Done. Check the Box. Well, Not Really

Last week I wrote about The Episcopal Church’s short term memory once we have enacted legislation, especially when it pertains to issues of justice, inclusion and prejudice. There is another aspect of that concept that plays out in how well others really understand us as queer folk. Some folks “get” us and some do not… I’m inclined toward the numbers of those who do not being at least a plurality, if not a majority.

This mentality goes back to what I call the “check box” mentality of our church. That is the mentality that lets us get away with thinking such thoughts as: “We have women’s ordination, so we have addressed and resolved that “issue.” Notions about the deployment of women clergy are no where on the radar screen. The “glass ceiling” related to compensation and benefits didn’t get in the conversation either. How many women fill the positions of cardinal rectors? We changed the canons. Done. Check the box. Well... not really.

We do the same thing about issues of race. We tout our canons that prohibit discrimination in every aspect of the life of our church. But again, where are we on deployment? Having people of color in visible roles of leadership does not mean that we find the same allegedly welcoming attitude at the diocesan and parish level. Because we have passed our canons, we have resolved the “race issue.” So why do I still see the need for training and education on what it means to be the beloved community? Why do we still need to have anti-racism workshops and training? Why are the percentages of people of color, not to mention those in ordained positions way below the percentages of the general population? We passed the canons. Done. Check the box. Well… not really.

Now we come to issues about sexual orientation/gender identity/gender expression. Again, we passed those canons prohibiting discrimination in all aspects of the life of the church including ordination and now even marriage. So….where does that put us? Yes we have some LGBTQ+ folks in leadership in the church at all levels. What does that mean? Did some of them “pass” to get where they are? Are some of them simply tokens to appease general opinion? Back to deployment: How many visible calls are made to LGBTQ+ clergy outside very large metropolitan areas? Two queer bishops is an indicator of the presence of LGBTQ+ people in our church. We passed our canons. Done. Check the box. Well… not really as is evidenced by the situation in the Diocese of Tennessee and seven others.

So why would I ever think that so many just do not “get” us queer folk (anymore than they “get” women clergy and people of color)? It isn’t a long journey to take to answer that question. Aside from the less than tolerant current political climate, having a cisgender white male wonder (sometimes aloud even) why the gays and lesbians and trans folks cannot and do not grow into a perspective other than that of who they are, namely gay, lesbian or transgender? Seriously?

You are going to ask me why I am not willing or not capable of viewing things beyond what you think is my limited perspective as a gay man? Would you ask a black person why they cannot view a perspective other than being black? (In reality many probably would, but let’s not go there for now). Would you ask a woman to view things from a male (invariably white) perspective? (I can pretty much guarantee that many would ask that question based solely on what has been going on for months now about sexual harassment.)

Kindred in Christ, we really do have some serious work to do! And it is not just for us queer folk that we need to do this work. It is for all who would claim to follow Christ and meet with an attitude that finds only one perspective, one race, one cisgender, one sexual orientation to be “the norm.” Our work is for everyone who encounters an attitude that they need to change their outlook and perspective to more closely align with those of the perceived majority. The work is not done. There is no box to check.

What will it take for us to rise up and say that it’s time that we as a church start learning more about what it is like to be the other instead of asking the other why their perspective is so limited? Again, I see this as the ministry of lay people. We have nothing to lose by asking pointed questions. Our ministries, our vocations, our salaries are not on the line. We CAN ask the difficult questions and continue to ask until we get real answers. I would hope that those answers would be based on the ministry given us in the Gospel and in the vows of our Baptismal Covenant.

Do you think we're done? Should we check the box?

So I will close with yet another (probably maddening) question: When will you start asking why the way things continue to remain the way they are for so much of our church? When?

Bruce Garner, President

Integrity USA ... The Episcopal Rainbow

40th Anniversary of Rev. Ellen Barrett's Ordination

Rev. Ellen Barrett with Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Jr.

Forty years ago today the foundations of The Episcopal Church (and the Anglican Communion for that matter) shook a bit as two things took place: Another woman was ordained. She was ordained by the Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Jr., Bishop of New York. That woman was openly lesbian. She was among the first 50 women ordained in The Episcopal Church, but she was the FIRST lesbian to be ordained priest in the Anglican Communion.

Some reading this will have no clue about whom I write. Others will know and remember very well who that woman is. Her name is Ellen Barrett. Today is the 40th anniversary of her ordination. Congratulations first to Ellen and then to The Episcopal Church on such a milestone. Ellen now lives in England and continues her ministry as Sister Helena.

This posting was intended to be a surprise for Ellen and I hope everyone who had a clue also kept their mouths shut! So: Surprise Ellen! Congratulations on the 40th anniversary of your ordination. You have achieved a milestone many never reach.

I invite those reading (who are old enough!) to look back 40 years. Ordained women were a novelty in The Episcopal Church. (Some groups had other descriptive terms that will not be repeated here. Suffice to say they came from groups and organizations that could not fathom women in any leadership positions, much less as clergy.) Lesbian and gay priests (LGBTQ wasn’t on anyone’s radar back then) were a novelty as well and anathema to some. The discussions about the place of lesbians and gays in The Episcopal Church in both lay and ordained leadership were pretty much still in the embryonic stage. So yes, foundations shook a bit 40 years ago.

The Reverend Doctor Ellen Barrett is one of the pioneers of our faith. She is one of our icons in the struggle for equality. She is one of our elder statespersons who led the way so that those who followed would have an easier path to take. Sadly, many today really do not know who broke down barriers to LGBTQ people’s inclusion in the church and society. Many simply take for granted the things they enjoy as openly LGBTQ. History apparently is not a popular subject, especially church history.

In one of the epistles attributed to St. Paul is the declaration that a price was paid for us, meaning of course, the redeeming actions of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Well my kindred in Christ, I think we forget that a price was paid for us to be openly LGBTQ followers of Jesus Christ. The price was ostracism, exclusion, loss of jobs, being the object of meanness and nastiness rarely known among church folk and often the demonization of us just because of who we are. Ellen Barrett paid such a price. She paid it so she could be ordained and she paid it so that those of us today who wish to be open about our authentic selves AND serve the church might be able to do so.

Our beloved founder, Dr. Louie Crew Clay included one of my favorite collects from the prayer book in his correspondence with me:

"O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

What wonderful words to mark an event four decades ago as things were indeed being made new, being raised up, as the world watched.

Again, congratulations Ellen Barrett!

The black and white pictures were very secretly borrowed from Ellen’s personal materials and are from the ordination service.

If anyone wishes to send a congratulatory note to Ellen, please send messages to alisonjoyosb@gmail.com

Blessings on Ellen from Integrity USA.

Bruce Garner, President
Integrity USA

Taking Their Authority: Marie Alford-Harkey Reflects on the Philadelphia 11

Sermon Proper 13A
August 3, 2014
Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT
Marie Alford-Harkey, M.Div.
Matthew 14:13-21

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 

When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, "Bring them here to me." 

Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

In the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand there’s an inside story between Jesus and his disciples, and that’s where I want to focus today.

Jesus is training the disciples to take up their own ministries. It starts when he refuses to allow them to send the people away to find food, but instead tells them "You give them something to eat." When they protest, he says, "Bring me what you have." And so they bring him the five loaves and two fish that they have.

After he said the blessing, Jesus didn’t hand the disciples baskets and baskets of bread and fish. He handed back to them exactly what they had given him. He sent them out into that crowd of 5,000 men and countless women and children with five loaves of bread and two fish.

That’s what ministry looks like. Bring me what you have, says Jesus, and I’ll bless you and send you back into the world. But I’m going to make you do the work. You feed the people.

It’s an appropriate message on this weekend after the celebration of the anniversary of women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church. On July 29, 1974, eleven women were "irregularly" ordained to the Episcopal priesthood at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia. They came to be known as the
Philadelphia 11.

The Rev. Suzanne Hiatt, one of the Philadelphia 11, said in a speech some 9 years after the fact, "In the prayerbook ordination service according to which I was ordained a priest in July 1974 (remember, this was before the 'new' 1979 prayerbook), the bishop in laying hands on the head of the ordinand recites this formula: 'Take thou authority to execute the office of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed to thee by the imposition of our hands.' ... The bishop does not confer priestly authority but simply tells the ordinand to assume it. The story of the ordination of women priests in the Episcopal Church is a case study of women 'taking' authority..."

Those women got tired of waiting for the church to act, and so they took what they had, it was blessed, and they went about doing the work they had been called to do.

Perhaps you are like me. By the time I showed up at an Episcopal Church, the ordination of women was a given. Or perhaps you’ve been an Episcopalian for a long time, and you remember the ordination of the Philadelphia 11. Perhaps you are young enough that women have been priests in the Episcopal
Church all your life. Perhaps you’re still a little uncomfortable with the idea of a soprano-pitched chanting voice, or painted fingernails around a chalice, or a curvy female body under a cassock or alb.

But all of us, no matter where we are situated in respect to the events July 29, 1974, all of us have been affected by the ordination of women in this church. Thank God.

Earlier this year, when I was at my parents’ house down in Georgia, I came across an essay I wrote when I was a 9th  grader. The date on this yellowing sheet of paper is 9-9-80. The title is "What I Want to Do With My Life."

In it, I wrote, "I want to find new ways to reach people for Christ and develop my own teaching ministry." My 14 year old self went on to say that "I want to study Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic," and that I "want to get into theology a little later on, after my beliefs and convictions become stronger." (I wonder who had warned me already about the crisis of faith that is a nearly universal experience for those who study theology.) Finally, I concluded that, "I want to be a really good teacher in some sort of outreach ministry teaching conferences and seminars."

Do you notice what I notice in that old paper? At 14, as a part of a conservative Christian tradition, it did not even cross my mind that I could study theology and become a minister. But I knew that I was called. And I went on to fulfill the call to teach. And by the time that I eventually heeded the call to study theology, because of the Philadelphia 11, I knew that it was possible for a woman, even a lesbian woman, to be a priest in my chosen faith tradition.

Last weekend, April and I went to the celebration that marked this historic anniversary at the Church of the Advocate. While April and I both love a good church party, I am usually the one who wants to go to diocesan convention, or General Convention, or a mission conference, or a listening session. But this was April’s idea. She was the one who reminded me that we stand on the shoulders of the Philadelphia 11, who took their authority as priests 40 years ago.

Marie Alford-Harkey with the Rev. Carter Heyward
PHOTO CREDIT April Alford-Harkey

It was a joyous weekend, filled with the fun of greeting friends old and new, honoring how far women have come in the church, and recognizing how far we have to go in reaching the goal of equality for all people in the institutional structures of the Episcopal Church.

I got to meet and talk to one of my sheroes, the Rev. Carter Heyward, Ph.D., who was one of the Philadelphia 11 and a professor at Episcopal Divinity School (where April and I both went to seminary) from 1975 until her retirement in 2006. My smile (and Carter’s) in the picture that April took of us testifies to my excitement, and I’m sure, to my place as a true church nerd.

Dr. Fredrica Harris Thompsett, another EDS professor and a noted Anglican church historian and theologian gave the keynote address at the symposium. She challenged us to live truly into the "embodied nature of Anglican theology" that emphasizes the goodness of all creation and the dwelling of the incarnate Christ in us and us in him. All people, she said, must claim their bodies "as sacred vehicles of spiritual authority."

And this is one reason why I say that all of us here have been affected by the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church. Every Sunday, we gather as diverse people who make up the whole body of Christ, and celebrate the Eucharist together. Just here in this community, we are old and young and in
between, we have light brown, dark brown, or rosy pink skin, we are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, we are born in this country and not born in this country. Our bodies vary by size, shape, and ability. The fact that those who preside at our celebration of the Eucharist, our priests, can also represent that beautiful diversity is of great theological significance, and it would not be true had not those 11 women "taken their authority."

The women who took their priestly authority, like Carter Heyward and Suzanne Hiatt, were unabashed feminists. They made no apologies for their hope that rather than the institution changing women to serve its ends, women could help the institution continue to renew itself by becoming less clergy-centered and less hierarchical. Our "new" prayer book of 1979 was meant to further this aim by reminding us that baptism is our first ordination.

Our catechism, which is much older, teaches us that "The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons." All Christians are ordained by God in Christ through baptism to carry out God’s mission in the world. We are all called to take what we have to Jesus, have it blessed, and
then go out into the world to do our ministry.

So today, I invite you to reflect on your own ordination as a minister of the gospel of Christ. What do you have that you can bring to Jesus to be blessed? How will you claim your authority as an ordained person?

Marie Alford-Harkey earned her M. Div from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and is a aspirant for Holy Orders in the Diocese of Connecticut.  When not busy at her "day job" as Deputy Director of the Religious Institute, she serves Integrity as Province I Coordinator and on the board of Integrity Connecticut.

The Parable of Hope - Reflections on the Philadelphia 11

The Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge has written a beautiful sermon celebrating both the anniversary of the ordinations of the Philadelphia 11 and the forward looking spirit of the Episcopal Church. One of the first openly transgender priests in the Church, Partridge describes how the history of the Philadelphia 11 allowed him to come to a fuller understanding our radical radical faith and ability to find the Kingdom of God in this world.

"...after years of effort – organizing, education, conversation – there came a time when a number of those working on this impasse decided that these ordinations simply needed to move forward.  And so in Philadelphia on July 29, 1974 – forty years ago – a group of women that came to be called the “Philadelphia Eleven” was ordained to the priesthood by three retired bishops.  In many ways this event changed everything for our church.  And in many ways this story (now told afresh in a new book by Darlene O’Dell) changed everything for me.  It spoke to me so deeply that I began to experience The Episcopal Church in which I had grown up in a completely new way. This Church revealed itself as willing to struggle, to move forward, to stake its life on being and becoming a new creation.  This story became for me a source of profound hope."

We encourage you to read the entire blog article on Partridge's blog, Peculiar Honors. You can find it at "Parable of Hope".