The Unraveling Plan

Clarity is a curious thing.

While cause and effect relationships are probably infinitely more complex, there is a deepening sense that the schismatic and belligerent agendas across the Anglican Communion are beginning to sour in strange and unexpected ways. The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops statement last week raised a renewed standard of internal integrity and charitable language towards those who are our greatest detractors. The response has been less than charitable, but far from unified. The clarity of the HoB's statement itself seems now to be shining light into previously dark corners of half-hidden agendas and bullying, sending some scurrying for cover and not finding very much of it, and yet others having to face up to the reality of their words and threats.

Real concerns are emerging over the plotting process that led to the form the Primates' Communiqué took. Fr. Jake has just posted this rather disturbing witness of the Primate of Mexico. The Primates' credibility as a body is taking some serious hits even from within.

Results of the listening process, called for nearly ten years ago by the same Lambeth Resolution that has been so ballyhooed in recent years, 1998.I.10, has resulted in a wide variety of responses from the provinces of the Anglican Communion. There is clear indication of the priority now being given for pastoral care for the dignity of gays and lesbians in many provinces -- a step forward, perhaps. By contrast, the glaringly uncharitable and damning view of the Church of Nigeria is now posted in all of its ugly glory for the world to see -- including Nigeria's House of Bishops' and Primate's support for the pending anti-gay legislation so roundly condemned internationally. CANA churches in this country, under the authority now of the Church of Nigeria, are out of explanations for householding with this point-of-view.

Thinking Anglicans has a thorough round-up here.

It appears to me now that the Communion is not divided so neatly that a schism over human sexuality is inevitable or would, even if it came to pass, result in any clear delineations. In fact, it would probably be a gargantuan mess. Images of masses of Anglicans charging over the hill in the name of their true Gospel give way to images of an unruly and angry mob. Perhaps that's appropriate for coming Holy Week.

Adding to the messiness is the just-announced attempt of the vestry of a large parish in Colorado to pull their community into CANA, and bringing back a rector, The Rev. Don Armstrong, at the helm again -- following a three month inhibition as accusations of his misuse of finances were investigated. With this attempted departure, the Diocese of Colorado will certainly and sadly have their hands full, but Armstrong does not lend credibility to the CANA cause, nor does he make a good character reference for the cause of those seeking schism. Fleeing to CANA effectively attempts to evade his accountability, on the ecclesiastical side at least, to what is now a substantial charge of malfeasance.

Dr. Ephraim Radner, closely allied with Armstrong, has been pushed hard over his connections with the Institute for Religion and Democracy and offers an emotional response to the House of Bishops meeting that sounds thoughtful but doesn't appear to me to be really rooted in fact. If anything, his pleading at Camp Allen at best effected very little for the cause, and at worst only helped the House of Bishops look more closely at the scheming and machinations of the Network in conjunction with the Global South Primates. Katherine Grieb's insightful witness to the Covenant in light of the Communiqué at the House of Bishops meeting stole the show, shining significant light on the scurrilous plots afoot.

Update: Fr. Jake has a round-up of a number of important documents that highlight the history of the plotting.

Jim Naughton is right: the credibility of the Covenant process, which Grieb and Radner helped author in the name of unity, is now on the line. So is that of the Anglican Communion Institute, which Armstrong led and of which Radner is a part.

The Network leadership remains oddly quiet. (That might or might not last long.) Apparently there was not serious consideration given to the potential for such a clear and resounding statement from our House of Bishops. . . or perhaps now that the game has been called, it will be time to play the much threatened departure card. . . but to where? With lawsuits over property churning and the potential for others looming, nothing is looking all that rosy right now, and from this end, it seems the Network is not as organized in thinking or direction as once thought. More unhelpful to their cause is that some old Network allies in the House of Bishops voted for last week's statements and have been singing its praises since, not to mention the praises of our new Presiding Bishop who shows more and more gracious colors.

And, in the light of the listening process report, the Archbishop of Canterbury makes a mildly surprising sort of appeal for the safety of lesbians and gays in churches across the Anglican Communion. It is a clear achievement of understatement, and not terribly compelling. But it is enough to cast at least a little more doubt on the Church of Nigeria's position. I wonder how Archbishop Akinola will respond. More threats, quite frankly, would fit the pattern thus far.

Clarity on the part of our House of Bishops helped bring some health back to the Communion. Bullies, in good Anglican fashion, are being gently hemmed in. Christians are being asked to speak to each other honestly with charity more worthy of Christ rather than resort to threats, escapism, or coercive power. And mutual accountability is being claimed and offered where mutual accountability is due.

This is, of course, far from over. And there are surely ugly days yet ahead. . .

But now we see the schismatic plan as it begins to unfold. . .

Or unravel might be a better word.

Preparing for Contemplation

Sermon delivered at Church of Our Saviour,

Mill Valley, California
on the Fifth Sunday of Lent

March 25th, 2007

Readings for The Fifth Sunday of Lent

audio available

This past Friday was usual for me: too much to do and less time to do it. I imagine many of you know what I mean. We live in Marin County, after all, where many of us work in ways that demand more than 100% much of the time – often in stressful occupations in high-end fields where staying on the cutting edge matters more at times than our own sanity.

It is true also, that in American life these days, wherever we find ourselves in the workplace or the organizations in which we are called to serve, more is being demanded of less. And being pretty well-educated “Left Coast” folk, we often have a hunger for more information, more knowledge (because, as we all know, knowledge is power), more awareness, more erudite arguments and opinions from the stock market to politics to the weather, and a faster, more efficient way of being who we are and doing what we do.

This is a self-indictment more than anything else, so forgive me if you’re well ahead of me on this. Let me know if you are and give me the chance to sit at your feet and learn!

It is true to the American spirit that we are what we do. That good old Protestant work ethic that hounds us whether we are Christian or not, Protestant, Catholic, atheist, Buddhist, or just spiritual. And so, being a good all-around young American guy with a family to support and eyes on the development of the church I serve, I was busy nipping and tucking whatever I could into my schedule as so many of us do this past Friday. And then racing off to see my spiritual director, over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, barely noticing the beauty of the day, let alone my own hunger for more than just racing from one appointment to the next.

After seven years, my spiritual director has me sized up pretty much the moment I walk in the door to the narrow library where we meet. We sat down, and he started this time. . .

No “How are things going?”

He took out his notebook and said that during his reading and reflection this week something very clear had come to mind – worth writing down and sharing.

He paused momentarily, while I ticked off the seconds in my mind. There was so much to talk about. What our House of Bishops did this week that made international news. Who was being good and who was being bad. How things are going at Church of Our Saviour. Whether I’ve been attentive to the Daily Office as I should be. How many times I’ve committed to the spiritual practice of lectio, and whether or not I’ve been spending enough time with my family. Time to check in on my performance. . .

“The antidote to our obsession with productivity,” he said, “is contemplation.”

“Then,” I replied with a grin, “I need more medicine.”

* * *

With Jesus six days from Passover, and, following John’s narrative, six days from the crucifixion, Mary enters, lets down her hair and cleanses his feet with a most expensive jar of perfumed ointment, worth a full year’s wages. The scene is almost as sensual as it is scandalous – a woman who humbles herself to anoint the Teacher’s feet with her hair down – totally submissive, giving herself over completely to this strange and wonderful man who raised her brother from the dead.

In another story in Luke’s Gospel, it is Mary, you will remember, who sits at Jesus’ feet to contemplate while Martha scurries around hurriedly preparing the meal. Here in John’s Gospel, it is Mary again who throws all decorum away, and all considerations of propriety to prepare her savior’s body for burial. She contemplates in action and posture the journey that is to come – something the apostles even can scarcely comprehend though they flutter around Jesus right now as moths around a lamp.

It makes me uncomfortable to contemplate. It made Judas uncomfortable, too – for many reasons beyond his cynical appeal to put an end to the scene – an appeal to the devotion Jesus has demanded to serving the poor; to relinquishing worldly things for the sake of those in need. Cynical, because, as the author of John tells us, Judas had his own hand in the disciples’ common money. But even more cynical perhaps because the terrible thought is that with all his power as one of the twelve chosen apostles, he is shown up by a woman’s utter humility before Christ.

It is always remarkable that many of the greatest Christians at the very beginning of our tradition are not men, who were instantly endowed as they were with prestige appropriate for their gender and culture and named apostles. No, among the greatest Christians at the very beginning were women. Jesus’ appeal to women and children, the poor and broken, the sick and the marginalized, is as radical today as it was in the first century. Those already powerless “get” the Kingdom of God first. In today’s Gospel, the apostles are lounging around the table in good first-century fashion pondering Jesus’ words like good disciples should. Judas is calculating his own agenda and pride. But it is Mary who embodies true faith – that faith true Christians through the ages, men, women, and even children have emulated:

A faith that sees Christ’s death as part of the necessary journey.
A faith that sets aside all personal ambition and relinquishes everything before God.

When we meet a soul truly humble before God, all of our imaginings and machinations of power are shown up and laid bare before the light of Christ. We ourselves are humbled, and sometimes even scandalized as Judas was, terrified to behold the pettiness of power and control that dominates our lives and ambitions.

It’s for this reason that Christianity’s call has always and will forever have a very uncomfortable relationship with power, and a terribly difficult time with domination. Jesus’ call is not to the oppression of others or even self, but picking up the cross and walking the path of humility and a relinquishing of power until our bare selves are completely open to God’s transforming grace – the only power that truly matters in the end.

In today’s new Testament reading Paul writes to the Philippians that, for all of his success in attaining to the strictures of the Law of his birth, for all of his placement in the inner circle of the saved – by accident of birth and then by the sweat of his own brow – when confronted with the Gospel of Christ, he sees all his achievements as nothing . . . mere garbage is the way he puts it in language both shocking and illuminating.

There is no room for pride in the Christian faith. Nor is God so worried about our productivity, Paul is telling us. At the end of the day, what’s done is done. In a way, Jesus tells his disciples as he quotes Deuteronomy: you will always have the poor with you, meaning, it seems to me, there will always be more to do tomorrow.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, we are all harried these days. In another week, we begin to “contemplate” those mighty acts of Jesus that are the very root of our tradition. Have you stopped yet to contemplate anything this Lent? Even if it is something that the world regards as trivial?

How about this: As I was drafting this sermon last night, I stopped momentarily to contemplate a single red lego Daniel left sitting next to the mouse on the computer desk. The lint on the carpet. For a moment to be just like the lego or a piece of lint, borne on the apparent randomness of existence; a cosmic accident or perhaps a divine event.

We Americans are impatient and rarely have time for such “fluff.”

But it is there that our true spiritual life begins and true vision emerges.

Consider Mary yet again in today’s Gospel. Martha is busy again in the kitchen. But Lazarus has been raised from the dead! Mary somewhere, sometime, must have truly contemplated this indescribable act and recognized Jesus for who he truly was. And suddenly the miracle of new life and the strange, upside down grace of God – where an innocent and holy man must die, where the Son of God must endure the cross; where life must be gained, but only through death; where the greatest gifts in the world must be given away; where the best thing we can do for ourselves is forget ourselves. . . Mary understands all this and honors it – with expense beyond her means and with every last shred of her own dignity and pride.

Prepare for Holy Week with that kind of upside-down faith where in order to win you must lose. In order to get ahead, you must quit the treadmill of productivity – if only for a brief moment to reclaim your true humanity in Christ. Notice again the mundane in all of its primordial and vivacious, divine beauty. Stop to see, breathe, listen, and feel again. And find Christ, as you break your own pride – costly and precious – over the feet of the one who saves you. The one who saves you through his death, burial, and new life.

Looking Forward

I spent Thursday morning with one of our parishioners at a diocesan Millennium Development Goals summit. Bishop Marc was there, along with Sheila Andrus, still fresh from South Africa and TEAM 2007 with eager stories to tell (and Bishop Marc was barely off the plane from Camp Allen). So too were John Kirkley, Sean McConnell, John Kater, Julia McCray Goldsmith, Michael Barlowe, Anna Lange-Soto and other good friends (and mentors!) in the blogosphere and Diocese -- Sally Bingham of CIPL fame, and yet more of our many wonderful leaders from around the Episcopal Church in the Bay Area and the School for Deacons, and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

So we talked some about Camp Allen and the House of Bishops statement. Bishop Marc has now posted a letter to the Diocese.

As a Church, we are now more focused on the future. . .and what we share in common with the Anglican Communion and greater world: the aching heart of Christ in the ravaged places of the world and creation, yearning to move out from under the power of disease, death, and degradation.

Mark Harris has a simple, but great proposal up right now on his blog, quoting the White Rabbit. I'll let you go to his site to see it for yourself -- but I almost snatched it for my blog. It's messy and perfect. It says it all. It's the way forward.

Small Ways in a Big Matter - UPDATED

Updated March 24th, 2007

Jim Naughton has received word suggesting that legislation in Nigeria, making any organizing for or by gay or lesbian people a crime with a penalty of imprisonment, has once again been delayed. Archbishop Peter Akinola of the Church of Nigeria has publicly supported this legislation, and was reportedly lobbying Anglicans in the Nigerian government now for its passage. Still no public response has been offered that I know of by our Anglican Communion Primates. A wide range of national and international groups oppose the legislation, from Human Rights Watch to the U. S. State Department, on the grounds that it violates essential human rights and undermines Nigeria's own constitution.

Canon AkinTunde Popoola, Director of Communications for the Church of Nigeria, in a comment at Thinking Anglicans writes simply this in response to criticism for the church's support:

"I do not think speaking publicly against the bill will do the Gospel any good in our context."

My question: Whose Gospel are we talking about here?

David Mac-Iyalla, long in hiding for threats on his life for standing up for LGBT Christians in Nigeria, also released a statement yesterday. (Hat tip to Jim Naughton)

For more background:

Matt Thompson is watching at Political Spaghetti. Mark Harris reflects on the discussion of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council on the matter, and the New York Times published an editorial on the legislation. Also read the an editorial in Time, following up on an article on Archbishop Akinola several issues prior. Our House of Bishops only obliquely referenced the matter in their statement from Camp Allen on March 20th, but Bishop Catherine Roskam addressed it directly in the media conference immediately after, condemning any acts that inflict violence -- legal or otherwise -- on LGBT people.

Still asking what you might do?

Matt offers recommendations. I called my representative and senators asking for their attention to this matter, with the hopes that they might help bring appropriate pressure to bear.

Please continue to pray for Archbishop Peter Akinola, for Davis Mac-Iyalla, and for all LGBT people in Nigeria. Please also continue pray for the countless in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, who suffer from the degradation of hunger, disease, inter-religious violence, governmental corruption, and the pollution caused by international drilling for oil along the Nigerian delta. Would that the focus of the Anglican Communion turn wholeheartedly to these pressing needs rather than get caught up in the scapegoating of some of our sisters and brothers.

It strikes me that none of us, regardless of where we stand on the question of human sexuality, can stand in favor of draconian legislation and death threats that undermine essential human dignity. The Gospel witness is that Jesus stood for and with all who were considered sinners in their own place and day when their lives and dignity were threatened. As Christians, we can do no less.

Four Thoughts!

Three posts from Jim Naughton and one from Mark Harris and the commentary that follows caught my eye yesterday evening and this morning:

1. The property issue wonders how much avoiding nasty litigation over church property may have played into a number of our leaders' considered move away from brinkmanship and the Primatial Vicar proposal put forward by the Primates' Communique. I don't see this necessarily as cynical. Surely almost no one, regardless of theological position, wants Christian mission hanged on expensive litigation. Jim suggests that this question coming to the fore might have been an unintended consequence of the Communique.
2. A challenge asks what can be done to better hold the Anglican Communion together, short of the current leanings towards greater power for the Primates. It brings back an old rule of participating in a fruitful visioning and planning process: If you don't like the suggestions on the table, do you have an alternative to offer?
3. Putting on my Frank Luntz hat. . . very wisely posits that "polity" is an arcane, churchy, and most unhelpful word for public consumption. With apologies to Richard Hooker fans (I count myself as one), I agree.
   
4. Mark Harris also remarks on Bishop John Howe's gracious pastoral letter, and raises a suggested change of canons to forestall what we just saw happen in South Carolina. In a comment I raised a hypothetical concern -- but in a most overwrought way. Apologies to Mark! But other comments seem to support his suggestion. For all you "canonical wonks" out there. . .