The General Convention

My wife and I managed to attend the Sunday Eucharist service of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.  You might think of it as somehow a cross between LDS General Conference where very high up leaders have a lot of time to give speeches on the big issues in society and religion and the US Congress- since democratically elected representatives of a bicameral legislature try to figure out the rules by which the organization runs.  I haven't managed to follow much of the legislation, although some of it actually is making it into the newspaper.  It was an interesting experience, especially since all of my cultural expectations come from the LDS General Conference.

It can be hard to realize how thoroughly your cultural expectations of a top tier religious meeting can be until they are thoroughly violated.  For example- LDS meetings never have clapping.  They never have any shouting, there are very specific cultural expectations for what tones of voice and emotional speaking techniques are permissible because they support the LDS brand of what a spiritual experience is supposed to be.  The music in LDS meetings rarely strays from organ and choral.  Political social justice messages might be discussed in sermons, but almost always from very socially conservative slants wherein social justice crusaders are typically reprimanded for not truly representing Christ.  Social justice messages are never worn on clothing in any manner.  I could go on.

By contrast- the Sunday Eucharist service included choral pieces, orchestra music, and chant music.  Most of which was played so loud that my front row seat left me feeling my ears assaulted (the people in the back might have felt it was just right for all I know).  There was frequent clapping and laughing- I lost count of how many puns could be made about the health of the "mother church" and the presiding Bishop being a woman.  Oh, did I mention that the top leader of the church, the "focus of the church's prophetic voice" as I've heard it referred to, is a woman?  Did I mention a democratic process was used to select the next leader?  The people sitting around me and on the stand included a goodly number of African Americans.  Did I mention the presiding bishop elect is black?  A number of the blacks I saw were wearing "Black Lives Matter" logos.  I'm coming at this from a perspective of being raised in the LDS church where the culture and the official lesson manuals are still to this day sorting out whether to discourage mixed race marriages.  People stood up, raised there arms, and swayed ecstatically.  The sermon was heavily focused on how to pursue a renewing of the world in Christ through social justice.  There was only one sermon.  We took Eucharist from a ceremony presided over by a woman, and accepted the bread and wine from a woman.

Afterwards, I listened to part of a sermon from the last General Convention where the Presiding Bishop Elect preached.  Micheal Curry blended a mix of humor, biblical focus, contemporary culture and passion that I don't think I've ever seen before- swinging freely from quoting the bible to talking about Jimi Hendrix to shouting the message and praise of God's love.  And I mean shouting- while walking quickly back and forth across a stage and gesturing with his hands.  Mormonism expects a fairly constrained range of emotions to be experienced spiritually.  Bishop Curry's sermon blasted through those expectations pretty thoroughly.

The experience as a whole was very positive and I was actually moved to tears at times, which is a pretty rare thing for me.  But it was also in some ways very foreign despite more than a year of worshiping at Episcopalian services regularly.  After a life time of having spiritual experiences only really mean certain things in certain contexts with certain types of people, I don't always know exactly what to do with the fact that there is so much variety and diversity in how a spiritually experience can be contextualized.  Mostly I was left passionately feeling that I was in a church that expressed Christ's gospel in a way that I could understand it and agree with it.  At other moments, the entire atmosphere simply felt very strange and foreign. 

In the end I'm glad I was able to go.  Since the General Convention is only held once every nine years and its held in different parts of the country over time, I'll probably never have another chance.  I'm looking forwards to seeing more of Bishop Curry's preaching.