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A Milestone Year for Women in the Church

July 18, 2019/in Blog, News/by Katie Forsyth

by the Rev. Canon Valerie Ambrose

In my visits with parishes and vestries around our diocese I often hear the question, “Why does the church move so slowly?” That certainly was a question posed by supporters of women’s ordination to the priesthood for 87 years after the first women were approved to be ordained deaconesses and for more than four decades after the first woman was ordained a priest in the Anglican Communion.

Why does the church move so slowly?

This year marks the 75^thanniversary of the ordination of Florence Tim-Oi in Hong Kong by The Rt. Rev. R. O. Hall. However, she delayed serving as a priest in order to protect her bishop from censure while waiting for the Anglican Communion to acknowledge her ordination. Considered a counter-revolutionary by the Communist government of the People’s Republic of China, Tim-Oi was forced to undergo political re-education and to work on a farm and later in a factory until 1974. She eventually was allowed to exercise her priestly ministry in the nationalized Chinese church. After visiting family in Canada in 1981 she moved there and was licensed in the dioceses of Montreal and Toronto, where she served until her death in 1992.

Two other women, Jane Hwang and Joyce Bennett, were ordained to the priesthood in Hong Kong in 1971 by Bishop Gilbert Baker. Those ordinations fueled the debate in our country over whether women could be ordained as priests here as well. In the preceding year our General Convention had eliminated the deaconess canon and voted to ordain women as deacons equally as men. At that same convention, where women could serve as deputies for the first time, lay deputies voted to approve the ordination of women to the priesthood, but the clerical order defeated that resolution. Again at the 1973 General Convention the vote to approve the ordination of women to the priesthood failed to pass.

Following that convention 11 women deacons were “irregularly” ordained to the priesthood in Philadelphia in 1974. Another 4 women were ordained priests in 1975 in Washington, D.C. At the 1976 General Convention growing support for women’s ordination led to both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies finally approving women to be ordained to the priesthood and episcopate. A short 13 years later in 1989, The Rev. Barbara C. Harris was consecrated the first female bishop of our Church, and in 2006 The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori was the first woman to be elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, thereby making her the first female Primate of the Anglican Communion.

To some the Church moves far too slowly. To some the Church moves far too quickly.

To some the Church moves far too slowly. To some the Church moves far too quickly. But most would agree that the structure and polity of our Church allows for ample study, debate and prayerful discernment as we strive to heed the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Since the first ordination of a woman to the priesthood 75 years ago, tremendous equality for women in the Church has been achieved and appreciated in many corners of the worldwide Anglican Communion. May the gifts of all God’s sons and daughters continue to be affirmed and celebrated. And may everyone’s talents and faith also be understood to be imbued by God for the carrying out the mission of the Church–to restore all people to unity with one another and God.

Patience and Impatience

June 19, 2019/in Blog, News/by Katie Forsyth

by the Rev. Canon Anne Hallmark

One mild spring morning during a retreat, two women were walking in a field.

The younger woman was lamenting how unimportant her life was, how far from perfect she was as an individual, how little glory she was giving to God. As she was saying these things, the pair came upon a very small and flawless light blue flower surrounded by green grass.

The older woman asked the younger, “Is there anything wrong with that flower?” “Nothing.” “Is the flower unimportant?” “No, it’s beautiful.” “Does it glorify God completely?” “Oh! Yes.”

When I consider June as Pride Month,” I believe the point is the same.

We, each of us, no matter what our life and work, glorify the Living God by blossoming as fully and freely as we are able, remembering always that it is the Love of God that creates us as we are and keeps us becoming.

For me, Pride Month honors participation in the long march out of the darkness of active repression, contemptuous stereotyping, and willful ignorance.

For me, Pride Month honors participation in the long march out of the darkness of active repression, contemptuous stereotyping, and willful ignorance. Many have already braved much to speak up, to be visible, to demonstrate against such evil. I wish I could say that the road ahead is clear but I know it is lined with badly frightened people who attempt to hide their fear with rage, aggression, and confusion. Even so, Love marches on.

Thank you, each and everyone who has found and used your voice to express the wholeness of who you are, particularly with regard to something so tender and vulnerable as your sexual identity. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Thank you for your impatience and outrage. Thank you for speaking out, for being out.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Thank you for your impatience and outrage.

I believe that by your generous and courageous words and deeds, you are living out the Baptismal Vow each of us makes every time we renew those vows, the commitment “to seek and serve Christ in all persons”. Thank you for calling all of us to more abundant possibilities of love fully and freely expressed.

The lives of all who are celebrating and being celebrated by Pride Month fill me with gratitude for the risks our brothers and sisters have taken, some smaller, some larger, some life-shattering – the risk of expressing their individual humanity, the struggle to blossom as the unique creation each one is. And, I am deeply grateful for the the gatherings this month that express, support, encourage, and joyfully celebrate this way of walking in the Love of God.

Ascension Day

May 23, 2019/in Blog, News/by Katie Forsyth

by the Rev. Canon Bill Spaid

Ascension Day is one of my favorite feast days. I love the scriptures, prayers, psalms, hymns, and just the fact that by the time Ascension Day rolls around spring really has arrived here in the north.

Sadly, though, this festival of the church often gets lost in the plethora of graduations, proms, Mothers’ Day, Memorial Day and other springtime events.

I find a whimsical delight in the imagery of the Ascension; our Lord’s sandaled feet dangling from a cloud and the disciples standing with their mouths agape wondering what was going on. I imagine that had I been there I would have been grabbing for those feet trying to pull him back to earth. But the whole point of the Ascension is that Jesus is no longer the Master of a small band of disciples in a particular place and time, but the ruler of the universe who transcends time and place.

Think about how in our prayers we often are grabbing for Jesus’ feet – “O Lord be with us…, O Lord please help me…, O Lord if only… O Lord, please fix/heal/save…” You get the idea. They’re fine prayers, really, but do we also pray with imagination and hope and a longing for what might be in a kingdom that already is.

In the collect for Ascension Day, we pray that as Jesus has ascended into heaven, so may we also in heart and mind there ascend.

I wonder what our churches would look like if we prayed with the imagination of what heaven would be if it was our community. Do we share a vision of hope that enlarges our scope of the world and all that is holy, and embraces a mystery that calls us into new and deeper relationships with God and one another, and the world around us?

I certainly see heaven apparent in many instances in my visits to parishes – where vision and imagination are transformed into generous engagement with their communities in service, and where formation contributes to a lively sense of faith and commitment, and where people feel safe and welcome to participate.

Our Canon Missioners — Val, Anne and I – would enjoy and welcome the opportunity to engage in conversations with you about how we can more confidently look to Jesus and see the hope to which he has called you and the immeasurable greatness in his power in us who believe.

The kingdom of God, my friends, is in our midst.

That All May Be One

May 9, 2019/in Blog, News/by Katie Forsyth

by the Rev. Mike Wernick

During the first week of April, I attended (for the first time) the National Workshop on Christian Unity, held this year in St. Louis, Missouri. For over 50 years, the mission of the workshop has been to celebrate the spirit of unity that exists among Christians and search for ways to overcome the divisions that remain, by providing seminars for all who are concerned with Christian unity.

I attended as the Ecumenical and Interreligious Officer representing both the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan and the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan. I went with a sense of hopefulness because I reject denominational tribalism – the “we’re right, you’re wrong” thinking that pervades some congregations and some parts of Christendom, and given expression by minister Michael Kinnamon when he said: “Denominations are wonderful adjectives, but idolatrous nouns.”

I went with a sense of hopefulness because I reject denominational tribalism – the “we’re right, you’re wrong” thinking that pervades some congregations and some parts of Christendom.

But I also went with some trepidation, because as a gay man and priest (who is married to my partner), I have encountered my share of cultural and theological homophobia.

In my role as EIO, I have also attended LARC (Lutherans, Anglicans, and Roman Catholic) Conferences for several years. At LARC, each denomination takes yearly turns selecting the conference’s speaker and theme and leads worship on the middle (longest) day. The first year I attended, just several months after the SCOTUS decision regarding marriage equality, the Roman Catholic speaker asserted that “marriage was being assaulted from the very depths of Hell.” Three years later, a distributed Roman Catholic brochure on ecumenical dialogue concluded: “With a focus on two case studies concerning migration/immigration and same sex relations, the document concludes that even if Anglicans lack a clear authoritative voice on moral questions, the way they approach these issues shares important common features with ours.” And so I wondered whether and to what degree my experience at LARC would be reflected in my experience at the NWCU. It was not.

Conference participants, whose focus was more on what unites us than on what divides us, came from the UCC, the UMC, the PCUSA, the ELCA, TEC, the RCA, the Roman Church, and the Moravian Church, among others. There were more opportunities for worship than usual, and it was contemplative worship led by Br. Emile from the Taizé Community (in the contemplative tradition, God is understood to transcend all the distinctions and categories and labels that we humans impose on God). And workshop sessions were centered around themes of welcome, care of creation, spiritual dialogue, and building the beloved community.

There was even one conversation led by a United Methodist Bishop and a Roman Catholic Archbishop who have forged a deep friendship in spite of the social justice issues to which our minds race. And I must believe that this is due in part to an approach which rejects broad brush strokes, in favor of subtly and nuance, and which we must recognize that what was theologically formative/normal for one, was not expected to be/become normative for the other. In other words, neither one conveyed a sense of moral superiority.

We must recognize that what was theologically formative/normal for one, was not expected to be/become normative for the other.

There was, however, an update by leaders of the United Methodist Church about the Special Session of General Conference, held February 23-26, 2019. This special session was called to vote on three submitted plans related to human sexuality: the Traditionalist Plan, which would broaden the definition of “self-avowed, practicing homosexual,” put penalties in place for disobedience to the Book of Discipline, and require bishops, pastors and annual conferences to certify adherence to the Book of Discipline; the One Church Plan, which would remove restrictive language from the Book of Discipline that prohibits same-gender weddings in UMC properties and ordination of “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals,” and would add language to protect churches and pastors who choose not to allow same-gender marriages; and the Connectional Conference Plan, which would replace the current jurisdictional conferences with three connectional conferences based on affinity –– Progressive, Traditional, and Unity. All three would use a general Book of Discipline but be able to adapt other portions to their context for ministry.

Due in large part to The United Methodist Church’s more conservative global perspective, the Traditionalist Plan passed by a vote of 438 to 384. This means that the UMC’s current statements about homosexuality, same-gender marriage, and the ordination of LGBTQ persons –– as outlined in the Book of Discipline –– have not fundamentally changed.

But even before the Special Session of General Conference closed, a motion was passed to seek a decision from the Judicial Council on the constitutionality of the Traditionalist Plan’s legislative petitions. Several weeks later, the Judicial Council met (from April 23-25) in Evanston, Illinois, and upheld the Traditionalist Plan.

At this writing, The Episcopal Church is in full-communion with The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The Moravian Church – Northern and Southern Provinces, The Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, India, Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, The Philippine Independent Church, and The Church of Sweden.

And more than fifty years ago, General Convention approved full-communion dialogue with the United Methodist Church. In 2002 The Episcopal Church – United Methodist Dialogue Committee was formed, and in 2017, the committee released a full communion proposal: A Gift to the World: Co-Laborers in the Healing of Brokenness. This proposal would need to be affirmed at the 2020 General Conference of The United Methodist Church and at the 2021 General Convention of The Episcopal Church in order to become canon law. For us Episcopalians though, February’s Special Session vote and the Judicial Council’s support of that vote may seem to put this proposed full- communion agreement into jeopardy.

But meeting from April 29-30 in Austin, Texas, the joint Episcopal – United Methodist Dialogue Committee said that they have decided to continue on this path toward full communion.

But meeting from April 29-30 in Austin, Texas, the joint Episcopal – United Methodist Dialogue Committee said that they have decided to continue on this path toward full communion. “We do not make this decision naively and are fully cognizant of the hard realities our churches face. We feel the pain and inexpressible weight of discrimination that is the burden of LGBTQ Christians whose lives are so often objectified, debated, or dismissed. We acknowledge that the decisions of the 2019 Special Session of UMC have deepened divisions. And yet, we believe that what we are experiencing in the various crises of our denominational life is the birth pangs of something remarkable, something new. We desire as a dialogue committee to take the next faithful step in this journey, trusting in the God who alone holds the future and who may yet be calling us to something bigger and grander than we have imagined.”

The Rev. William Fleener once said, “Look around at creation, and if you can – if you’re able – show me evidence that God favors uniformity.”

“Look around at creation, and if you can – if you’re able – show me evidence that God favors uniformity.”

This calling us to something bigger, to boundlessness, to being One, is what God always does. And it finds expression –– and imagination –– in Psalm 118:5: “I called out to God from my narrowness, and God answered me with a vast expanse.”

I’ll take the vast expanse, thank you.

An Easter Message from Bishop Hougland

April 15, 2019/in Blog, News/by Katie Forsyth

Hello, Western Michigan. Hope you are well. We are nearing the end of our Lenten journey, closing in on Easter and I wanted to share some thoughts with you to help you celebrate this special time of year for us. Lent, as you know, is a time of discipline – a time of fasting and prayer, a time for introspection and reflection, and most of all, a time for repentance, turning around, changing direction, of moving towards God instead of away from God. It’s a time of practice forming a discipline of prayer, study, and reflection to help us get centered on God, so that when Easter comes, we can experience the great joy of new life. Some people say that there’s a reason for everything – when bad things happen. When hurricanes happen or floods happen. When there are terrible crimes and mass shootings, as we continue to see.

We say, “Well, that was just part of God’s plan.”

We say that because we really don’t know what to say. We say that because we want to have some sense of control over what has taken place. We say those sorts of things because we want to believe that we can understand the things that happened in the world when we really can’t explain it.

But as we understand Easter, we understand that there is actually a reason for everything. And that reason is resurrection.

Some want to believe that God is like a puppet master – perhaps controlling our lives like we’re puppets, causing things to happen so that we’ll come back to God because we’re bad and sinful people, which we can be. But that’s really thinking more about ourselves than about God.

For me, the providence of God is so beautifully evident in the season of Easter – in the story of the resurrection, that God takes a terrible thing – the death of his son – and creates something good out of it. And that good is resurrection.

God is like a magnet drawing us towards God – drawing the bad out of us and drawing us towards goodness in him.

Lent is a time to practice humility – not to think less of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less. This lends us to be open to the grace that God has in store for us at Easter.

We want to skip right over Good Friday. Don’t we? We don’t want to deal with the death that is in life, that’s all around us. We want to sanitize it and clean it and wash our hands of the pain of death, of the fear of death, of the concern over dying. But dying is a part of life. It’s part of who we are, part of our experience, and it’s part of our relationship with God – that God came into the world to enter into this life, including dying himself.

And so, we have nothing to fear in life, and we have nothing to fear in death, and this should give us hope. Easter is about is focusing on hope, not wishful thinking. Wishful thinking says, “Gosh, I hope I win the lottery this week, or I hope my team wins the tournament coming up, or I hope my hair would grow back or the rain.”

That’s wishful thinking. That’s not Christian hope. Our hope is a certainty, a confidence – hope and confidence not in ourselves and what we can do, but in God and what God has done and is continuing to do. God is drawing all things towards God like that magnet.

Death is not the end. The end and the hope and the purpose for all of life is resurrection to new life. That’s who we are – a people on hope, a people of resurrection. And if we can focus on that, instead of the badness, of our own sinfulness, if we can focus on grace and resurrection and seeking to see it and our life, then we will see it and experience it. We will begin to trust more, see grace more, be more accepting of others and live lives of hope.

We’re called to be a resurrection people. That’s what Easter is all about and that’s my call to you in this season of Easter.

Richard Rohr says it really well. He said, “God appears to be resurrecting everything all the time. It’s nothing to believe in as much as it is something to observe and be taught.”

In this season of Easter, my friends, look about you and see the good things that are coming to life all around.

Let me end with a prayer. It comes out of our prayer book in the service for ordinations.

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light, look favorably on your whole church, that wonderful and sacred ministry. By the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility, the plan of salvation. Let the whole world see and know that things which are cast down are being raised up and things which had grown old are being made new and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through all things were made, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit. One God, forever and ever. Amen.

Happy Easter.

—

Hola, Michigan Occidental. Espero que estén bien.

Nos estamos acercando al final de nuestro peregrinaje cuaresmal, llegando a la Pascua, y quería compartir algunos pensamientos con ustedes para ayudarles a celebrar este tiempo especial del año para nosotros.

La Cuaresma, como saben, es un tiempo de disciplina – un tiempo de ayuno y oración, un tiempo para la introspección y la reflexión y, sobre todo, a un tiempo para arrepentirnos, dar la vuelta, cambiar de dirección, y volvernos hacia Dios en vez de alejarnos de Él. Es un tiempo para intentar crear una disciplina de oración, estudio, y reflexión que nos ayude a centrarnos en Dios, de modo que cuando la Pascua llegue, podamos experimentar la alegría de la vida nueva.

Algunas personas dicen que hay una razón para todo – cuando pasan cosas malas. Cuando ocurren huracanes o inundaciones. Cuando tenemos terribles crímenes y tiroteos masivos, como los que seguimos viendo.

Decimos, “Bueno, eso era solamente parte del plan de Dios”.

Decimos eso porque realmente no sabemos qué decir. Decimos eso porque queremos tener algún sentido de control sobre lo que ha pasado. Decimos ese tipo de cosas porque queremos creer que podemos entender las cosas que han pasado en el mundo, cuando realmente no podemos entenderlas.

Pero a medida que entendemos la Pascua, entendemos que, de hecho, hay una razón para todo. Y esa razón es la resurrección.

Algunos quieren creer que Dios es como un titiritero controlando nuestras vidas, como si fuéramos marionetas, haciendo que las cosas pasen para que regresemos a Él porque somos personas malas y pecadoras – y bien podemos serlo. Pero eso es más bien pensar en nosotros que en Dios.

Para mí, la providencia de Dios es hermosamente evidente en el tiempo de Pascua -en la historia de la resurrección, en la que Dios toma una cosa terrible -la muerte de su Hijo- y crea algo bueno a partir de ella. Y ese bien es la resurrección.

Dios es como un imán, atrayéndonos hacia Dios – sacando lo malo de nosotros y atrayéndonos hacia su bondad.

La Cuaresma es un tiempo para practicar la humildad – no para menospreciarnos, sino para pensar menos en nosotros. Esto nos permite estar abiertos a lo que la gracia de Dios tiene preparado para nosotros en Pascua.

Queremos saltarnos el Viernes Santo, ¿no es verdad? No queremos lidiar con la muerte que hay en la vida que nos rodea. Queremos desinfectarla y limpiarla y lavarnos las manos del dolor de la muerte, del temor a la muerte, de la preocupación sobre la muerte. Pero morir es parte de la vida. Es parte de quien somos, parte de nuestra experiencia, y es parte de nuestra relación con Dios, un Dios que vino al vino para asumir completamente esta vida, incluyendo su propia muerte.

De modo que no tenemos nada que temer en la vida, y no tenemos nada que temer en la muerte. La Pascua se trata de enfocarnos en la esperanza, no en los buenos augurios. El buen augurio dice, “Ay, espero que me saque la lotería o, espero que mi equipo gane el próximo torneo o, espero que mi cabello crezca de nuevo o, espero que llueva”.

Eso es un buen augurio. Pero no es esperanza cristiana. Nuestra esperanza es ciertamente una confianza- esperanza y confianza no en nosotros mismos y en lo que podemos hacer, sino en Dios y en lo que Dios ha hecho y continúa haciendo. Dios está atrayendo todas las cosas hacia sí mismo, como el imán.

La muerte no es el final. El sentido, la esperanza y el propósito para toda vida es la resurrección a una nueva vida. Eso es lo que somos – un pueblo de esperanza, un pueblo de resurrección. Y si nos enfocamos en eso, en vez de en nuestra maldad y nuestro pecado, si podemos enfocarnos en la gracia y la resurrección y buscamos encontrarla en nuestras vidas, entonces la veremos y experimentaremos. Empezaremos a confiar más, a ver más la gracia, a aceptar más a otros y a vivir vidas de esperanza.

Estamos llamados a ser un pueblo de resurrección. De eso se trata la Pascua y a eso les invito en este tiempo de Pascua.

Richard Rohr lo dice muy bien. Él dijo “Vemos a Dios resucitando todas las cosas todo el tiempo. No se trata tanto de creer como de ver y ser enseñados.”

En este tiempo de Pascua, mis amigos, mírense ustedes mismos y vean todas las cosas que están tomando nueva vida alrededor de ustedes.

Déjenme terminar con una oración. Está en el Libro de Oración Común, en el servicio para las ordenaciones.

Dios de poder inmutable y luz eterna: Mira con favor a toda tu Iglesia, ese maravilloso y sagrado misterio; por la operación eficaz de tu providencia lleva a cabo en tranquilidad el plan de salvación; haz que todo el mundo vea y sepa que las cosas que han sido derribadas son levantadas, las cosas que han envejecido son renovadas, y que todas las cosas están siendo llevadas a su perfección, mediante aquél por quien fueron hechas, tu Hijo Jesucristo nuestro Señor; que vive y reina contigo, en la unidad del Espíritu Santo, un solo Dios, por los siglos de los siglos. Amén.

Feliz Pascua.