GC79: Compassionate Compromise

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Christ, compromise, Episcopal Church, General Convention, LGBTQ, marriage rites, protest, theology, traditional, witness

Photo Credit:  Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly (reuse with permission)

As an alternate to General Convention, I stood ready to fill in when deputies needed a break from the floor.  On the two sessions where I was able to serve as a Deputy, I was able to participate in the debate, revision, and voting on B012, entitled Marriage Rites for the Whole Church.  This resolution came to be because although we authorized marriage rites for same sex couples at the 78^th General Convention, there was a provision that allowed bishops who hold a theological position that does not embrace marriage for same-sex couples to forbid his or her priests from conducting such rites.  This left the LGBTQ community in those dioceses unable to be married in their home parishes by their home priests, despite a change in the legal ability to do so.  This was deemed a compromise that could keep everyone at the table despite our theological differences.

However, given the protests of the LGBTQ community and their supporters, B012 proposed an option for priests and their parishes who wanted to conduct marriages for all despite their bishop’s protest to seek the oversight of another bishop in the Episcopal Church.  The resolution allowed for bishops and protesting churches and clergy to hold their ground, while also allowing dissenting clergy and parishes to minister to their community fully.  I talked about the testimonies and debate about this issue earlier.  The resolution was heavily edited as a result of that that testimony, and what came before the House of Deputies seemed like a well-crafted compromise.  But the debate on the floor indicated something quite different.  Our more traditional brothers and sisters felt their theology was being compromised, and many diocese in Province IX, including churches in foreign countries where same-sex marriage is still illegal, were threatening to break from the church.  It was a heart-wrenching debate, and our own deputation was even divided on what to do.

When the vote finally came, we voted by orders – so that the entire house could see how the lay and ordained voted.  As the minutes ticked by, my stomach turned.  I honestly did not know what would be the best outcome, and I feared for our path forward.  When the votes came in, they were overwhelmingly in favor of B012.  I am not sure what changed people’s minds, and I am not sure how people came to see that this was a good compromise.  My only reflection was that everyone was a bit unhappy, not fully getting what they wanted – which is the definition of a good compromise, if you ask me.

I do not know if the passage of B012 will have any negative impact in the future.  What I do know is that the process seemed to model something we have a hard time doing in the United States – compromise.  I have always said that if the Episcopal Church cannot model compromise, respect, and dignity, we cannot expect the world outside to do so.  The passage of B012 in both Houses made me feel like there might be hope for all of us to witness compassionate compromise through Christ to others.

GC79: On Needing Revival…

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Bible, Bishop Curry, church, Episcopal Church, General Convention, God, God's word, Holy Spirit, interpretation, liberation, love, ordination, protest, revival, role, scripture, women

This week, I continue with more reflections from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.  Look for posts in the days to come that give some insight into the experiences of the week, the take-home lessons, the pondering questions still ruminating in me.  Thanks for following along!

On Saturday evening of General Convention, we were invited to a revival at a local church.  The revival was powerful and clearly moving to many in the crowd.  Of particular note was the Spanish translator hired to translate for Bishop Curry.  She was poised, animated, and seemed to feed off Bishop Curry’s energy.  I do not know how she did it, but the two of them really seemed to be preaching together – to be dancing in God’s word as they preached a message of love and life.  Even for someone whose Spanish is minimal, I found her translation and presence really made Bishop Curry’s sermon come alive in a new way.

But what has been staying with me about that evening was the protest outside the church.  Members of Westboro Baptist Church gathered to protest what the Episcopal Church has been doing; from their signs, I understand they are mostly upset about the ordination of women, and our inclusion of the LGBTQ community in ordained and married life.  In the course of my life, I have had many conversations about both of those issues, including people confronting me about my own ordination and my theological understanding about the expansiveness of God’s love for all.  Those conversations have sometimes been hard, hurtful, and even anger-inducing.  But ultimately, they were always conversations – things said to my face, debates had between people, disagreements had within the context of relationship.

So the sentiments of the protestors was not new to me (although some of the language used against female pastors would have made many clutch their pearls).  What was heartbreaking was seeing a preteen standing next to her mother with a sign that read, “No Women Preachers – 1 Tim. 2.12.”  I went back and reread 1 Timothy 12, and I confess, a good portion of the chapter is about wives submitting to their husbands, keeping silent, allowing their husbands to lead.  We’ll talk about that in another blog post.  But as I looked at the young girl, I remembered all the times I started asking hard questions about things I had read in the Bible that did not seem to make sense – that did not seem to jive with the wide embrace of God’s love.  I remembered the Sunday School teacher who encouraged us to read the Bible literally, condemning her own current marriage because she had once been divorced.  I remember feeling a sense of discomfort until I found liberation in the Episcopal Church – a church that taught me to ask hard questions, to be uncomfortable in the ambiguity, to be released from the bonds of literal biblical interpretation, and to read the Bible in a new way.

Holding all that in my mind, I grieved for this young woman.  I sorrowed for the mother standing next to her, teaching her to keep silent, and to disrespect every woman who believes God is empowering us with God’s word.  I lamented the hate being inculcated into this young girl.  I mourned the light being limited in her life.  As female preachers poured out of buses for the revival, I found myself wanting to whisper into her ear, “God’s love is bigger than the words in 1 Timothy.”  Holy Scripture has been used time and again to limit God’s love, grace, and mercy.  I am sure I am guilty of a similar sin in one way or another; perhaps even this blog post is an exercise in sinful presumption.  My prayer for all of us is that we have people whispering in our ears words of truth, reconciliation, and peace.  Let not the work of the Holy Spirit be extinguished in us.

Photo credit:  Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly (permission needed for reuse)

On Disagreement and Hope…

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Bible, Christian, clergy, community, conversation, disagreement, God, hope, interpretation, Jesus, love, protest, relationship, scripture, sexuality, witness

Photo credit:  www.gwinnettpl.org/nine-books-on-hope-in-troubled-times/

Last week, I received an email directed to local pastors from a fellow pastor.  He wanted to draw our attention to the fact that the local elementary schools would be hosting an author whose most recent book features a family with two gay dads.  He was upset that the author had been invited and upset that the school board and principals had not been more upfront about the invitation to the author to parents and the community.  His email was an invitation for the clergy to come together to discuss what we might be able to do to voice our protest.

There were several things that alarmed me in the communication.  First, as a pastor and parent, not only am I not opposed to the author coming, I am quite pleased that a non-heteronormative story is being featured in our schools.  Second, and more importantly, I was concerned about a group of clergy gathering to present to the community the voice of the clergy – as though we are all of one mind.  At first I thought I would email the pastor, and then I thought I should email the schools and board.  But then I realized, no email or letter could fully express my concerns, and that kind of one-sided communication often leads to misunderstanding and assumptions.  And so, I decided to go.

I did not make that decision lightly.  I have many friends and family members who have a very different interpretation of the Bible and the issue of sexuality than me.  I have engaged in some deeply hurtful conversations around those topics, and knew I could be walking into a lion’s den going to the meeting.  But I kept thinking of my goddaughter, raised by two incredibly loving men, who have created a home that is a shining example of Christ’s commandment to love God and neighbor.  And so, I went.

I suspected we were heading for trouble as I listened to people talking before the meeting about how Christian morals are being corrupted by the world.  But when the meeting started, things shifted.  The inviting pastor opened with scripture, and then asked us to pray for God’s guidance and for each member of the School Board.  Out of those prayers came the same words I always use when talking about the wideness of God’s love:  inclusivity, love, transformation, loving neighbor as self, being a witness to Christ’s love.  I was fascinated to see how two opposing opinions could be rooted in the same biblical text and the witness of Christ Jesus.  After our enlightening time of prayer, people began to speak.  Some of the concerns were quite legitimate:  a lack of transparency from the schools and board, a lack of intentional engagement with the parents around the choice of the author, and a lack of clarity around why the decision was made.

Of course, where we differed was in the result we desired.  I braced myself and shared with the group why I was there.  Much to my surprise, no one freaked out, no one condemned me for my different perspective, and no one shut down.  Most of the other pastors and lay leaders were quite clear that they believe that scripture should be interpreted differently than I do, but there was no hate or malice.  We even learned that another pastor in the room shared my viewpoint.

What I came away with from the meeting was a sense of hope.  I have never seen such civility, such Christ-like conversation, as I saw that day.  I have rarely seen people of radically different opinions be able to stay at the table without walking away.  We did not change each other’s minds, but we also did not denigrate or disrespect one another.  Suddenly it hit me:  if we could take that kind of civil, Christ-like engagement out into the world, that would be a much more powerful witness of Christ’s love than pastors simply telling people to love each other without actually doing it.  I could even envision the two groups peacefully gathered at a School Board meeting, calmly presenting our opposing views; not witnesses to whether or not an author should be invited into the schools, but witnesses to what holy conflict and conversation look like.  It was a beautiful image, and a wonderful counter to our current political climate.

Now, I do not know if that image will ever come to fruition.  I do not know if the relationship-building we discussed will ever materialize.  But if nothing else, the meeting taught me that there is hope.  There is hope that God can work in the midst of conflict and disagreement and transform it into something sacred.  There is hope that we as a people can engage with one another respectfully despite our differences.  There is hope that Christ can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

On Staying at the Table…

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controversy, conversation, dinner, Eucharist, God, listen, protest, respect, shelter, table

Yesterday morning, I heard a statistic that said 57% of Americans supported Trump’s current immigration ban.  The number surprised me because I had watched all weekend as people poured into airports and joined protests against the Executive Order.  Perhaps one could argue that the press loves to cover controversy and made the hype feel bigger than the numbers.  Regardless, watching the passionate, immediate, and spontaneous emergence of protests, I was surprised to hear such support in opposition to the protestors’ visceral response.  As I thought about that contradiction, I realized that there must be some part of the supporters’ position that I do not understand.

I have been thinking a lot this past week about how we are going to move through this tense time as a country.  One of the constant refrains I have been hearing is about how we need to listen – really listen – to each other and engage in meaningful conversation with the “other.”  I have appreciated articles like this one, that present a point of view without comment, which is one form of really listening.  But I have not been sure how I would go about engaging in these conversations myself.  But, as God often does, I have found it happening in spite of me.

Last week, Hickory Neck joined another Episcopal Church to host an emergency winter shelter week.  I volunteered for an evening shift.  During dinner, I found that the conversation between guests and volunteers slipped into a conversation about politics.  My initial instinct was to shut the conversation down – worrying I might step on some toes.  But I took a deep breath and tried to do what I kept hearing about – listen.  The points of view varied widely among our homeless guests and our parishioners.  Some points of view were extreme – on both sides!  And some of the things we shared I worried would cause alienation between my parishioners and I.  But we all stayed at the table.

That’s one of the things I have always loved about the Episcopal Church – we stay at the table.  Every week we bring our opposing views, our sinful hearts, and poor hearing to the table, and kneel side-by-side, remember whose we are, and go out into the world renewed and made whole.  Our table fellowship at dinner that night was not a Eucharistic meal.  But the results were quite similar.  As my volunteer shift ended, we shook hands, we looked each other in the eye, and we nodded in mutual respect.  Our conversation did not change the world.  But hopefully it changed each of us just a little.  And that may be the most we can hope for – small changes, made possible by staying at the table.  On Sundays, the church shows us how.  Our job is to create table opportunities as often as we can throughout the week.

Photo credit:  www.boundless.org/life-changing-power-of-table/

Sermon – Acts 16.16-34, E7, YC, May 8, 2016

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Christ, enslaved, faith, freedom, live, Moral Mondays, Paul, power, praise, privilege, protest, Silas, slave, suffering, truth, value, wealth

Thousands of years ago, our people were enslaved.  Once-friendly Egypt got a new pharaoh who saw the sheer number of us, and out of fear, enslaved us.  We lost our freedom, and labored under a brutal new regime.  We longed for better days.  We longed for a return to our homeland, even though our homeland could not have sustained us because of the famine years before.  Every night, our cries went out to God.  One day, God heard us.  God sent us a man by the name of Moses, who dramatically managed to convince Pharaoh to let us go back home.  So we quickly packed our things and ran.  Pharaoh changed his mind and sent his armies after us.  But when we crossed the Sea of Reeds, and Pharaoh’s army drowned, we celebrated.  We were free.

Not long after, the rejoicing stopped.  Freedom did not look like what we thought freedom would look like.  Freedom was hard.  When we were enslaved, we always knew from where our next meal would come.  We knew where we would lay our heads at night.  We knew the routine.  With Moses, we were constantly wandering in the wilderness, wondering where our next meal would come from, searching for water, unsure of what would happen.  Nothing in our journey unfolded as we imagined.  We thought freedom would mean being able to do whatever we wanted, being free of obligation, and not being constrained by anyone or thing other than ourselves.  Pharaoh was admittedly awful, but better the devil you know, right?

Being from a country whose primary value is freedom, sometimes I think we get as confused as our ancestors about what freedom means in the context of being people of faith.  Take our lesson from the Acts of the Apostles today.  There are both people who are free and people who are not.  Those who own the slave-girl are free to collect money for someone else’s performance, and they are free to get someone thrown in jail.  The judges who throw Paul and Silas into jail are also free – free to choose who is punished and who is not.  Finally, we might put the jailer into the free category as well.  He is a man with a steady, respectable job, who has power over those in prison.

Meanwhile, our story has those who are lacking freedom.  The first character we hear about is a slave-girl.  In some ways, this nameless slave is a double slave – a slave to her owners who use her for money and a slave to the spirit of divination inside her.  Paul and Silas also lose their freedom.  They are thrown into jail midway through our story, which clearly puts them in the not-free category.  Plus, the slave-girl calls them “slaves of the Most High God.”

Looking at the characters in Acts, we can see how confusing the definition of freedom can be.  If freedom is a value in and of itself, then the heroes of our story are the slave owners, magistrates, and the jailer.  The owners of the slave girl obviously have social capital and an income source.  They have influence and power, and up until Paul and Silas come along, they have the comforts of wealth.  The judges also have a great deal of respect and power in the community.  They are charged with keeping order in the community and protecting the community’s way of life.  Even the jailer has a clear sense of identity and purpose.  He may not have wealth and prestige, but he has a secure job and a sense of clear identity in the community.

Consciously, we know that we should not identify with these three entities.  But subconsciously, and in a country that does not distinguish between freedom and freedom in Christ, we find ourselves much more aligned with and, quite frankly, longing for the kind of freedom that these three parties have.  Meanwhile, the slave-girl is nothing like what we hope for ourselves.  Being possessed by a spirit and being owned by another individual do not usually make the top of our lists for happiness and fulfillment.  And in no way do we want to be like Paul and Silas, who not only seem to be homeless rebel-rousers, they also are physically brutalized and imprisoned.  We are faithful followers of Christ, but I doubt many of us would take that commitment all the way to jail.

Last week, a friend of mine had that very debate.  She is a priest in North Carolina, and she decided to join the weekly protests that has become known as Moral Mondays.  Moral Mondays have been happening since 2013, as religious leaders and followers across North Carolina have gathered in peaceful protest of the laws being passed that promote unfair treatment, discrimination, and oppression.  Bishop Michael Curry was a frequent protestor and speaker at Moral Mondays before being elected Presiding Bishop.  Last week, my friend decided that she needed to join fellow Christians in protest, but she was uncertain about the possibility of being arrested.  She knew what was happening in the legislature was unjust, but she also had a family and job to think about.  She was unsure about how she could best be of use – by staying long enough to be escorted to jail, or whether her presence at the protest would be enough.

What my friend was on the cusp of understanding is what Paul, Silas, and the slave-girl already know.  The slave-girl already knows the truth that no one else can see – that Jesus is the way to salvation.  And when she shouts that long and loudly enough, she is not only freed of her possession, she is free of the bondage of slavery – because her owners can no longer use her as they did before.  Even Paul and Silas, who are locked in jail, are more free than they seem at first glance.  What person, after being brutally whipped and thrown into a cold cell, can be found praying and singing praises to God in the middle of the night?  Only someone who is so free of the bondage of this world can be able to praise God in the midst of earthly suffering.

If Paul, Silas, and the slave-girl are free, guess who the real enslaved ones in our story are.  Those owners, who seem to have the earthly freedom of wealth, have actually become slaves to their wealth.  They are so enslaved to that wealth that when their source of income is freed, they lash out, bringing pain and suffering down upon others.  They cannot see the gift of freedom and health for the slave-girl; they only see the consequences for themselves.  The magistrates are no freer than the owners.  They are so enslaved to their rigid rules that they cannot see the inherent injustice that the slave-girl has faced for so many years.  Even the jailer is not truly free.  He is so caught up in his identity as a jailer that he is willing to take his life for his job.  He is ready to kill himself for what he thinks is a failure on his part than to see how this job has taken over his sense of identity.[i]

So how do we avoid living like the complaining Israelites, who were physically free, but not yet spiritually free to live as the Lord our God invited them to live?  How do we, in a nation that reveres freedom, avoid being enslaved by the wealth, power, and identity that comes from being free?  The jailer asks the same question to Paul and Silas when he asks, “What must I do to be saved?”  In the paraphrase of our text, Paul’s answer is simple:  Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus. Then you’ll live as you were meant to live.[ii]  Paul and Silas could have easily fled that jail when the earthquake happened.  They could have sped past the jailer, and been focused solely on their own self-preservation.  But we see that there is a peace in Paul and Silas that comes from true freedom – of living how we are meant to live.  Instead of weeping and plotting in that cell, they sing and pray to God.  Instead of running when the doors fling open, they ensure that the jailer is okay.  Instead of demonizing the jailer, they offer him baptism.  This is what true freedom looks like.[iii]

In our freedom, we have become enslaved – in varied and sundry ways, but we are all enslaved by something.[iv]  Paul, Silas, and the slave-girl invite us into another way.  They invite us to live as liberated people who trust in our Lord Jesus Christ.  That true freedom may mean we find ourselves shouting out truth in a peaceful rally.  That true freedom may mean that we find ourselves praising God when no one else is, sacrificing our own comfort so that someone might find theirs.  That true freedom might mean trusting God is acting when we feel like God left the building long ago.  When we claim that freedom, then finally, finally, we will begin living as we were meant to live.  Amen.

[i] David G. Forney, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 526.

[ii] Eugene Patterson, The Message, as found at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+16%3A16-34&version=MSG on May 6, 2016.

[iii] L. Gregory Jones, “Come, Lord Jesus,” Christian Century, vol. 109, no. 16, May 6, 1992, 485.

[iv] Ronald Cole-Turner, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 524.