Who Do We Say Christ Is?

“Who do the people say that the Son of Man is?”

That’s the question Jesus poses to his followers in the Gospel lesson assigned for tomorrow. In the story, the disciples give him all the varied answers that they've heard murmured out in the public square.  Everybody has a label for Jesus. 

Elijah. Jeremiah. John the Baptist.

And then he poses a more difficult question: Who do you say that I am?

Now, it’s personal.  Now, it’s an evaluation of their hearts and minds. Who is this guy to me?

Peter is the one who pipes up: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”  Jesus congratulates Peter, noting that this spontaneous answer came from a place of deeper wisdom than what the world was revealing about Jesus, showing that his mind had been transformed.  Jesus goes on to promise that Peter is the rock upon which the church will be built and Hades will not prevail against it.  He’s gonna get the keys to the kingdom of Heaven and whatever he binds on Earth will be bound in Heaven and whatever he loosed on Earth will be loosed in Heaven.  High-five, Peter!

Interesting to think, then, that Peter, the rock and foundation upon which the church will be built, is the one who denies Jesus three times at the critical hour.  Even the church, sometimes, can falter and fail.

The church is very much like Peter, really.  Sometimes it can clearly put forth an image of Christ to the world; sometimes it can be so tangled in the weeds of self-interest and self-preservation that I am not sure even Christ would be able to see the light of God in the midst of all that mess. Those are the times when the church is falling short of doing the important work she’s been tasked with to do: preach the Gospel at all times…even when it is bound to make somebody itch.

I have spoken of my friend, the Very Rev. Mike Kinman, before on this blog.  Mike has been praying with his feet in Ferguson, Missouri.  He’s been praying with his Facebook posts, highlighting the scourge of white privilege that has become way too obvious out of this situation (let’s face it: white people don’t get shot down in the middle of the street when they’ve got their hands up in the air.)  He’s been praying with all his heart, and with all his mind and with all his strength.  And he’s been doing it long before there was a shooting that took the life of an unarmed 18-year-old named Michael Brown.  Mike has dared, from his own position of privilege as the dean of Christ Church Cathedral, to turn the mirror on himself and the others in prominent leadership positions within the Episcopal Church and say, “Hmmmm… aren’t we a nice collection of straight white men?!”  Mike has understood, and acknowledges, that this disproportionate representation of one kind of person out of the whole great human creation of God serves to deny other voices, other visions, and, ultimately, a more complete picture of that beautiful creation that reflects Christ. If the church is going to do better and be ready to bring Christ to the world, it needs more leaders that look like God’s multi-colored and multi-gendered human tapestry.  I imagine for Mike, this is a tough self-acknowledgement that when he’s given the chance to hire and promote, it will be on his shoulders to elevate someone who doesn’t look like him. 

We should all be asking ourselves the difficult question, “Who do we say Christ is?”  Do we say that Christ is white?  Is he black?  Is he male?  Is he female?  Is he trans?  Is he straight?  Is he gay? Is he asexual? Is he a citizen? Is he a foreigner? Is he conservative? Is he progressive?

Or do we say that Christ transcends all those labels that we have developed that too often separate and divide?  Are we able to be unified in Christ as many members with our own special gifts which are made greater in our connection because they all represent an element of Christ?

Are we able to see that, in Christ, there is neither St. Louis nor “out-state”; neither black nor white; and that Ferguson is not just about “them,” but really about “us”?

I have said that the only way we can put a stop to the cycle of violence and racism that continues to crop up and fester like a wound that will not heal is if we stop seeing the Michael Brown’s of the world as “their” son, brother, father, uncle, cousin, and recognize that he is “our” son, brother, father, uncle, cousin.  We must accept the responsibility that we are all connected and if one part of the body of Christ is hurting, we must address that.  Sometimes, this will result in conflict.  Often times that conflict seems rooted in the fear that to acknowledge the right of another person or group of people to function fully in perfect love and freedom would somehow take something away from somebody else.  To get away from that thinking requires one to do as St. Paul was saying in his letter to the Romans when he calls on his audience to not be conformed to this world…this world of the I’ve got mine; screw you…and allow the mind to be renewed and transformed to discern God’s will.  That will, inevitably, will lead one to see that perfect love and freedom trumps fear. Always.

Who is Jesus Christ?  The greatest liberator from oppression ever, and the mediator and advocate I turn to in these trying times.  

 

Pope Benedict's Last Day

I really don't have a lot to say about this. Yes, it is unprecedented to have a pope resign, first time in 600 years. And the Roman Catholic Church is a tattered mess right now... similar to how it was in the 15th and 16th centuries of the multiple popes, indulgences scams and popes who couldn't care less about providing pastoral authority when political power was much more intoxicating. So, I guess it just makes sense for Pope Benedict XVI to retire to a life of prayer.

He has much to pray about. Just look at the headlines on any given day and you'll inevitably read about yet-another sexual abuse scandal in some part of the Roman Catholic Church that was covered up and is now being brought to light.

I have said that I believe that the Roman Catholic Church must die. What I mean by that is that it can not continue with its current structure because that structure is rotten to the core. Dying to these old ways, these ways that hate women and hate the body, will be part of the necessary death that will allow the RC Church to experience its own resurrection.

Alas, I don't know if the Church is ready for this kind of reform, the kind that is not happening from the outside with rebels nailing their theses on the door. Pity for them.

Believe in Miracles

I know today was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and it was also the second inauguration of President Barack Obama, our nation's first African-American president (because Clinton was NOT). 

The significance of those two events coinciding on this day is not lost on me.  And just as big was the President saying, "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law... For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well.”  He further went on to make the link between various civil rights struggles for women, African-Americans, and the LGBT community by bringing up Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall.

I got teary-eyed hearing this.  For the first time, a President of the United States had connected the dots that I, and so many other gay people, have been connecting together for years, only to be growled at for daring to equate our struggle for equality with that of our black brothers and sisters.  Now it was our black brother, the ally-in-chief, making our case for us.   And, for once, this wasn't just some Democratic politician saying all the right things to get us to open our pocketbooks, so we could be ignored and left behind... again.   President Obama has shown he means it.  He has repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell; his Justice Department has refused to advocate for the Defense of Marriage Act.  And his own significant move came last year when he told Robin Roberts in a sit down interview that he had "evolved" on the marriage issue and he didn't have a problem with people of the same gender tying the knot.  That statement rippled out through the African-American community, and it opened the door for blacks who have quietly supported LGBT rights to step up and become more vocal... especially from the pulpit.

So, what in the world does any of this have to do with miracles?   Because, much like the moment in yesterday's gospel, when Jesus performs the first miracle at the wedding in Cana by turning nasty undrinkable water for purification rites into a never-ending flow of the best wine ever, I am seeing a similar moment of "Wow!" in the President's remarks with regards to the LGBT community. Jesus' miracle, done not for show but as a teaching moment about God, clearly the blew the minds of those present to witness what he did. 

When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Ca'na of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.--John 2:9-11

Believing is the first step in having faith.  Having faith is then the motivator for engaging the world in the ongoing effort to bend that long moral arc of the universe toward justice. 

At our service yesterday, we had a guest preacher, Rabbi Jack Romberg of Temple Israel, who noted that the miracles that occur in Scripture don't happen without the willingness of human beings to act on our faith.   The advancements that LGBT community, and any other minority group, has seen in history has not come by us waiting and praying for a change to occur and waiting for God to do "God's thing."  It has happened because we have been actively working toward change.  And a "Wow!" has arrived in the words of the President in his second inaugural address.

This "Wow!" that has the potential to continuously "Wow!" for the months and years to come.  May it be so.    

Things That Are Stirring

I have described this Advent as having the color of turbulent indigo. The world has felt unsettled as we enter this third week with the collect that calls on God to "Stir up your power...and with great might come among us." This is the week in which I always wonder, "Do we really know what we're asking for when we say that?"

In Morning Prayer today, I got what seems to be a glimpse into what is stirring in me these days:

"For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble."--2 Peter 1: 7-10

Sometimes, I think I stumble on a regular basis. Am I always supporting my faith with goodness? Or increasing faith through endurance with godliness? I can't always say that I am. Sometimes, I think I fall off that horse pretty regularly.

Besides Morning Prayer, I am committed to a practice of centering prayer. Some days, centering, in its blocked off time-slot, doesn't happen. Like so many people, I can find lots of other things that I need to do instead of taking the time to sit in contemplative prayer. When I do get myself to stop, I find it peculiar, yet important, part of my day. It's pecularity comes in that there is no grand outcome, no big revelation. Quite often, once I'm passed the monkey-mind antics of my brain, it is something of a blank. If there is a revelation, it will come in its own way, and its own time, later in the day. But this will only happen if I am willing to take the time on the front end to sit still in silence.

As a society, I wish we'd all engage in a contemplative prayer practice. I wish we would consider the steps the Second Letter of Peter puts out there for increasing faith in the direction of Love. Please understand, I'm not advocating for a Christian theocracy or the exclusion of those who don't believe in God. Rather, I'm thinking of his steps as taking us through a transcendence into a new consciousness. For me, that is a Christ-like consciousness; for others, there are other names. Ultimately it brings us to the place where light will overcome the shadows of doubt, despair and fear that have been the anchor in this country for too long. Pull that weight out of the water, and let's set sail for somewhere new!

Joys and Sorrows

As with any lead-in period to a holiday, it seems that time speeds up, and there's no chance to slow down and do such important things as post on one's blog! :-)

Yesterday was definitely one of those whirlwind days.   Fortunately for me, my schedule was totally clear which meant I could go here, there, and everywhere, without much trouble.  My day started with the morning realization that our new state legislature would be sworn in that morning.  Normally, I would thank God for deliverance from having to be there as a reporter.  But this day was different.  Because, on this day, Florida would finally have two openly-gay state representatives seated in the House chamber.   I got out my some of my best clothes, and trudged up the hill to the state Capitol building, quietly humming an antiphon we sing at Easter:

"On this day, the Lord has acted.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

And I was!  I was smiling.  I was laughing.  And I was enjoying myself in a way that I never have in all the years that I have entered that ugly structure where sausage is made at the expense of real lives.  On the way in, I met the parents of a newly-elected legislator who unseated one of the rising stars of the Tea Party-infused state Republican party. 

"Oh, thank you for having a son, and congratulations!" I said.  They laughed.

There are advantages to having once been a member of the Fourth Estate.  Namely, nobody questioned me when I fell in with the reporter pack to gain access to the House floor.  I found one of our two new gay boys, State Representative Joe Saunders and his partner Donald, and snapped a quick picture of them.  I gave Joe a big, long hug, and promised him that the community was there to help him however he needed it.

Such an amazing accomplishment as having out-and-proud members of the Florida House is a sign that "the times they-are-a-changin'."  

In stark contrast, the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance is the reminder that we have not fully realized equality here in the United States or certainly around the world.   After stopping in briefly at a church function happening at the home of our associate rector, I headed out to the local LGBT community center to listen to speakers and bear witness to the candle lighting ceremony.  With each votive candle, we heard the names, ages, and circumstances surrounding the death of a trans individual, killed in the past year.  There were 38 names in all, and those are just of the ones we know.  Many of the people had been mutilated in some way, almost as if the killers were so appalled by the person's outward appearance that they felt the need to destroy it.  As people placed their candles around the heart, I repeated in silence my own private prayers for each of these souls snuffed out by transphobia violence.   I thought about the resurgence of the "kill the gays" bill in Uganda.  I thought of trans friends I have made in Tallahassee, and the educational Voices of Witness documentary, "Out of the Box" about the transgender people of faith in the Episcopal Church.  And I thought how much further we still need to go if we are going to live into the vows of our baptismal covenant to "strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being."

So many have died and, are still dying, for the right to live and love in peace.  As we celebrate the accomplishment of LGBT people finding a place at the table of state politics, we must also continue our commitment to raise up all people and refuse to make peace with attempts to put us in an early grave.  We must stay on the battlefield, and we must have the voices of others joining us in this race after God's promise that all will be included in the kingdom and have eternal life.

Hymn Hits Home

Most bloggers know the two extremes of having either nothing to say at all, or too much on your mind to get it all out on the page. I think I'm skewing more toward the latter. So as I work on organizing my thoughts on one entry, I offer to you the lyrics from this morning's recessional hymn at St. John's, "Christ for the World We Sing" which is #537 in the 1982 Hymnal, and caused me to sing a sotte voce "Amen!" on the last note of each verse.

Christ for the world we sing!
The world to Christ we bring
with loving zeal;
the poor and them that mourn,
the faint and overborne,
sin-sick and sorrow-worn,
whom Christ doth heal.
 
(Amen! And prayers for all who face illness, death, and are despairing.) 

Christ for the world we sing!
The world to Christ we bring
with fervent prayer;
the wayward and the lost,
by restless passions tossed,
redeemed at countless cost,
from dark despair.


(Amen! And prayers for those who are in search of God after being rejected by the people of God. Don't give up and continue to seek!)

Christ for the world we sing!
The world to Christ we bring
with one accord;
with us the work to share,
with us reproach to dare,
with us the cross to bear,
for Christ our Lord.


(Amen! May I remember and trust that the power of God working in me can do infinitely more than I can ask or imagine!)

Christ for the world we sing!
The world to Christ we bring
with joyful song;
the newborn souls, whose days,
reclaimed from error's ways,
inspired with hope and praise,
to Christ belong.
(Amen, and Amen!)

New Zealand says "Meh" to Anglican Covenant

Word from New Zealand is that their General Synod has voted, "No" on the Anglican Covenant.  Well, actually, they've said, "Meh."   Sections 1-3, which restate what the core beliefs are in Christianity and affirms that Anglicans really like their bishops, seem acceptable enough to the church there.  However, Section four, which contains the big stick method of disciplining those member churches that do things outside the box (like ordaining women and gays and supporting marriage equality), did not go over well in NZ.  Since it seems votes on the Anglican Covenant do not allow for breaking apart the four-sectioned document, the vote would go down in the books as a "No".  And it was unanimous.

Will see how the Anglican Communion Office spins that one.

In the meantime, at a church convention much closer to home, our deputies and bishops are grinding up the various proposals on the Anglican Covenant from the "Oh, yes, sir: please may I have another" idea... to the "Are you nuts? No!" proposal that I support, as well as everything in between.   The type of sausage that will come of this process is still unclear.  Our No Anglican Covenant Coalition representatives, Lionel Deimel and Revd. Malcolm French, are doing a great job of making our case that our "No" must mean "No".   Both of them have been talking to deputies and bishops and keeping us all abreast via their blogs (Lionel Deimel's Web Log and Simple Massing Priest).  The big sticking point seems to be fear.  I'm not sure if anyone is actually using that word--fear--in their discussions and debates as they try to shove this bit and that piece into the sausage casing.  But from what I am gathering from our intrepid leaders of NACC, there is this desire on the part of the subcommittee making the sausage to come up with a product that both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops can gobble down without choking.  There is strong feeling that the HoD is not interested in the Anglican Covenant and wants it to die.  But there are those in the HoB, some of whom are part of the sausage subcommittee, that... (here it comes) fear a firm "No" will be unacceptable.

Let me quote a portion of a Rule for Lent that was once shared in a sermon by former Episcopal Presiding Bishop Arthur Lichtenberger:  "Fast on fear, and feast on faith."

I am hoping those creating the Episcopal Church's answer to the Anglican Covenant will pay attention to what is happening.  The Anglican Covenant is a non-starter in much of the Anglican Communion.  Worrying and hand-wringing about what may or may not happen in the HoB seems to be an excuse to allow fear to have the upper-hand in our true discernment of the proposal.  If the deputies are strongly opposed, it really doesn't matter if the bishops vote for it.   And trying to second-guess or hedge bets or whatever is just creating more chaos where there is a clear choice: we either approve it or we don't.  And most of us in this church don't want it, so let the vote reflect that opinion.   Please do not kick it down the road to 2015.  That would be like holding vigil at the bedside of a dead person in the hopes that in another three years she'll take a breath.

Please continue to hold Lionel and Malcolm and all those participating in this process in your prayers.

Almighty and everlasting Father, you have given the Holy Spirit to abide with us for ever: Bless, we pray, with his grace and presence, the bishops and other clergy and the laity now  assembled in your Name, that your Church, being preserved in true faith and godly discipline, may fulfill all the mind of him who loved it and gave himself for it, your Son Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, p.255)

Crucifying Christ... One News Release At A Time

There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.--Ecclesiastes 8:14

‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’” Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”--Matthew 8:8-11

"We must not torture the English language. Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman and that's marriage. We supported Civil Partnerships [the bishops in the House of Lords], because we believe that friendships are good for everybody. But then to turn Civil Partnerships into marriage, that's not the role of government to create institutions that are not of its gifting. I don't think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is."--Most Rev. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, January 2012.

I let out a loud scream from our back room last night when I opened a tweet from Simon Sarmiento of Thinking Anglicans and read where the Church of England has staked out a position opposing full marriage equality in that country.   Besides the apparent lie in that statement (at least two or three other sources in England say the CoE has never supported Civil Partnerships in the House of Lords), when I saw ++Sentamu's comment about Civil Partnerships... that "friendships are good for everybody"... I was stunned at the level of insensitivity and dismissive patronizing inherent in that statement.  This from one of the frontrunners to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, the titular leader of the Anglican Communion.   And I wondered aloud again, "Why should we bother remaining in Communion with these bores?!"

I have heard the complaint that marriage equality, and any other attempt to open the doors of the church to include more people, is in fact an assault on the tradition and such efforts are trying to bend the institution to be more reflective of the world around it.  I would argue that it's not an assault; it's an effort to pull the church away from going over the cliff of total irrelevancy.

How many times have I read the complaints and the bemoaning of bishops, priests, deacons and some laity that there are fewer and fewer people who regularly attend church these days?   Parishes struggle to keep their budgets together in the face of decreased giving.   Schools and recreation departments schedule soccer practices for Sunday mornings.   And everyone sits around, wringing their hands and trying to invent ways to make ourselves more interesting, entertaining, and popular as a way of keeping interest in Sunday worship services.

But all the changing of music and prayers won't mean anything to the throngs of people currently sitting outside the gate of the church when what they hear in the media is such nasty and prejudicial speech as ++Sentamu's.   No one wants to come to a church that looks at the culture in which it finds itself and thumbs its collective nose at it.   The fact is that marriage equality is coming.  And the church keeps repeating the line, "...the intrinsic nature of marriage [is that of] the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history." (Really?  Would this include our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?)   This line will continue to push away the younger generation who don't have the same hang-ups about marriage that their parents and grandparents seem to have.   These younger people can not reconcile the message of Christ, which is one of love and inclusion, with a church that keeps wanting to wear blinders in an effort not to see the very people its called to serve and continue to discriminate against whole groups of citizens.      

I notice that the Church of England has a slogan on its news releases: A Christian presence in every community.  Clearly, not in the LGBT community of England.   I would suggest a new slogan for the CoE: Crucifying Christ One News Release At A Time.

The American Catholic Nunsense

The CBS morning news program was interviewing a Roman Catholic sister about the past month's hue and cry from the Vatican over nuns in the United States caring more about the poor than denouncing marriage equality.

I almost started to cry for this woman as she talked about the excitement that had filled the RC church after Vatican II, and mentioned the "opening of the windows and letting air in."  I remember reading that when a cardinal questioned Pope John XXIII on what he hoped to accomplish with Vatican II, he went to a window and opened it.

In the meantime, his successors have not only closed the window, it seems Pope Benedict XVI intends to place locks and bolts on it.

The earnest interviewers prodded the sister: what does she think needs to happen?   She responded with, "Vatican III."   And what would that look like to her?  From what she says, a Roman Catholic church where the laity have more of a voice, and decision making is more democratic.  It's the laity, she says, who know the good works of the nuns and their commitment to living out their vows of service to others... which includes LGBT people and the environment.

Sadly, what the sister is looking for is, well, not Roman Catholicism.   At least not Roman Catholicism as it has been practiced now for centuries.   She is yearning for the church that, in the early 1960s and in a world of increasing pluralism, tried to get to that place where it had more in common with those who broke away and were labeled by the Vatican as the unclean, unorthodox, rabble rousers... aka Protestants.  Vatican II was Pope John XXIII's attempt to stretch out a hand into that open air on the other side of the window and meet God in a new place, in the experiences and faces of those who had been labeled heretics.

Pope John XXIII died before Vatican II was done.  Since so many confuse the Church with God, I wonder if that's what some meant when they scoff that, 'God died in the 60s.'

Every time I see the Roman Catholic Church doing something else to crucify Love incarnate in the world, I cringe.  As the sister noted in her interview, there is a growing denomination in the United States: ex-Catholics.   So many of my friends who are now either Episcopalian, or Jewish, or pagan, or agnostic, or atheist, come from families where they were raised in the Roman Catholic Church.  And it is that Church that made them think that God is some paternalistic fire-breathing drill Sergeant in the sky and that Jesus preferred men (but not that way!)  because all the apostles were men, so only men can serve at God's altar in the church.   The view of God that the Vatican seems to prefer is the half-world view, where there are men... and then the rest of us.  No wonder they waste so much time thinking and plotting around issues of homosexuality; the only other beings that count in the world are men!

Interesting, too, that CBS did this interview on the day when many of us are marking the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when she learns she's going to be the God-bearer and goes to her cousin, Elizabeth, who is going to give birth to John the Baptizer.  Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the one feminine example the Roman Catholic Church has glorified.  And yet, I believe that same young girl who bore the Son of God is weeping tears of frustration to see what has become of the people her son came to redeem.  How would this incarnation of the Vatican have treated her today?  Branded her a feminist (as if that's a bad thing!) and told her to stand ten paces behind her husband?

I feel for the nuns in this situation.  Today's Eucharistic reading from Colossians reminds us all that whenever we are faced with the obstacles erected by those in the world, we need to go back to the place that is the center of our calling and being:

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.--Col. 3: 14-17

Christ is eternal.  Popes are temporal.  Stay strong and stay the course, my sisters-in-Christ.

    


 

For Only In You Can We Live in Safety

As the Grateful Dead might say, "What a long strange trip it's been."

This Sunday we are arriving at time when the disciples have seen their risen Christ, been amazed and overjoyed that he has conquered death.  And then, last Thursday, he took them up to the mountain and told them, "OK, now I'm really outta here.  But you'll be getting another boost from a close buddy really soon!"  And off he went, ascending to sit at the right hand of the Father.

I don't know about you, but I'd probably want a stiff drink at this point!

He's gone.  Again.  And now they're left.  Again.  And the world isn't getting any kinder or gentler or easier.

Jesus was aware of what his friends would be enduring in his absence.  In this morning's gospel, we find him in prayer.  John's gospel gives us a glimpse into the Jesus who is preparing to be put to death and making a petition to God on behalf of the disciples:

Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.  While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.  I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.--John 17: 11b-18

Imagine, for a moment, that this prayer is being cast out many thousand years into the future on our behalf as well.  In many ways, those of us who take solace and gather strength in coming together at the Lord's table every Sunday in the Eucharist are facing our own trials once we walk out of the church.  Like the disciples, we, too, enter into a world that doesn't necessarily believe in Christ, or--worse-- claims the mantle of Christ but betrays his ethic of Love to assert themselves as the moral superiors to everyone else.  They say they believe in Christ, but actually saying and doing things that reflect Christ's love?  Well, y'know...  

Like the disciples, we may find ourselves feeling left behind and wondering how to carry on in the face of hostility, and indifference.  Remember, to be Christian, to really live and abide in Christ, is to be counter to a culture of consumption and climbing the corporate ladder.  It is a life that requires us to extend ourselves in Love to people with no expectation that we are going to gain anything in return.  That's not the normal way of your every day human being! 


When I think of this prayer of Jesus' in John's gospel, I am reminded of the petition we make in the daily office:

V: Give peace, O Lord, in all the world
R: For only in you can we live in safety

This seems to sum up what Jesus is saying.  In God, we have peace and only in God's peace can we live in safety.  We have choices in how we respond to the many challenges we face in our daily lives.  If we choose to respond from a place of thinking that we must "solve" and "fix" everything in the world then we are circumventing the power of God who is the one who gives us the ultimate peace if we will relax and listen to the wisdom and give the control to a force greater than ourselves.  It is through God and being in relationship with God that we have what we need to experience the sense of  freedom and calm that comes with eternal life.  And it is from this place of freedom and calm that we can respond to the world.  If we so choose to live in that way.

And we have to be able to do this without the physical Christ looming over our shoulder, and being able to pull Jesus out of our pocket.  Much in the same way the disciples must rely on knowing that they have been given all the tools they need to carry on without Christ being right there with them, speaking in parables and offering clarification.  Our experience of Christ can come in a variety of ways, but its baseline for most of us is that moment or moments when we have intentionally allowed ourselves to be in contact with God.  We must remember those words after Communion that, having been fed with the spiritual food of Christ's body and blood, we are now sent into the world in peace to love and serve God with gladness and singleness of heart, a way of being that comes from having shared in the Eucharist.  We are given the opportunity now to take our counter cultural Love to meet the world as we experience it.  The more willing we are to allow that Love that flows from each of us to come out, the more we become the agents of something radical that builds up and transforms the world as we know it.  Are we ready for that challenge?     

Love Extending Outward

Well, welcome back to me.
I have just been on a whirlwind trip from Tallahassee to Sewanee, Tennessee, to see my mentor receive her Doctor of Ministry degree, visit with an old friend from Mickee Faust, and conduct an interview in Nashville on behalf of St. John's for the update of their history book.
It was a wild, wild, ride, but well worth it.  I had not seen Leah in many years, so it was great to hear all about her life in the Theater Department at Vanderbilt and how she and her husband are ready to make Nashville their home.
My interview with the former rector of St. John's, Fr. Bob Abstein, was interesting and told a story of transition in the life of that parish.
And I  managed to pull off the intended surprise of showing up for my mentor's graduation. As the editor on her project, I knew the work she had put into writing amidst her more-than-full-time life as a parish priest, wife, and mother. There was an impressive group from her current congregation and her family in attendance.  And many of them looked at me in astonishment when they learned I had made the trip "all the way" from Tallahassee.
Admittedly, it is no small feat to make that trip up to Sewanee.  But I was resolved to be there and be present for this occasion because it was a big life event. That's what friends do for friends.
In the gospel lesson, Jesus talks about love as the new commandment; that we are to love one another as he had loved.  And there is no greater gift than to lay down one's life for one's friends.  He is talking of a much greater sacrifice than simply driving eight-and-a-half hours to a graduation ceremony.
And yet, in the scheme of things in our 21st century world, there is still something to be seen in putting aside other "things" to celebrate, to comfort, or to mourn with your friends when life presents another turn in the road for them.  Because what Jesus is getting at here is that love, the common bond between people, is about being present and showing up for your friends at all times, both in big and small ways.  We don't just show our love for another person by taking a bullet for them; we show it in the way we speak to other people, in the way we look at them, and in the way we are with others in the world.   
Jesus tells the disciples that they are no longer servants, but friends because he has included them in the understanding about God who is Love as exemplified through Christ.  This is the love that they will now have to extend outward to an even wider circle of people.
It seems that the disciples, amidst their foggy comprehension of what Christ was saying in these final hours before his death, come to their own individual realizations about his message.  We get that from the reading in the book of Acts where Peter declares amidst the Gentiles, "I truly understand that God shows no partiality.... Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?"     

This moment is remarkably similar to what happened with Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch last week.  It is like what happens with conversion of Paul who, upon encountering the resurrected Christ, is blinded temporarily and must depend upon a follower of the Way to have his sight restored.  A persecutor of the followers of The Way becomes one of the staunchest advocates for spreading this Love even wider.
Once Love has touched us, it is impossible to hold it in because it calls us to live in Love and share that Love through our very being.  
As we inch ever closer to Pentecost and the arrival of the fiery rushing wind of the Holy Spirit, this is the time to reflect on what all these lessons from the Scripture during this Easter season are pointing to:  Love.  Love in word.  Love in action.  Love in deed. We are to live in Love and let that Love extend outward from us.   As the psalmist says, "Sing to the Lord a new song.  Shout with joy to the Lord, all you lands; lift up your voice, rejoice, and sing."

God is Love. Period.

Today was one of those Sundays where I was reminded why it is that I attend the worship service instead of lounging with my coffee and a crossword puzzle.

Our processional hymn--#379 "God is Love"-- spoke volumes to me as I continued to hold in my head and heart the people of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Ellicot City, MD, following the tragic events there on Thursday evening.   A portion of the lyrics:

God is Love; and though with blindness
sin afflicts all human life,
God’s eternal loving-kindness
guides us through our earthly strife.
Sin and death and hell shall never
o’er us final triumph gain;
God is Love, so Love for ever
o’er the universe must reign.

This sentiment, and the entirety of the processional anthem, put the emphasis where it needed to be: God is Love.  All the readings of the morning pointed to this same theme.  I have written more than once on the Ethiopian eunuch story from Acts. I am moved to tears when I hear the phrase from the eunuch, so eager to learn more about God, "Look, here is water. What is to prevent me from being baptized?"

Nothing, dear earnest eunuch soul.  Nothing prevents you from being baptized into the Trinity.  You are, have been, and always will be, part of the body.  And, unbeknownst to you, your story will become a touchstone in the 21st century for all those called "others" who have been wrongly told that they don't matter and there is no place for them in the kingdom.   As the First Letter of John said this morning:

Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. 

These are the words I shared with my EfM group the Monday after the horrible vote in Florida in 2008 when the voters placed marriage discrimination against the LGBT community into the state constitution.  This message from 1 John had been in the daily office and appeared in the rotation about three or four days after that election night.  God has a strange way of doing that to me.  Amidst my own personal hell and pain and feeling the insults of the world or the church (or both), something will draw me back to what is the truth, the way, and the life.  That truth can be summed up in the statement: God is love.  Period. Exclamation point.  Emphasis added.

All this love culminating in the Gospel message about being part of the vine, the image Jesus uses in John's Gospel.  That love is tended and cared for by the vine grower and that vine is coming up through the soil and feeding the branches so that they bear much fruit. The more fruit on the vine, the more people will come and taste of the fruit of that vine.   What if the vine grower didn't love and tend that vine?  What would happen to the branches of that vine?  No fruit.  And no fruit means nobody will ever know how good the fruit on the vine can be.

And this leads me back to my prayers for St. Peter's Episcopal Church.  At a time of such violence and death, it would be easy for people to allow their hurt and fears to spill over into hatred and mistrust of people who are like the shooter, Douglas Jones.  

The homeless can make one nervous.  I would be a liar if I said I wasn't made uncomfortable at times by someone approaching me on the street, especially someone holding a conversation with no one in particular. I've had plenty of encounters with people who were mentally ill in some way.  Still, more often than not, the homeless and those on the streets are victims of violence.  The mere fact that they are living on the streets is, in my opinion, a form of violence, or at least brokenness. And rather than assume that the homeless and mentally ill are guilty of being murderers until proven innocent, there needs to be more of an effort to tap into Love for those who need shelter, and adequate mental health services.  

The Diocese of Maryland recognized that in a resolution passed over the weekend at their annual convention.  Not only did they resolve to provide and care for the people of St. Peter's Episcopal, they resolved to look into ways to better protect priests and other workers in the church, and fight for the needs of the homeless, the mentally ill, and the victims of gun violence.   All things that are necessary.  All things that reflect the many multi-layers of Love in action.  All ways that honor the life and service of Brenda Brewington and Rev. Dr. Mary-Marguerite Kohn, who by all accounts, did all they could to provide care and comfort to those who came to the church in need.

The more I listened, the more I reflected on my connection in spirit to those in Maryland, the more I felt that God met me in this service in a way that I haven't felt for some weeks.  And for that I say, "Thanks be to God!"

 

  

  

  

Prayers for St. Peter's Episcopal Church

 Go to the Facebook page for St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Ellicot City, MD, and here's how they describe themselves:

St. Peter’s is a vibrant community of faith, sharing in the transforming power of God's love, rooted in the Gospel of Christ, nourished in the joy, hope, and beauty that are God's gifts, called to worship, to dream, to risk, and to serve. We endeavor to seek and serve Christ in all persons, always remembering:

With Christ as our Guide,
St Peter’s Episcopal Church at Ellicott Mills
Is an Open and Supportive Community
That puts God’s Love into Action through
Service, Spiritual Growth and Joyful Celebration

The doors of St. Peter’s open wide in the name of Jesus Christ. 

According to news reports, yesterday at about 5:20pm, the sexton of the church discovered two people--Rev. Dr. Mary-Marguerite Kohn and a church secretary named Brenda-- shot in the church office.  Police, including the SWAT team, swarmed into the neighborhood where they found the alleged gunman, identified only as an "unbalanced homeless man", also dead in the woods behind the church, the gun at his side in an apparent suicide.


We've known this kind of senseless gun violence in the Episcopal diocese of Florida.  Earlier this year, a fired teacher from The Episcopal High School in Jacksonville returned to campus and shot to death the school's principal, Dale Regan, before killing himself.  The pain was felt from one end of the diocese to the other, especially among the many children who knew students attending EHS.  The pain that will be felt by all those in and around the St. Peter's community will be enormous.  


Coincidentally, theologian and author Diana Butler Bass is scheduled to speak at the Maryland Episcopal Diocesan Convention, which is this weekend.  Her topic is "Facing the Future without Fear."  Timely, in a very weird and sad way.


As I think about this, I am again saddened at the thought that a place that has opened its doors wide in the name of Jesus Christ becomes a killing field.  We assume that churches are safe from "the world" and yet really they are no safer than any other building.  Look at places outside the United States; how many times are people killed, bombed, beaten, burned inside houses of worship?  So is the answer to lock our doors, bar our windows, and otherwise retreat from the forces that disrupt the goodness of God?

I look to these words from 1 Peter 5: 

Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. 



Bad stuff happens, especially in a society with way too many guns in the hands of way too many people who really ought not to have them.  At times like these, we need to recognize that Christ is there feeling crucified again because of the violence we inflict on one another.  Violence that includes the fact that this alleged shooter was an "unbalanced homeless man."  


Amidst grief and pain, we must remain committed to doing what we can to advocate for better mental health services, ways to combat the problem of homelessness, and advocate for sensible gun laws to cut down on the number of weapons in the hands of the "unbalanced" people.


Prayers for the people of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, for Rev. Dr. Marguerite-Mary Kohn and the medical team that is helping to save her life.  May God be with them granting them strength and courage and easing the pain in their hearts.  And may light perpetual shine upon Brenda and the "unbalanced homeless man."  In your Love, God, you can reconcile all things.  May each find their place toward your eternal flame. Amen.

Ministry Viewed Through a Coffee Mug

During our Education for Ministry group, we were given a reflection exercise where we had to choose an item off the center table.  We were to examine said item, notice why we had picked it, and anything that the item brought to mind.

Once we had done that, we were to consider how this item reflected our ministry.

My item was a "Life is Good" coffee mug.   Initially, I was drawn to it because I like the Life is Good series.  One of my massage school teachers always wore the company's T-shirts with the smiling stick figure drawings hanging out in a lawn chair with a beer, or surfing, or fishing, or bike riding.  As I looked closely at the mug, I found the phrase on the other side: "Do what you like. Like what you do."  I noticed it was somewhat heavy, with a thick-lipped rim.  But what I kept thinking about the cup is that it was empty, and yet "Life is Good."

That thought of "empty, but good" was the basis of my ministerial reflection.  I thought about all of the "official" ways in which I minister:  I am a co-mentor in EfM, a Eucharistic Minister, the leader of Circle of Hope, a leader in PFLAG, and very important, I am a licensed massage therapist, a ministry of healing to those broken by the world.

I looked at the coffee mug again.  Coffee mugs are common every day objects.  I thought about how I take myself, my Christianity as colored in by the Episcopal Church, into common every day places all the time.  One of the most common spaces is among those in my theater group, the Mickee Faust Club.  And while I wouldn't describe the cabaret-style theater we do at Faust as "common", the people involved are representative of the vast majority who have been injured by the church in some way and are embittered, or who just don't bother with the church at all.   In this way, I am a bit of a mystery to my fellow Faustkateers.  As I told my EfM group, I don't push the Christ message on people with lots of "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!"  But because I don't park my Christianity at the door, I know I have made some in the company have to think about blanket statements that start with, "Well, y'know, Christians are always doing...."

This, of course, is something I used to do myself.  The blanket accusation of all Christians for the sins being committed by a few.  I had had more than one or two of the little "c" "christian" persuasion scream at me to "Repent!" of my homosexuality, or corner me in an effort to convert me, or seen them in the media denouncing the likes of me.   I also was horrified that none of the big "C" Christians felt there was a need to counter these messages with the actual Gospel of Love.  Their silence hurt as much, if not more, than the ones who claimed to be speaking in the name of Christ while denigrating members of the body of Christ.   I am reminded of a passage in Romans 14:

Why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God.For it is written,

‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

   and every tongue shall give praise to God.’

So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

Let us therefore no longer pass judgement on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling-block or hindrance in the way of another. 

It it this ethic that I carry with me into these common spaces such as Mickee Faust.   Because even among the ones who have never cared for or thought much of the church, there may be one who is looking for that beacon of light from God as guidance to a new understanding of how they are connected to God, this world, and all of creation.  In his day, Christ was that very bright beacon on a mission to get people to stop bickering over the dicta of how you love God and, in the phrase of Madison Avenue, "just do it!"   That is what we are all called to do as members of the eternal priesthood of the laity.  Our purpose, vocation and ministry is to live and show forth a life that others might see Christ in us.   And then it will be God's own doing that will go to work on the heart, mind and soul of a person.

The more we empty ourselves and share what and who we are, life will be good.

Forgiving 77 Times...Especially on 9-11

I know exactly where I was 10 years ago on the sunny September 11th in Tallahassee, FL.   I was on my way to a doctor's appointment having heard Bob Edwards on NPR talk about a plane that had flown into the World Trade Center.  A few minutes later, he announced that a second plane had flown into  the other tower. At the doctor's office, the nurses had a television playing in the back.  I heard someone call out that one of the towers of the WTC was collapsing.  And that's when I leapt into reporter action mode.  I told the receptionist that I would have to reschedule, and then I called to get my assignment: go to the Florida Emergency Operations Center and find out what was being done (or could be done) to deal with the situation.   Our Governor was the President's brother and, as it turned out, the President was in our state that morning.  And with no clue what this was about, all the states were putting emergency plans into action. 

When I got to the EOC, I came upon the St. Petersburg Times reporter standing outside the door, her face ashen.

"Another plane has crashed in a field in Pennsylvania." 

All of us were baffled.  And I'll say that I was scared.  Even though these events were unfolding several hundred miles away, it felt dangerously close.  And I was worried about friends and family in New York City and the surrounding areas.  I breathed a sigh of relief to know that my mom's flight out west for a PFLAG meeting was scheduled for a different date.  And I was chilled when I learned a family friend, on his way to Los Angeles, had opted to take his flight from Manchester, NH, instead of Boston's Logan Airport.  He'd considered one of the doomed flights, but was instead on a plane that had to be grounded in Indianapolis in the wake of the chaos.

I also remember the sinking feeling in my gut that the United States would not respond well to this attack.  I worried about misplaced anger and unleashing unbridled hatred toward all Muslims.  Even though I was part of the "unchurched" at the time, I felt that our supposedly "Christian nation" would show itself to be less than what Jesus commanded.  The God that I yearned for at this time would have had us grapple with our pain... made worse by images beamed to us from the Middle East where Arabs danced in the streets celebrating our misery... and try to arrive at a new place.

I believe that is part of the underlying message in the readings that happened to be assigned for today's lectionary in the Episcopal Church.

Paul's letter to the Romans asks a question that I think dogs us in our culture:  "Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God."  

We, the United States, took the attack on 9-11 as the opportunity to start the ball rolling toward war on Iraq, even though there was no evidence that the Iraqi government had had anything to do with 9-11.  We launched a major crackdown on lots of Muslims in our midst, whether they were suspect or not.  Mosques were defaced.  Arab-Americans found themselves scrutinized more closely.  And some of the truly lunatic fringe decided to burn the Quran.  We also began to let go of many of our freedoms guaranteed in the U.S. Constituion in favor of allowing for more of a police state.   And anyone--anyone!--who questioned our government was labeled as unpatriotic.  Whether we want to believe it or not, the terrorists were winning. 

And Paul's question echoes, "Why? Why?  WHY?"  Because the actions of an extremist group led us into the rut of divisiveness.    In the days after the attack, there was a panel discussion at one of the downtown churches with a Muslim Imam, the Rabbi from Temple Israel, and a couple of Christian pastors.  The aim was something of a teach-in on the Abrahamic religions.  And to try to answer Paul's question to the Romans with a determination that we, in Tallahassee, would not succumb to scapegoating Muslims, but instead see them as another limb on the tree of life-affirming faith in God.  In at least this one cell, there would be hope that might spread to the rest of the body.  But that cell didn't split and reproduce itself fast enough.

Matthew's gospel lesson takes Paul's instruction a step further.  Paul advises us to get out of the business of judging others and allow God to take care of that.  Jesus hammers home that it's not enough to stop judging others, but to forgive those who judge you.  And not just the requisite seven times; seventy-seven times!  In other words, if we have been so graced by God's forgiveness of our sins, we must be prepared to pass along the Love to others likewise.

Given how much replay has been done this week on the events of 9-11, it may seem a daunting task to think of forgiveness for an act so cruel, so hateful,  and so targeted as to be random.   All in the Middle East today who say they are sorry for the massive loss of life that occured on that day also talk of their anger at our government which often props up the meanest leaders of foreign nations.  The anger is understandable from where they sit.  Our tight ties to Israel, ones forged at the end of WW II, muddy the waters as well.  So many ancient wounds have never healed in that region, and the USA is a part of that quagmire.

And while I believe we have a moral obligation to stick with Israel, I think we have an additional responsibility to be like the older sibling to our friend and push for better relations between Israel and all the inhabitants within its borders.

But back to the main lesson: forgiveness.  Are we, 10 years later, able to find forgiveness?  In a way, I think the young people I was listening to from Egypt were moving in that direction.  Before forgiveness, there needs to be a recognition that someone has been wronged.  And, as far-fetched as it might seem, I continue to hope that all of us can acknowledge that our governments have not always acted in ways becoming of God... YHWH... or Allah.   My continued hope for humanity is that we could have the same kind of calm, reasoned exchange as was exhibited one night in Tallahassee amongst our city's Abrahamic religious leaders.

None of us will ever forget 9-11.  None of us should ever accept such violence as an answer.  But we can move toward a place of pausing, and forgiving that we will never be able to control the actions of extremists, but we don't have to become like them. 

April Fool's? No, just Dove World Outreach Center

From the New York Times via The Washington Independent: [Lal Mohammad] Ahmadzai, the [Afghan National Police] spokesman, said the demonstrators were angry about the burning of the Koran at the church of Pastor Terry Jones on Mar. 20. Mr. Jones had caused an international uproar by threatening to burn the Koran last year on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and demonstrations at the time led to deaths throughout Afghanistan, but on a small scale. Mr. Jones subsequently had publicly promised not to burn a Koran, but then presided over a mock trial and the burning of the Koran at his small fringe church in Gainesville, Fla.

Fran Ingram, an assistant at the Dove World Outreach Center, in Gainesville, Fla., said that the church had burned the Koran after a ceremony on March 20. “We put the Koran on trial and we did burn it,” she said. Ms. Ingram said she and other church members were no more concerned about their safety than before the burning and the killings of the United Nations workers in Afghanistan. “We have a huge stack of death threats,” she said. “We take precautions. I have a handgun. A lot of us have concealed weapons permits. We’re a small church and we don’t have money to hire security.”

COMMENT: Putting another religion's holy book on trial, and then burning it?: Stupid. As in so stupid that it's hard to know where to begin with any commentary. And it has resulted in the attack on a United Nations headquarters in Afghanistan with twelve UN staffers killed. Why? Because when one set of loonie extremists commit violence upon the sacred text of another religion, the loonie extremists in that group will respond in kind.

Everyone told Pastor Jones last September that his threat to burn the Qur'an would ratchet up violence and attacks on foreigners in the Middle East, especially Americans and American troops. We THOUGHT Jones got it. Instead he apparently was biding his time until he could follow through on his hateful, un-Christian plan. The blood of the innocent are on his hands. What a freaking moron!

This is BBC's footage of the attack on the UN in Afghanistan. I apologize for the overly-dramatic music. You might want to turn the sound off to watch.

Prayers for Japan... and the Pacific Rim

This is the English-language version of Al Jazeera's report on the tsunami. An 8.9 earthquake struck off the coast of northeastern Japan, triggering the massive wave that has engulfed homes, ports and farmland. In Tokyo, most structures have kept in tact but others have been damaged and fires are breaking out.

Tsunami warnings have been issued to other Pacific areas from the coast of Russia to Hawaii. Prayers ascending for the safety of the people and animals in the warning area and for those affected by this natural disaster.

What Will You Remember of 2010?

A wonderful thing about writing a blog is that I have an instant notepad available to me to help me remember what did happen this year. And there were a lot of things. Some, like the passage of the Leon County Human Rights Ordinance and the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the adoption ban for gay and lesbian couples in Florida were very good pieces of news. As a lesbian, I began to feel parts of me becoming more whole as artificial hetrosexist barriers were knocked down. In Los Angeles, not only did we in the Episcopal Church gain two women in the episcopate, one of the suffragans, Mary Glasspool, is a partnered lesbian. Finally, +Gene would not be alone! There is still more room for improvement, but at least we are getting better. Just in the same way that columnist Dan Savage promises young suicidal LGBT teens who face bullying and intimidation by their classmates: "It Gets Better" so don't let the difficulties you are facing as a teenager cause you to take your life. You won't enjoy the good stuff unless you stick around.

But with the good stuff that has come to the LGBT community, there is much in the world that needs to be healed. And that begins with the Gulf of Mexico... and the other water ways fouled by our greedy need for oil. British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon geyser, as I called it, was devasting and unspeakably awful. Many of us living near the Gulf could only watch as BP tried one way to plug the oil geyser. And then another. And then another. The whole time, birds and fish were getting coated in crude, and those who make their living on the sea were desperate. There were attempts in Florida to ban forever any notion of off-shore oil drilling. But the state legislature, a body in recent decades not known for its environmental awareness, refused to go that route. Meanwhile, many of the BP branded gas stations are now boarded up. Ironic that the greeting on the now defunct pump station pictured above reads: BP Invigorate.

Along with the man-made disasters are the natural ones: the earthquake in Haiti, the flooding in Pakistan and Australia, and the crazy weather patterns that produce stronger storms like the Christmas blizzard. Some folks still maintain what is happening has nothing to do with that issue mentioned above about greed and oil and global warming. That's just Al Gore poppycock! Ask any member of the Tea Party, and they'll tell you global warming isn't happening. Drill, baby, drill.

Yes, that mantra isn't going to go away... especially after the 2010 election. Many of us in Florida are scratching our heads (which we know sit on our necks) wondering what happened at the polls this time?! Why is our new Governor the crook who rooked the federal government out of 1.3-billion dollars in the largest medicare fraud ever?!

On the church front, there's the ongoing debate about the Anglican Covenant. A document heralded to be "the best way forward" for this communion of squabbling Anglicans seems to be doing nothing more than pouring salt on the open wound. I have enjoyed mocking the mockery of the Covenant with my Bishop Yellowbelly video shorts. And I have thrown my hat in with the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, a group of bloggers in various provinces throughout the Communion who are gathering resources and talking points to put in the hands of all people interested in and concerned with the direction we seem to be moving. To put it simply, the only covenant that matters to me is the one we repeat with each baptism. To me, there is nothing "Anglican" about putting on paper a vague idea that if a particular church (with headquarters in New York City) does something that another church (in Africa or Asia) doesn't like, then they get dragged in front of the Star Chamber and kicked off Anglican Communion Island. And yet, from all that is being said and done in the Communion right now, that appears to be the sole intention of this document. And I blow a big ol' raspberry for that one!

2011 is just around the corner and with it, I hope, will bring all of you new dreams and seeing old wishes come to fruition. I will continue to post my thoughts and musings although I may change the look of this blog at some point. I haven't decided. December 2010 marks the official third year of "Wake Up and LIVE" and I continue to do that each day finding new challenges to push me along my spiritual growth and plenty of pockets of joy to remind me that the journey has some valleys, but lots of peaks, too. Thanks, and at this hour, I toast you with my coffee cup. Be safe and enjoy the ride!

Christian Moguls

I've been reading articles this week in both the New York Times and the Washington Post about the obscenely wealthy... and what effect that is having on our overall society here in the United States. You can imagine, the news is not good. Columnist Maureen Dowd talks of the rich and famous giving away their best clichés on how to reel in the dough with Jesus at your side. And Steven Pearlstein analyzes the true dangers of a society where one-percent of the population hold half of the nation's wealth in their wallets. There is no longer a sense of "We're all in this together" because we really aren't. Lucky for the super-rich, most Americans have yet to put two and two together to realize that they are being played.

I remember sitting in a church service a couple years ago, and listening to the rector give a sermon in which he touched on how difficult these times were because of the economy and specifically the disintegration of people's stock portfolios, and how that can cause concern. I told him after the service that I wasn't worried; I was already at the bottom of the barrel because I didn't have a stock portfolio. "Welcome to my club!" I said, noting that I lived daily according to the viscissitudes of the economy. He stared at me blankly. Clearly, just as his sermon had spoken to a reality that wasn't mine, he couldn't relate to an existence that didn't have a stock portfolio.

It all makes me wonder about the role of the Church in a world where the church leaders don't speak up more about this growing disparity between that one-percent who have so much, and the 99-percent who think that either the one-percent deserve to be that wealthy, or (worse) have a belief that one day they, too, will be part of that one-percent if they just keep voting a certain way and working hard. How many were lured into believing they WERE among that one-percent when the serpent slipped them a credit card offer they couldn't refuse with promises of tons of credit, low interest rates (for six months) and how 'bout them frequent flyer miles?!?!

I contemplate all those sayings of Christ in the Scriptures about wealth, the wealthy, having enough, and what happens to the treasure stored up in this life (hint: it rots). If you recall what Jesus says to the young rich man:

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.--Mark 10: 17-22

To give up everything, and follow Christ, I understand to mean not only the literal "give it all away and wander from town to town with me." Obviously, one can not do that today because Jesus, the man, is not in the flesh and blood to be followed from town to town. But, according to my theology as of October 8, 2010, I think this is the plea of Jesus for the young rich man... and all the very rich people... to realize that we need to be "all in this together." That's a very Jewish perspective on the collective community needing to be the focus, and not just the individual. As Pearlstein notes in the Post article, the danger of not coming to this understanding is a nation that will collapse due to people becoming even more disenchanted, angry and industry will grind to a halt. It really behooves the very wealthy to share what they have, so as to keep the society clicking along. The Church certainly gets this at stewardship time: how many grumble about those in the congregation who have the means to support the ministries, but will only part with a couple of copper pennies?

I asked what the role of the Church should be in this discussion. I'm thinking it should be taking on its traditional place of being the prophetic voice. Why just leave it to newspaper columnists to state the obvious?

World Cup: Revolution Revisited

I am making a wild guess here that there are more people out there who are interested in the World Cup than not. It's just that most of the true fans are not here in the United States. But I'm guessing in Europe, Asia, South America... and especially this time in Africa, there are going to be a lot of people glued to some media outlet to keep up with "their team." That's what sports fans do.

We'll see what interest gets sparked here on Saturday when Team USA takes on... of all teams... England in their opening match in South Africa.

Sports sometimes becomes symbolic for much bigger, political struggles. And that's how I am feeling as we head into this match. It is really just a game between men on a field with a ball and a couple of nets. But this is an international match-up of an "us" vs. "them" that has lots of symbolism for the soccer underdog USA.

Those of us living in the Gulf Coast region of the United States would probably delight in our team kicking the crap out of the English and leaving their players bloodied and bruised... much like the ecology and economy of our poorest pockets down here in the south. If only Tony Hayward were allowed to play midfield! He wants his life back so badly. Cry that one to the fishermen who have seen their livelihood destroyed by the oil leak (which is more like a geyser), or to the people who live in the coastal communities watching the tarballs come ashore, or the wildlife and sea creatures who have lost their habitat. When we see the whites of the forwards eyes, will our team see the green and yellow of BP? Or just the images of what our greed has done to the Gulf of Mexico?

And then there is the rift between ++Rowan and reality and his punitive "new Pentecost" plan to boot our Church off the Anglican Consultative Council. How fitting it would be if it were a gay baptized member of the Episcopal Church who sends one sailing into the upper right corner of the net and leaves some sad loyalist and apologist for that wiggy Welsh man with the eyebrows... crawling back to the pub to cry in his beer. Let the poor sap blow his nose in a draft of ++Rowan's precious Anglican Covenant.

This is all fanatical fantasy on my part. I am pretty sure we are going to get our clocks cleaned in this match.

But, just as it is for this fan of the New England Patriots when we face the Oakland Raiders in American football, there is an additional history that makes Saturday's game more meaningful. No New England fan over 40 will soon forget watching Daryl Stingley lying paralyzed on the field of play, and Jack Tatum being totally unapologetic for crippling the man. "They Call Me Assassin". No, we just call you an asshole!

So it will be on Saturday between the United States and England. Current events have added new meaning to this game, bringing us 200+ years up to speed from when the real tea partiers were dumping his majesty's favorite beverage into Boston Harbor as a symbol of our discontent with the whole set-up.

May the best team win, and I hope it is us. Hope does spring eternal.