Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Yesterday we hosted the diocesan chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians. It was a joyful celebration and a gift to host here. The service marked the feast day of Absalom Jones. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s well worth acquainting yourself with his story and witness of faith. 

The service marked both an opportunity and an ongoing challenge for the Episcopal Church. We hear, with great regularity, from folks who want the Church to be more diverse. The Church should represent the Body of Christ in its fullest. We need to have a bigger picture of the human family — as big and as wide as God’s own gift of creation. 

We also can have a bigger picture of the Church. Each and every congregation across denominations and churches are our siblings in faith. Each of them has a charism (a gift) that they are called to live into with authenticity and energy. We are called to support one another’s life in faith however we can recognizing that different gifts are given across different congregations. 

When we talk of diversity here, I find myself wondering how much we’d be willing to change ourselves to make such a goal possible. Or is the goal more about saying something about ourselves to seem more enlightened or welcoming or cosmopolitan?

For example, would we be willing to have Spanish translation at every meeting of the Church so that anyone who came could be part of all aspects of life and leadership regardless of language? Would we be willing to change our music program so that our music was equally divided between different languages and cultures? Could we do that well or with integrity while waiting for the different groups we imagine coming to come? Would we hire only multi-multicultural (not just multi-lingual) clergy and staff across the board? Would congregants be willing to learn new languages, ways of being, holidays, and more to truly make folks across backgrounds welcome? 

Would we be willing to have all that we do remade so that we would truly be a home for folks from different backgrounds and not just defining inclusion as assimilation with some ethnic decor thrown in?

The work of inclusion is not just about inclusion into what we are but about the embrace of another so that we are changed too. Ultimately all inclusion in the Church is into one thing — the Body of Christ. That Body is made up of each and every congregation in all of their gifts and hues and hopes. Each congregation living its gifts with joy contributes to the flourishing of the whole when we look to go ever deeper into who God has made and called us to be. 

God may be calling each and every congregation to be equal parts of every color and culture. God may also be calling each congregation to rejoice in who is here and to seek the whole health and hope of each and every neighbor and member of the Body of Christ across the street, the city, the world, and those too-fixed denominational boundaries. We’re always called to be a home for anyone who comes to be part of life here — and that will sometimes stress and stretch us. We’re also called to find joy in our life together and rejoice in all the ways diversity makes itself known in our life. 

This happens at the margins in different ways. 

When LGBT folks are part of our whole life here, hearts and minds are changed. When folks from other Christian backgrounds and denominations come, we find ourselves learning and growing from their perspective. But that change happens gradually, over time, and grows out of relationship. It is rarely the result of human strategic planning and much more the result of the messy, incarnational way that we live and grow with one another. We’re a place that has folks across economic, political, social, theological, gender, and age differences. 

Few places in our nation welcome such diversity as each and every church does — especially in such divided times. 

That diversity is gathered for one great goal — that we all grow into the likeness of Christ. That likeness is one that breaks open each and every human category and division and binds us as one in our diversity — with one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, and one Hope in God’s call. Each place, each parish, and each Christian will follow that call differently, and for that wondrous gift of diversity, thanks be to God.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert