Rite Questions Podcast Christ Church Ridley Park

The name Tenebrae means shadows. This Holy Week liturgy dives into the brokenness of our world, the brokenness that is taken up on the cross. This is a contemplative service, and it includes readings from the Hebrew Prophets, Psalms, and secular readings. A gathering to pray this would have candles extinguished with each set of 7 readings. If you may wish to do that; or gather stones to drop in a bowl; or write a virtue on a piece of paper and rip it with each shadow. Or if out in the world you may want to choose a motion, perhaps making a cross on your palm, to mark them. The bulletin for this is on our website (christchurchridleypark.org).

Source texts include the Book of Occasional Services, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, NRSV translation of the Bible, and the BCP translation of the Psalms.

Secular readings include A Wrinkle in Time, East of Eden, Just Mercy, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Tale of Desperaux, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Thank you to our voices - to Sharon, Archie, & Alex. Thanks to Tom who made last minute edits.

How does 'church' make a real difference?
Topic: Ethics & Practice
Podcast Episode 7 or Chapter 6, Participating in the Mission of God (pg. 122)

Guest: Matthew Woodward grew up in England, and after a diverse faith journey became an enthusiastic Episcopalian by choice and serves as the Dean of trinity Episcopal Cathedral in California. He is an avid sci-fi fan, a cook, a runner and the proud parent of an Australian Shepherd mix rescue pup: River.

So how exactly does Christian practice through a church community matter, how does it make the world better, lives closer to their promise? Sometimes it is like finding inspiration with superheroes, and:
an invitation to be more deeply and authentically ourselves in community a community that offers ways of belonging in each others stories and in the layers of the ancient stories offers structures that are not arbitrary or mean rules but a space within which to be free for each other teaches us life giving practices of meditation and prayer

Topic: Baptism & Eucharist
Podcast Episode 5 or Chapter 2, Beginnings (pg. 18) and Chapter 9, Sacraments (pg. 189)

Guest: Father Allen Wakabayashi is originally from Chicago and now serves as Episcopal Chaplain at Princeton University. In his spare time, as weather permits, Fr. Allen loves to head out on his kayak to go bass fishing.
In this episode we focus on the top two sacraments - Baptism and Eucharist.
Sacramental focus is an ancient practice that has continued to be 'effective' across time and place Something really happens in the sacramental life, whether or not we can explain it or understand it We are always incomplete practitioners of the sacraments - we cannot fill their meaning by our ideas or actions - it is always cooperative with faith and God's presence Regular reception of the Eucharist has real and tangible life value, even when it isn't always fireworks.

I cannot even say Episcopal. What does it mean?
Topic: Structures
Podcast: Episode 5 or Chapter 5, Navigating the Church (pg. 99)

Guest: Andrea McKellar serves as the Canon for Finance and Administration for the Diocese of South Carolina. She enjoys reading, rooting for Arsenal, and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

What do you mean you take the Bible too seriously to take it literally?
Topic- Scripture
Podcast Episode 4 or Chapter 2, Bible Stories (pg. 34)

Guest: The Rev. Jenifer Gamber is on staff at the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, along with her trusted companion and canine facial moisturizer, Ruby, a West Highland Terrier. Jenifer finds her sacred ground with the Companions of the Holy Cross, a dispersed community of women committed to a life of simplicity, thanksgiving, and intercession.

The best selling and most printed book ever, powerful even in its misunderstanding and misuse; the Bible isn't a simple subject, but that is part of what makes it holy. We continue to find ourselves in these diverse texts, and this is a grace and an agent of salvation. Much could be explored, but in this episode we focus on four important points that might reduce your anxiety about the texts.
It is a collection of wonder, a storybook library, even with the parts that are not a storybook like we would get at the bookstore. The texts were intended to be read and discerned in community - words that call us out, and connect to our bodies and actions, not in isolation, but in responsibility for one another. The Bible is a living document, in that new eras bring new insight and understanding. This is a text of salvation in a multitude of ways both astonishingly simple and gut wrenchingly complex.

Don't you just have a church cause Henry the 8th wanted a divorce?
Topic: History
Podcast Episode 3 or Chapter, 3 History (pg.5)

Guest: The Rev. Dr. Dan Joslyn-Siemiatkoski is the Kraft Family Professor and Director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College. In his free time he enjoys listening to all sorts of music and catching up on back issues of The New Yorker."

We are a church due to the shifts of history, but we are also a church because of the layers of belief and challenge that surround those facts. This is not a listing of dates and wars and documents finished. Instead Dan offers three ways to think about history:
It is a story in a context with a multitude of interconnected layers of lives and environment. Christian history has always been complex and global, multi-ethnic and multi-racial, spreading far beyond the 'leadership geography' in its earliest era. Most of history is about the ordinary voices that are often only discovered in material (archeological) evidence. In this there is mystery and confusion and hope and grief, much like our discipleship today.