May 2017

A conversation is being carried on across the Diocese of Iowa on the subject of sanctuary and the question of the appropriate response to those in our community who are undocumented immigrants. In 2007, the Diocese of Iowa at its 155th Convention declared itself by resolution a “Sanctuary Diocese.” It was a way of saying that we wanted to stand by our neighbors, particularly in Marshalltown, and later in Postville, where ICE had carried out indiscriminate raids.

In the light of the new discussion, I asked the Diocesan Board in its January meeting to consider reaffirming the resolution. The wisdom of the Board was to enter into a period of study regarding the meaning and implications of such a declaration being reaffirmed in the new context of 2017.  At its most recent meeting in April, we felt comfortable developing a statement on this subject for future release to the Diocese. I was also encouraged to invite those who are most engaged in developing a compassionate and practical response that fits our context to form a Task Force to that end.

The diocesan interest has been expressed from congregations as wide spread as Church of the Savior in Orange City (NW Iowa) to St Luke’s, Fort Madison (South East Iowa). Conversations have been held by vestries in many other places in-between, and congregational meetings held at places like the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Des Moines. The clergy list serve has been inundated with thoughtful reflections and shared resources.

At this point I am inviting you to “watch this space” as we sift through the many points of view and seek some common principles of approach. Resources are being collected at IowaShare.org and I encourage you to share with us what is happening in your area.

In the peace and love of Christ,

+Alan

The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe
Bishop of Iowa

April 2017

If there is anything like “turning the corner” in Lent, it must be the Fourth Sunday. That is when we switch from the first Lenten preface which reminds us of the “need to live no longer for ourselves but for Him who died and rose again” to the second Lenten preface that looks forward to the Paschal Feast and to “come to the fullness of grace which You (God) have prepared for those who love You.” Along with the anticipation is the prospect of new members through baptism, and in some circumstances those to be newly empowered by the Spirit in confirmation or reaffirmation.

Even the Revival appropriately takes a break as we focus on the most significant liturgies of our Church Year. I am always taken back to my time in Romania when we would be fully occupied with the liturgies of the Orthodox Church throughout Holy Week. I invite you to set aside extra time to be present at every gathering offered within your congregation, and even visit other churches if our own opportunities are limited.

This is also a time for us to consider the buds of new ministry that are beginning to appear. More than three hundred of you have signed on to the Faith in Action Facebook page that Wendy Abrahamson has started. You may have noticed that the Episcopal Church Executive Council has approved three different funding grants for the Diocese of Iowa - to seed the stewardship of the earth venture called Creation Stewards; to discern the possibility of creating a racial reconciliation community in Iowa City; and to launch a Hispanic Mission in the western part of the state in partnership with the ELCA West Synod.

And what about the new urgings for mission that are being prompted by the Spirit out of your Lenten discipline? There is always room for God’s blossoming imagination; and the more chaos and confusion that surrounds us in society, the greater invitation we have to find our clarity and steadfastness in God. Go deeper is always the divine urging to anxiety and polarization. For it is in the depths of focused silence or reflective reading and conversation or in sacramental experience that we find that outpouring of love by which the Spirit casts out fear.

Holy Week is about humanity at its worst – facing innocent goodness and destroying it so that it might stop seeing through us and exposing our true nature. And God at God’s truest – walking in the midst of our cruelty knowing that after we have done our worst, there still remains life, and love and forgiveness and reconciliation. It is as though God says “Is that all you have got?” And then, to quote a recent citation I heard from Austin Farrer, “God takes my head between His hands, and turns my face to His, and though I struggle they do not let go until God has smiled me into smiling and that is the forgiveness of God”.

As Presiding Bishop Michael Curry reminded us at the March House of Bishops – (Iowa’s own) evangelist Billy Sunday once said, “If the Episcopal Church ever wakes up, look out Satan.” Every Easter is an invitation to awaken to new life, and perhaps this one more than ever. In Revival 2017 we have set our course upon asking God to awaken us. We are one fifth along the way. And yes, we dare say, “Watch out!”

In the peace and love of Christ,
+ Alan

The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, Bishop of Iowa

Revival 2017

How do you measure the impact of a Revival? 

Is it to be seen in the seventy-five professions of commitment to God which have been written on the fabric tiles we are taking around the Diocese?  Each commitment is an object for prayer as we carry the tiles to the next venue, culminating in a full offering to God at the Diocesan Convention Eucharist in October. Is it in the shared testimonies on Facebook? In many ways I think such measuring is out of line. What I am aware of is that God has been visiting us in so many different ways, and that each time has manifest a holiness of its own that defies our description. There was a reason why the name of God is sacrosanct in Hebraic tradition. And we are getting to understand as we participate in the various Revival 2017 gatherings.

It is sufficient to be able to give thanks to God for the continuous blessing of God’s presence as we gather. This blessing has a different appearance in the varied congregational sites. And of course, the true manifestation may be years from now when it is certainly my prayer that we will hear people refer to seeing God at work in their lives stemming back from Revival 2017.

On March 5^th, we concluded the first phase of Revival 2017. In basic terms, it is eight down and thirty two to go! Already the core team has been given new insights as to what to expect and present. Prayer stations have become increasingly creative – offering alongside prayers for healing and discernment, and the one on one baptismal renewals, new stations for reflection in journaling or conversation, or even prayer coloring which seems like an activity similar in terms of its centering properties to the Anglican rosary. In the early weekends, we have been seeing visitors from other churches wanting to get a sense of what to expect. One such visitor suggested that we invite people to a fuller life in the Spirit, and so we have developed a station of prayer “for a closer walk with God”. This has turned into powerfully deep conversation about our life in God, culminating in prayer.

We know that music is a key, though God showed us at the first evening in Durant that acapella music can inspire and be a source of praise. We are grateful for the musicians who have joined with us in the planning of music. Though we have sought to develop a song book, Ottumwa and Chariton proved to us how uplifting well tested hymns such as “Holy, holy, holy” and “Tell out my soul” can be alongside old chestnuts like “How great Thou art.” In Bettendorf it was Taize chants that held our attention in prayer and praise.

It is wonderful to see congregations preparing to make their Revival 2017 evening their own. This month we hear that St Paul’s Indian Mission will host the Siouxland congregations on Saturday afternoon. They are planning prayers and testimony according to their native culture, including the importance of extending hospitality to all who come. St Paul’s Grinnell has a local band on tap; St Stephen’s Newton has created their own prayer station emphases to accompany what the core team might set up.

God is sovereign over Revival – those were the words of Bishop Peni to us at Convention. We pray to not get in God’s way. These are different and testing days as a people of faith. God is stirring the baptismal waters. Revivals often are vehicles for God to equip new leaders for new times, as well as bring all of us closer to the Spirit. My prayer is that we become more determined followers of Jesus – and in the words of the Jesus Movement that the Presiding Bishop proclaims- this means “following Jesus into a loving, liberating, life-giving relationship with God, with each other and with the earth”. The journey has just begun. What more has God got in store for us. Be not afraid for, as promised, He is with us.

+Alan

From the House of Bishops

March 12, 2017

How do you arrange for the entire body of Bishops from The Episcopal Church to engage in the difficult task of examining and looking more deeply into aspects of racism? You catch them when they can’t get away. Twelve hours of conversation and learning afterwards I am resurfacing at the House of Bishops in Camp Kanuga, North Carolina.  The genius of the present approach to tackling racism is to connect it with the lifelong work of the Spirit of God to reconcile us with God, each other and the earth. Racial reconciliation is a vital part of the formation of humanity into the Body of Christ. It is a fruit of the Cross through which God was reconciling us to Godself, and an outcome of that is the restoring of our relationships to one another in our racial diversity.

We learned that in the era beyond the outcomes of the civil rights struggles and of desegregation, modern racism manifests itself as we try and attach non-racial justifications for ongoing racist activities. If further attention is not paid, it is only a matter of time before old fashioned racism raises its ugly forms again. This work of racial reconciliation is ongoing, life-long formation, and it is an integral part of following Jesus, who is as much concerned about our ability to access His transforming love and demonstrate it in our relationships across diversity as He is about other aspects of our life.

I am finding an excellent companion to my time in Kanuga in the book I am reading by Jonathan Sacks, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence. My other Lenten book (this one on Kindle) is Rowan Williams, On Augustine, and again I am being reminded of the lifelong project of becoming what Jesus has made access for us to be. I am getting a deeper sense of that restlessness of which Augustine speaks that does not end until I fully rest in God. And even then, and this is my new insight from the reading, that resting is still an active participation and eternal seeking even as I rest in God, if I am understanding him correctly.

Our facilitators for the sessions have been Valerie Batts of Visions Inc., Heidi Kim and Bill Kondrath. The latter will be known to Iowa clergy because he presented to the Clergy Retreat last year. So, some of his work in emotional messaging as it relates to racial reconciliation was familiar. The invitation to shift from monoculturalism to pluralism, from the melting pot to the salad bowl imagery for racial reconciliation was also familiar, and at the House of Bishops there should be no surprise that some clever souls want to know who or what is the salad dressing. Too heavy a hand with the dressing and every salad ingredient tastes the same.

What I saw in a new way was examining the elements that make up excluded or targeted groups of people, and the included and non-targeted groups. Even acknowledging my identity with people of color through my marriage and so through my own children, there were not many places to hide from the privileges afforded me from a myriad of non-targeted inclusions, the fact of being a bishop as significant as anything else. Being from an English working class background is my most targeted experience, even though again that has been dressed up through education, some language adjustment and learned social behavior.

The House of Bishops were being taken through a process that is being introduced to the Church at large on April 4th, the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Entitled “Becoming the Beloved Community” it seeks to include our growing ability to be racial reconcilers within the spiritual formation of following Jesus. The learning to which we were introduced has a multifaceted purpose because it also offers several layers of resources for holding difficult conversations in our polarized society. For example, one simple and yet often difficult suggestion was to go to meet and talk with someone with whom you may starkly disagree, rather than follow the common response of avoidance.

All of this brought to mind the question of where are we as a Diocese in the area of racial reconciliation? I realized that since Diocesan Convention 2015, we have been working quietly and steadily on this. Let me rehearse what came to mind.

In the summer of 2015, we received the resolution from General Convention to engage in efforts of racial reconciliation, in particular to stand in solidarity with local AME churches after the shootings in Charleston South Carolina. We used a litany written by a Bishop of the AME Churches in our Diocesan Convention Eucharist in October. At the same time, a few of us filled a table at the annual NAACP Summit in Ames on aspects of prison reform and its impact in the African American community of Iowa. We also walked with predominantly black churches in the Waterloo area on the Jericho marches to honor victims of gun violence and pray for peace in the neighborhood.
The Board, in its early meeting in 2016, took up Racial Reconciliation as its focused theme out of the several issues raised at Convention for Indaba, based on prominent themes from 2015 General Convention. Also in January 2016, the Diocese hosted several sites for the Trinity Institute conversations on Racial Reconciliation and a conversation group developed from that experience, regrouped in the summer at the Ministries Retreat. Out of that, a discussion on reparations blossomed as resolutions were being prepared for Diocesan Convention. Another Indaba was held at 2016 Convention specifically on issues of racial reconciliation and from that we are preparing to host the film “Traces of the Trade” at Ministries Retreat as well as hold a course that explores key distinctions for understanding race and racism. We will apply these concepts – weave them – into an awareness of our personal, familial, regional, and Church stories of race – naming old harmful stories, and cultivating new ones.

Meg Wagner and Susanne Watson-Epting have picked up the work from the various conversations after the Trinity Institute Conference, and received a grant from The Episcopal Church to explore the start-up of a racial reconciliation community, possibly based at Old Brick in Iowa City. Young adults of the Diocese in Des Moines are beginning to hold their own gatherings to explore what racial reconciliation means to them.

It is clear that in our usual organic way God has been taking up our desires and helping us connect on this issue. I cannot say whether the components of the upcoming TEC project The Beloved Community will be what we have just undertaken as bishops through Visions Inc., but if so I imagine it will be a good resource for us to utilize in the racial reconciliation emphasis of our spiritual formation.

It is not an easy subject matter for any of us. There was plenty of wriggling, resistance and avoidance over the past three days. I believe that it is something we need to place in our important action quadrant. It is also an urgent tool for these times and it will be important to take time to be responsive and not reactive.

In the peace and love of Christ,

+Alan

The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, Bishop of the Diocese of Iowa

Ash Wednesday, 2017

In his autobiographical work, Word from Wormingford, a Parish Year, Ronald Blythe, an English poet and writer, comments on the quiet that people admire whenever they arrive in his part of Suffolk, England.

‘“How quiet it is!” say visitors to the old farm in the fold of land. They mean that I cannot hear the traffic, not that I am deaf to what is going on. How could I be these news-infested days?  It was ever so, but in other circumstances. Bunyan from his cell heard a trumpeter blare curfew as the (River) Ouse bridge was closed (it would sound for Mr-Valiant-for-Truth on the other side); Julian from her cell heard the continuous rumble of the world as it entered Norwich via the Wensum. Just how much one should know by way of the News, or how little, is a religious question. A friend has just given his television set to a surprised caller. Is he a candidate for the (liturgical) calendar or for the (mental health) social services? He has turned the newscasters out, lock, stock and goodbye smiles, and is master of his own house. We should try it. It is a lay form of Trappism.’

I am not an enthusiast of Lenten abstention. My preference is to add something that enriches the day – like hand-written notes to people I have lost touch with, or even with whom I may have to make amends. However, I could do with spending more time with people like Mr. Blythe. Some people have shared that they are forgoing Facebook for the next forty days. I might need to pay it more attention. All of us probably echo the sentiments of “Noises off,” as Blythe also calls his lay form of Trappism, the monastic order which values silence and yet gave us the prolific writings of Thomas Merton.

It feels like a bad idea to switch off the news at a time when we, like John Bunyan, are in our day being challenged to be “Valiant-for-Truth.” And yet would we not benefit from creating the space for the gift of silence through which God chiefly speaks? During the Revival 2017, we have added a couple of “prayer stations,” along with those for renewing baptismal vows, or prayers for healing and discernment. One is a table stocked with journals to write in and a few aides for reflection and even conversation. The other is “prayer for a closer walk with God” which has given rise to as much engaging spiritual conversation as it has prayer.

We need periods of “Noises off” to regroup, to hear the sounds in silence that we have lost touch with, to listen to our own inner voices to which God also speaks. Remember that it was not in the wind or the earthquake that Elijah heard the Lord, but in the still small voice. In her sermon at a recent Revival, Kathleen Milligan reminded us of Abraham Lincoln’s words to General Grant at the end of the Civil War, when addressing the approach needed in dealing with those who were defeated. He said “let them up gently.” God desires to let us up gently from being beaten down by the busyness and frantic and yes, news-filled, character of our lives. That takes time, and quiet, and a willingness to be present. Lent is not a religious version of New Year resolutions. Its goal is too precious to be left in our hands. It is for the renewing of our minds and hearts, the rekindling of our love for God, neighbor and the joy and hope of this remarkable life, and the recharging of our world by that same love, joy and hope.

Have a holy and blessed Lent. See you, Brother and Sister Valiant-for Truth, when the trumpet of Risen Glory calls, forty days from now, on the other side.

In the peace and love of Christ,
+Alan

The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, Bishop of Iowa

From the Bishop

“It has been a crazy week in politics. And you were probably hoping for, or even expecting, an article here that would finally be a break from all the political talk.” This is a statement to members of the United Church of Christ from their Iowa judicatory office and you know that after this opening there comes a huge “nevertheless…” “The Gospel,” the letter goes on to say,  “is political.”

I would add that it becomes even more so when it is the treatment of people that is at stake –  for who they are rather than for what they have done. As our lectionary begins to sweep us deep into the heart of Jesus’ understanding of God and God’s people, and how we are to be together – in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount –  I urge you to resist the temptation to separate your experience in worship from the images being provoked by the stage being set by the new political agenda. Think through the implication of Jesus’ words about treatment of the ‘other,’ especially those considered to be enemy. Realize that he took the concept and made it the theme of his own Inaugural address. The congregation in Nazareth spoken of in Luke chapter 4, were riled by Jesus’ implying that Gentiles were also agents of divine blessing –  that “the other” was as much at the center of God’s loving vision as God’s own chosen.

We are in the end chosen or blessed to be a blessing as the song goes. We are chosen to share the honor with all made in the image of God. And that has profound impact on the shaping of how our nations live in the family of nations.

I still remember the amazing celebration of the turn of the Millennium as captured on TV, beginning with the quiet pushing of a boat carrying a father and his child symbolizing the ongoing future of humanity off a small South Pacific island. It was a simple ceremony. It was followed by the fireworks and exuberance of larger cities like Sydney, Moscow, Cape Town, Paris, London. By the time we reached the United States we had pretty well covered the range of human racial and ethnic expression. And there – in the diversity of our population – all peoples, tribes and nations were celebrating together in a kind of “reprise” of what we had just seen. This is our gift, and it is our joy. It has been built out of human actions both cruelly dark and courageously good.

At the recent inauguration, God was cited upfront and central, as a chief endorser of America First. And who has the ear of God? And represents God’s voice? Jesus, the Incarnate Word, appeared before the disciples in the upper room. He paid the ultimate price of proclaiming a Kingdom bigger than his contemporary society could stomach; and he overcame death at its own game. Having paid the ultimate price what else could anyone or thing throw at Him? And so the road of a new, fuller humanity, later signified in the outpouring of the Spirit who gave tongues for all nations to understand the Gospel, lay open before us. Just before that day of the Spirit’s coming, John wrote:  “Jesus (The Risen Lord) breathed upon them (in that upper room) and said: ’receive the Spirit. Whosoever’s sins you remit (release, forgive), remit, and whosever’s sins you retain, retain’.”

It’s not usual that we consider what it means to be “retaining sins,” but we may well be moving into such an era. “The Gospel is political.” Jesus breathes His power upon us and in so doing passes on responsibility to love God with all your heart, mind and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. This is the Church’s task and executive order. In John’s Gospel chapter 12, verses 27, Jesus says “Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say – “Father, save me from this hour?” No, it is for this reason I have come to this hour. Father glorify your name.”

As the people of St Luke’s Cedar Falls are reminded and asked each Sunday: “where, this week, did you act in love; where did you show courage and where did you encounter Jesus unexpectedly?”

In the peace and love of Christ,

+Alan

The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, Bishop of Iowa