Out of the Whirlwind

Pentecost III – June 25, 2006
The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, Chatham, NJ
The Rev’d Elizabeth Kaeton, rector and pastor

Job 38:1-11
Ps 107:23-32
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41

Let us pray (sing):

My life flows on in endless song,
above earth's lamentation
I hear the clear though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation.

In the Name of God. Amen.

As many of you know, I’ve just returned from Columbus where I attended the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church. Those of you who have read my blog, “Telling Secrets” will be somewhat familiar with what I am about to say. Simply said, it was a 10 day emotional roller coaster ride.

General Convention was an historic gathering in which we elected Katharine Jefferts Schori, the bishop of Nevada, as the first woman to be our Presiding Bishop and Primate in the Anglican Communion. That was a moment of breathtaking amazement. The “buzz” on the floor of Convention was something akin to a Pentecost experience. We had done something bold and courageous and of the Holy Spirit. I was never more proud of my church.

We also soundly defeated the resolution for a moratorium on electing gay or lesbian people as bishops or blessing same sex unions as requested by The Windsor Report, a special gathering of Anglicans from around the globe commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury after the election and consecration of Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire.

And then, at the 11th hour and on the last day of Convention, the Presiding Bishop, Frank Tracy Griswold, called a special joint session of the House of Bishops and House of Deputies to reconsider the moratoria, which we had previously rejected as contrary to our canon law.

In an unprecedented move, Bishop Griswold appealed to us to pass a carefully crafted resolution, B033, which asked “Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.”

Well! Talk about “out of the whirlwind!” The floor of convention was seized by a chaotic spirit. Most of us were stunned by the request. What does “exercise restraint” mean? And, what exactly is a “manner of life that presents a challenge to the wider church”? How does one define that? Who defines that? Indeed, our newly elected Presiding Bishop, as a woman, presents precisely such a challenge. She will not be uniformly welcomed in the corridors of power of the Anglican Communion.

Seasoned deputies were astounded – especially when we learned, later that morning, that the House of Bishops had passed the resolution un-amended. More unprecedented action was yet to come: no one was prepared for the request that the Presiding Bishop-elect come and speak to us before we took our vote. Indeed, since both Houses operate autonomously, the President-elect of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson, called for a vote to ask our permission to have her speak to us. Bishop Katharine spoke to the current state of the church, calling up the image of conjoined twins – two bodies, two separate individuals, united in one being. The medical ethicists who consider the surgery, she said, operate on the assumption that it is wrong to separate the twins unless both can live full lives.

She continued: “I think we are in a church much like that. This creature, this Body of Christ, is not wholly one and it is not wholly two. The resolution which stands before you is far from adequate. I find the language exceedingly challenging, but my sense is that it's probably the best we're going to do today, and at this convention. I am fully committed to the inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in this church. I certainly don't understand adopting this resolution as slamming the door, and I do think that if you pass this resolution, you have to keep working with all your might at finding a common mind in this church. I don't find this an easy thing to say to you, but I think this is the best we're going to manage at this point in our history.”

The best we can do at this point is injustice? I’m still stunned by this, even as I know, deep in my heart and am loathed to admit, that, at this time in the life of the church, she is absolutely right.

Into this chaotic time in the life of the church comes the story of Jesus, calming the storm. “Peace! Be still!” he calls out to the sea. “And there was a dead calm.” As I have carefully considered Bishop Katharine’s words, I think there is reason to hope for the new leadership of our church and the new model of leadership she will bring to the Anglican Communion.

“Peace! Be still!” I did not know just how much I needed to hear these words from Jesus. To remember, when the storm is raging, when I am most fearful, that is the time to seek Jesus. Out of the whirlwind of the storms of our lives, the voice that spoke to Job is the voice of Jesus, who speaks to us today and says, “Peace! Be still!”

So, I have sought Jesus, in these last few days and, as I prayed I came upon another image of the church. In a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle there appeared the story of a female humpback whale which had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.

The 45-50 foot female humpback, estimated to weigh 50 tons, was on the humpback’s usual migratory route between the Northern California coast and Baja California when it became entangled in the nylon ropes that link crab pots. She had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth – some so tightly as to cause visible cuts in her side. At least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung off the whale, the divers said. The combined weight was pulling the whale downward, forcing it to struggle mightily to keep its blow-hole out of the water.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her ...a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, sometimes playfully, and seemed to thank them. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

The greatest damage done by convention was not so much the injustice visited upon an individual or select group of people as much as violence was done to the Church, the Body of Christ. Somehow, we have gotten this Church of ours bound up and weighed down, and we need to free her from the burden and weight of our sin of injustice and from the false gods we have created of unity and communion.

In the coming weeks and months and years, we are going to have to dive deep into our spiritual lives. I think each one of us will need to look deeply into our souls and enter the whirlwind where we encounter the living God. We need to ask questions, hard questions, of ourselves and our church. It will be dangerous work. Some will leave – and that will create another whirlwind of its own. But, just as the disciples in the midst of the storm of their day had to awaken Jesus, who was sleeping at the stern of the boat, we too will need to awaken the Christ within us, the Body of Christ, to address the injustice and violence which we, at General Convention, have done to her and to her children.

St. Paul’s words to another church in another time of turmoil, the ancient church of Corinth, may give us strength and courage to face our own present day crisis in the church: “We are treated as impostors, and yet we are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see – we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” (2 Corinthians 6:1-13)

Into that whirlwind, and all of the whirlwinds of our lives, Jesus says, “Peace! Be still!” If we listen to those words, grace – abundant grace – will be available to us to act boldly and prophetically. We’ll not only be able to do justice, but we’ll love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

Sing with me:

What though my joys and comforts die?
I know my Savior liveth.
What though the darkness gather round?
Songs in the night he giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I'm clinging.
Since love is Lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?

“As we work together with him, may we not take the grace of God in vain.” (2Cor6:1)

Amen.