Abortion

I woke up this morning with an itch to write.  The topics swirling around in my head include low carb cheesecake recipes, prayer book revision, my Parisian memoirs, and abortion.  Abortion seems like the least controversial of these topics, so here goes.

Most people who talk about abortion these days are talking past each other.  Most actually believe abortion is morally wrong much if not all of the time, but they completely disagree on whether abortion should be legal.

This is not meant to be another "10 theses on..." type of discussion, but here are my thoughts in no particular order.

1.      Pro-life, pro-choice, pro-abortion, and anti-choice are unhelpful labels.  No one agrees on what they mean.  One can be pro-life and believe abortion should remain legal, while one can also be pro-choice and believe that abortion is morally wrong.

2.      As of 2011, the CDC reports that the induced abortion ratio is at its lowest level since 1973 (the CDC began receiving these numbers in 1970 - the link to the CDC stats is available via Wikipedia).  Why is it that it’s so low compared to the highest year in 1985?  The legal status of abortion has essentially not changed at all.  Pro-lifers should ask themselves "why", find out why, then support causes that have contributed to this decrease.

3.      It drives me crazy when feminist activists whine about men offering their opinion on abortion because men will never bear children.  This discussion affects men as well as women, though of course in different ways.  Even gay men have a right to offer their opinion.  I have lots of friends who want to adopt, and there are many babies who are aborted who would live wonderful lives being raised by gay parents.

4.      When folks of a more conservative bent rant and rave that the United States should defund Planned Parenthood because of their abortion practices, I literally roll my eyes.  It is illegal for the federal government to financially support abortion.  It doesn’t do it.  It funds other activities of Planned Parenthood which include sex education, reproductive health, maternal and child health services, cancer screening, and HIV screening and counseling.  It does not fund Planned Parenthood’s abortion activities.  Defunding Planned Parenthood will likely lead to more abortions.  “Pro-Life” activists should stop being so hypocritical.  

5.      When folks of a more liberal bent rant and rave when church leaders speak out about the moral implications, I literally roll my eyes.  Church leaders (whether male or female) are supposed to be talking about such things, and we have religious freedom in this country.  Agree or disagree with a specific church’s position on abortion, but don’t whine about white men preaching about things that don’t affect them directly.  Religious leaders talk about morality.  Deal with it.

6.      The Episcopal Church’s two primary official statements on abortion are as follows:

a.      "Resolved, That this 71st General Convention (1994) of the Episcopal Church express its unequivocal opposition to any legislative, executive or judicial action on the part of local, state or nation governments that abridges the right of a woman to reach an informed decision about the termination of pregnancy or that would limit the access of a woman to safe means of acting on her decision."-71st General Convention 1994.

b.      "All human life is sacred from its inception until death. The Church takes seriously its obligation to help form the consciences of its members concerning this sacredness....We regard all abortion as having a tragic dimension, calling for the concern and compassion of all the Christian community. While we acknowledge that in this country it is the legal right of every woman to have a medically safe abortion, as Christians we believe strongly that if this right is exercised, it should be used only in extreme situations. We emphatically oppose abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection, or any reason of mere convenience."-69th General Convention 1998


c.       All of the official statements of the Episcopal Church on abortion can be found here. 

d.       If anyone thinks the church is endorsing abortion as a good thing, they should be gently coaxed into reading these statements again, and again, until they understand them.  The Episcopal Church is pro-life (which again, doesn’t equate to believing abortion should be illegal).

7.      Making abortion illegal would not reduce the number of abortions.  Abortions would continue in back alleys and behind closed doors, and the women who get them would not receive proper medical attention.

8.      There have to be legal guardrails around something like abortion.  It’s obvious to state that a child born at full term is alive, but it’s less obvious to state that a zygote is alive one second after the sperm fertilizes the ovum.  I believe abortion should generally be illegal after the child can meaningfully survive outside of the womb (I think).  Scientists and doctors are better equipped to determine when that is than I am.

9.      The federal government and religious non-profit groups alike should be pouring money into social services that in fact result in a reduced number of abortions (including many of the services provided by Planned Parenthood).  This is pro-life.  Such services include but are not limited to adoption education for pregnant mothers, contraception, sex education.  Also, the government should subsidize adoption at a greater level than it does currently.  It should be essentially free to adopt a child.

10.  There are plenty of areas where those on both sides of the legality debate can and should cooperate to ultimately reduce the number of abortions.  See #9.

Now that I've settled this issue once and for all, I'll move on to deciding between controversial low carb cheesecake recipes.

40 Answers for Christians Not Waving Rainbow Flags (part 2)

There has been an article floating around the Internet the last couple of days entitled, "40 Questions for Christians Now Waving Rainbow Flags."  The Rev. Heath Bradley, a fellow Ouachita Baptist University alumnus and Methodist minister, posted a response that he described as "sometimes snarky and sappy."  Here are my thoughts on these questions, though many are woefully incomplete as I only have a few minutes.  In a few instances, I simply quote Heath as his responses are worthy of repeating.

1. How long have you believed that gay marriage is something to be celebrated?  About 10 years.

2. What Bible verses led you to change your mind?  No specific Bible verses led me to change my mind in and of themselves.  I was led to change my mind through prayer, exegetical scriptural study, Reason,  and Holy Tradition under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

3. How would you make a positive case from Scripture that sexual activity between two persons of the same sex is a blessing to be celebrated?  The hermeneutic displayed in this question is inherently flawed.  It isn't possible (nor helpful in any way) to make a positive case from Scripture on any number of moral issues.  It is appropriate to read Scripture, try to figure out what the original audience understood the text to mean to them, and then further interpret that message through the lens of Tradition and Reason under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Some people have an indelible sexual orientation towards those of the same sex, a concept that historians broadly (but not uniformly) believe didn't exist in biblical times, and so the references in the Bible that seem (*seem*) to refer to same-sex behavior can't be understood to address homosexuality as it is understood today.

4. What verses would you use to show that a marriage between two persons of the same sex can adequately depict Christ and the church?  There aren't any that directly show this.

5. Do you think Jesus would have been okay with homosexual behavior between consenting adults in a committed relationship?  Yes.

6. If so, why did he reassert the Genesis definition of marriage as being one man and one woman?  To quote Heath, "Heterosexual marriage was the framework of the question (about divorce), not the point of the answer."

7. When Jesus spoke against porneia what sins do you think he was forbidding?  This Greek word had a plethora of meanings.  There are many scholarly figures that try to figure this out, but it's safe to say that conceptually it includes sexual sin that is exploitative, unfaithful, or abusive.

8. If some homosexual behavior is acceptable, how do you understand the sinful “exchange” Paul highlights in Romans 1?  The original audience would have understood this passage as having to do with the consequences of idolatry using imagery common to the present-day cultural norms.  As Heath said, "A dominant way of understanding same-sex desire in the ancient world was that it was the result of excessive heterosexual lust. Paul could be talking about people who indulge lust to such a degree that they exchange heterosexual desire for homosexual desire."  There are many commentaries that address this in further depth.

9. Do you believe that passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Revelation 21:8 teach that sexual immorality can keep you out of heaven?  Yes.

10. What sexual sins do you think they were referring to?  See #7.

11. As you think about the long history of the church and the near universal disapproval of same-sex sexual activity, what do you think you understand about the Bible that Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther failed to grasp?  The disciplines of science and psychology didn't exist in any of their contexts.  Had God enlightened humanity with these areas of wisdom in each of their contexts, these theologians might have come to a different conclusion.

12. What arguments would you use to explain to Christians in Africa, Asia, and South America that their understanding of homosexuality is biblically incorrect and your new understanding of homosexuality is not culturally conditioned?  For the first part of the question, see numbers 1-11 above.  The second part of the question doesn't make sense as everyone interprets reality from their own cultural context (and thus every person's understanding of Scripture must be interpreted from within that person's individual and communal worldviews).

13. Do you think Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were motivated by personal animus and bigotry when they, for almost all of their lives, defined marriage as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman?  No.  Who is claiming that?  I haven't heard that one.  I'm taking a leap here, but is this question inferring that gays and their supporters think that anyone who understands marriage as one man and one woman for life is motivated by personal animus and bigotry?  I don't know a single person who thinks that, though I know lots of people who conclude that this view results in a discriminatory position, motives aside.

14. Do you think children do best with a mother and a father?  No.

15. If not, what research would you point to in support of that conclusion?  JFG (to quote my former boss).  This means ask St. Google.  Colloquially, feel free to ask my friend Jordan who is 19 years old (and straight) and has been raised by two moms.  It shouldn't require stating that Jordan's experience isn't scientific evidence, but Google can help you with the evidence.

16. If yes, does the church or the state have any role to play in promoting or privileging the arrangement that puts children with a mom and a dad?  The state has a role to play in promoting and arranging healthy homes for children who need to be adopted.  Definitely.  But lots of my gay friends want children.  Some already are parents and thank God for that as otherwise, their child might be in an orphanage (or might have been aborted had a healthy home not been identified and secured within the first trimester).

17. Does the end and purpose of marriage point to something more than an adult’s emotional and sexual fulfillment?  Yes!

18. How would you define marriage?  Two legally consenting adults who aren't related who give themselves completely to each other in a uniquely intimate relationship for mutual self-fulfillment and mutual self-giving to others (a modified version of Heath's definition).

19. Do you think close family members should be allowed to get married?  Um....is this really a question?

20. Should marriage be limited to only two people?  Yes, though I haven't studied polygamous societies (in Africa, for example) in the light of the Gospel to understand their context well enough to fully answer the question.

21. On what basis, if any, would you prevent consenting adults of any relation and of any number from getting married?  Incestuous relationships are often related to child abuse which is, of course, awful.  Polygamous relationships in the West are often associated with gender inequality which results in females being treated terribly.  As a side note, my experience with hundreds of gay people tells me that this isn't something that gays are looking for (though I admit, I know one gay person who was part of a polygamous relationship). 

22. Should there be an age requirement in this country for obtaining a marriage license?  Yes.  It should be 18, unless there is parental consent, in which case 16 might be the magic number. 

23. Does equality entail that anyone wanting to be married should be able to have any meaningful relationship defined as marriage?  No.

24. If not, why not? Um...this is a silly question. 

25. Should your brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with homosexual practice be allowed to exercise their religious beliefs without fear of punishment, retribution, or coercion?  Yes, as long as that doesn't result in discrimination in the public sphere.  Examples: Catholic priests should be able to refuse sacramental marriage to gay couples as that's a purely religious rite.  Same thing with Southern Baptist ministers, for example.  People who work in for-profit businesses shouldn't be able to refuse service to gay people.  As a future Episcopal priest (God willing), I should be able to refuse performing a polyandrous marriage as it is against my religion and thus protected under the Constitution.  A secular court official who is asked to perform a gay marriage shouldn't be able to refuse on the basis of religion.

26. Will you speak up for your fellow Christians when their jobs, their accreditation, their reputation, and their freedoms are threatened because of this issue?  If their religious freedoms according to the Constitution are being denied, of course I will defend them. I would defend a Catholic priest who refuses to do a sacramental gay wedding (even though that would never happen).  I would not defend a baker who runs a sole proprietorship, for-profit business that entails baking wedding cakes for a profit (in fact, I would hope that the government would defend me against them).

27. Will you speak out against shaming and bullying of all kinds, whether against gays and lesbians or against Evangelicals and Catholics?  Of course!

28. Since the evangelical church has often failed to take unbiblical divorces and other sexual sins seriously, what steps will you take to ensure that gay marriages are healthy and accord with Scriptural principles?  I will not take any action "since the evangelical church has often failed" to do anything.  If the second part of the question stood alone, here's my answer: the same way that I would for straight marriages.  Nothing more, nothing less.

29. Should gay couples in open relationships be subject to church discipline?  The person asking this question clearly has had no experience in reality related to this subject. It's actually an inherently offensive question.

30. Is it a sin for LGBT persons to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage?  Heath's answer is a good one, so no need to reinvent the wheel: "When it comes to sexual ethics, we need better categories than just “sin” and “not sin.” (Not that these categories are completely irrelevant, but this language often doesn’t do justice to the complexity of sexuality.) This often leads to legalistic understanding of sexual ethics that is concerned with mere “line-drawing.” Christians should see sex holistically as the intimate connection of bodies and hearts. We should resist understanding and seeking sexual fulfillment outside of relational trust and commitment."

31. What will open and affirming churches do to speak prophetically against divorce, fornication, pornography, and adultery wherever they are found?  Open and affirming congregations treat these issues in a similar fashion as evangelical churches (at least in my experience). 

32. If “love wins,” how would you define love?  Again, Heath says, "Self-giving, other-centered action."

33. What verses would you use to establish that definition?  I wouldn't use verses from the Bible to establish this definition.  Heath created it for me :)

34. How should obedience to God’s commands shape our understanding of love?  I think the question should be, "How should our understanding of God's love shape our understanding of God's commandments?"

35. Do you believe it is possible to love someone and disagree with important decisions they make?  Yes!

36. If supporting gay marriage is a change for you, has anything else changed in your understanding of faith?  Of course!  Those who experience no change in their understanding of faith are dishonest to themselves and others.  Or they're living with their spiritual head in the sand.

37. As an evangelical, how has your support for gay marriage helped you become more passionate about traditional evangelical distinctives like a focus on being born again, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the total trustworthiness of the Bible, and the urgent need to evangelize the lost?  It hasn't.

38. What open and affirming churches would you point to where people are being converted to orthodox Christianity, sinners are being warned of judgment and called to repentance, and missionaries are being sent out to plant churches among unreached peoples?  My own parish (St. Michael and All Angels, Mission, Kansas) as well as my diocese (the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas).  I could give you a list...but again, St. Google will know better than I do.

39. Do you hope to be more committed to the church, more committed to Christ, and more committed to the Scriptures in the years ahead?  Of course - I'm a Christian.

40. When Paul at the end of Romans 1 rebukes “those who practice such things” and those who “give approval to those who practice them,” what sins do you think he has in mind?  See #8 for an intro to Romans 1.  But specifically with regards to Romans 1:32, see Romans 1:29-31.

The Holy Trinity: A Model of Relationship

The Holy Trinity: A Model of Relationship

Trinity Sunday, Year B: May 31, 2015

St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church

Charles Everson

Audio link here.

In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

It has been said that it’s impossible to preach on Trinity Sunday without accidently falling into heresy. Rectors know better than to put themselves into this awkward position, and so they often assign the sermon on this feast day to the curate, deacon, or even the seminarian.  And so, here I am.  I think of it as a sort of ecclesiastical hazing ritual.  So, I’ve decided to avoid heresy and take the safe route. Take a look at the front of your bulletin.  There you go.  Amen.

The feast of the Holy Trinity is the only feast in the church dedicated to a doctrine, rather than to a saint or an event in Jesus’s life.  And yet it is one of the most difficult doctrines to wrap your head around.   I’m not sure how many of you are into Star Trek, but I have the feeling that the Vulcans wouldn’t find the doctrine of the Trinity very logical.  Don’t get me wrong; the minute theological details of the doctrine of the Trinity are very important.  The early church was full of fights and excommunications due to heretical views on the Trinity and so, the church developed a creed to articulate a formal position on this doctrine.  This creed is referred to as the Athanasian Creed and it can be found in the back of the Prayer Book.  While it is named after St. Athanasius, the great fourth century defender of orthodoxy from the Christian East, this creed is now believed to be an early sixth century composition originating in the West.  Fast forward to the Reformation.  The English Prayer Books from the beginning in 1549 called for its recitation in the liturgy on 19 occasions throughout the church year.  However, it is no surprise that the church today doesn’t call for its use liturgically, no matter how helpful it may be in explaining the Trinity, due to its harsh, laborious language. 

For example: “We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance.  The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God.  For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be both God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, there be three Gods or three Lords.” Very laborious language.  The creed ends this way: “And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.  This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.”  The end.  Pretty harsh.  So, we won’t be reciting this creed today. However, if you want to understand the doctrine of the Trinity, I would encourage you to take a peek at the Athanasian Creed – preferably, sometime after this sermon is over.

For today, let’s assume that the Church’s understanding and full explanation in the Creed is what it is.  What does the doctrine of the Trinity mean for us today?  The Trinity is all about relationship.  God the Father is with the Son who is with the Spirit who is with the Father, self-communicating, self-giving, self-receiving.  When we profess belief in the Trinity, we affirm that it is of the essence of God to be in relationship.[1]  Not only a relationship, but many relationships, beginning with the communion of the three Persons within the Godhead, and expanding to the relationship between God and all of creation.[2]  God became man in order that man might become God, he in us and we in him.

The encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in our gospel lesson helps us gain some insight into the nature of the relationship between God and humanity. Nicodemus is a leader of the Jews and in this encounter, he begins by acknowledging to Jesus that he believes that he has come from God, for no one else can perform the miracles he performs apart from the presence of God.  Jesus responds by telling him that no one can see the kingdom of God without being “born from above,” or as other translations put it, being “born again.”

Nicodemus appears to be channeling Vulcan logic when he responds by asking Jesus, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?  Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus tries again and instead of using the phrase “born from above,” he says that no one can enter the kingdom of God without being “born of water and the Spirit.”  We can all understand what it means to be “born of water,” or born from our mother’s womb.  You know, flesh and blood.  “What is born of the flesh is flesh,” Jesus says, “and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  What does it mean to be born of the Spirit? 

Jesus continues, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

We all know about the wind, right?  We’ve experienced it. So, this explanation should clear things up for us.

Not so for Nicodemus!  This still doesn’t jive with his logical thinking.

So Jesus tries a third time to teach Nicodemus more fully about the birth from above. He uses an analogy that Nicodemus would have immediately recognized from Israel’s history.  During the Exodus, Moses lifted up a serpent-staff so that all who were suffering from the venomous bites of the serpents would be spared.  In the same way, all who turn in faith to the lifting up of the Son of Man on the cross may have eternal life, or “birth from above.”[3] Jesus continues, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”  The word “love” in this context – “God so loved the world” – is not a feeling, but an action that seeks the good of the people being loved.[4]   God’s love for the world is self-communicating, self-giving, and self-receiving – like the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Eternal life, or birth from above, comes from turning in faith to Jesus Christ in relationship.  This is no easy task and it’s certainly not logical.  It requires the sort of self-communicating, self-giving, and self-receiving love that we see in the Trinity.  It requires that we give up our own desires and instead seek to do the will of God.  It requires an irrational “love” – not an emotion, but action that seeks the good of the one being loved.  It requires putting the Other before yourself.  It requires that we lay down our lives at the foot of the cross so that we may become our true selves – who we were actually created to be: in full communion with our Creator.

It is through relationship that we are born from above, that we enter into eternal life. And we see that fullness of relationship in the communal life of the Most Holy Trinity.  God the Father is with the Son who is with the Spirit who is with the Father, self-communicating, self-giving, self-receiving.  God became man in order that man might become God, he in us and we in him. 

In a moment, we will go unto the altar of God.  The altar where God the Father communicates his love to us by giving us the precious gift of his Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Holy Communion is as much an inexplicable mystery as the Trinity is, and it is perhaps at the rail as we receive the body and blood of our Lord where the mystery makes the most sense. 

In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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[1] David Lyon Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 47.

[2] Full Homely Divinity.  http://fullhomelydivinity.org/articles/Trinity.htm  

[3] Bartlett 48.

[4] Bartlett 49.

Come and See: Sermon for 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B

Come and See

Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B

St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church

Charles Everson

January 18, 2015

Listen to the sermon here.

Evangelism. 

This is a word that makes many of us Episcopalians uncomfortable.  It invokes images of knocking on doors, and passing out tracts, and just rubs us the wrong way.  It reminds many of us of a previously life in a fundamentalist church and smacks of arrogance: who are we to try to convince others that we are right about our beliefs and that they are ultimately wrong?

When I graduated college, I moved to Paris, France for two as a Southern Baptist missionary.   I know, I know, when you hear the word missionary, you think of sleeping in huts in Africa eating insects and showering once a week as opposed to taking French classes in an 800 year old university and meeting with college students in cafés.  Putting aside the oddness of the missionary context, I was 22 years old and on fire for God and wanted to tell anyone who would listen about how Jesus had changed my life.  One Saturday afternoon, about a year after my arrival in Paris, there was a knock on my apartment door.  The two young men at the door were wearing a tie, and said in English, “Hello, how are you today?”  Immediately, I knew they were Mormon missionaries from the United States and invited them inside. “What do you do for a living?” one of them asked.  These poor guys had no idea what they were getting themselves into.  “I’m a missionary,” I told them.  They began squirming and when I asked if I could get them some coffee, one of them immediately said, “Oh no, we won’t be staying long.” 

In today’s gospel lesson, we hear of one of the first acts of evangelism.  On his way to Galilee, Jesus found Phillip and said to him, “Follow me.”   Phillip’s did, and his immediate response after choosing to follow Jesus was to invite someone else to do the same.

The Christian faith is passed from person to person.  That’s how it started, and that’s how it’s been for about 2,000 years.

Now, Nathaniel didn’t follow blindly.  He asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  In his gospel, St. John presents to us many stories of folks making the same mistake as Nathaniel.  They assumed that Jesus’ origins could explain who he was. Nazareth was never associated with Messianic prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, so when Nathaniel heard that Jesus was from there, he naturally thought that Phillip was mistaken.  His skepticism allowed Jesus to suggest to Nathaniel that his first impression was seriously flawed.  We see the same thing in our Old Testament lesson when Samuel first mistook the voice of the Lord for that of Eli.  Even when we are face to face with the Divine, it is possible to be completely oblivious to God’s presence in our life.[1] 

Once we move past our preconceived notions of who God is, we are able to move to that moment of authentic encounter with God.  Just as Nathanial had cultural baggage that at first blinded him to the presence of God, so we have cultural and psychological impositions upon us that make us believe God is a certain way.  For example, we are told in the great film Monty Python and the Holy Grail that God is a giant cardboard cutout figure in the sky that yells at humanity to quit groveling.  Many Christians believe that the Bible teaches that God loves us except when we sin.  And many subconsciously project our view of our own father onto God including all of his human imperfections and failures.  When we begin to understand these preconceived notions and move past them, we can see God for who he truly is and authentically encounter him.

What does it mean to authentically encounter God? St. Paul  writes this in his letter to the Ephesians (and please forgive me for the long quote, but it well worth it):

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.[2]

An authentic encounter with God is when we realize that God’s mercy and love are given to us freely and without condition.  This is what Paul means when he says that we have been saved by grace.  It doesn’t matter what we’ve done or what we haven’t done. An authentic encounter with God in the person of Jesus rarely happens in some sort of emotionally charged way, but occurs like it did with Philip and Nathaniel: all of a sudden in our ordinary lives.

When Nathaniel challenges Philip about Jesus’s place of origin, Philip doesn’t respond with a well-thought-out argument detailing why Nathaniel misunderstands the prophecies.  He says, “Come and see.” “Come and see.”  Our task as Christians isn’t to prove the truth of the Christian faith, our task is to say, “Come and see.”  As a seminarian who hopes to be a priest one day, I would insist to you that evangelism is not a task reserved for the clergy.  The task is not to debunk an athiest’s philosophical worldview with fancy rhetoric and knowledge that requires seminary degree, the task is to invite others to encounter the living God.  That is evangelism.

As we encounter Jesus in our ordinary lives throughout this coming week, let us ask ourselves this question: who is God leading us to invite to “come and see?”  Asking someone else to “come and see” might mean inviting a friend who has been away from church for a long time to this very place.  It might mean inviting a friend to the upcoming men’s retreat to experience God in community, fellowship and prayer.  It might mean inviting a friend to serve the poor with you at Breakfast at St. Paul’s next Saturday to encounter Jesus in the face of those you feed.

Evangelism.  Not the most comfortable word for us Episcopalians. The first thing that happened after Philip had an authentic encounter with Jesus was to invite someone else to do the same.  As we come to this altar and experience the unconditional grace of God, who will we then ask to “Come and see?”  Amen.

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[1] David Lyon Bartlett and Barbara Brown. Taylor, Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 261.  The entire paragraph essentially comes from this source.

[2] Eph. 2:1-9.

It's Time for an Independent Palestine

From the New York Times:

JERUSALEM — President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority signed papers Wednesday to join the International Criminal Court, a provocative move that could lead to the prosecution of Israeli officials for war crimes and risks severe sanctions from Washington and Jerusalem. The defiant step came a day after the defeat of a United Nations Security Council resolution that demanded an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory by 2017, and was billed as part of a strategic shift by the Palestinian leadership to pursue statehood in the international arena after decades of failed American-brokered negotiations with Israel.

It is a shame that the resolution failed and Abbas has very few options in terms of advancing the two-state solution.

Earlier on Wednesday, one of Mr. Netanyahu’s close allies, Yuval Steinitz, called Tuesday’s United Nations vote “no less dangerous than Hamas’s rockets,” saying the fact that France supported the resolution and Britain abstained “is very grave.”

Mr. Steinitz needs an education on the difference in danger between a political vote and rockets.

I am proud of France for supporting the resolution and disappointed in Britain, the United States and Australia for continuing to kick the can down the road. 

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Reconciliation

Reconciliation: the peaceful end to conflict.

Each year, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II gives a personal Christmas speech to the nation and the wider Commonwealth at 3pm GMT on Christmas Day.  It is really the only time when the Queen can address her people without her speech being scripted by government officials.  She often speaks of her faith in Jesus Christ, and she certainly did that today.  The eight minute clip can be found here and will be available for the next ten days. 

The Queen talks about reconciliation between the Allies and the Central Powers during the Great War as exemplified in the Christmas Truce, and she revealed how she was stunned into silence when confronted with the 888,246 ceramic poppies that filled the moat of the Tower of London marking one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War.  Reconciliation "takes different forms," such as in Scotland after the recent referendum, and will take time.  The Queen ends her speech with heartfelt words about Jesus Christ being the role model of reconciliation in her life.

Reconciliation is sorely needed in the United States where the two main political parties have increasingly become polarized and divided.  Reconciliation is sorely needed in the Church today where bickering and arguing over doctrinal and social matters is seen more often than common prayer and mutual support in carrying out Christ's message of reconciliation to the world.  Reconciliation is sorely needed in our human relationships each and every day, and within each of us as human beings.

Reconciliation: the peaceful end to conflict. 

Merry Christmas.

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.

No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life.

In the fullness of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, the Son of God took for himself our common humanity in order to reconcile it with its creator. He came to overthrow the devil, the origin of death, in that very nature by which he had overthrown mankind.

And so at the birth of our Lord the angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest, and they proclaim peace to men of good will as they see the heavenly Jerusalem being built from all the nations of the world. When the angels on high are so exultant at this marvellous work of God’s goodness, what joy should it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?

Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit, because in his great love for us he took pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins he brought us to life with Christ, so that in him we might be a new creation. Let us throw off our old nature and all its ways and, as we have come to birth in Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh.

Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.

Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.

From the Sermons on the Lord's Birth of St. Leo the Great (Sermo 1 in Nativitate Domini, 1-3)

O Virgo Virginum

The final Vespers with the O Antiphons is this evening. It was a practice in medieval England to add an extra antiphon: after the seven chants addressing the Messiah with his different "titles", there is an eighth antiphon addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery.

TREC Report Part 1: Innovative and Helpful, or Stagnant and Gangrenous?

The Task Force for Reimagining the Episcopal Church (TREC) has issued its final report.  If you want to read about the background to TREC and its mandate from General Convention, click here.  The members of TREC were tasked with a difficult process and I am grateful to each of them for their hard work.  Their report was bound to be criticized widely, no matter what they ultimately said.

I'm going to start by offering thoughts on the first resolution (A001 - page 7 of the report) which primarily addresses theological education for clergy and encouraging bivocational ministry.

My initial thought when reading the resolution?  This is nothing new under the sun and should have been proposed in the 70's or 80's. 

Mthr. Susan Snook, one of the few successful Episcopal church planters in today's context, believes that TREC offers an appropriate assessment of where the church is today (significant decline in membership and finances, aging membership, lack of racial diversity - signs of death, in other words) but a poor prognosis:

They don’t name it specifically in the report, but many of their recommendations seem to be aimed at providing palliative care for a patient that has entered a long, slow, inevitable decline.

I think she misses the point entirely.  TREC's recommendations are not at all aimed at providing palliative care for a dying patient but are instead aimed at re-imaging the church in a way that should have been done many years ago to position it for growth, evangelism and vitality.  In a way, its recommendations are aimed at unraveling an institutional structure that hasn't functioned in a healthy way for decades and, though they didn't say this, position the church to minister to an increasingly non-Christian culture in much the same way that St. Paul did in his time.

Ordained clergy as tent-makers.  Churches, particularly church plants, meeting in homes or in other imaginative spaces.

The Rev. Rita Stockton reads the gospel during church service in the sanctuary of the church which doubles as her living room during the week. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the Rt. Rev. Michael Milliken celebrated the service with Stockton.

Ministry, and particularly the ministry of ordained clergy, should be nimble and should be able to adapt to its context.  For the majority of church history, those who felt called to the priesthood were required to show competency in the required areas - but that didn't mean taking out student loans and uprooting the family to go get a three-year (or more) professional degree.  TREC says the following on page 4:

New Church plants in several places, experimental new communities of faith, and new models of clergy formation--both new initiatives at several traditional seminaries and in new models such as the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry--are all examples of life, creativity, and adaptation that are already emerging across the Church.

Are clergy formed in places like BKSM as competent as those formed at residential seminaries?  I'm not sure if there are any national statistics available on the subject, but members of the Board of Examining Chaplain have told me that in the Diocese of Kansas, there are some indications that BKSM students (and students of its predecessor institution) get higher scores on the GOEs than those with an MDiv.  And they are formed and educated while keeping their full-time jobs without having to incur debt.

My friend Fr. Jared Cramer offers these comments and questions:

My significant disagreement with the report was its support for bi-vocational clergy as a part of the wave of the future—this despite the fact that we've been doing it for forty years, albeit begrudgingly. I argued that this model should not simply be held up, but that it is time for a critical analysis of whether or not it actually works. Does it have a positive effect upon congregations? Does it wind up burning out clergy who are expected to work more than they are compensated? [emphasis mine]

When I think of the 4 bivocational priests that I personally know, I see a life of vital priestly ministry that engaged with the culture in a way that would never have been possible if they had not had a vocation outside the church (one was an engineer, another a hospital administrator, another a school teacher, and another an investment fund manager).  I've heard a couple of them say that they've been treated poorly by full-time clergy from time to time throughout their life because they don't have an MDiv, but I've never heard them say that they felt burnt out or that they wish they had been compensated more for their work as a priest.  Maybe I'm not seeing it, but I don't see any indication that anyone related to the institutional church allowed them to become bivocational priests begrudgingly.

The whole church, acting through General Convention via lay and ordained deputies, specifically asked this group to do their work.  The church identified that we have significant problems, asked a representative group to come up with recommendations for a solution, and here we are.  Though we should of course look at their conclusions and recommendations with a critical eye, we should also "trust the process" and lean towards accepting their recommendations. 

Don't get me wrong.  There will always be a need for full-time clergy, and there will always be a need and a place for traditional residential seminaries with ATS accreditation.  TREC is urging the church to consider re-thinking the idea that this is the norm and is encouraging us all to look at new ideas and new opportunities. It's time to restructure The Episcopal Church in such a way that we are nimble and able to do innovative ministry in the 21st century.  It's time to focus on evangelism and think outside of the box in new ways.  Will we accept this calling?  Or will there be hand-wringing and digging-in-of-the-heels as the institution fights to resist change?