NorCal Clergy Conference

I just got back from the Diocese of Northern California’s clergy conference.  It was a great time to be with our bishop and fellow clergy.  Our speaker was Peter Steinke who gave several excellent talks on congregational leadership.  The Bishop also presented his plan for us to be able to provide a “generous pastoral response” to same-sex couples who would like their committed relationships blessed in the church.   I only got a few good pictures. Now I’m off to the Cathedral’s vestry retreat.

Judy LewLoose Homeless Paintings with Stations of the Cross

Judy LewLoose is a Sacramento artist who, a year ago, shifted her career to focus on raising awareness on the needs of people who are homeless.   She painted a series of people who were at Sacramento’s “tent city.”  Now she is painting women and children at St. John’s shelter.  We installed her paintings in the nave of the Cathedral with our stations of the cross.

Here are some of the paintings with the stations they accompany:

Jesus is Condemned to Death

Jesus Receives the Cross

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Jesus Meets His Holy Mother

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The Corss is Laid on Simon of Cyrene

A Woman Wipes the Face of Jesus

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Jesus Falls the Third Time

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Jesus Dies on the Cross.

The Body of Jesus is Placed in the Arms of His Mother

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In the Wilderness, Sermon 2/21/10

When It’s Sad, Sermon 2/14/10

Why doesn’t the Church of England threaten the unity of the Anglican Communion

On February 11 the Church of England’s Synod passed a motion giving surviving, same-sex domestic partners of clergy the same pension benefits that opposite sex spouses receive.  I’ve copied the motion to the bottom of this post.

Why doesn’t this threaten the unity of the Anglican Communion?  Why aren’t bishops from the Africa or South America flying in to England to rescue clergy in dioceses headed by bishops who allow gay clergy?   Why are “Anglicans” in the U.S. who can’t abide their liberal bishops petitioning to be in communion with a church that ordains people who are gay or lesbian to the priesthood?  (Their request to be recognized by the Church of England was considered, and rejected, in the same Synod where the CoE affirmed gay clergy!)

Why is the Archbishop of Canterbury encouraging us to refrain from blessing gay or lesbian couples when he has partnered gay and lesbian clergy in his own church?   People who are in a gay or lesbian relationship can be priests, they just can’t have their relationships affirmed in a church?

I’m tired of the Episcopal Church being a scapegoat for a drama that is playing out on a global scale.  Why is the “division” in the Anglican Communion our fault?  What we are doing in the Episcopal Church is simply living with integrity what is happening in England.  If you have gay, partnered clergy, shouldn’t you have a rite to support the monogamy and faithfulness of their relationships?  And if people who are gay or lesbian are holy enough to be deacons and priests, why not bishops?  If you are going to affirm the ministry of people who are gay or lesbian, and not consider them sinners for their “lifestyle,”  then affirm them!  And if some people are uncomfortable with that, fine.  It can all fit within traditional Anglican comprehensiveness.

But to affirm gay priests in England, while blaming the Episcopal Church for the division in the Anglican Communion over homosexuality is crazy.  Or it at least drives me crazy.

Here’s the motion:

“That this Synod request the Archbishops’ Council and the Church of England Pensions Board to bring forward changes to the rules governing the clergy pension scheme in order to go beyond the requirements of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 and provide pension benefits to be paid to the surviving civil partners of deceased clergy on the same basis as they are currently paid to surviving spouses.”

Great Marriage Equality Video

Featuring L.A. Episcopalians.   Thanks to Susan Russell for posting it.

Jesus Now

Kirstin Paisley has written an excellent reflection on encountering Jesus in her ministry to folks who are homeless through her work hosting Safe Ground at Trinity Cathedral. Kirstin writes beautifully. I was going to post an excerpt, but you really should read the whole thing, so here it is:

I’ve been thinking about the question, “Who is Jesus?”  I’ve been told I’ll be asked that; the implication being that I’ll need a good answer.  I don’t have one.  I can give you all the academic language you want, but my heart doesn’t know how to dissect the Trinity.  God is love, and God simply is.  God is the ground of all being.  I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about who is what, and how, and when.

But ask me, “Where is Jesus?”  Then, I get it.  I can run with that.  Come with me.

Jesus is in R, the old, nearly toothless man I met in the Great Hall yesterday evening, who pulled me aside to ask me to save him a dinner plate.  He told me his story; lots of them do, when you give them an ounce of attention.  He told me about having had open heart surgery, the stents holding his arteries open, and the 23-year-old kid who saved his life.  He was crying when he hugged me.  He left his tears on my cheek.

Jesus is in the Facebook friend who was two years behind me in high school, whom I didn’t know then but was aware of.  I remember wanting to get to know her, because her energy and joy captivated me.  We connected this past summer because a friend of hers, classmate of mine, died in August of the same cancer I survived.  She drove through California last night, on her way back to Seattle from France, and stopped by for the fifteen minutes that I could spend with her.  She got, and loved, what we were doing.  Vivacity still lights her eyes.  And she told me that I have the same light now, that I did then.  At 15 and 17, we never would have shared this.  Now, it’s as natural as “Can you stay for dinner?”  (Alas, I had to run to a meeting and she had to get back to the road.)

Jesus is in T, homeless for seven days.  A week ago he was in Los Angeles.  I never got to ask him what brought him to Sacramento.  Last night, he went with David and me to speak to the council of St. John’s Lutheran about the possibility of them hosting Safe Ground.  He didn’t know any of these people.  He was tall, and stocky, and wore a Hard Rock Café T-shirt and a crew cut.  He didn’t look like he’d ever been afraid of anything.  He told these polite strangers exactly that, when he talked about the adventures he’d had and the kinds of work he had done.  Then he told them that nothing had ever scared him half as much as being homeless.  And that Safe Ground had helped him not to be afraid anymore.  He told us he was nervous—but he spoke with confidence and grace.

Jesus is in everyone who came just to listen, and in every encounter where people were heard.  Jesus is in every look of surprised understanding; every smile, every laugh.  Jesus is in the space that creates relationship between strangers, in every pause between the words.

Jesus is in everyone who came to cook dinner, and who saved plates for R and me because I’d asked them to.  (I’d gotten caught up in talking, and missed my chance before we had to leave.)  Jesus is in the conversations we had in the kitchen, in the hugs, schemes, and crazy laughter over I don’t even remember what.  Jesus is in the latecomers who asked for dinner, and in the instinctual willingness of everyone to feed them.

Jesus is in the elders, who take so very seriously their responsibility to keep everyone safe.  In the quiet gentleness with which they treated the guests.  In the very sense of knowing we were being watched, in a loving and protective way.

Jesus is in H, who came to us after lights-out to tell us there was someone being drunk and disorderly outside.  When I figured out that it was R, and jumped up because I felt guilty that he hadn’t gotten dinner, H made me promise to be safe before I went outside.  I saw two long-time friends of Safe Ground, standing near R who was kneeling on the concrete.  I asked them if I should bring him food or water.  They said no, he was well past keeping it down.

They weren’t letting him in, but they weren’t leaving him either.  They kept a respectful distance, watching.  Not engaging with his rants; just being there.  The way they held their bodies spoke compassion.

I went back inside.  T came and whispered to me how beautiful everyone was who was sleeping.  She shared the love she felt from Steve and me, and the other volunteers.  H debriefed with me when I wanted to help R; he showed me that I couldn’t do anything for him, and that my responsibility was to do exactly what I was doing for everyone else.  Later, he came and told us that R had walked away, and had been standing against a tree for a long time.

I know that Jesus was in R then.  Keeping him calm, clearing his head, giving him peace in a night of unknowns.

I don’t know R.  But I’d made a connection with him.  I was startled at how hurt and frustrated I was, when I couldn’t do anything to help him.  I wasn’t barred from trying; no one exerted power over me.  They just explained to me that there was nothing I could do.  R’s work was and will be his own.  He wasn’t coherent.  And he might not even remember that night, when he woke up from whatever sleep he found.

These are really hard lessons—to watch someone you care about and feel some responsibility to, go beyond where anyone can reach him.  To know that God is with him and that has to be enough, because right now he’s beyond human help.  To feel another layer of naivete slip off of you, and to know that you will need the skills you’re learning.  To listen to someone explain to you why you cannot help—and to know that he knows because he has been there.  To hear, “I know you want to, but you can’t,” and to feel the love in the voice speaking to you.  To watch people you trust, who know what they are doing, hold the line with patience and compassion.  To remember in your mind, heart, and body what you see and hear them do.

Why do I tell this story?  I’m obviously still wrestling with it.  Beside the pain, there is grace.  After the frustration is expansion, competence, understanding.  This, too, is love.  And this, too, is real.  Jesus walks, here.

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Come walk with us.  Steve Skiffington coordinates shelter nights, and manages the volunteer e-list.  If you’re interested specifically in a ministry of presence, have a skill to share, or ideas for summer projects, contact Kirstin.

Kirstin Paisley

Costa Mantis Films Homeless at Trinity Cathedral

Birmingham Pressure

A few weeks ago I preached a sermon on Baptism.  It is one of my favorite sermons.  Since I preach extemporaneously, I can be surprised by what happens when preaching.   In this sermon I included part of a poem I had heard 12 years ago.  I loved these words but I had never connected them to baptism before.

It was written by a classmate of mine.  We were in our first week of classes of a three-year program we had just started.  Our assignment was to re-contextualize an ancient text.  We were to take the text and write something that would express the sentiment of the text so it made sense in our modern context.  We were given several passages from which to choose.  Martha Due (now Robertson) and I chose the same passage, Amos 5:18-24.

Here’s the second part of that passage:

²¹I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
²²Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
²³Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
²⁴But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos is writing against the Israelites who are looking for the “Day of the Lord” to deliver them from their enemies who are about to attack them.  He says, Why are you looking for the Day of the Lord when it is you who will be judged.  God is angry because the Israelites have not been caring for the poor and needy.  He then launches into the passage quoted above.

The last verse became a popular refrain in the civil rights movement.

I don’t remember what I wrote.  It wasn’t memorable.  I do remember what Martha wrote.  Or to be more precise, I remember the last few verses of what she wrote.   Keep in mind the connection between “justice flowing down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” and the civil rights movement.

Here’s my memory of how Martha’s ended her poem:

“Douse me with those waters
forced through a fire hose
to Birmingham pressure
and give me companions
with whom to rise
from the pavement and build”

I remember when I heard those words read in class.  We were all moved.  It was a holy moment.  We just sat in silence.  I wish I had the entire poem.

My new realization is that in Baptism we are doused with those waters.  We are knocked over by, and drenched with, the waters of God’s justice and compassion and we are given companions with whom to rise from the pavement and build God’s Kingdom.

Every few years I come to a new appreciation of baptism; I discover a new way this ritual shapes the spiritual life.   Thank you Martha for this new understanding of baptism.

Today this Scripture is Fulfilled, Sermon 1/31/10