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Dear Friends in Christ,
During a retreat this past June, the leader invited participants to reflect on people we admire. As I wrote down names, I realized I was creating a list of saints, some well-known in the world but most known only to me. Our saints, the leader told us, shape who we are and what we value.
When I was ordained in 1992, the Episcopal Church’s liturgical calendar was fairly sparse, mostly honoring saints from the distant past who were male, white, and, at least publicly, heterosexual. While those saints remain on the calendar, they are joined today by a diversity of God’s children. Their inclusion has the power to shape in new ways our identity and values as a church.
Let’s look at three examples from this past month. On July 1 we commemorated Pauli Murray (1910-1985). An author, educator, activist and legal scholar, Murray dedicated their life to the civil rights and women’s movements. Late in life, following the death of their longtime partner, Irene Barlow, Murray enrolled at General Theological Seminary in New York. In 1977, they “became the first Black person perceived as a woman in the U.S. to become an Episcopal priest” (quote from the Pauli Murray Center website). According to Lesser Feasts and Fasts, “In recent years, scholars have brought to light Murray’s complex sexual and gender identity, including … attempts to access testosterone therapy as early as the 1930s.” Not allowed to live publicly as the person God created them to be in their lifetime, today we honor Pauli Murray fully and openly.
On July 29 we commemorated the Philadelphia Eleven, the first women to be ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. These ordinations, which took place 50 years ago, have traditionally been labeled “irregular” since they were not explicitly allowed (General Convention authorized the ordination of women in 1976). But were these ordinations truly irregular? As the Rt. Rev Mary Glasspool, Assistant Bishop of New York, pointed out in a sermon this past Sunday, the ordination liturgy carefully followed The Book of Common Prayer, included four bishops and required the ordinands to sign the traditional oath of conformity.
“People can call these ordinations irregular until the cows come home,” Bishop Glasspool said, “but I say, ‘They did it by the book.’ They did not let the principalities and powers take their own tradition away from them. They claimed the Episcopal Church at a time when the church, institutionally speaking, was treating them as a problem the church hoped would go away. What a blessing they have been to us.”
And then there is William Wilberforce (1759-1833), commemorated on July 30, who reminds us that, yes, we even uphold a few politicians! Following his conversion, he chose a career in the British Parliament over ministry in the church, dedicating himself for decades, despite significant opposition, to securing the abolition of slavery in the United Kingdom and its colonies.
Who are the saints in your life? Who are your heroes? Who do you follow on social media? Who do you vote for in elections? The lists we create matter, for who we admire shapes who we are and what we value.
Your Friend in Christ,
The Rev. John Denson, D.Min.
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