Keep the Faith

When I was 19 years old and a sophomore in college I took my first trip abroad.  It was to Ireland to study literature and landscape.  One Sunday morning our two professors, an Episcopal couple, invited  us to join them for a super early mass at St. Patrick's in Dublin.  As I sat in a tiny side-chapel of this massive church I heard some very familiar words.  I heard "The Lord be with you.  And with thy spirit."  I heard "We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed."  And I heard "We do not presume to come this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness but in thy manifold and great mercies."  It's Rite I!  I said it out loud to my professors.  Here I was an ocean away from my home church and I was praying the exact same prayers.  I was a lifelong Episcopalian, and this was my first exposure to worldwide Anglicanism.

This church of mine was a church with a big C, I realized.  No matter where I went I could go into a church marked 'Episcopal' in this country, or one marked 'Anglican' in another country, and be right at home.  It didn't matter the personal politics of the folks in the pews or the personal theologies of the one standing at the altar.  Common prayer is what united us, grounded in the common faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.  If you wanna know what it means to be Anglican, I came to realize, then all you need do is come pray with us, and you'll find out.

Like many of you I have taken tremendous comfort in the fact that being an Anglican means I'm part of something so much bigger than myself, part of a family.  But being part of a family is often times complicated.  What exactly defines a family?  How is a family "supposed" to look or behave?  We all know that there is no absolute right answer to those kinds of questions.  And the same is true for the family of the Anglican Communion.

Our Communion is a family, not an autocracy.  So we don't have a pope or a college of cardinals dictating how we act and what we believe.  Anglicanism is not a confessional church.  So we don't have a written statement about who and what we are, nor do we have a chief theologian on whom we can all rely in times of disagreement--like our Lutherans friends have with Martin Luther and Methodists have with John Wesley.  Our family has been bound by four things:  the  authority of Holy Scripture, the significance of the Sacraments, the governance of the bishops, and the validity of the ancient creeds.  We call this the Quadrilateral, and it was ratified by the bishops of the Anglican Communion at the Lambeth Conference in 1888.  It's in your Prayer Book, actually, page 877. So it seems simple:  affirm these four principles, be bound by common prayer and mission to serve, and you got yourself an Anglican!  But it's not that simple.

Y'all know that a collection of churches in a geographic area form a diocese, right?  Well a collection of dioceses forms a province. The Anglican Communion is made up of 37 provinces. The provinces themselves are governed by bishops called primates, which comes from prime, the Latin word for 'first.' So the first, or rather, senior bishop in the province is the primate. Some primates are called Archbishops--like the Archbishop of Canterbury, and some are called Presiding Bishops--like our own Michael Curry, and some are called the Primus--like in the Episcopal Church of Scotland. Confused yet?  Well just know that within all of these provinces, and among all of these primates, are subtleties. What are the societal norms of that province?  How is Scripture interpreted by the folks with the province?  How is a bishop chosen (the rules are different in England, for example), and who can even BE a bishop in each province?  The point is that each province is different, each primate is different, and in that difference, in that diversity, we have managed to find our unity.

It is easy to rush to the conclusion that that unity came to an end last week in England.  The 37 primates of the Communion gathered to address growing concerns, namely the decision of our body, the Episcopal Church, to amend its marriage canons to allow full marriage rites for same-gender couples.  We did this--based on our baptismal covenant and the words of St. Paul that "there is no male or female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus"--at our General Convention last summer.  After days of prayer and conversation last week, the majority of the primates recommended that the Episcopal Church "no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, and  should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee."  The recommendation is for a period of three years. What this means is that the Episcopal Church will have voice at worldwide Anglican gatherings but no vote.  It sounds like the primates have put the Episcopal Church in time-out:  go sit in the corner and think about what you've done and come back when you're sorry. 

But remember that we're not an autocracy.  So while the primates may recommend the Episcopal Church not represent the body on such committees, this is not, contrary to what some media outlets may say, a suspension or expulsion from the Anglican Communion.  The primates are an instrument of the Communion, not the Communion itself.  That's like saying the US Senate IS the United States.  We know that's not true.  The primates cannot kick someone out of the communion, merely they have made a strong suggestion (more like a "gentlemen's agreement"), and our primate, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, in an effort to continue to love and walk with his fellow primates, has agreed to comply.  As a side note:  only in the Anglican tradition could being told you can't serve on a committee be construed as a bad thing!!  And one of the committees on which we've been asked not to serve, well we haven't been serving on that for he last 30 years!  But I digress.  

What this means moving forward is still a bit unclear.  We know what it does not mean, though.  It does not mean that the breakawayAnglican Church in North America will become the official representative of Anglicanism in this country in three years.  It does not mean that we will amend our marriage canons once again and no longer allow same gender marriages just to appease our brothers and sisters in the Communion.  It doesn't mean that we are going to withdraw missionary aid to those areas who put the kybosh on us this week. And it doesn't mean we going to break away and form a new Communion of like-minded provinces.  Anglicans do not break away.  We are still Anglicans, still members of this Communion.  It's true that if the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion had a Facebook relationship status it would read "it's complicated."  But it's always been complicated.  It was complicated before last week, before Katherine Jefferts Schori, Gene Robinson, Barbara Harris, or the Philadelphia Eleven. It has always been, and it will always be, complicated. The truth is we are bound by our relationships with each other, not an edict handed down from on high. And as long as we continue to reach out in love, and continue to be in relationship, we are part of the Anglican Communion.

There is gospel truth in all of this.  On Sunday we heard the familiar story of the wedding in Cana of Galilee.  We have no idea who is being married, nor do we need to speculate.  But think about a wedding for a moment.  Think about your own wedding.  What happens?  Two people become one.  Relatives are pulled in, and a new family is created.  And no family is without dysfunction.  A family fights. A family pushes each other away. A family holds each other. A family reconciles.  Because through it all, they are a family.  And nothing can change that. 

Regardless of where we fall politically, socially, or theologically, we are a family.  We have been wedded together, and the bond that binds us is the Lord Jesus Christ.  As Bishop Curry reminds us, we are part of the Jesus Movement, and that movement keeps going forward.  NOTHING can stop it, not even the bickering amongst our family.  Jesus' witness of sharing and showing God's love for this broken world continues in us, His Body.  All of us are members of that Body--crazy liberals in America, staunch conservatives in Africa--but there is only one that is the head of that Body, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is our relationship with Him that binds us and strengthens us as the church catholic, the church universal.  Relationship, not hierarchy. 

Will these developments change how Good Shepherd or the Diocese of North Carolina continue to function?  No they won't.  Because we will continue to forge relationships with our neighbors, especially the poor, the disenfranchised, and those on the fringes of society.  We will continue to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, and we will continue to love our neighbors and respect the dignity of every human being.  Yes, even those members of our family that we find it tough to love sometimes.  Because that is what it means to be Anglican. 

God is greater than our disagreements.  God is greater than any one church, greater than Anglicanism.  And God will endure.  Because God is love. And love always wins. So in the spirit of Bishop Curry:  God bless you.  God love you.  And keep the faith.  

Family