Second sermon for Trinity V

Two things - first, make sure to download (or at least read) today's Convention Daily because it has a good article on D024 and also a chart showing how resolutions reach the floor for vote.

Now, for the second sermon. In the old days, when I first started my blog, Fr. Jake gave me some advice: "People don't follow links." Well, that's true for most people. So, I've not only linked to this homily, but lifted it word-for-word from Jim Naughton at The Lead.

The homily is from Ray Suarez of NPR.

It is a joy to be asked to speak to this gathering of my brothers and sisters from all across the country and the world. I left a reporting trip in Tanzania to come here in full confidence that these invitations don’t come every day. It’s a privilege to speak to you on this day when we remember Benedict’s radical welcome to all who come from what the old prayer book called “the blessed company of all faithful people.” With outstretched arms we take a big, broad, view of what that beautiful phrase means… “the blessed company of all faithful people.” That includes our partners and friends from other branches of the family who are with us today. At this point in the life of the Episcopal Church, some of us, and some of the parishes we call home, may not be feeling they are in a blessed company right now, and forced to think about what welcome means, who is included in welcome. It is a tough time, even if your attendance is good, your pledges are strong… even if you have more baptisms than burials in an average year… we are forced to fight the battles, forced to live out the arguments that history conspired to make converge right now, in our day, in our time. Benedict had some plain-spoken advice for this gathering: “Let the house of God be wisely managed by the wise.” I’ll let you decide if you are in the wise. None of us in this room could have chosen, could have elected to be born, grow up, or be called to serve at another time. We have no choice but to play history’s hand… So we are struggling, perhaps in our buttoned-down, Anglican way, to figure out what to be in the 21st century, to keep the lights on, the altar set, and wait for people who left after the storms got bad, and trying to bring others in through the door for the first time and say welcome, you are home… while still very much having to be a place of coherence, love, service, for the people who’ve never left.

We don’t give you a spiritual means test when you come to the front door before we let you in. Instead, we say as Jesus did, “Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

There are people lampoon us, wish us ill, use us as a punchline for lame jokes based on some very old stereotypes, and frankly, from material that wasn’t all that funny to begin with. But at least those old jokes, poking fun at imaginary church of WASP matrons, using ‘summer’ as a verb, country clubs, white shoe law firms, and pedigree - those old jokes had some measure of affection in them. These days the jokes contain more derision, condescension, and harsh judgment born of ignorance. Recently I was reading the religion blog in the Washington Post and one essayist, John Mark Reynolds, wrote: Do you know what you get when you cross an Episcopalian with a Southern Baptist? I didn’t know, so I kept on reading. You get someone who comes to your door and rings your bell, but once you open it has no idea what to say.

No idea what to say? Really?

I could swear I was in church at 7 am on Ash Wednesday morning, heard our challenging lectionary, was called out, forced to confront myself by a strong sermon, and then called to be holy by our penitential rite. I thought we had a lot to say, and when I picked my head up to look around there was a big crowd of witnesses sharing that sobering moment with me.

Nothing to say?

When my son and daughter and the youth of our parish head out year after year to the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast, and to the Lakota Sioux lands in North Dakota, and to our sister parish in Honduras… they worked hard, very hard… and began and ended every day with worship. Like so many of our youth, they have plenty to say, “Not only with their lips but with their lives.” Or, as Benedict himself might say, ora et labora, pray and work.

At a time of bewildering complexity and ever greater challenge some churches have told us that contrary to what you’ve heard, being a Christian in the 21st Century is actually a piece of cake, all you gotta do is follow a few, very simple rules… The churches that say that have definitely had a good run the last 20 years. There are shelves in bookstores groaning under the weight of critical social science scholarship, marketing theory, and even, occasionally, theology; books that tells us what we’re doing wrong and what the other guys are doing right. And in 2009 we can either stop being us, or hold on, and believe that what we are and how we got to this day has prepared us for whatever God’s going to dish out in the years ahead. We may not know what’s in store, but we must share Benedict’s conviction, in the final words of The Rule that ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus, "that in all [things] God may be glorified."

It would have been easier in the 1970s to say, you know, this fight over whether priesthood is a privilege granted to men only isn’t going to do us any good at all, so let’s duck it. Just kick the can down the road. It would have been easier, much easier, to pull up stakes and run when our cities changed in ways that weren’t so great for the bottom line, or, as I heard people say in the 60s and 70s, “too many of our churches are in the wrong places.” But we suffered along with our cities, and in places like the west side of Chicago, and Inglewood and South Central Los Angeles, and the South Bronx we stood for something all right and we had plenty to say. And now, as we are burdened with another family fight over what part of our family is given the gift of servant leadership, what part of our family is called to carry the blessed burden of the episcopacy, and which families will be able to seal their life’s commitment with the blessing of their church, that’s a fight we can pretend to duck, but in real life… we just can’t.

Proverbs this morning called for the search for hidden treasure. We’re all on it. I go to church, with a few thousand other human beings who bring a broad range of life experience and religious conviction through that front door with them every Sunday. We don’t agree on everything. But what do we agree on?

That we bring Jesus to a suffering world…

Orare est laborare…

That there is worship in work…

That the liturgy we share binds us to a procession through history that has lasted centuries, of a hope kindled since the Last Supper and the Resurrection, carried by faithful servants fired up by the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. All of those things are much more important than the things we con’t agree on.

But, there are about a million fewer of us than there were a half century ago… and it’s a much bigger country. American Society did not stand still in those years… there was increased mobility, intermarriage, a larger fraction of the American population rejecting religion entirely.. If critical observers are right, in order to have a strong and secure place in the diverse American religious marketplace we have to stop being who and what we are, who we have been, and start watching the people who are filling arenas and pitching best-selling books for cues. Those places have come to some conclusions about success, and we don’t measure up. So let’s stop clinging to that outmoded prayer book that happens to be one of the crown jewels of the English language, we’ve got the get rid of that hymnal, with all those tricky tunes and old-fashioned words… stop those long sermons delivered by people who always seem to want me to feel bad about something… the organs, the outfits, it’s so archaic in a world where religion bestsellers are trying to convince me that Jesus wants me to be rich. I thought Jesus wants me to be holy, and it just goes to show you how wrong a guy can be. But hey, while we’re jettisoning all these things that are leading us to what is called marketplace failure… let’s also stop the radical welcome… Let’s stop the willingness to live, sometimes uncomfortably, with the ambiguities of modern life. Leave behind that notion that we don’t have all the answers yet. Then we can relaunch… EC 2.0, having acquiesced to those who, like that Washington Post essayist, think the only thing we’re really for in 2009 is to be mocked, dismissed, diminished, pushed to the margins of the American experience of the struggle to be God’s people in the world. When we do explain ourselves to the world, why not stop the explanations that come draped in ecclesiastical bumpf, an impenetrable torrent of rounded-edged words that leave even me wondering what the heck they’re talking about, and I’m fully bi-lingual in English and Church.


In places where our natural feedstock, the kinds of Americans who have normally been Episcopalians going back to the 18th century, are gone, died, moved… in short supply, whatever… those neighborhoods need us in the 21st Century, because in 2042 this will be a majority minority country. We’ve got to act like a church that hasn’t already internalized the narrative of its own decline… We’ve got to talk about our heroes and assert, reclaim a place in the common culture: We aren’t trapped in some obscure corner, we have been immersed in making the country what it’s been for better or worse for 225 years… from the Constitutional Convention to abolition to the Social Gospel movement to the battles against child labor and disease and municipal corruption of the reform era, to civil rights and the second emancipation. So many people need what we’ve got… spiritual wayfarers who are already looking for us… would love to join a church that’s ready to love them back… we don’t know who they are yet, and they don’t yet know we’re there. We’ve got a calling for the 21st century. It’s the same calling it was in the first century, as it was in 1534, and yet the world we head out into the world to work in is changing all the time.

Trinity V

Trinity V (Pentecost VI)
Proper 10

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 and Psalm 24; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29

Introit: The Lord is the strength of His people, and the protector of the salvation of His anointed: save, O Lord, Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance, and rule them for ever. -- (Ps. 27. 1). Unto Thee will I cry, O Lord: O my God, be not Thou silent to me, lest if Thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

What does our culture, our society, tell us about dancing?* Does it celebrate it? Does it embrace and expand upon it, helping it to infuse our movements through the world? Does it teach us to inhabit the expressive potential of our bodies, coordinated and rhythmic?

Or does it narrow it, relegate it to the back room, the bar room, the stage, and the empty house, unobserved and detached?

The Killers, a popular contemporary band, pose a question in their song “Human.” They wrote the song after hearing a disparaging comment that America was “raising a generation of dancers.” The chorus of the song goes:

Are we human or are we dancer?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold,
And I’m on my knees looking for the answer.
Are we human or are we dancer?

Is it antithetical to our human nature to dance? Surely not. As with many art forms, we convince ourselves that if our potential is not immediately apparent, we hold no stake. “Oh, I’m not a musician.” “No, I’m not an artist.” “I can’t dance.”

But as children, we all dance, we all embody the sounds of the world in a very physical way. Some of us rock spastically in our high chairs while others sway gracefully. Some of us shake our little fists energetically, or beat the ground like a drum, while others jump on any accessible piece of furniture. We are indeed made dancer.

But our hands go cold. We live in a culture where to be human is not necessarily to be dancer, where we are taught to judge the type of dancer we become. Does that mean the music ceases to pulse around us, within us, and through us? No, but it is no longer released to the world through movement and gesture. The music ends abruptly and alone, inside our ears and our heads.

In today’s readings we hear two stories of dancing. The tales are of two dancers in two very different times, dancing two very different dances.

In our reading from the Second Book of Samuel, David has brought to his city the Ark of the Covenant, the experience of God’s relationship to humanity made manifest in metal, textile, and stone. And as he enters the city, as the party of Israel takes up God and welcomes God into their midst, David and all the house of Israel dance “before the LORD with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.”
They dance! And not a little side-to-side rock, sway, and clap, but “with all their might” they dance! And David, clad in a linen ephod, a ceremonial garment of prayer and worship, presents the gift of his joy, made manifest in his dancing to the Lord.

In this moment, David’s body, the chosen, imperfect, and fully human body of the King of Israel, becomes a gift to the Lord, an expression of the joyful relationship and covenant between God and God’s people. But it doesn’t stop there.

The incarnate celebration continues through a shared meal, as David blesses the people in the name of the LORD of hosts, and distributes food among all the people. That’s right, he feeds them – “the whole multitude,” both men and women – with bread and meat and a cake of raisins! The dance becomes a banquet, a royal meal, of joy, of life, of abundance and community.

In our gospel reading today there is another dance. This second dance takes on a different character. Salome dances to entertain. It is the ruler’s birthday celebration. And all the leaders of Galilee gather to be amused, while John the Baptist sits locked in a cell because he called Herod to emerge from his sinfulness. Salome is apparently a talented dancer. We can imagine her graceful and perhaps provocative movements enrapturing and exciting a room full of powerful men. Her self-expression drives them to distraction and foolishness – a dance worth half a kingdom. This dance too ends in a banquet of sorts: a head served on a silver platter, a banquet of enslavement to desire, hubris, pride, arrogance, and revenge.

The contrast is striking: David’s dance of life, the banquet of heaven, and Salome’s dance and banquet of death.

We gather today to dance. Foolishly, unapologetically, and beautifully we dance. We dance up the aisle in our flow-y white gowns. We sing to each other ballads of our common history, punctuated by gestures of stillness, of standing, kneeling, and sitting, of clasping the hands of another. Our bodies, our voices, and our movements become vehicles for expressing our relationship with the divine. And coming forward to the table, we present those gifts, gifts of ourselves, to God and to one another – a feast, a banquet set open to all who would come.

Today, in Anaheim, California, a tremendous dance is also taking place, a dance involving thousands of Episcopalians, as leaders of our church converge on Disneyland for the triennial gathering known as General Convention.

The dance they do together is one of the most awe-inspiring things we do as a church. It has the potential to be a moment of incredible beauty and synergy, the dance of many ministries, many ways of living Christ’s calling. It has the potential to be the dance of many varied ways of being human as Jesus taught us, moving to the music of the spirit’s common call, offered on a common table for our mutual edification and sustenance. And from that dance there is the potential for the transformation of the world. Ten thousand Episcopalians, standing together, in community can feed the world with their hope, their courage, and their love for one another. The dance can become a holy banquet.

But the beauty and the challenge of these readings, paired as they are, is that they point to the fact that the dance, and the banquet that flows out of it, can be an instrument both of life and death, with potential both to sanctify and desecrate.

How are we as individuals transformed by our dance, transformed by our liturgy? By our gathering? By our faith? How are we, like David, expressing what we know of God, what we have seen of God, and God’s relationship to us, in this moment of dancing – both here today, and at the convention in Anaheim?

What we do often looks like a ridiculous dance in the eyes of the world, amidst so much modern complexity. And it is. But by the grace of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the ardent pursuit of the example of Jesus Christ, it is a dance that can transform the world.

But it can only feed the world when it is for us truly a dance of life, a dance of offering. Like David, our dance must be done with all our might. It must be a dance that acknowledges the unique, limited, often uncoordinated way in which each of us tries to embody and express anew the music and breath of the spirit moving in us. It must acknowledge that the dance we do is an expression of our humanity, and it must be a dance that “with all its might” seeks to draw together instead of dividing, to empower instead of belittling, to interpret rather than dictate. It must be a dance that is shared by all in the human family.

Jesus calls us together at the table, speaking to us in the ways in which our own bodies are offered up one to another at this table, the ways in which our dances merely point to God, gesture toward God. He speaks to us in this dance of life; not performance, but community; not selfish, but sacrificial; not shortsighted, but eternal. It is this dance we celebrate today, this dance of life.

Let us dance as ourselves, as humans, as dancers, as community. Let us dance together!

Thanks be to God.

-- Jason Sierra is the Associate for Young Adult and Campus Ministries at the Seattle Regional Office of the Episcopal Church Center. He holds a BA in American Studies from Stanford and is a visual and graphic artist. He can be reached at jsierra@episcopalchurch.org.

* The Holy Ghost just doesn't fool around, boy. Today's homily was chosen and pre-posted two weeks ago. The fact that it talks about dancing and the fact that Integrity's post about the Integrity Mass was called "I could have danced all night," and, that this homily was written by a priest who's ministry is to the young adults in TEC is purely Holy Spirit caused. I can take no credit for coordinating the three things.

Quote of the day

This is the best statement of all the cyber ink that has been spilled today about GC09

The whole idea of the baptismal covenant is taken seriously here. The lay people are part of the structure, they are not left out … if you go to synod in the province, all you see on the platform is the purple colors.

So said one of the Anglican Communion visitors. Another visitor echoed Bishop Robinson's earlier statement. Dr. Jenny Te Paa, principal of the College of Saint John the Evangelist, Auckland, New Zealand, a guest of President Bonnie Anderson said:

I am a little surprised and saddened that too many Episcopalians are being affected by their sense of loss of face or vulnerability in belonging to the Anglican Communion. I am dismayed at the extent to which that seems to be prevalent.

I don't believe that that is so … it is not how I perceive the rest of the communion regard[s] the Episcopal Church to be honest.

Read the whole delightful story at Episcopal Life Online.

As tomorrow is Sunday, I will most likely follow TTLS's rule and rest from blogging posting only the weekly homily.

UPDATE: Dr. Te Paa's address to the convention is found here

A098: A curious thing I noticed

The Living Church has a good write up about the debate around A098, Holy Women, Holy Men Revision Principles, f or the Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

As I re-read the Blue Book section dealing with A098 I found a truly curious thing. We are going to celebrate the life of John Calvin. Does anyone else think that is really odd?

His spiritual descendants are the very people in the AC who are the schismatics and we are to celebrate his theology that is really at odds with classic Anglican theology.

Fianlly, some strong language on the ordination of all qualified

A much stronger version of D025 (Commitment and Witness to Anglican Communion) actually cleared the committee and will be sent to the floor of both houses. Even two of the five bishops on the committee support the revision. So that you can see how much strongr the revision is, I've pasted the corrections in for you.

Resolved, That this the 76th General Convention recognize that individuals gay and lesbian persons who are part of such relationships have responded to God's call and have exercised various ministries in and on behalf of God's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church over the centuries and are currently doing so in our midst, often without the church's recognition of their lifelong committed relationships and the blessings bestowed by such relationships; and be it further

Resolved, That this the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, like any other baptized members, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, which call is tested in our polity through our discernment processes carried out under Canon III acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church and the canons of its dioceses; and be it further

Resolved, That this the 76th General Convention acknowledge that, while the members of The Episcopal Church, like those in our sister Provinces as of the Anglican Communion, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, and in light of tradition and reason, are not all of one mind on this issue, and that Christians of good conscience, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, may disagree about this issue, the validity of the Church's sacraments comes from the action of the Holy Spirit in and through them, not from the frail humans celebrating them in God's name disagree about some of these matters.

Notice how much stronger the revision is than the original.

I'm sorry they didn't include bisexuals and transgendered persons as well, but at least we finally see those two words (gay/lesbian) in print in a good piece of legislation.

But the question really is, will the bishops go for it? I doubt it. To be blunt, I don't think they have the balls to stand up to Rowan and the bigots of the so called "global south." Let's all pray that I have to eat my words.

Make sure to read today's Convention Daily and in particular the article Restraint, or welcome by the Episcopal Church by Melodie Woerman.

UPDATE: Episcopal Life has posted on this issue.

D034 - the future of printed communication

Yes, Virginia, there is something going on at GC09 other than talking about sex.

Friday, 10 July, there was a hearing on the future of Episcopal Life. The hearing focused on the future of the print media. D034, Continuing Episcopal Life and Diocesan Partnerships, is just that. Although Episcopal Life is the national publication, at least thirty dioceses pays to have their diocesan newspaper included in Episcopal Life.

The heart of the matter is that we live in a society that sees print media as a dying art. With the advent of the World Wide Web, newspapers are folding nearly every day. Is it economically sound to continue to print Episcopal Life, or should that publication move to electronic print?

Episcopal Church director of communications Anne Rudig outlined a proposed budget for the department, based at the Church Center in New York, that would retain news coverage on the Episcopal Life Online website and change the print publication to a feature-focused quarterly magazine. "Historically, the department has been a news bureau model. I am moving ahead with a draft budget that would allow the office to move from a news model to a diversified strategic communications model," she said.

The Rt. Rev'd Jerry Lamb, San Joaquin, said

The newspaper has been a unifying tool as the diocese works to rebuild after former leadership left the Episcopal Church. I believe the printed edition of Episcopal Life is a core value of this church … We put into everybody's hand a piece of paper where everybody's got the same news instead of 15 blogs. I am very concerned it stay on a monthly basis.

Scott Guinn (RI) who is a member of the committee spoke against the resolution

It is not a good idea to legislate solutions … The future of monthly print publications is limited.

He added that a proposed five-month time frame for the end of the monthly newspaper is too short and there should be a survey to determine a long-term strategy.

I must say I don't understand the debate. Each month I receive The Lutheran Magazine published by the ELCA. It is a slick publication and contains information from all parts of the ELCA and news of the church universal as well. Why can we not have such a publication?

I am, obviously, firmly in the modern era where the media is concerned and the WWW is wonderful. But not all of us have the Internet savvy and not all of us love an on-line only world. It really is difficult to fall into bed at night with the computer in hand and drift off to sleep reading about the doings of the Episcopal Church. It's also dang hard to swat the flies with the computer! And, too, there is just something comforting about holding print media in hand.

Pioneers, all is well, and half assed members

Wow, I hope you were one of the lucky 1,600 people who attended the Integrity mass last night. According to all reports it was a standing room only event. I hope someone will post a lot of photos of the event and of our fellow bloggers. (Photo: Telling Secrets)

It must have been remarkable to be in the room with two pioneers in TEC. The Rt. Rev'd Barbara Harris was the first woman to be consecrated a bishop in this church. The Rt. Rev'd V. Gene Robinson was the first honest gay man to be consecrated a bishop in this church. And, both of them were present at the Eucharist. Bishop Robinson said, "If only we could bottle this energy."

You kjnow that the event was spectacular when even the Living Church extolled the mass

The planners of Integrity’s Eucharist thoroughly transformed the Pacific Ballroom in the Hilton Hotel into a place of lively worship.

Three large and colorful parasols marked a gospel station, and a large bronze baptismal font topped a brightly draped altar. A procession before the Gospel reading marched through every aisle between the movable seats, filling the room with incense. Bishop Robinson scattered baptismal water generously during the gospel procession.

After Bishop Harris offered her teaching—the program did not call it a sermon—Bishop Robinson and the Rev. Thomas Wilson of All Souls Church in Point Loma led a visually stunning Prayers for the Ministry of All the Baptized.

+Robinson made a statement on his blog that should give us some hope

My sense is that the place of the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion is not in danger. Strained and tense, sometimes, yes. But actually threatened, no. Are we in the same place regarding the issue of homosexuality -- of course not. But the bonds of affection are strong and deep, and God will see us through this difficult time. This is a strong belief exhibited by all the primates and bishops visiting this Convention from across the Anglican Communion. It confirms my own belief that it is time for us to stand up and be the Church God is calling us to be, and trust that the Anglican Communion will not only survive, but be a blessing to all.

But, as comforting as that should be to TEC, it doesn't mean we will see the end of B033. Bishop Harris made a good comment that many of us have been saying since 2006

[B033 was] the ticket for active members of the House of Bishops – Robinson excluded – to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference, and to make some false peace with others in the communion.

Both of her statements are absolutely correct. Tea with The Queen was worth the spilled blood of any member of TEC, and that's what we saw. And, it was just false hope, too. The Communion as we have known for about 120 years is dead; not just dead, it's decomposing.

But the best quote from the mass came from Bishop Harris who said

If you don't want GLBT folks as bishops, don't ordain them as deacons, better yet, be honest and say 'we don't want you, you don't belong here' and don't bestow on them the sacrament of baptism to begin with. How can you initiate someone and treat them like they are half-assed baptized.

When I was a child, my parent's best friends were an elderly black couple named Clarence and Ellen Daniels whom I loved as much as I loved my parents. When I read +Harris' comment I laughed right out loud. I could hear Ellen's voice as I read Harris' words. Leave it to a black woman, a black grandmother to tell it like it is.

But, of course, she is absolutely correct. That's what the bishops have done for far too long and continue to do. And, mark my words, that's what they will do in 2009. For more on the mass, see We Could Have Danced all Night.

Sue Carter has an interesting take on the events in Anaheim. You'll find her column here but this is the interesting bit

It was the presiding bishop’s remarks at the convention opening on Tuesday that have apparently roiled elsewhere, but caused barely a ripple here. In telling the more than one hundred bishops and eight-hundred deputies collected, that “business as usual” was not going to get the job done, she added that that it was a “great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”

In a gathering dedicated to stressing the cause of unity, the “individualistic focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy…that heresy is one reason for the theme of this convention.”

The people here got it, and I don’t sense any particular distress because of her remarks challenging that salvation depends on an individual reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. The tapestry I see being woven is one of community and shared interests, of inclusion and reaching out. It remains to be seen if everyone gets stitched in.

The only people who will yell (and have yelled) about the collective aspect of salvation are the Calvinists for whom it is simply about "me, me, me; dammit, it's about me." For those who are in the catholic tradition, the notion that salvation is a collective process is absolutely orthodox.

He knows when the sparrow falls

Tonight I'm feeling discouraged for several reasons. I could not attend GC for only the second time since 1979; I missed the Jakeite reunion; I lost my job today; I am convinced that the bishops will sell this church to the lowest common bigot in the communion.

When we've been kicked enough it's difficult to remember that God knows when the sparrow falls and he cares about us. It's difficult to forget about bigot foreign and domestic bishops and remember that we are the church - all of us together.

When I'm really down, I turn to something from my childhood - a song I "grew up on." And I turn to one of the greatest singers who's ever lived. I hope you enjoy this clip and that it makes you feel better about GC09.

This is for Lisa, too - Keep your faith, my friend.

B033 as seen though the eyes of a conservative

On Anglicans United, there is a good commentary by the Rev'd Todd H. Wetzel about B033. It's worth a read. Here is a quote

B033 will be overturned in the House of Deputies. It's a matter of perspectives. Relationships are tended to by the parish. The sacraments happen in parishes. Day in and day out, Sunday after Sunday we care for one another. The sacraments belong to us - they're ours to distribute as we will. Right? Not.

While I am part of a parish, my vision of the church need not be parochial. The parish is part of the church but it is not the sum total of the church - that's what it means to be catholic and not simply congregational. Of necessity, bishops exist to remind us of that simple but essential truth. That's why I believe the bishops will not concur with the Deputies in their desire to overturn B033.

Bishop are not like us. They're heads are in the clouds. Their role ought to challenge us to look beyond our feelings, our local relationships to the wider and greater Church - to the Mind of Christ. The Founding fathers of this Episcopal Church wisely required in our Constitution that both Houses concur on matters such as these.

If the House of Deputies were to uphold B033, they would clearly deny the feelings running so current in this Church. The heart would sorrow. But if the Bishops falter and find themselves in agreement with the House of Deputies in rescinding B033, it would be denying long standing catholic thought. The mind would falter.

Bishops and Deputies see things differently because their perspectives vary so widely. Bishops are not like the rest of us. Their heads are in the clouds.

He is absolutely correct, the bishops are out of touch with this church.

As Jesus told the authorities, "I have done nothing in secret," so the HOD has conducted all hearings on B033 in public - all were invited to listen and participate. The bishops didn't show up - except those who were forced to do so.

But, tomorrow the bishops will discuss B033 in executive session, a secret session, a closed to the Public session where they can be the fraternity they enjoy being and swear everyone to silence like the Skull and Bones Society. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if someone doesn't even break out the biscuits they bought last summer at Lambeth. I wonder, who will pour the tea? I'm sure one of the closeted bishops will be glad to play mother.

Go read Jim Naughton's post