Igniting the Soul

Anglican Communion and Ecumenism

2011-10-14T15:11:00.000-05:00

An important distinction exists between membership in the Anglican Communion and ecumenical relations with a member Church of the Communion. An important example exists in the relationship between the Church of England and the Porvoo Communion. The Church of England is a partner in the Porvoo Agreement, but the Porvoo Communion is not in communion with the See of Canterbury. It seems that this is a contradiction, but in terms of the Anglican Communion, there is not.

The Porvoo Agreement is, as is stated on the Porvoo website, "an agreement to 'share a common life in mission and service'. These churches are either Anglican or Lutheran. The Porvoo churches agree on certain fundamental issues, but Porvoo is not a new confession. The churches maintain their respective identities."

The Porvoo Communion has an ecumenical relationship with the Church of England, it does not have the same relationship with the entirety of the Anglican Communion. In addition, each communion appears to be using the term 'communion' differently from one another. As an example of the practical application of the difference, there exists in the Church of England a distinct and detailed process for the "appointment of clergy from the Porvoo Communion" to ministry in the Church of England. The summary of it is that the Porvoo Communion Churches are not in communion with the See of Canterbury per the Anglican Communion. For this reason, Porvoo is not identified as part of the Anglican Communion.

This situation is similar to the relationship that the Episcopal Church in the United States of America has with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Old Catholic Churches, the Philippine Independent Church, the Mar Thoma Church, and recently now the Moravian Church in North America Northern and Southern Provinces. While there exists full communion between TEC and these various Churches, nevertheless these Churches do not have full communion with other member Churches of the Anglican Communion. Rather, as independent autonomous Churches, these Churches and TEC have defined for themselves ecumenical relations that have incorporated constitutional recognition of ordinations. In fact, the relationship between these Churches, particularly between TEC and ELCA, are closer than the relationship between the Church of England and the Porvoo Communion. Nevertheless, these ecumenical relationships do not establish any of these Churches as part of the Anglican Communion.

These ecumenical relationships and that of the Porvoo Communion with the Church of England illustrate further that membership in the Anglican Communion is not effected through a relationship of some kind with the Archbishop of Canterbury as though the ABC exercises some special power of decree by fiat. Membership in the Anglican Communion is attained only through application and petition to the Anglican Consultative Council and by their vote in the affirmative in response. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, it is not the Archbishop but the ACC that determines whether or not a Church is in communion with the See of Canterbury.

Jim +

'Membership' in the Anglican Communion

2011-10-05T16:32:00.006-05:00

As the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina draws new scrutiny at the invitation of some members of the diocese, folks are renewing their struggle with various and strained notions of what it is to be a member of the Anglican Communion. May I presume to try to help? It seems well and good to pay attention to Anglican ecclesiology here. Neither 'South Carolina' the state nor 'South Carolina' the Episcopal Diocese thereof has the ability to 'remain a member of the Anglican Communion.' Only the Churches of which dioceses are subsidiary parts are members of said Communion.

In addition, an 'appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury' is completely outside the ecclesiology of both the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA) and the Church of England. Both Churches are independent of one another. Neither the Church of England nor the Archbishop of Canterbury has ecclesiastical authority in the PECUSA. An appeal to Canterbury from a member of this Church in the 21st century is reminiscent of someone from the Church of England appealing to Rome in the late 16th century. In either case, it is entirely un-Anglican thinking to suppose that such is appropriate. This, besides the fact that it is unconstitutional and non-canonical.

It is quite accurate to note, as some have, that 'the Church in the USA was not a member of the Anglican Communion in 1785'. This is simply because there was no such thing as an 'Anglican Communion' in 1785. Churches on the Anglican model that existed at that time were three in number: the Church of England, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

There were no independent Anglican Churches beyond these because there were no independent nations beyond these who sustained an Anglican ecclesiology. It wasn't until England began losing its colonies that Churches independent of England began constituting themselves in these former colonies. With the increase in number of these independent Churches, the Church of England thought it beneficial to its waning influence to suggest a Lambeth Conference in the late 1800's.

Further, it wasn't until the late 1960's that the Anglican Communion as we know it today was convened in the form of the Anglican Consultative Council. It is, of course, a simplistic myth that the Archbishop of Canterbury declares, in a sort of ex cathedra manner, which Churches are and which are not members of the Anglican Communion. He has the prerogative to invite or not invite bishops to the Lambeth Conference, as we have seen in his shamefully public dis-invitation of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson a few years ago. But people will notice, I hope, that this had no affect whatsoever on whether or not the PECUSA remained a member of the Anglican Communion.

Thus, this Archbishop has himself demonstrated that neither an invitation to the Lambeth Conference or a lack thereof determines membership in the Anglican Communion. Membership is determined by appeal and petition to the Anglican Consultative Council and by the Council's subsequent vote in response. Inasmuch as the Council is an inter-Church body, the Church of England's Archbishop of Canterbury has but a small role in the process. And again, membership in the Anglican Communion is for Churches, not dioceses. There is no avenue for subsidiary part of a Church, such as the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina or any other Episcopal diocese, to have unilateral membership in the Anglican Communion. I hope this is helpful.

God's Peace.
Jim +

Denied but Important Aspects of the Proposed covenant

2011-05-24T13:52:00.009-05:00

Recent discussions of the proposed Anglican covenant largely ignore certain aspects of the proposal that need airing; specifically the affect of the proposal's adoption upon LGBT persons and upon TEC's ministry with, of, and to LGBT persons and couples. I've noted once or twice a suggestion that LGBT persons should just wait for now, as though discrimination is acceptable for a while longer (!), but, rightly so, this suggestion has been challenged and put down.

But largely the conversations have ignored the origins of the proposed covenant in both misogyny and homophobia. One need only remember that it was the ordination of priests who are women that led to the "crisis" identified by the Archbishop and his Commission on Communion and the Ordination of Women, which then led to the Virginia Report and its suggestions of a "universal authority;" and that it was the "crisis" of the election of an unapologetically gay man to be a bishop that led to the Archbishop's appointment of a Lambeth Commission on Communion. I hope people are seeing here a top-down reactionary response to the autonomy of TEC (and of the Church of Canada) in the identification of ministries of which the Archbishop disapproves as subjects of 'crisis.' So influential has the ABC been in the processes of these Commissions that he has been able to set the terms purely by fiat. Without conversation, dialogue, or debate the Archbishop has taken extraordinarily presumptuous privilege in naming these ministries as crises in the Communion. And his approach has been quite effective, because the rest of us have been on the defensive ever since.

Rachel Tabor-Hamilton's insights are illuminating here: "In my opinion, informed by the perspective of indigenous experience of the Anglican Church across the globe, the Anglican Covenant was a predictable next step, as someone has already noted, like a 'treaty' to legislate purity control. There is no other intent behind the Covenant other than exclusion of people who are different, as ascribed by those whose self-interest is to maintain privileged status. Christ teaches that authentic human relationships cannot be legislated and that spiritual issues do not have political solutions. The Covenant is void of any truth, being based as it is, on an inter-cultural history of violence and domination," the Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton, Secretary Executive Council on Indigenous Ministry.

We need to recognize that we ourselves are "people who are different." We are LGBT and their advocates. By our own constitutional and canonical integrity, TEC is about to formally end our discrimination against LGBT persons and couples, lay and ordained. Because we have had the audacity and charism to recognize the call to ordained ministry among women, and because we have had the audacity and charism to recognize the call to ordained ministry among persons who are gay or lesbian, and because we are, perhaps, about to recognize our call and charism to recognize the sanctity of love among same-sex couples, we of TEC are being threatened yet again with a process of legislative purification by those whose privilege is challenged by our democratic autonomy.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. noted in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail something quite relevant to this discussion today. He wrote: "I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

In our context, it is the well-intentioned moderate who seems to fear the disturbing presence of justice, who seems to favor a superficial peace in the perpetuation of the status quo. It is the well-intentioned moderate who claims to favor an end to discrimination, but just not now, because it is somehow inconvenient. It is the well-intentioned moderate who can still bring this current effort for inclusion to utter defeat.

TEC needs to be vigilant in its attention and diligent in its ministry. The misogynist and homophobe know that we can still be defeated in this civil war. I apologize if the military analogy offends some people's sensibilities but, as someone has noted, 'It takes heat to make light.' Equal rights are never handed over to those seeking them; they are demanded, fought for, and won; or they are never gained at all. We need to be serious about seeing this effort through. We need to know that we still can lose.

Arguments that favor the proposed covenant consistently fail to address the oppressive and discriminatory practices that would be perpetuated by its adoption. We need to demand that they do so. It is easy enough for people who already enjoy the privilege of membership and/or ministry to tell those to whom these are being denied that they should wait a little while longer. But if they believe truly that this is a laudable position, let them then resign their ordination and its privileges, let them declare their cessation of officiating at heterosexual marriages, let them publicly deny themselves access to the sacraments, and let them suspend their participation in the worship and fellowship of the Church, until....what?....until a "universal authority" of the Anglican Communion declares that LGBT persons really are fully fellow Christians?

Those who favor the proposed covenant need to come clean on what they believe about clergy who are women, what they believe about their LGBT kindred in Christ, what they believe about the Church's call to celebrate the ministry of clergy who are women, what they believe about the Church's call to reach out to and inclusion of LGBT persons in its community, and what they believe about the proposed covenant's tacit perpetuation of discrimination against people are different and against people who live and minister on the margins. If these are topics of discomfort for them, or are vocations that they cannot acknowledge, let them come clean and bring their views on these to the discussion around the proposed covenant. Failing that, they are simply dodging the core intentions of the proposed covenant. And we need to hold them accountable for their attempts to do so.

God's Peace.
Jim +

Myths behind the proposed covenant

2011-05-17T10:57:00.005-05:00

In conversations about our relationship as the Episcopal Church with other Churches of the Anglican Communion, it seems to me important that we recognize that we need not allow our attention to be taken hostage by the attempts of some to focus us on the proposed Anglican covenant. It is merely a proposal and we can do a lot of good for our sister Churches if we reinforce this reality in our conversations. In like manner, we can do a lot of good also by recognizing that our relationship with sister Churches of the Communion are not different in any practical sense from our ecumenical relationships with Churches of communions other than the Anglican.

The proposed covenant is rooted in many false assumptions. And its sponsors and authors seek to perpetuate many more. The claim that the proposal is voluntary may be legally true; but more accurately described, it is coercive. It seeks to perpetuate the myth that the Anglican Communion is a single Church, rather than an association of constitutionally independent Churches. It seeks also to perpetuate the myth that there are four Instruments of the Communion. The idea of four "instruments of Communion" was introduced in the Virginia Report of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission, published in 1997. It is worth noting the report's genesis: "In 1988 the Lambeth Conference was faced with a question that challenged the unity of the Communion: the proposal by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America to consecrate a woman to the episcopate," (from the introduction). In response to the 'crisis' of ECUSA's consecration of a bishop who is a woman (gasp!), "the Archbishop of Canterbury, in consultation with the Primates, established a Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate under the leadership of the Most Revd Robert Eames, Archbishop of Armagh," (also from the introduction).

Some will recognize both this tactic and the Archbishop of Armagh himself as having emerged also in the Lambeth Commission on Communion which produced the famous or infamous Windsor Report, another commission with another report issued on the occasion of yet another 'crisis,' this one the election of a bishop who is gay.  
             
After proposing the "four instruments of communion" and presenting arguments for each as such, arguments that are based more in tradition than in reason and charism, the report notes, in chapter five paragraph 20, "The world-wide Anglican assemblies are consultative and not legislative in character."  Quite right, quite accurate, of course; but the Commission seems to believe that this arrangement is deficient.  The paragraph continues, "There is a question to be asked whether this is satisfactory if the Anglican Communion is to be held together in hard times as well as in good ones.  Indeed there is a question as to whether effective communion, at all levels, does not require appropriate instruments, with due safeguards, not only for legislation, but also for oversight."  Here, I suggest we see the emergence of the current trend of the Church of England toward a more authoritarian role in the Communion.

The paragraph continues with a rhetorical question, notably not an outright proposal: "Is not universal authority a necessary corollary of universal communion?" In kind, I would ask rhetorically, 'Is not the establishment of a universal authority exactly what the Archbishop of Canterbury is pursuing with these various commissions?' (Answering outright, I say, 'Yes.')

The paragraph concludes with two claims, both of which, I suggest, are suspect: "This is a matter currently under discussion with our ecumenical partners. It relates not only to our understanding of the exercise of authority in the Anglican Communion, but also to the kind of unity and communion we look for in a visibly united Church." To imply, as does this Commission, that universal authority is necessary for ecumenical relations is plainly absurd. TEC, like our sister Churches of the Communion, have extant ecumenical relationships. Thereby is it demonstrated that none of the Churches needs a universal Anglican authority to effect or to sustain ecumenical relations.

The further and final implication of the paragraph is that such a universal authority as the Commission rhetorically recommends is necessary for a visibly united Church. Here, I suggest, we find the promotion of the errant notion of the Anglican Communion as a single Church or a single denomination. This notion may be English and it may be popular also among anglophiles outside Great Britain; but it is entirely contradictory to anything Anglican. The Commission behind the Virginia Report, along with those behind the Windsor Report and the proposed covenant, seem to have forgotten that a defining element of Anglicanism is the Church of England's historic rejection of foreign governance. Again, a recommendation of universal authority is what lay behind the original proposition of the "four instruments of Communion". We need to be very cautious about simply accepting this proposition as anything more than just such. It is already circulating in Anglican discussions with the weight of fact. To the contrary, I suggest this is yet one more myth associated with it.

The current proposed covenant is founded upon the very same myths as emerge in the Virginia Report and are reiterated in the Windsor Report: the assumption that the Communion is defined by the so-called "four instruments;" that the Anglican Communion is synonymous with a single world-wide Church; that the Anglican Consultative Council determines membership in the Communion; that Lambeth Conferences are juridical in nature; and that practical and effective relationships among the Churches of the Communion, as well as relations between these Churches and those of Communions other than the Anglican, are broken and irretrievable. None of these myths is demonstrably true.

What is plainly true is that the Archbishop of Canterbury and other parties in the Church of England, as well as malcontents elsewhere who seem driven by envy and/or megalomania, are acting opportunistically, attempting to claim for themselves power over Churches or provinces other than their own. They are dressing up their grab for power in the subtlety and refinement of pseudo-legalese and pseudo-grace. But even the legal dimensions of the proposed covenant remain dramatically deficient. And the appearance of grace is so superficial that it is taken seriously by almost no one. The disguise is ineffective. It is a bald play for power. Lust for power is at work here, supplanting the desire and commandment to love God and to serve neighbor.

A contract effected by coercion, even though pleasantly and deceptively titled otherwise, will only lessen the nobility of our subscription to our baptismal covenant. The structure of the Anglican Communion is indeed messy, inefficient, even amorphous to a large degree. It is all these because, so far, the Anglican Communion is a relational phenomenon, not a juridical one. With all due respect, I suggest that it is delusional to believe that a document or an oppressive juridical process will heal relationships that are disturbed because TEC has the audacity of charism to consecrate bishops who are women, to consecrate bishops and ordain clergy who are gay or lesbian, and soon, pray God, to sanctify the love residing in same-sex couples. We need to be realistic. And we need to be faithful.

Thus, I think we'll do well to be cautious about buying the premise that there is any urgency in the Communion at all, outside Lambeth Castle, and maybe Windsor, too. The Communion is not as screwed up as some seem determined to believe. Surely no one believes that a lack of 'universal authority' is preventing our growth in witness and number. Mission and ministry continue. Relationships between the Churches of the Communion remain effective for ministry. Even Churches whose Primates have condemned the Episcopal Church as apostate have bishops and dioceses that continue to work together with bishops and dioceses of TEC. Those Primates, bishops, clergy, and lay persons who have in fact condemned TEC, the Church of England, etc., have effectively taken themselves out of the Anglican Communion. These are people who have already condemned the proposed covenant for failing to punish TEC more harshly than it would, rendering the proposition all the more futile. I suggest that we will do well to recognize that the real problem, the real source of any decline, numerical, spiritual, or otherwise, is not the absence of 'a universal authority;' it is our continued narcissism. The proposed covenant is simply more of this.

TEC and the rest of the Communion will do itself a great favor, and will do the world a greater favor, when it puts this bad fruit from bad seed into the trash heap of bad ideas. Some will not be able or willing to do so, and they will perhaps find a spiritual home in some expression of Church and Christian faith other than the Anglican one. God bless them and I'm confident that they will be welcome to return to Anglicanism if so moved. But they will not be and are not now welcome to try to re-define it, thank you. Meanwhile, TEC will do well to continue helping redirect the focus of the Communion away from the proposed covenant and from similar expressions of selfish prejudice and petty ambition, returning our collective attention to our common vocation to be people of God's Love for all.

Jim +

The Church vs. the Institution

2011-03-14T12:21:00.002-05:00

Insight that rises from people with genuine experience of ministry in the day-to-day world of parish communities is worth much. There is too little platform for this and too much its opposite. Personally, my congregation and I have grown weary of hearing about the business of Church. Here in the Diocese of Texas, none of our bishops practiced parish ministry for an appreciable length of time before joining the business center at the diocesan offices, then going on to be elected bishop or bishop suffragan. I suspect that in the case of almost any bishop anywhere a lack of ground-level front-line experience affects negatively the ability of bishops to set an inspiring and relevant tone in their respective dioceses, as I know it does here. There is only so much that leaders trying to set the tone can say about the costs of running the diocese, and about the theory of the costs of running a parish, without all of us realizing that they are consumed with a business model for the Church.
The business model reigns in some parts of the Church, certainly here in the Diocese of Texas, despite the call of Christ to make disciples, not profits; to be faithful, not productive. Yes, Jesus' parable calls us to be 'productive' thirty-fold, sixty-fold, or one-hundred fold;' but it is plainly wrong to imply that a lack of explosive congregational growth in numbers is due to clergy 'burying the treasure' entrusted to them. It is an insult born of a callous business model, not born of a sense of shared Christian vocation.

Insight from people with meaningful ministry experience notes that Church must be guided by a vision. Bishops and other Church officials who have little or no real experience with parochial ministry will continue to find it difficult to provide a meaningful vision for a diocese because they have seldom had to do so for a congregation over a long-haul. They will continue to interpret the 'success' of the Church in terms of bottom-line and fiscal period accounting. This is sad enough, but the truly problematic result is that they will continue to infect the hearts and minds of the people whom they are called to inspire and support. The vision of the Church must be greater than its own survival. Church cannot exist only or even primarily to perpetuate itself. The Church whose vision is guided by moral principle and the generosity of God is the Church that attracts people who give themselves sacrificially to such things as are more valuable than money. They give themselves not to an institution or an ideology; but to other people who want or need their love and God's, to causes that represent God's Love for all, and to efforts to love God in return. Devotees of the business model will never understand this. The Church that thrives is the community of people who do.

Transperancy, Servant-hood, and Leadership

2011-02-13T15:36:00.003-06:00

At our annual Council, held yesterday, our Diocese of Texas had some opportunities to express our support and care of 'the least of these' among Jesus' followers and those who might yet choose to follow him. The proposals that some of us here at ECR offered for approval provided the diocese a number of chances to do more than rhetorically oppose discrimination against LGBT persons and others who are on the margins of society, both in and outside the Church. Each was a chance for the community of the diocese transparently to declare by actual deed its position on exclusion and discrimination against people marginalized for being outside the norm and refusing to apologize for it. The diocese rejected each one and, by this, transparency was achieved.

Some will point to another resolution that was proposed successfully, i.e. in that it was passed. Broad in range and shallow in depth, it called for no real action, no change, but simply restated the conceptual implications of the baptismal vows of every Episcopalian. It required nothing of anyone in terms of tangible response and brought to light no specific need or concern. It offered no leadership. It offered no expression of servant-hood. An example of the classic self-congratulatory 'feel-good' resolution, it passed with flying colors. Even our bishop's address promoted its adoption. Interestingly, the bishop's address also noted that it was a resolution that the Committee on Resolutions had put together. This is a curious thing indeed, in that the committee is not charged with putting together resolutions, but only with accepting them as submitted, ensuring that they are properly formatted, and offering a recommendation for passage, for rejection, or offering only a neutral 'no recommendation.'

In this case, though, the committee went well beyond what it is canonically commissioned to do. After having duly accepted the submissions of three proposals, each of which happened to mention 'bullying,' the committee decided to persuade the submitters to accede to the most generic and non-specific proposal, which mentions bullying once with no further description. The other two resolutions were specifically aimed at bullying of LGBT youth, in reference to the tragic spate of gay teen suicides last September, each related to anti-gay bullying. One submitter agreed to surrender the proposal that the submitter had offered and which had been accepted already by the committee. We here at ECR, however, chose not to lose the distinctiveness of our proposal to the one clearly favored by the committee.

Our resolution is available to read on this blog site. One will note that it is specific and calls for specific action. It was gently modified at Council by our submitter to add the words 'in principle' to those sections that referred to support for legislation. Thus we avoided the appearance of calling for Council to pre-determinedly favor legislation that has not yet been written. At pre-Council meetings and again at Council, the claim was made by diocesan officers that the reason this proposal was recommended for rejection ('not recommended') is that this proposal was 'encompassed' in the previous, i.e. the more generic one; the one that makes no reference to gay teens. The favored proposal that 'the committee had come up with' and which was promoted by the bishop refers once each, and only conceptually, to sexual orientation and sexual identity amongst a litany of other conceptual categories. Due to our desire to be specific in our proposal, we resisted increasingly persistent efforts by the committee to surrender our specific address of the evil of anti-gay bullying.

Two other proposals were offered: one that sought to end the presumption of the diocese to define unilaterally the sacrament of the Church known as Holy Matrimony, and another that sought to create a canon for pastoral care for couples for whom the sacrament of Holy Matrimony was inaccessible (gay people) or for whom a state marriage license would involve extraordinarily punitive consequences. Senior citizens on fixed incomes or undocumented workers subject to deportation are examples of couples that would fit the latter group. The majority of the committee on constitution and canons responded with such hyperbole in their reaction to this proposal that it would be out-loud laughable were it not so serious. These two proposals are also viewable elsewhere on this blog site.

With no official accountability, this committee, too, far-exceeded its canonical responsibilities. The published opinion of the committee failed to note, first, that their recommendation for rejection was an opinion, not a ruling; and second, that their recommendation was only a majority opinion, that in fact a member of the committee did favor the adoption of this proposal. The extraordinary official mis-characterization of this proposal took over people's attention, effectively over-shadowing the actual content of the rather modest proposal itself. The committee made absolutely transparent its disdain for this proposal based on its fixated belief that it was a proposal of same-sex blessings. The committee paid no attention to the other groups of couples described in this proposal.

It is particularly sad that the leadership style in this diocese was glaringly evident yesterday. This style has long involved the assumption that the people are to be told and trained what to think and how to vote on matters that should be entrusted to the minds and hearts of people's faithful reflection. Under the influence of the delusional mantra of 'we are one Church', difference of opinion is not only feared in the culture of this diocese; it is hated. The abiding predisposition in this diocese against any overt welcome of or support for LGBT persons is transparently present from the leadership on down to the people in the pews.

In the case of one of the proposals, debate itself was shut down by a motion to table it moved by a self-proclaimed proponent of LGBT inclusion. A proponent of inclusion perhaps, but more accurately, of inclusion later on, but not yet because, in the opinion of this supposed advocate, 'now is not the time,' One cannot help but remember the same claims made to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by people who convinced themselves that they were in favor of equal rights, but whom Dr. King knew to be 'the dangerous moderates,' a group more harmful to the cause for equal rights than even the out-right bigots.

The propositions that we at ECR offered for debate at Council were rejected in order to discourage the people of the diocese from daring to think differently from the preferences expressed by the dominant powers of the diocesan community. Leadership in the culture of this community is less about servant-hood to all, and far more about the most-privileged imposing upon the wider community their preferences and prejudices simply because they can do so, and get away with it. Servant-hood involves humble restraint of privilege in order not to abuse the responsibilities of authority. In the culture of this community, as is true perhaps of this state, leadership is understood to be about the quiet accruing of power in order to deprive the people of the opportunity for mature reflection from which might rise minority viewpoints, and the bald abuse of power to punish dissent.

As was claimed by the purposefully unchallenging self-serving resolution that passed in the name of advocacy, a public statement indeed was made by the Diocese of Texas yesterday. The Diocese of Texas publicly refuses to condemn specifically the bullying of gay teens. The Diocese of Texas publicly rejects pastoral care for couples as couples when their relationships differ from the cultural norm. The Diocese of Texas publicly rejects the Church's authority to define for this diocese the sacrament of Holy Matrimony (and perhaps the other sacraments?).

A public statement was made yesterday that shouts loudly and clearly of the obstinate embrace of oppression as a tool for creating the illusion of unity in a diocese that desperately fears its own diversity. Transparency certainly was achieved yesterday. Oops.

Jim +

Shrill cries for centralization

2011-01-25T16:11:00.001-06:00

There are increasingly shrill cries for a centralized authority over the Churches of the Anglican Communion. Some are now claiming that there is such crisis in the Communion that the only possible resolution is in granting the Lambeth Conference and the Primates’ Meeting a ‘Conciliar authority,’ although no one can say who it is that would or could, under Anglican polity, grant such authority. These arguments are claimed to be rooted in the principle of ‘What affects all, should be decided by all.’ These arguments are based on two premises, one of which is false and one of which is faulty.

The assumption that the Anglican Communion is in crisis is false. Only those who have a craven lust for power view the state of affairs in the Communion as dangerously critical. In reality, there is no crisis. On the other hand, views such as these do indeed threaten to create one. If people begin to accept the premise that the Anglican Communion (read: 'the Anglican Church') is in crisis, then people may in fact choose to accede the authority that God has entrusted to them as faithful protestants. In that case, the Communion would indeed enter a crisis, a critical destruction of the virtues of autonomy and autocephaly that the Communion has represented since its emergence in the late 1800's.

In terms of Christian history, the Communion is still young, hence fragile. It is vulnerable to the plays for power that some are executing now. The rest of us bear the responsibility of doing all we can to preserve the distinctive blessings and the distinctive burdens of what it is to be the Anglican Communion.

Further, and more obviously, the presumption that the principle of: ‘What affects all, should be decided by all’ is valid in the Anglican context is demonstrably faulty. One is immediately struck with the irony of this doctrine being touted by persons of the Anglican tradition: the Church of England having clearly denied this very principle in order to claim its right to exist.

Certainly what the Church in England did under Archbishop Cranmer and King Henry VIII had dire implications for 'all' the Church! Would those calling for centralization now suggest that England was wrong to have enacted its reformation? Or is one correct in inferring that these folks define 'all' not as 'all Christians' but only as 'all Anglicans'? If so, then one realizes that their limitations on 'all' are as sectarian as any other inaccurate use of the term. It then becomes these people’s burden to explain why this peculiar use of the principle is restricted in such a way that it serves what appear to be their predisposition and affection for autocratic power.

The respective polities of the Churches of the Anglican Communion define 'all' as those who are members of each Church, respectively. When it comes to governance, each Church has its own membership, therefore its own 'all.' These polities result directly from England's rejection of Rome's claim to define 'all' for all Christians.

There is no crisis, there is only claim to same. There is no 'Anglican Church,' there is only an effort to claim same. If the political powers of the Anglican Communion push an attempt to centralize more power to themselves, they will find a great many members of the organic Church, the 'all' of the Churches of the Communion, leaving their Churches; leaving the emerging autocracy and oligarchy; and reiterating what England told Rome, what America told England, 'NO! We value our independence as much as our interdependence. You will not take away one in the name of the other.' These folks will leave to strengthen expressions of faith in community that are more democratic and organic, as perhaps once was the Church of England and certainly as is, yet, the Episcopal Church. And the discarded remains of the Communion will find itself quickly and increasingly irrelevant to anything having to do with Christian witness to the wider world.

Jim +

2 Advent B - 7 December 2008

2011-01-04T12:04:00.001-06:00

2 Advent B - 7 December 2008
Isaiah 40:1-11; 2Peter 3:8-15a, 18; Mark 1:1-8
James V. Stockton

The hard times are over. I know it’s difficult to believe. The daily news cycle reminds us that the jobless rate in our nation is the highest it’s been in over thirty years. The stock markets nationally and globally continue to cost millions of people millions of dollars. Major industries, major state governments, scores of large city governments, and hundred of banks and financial institutions are forming a line to the Capital Building in Washington D.C. to plead for government bail out money.

Some people will suggest that we all relax because the economy is correcting itself in ways that have been foreseeable and are unavoidable due to the effects or the failures of certain government policies. Others will suggest that this is exactly the time to bring the panic and some accountability to those who indulged regulations and loopholes for quick profit and gain with little regard for the longer-range consequences to the people of this nation and this world as a whole. Some will say that both are true. Few, though, if any, are saying that the time of hardship is coming to a close. I would like the Church to take the lead in declaring that the Good News that the hard times are ending, that amazing and wonderful things lie ahead for us all.

"When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery." It was said by 19th century physicist William Thomson, also known as Baron or Lord Kelvin. He is remembered today most popularly through the temperature scale that bears his name. "When you are face to face with a difficulty,” he said, “you are up against a discovery." People all around us, people we love and who love us, and people whom we don’t even know, are, like you and me, up against the hardships and difficulties of this present time. I pray that along with the difficulties that you and I may be experiencing these days, we can also experience the blessing of discovery. If we can do this within ourselves and for one another, then we can also, in Christ’s Name, offer this perspective to the world around us, those known to us and unknown who are also facing the economic and social hardships of our day.

‘Comfort, O comfort my people,’ says God to the prophet Isaiah. ‘Tell my people,’ God says, ‘encouraging words about the future dawning on them now.’ ‘In accordance with God’s promise,’ writes the Apostle Peter, ‘we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness truly is at home.’ And ‘God’s promise is coming,’ Peter writes, ‘and when it is coming is not the issue. What is the issue is that it is coming and that of this we may be certain. Likewise, John the Baptist says, ‘The One who is more powerful than is coming after me.’ Out in the wilderness, baptizing the people and prophesying to them about the Savior who is coming, John, like Isaiah, offers the people hopeful visions and encouraging words about the dawning of a better, brighter day.

“They say misery loves company,” the article begins; “but the same may be even more true of happiness.” It is by Karen Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times, and she is reporting on a recent study published in the British Medical Journal. Given the hardships that we share these days, I’m guessing that this article has gained a lot of attention. Maybe many of us here have heard about or read this article. Scientists from Harvard University and UC San Diego have discovered that “Knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself.”

Furthermore, the study shows that a “happy friend-of-a-friend increases your odds of happiness by 9.8%,” and that “even your neighbor's sister's friend can give you a 5.6% boost” in your likelihood to be happy. Says Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and medical sociologist at Harvard who co-wrote the study: "Your emotional state depends not just on actions and choices that you make, but also on [the] actions and choices of other people, many of which you don't even know.” Does misery love company, as the old saying goes? Maybe, but if so, isn’t it so only because company makes misery more bearable and happiness more likely?

In the times during which Isaiah, Peter, and John, respectively, either wrote or ministered, many people were suffering great hardship. They were in misery. Isaiah and his people are the captives of hostile enemies, denied basic rights that you and I take for granted, living with a day-to-day uncertainty that rivals anything that you or I, God willing, have likely ever known. In his day, Peter’s listeners are enduring everything from ridicule to persecution for simply trusting that God came in person in the one called Jesus of Nazareth and, of course, acting upon that trust. Many of their neighbors and relatives regard them suspiciously. The local authorities look upon them as trouble-makers who are practicing some strange and foreign religion. John the Baptist is himself is viewed very skeptically by some, especially by those whose authority John’s message faces and challenges.

And beside his message, John dresses differently from the norm; he eats foods that differ from what most are eating, he tends to his personal hygiene differently from most if at all. To these outward signs add John’s audacious message and the people who in positions of power soon decide that he is so different that they must shut him down. And even if his message is appreciated by many, yet there is just so much about John that is different, that even his friends and fans are at least a little nervous about him. He is different, and there really is no greater sin in society than being different. And so eventually, John, and then Jesus after him, will pay with their lives for being different; both will pay dearly for daring to make a difference.

As is often true in our day, so also in theirs: people in positions of privilege or of official authority are laying a corrupt and oppressive burden upon the general population. John brings a message to shine a light on these ills; he names the evils, he identifies the difficulties. And in so doing, he provides an opportunity for the people to face a discovery. For, to the people who suffer along with John, for those who value what he has to tell them, John’s message and the One whose coming it predicts represent an end to their present hardship and difficulties. Yes, bringing the message means ‘being different,’ ‘even unto death.’ Yet, for John and for Jesus, bringing hope and its fulfillment in peace to people who are without hope, who are seeking peace, who are longing for joy, who are praying for some sign of God’s Love or care or concern, some sign that they are not alone; some sign that God accompanies them in their hardship, and is leading to discover what real happiness is; this, for John, for Jesus, is worth it all.

Because just to bring the hope and the peace and the joy of the promise is already to initiate the beginning of the end of the hard times. God’s reign is coming again to the people of God. The prophet Isaiah, the Apostle Peter, and John, the Holy Outsider, each brings this message to his people. In the midst of this season of hardship, the Church’s season of Advent brings this message to God’s people today. I pray that we, now, God’s people, can bring this message to the people around us. And if it’s hard to believe, then let us discover that, if it’s said of misery, yet, faith loves company even more.

Today let discover our belief with one another: that the injustice of an imbalanced economy shall not escape the balance of the justice of God. Let’s each of us discover tomorrow with someone we know our belief that the wrongs of the greedy will not outlast the righteousness of the good. Let’s each of us discover the next day with someone we love, our belief that the corruption of the powerful will not survive the holiness of the Almighty. The day after that let’s discover with someone we don’t even know our belief that the hardships we endure are not immune from the healing Peace of heaven.

Christ has come and is coming again. God’s Love has risen and rising again. Let us together with God now discover and believe that amazing and wonderful things lie ahead for us all.

Now may the God of steadfast hope and promise of peace so move within us that we may lift our eyes and our hearts to God and ask what we should do, then guide us to all true choices, that we may walk in the Light and warmth of our savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

Rector's Study December 2010

2010-12-01T11:26:00.003-06:00

There are some good things about the possibility that Christianity and faith in God are now less the cultural norms than they once were, as recently as fifty years ago. It means that Christianity is increasingly a counter-culture. It means that faiths in God, and in God’s goodness in Christ Jesus, are counter-cultural. Christians don’t find today the cultural supports and validations that perhaps Christians did in an early time. It means that Christian faith and practice are no longer the cultural assumptions that they once might have been, so Christians today must increasingly be Christians because they mean to be.

One of the truly counter-cultural aspects of Christian faith is the anticipation that Christians have around the coming of Christ. Yes, the secularized culture of apathy toward questions about God will, of course, has similar disinterest in Christ Jesus and his coming into the world. Still further, though, still more counter-cultural, is the presence of anticipation at all.

Outside the hope of Christian of faith, the world around us promotes less an eager anticipation and more a fearful dread. People have more an anticipation that their economic hardships will continue, less than an expectation that they soon will end. People anticipate negative developments in international relationships, more than they expect them to improve. People are more pessimistic then optimistic about their government officials and about the integrity and accountability of the government as a whole. Culturally, there simply isn’t much, in a secularized skeptical world-view, that exists for people to anticipate eagerly.

In glorious contrast, Christian faith and practice involves eager anticipation of the coming of Christ Jesus, the coming of justice measured out with mercy, of consolation, of holy joy and heavenly celebration. The ancient hope of a Savior forecast and prophesied to come someday was an eager faith-based anticipation. We Christians now look for Christ to come again, ‘in power and great glory;’ and even if there is little, or absolutely nothing, around us in the wider world to confirm and validate our Christian expectation, we hope nonetheless, and we celebrate our eager anticipation in the weekly gathering of our sub-culture, our counter-culture of kindred followers of Christ.

What do you anticipate for the coming of Christ into the world? What do you anticipate for Christ’s coming in the meantime, in little ways, into your life, and into the lives of the people around you? About what are you eager with regard to Christ’s coming again? What joy do you await? What peace and consolation? What celebration and blessing? What do I anticipate? What do we, together, anticipate for the reemergence of Jesus through us into the world around us?

Counter-cultural people often look different from the dominant culture in which they live. They behave differently, even sound different from most of the folks around them who are not fellow subversives. I pray that we wear smiles on our faces when many of the people around us seem to believe there is nothing to smile about. I hope that we have a song in our hearts, maybe on our lips, when the world around us may be only grumbling or moaning with despair. I believe that we have a kind spirit and friendly presence for the most unfamiliar stranger who needs the blessings that come from swimming against the current and not going with the flow.

For this season of Advent and this Christmas season, as well, let us be Christians who mean to be Christian. Let us ask God to help us to be a subversive influence in the world for the sake of one another and those around us. Let us ask God to help us counter the wider cultural resignation to fear and sadness. Let us wear our eagerness. Let us share our anticipation. And let us celebrate Christ coming and having come into our lives and, with us, back out into the culture of the world around us.

God’s Peace. Jim +

Failure of 'Covenant' progress

2010-11-30T12:40:00.017-06:00

As is evident from the Episcopal/Anglican media, the fantastic juxtaposition of the Archbishop of Canterbury's efforts to force the proposed 'Anglican Covenant" through the Church of England's synod with the GAFCON statement of rejection of same is rattling the comfort cages of a lot of people who have invested themselves in the thing's passage. This is, I suggest, a good and healthy rattling. Some continue to assume that the autonomous and autocephalous Churches should take their disagreements to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Where, one wonders, does this bizarre ecclesiology originate? The Episcopal Church has never, ever, been a subject of the Church of England. To the contrary, its existence is predicated on its rejection of Canterbury's claim to have authority over it.

The other mythology that continues to work its charm is that of the Worldwide Anglican Communion. This concept didn't even exist until the 20th century. Until then, there existed the Church of England, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and the Churches of England's colonies. Several times in the 20th century the Episcopal Church was invited by some who were clearly envious of what they perceived to be the prestige of Rome to consider creating an Anglican competitor to it in the form of something that could be declared 'world-wide.' The implication was to be that the 'Communion' would be world-wide, while keeping mum on the reality that each of the Churches remained constitutionally and canonically independent. What emerged, and again, it did so only as recently as the 20th century, was a model of fidelity to a traditional form of worship and a common heritage in the Protestant Reform of the English Church. For awhile, it seems, it felt good to be identified as such.

However, what emerged over time, and inevitably so, were the challenges involved with being in relationship. The institutional identity could not suppress either the stress of actual disagreement nor the distress that emerged for some around their fear of disagreement even as a possibility. Despite the positive spiritual fruit that grew from the disagreement and discord between the Apostles Paul and Peter around inclusion of Gentiles, some Christians continue to fear disagreement as if it were a sign of satanic evil. This, though history shows us that significant human progress is rarely born of wide accord. As the saying has it: it takes heat to make light.

Now the neurotic fear of disagreement is promoting the fallacy that unanimity equals unity. Notice how 'The Anglican Covenant' is now spoken of as though it is somehow more than a mere proposal. Certainly the Archbishop of Canterbury has manipulated the established system in such a way that any other proposal would have, and has had, great difficulty getting public exposure, much less an official Communion-wide hearing. But notice how most Episcopalians have adopted the language of referring to it as 'The Anglican Covenant.' We are training ourselves to fall in line and approach it as a 'yes' or 'no' affair, rather than as something that we might duly critique in more specific ways. By adopting the language, we are training ourselves and our fellow Episcopalians to believe that the momentum is all toward the adoption of this thing, despite the reality that this simply isn't true.

Those who find comfort in the illusion of organizational stability and who idolize the institution of Church in place of worship of God will always crave the centralization of power. The proposed covenant is one more example. So it seems that the sick irony of the thing continues to escape those who favor this proposal. How strange it is that the Church of England, born of its own rejection of centralized power and dogmatic control from Rome, and the Episcopal Church, born of its own rejection of Canterbury's recreation of Rome's oligarchy, are now even discussing the possibility of establishing the very thing that each once vigorously impugned. One would expect that the two Churches would recognize that it is exactly this sort of oppressive, top-heavy, autocratic system that inspired the very protests that led people to leave Rome, then England, and so, perhaps, will lead them again to leave the reconstituted 'Anglican Church,' should, God forbid, the thing actually come into being.

As I'd predicted fearfully, so now we are reading and hearing proposal of creating a trans-provincial constitution and set of canons that would apply to all the Churches of the Anglican Communion. So easily, it seems, are some ready to surrender the fragile gifts and important responsibilities of our respective autonomy. Yet it remains for anyone to describe persuasively how it is that this proposed covenant, and now how the recreation of a trans-provincial Church in Anglican garb, would be a blessing to anyone, either within or outside the Church. I defy anyone to describe what benefit to the spread of the Good News of God's Love for all this proposed covenant would accomplish that cannot be accomplished within the relationships that already exist. Will anyone dare to propose that this 'covenant' would suddenly bring back into fellowship those African and Southern Cone Churches that have already declared themselves non-participants? Will anyone actually dare to claim that conversation and shared ministry are not taking place already; and that this covenant would suddenly cause this to happen, as though it isn't already happening? The only conversation that isn't taking place is the one that the ortho-crats want, which would have the rest of us acceding to their dogma. Until that 'conversation' happens, they will continue to claim that dialogue has been lacking. The claim is demonstrably false.

Further, will anyone dare to suggest that the proposed covenant will not require the human and spiritual sacrifice of LGBT members and potential members of the Episcopal Church, a sacrifice that they themselves will have no say in choosing? What real gift to God and to God's people would the adoption of this proposal bring? If the main benefit is a superficial unity for the sake of easing the embarrassment of the Archbishop of Canterbury's disastrous public relations, then, pray defend it on those terms. And good luck with that.

Remember, you must tell us all how it is worth giving up our autonomy, surrendering our constitution and our canons, to foreign rule by committee. Also, recognize that you must also tell us why we would want to involve ourselves in the governance of foreign branches of the new trans-national Church. Go ahead, make the case. And, again, good luck with that.

The proposed covenant is a shoddy substitute for the messy burden of authentic relationship. It is a proposal based on the substitution of litigation for conversation. It is a way to avoid difficult questions, not a way to resolve them. It is a way to silence dissent and difference, not a way to celebrate them. And since the inertia is against this proposal, it remains incumbent upon those who favor the thing to demonstrate beyond the predictable generalities and platitudes how it is that these criticisms are unfounded. So, good luck with that.

The proposed covenant began as a vindictive mean-spirited proposal. To pretend that the punitive aspect of it has somehow been removed is to indulge in fantasy, and it is to do so at the expense of real people. People who crave the specious validation of size need to get honest and simply make the move to Rome. Perhaps the Archbishop himself will one day soon find himself going there. This would not be a surprise, I think, to many of us. In the meantime, God willing and God's people working, the proposed covenant will continue to provide more confusion and frustration than hope and light, and the effort to impose it eventually be discarded by those for whom the authentic Anglican heritage still means something.

Jim +

Propoganda for the "Covenant"

2010-11-20T17:31:00.003-06:00

Regarding the proposal for an 'Anglican Covenant, I recently witnessed a presentation by the Rev. Robert Pritchard of Virginia Theological Seminary. The presentation rightly noted that there was no such thing as the Anglican Communion, or even hints thereof, until the early to mid-twentieth century, since the Churches deriving from the Church of England were almost all colonial appendages of the Church of the Empire (C of E). Mr. Pritchard's presentation, though, was skewed toward presenting the history of the Episcopal Church as though our history has basically always assumed a world-wide 'Anglican Church.' In fact, Mr. Pritchard used the term frequently in his presentation, even though there is no such thing as 'the Anglican Church.'

His presentation did identify, though unintentionally I think, a feeling among some 19th century Episcopalians of inadequacy in comparison to the Roman Catholic Church. I believe we are seeing this same size-envy at work again today around the illusory 'Anglican Covenant.' Particularly in North America many build the church on the model offered by commercial corporations where size, i.e. numerical affiliation, signifies importance. But we see that this is true also in the remnants of colonial values at work in the Churches of the Communion that either fought for or were given their autonomy in the twentieth century. This is evident in the numerical rendering of membership in some of the African Churches where membership is equated to being native born, whether or not the person actually attends or identifies with the Anglican Church of that nation. Obviously the practice a hold-over from the Church of England's manner of equating citizenship with membership in the Church. Similarly, it is dishonest and unrealistic. But it seems to make some people feel better about themselves in comparison to Rome.

Mr. Pritchard's presentation leads the audience to the conclusion that adoption of the 'Anglican Covenant' is the next logical step for the Episcopal Church. His presentation even implies that the idea was first an American one from way back. Its conclusion is the suggestion that without the adoption of the 'Anglican Covenant' the American Church can have no relationships with the rest of the "Anglican Church,", i.e. the other Churches of the Anglican Communion. By the way, the term 'Anglican Communion' is almost completely absent from this presentation. It's all about the 'Anglican Church.'

Mr. Pritchard hesitatingly admitted to me in the Q&A that, since his presentation demonstrates that the Episcopal Church does in fact already have relationships with the other Churches of the Anglican Communion, then the suggestion that a 'Covenant' is requisite for such relationships is immediately contradicted. We were left wondering what was the basis, then,for his belief that the 'Covenant' was a good thing. It is easy, though, to challenge the notion of an 'Anglican Covenant.'

First, while many strain to promote the concept of covenant as a legitimate one, it remains true that the biblical examples of covenant all indicate covenants between humanity and God. No covenants of any success are to be found in scripture that are genuine covenants between person and person, or people and people. I suggest that this is no small clue to overlook.

Second, while many speculate fearfully that the adoption of 'the Covenant' would help to atone for the sins of colonialism, they fail to recognize that it is itself a reactionary sin of anti-colonialism. It is not a correction but simply a substitution, with autocratic power simply shifting from one party to another. I think this can hardly be viewed as spiritually healthy or as practically productive.

Third, while some fear 'the Covenant' would make the Episcopal Church and all the Churches of the Communion into confessional Churches , and while others laud such a thing, both are mistaken. A confessional Church is one that professes or confesses particular doctrines. The proposed 'Anglican Covenant' can hardly be compared with the Westminster Confession or the Lutheran Confessions of the Book of Concord. More accurately, the proposed 'Anglican Covenant' would make the Churches of the Communion into litigational Churches, not confessional ones. The Churches of the Communion would be governed and guided by litigation. Section Four of the proposal is the point and purpose of the 'Covenant;' to claim otherwise is plainly intellectually dishonest. Thus, the establishment of it's 'Standing Committee' as an extra-provincial body of jurisprudence is the practical way that it would transform the Churches from autonomous and autocephalous to being subject to these empaneled judges, this regulatory body, who would dictate to all the Churches while remaining accountable to none.

Surprisingly, some appear to believe that the creation of yet another layer of bureaucracy is a good thing for the health of the Church, even if not for the spread of the Gospel. They are hard put, though, to explain how the reservation and centralization of power accomplishes this.

The 'Covenant' is a misguided attempt to replace the difficulties of real relationship with the apparent expediency of litigation. Quickly, I believe, with the 'Standing Committee' as precedent, it would become in the minds of some still more expedient to establish trans-provincial regulations that would try to head off dispute and litigation between the Churches. In other words, it would be a short step from this 'Covenant' to the creation of a trans-provincial Constitution and Canons, which would be the final nail in the coffin of the autonomy and autocephaly of the Churches. Local contextualization of ministry would be dramatically reduced in favor of the new centralized definition of 'orthodoxy.' The unique and living gift to Christendom and to the world skeptical of organized religion that is found in Anglicanism's delicate if unwieldy blend of the virtues of both historic catholicism and suspicious protestantism would be dead.

One need only check in with the former Roman clergy in our midst. They tell me, as I think they would do well to tell us all: this bureaucratic quieting of difference and dissent is what they left behind. If this court were created, it would most certainly be used. The 'Standing Committee' would be the elephant in the room wherever the Church met. It would become the preoccupation of every General Convention, every diocesan convention, every meeting of the House of Bishops, every meeting of the Primates, every Lambeth Conference. The 'Standing Committee' and the growing bureaucracy that would emerge from it would come to dominate every Church of the Communion. Those suffering a sense of inadequacy before Rome would finally see accomplished what they already refer to as 'the Anglican Church.' One wonders how that would sit with the founding fathers and mothers of this Church. One wonders how this would sit with the next generation of people looking for a spiritual home where freedom of thought is encouraged and putting the gospel into action is primary.

I think it's important to note that the Episcopal Church is a theocratic democracy. As such it serves as an encouraging lesson that a Church that held its first General Convention without a House of Bishops can grow to be a successful witness to the historic and fresh Christian faith. Wisely, our forebears chose to be exist as a theocratic democracy, and we have chosen to continues as such. Now, I think, we are being invited and pressured into surrendering this, and are being maneuvered and manipulated into becoming instead a subservient part of an oligarchic autocracy. I think we need to be scrupulously honest about this. And I think we need then to ask ourselves point blank: is this really what we want? Is this really what God wants for us? Is this what God wants for the witness of this Church?

Jim +

Consumerism - the wrong approach

2010-11-17T10:52:00.001-06:00

Probably the single most destructive influence in the Church of modernity and of the West is that of consumerism. Today, membership in the Church on all levels, from that of the individual in the parish or mission, to that of the Province in the Anglican Communion, resembles more an entitlement than a privilege and responsibility. The member in the parish, the parish in the diocese, the diocese in the Province, the Province in the Communion, all are using techniques of the enlightened consumer in holding the larger organization hostage to the particular wishes of the customer. It's the approach by which the client threatens to take his or her business elsewhere if the company or franchise fails to accede to his or her wishes.

There is little or nothing present in this approach that has to do with a healthy or Christian theology. To the degree that we have already acquiesced to this sort of relationship in the life of the Church, we have ceded to the predominance in secular culture of the idolatry of the self. To do so further with regard to congregational choice of alternative episcopal oversight would, in my view, be disastrous.

For instance, if it's true that bishops have largely abdicated their responsibility for the stewardship of the faith once received (shouldn't it be 'delivered'?), how much more so will bishops be compelled under the proposed arrangement to ignore further the burden of their due responsibilities in favor of pandering to the like-minded? Even more so than at present, we would have bishops seeking not to build up congregations or the Church, but to gather to themselves approving and paying audiences; dues-paying fan clubs. It would promote a trend in the Church toward cults of personality. It would make the episcopacy more, not less, a political entity, in every negative sense of the term. It wouldn't take long before each bishop would realize that he or she was only the bishop-du-jour. It would be clear that as soon as he or she displeased the adoring public, the congregation, network, or diocese would be back at the buffet line to choose someone whose 'oversight' was more palatable.

No, in my view, this sort of consumerism is exactly the wrong approach. Bishops in this Church (ECUSA) are already chosen by the people; they're elected. The move toward breaking away in response to unfavorable outcomes to elections just demonstrates that too little education is being done in the Church to inform people about their responsibilities as regards the elections of bishops and their obligations (vows) as regards membership in the Church.

Jim +

Rector's Study November 2010

2010-11-16T13:20:00.001-06:00

Rector’s Study ~

I recently read the suggestion that one thing that all people have in common with one another is the universal capacity for God. I like this idea. Bernard of Clairvaux , 12^th century monastic and theologian, wrote frequently of humanity’s capacity for love and of how any increase in this capacity is purely a gift from God. Bernard nearly equates love with God. Bernard is credited with introducing the idea of humanity’s capacity for love, and so is credited also with introducing the concept of humanity’s capacity for God.

His theory was that awe in wonder, pain in need, and joy in abundance or victory were all potential avenues by which people can meet and know God. The sudden need for God in a distressing situation, or the meeting of God in speechless awe can move a person to transcend himself or herself. In this moment, the person finds the inner capacity for God and for loving God is increased. It is in these moments, in these events, hat people are able to love others, and even to love themselves either in ways that are new to them or in ways that they have forgotten.

All of this stands in sharp contrast to a business model for the Church. Love is not a measurable commodity in the practical sense. Business models seek to make things easy for the consumer of an organization’s service or product to want and to acquire that product or service. Loving others and loving oneself, and feeling loved and lovable, can be difficult. This is especially true in times of hardship. I’ve noticed it; maybe you have, too. People are more generally stressed than usual. Our economic environment today is challenging, to say the least. People are looking for employment now who have never in their lives had to worry about having a job. People are struggling to find or to keep their homes, who have never before in their lives had reason to worry about being homeless.

At the same time, people today who are struggling with these things for the first time ever in their lives are also finding graces that they’ve never experienced, either. Some folks are finding for the first time the grace of being a recipient of the kindness of others. They are being introduced or reawakened to the magnitude of blessing contained in so small a thing as a smile, a welcoming word, a bit of someone’s time and attention. Even in the midst of their relative deprivation, their capacity for God is being increased.

My hope is that as we all share this common experience of tightening budgets at home or at work, as we worry about meeting basic needs, or worry about someone whom we know and love who is struggling to meet theirs, we will indeed share this common experience. My hope is that we’ll identify will the person in need more often than we’ll turn away weary or impatient. And my hope is that we’ll share with God our experiences so that we can find God increasing our capacity for God’s presence in that person in need, including in each of us ourselves.

Here at ECR we continue to provide materially for people in need. Aside from being a source for a wide variety of goods at extremely low cost, our Thrift Shop’s ministry continues to provide outright donations of clothing and basic goods for people who have none. Our Food Pantry continues to take in donations of food that we share with the local Community Center for distribution to the hungry. The kind donations that people make to the Rector’s Discretionary Fund enable me to provide basic financial assistance to persons in dire need. And ECR in general provides people with a place and a community where they find a welcome that they’ve long dreamed of, a respect that they’ve been sorely missing. None of this is good business. But it is good Church.

We find this here ourselves. Material gifts to people are meaningful, yes; but never more than when they are genuine expressions of our love for God and of God’s love for them, for us all.

As important as a business model may be for a community, ECR’s motivation is our ministry, our expression of God’s Love. Our leadership is rightfully responsible with the financial matters of the church, and we need to thank them for this often thankless job. And what’s more, they tend to their responsibilities with heart and mind always set on ECR’s ministry and mission.

Their focus is representative of that of the larger ECR community. We love God and, because of this, we love one another. And we love the ‘outsider,’ the stranger in our midst. We love to bring that stranger more deeply into our collective life and ministry here at ECR, blurring and eliminating the distinction between ‘them’ and ‘us.’ We are ever inviting God to increase our capacity for receiving God’s love and for giving it away.

Certainly at this time of year, when we’ll all hear soon about the importance of our pledges that will go to fund the ministry and mission of ECR in the coming year, the distinction between being a church and being a business is important. But it’s important all the time. When you or I are struggling with circumstances or even with other people, it’s important that we approach these struggles from the perspective of loving, forgiving, compassionate, and gracious church, rather than from that of a competitive dispassionate business.

It is important that you and I recognize in struggles and in joys the opportunity to find God in ways new to ourselves, and to share God in ways that we’ve not recognized. How can we share God with someone in need? How can someone with whom we are struggling share God with us? It is my hope that before and after our prayers for increase of one kind or another, we will continue to make it our prayer that God would increase our capacity for God.

God’s Peace. Jim +

Who pays and who prays

2010-10-29T17:25:00.005-05:00

The Diocese of Texas has long chosen not to pay its full asking to the 'National Church. It is well-known here in the Diocese of Texas, that the main, if not the sole, reason for this is that the diocese has long accommodated and nursed an animosity toward the 'National Church' and about 15 years ago adopted a 'local option' that invited congregations to designate that their diocesan missionary asking would be directed toward specific agencies, thus away from the 'National Church.'

Despite claims to the contrary, there has been little if any discussion among leader lay and clergy about specific misgivings about the way the 'National Church' spends it resources. It simply has been here in the DoT an official response to the so-called 'liberalism' of the 'National Church,' and nothing else.

Now, of course, we see this poor approach to being community emerging in the absurd proposal that some here are still trying to promote, known as the 'Baker Resolution.' This is a thinly veiled attempt from James Baker, former politician and member of St. Martin's, Houston. Long a bastion of traditional misogyny and now discrimination against LGBT persons, couples, and clergy, St. Martin's leadership and a few allies, even some who claim to be friends of LGBT persons and advocates of their full inclusion, are trying to use the term 'local option' as a way to create a way for exclusivist congregations to declare themselves formally and perpetually opposed to LGBT inclusion.

It is based in the attempt to provide congregations a way to opt out of elements of the Church-wide and diocesan constitution and canons with which they happen to disagree. In this case, the predicted full inclusion of LGBT persons in the life and ministry of the Episcopal Church. In the future, of course, it could apply to which Prayer Book to use, which diocese to affiliate with, with Church of the Anglican Communion to affiliate with, etc., etc.

The proposal has gained no traction anywhere in the Church, except unfortunately here in the DoT, supposedly in preparation for introduction at General Convention. The reason it has gained no traction is that it proposes procedures and processes that are completely antithetical to the polity and practice of the Episcopal Church. The reason it might traction here in the Diocese of Texas is the earlier 'local option' for congregations, and thus this diocese, to disregard our responsibility to the 'National Church.'

Some of us are entertaining a proposal for our upcoming Diocesan Council (convention) that would call for us to voluntarily restrict either the number of our delegates or the participation of our delegates in General Convention in correspondence with our diocese's failure even to attempt to meet its asking. If the Diocese of Texas, or any other diocese, wishes to object to the spending of the 'National Church,' let them claim their right to complain by first paying fully for the privilege.

God's Peace.

Rector's Study October 2010

2010-10-16T13:15:00.002-05:00

From the Rector's Study ~

Relationship is what it’s all about. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles describes the zealous and explosive birth of the Church; the Book of the Revelation describes the early Church’s fear of demise in the face of tremendous challenge. I’ve been reading through and studying both of these rather concurrently, and I come to the conclusion that opportunity for relationship with fellow followers of Christ is what gives birth to the Church and is also the source of energy that sustains it. Relationship with God in Jesus and in the body of Christ, the Church, is what Christianity all about.

One of my favorite reflections on God’s creation is the suggestion that before creates anything – stars, seas, sun, moon, plants, animals, people – God first creates a void which is not filled with God’s presence. God deliberately makes room for that which is not God, even before that which is not God is brought into existence. God chooses not to crowd out the possibility of anything else. Instead, God opts to create a space that creation and creatures can fill. It is a grace that people seldom ponder, the grace that God chooses to bring into being something other than God’s self.

And this tells us something important about God. To the core of God’s being, God wants something and someone who can receive God’s Love. God is Love, says the Apostle John in his first letter. God whose very nature is to give love brings into being an object, collectively, of God’s Love: creation. And as Love, God desires to receive love in return. Here again, another profound act of generosity on God’s part: humanity is granted the ability and the liberty to love God and, of necessity, not to love God. In order for humanity to love, humanity must choose to love; which means that humanity must be able also to choose not to love. Otherwise there is no choice, which means there is no choice. Relationship with humanity is what God seeks. Relationship is what Christianity is all about.

Whatever we seek to build here at ECR is relationship. We do not seek to build memorials to ourselves or to our favorite ambitions. We seek the blessing of relationship with one another, the blessing of sharing one another’s lives, of caring for one another and being cared for, as well. We seek the opportunity to care for the people hurting or needing in the world around us. Without theses, the rest of it amounts to nothing. “Their labor is in vain…” as the psalmist puts it. We seek relationship with Christ Jesus in these persons, in one another, and finally within ourselves, our individual persons.

Our community has many entry points for persons seeking relationship with God and God’s people. ECR feels to many like home from the first time they visit us. With more people coming here more constantly as new members and guests, it is important both that we longer-time members celebrate the relationship that is ours already with this community, and pull the newer members and guests across that second inner threshold into full participation in the life and rhythms of ECR’s community. It may be God’s call that brings someone to come in. It’s our call from God after that to bring them from stranger to friend to family member. We are the ones to bring them from the entry point to the inner family room, so to speak.

I’m asking our Ministry Leaders and Vestry members to assist one another and me in following up with new members and guests, as well as checking in with folks who have gone missing from ECR for a while. But this is a ministry for us all, not just the leadership. As a community, each of us can express ECR’s welcome; each of us can phone or email, send of card or pay a visit, in his or her own way.

In short order, the Church Office will have a convenient way to pass along to folks the names and contact information of the folks who fill our Welcome Cards on Sunday to Ministry Leaders, Vestry, and members who wish to assist in welcoming guests and newcomers after their latest Sunday participation. All of us need to become accustomed to doing follow up and this will be a useful aid.

In addition, all of us can help express God’s welcome and our own on Sundays when we speak first with the stranger rather than with the person familiar to us, and when we help to make sure that a guest fills out that Welcome Card and receives a Welcome Bag of goodies. And we can all communicate the expectation here at ECR that everyone, new member or long-timer, be a full participant in this community’s ministry to one another and to the world around us in Christ’s name.

It wasn't about recruitment for the early Church. It’s not about recruitment, now. It wasn’t about huddling together in fear for the early Church, and it’s not about that now. Then and now, it’s all about welcome. It’s about being present as God’s own hands and voice and ears and heart. It’s about finding God’s Love given new expression to us in the person of the stranger, and given expression to the stranger through you and me. Relationship with God through all God’s people is what it’s all about.

God’s Peace. Jim +

The Weaker Brother - NOT

2010-09-26T17:20:00.003-05:00

I agree with those who claim that the Church has much to consider, but the . We do indeed have much more to consider than LGBT persons. We have the gospel itself to think about, pray about, and live it out. Exclusion today of fellow Christians because they raise 'the ick' factor in some is as offensive to the gospel as it was in the days when the early Church struggled with equalizing Hellenized Jews or, later, equalizing Gentile members of the fellowship. But despite those who continue call it into play, the 'weaker brother' argument simply is not analogous to any of this. This is why the Church, in its wisdom and providence, did not delay inclusion of fellow children of God until to do so somehow became acceptable to those who raised objection. Those claiming the status of the weaker brother are over-using and mis-using the analogy.

Certainly, it's obvious that anyone who is able to claim to be the weaker sibling is hardly weak. The weaker sibling in Paul is the one who doesn't know any better, and so is not able to recognize or to acknowledge his or her comparatively weaker state. Suing, if you will, for one's rights under the claim that one is the weaker sibling contradicts the claim. I apologize for the reference to jurisprudence, but this is essentially the nature of the initial argument.

Aside from the argument's obvious self- contradiction, the proposed analogy ignores a major difference between the current exclusion of LGBT persons from full participation in the life and ministry of the Episcopal Church and the offended conscience of the weaker sibling in Paul's example. Paul's example involves no innocent third-party. The tension is based on the influence of the practice of one person upon the understanding and practice of another. The suggestion is that those of us who lobby for the inclusion of LGBT persons are risking offending the weaker conscience of siblings in the faith who favor exclusion. But this argument ignores those LGBT persons who continue to be involuntarily excluded. This argument would have one group on the inside exclude another group of people on the outside for the sake of a fellow group of insiders. The Pauline example of the 'weaker sibling' does not involve spiritual insult and injury to a powerless third party. (I must confess, though, that I'm happy to have Jerry identify discrimination based on sexual orientation as a product of weakness.)

Further, the 'weaker sibling' example calls for consideration of a voluntary modification of one's own spiritual practice due to the possibility that someone less educated or experienced in the life of faith may be misguided by the example of the more spiritually mature. Most of those calling for continued exclusion, especially the clergy, more especially the bishops, can hardly be regarded properly as neophytes to the Christian faith or to the fellowship of the Episcopal Church. On the contrary, their views are deeply held and long-established. In addition, they are in positions of ecclesiastical power. The fact that they are increasingly in the minority, thanks be to God, does not equate to them being 'weaker siblings.' The weaker brother argument would seem to equate weakening political influence with weak conscience and weak formation in the faith. I would be pleased to concede this point if the clergy and bishops will do likewise and surrender clerical and episcopal authority in light of their need of spiritual maturing. But I don't expect this to happen.

In short, in the case of exclusion of LGBT persons, the 'weaker sibling' example is an unfair and inaccurate analogy. LGBT persons are the weaker lot, in terms of genuine power in the Church. This is not to say that LGBT persons are weaker in theological understanding and insight. Indeed, the opposite is true of LGBT people as a group. There is much about being Christian in an environment hostile to one's faith that the rest of us can learn, if we but will, from LGBT persons who have sustained the courage to remain in the Episcopal Church.

Would that the weaker brother analogy worked, for then we might have something hopeful to work with in converting the bigoted theology of the homophobic community. But the reality is that, as a group, those hostile to LGBT persons in the Church are completely the opposite of the 'weaker sibling' in every way imaginable. To the contrary, they have exhibited great strength of determination in clinging strongly to their views. What they will do well to recognize is that their strength in this area is no longer valued and no longer finds a home in this Church.

My prayer is the Episcopal Church will no longer allow itself to be taken hostage by those who, as were found also in the infant Church, can only loathe those who are in some way 'too' different from themselves. My suggestion and my prayer is that the Church will continue to turn to the weaker kindred outside the Church who are hoping and praying to be welcomed in, and will tend to the celebration of those who are glad to be here already.

Jim +

Rector's Study September 2010

2010-09-16T13:14:00.001-05:00

From the Rector’s Study ~

I think everyone will agree that our responsibility and desire is to be the people of God in the way we can best do so. For our community here at ECR, our collective vocation is the do this as best we can as this particular community in this particular place and time. Just yesterday I met with our bishop, the Rt. Rev. Andy Doyle, to discuss in detail our desire and intention to do so. He agrees that all of this involves our campus makeover project; and that it involves far more, as well.

I’m pleased to find that the bishop is highly supportive of our intentions, and very impressed with the commitment that we are bringing to its accomplishment. And again, this involves far more than the installation of additional parking lots and driveways, and the erection of a new Family Life Center, as important as these are. We need to be ever vigilant and ever honest about where our expression of God’s Love for all needs to be improved so that we can be ourselves at our best.

Currently, I am finding serious problems emerging in our community’s ministry with the some of the youngest of our community. We are at risk of failing our children who are between 1 and 11 years old. We are endangering the credibility of our claim that all are welcome here at ECR. While we have the material or are acquiring them, and have a great curriculum in the wings just waiting for us to implement it, we have almost no one to supervise and guide the children’s experience in our classes for children who are toddlers to those who are in 5^th grade. This is a serious deficit in our presentation of God’s Love for all. With no people to staff our Children’s program, we cannot live up to our statement that ‘You are welcome here;’ we are not able to say honestly that ‘all are welcome here at ECR.’ To the contrary, the message that we communicate is that young children are decidedly not wanted here. What we do and what we don’t do communicates how we believe God feels about children. I know that we do not intend our community to convey these messages. I also know that, unless we choose to express the contrary by our actions, this will be exactly the message that children and their parents take with them about us and about God when the leave ECR and do not come back. ‘As we do toward the least of these, so we do toward Jesus.’

In addition, I’m aware that we need to get better at our follow up of visitors, guests, and new members. Currently, the most immediate follow up after a person visits on a Sunday is done by me with a phone call, an email, and a letter. If the folks are interested in a visit, I make an appointment to visit with them. I try to refer folks to the appropriate ministry leaders to respond to express interests that they may have. All that done, our approach needs to improve in ensuring every invitation and expectation is extended to new members that they become involved in ECR’s ministry. We are making definite improvements in this area, and I’m grateful for this. Still, though, sometimes we do this really well. Sometimes we do poorly. I believe that we need to get more proficient and regular about integrating ‘new’ people into existing groups and ministries. We need to do this in order to have greater integrity in proving our welcome of all in God’s Name. ‘As we do toward the least of these, so we do toward Jesus.’

Some of our long-time members will recall that a certain ‘parish growth expert’ informed this community some dozen or so years ago that Resurrection did not have what it takes to grow, that decline was the inevitable path for Resurrection Episcopal. Church. I’m proud to say that one of the things that first drew me to this community was the attitude of the leadership at the time that as much as said, with proper defiance, “Don’t tell us we can’t!” Thanks be to God for experts! I doubt that his intention was to do so, but this ‘expert’ lit a fire in the belly of this community. This fire has continued to warm the heart of this community and to illumine its path forward.

Offering to one another and to the world around us those gifts and blessings that we are particularly able to give is my chief concern. This means knowing what we have that is uniquely ours as the community of ECR. It means behaving in accordance with our belief that what we can give of ourselves to others is valuable and important for them.

Lately, several folks who are members of area parishes other than ECR, but who visit here for various reasons, have remarked to me what a great community we are. I agree. Someone tells me that ECR is ‘a working-class’ congregation. I smile at this, knowing the number and range of professions represented among our members. The person explains the comment by noting that his or her home parish is not so warm, rather more snooty than are the people who gather and worship here. Again, I agree; we are not snooty.

Also, the percentage of our membership involved in some ministry, activity, or group beyond Sunday worship is extremely high. People notice this, remark on it, and I agree. We are also a community widely diverse in terms of social strata, income level, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political conviction, ability, and ever-increasingly in age as well. People notice this, comment on it favorably, and I agree. We offer a representation of God’s Love for all that is genuine, accessible, and put into practice. “As you have done to the least of these,” Jesus says, “so you have done to me.” We never pretend that we are perfect, nor do we require that anyone to whom we reach out or who comes here be perfect. We try our best, offer our best, and leave lots of room for God to do the rest. And we invite others to give themselves a similar break, since our experience tells us that God invites us all to do exactly this.

I know that parishes other than our own have challenges far greater than these that meet us now. Our successes and virtues are too numerous to describe in this small space. In this, I am proud of ECR and humbled to serve and honored to lead this community. Both the bishop and I recognize that our Children’s Christian Education and our newcomer’s integration are two particular challenges to our particular community and our intention to respond to our call from God. Frankly, the bishop has a healthy skepticism about our community’s ability to rise to what we feel ourselves called to become. He is not suspicious that we can do it, only whether or not we will do it. This is an important distinction, and I appreciate his perspective. I look forward to our community resolving this question not so much for him but for ourselves. I pray and I believe that we will do so in true ECR manner: not perfectly, but faithfully and effectively. I look forward to the experience of our expanding expression of God’s Love for all.

God’s Peace. Jim +

Rector's Study August 2010

2010-08-16T13:13:00.001-05:00

At the basis of humanity’s engagement with religion is humanity’s experience of God. It may seem an absurdly simple observation. It describes the plain fact that an aesthetic experience of God is determinative of a people’s or a person’s relationship with God. Yet, it is, I suggest a powerful insight. It indicates that for all the attempts at rational proofs for God’s existence, an endeavor stimulated by the intellectual and philosophical developments that characterize the period in western history known as the Enlightenment, are not determinatively persuasive on their own.

Western culture, of which our own is a part, overtly claims to assign definitive authority to rational thought and intellectual reason; however, in practice the collective culture can be found rather superstitiously idolizing the systems and the persons upon whom it projects its cultural valuations of reason and rational thought. In a sense, professors, physicians, and attorneys are the modern era’s shaman, wizards, and priests. Envy does not lie at the root of this observation; rather inspiration does.

I first happened across an intellectual assent to aesthetics when I was in fact quite enjoying my intellectual pursuits during my university years. My favorite philosopher remains a pillar of the early development of the European Enlightenment period: Immanuel Kant. One his final works, certainly his final significant one, The Critique of Judgment, is a powerful intellectual analysis of that which exceeds rational thought and reason: aesthetics. Kant’s use of the word ‘judgment’ refers to human judgment of the beautiful, the moral good, the ethical right. This analysis is the least read and the most difficult to appreciate of all of Kant’s works. To find that his previous works led to this highly intellectual description of the inability of rationalism and reason to account fully for humanity’s ethical, moral, and religious progress can disappoint pre-conceptions of Kant as an icon and progenitor of rationalism.

To the contrary, though, I encourage our inspiration, if not from reading Kant, then at least from the insight that his thought and work affirm; namely: that we really do encounter God most immediately in our aesthetic sense of things. When we experience an intellectual appreciation for God and for our Christian religion, it is our aesthetic experience that leads, and our intellect that follows and supports. For one, I genuinely get excited when I encounter a sound intellectual expression of theology. I read it and my experience of it is every bit as aesthetically rich and moving as listening to a Bach concerto. I love them both, and for all their differences, my personal experience of each is much the same.

As a people, we Episcopalians have an historical and collective experience of God that incorporates the virtues of intellectual inquiry and insight. Just as well as the more purely aesthetically gratifying elements such as the rich musical tradition and the liturgical rite and ceremony, we ‘love’ the intellectually satisfying aspects of our Church, of its expression of human relationship with God.

The vacation from which I’ve just returned along with my family helped to put me in touch with the beauty of the natural environment, and the beautiful experience of being present in and to the moment. Apart from immediate responsibilities for the day-to-day and week-to-week vitality of our community here at ECR, I indulged myself in the experience of the aesthetic aspects of my relationship with God and of God’s relationship with all of us. It was refreshing and I want to sustain this renewed appreciation for the aesthetic quality of our collective relationship with God here at ECR.

We have a profoundly important project unfolding before us with an increasing pace. We are, rightly so, experiencing an urgency about it, as well. Quite objectively dispassionately, we can only accept and not deny the proposition that updating and improving access to ECR’s campus and community is both our Christian responsibility and our call from God. And if we were somehow to choose not to do so, we would both deny our vocation and ensure the demise of this community and this institution. However, we do not approach this project and these responsibilities without passion.

Quite to the contrary, as I return from vacation I find people excited, energized, eager to move forward. There is a collective sense of the ‘rightness,’ dare I say ‘righteousness,’ of our efforts. We have been many years in prayer and discernment that have inspired us and in fellowship with one another that has delighted us as we have gained a clarity of mind about the ‘right’ way ahead.

Follow the joy. With great respect for Prof. Kant, and a great love of sorts for his writing, maybe it is properly summed up in this simple phrase. Follow the joy. It’s not about seeking what pleases us; joy is different from mere pleasure. Joy has a holiness about it that pleasure does not. There is joy moving through ECR; it has been a defining characteristic of this community as long as I have known ECR. And it continues to move through this current effort. This is why I am confident that our efforts continue to be born of our relationship with God. This is why I know that the material results of our efforts, prayers, and fellowship around this project will be vessels of the experience of this same joy, both for us and for those who will comprise this community in the future.

We will continue to be, and they will become, a people who follow the joy and find here a relationship and experience with God.

God’s Peace, Jim +

Rector's Study July 2010

2010-07-16T13:12:00.001-05:00

Fr. Jim and his wife Lee Elena are recently celebrating their twenty-second year together. They met in St. Louis, Missouri where Jim was born and raised, and near Lee Elena’s hometown of Monticello, Illinois. Lee Elena is a Nurse Practitioner working at a clinic in Elgin. Their three children are Valerie, soon to be 20, Emily, 18, and Melanie, 15. Fr. Jim attended a Lutheran elementary school and credits his early education in this Christian environment as formative of his faith in God. It was there that he began to sense a vocation from God to Holy Orders.

Before attending college, Jim worked variously as a self-defense instructor (earning a black belt in Chinese Kenpo), as a carpenter building custom homes, then as a laborer and/or department supervisor at a variety of manufacturing companies. Responding to a re-emerging sense of call, Fr. Jim returned to church life in his mid-twenties. Having drifted from the Lutheran Church of his childhood, he looked up “Church” in the white pages of the phone book. There he found a local Church of Christ congregation listed and began attending worship services. It was at this congregation that he was blessed to meet Lee Elena Mathis, his wife-to-be.

The two were married in 1988, and headed off to Abilene, Texas were Jim attended Abilene Christian University. Jim earned Bachelor of Arts degree in Biblical Studies. In Abilene, Lee Elena and Jim were blessed with their first daughter Valerie, and then their second daughter Emily. It was also in Abilene where the family found their spiritual home with the Episcopal Church at Church of the Heavenly Rest. Upon graduation, they moved to Boston, Massachusetts and Lee Elena resumed graduate work in Nursing Education at the University of Massachusetts. While there, Jim earned a Master’s of Divinity degree at Harvard University. They were blessed in Boston with the birth of their third daughter Melanie.

After graduation, Jim and his family moved here to Austin, where Lee Elena began working with Brackenridge Hospital and the Heart Hospital of Austin. Jim worked at Austin State Hospital as a chaplain intern in the hospital’s Clinical Pastoral Education program. In preparation for Holy Orders, Jim attended the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest for a year, and earned a Certificate of Individual Studies. In 1999 Jim was ordained a deacon in the Church; and in August of 2000, he was made a priest. Fr. Jim served as Assistant Rector at St. Stephen’s, Houston for two years. In 2001, he was invited to come to ECR as our new rector, and gratefully accepted.

Fr. Jim came to ECR at the end of October 2001, and held his first Sunday services here on All Saints Sunday of that year. As he approaches the beginning of his ninth year with us, Fr. Jim is excited with the energy and movement of the Spirit of God here at ECR: “Working together, praying together, serving others together in Christ’s name, worshiping God together, we are Resurrection people. We move into our future energized and guided by the Spirit of the resurrected One, giving witness to the Love of God for all. Christ is lively within this community, in the sacraments of the Church administered here, and in the sacramental people that comprise our community. Jesus is moving us further into the world around us, and through us is moving ahead of us, to meet us there when we arrive.”

We’re thankful that Fr. Jim is with us, and that God has blessed all of us in bringing our ministries together in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Evelyn Griffin, Editor

Marriage and the BCP

2010-06-21T17:16:00.003-05:00

As the Church's discussion around marriage and same-sex unions now becomes determinative, it bears remembering that it is our Constitution and Canons, not the Book of Common Prayer, the determine the Church's theology of Holy Matrimony. The Prayer gives this theology expression, yes; but it does not determine it. Further, while it may be true, perhaps, that weddings have been celebrated religiously for thousands of years, yet even the most conservative estimate holds that Holy Matrimony is identified by any authoritative Christian voice as a sacrament no sooner than the sixth century, not defined papally as such until Innocent IV in the the early 1200's, and not is declared as such conciliarly until the Council of Florence in 1438. While some weddings may certainly would have been celebrated religiously before this time, many if not most were not. Certainly many if not most weddings throughout human history were not celebrated according to the Christian religion. So, the religious practice surrounding weddings either in history or today can hardly be leaned upon too heavily as determinative of the Church's current theological reflection and practice.

I would also suggest the the tradition of the Church's authority intermingling with the that of the State is about as old as Innocent's decree or that of the Council of Florence, at a time in history when, in medieval Europe, Church and State functioned almost as one. With the post-enlightenment emergence of marriage contracts effected apart from any overt religious authority, the necessity of the Church's involvement began to come into question. The question for today, it seems to me, is whether the Church shall continue to choose to be bound by the laws that govern the wedding and marriage practices of the State.

Rather than be limited by the laws that pertain to each State, thus fracturing the practice of the Church accordingly, I suggest that it is timely for the Church to now distinguish theology and practice from that of the State. The Episcopal Church will do best, in my opinion, to define its theology and doctrine of marriage or Holy Matrimony as a matter of priority. Then, the Church will do well to establish its practice as observant of the laws of the State so that in those states wherein same-sex marriage is not illegal, the officiating priest shall be required to inform the couple of same. Or in states where same-sex unions are legal but same-sex marriage is not, the officiant might require that the couple first have their civil service of commitment, then have a service under the rubric of the Church that is identified by the Church's distinct practice as a service of wedding or marriage. In every case, the Church's practice is consistent everywhere, rather than being fractured by the laws of the State. States don't in fact bless buildings, pets, jewelry, etc. (By the way the Church does not officially bless animal. This is a custom, but no liturgy for doing so is found in any official canon or publication of the Church.) This is an an excellent opportunity to make use of the U.S. policy of separation of Church and State to the best care of the Church's membership. The point is that the Church is not bound restricted to blessing only such relationships as the State is willing legally to recognize. We need now to recognize our liberty and responsibility with regard to same-sex couples seeking marriage.

In this regard, I suggest also that the Church will do well to move beyond discussion of 'same-sex union' but not same-sex marriage. To get stuck on this distinction is to favor a policy of separate but equal. U.S. history teaches us painfully that this approach is simply an entrenchment of bigotry. I think the Church must concede that etymologically the term 'matrimony' may be problematic. Historically, matrimony concerns the making of motherhood, or the identification of the mother of the man's rightful heir. Thus, it may be argued that, historically and etymologically, 'matrimony' is gender-specific. Technically, marriage is the civil or secular contract that is recognized by the State. It incorporates much the same language as a contract for real estate and other property law, e.g. 'to have and to hold'. However, inasmuch as 'marriage' and 'matrimony' are used interchangeably in both the BCP and in common parlance, the argument is well made that 'matrimony' has lost its gender-specificity through use and across time. In any case, the Church would make a mistake, in my opinion, to prescribe or 'allow' 'same-sex unions' for gay couples, but prohibit or disallow marriage. It is time for the Church to modify our canons and thus to declare that in this Church marriage is defined as the holy union of two persons called by God to spousal relationship with one another in life-long commitment to each other, to God, and to the Church. Short and sweet.

Regarding the fear among the homophobic community that clergy and parishes would be somehow required by the Church to host or officiate at such services of of blessing, one need only remember that the current canons of the Church stipulate, at Title 1, canon 18, section 4 that, "It shall be within the discretion of any Member of the Clergy of this Church to decline to solemnize any marriage." Thus, no clergy is required to officiate at the wedding of any particular couple; a member of the clergy may decline to officiate at the wedding of any particular couple.

The newest nonsense being proposed by the Episcopalian wing of the homophobic community is using the congregationalist theme of 'local option,' but somehow fails to recognize that this already exists as regards weddings. Their efforts twist a pastorally and ecclesiologically sensitive approach to a sacramental ministry and attempt to twist it to apply to a parochial or clerical preference for a particular version of the Prayer Book, for or against particular bishops and presiding bishops, and for the so-called 'adoption' of the Windsor Report or of the proposed Anglican covenant. They fail to recognize that a church-wide polity regarding same-sex marriage is similar to a church-wide polity regarding which Prayer Book is used legitimately in the Church's dioceses and congregations. In hierarchical Churches such as our own, canons apply church-wide. The single real attempt in our Church to provide for exception to this rule was experienced around the admission to Holy Orders of persons who are women. The miserable failure of this exception surely has taught the Episcopal Church not to make a similar attempt with regard to the inclusion of LGBT persons in the life and ministry of the Church and the marriage gay couples. The clerical 'option' included in the Church's canons about marriage is not about giving clergy or congregations choices to suit their personal tastes or bigotries. It's about protecting the sacrament itself from being misunderstood and mis-applied either by clergy who approach their ministry as customer-service or by couples who may be approaching their wedding as clients of the Church instead of as members of it. The homophobic community's proposal of 'local option' is merely a disguised perpetuation of the discriminatory policy of separate but equal, especially the Church's emerging polity of the recognition of same-sex marriage.

The need now for the Church to define for itself what it understand marriage to be is urgent. The Church must not be limited by rules of the State that do not themselves actually impose such limitation on the Church. Just as the Church is content to offer such blessings for animals, real estate, and material property for which the State has no official regard one way of the other, so also it is time for the Church to determine and declare that we now include the blessing of marriage without distinction of the gender of the persons involved, and inclusive of same-sex couples. It is time for this Church to reject separate and unequal, as well as move past proposals of separate but equal. The Church needs to institutionalize a polity and practice of inclusion of couples called by God to spousal relationship with one another in life-long commitment to each other, to God, and to the Church. We need to proclaim in deed and word that, in every State, this Church holds such love to be holy.

Jim +

Rector's Study June 2010

2010-06-16T13:10:00.001-05:00

From the Rector's Study ~

As a season in the cycle of the Church’s annual life, Pentecost reminds Christians that we are living in a distinct era. Different from the age in which people lived in hope and anticipation of a promised, but not yet arrived, Messiah; different from the short period of time when Jesus lived among the people of Galilee and Judean; ours is the era of post-resurrection and post ascension. To understand this era as well as possible in body, mind, and spirit is to give this era fuller meaning for us. To understand this era as fully as possible helps us to appreciate more fully both the blessing and the responsibility of living in it.

Some refer to Pentecost as the birth of the Church. On Pentecost Sunday, someone wished me ‘Happy Birthday’ as a reminder of this fact. The Spirit is God become present to humanity more intimately than any could ask or imagine. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost certainly makes this ‘the age of the Holy Spirit.’ “The Spirit of Jesus indwells Christian consciousness. It animates the community of faith and leads to a deeper appreciation of the life and message of Jesus. That is clear.” So observes author and theologian Anthony H. Kelly in his book The Resurrection Effect: Transforming Christian Life and Thought. And while this is a fine concept, I find that I still have reservations that we Christians tend to move rather more quickly than we ought past Jesus’ resurrection. Author Kelly has his own reservations, noting that “the event of the resurrection as something happening to him [i.e. to Jesus] can be bypassed, a more or less mythic expression of the origin of a new spiritual awareness.”

His suggestions is that because that resurrection is a troublesome matter for Christians to address, or to present in an intellectually credible way, we tend to avoid it in talking about it very much in Christian life, in favor of referring to it almost exclusively as a source of inspiration, but not dwelling on it after that. So, although we are, yes, in the season of the Spirit liturgically, and yes we live in the post-resurrection post-ascension era, I would still suggest that we do well to retain a poignant sense of the resurrection. And by this, I mean that hope that we can appreciate the resurrection as a concept and a metaphor that inspires; but also hope that we can ponder and build spiritually on the resurrection as an event that occurred in the life of Jesus, the Son of God.

Kelly describes Jesus’ resurrection, interestingly I think, as something that we want to avoid taking for granted, but as something that we want to recognize as granted to us by God. God grants us Jesus’ resurrection; God grants us to know of it and to participate in it, if we but choose to do so. In Kelly’s view, and my own, the determinative question for the Christian is not how to explain the resurrection; but how to explain the life that is lived according to it as a given.

This is not to say that we should fear pursuing an intellectual understanding of it. It is simply to recommend that we not limit our engagement of Jesus’ resurrection to a few weeks or a single day each year. Instead, we do well to keep Jesus’ resurrection prominent in heart and mind in order to allow it to have full effect upon what we do and who we are as God’s people.

Kelly puts it this way: “…the transformation of the flesh of the Crucified means for him [i.e. for Jesus] a full-bodied existence at once embracing and transforming our incarnate existence: his body and flesh, in ways that transcend mortal thinking, is the communicative field in which he dwells in his members, and they in him, nourished by his body and blood and breathing his Spirit. In consequence, the phenomenon of the resurrection communicates the experience of being ‘faced’ by Christ throughout all time and space, not only as the form, source, and anticipation of eternal life, but as summoning the believer to see him and to respond to him as the Other in the face of all others.” I recognize that Kelly writes even longer sentences than I do (!), but I appreciate his insights.

Because of Christ’s incarnation, and because it was this incarnate Christ Jesus that was raised by the Spirit of God, we not only do live now in the age of the Spirit of God, but the effect of this is that we live as the similarly incarnate presence of Christ Jesus in this place and at this time. There is something materially real and impactful about recognizing this. Somehow this brings to the fore a sense of the great blessing and the great responsibility that we bear with Jesus. Whereas the Spirit can be relegated to a sentiment or an attitude, and thus ‘domesticated,’ the incarnate presence of Jesus Christ is less subject to being conceptually tamed.

Yes, the season of Pentecost is the era of the Spirit of God. But by remembering effect of the Spirit, of the movement of the Spirit upon us, within us, and through us, we find that the era of Pentecost is very much an era of the wider incarnation of Jesus Christ, quite literally through you and me. So, be attentive and find how you meet Christ very materially and really in persons and places that you may least expect. And go ahead and indulge your expectations and meet Christ also where you most anticipate finding Christ. And please dare also to meet Christ within yourself. I know that I find Christ there within you all the time.

God’s Peace. Jim,+

More Letters from Lambeth

2010-06-08T17:12:00.002-05:00

More Letters!

These letters from Lambeth are ticking time-bombs that threaten the life of the Communion. Yet, despite appearances to the contrary, it is not too late to rescue ourselves. We will, however, need to do the hard work ourselves. No 'Holy Father' is going to do this for us. And, as protestants and Anglicans, we would have it no other way.

The so-titled 'Secretary General of the Anglican Communion' has now announced his own letters, and the bizarre paradigm that Rowan Williams is attempting to create amongst the Churches of the Anglican Communion comes into greater focus. Canon Kearon's remarks are uncharacteristically brief, so one wonders if he himself is a bit dubious of the ABC's new affection for autocracy. However, inasmuch as Kearon bears the sweeping title of Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, and despite the fact that he serves merely as a bureaucrat in the hierarchy of the Church of England, he is compliant. Whether he will remain happily complicit is another question. Is it a divine paradox, one wonders, that this Archbishop who has been terribly preoccupied with fears of the dissolution of the Anglican Communion is now himself the greatest threat to his own Office?

Following the ABC's orders, Kearon notes that he 'has informed' the TEC representatives to ecumenical dialogs and to the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order that their continued participation has been denied. Specifically, Kearon describes that their membership 'has been discontinued' or 'has been withdrawn.' In line with Williams' ironically infamous Pentecost letter, the actions that Kearon describes are wholly unilateral. It is important to note here that this unilateralism is not enacted officially by or on behalf of the Church of England. These attempted actions are those entirely of Williams himself, attempting to use the titular responsibilities of his Office as actual powers of privilege. Williams' declarations, now reiterated through Kearon, are entirely outside any structure, formal or informal, that has ever been associated with Anglicanism. His attempts toward enforcement will surely prove to be bizarre.

For folks here in TEC who will now become agitated and distressed (and for those who will be delighted), it bears keeping in mind that in the real world, the ABC's declarations mean exactly nothing. The ABC has only limited authority in his own Church, the Church of England. Given his bizarre new behavior, it is now all the more important to remember that he has even less authority when it comes to inter-Anglican agencies. TEC may indeed elect not to send her representatives to these ecumenical dialogs and to IASCUFO. However, this would be mere recognition that these agencies are less Anglican and more exclusively Church of England. It will be recognition that the hierarchy of the Church of England is increasingly irrelevant to the wider Anglican world and much more so to the wider world of ecumenical and inter-faith conversation and ministry. It is important to note that it is Williams that is bringing about these stinging revelations; not TEC. If the Church of England, in the person of Rowan Williams, truly wishes to reject her partnership in mission and ministry with TEC, TEC will not be the party to suffer for it.

TEC will continue with its inter-faith and ecumenical dialogs, and its inter-Anglican ministries. Our Presiding Bishop makes this clear in her richly Anglican response to the ABC's pathetic Pentecost address. If TEC does elect not to send its representatives, it will not be because Williams has declared that thus and so it shall be. It will be because the ABC's attempts to foist upon us and upon the wider Anglican Communion a new and un-Anglican autocracy are growing hindrances and distractions to our Christian witness, obstacles to our ecumenical integrity. One hopes, though, that TEC will send her representatives anyway, reminding Williams that he has no authority, nor does the Church of England, to 'withdraw' memberships that do not belong to them. This approach would compel Williams' own Lambeth hierarchy to choose either to act in accord with Williams' efforts toward a bizarre new paradigm or to respect the true limits of both their own authority and his. Williams is implementing a strategy of trying to divide the Churches of the Communion against one another and so to conquer us all doctrinally and organizationally. By responding with respectful refusal to defer to his imperialistic whimsy, we may successfully turn this strategy around upon him and his Church of England bureaucracy and so, defeat his efforts. Williams won't like it; that's obvious. But whether he stays in Office, resigns, or is removed, even he will be the better for our rejection of his imperialistic impulses.

It is important that every Church now respond to Williams in a way that reminds him that the Office of the ABC has no authority unilaterally to define or to limit the membership of agencies that are Inter-Anglican, and that a remedy for his confusion may well be the constitutionalization of each such agency and committee. This approach would preserve the strengths of diversity on each committee, make each agency truly inter-Anglican and less predominantly Church of England, and relieve the beleaguered Williams of the paternal burden of having to continue to act unilaterally. It seems clear, though, that this ABC perceives nothing else about Anglicanism to be so of value as the illusory creation of a Roman-style hierarchy fit to his tastes and political convenience. Sadly, if the agencies of the Communion are in fact to be rescued from this attempt at autocracy, it seems apparent that they will need to be wrestled free from Williams' grip upon them. It seems unlikely that he will turn them over graciously to the custody of the wider Communion.

In any case, it is important that TEC, that Canada, and that all Churches of the Anglican Communion, whether they agree with TEC or with this particular ABC, speak up immediately and reject soundly this attempted new paradigm of autocracy. Perhaps some will look favorably upon Williams' efforts because at this time these efforts seem to serve their own homophobic or misogynist ideology. So, let everyone please recognize that, if permitted to stand, if accepted as valid, this new autocracy now being claimed by this Archbishop of Canterbury would be embraced by every one of his successors; every Church of the Communion would become the subject of this new autocracy; every Church would become its target sooner or later.

This is particularly important, I think, for those on the self-proclaimed 'conservative' side of those matters upon which Williams and the homophobic community are capitalizing for their play for power. For TEC to consider withholding its funding of the administrative expenses of those very agencies of the Church of England that are now attempting to restrain us is quite different from the consideration of a parish or diocese to withhold its funding of the Church of which it is a member constitutionally and canonically. There is no violation of vow or canon in a decision by TEC to withdraw its funding from foreign agencies who are attempting to withdraw our membership therein. There is no comparison between the violation of vows, whether sacred or constitutional or both, and the decision to respond in kind to a foreign organization that is trying to claim affiliation while simultaneously trying to silence our witness. Quite to the contrary, in Williams' original terms, TEC would simply accept Williams' "proposal" to withdraw from participation. To suppose that this withdrawal would not include withdrawal of funding would be amazingly foolish and arrogant on his part.

Under such an autocracy as Williams is now attempting to enforce, the ecumenical and global prestige of the Office of ABC would be diminished, the Church of England would become more artifact than actor on the world stage, and the Anglican Communion would become a closed chapter in history. And the behavior of Rowan Williams would be to blame; not that of TEC and not even that of the border-crossers. Neither TEC nor the homophobic community of Primates and bishops can compare to the threat to the Anglican Communion that is the increasingly bizarre and predatory behavior of the current Archbishop of Canterbury.

But it is not too late. In order to preserve autocephaly and autonomy as characteristic strengths of the Churches of the Anglican Communion, in order to preserve even the Office of Archbishop of Canterbury itself, every Primate and bishop, every member and friend, of every Church and diocese needs to speak up against the anomalous autocracy that this current ABC is seeking to impose upon us all. We must reject the propaganda inherent to these letters from Lambeth. We have only to refuse to react to them as though they are valid, and instead to act upon the virtues of Anglicanism that continue to challenge us all, and so to strengthen us all. Vocally, we need to reject his claims to such authority as is not his and to remind him and the Church of England that our funding of their bureaucracy can be withdrawn as quickly as he can put pen to paper. Practically, we need to act in ways that reflect this reality and so that simply ignore his claims and decrees as the sad and bizarre phenomena that they are. Williams has surrendered effectively his credible responsibility for the Anglican Communion. It belongs to the rest of us, as it always has. It's now incumbent upon us to behave accordingly.

Jim +

The Archbishop's Summons to Silence

2010-05-29T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Archbishop's Pentecost summons to silence -

One expects that it is abundantly clear now for even the most generously optimistic that the Archbishop of Canterbury has gone well beyond the jurisdiction of his Office in his pursuit of ecclesiastical authority. Rowan Williams' Pentecost Letter represents his first unilateral attempts to reduce punitively the participation of those Churches who have dared to ignore the recommendations of the 'Windsor Report' and have instead chosen to follow the governing Constitution and Canons of their respective Churches. This shows his continued disdain for and impatience with the fact that the Churches of the Anglican Communion are autonomous and autocephalous. He demonstrates very clearly here his desire and intention to punish those Churches who dare to honor the limitations of the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the boundaries of the English Church.

Williams rightly acknowledges that moratoria on consecration of 'persons whose manner of life might be offensive to others' (i.e. queer bishops), and on 'border crossings' by one Church into another are merely recommendations from 'consultative organs of the Communion.' He also couches his attempt to punish and restrain the participation of representatives of said Churches in terms of 'proposals' that he is merely suggesting. However, it is clear, and I think he intends it to be so, that he means these proposals to be regarded as rooted in some sort of para-papal power. He warns the offenders that the "particular provinces will be contacted about the outworking of this in the near future." Thus, there is no sense in his communication that these proposals shall be open to reflective consideration and debate. His point seems to be that when an autonomous and autocephalous member Church of the Communion dares to "decline to accept requests or advice from the consultative organs of the Communion," that Church shall be punished through a reduction in the participatory status of its representation on inter-Anglican Commissions, Boards, and ministries.

Williams makes a facetious case that members of such Churches are somehow unable to represent 'the Communion.' He deliberately obfuscates the fact that no individual member of any such Commission represents the Anglican Communion. He ignores the fact that, to the contrary, the participation of diverse views around controversial concerns is precisely what makes Anglicanism a unique gift to the wider world. Instead, it appears that he would prefer to shrink and whither this Anglican virtue in favor of an enforced greater unanimity through a silencing of dissenting voices. How very sad. How very un-Anglican.

Further, it is not merely the case that the Archbishop is seeking to reduce the presence of dissenting Churches on Committees related to ecumenical dialog. More significantly, he is attempting to remove the determinative presence of Churches whose actions he disapproves from the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO). Quite in line with his earlier proposal of a two-tiered structure for the Communion, he now 'proposes' that the disapproved Churches have their representatives reduced to 'consultant status.'

For those who inevitably will claim that the Archbishop is not playing for power, please note his acknowledgment of the fact, "other bodies [that] have responsibilities in questions concerned with faith and order, notably the Primates’ Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Standing Committee"... "are governed by constitutional provisions" and so "cannot be overturned by any one person’s decision alone, and [so] there will have to be further consultation as to how they are affected." His presumption and assertion ring quite clearly here: one person's opinions do and should govern just who is 'allowed' to participate on IASCUFO and on other non-constitutional groups, and those are the opinions of one person, the Archbishop himself. Again he warns, with regard to these other bodies still protected from his opinions by their constitutions, that he "shall be inviting the views of all members of the Primates’ Meeting on the handling of these matters with a view to the agenda of the next scheduled meeting in January 2011." In other words, he will seek some sort of declaration from the Primature that the representation of these Churches on the ACC and the Standing Committee have been reduced. Again, how sad, and how very un-Anglican.

All of this makes clear, I suggest, that Rowan Williams rejects the premises that led to the birth of the very Church that he now serves. The Church of England came into being through a rejection of foreign influence upon the governance of the Church in England. The Church in practice and in decree declared itself independent of the interference of Rome. Ironically, sadly, and paradoxically, the Archbishop of Canterbury now further seeks to secure for himself the role of 'Anglican Pope.' His capitulation to the homophobic community is the operative cause behind all this, of course. Had he chosen in 2004 to stand for the Anglican and protestant principles of autonomy and autocephaly, he would never have painted himself so thoroughly into this shrinking corner as he now finds himself. Once regarded as a person of principle, he again demonstrates his political prostitution. All other adverbs aside, the
ABC's grab for power is shockingly un-Anglican.

Someone may note that Williams at least appears to be penalizing the 'other side' as well, in that the Churches with homophobic Primates and Houses of Bishops are also being proposed for reduction in status. I respond first with skepticism that these Churches will ever actually suffer reduction in the status of their representation. The ABC likely fully expects TEC and the Church of Canada to be obedient compliant children Churches of Mother England. He likely also knows that the homophobic Churches will simply ignore the ABC here as they have in the past whenever his declarations have been inconvenient to them (and how rare indeed that has been!). So the likelihood is very slim that under Williams' 'proposals' the homophobic Churches will suffer any real or sustained reduction in participation. This is simply because acceptance of Williams' proposals is, for now, voluntary. This betrays yet further evidence that the ABC is determined to ram through the proposed 'Anglican Covenant,' especially section four, so that he and the proposed Standing Committee can enforce unanimity, limit diversity, and end dissent. Second, to equate the violation of jurisdictional boundaries (i.e. border crossing by other Churches into America and Canada) with the rejection by TEC and the Church of Canada of discrimination against LGBT persons is profoundly myopic. Such distortion is possible only because Williams chooses to perceive only the inconvenience to his legacy presented by the witness of TEC and Canada; he chooses to focus on the institution and organization; he chooses to ignore Christ in those persons who continue to be forbidden by this same institution their rightful full participation in the life and ministry of the organism that is the Church. Shame on him. It is not just un-Anglican; it is un-Christian.

Williams is taking the Office of ABC into territory that it has never occupied. One almost expects him soon to depart for Rome, attempting to take as many purported 'Anglicans' as he may persuade to follow. He is leaving himself very little option. Short of profound metanoia or resignation of his Office, it will not surprise me that this ABC will soon be subject to some form of vote of no confidence, either by his own Church or by the Primates. His silly example of infant baptism as a comparative controversy shows his utter loss of perspective. No Church of the Anglican Communion has been reduced in participatory stature because of minority belief around infant versus adult baptism. Quite the opposite, continuing and fully mutual conversation among anyone interested in the topic has enabled them to continue the discussion and to serve alongside one another with no threat of reduction in status. It bears noting and oft repeating that, even as much as many of us rightly object to the failure of some African Churches to respect the jurisdictional integrity of TEC, we have never, ever, asked for the silencing of their voices. To the contrary, TEC has sought instead simply to find an ear for our own defense that might rival the ear that the ABC has quite generously provided for the homophobic Churches.

I urge TEC and Canada to rise up and reject these absurd proposals from Williams, not only for our sake but also for the sake of those with whose opinions and practices we most disagree. There is nothing Anglican, nothing Christian, about silencing dissent and punishing disagreement. Our own silence on this new set of proposals from Williams will be dangerous to all. Therefore, I pray our House of Bishops and House of Deputies will speak out soon on the absurdity and truly bizarre ecclesiology represented in the ABC's latest diatribe. Somebody needs to speak up for those voices of Christ being threatened with enforced silence. We need to speak up while we still can.

Jim +

Rector's Study May 2010

2010-05-16T13:09:00.001-05:00

From the Rector’s Study ~

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” as the familiar saying goes. One misses a friend or loved one all the more when that person is not present. Sometimes, we don’t even realize how much the other person means to us until we experience his or her absence. This is important for you and me to recognize and is especially important for the community of Christians, for this community of ECR. When you are here, it may seem on rare occasion that the rest of us are taking for granted that fact that you are present. However, you need to know that when you are not here, you are missed, missed very much. And there’s something also that you yourself are missing in being away, in not being here at ECR.

I am here every Sunday. True, someone may say, I get paid to be here. But it’s also true that when I’m away on vacation, I miss being here and my heart grows fonder for you and all this community. It’s also true that when a parishioner is missing from worship and fellowship, especially on Sunday mornings, his or absence makes a difference in the lives of many people. It’s not just my presence as rector that makes ECR the community that it is. In fact, my presence cannot determine this community. Yours can. Yours does. And so does the presence or absence of every other person of this community. So, I’m inviting and urging all of us at ECR to make a decided commitment to being here on Sunday’s regularly even more than usual; to be here ‘religiously!’

When I was a member in the pew, I did not realize for a long time, I think, that my presence or my absence made an impact on others. I thought I was more anonymous than I actually was. You may think the same thing about yourself and your family. The truth, though, is that when I didn’t show up on a given Sunday (and I tended to show quite regularly, so it was an unusual Sunday that found me remaining at home instead of going to church) I could not tell that my absence added to the impact of the absences of others on that same day. I didn’t realize, I didn’t stop to think about it, that I was not the only one who was going to be away instead of among my community that particular Sunday. The cumulative effect, especially upon a community that was smaller rather than larger, was far more than I wanted to admit.

My absence only added to the discouragement of others of my community. And the vacancies in the pews certainly confused, if not discouraged, any guests or visitors on that day. ‘Where are the people?’ they would wonder. ‘Does anybody go here? What’s wrong with this community?’

In contrast, when I come to church my presence makes a positive difference to the others of my community. The same is true for you. Especially at this remarkable community of ECR, because of who we are and how we do things, you are celebrated when you come. This is true whether you come every week or only at Christmas and Easter. Don’t thinks so? Come more frequently and this community will prove it to you.

Summer is fast approaching and people, including me, will be migrating off to vacations. In the meantime, though, we’re here in town and, for the sake of others here, we need to be here.

In addition, for the sake of yourself, you need to be here. For my own sake, I need to be here. For the personal good that each of us gains, we need to be here. And for the pleasure and blessing that we offer back to God in return for blessings received, we need to be here. Are you blessed outside of church? Of course. But are you blessed inside church, too? Of course! Can you pray to God and worship God outside of church? Of course. But that just means that you can pray to God and worship God from inside church, too.

And the blessing that each of us gains in being together are simply not found elsewhere. And this is God’s intention. I get a blessing, or someone else is blessed, when you are here. It is a blessing that comes only through you. You really do have that much power within you, to provide blessing that no one else can provide. Similarly, you are blessed when you are here in a way that someone here, and only that person uniquely, is able to provide you,. Again, test the theory: come more regularly and find out how true this is.

Certainly regular attendance at worship is an expectation for Christian leaders, life the Vestry and our Ministry Leaders. But it is also an expectation for every Christian. And being Episcopalians, collective worship is a defining value of who we are and how we ‘do Church.’

So, know this: you make a difference when you are not here, so make a better difference by being here, instead. Come be an example. Be a blessing. Come be blessed, and enjoy the amazing inspiring examples around you in this community. Come find out that presence make the spirit stronger.

God’s Peace. Jim +

The Matrix of Immigration

2010-04-29T16:42:00.005-05:00

I will suggest that in the conversation around immigration, we recognize that it is a complex matrix of interests and concerns. Just a for instance: we'll do well to avoid a simplistic scriptural approach. While Jesus directs his followers to love neighbor as oneself, he also directs them to be shrewd as snakes while remaining innocent as doves. Human traffickers ruthlessly prey upon victims on both sides of the border. To pretend that all who cross borders illegally are innocents is a dangerous denial of the truth of the matter. This denial costs human lives of a variety of national origin.

In addition, I think it bears noting that some businesses and business owners in the U.S., as well as some homeowners, have a decidedly mercenary interest in perpetuating the current system. Undocumented workers are far less costly to the employer, though far more costly to the society at large. Here in Austin, Texas, my vestry and I have been part of an effort to expose the City Council's refusal to enforce existing labor laws in this city.

Enforcement of these laws would help to ensure that any and every worker receives a fair wage, regular rest breaks, lunch breaks, proper safety equipment, a safe working environment, and medical attention in the event of injury. These laws are on the books and are written to apply regardless of citizenship status of the laborer. Because these laws are not enforced, illegal immigrant laborers continue to be cheated, to suffer untreated injury on the job, and even to die due to unsafe working conditions. If a municipality, state, or nation truly intends to see to it that laborers are safe, rather than simply choosing to enforce or ignore the laws around immigration, they would do better to focus on enforcement employment laws.

Where it is indeed illegal to employ undocumented workers, and where these laws against employment of undocumented labor are enforced, employers will find it much more difficult to prey upon the undocumented for cheap and 'disposable' labor. This would help to provide genuine protection and safety for all parties. The question is why is the current system seldom challenged? Why is our attention to the real well-being of people continuing to be distracted by this politicization of their citizenship status?

I note that laws prohibiting illegal crossing of borders are, in theory, racially neutral. In practice, this may be different. The fact is, though, that the language used in the new Arizona law is precisely that used at the Federal level. Federal immigration law requires a non-citizen to carry on his or her person documentation proving his or her legal status as legally present in this country. Yes, this requirement may be abused to against Hispanics. But my guess is that once the law goes into effect, news outlets will soon be reporting that an Anglo-looking person of European descent was found to be here illegally, perhaps an expired visa, due to this new law. We're going to see that Arizona law-enforcement is particularly careful to apply this law to all, regardless of apparent ethnicity.

Technically the law is race-neutral, and we all need to be careful about equating the term 'illegal' or 'undocumented' with 'Hispanic.' This practice seems to me inherently insulting and also quite inaccurate. Where race is illegally used by law enforcement personnel and race discrimination is applied, then the pertinent laws prohibiting same must be brought to bear. I also think it insulting, though, to make the assumption that all or most law enforcement folks are going to use this new law to nefarious ends.

The fact is, state and local law enforcement do not have automatic permission to ask about a criminal suspect's status of legal or illegal presence in the U.S. It may seem counter-intuitive to most of us, but apart from specific statutory directive, they are not allowed to ask. Without specific statutory directive, they may not use incidental knowledge of a suspect's status, and in some cities, like Austin which is a sanctuary city, they are forbidden by ordinance to report or to act upon knowledge of a suspect's legal status as citizen or as undocumented. This conundrum continues to create scenario in which a suspect later convicted of a serious criminal offense is found to have been in this country illegally and thus to have been subject for years or even decades to a remedy that may well have prevented the crime that has since victimized innocent persons.

This brings to mind an important distinction in both the Federal law and in the new state law in Arizona. Law enforcement officials are forbidden in both arenas from using race as a criteria for questioning a potential suspect. We all know, sadly, that people still are detained for 'driving while black' or 'breathing while Latino.' Profiling by appearance of race or by socio-economic status is a sick reality that needs specifically to be challenged. Anglos driving into a borough that is predominantly Hispanic or African-American, or, as was true of my past in Boston, people whose appearance was not clearly Gaelic hanging out in the Irish boroughs caught the attention of law-enforcement personnel. Thus, a burnt out tail light or, as in Texas, the obscuring of some portion of the car's license plate, would provide technical cover for the police officer or the sheriff to question someone who is now a suspect of a minor traffic violation.

Thus, the informal practice of profiling enables police to discover and discourage such things as Anglo predatory behavior that perpetuates the illusion that the fastest most reliable way to prosperity for African-American young men is selling crack to suburban white kids in their BMW's, and busting the 'white' kids who drive over to purchase. But, this is quite distinct from the blatant abuse of simply stopping someone for walking while Hispanic. And it is the latter that wider society and the Church will do well to challenge.

I think specificity about just what it is that we believe to be draconian about either or both the Federal law and now the Arizona law will be helpful for our discourse. Illegal immigration as it is is a tool that preys on those least able to defend themselves. Predators on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are victimizing people who are falling victim to myths about automatic prosperity in the States.

Further, the Mexican government needs to do far more to stimulate its own social and economic environment for the good of all who work there, both citizen and immigrant alike. The same is true for the U.S. Currently, the argument is well-made that the legal pathway to citizenship for working-class immigrants is virtually prohibitive. The incentive to cross the border illegally simply in order to give birth here to a baby who is automatically born into U.S. citizenship is a dangerous incentive to circumvent the otherwise prohibitive legal pathway to U.S. citizenship for working class people.

At the same time, the U.S. would do well to encourage and diplomatically incentivize Mexico to modify its own immigration laws. Mexican immigration law is vastly more restrictive than are immigration laws in the U.S., and so Mexico is able to discourage, violently, illegal immigrants from Central and South America from attempting to remain there.

Finally, we need to consider, I think, the trolling for votes that is going on this political debate around illegal immigration. Altruism is not the primary motivation, I'm afraid, behind the political debate. And the Church is uniquely positioned to hold this truth in front of all political parties and challenge them to higher considerations than simply using people's misfortune to drum up votes for a political party or for a personal political career. The reality is that Hispanic persons are not of one mind on the concerns around illegal immigration. To contend that they are is a dismissive and insulting stereotype, and the Church would do well not to participate in that, but instead to honor the diversity of insight and opinion that transcends ethnicity.

Recognizing that illegal immigration is a matrix of concerns and interests may help the Church be able better to provide some helpful challenge to some hazardously simplistic reactions to a very complex matter.

Jim +

Absence of unanimity is a blessed thing

2010-04-22T16:39:00.002-05:00

There is no unanimity among the autonomous and autocephalous Churches of the Anglican Communion. As each of these Churches is by definition a Protestant denomination, not a church, but denomination, there should be no expectation of unanimity. The very recent expectation of same is an anomaly to the history of the development of what has become the Anglican Communion. Only since people have begun to speak of the Anglican Communion as though it were 'the Anglican Church' have people been steered into thinking of these Churches as though they all comprised a Roman Catholic Church writ small; i.e. a single world-wide Church with a single authoritative head in the Archbishop of Canterbury. Reminder to all: the ABC is not our Pope.

The ABC doesn't even determine doctrine in his own Church of England. He has no jurisdiction whatsoever in any of the other autonomous and autocephalous Churches that are members of the Anglican Communion. This is especially true for TEC where we owe our first allegiance to the Scottish Episcopal Church as the first non-juruor Church whose example we most determinedly followed. It bears repeating often that the Lambeth meetings of bishops did not begin until as recently as the late 1800's. The modern manifestation of the Anglican Communion, i.e. a Communion with any sort of constitutional documentation, is only as old as the late 1960's, with the first meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Let's stop buying into this mythology that this Communion was begun by Henry VIII or by Thomas Cranmer. 'Taint so. In Church-time, it's a new phenomenon.

The Churches descendant from the Church of England either fought for and won their independence, along with concurrent colonial independence from Britain or, in later times, were begun with the full intention among all parties that the particular Church begun would become an independent Church ere long. The lovely irony here is that the very Church from which each Church of the Communion has descendancy of some kind from the same Church of England who declared the autonomy of its governance from that of Rome in terms of a specific rejection of interference by a foreign power. Now, we find the Archbishop of Canterbury doggedly trying to assert the authority of a power external to the autonomy of each of the Churches in the proposal of a 'Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.' Huh?

It is truly fascinating to me that the ABC is so invested in proposing this thing, when it is almost certain that, even if a majority of Churches were to adopt it, he could almost certainly never get the British Parliament or the Queen to adopt it for the Church of England itself. The key question, I suggest, is how invested does anyone remain in this proposed covenant if we simply delete its Section Four? Take away the jurisdictional and punitive elements of this thing, and let's find out how truly important is this proposed covenant as an addition to the historic Creeds of the Church? I think the importance of Section Four discloses that this proposed covenant is all about a grab for power, an enforced unanimity.

One wonders if the primates trying to hammer through this covenant, including the ABC, would be so enamored of for it if they perceived that the unanimity they think they desire would lead to a world-wide declaration that Anglicanism is defined by full inclusion of LGBT couples and persons in the life and ministry of 'their' Churches. It won't happen of course, because TEC, the Canadian Church, and our fellow forward thinkers and movers, have no desire to insist on imposing our vocation in our contexts upon other Churches in their respective contexts. Unlike them, we are continuing to behave like the Anglican Protestants that we've always been.

Each of the Churches of the Communion is a Protestant Church. No such power or unanimity as is currently being proposed and rammed forward has ever before characterized the relationship of the Churches of the Anglican Communion. Primates can whine and moan and pretend that such unanimity is characteristic of Christianity, but it is not now and never has been. Better the vine has many branches, the mustard bush has many places, upon which may alight Christians of various distinction, than that a superficial unanimity and centralized human and pseudo-papal authority would supplant the charism of diversity.

As for the financial distress that TEC and other Protestant mainstream Churches are experiencing, I would humbly suggest that once we finally get down off this highly uncomfortable fence and come down on the side of clear and full inclusion, the absolute bottom to top cessation of discrimination based on sexual orientation in this Church, then the Church will be liberated from this now-antiquated argument to move forward in proclaiming with 21st century means to a 21st century world a gospel that communicates to people living in the 21st century. This continuing debate is encouraging TEC toward narcissistic over-concern with itself and too-dismissive regard for the world around it passing it by. This debate is over. Let's admit it, move forward, and begin again to grow.

Jim +

Rector's Study April 2010

2010-04-16T12:47:00.001-05:00

From the Rector’s Study ~
Following a season of introspection come this season of Easter. It is a season as well as a day. And it is a way of life as well as a season. Scholar and author John MacQuarrie observes in his book The Faith of the People of God that, “Most important of all the events in the life Christ was its end – his sufferings and death.” He rightly notes that, “All the Gospels devote much of their space to a detailed account of his last days and hours.” But he goes on to observe that, “The death of Jesus is an impressive and significant event, but according to the testimony of the Gospels, it was not the end of the story. They go on to tell of the resurrection of Christ. This last event…differs from the preceding ones because it is much more difficult to say what the historical fact was.” Whatever those facts may be, as MacQuarrie notes, “it does seem quite certain that there never would have been any rise of the people of God [i.e. Christians] if that people has not been convinced that Jesus was risen.”

Now as ever, then, and maybe especially in this age of fact-checking for accuracy, Christians carry with them the responsibility to answer the question when it arises: ‘If your religion is based on it, then is it not necessary for you to know with certainty that this fellow Jesus was raised from death? So, how can you know?’ How can we know that ‘Christ is Risen!’ is a statement of truth? Thirteenth century scholar and theologian Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica at Question XVI ‘On Truth’ writes that “Truth is the equation of thought and thing.” He means that the measure of the truth of something, like the proposition that Christ is risen, is discernable by comparing what we think the thing is with the think itself. To the degree that you or I can recognize the thing as consonant with what understand the thing to be, we can confidently believe both our understanding of it and the thing itself to be true.

It may sound like mere intellectual gamesmanship or rhetoric, but his insight is more. For one thing, it reminds that that which is credibly held to be true far exceeds only those things that are observable. For instance, as he notes, the rocks that are buried deep within the earth are no less truly rocks simply because we are not able to see them or touch them and know them truly to be rocks. Truth is not based solely upon humanity’s ability to observe it. Truth is also found in the congruence of what we are able to think about a thing compared with what we know and experience of the thing itself. Returning to the example of the rocks, what you and I know of them, including that people find them buried in the ground, rightly leads us to conclude intellectually that there are rocks buried deep in the earth and that they are truly rocks even though they may remain forever unseen.

Regarding Jesus’ resurrection, then, are we able to know that the declaration that ‘Christ is Risen’ is a statement of truth? If so, how? And yes, we may rightly concur that this statement is indeed the basis of our religion and of our relationship with God. And if we are able to know the truth of the statement, then we are able to help others to know it, too. We can agree with the reasonable observation that MacQuarrie offers, namely: that the phenomenon of the Church itself, of its rise and quick growth in the early centuries of its existence and of the persistence of its existence for these 2000 years or so, offer evidence that something substantial did in fact occur to give it birth. Something more than the hopefulness of the early followers of Jesus, more than their experience of the wonder of his teachings in their relationships with one another, occurred to propagate and sustain the Church in its infancy. A sufficient number and variety of credible people told enough other credible and thoughtful people, that they had encountered materially the risen Jesus, so that people were persuaded that Christ had in fact risen, even though they had not observed him risen themselves.

Yet, it was not merely the intellectual exercise of the measure of the truthfulness of their statements that discerns the truth of Christ’s resurrection. It is also the consonance between what they experience in the Church, in the relationships that they observe and experience among the people of God, that further persuades people of the truth of the statement that Christ is Risen. It is, I suggest, this confluence between what we are taught in scripture and the study thereof with what we experience with one another as fellow followers of Jesus that convinces us today Christ is indeed risen.

Can you or I point to a photograph of Christ’s risen self? Of course not. But, if photography had existed at the time, would such a photograph be enough to persuade anyone of the truth of Christ’s resurrection? Maybe, just maybe, and even then, only for a time. Only until the person had sufficient time to measure the evidence of the photograph with the evidence of the people who identified themselves with the claim supported by it, that Christ is risen. Did the people then or do the people now who identify with Christ risen manifest the truth of the claim? If their manner of life contradicts the claim, then the photographic evidence would cease to persuade. It would be disproved as a fake, or at least its fakery would be believed in religiously, awaiting a future proof of its fraudulence. And all because of the dissonance between the intellectual claim and the experience of the credibility of those propagating it.

This means that you and I, also, know the truth of the claim that Christ is risen primarily because we have experienced and observed the equation of the intellectual credibility of the claim itself with the credibility of the behavior and integrity of those making the claim. The affect of the examples of their lives upon our own combined and consonant with the witness of scripture and the traditions of the Church convince us of the truth that Christ is indeed risen. Likewise, this combination of the reasonable claim of the resurrection of Jesus in scripture and tradition along with your example, mine, ours together in this community of ECR as a whole, not only persuades but convinces others around us that Christ is risen indeed.

The combination of reverence for this truth and lively celebration of it here at ECR lends weight to the truth that Jesus is risen and alive, and is especially so here at ECR. The truth matters to people, and this is truth that matters to people more than most statements of truth. Live the Easter life here, and invite a friend or neighbor to join and do the same. You can do this, and so can I. All of us can. Because here at ECR, Christ’s resurrection is more than a day, more than a season; it is the truth of our way of life. Because we know that people need to experience this. Because we know that they need to be here to experience this for themselves And because we know that they need you and I here with them to make this happen. Christ is risen here, indeed!
God’s Peace. Jim +

Education for clergy

2010-04-14T16:30:00.001-05:00

I think the question is: What does the Church wish to sustain as the norm for the education and preparation of its clergy? There are always exceptional persons with exceptional circumstance who follow a path outside what seems to be the norm. Those of us who have attended seminaries or divinity schools know well that most of the people attending have come there in routes there were more circuitous than linear. There really is no norm in practical experience. However, the Church needs to be clear about its expectations for the normal preparations and education for clergy. Otherwise, who is to say?

Many have noted that creeping parochialism and congregationalism are hazards worth tending; unless we decide that we want to surrender the Church model (cf. Ernst Troeltsch) and go more toward independent congregationalism. By the way, if people have a hard time deciding why not, I would suggest that this may further indicate the value of a serious formal education.

My insistence on distinguishing between 'being' a priest from 'doing the work of a priest' is likely rooted in my identity as an ENFP. Priests are not properly regarded as merely functionaries, and this pertains to the liturgical, pastoral care, and teaching aspects of ministry. All of us clergy can speak well of the many duties, responsibilities, and sacrifices born by ourselves and our families in responding to our respective vacations to ordained ministry. In addition, we have the responsibility of raising up and empowering the ministries of the lay people with whom we serve. The number of licensed Lay Ministers here in our parish congregation is really quite numerous, statistically. We even have a licensed Lay Preacher, a licensed Lay Catechist, as well several Lay Readers (e.g. lay officiants), and many Lay Eucharistic Ministers (chalicists) and Lay Eucharistic Visitors. The clergy person's responsibilities are numerous indeed;l just as regards ministry in and among the parish.

A clergy person has also the responsibility to engage the wider Church, and to help the congregation to do the same. I've noticed, sadly, that among especially those clergy who are trained informally rather than formally educated, the ability and facility for doing this is markedly less than that of their peers. This, I think, bodes very badly. It suggests two things to me. One, that clergy trained instead of educated are vulnerable to the undue influence of the opinions and perspectives of either the local bishop who oversees the training, or that of the person or small group of persons providing said training. Or, the trained clergy are largely deprived of a sound education in the history, appreciation, and function of the larger Church altogether. I've seen it and heard it. This deficit is present enough in formally educated clergy; It is far more so in clergy who have been trained rather then educated. It is not their own fault; but it is so nonetheless. Some will take personal offense at this observation, but this is not my intention.

I'm wondering if the Church might do well to look into urging its seminary system to develop an EMDiv., rather like an EMBA that some university business schools are offering. This could help ensure a high quality of education and would also provide academic accreditation. Again, I think another question we want to ask ourselves is, if I value the education that a teacher has received in order to be hired as a teacher, even though it may prove to be more than the teacher ever needed to do his or her work as a teacher, (though without it, the teacher wouldn't know enough even to ask the question), or if I value the education that doctors, nurses, veterinarians, architects, lawyers, funeral home directors, officers in the military, and other professionals are required and fortunate to receive before they can make their services and wisdom available to us, then why would we cut corners with clergy?

Would we recommend to a parishioner that they go to someone for professional counseling who was not properly credentialed with a formal education? Why, then, cut corners with clergy?

I fail to see why a formal education necessarily eliminates persons who seem not to fit the mythological norm. Certainly sustaining formal graduate-level education as the norm of preparation for the Church's clergy does not eliminate the opportunity for people to pursue alternative tracts to Holy Orders. I simply believe that the Church could be doing a much better job of focusing on reinforcing and supporting the normal and formal tract than to turn ever more readily to alternatives simply because in the short term they seem cheaper.

Becoming a clergy person is not easy for any of us. Most, if not all, of us has sacrificed mightily. I know my family and I have. But something worth doing and being simply cannot be easily attained. It shouldn't be, anyway, lest we and others value it too little. Likewise, and I'll know I'll get flack for this, ordained ministry is not a right, it is a responsibility. Certainly, access to the system toward Holy Orders is most certainly a right, and people who know me or have read my writing on LGBT inclusion know well that I mean this. But ultimately, ordination per se is not a right. It is a burden of responsibility and, God willing, a blessed manner of life.

Jim +

Short cuts around Semiary

2010-04-12T16:20:00.001-05:00

While I understand and appreciate the financial restrictions on seminary education, I would suggest the Church respond cautiously rather than react hastily in turning to alternative methods of training of clergy. My understanding is that clergy are to be educated more than than trained. I think the distinction is meaningful.

I was fortunate to attend a university for an undergraduate degree in biblical studies, with a biblical and classical Greek emphasis, cramming the equivalent of five years instruction into three and half. I received a fine education. I then attended another university for my M.Div. with the permission of the bishop of the diocese at that time. I took classes at a local Episcopal Church seminary as well, along with classes at a Jesuit theological school and personal studies at a Greek Orthodox seminary. In addition, I benefited from the fact that all the Divinity School classes were university classes, spread across many of the schools of the university. This way, most of the classes were open to and usually attended by university students, not only those of us preparing for ordained ministry. In addition, students from the consortium of theological schools in the area, a total of eight at the time, were able to take many of the classes being offered at each of the schools respectively. It all made the experience much richer.

I then came to Austin and completed a 'finishing year' at the Episcopal seminary here. The differences between the university experience and those of the seminaries, two Episcopalian and one Jesuit, are notable. I found the seminaries to be very much about training first and education second. Comparatively, the seminary here in Austin at that time felt to me much more like a trade school than a school of higher education.

The Diocese of Texas now has something called the Iona School, which provides an alternative training tract for bi-vocational clergy. Effectively, this training takes a year to a year and a half of basic instruction and stretches it out over three years. It in no way approximates even a seminary education, much less a university education. It is very much about training and informing. But I don't think anyone is daring to claim that it provides a truly academic education.

Taking that model, then, I would suggest the Church ask herself in terms of stewardship: 'Is it our responsibility to ensure that our clergy are educated? Or do we choose instead to see merely that people are trained to function liturgically?'

To help in discerning the priorities, we might ask ourselves if we would like to see a physician who has been merely trained via an alternative approach, or one who has been educated? When we are seeking legal advice in matters important to us, do we turn to a paralegal, a person trained in certain aspects of the law, or to an attorney, someone who has been educated deeply and to our satisfaction in those areas of law that pertain to our concerns? Do want a trained medical functionary or an educated physician? Do you prefer a trained legal functionary or an educated attorney?

Similarly, if I am seeking baptism for my child, do I want to find a person trained in the liturgical functions and indoctrinated in the basic teaching around baptism, or do I prefer someone who can help me to reflect upon and integrate the meanings of baptism for myself, my child, my community, and God? What about Holy Matrimony; Reconciliation, Burial?

If we do indeed want merely to train persons to serve officially as deacons and priests but practically as merely liturgical functionaries, then alternative trade-school educations should do nicely. But I suggest we deprive the present and future generations of Episcopalians when we do so.

Rather than seeking alternatives outside the seminaries, I'm wondering why the Church is not prioritizing seminary education for its clergy, and why more of our seminaries themselves are not making it a priority to establish academic inter-relationships with the institutions of higher education in their respective proximities. I'm aware that the seminary here in Austin is within blocks of the University of Texas at Austin, Huston-Tillotson University, Austin Graduate School Of Theology, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and is within a few miles of St. Edward's, University. A formal theological consortium among these schools would go a long way in stepping up clergy education at the seminary. If such is not possible, then the seminary itself could make it easier than it currently is for its students to receive credit for courses taken elsewhere. It could do some fact-finding and relationship-building on their behalf, then inform its own students about some courses elsewhere that it would positively encourage them to take for seminary credit.

In addition, if we wish our smaller more rural congregations not to think of themselves as diocesan step-children, and our bi-vocational clergy to take their vocation and preparation duly seriously, rather than as stop-gap measures put in place by a diocesan bureaucracy trying to save money, then is it not a better course to educate them instead or merely training them? Rather than dumbing-down the preparation of our clergy to a trade-school level, rather than shifting from education to training, is it not a better course to insist upon a quality education for the clergy of our Church?

I suggest the better course is to to demonstrate sacrificially the Church's commitment to quality ministry, service, and leadership. The course we chart now has ramifications for the spiritual and intellectual credibility of this Church, both now and into the future.

Jim +

When people leave...

2010-03-19T16:18:00.003-05:00

I would respectfully disagree with the claim that many are making that we are all diminished when someone makes the choice to depart. Who was diminished when the English Church decided to depart Rome? Who was strengthened and liberated? Who was diminished when those departed who could not or would not abide clergy who are women? And which fellowship was strengthened, broadened, and liberated?

I am quite weary of people telling the Church that it should accommodate the prejudices of the day. To those who say the Church should make room for those who disagree with the inclusion of LGBT persons who refuse to apologize for being LGBT, I ask this question: should we not, then also accommodate racial prejudices that still linger? Should we not also accommodate sexism? Should we not also accommodate bias and prejudice toward persons with disabilities, persons who at 'too old' or who are 'too young'? Why should the Church refuse to accommodate bigotry when bigotry is wrapped up in race or gender, but behave toward bigotry bound to hatred of LGBT people?

If people choose to leave, the key word is 'choose.' They choose. If they cannot or will not abide a Church that says that we will not, as a denomination, countenance discrimination, prejudice, and bigotry to LGBT persons, then so be it. Would it be better for them to be taken prisoner? Isn't the moral equivalent of hostage-taking more akin to the ecclesiology and practice of Rome? But we are a Protestant denomination, which means that we suffer no illusion that the Episcopal Church is the only expression of Christian faithfulness to God.

If people's opinions, including their prejudices, take them elsewhere, then may they continue searching until there remain no more Christian denominations that will accept and support their bigotry. Then may they find a home again, perhaps in the Episcopal Church.

In the meantime, the rest of us need to move forward and refuse to have our attention to wider world around us distracted by those who prejudice continues demanding that we deal with them instead, as though their point of view is one that the Church should regard as a legitimate one. It is not. Let's be done.

Jim +

Rector's Study March 2010

2010-03-16T12:45:00.001-05:00

From the Rector’s Study ~

I pray each of us here at ECR has an enjoyable Lent. The progress of Jesus through his time of trial is consonant with the journey through relationship with God. A Christian’s relationship with God and with the community of his or her fellow Christians cannot be a static thing. Yes, these relationships may be stable and steadfast. However, they also grow and change. This is what makes them like a journey. The focus of the season of Lent is a reflection of this journey, particularly the journey inward.

The journey is an inward examination, but not so much an examination of oneself per se. Otherwise, we can find ourselves on a needlessly narcissistic and circuitous journey to nowhere. Rather, the inward Lenten journey is an examination of the relationship that exists between oneself and God and of the relationship between oneself and the Church. It is a journey of prayer, reflection, study, and labor. Its goal is to discern more clearly one’s place and one’s role as they are this time and in this place. It is to rediscover the fact that even these most holy relationships are evolving, and the fact that this evolution is itself a gift of God.

Relationship with God and with the community of God’s people – these are what define us. Jesus tells his followers that to love God and to love others as one loves oneself are all that really matters. Jesus says that every other rule or guideline derives from these concerns; these concerns sum up the purpose of all the other laws or patterns that we try to follow. In other words, just about everything we do is rooted in our love for God, or lack thereof, in our love of others, or lack thereof, and in our love for ourselves, or lack thereof. And each of these expressions of love, as Jesus points out, is deeply interrelated to the others. The journey of Lent is an inward examination of our love.

Lent coincides, then, with God’s urging us to know God’s Love and to know our own; to shed the guilt of our love failing to measure up to some inhuman standard, but loving ourselves and others enough to celebrate the blessing of love when and how it happens to show up; to challenge shallow imitations of love in order pursue the genuine and holier article; to allow ourselves to love; and to allow ourselves to be loved, both by God and by others; to let love be the drama that it is sometimes; and to let love be the easy and ready gift that it often is all around us and within us.

I pray each of us will embrace the gifts that the Lenten season offers to us all. Make this journey step by step. Journey to Sunday morning and Wednesday evening worship services. Journey to weekly Bible Study and to Sunday morning Christian Education. Journey to the Lenten Series. Journey to the special services of Holy Week, the week before Easter Sunday. Journey to the fellowship of Small Groups, Foyers Groups, Dine Outs, the Episcopal Youth Community, the Episcopal Church Women, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, and the Daughters of the King. Journey to the service of the Altar Guild, the Choir, the Thrift Shop, Hospitality Hosting, and serving in the liturgy of worship.

These are gifts from which to choose, gifts to take up and add to your journey; or gifts to claim by sacrificing for a time something else in order to gain them. Make your personal journey to some of these, and see if you don’t find it a journey that you make in relationship with your kindred in Christ, and a journey by which find strengthened and enriched your relationship with God. So, though perhaps a strange wish, yet I pray each of us has an enjoyable Lent. Somber, jarring even, Jesus’ journey toward the cross is, nevertheless, a journey through and toward the Love of God. Certainly not joyous in any usual sense, yet it can be for those of us who follow after Christ a journey that we make with a quiet, reverent, but irrepressible inward celebration. A personal joy? Very much so, but not solitary. The joy, like the journey, is a gift of relationship - with God whose joy gives birth to our own; and with our community where joy is shared, where love evolves and grows.

God’s Peace. Jim +

Rector's Study February 2010

2010-02-16T13:01:00.001-06:00

Rector’s Annual Report for 2009
The Rev. James V. Stockton
Annual Meeting January 17, 2010

Our community rediscovered our strength last year. ECR was blessed last year with the gift of stability in a larger social context of uncertainty while this community continued to look forward to our future. We enjoyed this blessed combination gifts, and we shared these with the wider community and world around us. Here at ECR, as the saying has it, ‘life goes on.’ ‘In the sure and certain hope of the eternity of life, we bid loving farewell last year to James Baker, Evelyn Welborn, Tommy Stinson, Mike Stout, and Jim Webb. Each of these saints brought his or her gifts to the community of ECR over our collective history. Each will be appreciated into the future here. We grow from the nurture to our worship of God and fellowship in Christ that each entrusts to us all. We who were blessed to work with Tommy and with Mike over the many years of service that each provided will sense, I think, that their passing marks a particular era in our history. It will, of course, require more time for us to appreciate fully the impact that their lives had, and that their deaths in startlingly quick succession last year, had on our community. I invite you to browse by the video memorial that has been set up in the southeast corner of the hall today.

Life continued here last year also in our welcoming to the fellowship of Christ’s body through the sacrament of Holy Baptism Jackson Austin, grandson of Dick Christ, Audrey Kraig, daughter of David and Carrel Kraig; and Braylon Jones, grandson of Charles and Holly Davis. We also helped God in the blessing of Paddy and Debbie Langford in the bonds of Holy Matrimony. And all of these are just some of the many outward signs of the inward and spiritual life of our community, and for these we give God thanks.

I want to recognize at this time the vital ministry of the Vestry over the last year. This group of saints served God and his community with grace, imagination, and inspiration. They supported one another and the congregation in tending God’s call to us and God’s blessings upon us through the year. The Vestry met many unexpected challenges through the year. Burglaries and vandalism last September loomed large among these. Yet, they remained attentive and committed to leading this community through tough times into better ones. We owe the Vestry our profound gratitude. Thank you, Vestry. Having served wonderfully and well, four of last year’s Vestry have completed their term and now move on to other ministries. Linda Bryant, Clarence Starkie, Sandy Sterzing, and Chris Summers, thank you all. Clarence stepped in to finish the term begun by Paddy Langford when Paddy’s relocation to Houston prevented him from finishing. We thank you, too, Paddy for your service last year.

I want to thank especially my Senior Warden last year, Chris Summers. Chris served my ministry and me with vision, enthusiasm and faithfulness to God and to this community. He inspired me when I was discouraged. He inspired me when I was discouraged. He affirmed my reveling in the blessing of his community. It was my privilege to observe Chris’s ministry with the Vestry last year as he led by serving and served by leading. Chris’s ministry blessed me and blessed this community. Thank you, Chris.

I am happy to announce that my Senior Warden for 2010 will be Nadine Gordon. Nadine and I have worked together in previous years, and I know that her ministry this year will bless both ECR and me. Sandy Sterzing was the Vestry’s Junior Warden last year, and she deserves our thanks. Sandy led the effort to recover as quickly and effectively as possible from break-ins at the Church Office and the Church Building. These occurred in quick succession but almost as quickly Sandy made sure the facilities were secured and got an alarm system installed to help ensure that we need not worry about a worse occurrence in the future. For these repairs and the others you helped bring about last year, thank you, Sandy.

I want to thank those persons who offered themselves as nominees for election to the Vestry this year. It is a ministry in itself to be a nominee, and all of us are grateful to you, I’m sure. I look forward to working and praying with the new Vestry this year.

Along with the blessing of working with the Vestry, it has been my pleasure again last year to work with the many fine Ministry Leaders of ECR. Our community has many ministries, some with a comparatively larger footprint, some with a comparatively smaller one. Each serves the Good News of God’s Love in Jesus Christ by embodying God’s Love here in this community and by encouraging faith among us all. Our leaders of ministry are many in number, so I invite you to go to ECR’s web site and, under the Ministries menu, open the Ministry Leaders link. You will find there a list of our many ministry leaders. You also find the ministries that they serve so you can better determine some to which you may want to add your efforts. Our Ministry Leaders guide and support the many people serving in our ministries. Ministry Leaders of ECR, thank you.

And you who serve, thank you all. This year the Vestry and Ministry Leaders attended their annual retreat and did good hard work and entered into some good serious prayer on behalf of ECR. The culmination of a rich weekend was the group’s discernment of a new Mission Statement for ECR that represents this community well in our unique way of being who we are and doing what we do. ‘ECR is an open Christian community, putting God’s love into action, welcoming you as you are, on a journey of worship and service.’ It is quite literally an inspired bit of work. I think all of us who were present will recall the sense that the Holy Spirit itself was moving among us in efforts. It was a fine example of ECR’s two-fold appreciation for the blessing of stability in who we have always been and for the blessing of vision to pursue the future that God is creating for us to inhabit.

Thanks go also to our Parish Administrator Evelyn Griffin. Evelyn served last year as she does every year, with grace and dedication. In ways known and unknown, all of us rely on Evelyn carrying out her responsibilities, and she does so reliably and faithfully. Most often any mistakes in printed matter originate with me, so I may have to add to her duties and ask Evelyn to become my proof-reader. Even with all that she accomplishes, Evelyn also provides a kind ear and welcoming smile to visitors at the Church Office and also parish members who happen by. Thank you, Evelyn for all you do.

Our Sexton likewise accomplishes much that goes unseen. This is because much of what he does is simply to keep things going around here without interruption. When the lights light up when we expect them to, when to faucets turn on and do not leak, and when something gets painted or a new handrail appears, this is our sexton working when few if any are present to appreciate it. Thank you Rick for all you do.

Last year saw the remodel of the Nursery and Toddlers’ Room. This is another example of our community’s building on the past and present to move forward into the future. The new arrangement came about with just a bit of difficulty, but it has already proven the right thing to do. Since the change last year ECR has experienced a marked increase in the number parents confident in leaving their infants and children in the care of our nursery. I want to acknowledge here our two trained and certified nursery care-givers, Ashlee Rogers and Valerie Stockton. These two, with a growing list of volunteers, also trained and certified, are doing a great job for the children and their families. Thank you, ladies.

Late last year, I had the sad responsibility for hiring an interim Director of Music. I needed to ensure that our community would continue to offer song and music as part of our worship of God. I also believed it was very important to support the community of our choir, to make sure that they knew that we all value greatly their ministry. I also wanted to demonstrate my confidence in their gifts and in their ability to continue to offer them in the face of our great loss. In response to my efforts and prayers, God blessed us with the ministry of our interim Director of Music, Sara Burden-McClure. Sara is the founder and director of Austin Girls’ Choir and an accomplished organist, as well. Over the last four months of last year, she provided our community with wonderful and inspiring music. She has provided the choir with a direction that has been both gentle and firm, which has helped the choir to experience some significant healing. Happily, Sara has decided to seek the position of Director of Music here at ECR as a permanent job. Sara joins two other applicants interested in the position. We have experienced the try-out of one of these persons, and will meet another applicant next Sunday. I will make this decision on the hire by the end of this month and will inform each of the applicants and ECR. In the meantime, I am most certainly thankful to Sara for what she has brought to our community.

I also want to note that last year was the year that we dedicated the new stained-glass windows in the chapel and the etched glass windows in the doors entering the nave. Their beauty is a terrific addition to the narthex, the chapel, and the nave. Yet, we almost though not quite, find ourselves, I think, accustomed to them by now. Their presence is new, while they also continue the esthetic that ECR has had for many years. These windows are a kind of material expression of the way that ECR last year provided a blessed haven of stability, while also inspiring ourselves and, I pray, those around us, to anticipate a new and blessed future.

I want to thank, then, the group that has focused on exactly this, the Congregational Planning Process Committee. The Planning Committee is that group commissioned by the Vestry with addressing the nitty gritty of ECR’s campus make-over as means for ECR to move forward into the future that God has planned for us. The Vestries and Ministry Leaders of ECR over the last several years, last year included, have understood the urgent need for ECR to increase our parking capacity. As I hope most of us recall, ECR currently has parking for exactly one half the number of people that our nave can accommodate. The original plans for the Church Building called for the number of parking spaces that would fit the seating in the nave, but that plan was modified, with the result that have today. In addition the Planning Committee has been paying very close attention to what they are hearing from our Ministry Leaders about their needs, aspirations, and inspirations regarding ECR’s ministries. I appreciate the Planning Committee, their efforts last year were tireless. I anticipate the Committee bringing to the congregation soon some of the great fruits of their labor. Thank you, members of the Planning Committee.

Last year blessed us with the return of our now Senior Seminarian, now the Rev. Marie Butterbaugh. Marie completed her middler year of Field Education here in the spring, then returned in the fall for her senior and final year. Last month, you may recall, Marie was ordained a deacon in the Church, and will soon be serving a congregation in her home diocese, the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. Marie has been back home for a few weeks and expects to back with us again next Sunday.

We were blessed also with the ministry last year of our new middler seminarian Susan Burnham. Though Susan has decided, and wisely so, to take a break from the Field Education component of her education, she continues to be with us enjoying the beatitudes of being a part of this community.

Last year offered us many blessings and some significant challenges. I am proud of the community of ECR, proud to represent you in the wider community as your priest, blessed to serve you as your rector. Our gift of welcoming people here to experience God’s Love for them, and to be invited to help us to share with the world around us God’s Love for all, is powerfully unique to us. I do not claim that other church community’s fail to share God’s Love. However, I do claim with conviction that it is our gift to share God’s Love as no other church community is able. Last year this meant discovering that we could do this by offering to one another and to those around us a combination of blessed stability, reflective of the eternity of God’s Love and God’s faithfulness to God’s people; along with an inspiring vision and description of the future to which God is calling us, a future that God is preparing for us, a future fit for this amazing community of ECR. Thank you to each of you for your prayers, your presence, for your support of and participation in the ministries and witness of this community. God bless us here at ECR.

The Rev. James V. Stockton - January 2010

Rector's Study January 2010

2010-01-16T12:42:00.001-06:00

From the Rector’s Study ~

Manifesting God’s Love – this is the meaning behind our celebration of this season called Epiphany. If Advent recalls humanity’s anticipation of the coming in of God’s presence, Epiphany recognizes the fulfillment of that anticipation. What comes into our lives, what God manifests before us in the birth of Christ, God incarnate, is the Love of God.

God’s Love is not necessarily what people are anticipating when they look forward to the drawing near of God. If there is some fear, some bit of worry, Epiphany recognizes that God is not to be feared but loved, that God’s presence is a loving one, and only people who fear divine love for humanity need have fear toward God. Whether it is what we anticipated or not, what is manifest before us as God comes to us in person is the Love of God for all.

The wise men of the Christmas story are the first few who quietly seem to understand that in the Christ child there is born into our world the very presence of God. Yes, the shepherds along with Mary and Joseph do know and celebrate Jesus’ birth for the sign from God that is; a sign of God’s favor, God’s blessing upon all people ‘of good will.’ They try to grasp the Good News that this child is the Savior of God’s people, long awaited and anticipated. But the wise men, traditionally identified as Caspar, Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar, are the first, it seems, to perceive that this child is the very presence of God’s very self.

And, I think, appropriately, their recognition is comparatively muted, reverent, a nearly silent awe. While the angels filled the skies with shouts and songs of celebration, while the shepherds told everyone whom they met of the Good News that has been given them, in contrast the wise men (and wise women? the term is magi, so the group may included both) are more deliberative in their approach. Respectfully, they ask the whereabouts of the newborn king. And coming to the humble abode there is no indication that they are startled to find the object of their adoration either lying in a feeder in a barn or, if Jesus has grown to toddler-hood by time they arrive, in a craftsman’s simple home. The magi know that the child they see is the presence of something much more, someone visible to them only through faith in and longing for God.

The season of Epiphany, then, is likewise a bit of a quieter season. And you and I, I think, can rightly be grateful for this. The end of 2009 was almost overly full with events unfolding in the world around us. And the seasons of Advent and Christmas were rich and busy with celebrations, but also the challenge of retiring our budget deficit and the addition of some unexpected sadness in the hospitalizations of some our folks, and for some of us the deaths of loved ones. It is time now when God seems to invite us to breathe deeply, let our lungs fill with air and our souls fill with the Holy Spirit, and relax in reverent awe of God’s presence richly, wonderfully, lovingly among us.

As Epiphany begins and the new year also begins, I invite us all to look and listen and tune our senses to what it all around us. Sure, we can look up at the sky, blue and beautiful or even gray and cold, and maybe gain a sense of God’s loving presence with us. But let’s also look around closer in, at the people near us, at circumstance that contain us. And let’s search even more deeply and discover within ourselves, each of us, the presence of God. And let us discover how this humbles us, inspires us, emboldens us, and moves us, like the wise men, to press on along the path that God alone has called us to follow.

God’s Peace. Jim +

Bad Fruit From a Bad Tree

2010-01-06T17:36:00.007-06:00

It is a given, I think, that most Episcopalians view the proposed “Anglican Covenant” as the fruit of a bad tree. It derives from the envy of a small number of emerging-world primates and the homophobia of some influential North Americans. The effective disturbance they raised together as far back as 1998 at the Lambeth Conference planted the seeds of conflict and caught the primates by surprise, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, and our own Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold. The surprise that these primates’ highly un-Anglican behavior achieved enabled their effort to gain momentum. While the Churches of the Communion continued to work and pray in accordance with Anglican norms, the ‘family’ of a few primates and their North American sponsors continued to work in a manner that owes more to guerrilla politics than to Christ-like or apostolic fellowship.

The combination of political ambition and social xenophobia that the groups shared continued to fester until it erupted around the possibility that the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. might ratify the diocesan election of a bishop who is unapologetically gay. At this juncture, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, had before him an important choice. He could have served the Communion through his leading by example, i.e., he could have responded to the claimed angst of the vociferous minority by reminding all those claiming to be Anglican that the Churches of Anglicanism are interdependent in mission and independent in polity. However, he chose instead to invest his personal attention and the prestige of his office in validating the unsubstantiated claims of the envious and the homophobic. The bad seed of mischief had grown to a flourishing shrub.

The Archbishop himself assured that shrub’s growth to the full stature of a gnarly tree when he established the Lambeth Commission on Communion and gave it the task of producing what has come to be known as the Windsor Report. The Report was reactionary rather than investigatory. The Commission might have inquired of the primates claiming to take offense at Bishop Gene Robinson’s life-style whether their claims of real harm to their own churches as a result of Robinson’s election were, in fact, true. Instead, the Commission chose to accept the word of the most ill-behaved and loudest-crying children in the room, and thereby reacted against the Churches of the Communion that were most fully engaged and financially supportive of the Church’s mission. The Report was the first bit of bad fruit to fall from the bad tree. The proposed “Covenant” was the second, and the more obviously poisonous.

Anyone who has read the first proposed “Covenant” understood immediately that it was punitive in nature. The only question was whether or not one was in favor of punishing the American and Canadian Churches for their daring recognition of gay Christians as a genuine expression of God’s love for all. That the proposed “Covenant” was an instrument of punishment was never in doubt. This instrument has now been revised to yield the current and “final” version. The punitive nature of it has been muted but not at all eliminated. In fact, if the punitive aspects of the thing were eliminated, there would be hardly any interest remaining in driving its adoption forward. Hence, the intense focus on Section Four. Were Section Four not the intent of the thing, then it would have been dropped when people first raised their objections to it in the first draft. The proposed “Covenant” remains a device for the xenophobic and envious to punish those ecclesiastical bodies that are otherwise beyond their control because of democratic polity and the movement of the Holy Spirit. That it remains about punishment, coercion, and control demonstrates that the proposed “Covenant” is the worst of the bad fruit from the bad tree of emerging-world envy blended with privileged North American bigotry. To suppose that this bad fruit from this horrific tree can now somehow be nourishing for Christian fellowship is simply mad.

The current revision of Section Four employs high-sounding rhetoric about intentions for the proposed “Covenant,” but the text shows signs of being the garbled product of a committee. Section 4.1.1. reads in part: “Each Church adopting this Covenant affirms that it enters into the Covenant as a commitment to relationship in submission to God. Each Church freely offers this commitment to other Churches in order to live more fully into the ecclesial communion and interdependence which is foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion.” A cursory reading might suggest that the commitment to relationship is being said to be “foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion.” Analyzing the grammar more closely, it appears that “ecclesial communion and interdependence” (or perhaps simply “interdependence”) is offered as “foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion.” The problem with either interpretation is that the section presupposes that any of these are in fact “foundational” to any of the Anglican Communion Churches. The plain fact is that they are not. The Anglican Communion did not exist when the Church of England declared its governance to be independent of Rome. The Scottish Episcopal Church, and later the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, did not regard as foundational their interdependence upon one another, certainly not upon the Church of England. There was no such thing as an Anglican Communion upon which any of the Churches descendant from the Church of England built themselves. The first Lambeth Conference was not held until 1867. The current form of the Anglican Communion did not exist before 1969 with the establishment and first meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Until that time, and even since that time, the Churches that grew from Britain’s colonial efforts were and have been independently governed, with each Church’s primates and bishops meeting voluntarily, but always proceeding absolutely independently of one another regarding their respective Church polities. To the contradiction of the proposed “Covenant,” history demonstrates that neither the “ecclesial communion and interdependence” nor a commitment to same are foundational to any of the Churches of the Anglican Communion. Thus, the draft “Covenant” is an attempt to put into place something new, but using language that implies that it has always existed.

Section 4.4.1 reads in part: “The Introduction to the Covenant Text, which shall always be annexed to the Covenant text, is not part of the Covenant, but shall be accorded authority in understanding the purpose of the Covenant.” Since this section refers us to the Introduction, it is helpful to turn there. Paragraph 7 includes this: “Our life together reflects the blessing of God (even as it exposes our failures in faith, hope and love) in growing our Communion into a truly global family. The mission we pursue is aimed at serving the great promises of God in Christ that embrace the peoples and the world God so loves.” I must confess, I did not know that it was a goal of the Churches of the Anglican Communion to “grow” “our Communion into a truly global family.” Instead, I rather thought we were already precisely that. Certainly, as is true of any real family, there are disputes among us, but I fail to see how a “Covenant” document, a new bureaucracy, a new organizational power given to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a procedure for punitive repercussions for daring to disagree with him will heal damaged relationships. Paragraph 7 continues: “This mission is carried out in shared responsibility and stewardship of resources, and in interdependence among ourselves and with the wider Church.” It seems, then, that the “Covenant” embodies a vision that involves not only a centralization of authority over Communion Churches, but also a centralization of their respective resources as well. The “Covenant” is a device to circumvent that pesky movement of the Holy Spirit in a particular context amongst a particular people. It trusts instead a Lambeth bureaucracy to decide the polity of that people’s Church, and the allocation of that people’s funds and the use of their resources—all of this in conjunction with the supreme irony of the high likelihood that the British Parliament will be unwilling to cede authority over the Church of England to anyone outside the Church of England. We can set aside concerns around the anomaly of a two-tiered Communion. If this “Covenant” moves forward to adoption, it will be the Church of England that moves to a new, and decidedly un-Anglican, third and upper tier. One hopes that enough of the primates will remember and appreciate that they are Protestants, and so head this thing off.

People will continue to claim that such concerns about centralization and shift in organizational power back to Britain are alarmist. To these I say that, if the “Covenant” is about relationship rather than power, then do away with Section Four entirely. But they are then left to defend the proposal of a “Covenant” itself. And so they should be. The Churches of the Communion are already in effectual relationship. Those who choose not to be so will not change upon the adoption of a “Covenant.” It is obvious, then, that if this “Covenant” is adopted, it will alter forever the meaning of what it is to be Anglican, at least until a sufficient number of Churches act to abolish the thing and to end the existence of the enhanced “Standing Committee.”

Anglicanism’s unique witness to world about what it is to be Christian has been that the Creeds of the Church are and have always been sufficient to define Christian fellowship. The polity of the Episcopal Church has never put being Episcopalian, much less being Anglican, ahead of being simply Christian. Being “a covenanting Church,” in the language of the proposed “Covenant,” redefines every Episcopal Church congregation, every entity of the Church, every thing and every person having to do with the Episcopal Church. It would do likewise for every other Church of the Communion. Britain might prefer it this way. It is painfully evident that Archbishop Williams would. However, the proposed “Covenant” is a stark contradiction of every Protestant impulse, every inclination among the people that led to the expulsion of the influence in England of Rome, and that of England from the Church in the U.S. Familial relationship is one thing; governance is quite another. Confusing the terms does not change the distinction. This “Covenant” is poisonous fruit from a bad and dying tree.

Jim +

Covenant Texts and Intentions

2009-12-29T16:12:00.003-06:00

It is, I think, a given that the proposed 'Anglican Covenant' is the fruit of a bad tree. It derives from the envy of a small number of emerging-world Primates and the homophobia of some influential North Americans. The disturbance they raised effectively together as far back as 1998 at the Lambeth Conference caught the Primates by surprise, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey and our own Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold. The surprise that these primates' highly un-Anglican behavior achieved enabled their effort to gain momentum. While the Churches of the Communion continued to work and pray in accordance with Anglican norms, the 'Family' of a few primates and their North American sponsors continued to work in a way that is much more akin to guerrilla politics than to Christ-like or apostolic fellowship.

The combination of political ambition and social xenophobia that both groups shared continued to fester until it erupted around the possibility that the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. might ratify the diocesan election of a bishop who is unapologetically gay. At this juncture, the new Archbishop of Canterbury had before him an important choice: to serve the Communion by leading by example; i.e. he could have responded to the claimed angst of the vociferous minority by reminding all those claiming to be Anglican that the Churches of Anglicanism are interdependent in mission and independent in polity. However, he chose instead to throw his personal attention and the significance of his Office toward validating the unsubstantiated claims of the envious and homophobic. The bad seed of mischief had grown to a flourishing shrub. The Archbishop himself assured its growth to the full stature of a gnarly tree when he established the Lambeth Commission on Communion and gave it the task of producing what has come to be known as the Windsor Report. The Report was reactionary rather than investigatory. The Commission might have inquired of the Primates claiming to take offense at Bp. Robinson's life-style whether their claims of real harm in their own churches as a result of Robinson's election were in fact true. Instead the Commission chose to accept the word of the most ill-behaved and most loudly-crying children in the room, and so reacted against the Churches of the Communion who were most fully engaged and financially supportive of the Church's mission. The Report was the first bit of bad fruit to fall from the bad tree. The proposed 'Covenant' was the second, and the more obviously poisonous.

Anyone who has read the first proposed 'covenant' has understood immediately that it was punitive in nature. It was only questionable whether one was in favor of or against punishing the American and Canadian Churches for daring to recognize gay Christians as genuine expressions of God's Love for all. That the proposed 'covenant' was an instrument of punishment was never in doubt. This instrument has now been revised to the current manifestation. The punitive nature of it has been muted, but not at all eliminated. In fact, if the punitive aspects of the thing were eliminated, there would be hardly any interest remaining in driving the thing forward. Hence the intense focus on Section Four. Were Section Four not the intent of the thing, then it would have been dropped when people first raised their objections around the first draft. The proposed 'covenant' remains a device for the xenophobic and envious to punish those ecclesiastical bodies that are otherwise beyond their control thanks to the democratic polity of this Church and the movement of the Holy Spirit. That it remains about punishment, coercion, and control demonstrates that the proposed 'covenant' is the worst of the bad fruit from the bad tree of emerging-world envy blended with privileged North American bigotry.

To suppose that this bad fruit from this horrific tree can now somehow be nourishing for Christian fellowship is simply mad.

The current revision of Section Four speaks well for the intentions of the proposed 'covenant.' Section (4.1.1.) reads in part: "Each Church adopting this Covenant (sic) affirms that it enters the Covenant with a commitment to relationship in submission to God. Each Church freely adopts this commitment to other Churches in order to live more fully into the ecclesial communion and interdependence which is foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion." The grammar suggests that that 'which is foundational to the Church of the Anglican Communion' is this commitment to relationship, although one could infer, bad grammar aside, that the foundational stuff is 'the ecclesial communion and interdependence.' The biggest problem with either interpretation is that the section presupposes that any of these are in fact 'foundational' to any of the Churches of the Anglican Communion. The plain fact is that they are not. The Anglican Communion did not exist when the Church of England declared its governance to be independent of Rome. The Scottish Episcopal Church, and then later the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, did not regard as foundational their interdependence upon one another, certainly not upon the Church of England. There was no such thing as the Anglican Communion upon which any of the Churches descendant from the Church of England built themselves. The first Lambeth Conference was not held until 1867. The current form of the Anglican Communion did not exist before 1969 with the establishment and first meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Until that time, and even since that time, the Churches that grew from the Britain's colonial efforts were and have been independently governed, with each Church's primates and bishops meeting voluntarily, but always proceeding absolutely independently of one another regarding their respective Church polities. To the contradiction of the proposed 'covenant,' history demonstrates that neither the 'ecclesial communion and interdependence' nor a commitment to same are foundational to any of the Churches of the Anglican Communion. Thus, the draft 'covenant' is an attempt to put into place something new, but using language that implies that it has always existed.

Section (4.4.1) reads in part, "The Introduction to the Covenant Text, which shall always be annexed to the Covenant text (sic), is not part of the Covenant, but shall be accorded authority in understanding the purpose of the Covenant." Since this section refers us to the Introduction, it is helpful to turn there. The language of Paragraph 4 of the Introduction is inspiring, but given what we then read in paragraph 7, the language of the earlier paragraph may be less inspiring and more instructive as to the intent of the 'covenant.' Paragraph 7 reads in part, "Our life together reflects the blessing of God (even as it exposes our failures in faith, hope and love) in growing our Communion into a truly global family. The mission we pursue is aimed at serving the great promises of God in Christ that embrace the peoples and the world God so loves." I must confess, I did not know that it was a goal of the Churches of the Anglican Communion to 'grow' "our Communion into a truly global family." Instead, I rather thought we were already precisely that. Certainly, as is true of any real family, there are disputes among us, but I fail to see how a 'covenant' document, a new bureaucracy, a new organizational power given to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a procedure for punitive repercussions for daring to disagree with him will heal relations relationally. Paragraph 7 goes on, "This mission is carried out in shared responsibility and stewardship of resources, and in interdependence among ourselves and with the wider Church." It seems, then, that the 'covenant' bears a vision that involves not only a centralization of authority for the polity of each of the Churches, but a centralization of their respective resources, as well. The 'covenant' is a device that abbreviates that pesky movement of the Holy Spirit in a particular context amongst a particular people. It trusts instead a Lambeth bureaucracy to decide the polity of that people's Church, and the allocation of that people's funds and the use of their resources. All of this in conjunction with the supreme irony that of the high likelihood that the British Parliament will be unwilling to cede authority over the Church of England to anyone outside the Church of England. We can set aside concerns around the anomaly of a two-tiered Communion. If this 'covenant' moves forward to adoption, it will be the Church of England that moves to a new, and decidedly un-Anglican third and upper-tier. One hopes that enough of the Primates will remember and appreciate that they are Protestants, and so head this thing off.

People will continue to claim that such concerns about centralization and shift of organizational power back to Britain are alarmist. To these I say, if the 'covenant' is about relationship rather than power, then do away with Section Four entirely. But they are then left with defending the proposal of a 'covenant' altogether. And so they should be. The Churches of the Communion are already in effectual relationship. Those who choose not to be so will not change upon the adoption of a 'covenant.' It is obvious, then, that if this 'covenant' is adopted, it will alter forever the meaning of what it is to be Anglican, at least until sufficient number of Churches would go on to vote to abolish the thing and to end the existence of the proposed 'Standing Committee.'

Anglicanism's unique witness to world about what it is to be Christian has been that the Creeds of the Church have always been and are sufficient to define Christian fellowship. The polity of the Episcopal Church has never put being Episcopalian, much less Anglican, ahead of being simply Christian. Being "a covenanting Church," in the language of the proposed 'covenant,' redefines every Episcopal Church congregation, every entity of the Church, every thing and every person having to do with the Episcopal Church. It would do likewise for every other Church of the Communion. Britain might prefer it this way. It is painfully evident that Archbishop Williams would. However, the proposed 'covenant' is a stark contradiction of every protestant impulse, every inclination among the people, that led to the expulsion of the influence in England of Rome, and that of England from the Church in the U.S. Familial relationship is one thing; governance is quite another. confusing the terms does not change the distinction. This 'covenant' is poisonous fruit from a bad and dying tree.

Jim +

Rector's Study December 2009

2009-12-16T12:40:00.001-06:00

From the Rector’s Study ~

“He was made man that we might be made God.” It is a statement about Jesus well-known in theological circles, enthusiastically endorsed by some, suspiciously scrutinized by others. It was written by the Bishop of the Egyptian city of Alexandria in his thesis Of the Incarnation of the Word of God.

Athanasius was bishop at a time when the Church was struggling to understand for itself some central tenets of the faith and wrestling with how to communicate these meaningfully to a skeptical world around it. Tradition holds that Athanasius is the author of the creed that bears his name, and which we find in our Book of Common Prayer beginning at page 864. One reads in the fine detail of this statement of faith the subtle distinction between what Athanasius intends to say and what he decidedly means not to say. When Athanasius claims that Jesus ‘was made man that we might be made God,’ he means exactly what he writes.

Christmas time is certainly one of the most appropriate times to consider the meaning of the Incarnation; though it is never inappropriate to appreciate this mystery. The most apparent biblical source for the Athanasian meaning is found in the Second Letter of Peter. There at 1:2-4, Peter writes

“May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus, he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.”

“Participants of the divine nature” is the pertinent, and truly amazing, phrase here. It goes a long way to explain why God makes manifest God’s grace in the birth of the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. For Christians, it may be that having been raised up on the birth story of Jesus, we seldom if ever ponder how else God might have done whatever it is that God wanted to do with regard to us human beings. But when we consider the possibilities, we can appreciate how very unique is the phenomenon of the birth of Christ Jesus.

For instance, rather than the chosen method of incarnation, God might instead have sent down to us two more stone tablets, ten more commandments: ‘You shall tend to the spirit of the Law at least as much as to the letter; You shall love others even we you don’t necessarily like them; You shall be nice; You shall share; You shall celebrate the good things about yourself; You shall turn to me for help, but really mean it when you do so;” and etc. Any of us can imagine what God might have added to the Ten, had God chosen to go this route. And any of us can imagine how people over time would have domesticated these, as happened with the first Ten.

God might have sent a prophet or multiple prophets with symbolic and allegorical language to challenge us, chastise us, and, hopefully, to encourage us. We would be looking to the fulfillment of these prophetic images and words, trying to discern them here and there, and wondering if we have yet guessed correctly. And whenever we realized that our guesses were wrong, we would return to wondering how much longer we would have to wait, and if perhaps God had given up on us and simply gone away.

If you and I were not already familiar with the idea of the incarnation, I dare say we would never imagine it ourselves. The incarnation, being God in person come to us in flesh and blood humanity, is a novel idea, truly a godly one. This is what God does in Jesus.

Further, Jesus does not just suddenly show up, all grown up, wise and leaderly. Jesus is truly incarnate, fully, so that he begins humanly as does anyone else among us, as do you and I. He is born a helpless baby. Further still, he is born to peasantry, not royalty; into a people oppressed, not free. He will know what it is to be cold, to be hungry, to be homeless, to be afraid, to be lonely. In the incarnation God is humanized, and fully so; God participates in humanity.

This is what Athanasius means when he writes that “He was made man.” And because God became human, humanity does not need any longer to try to lift itself to that state of being that is beyond our nature, namely: perfection. Yes, we can be aware of the wrongs we do, that are done to us by others. Yes, we can theorize how the errors of human society and civilization might yet be corrected. But however aware we become, we find that we are inherently incapable of ourselves to improve beyond relapse.

In the incarnation, God tells us, reminds us, that self-perfection is not our job. By the glory and goodness of God in Jesus the Incarnation, God offers to do for you, me, and for all humanity what we cannot do for ourselves or for one another. By God’s own participation in human nature, we may now participate in the nature of God. God offers us in Jesus “that we might be made God.”

Not the that human beings must somehow cease to be human, as though God disapproves of God’s own precious creation (an idea that is offensive to Christian faith and doctrine, and so rightly criticized), ‘being made God’ as Athanasius means it is to find ourselves participating in God’s goodness, God’s love, God’s wisdom, all that comprises God’s nature. It means also to find ourselves truly as we are, as God knows us to be, even if we don’t yet know ourselves as such. Because we participate in God’s very being we become, or discover that we are, perfectly ourselves; perfected not according to some humanly limited sense of good, better, best; but by the mystery and power of God’s Love.

It is a teaching and a truth that the Church still struggles to communicate well to the skeptical world around us. But it is also a truth that has a home with every person on earth. Human and Divine, humble yet truly God, this is Jesus: God made one with our humanity that we might be made one with God. A gift beyond compare. God’s Peace. Jim+

Rector's Study November 2009

2009-11-16T12:37:00.001-06:00

This month begins with a celebration of saints and saintliness and concludes with a celebration of both all that we have for which we can be thankful and the phenomenon of thankfulness itself. This month also marks the end of one liturgical year and the beginning of the next. The convergence of all these events reminds us of a basic truth of Christian life: relationship with God is oriented around gratitude. Thankfulness toward God for all that makes up our lives is the guide to and the product of being saintly.

“The original sin of Adam and Eve, the prototype of all sin, is presented as a failure to be receptive and grateful.” So writes theologian and author Ronald Rolheiser in his recent book, The Shattered Lantern: rediscovering a felt presence of God. He explains: “God makes Adam and Eve and places them in the garden and showers them goodness and life. They are given gift beyond measure and are promised that life will continue in this rich and good way on one condition – they are not to eat the fruit of a certain tree.” He goes on, “The condition God places on them is not an arbitrary or petty test…God has told Adam and Eve that they may receive life as gift, but they may not take life as if it were theirs by right.”

It’s important to note that there is nothing in any of this about being perfect, without flaw, without sin. There is only a call not to be without repentance, i.e. to turn back to God with gratefulness that God is here to be turned back to. A saint is not someone who is morally or religiously ‘better’ than the rest of us. If anything, a saint is someone who would reject such comparison. Rather, a saint is someone set apart by God and for God, and who consciously embraces such a state of being.

Our time in history and the general culture in which we live don’t respect, much less revere, saintliness by this definition. More commonly, society tends to look for exaggerated examples of self-imposed poverty or selfless generosity; examples so extreme that people can find them inspiring of their awe, but also , once their need for inspiration has subsided, can set them aside as impossible to emulate in their own lives because of the very fact of their extremity. It is true that God calls some people to expressions of saintliness that the rest of us will perceive as extreme. It is equally true, and more importantly so, that God calls all of us to saintliness, i.e., to inviting God and allowing God to set us apart for relationship with God; and

that said saintliness is most often experienced not in the extreme, but in the ordinary and the mundane. In the ordinary events of life, the advantageous and the hurtful, God is speaking to us. And for this alone, if nothing else, we may rightly cultivate within ourselves a practice of thankfulness to God.

Rolheiser writes, “To have a sense of God’s presence in everyday life, we don’t need the kind of [extreme events] that drastically change ordinary reality. No. We need a deeper sense that God is already present and acting in the seemingly ordinary events of our lives….When we find a penny on the street, then we need to feel that God is blessing us.”

To awaken spiritually to God’s love for oneself and to one’s love for God finds the new Christian often overflowing with joy and effusive with gratitude. You may have experienced this in your life; you may be experiencing it now. Then, over time, the maturing Christian meets life’s events and finds that these can still be both hurtful and advantageous. And the maturing Christian comes to realize that the endpoint for the Christian life, the life set apart for God, is the constant renewal through practice of one’s continuing thankfulness to God. Thankfulness is characteristic of both the beginning and the fulfillment of saintliness.

Not to be confused with adopting ‘an attitude of gratitude’ or with ‘the power of positive thinking,’ the practice of thankfulness in Christian saintliness is not an act of personal willpower. It is more an act of surrendering to God, of allowing God to show us what there is for which we may be rightly thankful. And what it is that God shows us and enable us to be thankful for will often exceed our own imagination and strength of will.

I think God is inviting you and me to interpret this November as a month-long reminder of the inherent connection between our love and gratitude for all the saints whom we have loved and lost and one day will rejoin, and the thankfulness that we have felt for them and for all the blessings of our lives; and thus of the deeper connection between our own on-going sainthood and its expression in our thankfulness to God who meets us in every great beginning, at every wonderful end, and in all the ordinary sacred moments in between.

God’s Peace. Jim +

Rector's Study October 2009

2009-10-01T13:44:00.004-05:00

From the Rector's Study ~

“Ours was a life lived in paradise and thus it rendered any discussion of transcendental ideas pointless. …death was something similar to recycling.” So writes author Douglas Coupland in his novel Life After God. Fiction though it is, it is autobiographically reflective. He continues, “Life was charmed but without politics or religion. It was the life of children of the children of the pioneers – life after God – a life of earthly salvation on the edge of heaven. Perhaps this is the finest to which we may aspire, the life of peace, the blurring between dream life and real life – and yet I find myself speaking these words with a sense of doubt. ”

Few authors have expressed as well as this the spiritual life of many of the people emerging into adulthood in the wider community all around us here at ECR. Few authors have so well articulated the deep need among people today for a community like ours here at ECR, and for the good news about God that has made us who we are. Few communities like our own so well express God’s Love and so wonderfully celebrate the opportunity to connect other people with it, as do we.

You’ll see elsewhere in this edition of our parish newsletter the Radiant Cross the names of some of the good folks finding their way to their place with ECR. Maybe some identify with Coupland’s lament, or may be not so much. In any case, we all identify with the great blessings, with the joys that we find in the sense of belonging here. We find spiritual encouragement; we find social connection and fellowship; we find edifying knowledge of God’s Word; we find inspiring ways that the Living Word expresses its Holy Self to us and through us here at ECR. And we find a unique grace and gratification in recognizing someone else’s discovery here of their connection with God.

In the coming weeks I hope to focus ECR on creating opportunities for us to experience this grace more frequently. Ministry groups will be incorporating into their ministries active follow-up with guests and visitors. Just adding a few more voices other than my own to after-Sunday outreach to following up with our guests, visitors, and people still new to the rhythm of life here at ECR will help folks begin to experience this community more immediately; and that can only be a good thing. I’ll provide some training and guidance. However, it’s important for all of us to realize that following up with guests and new members and friends is not a complicated program, but a natural instinct that only needs to be set free.

Especially here at ECR, this instinct to connect with the stranger to offer them our friendship and friendship with God is indeed natural. Our efforts as creating more intentional follow up is largely training ourselves to set aside those less natural habits of, for example, ‘respecting someone’s privacy’ by waiting for them to call, as if…. Or assuming that someone new here will properly digest the wealth of information that we provide people in our newsletter, the Mid-Week, and the announcements, and then take the initiative to act on it. The information is helpful, no doubt; but what matters most is the human connection; because God doesn’t move into people’s lives through information. God moves through God’s people. God connects with people through the connection that you and I make with them.

How wonderful is that! It’s even more so when we consider how deeply-felt is the need for God in the lives of people around us, the people whom God wants to connect with, people with whom wants us to connect for their sake, God’s sake, and our own. Coupland writes about stepping into a cold mountain stream and the roar of the water rushing by. In the midst of the moment, he reflects further: “I think there was a trade-off somewhere along the line. I think the price we paid for our golden life was an inability to fully believe in love; instead we gained an irony that scorched everything it touched. And I wonder if this irony is the price we paid for the loss of God.”

All around us are people who, like Coupland, believe that God is lost to them. All around us are people who know somehow that they need God to find them. “Now – here is my secret,” writes Coupland. “I tell you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again,…my secret is that I need God – that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need to God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.”

All around us are people to whom you and I are moving, people whom you and I are welcoming in, and going out to serve, to invite to a connection with God and ourselves. “I submerge myself in the pool completely,” Coupland writes; “…, and yet, even here, I hear the roar of the water, the roar [like that] of clapping hands. These hands – the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that touch the lips, the lips that speak the words - the words that tell us we are whole.”

All around us people are wanting a connection with God. Thanks be to God that your hands and mine, your words and mine, our care, our touch, our love and God’s are right here providing it in this community of ECR, as, by God’s grace, few others can.

God’s Peace.
Jim +

17th Sunday after Pentecost - 27 September 2009

2009-09-27T14:19:00.002-05:00

17 Pentecost - 27 September 2009 - Proper 21 B
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50
James V. Stockton

“I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him.” It’s the opening sentence of author Julian Barnes’ latest book, Nothing to be Afraid Of. Barnes claims to be an atheist. Of course, if it were a settled issue for him it seems unlikely that would have written an entire book expressing his nostalgia for Church, religion, and faith in God. His voice made especially poignant because it speaks for one who believes that he once had that relationship, but seems to have lost it somewhere along the way.

I read a story about a family of mice who make their home inside a large grand piano. For as long as any of them can remember, they have blissfully enjoyed the music that regularly surrounds them. Sometimes it is sad, but not regretful, sometimes inspiring, and often soothing and peaceful. The mice take great comfort in the sense of some great Unseen Someone above them but also close to them from whom comes the beautiful music that they all love.

One day, though, one of the mice wanders away for awhile. He returns to the others, and, tentatively, thoughtfully, he tells the others a story of wires drawn incredibly taught; of how he has observed these wires vibrating and has discovered that the music comes from them. And though it challenges their beliefs in an Unseen Someone, he knows that the truth he has learned is what matters most.

The story of Esther is a drama that finds people being challenged in their beliefs. Esther and her people are forced to live conquered and captive under Xerxes the Great. This is Persian king most known to people today for his armed confrontation with 300 or so Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. To Esther and her fellow Hebrews, he is Ahasuerus. This is the king who has chosen Esther for his queen. All the Esther as ever known is Persian captivity. Subjection, oppression, and quiet desperation are all she knows about living as child of God.

Her uncle, however, is different. One day, when the king’s right hand man, a fellow name Haman, is riding through town, Uncle Mordecai refuses Haman’s demands that he bow down. Furious, Haman tricks the King into signing a decree that assigns all the Jews to be put to death on such and such a date. Obsessed with revenge, Haman either forgets or does not care that his trick has now condemned the Queen herself to death. In the interim, Mordecai learns of a plot to kill the King; and through Esther, he warns the King. Ahasuerus investigates, finds the charge to be true and credits Mordecai as his true friend. That’s when Mordecai appeals to his niece for help.

The reading from the Old Testament today brings us the peak of the drama. Esther invites the King and Haman to dinner in her royal quarters. It is a bold thing to do. To take this initiative as a woman in her day is sufficiently out of order that the King could have her executed for it, and it would be entirely consistent with the laws of the kingdom to do so. But maybe he thinks Esther’s audacity is charming. Maybe God is subtly at work, maybe it’s both. They accept her invitation, and here she musters the courage to expose the King’s chief minister plan, and to save her people by bringing the king to care about truth at last and greater justice for all.

Esther’s story, then, tells of someone whose beliefs are challenged. She and people face an arbitrary and unjust death. It may be that the initial challenge for Esther is around her belief in the very existence of God.

But as events unfold, what is ultimately challenged is Esther’s beliefs about her own existence. Though oppressed and enslaved, Esther comes to recognize that she is in a unique position of privilege and power. And what distinguishes Esther from these others who have their own privilege and power, is Esther decision to use it to seek the benefit of others even at the risk of her own life.

How ironic is it, then, that the book that tells her story and bears her name, is that one book of the bible that never even mentions God? How ironic is it that another book is written 2500 years later, telling the story of a self-proclaimed atheist and mentioning God on almost every page?

The family of mice in the piano have heard of the wires and their vibrations. And as time goes on, other adventurous mice wander upward, outward, from their comfortable space in the piano. They return to tell of hammers that strike the wires and set up the vibrations. And though they have wandered away from their original approach to it, still the music moves them, touches them, holds them. And, now they have a much more complex theory that explains the music that they hear.

The reading today from the Letter of James makes clear that even in the earliest generation of the Church, people did, as James puts it, ‘wander from the truth.’ So, aside from providing the biblical foundation for the sacrament of Unction, and for the ministry of Unction Ministers such as our own, James suggests also that if one is to, as he describes, bring back the wanderer, then one is going to have to do a bit of wandering oneself. One is going to have move off and away a bit from one’s own safety and comfort for the sake of helping someone else to come home again, or maybe to find home really for the first time ever.

Which may be the reason we hear Jesus in the gospel for today warning his disciples not to dismiss a fellow wanderer, just because that person happen not to be wandering with them. After Jesus has ascended the disciples will recall this episode in the community of the infant Church. They will look around, they will listen to the stories of the people adding themselves to the movement, and they will realize the huge variety of the ways that people have wandered into this growing fellowship.

‘What if we really had cut someone off?’ they will wonder. ‘What if we had told people, “You have to be just like us; and you have come to Jesus just the way we did it, or else your desire to know him, to know God through him, is just not valid”? What if we told them that they are not allowed to name God as their God, because they were never really one of us? It’s hard to admit that we ever even thought like that,’ they will say to themselves. ‘If I had to make a choice,’ each will realize, ‘it really is better to cut off my hand or my foot, or to give up an eye, than ever to tell anyone that they aren’t allowed to name Jesus as their savior, too. I’m glad we wandered far enough with Jesus,’ they will say, ‘to get away from that.’

Author Julian Barnes make an observation: “A common response to surveys of religious attitudes,” he writes, “is to say something like, ‘I don’t go to church, but I have my own personal idea of God.’ ‘Soppy,’ I cry” Barnes continues. “You may have your own personal idea of God,’ he allows, ‘but does God have His own personal idea of you? Because,” he writes, “that’s what matters.” “The notion of redefining the deity into something that works for you is grotesque,” Barnes declares. “…[What matters is] that He exists.” That this comes from someone who believes that he has wandered away makes me wonder if his wandering has brought him closer to God than he has ever been before.

Back in the piano, again one of the mice goes wandering off. Recognizing the wires and hammers, feeling their familiar vibrations, drawn by the music, the wanderer presses onward. Finding itself at the top edge of the piano, it raises its head to see. After a time, the wanderer returns. And it brings home vision of the Great Player who has been there all along.

It may not be the usual way we think about ourselves, and maybe it would a good thing if we did, but everyone in Church today, whether here or elsewhere, has been a wanderer, each in his own way, or hers. Maybe for awhile we rested in the security of knowing the limits of our place. Maybe we had wandered so far and so wide that we really came to believe for awhile that we had answered all the questions at last. But somehow we were drawn to wander on. in order to take a risk on becoming what God needs us to be; in order to risk doing what God’s people need us to do. And here where our wandering has led us, we find the questions, we find the answers, we find ourselves, we find God. And just as we give God thanks for our own sake, so, too, for the sake of all those wandering in the world around us, we give God thanks that they may wander to us and with us, and all of us together may find that we have wandered home.

And now may Almighty God, whose grace draws our hearts from worldly anxieties and faithless fears; that no distraction of this mortal life may keep us from that heavenly love for all that is immortal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stockton

15th Sunday after Pentecost 13 September 2009

2009-09-13T14:12:00.001-05:00

15 Pentecost - 13 September 2009 - Proper 19 B
Proverbs 1:20-33; James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38
James V. Stockton

One break-in was bad enough. Add to that another one, more severe, ten days later. Add these to the grief we still bear from July and August and one must wonder, is this just part of what one must endure and, given that we are Christians, must endure with and especially stiff upper lip? We’ve been through rather a lot here at ECR in a just short amount of time. So, is it our role as Christians to endure all this with particularly stoic disaffection? In terms of what we hear in the reading from the Gospel today, is this just our collective cross to bear?

People use the phrase in ways that suggest that it is so. Someone may be caring for a loved one who is chronically ill; someone else has been passed over for a promotion at work; a community has lost a beloved friend; a community’s sense of safety has been violated by people whose values violently contradict its own.

And if people find consolation in the notion that somehow this is just their cross to bear, then far be it from you or me to deny them that comfort. But it must be said, at least among you and me together, that the God that we are here today to worship and praise does not inflict pain and suffering on anyone. So, from where, then, comes the common wisdom that misfortune is sign of the cross that Christ Jesus places upon the shoulders of those who follow him?

Let me suggest that more often than not, the Wisdom of God contradicts that which passes for the wisdom of the commonly held. The Old Testament reading for this morning speaks to this. The writer of the Proverbs takes literary license and turns Wisdom itself into a personification of God. She speaks to the people on the paths in and out of the city; she calls to the people from the center of town. It is a way of reminding the people that God is not distant, and that God’s nearness to them is intended to be a source of encouragement and comfort.

But if and when the people forget God or neglect their relationship with God, the fact that God is near enough to notice can become for them a source quite the opposite. Historically, they have always done so, and so in the times when the proverbs are written, the ancient Hebrews as God’s people are capitulating more and more to the cultures, beliefs, and values of the less godly but more superstitious world around them. In appearance, yes, the people are worshipping God. But they also are worshipping the idols of the peoples around them.

And the point here is not that God has a fragile ego and so gets hurt feelings and takes out all that godly spite on the people. The point is that God has called the people to an understanding of God and enabled them to attain it. It allows them to experience God as good not mean, as caring not capricious, as creative not destructive. And having these insights into God the people of God are able to be a source of blessing for the rest of the world in which they live.

The deities of the people and societies around them are imagined often as angry, petty, fierce, unforgiving. They have fragile egos, selfish ways, and must be appeased if there is to be hope of good fortune. In other words, not literally but metaphorically, these are gods created in the image of humankind. So, if the people of God capitulate to the common wisdom all around them, to the simplistic interpretation of things that dominates and guides the wider world, then, what can become of their relationship with God?

Can one genuinely trust God, on the one hand, but behave on the other hand as though God is a brute vindictive entity that has to be cajoled with human pain and suffering? Can a person genuinely regard his fellow man, her fellow woman, as an equal reflection of God but at the same time fear or hate the other person as an adversary that one must crush and defeat?

And so Wisdom, in the Book of Proverbs, says that some things are, for God’s people, truly either/or. The day will come when the people’s decision to ignore her will bring inevitable regret for having done so. The people of God will experience a painful realization that God can provide for them no easy fix, no quick resolution of the mess that they’ve made by becoming well-versed in common wisdom but neglecting the higher Wisdom of God.

But the point for today is that the hardship that Wisdom predicts for the people of God will not be their ‘cross to bear;’ not as people use the phrase today and certainly not as Jesus uses it in the Gospel reading for today. Wisdom will still be present; God will still be with the people.

Jesus needs his followers to know who he is. And this is not because Christ Jesus has a fragile ego and he resents it when people misunderstand about him being the Savior and the Son of God. To the contrary, it is because the better the people know who he is, then the better they will understand who they themselves in God. Are the disciples listening to views of the world around them?’ he wonders. ‘I know people are talking,’ he says. ‘So, who are people saying that I am? And, more important,’ he goes on, ‘who do you think I am.?’

And what we hear is that the world is categorizing Jesus as best it can; all according to past experience, and, to some degree, according to the best way to manage Jesus in a way that maybe keeps him interesting but also prevents him from complicating things too much. They will allow that Jesus could be a prophet. Maybe he is like one the lesser-known prophets of old, or even like one of the seriously influential prophetic figures from ancient times or from their own day.

But only the disciples seem able and willing to recognize Jesus as the Savior that he is. And if that is some relief to Jesus, yet he seems also to recognize that they are not so fully informed that they are ready to tell anyone else. ‘Don’t tell others about me being the Messiah,’ he says. And the wisdom of his command shows itself immediately. As soon as Jesus informs them what it means for him to be the Messiah, Peter and the rest of the disciples object. ‘The Messiah, our Messiah, must never be defeated; not even if it is just in appearance.’

Notice that even with his promise that the Messiah will be raised up again after three days dead in the tomb, yet Jesus’ vision of what it is to be the Messiah fails to find a welcome in these, his closest friends. Jesus could give in; he could subscribe to the world’s vision of things, even the vision predominant among his own people. He could accede to the role of a prophet, who, though typically popular with most people, nevertheless, tends to avoid the cross. But Jesus cannot capitulate; not to the common wisdom of the day.

Often, the things that matter most really are ‘either/or.’ Jesus needs his followers to know that as attractive as it may become to believe that they can be their most true selves respond most truly to their calling through an amalgam of the most convenient elements of a buffet of values, nevertheless, they, like he, must resist the diabolical impulse to try to behave as though they can genuinely trust God on the one hand, but then on the other hand, shape their goals and their future according to the values and practices commonly-held by those all around them.

If it remains a symbol of death at all, the cross represents the death in our lives of those values, goals, and visions of our lives, and of the means to meet them, that are governed by simplistic ignorance of the mysteries of God and the rejection of God’s call. The cross that Christ bears is a ghastly instrument of death that God turns, paradoxically and miraculously, into a vessel of life. The cross that the disciples of Jesus are called to bear, including you and I, is the same. In times of hardship, even when worry piles on top of grief and fear lies down on it all, God is still present.

Remember this today, tomorrow. Where you are, where I am, there is the image of God. Where any of us are gathered together, there is the Love of God. Where you go today, or where I go, wherever we are tomorrow or the next day, contrary to common sense, Christ still carries us. And contrary to common wisdom, we are a community that still takes up the cross, and whose fellowship still lightens the load. We remain a people who hold one another in sadness, and who welcome each other home to joy. We celebrate as a people raised up in the Love of God for each of us. And we share with the world around us the call to the Love of God for all.

And d so may Almighty God, by whose Spirit we are guided in our various joys and occupations, grant that we may accomplish that which God entrusts to us, and by that same grace, be found always worthy in our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stockton

CHURCH SCHISM part II: local Episcopal Rev addresses homosexual controversy

2009-09-09T11:34:00.001-05:00

CHURCH SCHISM part II: local Episcopal Rev addresses homosexual controversy

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13th Sunday after Pentecost 30 August 2009

2009-08-30T14:01:00.002-05:00

13 Pentecost - 30 August 2009 - Proper 17 B
Song of Solomon 2:18-13; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
James V. Stockton

Twentieth century historian and author Jaroslav Pelikan once observed that, "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; [while] traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." I read a story about a parish and their new interim priest. The Rev. Mr. Hall offers thoughtful and lively sermons, is quick to respond with pastoral care and attention, and his manner is a balance of reverence and comfortable ease. But people notice immediately that the Rev. Hall is not doing Holy Communion the way that they have always known it to be done. And as good a fit as he might be, some begin to wonder if Fr. Hall might be downright audacious.

In terms of audaciousness, the Song of Solomon, or Song of songs, is the one book of the bible that fits that description. Reveling in the gift of senses, and in the sensuality of creation, here is the lover celebrating the arrival and embrace of her beloved. And the book never even mentions God.

So it is that around the 1st century, as Jewish authorities gathered to determine the canon of the Hebrew Scripture, many contended that it the Song of Solomon is entirely irrelevant to religious life at all. Others were even more adamant that since the book celebrates personal passionate love between lover and beloved, the book is decidedly irreverent and cannot be regarded as scripture. Until a respected Rabbi defends it. “Heaven forbid,” says Rabbi Akiva ben Joseph, “that anyone in Israel ever disputed that the Song of Songs is holy. For the whole world,” he continues, “is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the Writings are holy, and the Song of Songs is [the] holy of holies" Largely due to him, then, the Song of Solomon is part of the scriptures, both Hebrew and Christian.

Centuries later, a handful of Christian scholars emerge who, like Rabbi Akiva, support a plain reading of the text as a love poem. Surprisingly, the two most prominent are 16th century reform theologian John Calvin and a contemporary of his, English Puritan Edmund Spenser. Nevertheless, the dominant trend in both Judaism and Christianity continues to be the domestication of the Song of Solomon by reading it as an allegory either of God’s love for the Hebrews, in the case of Judaism or, in the case of Christianity, of Christ’s love for the Church. I cannot help but find it interesting then that here is this one book of scripture that the literalists insist should be read as allegory, and which the allegorists insist is best understood literally. Aside from something plainly enjoyable as a love poem, I think the book rightly challenges people to question commonly held assumptions about God, about what it is to be a person of God, and about that for which we prayed this morning as ‘true religion.’

Back at the parish, the new interim priest is catching a lot criticism from folks for the way he administers Holy Communion. Finally Fr. Hall finds someone with the Altar Guild who may help him begin to understand. Miss Grace explains. “Fr. Dennis always used to do it like this, and I know the priest before him did it the same way.” Fr. Hall watches as she takes the paten with the bread on it from the altar and, instead of moving to the altar rail, she steps back to a shelf at the wall behind the altar; then she moves from there to the rail. “I never knew why they did it this way,” Grace says. “But I assume it had something to do with showing proper reverence for the cross hanging on the wall.”

Neither inherently bad nor inherently good, no religious community is without traditions. A seminary professor put it to this way: “A group of people meet to worship together. They want to do everything fresh, new, innovatively, not bound by custom. So, they worship. Then, afterward, somebody says, ‘I liked it when we did this,’ or ‘I thought it was wonderful when we said that. Let’s do that again next time.’ And thus,” said the professor, a tradition is born.” Traditions happen. This is important to know because traditions can also domesticate.

In their day, Jesus and his disciples have the audacity to eat with hands not first ceremonially washed. We hear in the Gospel reading for this morning that the experts on tradition are quite upset with them. And it is important to note here that the traditionalists are not upset because the hands of the disciples might be dirty with grit and grime. Sanitation is not their concern. They are upset because the disciples and Jesus appear to be ignoring the customs, rites, and ceremonies that are the very livelihood of these Pharisees and other religionists. These customs, traditions, rites, and ceremonies are the very domestications that validate the authority that the Pharisees and scribes enjoy among the people. Knowing all about the right things to do and the wrong things, knowing all about how to do them the right way and how not to, is basically these experts’ entire reason for being.

Is Jesus then opposed to the traditions of his day? Is Christ Jesus opposed to the traditions that people, like you and me, are using and enjoying still today? The real answer is much more subtle, isn’t it, than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’? The traditions of the religionists in Jesus day are pre-occupied with appearances. ‘How does it look to people in general,’ they may be wondering, ‘for us to be having civil conversations with this itinerant upstart and his band of followers when he completely disregards the most basic rules of who we are as a people?’

One can almost sympathize with Jesus’ critics here. Is it really too much to ask that they wash their hands? And the answer is, No; it’s not too much.’ Unless and until our concern with whether or not they wash their hands, with whether or not they stand, sit, or kneel at the customary time, with whether they dress nicely enough or casually enough, - unless and until our concern becomes outward and superficial, and thus focused upon the easiest way for us to discover something about them to criticize so they we might feel superior to them and might cause them to feel unworthy of our companionship and deserving of God’s Love.

The Rev. Mr. Hall is still confused about the tradition in this parish whom he is serving as interim that has his taking the paten with the bread from the altar to the shelf on the rear wall before moving to the people at the altar rail. Finally, he finds the most senior member of the parish. Walter is quite elderly and rarely if ever gets out to go to church anymore, but Fr. Hall is delighted to find that Walter is a font of knowledge. “Sure,” says Walter, “I remember how that whole tradition got started. “And I can tell you, I don’t know anything about it having it do with showing respect for the cross or something like that.

"In the old church building, before we got this one built, we heated the thing with a big boiler and those old stand up radiators everywhere. Whenever our priest at the time” he continues, “would take the chalice of wine from the altar, he would stop first and touch the radiator near the altar to discharge the static electricity so he wouldn’t shock the first person at the rail.”

Fr. Hall is speechless. “After that, all the priests just kept on going to the heating vent behind the altar; and as far as I can tell, nobody ever thought to ask why they were doing it.” Fr. Hall is stifling his laughter now. “Lot of things are different now, as I understand it,” Walt muses. “The building doesn’t use radiators anymore, and we even have lay people administering the chalice. But, thank you, Fr. Hall,” says Walt with a wink of his eye. “It’s good to know the important things never change.”

Jesus knows that tradition is a gift when it serves true religion; and that when religion serves tradition, that is quite another thing. "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; [while] traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."

No community is without change. In a community such as ours, change happens. Change for which we plan and change that no one could anticipate, or would dare to, has happened to us in the past, has happened to us recently, and will continue to happen in our future. And where we have given God thanks for that change, and also where we have not been able to, nevertheless, we find that tradition happens, too.

And, thanks be to God, we find in our community no tradition so essential of our being, so central to our doing, so audaciously true to our religion as loving God, as loving neighbor as we love ourselves, and as treating everyone else as we would like to be treated by them.’ In the midst of change, in the embrace of tradition, we find here, as do others seeking it with us, the lively tradition of the living faith of the People Beloved of the Loving God.

And so may Almighty God, who pours out upon us the richness of grace immeasurable, so fill us to overflowing that, through us, the world around us may bathed in the sweet mercies of Christ Jesus our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stockton

12th Sunday after Pentecost - 23 August 2009

2009-08-23T13:52:00.002-05:00

12 Pentecost - 23 August 2009 - Proper 16 B
1 Kings 8:[1, 6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69
James V. Stockton

A fellow priest commented recently about preaching from the Gospel readings for this month of August. “Bread, bread, bread!” he said. “How much can I think of to say about bread? Remind me,” he added, “when Year B of the Lectionary roles around again, to take the month of August for my vacation.”

I’m glad to be back from vacation. And I say this not because I somehow managed to avoid for the most part a repeated emphasis at this time of the Church’s year upon Jesus’ teaching of the familiar if mysterious metaphor of ‘bread, bread, bread’ as somehow representative of, or equivalent to, his flesh. To the contrary, I’m glad to be back with this, my community of faith because while distance may ‘make the heart grow fonder,’ yet it is proximity that enables trust in God to do what it is meant to do.

Here, then, together, where we belong, where we find our sense of belonging, we reach the pinnacle of Jesus’ teaching on the Bread of Life and his body and blood given over for the sake of all. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. …so whoever eats me will live because of me.” When Jesus says these words his first would- be followers are troubled. These words, these images, these ideas are disturbing for them.

The same is true later on, for the earliest generations of the Church. In the first decades after Jesus ascends to heaven, as the good news spreads of God having come in person in Jesus of Nazareth, Chistians are recalling and repeating these very words of Jesus: “This is my flesh, take and eat. This is my blood, take and drink.” When other people hear these words, those not initiated to the fellowship of the Church, or when they learn that the Christians are saying them, they leap to the conclusion, the rather natural conclusion, that the Christians are guilty of cannibalism. And the early Christians are thus forced to defend their practice of faith to a skeptical outsider’s view of things. And so is born that art of systematic theology, thanks be to God.

I can attest to this disturbing misunderstanding from personal experience. Among those of us at the divinity school I attended, being a non-denominational and multi-faith institution, a number were challenged by the passionate outburst one day of a student who, not being a Christian, accused those of us who were of glorifying the practice of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the dead. It was a repugnant thing to think of it. And it rightfully required of us that we try to be able to articulate for the skeptical a meaningful understanding of these words that lie at the heart of Jesus’ teachings and of our own beliefs.

“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. …so whoever eats me will live because of me.” When these tentative followers of Jesus are hearing these words for the first time, surely some of them at least are wondering if somehow this might be their meaning. Whatever it is they think his words mean, many, we hear, find this teaching difficult to accept, and many of his disciples turn back and no longer follow him.

How do people understand these words in Jesus’ day? How do people understand them now, today? “The purpose of many statements of belief is not so much to convey direct information, as to keep the door open to what can be stated only paradoxically.” So writes John Hapgood, former Church of England Archbishop of York, in his book titled Varieties of Unbelief. Christians all over the world today are receiving the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation. Like us, they recall the words that Jesus used at that first Communion between himself and his disciples with words akin to those we use: ‘Take eat, this is my flesh,’ and ‘Drink this, it is my blood.’ And none of us, I dare say, holds the idea that Christians hold these words to be absolutely literally true. Even the doctrine of transubstantiation held by Roman Catholicism , and by some Protestant Churches, as well, is a rhetorical attempt to help people avoid a belief that is so literal that it would be not only repugnant but also empty of meaning. So, if not literally true, then what?

In his day, as we hear this morning, King Solomon has built a Temple for God. This is something that David, Solomon’s father and the previous King of Israel, had wanted to do. Now Solomon has accomplished the wish of his father, and has brought to the Temple, to the innermost location within it, to the ‘holy of holies,’ the ark of the covenant. It is a box, a treasure chest of sorts, containing the stone tablets upon which are inscribed the Ten Commandments, representing the agreement between God and God’s people that each shall belong to the other.

The ark is fashioned to be also a throne, whereupon sits, from time to time, the presence of God. With the ark of the covenant now housed in the Temple, the Temple becomes the focal place for the people’s worship of God. ‘Hear the prayers that I make,’ says Solomon to God, ‘and that your people make toward this place.’ ‘When a foreigner prayers toward this house,’ Solomon continues, ‘then hear the foreigner’s prayers, too; so that everyone everywhere may learn that your name has been given to this Temple.’

But Solomon, in his legendary wisdom, knows enough to question more deeply. “Will God indeed dwell on earth?” he asks. “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” Solomon himself wonders about the difficult teaching around the literal presence of God abiding literally in this place.

George Pattison, scholar and Dean of King’s College, Cambridge University, has written of the limits and benefits of the use of language in the art and science of theology. Pattison writes in his book titled The End of Theology and the Task of Thinking About God, and I’m paraphrasing here just a bit, that for theologian, to which I would add, simply for anyone thinking about God, “Language [is] privileged over all other media of communication… but only on the condition that it is in the service of… a more-than-linguistic-reality.” Which is to say that for the most part, we prefer to use language to think of and to speak of God, but that we do so with the understanding that we are thinking of and speaking of a reality that is greater than language can convey.

It is helpful, I think, to note that so rich a tradition as our own in the Episcopal Church seems to have long understood this, even if it rarely ever discusses it. Our worship of God, necessarily expressive of our experiences of God, involves many media of communication other than the use of language alone. We make music, or at the very least we make the attempt. Our beloved Mike Stout knew the limitations of music to convey the reality to which we refer when we think or speak of God. But he knew even better, and brought the rest of us to know, the virtues of music, sweet, powerful, transportive; able to bring us to knowledge of God that mere words cannot contain.

Our use of posture: kneeling, standing, sitting; our use of physical action: bowing, making the sign of the cross, eating, drinking; these all communicate to ourselves and to those around us, and in some way also to God, that we are concerned with and willingly are a part of that reality that we can never fully grasp; and that this is the reality whose grasp of us we give ourselves over to consciously, fearfully, and eagerly.

“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood,” says Jesus; “abide in me and I in them. …so whoever eats me will live because of me.” “The sense of God’s presence,” writes former Archbishop Hapgood, “…[is] a whole way of thinking and experiencing [that] can be lost if deprived of the context of community, language, and activity in which its significance [finds] expresson.” Hard for those in Jesus’ day, and hard still today, and hard still today, to trust the notion that God would indeed dwell on earth, would indeed live as one of us, would indeed live for each us and for all us. Easy enough to relieve ourselves of thinking or speaking of ‘bread, bread, bread,’ or of anything else of God, except in those ways that comply with the limitations of our ability or interest to do so.

But far more blessed, far more connected with the fullness of reality to be here today, among the flesh and blood community of God’s people; to experience God ‘s trust in us through thought, and word, and deed, and song, and touch; to find strengthened and inspired our flesh and blood expression of our trust in God; until we come here together next week again, and again it is enabled to do within us, and in the world around us, all that faith meant to do.

And so may Almighty and everlasting God, in whom are settled our doubts and fears by whom are blessed our questions and uncertainties, grant us grace to seek God’s will, to find God’s light, and in all, to glorify Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stockton

Whose Tolerance?

2009-08-22T16:00:00.004-05:00

My point about patience is that tolerance is a luxury that can be invited only by those on the inside. Those still being excluded, still having their access to the earthly expression of God's Kingdom denied, have little investment in tolerance of those who are barring the doors. That there is difference of opinion is plainly evident. Even that some of those who are homophobic or who are are all too eager to condemn gay people and we who are their friends may be sincere, let's accept this proposition for the sake of argument as well. But what then is the relevance of this to the Gospel or the Church?

People make choices. If they cannot follow the Gospel into the Episcopal Church, or cannot follow the Episcopal Church into the Gospel, so be it. I can admit, for the sake of argument, that people who despise gay people and who loathe us who advocate for their full welcome and integration into the life and ministry of the Church, can be intelligent, sincere, and honest. Done. But how does this translate into a some vague Utopian vision wherein none of these differences matter? Is it the suggestion of those calling for tolerance that humility before God, such as at the Eucharist, equalizes everyone in some practical way? Surely they can acknowledge that this isn't so. Instead of trying to pretend that the Church is a place and a fellowship where differences don't much matter, can't we instead be proud that this Church, now joined by the ELCA, is one that says that the difference between prejudice and bigotry on the one hand, and the Love of God on the other, is a difference we are proud to emphasize?

Some seem to have a great deal of sympathy for the angst of those so-called 'orthodox' who continue to want to condemn gay people for being gay and for loving as such without apologizing for it. I appreciate their good intentions (those tolerant of the bigots; not the bigots, themselves). But the difference between them and me, a significant difference perhaps, is that my sympathies lie much more with those who have been subjected to the sins and powers of those 'orthodox' for centuries.

I thank God the Episcopal Church 'has left' the self-proclaimed 'orthodox.' Fortunately for them, they still have hundreds of denominations that will welcome their prejudice and self-serving theology with arms and doors wide open. Quite to the contrary, LGBT persons, couples, and families still have very few, sinfully few, Churches who welcome them and their allies unreservedly.

To the point: there are winners and losers when it comes to games and politics. When it comes to Church there are, currently those on the inside and those cast to the outside. I think this is far more serious than mere 'winners and losers.' Some seem to believe that passage of C056 and D025 somehow means that LGBT people and their allies have 'won' something. Yet, nothing has changed canonically. There are but a scant three years before this conflict over real difference arises again, hopefully in a determinative way. Those pouting 'conservatives' may have time to catch their breath; but those of us working and praying for the Church finally to become officially non-discriminatory don't have time to delay.

Too much suffering, real and tangible suffering, life-costing suffering, has gone on in the name of waiting. Until the canons reflect the intention of these two resolutions, the insiders (or 'winners' if you will) are still those benefiting from the Church's participation in discrimination and bigotry. Why not invite those folks whom some seem to think have 'lost' to accept their loss graciously and, instead of humbling themselves before an altar and a celebrant, go humble themselves before a living image of God who has been denied full access, membership, and participation in the Church's life and ministry. And if they can't do this, then let them go in peace to love and serve God, but recognizing that they have no inherent 'right' to the name Episcopalian. Otherwise, pleas for 'tolerance' read as mere platitudes arising from the safety and comfort of the dominant center, far distant from the margins where the real abuse continues to take place.

Honestly, I have great respect for the passionately 'orthodox' in that at least the hard-core hater of gays in the name of Christ is honest enough to admit that our differences really do matter. I've wondered lately if the core ethos of the Episcopal Church and of mainstream Protestantism hasn't long been rooted in the assumption that religion is something not worth getting excited about. Then some event or circumstance comes along to remind us that our assumption is not grounded in God. Exclusion of us Gentiles, pogroms against the Jews, slavery, the holocaust, segregation, the social oppression of women, and now the condemnation of LGBT persons come along and remind us that pleas for tolerance stem from the threatened majority far more often than they arise from the subjugated minority. These examples remind us that in real life, some things really are right and some things really are wrong.

I'm happy to tolerate the bigot, once the bigot no longer has the weight of officialdom behind him or her. As long as expressions of tolerance lend the appearance of validity to prejudice and bigotry expressed supposedly in God's name, then, I am unable to regard such tolerance as anything more than participation in those sins. When the Episcopal Church canonically ends its own participation, then 'that horse will indeed be dead.' Until then, we need to keep kicking.

God's Peace.
Jim +

Whose humility? Whose patience?

2009-08-21T15:51:00.002-05:00

Implicit in the analysis of some that 'we all need to be more humble' is the plea to wait for wider consensus, as represented in the image of everyone on their knees at the Eucharist. It's a nice image, I agree. Just to ground things in reality, though, it's useful for us, I think, to remember that people have been and are today divided even around their respective personal and denominational understandings of Holy Communion.

More importantly, though, when I hear or read these pleas for those of us who are passionate in our pleas, either for the Church's overdue expression of the inclusive Love of God for all, or for the Church to declare itself opposed to same, I am inclined to ask those folks to stop speaking and kindly to leave the room or at least to remain silent until invited to speak or to return to the room. So, I invite you, who are asking the rest of us to be quiet, to imagine that I've asked you please to refrain from commenting any further, at all.

I invite you to pause, spend some time with your reactions, and reflect upon how willing or not you are to comply. How passionately would you defend your 'right' to participate in the conversation? How passionately would you defend your right to be passionate about it?

Recently, I was invited by someone to 'go slow' in speaking up in our diocese and to our new bishop about honoring the recent actions of General Convention. It struck me that this person is a member of two minority populations in terms of representation in the membership and the leadership of our Church, and more profoundly so in our diocese. I could not help but wonder to myself how differently this person might have responded had this person still been on the outside, still being denied access to the conversation, still being denied full membership in this Church? Yet, now benefiting from still-recent changes in the canons of this Church, this person now was calling for further delay around the inclusion of others, of those still denied in this Church the manifest Love of God for all. I found it difficult to fathom how this person in particular could be asking for political prudence, but there it was.

Whenever people ask us for patience, for willingness to consider the matter of inclusion of LGBT people in the life and ministry of the Church as still undecided, which is no longer the case, I want them to pretend that someone has turned to them with condescending expressions of complacent sympathy, and told them that they must be silent and must wait until called upon before they may participate; and then, only in the limited ways that they are allowed. Then they would ask themselves if they really want to invite others to be more patient, to wait a little while longer, to remain outside, on the margins to which they've been assigned by those who enjoy full privileges.

It's one thing to experience the spiritual fellowship of humble faithfulness around the Eucharist. It is quite another thing to experience the hypocrisy of receiving the Eucharist with the dominant majority of God's people, while others of God's people are discouraged or denied their place beside us. The Eucharist doesn't make God's people what they are supposed to be. God's people make the Eucharist what it is meant to be. Or we don't.

Jim +

Concerning the Conclusion of the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church

2009-08-02T14:31:00.002-05:00

Concerning the Conclusion of the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church concluded its work for this year. It will meet again in 2012. Please know that the Church did far more than address the two resolutions that made a few headlines during Convention. These other matters, equal in importance to the more sensational ones, include adopting the new practice of incorporating into the Church’s budget financial support for the Church’s seminaries. This has never been done before and is long overdue.

The Church also adopted a health care plan that will provide coverage for both clergy and lay persons employed by the Church and which should lower existing costs for these items. The Church called for greater participation by our Youth including seating on Vestry (a proposal that ECR’s own Vestry has been considering already and the logistics of which have been under review for a couple years.) The Church recommitted itself to being intentionally and proactively anti-racist. The Church has also reduced its overall budget and reduced by two the number of days that General Convention shall be held. The Episcopal Church has renewed its budgetary commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, and expressed a new focus upon economic justice for the poor in the United States. All of which helps demonstrate that the Episcopal Church is alive, well, and responding conscientiously to its many responsibilities.

In the meantime, two resolutions seeming to have to do with gay people in the Church have grabbed the headlines. In one sense this is appropriate. The Church’s equivocation over recent years has only made more urgent people’s desire to know what the Church will decide, in order that we can all then get on with the rest of our collective and individual ministries. Both these actions took to form of resolutions. In that they both call for action of a sort, each is binding on the Church unless and until some later piece of legislation reverses it.

D025 is essentially a re-statement of the fact that this Church has had in its Constitution and Canons a policy of non-discrimination when it comes to consideration of persons for Holy Orders, i.e. ordination to serve as deacon, priest, or bishop. Last year’s Convention passed at the last possible moment a controversial resolution inviting the Church to exercise restraint when it came to consecrating as a bishop “any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” Despite the fact that the resolution was a clear violation of our own canons that forbid discrimination, the resolution passed. Its passage was largely as an expression of the Episcopal Church’s good will toward those primates of some of the African, Asian, and South American Churches of the Anglican Communion whose leaders are angry at the American Church for ratifying, in 2003, the election in New Hampshire of Bp. Gene Robinson, a gay man who declined to hide his sexual orientation.

It is worth noting that these primates became further enraged when, in 2006, the American Church elected as our Presiding Bishop a woman, the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori. There was at the time suggestion that Jefferts Shori be removed from the list of nominees because of the fact that her being a woman serving as Primate of this Church might be offensive to those same Primates who had objected three years earlier to the ratification of Bp Robinson’s election. Wisely, the Church refused to violate our canons further and kept her name on the list. This year, with the adoption of D025, the Church has declared that we are not going to continue to violate our Church’s own rules, and has recognized that the canons of our Church call on us to discriminate against gay people no longer.

In addition, this resolution recalls the Church’s former recognition that couples other than gay people wish to seek God’s blessing up on their mutual commitment and their commitment to God, but for whom the state’s contract of marriage proves to be prohibitive. The best example is that of an elderly couple for whom a contract of marriage would severely lessen the already limited income on which the couple must survive. This recognition was first officially recognized at General Convention in 2000 and passed widely, including the positive vote of our then diocesan bishop, the Rt. Rev. Claude Payne. The resolution in 2000 and this one now provide acknowledgment that the Church does wish to stigmatize people whose love for one another and for God is real and evident, but who for good reason unable to enjoy the status of legal marriage.

Two days later at this year’s General Convention, the Church passed a resolution calling for the Church’s Commission on Liturgy and Music to collect resources for, and to draft, liturgies for the blessing of same-sex unions. It calls for the Commission to present these to General Convention in 2012 at which time, it is widely expected, the Church will consider these liturgies for adoption as a formal part of the practice of this Church. Importantly, the Church is clear that it continues to oppose and to condemn predatory sexual behavior, whether gay or straight. At the same time, the Church does not equate homosexuality with sexual predation. The Church is recognizing in this legislation that, while the membership includes a diversity of viewpoints on the matter, yet as an institution the Church will no longer condemn gay persons and gay couples to secrecy on the margins.

One of the most universally positive effects of the passage of these two pieces of legislation is that they move the controversy around sex and sexuality from the center of the Church’s collective attention. The reality is that the Episcopal Church, like most Churches, does not orient its ministry around either the condemnation or the affirmation of gay people in the Church. It will continue not to do so. For some in our Church and in our parish, being associated nominally and denominationally with a positive institutional regard for full inclusion of all people, including gay people, this may seem like a difficult transition. However, most will find that any transition involved is short and easy. For, despite the headlines, we as Episcopalians have not collectively invested heavily in the outcome of the debate. For most people in the Church, there will be little personal impact. The greatest difficulty some people will address is how they will respond to people’s questions about their Church, in light of these actions at the national level.

And the answer that will emerge for many is to respond by assuring those asking that the Episcopal Church welcomes all, and we really mean it. Neither every congregation nor every individual Church member will be as welcoming of each and every person that comes to worship God or to meet God’s Love in the Church. But this is acceptable because the Episcopal does not require lock-step unanimity of its membership. Some congregations will be comparatively warmer and more hospitable than will be others. The presence or absence of the Church’s welcome of gay people will not change this. However, as a denomination, we do not pass judgment on people based on their sexual orientation or the sexual gender of the person whom they love and who loves them back. As a denomination, the Episcopal Church is truly, amazingly, welcoming to all who love God or who wish to meet God’s Love for all.

As happens anytime that some people win a vote and some lose, some people will indeed leave the Episcopal Church for another denomination hat they believe better accommodates their views. And some of these will find their way back, with a renewed appreciation for the distinctive qualities of this Church. In addition, more people will now come to our Church, tentatively at first, hoping to find a Church that accepts them as they are; hoping to find that maybe, if we are welcoming of gay people, then maybe they will find among us a welcome for themselves, too. People for whom Christ and Christianity stand for reaching across boundaries that separate people instead of erecting and strengthening them will come now with greater confidence that they can know who we are in the Episcopal Church. We can rightly thank God for all of this.

We can also be rightly thankful that the basics of all this, the approach to God and to the world around us, resonates with who we already are here at ECR. We love one another, we appreciate our differences as much as we like our similarities. We do our best to love our neighbor as ourselves. We do our best to love all, and to be honest about whom we like and whom we do not. We welcome the stranger with no other requirement than that he or she wants to meet God, to know God’s Love, and then to learn how to share it with others. We do not pass judgment.

In some ways, yes, the Episcopal Church has changed, but mostly in how we represent ourselves to the world around us. We have cleaned up our confusing presentation of what we mean when we say to the world around us, ‘The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.’ In important ways, we have remained and reclaimed who we have always been. We are God’s people, truly people of the Resurrection of God’s Love in God’s Son and in God’s people, and especially in you and me.

God’s Peace.
Jim +

Biography

2009-08-01T14:36:00.001-05:00

With Fr. Jim away for vacation, this edition of the Radiant Cross provides a good opportunity to help our members and friends know a little more about our rector. Here is an updated biography of Fr. Jim.

Fr. Jim and his wife Lee Elena recently celebrated their twenty-first year together. They met in St. Louis, Missouri where Jim was born and raised, and near Lee Elena’s hometown of Monticello, Illinois. Lee Elena is a Nurse Practitioner working at a clinic in Giddings, an area designated by the state as under-served. Their three children are Valerie, 19, Emily, 17, and Melanie, 14. Fr. Jim attended a Lutheran elementary school and credits his early education in this Christian environment as formative of his faith in God. It was there that he began to sense a vocation from God to Holy Orders.

Before attending college, Jim worked variously as a self-defense instructor (earning a black belt in Chinese Kenpo), as a carpenter building custom homes, then as a laborer and/or department supervisor at a variety of manufacturing companies. Responding to a re-emerging sense of call, Fr. Jim returned to church life in his mid-twenties. Having drifted from the Lutheran Church of his childhood, he looked up “Church” in the white pages of the phone book. There he found a local Church of Christ congregation listed and began attending worship services. It was at this congregation that he was blessed to meet Lee Elena Mathis, his wife-to-be.

The two were married in 1988, and headed off to Abilene, Texas were Jim attended Abilene Christian University. Jim earned Bachelor of Arts degree in Biblical Studies. In Abilene, Lee Elena and Jim were blessed with their first daughter Valerie, and then their second daughter Emily. It was also in Abilene where the family found their spiritual home with the Episcopal Church at Church of the Heavenly Rest. Upon graduation, they moved to Boston, Massachusetts and Lee Elena resumed graduate work in Nursing Education at the University of Massachusetts. While there, Jim earned a Master’s of Divinity degree at Harvard University. They were blessed in Boston with the birth of their third daughter Melanie.

After graduation, Jim and his family moved here to Austin, where Lee Elena began working with Brackenridge Hospital and the Heart Hospital of Austin. Jim worked at Austin State Hospital as a chaplain intern in the hospital’s Clinical Pastoral Education program. In preparation for Holy Orders, Jim attended the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest for a year, and earned a Certificate of Individual Studies. In 1999 Jim was ordained a deacon in the Church; and in August of 2000, he was made a priest. Fr. Jim served as Assistant Rector at St. Stephen’s, Houston for two years. In 2001, he was invited to come to ECR as our new rector, and gratefully accepted.

Fr. Jim came to ECR at the end of October 2001, and held his first Sunday services here on All Saints Sunday of that year. As he approaches the beginning of his ninth year with us, Fr. Jim is excited with the energy and movement of the Spirit of God here at ECR: “Working together, praying together, serving others together in Christ’s name, worshiping God together, we are the people of Resurrection, moving with the Spirit the resurrected One, giving witness to the Love of God for all. Christ is lively within this community, in the sacraments of the Church administered here, and in the sacramental people that comprise this church. Jesus is moving us further into the world around us, and through us is moving ahead of us, to meet us there when we arrive.”

We’re thankful that Fr. Jim is with us, and that God has blessed all of us in bringing our ministries together in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Evelyn Griffin, Editor and Parish Administrator

5th Sunday after Pentecost - 5 July 2009

2009-07-05T17:18:00.001-05:00

5th Sunday after Pentecost - 5 July 2009 - Proper 9 B
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13
James V. Stockton

19th century American poet and author Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Our American eagle is very well, indeed. Let us protect it here and abroad,” he wrote. “But let us also beware of the American peacock.” At this time of the annual celebration of our nation’s hard-won independence, the scripture appointed for today are at least a happy coincidence. They speak to every Christian of the marks of genuine ministry, but also of qualities more widely recognized by many Americans as marks of genuine leadership.

The story of David shows that he is a reluctant draftee to the throne. Read his story in the two books of Samuel. David goes out of his way to avoid usurping the throne from King Saul, or even showing Saul the slightest disrespect. David ignores Saul’s petulant refusal to recognize David as the rightful king. Other than simply staying far enough away from Saul that Saul cannot actually kill him, David endures Saul’s slanders and threats with respectful pity. Until, finally, Saul’s stubborn rejection of God’s sovereignty and the people’s will leads him ever more deeply into the negative consequences of the path that he has chosen.

Engaging a battle that he never should have entered, Saul is wounded. Then, unwilling to return to the people defeated and wounded, Saul takes his own life. Even after his death, Saul’s allies and relatives continue trying to ignore the clear design of God and the will of the people, but eventually, as we hear today, the people turn again to David; and finally David agrees to serve them as their king. And here is perhaps the lesson for people today and of every age. David seeks to serve both the people and God. And this means that, for David, true leadership equals true humility. In those long seasons of his putting it off, delaying it, questioning it, David shows people in his day and in ours that true leadership is not about a strutting pompous display or the shrieking of commands. It is about the quiet exercise of the service to which one is called.

I read a story about a monastery and monk and his abbot who lived there. The monk is new, still a Novice. He is Br. Gregory. His Abbot is Fr. Dominic, and Fr. Dominic knows that Br. Gregory has been avoiding some of the duties of his formation in the Order. “Fr.,” please Gregory, “I’ll do any sort of menial labor, I’ll scrub floors, I’ll pull weeds, I’ll polish the silverware; just please don’t ask me to preach a sermon in the chapel.” Fr. Dominic listens closely to the lad. “I understand,” he says, “and I know just what you need to do.” “Tomorrow, Brother,” he continues, “you will lead the service in the chapel and you will preach the sermon.” Br. Gregory struggles to keep from dropping through the floor. “Yes, Fr.,” he says. He spends the night praying about what he will do.

It is an uncommon definition of leadership that emphasizes hesitancy toward its privileges. And for this reason, I think, the one who leads by serving will always have both zealous fans and severe critics, with few people left somewhere in between. The Apostle Paul is such a one. And struggles with what he will do. His own letters to the early Church tell us of his high ambitions. A Hebrew by birth, and a trained expert in scripture and in scholarly commentary about it. Paul is on the fast track to prominence and power. He rises quickly by opposing with special vigor the new Jesus sect that is disturbing all the orthodox traditional understandings of the faith.
But Paul meets Jesus, literally, yes, but more important, he meets Jesus spiritually and philosophically.

Though Paul seems in most of his letters to be, shall we say, highly opinionated, and though this is borne out in the descriptions of Paul’s ministry captured in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, yet, here in this reading for today, we hear an alternative side of Paul, one that has learned the virtues of self-doubt for the sake of true service and leadership. He describes ‘a person in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven.’ And though he puts it into the third person he is almost certainly speaking of himself. And all because he wants to move himself out of the way of the grace of God; all because he wants nothing of his many and great accomplishments to obscure the more important accomplishments that God is able to achieve through him, when Paul is able to embrace the concept that ‘power is made perfect in weakness;’ that ‘God’s grace will do.’

God’s grace will do. It’s the reason that Jesus tells his followers, ‘Don’t take extra things with you. No extra clothing and no extra shoes, no extra money and no extra food.’ Go on into the world around you and know that for you, God’s grace will do. ‘And,’ says Jesus, ‘wherever you are, if you find there no vehicle through which God’s grace may move toward you, no one to offer you a friendly welcome, then know that you have done your part. ‘Move on from there, and know that as for you, so also for them: God’s grace will have to do.’

Br. Gregory goes to chapel the next day. At the appropriate time, he moves to the pulpit. Nervous, he looks out over the assembly of monks. “Brothers,” he begins, “do you now what I am going to say to you?” The shake their heads in the negative. “Neither do I,” says Br. Gregory. “Let’s stand for the Peace. The Peace of the Lord be always with you.” Afterward, the abbot is furious. “I’m going to give you another chance,” Fr. Dominic tells him. “Tomorrow, you’re leading the service again; and you will offer the sermon.”

The next day, Br. Gregory again enters the pulpit. “Brothers,” he begins, “do you know what I am going to say?” This time the monks all shake their heads in the affirmative. “Since you already know what I am going to say,” he continues, then there’s no point in my saying it.” “Let’s stand for the Peace.” Afterward, Fr. Dominic is livid. “Brother Gregory!” he says, “tomorrow you’ll do as I’ve directed, or I’ll confine you to solitude and prescribe a fast of bread and water.”

The disciples are looking back over their time with Jesus. They are realizing that Jesus was a leader and a servant whom they hardly ever understood, who was hardly ever really understood either by his closest friends, or by his most zealous enemies. They recall, Jesus has no driving need for acclaim or power. Though his authority truly is from heaven, Jesus does not strut about to demonstrate his status. But pretty much everyone else who tries to claim authority over the people does exactly this, and so these are the ones who are most offended by Jesus.

Author Thomas Wolfe said it well with the title of his famous novel: You Can’t Go Home Again. Maybe if it had been a complete stranger who comes to Jesus’ boyhood hometown with the fantastic claim that the Kingdom of God is among the people, maybe then it would be interesting to consider. But this is Jesus. They remember him from the time he was playing in the street with their own children. How dare he now presume to speak to them of things so sophisticated and mysterious as their relationship with God? “A prophet is honored,” Jesus observes, “except by neighbors, friends, and family.”

Br. Gregory has one last chance. He enters the pulpit, and gazes out upon his fellow monks. “Brothers,” he begins, “do you know today what I am about to say?” Some of them shake their heads ‘Yes,’ and some shake their heads, ‘No.’ Fr. Dominic draws his breath sharply. “There lies the sermon, Brothers,” Gregory continues. “Let we who know tell all who do not. Now, please stand for the Peace.” And Fr. Dominic smiles.

Independence Day reminds us every year of those persons rightly prominent in our nation’s history. So, if there is within people a strutting peacock, be it an American one, a Christian one, or both; if there is within people, you and me included, a petty aspiration to titular leadership, let this Independence Day remind us also of the sanctity of all those who without power to lead simply embraced the freedom to serve. An American virtue? I hope so. A Christian virtue? I know so. There is within us all a nobility that chooses service others even at the cost of our own anonymity. God calls us to know it, and to tell those around us who do not. It is a nobility of holy origin, ready to raise sacred head; ready in your life and mine quietly, powerfully, to lift its graceful wings, and soar.

And so may Almighty God, by whom all liberty is given, grant that we and all the peoples of this land may have grace enough to sustain our freedoms in righteousness and share them in peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stockton

Rector's Study July 2009

2009-07-01T16:35:00.003-05:00

From the Rector’s Study ~

Do you ever think about the ‘service area’ of ECR? Do you ever suppose that ECR serves certain areas, certain peoples, but not others. I doubt it.

“Across traditions, the ultimate focus is God – often represented as God’ sovereignty and God’s glory – as this extends to include the well-being of all life.” So notes theologian and author Paula M. Cooey in her book Willing the Good: Jesus, Dissent, and Desire. She continues, “Christians are called to love God and to love their neighbors as themselves. Nevertheless, conversion [to Christ and Christianity] focuses the energy on the making of the Christian subject or agent. This sustained, often all-consuming, focus…makes it all too easy to lose sight once again of the radical orientation to others of the Christian life and ethics.” Cooey reminds the reader that, “This focus on the other, apprehended in Jesus’ identification as the other in need, should collect and sustain the desire to will the good for all creation. Making people pure through the forgiveness of sins, and holy through their subsequent actions, is in this respect a by-product , a means, to a further end, and at best a secondary concern.” Her point is that, “When concern for one’s purity and holiness becomes the central force driving human life and action,…it subordinates God’s will for the good of all,…to the desires of one’s ego. This subordination,” she suggest, “constitutes a form of religious or spiritual narcissism.”

I’m a firm believer that actions are more accurate than are words in describing a people’s values. I believe that we here at ECR demonstrate two great concerns that are equally primary to this community as a whole. Both our actions and our words demonstrate that our community is focused upon loving God and loving neighbor as we love ourselves.

Our focus is our greatest spiritual gift. It is what marks ECR as the special community that it is. Recently, a father and his daughter came to the Church Office looking for assistance. His daughter’s husband, serving in the military, is not able to be with his wife. Yet, his wife is about to have their first baby; so the father was hoping that they might find some help in meeting their bills. While we spoke, he received a return call on his cell phone. It was from another church, relatively nearby to us, a fellow Episcopal Church congregation. The person there informed the father that, after reviewing his written application for assistance, the people who decide such things determined that he was “outside the zip code area” that they serve. I confess that I laughed out loud as I overheard the conversation. The father had to ask the person to repeat it to make sure he understood correctly.

‘Outside the zip code area that they serve!’ How is that for an example of a business model of church life? I could only wonder to myself how many people in need of urgent assistance were coming to this church from the upper middle-class suburban zip code areas that surround it. Putting aside my embarrassment at this stereotypically Episcopalian response, I assured the father and his daughter that I would help as I was able. Thanks to all of you for your donations to my Rector’s Discretionary Fund, I was able to provide some assistance. What I could give monetarily to this man and his daughter in the name of the Church and in Jesus’ name was meaningful and helpful. What helped even more, though, was being able to offer them our desire to help, our will here at ECR, and God’s will, to help.

I wonder sometimes if you of ECR know how truly unique and wonderful you are as a church community. I want you to know that I am not concerned with your holiness and purity, because I believe that God is not concerned. And the fact that we are not overly concerned comes across to the people around us. Visitors guest, new members, and friends all experience a real desire amongst us to know them as they are, to meet them and celebrate them as they are; We can offer them this blessed experience because our community has no distracting narcissistic concern with itself.

The truth of God really does set us free. You and I are liberated by the knowledge and faith that God accepts and loves us already. This makes us able all the more to accept and love one another, and better able to offer love and acceptance to all those ‘others’ around us. Holy people? Sure we are; because of Jesus, because of what God gave to us and gives to us in Christ. Pure people? Sure we are; we purely people; well-intentioned, trying to do what’s right and good, making mistakes, and trying again. And we are Resurrection people, with eyes and hearts lifted to God, hearts and hands reaching out to one another and to those around us.

Be proud to share what our actions tell of our driving concerns here at ECR. Be proud that our traditions match our words, which match our deeds. Be proud to celebrate the blessing of all that do and all that we are. Be proud and thankful that our ultimate focus really is in on God, ‘up there,’ within, and ‘out there.’ Be humbly proud that here at ECR the dimensions of the areas of our service are determined not be zip code, but by the magnitude and magnificence of God’s generosity and love for all.

God’s Peace.
Jim +

4th Sunday after Pentecost - June 28, 2009

2009-06-28T17:29:00.001-05:00

4th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 8 B - 28 June, 2009
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15, Mark 5:21-43
Marie Butterbaugh

It’s a beautiful, cloudless spring day in Austin, Texas. The thermometer surges to one hundred degrees. It’s hot. Like many people I seek shelter inside where it’s cooler and settle in to check out the evening news only to find things that are deeply distressing. A television commercial that turns an innocent children’s cartoon into a gyrating free for all. Square “hot pants” on beautiful young girls. A carpenter’s square dispatched by “the king of burgers” to see if things measure up to his standards. Sponge Bob Square pants apparently gone mad!

News reports blare on. Commentators argue about the state of our nation and the world reminding us of the sad fact that our economy is in a mess. General Motors filing bankruptcy, billions of dollars are being allotted for war, potential conflict with North Korea and uncertain elections in Iran. You and I live in a world that often makes no sense.

While many think HIV/Aids is under control it isn’t. It has only moved on to rear its ugly head in a segment of our population that is unnoticed or uncared for, a population too afraid to seek the much needed medical attention required to keep the disease at bay. Not cured just at bay. They are held captive by fear, segregation and simple lack of information. This makes no sense!

Austin’s homeless population grows. People are living at or below poverty level. Blessed are the poor? Somehow I wonder if the man or woman who is struggling to feed and clothe a family on a subsistent income feels blessed. Their children go to bed hungry and more often than not receive a substandard education, making the cycle of poverty even harder to break. This makes no sense!

Make no mistake about it. We live in a hurting and broken world. We live in a world that is desperately in need of the liberating love and healing touch of our Lord. You and I live in a world where alienation, oppression, degradation and loneliness run rampant. God’s created order is not as intended. Something is terribly wrong!

Jesus knows what it’s like to live in such a world, a world gone wrong. He lives in a country under Roman occupation. He is scoffed at, rejected by the religious leaders of his day, is persecuted and dies. Jesus understands the need for healing in body, mind and spirit.

The Gospel writer Mark bears witness to this fact in today’s gospel reading. He offers us what many scholars call a Markan sandwich. Mark often breaks up one story by inserting a second, seemingly unrelated, story into the middle of it.

In today’s literary 'sandwich,' Mark serves the reader two miracle stories, stories of faith and healing. Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, seeks out Jesus, asking Him to heal his daughter. As they make their way through the crowd, Mark interrupts this story to note today’s first miraculous healing. It is here that Jesus encounters the woman with a “hemorrhage, a flow of blood”

It’s so hot and dusty. It’s stifling. Making her way through the crowd, her longing to be healed, her determination to see this man Jesus never wavers. She must – must get close to Jesus. Her desperation is palatable. She has invested all the monies she has in doctors, who offer her no relief, she is despondent. She can once again taste the many bitter herbs and elixirs prescribed by numerous physicians over these past twelve years. In frustration she watches as the crowd passes her by.

“These upright self righteous people!” Look at them!” “They consider me impure, unclean. Why Joseph over there, he stole that nice widow Elizabeth’s house right out from under her. Jeremiah the Levite would not lift a finger to help poor Stephen. He’s been blind from birth. He sits by that same gate day after day begging for alms. I used to visit his parents, used to mind you. All Stephen wants is to be well. He’s begging for a new life!

Me, huh! Why I can’t even come to worship the God of Israel in His Temple. I am unclean. I can’t do the one thing that might seemingly elevate my status as a woman. I can’t bear children.

“This Jesus, He healed the paralytic. I heard that four of this man’s friends actually lowered him down through the roof a house, just to see Jesus. Then there’s the man with the withered hand. He is whole now. Cured! Why, Jesus even cast out the demons from old Cyrus. He was living horrible life chained up in that cemetery in the Gerasenes. Now He’s back home enjoying a happy life with his family. If Jesus can heal these people, if Jesus can still the stormy seas, maybe, maybe even I can be healed. I’ve just got to get through this crowd to Him. I need Jesus’ healing touch.”

With hope and faith she presses onward through the throng. She believes that touching Jesus will heal her. "I must - must touch Jesus even if it’s just the hem of His garment. But… my touch might render Him impure. Yes, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. Jesus calls me 'Daughter.' I am no longer nameless. With eyes of compassion He looks at me “Daughter go in peace, your faith has healed you. I who was one dead to the community, an outcast now live!"

Her faith manifested in her seeking Jesus, her touching Him has healed her. Her active faith brings restoration and new life.

Perhaps you can identify with this woman, this child of God, in need of healing. Perhaps you can recall times when you have felt alone, alienated, sick in body, sick in spirit? I believe that most people can. I certainly can.

I remember a time during my journey or odyssey toward, ordination when I felt alone, outcast, isolated and deeply wounded, just like the woman in today’s gospel. It is the custom of my home parish to have a Wednesday morning Eucharist and healing service and it was my custom to attend. One Wednesday morning, some twelve years ago, I came desperately seeking healing and consolation. The look of kindness mixed with firm determination on my rector’s face as I heard and prayed those anointing and prayers stays with me.

I experienced the miraculous healing power of our Lord as deep down in my heart the Holy Spirit spoke words of comfort, support and healing. “Daughter go in peace, your faith has healed you.” Just like that nameless woman, so many centuries ago, I received the healing touch of our Lord. The twelve years that followed, became a time of growth, strength and a deeper abiding faith.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, there is good news in today’s gospel message Good News! Jesus’ healing power is available to each of us. Jesus stands with us in the midst of our struggles. Our faith, our following, is an openness which makes it possible for God to work in us. Biblical scholar Stanley Olsen writes “Mark does not mean that that [our] faith will always get us a miracle for ourselves. Even though we desperately need one, that may not be what God will work in us. But faith is [the] broad confidence in God which opens us to God's working, whatever form that takes….

Mark does not want to imply that proper faith will suddenly and in every case reverse those problems[our problems]. But, [this] miracle story certainly shows that such earthly problems are the concern of God and an area where God may work, and it suggests that faith is important there.

In faith you and I can reach out to touch and be touched by our Lord. As we come to the altar and receive the Eucharist, His body and blood, you and I receive that healing touch. As you and I leave this place, you and I can go forth into the world to become instruments of healing in a hurting and broken world. We can rest assured in the promise that we are not alone in our struggles. We are not left to face the chaotic state of our broken world or our lives alone. Christ healing touch empowers us, upholds us and enfolds us in the midst of the chaos of our lives. We can extend our hands in love to those around us. With God’s help and by His grace you and I can make a difference.

Listen closely and hear Jesus speak these words to your heart. My daughter, my son your faith heals you, now go, extend that healing to others.

Thanks be to God.

© 2009, Marie Butterbaugh

What we have ALL declared?

2009-06-28T15:28:00.001-05:00

What baffles me, with all due respect, is how people can continue to claim that "We have stated as a church that ALL God's people, regardless of orientation, are eligible to participate fully in the life of the church at all levels" and that "The Episcopal Church at a national level has a very open, supportive stand with regard to GLBT issues." Neither claim is true. Both are simply false.

I pray that people would lift their eyes, their hearts, their ears from the insular experience of the community of their self-contained 'liberal' local congregations. Rather than celebrate how wonderfully everyone there seems to get along with one another, because, as they will tyypically describe, everyone there seems to have entered into a tacit agreement not to discus 'issues' around which real disagreement may emerge. I urge them instead to sacrifice their own experience of beatitude in order to participate in the experience of those to whom beatitude continues to be denied by the Episcopal Church.

Walk away from the appearance at the your local parish, the veneer that suggests that all is well in the Episcopal Church. Do so in solidarity with those whom the Church continues to discriminate against by its official polity. Do so with the determination that you will not again celebrate the blessings that you enjoy until those blessings are available, officially, to all regardless of the bias, prejudice, or bigotry that is offended by the inclusiveness of God's Love. Until you do this, please cease trying to persuade us that your experience of your local insular liberality is normative of the Church. I pray fervently that the modus operandi at such congregations is soon overturned, for some of those unmarried young adults whom people freely say are feeling neglected may well be ga. I pray that the current approach may soon be undone; that approach wherein your congregation seems to operate with some absurd 'don't ask, don't tell' policy in order not to put the rector in a position where she or he might actually have to behave as a leader instead of an appeaser.

As I've observed before I do so here again: the only thing that comes close to a non-discrimination policy in the Church's constitution or canons is Title III, Canon 1, section 2: "No person shall be denied access to the discernment process for any ministry, lay or ordained, in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities or age, except as otherwise provided by these Canons. No right to licensing, ordination, or election is hereby established." This canon applies only to a discernment process. It applies to persons considering lay ministries and ordained.

The Episcopal Church in the United States has NO anti-discrimination policy regarding ordination. NONE. This fact is borne out by the fact that several dioceses continue to forbid the ordination to Holy Orders of persons who are women. You know as well as I that our own Diocese of Texas has a policy of not ordaining persons who are gay and partnered, and that our new bishop has stated plainly that he will not ordain a gay partnered person nor ever permit clergy here to officiate a blessing of a same-sex union.

It's important that we deal with facts and reality. The fact and the reality is that the Episcopal Church in the U.S. has no anti-discrimination policy regarding deployment or employment of ministers lay or ordained. Similarly, there no polity, no canon that forbids disallowing Integrity to purchase a vendor's booth as a diocesan convention, as happened here in the Diocese of Texas. It is pure fantasy to believe that this Church has sort of bottom-to-top policy forbidding discrimination. There is no such thing.

In answer to any question about General Convention Resolution B033, please recognize that by it, the Episcopal Church U.S. has put in place an official and assertively discriminatory policy. People aren't wallowing in the hurt and anger of something of the past, they are angry and hurt by the discrimination that B033 represents and which continues unabated to today. To dismiss it as a 'resolution of the past' as though its effects and implications are not current is simply to remind us that you are out of touch with the reality that exists just outside the doors of your insularity. You can do better than that.

I asked you before and gotten no answer. So I ask again: What is the stand that people believe the Church has taken regarding inclusion of GLBT people in all levels of the Church? Where and when has the Church stated what they claim it has?

I do agree with some are suggesting, namely: that "the time and energy we spend on sexuality issues is disproportionate to the wider problems in the world and our country on which we agree; poverty, spiritual poverty, hunger, children, relationships, etc." I suggest to them, however, that while each of these 'issues' can be distinguished in name, they cannot be separated in practice. How does the Church credibly claim the moral and spiritual authority to address any of these problems until it addresses its own bigotry? Do they really think the Church can long address the problems of 'spiritual poverty, of 'relationships, 'of children' (whatever they mean by this), before quickly being called out for its own hypocrisy? Credibility is the problem for the Church. Without credibility, the Church cannot long or effectively address any of the problems you name. And as long as the Church continues its policy of discrimination, its credibility fades further and further away.

The reality is that the Church hasn't yet spent time and energy on sexuality issues. It has spent time and energy on avoiding them.

I must confess that I don't know what these folks' definition of 'progress' is. It seems to me that they equate 'success' with popularity and numbers. If so, is this is the approach they would have recommended for those addressing discrimination when it was aimed at people who weren't white? Would they have suggested then that everyone wait until the 'acceptance of the black man' became more popular and socially acceptable? Would they have recommended this approach to those Churches who acted to include women clergy among its ordained prior to the Equal Rights Amendment rather than waiting until afterward, as did the Episcopal Church? If so, is there anything that they can imagine that the Church should do, even though it might actually be unpopular? If so, I wonder what would that be.

I would presume to suggest that the General Convention should adopt a resolution that states that this Church, TEC, will adopt for trial use in each of its dioceses a rite or several rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. There should be no 'conscience clause,' as this approach with regards to ordaining women candidates to priesthood has proven disastrous. General Convention should adopt a canonical non-discrimination polity for this Church, without diocesan exception, that forbids discrimination toward any person, lay or ordained, with regard to his or her deployment or employment, including the forbidding of discrimination against clergy or lay ministers who are partnered or may become partnered. I agree that there is no need to address B033, since these two concrete actions by General Convention would nullify it.

Finally, it's important to note the real controversy is not same-sex sexuality. The real issue for the self-proclaimed 'conservatives' is power. The real issue for the self-proclaimed 'progressives' is appeasement. To the first party, I remind them that power resides with God, and that legal and canonical responsibility lie with TEC. Grow up. To the latter party, I remind them (us) that following that path of Jesus is not a popular move by any measure. Get over it.

The Church is dying not from trying too hard to please everybody, but from trying too little to honor and to please God. There is no love where truth is silenced. That kind of love is a self-serving self-comforting counterfeit. The Church, and each of us its members, need to look outside the insular experience of the Church we know, and notice those forced to remain waiting outside. There's no beatitude in the timidity that we have practiced. May God have mercy.

Jim+

3rd Sunday after Pentecost - 21 June 2009

2009-06-21T16:48:00.002-05:00

3rd Sunday after Pentecost - 21 June 2009 - Proper 7 B
1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41
James V. Stockton

I read a story. It the tale of some hardy folks, and rowdy, too: a farmer and three sons, Jimmy, Johnny, and Joe-Bob. None of them ever goes to church. None ever takes time to inquire after the things of God. They do speak God’s name once in a while, but not in any way that is reverent or respectful. The priest of the nearby church has been trying for years to draw Pa and the boys to God and to the people of God. The members of the church have done the same, but it seems their efforts have proven futile. Jimmy, Johnny, Joe-Bob and Pa are content to manage their lives, their joys, and their challenges, without benefit of God’s presence, help, or blessings.

The story of David and Goliath is a story that says much about adversity and how people face it. The story is well-known, at least in the broad strokes. As recently as the NBA match up between the Los Angles Lakers and the Orlando Magic, the drama of a sports team that starts the season with low expectations all around, then working its way into contention for the championship is characterized as a ‘David vs. Goliath’ match-up. In their struggles to defy their government’s repressive ban on media, the people of Iran are using cell phones, Twitter, and You Tube to get out the truth to the world around them. Their efforts are being written of as “a cyber David doing battle with a theocratic Goliath.”

Anytime a single individual or a small group of people stands up against political corruption or corporate irresponsibility, the tale is told as ‘a real David vs. Goliath story.’ The point of which is to say that someone emerges to challenge an opponent whose victory is a foregone conclusion. A David vs. Goliath tale is one in which a small group, or a solitary person, steps up and speaks out. And whether or not the story leads to confrontation on the ball court or to defiance in the street, every David vs. Goliath begins with challenge to a prevailing assumption.

The Philistines are the bad guys in the Biblical story. It is difficult to know with certainty what it is that makes them the bad guys. Perhaps they are greedy, cruel, corrupt, and merciless; we cannot know for sure. It is believed that they are a people who arrived in Palestine from elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean and slowly conquered the inhabitants of the land. What is certain is that the Philistines are a people who want nothing to do with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses and the Israelites.

Today, when someone is smug and ignorant, or is indifferent or hostile toward artistic and cultural values, he or she is sometimes described as a ‘Philistine.’ Goliath is the epitome of Philistine smugness and indifference. And why not? They are a strong and powerful people, they have a military might that goes largely unchallenged and always undefeated.

And so the Philistines reject any notion that they might want or need God, and they resent the people of God. And why not? The foregone conclusion is that the Israelites, like everyone before them, will fall defeated by the Philistines.

Back at the farm, one day Joe-Bob is clearing away some brush. In the midst of moving a log, he is bitten by a rattlesnake. Pa, Jimmy, and Johnny, rush Joe-Bob to the nearest clinic. There, the doctor tells them that it does not look good for Joe-Bob. Up against a situation that they cannot handle in their own hardy rowdy way, finally, they decide to turn for help elsewhere. Desperate, they contact the priest at the local church. Pa, Jimmy, and Johnny explain about Joe-Bob, and the priest agrees to come over to the clinic to pray.

While no one else will do so, while all others are paralyzed with fear, David can volunteer to take on the giant Philistine named Goliath. And the most significant part of the story is not that David defeats Goliath. This ending to the story is not to be dismissed. But what makes it a great ending is that David steps up in the first place, fully knowing that what he is attempting to do seems impossible to everyone else around him.

David is a boy. And this descriptor is here in the story deliberately. David is a youngster. You and I can imagine easily the assumptions that go along with this. Here at the front lines, strangers on both sides of the battle see him, and immediately know that he is inexperienced and therefore naïve, probably idealistic and altruistic. They all know that he has not yet learned to be realistic and pragmatic. He may have friends among the Israelites, and they see this youngster as perhaps so energetic that he is still a bit scattered, unable yet to focus his attention and efforts in a way that is proper and mature. David’s own brothers, all of them older than he, hear his voice and are not encouraged themselves by its boyish pitch, by the simplistic questions that it asks.

No one, upon noticing David, draws the conclusion that, ‘Here, now, is our champion.’ And if these are the assumptions about David that prevail among the people around him, almost certainly the same is true for David’s assumptions about himself. David is here to bring lunch to his brothers; that’s all. He is following up on his father’s wishes to check in on his sons and to find out how well or how poorly the battle is moving along. Then he is to return to the pasture and take care of the sheep. David holds himself to be no hero. But unlike his brothers and his friends, unlike the strangers around him and the enemy before him, David assumes that the importance of the sovereignty of God, of the primacy of truth, of right, of good, of justice, is greater than the stature of the enemy before him.

That David defeats a literal giant of man is a wonderful miracle, no doubt. But David’s choice would be no less faithful if Goliath were someone of normal size, or even if were a mouthy pip-squeak. His battle is not his own, he is not fighting for his glory or reputation. David does battle against ignorance, arrogance, smugness, basically against the human tendency toward self-deification, all menacingly personified in this one extra-large person with the extra-large ego.

David does battle with the enemy before him, yes. But, ultimately, David does battle with everything about his enemies, about his friends, about strangers, about family, about even himself, that keeps people from trusting first in God.

The priest arrives at the clinic. There is Joe-Bob suffering from his snake bite, with Pa, and Jimmy and Johnny beside his bed. The priest nods at them. “Let us pray,” says the priest. “O wise and righteous God,” the priest begins; “we give you thanks that in your wisdom you sent a rattlesnake to bite Joe-Bob. Joe-Bob has never been inside the church,” continues the priest, “and it’s likely that in all his life, he has never prayed to you or acknowledged your existence. Now we pray that this experience might be a valuable lesson to him that may lead to his truly turning to you. For years,” prays the priest, “we’ve tried to get this family to turn to you, but it’s all been in vain. It seems, then, that the rattlesnake has done what we could not. And so, O God,” prays the priest, “will you send more rattlesnakes; one to bite Jimmy, one to bite Johnny, and a really big one to bite Pa? A-men.”

They may not face giants, they may not face rattlesnakes, but everyone faces adversity. Except for David, the Israelites cannot defeat the Philistines. Without Jesus, his disciples cannot survive the storm. Apart from the presence of something greater than ourselves, you and I and people around us cannot hope to overcome the challenges around us or the fears within. And we, like David, can do something about that.

Today, tomorrow, this week, and in the coming months, you and I can call forward that ‘David-defeats-Goliath’ story that God continues writing all the time into your life and mine. We can continue stepping up, speaking out, challenging assumptions with our own belief that human arrogance is tamed, human ignorance defeated, by the justice, the mercy, the goodness, and the truth, of God. We can continue this story by the presence of its author in your life and mine, and in families and friends, in strangers all around us, people eager to find their own stories written into the story of God’s victory, into our story here, together.

And so may God the Almighty, who has bound us together in common purpose, grant that by our witness to the power and the Love of God we may bless those who do not know them, encourage one another, and bring glory to God’s Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stockton

2nd Sunday after Pentecost - 14 June 2009

2009-06-14T16:43:00.004-05:00

2nd Sunday after Pentecost - 14 June 2009 - Proper 6 B
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 [11-13] 14-17; Mark 4:26-34
James V. Stockton

“Our lives are lived at warp speed.” So claims author Mark Thornton in his book titled Meditation in a New York Minute. He goes on to note that: “Our hectic schedules are crammed with crises, to-do lists, issues marked urgent and overflowing in trays, unpaid bills, a sea of unread email, and deadlines with due dates close to last Christmas.” I hear this and I think that somehow this fellow must be following me around. “Our agendas,” he writes, “have everything [written] in them but [the word], ‘relax’.” I daresay many people would identify with the author’s observations if only they had time to read them. So, because we are here this morning, let us breathe deeply and meditate upon that calmness of God that surpasses all distress.

An elderly and experienced priest with whose ministry I was blessed for a time as my spiritual director once suggested to me that “Inner Peace is over-rated.” And I wholeheartedly agree. The Inner Peace that has become an industry of self-indulgence for the economic middle and upper-middle class has, I suggest, little to do with the Peace of God which is often the calm in the midst of the storm, but never intended as an escape from it altogether. After all, how can Inner Peace become constant in one who is constantly seeking it?

There is a time for listening rather than speaking, for receiving rather than searching, for leaving oneself open rather than forcing open a door, an opportunity, a heart that is closed for now, maybe forever. There is a time for being still, for breathing deeply, slowly, and finding one’s deep-down inner contentment in the knowledge that God is God. It seems almost irreverent to comment upon the horrible murder that took place last week at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum. This murder of Security Guard Stephen T. Johns, combines with that of Pfc. William Long and that of Dr. George Tiller, both just two weeks ago, to remind us all that bigotry is an evil, identifiable as such because it is born of ignorance and fear and because it leads to people killing one another. There is not an easy answer to addressing either the injustices of these events, nor their causes. And though it may be difficult for people to accept, this is as it should be; for God would not have people seek escape from the knowledge that something has gone wrong. Instead, God would have people turn with that knowledge to the further knowledge that God is God, and to the calm that they can find therein.

The prophet Samuel, perhaps the first major prophetic figure in scripture, is in the midst of a storm. As we hear in the reading from the Old Testament today, Samuel is upset because Saul, the King of Israel, is proving to be a disaster of unfaithfulness. As the scripture says, even God regrets having given the throne to Saul. Being a prophet, Samuel had warned the people not to demand that God provide for them a king. But the people ignored the prophet’s counsel and Samuel appointed for them the obvious favorite. Saul is taller and bigger than the average man, more handsome, it is said, and someone with a commanding presence about him. But King Saul has repeatedly ignored the advice of the prophet, often doing precisely what Samuel tells him God wants him to avoid.

Now Samuel is ‘grieving,’ as scripture puts it, grieving that death of his hopes for Saul, grieving his own participation in putting Saul into power, grieving what seems to be the futility of his own work and prayers. As is true for most prophets, Samuel struggles to find calm within. Then, he hears from God. ‘I come peaceably,’ Samuel assures the leaders of the city. Now is he able to hope again. Now is he able to believe that better than this is still possible. Now is he able to come in Peace.

Here in the setting of praying to God and praising God with fellow faithful people, Samuel is able to put away is former assumptions and discern the true king. Once he thought that the ruler of Israel must surely be a man big and burly. Now God opens Samuel’s mind, his heart, his soul to recognize God’s choice in the least regal, in a mere boy, the youngest and the runt of the litter. If Samuel is surprised, so must David be also. Not looking for greatness, yet having it thrust upon him, as the saying goes, David’s agenda is suddenly more full than it has ever been. It is no accident, perhaps, that David will be the one to record God’s call to be still and know that God is God.

In his book title Crazy Busy, Dr. Edward M. Hallowell writes of a recent encounter he had on vacation with an old-style rotary telephone. For those too young to recognize what this is, first, it’s a land-line; second, it’s a phone with a dial on the front where you are accustomed to finding buttons to push. To call someone’s number, one puts a fingertip into the hole on the dial that is over the number one wishes to punch in, spinning the dial once for each numeral in the phone number. Dr. Hallowell writes, “By the time I had laboriously cranked out the entire number, I was in a total snit. ‘How could anyone still own such a slow phone?’ I fumed. ‘What a stupid phone! How backward! How dumb!’ But then I caught myself,” he goes on. “This was absurd. …I felt embarrassed at my automatic impatience. ….As the vacation move along, I changed. I made friends with that old rotary phone. …I came to think of it as a wise counsel, ensconced on its end table like a wise Buddha cautioning me to take my time and enjoy, while they lasted, the summer, the childhood of my kids, the ripening of my marriage, and these best years of my life.”

I wonder if there is something like an old rotary phone, an object or a space, set aside and sanctified, in your home or mine, that can remind us to take the time to let God be God and find the calm therein. I wonder what there was for the disciples to remind them of the same.

In this season following Pentecost, you and I are invited to hear the Gospels now as the disciples surely did also, from the other side of Jesus’ ministry with them. He has ascended to heaven and left them with the responsibility of carrying the Good News of God among humanity, of God’s Love for all, into the world around them. And though Jesus has sent to them the Holy Spirit to equip and encourage them, their agendas have just become full of urgencies, deadlines, and crises.

With no telephone of any kind what remains to remind the disciples of the calm available to them in the knowledge that God is God, and so they need not try to be? Today, we may assume that they remember two parables that Jesus told, which we hear in the Gospel read for today. Each tells the disciples the same thing: that the Kingdom of God is a seed for them to plant; that God’s sovereignty in the world is realized not because they, or even Jesus, declare it to be so. Rather, that God reigns in the world wherever the seeds of God’s Kingdom, of God’s presence, God’s Love, are planted. And that God’s presence and Love are planted only by the presence and love of God’s people.

So, if the urgency of their new agenda of serving as the presence and love of God to the four corners of the world now seems to overwhelm them, here are Jesus’ stories, his own words, reminding them that the Kingdom of God does grow, and they need not assume that it is all up to them to make this happen.

‘Plant your seeds,’ Jesus is saying to them, and to you and to me. ‘Plant your seeds of love; be present with one another, with friends, better yet, with people whom you barely know. Plant you seeds of patience with the kind, yes, and with the cranky, too, and with the simply inept, who, it seems, will never get it. Plant your seeds where you think they may never grow, where every sign, every human response, persuades you that you have wasted your time, for that where seeds of my Kingdom are needed most.

Then remember that your agenda includes a call from me to rest from schedules crammed with crises, with lists of ‘to-do’s in the name of the Lord,’ with issues of holy urgency; ‘a call to rest, so that especially when you do not see it, when you do not hear of it, when you do not experience it, nevertheless, you may be still and know that where you are, there my Kingdom grows.’
And now may Almighty God, who gives to us that hope which streams from everlasting life, grant that we may know the Peace of God’s Presence in the company of one another, that we may praise God boldly, and faithfully do Gods’ will, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stockton

I think I finally get it!

2009-06-14T15:47:00.002-05:00

At long last, I think I understand. Let's just keep wringing our hands and maybe opening our checkbooks, but not our hearts or our doors, to the f*gs and queers. And while we're at it, since there is still no consensus among the WWAC about chicks in collars, let's dump them from Holy Orders, too. With all those folks out there prayerfully disagreeing about it, we have clearly moved far too quickly on that. And after, all they're only broads.

And let's also clear out all those others who have come in lately (people of minority 'tint'), since they make far too many of the regular folks just plain nervous. A few are okay, of course, as long as they know their place. And no more of these mixed marriages, either, not racially for sure, and not even religiously or denominationally. And certainly no one divorced, and no one in their second marriage, much less their third or more. Those people just set up a bad example. After all, moral right or wrong don't enter into it.

We simply need to get rid of everyone who is not acceptable to the 'mainstream' majority. Goodness knows we don't want to upset anyone by challenging systemic bigotry. Shallow pastorally but politically astute, that's the ticket. If we're going to upset someone in the name of Jesus, let's just disturb those folks who can do 'us' the least political harm. Yep, I'm convinced. Until we have near unanimity, anything with political implication, let's stay the heck away from it.

Whew! We dodged a bullet there, didn't we?
Jim +

Rector’s Study - June 2009

2009-06-01T17:11:00.002-05:00

From the Rector’s Study~ June 2009

Order is a gift of God. Long ago, when I was in seminary, a fine priest of much experience enlightened me to an important he fact of life. “For many of the people in our churches,” he said, “the one thing that they can count on in any given week is the familiarity of the service of worship service in their parish church on Sunday.” If change was something attractive to us neophytes who were about to graduate and then ‘fix’ all the faults of the Church, regular order was a tremendous blessing to all those whom we hoped to serve.

In the messy zeal of the first decades of the Church, Christians needed to know this. For example, the city of Corinth was, at the time, a center of cosmopolitan chaos. The Christians there were accustomed to it. The Apostle Paul, himself familiar with some exciting events in the lives of the communities of the Church that he had helped to nurture, recognized that, for the Corinthians, community life and worship had become not only exciting, but also competitive and even contentious. So Paul reminded them that “…God is a God not of disorder but of peace” (1 Cor. 14:33) and that “…all things should be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). These first-generation Christians needed to know that order is a gift from God. Christians today need to know it, too.

The world today is experiencing escalation in hostilities on the Korean peninsula, continuing animus in the Middle East, the largely unforeseen economic distress here in the U.S. and around the world, and the unanswered questions that surround each of these situations. Each offers opportunity for a sense of chaos to overtake our general experience of the world and our perception of ourselves therein. In the midst of it all, God offers to us the gift of order.

The Church’s liturgical year is a vehicle for this gift. The Holy Days from Advent to Pentecost and the seasons named for them comprise half the liturgical year. The other half is named Ordinary Time. The name means ‘time that is ordered.’ Thus, the week that begins with the Sunday following Pentecost Sunday is identified as Second Pentecost, and every week thereafter named accordingly.

In addition, Ordinary Time is coordinated, or ordered, according to dates on the secular calendar, even though those dates are not seasonal Feast Days. Each Sunday has a particular set of scripture readings and prayers. These are known as ‘Propers’ and are arranged by specific dates. The Propers are used respectively on the Sundays whose calendar dates fall closest to the dates assigned to each, ensuring that the scriptures and prayers ‘proper’ to each Sunday are read sequentially, orderly, through the remaining half of the Church’s year. No matter the nature of the secular season around it, through Ordinary Time, God continues to offer the gift of order.

To some degree or another, each of us is experiencing unexpected, unpredictable, and unwelcome change all around us. It is an experience with echoes of that chaos over which the Spirit of God first moved in the season of Creation. It is the chaos that the power of God has always opposed, the uncertainty that God’s grace has always overcome.

‘God is a God of order and of peace.’ Therefore, you and I continue here in our community of ECR the orderly experience of our Christian faith and Episcopal tradition. As a Protestant tradition, are roots are planted in reasoned and considered change. We have rejected the notion of religious dogma that rises somehow above our right or ability to examine it. Our Book of Common Prayer is the very definition of innovative worship. At a time when the Church everywhere used Latin, spoken and understood by few, it turned instead to the spoken language of the people in order truly to engage the worshiper. As a Church we Episcopalians have continued to express our faithfulness toward God primarily in practice, in what we do and in how we pray, rather than in written formulas of orthodox belief based on intellectual assent or on affective sympathies. We may be rightfully proud of the unique blessings that we offer the world as the Episcopal Church.

At the same time, we offer the regularity and predictability of a way of worshipping God that basically is the same in every brother or sister congregation of the Episcopal Church. So, not only do we know what we will find at an Episcopal Church congregation, we know also who we will find. People around us are experiencing hints of chaos, just as are you and I. The orderly faithfulness to God that blesses us is a powerful blessing that we are able uniquely to offer to the world around us. It is God’s gift moving through us, God’s Spirit still moving over the face of the earth.

Current events are by definition, limited in duration. Someday, somehow, every current event ceases to be current. It becomes the past. The events that currently are disordering the world will someday pass. You and I will notice their passing, and we’ll give thanks to God. And when we do, and until we do, we will find our lives ordered by faithfulness toward God and by God’s faithfulness toward us. Thanks be to God, God’s faithfulness, God’s Love, is the order of all things. Thanks be to God, it always has been and it always will be.

God’s Peace. Jim +

Pentecost Sunday B - 31 May 2009

2009-05-31T16:40:00.002-05:00

Pentecost Sunday B - 31 May 2009
Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:22-27; John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
James V. Stockton

Take this moment for a nice deep breath. A deep breath in, a deep breath out. You may feel a calmness; rest in it. You may feel energized; rejoice in it. Now notice the people around you. Turn to now to someone near to you, and speak to him, to her, just four words: say, “God’s Love, God’s Power.”

Today is special because we celebrate the Day of Pentecost. And this little exercise is what we celebrate, and why. People will often assume that the miracle of Pentecost is the gift of tongues, by which the apostles of Jesus proclaim the Gospel to foreign people they have not met, in languages that they had not known before. We’ve heard the story: the apostles are together in a room somewhere. They are in the city of Jerusalem, and the city is extra-crowded just now because people have come there to celebrate Pentecost, the Festival of Weeks.

Later in history, the festival also came to be associated with God’s giving of the Law or Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai. But in Jesus’ day, and in the days of the apostles, it celebrates the ending of the first harvest the harvesting of the ‘first fruits’ of the land. And it is one of three feasts that calls for the people to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This is why the city is crowded. Foreigners from all over the Mediterranean have come to worship God in the Temple by celebrating this festival. The vast majority of them are Jews, like the apostles are, like Jesus was.

There are also ‘god-fearers’ with them. These are people who worship God, the god of the Jews, but have not ritually and ceremonially converted and become Jews. These are the Gentiles, and they are welcome only so far into the Temple in Jerusalem, and no farther. They can come only so close to God’s presence, and not closer; for the traditions have held for many generations, the Gentiles are not among God’s chosen people. So they must keep their distance from God, and remain in their place.

Likewise, the apostles themselves must remember and keep their place. Though you and I think of them as the very special people that they were, in their day they are merely a handful of peasants among the rolling masses of peasants and commoners that now swell the city. You and I regard the apostles with reverence, and we are right to do so. We follow their teachings and even take vows to do so. But in their day, the apostles are no one special, not in any obvious way. And then they open their mouths to speak.

Recently, I read a fable about the Animal Kingdom. It concerns the mighty lion and his mastery over the other beasts of the land. One day Lion decides to make sure that all the other animals know that he indeed reigns in the Animal Kingdom. He takes a walk and comes across the mighty rhinoceros. “Rhino!” Lion calls out with great command. “Tell me, who is the King of the jungle? Speak wisely, now,” he warns. Rhino is no fool, so quickly responds accordingly. “You, O Lion, sir,” says Rhino. “You are King of the Jungle.” “Well said,” replies Lion. And he moves on.

The apostles are no kings, no authorities. They are not officials of the Temple. They are not educated and trained by the rabbis to reason on the meaning of scripture, or to pontificate on the proprieties of tradition. The have one qualification that makes them special, only one. They have known the love of God.

Just weeks ago, shortly after his resurrection, Jesus had met with the Apostles. In a room where they have secreted themselves away, Jesus appears to them. They have come away to a safe place to console themselves. From a safe distance, they watched Jesus die on the cross. They watched as his body was taken down and carried away for burial. They have heard tales of an empty tomb. Some of them have seen it for themselves, one or two of them has even seen Jesus himself, not dead, but alive again, risen from the dead. But the rest of them are not convinced. They are scared and they are worried that those who went after Jesus are coming next for them.

So, he does not heighten their fears by knocking at their door. He does not raise their alarm still further by calling to them from outside their room. Jesus simply appears to them. The apostles simply notice him. “Peace,” he says. “Peace be to you.” ‘Let yourself find some peace. Allow peacefulness to wash over you,’ Jesus invites the apostles. ‘I am sending to you the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God will guide you, will move you, and will bring to you the fullness of truth that is already mine.’

It is this Spirit of God that moves then through the apostles when they speak with the gift of languages. It is this fullness of truth that they speak then to people from far and wide who have gathered to worship God. It is God’s power that moves within them and through them on the Day of Pentecost showing the world around them how really special ordinary common folk can be.

Still walking through the jungle, Lion comes across a wart hog. Big, burly, its tusks promising menace and mayhem to any and all. Yet, Lion does not hesitate. “Wart hog!” he calls out. “Speak wisely now,” he warns, and tell me: who is King of the jungle?” Wart Hog wants no trouble here. “You are,” he says. “Yes, it’s you; you are.” “Well said,” Lion replies. And he moves on.

The gift of Pentecost may be understood as the miracle of the apostles’ sudden ability to speak in languages that they’ve never known or spoken before. This miracle certainly gets the attention of everyone gathering near them to see what’s all the commotion. But even the miracle fails to persuade everyone. As the scripture says, Some ‘hear them speaking about God's deeds of power’ and are ‘amazed, wondering what this means.’ But others sneer with skepticism. ‘No,’ they declare. ‘These people are just drunk on new wine. Nothing of God could happen through people as mundane as these.’ Which goes to show, I suggest, that the miracle of Pentecost is not so much in the miraculous gift of languages itself, but in God’s choice of the people to whom the gift is given.

From a group of frightened men and worried women, people with hopes, disappointments, with regrets and satisfactions, with flaws and virtues, from this group of people ordinary in every way the presence of Christ Jesus and the Spirit of God raises up a people powerful in the peace of God boldly declaring the power of the Love of God.

Lion continues his proud walk through the jungle. He comes next to an elephant, and wants to make sure that this one, too, will know that the Lion is her king. Elephant!” he calls out. “Tell me now, and speak wisely, who is the King of the jung - ” And that’s as much as the lion can say. Because in an instant, the elephant has Lion in her trunk. She pounds Lion several times into the ground. She dunks him several times in nearby river. Then she tosses him hard onto the river bank, and stomps away. Lion, now beaten and bruised, slowly rises. “You know,” he calls out after Elephant, “just because you don’t know who the King of the jungle is, that doesn’t mean you have to get all mean about it!”

The Day of Pentecost is about people speaking up for the power of God, some of whom have not done so before, most of whom have not been welcome to do so, all of whom have not believed or understood themselves to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so. The gift of Pentecost is in God’s choice of the people to whom the gift is given. Everyone who turns to God,’ the Apostles proclaim ‘shall be saved.’ Not just ‘some,’ not just ‘the best,’ but ‘everyone’ can turn to God, everyone can have God’s Love who wants it. It is an uncommon message that continues as it began, being brought to the world through an uncommon community of blessedly common people.

As a child] is baptized here this morning, new voice is given to the movement of the Spirit of God. Watch for it, listen to it, feel it. It may emerge as a deeper calm, or as a renewed energy. Through someone nearby, God is speaking to you. Then turn and look around you. Someone else is waiting to hear the peace and the power of the Love of God speaking in the language of you.

And so, may Almighty God so draw our hearts, so guide our minds, so enrich our souls by the Holy Spirit that we may ever know the blessing of belonging to God in service of the Good News of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the same Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stockton