Ah...Gods's Beloved Church

I don’t think I am a very good institutional Christian. This morning in the daily reading for today (Proper 8, Year Two, Monday) Jesus is driving the money changers from the temple and turning over tables. I don’t think Jesus was a very good institutional Jew. The money changers were in the temple in order that people could pay their temple tax without using the Roman coins. I guess Jesus just thought it was unseemly! Everyone who goes to church, is employed outside the home, runs their own business or is a member of a social club has a dilemma when it comes to loyalty to the institution. We are human, after all, and we build institutions to manage just about everything we do. The institution is the framework which holds the faith. Our institution allows us to carry out ministry with some sort of coordination and integrity…..but……

It also is a bureaucracy that can suffocate and can be a haven for people who want to abuse sacred trust. This past week one of my colleagues, an acquaintance from my time in the Diocese of Atlanta (now inhibited Bishop of Pennsylvania) has been convicted by an Ecclesiastical Court of a canonical offense. That may not seem all that bad until you realize that he failed to report sexual abuse and then supported the priest that was the perpetrator. You can read the full and gory details here: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_98300_ENG_HTM.htm if you want hear the rest of the news. I feel like Jesus wanting to turn over the tables in the House of Bishops and House of Deputies, the Church or somewhere that allows these people to get by with this for so many years! It’s all so political …even his conviction smacks of some politics if you ask me (but then not many people do ask me!).

Then, this morning All Saints in Tupelo, here, fed 50 people in need. It’s not really the breakfast that brings them here. It’s the fellowship, the home touch to the food and the care they receive from the volunteers. Many of them eat at the Salvation Army and at All Saints. This morning my office has been a steady stream of abused, neglected and outcast individuals who come to the church for help. If we didn’t have the institution it would be much more difficult to give this ministry. Isn’t it strange that the same institution that has done our share of abusing, neglecting and casting out is the same institution that claims to minister to these people?!?!

I can’t say that I feel very loyal to the institutional church. I love the Church (even with all her flaws) and I appreciate the structure that allows so much of God’s work to be done in the world. I hope it is a conflict that keeps me hungry for justice and able to look critically at the resolutions, policies and decisions we make as a church. I hope it keeps us all honest and able to withstand the temptation of abusing the trust that God has put in us. Even the church is not worth risking our soul.

Out there, somewhere, there are millions of people whose lives have been made better, healthier and more whole because of their connection to a community of faith – a church – full of flawed individuals. I am one of those people whose life was transformed because of the Episcopal Church and those who have ministered to me. We have been healed by the touch of God’s people, we have been brought in when no one else would sit with us and we have been fed and nourished by the worship and ministry. And, there are people whose lives have been destroyed by the same. I suppose the hope in all of this, for me, is that there are people willing to face whatever it may be to bring these people who have abused the trust that God has given them to some sort of justice and accountability. The case that I referred to at the beginning of this journal entry was thirty years old. This may be too old of a case, maybe, for a criminal court to act but not too old for the church to do something about. Some may wonder why this woman just didn’t let it go and get on with her life. Others may believe that she has been used as a political pawn to get this bishop to resign from his Diocese. It sort of reminds me of the persistent widow in the gospel story (Luke 18:3-6) that eventually received her justice.

I suppose that we all make poor decisions and have done things that we wish we wouldn’t have done. Whether it is in the church or in our worldly vocation we make mistakes. It seems the more successful we are (or want to be) the more temptations and abuses we must guard against. Each and every one of us is called to be accountable to those who we have injured. There is nothing as powerful as the person who can admit their mistakes, offer apology and beg forgiveness. As Christians we are aware that the full accounting is nothing compared to the grace that will be given to those who are penitent. Yet, it seems to me that grace is given when the light is shed upon the darkness of sin and temptation and all is revealed. The abundance of grace is not so much for the individual who has sinned and gone astray as much as it is a sign for the faithful. We know the abundant grace because the totality of the depravity has also been known.

Ah…God’s Beloved Church