A Ministry of Interruptions

St. Peter's on Chicago Pride Sunday, 2015

For the last month, I've been serving as supply priest at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago.  We began June with the Feast of Corpus Christi, complete with incense and Our Lord exposed in a monstrance at the Mary Shrine; and we concluded it with Chicago's annual Pride celebration.  It is deeply joyful for me as a priest to witness a congregation understand and embody the connection between these two events.  God really present in the bread and wine, and God really present in the midst of humanity. When I preached on yesterday's Gospel, I explained that the clumsy combination of the stories of the healing of Jairus's daughter and the healing of the hemorrhaging woman reflected how real ministry often works.  Instead of a tidy, seamless narrative that satisfies our need for immediate gratification, we are offered one story that meanders and is interrupted by another story before reaching its end.  Ministry is punctuated by numerous and frequent interruptions.

Ministry is also unpredictable and messy, a bit like Sunday's Gospel reading. Sometimes, we have to improvise and think on our feet. After an early mass, we gathered outside the church and claimed our spots to watch the festivities, while people began to line the parade route.  Some came extravagantly arrayed in rainbow tutus, face paint, and Hawaiian leis,waving gay pride flags.  And there were, of course, those who were wearing very little at all, and others who had clearly had too much to drink.  As they walked by, I wished everyone a "Happy Pride," Most would smile and return the greeting.  Many seemed surprised, but pleased, to see the Church supportive of them.  Then, something happened I did not expect.  People began to ask to take their picture with the priest in his rainbow stole, and eventually young people mobbed the Church steps for selfies and pics for their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds.  Some even shared very emotional testimonies of how moved they were to see the Church on their side.  Crowds of young people whisked by us cheering and offering us fist-bumps and high-fives as a thank you for just being present.  During the parade, people on floats blew us kisses and gave us a thumbs-up.

This was, of course, a joyful and uplifting experience, but it also reinforced for me that the Church is still viewed as a largely absent and oppressive institution by many.  That the Church, or I, as a priest, should be such a novelty at an LGBTQI festival speaks to the many ways we have failed to engage and embrace large groups of God's people.  The day was beautiful, and yet, sobering.  It served as a cautionary reminder to us as Christians to work arduously to correct and repent of our past failings by working for justice and inclusion in both the Church and society.  What a wonderful world it would be if people just expected a congregation or its priest to be present for celebrations like the Pride parade, as if it were just a ho-hum, matter-of-course, routine part of the Church's life and witness.  Not radical at all, just a relevant, integral part of who we are and how we live.  If we take away one message from the day, it is this: the church has a place in society, and society wants us to claim it.

Blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

#TractSwarm: Anglican Comprehensiveness and Prayer Book Revision

In preparation for the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the Society of Catholic Priests has launched the third in its TractSwarm series, this one on the revision of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.  Let me begin by stating quite clearly that I am in favor of revising the current Prayer Book to reflect the norm that has emerged in the last 35 years.  However, Prayer Book revision is a thorny and controversial process that requires careful thinking and consensus building, where the Devil is truly in the details.  As I struggled with how to approach this daunting topic, I drew up a list of fundamental questions with some examples as a starting point for my own thinking.

• What's lacking/problematic in the current Prayer Book? Lack of expansive/inclusive language; need for supplemental resources, such as Enriching Our Worship; worshippers' lack of familiarity with how to use the Book of Common Prayer; dated language and metaphors.
• What are the potential areas of discord and controversy? Revision of the marriage rite; altered theology; removal of Rite I liturgies; elimination of BCP Sunday lectionary.
• What could a revised Prayer Book make possible? Greater variety of liturgical resources; more flexibility within the rubrics; enhancements to the Daily Office.
• What would be potentially lost in a new revision? The rich Anglican heritage of Rite I; theological comprehensiveness/orthodoxy/tidiness; prominence of the Daily Office.
• Given the increased use of supplementary, unofficial, ecumenical, and optional resources, has "common prayer" become a myth? Many parishes are already using non-approved resources and rites (Anglo-Catholic devotions and feasts, non-Anglican eucharistic prayers, non-traditional creeds/professions of faith).  
• What would be the financial and environmental implications of printing and supplying new prayer books to congregations for worship?  In the digital age, are more sustainable models of dissemination possible? Elimination of print BCPs, and production of digital resources for worship bulletins, mobile devices, etc.

Each of these questions could be the subject of a long and painfully boring expostulation.  My principal concern, however, is how to preserve the principle of Anglican comprehensiveness in any revision process.  For me, our "broad-tent" ethos--embracing evangelicals, Broad Church, Anglo-Catholics, emergent Christians, and others--is a noteworthy strength of Anglicanism, and must be preserved.  During the revision of the 1928 Prayer Book, the process was often characterized by a winner/loser mentality that was deeply divisive.  This adversarial dynamic has also been present in recent controversies over the consecration of gay and lesbian bishops and same-sex unions, which causes me to wonder whether we as a Church are relationally strong enough to enter another fray at this time.  Think about how passionate we can be about the distinctive Sabon font in which the Prayer Book is printed, and you'll get what I mean!  To say that we have very strong opinions is an understatement.  Yes, we LOVE the Prayer Book, every jot and tittle.

But, of course, we are not just people of routine attached to familiar things like fonts and the wording of eucharistic prayers.  The Book of Common Prayer is the vessel that holds our unique theology and identity as Episcopalians.  Are our bonds of trust and affection robust enough to love and include one another as we differ passionately over fundamentals?  Can we come to consensus without imposing our agenda or marginalizing some minority group within the Church?  I am not suggesting that we shy away from the challenge, but rather to be honest about what we are taking on.  If ever the Episcopal Church needed to have a fierce conversation, to use the framework developed by Susan Scott, the Prayer Book would be it.  If, as she says, the conversation is the relationship, then we need to learn to do a better job of communicating with each other while we refine the book that articulates who we are as a community of faith.

Celebration of Rogationtide.

My proposal is this: we approach Prayer Book revision much like we have the sanctoral calendar by being expansive and permissive, essentially a hub-and-spoke model. We begin by devising a Prayer Book (the hub) that provides a mainstream core for the entire Church complemented by authorized  additional resources (the spokes) for local or optional use that respects the comprehensiveness of Anglicanism. This does not mean a Prayer Book that comprises a "lowest common denominator," but rather provides a solid and normative foundation to which other resources might be connected.  With the creation of the 1979 Prayer Book, the liturgical fullness of the Sacred Triduum was restored.  It would be similarly useful, for example, to authorize propers for Corpus Christi or Feasts of Our Lady for parishes that have long celebrated those feasts, whether in Enriching Our Worship, the Book of Occasional Services, or another resource.  Or perhaps we rely deeply on our Native American/First Nation communities for resources to mainstream the Church's observation of the Rogation liturgies.  The possibilities are practically limitless, much like the mystery of God.

The blessing of chalk at Epiphany.

In my own ministry, I have drawn from an abundant store of supplemental resources designed to make worship richer and speak to a wider range of contexts, theological priorities, and pieties.  These include the New Zealand Prayer Book, the St. Augustine's Prayer Book (both the original and revision), the Manual for Priests, the English Missal, and Enriching Our Worship.  They even include liturgical material developed and used by priest colleagues for unusual situations for which the Episcopal Church has not developed materials, such as the blessing of chalk at Epiphany.  Liturgy requires a certain amount of flexibility, creativity, and improvisation to respond authentically and pastorally to the needs of a congregation. A Prayer Book that offers a common foundation, and yet encourages the use of a wider range of authorized, supplemental resources seems to me to be an approach that is both postmodern, as well as grounded in tradition and longstanding practice.  The Episcopal Church has prided itself on fostering unity without uniformity, of delegating some discretionary authority to its bishops, clergy, and other leaders on liturgical matters.  If we're honest, we haven't believed in a "one-size-fits-all" approach for a long time, and this has made us stronger, diverse, and more inclusive as a Church.  After all, we are the Church that has commended belief in the Real Presence without prescribing how exactly this mystery is to be defined.  We are the Church that has declared to the faithful, "all may, some should, none must." This is the great legacy of Anglicanism and the Book of Common Prayer.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan +

<a href=”http://www.thescp.org/tracts/” target=”_blank”><img border=”0″ src=”http://www.thescp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/tractswarm.jpg” width=”100%” /></a>

Sermon for Easter 5: "How Can I, Unless Someone Guides Me?"

[Several people have asked me for a copy of this and previous sermons, so I am going to begin posting them online for everyone's convenience.]  Here is a link to the audio:

Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” the eunuch replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The news cycle this past week has been robust, and perhaps like me, you are numb and bewildered.  On Tuesday, I listened to the two+ hours of oral arguments before the US Supreme Court on marriage equality, followed by Nina Totenberg’s analysis on National Public Radio.  News reports have dissected the earthquake and relief efforts in Nepal, the sentencing of Boston Marathon bomber, Dzokhar Tsarnaev, and of course, the terrible rioting in Baltimore in the wake of Freddie Gray’s funeral.  These reports have been accompanied by countless opinions, commentaries, and diatribes that appear all over social media, including my Facebook feed.  It is overwhelming.  Like the Ethiopian eunuch, it is easy to be perplexed by what we read and hear.  So, to answer Philip’s question, “no, I do not often understand what I’m reading.  How can I, unless someone guides me?” 

The challenge for all of us, whether we are Christians or not, is to become aware of the various lenses through which we view people and events.  On one level, attributes like socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexuality, generation, and political affiliation inform our perspectives and our prejudices.  On another, the framing of media, both the professional media and less-official social media, influences how we perceive the world.  Please understand, I am not naively advocating the shedding of all ideological lenses and agendas, but rather the development of an awareness of what these lenses and agendas are, and to weigh them with a critical eye.

We also use theological lenses to shape our perception of the world, and I think this is a very good thing.  Once upon a time, Christian denominations, and people of faith generally, exerted a formidable moral authority in the public sphere, where ideas and events were debated and decisions were made.  In an increasingly secular society, this authority has waned, but I would argue that it is still “meet, right, and our bounden duty,” to quote the Prayer Book, for Christians to lend their voices and feet to debates on public issues.  I believe that is what today’s Scripture readings are calling us to do.  “Little children,” the First Letter of John declares, “let us love, not in word and speech, but in truth and action.”  This is gutsy and evangelistic talk that calls for more than empty words; it exhorts us to live out the good news of the Gospel.

Although this week’s events largely focus on pain and tragedy, I speak from a hopeful, Eastertide frame-of-mind.  There is ample evidence, it is true, that we do not love each other, but there is also evidence that we do.  One of the most powerful images from this week’s events in Baltimore is a photo I encountered of an African American boy of elementary school age offering a bottle of water to a white policeman decked out in riot gear.  It was poignant to see this little child facing the long line of armed police with a gesture of civility and kindness.  And I would hope that there were civil and kind policemen, too.  The point is that this photo puts a different face on the event, offers another lens for us to use.  

Like Jesus before Pilate, we are faced with that fundamental question, “what is truth?”  Truth as an absolute is hard to come by, if we are honest about the slant of this or that media outlet or our own prejudicial perspectives.  If we are to believe the First Letter of John, one truth we can rely on is God’s love.  “We know love by this,” the writer states, “that [Jesus] laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.  How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”

The truth of God’s love and his command for us to lay down our lives for each other—not to snatch each other’s lives away—is a theological lens through which we need to view the world’s events.  Our theology shapes what we see and hear, and how we interpret it.  The Gospel of John assures us repeatedly that God has given us the resources to deal with future challenges in our lives as people of faith.  Jesus tells us in this morning’s reading, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you,” by sending another Advocate, whom he calls the Spirit of truth.

Well, who is this Spirit and how does she work?  Is this Sophia, the Wisdom of this week’s Daily Office readings, of whom the author, reputedly Solomon, says “I preferred her to scepters and thrones, and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her.  Neither did I liken to her any priceless gem, because all gold is but a little sand in her sight, and silver will be accounted as clay before her.  I loved her more than health and beauty, and I chose to have her rather than light, because her radiance never ceases.” It is the Spirit of wisdom, I would suggest, to whom the Ethiopian eunuch turns following his baptism.  The Acts of the Apostles attests that “when [Philip and the eunuch] came out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.”  It is curious—no amazing—that the eunuch’s response to Philip’s sudden disappearance is rejoicing, rather than distress.  He was not orphaned.  The eunuch, like all the baptized, was set on a path toward life and abundance, guided by the power of the Spirit, the Spirit of truth and of wisdom, that same Spirit that moved over the inchoate waters of Creation and brought forth a miraculous, ordered universe.  This is a God who loves us and guides us through all our moments of struggle, joy, and yes, even tragedy.

The greatest wisdom the Spirit of God can impart is that we human beings are flawed in judgment and character, and we are lost without her guidance.  As God’s creation, we ARE very good indeed, and yet we see only a narrow piece of the whole picture.  Who we are as individuals limits our perspective and creates lenses though which we see only faintly, only dimly.  The wise thing to do, in such a situation, is to temper our tendency to pass judgment and assert certainty by seeking out people with different viewpoints, with a different frame of reference, with different lenses.  We may not change our minds, but at least, we may learn something in the process that nuances our understanding and makes us kinder, more forgiving, and more loving, as our reading from the First Letter of John encourages us to do.  Developing better theological lenses through collective discernment in community, engagement in debate in the public square, and individual spiritual growth are ways we cooperate with the Spirit in becoming better and wiser disciples of Jesus.

 Peace and justice may or may not prevail in our nation’s capital, in Baltimore, in Boston, or in Nepal, but I believe that that the Spirit of God, in the fullness of time, has a pretty good chance of guiding us there eventually.  And that is the Good News of the Easter Resurrection.  Alleluia, Christ is risen.  And may the people say:  The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia.

Billy Elliot, Doubting Thomas, and the Resurrection

The Resurrection of Jesus is one of the most challenging Christian tenets to explain and to believe.  In my experience, painstaking argumentation often does a poor job of deconstructing doctrines like the Resurrection, the Trinity, or the Assumption.  Perhaps I'm just not clever enough to pierce the mystery's veil.  Thomas Aquinas I am not, and even he admitted, "all that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me."  Ain't it the truth.

What I have found useful is to tell a story, to share a personal experience of, say, the Blessed Virgin Mary, that will offer insight into why the Church has long venerated her as the God-bearer, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, or Our Lady of Sorrows.  After all, it is no surprise that people would have an easier time connecting with my lived relationship with Mary than with a dry abstraction.  In seminary, I was taught that the Hebrew Bible was the story of one people's attempt to come to some kind of understanding of their identity and their relationship with God.  Scripture, Doctrine, and Tradition--often spelled reverently with those initial capitals that convey authority--are at best a best-guess, an attempt to codify a faithful people's experience over time of mysteries that defy rational explanation.  That is not heresy, but humility before the mystery of God.  We feel, we cogitate, and then we struggle to find words that can capture our deep experience of God.  We want to nail it down, but alas . . .  One my favorite French words is insaisissable, which translates clumsily as "uncapturable" or "elusive."  The translation misses something, maybe its all those s's hissing away musically like air, invisible, and yet perceptible.  Maybe we should rely less on theologians and more on poets, storytellers, artists . . . 

Or dancers.  This weekend, my partner and I went to see a community production of Billy Elliot, the Musical.  It is the story of a young boy in an industrial town in northeastern England during a coal-miners strike in the mid-1980s.  Billy turns out to be an aspiring, albeit reluctant, ballet dancer in a culture where gender roles and expectations were fixed and rigidly enforced.  There is one especially moving scene when Billy dances with his future adult self and takes flight, connecting with the promise of a new life and identity on the other side of his current existence of stagnation and hopelessness.  Even after he succeeds in getting into the Royal Ballet School, he wavers, fearful to leave behind his family and the life he has always known.  He especially grieves the loss of his ballet teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson, who practices tough love by telling him to leave and never come back.  The musical closes with Billy setting out for his new life in London as the rest of the town returns to the dirty, hard-scrabble existence of the mine.

There is no guarantee that what we or Billy will find on the other side of the grave/mine will be all peace and light.  In the example of Jesus' life, crucifixion, and resurrection, we detect a model for our own striving, for reaching beyond places of certain death and despair to grasp the potential for continued growth.  Like Billy, who knows what kind of people we will grow into beyond the mine?  Jesus shows us that giving into death is not an option, and that it is worth the risk to venture into unknown territory, even if it promises uncertainty, the discomfort of growth, and the possibility of failure.  The Resurrection, in this understanding, then, is not a single event, but an orientation of hope built on trust, trust that God is leading us toward something good and that we have what it takes to engage what we find waiting for us, however insaisissable it may be. 

This past Sunday focused on the story of Doubting Thomas.  I always have an easy time relating to him, his skepticism, his demand for empirical proof.  He would make a great patron for postmodern seekers.  What rises to the surface of his story for me is his failure to recognize the risen Christ; and perhaps that's because, Jesus, like us, is changed by his experience of transformation, of crossing the threshold of hopelessness and death and emerging into the light of new life.  His wounds, like ours, remain; they become integrated into us as we mature and grow and learn.  But we become different people.  As our seminarian preached yesterday, these wounds become scars, which remind us of all we have been through, all we have survived, and that is an empowering message.  Thomas's story invites us to put our hands into our own wounds (and those of others) as a sign of our own triumph over the grave.  It may not answer the question about our ultimate destiny following bodily death, but it illustrates nonetheless the striving for hope that Jesus commended us to practice.  Easter is a time to affirm that in the midst of death, life is still possible.  Our wounds serve as reminders that on the other side of suffering, shame, and despair may be a transformed person we don't yet recognize. 

Easter joy and blessings,

Fr. Ethan.+

More Than Just A Holy Week

Last Saturday, I drove to rural southwestern Michigan to bury my grandmother.  Although I had conducted her funeral a few weeks before at the Episcopal parish her great-great grandmother had help to found, we had been obliged to delay the burial because snowbanks had barred access to the gravesite.  I tossed clumps of still-frozen ground onto the coffin, "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and recited prayers in the King James English my Grandma Kib would have found familiar--the Lord's Prayer, the Benedictus, the commital.  I was aware as I watched family and friends bundled against the cold--some praying, all grieving--of the enduring relevance of the Church to the deepest moments of human experience, despite frequent claims to the contrary.  We waited for the casket, encased in its concrete shell mounted with a cross, to be lowered into the ground before dispersing.  Burials are about closure, finality, no going back.  Then, we all returned to the land of the living and had lunch, sharing our favorite stories of the lady to whom we had just offered our final goodbyes.

The next day, I entered Holy Week, palm frond in hand.  I went to confession, dodged the unanticipated hail during the procession down the block, and confected the Sacrament at the altar with my brother and sister priests.  Later that day, I rehearsed the Exsultet for the Great Vigil of Easter and emailed a couple that I am marrying on the Saturday after Easter.  Colleagues at work on Monday began to comment, "this is your big week, right? to which I usually responded, "it's already begun."  But the truth is that Holy Week is not a priest's or even a Christian's big week, even though it is a bit of an endurance test.  Sure, there is that juggernaut of liturgies known at the Holy Triduum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter.  And then the Easter Sunday High Mass, which at Atonement, includes an orchestra playing to a packed house.

Exsultet, 2014

BUT Holy Week is really an invitation to a holy life.  What a lot of people miss is that Christianity is meant to be a lifestyle, a pattern of living that shapes identity and faith out of an accumulation of little moments, whether we are in church every Sunday or only come at Christmas and Easter.  As a priest, these little moments are often explicit: presiding at a burial, a wedding, and the Eucharist; reciting the Daily Office; meeting with my spiritual director and confessor; offering comfort to a person in distress.  They are meaningful in isolation from each other, but they also have a cumulative effect, a significance and a relevance that add up to be more than the sum of the parts.  These moments reinforce singly and together the values and commitments we make as Christians.  Holy Week enacts a story, a single narrative, that integrates all of our little moments into the larger chronicle of human redemption and salvation by a loving God.  The text of the Exsultet, which the Church sings at the Great Vigil of Easter, encapsulates this story well.  It puts into perspective and brings into relief the bread and butter of human experience: birth and growth, suffering and struggle, love and commitment, life and death.  What could be more relevant than that?

Abundant blessings for a solemn Holy Week and a deeply holy life,

Fr. Ethan+

#TractSwarm - Confiteor

I sat on the sofa in Fr. Bob Orpen's modest living room, listening to him talk about his long career as a parish priest, while his wife, Vinnie, pottered about in the kitchen nearby.  I had just finished my first year of seminary and was doing the one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) required for ordination at a South Side retirement community.  As luck would have it, I had been assigned to the two floors where two retired Episcopal priests lived.  I visited them every couple of weeks for a chat and some much-appreciated mentoring.  At the time, Fr. Orpen was the diocese of Chicago's most senior priest.  He was kind, humble, and wise, and I was grateful that he was willing to spend time with me to tell and show me how to be a good priest.

It was he that explained to me the difference between saying prayers and actually praying--his daily list of intercessions was comprehensive and sincere, and stretched back decades.  Fr. Orpen was also the one who urged me to get a confessor and make regular use of the sacrament of reconciliation.  Fr. Orpen was a slight, quiet man with glasses, and he would lean gently from his blue armchair toward me to impart some special point of priestly spirituality.  On this particular day, he leaned over and explained that the experience of what used to be known as auricular confession was quite different than the general confession we did in the Eucharist on Sunday mornings.  It has a specificity and accountability, and hence intensity, that just cannot be matched by the anonymous, catch-all confession I that I was used to.

I took his advice.  I sought a recommendation from my rector, who said, "I know just the person for you," and he pointed me to the great priest who is still my confessor.  I was open to his suggestion, but knowing the priest in question, I wondered how vulnerable and exposed I would feel in the confessional, to reveal my brokenness to someone I so admired. We debated whether it would be better for me to choose a confessor who knew me or whether I might be less inhibited by a priest I did not know.  There is safety and comfort, after all, in anonymity.  After much debating back and forth, I decided that I wanted my confessor to know me, so that he could offer me counsel and guidance over the long haul that would speak to my unique situation, my own set of virtues and foibles.  If confession was supposed to be a regular spiritual discipline, shouldn't my guide know my patterns of sin and misguidedness?

So, like many adolescents of a bygone age, I prepared for my first confession, which took place on 17 December 2010.  I obviously cannot reveal what was spoken in that space of sacred trust between confessor and penitent, but suffice it to say, I arrived with a very long list of sins and trespasses.  In the end, I prioritized and focused on the ones I thought were the most grievous.  We talked about them; the priest offered me spiritual advice; and I recited the psalm he assigned to me as penance, or rather, as nourishment.  The fascinating thing is that my confessor is so well practiced in the art of hearing confessions that he always seems to know the psalm, canticle, or reading that will be most useful to me to engage in that state of brokenness.  I find to my amazement that the teaching of the particular psalm sticks to me for weeks afterward, marinating in my mind and heart as I seek to lead a better life.  I am grateful that my confessor has come to know me, because I seem to return to the confessional with the same set of sins and struggles that separate me from God and my neighbor. Thanks to his help, I have come to recognize the sinful patterns in my thinking, feeling, and behavior, which has improved my mindfulness and discipline.  In this way, confession complements the work I do with my spiritual director.

I am still nervous whenever I walk into the confessional.  It is anxiety-producing and embarrassing to lay bare all of one's lesser qualities.  My confessor, however, reassured me one Friday morning by reminding me that "we come to confession for forgiveness, not condemnation."  Indeed, as another experienced priest shared with me when I was still a seminarian, "it is humbling for a confessor to be asked to forgive sins that he or she also commits."  And now that I am a priest, I've experienced that sentiment myself.  There is an intimacy that develops between confessor and penitent that one must be willing to accept by the gradual building of trust.  Even in the Anglo-Catholic parishes where I have served, the number of people who avail themselves of this sacrament are few, which is a shame. Part of this reticence has to do with lack of encouragement and teaching on the subject and the failure of clergy to lead by example.  Priests of Fr. Orpen's generation were trained for this.  They get it.  Sin, moreover, is a concept that is out of pace with the ethos of postmodern culture, and yet I would argue confession is nonetheless just as vital and needed in a world that is severely wounded.  As proof of this, I received a surprising request for an impromptu confession while doing Ashes-to-Go this year, and so, grabbed a corner table at the Starbuck's, heard the confession, and pronounced the Church's absolution to this stranger in distress.

I now go to confession about four times a year, although I used to go monthly, which I think is a much better schedule, matching the regular grounding I get in spiritual direction.  Perhaps that should be one outcome of my Lenten preparation this year.  Another should be to teach the faithful about the theology and benefits of the sacrament of reconciliation.  And a third is to encourage each other as priests to embrace this sacrament by hearing each others' confessions and by developing mentoring and apprenticeship relationships between seasoned confessors and priests inexperienced in this role.  So, to those priests of an earlier generation:  we are eager to learn from you.  Teach us.  We are ready, for the harvest is great, but the laborers are few.

Prayers for a holy and transformative Lent.

Ethan+

Differently Visible, Not Vanishing

Selfie at AAP National Nominating Committee
meeting with pediatrician, Dr. Sarah Stelzner.

The Atlantic published an article yesterday by David Wheeler entitled, "Higher Calling, Lower Wages: The Vanishing of the Middle-Class Clergy," that discussed the high-debt load and poor job prospects of clergy.  Shrinking and aging congregations have resulted in fewer full-time, paid positions for seminary graduates, who have had to seek secular jobs to supplement their parish incomes or support them entirely.  The Church has labeled these clergy "bi-vocational" or "tentmakers."  This is, of course, old news.

In fact, I remember, when I was a lay person in the early stages of the ordination process, talking about the likelihood of gainful employment with the Canon to the Ordinary (who, incidentally, is now a bishop).  When I showed up at Canon Hayashi's office at the appointed time in my suit and tie, instead of asking me to sit down, he lamented that his elliptical machine had just broken and wondered if I'd be willing to get a little exercise.  It was deep into the Chicago winter, so we worked our way through the corridors that connected the diocesan offices to the cathedral.  As we power-walked around the perimeter of the nave, he challenged me to rethink the decision to pursue ordination.  I had worked with him for several years on a diocesan commission, where we had developed a good rapport, so I was surprised to hear discouragement instead of a pep-talk.  He was very pastoral, but he laid out honestly the grim state of the job market for clergy.  He had always encouraged my call to ordination, so I suspect he was trying to spare me disappointment and sacrifice, for which I remain grateful.  There are simply too few parish jobs, and there's no point in sugar-coating that fact. 

As I read the article, with its take-away message about bi-vocational clergy, essentially, "the job market is bad, but we're making the best of it," I remembered Canon Hayashi's kind attempt me to steer me along a safer career path.  I don't deny the dearth of full-time paid clergy positions; and I respect those clergy who take on multiple congregations, or get some other job just to pay the bills.  More alarming still is the stark reality that for many clergy a full-time parish job may not provide an adequate income to cover the cost of seminary and other educational debt, save for retirement, and sustain a reasonable standard of living.  We all do what we have to do.  However, I question the assumption that the job market is necessarily bad news, that the sky is falling, or that the Church is no longer relevant.  I believe that the current state of affairs may be calling clergy to serve in different capacities, as well as in traditional parish settings.  Sure, we have hospital chaplains and seminary professors, but there must be other places where we can be life-giving and productive, not in spite of the fact we are clergy, but because we are clergy.  Unlike Mr. Wheeler, I'm not discouraged; I'm actually quite hopeful.  I would argue that clergy are still relevant even in this increasingly secular culture.

With women members of the AAP Board of Directors.

Like many new clergy, I found the parish job hunt daunting.  And I wasn't entirely sure I wanted a full-time job as a curate, vicar, or rector.  At least, not at the moment.  I considered returning to my prior career in health policy with an unpaid Sunday gig at some poor mission or a parish with an overworked rector who could use some help.  As it happens, I became a staff executive for the American Academy of Pediatrics, a not-for-profit organization for pediatricians that does research, education, child advocacy, and policy.   Although my clergy credentials were unusual, they proved to be an asset in the interview process, since the position's complex relational, administrative, and leadership development responsibilities were remarkably similar to parish ministry.  In fact, several members and staff shared how glad they were to have someone with a clergy background in the position.  Everyone knows I'm a priest, so staff and members frequently seek me out for pastoral care and spiritual guidance--in addition to my official duties--which has expanded my understanding and practice of priestly vocation.  As unexpected as it may sound, I believe that my training and identity as a priest are benefiting the organization; and similarly, I also know the organization is benefiting me as a priest by teaching me skills valuable to parochial ministry and the wider Church, such as managing a multi-million-dollar budget, doing leadership development, conducting policy and advocacy work, and enhancing administrative competence.

Censing the Lady Shrine at Choral High Mass.

In the Episcopal Church, vocational deacons and many professed religious support themselves through secular employment, which means they may have much to teach us priests about how to engage our priestly identities more fully and creatively outside the familiar parish setting.  One clergy colleague approached me after mass one Sunday, and asked where I was now serving. "I assist here on feasts, evenings, and Sundays, but I work for a not-for-profit during the week,"  I said brightly. "Oh," she said as she gently touched my arm and donned a sad smile, as if to convey, "I'm so sorry.  How awful for you."  I'm sure the sympathy was sincere, but I was disappointed and a little hurt that she was not able to perceive that both parish and not-for-profit work were healthy parts of my priestly vocation.  I need to say mass, to do pastoral care and community outreach, to baptize and bury.  I say the Daily Office, go to confession, and see a spiritual director.  But I care for people at work, too; and this is a very fulfilling part of my life as a priest.

I admire my priest colleagues who are doing full-time parish ministry, and I am not suggesting that this should change.  At some point, I may wish to join them there.  I loved being a parish priest, and often miss aspects of it.  I offer my perspective and experience simply to encourage those clergy for whom a full-time paid parochial cure may not be feasible or desirable, to say, "do not despair; there is life after parish ministry."  In many instances, our skills as clergy are transferable and applicable to other professional settings.  The Church has not been very effective, however, in re-visioning priestly ministry outside congregations or in helping clergy leverage and promote their skills for work in other professional settings.  Younger generations of clergy will need to take the lead in this area as paid parish positions continue to decline, but with initiative and imagination, the Church and its clergy can still be relevant and responsive to a world in desperate need of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.


Peace and Blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

The Rev. Ethan Alexander Jewett, SCP
Convenor, Chicago Chapter-in-Formation, Society of Catholic Priests
Assisting Priest, Church of the Atonement, Chicago
Director, Executive Services, American Academy of Pediatrics