I drove to and from my vestry meeting last night listening to episodes of The Collect Call. If you don’t listen to Brendan and Holli, I heartily recommend this. I enjoy it because they are church-y but they are also just plain delightful and entertaining. Holli and Brendan offer The Collect Call as part of The Acts 8 Moment, a group working to proclaim resurrection in The Episcopal Church.
In the last few weeks you may have seen some of the posts responding to a trio of Acts 8 BLOGFORCE questions: Why the Church?, Why Anglicanism?, Why The Episcopal Church?
I haven’t said anything. In part because of a busy schedule; in part because I feel like I’ve already commented on these ideas.
There is wisdom in the Church and in this Anglican Tradition.
It’s been interesting to read people’s thoughts on why The Episcopal Church. In good Anglican fashion, I’ve agreed with some opinions more than others. It is always good to know that we share the cause of love, if not the details. But then I was listening to Brendan, in the Proper 19 episode. He made a comment about love being about more than the sum of the reasons we could list.
We can, and have, and will continue to make lists, to have reasons why we participate in and love this Episcopal Church of ours. We’ll talk about polity and liturgy.
But there’s something more. Our love for the Church is greater than the sum of our lists, even all our lists. Our love for the Church has to do with seeing Jesus here, being transformed, and then trying to reason out what and how and why.
We have Church words for this: sacrament and miracle. The Episcopal Church is a means by which we receive God’s Grace (sacrament) and something that only God can do (miracle). But those words only make sense, and often little enough even then, inside of the Church.
But perhaps we can say that The Episcopal Church is more than the sum of her parts and we’re in love.
