Prayer Shawl Number Three

This one took me less than two weeks to complete. I don't have to think quite as much when I crochet because I've been doing it a lot longer than knitting. This one is entirely half double crochet stitches using a size P hook. I used three skeins of TLC Essentials Falling Leaves. Using multi-colored yarn is always a surprise since you're never sure how the pattern will present itself in the finished piece. I think this one turned out well.

The Future of The Church?

Today another diocese, my diocese of Connecticut, announced the elimination of six positions. An additional position vacant due to retirement is also being cut. The diocese will merge some responsibilities into the new position of Canon for Mission Leadership. In the release Bishop Ian Douglas was quoted:

There is profound sadness in these cuts... We are losing faithful and dedicated colleagues who have served us all so well for many decades. We need to pray for these fine sisters and brother who are losing their jobs in these difficult economic times. At the same time these cuts represent a loss of an ideal for what the Diocese of Connecticut has been. 20th century models of the Church with big diocesan staffs providing programs from a centralized office are not the way of the future.

The eliminated positions include both the Missioner for Children & Adults and the Missioner for Youth & Young Adults. I worked with both these people during my tenure as both the Program Assistant for Children's Ministries Christian Education and Officer for Children's Ministries at the Episcopal Church Center.

The Diocese of Connecticut is not the first diocese to eliminate its Christian Formation and Education staff, and it will probably not be the last. Some of the dioceses' rationale for being able to cut Christian Formation positions was that parishes could count on the Formation staff at the Episcopal Church Center. At the same time, the Church Center has already eliminated two formation positions and put the filling of another on hold pending the newest phase of the ongoing reorganization.

Nor are dioceses the only institutions cutting formation and education staff as part of balancing their budgets. Many parishes are doing the same thing, either cutting the positions entirely or reducing them to half time. So this is the future Bishop Douglas is talking about. Fewer and fewer educators and formation leaders able to devote their full-time energies to the formation and education of Christians. More and more volunteers taking on those responsibilities. Of course, there is nothing wrong with volunteers. But where will these volunteers go for training, resources, and support with no one at the diocesan level and fewer overworked staff at the denominational headquarters to provide services for them?

This is a time of incredible change and possibility," said Bishop Douglas. "We're being invited to consider how to be the Diocese of Connecticut in new ways for the 21st Century. Our 20th Century models of diocesan staffing are no longer appropriate to this networked age, nor are they financially sustainable. This reduction in force gives us a chance to respond creatively to the changing economic and organizational realities. We are being invited to re-imagine who we are as the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and how we will come together collaboratively to serve and extend God's mission."

In the course of this re-imagination, the church basically seems to be outsourcing by default to publishing companies and non-profit organizations. To be fair, this process has been going on for more than 20 years, and not just in the Episcopal Church. But do the denominational and diocesan organizations really want to totally abandon input for Christian Formation and Education?

Unfortunately, I don't think the church knows the answer to that question. The denominational, diocesan, and parish organizations are too caught up in the immediate financial crisis to think about the long term ramifications of their decisions. Just as many of them did not think through the long term ramifications of financial and other decisions made during years of declining attendance and pledges.

One of the ways the church is attempting to deal with a changing world is to shift its focus to mission. For years we focused on ministry--the ministry of all the baptized, of every Christian. In some ways this is an attempt to emphasize the importance of community work (mission) over that of individual work (ministry). In other ways, it's trading one buzz word and fad for another.

Ultimately, however, this is not an either/or proposition. Both mission and ministry are important. Both have their roots in our Scriptures. It is both/and. But no matter which way Bishop Douglas, or the larger church structure, wants to look at it, there is no way to get street level people involved without formation and education. Unfortunately, they are eliminating from their organizations the very people who know how to reach those people, who know how to "respond creatively" and "re-imagine in the face of change."

And where does that leave the future of the church?

Reorganizing The Reorganized Reorganization

It was bound to happen, but I didn't think it would happen so soon. According to Episcopal Cafe's The Lead, the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, himself recently appointed as Chief Operating Officer for the Episcopal Church Center, has appointed Sam McDonald as the new Director of Mission. You can read the full story here, but I particularly noted this from Bishop Sauls' communication with the staff:

I realize that you as the staff have been working on this for some time now. There has been a great deal of trial and error, which has not always been comfortable or felt safe.

And this:

Working for the Church should not be a spiritually damaging experience. In fact, I think it should be joyous. I don’t intend to work anywhere that isn’t, and quite frankly, I don’t think you should, either.

Maybe this time there's some hope for some positive and realistic change at the Church Center.

There is much I could write, but right now I need to sit with my thoughts. In the meantime my prayers are with my former colleagues as they enter this next phase of reorganization.

Two

After one false start, which will probably end up as a scarf, and two-and-a-half months after finishing my first one, I've finished my second shawl for the Grace Church Shawl Ministry. It is the first complete knitting project I've done since I was 11 or 12.

Knitting has an entirely different rhythm than crocheting, and each can be soothing or frustrating in its own way.

Kintted using size 13 needles and Caron Simply Soft Pagoda.

The Long And Winding Road - Living in The Question Mark

I had planned to write more posts on this series, but then I wrote the following in my sermon for last Sunday:

This week I find myself in a place where I strongly identify with Esau. Some of it has to do with being an older son, but mostly I’ve been put in the role of the metaphorical big brother over and over. I’ve watched those younger brothers and sisters receive blessings and inheritances I will not. I have seen them go places I cannot. Next year, next month, next week, or even tomorrow, I might find myself interpreting the story of Esau and Jacob differently. Neither interpretation is wrong. They are reflections of where I am in my life and how that affects the way in which I tell my story of being part of God’s creation.

It's time to move on from this series, as it is time to move on from other things.

For eight-and-a-half years I had the opportunity to work for the Episcopal Church in a number of roles as part of the Christian Formation staff. It was a unique place from which to observe the institutional church. I have seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. But mostly, I see an institution that I don't want to be chained to by the clerical dog collar. And quite frankly, I have a lot more power as a lay person who can work outside the hierarchy. Especially as a queer person.

What am I going to do now? I don't know. I'm still involved in Christian Formation at my parish and with the National Association for Christian Education Directors (NAECED). Professionally, it's more than likely I'll end up in an entirely different field building on "the skills to run a small third world country" (as my last boss at the Church Center commented after my position had been eliminated). In terms of ministry, I will continue doing those things that I have been doing, and I will start looking at some of those things I've felt inhibited from doing both as an employee of the institution and as an aspirant for Holy Orders.

I drew this map in March during a series on Sharing Our Stories I led at our parish. It ends with a question mark. And for now, that's where I'm living. In the question mark.

Jacob the Sneak

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Revised Common Lectionary Year A, Proper 10

Genesis 25:19-34

Grace Episcopal Church, Norwalk, CT

Loving God, you call us to be your stories in the world. We come before you seeking to be touched by your story. Open our lips to share our stories with one another and open our hearts to bring comfort, inspiration, joy and laughter to each other. Amen.

“Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.” Does this sound familiar? It does to me. When we were growing up Scott and I each claimed, only half jokingly, that our parents loved the other brother best. Then came the year when Scott brought Maureen up from college to meet the family, and I arrived with Brian in tow for the same reason. For many years after that the family joke was that our parents loved Maureen and Brian best.

Sibling rivalry is nothing new, and anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Bible is familiar with its stories of siblings living in the various parts of what one friend of mine calls Jesus’ big, fat, dysfunctional family tree. But how many families do you know that hang their dirty laundry out for the world to see? And yet, that is exactly what the writers and editors of the Hebrew Scriptures have done. Not in terms of Jesus, although we Christians have done enough of that in our own Scriptures and traditions, but definitely in terms of their own history. Who celebrates ancestors who are not, shall we say, the most upstanding examples of human beings, especially when measured against their own laws and traditions?

Yet those are the very stories that have been passed down and repeated through the generations. Cain the murderer; Joseph the spoiled brat; Rahab the prostitute; Sampson the lustful; David the Adulterer; Ruth the foreigner; and in today’s reading, Jacob the sneak.

A sneak? The great patriarch of Israel? The man God names Israel, the father of a nation? Well let’s look at the story.

During her particularly difficult pregnancy Rebekah goes to God to ask why. It is God, after all, who, in response to Isaac’s prayers for his barren wife, “granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived.” She asks him directly, "If it is to be this way, why do I live?" God responds by telling her that "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger."

Yet Jacob feels the need to maneuver Esau into selling the birthright due to the oldest son by tradition, even though God has already promised that Jacob is the favored child. Once again we have a younger son favored by God. What is it with the writers of Scripture and younger sons? Let me tell you, as an older son, this kind of stuff makes me nuts. On the other hand, the word games used in this story mean that it is as much about tribal rivalry as sibling rivalry. The Hebrew that describes Esau as red and hairy plays on the location and name of a neighboring tribe, the Edomites.

Ralph Milton writes:

In many tribal cultures a sense of what is right and wrong depends on who is doing what to whom. If you can [needle] someone from another tribe, that’s just fine. In fact, it’s your responsibility to do that if you can. The Israelites told with relish, how their Jacob [hoodwinked] those slow, stupid Edomites. We think it reprehensible of Jacob to cheat Esau, but the Israelites would have considered it downright traitorous not to rip off another tribe, provided you could get away with it. (http://ralphmiltonsrumors.blogspot.com/2008/07/preaching-materials-for-july-13-2008.html, as of July 8, 2011)

So here we are back to Jacob the sneak.

Why do I call him a sneak? Because, in spite of the fact that this story is probably as much about two tribes as two brothers, it’s the story of the brothers that has come down to us as Christians, not the tribal story. And there are a few pieces of the story that we aren’t even going to hear because of the way our lectionary is laid out. The part of Genesis we’ll hear next week is the story most of us know as Jacob’s Ladder. There are three, count them, three whole chapters between today’s reading and next week’s. We won’t read about famine causing Isaac to move his family a number of times and repeat many of the things that his father did. Nor will we read a few short lines about Esau’s wives. Nor the story of Esau and Jacob that we’re probably most familiar with.

And that’s where we learn just how much of a sneak Jacob can be.

Isaac, now going blind, calls Esau, his favorite son, and says, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quivers and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.” Rebekah happens to overhear them, and she quickly goes to find Jacob, her favorite son. She tells him, “Go to the flock, and get me two choice kids, so that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he likes; and you shall take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” Jacob points out that he isn’t hairy like Esau, and his father, though blind, will be able to feel the difference and curse him instead. As we might say today, Rebekah has an App for that. While the dish is cooking, she dresses Jacob in some of Esau’s clothes and puts the skins of the slaughtered kids on his hands and the back of his neck.

But doesn’t that make Rebekah the sneaky one? Okay, I’ll give you that one, but Jacob goes along without protest. Not to mention he’s already manipulated Esau into selling his birthright for a meal of bread and stew. Not a particularly fair deal, if you ask me. So he comes by it naturally. He takes after his mother.

With the preparations complete, smelling and feeling like his brother, Jacob goes to his father and fools Isaac into believing that he is Esau. And so Isaac eats and then gives his younger son the blessing that should have been the older son’s. Now Jacob has not only his brother’s inheritance, but his patriarchal blessing as well. What was it we heard God say before these men were born? “The elder shall serve the younger." So why did Jacob find it necessary to use deceit to obtain what he has already been promised?

Jacob the sneak, indeed.

No sooner does Jacob depart from his father’s tent then Esau returns from his hunting, prepares a savory dish, and takes it to Isaac, who realizes the trick. Can we blame Esau for saying to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” Unfortunately, he says that out loud, and again Rebekah overhears something not meant for her ears. And again she runs to her younger son, warns him of his brother’s intention, and sends him off to her brother in the land of her birth. (Genesis 27)

And so Jacob the sneak runs off in the night.

But before we get to the story of the ladder, there’s a slightly different version of the blessing story, which many scholars believe comes from a different source. Here Isaac calls Jacob to him and blesses him and then sends him to his mother’s family to find a wife there rather than marry one of the Canaanite women from the land where they are currently living. (Genesis 28:1-5)

So we have Jacob the sneak, and Jacob the dutiful son. Two traditions placed in tension for our reading, reflection, and interpretation.

This week I find myself in a place where I strongly identify with Esau. Some of it has to do with being an older son, but mostly I’ve been put in the role of the metaphorical big brother over and over. I’ve watched those younger brothers and sisters receive blessings and inheritances I will not. I have seen them go places I cannot. Next year, next month, next week, or even tomorrow, I might find myself interpreting the story of Esau and Jacob differently. Neither interpretation is wrong. They are reflections of where I am in my life and how that affects the way in which I tell my story of being part of God’s creation.

You will have your own reflections and interpretations. How do they affect the way you tell your story of being part of God’s creation? Can we share those stories with each other? I invite you to do so, ending as I began:

Loving God, you call us to be your stories in the world. We come before you seeking to be touched by your story. Open our lips to share our stories with one another and open our hearts to bring comfort, inspiration, joy and laughter to each other. Amen.

Get Your Head out of The Sand, Rowan*

The chickens have come home to roost.

The shoe is on the other foot.

England is now being treated as a mission field by the self-proclaimed true Anglicans. Almost two weeks ago The Fellowship of Confession Anglicans announced the inauguration of The Anglican Mission in England (AMIE):

AMIE has been established as a society within the Church of England dedicated to the conversion of England and biblical church planting. There is a steering committee and a panel of bishops. The bishops aim to provide effective oversight in collaboration with senior clergy.

The AMIE has been encouraged in this development by the Primates’ Council of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) who said in a communiqué from Nairobi in May 2011: “We remain convinced that from within the Provinces which we represent there are creative ways by which we can support those who have been alienated so that they can remain within the Anglican family.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury has finally, in his usual wishy-washy style, responded. And as usual, Episcopal Cafe's The Lead has good coverage. Be sure to read the comments. I'm sure they're having a field day over at that place I refuse to go read.

I've often referred to this whole mess as the tempest in the Anglican teapot. Well now it seems that the Archbishop's teapot is about to boil over. The poaching is about to begin, and Rowan is still trying to steer the middle course over the edge of the cliff. With this happening in his own back yard, will he finally see the dangers of the Anglican Covenant? I doubt it.

The ball is in your court, Rowan, and the match is yours to lose.


*Yes, this post is full of cliches. They're cliche's for a reason.

Celebrating Six Months of Unemployment