February 18, 2007
You remember the old adage: “Be careful of what you pray for because it will probably come to pass.” Well, wasn’t it just a few years back that we Episcopalians wished there was more media coverage on life in our church? … Hmm, we sure get it now – in print and on the internet. Ever since CNN’s full day coverage of Gene Robinson’s election as Bishop of New Hampshire and then Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori’s consecration, we’ve been in the spotlight which, like most blessings, has been mixed. On the one hand, these events have been amazing grace for evangelism. When I meet people who find out I am a priest in the church that elected a bishop who is gay, these people want to talk. Most often, they are not church-going people; and frequently enough they are gay people themselves and they want to talk about God, meaning in life, community. I don’t get a whole lot of churchgoing folk who ask me into that conversation!
And just last week, I was out working on a sermon at a Starbucks. A woman was looking for a place to sit with her coffee, saw room at my table, probably saw our parish bulletin cover and me with a Bible and typing away. So she hazarded a guess, and asked if I was a priest and then exclaimed, “You’re the guys with that talented woman archbishop or whatever you call her. That’s really neat.” She took the seat, sipped her coffee and, after awhile, started speaking again: “I’ve just retired from a career as a public school teacher … I’ve always been in education … I started out as a nun … I think it’s finally time to come back to church … I think I’m going to try yours (which meant Katherine Jefferts Schori’s which means our Episcopal Church, no matter which parish she might attend).
Our Episcopal Church – these days, if you follow church news in “Episcopal Life” (the newspaper that arrives in the mail) or use your internet connection to surf church waves on the web, you’ve been coming across a number of essays that might begin “Why I remain an Episcopalian”. To me, though, it’s not about remaining; nothing remains the same. Everything is always changing. This morning’s Gospel shows us that the Jesus Peter, James and John thought they knew upon the mountain changed. And though the change was dazzling, and terrifying, they were making the beginnings of what they thought was an adjustment to his transfiguration. So they wanted to remain there, with that degree of a changed Jesus. But God implied you have to keep moving, coming down from the mountain. Besides, Jesus would change again, even more on a different hill – named Skull – mounted on a cross. And then he’d change again: Christ coming out from his three day hole in the ground. Peter, James and John would have to change too; and change, and change. Anyone who would follow Jesus Christ needs to be open to change and honest about growth. Otherwise, there is danger.
The danger of churches is that if we over-emphasize tradition, we risk eclipsing God. Traditio – the teaching of the church-Tradition, should always be a window never a wall. How to live in this multi-faceted world of complexity and perplexity is the guiding role of tradition. And a living, breathing tradition does not boil down the world’s diversity or collapse its dimensionality into the absolute extremes of black and white, right and wrong.
Tradition with a capital T cannot be wielded as a club excluding those who are deemed unworthy of walking with Christ. Furthermore, historically, when forces have insisted on a particular reading of the capital T tradition, they have been prone to furthering their own agenda and calling it the will of God. Over the course of a mid-February weekend, the Primates (head bishops of the various churches) of the Anglican Communion had been meeting in Tanzania. During the celebration of The Holy Eucharist, seven bishops would not receive Holy Communion because Katherine, our Presiding Bishop, is a woman and/or because she was a bishop who consented to the consecration of a bishop who is gay and/or because in principle she believes that same-gender relationships need God’s blessing and the church’s support.
Those seven bishops will not come to table with her because they do not approve of those with whom she sits down to eat! Their faith in Jesus, they told the media, prevents them from receiving Holy Communion. I must admit that I am getting a little tired of being polite. Just who is this Jesus in whom they profess faith? When I last looked in the Gospels, Jesus was sitting down with all sorts and conditions of people and commissioning disciples to carry it on in his Name. Besides, if you are having trouble discerning how to make decisions in/for the life of the church, you don’t skip meals. You need the nourishment of The Body of Christ and The Cup of Salvation. You need to sit down with your family and talk things out.
Controversy within the church over who is worthy to distribute or to receive the sacraments is an ancient polemic. Historically, this argument surfaces when elements in the church who do not approve of changes in the larger society try to regulate and discipline against those very changes from taking hold in the church.
Not too long ago race dictated worthiness (Our forebears thought they read Race in the Bible). Recently gender ceased to be a divider (Though for centuries, tradition painted women, well, as painted women). What about sexualkity today? Is it ok to think of homosexuals as unworthy? If you consider just two verses from this morning’s Psalm (99v3and9), I think we get an inkling of who is worthy:
“Confess the Name of the Lord who is great and awesome.
Proclaim the greatness of our Lord and worship God on the holy hill”
Except for the fact that it doesn’t literally have to be on a hill, isn’t he or she “worthy” who openly worships God and gives of self for the building up of the church?
Unashamed and exhibiting humility, known in their communities as servants of Christ and thereby raised up as ministers for the larger community; dedicated and gifted, audacious and visionary – Robinson and Jefferts Schori, like so many of you, give of themselves in order that the church can corporately support being fully human in this world.
That’s why I am an Episcopalian. Because I desire to be a whole human being. Being Christian helps me with the basic questions about being human:
* Who am I?
* Who are you?
* Why are we here?
I am a Christian in the Episcopal Tradition
Catholic and Reformed: All of life is sacramental, full of Christ. All of our institutions are human-made and therefore need critical renewal by the power of The Spirit.
Authority: is centered in Christ and expressed in our common life.
Obedience: involves listening, engaging in dialogue obedience in community, not through dogma.
The Episcopal Church is Christ-centered and mission-focused:
Baptism is our birth,
Eucharist is our nourishment,
Ministry is our life
The Church is for all sorts and conditions of persons. The Church’s Mission is Reconciliation with God and fellow humanity through Christ.
Did you know that eventually we are supposed to go out of business? That’s right! Anglican theologian, William Temple saw a special mission of reconciliation for Anglicans. Since the Church of England had lived through the bloody debacle of pendulum swings between Catholicism and Protestantism, we are supposed to remember that human designs for church and state can be so fractious. Instead of extremes, we have learned over time to walk a middle path – via media – with Christ. The Anglican/Episcopal Church is a bridge church – a place for people even from former extremes to meet on the bridge in communion. We Episcopal Christians are here to set that communion table. We are servants of reconciliation – not just within the church or between churches but in the world.
Historically, for all of its faults and pretensions of empire, to be an Anglican has meant to love Scripture, learn from Tradition and be open to the future through an Episcopate that carries the faith into new territories where the Oneness of Christ is appreciated for the unique ways in which the flower of faith newly blossoms on local soil. This is also why, historically, the various churches of the Anglican Communion have been bonded to each other by affectionate ties rather than legislative decrees.
Amidst the global stresses and national insecurities of the 21st century, I believe the Anglican Heritage and American flowering of The Episcopal Church have gifts to offer. It is a challenge. The world is suffering and so is the Church; and so is Christ.
I am one person but when I pray, I am one with all.
I pray for the Archbishop of Nigeria and for the Virginia parishes that have aligned with the Archbishops alternative Episcopal oversight. What are they doing? I wonder as I pray. They protest against women and gay bishops in the church; they leave. They go to a church where the Archbishop supports pending civil legislation that would persecute and incarcerate homosexuals, even though the Anglican Communion of which he is part receives all baptized persons regardless of sexuality as full members of the church and all human beings as protected citizens.
What is going on? I do not believe this is actually about homosexuality and homophobia, either in Nigeria or here in the USA, in Canterbury, Tanzania or Hong Kong. Rather, it is about anxiety, insecurity and fear. In this changing world and church it is about POWER: the desire for and the feared loss of.
The Apostle Paul had something to say about power, though, that should realistically bolster our confidence in Christ at the same time that it makes us less queasy about instability in life. I see it in the words from his Corinthian Letter we read today (1 Corinthians 12:27-13:13).
I see those famous words in a new way. Paul writes to all of us, the church –
You are the Body of Christ together, and individually members of it. No matter who you are, what your talents and gifts are – even given and expressed for the good of the church: if you do not have love, you are nothing. Whether yours is amazing faith or an outpouring of generous stewardship, if you do not have love, you have nothing.
Love – Patient and Kind
Love is not contentious, insistent or resentful.
Love doesn’t look for advantage where things are going wrong.
Love seeks balance, to set things aright, to reconcile.
Love waits … and waits
Love holds all things – all the divergent realities, confusions and ambiguities: love carries them all. Love believes all things will become clear. And when the way is obscured, love lives by hope, not just carrying, but enduring.
In the face of war and rumors, the threat of schism or ostracism, Love never ends.
I confess, from experience, as a child, when I knew I was thinking or feeling things that were not mainstream, I held on to God like a baby to its mother. Now as an adult God holds on to me, embracing me, to touch others.
Let God’s People Love! And then there will surely be transfiguration.
©Thomas F. Reese 2-18-2007