By Whatever Name

For one reason or another, some have stripped the name "Episcopal" off their church signs. Others would probably like to and haven't got the nerve. But even with its attending aroma of adolescence, maybe they've done a good thing, only for the wrong reason.

Episcopal is not such a hot name for a church, anyway. It only addresses a part of who we are. We neither baptize people nor ordain them as Episcopalians. Church is supposed to be about being Christian, and being Christian is at least about being and becoming human beings as God has imagined us to be, by whatever name.

Faith is the way we respond to all this, to God, to neighbor, to self. Faith is covenantal and essentially collegial. It lays the foundation for and shapes our ecclesial environment. It "makes" church -- the inclusive, communal fullness which is commissioned to be both servant and conscience of culture.

But this name thing is not an ignoble undertaking, only a wrong one because it attempts to make faith into something it is not. When we proudly and selfishly would make faith contractual as a system of belief, a confession which must be adhered to, consented to, in order to "belong to" rather than to be a member of a community. It is then that we fail Jesus' great high priestly prayer, and thus are not one as he and the Father are one.

We are not in a partnership with God. We are sharecroppers called to be in responsible stewardship to God's gracious initiative. This is the covenant that God offered in Eden and that we refused in sin against the Holy Spirit, a sin that cannot be forgiven simply because it refuses the reconciliation which forgiveness can and will effect.

For Anglicanism, such covenant is the via media, the middle way. It is not easy either to find or to follow. That some would make this relationship with God depend on a belief that is systematized, behavioral, and even moralistic is to deny the cross that such discipleship entails.

In baptism, we make and enter this covenant with God at God's gracious invitation into the fellowship of the apostles to shape our lives around these steps -- to repent, to proclaim, to serve, to strive for a just peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being. God welcomes all into that fellowship. We know that welcome as grace. Our vocation as a church is to be about offering a medium in and through which it can happen.

The Diocese of Tennessee is on the threshold of electing its next bishop. A friend and colleague of mine facing a similar time in his diocese wrote, "The Episcopal Church will do well to make the powerful symbol of the Good Shepherd come alive in the daily ministry of her bishops... repudiating those who take license to dictate some personal agenda... calling and electing only those who would be shepherd, pastor, and conservator of the very doctrine, discipline, and worship that makes it possible for them to hold office."

Covenant is the shape of our liturgy, our work as a people. Our biblical ancestors rightly called it The Way. May we find and choose such a servant leader to guide us. -- JLD

[COVENANT, Number 17, June 2004]