OFFERING AND LETTING GO

A Reflection on the 2018 General Convention of The Episcopal Church:

It’s hard to get 880 strong-willed and highly-qualified deputies to agree on the precise statements of our Church on sensitive issues. But I took that challenge as my role during this past 2018 General Convention of The Episcopal Church. I was asked by Gay Jennings, President of the House of Deputies, to chair a Special Legislative Committee this year, not one of the regular committees, which would consider any resolutions having to do with revising, or with revisions to, the Book of Common Prayer. I was honored to accept the invitation!

All sorts of proposed resolutions came to our committee, and all sorts of committed Christians came to testify in our open hearings. We prayed. We listened to people. We honored people. The range of issues came down to two: 1) Whether and how we might engage the process of Prayer Book and liturgical revision, and 2) whether and how we might allow same-gender couples to be married sacramentally in their home parishes, when their diocesan bishop is theologically opposed to same-gender marriage.

You can read elsewhere of the very many excellent statements and events of the 2018 General Convention: welcoming the Church of Cuba back into The Episcopal Church, taking steps to ensure safety and honor for women in the church, dismantling racism, going out to make a prayer witness at the Hutto Family Detention Center for the sake of detained immigrants, passing a budget, and how to appeal to Israel on behalf of Palestinians.

But I was honored to be among those crafting and dealing with resolutions on prayer book revision and on same-gender marriage provisions in certain dioceses. In the end, it was a great joy to propose two resolutions on those issues that actually passed. Success!

Again, you can read the actual resolutions (A068 and B012) in the official communication sites of our Church; I especially recommend Episcopal News Service. You can also read comments and reflections that speak of compromise. People were glad to seek, and to recognize, graceful compromise from some our Church’s more passionate and committed members.

But here is what I think happened: not compromise, but victory! I enjoyed noting the victories that our parties, and our entire Church, can rightly claim. For instance, our final resolution on “Prayer Book and liturgical revision” (A068) really does authorize us, the Church, to do revision. Plus, we really did claim that we remember (“memorialize”) the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer continues to be our duly authorized prayer book. But we also committed ourselves to the healthy and ongoing joy of liturgical revision. There was tremendous agreement on the need for inclusive and expansive language in referring to both humanity and divinity. People who wanted prayer book revision, and people who wanted to remain committed to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, both could claim victory in our final resolution.

On the other issue, which was finally resolved in B012, I believe both “sides” can rightly claim victory. Importantly for me, we found a way for same-gender couples to be married sacramentally in their own, local, parishes even when the diocesan bishop is theologically opposed to that type of marriage. There are about eight dioceses of our Church presently in that situation. However, we were also careful to honor the theological principles of those eight bishops. They remain able to lead their dioceses with their conscience and leadership honored (It is just that “Their conscience is NOT their diocese!”).

Again, what I enjoyed about this year’s General Convention was how we found a way for opposing sides to enjoy victory, and not compromise. Compromise is fine, and necessary; but I believe we did something beyond compromise. We celebrated common victories together, as a Church, and that celebration was truly grace-filled.

Throughout General Convention, my counsel to deputies (and bishops!) is always “to offer and then to let go.” In our Church, all of us have important voices, and we have important offerings. Our role, in Convention, is to make our offering, our statement, our idea, our proposal, but then to let it go! Once we offer our word, that word is no longer ours alone; it belongs to a wider group: either the committee considering the resolution, or the House which is considering the perfected resolution, or the entire Church (House of Deputies and House of Bishops) finally concurring with each other.

“Offering and Letting Go.” That is my motto for successful General Convention activity. In our Church, no one –no matter who we are! – no one gets their own way. We offer what we have, and then we let it go. We don’t get our own way. But we do, indeed, get the Church’s Way, the greater good, the common good, the Way of Christ. The same goes for our local congregations and local communities of faith. Our most healthy communities of faith are those where people faithfully make our offerings, and then let them go, for the sake of the whole Church. In the end, it is not any one person or party who “wins.” In the end, Love wins! Alleluia!

DO NOT FEAR! THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IS NOT SUSPENDED AND WE ARE NOT HIERARCHICAL!

Do not fear! Apparently, the various primates of the Anglican Communion of Churches, meeting in Canterbury this past week (January 2016), voted on a statement which considers “how we may preserve our unity in Christ given the ongoing deep differences that exist among us concerning our understanding of marriage.” An 8-point resolution followed, apparently supported by a majority of the 38 primates, but not by all of them.

I do yet not have all details of the primates’ vote, but I am seeing various headlines and reports saying that The Episcopal Church has been “suspended” from The Anglican Communion. Other articles mention that the Anglican Communion of Churches is “the third largest Christian body in the world.”

Such reports sound sensationalistic, but they are deceptive and can be misleading. Here’s why: The Anglican Communion of Churches is simply not organized in the way that the Roman Catholic Church is. Casual readers of church news might prefer otherwise, desiring a handy table of heirarchy and doctrine. But no. The various churches and provinces of the Anglican Communion of Churches are quite diverse, and held together by common faith, common heritage, common tradition, and common spirit – but not held together by doctrinal absolutism, or one pope, or one body that sets global policy. For those reasons, large differences of opinion and theology, on matters like same-sex marriage, continue to exist in the Anglican Communion of Churches.

But, whatever else the primates can do, they cannot vote, by any margin, to keep a province or church from participating in the Anglican Communion of Churches. In fact, the word “suspension” does not appear at all in their January 2016 8-point resolution. (Another point: To claim that I, as an Episcopalian am not an Anglican, would be similar to claiming – in the heat of some rhetorical political dispute —that I, as a Georgian, am not an American.)

For the past fifteen years, various votes among various entities in the Anglican Communion have tried to force theological unity on the controversial issue of same-sex marriage. Many such votes have tried to appeal to some ultimate authority, or tried to assume some ultimate heirarchy, in order to support their position.

I am of the opinion that such desired heirarchies, or such fantasized hierarchies, are simply not there. Though our American Episcopal Church has recently tried to describe itself as an hierarchical church in certain legal situations, our beautiful and larger Anglican tradition is simply (and complex-ly) NOT hierarchical. The Episcopal Church is one of 38 global provinces who have a history and tradition and theology set in the gracious and generous elements of that Christianity which has roots in the British Isles.

Obviously, the issue of same-sex blessings, and same-sex marriage, has obsessed our church in recent years. Whether they are for or against same-sex marriage, some may regret that obsession. On the other hand, however, the issue is not a bad proxy for generosity and flexibility and openness, and, indeed, love. No matter what part of the globe we inhabit, our Anglican tradition has typically been one of the more progressive of the Christian expressions of faith.

I believe that our progressiveness, our openness to development, results from our sensitive observation and attention to the presence of God in the flesh. We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in incarnation. We continue to seek God in one another, and to affirm the presence of God in people, even in people who think and act differently from us.

In short, we are not an hierarchical church! The primates do not run the parishes of The Episcopal Church. (In fact, our bishops don’t actually run them either! In times of controversy, it is not healthy simply to appeal to higher and higher perceived hierarchies. It is healthier to make principled and Christian stands within our own integrity.)

I urge us, then, to continue living out our service and witness, our love and ministry, in the same Christian ways that we have been living them out. Do not fear! Jesus Christ is with us, leading us in the Spirit into all truth.

MORE DETAILS ON THE 2016 PRIMATES’ RESOLUTION,

IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PAST FIFTEEN YEARS

The operative words of the January 2016 Anglican Communion primates’ resolution, on the matter for further impairments to communion, seem to be these:

“we formally acknowledge this distance [between our positions] by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.”

The phrase, “should not be appointed,” seems to be a request of those making appointments, generally the Archbishop of Canterbury and maybe, in some cases, the Anglican Communion Office. This statement seems to be a hope, and it is up to the “appointers” whether they accept the notion of being “required.”

The phrase, “should not be elected” is, again, a wish. How can anyone enforce, or guarantee, an election, which is generally understood to be a matter of voluntary and free will?

The phrase, “internal standing committee” is a bit ambiguous. Perhaps this phrase refers to the rather newly formed “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion,” whose members include Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut.

The phrase, “not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity,” takes up the ongoing matter of who decides doctrine and polity in Anglican Communion churches. This is exactly the matter under dispute across the global communion of churches. The primates have been meeting formally only since 1998! They were never intended to be doctrinal governors! Indeed, the manners in which some primates and bishops are appointed, some selected, some chosen, and some elected, vary widely across the globe. The Lambeth Conference of Bishops, whose first meeting was in 1867, was also never intended to settle matters of doctrine. Votes of Lambeth Conference were never originally intended to become doctrine, even though conservative advocates wanted the 1998 resolution, Lambeth I.10 to be interpreted as such.

Will the hopes and “requirements” of the primates’ January 2016 resolution be enforced? I am of the opinion that they will not be. The points are certainly heartfelt and sincere and faithful. Though I am progressive on these matters, I know that these controversies are painful for everyone.

But God is doing a new thing among us. Word is that the present Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby does desire to bring the matter of sanctioning same sex marriage to the General Synod of The Church of England. The ever witty Giles Fraser, a priest who writes for The Guardian newspaper, notes that same sex marriages are occurring in England now, presided over by ministers due to a strange legal loophole.

Giles Fraser remarks that “The Anglican church is only nominally a top-down organisation. What matters most is what happens on the ground. And on the ground, in pews across England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, Brazil, Korea, Japan and the US, the movement towards marriage equality is inexorable. Whatever piece of paper Justin Welby emerges with, it won’t hold back the tide of history. The best the conservatives can hope for is a few speed bumps. (see entire article here).”

Essentially, the prediction is that, soon, even the original provinces of the Anglican Communion of Churches, in sanctioning same-sex marriage, may well be acting in ways opposed by churches in the so-called Global South.

As for American Episcopalians serving on appointed ecumenical and interreligious boards, it is important to remember that the Archbishop of Canterbury made a similar pronouncement of banning Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada representatives in May of 2010 (in his notorious Pentecost Letter!). But The Anglican Communion Office may have found ways to proceed with American and Canadian representatives anyway. (see the appointment of American Mark McIntosh here,), and see the appointment of Canadian Linda Nicholls here ).

Finally, of course, there is the Anglican Consultative Council, which first met in 1971, and which might better represent the breadth of the Anglican Communion of Churches. That group also represents the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion of Churches, but its voting members are comprised of lay people and priests, in addition to bishops.

I urge The Episcopal Church never, ever, to withdraw from our voting participation in the Anglican Consultative Council. A short remembrance of how The Windsor Report was formalized serves as a warning:

The Windsor Report of 2004, with its proposals for certain moratoria on same-sex blessings, was accepted by vote of the Primates Meeting in 2005. Afterwards, a resolution supporting the Primates’ decisions then came before the Anglican Consultative Council of 2005. However, one of the Primates’ proposals had already been accommodated before its official reception! That is, that members of the ACC from The Episcopal Church and from the Anglican Church of Canada, would absent themselves from official attendance at the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council.

Therefore, when the Anglican Consultative Council met in Nottingham, England, in 2005, two delegations were exercising what I would call “gracious restraint.” They knew that the atmosphere was tense, and they wanted to indicate some tangible form of respect for those who disagreed with actions in The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada.

Unfortunately, however, the matter of accepting The Windsor Report, and thus further “formalizing” it, and thus further “formalizing” its moratoria, was exactly one of the key matters of ACC-13 in Nottingham. One of the emerging “Instruments of Communion” was voting on a matter without two delegations (each including three members, six people in all).

The vote was close! The vote was 30 in favor of affirming The Windsor Report, with 28 opposed, and with 4 in abstention. The chair determined that the resolution had thus passed, and so the Windsor Report, with its notion of “moratoria,” became further “formalized.” Had the delegations from The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada been voting, certainly the results would have been different.

The “lesson” for all Anglicans bears repeating. Stay in communion. Stay at the table. Claim your vote. I acknowledge that such table fellowship is difficult, for believers on all sides of the issues, and especially on this issue of marriage. What we believe about marriage comes from the heart of our theologies of faithfulness and commitment.

Finally, again, “Do not fear” are the familiar words of God’s angels throughout scripture. They are the words of Jesus himself. Be of good courage, be of good cheer, said Jesus, “I have overcome the world.” The world would have us panicked by sensationalistic headlines and simplistic summaries. The world would have us shown as divided against ourselves. But we Episcopalians and Anglicans have far more that unites us than divides us. We have accepted the love of Jesus, and we are committed to loving him more and more, in each of our neighbors and around the globe.

ON DESMOND TUTU and UBUNTU

Sometimes, it’s simply worth acknowledging great words written by someone else. I reprint here, a few paragraphs written by Alec Russell, from a much longer article about Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It’s an outstanding piece from The Financial Times Magazine on September 13, 2013.

Desmond Tutu would have been a brilliant stand-up comic. Within moments of arriving at his foundation’s offices, sporting his customary black ­workman’s cap, he is teasing his staff, his visitors and most exuberantly, of course, himself. “You are toooo close,” he tells a charity photographer, ­shooing away his lens. “Makes my nose grow big.” When I ask after his right foot, which is in a cast, I think for a moment he has misheard. “She is very beautiful ... ” Long pause. “The girl who I fell for ... ” He chuckles, as does his audience, irrepressibly, even his staff who have surely heard this before. “Tendonitis,” he adds. “Teenage-itis,” says an aide.

[Tutu’s daughter] Mpho, 49, an ordained priest, is an obvious keeper of her father’s flame. She had the peripatetic childhood of all four of Tutu’s children. …Mpho is less voluble than her father – how could she not be? But they interrupt and tease each other at will as any loving father and daughter might do. When they laugh together, they crackle with the force of a high-veld storm – not least when I recount the decline and fall of our local Anglican church in west London, exhibit A in my contention to them that their church is in deep trouble in the west.

It was a grand Victorian church built to accommodate hundreds, I explain. Twelve years ago when one of our sons was christened there the congregation was barely a dozen strong. Now it is closed. “Is that the effect you had?” jokes the Arch. He urges his fellow Anglican clerics not to panic over suggestions that Britain is becoming a post-Christian society and their church is in long-term decline.

“Of course we [the Anglican Church] want to sell our product [and have full congregations] but in another way we ought to say ultimately it doesn’t matter that our churches are empty. We have to find a way of communicating with those who say they find churches offputting. That doesn’t make them any less members of God’s family … How you actually get fulfilment as a human being isn’t when you rough everyone up and clobber them [for not attending church, for example]. It’s when you follow the example of the Lord, longing for the best for the other.” We shouldn’t be too selective, he adds. There really are churches where people are “well fed spiritually”. Then, characteristically, he changes tack, a trick he deployed so often in his searing sermons of the past. The trouble is, he concedes, tele-evangelists are filling a need.

“I’ve looked at our television here and you feel really sorry for what they [evangelical congregations] are fed. There’s a young pastor in Soweto I think. They must have two or three thousand people at a service every Sunday … but it’s real …”

“Drivel,” says Mpho.

“I was going to say bull…” He just stops. More laughter.

And my exhibit B, the success in the west of Richard Dawkins’ paean to atheism, his bestselling book, The God Delusion? Tutu is warming up now and delivers a confident riposte – though again, and typically, not what one might expect from a priest.

“God doesn’t want us being childish. God may want us to be childlike but not childish. We’ve been given intellectual gifts. We should go and question things we think are dubious intellectually. God is not sitting on edge that someone is going to find out eventually that the area of God’s control is shrinking. It’s not. God is not on edge. God says, ‘Bah!’ God is thrilled that we’ve been discovering all kinds of things. When you look at what science has discovered, God says, ‘Yay. There they go. That’s what I would like them to know.’”

As a cleric, Tutu has always defied rigid categorisation – if not flouted convention. At the height of the repression in the mid-1980s he embodied ­“liberation theology”. He ignored those superiors who thought he overstepped the mark. For him politics and religion were of a piece and had to be, in light of apartheid’s injustices. He also easily bridged the sometimes awkward gap between ­western and African traditions and thinking. John Allen, who was Tutu’s spokesman for more than a decade, wrote in an authorised biography that Tutu liked to contrast the western with the African idea of what it means to be human by setting Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” against the southern African tradition of ubuntu, which loosely means “a person is a person through other people”. Tutu thinks the west “has a tendency to separate the secular and sacred”, Allen tells me, “that it is very good at analysing and dissecting but not so good at integrating and pulling it all together.”

Again, if anyone wants a fine introduction to the person and character of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, read Alec Russell’s article, from The Financial Times Magazine, September 13, 2013!

THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PHILIP: A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL PEOPLE

(from 1999: my first sermon on the Feast of St. Philip the Deacon, before the Episcopal Church had officially recognized Philip the Deacon in our calendar)

Observing the Feast of St. Philip, Deacon and Evangelist

10 October 1999

 

Isaiah 56:1-8

Acts 8:26-40

John 13:1-15

 

Acts chapter 8 tells our fascinating story this morning, the story of St. Philip the Deacon, who  found himself wandering one day, down the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. St. Philip was led by God to attach himself to a foreigner, an Ethiopian eunuch, who had been to Jerusalem to worship.

 

Now, talk of a eunuch in polite society and in the discreet Christian Church is not very common these days. (Though we do seem to talk about everything else!) But eunuchs are mentioned in the Bible some fifty times. The general definition of a eunuch might be this: “males who do not have the ability to reproduce.” The reason for that inability might be genetic, and it might be due to accident. Eunuchs were obviously regarded as different from most; and because they were different, certain roles were denied them.

 

They were considered blemished,  and so the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus dictated that they could not offer sacrifice, or even be admitted to the assembly of the Lord (Deut 23:1-3 and Lev 21:18-20). In fact, they were considered as foreigners. Any foreigner, too, was not allowed to join the chosen people of God.

 

But something happens in the development of Scripture, and in the development of God’s people. The prophet Isaiah changes the attitude of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, when he makes the startling pronouncement at chapter 56, verse 3:

 

Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,

The Lord will surely separate me from his people;

And do not let the eunuch say,

I am just a dry tree.

 

For thus says the Lord:

To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,

... and the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord

 

These I will bring to my holy mountain,

And make them joyful in my house of prayer

For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

Thus says the Lord God,

who gathers the outcast of Israel,

I will gather others to them

besides those already gathered.

 

This incredibly provocative passage begins to be fulfilled in the Book of Acts, when Paul and Peter discover that God has poured out the Spirit upon Gentiles, upon people who were not obviously regarded as the people of God.

 

And St. Philip, the deacon, fulfills the prophecy even more clearly. He attaches himself to someone who is both a foreigner and a eunuch, someone who does not fit the customary description of purity and correctness. And Philip baptizes this Ethiopian eunuch. Philip baptizes him and so makes him part of a new community, a new definition of God’s people – just like we baptize people today and make them part of a new community.

 

The witness of Philip is a critical one for us. If we are to follow in his footsteps, it will mean at least three things. First of all, we must be willing to move, to follow the Spirit into new territory, even into wilderness places to which we are unaccustomed. Part of my own fascination with Philip is that he is transported from place to place.

 

It is good that we are named for this kind of Philip, as the cathedral church of a city ...on the move...driving cars and flying airplanes from place to place. The word Philip, in the Greek, translates literally as “lover of horses.” (If you are a horse-lover, you are in the right church!) Philip is a horse-lover; and a horse was the noblest and fastest means of transportation of the day.

 

Yes, there is good reason for Atlanta, with its dependence upon the automobile, upon the airport, and as a crossroads of transportation, to have a cathedral named for Philip, who used transportation to its fullest extent, who traveled to baptize even the foreigner and the stranger. I believe it is a good thing, too, that this very cathedral has traveled. We were once further south, across the street from the state capital; but we kept on the move. We are meant to be a traveling church.

 

If we are to follow Philip, we must overcome any fear of travel, but –secondly-- we must also overcome fear of the foreigner and of the stranger, the one who appears blemished, or much different from the norm. This fear seeps through much of American society these days, and it affects us here in Atlanta. North Atlanta fears South Atlanta. We tend to go to church, to go to schools, to go to clubs, with people who are the most similar to us. Indeed, that is easy. But it is not the mission of St. Philip the Deacon.

 

The mission of St. Philip would be to attach ourselves to the people who are different from us, who speak different languages than us, who are gay or lesbian or straight, but of different sexual orientation than us. The mission of St. Philip would be to serve as a deacon everyone with whom we come into contact.

Thirdly, St. Philip also baptized. We are becoming very good at this. We baptized 101 people last year; and as of today, this cathedral parish has baptized 92 souls this year. I know that not everyone baptized here is immediately energized with the Christian witness; but I believe God honors those baptisms. In baptism, we open our community to a wider and wider constituency. We make people part of the glorious Body of Christ in this place. And we are changed by their presence. The early Christian Church was changed by the influence of different people being baptized, people like this Ethiopian eunuch, people like Timothy whose mother was Jewish, but his father was Greek – a foreigner.

After this baptism of the Ethiopian, St. Philip suddenly found himself at Azotus, a town very far to the north; and the Scripture says he made his way up the Mediterranean coast to Caesarea, where he apparently lived. Later in the Book of Acts, he has four daughters – he has a family– and he is proclaiming the good news.

Proclaiming the good news. That was the mission of St. Philip, and that is our primary task at this cathedral. The good news that Jesus Christ has come among us in love and grace. Jesus loves us, no matter what our ethnic origin or physical description.

In 1933, the Dean of this Cathedral, Raimundo De Ovies preached a sermon in which he claimed that the cathedral was a house of prayer for all people. He said that “from henceforth the keynote of the communicants of this House of God shall be ‘Service.’” “We shall not be respecters of persons,” he said. “One’s possessions, social standing, family affiliations, or any other worldly standard can find no particular value in this place.”

Indeed, we are here to offer another particular value, the value of love. We are here to welcome the lonely and the stranger, the foreigner and the blemished, the rich and the poor, no matter what your wilderness has been. We are here to serve one another with good news: Jesus loves us, no matter where you are in your pilgrimage. This city, where so many are on the move, where so many are strangers, where so many are looking for love –this city-- has a cathedral, a house of prayer for all people.

AMEN.

GET UP AND GO: ST. PHILIP THE DEACON AND CHRISTIAN MISSION

 (a sermon for 14 October 2007)
The Feast of St. Philip, Deacon and Evangelist, observed

Acts 8:26-40

Last Sunday, a group of Jewish high school students visited the Cathedral of St. Philip. They had made polite inquiries and arrangements beforehand, asking one of the clergy to meet with them afterwards; and it was clear they were with us to explore the presence of God in traditions other than theirs. I was glad they were with us, and I explicitly welcomed them during the parish announcements.

What I discovered during their visit was that our service changed. Our service was different because this group of Jewish students was with us. I do not mean, of course, that we said any different prayers or sang any different hymns, or consecrated bread and wine any differently.

No, the difference was within ourselves. When I said my prayers that Sunday, I heard those prayers differently. When I used the name of Jesus (which I do often!), when I used images of the cross, when I sang about resurrection, I found myself reflecting –quickly as it might have been—upon how those notes met Jewish ears. As I spoke and prayed and sang, I did not regret a single word. I simply heard them differently. I might even have heard them more definitely and clearly. I certainly realized the power of the name of Jesus again.

That Sunday, I remembered that context changes the way we hear things. Context even changes our comprehension of things. When any two members of a family, for instance, are discussing a third member of that family, the discussion will be quite different if that third member is actually present. When our nation’s leaders discuss other countries, it matters when we know the other countries are listening!

The Episcopal Church has been re-learning this principle during recent years. When Christians are discussing homosexuality, for instance, the tone and attitude of the conversation changes dramatically if gays and lesbians are actually part of the group! And the same goes for global community. The conversation among global western Christians changes dramatically when global southern Christians are present.  It is probably the case that global western and global southern Christians are, for the most part, just learning how to have such graceful and truthful conversations together!

Many of the more strident arguments occurring globally are occurring because some people did not realize that other people were “over-hearing” the conversation. Some people did not realize that other people were in the room. Of course, these other people weren’t literally in the room. These other people were listening to the television coverage and following internet coverage on the world wide web.

Context changes things. Context changes both the way we say things and the way we hear things. And it should. Our context is our community, and community is where we have civil and graceful and truthful conversation. One of the challenges of our time is that Americans really do not know much about the people who are listening to our conversations. Those listeners might be Muslims or Jews. Those listeners might be Iraqi citizens, they might be Nigerian Anglicans, they might be Palestinians, they might be Chinese village farmers, they might be gays and lesbians (who are certainly, and thankfully, among us already). They are “the stranger,” who is closer to us than we think!

How can the Christian Church meet this challenge? This challenge of understanding other cultures? We cannot do it by watching television and looking up items on the internet.

The Christian answer is mission. We must be strong and courageous enough to leave our homes and comfortable culture and to travel out in mission to the world. That is where we learn. Last week, that group of Jewish high school students learned much more about the Episcopal Church by visiting one (and staying all the way through our worship service!). They didn’t just google the Episcopal Church or read the latest blog about us.

The Episcopal Church has taught me that Christians are being called to mission again. We are being called to go out into the world in the name of grace and service.

Today is the feast day of St. Philip the Deacon and Evangelist, and I am glad once again that our cathedral takes him as our patron saint. Consider Philip who had the courage to leave his comfortable home in Jerusalem and to travel along a wilderness road to the South. (I realize that it may not have been courage that prodded him; Jerusalem was in the midst of a persecution that may also have led him to leave!).

It is Philip the Deacon who dares to speak to a stranger, a stranger in terms of culture, race, and gender. The stranger is an Ethiopian eunuch. But he is reading the same sacred scriptures as Philip knows. Philip is led to teach and to baptize. The Ethiopian eunuch is changed by this encounter, and so is Philip! Philip is snatched away by the spirit and finds himself at Azotus; Philip becomes a new man setting up a new home. The Christian Church itself was changed by Philip’s encounter with the stranger.

Christian mission is not merely about changing other people. Christian mission is also about changing ourselves. Though missionaries throughout history have differed mightily in their tasks and character, they do seem to share one experience. Every missionary has a story of how he or she was changed by serving in another culture. He or she was changed by speaking Christian words in a foreign context.

Our Cathedral celebrates Philip today. And our Cathedral celebrates baptism today. What I have said today also applies to baptism. When we baptize new Christians into our church, and into our families, we ourselves are changed by their presence. You who are having children baptized today: remember, it is you who will be changed by their presence! And you, all of us, will be changed in the Spirit of God for the better!

As we celebrate baptism and Philip the Deacon today, I call upon us to re-engage mission. It is time to travel away from our “comfort zones,” whatever they might be. Several groups in this church are already planning our next mission travels. There will be others.

“Get up and go,” said the angel of the Lord to Philip. “Get up and go,” says the angel to us today. Go to that lonely teen-ager playing video games that you do not understand. Go to the south! Go to south Atlanta; go to the southern hemisphere, to Equador and Brazil.. Get up and go to England, to South Africa, to Tanzania, to China and India.

“Get up and go,” and we will all be changed. We will be changed by that spirit of Jesus who said “remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

AMEN.