1. “It’s a wonder any of us are still here”
2. “Why me? And other excuses”
And my favorite which is taken from a book that I’ll be referencing:
3. “Jesus was an Episcopalian and you can be one too!”
I am approaching the topic of being a Christian–who happens to be Episcopalian–because many of us these days are not life-long Episcopalians and it is time that we start back at square one and look at who we are and why.
All good stories begin with once upon a time, so…
Once upon a time, there was a church known as the Episcopal Church in the USA. It had other names. Two of the more polite ones were—The Republican Party at Prayer, and God’s Frozen Chosen. And we pretty much deserved those appellations.
Throughout the nineteenth century and well into the 20th century, the Episcopal Church was THE church to belong to if you were rich and if you were climbing the social ladder. Now we could vie with the Presbyterians on these points, but we KNEW that we were it.
We smugly claim that one-quarter of our presidents have been Episcopalians, more than any other denomination. That includes Washington, Jefferson, FDR, and George H.W. Bush. Three-quarters of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Anglicans. Roughly one-third of all US Supreme Court Justices have been Episcopalians, far more than any other denomination, including Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O’Connor and David Souter. Episcopalians commanded 42 seats in the 109th Congress, about 33 more than their current share of the US population would warrant.
But the Episcopal Church that some of us knew as recent as thirty years ago, has changed substantially. We are in transition. But then, our whole society is in major transition.
It’s a wonder any of us are here. To be an Episcopalian today means that we are beating huge odds.
It can be said that the US is a nation of very religious people. 85% of Americans claim that they have some level of allegiance to the Christian faith, and yet very few people know very much about religion, especially the Christian faith.
Recent polls show that Christians have a very serious image problem among the next generations. The vast majority, something like 96% of those age 16-29 view Christians as hostile, arrogant, judgmental, hypocritical, anti-homosexual, old-fashioned, too political, insensitive, out of touch, and…just plain boring!
We also sit in a nation that has been dumbed down and hurried up. We are a people who are constantly sifting through all sorts of information and directions. We are in such a hurry, with “no time for faith” (as many of my wedding couples tell me).
We are constantly assaulted by an aggressive media; we are victims of broken homes, decreased parental control and parenting skills; increased workplace demands and a world with no time(!)…we just don’t have time…to talk to each other, to think, to write, or just pay attention! We are too busy coping with uncertainty.
This is the context in which all of us find ourselves. And maybe we cling to too much of our established churchy ways when we know in our heart of hearts that:
• Jesus had no intentions of setting up bureaucracies nor supporting an established church.
• Jesus came to shatter the power structure and change the way we think.
• Jesus came to start a revolution.
• Jesus’ message was so attractive that people sold everything they had to practice what he taught—and minister to the poor, the suffering and the afflicted. The story of the fishermen leaving everything behind and joining Jesus is a good example of this.
• Jesus asked his followers to take the same actions as he did—to reach beyond themselves.
It is amazing that anyone would follow—isn’t it?
But over two millenia, billions have. At least we’ve tried. We have had successes and we have had failures. God’s Church goes up and down in its faithfulnness. When some parts struggle, other parts take off. We evolve in fits and starts.
Here are some statistics that may be of interest:
• 7,200 Episcopal parishes in the U.S.
• Average Sunday attendance at an average parish is 129 people
• We number 2.3 million members (there are 11 million Anglicans in Kenya)
• 52% of our churches were built before 1950
• We are one of 44 national and regional church that make up the Anglican Communion, which has about 80 million members (the third largest group of Christians on earth).
• The word Episcopal is an adjective as in The Episcopal Church. The word Episcopalian is a noun. A person is an Episcopalian, but does not attend an Episcopalian Church.
• I ran into a woman who said that she had been an “Episcopal” for 30 years. No, she hadn’t, because at some point someone would have corrected her. People are Episcopalians, most everything else is Episcopal.
• That word comes from the Greek word for bishop. Our clergy are either bishops, priests or deacons which are based on the three orders as described in the Bible.
We have been called the Thinking Person’s Church. 70% of all Episcopalians started out as something else. Perhaps we have a higher ratio of thinkers because of that statistic. A majority of us have made the decision to switch to this church. We’ve given it some thought.
Someone has said that we are the Church of the least-annoying people. Instead of forcing our brand of Christianity on others, we are prone to step back and allow lots of room for personal interpretation.
We believe in a faith that is like a camera tripod. A tripod has three legs and in order for the camera to be stable, each leg is equally important.
The first leg would be scripture, the Bible. But we do not believe that scripture can stand without interpretation and we call that Reason. When you combine all the reasoning that has gone on over 2,000 years, you have the third leg—tradition.
We have a limitless respect for continuing revelation. We don’t believe that God has stopped speaking and that, in the context of community, we DO come to new conclusions on interpretation of scripture.
We love the questions, more than the answers!
We are proud of the fact that we tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty. We believe that certainty is the opposite of faith. We are therefore very uncomfortable around people who think they have it all figured out. We are humble enough to know that we will never have it all figured out and that is one of God’s best attributes. Most of the time, we like God’s surprises. It has been said that the Episcopal Church is the roomiest Church in all of Christianity!
Here’s a joke that exemplifies that:
A Baptist minister, a Catholic priest and an Episcopal priest arrived in heaven and stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.
“I’ll let you in,” said Peter, “Only if you can give me the correct answer to this question: Who do you say Jesus Christ of Nazareth is?”
The three ministers scratched their heads. The Baptist spoke up first. “Well,” he said, “the Bible says…” St. Peter immediately interrupted. “I’m sorry, but perhaps you didn’t understand the question, I asked who do YOU say that Jesus is? You can’t come into heaven.”
The Catholic priest then spoke up. “Well,” he said, “the Pope says…” Again, St. Peter interrupted, “I’m sorry, but I asked you who do YOU say that Jesus is? You can’t come into heaven either.”
It was now up to the Episcopal priest who immediately chimed in and said, “Jesus of Nazareth is the only Son of God, the Holy One who came to redeem the world from sin and He is my Lord and Savior.”
A smile drew across St. Peter’s face. Just as he began to usher the priest into heaven she turned around and added, “But on the other hand…”
Episcopalians have a reputation for looking at both sides of the coin. Some people give us credit for our patience and evenhandedness. Others say that we are wishy-washy or politically correct to extremes.
We are actually right in the dead center of a long line of Christian thought that believes one of the main thrusts of Jesus’ message is acceptance, openness and inclusion. Jesus is love in the flesh and he is the host at that unending dinner party where all are welcome.
For Episcopalians, our faith is like a rudder, allowing us to navigate life’s waters, not an anchor, keeping us tied to a particular place or doctrine.
Like Isaiah, we boldly say “Send me” but this response to God is perhaps more intense in these latter days.
The Episcopal Church has gone from being the establishment Church to the Church of the marginalized. We are aware that God is calling all of us, every one of us. Sooner or later, we will all face the question, “Who, me?”
We do counter-cultural things like enter into a season called Lent where we ponder just that very question, “Who, me?” And I’m proud to say that our entire Church continually struggles with this question and more and more, we are taking up the cross of Jesus and moving from our comfortable pews to the streets—as Jesus commands us to do.
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