From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

When I’m out and about, I am often asked where I work or what I do. Twice in Target, while wearing all black and a clergy collar, I have been asked for help—both times in the electronics department—by people assuming I worked there!

So inevitably, people will ask at which church I am when I tell them a priest. People either immediately recognize the name and place or, often, they are mystified by the term “Episcopal.” My uncle, for years, would tell people I was a minister in the Evangelical Church. I’m not sure he still knows quite what we are (though he’s certain we’re too Catholic).

I’ve tried a million different ways of developing a shorthand for what we are, especially with folks unfamiliar with religion more broadly. So I’ve tried, “It’s like the Roman Catholic Church but with married clergy and ordained women.” Sometimes that works. I’ve tried, “It’s kind of between Methodist or Lutheran and Roman Catholic” which is sort of true but requires they have some sense of what those churches are to understand what we are in relation.

What I’ve landed on is relatively simple: “We’re a Church that has tried to bridge the divisions of Christianity by looking for the best in each tradition and holding onto that.”

It’s relatively simple—and I suppose as vague as we’re often accused of being! What I like about it though is that it claims as a unique gift an attempt at a certain kind of comprehensiveness and way of being in relationship that stands counter to the world’s, and too often the Church’s, obsession with being right.

I’ve decided that being in relationship is right. Relationship with one another, with our neighbor, with our enemy, with nature, and most importantly with God.

I think a determined focus on doing what it takes to stick together, despite differences, must be a Christian virtue and value in a world tearing itself apart for the sake of being right. There’s a holiness to admitting we may not have it right. There’s a holiness to being humble enough to say that we’ve got more learning, praying, growing, serving, and repenting to do before we get close to being right.

I don’t know about you, but it feels like we’re starving for relationship and killing ourselves trying to prove we’re right all the time.

That doesn’t mean there are not principles we stand on. But it does mean that chief among those principles is loving our neighbor enough to stand for their dignity and loving our enemy enough to pray for them with deep love.

I suppose when someone asks me what the Episcopal Church is, I’ll never have an answer that fits on a bumper sticker. But I think the world is sick of a kind of faith so simple that it will fit on one. We need more complexity. We need a deeper sense of mystery. We need a more nuanced view of all that is. We need one another to see it all.

So here’s to not having a quick answer when someone asks what you are or what you believe. Tell them you need to have coffee with them first so you can learn about them, too. Tell them you believe in Jesus and the rest is up for grabs. Tell them you think you sense God in music. Tell them about the time you cried at Communion for no reason at all—but perhaps for every reason. Tell them you’re not sure so that’s why you go to church. Tell them all of it and more—and bless them for asking and giving you the chance to go deeper in relationship. 

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert