2023.01.01 A NEW YEAR. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post.

IN THE BEGINNING

there was the Word;

the Word was in God’s presence,

and the Word was God.

The Word was present to God

from the beginning.

Through the Word

all things came into being,

and apart from the Word

nothing came into being

that has come into being.

In the Word was life,

and that life was humanity’s light—

a Light that shines in the darkness,

a Light that the darkness has never overtaken. 

And the Word became flesh

and stayed for a little while among us;

we saw the Word’s glory—

the favor and position a parent gives an only child—

filled with grace

filled with truth.    

No one has ever seen God;

it is the Only Begotten,

ever at Abba’s side,

who has revealed God to us. 

This is the proclamation according to the Gospel of John, translated in The Inclusive Bible. The First Egalitarian Translation, published by Rowman and Littlefield, a Sheed and Ward Book, copyright 2007.  

The biblical John the Baptist testified to this light, but he himself was not this light. This Light illumines all humankind. It came into the world in an unconditional way through which all people are empowered to become “children” of God—born not of natural descent, nor human will, but born of God.  

Fifteen years have passed since the above translation was released. What has been done in our churches? Not much to my ears. I know that this translation of the Prologue to John’s gospel is at first jarring, but believe me, if you ever tried to read aloud this Prologue in other translations (ones we usually hear in parish churches) and eliminate all the masculine pronouns, as I have, you will, stumble over your own tongue. This is why, if you want to liberate the Word of God from being gender-conditional and rigidly masculine, you need new translations and new courage to use them. This one above is a good one.     

The original Preface to this translation first acknowledges the old proverb, Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me and says this about the untruth of the old maxim:  “Words can wound, alienate, and degrade people. Language can also affirm and express love. Care for language is concern for people, and a revelation of the attitudes of the speaker.”  Over many years this translation was in process. It involved input from many Christian people, scholars and writers, monastics, women and men, with a mission of social justice in the Roman Catholic tradition of social justice. 

Awareness of racial and gender stereotypes in our languages has steadily increased worldwide, even in restrictive cultures. This Preface continues: “Church language is predominantly masculine. Male terms, images, and stereotypes, so-called sexist language, dominate church expression. Such usage is no longer adequate. It is time to build gender equality into the very fabric of church life.” 

May we cherish the old AND welcome the new.   

2018.07.29 Thank You Episcopal Church

At the 2018 General Convention of the Episcopal Church (TEC), the legislative houses passed a resolution about prayer book revision. It addresses language about God—my peeve and passion of years.  Here is the wording of the relevant resolutions:

New plan for liturgical and prayer book revision 

Convention adopted a plan for liturgical and prayer book revision that sets the stage for the creation of new liturgical texts to respond to the needs of Episcopalians across the church while continuing to use the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

Resolution A068 originally called for the start of a process that would lead to a fully revised prayer book in 2030. The bishops instead adopted a plan for “liturgical and prayer book revision for the future of God’s mission through the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement.”

The bishops’ amended resolution calls for diocesan bishops to engage worshiping communities in experimentation and creation of alternative liturgical texts that they will submit to a new Task Force on Liturgical and Prayer Book Revision to be appointed by the presiding bishop and the president of the House of Deputies.

It also says that liturgical revision will utilize inclusive and expansive language and imagery for humanity and divinity, and will incorporate understanding, appreciation and care of God’s creation.

Meanwhile, General Convention also adopted a resolution that allows all congregations in the Episcopal Church to use optional, expansive-language versions of three Rite II Eucharistic prayers in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

Resolution D078 provides alternative language for Prayer A, Prayer B and Prayer D. The changes are available for trial use until the completion of the next comprehensive revision of the Book of Common Prayer.

This project coordinates well with the mission strategy of the Episcopal  Diocese of Massachusetts: Embracing Brave Change.
                                               *  *  *  *
I found TEC over fifty years ago when I was in college, thanks to the college chaplain who discerned my longing for, well, worship with chutzpah, bold enough to invite my whole body to enter in—kneel, pray standing, cross myself, move to the altar, and call out: “And with thy spirit.” TEC (our shield below) was also talking about women being ordained priests—some distant day, but they were at least wondering whether women were also called by God.

Our Book of Common Prayer, the “bible” of our worship, has an astoundingly open-ended Preface for 1789. It authorizes the church to make adjustments, abridgments, and alterations to this book in accordance with its purpose: “the edification of its people,”  and according to the exigencies of the times. There have been many revisions over time. The point is that our common prayer reflects who we are and what we believe about God and about ourselves and the Creation in which we live.

TEC will not publish a whole new prayer book, which is wise considering that paper is slowly losing its dominance in the digital age. Ah, I grieve—and shred! Still, this year’s resolution is revolutionary, because it calls for changes in theological language, that is language about God, or the image of God. Traditionally, God has been clothed in words that portray God as dominantly transcendent, excessively almighty and exclusive masculine. The image of God has been stunted, incomplete, and yup, errant.

My memoir God Is Not a Boy’s Name. Becoming Woman Becoming Priest (2016, Wipf and Stock/Cascade Books) tells the story of my fight with the patriarchal Episcopal Church to be ordained priest and my ongoing conviction that God/divinity has no gender, let alone one gender only. I have lobbied and prayed with audacious chutzpah that the wholeness of the divine image be accurately reflected in our words. (Me and two of my books.)

There’s an expression in the Talmud called chutzpah kelapei Shemaya, calling for boldness. Chutzpah, btw, is not Yiddish but Aramaic and is from the Babylonian Talmud. Jesus knew this spirit well. It’s all over the Bible.

I feel accompanied by influential biblical characters who had such audacity, even confronting God on occasion: Moses scolded God for giving the people too much gold—if You hadn’t done that they wouldn’t have had enough to make the idolatrous calf you got so jealous of!  Wasn’t it Moses too who smashed those sacred tablets to smithereens?  And didn’t Jesus break into the Temple, recalling it to its mission of prayer? Mother Mary’s Magnificat praises God for pulling off some major social class reversals; the woman at the well challenges Jesus’s theology; the Syrophoenician woman challenges his Jewish exceptionalism. These may be symbolic stories but they shine the harsh light of judgment on “the ways we’ve always done it” and pack a wallop, forcing us to think again as we embrace brave change.

Language is our most potent creating symbol. It must live and it must have enough chutzpah to keep us alive and awake. Thank you Episcopal Church.

2013.10.09 Why Words Matter

Sticks and stone can break your bones, but words can break your heart. 

Last week I went to a daylong conference called Why Words Matter:Expansive Language and Liturgical Leadership. The day was jointly sponsored by Episcopal Divinity School (EDS), Sacred Threads (Regis College), and the Massachusetts Council of Churches (MCC) and attended by some 50-60 people, which was not a bad attendance for a beautiful autumn Friday in October. 

The Rev. Laura Everett, Executive Director of MCC opened the day telling a bit of her story of coming into Christianity. “I'd accepted a savior I somehow couldn’t be,” she said. Everett recognized the efforts made with inclusive language in the mid-70s. (Yes! I remember those efforts well.) She said that there were no women heads of churches, non-liturgical denominations she must have meant, because the Episcopal Church has women bishops and a woman Presiding Bishop. It’s worth noting  that on October 5, 2013, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America installed its first woman Presiding Bishop.

Nevertheless, Everett noted, liturgical language, the language of worship, still divides the Church. I’d say it’s time to look at the language issues again and was grateful for the re-start of this conversation.

The Rev. Dr. Stephen Burns, a presbyter of the Church of England who teaches worship at EDS, cited two dynamics at work in this renewed conversation. “It’s a different conversation from former conversations.”
CONTEXT. Expansive language means that our language system is ever expanding, an emergent design, you might say. It advocates that we must be aware of the worship context of liturgical space,  styles of worship, and practices. In other words, just changing language without awareness of the culture of a worshiping community could be too superficial and a naive strategy at best, a manipulation at worst.  
JUSTICE.  Consider the “other” when we use language to dismantle oppression. For example. how do we speak about our hierarchies? Erasing patriarchal language ought not to erase the history in which we are embedded. Burns said he eliminated all exclusive language, like addressing God as Father in his personal prayer life. “But then I had a son, and I was a father.”  Nothing can ever be either/or, I guess.

“Our prayer will carry us,” Burns said. 

There is no question that the whole issue is emotionally charged, and pastoral sensitivity is required.  Thoughts and ideas:  One hymnal provides both normative texts and new ones. Options are offered. Being uncomfortable is not the same as being unsafe. Traditional language also has the power to transform oppression and attendant feelings.  Think immigrants on a foreign soil. Think Israel in exile in Babylon.

An Episcopal lay woman, on the ECW executive committee, shared how “unsettled” she felt when she went to her granddaughter’s wedding recently in a yoga studio (context) and the celebrant presided at a Eucharist that had two settings/servings, one of bread and wine in honor of Christ, and another of honey and milk to honor Sophia. “I felt slapped up side the head,” she said and added that her shock motivated her to come to this day.  “Who is Sophia?”  This courageous woman was shocked and de-centered, yet willing to learn. Brava!

Inez Torres Davis, ELCA, commented that when speaking to the privileged one needed to include them with their pain and questions about tradition, heritage, and identity. “We are saying there might be another way, and everyone must be welcomed into the conversation. The purpose of the Divine after all, is healing.”

It is clear there is much more to do together.  The National Council of Churches Justice for Women Working Group has a “Words Matter” site (http://wordsmatter.org)

I was grateful for this day and all the participants. My small group at table #10 had a good time and some chance to talk about Sophia, Spirit of Wisdom, as well as our own practices and feelings. I went away well fed and eager to keep going, also wondering why no one mentioned the darn English pronouns —except me of course:0)

I leave you with a story to treasure. A Lutheran woman told the plenary group that when she was a child she’d wondered about the road to heaven being a “narrow gate” as Jesus said. She’d concluded: “Well, maybe God was very big so the gate just seemed very narrow to God.”

And a little child will lead them. Now who said that?

To come back round to my broken heart, strong language for the way I feel often whenever I hear masculinizing words for God, for Divinity:  broken heart language is strong because I have said and heard such words over many years, and as a priest, I often have to say them to be sensitive to my community context. I omit pronouns when I can and dodge the He-Christ by saying Christ instead of He.  Thus, my joy that the conversation about expansive language is being re-invigorated. It's kairos time.

You see, God met me under a table when I was a small child and I gleaned from that Presence, not only that God mattered but that I matter. Hence words matter, too!