A Day of Justice - Mostly

From the Chaplain

"Do you remember Hezekiah," the chaplain asks? Hezekiah was a fairly good king of Judea: built the water tunnel into the city that among other things allowed the revolts against Rome, centuries later, to last longer than they might have; he also repaired the temple and restored the Passover feast. Perhaps more importantly, he got on reasonably well with the prophet Isaiah -- no easy task. Despite a solid reign of 29 years, he is perhaps best known for a incredibly selfish act late in his life. Isaiah came to him and said that after his death, the country would fall to the Babylonians, his descendants and the people would be carried off and the country laid waste.

Hezekiah's response was, "the word of the Lord is good." As long as he enjoyed peace and prosperity and the comforts of his kingship while he lived, there was no need to be concerned about the future or to attempt any course of action that might change the prophesy. The chaplain continued, "we must not commit such a selfish act and refuse to do the hard work still ahead for this convention; we must not seek the comfort of a false peace and leave for others to do what God has placed in front of us to do now." The chaplain concludes, "Good Lord deliver us."

Wednesday's legislation

A very productive legislative day, very long, but with a heavy yield. Here's a sample:

• A177 - Health Plan: a phased in, mandatory health plan for church employees
• A138 - Lay Pension Plan: a mandatory pension plan for lay church employs (clergy have been covered for some time)

These two new requirements will be hard on smaller parishes and will almost certainly require significant reorganization, but the social justice demands of ensuring that our people are properly provided for require it.

• DO12 - Transgender equality in the church's discernment process for ordination - some of the most emotional testimony of the day
• AO167 - Human Trafficking- strong language denouncing the multi-billion dollar sex slave trade IN THIS COUNTRY. Church will pressure governments to do more. Nothing is more stomach turning than to hear the stories of human slave trading. Slave traders are said to get $250k+ per transaction.
• MDG - an effort to increase from the heretofore .07% to 1% of church revenues, at every level, for world mission programs in several targeted ways.
• Budget - joint session with the bishops to receive the budget and hear an initial presentation. Both Houses take up the budget in this morning's sessions.
• CO56 - and over in the House of Bishops, CO56 emerged in slightly different form than that submitted by committee. In traditional 'church-speak' it provides bishops with local option on same-sex blessings. The House of Deputies will take it up later today.
  

Not all the legislation was good

BO27 -- Palestinian-Israel Issue - a very lopsided, pro-Palestinian resolution was adopted. The preamble appears even-handed, but as the resolution works to its punch lines, it's clear that the Palestinian agenda is applauded without regard for Israel's security. When I asked a member of the committee how this could have happened, he replied, "we heard compelling testimony from Palestinian Christians."

"Did you hear from any Jews or representatives of the State of Israel?" I inquired.

"No," he said.

This resolution is not a just action on the part of the Episcopal Church and I spoke and voted against it.

And despite pages of budget details, very little on our most pressing problem - growth. It is really quite amazing when you think about it - days and days of serious legislative effort, weighty speeches on dozens of important issues facing the church and the planet and almost nothing about what everyone knows is the 'elephant in the room' a shrinking membership and a declining budget.

The old expression about re-arranging the deck chairs . . . comes to mind.

Be gentle with us on our re-entry

When our deputation returns to San Diego, don't be alarmed if you hear us respond to everything with letters and numbers - BO33, DO25, AO167, CO56, XOO9. We have simply lost the ability to process without connecting to the Dispatch of Business' coding system. And if in the middle of your sentence, we 'move the previous question' just reply with 'your motion is in order, Deputy' and then go on with what you were saying.

Abraham's Blessing

At the close of a presentation by several ecumenical visitors, three vested cantor's: a Jew, a Muslim and an Episcopal priest, approached the podium and each in the music idiom of his tradition pronounced/sang a blessing and then the three joined and while continuing to sing in the tradition of their separate faiths, they sang together the traditional Abrahamic blessing - "May God bless you and keep you . . ."

It was as moving a moment as any at the convention.

by Jim Greer