If I Were King

I’ll admit that I seem to carp a lot here. That’s the nature of the beast, the things that make us angry are the things that are most likely to send us to our keyboards. So it’s great to see, and note, when one of the good guys makes the news. Friendly, mild-mannered, incredibly-famous Rick Steves showed up in the lead of Timothy Egan’s Fresh Ideas for a Tired Crusade in todays New York Times. Apparently, Rick is almost as opposed to the incredibly-misguided US War on Some Drugs as I am. Larkin and I used to go to Trinity Lutheran Church at Lynnwood, Washington. (We almost always go to a church with that name, it’s just that the city changes from time to time.) Rick and Anne and family were also active members, and I believe they still are. When it came time to sell my piano when we moved out of Lynnwood and didn’t have room for it, Rick’s dad handled the sale. So we have a personal connection, and I can tell you that what you see in all of his travel guides on PBS is the real thing. The quiet, cheerful, reasonable man you see on camera is exactly the same man you would be delighted to run into week after week in church, or probably anywhere else. And now he’s taking a stand on the decriminalization of marijuana. No, nice guys like Rick Steves aren’t likely to take the kind of radical position that you would see If I Were King, but it’s a step.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’ve been delinquent in keeping up here. I’ll try to do better. I wrote hundreds of e-mails, some of which probably would have been excellent fodder for posts here had I really been on top of it, but I didn’t. In the interim, here’s my most recent sermon, touching on the nature of truth and fact.

Schisms are nothing new in Christian history. In fact, as part of what is known as the western catholic tradition, I’m divided in many ways from the eastern church. On the western side would be the Roman, Anglican, and Lutheran churches, on the eastern side are the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches. Among the western churches, although there are significant differences in organization and governance, there’s not much more than a nickel’s worth of theological difference between the branches, even those of us who are called Protestant. I have absolutely no issues with anything in the three creeds (Athanasian, Nicene, Apostles) that the western church holds to. I’ve been baptized, I cross myself when I pray, I worship and accept the Eucharist regularly.

Delegates of the San Joaquin diocese met at Fresno this weekend and, by a vote of 173 to 22 (with 6 abstentions), chose to disassociate themselves from the Episcopal Church. The bishop, John-David Schofield, and the majority of churches in his diocese, have some rather bizarre theological affectations. This is the only diocese in the Episcopal Church that doesn’t ordain women as priests, for example. Their big issue, which galvanized them to secede from the national church, is the ordination of gay priests.

I guess they’re embarrassed that the Episcopal Church is lead by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, a woman. I guess they’re upset that V. Gene Robinson, the bishop of New Hampshire, is homosexual. I guess they’re being childish.

If this really bothers them, they should be embarrassed to worship a god who sent his only son to die for the sins of all who believe, including women and gays. They should be embarrassed that this god sends his spirit into the world and calls all those women and faggots!

Here’s the crux of the matter: We, meaning the western church, do not believe that we can come to believe in Jesus Christ by our own intellectual prowess. We believe that those of us who have faith in the trinity do so because we were called by the Holy Spirit. We further believe that men and women do not choose the ordained ministry as part of normal career selection, that men and women are called to ministry by the same Spirit. When a parish needs a new pastor, a Call Committee is established. In the Lutheran and Anglican tradition, bishops are chosen by election, but we have faith that the selection is guided by the Spirit.

God called Peter, the fisherman who couldn’t keep his foot out of his mouth, the man we see as the first bishop of the Christian church, the man the Roman church sees as the first Pontiff. God called Matthew, the despised tax collector, to be an apostle. Some of what they did may have turned his stomach, but God called the Borgia popes, and later called Martin Luther. And seeing their faith and their willingness to serve his people, he calls women and homosexuals and expects his church, all branches of his church, to succor them and equip them for that service.

Bishop Schofield believes the important part is completely different. There is a section of the Old Testament book of Leviticus (chapters 17-26) known as the Holiness Code. It’s quite a collection of prohibitions, some of which don’t make a whole lot of sense, most of which the Christian church regards with amusement. For example, followers of the Holiness Code can’t eat lobster or shellfish, can’t eat cheeseburgers, and men can’t “lie with” men. This is the part of the Torah that made the Pharisees so proud of themselves, they never contravened any of the 600+ rules in there. I don’t know why all those rules were recorded, and I don’t know why they ended up as part of Torah, and thus part of the Old Testament. It’s not important. It’s part of the heritage of Judaism, which is part of the heritage of Christianity, but it isn’t binding on you and me today. I have no intention to “lie with a man as with a woman”, but you separate me from McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese at your peril, and a bowl of steamed clams sounds really good right now.

That’s the part of scripture that Bishop Schofield holds to be central, apparently. Well, John-David, you are wrong. The Gospel is the part of scripture that’s central, and furthering the work of Jesus Christ in the world around us is what’s central to our lives today. Driving wedges that divide the church, or that divide believers from the church, is anathema.

Just like the church survived the Borgia popes, the church will survive this latest fracas. The national church, which apparently owns all the buildings in the diocese, will doubtless take care of the paperwork so that new priests can be called to serve these troubled parishes. The real diocese, that is the body of parishes in that area, will elect a new bishop. The gospel will be proclaimed, souls will be saved, and John-David Schofield will, if he’s very lucky, be a footnote in history a hundred years from now.

Sometimes you have to wonder about the Roman Catholic Church. Facing many challenges in a world where millions welcome the Gospel message but aren’t quite so willing to swallow the male-dominated hierarchical church, Rome selected the head of the Inquisition to be their new leader in April 2005. (The Roman church has never had a branch formally called “The Inquisition”, but the current name of that body is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Cardinal Ratzinger led prior to his election.) More recently, the Archdiocese of Saint Louis may have topped that.

In an AP story that appeared in the New York Times last month, “Two Faiths Divided on Women’s Ordination Ceremony”, the Rev. Vincent Heier, director of the archdiocesen office for ecumenical and interreligious affairs is quoted as saying, “This is not a lack of forgiveness, but we have to stand for something. It’s a matter of principle.” And what is this core principal? That other religious bodies not offer assistance to women who wish to be ordained as priests.

In this particular story, a Jewish congregation made their sanctuary available for an ordination service for two women. The archdiocese was not in any way involved. Out of courtesy, the rabbi let Rev. Heier know of their plans. The archdiocese responded, according to the AP story they vowed never again to work with the congregation.

In times past, the archdiocese and the Central Reform Congregation were involved together in advocacy for the poor and immigrants. They doubtless provided support for some of the same soup kitchens. I guess that all stops now.

Reverend Heier, let me tell you something: As representatives of Jesus Christ in the third millennium at Saint Louis, support for the hungry and the foreigners in your community is a core principal. Choosing to not make use of women who are called to ordained ministry within your parishes is an organizational fetish, it’s not a principle. Refusing to work with others in the community who don’t share this fetish isn’t a principle, it’s an absurdity.

If I Were King, or even Bishop of Rome, I’d send Rev. Heier to his room for a while to think about what his core principles are.