The 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the gathering of our bishops and elected lay and clergy deputies from each diocese that happens every three years, came to a conclusion this past Friday.  Of course the newspapers and blogs across the universe were out for blood, looking for the jugular headline that sells (present company from Faith & Religion excluded).  Yet beyond the sexy talking points there were a number of good works accomplished in Anaheim that deserve our celebration in a few moments.

What was equally as important at General Convention as any legislative resolution was the Presiding Bishop’s choice of placing everything they did into the context of the African concept of Ubuntu, which means in Zulu: I in You and You in Me.  As Desmond Tutu explains it, “a person with Ubuntu is open and available to others … knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.  [Ubuntu] speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity.” 

Nelson Mandela gives this African example of Ubuntu: “A traveler through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him.”  Ubuntu isn’t a “kum-ba-ya” sort of campfire feeling.  It’s a way of being who God made us to be in every moment of our lives.  It’s a way of acting; it names the sort of effect we do or don’t have on the whole world around us.  Or as Mandela himself put it, “Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address [their own needs]. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the whole community around you to be able to improve?”  

It was in that spirit that Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies, in her closing remarks to the 76th General Convention said, “The mood has been extremely, extremely -- I don't think there's a word called ubuntu-ish, but if there were, that is how I would describe the mood of this General Convention.”  Most of all, she said, “We have listened to and responded to the needs of our church.”   And in putting the church’s identity, and mission, and vision into the forefront of all the decision-making, the whole atmosphere even of discussing differences was less contentious.  As The Rev. Lowell Grisham said in one news report, "people are less inclined to be in ‘for' or ‘against' camps."

Of course Ubuntu rarely sells newspapers, although the results sometimes do, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa that helped to name and move redemptively beyond the horrors of racist apartheid.  Still, it’s not surprising that the absence of contentiousness is not what made the headlines.  “Dog didn’t bite child today,” doesn’t sell.   Neither did General Convention’s exemplary exercise of the distinctive polity of the Episcopal Church, reflecting our traditional and honored temperament of patience, generosity and civility.

Perhaps, too, General Convention attendees were responding to the collective fatigue in church and society of the culture of divisiveness that has ruled now almost an entire generation of Americans.   Long before the economic collapse almost a year ago, we already were immersed in a culture characterized by the scarcity of kindness, empathy, and hospitality.  

You don’t have to think 9/11 or Matthew Shepherd.  Just participate in the Darwinian survival of the fittest to rush-hour metros, or listen to the “he said/she said” gossip at any cocktail party, or flip on the TV to watch a potential Supreme Court justice being interviewed.   Then hear again Bishop Tutu’s alternative vision: “A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others … knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished …”

To live this way isn’t easy, but in a faith tradition symbolized by the cross, how did we lose sight of the fact that authentic faithfulness, in the words of our recent guest preacher Dr. Francis McGuigan, “always takes a bit out of our own hides?”  This General Convention is asking us to do nothing less than to go out and help build a whole new church defined by the spirit of Ubuntu — a church defined by outward looking mission driven by our baptismal vows to go forth in faith to love and serve one another.  Whatever it takes…even if it takes a bit out of our hides.

It’s in this perspective that we can understand the significance of the only two General Convention resolutions that did receive any press.  Resolution DO25 officially stated the openness of our ordination process to all orders, including bishops, to candidates in same-sex relationships.   Resolution CO56 then called the whole church to the task of gathering resources for same sex blessings to bring to the next General Convention for action, meanwhile calling on bishops to provide a “generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church” already seeking the church’s blessing of same sex relationships.

I’m proud of our church for taking these public, denomination-wide positions.  Yet, here at St. Thomas’ we’ve been blessing same sex unions for over a decade, and have a special friendship with our colleague Bishop Gene Robinson, whose consecration we have not ceased to celebrate.  So these two resolutions, DO 25 and CO56, do not challenge us locally.  

Yet General Convention did leave us with our own challenge, that may equal the challenge other dioceses continue to face about human sexuality.  General Convention closed with a call for us and all the church to become an Ubuntu-committed community…and for us that’s a much harder thing to do than to be prophetically inclusive in matters of human sexuality.  Under the Ubuntu-umbrella of resolutions that were passed are issues that continue to bring humiliation to our sisters and brothers in Christ; I will name a few which are of particular challenge to our St. Thomas’ community.

• To bring an end to and provide education about Domestic Violence, naming the church as a historically complicit partner in the silence we maintain;
• Increased efforts towards eradicating the evils of racism and sexism and torture;
• An even greater emphasis on the MDG’s which include global outreach and actions towards sustainability—both of which we will hear about during our announcement period.

Not one of us has a leg-up, so to speak, on becoming a person with Ubuntu, “open and available to others … knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished,” and doing this in every part of our lives every day.

We can take heart, though, from today’s Gospel.  What may have struck you in this morning’s lesson from Mark is the story of another encounter between Jesus and his followers on the Sea of Galilee.

The crowds around Jesus and his followers have grown and grown, and as a result both Jesus and his disciples were exhausted.  There was never a time or place that the demands of their ministry left them for quiet and rest – or even a good meal!  You couldn’t have blamed the disciples for throwing up their hands at Jesus and screaming “Enough, already!”  

And now 5,000 more people have gathered in crowds so thick the disciples can’t get to their boat to accomplish the 3-R’s--rest, reflect and refresh.   Then Jesus makes an Ubuntu gesture to this mob: he has compassion on them.  “Sit down. Stay for supper.  Let’s have something to eat together.”  And to his disciples Jesus said; show some Ubuntu yourselves and  “go get them all something to eat.”  And though they are not quoted as saying this by Mark, I can imagine the disciples’ reply, which must have been something like, “No way, I’m done—you’ve got to be NUTS!”

Jesus challenged them, as this story challenges us, to respond to the crush of the needs of the world with compassion, which for Jesus meant with hospitality.  And hospitality itself must be an expression not of our fear of scarcity, but of our celebration of the abundance of possibility that lies in each decision we make.  

In Mark’s story, Jesus practiced Ubuntu.  I believe that the message for us from General Convention and the gospel this morning is short and simple and comes in the form of a challenge that will “take a bit of our hide.”  It’s simply the question, “will we be a part in helping to build a new church?”   Can we live out our vision of prophetic hospitality, in which we become even more “open and available to others,” because we have committed ourselves to discovering what it means in this place, and in our time here, that our community, special as it is, “belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished”?  As with the 5,000, Jesus sometimes calls us to serve those who challenge our capacities, not to mention our resources and patience while stretching our faithfulness as disciples.  Ubuntu is practiced one visitor at a time, who will leave remembering the hospitality we did or didn’t offer.

Won’t you volunteer one Sunday a month to greet and extend Ubuntu to a newcomer during coffee-hour? Would you contribute your hands and your money to put flowers on the altar in honor of someone who changed your life?  Is there room in the economy of your heart to help us provide a new home for a homeless family in our Transitional Housing project, to assist with altar guild, to be one of our Godly Play teachers and get the nursery ready for newcomers with infants in September, to assist with Pastoral Care and nurturance and care to others who suffer in our own community?  Lend your voice to the choir and your hands to tending our property?

Who might we spiritually become if we made decisions about our fiscal and personal resources out of a spirit of Ubuntu? Jesus’ reply to his disciples was not a message of scarcity and caution, but the extravagance of hospitality.  What would our faithfulness look like if we could live taking Nelson Mandela’s words to heart that “Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address [their own needs]. The question is: “Are you going to do so in order to enable the whole community around you to be able to improve?”   

May you and I, begin this summer planning for a new season of Ubuntu—I in you and you in me…the call to Build a New Church!
Amen +