As L. Gregory Jones and Benjamin McNutt write:

Too often we Christians tend to think of the church’s service efforts as outreach (emphasis on “out”) — the extra activities we do in addition to being regular, everyday Christians who worship the triune God in communities of discipleship.

Thankfully the New Testament reminds us that the early church believed provision for the widow and the orphan, the sick and the poor, was not simply an extension of the church’s mission but at its core.

Are worship, coffee hour, even Christian formation part of our outreach efforts? Should they be? A couple of months ago, a piece written by Mike Rinehart, Bishop of the Gulf Coast Synod of the ELCA, made the rounds. Reflecting on decline among mainline denominations, Rinehart called for a new focus on outsiders. He wrote:

So here’s the plan. New policy. Every decision, every single decision made by staff, council and every committee is made on behalf of those not yet here. Every sermon choice, every hymn, song and musical choice, every building and grounds choice, every spending choice is made with outsiders in mind.

When we become a church for the world, the outsider, when the pain of staying the same (and dying of irrelevance) for those already here exceeds the pain of changing (and sacrificing old ways) for those not yet here, we will be the church for which God incarnate came to this earth and gave his life.

In his view, everything we do in a church is or should be about outreach, in the sense that our focus should not be on ourselves, but on those beyond the doors of our buildings.

Today, I read an article about the closure of Hull House, the famous settlement house founded by Jane Addams. An article in The Nation attributes its demise to its reliance on government funding. With the cutbacks of the last decades, it simply couldn’t make ends meet, or raise enough private money to balance its budget.

But government funded social service was not how Hull House began. It started out as a place where, in an age of enormous economic inequality, people of different classes lived together, and came together to work and socialize.

Louise Knight, the author of the article, wonders whether there is something in the Settlement House model that deserves reviving:

Today, we have all kinds of nonprofits, including non-residential settlement houses, foundations, religious organizations, and research, government and university programs focused on solving (or sometimes studying) particular social injustices. To inform us of these efforts we can turn to a rich array of magazines, newspapers, websites, books, TV and radio shows, and documentaries. Thus we have a situation in which specialists are doing the work while the rest of us read and listen to words upon words about what they are doing. But learning about these entirely worthwhile efforts does not transform us because we encounter them only through our minds. Our bodies stay in our chairs.We make no human connections, except at an imaginary remove.

Addams was so successful in raising private dollars to fund all of Hull House’s work because of her skill in connecting donors to the life of Hull House. Donors were often there as guests at dinner, as volunteers, as attendees at lectures, concerts, and plays (mostly involving people from the neighborhood). Not all nonprofits can offer their donors such opportunities for connection, and others could but do not encourage it.

Is the original settlement house method—having every day citizens of one socio-economic class live among those of another—a legacy that we should bring back to life? We may or may not need to such places, though I admit I would like to see the model tried again. But we could benefit from finding new ways, in Addams’s words, to come together “on the common road.”

It seems to me that in the first paragraph quoted above, she is describing the way we often think of outreach in churches:

Thus we have a situation in which specialists are doing the work while the rest of us read and listen to words upon words about what they are doing. But learning about these entirely worthwhile efforts does not transform us because we encounter them only through our minds. Our bodies stay in our chairs.We make no human connections, except at an imaginary remove.

But in fact, our churches, especially urban churches, are places where people of diverse backgrounds and socioeconomic status come together regularly to worship and to share together in the life of the body of Christ. We are places where a millionaire might kneel next to a homeless person at the altar rail, or share coffee and community at coffee hour. Being more intentional about that is outreach, too.

I went downstairs to take a look. Indeed, it looked much like a sauna. I called the HVAC company, but it was five minutes before the start of the 10:00 service, and I had other things on my mind. Just before the beginning of service, I saw one of our members who works as a carpenter and asked him to investigate. After the service, after greeting visitors, doing adult forum with newcomers, Eucharist with our Hispanic congregation, I made my way back to the Guild Hall and to the kitchen. Things were somewhat in order. The leak was stopped; the closet had been cleared. Corrie, having had a sauna, was wearing a shirt borrowed from the sexton. But there were things I had missed.

Apparently, disrupted by the water and the removal of everything from the closet was a hibernating bat. There was a conniption. Kitchen tongs were involved,wielded by the organist. But fortunately, Grace’s usual weapon against bats, a tennis racket, was not implemented. The bat was taken out of doors. Whether it survives, we don’t know. Although reports are that it flew away. Perhaps it’s now in the bell tower.

As our sexton went in the closet to check on things after the bat, our organist suggested that there might be a coyote there as well. Who knows?

Hospitality means many things, but I don’t think it means welcoming the bat and the coyote.

“I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt 25:35)

In the great parable of the Last Judgment that Jesus relates in Matthew 25:31-46, when the king separates righteous from the unrighteous, he proclaims to those who are saved that  “just as you did it to one of the least of these… you did it to me.” Among the actions cited is welcoming the stranger.

Each Sunday, we encounter the stranger as we come to worship God. Each Sunday, at each of our services, there are strangers. Sometimes, they are visitors from afar, traveling to Madison for business or pleasure, and choosing to spend their Sunday morning with us. Sometimes, they are local residents who are “church-shopping.” Occasionally, there is someone who has come this day because of some deep spiritual longing that yearns to be met. Some of those strangers are not newcomers. They have attended services before, several times, for several years, perhaps even for several decades. We may recognize their faces, we may have seen them dozens of times, but we don’t know their names let alone anything else about them.

In this, Grace is like most churches. In fact, in many respects, we do better than many churches. We offer visitors delightful visitors’ bags; some of us are aware of visitors and make sure to introduce themselves; in nice weather, I like to stand on the sidewalk before services, to welcome everyone who comes, and to greet passers-by as well. But we could do better.

A couple of months ago, I met a visiting priest, who responded to the email I send to everyone who signs our guestbook with a description of his experience. No one welcomed him. At the peace, he received perfunctory handshakes from those around him, and after the service, I was the only person who greeted him and asked him his name. How many others have had similar experiences? How many people have come to Grace, looking to connect not only with God but with other people, and went home disappointed?

“I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Do you know that person who is sitting in the pew in front of you? Have you seen them before? Have you seen them dozens of times and still don’t know their name? Introduce yourself. Invite them to coffee hour. Welcome them.

Welcoming newcomers is one of the things we focused on in our Vestry retreat this past Saturday and we agreed that it will be one of the areas that will receive attention at Grace in the coming year. How can we be more welcoming as a congregation? How can our physical space be made more welcoming? How can we help newcomers become active in the life of our congregation and active in our ministries? We will explore these questions and others. We hope you will share your ideas with us and learn with us how to make Grace a truly welcoming congregation.

Someone asked me after service yesterday if I had ever preached on the text from I Corinthians that was read yesterday (last week’s readings). In fact, three years ago, my sermon focused on the urgency of the good news as evidenced in both the gospel and in I Corinthians 7. But my questioner wasn’t interested in that part of the sentence: “The appointed time has grown short”–he was interested in the second part of that sentence, “let even those who have wives be as though they had none…”

No, I’ve never preached on that particular text, but in fact this whole passage is strong evidence for the difficulty of applying what Paul has to say about the Christian life–ethics and morality–to the lives of twenty-first century Christians. He assumes that the parousia, Jesus’ return, is imminent. It might happen any day now. That fact changed everything for him. Earlier in chapter 7, Paul says some things that are quite difficult for us to hear, about slavery and marriage, but all of it should be read in light of the imminent second coming. Because Jesus is coming back soon, nothing else really matters, and there’s no reason to make big changes in one’s life, like getting married. Now, few of us believe that Jesus is coming back soon, so we should probably not take what Paul has to say about slavery or marriage in this passage very seriously.

On the other hand, there are certain principles that can guide one’s ethical decision-making in light of Paul. And in this week’s reading from I Corinthians 8, we see one of those principles in action. In a way, it’s helpful that he is discussing an issue that is far from our ordinary experience–eating food that’s been offered to idols.

The issue here is that it was customary for meat left over from pagan sacrifices to be used for celebratory meals, and for most people in the Hellenistic world, such meals, sponsored by wealthy patrons, might be their only regular access to meat. The question the Corinthians had asked Paul was whether, given their new faith in Jesus Christ, and the assurance that their was only one God (and thus the pagan sacrifices were of no avail and meaningless), they could continue to participate in those feasts. It had caused division, because some of those in the Corinthian community were not quite sure whether pagan gods existed and had power, and perceived participation in such meals as evil.

Paul’s answer is instructive: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” It’s quite clear from reading I Corinthians that one of the central problems in this community is the issue of how far one can take the “freedom in Christ” that is gained through faith and baptism. Free from law, ie, Jewish Torah? Paul agrees. Free from laws (ie, civil or natural law)? Paul’s not so sure. And what about one’s responsibility to the community, the body of Christ? “Take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (I Cor. 8:9). So Paul concludes this discussion by saying, “Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall” (I Cor. 8:13).

This seems pretty straightforward. One’s own actions and freedom should be tempered by concern for the tender consciences of others. Indeed, this argument is used in contemporary conflicts to argue against certain changes. It can easily become a block to the ongoing discernment of God’s will, but I think there’s some validity in paying close attention to it. What builds up the body of Christ? What undermines it? How do we go about discerning how we should live as individuals and as congregations in the twenty-first century? One clear answer to that from a Pauline, indeed a Christian perspective, is that we are not isolated moral agents, individuals who can decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. Ultimately, if we claim allegiance to Jesus Christ, such decisions must be made in light of their impact on those with whom we share Eucharistic fellowship.

We’re three weeks, four Sundays into a new year, and things are finally settling down. Winter has finally arrived, for better or worse, and now that the Packers have lost, we don’t need to be focusing our attention quite so closely on the NFL playoffs as we did, for example last year. We can begin to go about the business of the routine of the winter and of the Season of Epiphany.

One element of that routine, at least for those of us in Grace’s leadership, is to gather for a day or a day and half in a vestry retreat. We met yesterday—for those of who don’t speak Episcopalian, the vestry is the lay governing body of an Episcopal parish, equivalent to the church council or board of elders in other congregations. We did what we usually do at such meetings. We got to know each other—there are three new members, and with the departure of three people from the vestry and wardens we needed some time to begin to come together as a group, to learn how to work together.

We also did routine matters, like passing the budget for 2012. But most of our time was spent thinking about who we are as a parish and who God is calling us to be in this place. These are important questions that get at the heart of our mission and ministry. They are questions churches, organizations, even businesses ask of themselves in slightly different ways, and using different terminology.

I was struck by this fact a few weeks ago while reading online an essay entitled “Why should there be an Episcopal Church?” The author was asking the question about the national church, asking it in part because of long-term trends that point toward decline, and some uncertainty about whether the Episcopal Church has long-term future viability. It’s a question we should ask of ourselves: “Why should there be an Episcopal Church in this place—on Madison’s Capitol Square?” On one level, perhaps, the answer to that question is obvious. Well there’s always been one. But that’s not enough anymore. Why should there be a Grace Church now or ten years from now, or even a hundred years from now? What’s the point? What’s the reason for our existence?

Wrestling with that question means wrestling with the question: What is God’s call for us? And that question brings us to today’s lessons. The gospel story is another version of Jesus’ calling the disciples. Last week, we heard the Gospel of John’s take. This week, we’re back to Mark, and there are important differences that we might note. But instead of the Gospel, let’s talk about Jonah.

If you read my blog—and for those of you who don’t—it’s a place on-line where I comment on all kinds of things: everything from homelessness, to developments in Anglicanism, to trends in contemporary culture and religion. But each week, I try to begin the week with some comment about the coming Sunday’s lectionary texts. In any case, this week, I expressed my annoyance that over the three-year lectionary cycle, we only read twice from the Book of Jonah. What annoys me about this fact is that the story of Jonah is one of the most familiar stories in all of scripture. Frankly, it’s one of the best stories in scripture. So let’s start there.

What do you know about Jonah? Right, he was swallowed up by a whale. Why? Because God called him to go prophesy against the wickedness of the city of Nineveh. Instead of heeding that call, he took ship in the opposite direction. A storm came up and the sailors threw Jonah overboard to appease the wrath of God. This part of the story everyone knows well. He was swallowed up by a big fish and stayed in its stomach for three days. From the belly of the whale, Jonah prayed to God for deliverance, and after three days, he was spewed up on dry land.

God called Jonah a second time to go prophesy against the city of Nineveh, and this time he went. He prophesied its destruction, and miraculously, the people repented. When God saw their repentance, God changed God’s mind and relented. But this angered Jonah, who went out of the city and sulked.

This story presents the modern reader with many problems, the first being the impossibility of a whale, or a big fish swallowing a man whole, the man surviving for three days inside it, and then being spewed out. Then there’s Jonah’s prophetic activity itself. The text says that Nineveh was a large city; it was a three-day’s walk from one end to the other, and that when Jonah arrived, he walked a day into it, and there preached his message of doom and destruction. That’s all it took. One lone voice, and that of a foreigner, and the whole city, man and beast, put on sackcloth and ashes, and repent of their wickedness. It could happen, I suppose.

And if you were Jonah, how would you respond to this development? One would think he would be pleased with himself, proud of the effects of his preaching. But no. He complains to God, saying that the reason he didn’t want to go in the first place was because he knew this would happen. He knew God was a gracious God, full of mercy, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent. In other words, if Jonah was going to prophesy doom and destruction, he wanted to see it happen.

So what should we make of all this? A prophet who doesn’t want to be a prophet, certainly doesn’t want to be a successful prophet and resists his call. On that level, we can understand the story all to well. We can imagine resisting the tug of duty and responsibility, turning away from what we know we ought to do. We can even imagine, most of us, sensing God calling us in a certain direction, calling us to deeper commitment, to a richer spiritual life, and turning away.

That’s all easy to imagine, and in that sense, Jonah represents us, everyman. But there’s more to the story than just Jonah. Besides Jonah and God, there’s another actor, or set of actors in the story, and that is Nineveh itself. Now, Nineveh was the heart of the Assyrian empire, one of the great empires of the ancient near east, and one of the most brutal. It was Assyria that destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8^th century bce. Nineveh was the evil empire. Its power dwarfed all of its neighbors, including the kingdom of Judah. That makes Jonah’s resistance to God’s call all the more understandable, even if that’s not the excuse Jonah gave himself.

In the end, the book of Jonah is not primarily about Jonah. It is about God. It is a story of God’s love, mercy, steadfast love. It is about proclaiming not just God’s displeasure and threatening destruction, it is about knowing who God is, and proclaiming that message of love, mercy, and steadfast love.

And that’s the message for us as well. Like Jonah, that is what God is calling us to, as individuals and as a congregation. The God who is calling us is not a God of wrath and destruction, no matter how much some Christians in our culture would have us and everyone else believe it. The God who calls us is unimaginable in the extent of the love, mercy, and patience God has. It is that God we have experienced ourselves in the forgiveness of our sins. It is that God we are called to share with a world that knows hate and fear and violence. It is that message, a message we know for ourselves, that we need to bring to those around us. That is our mission, that is our call. Let’s go out and do it!

Reflecting on this weird mix, Michael Kazin posits “The End of the Christian Right.” His argument is this: 1) They’ve lost the culture wars–support for gay marriage now tops 50%; 2) They lack the leadership of earlier generations (there’s no Jerry Falwell among the current crop); 3) most importantly, they are losing the demographic battle. Of course, he makes this argument while acknowledging the continuing potency of conservative Christians in the Republican primary fights.

Kazin has received some pushback. Ed Kilgore disagrees.

But if they haven’t been able to pull their muscle behind a single candidate, that’s not a sign that they are on the wane—it’s a sign that, as far as the Republican Party is concerned, they have already won.

Look at the potential nominees: Unlike 2008, no candidate in the field is pro-choice by any definition. Only Ron Paul seems reluctant to enact a national ban on same-sex marriage. Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum. and Herman Cain have been vocal in fanning the flames of Islamophobia; again, only Paul has bothered to dissent to any significant degree.

I’ve got no particular insight on this matter. But an image I came across on a Mother Jones blogpost strikes me as very interesting:

We may yet see new realignments, with closer cooperation among conservative Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics. It’s already taking place, of course. That evangelicals might have endorsed Santorum would have been unthinkable a generation ago (and is probably as difficult for many to swallow as voting for a Mormon). But what battles in the culture wars would an army led by the Roman Catholic bishops and supported by the American Family Association and the National Association for Evangelicals win?

It’s short, rather odd and a classic example of episcopal (i.e, of bishops, not of our church) fence-sitting:

18. We would, therefore, encourage an open-ended engagement with ACNA on the part of the Church of England and the Communion, while recognising that
the outcome is unlikely to be clear for some time yet, especially given the strong feelings on all sides of the debate in North America.

19. The Church of England remains fully committed to the Anglican Communion and to being in communion both with the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church (TEC). In addition, the Synod motion has given Church of England affirmation to the desire of ACNA to remain in some sense within the Anglican family.

Just what is the ACNA? And in what way is it Anglican in structure and polity? Mark Harris goes through some of the jurisdictional quagmire that exists among the dissenting Anglican communities in North America here.

Of course the core problem is that ACNA, CANA, AMiA, ex Recife, all believe these interventions by Provinces in the jurisdiction of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are “jurisdictional participation in a way that is fully Anglican.”

Where the hell did they get that idea?  One hopes not from Lambeth Palace, but if not there where?  Who knows?

But one thing is for sure. Who ever thought that propping up deposed bishops under new flags in jurisdictions already having Episcopal / Anglican oversight was “fully Anglican” was full of it.

If ACNA bishops are not in “jurisdictional participation in a way that is fully Anglican” well, the deck of cards begins to collapse. And they are not. Archbishop Duncan admits as much when he writes, “The present reality is brokenness. The vision, however, that governs our fledgling Province remains unchanged…”

ACNA is not yet a “province” of anything, no matter that the Episcopal Church in the Sudan recognizes it as and “orthodox” partner and the GAFCON / Global South folk considers ACNA a full fledged partner.  This is because not being a recognized province these bishops and people understand that to be “fully Anglican” they need to be under the jurisdiction of an existing Province.

AMiA bishops who have left Rwanda are clearly not under jurisdiction now. ACNA bishops in Fort Worth, Quincy, San Joaquin and Pittsburgh are not with the Southern Cone. If not there where are they?

Confused? Don’t worry. You should be. It’s all quite confusing. The structures and jurisdictional relationships of these various dissenting Anglican bodies have never been clarified, and in the last few months, things have gotten even more jumbled. That the Archbishops could have written a document concerning the relationship of the CoE to ACNA without addressing ACNA’s origins, history, and current status is mind-boggling.

I’ve said before that I’m not a big supporter of grand gestures or institutions that promote ecumenism. I understand the importance of the agreements made between Episcopalians and Lutherans, for example, and for the dialogue that takes place among the traditions, but I think ecumenism is best expressed and experienced on the local level, not in an effort at merging churches, necessarily, but in cooperation, fellowship, and growing understanding of the differences as well as similarities among the traditions.

From Beliefnet, background and commentary on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Pope Benedict’s remarks today.

News from the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland offers another perspective on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It was announced today that agreement was reached between the diocese and a Baltimore parish that had voted to become Roman Catholic. Here’s Bishop Sutton’s statement. Here’s the diocesan statement about the property settlement. I find noteworthy several items:

1) That with the help of a mediator, agreement about the property was made among the various parties involved. The diocese, rightly so, will receive a monetary settlement.

2) The congregation voted to make this move, acting democratically. As Bishop Sutton points out, that’s how we do things in the Episcopal Church. By expressing their franchise, these members also voted to give up their democratic rights as the Roman Catholic Church operates according to different rules.

3) Two paragraphs from Bishop Sutton’s letter stand out:

Episcopalians and Anglicans throughout the world, along with our Eastern Orthodox sisters and brothers worldwide, see ourselves as fully part of Christ’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. We know our roots. Theologically and liturgically the Roman, Anglican and Orthodox traditions hold much more in common than there are differences. Our polities, or the way we govern ourselves, differ. We are all still seeking the Kingdom of God that Jesus told his disciples is here. Together we are members of the Body of Christ here on earth.

 

Our brothers and sisters at Mount Calvary have not “converted” to Roman Catholicism. They have chosen to walk with different friends in the same one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of which they have always been a part. Let us pray for them on their journey. Let us hope that their work in the future will continue to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to respect the dignity of every human being, and help build up the Kingdom of God here on earth.

 

It seems to me that whatever the irony of this statement being published today, what it shows is the way property disputes in the Episcopal Church ought to be settled, whether the departing congregations are becoming Roman Catholic, or are joining one of the disgruntled Anglican offshoots.

For info on how to donate to help these women who lost everything in the fire, go to http://www.porchlightinc.org

Thanks again to Steve Silverberg and LZ Ventures, Jim Stopple of Madison Property Management, and St. Francis Administrator Beth Wroblewski who have been working hard to make this happen

That being said, I realized half-way through last season that there was no evidence of religious practice in the show. Neither the upstairs nor downstairs contingent were shown attending services or practicing private devotions.

Trailers for the new season featured prayer prominently, perhaps because of the outset of war.

In spite of the absence of any Anglican presence in the series so far, it hasn’t stopped commentators for speculating on the spiritual lessons we might learn from watching it. Here’s the take from Spirituality and Practice.

Perhaps now that Tim Tebow and the Broncos were soundly defeated and we won’t have to speculate on the religious meaning of football until next July, the commentariate will find new topics to analyze, such as the religious significance of Downton Abbey. I wait with bated breath.

In the meantime, there is no dearth of political and cultural commentary on the popularity of DA on both sides of the pond. From Salon: Why liberals love Downton Abbey. From Slate: The very serious looks of Downton Abbey. Simon Schama writes in Newsweek about its cultural necrophilia. And Kathryn Hughes explores its popularity in America from a London perspective.

But still, the only praying we’ve seen so far (correct me if I’m wrong) comes from Lady Mary, whose pure motives are hardly to be trusted. My knowledge of the Church of England in the 19th and early 20th centuries extends no further than Chadwick’s 2 volumed The Victorian Church, so I’ve got little to go on, but I should think that the country aristocracy would have made a regular show of attending services. Perhaps its a sign of the decline in Christianity’s importance in 21st century England that the show’s writers didn’t feel a need to make even a nod in that direction.

But why are progressive Episcopalians as enamored of the show as everyone else?