Why join the Episcopal Church?

It is my pleasure to share today a Facebook posting by my good friend and colleague, the Rev. LaRae Rutenbar, a priest of the Diocese of Western Michigan, and the former Dean in the Interim of Christ Church Cathedral, Lexington, where her ministry at a crucial time is something for which I’m forever grateful.

At one time the Episcopal Church was rich in financial, political and cultural status. But long about the late 70's we did some deep soul searching as a Church and began a major change that has threatened our status. Several faithful and deeply committed people believed that a Christian church that was like an exclusive country club was antithetical to the gospel of Christ. Provoked by the Holy Spirit the Episcopal Church risked her very existence for those on the fringes of society. Civil rights, including women in all different ministries, the homeless, homosexual, the divorced, the unwed and the abused. We not only welcomed them but embraced them as brother and sister. What happened is that the wealthy fled for fear their money would go to causes instead of brick and mortar. Those who believed they were being morally corrupted by the inclusion of the "invasion" of others less pure and obviously unaware of the moral guidelines fled our ranks and took with them their money, influence and numbers. The once grand and magnificent church was left with aging buildings, lower (or non existing budgets) and a membership that looked a lot more like the kingdom of God rather than the country club of former years. We have risked much because we believed God had called us all to the feast. And many of those who came were poor, spiritually and financially.

So now we are a smaller, leaner and more inclusive church than before. Do we accept everyone? No, but we accept more than most. There is still the mysterious and holy liturgy in which we are all transported to the gates of the kingdom. Musicians still choose our space to offer their gifts of creativity and artists give their talent to a church that once paid them handsomely for their craft.

The Episcopal Church has never been very big in terms of major denominations. Yet, we are one of the churches dedicated to the teachings of Jesus as he really taught them! Do not join us if you want to look good at the office, the country club or amongst your social group. We often get comments like: 'you're that church with all the homosexuals, right?' To which I say, 'no, we are the church with all the children of God.' Only join the Episcopal Church if you’re willing to ask this question: Where might God be leading us and we might be unwilling to go? We have little money, aging buildings, no status in society-- we are a rag tag group of people who have been willing to risk it all for the sake of the Gospel to which we are called. Some will say that we actually began to read the gospels rather than carry the book around.

We are smaller but we are closer to the people that God has called from the highways and byways to the feast of the lamb.

Every once in a while, when I have the church budget in front of me and the needs of the broken pressing at my door, I remember fondly the church of my youth. Full churches, interesting programs and grand choirs. But, I am one of those for which the church was willing to pay the cost. I am a woman in ordained ministry -- and I thank God every day for a smaller but more faithful church.

It is my pleasure to share today a Facebook posting by my good friend and colleague, the Rev. LaRae Rutenbar, a priest of the Diocese of Western Michigan, and the former Dean in the Interim of Christ Church Cathedral, Lexington, where her ministry at a crucial time is something for which I’m forever grateful.

Peace,
+Stacy

God is Love

Love is perhaps life’s greatest mystery.  Where does it come from?  How do we participate in it?  Why does it sometimes fail?  What does it have to do with feelings?  Mysteries are important because they point us toward God. 

I do not know the answer to any of these enduring questions about love.  I do know that I was surrounded by it last weekend.  And I am convinced that there is no greater pointer to God than human love.

I once heard someone say that parents love their children not so that their children will love them, but so that their children will love their children.  I might add to that “and others.”  And last weekend I saw all my dreams as Andrew’s dad come true as he married Jessica, whom he clearly loves.  One day, should they choose and God will, they will be wonderful parents.  In the meantime, they will be building a life together. 

An old friend called last week about marrying his long-time partner in New York.  It is something he sadly cannot do in Georgia.  I helped just a little in facilitating that.  In like manner, couples flocked to city halls in California to make lifelong commitments to one another in light of the Supreme Court’s rulings last week.  It makes me happy that my son’s marriage is starting in a world in which marriage is less and less the privilege of some to the exclusion of others, so different from the world in which his mother and I were married 34 years ago.  Far from detracting from his marriage, it makes it even more complete for when justice is denied to some, it is denied to us all.  Justice, like love, made itself better known this weekend, and that also is of God.  But most importantly, witnessing justice come to be was also a glimpse of love prevailing against its adversaries, the kingdom of God drawing near. 

This weekend was not only a celebration of the love of husbands and of wives.  I was at least as aware of the love that surrounded all of this weekend, family and friends who made the journey because they loved us, and others who could not be there in person but held us in prayer.  It was, once again, a glimpse of the kingdom in a celebration of human love.

I do not know the answers to the mysteries of love, but I’m pretty sure that God stands behind them and that the more we live into the mystery, the more God is known.  Love, I think, begins and ends in God.  The more unconditional it is, the closer God is and the more easily seen.  John the Evangelist put it this way:  “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 Jn. 4:12).  It is as if God is the sun and we are the moon, reflecting, even dimly, God’s brilliant love, which is the origin of our own.  Our love, in the end, is not about us at all.  It is all about God. 

This was a weekend of experiencing that for me.  I am very grateful.

Peace,
+Stacy

Plowing Love

A prospective disciple once made a reasonable request of Jesus.  “Let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 

Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  It seems a bit harsh, even cranky.

Now I have never plowed a day in my life, but I am blessed to have spent many a day as a small boy watching my grandfather plow.  Granddaddy was old school when it came to plowing.  He hitched up the mule, made sure the mule had blinders so it could not see any direction but straight ahead, he took his place behind the plow, threw a harness connected to the reins over his shoulder, grabbed the handles of the plow steadily, and then urged the mule forward with a clicking sound. 

Granddaddy, like the mule with the help of the blinders, never, ever diverted his eyes from straight ahead.  I once received a mild correction for distracting him by something I was doing along the side of the field he was plowing.  I never did it again.  It was imperative that the rows be perfectly straight.  I assume the reason for this had to do with maximizing yield or perhaps ease of caring for the crop.  Or maybe it was just a matter of pride in one’s work.  Whatever the reason, once he had set his hand to the plow there could be no looking back at all. 

I can’t help but think right now of what Jesus said about plowing and saying good-bye to one’s family in the context of my older son’s wedding this weekend.  Ginger and I are thrilled.  We love his bride for many reasons, not the least of which is what she brings out in our son and how obviously she adores him and he, her.  We are so proud of the path they have both chosen in life as teachers.  We could not be more pleased for Andrew and Jessica. 

What I wish is that Andrew had had a chance to watch his great-grandfather  plow.  I wish Andrew could have observed the mule’s blinders and the firm grasp of his great-grandfather’s hands on the plow, the way the mule was kept on track through the strength of his great-grandfather’s shoulders, the effort with which his great-grandfather grasped the handles of the plow, the wash cloth dipped in cold water after every few rows on his great-grandfather’s shoulders to combat the Georgia sun, and the fierce determination his great-grandfather put into making each and every row perfectly straight.  I wish Andrew had had a chance to see that because, in truth, I think it has a lot to do with being married to a life that matters.  It has a lot to do with beginning a life.  It has a lot to do with living a life that matters in a kingdom of God sense. 

Granddaddy and Grandmother were married to each other for just about 70 years.  I wonder if the reason didn’t have something to do with what Georgia farm people knew about plowing.  Nothing that matters is accomplished without effort.  Nothing that matters is accomplished without determination.  Nothing that matters is accomplished without keeping one’s eyes determinedly on the goal.  “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

I have marriage on my mind this weekend, and of course, the love between parents and their adult children, and as I often do, between grandparents and grandchildren, not that I’m anticipating or anything.  In Christ, all human relationships are to be characterized by love.  It is to be true of strangers, which is challenging enough, but Jesus also reminded us that it is to be true of our enemies, which is more difficult still. 

Anyone will tell you who knows, at least anyone who is telling the truth, that love is hard work.  It is not nearly the sweet, romantic thing we like to imagine it to be or to pretend it is, particularly around weddings.  Love is difficult.  It requires dogged determination.   It requires putting hand to plow and never looking back, and that I know, at least from observation, is literally backbreaking work.

Peace,
+Stacy

What Are You Doing Here?

Elijah was in big trouble.  Again. This time, though, Queen Jezebel had threatened to kill him within the day, and she meant business.  Elijah was understandably afraid and fled out of her reach.

Finally he ended up at Mt. Horeb, otherwise known as Sinai, the mountain of God.  He hid out there, far from Jezebel’s reach, in a cave.  Relieved, I suspect. 

And there the voice of God speaks with an important question.  “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 

Elijah proceeds to tell God what has happened.  “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed our prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

The voice instructs Elijah to stand at the front of the cave for God is about to pass by.  There was a great wind, a wind strong enough to split mountains and break rocks. God was not in the wind.  There was an earthquake.  God was not in the earthquake.  There was a fire. God was not in the fire. 

And then “a sound of sheer silence.”  From the silence, God spoke again.  “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Again, Elijah pleads his case.  And then came God’s final word.  “Go, return.”  There was work to be done, work to be completed, God’s work, in freeing Israel from the evil that had overtaken it. 

This week’s Old Testament lesson (1 Kg. 19:1-15a) is notable in my mind for the haunting question, “What are you doing here?”  Every time Elijah tells God what has happened, what catastrophe has befallen him, and why it is necessary that he be in hiding, God asks, “What are you doing here?”  It is a profound question, which even in the utter silence Elijah cannot escape—“What are you doing here?”

It might as well have been interspersed throughout Elijah’s plea to God of all that had driven him into hiding. “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts.”  So what are you doing here?

“The Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed our prophets with the sword.”  So what are you doing here?

“I alone am left.”  So what are you doing here?

“They are seeking my life, to take it away.”  So what are you doing here?

I guess in the end one can either hide or get back in the fray.  The first question is between those two, where is God?  The one that follows is where are we?

Peace,
+Stacy

A Woman’s Place

This Sunday’s Gospel reading (Lk. 7:36-8:3) is about women and their place. 

The first is “a woman in the city, who was a sinner.”  We often assume it was Mary Magdalene.  Luke doesn’t say that.  We also assume she might have been a prostitute.  Luke doesn’t say anything remotely like that. 

What Luke does say is that this unnamed woman lavished herself on Jesus, bathing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair, after which she continued to kiss his feet and them anointed them with ointment.  It is not that the woman is coming on to Jesus.  It is that she welcomes him. 

This does not sit well with Simon, a Pharisee, who was actually Jesus’ host.  He focused on her status as a woman and a sinner.  But he missed the point.  Jesus pointed out to him that what this unnamed woman had done was really more Simon’s responsibility as host than hers as an anonymous and uninvited attendee, but had been neglected.  Thank heaven she stepped out of her place and did Simon’s job for him, indeed going well beyond what might have been expected of Simon as host.  The woman stepped out of her place to that of the host, a place the world would have thought was not properly hers.  

This woman of the city is not the only woman in the story.  Luke goes on to report that after the event at Simon’s house, Jesus “went on through the cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God” (8:1).  The twelve were with him, and also some women, women who must have looked a lot like camp followers to those who observed.  Some of them had been cured of infirmities and evil spirits.  Mary Magdalene was there. 

And then Luke includes a very important detail.  Two of the women travelling with the group were Joanna and Susanna, both well-placed women of some means.  Luke is careful to note that it was these women who financed the whole group, providing for all from their resources.   

Now, that is certainly different than what our preconceptions might be about the proper place of women in the society of first century Palestine.  It is, though, very much the story of the church.  Indeed, we see that it has been the story of the church from its very beginning.  Women have always taken a leading role in the church and have backed it up with their resources.  And, as we all know, money is power.  One wonders if it isn’t this reality, women exercising power, just as much as women stepping into the role of host, with which goes certain power as well, that really upset Simon and not the fact that the woman, just like everyone else, was a sinner. 

Women stepping into positions of power, so central to Jesus’ living proclamation of the Gospel, is at the very core of what so upsets the way things are and those who cling to it.  So much of our life in the kingdom turns out to depend on women knowing their place and stepping into it.

Peace,
+Stacy

Restoration and Resurrection

It may be outside our everyday experience, but, the restoration of life to the dead is not all that uncommon a biblical event.  This week’s gospel reading about the son of the widow of Nain (Lk. 7:11-15) is one example.  There are others.  There is the daughter of Jairus (Lk. 8:41-42, 49-56).  Most famous of all, probably, is Lazarus (Jn. 11). 

There are other instances, including outside the New Testament and including actors other than Jesus.  Elijah restored the life of the son of the widow of Zarephath is this week’s Old Testament reading (1 Kg. 17:17-24). 

These events are described in various ways.  Jesus described raising Lazarus as an “awakening.”  Elijah prayed that “life would come again.”  Acts says that Peter “showed her to be alive.”  In not one of these, though, is the word for resurrection used.  They are resuscitations, maybe even revivals, certainly restorations, but they are not described as resurrections.  Resurrection is a far different thing than restoration.  

Here’s the big difference.  A common theme of the resurrection is that the resurrected life is completely different from life as it has been.  In fact, it is not recognizable in the old way at all.  Take the story from John about Mary Magdalene at the tomb (Jn. 20:11-18).  She had been one of Jesus’ closest followers.  Still, in the resurrection, she mistook him for the gardener. 

It is the same in Luke.  There two disciples were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday.  Jesus walked with them.  They walked the whole way together with him teaching them about Scripture, and still they did not recognize him until they had settled into an inn and were at supper that evening.  And no sooner did they recognize them than he disappeared from them.  (Lk. 24:13-35).

Matthew tells a story with a similar theme.  “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”  (Mt. 28:16-17)  There they were looking at him dead on, and they did not believe it was he. 

What I have come to wonder is if the disciples were all essentially looking for the wrong thing, that which was not really there, so that they were unable to see what really was.  Of course, the same wonderment applies to us.

They were looking for Jesus as they had known him.  The Jesus they had known, however, was not there.  It is no accident, I think, that the resurrection is proclaimed only by the announcement that “he is not here,” or in effect, “you are looking in the wrong place.  The women at the tomb, and later the male disciples who went to see for themselves, were looking with eyes that could not see this fundamental truth.  What had been was no longer, and a new reality, the reality of the resurrection, had replaced it.   

Far too often we think of the resurrection as a continuation of life as we have known it in the past.  We may catch glimpses of phantoms in that, but we will not catch sight of the risen Jesus.  In the risen Jesus, life is new, not merely continued; life is whole, not merely interminably long; life is completely different, not merely more of the same. 

It is probably not too surprising that that may be a little bit more than we are prepared to see.

Peace,
+Stacy

Camping Voices

As the summer camp season gets going in dioceses across our Church, I thought it would be worth sharing the reflection of a former summer camper, now an accomplished writer.  I thought it was very cool.  I hope you will, too.

https://exhaleprovoice.org/blog-post/one-time-church-camp-my-bishop-was-pro-voice

A lot of church work is about planting seeds and often not knowing how they turn out.  Often we don’t even know we’ve planted them.  Sometimes, though, whether or not we knew they were planted, we get to see them bloom gloriously. 

Happy camping.

Peace,

+Stacy