Tag Archives: The Episcopal Church

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

The Measure of a Priest: Racial Bias and White Privilege in The Episcopal Church

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Church Mould

The yard was the original standard adopted by the early English sovereigns as a basis of calculation. Under the historical influence of the British Empire, the term “yardstick” became associated as the ideal standard for making critical judgments about a person. Consequently, “taking the measure of a man” gained more meaning than simply assessing the amount of cloth required for making him a suit.

In many ways, the yardstick by which The Episcopal Church evaluates the suitability of would-be clergy is inextricably linked to the ideology of British colonialism. The standard for measuring candidates for ordination is subsequently biased towards Euro-centric models of education, formation, and proficiency/fluency in navigating dominant culture. As a product of colonialism and dominant culture, The Episcopal Church in the United States evaluates for whiteness in its people of color.

Several years ago, when I took the General Ordination Exams, the test writers included a question that asked for candidates to reflect on how The Episcopal Church was doing with regard to racism within the Church. I heard later from a member of the examining board how surprised they were by the scathing critiques that answered that question. Nothing has changed since then, because the way the Church prepares and evaluates for pastoral competencies is gravely culturally biased. It has been my personal experience that every single person of color and white ally intending to work in ministry with communities of color is at some point asked by evaluators if they believe they are “sufficiently Anglican.”

For example, anything other than a prayer life centralizing the Book of Common Prayer is suspect.  In my case, all it took for a Commission on Ministry to be concerned was when I shared that I incorporate my indigenous practices of burning sacred herbs and indigenous traditions of interacting with nature as important aspects of my spiritual practice and formation.  Within a diocese with a history of Native missions, this may not have been such a concern since such a context is generally more cross cultural, with education and information flowing in both directions. However, I am an “urban Native,” and my Commission on Ministry was primarily driven by white liberalism rather than by any real knowledge of or interest in my Native culture.  I was well aware that it was my burden to measure up and not their burden to alter their standard of measure.

Most recently, there has been a growing trend in The Episcopal Church in the United States to use the curriculum of the Iona Center as a standard of education as an option for local training for postulants seeking ordination. The local adaptation of the Iona material used in the Diocese of Olympia has taken the form of  “The Iona Olympia School” which is self-described as “a three-year program with a rigorous, curriculum (comprised of textbooks, videos, discussion and activities, and field study) provided by the Iona Institute of the Seminary of the Southwest.” It follows “a traditional school calendar year, beginning in September” and expects paid tuition as well as participation in large blocks of time away from home, work, and family.

None of these expectations is realistic for the majority of people of color, particularly Native people. Course content is not adapted for the indigenous context or context of the communities of color with regard to types of learning and the application of experience. Ultimately, those who undertake local option training are not expected to be paid much if at all once they are ordained – being mostly either deacons or people of color who may become priests.

The argument may be that (by setting “rigorous curriculum” that includes the Euro-centric history of the Church and its subsequent traditions of worship and governance) those who graduate from local training will not be considered second-class clergy. What standard has established that concern in the first place and who yet holds that standard of expectation? White people? Western academics? Bishops? General Convention? People in the pews? All of the above?

The General Board of Examining Chaplains in The Episcopal Church is charged with creating ordination exams that test for the seven canonical areas of study as ascribed by Canons of the Church. These areas of desired proficiency include: 1) The Holy Scriptures, 2) Church History, 3) Christian Theology, 4) Christian Ethics and Moral Theology, 5) Studies in contemporary society (i.e. familiarity with minority groups), 6) Liturgics and Church Music, and 7) the Theory and Practice of Ministry.

Informing each of these canonical areas of study is a massive amount of dominant culture history, perspective, and assumption that yardstick people into seemingly “standard” units of measure. The current ordination process is not benign, and its colonial nature is nowhere more apparent than in how it forms its people of color as leaders for the church. Any training program that does not address the academic areas from a dominant culture perspective towards overlaying a dominant culture identity is deemed little more than finger painting. The “Anglican” in Anglican identity is at its core white history and white identity.

The pedagogy of the dominant culture Church seems to need to shape the foreign into the friendly and familiar, rather than taking the risk of losing a Euro-centric identity. A genuine adult learner approach to leadership formation assumes diversity in experience, perspective, and practice. Therefore, evaluators must be tasked with their own formation before becoming evaluators – they must care about postulants and candidates as people and not as potential interchangeable widgets within the machinations of the institution. Candidates should not be in the position of trying to fulfill the evaluator’s own unexamined cultural biases and assumptions.

How the Church delivers spiritual care and organizational development will depend on genuinely collaborative efforts, not just patronizing gestures of tolerance. Barriers between levels of the diocesan structure need to be replaced with semi-permeable organizational membranes through which education, formation, and cultural influence can flow in both directions. Our candidates for ordination are not empty vessels to be filled with colonized history and identity; they are unique peers, partners, colleagues, and friends who should be joining a community already committed to learning new perspectives and willing to adapt structures and expectations to reflect new and emerging truths. Traditions are not immutable and timeless or universal things – rather, tradition is best understood as the adaptive mechanism within culture that provides the basis for creative change.

There is more than one way to form a leader, just as there is more than one way to be a church within the Church. Our Church faces many challenges, and I believe that our people of color hold adaptive strategies worthy of our collective attention – they are, after all, experts in having to adapt to ways and methods not their own. It is beyond time for the dominant culture Church to learn to do the same.

Patriarchy and the National Struggle to Embody Christ

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Jesus Teaching at Galilee 3

Prelude: I don’t normally post my sermons to my blog site, but for me personally, the sermon I shared on June 10th was one the most important sermons that I’ve ever given. It’s about my identity and yours, and the struggle for everyone’s identity within the patriarchal tradition of  faith and of society, of Christianity and of The Episcopal Church as we have it today.  

This sermon is also one of my longest, and I am grateful to those who gave me their forbearance that day, those who have continued to view it on YouTube [a link is at the end of this column], and to anyone who now gives of their time to read it here.

Thank you, most especially, to the Sons of the Church who are thereby also my Sons, many of whom are also fathers of one kind or another. Your struggle is my struggle. Christ models for all of us a way to make freedom and peace truly real for one another.

Sermon: Pentecost 3 – June 10, 2018

The history of the rise of monotheism and the system of belief in the God of Israel emerges from a socio-cultural history of patriarchal social systems and belief systems within the context of greater ancient Mesopotamia. Western history and Christianity and the forces of colonialism stem from the advent of patriarchy and governance by men as social and religious leaders within patriarchal structures. What I have just said is evidentially true. The World has been both enriched and enslaved within this model over successive generations, in part due to the struggle inherent to patriarchy – the essential question of what male leadership is to look like. This struggle is as much with us today in our context as it was in First Century Jerusalem, during the time in which Jesus lived.

There are two basic models within patriarchal paradigms which struggle together to inform the underlying value system – the “stern father” vs. “nurturant parent.” In this duel understanding, the Nurturant Parenting contrasts with Stern Father parenting as two distinct metaphors each used as icons of contrasting value and political systems, i.e. Regressive (Stern Father, authoritarian) and Progressive (Nurturant Parent, small “d” democratic).

Within patriarchal society, there are men and women who are enculturated in or identify with the Stern Father cultiral cosmology, and there are men and women who are enculturated in or identify with the Nurturant Parent cultural cosmology. The struggle is not between men and women, but between two essentially different ways of conceptualizing authority and it’s exercise.

The struggle of patriarchy to identify its primary model of leadership continues to inform and impact the nations and communities of our world today. As a female leader within the patriarchially informed church, I can tell you that I love and care about God’s sons.  If I did not, I would not be here before you, and I would not have dedicated the service of my life to the church. That said, as a woman who is called to nurture the people of God’s kingdom, in my role as a spiritual mother in the church, the time has come for me to speak to my sons and to share something vitally important about their history and about the challenges they must rise to meet in the current time of world events.

Let us begin with our Old Testament reading – Samuel’s parents give him to Eli, the high priest, to raise as a nazarite dedicated to God. Samuel plays a key role in the transition from the period of the biblical judges to the institution of a kingdom under Saul, and again in the transition from Saul to David. Samuel initially appointed his two sons as his successors; however, just like Eli’s sons, Samuel’s proved unworthy. The Israelites rejected them. Because of the external threat from other tribes, such as the Philistines, the tribal leaders decided that there was a need for a more unified, central government, and demanded Samuel appoint a king so that they could be like other nations. Samuel interpreted this as a personal rejection, and at first was reluctant to oblige, until reassured by a divine revelation.

Within the discourse between Samuel and God, two types of kings are identified, “He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.”

Alexander Hamilton had a similar concern about the nature of kings. In his Federalist Papers, Hamilton outlined the premises of a republic that favored an office of the President in contrast to a king. In paper #69, Hamilton points to the fact that the president is elected, whereas the king of England inherits his position. The president furthermore has only a qualified negative on legislative acts—i.e. his veto can be overturned—whereas the king has an absolute negative. Both the president and the king serve as commander in chief, but the king also has the power to raise and maintain armies—a power reserved for the legislature in America. The president can only make treaties with the approval of the Senate. The king can make binding treaties as he sees fit. Similarly, the president can only appoint officers with the approval of the Senate, whereas the king can grant whatever titles he likes. The powers of the president in terms of commerce and currency are severely limited, whereas the king is “in several respects the arbiter of commerce.” In many respects, the president would have less powers over his constituents than the governor of New York has over his.

As the first president of the United States, George Washington served from 1789 to 1797.  Though he was born into Colonial Virginia gentry to a family of wealthy planters, he was a modest man when it came to claiming the boundaries of his authority as president. He believed quite clearly that the new nation that he helped established should be governed by the people.

In the 32 handwritten pages of his farewell address, Washington gave much advise to both the governed and those who would govern. He recognized the pitfalls of a party system, writing, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

He added, “It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.”

Having endured the intrigues of several foreign powers during the Revolutionary War, Washington was cautious about international relationship. He advised, “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government…. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.”

Human beings – and let’s be honest, we are speaking of the history of men – have struggled with forms of governance over the millennia since the time of Samuel. WWI was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. The trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. The war drew in all the world’s economic great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Italy, Japan and the United States joined the Allies, while the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers.

At the outbreak of the war, the United States pursued a policy of non-intervention, avoiding conflict while trying to broker a peace. When the German U-boat U-20 sank the British liner RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915 with 128 Americans among the dead, President Woodrow Wilson demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships, and Germany complied. However, after the sinking of seven US merchant ships by submarines and a revelation that Germany intended to support a Mexican war against the United States, Wilson called for war on Germany on 2 April 1917, which the US Congress declared 4 days later.

Over nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a result of the war (including the victims of a number of genocides). In the aftermath of the war, four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian. Numerous nations regained their former independence, and new ones were created. The end of the war was formally effected with the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on 28 June 1919.

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift from the preceding hundred years. The League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930’s. The credibility of the organization was weakened by the fact that the United States never officially joined the League and the Soviet Union joined late and only briefly.

The onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, which was to prevent any future world war. However, the League lasted for 26 years. After WWII, the United Nations (UN) replaced it.

The UN Charter was drafted at a conference between April–June 1945 in San Francisco, and was signed on 26 June 1945 at the conclusion of the conference; this charter took effect on 24 October 1945, and the UN began operation. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, and is subject to extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting the environment, and providing humanitarian aid in cases of famine, natural disaster, and armed conflict. The UN is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world. The UN’s mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union and their respective allies.

Global economic relations have emerged that include a forum for the world’s major industrialized countries. The Group of Seven (also known as the G7) emerged before the 1973 oil crisis. On Sunday, 25 March 1973, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, George Shultz, convened an informal gathering of finance ministers from West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom before an upcoming meeting in Washington, D.C. The meeting was subsequently held in the White House library on the ground floor.

Today the G7 is a group consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries, with the seven largest advanced economies in the world, represent more than 62% of the global net wealth ($280 trillion). The G7 countries also represent more than 46% of the global gross domestic product (GDP) based on nominal values, and more than 32% of the global GDP based on purchasing power parity. The European Union is also represented at the G7 summit.

On 2 March 2014, the G7 condemned the “Russian Federation’s violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” On 4 June 2014 leaders at the G7 summit in Brussels, condemned Moscow for its “continuing violation” of Ukraine’s sovereignty, in their joint statement and stated they were prepared to impose further sanctions on Russia. This meeting was the first since Russia was expelled from the G8 following its annexation of Crimea in March.

At the G7 meeting this past week, the President of the United States has made some stunning comments that have furthered an alienation of our country from our historic allies by condemning the G7 group as irrelevant and insisting on the return of Russia to the group. It is known to us that Russia has egregiously interfered in our democratic processes, and the President’s choices reflect an increasingly disturbing position against both the ideals of western democracy and the interests of the American people.

The most revealing comment the President made was when he indicated that he would remove America from participation in the G7. He said, “Do what you want, we have a world to run.”  I am not sure who “we” is, but I’m fairly certain that he doesn’t mean you and me, but rather the “strong men,” with whom he personally identifies – world leaders that tend towards autocracy and fascist dictatorship.

Make no mistake, the masculine imagery and patriarchal governance structures of history continue to inform our world order. European leaders attending the G7 were horrified. Several commented that they felt as though the formerly nurturing father role of America had become like that of an authoritarian and abusive father, one that rejected the sons previously claimed and supported.

The societal “king” described by Samuel and about which we are cautioned by George Washington is a man who does not value peace; it is a man who holds women and children and foreigners as subservient, it is a man who alienates the weak (the ill, the poor, the powerless); it is a man who values himself more than others, who sees in the world only what he can get from it and not what the world has to give to all; it is a man who believes that power is found in violence and threat of violence and the beating down of all those who would challenge him.

Christ offers a different model of what it is to be a man of power. Firstly, he was not threatened by women and children – they were included at his table along with phrases and Sadducees, royalty and homeless.  He modeled himself after his own Father, the second version of a king that Samuel and God had discussed – a father who leads by the ultimate strength – the power to bring diverse peoples together, the power to heal grievous personal and social woundedness, the power to reconcile.

Jesus uses the language of a loving father, as coming from a place of nurture and love and encouragement, of forgiveness, forbearance and unconditional love. He models a different style of male leadership that is one of the Nurturant Parent, not the Stern Father – he came into the world to forgive sinners and love all of God’s children, not to condemn them to eternal damnation and judgement.

He did not come to create a position of power for himself on earth, or he would have made friends with Herod Antipas and Caiaphas.  He would have been a friend of Empire. In point of fact, he quite intentionally presented a diametrically opposed version of God than the image of God of Israel had been until that point. He had only one law – Love your God with all your heart and mind and being and love your neighbor as yourself.

The image of radical inclusion that Jesus lived by was through the use of the table. He invites everyone to have a meal with him, none are excluded – he eats and talks with the wealthy, with Pharisees and Sadducees as readily as he eats with the poor and with women or the homeless or the ill and the marginalized.  He includes everyone and is willing to teach anyone with hearts to listen and to “eat” and “drink” of the bread and wine he offers – all who hunger for God.

The transformative and eternal power he shared of the omnipotent God of all things was Love.

The king of heaven creates a new world based on love, founded in a mutual commitment to peace, existing for the good of the people and of Creation.

In a contemporary commentary on our current President of the United States, artist Tim O’Brien created this week’s cover of Time magazine. The cover art depicts the President wearing a business suit, as he looks into the mirror and sees himself enrobed and crowned as a king.  This image is akin to Samuel’s fearful king who subjugates and extorts the people.

When Christ looks into the divine mirror of the Holy Spirit, he sees us –  we are reflected in his sight as the image of God, the children of God. We the People of our God recognize in Christ the model of our true and loving father.

Christ lived his life showing his followers and his country and for all future generations that love is by far the greatest strength in a man.  It is a power that goes beyond men, because it dwells as the holy spirit in the hearts of every man, woman and child of every community and nation and faith.

I believe, in the midst of all worldly trials, that love will rule. For Christ did not come into the world to run the world but to save it.

As a Mother of the Church, I say to you, to all men and women, to elders and to children, to the marginalized and the privileged – love one other and thereby, go out and save the world – in Christ’s name and for all peoples.  We can and we will make a New Creation, through the ultimate power of Love.

 

NOTE: This sermon can be found as delivered on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAjkhuUgaik   As I was giving the sermon, I edited out some of the content of the written version for the sake of time. So, the full content is included in this blog post.

The Episcopal Spiritual Warrior

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Author’s Note: I originally wrote this reflection after the results of the presidential election in November 2016.  I have meant to post it here for some time, but the last quarter of the year was intensely busy, and I will be playing catch up in my writing for a while. Thank you for your patience, Dear Readers. One of my personal resolutions for 2017 is to return to a more regular discipline as a writer as an important aspect of my own self care, since writing is a source of great joy for me as is like oxygen to the lungs of my soul.

oceti-sakowin-camp-clergy-gathering

As many of you may be aware, I have recently returned from participating in an interfaith gathering at the Oceti Sakowin Camp of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation in North Dakota. The faith leadership that that came together was very diverse. Between us, we represented 22 different faith traditions – both lay and ordained. One leader noted with some irony that though many of our traditions are struggling with internal unity within our respective faith communities, we had been drawn together in a common purpose upon which we could all agree – “Mni Wiconi,” Water Is Sacred.

At the camp, I witnessed that though burdened by centuries of injustice, Lakota youth, young adults and elders alike are responding with tremendous dignity, strength and courage to the current situation in which they are being physically brutalized and their concerns ignored. They have not accepted the role of victim that would have their spirit ground into the earth beneath them. Rather, they seem to have taken strength from the earth for which they fight; they have roots in their faith and identity that are far deeper than prejudice and hatred can rip from them. Their tribal governance calls them to non-violent action, and their traditional faith calls them to live from an understanding of their deep interconnection with all things. They are genuinely Spiritual Warriors, grounded in their cultural values of prayer, respect, compassion, honesty, generosity, humility and wisdom.

Against the backdrop of the faith leadership gathering at Standing Rock and the examples of spiritual courage that I repeatedly witnessed among the Lakota people there, I could not help but reflect on the ways my faith tradition of the Episcopal Church and my identity as an Episcopalian equip me for times of challenge and conflict. For, indeed, our faith tradition was born from a time of conflict, having emerged at the end of the American Revolution when our fledgling nation gained it’s independence from England. The historical journey of our faith tradition has not been an easy one, with internal conflicts arising over every possible concern – from what liturgical garments to wear (if any) to the role of women in church governance and holy orders; from the language of our prayer books to the services we use in worship; and from the segregation of black worshipers to the assimilation of indigenous peoples. There are certainly many more historical tensions that could be listed.

Out of our history of institutional and social conflict and rebellion, it seems to me that something tremendously life giving has arisen. Through the course of time, The Episcopal Church has grown into its spiritual values and identity in ways that comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Today, through our Canons and Resolves, we are committed to inclusion of all persons – of all gender identities, orientations of love, and ethnicities- in all levels of our governance and in all ecclesiastical orders of the church. We recognize the sanctity of the Earth and are dedicated to Environmental Justice; we strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth. We provide relief to human need by providing loving service throughout the world – regardless of faith, creed or nationality. We seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation. We proclaim and teach the Good News of the Kingdom – not as a cudgel by which to beat others into submission, but as an empowering source of liberation for all of life in the precious diversity that God has made and blessed by calling The Diversity, “Good.”

No matter what the polity of our nation or those who hold authority, as Episcopalians, we have vowed through the promises of our Baptismal Covenant to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as ourselves and – with the help of God – to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. Our church will not alter this commitment, regardless of who is president or what party is in power. In the separation of church and state within this nation, the relevance of the values of our faith tradition is clear. The Episcopal Church will continue to stand with the poor and the marginalized, to challenge injustice, to strive for greater justice and equality among all peoples, and to advocate for those who have come to this country seeking a life free from fear and in the fullness of the liberty from which our Church itself arose.

Through the lens of my experiences at the Oceti Sakowin camp, I have come to understand that Episcopalians are Spiritual Warriors. We strive to be co-creators in achieving the liberating reality of justice in this world that is the Kingdom of God. We are grounded in values of inclusivity, love, peace, stewardship and prayer. We seek authenticity in our language and actions. We are committed to life-long education and honoring the diverse worldviews, cultures and peoples of God’s Creation. We encourage the growth of the whole person in body, mind and spirit – so that all who enter through our red doors will feel able to bring their whole self into the Sanctuary of our Church.

At Trinity Episcopal Church in Everett – as with many congregations – we have a very big tent. All Are Welcome in this place. This promise will not change.