The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe , Bishop of Iowa
2010 Newsletter Articles:
Other Years:
With great sadness I inform you of the death of the Rt. Rev. Dr John Mantle, who retired from the office of Bishop of Brechin on 16 October. John died at home in Peterborough on Monday 29 November. He was 64. His funeral requiem will be at the Church of St. Kyneburgha Castor, their family church, near Peterborough at 11am on Tuesday 14th December, followed by committal at Peterborough Crematorium at 12.30 the same day. A memorial service in the Diocese of Brechin is being planned for the New Year, which I anticipate attending on your behalf while in the United Kingdom.
The Most Rev David Chillingworth, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld & Dunblane and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church says: “The community of the Scottish Episcopal Church has been deeply saddened to learn of the death of Bishop John Mantle. John was a child of the Scottish Episcopal Church and he returned to his native Dundee as Bishop of Brechin to share his faith, his passion for ministry and his experience with clergy and people. It is just a few short weeks since we celebrated that ministry at his Farewell Eucharist. John laid the foundation upon which others will build and we give thanks for the ministry which he so faithfully carried out among us.”
On the occasion of that farewell I sent a letter to John on behalf of the Diocese in which amidst remembrances of our time together crossing the western United States, I also wrote (in thinking of John): “it is the vision you shared for a Church that needs to live the gospel beyond its walls that sticks uppermost in my heart and mind. Whether you were creating opportunities for reluctant English bishops to get their hands dirty in their continuing education, or were introducing us to the heroes of the faith who lived their priestly call as workers and not only among workers in industrial places, there seems to me to be a pattern in all of this that speaks of taking the gospel incredibly seriously while learning to hold ourselves with our titles and privileges a little less seriously”.
Our companionship together with the Dioceses of Brechin and Swaziland is created as much for mutual support in times such as these, as well as the other aspects that we normally associate with Diocesan companionships. Before John’s illness he and I were actively engaged in conversation about shared ministry endeavors which could further our companionship and there will be a time in the future to renew these efforts. Now however we take pause to give thanks to God for the life of His servant and that eternal hope which we share with him in Christ. As the proper preface for the commemoration of the dead in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer reminds us “For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed not ended”.
I was able to talk with his wife Gillian by phone and to express to her our sorrow and prayers, as well as our love and appreciation of their time with us in particular. Please with me, hold Gill and their children Anna and Tim in your prayers.
“Rest eternal grant to John, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him.”
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| Ready to run for clean water |
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| Runner's view of First Avenue |
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| Miile 18 |
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| Mile 23 |
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Finish!
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With the notes from the young people given to me at Convention in my pack, I set off to the sound of Sinatra's "New York, New York" blasting from the hyped up speakers. By now I had pushed the issue of "what am I doing?" to the back of my mind and set off. There was no turning back. In fact I couldn't if I wanted to with thousands of people in front of me and as many again behind. So we set off over the Verrazano Bridge into Brooklyn. The crowds were incredible in their support all the way along.
Glad to say that the Episcopal shield was not a strange symbol to everyone along the route, but if you had your name on the front of your shirt, you were assured of personal encouragement the whole way. A chicken on your head also had the same effect.
Through Brooklyn we were as boisterous as the crowd, yelling as we came under bridges, and glad-handing the occasional bystander. Sometimes I would hear "go clean water." A few coming by would invite my prayers, or acknowledge their Episcopal identity. It was fun and a steady pace moving deeper into the race and offering the hope that I might get into Manhattan in relatively decent shape. Suddenly we reached a sharp bridge into Queens and then into the lower layer of the long Queensboro Bridge. Everyone fell silent for 10-15 minutes. We were all trying to hold it together.
Sweeping onto First Avenue, Manhattan was everything it was hyped to be - a jubilant contrast to the awareness of the suffering revealed on the Bridge. I got a bit carried away - taking a couple of photos and then alongside ran a woman from Newton, a friend of Dean Bascom! What are the odds? In my photo mood I had Kim take a picture, and then never saw her again as she whisked off ahead into the constant sea of runners, which stretched the full four miles of First Avenue before us. Donna met us at 18 mile mark and we were still in good shape. It was the Bronx and entry in Harlem that suddenly changed the picture. Cramps where you didn't know you had muscles to cramp. Mind was clear, breathing easy, but all that connecting tissue which does its job without intrusion, suddenly decided to make itself known. But we knew we were far enough into the race to know the finish would come.
Good times can suddenly evaporate in a marathon, and you reach a point where you resign to the limits of your training. I could feel myself turning inwards, and forced myself to look up as Donna was due for a second sighting. There she was at 23 miles, and after a quick greeting and telling photo op, we set off to the finish. Three miles can seem an awful long time, and Central Park reserves some hills just to mock you. Even the final quarter mile is a incline! Nevertheless I began my long "sprint home", what I call the little old man, back on his heels sprint! It's all about perception! I beat my goal time by ten minutes and was glad that we finished with semblence of respect, at least to myself. I was glad Kim decided to run it all the way with me. It made better sense of our t-shirts which announced "Bishop of Iowa" and "Daughter of the Bishop of Iowa"!
Now of course, I am waiting your turn- to help ease the pain with your giving. Thank you to everyone who has given for the cause, and to those of you still collecting pledges or waiting to see if I really did it! One remarkable effect of a marathon is the respect you pay even to a sidewalk curb as you trudge home. As I found with the much longer run/walk from Davenport to Des Moines - God really does use these moments to sharpen attention. It truly is an experience where strangers create a common bond both within and outside the route barriers, and that was probably no greater in evidence with the sharing of the run with one of the Chilean miners who trained underground during his ordeal. The unifying nature was also displayed in the sign that said "You are all Kenyans to us!" If only we could carry this spirit into all that we do as a global civilization. Then we may be able to touch the hope within "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done".
Thank you for your prayers and support. Thank you for the wonderful Convention that has just ended. And thank you for your ongoing generosity.
+ Alan
Video of NYC Marathon for Clean Water
Each year, as Convention comes around, I look at the numbers you present in your Parochial reports. The figures I pay attention to are those related to Sunday average attendance, baptisms and confirmations or receptions in a given year, Easter Sunday attendance, which often gives a picture of potential for those numbers, tends to come close to total communicants, and financial health as shown by average pledge per week. The total number of enrolled members has always lagged behind reality depending on the energy of clergy to obtain a membership that represents the recent present. We all know that two in three people on Episcopal rolls never show up at church unless of course you have just happened to have culled the list the year before! The three values of vitality, visibility and viability are not really captured in the Parochial Report. I do know however that God’s impact through any particular group of the baptized in a given place always far exceeds anything we can know or report.
The apparent irrelevance, however, of the totals on baptized persons, or even communicants, for understanding our life as Church points to a huge weakness in our faith system. We are poor at keeping track of one another. This is so at the very place where we might hope greater commitment is being expressed, namely at Confirmation.
The other day I sat with a good sized group of people about to be confirmed. Most were juniors or seniors in High School and had grown up in their local church. They were the fruit of a faithful focus on young people by that parish for a number of years. A number of them were active in the Diocesan youth program. But what is next for them? Where will their leadership potential be tapped and put into service?
At this upcoming Convention the three fundamental strands of our Strategic Plan will come together. We need to ask in what ways have we opened the way for the next generations of faith to be significant parts of strengthening our congregations and our faith mission, and how grounded has their formation been in expressing and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we Episcopalians receive it, understand it and live it? What profound spiritual life and mission will flow from people who have newly come to terms with their baptismal vows? How will the community encourage it, or resist it? Who will make room for God’s new beloved at a more mature level of impact?
In one small action to this end, I am creating a Facebook page for those confirmed over the past few years as one way of seeking to keep track of them. That involves a commitment from me to learn how to communicate meaningfully through this particular medium. On its part, last year, Convention called for the formation of a Commission on Lifelong Learning, which is a call to become more intentional in our following of Christ. That group is now in place and will be presented at this year’s Convention. I look forward to their pulling together best and better practices in growing communities of lovers and servants of God.
Above all, encouragement, encouragement, encouragement needs to be our bottom line. We need to feed one another with an enthusiasm for a personally and communally transformed life which by its very nature reflects the One who creates and restores it. God often works such wonders one person at a time, picking the opportunity offered as it comes. But then says “as I treat you, so treat one another. Build each other up in love”. And the measured outcome God gives us is this: “that your joy may be full”. I would like to see how to plot that on a Parochial Report, but above all I prefer to experience it together as we gather in Convention and at all other times. Then we know we are heading in the right direction.
I ask that you help pull together the contact information for those confirmed since 2003. Lydia (lbucklin@iowaepiscopal.org) and Margaret (mweiner@iowaepiscopal.org) are heading up this activity and would be glad to receive whatever information you might have.
+ Alan
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are a people who are called to hate those who are most beloved of us--our family, friends and even our own lives--and to love those who hate us (compare last Sunday’s Gospel reading in Luke 14: 25-35 and Matthew 5:43-48).
The shock of this comparison is lessened slightly by the understanding that the word hate as used by Jesus is not infused with the emotion of anger, contempt and vengeance with which we normally associate it. Rather, Jesus is calling us to that distancing with anyone close to us who would hinder our following of Him, including our innate self protection and instinct for survival.
The contrasting statement in Matthew however is equally staggering. Here we are commanded to love – walk towards, embrace, give your self to – the very ones who disassociate themselves from you. He adds of course, to pray for those who despitefully use you and to bless those who curse you. All of this is offered in contrast to the ancient norms of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
In this Christianity stands apart. The symbol we offer the world is a cross. That we have conquered in this sign and have been able, over history, to turn it back into an instrument of execution of those who do not believe as we do is to our great shame as a faith. Yet always in every generation there has been a St Francis--mostly unknown or unheralded, known to God alone--who have been able to pray, “Lord, make us instruments of your peace…it is in giving we receive, in pardoning that we are pardoned, and in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
I appreciate the tenets of the U.S. Constitution that offers freedom of religious practice to everyone without any one faith dominant. Also, I share the strong emotions people feel about the expressions of intolerance that the idea of building the Islamic Center in New York by Ground Zero has generated. I stand with those who call for us not to be silent about the huge potential error of Pastor Jones and his intent to mark September 11 with an act of violence against a people’s sacred text. If he goes ahead, we know that his actions will never be forgiven even as we have to say about him and those whose hatred of us all he will only further inflame, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
To those on the other side of this religious division in Iran, I join the global appeal to human decency in protesting the potential stoning of a young woman for adultery, whose life and death situation seems at this point to have become more of consequence of deadly international posturing than anything else.
Yet it is the very heart of our Christian faith that cries halt to this madness. It is our very belief in the self disclosure of God in Jesus Christ offering Himself upon the cross that proclaims to us another way. And it is where every faith tradition can meet--at that point of self denial where God’s oneness, the oneness with which God sees the whole human race as human family, is both revealed and is found. For it is to that journey of the cross, the journey of self emptying, service, and becoming obedient unto death on which He calls us to “Follow me.” This is the way He points to when He says, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me.”
The cross challenges the very premises of our social arrangements. It has everything to say about warring nations. On September 4, we celebrated the feast day of Paul Jones, first Bishop of Utah who after a short time as bishop was forced to resign because he called war “unchristian” as the United States entered World War I. Few bishops have allowed that to happen to them since, including this one. Nor do we let the cross have much say in our economic policies or welfare priorities as a people or as a church. We don’t move the poor to the front of the line, and yet as natural disasters increase (and it seems they will) we may have no choice until it is “us” in that line. We have difficulty allowing the cross to rule our behavior to one another, especially in disputes. The increasing polarization of politics, including Church politics, is well documented. We are anxious and fearful of things getting out of our control and so we lash out and find less room for decency. In contrast Jesus spoke about throwing parties for those who could not repay you, and that it was always easy to love your friends, those who love you.
No people want to hear this. We still want a sign in which we can conquer, not a sign in which we can love and give ourselves away. Yet this is our way out of this present crucible of inflamed passions and conflicts. Still insist on winning the religious argument? How low can we go, not in moral terms but in terms of humble service? How many times will you offer the other cheek? How many times will you forgive, seventy times seven? No we don’t stone, nor do we burn. We serve.
“For God so loved the world that He GAVE HIS ONLY SON....” What more can we who believe in Him offer? “Unless you take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” There are no book burnings in this invitation, though we have all done our fair share in our time. Just as there is also a lot of other things we have done in His name in our time that needs to be put behind us. It is not just the principles of the U.S. Constitution at stake, finely crafted and hard fought for as they are. It is the heart of our faith that dictates how we should live. Christians at least should declare 9/11 our national “love your enemy day,” the day we forgive as we have been forgiven! Would there be resurrection for any people who embrace such a thing? Absolutely, for God is always ready to turn once more what we keep making into an instrument of death into a way of reconciliation and life.
+ Alan
As a postscript: I want to direct you to the recent newsletter of the Ecumenical and Interreligious Officer, Tom Ferguson. He deals extensively with resources which are helpful in further framing our discussion about the Islamic Center being proposed for New York City and other issues.
http://officeofecumenicalandinterfaithrelations.createsend.com/T/ViewEmail/r/22F9B7C82EA60797
With the World Cup upon us, I thought of this meditation and prayer from
Prayers by Michel Quoist.
+Alan
Meditation: Human beings would often rather be elsewhere, both in time and in space, than where they are, but this is a dangerous illusion. Each one is placed in the world in accordance with the Father’s will for him or her. To make a success of one’s life, and to help humanity to progress, one must take part in that life as fully as possible. That life is the work of the divine.
Scripture: Ephesians 4: 11,16
Prayer:
This evening at the stadium the night was stirring, peopled with ten thousand shadows.
And when the projectors had painted green the velvet of the great field,
The night intoned a choral, filled by ten thousand voices.
For the master of ceremonies had given the signal to begin the service.
The impressive liturgy moved forward smoothly.
The ball flew from celebrant to celebrant,
As if everything had been minutely planned in advance.
It passed from hand to hand, slipped along the field, and flew away overhead.
Each was at his post, taking the ball in turn, passing it to the next one who was there to catch and pass again.
And because he put forth the effort required,
Because he knew he needed all the others,
Slowly but surely the ball gained ground
And made the final goal!
After the game, as the crowd flowed laboriously into the narrow streets,
I reflected, Lord, that human history, for us a long time, is for you this great liturgy,
A prodigious ceremony initiated at the dawning of time, which will end only when the last celebrant has completed their final rite.
In this world, Lord, we each have our place.
You, the far sighted coach, have planned it for us.
You need us here, our brothers and sisters need us, and we need everyone.
It isn’t the position I hold that is important, Lord,
But the reality and strength of my presence.
What difference whether I am a forward or a back, as long as I am fully what I should be?
Here, Lord, is my day before me…
Did I sit too much on the sidelines, criticizing the play of others, my hands in my pockets?
Did I play my part well?
And when you were watching our side, did you see me there?
Did I catch my team-mate’s pass and that of the player at the end of the field?
Did I cooperate with my team without seeking the limelight?
Did I play the game to win, and that each one should have a part in it?
Did I battle to the end in spite of setbacks, blows, and bruises?
Was I troubled by the boos of the crowd, the muttering of the team, discouraged by their lack of understanding and their criticism?
Made proud by their applause?
Did I think of praying my part, remembering that in the eyes of God this human game is the most religious of ceremonies?
I come in now to rest in the locker room, Lord.
Tomorrow, if you kick off, I’ll play a new quarter,
And so each day
Grant that this game, played with all my brothers and sisters, may be the imposing liturgy that you expect of us,
So that when your last whistle interrupts our lives, we shall be chosen for the prize of heaven.
(Used by permission of the Publisher)
I am grateful for the enthusiasm which has been created by the
Bicycles for Nzara appeal which I have asked to be held as a free will offering in every congregation this Trinity Sunday or the following Sunday. Some creative minds have already been at work.
St John’s, Mason City is holding a 5K bike ride in support, along with their annual
Bike Blessings service.
Trinity Cathedral, Davenport reports that they have already raised sufficient funds for 6 bikes.
Mitch Smith of Trinity, Waterloo, a very serious cyclist and the founder of
Waters of Hope, reminds us of the gift but also the perils of cycling in our fast paced culture, and has provided us with a litany for bicyclists which I would like to share with you. (
View/download .pdf version of this litany)
Present in a world groaning under the excesses of consumption, we acknowledge the inherent goodness of non-motorized human powered transportation and give thanks for the simple beauty of the bicycle.
God of life, Hear our prayer.
Present in a community filled with children, we pray for those learning to ride. Keep them smart, safe, and visible on their neighborhood roads.
God of life, Hear our prayer.
Present in a community filled with strife, we pray for the victims of road rage and bike theft. And we ask for the strength to forgive mean people.
God of life, Hear our prayer.
Present in a world of work, we pray for those who build, repair, and clean our bikes and those who rely on bicycles to earn their living. Bless those who choose to not drive to work and those for whom driving isn’t even an option.
God of life, Hear our prayer.
Present in a community of beautiful diversity, we ask your protection and blessing on all who ride: pedi-cabbies, weekend warriors, athletes, homeless folks, students, children, eco-warriors, bike co-op anarchists, messengers, and all the others who take to the streets, bike paths, parks, and mountains. Keep us safe as we ride.
God of life, Hear our prayer.
We now observe a moment of silence for all who have died while riding …
God of life, Hear our prayer.
AMEN
Thirty years to the day, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, visited the Diocese of Iowa. Marking the occasion gives pause to think about relationships with the Communion as they are today. We seem to have moved away from the double tier image of an earlier message by Archbishop Williams, which was wrongly interpreted to mean that there might be first class and second class citizens within the Communion. In a more recent Synodal Presidential address the Archbishop spoke of a three dimensional model. It was an effort to broaden the picture and allow room for Provinces to coexist within a structure while working out or seeking to live in some proximity with very different attitudes to sexual ethics, scriptural interpretation, what constitutes core doctrine and a unitive concept of the Church.
I remain convinced that this Archbishop has in his theological reflections the imagination which can lead us forward, if we are willing to do so. Much of it is to do with how we learn to listen and observe one another even as we disagree. A key is to do so while each of us are captured looking in devotion and love to Christ. In a new book of papers retelling the Lambeth experience of 2008, Christ and Culture: Communion after Lambeth, we are reminded of his various efforts through the retreat meditations and the Presidential addresses to speak to the best part of us all where generosity in listening and receiving resides. I have noted elsewhere that we did not do very well in picking up on this invitation.
A two dimensional model of anything tends to present things in opposing lines. Its limitation for handling things in our contemporary context is becoming increasingly clear. Yesterday the British elections, though it still saw the two major parties taking up the majority of seats, nevertheless failed to see either party acquire a majority to govern, Suddenly the third party, Liberal Democrats, have a key role to play. Our own U.S. governing capacity is straining at the inability to provide bipartisan movement on things of vital importance to every one of us. Our imaginations are being tested in the process. Nobody seems to “know their place” in the scheme of things, including nature.
Referring to a very different example and situation than the Church in Council, Rowan Williams offers a meditation on an icon of the Madonna and child called “The Hodegetria”. In Ponder These Things: praying with Icons of the Virgin, he writes: “As I look at this icon, then, there is a double challenge. Can I acknowledge all those things that remind me how I fail to be in charge of my world, despite all my efforts? And can I love the love that sees yet survives such failure? If I can then this icon may become an image of myself as I am in Christ. (He is referring to the movement within the icon in which the eyes of Jesus are fixed on Mary while Mary looks at us as she points with her hand to Jesus. Both Mary’s imperfections and ours require us to point to Jesus, and yet Jesus in his love gazes on her and thus on us despite our failures. We in turn are invited to be pointing everyone to look at Christ, and so the cycle or circle continues).
He adds, “It is not that I become a sort of abstract sign pointing to him, a wooden post in the landscape marked “This way to Jesus”. The love of a love that does not depend on success and control draws the eye back to a particular human face that can now speak of God simply by being what it is, with all its peculiarities. If the love that affirms and transfigures me has no need of my anxious performance, I have no need to hide my face. If God is not ashamed to be my God, I need not be ashamed to show my face. Thus Mary’s eyes look out at me directly inviting me likewise to show my face to others.”
This is listening to the Archbishop as he lovingly contemplates Jesus and His mother. I see in his depiction the outline of the three dimensional Church. It probably is not what the Archbishop was thinking about as he addressed the Church of England Synod, but I think it is the foundation that lies at the center of a faith that dares at least venture such a concept. The landscape of the Communion alters by the day. The need of the world beyond does not. That need will always be expressed in Paul’s anguished cry “Who can deliver me from this body of death?” and then his glorious affirmation “Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ”.
I may live and die never really knowing what the Church is about, but I am always on pilgrimage to learning Who it is about. We might not see another Archbishop of Canterbury visit Iowa for a while, but we have each other. Thank God though for other ways of accessing in the twenty first century and that even now Christ remains the Alpha and Omega, and that we always have the option of catching each other gazing devotionally to Christ, while He looks at us, and we look at others and point back to Him. This is the three dimensional church; it is the Trinity we are invited to imitate; it is the Communion that knows no end and tucks all the imperfect into its heart.
+Alan
May 7, 2010
In January 2011 we reach the tenth anniversary of the Call to Common Mission with the ELCA. It is not too early to begin to take stock of what the important milestone of Call to Common Mission has meant to us as a Diocese and to The Episcopal Church. Dotted around the nation are Episcopal priests leading Lutheran Churches and vise versa. Some joint congregations have been started in various places. The numbers are small, but significant. Closer to home, our Diocese has been helped in many different places by Lutheran clergy, and we have benefitted much from the interchangeability of ministry. In some cases it has meant the difference between life and death as a congregation. Our experience in shared campus ministry has been less consistent, though the impetus to create a joint place at Old Brick several years ago was a highlight of such endeavor.
Over the next few months, I hope we will pull together some of the ways in which Call to Common Mission has shaped our life. Right now I know that there is one particular way in which we as Episcopalians can reach out to our Lutheran brothers and sisters. None of us would want to return to the days of our Church immediately after August 2003. No matter what our position on the Church’s direction, we managed to hurt each other, demean each other and we struggled to find the equilibrium of the Peace of Christ which passes all understanding. But we have prevailed in our ability to find civility in our differences. I believe there is a new movement forward in mission which is heartening and bold as we have sought to concentrate on what unites more than what separates.
Our Lutheran brothers and sisters are just entering their post Church wide Assembly decisions and discussions on human sexuality. At a recent meeting of the Commission I co-chair for oversight of the Call to Common Mission, I heard accounts of harsh meetings as efforts were made to explain the decisions made at the Assembly. The leaders often found themselves confronted with statements which I can remember hearing myself in our own forums of late 2003. I think we have some hope to offer them, or perspective of time at least, and certainly our prayers. I mention this as a potential ministry to those either side of the issues as well as those caught in the middle. For we have all had to find our true center in Christ as we work and pray through all of this. Nor am I presuming that we have not still got a ways to go. Nevertheless, this is one way Call to Common Mission can be at work which we might not have anticipated.
This coming week, a group of us in the Diocese who are involved in social ministry will be meeting with Lutheran counterparts in a gathering entitled a “Mission Summit”. I have found as we prepare for this that we have several foci in social ministry which are not as strong among the Lutherans, and similarly they have strong mission emphases to offer to us. My hope is to see a true blending of our ministries in common mission in fulfilling Christ’s desire to transform society in His name. We can begin with the poor, and needy, the marginalized and the vulnerable, and perhaps in a much more formal way than we may be doing.
At the Church wide meeting on call to Common Mission, we heard of the work being done among Lutherans and Anglicans in Canada, where the two Churches are actually planning a Joint Church Center for their two Churches to work as one. This is no merger, but a move to do mission together. Theological education, life long formation and discipleship, youth ministry, advocacy issues, social outreach, campus ministry – all of these things are shared, as well as mutual full participation in the Council life of the two Churches. It leaves us with a vision that may work more easily in the smaller numbers of the Canadian Churches, but at the same time calls us to a creative imagination – Presiding Bishop Hansen’s mantra is “creative evangelical, missional imagination”- as to what might be possible in the smaller portion of the Church which is our Diocese.
As we begin to mark the tenth year celebration with this Mission Summit, I hope it will be only one way we come together and acknowledge one another as the year progresses. It is part of renewing the vision offered to us in Paul’s words in Corinthians that “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation”.
I invite you to offer in all humility and gentleness that ministry of reconciliation to those with whom you are called to common mission right now, and do so even as we continue to allow its blessing to be poured out among ourselves. And of course, know that God calls you to be a conduit of that same reconciliation with God through Christ to everyone you meet in that more fundamental evangelical and missional sense.
+Alan
My mind and heart have traveled all over the world this weekend, even though I barely left the house. Yesterday my thoughts were in the Sudan and my prayers were in Chile. My heart was taken to Northern Ireland as I listened to the first public performance of Ben Allaway’s “The lambs of Belfast” – a newly commissioned Agnus Dei ,influenced by the conflict and peace process in that land, and which is part of his current work on a Celtic Mass. At a shallower but still intensely passionate level (oh how sports can sweep some of us away!) I was in Vancouver having sworn every participant in the Downtown Underground Eucharist on Sunday evening to absolute silence so I could return home and watch the taped hockey in “innocence”. The day before, I watched as CNN muddled its way through trying to predict the exact timing of a potential Tsunami moving across the Pacific towards Hawaii and sought to make sure they got the first shots of disaster, while I flipped back and forth to English live-time soccer.
Just in case you are too appalled at the self revelation of my idle time, I did also read a book on Restorative Justice, and start three others on Anglican theology, social witness and Peterson’s “Subversive Spirituality”. I also found myself reflecting on where God was in all of this madness that now meets us so vividly in such a short time. The most authentic moment was probably being present for the Allaway piece during an exquisite concert by the Des Moines Vocal Ensemble, where rather than be emotionally pumped up over sports news or simply bad news, I was forced to enter into an extremely quiet space within myself truly to listen. I took my cue from the conductor as to when I could enter into noise again, as I soon learned to wait until his carefully choreographed hands clenched into a fist and then released their grip to fall gently by his side. The choir breathed a silent sense of relief of a job well done, and began closing their song binders. We clapped.
I had to jot down the multiplicity of experiences in such a short time, and changed my topic for this newsletter (which had been preparing us to explore why or why not we find it so difficult to do much together as congregations organized in chapters or any informal configuration for that matter and why Diocesan Convention Budget covenants and stewardship share still seem to get us nonplussed)
In fact it may be the same issue on a different scale: the competing nature of particular and universal. I had to stay home from the Sudan because as it turned out situations would require me at home. While I was sensing that I was not ready internally for the new thing that experiencing the Sudan would lead me into, God was also preparing me for something else which was to demand my prayers and focus.
The prudent of us probably spent the weekend chipping away at potentially damaging ice build up around our homes. Others had elderly parents to keep an eye on, or anxious news to wait for of loved ones facing sudden illnesses, or were busy preparing the summer or spring trip to assist in Haiti. In the meantime the Gospel for Sunday pictured Jesus looking out from the hillside weeping that he would gather us all like a hen her chicks, but we were not interested. This is the time to ask sincerely what He would do if we were willing to be so gathered.
The church is supposed to be “the called out ones” – called out to gather. We are never scattered across the globe any more. There aren’t any more strangers under the post resurrection reign of God. Milton Cole Duvall of St Timothy’s West Des Moines is in the Sudan celebrating on our behalf the consecration of Bishop Peni as an agent of Christ’s gathering. He embodies our message that we are with the people of Nzara in their new diocese and he will bring back the reality that they are with us. What does that say for us in our more neighborly chapters? What does it say about our openness or not to sharing mission with another denomination, someone not quite like us but appearing very similar from Christ’s point of view because he seems to have called them out as he has called us? In an address to the Church of England Synod recently, the President of the Methodist Church in Great Britain said his Church was “prepared to go out of existence, not because we are declining or failing in mission, but for the sake of mission. In other words we are prepared to be change and even to cease having a separate existence as a Church if that will serve the needs of the Kingdom”.
CNN cannot cope with the frequency and complexity of human emotion created by the string of disasters upon us. It is ironic that the essence of cool (the media persona) should be caught out by the very purpose they claim to exist – human information and connectivity. I dare to say that the Church universal is dealing with the same human drama, and I wonder if we are coping much better. And we are not about mere information and connectivity, but connectivity and compassion and service in love.
This was just one weekend slice of life. I think however of the words of C.S. Lewis grappling with the loss of his late in life love, Joy, as the vicar sought to console him after the funeral. “It’s a mess, vicar,” he said, “and it won’t do”. At the end of Epiphany we read Paul’s words that now we see as in a mirror darkly, but then we will see fully and clearly. So until THEN let us simply be committed to asking to see what Jesus sees, to be changed from glory to glory into His likeness, so we might do something closer to what He may do – which I believe He more than hinted at when He asked us to take up our crosses and follow Him. It is a middle of Lent kind of question, I think. It is the place to turn at such a weekend as this, when we realize how earthen we human vessels are whom God uses, but how precious is the Treasure within us. It is something to think about at least, when we are tempted to pit our sports passion against our house proud passion, or our culture passion or any other passions to which we give our time and resources, while we are faced with Haiti, Chile, the Sudan, and even in Vancouver, with the opening tragedy of the death of the Georgian luge athlete and the public yet brave grieving of the Canadian skater; and a God who would take us into Love’s Divine arms.
+Alan
As I look through this newsletter, I am struck by the numerous challenges it includes: to respond to Haiti, to consider a Lenten course looking deeply into the reality of poverty, invitations to discussions, conferences, workshops or think tanks on the Church’s response to unemployment and economic justice. We can easily be overwhelmed. But first things must be first. In my Lenten address in the upcoming March Iowa Connection I quote at length from a section of Romans Chapter 12. and will leave my reflections on that for then, but in the meantime I encourage you to look at Paul’s vision of the Church as laid out in that whole chapter.
Paul never cites action or behavior lists without first saying “Therefore”. Therefore because God has acted thus and such for us in Christ; therefore as we are loved with a love from which we cannot be separated by life or death; therefore as those who have peace with God…then present yourselves as living sacrifices, and so on.
Christians act because God has already acted. We respond to God always and with grateful hearts; so that the challenges of the labors upon us and around us become things of honor to engage, and joys to accomplish. This is an easily overlooked source for congregational strength. It is also what is meant when we recite in the Psalms that the joy of the Lord is our strength. It is not the joy of giddiness, but the joy of being loved and loving in return. It is the joy of agape, a sacrifice innocently offered, which Jesus captures in his phrase “blessed are you when people persecute you and say and do all manner of things against you”, and which of course Jesus demonstrated as Love Incarnate.
Of all the stories I have recently heard about people in the Haiti earthquake, one in particular grabbed my heart. Among those who died was a young man from Wartburg Seminary, Ben Larson. It is reported that Ben died singing as his wife and cousin fought to release him. There were other reports of Haitians singing caught in the midst of the rubble and especially irrupting when a person was freed. I thought of that gift of song. It is a gift strangely but often found in the middle of suffering. It is a gift we ‘enjoy” as we get out of our cars on our visits in Africa. Yet maybe we should be more astonished as to its source and actual occurrence than anything else. It speaks of a humanity deeply rooted in hope against all hope. This is the joy of the Lord that provides such strength.
On Ash Wednesday Milton Cole Duvall from St Timothy’s West Des Moines will set off to represent us at the enthronement of Bishop Peni in the southern Sudan. I had hoped to go with him but I have my own singing to attend to here among you. I am grateful that Milton will be able to go after all. I want to mention a special request he has received from Bishop Peni. Milton is wanting to take as many stoles as he can from clergy in this Diocese for Samuel’s new priests. Right now we only have a few days to collect as many as possible, but if you can, please send them to the Diocesan office. There will be a chance later to send any that cannot make the deadline. I know the people of the Nzara Diocese will greet our representative in song. I know as God’s beloved too, we can continue to find our own voice in return, and experience our strength in the Lord.
+Alan
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Dear friends in Christ,
Our urgent response is needed for the people of Haiti as they suffer the devastating effects of the earthquake which hit Port au Prince late yesterday afternoon. I am embedding within this letter a link that will take you directly to the Episcopal Relief and Development web-site where you can make an immediate donation.
Several people within the Diocese of Iowa have direct links with the Diocese of Haiti, which is the largest Diocese within The Episcopal Church. Through their personal contacts they have been able to tell us that Bishop Duracin and his wife are safe though Mrs. Duracin suffered an injury to her foot. Fr. Kesner (the Jubilee Officer known to us in Iowa from this past summer’s Jubilee Officer gathering and pictured in Iowa Connection receiving and demonstrating a chlorinator) has communicated that he is unharmed. The sisters at the convent of St Margaret’s are also safe, but their convent has been destroyed, as has the Bishop’s house. The Cathedral and its surrounds have also collapsed, along with buildings connected with the College St Pierre.
I know that you are already praying, but I want to underscore that the two most immediate responses we can make are: 1) to pray for those who have died, those who are injured, the grieving, the displaced and all whose lives have been so grievously affected, and 2) to contribute gifts to Episcopal Relief and Development, marked for Haiti (
donate online or mail your check to Episcopal Relief & Development, P.O. Box 7058, Merrifield, VA 22116-7058).
Concerned persons are asked not to try and phone Haiti directly, and I have been asked to discourage any who want to travel to Haiti. There is little or no ability to receive people at this time. Recovery and rebuilding will take years, and such opportunities are not going to be available for quite some time. It is hard for us to not be able to do more. As the Presiding Bishop says in a letter to the House of Bishops, we are asked at this time to “pray with those who walk through the shadow of death and know that the Lord travels with them”.
+Alan
Having seen the new movie "Avatar" I am assuming that we should brace for a new catch phrase: “I see you”! It will probably go alongside “you had me at hello!”, or might even grow into the stature of “the force be with you!” which hangs around even after forty years, fueling new generations.
The “I see you” of Avatar is contrasted with the invisibility of disconnected and violent living which the humans (the aliens in the movie) are good at expressing. The notion is that you cannot see what you hate or are threatened by. If you were to see, you would then be forced not only to pay attention to the other but treat with compassion, gratitude and generosity.
Epiphany, of course, is about seeing, “Lead us who know you by faith to your presence where we may see your glory face to face”. Seeing in this deeper sense is also about connectedness, and asks the question “how are we doing in seeing the connectedness that Jesus brings?” I have told the story before of a very intense and high church acolyte master with whom I bumped heads more than once with our contrasting liturgical styles. One day as we stood at the back of the church I decided to ask him what he saw as he looked over the sanctuary. He began to articulate his vision of God which included of course his thoughts about worship. Where I was seeing fussiness, there suddenly appeared reverence. I am sorry to say that he never repaid the request, and so where he might have felt sloppiness, he never managed to hear me speak of the familiarity and intimacy of grace which was my predominant perception of God.
How much of this kind of dynamic lurks at the heart of our ecclesiological conflicts? Our sight is limited but I wonder, too, if we are actually afraid to dare really see one another in that process of our growing closer to the light of Christ, of “being changed from glory to glory even into His image” as Paul puts it.
On the other hand, sometimes we try and work things out with too much light. I am always amazed how, when it snows, the night sky is illumined with the brightness of the snow’s reflective nature. As I looked out of my back door during the recent snow, the lines of trees off my back door were sparkling, and the whole garden was alight. At the bottom of the tree rows was the garden shed, looking more like a stable in a Christmas card. With my flash bulb on I tried to take the picture, and of course the flash rebounded its reflection off every side and all I caught was a bright haze. I had to turn off the flash and trust the natural light at the midnight hour and lo and behold the scene unfolded.
It is possible that where God is concerned, “I see you” happens when we don’t try too hard to see too clearly and we are invited into Epiphany.
+Alan
