Excerpted from the address by the Rt. Rev. Alan Gates, our Diocesan Bishop, to the Annual Convention of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 2023. You can find the full text and a video here.

Last Friday morning I passed by Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street, and was struck by two signs on the large old doorways of that church.  One says, “Central Reform Temple of Boston, a Progressive Jewish Congregation, meets here.  Welcome!”  And right next to it hangs a parallel sign which says, “Emmanuel Episcopal Church, a progressive Christian congregation, meets here. Welcome!”  My heart was filled with gratitude for that witness, in this moment of all moments.

A few hours later on that same day I was at our Cathedral [Church] of St. Paul, where for 23 years hospitality has been extended for Friday Jummah prayers, a gathering of typically two-to-three hundred Muslim men and women who work downtown and spend their lunch break at prayer.  Last Friday they had called for Community Prayers for Peace, inviting both civic and religious leaders. The Mayor of Boston said a word.  I was invited to offer greetings and a prayer.  We are always mindful that Christians and Muslims are killing each other around the globe.  And occasionally people have said to me: Why do you have that group meeting in your church? Don’t you know that Muslims are killing Christians around the globe? And, of course, the answer is, yes, we do know that.  Muslims and Christians are killing one another all over the world, and it is precisely that knowledge which impels us to model a different way, a peaceful respect across difference.  I am grateful at all times that our cathedral makes that witness, and never more than in such tense times as these.

Finally, on that same Friday in the afternoon, driving to an installation service, I had the car radio on and I heard an interview with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, who was offering pastoral care on a hillside outside Jerusalem. The rabbi was holding a roll of stickers that he had grabbed off of his desk as he left New York. The stickers said, “Fragile. Please handle with care.”  He had been handing them to grieving family members. After further discussing his pastoral role, the rabbi said this.

“I’m a peace activist and way on the left. I’ve been fighting for humanitarian solutions to this conflict throughout my life, and that will never change…”

The interviewer asked, “Do you feel like the peace activist part of you has to sort of stuff itself into a box in this moment?”  Rabbi Lau-Lavie replied:

“I am trying very hard not to lose the both/and position that, yes, I stand with Israel at this moment of hurt and will do everything I can to ensure that we defend ourselves against terror. At the same time, I stand with my Palestinian friends who want freedom. I abhor and decry Hamas as a terrorist organization that has hijacked the Palestinians … It’s a both/and, and the both/and is tricky and very unpopular these days. And yet I think that is the only way to make any headway out of this mess, the humanitarian approach, … not revenge, not blaming.”

As I drove along thinking about Christians and Jews in a church on Newbury Street, and Muslims and Christians in a cathedral on Tremont Street; and as I listened to an anguished peace-activist rabbi ministering outside of Jerusalem, I could only weep quietly in the car.  In the last two weeks I have, as you probably have too, heard from some friends that to condemn Hamas atrocities is to ignore the legacy of injustice and violence experienced by Palestinians and the plight of thousands now being killed in the death trap which is Gaza.  I’ve heard from others that in this moment voicing any support for Palestinians, including though not limited to our Christian partners throughout the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, is failing to honor innocent Israeli victims.
 
In the Gospel passage we heard last Sunday, Jesus said, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” [Matt. 22:21]  In citing that duality, Jesus simultaneously debunks it.  It was a false and deceitful dichotomy, because of course everything is God’s.  And in the Middle East, all the land is God’s, and all the children are God’s, and all the cruelty and suffering and so-called “collateral damage” is an abomination to God.

I do not know the solution to the intractable hostilities in the Middle East.  I don’t think you do either. But I am certain that we must reject the easy dualities and reductionist platitudes of blame and blamelessness; of good and bad; of the primacy of ancient history versus recent history.  Our task, I think, is to condemn indiscriminate violence and cruelty wherever we see it; to extend compassionate care wherever we can support it; to join calls for an immediate ceasefire; to demand humanitarian action on the part of our own government and others; and to pray fervently for people of all faiths who are acting as agents of justice and peace.  That, I think, is our task.

Rest for the weary being somewhat limited, I’ll be headed off this Saturday to our Diocesan Convention, the annual legislative meeting of clergy and elected lay delegates from the 160-something Episcopal parishes and congregations in Eastern Massachusetts, taking place this year in Danvers. I’ve previously waxed poetic about the wonders of democratic governance in our church, so there’s no need to repeat myself about what an amazing thing this sometimes-tedious event is. I thought instead, I’d share with you a few items on the agenda, as an index of what’s going on right now in the wider life of our church:

• Hearing and approving plans for the election of our next Bishop on May 18, 2024- Updates from the members of the diocesan Racial Justice Commission on their work to
  • provide opportunities for training in antiracist practices to congregations and individuals, including seminarians and other future clergy in formation
  • examine the role of racism in shaping our diocesan structures
  • support the lives and leadership of people of color in our diocese
  • continue to develop structures for the Diocesan Reparations Fund established at last year’s convention
• Updates on the work of the Indigenous Peoples’ Justice Network of the two dioceses of Massachusetts and Western Massachusetts, describing their work to connect with members of local Native communities and nations and the several local partnerships they’re pursuing
• An amendment to our Constitution & Canons regarding the processes of congregations transitioning in status between parish (self-supporting congregations with independent governance by a Vestry) and mission (non-self-supporting congregations in which the Bishop exercises greater control), and formaliIng the place of Intentional Episcopal Communities (non-traditional/non-parish congregations) within our governance
  • I’m not a canon lawyer but as far as I can tell the intent here is to increase flexibility both for parishes in danger of closing and for new or innovative ministries in non-traditional forms
• Establishing a Healthy Congregations Task Force to support the lives of clergy and congregations
• Proposed guidelines for the Reparations Fund created last year, and the creation of a Reparations Fund Committee to oversee it
• Reports from working groups on Collaborative Ministries, the Creation Care Justice Network, and other ministry networks of our Diocese

As you can tell, the business of the Church is both active and varied! I’ll look forward to sharing more news next week.

But to be honest: I’m most excited for the opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and friends from around the diocese, to share the more-local stories of good news, hope, and faith from our own communities.

Last week I spoke on the phone with the Rev. Gareth Evans, the Rector of St. John’s who served her before the Rev. Tom Mousin. I knew Gareth when I was in Lincoln and he was in Acton, and we’ve reconnected a few times over the years; after I shared the news of Evie’s death, he called me just as I was headed out for a walk.

We spoke for a while about everything that was going on, and then he asked me how things were at St. John’s in general. I told him things are going well, all things considered; that the church continues, small but mighty, and that there are new faces every year — not to mention five baptisms this fall! (Upcoming this Sunday the 22^nd, and on All Saints’ Sunday, November 5^th.)

He paused for a moment, and pointed out how wonderful that was, and what a beautiful connection there was between the sadness of Evie’s death and the joy of five children being baptized in this church. And it’s true.

The connection isn’t just a theological one. It’s not only that our baptismal liturgy describes baptism as a kind of death (“We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death…”). And it’s not only that our funeral liturgies, in turn, ascribe to baptism the hope of new life (“In the assurance of eternal life given at Baptism, let us proclaim our faith and say…”)

It’s that, in a very concrete way, Evie was one of the people who made this parish into the place that it is: a place where children are loved and cherished, and elders are honored, and neighbors become siblings in the family of God.

So this week, we mourn and we celebrate; we grieve and we rejoice. But what a reminder of the thousand small ways we can honor the memories of the ones we have loved and lost: to see new joy and infant tears, to welcome new children and celebrate with new families, in the same sacred place where we will have remembered Evie just a day before.

Tomorrow (Friday, September 29) is the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, traditionally known as “Michaelmas.” A group of us had a long discussion in our Thursday-morning series this week, roughly on the topic, “What’s the deal with angels, anyway???” I can’t say we came to any firm conclusions other than the fact that some of us have undeniably had experiences that we simply can’t explain any other way: moments in which someone or something reached out from beyond the expected and helped us, or spoke to us.

Such moments defy prose. So by way of a reflection this week, I simply offer you a poem from the priest and poet Malcolm Guite, entitled, “Michaelmas: a sonnet for St. Michael.”

Michaelmas gales assail the waning year,
And Michael’s scale is true, his blade is bright.
He strips dead leaves; and leaves the living clear
To flourish in the touch and reach of light.
Archangel bring your balance, help me turn
Upon this turning world with you and dance
In the Great Dance. Draw near, help me discern,
And trace the hidden grace in change and chance.
Angel of fire, Love’s fierce radiance,
Drive through the deep until the steep waves part,
Undo the dragon’s sinuous influence
And pierce the clotted darkness in my heart.
Unchain the child you find there, break the spell
And overthrow the tyrannies of Hell.

Click here to read more from Malcolm Guite about the poem, including an audio recording.

The beginning of the year often feels like a hurricane, to me.

I don’t mean that in the sense you might expect. The beginning of the year doesn’t feel like a hurricane because of the metaphorical whipping winds and drenching rain of a new school or program year, as the calm days of summer turn into a flurry of commitments and an empty calendar quickly fills up.

It feels like a Boston-bound hurricane, the kind where you simply don’t know what’s about to come.

There is a literal hurricane headed our way, of course. And as is often the case in the Northeast, it’s almost totally unclear what it’s going to bring. Will it pummel us full strength, bringing down trees onto power lines, overtopping seawalls and flooding busy streets? Or will it snooze on by, squeezing in a few more downpours at the end of the wettest summer in living memory?

How can you know? How can you prepare?

I don’t give natural-disaster advice. (Maybe people really should be buying up cartons of eggs and gallons of milk at the grocery store this week to get ready. Storms are apparently perfect omelet weather.) But as we face the unpredictable storm of another new year, I think that the best advice might be this: Be prepared. And be prepared to be unprepared.

I have no idea what this hurricane will bring, or not. I hope no new leaks spring for you during the storm; but I hope you have a bucket if they do. And I have no idea what this year will bring, for us as a church or for any of you as individuals. I hope that all our hopes for this year come true, and I’m sure that there are some surprises ahead. But I know that whatever happens next, we’ll be prepared to face it together.