The Church Shorn (Penitential Advent 2 of 2)

John the Baptist
St. Mary's Episcopal Ashe County

The Episcopal Church is not John the Baptist. The Episcopal Church is the sheep, or in this case maybe the camel, that needs to be shorn to provide clothing to the prophets in our midst. The stark reality being that if we look at the balance of the Episcopal Church in our history and our current culture we do not live in the valley that must be filled... we live in the mountain and hill that must be made low. We exist in the space that must be shorn.

The issue is that too often we want to focus on the context of the individuals in our pews. Without any doubt in each of us, no matter how privileged we are in the system we inhabit, there are distinct valleys that must be lifted up. Places that the cycle of systematic violence we all inhabit have worn raw. These places need to be filled and must have a time of fulfillment. Part of Advent's call is to provide a space for that.

This cannot happen, however, in an individual context unless it happens on a systematic context. If a machine is consistently wrenching a set of cogs too hard, forcing them to wear down to nubs much faster than expected, to replace the cogs will not solve the problem... the entire machine needs to be recalibrated if it is to be sustainable and safe. This is why in Advent we have to ask ourselves how are we, as individuals and a church corporate, needing to recalibrate our own places in the machine in order to prevent the wearing down of others. What mountains and hills create our foundations that are denying foundation to others?

This is a question of how do we need to be shorn, how do we need to be worn down, how does part of us need to be taken away... so that others might be clothed, so that others might be brought up, so that others may have vital realities added. This is the question of how do we confront and dismantle the privilege so often inherent to the Episcopal Church, and many Episcopalians, and bring an end to the oppression that such maintains. This is the Penitence of Advent.

The Church Pregnant (Penitential Advent 1 of 2)

Mary Great with Child
St. Mary's, W Jefferson, NC

To the woman he said, many are the pangs, many are the throes I will give thee to endure; with pangs thou shalt give birth to children.
                                                                                    -Genesis 3:16b

We speak of Advent as a time of hope, and that is a true statement... but we must also speak of Advent as a time of pangs and throes that we must endure. When we seek to strip the penitential nature out of advent what we are in fact doing is abandoning the pregnant Mary to the desert. We want to gain the hope her trials have bought us but not share the cost of the act that brought that hope.

As a church we are the bearers of Christ in the world. We are the church pregnant with the expectation of Christ's coming again. That means to be church we should be in the midst of pangs and throes that we must endure. That means as individual christians we should be in the midst of enduring pangs and throes as we live lives in proclamation of Christ Crucified. These pangs and throes are at many points indeed our own, but we are equally called to enter into the pangs and throes of others. To be Christian is to be both the pregnant and also the supportive spouse to those around us. We are each others midwives.

For too many decades we have sought to shunt the pangs and throes out of church, this has been especially true in the transitions we have made around Advent, when the realities of such should be most pressing. We have erred toward making the church a place where we can bring and recognize our hope only but not our tribulations. We have erred in making the church a place where the tribulations of the world are given a momentary relief but not borne and brought to fulfillment in Christ. In our hopes to create a space of comfort for all we have failed to create a place that requires the comfortable to enter into the discomfort of others.

We have become, to readily the spouse that does not endure the pangs and throes of childbearing and childbirth. We too often refuse to be midwives for the pangs and throes of those around us... to aid in the bearing of them so that we may truly enter into the Hope of Christ. It is only by entering into these realities, by making them our own, that we can become the Church Pregnant and truly bear the Hope to the world. This is why we must live into the penitence of Advent because pangs and throes are being endured in our midst and in our lives and only by bearing them with each other can we truly find the Hope inherent to the season.

Refugee Christians of The Refugee King

"But as it is, my kingdom is not from here."

The incarnational state is a refugee state. To overcome the war torn reality of the dynamic between heaven and hell the King of Heaven became a refugee on earth. An act of God fleeing the discord of the cosmic reality to be in our midst as one of us... by such affecting transformation to the very core realities of physics and metaphysics back towards mutual harmony.

This refugee status, this status of fleeing from alleged home to alleged home, plagued Jesus from before he was born. First the government forced Mary and Joseph to leave their home and travel eighty miles to Joseph's town of origin for processing. Then, forewarned by the government's plan to orchestrate a mass murder, they flee to Egypt. Only, eventually after years away, able to return to Nazareth and strive to restart a life put so long on hold.

Throughout his ministry he wandered. Rejected from his home town, hounded by crowds that wanted his presence... but in almost every town met by authorities who sought to trouble him, undermine him, and create a space of unwelcome for him. Even in Capernaum, the closest thing he had to a safe haven during his ministry, was a place where his housing security depended on the kindness of his friend Peter's family.

And then we have today's reading from the last day of Jesus' life. Where he names himself of a kingdom not of here... where he names himself a refugee in his very nature. That all of what his incarnated life has been that of a refugee. The ultimate goal of Christians is to live as refugees in this world, we are individuals required to live here while our kingdom is not from here. Just as christ incarnation here held the purpose of affecting transformation of the very core reality of physics and metaphysics towards mutual harmony, so are our lives in this foreign land meant to be the same.

Mary and Joseph took the risks of taking in this refugee and the complications that involved. The homelessness, the lack of personal safety, the public ridicule during Christ's ministry, and eventually Mary watched as her son was killed by the governor that would not accept a refugee to live for the risk his life posed to a stable social order.

There is risk taking in refugees. When one harbors an individual others wish to see dead one risks sharing that fate... one risks becoming a victim with the rest. To reject a refugee from another kingdom, to ensure a bit more safety by such rejection, by allowing the refugee to suffer and to die... we might indeed be able to maintain our status quo and not have the worries and needs of others impressed upon us. This plan to reject a refugee worked for a governor long ago to reach the goal of maintaining the status quo and at least for a little while a concept of public safety remained... this cannot be the plan of the follower of Christ.

As Christians we are refugees in this world and are called, consistently, to take up risks to our lives and status quo for the sake of those fleeing the machinations of hell, war, persecution, suffering, and death. Our duty is to shelter the refugees of this world in order to know fully our own status as cosmic refugees with Christ our King. Without this solidarity, without taking up this mutual risk, we fail fully in our test for citizenship in Christ's Kingdom. The only way to know ourselves as Christians is to know ourselves as refugees and the only way to know of Christ Kingdom is to know that Christ is the Refugee King.

  

The Continued Crucifiction of the Transgender Christ...

There is a core reality of the cross... that the life of the shepherd has been taken for the sake of the sheep. That act is done, and has been done in a way that transcends time and space. That means to this day when we take up persecution, when we enable oppression, we bring down the hammer onto the wrist of christ. That means to this day when we are the victims of persecution, when we are beaten and broken by our neighbors and the system they enfranchise, that wounds upon our bodies are wounds upon Christ's body. Maybe we are not the person holding the hammer, often we are the one enabling that hammer, too often we are not the one stopping it.

At any point in time we have to ask our selves: how are we crucifying Jesus in our day and age? How is the society we allow to exist around us ringing with the strikes of the hammer against the nail? For the event whose resonance redeems all time and space as surely enters into the pain we inflict upon each other through all time and space. Where is the nail biting against the Body of Christ?

On November 20th what the world is called to do is recognize the nail it is plunging into the Body of Christ, specifically into the Transgender Body of Christ. The hammer is lifted by many, and while white cisgender christian men play a major role they are enabled by a diversity of others. Feminist authors who continue to refuse to acknowledge transgender women as women and transgender men as men. Gay Men and Lesbians who wish to "drop the T" in order to more quickly gain legal protections for themselves. The countless number of us who do not know what the term cisgender means, much less take the time to process it as aspect of our identities.   

This wound plays out in many ways. A severe lack of housing and employment security within the transgender population. Problems accessing basic public accommodations, from buses and streetcars to restrooms. Rejection from families, faith communities, and basic social service providers. An inability to find affordable and appropriate health care. All of these caustic realities create a society that continually denies the inherent dignity of transgender individuals. Living without basic levels of respect from the society in which one inhabits is dynamically caustic and escalates the possibility of depression, substance abuse, and suicide.

It also creates a society whose environment enables physical violence. The base reality is that per capita transgender women, especially transgender women of color, are the most likely to be the victims of a deadly hate crime. Over the past decade the number of recorded murders of transgender women has gone up. As of now in 2015 there have been twenty four such murders, one every other week. Their deaths are often ignored, their killers never found, and if tried rarely are charged to the full extent of the law. 

There are many places where our society is ripping a nail edge across the tendon's of Christ, a pressing and cutting edge, an edge that cannot be ignored, is the edge of persecution against the transgender community. If we cannot begin to bring a halt to the ringing of that hammer then we cannot truly begin to be fully transformed by the redemption offered by Christ. If we cannot begin to acknowledge and name our sins, known and unknown, against the transgender community then we cannot enter into the depth of God's forgiveness in our day to day lives in their midst.

A first small step is to know the names of this years victims of fatal hate crimes, from thence to learn their stories, and from there to bring about a society where this is not an event we face every fortnight. This week may these names be prayers on your lips. They are sheep of God's fold, children of the family of which we are all members, washed in the blood of the lamb as we placed them on the cross as part of Christ's body.

Papi Edwards, Lamia Beard, Ty Underwood, Yazmin Vash Payne, Taja DeJesus, Penny Proud, Bri Golec, Kristina Gomes Reinwald, Keyshia Bilge, Vanessa Santillan, Mya Hall, London Chanel, Mercedes Williamson, Jasmine Collins, Ashton O’Hara, India Clarke, K.C Haggard, Shade Schuler, Amber Monroe, Kandis Capri, Elisha Walker, Tamar Dominguez, Kiesha Jenkins, Zella Ziona...    You are remembered. Amen.

When is discipleship consent to abuse?

Discipleship is a form of relationship. Like every form of relationship it requires participation from both parties. When there is a breakdown in this relationship what quickly manifests is a situation of an abuser and a victim. Sadly this is the situation the Gospel presents us with today.

The widow is holding up her end of the relationship. She is giving of her all in the midst of her devotion. This reality is recognized by Jesus, and is surely known by God... but the nature of the religious institution to which she gives makes the action fall short of discipleship. The leaders of the temple have created a system that denies her discipleship.

This is a sad refrain throughout Christian history. Again and again the church has denied individuals, quite often those with the most devotion, a chance to enter into discipleship. The widow should be able to freely give of her all and this devotion should be reciprocated in the midst of discipleship from the religious authorities. Instead the authorities are more interested in devouring the widow's house... if such can be done with her consent then more the better.

Too often, in the name of discipleship, an individual's devotion is used to enable their abuse and oppression. Now in this critical season of ingathering it is a question that churches need to ask themselves.

Are we able to have a robust suburban ministry with multiple priest on staff... because we have abandoned an inner city parish to struggle with a single underpaid missioner?

Are we appropriating songs, sayings, and symbols from indigenous culture and ethnic minorities... without actually entering into the difficult authentic relationships that appropriate use of such would require?

Are our youth ministries about actual empowerment of discipleship... or about placating the needs and expectations of parents and older parishioners?

Are we seeking actual transformative communities where we are all challenged to deeper discipleship to God and each other... or are we seeking to create a "safe space" for ourselves and those like us?

Give generously to your church this year... give generously to Episcopal Campus Ministry... but ask yourself if this is giving that is evocative of a relationship, if the others who give in your community are being evoked into a relationship, or if in the midst of what the church takes in and provides if there is some group giving in devotion but not being allowed to enter into discipleship.

When a cathedral promotes discrimination...

Earlier this week I discovered that Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock, Arkansas was giving a platform to Erik Metaxas. I found this discouraging on many levels and not simply because Metaxas is a theologian with whom I generally disagree but that in the midst of this he is also a Conservative Christian Media personality with a long history of anti-women and anti-LGBTQ+ bias. Now I realize that we need to host individuals who disagree with us to come to our communities and tell us their thoughts and stories... this is a good thing. When we do this, however, we must do so in a way that names what we are doing. Otherwise what quickly comes into question is the character of our community and how it relates to the speaker. Trinity Episcopal Cathedral has failed to make any such distinction.

Without providing this clarity what Trinity Cathedral is promoting is the idea that the rest of the Episcopal Church is enabling Nazism and Genocide. This is, some how, the very logic of Metaxas who feels that progressive christians who promote birth control, allow for abortions, and accept LGBTQ+ individuals (all of which the Episcopal Church does) puts us in the same category as those who feel no need to respond to humanitarian need in the middle east and are equivalent to those who allowed Nazism to rise and the Holocaust to occur. Any church that supports non-discrimination laws for the LGBTQ+ community, a position the Episcopal Church has held for decades, is opposed, in Metaxas mind, to Religious Freedom. The logic being that true Christians need not respect the basic dignity of LGBTQ+ individuals when it comes to issues of housing, employment, and public accommodations.

A lot of this comes from wanting to make the current narrative promoted by certain christians that they are a persecuted minority in America today linked intrinsically to the plight of Bonhoeffer. Promoting this persecution narrative, that Christians are the new Jews and soon will be outwardly attacked, is a major part of his text on Bonhoeffer. What makes Metaxas appealing is that he does everything as a soft sell. By and large he is the dealer of gate way theologies into the darker sides of christian exceptionalism in America. He specifically remains palatable to give problematic narratives credence.

What Metaxas is currently doing around Bonhoeffer he has already done with William Wilberforce. While his book on Bonhoeffer seeks to assimilate the Nazi Persecution narrative with the current narrative of persecution held by conservative christianity in America, his book on William Wilberforce seeks to paint Conservative Christians, in their fight against LGBTQ+ inclusion, women's health, and sexual health, as the modern day abolitionists. His book took an existing trend and solidified it within the conservative christian narrative. Now if one listens to Focus on the Family talks one will find the story of William Wilberforce presented as a narrative of wild sexual play boy who found Jesus and became an abolitionist. The questions they bring up is one of how can Conservative Christian Pastors reclaim their politically active roots as abolitionist and speak politically against the LGBTQ+ community, against women's health, and against contraception... aka against wild sexual play boy antics.

All of this, I hope, sounds absurd and presents why if an Episcopal Cathedral is going to host such a media personality that they do so with some level of conditions and awareness. As it stands it is unclear to what, if any, extent Trinity Episcopal Cathedral agrees with Metaxas around discrimination against women and the LGBTQ+ community, how much they buy into his narratives of Christian persecution in America and of anti-LGBTQ+ advocates as equivalent to modern day abolitionists. This is a lack of distinction which simply cannot be allowed to stand in light of the overall Episcopal Church's decade long stances on sexual health, women's health, and LGBTQ civil protections.

Saints, Souls, and Remnants...

A tridium of sorts appears to us these very days and nights. Which is another way of saying that if one keeps with traditional christian calendars one is about to enter into an experiential learning event. The hope is that one day will be spent, with a bit of frivolity, contemplating fear of death, ghouls, ghosts, devils, demons, and other such things that go bump in the night. Then a day will be spent honoring and recognizing the paradigms of faith, the Saints. Finally we will take a moment to pray for, mourn, and remember those who we are no longer with us. Thus Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day come and go each year. What are we to make, however, of Saints, Souls, and those who may not fall into either category...

Saints are perhaps the easiest to name. They are those whose lives as Christians so stand apart that we can say that if any one shows forth the life of Christ then they do. In the Episcopal Church we primarily use the term Saint to refer to those major individuals in Christian history marked as "Saints" before we split from Rome in the 1500s. We do have our own list of saints, exemplars of faith, prophets and judges of their time. All of these we recognize throughout the year and on All Saints Day. A day in part set aside for all the Saints who we do not know and cannot name. It is thought that as Christians we join with them in our prayers and celebrations and that in some way they are still in community with us.

Souls are generally departed love ones that we name, remember, and mourn. All Souls Day is a yearly point of remembrance. A chance to reflect on our lives and our transitions since those we mourn have left us. It is a bittersweet day of remembering past joys but also our faith in the resurrection of all believers. Some churches have solemn services while other Christians simply say a few simple prayers. This is still a day, however, where we live in faith and hope of the resurrection.

Who then remains. When we have covered the Saints and Souls what are the Remnants. Are there those who, in the end, are neither Saint nor Soul and where are they in the midst of the Resurrection? I am not a universalist, and I do not think that the Christian message is well served by such theology. I think it is possible for humans to remove themselves from the Grace of God. I think naming that capacity is inherently important and is essential to understanding the human condition. It is the possible cost of the manifold gifts we have been given.

That being said I truly do not believe in damnation either, especially eternal damnation. If one has some how gotten oneself outside of the Grace of God then one has meandered outside of things eternal. Things eternal can only exist in the midst of God's Grace. It is simply not possible to be eternally damned, eternally outside of God's grace. What I do believe in is the refiners fire, or the bringing of ourselves out of disharmony and into harmony.

The question for me then is if there is something there to refine. Is there enough basic seeking of harmony with oneself, one's community, and God in the midst of someones life that there is the capacity for a person to come into full harmony with those things. One does not have to have consciously named these things in a Christian context but are such things part of the persons overall existence, even if not understood by the person. If such is there then such will be refined, caught up in Grace, and manifested for what in fact they are.

I am not sure exactly what it takes to not have those things, and to not have those things in such a way that they are, in the end, absent from the whole of one's existence. I think, however, that such is potentially possible and thus needs to be named. I think, therefor, that the work of the church is over and again to ensure such does not come to pass.