Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Anglican Communion Timeline

Dear Friends,

I have posted a timeline of the Anglican Communion since the founding of the Episcopal Church shortly after the American Revolution to the present day, including a recent blow-by-blow of the current mess.

This was originally developed as part of our Lenten series at Church of Our Saviour.

Take a look at it here.

If you have thoughts for clarification, addition, or simple corrections in fact, please let me know. I see this as a living document.

Fr. Jake also has linked it from his place.

Last Update: June 26, 2007


Sunday, May 27, 2007

Hubris, Babel, and the Spirit

Sermon delivered at Church of Our Saviour,

Mill Valley, California
on the Day of Pentecost

May 27th, 2007

Readings for Pentecost

audio available


So the Anglican Communion was in the news again this week.

You probably heard, and I won’t belabor the details today. Suffice it to say there was a great deal made over who was invited and who wasn’t to the great conference of Anglican bishops at Lambeth for the every-ten-year gathering. Honestly, Monty Python couldn’t write it any better.

So continuing on the more flippant side, it reminded me of situations in high school where there was great consideration given to who was popular enough to invite to certain parties. Some of us never were invited, at least to those parties. Probably because we were considered too nerdy, too serious, or not properly dressed, not out for the right sports, or not associated with the right circles. But viewed from this angle, the Anglican Communion right now looks pretty silly, doesn’t it? There are more serious ramifications, as you can well imagine, but Lambeth is still 14 months away. So there will be much more to mull in the coming weeks, at least for our bishops, no doubt.

I also want to talk today about another sort of silly image that came to mind as I was both considering the story of Babel from Genesis today and considering the decisions getting made this week about who’s in and who’s out.

Both stories remind me a bit like one of those Hanna-Barbara cartoons I grew up with. You probably know the ones I mean – those made for television quick-off-the-easel cartoons before the advent of computer animation. Where a character’s body remained absolutely static – still as the background – and you could almost see the animator quickly scratching each frame for the eyes moving on the face. . .or the mouth opening and closing – maybe almost (but not quite) in time with the audio. Yes, one of those – I think the one I’m thinking of was He Man, which had a whole host of accompanying toys from Mattel, as I remember. In the almost every episode of this cartoon, there was a wonderful line in it that encapsulates just about everything going on both in Babel and in the greater Church this week:

“I HAVE THE POWER!”

Long before Genesis was written, Bedouins were sitting around fires under the night sky telling stories like the one about the tower of Babel. It might have almost the quality of a simple children’s tale to our educated Western ears, but it remains just as profound for us as for an ancient people living off the land and relying on oral tradition.

The story Tower of Babel at its root is about human hubris. The desire to be in control. To be powerful. Probably for the nomadic people who once told this story, Babel was a shining example of the cities that were known for controlling lands far beyond their borders, marginalizing the wandering stock-herders, and raising up armies dangerous to everybody.

We have our own towers of Babel today, of course. Some are more obvious than others. I was struck yesterday while driving over the Bay Bridge, coming from a diocesan meeting, by the new edifice in the South of Market part of San Francisco. A great condominium complex soaring as high as seismic considerations dare allow. A colleague riding with me asked rather wistfully, who would want to be at the top of it when then next earthquake hits? In all honesty, it was a question tinged slightly with bitterness that neither of us could dream of affording such a view!

But towers of Babel are also found in all the ways we lord it over each other. Whether it’s our constant insistence on having it our way militarily or economically, or doctrinally in the Church. Or, to be blunt, who gets invited and who doesn’t to the parties with the power-brokers.

Beyond its etiological purpose – to explain, perhaps to small children long ago, why there are so many languages in the world as well as the name for the great city on the plain – the ending of the story of the Tower of Babel serves as a reminder to us of how God responds to human hubris. God confounds it. When we raise our arms and declare like our great simian ancestors and even our contemporary cousins in the animal world, “I have the power!” God responds, “Oh, yeah? We’ll see about that.”

* * *


Juxtaposed against the ancient story of confused languages at the Tower of Babel is the story of Pentecost, the arrival of the Holy Spirit, and the beginning of the Church. Not necessarily the imperial Church, or the Curia, or the building, or the self-styled guardians of doctrine. But the true Church. The Church that holds the Gospel at center, where God comes first and is at work amongst us, made in God’s image. Where the breath of new life blows and God’s people are moved to share great gifts for transforming hearts and healing Creation.

The divine irony is that the multiple languages that so confounded the people in the story of the Tower of Babel become the primary instrument through which the Gospel is first shared at Pentecost. The same divine intervention that upsets the applecart of human arrogance is the same intervention that brings healing, hope, and a new community.

Today we celebrate this new community of the Spirit still breaking into our lives 2,000 years later. It is not always found in the institutional church. In fact we should count ourselves fortunate when it is. In fact, the new community is everywhere, and knows few boundaries. It is wherever the Spirit is allowed to move. Wherever God’s creatures are freed from the bondage of lusting after power and control, wherever we have stopped playing God, and where we are freed from both being oppressor and oppressed. It is where the breathing is easier and suffering is relieved.

This is our primary vocation, our call as Christians – first and foremost – not to preserving the institutional church, but in creating space for the Spirit. Of looking foolhardy at times just like the first disciples at times because we don’t always play by the rules of power and control. And daring to confound, in league with God, the places where life is being crushed under the weight of the towers of human arrogance. To laugh at the silliness of the lust after power, and to be freed from the diabolical designs in which we too often indulge.

And we will know this new community of the Spirit when we see it by the fruit it produces. We are even offered a list by our spiritual ancestor, Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians. It’s one of my personal favorites: “The fruit of the Spirit,” he writes, “is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

It is with this fruit that the Spirit is conquering our indulgence in power and our self-made devices and designs. It is through this fruit that we engage with the Spirit in conquering the despair and fear that so dominates the world.

Love over hatred. Joy over despair. Peace over all forms of violence. Patience over our insatiable desire to have everything we want. Kindness over cold-heartedness. Faithfulness that insists on new life in relationship. Gentleness over our mean-spirited ways. And self-control. Well, I could quibble a bit with Paul here. After all, the first disciples who speak in tongues in today’s reading from Acts are accused of being drunk! But perhaps he means self-control of an unusual kind: self-control that gives us the freedom from having to control and dominate others.

Still working on these virtues? Good. Me, too. Better yet, God is still working on them inside each of us. That is where the Spirit has touched us and is transforming us. It is where the new community, what Jesus referred to as the “kingdom of God” begins in each of us. And beyond us it is where the true Church is taking root and burrowing deep down into the rich soil of life with God.

These fruits of the Spirit are our standards against all the darkness of our lives in the world. They are where God in Christ shines forth most brightly and where life is allowed to flourish. And, so, as we begin looking forward as a Church, regardless of what goes on in the Anglican Communion, or what new towers are built to edify human prowess, I urge you to always keep watch for, cultivate, and nurture the new community wherever you find it. Here at Church of Our Saviour. Out there in the workplace. At home with family and friends. And simply in your own heart, where the still, small, voice and true power of the Spirit wrestles to breathe free – that you may be freed to become utterly reliant on the One who created you, that we all may be free to be the gifted creatures of God that we were made to be, reflections of the Divine Wonder.




Thursday, May 24, 2007

Inscrutability

Tobias Haller has offered a compelling insight in to the Archbishop of Canterbury's decision, beginning with this:
Much is being made of the guest-list to Lambeth. To my mind, it seems above all that +Cantuar is giving +Abuja the opportunity to walk apart.
And just when we might be tempted to think that the Archbishop of Canterbury was playing with his cards out in the open. There is still a part of me that believes, or at least hopes, ++Rowan Williams is playing for the long haul and will outsmart all of us in the end, particularly those who appear to be driving the Communion's agenda right now.

The snub is still a snub, though, and prayerful bishops must now weigh their reactions while our Presiding Bishop has urged calm.

Jim Strader pointed out in a comment he graciously left here yesterday that "we must look for G-d in the gaps of our understanding." I'm not sure I'm entirely a God in the gaps type of guy, but I understand the implication.

The Spirit is still at work, even in the face of a caustic decision.

Jim's point is well taken by me. Maybe it matters not what the Archbishop of Canterbury holds up his sleeve.

But it does matter what God in Christ holds, and as inscrutable as those cards are, the outcome is already revealed.


Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Windsor Comes Home to Roost

One of our parishioners came into my office yesterday with this question:

Why would the Archbishop of Canterbury risk creating the negative publicity mess he did by withholding invitations to Lambeth?

Why indeed? It was something I pondered all day yesterday and even this morning as I began the routine of unloading the dishwasher.

Time suggested yesterday along with some other commentators that the Archbishop of Canterbury was trying to pull a diplomatic coup of some kind by offending both the "liberal" and "conservative" sides of the Communion somewhat equally. It goes back to an old saw about the politics of pastoral oversight: offend everyone equally, or offend no one. The problem with this approach -- and I'm not buying it, quite frankly -- is that it paints the Communion as torn between two extremes with some kind of big squashy middle. Honestly, I think this approach is more a reflection of a very American political pseudo-reality than anything else.

And, as I cut it more deeply, this approach appears to assume the false moral equivalence of a duly elected and consecrated bishop (+Gene Robinson) and a bishop consecrated in deliberate violation of jurisdictional boundaries with an eye towards the foundation of a possible parallel province (+Martyn Minns). This doesn't wash for me, and I doubt very much that the Archbishop of Canterbury sees it this way. After all, Bishop Robinson was offered the (albeit patronizing) olive branch of possibly being a "guest" at Lambeth. Bishop Minns was not.

But it was Bishop Marc this morning who put me back on the scent. He points out in his blog that an often unarticulated recommendation of the Windsor Report is for the Archbishop of Canterbury to exercise "extreme caution" in inviting +Gene Robinson to the councils of the communion. (point 133).

And, of course, it is Rowan Williams who is most beholden to the Windsor Report and the process itself.

The Windsor Report has just come home to roost for the Communion, and its most dangerous recommendations are now being put into action, at the expense once again of +Gene Robinson and our LGBT sisters and brothers and the conscience of a good number of our bishops.

The Archbishop of Canterbury largely staked his credibility on the Windsor Process, and hence feels obliged to follow it. That is the real politics here, it seems to me. As a friend put it in a comment on another post, "Windsor is the only game in town."

But now I have a response to that.

No, Windsor is not the only game in town.

If we are indeed Christians, Jesus Christ is truly the only game in town.

Ancient theology holds that the Church is the Body of Christ. And that body was "broken for me and broken for you." Broken that the world might see the power of God to conquer death.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, for all his good intentions and "extreme caution" in following the Windsor process and standing in his rights of invitation for the sake of unity, is now caught up in the idolatry of trying to prevent the Body from being broken, and so thereby potentially, and perhaps most ironically, forestalling the journey towards resurrection for the Communion.

When it came to invitations, yesterday I was trying to see the situation through the lens of the parable of the wedding banquet.

What I find much more compelling and appropriate today is this teaching:

"For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." Matthew 16:25

Mark Harris wrote yesterday that the Archbishop of Canterbury has invited a worse madness. Indeed he has: the madness of the Windsor process, which has hung like a dagger over the heart of the Communion since its inception.

If truth be told, the Body is going to be broken either way: by the Windsor process, or by the machinations of purity in power, or by a combination of both. In many respects it already is broken. The Archbishop of Canterbury needs to learn to live with that. So must we all. Or else we will not enjoy, as a Communion, the fruits of resurrection.

I'll close this post with another one of my favorite Jesus aphorisms:

"Let the dead bury their own dead."


Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Invitation Soup, Please

Apologies to Seinfeld and the MadPriest


Mark Harris puts it most eloquently.

Fr. Jake also weighs in.

And Jared Cramer offers a fine reflection.

+Gene Robinson posts this very Christian response.

Oh, yes, and Archbishop Peter Akinola sounds off at the news, too.

To paraphrase a Dominican nun famous in these parts for spiritual direction:

Okay, Rowan. It's your baby. Rock it.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

That We All May Be One

Sermon delivered at Church of Our Saviour,

Mill Valley, California
on the Seventh Sunday of Easter

May 27th, 2007

Readings for The Day of Pentecost

audio available


So the Anglican Communion was in the news again this week.

You probably heard, and I won’t belabor the details today. Suffice it to say there was a great deal made over who was invited and who wasn’t to the great conference of Anglican bishops at Lambeth for the every-ten-year gathering. Honestly, Monty Python couldn’t write it any better.

So continuing on the more flippant side, it reminded me of situations in high school where there was great consideration given to who was popular enough to invite to certain parties. Some of us never were invited, at least to those parties. Probably because we were considered too nerdy, too serious, or not properly dressed, not out for the right sports, or not associated with the right circles. But viewed from this angle, the Anglican Communion right now looks pretty silly, doesn’t it? There are more serious ramifications, as you can well imagine, but Lambeth is still 14 months away. So there will be much more to mull in the coming weeks, at least for our bishops, no doubt.

I also want to talk today about another sort of silly image that came to mind as I was both considering the story of Babel from Genesis today and considering the decisions getting made this week about who’s in and who’s out.

Both stories remind me a bit like one of those Hanna-Barbara cartoons I grew up with. You probably know the ones I mean – those made for television quick-off-the-easel cartoons before the advent of computer animation. Where a character’s body remained absolutely static – still as the background – and you could almost see the animator quickly scratching each frame for the eyes moving on the face. . .or the mouth opening and closing – maybe almost (but not quite) in time with the audio. Yes, one of those – I think the one I’m thinking of was He Man, which had a whole host of accompanying toys from Mattel, as I remember. In the almost every episode of this cartoon, there was a wonderful line in it that encapsulates just about everything going on both in Babel and in the greater Church this week:

“I HAVE THE POWER!”

Long before Genesis was written, Bedouins were sitting around fires under the night sky telling stories like the one about the tower of Babel. It might have almost the quality of a simple children’s tale to our educated Western ears, but it remains just as profound for us as for an ancient people living off the land and relying on oral tradition.

The story Tower of Babel at its root is about human hubris. The desire to be in control. To be powerful. Probably for the nomadic people who once told this story, Babel was a shining example of the cities that were known for controlling lands far beyond their borders, marginalizing the wandering stock-herders, and raising up armies dangerous to everybody.

We have our own towers of Babel today, of course. Some are more obvious than others. I was struck yesterday while driving over the Bay Bridge, coming from a diocesan meeting, by the new edifice in the South of Market part of San Francisco. A great condominium complex soaring as high as seismic considerations dare allow. A colleague riding with me asked rather wistfully, who would want to be at the top of it when then next earthquake hits? In all honesty, it was a question tinged slightly with bitterness that neither of us could dream of affording such a view!

But towers of Babel are also found in all the ways we lord it over each other. Whether it’s our constant insistence on having it our way militarily or economically, or doctrinally in the Church. Or, to be blunt, who gets invited and who doesn’t to the parties with the power-brokers.

Beyond its etiological purpose – to explain, perhaps to small children long ago, why there are so many languages in the world as well as the name for the great city on the plain – the ending of the story of the Tower of Babel serves as a reminder to us of how God responds to human hubris. God confounds it. When we raise our arms and declare like our great simian ancestors and even our contemporary cousins in the animal world, “I have the power!” God responds, “Oh, yeah? We’ll see about that.”

* * *


Juxtaposed against the ancient story of confused languages at the Tower of Babel is the story of Pentecost, the arrival of the Holy Spirit, and the beginning of the Church. Not necessarily the imperial Church, or the Curia, or the building, or the self-styled guardians of doctrine. But the true Church. The Church that holds the Gospel at center, where God comes first and is at work amongst us, made in God’s image. Where the breath of new life blows and God’s people are moved to share great gifts for transforming hearts and healing Creation.

The divine irony is that the multiple languages that so confounded the people in the story of the Tower of Babel become the primary instrument through which the Gospel is first shared at Pentecost. The same divine intervention that upsets the applecart of human arrogance is the same intervention that brings healing, hope, and a new community.

Today we celebrate this new community of the Spirit still breaking into our lives 2,000 years later. It is not always found in the institutional church. In fact we should count ourselves fortunate when it is. In fact, the new community is everywhere, and knows few boundaries. It is wherever the Spirit is allowed to move. Wherever God’s creatures are freed from the bondage of lusting after power and control, wherever we have stopped playing God, and where we are freed from both being oppressor and oppressed. It is where the breathing is easier and suffering is relieved.

This is our primary vocation, our call as Christians – first and foremost – not to preserving the institutional church, but in creating space for the Spirit. Of looking foolhardy at times just like the first disciples at times because we don’t always play by the rules of power and control. And daring to confound, in league with God, the places where life is being crushed under the weight of the towers of human arrogance. To laugh at the silliness of the lust after power, and to be freed from the diabolical designs in which we too often indulge.

And we will know this new community of the Spirit when we see it by the fruit it produces. We are even offered a list by our spiritual ancestor, Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians. It’s one of my personal favorites: “The fruit of the Spirit,” he writes, “is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

It is with this fruit that the Spirit is conquering our indulgence in power and our self-made devices and designs. It is through this fruit that we engage with the Spirit in conquering the despair and fear that so dominates the world.

Love over hatred. Joy over despair. Peace over all forms of violence. Patience over our insatiable desire to have everything we want. Kindness over cold-heartedness. Faithfulness that insists on new life in relationship. Gentleness over our mean-spirited ways. And self-control. Well, I could quibble a bit with Paul here. After all, the first disciples who speak in tongues in today’s reading from Acts are accused of being drunk! But perhaps he means self-control of an unusual kind: self-control that gives us the freedom from having to control and dominate others.

Still working on these virtues? Good. Me, too. Better yet, God is still working on them inside each of us. That is where the Spirit has touched us and is transforming us. It is where the new community, what Jesus referred to as the “kingdom of God” begins in each of us. And beyond us it is where the true Church is taking root and burrowing deep down into the rich soil of life with God.

These fruits of the Spirit are our standards against all the darkness of our lives in the world. They are where God in Christ shines forth most brightly and where life is allowed to flourish. And, so, as we begin looking forward as a Church, regardless of what goes on in the Anglican Communion, or what new towers are built to edify human prowess, I urge you to always keep watch for, cultivate, and nurture the new community wherever you find it. Here at Church of Our Saviour. Out there in the workplace. At home with family and friends. And simply in your own heart, where the still, small, voice and true power of the Spirit wrestles to breathe free – that you may be freed to become utterly reliant on the One who created you, that we all may be free to be the gifted creatures of God that we were made to be, reflections of the Divine Wonder.




Thursday, May 17, 2007

Christ Ascends, Others Descend. . .

. . .into nastiness. It's all over the place today. Here are three examples, for starters:


Mark Harris reflects on a particularly appalling set of statements to the press by Archbishop Akinola, who resorts to the well worn abusive language of the religious right during a recent, but now bygone era in this country.

Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh quotes Athanasius, demonizing everyone who disagrees with his position, but then says we ought to be prayed for. I guess that's the "pastoral" piece. I'm glad to know now where I stand. Have to dig my pitchfork out of the back closet!

Fr. Jake writes on new rumblings from the Diocese of Fort Worth for "Alternative Primatial Oversight," when they've really already left. . . except they can't really leave. Katie also weighs in with some good, down-home Texas charm.

But I have to say this is all getting very old very fast.

What is clear to me:
  • The schism is now unfolding (I still prefer the term "unraveling") in unexpected and messy ways. CANA, AMiA, the ACN, and the host of other alphabet-soup networks are going to be competing in the coming months for the pieces along with archbishops of the Global South. I'm glad I don't have to referee that game. I wonder if anybody will want to?
  • Please, no more talk of "impaired" communion with the Archbishop of Nigeria (and, hence, presumably the Church of Nigeria). Except for the grace of God, we are out of communion. Period. Speaking personally, Peter Akinola would be welcome at table in the church I serve, but it is clear I would not be welcome at his. No worries. That puts me in plenty of good company, it seems.
  • The Diocese of Fort Worth is no longer part of the Episcopal Church. Well, that's a no-brainer. They have rejected, both in writing and in action, our duly elected leadership and the authority of General Convention, and they have deliberately severed financial relationship with the rest of us. In a neat world, presentments would very much be in order here. But our world is far from neat. It's another ugly mess that only promises to get uglier.
  • Nobody can say at this point that the shipwrecked Anglican Communion looks or behaves any better than the rest of the broken world we live in. With various men in mitres now shouting, "Rally to me!" whatever remaining threads of unity on the Good Ship Anglican are now broken, at least at the official level. Praise God that the Good News of Christ and communion doesn't all reside at the official level!
  • Time to move on with the real work of the Church and the Risen and Ascended Christ. This is the last post you'll be hearing from me on the subject of schism for awhile. Our House of Bishops had it right in the spirit of their response to the Primates over the Threat of Schism Game: No thank you. We have more urgent matters of faith, hope, and love in Christ before us at the present time.
Let the rest of them go, get on with it -- whatever "it" must be -- and bid them peace.

As for me and this household of faith, we turn to the Ascended Christ.



Anglican Sublime, Anglican Ridiculous

A slightly re-edited reflection posted at Episcopal Café last week:

This has certainly been one of the strangest months in the Episcopal Church I can remember. Whether it was a pie thrown at a priest, letters ostensibly missed in the mail between Primates, or public flailing to find reasons for and against schismatic acts, the universe, fate, or perhaps even God seemed to be whimsically poking fun at our games of polity, power, and control.

We Anglicans all ended up looking a bit silly.

Nothing, it seems to me, could be more appropriate.

Years into entrenched positions and angry rhetoric, The Episcopal Church as a whole wrestles to move forward with mission, while some leadership in the Anglican Communion tries to obsess over human sexuality and notions of orthodoxy. It is all too damned serious.

We must all learn to laugh more at what is unimportant. And even more critically to laugh even at that which we seriously regard as important.

Martin Luther, amongst his stranger writing, quips: "The best way to get rid of the Devil, if you cannot kill it with the words of Holy Scripture, is to rail at and mock him.”

Do we see the devil in each other in the current mess? Or perhaps the devils in ourselves reflected in each other? Or a bit of both?

Take it from Luther, someone who spent part of his life taking his faith and salvation much too seriously: laugh at the devil.

The insults, abuse, and hard words we have delivered and endured these past few years are a result of taking one another much too seriously. Even worse, ourselves. And that is borne, it seems to me, of the sin of pride.

And we too often take the Church much too seriously. However divinely inspired, like most institutions, it is often hamstrung by human hubris. God’s grace is surely greater than that. The true Church has yet to be fully revealed, and Anglicans of whatever stripe have no monopoly in it.

One psalmist wrote: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision.” The second psalm is overtly political in tone, as it refers to powers and principalities who stand against the People of God. But our foolishness is in assuming we know who the People of God are. Or even worse assuming we are they, when we behave too often like the peoples who “plot in vain against God and the anointed,” trying to break relationship with each other when relationships in God’s universe can at most only be changed, never truly severed. God has us in derision if anyone at all. And of all the laughter, God’s is the hardest for us to bear, because it the greatest salvific gift for our prideful, overly serious lives.

It is Eastertide. We must remember what that means. The bonds of death have been broken. The maw of hell has been shattered. The gates of heaven have opened like a flower. Love has won already. The People of God have been freed. God has had the last laugh.

We best learn from God again to laugh at death in each other and in ourselves. It is passing away. God is indeed making all things new. Our souls are not our own. They belong to God in Christ. And so we have nothing and no one, in the end, to truly fear.

This little episode in Anglican and Episcopal history, flying pies and archbishops included, ridiculous and sublime, will pass. And the real work of the Church will continue with the fruits of the Spirit – laughter included – that laughter that is part of the language of grace.




Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Nails for the Covenant

Mark Harris is reporting that the Global South, headed by Archbishop Peter Akinola, is now preparing an "Anglican Catechism" to present to the Primates' Steering Committee in June of next year.

Just in time to hammer some more nails into the coffin of the covenant process, when it was in no need of help of trouble to begin with.

Apparently, the 39 Articles aren't enough. Nor is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Nor is the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. Nor are the Instruments of Unity and an over-powered Primates Meeting. And even the proposed covenant isn't enough.

Kudos to the Archbishop of Nigeria and Global South leadership. The movement to purify the belief system of the Communion, if not create a communion of their own, is apparently gaining steam even as the self-described orthodox among us argue over the value of the show in Virginia a couple of weekends ago.

My question is who will want to play this game to create some kind of uniformity when the cherry-picked "rules" are constantly changing? First there was 1998.I.10. Then there was Windsor. Then there was a covenant. Now there will be a catechism. What next? And even if the game is "won," the uniformity for the winners isn't likely to be real. There will be plenty of other things to fight about later on.

Mark Harris is right. The end game really is in sight. And it's likely to be messy.


Thursday, May 10, 2007

Yearning to Breathe Green

Two important posts about sustainability, the environment, and how they intersect with Christianity:

Bishop Marc features a video segment including Sally Bingham, speaking about our call to be stewards of Creation.

and Will Scott posts Desmond Tutu's reflection on global warming. Worth every word. . .


Tuesday, May 08, 2007

A Launch Worth Noting

Jim Naughton has been burning the midnight oil the past couple of months with the help of his IT gurus to get Episcopal Café up and running. I highly recommend it, as it brings together some great work from across the Anglican blogosphere.

I'm honored and grateful to be counted, too, amongst the contributors.

Take a look, and tune up your RSS reader if you are so inclined. There's plenty to keep up with there each day, from contemporary culture to theological reflections to the latest in church politics and everything in between.


Monday, May 07, 2007

The Heart of Property

Daily Episcopalian has just released the report of the House of Bishops' Task Force on Property Disputes. In addition to outlining the chilling schemes that have been afoot to break with The Episcopal Church and take the property, too, the report concludes with this remarkable paragraph:

As a concluding note, it has occurred to many in the Task Force that it may have been misnamed. In truth, the matters that the Task Force has found it necessary to address are much larger than mere property disputes. Experience has shown that, at the root of every property issue, there is an issue of identity and integrity, and not merely an issue of polity. In reality, it is the church “homes” of countless loyal Episcopalians, the legacy of countless Episcopalians, past and present, and the spiritual well-being of those who always have found immeasurable comfort in their church homes, that are at issue as well as the nature of TEC and Anglicanism. The strategy at play must be revealed and understood if we are to protect the faithful from having their places of worship, and the assets accumulated by generations of Episcopalians, removed from them and removed from their use in the mission of TEC.
While I confess that I have been ambivalent about the question of property (possibly because I have never owned any) in the present mess, I find these words arresting. They point to the underlying moral issue and spiritual violence that our Presiding Bishop has alluded to in recent comments.

Spiritual violence and a sense of being rootless are the fruits of schism.

Whence the fruits of the Spirit?

Update: Andrew Gerns writes a much more substantial piece on this topic over at Episcopal Café.


Anglican Pie

And just when the weekend was strange enough. Reports out this morning say that Don Armstrong, who has returned from charges of misappropriation of funds to lead his church in Colorado Springs to CANA, was on the receiving end of a pie tossed at him in the middle of yesterday's liturgy by an 18-year-old acting on behalf of disgruntled parishioners.

Armstrong, who ducked, has not been above unspeakably nasty verbal pies tossed at The Episcopal Church, it seems.

And Archbishop Akinola sent off a transatlantic pie himself directed at The Episcopal Church, of course, via a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Mark Harris parses brilliantly again, and I have little to add to his analysis, except that Padre Mickey has the best cliff notes synopsis of the letter:

"Look at what The Episcopal Church made me do NOW!"

Again, he surprises no one. And I will surprise no one by saying again that dear Peter can keep his pie, thank you very much. And he has my prayers.

Such bizarre behavior at a time when so many seem intent on getting out their Christian "credentials" for the world to see. But, then, as Fr. Jake points out, pies might be better weapons of choice for guys who feel the need to throw something.

Yesterday evening, I enjoyed a delicious piece of key lime at a nice dinner out with my family.

What's your favorite kind of pie, to eat, or even throw on occasion?

This whole episode provoked the re-writing of a most popular song over at Fr. Jake's place. Go and join the fun!


Sunday, May 06, 2007

Beyond the Tribal Church

Sermon delivered at Church of Our Saviour,

Mill Valley, California
on the Fifth Sunday of Easter

May 6th, 2007

Readings for The Fifth Sunday of Easter

audio available

We gathered yesterday as we do each year as a Diocese to discuss mission and ministry – those often too “churchy” words that say something about who we are and what we do as a Christian community. But this year was different. It was not the traditional “Ministry Day” we’d grown accustomed, but a “Visioning Day,” which, if truth be told, generated tension in the days that led up to it.

Like good Bay Area folk, many were asking, “What will I get out of it?” The even more enlightened and engaged would ask, “What will my parish get out of it?” But Bishop Marc once again proved in his unflappable way unmoved by the tension, and he and the design team walked unperturbed through the questions. And, yesterday, hundreds gathered at Grace Cathedral to open in prayer, song, and to reflect on what it means to be the Beloved Community.

The Beloved Community. A term that was popularized and plowed into the rich, loamy soil of the Civil Rights movement and has born other titles in other cultures, like ubuntu in South Africa.

In our particularizing culture, where the individual is the primary constituent, “beloved community” says something to us as Marinites, and, particularly, to us as the People of God.

It was Martin Luther King, of course, who was most singularly responsible for giving the notion of “Beloved Community” new legs in a time of tumult. He wrote this passage, which we heard during worship yesterday at Grace Cathedral:

Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation. . .the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloomy of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of [women and] men. *
Race, tribe, class, and nation. They are old notions, aren’t they? The contemporary notion of nation goes back at least six hundred years. Class even back further. And tribe and race. . .well they’re as ancient as the hills.

Circling back for a moment, what can you hear in the question “What will I get out of it?” It’s a question born of choice. A question, quite frankly, born to some degree of privilege. And a question that has roots in class. Because choice is a class privilege, quite frankly. We all know it, and we all know our limitations within our respective classes. It operates most of the time subconsciously, delineating the have’s from the have not’s and everyone in the middle. In its most insidious forms, it places unrealistic demands on our lives and on the lives of our children and robs us of our joy.

And then there’s “What will my parish get out of it?” Guess what that one’s about: tribe of course. When was the last time you thought of Church of Our Saviour as a tribe? Or the Episcopal Church, for that matter? We are a tribe. And like all good tribes from time to time, The Episcopal Church tribe has been having a dust up recently over who gets to be chief, and who gets to declare the tribal boundaries and rules, right?

It also means we struggle to reflect the changing demographics around us. We are a predominantly Anglo and European American Church in this country. It means we have particular ways of seeing the world, and particular ways of interacting with each other. We love great music here. Most of us live at or above a particular socio-economic level. Most of us value education and the choices and privileges it brings. Many of us are leaders in our respective fields or places of work. This is not necessarily an indictment. Just a simple statement of fact. There is nothing more natural in the world than tribes built around like affiliation, customs, rituals, values, and worldviews.

Peter belongs to a tribe. In the Book of Acts today, that rough-and-tumble continuation of the Gospel of Luke, Peter has just gotten back from a long trip. Some of you might remember we left him in a rather peculiar way after he raised Tabitha from the dead. He was in Joppa, staying at the home of a tanner.

Now, Peter, in addition to being an apostle of Jesus, was supposed to be a good Jew – at least for the most part. Jesus had stretched the rules at time, but at the end of the day, most of Jesus’ followers initially were good and faithful members of their family and tribal religious tradition. So like any good first-century Jew, Peter was supposed to follow particular laws and rules about cleanliness. The author of Luke-Acts doesn’t tell us much about what happens, but Peter must have found living for a few days with a tanner unsettling. Tanners were not clean, and probably violated all kinds of purity laws that were tribal customs for Peter – good, wholesome traditions that would have seemed second-nature to him, as he would have lived by them since before he could remember.

But there he was, outside the protective envelope of his tribal customs residing with someone who worked and lived radically differently than he did. And, of course, the story gets more interesting as he is next summoned to enter the home of a centurion, no less. A Roman. One of the oppressors, representing the occupying power in Israel. Do you start to get the picture? Peter’s tribal worldview has been stirred. . .if not shaken to the very foundations.

And much to his surprise, he encounters God in a vision in these places, and discovers the power of the Risen Christ amongst the Gentiles. Those others. Those outside the tribe.

Now Peter, had he been a sensible fellow, should have gone quietly back to Jerusalem, kept all this to himself, done the proprietary thing of attending to his customary cleanliness as a good Jew. But Peter, as we all know, is far from sensible, and so he returns to the heart of his homeland and declares what he has witnessed to the other apostles.

And their world is blown wide open.

That’s Good News for us actually. Had the apostles not encountered and taken the message of the Risen Christ to the Gentiles, to those beyond their tribal boundaries, most of us would likely not be sitting here this morning. Christianity would likely have remained a quiet backwater sect of Judaism, and might have risked evaporating into the Diaspora.

But there Peter was. Jesus, to some degree in his teaching and ministry, and even more so through the Resurrection, had crossed the Rubicon of the tribal boundary. He had collapsed boundaries all over the place: the boundaries between life and death, death and life, between sacred and profane, between the divine and human, between enemies and friends, between insiders and outsiders, between rich and poor, between male and female, between individual and community, between God and the Earth. Peter and the apostles’ eyes are opened to the new life of the Beloved Community, built on the foundations of Christ, calling them to love one another in a new way.

Tribal identity might still matter. I can easily imagine Peter and the apostles still practicing their tribal customs. But that tribal identity is now held with humility. God is greater than our tribe. Greater than the walls of the Church of Our Saviour. Greater than our imaginations dare allow. Christ reaching out to people everywhere with salvation, even (and this is Good News) before the Church gets its act together. For Peter, his companions, and for all of us Christians across the centuries who have taken baby steps into Jesus’ command to build the Beloved Community – we might be in wonder at the infinite breadth of God’s grace in Christ Jesus. A grace that collapses all the human boundaries and pushes us into a bold image of God’s Reign, of a new community, drawing all Creation together. . .a Beloved Community. . .descending from heaven and planted in our midst, among us, and within us, only waiting for us to help reveal it.



* Facing the Challenge of a New Age by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.



Thursday, May 03, 2007

More Miles and Hot Air

The latest chapter of the fray in the Anglican Communion has come to a head, with Archbishop Akinola coming to the United States this Saturday to install Martyn Minns, rector of the schismatic Truro Church in Virginia and longtime friend of the Primate of All Nigeria, as the bishop in charge of CANA. Once a missionary wing of the Church of Nigeria for Nigerian Anglicans in this country, CANA quickly morphed into the "y'all come" unofficial Anglican alternative for disenchanted Episcopalians. Now there are reports that the Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network plans to attend the installation.

Katharine Jefferts Schori sent, as any sensible Primate would in the same situation, a brief public request that Archbishop Akinola refrain from this action, as the divisive consequences are already plain for the world to see. Archbishop Akinola's reply to her letter contains no real surprises, although I must confess mulling at length the condescension of his opening salvo and the defensive-sounding repetitive use of "you" and "your," as though he has yet to make it clear enough that he believes the current mess is entirely the fault of The Episcopal Church. It was the usual less-than-charitable tirade: simply a re-run of the same refrains that have been shouted over the Atlantic for several years. Like "Alternative Primatial Oversight," the phrase, "unbiblical agenda" has now become so reified it apparently needs nor deserves further explanation.

Personally, I am starting to find it tiring.

Tell us something new. . .Please.

I am grateful to Mark Harris, who continues to have the fortitude to take on parsing such words. And kudos to Fr. Jake, who calls it straight, pulls no punches, and then deals with the trolls.

Archbishop Akinola, as usual, is getting another moment in the rather dubious limelight as parts of the media and the Anglican blogosphere go ballistic over his behavior and bellicose words directed at our leadership. The schism's our fault. Nicea gets a swift kick in the teeth as no longer applicable. Denominationalism triumphs. Akinola and those who follow him carry the "faith once delivered."

And we will be re-embraced by the Church of Nigeria if only we will repent. The problem with that argument is that Akinola is now making ecclesiastical decisions through CANA that will be profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to reverse, regardless of what course The Episcopal Church takes. The threat of schism is beginning to wear a bit thin, if for no other reason than it has become a de facto reality. More than that, he seems convinced that the House of Bishops in the Episcopal Church have already said all they will say about having a Primatial Vicar for those unhappy with our Presiding Bishop. The September 30th deadline imposed by the Communiqué Akinola helped draft no longer seems to matter.

I cannot help but wonder where we might see the fruits of the Spirit in all of this. It has become one big political show, and Akinola's ego -- whether his own or its projected image in the media or some mysterious combination of both -- parades around the Communion leaving division, threats, and rancor in its wake. Meanwhile, Nigeria enters a new period of turmoil, and the ethical implications of Akinola's apparent obsession with sexuality and The Episcopal Church get called on the carpet. . .in Falls Church, Virginia, no less. (Hat tip to Episcopal Café).

Politics notwithstanding, God probably plans to attend on Saturday, too. I doubt the work of the Holy Spirit will be entirely hindered by our spats. The bishop will be invested. Martyn Minns, Peter Akinola, Bob Duncan, CANA, the alphabet soup of networks, The Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion and everyone else will get on with being church in our usual messy, imperfect, and too often mean-spirited way.

But then, also getting on with it will be the courts and lawyers, pundits and bloggers and trolls.

The only unscathed beneficiary of all this is perhaps Archbishop Akinola's frequent flier miles.

And Global Warming.

Pray for all creatures and people of God whose Christ-given dignity is threatened by our shared pettiness.

Christ have mercy.

Update: Episcopal Café's Lead is reporting that the Archbishop of Canterbury has also asked Akinola to cancel this Saturday's installation.


Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Believing in the Good Shepherd

Sermon delivered at Church of Our Saviour,

Mill Valley, California
on the Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 29th, 2007

Readings for The Fourth Sunday of Easter

audio available

Preaching about the Good Shepherd has always been an awkward task for me. Putting into preachy words the comforting texts that warm hearts the world over, bring comfort in times of grief and trouble, and to speak with some authority and eloquence to the deep places of the human soul might be too much to expect perhaps.

Another reason is that I always feel that I am preaching to the choir. The presence of the Good Shepherd is to speak of the God we know already, even in our bones, even in the face of our doubts and questions – a God whose voice we recognize in all the mysterious and wonderful ways our lives are touched, moved, transformed, and shepherded by Christ.

When I read the comforting passages of today, I’m reminded myself always of the warmth of sitting at home with the colors of evening shining through the windows of the family room, with the rich sounds of music my parents would put on the record player or the old 8-Track stereo system. Of feeling opened to the universe like a flower, but unafraid and in wonder. And calling what that wonder pointed to, “God” and “Holy.”

Most of us know, in one way or another, the voice of the Good Shepherd in our lives. It is often too profound for words, too visceral to fit neatly into oral or written description, and often too intimate to share easily.

Most of us are here this morning one way or another because we’ve encountered the voice of the Good Shepherd speaking to us. Many of us show up because we are seeking, if truth be told, to either recover or build anew the feelings of that encounter. On any given Sunday, and indeed any given day, some of us will succeed. Some of us will be disappointed. Some of us will be indifferent or unsure. But gathering as we do as a people of faith means rekindling that spiritual sense that we are being closely held, guided, and transformed by Someone who knows us more intimately that we know ourselves.

But beware. There are trappings all around that might get in the way. Because we are a religious people, as well. And as such, we can risk getting caught up in things that may not lead us where we wish to go. . .or need to go.

Jesus, we hear in John’s Gospel today, is walking where any good first-century Messiah should be walking, in the Portico of Solomon, the part of the Temple honoring the greatest king of Israel. And, in today’s reading, it is the Feast of the Dedication, Hanukah, commemorating the rebellion of the Maccabees a few centuries before, who had liberated Israel from a repressive occupying power.

In brief, any knowledgeable Jew of the first century would see that all of the signs were ripe for Jesus to launch a similar rebellion against the Romans, now occupying Israel and to whom the Temple authorities were beholden. The Judeans who approach Jesus are certainly not foolish. They recognize the perfect storm of commemoration, location, and shared history, and Jesus’ large following. And so they ask the obvious question about whether or not Jesus is the Messiah, and expect a “plain” answer.

A plain answer: as though plain, bald, direct claims by Jesus about himself would somehow either settle the argument one way or the other. It certainly would have empowered the religious or Roman authorities – most likely to cast Jesus as a wanton rebel.

But, in his usual style, rather than answering directly, Jesus appeals to the witness of his followers, and the powerful and ancient image of the Good Shepherd with all of its potency. Being a political messiah would mean fitting neatly into an already well-weathered narrative. Instead, Jesus appeals to something utterly relational and makes claims on a radical union with God.

The religious authorities are annoyed because Jesus refuses to be pigeon-holed by their notions of what a Messiah should be. They are also irritated by his constant appeals to a radical relationship with ordinary people and the Creator that seems to have life and viability beyond the tightly constricted religious and social practices sustaining the structures of power and control. If we were to continue to read this passage from John’s Gospel, we would find that almost immediately in response, the religious authorities prepare to stone Jesus for uttering blasphemy. The rootstock of violence, as many of us know, is often built upon fear, sometimes fear that wishes to hang on to the security of our own rectitude, the value of our own ideas and expectations. But the rootstock of violence is therefore often found in illusion – like the illusions that our most closely held propositions are somehow correct for all time and universal or immutable and divine, or somehow are key to our identity.

To know and to be known by the Risen Christ is to see so much more deeply than believing in a string of propositions, or, quite frankly, in being “religious” in the ordinary sense. Religious folk, as we all know, can just as easily be co-opted by power, control, and constricted views of others and the world as anyone. Jesus was not calling forth his sheep to merely found a new religious tradition or make his own list of beliefs to be disseminated through his followers. He was out for something much deeper, and it is that depth that our readings about the Good Shepherd and the raising up of Tabitha in Acts speak of today.

As Christians, we are called to believe, to put our faith in, our stock of hope, our greatest love, to direct our doubts, fears, and questions to the Risen Christ and the God with whom Jesus claims union.

Christianity has suffered over many generations its own reductionist sets of immutable beliefs: doctrines often born on the horns of dilemmas and controversies that most of us have forgotten. Of course doctrine does have its place in our midst. But its place is less than primary, for we are not called to worship doctrine, proposition, or mere belief in the contemporary sense of the world. We do not worship putting stock in given historic statements. Our beliefs by themselves simply do not carry enough on their own, if for no other reason, because they are our beliefs – built up around our invariably limited worldviews, born largely on our own, often accidental, location in the universe, with all of the heritage and history that brings with it. Again, that is not to say our beliefs have no merit. But they are a poor copy of what we should hold most dear. And, when our beliefs are at their best, they can only point to the One who holds us dearer than we could ever hold ourselves.

In a moment we utter the Nicene Creed that opens with “We believe in One God.” It is not so much that we assent to a string of doctrine, but rather that we believe in this God, this Good Shepherd, this marvelous Creator who knows our voices before we know them, this Savior who can pick you, me, and any one of us out when we are lost – be it alone or in a crowd – who knows us better than our mothers or fathers know us, more deeply than a friend or lover.

Jesus makes claims far and beyond that of the sort a sensible first-century Messiah would have made. Throwing out the Romans should have been top of the list, but Jesus instead is after drawing people into an extraordinary relationship with their God. Not a relationship where authorities or rules or narrow frameworks of belief in particular ideas stand as proxy for the Real Thing. But an intimate relationship like a shepherd to sheep – where the voice, character, even the peculiar smell, taste, and feeling of God in Christ is immediately available.

It’s to this relationship that we are called through the bread and the wine and the uttering of ancient articles of faith and the sharing of common story in our hallowed Scriptures. Most days will be quietly fighting with each other or within ourselves about what we really “believe.” But if we look deeper than that, we will see that it is the Good Shepherd who matters more. And believing in that Good Shepherd and listening hard for the voice of the One who made us and saves us is our primary adventure in Life. For when we hear, our hearts will be turned, and we won’t be able to help but follow, and then to invite others to join us in the Way.