The Rt. Rev. Chilton R. Knudsen
Bishop of Maine
Pentecost 2002
Message from
Bishop Chilton Knudsen
Overheard while getting my hair cut:
Our daughter is getting married in June…
…in a church?
Yes, some kind of name I’ve never heard before: Epil-yan or something like that….
Is that a regular religion, like Methodist or Catholic?
I don’t know. I’ve never heard of it before…
At this point the woman who cuts my hair blows my cover.
A,B and C all look curiously at me in my day-off grubbies, and an amazing conversation begins. After a few moments comes the question: "So what IS the Epi-however-you-say-it Church like?"
I can feel myself getting wound up to talk about our emergence as a branch of the Church Catholic…how we find God’s grace in the Sacraments…how our doctrine is summarized in the ancient Creeds which tell of God’s wonder revealed in the Trinity…that Scripture is the Word of God which we study and pray over in community with one another…that Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, which is called the "Body of Christ," his continuing life on earth…and all believers are called to make Christ known and to serve the world in his Name…that we share authority and responsibility for our life together, requiring that both lay and ordained people participate in the councils of the Church…that we are members of a world-wide community of Anglicans…and that prayer is so central for us that we have a Book of Common Prayer to guide us in prayer whether we are few or many, together or alone…
But I don’t end up saying all of that (even though it’s all true—and a pretty good start, I think, on the essentials of being Episcopalian). Instead, I end up telling about:
+ The just-ordained deacon who gave the Cup to her father, saying, "Daddy, the Blood of Christ…"
+ Hearty laughter around the circle when an earnest group of leaders felt the Spirit descend as we wrestled with tough decisions
+ Stations of the Cross on Good Friday with the people of St. Thomas, Winn: stopping at the hospital, the town hall, the mill, the river, the cemetery, the site where terrible fire had swept through the town center…and other significant prayerplaces where Christ dwells and suffers with us in every dimension of our humanity
+ The Easter Vigil celebrated by Bangor-area Episcopalians with our Lutheran brothers and sisters
+ Giving out disposable diapers to a family who came to St Elizabeth’s, our new congregation in Portland, and the thank you which needed no translation
+ Gathering with the clergy of the diocese for our annual Holy Week Renewal of Ordination Vows, as we blessed the oils of healing and new life
They really listened "Want to hear more?" I asked…and they kept nodding till one of us had to go pick up a child at school. As we dispersed, one woman said, "You’d never think that we’d talk about God in a beauty saloon (yes, she said saloon). I’ll have to visit an Epi- (how do you say it?) church sometime."
Tell your congregation’s story! That story is caught up into the Story of God’s love poured out to us in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ…which splashes hope into every moment of life. Within the ordinariness of daily life, even at the beauty saloon, Christ is risen!
+CHILTON