{"id":72264,"date":"2018-06-17T13:00:28","date_gmt":"2018-06-17T17:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=72264"},"modified":"2018-06-25T07:17:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T11:17:04","slug":"a-letter-from-bishop-lawrence-to-all-parishes-to-be-distributed-this-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=72264","title":{"rendered":"A Letter from Bishop Lawrence to all Parishes to be distributed this Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A Letter from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SouthCarolina?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#SouthCarolina<\/a> Bishop Mark Lawrence to all Parishes to be distributed this past Sunday <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AcYDB8E8UJ\">https:\/\/t.co\/AcYDB8E8UJ<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/law?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#law<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/religion?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#religion<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ethics?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#ethics<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/stewardship?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#stewardship<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XE8Qjd3z9S\">pic.twitter.com\/XE8Qjd3z9S<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KendallHarmon6\/status\/1008770196113379329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 18, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Dear People of God,<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cOur hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.\u201d\u00a0 2 Corinthians 1:7<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I leave\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1871122959\"><span class=\"aQJ\">tomorrow<\/span><\/span>\u00a0for the Global Anglicans Future Conference in Jerusalem.\u00a0 It is a gathering of global leaders\u2014Primates, Bishops, Priests and lay leaders\u2014from around the Anglican Communion.\u00a0 I will be attending not only as a bishop of the Anglican Church in North America, but, more importantly, as your bishop, representing the Diocese of\u00a0<span class=\"il\">South<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Carolina<\/span>\u00a0among the larger Anglican family.\u00a0 This gathering is another reminder that the spiritual issues with which we engage locally are part of a global crisis regarding the authority of the Bible and its place in Anglicanism in the 21st Century.<\/p>\n<p>Before leaving, however, let me share a few thoughts regarding the denial of our recent petition.\u00a0 The U. S. Supreme Court\u2019s denial is not an affirmation of the\u00a0<span class=\"il\">South<\/span><span class=\"il\">Carolina<\/span>\u00a0Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1871122960\"><span class=\"aQJ\">August 2<\/span><\/span>\u00a0opinion nor of the merits of our position.\u00a0 It leaves us, however, back in the Dorchester County Court with a conflicted and fractured ruling. Quite simply, regardless of what you may have read or heard elsewhere, this case is not over\u2014, as they say, that is the good news, and that is the bad news.<\/p>\n<p>This afternoon I met with all our clergy to have a \u201cfamily\u201d conversation, for after five long years of litigation it has certainly taken its toll.\u00a0 It has also been a refiner\u2019s fire.\u00a0 The rectors also met with Henrietta Golding since our lead attorney, Mr. Alan Runyan, is presently in Jerusalem as a lay delegate to GAFCON.\u00a0 Ms. Golding described the legal landscape so that your priest may be aided in answering some of your questions.\u00a0 However, I would hasten to add; definitively predicting how a judge or court may rule in the future has been many a fool\u2019s errand.<\/p>\n<p>This has been and is still a very complicated ecclesiastical and judicial landscape. Yet sometimes a question is asked or a statement made that distills a very complex matter.\u00a0 I received a text message yesterday from a parishioner that did this for me.\u00a0\u00a0 Here it is in text speak; just as it came to my I-Phone:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div>\n<div><em>Hey, I know I\u2019m kinda slow.\u00a0 Sometimes don\u2019t see \u201cThe big picture.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><em>BUT still praying.\u00a0 It\u2019s only \u201cstuff\u201d as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><em>Your friend in CHRIST.\u00a0 Leroy<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Of course, the stuff Leroy is referring to is the current legal and theological unpleasantness.\u00a0 The Church buildings, property, endowment funds, identity, beliefs, heritage\u2026 to name but a few at stake.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s my response in text speak:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div><em>Yes, it\u2019s only stuff.\u00a0<\/em><em>But some stuff is worth fighting for and some stuff isn\u2019t<\/em><em>\u00a0and discerning the difference is the stuff that much of life is made of.\u00a0<\/em><em>Blessings friend, Mark<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div>Discerning what is worth fighting for and what is not is one aspect of the legal issues before us.\u00a0 It is also, what is involved in the theological and spiritual matters before us as Anglican Christians\u2014 both locally and globally.\u00a0 One could wish these were not connected, the legal and the theological, but for now, they are.\u00a0 One could wish we would not have to engage in either one or that these struggles had somehow bypassed us.\u00a0 But many generations have had like challenges in their day and had to decide what stuff to hold onto and what stuff to let go of.\u00a0 When Saint Paul penned those immortal words, \u201cSo now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love,\u201d it was not romantic love of which he spoke.\u00a0 Nor was it a love without discernment, without struggles, without truth, without faith, without hope; it was the love that led Jesus to the cross to save a sinful, scarred and tattered world and doing so in surrender and obedience to his heavenly Father.\u00a0 It was a costly and sacrificial love.One of our priests asked me just the other day,<em>\u00a0\u201cBishop, what are you hearing from God?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 I replied, \u201cNot as much as I would like.\u201d\u00a0 I spent several hours just last night on the night shift\u2026listening.\u00a0 God it seems has enrolled me in a graduate course in the School of Prayer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>With that in mind, I find myself spending no little time praying through Luke 18:1-8, the Parable of the Persistent Widow and the Unrighteous Judge.\u00a0\u00a0<em>\u201cAnd [Jesus] told them a parable that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0I certainly do not have space in this letter to unpack much of the richness in this passage.\u00a0 Therefore, may I encourage you to read it for yourself.\u00a0 Let it inform your prayer.<\/p>\n<p>In the last line of this teaching, our Lord poses a question,\u00a0<em>\u201cNevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0In reflecting on this, I am drawn to another teaching of our Lord on intercessory prayer, Matthew 9:35-38.\u00a0 While Jesus was teaching and healing in cities and villages and seeing the crowds,\u00a0<em>\u201che had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.\u00a0 Then he said to his disciples, \u2018The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Here are two teachings regarding intercessory prayer.\u00a0 Both are relevant to our situation in the diocese.\u00a0 Both point to circumstances in which many of us find ourselves. Frankly, to pray only for vindication of our legal cause but have little compassion for the lost and needy; to turn a blind eye to the huge numbers of people moving into the Low Country; to seek God\u2019s help in the court but not seek him for laborers for the harvest; is to fail to respond rightly to our Lord\u2019s closing question in his teaching on prayerful persistence.\u00a0 Frankly, we dare not let the legal questions of the courtroom dominate or hinder our pursuit of the God\u2019s mission in the world.\u00a0 Both the \u201cstuff\u2019 in the courtroom and the \u201cstuff\u201d of the Kingdom matter.\u00a0 Let\u2019s make sure we keep the order right.\u00a0<em>\u00a0\u201cSeeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0That\u2019s the lodestar, the true manna, the pearl of great price, which keeps the main thing the main thing. May God grant us the grace to place the Kingdom before the buildings and use the buildings for the Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>Yours in Christ,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&#8211;The Right Reverend Mark J. Lawrence is XIVth Bishop of\u00a0<span class=\"il\">South<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Carolina<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Letter from #SouthCarolina Bishop Mark Lawrence to all Parishes to be distributed this past Sunday https:\/\/t.co\/AcYDB8E8UJ #law #religion #ethics #stewardship pic.twitter.com\/XE8Qjd3z9S &mdash; Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 18, 2018 Dear People of God, \u201cOur hope for you is unshaken; for<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=72264\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,54,114,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican-episcopal","category-south-carolina","category-law-legal-issues","category-religion-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72264"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72268,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72264\/revisions\/72268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}