For All the Saints, who from their labors rest

Earlier this month, the Church celebrated All Saints Day. That week I returned to the suburban parish where my parents had worshipped for nearly 50 years, and where their ashes are immured in its columbarium. Few people at that parish remember me, though I was raised and confirmed there. But in my life, I have tried to honor my parents' upbringing and that parish by serving as senior warden of a struggling inner-city parish, a board member of one of the diocesan charities, and for 10 years as a columnist for the diocesan newspaper. A bit over a year ago, a Marine honor guard assisted as we placed my father’s ashes next to my mother’s, the final act of remembering the man who had made the sacristy credence table for the communion elements and who had given in my mother’s memory the garden of grace and reflection, honoring the woman who had chaired two of that parish’s spring fairs. In that year, another former servant of that suburban parish passed on: the Rev. Wm K Gros. He had been the parish's frst curate in the 1960s. After that he served a number of parishes in both city and suburbs, retiring to serve as a hospital chaplain near the University of Illinois hospitals on the near west side of Chicago. Unmarried, he literally devoted his life to the church, and in the highest compliment any believer can pay to a priest, inspired one child of his first parish to the ordained ministry. Last spring, I attended Bill’s funeral at the Church of the Atonement in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. There I was reminded of something my father had said a number of years before. You see, I have not been on board with many of the decisions of the national church, and one such decision particularly rankled me at that time. The retired bishop of downstate Quincy, IL, who in his earlier service to the church had been the rector of the parish I attended in college, had just been deposed without a trial. But my father, who had lived though war and depression had told me: David, the church will not get any better if you leave. The national church has once again set its sails against scripture, and has seen a third of its members leave because of it. But may those words direct the Holy Spirit’s flow in the hearts of those who bear in their hearts the memory of the saints, like Bill and my parents, who from their labors rest. And may the saints who remain continue to minister to the sick, the friendless and the needy no matter how the winds of popular culture blow.

The Selection of a Successor

The recent rejection of gay marriage in Maine and the candidacy of the out-and-partnered Rev. Bonnie Perry as Episcopal bishop of Minnesota may hearten traditionalists in the Church (and in society in general), but I would caution against reading too much into these events. While gay marriage has gained no traction anywhere in the country (going 0-31 in every state where the issue has been put to a vote of its citizens: and pro-gay activists cannot say that it is a regional phenomenon, confined to the red states or the Bible belt), gay candidates for bishop are playing in a different arena. Episcopal dioceses elect bishops at conventions, and voting at those conventions is divided into clergy and lay persons. The process of selecting candidates for bishop has gone from ridiculous to absurd: in Minnesota, three clergy (including Ms. Perry) put their own names forward for consideration, and two more were "nominated by petition" (that is by supporters after seeing the slate of self-selected candidates). Gone evidently are the days of having a committee of clergy and laity who know their diocese comb the country for a prospect who has proved faithful in his life and teaching. But once the slate is in place, the convention votes by rank, and a candidate has to achieve a majority of both the clergy and laity voting. In Minnesota, there were almost an equal number of clergy as lay delegates, with the upshot being that 51% of the clergy can veto an overwhelming majority of laypersons who support a different candidate. (Of course, it works the other way, too.) But the difference is that a bishop ministers not only to the clergy in his diocese, he confirms new members, counsels candidates for the ministry and mediates disputes between a parish minister and his flock. Can a diocese function when only the clergy support a bishop? Fortunately in Minnesota, the clergy followed the laity. The winning candidate, the Rev. Brian Prior, showed early strength in the lay votes, and by the 3d ballot, he had a majority in that rank. Though he was second in the clergy votes through three ballots, the clergy heeded the will of the laity and after narrowly losing a majority on the 4th ballot (by 2 votes), on the 5th, he had a 58% majority (against two other candidates). The Bible is not too strong on democratic principles as determining the identity of a successor (see Acts 1: 23-26; II Kings 2:9-12). Yet, for 200+ years, the Episcopal Church has survived with this makeshift system. May the election of the 9th Bishop of Minnesota stand as a beacon of hope for those in the church who may long for more rigor in the selection of our leaders, yet remain wary of a system where power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The Prince of Peace

The recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Pres. Barack Obama conjures many feelings for any American follower of Christ. On the one hand, Pres. Obama claims to be a Christian, and though the evidence for that claim may be slim (his opportunistic joining of Trinity United Church of Christ, but his convenient absence from its pews when the Rev. Jeremiah Wright issued his jeremiads against the United States; the paucity of a spiritual life discernible from his published writings; his generalized appeals to "social justice" rather than salvation), I know of no evidence to the contrary. Christians worthy of the name must be persons of peace, yet peace must not be the end to itself. The end must be that God's will be done. Too many are the despots, the crackpots, the psychopaths who will exploit the Christian's preference for peace by subjugating those within their realms. Obama seems to get this: he opens up a dialogue with those who wish us ill, yet deliberates over the use of force. Jesus asked: what king with 10,000 men, who cannot withstand a rival coming with 20,000, will not sue for peace "while [the enemy] is still a long way off" (Luke 14: 31-2)? Curiously, that phrase "still a long way off" appears a chapter later in Luke's gospel in the parable of the Prodigal. After squandering his father's patrimony, the Prodigal resolved to seek his mercy by working as a field hand. But while the Prodigal was "still a long way off," his father recognized him "and was filled with compassion" (Luke 15: 20). Is there something to recognition of our plight from a distance that dictates the faith response? After all, there is nothing to make the king with 20,000 men accept or grant terms to his rival.

The problem of course, is that these other kings with whom Pres. Obama might treat have no interest in the lives of their army and are prepared to sacrifice any and all of them-even themselves if it means a holy martyrdom. In the 13 centuries of conflict between the Islamic world and the Christian West, Islamic leaders have been less concerned over the body count than over their claim to exclusive religious purity and their hegemony over discrete territory. May Nobel laureate and United States Pres. Barack Obama recognize from a holy distance that regardless of the size of his army, that which will prevail is the justness of his cause. In that will be found the peace of God, that passes human understanding.

Adam's Rib

The lectionary for this past Sunday (10/4/09) included the Old Testament account of the creation of woman, from Adam's rib, to provide a helpmate for the first man who had spent his days naming the animals over whom God had conferred man's dominion. Ironically, just that week news accounts had described a new track in our evolutionary ancestry, a 4' tall, long-armed hominid that did not show evidence of knuckle walking or tree-swinging. I am not a creationist (as that term is commonly used), nor an evolutionist: I believe that we live in a created order and that we humans will ultimately be called to account in a day of judgment set by the Creator. But how we humans came into that order has never really interested me as an object of my inquiry. I am more concerned about how we're getting out of it.

Jesus suggested that we focus on heaven. Since He alone has seen it and our meager existence (however it has evolved), I'm willing to accept His suggestion.

The Prodigal v. the Faithful Servant

It is hard to say how, as a Christian and near life-long Chicagoan, I feel about the Int'l Olympic Committee's in-your-face rejection of Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid. (For those who have been asleep, Chicago was the 1st of 4 cities to be rejected.) Whether this is some cosmic justice being meted out for Chicago's well-deserved reputation for corruption (the parade of ex-city officials who have been convicted of serious crimes is long and growing) no one will ever know. But the city, though outwardly beautiful, has been rotten inwardly for as long as I can remember (and I go back to the 1950s). The Christian in me says that the parable that most applies is that of the talents: the faithful servants are rewarded with more; he who simply returns what he has been given is thrown into the place of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Left for another day is the parable of the Prodigal. Can anyone see Oprah, Daley and Obama telling the Father that they have sinned and are no longer worthy? Two of the three have re-election prospects, and the third is the unappointed PR director for the other two.

Glimpses of Grace

I hazard to answer my own questions. But when I confronted the Bishop of my diocese (Chicago) with how the Church intends to replace both the membership and the money that has left because of the decisions of the 2009 General Convention, he responded that this was "a conversation" that the American Episcopal Church was having with the rest of the Anglican Communion, and that it was only 36 years ago that the Church had decided to welcome divorced-and-remarried persons into its fold (or re-welcome them). Hmm. Thirty-six years ago our current bishop was not an Episcopalian, and certainly not in the ordained ministry. I have no present recollection of the debate that he describes (it was undoubtedly eclipsed by those surrounding the "new liturgy" and ordination of women), but am certainly aware that divorce within the Anglican communion is a hot topic (Henry VIII, Edward VIII and all of that). Divorce and remarriage within the church should be a matter of concern for all Christians who view marriage as a sacrament and a partnership in all virtue. But the comparison (I hazard to call it an analogy) is meretricious for three reasons. First, any religion worthy of its name should recognize that persons are prone to sin, and a divorce is one of the most telling proofs of that. The prospect of remarriage within the church, however, is not only the triumph of hope over experience, but the church's recognition that grace eclipses sin. But this is key: the remarriage should only receive the church's blessing after a period of repentance and reflection on the forces that caused the "original sin" and a resolution that it not re-occur. If the non-celibate homosexuals who seek holy orders are united on one thing, it is that their sexuality is not sinful. They claim that they cannot help to whom they are attracted. They are not looking for grace, but for an entitlement. The Church should not be in the business of measuring entitlements, like some politician shilling for votes. Second, remarried persons accepted within the church are not looking for positions of leadership within the body of their fellowship. A pastor is necessarily a spiritual leader, and at some level must present a moral example accountable to his flock, measured against God's revealed word in scripture. A non-celibate homosexual in the clergy must therefore explain away not only the specific injunctions against homosexual conduct in both the Old and New Testaments, applicable to all believers, he must explain how, despite these injunctions, he is prepared for, even called to leadership. For many believers, that is too much cognitive dissonance to hold in the "creative tension" that the apologists for ordaining non-celibate homosexuals claim is the key to the Anglican communion. To paraphrase Judge (later Justice) Cardozo, the hazards of embarking on such a path call into question whether the premise is wrong. Third, the comparison highlights an unspoken but nevertheless ever-present divide within the American Episcopal Church, between the urban elite and the exurban plebians. Divorce and remarriage hits the body of believers regardless of status, location, race, or (near and dear to Anglicans) churchmanship. The non-celibate homosexuals in the clergy are invariably if not overwhelmingly drawn from the urban elite. By casting its lot with this latter group, the American Episcopal Church has chosen not to stand with sinners of all stripes, but with a narrow swath of those who do not view themselves as sinners. Full disclosure. I am divorced (but secured an ecclesiastical annulment). And I was confirmed by a bishop who likely had homosexual inclinations, but has never gone public with them. His silence on the issue speaks volumes to those faithful who are prepared to accept sinners as one just like themselves, but don't want it shoved down their throats.

Glimpses of Grace

Am I the only 50-something year old cradle Episcopalian who cannot stand the direction that the Church has taken the last 25+ years? Am I alone in thinking that the so-called leaders, who have taken vows to protect the Church from heresy, have failed in their trust? Am I consigned to a life of moral anomie by supporting (and attending) a Church that has turned its back on two millennia of teaching by not only condoning, but advocating the "consecration" of non-celibate homosexuals to all ranks of the ordained ministry? Must I leave the church of my upbringing, the church of my profession of faith, the church to which I have introduced other believers because it has re-defined what is sinful?