Yesterday, after services, I quipped to Hubby: “New Hampshire’s a small state; maybe they only need a small bishop.”
The reference was, of course, to the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, and if you’re reading this blog, you know who he is. Hubby’s rector, it turns out, is an old friend of this bishop whose public stature is very large indeed. Since he was preaching yesterday — but not officiating; perhaps a division of labor given there were two services, but odd nonetheless — I tagged along. Yes, there was a full house, apart from the two videographers, two photographers, and one reporter I saw.
The sermon was on thankfulness and was satisfatory, even if the Bish did preach it from the floor in front of the chancel, rather than in the raised pulpit. I wanted a merely ordinary and satisfactory sermon because the alternative would have to do with something more critical and for him, personal: the forthcoming Eames Commission report qua Lambeth Commission report qua Windsor report. I didn’t want to roll in what might-could be a culture war for the Episcopal church. Blue parishes and red parishes, anyone? We’ll know more in a week’s time when the report comes out.
Hubby is a member of a very blue parish, but since I’m in the bluest of all denominations, there’s no room for finger pointing. But I did wear a Save the Children necktie littered with stars and moons because I guessed (correctly) that the super-groovy yet strangely scolding Eucharistic Prayer C, aka the Star Wars Prayer, would be used.
The offending portion:
At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of
interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses,
and this fragile earth, our island home.
But such things — even for Episcopalians, disregarding a smarmy Universalist — are a matter of taste and opinion, but the issues brewing within the Anglican Communion have devoled into battle-lines and could seriously disrupt life in the Episcopal Church. For Hubby’s sake (and Mrs. Philocrites and others) I would pray that not be so. But I’m not hopeful.
Since forwarned is forarmed and all that, the Commission’s mandate is at the bottom of this page.