by
The Rt. Rev. Martin Townsend Townsendmg@aol.com Bishop of Easton
The Easter story relates quite directly to some major issues that the Church will face at General Convention this summer.
A major theme that runs through the Gospel readings for the Easter season is that there is typically confusion or disbelief associated with the presence of the Risen Christ. It might be that the confusion and disbelief comes from the fact that Jesus showed up in such ordinary or improbable circumstances. The risen Christ did not appear to the disciples when they were worshiping in the temple or synagogue. Rather he came to them when they were doing the ordinary things of working, traveling or eating with friends.
As a church and perhaps as individuals we have difficulty believing that Christ can simply show up in the humdrum routines of our every day. Though we know better, we still tend to compartmentalize our lives. We put Jesus in the fairly thin file labeled Religion. We tend not to put him under Business Objectives? and certainly not Politics.?
As God's counterpoint to these human tendencies we might recall the words that we have heard a thousand times - "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son..."? God so loved the world.Not "God so loved the church..."?
Might there be something that the church needs to learn from this world that God so loved?
In July a deputation of clergy and laity will represent this diocese at our Church's General Convention in Denver, Colorado. The first challenge that a deputy to General Convention must overcome is the fatigue that can set in with two weeks of 16 hour days full of committee meetings and legislative sessions. The next challenge - the one that is likely to be reported in the newspapers - is to decide who really belongs in the church. Who's in and who's out?
The particular focus in which this question will be raised is the arena of human sexuality. More specifically, General Convention is bound to face the question of whether gay and lesbian Christians are fully members of our church or whether they are in some way second class members of the Body of Christ. We do not yet know in what form the question will be posed. My guess is that it will have to do with whether we should bless the unions of same sex couples.
We will be asked: Is it possible for the values of mutual honor, fidelity, commitment for better and for worse to be expressed between two people of the same sex? Can the church hold and support such values and such people? And what will we do with this question that goes to the heart of the Church's identity? People will quote scripture on both sides of the question, asserting the tradition of the church as variously inclusive and exclusive.
But perhaps now is a time for the Church not to be strident in reasserting old traditions but rather be humble in the face of new reason and understanding. In April the state of Vermont passed legislation that accords gay couples the same legal rights that are accorded to married heterosexual partners. After Easter tens of thousands of people from throughout the country gathered in Washington to demonstrate for the equal treatment before the law of all citizens, regardless of sexual orientation.
What are we supposed to learn from this curious fact that government seems to be more humane than the Church? That secular culture is more receptive to the variety of God's creativity than we who believe ourselves to be made in God's image?
Part of the wisdom of Anglicanism has always been that we ground our understanding of God's will in scripture as shaped by tradition and as informed by reason. Scripture, tradition and reason are the three sources of wisdom that keep us connected both to God and to the world in which God has placed us.
There have been eras in history when the Church and the world have been archenemies. As the Church began it did boldly challenge the worldly power of Rome - and the Church was persecuted by that same authority. By the late middle ages the tables had completely turned. The Church dominated culture so that it was indistinguishable from culture. Would we draw a big distinction between the persecution of early Christians and the later behavior of the Church in the Crusades and the Inquisition?
What the Church needs now is to find a middle ground between domination and subservience. We are called to be partners in a dialogue for the well being of all of God's people, both in the church and out of it. Faith and reason are both gifts from God. They should be partners, not antagonists.
At General Convention our deputation will be asked by some to believe that the Church is the repository of divine wisdom. Some will speak to us as if God stopped saying new things when the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, was completed.
The stories of resurrection that we hear through the Easter season suggest a different way of thinking. God usually appears in setting that are not necessarily religious. There is no biblical record of the risen Christ making himself known during a temple service or even when the disciples are quietly at prayer. Rather Christ appears precisely in the ordinary activities of unselfconscious living.
The disciples on the road to Emmaus, even though they were discussing scripture did not recognize Jesus until they sat down for a meal together. It's almost as if the disciples, when they were doing their best to be devout, were blind to the presence of Christ. Yet when they settled for simply being human, particularly breaking bread together, there was Christ in the midst of them.
What the Church needs now is a humbler way of standing in and with the world. How can we both teach and learn from this world that God so loved so that both the church and the world respect the contributions of the other? I am not talking here just about how we go about a legislative task for two weeks every three years. I am talking about how we live appreciatively with people who might be different from ourselves.
I hope that in our own time, faith and reason can live together not in some uneasy truce but in a dynamic and life-affirming partnership.
At every baptism we all renew the promises made at our own baptisms. One of those promises is that we will strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. That vow has to do with loving the world which God so loved that he sent his only begotten Son. And now God sends us. God sends us not to judge the world but to love it in all its confusing complexity.
Just as Christ appeared by surprise behind locked doors, so might he appear again in the locked rooms of our own hearts. Our experience of resurrection is not predictable nor controllable. Christ comes into our lives by surprise and if we are not changed in some way, then it probably wasn't Christ we met but just a projection of our own dreams.
So to what dark part of you does Christ need to appear? What old prejudice would he wipe away?
The holy Spirit that God gives us, I believe, is not a spirit of knowledge by which we are guaranteed always to be right and which propels us into partisan battles. Rather God gives us the Holy Spirit of wisdom from which we learn patience and humility and which has the side benefit of bringing peace.
In the world's discussion of human values I believe our task as Christians is to bring to the conversation that spirit of wisdom and peace. That is how the Easter story connects to the decisions we will make at General Convention. A good charge for our deputation could be taken from the Gospel reading for the Sunday after Easter: Peace be with you. Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. Receive the Holy Spirit.?
Peace be with you.....
+ Martin Townsend
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