| Uncommon People in Common Prayer As a part of our Episcopal 101 Forum Series, Scott+ has been writing an introductory article in the Weekly Messenger to set the stage for our in-person discussions. This article was originally written and shared last summer, and here it is edited and updated to share again today. We don’t often read directly from The Book of Common Prayer on Sundays at St. Michael’s. You probably see it every week, peeking over the pew racks in back of each row, right next to hymnals and miscellaneous information cards. However, except for those who gather at the 7:30 service, we worship together using wonderfully produced, edited and printed worship bulletins that preserve us from having to juggle hymnals and prayer books and allow us to include additional words and prayers from the wider church as we worship together. Each time we gather, whether we pick up the actual book or not, our liturgy is guided by the rituals and rules of The Book of Common Prayer. The first BCP was issued in England in 1549, at the beginning of this long church tradition known as Anglicanism. Our current BCP in The Episcopal Church was issued in 1979, not long after the colonies achieved independence from England. The ‘79 is the 4th official edition for use in the US (1789, 1892, 1928 were the three prior ones), though there have been some small edits in between the major revisions. Some folks still miss “the ’28 Prayer Book,” others consider a paper book to be functionally irrelevant, and still more believe an updated BCP is long overdue. It takes many years for the entire Episcopal Church to agree and issue a new edition of the BCP. The process begins and ends with the work of General Convention. (General Convention is the governing body comprised of lay people, clergy and bishops from all the dioceses of The Episcopal Church, meeting only once every three years.) When a decision to issue a new BCP is made by General Convention, it takes just less than a decade, in a best-case scenario, for the new version to be finalized and published. As you might imagine, the revision process for the BCP can be tedious: emotionally charged, passionately debated, and inordinately contentious. (We are, after all, trying to make these decisions as a church that includes folk in the South, New England, Big Sky, Pacific Northwest, Midwest, and California. There’s a lot of diversity to draw into consensus!) The words we say together—week after week and year after year—saturate our hearts. The rituals and forms we engage over time get into our bones. The patterns and prayers renew our minds. A mentor of mine is fond of saying, ‘We are not a church of common mind but of common prayer.” I think this sums it up. The Book of Common Prayer is at the center of pretty much everything we are and do as The Episcopal Church. We don’t hold standalone statements of doctrine and confession to which one must give assent as a prerequisite for belonging. Conformity of thought is not required as a gateway to membership. Rather, our rituals are the path in. We sojourn together along a way of “lex orandi, lex credendi”—praying shapes believing—to engage the words and liturgies of the tradition at the heart of our particular expression of Christian community. This center holds us, as we bring our beautiful diversity of individual thoughts, questions, convictions, doubts and dreams together into this great body of uncommon people in common prayer. I look forward to gathering with you at this Sunday’s forum to explore the gifts of The Book of Common Prayer for our life together and as a resource in our own personal devotions. With you, Scott+ The Rev. R. Scott Painter, Rector Email: ScottP@stmaa.org |
