Anglican Diocese Of San Joaquin Mass Of Chrism 2017

Fr. Dale Matson

Our annual Mass Of Chrism for the Diocese was celebrated by The Right Reverend Dr. Eric Vawter Menees, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese Of San Joaquin. It was celebrated at Saint Mary’s Anglican Church in Fresno CA. The mass is a gathering of all the clergy in the diocese and interested lay persons. We give thanks to Fr. Michael Sclafani the rector at St. Mary’s and his parishioners who hosted the event.

Bishop Menees preached, celebrated and blessed the oils to be used by the priests for the coming year. Following the dismissal, we had a fellowship meal and Bishop Menees made announcements, offered prayer and entertained questions.

Thanks be to God.

Click On Photographs To Enlarge

 The Gospel Is Read By The Deacon Of The Mass

 The Preaching By Bishop Menees

 The Great Thanksgiving

 The Distribution

 The Blessing Of The Oils

 The Blessing Of The Assembly

 Bishop Menees With The Deacons And Priests

Fellowship Meal

Photos by Father Dale Matson

Bishop’s Note: April 6, 2017 – Did Lazarus Die Again?

Bishop Eric Menees

Last Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, I had the pleasure of worshiping with my family since I was traveling later that morning and so did not schedule a pastoral visit. You’ll remember that the gospel lesson was taken from John chapter 11 and is the telling of the raising of Lazarus.

This is a powerful passage in which Jesus is honored and God is glorified, bringing Lazarus back to life after having died four days before. Fr. Sclafani preached a fine sermon on God being glorified in this miracle, but my son was left with one question: “Dad I get that God was glorified – but what about Lazarus, did he have to die again?”

The answer to that question is yes – Lazarus did die again. Sebastian remarked that poor Lazarus had to die twice, but I said that I look at it as though he had a foretaste of heaven that few prior to him had ever experienced. Because he knew Jesus and had experienced his mercy, power, and grace, he knew what was waiting for him after death. This lead to a wonderful discussion on the way home and through lunch about life and death, and what awaits us after we take our final breath on earth.

Of course, we in the church are blessed that, like Lazarus, we too are allowed a foretaste of heaven and the blessing of experiencing Jesus’ mercy, power, and grace! We celebrate this every Sunday when we gather around the Lord’s Table to hear the word of God faithfully preached and to receive the sacrament of Holy Eucharist, faithfully administered.

What a joy, what an honor, what a privilege we have to hear the biblical recounting of Jesus’ sacrifice for us: his mercy in forgiving us; his power in his triumph over death; his grace infused through the Holy Spirit into our lives. As God’s adopted sons and daughters, we are granted a foretaste of the heavenly banquet and the promise of eternal life with Jesus. I praise God for extending the invitation to us, through his son, to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

All of this has been brought home to me this evening as I prepare to fly east toward Dallas. Reading the Evening Office, I was struck once again by the Sunday Collect for Hope…

Lord God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ triumphed over the powers of death and prepared for us our place in the new Jerusalem: Grant that we, who have this day given thanks for his resurrection, may praise you in that City of which he is the light, and where he lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

I pray you all a truly blessed Lent as we prepare not only for our eventual resurrection with Jesus Christ, but our daily life in and with him!

Thirty-nine Articles of Religion

XXIII. Of Ministering in the Congregation.

It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's vineyard.

St James: A Story Of Faith, Hope, Love And Resurrection

Lent V Year A 2017

Fr. Dale Matson

Note: My first Lent V Year A 2017 posting on Soundings was not the homily I eventually preached at St. James. The following homily is the one preached last Sunday and while it was written as an exhortation Fr. Carlos our dean suggested I post this also. Perhaps it will apply to your congregation also.  

Father Carlos recently referred to St. James as a “church in exile”. What Father Carlos said is one of those things we say in an unguarded moment that is a truth and sum up things pretty well. I don’t believe our Old Testament and Gospel readings could be any more appropriate for us at St. James. In our Old Testament reading, Ezekiel had a vision given to him by God. It was a vision of hope for the Israelites in captivity in Babylon. God would breath new life into the dry bones which represented the Nation of Israel. His words spoken and His Spirit given would resurrect an entire nation from death.  This promise seemed impossible in light of Israel’s present condition. She was “dead” as a nation, deprived of her land, her king, and her temple. Is this kind of familiar? Israel had been divided and dispersed for so long that unification and restoration seemed impossible. So God gave Ezekiel the vision of the dry bones as sign. There is nothing more dead than dry bones. The ancients believed that life was in the blood. And where is the blood made? It is made in the marrow of the bones. There is not even marrow in dry bones.  

The reviving of the dry bones signified God’s plan for Israel’s future national restoration. The vision also, and most importantly, showed that Israel’s new life depended on God’s power and not the circumstances of the people. Putting “breath” by God’s Spirit into the bones showed that God would not only restore them physically but also spiritually. (Portions of the preceding were taken from here): https://www.gotquestions.org/valley-dry-bones.html)

As the Old Testament lesson was being read today, how many of you thought about the similarities between Israel and St. James Church. We are a church; we are no longer the cathedral church. The bishop’s chair no longer resides with us. Our mission statement we spoke before every service was that we shared God’s love with all people but the mission statement we practiced, the one we lived out for many years, was that we were standing firm. We were clinging to the faith and traditions of the historic universal church. We held to the faith once delivered to the saints. Standing firm cost us members of our faith community who left us. It cost us our church campus and some brothers and sisters have died while we have been in exile. We didn’t keep the property but we kept the faith. What happened to us was not about something we did wrong. It was not a failure to make our case in court. It was simply God’s will that we leave. As each day goes by now, it becomes easier to say that. It was simply what God wanted to happen to St. James. And while our hearts were being broken, they were being made soft again also. God began comforting and consoling the grieving. The Gospel of the Kingdom is not about being righteous. It is about being gracious and merciful. And now these bones are being infused with the Blood of Christ.  

Last week Father Carlos read us the letter from the congregation of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They have released us from a partnership in which they were once guests on our campus. This is so they can pursue their own mission as equal brothers and sisters. Now we know to some extent how they felt. We have now walked at least a half-mile in their shoes. Now we are guests on the campus of another congregation. A house is not a home however. It was a mature decision on their part and a decision that is God pleasing. Their decision has helped St. James also. We have a clearer path ahead of us. The Old Testament Lesson has great meaning for us especially.

Personally speaking I can identify with the dry bones metaphor. The marrow in my bones is not producing enough red blood cells quickly enough to end my anemia. I must depend on weekly infusions of the blood of my Savior Jesus Christ during the Eucharist. How does our reading from Ezekiel end? “O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act," says the Lord.” That was God’s promise to Israel and that is His promise to us at St. James. The message of Ezekiel is a message of faith and with faith there can be hope. It is a message that God can resurrect and restore a people and those people also happen to be our congregation of St. James.

We at St. James have hope and our Psalm today encourages us. “I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for him; *in his word is my hope.” We have faith that He will revive and restore us and we have hope for the future.

So why was this process so long and drawn out? Why have we suffered so for the sake of the Gospel? Have we suffered in vain? We can learn why this is so from our Gospel lesson today. “…Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. The suffering of St. James will not lead to death. Do we need a fresh start? Yes, we do, but we have the faith of our fathers, the traditions of the church and Anglicanism to build on.

The story of Lazarus is the story of each of us as individuals also. We have been in bondage to our bandages. We have been holding back. We have been waiting. Our Master is now calling us to “come forth”. He loves each of us and wept at our suffering.

At St. James, we must reinvent ourselves within the Anglican tradition. We do belong to a new and growing church called the Anglican Church North America with a Godly Archbishop Foley Beach. We have a new prayer book being developed. I know the struggle of reinventing yourself, starting over. Some of you folks know that this is my third profession. I spent 17 years as a plumber and heavy equipment operator.  After my renewal, I was handing out bibles to all of the people I worked for and thought this was how God would use me. Then a major recession hit Wisconsin and I was laid off from my job. I pleaded with my employer in his office who was general contractor. “Please keep me on in any capacity” while my family sat in the parking area in our little Ford Fiesta. He said he had no work for me.

On our way back to the house; I was heartbroken and afraid about the future. I had taken a college class during winter layoff. When I checked the mail on our way to the house. My instructor had written on my final paper, “This is the finest paper any of my students has ever written.” It was obvious to me that God had closed one door and opened another. Things were difficult. We came out from church one day to find a food basket by our car.

While I was working on my bachelor’s degree in psychology, I worked in a psychiatric hospital.  I remember taking an undergraduate course in communication where we wrote out our resumes’. I put on my job summary, “presently employed as a psychiatric technician.” One of my fellow students remarked, “Oh, that’s an entry level job.” It hurt to hear that but she was correct. I was starting over. I eventually got my doctorate and became a psychologist and a professor for 17 years. God had resurrected me.

Then God called me to Holy Orders and had an opportunity to take classes at the seminary at Fresno Pacific University where I worked as a professor. I retired from teaching to attend seminary but was turned down as a postulate to Holy Orders and told to give it more time. It was humiliating for me and I asked Sharon, “Am I that toxic?” While I initially believed that the ordination committee had made a bad decision, it became evident to me that I needed to deal with what I would call a Metastasized Ego. After considerable Spiritual Direction from Father Ken Richards, I was accepted as a postulate the second time and became a deacon and a priest. I have now been in Holy Orders for ten years. The idea of starting over is quite a challenge but I prefer to think of it as starting afresh. The Israelites had to start over when they left Egypt. Their church in the wilderness was a tent. It was not until the Israelites took possession of the Promised Land, that they built a temple designed by God Himself. God even anointed the craftsmen who worked on His temple. How about you? Are you ready for renewal? Are you tired of treading water? What has god put on your heart?

We are in the process of starting over also and I believe this is a wonderful opportunity for us to come together as a congregation. We have and we celebrate such a diverse congregation. I can feel the love we have for one another as we meet during the peace. But I also know that people have been waiting. They are anxious but eager to move on. They want a plan and a place. They want to contribute. It bothers me when people turn an adjective in to a verb but here I go. Help us with the visioning process. As Scripture states, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18a) What is God calling us to do? At the end of the service, we hear, “Send us out to do the work You have given us to do.” Lord what are You calling us to do? Where are You calling us to locate? Will we be a missionary church? Will our church be a house of prayer?

One thing we will be is Anglican Christians. There is new book that came out last month, which is causing quite a commotion. It is written by Rod Dreher and called, The Benedict Option: The Strategy For Christians In a Post Christian Nation. It was published two weeks ago and is already a best selling book. It discusses what it means for Christians to live in community and aspects of the Benedictine way of life. Just as we were evicted, Christians are becoming estranged from their culture. We feel their pain. How ironic that Our prayer book author, Thomas Cranmer designed a prayer book in 1549 in the Benedictine fashion as a way for Anglicans to live. What is new and attractive to modern culture is as comfortable as an old shoe to us. Our first task is to begin living our lives as Anglicans in our own homes. Let us celebrate the fact that we are now “In Season”. As we approach the Holy and Hopeful season of Easter, let us consider that we are united to Christ in His resurrection. Come forth St. James. Amen.  

         

The Word Of The Lord Came To Us And We Were Raised To Life

 Lent V year A 2017

Fr. Dale Matson

It is an obvious theme in both our Old Testament Lesson and our Gospel Lesson that God is able to raise the dead to life. In the Old Testament lesson it was Ezekiel who spoke the word of God to the bones of a dead Israel and the bones came back together with human form. Ezekiel spoke the word of God once again and the Spirit of God gave them life. God did this to demonstrate that He is God. “Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, oh My people and brought you up from your graves. Why did God do this? He did it because He could do it and to demonstrate His reality and glory to Israel.

Before I get to the Gospel account, however, I want to draw upon the parable from St. Luke’s Gospel about the rich man and Lazarus. In this story, a poor beggar named Lazarus died and went to the bosom of Abraham. Perhaps the bosom of Abraham should best be thought of as the place of bliss and rest between death and resurrection. The rich man went to Hell and in his pleading was told that there is a chasm between him and Lazarus that cannot be crossed. Upon hearing this, the rich man asked Abraham to warn his five brothers who were still living so that they would not also wind up in Hell. "But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them. But he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!' "But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'"  Keep this in mind as we move on to the Gospel account.  I believe Jesus has himself in mind when he tells this parable. It is also interesting that it is the only parable that Jesus relates where he uses a specific name “Lazarus”. He may also be referring to the other Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha.

In this Gospel account, Jesus was in Perea, when word was sent from Mary and Martha in Bethany that His good friend Lazarus was sick. I would say that Lazarus was dying and may have died before the message even got to Jesus. Even though Scripture only says that Lazarus was sick, he was dying otherwise, why would they have sent for Jesus? Jesus spoke as a Prophet when he stated that the sickness of Lazarus would not end in death. At the same time, He must have known that Lazarus may have already died. If Lazarus was in the tomb for four days, and Jesus stayed in Perea for an additional two days, it would leave one day for the message to get to him about Lazarus and one day of travel to Bethany.

There is another point worth noting. Jesus stated that He was on this earth both to do the will of His Father in Heaven and to bring Him glory. If he had gotten to Bethany before Lazarus died, he may have healed him. He went against the wishes of His friends. Instead of one more of countless healings, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead which brings God even more glory.
In verse eleven, while He is still in Perea, Jesus actually told the disciples that Lazarus had fallen asleep but he was going to wake him up. As usual, His disciples do not understand what Jesus is getting at and He had to explain to them by asleep, He means that Lazarus has died.

Martha ran out to meet Jesus and stated “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Even though this may sound like a criticism, I believe it should be taken at face value and as a statement of faith. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” In fairness to Martha, this also balances somewhat another account where she appears a bit self-righteous as the hostess who complained to Jesus that she had to do the work while Mary sat at the feet of Jesus. In this account Mary stayed home mourning her brother while Martha went out to meet Jesus. Then Martha states, “But I know that even now that God will give you whatever you ask”. This statement tells me that she already believes that Jesus can raise her brother from the dead. Jesus understands her unspoken hope and simply says, “Your brother will rise again”. Her next statement sounds like she is backpedaling on her hope but I think she said what she did say in hopes Jesus would bring Lazarus back to life before the resurrection.

Jesus then makes a claim which is a song in our heart and the hope we receive by faith as Christians. If it sounds more familiar than other passages it is because it is the Gospel reading in our burial service. Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” There is also a passage I am reminded of similar to this in the “Great Thanksgiving” portion of our liturgy. “….and at the last day, bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom”. Every time I read this, I am deeply moved. It is also reflected in verse three of today’s gradual hymn. “Jesus, hail! Enthroned in glory, there forever to abide; all the heavenly hosts adore thee, seated at thy Father’s side. There for sinners thou are pleading: there thou dost our place prepare; ever for us interceding, till in glory we appear.”

When Jesus states, “I am”, we have one of the seven “I am” statements of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John. “I am” is not accidental.  Jesus is saying that He is God. I ask you, “Do you believe this?" Jesus is not just life, he imparts life to us.

Jesus puts a challenge to Martha following His statement about who He is. “Do you believe this?” She replies, “Yes Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who was to come into the world. Her statement of faith, while less famous that Peter’s statement of faith is of equal value. It frequently happens that Jesus will challenge someone requesting healing about their faith in His capacity to heal them. I believe that it is not an accident that the faith statement of Martha was associated with a kind of intercessory prayer for her dead brother who could not answer Jesus.

When Mary finally comes out to meet Jesus she repeats what Martha said. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Others said the same thing but their comments were based on the previous miracles of Jesus. Martha and Mary based their comments on faith in Jesus Himself.

Can you imagine the crowd gathering around Jesus as He is overcome with grief for Lazarus and begins weeping himself? He asked where Lazarus was laid and went to the tomb where Lazarus was entombed four days before. There was a stone covering the entrance. Does this remind you of another case of being raised from dead?

And now we come to the moment that transcends Ezekiel. Ezekiel prophesized to the dry bones, using the words the Lord had given him.  He spoke to the dry bones and the Spirit brought them back to life. Jesus was and is the living Word. As God spoke the universe into existence, Jesus spoke and Lazarus was raised to life to reveal the glory of God. “Jesus simply said, “Lazarus come forth”. Lazarus was also raised to life to reveal the glory of God the Son. The Spirit of the Lord called Ezekiel “Son of man.” Jesus referred to Himself as the son of man and the son of God.
And now I return to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Abraham told the rich man, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.”

So why is it that even when someone rises from the dead, it is still not enough to persuade people? Why is it that when someone rises from the dead that some will still not believe? Nothing will persuade those who have something to lose. Following this, the Jews plotted to kill not only Jesus but Lazarus (John 12:9). We understand better if we go to the next few sentences. “Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done. Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, "What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. "If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."

You see, even the Pharisees and Sanhedrin did not question the authenticity of the miracles of Jesus but they had something to lose. They were afraid of losing their place and their nation. Those who seek to save their life will lose it. Those who lose their life for His sake will gain eternal life.

Only God can raise the dead to life. Those of us like Lazarus and the dry bones of Israel, who have been raised from death to life, must tell the five brothers of the rich man and all the nations that Christ has raised us from the dead. We have been raised with Christ to the heavenly places.  We must also know that there are others who have something to lose be it position or power. They will look to discredit our witness. We also must be on guard that we don’t discredit our own testimony. We must not however be the ones to say, “We must remain silent or the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” If we do this, we will be seeking to save our life and wind up forfeiting our soul. In the Spirit we must speak to the dead with the words of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that they may be brought to life by the Spirit of God.

Christians have nothing to lose for they have sold all that they have for the pearl of great price Jesus the Christ and because of this, we are persuaded that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He is the great I AM and with Martha and Peter we too confess that He is the Christ, the son of the living God. Amen.