Veni, Creator Spiritus, mentes tuorum visita

One week from tomorrow the election for the next Bishop of the Diocese of the Rio Grande will be held.

This was in the back of my mind as I listened to the following Epistle Wednesday evening. It is appointed as the second lesson for the feast of Henry Delany & Edward Demby (April 14).

1 Thessalonians 2.1-12
You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain, but though we had already suffered and been shamefully maltreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition. For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.

You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was towards you believers. As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you should lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

It occurred to me that it would be a wonderful thing if the DRG elected a bishop who might be described in the terms of this passage.

O God, whose incarnate Word, Jesus the Christ, is our Way, our Truth, and our Life: pour forth your gracious Spirit upon the electors of the Diocese of the Rio Grande that their minds and hearts may be attuned to your guiding presence and their wills united in service to the redemption and sanctification of all creation. Of your boundless mercy, grant us a bishop whose courage is grounded in you, who declares Good News, and in whom there is no deceit or impure motives or trickery; who speaks to please you; who does not flatter nor operate from greed. May our bishop be gentle, tenderly caring for your people, sharing his own self with us and holding us dear. Keep our bishop pure, upright, and blameless in conduct toward those who believe and those who do not. May he encourage us all in leading lives worthy of you, O God, and join you in calling us into your reign and your glory. We ask this through your Son Jesus Christ, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

--the BB

Believe in God; trust in Clumber

Now that the troublemaker has been dealt with we rejoice in The Real Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh's bishop, +Clumber.

Feel free to express your support of him as he assumes such heavy responsibility in service to God and the People of Pittsburgh.

Godde be with you, Bishop!
--the BB

Collective Nouns

Swarming Locusts

I believe I saw the question raised of late (probably at OCICBW): what collective noun ought one to use of bishops? Some alliterative suggestions were made.

I thought about it while driving to work the other day and felt it might be nice to work through some of the subsets of Christians. Here is what I came up with:

An assembly of the faithful

A task force of deacons

An infestation of priests

A plague of bishops

A pestilence of primates

As a member of the first and third categories I feel qualified to be skeptical about presbyters. I must also confess that I know a number of bishops whom I greatly admire and respect (and in some cases even trust). There are godly individuals throughout the church, even in holy orders! I consider some primates to be, or have been, saints. ++Desmond and his newly-retired successor ++Njongonkulu come to mind, the late ++Khotso of Central Africa, and ++Michael (Ramsey) Cantuar. These days, however, I am inclined to stick with “pestilence.” They seem to descend like locusts and destroy everything in sight, then fly off again. Awful. Deplorable. Someone should be deploring this behavior. Heck, I hereby deplore it.

My admonition: Gather to tell stories and share bread and wine and practice loving each other. Beyond that, stay in your own diocese and mind your own bloody flock.

Growing up among evangelicals (and a fair number of outright fundamentalists in the most narrow and traditional sense of that term), I heard plenty of denunciations of sin. At some point I realized that we all know we’re broken, imperfect, and often quite willful. Nobody needs to tell us we’re sinners, for the most part. And it’s not good news. The good news is that God loves us and that forgiveness is possible, and grace is real, and that death can lead to new life.

Those who go about denouncing sinners are not proclaiming Gospel.

Mind you, I do believe in judgment and I do believe that there is a reason prophets delivered judgment and salvation oracles together. I don’t believe we get from A to B without transformation. This is why I believe so strongly in the work of the Holy Spirit. Having said that, however, I still maintain that if you stop at the judgment you have not yet proclaimed Gospel. The world needs hope, not harangues; people who model transformation, not scolds. Yes, I am talking to you, ++Peter Abuja.

My first theological and spiritual reformation on a personal level took place when I realized that all my life I had heard that Jesus saves us from sin, death, and hell, but that I was not hearing what he was saving us FOR. “Heaven” and “eternal life” are code words, not answers to that question. This is what moved me from my Protestant roots to more Catholic and Orthodox understandings of the mystery of what we are about and what God is up to in dealing with us. Sanctification and glorification became more meaningful. Marcus Borg’s discussions of a transformative journey in relationship with God gave words to what I was thinking about in my last years of college and through seminary and into grad school.

Hope and healing are needed. Yes, challenge too! But not scolding. It shames, it creates resentment, it does everything contrary to enabling us to love ourselves and one another. It is the devil’s work, the task of accusing, and it leads to slander. The primates who are so busy denouncing LGBT folk have, I must say it, no idea what they are talking about. They may know all manner of scripture but they don’t have a monopoly on that. (I was a Baptist, c’mon, get real. You think I don’t know all the passages you love to invoke? I majored in Biblical theology because I loved it, not because I had to.) But they don’t know gay folk. As friend Richard points out, when we have “virtual” enemies we don’t have to engage them or get to know them and we can demonize them from a safe distance. They have openly said they are not interested in a “listening process.” They have concluded a priori that they have nothing to learn from us. They are wrong.

And I would be wrong if I thought I had nothing to learn from them. But what I want to hear is not their conceptions of biblical righteousness. I want to hear their personal stories. I want to understand what life is like in their part of the world. What are their challenges, their blessings, their concerns, their fears, their hopes? What did Good News sound like and feel like when they heard it? What threats do they experience daily? What unique gifts do they bring to the feast? I don’t need them to theologize for me, but I need their witness. We all need each other’s witness. But we don’t need each other’s judgments. That is reserved for the One who made us, redeemed us, loves us, is at work in us, and is the sole assurance of our destiny.

Everyone is happy when the locusts are gone. But there is still the devastation of their visit. I shall be glad when the current unpleasantness is a memory. But it is going to be very messy and painful in the meantime.

Whether the Anglican Communion survives in any form whatsoever is God’s concern, not mine. The communion that seeks to save its life will lose it; the communion that loses its life for Christ’s sake will find it. Just saying. I believe the People of God will continue. I believe the Gospel will still be proclaimed. I believe local communities will worship and serve.

The Anglican Communion has been a great gift to the world and has been a gracious home for me. I like it here. I will continue to pursue what I understand to be an Anglican way of being Christian whether the Communion abides, mutates, or vanishes. Since I am enough of a Buddhist to believe all things are transient and enough of a Christian to believe that God and God’s love are exceptions to that, I can only assume that the Communion will mutate. To cease changing is to die.

I see flourishing congregations and people awakening to new life, so I do not despair. I am concerned about pestilent influences, however.

Anyone have some pestilence repellant handy?

--the BB