That We All May Be One

I note that Jack Spong is on a rant recently about our liturgical custom of concluding reading from scripture with “The Word of the Lord.” And the expected response: “Thanks be to God.” The precipitating event was attending his local parish church several weeks ago when the First Reading was the story of the prophet Nathan condemining David for his sins (2 Samuel 12).

The story is great. But the concluding line? “Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.”

“The Word of the Lord!” “Thanks be to God!”

I must say I have some sympathy with Jack’s position on this. I have no difficulty declaring that I believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God. In fact, I have declared that publicly at least four times — once at each ordination and once by voting for a General Convention resolution attesting to the same.

But that is different from saying that every verse, story, and chapter of the Bible is “the Word of the Lord.” The Bible itself contains progressive revelation and is, in some sense, self-correcting within its very pages.

Perhaps you have shared with me the same experience of having to stifle a smile or some embarrassment by loudly proclaiming “Thanks be to God” after the reading of some lesson in which thousands are slaughtered or babies killed by God.

I think there is a solution to this. Rather than selectively deciding which passage of scripture should be designated as “The Word of the Lord” (a very dangerous undertaking!) perhaps we should just retire the use of such a concluding statement altogether. “Here ends the Reading (Epistle)” is rubrically permitted. As is, I might add, simply letting the reading trail off into silent reflection since the rubrics are permissive (“After each Reading, the Reader MAY say…”)   

Silence is often the best response to the readings. Lectio divina can also include “arguing with” scripture in good Hebrew fashion as well as letting it convict, convert, and save us. Let us not be afraid to wrestle with scripture even as Jacob wrestled with the angel!

Thanks be to God! 

There have been some articles lately about an Episcopal priest who says she is both Christian and Muslim. I’ve actually had a few phone calls from people wondering what I think about all that!  As I understand it, this priest has recently engaged with Islam, been impressed with its spiritual disciplines, has experienced a new “submission” to God (which is the core of Islam), and how considers herself something of a bridge person between the two faiths — both of which she honors.

I also sense that the “Afro-centric” or at least “people-of-color-centric” ethos of Islam was appealing to this African American woman who, especially in the Episcopal Church, must sometimes feel pretty lonely — even with all our claims of diversity and the fact that we (still) belong to a worldwide Communion which is largely made up of people-of-color.

My opinion? While I honor any honest search for God and truth and believe this woman is embarked on such a journey, my guess is that — sooner or later — she will have to decide. I do not believe it is possible to be both a Christian and a Muslim with integrity…and I believe her to be a person of integrity.

One can honor and explore both traditions and, God knows, we need bridge-builders and interpreters of both faiths, but my experience is that Muslims respect Christians most when we are clear about what we believe, committed to it, yet are able to appreciate and honor their faith as well. Many of us who are Christian would say the same thing about Islam.

I will keep my sister in my prayers — for many reasons. Chief among them will be that she will be granted wisdom, discernment, and knowledge. And that she will remain a person of integrity.   

It’s raining in New York. Seems appropriate somehow because we lost our friend and colleague, Jim Kelsey, over the weekend. The 54 year old Episcopal Bishop of Northern Michigan was killed in an automobile accident while returning from a normal Sunday visitation to one of his parishes in the Upper Peninsula.

I sometimes wonder why more of us aren’t killed in this way, since most bishops spend much of their lives in automobiles visiting parishes for confirmation, driving to  diocesan meetings, coming home late at night after mediating in some kind of parish dust-up.

Our Presiding Bishop described Jim as one of the bright lights of our church. Certainly he was smart, committed, and passionate about God, God’s people, and God’s justice. She also said we would miss his “easy grace.”

As I said in my post to our bishops’ list serve: I find it impossible to improve on that description and will never be able to hear the phrase “easy grace” without thinking of Jim.

He’ll be missed. And today…

It’s raining in New York.  

This morning, in the beautiful Swiss countryside just outside Geneva, World Council of Churches’ ecumenical officers are meeting at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. Our topic is “ecumenical formation” and just how we intend to raise up a new generation of ecumenists.

And, we began our day with Morning Prayer in the little stone chapel at the center of this educational institute associated with the University of Geneva. Among the prayers were these:

L:  Before the world began, when everything was shapeless, You were there…

Hovering over chaos, planning the texture, the taste, the sight and the sound of things,

Balancing the opposites, weaving the rainbow,

Turning the random into the real.

A:  And for this we praise you.

L:  Before we began, when, in the womb, we were shapeless, you were there…

Calling us your own, planning our nature and the novelty in us,

Weaving our potentials, making us unique,

Turning the random into the real,

A:  And for this we praise you.

L:  And even now, Now when we dream dreams or puzzle over the future;

Now, when our ideals are challenged and the second best becomes attractive, you are there.

Upsetting our easiness, contradicting our compromises,

Replacing our narrow vision with the sight and sound and taste of a better life,

Picking up the loose stitches of our devotion,

Turning the random into the real.

A:  And for this we praise you.

L:  And it always will be so. For you did not say you were the answer, you said you were the way;

You did not ask us to succeed, you asked us to be faithful;

You did not promise us paradise tomorrow, you said you would be with us to the end of the world.

Turning the random into the real.

A:  And for all this we praise you, now and forever. Amen!    

What an amazing experience tonight! The Standing Commission on Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, meeting at a conference center near Omaha, Nebraska, heard from a group of local interfaith partners with an astounding dream.

An 800 family Reformed Jewish temple needed to relocate from an older city building to the growing suburbs. A visionary president of the synagogue reached out to a growing Islamic center to see if they might be thinking about building a mosque in the same area. Both of them then contacted the Roman Catholic Church (the largest Christian communion in Omaha) who turned them down flat.

Their next stop was the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska which was looking to start a new mission congregation in this burgeoning area. The interest was immediate and converations began in earnest!

They are now looking for property on which to build three worship sites and a “middle building” tentatively called “Abraham’s tent” which can be a gathering space, coffee shop, educational and outreach center for the larger community. They are clear that each community needs to tend to its own internal needs of formation, nurture, “life cycle” issues like births and marriages and funerals and more.

So there is “enlightened self interest” driving a common effort. But engaging in that common effort has forged bonds of friendship and even love between people of different, but vibrant, faiths. And “dialogue” has happened — not in the sterile environment of the classroom or conference center — but in the context of a shared dream and hard, painstaking work!

I believe this is a vision for the future which could be duplicated in countless communities across our land. We are told that Abraham kept all four sides of his tent wide open, the better to see and welcome the stranger. These courageous children of Abraham are his worthy descendents. Join me in praying that Abraham’s God and ours may richly bless their endeavors!

For the sake of the world!       

While there will, no doubt, be some oh-so-trendy celebrations of “Earth Day” across our land today, people of faith and perhaps particularly people of biblical faith should understand something of the stewardship of creation. We believe that, from the beginning, God “saw that it was good.” We believe in the mystery of the incarnation in which God’s word “became flesh” in the midst of the material world. And we believe that the Holy Spirit “renews the face of the earth.”

Eastern Orthodox theology has long championed this perspective and the current Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople is known as the “Green Patriarch” for his passionate teaching in this area. For all our complicity in the destruction of the environment Protestant and Catholic Christians have come to embrace the need for witness and action to preserve the resources of the planet. And there are signs today that Evangelicals and Pentecostals too are awakening to this bibilical call to care for creation.

How could we all not? Do we not all pray together the words of today’s morning psalm?

“Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps;

Fire and hail, snow and fog, tempestuous wind, doing his will;

Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars;

Wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and winged birds;

Kings of the earth and al peoples, princes and all rulers of the world;

Young men and maidens, old and young together,

Let them praise the Name of the Lord, for his Name only is exalted,

his splendor is over earth and heaven!”

(Psalm 148: 7-13)

Last Sunday I was privileged to lead an adult Sunday school class in one of our New York parishes. Some twenty-five or thirty brave souls ventured out in the midst of a nor’easter not only to participate in the Eucharist, but continuing their formation as Christians as well. After the lecture and a good period of thoughtful questions and attempted answers, I was approached by three individuals.

The first, a young African American man, was finishing up a graduate degree and writing his dissertation on some aspects of “environmental sustainability.” He asked me what the churches were doing ecumenically about threats to the environment. I shared with him some of the efforts and programs of the World and National Councils of Churches, referred him to their web sites (www.wcc-coe.org and www.ncccusa.org) and agreed to meet with him to discuss the matter further.

The second was a young woman in her 20’s who said she was simply a visitor, had found the class quite interesting, and wondered if there was a church for “someone like her.” I soon discovered that “someone like her” meant an interested young seeker. Someone who sometimes thinks that the creeds are simply “beautiful myths” but really believes (and desires) them to be more than that.

I told her that I am sure many churches would welcome and value a bright, honest, young person like herself, asking legitimate questions and who appeared quite open to search for some answers. But, I said, the Episcopal Church is certainly one of those churches. We have a wide spectrum of belief within this church.

Some who do indeed believe the creeds to be “beautiful myths.” Others who hold both creed and scripture as literal truths. What binds us together, at our best, is a commitment to gather week by week at the Lord’s Table; listen to the old, old story; pray together; break the Bread and Share the cup of the Lord together in confidence that “when two or three are gathered together in his Name, he will be in the midst of them.”

And that he may even be made known to them “in the breaking of the Bread!”

The third, and final, person who approached me after class was a quiet young man whose accent sounded perhaps German. He simply asked if he could come in and chat sometime. I said, Sure, and gave him my card.

I wonder what we will talk about? 

“Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be  yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (I Peter 2, passim)

My former diocese belonged, and still belongs, to a partnership called “Living Stones.” It is an association of (mostly) small dioceses exploring together the concept of what is sometimes called “total ministry.” That simply means mission and ministry rooted and grounded in our baptismal covenant in which all Christians, clergy and lay, are called to work together in teams in order to more visibly express the presence of the Body of Christ in their local communities and throughout the world.

In this concept of “team ministry” some of the negative effects of hierarchy, of clericalism, and its evil twin anti-clericalism are done away with, or at least minimized. For the sake of the gospel. For the sake of mission. For example, I like to replace the usual pyramidal paradigm with bishops on top, priests next, deacons next, and laity on the bottom (substitute your own nomenclature for the ordained and the lay) with a circle.

The circle has Christ at its center, the empowering means of grace like word and prayer and sacrament radiating out like the spokes of a wheel from Jesus, and the various ministries and ministers of the church found along the perimeter of the circle, none “higher” than the other, but each and all empowered by the same grace of God to carry out their several vocations.

I believe that is a much healthier and much more ancient model of ministry than the top-down, consumer/provider  forms of ministry we still see in much of the Church today,  in whatever denomination. We are together “a holy priesthood (meant) to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ!”

Our Father in heaven 

“Heaven” is wherever God is. God is the power/source/principle-of-rationality at the core of the universe and of all that is.

Hallowed be your Name 

This power/source/principle is beyond all final knowing or naming and can only be beheld in awe.

Your kingdom come 

The world and universe are not complete, but are constantly and ever evolving – we pray — into a better, more just and peaceful future.

Your will be done on earth as in heaven 

A sign of that ongoing evolution is our work in building a more just and peaceful planet.

Give us this day our daily bread 

We desire, hope, and even expect that our basic human needs will be provided for.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us 

We cannot expect mercy unless we are willing to grant it.

Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil 

We seek protection from destructive powers without and within.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.

Ultimate sovereignty, power, and honor are due to no other being or system for all eternity. These things belong only to God.