Covenant, Prayer and the 1979 BCP Collect for the Sunday after Epiphany


The 1979 Book of Common Prayer has some oddities and peculiar relishes here and there.  One of them is found in the Collect for the First Sunday after the Epiphany. It goes like this:
First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of our Lord
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. 
Hopefully the “glitch” is obvious for the thoughtful, Bible-shaped reader, whether Calvinist or Arminian; “Grant that all who are baptized into his name may keep the covenant they have made.”

The problem is (at the least) two-fold:
  1. If it’s a covenant we have made, then it is from our own manufacture, concoction and incentive. That would mean it is on our own terms, with us setting the limits.
  2. The Collect is tying the covenant with baptism. That is all fine and dandy, in and of itself, actually. But if it is a covenant that we made at our baptism, then the whole picture of grace that is written into baptism is crossed out and replaced with a picture of our own self-made righteousness or self-crafted fitness.

Biblically, the covenants made between God and humanity are unilateral: God makes them with humans without asking their permission, or seeking out their fitness. God’s covenants have to do with grace. And baptism is a picture of that grace – the baptized is passive, simply receiving the sacrament, just like we receive salvation:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2.8-10). 
If there were a revision committee formed, and they were to be truly ecumenical and ask this Presbyterian his druthers, I would “reform” this Collect more appropriately this way: 
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus at the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into Christ may keep the covenant you have made with them, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Mike the Troublemaker

[FYI: (1) This Collect may be referring to the Baptismal Covenant in the 1979 BCP on page 304-5, which raises a whole other set of problems; (2) This Collect is also used the PC(USA)'s 1993 Book of Common Worship, p. 198-9] 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?" (Rev. Ed.) by John Fea. A Review

Image
  John Fea is a professor of history at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA. A university founded in 1909 by the Brethren in Christ Church. He originally published "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction" in 2011, and it was revised in 2016. This 328-page paperback is packed full with Colonial and American history, drawing from original sources to answer that question. It is a book written "for the historically minded and thoughtful reader who is looking for help in sorting" out this question, avoiding polemics (xix). Since we live in a sound-bite culture, Fea recognizes that it is difficult to have a sustained dialogue on this topic, but he makes a valiant effort toward having that sustained dialogue. The book reads fairly straightforward, and doesn't seem to get bogged down in the contentious mudpuddles or bogs. In the end, Fea seems to get his point across. To answer the reigning question if America was founded as a Christian...
Read more

Union with Christ - An Application

Image
  (This was my weekly letter to my congregation on Wednesday, 21 February 2024) This morning in my devotional reading, I was working through 1 Corinthians 8. Though I’ve read these words a huge number of times over the years, today one verse caused me to stop and take stock.  Paul wrote, “ Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ ” (1 Corinthians 8:12). What struck me is a couple of things. First, in God’s saving work, we are – by grace alone – united (hitched, bonded, ingrafted) to Christ so much so, that what happens to us happens to him, and what is his becomes ours (think of Galatians 2:20, for example). As Sinclair Ferguson put it, “through union with Christ all that is his by incarnation becomes ours through faith” (“The Christian Life,” 110). Let that percolate in your heart for a while. Your fear, anxiety, tears, and so forth, he feels. And his “ Peace, be still ” is yours. Second, the way we treat one an...
Read more

"Ah, Lord! We are Animated by Anger and Anxiety, Fear and Fury..."

Image
I hesitate to put this out there because of the combative environment we are in at present. But I think some souls will take courage from this, and some will also join with me as we get to the end of this little composition. I am struck by the words of God in Zechariah 8. As he rehearses the waywardness and faithlessness of his people in the past, he clearly declares that he " set every man against his neighbor " (8:10). That got me thinking long ago. I started putting the pieces together and realized that one of God's acts of judgment is division, setting a man against his neighbor. That's what happened when he divided his people into the northern tribes and southern tribes (see 1 Kings 11:26-40). Because of Solomon's turning aside, allowing his wives to turn his heart away from the God of his father, David, the Lord brings about a rift in God's people. And this pattern of divisive judgment runs throughout Scripture. On the other hand, truthful unity is the g...
Read more