The Final Resort: To Hope for Hope

In the Faith section of the Saturday Kansas City Star, two articles caught my attention. The one article was about the growing number of part time and unpaid clergy positions, featuring a number of those in the Episcopal Church including Mark Marmon, a fly-fishing instructor and unpaid Episcopal priest (or nearly so),Hitchcock, TX of All Saints’ Church.  The other article was about the growing phenomenon of “culture” rather than faith practicing Jews. “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” by the Pew Research Center indicates that 62% of U.S, Jews surveyed found their Jewishness in cultural values and 15% about religious belief. And then on the same page, a far smaller few lines was on endearing quotes from Pope Francis, ones of solid, humble Christian faith witness. On the next page over, the number of advertisements for religious service occupied 15 to 20% of the printed areas whereas when I first moved here in 2001, probably 75% of the page was ads, if not more. . .

The landscape of the national and global religious environment has been shifting in my life time since the 1960’s, but the last ten years has been “fast forward.”  In my own Diocese of Kansas, we just have inaugurated a seminary in Topeka serving these very same part timers for all of Kansas, West Missouri and  Nebraska for occasional and monthly courses, much like what has been happening in Texas for some time. Of course just about all Christian denominations are facing the part time ministry phenomenon because many of our and all denominations’ lay persons are more or less part time themselves, just trailing the Jews and Europeans in general but moving down the same decline. And now occasionally we see the once stellar mega churches folding, as we have locally, as their slice of the lay pie was always based on numbers of folk whose commitments were never really very long term and where no work was ever much done to create reserve trusts or endowments for those inevitable “lean years.”  And many established, endowed congregations have withered their reserves for “keeping up appearances” as Mrs.Bucket used to do on her British tv series. My former parish of St. James in Wichita had a trust that I did much to protect of about $1.8million when I left in ‘01 and now has something over $400,000, but that loss is hardly unique among many congregations, dioceses and adjudicatory bodies. General Seminary and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC are commercializing good size chunks of their land to hold out for “better times,” as 815 2nd Ave. rents out about ¾’s of its space. Many years ago, I was talking with  a major fund raising company about St. John the Divine whose research profile of it indicated that by the 1980’s much of the new money they got for projects came from Jews,not Episcopalians, who understood the cultural importance of that institution while wealthy Episcopalians had grown weary of various social tirades coming from the Cathedral location. What an interesting turn of social identity, secular Jews supporting our institutional grandeur. Well, better that than nothing to say the least. . .

I am certain some sort question must be arising in the mind of the reader concerning toward what the writer is pointing. The writer is not certain either. . . Some days this author’s very human feelings are so confused by the many turns of events not only of the Church but of the many levels of American governments that seem hell bent to self destruction, of mindless but sober drivers looking at their phones swerving in front of me in full daylight, of my own issues about aging leading toward those concerns around my own “last days.” I just wonder, pray and do what may at last be the final resort of a spiritual journey. . . surrender myself to the will and grace of God as I have tried to understand it through the Christian witness of my beloved Episcopal Church. .  . I hope to find hope. And you?

The Diocese as the Fundamental Unit of the Church?

I first heard the notion of the diocese as the fundamental unit of the church back in the 1980s from my bishop.  But I never heard a reasonable theology that supported his claim.  Practically, I recoiled at this absurd idea thrust upon the church by the bishops who had, under this rubric, either lost touch with reality or suffered form significant amnesia.  Anybody with any sense knows that the fundamental unit of the church is the local congregation.  The local parish is the place where the people are, and as we all know, the baptized faithful are the church.

I tried to find a theology that justified the Bishop's idea.  I "googled" theology of diocese" and came up with nothing.  But I do believe that I remember correctly that the notion that the diocese is the fundamental unit of the church arose accidentally from the 4th century Roman political organizational system.  After Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, the church continued to flourish and grow, and therefore, needed to organize itself to fit the growth.  The church thus adopted the Roman form of administrative organization which was the diocese.  An early definition of the word diocese means to dwell, occupy, manage, derivative of oikos house.

In the New Testament the first churches were house churches, relatively small, probably attended by no more than 50 people.  Think about that when we consider that an early definition of the diocese was a derivative of the word "house."  Jewish Christians also met in synagogues.  As the church grew, they used bigger houses and some of them were donated by wealthy Roman citizens who were Christians.  This made them "churches" in the modern sense of a public building set aside for worship.

The early church in the British Isles had no diocesan system.  Celtic Christianity was organized around a monastic tradition where the Abbot was more powerful than the bishop.  This was a spiritual community united through a communion of friendships and alliances between spiritual leaders and their monasteries.  The diocese as an administrative principle in British Christianity was not adopted until after Augustine of Canterbury arrived on British soil in 597 A.D., establishing sees at Rochester in Kent and East Saxon (London).

Parish priests and their people know that the local parish is the fundamental unit of the church.  This is where the baptized faithful assemble for worship, prayer, discipleship and ministry.  Our catechism puts it this way:  The Church is described as the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head and all baptized persons are members.  It is called the People of God, the New Israel, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, and the pillar and ground of truth.  This basic statement says nothing about organizational and administrative structure, but to me implies that the local assembly is the organizing principle of the body.

While the diocese is the traditional judicatory style of Anglican and Roman Catholics, there is no practical or theological justification for the notion that it is the fundamental unit.  Ecumenically it doesn't hold water either.  The Methodist are organized in conferences.  The Lutherans have their Synods.  Ecumenical charity demands that we recognize these and other Christian organizational structures as just as valid as the diocese.

What planet are the bishops who believe this living on?  The local parish has always been the fundamental unit of the church.  This is where the action is.  If the local parish did not exist, there would be no diocese.  The diocese depends on us, not we on them.

The Bishop Speaks from the heart

Long ago (1992) and far away (Arizona), I became bishop of a diocese with 65 congregations and a lot of issues. I worked very hard and visited all of the congregations in one year as was expected of me. This required me to have more than one visit each weekend. Sometimes I had one visit, sometimes I had two visits and sometimes I had five visits. I was in congregations on Saturday and Sunday. I did confirmation in each of the congregations.

After that year, I was exhausted. I did it another year. After that year, I was exhausted and I did not like confirmation any longer. I would go to some churches and confirm 20 people, 50 people, 8 people, and sometimes 1 person. I thought there has to be a better way.

We began to do things which had not been done elsewhere. We reduced the size of the diocesan staff to 1 bishop, 1 Canon to the Ordinary, 1 archdeacon (a deacon), 1 secretary, 1 finance person, 1 communication person and 2 general staff persons to take care of the phones and assist others as needed. We eliminated 5 staff positions. I believed we were not responsible for doing things which congregations could do for themselves. We were there to serve the congregations.

We became stewards of the finances. I declared at the diocesan convention that we were going to tithe the diocesan budget. We were going to return 10% of all of the diocesan assessments back to the congregations. Most people thought it would never happen. I was determined that it would happen. We looked at some of the things we were doing as a diocese which could be done easily by congregations and we stopped doing them. There is more to this story, but for the sake of blog I will tell you that at the diocesan convention the next year we presented an envelope to each congregation at the offertory (we did not take an offering) which was 10% of what they had given to the diocese as assessment. We returned $140,000 and these people were stunned. The smallest check was $38 and the largest was $18,000.

From that moment on we were about the business of being different from any other diocese. It was not a competition. It was about freedom and excitement. It was about believing that anything we could dream, we could do. And we did it. If there is interest, I can share more in future blogs.

Now, back to confirmation. I told our clergy and congregations I was exhausted by the schedule and I intended to try something new. I asked if they would help me. The response was positive and we began to do regional confirmations. We started on the Saturday after Easter and concluded on the Saturday before Pentecost. They were big celebrations with hundreds of people. They knew it was something important. They knew they were part of something larger than their parish. They knew the reception after the liturgy was for them and not the bishop. It was wonderful. We did it for another 10 years.

The point is this. It is quite easy for us to find reasons why we cannot do something. It is easy to keep our heads down and tread through life. It does not have to be that way.

My colleague, Gary, made a case for merging neighboring smaller dioceses under a single bishop. The first comment I heard was that it cannot be done because the bishop could not go to all of the churches in a year.

It is not a requirement that the bishop is in every church every year. It is not a requirement that the bishop do confirmation every week. If we want to be a little frisky, we could even ask the bishops to vote to turn confirmation over to the clergy.

I will speak only for myself. I would vote to put confirmation in the hands of the clergy because it is not necessary for the bishop to do this. It is not admission to anything which requires those hands. As a matter of fact, it makes more sense to me to recognize the laying on of hands of the priest at baptism of a child or adult as being “the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ's Body, they Church and inheritors of the kingdom of God”. That is it.

This is no longer the entry into communion as is was in my life. We now say confirmation is a “sacramental rite” which is a mature commitment to Christ and the reception of “strength from the Holy Spirit through prayer and the laying on of hands by a bishop”.

There is no reason for us to think the Holy Spirit is only available from the bishop. I know we have always done it like this and I know lots of bishops really feel the need to have something which only they can do, but I must say, it does not make any sense and it does not make a bishop.

I know I have a different perspective than many bishops. I saw my role as being Teacher, Preacher, Evangelist, and Sign of Unity. That is what I chose to do and I let that lead all of my actions. I was never thought of as a leader among the bishops. I was never invited to say a prayer or lead a worship in the House of Bishops.

I had a wonderful time being bishop in a wonderful place. I have many bishop friends. But for now, I am just a blog guy with a sense of hope.

Via Media Metaphysics

A. William McVey

 

In this postmodern culture, where more and more people describe themselves as spiritual as opposed to religious, I hear “something” statements like, “Well, there must be something there. There must be something that explains life. I mean there has to be something.” Usually, such statements are immediately followed by declarations that the person is definitely not religious. Furthermore, the same person seems to have a certain arrogant scorn for any previous religious formation.

It appears that very few seekers of the spiritual “something” are conscious that Western religious scholars have, since the time of Greek philosophers, been concerned about the nature of the “something” of the universe. The Greeks looked for a permanent and foundational reality to believe in. In other words, they were looking for the foundational something of the universe which they called “Being.”

                It was Aristotle who insisted the metaphysical quest for the divine comprehension of the universe is found only in grasping the essence of the universe. Knowledge of the divine “something” is known by means of understanding the workings (the causation) of the universe. Eventually, this metaphysical teaching of Aristotle, with the development of medieval philosophy, became the foundational truth for theology and spirituality; Thomas Aquinas calls it the analogy of being. Up to the present day, Martin Heidegger continues to reconstruct a modern approach to the issue of the “Something of the Universe” with a new methodology of Phenomenological Metaphysics in the classic work Being and Time. In this modern work, the thrust of Heidegger’s metaphysical inquiry is about the essence of Being as it is disclosed in time.

 The metaphysical has become in the age of modernity no longer the pursuit of the unchangeable nature of the universe; rather it is an inquiry into humanity’s divine destiny. The “Something” has become a question of what is the foundational truth that must drive the universe and human consciousness. For Christian philosophy, it is the Catholic expression of metaphysics that has been extremely important. Scholastic theology has, for example, relied on Christian metaphysics to prove certain truths called the preambula which are presupposed before revelation and can be considered reasonable and possible.

  I want to draw attention to the issue of a needed Anglican metaphysics because we do have our Catholic side.  I suggest in our Episcopal journey of hope in a postmodern culture that we give serious attention to philosophical theology and a neo-scholastic approach to metaphysics. My argument is based on two Episcopal basic philosophical and theological pillars of identity. First, we describe ourselves as a hermeneutical community who hold that God is revealed through a triad of scripture, tradition and reason. For this approach to revelation to have validity we must borrow from the Catholic scholastic philosophy. In other words, we must have an Anglo- Catholic foundational preambula if we are serious about the place of reason within the context of revelation.  Note I am using reason here in the sense of a methodical dialectical pursuit of a metaphysical foundation for theology, especially spiritual theology, in an age of radical postmodern skepticism of foundational truth. The second pillar of Episcopal inquiry into the nature of God’s continuing revelation is the path of the via media (the middle way). It is John Henry Newman as part of the Tractarian movement who coined the phrase Via Media. It was a concept used within the parameters of doctrinal theology that saw Anglicanism has the middle path between a Reformed and Roman Catholic doctrinal theology of revelation and ecclesial authority.

Anglo-Catholics have strongly assumed the via media identity not only in matters of doctrinal theology, but we seem to apply it to all controversial issues. Personally, I find continuing via media identity extremely promising for our Episcopal journey of hope.  Consequently, I am defining via media as a practice of more than live and let live, or we agree to disagree because this thinking is not an exercise of profound reasoning. Via Media might serve as the basis of an Anglo Catholic, neo-scholastic metaphysics that opens up new avenues of dialogue within the Catholic and Evangelical community, and simultaneously provides our Episcopal  theology with the real heft necessary in an age when the conversation once again is about the spiritual nature of Being (the Seeker Something).

I propose that there is the beginning of this philosophical theology in the American philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce.  Some have called Pierce the American Aristotle, but I like to call him the American scientific scholastic.  His philosophy was tremendously influenced by scholastic realism, especially the works of John Dun Scotus. From this starting point, Pierce began a reconstruction of religious metaphysics to a scientific or cosmogonic one.  It is metaphysics about the divine nature of the universe becoming manifested and real over time. It is really metaphysics of more is yet to be revealed. “I think that the existence of God, as well as we conceive of it, consists in this, that a tendency towards ends is so necessary a constituent of the universe that the mere action of chance upon innumerable atoms has an inevitable teleological result. One of the ends so brought about is the development of intelligence and of knowledge; and therefore I should say God’s omniscience, humanly conceived, and consists in the fact that knowledge in its development leaves no question unanswered.” (The Essential Pierce, P. 236).

Pierce’s metaphysics is a method of painstaking and persistent inquiry into the movement of the universe and human conscious to foundational truth.  Humanity in its questions, disputes, opinions, attitudes, theories and tests is driven to a final compromise and opinion. Human beings at their best are driven in intellect, will and soul to the final truth of the universe through a type of dialectical via media inquiry.  Rosa Maria Perez-Teran Mayorga writes that Pierce’s metaphysics “…claims that  the drive towards a consensus about things is as much an actual force or law or power as the gravitational one; it is a tendency that guides thought in one “fated” or determined direction-the truth…the very fact that we engage in inquiry presupposes that we will be persuaded by the right kind of evidence to accept the correct answer… according to Pierce there is some predisposition, some occult power… we are destined in the direction of truth, so given enough time, we look likely to arrive at it. It is a real fact that there would be a final option were the investigation to continue long enough.” (From Realism to ‘Realicism’, The Metaphysics of Charles Sanders Pierce, and p.145)  Finally, I take it that Pierce is a Via Media type person, and there is a Via Media metaphysics that gives Anglo-Catholic theology real heft and sustaining power in our Journey of Hope.

 

 

                               

 

Is Redundancy Immoral?

by
Gary Gilbertson
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Congratulations to the United Methodists of Kansas and Missouri.  They openly acknowledged the population movement from rural areas and the resulting decline in the number of Methodist churches in the two states.  So like good stewards, on August 23rd, they merged three Conferences:  Kansas East, Kansas West and Nebraska, into the new "Great Plains Annual Conference"; please note that they will still have over 1,000 Methodist churches across the two states.  So why merge?  Their answer:  "Our hope is that we'll be stronger, and able to do more in mission by uniting than we could as three smaller conferences."

The Episcopal Church also has three jurisdictions in the two states:  the Diocese of Nebraska, Kansas, and Western Kansas.  Could they not be stronger and do more in mission by uniting into one rather than continuing as three smaller jurisdictions?  The reality of rural to city movement and the decline of the number of Episcopal churches is as true of us as it is for the Methodists.  Even with merger the two states would have only 129 Episcopal congregations with many in the waning moments of life:  50 congregations (39%) have an average Sunday attendance (ASA) of less than 20 members, another 35 congregations (27%) have an ASA of 20-49.  At the National level 68% (4,580) of our congregations have an average Sunday attendance under 100 members; in Nebraska and Kansas 66%of our congregations have an average Sunday attendance under 50 members.

Why have three bishops?  Why have three diocesan staffs managing similar programs for so few congregations?  If the Methodists can service seven times as many congregations in the same geographical area, why can't we Episcopalians centrally manage 129 congregations in the two states?

Repeatedly lay-persons suggest the reason we can't merge is the lack of leadership in our bishops and senior clergy.  To be fair one of the bishops involved did offer to take one or both of the other dioceses under his wing; nevertheless, when was the last time any bishop challenged a diocesan convention to make merger a major priority?  When was the last time a parish delegation pushed legislation for merger?  The remnant Diocese of Quincy did retreat back into the Diocese of Chicago last month but that was a move based on financial desperation and not mission; in any case, it is atypical.

If we used the Methodist example of 1000 congregations as a decent basis for a new jurisdiction - the Episcopal Church in the United States would have only seven dioceses instead of the 100 we have now.  The National Church listed just 6,736 congregations in the last reported year of 2011 and that was down 58 churches from the year before; hundreds of these congregations have no priest at all and hundreds more have only part-time clergy - this in spite of the fact that there is no clergy shortage in the Episcopal Church.  So why do we need 100 Episcopal dioceses and staffs that are inefficient, or worse, that incompetent that we need so much redundancy?  The Methodists merged to be stronger and do more in mission.

What keeps the Episcopal Church in Kansas and Nebraska from actively working toward merger?  What keeps the other 97 diocesan bishops from actively working toward merger?  The most common answers do not focus on inefficiency or incompetency but rather that our most senior leaders are "territorial" - "empire builders."  If this is accurate, it is a sad commentary that those entrusted with leading the Church are actually about keeping dominion over their domain.  As Author David Gibson says, "An organization that was born as a divine kingdom...and flourished by donning the trappings of monarchy does not yield easily to retrofitting."  Granted, many in Episcopal Orders are dedicated and committed but many others are aloof and their ministry lacks accountability and transparency; one respected university historian put it this way, "...a betrayal of fidelity enable by arrogance that comes with unchecked power."  That may be too strong but it is time for renewal and reorganization.

History teaches us that change will not originate from those with Holy Orders; it must come from "ordinary" lay people who, face it, have little leverage in a voluntary organization that is proudly defined as hierarchical.  Nevertheless, if the Episcopal journey forward is to be one of "hope," the key is in the hands of the laity.

Part III: Where's the Hope (Now)?

About 1990, then five years after the final closure of the Venture in Mission Office in the Office of Stewardship Development, as Executive for Stewardship, I began to realize that there was waning interest in supporting stewardship as the main work of the Church from the Office of the Presiding Bishop (Browning). Ellen Cooke, the Vice President and Treasurer of the Episcopal Church and later awarded with five years of prison for her embezzlement at 815, removed from us The Stewardship Report newsletter with the never fulfilled promise of comparable space in Episcopal Life. Then we lost the income from our materials that had been held in a special fund from which we did research and development as we actually made income and were market driven by selling products that congregations actually wanted and used. Through a rather complex organizational/political maneuver the office of stewardship was broken up and dissolved into “offices” controlled by the Rev. Bill Caradine who came in with Bishop Stowe as VP for Mission under Browning about the same time. While the changes were not especially obvious publicly at first the key element that was removed was the source theology of stewardship out of MRI and its replacement by an evangelical theology based on “making a safe place” for people to come to tithing or at least percentage giving. That model prevailed inside the facade of a year round stewardship approach for many years and was finally incorporated into the fine work of The Episcopal Network for Stewardship.

The importance of the change is that stewardship as the main work of the Church had at its core a deep commitment to leadership development based on personal and systemic transformation of the institutional church into “new creations,” and ones that by bringing hope could help the local, diocesan and national bodies become capable of maneuvering into mission projects that had local authenticity and effectiveness. Unlike most of the work of the staff offices of  the Church Center, the Office of Stewardship was itself constantly able to be responsive to defined needs we got from our “customers,” the clergy and people who were leading stewardship and needing our support. One our products, a video which people asked for to help them understand what “815” and the general Episcopal Church actually did in missionary efforts was nominated for an Emmy in the early ‘90’s. We had discovered that no one at 815 actually had consolidated a full listing of all mission projects in one way or another sponsored by “our dollars” because the staff was more interested in their own programs.

Once the center core of leadership development and commitment was removed and an evangelical approach inserted, then stewardship education slowly became more and more about personal giving and just a few steps later about institutional maintenance. When the statistics are  compared to the timing, it is becomes clear that MRI/VIM modeling of mission growth where new projects, new people and new money emerged was replaced by an increasing cascade of losses, institutional angst, “issue” orientation and demands for greater conformity around them. In short, the Episcopal Church became very self absorbed, much like an ill person who is less able to focus on anything or anyone except themselves. The hope was gone.

So now, in the chapel of the Episcopal Church Center, the following program is being offered: It’s All About Money! Fund Raising Symposium-- September 26 and 27, 2013 designed to meet survey results. Perhaps it does not sound that noxious until the whole core theology is seen in historic perspective. . . Where’s the hope???

When My Rector (Pastor) Resigned

I have been ordained 52 years.  My spouse and I have attended and belonged to two different Episcopal Churches since I retired at the end of the year 2000.  We've been in our present parish two and a half years.  During this brief period of time it has been my privilege not only to mentor my priest but also to become his friend.  Even though he is seven years younger than my youngest child, I thought of him as a son.  We became very close and when he let me know that he was leaving I became very sad.

Several weeks ago I had a hunch that it was time for him to update his resume and personal profile, and I was going to talk to him about this at our next luncheon.  Then the Rector called me the Sunday before to tell me that he was going to resign the parish and take a position on the staff of a Diocesan Bishop.  It was then that I shared with him that I thought it was time for him and his family to move on.  Now then, was this the Holy Spirit or mere coincidence?  I like the idea that it was the movement of the Spirit of God.

I moved several times during the 40 years of my active parish ministry.  Each time I felt a measure of sadness and grief because I had made good friends with several members of each parish.  I missed them for a brief period of time, and many of us remained friends throughout our lives.  But I also had the energy and the drive to start up a new ministry in a new place and make new friends.  Therefore I moved on to my new set of relationships without a prolonged period of grief about leaving the old parish.  The point here is that for me, leaving a congregation as a priest is altogether different than being a parishioner and losing your priest.

Now I know the immediate sadness of losing a priest AS A PARISHIONER.  Sure, I know about the Kubler-Ross stages of grief and I've pastored many folks over the years as they coped with their losses.  And at my present age of 76 I've had to manage several acute losses in my own life.  But the sadness I feel in the loss of my young priest is surprising, startling and somewhat amazing.  I can't believe that it is happening to me because I am deluded enough to think that I'm immune to such things.  But the truth is that I was really unprepared for the grief that I felt precisely because I am a member of the parish.  At last I can truly identify with members of the parish and I truly understand what they are going through, because I am going through them myself.  I also understand in my head that the feelings of grief that I bear are perfectly normal even though it surely doesn't feel good.  Because of this my empathy for the congregation is acute.

Sometime soon the search committee will start a ministry to look for a new rector.  But now is not the time to begin.  The members of the congregation need time to process their feelings.  As a trained interim I know that this is true. As a member of the congregation I know that this is true.  As an experienced parish priest I know that this is true.  Frankly, I'm clearly not ready for a new priest.  But with God's help and the help of other people in the parish, I will process my feelings of grief.  I will reach a stage of acceptance, just not now.

I will trust that the Holy Spirit will guide the vestry and the search committee.  But I really hope that they and the diocese do not rush into it.  As my friend and fellow blogger Gary Gilbertson says, "that's a recipe for disaster."

The Bishop Speaks of Love Redefined

The Bishop Speaks of Love Redefined

Last Sunday my wife and I recognized our 50^th anniversary of a life together. It is a wonderful time to reflect on our journey, to gather with our family, to be blessed in the worship of the church, and surrounded with the support and love of the community.

It was not a blessing of our marriage. It was a blessing of our relationship.

A friend of mine once started a sermon by saying: “I have some bad news. A terrible case of burnout has forced a sabbatical, if not full retirement of the word Love. It is in grave danger of becoming meaningless, and it needs a rest.”

I agreed with him, but before we completely jettison the word, let's try redefining it. Let's try to make love more than feelings of euphoria or just a word which is applied to almost everything from marriage to pizza and almost any thing else which one might imagine in between.

In the early 70's, a chaplain at the University of Maryland wrote a song. I do not remember the words, but I can still recall the title. “Love is a Verb.” The point of the song was to help people stop thinking of love as a feeling, and to begin to see it as a relationship.

That which we do with one another is what love is about. The way we trust, the way we are open, the way we show our vulnerability, and the way we accept the good and bad of our partners – this is what love is all about.

In one of Flannery O'Connor's short stories “Good Country People”, she describes an angry, bitter young woman. Originally she had been named Joy, but as her hatred for the world increased, she changed it to the most ugly name she could come up with. The young woman called herself, Hulga.

Hulga had a wooden leg. As the story unfolds, the reader comes to see how much the wooden leg had shaped her life. She was ashamed and embarrassed, hurt by what life had done to her. She did not find herself to be loveable, and therefore she was unable to love anything or anyone else.

In the story, a man comes to town, charms Hulga, and eventually talks her into having a date. As the story unfolds, cynical, tough Hulga finds herself trusting this man enough to do the unthinkable. She performs an act of love. She takes off her wooden leg and shows him where it is attached.

It is a strange story with an even more strange ending, but it points to something which is true for all of us.

First, we all have wooden legs. The things which we carry around, our inner wounds, those parts of ourselves for which we are embarrassed, ashamed of, memories, secrets we can never share; failures which we keep to ourselves.

Second, every now and again, in a loving relationship, we can come clean. Like Hulga, we can show another person our wooden leg, and share where it has become attached.

When we do that, we have the key to love. Love is that relationship of vulnerability and acceptance where we can be reacquainted with joy.

This is not making confession – it is not a matter of dumping the trash can on someone else.

It is about living with someone in a manner of care which is honorable, kind and lasting (even as long as 50 years or more).

There are chairs at the table, not withstanding our wooden legs. Love one another and your love will spread to others.

Do not worry about being perfect. The Jesus job has already been taken.

AMEN

.

The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant

A Recent Sermon

 

We are here today to celebrate the commitment of two gay men to the mystery of love. It is not just human love since they are invited to enter into a sacred covenant whereby God will manifest his love in a special, sacred and life-nourishing manner. If these men choose to accept this love, they will learn that they have been called to a life of loving intimacy.

 

In our information driven and rapidly changing culture, we are struggling to define and maintain the Christian concept of being a person. One of the essential ontological characteristics of being a person is the need to experience deep, loving and sacred manifestations of intimacy. It is for this reason that our Episcopal community has approved same sex blessings.

We have made this decision because all human beings, either gay or straight, have the need and God-given right to experience the completeness of their nature as social beings. Furthermore, the concept of sacred intimacy not only serves as a proper theological basis for a same sex blessing, but it serves to explain the nature of marriage as a sacrament. In other words, living a life of loving and sacred intimacy is a fundamental need and right of gay and straight people.

 

A Covenant of Intimacy

 

Intimacy is word that expresses the nature of a sacred love relationship.  It is from the Latin word intimus. In Spanish, it is intimo conversant. In French it is intime, meaning deep, internal and confidential
Loving intimacy occurs in time, but it is sacred time; it is not chronological time. It is not just one thing after another. It is time for manifestation. Intimacy means that in, through, and with time, something marvelous is about to manifest itself in these two loving mates.

In time (Faith)
In time, I see in the experience of the past and future, and now I see the manifestation of love. It means in a relationship committed to sacred intimacy that the couple will transcend to a higher level of value, knowledge and feelings. If sacred intimacy is the goal, then in an extraordinary way God will clearly manifest his burning, divine love. They will become a beautiful story.
Into me see (Individuation)
Please see into my heart. See into to my soul and find the beauty of my individuality. I promise to discover the beauty of your unique soul and delight in your beautiful and powerful individuality. I will see you, and you will see me over time. If we do not share in the beauty of our individual nature, then we run the danger of becoming narcissistic and lonely individuals.
In time mates see (Co-journeying)
I promise this day to enter into an intimate co- journey. We will grow in time in mutual respect. We will journey through life together. When we are old, we will tell the marvelous story of a life time of spiritual intimacy.  The text of our journey will be written in every wonderful wrinkle of intimacy on our aging faces and the touch of our hands. We will move through time together. Yes, young love is beautiful and promising, but mystery and a transcendent beauty is found in old love. If we do not journey together, then it merely becomes a relationship of an unhealthy codependence.
( Intimacy) Into my sea
We bath in a sea of wonderful family, true friends and Christian community. You have true friends here at your blessing. You will move in worthwhile social cycles of increasing spiritual value. If you do not discover the blessing of a loving community of quality people, then life will become an existence of busyness and boredom only to be relieved in play.
Therefore on this solemn occasion of your Covenant, I pray that:

 

·         You will continue to grow in the mystery of God’s intimacy, as his love is expressed in the living of your  covenant

·         You will find divine purpose

·         You will continuously learn to share this sacred blessing as a Christian example of God’s grace

·         You will discover your souls in this sacred relationship

·         You will know the power of spiritual vitality

·         You will know happiness

·         You will be free of pain

·         You will find the ease in a changing world.

Finally as your Priest and a Priest of the Church, I apologize to you and the rest of the gay community here today. I apologize for my past bigotry towards gays and my intolerant and ignorance-based attitudes of the past. I do not have the authority to make an apology for the Church, but I suggest that this liturgy for same sex blessings is a liturgical act of reconciliation.