With the Holy Spirit’s gifts empower us

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen Indeed, Alleluia! (With the Holy Spirit’s gifts empower us)

The Great Fifty Days of Easter have ended. We celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church on the Feast of Pentecost.

We all know the story of people flaming and speaking in tongues not their own. Some have referred to Pentecost as the reversal of the Tower of Babel. However one might categorize this event, it has represented God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Comforter, the Advocate of whom Jesus spoke and said would be sent to us after his departure.

My experiences with the Holy Spirit have been both illusive and stealth. I could acknowledge a presence but not pinpoint it exactly. I could feel it literally rush through the place where I was, work some mischief and then rush back out. These were real and have instilled both faith and a bit of fear at times. And sometimes they have evoked a chuckle and a smile.

There is a hymn in the 1982 Hymnal that contains the refrain: “With the spirit’s gifts empower us for the work of ministry.”  It is sometimes known as Integrity’s hymn because of the use of “integrity” in the first verse. The point is that this hymn is a prayer to God to give us the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the work of ministry.

As an organization and in some ways as a church, we are being directed back to the work of ministry at the local level. The gifts for which we seek to be empowered, relate to growing the church -  something that has always been best achieved at the local level - where it all began.

We recently lost an Integrity member who personified ministry at the local level.  Paul Lane was an active Diocesan Organizer for New York as well as the primary coordinator of the New York Pride Parade’s Episcopal Church presence. You can read more about his work on the Walking With Integrity post "Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant". May he rest in peace and rise in glory.  He utilized the gifts with which the Spirit empowered him to their fullest.  May we all do likewise.

So let us indeed pray that the Spirit will empower us for the work of ministry and roll up our sleeves and move forward. The work is not yet complete.  All that has changed is where it continues to need to be done.

We are still seeking people to take over national leadership roles and you can either nominate yourself or someone else. The deadline for nominations is May 25, 2018.  So if you have a nomination,  please send it to:  nominations@integrityusa.org


        

Bruce Garner, President Integrity USA ... The Episcopal Rainbow

Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant

A lot of people were introduced to the Episcopal Church, the American* cousins of the Church of England, when our Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry preached at the wedding of Prince Harry, now also titled the Duke of Sussex, to actress Meghan Markle, herself a descendant of King Edward III.

This break from tradition caused Episcopalians in the U.S. to watch news of the wedding with more-than-typical interest, although, truth be told, anything with roots in antiquity that also involves funny hats is likely to get our attention.  In our increasingly unchurched culture, the folderol of Anglican worship must have looked to many viewers like Downton Abbey Goes to Hogwart's.  I joked yesterday that we should start a rumor that Episcopalians wear those hats to church every week, and then sit back and watch what happens.

Paul Lane and Christian Paolino.
Photo: Larissa Blinderman

I would like to believe that would have gotten a chuckle out of my friend Paul Lane who, although raised a Roman Catholic like me, found a home many years ago in the Episcopal Church. Under normal circumstances, he would have had more than a passing interest in the goings-on in London this week. Well-versed in his own family's history in Europe going back generations, Paul spent a good deal of time in France and Spain, taking the sun and soaking up culture. Like many Episcopalians I've met from all backgrounds, he shared that common gene which manifested itself with an appreciation for arcane historical detail.

He also knew a thing or two about liturgy done with care, which is probably why he, despite living in Jersey City, made St. Luke in-the-Fields in the West Village his spiritual home.  Worship at St. Luke's leaves very little to chance: from the choir to the incense-bearer, people go about their roles with what looks from the pews like easy precision, although I have been to enough post-Eucharist brunches at the bar formerly known as Dublin 6 to hear that making the service look that effortless was no mean feat indeed.

While Bishop Curry is very at home behind a pulpit or microphone, Paul's ministry was more behind-the-scenes, but no less effective. Besides his work at St. Luke's, Paul was the driving force of the LGBT Concerns committee for the Diocese of New York.  His principal responsibility there was coordinating the Episcopal presence at the NYC Pride March, which takes place every June. Under Paul's tutelage, people from more than a dozen parishes on both sides of the Hudson River--an entire city block full of people--makes its way down Fifth Avenue leading a giant float proclaiming The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.

Imagine how many LGBT people saw that small army and that float over the years, and thought, "Wait, what? A church wants me? All I've ever heard from church people was what an abomination I am." Be they a teenager scared to come out to hir parents, or an older person who finally came to grips with a lifelong secret, this witness affected people on the sidelines: I know, because I was part of that march many times, and they told me, sometimes with tears in their eyes.

Paul made that happen, through cajoling, negotiating... maybe some vague threats, he did grow up in Trenton, after all.  But most of all through his own quiet example. This was his gift to the church, and the treasure it yielded can't be counted.

We lost him yesterday, with little warning. Just weeks before the March, on the Day of Witness, he was taken from us. I cannot begin to guess how we will fill his shoes, as organizer, mentor, and friend.

The Presiding Bishop's wedding sermon was focused on the overwhelming power and importance of love, without which the most carefully-executed expression of piety assails the ears of the Almighty like a blaring kazoo chorus. Instead, the prophet Amos tells us:

"let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

In a few weeks, when we again line up to deliver that message of love and invitation to the city and the world, may our steps be guided by his voice and our feet propelled forward by his example.

Let's roll.

Christian Paolino
Former Stakeholder's Council Chairperson at IntegrityUSA

This blog post is republished with the permission of the author. 

Visit the original article on Christian's blog at

https://vergeofjordan.blogspot.com/2018/05/well-done-good-and-faithful-servant.html

No One is Free Until We All Are Free: Reflections on MLK Weekend

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King famously said "no one is free until we are all free". I have been thinking about this quote a lot over the past few weeks and months. The LGBT movement for equality has made major strides in North America and Europe over the past few years. Granted, much of this progress is tied to where you live. In many states and countries we can marry; in many we can adopt children; in some we can do one but not the other; and in many we can do neither. It seems, at least in many Western countries that the arc of the moral universe is finally bending toward justice. This has led to a feeling of complacency among many of our brothers and sisters.

The Rev. Winnie Varghese
with Davis Mac-Iyalla
of Changing Attitudes:
Nigeria, when he spoke
at St. Mark's-in-the
Bowery in New York.

Photo Credit: Paul Lane

This progress is, unfortunately, not the case everywhere. In many areas of the world not only are the conditions not getting better, they are in fact getting worse. In June Russia passed the "anti-gay propaganda law" effectively taking away freedom of expression and assembly from LGBT people. There is now a push, much of it coming from the Russian Orthodox Church, to recriminalize homosexuality, which was decriminalized in 1993. This has been largely covered by the U.S. media in the lead-up to the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi next month.

The LGBT community in Uganda was given a reprieve last week when President Yoweri Museveni returned the bill, now infamously known as the "kill the gays" bill, although "softened" to life in prison, to the Ugandan Parliament for review and further discussion. Make no mistake, this bill will rear its ugly head again, supported by American religious organizations as well as many in the Anglican Church of Uganda. Sodomy is already illegal in Uganda.

In Nigeria, a bill titled the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, supported by the Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion, was passed by the Nigerian Parliament and signed into law by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. This bill not only outlaws "gay marriage" (which was never legal in Nigeria in the first place), it provides for a prison term of fourteen years for anyone who enters into a same-sex marriage or civil partnership abroad. It also criminalizes anyone who registers or participates in gay organizations or clubs or who makes a public show of a same-sex relationship, the punishment being ten years in prison. The arrests have started. While fourteen years in prison may sound draconian, in Northern Nigeria, where Sharia law operates side by side with federal law, those arrested have been handed over to Sharia courts where the maximum punishment is death by stoning!

The Rev. Scott Gunn, Integrity's President, the Rev.
Dr. Caroline Hall, Davis Mac-Iyalla (Changing
Attitude: Nigeria), The Rev. Colin Coward
(Changing Attitude: UK) at the Primates' Meeting
in Tanzania in 2007

Photo Credit: Scott Gunn
Used under Creative Commons License.
Some Rights Reserved

In Uganda and Nigeria, as well as other countries with harsh penalties for homosexuality (many of which are vestiges of British colonial rule), these bills seriously threaten health services providing HIV treatment to MSMs (men who have sex with men).

What can we do? Educate ourselves. Get the word out: these developments, especially those in Nigeria, have largely gone under the radar of the U.S. media. A good source of information is on the Nigerian LGBTIs in Diaspora web-site: http://nigerianlgbtindiaspora.wordpress.com/

As an Episcopalians / Anglicans we can urge our bishops to speak out. Find out who the Indaba partners of your diocese are and ask your bishop to speak with them about this; ask him or her to contact the Presiding Bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Sign Nigerian LGBT rights activist Davis Mac-Iyalla’s petition to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York which can be found here.  At press time the petition was approaching 1,000 signatures.

As a U.S. citizen, you can contact your Senators and Representatives in Congress and ask them to contact the State Department, which -- although it has publicly condemned these laws -- could do more. It has been reported that the Canadian government has already cancelled a state visit by Nigerian President Jonathan which was scheduled to take place in February. Keep the pressure on.

Keep our brothers and sisters in your prayers and those of your local parish.

"No one is free until we all are." We still have a long road to travel.

Paul Lane is the Diocesan Organizer for New York and Acting Chair of the LGBT Concerns Committee of the Diocese of New York

Episcopalians Cheer SCOTUS Actions on DOMA, Prop 8

From coast to coast, Integrity members and other Episcopalians took part in celebrating the actions of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, which struck down the section of the Defense of Marriage Act denying Federal benefits to married same-gender couples and let stand a lower court ruling that California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, paving the way for marriage equality to return to the nation's most populous state.

In Washington D.C. the bells of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter & Saint Paul (popularly called the National Cathedral) pealed for a full hour from noon to celebrate the ruling.  The Very Rev. Gary Hall, Dean of the Cathedral, told the Huffington Post, "We are ringing our bells at the Cathedral to celebrate the extension of federal marriage equality to all the same-sex couples modeling God’s love in lifelong covenants. Our prayers for continued happiness are with them and with all couples who will be joined in matrimony in the years to come, whether at Washington National Cathedral or elsewhere."  A special worship service was held at the Cathedral that evening.

In New York, a crowd had gathered at the iconic Stonewall Inn in the morning, and the celebration continued all day, spilling out into the street.  By nightfall, Christopher Street was closed to traffic as hundreds of people paid respect to the place where the gay-rights movement is widely regarded to have begun with several days of riots in June 1969.  Diocesan Organizer Paul Lane and NYC-Metro Chapter Convener Mary O'Shaughnessy were there.

The crowd outside the Stonewall Inn following SCOTUS ruling

"Christopher Street was again full of LGBT people with signs, placards and flags. This time however, the NYPD was there to keep order and prevent any harm, and the LGBT community, their friends and families, were there to celebrate. How things have changed!" Among the politicians and others who gathered, Lane said " the undisputed star of the evening had to be Ms. Edie Windsor, along with her attorney, Ms Roberta Kaplan, whose courage and determination to fight an injustice through the courts led to the Defense of Marriage Act (sic) being ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States."

The crowd (many Episcopalians among them) cheered, some weeping, as the 84-year-old Ms Windsor told her story. Bi-national couples, who the day before had to fear the deportation of one, could now look forward to the day that they could apply for a US Green Card for the non-American spouse, just like any other married couple. "Everyone was there: gay, straight, bi, lesbian, trans, drag-queens, even Rollerena, although without the roller-skates," Lane recalled. The party went on long into the night.  

Footage from the street in New York featuring footage of Chapter Convener
Mary O'Shaughnessy, courtesy of allout.com

"I can't wait to celebrate this historic moment at NYC Pride on Sunday. I am still stunned, and grateful to all the activists who made this day possible. I know that the 40-year history of Integrity's Christian witness is part of what made yesterday possible, and I am grateful to Louie Crew, Susan Russell, Louise Brooks, Elizabeth Kaeton, and all those whose names I don't know," said Marie Alford-Harkey, Integrity's Province I Coordinator, whose "day job" is at the Religious Institute for Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing.

"I wrote and we at the Religious Institute held a Twitter worship service (which you can see by searching  #SCOTUSworship). My own reaction was one of great joy - I immediately texted and emailed April when the DOMA ruling came down. It's tempered of course, by the gutting of the voting rights act the day before. My African American lesbian wife says it's hard to know how to feel at this point, and I agree."

 In Atlanta, LGBT organizers were invited in advance to be present at a popular intersection in the city's "gayborhood" to be together whatever the outcome.  When Province IV Coordinator Bruce Garner arrived, hundreds were already gathered.  "People honked their horns as they arrived at the intersection – except for one woman in a Lexus who would not even dare look toward the sidewalk! We noticed another parishioner driving past and waved…..he was headed home and his year old son was in the car too. He and baby soon joined us. Then his partner, the baby’s other Dad drove by and saw them, so we yelled for him to join us. So we ended up with a little All Saints’ contingent with baby Harrison in the middle stealing the show with his HRC flag." There, too, the celebration kept bars and restaurants busy late into the night.

Garner knows Integrity's work goes on. The ruling has no impact in states that do not recognize same-gender marriages, which includes all of the Southeast, where Province IV is located.  "God is good….ALL the time. In Georgia, some of God’s children don’t quite yet understand that God’s goodness applies to ALL of God’s children. With the help of our bishop, we continue to try and educate them."

Integrity members in Oregon gather for a rally.

In Portland, Oregon, Integrity members and supporters including Vice President for Local Affairs Matt Haines, gathered at St Stephen's downtown for a brief prayer and then processed through the streets to join hundreds of fellow Oregonians across the from Portland's City Hall for a rally to celebrate the Supreme Court victories and to look forward to winning the freedom to marry in 2014. The mayor of Portland and the state's former governor were among the speakers. Along the way the Integrity team, which included a number of local clergy, was greeted with honks, waves and shouts of support.  A photo gallery was placed on the chapter's Facebook page.

Northern California clergy gather
on the State House steps in Sacramento.

Clergy and others including the Very Rev. Dr. Brian Baker (in cowboy hat at left), Dean of Trinity Cathedral, and Diocesan Organizer Shireen Miles also gathered at the State House in Sacramento, where the Supreme Court's decision not to overturn a lower court ruling means that Proposition 8, which suspended same-gender marriages in California, will soon be repealed.

Integrity's founder, Dr. Louie Crew said, "We marry ourselves. God is always present when any two persons say, even with no others present, 'I thee wed.' No court or church can change our marriages. A court or a church may only recognize or refuse to recognize them."

Dr. Crew called the court's bold action on Wednesday a union between justice and liberty. "Their swoon brings with it more than 1,000 benefits too long denied to LGBTQ persons. 'Sweet Land of Liberty' indeed. 'God bless America.'"

These are just some of many celebrations that took place across the country.  In many places, much work remains before safety and equal treatment are a reality in both religious and civil life. For today, please celebrate this incremental step with us, and give thanks to God.