The Moral Test

Written in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the President’s response...

I’ll leave it to the historians and recognized scholars to decide whether or not America is a nation, a people. But I will reflect here that a famous conservative politician of the late twentieth century once confidently declared that “society is nothing more than a collection of individuals.”

Are we greater than that? Do we aspire to be?

When a man who swears only by the jungle stumbles into the Presidency, we cannot expect him to see society. And nationhood to him is only a collection of individuals who might serve his interests or suit his tastes.

I believe it when a chaotic personality expresses displeasure at disordered chaos in the violent clash of protesters. A chaotic personality instinctively seeks order in externalities: gilded, clean halls as a balm for his internal strife. People doing what they are told, obeying simple, straightforward rules. I also believe it when he can only see disobedience to laws intended to preserve order, and not the deeper moral complexities of human motivation; let alone the philosophical differences between, say, sociopathic nihilism and the socializing instinct to protect a peaceful, dignified, diverse community.

I believe that he cannot understand that, while violence of all kinds must be eschewed, the moral universes of white supremacy and an anti-fascist countermovement could not be more starkly different.

The moral failure of our so-called President over the past five days puts our union — dream or fact — into a level of doubt that many of us have not experienced in our lifetimes. And it reflects a hollow center in our republic that should shock us, at least if there is any hope for this strange experiment in diverse democracy left.

His predecessor, no doubt, would have repudiated this resurgent collective sin of racism without hesitation. As a matter of fact, he already did, scoring the highest number of likes ever recorded for a Twitter post. (That must make the Tweeter-in-Chief most uneasy.) But Obama is no longer President, and so many of us still feel bereft of moral leadership.

But we do well not to neglect the grace-filled question of the moment.

Were Obama still President this night, with his strong rhetoric and erudition, we would be risking at this point letting him speak for us, acting practically as our moral proxy. We would be posting his words, maybe taking up a phrase or two, admiring his clarity, extolling his appeal to our virtue.

And we would risk believing that we had arrived.

He was hated for this very reason. And he rhetorically left little doubt, thus leaving many who were still wandering their dangerous mazes of prejudice and bigotry out in the cold. Now they want back in, and they are angrier than ever.

This is not a criticism of Obama. No, this is a criticism of our king-making, celebrity culture. We want our President to be our ethical and moral proxy, our healer, our great reconciler. We want to be told how to think, how to behave, how to believe. How to get along.

Our most primitive parts want him (or her) to look, think, and act like our most noble imagined selves; or to diabolically justify and focus our darkest, most ignoble impulses.

We want to remain moral children.

This country’s founders worried about centralizing power in the Presidency, and its echoes of crown princes, queens, and emperors and their overweening temperaments and the infantilizing effect they had on their subjects. Like the prophet Samuel, when the ancient Israelites desperately wanted to be like other nations and have a king, the architects of our democracy knew that to ladle so much power, trust, and authority on a frail human being was ultimately a recipe for misery.

Now we have a man who — above most, if not all other men who preceded him in this office — has failed a key moral test.

That is no longer a question, and, yes, it makes him, sitting at the helm of the powers of the State and at the center of a fragile democracy, remarkably dangerous. That we should seek his swift removal from this position of power is also a question beyond doubt.

But the grace-filled question, the critical moral test before us now, is whether we will fall with him into the moral vacuum of the jungle...

Or if we, despite him, will grow up and decide for ourselves whether we are a nation, a society.

And if so, just what kind of society we will be.

Head, Heart, and Hope

Part IV of a Series of posts from attending Epiphany West 2007: Re-visioning Anglicanism, at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California.

I open this post with an apology for the harsh terms I used in yesterday's posting when referring to +John-David Schofield, Bishop of San Joaquin. (I have since removed the remarks, but my regret remains.)

It is far easier to judge someone I have not met, and far easier to blog with snarkiness than to seek face-to-face conversation. The community I currently serve is in the deanery where Bishop Schofield once was priest, and so I inevitably walk in places he once walked and know and love clergy and laity who once labored in the vineyard alongside him.

Anyone who has been following San Joaquin closely the past few years is probably aware that Bishop Schofield has been suffering from ill health. However accountable he should be held for leading his diocese down the road to schism, punitive action should be tempered or even supplanted with compassion. Having met people from the diocese, it strikes me that San Joaquin languishes to some degree from isolation and dysfunction with multitudinous causes. The present situation there is creating profound anxiety, hampering mission, and weighing down gifts that might otherwise be building up the people of God.

Attacking Bishop Schofield does not help and is far outside the bounds of what Christ taught his followers.

I very much doubt he takes the time to read my words, but if Bishop Schofield does, I pray he will hear in this my heartfelt regret.

There is no call for harshness on San Joaquin, but rather listening hearts and deep prayer for their leadership, and for all those who stand in harm's way if the wheels of schism begin to roll. For those who hope for a brighter future there, we must offer all our solidarity and best Christian love.


Democracy and Violence

The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, Rector of Church of the Ascension, Pueblo, Colorado, opened this morning with a remarkable, thought-provoking lecture, The Wound of Division: The Political Character of Fragmented Communion.

Through the lens of his experience as a missionary in Burundi, and the transition there from a military dictatorship to a fragile, infant democracy, Radner tied together a wealth of sociological, political, and ecclesiological perspectives to illuminate the present realities of our global situation and, to some extent, the place of Anglicanism within it.

Dr. Radner is an outspoken apologist for both the Windsor Report and the Anglican Covenant that he is helping develop as part of the Design Committee. He minced no words in stating his belief that "the world needs this, and God wants it for the sake of life."

Concern for life was very much at the heart of his lecture, which examined a phenomenon that is only just starting to receive deep scholarly examination in secular circles: that democracies are frequently birthed in violence. No more true is this than in Africa where, as tyrannical regimes have fallen, an armed populace arises through a free flow of weaponry and newly acquired individual autonomy.

The primary challenge is that autonomy in both new and even existing democracies, if left unchecked, can become uncontrollably violent. Dr. Radner pointed to the stories now coming to light in the Rwandan genocide, where otherwise faithful Christians committed unspeakable atrocities in an orgy of violence. At present, bands of militias, armies with no true national loyalty, and warlords have enormous sway in Central and East Africa. Dr. Radner posited that when all the numbers are in, nearly 2 million people may have been killed at the hands of these groups, many of them formed in the midst of newly born democracies.

While Dr. Radner left the subject largely untouched, the parallels with contemporary Iraq are deeply illuminating. His research into the broader global phenomenon of democratization provides profound insight into the current frustrations of the Iraqi government, the Bush administration, and everyone involved with the situation there. Individual autonomy can only be functional and beneficial in a context of what Dr. Radner calls a "common good," a structure of agreed-to laws that limit autonomy and re-channel it for the benefit of greater society. Individual accountability must be dispersed throughout the democratic society in order for it to flourish.

Into this current global context of rising democratization and coinciding violence, Dr. Radner suggested the Anglican Communion's presence and witness are incredibly important. We have a faith tradition that, at its best, reflects a concern for mutuality and "common good" and dispersed accountability. Moreover, Anglican churches are burgeoning on the ground in places and are heavily involved with the development fragile democracies, like Burundi. (There, Anglican churches are largely in charge, at the government's request, of schools). We therefore have unique gifts to offer these new and renewed societies recovering from civil war and violent upheaval.

Dr. Radner's approach, while thought-provoking, stopped short of speaking at length to the question of autonomy in Anglicanism. I was tempted to read into his words a subtle critique of the articulation of provincial autonomy that plays into the current controversy. But perhaps the Windsor Report makes this argument for him.

He did, however, go so far as to say The Episcopal Church needs to learn that "pure autonomy" can embody death, and that only through death to self do we rise again into the life of community. I'm not convinced that assertion fully comprehends the Episcopal Church's stance in the current controversy. While autonomy has come up as a question, "pure autonomy" does not seem suggested to me by our general solidarity with each other and the concern that our General Convention and leadership has shown for the greater Communion.

But the question remains in the Anglican Communion as in fledgling democracies: how do we honor autonomy without it becoming a self-serving and even death-dealing force in the community?

Dr. Radner expressed his profound sadness over the breaks and schismatic actions that have ended dialogue and engagement in the Communion. Indeed, the path forward he sees -- and I agree with him heartily -- involves a rebuilding of trust. And trust can no longer be cultivated when a relationship is utterly broken.

While invigorated by Dr. Radner's towering intellect, I was a bit unclear at first about how it moved the discussion about the Anglican Communion forward in any thoroughgoing way, except to raise deep questions of what we mean when we consider the "common good" and how we can best contextualize it on the ground. (As The Rev. Dr. Bill Countryman once commented on a paper I wrote, "I found this more discursive than helpful!")

But following Dr. Radner's presentation, I entered some conversations that were very helpful indeed. Part of Dr. Radner's style, it seems, is to raise provocative questions and then let his listeners find the truths in conversation about them.

And he, too, then engaged for nearly an hour with a group of us in discussion. And there emerged some important insights and developments that are under way for us as an Anglican Christians:


The Covenant Design Group

During the discussion, Dr. Radner outlined what is under discussion in the Covenant Design Group, which met last week. Some of this may be old news, and some of it may indeed be news, as I have not been following this process as closely as say, Mark Harris, but here is what Dr. Radner felt permitted to offer in a public setting today:

1. Through study and discussion, the group has generally settled that covenant is understood biblically and traditionally as centered on trust and word keeping. The Design Group is taking this seriously as a modus operandi.
2. There should be nothing "new" in the formulation and articulation of an Anglican Covenant. In other words, the Covenant will be based on agreements and theological expressions that are already extant in the Communion and rooted in Christian tradition. In this case, the baptismal covenant (even as found in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer) is figuring prominently as a resource.
3. The Covenant will not be addressing the particular disputes on the table at present (i.e. human sexuality, women's ordination, etc.) but will rather provide a touchstone for how disputes may be addressed in the Communion in the future
4. Ways of living together in Communion that have been ad hoc in the past may be made more intentional for the future through the Covenant.

I found this hopeful, but I urge caution on drawing too many conclusions at this point, as we bloggers are overly prone to do! I will say that Dr. Radner did seem to make clear, however, that there are expectations, particularly on one "side" of the present mess, that will not be met by this covenant process: namely, expectations that a definitive answer to the present theological controversies and questions of biblical interpretation and polity will be forthcoming. Rather, the group is focused on creating a covenant structure that will help cultivate and engender trust so that further disagreements in the Anglican Communion will have a bounded context in which disputes may be negotiated and/or mediated.

ENS just released a report on the Covenant Design Group


A Question of Hermeneutic Weight

Coming out of this morning's session, I was left with at least one unsettled question about Dr. Radner's approach. He made reference to "bear one another's burdens" in Galatians 6, and another reference to Ephesians 2. Both passages have a great deal of traction in evangelical circles. I note in Ephesians 2: "You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient." Pretty heavy-hitting stuff when talking about accountability.

But I was puzzled why the Summary of the Law -- the heart of Gospel ethics, it seems to me, and certainly a foundational piece of our baptismal covenant -- was never mentioned, nor the word "love" brought into the conversation in any thoroughgoing way.

"Love your God. . .and love your neighbor as yourself," strikes me as clear an antidote to the trouble of unrestrained autonomy in democracy as any, as does Jesus' clear witness of self-giving inexorably combined with a strong sense of personal freedom to articulate and live into the divine truths he embodied. It also contextualizes and even incarnates our notions of truth in the face of our neighbors and our common life with them. "Common good" as an abstraction begs many questions: Whose good? What do we mean by good? And who gets to define what is common and what is good?

And, as yet another reference not made today, non-violence is a hallmark of the best Christian witness centered on the Summary of the Law, from the early Christian martyrs, to Francis, to Martin Luther King, to Desmond Tutu.

Whether Dr. Radner's omission of a central gospel passage highly relevant to the subject at hand was simply an oversight (or I didn't hear it when he mentioned it) or we are seeing Dr. Radner's natural gravitation to the Epistles, or there were deeper hermeneutic reasons behind his choice of Scriptural references, I am uncertain.

Behind my concern about this is that there is a widely-observed tendency in the present controversy on one "side" to favor the epistles and pastoral letters (particularly some of the Pauline and Johannine works) over the witness and Jesus' teachings found in the synoptic gospels.

I wonder if the heremeneutic roots of the current mess have something to do with the differing weight we place on various parts of the New Testament, depending upon our particular perspective. Part of the discussion forward may involve an honest unpacking about what each of us, as individuals and as dioceses and provincial bodies, most gravitate toward when defining our core biblical principles to address ethical questions and how to live together in community.

Solidarity

Dr. Jenny Plane Te Paa's softer voice, lilting New Zealand accent, and gracious presence have been a constant thread running through this Conference. She is a profoundly important figure at the present time, as she was one of the members of the Eames Commission who helped forge the Windsor Report.

She had asked of Dr. Radner in the morning the role of maleness in violence found in democratization, suggesting that the role of women in the process globally might help temper this tendency. This was a profound foretaste of what she was about to express.

This afternoon was her turn to speak to the Conference, as she presented Guessing the Spirit of Global Anglicanism: Perspectives of an Indigenous Lay Woman.

The great surprise was Dr. Te Paa's opening, which far beyond gracious, expounded a love and solidarity that I can only describe as inspired by the Holy Spirit. She had attended our General Convention this summer and commended to us the enormous love, sorrow, and breadth of what she saw there as a very Christian struggle with justice and love in divine relationship.

She expressed in a moving way how many provinces of the Anglican Communion still admire how The Episcopal Church organizes and carries out its mission, and articulated sadness at the way our province has been treated as of late:

• how we have been, along with the Church of Canada, unfairly singled out and patronized in the present mess, and how our LGBT members have been scapegoated in overt and subtle ways
• how several (male) leaders both inside and outside of the Episcopal Church have taken advantage of weaknesses in the Episcopal Church and Anglican structures to forward potentially schismatic agendas and vilify our church membership and leadership, including ++Katharine Jefferts Schori
  
• how the Windsor Report's recommendations against cross-jurisdictional interference have been ignored while it has, at the same time, been used as a punitive instrument -- something Dr. Te Paa has clear reason to take personally
• how in some quarters The Episcopal Church has been conflated with the worst of United States foreign policy, and the complexity of our context has not been properly understood or taken into account
  
• how The Episcopal Church has shown enormous grace and restraint in voluntarily withdrawing from Anglican structures (i.e., the Anglican Consultative Council) at the request of the Primates, and has tolerated and taken care to provide room for internal dissent
  

And, most critically, she noted how historically marginalized peoples in the Anglican Communion have most identified with the challenges we in The Episcopal Church now face.

I was stunned by the incredible love, compassion, and solidarity Jenny Plane Te Paa wove into her words. Her words helped me recognize that, since 2003, The Episcopal Church as a whole has ceded a degree of privilege, let go of some of the numbing effect of our traditional avoidance of taking bold steps, and indeed stepped further -- in many places -- into the embodiment of Christian justice, most particularly at this point for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgendered people.

Struck by this insight coming from an indigenous woman, whose blood ancestry knows oppression, and whose life experience breathes with the battle for identity in the face of institutionalized racism (often, sadly, in the Christian community), I was deeply moved.

I probably didn't invent the word, but it came into my mind and heart and seemed so apt for the Episcopal Church at this point in our journey. We are engaging in "re-indigenization," which might best be described as our reclaiming of the embodiment of Christ in our deepest, most human identity: a humanity that has been disenfranchised in many different ways and suffers violence as we have experienced and engaged in oppressive structures.

Many indigenous people, as I have encountered them, know the deep bonds with the land, the rhythms of the earth, and identity that is profoundly contextual, viscerally felt, and physically manifested. I have also encountered this in my wife, a native of Japan, who, as a woman, grew up in a still very patriarchal and sometimes oppressive culture. This, too, has been my experience with many of my LGBT friends and colleagues. Why? They all have been led by oppressive forces to wrestle hard with their identity and have therefore moved into deep places of self and relationship that many privileged, heterosexual males around the world have not felt the need to reach. From this comes a profoundly incarnational, rooted sense of being. In these deep places of being, as well as in the Other, we encounter God in Christ.

Likewise, oppressed peoples everywhere have had similar experiences. I am approaching the language of resurrection here. It is found in the deep truth articulated this afternoon by Dr. Te Paa in how the Gospel breathes transformation, liberation, and new life most directly into the situations of the down-trodden, the voiceless, and the oppressed.

By shedding some of our long-standing privilege in the Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church, wittingly or unwittingly, has moved as a faith community into a more vital position of identity. . .identity with those who most easily embrace, internalize, and embody the Gospel. Our Spirit-led movement towards this re-indigenization, while incomplete at present, promises to revitalize and empower our ministries in ways we can only begin to imagine.

* * *

Dr. Te Paa offered in her stirring paper several vital suggestions for a way forward for the Anglican Communion:

• continuing to offer each other a generous patience as we move through this conflicted time
  
• articulating and understanding our common faith as one that transcends our particularities, but is expressed in and through them
  
• confronting and calling out, in relationship with each other, the racism, sexism, and other prejudices that keep us apart
• making restorative mission for the world our shared priority, which, as we engage in it, will create room and context for us to explore our disagreements
  
• recognizing that the dismissing of native cultures, the appropriation of native lands, and the stripping of native peoples of their livelihoods is a major component of church history and restoration and accountability must be our Christian response to this legacy
• moving beyond the distortions of identity politics -- the most visible context of our current disputes. This privileging of secular politics in our present discourse should undergo thorough theological scrutiny.
• living into the profound truth that baptismal water is thicker than blood. We are, first and foremost, Christians with a common heritage centered around Jesus Christ
• forming coalitions of soldarity against all forms of oppression
• setting aside the desire to create new structures in favor of real, tangible engagement with each other as a way to renew our appreciation for one another as people formed in the image of God

Many of us were moved to offer Dr. Te Paa a standing ovation.

I will close this post with one thought. It has been much too rarely noted that most, if not all of the powerful, visible, and strident voices of the present mess are male. We have a history as Anglicans of male-dominated decision-making and power-brokering processes. Yet our churches, for centuries, have been cared for and nurtured in the day-to-day incarnational reality by women, so many of whom have remained unknown or forgotten by history.

After hearing Jenny Plane Te Paa this afternoon, if I am certain now of anything, it is that all of us will find ways forward by watching, listening to, involving, learning from, and engaging with our sisters in Christ at every level in the great diversity of the Anglican Communion. They may well together hold the key to our shared future and show us a new way to raise up all that is good, beautiful, and divinely inspired as a worldwide body of Christians witnessing to the Risen Christ.

Part I: Anglican Romanticism
Part II: A Mess of History
Part III: Claiming the Re-visionist Label
Part V: Beyond Modern Anglicanism

Water into Wine

Sermon delivered at Church of Our Saviour,

Mill Valley, California
on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

January 14th, 2007

Readings for The Second Sunday after Epiphany

audio available

Reading John is always a bit like dropping a coin down a well and waiting for it to land. Things are always deeper than they seem in John, more full of meaning, and layer upon layer of profound theological insight and a careful investigation of words must be gotten through before we hit bottom. . .if we ever hit bottom. . .if we ever hear that coin finally break the surface of the water. And that we may not is only John’s invitation to us into that awesome mystery that we call God.

Today’s gospel reading is famous for many reasons: it is the first miracle Jesus performs in the Gospel of John; it is the first public event he attends following his baptism and the gathering of his first disciples; it is the first appearance of his mother in this gospel. And it often is read and understood as a holding up of the virtues of marriage by Christ.

That is a curious part of our tradition as Christians, actually, since the bride and groom remain unnamed and, in fact, barely enter the story. Instead the focus begins with a curious exchange between Jesus and his mother – sort of a picture postcard of first-century Mediterranean family dynamics leaving us to wonder what kind of relationship John is trying to paint here. Is Jesus finally exercising his authority as a grown adult? Or is he revealing his mother’s faith? What sort of tone of voice does Mary really use when she says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you”? We might hear there a mother throwing up her hands in exasperation after hearing such harsh words from her first-born. Or a woman of profound faith and pride in her offspring placing hope in what he is about to do.

And then a peculiar exchange occurs as Jesus asks water be brought, and it changes into wine. It might sound at first to be some kind of fancy Messianic parlor trick. Maybe even a bit self-aggrandizing. But, this is John’s Gospel. Nothing is as it seems.

I have to chuckle a bit at the chief steward. Of all the people in this story, he is the least aware of what is going on. Sort of like a parish priest. We are often, sometimes sadly. . .the last to know what’s going on. Perhaps we deserve no better. The chief steward can only remark to the bridegroom that social protocol has been broken, but in a wonderful way. . . the best wine is served last. . . the standard order of things is turned on its head. . . We never hear the reaction of the bridegroom, although it seems Jesus’ actions have saved his honor. In his culture, the wine running out early would have been an almost unrecoverable disaster.

So it is the disciples who see that in this sign, a remarkable opening is made for the coming of the Reign of God, an opening for a new reality has begun to appear in a most unexpected place and way, and their affection for Jesus grows.[1]

While sitting in a jail in Birmingham 44 years ago this spring, Martin Luther King, Jr. composed a letter[2] that has become among the most legendary documents of the Civil Rights Movement. It was not written to a President, a Congressman, a Senator, or a state Governor. Nor was it penned to a mayor or a local official who had sway over police and policies in the deep South where Jim Crow and segregation were still alive and well.

It was addressed by Martin as a member of the clergy. . .to members of the clergy: namely eight, white Alabama clergymen, a number of whom were bishops, including one who was Bishop Coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. One of ours, you might say.

They were upset by Martin’s leadership of civil disobedience, and his messing about with the order of things. . .especially, it seems, in a place that he didn’t call home. The way to settle the issue of civil rights for African-Americans, they argued, was through the courts and negotiation – through timely, ordered, process.

In other words, the African-American community needed to just wait a little bit longer for the slow wheels of bureaucratic process to work it out. Funny thing is, they’d been waiting for 340 years, as Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote to them.

Sometimes the people in charge just don’t get it. Changing water into wine, performing miracles that open eyes and liberate people is a vocation not just reserved for Jesus Christ, but given to the entire Christian Church. And it’s a messy business. It doesn’t follow the cut-and-dried rules or timely processes or the expected channels of jurisprudence and legislative debate. It involves, rather, bold action that will empower those who are least empowered, and strikes at the heart of old evils with a powerful and life-changing love for those who have been most oppressed.

This is what Martin Luther King, Jr., saw from a prison cell that those sitting in their comfortable offices could not. A man who helped lead a people out of despair and centuries of indignity. . .A person who, even in the face of death threats, stood up to the powers and principalities of systemic violence and racism. . .this man whom we now can see, with the benefit of hindsight, was upholding not only sound American ideals, but deeply rooted Christian principles. . .and this is why we remember him this weekend.

Martin was in the business of changing water into wine: bringing about an impossible transformation to help those whose dignity was threatened, following closely in the footsteps of Christ. And so we should follow.

We live in a world still very much torn by strife, violence, and oppression. We are marked, many of us, by privilege that was not of our own making. But we carry it nonetheless and have responsibility for how we live into it or choose not to. . .how we reach out to those in need with tender hearts and be ourselves transformed. . . or too often take the easier road of self-protection, benefiting directly or indirectly from the structures that continue to weigh down the least among us – this matters deeply to the heart of God and demands much of us.

Martin Luther King put it this way in his letter:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, 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.

Martin Luther King, Jr., went down still struggling against the forces of oppression. We are invited by his legacy to pick up the struggle again in our unique situations as 21^st-century Christians, being constantly on guard against oppression of all forms and facing down the attitudes in our hearts and communities that demand we wait rather than act.

And Martin Luther King, Jr.’s witness even speaks to our recent and ongoing controversies as a greater Church over human sexuality. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he writes about the sin of separation, and what the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber called substituting the “I-thou” relationship with “I-it,” the denigration of a different kind of person to someone. . .or something. . .less than fully human. We are called instead to seek and serve what our baptismal covenant calls “face of Christ in all people,” the “dignity of every human being,” and that foundational vocation of Christianity in loving God and “loving our neighbors as ourselves.”

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we have not arrived yet as a Church. Jesus has not yet completed in us the miracle of changing our bland waters of complicity into the fine wine of everlasting life and salvation for all God’s children. There is more to be done. I leave that for you to ponder this weekend in Christ’s name, and in the name of Martin, one of his beloved disciples, even as I bid you rest and wish you peace.

* * *

Before I close my sermon today, I want to address a very pressing sadness that has been on many of our hearts and minds this past week, and share with you another understanding of what it means that Jesus changes water into wine in today’s Gospel.

Last Monday, a friend and classmate of several of our youth, Clive Barry, tragically took his own life. Like the chief steward in today’s Gospel, I was the last in the know, hearing about it only this past Thursday and barely waking up yesterday to the impact this has had on our children and families. For this, I apologize, and I pledge to you that I will be more attentive to the life of this community in the future.

The loss of someone young, no matter what the circumstances, is an incredible blow to the soul and the heart. Even as I preach now, Este is meeting with our youth to open up conversation over this painful tragedy in our common life, and we have pledged to keep our doors open, cell phones on, and lights lit for anyone who wants a place to be heard. . .even if it is only a safe space to articulate those hard questions that seem to have no good answers.

We pray today for Clive, his rest in the infinitely gracious heart of God, and for his family, and for all those who have been touched in small and great ways by his death.

And I invite and encourage you to continue taking time this weekend to turn to each other and listen more intently than usual, to set aside the hectic business and pressures of our common life. . .a common life that is too often built on competition rather than compassion. . . and seek ways to rekindle and more deeply reflect that deep, honest love that we all yearn for in each other.

Do this all the more urgently if you have children. Our children are under enormous pressures today, and they need so much more than good grades and extra-curricular activities aplenty. They need our deepest sympathy and hearts attentive.

The water of tears in this community speaks to the heart of the Gospel and the heart of Christ. Tears shed for a terrible loss. Tears shed for pain unspoken and fears unhealed. Tears shed at the pain of lost conversation, a lost life, and that awful, hollow sense of things left undone.

It is the water of those tears that Christ turns to in us and in each other this day, and will turn with a tender touch into the joyous wines of eternal life, never leaving us in despair, and saving the best ‘til last.

Hold that hope for each other as you pray and embrace each other: that hope for healing and a sign of God’s greatness given to God’s people for troubled times and troubled hearts.

My sisters and brothers in Christ Jesus, may you continue to search for and find peace and may we only become a community of greater love for those in need. And I thank you for the humbling opportunity to share this journey with you, in good times and in bad.

Amen.

---

[1] Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998. pp. 66-69

[2] http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Another MLK weekend sermon may be found at John Kirkley's meditatio, thoughts based on the "I Have a Dream" speech are over at Fr. Jake's, and Tobias Haller offers a brief reflection from The Bronx.

White, Straight Happyness

This afternoon, my wife and I slipped away from our three-year-old son, leaving him with his loving grandparents so we could get a break for a few hours together. . .
. . . climbed into my parents' Jeep
. . . did a bit of shopping
. . . stopped by the local Micky D's for a snack
. . . drove to the local movie theater

And chose, because we had a choice, to see a remarkable film, The Pursuit of Happyness.

Now, before I continue, let me put a few things into perspective. This film stars Will Smith, easily one of the most well-known and successful African-American actors in Hollywood. His and the movie's are the story of the American Dream, that belief in the cultural water that somehow, with enough determination, sweat, and toil, people can pull themselves up by their own merit and achievement and become successful in the world's eyes. The movie is set in San Francisco -- home for us -- and a beautiful, most enviable part of the world to live in . . . its beach fronts, bridges, parks, and great restaurants. . . despite its out-of-sight housing prices, visible homelessness, and clear and seemingly intractable racial and socio-economic divisions . . .

But if this is all you are willing to see, please give this movie a miss. Because then you will have not prepared yourself to look beneath the good marketing and Tinseltown big bucks. And you can get those in just about any film these days.

What moved me to tears in The Pursuit of Happyness was not the classic American success story it told with all the clever drama of fine writing, directing, editing, and acting.

What moved me to tears was its patient, plaintive reminders about privilege.

Namely, white, male, straight, wealthy privilege: the often forgotten weight that holds much of the nation's and world's population safely in check for those who can take the food on our tables, a house, a family, a car, and a bank account for granted.

But before I go on some self-righteous tirade, I need to remember who I am.: a priest in charge of an Episcopal Church in Marin County, California, one of the wealthiest parts of the world. So I'm not high on the socio-economic strata there, but I can take for granted things that billions in the world, millions in this country, and many of my colleagues in ministry -- lay and ordained -- must struggle and fight for. I'm white, straight, male. I have an education. I was fortunate that my parents were both educated. We're not enormously wealthy, but we're quite comfortably middle class, no matter what the media says about the squeeze we all supposedly feel.

The genius of the Pursuit of Happyness is that it illustrates how a $5 cab fare for a European-American (straight, I would guess) stock broker is a last meal on a plate for a struggling African-American family. How a mother working double-shifts has to pour back into the pitcher the tea her family didn't drink at dinner. . .if only to save a few pennies. How she is forced to make awful choices between her sanity and being with her child and the child's father. And how spluttering platitudes like 'cause Jesus said won't, in a million years, do a thing to overcome the stress and keep her family together.

Or how a wealthy homeowner with power over millions in pensions can blithely turn down the business offer of a penniless intern and at the same time invite him to prime seats at a 49ers game. How a poor man has to hide his poverty simply to be seen. And how a guy at the office is asked repeatedly to get coffee for his supervisor or move his car for him, simply 'cause this guy at the office. . .is black.

We drove home after the movie and enjoyed a nice New Year's Eve dinner. Daniel had the privilege, and he doesn't even know it as a privilege yet, of refusing to eat what was presented him because he's not hungry. On Monday, I can enjoy a day off without worrying about making ends meet. On Tuesday, I have the privilege of flying with my family back to San Francisco without breaking the bank. On Wednesday, I drive over the Golden Gate bridge back to my office and get to grab a bite to eat from the local market without worrying if there will be enough for dinner later on.

We might not be able to afford a house near the church, but we can look for an apartment, and we can generally afford a roof over our heads, quality childcare, healthcare, and food on our plates. I can afford to worry about whether the hymn we picked or not was the best choice, how I'll best prepare for the next committee meeting, word smith my next sermon, or consider when to plan my next vacation. And then go home and watch TV.

Being white, straight, and male, I can walk away from the struggle for LGBT inclusion in the life of the Church. I can also end a pastoral meeting when I deem it necessary, schedule pastoral visits when they fit in my calendar, and attend to others' needs mostly when I feel like it. And I might just have a chance of getting away with it most of the time. Simply because I'm the one with privilege, I can choose which "issue" or "cause" to be most invested in. And I can walk away, because I don't have to struggle with my whiteness, my straightness, or my lack of power.

Don't get me wrong. I love my work. I feel called to be where I am. That's why I call it a vocation. I love the people I am in ministry with, and I have no intention of leaving them.

But. . .

Tonight, countless throngs in the world will be hungry. Another young man will pick up a gun in Baghdad because there's no work. Gay and lesbian Christians will be turned away from the sacraments of the church, or worse, told again that they are an abomination. A woman will be informed with kind, patronizing tones that she can't be clergy because of her gender. Someone will be turned down for a job because he doesn't look like us, or because she didn't have the right educational opportunities. Someone will receive a bill from the IRS demanding payment of taxes due and try to balance that with paying for needed medications, keeping food in the 'fridge, or making back rent payments. And a homeless mother will have to spend another night under a bridge hoping that Child Protective Services or the police won't take away her children. . .because there was no room or them at the inn.

Do I feel guilty? I'll answer that for now with another question. Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things how I feel?

If there's any valid criticism of ++Katharine Jefferts-Schori's call for The Episcopal Church to adopt the Millennium Development Goals, it's not because it's too much to ask. It's too little. 0.7% is a luxury for us. Frosting on the cake. An extra day out or a dinner or two.

Yet it means clean water, an end to hunger pangs, medicine for a year in a village, a fertile field, or a subsistence job in many parts of the world. Closer to home, it means another month's rent, more food in the 'fridge, or even better schooling for those who don't otherwise have access to decent education. It means another chance for someone who's without hope tonight start to move forward for a more stable future for their families tomorrow.

And we could give so much more than 0.7%, not miss that weekly latte or the dinner out, and still have more than enough for ourselves and our children.

Guilt is not the issue here. Justice is. Right relationship with our brothers and sisters is. Recognizing the gift that we have and sharing out of it, even giving it away like we should with every gift we have. . .these are at issue here.

My resolution for the New Year is to wake up to my privilege, and get to work on the Gospel.

This is a Gospel mission for us white, straight, happy males: to turn our power into good for those who don't share our privilege. . .to cash in a bit more of our privileged "happyness" and power so that others may have a chance at peace and true freedom. To do our part in dismantling the structures that give us our privilege at the expense of others. To begin learning that we, too, are limited people with real needs that money and power cannot buy.

Still blinded by my privilege most of the time, I don't yet have a real clue how to move forward in this Gospel mission. . . only inklings. . . but I pray for a clue. . . and I already know two things:

It will be hard, 'cause Jesus said so. But we have to do it. . . 'cause Jesus said so.

Order and the Holy Spirit

a sermon for Pentecost

Episcopal Innovations

Throughout the past three years of conflict in our denomination, a question has haunted me. John Kater, who was one of my professors at CDSP and remains a close friend once posed to me the current debate over human sexuality in the Anglican Communion in the form of a simple question: “Can God do something new?”

Last Sunday morning, I was catching up with opening office mail when I happened across a tract written by Peter Toon and published by the PBS. When most of us hear “PBS,” at least if we’ve grown up or raised children or turned on the TV in the past thirty years, we think of public television. This was most certainly not that. It was a tract paid for, published, and delivered – timed, it seemed to coincide with Anglican Communion Sunday – by none other than the “Prayer Book Society,” whose board includes Bishop Keith Ackerman of the Diocese of Quincy, a Diocese where I attended church and taught Sunday School for a time as an undergraduate.

On the cover was the shadowy silhouette of an unnamed bishop, looking to me rather menacing, and the title read loudly: “Episcopal Innovations: 1960-2004.” I didn’t have to guess what the book was about. Over the next few days it bounced between the recycling bin and my desk as curiosity wrestled with my fatigue over the late, great argument in the Anglican Communion.

Despite sophisticated theological language, “Episcopal Innovations” pulls no punches in its assertion of its understanding of orthodoxy. I could not honestly bring myself to read word for word, cover to cover, but the gist from what I read was clear: since the 1960’s, the tract goes, the Episcopal Church has been in a downward spiral, consumed by the “liberal” inclinations of the broader culture, overcome by feminism, liberation theology, the quest for civil liberties, a welcoming of diversity, and other so-called innovations. This is all connected to the church’s turning away from the practices and theology of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and turning towards the apparently unfathomable (read: heretical) theology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and its progenitors.

The current crisis in the Anglican Communion, it explains, is precipitated by the Episcopal Church’s heretical march away from being “Reformed Catholic,” and the hierarchical order that should come from that identity. It was this hierarchical order that apparently was more the foundation of our culture before the 1960’s. And this order was important, we are told, because it was the construct that shows us the place of God, men, women, and children in the church, in the household, and in society. The text pointed to the dominance of masculine imagery and the patriarchal cultural milieu of the Bible and posits these as evidence of how God made things – the order we have been charged by Christ to preserve.

The natural conclusion of the tract was clear. With the battle lines drawn, it issued a thinly veiled threat. The current state of crisis in the Anglican Communion, it suggests, is our fault as Episcopalians in the context of the United States, and we are now approaching the brink of decision at our upcoming General Convention. . .one that may necessitate the formation of a new Anglican Province in North America, with the remaining Episcopal Church out of Communion and continuing a decline towards the abyss.



Worlds of Order


I was slightly stunned. . .not that I hadn’t heard much of it before. The Bible was indeed written in cultural universes of hierarchical, patriarchal order. Here are samples of the biblical cultural understandings of the world, in broad strokes:

As hard as it might by for us to imagine, the world, flat as it was perceived, hung in the balance between heaven and the underworld. The sky was a dome beyond which dwelled the domain of God on His throne. Spirits and angels, both divine and demonic, broke God’s hierarchical order and wandered the landscape of humanity. Men were the center of society, the power brokers and holders of wisdom and knowledge. Women’s identity was valued only in relationship with her husband or family. Children were chattel, useful only as far as they were economically beneficial by assisting with the work of the father, or being sold into marriage when they were old enough.

Echoes of these cultural perspectives have come down the ages in various forms – some benevolent, others not so: from the feudalism of the Middle Ages to the dominance of Popes, to the scourges of slavery, the prevention of women’s suffrage, and the abuse of child labor.

But back to the tract, if indeed the Episcopal Church decided in the future to turn the clock back, as we are apparently supposed to do if we are to remain “orthodox” and in God’s good graces. . . shut out women clergy, and toss the ordination of homosexuals, children receiving communion, and the host of other “innovations” of the past forty years out on their ear – well, would I, as the young, white, straight male (a dreamboat, it seems, of the old orthodox hierarchy) want to stay?
But that led almost immediately to another even more painful question. Would I be allowed to stay even if I wanted? There are many places we could turn back the clock to in our “Reformed Catholic” tradition. If we turn the clock back far enough, my marriage would be suspect, imperiling my ability to remain an ordained priest. Some of you may remember the anti-miscegenation laws of a prior generation. They touched the life history of the Christ Church community in some profound and sad ways. They prevented marrying across traditional racial boundaries, including Asian and Anglo. That was another way of preserving order, quite defensible by at least one scriptural passage I can think of. And then I wonder, what would that make my son Daniel, a child of Japanese and Anglo ancestory. . .disordered, perhaps?

In yet another two striking examples, not so long ago, anti-Semitism was justified using an “orthodox” reading of scripture, including our hallowed Gospel According to John. It took the Holocaust to finally convince Western Christianity to come to grips with centuries of our evil abuse of the Jewish people. Turn back the clock another few generations, and we might, if we wish, defend slavery with biblical authority.

This is not to suggest that Peter Toon or anyone on the other side of this debate in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion would utter something terrible about my son, want me deposed over my marriage, or attempt to validate the Holocaust or defend slavery. I certainly hope not! My argument is only this: anyone can talk of preserving a particular kind of order in the name of orthodoxy, Scripture, and in the name of God, for that matter. The question remains: How do we as people of faith evaluate which claim to order is correct?




The Coming of the Holy Spirit

Today is Pentecost. And we are celebrating the birth of the Church: the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And we turn to our story today from the Bible. But not for instruction on how to reconstruct a hierarchical culture, but for the story itself. And today’s story, with apologies to our sister and brother Anglicans who are considering making a break for the door right now, is most certainly not about order.

It is, I believe, about the chaos of transformation. In Acts, before the Spirit arrives, the scene is reasonably peaceful in Jerusalem. The disciples are gathered together in a room – the old order is still in place. And they receive the crazy gift of language, finding themselves suddenly intelligible to people from all over the Mediterranean. Every conceivable mark of decorum and order is lost. The scene is chaotic enough to encourage some of the observers to wonder if the disciples are drunk, but the strange wonder of the event leaves its mark.

The Gospel of John tells the story from another viewpoint – the doors are locked, the disciples gathered, and the old order, the old way of understanding time, space, and the universe itself, is suddenly disrupted by the appearance Christ among them. He gifts the amazed disciples with the Spirit and calls them into the awesome responsibility of forgiving sin.

In both stories the disciples of Christ are drawn. . .driven even. . .out of the old order and into the world to boldly proclaim the Gospel. What follows is the formation of the Church, and all the controversies, arguments, sweat, and toil that come with it.

The Spirit from the very foundation of our history as a Church answers John Kater’s question that I shared at the beginning. Yes, indeed, God can do something new. And God is. And it’s not always easy to understand. And it most certainly is not always ordered. Certainly, we may not all agree with what God may be doing. Perhaps, I daresay, God may not be “orthodox.”

This is Good News of Pentecost. What binds us together with our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion around the world is not order, or even a particular way of understanding the Bible. What really binds us together is Spirit – God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit that we all were touched with in baptism and in our constant turning back towards it.

Here's our "heretical" 1979 Book of Common Prayer theology: our baptism calls us – through God’s Spirit, we believe – to honor the dignity of all people. . .to recognize and truly honor Christ’s face in men, women, children, gay, lesbian, straight, ordained, lay, Asian, European, African, American, rich, poor. . .in our tradition, or out of it. This diversity is inherently disordered, but is made lovely and embraced by the coming of the Holy Spirit. Through this Spirit, God in Christ is creating a new order – what we as Christians often call the Kingdom of Heaven or the Reign of God. It cannot be fathomed by any one of us, but God forges it in the heart of our communities of faith, and each of us has a gift from the Spirit to bring to this new creation.

Pentecost is the way forward for our Church. The 2006 General Convention, which begins this coming week, is likely to be a bit messy – less ordered than many would prefer. So will be the fallout for the Anglican Communion. Some of our brothers and sisters will love their own sense of order and hold their understandings of scripture too dear to stay. Others will find room in the great Spirit of God to remain in the diverse, disordered community of the Spirit, staying present and seeking deeper life even in the strong, conscientious disagreements about the way the world. . .and the church. . . should be. And together we will continue sharing the Good News of a transformative, compassionate God who breaks the old orders and makes the world anew.

Seeing Blindness

As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stood still and said,"Call him here." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart; get up, he is calling you." So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said to him, "My teacher, let me see again." Mark 10:46-51

Today, as I was preparing to post last Sunday's sermon online, I felt brought up short by several of my glowing statements about the election last weekend.

I had just returned to the office from a hard-hitting meeting with the leadership of the ethnic and multicultural communities of the diocese and our new bishop-elect. Bishop Andrus and the Standing Committee had called the gathering at St. Augustine's, Oakland, when concerns were raised about negative rumors and inuendos on the convention floor about some of our nominees for bishop.

We had publicly glimpsed the hurt stemming from this "talk" last Saturday in an article about the episcopal election in The San Francisco Chronicle. But that was only a glimpse. The disappointment was more widespread and was still deeply felt a week later amongst people of our diocese whom I have, over the past four years, grown to profoundly respect.

Talk is talk. Inuendo is inuendo. Rumor can be just that. In this case, there was no substance behind any of it. Nor was there any evidence of conspiracy or impropriety. But to us, the "talk" that had stirred up so much pain was still rooted in the painful reality that, while we have come a long distance, we still all suffer from our enculturated preference for white, straight males in this diocese.

Up until this point, I had been sorely tempted to stand behind all the assertions of last week's sermon and my experience of the election as God's truth.

Truth is, the pain I was witnessing was helping me realize there was a smugness that had crept into the text of my sermon. . .a smugness rooted in my being part of the dominant class and culture of not only this Diocese, but our country. . .of my being straight, white, and male. . .and of being "liberal" and, frankly, in a bit of denial because of it.

I had been operating out of a sense shared with many in the diocese that I had arrived, because I'd been "doing the work": living in a cross-cultural marriage, having attended the anti-racism training, laboring shoulder to shoulder with the men and women from all kinds of backgrounds in the leadership of ethnic, multicultural, and "mainstream" ministries of the Diocese.

The sense of arrival had led me to an arrogance. . .and an unwillingness to acknowledge that some of our worst biases had still played a role in our election. . .even in a Spirit-filled convention of a diocese that has prided itself on being enlightened and able to move beyond such sins. I was reminded again today that these sins around race, gender, sexual orientation, and class are slippery, subtle evils connected with our broken nature -- ones that I realized I am sorely tempted to deny in our church and in myself where they still have an active role in my worldview and relationships.

The word that came to mind about my state was "blindness." When I saw it, I was led back to the story of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who asks Jesus to restore his sight. Blindness is a common theme in the gospels, and I have begun to understand one reason why. Without steady vigilance and a healthy dose of God's grace, we are often blinded in all our human finitude. Even if we sport 20/20 vision, our everyday environment and the always limited scope of our experience is forever wooing us into insularity; to build walls that bar us from understanding others; into a blindness of the soul.

Today, our powerfully honest discussion of the heart with each other and with Bishop Andrus began to break into my settled sense of arrival and restore some broader sight, revealing to me again the wounds we share as a diocese, and beginning a transformative healing rooted in the depths of the Risen Body of Christ.

Like Bartimaeus, as a people gathered, we took the bold step of calling upon the Christ of Truth, manifest in the gathered community and in our lives, nourished by the sacrament, welcomed by open ears and hearts, to restore our sight of the greater world in one another: our sight of the truths we each hold, including our unique stories of pain, joy, and hope.

~~~

Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way. Mark 10:52

Jesus tells Bartimaeus to "Go." With my eyes opened to the pain connected with the election that I had not or could not see at the time, I was tempted to let myself get stuck in guilt, shame, blame, and anger. But that was not the call of today's meeting, nor the vision many in the room were presenting from their hearts.

Instead, having spoken out of our sense of the truth of what had happened, we began plumbing the depths for hope . . . our hope to seek the path to wellness. We reconnected with our firm willingness to continue moving forward in the difficult, exhausting task of unwinding the power of "isms" from our church's life.

Bishop Andrus was still to be our bishop. There seemed to be a profound and renewed understanding that the Holy Spirit had indeed led us in the election last Saturday, despite the "talk." We were ready to forge ahead with vision, seeking with our new bishop an ever brighter future for all peoples of this diocese.

Like Bartimaeus, I felt called by Christ to go, get on the road, and follow. Restored sight is no excuse for staying put. There can be no sense of arrival. Now that I can see that, at least, back to work. . .and, I hope, better work with clearer vision.