Of Polity and Poetry

I feel like I’ve been in Anaheim a week, but I’ve only been here just three days. It’s been that busy: Legislative committee meetings, deputy orientation, countless briefings. It’s all been a little disorienting. Just stepping off the plane into forty five per cent humidity makes me feel like I’ve landed on another planet (I’m not complaining)….sixty foot tall palm trees everywhere. Katharine and I aren’t seeing much of each other because of the tight convention schedule.

There are incredibly diverse interests represented at General Convention both among deputations and the various interest groups that come and make their case to the church. Media are everywhere: Integrity USA, a national organization of Episcopalians (of which All Saints is a member), who argue for the equal inclusion in the church, have a large and highly organized presence; We will in a few days vote on a resolution regarding the full inclusion in the sacramental life of the church of all the baptized (without discrimination or moratorium regarding sexual orientation); lobbyists for Native American justice issues are here; activists for racial reconciliation; advocates for the rights of refugees; worker unions; brochures and advocacy papers covering just about every cause abound. It’s all very much overwhelming. Getting physically acclimated is quite enough without the myriad human issues that press all around us. Such is the polity of a church that is very much alive in its witness, a church called to bear justice to our world, a church living into the imperitive of the Gospel.

But this morning I was yet again reminded of what truly makes us Episcopalian Christians… and that’s the way we worship. The opening Eucharist yet again showed me the beauty and the power and the peace that our liturgy embodies. At the end of the service my anxieties were quieted; I felt grounded and renewed for the work ahead. The music included classic Episcopal hymns as well as Hispanic and African music. We are no longer a national church culturally, but a global one, and the diverse artistic expressions in the service showed that we are authentic about our diversity.

Our call as a community of faith in mission and ministry for those beyond our doors is what our polity serves…Our polity, the infrastructure, as it were, of mission and ministry…our mission and ministry our story told in prose. Our worship is our story told in poetry…a beautiful speculation as to what we are becoming…what God wishes God’s beloved and God’s world to be. It is between the now and the not yet that we live the life of the church…the sacred ground upon which we stand..amid the poetry and prose of life telling a life story, God’s story and our story still becoming in poetry and prose that beginning now, just as it always has begun, will redeem all in all.