Author Archives: djgrieser

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About djgrieser

I have been Rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, WI since 2009. I'm passionate about Jesus Christ and about connecting our faith and tradition with 21st century culture. I'm also very active in advocating for our homeless neighbors.

Annual Meeting, 2018

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Portions of my annual report:

 

Earlier this year, many of us read Dwight Zscheile’s The Agile Church, in which he argued that in order to thrive, in order to do the work of mission we are called by God to do in the world, we need to take bigger risks, be willing to experiment, and yes, fail, and listen carefully to our own stories as well as the stories of our neighbors as we seek to find ways of connecting with them, and helping our selves and our neighbors, connect with God.

That work has borne fruit in a number of ways: in a Welcoming Committee led by Rob Lemanske that has brought new energy and new ideas on how to connect better with newcomers and visitors. The Development Fund Trust is distributing almost $15000 to fund initiatives to build relationships within our congregation, with our neighbors, and with Diocesan ministry partners in the Diocese of Haiti.

This week, the Creating More Just Community task force gathered for a retreat to reflect on the work it has done since its inception in 2014 and to begin planning for its next steps. Their most recent effort, organizing a series of conversations based on a civil discourse curriculum published by the Episcopal Church, drew more than 20 people, including a number of attendees from the broader community, over the last four weeks. It has also hosted a number of community events, including a governors’ candidate forum focused on criminal justice reform, early in 2018.

As the group reflected on its work over the past years, the urgency of the tasks that lie ahead, and imagined what it might do in the future, it highlighted several areas that will receive special attention. First, building on the civil discourse conversations, members hope to share their experience with other congregations, both locally and statewide. Second, we will encourage discussions about racial healing across the congregation, beginning appropriately on the weekend of MLK Day. We also hope to engage more deeply in ministry with our neighbors at the Dane County Jail, both through our connections with Madison Jail Ministry, and with new opportunities that are emerging from conversations with other downtown churches. Finally, we want to continue to develop our efforts to engage elected officials and policy makers with issues of importance to people of faith. To that end, we hope to organize and host a forum for mayor candidates on issues of importance to us: homelessness, racial and economic inequality, relations between police and members of the community.

All of these are exciting developments and all are evidence of our response to God’s call to us. We should be proud of the work we have done and are doing, and grateful for those among us who are taking leadership in all of these areas.

There are significant challenges in our future. As most of you know, the proposal for a new State Historical Museum on the corner of N. Carroll and State St. has been made public and the State Historical Society is actively fundraising for that project under the bipartisan leadership of former Governors Tommy Thompson and Jim Doyle. Hovde Properties, who along with Fred Mohs own much of this block except for Grace Church are proposing redevelopment that would include all of the block except for Grace and the adjacent Hovde Building. We have been in conversations with them since 2014 about our participation in that project and the effects that redevelopment might have on us. We have also spoken with real estate consultants, architects, and developers about the value of our property and what possibilities there are for development of the West Wing. All of these discussions are ongoing and have made little progress since our last public gatherings in June and September.

At the same time, we have been speaking with community leaders, politicians and city and county staff about the future of the Men’s Drop-In Shelter that has been located at Grace since 1984. We are committed to the important role the shelter plays in our community and to the fact that addressing homelessness is at the heart of who we are as a congregation. Still, the possibility that our efforts, combined with a community-wide engagement of the public and private sector might lead to a new shelter in a new location, designed for its purpose and adequate to the scope of the needs in our community, is a dream worth pursuing. Those conversations are bearing fruit and we will share all developments with the congregation as they occur and involve all of you in the process as we move forward.

These are complex, challenging issues that are accompanied by strong feelings and opinions and elicit powerful emotions. Still, we should not fear having these conversations or ignore the possibility that change might be coming to this block of W. Wash. and N. Carroll. I would hope that our engagement in these conversations would be governed by two important and inter-related questions: 1) How can we be the best stewards of the property and location that past generations have bestowed, preserved, and enhanced? 2) What is God calling us to be and to do as the People of God in this very location where we have gathered for more than 160 years? We may not make the right decisions, but if we ask these questions honestly and answer them to the best of our ability and with the best resources and wisdom we can muster, we will be faithful both to those who have come before us, and to those who might come after us, as well as to the God who has called us together and placed us here.

Not one stone will be left: A Sermon for Proper 28, Year B (Annual Meeting) 2018

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 We are nearing the end of the liturgical year. In the church, the new year begins on the first Sunday of Advent, which this year falls on December 2. But there’s a sense in which our gospel readings in the weeks leading up to that day help us prepare for Advent. Indeed some preachers and liturgists extend the season of Advent back three Sundays and advocate for a seven-week season of Advent.

There are at least two reasons for this move. The first reason for this extension of Advent is, I suspect, largely cultural. Since retailers replace their Halloween merchandise with their Holiday merchandise, and radio stations and satellite services have already started playing holiday music, extending Advent to the beginning of November is a way of offering a counter narrative to the excesses and consumerism of the Holiday season. The second reason for this longer Advent is that our gospel readings for these three Sundays are drawn from Jesus’ teachings concerning his return. They are what we call Apocalyptic literature.

Apocalyptic, which derives from a Greek word meaning revealing, emerged in the second century BCE during a period of crisis among the Jewish people. The central chapters of the book of Daniel are the earliest example of this type of literature. It is symbolic, full of strange beings. It presumes a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil, in which ultimately, the good will prevail. While it seems to be describing events that will take place at a future time, in fact, it is describing in highly symbolic terms what is happening in the world right now. So, from time to time, after describing some event or some figure, a beast with seven horns, for example, the author will provide a clue, or a hint, and say, “let the reader understand.” Apocalyptic was also the context in which the idea of the resurrection of the dead first became popular, among the earliest clear references to the idea is in fact in the verses from Daniel in today’s first reading.

As I said, the world of apocalyptic is full of fear and danger, and we live in a context which is full of such imagery and events. Whether it’s mass shootings, terrorism, the continuous wars, or the wildfires that have transformed the landscape of California, taken lives, and changed the lives of so many people, our world seems to be collapsing around us. In such a context, Jesus’ words sound ominous indeed.

Today’s gospel, though written about two millennia ago, comes from a time and a community that were experiencing some of the same fear and uncertainty that we face as a world. As I’ve said before, it’s likely that Mark was written during the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation, and either shortly before, or after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. We date the gospel to this particular historical moment in part because of the very verses we heard today—the disciples marveling at the size and grandeur of the temple, and Jesus’ prediction of its destruction.

The Jewish Rebellion and the destruction of the temple constituted a cataclysmic change for Judaism. It was also of enormous significance for the tiny community of Jesus’ followers, who were caught in the midst of the conflict. As they looked around at what was happening around them, as they probably fled the violence, they were also reflecting back on Jesus himself, the hopes and faith he had instilled in them. As we have seen throughout this year, Jesus proclaimed the coming of God’s reign. It’s quite likely that many of those in this tiny community forty years later saw in the Jewish revolt and the Roman response, signs of Jesus’ imminent return.

You can almost hear the conversations of that community in Jesus’ words. He warns against false prophets—those who claim to be Jesus, those who claim to know when Jesus will return. All of the catastrophes, the wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and the like. There were people wondering whether these things were signs of Jesus’ return, signs of the end times. Of course, as we imagine first-century Christians wondering about these things, we know all too well that many contemporary Christians, and many in secular society, too, are fascinated with predictions of the end times.

Jesus’ words concerning his return are elicited by an observation of one of his disciples. Let me give you some background. In Mark’s chronology, this takes place of Tuesday in Holy. On Sunday, Jesus and his disciples made the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which we reenact on Palm Sunday. After that, Jesus went to the temple and looked around.. Then he and his disciples left the city and spent the night in Bethlehem. On Monday, they returned to the temple, and overturned the moneychangers’ tables, after which they returned to Bethany. They came back to the temple on Tuesday where Jesus had a number of encounters with groups of Jews, the chief priests and scribes, some Pharisees and Herodians, some Sadducees. After the story of the widow’s mite which we heard last Sunday, they left the temple again, which is when this story takes place.

Once again, it’s as if the disciples are completely oblivious to what Jesus has just said, or has been saying all along. It’s the sort of remark we make as tourists, “Look at how big the stones are!” It’s the sort of remark I often hear when visitors come to Grace: “Wow, what a beautiful church!” Jesus’ retort may have been intended by Mark to reflect the reality that after Rome destroyed the temple, not a single stone was left standing but it’s an important reminder to us as well.

It’s not about the stones, even if it is our responsibility to make sure the stones of this building remain intact. The Jewish temple, Grace Church, are supposed to be places where people encounter God, where they experience the love of Christ and are transformed by that encounter. The beauty of our spaces, both inside and out, are meant to offer such opportunities, to invite people into relationship with God.

One way of thinking about all those encounters Jesus had with Jewish groups in the temple before this, from the moneychangers to the chief priests, Pharisees, and Sadducees, is to see them as challenges to the immediacy and accessibility of people to God. Spaces create barriers; institutions establish and maintain boundaries, communities dictate who’s in and who’s out. Jesus challenged all of those efforts to limit accessibility to God, to set boundaries. The threat he posed was part of what led to his arrest and execution.

2000 years later, those tendencies remain. We focus on the stones, not on God. Sometimes, instead of being a means of access to God, the building becomes our God, and we worship it or focus all of our energies and attention on it rather than on what it is supposed to be. Sometimes, a building can also be seen as an impediment, that it requires resources that might better be expended in other ways, in outreach to the community, for example. Striking the right balance is always a challenge, but I believe we at Grace do that.

I was reminded of the power and possibility of our spaces to connect us with God on Friday evening of this week. Corrie and I were walking on the square just as our bells began to ring at 6:00 pm. Hearing them from the other side of the square wasn’t just a distraction or noise. The sound of the bells reminded me of all that they represent: the faithful people who installed and now maintained them, their sound reminding me of God’s presence in this city, even on a Friday evening.

That is what our spaces should do—our building, our bells, our gardens, all should remind passersby of God’s presence in the world, and invite people to experience and enter into that presence more deeply, whether here at Grace or in other places or other ways in their personal lives.

We don’t know how long Grace Church will remain standing, whether for fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred years. But there will come a time, I suspect, when stone will no longer stand on stone, when there will only be rubble. But until that time comes, in God’s time, it is our responsibility, our mission, to ensure that our buildings and our congregation, are places where people encounter, experience, and share God’s love.

A communion of saints: A Sermon for All Saints’ Sunday, 2018

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Today is All Saints’ Sunday. In the life of Grace Church, it’s a day full of opportunities to reflect on who we are as a community and who we are becoming, and called to become. We are baptizing a baby today. We commemorate those who have died from our congregation and our loved ones, in the last year and distant past. We welcome new members into our community, and finally, we gather up our pledges of financial commitment to the ministry and mission of Grace for the coming year. Continue reading →

Anti-Semitism, Anti-Judaism and the past and future of Christianity

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Last week saw two attacks on communities of faith. The first, at an African-American church, was thwarted by security measures the congregation had put in place after Charleston. Undeterred, the gunman went to a nearby town and gunned down two African-Americans in a parking lot. The second was at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh where 11 worshippers, aged 54 to 97 were brutally murdered by a white man. Both assassins were white men filled with hatred,, white supremacy, racism, and Anti-Semitism.

It may be that as a culture, we are so hardened by the recurrence of acts of racist terrorism that we hardly noticed the Kentucky incident. Or perhaps it was because only two people were killed. In either case, the lives lost there and the escalating violence against African-Americans, enabled by a culture of white privilege that refuses to acknowledge our complicity in systemic racism, has not so much reopened old wounds as it has exposed how deeply racism pervades the American psyche and American culture.

The killings at Tree of Life Synagogue have struck a nerve in myself and throughout America. World War II and the Final Solution showed us the scale of the horror that human beings could inflict on each other and revealed the end goal of Anti-Semitism. At the same time, American Jews assimilated into the mainstream. Overt acts of Anti-Semitism became rare and bias against Jews became unfashionable. As many Jews have become less observant and inter-marriage between Jews and non-Jews common, Jews seemed to be different from other Americans only in their personal or family histories, or that they observed Chanukah as well as Christmas.

The massacre at Tree of Life, like the massacre at Mother Emanuel Baptist Church places a mirror in front of us, revealing us to be who we are, revealing that Anti-Semitism is not a historical relic but a present reality. It demands that we confront it in all of its evil, to expose all the ways our culture and our religion continue to be shaped by it.

Though Christianity began as a movement within Judaism and a movement that sought to maintain a Jewish identity at its center, its theological and institutional development was shaped by anti-Judaism. Paul’s vision that “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male and female” quickly gave way to a very different perspective, such as that in the Gospel of John, where “Jews” are depicted as Jesus’ implacable opponents and responsible for his death. Not surprisingly, the Pittsburgh shooter alluded to a verse from John on his social media profile: “Jews [You, the text reads] are the children of Satan” (John 8:44).

Theologically, Jews were consistently viewed as obstinate, or stiff-necked for their resistance to the truth of the Gospel. Efforts were even made early on to expunge Scripture of its Jewish content or to claim that the Old and New Testaments bore witness to two different Gods—a perspective that persists in popular ideas of the “the angry God of the Old Testament” and the “loving God of the New Testament.”

 

I won’t rehearse here the history of Christian Anti-Judaism or how over time that Anti-Judaism, which was based in theological categories became something much broader and ultimately developed into Anti-Semitism. But there are important elements that are worth noting. For example, the first victims of the Medieval crusades were not Muslims or Turks, but Jews living in German towns and cities of the Rhineland. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, after Jews were expelled from Spain, the Spanish Inquisition continued to pursue third and fourth generation descendants of Jewish converts to Christianity.

If racism is America’s original sin, then Anti-Semitism is Christianity’s original sin, a symbol of our failure to embrace the full humanity and diversity of our brothers and sisters and to conceive of a God who might extend grace and love to all people without abandoning the covenant established with God’s chosen people. And like our reluctance to confront the racism central to American identity, our refusal to confront the Anti-Semitism that has helped to shape and define Christianity, has allowed it to linger just below the surface, or to manifest itself in a myriad of subtle ways. Still, it remains persistent and powerful enough to enter our political discourse in language of “globalism” or profiteering, in attacks on Jewish philanthropists or humanitarian organizations, or in images in campaign mailers that draw on medieval depictions of Jewish moneylenders.

As Christians, we must do more than mourn the dead, lament the persistence of Anti-Semitism, and shake our fingers at hate mongers. We must confront all the ways Christianity has contributed to the hate and evil in our culture and our history and we must do the hard work of developing resources that provide a basis for constructing a new way of being religious and Christian in our complicated and violent world. And even as we excavate the evil in our past and in our theology, we must acknowledge all the ways that our scriptures, our theologies, and our liturgies offer life-giving alternatives, hope, and joy, in the midst of so much evil.

Make a joyful noise! A homily for Choral Evensong and the Rededication of the Bells

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I wanted to say a few words as part of our evensong and service of rededication of Grace’s bells because it’s important to mark such occasions; to offer some words to put what we’ve done in larger perspective.

It’s easy for us to forget what we have here on this corner of N. Carroll and W. Washington. Sure, Grace is on the national register of historic places. It’s a landmark both literally and by designation, among the oldest churches in Dane County; among the oldest surviving buildings in Downtown Madison. But that’s only part of the story for behind that landmark, behind the stone and mortar are all of the people over the past more than century and half, who have worshiped here—who have been baptized, married, been buried from here. It’s easy to forget the legacy we have inherited from them—the presidents like Grover Cleveland and Harry Truman who worshiped here; senators, governors, and yes, regular people many of them.

It’s easy to forget all that they’ve given us; to ignore it or simply let them and their gifts pass into oblivion. That’s kind of what we did with the bells. Oh, we knew they were up there. We could even play some of them; but no one really remembered their stories. When I went digging in the files to try to figure out exactly what pitches, what sizes they were, there were at least 3 that were unrecorded (and the records we had, after the first nine were very incomplete, written by hand on note pads or lined paper). I myself had never even been up in the tower before this week.

But now, thanks to the persistence of a number of people, among them Conrad Bauman, Greg Rogers, and most recently Peter Schultz-Burkel, as well as Senior Warden John Wood, and all of those who donated to the effort, whose names are listed on the insert, thanks to all of you, we can enjoy Grace’s bells in all their glory.

No doubt part of the reluctance to assess let alone reinstate the bells was due to a lack of knowledge of how much it might cost, and a sense that it might be irresponsible, somehow even unfaithful to God to spend a significant amount of money on a rather frivolous project like this. But what we are doing by preserving and enhancing the bells is being good stewards of the legacy we’ve received. In many respects, we chose to worship here; to be members of and leaders of this congregation in this place, and part of what that means is to take care of, maintain, preserve, and enhance our facilities. It was an offense to that legacy and to those generations of donors, that too many of the bells sat silent for so long. We are honoring the memories of all of those people, from the Proudfits and the anonymous donors of the first 9 bells, right down to Bob and Betty Kurtenacker, who gave one of the last bells, and who many of us remember.

But it’s not just about that legacy. Ultimately the bells are about the worship and presence of God in our congregation and in our community. As I wrote in some of the materials describing the history of Grace’s bells, bells provide people with a sense of God’s presence in the world and in their lives. This was pointed out to me one day this week when I was stopped by someone on the sidewalk in front of the church he told me how the bells ringing reminded him of growing up in Goa India and hearing the bells call the faithful to prayer and rang out at the moment of consecration during the Eucharist.

Bells help us celebrate the great festivals of the church year, and sacraments like weddings; they toll at funerals, as ours did on Friday for Bob Kurtenacker, the funeral boll tolled 100 times to mark the years of his life, and at 6 seconds between each ringing, it took a total of ten minutes.

We worship in many ways, in the privacy of our homes, in silence and meditation, and in joyful song. Our bells fill the air with music and fill the nooks and crannies of the streets and alleys around capitol square. May their sound bring the city joy and remind us all of God’s beauty and presence in our world!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesus, Son of David, Have mercy on us: A Sermon for Proper 25B, 2018

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 This is a week that has been filled with meetings—with downtown leaders, with the Outreach Committee, the Creating More Just Community group, the taskforce working on issues around the redevelopment of our block, with ecumenical colleagues across the state, with grieving family members, families preparing for baptisms, and couples about to be married. I was so busy that I barely had a chance to take in the excitement of Grace’s participation in the downtown trick-or-treating on Wednesday, when thousands were welcomed to Grace and heard the spooky playing of our own Mark Brampton Smith. I did get to see the photos and videos that Pat posted to our facebook page and show all of the fun and excitement that was taking place.

Accompanying all of that, all week, has been the sound of the bells, as the technicians completed their work in time for this afternoon’s evensong and bells rededication. Many of us are looking ahead to events here at Grace, making plans for the coming months, talking about new opportunities for ministry and mission, or opportunities for deepening relationships among members in the congregation. The excitement is palpable all over Grace and in the soundwaves above and beyond Grace.

This week has also been a week of hatred and violence, with bombs sent in the mail, the killings of African-Americans in Kentucky, and then yesterday the shocking murders of 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Whatever excitement and joy we may feel here at Grace as we gather this morning to celebrate a baptism and as we celebrate our newly refurbished bells is tempered by the grief, sadness, and anger we feel at the deep divisions in our nation, at the violence and hatred that surrounds us and threatens so many. Continue reading →

Prayers in times of violence, hatred, and grief

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A Prayer for Victims of Terrorism

Loving God, Welcome into your arms the victims of violence and terrorism. Comfort their families and all who grieve for them. Help us in our fear and uncertainty, And bless us with the knowledge that we are secure in your love. Strengthen all those who work for peace, And may the peace the world cannot give reign in our hearts. Amen.

A Prayer for Social Justice

Almighty God, who created us in your image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 260)

A Prayer for the Whole Human Family.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 815)

A Prayer for Social Justice.

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the people of this land], that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 823)

A Prayer for First Responders

Blessed are you, Lord, God of mercy, who through your Son gave us a marvelous example of charity and the great commandment of love for one another. Send down your blessings on these your servants, who so generously devote themselves to helping others. Grant them courage when they are afraid, wisdom when they must make quick decisions, strength when they are weary, and compassion in all their work. When the alarm sounds and they are called to aid both friend and stranger, let them faithfully serve you in their neighbor. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.– adapted from the Book of Blessings, #587, by Diana Macalintal

For the President of the United States and all in Civil Authority

O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world: We commend this nation to your merciful care, that, being guided by your Providence, we may dwell secure in your peace. Grant to the President of the United States, the Governor of Massachusetts, and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do your will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in your fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

For Peace

Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

A Prayer Attributed to St. Francis

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

“The Brazen-Throated Monsters:” Madison’s newspapers’ reporting on Grace’s bells in 1874

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Workers from Lee Manufacturing Co. of Muskego, WI are putting the final touches on new strikers and state-of-the-art bell-ringing technology on the 23 bells that reside in Grace’s bell tower. The first nine were installed in 1874. Additions from the 1950s through the 1970s brought us to our current status. Along the way, all of the bells were made stationary and equipped with an electronic ringing system that has deteriorated over the decades so that in recent years, we’ve only been able to play a half-dozen or so of them. It seemed to me to be poor stewardship of the resources past generations gave Grace not to be able to use them in worship and celebration and after consultation with a number of vendors and a successful campaign to garner the congregation’s support, work began a few weeks ago. I’ve enjoyed learning more about the bells in the past few months.

Apparently, there had been something of a competition among Madison’s churches to have the largest bell. Apparently, with the installation of the “Bishop’s Bell,” weighing 2500 Lbs., Grace emerged victorious.

Madison’s newspapers, “The Daily Democrat” and the “Wisconsin State Journal” both reported on the installation of the bells. They arrived from Troy, NY on March 20, 1874. The total weight of the bells and platform was 14000 lbs. The Daily Democrat reported on March 31:

The nine chime bells were safely deposited in the tower of the Episcopal Church yesterday, and will be raised to their places as fast as possible. A large number visited the church to see them, and all will anxiously await the first peal from the “brazen throated” monsters.

After their installation and use throughout the day on Easter Sunday, 1874, the State Journal noted that:

the chimes were generally regarded as a success, and something on the possession of which the church and the city is to be congratulated, though they will sound better when experience will lead to more skilful ringing. Some tunes sounded beautifully, others, rather discordant. We have heard the opinion expressed that one or two of the smaller bells had not as good a tone as was desirable. This morning there was considerable experimenting on the bells by different parties, and a great deal of jangling. –State Journal April 6, 1874

A few days later, The Daily Democrat disclosed that action was being taken to address the intonation issues:

Slightly out of tune. – The third bell, key of G, in Grace Church tower, has been discovered to be slightly out of tune, and the services of a man were engaged through yesterday in chipping off a portion of the rim, by which means it is proposed to obtain the correct sound.–The Daily Democrat, April 10, 1874

However, as is often the case with contractors, Grace, and the whole city were assured that nothing was amiss:

Those bells are in perfect tune, so says a good judge of music; and Mr. Waters, the gentleman who came with them and superintended their erection, has received assurances that all is well; the money is paid down, and all the members of Grace Church are satisfied that the chime is superior to any in the State. –The Daily Democrat, April 16, 1874

The Bishop’s Bell, E-flat or Tenor Bell, 2500 lbs.from The Jones Company of Troy, NY), dedicated to the memory of Bishop Jackson Kemper, first Bishop of Wisconsin, and Bishop William Armitage.

The Third Time wasn’t the Charm: A Sermon for Proper 24B, 2018

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We’re drawing near to the end of our reading of the Gospel of Mark this year. The past weeks, we have been accompanying Jesus and his disciples as they walk toward Jerusalem. They are now in Judea, the province where Jerusalem is located. As they near Jerusalem, the dangers and possibilities that await them come to dominate the narrative. It’s as if they can see the temple mount on the horizon as they walk.

We don’t know what the disciples were expecting. From Mark’s depiction of them, it seems likely that they thought they had signed up for a divine mission; that when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and confronted Rome, God would intervene in history and restore the Kingdom of David and the Kingdom of God. Continue reading →

Episcopal Dioceses and rising geographical inequality

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October 13 was the date of the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee’s annual convention. It’s not an event I look forward to each year and the longer I serve in my current cure, the less I tend to focus my energies on larger Episcopal entities, whether dioceses or General Convention. Still, it’s an opportunity to connect with other clergy and laity and to hear a bit about what’s happening in other corners of the diocese.

Like so much of the US, Southern Wisconsin is seeing growing inequities among regions and races. Dane County, home of Madison, is in the midst of an economic boom and is home to a growing population. Other parts of the region are struggling economically and losing population. The economic boom affects races quite differently especially in Wisconsin, where racial inequities are among the worst in the nation.

Those inequities are not limited to the secular sphere. We see them in the Church as well. The Diocese of Milwaukee is neither large nor wealthy. Grace Church, with an average Sunday attendance of around 170 and an operating budget of approximately 550,000 is the second largest congregation in the Diocese. Many of our congregations are quite small and are served by part-time clergy. A number of congregations, both urban and small-town, have closed over the last years.

It was with this in mind that I read Richard Florida’s piece on City Lab entitled “America’s Worsening Geographic Inequality.” Drawing on a number of recent studies, Florida points out the disturbing trends:

  • the decline of middle-class neighborhoods and the separation of America into “areas of concentrated advantage juxtaposed with areas of concentrated disadvantage”
  • change in prosperity of neighborhoods (1980-2016); suburban neighborhoods most stable; among urban neighborhoods, more upwardly mobile than downwardly mobile; rural neighborhoods the most volatile
  • up to 1980, geographical inequities declined; since 1980; they have grown
  • Today, median household income for the top 20 percent of America’s counties is more than twice as high as the median household income of the bottom 20 percent, while poverty rates are roughly three times greater in the poorest 20 percent of counties, compared to the most affluent 20 percent.
  • America is not only economically unequal: Its inequality cuts sharply across geographic lines. We are becoming a country of have and have-nots that turns on where we were born or where we are able to live. And this worsening winner-take-all geography is bound up with, and reflects, our long running divides of race and class.  Increasingly, our neighborhood, and our zip code, is our economic destiny.

One sees evidence of such growing geographical inequality in the life of our diocese. It’s not just that a relatively small number of congregations account for much of diocesan revenue, it’s that the diocese in turn offers aid to a significant number of parishes. So, in a sense, there’s a redistribution of wealth taking place among parishes.

It seems to me that we don’t take these larger geographical inequalities into account when we think about our common life as a diocese. I doubt very much whether many dioceses do. We are accustomed to think in terms of racial inequality and regional (North and South; the coasts and flyover country) differences. But geographical inequality is also present within dioceses. Many of our struggling churches are in neighborhoods that are struggling as well. This is true of urban as well as rural or small-town communities.

The Episcopal Church with its geographically-shaped structure may be uniquely situated to address geographical inequities like those cited by Florida. To a degree, we already do this with our funding mechanisms. But I suspect we need to go further and nurture the bonds that tie us together as Episcopalians across the divides that separate us, whether those divisions be class, race, gender, or geography.