A Sermon for Proper 11B following the 76^th General Convention of The Episcopal Church

 

You are members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.  In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord;  in whom you are also built together spiritually. (Ephesians 2:19b-22)

The theme of the 76^th General Convention from which I’ve just returned was Ubuntu .  Ubuntu  is an African word which, roughly translated, means, “I am because we are” or as the General Convention logo said,   “I in you and you in me.”  Ubuntu  means that humans do not come into being alone;  we each are who we are only because of each other;   we become individuals only in community with one another;  we live in radical interconnectedness with one another.  

Christians affirm that our radical interconnectedness in Christ happens in our shared baptism.  The Letter to the Ephesians uses the image of a building to portray this connection in Christ:

You are members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.  In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord;  in whom you are also built together spiritually.

That all sounds wonderful, beautiful and true – and it is.  But the rhetoric is also a bit high-flown, as is typical of the style of the Letter to the Ephesians; it needs grounding in real life.  

That grounding happens at every General Convention of The Episcopal Church.  At General Convention, you experience Ubuntu,  radical interconnectedness in Christ of in the flesh, on a daily basis --  seeing old friends & making new ones;  putting faces to names you have known only as text on a computer screen;  singing harmony on hymns familiar and new with people from across the whole Church; praying the Lord’s Prayer in several languages at once; receiving Communion by name from people you have never met but who have looked at your badge before saying, “Jack, The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven” --  all among the several thousand people gathered for Eucharist each day.  

What’s more, you discover that the connectedness in Christ you experience in that gathered body extends far beyond the Convention Center, restaurants and hotel bars where so much of it takes place.  Often, it leads right back to your home congregation.  So let me share a few of my experiences of General Convention Ubuntu .  More than one of them has to do with you.  

Ubuntu  began for me before I left for Anaheim as I worked on-line with a Deputy from the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas on a resolution requiring transparency in the membership of Church boards and committees.  Katie and I had never met, though I’d read her words on-line and suspect she might have known me that way, too.  We joined in this work through a shared passion for the topic, connection via mutual friends and the gift of the Internet.  

We met for the first time in person only after we’d each spoken to our resolution on the floor of the House of Deputies and had seen each others’ faces projected on the jumbotron screens in the front of the Hall.  After the resolution passed, I sought her out among the 800 plus Deputies and we gave one another a congratulatory hug.  The work we did together is now part of the ongoing life of The Episcopal Church, and it just might affect what some Bishop, vestry or Church-wide Commission does in New York or Ohio or Texas or California or Ecuador or Germany in years to come.  Interconnectedness in resolution drafting and lasting effect: Ubuntu  in action.

A few days later, the Legislative Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music on which I served heard two hours of testimony concerning blessings of same-sex committed relationships.  One of the last people to speak was a priest who had been one of the Episcopal Chaplains at Yale during my college years.  Rick had re-welcomed me to The Episcopal Church when I was a young adult and had became one of my mentors.  I am a priest in no small part because of him. What I learned from him about worship and community continues to shape my approach to liturgy, including here at St. Francis.  For instance, much what some of you experienced in the Holy Week Liturgies this year developed from what I experienced under Rick’s leadership as a college student.  And now my mentor was testifying before a Committee on Liturgy that I had been appointed to because of the path that he and his colleague had set me on over 30 years ago.  

Listening to Rick speak, I heard not only a familiar voice, humor and brilliance, but the same passionate desire to create a worshipping community that will bring new people into the life of the Church that brought me in as a college student and that remains central to my living of priesthood to this day.  Ubuntu, connectedness in Christ, in formation and vocation.

Then there was the day a seminary friend I hadn’t seen in years called out in the food court at lunch time, “Chaplain Zamboni; Chaplain Zamboni!”  Reid was recalling the time when, in Clinical Pastoral training, the page operator had mispronounced my name to hundreds of people over the intercom at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan.  

But there was more that connected Reid and me than a decades’ old joke.  I had started studies at the General Theological Seminary without the support of a Diocese --  which is essential if you are ever going to be ordained.  My original home diocese of Massachusetts had told me in no uncertain terms that they weren’t interested in ordaining me – so during my first year General Seminary, I needed to find a priest and parish in another Diocese willing to take in an ecclesiastical orphan.  Reid, a year ahead of me, introduced me to Vincent Pettit, then Rector of Trinity Church, Cranford (where, by the way, our Elma has connections) and later the Suffragan Bishop of our Diocese, with whom Reid had done his field work the prior year.  Vince took me under his wing and in time I became a priest of the Diocese of New Jersey --  which in time led to me becoming your priest at St. Francis.  Reid had also testified at the committee hearing, just before my mentor Rick.  There were two people of immense importance in the shaping of my vocation as a priest.  That interconnectedness in Christ, that Ubuntu, helped lead me here to join in ministry with you.

Towards the end of our time in Anaheim, a gathering for anyone at General Convention from our Diocese was held in our Deputation Chair’s hotel suite.  It was a bitter-sweet time.  Earlier that day General Convention had approved a drastically reduced budget for The Episcopal Church’s ministry for the next three years.  Among other major cuts, over thirty staff positions at The Episcopal Church Center in New York and its satellite offices nationwide were eliminated, including two held by priests from our Diocese.  

 Jayne [Oasin] and Terry [Martin] were at the gathering, as was Bishop Councell, who had served on the Program, Budget and Finance Committee that had finalized  the budget General Convention adopted.  He was partly responsible – as were we all who had voted on the budget – for putting our friends and colleagues out of work.  We were all grateful to be there together;  Jayne, Terry and the Bishop spoke to each other with understanding and care.  Still, the connectedness of Ubuntu can sometimes be painful.  We are connected in the cross of Christ as well as his resurrection.  

There was another, more joyful, connection for me that night.  Present also were St. Francis’ own Lisa, Waring and Benjamin Webb.  Lisa was at General Convention all two weeks as part of the Media staff for The Episcopal Church.  Her family came to join her the for the second week, and Waring and Benjamin spent a lot of time at Disneyland.  

Little Benjamin found the crowded hotel room a bit overwhelming, though he seemed to recognize Fr. Jack (without robe or collar) among all the big, noisy people.  He decided it would be a good idea to spend much of his time out into the hall, so he, Lisa and I had great fun playing peek-a-boo at the suite door until he was ready to get to bed.  Ubuntu  across the generations and the miles; from Anaheim to Dunellen.

A final Ubuntu  story.  One night after an evening meeting, I was having a drink and a late dinner in the hotel bar with two colleagues from my Committee.  One of their friends stopped by and joined us.  When they introduced us, David said,   “Oh Jack, I’ve been wanting to meet you.”  He’d seen my email signature on-line which includes my address here at St. Francis -- and he had something to tell me about our Church. 

David has visited St. Francis from his native Virginia, for he has a family connection here.  It turns out that David Mallery’s grandfather was a priest, and for many years was Rector of St. Andrew’s, Plainfield, one of our ancestor parishes.  His wife had died young, and he had never remarried.  The grieving priest had given St. Andrew’s a stained-glass window in remembrance of his beloved wife.  That window, David told me, now sits above our Altar.  I sit beneath it; you look at it, each and every Sunday.  Ubuntu, connectedness in Christ, with this parish, our history and the communion of saints, living and dead, discovered in a hotel bar 3,000 miles from here.

At the final session of the House of Deputies on Friday, our President, Bonnie Anderson, reminded us that all in the Church are connected in Christ in Baptism.  This is Ubuntu, Bonnie said.  This is what Ephesians means in saying that In Christ the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple on the Lord;  in whom you are also built together spiritually.   This is what we mean in the Creed we will say shortly: that we believe in one, holy, catholic – that is, universal – and apostolic church.  

Those of us who have the privilege of going to General Convention get a chance to experience this Ubuntu connectedness in a powerful way.  But I hope you have heard this morning how this connectedness extends far beyond that two-week gathering, embracing all the baptized, wherever we may be, including, in very particular ways, this congregation of St. Francis.  Ubuntu  is the truth of who we are as Church.  We are connected in Christ in ways big and small;  we are one in Christ across time and space, even across the boundary of death.  We are connected.  Ubuntu is our life;  Christ is our bond.

Thanks be to God.  

The Rev. Jack Zamboni, July 19^th, 2009