Always we begin again

by Mark Pritchard

For many of us, 2005 started early, when we turned on our TV sets to view the first reports of the devastating tidal wave that swept coastlines around the Indian Ocean and as far away as Tanzania. The meals we were still digesting, and the presents we had barely finished opening, may have suddenly seemed rather extraneous. We were forced to take stock of what's really important.

Each year gives us a chance to do better; each year we start from scratch. This willingness to start from scratch with humility and optimism -- a quality the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki famously called "beginner's mind" -- has been identified in both St. Francis and Buddha. It was the latter who is said to have counseled, "No matter how difficult the past, you can always begin again today;" it was our patron saint who said, "Brothers, let us begin again to do good, for until now we have done only a little."

I think this attitude is instructive for us at St. Francis as we look back on the 15th anniversary of the ordinations of Jeff Johnson, Ruth Frost, and Phyllis Zillhart, an event that galvanized our congregation, the many LGBT clergy -- both out and closeted -- around the country, and the even more numerous LGBT young people who will one day receive a call from God to serve people. The ordinations changed us, the church, and the culture; they were the beginning of a journey we are still on.

This year we may begin other journeys, in new directions, with new companions. But I hope we commence these journeys for the same reasons: because we love justice and mercy; because we want a church, a city, a society that also does.

 

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The time will come

by Chris Wogaman

Advent is one of my favorite times in the church year.

As the days get darker, we come closer to one of the brightest days on the church calendar, Christmas, the Christ-mass of Jesus' nativity, the day we celebrate the birth of our Lord with great joy and even a little solemnity. O Come, O Come, Em-manu-el, which means "God with us," we sing as that time draws near.

All year, children wait for that moment of Christmas morning to come. All our lives, many of us look back with fondness on those childhood memories.

For some, these memories are more solemn, impacted by the death of a parent, brother or sister, uncle, aunt, or cousin, friend or teacher, or trying family times, or that first Christmas alone. The time will come, when every day is Christmas day, when we encounter the eternal birthday of eternal life in heaven.

But first there is a time of advent, a time of coming to that time beyond time. Advent season itself is historically one of awaiting the second coming of Christ, which you will be able to tell by the number of apocalyptic Gospel texts read each Sunday morning.

During this season of Advent, let the time of Christmas come into your heart; let the coming of Christ stay with you each day of this hectic season, for the time of blessing will come.
 

Chris Wogaman is a seminarian in New York. He served an internship in San Francisco in 2003 and preached several times at St. Francis.

 

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Sacred time

By Robin Ressler

As we move into the season of Advent this year, I am busy writing my MA thesis. I am overjoyed to be writing this, because it deals with questions that brought me to seminary. These same questions are much on the hearts and minds of Christians throughout America – but not all Christians, to be sure.

A church divided

Many of us are content to belong to congregations that support our worldview, our politics, and our personal and communal values. In a society in which the values of individualism and consumerism have been dominant for the last several decades, it seems normal for many of us to "shop around" and join a church that we like enough to "buy into." We expect others to do the same. We would find it odd, for example, if a fervent supporter of the Bush administration made her home at St. Francis and even odder if she didn't remain closeted. Similarly, we would be surprised if a former member of our congregation, having taken a job in a distant city, informed us that he had joined a fundamentalist church that enjoins its members to picket Planned Parenthood clinics, vote to prohibit same-gender marriages and the like.

We can consider the question of Two Christianities in the United States as a psychological, historical and an ideological question. In my personal journey, the question has been a theological one. It was this question that brought me to seminary.

The question to which I hoped I would find an answer in seminary is this: "Why have people said such bad things about God?" How did we get from Jesus to eternal damnation; rigid, loveless, unforgiving moralizing; a God whom we should fear rather than love [or both, which, in my book, makes God the paradigmatic abusive alcoholic parent]; and a model for Christian behavior that makes a virtue of judging others and a weakness of forgiving them (not to mention prescribing the sexual behavior of other adults)?

Another, related, question that came up for me in seminary and in living among Lutherans at home and abroad for the past six years is, "Why are Lutherans so reluctant to say the name of Jesus in public and, sometimes, even among Lutherans? (Along the same line, I recently asked a pastor what the spiritual component of a Lutheran program for the poor here in San Francisco was going to be, and he shot back, "We can't preach at these people.")

Finally, the question became, "What about these two versions of being Christian in America today -- the "conservative" and the "liberal"?

I see the conservative version of Christianity being one in which an angry, judgmental God lords it over a world in which those who hold "correct" beliefs (ideas) about God and the world are alone saved. The Christian life is characterized by racism, sexism, chauvinism, militarism, homophobia, xenophobia, and whatever the word is for fear and loathing of people of other religions. The USA is God's new Zion, so it's "America: love it (and vote Republican) or leave it."

Liberal Christianity, on the other hand, can be so "inclusive" that it hesitates to pronounce the name of Jesus for fear of offending someone. "Anything goes" theology (born, I think, from a sincere desire not to stifle anyone's personal faith) results in going-nowhere ministry; dead-in-the-water evangelism; insipid preaching; and a decline in numbers in the mainline denominations. Racism, sexism, and homophobia are still flourishing here, no matter how many photos of women and people of color decorate the publications of our institutional propaganda.

Unfortunately, "liberal" and "conservative" Christians have way too often simply become apologists for the respective lifestyles and politics of their adherents, rather than evangelists of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Is there a future for American Christianity beyond this divide?

At this point in the writing of my thesis, I am hopeful that something called Open Theism will be a view of God and a way of approaching our Christian faith that will prove a meeting ground for both conservatives and liberals. Actually, it involves people who self-identify, theologically, as post-liberal and post-conservative, but for purposes of this discussion, that's a technicality.

I may have a different take on this in a few weeks, when I have read and written more, but right now I am optimistic about Open Theism, because in articulating the their theologies, scholars who belong to both conservative and liberal churches seem to be making Jesus as the revelation of God central to their work. To me, this is Good News.

A Trip to Solvang

On Advent 1, Mike and I were in Solvang, California, where my friend and colleague, the Rev. Dr. Jarmo Tarkki, is pastor of Bethania Evangelical Lutheran Church. I was invited to preach that Sunday, and labored over the texts.

Of course, it is always a challenge to preach to a group of folk you've never met before. Yet, as I meditated over the texts, with my thesis on the back burner, I could not help but be led to thoughts about unity in Christ, whose advent we proclaim, and divisions in the institutional church today. The people of Bethania were kind enough to listen to my musings on the subject from their pulpit.

Interestingly, Pastor Tarkki had been elected by a slim margin to be the clergy representative of his synod to the ELCA churchwide assembly in the summer of 2005. It seems that he was elected because there were two more "liberals" than "conservatives" voting in that election. During the course of our visit, he was keen to hear our thoughts about how the churchwide assembly might go.

After worship on Sunday, in his weekly ethics class for adults, we talked about the possibility of churches splitting, particularly over issues of sexuality. Pastor Tarkki framed what became a lively conversation with concepts from St. Thomas Aquinas. A distinction was made between Christians being of one mind and being of one will. Obviously, the church today is of many minds. Is it possible to be of one will, and, in fact, to be the church of Jesus Christ? Or will the many minds prevail, and wreak havoc on our tenuous unity in the ELCA?

After a busy morning of mulling over theological, ethical, and ecclesiastical unity and disunity, Pastor Tarkki, Mike and I were treated to lunch by Svend and Pat Oleson, longtime members of Bethania and parents of our own Karen Oleson. The Finnish pastor and the native New Yorker pressed our host and hostess, a Danish immigrant and a native Californian, respectively, for details about how they met and fell in love, while my new husband listened with interest, as well. After lunch, the couple, who very much felt like our new "Aunt Pat" and "Uncle Svend," invited us for a ride around Solvang and environs—including their home – during which family and local history blended with information about today's places and people. The joy in all this was that the five of us were all very much at home with one another in the unity of Christ. There certainly was evidence of us sharing one will that afternoon – a unity of will perhaps predicated upon our lived experience, as well as our belief in, our unity in Jesus Christ.

In short, our trip to Solvang inspired hope, and I carry that hope over into the writing of my thesis.

 

What time is it?

a sermon

(The texts were Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:8-14; and Matthew 24:36- 44)
 

I want to give you a question today. I'd like you to hold onto it as we move through the sermon. And when the sermon is done, I'd like you to take it home with you, to take it out once in a while, and to ask it of yourself occasionally as we move through Advent.

Here's the question: What time is it?

Perhaps your first inclination is to look at your wristwatch, and that's fine. But as we consider the texts for today, I want to invite you to think about sacred time, about God's time. God's time is, perhaps, not as easy to understand as your wristwatch or the timer on your microwave oven. I propose that even if we cannot fully understand God's time, it is worth our while to take some time and effort to ponder it.

This morning's texts are ancient -- very old in calendar time. Yet as we appropriate the texts of the prophet Isaiah, of St. Paul's letter to the church in Rome, and of Jesus' words as reported in the Gospel of St. Matthew, on this, the first day of a new year in sacred time, we understand them as words pointing to the future, but not to any future. We appropriate and understand these texts as pointing to our future as the church of Jesus Christ, and in Him.

"In the days to come, the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established... All the nations shall stream to it... that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his house."

As we celebrate Advent this morning -- as we look forward both to the birth of the Christ Child -- something that happened some two thousand years ago -- and to Jesus' coming again, at some future time, known not even to Jesus but "only to the Father," we proclaim with the prophet Isaiah that this is what our salvation will look like:

He shall judge between the nations,

and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war anymore.

I don't know about you, but as I stand before you this morning, I am tired of hearing about war, about the necessity of war, about the evil of war, about the constant conflict not only of terrorists and militias and armies and nations and politicians and political parties, but I am tired of hearing about the conflict among American Christians. I am tired of hearing about the divide between so-called liberal and conservative Christians, and I am heartbroken when I see that perceived divide exploited for political purposes.

I am saddened when I hear Christians who self-identify as liberals or conservatives refer to -- or relate to -- Christians with whom they disagree as "the enemy."

This first Sunday in Advent -- right now! -- we in this place stand in solidarity with Isaiah and his audience, and at the same moment in sacred time we stand in solidarity with Christians worldwide as we look to the coming of the One who will judge between us, who will arbitrate for us -- and I love those words, "for us."

We look forward to the coming of the One who will bring us peace.

And I ask you to consider, "What time is it?"

"About that day and hour, no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

This is the answer Jesus gave to his disciples when they asked him in private, "When will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age?" But the first thing -- the very first thing -- Jesus says in answer to their question is this, "Beware that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying, "I am the Messiah" and they will lead many astray."

Today, in sacred time, we look forward and backwards at once. We anticipate Jesus' birth, and we are filled with sentiment because we love babies, we love new life, and we believe that in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus we are ushered into the sacred time of eternal life. Yet we also look to the end of the age, to Jesus' return.

When I read about the troubles Jesus says are to come before his return, I get a little nervous. I'd really rather spend Advent in anticipation of the Baby Jesus than in considering the Second Coming. Jesus knows that even those who have faith in him find this business of the second coming disconcerting. So if you don't like thinking about this, you have plenty of company, and Jesus' sympathy as well.

The history of the church is chock full of predictions of the end of the world. As Jesus was able to understand, many people were not going to like his answer to his disciples' question. Some people would be so uncomfortable, their faith would be so sorely tested by not knowing the answer to the question, "What time is it that Jesus will come and it will be the end of the age?" that they would simply make up an answer of their own. We recall all the predictions of doom as the year 2000 approached -- remember all the hubbub about Y2K? Apparently, as the year 1000 approached there were similar predictions of doom in Christendom.

More frightening is the legacy of John Nelson Darby, the nineteenth century Irishman who read his Bible as a secret code book from which he divined the history of creation, future as well as past. Drawing heavily on select texts from the prophet Daniel and the Revelation of St. John, and confusing sacred and profane time, Darby taught that we are literally in the final days. Today, his so-called evangelical and fundamentalist heirs claim that if one reads the Bible literally -- that is, according to their definition of "literally" -- this is plain to see. They also emphasize the fanciful doctrine of a "secret rapture," according to which a faithful remnant of true believers -- that is, themselves -- will be whisked off the face of the earth before a great cosmic battle engulfs the world prior to Jesus' one thousand year reign.

Just as Jesus warned his disciples, Darby's heirs are in pulpits and on television throughout America claiming to provide troubled souls with information known only to God. Contrary to Jesus, who counsels us to keep awake, because we do not know the day our Lord is coming, these people would lull believers into the slumber of certainty of their rapture.

Do they know what time it is? What time is it?

In today's second reading, St. Paul says, "You know what time it is":

You know what time it is... Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.

This, sisters and brothers, is our Advent faith, our Advent hope. Our salvation is near. The night is far gone, and the day is near.

In the light of this good news, what is a Christian to do? Positively, St. Paul tells us to, "Put on the armor of light," and "put on the Lord Jesus Christ." Now these are beautiful metaphors, and they are a bold exhortation, but they are not dreadfully helpful for those of us who are looking for concrete advice.

So let's look at what Paul tells us negatively.

"Lay aside the works of darkness." This is still a metaphor, but a fairly common one. It means, "be good," "don't sin," and perhaps, more specifically, "don't do anything that you would not want to come to light, that you wouldn't want your neighbor, your family or your pastor to know about."

"Let us live honorably, as in the day," when everyone can see what it is that you are doing. Honorably -- that means in a way that deserves honor or respect, and it is different than being merely popular. It is different than being powerful. It is certainly different than inspiring fear. Honorably -- that means with integrity. So to live honorably means to live without guilt or shame from within or without. It means more than to look good to others; it is to live with a clear conscience in your own sight and in the sight of God.

What other concrete advice does St. Paul give us while telling us what not to do? We are not to revel and not to be drunk; not to live in debauchery and licentiousness, neither in quarrelling and jealousy. Where is the concrete advice here?

We shall leave "quarrelling and jealousy," which are self-evident in the public sphere, having recently reached fever pitch in the run-up to the 2004 United States elections and currently enjoying a great public display in the aftermath of last weekend's election in the Ukraine, to give only two examples.

What about revelry, drunkenness, debauchery and licentiousness? I think the tendency is to read over these rather quickly, as if St. Paul is giving us a stern parental lecture on the topic of sex, drugs and alcohol. Some of us might see ourselves as aged out of those temptations. Others might see this passage as a reminder to keep a tight rein on our young, or for those who are young, as a reminder not to hang out with the wrong crowd.

Let's begin with revelry: while we usually take this to mean wild partying, to revel can simply mean to take intense pleasure or satisfaction. We revel not only in our good fortune, but all too often in the misfortune of others. In a divided nation or in a divided church, do we not become so convinced in the rightness -- in the righteousness -- of our own position, whatever it may be, that we revel in the defeat, in the silencing, and in the exclusion of our opponents? And in such moments, do we want not to be reminded that our opponents are our fellow human beings, our fellow Americans, our fellow Christians or our fellow Lutherans?

In revelry of whatever sort, our deep, narcissistic enjoyment serves to pull us inward, and to weaken or sever our physical, social, and spiritual bonds to one another.

According to my dictionary debauchery, or extreme sensual indulgence, formerly meant "seduction from virtue or from duty," and to debauch meant "to make disloyal". These older uses more closely reflect the meaning of the Germanic root word which means "to scatter". Similarly, licentiousness means lacking legal or moral restraints, especially, but not only, sexual restraints. Such restraints are social conventions -- contracts, we might say -- and to behave licentiously is to break those contracts.

St. Paul is warning us against destroying our relationships with one another. By "putting on the Lord Jesus Christ", he wants us to build and preserve the community of believers that is the church. He wants us to make no provision for the flesh -- not because the flesh is evil or bad, or that by eating, drinking, or having sexual relations we will inevitably overdo and fall into sin, but simply because the flesh is transient, whereas life in Jesus Christ is eternal.

What time is it?

It is time to put aside everything that will divide us into contentious factions -- our quarrelling, our jealousy, our political and religious bickering. It is time to put aside those things that make us preoccupied with our individual selves and to refrain from those behaviors that drive others away from us and from one another.

What time is it?

It is time to wake up, and to listen, and to watch.

What time is it?

It is time to hope, and to encourage one another.

For in the same moment in sacred time as we celebrate the Advent of the Christ Child being laid in the manger, we eagerly await that day, known only to God, when Christ will come again.

 

 

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Matthew: a Gospel for inclusion

By Paul R. Brenner

With the adoption of the Report of the Vision Team, a central value driving the mission and ministry of St. Francis Lutheran Church is being and becoming a community of inclusion, especially for those who are marginalized in or excluded from churches.

Beginning with the first Sunday in Advent, Matthew, which provides the Gospel readings for the year, is a powerful affirmation of this value and a key to understanding the structure and message of this Gospel.

Entitling the first Gospel "Matthew" was an addition by the church. The original was anonymous, and then attributed to and identified with Matthew the tax collector at a much later time.

Matthew was most likely was written some time after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 CE by Titus. As a result, Jewish Christians had lost their relationship to the Temple and their Jewish heritage, and the church was increasingly becoming Gentile with the influence of Greek ideas and culture.

This situation created a need for the story of Jesus to be told from a Jewish perspective in order to reconcile the past with all that was new in the Gospel, as the Gospel itself witnesses, "Every scribe who has been trained for the Kingdom of Heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." (Matt.13:52). The Gospel uses Jewish sources somewhat freely and at times artificially, follows Mark's outline with alterations in the text, and is specific in identifying Jesus with the Son of Humanity. (Book of Daniel).

Marginalized people

In this Gospel, Jesus consistently challenges, confronts and collapses traditional Jewish sensibilities, restrictions and means of identity, while at the same time, affirming the place of the Jews within God's universal outreach and care through the mission of Jesus.

The Genealogy which opens the Gospel announces this theme by including four sexually marginalized women: Tamar, Rahab, "the wife of Uriah" (Bathsheba), and Ruth.

Tamar, who had been promised another son by her father-in-law after the death of her first husband, posed as a temple prostitute in order to make him fulfill his promise. (Genesis 38: 6-30). Rahab was a prostitute and a Gentile. (Joshua 2: 1-21; 6: 22-25). Bathsheba was seduced and impregnated by King David, who then arranged for her husband's death so he could have her for himself. (2 Samuel: 11:1-12:25). Ruth was a Moabitess, despised and "cut off" from the Israelites, whose relationship with Naomi suggests some erotic overtones. (Deuteronomy 23:3; Book of Ruth),

In addition to its references to sexually marginalized women, this Gospel includes a saying of Jesus (Matthew 19: 11-12) overthrowing the prohibition excluding eunuchs. (Deuteronomy 23:3). This saying must have been especially hard for Jewish male sensibilities to stomach.

Three crucially placed stories in the Gospel further this theme of inclusion. First, the Magi (chapter 2), who were not the three kings of popular Christmas carols, but members of the class of sorcerers who were much despised by the Jews and their prophets. Second, the healing of the centurion's lad (chapter 8). The lad was called pais in the Greek, is a term translated as "servant" in English, but in the Greco-Roman world of the time identified the male beloved in a same sex relationship. Finally, the Canaanite woman (chapter 15) who most likely would have been a worshiper of Baal. The carefully chosen word translated "dog" in the story (kunarios) is the same term used to identify cult prostitutes, both male and female -- again, a practice abhorrent in traditional Judaism.

Finally, this Gospel includes a saying of Jesus written in no other canonical Gospel: "Tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom ahead of you" (Matt 21:31-32). So the Gospel makes a relationship between the centurion (a disreputable Gentile), the tax collector (servant of the oppressors) and the prostitute (sexually condemned).

While Matthew asserts the value of the Jewishness of Jewish Christians for their understanding of the life and work of Jesus, the Gospel balances this emphasis by asserting that God's intentions and outreach are to all, or "the whole world," including those traditionally outside Jewish law. The book emphasizes that one's relationship to God is not based upon one's credentials (being Jewish, adhering to the Law, ability to quote the Scriptures, maintenance of ritual purity, separation from "impure and immoral" people, etc.) but on God's invitation to all and as many as possible to be gathered together as one in the Great Feast of inclusion.

The drive to include indicates that God is concerned for the marginalized, vulnerable and outcasts, and those who follow Jesus will share in that concern. ("Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of one of these, i.e., the hungry, naked, imprisoned, etc., you have done it to me.")

Jewishness

The Jewishness of the Gospel is embedded in its structure. Like the Torah of the Jews, the Gospel is divided into five books. Following Rabbinic teaching, the Gospel presents things in groups of three: three temptations (chapter 4); three examples of righteousness (6: 1-18), three prohibitions (6:19; 7:6), three injunctions (7: 7-20), three healings (8: 1-15), etc., or in groups of seven, for example, seven woes (23:13), seven loaves (15:34), etc. Such groupings in numbers were used to help people to remember the stories.

Some other characteristics of Matthew include, (1) numerous quotations from the Jewish Scriptures to demonstrate that Jesus is the culmination of Jewish history, often stretching passages past their contextual meaning, (2) an emphasis and heightening of the miraculous, and (3) an emphasis on hell and eternal punishment (90% of all references to burning in hell in the Christian Scriptures are found in this Gospel).

Fundamentalists and Biblical literalists tend to use Matthew's text to legitimatize the use of "proof texts" to prove that Jesus is the expected predicted Messiah. This emphasis tends to denigrate the Jewish Scriptures as "old" and establishes the Christian Scriptures as "new."

However, the value of the message of the Gospel for non Fundamentalist Christians is striking. Matthew is a passionate message of inclusion. Jesus is presented as deliberately gathering all kinds and conditions and sorts of people together as one, including the sexual and gender outsider.

As Jesus did so powerfully with his peers, we, his modern disciples, are invited to participate in a spiritual journey taking us beyond all human limitations, religious regulations and churchly restrictions which would limit or restrict who is acceptable to God or not.

This Gospel makes it clear that God wants an all inclusive Church which transcends all boundaries and in which everyone has a place at God's ingathering banquet.
 

Paul R. Brenner is an ordained Lutheran minister and a member of St. Francis.
 

For further reading

"Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture," by John Shelby Spong (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992).

"The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament," by Theodore W. Jennings, Jr. (New York: Pilgrim Press, 2003).

The Anchor Bible Commentary on Mathew (New York: Random House, 1971).

 

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Faithful journey in New York

By James Lokken

The first weekend of October I was in New York visiting old friends and taking in the "Basically Bach" concerts at St. Peter's.

Sunday I worshipped at St. Luke's Lutheran Church on West 46th Street, just off Times Square, where one of my friends is a member. After the Eucharist and coffee hour, they had scheduled a discussion of the ELCA's Study Guide, "Journey Together Faithfully," Part 2. It was the second of three scheduled discussions of Part 2 for that congregation; their first session had been devoted to study of the relevant scripture passages. Pastor Paul Schmiege invited me to participate.

About a dozen people participated. St. Luke's is in the theater district. Actors and musicians, both employed and unemployed, are among the regular worshippers. The presence of openly gay men and women is not unusual at the parish, and some, but not all, of those in the study group were openly gay or lesbian.

I found myself articulating for this group some of the "traditionalist" perspectives. Nobody there was representing that point of view, and I thought it should be mentioned that the ELCA embraces a range of opinions.

I've been involved in an Internet discussion, "ELCA Human Sexuality Discussion," almost daily since 1993 when the First Draft of the ELCA's proposed Sexuality Statement was released. Over the past decade, more than 22,000 posts in this online meeting reflect just about every point of view and discuss almost every issue related to this topic. Currently more than 400 subscribers read that online discussion, mostly clergy; fewer than a dozen are frequent posters. It becomes a panel discussion of sorts. The same questions get asked over and over as new people come on line and others drop out. By now I'm pretty familiar with where this discussion goes.

I cited the recent statement of a self-described "traditionalist": If we understand homosexual acts to be categorically contrary to God's will because the acts are inherently sinful, then refusing to ordain non-celibate lesbians and gay men, and refusing to bless same-sex unions, is logical. Based on the half-dozen Bible passages that condemn same-sex sexual behavior, this is the conviction of many, perhaps a majority, of ELCA members. That's why we have the current policy.

But that's a big "if," I pointed out. There is another scripturally supported understanding.

If the sinfulness of sexual behavior is not in the physical acts, nor in the gender of the parties, nor in their marital status or lack of it, but rather in their attitudes and relationships, emotions and motivations, that points us to a different pastoral conclusion. In that case the rightness or wrongness of an act cannot be judged abstractly, but depends on the dynamic relationships of the individuals, their attitudes, their love or lack of it, their complex emotions and ambivalent reactions to each other.

In that case, our confession that "we are by nature sinful and unclean, and that we have sinned in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone" is relevant. We pray God to forgive us, for Christ's sake, and to renew us from within. Then we take a fresh look at our personal relationships. Our faith assures us that in Christ God has forgiven us and promises to be with us to renew our relationships with each other.

The discussion went well. The people there are conscious not only of being part of New York City, but also of being part of the ELCA and the many faces it presents both in cities and in the towns where they used to live, somewhere else. Several in the discussion, lesbian, gay and straight, shared bits of their personal experience and found much common ground.

Appealing to sexual desire and indulgence is an industry of huge scale. It's particularly obvious in cities like New York and San Francisco, but it's everywhere. Dance clubs, cruise bars, porn shows, go-go boys and girls, strippers and the like advertise openly, appealing to our fantasies and frustrations. They make lots of money exploiting us, particularly those of us who are lonely and insecure, whose social lives are not going anywhere, who are not as brilliant, good-looking, and attractive as we'd like to be.

The industry markets its offerings to men and women of all ages, gay and straight. It's about money. The sex industry focuses on the bottom line and doesn't care about the people. It uses them, both those who sell and those who buy.

Christians have a different standard. People are to be loved, things are to be used -- not the other way around.

Some people become convinced that life is all about being part of "the scene." Maybe they watch too much MTV and "reality" shows. Is that what sex is all about? Is that what life is all about? I don't think so. Most people don't think so. Most people don't spend life in a fog of booze and drugs, don't wear trendy fashions to flashy clubs, don't dance the night away to a relentless "thump thump" 125 times a minute.

I think most of us select, out of the commercial hype and flash, those people to whom we relate. Real life is not about being on stage in the spotlight. Reality is savoring a quiet dinner at home with loved ones. Sleeping with someone else is not all romance. Reality is that people don't all look like athletes or models. Our loved ones often sweat and snore, lean on us, cut off circulation, have bad breath, look terrible in the morning, tell bad jokes, and make inane remarks. They fail to put the cap on the toothpaste, leave rings in the tub and hair in the drain. We forgive all that if it's someone we love, because love is more important than little annoyances. But we try not to annoy those we love unnecessarily or thoughtlessly. We strive to please and support each other, to build one another up. We share our faith, conscious that all are forgiven sinners.

Sin is when that love is gone. Sin is when we use one another rather than love one another. Loving money or ego more than people is idolatry. We're all somewhat guilty of that, and we need to ask God's forgiveness and presence every day.

The St. Luke's group will move on into a discussion of how the ELCA should deal with the fact that opinions are divided on sexuality issues. That's a practical question regardless of who's right and wrong. I won't be there for that one, but I'm sure they, and the ELCA, will find a way. Those on the extremes are pushing for a decision at the Churchwide Assembly in Orlando next August. Some want to change the existing policy excluding homosexual persons living in committed relationships from the roster of ELCA clergy and staff, and to affirm the blessing of same-sex unions. Others want to reaffirm the current policy or even to make it stronger.

Those who push for either of those positions see this as winning or losing. The majority, I think, see this as an issue about which brothers and sisters in Christ may disagree without rejecting each other.
 

For further reading

The ELCA's Study Guide, "Journey Together Faithfully," Part 2 can be downloaded from http://www.elca.org/faithfuljourney/study02.html.

 

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Report from South Africa

Pr. Pieter Oberholzer, whom St. Francis commissioned our missionary to the LGBT community in Cape Town, South Africa, reports each year on his work. He formed Inclusive and Affirming Ministries as an organizational umbrella for his work, and hired several new staffers in 2004.

In this excerpt from his annual report, Pieter describes key contexts in which IAM is operating: the Dutch Reformed Church, which is Pieter's denomination; campus ministry; and the culture of fundamentalism that resides in that body and in South African culture in general.

Also this year, IAM completed a video documentary, Created in the Image of God, for use as an educational tool at conferences and meetings. Pieter refers to this video below.

Conference on Fundamentalism

In September, Inclusive and Affirming Ministries hosted a conference in Cape Town on fundamentalism. The conference was organized in response to the concerns of many Christians who encounter fundamentalist tendencies within themselves and their congregations. This is especially true now that the government has effectively condoned same-sex union and most churches in South Africa are struggling with the issues of exclusion arising from their long history of fear toward homosexual people.

Fifty people attended from different denominations.

In the presentations and the discussions in small groups that followed, it became clear that most participants felt that the key elements that keep fundamentalism alive in people's hearts are: fear; the need to control our (religious) world, including God; a high value placed on authority; and unchanging values.

Participants recognized fundamentalism as part of their own individual journeys. The churches have to challenge fundamentalism by utilizing strands within their own traditions. For more progressive Christians, the need to respond to fundamentalism can have a hidden danger of becoming the very thing one is against: anti-fundamentalism is as unhealthy as fundamentalism. Instead, three important ideas need to be embodied in our lives and in our institutions not just as a means of responding to fundamentalism but as living out the meaning of the Gospel: justice, hospitality and wisdom.

This conference was just a start and most participants felt the need to continue discussions along these lines in the future.

Dutch Reformed Church (DRC)

As I look back on the year, it is clear that gay ministry within the context of the DRC has moved into a new and very challenging phase.

For the first time in almost two decades, the DRC has altered its official position concerning the gay issue, acknowledging the diversity of viewpoints its own ranks and admitting the lack of an absolute and clear standpoint. Although many members of the DRC still retain a very fundamentalist attitude towards the gay issue and thus remain reluctant to hear and embrace the deeper plight of gay people, they are now at least forced to tolerate and even deal with the diversity of viewpoints concerning the issue.

In fact, the Synod, although frustratingly cautious to really challenge its more conservative members on their obvious homophobic attitudes and outright lack of love and compassion, has at least committed itself to a process of ongoing struggle, study and reflection.

For those in the church that have made a firm commitment to stand up for the cause of gay people, this resolution does imply that the church and its members now can and needs to be challenged more than ever, exposing them more fervently and directly to the lives of gay people, and also informing them more intensively on the newest scientific and biblical research.

Given the resolutions of the General Synod which contain a new commitment to the pastoral care of gays and their parents, IAM is now in a position to target the DRC more directly through the establishments of new networks, the arranging of conferences and the setting up of meetings with the official leadership.

Campus ministry

In September, a meeting was set up at the University of Stellenbosch between the wardens of the different dormitories and members of the gay- lesbian association on campus. A member of IAM's staff, Carel Anthonissen, was invited to participate as facilitator of a regularly meeting LGBT-friendly campus group.

The meeting was held in the form of a work-session in which members of the gay community was given the opportunity to share their views and concerns as well as to give advice on how to create a more friendly and inclusive hostel environment. Although one could sense that there were still some underlying questions, even deep seated prejudices, most of the wardens reacted positively -- if only not to be politically incorrect.

As a result of this meeting, the Stellenbosch Support group has, in coordination with a group in Gauteng, started writing up some of their stories. The goal is publish a book that will give insight in the life world of gay people -- their struggles and joys. Several parents of gay children have indicated the need to form a support group. Carel is in a process of communicating with these parents and setting up a group meeting. They will hopefully meet before the end of the year.

Some of the important breakthroughs for the gay cause on Stellenbosch campus during this year were the establishment of a network with local psychologists as well as participating in a meeting with the different patrons from the local residences.

Pr. Pieter Oberholzer has served as St. Francis's missionary to the LGBT community of Cape Town, South Africa since 1999. He will preach at St. Francis on January 16, 2005.

 

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News and upcoming events

Pr. Ruth Frost resigns,
to leave St. Francis in February

In a letter to the congregation in November, Pr. Ruth Frost, who has served St. Francis for almost fifteen years, announced that she would resign her call, effective in February.

The employment of Pr. Frost's partner, Pr. Phyllis Zillhart, who serves as a full-time pastor at St. Francis, was not affected by the announcement. Pr. Zillhart has indicated she will apply for the post of Lead Pastor which the Call Committee will fill in 2005.

Pr. Frost has served St. Francis in many capacities. She was a driving force in the establishment of the monthly family ministry night, and led other outreach efforts. Pr. Frost created many illustrations and graphics for the parish over the years. Her most prominent artwork in the church is the stained glass window on the south wall near the entrance of the Memorial Terrace, depicting St.s Francis and Clare.

Pr.s Frost and Zillhart were two of the three pastors at the center of the extraordinary ordinations and ecclesiastical trial of 1990. The events led to the expulsion of St. Francis from the national Lutheran body, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in 1995, and also to fifteen years of ministry from the two talented pastors.

Pr Frost's last Sunday on staff will be February 6, 2005.

SF Mayor to speak at LLGM's anniversary

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who made national headlines in February, 2004, when he approved marriage licenses for same-sex couples, will headline speakers at a banquet celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries (LLGM).

The event marks the 1990 ordinations of Ruth Frost, Phyllis Zillhart and Jeff Johnson. The ceremony led to a trial and eventual expulsion by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America of the two congregations who called the three as clergy. The three were recognized by the LGBT community in 1990 by being named Grand Marshals of the annual Lesbian- Gay-Bisexual-Transgender Freedom Day Parade.

The day-long event on Saturday, January 15, will begin with a hospitality hour and brunch at St. Francis Lutheran Church, followed by a panel discussion and an afternoon celebratory worship service recognizing the work of Extraordinary Candidacy Project pastors.

At the evening banquet, to be held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel, "Voices of Distinction" awards will go to the Rev. John Frykman, Marybelle Smith, Joe McMahon and the Rev. David Kalke. A scholarship award will be presented by the Joel Workin Scholarship Fund to a sexual minority seminary student.

The brunch at St. Francis will begin at 12:30, and the worship service will begin at 3:30 pm.

To make reservations for the dinner, or for more information on LLGM's work, call (415) 621-2635. To reserve tickets to the brunch, call Marilyn Pearson at (415) 752-2924.

For further reading

The St. Francis Lutheran website archives many news articles documenting the 1990 ordinations and trial, as well as many other events pertaining to the issue of sexual minorities in the church. See http://www.st- francis-lutheran.org/news.html. We covered San Francisco's gay wedding rush in the Spring 2004 Instrument.

LLGM's website has more information about their anniversary events, as well as their own newsletter. http://www.llgm.org/resources.html

Mayor Gavin Newsom was profiled in the New Yorker in October. Read the profile.

Call Committee opens application process

The Call Committee on December 5 issued a call for applications to the position of Lead Pastor for St. Francis Lutheran Church.

Formed in September as the Visioning Team's work was completed, the Call Committee's charter is to establish requirements for, and interview and present candidates for, the Lead Pastor position.

The congregation invites ordained clergy from any church with which the national Lutheran body, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has full communion. This includes the Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Moravian churches.

Also welcome to apply are candidates certified by the Extraordinary Candidacy Project, which evaluates the qualifications of seminarians and other ministry candidates and certifies them to serve at Lutheran churches.

The official announcement is below.

Lead Pastor: St. Francis Lutheran Church (independent) -- San Francisco California, seeks experienced lead pastor to fill a position created following visioning process. Diverse in age, background and sexual orientation, we feel that God calls us to specific ministries to gay men, lesbians, seniors, families both gay and straight, with and without children. Lead pastor must be capable of instituting change and inspire with strong Gospel-based preaching. Strong stewardship, teaching, administrative, financial, property management skills essential. Candidate must be willing to serve independent Lutheran church with evolving relationship with ELCA. We welcome expressions of interest from ECP and ELCA rostered pastors as well as other denominations with appreciation of Lutheran polity, tradition and liturgy. Compensation negotiable. Submit cover letter and resume to: Lynne Ohlson, Chair, Call Committee, 729 Read the Parish Profile and the Visioning Report. The screening process begins January 17, 2005.

 

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ELCA boots another congregation

Central City Lutheran Mission expelled
for calling lesbian minister

by Greg A. Egertson

A Lutheran congregation was removed in October from the roster of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for calling a lesbian as a minister.

The action by Bishop Murray Finck and the Pacifica Synod Council marked the first time since 1995 that a Lutheran congregation was expelled from the national church body for calling a homosexual pastor.

Central City Lutheran Mission (CCLM), a "congregation in development" that offered both religious and social services in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of San Bernardino, California, lost its status with the ELCA for calling the Rev. Dr. Jennifer Mason as associate pastor.

Mason is a former missionary who served ten years as a pastor, community organizer and women's health educator in Chile through the ELCA's Division for Global Mission. Her Spanish speaking ability and background in health services were what made her a good fit for CCLM's inner city neighborhood.

Mason was removed from her Division for Global Mission post and from the ELCA clergy roster in 2001 when church officials in Chicago learned she was a lesbian living in a committed same-gender relationship. Current ELCA policy requires openly gay and lesbian clergy to remain celibate.

In addition to removing the congregation from its roster, the Pacifica Synod revoked the call of The Rev. David Kalke, an ELCA pastor whom the Synod had hired to lead the congregation. The synod's Consultation Committee later softened this decision after an appeal by CCLM, allowing Kalke to remain on the clergy roster and be placed "on leave from call."

The congregation remained open and vowed to continue serving its community.

In addition to providing clothing, shelter, meals, job training and health information, CCLM recently dedicated two new buildings, including a full- service health clinic staffed by volunteer nurses and nursing students from local colleges and universities. The Eucharist is celebrated eight times a week in both English and Spanish, and a "hip hop mass" created by neighborhood youth is conducted weekly.

Mason provides pastoral leadership and community outreach for all of these activities. Before being called by CCLM, Mason was re-certified for Lutheran ministry in 2003 by the Extraordinary Candidacy Project (ECP), an independent Lutheran credentialing body that works with sexual minority clergy.

Homosexuality not the issue: bishop

In a letter to congregations and clergy of the Pacifica Synod -- the ELCA's southeastern California administrative district -- Bishop Finck placed responsibility for his actions on the CCLM Board and Kalke for defying church policy. Quoting the ELCA constitution, Bishop Finck stated that "congregations agree to call pastoral leadership from the clergy roster of this church in accordance with the call procedures of this church except in special circumstances and with the approval of the synodical bishop."

According to an ELCA press release, the central issue for the synod's leaders was "compliance and consistency with the constitution and policies of the church," not Mason's sexual orientation.

"What we have said to the (CCLM) board is that (Mason's sexual orientation) may be the central issue for you, but it is not the central issue for us," Finck said, as quoted in the release. (See the end of this article for a link to the release.)

The synod council and Bishop Finck met with Kalke and CCLM's board on October 29, asking them to rescind their call to Pastor Mason. When the CCLM board refused, the Synod took action.

The expulsion of CCLM was the first time a congregation was removed from ELCA membership for calling an ECP pastor since 1990, when St. Francis and First United Lutheran Churches in San Francisco were suspended and (in 1995) expelled for calling the Rev. Jeff Johnson, the Rev. Ruth Frost and the Rev. Phyllis Zillhart as pastors and assigning them as program staff for Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministries.

Since those historic ordinations and the birth of LLGM, nearly twenty ELCA congregations have called openly gay or lesbian clergy in defiance of official policy. Nationwide, fourteen ELCA congregations are currently served by ECP pastors and not one of these has been disciplined beyond receiving a letter of censure.

The ECP was founded in 1993 as a project of Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministries, Lutherans Concerned/North America, and other gay advocacy groups in the ELCA. St. Francis was one of the first congregations to endorse the project and its mission of providing a professional "safety net" for LGBT clergy who have been outed, forced to resign or otherwise threatened with discipline by the ELCA for being in a committed same-gender relationship.

To be approved by ECP, pastors and ministry candidates must be completely "out" and must make a public statement of non-compliance -- either in fact or in principle -- with the ELCA's celibacy requirement.

Several current and former members of St. Francis have been admitted to the ECP roster including Lisa Stenmark, Greg Egertson, Michael Hiller, Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart. Our missionary in South Africa, Pieter Oberholzer, is also rostered with ECP.

The harshness of the Pacifica Synod's action against Central City Lutheran Mission stands in sharp contrast to two other cases this year, where local bishops chose to impose the least punitive option allowed under the ELCA constitution:

In September 2004, the Minneapolis Area Synod and Bishop Craig Johnson issued a letter of public censure and admonition to Bethany Lutheran Church for installing the Rev. Jay Alan Wiesner as associate pastor.

A graduate of Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, IA, Wiesner was approved for ordination and call by the ECP in 2002. He was hired by Bethany as an outreach minister to the large number of sexual minority people living in the parish's neighborhood in an urban area of Minneapolis. The congregation then undertook an intentional process that led to an overwhelming decision on February 22, 2004, to call and ordain him.

In the words of Bethany's pastor, Rev. Steven Benson, "The congregation approached this carefully and prayerfully and decided that we had a moral responsibility to call Jay as full pastor."

Wiesner was ordained into the Ministry of Word and Sacrament on July 25, 2004. His was the first "extra-ordinary" ordination in the Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA, and the second in the Twin Cities in the past three years.

In addition to his pastoral duties at Bethany, Jay is the director of student services for sexual minority students at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. He is also co-founder of the Naming Project, a support group for high school youth who long to integrate their spirituality with their sexuality.

In a similar action in April 2001, Anita Carol Hill was ordained and installed as associate pastor by St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in St. Paul. ECP President, the Rev. Jeff Johnson, officiated at the ordination. Two emeritus ELCA bishops, the Rev. Lowell Erdahl and the Rev. Dr. Paul W. Egertson also attended and participated in the laying on of hands. The service of installation took place the following week, on Sunday, August 1.

In October 2004, the Southwest California Synod and Bishop Dean Nelson issued a letter of public censure to Hollywood Lutheran Church for calling the Rev. Daniel M. Hooper as pastor.

Hooper, 56, is an openly gay man who has been in a relationship with his partner Carl for nearly 28 years. Hooper was ordained in 1974 and served as a Lutheran pastor in Arizona and Southern California until 1991 when he was "outed" and removed from the ELCA's clergy roster for non-compliance with the celibacy requirement.

After working for several years as a legal secretary and computer network administrator, Hooper was admitted to the clergy roster of the ECP in 2002 and re-certified for Lutheran ministry. He applied for the position at Hollywood Lutheran Church after learning that the members wanted to start an intentional outreach ministry to the local lesbian and gay community in order to increase the congregation's membership.

The congregation voted to call Hooper as its pastor at a congregational meeting on Sunday, March 21. The service of installation took place on Sunday, May 2.

CCLM continues ministry

For several years CCLM enjoyed a unique status within the ELCA as both a social ministry organization approved by the Division for Church and Society and as a "congregation in development" through the Division for Outreach. The dual identity enabled CCLM to attract funds from a variety of public, private and faith-based sources. It also placed CCLM on the cutting edge of ELCA urban ministry efforts.

According to Pastor Kalke, combining worship and sacramental ministry with the delivery of social services "allows the poor to be subjects in a process for personal and social transformation" rather than mere "objects of charity." Not only has this approach been effective, it was universally held up as a model for inner-city ministry within the ELCA until CCLM called an openly lesbian woman to provide pastoral leadership.

Over the past several months, CCLM board members remained steadfast in their decision to support Pastors Kalke and Mason. At the same time, the congregation valued its affiliation with the ELCA.

After learning of the October 29 discipline decision, the CCLM board officially asked Bishop Finck and the Pacifica Synod Council to reconsider and adopt the more moderate response taken by other synods throughout the ELCA.

The San Bernardino congregation found support from Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministries (LLGM), founded in 1989 in response to the ELCA's refusal to allow openly gay and lesbian pastors to serve in the church. LLGM is part of a nationwide movement to provide legal, pastoral and financial support to gay and lesbian pastors who are threatened with discipline, dismissed from their positions or removed from the ELCA clergy roster.

LLGM sponsored a letter-writing campaign in order to bring a wider range of influence to bear on the council and to make sure the members were aware of the broad base of support that CCLM enjoys across the country. Mason's colleagues on the ECP roster joined in the effort, along with members of the other gay Lutheran advocacy groups within the ELCA. Over 150 letters and e-mail messages were sent to the Pacifica Synod office, encouraging the synod council to reinstate both CCLM and Pastor Kalke.

In a meeting December 4, the synod refused to reverse its decision on CCLM but allowed Kalke to remain on the ELCA roster. In the context of this struggle, it was a major victory, one that allows more time for everyone to consider next steps and explore the possibility of developing new relationships.

Central City Lutheran Mission also remains a 2004 mission partner of Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministries. So far this year, LLGM has provided over $35,000 in grants to CCLM to support the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Jenny Mason and restore the significant financial losses that CCLM has suffered by standing in solidarity with openly gay and lesbian clergy.

Everyone at the Mission is extremely grateful for the support of LLGM and the generosity of congregations like St. Francis. But even more, despite the sanction from the ELCA, Pastors Kalke and Mason are determined to continue their work in the neighborhood as a worshipping community, perhaps as an independent Lutheran congregation.

The Pacifica Synod is headquartered in Orange County, a historically conservative region where two Episcopal parishes this year declared they had severed ties with the national Episcopal Church after a national church gathering affirmed the consecration of an openly gay priest, The Rev. Gene Robinson, as bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire. In protest, the two Orange County parishes aligned themselves with a conservative African bishop who opposes the ordination of gay clergy.
 

Greg Egertson is co-chair of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries, an Associate Dean at Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco, and a graduate of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. This article is adapted from a Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries press release.

For further reading

Los Angeles Times, Dec. 4, 2004: San Bernardino Lutheran Mission Loses Its Sanction Over Gay Pastor

The ELCA's press release on CCLM's situation is here.

The Extraordinary Candidacy Project (ECP) was founded in 1993 as a project of Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministries and other advocacy groups to certify the credentials of openly identified sexual minority pastors and seminarians who no longer wish to keep their sexual orientation a secret from their congregations and ELCA church officials.

Nationally, there are nearly 40 pastors and seminarians on the ECP roster and the list is growing. Pastors and seminarians who apply to the ECP for certification must meet the same rigorous standards as those who apply for certification from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), except gay and lesbian pastors are not expected to remain celibate as the ELCA requires. The committees that certify ECP candidates are made up of ELCA seminary professors, retired bishops, pastors and lay leaders from various professions. The ECP is not formally affiliated with the ELCA.

For more information on the ECP, visit their web site.

For more information on Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministries, visit www.llgm.org and www.goodsoil.org.

Upcoming dates

Saturday, January 15
All-day celebration of the 15th anniversary of the ordinations of Jeff Johnson, Ruth Frost, and Phyllis Zillhart. The day will include a panel discussing the events and their aftermath, and a showing of video from the event. In the evening, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom speaks at a banquet (see above).

Sunday, January 16, 11:00 a.m.
Pr. Pieter Oberholzer, St. Francis's missionary, preaches.

Wednesday, February 2, 6:00 pm
the next Family Night.

Wednesday, February 9
Ash Wednesday.

Sunday, February 13, 1:00 p.m.
Annual Meeting. All members are asked to attend.

Sunday, March 20
Palm Sunday.

 

 

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instrument
a newsletter of St. Francis Lutheran Church

Editor: Mark Pritchard

This Winter 2005 issue was completed on 14 December 2004. A revised, corrected version was posted on the web on April 3, 2005.

Produced on something like a quarterly schedule. Submissions in MS Word format to mark94110 at yahoo.com, or on paper to Mark c/o the church office, 152 Church St., San Francisco, Calif. 94114. Submissions may be on any topic related to spirituality or the work of the people.

Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily of St. Francis Church, its staff or members.

 

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