Office vs. Ministry

            What was said of the executed King Charles I’s life seems applicable to the papacy of Benedict XVI:  Nothing became him like the leaving of it.

            By “resigning”—the word itself bears noticing—His Holiness spoke more volumes than he could possibly have written about the nature of what he was leaving.

            All of us in holy orders, or who serve the church in any capacity, should take notice.

            Since no pope had ever chosen to step down for 598 years, Benedict’s act by any measure is historic.  Moreover, as I suggested, the description of his act warrants attention.  He “resigned.”  He “retired.”  He didn’t “abdicate”: that’s the language of rulership, which, of course, includes the throne of St. Peter.  Benedict remains, after all, the last absolute monarch reigning anywhere in Europe.  One “abdicates” from a monarchy.  One “resigns” from an office.  The triple papal tiara continues to adorn the flag of the Vatican, but not since Paul VI has a pope actually worn it.  Monarchialism, even in Rome, seems to be passé.  Fine by me.

            So the emphasis shifts from the monarchical to that of office.  From that, Benedict has resigned and will retire.  Some say that, in so doing, he diminishes it, like those in the crowd at St. Peter’s who cried to him, “Stay, stay!”  The act, said one, “undermined the primacy of the pontiff, his authority.”

            To me, though, his act represented not pontifical supremacy but supreme humility.  He perceived himself unable to fulfill the ministry that the office demanded.  So, instead of remaining in office while his mortal life ebbed away, as he watched his predecessor do, he decided to leave.  For the sake of the ministry, for the good of his Church, he withdrew.

            Or, perhaps, because he found scandal upon scandal piling up around him, even to his last days as pope, realizing he couldn’t deal with them, he moved aside so someone else could.

            Either way, the ministry proved more important than the office.  Since he could no longer effectively offer the one, he would not remain in the other.

            The church, any church, provides plenty of offices for laity and clergy.  They come with nice titles:  bishop, warden, deacon, choirmaster, vestryman/woman, lay Eucharistic minister, priest, rector (from the Latin for “ruler”), church secretary.  Often they come with perks ranging from nice clothes to seats in the assembly or slots in the parking lot.

But each at heart is a ministry, a service to and for God, church, community, neighbor.

Pope Benedict abdicated from the most perk-filled position, perhaps of any kind and certainly the church, in the world.  In so doing, I think, he showed where his priority was: the ministry.

All of us who hold positions in the Church of God, whatever brand it may be, can take a lesson in his humility.

BECOMING WHO WE ARE

When Jesus received his baptism from John at the Jordan River, a voice from heaven proclaimed him as God’s beloved son.  He spent the rest of his earthly life fulfilling that identity.

For Christians, baptism proclaims our identity.  Each is a beloved child of God.  Amid all our diversity, we’re bound by that common reality, given by the triune God who creates us, shapes us in the example of Jesus, and guides us ever more into the identity God gives.  For Episcopalians, the “baptismal covenant” which is important enough to include in the Book of Common Prayer no less than three times (pp. 304-5, and also 292-4 and 416-8) gives an outline of both faith and life in following Christ.

Of course, baptism marks but a beginning.  My first rector/boss used to say, “More is begun than is done.”  Indeed, we spend the rest of our lives developing the great gift of identity bestowed in that sacrament.  But the identity is ours; no matter how much one may try to shake it off (God forbid), nothing can take that away.  Vastly better, sincere Christians become who we are.  Or at least try…and in the trying, begin to succeed.

As it is for the individual Christian, so I believe it is for the Christian community, on every level.  We together are becoming who we are.

For instance, the Anglican Communion used to be something of a worldwide English gentlemen’s club, the British Empire at prayer along with a few add-ons such as in the erstwhile American colonies.  No longer.  We are an international, interracial, globe-spanning community whose typical member, it is said, is a 25-year-old Nigerian woman.  We’ve come a long way from tea and crumpets, even if we’re having a hard time figuring out what that means.

Or The Episcopal Church.  Not The Episcopal Church in the United States, but The Episcopal Church in 17 different nations or regions.  We sing a new church in languages ranging far beyond English, Spanish and French to Navajo, Hmong and Creole.  Over the past four decades, we’ve become far more the “House of Prayer for all people” that the cathedral in Washington proclaimed itself to be.  But what does that suggest in how our church structures itself?  On the role of national—no, I mean “general”—efforts?  Last summer’s General Convention tasked a force to try figuring that out anew.

Or the diocese.  My own, Southwestern Virginia, last year reaffirmed its longstanding pledge “to challenge and support the creativity of our congregations in Christian growth and global responsibility.”  But we’re still discerning specifically what that means, in how congregations relate to each other and to the diocese as a whole, how precisely the bishop and staff  promote that effort in a time of particularly limited resources and, frankly, a decades-long shift in understanding the practical purpose of a diocese, ironically toward the vision expressed in that decades-old mission statement.  We strive to become who we’ve long said we aim to be.

Isn’t that, in the end, the goal?  To become what God intends for each of us—and all of us—to be?:  A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, as I Peter 2 put it, who have a purpose: to “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Singing a New Church

At The Episcopal Church’s 2012 General Convention, one momentous July day (Tuesday the tenth, to be precise), the House of Deputies passed a resolution to create a task force to look at the church’s structure.  The vote was officially unanimous (the few “nays” near me not being audible beyond a few tables), whereupon the convention center rang out with joyful song:

Sing a new church into being,
One in faith and love and praise.

OK, a bit over the top:  All we did was to approve creating a committee, which is not precisely what Jesus came to do.  But the Convention itself, notably in its actions that particular day including this one, seemed to close one very long chapter in our Church’s life, and open the page to a new one.

Returning home, I realized that I’ve led all 40 years of my life as deacon and priest within the context of dramatic change and, thus, controversy and conflict.  By 1972, issues of civil rights, liturgy, and the role of women in leadership had already begun to tear at the fabric of the Church, persisting for decades more and joined by questions of sexuality and of relationships with the greater Anglican Communion.  Big questions, these:  How do we relate to the world?  How do we worship?  Who can be involved in leadership?  Who is eligible to receive rites and sacraments?  What is the nature of our relationship with others in the church, on every level?

Forty years later, the 77th Convention nearly finished answering them.  That beastly hot day in Indianapolis, the Deputies—the clergy and laity forming one of the two houses in our bicameral legislature, bishops being the other—voted (a) to say absolutely nothing about the “Anglican Covenant” which concerned our involvement with others in the Communion; (b) voted that task force; (c) elected the Rev. Gay Jennings as its president, who is keenly committed to examining how we function as a church; (d) by 75+% margins, approved liturgies for blessings of relationships, including those of same-sex couples, all but ending the last of those controversies.  (The House of Bishops agreed.)

It was as if to say, Here we are, for better or worse.  Here we stand.  Four decades of pilgrimage and change is drawing to an end.  We are becoming a new church.

So where are we now?  Who are we?  How do we relate to each other?  What are the characteristics of what Jesus calls us to be and to do?  How do we cherish what we have inherited while incorporating what is new?  And, above all, how do we serve our Lord in our own ever-new day?

In fact, we’ve begun to envision the answers to those questions.  My own diocese, Southwestern Virginia, endorsed the outlines of just such a vision in 2012.  That task force will be developing something similar between now and the 2015 General Convention.

Visioning is one thing.  Living out the vision is another.  And that’s what this blog aims to be about.  Like any vision of the church at any time, it aims to be grounded in both the Bible and in Anglican theology and practice, while also being pragmatic.  Fortunately, the Anglican tradition is usually eminently practical.

About once a week, I plan on posting some musings on orders, congregations, mission, relationships, exciting things happening that manifest the vision which I believe the Spirit is leading us to perceive.

I hope that my thoughts will generate other thoughts and discussion; and that’s exactly what I invite.  Whether or not you agree with me, opinions, like gifts, vary; when we share them, like the best of parish pot-luck suppers, we feast.  As the song says:

Let us bring the gifts that differ
and, in splendid, varied ways,
sing a new church into being,
one in faith and love and praise.