Rector's Remarks

The Reverend William Carl Thomas, Then Rector of Saint Matthias Episcopal Church Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Living With An Attitude Of Thanksgiving

By The Reverend William Carl Thomas, November, 2002

John McQuiston begins his simplified first rule of St Benedict with these words, "Live this life and do whatever is done, in a spirit of Thanksgiving... and come to comfortable rest in the certainty that those who participate in this life with an attitude of Thanksgiving will receive its full promise." (Pgs 17-18, Always We Begin Again: The Benedictine Way of Living). Wonderful words to read, extremely hard words to live.

The following prayer is A General Thanksgiving found on page 836 of the Book of Common Prayer. This prayer can help make the challenge from St. Benedict to live with an attitude of thanksgiving to be something that can be accomplished.

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side. We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen.

Thank you for being you. Thank you for caring enough to tell me what is important to you. Thank you for sharing prayer and worship with me. Thank you for accepting me and loving me. These are the words of thanks that come to me as I reflect on the love that we shared during the 40th Anniversary Celebration Weekend. Again, I say THANK YOU.

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Getting Ready for...

By The Reverend William Carl Thomas, October, 2002

On the surface it looks as if we are simply getting ready for our parish 40th anniversary celebration. Deep inside, however, we are getting ready to live fully into the life of service we have been called into by our baptism in Jesus Christ. Our Christian formation programs are in full swing. We now have a nursery program as well as K-grade one in Godly Play. Living Our Faith With Joy is getting grades 2 through 5 ready. The EYC (Episcopal Youth Community) has been doing bible study each Sunday as well as determining what service projects and fun things they want to do. The adult class on Sunday mornings is engaged in Kevin Redding’s teaching on Genes and Genesis. Deeper LOBC on Sunday evenings is using the Companions in Christ series. 20 people plus the team are part of Living Our Baptismal Covenant on Sunday evenings (there is room for more people in LOBC). The choir averages from 10 to 16 people every Sunday who come not only to sing but to act as one of the parish’s intercessory prayer groups.

The vestry will meet on Tuesday, October 8th at 6:30 PM in the Senna Room. They get ready for their meeting with a 20 to 30 minute bible study on the coming Sunday’s scripture that asks the following question: "How does this scripture inform us as servant-leaders of the parish?" Vestry meetings are open to everyone. Megan McLeod will become the editor of The Witness beginning with the November edition. This means we will need a new Clerk of the Vestry. Rhonda Smalley is now one of the EYC leaders. This means we will need a new Treasurer. Bill Reeve and Toby Wilson have been getting ready to stand for election to the vestry by coming to vestry meetings. We need at least two more persons to join them as potential vestry candidates.

Within the next week, pledge cards will be in the mail to help us plan and get ready for the year 2003. Within this issue of The Witness is a prayerful guide to help you get ready to make a commitment to supporting God’s work in the world through Saint Matthias Episcopal Church.

Mary Jane Taylor and Janet Mason are getting ready for their ordinations as Deacons. A letter of Agreement that outlines their responsibilities to parish and the manner in which the parish will support them has been drafted and awaits Bishop Parsley’s approval. The ECW is getting ready for Janet and Mary Jane’s ordinations by creating custom made stoles to mark their role in the liturgy.

I’ve been getting ready for a number of things. Lisa Parton and Jonathan Carr’s wedding on October 12th. My daughter Melinda’s wedding to Mark Hansen in June as well as Courtney White’s wedding to Robert Sheffield in July. My sabbatical grant application to the Louisville Institute awaits review and, hopefully, approval. I have begun the required reading for my participation in the 16th Clergy Leadership Project Class that runs for 10 days beginning on November 11th. And, of course, I’ve been getting ready for the Blessing of the Animals on October 5th.

Getting ready for our 40th Anniversary has been the catalyst for not only renewing the buildings and grounds but our relationship with our past. Gathering pictures and stories to share at the dinner on October 12th at the Four Points by Sheraton will help everyone realize that we have been getting ready to live into the full promise understood by those who founded Saint Matthias in 1962. 40 years ago they began a journey on faith built upon a foundation of caring for one another and serving those in need in the world. This is, indeed, something to not only celebrate but proclaim from the rooftops!

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Leaving the Busy-ness of Lent for the Joy of Easter

By The Reverend William Carl Thomas, April, 2002

There is an awful, made-up word that is used to describe people who make church their destination on Christmas and Easter: "Chreasters" (pronounced cree-sters). This is almost as bad as thinking those people are "making their semi-annual eternal life insurance payments." I am guilty of succumbing to both thoughts. I hope that my poor use of humor masks how much and how deeply I long for those I can’t seem to reach to find the true joy and peace that I have found in Jesus Christ.

It’s easy to fall into the human trap of judging others against my personal standard of devotion. If I’m honest I have to ask myself, "do I go to every Holy Week liturgy because I want to or because I am the priest and am expected (and paid) to be there?" Such a temptation to simply go through the motions reveals how much alike I can be to those who show up at church twice a year. This is very humbling.

I try to maintain a spiritual discipline that includes Sabbath time (personal prayer time on Tuesday afternoons), spiritual direction, and an ongoing attempt to sense God’s movement. Again, If I’m really honest I have to ask myself, "Just how many Tuesday afternoons have I really given over to true prayer and meditation?" Combating the busy-ness of the world as it attempts to take priority has been at the very heart of my Lenten devotion. I must admit that I have not been very successful.

Yet during this Lent, I have been hearing God call me to the words in the Book of Common Prayer that I prayed aloud before the parish family of Saint Matthias seven years ago during my institution as rector:

O Lord my God, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; yet you have called your servant to stand in your house, and to serve at your altar. To you and to your service I devote myself, body, soul, and spirit. Fill my memory with the record of your mighty works; enlighten my understanding with the light of your Holy Spirit; and may all the desires of my heart and will center in what you would have me do. Make me an instrument of your salvation for the people entrusted to my care, and grant that I may faithfully administer your holy Sacraments, and by my life and teaching set forth your true and living Word. Be always with me in carrying out the duties of my ministry. In prayer, quicken my devotion; in praises, heighten my love and gratitude; in preaching, give me readiness of thought and expression; and grant that, by the clearness and brightness of your holy Word, all the world may be drawn into your blessed kingdom. All this I ask for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

God is reminding me that as one "not worthy to have you come under my roof; yet you have called your servant to stand in your house" that God uses the most unlikely people, such as myself, to share God’s love and do God’s work. If God can "make me an instrument of God’s salvation for the people entrusted to my care" then I can look forward with joy to the opportunity to "devote myself, body, soul, and spirit" to all who seek God at Saint Matthias, even those "Chreasters" to whom I am so similar.

I pray as I leave the busy-ness of Lent for the joy of Easter that "all the desires of my heart and will center in what God would have me do" and that I might humbly ask God, to paraphrase the collect for Easter, to grant that I, who celebrates with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Alleluia, He is Risen. The Lord is Risen, Indeed. Alleluia!

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Let Joy Conquer Despair

By The Reverend William Carl Thomas, November, 2001

In preparing for my first post-September 11th wedding which is the November 24th wedding of Sherry O’Brien and David Lang, I am struck by how these words that are prayed over the newly married couple jump out of the Book of Common Prayer with renewed force as we live together as Deep Church:

"Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair."

The possibility of despair, which means "loss of hope," is now a reality as we are bombarded with negative news stories about how our lives have changed. Being careful with the mail that brought this issue of The Witness is just one example of how real the change has become. The possibility of despair, once situational to personal finances or mental health, is now cultural despair: as real for us now as we allowed it to be for those we watched suffer on television in other parts of the world.

Yet...we can still pray for "joy to conquer despair." While discouragement, like despair, means to be "deprived of hope or confidence," we can be encouraged ("inspired with hope and confidence") by remembering the power of this prayer at the wedding of Steve and Charlotte Black on December 16, 2000. Steve and Charlotte spent the hours before their wedding helping the victims of the tornado that went through Tuscaloosa in late morning on that day.

Discouragement, one of the eight deadly thoughts that is not a sin but could lead a person into sin, makes a person look down and not up. There is no room for joy for one who has no hope. The sin that comes from discouragement manifests itself in selfish behavior that estranges a person from God (but not God’s love for that person). How then, does a person come to look up to find joy in this sinful and broken world?

Elie Wiesel, author of more than 40 books, including "Night," about his experience in a Nazi death camp and a Nobel Prize winner, has written, "Human beings are defined by their solidarity with others, especially when the others are threatened and wounded. Alone, I am on the edge of despair. But God alone is alone. Man is not and must not be alone." At Saint Matthias we proclaim ourselves "Deep Church": namely a community of faith built on the sure foundation that is Jesus Christ. As a group of people who gather with a willing expectation to intimately share the love of God we seek to make our life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.

s was the case in Steve and Charlotte’s wedding, and now as we prepare to celebrate with Sherry and David, we find the possibility of joy when we come together to support one another as signs of Christ’s love. Indeed, joy conquers despair.

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Building Bridges NOT Walls

By The Reverend William Carl Thomas, October, 2001

The shocking events of Tuesday, September 11th made fear omnipresent. Fear finds its strength in lack of understanding of what might happen and what caused something to happen. Fear causes us to forget our principles and values. Fear feeds on a perception of scarcity. Fear prompts us to build walls.

Thank God for the 10 year old girl who reminded her mother the day after the World Trade Center Towers collapsed that we should be building bridges not walls. Thank God for my son, Adam, who built a bridge of hope in the reflection printed below on the evening of the what his classmates at Sewanee call "NINE-ONE-ONE." Thank God for the Episcopal News Service which posted on the internet "A concise introduction to Islam" (reprinted on pages two and three within) which builds bridges of trust to a religion that suffers from extremists as do all religions. Thank God for the ultimate bridge builder, Jesus Christ, who is with us in the pain and fear of death and calls again and again to the joy and hope of an abundant life.

Rebuilding the Proud Towers: A Reflection
By Adam P. Thomas 9-11-2001

Of the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that December 7, 1941 is "a day that will live in infamy." September 11, 2001 is a day five times more catastrophic as that day sixty years ago. It is a day in which two proud towers, symbols of the American spirit, collapsed under the weight of unquenchable flames. It is a day in which thousands upon thousands lost their lives, stranded on the high floors as the ground rushed up to meet them. It is a day in which the knife of terrorism stabbed the United States four times, spilling the blood of ten thousand innocent lives. Finally, it is a day that will not only live in the infamy of the massacre in New York City and Washington D.C., but also in the resolute unification of other Americans as they responded to the tragedy.

Terrorists can damage the United States——the country will bleed for a time, but it will heal. The wounds, ten thousand deep, will never be forgotten, and their memory will live on in the daily lives of other Americans. Terrorists do not understand that no matter how often they attack the United States, they will never permanently scar the American Spirit. When other nations might collapse under the stress of terrorist acts the United States weaves the tragedy into a blanket of renewal——instead of fractioning, Americans consolidate. We link arms. We lower flags. We light candles. We pray. We come together, and together we find strength.

As Americans come together they also find sanctuary in the strength of God pouring from other individuals. We comfort, and we cry. But we, as survivors, live. Terrorists only win when the Spirit is stamped out, when the flame is extinguished. God keeps our spirits flaming, and when we combine are spirits are a great conflagration. The Book of Common Prayer shows us how to use this fiery American Spirit: "Almighty God…… grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name……(Collect 21, page 260)." Although the twin towers collapsed and thousands were killed, the American Spirit will still rise from the ashes and, in remembrance of the fallen, quickly rebuild itself. And the chief cornerstone is still our Savior and Redeemer, Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Vacation Sacrament School: Nurturing a Deep Church Attitude

By The Reverend William Carl Thomas, Summer, 2001

The Catechism in The Book of Common Prayer teaches that "The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace." The Catechism goes on to say that "Grace is God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills." The determination to share this teaching over four evenings beginning on Pentecost Sunday, June 3rd, led to the creation of Vacation Sacrament School.

The goal of Vacation Sacrament School for Pre-Kindergarten to entering First Grade children was to get them to learn the number of sacraments and their names. Preparing for First Intentional Communion as well as learning more about the sacraments was the goal for entering Second Grade through entering Sixth Grade. The children learned The Sacrament City song, specially written by VSS Director Chris McLouth, and participated in projects such as making sacrament workbooks, molding a chalice and paten from play-doh. Age appropriate games were created. The younger children ran races in which they had to shout the name of a sacrament as they touched the hands of teachers Clay and Rebecca McKinney, Madeleine Pearce, and Harold and Charlene Skiver. These children put picture puzzles together that were printed on card stock from computer images found by Edna Thomas. When questioned by the rector on the last day, Oliver Marston knew the number of sacraments and their names! Both age groups were formed into teams and played adaptations of TV shows ("Is that your final answer?") that reinforced the names and meaning of sacraments as well as important terms about how we celebrate the Holy Eucharist.

The rector and Penny Freund took the older children on a field trip into the church and the sacristy and discussed why we have different color vestments as well as showed where we keep the chalice and paten when not in use. The rector led a teaching on what it means to intentionally prepare (draw pictures of what you need when you go to the beach) and what it means to say you’re sorry (draw a picture of something you did to hurt a brother or sister and say your sorry). Mackenzie Underwood asked if she could also draw a picture of herself saying "I’m sorry." The children now had a connection to why we prepare for Holy Communion with the General Confession. Using a stewardship concept learned from Bishop Stough, the rector gave each child ten pennies and three plastic containers. The containers were labeled: 10% Giving, 10% Saving, 80% Spending. By learning to manage their money at an age when most necessities are provided, the children will not have to face the problem when older of learning the appropriateness of tithing: it will be a natural part of their response to their baptismal promises. Penny Freund developed a sacrament workbook that reinforced the name and meaning of each sacrament for this group.

Each day of Vacation Sacrament School began with a meal provided by a parish ministry or donation. Ruth Arnold coordinated with The Altar Guild, The Men’s Fellowship, and the Vestry to provide meals. Puppet shows on a stage provided by Lois Dorough offered another way to learn about the sacraments. The last day of Vacation Sacrament School included an Instructed Holy Eucharist. Jackie, Del, Andy, Katie, and Kristie Tippey used various media to record all that went on.

On the following Sunday during the 10:30 AM Holy Eucharist, the older group made their First Intentional Communion. As the rector gave each child a wooden cross and a Book of Common Prayer, he said the following:

"Wear this cross to proclaim that Jesus Christ died for all."

"Use this prayerbook and a bible to study and proclaim the reconciling love of the risen Christ."

Placing a hand on the child’s shoulder, the rector offered this charge:

"Remember the grace you receive in the Body and Blood of Christ during Holy Communion. May this grace inspire and strengthen your intention, with God's help, to honor the promises made at Holy Baptism."

During the announcements, the younger children were recognized and all sang "The Sacrament City Song."

Sacrament City
by Chris McLouth

There is a city, Sacrament City
Seven columns at its gate
All of them stand on God’s mercy
Holding His loving grace.

Holy orders, healing, too.
Confirmation, Communion, too.
We’re all baptized, and confess our sins.
Some may marry, and a new life begin.

There is a city, Sacrament City
Seven columns at its gate
All of them stand on God’s mercy
Holding His loving grace.

Chris McLouth gave each participant a Vacation Sacrament School picture book that she and the Tippey family prepared.

Vacation Sacrament School involved 17 children as those who came to learn, 22 adults and older children as those who came to teach. The willingness of all involved to share the love of God was rewarded with a vital sense of God’s presence and grace. This grace proved that learning is not reserved to the learners nor teaching reserved to the teachers. By the grace of God all became more aware of what it means to be Deep Church as we came together with a willing expectation to intimately share the love of God.

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Reflecting on God's Invitation to be Deep Church

By The Reverend William Carl Thomas, May, 2001

The sixth year of The Living Our Baptismal Covenant (LOBC) eight month process of adult Christian formation will come to a close with Bishop Parsley’s visit on May 9th. One of the teachings in LOBC is "We don’t just learn by experience, we learn by reflecting on experience." Saint Matthias is experiencing the benefits of living into a vision to be "Deep Church." The following reflection comes out of my experience as a member of a group of people who gather with a willing expectation to intimately share the love of God.

Cecil P. Williamson (Spiritual Director-in-Residence, The Wellspring Center for Spiritual Formation) asked the LOBC participants during a Lenten breath prayer workshop, "What is God’s invitation to you?" This is a simple yet quite profound question. I find that it applies just as much to the mundane moments of my life such as shopping for groceries as it does to my work as pastor or volunteer hospital chaplain. Within the framework as pastor or chaplain, it is easier to focus on what God would invite me to be and do. One benefit of continually asking this question is to remember that God is present in all places, even crowded supermarkets with poorly run checkout lanes. I find God’s invitation is to remember to be thankful for the food I can purchase and to offer some of my joy with a smile for those who made the purchase possible.

During Lent God surprised me with the invitation to memorize and thus integrate the following prayer for mission written by Charles Henry Brent, bishop of the Philippines (1901-1918) and of Western New York (1918-1929):

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen. (BCP page 101)

God not only blessed me with this invitation but offered the grace that allowed these words to become my own. I am somewhat dyslexic and memorize with great difficulty. I find the Great Commandment in the words "reaching forth our hands in love" and the Great Commission in the desire to "bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you."

God’s invitation comes in more forms, to paraphrase the Apostle Paul, than we can ask or imagine. Accepting God’s invitation is a way, as Bishop Brent would pray, to be "clothed in the Spirit of Jesus Christ." And to be so clothed is to intimately share the love of God which is what we hope to be as Deep Church.

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Deep Church: An attitude that shares the Great Commandment, proclaims the Great Commission, and reminds all that the call to ministry begins with Holy Baptism

By The Reverend William Carl Thomas, April, 2001

For over three years I have been reflecting on a concept I call "Deep Church" that conveys my understanding of how positive, loving, and caring relationships can be lived, shared, and proclaimed. "Deep Church" is a way of expressing and living into the Greek word koinonia which has its roots in the Hebrew word shalom. James C. Fenhagen, in his book Mutual Ministry: New Vitality for the Local Church states that the Hebrew word shalom is foundational to the word koinonia. Fenhagen, using Colossians 1:15-17, 20 in which Christ is clearly the reconciler to God, writes that:

the image (of such reconciliation) is one of profound harmony and systemic interconnectedness emerging out of a sense of meaning and obedience. When this interconnectedness is experienced in the human sphere, we have what we call "community." The biblical word that best expresses this theological understanding of community is shalom, sometimes translated from the Hebrew as "peace." Shalom is an all encompassing word covering all the many relationships of life and expressing a vision of what the Israelites conceived of as the ideal of what life was intended by God to be. (page 62).

Simply put, the group of people that make up a community of faith is, hopefully, living and sharing the fullness of all that God intends for them.

The term "Deep Church" becomes a unifying principle that expresses an essential attitude of the members to be shalom in these words: "a group of people who gather with a willing expectation to intimately share the love of God." Such an attitude can help put in perspective all that is commonly held about church size and help church members recall that relationships among people are more important than the dynamics of a parish organizational chart. Structure is, indeed, necessary to experience healthy relationships but it should not so bind that the relationships suffocate. Deep Church encompasses polity models such as High, Low, Broad, Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical and puts the Arlin J. Rothauge sociological models of Family, Pastoral, Program, and Corporate in proper perspective. Deep Church evokes a missionary response within the community of faith that can get lost when hierarchy and institution overwhelm the spirit of the members.

In my practical experience over the past six years as Rector of Saint Matthias Episcopal Church, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a Deep Church attitude has allowed statements of vision and mission that evoke the Great Commandment and the Great Commission to evolve. A healthy parish spirit has arisen as we struggled to be released from the self-imposed limitations of sociological models of parish life and purpose. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, we have discovered a parish vision (also the definition of the term Deep Church) that is a statement of the Great Commandment (Mark 12:29-31): "to be a group of people who gather with a willing expectation to intimately share the love of God." By this same Spirit, we have come to recently understand that the four year old parish mission is a statement of the Great Commission that has its roots in Mark 16:15: "Supporting God’s work in the world as we proclaim a community of faith built on the sure foundation that is Jesus Christ." I am indebted to Reclaiming the Great Commission: A practical model for transforming denominations and congregations by Bishop Claude E. Payne and Hamilton Beazley for helping make the connection of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission to the concept of Deep Church.

Deep Church is also a way of expressing the possibilities of a church that experiences relationships on an "organic" model rather than a "hierarchical" model. James Monroe Barnett, in The Diaconate: A Full and Equal Order, argues at length that the nature of the Church is truly organic and from within that concept comes the understanding of how to renew the Church in what is now being called the post-Christian era. The organic model of the first three centuries saw the laos (the people of God) as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people" (1 Peter 2:9). The clerical hierarchy that came after the formal recognition of the Church by the Emperor Constantine (marked as beginning with the Council that wrote the Nicene Creed in 325 A.D.), and which evolved in the Middle Ages, supported the notion that ordination was how one became a minister not baptism. Barnett writes on page 3 of the pre-Nicene church: "Baptism, replacing and standing in marked contrast to circumcision, created laos, the people of God, in a new and exciting way. In Baptism the Holy Spirit came anew to each, bestowing as he willed gifts for ministry, that together Christians might extend the presence of the living Lord and the fullness of his ministry throughout the world. From this empowerment and from these gifts to the laos all ministry flowed."

While I believe that I am an exponent of Holy Baptism as the entrance into the life of service that is Christian ministry, Barnett helped me see that I have not completely shed my hierarchical ways. Until May, 1999, my Certificate of Holy Baptism was kept in a drawer while my certificates of ordination as deacon and as priest have maintained prominent places on the wall in my church study. Now framed and hung in my study, this Certificate of Holy Baptism reminds me that if I am to take Deep Church seriously as a pastor I am to remember that I must live out my baptism in an attitude wherein I am a servant of the servants.

Proper attitude is foundational to being a healthy, vital group of people who gather with a willing expectation to intimately share the love of God. To be Deep Church means to achieve an attitude that transcends labels and institutional systems and reclaims that our response to Jesus Christ is to love one another as he loved us and to proclaim the good news to the whole creation.

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