Category Archives: Gospel Commentary

The Revolutionary Cry of Our Times

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Trinity Episcopal Church, Everett, WA – Sermon given on January 26, 2025

Episcopal Diocese of Washington DC, Bishop Mariann Budde, in her sermon at Washington National Cathedral’s Service of Prayer for the Nation on January 21st, called on all Americans to strive for a renewed unity based in honesty, humility and respect for human dignity – and she directed her final words to the newly inaugurated President, who was seated in the front row.

A segment of Bishop Budde’s sermon included this message:

Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. And the people who pick our crops, and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They…may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurudwaras and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people of all people in this nation and the world.

As Tom Pepinsky noted in his reflection, “We Kneel to No Pope, We Kneel to No King,” Bishop Budde was quickly disparaged by the President and his followers, with Senator Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma even filing a House resolution (H. Res. 59) condemning Bishop Budde’s sermon at the National Cathedral as “a display of political activis and condemning its distorted message.”  Yet, my friends, as Pepinsky observes, “Bishop Budde was acting from her solemn responsibility as the embodiment of America’s political and religious establishment, reminding the new administration of the values upon which the United States was founded and its responsibility to uphold them. This was not an act of resistance. It was an act of leadership on behalf of the closest thing that the United States has to a national church”.

Pepinsky’s essay reminds us that the separation of church and state is a foundational principle of our nation as articulated by our nation’s founders and embodied in our national history. Many Christian nationalists today find the separation of church and state to be an obstacle and appeal instead to a version of Christianity very much associated with the principles of empire, the same Christian empires that came to these shores from the Roman Catholic principalities of Portugal, Spain and Protestant England, legitimating slavery, genocide, and commercial destruction of vast natural resources as God’s will for providing for God’s chosen people.

The Constitution of the United States was drafted by wealthy, landowning white men, many of whom were slave owners. However, their faith was not Christian nationalism. Their aspirations reflected the conditions of the founding of this nation. Namely, they kneeled to no pope, and they kneeled to no king. That is because they were mostly Episcopalians. The Episcopal Church of the United States of America is, as Pepinsky notes, is the closest thing that the United States has to a national church, “This is a historical fact, and a living contemporary practice.”

There is an institution in Washington, DC called the National Cathedral. It is truly a national cathedral, established by an Act of Congress, aligned with the vision of the Founders for our national capital. The denomination of the National Cathedral is Episcopalian. Bishop Budde is the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and as such, the National Cathedral is her seat as bishop of that diocese. The establishment of the United States of America coincides with the establishment of the Episcopal Church, because the Episcopal Church is the Church of England in the United States.

Pepinsky’s essay additionally reminds us of our church’s unique history. Anglicanism is the belief system and liturgical practices based on the Church of England. As everyone who has learned European history knows, the modern Church of England emerged through a schism between King Henry VIII of England and the Pope Clement VII, which produced the English Reformation. Driven by various spiritual and worldly matters, Henry refused to recognize papal authority over religious affairs in England. Anglicanism recognizes apostolic succession, but it does not recognize papal supremacy. The King of England is the supreme governor of the Church of England. As head of the church, though, and bishop of the See of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury kneels to no pope, and we in the Episcopal Church – reminding you again – kneels neither to the King of England nor to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

At the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, a newly independent United States of America had rejected the King’s authority over the thirteen colonies and subsequently separated from the Church of England, which required an oath of Supremacy to the King by all clergy. An early American Anglican clergyman could not take the Oath of Supremacy, because it was essentially an oath to the monarchy. The Church of England was disestablished in the United States, and the Episcopal Church was founded through a series of events that preserved apostolic succession and conceived a system of governance very similar the newly established nation. From that time forward, the Episcopal Church in the United States operated independently of the Church of England. In later generations, it joined with the Anglican Communion – a relationship of international expressions of the Anglican/Episcopal provinces around the world, the remnant leftover of past Christian Empires come and gone.

Finally, as Pepinsky underscores, in Bishop Budde’s sermon, she “articulated a national understanding of the responsibility of faithful leadership towards the American people – the faith tradition of a republic that welcomes all those seeking new opportunity and the chance of a new life for themselves and their children.”

Bishop Budde’s sermon additionally echoed the concerns of the Executive Officers of The Episcopal Church in a letter they issued on January 21st letter to the church, issued in response to the President issuing a barrage of executive orders within the first hours of having taken office, many orders targeting migrants, refugees and other peoples.

The letter released by the Executive Officers of The Episcopal Church urges “Our new president and congressional leaders to exercise mercy and compassion, especially toward law-abiding, long-term members of our congregations and communities; parents and children who are under threat of separation in the name of immigration enforcement; and women and children who are vulnerable to abuse in detention and who fear reporting abuse to law enforcement.”

The letter concludes by encouraging congregations to use the resources of the Office of Government Relations and the Episcopal Public Policy Network and to embody the Gospel through direct witness on behalf of immigrants in our communities. This letter was written in response to the executive orders, The order included measures seeking to suspend the federal refugee resettlement program, declare a national emergency at the U.S-Mexico border, block an “invasion” of migrants into the United States, end the right to birthright citizenship that is guaranteed by the Constitution and resume a policy of making asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for their cases to be heard. Other executive orders were related to the federal work force, the economy, energy policy and the environment and they included some measures targeting transgender people. The government, intends to recognize only two sexes, male and female, and seeks to end protections for transgender inmates in federal prisons.

A growing number of Episcopal bishops are speaking out in response to the new administration’s threat to fulfill a campaign promise of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, possibly including raids in churches and other places that previous presidents had deemed off-limits for such enforcement. These bishops speaking out include the bishops of Arizona, New York, Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts, and Southern California. Now, the President of the United States has suspended the country’s 45-year-old program of refugee resettlement, which has long enjoyed bipartisan support. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security issued directives reversing the Biden administration policies that avoided immigration enforcement  in “sensitive” or “protected” areas, including schools, hospitals and houses of worship.

I want to say to you that Trinity Everett will remain a spoke in the wheel of our diocesan commitment out of the hub of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle to provide sanctuary, protection, and advocacy to immigrants and refugees. Without a warrant signed by a judge, we will not permit entry of federal ICE agents into our buildings. Bishop Budde is correct when she says that people are afraid now. This is not in the abstract. These orders directly affect people seated in this sanctuary today, maybe even the person sitting next to you. For example, initiatives approved by the new Presidential administration includes a directive that unless both sets of grandparents were born in this country, you are at risk for deportation. Refugees from war that this church sponsors – right here – and that we support are at risk for deportation. Trans people known and beloved by members here and now are and will be subjected to having trans identities revoked. Same gender couples married before God at this altar are at risk of having their marriages invalidated. Even Indigenous Americans are being threatened with loss of US citizenship our their lands are even now being reclassified, opening them for mineral and resource extraction. Removing the cap on the cost of insulin and other medications and life prolonging procedures threatens the health of elders right now sitting in this space and in our community.

It is hard enough for women and LGBTQ persons and people of color in this country to endure the daily onslaughts of racial and gender discrimination, much less experiencing the additional burden of a racist, sexist national leaders informed by an imperial version of Christianity. After my personal experience of the bishop search process in the Diocese of Rochester last year, I posted this message on social media:

Resume, experience, expertise, competency, integrity, values and commitment seem less relevant than the state of my hair in the bishop search processes in which I’ve participated. In one instance, I was wearing four braid loops pinned up (a style of my traditional Indigenous tradition) when a young male search committee member remarked while laughing, “What’s going on there? That’s wild! Ha! Ha! Ha!” In a different interview process, I was wearing two braids with a small feather ornamenting one. An older white woman on the search committee who contacted my references then asked each of them, “Does she always dress like that with her hair?” In the most recent discernment process, I decided to wear just one plain braid over my shoulder (as in my profile picture). One clergy person queried of another, “Why does she wear her braid like that?” They were quite troubled by it. My friends,  cultural competency  means understanding and respecting other cultural values and ascetics while not expecting others to conform to dominant culture assimilation (racial biases often referred to as “professional” and is essentially racist). In my culture, long hair and braids are a hallmark of cultural pride and connection to ancestors, community, identity, spiritual values and honor.  If being a leader in dominant culture church means cutting my hair or making my hair less “wild”, then it’s not a church I want to lead.

With their permission, I would like to share an email that I received from parishioner Linda Gabourel and her husband Po that emailed privately to me in response to my post:

Dear Rachel:

Having heard about your recent Facebook post regarding the comments about your hair style during the Rochester discernment I believe voices need to be raised.  I don’t have Facebook, but Kate copy-pasted your comments and sent them to me.  (Thank you, Kate).

My initial response was to be angry on your behalf and yes I am angry and dismayed that comments like that would come from people who should know better and do better.   There was nothing subtle or veiled about the insult to your indigenous heritage from those few petty individuals. I am so sorry for the pain and discouragement it is causing you.  I have some thoughts to share for whatever they are worth. First and foremost, don’t ever let them win! This is where the strong stand up, continue to speak out, lead the way and continue to educate those who need their eyes opened. [Ironically, I say] You are one of the strongest women I have known in my lifetime.  If leaders like you give up our church will suffer.  Never forget that you are extraordinary, strong, and your voice and example are indispensable to the Episcopal Church moving forward. 

When I was in medical school and in training, women like myself, put up with a lot of sexist comments and harassment and we never felt we had the power to change that. It was work hard and keep your head down. What we did do was to stay, keep coming and fight for our place.  My husband had a patient during his residency at the Seattle VA hospital, that refused care from him as he, quote, didn’t want a “gook” touching him. He assumed Po was Vietnamese.  Po wrote basic admission orders and a note including “patient refused care from a gook”. It hurt. He kept moving forward and physicians of color kept coming.  I have great faith in people and believe that they can learn and they can change. With leadership like yours and people like those at Trinity, we will keep coming and swarm the church with love, inclusion and tolerance. To do that they need to hear from people like you. You can change people one at a time.  You have a voice. You be who you are. No conformity required!!! Loud and proud right? The fight is a hard one so what can I do to help and support you?

My friends, I do not get emails like this.

Last weekend, I wasn’t here. Father Allen presided and preached in my place, because I was away attending an annual gathering of Indigenous Episcopalians called Wintertalk, which has traditionally been held on the weekend of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. We experienced the presidential inauguration on MLK Monday and the release of the executive orders that followed, including an order opening up long-protected Indigenous lands for mineral and fossil fuel extraction and the removal of any mention of climate change science from the White House webpages. The events and conversations of this past Wintertalk caused me to face a terrible reality – I have not ever in my professional life felt safe enough to share my full self within the predominantly white spaces in which I have worked and which characterize The Episcopal Church, including here at Trinity Episcopal Everett. There is much for us to explore about that which we might chose to do as we go forward together. For now, I would simply remind you that the Episcopal church’s statement that “All are welcome” needs to apply to clergy in our diocese, as much as anyone else. Allen Hicks who is Citizens Potawatomi and me – a Shackan First Nation woman – are granted the authority and responsibility by the canons of this church to lead this congregation in the teachings, values, and practice of our faith.  Yet, I am challenged; I am not seen as an Indigenous woman. I disappear in the words of people who continually say that they do not see color. You must see color. I guarantee you that we see your whiteness.

The actions of the new national leadership are disheartening, and the actions of our government will likely continue to brutalize the vulnerable and further privilege those who are already abundantly privileged within a racist and sexist society. However, Bishop Steven Charleston (Choctaw elder and retired bishop of Alaska) reminds us of the ultimate mission of our church in the following reflection that he posted this past week:

“Shock and awe is a military tactic. Comfort and awe is a spiritual alternative. The military option supports the will to dominate. The spiritual option supports the commitment to liberate.  We share with all people an awesome grace: the path to peace, on the walk of truth and reconciliation, with justice lived for the sake of all creation. We do not seek control, but something much more transformational and enduring. We seek kinship.”

My friends – my kin – the Episcopal Church is a faith tradition formed by and for revolution, rooted in the teachings of a brown-skinned socialist Jew living in the Middle East under occupation of Empire. This is our Messiah. His message of love of one’s neighbor and faithfulness to teachings of mercy, compassion, and peace were so threatening to those in power in his day that he was executed by the Roman government for sedition. St. Paul and eleven of the apostles followed in his steps through their own journeys of resistance, service, and hope until they, too, were martyred and their faith was ultimately retooled to fit the purposes of empire under Constantine I. 

Resurrection, like revolution, is threatening to those who would rule by force and reject the spiritual and divine quality of mercy. Violence and death have never had the last world, not in our wisdom traditions and not in world history. The Episcopal Church – in case you are Episcopo-curious or you have friends who are Episcopo-curious – the Episcopal Church takes seriously, what it means to be the Body of Christ; we hold dear the responsibility of our Baptismal Covenant to strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being. We are dedicated to the commandments of the Savior we follow – to love God with all our heart and mind and being, and to love our neighbors as ourselves; and finally, in fidelity to the core principles of the Episcopal founders of the United States of America, we kneel to no ruler but Jesus Christ alone.

We follow the liberating strength of God’s love and come together every week to celebrate the true freedom that is to found in unconditional acceptance and mutual support as a spiritual community equal before the eyes of God. We are a people born of both spiritual and social revolution. We are the Episcopal Church, and in the face of all those who would exclude and deride, harm, who would endanger emigrants, LGBTQ persons, women and children, the elderly, the ill, the hungry, the homeless, the jobless, the poor, the addicted, the imprisoned, the Indigenous, the foreigner, the vulnerable. More than a logo, more than a slogan, more than a glib bumper sticker – we say on behalf this nation and of our church, “All are welcome!”

We say, “All are welcome!” 

We say, “All are welcome!”

Let this be the revolutionary cry of our times!

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To view the YouTube livestream version of this sermon, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5T6lC-RWdc

To view the sermon given by Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde at the National Cathedral, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwwaEuDeqM8

To read the letter released by the Executive Officers of The Episcopal Church, click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwwaEuDeqM8

To read the essay, “We Kneel to no Pope, We Kneel to no King” by Tom Pepinsky, click on this link: https://tompepinsky.com/2025/01/22/we-kneel-to-no-pope-and-we-kneel-to-no-king/

A Wilderness People Seek Holy Ground

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Photo by Don Wayne – Mt. Rainier National Park

Results of Our Six Diocesan Resolutions

Circles of Color sponsored six resolutions to Diocesan Convention. We led a preconvention workshop on the Thursday evening before the Friday/Saturday convention schedule. During Convention, we provided a Friday morning introductory workshop to the Circles of Color and a panel discussion on Saturday. The sum of work was intensive, but the rewards were exponential.

The overarching intention of the six resolutions was to draw collective attention to the needs for diocesan institutional reform to support the work, leadership formation, and ministries essential to the communities and people of color in our diocese. Before 2007, this work had been facilitated by the supervision of a fulltime ethnic missioner, a fulltime suffragan bishop, a full-time assistant, and a part-time dedicated communications assistant. From 2007 onward, staff cuts and budget cuts served to deconstruct the centralized programing and support that had previously existed for our Episcopalians of color. In the absence of a proactive staff presence for providing advocacy, support and connection, the recruitment and leadership formation BIPOC people suffered as did several of our faith communities of color. In short, an administrative goal to cut costs had the impact of deconstructing ethnic ministries, which had been a vital community for BIPOC people in the diocese that provided significant partnerships, education, and consultation resources throughout the diocese.

The Circles of Color resolutions addressed the importance and need to keep BIPOC concerns and needs in the forefront of diocesan mission and commitment. During our panel discussion on Saturday, we heard from a member of the Diocesan Budget and Finance Committee that a diocesan survey some years ago indicated that ethnic ministries was a low priority for our diocese. However, based on the outstanding support of members of Convention this year, I believe the sense of diocesan priorities may have changed somewhat in response to the current issues of our time – most especially the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement and revitalized interest in the intersectionality of indigenous peoples concerns and environmental justice issues.

Convention passed all six resolutions sponsored on behalf of Circles of Color. The resolutions themselves provided an important opportunity for reflection and education. They served as a lens through which to view and understand the needs of BIPOC Episcopalians. The majority of the diocese was likely unaware of the disenfranchisement experienced by our BIPOC church members and communities. I believe that I speak for all members of Circles of Color that we felt deeply grateful and were very emotionally and spiritually moved by the Convention’s support of the resolutions and by the witness and testimony provided by white allies who spoke in support of the resolutions. Many tears of gratitude were shed, and by the end of Convention we felt that we had been seen, heard, and valued. We hope that the community gift of being seen, heard, and valued will continue as we all grow in the depth of our relationships with one another in the Diocese of Olympia.

Whoever’s in Charge is Who’s Responsible

The greatest organizational challenges for needed changes are in areas of governance and leadership, getting to the heart of addressing issues of systemic racism in the church. Bishop Rickel has noted that now that the resolutions have been passed, the real work begins. From a values and community perspective, the work of addressing systemic racism is all of ours to do and rests with no single individual but with every individual, wherever we are on the organizational flow chart, however much social power we have, and whatever color we are. In our Baptismal Covenant, each of us has made the promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. Fulfilling our Baptismal promises constitutes the work of a lifetime.

However, from a leadership and organizational perspective in which the reality of church hierarchy determines institutional and budgetary priorities, the bishop and his office as well as the dean and the diocesan cathedral need to do some soul searching. People of color in the Diocese of Olympia are asking for mutuality in our relationships with church leaders, input into institutional operations that directly affect us, and pastoral responses from diocesan and cathedral leadership. Asking for mutuality and decision-making that cares for the needs of the marginalized – which are community value of our faith – is at odds with the hegemonic nature of a hierarchical institution that equates leadership with higher authority possessing greater power and control.

In terms of systems theory, it is not possible to reconcile issues of inequality within a hierarchal structure that by its nature derives authority from the unequal social strata over which it has power. The democratic principles that seemingly empower the bicameral decision making of diocesan conventions and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church may be legislative bodies that attempt to balance the hierarchical influence of bishops and other leaders. Yet, the canon law that undergirds the Church polity and empowerment of hierarchal decision making is cumbersome and time consuming to change in response to the facile and rapidly changing needs of our time – including adapting to real-time needs of our growing communities of color.  Therefore, organizational adaptation is highly localized and is utterly dependent on how a given diocesan bishop or leadership system is willing to flex in the way in which authority operates on a continuum of unilateral hierarchical decision making to allowing for corporate influence in decision-making and collaborative organizational management.

Hierarchical decision-making says, “I have decided this is how it will be – you figure out how to execute my expectation and thereby you are ‘empowered’ to do things my way, and I will hold you accountable.” Whereas, corporate input into decision making that leads to genuine collective responsibility says, “We need to hear from one another regularly and intentionally so that we keep learning what we each need from a shared commitment to creating what we envision together; in this way we empower one another to assume the responsibilities we each have toward one another through our shared leadership, holding ourselves accountable.”

When hierarchical systems are incapable or unwilling to listen to the needs of the marginalized, the people will insist on transformative change, frequently perceived as a hostile corporate takeover by those whom the system genuinely empowers. Corporate challenge is the first indicator to those in charge within a system from which only the few derive authority that the system is not serving the people. Hierarchical systems rely on a system of rewards and punishments, usually generating a cosmology that promotes fear of retribution and extends relationship only to the compliant.  Within a hierarchal church system, forgiveness is about successfully placating angry gods.

Fortunately, in the face of the hierarchical machinations of empire and religious institution, Jesus offers a compelling alternative.

New Testament Leadership is Corporate and so is God

Jesus and early church leadership introduced significant social and theological innovations to the  hierarchical values and cultural beliefs enforced during their lifetime. Their perceived attempt at corporate takeover was considered threatening enough by those in hierarchical power to get nearly all of them killed. Yet, history shows us that good ideas are hard to entomb or coopt and have a tendency to be resurrected and liberated in successive generations. Just as creation is an ongoing phenomenon not limited to the allegory of seven days, Christ’s resurrection was never limited to just three days but continues unabated in our time.

The reality that the savior of dominant culture is an articulate, educated, brown-skinned, socially progressive young adult we know as Jesus is entirely relevant to the call confronting the Church today. Having lived his entire human life as an indigenous man living under Roman occupation and frustrated by the failure of his religious leaders to take a stand on behalf of the people in order to help mitigate their suffering, Jesus empowered others through his leadership. He leveraged whatever social privilege he held to cultivate relationships with the whole spectrum of his society, subverting multitudinous dominant paradigms with the certitude of the core principles of his faith. He elevated the law to love one another into a rallying cry for social, personal, and spiritual transformation. He seemingly challenged everyone he met to garner the fortitude to grow beyond the social limitations/expectations placed upon them like manacles, while chastising those who had created those bonds.

Jesus did not seek to overthrow but to create level ground for all. For those dwelling in high places of power, level ground was an anathema. Yet, early church writers picked up the theme of human value within corporate ways of being, and a triune God in collaboration with itself became the new model for leadership and community. In a challenge to ascribed social and religious privilege, Paul deconstructed social strata in human society and in religious institution, reframing the new community as the Body of Christ:

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.  But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. (1 Cor 13-14, 22, 24b-25).

Identifying a basis for common ground amidst social and cultural diversity, Paul also provides a basis for unity and social leveling in the idea that all social assignments that ascribe our identity – including ethnicity and gender – are subsumed into the singular identity of Christ, whose own identity in/as God transcends all:

Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:24-28)

Surely, when members of Christ’s body are hurting, we need to tend to those wounds collectively. People of color in the diocese of Olympia are hurting. Passing the six resolutions at our convention was an important beginning. Hearing Bishop Rickel state at convention that he is aware that he is responsible for causing much of the pain that was shared during the listening session panel was incredibly important. The next step is in developing mutual relationships in which people value one another through deepening trust and understanding. However, there is no program, training module, or personal inventory in existence that can substitute for doing the actual work of relationship building. One phone call at a time. One email at a time. One Zoom at a time. One meal at a time. One conversation at a time. Jesus never said the love we should have for one another would be easy, but he did say that it’s the most important work we can ever do for God.

It is laudable and appreciated that our bishop and cathedral are developing partnerships with diverse churches and ethnic communities outside of The Episcopal Church and with Episcopal leaders of color outside of our diocese. Yet, in doing so, leadership has overlooked our own people of color in the Diocese of Olympia and neglected the need we have for being in transformative and liberative relationship with our bishop and our cathedral. I hear that some hierarchical leaders feel at risk and are afraid; I hear that some of our people of color feel at risk and are afraid. Yet, I believe that all of us long for a relationship rooted on the level social landscape as Christ’s body that is Holy Ground, where “We will not all die, but we will all be changed.” 1 Cor 15:51

Sanctuary Earth – A Creation in Peril

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Altar Stained Glass Trinity 2020

East Wall Stained Glass Over High Altar – Trinity Episcopal Church, Everett WA

Over a period of five months in the spring and summer of 1892 [April to August], Trinity Episcopal Church grew from an idea in the minds of a few business owners into an incorporated parish with its own lumber-built church on the corner of Wetmore and California Avenues in what is now downtown Everett.

In 1911, the Trinity Vestry called The Rev. Edgar M. Rogers, who lead the Vestry in purchasing the current property at 23rd and Hoyt, breaking ground on the (former) parish hall on March 25, 1912. However, the work on building the church itself was halted as the working men of Snohomish County and many of its clergy went off to join the armed forces in support of the Great War. After Armistice was declared on November 11, 1918, survivors returned home picking up the remnants of old lives and building new ones as best they could.

Work resumed on building the church sanctuary, and the first mass was held in it the Sunday after Easter of 1920 – 100 years ago today. The final dedication of the new building was held the following year, presided over by Bishop Keater on Trinity Sunday, May 22, 1921. On that occasion a plaque was placed in the original entry dedicating the sanctuary as a Victory Memorial to those who died in the Great War.

At the time when the old church property at Wetmore and California was sold, the funds helped to support the work of the architect of the new building, E. T. Osborne. Meanwhile, the stained glass windows were designed and executed by Charles J. Connock, who designed the stained glass windows overlooking our high altar. Connock designed the windows with the theme of Resurrection in mind.

The risen Christ is depicted on the center panel, with Mary his mother to the left and Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of James on the outside left panel. To the right of Christ is Peter and to the far right is Joseph.  The middle panel – depicting the resurrected Christ – was given by the children of the parish in honor of mothers. Surrounded by doves and angels, with Roman soldiers giving up arms at his feet, the resurrected Christ raises a hand in blessing – etched in glass, immortalized in color and light. This blessing reminds us every time we behold it that there is no challenge so great that together we cannot overcome it.

The ancestors of this place dedicated (and gave) their lives to challenging global injustice and to upholding values of international peace and unity. During the years of WWI, Trinity’s parish hall had served as an active hub for community organizing in response to the war efforts – hosting Red Cross meetings, adopting war orphans, selling Liberty Bonds, and hosting an array of guest war time speakers and faith leadership dignitaries from all over the world, including Belgium, France, Greece and Russia. We have multiple photos of rows of scowling clergy to prove it.

Over the years that followed Fr. Roger’s time, the pursuit of justice took different forms in each generation. In the 1960’s issues challenging The Episcopal Church reflected the changing times. The movement for women’s rights, social justice concerns related to in human sexuality, and women’s birth control were foremost issues in international and domestic church meetings.

Voices were also being raised in the streets and in the pews calling for the formulation of environmental laws and policies that would address the then unregulated pollution of the air and water ways – including  the use of chemicals developed during wars being  used commercially as insecticides and herbicides that were poisoning ecosystems and towns. The early environmental movement in The Episcopal Church was in part informed by the Scriptural tradition of the Genesis – a story we heard just last Saturday evening during the Easter Vigil service. In the Genesis story of Creation, God created the heavens and the earth, as well as everything in them, each bit of Creation concluding with the refrain, And God saw that it was good. When finally all things in the heavens and the earth and their multitudes were finished, we hear that, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”

From the perspective of many faiths, philosophies, and sciences, Earth Day was a unified response to an environment in crisis — oil spills, smog, rivers and lakes so polluted they literally caught fire.

On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. population at the time — took to the streets, college campuses and hundreds of cities to protest environmental injustices and demand a collective new way forward. It is still recognized as the largest civic event on our planet.

This year, this Wednesday on April 22nd, marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The theme for Earth Day 2020 is climate action. Every thinking person with feet firmly planted in scientific reality, comprehends that climate change represents the biggest challenge to the future of humanity and all life on Earth.

The Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts were created in response to the first Earth Day in 1970, as well as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Many countries soon adopted similar laws. Earth Day continues to hold major international significance: In 2016, the United Nations chose Earth Day as the day when the historic Paris Agreement on climate change was signed into force. At the end of this year, nations will be expected to increase their national commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

The Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016.

However, the Creation that God judges as good, very good, has throughout the course of human history been subjected to much human action that is bad –  very, very bad.

On November 8, 2016, four days after the Paris Agreement entered into force in the United States, a new President was elected President of the United States. Only seven months later, on June 1, 2017, the new President announced that the U.S. would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation.

In accordance with Article 28 of the Paris Agreement, a country cannot give notice of withdrawal from the agreement before three years of its start date. So, on November 4, 2019, the new administration gave formal notification of intention to withdraw, which takes 12 months to take effect. So, the earliest possible effective withdrawal date by the United States cannot be before November 4, 2020. [The election for the next president of the United States is to be held the day before, on November 3rd. ]

When the President made his preliminary announcement on June 1, 2017, that afternoon the governors of several U.S. states formed the United States Climate Alliance to continue to advance the objectives of the Paris Agreement at the state level despite the federal withdrawal. The formation of the Alliance was announced by three state governors: Jay Inslee of Washington, Andrew Cuomo of New York, and Jerry Brown of California. The founding statement noted that: “New York, California and Washington, representing over one-fifth of U.S. Gross Domestic Product, are committed to achieving the U.S. goal of reducing emissions 26–28 percent from 2005 levels and meeting or exceeding the targets of the federal Clean Power Plan.”

To date 24 governors both democrat and republican have signed onto the statement, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, Minnesota, Maryland, and Massachusetts among others. Several mayors and businesses have also signed onto the agreement.

Beginning with federal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the current administration has since rolled back 95 environmental regulations that effectively remove oversight of oil, natural gas, and methane and power production. All previous targets for standards set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been abandoned by the administration in its gutting of the environmental policies and the Environmental Protection Agency itself.

On January 9th of this year, the administration announced its proposal to obliterate the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. NEPA is the nation’s first major environmental law, signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970. That law requires that our government consider the environmental consequences of its major actions, including those that impact our climate.

The current administration wants to ease up on fuel efficiency regulations and has subsequently increased the amount of permitted poisonous nitrogen oxides in the air. As air quality is goes down, respiratory illnesses go up. If the Earth is not healthy, life upon it doesn’t have a chance.

With regard to protected public lands, the current administration is responsible for the largest reduction in the boundaries of protected land in US history, including shrinking protected land at the Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument and Bears Ears National Monument, both significant sites in Utah. The changes open up both areas to mining and oil and gas development. Additionally, the administration is expanding more than 180,000 acres of the Tongess National Forest in Alaska, the country’s largest national forest, known as America’s Amazon, for logging and fossil fuel exploration and mineral extraction. The administration is actively seeking to open oil and gas lease sales in the environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The administration seeks to change the Forest Service’s Roadless Area Conservation Act to allow logging in our country’s largest and most pristine old growth forest and to allow the massive proposed Pebble Mine to move forward with catastrophic effects on the world’s largest fishery of wild sockeye salmon.

The federal administration currently managing the EPA announced that it will additionally rescind Clean Water Act protections from critical streams and wetlands. This follows on last year’s announcement by the Interior Department that significant changes are being made to the Endangered Species Act to allow for more oil and gas drilling, placing a cap on how much regulators consider the impacts of the climate crisis.

The administration has made changes to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which has severely limited any penalties for bird deaths across the United States, allowing the destruction of millions of birds and marking a radical departure from decades of federal policy that protected more than 1,000 migratory species.

The administration has increased the allowable levels of the herbicide Atrazine, which is used commercially to kill weeds on crops and lawns and which has the proven added effect of contributing to the loss of pollinators, bird populations, and contaminating water supplies and that has been linked to reproductive abnormalities including premature birth.

While our nation reels from the coronavirus pandemic, the current administration is accelerating an agenda that is extraordinarily harmful to all life on the planet — rollbacks that dismantle critical health and environmental protections, and that will inevitably deepen the climate crisis. The lives of American citizens are being impacted right now by a vindictive leadership that seems intent on taking vengeance on the governors and citizens of the states that dared to contradict the President on June 1, 2017 by supporting the Paris Agreement in the face of federal withdrawal. I believe the administration’s actions have been and are now intentional and malicious, constituting not only crimes against humanity but crimes against all life on Earth now and for generations to come.

The sanctuary of our church is 100 years old on its anniversary today. The stained glass windows of Christ’s resurrection are also 100 years old but carry the same message for our community today as they did for those who lived through the Great War and built a new world afterwards – there is no challenge so great that together we cannot overcome it.

Though we are not able to gather to celebrate in our church sanctuary today, we yet share the greater sanctuary of God’s Creation that shelters us all. Just as we few are tasked with caring for the heritage of our church building in memory of the sacrifices of those who have gone before for principles of liberty, fellowship, and peace, so we are bound as God’s stewards to protect the sanctuary of Creation on behalf of the liberty, fellowship, and peace of all the Earth. The national struggle in which we find ourselves today is not a matter of party affiliation or religious affiliation, it is not confined to our national boarders or even to our species – what we are called to confront in this present moment is a matter of life and death – whether the Earth as we know it can survive the impact of humankind or not.

I believe this Earth is the only one we have, I do not believe in the myth of a new Earth or new Creation that is anything other than made manifest in how we live together on this one. This. Is. It. And in the one mortal life we have upon the Earth, we must chose every day whether we stand with her or against her, whether we work with God as stewards of all that God has made or whether we turn our backs on God and let the sacred earth burn with human greed, with corruption, with the unrelieved fever of human illness in so many forms that must be challenged by every generation.

This church sanctuary is very beautiful, and we care for it as those entrusted with its care. How much more should we then care for the greater sanctuary of Creation where the God that unites us by the Spirit that rejoices in all that God has made, this sacred and glorious Creation where the Spirit of God entrusted to us truly lives  –  still.

Diversity & Inclusion: The Holy Covenant of Faithful Community

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Capernaum - Many Rooms

House Ruins in Capernaum, Israel – in the foreground is an example of a home with added rooms (Photo taken by the author in 2017)

 John 14:1-6 
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

The Gospel of John came into its current form between 90 AD and 110 AD. The historical context of time and place in which this gospel emerged helped shape the discourses and themes contained within it. Understanding the socio-cultural environment can help translate the use of symbols and metaphors employed by the gospel’s author in order to communicate the intended messages and teachings. This holistic approach underscores that it is not possible to understand any one passage from John’s gospel without a consideration of the way everything contained within the gospel is interrelated, internally consistent, and intentionally dialogical in construct.

The author whom Christian tradition names as “John” (although there is evidence indicating several contributors over time) is intimately familiar with the scriptures and symbol system of the Jewish faith, culture, and history. John is also familiar with non-Jewish sources of Greek philosophers and Greco-Roman mystery cults. By weaving together themes that were influential among the diverse populations of the Mediterranean, John presents an interpretation of Jesus that communicates common themes that would have been comprehensible and attractive to a wide-range of cultures and belief systems extant in the author’s time and place.

John is writing for a diverse Christian community experiencing a significant shift in communal identity as related to but independent of Jewish community and identity. The symbols and imagery evoked in the gospel open up the early Christian worldview to thoughts and influences beyond the Hebrew lexicon of stories and symbols representing the Israelite understanding of the Messiah. For John, the Messiah invites spiritual union between Christ and the individual that is unmediated and free-of-charge. This spiritual union is contrasted to the communal covenant with God requiring the fee-based mediation of Jewish priests and interpretation by Jewish teachers who have the exclusive cultural authority to do so. Liberating one’s relationship with the Messiah from Jewish mediation and interpretation is why John contrasts Christian belief from Judaism as it was identified in Judah, even utilizing messianic concepts from the Samaritan Jewish tradition.

For John, the importance of the innovation of a personal relationship with Christ is why the passage of John 14:1-6 is significantly illuminated when it is viewed in light of John 2:1-11, the wedding at Cana. I believe that that the symbolic language employed in the depiction of the wedding at Cana is a storyline that is completed in the symbolic language of Christ going to prepare a place in his Father’s house for those he will bring to where he is going.

Firstly, in the marriage traditions of the ancient Israelites, the father of the groom often selected a bride (kallah) for his son, as did Abraham for his son Isaac (Genesis 24:1-4). The consent of the bride-to-be is important. For example, Rebecca was asked if she agreed to go back with Abraham’s servant to marry Abraham’s son, Isaac, and she went willingly (Genesis 24:57–59). Mutual agreement was required for a valid marriage contract.

John’s gospel uses the image of marriage at the wedding of Cana as the central image of the nature of the believer’s relationship with Christ – namely, a spiritual, intimate, and mutual union. Further, the illustration of water turned to wine at the wedding feast encodes the early Christian teaching coupled frequently in John’s gospel, linking baptism to the pascal feast – both are celebrations and occasions of our spiritual union with Christ. The symbol of wine employed in the joyful experience of a wedding is linked to the wine used in the Last Supper, specifically the cup of wine reserved for after the meal which is traditionally associated with the joyful expectation of the arrival of the Messiah.

The link between the waters of baptism and the wine representing Christ’s sacrifice can be found in the traditional preparation for the Jewish betrothal ceremony. Namely, the bride (kallah) and groom (chatan) are separately immersed in water in a ritual of mikvah, which is symbolic of spiritual cleansing. For John, Jesus has already been immersed (baptized) by John the Baptist in the waters of mikvah at the Jordan River, in preparation for Christ’s union with his Beloved, which is each of us. From John’s use of symbols, the community is to understand that baptism serves a similar purpose.

After the immersion in the mikvah, the betrothed couple enters the huppah (marriage canopy)—symbolic of a new household being planned, to establish a binding contract. Within the symbol of home, the groom would give the bride a valuable object such as a ring, and lastly a cup of wine was customarily shared to seal their covenant vows.

After the betrothal ceremony, the bride returned to her mother’s house, while the groom departed to his father’s house. This period of separation lasted about a year, providing time for the groom to add additional rooms to his patrilineal household in order for him to prepare for welcoming his bride into the household of his father. Although the bride knew to expect her groom after about a year, she did not know the exact day or hour. He could come earlier or later than was expected. For this reason, the bride kept her oil lamps ready at all times, just in case the groom came in the night (Matthew 25:1-13). It was the father of the groom who gave final approval for the time for him to return to collect his bride.

When the time came, the bridal procession was led by the sounding of the shofar to the home he had prepared for her. The final step of the wedding tradition is called nissuin (to take), a word that comes from naso, which means to lift up. At this time, the groom, with much noise, fanfare and romance, carried the bride onto the property of his father’s home. Once again, the bride and groom would enter a huppah, recite a blessing over the wine (a symbol of joy), and finalize their vows. Now in their home, the bride and groom lived out their covenant of marriage – the traditional Jewish version of “and they lived happily ever after.”

In her book, “Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas,” Elaine Pagels suggests that John’s gospel is a direct response to the emerging Christology of the community that gathered around Thomas, which is why John portrays Thomas as having a theologically challenged Christology. Now as then, different Christian communities have different
understandings of Jesus and can hold conflicting beliefs of how to interpret Jesus and the stories that are our collective legacy about him.

While both the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas value the individual’s relationship with Christ, The Gospel of John and its basic tenets seem to be in direct opposition to Thomas. John says that he writes “so that you may believe, and believing may have life in [Jesus’] name.” Thomas’s gospel, however, encourages us not so much to believe in Jesus, as John says, as to seek to know God through one’s own, divinely given capacity, since all are created in the image of God. The Gospel of John speaks from a multivalent symbol system in which there are “rooms” for each person to have a unique relationship with Christ but which are also an interconnected part of the common household of the Father. The Gospel of John, therefore, provides a foundation for a unified church, which the Gospel of Thomas, with its emphasis on each person’s search for God, did/does not.

For the author of the Gospel of John, the belief that Jesus is the Messiah is sufficient common ground for unity. Each believer is a bride to Jesus the groom, expressed and experienced through Baptism and communion. The house of Christ’s Father has many rooms, because Christ has prepared a place for each person that the Father has approved or “given to him.” When John reports Thomas asking, “How do we know where you are going?” the question represents the emphasis John perceives in the Thomasine community regarding the path of gnosis, which appears to focus on secret knowledge held by the few over belief that makes God readily accessible to all. The response given by Jesus, “I am the way and the truth and the life,” emphasizes John’s teaching on the primacy of belief. In the Gospel of John, a community of believers is bonded together through a shared belief that Jesus is the Messiah, while also making room for the validity of individual relationship with God through a shared and public belief.

For the author of the Gospel of John, the Christian community for whom the author is writing is diverse, informed by mystery traditions and covenant traditions, populated with peoples drawn from multiple faith traditions, histories, and cultures indicative of the Roman Empire. What they hold in common is a desire for liberation from tenants of the belief systems influential in their time (Jewish and Roman) that restrained them from practicing social and spiritual equality before God and with one another. Every individual in the community of the faithful has free and equal access to God, and the way to that access is by agreeing to enter a spiritual union with Christ that while mystical is not at all mysterious, and while binding is not legalistic in nature but rather a mutual commitment to love one another. Personal love for God is expressed in one’s commitment to live together in community, as represented by the many rooms in the Father’s unified house.

Throughout the generations of the church, ideas of how to achieve unity amidst our Christian diversity has been often elusive. We identify instruments or statements with which we are expected to agree, but such relationships seem always to be conditional. Alternatively, in the Gospel of John, we are all of us brides in love with the same groom, and if we are truly in love with God, then our hearts ought not to be troubled – for truthfully, in our Father’s house, there are many rooms. Within an incarnational theology of the Body of Christ — the church — the rooms are ours to build for one another. For John, the concluding line, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” is not exclusionary. Rather, the symbols used throughout the gospel convey that everyone can have access to God, if they simply believe in the love that Christ has for them and live by the wide embrace of that covenant for all people.