His Judgment cometh, and that right soon...

    So, the recorded Sunday liturgy of a former parish where I was a newly ordained Anglican clergyman years ago happened to pop up in my Facebook feed this morning. Out of morbid curiosity, I clicked on it and kind of skimmed my way through it for old time's sake. I was truly aghast at what I witnessed.

    This parish had been a small but fairly active parish some 18 years ago now with a bustling Sunday church school with several kids and families between two fairly well attended morning Sunday services. The parish supported two full time priests (the rector and myself) and a few part time priests who were either semi-retired or worked at the University near by as professors. While the parish was on the liberal side of things to the point where I referred to this parish as 'my island of misfit toys'-it was generally at least liturgically pretty solid and I thought a good home for people who would otherwise have left organized Christianity altogether. I did not agree with a lot that when on there, but there is a special place in my heart for that parish, as it was the first place I served as an ordained priest. 

    What I saw this morning on my Facebook feed really made me sad. It appeared to be the only Sunday service now offered. I counted 11 people in the pews (three of whom were on canes or walkers), 4 people at the altar, and what appears to be maybe 6 people in the choir up in the choir loft. Only one person looked to be under 60, who I believe was the paid organist and may not even have been a regular parishioner. Almost all were white haired or bald. I saw a few people I recognized from back in the day, but out of the 20 or so I got a look at on the feed, I knew maybe 4 or possibly 5 from my days 18 years ago. 

    The liturgy was very odd indeed. It was using some inclusive language nonsense that I did not immediately recognize; I presume it was some modified Book of Common Prayer type liturgy. The homily was not actually terrible. Not a huge amount of substance and rather milquetoast. I would place it in the genre of the "God is love, with love being God's only attribute apparently. And by 'love' we really mean 'secular tolerance of all behaviors short of actually believing God might challenge us in some way.' I am the Walrus, cu cu cah chew" kind of homily.

    In fact, I don't know if I would actually refer to the talk, for lack of a better descriptor, as a homily or sermon because I don't recall the actual Scriptures that had just been read actually referenced in any meaningful way. He opened with "In today's Gospel Jesus says X..." only to immediately pivot to an completely different topic and never again reference or tie in any of the Bible readings. The preacher was actually not a bad public speaker, but an expositor of Scripture or theology he was not. 

    The homily in itself did not much surprise me. It was generally what your stock liberal Protestant American pastor preaches these days. I was already awash with encounters of homilies of that ilk long before I left the Episcopal Church. To be fair, I have heard my fair share of nebulous homilies in the Catholic Church as well. I find preaching in the Catholic Church to be an exercise in (to paraphrase a famous poem) "when they are good, they are very good indeed, but when they are bad, they are horrid."

    What really caught my attention, however, was the way in which the distribution of the distribution of Communion was done. I almost completely skipped that part as I worked my way through the video, but it caught my attention. They were not using the altar rail for one, and just using the Catholic style "feeding station." The use of altar rails is actually one of the few things I miss about the Episcopal Church. In itself, there is nothing wrong with the practice of standing for Communion in the feeding station model, but I always feel Communion is so rushed when altar rails are not used.

   How the wine was distributed was really what caught my attention that made me stop and replay the video was that I saw an acolyte holding this weird plate/tray thing.At first I thought it was perhaps a separate container for people who need low gluten altar bread. We have such a thing at my current Catholic parish for a few parishioners with severe gluten allergies. But then I saw people come up after receiving the bread and then going up to the acolyte and being handed something. The video feed from from the back of the church, so I could not tell exactly at first what I was looking at. It appears from the feed that people were receiving the Body of Christ twice, which I thought was really odd. 

    Then I realized they were tilting their heads back after the acolyte handed them something. I realized they were using the Protestant disposable (again, for lack of a better term) shot glasses for the wine and not using the common chalice, as is or was the common Anglican liturgical norm. In fact, American Episcopal canon law used to forbid this practice entirely and had for quite a long time. I guess I am making the presumption that they were using wine and not the Methodist grape juice thing. I don't know that for sure, as this was not any normal Anglican practice from my time as an Anglican minister. 

    I am not sure why I am writing this precisely. I have long since moved on from that world, but it did make me sad. I recall the famous scene from the end of The Shawshank Redemption when Warden Norton finally realizes the gig is up. He looks up and sees the needle point wall hanging his wife made in church group, as it reads, "His Judgment cometh, and that right soon..." as the sirens coming for him start wailing.