O Lord, receive the prayers of your people.... grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

These words from the Collect of the Day have a familiar flow to them, in that so many of our composed and spontaneous prayers ask for God’s guidance in knowing what to do, how to do it, and from where the energy and commitment will come for the doing. Yet in these times when so many issues are but windows on a world of shifting boundaries, changing perspectives, perilous circumstances and uncertain outcomes, some of those issues test our ability to reach a creative consensus regarding what we know, how we act and, this is crucial, the role of grace in the exercise of power and faith to accomplish our ends. Yes, this is all compacted succinctly into the prayer for the day—our prayer for a common mind and a unified will. This concept of grace has something to do with an element of surprise, that which is unexpected—not shock; surprise: a happy, welcome outcome not of our own doing, a gift of God. Grace is a little word that references the compassionate, overflowing abundance of God. It is so important to keep this sense of God with you as you look through the windows, the issues of our contemporary world, because that for which we pray—a common mind—we do not have. In fact, under the anxiety-ridden conditions of such ambiguous realities, competing agendas, and tensed realigning of positions (from personal relationships to international configurations), we might not even know what a common mind is; let alone what would constitute its ingredients.

The lack of a common mind, the fluctuations and discontinuities of our times, and the fears these changes bring to the surface are why in our world we are witnessing brazen demonstrations of power: terroristic, imperialistic, nakedly violent, destructively covert, disproportionate, pre-emptive, genocidal, fratricidal, homophobic, sexist, racist, political, economic, theocratic. Also, in the faith communities of the world, in our very own church body, there is crisis. Given the polarizing tendencies of side-taking and labeling, power is breaking off, breaking away, from faith. Our prayer today links power and faith side-by-side, “That we may have power faithfully to accomplish (what we know we ought to do).” God’s faithful exercise of power is grace, compassion—love for people. Ours is relational, too: love of God and fellow humanity. But under present conditions in the world, instead of searching and struggling together to discover the common mind that stabilizes community, there is a tendency just as in the world to opt for power apart from faith. Instead of searching for a common mind, we hear declarations that one’s own point of view is the right mind. When this happens in faith communities, you hear little about grace and compassion and lots about purity and judgment. When this happens in the world, you cannot hear much above the bombs except for crying, which those who think they are in the right try to drown out with their justifications. This is the world in which we live. This is the situation in which the General Convention of The Episcopal Church in The United States of America met in Columbus, Ohio during late June.

General Convention is the legislative body of The Episcopal Church, meeting once every three years with voting delegations from each of the dioceses of the church. Diocesan delegations include bishops (who gather together much like the U.S. Senate) and also ordained clergy and baptized persons from each diocese who form the House of Deputies, much like the American House of Representatives. The Convention’s bicameral legislature is no coincidence but the historic decision of the church following the American Revolution and in severing its ties with the British Crown.

Whereas the Church of England is headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the American church has its own Presiding Bishop. The Episcopal Church was the first former colonial church to distinguish itself from the Church of England. Today, however, it is one of the 37 independent provinces across the globe that embraces the appellation “Anglican Communion.” Anglican Christians are not so much a single worldwide faith body as we are a related family of distinct/ive churches—one in Christ, yet independent legislatively and led independently by Bishops who gather once every ten years for the Lambeth Conference. Lambeth is an important gathering for sharing perspectives and strengthening the bonds of a diverse Communion, bonds of affection as they are now being called; but the gathering of Bishops is not a legislative session.

Rather, what has bound the Anglican Communion historically as a creative and resilient expression of apostolic succession and witness has been the common mind that our unity is based not in centralized authority or dogmatic assertions but in our common/shared loyalty to the Scriptures, the Creeds of the undivided church, the centrality of Baptism and Holy Eucharist and the historic episcopate as it is adapted to local conditions. Furthermore, the heart of Anglican spirituality has been our compassionate sense, our wide vision that the responses to the hardest questions about life are not generally found in phrases such as “either… or” but in the more encompassing possibilities of “both… and”; that the glorious inheritance of the apostles received in Holy Scripture and taught by successive generations of saints in the Tradition of the Church is mediated by our God-given human reason under the conditions of the lives that we experience. The joy of Anglicanism has been in the wideness of God’s mercy which we have carefully striven not to narrow as we walk the way of Christ. “Via Media” this pathway came to be called after the bloody pendulum swings of religious and civil war were settled by Elizabeth I in her call for a middle road of accommodation and consensus in things sacred and secular.

One of the first things the mind loses under conditions such as we face in today’s world is a sense of history. For example, we hear some politicians and religious leaders alike saying that we are facing unprecedented threats which call for unprecedented actions. Precisely when leaders should be depending on processes that help to engender a common mind for the common good they attempt to take power into their own hands to secure their own version of the future. In so doing they forget history yet replicate it in sowing the same sorry seeds.

So, given all of this, what have you heard or read about the actions of General Convention? Did you know that The Episcopal Church adopted the Millennium Development Goals to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and terrible disease in our lifetime? Or that we will now explore the development of a shared life with the Methodist Church? Following the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, an amazing ecumenical response and cooperate effort took place in New Orleans. The church wants to explore ways to build on this as a mission initiative throughout the country. Did you hear that the church has started up a program to provide summer camp for children whose parents are in prison? And that most of the National Church’s $150Million budget is for outreach and mission? These are probably not the reports you heard. They do not make good news stories, even if they are foundational to good church work. Instead, there were two other heavily reported actions.

Katharine Jefferts Schori Bishop of Nevada, was elected Presiding Bishop to succeed Frank Griswold in November. Though the press focused on her gender and whether her election would further upset Anglicans in parts of the world where the ministry of ordained women does not take place, two important points should be considered: 1) Jefferts Schori was not elected because she is a woman. Her election was not engineered; the Convention was truly taken by surprise at the vote. Katharine Jefferts Schori is our next Presiding Bishop because she was the best of the candidates, discerned as having gifts our church needs in leadership right now. 2) Her election should not enflame sections of the wider Anglican Communion. The Windsor Report that came out after the 2003 election of Gene Robinson for Bishop of New Hampshire stated that though there are provinces that do not recognize the ordination of women, seating women bishops at Anglican conclaves should not fracture the church.
The second story that received wide attention was our church’s response to the Windsor Report which, in effect, asked the Episcopal Church to place a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until a new consensus—a common mind—emerges in the Anglican Communion. After much conversation General Convention passed a resolution calling for dioceses and standing committees to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion. At the same time, the Episcopal Church expressed regret for the strain upon the bonds of affection which happened in the events surrounding General Convention 2003. The Episcopal Church passed this resolution in order to keep the pathways of communication open with the wider Anglican Communion so that a shared consensus might begin to take shape.
The resolve for a period of restraint is not a solution but the purchase of time in order to further communicate with each other, pray to God and annunciate, in a process that has been consciously going on for over thirty years, the Christ-centered theology by which the ministry of all sorts and conditions of people, including baptized and ordained persons who are homosexual and living in committed relationships, can be discerned as consistent with the faith, discipline and practice of the church. This is also a time for the wider church as a whole, in historically true Anglican fashion—“Via Media”—to meet prayerfully and carefully in discerning the way for the whole church to move forward together rather than to fracture.
The resolution not only meets the Windsor Report request for a moratorium on electing and consecrating those living in a same gender union but goes beyond to include any candidate “whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and (would) lead to further strains on communion.” That is, the Episcopal Church is mindful that further strains could come not just from the election of a candidate who is gay but from the election of a candidate who is not committed to living and working through the dialogue that needs to take place at this time.
How does this all affect the average person in the pew? Actually, there is no such being as the average person. In Christ, we are each a nascent New Creation with unique gifts for responding to God’s call that we be reconcilers one with the other restoring all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. This is our high calling. You and I do not sit in the pew or wait in the pulpit for a decision. We all engage in the work of reconciliation from the grassroots. True, we fall short of our calling, we are human. But God’s grace-filled offer of forgiveness for our sin makes us humble with each other and more committed to share our gifts with each other.
Our prayer and attitude right here at Saint Luke’s can contribute to the wider unity of the Church. In Christ, our having a common mind does not equal like-mindedness. Rather, when each of our many views and experiences are centered in Christ, then it isn’t a question about my agreeing with you but, rather, our getting to know each other. Instead of trying to make your point, if you first look for Christ in the other, then you will make a difference. What happens here at Saint Luke’s? We are a people and place of radical welcome and incorporation. We hold many different views on any number of subjects, ecclesial and political. But there are no litmus tests. All are encouraged to “work, pray and give for the spread of the Kingdom of God.” We are all kinds of people, reflective of various demographics, economies, ethnicities, religious backgrounds and relational status.
Our relatedness is key amidst the changes we are experiencing, changes that surface our fears about the ways in which power arrangements are changing. Fear is too often our response to these complexities and confusions. Fear is the tension in world and church that leads power to break away from faith, as we try to take things into our own hands in order to control outcomes. But we need to remember the biblical lesson about power: Power is God’s. The movement of God is power, power for the good of the people. Anyone who would appeal to “authority” as the way to preserve things as they are or as one would think they should be, is forgetting that the biblical roots of authority involves compassionate listening. Appeals to authority that foreclose on such dialogue are indications of earthly tyranny not godly power.
Yes, our relatedness is key in responding to the challenges presented by the changes in our world—all the more reason for people of faith to be dialogical/relational in our approach to the Scriptures. Certainly, we carry our world views, wearing them as lenses through which we read and appreciate the Bible. We need to be careful, then, not to canonize our worldviews, as if they were self-evidently verified in scripture. To put it more plainly: Too often, people are coming to the Bible to justify the point of view they already strongly hold. Instead, in these challenging times, the real opportunity for the creative and reconciling flow of the Holy Spirit will come when people are willing to become inspired words in a process of discernment rather than to marshal words off the biblical page in pronouncing this or that view as God’s view.
If we say there is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, then we need gather around the Eucharistic table together and all actively participate in discerning the movement of God’s Spirit for the good of people. Everyone needs to stay at this table, from the Archbishop of Nigeria to the Bishop of New Hampshire, from those gay and lesbian couples who have sought out civil ceremonies to publicly announce their relationships to those persons who believe homosexual unions are a threat to heterosexual marriage. Then, instead of “opposing sides” we will be people searching in faith; instead of liberals and conservatives, mercy and truth. Instead of homosexual and heterosexual, righteousness and peace will meet at this table.
Humble and hopeful, we need to remember that the Church is everywhere. The Church is in the joyful celebration of life in all of what has been, is and yet will be; as well as in the pain, confusion and suffering of persons everywhere. The Church is not contained. It is both other and more than its traditions and teachings. The Church is not only Anglican, Episcopal, Roman, Lutheran, etc. The Church is God’s reconciling activity. If we will not accept the commission as reconcilers, God will look elsewhere and ask others to help in order that God’s will be done. Oh, God will come back for us, stuck as we are in our own thicket; but in terms of finding the apostles who will do Christ’s work, God is not particularly wedded to Anglicanism or any other form of Christianity. God is more interested in the world than in the church.

There are crying children and warring parties out there. Do they really care whether the healing touch or reconciling vision comes from a male or female, gay or straight?
We all need to be at this table as Church together. We need to do this for the Body of Christ. We need to be the Body of Christ reconciled as an example to a fractured and violent world that there is another way.

©Thomas F. Reese
07/16/06

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