For those of you that know me well, you know I usually don't write anything this personal. But today this was an epiphany. Where I once was distraught, beat down, and dejected, I am now certain, resolute, and reenergized. I now know where I stand.
What I say I don't say lightly, and I don't know who else may feel this way. But this is my path, and I will follow it because I think it's right.
As some of you may know, in the past month our rector was forced to leave our parish. The circumstances were tragic, and the outcome unwanted by our parish. Ultimately, the decision was made by our new bishop. A decision made in a vacuum, without a single visit to our congregation, or, for that matter, any true relationship or attempt to make an informed decision. We were told this decision was done in our best interests by someone who doesn't even know us to know what our best interests are. Now, our rector is gone and we have only ourselves, the bishop, and the diocese to contend with as we begin the process of looking for a new rector. In the meantime, we have a revolving door of supply priests coming and going while we search for an interim rector (and the list of candidates is infuriatingly small).
It had left me in a bad way. Our rector's departure exposed all of the ugliness of the politics that I pretended weren't there. I've been left disillusioned, apathetic, angry, and a bit withdrawn. But most of all, I've been disgusted. Disgusted that this is the structure we, as human beings, have put into place to worship God. A God whose very nature is the opposite to this institution. This hypocrisy is the very reason I stopped going to church for 12 years.
So, Would I eventually stop coming again? Would that solve anything, or is it just running away from the problem so that it won't get to me? Normally, our previous rector would be there to say the right thing, like he oh so knows how to do, but this time I'm on my own.
Unless our supply priest makes me start thinking...
Today our supply priest somehow thought it wise to give a sermon on loss and suffering, considering our circumstances. His sermon was long winded and, at first, frustrating. At first he gave out a long list of the ways we might be feeling right now, angry, hurt, withdrawn, etc... yet he failed to mention mine: disgust. Disgust of a system that could allow this to happen. Contempt for an institution more concerned about its own rules self-perpetuation, and structure than in doing Christ's bidding. As he droned on and on, I drifted off into my own thoughts, and I began to wonder...
What do you do when Churchianity is ruining your Christianity?
Today, because of the rules and regulations set up by the Episcopal Church, we have turned to supply priests to perform the sacrament of Eucharist for us. For those of you who don't know, apparently, by Episcopal Church rules, only an ordained priest of the Episcopal or Lutheran Church is allowed to say the blessing and conduct the sacrament of communion. Somehow, anyone else's blessing of the bread and wine within the 4 walls of an Episcopal Church is null and void – only an Episcopal Church-approved priest can say the magic words.
Why is this? ...I'm not really sure myself. While some of the may argue tradition, or job security, or what have you, I believe anyone should be able to do it. It boils down to one thing: Who gives the ultimate authority of the sacrament of Euharist: God, or Men?
A few months ago, while our previous rector was away, our Sunday service was one without a priest, thus without communion. In what I saw as approprite irony, our reading from the Gospel was the story of the Pharisees inquiring of Jesus by whose authority he did his ministry. To this Jesus asked of them by whose authority did John the Baptist baptise, by God or by Men? The Pharisees, knowing John the Baptist was popular among the people, were in a quagmire. If they said “Men”, then John didn't have the authority, and the people would turn on them. If they said “God”, then they admitted their lack of authority on such matters. So they said “We don't know.” In turn Jesus said, “then know that by that same authority I minister.”
So here we were, not performing Eucharist because no one had the authority of MEN. Any one of us could have stepped in and performed the sacrament since deciding who can and cannot perform it are ultimately God's domain, not man's.
But we didn't go that path. We followed the Episcopacy's rules that day.
If only we had the conviction to listen to God's authority that day, what would have happened? We probably would have been in hot water with the diocese, and they would do quite a bit to make our lives uncomfortable to assure future compliance, and, once again, the need to preserve their institution would trump their commitment to follow the path of Christ. All in all, in this circumstance, following Christ's path is the dangerous one. Defying the diocesan insitution would exact retribution.
I personally wish we would have done it – performed communion that day. But why do I wish we'd done it? Was it so I could feel the satisfaction of thumbing my nose at them because I didn't like their decisions?
...Or was it because I thought doing it was the right thing to do in God's eyes?
I honestly wasn't sure, I would have felt rather good at defying them. I know I shouldn't but I'm no saint. So while I contemplated this, I tuned the supply priest back in. His sermon now dealt with our reading from Isaiah, in which the prophet encourages them not to despair or give up while in exile in Babylon. He noted that many of the changes in Judaism occurred during the exile. That these changes: their realization that they didn't need an heir of David as king, their new belief that God was the God of all people, not just of the Israelites, etc. came out of the exile. For the Jews, a great growth and transformation came out of their loss of home and their suffering in servitude. He then compared our situation to those once in exile, noting that this loss we have suffered will help us grow and transform. He then went on to tie this to Jesus, and how he also sought to transform the way we worship God, even to the point of suffering on the cross for that transformation to happen.
That was enough for me to tune him out and start thinking again. Surely, Jesus did quite a bit to disturb the Pharisees and religious scholars in power back then. And they sure did everything they could to stop him. They even killed him.
But did Jesus buck their system just for the satisfation of defying them, or because it was the right thing to do?
Worded this way, the answer was obvious – because his way was the right way. In my circumstance, my disgust for Churchianity was rooted in the fact that their way is wrong and out of a sense of principle I wanted to see it fail. When I wished we did our own communion that day, I realized I should want to do it because it was right. Also, I should take no satisfaction out of overcoming the shortcomings of other men. That feeling is no good, sinful you may say. If anything, I should pity them because they don't understand. My understanding has outgrown them, but I must never confuse this with any idea of superiority, for this is certainly not the case. We are all children of God. There are no favorites.
My dilemma was solved.
I told myself:
Don't defy the manifestations of Churchianity on these matters because you want to be a pain in their side. Do it because you think it is the right thing to do. If you're uncertain where your heart is, then stop! Think about your motives. Make sure they lie with God, not with your lesser desires.
Oh, and one more thing: don't expect to make any friends this way. To go up against an institution like Churchianity is certainly a losing battle, and dangerous! Even Christ himself was killed by holy men for opposing them. There will be consequences.
About this time I tuned the supply priest back in, he was talking about Jesus out in the wilderness, and compared our situation to being in the wilderness. But it seemed to me that his conclusion may have unintended consequences. He said that our time in the wilderness will be a time of great growth. And it just may be.
I think we may, as a community, outgrow our diocese. I know I have.
And that's dangerous.
...a mapmaker in Washington DC.
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- Mapmaker in DC
- I'm a lifelong Ohioan come to Washington DC to help make a difference working for the government.
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5 comments:
Sorry to hear about your problems. You know, you can start the Church of Tim if you want.
I haven't been in church for quite some time, but that is not to say that I wish not to go. I do live my life as though I go to church everday, and I do not fear the reaper because I do remain faithful to my beliefs (which differ enough from those of the churches I have visited to keep me from going again). I have no interest in anyone (human) telling me I will go to hell or that I will be saved. I believe it is not their decision to make.
Good luck my friend. I hope you will eventually find what you need.
Tim,
I'm very sorry about your situation. But this is a situation that many of us who remain faithful to Christ today face. In fact, people have faced this in every age. There is a good argument for tradition, deference to authority, and the power of institutions. But as you point out, what happens when these very things get in the way of the message?
What can we do? As a Catholic, I fear needless fragmentation and people isolating themsleves in smaller and smaller groups. Then there is the whole issue of authority - look at what fundementalists of all stripes have done (or try to do) to people in the name of religion.
Somehow, we need a change. Changes that make the instituions work for the people rather than the reverse. Some may call for an elimination of insitutions, but is that possible or even desirebale? I for one do not think so - there is the place for the experts - the religious scholars, the theologians, the consulors, and the teachers.
I;m not sure what can or even should be done, butg we seem to understand that something is not right with the church...
- Matt
True Matt, what I advocate is not schism or to go it alone. What I have ofund is that we should always choose God when forced to choose between the will of God and the will of the diocese. I truly believe we are in the right here. The diocesan relationship with its parishes must adapt or die. I believe it is time to move into an age where the bishop is not the CEO of the diocese but a true shepherd. We no longer need to use a feudal leftover as a model for how the Church conducts its business. The diocese no longer needs to be a large body of staff and bureaus. We need pastors, not lords. It should be small, light, and have less power. We shouild also be going in the opposite direction, bringing priests, pastors, and reverends from all other denominations into our fold with the understanding that it is about God, not about Episcopals. And I am now of the opinion that if this change is ever to happen, it should start now, and with us.
Tim,
What you wrote tugged at me as someone who is these days openly an anarchist. One of the misconceptions of anarchism is that we don't believe in institutions, which isn't true. What we don't believe in is authority, in rulers, in people who set themselves above other people.
Quakerism, for all its theological flakiness, is the Christian example of anarchism par excellence where the church consists of people who relate to each other and meet together but all believe that they have the light of God within them.
I guess what I'm saying is that in the end you and your community where you have a voice (which is always by necessity a small group of people) will ultimately control your own destiny no matter who tells you otherwise, and it's always better to do things because they are right than for any other reason (that's a virtual tautology, and yet your experience shows how hard that is to grasp).
Hierarchical institutions, especially those which pretend to govern our moral choices or claim authority on those choices, are deeply problematic and not grounded in love. God alone deserves worship, deserves to rule, and God's rule is one of love, sacrifice, and embracing our moral freedom. The Church, whatever its guise (short of Quakerism, perhaps, and they have their own set of problems), falls on the side of paternalism and patriarchy, sees the role of the church as basically a parent guiding the stupid people in the faith. It means well, but because its authority must be used for something, it neglects that the rule we have over our lives demands that each of us truly belongs to a different community of friends, family, and smaller tribes, and it's in those relationships that rule exists. (One big reason why anarchists aren't libertarians besides the rejection of a right to property is the rejection that rule is merely self-rule...we all belong to natural collectives that can be devoid of hierarchies, and we do get strength from each other - imagine the mess there'd have been if Jesus had had 120 disciples instead of 12; there's a reason for this that goes beyond Holy numbers).
We are commanded to love one another. We cannot love one another if we make that love dependent on the rulings of a higher magistrate who has little connection to us, no matter how noble the person. In fact, that love must be rooted first in each other, those we touch every day and from there build upward and outward (heavenward, so to speak).
I think when Jesus said to "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's" he wasn't really so much telling people to pay their taxes so much as to laugh at the notion that money means anything to God, to laugh at the notion that we should be so concerned with the image of human rule. But, I don't think he was saying that we are therefore called to accept human rule when it interferes with our love for each other. The Church became Caesar, and now caesar is the nation state, but we all live with our Caesars, and at times they all interfere with our love for each other. Instead of reforming them, instead of worrying about life's natural factions and fractions, we should stay true to the connections we make and live with those institutions.
Tim, your church is a community, a dear one to you, and I hope that you all see that the only power that matters in that context comes from your relations with each other.
I don't think factions and fractions are bad; they are natural and wonderful. What makes us different is special. The problem is when a fraction attempts to become more powerful than another to use its position of power to suppress. I think the church has often put itself in a position of being the oppressor.
If we yearn for unity, then let it be a unity that comes out of our love for each other and not out of the artificial rejection of schisms. When we unite out simply out of a belief in uniting, we are already divided.
There has to be a better way.
Tim, I hope you follow this insight you have here and not let anyone ever tell you how best to live. At the same time, I hope you find and organize within your community and take solace and insight from its members and its collective wisdom.
Jim
It is only dangerous in that the folks who are invested in the Church Organization (as opposed to being invested in the lives of the church family) will probably not appreciate it (or mildly pretend to approve but then ask you to be "realistic").
But you don't answer to men, as you have realized. Do not fear them, either. Read 1 Corinthians 3:21-23 and take heart, and love God.
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