Category: Evangelism

Deacons: Charge Ahead!

Deacons Told: Do What you see is needed.
Apologize to the Bishop Later.
Presiding Bishop offers keynote address
at biennial conference of U.S. and Canadian deacons
By Kim Forman, June 26, 2007

[Episcopal News Service] Deacons are called to be the “nags of the church,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the biennial Conference of the North American Association for the Diaconate (NAAD) on June 22 at their meeting in Seattle. Reflecting the Conference theme, “Being There, Mission for a New Millennium,” she encouraged the assembled deacons to explore new opportunities for ministry.

The three-day Conference opened June 21 with an evening address by Bishop Vincent Warner of the host Diocese of Olympia, and included seven workshops on topics such as the deacon in the liturgy, prison ministry, health ministry, community organizing, the Millennium Development Goals, and the practice of wellness. There were also a number of opportunities for corporate worship, including a eucharist at St. Mark’s Cathedral with Olympia Bishop Suffragan Nedi Rivera as celebrant.

Jefferts Schori’s keynote address to the biennial conference drew a capacity crowd of local guests and some 220 deacons from across the United States and Canada to the campus of Seattle University.

In introducing the Presiding Bishop, Deacon Susanne Watson Epting, executive director of NAAD, noted that Jefferts Schori, before her election, had said that if people wanted to think about new church starts, they should talk to deacons because “deacons know where the church is needed.”

Commenting on the theme of “Being There,” Epting noted that “when we put the emphasis on ‘there,’ it’s often where deacons are: in places of need; in places outside the church’s walls; in places where others forget that people should be defined not only by their needs, but by their gifts.”

“As we look toward a third-millennium church and a renewed sense of mission,” Jefferts Schori said, “I want to ask you deacons, and the rest of the church, about new ways in which deacons could be sent out.”

Reminding them of their ordination vows, she said deacons are called to serve the poor, weak, sick, the lonely and those who have no other helpers and to interpret the needs and hopes of the world to the church.

The ministry of deacons, she explained, is one of urgency about the starving and homeless and also about “the full humanity and dignity of those in all sorts of prisons, whether legal ones, nursing homes or hospices, as well as the prisons we build through prejudice about race, gender, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, national origin and so many others.”

Jefferts Schori asked the deacons to think about service to people “captive to a consumerist society” or “caught up in the rat race of jobs or shopping or keeping up with the neighbors” and about “forming communities of faith and transformation among co-workers or fellow commuters or soccer parents.”

“Where is the good news going unheard?” she asked. “Who are the hungry in spirit? Whose needs and concerns and hopes are not being addressed?”

The church is recovering the ancient ministry of deacons focused on service connected to the ministry of a bishop “despite the fact that some dioceses have not yet or not fully embraced the ministry of deacons,” she said. “But I want to push us to see those ministries as far more interconnected than we have tended to see them in the past.”

The church in this millennium will be less tied to buildings than in the past, she predicted, because young people hunger for a spirituality of practice rather than a spirituality of place.

Deacons may have to convert the rest of the church to recognize the need for recruiting, training and assigning younger deacons to work with the younger generation, she said. “We need to begin to see those gifts in teen-agers. You know the kinds of gifts necessary and I challenge you to start looking among the youngsters you meet.”

“Deacons should not only be middle-aged, silver-haired, retired or independently wealthy,” she told a room filled with many of those traits, drawing laughter and applause.

The Presiding Bishop offered the deacons a five-point model of mission developed by the Anglican Consultative Council, the Anglican Communion’s main legislative body. That model, she said, has been “around for about 20 years, but [is] little known in the Episcopal Church.”

It includes: (1) To proclaim the good news of the kingdom; (2) To teach, baptize and nurture new believers; (3) To respond to human need by loving service; (4) To seek to transform unjust structures of society; and (5) To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.”

Calling them “the elements of God’s mission in which we participate,” Jefferts Schori offered examples of each. Some deacons are working on environmental issues, she said “nudging and prodding and nagging the rest of the world to wake up to the suffering implicit in our lack of care for creation, but there is abundant opportunity for more ministry there.”

Concluding 45 minutes of formal remarks, Jefferts Schori asked “Now what do you want to talk about?” which sparked an animated conversation with the deacons.

The first question was about her reference to deacons nagging and how that could be done on the local “grass roots level.”

“If half of the dioceses of the church are represented here, as I am told,” she said, “you represent a critical mass and person-by-person you can make a difference, you can change things.”

Walking around the room with a hand-held microphone for more than an hour, Jefferts Schori responded to more than 30 other questions and comments on church canons, education standards, scholarships, networking, pensions and conflict.

“Despite the headlines you read,” she said, only about 45 churches out of 7,600 have left the Episcopal Church for alternate jurisdictions within the Anglican Communion.

“Yes, we have conflict,” she said. “Yes we have always had conflict in the church.”

She listed past disputes between Gentiles and Jews in the early church and over slavery, native Americans and other minorities, over the place of women and children in the church, “but we have much more in common and we need to reach out to each other and build on that.”

When a delegate asked how deacons could work with priests or bishops who don’t recognize and use their skills and gifts, Jefferts Schori quipped, “Sometimes it’s much easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”

Several delegates thanked the Presiding Bishop for attending their conference and voiced appreciation for her insights and support.

Kent McCall of Kansas City said Jefferts Schori “appreciates deacons and what we do, and there are lots of people who don’t. She is very intellectual, wise and charismatic. Now we know why she was elected.”

Emily Morales, a priest from Puerto Rico, said, “I was very impressed with her wisdom in dealing with the issues” and for Jefferts Schori’s support of a school opening there in August with 11 deacon candidates.

Three deacons ordained last December in Los Angeles — Margaret McCauley, Walter Johnson and Christine Nevarez — talked about the Presiding Bishop’s encouragement “to go beyond our comfort zone and work for change” for ethnic minorities and youth.

“I especially liked what she said about always being hopeful and filled with unlimited possibility if we can think outside the box,” Johnson said.

An important feature of the Conference was the June 22 presentation of the awards for the “Recognition of Diaconal Ministry in the Tradition of St. Stephen.” Begun in 1995, these awards are given to no more than one deacon from any diocese, who must be endorsed by the diocesan bishop. A total of 25 deacons received this prestigious award in 2007.

At the same ceremony, the Bishop George Clinton Harris Award for outstanding service was presented posthumously to Northern Michigan Bishop Jim Kelsey, and was accepted by Deacon Tina Maki of the diocese, who was also a Stephen Award recipient. Begun in 2001, Kelsey was the fourth recipient of this award. Kelsey, bishop representative on the NAAD Board, died in an auto accident June 3 while returning from a parish visitation. The Bishop George Clinton Harris Award had been planned before his death.

At the NAAD Business meeting, elections to the board, completed earlier by mail ballot, were confirmed by the membership. Deacon Barbara Bishop from the Diocese of Chicago, NAAD’s vice president/president elect for the past two years, was elected president. Tina Campbell of Northern California and Pam Nesbitt of Pennsylvania were elected as new members of the NAAD board. Bishop J. Michael Garrison of the Diocese of Western New York, was elected to fill the bishop slot on the board. The Ven. Jim Upton, a former board member and former Archdeacon of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, died on June 17 at his home in Newton, Kansas, following his re-election to the board. He was the third significant NAAD leader to die in recent months.

Br. Justus Van Houten SSF, who was president of NAAD from 1995-97, died suddenly in Papua New Guinea last year.

Dutton Morehouse, editor of the NAAD quarterly “Diakoneo,” said attendance at this conference was 100 more than any in recent memory. The next conference will be held in 2010 but no location has been selected.

– The Rev. Kim Forman is a retired Episcopal priest and freelance journalist in the Diocese of Olympia.

No Comments by George Swanson on June 27, 2007
filed in Evangelism, Peace & Justice, Take Action

The First Mother Priest

Celebrating the First Woman Priest Li Tim-Oi
By Mary Frances Schjonberg, May 04, 2007

The Rev. Li Tim-Oi met with then-Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie in 1984.

[Episcopal News Service] Special services in the countries where the Rev. Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first woman ordained a priest in the Anglican Communion, began and ended her ministry will be held in honor of the 100th anniversary of her birth on May 5.

One service is planned at Morrison Chapel in Macau on May 5. Tim-Oi served at the chapel during World War II. Macau is a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. It borders Guangdong Province and is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Hong Kong, China’s other Special Administrative Region.

The other will be held May 6 at All Saints’ Chinese Anglican Church in Markham, Ontario, near Toronto. Bishop Victoria Matthews of Edmonton, the first woman bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada, will preside at the service; retired Massachusetts Suffragan Bishop Barbara Harris will preach.

Harris, who served the diocese of Massachusetts before retiring in 2002, was the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion. Tim-Oi was a concelebrant at her consecration. Matthews was recently nominated as a candidate for the election of Canada’s new Primate. If elected, she would become the second woman primate in the Anglican Communion after Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Tim-Oi, whose name means “much beloved daughter,” was born in Hong Kong. When she was later baptized she took the name Florence in honor of Florence Nightingale. She studied at Union Theological College in Guangzhou (Canton). After she graduated in 1938, she served in lay ministry first in Kowloon and later in Macao. She was ordained as a deaconess in May 1941.

Later that year, Hong Kong fell to the Japanese and priests could no longer travel to Macao to celebrate the Eucharist. According to her biography in the 2003 edition of “Lesser Feasts and Fasts,” Tim-Oi continued her ministry, and her work drew the attention of then-Hong Kong Bishop Ronald Hall, who decided that “God’s work would reap better results if she had the proper title” of priest. Hall ordained her on January 25, 1944.

On the 60th anniversary celebration of her ordination, Canon Christopher Hall, Hall’s son, said during his sermon, that his father talked with Tim-Oi on the day of her ordination about lifelong priesthood, not of the momentous step they both were taking.

Her ordination caused much controversy after the end of World War II and Tim-Oi decided not to continue exercising her priesthood until it was acknowledged by the wider Anglican Communion. Hall had appointed her rector of St. Barnabas Church in Hepu and said she was still to be called a priest.

The 1948 Lambeth Conference refused to recognize her ordination, as did two successive Archbishops of Canterbury. The Conference, in Resolution 113 rejected a request from the then-Diocese of South China brought to it by what was known as the General Synod of the Church in China to experiment with ordaining deaconesses to the priesthood.

“The Conference feels bound to reply that in its opinion such an experiment would be against the tradition and order and would gravely affect the internal and external relations of the Anglican Communion,” the resolution said.

In resolution 114 of that meeting, the Conference reaffirmed a decision made in 1930, saying that women were only qualified to be deaconesses. The bishops said it was not time to reconsider that position (Resolution 115) but said that deaconesses ought to be honored and encouraged in their work (Resolution 116).

When Communists came to power in 1949, Tim-Oi studied theology in Beijing to understand the implications of the Three-Self Movement which had been instituted to govern church life in China. She moved to Guangzhou to teach and serve at the Cathedral of Our Savior.

When the government closed all the churches in China between 1958 and 1974, Tim-Oi was forced to work on a farm and then in a factory, and was required to undergo political re-education when she was deemed to be a counter-revolutionary. She was allowed to retire from factory work in 1974. Christopher Hall recalled in his sermon that Tim-Oi went to the mountains to pray during the years when she did not dare be seen with her Christian friends. He also said her re-education nearly drove Tim-Oi to suicide. She was forced by the Chinese Red Guard to cut up her vestments with scissors.

Tim-Oi was able to resume her public ministry in 1979 and, two years later, she was allowed to visit family in Canada. While there, she was licensed as a priest in the Diocese of Montreal and later in the Diocese of Toronto. She eventually settled in Toronto. She received doctors of divinity at New York’s General Theological Seminary in 1987 and at Toronto’s Trinity College in 1991. Tim-Oi died in Toronto on February 26, 1992.

The Episcopal Church’s General Convention agreed in June 2006 via Resolution A059 to annually commemorate Tim-Oi’s ordination. Her feast day was set as January 24. Tim-Oi’s actual ordination date is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Peter the Apostle.

The collect appointed for her feast day prays “Gracious God, we thank you for calling Florence Li Tim-Oi, much-beloved daughter, to be the first woman to exercise the office of a priest in our Communion; By the grace of your Spirit inspire us to follow her example, serving your people with patience and happiness all our days, and witnessing in every circumstance to our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Tim-Oi’s legacy continues with the Li Tim-Oi Foundation, which has helped 200 women from 67 dioceses in 11 provinces of the Anglican Communion train for ministry, including more than 50 for ordination.

Controversy over Tim-Oi’s ordination came to a Lambeth Conference that had been pondering the issue of women’s ordination for nearly 30 years. It was the 1920 Lambeth Conference that called for the restoration of women to the diaconate (Resolution 47) but said it was the only order to which women could be ordained (Resolution 48). The bishops outlined the elements of a deaconess’ ordination in Resolution 50 and Resolution 51. The conference also called for inclusion of women in the councils of the Church to which lay men were admitted (Resolution 46).

The bishops meeting in 1920 also called for a study of women’s work in the Church and their compensation (Resolution 54).

The 1920 gathering was the first time that the bishops dealt with the role of women in any way other than as it related to marriage. The emphasis came in a series of resolutions at the 1908 Lambeth gathering. Women are not mentioned at all in any of the resolutions from the first four Lambeth gatherings (1867, 1878, 1888, and 1897).

At the 1930 Lambeth gathering, the bishops outlined the duties of deaconesses (Resolution 70 and Resolution 71) and reaffirmed a 1920 resolution, which said that the office was primarily for ministry to other women and did not require celibacy.

That conference also called for women to be able to use whatever specialized training they had received in “posts which provide full scope for their powers and bring to them real partnership with those who direct the work of the Church, and genuine responsibility for their share of it, whether in parish or diocese; so that such women may find in the Church’s service a sphere for the exercise of their capacity.” (Resolution 66).

The bishops said, in Resolution 72 that “every stipendiary woman worker, whether parochial or other, should receive formal recognition from the bishop, who should satisfy himself not only of her general fitness, but also that an adequate stipend is secured to her with provision for a pension, and that she works under a definite form of agreement.”

In 1968, the Lambeth Conference refused to accept women’s ordination but passed five resolutions (Resolutions 34-38) suggesting, among other things, further study and provisions for “duly qualified women to share in the conduct of liturgical worship, to preach, to baptize, to read the Epistle and Gospel at the Holy Communion, and to help in the distribution of the elements.”

At the first meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in 1971, the ordained and lay members of the group considered a proposal from the Council of the Church of South East Asia. The ACC advised the then-Bishop of Hong Kong that “acting with the approval of his Synod, and any other bishop of the Anglican Communion acting with the approval of his Province, that, if he decides to ordain women to the priesthood, his action will be acceptable to this Council; and that this Council will use its good offices to encourage all Provinces of the Anglican Communion to continue in communion with these dioceses.”

At the 1978 Lambeth Conference, the bishops recognized that the Diocese of Hong Kong, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and the Church of the Province of New Zealand had begun to ordain women to the priesthood and noted that “eight other member Churches of the Anglican Communion have now either agreed or approved in principle or stated that there are either no fundamental or no theological objections to the ordination of women to the historic threefold ministry of the Church.” Resolution 21 passed by a vote of 316-37 with 17 abstentions.

The resolution said the conference accepted the stance of all of its member provinces on the issue and encouraged “all member Churches of the Anglican Communion to continue in communion with one another, notwithstanding the admission of women (whether at present or in the future) to the ordained ministry of some member Churches.” The bishops also called for “further discussions about the ordination of women be held within a wider consideration of theological issues of ministry and priesthood.”

And the resolution recommended that that no decision to consecrate women as bishops be taken “without consultation with the episcopate through the primates and overwhelming support in any member Church and in the diocese concerned, lest the bishop’s office should become a cause of disunity instead of a focus of unity.”

In the Anglican Communion today, eight of the 38 member provinces do not ordain women to any order of ministry. Fourteen provinces currently make provisions for women in the episcopate.

Tim-Oi’s birthday commemoration comes nearly 31 years after the Episcopal Church voted at its 65th General Convention to open all three orders of ordained ministry to women.

Today, the ordination of women is widely — but not universally — accepted in the Episcopal Church. An entire generation, both in chronological age and in terms of their membership in the Episcopal Church, has known nothing but a church in which women serve as priests.

Many, if not most, in the church have “come to the conclusion that there is a rich diversity brought by women to the church,” the Rev. Margaret Rose, director of the church’s Office of Women’s Ministries, said in an ENS story leading up to the 75th General Convention in June 2006.

Rose suggested that women, both lay and ordained, are continually changing the Episcopal Church by “the way in which they exercise ministry in a hierarchical church.”

She said that women have a relational style of ministry to the church. “I think the whole church is richer for it,” she said.

In the Episcopal Church, only the dioceses of Fort Worth, Quincy and San Joaquin do not permit the ordination or deployment of women as priests.

A more complete look at the history of the movement towards women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church is available here.

– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.

No Comments by George Swanson on May 8, 2007
filed in Evangelism, Women & Justice

New Life

Christians Seek ‘Fresh Expressions’ of Church Life
By Ekklesia Staff Writers 21 Apr 2007

According to the latest research, 39 per cent of Church of England parishes have started a ‘Fresh Expression’ of church since 2000 – a new initiative to connect with those who are currently outside church, and who may feel disconnected from some inherited ecclesiastical structures.

Fresh Expressions is a movement led by the Church of England and the Methodist Church to nurture contemporary forms of church life alongside traditional ones. It has some parallels with aspects of the non- or post-denomination ‘emerging church’ movement, with initiatives such as the Church of Scotland’s ‘Church Without Walls’, and with earlier ecumenical projects such as Churches Together in Britain and Ireland’s (CTBI) Building Bridges of Hope.

Examples of Fresh Expressions, says the C of E, includes a network of cell churches involving Merseyside police officers, a pair of surfers preparing to set up a church centre on Newquay’s beachfront, and a special monthly service in Cambridge for Goths.

These and other less exotic examples feature in a DVD released today to mark the continuing expansion of the programme. It has an introduction by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams.

Expressions: the DVD 2 – Changing Church in Every Place, has been developed as a tool for continuing the momentum of establishing and sustaining these new forms of church. It draws on the experiences of pioneers in fresh types of ministry and highlights that Fresh Expressions can be set up anywhere, by churches from any tradition.

The DVD shows how Fresh Expressions have already been successfully developed in a range of specific contexts: within work places or leisure networks; in rural communities; by emphasizing sacramental elements; and with groups of young people.

Dr Williams says: “I’m colossally encouraged by the amount of activity that there seems to be around the church at the moment. This DVD tells part of this new story. I hope [people] will watch it, give thanks to God and get involved.”

The film, says its producers “also indicates a deepening in understanding of how Fresh Expressions can evolve to continue to meet the needs of the community, and reflects the sharing of good practice and creative ideas currently taking place across the Churches.”

Four in-depth ‘discussion starter’ films are also included to guide local churches in thinking about contemporary Christian mission. The new DVD is available through Church House Bookshop in London and other outlets.

Source: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5108

1 Comment by George Swanson on April 23, 2007
filed in Evangelism, Lost in the Stars?

One Beggar to Another

St. Saviour’s is Beautiful People
A Sermon by George Swanson
Second Sunday of Easter, 2007

Jesus said to Thomas, “Happy are those who have not seen me.”

In the name of Jesus, our dead and risen Saviour.

Chilton Knudsen, the Bishop of Maine, visited St. Saviour’s this winter. At a meeting before the service she was asked, “Why is the Episcopal Church declining in Maine? Our membership has really gone down.” The bishop answered the question then – and in the sermon at the Eucharist – encouraging us to take charge of our situation. That afternoon I found myself almost in tears. I thought of the expensive work that was going on in our building – repairing the Tiffany windows and repointing the Victorian stone walls. Huge buckets of money are being spent to preserve the building. I remembered an impressive brick church I saw in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana years ago. Totally empty. Not even a single house or building near it. It must have been thirty or forty feet high, with a beautiful tower, nicely proportioned, maybe capable of holding a thousand people. It had been built at great cost most likely when Victoria ruled. British people had probably given their money, maybe even imported good British bricks, to build NOT A CHURCH, but a home for the church. For a church is the people.

Here we are today in this building. What will this building (it’s not a church – we’re the church) what will this beautiful pile of expensive stones be like a hundred years from now? Most of us are old here. At 73 I am middle aged! None of us will be alive 50 years from now. Will God’s people gather here? Will it be converted to condominiums? A disco? Or turned into a municipal parking lot?

I almost wept.

I phoned Jonathan on Monday and told him I had some completely wild ideas of how we might welcome people into our beautiful church, which is US! WE ARE THE BEAUTIFUL CHURCH. The building isn’t bad either.

I offered to walk through the building and grounds with him and share my off-the-wall ideas. Jonathan said, “Why don’t we invite everyone to join us.” I said, “Sure.” And that is what we will do on Saturday, April 28. Morning Prayer is at 8:30 a.m. George’s “Pipe Dreams” will start at 9 a.m. in the parish hall with coffee.

Then Jonathan sent me a great booklet by Charles Fulton and James Lemler. It’s called Faith and Hope. I would have bought copies to give to you all, but it costs $3 for heaven’s sake. So I’ll tell you about it – later. I’ll end up with some of their ideas of what we can do to keep the disco out.

So far this has just been an introduction. Setting the scene. Why I am talking to you today.

I’m going to raise three questions and SUGGEST some answers. Your answers will be better because you know the parish and Bar Harbor better than I ever will. Here are the questions:

Who’s hurting?

What do they need?

How can we help?

ONE – Who’s hurting?

You’ll be able to answer this so much better than I can. I am FROM AWAY. I have very shallow roots here. I’m a transplant from San Francisco, Botswana, Kansas City, Jersey City and other blessed points on this revolving planet. Yet I love it here, I love you. Katrina and William and Hélène and I have received your love here. I know what it is to be welcomed and included by beautiful people. I like it.

Who is hurting in Bar Harbor? On Mt. Desert Island? Well let me suggest three groups of people I think are hurting. Check me out. You may think of more.

PARENTS AND KIDS – How hard it is to raise children! God, it is so hard. It was not easy for me and Katrina. I suspect it is harder now. Two families left St. Saviour’s because we do not have a Sunday school. One of my crazy ideas is that BECAUSE we do not have a Sunday school we can welcome many families with children into our beautiful Church – not the building! But into the circle of our love and relationship with God and with each other – helping them in their difficult and eternally important work of raising their children. They will become OUR children too.

I’ll offer my suggestions at the end.

GAYS AND LESBIANS – Yes, I have rejected gays and lesbians as REAL Christians. Not publicly. But in my mind. “They must not be QUITE RIGHT.” I should be kind to them. Etc Etc Etc. Racism all over again.

Katrina and I had – and I have now – gay and lesbian friends – dear friends – people who stood with us in our troubles and with whom we attempted to stand in theirs. But deep down I wasn’t sure. I mean, the BIBLE and all that!

Newspaper people can really be a pain right where we sit. They ask so many questions that they make a person THINK. That happened to me.

Seven year of trouble began in 1986 after a wooden gothic Victorian building in Jersey City burned almost to the ground. This was where the beautiful people who were Ascension Church had worshipped for generations in Jersey City. Newspapers, TV, and the radio described the conflict between the people of Ascension and our bishop over the fire insurance settlement. Big bucks.

Ari Goldman, the religion editor of the New York Times quizzed me on the telephone – asking why we would not just let the bishop and the diocese have the money. Were we against him because he welcomed and ordained gays? Goldman came to Jersey City and continued that line of questioning. “Would I marry gays?” “I don’t want to marry anyone. If they end up getting divorced and hating each other, they may hate me too.” “What about lesbians?” “I don’t know. Some young women asked me about that. I happened to have a priest staying in the rectory next door who had publicly identified herself as a lesbian – so I got them together.” On and on with the questions. Finally I lost my temper and shouted very very slowly and distinctly to make him understand. (I think God was really trying to make ME understand.) WE’RE IN THE BLESSING BUSINESS, WE’RE NOT IN THE CURSING BUSINESS!

The article in the New York Times accurately explained our reason for fighting the diocese’s attempt to take the money: “Father Swanson says, ‘The people of Ascension Church paid the insurance premiums and they expect to receive the settlement.’”

And as a gift from the dear God – I learned what business we are really in!

I have since read James Alison’s beautiful books. He is at once firmly rooted in the Bible, in Catholic theology, and with the gift of a seeing what God is doing today. I have had the pleasure of becoming a friend of his. His viewpoint is, I think, a gift from our dear God to a world that has persecuted and rejected and marginalized gay and lesbian people IN GOD’S NAME. Alison is a Roman Catholic priest, is he openly gay, he is able to show reasonably and theologically and biblically that the Bible verses about men-sleeping-with-men and women-sleeping-with-women are most likely talking about worshipping other gods with sexual intercourse. Idolatry and blasphemy is condemned – not gay and lesbian relationships.

So – are gays and lesbians hurting in Bar Harbor? I expect so – both them and their families and friends. I subscribe to a gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender email sharing. The suffering is real. So much rejection.

Probably 10% of the people in Bar Harbor and MDI are gay or lesbian. They are certain not welcome AS THEY ARE in some congregations.

PEOPLE WITH ADDICTIONS – What suffering here! I live in the Heroin capital of Hancock County, Southwest Harbor. How about that. Actually that was a few years ago. Today it may be oxycontin. Or meth.

Think of our beautiful, promising teenagers who die every year in alcohol driven automobile accidents! And the “drain board drunks” – women who nip all day to cope with unbearable inner pain. Some of our neighbors suffer from addiction to alcohol.

We can be addicted to food – harming our bodies, shortening our lives, and numbing our enjoyment of life itself. Some of our children are obese.

There is so much pain around us in town and on the island.

We, the wounded people of St. Saviour’s can welcome, embrace, and love many hurting people into our healing family.

TWO – What do they need?

They need HOPE.

And to get hope they need to know the TRUTH.

Here’s the truth about God and every human being. The Episcopal bishops wrote it on March 20th, this year. Hey, it ain’t perfect, maybe, but it’s pretty good. Here it is:

We proclaim the Gospel of what God has done and is doing in Christ, of the dignity of every human being, and of justice, compassion, and peace. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church. We proclaim the Gospel that stands against any violence, including violence done to women and children as well as those who are persecuted because of their differences, often in the name of God.

Like good listeners our bishops have observed where WE were going. They have spoken and we can ratify what they said. We can say to the world, to MDI and to Bar Harbor, THIS IS THE GOOD NEWS FROM JESUS!

How do we share this TRUTH with Bar Harbor? With our island?

In their booklet, Truth and Hope, Fulton and Lemler imply “Don’t tell them that this building is a church!” Here’s an adaptation of what they say about us folks over 50.

When St. Saviour’s embraces evangelism fully, it will be different from TV evangelism. It will be respectful and graceful, inviting mutual sharing.

Americans see religion differently now – especially those under 50.

Over 50, we want to talk about where we go to church, about the sacred place which is reverenced, decorated, and “close to God.”

Those under 50 are interested in everything but where. They ask, How do you pray? What difference does it make in your life? How do you experience God?

So . . . if we want St. Saviour’s to grow (or even survive after we all die) us old dogs will have to learn new tricks. We will have to learn how to tell anyone in Bar Harbor how we pray, what use it is to us, and listen to their experience.

THREE – How can we help?

Finally! You thought I would never get here. These are just suggestions. These thoughts came to be on that afternoon in February when my eyes were moistening with tears.

PARENTS & KIDS – We can make our worship a REAL thanksgiving meal. Eucharist means Thanksgiving. None of us would send our kids away from the table on thanksgiving. But when we have little children and grandchildren we make some adjustments so they don’t suffer too much. We don’t force them to act like adults.

What changes would that be? I don’t know. Together we can find what works. It might be more repetitions in the music: possibly Taize responses sung to the Prayers of the People. Maybe a Bible story told in contemporary language rather than a lesson read in boring language. Maybe processions, marching around. That’s an old Christian tradition. Young or old, can march around (if they wish) at the opening hymn, and when we perhaps all go to the altar for the great thanksgiving, etc. Maybe less stuff from a book and more call and response as in the Black church. Less paper and more soul.

GAYS & LESBIANS – First of all we have to be sure what the good news is. Can’t fake it. I have had some beautiful conversations with exceedingly patient gay and lesbian friends – as they answer my blunt and basic questions.

We had these sorts of conversations after Katrina’s ordination. Good people were offended or at least really uncertain about what we had done on July 29, 1974. And with many people the conversations were special and sacred and sometimes painful.

St. Paul says we should be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us. It may take some discussion for us to understand that hope.

What can we do? As we come to KNOW that this is the Gospel of our dead and risen Saviour:

We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church.

Then we will be led, I believe, to embrace and love and accept gays and lesbians as ordinary cussed parishioners like the rest of us. Just family.

PEOPLE WITH ADDICTIONS – This is so hard. So painful. There is a young man, perhaps even today, in a British jail. He is addicted to cutting himself. He is covered with scars. He says that he has so much pain inside himself that when he cuts himself he really hurts LESS. As someone with an addiction to food, I can understand that. Inner pain requires medication.

Now-a-days he is not cutting himself. He has found silent prayer. How about that? The pain within him is not gone but it is much less. We have had this available all our lives from the beautiful people who have told us about God. Some of these beautiful people are here around us today – like those who went before us. They built a building and invited God into their lives for US. Pretty good. We get medication here that is better than cutting ourselves or overeating.

A bishop in India said that inviting people into the Christian family is like one beggar telling another where to find food. We might say it is like one sick person telling another where to find a really good doctor. The treatment is free. One doesn’t have to sign anything. It is given without any cost to us. There are no requirements for joining the family. Jesus saved every human being. Already done.

Pope John Paul was not one of my heroes.  However, he has been quoted as saying something like this:

Is there a Hell?  Yes.  Hell is certainly here on earth.  And, yes, there is hell after death.  But I think the hell after death is probably empty.

Sure, it’s good to let AA and other Twelve Step groups meet free in our building. But what is so much more healing is our welcoming, embracing, and sharing the incredibly wonderful medication that God gives us here – sharing it with others who suffer as we do.

There are 75 places to sit at the 7:30 a.m. thanksgiving meal. There are 25 to 50 empty seats every Sunday. They belong to the people in Bar Harbor who desperately need what God has given us. Without a word from us they will never enter the door.

There are 325 places to sit at the 10 a.m. thanksgiving meal. More than one hundred seats are always empty. They do not belong to us. They belong to people on Mt. Desert Island who have not yet found what God has given to us. There is only one way they will find it. You or I will tell them what God has done for us.

Summing it all up:

We can share with others – listening & talking – beggar to beggar – wounded to wounded – the beautiful God who is within us ALL.

We can grow – for our own sake and for the sake of those around us who are still hurting so much – we can grow closer and closer, always closer to the dear God who is at the center of who we really are. And closer to each other.

Thanks to Bishop Knudsen, I am in touch with Maggie Ross, an Anglican teacher of prayer. Ross recommended a book to me, Into the Silent Land, by Martin Laird. It is helping me get close to God who has always been within me. There are slips in your bulletins about the book. The Archbishop of Canterbury likes it. Desmond Tutu likes it too.

Next Sunday I will have copies of the book to loan or sell after each service. I will meet with you at 9 a.m. in the Rectory Commons next Sunday and we can talk about silent prayer.

Aren’t we lucky to be St. Saviour’s Church!

Happy are we who have not seen.

Amen

Into the Silent Land
By
Martin Laird

“This book is different. There are plenty of books on contemplation that feel tired—either wordy and labored or unhelpfully smooth and idealistic. But this is sharp, deep, with no clichés, no psychobabble and no short cuts. Its honesty is bracing, its vision utterly clear; it is a rare treasure.”

— Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

“Often they say ‘you learn how to swim by swimming’ but a good coach or swimming manual is essential. Equally, we could say ‘you learn how to be contemplative by contemplating’ and a good guide or mentor is necessary. Into the Silent Land is just that. I tried it and it works. Try it.”

— Desmond Tutu, Nobel Prize Winner & Former Archbishop and Primate of South Africa

“We are built for contemplation. Communion with God in the silence of the heart is a God-given capacity, like the rhododendron’s capacity to flower, the fledgling’s for flight, and the child’s for self-forgetful abandon and joy. If the grace of God that suffuses and simplifies the vital generosity of our lives does not consummate this capacity while we live, then the very arms of God that embrace us as we enter the transforming mystery of death will surely do so. This self-giving God, the Being of our being, the Life of our life, has joined to Himself two givens of human life: we are built to commune with God and we will all meet death.” — Martin Laird in the Introduction

3 Comments by George Swanson on April 15, 2007
filed in Evangelism, Lost in the Stars?, Peace & Justice, Silent Prayer, Women & Justice