Bonus: Lambeth Reflection

Hello all! The following is a reflection from one of the two head stewards from the Lambeth Conference 2008. This was the gathering of all Anglican Bishops that happens every 10 years at Canterbury Cathedral in England. The writer is Erin Rutherford. I originally heard this as a sermon at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church. Erin works at an international school here in Taipei and has lived in Taiwan for 7 years. She was a steward at the 1998 conference and led the stewards this summer. I hope this provides an alternative perspective to the exlusion/schism coverage that seemed to dominate the U.S. media. Enjoy!

"I can probably assume that some of you, particularly those who’ve grown up with clergy in the family, or a parish priest who has aspired to be bishop look forward to a Lambeth Conference like you look forward to the Olympics or an election. They are events that define our communities. And Lambeth defines us as Anglicans. This was my second Lambeth Conference, having served as a steward in 1998. There is no denying that the 1998 Lambeth Conference did resemble the Olympics at times as people felt themselves to be victorious over others and I can assure you that the air was so thick at times that scenes from the Taiwanese legislature weren’t inconceivable. We like to think it’s a time when the church’s wisest, most insightful, and decisively pastoral leaders assemble to celebrate their faith, meet peers with common concerns and then return to assure us that the church universal is united in mission. And that may have been the case a hundred years ago when the church was reasonably homogeneous in terms of colour and cultural expectations but it certainly isn’t now and let’s not forget that the Anglican Church has never been one for uniformity theologically.

The job I had been given was called “Stewards Manager.” There were two of us, and our job was to train and manage the fifty five young people who had volunteered four weeks to serve the needs of the conference. They ranged in age from 18 to 34 and we did our best to train them in intercultural communication, conflict resolution, event security, emergency procedures, dealing with the Press, first aid and the technical equipment they needed like walkie-talkies. Mixed with this was of course worship, visits to the Cathedral and the social activities needed to ensure that the group stayed close and committed to one another for the duration of the conference. When the conference started our job was to do the scheduling for the stewards, to attend various meetings during the day like security briefings, technical planning meetings, production meetings and redistribute stewards when the meetings meant changes to the scheduling.

During the week leading up to the conference, BBC Radio 4 was interviewing a number of divisive and controversial clerics who included Gene Robinson but also included Gregory Venables, the Archbishop of the Southern Cone. While he was clearly invited to give his views on the question of homosexuality in the episcopate but given what my priorities were at the time, what struck me most were his comments on the organization of the conference. He pointed out that ten years previously bishops were sent package after package of study material and the objectives and desired outcomes of the conference were known in advance. However in 2008 he had received no more than three sheets of paper and a few emails and he didn’t even know where he was supposed to go to register. And there was some truth to this. The reason for this was that the tone of the conference was meant to be entirely different from the spectacle, rupture and disagreement of 1998. This Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, had decided early on that underlying the structure of the conference would be a look at the notion of “covenant,” a relationship of promise. To him, covenant meant an understanding as to how we will relate to one another and how tensions will be handled and discernment taken forward. As far as I could tell, he didn’t want to pander to the demands of either side of what was on everyone’s mind.

Almost in anticipation of the lack of opportunity to make a statement, as you surely heard, an event took place in Jordan a few weeks pre-Lambeth in which members of the church with a traditional view on the interpretation of scripture concerning human sexuality, decided to take a public stand against the Archbishop of Canterbury and the so-called liberalism of some western churches. Partly because of the conference in Jordan and partly for other reasons related to it, this year’s Lambeth Conference was without the bishops of Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and, of course, Sydney. Fortunately there were exceptions. The Bible study leader for my bishop at home in Vancouver, Michael Ingham, was a dissident bishop of Kenya who decided to come on his own saying that "I believe we are all children of God and the children of God belong together." We also had a Nigerian steward who, early on, explained that though she took a similar position to her church on matters of sexuality, she realised that it was based on limited experience and she should meet gay people before making a decision. I decided that it wasn’t quite the moment to explain that she surely already had.

Now having said all of that, I don’t want to downplay the dark shadows that had been cast over the Lambeth Conference by what happened in Jordan. But for me personally, in order to get through a very demanding four weeks – the stewards, not politics, needed to be my highest priority. Fortunately their energy and their commitment were infectious. Equally as encouraging when I arrived was that recommendations we had made ten years ago were listened to and implemented and as most young people in the church know, having their voice heard can be rare.

And changes hadn’t only taken place for the stewards. Another striking difference was the equality given to the Spouses Conference. The Spouses workshops were no longer about mitre making or planning the perfect luncheon. Spouses of bishops were delegates also and while their programme was sometimes different they were validated in their centrality to the work and support of the episcopacy. Key to this joint agenda was the joint day in which bishops and their spouses came together to consider the abuse of power in the church. While 1998 may have made headlines for its vote on human sexuality, it could have made much bigger headlines if the press had got wind of the flagrant abuse that took place at the conference itself. The insistence on the part of Jane and Rowan Williams in hosting a different kind of conference was, I believe, a testament to their insightfulness and the relevant tone.

If you’ve done any reading about this Lambeth you know that there were no votes. That whole conference gatherings were few. That bishops met in what they called Indaba groups. Depending on your news sources, you may have read that bishops were frustrated because their Indaba facilitators treated them like they were in Sunday school and they couldn’t talk about what they wanted to – sexuality. Instead they had to talk about the environment, about social justice, about the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and our relations with other faiths. The resistance from the bishops to engage in meaningful discussion about these issues could be staggering to the young people at the time. While, admittedly, most of the young people took a position one way or the other on the issue of openly gay bishops, it was clear to them that even if it needed to be addressed as an issue of justice, or as an issue of scriptural authority, so did hunger, so did clean water, so did Robert Mugabe and so did climate change. And to remain silent on those issues because it was more productive to hope that the other side would just leave seemed unconscionable.

A steward from Australia just last week referred me to an article on the Sydney Anglican Network website in which the Indaba process was heavily mocked. An unnamed bishop had apparently described it as a joke and rather than discussing their content, the author mocked the cultural origins of Indaba as if they surely had nothing to offer a conference where votes and schism were bound to happen. Considering there was no Australian media present at the conference, church or secular, I found this a very curious judgement.

I got to know a number of the rapporteurs, some of whom had served with me ten years ago, were now ordained or theology professors and whose job it was to sit in on an Indaba group and take careful notes and produce a report for the end of the day about what was said. It could be a frustrating process because the 40 or so bishops in the group then had to agree on whether their report was an accurate reflection of their discussions. They told of how at first the bishops were engaged in their work, that the relevance of the topics was significant and impressive. But as the days passed and we were anxious for the end, people started to push. How could they have come to this event and not yet talked about sexuality? How could the Archbishop’s so called Covenant for the Communion arise from what seemed such an unproductive set of discussions?

At the same time, somehow not surprisingly, the stewards had realised that in functioning as a group, we respected the dignity and integrity of each other, that a covenant had several forms as we shared interests and shared our lives for four short weeks. It wasn’t because we were representing our dioceses or our provinces that we had to get along, we didn’t share a contract, we shared a relationship. As Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi pointed out when he spoke to the conference one evening, where a contract is about interests, a covenant is about identity. It is about you and me coming together to form an 'us'. Covenants are predicated on difference. And that is why contracts benefit, but covenants transform.

As you would assume stewards did, they spent a number of evenings in the college bar. One particular night was especially memorable as somewhere in our second round of Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah, a bishop came over to our table and asked what it was we were so happy about. Someone said near me, is he at the same conference as us? Somehow for us, our identities as Anglicans, our vastly differing cultural backgrounds and our inherent understanding that we shared a fate meant that covenant had already taken shape.
Jonathan Sacks went on to remind us of Jeremiah who, in describing covenant said: “I remember the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothal, how you were willing to follow me into the desert, through an unknown, unsown land.” Covenant is what allows us to face the future without fear, because we know we are not alone. Covenant is the redemption of solitude when the issues we face seem too much to bear alone.
Something else that had been transformed in ten years was the acknowledgement of the contribution of the young people who stewarded the event. Both delegates and conference management treated the stewards as valued members of the conference community. I felt that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the management fully demonstrated the qualities of the landowner in today’s Gospel. It is obvious to us, I hope, that the landowner wasn’t interested in paying for labour so much as he was in ensuring that the labourers didn’t go home hungry. The Archbishop had a vision which allowed the stewards to not go home spiritually empty, but to feel that their membership in the church was as valued and important as any bishop’s.

Of course, this was a reciprocal agreement in a sense. The stewards were quite possibly the most exceptional group of young people I’ve ever worked with. They were insightful, helpful, hard-working, polite, curious, determined and full of initiative. The most remarkable part about the stewards was their humbleness. These were young people who despite an incredible range of professions, life-styles and interests came together for the simple privilege of serving God’s community through the conference. Unlike the labourers in the vineyard in today’s Gospel, they did not assume that there would be extra recompense for their work. Their reward was being part of an incredibly supportive community that put cooperation before difference. They too represented the same theological divide as the bishops, but they put teamwork first. They laboured out of love and joy for the opportunity to work. Equally as incredible to me was the respect with which they were treated by bishops. Whether they were following the lead of the Archbishop or the church has simply got better at choosing its leaders, I don’t know but until this summer’s conference I had never attended a church event, especially not the Lambeth Conference of 1998, in which bishops, often with a tremendous sense of entitlement, weren’t patronising of young people and saw them as equal in God’s eyes.

Of course, I’m not naïve or deluded enough to think that the experiences of 55 young Anglicans in Canterbury this summer will go down as a world wide example of how the conference was a success. If we are lucky, it is a message that will be shared in their 55 parishes. But it was clear to me that some bishops would be returning home uncomfortable because they hadn’t been able to split the church and some would be uncomfortable with the vastness of the mission we have yet to fulfil. All of them, though, must acknowledge that regardless of what happens in the next few years that without the devotion of youth, there will be no church. What Jonathan Sacks described as covenantal goods, that is love and friendship cannot be split to suit our own interests. And that is something for which we should feel not only gratefulness, but hope."

Erin Rutherford

The Ex-pat Experience

It's wet here!

Yes, we just went through our second typhoon. Fortunately, this one is supposed to be the last of the typhoon season. Meaning the weather should be cooling down (a relative term) and the rainy season is coming to a close.

A couple of weekends ago I was invited to attend the English congregation service at Good Shepherd Episcopal and join them for their monthly fellowship luncheon. Since Elizabeth had youth responsibilities, I went out to Shilin alone.

The priest for the English congregation is also an Episcopal missionary. Rev. Diane Wong is a long-term missionary completing her second year of service in Taiwan. She is from the Diocese of Massachusetts and has been a wonderful source of communication and English speaking over these couple of months. Somehow she thought inviting us to an English service would be appealing. . . and after two months of Chinese only services, she couldn't have been more right!

The service at Good Shepherd was the first time I have had a large scale and direct interaction with the adult ex-pat community in Taiwan. All of the non-Taiwanese I have met previously have been students or short term visitors. When researching the service time for the English service, I found the Sunday bulletin. In addition to the readings for the day, it included two announcements: 1 - the fellowship luncheon 2 - there is a wedding following the service, please stick around.

As it turns out, this is pretty much par for the course in terms of the ex-pat community. The English congregation is largely made up of teachers at international schools. The rest of the members include the South African diplomat (unofficially) and his wife, a college professor who has lived in Taiwan for 20 years but is still married to a woman in the U.S. (they talk every day), a retired U.S. Air Force officer, an engineer, and the second in command of the American Institute in Taiwan (our unofficial version of an embassy in Taiwan). This group was by far the most unlikely collection of people I have ever seen enjoying wedding cake for a couple they had just met an hour ago. . . when they attended their wedding and witnessed their marriage vows.

I also had the joy of meeting one of the two head stewards for the Lambeth Conference this year. The stewards were a group of young people, one of whom was from Taiwan, responsible for playing tour guide, security, running errands, applying first aid, smiling, and making life comfortable for all of the Bishops and Bishop's spouses during the conference. Erin, the head steward I met at Good Shepherd, has been living in Taiwan for the past 7 years teaching French at an international school. She gave the sermon, a reflection on the conference and her experience being a steward. I hope to post the reflection soon. It was wonderful to hear a reflection that did not just revolve around who was there and who was excluded.

Overall, I was incredibly thrilled to attend a service in English. I miss very much saying the prayers in unison instead of saying them in English and guessing how to time it so I finish at the same time as the Chinese. However, I feel somehow especially called to serve within the Chinese congregation. Unlike the last young adult missionaries to Taiwan, we do not have any particular assignments within the English congregation or ex-pat communities. I believe this will continue to bring challenges but also, slowly, enable us to better integrate into the Taiwanese culture and religious customs. We will always still be Americans, white, and really bad at Chinese, but I feel like we will have the opportunity to witness authentic expressions of Christianity as developed by the Taiwanese/Chinese culture.

May you be blessed throughout this new month,

Seth

This is easily one of the world's smallest dogs. Note that I am not the only giant in the picture, the three year old is downright huge in comparison as well.

Picture #2 is tea with the Bishop a few weeks ago. He is a true tea fanatic. He would fit right in on Wednesday morning. No word on his preference for toast or bagels.

LifeBuilders

English Bible Study. Let's just say I was skeptical. Skeptical because I am not sure I'm qualified to lead a Bible study, and skeptical because, well, it just didn't sound appealing. That is, until last night. Last night was the official kick-off of the English Bible Study at the newest Episcopal Campus Ministry, the combined Episcopal/Anglican College Fellowship (Taipei).

In preparation for leading this study, I was given a wonderful resource by Catherine Lee, a long-term missionary to Taiwan from the Church of England. In her years in Taiwan she has used the LifeBuilder Bible Studies in groups ranging from youth to veteran diocesan clergy. These Bible studies are wonderfully compiled, some around particular topics such as "Women of the Old Testament" and others around books of the Bible. Check out Scripture Union UK if you are interested in ordering or using any of these studies.

Anyway, I decided to use the Bible study titled "Introducing Jesus." I chose this study because of my desire to seek the middle road. Having no idea who would attend, I wanted to choose something that would introduce the central figure of Christianity while not boring the folks who are already Christians and know more about this stuff than I do. The first study in the book is titled "the Unexpected Jesus." As promised, it had some unexpected results. . .

We begin with Mark 2:1-12. In my Chinese-English NIV translation, this is titled "Jesus heals a paralytic." In this story, Jesus is preaching in a crowded room. In order to get an audience with Jesus, the friends of a paralyzed man dig a whole through the roof(!) and lower the paralyzed man down in the middle of the crowd. Of course, Jesus notices and "seeing their faith" tells the man "son, your sins are forgiven."

At this point, the author of the Bible study points out that 2000 years ago in Jewish culture, disabilities and calamities were directly linked with a person's sins. I asked what people thought about this way of thought, and it turns out most people in the "traditional religions" of Taiwan also hold this way of thinking. The beliefs in karma and ancestor worship are quite strong. Many holidays and ceremonies are devoted to praying to and offering gifts to ones ancestors so they will be in turn cared for by their descendants. If a person does not honor their ancestors or sins, they will be punished by not being cared for in their old age and in the afterlife.

All of the students at the Bible study adamantly rejected this way of thinking. But it made me think. . . karmic thinking certainly is not limited to Taiwan. Just think of all the Christian spirituality, self-help, American dream writing that is devoted to living a righteous life in order to be rewarded by riches, popularity, fame, "happiness." Isn't it tempting to think that if we are just a little bit "better" that things will turn around, we won't get sick, our investments will be safe, we wouldn't be paralyzed (physically or emotionally)?

But then Jesus continues, "which is easier, to 'say your sins are forgiven', or to say 'stand up and take your mat and walk'? So that you may now the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins - he said to the paralytic - 'I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.'"

Unexpected! Remember, Jesus had already forgiven the man's sins. Jesus turns our karmic thinking upside down. The removal of sins did not remove the paralysis. The healing was done so that others might believe. Isn't this radical?

What Jesus is offering is not just physical healing, but the complete restoration of relationship with God through forgiveness of sins.

The Bible study began with this question: Think of a time you have been offended by someone. What needed to happen for the relationship to be reconciled?

Our group came to the conclusion that forgiveness by the offended was necessary for true reconciliation. This does not change the fact that the offense was done, or even wipe away the consequences of the offense. But through forgiveness, the relationship can be made whole.

All in all, this was an extremely humbling conclusion. And a great motivator. Consider me a slightly less skeptical skeptic. This English Bible study thing doesn't seem so bad after all. . .

In Christ's Love,

Seth

p.s. for all of you cuteness lovers out there, the featured pictures this week are from the Good Shepherd Kindergarten where Elizabeth is working each Monday. We have also included a picture of our first attempt at Chinese calligraphy! It reads up and down. My name is on the left and Elizabeth's name is on the right. Please be kind in your appraisal, doing calligraphy is like learning to write in cursive with your weak hand.

The Church and Hospitality

In our last email we asked for words/phrases/experiences/ideas about "THE CHURCH." We have received some wonderful emails from many people expressing a wide range of ideas. These emails have been wonderful to read and think about.

More than one of the emails started in the same place I did: "Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors, and see all of the people. . ."
The replies grew beautiful, broad, and encompassing a wide range of "church." Our collective ideas of church include watching grandchildren serve as acolytes, remembering our grandparent's church we grew up in, the church incarnated among the incarcerated during Kairos weekends, the church sharing knowledge, laughter, pain, prayers during 7am Eucharist, sunrise services on the high school football field, the church that hurts too much to talk about, the church as a trust fall, and the church as what's left when the church burns down.

My own (current) image of church is built around two words: hospitality and honesty. For me, easily the most mind-blowing church moment in the past two years was when the Wednesday morning crew read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And all of a sudden everyone was talking about the true sin of these cities was their inhospitable treatment of their guests. What!?! Is hospitality really that big of a deal? I mean, at Boston University (my first alma mater), there was a school for "Hospitality Administration" which as far as most people knew, taught people how to bartend for $40,000 a year. How could hospitality be so important?

Fast forward two years to Taiwan. . . hospitality is the beginning of evangelism. In fact, it might even be the key to evangelism. If Jesus' life is about nothing else, it is about the fact that he came to make possible/tangible/by grace the reconciliation of the world to God. Because in the end, God's unfailing, unchanging, burning desire is to welcome all of us home.

Of course, this all sounds peachy-keen until it is tested and put into practice. Welcoming the stranger, living alongside the unknown, disliked, despised has always been hard. Look at The Church. The Church in Taiwan is split into so many parts/factions/histories that the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Baptists all have different words for God. There have always been examples of the The Church not being hospitable, rejecting the poor, disabled, colored, women, gays, gentile, jew, slave. So why do we hold onto the church?

Many blogs, websites, and books have been written about a new church. . . some people call it the emerging church, some people simply attempt to leave "the church" behind and go it alone, using "spiritual" as a descriptor. My favorite of these examples is Geez Magazine, a wonderful ad-free Canadian magazine that prides itself in taking on issues of faith and bringing them to the "over-churched, out-churched, un-churched and maybe even the un-churchable." This magazine is truly hospitable, it welcomes contributions from all over map of ideology, theology, and sometimes just pure oddity. I also admire it's valiant attempt at reaching those on the margins of "the church."

But I just can't help think that using my image of the church being hospitable and all of your contributions, maybe some re-thinking of The Church is in order. Maybe, hopefully, a third way will present itself. Instead of fighting the same old fights of conservative v. liberal or instead of throwing out the whole CHURCH, perhaps we can return to the message of of the church as the congregation, or the people (the Body) of Christ. When we truly embrace the idea of the church being the two or three gathered in the name of Christ, we can begin to re-think the church from relationship with Christ to relationship with our friends, and even to relationship through Christ with our enemies.

Now this is where my second image comes in: honesty. Let's get real. I'm an idealist, I dream big, I'm young, I'm naive, and I have a bit too much time to think about this stuff. . .

The world is old, nothing is new, we've been fighting over this forever, the church is broken. Yes it is. And that is honest. I struggle with hospitality. I struggle with it with all my might. I want nothing more right now than my prayer room back in order, the guest to leave, and for things to be "normal."

That is honesty. But it also isn't the end. We have the church, which at this point for me involves a steadfast group of family and friends at home, my wife, and a couple of people I barely know in Taiwan. And the truly wonderful thing is, when I remember to love God and love my neighbor, thereby being hospitable, we are able to be honest and open and create a wonderful re-thought image of The Church.

Maybe more people need to hear a deeper version of The Church than "here is the steeple." Would we be so quick to renounce the Church and head into the wilds of being spiritual, or out-churched, or God-forbid "unchurchable" if we truly believed and acted as if The Church is founded upon love, a love that inspires hospitality? And what if in our hospitality and welcoming we also welcome honesty, which promotes healthy growth, self-reflection? Just maybe, The Church (you and me, your grandma, my future grandkids, our houseguests) will someday by able to muster up our courage, step out into faith, and cross the welcome mat into our eternal home.