Bishop Knisely Thanks RI Senate for Passing Marriage Equality Bill

I applaud the Rhode Island Senate for a courageous vote yesterday evening to pass the bill legalizing same-sex marriage, giving all Rhode Islanders equal right to the civil benefits of Marriage.  

I thank the Senate for passing a well balanced bill that I believe will protect the religious freedom of differing faiths with vastly different theological understandings of marriage. The constitution itself provides churches the right to decide who they will and will not marry within their denomination's conscience. 

Here in the Episcopal Church, a majority have come to believe that same-sex couples can live covenanted, faithful lives together in service to God, just as people in traditional marriages do.  Not all Episcopalians agree, but I thank the Senate for passing a bill that provides clergy who wish it the opportunity to minister in this way to the families and people in their congregations.

Friday 4/19 Evening Prayer with Bishop Knisely, for Boston Marathon Tragedy

The tragedy and heroism at the Boston Marathon on Monday held up to the people of New England the fragility of our common life, but also commended our spirit of resilience.

In the wake of this event, The Right Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely, Bishop of Rhode Island will be officiating Evening Prayer using the Book of Common Prayer's "An Order of Worship for the Evening" tomorrow, Friday April 19th at 7:00pm at St. Michael's Church in Bristol Rhode Island.

We welcome all to join us as we address the feelings, emotions, and thoughts that have been brought home at this time, and explore our response to the needs of the people of Boston.

We chose this service to allow prayer and reflection to be the centerpiece of that response, so that the Holy Spirit had room to guide us.

Come reflect, remember, mourn, and process the way to understanding, as well as our actions as the people of God.

The Death of The Rev. Hébert Winslow Bolles

The Rev. Hébert Winslow Bolles, 88, of 45 DeArruda Terrace, Portsmouth, RI, died peacefully at home, after a long illness, on April 6, 2013.  He was the husband of Elizabeth (Bambi) Sands Elliot. Hébert served as curate of St. Stephen’s Providence, then Chaplain to Brown and RISD students before he became rector of Ascension Wakefield, RI 1953-57.   He was called to be the Canon Pastor of Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis from 1957-62.  In 1962, Hébert returned to active duty as a Chaplain for the destroyer Squadron DESDIV 122 in Newport, RI, he served as Battalion Chaplain of the 2/26 Marines in Vietnam, 1966-67 and in 1968, he was stationed at NAS Norfolk, VA then at Argentia, Newfoundland, and finally served as the Senior Chaplain at NETC Newport, RI.  He retired from the Navy as a Captain in 1979. Hébert was a member of the RI Diocesan Standing Committee.  He was the Ecumenical Officer from 1984-89, and an instructor at the School for Deacons 1982-91, a ministry to which he was deeply committed.  Hébert served as interim of St. Paul's Portsmouth, St. Michael's Bristol and, later, was Vicar of St. Andrew's Little Compton (1989-94).  He was the Chaplain to Retired Clergy & Widows. 

Calling hours will be held at St. Columba’s Chapel, 55 Vaucluse Avenue, Middletown, RI on Friday, April 19, 2013 from 4-8 p.m.  His funeral will be held on Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 10 a.m. at Trinity Church, One Queen Anne Square, Newport, RI.  Burial will be private in St. Columba’s Churchyard.  In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in his memory to Saint Columba’s Chapel, 55 Vaucluse Ave. Middletown, RI 02842 or to the Wounded Warriors Project, PO BOX 758517, Topeka, KS 66675. 

Email at Diocesan House is Restored

Verizon has restored DSL internet service to the North Main Street area, so we are now fully back online!

Verizon Outage: Office Internet & Email is Down!

Verizon DSL service is down for 24-48 hours in Providence's North Main Street area, where our diocesan offices are located.  If you need to reach someone at the diocesan house please call us instead of emailing us, our number is 401-274-4500. Our email server cannot receive or send email until Verizon restores internet service.

We're not entirely offline though, a few of us will be working from smartphones, G4 iPads, or home offices until internet is restored. We can still be reached via our facebook or twitter accounts. Isn't technology wonderful (when it works)?

We're sorry for the difficulties! Verizon assures us they will have service back up as soon as possible. In the mean time thank you for bearing with us.

-Ruth Meteer, Communications Director

New Brown/RISD Campus Minister Announced

This week in a letter to parishioners, S. Stephen's, Providence announced the appointment of the Rev’d Blake A. Sawicky as their new Curate. This is also exciting news for the diocese as Fr. Sawicky will serve as the Diocesan Episcopal Campus Minister to Brown University and RISD as well.

Since June 2011, Fr. Sawicky has served as Curate at the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John in Denver, Colorado. He is a graduate of Yale Divinity School [M.Div., 2011] with a Diploma in Anglican Studies from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. He also holds degrees from University College, London, in Maritime Archeology [M.A., 2007], and Wheaton College, Illinois, in History and Ancient Near Eastern Archeology [B.A., 2006].

Fr. Sawicky writes: “I sing and play the piano, and enjoy fly fishing, hiking, SCUBA diving, art, music, literature. I enjoy volunteering with various service organizations, which have included the Red Cross, World Relief, Habitat for Humanity, and others. I am also a member of the Guild of All Souls, and I currently sit on the Colorado State Board of Medical Examiners.”

Ft. John Alexander, rector of S. Stephens writes "Fr. Sawicky’s appointment is very good news for S. Stephen’s and the Episcopal community at Brown and RISD. I know you will all join me in doing everything possible to make him welcome."

Fr. Sawicky will begin his new ministry at S. Stephen’s on June 1, 2013.

Lenten Bible Study, Easter Day; Acts 28

Acts, Chapter 28 (NRSV)

If this morning was a bit warmer, I would be sitting here, watching the sunrise over the water of Wickford harbor with my windows open. And if the wind were just right, I believe I would be able to hear the hymns of Easter praise carried from the sunrise service at Old St. Paul's church. We have been journeying together for the forty days of Lent and the seven days of Holy Week. And today we have arrived at the shore.

In the final chapter of the Book of Acts, Paul too arrives at his final destination. He arrives on the shore of Malta, coming out of the waters of the surf, just as God had promised him. He finds help among the people of that island and eventually makes his way aboard another ship, makes for the coast of Italy and sails north along it. After a few more ports he arrives in Rome. The whole action of the latter part of Acts has found its conclusion in these verses. When Luke abruptly ends the story, Paul has spent two years (which is six months longer than the statue of limitations on his arrest) preaching and teaching about the Way in the City.

The greek language does a much more efficient job of communicating the nature of action than English does. There are more tenses of verbs used in Greek than in modern English and this allows a single word to communicate with more nuance than we are used to reading. Luke does just this sort of thing when he writes in verse 14 "so we came to Rome" and then again in verse 16 essentially the same. This difference is that in the 14th verse Luke uses the imperfect tense, which indicates an action that is ongoing but not completed. In the 16th verse Luke uses the aorist, which signals the full past tense. If you like reading detailed textual studies of manuscripts you can see that the scribes who copied these manuscripts down through history were a little bothered by the strange use of the imperfect in verse 14. Even modern translators aren't quite sure what to do about it. The best scholars think that Luke means to say by the use of that odd tense that he, Paul and the others had arrived in the districts that were under Rome's administrative control. The Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns is still about 34 miles from what we today would call Rome. They arrived in the Roman countryside, but not yet the City itself. And that understanding makes sense to me, at least as we read the text in a historical way.

But I'm rather taken this Easter morning by the two part of arrival at the final destination as a symbol of our own voyage. We too have arrived this morning at Easter, but we do so imperfectly. We are here, but we are not finished with our journey. We are baptized, but we are still wandering in the wilderness. We are proclaiming the Resurrection and the end of the power of death, but we still watch our loved ones die. The Kingdom is breaking in upon us, but it has not yet fully been revealed. Today is Easter Day in the imperfect tense.

We have truly arrived, but we have not completed our journey. There are a few more verses and perhaps, like for Paul, a few more years yet to go for all of us. This yearly pilgrimage through Lent toward Easter is a symbol that we are still travelers on the Way. We have arrived at the outskirts, but there is still more to come.

If you ever have had the chance to read C.S. Lewis' book "The Final Battle", the last of the Narnia books, you might recognize this idea. In Lewis' book, even after the world of Narnia has come to its judgement and end, the people of God are not yet done with their journey to the promised places. They must still go higher up and deeper into the new land they have found.

Those two verses in the final chapter of Acts, with the odd grammatical construction, seem to me the most fitting focus for our thoughts this Easter morn.

I pray God's fullest and richest blessing on you and those you love as you journey onward from this place. Go well!

 

+Nicholas

Easter Day 2013

Lenten Bible Study, Holy Saturday; Acts 27

Acts, Chapter 27 (NRSV)

Sitting here at my desk, watching the sun rise over Narragansett bay, I find myself struggling to not get caught up in the eyewitness details of Paul's final sea voyage. The language and images are very familiar. A ship, caught in the teeth of a winter nor'easter, begins to break apart in the heavy waves. Cargo and tackle are thrown overboard, sea anchors are dropped and soundings taken. All details that anyone here in the Ocean State would recognize. But this is more than a sea adventure. This is an allegory about the Church and a proof of God's power that is particularly resonant on this Holy Saturday morning.

To the ancient Israelites the sea represented the forces of chaos. The sea's protean surface recalled the state of the cosmos before God began to order Creation and the story of God's people began. The psalms sing of God's power in setting the sea within bounds that it could not escape. The people of Israel were desert people and as such they had little interest in sailing and treated all water with respect, awe and a little fear. (We hear echoes of this in the language of early Church that describes baptism as a drowning and a death in the waters of chaos.) To the gentile nations along the Mediterranean coasts the sea was their highway, but it was mercurial and could turn in an instant on anyone - particularly on anyone who angered the gods.

Sea voyages were fraught with the interference of the gods. It was customary to sacrifice to the gods before the voyage began and during the voyage the crew and passengers were all very intentional in avoiding an behavior that might anger a god. At best it was hoped the gods would not notice the people pushing out into deep water because if they did they might unleash the winds and send a great storm to destroy the boat that represented the traveler's island of safety. Just as we read in the story of Jonah, when sailors discovered that a particular person on board a ship had angered a god, they felt no remorse in heaving that person overboard to suffer the god's wrath directly.

In the early church the symbol of the Church was the boat. The story of Noah and his safe passage in the ark while the created order was being destroyed by the rising force of the waters of chaos was read as an allegory of the Church that brought the faithful safely to the new Creation that God inaugurated on Easter Day. Isn't it striking that we still call the main hall of a church building the "nave", a word which comes the latin word from ship "navis"?

When you read the details of this sea voyage in that light, there's much more here than just a grain ship, carrying prisoners to Rome, being destroyed by an winter gale. Paul proclaims that this particular storm represents no judgement on the part of God, just a poor judgment on the part of the ship's owner. And the God who Paul proclaims is going to intervene to save all the people on board the ship. It's proof that this God has power over chaos, is greater than the pagan lord of the sea, and is actively protecting Paul and his companions. To the pagan cultures of Paul's time, this would have spoken volumes.

But look also at the how God uses the ship in the story. The ship carries the whole company through the storm though it is scoured by the wind and the waves, loses much of its cargo and tackle and in the very end breaks apart just before they find a safe shore. I'm rather taken by the image of the jettisoning of anything superfluous as the ship tries to hold together in the nor'easter. There doesn't seem to be much reluctance on the part of the ship's crew to get rid of anything that wasn't helping. Paul spoke to them all in the midst of the storm with a promise from God that no one would be lost. But the ship would not be saved. Yet it played its appointed role in bringing people to safety.

What parallels are there for us in this tale and our present experience of the Church this Holy Saturday morning? I expect that you are recognizing many. God has promised that we all would be saved, and we try to trust in that promise in the midst of great storms. We too are being asked what we need to lose to be able to keep moving forward toward our goal. We too are being told we must eat the food that gives us strength to see our voyage through to the end. We too have heard an angelic message. And there are so many more…

On Good Friday the church naves were stripped and bare. The storm broke upon us. This morning we awake to gray skies and silence. We are reduced to the essentials needed for our journey. But the shore is in sight. We need to make our way through the surf, through the water to reach the goal.

Keep all this in your mind tonight if you attend an Easter Vigil. Listen and remember the role the water plays in the stories. Watch the light come into the darkness. And find the shore underneath your feet even as you are dripping from the holy water of baptism.

Lenten Bible Study, Good Friday; Acts 26

Acts, Chapter 26 (NRSV)

In this, the final of Paul's defenses of his ministry, there are some additional details added to his recounting of the events on the road to Damascus where he had his vision of Jesus. In a few places in this account, Paul intensifies the language he uses to tell what happened. The light he saw for instance is "brighter than the sun". "We all fell to the ground" is a slightly different version than what we read in the first account back in chapter 9 of this book where it is reported that the companions hear the voice but it is not mentioned that they fall to the ground or see the light. The main story is not changed, but it is more dramatically told.

But the most interesting addition to the account is Paul's inclusion of the phrase that he hears Jesus using, "Why do you kick against the goads?" That phrase, commonly found in classical literature (Aeschylus and Pindar for example), was how one described what it was like to resist the will of the gods. Paul's use of it, which was probably intentional, resonated with the audience before whom he was speaking. Prior to this vision Paul had been an observant Pharisee and had persecuted the Christian believers. Having heard the voice of God from heaven, he changed his beliefs and his direction. It's exactly how the Hellenistic world would expect a man to respond to the urging of his god. And Paul's experiences preaching the Gospel of Jesus served to verify to his hearers that this was an authentic encounter with the divine.

It is interesting that Paul uses this classical phrase to describe his experience of conversion. He was pushing against the will of God and was experiencing pain as a result. But notice that the pain is not caused by God directly, it's caused by Paul refusing to embrace the purpose for which he was created. Because he would not be true to God's purpose for him, he was cutting himself off from the Truth and from the profound Joy which we experience when we follow the Truth. God's response to this stubborn refusal is not to smite Paul or to curse him in anyway. Actually it's rather the contrary isn't it? Paul is free and has the approval of all while he is actively persecuting the Church. It's only when he seeks to serve Christ that he experiences opposition and personal persecution from his community. It's because he has turned to follow Christ that his is standing in court bound in chains. But Paul understands the difference between the appearance of freedom and true freedom. And it is the true freedom, even while bound that he is attempting to explain to Agrippa and to Festus. And it is this freedom that will take him to Rome and to his death.

Today, Good Friday, we hear how Jesus was bound and taken to his death just outside the gates of Jerusalem. We, like Paul, in rejecting the Messiah, cause God not to smite us, but instead to suffer. God's response to our rejection, like to Paul's, is an intensification of God's love toward us. Jesus, in way no one else ever has, embraces God's will completely in the moment of Good Friday, as hard and mysterious a thing it is for us to understand what that means.

How are we feeling pain in our own lives right now? What is the cause of that pain? Are we too kicking against the goads? Are we resisting God's purpose for our lives? Thanks be to God that very few of us are ultimately called to suffer the same fate that befell Paul or Jesus, and we don't have to fear that sort of end. But how willing are we to rethink where we are in our lives and return to God's purpose for us? Are we willing to find our own unique vocation?

Lenten Bible Study, Maundy Thursday; Acts 25

Acts, Chapter 25 (NRSV)

Paul gives five formal defenses of himself and his actions in the Book of Acts. Today we read the fourth one which is the shortest of the five. By this point you should be recognizing many of the points that Paul makes. He, and the movement of which he is a part is no threat to the civil authorities. He is being accused by people who are disputing with him over particular points of what he claims as their shared religion. Paul is working out of a tradition in the Roman Empire that the State was very reluctant to be drawn into religious disputes internal to the conquered lands. This was a practical stance because the civil authorities sent from Rome could hardly be expected to have enough knowledge to rule wisely in such cases. And bad rulings led to more disturbance of the peace. (And that was bad for Roman business.)

The point being made in this chapter was that Festus thought this conflict was over one issue and discovered it was about something else entirely. The civil realm was unable to understand what was happening in the religious realm unless time was taken and an effort made to learn about the teachings of the faith.

There's a surprising resonance between this moment in the history of the Early Church and the situation in the United States right now. Much of the major conflict in society has to do with the places where the secular world and the religious world are in opposition. The secular world uses scientism as the primary source of its thought and the religious world doesn't. You can see this in operation in the present disputes between the pro-life and pro-choice (which is at its heart an argument over when life begins), in the dispute between evolutionists, creationists and adherents of intelligent design, and in the arguments over the rights of people attracted to others of the same gender and people who find themselves to be transgender. Scientific thought in this day says one thing, religious thought in this day says another in many cases, and the civil authorities are being drawn into the dispute between competing views. The problem, speaking as a scientist and theologian, is that most of the civil authorities don't know enough about either science or theology to be able to judge when good claims are being made by one or both and when they are being used badly.

Stirring the present volatile mix is the decreasing effectiveness of the media in informing society about the basic issues being disputed. The business models of the media are in a moment of rapid change and much of the institutional press is no longer viable. Religion reporters who are trained in religious teachings are very rare. Scientific reporting tends to the sensational. The civil authorities, locked in a moment of deep struggle to gain a definitive advantage over one and another, are not well-served by either.

Paul was facing death because the civil authorities who were trying his case simply didn't know enough about the Way to be able to judge well. Generally Rome would not be drawn into such a dispute. The Founders of this country took a book from that page when they passed the first amendment in our Bill of Rights. But there were times and there are times when the civil authority of a nation must act in such a dispute between differing beliefs. It becomes imperative for them to be informed. But who shall inform them?

In Paul's case, that responsibility fell to Paul. In our day, I wonder if it doesn't also fall to us. We have the resource of an active and well read laity. We have the resource of highly educated clergy. We live in a moment when we can very easily communicate with thousands of people whenever we want to. Who is there better suited or resourced to speak to the world about our faith today than us?

How willing are you to do that? How confident are you in doing that? What would you have to change in your life so that you would be more confident? I am so grateful that you've been faithful in this Lenten Journey this year. Reading the Bible, reflecting on the meaning of the words in their original and present context is the place to begin. Allowing God's Word to form you and the Spirit to transform you is the necessary step to begin this task. Look at how Paul was formed and transformed…