The Second Annual Ministry fair has come and gone. With a rush of last minute registrations we had about 260 in attendance, down considerably from last year. As last year, the evaluations were overwhelming favorable. So the staff and I are a bit puzzled as to why the lower numbers. Talking with the attendees, we heard a similar story. “This is hugely helpful for those of us who are lay leaders. It really gives us the tools to do our jobs, but our clergy leaders mostly didn’t mention it, or encourage people to attend.”

Odd, for I often hear my fellow clergy complain that the laity in their parishes do not give them as much help as they need, or are lacking in training or commitment.

The Ministry Fair is one effort to help bridge that gap, but for it to work we need cooperation and support from all concerned. So the staff and I have come up with an approach for next year's Fair we feel may help.

• 1. Yes, there will be another Ministry Fair on Sat., March 7, 2009. We are exploring some other venues, so we will keep you posted. We will continue to keep the cost as low as possible.
• 2. About two-thirds of the workshops offered will have to do with the "nuts and bolts" of parish life, with offerings for wardens, vestry members, children and youth leaders, treasurers, parish administrators, etc. The other one-third will be general interest courses such as meditation, Bible study, liturgical music, and art. In other words, something for everyone.
• 3. We will continue to bring in the best teachers we can, making good use of our own clergy and laity who possess special expertise.
• 4. I will solicit suggestions from our clergy at upcoming clericus gatherings as to what course offerings they feel would be most helpful to their parishioners. I want to be clear to them that my expectation is that every congregation in the Diocese needs to be represented. I also expect any new wardens, vestry members, or parish staff members to attend. If reminder calls are needed, I will be happy to do that!

The Ministry Fair is one of the best vehicles for strengthening lay leadership in our Diocese. Let's make it a priority!

+Kirk
The Rt. Rev. Kirk S. Smith
Bishop of Arizona

A Final Thought

Remember book reports? We had to do them in school, and sometimes hated them, but when we grew up, we came to appreciate book-reviews. Here is one of a new book by Garry Wills, What Jesus Meant. This book has already appeared on the New York Times best-seller list, and is reviewed in that newspaper's book review section by David Gibson. It gives us some food for thought:

+Kirk

What Jesus Really Did

This eminently readable volume is part of a series by Wills providing an overview of Christianity's roots. The series began with "What Jesus Meant" and continued with "What Paul Meant." There is less of Wills in this book than in the previous volumes - for good or ill, depending on what one is looking for. What readers will find here is an engaging look at the Gospels, informed by the best biblical scholarship, as well as by Wills' own faith, which he discusses openly. Wills relies almost exclusively on the writings of the late Raymond Brown, a Catholic priest whose works are the gold standard of New Testament exegesis.

"What the Gospels Meant" starts straightforwardly with a helpful explanation of just what a Gospel is: "a meditation on the meaning of Jesus in the light of sacred history as recorded in the sacred writings." Wills then parses the Gospel of Mark, the earliest account, as a "report from the suffering body of Jesus," written to comfort early Christians facing persecution. Matthew's is the teaching Gospel, recounting many of Christianity's most familiar sermons. The erudite Luke presents "the reconciling body of Jesus," a Gospel of poignant stories like the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan that display the humanity of Jesus and the universality of his message. John is, as ever, the theologian, a prophetic voice from "the mystical body of Jesus."

Yet the paradox of modern Christianity is that the growth of biblical scholarship, and the fervor of believers in sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), has done so little to affect the mass of biblical illiterates who proclaim their convictions about what Jesus would do while knowing precious little about what he actually did or, more important, what he meant. Neo-atheists aren't much better, sneering at Christians but displaying ignorance about Christianity. And neo-Gnostics - academics and acolytes who claim to channel the rebel spirit of various early Christian offshoots - routinely confer on "elite and snobbish" (Wills' phrase) second-century texts an authority they rarely grant to the canon. Such literalism sustains a fragile faith.

In this sense, Wills is a dangerous man. He does not create a foolish consistency out of differing Gospels, but underscores the attributes of each narrative to highlight truths more crucial than whether there were four discrete Evangelists, or whether three wise men actually followed a star in the East. The credulous will be shocked by his rationality, while skeptics will be scandalized by his respect for the faith. To be sure, Wills includes asides that will win few points with Rome, like his claim that the virgin birth "is not a gynecological or obstetric teaching, but a theological one." And he throws in facts that can be mischievously tossed out at family gatherings or, worse, to the pastor after Sunday services - for example, that the crown of thorns was probably a wreath of acanthus leaves. (Wills also provides his own translations of the original "marketplace" Greek, though I'm not sure that killing the "pampered" calf or hearing that the Word became flesh and "bivouacked with us" will catch on.)

Given how far the quest for the historical Jesus has strayed from both history and the meaning that people seek in the Gospels, we can only hope Wills' book is a sign of things to come. The pope himself last year published a well-received study, "Jesus of Nazareth," the first of a projected two-volume work that sought to put Christ back in Jesus. (Interestingly, Wills and Benedict XVI reflect a trend toward giving greater credence to the historical reliability of John, whose Gospel is the most abstract and the last to be written.) Like Benedict, Wills emphasizes the eschatological power of Jesus' message, and the revolutionary fire that his words, now banked to a dull glow by familiarity, kindled in his contemporaries. The adage that "Jesus began as biography and ended as creed" is an article of faith to those who believe that the truth of what really happened 2,000 years ago has been buried under layers of dogma and deception. Wills shows that the reverse is true: Jesus' disciples followed him to the cross because they believed he was the Messiah, and then spread his message as they - like generations after them - came to believe that he had been raised from the dead in fulfillment of the Scriptures. Creed came first, then the Gospel truth. Or truths.

So are Garry Wills and Pope Benedict occupying the sensible center of New Testament scholarship? Whatever the case, the fact remains that if exegesis is considered merely archaeology or merely apologetics, then it strays far from both history and faith, and from what the Gospels really meant.