Heady times...

This is an exciting week at Redeemer. Today a photographer is coming to catch shots of us working with Camp Biloxi and other NGOs on the rebuilding effort and the ministry taking place here. All of this is an outgrowth of the House of Bishops meeting in NOLA and the work that the Diocese of Massachusetts and the Gulf Coast Partnership led by Bishop Cederholm is doing here. Bishop Tom Shaw is coming this weekend and we are making preparations for a Gulf Coast feast. Ron Edwards said that he would wear his best overalls. For those who do not know what overalls are – well you will just have to come and see….

I have moved a bit from my traditional reports on this blog to reflect on what the HOB meeting means for us in Biloxi. The newsletter article for our parish paper that I have pasted below is my reflection on the gathering ahead.


Rev Jane rambles on…

Have you ever considered what it is that makes us Episcopalians. I have a friend in Massachusetts who would say "the prayer book" She is fond of saying that we should not print the entire service out as it is just not an Episcopal service without using the BCP (Book of Common Prayer). Another might say it is John Hooker and the three-legged stool. For sure, at some point, we began to diverge from the path of our Roman brothers and sisters by adding reason to the foundational sources of scripture and tradition in meditating on our understanding of God. So scripture, tradition, and reason became the Anglican three-legged stool. But lately there is a sense of experience being a fourth leg. Does the inclusion of our experience of God moving in and around us make us less Episcopal? Another possible contender for differentiation might be adherence to the via media. For those who have yet to delve deeply into Anglican lore the via media is the "middle way". We are neither Roman Catholic nor fully protestant, neither liberal nor conservative, neither low church or high church. As Anglicans we strive to be open and attentive to diverse opinions, beliefs, and worship traditions. I have heard people say that Anglicans are wishy washy and will never take a stand on anything. That sense of being non-confrontational comes, I think, from our via media tradition. But I see a different way of looking at how we walk the middle road.

As Anglicans we do not have a statement of beliefs, we have a statement of faith. In that statement we affirm our faith in God who creates us, Jesus who redeems us, and the Holy Spirit who renews us. Sometimes in blessing I say "Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier" rather than "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit". The former are really functional descriptions of the Trinity whereas the latter names the three persons. OK, perhaps I am just getting "churchy", but my reasoning is that it is not OK just to name something, one needs to know how it works, too - if one is to fully understand it. Biochemists love to give alphabet soup names to chemicals (DNA, BNP etc), but it is the analytical and physical chemists who learn how to understand and to use them.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu in an address available at http://www.episcopalcafe.com/video/, says that, "Jesus says that when He is lifted up he will draw all, all, all into His incredible divine embrace so that God is all in all". I believe that the true essence of via media is being able to stand side by side with that all. All skin tones, all faiths, all denominations, all languages, gay, straight, rich or poor – we are all held in the same incredible, wide, loving embrace that exceeds our human ability to comprehend. I don't have to agree with you to stand at the Table with you. I just need to recognize God's face in yours. If I cannot, then I am the lesser for it.

Next week the House of Bishops will be meeting in New Orleans. Archbishop Rowan Williams is coming and there will be much debate about sexuality and schism and yes about the middle way. Whether or not we choose to walk together, unified in God's embrace is a question right now. But somehow I just think that God is looking at us and shaking her head and thinking: "they just need to grow up a little and learn to play together". I found a quote on the Via Media website from Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage. In C.E. 258 he wrote, "We ought to hold firmly and maintain our [Christian] unity, especially those of us who are bishops presiding in the Church, thereby revealing the episcopate to be one and undivided. The episcopate is one; it is a unity in which each bishop enjoys full possession. The Church is likewise one, even though it is spread abroad far and wide, and grows as her children increase in number. Just as the sun has many rays, but the light is one; or as a tree with many branches finds its strength in its deep root; or as various streams issue from a spring, their multiplicity fed by the abundance of the water supply, so unity is preserved in the source itself."

The sun does indeed have many rays and the church does indeed have many members, but we are all of the same body in Christ (with deference to St Paul). There is much to be done in Mississippi, Louisiana, and everywhere else that people suffer. My prayer for the House of Bishops will be for them to move away from the things that divide us and focus on the things that unite us – our love of God, our desire to serve others, our willingness to turn away from sin, our commitment to prayer, our place with others in God's loving embrace. By the time this letter goes out we will know more about the mind of the bishops. Bishop Gray tells us in the video he made recently that no matter what happens in New Orleans, when it is all over there will still be an Episcopal Church, there will still be a Diocese of Mississippi, and there will still be Redeemer. God's work goes on regardless. I hope and pray that the bishops realize that also.
God's Peace be with you,
Jane+