What Will We Have?

By Tracey Lind

[ Ed. Note: the following essay is based on a sermon preached on the Feast of Hilda of Whitby on Nov. 18, 2004, in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of women's ordination in the Episcopal Church. The address was delivered at the Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill., based on the scriptural readings Ephesians 4:1-6 and Matthew 19:27-29.]

Thirty years ago, I was a junior in college, a radical feminist, and a tenant organizer in Toledo, Ohio. Like most young adults of my generation, I was not spending a lot of time in church, so the ordination to the priesthood of eleven brave women on a hot July day at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia was not really on my radar screen. However, I do remember seeing a New York Times Magazine cover with a photograph of the Rev. Martha Blacklock sitting on the steps of St. Clement's Episcopal Church in Manhattan, playing with a puppy, and wearing a clergy collar and blue jeans. I thought to myself, “That would be a cool job someday.” Little did I know?

I, like all of you, stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us. I am in awe of priests like Martha Blacklock, Sue Hiatt, Carter Heyward, Jeanette Piccard, Nancy Wittig, Rachel Hosmer, Diana Beach and all the rest of those pioneers for having the courage to pave the way in the early days of women's ordination. I am indebted to bishops like Barbara Harris and Jane Holmes Dixon for being the first women to wear the pectoral cross. And I am most grateful to lay leaders like Marge Christie, Pam Chinnis, Pat Kilpatrick, and Diane Pollard for insisting that women needed to be ordained so that laywomen could fulfill their baptismal vows of discipleship, witness and ministry in the world.

We have been blessed and guided by the great parade of spiritual ancestors – the foremothers, saints in our own day – those who realized that, in the words of the Philadelphia Eleven, “The church needs women in priesthood to be true to the gospel understanding of human unity in Christ” (The Philadelphia Eleven, “An Open Letter, July 24, 1974”).

As an openly lesbian priest . . . I find myself standing at the center of yet another storm in the church's journey toward wholeness in its gospel understanding of human unity in Christ. It is paradoxical that the church continually finds itself on the edge of embrace and exclusion as we grapple with our common humanity and our desire to feast at God's table of abundant blessing.

As an openly lesbian priest ordained a decade later, I find myself standing at the center of yet another storm in the church's journey toward wholeness in its gospel understanding of human unity in Christ.

It is paradoxical that the church continually finds itself on the edge of embrace and exclusion as we grapple with our common humanity and our desire to feast at God's table of abundant blessing. The scripture lessons appointed for the Feast of Hilda of Whitby, that great abbess of the seventh century, speak of this paradox in a profound way.  

In the Gospel of Matthew, on the road to Jerusalem, just after Jesus' encounter with the rich, young man Peter said to our Lord: “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”

Does that sound familiar to your seminarian ears? You have given up your jobs and your homes. You have moved to this strange city. You are living in dorms and graduate student housing. You are going into debt. You are studying into the wee hours of the morning. You are presenting yourselves to bishops, Commissions on Ministry, and Standing Committees. You are not sure if there will be a job for you when you graduate. You have left everything and followed Jesus. What will you have when it's all said and done? That's a perfectly reasonable question.

And guess what? Even when you graduate; even if or when you get ordained; even when you get a job; even if you become a rector, a seminary professor or a cathedral dean; even if you become a bishop – long after your seminary debt is paid-off, if you're faithful, if you're truly following Jesus, if you're really trying to live the Gospel, you'll find yourself asking: “What will I have?” “What will become of me?”

Just yesterday, I found myself asking that question. I was in attendance at a clergy day to discuss with our bishop the Windsor Report. We sat at tables and wrestled with a series of questions to guide our discussion. I was anxious about this meeting. It has been a long struggle for many of us in the GLBT community. And in Ohio, we just lost the battle over State Issue #1 – an amendment to the state constitution that will ban not only same-sex marriage but will also deny domestic partnerships and civil unions to all unmarried couples.

I [will] not participate in this year's ecumenical Thanksgiving service at the Roman Catholic Cathedral, because I [don't] feel welcome in a church where the bishop, through a pastoral letter, had instructed his diocese to vote in favor of taking away my civil rights. It felt like a sham, and I [have] to make a stand.

I was on the frontlines of this debate in a hotly contested presidential state, organizing religious opposition, serving as a spokesperson, and helping get voter education into the pews. But we lost by a relatively wide margin, and the issue had divided even some urban, faith-based coalitions. The morning before clergy day, I had informed the Downtown Clergy of Cleveland that I would not participate in this year's ecumenical Thanksgiving service at the Roman Catholic Cathedral, because I didn't feel welcome in a church where the bishop, through a pastoral letter, had instructed his diocese to vote in favor of taking away my civil rights. It felt like a sham, and I had to make a stand. And later that afternoon, in an interview with a national GLBT publication, I had been challenged to justify to a cynical and angry member of what Bishop Spong calls, “The Church Alumnae Association” why I still believe in God and belong to the established church. I was utterly exhausted.

So in the midst of our table conversation, I suggested that maybe the GLBT community should simply leave the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, and then the problem would be no longer in our midst. “Maybe we should just leave,” I said. There was a very long, uncomfortable silence. You would have thought that I dropped a “you-know-what” in the middle of the room. “No, no, you can't leave! You have to stay at the table.” In response, I thought to myself, “Lord, what will we have if we stay? What will we have if we leave? What will become of us?”

I came home from the meeting and read this e-mail from a local activist for the homeless:

I heard your interview on the radio last week. Found your comments interesting. But with everything that's happened lately like Issue 1, I'm not sure there's a place in God's house. If there is, how can so many people get it so wrong? Someone told me once, “It isn't that Christianity doesn't work, it's just never been tried.” Anyway, your comments got me thinking.

I thought to myself, I must stay at the table for the sake of this individual and others like her. Or as one gay priest said at clergy day, “I stay in the conversation for the sake of the next generation.” And so it was with those feisty, determined, patient, and faithful women some thirty years ago. They stayed, they persisted, and in some instances, they caused division within the church, so that we could stand at God's table today.  

Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, wrote of himself as “a prisoner in the Lord,” begging one of his congregations to “lead a life worthy of the calling to which [they had] been called . . . bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-3).

I feel like, we in the Anglican Communion are “prisoners in the Lord.” We can't really leave each other, because we are bound to each other by something that I don't quite understand – some call it history and tradition, others say its mutual affection, but I think of it as the Spirit. And so, we're trying to figure out how to “bear with one another in love.” It's a painful dilemma, but it's also our calling.  

So what will become of us? What will we have when it's all said and done? According to Jesus “at the renewal of all things . . . we will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:28-29). And “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” Or to paraphrase Gene Robinson's comment to the “Justice Is Orthodox Theology” gathering in Atlanta just prior to the release of the Windsor Report, “No matter what happens, this is not the final word. Because when we all get to heaven (and we will), everybody's going to be there together, and God doesn't like fighting in heaven.” In God's heavenly mansion with many rooms, only God knows who will be our next-door neighbor.

My sisters and brothers in this enterprise we call Anglicanism, if we are going to be God's agents in “the renewal of all things.” then we need to stay at the table in humility, gentleness, and patience with one another, but we also need to shift the conversation to the real issues. It's not about sex. It's about the politics of power and inclusion. . .

My sisters and brothers in this enterprise we call Anglicanism, if we are going to be God's agents in “the renewal of all things.” then we need to stay at the table in humility, gentleness, and patience with one another, but we also need to shift the conversation to the real issues. It's not about sex. It's about the politics of power and inclusion; imperialism and neo-colonialism; race, gender, religion, class and culture; poverty and disease; terrorism and warfare; east vs. west and north vs. south; traditional society intersecting with technology; fundamentalism of all sorts; and how we read and interpret sacred texts written thousands of years ago. The scapegoating of one group of people won't solve or even address these issues.  

And if the conversation does not shift to the real issues, then perhaps the words of Jesus about leaving house, fields and families behind might even come to include the Anglican Communion. For in the end, it's not about the church; it's about the Gospel.

“What will we have” if we all stay? Only God knows for certain. But I am going to trust that we will have one heck of a good party. “What will we have” if we leave? Again, only God know for sure. But I am going to trust that if this comes to pass, God will also be in the exodus. For now, I'm going to stay at the table with walking shoes on my feet. Amen!

The Very Rev. Tracey Lind is dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio. An urban planner and photographer, she is the author of Interrupted by God: Glimpses from the Edge (2004, The Pilgrim Press). Tracey may be reached by email at tlind@dohio.org .