Drew Downs

Bartimaeus
This Sunday was my first opportunity to preach at my new parish. And what gospel do I get, but one of the deepest, most revealing stories in Mark–and therefore one of the most difficult.

But in my wrestling with this pericope, something was awoken within me. Something that still has me wrestling.

My homily wasn’t quite what I wanted, and I’ll post it on my sermon site eventually (once I get around to updating it). But it was the writing of it that I found most important. I was wrestling with the singular important principle: Bartimaeus has a name.

This idea can only be significant, and further, his story gains its literary significance by the fact that he has a name. We all have names, of course, but in Mark’s gospel, the blind, the sick, the poor don’t get names. Each one serves as a lesson in behavior for the disciples, helping them understand how to interact with the less fortunate. But here, at the end of Jesus’s ministry, in the last pericope before they enter Jerusalem, a blind outsider is identified as an individual and given the status of a name, and a lineage (his father, Timaeus is named). In this way, we can see that the very heart of this lesson is that the outsider is an equal, not merely worthy of your attention and help, but that they are fully one of us.

This concept was swirling around my head until I realized a singular idea: Bartimaeus is the story. It’s about him.

And because its about him, we can further conclude that he is the example. He is the disciple that the Gospel directs us toward. It builds to this moment, defining for the audience what it means to be following Jesus. Each pericope redefining and clarifying what “the way” actually means. So when we are introduced to Bartimaeus, we should know about faith, about responding to Jesus’s questions for us, and for following him “on the way”.

And as I thought more and more about Bartimaeus and what the gospel writer we know as Mark was trying to help us to see the more I felt like James and John, who last week tried to snake the seats of power next to Jesus or the disciples that say to Jesus: “we saw this dude preaching the gospel, so we shut ’em up for ya!” The more Bartimaeus seems to deserve it and I don’t.

In many ways, this is just me replaying the old problem. G-d’s grace isn’t found in our abilities or our status; it isn’t in our names or accomplishments; it isn’t even in the things we do for G-d, but in our faith. In the purity of the faith itself.

So I took this and I preached about Bartimaeus’s example: how he was named in the Scripture before he is given his sight, which means that his identity precedes his healing. And Jesus’s words themselves: “Go; your faith has made you well” imply that not only is the faith the cause and impetus of the healing, but that the faith was independent of his blindness and the expectation of gaining his sight.

Our faith, therefore, shouldn’t be about what we get. About expectations of wealth, success, and popularity or about good health for ourselves, our families, and our friends; but about G-d and our relationship.

Lastly, it speaks to a synthesis of identity on the part of Bartimaeus as the true disciple. There isn’t a singular most important attribute, but a combination of attributes that are all important.
1. First, his faith or belief is named by Jesus as making him well, and the attribute that provides for the revelation. (“Go; your faith has made you well”)
2. But his faith was also demonstrated by his shouting, throwing off of his cloak, and clear response to Jesus. Bartimaeus acts on his faith and out of his faith.
3. The demonstration of his faith was evidence for vision, a clear sense of what Jesus was asking of him when he asked “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus’s response is “My teacher, let me see again.” He doesn’t ask for healing, but for sight. He doesn’t say ‘make me see’ but ‘let me see’.
4. This sequence provides a dual understanding or an example of two elements of call by showing Bartimaeus as understanding (seeing) Jesus’s call to him while allowing for Jesus to reveal to Bartimaeus how to live out that call to ministry (following Jesus “on the way”).
These elements reveal that faith, response, vision, and call are of unified importance. It is easy pick out what is most important, but a useless activity when all are necessary.

In many ways, Bartimaeus gives for me a clear rebuttal to Paul, or at least Martin Luther’s interpretation of Paul’s “justification [or salvation] by faith (alone)”. It provides not only the necessary correlation between faith and action, but the unification of these principles with the principle descriptor used throughout the pericope: sight. Faith and works are unified in our ability to see–to understand our call and discern how to make the call into ministry.

All this from a passage that looked an awful lot like a typical healing story.
Oct 27, 2009
Confirmation: Why?
Having just had a wonderful confirmation service at St. Paul’s yesterday in which 18 were confirmed and another 4 were received into The Episcopal Church, I am now more confused than ever about how to feel about this sacrament.

In seminary, our liturgics professor, argued that confirmation is unnecessary: that baptism is all that is required of Christians and Anglicans. This dovetails nicely with the baptismal theology of the Prayer Book and Canada’s Book of Alternative Services. When I told him that I was asked to lead a confirmation class, his response was akin to “don’t” or “why?”.

I’ve also heard that the original draft of the last Prayer Book didn’t have Confirmation at all, but that the bishops forced it back in. Out of fear that they would have nothing to do, I guess.

But the common understanding of Confirmation today is that it is a mature declaration of faith. That a “mature” (read: adult) person that was baptized as a child may have a sacrament that affirms their commitment to following Jesus.

At the same time, we have two significant conflicts with fully embodying this principle.
1. Our tradition is to confirm teens.
2. Our canons require confirmation to serve on the vestry and seek ordination.
So we have this expectation that as soon as children hit puberty (or before in many cases), we have to start preparing these “kids” for confirmation. Similarly, some argue that we have to do it before high school or else “we’ll lose ‘em,” which I’m not sure why confirmation would have the desired effect of entrapment. At the same time, we are saying one thing “baptism is your dance card” while also saying “if you want to have any role of influence or authority in the church, you have to join this special club (for “mature” people).”

As you can see, both of these things are in direct conflict with the theology undergirding Confirmation. So I say eliminate the conflicts.

But where I’m confused is less the theology, and more the practice.

In the Diocese of Western Michigan, we just completed this amazing practice of taking the better part of last year to write a customary that would be the understood common practice throughout the diocese for confirmation. These practices fully embody the spirit of the theology and would drive those ‘conflictors’ crazy because the most important part of confirmation now must be maturity and declaration of faith. This means that the person must 1) take it seriously and mean it, 2) understand what s/he is declaring, and 3) want to do this. Amazing stuff. It probably means fewer will be confirmed, but those that are will be the better for it.

The Bishop also practices regional confirmations, meaning all the confirmands in the deanery (grouping of churches) gather for a special service together. Many of those that have been confirmed in this way swear by it. The Bishop argues that if he is to do confirmations every Sunday, it detracts from 1) what can be done at the visitation in terms visioning and 2) he only gets to preach one sermon.

Participating in a congregational confirmation service in which some visitors made special trips to attend their loved one’s confirmation in a packed house was pretty awesome. And the Bishop didn’t preach on confirmation, but stayed pretty close to the gospel.

So here is where my confusion comes in. I’m still not sure about best practice. I wore red socks yesterday, because, like an ordination, I wanted to celebrate in the Spirit’s outpouring on these twenty-two Episcopalians. I found myself thinking that a gospel about John and James jockeying for position at the top of the disciples heap had some good things to say about discipleship, following Jesus, and of course, confirmation. And that many of our Gospel lessons lend themselves well to the theme of confirmation. At the same time, few congregations are able to produce twenty-two strong candidates, and the Bishop’s visitation was, in many ways, overshadowed by confirmation.

Perhaps I should just go back to my professor’s base question: why? I have a feeling our bishops would have enough to do if we stopped focusing on confirmation.
Oct 19, 2009
Killing creativity

Ken Robinson discusses the negative effect of our academic interests on creativity. Exceptional work. Visit here.

Kudos go to Nate Dawson for posting it here.

Oct 15, 2009
A People’s History it is

Reading Diana Butler Bass’s A People’s History of Christianity compelled me to read more.

For a historian, this is perhaps the highest praise she could receive. That I want to explore the history that she is writing about. That I want to integrate that history into my current story the way she does. That I hope others learn from her. This is certainly more important than whether or not I liked the book.

And I did. It is a serious page-turner, but in a different way than I found Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence. The fast-paced sweep of history and cultural studies made Tickle’s book hard to put down, but Butler Bass’s narrative style brought out the enticing and exciting elements of the church’s story. Her writing paired the epic and the personal into a story that covers millennia and our own past.

Further codifying the public and the personal dynamic was Butler Bass’s story introductions. She often introduced a new concept, theme, or historical event by describing an experience from her own past that illustrated what we are about to learn from history, thus reminding us of our personal place in the Church as well as the eternal thematic nature of the faith.

Much can be said about A People’s History of Christianity’s structure, or its purpose, which is clearly to not only expose some voices to a larger audience, but to tell us a few things about our response as the Church to adversity. This project, that has spanned a large part of the author’s life, is a love letter to the church—one that explains not only why she loves it, but how that love can be difficult, that she loves it despite its idiosyncrasies and strange habits. But perhaps what is most telling is the timing of the book’s release. To come now (as opposed to over 10 years ago when she began working on it), on the heels of Tickle’s book and the breakthrough of those parts of the church looking for us to unlock ourselves from the 20^th Century, and explore Patristic, Medieval, and Postmodern elements of our faith, honors and affirms these significant endeavors.

Lastly, her highlighting of how the Church deals with conflict is both a traditional historical approach (like telling the history of the nation as a sequence of wars is quite a common occurrence), but for Butler Bass, this is often shown in the form competing definitions of orthodoxy. From ethics (including arguments of sex that actually have nothing to do with homosexuality!) to actual acts of violence, Butler Bass takes us on a tour of ideas, their creators, their opponents, and the wars raged within the church over them. One such example is how she bridges post-reformation theological discord with a recent replica. Writing from the perspective of her time as a seminary student, Butler Bass tells us:

“By the end of the sixteenth century,” Professor Lovelace told us, “Protestants in both Lutheran and Reformed spheres were referring to the ‘half-reformation,’ which had reformed their doctrines but not their lives.” The historical stage was set: modern Christianity would struggle between the head and the heart; orthodoxy and piety had been severed.

While he lectured about this tension in the classroom, we witnessed it at the seminary. In the mid-1980s the school was racked with controversy between those faculty members who insisted upon creedal purity and those committed to spiritual liveliness. The seminary “scholastics” launched a crusade against colleagues who in their view were guilty of sloppy thinking or questionable orthodoxy—a charge that led to a heresy trial, some firings, and a good many faculty retirements. For those of us who were students, it was a fearsome object lesson in church history. Inquisitions are ugly things. In the battle of orthodoxy versus piety, at that particular seminary, orthodoxy won. And in the pitch of battle, the love of God vanished from the place. (204-5)

The story of this theological and ideological war, taking place in a school is terrifying and at the same time, familiar. A much more subtle battle was taking place at my seminary, two decades later between much the same elements, with new definitions for their positions. Denominational conflicts, most especially within The Episcopal Church and throughout the Anglican Communion seem to mirror much the same tenor. In many ways, it is this conflict that may define the relative future of Christianity in the West, and undergirds the tensions Butler Bass discusses throughout the book.

I will admit that I was predisposed to liking this book, and I agree with a lot of her choices, descriptions, and hopes. But I would certainly recommend the book to anyone, especially those interested in exploring not only what happened, but why. I’d recommend it to anyone that asks “How did the Church get here?” or is looking to explore more than just the details of particular debates, but their place in history, and how the foundation of that belief was built. It isn’t a short history of the church, but it is an engaging one. Butler Bass is asking big things from a faith tradition that promises its people big things. That seems incredibly reasonable, and the spark for some good discussions.

Sep 28, 2009
New Management

Gary Hamel, in a blog for The Wall Street Journal, called “Organized Religion’s ‘Management Problem,’” suggests precisely this: we’re suffering because we prefer comfort to ______ (insert just about anything). Yes, the economy sucks and there are issues with society, but for the most part, the problem has been a failure of leadership.

Using comparisons, such as GM’s refusal to adopt innovation, despite the moves of its competitors, Hamel argues that the church seems to be locked into institutional static.

I have made a similar comparison for several years now. Many have the attitude that they are working for retirement. I’m sure you’ve encountered this (unless all the people that have said this seem to have voiced this opinion only to me). The point of the job is as a place holder for retirement. If only we could quit work today and live on social security and a pension. In the church, we seem to work with the same mindset. We work today so that tomorrow we don’t have to do anything. If we can afford a full-time clergy or pay off the building, we can coast into retirement. Sometimes, we even count down the days.

But should our lives be wasted until we hit 67? Should we see work as a placeholder? For many, retirement is something worth escaping. Just as many people that have said to me that they are looking forward to retirement tell me that they are busier now in retirement than they were when they were working! What if we brought that same enthusiasm to the church?

There are many solutions that we could discuss here, but I simply suggest this:

What if we stopped looking at our local congregations as having arrived (in retirement) and instead encouraged ourselves to live the lives we have?

Aug 25, 2009
Being a bishop today

One of the things I learned in seminary is that the church is where the bishops get together. That The Episcopal Church doesn’t truly exist except at General Convention, for instance. In this sense, it is all about the bishops.

Similarly, the role of the priest was as the bishop’s local representative. In practical terms, this is why the rector gets to sit in the Bishop’s Chair until the bishop comes to visit. The deacons, as described in Acts, represent the bishop’s appointed staff to outreach missions.

These descriptions of church are simple, but effective, I think, in conveying the relationship of the orders. What is lost in this description is the place of the episcopate in a changing world.

I have had the good fortune to work in two neighboring diocese that have similar theological interest in grass roots ministry and the role of the Baptismal Covenant. I have also observed bishops in both dioceses doing a lot of things that bishops of a different age would not have needed to do. This isn’t a product of their theology, but of an external and internal reality that has us constantly focused on scarcity. If you think we’re tired of talking about human sexuality, I can only imagine how tired they are!

The weak link in the church from an engineering perspective is at the point of contact. That place in which the church exists where the bishops are. In other words, the more pressure we place on the episcopate, the greater strain the entire structure takes. The more we place the episcopate in the position to do more with less, face an unfriendly media environment, and then come home to a diocese that demands leadership, the more likely the episcopate does not act according to its call and the more it lives in a reactionary mode.

In an episode of The West Wing called “The Drop In”, the president attends a fundraiser hosted by the environmental lobby and Sam writes a speech for the president that is intended to energize them . His speech is undermined by the senior communication’s officer, Toby, whose encourages the president to drop in an admonishment for their lack of policing their radical wing. The episode serves to show the depths that moderates have to go to please everyone, and the way this relatively liberal administration has to cover its butt.

What the episode really reveals, however, is how many in leadership succumb to overprotective behaviors in light of greater truths. Without the text that was ‘dropped in’, the president gains the enthusiastic support of one constituent group, which may lead to the slight irritation of another. With the “drop in,” on the other hand, the president irritates the one constituent group in their own home while hardly reducing the irritation of the other group. This political move, intended to keep the peace between two groups that are occasionally at odds ends up making nobody happy, when they could have walked away with at least one group happy.

The failed leadership demonstrated in the episode wasn’t intended to demonstrate failure, but the difficult circumstances this somewhat liberal president is under in the political climate of early 2001. I think it reveals more, however. It reveals the problem of centralized authority under which humans, more often than not, fail to live up to the leadership we ask of them. It reveals the problem of the perpetually defensive position; in which leaders, in an attempt to reduce stress and anxiety, actually create an environment that breeds it. It reveals the problem with leadership in the 21^st Century is that we have few good examples from which to draw.

If there is any problem in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, it is centered squarely on the episcopate, precisely where the bishops are conditioned to want it.

I could write here about the move by the Archbishop of Canterbury to centralize authority under himself. How he is assuming a theological position of first among equals that would make him an Anglican pope.

I could write about overseas bishops that are trying to use the instruments of communion to, at one level, direct, and at another, punish the bishops of The Episcopal Church. These irritated bishops seem to have learned nothing from church history, and the places in which the church has attempted to act benevolently, but in practical terms, as tyrants.

I could write about bishops crossing borders and I could write about one bishop telling a second what s/he is supposed to believe and I could write about bishops writing new rules of the game in the ninth inning and I could write about bishops attempting to form an upper and a lower tier in Anglican Communion and I could write about bishops waging intercommunion war in the media, but…

I won’t.

Because the place in the mechanism where all of the pressure resides is at the bishops. Our House of Bishops showed courage to stand up and say what the Episcopal Church stands for. Some formally critical bishops came to General Convention and thanked the Episcopal Church for wading into the difficult waters. Bishops are looking at local budget compromises that are neither theological or strategic, nor are they political; they are necessary. Bishops are facing a church that already looks so different than the one in which they were raised, and they watch with eyes of reservation and excitement.

And because I am angry that bishops (and standing committees) short-sightedly did not approve the election of Bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester. And I am angry that the Archbishop is short-sightedly providing the stake that is wedging the Anglican Communion apart. And I am angry that we are approaching a time in which all will have to decide to ratify a document that will irrevocably change the very nature of the Anglican Communion, sacrificing our revered via media in favor of autocratic rule.

And two of the finest men, who live lives of honesty and integrity, whom I serve with pleasure and excitement, have the worst job in the church. It is a sad day when a lack of leadership on the part of the rest of the world, makes it so hard to be a bishop today. May God bless them and the work they do, helping bring the Kingdom nearer to the people of Michigan.

Jul 28, 2009
Finding the conservative voice
“The Conservative voice has left the church.” This is the statement so often repeated throughout the coverage of the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church.

As the argument goes, since 2003, virtually all of the conservatives have left and all that remains are a bunch of crazy liberals and a few loan voices crying out in the wilderness. If this were even remotely true, it wouldn’t be so laughable.

Somewhere between 7 and 10% of Episcopalians left the church in the last six years. That includes the attempted mass exodus of several dioceses. Let me now rerun the phrase: The conservative voice has left the church. Let’s do the math. 10 + X = 100%. So the conservative voice was only 10% of the church? Another phrase that was tossed around: “most of the conservatives have left.” Most implies the majority, so again using the upper maximum 10%, then as of 2002, conservatives accounted for 19% of the church. In other words, simple arithamatic discredits this argument wholesale.

So why have so few journalists done the math? And why is “most of the conservatives have left” a convenient excuse?

The inherent trouble has nothing to do with a ‘conservative voice’ or numbers of conservatives in our midst. It is with our understanding of who “owns” the church. In The Great Emergence, Phyllis Tickle calls this the greatest argument in any reformation era: the question of authority. But in our American, brutish and thuggish understanding of authority, the more appropriate word is ownership. This is the phrasing the ‘conservative voice’ of The Living Church uses when it bemoans the departure of “the orthodox”. Othodoxy (literally, ‘right belief’) has at its core, not only an implied certainty, but a strict sense of ownership, as in “we hold the right belief and therefore must lead the unorthodox”. When one claims that they posses ‘right belief,’ it inherently implies that differing theologies are wrong, and by small extension, heretical. This is the very volley lobbed at The Episcopal Church with regularity over those 6 years. It should read in the news as “small splinter group believes The Episcopal Church is run by a vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.”

Believe me, conservatives haven’t left the church. A few political ideologues have for sure. But walk into a rural or suburban Episcopal church and take a random sampling, asking these questions:
1. If money were no object, what would you want done to your church?
2. If your church burned to the ground, and you had millions of dollars to work with, what would you do?
You would no doubt get a wide variety of answers, especially in college towns and in areas of dramatic change. But for most Christians, and especially Episcopalians, I think the responses would look a lot like this:

1. If money were no object, what would you want done to your church?
- “Redo the roof.”
- “Fix the windows”
- “Install that elevator we’ve been putting off.”
- “Go crazy: get all new carpeting, restain the pews, and buy some brand new linens!”
- “Buy new choir robes; we’ve had these for 10 years!”
- etc.
2. If your church burned to the ground, and you had millions of dollars to work with, what would you do?
- “Rebuild it.”
- “Make a facility that meets our current needs.”
- “Tear down the Parish Hall, that’s what needs to be redone!”
Of course I’ve prejudiced the responses. I also know that the second question would get people to think outside the box, especially in terms of using the money to invest in mission, not a new church building. But what I don’t expect from either question is a truly radical (or liberal) response: let’s build something new. All of these responses represent the ‘conservative voice’ in the church, because even when the freedom to change for the better is given, the choice is to live with, fix, or replace.

If I were given unlimited funds, I would salvage a few beautiful things from this church, tear it down, and start anew, not only shaping it to our present needs, but trying to anticipate the needs of the future. This includes a worship space that allows for a liturgical team that is disabled, a facility that is flexible and can accommodate significant changes in attendance, and allows us to express the theology we profess. That’s a pretty liberal voice.

Go ahead and ask the people at your church this Sunday those two questions. I am utterly confident that the ‘conservative voice’ is alive and well. I dare you to prove me wrong!

NOTES and LINKS:

I have long-argued that we have over-simplified our understanding of liberalism and conservatism, especially since the 1990s, when sexual ethics became not only the center, but the exclusive province of the political debate. The church has similarly fallen prey to this misunderstanding of these classic terms.

One of the most misunderstood notions of the church’s role in the liberal/conservative debate is to occupy “the middle”. This is often interpreted narrowly to mean abstaining from debate or by not taking a stand for an issue that is perceived as liberal or conservative. This position, is, in its practical application, conservative. For instance in voting, the threshold requires 51% of quorum to vote YES. So not casting a ballot, leaving the room after quorum is established, or voting to abstain all count as voting NO. This applies the conservative ideology of maintaining the status quo. For more thoughts on the moderate position, visit here.

Lastly, I have written many wonkish blog posts about this subject on my other (political) blog. If you want to read extensively my understanding of political affiliations, visit this sequence here and here.
Jul 23, 2009
“Stop hitting yourself!”

You know the old form of teasing. The one where the bigger kid grabs your right arm and uses it to punch your left shoulder. “Stop hitting yourself!” he exclaims and then laughs. Then he does it again.

I can’t help but feel that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams is that teasing bully and The Episcopal Church is the one getting abused.

At General Convention, going on right now, a resolution D025 passed in the House of Deputies and in the House of Bishops. It now faces a review process before being confirmed, but the heavy lifting is done. The resolution states the heart and mind of The Episcopal Church like nothing that has come before. It is gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, and honest. It declares who we are as Episcopalians and I am glad to be one. To read it for yourself, go here.

The overly simplistic description of this is to say that the Convention affirms our process of discernment and that process is open to anyone of any stripe. For some, this is twisted (through bizarro-logic) to imply “bring on the gays!”. Overly simplistic and an utter distortion, but in a 24-hour news cycle, we come to expect distortion.

Here is where my image of the bully forcing the victim to hit himself while pinning the blame squarely on the victim’s shoulders (or hand as the case may be) comes into play. In this pretty fair article by Laurie Goodstein from the New York Times, the author attempts to place this resolution in a context. If you scroll all the way down to the end, notice who gets the last word: Abp Williams. Here is what he said to the Convention:

“Along with many in the communion, I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that will push us further apart.”

Putting this into a (il)logical argument:

People that are mad at you are quitting the team. Regardless of your authority, your arguments, or your good faith, you will be held solely responsible for their actions.

or

Even though you are the international whipping boy, if you keep proclaiming your innocence, we will have to continue scourging you. If only you’d confess, this would all go away.

or

You shouldn’t have worn that dress. You invited the sexual assault upon yourself.

And you secretly like it.

The illogic of these examples is proved by the very foundation of the Western judicial system. In this case, the burden of proof begins and remains on the part of the victim (to prove that s/he is the victim of a transgression). In this case, the victim switches, doesn’t it, because according to Abp. Williams and GAFCON and Akinola, etc., conservative Anglicans are the victims of a deep transgression. If they were to take the case to court, they would become the prosecution and TEC would become the defendent. In this arrangement, it would be up to the prosecution to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the defendent (TEC) was directly and solely responsible for a criminal transgression against the prosecution (conservative Anglicans). Since we have come to no clear conscensus and little agreement, the burden of proof still rests with them, even light of heavy-handed political documents like the Windsor Report.

So here is where the second half of the statement from Abp. Williams comes in:

“If we — if I — had felt that we could do perfectly well without you, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

Gee, thanks! That’s like saying “you know, you aren’t half as ugly as your sister!” What a compliment, Rowan!

The optimist in me says that this is the Archbishop’s acknowledgement that he needs TEC and that the Anglican Communion really can’t work without us. The pessimist in me points out that he’s thought about it, and he isn’t above cutting us off. This reveals a sinister and political side to Abp. Williams that he is ordinarly careful to conceal. That his theology of reconciliation can allow for separation. That preservation of the international church is more important than the very theology and scriptural authority he uses to defend his positions.

But mostly, it reveals a bully that figures that:

(hand+opposite shoulder) x hitting = culprit

What a strange way to see the world.

Jul 14, 2009