Lambeth Reflections and Prayers

Our presiding bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori, has asked all the congregations in the Episcopal Church to pray for the Lambeth Conference (L.C.), which will be taking place this July in England. I have asked Kristin to include the prayers we have been asked to pray in our liturgies this Sunday and I have asked her to write a short article about the background and purpose of this conference. Most often the L.C. doesn’t really get on the radar screen with most Episcopalians. Most often it happens and few things are reported. Undoubtedly, the atmosphere around this year’s L.C. (they transpire every ten years) will not be so quiet. Undoubtedly, many folks will be anxious to hear what is discussed, what reports are written, what is decided.

I think that the biggest issue that will be on the table at the conference will be how we can stay together as the Anglican Communion, which currently numbers about 80 million members and which many people now feel—fear—is close to schism because of our ongoing bitter dispute about homosexuality, and most particularly about whether or not we ordain homosexuals and bless their relationships. This long simmering conversation came to a controversial head when our General Convention in 2003 gave its consent to Gene Robison, the bishop-elect in New Hampshire, to be the first openly gay and domestically partnered bishop in the Anglican Communion. This decision—which was by approximately a 60/40 split—led a number of American churches to break with the Episcopal Church and to seek what is called “alternative episcopal oversight” from bishops in Uganda, Nigeria, and elsewhere in the Global South.

I am not going to try to guess about what is going to happen at this conference. We will, though, inform you about what happens and what could be the possible implications for our common life. I have asked Mark Crawford to do a Sunday morning program for us when the conference is over in August.

If you are interested in reading at least one person’s take on the L.C., I would invite you to look at article by Garret Keizer, titled, “Turning Away From Jesus—Gay Rights and the War for the Episcopal Church,” which is in the latest Harper’s magazine. The title enough got my attention when I was recently at the airport looking for something to read, but so did the author. I knew Garrett through some mutual friends in the Northeast from years ago. He used to serve as an Episcopal priest in Vermont.

Just as I am not going to guess about what might happen at Lambeth this summer, I am also not going to try to summarize Garrett’s long and dense and informative piece, except that—if I understand him correctly—it seems to me that he is saying that in all of our worries and concerns and papers and statements about what to do in our church we may be turning away from Jesus. He starts his article by quoting from the end of John’s gospel: “Do you love me?” You will remember that Jesus asked Peter this question after Peter had denied him three times. Three times Jesus asks this question. Three times Peter says that he does love Jesus. And three times Jesus tells Peter to feed the sheep.

I recently had a meeting with one of the bishops of the Global South. He was here in town meeting folks, trying to get a wide understanding of the Episcopal Church, and perhaps he was also making some new friends and trying to gather some support, financial and spiritual, for his work there. I met with him—and I know that this may surprise some of you—because it has been my hope and prayer to maintain as many friendships as I can “across the aisle” on all the issues. I was very moved by his faith, his piety, his zeal for the gospel, his concern for his diocese and the greater church, for his leadership abilities. The longer we talked, however, the more I began to detect a difference in our visions for the church. Whereas I could tell that he wanted a “holy” church I want a “whole” church. I am not saying that he doesn’t want a whole church, and I am not saying that I don’t want a holy church. But there is a difference. Ideally, of course, we could combine both into a sacred synergy, but when it comes down to our day-by-day life, and if I need to give some ground for one or the other, I will, again, choose a whole church. As much as I acknowledge that we do need to be holy, I do not want us to be a “holier-than-thou” church. As much as I think we ought not just to blend into the rest of the culture, that we need to be salt for the world and light for our society, I have some anxiety about churches that overly stress the holiness piece because they tend to become puritanical and judgmental and before you know it there is no room for regular folks, for sinners, for the sick and lost and needy and broken; which, when you think about it and get honest about it, includes us all. Places that stress holiness tend to lose wholeness, tend to get stingy on mercy, tend to draw lines in the sand, tend to put restrictions about who can come, who can receive the sacraments, who can join. Places that stress holiness tend to like neat and tidy definitions about who the saints are and who the sinners are, but my experience of my life and my experience of being a pastor for 25 years has shown me that we are all a combination of both.

Although I said I will not give any predictions about what will happen at this summer’s Lambeth Conference, I will share a dream about what could happen. I would dream, hope, and pray that the Archbishop would just junk the agenda of all those who are driven that this conference yield some definitive statements about how we are going to deal any and all of the urgent issues. I would hope that he would lock up all this newsprint, stifle all the positions papers, close all the computers, and send the media packing. Once all that was done, I would hope that he would invite every bishop there to fast and pray and be quiet. And then I would hope that he would invite all of them into small groups where they could pray together, share their stories and joys and struggles and sins with each other, where they could affirm and proclaim and then cry out that we are all—all—of us sinners saved by the grace of God through Jesus. And then, have communion. Communion with God. Communion with each other. Communion with their deepest and best and most holy and unholy, their most whole and unwhole, selves. And then I would pray that they would come back to all the rest of us and say that they didn’t get the “issue” (whatever the issue might be) fixed and decided upon, but that they did have a Pentecost moment, a repentance moment, a vision moment, and that now, today, this fall, they are committed to doing all that they can to lead and guide and motivate us into being the kind of church for all of God’s children where love and mercy and grace and peace can be so manifest, so infectious, that we can, with God’s help, change this world once more. I want them to proclaim that the Acts of the Apostles has never ended, that we have started again, and that mission will be our foundation and goal and cornerstone and future. That is my hope. And my prayer.