Thursday, July 12, 2012
From July 12: News from the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church
Dear People of Christ Church,
Prayers today for the wrap up of the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. For the last week-plus, representatives from every diocese in the Episcopal Church (which includes Episcopalians both in the US and parts of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe) voted on a raft of resolutions and elections to keep the church moving into the twenty first century strong and focused. A few highlights:
+ the adoption of resolutions D019 and D002 that incorporate “gender identity and expression” into the non-discrimination canons for access to the ordination process and lay participation in The Episcopal Church—see some lovely work on the transepiscopal blog on that and check out the Out of the Box short documentary on youtube if you haven’t seen it
+Votes in favor of “positive investment” in Palestine (not divestment in Israel as some have called for) as well as a resolution asking bishops and dioceses to raise money for the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, whose United Nations funding was unexpectedly cut in May.
+ Formation of the nomination committee for the next Presiding Bishop, as Katharine Jefferts Schori’s term ends at the next GC, including our own Bishop Tom Shaw and Canon Mally Lloyd; Election of our own dioMA (and state representative from Roxbury) Byron Rushing to the vice president of the House of Deputies (the other side from the house of bishops in our bi-cameral electoral system; the HoD has priests, deacons, and lay people from across the church)
+Conversation and vote (but no timeline for action) to sell the Episcopal Church Center (815 Second Ave, New York City)
+Budgets, budgets, budgets!
+The adoption of the trial liturgy for The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant (i.e., the blessing of same gender unions) which may be used as a liturgy for the celebration and blessing of a (legal) marriage in states like ours. The resolution has a provision that requires a bishop’s permission to perform the rite (so in dioceses where the bishop is against it, the clergy will not be allowed to do it). Our diocese has officially permitted same sex unions for many years (and since Advent of 2009 we’ve been allowed to officiate at same sex marriages), so it’s nice to have the rest of the church catching up, while more conservative places are still in dialogue. The liturgy was well-received amongst participants—an ENS article reported that The Rev. Jack Zamboni, New Jersey, recalled playing the part of the “groom” in a test run of the liturgy. “My reaction after having participated in that liturgy was that I wished [my wife] and I had had this liturgy when we were married six years ago. It’s a wonderful piece of liturgical work.” To see some of the excellent work the team did on the “theology of blessing” you can download the whole text of the resolution and supporting materials from the blue book at http://www.generalconvention.org/gc/prepare
So there’s the news from Indianapolis—and a lot more than that happened, too! I encourage you to check out the links listed to hear from the folks who were actually there.
Blessings,
Sara+
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
From July 5: Connecting to Faith, Hope & Vulnerability
Dear People of Christ Church,
Happy-belated-fourth of July. This Saturday we'll observe the holiday somewhat in our service of 1792 Morning Prayer for Historic Waltham; we're doing the readings for July 4. Please come!
On this past Sunday we had our magnificent annual Church in the Garden service. One of the particular pleasures of it was the freedom in preaching a little differently; I'm usually not much of an experimenter with my sermons, but I invited the congregation to a special moment of reflection and prayer along with our Scripture. One of the great things about the Bible is that the stories aren't dead; they are in the past, yes, but they are still full of living and breathing insight. The Holy Spirit animates those people from far away just as we are made alive in our own faith. The Gospel was the story of the healing of Jairus' daughter and the healing of a woman who had had incurable hemorrhages for twelve years. Both stories of healing are hope-against-hope situations; Jesus is their last possibility.
All three of the main characters in the story-the woman, the girl, and Jairus himself-are people who are kind of coming apart. We don't have a lot of space in our culture for vulnerability like this. We want to be (or at least appear to be) perfect, organized, confident. Ideally, untouchable. But the situation is so dire for these folks that they've dispensed with all of that. They know the depth of their need, and they are determined to ask for help. So my invitation on Sunday was this-what would one of those three people pray for you? What word of encouragement would that girl give, what strength would her father offer, what love for Christ would you hear in that old woman?
For me, it was about the woman. I don't even know for sure if she was old-it just said she'd been dealing with the flow of blood for twelve years. For twelve years she would have been considered ritually impure; that's a lot time to be apart from your community, never mind how sick she must have felt. My sense of her was the way I imagine Mother Teresa-loving, but also kind of hard and commanding. Particularly earlier in the week when I was focused on work and getting everything done quickly, she followed behind me pointing out the good things I was missing. Health. Connections with others. Attentiveness. Really good leftovers for lunch. So often in getting bogged down by tiny, annoying details-children who track sand everywhere, the fan that doesn't cool you off enough, whatever-we miss the beauty that is all around us. It's like sitting on a train that travels through the countryside, but rather than look out the window your eyes are fixed firmly on the door to a dirty bathroom. So for several days now, the woman who had been sick for so long, who finally was healed, keeps coming up to me and turning my head to the side. Don't look there. Look there, she says.
Where do you need to look? What's happening?
Blessings,
Sara+
Happy-belated-fourth of July. This Saturday we'll observe the holiday somewhat in our service of 1792 Morning Prayer for Historic Waltham; we're doing the readings for July 4. Please come!
On this past Sunday we had our magnificent annual Church in the Garden service. One of the particular pleasures of it was the freedom in preaching a little differently; I'm usually not much of an experimenter with my sermons, but I invited the congregation to a special moment of reflection and prayer along with our Scripture. One of the great things about the Bible is that the stories aren't dead; they are in the past, yes, but they are still full of living and breathing insight. The Holy Spirit animates those people from far away just as we are made alive in our own faith. The Gospel was the story of the healing of Jairus' daughter and the healing of a woman who had had incurable hemorrhages for twelve years. Both stories of healing are hope-against-hope situations; Jesus is their last possibility.
All three of the main characters in the story-the woman, the girl, and Jairus himself-are people who are kind of coming apart. We don't have a lot of space in our culture for vulnerability like this. We want to be (or at least appear to be) perfect, organized, confident. Ideally, untouchable. But the situation is so dire for these folks that they've dispensed with all of that. They know the depth of their need, and they are determined to ask for help. So my invitation on Sunday was this-what would one of those three people pray for you? What word of encouragement would that girl give, what strength would her father offer, what love for Christ would you hear in that old woman?
For me, it was about the woman. I don't even know for sure if she was old-it just said she'd been dealing with the flow of blood for twelve years. For twelve years she would have been considered ritually impure; that's a lot time to be apart from your community, never mind how sick she must have felt. My sense of her was the way I imagine Mother Teresa-loving, but also kind of hard and commanding. Particularly earlier in the week when I was focused on work and getting everything done quickly, she followed behind me pointing out the good things I was missing. Health. Connections with others. Attentiveness. Really good leftovers for lunch. So often in getting bogged down by tiny, annoying details-children who track sand everywhere, the fan that doesn't cool you off enough, whatever-we miss the beauty that is all around us. It's like sitting on a train that travels through the countryside, but rather than look out the window your eyes are fixed firmly on the door to a dirty bathroom. So for several days now, the woman who had been sick for so long, who finally was healed, keeps coming up to me and turning my head to the side. Don't look there. Look there, she says.
Where do you need to look? What's happening?
Blessings,
Sara+
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
From June 28: Church Inside Out
Dear People of Christ Church,
This Sunday we have our first day of our combined service at 9:30 (instead of 8:30 and 10), and so we gather in the garden. We've had church in the garden on the Fourth of July weekend for the last two or three years, and it's always a nice way to spend some time in a sort of "essential church" mode-reading the Bible, eating bread and drinking wine, just being together. When I was in the Micah Project, the diocesan intern program, one of the places I worked was ecclesia ministries, home to common cathedral, outdoor church that meets for Eucharist on Boston Common. Many of the members are homeless, and many of those homeless are those who stay out on the streets rather, even, than find shelter space. The founder of the organization, Rev. Debbie Little, began walking the streets and meeting people where they were, offering socks and sandwiches and a listening ear. On Easter Day, 1996, they had their first service, and somewhere between Debbie wondering whether she'd do it again and everyone she saw on the street saying they'd see her the next Sunday, a new church was born.
Beginning to learn to minister in that context was amazing; I had a job in an "inside church," too, where there were also homeless members, so it wasn't so much the fact that people were homeless was such a difference between my two site placements. A lot was exactly the same-people learning to live in community with each other, amidst different understandings and hopes and fears and dreams. Being a church that met outside, though, you were forced to really internalize the idea that the church is the people of God, not a building. As much as we might "know" that church isn't a building, it's easy to act that way. Those four walls offer a certain shorthand for who we are and what we believe, but don't tell the whole story.
So, this Sunday, we'll be outside our own walls. It's unlikely to revolutionize anything, but hopefully it will be a moment of slowing down and looking inward, receiving the simple grace of blooming flowers and buzzing bees and simple music. At the same time, pray, too, for the institutional parts of our church; General Convention begins next week on July 5, so many people will be traveling between now than then to Indianapolis. I'll write more in this space next week about that-more news to come!
Blessings,
Sara+
This Sunday we have our first day of our combined service at 9:30 (instead of 8:30 and 10), and so we gather in the garden. We've had church in the garden on the Fourth of July weekend for the last two or three years, and it's always a nice way to spend some time in a sort of "essential church" mode-reading the Bible, eating bread and drinking wine, just being together. When I was in the Micah Project, the diocesan intern program, one of the places I worked was ecclesia ministries, home to common cathedral, outdoor church that meets for Eucharist on Boston Common. Many of the members are homeless, and many of those homeless are those who stay out on the streets rather, even, than find shelter space. The founder of the organization, Rev. Debbie Little, began walking the streets and meeting people where they were, offering socks and sandwiches and a listening ear. On Easter Day, 1996, they had their first service, and somewhere between Debbie wondering whether she'd do it again and everyone she saw on the street saying they'd see her the next Sunday, a new church was born.
Beginning to learn to minister in that context was amazing; I had a job in an "inside church," too, where there were also homeless members, so it wasn't so much the fact that people were homeless was such a difference between my two site placements. A lot was exactly the same-people learning to live in community with each other, amidst different understandings and hopes and fears and dreams. Being a church that met outside, though, you were forced to really internalize the idea that the church is the people of God, not a building. As much as we might "know" that church isn't a building, it's easy to act that way. Those four walls offer a certain shorthand for who we are and what we believe, but don't tell the whole story.
So, this Sunday, we'll be outside our own walls. It's unlikely to revolutionize anything, but hopefully it will be a moment of slowing down and looking inward, receiving the simple grace of blooming flowers and buzzing bees and simple music. At the same time, pray, too, for the institutional parts of our church; General Convention begins next week on July 5, so many people will be traveling between now than then to Indianapolis. I'll write more in this space next week about that-more news to come!
Blessings,
Sara+
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