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March 24, 2023

Preparing the Imagination for Easter

There are things we say from the pulpit that seem important but just are not well worked out in our own minds and hearts. 

We are a resurrection people. 

As we enter the final weeks of Lent and our preparation for Easter, it is worth preparing our imagination for this Easter proclamation. 

When the New Testament talks about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it talks about Jesus as the forerunner and his resurrection as a pre-figuring of the final resurrection that awaits everyone. Every week in the Creeds, Apostolic, and Nicene, we reaffirm our faith in the bodily resurrection, both Christ's and our own. 

As a pastor and priest, this was the one point that seemed to have faded the most in the doctrine of the Church. But the teaching of the apostles is that we believe that Christ rose bodily from the tomb and that one day everyone will stand before God in the body. 

Paul qualifies that in First Corinthians 15 by reminding us that the "stuff" of this body is gross, but who knows what our bodies will be made of in the resurrection? This section of Paul's letters deserves some meditation.

In ministry, I have been with more people as they died than the average person on the street, so I can say with assurance that when someone dies, the change is immediate. This body which the spirit of the person has animated and given order and structure for even a century, begins to disintegrate in minutes and hours. So Paul is simply noting that that spirit in the new life of the resurrection will give order and animation to new matter. Who knows what matter that will be? 

But, I want to call you past death and the waiting for that new day. When that new day comes and heaven, where God's will is done, and earth, where it is contingent, are rejoined (Revelation 21), what will it be like?

What will it look like in the day of resurrection? Imagine living life without any hint of death or the fear of death. Imagine that God's perfect will for each person is lived. Artists fully realizing their gifts. Gardeners can work in perfect concert with the earth. 

There are hints sprinkled throughout the prophets. Occasionally Isaiah has breathtaking images of feasts on the mountain of God, but often there are far more domestic images: we will eat what we plant with our own hands, and we will build houses and live in them. Overflowing abundance held together with harmony and true justice.

As we practice our resurrection imagination, it is worth considering what that day will be like. If we are to live as resurrection people, we are saying that we live as though that world was already true among us. 

We know that it is not yet. Every day the headlines remind us that the world is not yet just. That all people do not yet have a feast of well-aged wines strained clear spread before them on the mesas of blessing.

But that is our hope. That is our vision, caught in glimpses. And Jesus as the Risen Christ, sends us out to bring that new life to those around us. 

"Faith is belief in things not seen." 

As we get closer to Jerusalem following Jesus to Golgotha, remember where we are finally headed. You can see in his miracles and parables hints of what lies beyond. The Kingdom of God is distant in some ways and yet right at hand. 

You bring God's hope and life when you feed the hungry and lift up those who cannot yet live in houses. You bring God's Reign when you look beyond this moment and the debts that others owe you to an abundance that makes all debts seem irrelevant. 

You have that life now, in the midst of this one, because of the cross and humiliating death of Christ. We are a resurrection people not because of our bringing life but because we have been given life to give to others.

To say you believe in the resurrection of the body is to say you believe in more than what the world says about the ultimate value of human life, the limits of our lives, and the ultimate purpose that God has for us and for the creation itself. We believe that human suffering matters, that there will be a day of justice and final peace and flourishing, and that even death will be defeated one day.

Until that day, we live as life-givers because he lives who has given his life for us.

When the women found the tomb empty, it was not that one fact had changed in the history of the world, but that the world itself had changed and history would never be the same.

So take some time in these final weeks of Lent to exercise your imagination, to imagine that day, and prepare for the coming of our Lord. Let the life of Christ flow through you.

Do not fear death. Its time will end. Live the life given to you, bringing the life of Christ to all you meet, and I will see you along the Way.

 


Tomorrow is my first Diocesan Day of Discernment as your bishop. We will gather at Trinity Cathedral with some 23 people from around the dioceses seeking to discern where God is calling them. Pray for them and for the Lord of the Harvest to send out fresh workers into the harvest in our time.

Wednesday Night, we celebrated with the Church of the Resurrection in Greer as the Rev. Fergie Horvath was installed as rector. It was a glorious night with local clergy and an overflow crowd for the Eucharist and the following feast. 

+Daniel

 


The bishop has been at St. John's, Congaree, Sts. Simon and Jude, Irmo, and Grace Church, Anderson, in the last month, as well as eight days in the House of Bishops Meeting at Camp McDowell, Alabama. The House of Bishops meeting included a pilgrimage to Montgomery's Legacy Museum and Civil Rights Monument. 

The Rt. Rev. Daniel Richards will be at St. Stephen's, Ridgeway, on Sunday, March 26, and All Saint's in Clinton on Palm Sunday. In addition, he is preaching at Trinity Cathedral on Easter Sunday. 

The clergy of the diocese has been meeting weekly by Zoom to pray and consider the readings for each week together through Lent. It has been a time of renewal and study. 



Click here to download Bishop Richards' 2023 visitation schedule.
Click here to download the 2022 - 2023 Diocesan Cycle of Prayer. 

Events around the Diocese


Catechesis of the Good Shepherd: An Introduction

On April 16, from 1 - 3 p.m., St. Timothy’s, Columbia (900 Calhoun Street), will host a workshop exploring a hands-on, child-centered, developmentally appropriate, holistic, Montessori approach to serving children in the church—rooted in the Bible and liturgy. A certified CGSUSA Adult Formation Leader Level I Trainer will host this workshop. Parents, grandparents, caregivers, ministry leaders, parishioners, and anyone interested in the spiritual nature of children are invited to attend. Click here to register and here to download the flyer. 

 

EDUSC Haiti Symposium

Join us at Christ Church, Greenville (10 N Church Street), on April 22 from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. for the 2023 EDUSC Haiti Symposium, recognizing and honoring our more than 40-year partnership in the country. Click here to download the EDUSC’s booklet Partnership Haiti: 40 Years of Mission and Ministry in Cange.

We especially want to invite those who have been to Haiti on mission trips and those interested in learning more about the mission work. Speakers will include friends from Haiti, students from Clemson University, and others around EDUSC.

Saturday sessions begin at 9:00 a.m. and explore the many dimensions of our work in Cange, including literacy, agriculture, medicine, spiritual life, and economic development. Guests from Haiti will be present. A continental breakfast, lunch, and snacks are included in the $20 registration fee. To learn more and register for the gala, click here. Please contact Kevin Mertens if you have any questions.

 

St. John’s Episcopal Church Welcomes New Rector

After seven years without a pastor, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Winnsboro now has a new rector, Father Slaven Manning. St. John’s shares Father Manning with St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Newberry, whose congregants have been without a priest since June.
 
Bishop Daniel Richards of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina initiated the sharing program. Winnsboro and Newberry held services with supply (visiting) clergy, and priest sharing among these neighboring parishes seemed like a logical solution. St. John’s and St. Luke’s were receptive to the idea and chose Father Manning as their rector.
 
As the Diocese fondly dubbed it, the experiment began on September 1, 2022. Both churches provide 50% of the cost and receive 50% of Father Manning’s time. He spends two monthly Sundays at each church and rotates between them on a 5th Sunday. On the first and third Sundays, he is at St. Luke’s, with the second and fourth Sundays devoted to St. John’s. Office days are Monday and Tuesday at St. Luke’s and Wednesday and Thursday at St. John’s. “If all goes well,” Father Manning says, “we can use this model for other churches in the Diocese. So far, I’m enjoying being part of the experiment, and it seems that members of both parishes are enjoying it as well.”
 
Father Manning, originally from Irving, Texas, has been a priest for 35 years. After graduating from Nashotah House Theological Seminary, he was ordained a priest in 1987. In 1996, he took a sabbatical and became a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE). During 2008-2015 he worked full-time as an MSCE and part-time as a bi-vocational (dual occupation) priest in Hurst, Texas. After he decided to return to the priesthood full-time, he became a rector at St. Francis of Assisi in Chapin, SC, from 2015-2021.

 
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