Disconnected Despite the Progress

I've not kept up with my hope to post each day (or almost). A big reason for this is that I'm not particularly disciplined when it comes to keeping a journal, whether electronic or not. Another reason is simply the reality of keeping up with the fullness of life while trying to stay connected with what is going on in Anaheim at General Convention. I have a parish to manage, people to care for, a family that includes two teenagers and a new puppy, and several evening commitments (my son's baseball games). Beyond that, there simply seems to be too much to keep up with at Convention. I can't quite imagine how the deputies and bishops get through it all.

What strikes me as most central in my struggle to find time to blog is a rather apathetic view toward the convention. I know this triennial gathering is important and I know decisions made there impact my parish and me. However, so much of what I read feels like something that is great for the insiders but not necessarily a highlight for those of us at home.

I had a conversation this morning with a young woman who was in Anaheim for the first few days of convention. One of her observations struck me. She is in her mid-20s. From her perspective, most of the people there were "old." Now, she is not trying to say they are out of touch or over the hill. Her point was that she suspected many of those participating were retired because they are the ones who can give up all of this personal time to be there. Laity who work need to give up about 2 weeks of vacation to participate. She also observed that there did not seem to be a lot of people who were new to all of this, that a lot of deputies appeared to have been at several conventions.

This leads me to wonder about the people whose voices are not heard in the central gathering of the Episcopal Church. Where are the voices of . . .

• the young adults who are hard to find in the pews of our churches
• the laborers who couldn't conceive of giving up two weeks of vacation (if they even get any) to attend such an event
• the people who participate faithfully in a local Episcopal congregation but have no particular loyalty to the Episcopal Church
• the unchurched and "no longer going to church" who don't care what we do or feel that what the church offers is not relevant to their lives

All of this brings me to these questions:

• Are our structures and our polity truly inclusive?
• Are we willing to listen to the voices of those who stand on the margins? (and by that I mean the margins that we don't see well, not the ones that we talk about all the time)
• Is the way the church is structured an obstacle to engagement and invitation?

I'm not denying the importance or necessity of General Convention. I simply ponder what it means that I, as a priest with good reasons to pay attention, feel disconnected. If I am not sure how much of this is relevant, what are others thinking?

Having written all of that, I will at least express hope in one item of legislation to come out of General Convention. Resolution D025 has been adopted by both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. In short, this resolution affirms that ordination is available to anyone in the church through the discernment process outlined in the Constitution and Canons of the church while also affirming our desire as a denomination to be a part of the Anglican Communion. What does this mean? That all baptized Christians can be ordained, if the process they follow is aligned with the canons of the church. The moratorium on gays and lesbians being elected and consecrated as bishops, which began at the convention in 2006, has been lifted. This is a huge step toward full hospitality and inclusion.

While much of what happens at convention may seem disconnected from congregational life, this is something that is very much connected to who we are as a church. If nothing else comes out of convention, this is something to celebrate.

So, yes, I feel disconnected. But I still celebrate the progress.

Unity and Hospitality

The headline in the July 11 Convention Daily reads, Restraint, or welcome by the Episcopal Church? Several articles the Daily discuss issues surrounding community and the church. How can we be a united body when we disagree? Are there limits to our hospitality? Who is welcomed and who is not? Who decides?

While much of the discussion at General Convention surrounds the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church (especially focused on the consecration of bishops) these are not the only people who struggle to be fully included. There is an article about young adults finding their place and voice in the church and another about the consent of the newly elected Bishop of Central Ecuador.

For all of the legislation that is being discussed and adopted at General Convention, the most important discussions happening over the 10 days of convention are the ones about issues that are difficult, if not impossible, to legislate. How open and inclusive will we be? What lines will be drawn? Can we be both inclusive -- allowing for the diversity that creates -- and unified?

The Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, the first consecrated woman bishop in the Episcopal Church, asked this question in her sermon during the Integrity Eucharist on July 10: "What right does anyone have to draw lines beyond to whom God's grace, care, and favor extend?" I believe she gets at the heart of the tension here. Who has the right? Who draws the lines? And where are the lines drawn, if at all? Do we draw them at ordination? Do we draw them at baptism?

Richard Hooker, the 16th century Anglican priest and theologian, wrote that there were two churches, the invisible and the visible. The invisible church is the one only God can see for only God can look truly into our hearts to see who is faithful. The visible church is the one we can see. Since we are not able to see into people's hearts and souls, we must be as open and comprehensive as possible, making sure the boundaries of the church are as wide as they can be. Since we are not God, we are not the ones who can close the doors and put up the fences that separate us.

Hospitality and welcome are risky. To be truly open means that we must accept and welcome those who differ from us. It means we must accept others as our brothers and sisters in Christ, not based on agreement or similarity but on our common faith in Jesus. Unity, then, comes out of our relationship through Christ, not out of our agreement and similarity.

I'm not sure what will come out of convention, but I hope that in the midst of our congregational life we can open wide our doors and our hearts. Let's not try to be God by drawing the lines of what and who is acceptable. Let's practice love and hospitality, not by drawing lines but by creating openings in the boundaries so all those who seek God's grace, care, and favor can find it with us.

Ubuntu and Non Sibi

An email I received in response to my last post about ubuntu reminded me of the philosophy of non sibi, a core value of Phillips Exeter Academy. My wife works at Exeter and my son recently graduated after four successful years there. Several members of Christ Church are faculty, staff, parents, or students. In that sense, Exeter has had a profound influence on the life of my family and community.

As explained on the Exeter website, non sibi is included in the school's seal (I've put the seal here, though it is hard to see the words): "Across the sun, symbolizing the rising sun over the sea of knowledge, is 'Non Sibi, or 'Not for Oneself,' testifying to the philosophy at Exeter that the wisdom gained here should be used for others as well as for oneself."

We live in a world too often defined by the "Bernie Madoff's" of society, those who seek only their own gain at the expense of others. We need more non sibi practiced in society, more people who think not only of themselves but they take seriously the idea that "the wisdom gained here should be used for others . . ."

I think one of the reasons I have found General Convention so uninteresting in the past is that so much of what happens there seems disconnected from life in the world and in the congregation. In many ways, it seems like a lot of "navel gazing," an internal focus on the church and the church's agenda without a real sense of focus on how we live out the call to share the compassion, peace, grace, and love of Jesus with the world.

Perhaps ubuntu can help us to reshape our understanding of community, give us a new vision of who we can be, so that we can be a part of reshaping the world to conform more closely to God's desires for creation. Perhaps we can learn from other communities, such as Exeter, so that we can consider not the church's agenda for itself but God's agenda for the world.

What might the world look like if we live by ubuntu and non sibi? I hope the wisdom gained from General Convention can be used for others as well as for ourselves.

General Convention and Ubuntu

The 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church began this week in Anaheim, California. I will admit that following Convention in the past has not been high on my priority list. Often, from my perspective, the work of this triennial convention does not seem to have a huge direct impact on me outside of a few particular issues (for example, the consent of General Convention to the election of Bishop Robinson in 2003 clearly impacted my ministry and the life of my parish community).

This year, I'm going to try to pay a bit more attention to what is going on. To help keep me disciplined, I thought I'd make some blog entries giving my "home front" perspective on what is happening 3,000 miles away. We'll see how this goes and whether I can keep up some sort of daily (or almost daily) discipline -- not only to blog about convention but to read from the multiple resources available online to learn what is going on!

The theme of General Convention is ubuntu, an African concept of interdependence and community. It can be summed up in the phrase on the convention logo, "I in you and you in me." Presding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori spoke about ubuntu in her opening address to the convention on July 7. With strong language, she called into question “great Western heresy—that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.” It is this cultural focus on the individual that is at the root of so many of our struggles today both in the nation and in the world.

In contrast to this, ubuntu reminds us that we are stronger together. "I can only become a whole person in relationship with others,” Jefferts Schori said. “There is no I without you and in our context, you and I are known only as we reflect the image of the one who created us." We were created not to be isolated creatures, but to live and work together in community. As it says in the first chapter of the book of Genesis: "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Together we are the image of God.

The challenge that Jefferts Schori is offering the convention is less about legislative decisions and more about how we will live, work, and minister together. What kind of church will we be? What sort of people will we be? Will we be looking after our own needs and listening only to our own perspectives? Or will we listen to others, especially those who are different from us, in order to reflect the diversity of God's creation and promise?

Desmond Tutu, for whom unbuntu stands at the heart of his life and work, wrote:

In God’s family, there are no outsiders. All are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian – all belong. . . . God’s dream wants us to be brothers and sisters, wants us to be family. . . . In our world we can survive only together. We can be truly free, ultimately, only together. We can be human only together, black and white, rich and poor, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jew. (Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time as quoted in Diana Butlter Bass's book, Christianity for the Rest of Us)

That is an expansive sense of community, to say the least!

Living by ubuntu will be quite a challenge during a 10-day legislative session in a time in which there are deep divisions in the church about our understanding of authority, human sexuality, and interpretation of scripture and church canons. We can only pray that the presiding bishop can lead the church into a new cultural understanding of and appreciation for our need to be an interdependent body of Christ.

The challenge for those of us at home is to make ubuntu a reality in our local communities and congregations. How might we do that? How might we live and work so that we manifest God's promises and hopes for creation and human community?