Trellis and Vine

They told me that it would be about day 7 that I would be ready to come home.  I do miss home, we all do.  We miss that wonderful corner of the Kingdom of God that we call the Lowcountry.  We miss our families, our parishes, our beds and some of us miss our cars with all of the walking we have done this past week and a half!

General Convention is hard work.  Not the kind that builds muscle or increases our fitness, although we do have sore muscles—at least ones we have sat on so often.  How shall we describe the General Convention, or with what parable shall we use to speak of it?  The best metaphor I have heard so far is this:  “General Convention builds the trellis of structure on which the vine of mission grows.”  However, do not think the “trellis” mentioned is not the kind found in the Do It Yourself magazines advertised as something a beginner can build over the course of a weekend.  Think more along the lines of the Eiffel Tower.

This may seem unnecessarily complex and unapproachable by uninitiated. However, something my childhood rector used to say keeps me coming back for more.  “God reveals himself to man as man is able to understand Him.”  (Now, to be clear, inclusive language was neither as accepted back then, nor was he inclined to use it.)  Whether or not God has revealed God’s Church to Episcopalians in this way, looking around on the floor of the House of Deputies it seems that this is at least how we have been  able to understand it.

But that may be changing.  The Taskforce for Reimagining the Episcopal Church (TREC) was called together by the General Convention of 2012 to look closely at our “trellis” and discern new ways of understanding our governance, structure and polity.  As I write this, the House of Deputies is debating resolutions that focus on these changes.  Another metaphor is to think of the church as an oceanliner undergoing refit and we must discern what about our church is barnacle to be removed and rivet to be replaced. I must admit, I would prefer to write this post before and during the debate and not try to explain the potential changes that might be made.

It must be remembered throughout all of this that it is not God who evolves and changes, but our understanding of God that changes—it grows as we grow closer to one another and deeper in the knowledge and love of God and it probably shrinks as we build tombs around our hearts and demand proof and certainty instead of relying on the faith that God gives to us.

May we seek to be open to the Spirit as we continue to seek after a better understanding of God and all that God has given us, building our trellis of structure as best we can, all the while giving thanks for the most precious gift of all, the vine of God's mission in the world and our invitation to take our part in it.