Come Holy Spirit: The Pentecost Sermon of the ABC

Thanks to Michael


Renewal in the Spirit

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pentecost Letter

to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion

1.

‘They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak’ (Acts 2.4). At Pentecost, we celebrate the gift God gives us of being able to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ in the various languages of the whole human world. The Gospel is not the property of any one group, any one culture or history, but is what God intends for the salvation of all who will listen and respond.

St Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit is also what God gives us so that we can call God ‘Abba, Father’ (Rom. 8.15, Gal. 4.6). The Spirit is given not only so that we can speak to the world about God but so that we can speak to God in the words of his own beloved Son. The Good News we share is not just a story about Jesus but the possibility of living in and through the life of Jesus and praying his prayer to the Father.

And so the Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of ‘communion’ or fellowship (II Cor. 13.13). The Spirit allows us to recognise each other as part of the Body of Christ because we can hear in each other the voice of Jesus praying to the Father. We know, in the Spirit, that we who are baptised into Jesus Christ share one life; so that all the diversity of gifting and service in the Church can be seen as the work of one Spirit (I Cor. 12.4). In the Holy Eucharist, this unity in and through the self-offering of Jesus is reaffirmed and renewed as we pray for the Spirit to transform both the bread and wine and ‘ourselves, our souls and bodies’.

When the Church is living by the Spirit, what the world will see is a community of people who joyfully and gratefully hear the prayer of Jesus being offered in each other’s words and lives, and are able to recognise the one Christ working through human diversity. And if the world sees this, the Church is a true sign of hope in a world of bitter conflict and rivalry.

2.

From the very first, as the New Testament makes plain, the Church has experienced division and internal hostilities. From the very first, the Church has had to repent of its failure to live fully in the light and truth of the Spirit. Jesus tells us in St John’s gospel that the Spirit of truth will ‘prove the world wrong’ in respect of sin and righteousness and judgement (Jn 16.8). But if the Spirit is leading us all further into the truth, the Spirit will convict the Church too of its wrongness and lead it into repentance. And if the Church is a community where we serve each other in the name of Christ, it is a community where we can and should call each other to repentance in the name of Christ and his Spirit – not to make the other feel inferior (because we all need to be called to repentance) but to remind them of the glory of Christ’s gift and the promise that we lose sight of when we fail in our common life as a Church.




Our Anglican fellowship continues to experience painful division, and the events of recent months have not brought us nearer to full reconciliation. There are still things being done that the representative bodies of the Communion have repeatedly pleaded should not be done; and this leads to recrimination, confusion and bitterness all round. It is clear that the official bodies of The Episcopal Church have felt in conscience that they cannot go along with what has been asked of them by others, and the consecration of Canon Mary Glasspool on May 15 has been a clear sign of this. And despite attempts to clarify the situation, activity across provincial boundaries still continues – equally dictated by what people have felt they must in conscience do. Some provinces have within them dioceses that are committed to policies that neither the province as a whole nor the Communion has sanctioned. In several places, not only in North America, Anglicans have not hesitated to involve the law courts in settling disputes, often at great expense and at the cost of the Church’s good name.

All are agreed that the disputes arising around these matters threaten to distract us from our main calling as Christ’s Church. The recent Global South encounter in Singapore articulated a strong and welcome plea for the priority of mission in the Communion; and in my own message to that meeting I prayed for a ‘new Pentecost’ for all of us. This is a good season of the year to pray earnestly for renewal in the Spirit, so that we may indeed do what God asks of us and let all people know that new and forgiven life in Christ is possible and that created men and women may by the Spirit’s power be given the amazing liberty to call God ‘Abba, Father!’

It is my own passionate hope that our discussion of the Anglican Covenant in its entirety will help us focus on that priority; the Covenant is nothing if not a tool for mission. I want to stress yet again that the Covenant is not envisaged as an instrument of control. And this is perhaps a good place to clarify that the place given in the final text to the Standing Committee of the Communion introduces no novelty: the Committee is identical to the former Joint Standing Committee, fully answerable in all matters to the ACC and the Primates; nor is there any intention to prevent the Primates in the group from meeting separately. The reference to the Standing Committee reflected widespread unease about leaving certain processes only to the ACC or only to the Primates.

But we are constantly reminded that the priorities of mission are experienced differently in different places, and that trying to communicate the Gospel in the diverse tongues of human beings can itself lead to misunderstandings and failures of communication between Christians. The sobering truth is that often our attempts to share the Gospel effectively in our own setting can create problems for those in other settings.

3.

We are at a point in our common life where broken communications and fragile relationships have created a very mistrustful climate. This is not news. But many have a sense that the current risks are greater than ever. Although attitudes to human sexuality have been the presenting cause, I want to underline the fact that what has precipitated the current problem is not simply this issue but the widespread bewilderment and often hurt in different quarters that we have no way of making decisions together so that we are not compromised or undermined by what others are doing. We have not, in other words, found a way of shaping our consciences and convictions as a worldwide body. We have not fully received the Pentecostal gift of mutual understanding for common mission.

It may be said – quite understandably, in one way – that our societies and their assumptions are so diverse that we shall never be able to do this. Yet we are called to seek for mutual harmony and common purpose, and not to lose heart. If the truth of Christ is indeed ultimately one as we all believe, there should be a path of mutual respect and thankfulness that will hold us in union and help us grow in that truth.

Yet at the moment we face a dilemma. To maintain outward unity at a formal level while we are convinced that the divisions are not only deep but damaging to our local mission is not a good thing. Neither is it a good thing to break away from each other so dramatically that we no longer see Christ in each other and risk trying to create a church of the ‘perfect’ – people like us. It is significant that there are still very many in The Episcopal Church, bishops, clergy and faithful, who want to be aligned with the Communion’s general commitments and directions, such as those who identify as ‘Communion Partners’, who disagree strongly with recent decisions, yet want to remain in visible fellowship within TEC so far as they can. And, as has often been pointed out, there are things that Anglicans across the world need and want to do together for the care of God’s poor and vulnerable that can and do go on even when division over doctrine or discipline is sharp.

4.

More and more, Anglicans are aware of living through a time of substantial transition, a time when the structures that have served us need reviewing and refreshing, perhaps radical changing, when the voice and witness in the Communion of Christians from the developing world is more articulate and creative than ever, and when the rapidity of social change in ‘developed’ nations leaves even some of the most faithful and traditional Christian communities uncertain where to draw the boundaries in controversial matters – not only sexuality but issues of bioethics, for example, or the complexities of morality in the financial world.

A time of transition, by definition, does not allow quick solutions to such questions, and it is a time when, ideally, we need more than ever to stay in conversation. As I have said many times before, whatever happens to our structures, we still need to preserve both working relationships and places for exchange and discussion. New vehicles for conversations across these boundaries are being developed with much energy.

But some decisions cannot be avoided. We began by thinking about Pentecost and the diverse peoples of the earth finding a common voice, recognising that each was speaking a truth recognised by all. However, when some part of that fellowship speaks in ways that others find hard to recognise, and that point in a significantly different direction from what others are saying, we cannot pretend there is no problem.

And when a province through its formal decision-making bodies or its House of Bishops as a body declines to accept requests or advice from the consultative organs of the Communion, it is very hard (as noted in my letter to the Communion last year after the General Convention of TEC) to see how members of that province can be placed in positions where they are required to represent the Communion as a whole. This affects both our ecumenical dialogues, where our partners (as they often say to us) need to know who it is they are talking to, and our internal faith-and-order related groups.

I am therefore proposing that, while these tensions remain unresolved, members of such provinces – provinces that have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion and recently reaffirmed by the Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) – should not be participants in the ecumenical dialogues in which the Communion is formally engaged. I am further proposing that members of such provinces serving on IASCUFO should for the time being have the status only of consultants rather than full members. This is simply to confirm what the Communion as a whole has come to regard as the acceptable limits of diversity in its practice. It does not alter what has been said earlier by the Primates’ Meeting about the nature of the moratoria: the request for restraint does not necessarily imply that the issues involved are of equal weight but recognises that they are ‘central factors placing strains on our common life’, in the words of the Primates in 2007. Particular provinces will be contacted about the outworking of this in the near future.

I am aware that other bodies have responsibilities in questions concerned with faith and order, notably the Primates’ Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Standing Committee. The latter two are governed by constitutional provisions which cannot be overturned by any one person’s decision alone, and there will have to be further consultation as to how they are affected. I shall be inviting the views of all members of the Primates’ Meeting on the handling of these matters with a view to the agenda of the next scheduled meeting in January 2011.

5.

In our dealings with other Christian communions, we do not seek to deny our diversity; but there is an obvious problem in putting forward representatives of the Communion who are consciously at odds with what the Communion has formally requested or stipulated. This does not seem fair to them or to our partners. In our dealings with each other, we need to be clear that conscientious decisions may be taken in good faith, even for what are held to be good theological or missional reasons, and yet have a cost when they move away from what is recognisable and acceptable within the Communion. Thus – to take a very different kind of example – there have been and there are Anglicans who have a strong conscientious objection to infant baptism. Their views deserve attention, respect and careful study, they should be engaged in serious dialogue – but it would be eccentric to place such people in a position where their view was implicitly acknowledged as one of a range of equally acceptable convictions, all of which could be taken as representatively Anglican.

Yet no-one should be celebrating such public recognition of divisions and everyone should be reflecting on how to rebuild relations and to move towards a more coherent Anglican identity (which does not mean an Anglican identity with no diversity, a point once again well made by the statement from the Singapore meeting). Some complain that we are condemned to endless meetings that achieve nothing. I believe that in fact we have too few meetings that allow proper mutual exploration. It may well be that such encounters need to take place in a completely different atmosphere from the official meetings of the Communion’s representative bodies, and this needs some imaginative thought and planning. Much work is already going into making this more possible.

But if we do conclude that some public marks of ‘distance’, as the Windsor Continuation Group put it, are unavoidable if our Communion bodies are not to be stripped of credibility and effectiveness, the least Christian thing we can do is to think that this absolves us from prayer and care for each other, or continuing efforts to make sense of each other.

We are praying for a new Pentecost for our Communion. That means above all a vast deepening of our capacity to receive the gift of being adopted sons and daughters of the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It means a deepened capacity to speak of Jesus Christ in the language of our context so that we are heard and the Gospel is made compelling and credible. And it also means a deepened capacity to love and nourish each other within Christ’s Body – especially to love and nourish, as well as to challenge, those whom Christ has given us as neighbours with whom we are in deep and painful dispute.

One remarkable symbol of promise for our Communion is the generous gift received by the Diocese of Jerusalem from His Majesty the King of Jordan, who has provided a site on the banks of the Jordan River, at the traditional site of Our Lord’s Baptism, for the construction of an Anglican church. Earlier this year, I had the privilege of blessing the foundation stone of this church and viewing the plans for its design. It will be a worthy witness at this historic site to the Anglican tradition, a sign of real hope for the long-suffering Christians of the region, and something around which the Communion should gather as a focus of common commitment in Christ and his Spirit. I hope that many in the Communion will give generous support to the project.

‘We have the mind of Christ’ says St Paul (I Cor. 2.16); and, as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has recently written, this means that we must have a ‘kenotic’, a self-emptying approach to each other in the Church. May the Spirit create this in us daily and lead us into that wholeness of truth which is only to be found in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus.

I wish you all God’s richest blessing at this season.


+Rowan Cantuar:


Lambeth Palace
Pentecost 2010

Comment:

I guess it is important for those who do not have parishes to run or confirmations to do on Pentecost need to write about something. His Lordship has used his bully pulpit to once again take the eyes of the Church off the common unity of our communion and re-enforce the tensions among us. The consecration of +Mary Glasspool is not a cause for disunity. It is the celebration of God’s Spirit moving in a moribund Church giving us the breath of new life and inclusivity that all our cultural posturing seems to discount. It is not the matter of unruly ‘colonists’ going away from the “prescribe path.” It is the considered and prayerful response to the movement of the Holy Spirit moving in the Church.

Does not +++Rowen understand that this sermon (?) shows a spirit that is contrary to the Gospel? Cannot he see that the world all over is brimming with an energy of faith and holiness that moves us beyond such regional pettiness that has been moving such places as Nigeria, Uganda and Pittsburgh? Look at the remnant dioceses in San Joachin and Ft. Worth. There is an energy and a heartiness of faith that leaves me breathless. Does not he see that the real strength of the Anglican Communion is in its diversity?

Having lived in a moribund diocese for the past 8 years, I know how discouraged people, clergy and lay, can get. Anything is something to fight about. Folks are so tired of the dishonesty and the facade of faith that are being exemplified in the leadership that it leaves them empty and lifeless. It is only in parishes where the rector or clergy shies away from the dictates of hierarchy and tends to the spiritual needs of the people that are places of refuge from the dreariness of institutionalism. It is in those Christian communities where life is infused into the Scripture and love is measured out in people’s lives that the Spirit is seen.

The C of E is an institution, like the monarchy, that has no purpose in the UK. It is mere window dressing. It offers no leadership, no hope and no sense of community save those who wish to control the intuition. The leadership is more concerned with age-worn moral codes that no longer serve a populace than the sharing the excitement of that Pentecostal morn.

I know that the Anglican Communion is much larger than His Lordship. And I love our ancient ties to the C of E. I love the collegiality we have with others who worship in similar ways and find our commonality in traditions of worship and theology that proclaim Christ Incarnate. I think it is quite important that TEC and the Canadian church be a part of the continued theological discussion of the Anglican Communion. I do not understand how the +++ABC thinks he can keep us out, because the Spirit blows where it wills. And She has certainly blown up the skirt of +Glasspool. Come, Holy Spirit, Fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in us the fire of your Divine Love...

Retirement

I am retiring. I will leave my congregation (Lutherans say ‘congregation’; Episcopalians say ‘parish’) on the 13th of June. J and I will be moving to TX to help out a refugee diocese that needs clergy following the wholesale abandonment of their cures by the bishop and the clergy of the diocese. It will be home again for me. I never thought I would be able to return. But I will be glad to be around family and childhood friends. After living in small towns for the past 15 years, it will be nice to live in a city and close to good symphonies, museums, good medical care and quality restaurants.

Most of all it will be good for me be to be back in my own denomination. I do not begrudge my time with the ELCA in any way. My congregation has been wonderful to me and I have found ways of preaching the Gospel that were new to me. I respect their somber approach to faith and the seriousness with which they take the God experience. But I know I am an Episcopalian. I respect TEC’s ways, theology, liturgy and her wonderful sense of governance. I have missed the TEC’s hymns and harmonies most of all.

I guess I could get nostalgic and think of my “career” as something in the past. However, I don’t feel that way since I have never thought of the priesthood as a career. I think I have used that word to describe my vocation, but it isn’t the way I live it. The priesthood is as much a part of me as my breath. I am not especially fond of the idea of the ‘ontological change’ that is supposed to happen with ordination. Some may describe it that way. I don’t. But I do know that I am a different person than the one that used to teach school or who was a professional musician. I am not sure it happened at the moment of hands being laid upon me. I feel that it has come gradually, grace upon grace as I have tried to live in a way pleasing to God. I do know that grace has come upon me has been because I said ‘yes’ to the priesthood and all that entails. I am not sure that grace would not have come upon me if I had not been ordained—grace has to do with God’s gift, not ordination. But the priesthood was and is how I am supposed to live out that grace that comes unwarranted and teaches me the joys and privileges of life.

I will mourn not being in charge of a parish. I have loved being a part of peoples’ lives in that priestly/pastoral way. I visited a couple of people who are in hospital today and I will miss that. I will even miss some of the vestry meeting or council meeting discussions because I have always enjoyed watching how people grapple with God in their lives even when they don’t want to. I will especially miss sharing the Gospel in the weekly bible studies that I have either attended or taught.

There is not much chance of me just sitting in the pew. I have already gotten emails about taking services for other priests. I am not sure I am a good ‘pew sitter’, but I would like some time to just not be in charge for a while. The only thing that I want to have responsibility for is supper and perhaps the dandelions in the back yard. Perhaps I will be able to find a choir that will have my failing alto. It will be nice to have a bishop who will accept me for who and what I am and not expect me to ‘just be nice.’

I AM tired. I didn’t know how tired I was until I went on a cruise/continuing education trip and found that I could fall asleep any time I sat down with a book. I have not written on my blogs much lately because I have been so tired. I need some time just to rest so that my brain can function again.
Know this, I will continue blogging. My two blogs will be revamped and perhaps even renamed. www.foraseason.blogspot.com was originally named for the interim in which LGBT ordination and consecration was placed on hold at the request of the Presiding Bishop. It was her phrase that named that blog. It morphed into a commentary on the Together in Ministry and being a Luth-Episk. www.stoneofwitness.blogspot.com became a commentary on the ministry in the Episcopal Church and often times particular to the Diocese of Central NY. How these blogs will be redesigned I don’t know and will probably evolve. Lives change and so does a body of work. But I will always have something to say about the God and Christ and Church that I love.

Stay tuned….

Sheep and Shepherd: A sermon by Dr. Christine Camann, DVM

This sermon was preached by Lutheran Congregational Deacon Dr. Chris Camann at St. Luke's ELCA Lutheran Church on Easter 4, 2010. It contains information that all pastors and priests need to know.

When I was in veterinary school one of our professors, who is a world-renowned goat expert, recited a poem for us entitled “Woolly Bleaters” which goes like this:

A farmer told me long ago,
he hated sheep—said I, “Why so?”
“All sheep are woolly bleaters,
time-consuming turnip-eaters,
whose one ambition is to try
to find a different way to die.
All my working life I’ve tried
to stop this ovine suicide,
but living isn’t in their nature.
A sheep’s a Kamikaze creature.”

All kidding aside, although sheep will certainly eat turnips, much of the rest of this clever rhyme, as well as many of the other things you often hear about sheep, are simply not true, just as many of the broad generalizations you often hear about teenagers are not true. I have found that the more you know about sheep, the better you can understand many of the Biblical references to them, especially when humans are compared to them. So, to promote better understanding, I would like take this opportunity to debunk some of the more popular myths about sheep.

First, all sheep do not look alike. There are very distinct differences in appearance between breeds in terms of general body size and shape, coat color, wool type, and whether or not the face is “open” (meaning it is covered only by short hair) or “closed” (meaning it is covered by essentially the same type of fleece as the rest of the body), etc. but even within a single breed no two sheep look exactly alike--not any more than any two people look exactly alike.

Second, sheep are not stupid. You may think they all look alike, but they are smart enough to know that humans don’t all look alike. Recent research has confirmed that sheep can indeed recognize and remember human faces, as well as voices, so even if you don’t remember a particular ewe’s face—guess what? She may remember you!

Let me repeat: Sheep are not stupid. However, they do think like sheep. Why should this be so surprising? Don’t expect them to read a newspaper, plot to overthrow the government, protest lack of affordable healthcare, or eagerly run into the new barn you just spent tens of thousands of dollars building for them. They have no interest in politics—unless it is the politics of attaining a desirable place at the feed trough—and although you may think that the new barn is just perfect, they think it is too new to be trusted. The floor may feel slippery. The lighting may cast frightening shadows on the walls. They may not recognize the new waterers. The new barn certainly doesn’t smell as though it has ever housed sheep before, and some of the smells associated with the building process, or the builders themselves, may be downright intimidating. In comparison, the old barn, despite its shortcomings, is a familiar, safe, and welcoming structure—one that we humans might describe as “homey”.

Third, only rams have horns. Wrong! There are breeds of sheep that have horns, and breeds of sheep that do not have horns which are referred to as polled), and there are even some sheep that have multiple sets of horns, but among the horned breeds of sheep, both ewes (females) and rams (males) have horns, and both learn to use them. A number of years ago I was called out to one of my clients’ farms on an emergency basis to deal with two horned Dorsets who had gotten their beautiful curved horns “locked” together. The owner was quite embarrassed to have to call me, but she and her husband had tried repeatedly to separate them with no success. After administering a little sedative medication to the two sheep I trimmed off the tips of the interlocked horns, freeing them from their entrapment to each other. Only then could the owner get a good enough look at their faces and their ear tags and positively identify them. As she opened her notebook to enter this event in their medical histories she began to laugh, “No wonder they locked horns! They’re mother and daughter!” So it’s not just rams that have horns.

Most of the other things I hear people say about sheep have to do with their behavior. These include such things as: sheep lack initiative, they’re boring, they’re not very playful, they’re skittish, they all want to do the same thing at the same time. If you asked sheep about human behavior they might describe it as follows: people work too hard for things that aren’t really important, they’re unpredictable, they run around a lot and and get excited about playing and watching dumb games involving a variety of objects they call balls for no good reason, they’re not smart enough to be afraid and stay away from things that could seriously hurt them, and every one of them wants to be “different”.

What we have here are two very different patterns of behavior, which are actually very well suited to the two broad groups of species that practice them: the prey species and the predator species. The prey species, such as sheep, behave in such a way as to not attract predators. They are cautious. For prey species, there is safety in numbers. If any one member of the group “sticks out” for any reason, that individual is more likely to be noticed and picked out by a hungry predator. It’s not good for one sheep to be standing off alone munching grass while the others are all lying down together.

For prey species of mammals, physical touch is considered dangerous, because it often means that you are about to be some other animal’s lunch. Once a cow or goat or sheep has licked her newborn dry, she has very little direct physical contact with it except perhaps while it is nursing, and when the young of these species play together, they don’t wrestle with each other. They hide and play chase. Their play behavior rehearses attack avoidance. They learn to be constantly alert for signs of possible danger around them, and to try to make themselves invisible to anyone and anything that might pose a threat.

On the other hand, predator species handle their young a lot—often picking them up and holding them, moving them from one place to another, and disciplining them when they get too rough with each other. When predator species play they stalk, pounce, nip and wrestle with each other—practicing the skills they will need to hunt and kill, daring each other to do these things better, faster, harder, and fearlessly.

For both groups, developing superior behavioral skills as prey or predator species also enables individuals to rise to higher ranks in their respective social orders. For males, this usually means more breeding opportunities, and for females the possibility of being more selective in their choice of mates, so mastering species-appropriate behavior has its advantages not only in terms of individual status, but also in terms of perpetuating those genetics that favor this behavior within the population. The characteristic behavior patterns of each group help them to live reasonably safely in nature given their limitations and their needs.

So much for nature. Enter humankind, and domestication. Have we humans forced animals to live peaceably with us? Have you every tried to force a 1400 lb cow to do anything? Early in the process of domestication it was as though an unwritten contract was drawn up and accepted by both parties: mankind would provide necessary feed, water and protection for some of the prey species and in exchange those animals would be willing to live according to man’s purposes for them.

With domestication, then, came the development of shepherds and other animal caretakers. There’s more to being a good shepherd than merely herding the sheep. Herding them is a means of moving them from one place to another so that the needs of the flock—food, water and protection—can be met. This is the shepherd’s job.

In the early Old Testament stories involving shepherds, it is understood that shepherds spent all of their time with the sheep. This was not a 9 to 5 job. That is why owners of large flocks might occasionally lose track of exactly where their animals and shepherds were—they weren’t necessarily checking in every evening. As populations became less nomadic, sheep were often taken out to graze distant fields during the day, and brought back into communal sheep folds (which offered some protection, often in the form of stone walls) at night. The next day each shepherd would lead his sheep out of the fold, so it was necessary for each shepherd to be able to recognize his sheep, or vice verse. When Jesus told the Jews gathered in the temple in Jerusalem that they did not believe because they were not his sheep, saying, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” I’m sure they understood exactly what he meant, whether they wanted to believe it or not.

A college classmate and friend of mine maintains a small flock of sheep for use training her dogs in herding, which has become a popular dog sport these days. Although her dogs—Belgian Tervurens—are a member of the herding group of dog breeds, and in fact are good at herding sheep, they are not particularly good sheepdogs, or shepherds. Those who train and use working stock dogs will tell you that the best way to raise them is with the livestock for which they will be responsible, so that they begin to see them as their own. My friend’s son has raised a few goats as 4-H projects over the years, often keeping them with the sheep. One of those goats once proved what it meant to be a good shepherd. When a neighbor’s two small dogs came to call and jumped the fence to attack the sheep it was the goat—not the Tervs--that leapt to his feet and positioned himself between the attacking dogs and the sheep, thus saving the lives of those sheep. He let the two dogs tear himself apart rather than allowing them to injure the sheep. My friend arrived home from work to witness the end of this bloody scene. The neighbor’s dogs fled, the goat collapsed and died sometime afterward, but the sheep were unscathed.

The best shepherds are the ones that are raised with the sheep. They are the ones who know the sheep best, and who understand their fears, their needs, their joys and their suffering better than anyone else. This is how Jesus, the Lamb of God, became such a good shepherd.

In the 23rd Psalm we read,

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you art with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over.”

The Psalmist acknowledges that death, evil and enemies still surround the sheep, and yet they are not afraid.

It’s not easy being sheep. Just having a shepherd doesn’t make life easier for them. Trusting the shepherd for sustenance and protection is a challenge, because the presence of the shepherd doesn’t blind the sheep to the hazards surrounding them.

But it’s especially not easy being sheep when you don’t think you really are or even ought to be sheep, and that’s a large part of our problem. For some reason, we like to think that we are a predator species—the hunters, not the hunted—but is that the truth? Isn’t that what usually gets us into trouble—insisting on our own way instead of remembering God’s covenant with us? We humans envision ourselves as more akin to the Lion, the King of the Jungle, the ultimate predator, than to the Lamb. We pride ourselves on our rugged individualism, our ingenuity, the fruits of our labor… Are we so easily deceived? Who is the ultimate victor? Is it a Lion or a Lamb who is at the center of the throne in today’s reading from Revelation?

Whose voice is it that we recognize?

Is it the roar of a lion, or the gentle, inviting voice of God who came into this world in the form of a powerless infant so that he could be raised as a lamb among his sheep? His works on earth testified to his oneness with God, and as if that was not convincing enough, he went to the cross to be slaughtered for us, by us. He died and rose again to give us the gift of eternal life, so that we will never perish, and no one will snatch us out of his hand. Dorcas, God’s servant, received this gift. The writer of Revelation wrote about his vision of it. But perhaps most exciting is that we can experience it ourselves each day as we listen for and follow the voice of the Good Shepherd calling us into an abundant life built on radical trust in him. Thanks be to God! Christ is Risen!

Holy Saturday Thoughts

This post due to technical difficulties and the technical ineptitude of the author could not be posted Holy Sat. Muthah+


I feel sorry for the people of Ireland today. Perhaps it is my Celtic roots, but I feel close to them because they have come under such criticism simply because some church leaders were asleep at the wheel. Pope Benedict has blamed this pedophilic scandal on the Irish Catholic Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury challenged the Irish Church’s credibility.


Thousands of children were abused at the hands of those who called themselves ‘Christians’ while many of us chose to look away and live our “sweet Jesus” theology. However, we can’t blame it all on the Church of Ireland. Ireland has always had a rather ingenious relationship with its Church. They pushed off onto the Church the work that the society didn’t want to address: the teaching of children with special needs, delinquents, children of alcoholics, etc.

I am talking not just about the Catholic Church of Ireland. I am talking about Church, with a capital C, the Universal Church. All too often society depends on the Church to guard and care for those they choose to ignore: children, teens, seniors, the people with special needs, the mentally ill, the misfits, the poor. And yet the larger society provides little funding to do the difficult tasks of life. Thanks be to God, there have always been people of great hearts who have been willing to do this work for the love of Christ and damned little pay.




But our church leadership should have been awake. We hear of Cardinal Ratzinger’s complicity in moving priests around in Germany before he got kicked up to the Vatican under “Saint” J2P2. We hear of Irish bishops moving pedophilic priests from one venue to another because to admit that the Church had such persons in the clergy would be too scandalous.



No longer can the Vatican just blow pedophilia off as an “American anomaly”. And Cardinal Bernard Law, formerly of Boston continues to serve in Rome. Just more evidence that moving people around in the Church is still going on under the egis of the Vatican.

The Archbishop of Canterbury cannot cast aspersions when there have been men in the C of E that have done the same. The ABC cannot dismiss the Church of Ireland as incredulous when in the Church of Uganda and the Church of Nigeria supports wholesale abuse and even the murder of LGBT Christians in the name of Jesus.

Can we in our diocese cast any stones? We allowed priests to serve and molest among us. We have looked the other way and blamed those who would blow the whistle on these priests. We are more afraid of scandal than we are of the damage done to those children. We are willing to spend more money on lawyers to keep us safe from scandal than we are in paying for the rehabilitation of the victims.

At the end of my career, I grieve for the state of the Church this Easter. I grieve for the loss of truth. I grieve for the loss of credibility; I grieve for all the saints who have given their lives for the faith of a Christ who endured Evil in this world so that we might be freed of it. But this Easter I do have hope that the Barque of Peter will right itself from the Evil in which it has participated and the apathy of those who have led her. Alleluia, Christ is Risen.

Who Do You Think You Are?

I have been struck with the new show on NBC called “Who Do You Think You Are?” The past few weeks there has been the spotlight on the genealogy of several stars taking those people through the generations of their family to find intriguing aspects of the lives of their ancestors.

The first one I saw was Emmitt Smith from the Dallas Cowboys. Being a long-time fan of Smith, I watched as he journeyed through the generations to find not only his earliest ancestor in the Americas, and into the nastiness of slavery of the American South and back to Benin, Africa. There he found the slave forts of that horrendous trade still standing. He also found that the trafficking in children was still a reality in East Africa. It has changed his life.

Last night I watched as Lisa Kudrow followed her family back to find the story of a great grandmother who was murdered by the Nazis in Poland and the finding of the messenger of that tragedy who had been imprisoned in Stalin’s Siberia because of his Jewish heritage. Today, I watched the story of Sarah Jessica Parker as she traced her lineage back to a 10th generation grandmother who was accused at the Salem witch trials in the 1690’s, a story that had been totally lost to her family. Both of these women have had their lives changed because they learned their story, knew the heroism of their family members and opened up the history as it impacted their families.

I have always been fascinated in history. My undergraduate work was in the History of Thought or Philosophy. I began my own genealogical search when I was in high school and have understood how the Revolutionary War and the opening of the Erie Canal impacted the lives of my mother’s family, how the enclosures in Scotland forced the emigration of the paternal Scots’ side to the Chicago area in the early 19th century and how the opening of the Canadian Parliament induced my grandfather’s family to come to North America. I have found how the lost memories of flu epidemics, military service in the Raj in India and a terrible case of seasickness converged to bring my grandfather to the U.S. rather than his original destination in Australia.

History is not mere dusty facts written in some manipulated history book even when it is taught that way. A friend reported to me that the Texas Board of Education has removed Thomas Jefferson from their history books in favor of Phyllis Shaffley! (I am not so sure that some of the facts of Thomas are best taught but I AM clear about what I would teach about Phyllis!) History is about lives. It is about people who live lives like mine and those who read this Blog. History is personal and has affected me and those connected to me.

I wonder if those who will do their genealogies in another century or two will realize what kind of people we were---those of us who have had to battle the civil rights wars over the past 60 years. Will the children of my niece and nephew want to know about the call to stand against the kind of fear that has marked our age? Will people want to know about those of us who have had to sacrifice so much just to be able to serve the Church, or society? Will people come looking for our motivation or for the kind of ethics that we have demanded of ourselves?

How will those who come after LGBT persons learn how the idea of being sexually different meant not just discrimination but living in the fear of being jailed, considered deviant, being beaten or even killed if we did not appear to conform to society’s norm. Will succeeding generations understand the kind of terror we lived under as no less horrific as Salem in the 17th century or Nazi occupied middle Europe or slave trading Benin? And even more importantly, will succeeding generations be able to see the evil inherent in being part of the majority culture as were the people of Salem, or the people of Nazi Germany or the slave traders of Portugal and Benin?

Mary Glasspool gets consents

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Integrity joins with the Diocese of Los Angeles in celebrating today's announcement that sufficient consents have been received from both Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to the election of the Reverend Canon Mary Glasspool as a bishop suffragan. We look forward to the May 15th ordination service where Canons Bruce and Glasspool will become the 16th and 17th women bishops in the history of the Episcopal Church and to the work and witness they will offer on behalf of the gospel, not only for the Diocese of Los Angeles but for the whole church.

"Integrity continues in its commitment to turn the resolutions of General Convention into realities on the ground for Episcopalians in every diocese," said the Reverend David Norgard, Integrity President. "Today's affirmation of the election of a superbly qualified candidate as a bishop in the Episcopal Church is good news not just for those who work for the fuller inclusion of the LGBT baptized, but for the whole church."

"Today the Episcopal Church said 'Amen' to what the Holy Spirit did in Los Angeles in December when we elected Mary Glasspool," said the Reverend Susan Russell, chair of the Diocesan Program Group on LGBT Ministry and Integrity's immediate past president.. "I've never been prouder to be an Episcopalian or a daughter of the Diocese of Los Angeles--where we are ready to turn this election into an opportunity for evangelism."

"Integrity is part of a nationwide campaign called 'Believe Out Loud'--resourcing congregations to explicitly welcome LGBT people into their work and witness" said Louise Brooks, Integrity's Communication Director and a resident of the Diocese of Los Angeles. "We are proud to be partners with those across this church and across the country committed to working on both national and local levels for full inclusion. And we believe the election of Mary Glasspool will be an inspiration, not just to those working in our churches, but to those standing outside of them wondering if they are truly welcome. The answer is, "Yes--come and see!"

"As openly gay and lesbian people become a common and unremarkable aspect of the cultural landscape," said Norgard, "more and more bishops will ordain LGBT persons, more vestries will elect them to serve as rectors, more congregations will elect them to vestries, and most importantly, altar guilds will be setting up weddings for two grooms or two brides. We are past the turning point and the forecast for full inclusion in the Episcopal Church is brighter than ever before."The ordination service for the new bishops suffragan will be held on Saturday, May 15, 2010 beginning at 1:30 p.m. in the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach CA.

For more information, contact:Louise BrooksDirector of Communications, Integrity

Comments:
I have known Mary Glasspool for thirty years, since my seminary days, I think. I can't think of anyone I think more capable or blessed to be a bishop in the Church. Her sense of rightness and integrity is combined with a calm resolution that speaks a centeredness in Christ that goes beyond the ordinary. She will be villainized and attacked by the same kind of crazies that couldn't abide +Gene Robinson, +Barbara Harris, the Philadelphia 11 and Absolom Jones. Thus it is ever so for those who dare to follow Christ onto the deeper waters of faith for the good of the Church. My prayers will be with her throughout her ministry.

"SWEETIE" Rant

Someone called me “Sweetie” today. Harrumph! I never have liked to be called endearments by people who don’t know me. “Honey”, “Sweetie”, “Dear” are all appellations that have driven me nutz over the years.

In my youth those terms were used to show that somehow I was incapable of knowing anything. Their use for grown women was ubiquitous and demeaning. But since my hair began to grey, the use of such descriptive really mean OLD! I feel like I am supposed to have a walker and someone needs to wipe drool from my chin.

For some years after the rise of the women’s movement, guys got royally trashed by independent women if they dared called a woman “honey” or “sweetie”. People could be reported for sexual harassment for less. But now, younger women call me ‘Sweetie’ with impunity. It takes too much energy for me to soundly thrash someone who is serving me coffee. Somehow I have to endure the indignity of such childish terms simply because I am a “Senior Citizen”.

When did it become a liability to be older and wiser? Was it Medicare that reduced the repositories of memories and grace to the place of the meaningless? I understand when I am not as technologically conversant as my younger colleagues, but I am capable of learning. Thank you very much!




You may call me “Behind the times” for I am. You may call me a “B_____ on wheels” because I often am. But do NOT call Muthah+, "SWEETIE!"