October 2013 – Pr. Eric’s Letter

Dear fellow Priests,

We are continuing our project of thinking about who we are as individuals, as three distinct congregations (St. Peter, Trinity and Waverly) and the Circle of Faith Parish. We have been looking at this verse, I Peter 2:9, that gives four images, each one with an adjective and a noun.

1…Chosen Race

2…Royal Priesthood

3…Holy Nation

4…God’s Own People

Today we look at one of them: Royal Priesthood. First of all, we are identified as royal. As Americans we don’t go for royalty. Even though I was not there when the United States broke away from England to become an independent na-tion, I feel like I was because we became independent from the King and all the ‘royal’ stuff that went with it, and that is part of my identity. We believe in equality and equal opportunity with regard to the pursuit of happiness, and one person one vote. We don’t believe in the idea that some people should have special privileges just because of their blood line. There is a new song I’ve been hearing on the pop radio stations called “Royal” by Lorde. She sings, “We will never be royals…it’s not in our blood” I agree and I don’t want to be. So, what do we do with this word of identifica-tion? Well, one of the words used to explain who God is and what God does is, “King”. And God has a “Kingdom”. God is the ruler. When the author of I Peter says we are royal he makes the point that for all practical pur-poses we are part of the King’s bloodline. We are part of a privileged group. “We are children of the King and we should live like it.”, my old preacher uncle used to bellow after saying grace before a family feast. But, as royals we have also inherited some responsibilities. We help God, the King take care of the “Kingdom”. It is our place as royals to do that. Second, we are a Priesthood. In the Old Testament people would bring offerings of grains or meat to God for thanksgiving and for forgiveness. The priests were the ones who were set aside to present the offerings and burn them and they were often spoken of as a sweet aroma to the Lord. I suppose it would have smelled like a BBQ but it repre-sented the people thanking and praising God and asking for forgiveness. That would be sweet for God. The priests also did other things to mediate between God and God’s people.

Since we are priests, we can offer up our own sacrifices, we don’t need a mediator. And we can be mediators for one another. We can share the word of God’s forgiveness with one another, we can minister to one another. Since we are royals, we actually have this as our inherited right and obligation. It comes with being in God’s family…a royal fami-ly. Of course this is all possible because Jesus gave the ultimate sacrifice and is the ultimate mediator. And, we are the body of Christ in the world. We are called to minister to the needy world in every which way we can, like Jesus did.

So, what does this mean for us here and now? Well, we became the “Circle of Faith Parish” so we could do some of it better. Some of it we do better as individuals. For example, if my neighbor needs some prayers it makes sense for me to pray for them rather than have a church meeting to discuss it and decide when and what to pray for and who should do the praying. Some of it we do better as individual congregations too, for example caring for our buildings and re-sponding to needs in our own respective communities. Our new Parish has been born, but is not grown up. Part of the growing is to continue to define how this all fits together. That’s fun! It’s like a bunch of people getting together and playing with Legos or maybe even putting together a lawn sprinkler system.

In Christ,

Pastor Eric