Episcopal Life Online Newslink August 22, 2007
Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.
Today's ELO Newslink includes:
* WORLD REPORT - ASIA: ERD responds to flooding in Bangladesh, China and North India * WORLD REPORT - NIGERIA: Anglican Church calls for HIV test before marriage * WORLD REPORT - SOUTHERN AFRICA: Tutu urges full Lambeth participation * SPIRITUAL REFLECTION - Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 16) - Year C [RCL]
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WORLD REPORT
ASIA: ERD responds to flooding in Bangladesh, China and North India http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_89276_ENG_HTM.htm
NIGERIA: Anglican Church calls for HIV test before marriage http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_89288_ENG_HTM.htm
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Tutu urges full Lambeth participation http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_89291_ENG_HTM.htm
More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm
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SPIRITUAL REFLECTION
Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 16) - Year C [RCL] Jeremiah 1:4-10 or Isaiah 58:9b-14; Psalm 71:1-6 or 103:1-8; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17
By Joseph S. Pagano and Amy Richter
[Sermons That Work] Of all the issues facing the church 120 years ago, one that was considered so pressing that it was addressed by bishops throughout the Anglican Communion at the Lambeth Conference of 1888 was this: the observance of the Sabbath.
The bishops at that conference issued a report including these statements:
"The principle of the religious observation of one day in seven is of Divine and primeval obligation, and was afterwards embodied in the Fourth Commandment. The observance of the Lord's Day as a day of rest, of worship, and of religious teaching has been a priceless blessing in all Christian lands in which it has been maintained. The growing license in its observance threatens a grave change in its sacred and beneficent character... The increasing practice on the part of some of the wealthy and leisurely classes of making the day a day of secular amusement is most strongly to be deprecated. The most careful regard should be had to the danger of any encroachment upon the rest which on this day is the right of servants as well as their masters, and of the working classes as well as their employers."
The language is a bit dated, but in 1888 we clearly see concerns that have grown in the past century or so, concerns over the Sabbath becoming a day of amusement for those with means, and concerns that people who have to work for a living are not getting a day of rest.
Full reflection: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_89268_ENG_HTM.htm
More Spiritual Reflections: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm