Proper 23; October 15, 2017
Most of us like a good wedding reception. People tend to be happy, hopefulness is in the air and good friends and family are enjoying being with one another. In first century Palestine the wine would be flowing. Yet, just like with many weddings, something unexpected occurs. This event is no different and we get various odd twists and unexpected guests. One of the uncomfortable plot-lines is the note of judgment. Judgment as understood here is not condemnation, it is more like a wake-up call. All through this parable we have alarm clocks going off, events that are there to startle the hearer and bring about the possibility of seeing in a new way. This parable challenges us to wake up and understand that God is not about business as usual. As always, parables are offered to unsettle something in us, get us to take note and thereby make room for God. Note also that the parable is one of grace. Grace is something we find hard to believe or even sometimes allow. Do you remember the reactivity when the Amish community in Pennsylvania forgave the shooter of their children in the tragedy at their school? I am aware of some who are horrified that we pray for all in the massacre in Las Vegas, including the shooter. Doing so is hard, to be sure, but it is faithful. We are so very afraid that someone somewhere is going to get something she or he doesn’t deserve, especially if we know how hard we work and believe ourselves to be deserving. We may know in our heads the theology that “we are justified by God’s grace through faith,” but we often live as if we are justified by our own merit and what we contribute. Surely, we must have to dosomething! Listen to Frederick Buechner in his little yet grand book, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC: “Grace is something you can never get but only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth. People are saved by grace. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do.” Our own catechism says it well: “Grace is God’s favor toward us, unearned and undeserved.” Scandalous. We come now to the first note of grace. God wants to celebrate. We have a God of the party and we are invited! It is a party in honor of his son, (think Jesus here!), and today this Eucharist is a party, a celebration, in honor of Jesus. But now the alarm goes off. Why? Those invited in a free act of kindness can’t bother to come! So a second invitation goes out. The dishes are ready and hot—there’s a sense of urgency, but he invitation is made light of as they have things to tend to at the farm or business. They made excuses. We make excuses. God hears more excuses than a State Trooper. The world, then and now, is full of folks who don’t know a good thing when it is right in front of us. Free grace, dying love, extravagant acceptance – it’s all absurd. It’s too good to be true. I wonder. What are we running from? The best thing ever offered is God’s banquet where all, no exceptions, are invited to the table. Maybe it’s because some part of us doesn’t really want to be transformed and set free. It’s scary to trust such all-encompassing boundless love. So we cling to our insular worlds, stick to what we think we already know, self-justify and believe that if we’re just kind to others and behave ourselves we’ll get to the party. The danger of course is that we turn Christian life and faith into a minimalist moralism that never transforms anyone. Here’s the kicker. God still invites, still pursues, as the second alarm clock goes off and the invitation is offered to those on the streets – the societally outcast and despised. Apparently, God doesn’t play by the rules! The hall is then filled with guests who have come for God-knows what reason, including those who would not be on our list of the deserving. Think here any person we would prefer not to see at our own dining room table, even as God invites them to his banquet table. This is the part of the parable that is supposed to offend our good sensibilities of societal categories. The message is this – one is saved, that is included in the banquet, by accepting the invitation, no matter who you are or what your life history has been. Now we come upon one more wake-up call. The guy without the wedding robe appears. Very odd. We have to presume that others were given one to wear, nevertheless, here he is attending the party. The king wonders how he got in and he is kicked out, but note – no one is kicked out who wasn’t first in. God’s grace tells us that the invitation is our way to God’s party, not our track record. Yet the truth is that we are given free will and we can, if we want, refuse the gift of the robe of acceptance and turn down the invitation. God doesn’t force us to show up and we get the point that for a follower of Jesus, complacency is not an option. St. Augustine has said that we are to “love God and do anything we want.” His point is that in loving God, everything we do will be shaped by that love. The way we live life then becomes an act of thanksgiving for the grace given, not a way to earn God’s acceptance of us. Our responsibility as the Church is to do all we can to make God’s banquet available to anyone and everyone just as it is for us. Take a seat. Let us keep the feast. Proper 22: October 8, 2017
(A continuing commentary on last week’s Gospel in response to Jesus’ argument) This is a story of a long-time resident in a European village. He was known to all as one who was always kind, was a favorite of the children, and would do anything for anyone in making himself available to any person’s need. On the day of his death plans were made for his burial. As it turns out, he did not share the same faith as most of the townspeople and therefore it was prohibited for him to be buried in the town cemetery. This was upsetting to many, but the religious authorities had to uphold the established rules. So the interment occurred and the man was buried just outside the fence that marked the boundaries of the cemetery. A strange thing happened late that night, however. For when people awoke the next day, it was discovered that someone had gone to the cemetery and moved the fence to include the grave of the kind-hearted village man who had been buried the day before. Enter, stage right, the chief priests and elders of last week and today’s Gospel, the religious and civil leaders of their day. They were so caught up in themselves and their own sense of righteousness, they could not imagine God’s great desire for all the inhabitants of the vineyard as Isaiah put it: to “sing for my beloved my love-song.” Once again, the Gospel, as Jesus presents it to us, turns things upside down. You know: the exalted are humbled and the humble exalted; the last shall be first and the first last; the rich will be sent away empty and the poor will be given good things; the mighty are cast down and the lowly are lifted up. We don’t always do real well with that. We live in a culture that too often exalts the exalted and believes the first ought to be first and the last deserve to be so. Do you see what is going on in this account in Matthew’s Gospel? As we saw last week, Jesus engages the chief priests and elders who are wondering where he gets his authority, all by the way so that they can discount anything he says. Then follows three parables – the one of the two sons last week and then today two more parables, those of the vineyard and the wicked tenants. Each of these three parables is a commentary on the dispute Jesus is having with the authorities and is addressed to them. Amazingly, the chief priests and elders are pronounced guilty, for they have in the first parable today rejected the prophets, those whom God had chosen to be God’s truth-tellers. By throwing them out of the vineyard as the parable account goes, the religious and civil authorities have become the so-called wicked tenants of today’s second parable as their hearts have become closed to God’s call. That’s how people end up being buried outside the cemetery fence. The beautiful, welcoming, extravagant love-song of God that is meant for everyone is what gets Jesus in trouble. He is always moving the fence so that everyone is included, especially the ones often not immediately obvious to us. It sets up the conflict between Jesus and the Jerusalem leaders, eventually leading to his excruciating death. The fear of the chief priest and elders, and sometimes ours, is that someone just might get something they don’t deserve. But let me remind you of our catechism’s definition of grace: “Grace is God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved.” Garrison Keillor has said, “Every family needs a sinner to save us from self-righteousness.” Yet the Gospel goes much deeper than that. What makes the Gospel and the account we have last week and today such a revolutionary word is the upside down message Jesus is telling us about God. It is this: God’s mercy, God’s loving kindness, is not dependent on human virtue at all. It is based solely on God’s generosity, a love that comes from God who desires that every person is, regardless of personal history, invited to enter the glorious freedom of the liberty of life in him. It is true for the tax collectors and sinners, it is true for the tenants of the vineyard, it is even true for the self-righteous as they are called to receive the grace offered. In other words, it is true for us. The heart of the Gospel is the shocking paradox, yes shocking, that the last, the broken, the sinners, the least, unexpectedly enter the Kingdom first. It is a danger to think that we are self-sufficient because we are so good at pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, to live at the top of the moral pile in order to look down at those beneath, or live off of the energy of contempt for others in the game of self-righteous one-upmanship. Our Baptism and Confirmation into Christ calls us to name all of that as the trap and lie that it is. It destroys community. Today’s Gospel is about knowing our need of God and the “surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” If we see ourselves as we really are – children of God who know brokenness and grace, honesty and deception, not all good, not all bad, we can admit that merit on our own is not enough. Yet we know with certainty that it is God who is enough for us all, for “Christ Jesus has made you his own.” All is gift. God sings the song of love for you. Bishop Skip The 17th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 21
October 1, 2017 I had been driving out and about in the Diocese and got hungry, so I stopped to pick up a sandwich. Instead of sitting in the parking lot I drove over to a pullout near a park to eat before returning to the office. I remember a Vaughan Williams piece was playing on Sirius, Fantasia on Greensleeves, when a car pulled up next to me. I wasn’t paying close attention, but two people got out with a loaf of bread, and seemingly out of nowhere 30-40 seagulls appeared. Pieces of bread were being launched into the crowd as wings flapped wildly, with only bread on the mind. A cacophony ensued drowning out Vaughan Williams. The chaos was orderly as chaos goes when a funny thing happened. A duck, a lone male mallard appeared and dared to enter the assembly. As he made some rather feeble attempts to join the party it became apparent that he was not going to be tolerated. Three gulls set upon him and chased the duck out of the group, down through some trees until I lost sight of them. Neither the seagulls nor the duck returned to the frenzied feast still going on. Evidently, the seagulls were so fixed on themselves and their place in the pecking order (ahem), and getting rid of one unlike themselves, they missed out on their own source of food and the great party that was taking place. Enter, stage right, the chief priests and elders of today’s Gospel, the religious and civil leaders of their day. They, like the seagulls, were so caught up in themselves and their own sense of righteousness, they could not fathom the party of grace that God wanted to throw for the so-called tax collectors and sinners and indeed, wants to throw for the chief priests and elders as well! Once again, the Gospel, as Jesus presents it to us, turns things upside down. You know: the exalted are humbled and the humble exalted; the last shall be first and the first last; the rich will be sent away empty and the poor will be given good things; the mighty are cast down and the lowly are lifted up. We don’t always do real well with that. We live in a culture that too often exalts the exalted and believes the first ought to be first and the last deserve to be so. Do you see what is going on in this Gospel story? As Jesus engages the chief priests and elders who are wondering where he gets his authority, all by the way so that they can discount anything he says, he responds like a good rabbi and answers a question with a question. Jesus uses a very recent example in the life of Jerusalem and brings up his cousin, you remember, John the Baptist. They find themselves in a bit of a pickle as they cannot say what they really think about John the Baptist as he does not fit into their religious or civil categories. They’re stuck and so respond, “We don’t know.” Then follows the parable of the two sons that is a commentary on the dispute. Amazingly, the chief priests and elders are pronounced guilty for their hearts are not receptive to God’s call. Obedient faith is always the final test for Matthew, so when the tax collectors and sinners, last on the list for God’s welcome on most people’s list are thrown a party of grace, it cannot be tolerated. This wild, welcoming, extravagant party of grace that is meant for everyone is what gets Jesus in trouble. It sets up the conflict between Jesus and the Jerusalem leaders, eventually leading to his excruciating death. The fear of the chief priest and elders, and sometimes ours, is that someone just might get something they don’t deserve. The problem is not that the chief priests and elders or even the one son who did not do what he said he would do are bad people, or on the flip side, that the tax collectors and sinners and the son who first refused and then came around are such good people. The problem occurs when some wish to celebrate their own sense of righteousness as better than another’s, and thus have no need to repent – to walk in a new direction. And in this case, the tax collectors and sinners as well as the son who eventually came around knew of their need. Garrison Keillor has said, “Every family needs a sinner to save us from self-righteousness.” Yet the Gospel goes much deeper than that. What makes the Gospel and the account we have today such a revolutionary word is the upside down message Jesus is telling us about God. It is this: God’s mercy, God’s loving kindness, is not dependent on human virtue at all. It is not based on moral rectitude, that is, getting it all right, or even moral turpitude, getting it all wrong. It is based solely on God’s generosity, a love that comes from God who desires that every person, regardless of personal history, is invited to enter the glorious freedom of the liberty of life in him. It is true for the tax collectors and sinners, for the son who finally came around, it is even true for the self-righteous as they are called to welcome the grace offered. In other words, it is true for us. The heart of the Gospel is the shocking paradox, yes shocking, that the last, the broken, the sinners, the least, enter the Kingdom first. It is a danger to think that we are self-sufficient because we are so good at pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, to live at the top of the moral pile in order to look down at those beneath, or live off of the energy of contempt for others in the game of self-righteous one-upmanship. Our Baptism and Confirmation into Christ calls us to name the above as the trap and lie that it is. It destroys community. Today’s Gospel is about knowing our need of God. If we see ourselves as we really are – children of God who know brokenness and grace, honesty and deception, not all good, not all bad, we can admit that merit on our own is not enough. Yet we know with certainty that it is God who is enough for us all. This is the promise of Jesus. All is gift. Welcome to the party of grace. Bishop Skip Dear People of God of The Episcopal Church in South Carolina,
A pall of darkness and horror has once again fallen over our beloved country. In the massacre in Las Vegas we know as of this writing that 58 people have died and more than 500 have been injured. It was an unspeakable act of evil. Our hearts go out to all the victimized, including their families, as we hold them in prayer that somehow mercy and grace may be known to them. Many times this comes in the form of the first responders, pastors and medical personnel who tend to their needs. They need our prayer as well. The Episcopal Bishop of Nevada, Dan Edwards, and the people of the Episcopal Church there, will be right in the middle of the responses needed so that a word of love may be spoken in the midst of hatred and violence. Bishop Edwards has asked that the Episcopal Churches across Nevada toll their bells in mourning at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time tomorrow, once each time for the number of those killed, including the perpetrator. I am asking that our churches in South Carolina who have bells to toll them at 12:00 noon Eastern time onTuesday, October 3, to join in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Nevada. In addition to our prayer, we must also act. We must find a way to be in conversation about the culture of violence sweeping our nation and engage in repentance for whatever ways we participate in that culture, even unwittingly. The nature of gun violence in particular, as we know, is wrapped up in issues of poverty, class, mental illness and race. A serious conversation leading us to enact reasonable gun laws must be had and so far it has eluded us as a nation. Some of you are aware that I am one of the Episcopal bishops who join in a group called Bishops United Against Gun Violence (BUAGV), and I direct you to that website for information: bishopsagainstgunviolence.org. We ask hard but necessary questions such as: "Why, as early as this very week, is Congress likely to pass a bill making it easier to buy silencers, a piece of equipment that makes it more difficult for law enforcement officials to detect gunfire as shootings are unfolding?” “Why are assault weapons so easily available to civilian hands?" Our goal must not be just better laws, however. We are about changing hearts and human transformation. We follow the Prince of Peace and name Jesus as Lord. We are about healing and wholeness, building bridges across lines of division and hostility. This is the work we must continue to do, work that participates with our prayer and longing for the healing of the nations. Please join in the ringing of bells tomorrow as you are able. Do gather together in prayer wherever you may be at that time. I leave you with the familiar, but oh so beautiful, A Prayer Attributed to St. Francis: Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 833.) Blessings, peace and love to you all, Bishop Skip (I am grateful to my sisters and brothers in Bishops United Against Gun Violence for the Inspiration for this letter.) Mosaic of Madonna and Child with Angels in Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy, via Wikimedia Commons September 29, 2017
The celebration of this day draws me to worship. It draws me to the altar where we join our voices “…with Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven,” singing praise and glory to God. From Luke’s account we hear of the song of the heavenly hosts, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors,” familiar to us as the beginning of the Gloria in excelsis. Even the antiphons or refrains for the various canticles and psalms appointed for today’s feast direct us to an attitude of worship. One ancient example rings out, “Angels and Archangels, Thrones and Dominions, Principalities and Powers, Virtues of the heavens, O praise the Lord of heaven, alleluia.” To worship is to give “worth” to something, as in worth-ship. That to which we give worth is what we worship, and the call of faithfulness is to give ultimate worth to God. This “worth-giving” is characterized by praise, honor, joy, and I trust a spirit of playfulness, even foolishness. It is the poet Annie Dillard who admonishes us that in worship we ought to prepare by donning crash helmets. Of course, worship is not only to happen in a set-aside sacred space. It can happen anywhere, even as all the company of heaven is present everywhere and thus all creation is sacred. I remember a glorious moment some years ago in the Maine woods, walking the shore of a lake, gazing upon a lunar eclipse at midnight and singing out loud a psalm of praise. I recall standing at a hospital bed with a dying friend, family gathered round, and a profound sense of a community present “seen and unseen.” Another time, standing before giant tortoises in the Galapagos Islands, I found myself spontaneously praising and giving thanks to God for his imagination manifested on this earth, our island home. My hope for you today in your ongoing life and ministry is that you will find places of wonder and the time needed to adore the God of infinite love and mercy. Join the conversation that is already taking place among all the company of heaven, as we join as one to sing in an ancient antiphon, “The heavenly host extol the Son of the Most High; to him Cherubim and Seraphim continually cry, Holy!” Bishop Skip The Calling of St. Matthew by Jan Sanders van Hemessen, 1536, via Wikimedia Commons September 21, 2017
We remember and celebrate this day the call of Matthew by Jesus. In Matthew 9:9 we read, “Jesus saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth.” Perhaps the most startling words in the entire account are those that indicate Jesus “saw him.” It would have been easy for Jesus not to see Matthew. It would have been more efficient to walk on by and not bother. After all Matthew was a tax collector: a collaborator with the Roman government and understood as an extortionist who was getting rich off of his own people. Furthermore, we know that tax collectors were abhorred by the most pious of Jewish groups, the Pharisees. Yet Jesus did see Matthew and dared to call him into his circle of disciples in order that he might follow. Who do we not see? Who would it be easy to walk on by, not recognize or acknowledge? Who do we choose not to value? Often when disasters strike such as in hurricanes, or even in our difficult conversations regarding immigration, it is precisely those who are too often the unseen who are suddenly exposed, particularly the poor. It is my hope that in our faith communities we are working very hard to see as clearly as Jesus sees and draw into his circle of care those to whom we need to respond, in word and in action. As Matthew 9:13 reminds us quoting Hosea, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Our religious devotion and our life as a Church mean little to nothing unless we too are willing to see as Jesus sees, with mercy, as we respect the dignity of every human being and act accordingly. Bishop Skip Detail of a 6th-century mosaic in the apse of the Basilica of Sant' Apollinare in Classe near Ravenna, Italy, via Wikimedia Commons September 14, 2017
“And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself.” John 12:32 John’s Gospel understands Jesus’ self-offering on the cross as his exaltation. Thus he is “lifted up” as on a throne. An instrument of death that was meant to be a political statement of Rome’s power, that was meant to humiliate and destroy, becomes in the hands of God an invitation of total love, mercy and forgiveness. Today’s feast presents us with an opportunity. We can, once again, claim our center as we are reawakened to the glory of the cross. It is there we discover the definitive statement of who God is in his very nature – the desire to draw all people to himself. In that act on the trash dump of Golgotha of all places, is a proclamation of pure love. Do not mistake this for a passive God who is waiting for us to find him. Jesus taught us of a God who will not stop searching until we are found. God’s passion is you. Too often in history the Church has done a lot of grumbling about “sinners.” Nothing new there. Welcome to humanity. God’s emphasis, however, seems to be unmitigated joy by partying with us as we are found. So it is that we celebrate Eucharist. The cross-event reveals with stark clarity the very nature of the activity of the divine love and manifests its character as directed to the welcome of all people. No exceptions. It is through the cross that we learn that God is love. The Letter to the Philippians, as it echoes Isaiah, understands the cross as the reclaiming of the universe to God’s sovereignty and glory. It is for the healing of the nations. It is also the vindication of Jesus who refused to regard equality with God a thing to be exploited, placing himself at the divine disposition. As in Jesus, so it is our call to give ourselves to the obedience of God’s self-offering, demonstrating our willingness as God’s people to empty ourselves, take on the form of a servant, lay down our lives in order to give life, all out of a deeply developed and tended life flowing from a relationship with the living Christ. The cross shows us that the way to God is the way of self-giving love. The way of God’s love is the way of the cross, drawing all people to God’s very self. Bishop Skip Detail of St. Bartholomew by Pinturicchio (Bernardino Di Betto), c. 1497, via Wikimedia Commons. August 24, 2017
He is on the list of twelve. Not much more can be said about Bartholomew. Three of the Gospels and the book of Acts mention him as one of the apostles, but beyond that we know almost nothing. Interesting conjecture poses the possibility that Bartholomew and Nathanael were the same person. There are other traditions that arose over the years that cannot be proven. Even the word “patronymic” comes up – do look it up. So what do we do with this known yet unknown figure? Perhaps by not knowing details we are free to play. In contrast to similar stories in Mark and Matthew of friction amongst the disciples over authority and who will get the best seat, the context of Luke 22 is a time of transition from Jesus’ impending death and his expectations of faithful leadership in the continuation of the ministry he initiated. We can then apply to this day Luke’s perspective in his Gospel of the call of Jesus for the disciples and therefore the call of all who will follow through the millennia. Too often in the Church we get hung up in institutional minutiae. The preservation of buildings and other infrastructure tend to become the main thing and have us focus on survival as we take our eye off of the reason we exist. Notice that Jesus is not preparing the way for institutional preservation. In this last will and testament, he is saying to the disciples, and therefore to us, that the kingdom for which he is preparing is one for which we must be preparing. We do so by living in a manner that creates the greatest possibility for it to break in and break through: “I assign to you, as my Father has assigned to me, a kingdom…” (Luke 22:29). Jesus has shown in his life and death the very essence of whom God is. The only reason for the Church to exist, and I would add the only reason for a Christian faith community to exist, is so that through our worship of God we might find the reality of the reign of God taking shape in the lives of the people who gather, in the Church we love, and then in our mission whereby we seek to establish God’s reign of peace and justice in the world. A bishop friend says very clearly that the Church does not have a mission. God has a mission and a Church through which to carry out that mission. He does, I believe, have a point. Our purpose is God’s mission as presented by Jesus. Today’s celebration of the person of Bartholomew, in his historical role and witness, calls us once again to ask the question of ourselves and of the faith communities of which we are a part – why do we exist? What is our purpose of being? Along the way, may we find that we, in the words of the collect for the day, ”…love what he believed and preach what he taught.” Bishop Skip In a letter dated August 21, The Right Reverend David Alvarado, Bishop of The Episcopal Anglican Church of El Salvador, writes to Bishop Skip Adams to express concern about policies of persecution of the migrant population in the United States.
Bishop Adams shares this letter with people in The Episcopal Church in South Carolina, calling it "a generous and good response showing our common concern regarding racial and societal bigotries." Read the letter in PDF form here. The text is below: August 21, 2017 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”. Matthew 5:9 Beloved Brother in Christ our Lord, Bishop Adams, Greetings in the name of the Episcopal Anglican Church of El Salvador, our best wishes in your Pastoral Ministry and in your family. The reason for write to you and to your Diocese is to express our concern about the policies of persecution of the migrant population in the U.S.A. Which we qualify as an attitude is completely unjust and inhuman, since migrants are workers looking for decent living conditions for them and their families, with the exception of those who committed criminal acts. We very much regret that in the past few months this population is suffering persecution because of their irregular situation of migration and also by racial issues. An example of this is the closure of the program Conditional Admission to Salvadoran children who looking for enter to this program: Parole Processing for Minors in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala (Central American Minors – CAM). Just a few days ago we have seen and heard terrible news about riots and violence by the resurgence of racist groups in Charlottesville Virginia, USA. which is making the situation worse, since these racist and criminal groups place greater risk on minority groups such as migrants, especially those who are in an irregular migration situation and, of course, the Afro-descendant population. Therefore, we sympathize with people who are suffering violence and persecution, in addition, our condolences to people who have suffered from racially or ethnically conditions, as well as our Episcopal Church and the noble people of the United States. We call for ends the violence against people who looking for peace and justice. As a Church, we are called to “bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives” Isaiah 61:1. Considering our mission based on the biblical theological mandate, we believe it appropriate to exhort you and the Episcopal Church of the United States to speak out in favor of the weakest and against unjust policies of persecution and xenophobia against migrants. Also, against the emergence and action of racist groups that threaten the life, freedom of the people and against the national stability of the United States. We raise our prayers for your ministry and for the Welfare of the migrant and homeless population and ask to God to cease racial persecution in the United States and the world. We sympathize with TEC, with the noble people of the USA and with all those who continue to use non-violent means to work against racism and extremism. Fraternity in Christ, The Rt. Rev. David Alvarado Diocesan Bishop Episcopal Anglican Church of El Salvador August 18, 2017
William Porcher DuBose Dear People of The Episcopal Church in South Carolina, Patient waiting is one of the hardest things to do. It has a bit of the feel of Advent. Now that we have received a decision from the State Supreme Court of South Carolina, we find ourselves once again in an in-between time with many unknowns and decisions yet to be made. The temptation is to speculate and fill in the gaps to help alleviate a sense of anxiety, especially as rumors swirl about us and we hear misrepresentations of our positions and decisions. Our call, however, is not merely to wait patiently, but faithfully. What that means to me is to remember our call as disciples of Jesus, to be bearers of his Good News, and to live a life in active mission to bring God’s vision to reality in our life and in the lives of the people around us. It is the work of loving God and your neighbor as yourself, on which Jesus clearly stated depends all the law and the prophets. The horrific events in Charlottesville clearly indicate that our Gospel work is far from finished. The best thing we can do now in order to be about faithful waiting is to be a people of reconciliation and peace. Not only do we need to definitively and unequivocally condemn the actions of white supremacists, we must find ways in our own life to stand up peacefully to hatred, name racism and bigotry as evil, and all with the hope of the reconciling love of Christ sustaining us along the way. I write this to you on the feast day of William Porcher DuBose, a giant in The Episcopal Church, a South Carolinian, who is seen as one of the greatest theologians ever produced by The Episcopal Church. Interestingly, he is a graduate of the University of Virginia. He ministered in a time of uncertainty just as we do. Of the many things he said I point you to these words: “The one great lesson that must…make ready the Christian unity of the future is this: that contraries do not necessarily contradict, nor need opposites always oppose. What we want is not to surrender or abolish our differences, but to unite them.” Our desire and path remains one of reconciliation, one of love, for that is the way of Jesus. In Christ our hope, Bishop Skip |
Bishop Skip AdamsThe Right Reverend Gladstone B. Adams III was elected and invested as our Bishop on September 10, 2016. Read more about him here. Archives
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