Jessica Coblentz » Uncategorized

Exciting Announcement!

Jessica Coblentz — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:39:00 +0000

I wanted to let all of you know that I have received the wonderful opportunity to study at Harvard Divinity School for a Master of Theology Studies degree. I will begin next fall, and I anticipate a trove of great new experiences that will inform my writing on the site.

Thanks for your loyal readership and support!

Coming Home: An Advent Reflection

Jessica Coblentz — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:09:00 +0000

For as many times as I’ve heard the Christmas story, it amazes me that new aspects of the tale still capture me. This year it was the realization that, like Joseph, my advent is marked by a return to my hometown after significant time away. I have never before thought of the Christmas story as a homecoming.

Imagine Joseph, a good, honorable man, heading to his hometown with a mysteriously pregnant fiancee. While the gospels do not tell of encounters with his hometown buddies or relatives, I wonder if he did run into them (it seems likely, since everyone was heading home for the census). Whether he ran into them or not, I wonder if he worried about these potential encounters. What would they think of him? “Oh, how he’s changed,” they might assume, “impregnating a girl before their marriage!” Perhaps the angel’s messages gave him the peace and courage to overcome this anxiety.

Each time I return to the friends and family of my hometown, I am struck by how the circumstances of my life have changed, and often how I, myself, have changed. At times, I also feel a bit of anxiety about this: What will old friends think of these changes? When people unthinkingly voice assumptions about my beliefs, be it regarding religion or politics or ethics, I am reminded that I am not the same as I was when I was here before, and I find myself wondering whether that is good or bad or strange to others.

This advent reflection has spurred me to look beyond my own anxiety and consider how I treat others who, like Joseph and I, return home under new circumstances this year. When I greet old friends and family, do I engage them without assumption or judgement? Do I listen in a way that invites others to be honest about the new revelations, changes, doubts and beliefs in their lives? Do I respond to these new beliefs or circumstances with an open, honest heart, recognizing that even the changes that appear negative or worrisome may be the very place where God is most at work in someone’s life?

Joseph’s friends and family may have been concerned upon his home coming, but did they take the time to lovingly listen to his story? Will I? Will you?

Church?

Jessica Coblentz — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:43:00 +0000

Recently, I curiously opened an email with this word–Church?–in the subject line. It was from a friend in Boston, raised Presbyterian and Jesuit educated, inquiring with a couple friends about the real meaning and purpose of “church” after an interesting gathering he attended on the subject. He wrote:

[The speaker] attempted to show why church is different from a Christian fellowship group on campus that meets weekly and does many of the same things that a church will do… So it got me to thinking about the differences between “church” and edifying meetings between Christian friends. What are your thoughts? Why do we (you) go to church? What difference does it make if we’re celebrating the mystery of God in a “church” with a designated program or in our homes with and through the people we love?

I was struck by the real difficulty of these questions. Many of us on the email list, including myself, were raised “in the church,” that is, in Christian, church-going families, yet our consistent experiences in official “churches” didn’t provide easy replies and explanations.

Although my thoughts on this are in no way complete, this is what I came up with in my response to my friend: Communal ritual. While the informal (or less formal) fellowship of a friendly gathering or weekly fellowship surely have the potential to be spiritually significant and formative, most of these gatherings do not engage in certain Christian rituals that are both definitive and transformative. With the ever evolving non-denominational church service, identifying exactly what these symbols and rituals are becomes complicated, but from a Catholic perspective, these weekly communal rituals/symbols are communion and the proclamation of the scriptures. That means that a weekly “bible study” can be a substitute for a weekly, formal “church” if scripture and communion are shared ritually during every gathering. This is what the earliest church looked like, from what I can tell.

These rituals serve as a unifying component not only for the members of a local church, but for Christians across the world. When I participate in Eucharist every Sunday, I (technically) celebrate with all the Christians across the globe. This ritual brings us together across language, location, and even difference in certain theological positions. Christian baptism, for instance, could be performed among friends, but when it is performed (if done so in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit–or whatever synonyms you choose) this community of friends enters “communion” with the Church through this ritual, and thus, becomes a part of the “church” in at least some sense.

What about ‘churches” that don’t engage in communion/Eucharist on a regular basis? This gets tricky. The definitive ritual of a lot of churches today seems to be the proclamation of scripture alone. If this is enough to make something “church” then a bible study, or a spontaneous lunchtime convo about a bible verse doesn’t seem much different from “church.” This may not be a bad thing…Ultimately, I guess I am saying that a group of friends can be ‘church’ if your definition permits it (which some reasoning can, I think). But for me, personally, I think that Christian ritual is central to my experience of church, particularly because I think belief cannot be the unifying aspect of Christian church experience. It is the rituals we enact to encounter God, and the scriptures we employ to make sense of our own spiritual narratives that unite us a “church.” Since the scriptures can be a bit messy, especially a lot of preaching about the scriptures, I actually find Christian ritual to be the more significant and stable unifying element of church. Fellowship, both within and outside of “church” walls is probably the most formative of all–but that is not to say this component has not been greatly enriched by my experience of communal ritual.

As I noted earlier, these are my initial thoughts about this issue. I would love to know what you think…