At the heart of this will be the indaba groups. Indaba is a Zulu word describing a meeting for purposeful discussion among equals. Its aim is not to negotiate a formula that will keep everyone happy but to go to the heart of an issue and find what the true challenges are before seeking God’s way forward.
Dr. Schori, Presiding Individual of the Episcopal ecclesial organization, was delighted to hear this, saying "I don't expect legislation at Lambeth. That's not why we're going... It's a global conversation... It's not going to make a final decision about anything." No, rather than resolving issues or addressing the crisis in the Anglican Communion, the indaba groups allow for friendly chit-chat over tea and cookies. As Schori says, they "are really about 'hanging out' with people you don't know, getting to know others as incarnate images of God -- an opportunity to meet the other in a way that's flesh rather than the discarnate communication we engage in on the internet." If you get to use that many liberal buzz-words describing it, it has got to be a good thing, eh?
So this got me to wondering... what would Christianity have looked like if it had been burdened from the get-go with failed leaders like Williams and Schori ... bishops (and pretend bishops) who wouldn't stand up for Scripture, revelation or God's will, but instead played nicey-nice all the time, substituting procedure for substance and "conversation" for action... and refused to make any statement except the hedging bare-minimum to which everyone could agree?
What if, in short, the early Church had had indaba groups rather than Ecumenical Councils?
And so I bring you -- recently discovered in a papyrus cache of ecclesial documents from an alternate universe -- the press release from Lambeth 381, where indaba groups were formed to discuss the Arian crisis which had rocked the Church for the past few generations. Apparently the church in this alternate universe had vanished by the year 410, so this was a fortuitous discovery.
Lambeth Palace, Constantinople, year of our Lord 381
We, the assembled bishops of the Empire, greet you from our lovely capital of Constantinople. We would like to thank Emperor Theodosius for his gracious hospitality in making this venue available to us, as well as all those whose hard work has enabled this conference to proceed so smoothly, especially the Pneumatomachi Brethren Catering Service, whose daily luncheons we have all greatly enjoyed.
This Council has provided us with a wonderful opportunity to meet with each other face-to-face, hearing perspectives from the various cultures throughout the Empire and having incarnate conversations rather than conferring through epistles circulated by the Imperial post. Truly, it is only in such personal encounters that we can come to understand and appreciate the breadth of cultural and theological diversity with which our Lord has blessed the Church.
We have listened with concern to our brethren from Dacia and Thracia about the raids from the Goths, and to accounts from our brethren in Persarminea concerning continued military incursions from the Persian Empire along its borders. We have commended the creation of an Indigenous Peoples Study Group to examine how we, as bishops, might help our congregations react with more dialog and cultural sensitivity to these incidents of rapine, pillaging, and murder. We confess our culpability as Greco-Romans for being ultimately responsible for all intolerance and insensitivity because of our historic guilt through cultural descent from the militant, patriarchal Mycenaean invaders of a once-peaceful agrarian civilization.
Much of our Conference's time, however, was spent examining the recent disagreements caused by the hetero-ousiasts which have torn the fabric of our communion and strained our bonds of affection. Many have, no doubt, heard the public addresses given outside the hippodrome by Apollinarus of Laodicia and others during our Conference, which touched on these issues.
Striving to celebrate our similarities rather than to aggravate our differences, we daily received the Eucharist together and then met in indaba groups so that, in an atmosphere of prayer and "radical conversation", we could go to the heart of the issue and truly discern the common unity transcending our disagreements. We recognize that, coming from different cultures and provinces, each with our own perspectives and social concerns, we each bring something valuable and unique to our conversations, and that it is only through such synergistic engagement that we can perceive the new thing the Spirit is doing.
Thanks to the facilitators, official listeners, and imperial guards, our indaba groups were able to articulate the common mind of the assembled bishops. Rather than attempting to legislate an exclusive formula or symbol that might divide us, we have, through conversation and encounter, drawn up a creedal statement which all may affirm, for it articulates our common ground and so excludes no one.
We commend this statement, to replace the draft proposed at Nicaea, as a triumphal inclusive profession of a shared faith in all our communities, and we view it as a monument to the power of the indaba method which allows us to maintain unity and celebrate our commonalities even while courteously recognizing and respecting our various differences.
I believe in one God, the Father almighty
Maker of heaven and possibly of earth,
And of all things visible and invisible,
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
An at-least-titular son of God, born of (or expressed or created by) the Father at some point, (since we all agree there was a when when he apparently was,)
Illumination of light, truly godly of true God,
Begotten, made, produced, presented, or otherwise generated in some way at some point.
Possibly consubstantial with, or of like substance, or kinda similar to, or looking sorta like the Father... well, okay, not exactly looking, but a bit reminiscent of at any rate... at least from some points of view. Maybe.
By whom all things were made. Well, most things. Some of them anyway. We think. Probably.
Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven. A heaven at any rate. Well, at least part of him did. Seemed to anyway.
And was incarnate (possibly) by the power of the Holy Ghost (whatever that is) and of the Virgin Mary and was made man. Apparently. Sure fooled a lot of people anyway.
And seemed (at least) to be crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
Perhaps suffered (looked that way anyhow... at least, if that really was him, or at least the man-part of him, on the cross. Which it might not have been. You never know) and was buried.
And on the third day rose again in accordance with the Scriptures (if they are Scriptures... a bunch of old scrolls anyway) and ascended (or was absorbed back) into heaven. (Part of him did anyhow. We think.)
And sitteth, at least metaphorically, on the right hand of the Father (whom he may or may not be like).
And may come again... at which point some stuff will happen. Probably.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, about which a variety of opinions are permissible.
And in at least one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess a baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
Of course, I could be wrong about all this. But that's okay, because I promise to always engage in conversation and be sensitive to other perspectives, and to hold indaba sessions on a regular basis with those of other cultures or perspectives (like Goths or Persians) with whom I happen to disagree... so help me some god or other.
Shalom.
Thus, in celebration of Dr. Schori's so-called "Easter Message 2008" -- and in the spirit of the "Propers for St. Viagra (the Upright)" -- I bring you the Life and Propers for St. Eromatic, the Flatulant... patron saint of Greenhouse Emissions and Episcopal Preaching.
Let my prayer be counted as incense before thee.
VITA EROMATICI
St. Eromaticus is believed to have been born in the small village of Kopros along the Nile river. As a young man he came under the influence of the elderly St. Anthony, and he converted to the life of monasticism. He stayed among the great man's disciples for only a very brief time -- it appears that it was in this period that he was first given the sobriquet "the Flatulant Postulant" -- before he adopted the life of a travelling ascetic. He wandered throughout Asia Minor, living on a strict diet of beans, onions and garlic, and studied (briefly) with many of the major Christian ascetics and teachers of the time in Ennema, Rhoeia, and Pettus. Eventually he settled in Syria, where he founded a loose community of hermits - notable both for its adoption of his unique diet and the unusual practice of meeting for corporate worship only on the Church's greatest feast days. Toward the end of his life he came to be reveared as a great saint by the local villagers, who would gather (upwind) to hear his preaching... from which sermons, scolars believe, he earned the nickname of "the Breath of God". His brand of "stoolite" asceticism did not survive his death.
PROPERS for the feastday of St. Eromaticus the Flatulant
ENTRANCE HYMN (PECUSA 1982 hymnal)
710 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord
INTROIT (Eccl 1:14,17 - RSV)
I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind... And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
PSALM (78:39)
He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again.
COLLECT
Almighty God, who didst give man breath, And who hast wiped away the pollution of our sin, Help us remember that our life is but a wind that passeth, And that all worldly glory but a straining after wind. Help us to follow the example of Thy servant, Saint Eromatic, who, even when shunned by his brothers, raised his voice to Thee day and night, So that we, like him, might ever lift our, um, _h_earts up unto Thee, and make a joyful noise to Thy glory, AMEN.
GRADUAL (Isiah 26:17-8)
Like a woman with child, who writhes and cries out in her pangs, when she is near her time, so were we because of thee, O LORD; we were with child, we writhed, we have as it were brought forth wind.
ALLELUIA (Mark 4:39)
Alleluia
V. And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
Alleluia
TRACT (Lentan alternate. Job 6:26, 15:2)
Do you think that you can reprove words, when the speech of a despairing man is wind? Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?
SERMON HYMN
545 Lo, what a cloud
OFFERTORY (Num 22:28; 2 Pet 2:16)
Then the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she spake.... He was rebuked for his own transgression; a dumb ass spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.
OFFERTORY HYMN
572 Weary of all trumpeting
COMMUNION (Job 21:18, 27:21, 30:22)
They are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away... The east wind lifts him up and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.... Thou liftest me up on the wind, thou makest me ride on it, and thou tossest me about in the roar of the storm.
COMMUNION HYMN
314 Humbly I adore thee, verity unseen
424 For the fruits of his creation
RECESSIONAL HYMN
590 O Jesus Christ, may grateful hymns be rising
677 God moves in a mysterious way
The following reading may be substituted for the Old Testament lesson, should the Feast of St. Eromatic not fall upon a Sunday or other feast day:
Ezekiel 4:9,13,15,17 Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, and put them into a single vessel, and make bread of them. During the number of days that you lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it... And the LORD said, "Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations whither I will drive them... See, I will let you have cow's dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread... I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and waste away under their punishment."