This made me really sad ...

I have a countdown clock on my blog counting the minutes until he's not president anymore, I can no longer stand to listen to him give press conferences (I read the transcripts later) and I agree with Anne Lammott who said Bush Years are like dog years -- every one of his as president has seemed like seven ... and yet I cringed when I saw this on the news this evening.

I want us to be a better country than this -- that we boo the President of the United States when he throws out the first pitch on Opening Day is a terrible commentary on just how much work there is to do to restore this nation to a place where we can once again be proud of the things that there are for us to be proud of about America.

It just makes me really sad. And tonight there just doesn't seem to be anyplace to take that sadness. So there it is.

And tomorrow is another day,
.

To become a woman is a serious matter

A note from Dr. Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
.

This is not the first time you have seen Hillary Clinton seemingly at her wits end, but she has always risen, always risen, much to the dismay of her adversaries and the delight of her friends.

Hillary Clinton will not give up on you and all she asks of you is that you do not give up on her.

There is a world of difference between being a woman and being an old female. If you’re born a girl, grow up, and live long enough, you can become an old female. But, to become a woman is a serious matter. A woman takes responsibility for the time she takes up and the space she occupies.

Hillary Clinton is a woman. She has been there and done that and has still risen. She is in this race for the long haul. She intends to make a difference in our country.

She is the prayer of every woman and man who long for fair play, healthy families, good schools, and a balanced economy.

She declares she wants to see more smiles in the families, more courtesies between men and women, more honesty in the marketplace. Hillary Clinton intends to help our country to what it can become.

She means to rise.

She means to help our country rise. Don’t give up on her, ever.

In fact, if you help her to rise, you will rise with her and help her make this country a wonderful, wonderful place where every man and every woman can live freely without sanctimonious piety, without crippling fear.

Rise Hillary.

Rise.

.

Monday, Monday

So today is a rare Monday off for me ... it's Cesar Chavez Day -- a holiday here in California celebrating the witness and work of the original "si se puede" guy-- so the parish offices are closed and it's really quite wonderful to have a day to "breathe into the week."

Particularly wonderful in a week coming which will take me to New Hampshire for a three day meeting with the Claiming the Blessing Steering Committee (looking to Lambeth and beyond) and then back here to preach on Sunday and gear back up to head to NYC for the Anglican Covenant Conference at the Desmond Tutu Center and, oh yes, a Canterbury Campaign gathering on April 12th with NYC folks.

But that's in the week to come.

Today is a going to the dog park/getting household stuff done/in time to settle in and watch the Dodgers open the season against the Giants at Dodger Stadium. (Go, Blue!)

But before we launch off into the day, here are a couple of "favorites" from last week:

Favorite photo on the blogosphere (from Fr. Jake):

Favorite quote from the Sunday papers: (NYT Magazine interview w/former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill):

Q. Do you feel bitter about your service in the Bush administration?
A. No. I'm thankful I got fired when I did, so that I didn't have to be associated with what they subsequently did.

Happy Monday, Everybody!
.
(Si, se puede!)

The Power of Doubt

I'm not preaching today ... the rector is and I'm looking forward to his sermon, provocatively entitled "The Importance of Atheists." But I have been reflecting on today's gospel -- the story of the one who is most frequently referred to as "Doubting Thomas" -- and I'm convinced his witness is an important one for us to not only celebrate but to claim on this Second Sunday of Easter 2008.

.

Long story short, I think there is much to be admired in Thomas' dogged insistence that he deserved his own experience of the risen Lord -- that a "faith received from the apostles" was somebody else's faith ... and he wasn't going to settle for it. I'm struck this morning by the fact that he was not with the others in the upper room the first time Jesus appeared ... that he, alone evidently, had ventured outside while the rest of them were huddled in what we are told was "fear the religious authorities."

.

It must have taken some courage to venture out alone ... wherever he went. And, by the same token, it took some courage to stand up and say "I want to see for myself" -- to ask for what he needed to believe.

.

And here's the best part: Jesus gave it to him. When Jesus returned, what's the first thing he did? Go to Thomas and say "I know what you need -- here: see my hands, touch my side ..."

.

I believe it was Thomas' willingness to doubt that led him to an even deeper faith: a faith that was his own and not somebody else's. Verna Dozier famously wrote (in her seminal book The Dream of God):

Doubt is not the opposite of faith: fear is. Fear will not risk that even if I am wrong, I will trust that if I move today by the light that is given me, knowing it is only finite and partial, I will know more and different things tomorrow than I know today, and I can be open to the new possibility I cannot even imagine today.

.

Thomas' example calls us to risk the doubts that call us to greater faith -- opens us to the things we cannot even image today that we may be called to risk, to embrace, to proclaim on behalf of the Gospel as we move forward into God's future.

.

Imagining a new Diocese of San Joaquin, moving forward in mission and ministry. Imagining an Anglican Communion listening to the experience of all the baptized in order to more fully understand the power of God's love in the lives of the faithful. Imagining an Episcopal Church refusing to be blackmailed into bigotry and making its 1976 commitment to a "full & equal claim" for its LGBT baptized not a resolution but a reality.

.

And, most importantly, on this Second Sunday of Easter 2008, I believe we receive the same invitation from our Lord and that he gave to Thomas. Listen to Jesus say today: see me. Touch me. Ask for what you need in order to believe and I will give it to you. And then, go out like Thomas did -- into the world without fear in order to call others to claim for themselves a relationship -- an experience -- a faith in the One who loves us enough to become one of us in order to show us how to walk in love with God and with each other.

.

And now ... off to church!

New Beginnings in San Joaquin ...

Do keep the good people of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin in your prayers this weekend as they take important steps forward into God's future. Today is their Convention to elect a new provisional bishop but here's the ENS report on last night's service of healing and reconciliation:

ELO photo/Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service, Stockton, California] The reorganization of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin officially began on the evening of March 28 in a church partially illuminated by the Paschal Candle.

Officiant Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies, began the service at the Episcopal Church of St. Anne in Stockton, California, with the Easter acclamation: "Alleluia, Christ is risen." After the Prayer for Light and the rest of the candles were lit, she and the congregation recited the three Easter Lucernaria, or anthems.

The service was based The Book of Common Prayer's Order of Worship for the Evening.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori led the congregation of about 300 in the Litany for Healing, praying in part that God would "heal our wounds received at the hands of our friends, our fellow parishioners, and the clergy of this diocese, and help us to know the joy of your saving help."

The litany also included a prayer that God would "remove the darkness of our anxiety and despair over what has been done in our parishes and in our diocese, and let us see the glories of new possibilities, new friendships, and new ways of serving you." And the litany included the prayer that God would help the people of the diocese to know that God is always present "guiding us to Easter hope and resurrected life."

=====

PS - Fr Jake has a round up of bloggers commenting from San Joaquin ... check it out here.

Race, Religion & Politics

The Very Rev. Tracey Lind was featured on PBS's NewsHour as part of a panel discussion of race, religion and politics.

Click here for the podcast and see what you think.

(Great job, Dean Lind!! :)

Wednesday in Easter Week

The Easter Glow is starting to fade. The Easter dress is off to the cleaners, the lilies are browning around the edges, the ears are off the chocolate bunny and we're down to the jelly beans at the bottom of the basket that nobody likes.

In the church office we're still in recovery mode ... after Easter Monday off (which seems like a great idea on Easter Monday) now we're digging through our desks getting to everything we were going to get to "after Easter" and wondering how it got to be Wednesday already.

For me, that list included not only writing thank you notes to all who worked so hard to make our Holy Week and Easter liturgies such wonderful celebrations of God's abundant love but also getting caught up on the episodes of "As the Anglican World Turns" I missed while off in Holy Week Land.

So here goes -- a start, at least:

In the Diocese of San Joaquin they're gearing up for a special convention to elect a provisional bishop this coming Saturday. Fr. Jake has a good "round up" of the scoop on that -- as does the new website for the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin. It is indeed a new day dawning for that diocese!

=====

"In other news" the Global South Steering Committee met just before Holy Week and posted their "reflections" on Easter Monday. Not really any surprises there -- same old saber rattling -- but, as one email correspondent offered, "Frankly, I saw the GS primates' statement as very hopeful. They are becoming increasingly desperate -- only the desperate feel the need to issue public threats." We shall see. Mark Harris offers his usual thorough job of examining the primates' "messing about with Anglican identity" -- and while you're over there at PRELUDIUM, check out his piece on the future-or-lack-thereof of the Anglican Communion Network: Goodbye Network?

=====

Finally, for today, a sad and sober note amidst the glow of Easter are these reports from Nigeria about escalating violence targeting LGBT people in general and our Changing Attitude Nigeria allies in particular.

From the press release issued March 21st:

A shocking story of mob violence has emerged which almost culminated in thedeath of one of the leaders of the Changing Attitude Nigeria (CAN) group inPort Harcourt. The violent attack occurred in the context of the funeral ceremony being held for the sister of Davis Mac-Iyalla, attended by six members of the Port Harcourt group on Thursday, 20 March 2008.

The CAN Port Harcourt leader who was the subject of the attack said:“I am in total shock and living in fear while feeling the pains I suffered inthe hands of a mob group that attacked me at the Service of Songs for Davis’s late sister. While hymn singing was going on a muscular man walked up to meand asked me for a word outside the compound.

“The next thing I saw was a mob group who were there to attack me. They started slapping and punching me, kicked me on the ground and spat on me. I have never known fear like I knew when they were brutalizing me. I thought they were going to kill me there and then. While beating me they were shouting: ‘You notorious homosexual, you think can run away from us for your notorious group to cause more abomination in our land?’ Those who attacked me were well informed about us so I suspect an insider or one of the leaders of our Anglican church have hands in this attack.”

I remember well when Davis MacIyalla was here in Pasadena last month, listening to him speak of his grief at not only the death of his sister but at the fact that he would not be safe to go back to Nigeria in order to be present at her memorial.

As we continue to celebrate the Good News of the Risen Lord -- of the triumph of life over death and the promise of God's love made available to all -- let us not forget there are those within our own Anglican Communion who live in fear for their lives simply because they have been willing to tell the truth about who they are.

And let's roll up our sleeves and get back to work to change that.

Alleulia. Alleluia!

Inclusion Activism 101 ...

... coming soon to a parish hall near you!

Claiming the Blessing [CTB] and Integrity are co-sponsoring a series of regional workshops to provide local Episcopalians with the information and tools to be more effective advocates for LGBT equality at the diocesan level.
.
Participants will learn about the status of LGBT issues in the Episcopal Church, the polity of the Episcopal Church at all levels, how to elect and lobby bishops and General Convention deputies, how to submit and pass diocesan convention resolutions, and how to communicate effectively with a variety of target audiences and the media.
.
The first one was in Oakland just before Easter and still to come are:

South Central Region--March 28-29--Liberty, MO
Southeastern Region--April 11-12--Atlanta, GA
Midwestern Region--April 25-26--Cincinnati, OH
Northeastern Region--May 9-10--Newark, NJ

.
For more details, check out Walking With Integrity ... and give thanks for those willing to step up and continue to make a difference ... for the trainers and the trainees ... and for all committed to continuing to challenge the church to move forward into God's future of compassion, inclusion, justice, hope and love.

.

Today's Boston Globe ...

... features this front page profile of the Bishop of New Hampshire by "A team" journalist Michael Paulson.

"One of the things I think I've learned in the last five years is that, as much as I wanted to be known as the good bishop, and not the gay bishop, there's no escaping," Robinson said in an interview last week at the diocesan headquarters here. "I would love just to be a simple country bishop, but that just doesn't seem to be in the cards."

No, no it doesn't. But let's give thanks for someone willing to play the hand he's been dealt faithfully -- even if it doesn't have the cards he was hoping for!
.

The Fifty Days of Easter

.
When I was a day-school chaplain, I used to tell the children that Chaplain Susan didn't do 40 Days of Lent just to do ONE day of Easter, so we were going to celebrate all FIFTY Days of Easter ... every single one of them!

So here's a start, on this glorious First of Fifty Days of Eastertide, a couple of things to celebrate:

At All Saints Church, the rector's Easter Day sermon began with the story his 85 year-old mother's encounter with the young many who entered her house uninvited on Good Friday afternoon with a gun in his hand. You'll want to watch it for yourself here ... don't know if you'll be able to hear the "gasp" that went through the 900+ in the congregation when he gets to the "and then he raised his gun ..." part but it really is quite an extraordinary Easter moment.

=====

In the Guardian, there's a great post-Easter profile of the Bishop of New Hampshire entitled "Gay bishop's mission to unite" by religious affairs correspondent Riazat Butt.

=====

And a couple of things to remind us how are we are STILL from "thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven:"

This reflection about the Lambeth Conference from the AAC (American Anglican Council) weekly email update for Easter by David Anderson :

If those of us who are orthodox Anglican bishops had all been invited, and had we gone with our brother bishops from our respective overseas Provinces, how would we have entered into Eucharistic fellowship and communion with the bishops from the American Episcopal Church (TEC) who are currently teaching false doctrine, permitting and even celebrating immoral behavior, deposing clergy including bishops who disagree with them, and going to secular courts of law to bring suit against our clergy and laity? It is not a small thing that a simple "sorry" could wipe away. To be in Eucharistic fellowship with them would require a profound change of mind and heart on their part, a return to historic orthodox Christian teaching and practice.

My, my, my.

=====

And finally, and most sadly, the sobering benchmark of 4000 American dead in Iraq was reached, according to news reports.

May they rest in peace and rise in glory ... and may we be given the grace, the wisdom and the courage to END this war ... Period.

Easter Sunday

The Great Easter Truth

is not that we will be born again
someday but that we are to be alive here
and now by the power of the resurrection.
.

Wishing you joy, love and power

This Easter Day and Always!

.

From the Easter Sunday's New York Times article "Obama Talk Fuels Easter Sermons":

The Very Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, said she would preach about when Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” went to Jesus’ tomb and were met by an angel who rolled away the stone before the cave to reveal that Christ had risen from the dead.

“I’m going to talk about the stones that need to be rolled away from the tombs of lives, that are holding us in places of death and away from God,”Ms. Lind said. “One of the main stones in our churches, synagogues, mosques, communities, countries, world is the pervasive stone of racism. What Obama has done is moved the stone a little bit.

“I will ask our congregation to look at the stones in our lives,” she said.

Preach it, Sister! Alleluia! Alleluia!

The Great Vigil of Easter

The tomb is empty.

Christ is Risen!

Death is conquered -- we are free!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

In a very few minutes I will head over to All Saints Church to prepare for The Great Vigil of Easter. We will kindle the first fire of Easter outside in on the platform in front of the church, light the Paschal Candle, process into the darkened church to the ancient sound of the Exultet and then settle in to hear selections from scripture -- recalling our history -- along with contemporary readings -- calling us into God's future -- all leading up to the great moment when Easter will arrive ... with trumpets blaring, bells ringing and Alleluias proclaiming.

We will baptize into the Body of Christ three adults (the 17 children having been baptized at the 4:00 "Children's Vigil") and incorporate into the membership at All Saints Church 33 new members -- who have been preparing for this night for months in our Covenant I class.

The liturgy is described as follows:

=========

The Great Vigil of Easter is the culmination of the sacred celebration of Holy Week and the beginning of the celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection. It is the climax of the Christian Year and unfolds the story of redemption in scripture, psalm, and sacrament. It begins in darkness and proceeds to a joyous burst of light. It begins in silence and proceeds to the glorious proclamation of the Paschal Alleluia celebrating the passing from death to life, from sin to grace.

As we baptize new Christians into the Body of Christ and incorporate new members into All Saints Church we listen to the historic record of God's saving acts in history through the scriptural stories that are our heritage. We hear from contemporary sources calling us to speak truth to power in the name of the God who calls us to walk in love with God and with each other. And we gather at the table to be fed by the bread and wine made holy -- praying that it give us strength for the journey as we go out to be the Body of Christ in the world.

Frederick Buechner famously said, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet." The Great Vigil of Easter is a place where that gladness and that need meet in this liturgical celebration of our baptismal call.

=========

And now ... off to church with me!

Alleluia, Everyone!

Good Friday

Finding the “Good” in Good Friday
John 18:1-11

Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons.

Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus replied, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them.

When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they stepped back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.” This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken, “I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.”

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that God has given me?”

“Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kedron ravine. There was a garden there, and he and his disciples went into it …” And we know the garden’s name: Gethsemane. And we know what happens next – we know where this familiar Good Friday story leads – know where we will leave it when we conclude this three hour service of prayer and reflection, story and song. We know that Jesus dies: that the life -- the promise -- the light that shone so brightly will be extinguished. All that will remain of the rabbi from Nazareth will be a broken body and the broken dreams of his scattered followers. The Kingdom he proclaimed has not come. The powerful remain powerful: the oppressed remain oppressed -- and where there had been hope there is only despair.

This is the stark truth of this day we call "Good Friday" -- a crucial point in the symphony that is Holy Week. Palm Sunday was our overture: touching on all the themes to be played throughout the week and leading us into the subsequent movements. And now we've arrived at Good Friday: in some ways the "adagio" of the piece. In the hours between now and the "allegro" of Easter, we sit in the silence and contemplate the power of this story that is ours.

When my children were little, I remember my younger son Brian asking me one year, “So what’s “good” about a Friday where the church service is long, the music is sad and Jesus ends up dead at the end?” This question from an 8 year old all those many years ago now may resonate with some of us today as we gather here … in numbers significantly less than will gather on Easter Sunday morning! … to walk with Jesus through this last, agonizing part of his journey on earth. Just what is “good” about Good Friday?

My search for an answer to that question turns me, once again to the words of Robert Shahan, a former Bishop of Arizona, who famously said, "Faith is what you are willing to die for. Dogma is what you are willing to kill for."

What’s good about Good Friday is that Jesus didn’t come to give us dogma to kill for -- he came with a willingness to die for the sake of the message that the Kingdom of God is at hand: the Reign of God is about to be realized. It is here. It is now. He came with a message of inclusiveness and compassion: compassion in the truest sense of the word. The Latin word for passion means "suffering": the combined form of "compassion" means "with suffering." It is an invitation to join, to be a part of something requiring sacrifice and often pain. For us, it is an invitation to join and be part of the crucifixion story not in a way that leaves us stuck in the agony of Good Friday but in a way that leads us to the Glory of Easter.

“This is the cup God has given me; shall I not drink it?” Jesus asked in the Garden. Was it a rhetorical question asked by the one who saw unfolding before him the events that would lead to the death he had been born to die -- the sacrifice of the sinless one for the sins of the world? Or was it said hoping-against-hope that there was still another way to make known to the people of God the love of a God who was willing to become one of them -- to show them how to walk in love with God and with each other?

I believe it was the latter. I believe that more important than the death Jesus died was the life Jesus lived – a life so in alignment with God’s will – God’s love – that he was “obedient even unto death.” Not obedient to a vengeful God who sent Jesus as a blood sacrifice – to a death that was the inevitable result of humanity’s abject sinfulness for which we should still wallow in guilt and shame.

Rather, what I believe is good about Good Friday is that Jesus was obedient to the love of a God so great that it enabled him to transcend the FEAR of death as he walked the way of the cross on – as he chose to drink the cup he had been given even as he questioned up until the very last moment whether there wasn’t another way to accomplish the work he had been given to do.

The “good” in Good Friday is that in spite of the worst the world could do, the love of God transcended even death. The “good” in Good Friday is that we who follow Jesus, we who have been called to BE the Body of Christ in the world, can likewise transcend the fear of death in order to live lives fully alive – in order to continue to walk in love with the God who loved us enough to become one of us in order to show us how to love one another.

Here’s how another bishop – Gene Robinson, the Bishop of New Hampshire – names it:

I can "be not afraid," but instead be a bold and active witness to the love of God. As I strapped on my bulletproof vest just before [my consecration as Bishop of New Hampshire] I remember feeling blessedly calm about whatever might happen. Not because I am brave, but because God is good and because God has overcome death, so that I never have to be afraid again.

That is the power of the resurrection. NOT in what happens AFTER death, but what the knowledge of our resurrection does for our lives and ministries BEFORE death.

I am not worried nearly as much about life after death as about whether or not there is life before death! We are no longer prisoners to the power of the fear of death. We don't have to be worried about how all of this is going to turn out. We know the end of the story. God reigns. Death is vanquished. We are given life eternal in the company of a merciful and loving God and all the saints. Believing that, knowing that, can and does empower us for ministry in God's name.”

What we have to proclaim is a Gospel that can truly enter into those places of darkness and suffering where compassion is the only gift we have to give. It is ours to give, as the Body of Christ, because our Lord went there first. It is ours to give when we reach out to the oppressed and the persecuted. It is ours to give whether we proclaim the Gospel to those who have never heard it before: or to those who have never before heard that the Good News of God in Christ includes them.

Twenty years ago I got questions from a child wanting to know what’s good about Good Friday.

Today I get emails from children of God wanting to know what’s good about a church that chooses bigotry over the baptized; a communion that places its institutional preservation ahead God’s inclusive love; that seems to fall so short of being Body of Christ it was intended to be. It seems to many that we stand at a Good Friday moment in the church, as we watch those with dogmas they’re willing to kill for focus their resources on schism and division.

My answer is God is not finished with the church yet … or with ANY of us. But just as the dream of God could not be killed on Good Friday, the dream of a church where ALL are fully included in the Body of Christ is still alive and well in the hearts, minds and ministries of countless faithful witnesses throughout the Anglican Communion and beyond.

At our Easter Vigils tomorrow, when we baptize 20 new members into the Body of Christ and receive as new members of All Saints Church 30 more, we will celebrate the outward and visible sign of that dream of God being claimed by a new generation of witnesses. And those of us who head for Canterbury this summer to take that witness to God’s inclusive love to the bishops gathered for Lambeth Conference will go empowered by all that is good about Good Friday.

Twenty years ago I got questions from a child wanting to know what’s good about Good Friday.

Today I get phone calls from reporters wanting to know what’s good about America -- and how do I, as a preacher, plan to deal with the issues of racism & sexism, of power and polarization and politics in the pulpit.

My first answer is “carefully.”

But the more important answer is “directly.” For the truth is, we are a nation that has been led into the temptation to place its national security ahead of its dedication to the proposition that all are created equal. Waging pre-emptive war, exploiting the environment, failing to address the crisis of poverty and jettisoning historic constitutional protections, it seems to many that we stand at a Good Friday moment in this country as we watch our political process become driven by the media and our hopes of new vision and leadership derailed by polarizing rhetoric fueled by sexism and racism.

My answer is God is not finished with America, either … and just as the dream of God could not be killed on Good Friday, the dream of a nation where “liberty and justice for all” really means ALL is still alive in the hearts and minds and imaginations of Americans everywhere.

Yesterday, we saw an outward and visible sign of that dream being claimed at the Los Angeles Convention Center, where over 6000 new American citizens were naturalized. As we watched the procession of newly minted Americans stream past us in all their wonderful diversity it seemed to me a sign of great hope for this nation that – in spite of the challenges we face – there are still those flocking to the dream of an America that is good, that is free, that IS about liberty and justice for all. And when we finally spotted our OWN new Americano in the crowd – Abel Lopez – I had one of those “glory attacks” you may have heard about as I thought about the work and witness he will continue to offer as one empowered by all that is good about Good Friday.

So let us stand with those who claim all that is good in a church still becoming all it is meant to be. Let us stand with those who embrace all that is good about in a nation still “under construction.”

And now, let us stand in this moment at the foot of the Good Friday cross – a cross which Jeffrey John describes in this way: On the cross God absorbs into himself our falleness and its consequences and offers us a new relationship. … From Good Friday on, God is no longer "God up there," inscrutably allotting rewards and retributions. On the Cross, even more than in the crib, he is Immanuel, God down here, God with us.

God is with us – and that is good news: on this Good Friday and always. Amen.

Thursday in Holy Week

"The Sacrament of Servanthood"

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

It's Maundy Thursday again ... "MONDAY" Thursday ... as my kids used to call it. It's not "Monday" Thursday, of course ... it's "maundy" for maundatum the Latin for commandment. For on this Thursday in Holy Week we remember the commandment our Lord gave us in one of his final acts before his arrest, trial and crucifixion: "A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

The very familiarity of these words can take away their power when we hear them these centuries after our Lord spoke them that night in the upper room to those "still didn't quite get it" disciples. They celebrated the Passover meal symbolizing God's deliverance of Israel from death in Egypt – even while the impending tragedy of the death of God's Son loomed on the horizon. "A new commandment I give you," he said to these faithful Jews who already had ten perfectly good commandments, thank you very much. Not a recommendation. Not a suggestion. Not a "resolution" ... but a COMMANDMENT -- elevating it to the status of the ten that came down the mountain with Moses ... elevating it to "the Word of God."

This, my friends, was precisely the kind of talk that had gotten him into this no-going-back place to begin with. This insistence that God's revelation didn't quit on Mt. Sinai didn't sit well with those who considered themselves the champions of orthodoxy … the leaders of the religious institutions of his day.
.
Invested in the status quo, there was no room for new commandments ... for "continuing revelation" ... for Jesus -- this rabble rouser from Nazareth. "A New Commandment?" Blasphemy! Apostasy! Heresy! And so the gloom darkened, the troops gathered -- and the cross loomed. And yet, "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." Loved them enough to tell them the truth -- no matter what the cost.

Loved them enough to share all of who he was with them – and command them to do the same to each other.

But where does the foot washing part fit in to all this? One commentary I read reaches this conclusion: "Jesus was showing us that we are all equal when we gather around the table of the Lord. If the Creator could wash the feet of the created, should not the creatures wash the feet of one another in equality? And if Jesus saw himself in his creatures, shouldn't we see him in each other?"

Does that mean we're supposed to REALLY wash each other's feet? Well, let's look again at our criteria for primary sacraments in the church: We do it because Jesus told us to. ("given by Christ to His Church" in the loftier words of the catechism)

Baptism in Matthew 28: GO THEREFORE and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

Eucharist in Luke 22: And he took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them saying, "This is my body which is given for you. DO THIS in remembrance of me.

And in today's gospel: John 13: So, then, if I -- your Lord and teacher -- have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do as I have done to you.

I imagine our Lord shaking his head and saying in gentle despair, "What part of go and do likewise didn't you understand?" Peter certainly didn't understand ... at least at first. "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand," said Jesus -- in words of profound reassurance. That's the beauty of sacraments: you don't have to understand them to do them -- to accept them.

Could it be that part of the reason the "kingdom" hasn't come yet is that the church missed the boat on what Jesus intended to be another primary sacrament "given by Christ to his Church": the sacrament of servanthood? Sadly, examples are all too easy to find -- such as the newspaper article about a church edict forbidding women and children to participate in ceremonial foot washings on Maundy Thursday. It declared that the act of foot washing was symbolic of Jesus choosing an all male priesthood -- therefore the ceremony would consist of twelve men from any congregation -- no women and no children.
.
Can you imagine our Lord saying to his disciples gathered on the night before he was handed over to suffering and death: “A new commandment I give you: exclude women and children.” I can’t imagine that – instead I imagine Jesus reading the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, shaking his head in discouragement and saying, “What part of love one another don’t you understand?”

The priesthood of all the faithful: that’s the calling we ALL gather tonight to celebrate as we share with each other the bread and wine made holy. The priesthood of all the faithful -- ALL the beloved people of God: not just the ones with white plastic around their necks and seminary degrees hanging on their walls. Can we – in this "out-of-the-ordinary" week – dare to claim that extraordinary calling? Can we – each and very one of us – believe that God will give us the grace to obey this New Commandment if we will but ask – if we will but follow the One who calls us to walk in love as He loved us and gave Himself for us.

As in that upper room you left your seat

and took a towel and chose a servant's part

so for today, Lord, wash again my feet

who in your mercy died to cleanse my heart.

So in remembrance of your life laid down
we come to praise you for your grace divine;

Saved by your cross, and subject to your crown,

strengthened for service by this bread and wine.

.
May the Lord who has given us the will to do these things, give us also the grace and power to accomplish them. Amen.

Some photos from yesterday's Renewal of Vows service ...

Taking a brief hiatus from Holy Week preparations, I thought I'd post a few pictures from yesterday's Renewal of Vows service down at St. John's Cathedral.

Here we're all looking back toward the baptismal font ...

Here in procession back toward the font where the bishops were all stationed to give us their blessing ...
.

Here we're all returning the favor by laying hands on our bishops ...

And here we've turned our attention back to the altar as it is prepared with the holy food and drink of new and unending life.

And a good time was had by all.
.

(Photo credit: Clare Zabala, Diocese of Los Angeles)

Marking the Fifth Anniversary of "Shock & Awe"

Prayers in A time of War
(from Episcopal Church Peace Ministries)
.

Prayer for all of Good Conscience

Blessed One whose child Jesus forgave his enemies even as they afflicted and killed him; be with all those acting in good conscience in this time of war. Keep the hearts of all your people from hatred, rage, despair, and scorn, and give us the wisdom to listen to the witness of one another's lives for the building up of the human community to your honor and glory; we pray in the name of Jesus our Peacemaker. Amen.

Prayer for our enemies

Holy and merciful God: you have made us for yourself and you keep us in all our ways; hear our prayer for our enemies and all who wish us harm. Watch over them as you watch over us, and help us never to forget that they also are made in your image by your love. May the time soon come when our conflicts cease and that love prevails in all the world; through Jesus our Savior. Amen.

Prayer in our Fear and Anxiety

God our refuge and strength: may we be so assured of your near presence, so confident of your love for all your children, so committed to your promise of life eternal and fullness of joy, that we may stand fast through our distress and continue to serve you and minister to your world, though our foundations be shaken and we be brought to the time of testing; we pray through Christ our Savior. Amen.

Prayer in Grief for War

Blessed One, I cry out to you in grief that our human wisdom has failed and we have fallen into the sin of war and many lives are being lost; the evil we would not do, we do; the good we would do, we fail to do; and we dwell in this body of death despite your will to deliver us. Let me not push away depression and sorrow, but cherish them as signs of the knitting together of my heart with yours, through your boundless grace, through which alone, may I and the world be healed. I pray with Jesus, your Beloved, who also wept. Amen.

Prayer for those in Military Service

God our Stronghold and Shield: Watch over those dear to us serving in this time of war. Go before them to make their path safe, Shelter them by night and by day. Lift them up when they grow weary. Fortify their hearts when they are afraid. Defend them through the storm in the assurance of your presence and mercy, and keep them in the companionship of Jesus, through whom we pray. Amen.

Prayer for those in Captivity

In darkest night, blessed God, be near us and those in captivity for whom we pray. Quiet their hearts from fear and despair with the comfort of your presence. Keep them in hope and good courage. Turn the hearts and hands of their captors from violence and hate. Speedily bring those we love to liberation and homecoming. And do not forsake us in the time of waiting and great distress, we pray through Jesus your child, who also was led captive and in whom our souls find eternal freedom. Amen.

For those Missing in Wartime

God to whom not one of us is lost: hold those who are missing in your tender care, that whether living or dead they may rest secure in your arms, and free from pain or fear. Give your angels charge over them by night and by day, and give us courage to wait in hope, until that hour when we are reunited with them. We pray through Jesus our Savior. Amen.

Wednesday in Holy Week

“To sustain the weary with a word”
Isaiah 50:4-9

On this Wednesday in Holy Week we hear these words from the prophet Isaiah: “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” Or, as the contemporary language translation “The Message” puts it, “God, has given me a well-taught tongue so I know how to encourage tired people.”

And what a timely message for this Wednesday in Holy Week – Holy Week Hump Day, we might arguably call it. For as we reach this mid-way point in the week between Palm Sunday and Easter I look around and I see an awful lot of tired people. And I’m not just talking about my All Saints colleagues who are working 24/7 to make “Holy Week Happen” … I’m talking about another kind of tiredness … of a deeper kind of weariness.

We don’t have to look further than the latest CNN bulletin on the polarization in American politics or the latest blog post on the schism in the Anglican Communion to realize there is a lot to be weary about. It comes from those who yearn for political leaders who offer hope rather than hype and for church leaders who are more committed to the Kingdom of God Jesus proclaimed than they are to the Institutional Church they are determined to maintain. And, on this fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, it comes from all who yearn for a just end to an unjust war that continues to take both Iraqi and American lives as its economic impact drains us with a price-tag too staggering to even comprehend.

Where, oh where, is there a “word to sustain the weary” in all of this!

Well, some of you may know that I have a blog that I post to on a regular basis. Yesterday, reflecting there on one of the gospels appointed for Tuesday in Holy Week – the one where Jesus tossed the moneychangers out of the Temple in a fit of righteous indignation, I wrote: If we’re not righteously indignant we’re not paying attention.

As we follow the life and example of Jesus may we be given the courage to challenge the civil boundaries that keep us from being a nation where liberty and justice for all really means all. And as we follow Jesus this week in the way of the cross may we also be given the grace to take up the cross of righteous indignation and take ON those religious authorities who presume to say who qualifies and who doesn’t to be gathered into God’s loving embrace.

That post engendered this comment from someone named Jesse:

I was 'righteously indignant' now I'm tired. I've been reading the blogs and the venom and hate that gets promoted there. The vitriol directed at the +PB and the church for trying to defend what's given into their care, their stewardship. I'm tired Susan. I want to lay down this cross and stop. I'm tired of being the enemy. One of the reasons I joined TEC was the sense of welcome I 'perceived'. I have to tell you I wasn't thrilled that the local Episcopal priest was a woman
but when I met her and we talked and I told her my story, that woman gave me the energy to go on fighting the fight to be a Christian.

The priest who gave Jesse the energy he needed to go on being a Christian knew what it was to strengthen the weary … to encourage the tired. And even through cyberspace we can reach out and encourage each other – especially on those days when we, like Jesse, want to lay down whatever cross we’re carrying and just stop.

Yesterday we got a call from a local TV reporter wanting to know if he could come by with the news van and get an All Saints reaction to Barack Obama’s speech on race, faith and politics – and may I just say how refreshing it was to be asked for an interview about something that didn’t involve the words “gay” “bishop” or “Anglican Communion!” Anyway, in our conversation about preaching and the pulpit I was reminded what I was taught in seminary is the two-fold job description of a preacher: to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.

And today, on this Holy Week Hump Day, I want to suggest that it isn’t just a job description for those who preach from a pulpit but for those who live out the Gospel in hundreds of different ways in our daily lives and work. Yes, if we’re going to follow Jesus we WILL be … we SHOULD be righteously indignant about any number of things. And that indignation will lead us to afflicting the comfortable in their power and privilege – to challenging those who wage war and who perpetuate bigotry: whether it’s lighting a candle at a peace vigil or signing on to the rector’s letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury it IS work we have been called to do on behalf of the Gospel. But on the other side of that coin is our call to comfort the afflicted – and today I want to call us to remember not to neglect that half of our “job description.”

God doesn’t promise we won’t be weary. But God promises to be with us in the weariness. And God promises to send prophets like Isaiah and pastors like Jesse’s with words to sustain us when we’re weary – to encourage us when we’re tired. And so, like the prophet who is called to both afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, let us commit ourselves – each and every one of us – to not only receive those words of encouragement when we need them but to offer them to those who yearn for them: wherever and whenever we can. Amen.

Renewal of Vows Day

[Liturgy design by Nick Cuccia]

.

Much like the fabled swallows who return to Capistrano every year, today was the annual flocking of clergy to the Cathedral for the Holy Week "Chrism Mass & Renewal of Vows" -- what one clergy colleague from another diocese called "going into the shop to get your oil changed!"

Whatever you call it, it's an annual opportunity to see friends from around the diocese, to trot out our red stoles (along with cassock and surplice -- how Anglican is that?) and to enjoy the company of our clergy colleagues in the oasis of a liturgy we didn't have to plan. It is also a moving opportunity to remind us what a privilege it is to serve God in this church ... and, for me, how deeply grateful I am to be part of this diocese of my birth & baptism.
.

This was the second year we've had the Los Angeles Diocesan service at St. John's on Adams ... last year it was just "St. John's Episcopal Church" ... this year it was "St. John's Cathedral" for, as readers of this blog might recall, last month St. John's was dedicated as the "pro-cathedral" of the Diocese of Los Angeles ("pro" because it will serve as both the Cathedral for the Diocese and the Church for the congregation of St. John's).
.

It was another "beautiful day in the neighborhood" and I left not only "renewed" but "refreshed" ... and ready to keep on rocking and rolling through Holy Week to Easter and Beyond.
.
And then it was back to the details of life ... which for me today was proofing the Easter Vigil liturgy, getting my "welcome to All Saints" letters out to the 33 new members being registered Saturday night at the Vigil and giving two interviews (on newspaper, one local TV) on Barack Obama's speech this morning. (Never a dull moment, eh?) And now it is getting my meditation for noon Eucharist tomorrow together before getting back to church to do the 7:30 tonight.
.
Onward to Easter!

Tuesday in Holy Week

“The The Spiritual Gift of Righteous Indignation”

.
Mark11:15-19

.
The Jesus who threw the money changers out of the temple is not the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” of Sunday School flannel boards and stained glass windows. Rather this is an outraged Jesus who has finally had it up to “here” with those in authority whose commitment to the “letter of the Law” they inherited blinded them to the Spirit of the Law Jesus incarnated. Out of patience? Jesus? Is that hard to imagine? Harder to imagine, perhaps, is that he wouldn’t have been by this point.

Abraham Heschel had this to say about patience: “Patience, a quality of holiness may be sloth in the soul when associated with the lack of righteous indignation.” [Heschel, The Prophets] And Jesus was righteously indignant, all right! The picture that comes to my mind when I imagine this scene is Peter Finch in the movie “Network” yelling, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Jesus was NOT going to take it anymore and he made no bones about it as he went toe-to-toe with what would have been the clergy, vestry and wardens of his day.

And I love that he started where they lived – quoting the scripture they shared in common as his “opening argument” -- “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples” … but you have turned it into a den of thieves! No wonder they began to plot his destruction: as one of my mentors once cautioned, “Just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you.” And out to get Jesus they were.

And what were his greatest crimes? Knowing their tradition as well as they did. Calling them out of their comfort zone and asking them to abandon “how we’ve always done it.” Insisting that “a house of prayer for all the peoples” meant ALL the peoples … not just the ritually clean, not just the ones with enough wealth to purchase the doves necessary for the temple sacrifice – all the peoples. Offering God’s healing grace to all people -- the lepers and outcasts, the women and the children, the Roman centurion and the Syro-Phonecian woman. Fulfilling the vision of the prophet Isaiah who spoke for Yahweh to the people of Israel, “It is not enough for you … to bring back the survivors of Israel; I will make you the light of the nations, so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

I remember this morning the words we pray in the daily office: Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace. That everyone might come. Everyone.

It was not only what he was willing to die for it was what he was willing to pitch a fit for. What got those tables tossed and those doves disturbed in this act of outrage in the Temple was the very idea that there were those who would put themselves and their rituals, their sacrifices and their “theological boundaries” between God’s grace and anyone who God created in love and calls into that saving embrace.

And the beat goes one. From my perspective the mindset operating in the Temple that Jerusalem day is still hard at work in parts of this Episcopal Church – of this Anglican Communion. It is the mindset that results in comments like this one from a post to an online discussion site: “The Episcopal Church’s current problems have little to do with sex, but everything to do with an unwillingness to maintain theological boundaries."

Maintain theological boundaries. Let’s try it on: Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that we might maintain theological boundaries. Don’t know about you but that’s not working for me. And it didn’t work for a clergy colleague of mine who offered this online response:

The Jesus I have met on my walk of faith constantly challenged theological boundaries, constantly bothered the authorities both civil and religious. He consorted with the unclean, he had women in his cohort, he denied the priority of familial relations, he violated purity codes. With the procession into Jerusalem, he upset the civil authorities and with the subsequent overturning of the temple tables he upset the religious authorities. Here a boundary, there a boundary, everywhere a boundary. I think that unwillingness to maintain boundaries may be of the essence of the faith ... at least if Jesus is to be the center of that faith.
.
If we’re not righteously indignant we’re not paying attention.

.

As we follow the life and example of Jesus may we be given the courage to challenge the civil boundaries that keep us from being a nation where liberty and justice for all really means all. And as we follow Jesus this week in the way of the cross may we also be given the grace to take up the cross of righteous indignation and take ON those religious authorities who presume to say who qualifies and who doesn’t to be gathered into God’s loving embrace.

.

And in spite of the challenges, with the psalmist may we say, “As for me, I will always have hope, and I will add to all your praises. My lips will proclaim your deeds of justice and salvation all day long.” Amen.

An End of An Era

So I'm wondering if there actually WILL be life after Vero Beach.

Will it still be spring training if Vin Scully isn't -- one more time -- explaining the cosmic connection between Holman Stadium in Vero Beach and Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine?

Will it still count as the Nation's Pastime if the Boys in Blue don't hit the field in Vero Beach to start the pre-season?

Well, we'll find out, won't we? For this very day ... at this very hour, in fact ... as I take a break from all that Holy Week & Easter preparations entail ... in Vero Beach the Dodgers are playing their last-ever spring training game at Holeman Stadium ...

... and trailing 12-9 to the Houston Astros as they go into the 9th inning.
,

Whatever the outcome of the game, there's "always tomorrow" ... and whatever the outcome of the season there's "always next year." But this year, that sure and certain hope is tinged with a little sadness and there will NOT be a "next year" for Dodgertown, Vero Beach.
.

And so, an era ends. And a season begins. And, as every good baseball litanist knows, the response to that versicle is:

PLAY BALL!

Monday in Holy Week

“No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”
(John 12:1-11)

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“No good deed goes unpunished” was something I grew up hearing my Aunt Gretchen say – usually with a frightening degree of relish in her voice and usually as she was launching into a long, gossipy story involving one of her Altar Guild or Daughters of the King cronies. Thinking back, “see these Christians, how they love one another” was not exactly what got modeled for me in my early growing-up days in the church … it was more like “see these Christians, how they fight and argue over things like women priests and prayer books, over who gets to sit in which pew and sing which hymn.”

And so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that “No good deed goes unpunished” comes to my mind as an appropriate sub-title of the gospel story appointed for this Monday in Holy Week – the story of the woman whose extravagant outpouring of precious perfume as a gift to Jesus earned her a tongue lashing from his disciples. The good deed – the gift she offered – was judged and rejected by those surrounding Jesus who thought she should have made a different choice.

Mark says, “They were infuriated with her.” Matthew says, “They murmured against her.” (And if I got to choose I think I’d pick the nice honest infuriation anytime over a bunch of murmuring going on!) Either way, her best offering was deemed unacceptable by the community that surrounded Jesus … there was no way they were going to let her good deed go unpunished.

And then Jesus intervened.

“Let her alone. Why do you criticize her?” he asked – and then challenged them to look beyond their “either/or” mind-sets and embrace what we like to call “both/and” thinking – that feeding the poor is always important but so is taking care of each other: that in doing what she did – offering what she offered – she gave not only a gift to Jesus but an example to us of risking to give abundantly, to love extravagantly.

What an example for us to claim on this Monday in this Holy Week. And what an antidote to the “either/or” challenges that seem to face us every time we turn around – not to mention the “no good deed unpunished” contingent who are all too ready to leap in at a moment’s notice with what we shoulda, coulda, oughta done instead …

The climate of polarization that currently grips both the American Culture and the Anglican Communion is a prime example. A case in point is the story a friend and parishioner tells of her experience being part of a day of dialogue that brought together folks from different congregations and contexts for “conversation across the divide.” They started by going around the table and naming what were, for them, Jesus’ core moral values.

“Peace” said my friend.

“Not at any price,” immediately retorted a woman across the table from her, “what about security?” – throwing down the “either/or” gauntlet … and letting her know it was going to be a long day across the divide!

The idea that we have to choose between peace and security is, I believe, a false dichotomy that puts us in “either/or” land – but it is a place where many people dwell: like the disciples either murmuring at or infuriated by those of us who have a different perspective. Bridging that divide is tough – hard, hard work – but it’s work we’re called to do. And, I’m happy to report, its work my friend hung in there and gave it her best shot for the rest of the weekend. Were any minds changed? I suspect not – but – like the woman who anointed Jesus -- she did what she could.

In the wider Anglican Communion and here at home in the Episcopal Church the either/or du jour seems to be “justice or unity.” Can we find a way to respect the dignity of every human being and fully include all of the baptized in the Body of Christ and still maintain unity? Frankly, the jury is still out – but there’s plenty of both murmuring AND infuriating going on … particularly as we countdown to Lambeth Conference this July.
.
And there are LOTS of good deeds not going unpunished as those working, striving, strategizing and advocating for a way forward through the hard ground of our differences run up against just how hard it is to hear the “both/and” voice over all the “either/or” shouting.

The prayer that began our worship this morning is full of “both/ands” -- joy and pain/glory and crucifixion/the way of the cross and the way of life and peace. For the “way of the cross” is by its very nature a both/and – a way we walk throughout our spiritual journey and a way we walk in a most intentional way this Holy Week.

May we be given the grace in these holy days ahead to walk with the sure and certain knowledge that the One who walked this way ahead of us walks along with us as well. And may we be given the grace to treat each other gently along the way – letting the good deeds of others go unpunished as we work to proclaim together the Good News we have been given to share. Amen.

.

PALM SUNDAY: A Tale of Two Processions

It was a great big old Palm Sunday at All Saints Church. The church was packed for both principle services, the music was wonderful, the speech choir did a great job with the Passion Gospel and the palms they were a'wavin!

The rector's semon was officially entitled "The Liberating Power of Self-Offering" but what I heard was "A Tale of Two Processions."

It began:

Two processions entered Jerusalem this spring morning. The procession of Jesus on a donkey and the procession of Pilate on a strong steed. Jesus' procession is surrounded by children, men and women waving palm branches -- symbols of peace.

While Pilate's procession is surrounded by swordsmen, military might and the banners of the forces of domination. Jesus' procession is about liberating the crowds; calling them to the true meaning of Passover. Pilate's procession is about controlling the crowds gathered in Jerusalem for Passover."

Pilate's procession was about overpowering. Jesus' procession was about empowering.

Those are the choices laid before you and me over these next eight days -- the holiest week of the Christian year: will the steps we take in our journey be in the service of domination or liberation?
.

You can hear it all here.
I recommend it. Highly.

And now, onward to Holy Week!
.

And a blessed Palm Sunday to you all!

The liturgies are duplicated.

The palms are in place.

And Canon Mark has weighed in with a most helpful "unpacking" of yesterday's Canonical Kerfuffle over at PREDLUDIUM. Thanks, Mark!

.

So now, onward to Holy Week!

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Canonical Kerfuffle

'Twas the week before Holy Week

And all through the church

Not a copier was cranking:

Not even a lurch.

The palms that were meant
To be folded with care
Had not yet arrived
There was panic in the air ...

OK ... I could go on but that'll give those of you who live and move and have their being in the trenches of parish ministry a window into what my week has been like. And yes, I know Jesus told us not to be anxious about earthly things but at this point I figure that was easy for him to say ... he didn't have to pull off 24 services between 7am Palm Sunday and 1pm Easter Day.

THAT being said, here's a quick update on the latest episode of "As the Episcopal World Turns" ... subtitled: Canonical Kerfuffle:

Fr. Jake has the most thorough overview of the backs-and-forths of the last day or so on this one but the "long story short" is that The Living Church published an article suggesting that there might not have been a sufficient number of bishops present at Camp Allen to make the vote to depose +Schofield and +Cox count.
,

Episcopal News Service [ENS] countered with this article, which included the following clarification from Chancellor David Booth Beers:

"In consultation with the House of Bishops' parliamentarian prior to the vote," Beers said, "we both agreed that the canon meant a majority of all those present and entitled to vote, because it is clear from the canon that the vote had to be taken at a meeting, unlike the situation where you poll the whole House of Bishops by mail. Therefore, it is our position that the vote was in order."

And Fr. Jake offered this summation:

The Presiding Bishop presents that matter to the Bishops at a meeting. If the Bishops entitled to vote give consent, the Bishop is deposed. The wording suggests that it is a majority of Bishops at that meeting entitled to vote that is required. Otherwise, the terminology "All the Members" would have been included, as it was in the previous section.The wording of that canon certainly needs to be cleaned up. That is quite clear.

So the debate seems to hang on one of those "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" arguments ... and the folks over at titusonenine and Stand Firm have a whole lot more time on their hands than I do the week-before-Holy Week to spend making those arguments.
.

Even a cursory glance at the feeding frenzy over there (and all I had time for was a VERY cursory glance) leads me to ask: What happend to last week's argument that it didn't matter whether Schofield was deposed by our TEC House of Bishops because he'd "resigned" anyway?

.

If they want to keep picking away at this point I guess they should party on ... but if anybody has that much extra time on their hands and wants to do something PRODUCTIVE I've got some palms that need folding into crosses and a prayer vigil going for the healing of our copy machine we could use your help with!

.

Notable, Quotable ...

BISHOPS!

Some quotes from reflections coming in from bishops re: the just completed House of Bishops Meeting at Camp Allen:

Bishop of Arizona's Kirk Smith:

... in spite of intensive lobbying by many bishops of our church, the Archbishop of Canterbury has decided not to permit Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire to participate in any capacity at the upcoming Lambeth Conference in July. Although Bishop Robinson was the only American bishop not to receive a formal invitation, it had been hoped that a way could be found to have him present in an unofficial capacity.

This news was greeted with great sadness by most of the House, and we are working to find ways support our brother during our time in England, and especially to invite our counterparts in the Anglican Communion to meet with him. I invite you to read all the documents that are posted on the Episcopal News Service website, including Bishop Robinson’s very moving response to the Lambeth decision, as well as a resolution passed by the House in support of him.

Whether one agrees with him or not, it is important to remember that he is a duly elected Bishop and that his exclusion is hurtful not only to him, but to the integrity of the American church.

Bishop for Ecumenical Relations, Chris Epting:

The most painful session was learning that our brother Gene Robinson’s (and our) request for him to be included in the Lambeth Conference in some official way has been rejected by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Even his request simply to pray with his brother and sister bishops during the retreat and during Bible studies. Unbelievable! We will surely make a statement expressing our dismay and sadness at this decision. And we will find ways to stay connected with him during the Conference.

More as they come in ...

A timely reminder ...

... from EpiScope

Offered as clarification to the secular press who, bless their hearts, have trouble keeping all our ecclesiastical details sorted out, I thought it offered some great reminders to all of us who blog, comment and otherwise reflect on the whole state of the Episcopal Church and the world:

1. We’re Episcopalians, not “Episcopals.” (Just like those folks down the street are Methodists, not Methods.)

2. The ecclesiastical body known as the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin hasn’t left the Episcopal Church just because some of its members have.

3. +Gene Robinson isn’t the first gay bishop, or the first openly gay bishop, in the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, or Christendom. He’s the first openly gay man to be consecrated bishop. (That we know of. 1,980 years--plus or minus a few--is a long, long time to go without the Internet.)

4. Deposed clergy are not "stripped." They may retain their frocks, along with other contents of their closets. It's the title and the property they can't keep.

INTEGRITY RESPONDS ...

... to Bishop Robinson's Exclusion

Integrity expresses its profound disappointment and anger that the Archbishop of Canterbury has failed to find a way for the Rt. Rev. Gene Robison to meaningfully participate in the Lambeth Conference. The Rev. Susan Russell, President of Integrity, said, "Bishop Robinson's marginalization is symbolic of the discrimination experienced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender faithful daily throughout the Anglican Communion. It runs completely contrary to the promise made at the last Lambeth Conference 'to listen to the experience of homosexual persons' (see Lambeth 1998 Resolution 1.10.) making a travesty of the so-called 'Listening Process.'"

Russell added, "Integrity completely supports Bishop Robinson's call for other U.S. bishops to attend the Lambeth Conference despite his exclusion -- and we challenge them to speak not only for him, but for the LGBT faithful throughout the Anglican Communion who will have no voice in Canterbury. Integrity will be consulting with a number of progressive bishops on how to best offer that witness."

Russell concluded by saying, "Integrity continues to prepare for our Lambeth Conference witness with our global Anglican allies. We will be there in numbers and we look forward to the opportunity to claim God's justice and proclaim Christ's love."

(See Canterbury Campaign for more information.)

Anther picture worth a thousand words ...

... with thanks to a Photoshopping colleague.

From yesterday's ENS article: "Robinson told the House that he respectfully declined an invitation to be present in the conference's "Marketplace" exhibit section."

House of Bishops statement on the Lambeth Conference

The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church

Meeting at the Camp Allen Conference Center,

Navasota, Texas

March 12, 2008

Give to your Church, O God,
a bold vision and a daring charity,
a refreshed wisdom and a courteous understanding,
that the eternal message of your Son
may be acclaimed as the good news of the age;
through him who makes all things new,
even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, approaching the forthcoming Lambeth Conference, are mindful of the hurt that is being experienced by so many in our own Episcopal Church, in other Provinces of our global communion, and in the world around us. While the focus of this hurt seems centered on issues of human sexuality, beneath it we believe there is a feeling of marginalization by people of differing points of view. Entering into Holy Week, our response is to name this hurt and to claim our hope that is in Christ.

As the Lambeth Conference approaches, we believe we have an enormous opportunity, in the midst of struggle, to be proud of our heritage, and to use this particular time in a holy way by affirming our rich diversity. The health of such diversity is that we are dealing openly with issues that affect the entire global community. Thus, even as we acknowledge the pain felt by many, we also affirm its holiness as we seek to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Even though we did not all support the consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire, we acknowledge that he is a canonically elected and consecrated bishop in this church. We regret that he alone among bishops ministering within the territorial boundaries of their dioceses and provinces, did not receive an invitation to attend the Lambeth Conference.

We appeal to the faithful of the Episcopal Church and the faithful in the wider, global Anglican family, to focus and celebrate our unity in the comprehensiveness of diversity. In union with Christian tradition through the centuries, we are willing to face challenges that precipitate struggle as a means towards reconciliation.

During our meeting we have been praying for a "daring charity and courteous understanding." With this intent and guided by the Holy Spirit, we go to the Lambeth Conference spiritually united and praying that God will sanctify our struggles and unify us for Christ's mission to a hurting world.

source: episcopal life online

Another shoe drops ...

Just posted to Epicopal Life Online ...

+SCHOFIELD DEPOSED

[ENS] The House of Bishops voted March 12 to consent to the deposition fromthe ordained ministry of the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, bishop of theDiocese of San Joaquin, and the Rt. Rev. William Jackson Cox, bishopsuffragan of the Diocese of Maryland, resigned.

Members of the House of Bishops are preparing a statement regarding these actions and for release after a March 12 afternoon session.The process used to work through these resolutions took into account the importance of prayer and careful reflection before each vote was taken.

Specifically, in both cases the House was first led in prayer by a chaplain, followed by small-group discussion, and then plenary discussion. After this,voting commenced. Each vote was cast clearly in the majority, with some nay votes, and some abstentions.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori asked the bishops assembled "tocontinue to reach out" in pastoral care to both Schofield and Cox.

"Abandoning the Communion of this Church does not meet we abandon a personas a member of the Body of Christ," Jefferts Schori said.

News on the Run

Today began with a 7:00 a.m. Vestry Coordinating Committee meeting and will end with a 7:00 p.m Parish Council meeting with very little time to breathe inbetween, so all I have to offer to the blogosphere at the moment are these bits from "The News."

A Dave Walker Cartoon is worth a thousand words:



My favorite quote from the Associated Press article on +Gene & Lambeth:

A spokesman for the Anglican Communion did not respond to a request for comment.

And then there's this great quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu's preface to +Gene's soon-to-be-published book, In the Eye of the Storm

... Gene Robinson, breathtakingly, says of those opposing him who have been vituperative and worse, that they are all, including him, destined for heaven. He has refused to demonise them. After all the calumny heaped on him he might have been forgiven for hoping that his adversaries would end up in the warmer place. Our Lord must smile to have such a splendid representative in an affair that has often been sordid.

He is so utterly eirenic and his hermeneutics – his manner of understanding the scriptures as being time bound and thus conditioned by cultural language, beliefs contemporary knowledge, etc. is so reasonable and persuasive.

For me, the question of human sexuality is really a matter of justice; of course I would be willing to show that my beliefs are not inconsistent with how we have come to understand the scriptures. It is not enough to say the "Bible says ….. ", for the Bible says many things that I find totally unacceptable and indeed abhorrent.

I accept the authority of the Bible as the Word of God but I remember that the Bible has been used to justify racism, slavery and the humiliation of women, etc. Apartheid was supported by the white Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa which claimed that there was biblical sanction for that vicious system ...

Gene Robinson is a wonderful human being and I am proud to belong to the same Church as he.

Desmond Tutu
Capetown, South Africa

More tomorrow.

+Gene Responds ...

Posted on Walking With Integrity

I first want to thank Ed and Bruce and Tom. They have been so true to what they were asked to do by the Presiding Bishop. They have been in close communication with me. I have felt very supported by them. They have represented me extremely well.I want to be clear than I am not here to whine. I learned of the result of this negotiation on Friday evening. I have been in considerable pain ever since.

But I want to acknowledge that I am not the first or last person to be in pain at a House of Bishops meeting.

My own pain was sufficient enough that for 36 hours I felt the compelling urge to run, to flee. My inspiration for staying came from my conservative brothers in this house. I have seen John Howe and Ed Salmon and others show up for years when there was a lot of pain for them. I see Bill Love and Mark Lawrence, and I know it is a very difficult thing for them to be here right now. For me, the worst sin is leaving the table. And that is what I was on the verge of doing. But, largely because of you, I stayed. Thank you for that.

I want to tell you why I declined the invitation as it was proposed. I really had high hopes that something might work out. I have been talking with the Anglican Communion Office for almost a year now. I got my first phone call four days before the invitations to Lambeth went out. I thought something would work out. The offer to be hosted at the Marketplace is a non-offer.

That is already available to me. One workshop on one afternoon and being interviewed by the secular press was not anything I was seeking. I wasn't going to Lambeth to have another interview with the secular press. If interviewed at all, I want to talk with a theologian. I want to talk about the love of Christ. I want to talk about the God who saved me and redeemed me and continues to live in my life. I want to talk about the Jesus I know in my life.

But my mind boggles at the misperception that this is just about gay rights. It might be in another context, but in this context it is about God's love of all of God's children. It's a theological discussion, it's not a media show. I have been most disappointed in that my desire was to participate in Bible study and small groups, and that is not being offered. It makes me wonder: if we can't sit around a table and study the Bible together, what kind of communion do we have and what are we trying to save?

I am dismayed and sickhearted that we can't sit around a table, as brothers and sisters in Christ, and study scripture together.It has been a very difficult 48 hours sitting here and hearing your plans for Lambeth.

In my most difficult moments, it feels as if, instead of leaving the 99 sheep in search of the one, my chief pastor and shepherd, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has cut me out of the herd.

I ask two things of you. Some of you have indicated that if I am not invited, you won't go either. I want to say loud and clear - you must go. You must find your voice. And somehow you have to find my voice and the voices of all the gay and lesbian people in your diocese who, for now, don't have a voice in this setting. I'd much rather be talked to than talked about. But you must go and tell the stories of your people, faithful members of your flock who happen to be lesbian and gay.

For God's sake, don't stay away.And second, please don't let them separate me from you. Please don't let that happen. It will be difficult, and we will have to be intentional. I know that the last thing you will need at the end of the day is another meeting just so I can catch up with you. But I hope you will be willing to stay in touch with me.

From the day I have walked into this House I have been treated with respect and welcome, even, and perhaps especially, by those of you who voted no on my consent.

I can never thank you enough for that. I will always and every moment treasure your welcome and your hospitality.

Don't let them cut me off from you.

All this is really sad for me and for my diocese. I won't have the experiences you will have, to share with them. But I will be there in the marketplace, willing to talk with anyone who wants to talk, especially with those who disagree with me. If you know me at all, you know that that's true.

Now, my focus has to change. Maybe this is what God has in mind. I had hoped to focus on the community of bishops at Lambeth, making my own contribution to its deliberations. But now, I think I will go to Lambeth thinking about gay and lesbian people around the world who will be watching what happens there. I will go to Lambeth remembering the 100 or so twenty-something's I met in Hong Kong this fall, who meet every Sunday afternoon to worship and sing God's praise in a secret catacomb of safety - because they can't be gay AND Christian in their own churches. I will be taking them to Lambeth with me. They told me that the Episcopal Church was their hope for a different, welcoming church. They told me they were counting on us. Yes, the things we do in the Episcopal Church have ramifications far, far away - and sometimes those ramifications are good.

I hope we can talk about the ways we can stay in touch in Lambeth. I will be praying for you, all the time. I know it will seem very strange, being separated from you. But we can do it if we want to. I have nothing but respect and sympathy for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the difficult place he is in. I was trying to help him, and it just didn't work.

Pray for me. I will need that. A lot.

+New Hampshire Non Grata

This just in from Episcopal News Service:

===========

Lambeth invitation 'not possible' for Robinson

The House of Bishops was informed March 10 that full invitation is "not possible" from the Archbishop of Canterbury to include Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as a participant in this summer's Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops.

Robinson, addressing the House, urged the other bishops of the Episcopal Church to participate fully in the conference, and thanked all who are willing to "stay at the table." (A link to Robinson's remarks will follow.)

Robinson told the House that he respectfully declined an invitation to be present in the conference's "Marketplace" exhibit section.

Read the rest here ...

============

And while I'll wait to comment further until after I've seen the full text of Bishop Robinson's remarks, if indeed the best the Archbishop of Canterbury could manage was to invite the Bishop of New Hampshire to be "present in the conference's "Marketplace" exhibit section" then the only thing I can think to say at this point is "Shame on him!"

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen ...

You don't want to miss this ...

Live -- in captivity ...

An Actual GAY BISHOP!

Imagine that!

.

Update: Report from Bishops Ed Little, Bruce Caldwell and Tom Ely to the House of Bishops regarding conversations about Bishop Gene Robinson's participation at the Lambeth Conference has just been posted to Episcopal Cafe .

Before & After Monday

I'm thinking it's "cruel and unusual punishment" to make the Monday of The Week Before Holy Week (when everything you have to get done before Holy Week has to get done) ALSO be The Monday After We Turn the Clocks Ahead (when you feel like you're an hour behind all day!)

Nothing to be done about it, I suppose. But here are a few Bits & Pieces for this "Before & After" Monday:

=======

The bishops continue to meet at Camp Allen ... Report from Day Three is offered here by Episcopal News Service. They'll be done on Wednesday.

=======

An Open Letter to the House of Bishops was posted to Walking With Integrity yesterday and included in its introduction:

Prayers ascend for your work on behalf of the whole church at Camp Allen this week. I am presuming to write this afternoon to reflect briefly on the "faith based reconciliation" aspect of your work together -- a process I am very familiar with as both Brian Cox and Joanne O'Donnell are diocesan colleagues of mine here in Los Angeles.

I am deeply convinced of the efficacy of the work of reconcilers.net and believe giving the whole House of Bishops the shared experience and vocabulary of this reconciliation process is a great gift to the church and to the communion. I also want to "enter into the record" the long history which Integrity & CTB leadership have with participating in the kind of process you have undertaken at Camp Allen.

I write because I want to make sure that the hard work that has been done by scores of committed progressive leaders over this last decade+ toward reconciliation with the conservative minority in the Episcopal Church is recognized. And I write because I want to reiterate the commitment my predecessor, Michael Hopkins made in 2002 in his "Message to the Church:

"We are absolutely committed to this Church and we are absolutely committed to the Continuance of as broad a diversity—including theological—as is possible for us to maintain together. This commitment is, in part, a commitment to continued messiness and frustration … Liberals and conservatives, progressives and traditionalists, must learn to live together in this Church or there will be no Church in which for us to live. But learning to live together must mean “mutual deference” not moratoriums or some insistence that we all convert to being “moderates.”

==========

On this Monday-Before-Holy Week, treat yourself to The Radical Orthodox Rabbi -- a true blessing of a reflection by Elizabeth Kaeton over at "Telling Secrets."

=========

Finally, I invite your prayers for continued healing for our friend, priest, brother and colleague, Gayland Poole -- as he recovers in Fort Worth from the double-whammy of triple bypass followed by a perforated ulcer. Katie Sherrod (Gayland's wife partner) brings us up to date on his progress over at Desert's Child with "Pushing toward the light"

WHATEVER your Monday Before & After holds may it also hold light, love and blessing.

Next Steps in San Joaquin ...

The Living Church reports:

Walkabout Scheduled for San Joaquin Provisional Bishop Nominee

A single candidate chosen to be the provisional Bishop of San Joaquin will participate in a two-day walkabout visitation to the diocese immediately after the House of Bishops’ meeting concludes at Camp Allen in Texas on March 12.

The bishops are scheduled to vote on whether to depose the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin during a “business session” after Morning Prayer on that day. Bishop Schofield has already formally resigned from the House of Bishops. Bishops with jurisdiction must obtain consent from the House of Bishops to resign, according to national church canons.

Faith Based Reconcilation

The reports this afternoon from Camp Allen are that the bishops of the Episcopal Church spent the day engaged in exercises focused on faith based reconciliation.

Good for them.

Brian Cox and Joanne O'Donnell are able facilitators and the process they brought to Camp Allen is one that has been practiced for many years in many different contexts ... including a 2003 "National Reconciliation Conversation" subtitled "Conflict in the Episcopal Church" held at St. James Episcopal Church here in the Diocese of Los Angeles.

Leadership of both the American Anglican Council and Integrity/Claiming the Blessing were invited to a four day opportunity to work together to explore the faith based reconciliation process ahead of the upcoming General Convention.

We showed up. They didn't.

And yet it was a helpful exercise for those of us who came. The blog I wrote in response to that gathering was called "Longing to Hope Again" ... and reading the ENS release today, I was struck that the bishops gathered at Camp Allen in 2008 were being asked the same question we were asked in that parish hall in 2003: How have I given and received offense?

Here's what I wrote about that very question in 2003 ...

===========

For me, the most powerful exercise of the conference was the opportunity for a representative of each constituency – progressive, moderate and conservative – to offer a list of both the hurts we have received and those we have inflicted in the course of this now decades long conflict. Speaking for “the progressive side,” I offered the following:

We have been hurt by:

• the assumption that we’re driven by a non-faith” agenda – by having our desire to fully include GLBT persons in the Body of Christ dismissed as “purely political.”
• the constant questioning of our salvation and by the threat of judgement,
  the lack of trust that we mean what we say – by accusations of “hidden agendas” and threats of “future coercion” which attack our integrity and block conversation
• the dishonoring of our relationships by defining them in terms of sexual acts. Andrew Sullivan has written, “We’d never talk about heterosexual marriage primarily in terms of vaginal intercourse or merely sexual needs; it would slight the depth and variety of heterosexual relationships.” It hurts that our relationships do not receive the same level of respect.
• name calling: Sodomite. Pervert. Morally Corrupt. By being lumped with pedophiles and prostitutes – by those who speak the words and those who do not speak out against the hate mongers.
• having the truth of our experience as GLBT Christians denied as valid – having our sexual orientation become more important than our theological orientation.
• hearing again and again that our presence in the church will cause others to leave – by having the truth of our experience held hostage by threats of schism -- having the burden of unity placed on the shoulders of our silence.

We have caused hurt by:

• the times we have participated in “then show them the door thinking as a means to resolve our differences with conservatives.
• stereotyping those with biblical hermeneutics which differ from ours as fundamentalists – by dismissing them as ignorant.
• not acknowledging the very real pain being experienced by those who see the church changing in ways that they find incompatible with their understanding of scripture.
• not always remembering what it is like to be in a minority and by not acting with sensitivity in those places where we have become the majority.
• proclaiming a Gospel of God’s inclusive love and yet only tolerating those with conservative political and theological perspectives.

Not a complete list. Not a definitive process. But a beginning. An effort. A baby step forward on the journey toward reconciliation. At least I hope so. It isn’t about changing minds or ignoring differences or tabling resolutions. It’s about engaging in the hard work of both encountering and understanding “ the other” – and coming to see each other as equally beloved of God, equally entitled to respect, equally longing to hope.
.
===========
.
A lot of water under the bridge across the Anglican divide since I wrote that in May 2003 ... but the same longing for hope that drew us to show up at St. James dwells, I believe, in the hearts and minds and ministries of the bishops who showed up at Camp Allen for this meeting of the House of Bishops ... and who will show up in Canterbury for the Lambeth Conference of Bishops.
.
And may the God of hope continue to fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that we will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
.

Day Two from Camp Allen

Daily Account from the House of Bishops for Saturday, March 8

• The Saturday, March 8 session started with Morning Prayer and small group Bible study.


• During the morning session, the bishops engaged in a lively program preparing for the Lambeth Conference through an exercise for developing and delivering messages, presented by Macky Alston of Auburn Media. Alston led the discussion on preparing for media interviews and the principles of giving voice to faith concerns in the media.


• The Eucharist was celebrated at 11:30 a.m.


• Following lunch, the Rev. Canon Brian Cox of the Diocese of Los Angeles and the Hon. Joanne O'Donnell of the Diocese of Los Angeles led a presentation on faith-based reconciliation.

O'Donnell said the goal was not to reach reconciliation but to lead a reconciling life. She was not advocating for agreement, but for a transformation of attitude toward persons whose ideas may differ from your own.

Cox presented eight core values for religious and faith-based reconciliation: pluralism; inclusion; peacemaking; social justice; forgiveness; healing; sovereignty; and atonement.

This was followed by small group discussions on the question presented by Cox: How do my world view, core values and collective identity influence my perception of the conflict in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion?

Cox then led a discussion on Demolishing Walls of Hostility: the Principles of Inclusion. Part of reconciliation, he said, is for people to address the hostility that resides in their hearts. Hostility, he continued, can come from sources of gender, class, or tribalism. Cox cited racism and nationalism as examples of tribal hostilities. Cox referred to Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in applying Jesus' principles of loving your enemy and transforming hate into love.

He talked about the current dynamics within the three Abrahamic faiths -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Cox noted that all three are facing the key issue of identity.

He charged the bishops to discuss the following question in small groups: To which groups do I feel hostility, and how have I given and received offense?
Following Sunday morning Eucharist, the next session of the House of Bishops will be the evening of Sunday, March 9.

Media briefers for Saturday, March 8, 2008:
The Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, Bishop of Lexington
The Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, Bishop of Rhode Island

The quote of the day comes from ...

... Giles Fraser in today's Church Times:

"The Trinity reminds us that unity and separateness can exist at the same time."

Let's take that to Lambeth!

.

On Torture, Violence and Faith

This was going to be a morning “off."

And then I read the news.

From the News:

The Washington Post reports:

Bush Announces Veto of Waterboarding Ban

President Bush said Saturday that he has vetoed legislation meant to ban the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics because it "would take away one of the most valuable tools on the war on terror." In his weekly radio address, Bush said, "This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe."

Meanwhile …

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Harry E. Soyster, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, suggested that those who support harsh methods simply lack experience and do not know what they are talking about. "If they think these methods work, they're woefully misinformed," Soyster said at a news briefing called in anticipation of the veto. "Torture is counterproductive on all fronts. It produces bad intelligence. It ruins the subject, makes them useless for further interrogation. And it damages our credibility around the world."

From the Blogs:

Episcopal Café offers this from author Bruce Chilton, an Episcopal priest and chaplain at Bard College, who writes of human sacrifice in an excerpt from his new book, Abraham's Curse:

As Judaism has praised the sacrifice of Abraham, and Islam the offering of Ibrahim, Christianity since the first century has contended that Jesus accomplished in action the offering that Isaac only symbolized. The key Christian belief in Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God reinterprets and recasts the image of Isaac in Genesis.

Abraham's story has never been ours more than it is now. Naming the compulsion to take innocent life in the belief that sacrifice is noble goes beyond the incidents of any single crime, and takes us into the foundations of human culture and of how people understand the divine.

We live on the edge of a prolonged sacrificial commitment, in a war on terror whose end is as obscure as its purposes and whose methods are ill defined. Understanding what it is we're talking about when we speak of human death as a "sacrifice" has become crucial to us.
.
Read the rest of Chilton’s essay here …

From Martin Luther King, Jr.
.

"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular
but one must take it because it is right." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

.

====

From Me:

.

And now, I believe, there has come a time when we as Christians must examine our own history of oppression, our core doctrines of domination and our unexamined metanarratives sanctifying violence.

.

It may not be safe -- particularly in a nation willing to gut its Constitution in the interest of "national security."

.

It may not be politic -- particuarly in Presidential Politics Season

.

It may not be popular -- particuarly if you're going to challenge historically "key Christian beliefs" such as Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God in a Communion where the tail of doctrinal conformity threatens to wag the dog of Anglican "unity."

.

It may be none of these things but it is the right thing to do and it is the right time to do it. Before another pre-emptive war is waged in our name. Before another LGBT teenager is gunned down in our schools. Before we allow one single solitary more act of violence to go unchallenged.

.

It is the right thing to do. And it is never too late to do the right thing.

.

The Spring Meeting of the House of Bishops started today at Camp Allen -- where they'll be til March 12th -- and they're off and running!
.
Here's a background feature from ENS emphasizing the focus on tools for reconciliation being offered by Los Angeles colleagues Brian Cox and Joanne O'Donnell.
.

And Episcopal Cafe reports on today's media briefing from Camp Allen, which included these bits & pieces:

• Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori welcomed the House and introduced new bishops: Mary Gray-Reeves of El Camino; Dan Edwards of Nevada; Kee Sloan, Suffragan Bishop of Alabama; Mark Lawrence of South Carolina; Jeff Lee of Chicago; and Steve Lane, Bishop-Elect of Maine (whose consents have been received). Prince Singh has been elected bishop of Rochester but his consent process has not been completed.
• Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori shared her hopes for the upcoming Lambeth Conference: "that we go with a sacrificial attitude open to one another, expecting divine encounters," that "we are willing to embrace the pain of difference as a sign of hope" and that "we avoid pre- judgments."
  "I hope we build bridges for greater mission engagement," she said.
• Ed Little of Northern Indiana, chair of the HOB Planning Committee, noted, "Our agenda during this meeting will weave in and out of discussions about the Lambeth Conference."
• There was a presentation on the historical perspective of Lambeth by the Rev. Paula D. Nesbitt, Ph.D. of the diocese of California; and an update on current plans by the Rt. Rev. Miguel Tamayo of Cuba and a member of the Lambeth Planning Committee.
• In his presentation, Tamayo said that the stated goals of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Design Committee for the Lambeth Conference are "to equip bishops to be more effective leaders in God's mission and to strengthen the Anglican Communion."
• Eucharist was celebrated following the afternoon session.
• After dinner, the evening session will be devoted to a Lambeth discussion with the afternoon speakers along with Don Wimberly of Texas, John Chane of Washington (DC), Leo Frade of Southeast Florida, and Robert O'Neill of Colorado. The session will begin with a discussion of the question posed by Nesbitt in the afternoon: Have we reached a 'tipping point' toward a new way of striving toward social change?

Do keep our bishops in your prayers as they go about their work on behalf of the whole church. And do remember to keep in your prayers that our bishops will remember that they are not the whole church!

What I'm reading this Lent ...

Some bits that struck me in my reading last night:

Religion has to do with leading us to an awareness of God, with giving us the tools, the disciplines to make ourselves ready for the experience of God. Spirituality has to do with transforming the way we live as a result of that awareness, with infusing all of life with a sense of Presence that transcends the immediate and gives it meaning.

Sometimes we stop at one and fail to become the other. We use religious practice as a measure of our spirituality and seek spirituality without the discipline it takes to make it more than some kind of artless escapism. One is as lacking as the other, of course, but religious practice without the spiritual development that is meant to proceed from it is the more deceptive of the two.

It leaves us in danger of being keepers of the law rather than seekers of the truth.

HELLO!

Religion is meant to be a bridge to God, a vehicle to understanding. It is meant to plumb the depths of the human soul to the source of the spirit. Instead, religion can sometimes an obstacle to union with God. As the wag put it, "In order to sin properly it is not necessary to break the rules. All you need to do is keep them to the letter."

Religion without the spirit it is meant to preserve can become positively irreligious: we put the weak, the wounded, the addicts, the religious "others" outside the boundaries of our perfect lives, fearful of touching what might pollute us.

Religion -- who hasn't seen this happen? -- can be a very sinful thing.

Amen. Amen. Amen!

Chittister, Joan: Welcome to the Wisdom of the World (pg. 26-27)

I only have two words to say ...

... about the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party:

BOMB IRAN

News Break

Man strikes woman

on way to anger management class

c-news online

(You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried!)

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Authorities in Minnesota accuse a man en route to anger management class of striking a woman after becoming, well, angry.

Justin John Boudin pleaded guilty Friday to fifth-degree assault in Ramsey County District Court.

The county attorney's office says the 27-year-old can expect to face a sentence for time served in jail, at least 120 days, and probation when he is sentenced May 5.

According to a criminal complaint, Boudin was waiting at a bus stop on Aug. 29 when he accosted a 59-year-old woman and others.

The complaint alleges that when she took out a cell phone to call police, she was hit in the face, and a 63-year-old man who tried to stop the assailant was then hit with a blue folder - which fell on the ground.

Police tracked the man down through the folder, which included Boudin's name and anger management homework.

As Ohio Goes?????

Quote of the night:
"Together, we will turn promises into action,
words into solutions
and hope into reality."

Well, at least it isn't dull!

Clinton takes Ohio ... MSNBC

UPDATE: 9:50 ... MSNBC calls Texas for Clinton!
Go Figure!

Bits & Pieces for a Tuesday Lunch Break

Just a few quick bits and pieces as I take a lunch break on a busy staff-meeting Tuesday at All Saints Church:

.

We LOVED getting to meet and hear Dee Dee Myers last night at the book signing for her new book "Why Women Should Run the World."

[Photo credit: Ellen Snortland]

She totally rocked ... and ... BTW ... is a Diocese of Washington Episcopalian. Who knew? Anyway, put her book on your "to order" list and show up at one of her book gigs if you can -- well worth the time!

======

A "must read" is Katie Sherrod's "Through the Looking Glass into Canon32Land" -- a VERY illustrative exploration of just how weird things have gotten in the Diocese of Fort Worth. Don't miss it. Really.

=========

I'm probably a little biased, but my rector, Ed Bacon, preached a particularly great, insightful, challenging & faith-filled sermon on Sunday, entitled: "When God Gives Us Sight" ...

It is tempting to interpret John 3:16-17 as all about being saved from eternal damnation. That all you have to do is believe in Jesus and a set of doctrines about Jesus to be "saved." I believe that interpretation is, at its heart, sinful.

Check out the video here and see what you think for yourself!

=========

Meanwhile, this morning attorneys for same-sex couples presented arguments to the California Supreme Court in an historic lawsuit seeking to strike down state law that bars lesbians and gay men from marriage. I've gotten a couple of calls from media about the story ... Equality California has some good links on the case ... including a link to a webcast of the arguments. We'll see where it goes from here.

======

All for now ... back to Holy Week schedules and the other "business of parish life!"
.

Why women should run the world ...

... is the title of a new book by Dee Dee Myers ...

.
... and we're going to go check it out at a booksigning at Vroman's here in Pasadena tonight. Check it out if you're in the neighborhood ...
.
More later ... after I finish digging out from having been away for the All Saints vestry/staff conference last week.

What Ellen said ...

"When the message out there is that if you're gay you can get killed for it, we need to change the message."

.

From the "Consider the Source" Department ...

The Pope

.

Rules Out

.

Feminist Theology
.

By Malcolm Moore in Rome [Telegraph UK]

The Vatican has cracked down on feminist interpretations of the liturgy, ruling that God must always be recognised as Our Father.

In a move designed to counter the spread of gender-neutral phrases, the Holy See said that anyone baptised using alternative terms, such as "Creator", "Redeemer" and "Sanctifier" would have to be re-baptised using the traditional ceremony.

The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said yesterday: "These variations arise from so-called feminist theology and are an attempt to avoid using the words Father and Son, which are held to be chauvinistic."

.

Instead, it said that the traditional form of "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" had to be respected.

The alternative phrases originated in North America and started to become popular only in the past few years.

The new phrases are particularly popular in the Church of England. It was recently reported that guidelines to bishops and priests advised them to avoid "uncritical use of masculine imagery".

The Catholic Church and the Church of England are split over feminist issues.
.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the Pope, met in Rome last year, but admitted that the ordination of women priests was a "serious obstacle" to closer ties.

The Pope, who wrote the latest ruling, has been a strong opponent of feminism in the Catholic Church.

In his book, The Ratzinger Report, he wrote: "I am, in fact, convinced that what feminism promotes in its radical form is no longer the Christianity that we know; it is another religion."

Rosemary Radford Ruether, a professor of feminist theology at the Graduate Theological Union in California, said that among "liberal" Catholics, the Pope "is not our Pope".

The Vatican said anyone baptised under the feminist terms could invalidate their marriage. Cardinal Urbano Navarrete, who wrote a formal commentary on yesterday's ruling, gave warning that anyone who attempted to baptise someone with a gender-neutral form would be penalised. "It is seriously illegitimate and unjust," he said.

Monsignor Antonio Miralles, a professor at the Pontifical Holy Cross University, said the new baptism "subverts faith in the Trinity" because it does not make the relationship between the three persons clear. "God is eternally Father in relation to His only begotten Son, who is not eternally Son except in relation to the Father."

Meanwhile, the Pope also spoke out against gay marriage and abortion before his first trip to the United States before Easter. He praised Americans who respected the "institution of marriage, acknowledged as a stable union between a man and a woman".

.