Overtaken by the forces of History? Episcopalians and Gay Marriage in Wisconsin

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This morning, after I wrote an update for Grace Church on our conversations about same-sex blessings, I learned that the ACLU filed suit this morning in Federal District Court to have Wisconsin’s constitutional ban on gay marriage overturned. This comes as Virginia’s Attorney General has refused to defend that state’s ban, and courts ruling in Oklahoma and elsewhere that such state bans are unconstitutional.

This is a very interesting development both for the state and for the Episcopal Church in Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, our work on same-sex blessings continues at Grace. Our draft public state of inclusion is available here:LGBTstatement_revised_01292014

A Light for Revelation to the Gentiles: A Sermon for the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

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We’ve gathered this morning in this sacred space as people have gathered for155 years. Some of you have memories in this place that go back a third of that time or longer. A few of you have ties to families that worshiped here fifty or a hundred years ago. And although the interior of this space has changed rather dramatically over that time, it continues to give a sense of permanence, solidity, tradition, and most importantly, the divine. Continue reading →

Christians and the LGBT community in Madison and around the world

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At Grace we are continuing to reflect on ways of making our congregation more open and welcoming of all people in spite of our struggles with the diocesan ban on offering same-sex blessings and Wisconsin’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. A recent article by Doug Erickson told the story of the suicide last fall of Mindy Fabian, a transgender teenager who struggled to find acceptance at her school and a place in the world. It’s a reminder that even in a progressive city like Madison, LGBT persons face adversity, prejudice, and bullying.

But it’s much worse in other places in America and across the world. After lengthy silence, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have written to all Anglican primates to remind them of their public “commitment to the pastoral support and care of everyone worldwide, regardless of sexual orientation.” This came while Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is traveling in Africa and after considerable criticism for his silence on the recent laws passed in Uganda and Nigeria that increase criminal penalties on LGBT individuals.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori has also recently reiterated the Episcopal Church’s commitment to LGBT rights:

The Episcopal Church has been clear about our expectation that every member of the LGBT community is entitled to the same respect and dignity as any other member of the human family.  Our advocacy for oppressed minorities has been vocal and sustained.  The current attempts to criminalize LBGT persons and their supporters are the latest in a series, each stage of which has been condemned by this Church, as well as many other religious communities and nations.

Stanley Ntagali, Anglican Archbishop of Uganda has responded to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Uganda bill:

We sincerely hope the Archbishops and governing bodies of the Church of England will step back from the path they have set themselves on so the Church of Uganda will be able to maintain communion with our own Mother Church.

There is supposed to be a screening in February at UW of the documentary God loves Uganda that details the role of colonialism and western missionaries in creating homophobia in Uganda.

 

Metanoiete! A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

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I want to begin today by painting two images for you. The first is from last Monday. It was MLK Day; the Central library and most of the other social service agencies that serve homeless people were closed in observation of the holiday. After a scramble the week before, I offered Grace Church as space, and staff from First Methodist, Bethel Lutheran, several other agencies, and a team of volunteers offered their support. Over the course of the day, more than 120 people signed in. They received food, coffee, some fellowship. There were all ages. A beautiful little girl, a toddler, blonde hair, was with her mother. She ran around the room, quite at ease as so many of the others there knew her. There were elderly men there, disabled, blind. Continue reading →

A Polite Bribe: Provocative Documentary about St. Paul

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On January 29 at 7:00pm at Union South, there will be a screening of the new documentary Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe. More information about the screening is here. It’s an innovative documentary in that it avoids the usual techniques of biblical and historical films. There no shots of intrepid scholars walking through ancient ruins and no actors in bathrobes and sandals depicting scenes from the New Testament.

Instead, film-maker Robert Orlando makes effective use of animation to tell the story but much of the narrative is carried by New Testament scholars. What’s perhaps most interesting is that he weaves together the words of scholars from very different perspectives to create a coherent story.

It’s a story that rarely is given a central place in the scholarly treatment of Paul (although I remember that when I took an undergraduate course on Paul many years ago, we began with the collection). In his letters, Paul mentions a collection he is taking up for the church in Jerusalem (eg I Cor. 16:1-4). In Acts, Paul brings the collection to Jerusalem where he is arrested. Orlando interprets the story of the collection that Paul brings to Jerusalem as an attempt to preserve the unity within earliest Christianity, his effort to maintain relations between the predominantly Jewish Christian community of Jerusalem, and the communities of largely Gentile Christians that Paul was creating in Asia Minor and Greece.

Mark Goodacre, Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School reviews it here. He writes:

I was impressed by the way that the film manages to weave a story that scholars know well into a narrative that would be comprehensible and compelling to those with no knowledge of the field.  It’s certainly something I would enjoy using in the classroom, but I suspect that those who will enjoy it most will be those who are unaccustomed to reflecting critically on Paul’s biography.

David Mays offers what he likes and doesn’t like about the film, concluding that it is well-worth watching.

James McGrath writes:

I honestly cannot think of another single documentary film about the Bible which has such a wide array of the very best and best-known scholars from around the world in it. The movie would be worth watching just to hear those scholars speak, even if they only spoke in the proportion that is common in documentaries. But scholars speaking makes up the vast majority of the film’s verbal component. And in addition to hearing scholars speak clearly and compellingly about Paul, you’ll also get to hear Ben Witherington do an impression of a mafia godfather.

I had a chance to watch it a couple of months ago and I was struck by the wide range of scholars who were interviewed, by the depth of the scholarship behind the film and conveyed by it as well. I was also intrigued by the film’s overall perspective. Having taught Paul in Intro to Bible and Intro to NT classes many times over the years, I know that the collection never played a significant role in the story of Paul that I taught even if it had in my own undergraduate introduction to Paul. Was it a bribe? Who knows? Was it at least partly Paul’s attempt to smooth over relations with the Jerusalem community? Undoubtedly.

The evening at UW a talk by Orlando, a panel discussion by UW faculty, as well as the screening. I hope a lot of people turn out. More information is available here.

Update on response to severe weather (updated!): Porchlight’s plans for the weekend

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I received word from Preston Patterson, manager of the Men’s Drop-In Shelter that they will continue to extend hours during this coldsnap. The predicted low for Sunday, January 26 is -12.

Preston writes:

Wednesday 1/22/14

  • All bans to remain lifted until Wednesday morning 1/29
  • Van service to overflow shelters from main shelter

Thursday 1/23

  • Van service  from overflow shelters, back to main shelter
  • Main shelter will close at 9am
  • Evening van service to overflow shelters

Friday 1/24

  • Resume normal shelter operations – no van service and normal closing time

Saturday 1/25

  • Normal shelter operations – no van service and normal closing time

Sunday 1/26

  • Main shelter to remain open until 1pm
  • Van service yet to be determined

Monday 1/27

  • Van service from overflow shelters, back to main shelter
  • Main shelter will close at 9am
  • Evening van service to overflow shelters

Tuesday 1/28

  • Van service from overflow shelters, back to main shelter
  • Main shelter will close at 9am
  • Evening van service to overflow shelters

I’m happy to share this information and I’m happy that they are making decisions now about the weekend. One of the problems is getting the word out, so please share widely.

I learned how important getting this information out in a variety of ways is. On Monday, I spoke with a man who had been treated for frostbite the previous night. Banned from the shelter, he didn’t know that such bans were temporarily lifted, so he didn’t seek shelter there.

Uncomfortable Ironies: MLK Day and homelessness in Madison

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I wrote last week about the scramble to provide day shelter for homeless people today, MLK Day because many of the facilities that typically provide shelter for homeless people were closed in observance of the holiday.

At Grace, today was a wonderful day. More than 120 people came to us for shelter, food, and fellowship, staying for a few minutes, a few hours or all day. In addition, twenty volunteers pitched in to make coffee, provide lunch, and clean up afterwards. It was a community effort and I was excited to work with and deepen relationships with staff from First United Methodist and Bethel Lutheran Church. I was also excited to see volunteers and agency reps working with individuals in writing resumes and filling out housing applications. One volunteer drove someone to the emergency room.

My joy and gratitude at what we accomplished was tinged with grief and anger. As I looked around the room and thought about the holiday that was being celebrated, I couldn’t help but think about the irony of it all. At noon in the State Capitol, there was a celebration of MLK Day at which Governor Walker spoke. I’m sure it was a rousing event. At 5:00 pm, there was another celebration two blocks away in the other direction at the Overture Center. Andrew Young, former Atlanta mayor and close confident of Dr. King spoke. I’m sure it was quite inspirational. In between these two celebrations of the life and legacy of MLK, at Grace, 120 homeless people and twenty volunteers came together to create community on a cold day. It was forced community–forced by the reality of a city and county that can’t find it in their collective will to provide adequate shelter for the neediest among us.

The greater irony was probably that of those three gatherings together, the one at Grace was the most integrated. Forty-five years after Dr. King’s assassination, Madison is a city that is deeply divided racially, a city in which the level of achievement among African-Americans lags far behind that of whites, a city in which there is enormous economic and social disparity between whites and blacks, a city where there is a far higher percentage of African-Americans among the homeless than in the general population.

On a day when the political, economic, and cultural elites of Madison and Wisconsin were celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., at Grace we were witnesses of his shattered dream and hollow legacy. As we celebrate Martin Luther King, and celebrate as well our community coming together to help the homeless, we should also bear witness to the continued brokenness, racism, and economic injustice of our society.

Mending the Safety Net with Social Media

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There’s a quiet revolution taking place in Madison right now. As I’ve participated in and observed the conversations and debates around homelessness over the last years, I’ve begun to see a transformation in the way our community addresses this complex issue.

When I arrived in 2009, I noticed two things. First, there were enormous gaps in services for homeless people. One of the most serious related to weather emergencies. During a blizzard my first winter, I went down to the church to see how the shelter was coping. As is policy, the shelter remained open during the day because of heavy snow, winds, and cold weather. Unfortunately, there had been no advance preparation—little food was on hand and they were under-staffed. I tried to figure out how to avert such situations in the future and talked with shelter management about developing a plan that would deal with weather emergencies. I didn’t know who to turn to or how to broaden the conversation to engage others in developing solutions.

The other thing I noticed was the nature of the conversation. Four years ago, homeless advocates offered harsh criticism of agencies and government. Expending their time and energy in protest, they rarely sought concrete solutions. This adversarial stance often resulted in broken communication and relationships and rarely produced positive change.

What’s happening now is quite different. While agencies and government continue to receive criticism for inaction, gaps in services, and inadequate policies, homeless advocates and the homeless community have become much more proactive in responding to needs.

One of the most significant ways this takes place is via social media, especially Facebook. Groups like Friends of the State Street Family use Facebook to connect volunteers and provide services, food, and supplies.

The transformation in Madison has become obvious in just the last couple of weeks. As I mentioned in a blogpost earlier, we received an email on December 30 asking for help to provide daytime shelter for homeless people on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day when almost all of the agencies and facilities serving homeless people would be closed. Two churches quickly responded to open their doors.

This past week, a homeless advocate noticed that most of those same facilities and agencies would be closed on January 20 in observance of MLK Day. She initiated a conversation on facebook with several of us to figure out a solution (the conversation was initiated by Brenda Konkel and included Karen Andro, Mark Wilson, Tami Miller, Linda Ketcham, Heidi Mayree Wegleitner, and me). Again, within a day a solution emerged. I offered Grace Church as space and Karen Andro from First Methodist organized volunteers, a meal, and other necessities.

What I want to stress is that none of this might have happened without social media. The downtown churches have connected and coordinated services more quickly and effectively in the last week than they have in the previous thirty years (just trying to get pastors together to meet face-to-face can take months!). The same is true of homeless agencies and advocates. Social media brings us together, facilitates problem-solving and the dissemination of information. Ideas can become reality; advocates, volunteers, and members of the homeless community can work together easily and connect needs with solutions.

Significant challenges remain. There are still enormous gaps in services and much work needs to be done on the underlying causes but for now we have created a community of compassion and cooperation that has changed the landscape in Madison. Thanks to everyone who’s been a part of this!

The Turning Point of Baptism: A Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord, 2014

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The questions are heavy, ominous. They sound like they come from a different age or perhaps from a horror movie:

Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces that rebel against God?

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God? Continue reading →