Rector’s Reflection – Pentecost C
May 23, 2010

I was the first female lay reader (aka lector) at our church in Montgomery. My first opportunity to read was at the Great Vigil of Easter; I was to read the first (and long) reading from Genesis. I rehearsed that passage over and over because I didn’t want to mess it up. After all, the future of ALL female lectors throughout the universe rested on ME (not really)... I just didn’t want to look unprepared. The Vigil went well.

My next scheduled reading was Pentecost... the reading from Acts. Make that the dreaded reading from Acts, dreaded because it contains some tough names: “... Parthians... Elamites... Cappadocia... Phrygia and Pamphylia...”

Performance anxiety kicked in again, so I read and re-read the passage aloud until I was certain I was prepared for Sunday. Practice works! I nailed all the names... except for Asia, which in my desire to enunciate clearly, came out AH-SEE-AH. Talk about making things harder than they had to be...

This wonderful Pentecost passage – even with its difficult names – records the broadening of the church as the disheveled band of eleven was, all of a sudden, filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke – miraculously – so that everyone understood. The same crowds that, just seven weeks earlier, had stood and mocked Jesus, were now standing in awe.

As you read through the Acts of the Apostles, you learn about how (and how quickly) the church spread in those early days. The one thing that brought this diverse group together was, quite simply, belief in Jesus Christ. Remember last week’s question from the stunned jailer to Paul, “...‘what must I do to be saved?’” And the response, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved...”

From its very earliest days, the church of Jesus Christ has reached out to everyone and has included everyone who believes “on the Lord Jesus.” Now before anyone points out human obstacles that, from time to time through the centuries, tried to make membership in the Body of Christ more tortuous than a fraternity initiation, those obstacles were of human origin. There will always be institutions and people who want to make things harder than they need to be (see AHSEE-AH) but confessing Jesus as Lord is what counts.

I say all this because, for one thing, I think it’s important to point out that Jesus-centered inclusivity has always been a part of the church, and for another, some kinds of inclusivity can be counterproductive. The recent consecration of Bishop Mary Glasspool included pagan rituals, ancestor worship, and a whole host of other things that would make the framers of the BCP roll over in their graves. Admittedly, the rubrics don’t forbid a Native American smudging ceremony... it’s just that the rubrics never could have anticipated that happening.

One of the things that has rankled a whole lot of Episcopalians over the last decade or so is this sort of inclusion (in my more acerbic moments, I wonder whether it is pandering) and a move towards a relativism that would put ALL belief systems on the same level. As I have said over and over, the inclusivity of the Christian church is rooted in the particularity of Jesus Christ. Believers in Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the life are who we are. No one else in all of history has done what God has done in Christ Jesus, our Lord. All are welcome to join us in this belief, and no one who chooses a different path is condemned. My brothers and sisters, a muddled message has no value for salvation. My fear is that we may be including ourselves to death.