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The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel,
VIII Bishop of Olympia
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Owning our Idolatry

6/21/2020

10 Comments

 

I have been troubled of late. That would certainly not be a surprise with all that is going on. There is a lot to be troubled about. I actually wrote this line and this blog before George Floyd was murdered and the world changed yet again. And I held this blog for that far more important thing. But, I thought now, I might resume. The viral pandemic has revealed so many good things to us, and it has exposed some of our failings as well. The pandemic of racism has finally, I pray, been exposed in a way that we cannot collectively deny or shove underground again.


One thing that has troubled me, in our church, and in our life in it, is our almost singular focus on the lack of bread and wine, the lack of physical Eucharist the pandemic has required of us. We were not even a few weeks into this reality before we were hearing all kinds of “fixes” for this, and for this time. I appreciate them, and have some empathy with them as well. I actually believe I might be able to evolve on the distance blessing can have efficacy, and other issues crying out for attention. But, I have resisted, not only because I am a bishop, called to “guard the unity of the faith,” but more so because I believe our rush to provide a “technical fix” to this sentiment, this mourning, this loss will only prolong the lack of formation that got us here in the first place. We probably, to a degree, can blame ourselves, Our over arching focus on Eucharist, as central, created this issue in a way. I get that too, cop to it even. But now that we are here, and we have been offered this moment, perhaps we would do well, before we start applying all the fixes, to instead enter into some reflection on just what it says about our union, our oneness, if it absolutely requires bread and wine to be complete. I have been regaled by lay and clergy alike around this issue with sentiments like, “if there is no bread and wine, there is no Church”. And even one saying “not having bread and wine makes God absent!” Really? Perhaps we need to let God into THAT conversation. Nothing I see in Scripture, nor even intuitively believe about God, suggests this is true.


I know this will make many bristle, but I think we would do well to own our idolatry. To look deeply at the way we sometimes worship our worship, instead of our God. It is even more troubling to me when I share my belief that these pandemics have revealed, even in the midst of it being more necessary and more visible than ever in most of our lifetimes, the truth that true communion, true Eucharist is us, all of us, together, bound together in battling these viruses, COVID-19 and Racism, as we are bound together by our God, a God that loves us, is with us, whether we ever share bread and wine ever again. We are really at a serious crossroads. The great desire to be together in order to receive bread and wine, has run head long into the real “communion” of this moment, the real “Eucharist” we are called to, being apart, for the virus, and being together on racism.


This blog is not about resisting the opening for change in the church and in our worship that is at our doorstep, but instead, that this hope also come with a plea, that we do not rush to the technical fixes, soothing our loss at the expense of a very serious theological, ecclesiastical, and communal conversation that we need to have. For whatever failures in those these pandemics have revealed to us, it has also surely revealed some of the shallowness in the things we cherish, shined a light on our priorities, our addictions, and our idolatries when it comes to our worship. I don’t know where we will arrive in that discussion. I actually don’t have a desire, or a hidden agenda, except one, that we have it....the discussion that is, and that we don’t miss the chance for it by simply answering the somewhat selfish call to “make everything right again.” I guess I am hoping to assert that everything was “not right” before, and we would do well to acknowledge some of that too.


If you told me that by agreeing to not partake of bread and wine, to not have baptismal fonts filled for the foreseeable future, that by agreeing to all of those, many less will die, and and we will come out, all of us, better at whatever “end” we might be able to discern some day, I would do it in a heartbeat, and it would be the sweetest communion I have ever partaken in. That is exactly the communion we have been offered this past 85 days. I, for one, am filled, thankful, and more than willing to keep sharing communion this way, so that this hope, for a better “end” might be true, and some new beginnings a real possibility.




10 Comments
Earl Beede
6/21/2020 06:01:49 pm

As a person who has worked on requirements for products for decades, I have learned that people generally have a really hard time asking for what they truly need. What they ask for is a fix. It is the job of the requirements professional to get past their fix to understand the true problem. In fact, the requirements worker often would toss aside the proffered solution. Users are often poor designers of things that actually meet their needs.

I think that is what is happening here. Unlike our God & Bible & Me fellow Christians, sacramental Christians have their sure and certain means of experiencing God through the sacraments. We use communal liturgy as an icon, a way to make meaning. This whole system of meaning-making has been ripped out by our need to physically separate. The historical image that best fits these times is not the disciples hiding in the upper room but of the destruction of the Temple.

So perhaps instead of thinking of the members of this sacramental community as idolators or addicts, think of them as normal humans who don’t know how to ask for what they need. The “fixes” offered are a clue that there is a problem that needs addressing. That problem, I would bet, is the need for the meaning-making that the sacraments provided. My hunch is that addressing that problem is probably more than individualistic self-denial. It calls for the leaders of the church to create meaning-making rituals so that a sacramental community in a diaspora can have a sure and certain means experiencing the relational God who is there all along.

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Judith Conley
6/21/2020 08:12:51 pm

Dear Bishop Rickel I am grateful to you for your candid and clear thoughts about who we are as a church. It is helpful and affirming to know there is so much more to ministry than Eucharist. As vital as it is to the Beloved Community, Love and caring for our neighbors is our primary call.

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Lisa Buck
6/21/2020 09:31:45 pm

Greg,
Thank you so much for this. It’s a perspective I hadn’t thought of. As much as I’ve been missing the soothing ritual and the sameness, the predictability, of communion, I appreciate the opportunity to think of it the way you have put it. And I think you’re right that we may need to have conversation about our sometimes smug attitude that we “know how to do church”!
Thanks for your insight.

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Scott Abraham
6/21/2020 10:23:05 pm

I must agree., Greg. I probably attend fifteen or so Episcopal masses each year, sing at most of them, and have found comfort and spiritual connection in the ritual, even if I cross my fingers at times, and of course, do not take communion. Having done so in my Catholic childhood, I understand the gravity of the ritual. I find myself in the strange position of missing real world masses. How weird. Gawd certainly has a sense of humor

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Mary Ferreira
6/22/2020 10:47:29 am

Good morning, Bishop Rickel.. Thank you for this perspective and wise words, which come after our virtual service. So glad you decided to stay as Bishop !

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Fr. Steve Petrica link
6/22/2020 07:24:28 pm

Our union, our oneness, absolutely require bread and wine to be complete -- or more precisely, Bread and Wine to be complete -- because it is the nature of a sacrament to effect what it symbolizes. Without the efficaciousness of sacramental grace, our union and oneness are essentially sentimental pieties, limited by our fallen humanity.

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Robert R Chapman
6/22/2020 10:48:59 pm

Why do we even have sacraments?

(I'm not going to answer this question.)

If an unbaptized person wishing to be baptized dies before baptism, we say that person has a baptism of desire. Yet, we still baptize people when we have the opportunity. Why do we bother?

If the sacrament is not necessary, why do people subject themselves to Commissions on Ministry and education in a formation process to ordination? Is it idolatrous to think that God only works through a bishop's hands? Is it idolatrous to set aside deacons, priests, and bishops? Isn't it idolatrous to maintain a priest acts in personae Christi?

I could ask similar questions on other sacraments or sacramental acts.

Rather than taking it from an idolatrous angle, I would think that instead we are being called into discerning why we are called into community of believers in the power of God with the structure we have. There is a reason why we do it. Sort through the theology, missiology, ecclesiology, and a the other ologies we've been talking about and see what shakes out. Let us call it the unexamined life and all that.

Two years ago I was on Hawai'i Island while Kilauea was still providing spectacular shows only 20 miles outside of Hilo, where I was staying. I saw this on a bumper sticker in a book store: "surrounding yourself with molten lava reminds you to stay calm and centered." We are surrounded by molten lava right now. What are we doing to make sure that we still true to our God, others, and ourselves? It isn't idolatry in our lives; it is an unexamined life that leads us to whine.

As a side note, I was on O'ahu last year on Corpus Christi. While I was shocked by some of the things in heard in a sermon (insulting to non-Christians and Altar Guide members of some parishes in the US--in the same sermon!), a good point I remember is that the priest said that there are Christians who visit that parish every year who live in a place where they cannot receive communion at all. They save their money so that they can take an annual trip somewhere, like Honolulu, where they can receive Communion.

Reply
Lorraine Mills-Curran link
6/24/2020 06:42:35 pm

Better said than anyone else I have read on this issue. Thank you. My heart has been troubled by this issue as well. And it has particular resonance for deacons. COVID has increased the pressure to morph us back into being cheap curates, in order to keep going on business as usual. God had not given us COVID, but God can redeem it (as he can redeem suffering of all kinds) if we use it for reflection on the variety of idolatries to which we are captive.

Reply
The Rev. Dr. Joyce Parry-Moore
7/7/2020 04:50:46 pm

Hi +Greg,
I hadn't read this post yet, when you pointed it out in your email today. My bad; I've been struggling very much to keep my head above water. Still, I now its frustrating for you to write and not be read; this happens to me too, and now I have more empathy for my parishioners who ask questions answered by my posts! That said, I'm totally with you on our many "idols" in this tradition being exposed. An unwillingness to adapt may lead to our downfall. And so it might. And. There is an opportunity now for us to address the idols we have made, not just of liturgy, of "tradition", but also of hierarchy, patriarchy and colonizing. I've thought this for a long time, and now I'm in the midst of confronting it in my own context.
The question that arises in our discussion is on of priestly authority: can others bless the elements? Or can pre-consecrated elements be delivered to homes? My response has thus far echoed yours: I believe we have other "fish to fry", in considering ways we can adapt to become more welcoming to our community, become more flexible in our words and music, in the way we view the value of human relationships. For me, the Eucharist is about the communion of our souls, of which bread and wine are an outward sign of a real, inward grace.
So I'm not asking you to rehash this discussion; or maybe I am. I know its a much broader discussion, and have said as much to my congregation. How are we to engage the questions?
thank you for being my Bishop during such challenging opportunities.
Yours in the struggle, Joyce+

Reply
Greg Rickel
7/7/2020 04:54:52 pm

No worries Joyce+. We cannot read everything and this discussion we will need to have, over and over, and again and again. Blessings,

Greg

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    The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel is the VIII Bishop of Olympia, the Episcopal Church in Western Washington State.  He has been the bishop here since September, 2007. 

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