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Cooties no more (almost)

Thinking Anglicans has this statement by the Diocese of Blackburn, changing their previous policy at having communion hosts that were certifiably consecrated by a boy when ever a girl celebrated the Mass:

Blackburn Cathedral is changing the way Holy Communion is offered at its main Sunday Eucharist.

The change will mean that the practice of offering wafers blessed by a male priest, when a female priest was presiding, will be discontinued. This practice was introduced a year ago, following the appointment of the first female Canon to the Cathedral staff.

“It will now be the case that the sacrament at any celebration of the Eucharist will be consecrated solely by the person who is presiding,” said a statement from the Chapter, the Cathedral’s governing body.

The arrangement of having separate wafers marked an attempt by the Cathedral to maintain unity among people holding different opinions about women’s ordination, the Chapter said.

“We now regret the course of action that we took,” said the Chapter statement. “We apologise for any hurt or pain that this has caused.

When the original policy was reported by Ruth Gledhill, I offered this instructional video. I am glad to see that the Cathedral has taken this forthright approach to stamp out the scourge of cooties and to lift the veil of shame that comes with it. Still, it is apparent that for some the danger still exists. The approach the Cathedral has taken is isolation:

The Chapter said that although there will no longer be separately blessed wafers available for those opposed to the ordination of women, when a woman presides at a Eucharist, the Cathedral would continue to offer services on a Sunday where a male priest would preside.

No word yet as to whether the cooties shot has been made available.

Health care is mercy in action

This is my latest column for the religion section of the Morning Call of Allentown, PA, and it appeared last Saturday, September 12. I am indebted to the blog conversation started by Steve Hayes at Khanya (which I found in creating this post for The Lead at the Episcopal Cafe) that got me thinking in this direction. From there, it became my homily for the feast of Constance and her Companions which then became this column.

What do The Good Samaritan, Ebenezer Scrooge and characters in Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus have in common? Each of these stories involves compassion or the withholding of compassion.

We all know about the Good Samaritan, the story of the man who was attacked on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A priest and a Levite passed, but offered him no help -- no health care. It was a Samaritan who cared for him.

Jesus told that story because a lawyer asked, ''Who is my neighbor?'' but Jesus turned the question around: ''to whom should we be a neighbor to?''

We all know who Ebenezer Scrooge is, the nasty old skinflint who turns aside every opportunity for charity. Thanks to the three ghosts sent to him by his late but condemned friend, Jacob Marley, Scrooge changes his ways and not only learns to celebrate Christmas, but, most important, learns how to be a charitable person. The chief sign of his changed heart? The care, the mercy, he makes possible for Tiny Tim Cratchett.

Jesus told another version of the same story 1,800 years before Dickens. He tells of two people, one poor and one rich. The poor man sits outside the rich man's house begging, and suffers from poor health. One day they both die. The poor man sits at Abraham's bosom in heaven, finally seen and comforted, while the rich man is in the place of the dead. The rich man is thirsty and asks Abraham to send the beggar down to give him some water. No dice, says Abraham! Well, the rich man says, at least send the beggar to go and warn my brothers so they don't end up in the same pickle as me. Again, Abraham refuses. ''You had your chance for mercy, and your brothers still have theirs!''

In all three stories, mercy is given or withheld. The Samaritan, unlike the rich man in Jesus' other story, did not walk past the injured man, but went out of his way to care for him. All three of the stories remind us that the way we care for ourselves is to care for others, especially when that care is at once spontaneous and, on some level that really matters, costly.

There has been a lot of fear and loathing on the health-care trail. The debate this summer has been disappointing in so many ways. It has been rancorous, loud and demeaning. People at meetings shout down their representatives. Politicians, lobbyists and interest groups have no trouble telling lies to win a political point. So while we may talk about policy, costs, ethics and theory, what is driving the debate is fear. Too much fear, left unchecked is paralyzing and can bring out the worst in all.

Christians and other people of faith have been quick to line up behind one policy approach or another, but few have taken the time to think about the most basic question: What is health care for?

What does it mean that we spend time, money, energy and talent working to make sick people well? Why do we set up hospitals, do medical research and train so many people to learn medicine except that we want competent people, using the best tools, to make mercy and compassion a visible reality to people who need it the most?

It was a long time coming -- generations -- but we have managed to move health care from a moral obligation borne by the community and turned it into a commodity to be packaged and marketed. We have sliced and diced our capacity for compassion as a commodity to be sold.

We have put a price on our mercy. So, like the priest or the Levite in Jesus' story, we weigh whether it is convenient or too costly to care for those who are ill, injured or dying. The debate this summer has revealed that we are fearful that no one will care for us, or that someone will take away what we are due. We have forgotten the ancient truth that the care we get is directly proportional to the care we give.

This past week, in Episcopal and other churches, we remembered a nun named Constance and her companions who died in 1878 in Memphis, Tenn., when Yellow Fever ripped through that city. Everyone who could leave did, but those who were too ill or too poor or connected to a person who was sick stayed.

Sister Constance, an Episcopal nun, along with her Episcopal and Catholic counterparts, some clergy, doctors and some lay minister from other traditions stayed in the city at the height of the outbreak. Many of them died and they became known as ''the martyrs of Memphis.''

Health care is front-page news. There are many vested interests, and lots of people whose livelihood--from the janitor pushing a broom, to every doctor, nurse and health care professional to the CEO making a decision to the investor wanting a return--depend on what gets decided. People of faith are tempted to jump in an take sides. But before we dive in and take sides, people of faith need to remember what health care means. Health care is mercy in action and we are all called to be merciful and compassionate to anyone in need.

In 10 words or less,who would you say you are?

If you had ten words or less, who would you say you are? A few weeks ago, The Washington Post explored how people named their own faith when left to their own devices. He looked at how people describe themselves and their own religious faith when they fill out their profiles on Facebook.

Facebook is at once a website and a network where people share information about themselves with people they know, or would like to know better, via the internet. To start using Facebook, one must complete a “profile” which is what your friends and, if you choose, people who might want to friend you might look at. So say for example, a long lost high school classmate finds me on Facebook and I allow him to see my profile. He would learn that I am “Christian-Episcopal.” Which just goes to show you how settled I am--or how little imagination I bring to the question.

The Post said:

Of its 250 million users worldwide, Facebook says more than 150 million people choose to write something in the religious views box.

Amid the endless trivialities of social networking sites -- the quotes from Monty Python, the Stephen Colbert for Prez groups, the goofy-but-calculatingly-attractive profile pics -- the tiny box has become a surprisingly meaningful pit stop for philosophical inquiry.

Millions have plumbed their innermost thoughts, struggling to sum up their beliefs in roughly 10 words or less. For many, it has led to age-old questions about purpose, the existence of the divine and the meaning of life itself.

Some emerge from the experience with serious answers. George Mason University student Travis Hammill, 19, spent several days distilling his beliefs into this sentence: "Love God, Love Others, Change the World."

Others try to deflect the question with humor.

"God knows," wrote Hannah Green, 19, who attended Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville. "Pastafarian," typed Maddy Gillis, 20, of Kensington, invoking a popular pseudo-religion that venerates a "Flying Spaghetti Monster."

A good many, however, tread the fine line between wit and truth: "Agnostic, but accepting offers." "I barely believe I exist."

Since the biggest and fastest growing group of Facebook users are between 45 and 65, you will not be surprised to learn that the question does not get any easier the older one gets. If you had ten words or less, who would you say you are?

One student found that 100 characters could not contain his whole story:

“...growing up with an agnostic father, an evangelical mother and a fundamentalist grandmother. There was no space to describe the terror he felt after learning of heaven and hell. Or how the hell part weighed especially heavily after he was caught breaking into a neighbor's home at age 7. He couldn't convey the profound faith and forgiveness he found in junior high after hearing the tear-filled sermons of a charismatic Baptist minister. Or the eventual dulling of that faith in college by alcohol. And he couldn't fully explain the slow reformation of that faith, now that he has abandoned the hollowness of his old party life. “

"How the heck do you fit all of that into a box?" asked the student, who sometimes attends a Lutheran church near Washington, DC.

If you had ten words or less, who would you say you are?

Jesus posed a similar question to his disciples. Jesus asked “who do people say that I am?” but even as the answers came in, they revealed more about what people believed and wanted for themselves than it did about who Jesus was. Some said: John the Baptist, some said Elijah, some said a great prophet. And even Peter when he confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, did not understand the fullness of what that meant and was certainly not ready for prime time because he did not know what "Messiah" really, truly meant. Not yet.

When Jesus said that it was necessary for the Messiah to be arrested, to suffer…that is be beaten and tortured…and then to die and on the third day rise from the dead, Peter could not bear to hear it.

In fact, even when the time for the cross came, Peter could not bear to hear it. He wanted to fight off the temple guards, he chickened out in the courtyard, hid through the crucifixion, and even as he ran to the empty tomb he was not quite ready to hear what Jesus said plainly. Even after Peter became a bold proclaimer of the Gospel, he then had to be taught that God’s grace was open to everyone, even Gentiles.

Peter’s story tells us that even with his initial affirmation; Christian formation takes a whole life. His story also tells us that none of us can do it alone. It takes a lifetime of formation and learning. And we all have to start somewhere.

If you had ten words or less, who would you say you are? Who would you say Jesus is?

Holy man? Mythical figure? Historical figure? Great philosopher? Messiah? Son of God? Lord and savior? My Lord and Savior? The one who gives purpose, meaning & direction to my living? (Good job, Father, Exactly ten words!) The one that I follow with all my heart…the best I can…and who grounds and shapes my life? (That’s 15 words. Try again.)

If you had ten words or less, what would you say?

The question is not just an exercise. Jesus says that whoever is ashamed of me in this “sinful and adulterous generation” …meaning that Jesus thought his generation to be both faith-less and wandering, too…I will be ashamed of them. If we had to write our faith down in ten words or less, would we be ashamed, or—maybe worse—speechless?

Now if the church were the only place in all of human commerce that offered values, ethics, and a narrative for living, then there we would be facing the question differently. Then we’d be the go-to place for all this and people would be knocking down doors and we could set the rules. Even though sometimes church acts as if we have a corner on the market, we don't . We live in a free-market of ideas that has over several generations has been gradually relegating the religious to the level of “life-style” or “hobby” only slightly less important than how we dress, what music we hear, what some celebrity is up to and which teams we root for.

In that free-marketplace of ideas, we can pick and choose our values. We can buy posters and send e-mails that tell us that everything we need to know to live life we’ve already learned in kindergarten. Or the things we may or may not learn on a sports field are our main guide to how to live life. The movies tell us that our dreams are the most important thing.

The point is that everyone learns values all the time from all kinds of places. And when a few of us come to a place like this to learn them or sort out which to keep and which to toss, what we do is compare and contrast the mixed messages of the culture against what Jesus teaches and does. It is often a trial and error process, best done in groups.

If you had ten words or less, who would you say you are? Who would you say Jesus is?

Every time we baptize a baby we have promised—at least for the last 30 plus years since we’ve used the current baptismal rite— “to do everything in our power to uphold this person her or his life in Christ.” In our parish, we all put that promise in writing when we all sign the really big baptismal certificate.

When we sign that certificate, are we really saying—deep in our heart of hearts—"Good luck! I hope those parents or whoever teaches Sunday School that year does a good job!" How many of us have signed off on a promise and then left it to others to work out?

Let me tell you, I am embarrassed to think of how often, in the course of my ministry, I have filled out the teaching rosters, handed off a curriculum and then checked that task off my "to-do" list. This is not something a check-list or even the best off-the-shelf program can solve by itself. The solution lies in how the whole faith community does it's job.

Every generation has a responsibility to teach the next generation what gives value, hope, meaning and direction. And all of us participate in that formation in how we are with each other, how we support the learning, how we act on our faith how well we participate in the life of this parish. All of these things make a difference. Don't ask me how I know this but kids are watching what we do and how we do it. The Epistle of James wasn't kidding when he said that what we say can get us into trouble!

The job of formation does not end when the child gets old enough to have an opinion either. Because even the most rebellious teenager is pushing us to show that we mean what we say we believe and that what we believe will make a difference. And every adult goes through a period, sooner or later, when they have to reconcile what they have lived and experienced with what they have said they believed. The question “who do you say that I am?” does not stop at puberty, or when we get a job or start a family, or when we enter middle age or even when we die. It takes a lifetime to answer. A lifetime of faith.

We--all of us together-- have the responsibility to tell the Christian story to and with our children, and help them know how that relationship with God in Jesus Christ makes a real, functional difference in their lives. How we do that? Well, that’s up to us. The program can be as creative and as different as we want to be—Sundays, weekday afternoons, small groups, big groups, home learning—the program is just a tool. But here is the most important part:

Together, we must find the ways to teach and form our children. We must live out our promise that we would help our children, and each other, answer the question “who do you say that Jesus is?”

And not just in ten words, but with their whole lives.

Bishop Marshall on the "most dangerous woman in America"

A monument to Mother Jones stands at the corner of Route 209 and First Street in Coaldale, Schuylkill County. Politicians dubbed her the “most dangerous woman in America” – when she was 83. In the coal regions she is remembered somewhat differently.

The Coaldale monument (one of those blue highway markers) recalls Mother Jones leading a march of 2,000 wives and mothers from McAdoo to Coaldale in support of striking miners. This unsuccessful strike of 1900 led to the great strike in 1902.

Mother Jones worked for better conditions for miners and their families for 50 years. President Theodore Roosevelt had reasons not to care for her: she led a march of children from Philadelphia to his Oyster Bay home protesting child labor. Their placards – “We want to go to school, not to the mines” – suitably embarrassed the president, but he would not meet with the marchers.

They went back to their miserable existence leading mules, operating doors, and sorting coal in the breakers. Mother Jones kept on working for children. Her subsequent children’s marches prompted the U. S. Senate to investigate child labor.

Up and down the Appalachians, Mary Harris Jones spoke for, was jailed for, and worked for miners seeking improvements in their working conditions that you and I would consider minimal at best.

Sometimes, but not often, it was a matter of educating the owners. When she met with John D. Rockefeller after the 1914 Ludlow Massacre she convinced him actually to visit the mines he owned in Colorado. When he did, he was appalled and made changes immediately.

It took until 2002 for Mother Jones to get her blue marker in Coaldale, just a hundred years after she got the title, “most dangerous woman in America.” Consider taking a drive on 209 to the Mother Jones marker this fall. Besides taking in the beauties of that road, there might be something to be gained from pondering the miners’ struggle. Stop in the coal museum on the way, and Jim Thorpe for contrast.

In the last thirty years the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States has widened enormously. While the rich are temporarily a little less wealthy, poverty continues as strong as ever, consuming the lives a children as surely as did the dark past.

I was one of the religious leaders who met with our then-new governor in Philadelphia upon his election. He promised that education was his priority and that our schools were going to change. Those promises have not been kept for the most part, and Pennsylvania still hovers very near the bottom in per-student state spending. Good schools are still for the rich in Pennsylvania, and will remain so as long as property taxes fund education.

In their injustice to children, these forgotten promises bring us right back to Mother Jones. Potential new employers look for more than tax breaks: they look for a region with an educated work force. The future of tomorrow’s workers in this Commonwealth depends on our leaders keeping the promises they make to children. Would Mother Jones be marching for families today? I think so.

Those whose families have escaped low-wage jobs and whose children are headed for college often quickly develop amnesia. They forget that many of their ancestors worked for next to nothing, and struggled to get along in a culture that was hostile to them because they spoke another language or were of a strange ethnicity. A few individuals made their own way out, but by and large the masses needed a Moses or a Mother Jones.

The same secularism that forgot that Martin Luther King, Jr., was a preacher, forgets that Mother Jones was driven from Chicago to the mines in part by the encouragement of her brother, a priest. Although it is slightly anachronistic to put it this way, she stands at the head of the great Catholic Workers’ movement in this country. Nonethless Dorothy Day considered herself Mother Jones’ disciple.

For Mother Jones, putting faith into action meant enduring slander, jail, and 50 years of hard work. This month of September, during which we celebrate Labor Day, is a time to ask what our generation will do to increase equality, compassion, and education in present day America.

--Written by The Rt. Rev. Paul V. Marshall, Bishop of the Diocese of Bethlehem.

H/T to DioBeth newSpin and Episcopal Cafe.

This train, dont carry no jokers, this train

The big news on the Anglican blogosphere this morning is that seven bishops (yet unannounced) have gone to Lambeth Palace to consult with Archbishop Rowan Williams. We don't know why exactly or who they are, but Dan Martins says:

I have no inside knowledge of the subjects under discussion, but it doesn't require any eavesdropping equipment to figure out that they're talking about how Dr Williams' "two tier/two track" plan might actually get implemented. More specifically, it is a safe bet that each of the seven is interested in what steps a diocese might have to take to remain on Tier/Track One even as TEC per se is assigned (consigned?) to Tier/Track Two.

It appears that as long as Rowan is the Yardmaster, there are going to be two trains leaving on two tracks. All he has to do is assemble the trains.

So, the seven American Bishops are going to London to make reservations on the Anglican Express now boarding on Track One. What is the price of a ticket?

It is easy to assume that for an American Bishop who would like to board the Anglican Express, he (or she) must present a ticket showing that they are opposed to the ordination gay or lesbian people as Bishops (if at all).

Here are the affirmations of the Anaheim Statement:

We invite all bishops who share the following commitments to join us in this statement as we seek to find a place in the Church we continue to serve.

* We reaffirm our constituent membership in the Anglican Communion, our communion with the See of Canterbury and our commitment to preserving these relationships.

* We reaffirm our commitment to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this church has received them (BCP 526, 538)

* We reaffirm our commitment to the three moratoria requested of us by the instruments of Communion.

* We reaffirm our commitment to the Anglican Communion Covenant process currently underway, with the hope of working toward its implementation across the Communion once a Covenant is completed.

* We reaffirm our commitment to "continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship" which is foundational to our baptismal covenant, and to be one with the apostles in "interpreting the Gospel" which is essential to our work as bishops of the Church of God.

A little while back, Mark Harris listed the signers of the statement cross referencing those who voted for C056 and D025 as well as those who are apart of the original so-called Communion Partner bishops (in red) and who are retired (italicized).

The Rt. Rev’d James Adams, Western Kansas
The Rt. Rev’d Lloyd Allen, Honduras
The Rt. Rev’d David Alvarez, Puerto Rico FOR D025
The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Tennessee
The Rt. Rev’d Peter Beckwith, Springfield
The Rt. Rev’d Frank Brookhart, Montana FOR C056 FOR D025
The Rt. Rev’d Andrew Doyle, Texas
The Rt. Rev’d Philip Duncan, Central Gulf Coast
The Rt. Rev’d Dan Edwards, Nevada
The Rt. Rev’d William Frey, Rio Grande
The Rt. Rev’d Dena Harrison, Texas, Suffragan
The Rt. Rev’d Dorsey Henderson, Upper South Carolina FOR C056 FOR D025
The Rt. Rev’d Julio Holguin, Dominican Republic
The Rt. Rev’d John Howe, Central Florida
The Rt. Rev’d Russell Jacobus, Fond du Lac
The Rt. Rev’d Don Johnson, West Tennessee FOR C056 FOR D025
The Rt. Rev’d Paul Lambert, Dallas Suffragan
The Rt. Rev’d Mark Lawrence, South Carolina
The Rt. Rev’d Gary Lillibridge, West Texas
The Rt. Rev’d Edward Little, Northern Indiana
The Rt. Rev’d William Love, Albany
The Rt. Rev’d Bruce MacPherson, Western Louisiana
The Rt. Rev’d Alfredo Morante, Litoral Ecuador FOR C056
The Rt. Rev’d Henry Parsley, Alabama FOR C056
The Rt. Rev’d David Reed, West Texas Suffragan
The Rt. Rev’d Sylvestre Romero, El Camino Real assisting in New Jersey FOR D025
The Rt. Rev’d Jeffrey Rowthorn, Europe
The Rt. Rev’d William Skilton, Dominican Republic
The Rt. Rev’d John Sloan, Alabama Suffragan FOR C056 FOR D025
The Rt. Rev’d Dabney Smith, Southwest Florida
The Rt. Rev’d Michael Smith, North Dakota
The Rt. Rev’d James Stanton, Dallas
The Rt. Rev’d Pierre Whalon, Europe FOR C056 FOR D025
The Rt.Rev. Don Wimberly, Texas retired

The Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, Rhode Island is a member of the Communion Partner bishops but apparently did not sign. She was at General Convention.

Mark's post on 7/21/09 is here, which focuses on the Communion Partner Bishops in his analysis.

Nine of the signers of the Anaheim Statement also voted for either D025 or C056 or both. The statement says that they are in favor of continuuing the so-called moratoria and they acknowledge that gay people are part and parcel of our life in the church. Some of these accept that they will not be excluded from the call process, even for Bishops. If dissent to either one of those resolutions is the price to board the Anglican Express, then the voting pattern of a little over one-fourth of the signers is a little puzzling.

It appears that one-fourth of the signers believe that they can remain in full communion and also have some sort of movement, study action or generous pastoral response to ordained, partnered GLBT folks. Is there a car on the Express for these folks?

So maybe the price of admission on the Anglican Express is not really sexuality? I think that the price of admission is direct communion with Archbishop of Canterbury. This would be a shift from the understanding of the Anglican Communion as being a comprised of Churches in Communion with Canterbury.

Those on board the Anglican Express would be bishops (and their dioceses) that see themselves in direct Communion with Canterbury, ignoring the role and place (and governance) of their province. On the Anglican Express, the bishops (and their dioceses) who are in direct communion with the ABC and others on this train, mediated by some kind of Anglican Covenant.

Those who depart Track Two would understand that Anglicanism is comprised of a communion of autonomous churches which may vary in matters of liturgical and pastoral practice, and that the province is the local expression of Anglicanism in their geographical area. On the Local, the bishops (and their dioceses) who are in communion with the ABC and each other through less formal means such as exists now.

Let's put this on a practical level, a level that most everyday parish clergy and many everyday parishioners understand. The Romans don't allow us to receive communion because we are not in Communion with the Pope. And I don't mean the Episcopal Church, I mean you through your Bishop. In Roman Catholic-land, the bishop and the diocese of bishop leads is the direct representative of the Big Guy in Rome.

If, as Rowan says, this is your bishop's vision of what communion ought to look like (except that the Big Guy is in Canterbury not Rome) then please head to the platform for Track One.

In the Anglican world, there is a church that roughly corresponds to the country that it is in, and the church together is in Communion with Canterbury and whomever else that "local" church agrees to be in Communion with. (So, the Episcopal Church is in full communion with the ELCA and the Moravians, but not the Church of Sweden. The Church of England is in full communion with the Church of Sweden but not the ELCA or the Moravians.)

If this is your bishop's vision of what communion ought to be, then please proceed to Track Two.

Notice that the way the question is structured in Rowan's reflections after General Convention: he would like the choice to go to the individual bishops not their Primates, councils, synods nor conventions.

So the choice of which train is not yours. It's your Bishops. So first, let's imagine your Bishop has decided that you and your congregation and diocese has boarded the Anglican Express. Now imagine hearing your Bishop announce: I have decided that all of us are going to ignore, avoid and disregard the Episcopal Church, the House of Bishops and the other dioceses of the Episcopal Church. As long as you are in this diocese, you are in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury through me.

There is official language in some dioceses that sound pretty close to that all ready.

Now imagine your priest standing up and saying "All baptized Christians are welcome to receive Communion as long as they are in full communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and we await the healing of the sad divisions between us."

We already have a long history of Episcopalians and other Anglicans who disagree refusing to have communion with one another. It is not much of a leap from there to this scenario.

What's ironic, is that in the US at least the nature of our Communion is allow these Bishops some latitude according to their conscience. But what about a moderate Bishop in, say, Nigeria? Do you think that Peter Akinola will allow a moderate bishop in his province to go to Track Two? I think not.

The more I think about it, the more I think that the Anglican Covenant is a solution desperately in search of a problem. I sure hope there's a bar car on the local.