We are held together by our common faith and love for each other

Once again we are entering that triennial time Episcopalians call General Convention; always a time of coming together in faith to talk and worship—but recently a time of controversy and disruption in our church. This week a local news reporter opened his story on Convention with the prediction of loss of membership and continued conflict between the various constituencies. How mis-guided, sad, and sinful.

I am continually amazed at the ways we humans in general and Christians in particular, have to act sinfully toward each other. The human capacity to make massive mistakes is virtually unlimited in this world. We were born into a world of greed and our ability to delude ourselves about that greed is amazing. We get caught up in sin and don’t even know it.

When our governing body meets at General Convention, Episcopalians seem eager to line up at the feeding trough of controversy, self-seeking, and judgmental-ism, waiting for reports of actions which we deem heretical. Fortunately, our polity contains a series of checks and balances to control the actions of over-eager cynics and foot-dragging sentimentalists. I for one will be listening to the reports from Convention with a different ear this year.

I recognize that there are many agendas in our church and in the world and the best we can hope for is to live in a community of faithful people who continually remind each other we are not the center of the universe. We are cracked vessels and the best we can hope for is to love our crooked neighbors with our own crooked hearts.

In this season as in all others, I implore you to love each other. Hold your differences lightly in your hands and look for your common faith which has held us together and strengthened us over the centuries. Love is not a small thing. Love conquerors all.

Peace,
Father Mark