An Advent Invitation to an Online Book Discussion

I would like to invite you to join with me in a shared discipline this Advent season, as together we engage in the deep mysteries of our faith as we prepare for the coming one. I've selected a book, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily by Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun who has written widely and with great wisdom about how to live the faith in a frantic world. What I will be doing is responding to her book on my blog on a regular basis and invite you to write your responses to Joan Chittister, to me, or to whatever God is writing on your soul. And that way we can deepen our community with one another, our relationship with God, and endeavor to create a community of practice with one another.

Wisdom Distilled from the Daily:
Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today
by Joan Chittister

Note: This book replaces the one originally announced at Clergy Conference, Joan Chittister's "The Rule of St. Benedict: Insights for the Ages," which is temporarily out of print.

The book will be divided among the four weeks of Advent as follows:

1. November 29 - December 5: Chapters 1 - 4
2. December 6 - 12: Chapters 5 - 8
3. December 13 - 19: Chapters 9 - 12
4. December 20 - 23: Chapter 13 to the end
   

I will post my responses to the book on this blog, and you are invited to post your own insights and reflections as well in the comments section at the end of each post.

While I am looking forward to reading everyone's reflections on the book, I regret that I won't be able to respond to individual comments.

A limited number of free copies of the book will be available from Episcopal House. For more information please contact Kitty Kawecki, Director of Resources & Training, at kkawecki@dioceseofnewark.org or 973-430-9902.

Marriage Equality and the Vatican’s Invitation

I am in support of marriage equality. Many of us in our diocese have been hard at work to help bring marriage equality to New Jersey, which will be taken up by the Legislature in this lame-duck session in Trenton (between now and when the new Governor takes office in early January). I pray that it passes – so that all couples who have relationships marked by fidelity and commitment can have their unions recognized. It is one thing to have the relationship blessed; it is quite another thing to have that relationship honored in emergency rooms or on insurance policies or in a courtroom. The introduction of the 2007 Civil Union law was intended to support these rights. It hasn’t. Instead, it has exposed a separate but equal mentality in the state, which is indeed separate yet anything but equal.

There is formidable opposition to this opportunity, which also needs to be honored. There are religious convictions that are deeply held and long-standing. People who are opposed to marriage equality often cite the tradition that marriage should be between a man and a woman. But a closer look shows that the historical tradition of marriage is that of a contract between two men: the groom and the father of the bride. When a woman was given in marriage, she was given by her father to her husband, and in this exchange the woman surrendered her name, her rights and her property. At the end of the ceremony, the couple was pronounced to be “man and wife”, and in that pronouncement was a community announcement as to who was in charge. Only in the last thirty years or so has this inequity been scaled back so that marriage is more of a partnership than a relationship of dominance (couples are now introduced as “husband and wife”).

But there is continued resistance in many quarters to this emerging equality between partners in a marriage. And I can’t help but think that some (but certainly not all) of the opposition to same-gender marriage is in part a rejection of equal partners in a life-long relationship (because it is not immediately clear who calls the shots).

Which brings me to the recent overture by the Vatican to invite disaffected Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church. A lot has been said and written about this development. I am not sure how it will be played out. Yet I can’t help but hear the beginnings of another contract between men – from men who have institutional power in one tradition offering a place to men in another tradition who have felt their institutional power undermined and don’t want to give it up. Women are no doubt included in the invitation from Rome, but I don’t think that disaffected women Anglican priests will be allowed to keep their clerical collars should they make the switch.

I take inspiration from Jesus who insisted on the equal value of every human being. I take great joy in the Episcopal Church and in the Diocese of Newark in its invitation to all people to be a part of the Christian community – and that whatever their gender or orientation, their gifts will be honored – and that their life-long relationships can be blessed.

My response to the Westboro Baptist Church protests

There has been some attention in the local media this week over protests that have been planned by a group from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS, targeting a high school and a number of Jewish organizations located within our diocese. This group, and their leader, Fred Phelps, thrive on the media attention they get as they travel around the country spreading their message of hate. While this group is most well known for their intolerance of gays and lesbians, no one seems beyond the reach of their hatred.

Confronting the members of this fringe group seems to avail little. They are not interested in rationally arguing a position; they only wish to use fear and intimidation to spread their message. The media attention that they get by starting fights only furthers their goal of spreading their message of hate to the broadest audience.

We can ignore many of the actions of this small group of extremists in the hope that the media too will deny them the publicity that they seek; we cannot, however, ignore the message of hate that they are spreading and the effect that message may have on our neighbors. Therefore I have written to the organizations being targeted, telling them that as Bishop of the Diocese of Newark I abhor the actions of this group and their message of hate; offering the support of the diocese; and letting them know that they, and all who are unfairly targeted by hatred, will be in my prayers.

I invite the people of the Diocese of Newark to join with me in these prayers, as we remain steadfast together in our mission of “…engaging the world with the hope and justice of Jesus.”

The Spirit of Ubuntu

For several months, I have been making the case that we are all in this together. Put another way, we live together in ubuntu. Ubuntu is a Bantu word introduced to the church by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It means “I am because you are”. Ubuntu was the theme of General Convention. Ubuntu is a Gospel challenge. Ubuntu is becoming a key element in the ether of the Episcopal Church.

Ubuntu stands in some tension with a defining philosophical concept in the Western world: cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”). First coined by Rene Descartes in the 16th century, this concept has enabled people to claim their unique identity and their essential integrity. Which has been a good thing. Yet when left alone – without the balance of ubuntu, or the notion that we are all in this together, or a commitment to community – it creates rampant individualism; and leads people to take refuge in separate silos, holding on to what they have – sealing themselves off from the rest of the world.

Theologian John Mbiti has tied ubuntu and cogito ergo sum together: I am because you are – and because you are, therefore I am.

When I am under stress or confused or overly tired, my psyche’s default place is to retreat into my secure silo. To live with an illusion of safety, encircled with a cloak of certainty. It then becomes all about me. This is a common response. I am convinced that the current health care debate is less a political struggle than a psychic, if not a spiritual one: that the stress of the economy and the uncertainty of the future has caused people to aggressively protect the health coverage they have. There is only so much insurance or health care to go around, this argument goes; and so you better get what you can. If others lose out, well, that’s the pity.

The real pity is to think that we live in isolation and independence from one another.

I am grateful for the emergence of ubuntu in our church. I see it as a corrective to rampant individualism. I see it as an invitation to discipline and the strengthening of community.

And what is the discipline of ubuntu? At least three things. First, to live in gratitude, not just for one’s own blessings, but for the blessings and hopes of others. I have discovered that the discipline of gratitude is the best antidote to fear. Second, to pray. Every day. And to pray – with intention, for others; especially for those “others” whom you have kept (for whatever reason) in a different and distant silo: the people we don’t understand, the people who drive us to distraction. When we pray for others, we are creating ubuntu.

The third way is to have a discipline of giving. Giving from the inner recesses of the silo (which breaks open the silo). Giving regularly. Giving abundantly. Most of our churches have started – or will soon start, their annual stewardship campaign. My hope and prayer is that these programs will be more an exercise in people’s need to give than the churches’ need to receive. That the stewardship enterprise will reveal the spiritual truth that our wealth is measured by what we give rather than what we own. That our giving generates the gift of ubuntu.

Hope and Fear in the Halls of Congress

Lynette Wilson photo

From left, Maryland Bishop Eugene Sutton, Connecticut Bishop James Curry, Newark Bishop Mark Beckwith and Maine Bishop Stephen Lane.

We call ourselves “Bishops Working for a Just World”. The group has been around awhile, since before my time as bishop. Our mission is to convey a moral imperative for justice – and to act together on behalf of that commitment. Six of us gathered in Washington DC earlier this week to discuss how we can incorporate community organizing into our mission – and to do some lobbying on Capitol Hill. The staff from the Office of Government Relations, which promotes the policy agenda of the Episcopal Church as it is established through General Convention resolutions, briefed us on policy, set up meetings with Senators and members of Congress, and accompanied us through the halls of government.

While there were several directives from General Convention around a variety of issues, the focus of discussion in the offices -- and demonstrations outside the offices, was about health care. The particulars of health care policy are complex and ever-changing, and are very difficult to follow; but the feelings of resistance to a reform of health care policy are raw and real – and are being released in increasing bursts of verbal violence. Those outbursts need to be challenged and curtailed; and norms of behavior need to be established or in some cases re-established – not just in town hall meetings or in joint sessions of Congress, but at the dinner table, in Vestry meetings, in the classroom, wherever people share communal life.

And it won’t be enough. We can – and should, try and manage the behavior, but the fear that underlies the verbal violence is harder to get at. And that fear is real and raw – quite powerful, and easily manipulated. The fear has been fueled by an economic recession – which brings loss to many – loss of jobs and savings and insurance coverage; and leaves many others at the edge of loss, in the uncomfortable place of being among the ‘worried well’.

“Fear not”, Jesus tells his disciples. Scholar and modern prophet Walter Brueggemann argues that “fear not” is the primary message of the Gospel. The challenge sounds like we all have some psychic switch that we can push that can make fear go away. Which is part of the problem. It seems that more and more people are pushing their fear switch, which releases even more fear and ratchets up the level of verbal violence. “Fear not” is not a management directive, but an invitation to go to the depth of fear and have it transformed by the holy one who has already been there – and who has promised to take the journey with us. And who has promised – mysteriously and sometimes miraculously, to transform the fear into hope.

As people of faith, we have the opportunity to reframe the conversation – by welcoming the hope. We welcome hope through the discipline of seeing Christ in the face of the stranger, acknowledging the presence of Christ in the heart of the person with whom we strongly disagree; by giving from a place of gratitude and abundance. It is hard work. It is holy work. This welcome is radical hospitality in its purest form – and it can move us down through the confining and confounding arena of fear to a deep and liberating place of hope.

Each of the six bishops on the Hill yesterday witnessed to the moral imperative that the health care issue begs in terms of universal access, and greater efficiency and affordability. When the final health care bill is presented (and everyone we talked with figures it will be ready by Thanksgiving), it will have political fingerprints all over it. That is to be expected, because that is how the system works. But beneath the details and political negotiations, there is another moral imperative to frame the process in terms of a hope that casts out fear.

My hope is not a wish, but a deep trust that God’s grace and our ongoing commitment can set us free.

The Strike Zone, Professor Gates and the Archbishop

One of the important things baseball players need to learn early each game is the dimension of the home plate umpire’s strike zone. The rule book spells it out, but in reality the strike zone is whatever the umpire says it is. The players have to figure out if the umpire’s zone runs a bit high, or favors pitches that are low. Players adapt to the umpire’s perspective – and calibrate their split-second decisions to swing or not to swing accordingly. A relative harmony exists if the umpire is consistent. But if the umpire changes the strike zone in the course of a game, players get disoriented and squawk, managers kick up dust – and home plate umpires have the authority to toss offenders off the field, which they do with great flourish.

A couple of weeks ago, Professor Henry Louis Gates of Cambridge, Massachusetts and Harvard University, no doubt felt that the local strike zone had radically changed when, after having difficulty getting the key to open the door of his house, a Cambridge policeman appeared in his kitchen (having being alerted to a possible break-in) and demanded identification. Professor Gates squawked -- and the officer/umpire handcuffed him and carted him down to the station. Charges were soon dropped when details were sorted out, but conversation about the incident – in print, on the air, in the Rose Garden and around kitchen tables all over the country, has continued, often with great passion.

And well it should. Yet from where I sit – and squawk, the conversation should not be about the details of the incident – or whether or not Professor Gates or Officer Crowley is racist; but on the dimensions of the strike zone of civil rights. The Constitution has spelled those dimensions out, and decades of civil rights laws have reinforced them; but in reality one’s civil rights are whatever an umpire says they are. And for decades, no – for a couple of centuries, the umpire– be it the police department, the school system, the church, a corporation or a community association, has been taught to favor those who are white and punish those who are not.

Most of us have learned this cultural prejudice – and have adapted to it. We need to unlearn it. We need to create a strike zone for civil rights that is fair and consistent for everyone. Our diocesan mandate to anti-racism training speaks to this need for learning and change. It is hard work, because habits die hard. But it is necessary work; indeed it is Gospel work. In response to the number of conversations that have been generated as a result of the Cambridge incident, we are thinking of renaming our work anti-racism “dialogue” rather than “training”, to dispel any illusion that a training can provide some sort of certification that renders one an expert. We are all life-long learners on this one.

Around the same time that the Cambridge incident took place, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a twenty-six paragraph response to two actions of General Convention, which offered pastoral generosity to same gender blessings and full inclusion of gay and lesbian people at all levels of ministry. Perhaps out of need, and certainly because of circumstance, the Archbishop has become the de facto umpire for the wonderfully diverse, deeply faithful yet fractious Anglican Communion. Clearly, he wants to hold the Communion together. To his credit, the Archbishop is deliberate in thought – and in expression. He is a gifted scholar. He draws on the insight from scripture and the clarity of prayer. Yet in two places, he refers to homosexuality as a lifestyle (“their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church’s teaching sanctions [paragraph 8]; “it is that a certain choice of lifestyle has certain consequences” [paragraph 9]). His phrases cause me to squawk, because the Archbishop has tried to change the strike zone.

Homosexuality is not an issue of lifestyle; it is a matter of identity. We don’t choose our identity; we are challenged to claim our identity as God’s gift to us. The Church that I have chosen to serve is about the mission of helping all of God’s children claim and celebrate their identity as imago dei – as created in the image of God. The heartbreak for so many these past decades is that countless numbers of people have been taught to hide or deny their sexual identity – or have been pressured to choose a lifestyle that keeps anxious and angry umpires at bay, at the expense of their soul’s health and their true giftedness.

The Episcopal Church has made a rather courageous decision to reverse this trend, to be honest about who we are as a church -- and to affirm the giftedness of all among us. We are daring to create a strike zone that provides opportunity to all, and does linguistic violence to none.

Reflections from General Convention #3

We are coming into the home stretch of this General Convention. We finish late Friday afternoon. Today a balanced budget for The Episcopal Church was passed in both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops. There were no amendments to the budget, although some were proposed in the House of Deputies. There was virtually no discussion on the budget in the House of Bishops. It was a moment of legislative whiplash which, I suppose, reflected the feeling of futility that nothing could be changed. The lack of debate also honored the extraordinary work of the Program, Budget and Finance Committee that had the onerous task of balancing the budget that at one point was $24 million dollars in deficit. Many cuts were made, which means that lots of departments across the church have been reduced; and many staff jobs have been eliminated. There is a lot of hurt and loss to all of this -- and I don't think any of us really know the implication and impact of this yet.

"Mission" is our Presiding Bishop's echoing metaphor. She describes mission as the heartbeat of the church. She invited -- no, she challenged, us to hear the mission heartbeat in our bodies and souls. It will be more imperative than ever to respond to this challenge with deeper commitment -- given that there are fewer financial resources to carry it out. Thus the Episcopal Church mirrors the experience of the dioceses -- which is, to be sure, also the experience of congregations.

Yesterday, the House of Bishops passed a resolution that said a whole array of things -- but mainly was focused on same-gender blessings and offering generous pastoral sensitivity for dioceses that perform them. The original amendment was almost brought to a vote the day before, but several bishops who were in the minority of the two-to-one vote the day before that (on affirming GLBT people for all levels of ministry) stood up to say that they felt marginalized and vulnerable. The legislative process was abandoned for the rest of the day -- and a group of self organized bishops agreed to meet informally in order to try and move things forward.

This was the hardest moment of Convention for me. It turned out that it was the hardest moment of Convention for the 26 bishops who met that night and early the next morning -- and for 26 different reasons. I felt that there was a movement afoot to scrub the decision of full inclusion; others said that the church was moving too fast for them. We expressed our thoughts and feelings in an Indaba-like atmosphere (which we had learned at the Lambeth Conference a year before). As the discussion progressed, we decided to move beyond creating a process of winners and losers, and instead to intentionally come up with a statement that included the ideas and feelings of as many as possible. We wanted to build a tent that was high and wide enough for as many as possible to gather underneath.

The resulting resolution (which five of us wrote) reflected the diversity of perspectives. When presented on the floor of the House of Bishops, there were more amendments -- and amendments to the amendments; but they were, for the most part, attempts to better articulate what we were about rather than efforts to discredit or distort.

The final resolution passed by a three to one margin. It recognized our diversity. Instead of trying to restrict dioceses -- the intent of the resolution was to trust the integrity and practice of bishops in their respective jurisdictions.

I think it was an important step forward.

Your deputation will be coming home tomorrow -- and over the weekend. Many of us from General Convention will be present next Thursday, July 23 -- from 10am-12 noon,and 7pm to 9pm,at St. Agnes Church, 65 Union Avenue, Little Falls, to tell our stories of Convention and to entertain your questions and hear your concerns. Each session will essentially be the same -- and anyone who wishes to is invited to come.

Peace,
Mark Beckwith