.)
One of the earliest apologists for Anglican Christianity, for the
Anglican tradition, was a 17th century layman named Izaak
Walton. He wrote a very popular book that is still in print titled
The Compleat Angler. It was all about fishing lore and practices in
the England of his day. But it was spiced and peppered with references
to The Book of Common Prayer and Anglican Christian traditions,
references to the beliefs and practices of the Anglican Church, because
— now get this — Izaak Walton thought fishing and Anglicanism were part
of the same thing. The patience and dedication of the compleat angler
paralleled the stateliness and meditativeness of the Anglican Christian.
Please note that in
Izaak Walton’s day the concept of “fishing trip” was not connected to
booze and beer with the boys on a boat. Instead fishing was a dignified
affair, just like going to church. Both activities fostered a patient,
reflective attitude that led to God. The spirituality of nature
established a mental state toward receptivity of the divine that
paralleled the transcendence of Cathedral worship. Our ancestors knew
this experience as an “encounter with the sublime,” an aesthetic
awareness that combined delight and awe, the beauty of nature with
transcendence of spirit. The sublime described the place where the human
soul met its God in tranquillity and peace. Fishing and prayer both were
sublime, both were experiences of the divine.
This tradition has
carried well through history and literature. Thomas Jefferson described
trips to Natural Bridge, Virginia, whether fishing or not, as sublime.
Norman Maclean wrote of growing up as a Presbyterian pastor’s son in
Montana in his famous book, A River Runs Through It. The book
opens with this sentence: “In our family, there was no clear line
between religion and fly fishing.” Yesterday I watched from a wooden
bridge as a man and his son fly fished on Flat-brook Creek in
northwestern New Jersey. Patiently they cast their lines, their angles,
up and down the flowing creek. There was no hurry, no urgency. It was
not at all like “Deadliest Catch” on TV. Instead, it was sublime.
A religious tradition
like ours that emphasizes patience, reflectiveness, and, let me say,
cool-headedness, can outlast fads and resist trendiness. But sometimes
it has trouble handling change of a transformative nature. In the recent
movie The Queen starring Helen Mirren, the royal family of
England had great difficulty adjusting to the death of Princess Diana.
Not just their personal grief was at issue, but they way they wished to
handle their grief in their typical fashion, with stiff upper lip, in
private, with no emotion. Circumstances in England had changed enough
that the people of the land could not appreciate this old-fashioned
ethic. The people demanded public grieving, better press relations, more
contact. The Queen finally came to see that her people had changed and
she needed to change with them. That stoical presence, that resistance
to public display of human emotion, had been so much a part of the
Anglican tradition (and of the royal family). Once her stony exterior
was let down, however, the stately pageantry of an Anglican funeral
expressed perfectly for Queen and people alike the experience of the
sublime.
Let me name as well the
other great issue confronting Anglicanism as it tries to handle change.
Our system is not doctrinal or dogmatic, but allows for flexibility in
most matters theological. In fact Anglicanism frankly acknowledges the
need for interpretation, rather than literalism, in understanding the
faith. It seems to me our current disagreements with fellow Anglicans
around the world should be handled in our characteristic way: with
patience, reflection and tranquillity, rather than confrontation and
indignation. But if it should happen that change and difference cannot
be accommodated within the Anglican Communion — as some are now
predicting — let me assure you that we will still be Anglican.
We will follow our
traditions. We will pray and worship in Anglican fashion. We will be the
people seeking God in an experience of the sublime. Our name will still
be Calvary. We will be in a town named Summit. Names are important,
because they establish our relationship with God. And our identity will
not change.
© copyright 2007, Christopher Brdlik
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