What's Right with the Episcopal Church: Tricia's Sermon

If you missed this post last week, here is George Will's column that Tricia responds to in this week's sermon.

Proper 25A
October 26, 2008
St. Dunstan’s
The Rev. Patricia Templeton



What’s Right with the Episcopal Church

Last Sunday evening I came home feeling tired, but good after a very long day.

Discussion in Sunday School had been so lively that we only got through half of the lesson I had prepared. There was a good spirit in the air during worship. That afternoon the choir, which always sounds good, reached new heights of beauty in the service of Evensong.

After the reception following Evensong, I joined a group of young adults from the parish for drinks and dinner and animated conversation.

I got home late feeling energized by the level of vitality, enthusiasm, and dedication I had felt from so many different parts of the parish that day.

Then I sat down to read the paper, turned to the AJC’s editorial page, and saw this headline about the Episcopal Church on a column by George Will: “Progressive church engineers its own irrelevance.”

Will’s article focused on Bob Duncan, the former bishop of Pittsburgh, who was deposed, or removed from office by his fellow bishops, for “abandoning the communion of the church.”
Duncan was leading an effort to convince the clergy and people of his diocese to leave the Episcopal Church and come under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican archbishop from Brazil.

Will’s column was filled with the usual charges. The church, he said, has “become tolerant to the point of incoherence.” We’ve abandoned scripture and don’t believe in the divinity of Christ. We are too quick to embrace popular culture.

“The Episcopal Church once was America’s upper crust at prayer,” Will said. “Today it is ‘progressive’ politics cloaked – very thinly – in piety.”

There was nothing in Will’s column that I have not heard or read before. But the church he describes bears no resemblance to the Episcopal Church I know. And so today I’d like to use his column as an occasion to talk about what is right with our denomination.

My family joined the Episcopal Church, St Martin-in-the-Fields here in Atlanta, when I was about 10 years old. I’m not sure why my parents left the Methodist Church we had been attending. But I quickly came to love our new church.

When I was in college, like many young adults, I wandered away from the Church. When I came back, more than a decade later, it was to the Episcopal Church, partly because it was the denomination I had grown up in, but primarily because it was a church that allowed for questioning and searching.

I had hesitated going back to church in part because I wasn’t sure exactly what I believed. I had the mistaken, but common, notion that I had to have it all figured out before I could comfortably take my place in the pew, like there was some sort of entrance exam on faith I had to pass to get in.

But at St. Ann’s, the church in Nashville that brought me back into the fold, I discovered a whole congregation full of people who saw the life of faith as a journey. Asking questions was encouraged; no one claimed to have the definitive answers, but wrestling with the issues and discussing sometimes wildly opposing viewpoints was seen as the way to grow in faith and understanding.

There was a time when I had a poster on my office door with a picture of Jesus and these words, “He came to take away your sins, not your mind.” One of the primary strengths of the Episcopal Church is that we don’t require you to leave your brain at the door.

We believe Jesus’ words that we heard in today’s Gospel, that we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and all our souls, and all our minds. Certainly we know that there are elements of faith beyond our understanding, but we also know that God expects us to use our God-given intelligence.

Another strength of the Episcopal Church is our comfort with ambiguity. We know that the world is not black and white, and that efforts to divide it, and our faith, up that way will not sustain us for long.

That does not mean that we do not know the difference between right and wrong, or that “anything goes,” as our critics sometimes charge. It does mean that we recognize that the world is a complicated place, and there are times when there is no absolute answer or “one size fits all” solution to a question or problem.

That way of seeing the world means that you are not likely to receive a checklist of dos and don’ts in the Episcopal Church. “Ten things you must believe to be a Christian,” or “Ten things you must not do to go to heaven” are not sermon topics you are likely to hear in the Episcopal Church.

A common criticism of the Episcopal Church is that we have abandoned the Bible. It is true we do not always go with a literal interpretation of scripture. As I’ve heard someone say, “We take scripture far too seriously for that.”

Taking scripture literally has led to persecution of Jews, the defense of slavery, the subjugation of women, and the condemnation of gays and lesbians. All of these positions can be defended by passages of scripture.

But taking scripture seriously means looking at the overall message of the Bible, not isolated passages taken out of context. It means looking at the good news, or gospel tidings that are found in both testaments of scripture.

It means looking at the context in which a passage was written, and comparing it to the times in which we live. And sometimes it means proclaiming or doing things that a reading of isolated passages of scripture would condemn.

The most recent controversy in the Episcopal Church, the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in the life of the church, including ordination and the blessing of relationships, is one that has brought the charge that the church has abandoned scripture.

Yet people I know who support those changes in the life of the Church do so after much prayer and study of scripture. They do so believing that Jesus’ message of love and acceptance of those who society has cast out overrides any isolated verse of condemnation.

They do so because they believe the Holy Spirit is still at work in the Church; and because God is still able to do new things.

One might disagree with the interpretation, but the charge that Episcopalians have thrown scripture out the window is a false accusation.

George Will is critical of the Episcopal Church’s involvement in what he dismissively calls “progressive politics.” But I believe one of our strengths is that we do not isolate ourselves from the world.

We take to heart the admonition that we heard today in both our Old Testament and Gospel readings – to love our neighbors as ourselves. Indeed, we know that loving God means loving our neighbors – which means working for justice and peace, standing up for the poor, being good stewards of the environment, and speaking out against the greed and consumerism rampant in our culture.

We know that being faithful does not mean withdrawing from the world, but instead means working to help make the kingdom of God a reality here and now.

Finally, another strength of our church is that we do not insist that we have all the answers, and are the only path to salvation.

For most of us here today Jesus is indeed the way, the truth, and the life. In Jesus we see both the embodiment of God and what it means to live a human life fully attuned to God’s presence and will. For us, Jesus is our way to salvation.

But most Episcopalians I know also respect people of other faiths, and believe that they, too, are on paths that can lead to God.

Most of us believe that God is bigger than any one denomination or faith; that the God who created all humans in the divine image, who created the diversity of peoples and languages and cultures, has also created different and diverse paths to the divine.

Of course, we have our weaknesses, as do all human institutions.

The leadership of our church, particularly our bishops and clergy, have not done enough to educate and help people articulate the nuances of our faith. Too many times I’ve heard Episcopalians say, “I just don’t know what to say,” when our more fundamentalist neighbors or friends criticize our denomination.

Too often our so-called leaders have simply failed to lead. In the aftermath of the ordination of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, I heard too many clergy say, “I knew this was going to happen, but I just didn’t want to bring it up in my congregation. I didn’t want people getting angry or upset.”

Clergy who are too afraid to even discuss controversial or difficult topics probably shouldn’t be leading congregations.

But not all the onus is on clergy. People who want to be able to articulate their faith need to regularly be part of a community where those discussions take place.

The only time I feel a little bit envious of Baptists is when I drive past the full parking lots in the Baptist Church on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings, even in the summer.

I respect the priority that church attendance is in the life of those congregations, and like most Episcopal clergy I know, wish that it were of equal importance in the lives of more of our members.

We’ve talked a lot at St. Dunstan’s about the need for growth. What we have been more reluctant to talk about publicly is the need for those who are members here to be more active in the life of the church, to be present.

If all the children on our rolls came to Sunday School, our classes would be full. If all our members regularly attended worship, the rafters would ring.

St. Dunstan’s, and indeed, the Episcopal Church, are not alone in this challenge. Last spring, I attended a conference with clergy from several denominations across the country. Our styles of worship and theology were different, but one lament spread across geographical and denominational bounds – how to get people to church on Sundays.

One Episcopal priest from Atlanta confessed the despair she felt when she was told by several parishioners they wouldn’t be at church on Easter Sunday because their children were playing in a soccer tournament that morning.

We as the church have been too reluctant to say what the soccer coaches have no problem saying – we need you. When you’re not here we miss you. We are less than we could be without you.

Despite what George Will says, we have a vibrant, vital denomination that offers a perspective on Christianity that the world needs to hear, a message that is particularly relevant for our time.
Just before worship started this morning, Sallie Smith shared a poem with me that I believe sums up the Episcopal Church at its best.

“You drew a circle that shut me out,
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took you in.”

Let’s not be reluctant to share our circle of love with the world around us.

Amen.