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.
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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.

2018.02.05 Official Good News On Gendered Language for God

Now here’s something to crow, or grouse, about. 

The Convention of Episcopal Diocese of Washington D.C. has submitted a resolution to memorialize, that is request that, the General Convention, the legislative body of the Episcopal Church, to consider “Gendered Language for God” in its deliberations about possible revisions to the Book of Common Prayer. The General Convention will meet July 5-13, 2018, in Austin Texas.

Here is the wording of the resolution:
Resolution #3 – On the Gendered Language for God

Submitted by: The Rev. Sam Dessordi Peres Leite, St. Stephen and the Incarnation, Washington, DC; the Rev. Alex Dyer, St. Thomas’ Parish, Washington, DC; the Rev. Kate Heichler; the Rev. Kimberly Lucas, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Washington, DC; The Rev. Beth OCallaghan, St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, Germantown, MD.

Resolved, the Convention of the Diocese of Washington submits to the 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church the following resolution:

Resolved, the House of ____________ concurring, that the 79th General Convention direct the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, if revision of the Book of Common Prayer is authorized, to utilize expansive language for God from the rich sources of feminine, masculine, and non-binary imagery for God found in Scripture and tradition and, when possible, to avoid the use of gendered pronouns for God.

Those who know me and my passion about the injustice of exclusive theological language will not be surprised to know I am thrilled—over-the-top delighted at this development. I’ve been crowing and writing about this for years, and now my institutional Church is catching up:0) I'm proud, yet if this is taken seriously it will cause many to sorrow and many to rejoice.

This process will be agonizingly slow. Many fine and faithful people do not agree that our seemingly forever set-in-stone language, needs to change. Nevertheless, change is written into the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer. Check it out: https://www.bcponline.org/General/preface.html. Written in 1789, no less.

The present proposed change, I know, is contingent on whether prayer book revisions will be undertaken at this time at all, and I know people I care about will be horrified. I also know that we are Anglicans—nothing if not measured and moderate, providing alternative for the alternatives. AND spiritually, we all live in the love and life of God—no matter what.

That said, please forgive me that I can’t help but jump for joy, as if I were Eve and had just seen a chance to break out of the interminable perfectly permanent boredom of the Garden of Eden.

A recent Arlo and Janis comic strip showed a couple debating the wisdom of selling their house and moving to a smaller dwelling. She laments:I always thought this one would be permanent. He: Nothing is permanent. She: I know, but it’s so important to feel permanent.

If the above resolution passes muster and the convention authorizes revision, our Church will not feel so permanent. Know this: God’s Love IS permanent—no matter what.  

A little background from the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) on gender-neutral language in the creation of a revised Book of Common Prayer. The 1979 book retained masculine pronouns for people in Rite I but added gender-neutral language in other liturgies and scripture references. God, however is denoted as masculine throughout.

What about God? Does God have gender? If humankind is made male and female in God’s image, as the Creation narrative in Genesis indicates, then what does that mean—really? If Jesus was indeed a remarkably divine man of Nazareth, does that mean that the Risen Christ also must carry the masculine gender? If so, how can we seek and serve Christ in all persons—in all flesh?  

I am not alone in raising questions. Many theologians and liturgists from many denominations, including The Rev. Dr Clayton L. Morris, a liturgical officer for the Episcopal Church, have raised such questions.

And it’s not new. Christian men and women, have been praying and studying divinity and language for years. El Shaddai, for a small example, is a name for God used forty-eight times in the Bible. It’s traditionally translated “the Almighty”— God of the mountain. But shad is also a Hebrew word for breast. And the feminine ending -ai, is well, feminine. Also the root of the word used for divine compassion is rachuwm in Hebrew and splanchnisomai in Greek. They both mean "womb". These are biblical words. I didn’t learn this until seminary, but the Bible is pretty old, friends. Will we reclaim some of this in our contemporary language?

The SCLM over a year ago invited some clergy to participate in giving critical feedback to some of their proposed liturgical language changes. I felt honored to be invited and sent my responses.

The Episcopal Church’s official position on inclusive language has been rooted in a theological understanding that God transcends masculinity and femininity. “God is neither male nor female. Both women and men are equally loved and included by God and should be valued and shown respect in the church's language.” 

I ask: IS GOD GODSELF NOT ALSO TO BE SHOWN THIS SAME RESPECT WITH REGARD TO BEING IDENTIFIED AS NEITHER MALE NOR FEMALE IN THE CHURCH’S LANGUAGE?

Now are we ready to legislate? I believe we are. My hope of course is that authorization will happen in time for me to see it, use it without fear, and celebrate the liberation of my God— this Godde in whose life and love I have lived since early childhood, this Divinity whose image has been stunted over the centuries.