Several images have caught my attention this past week. If you’ve been reading the newspapers or checking out the internet, they may have caught yours as well. One was the picture of The Very Rev. Tracey Lind, Dean of the Cathedral in Cleveland. Another was a picture of The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, blessing a thurible of incense in New Orleans. The last was a picture of the Archbishop holding up the gift of a weathered, wooden cross. For me, all three images have framed the scriptures appointed for this morning and the lessons we might draw from them in the context of events in which our church is caught up today. You might ask: Modern pictures… current events… what do they have to do with ancient texts? Everything! Today we catch a glimpse of Jesus’ vision of stewardship – taking good care of those things with which we are entrusted – and of God’s profound lament when we fail to do so.

In our second reading from Luke’s Gospel, the manager is called to account for his squandering of the rich man’s property. Because of his inept and foolish management, he will lose his job. Suddenly concerned for his own future, the manager tries to curry favor with others who owe the rich man by reducing the actual debts they owe. I can just hear him now: “Aha!  I’ve helped them – now they will look after me!” The owner’s commendation for this shrewd – but dishonest – behavior seems to be a rather sarcastic one. The manager has not only failed to take good care of what has been entrusted to him, he has defrauded the owner by reducing what is owed to secure his own personal good. Jesus teaches that those who are faithful in a little are faithful in much and those who are dishonest in a little are dishonest in much. In other words, if we can’t even be faithful with dishonest wealth (that which does not belong to us in the first place), then how can we ever hope to be entrusted with the true riches which are ours to be claimed through our relationship with God?

Our first reading, from the prophet Jeremiah, reflects God’s anguish at our “unfaithfulness.” Whether we read this as the prophet himself speaking or as God speaking through the prophet, the lament is unmistakable.  “Joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick… Oh that my eyes (were) a fountain of tears… that I might weep day and night…” God cries out for his people. The people cry out for God. In their arrogance, they assume that as in the past God will rescue them from the coming disaster. God answers with a sense of offense and indignation at their foreign idols. In spite of that, the response is mixed with a deep sense of distress: a disastrous judgment is coming. However, the time of trial will be followed by a new and more enduring relationship with God. The question for the people of Judah in their time was: Could they see beyond their current circumstances and trust that God cared deeply – that God would be there – that this new relationship would be theirs to claim?

Perhaps the question for us in our time is the same, with one added twist: What are the true riches with which we have been entrusted and what are we doing or not doing with them that might invite God’s lament? Those questions bring me back to the current state of affairs in our church and the images that have caught my attention this week.

As a church – the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church around the globe – we are struggling with the issues of ordaining gay and lesbian persons as Bishops in the church and with the blessing of relationships of same-sex couples. “Struggling” is perhaps not the right word any more. The rhetoric has reached the point where just about any action on either side is seen as a threat to the continued unity of the Anglican Communion – that confederation of national churches bound by tradition and history to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

When one “side” in the argument dares to put forward a qualified candidate for the office of Bishop who is a lesbian in a committed relationship – as we have in Chicago – then the headlines declare that the Communion is threatened. If the other “side” in the argument dares to cross the traditional boundaries of a Diocesan bishop with a visit or the ordination of a “missionary” bishop in the name of ministry to those who choose to disagree, then the media proclaims that the Communion is destined to split. One “side” offers to provide “alternative oversight” to those who disagree and puts forth a list of eight Bishops who have agreed to serve in that capacity. Newspapers predict that will not be an acceptable solution to the other “side.” One “side” claims to represent the “true Gospel” and refers to the other “side” as “heretics.” Congregations split over the issues, parishes realign themselves with ecclesiastical authorities beyond our borders, ownership issues arise and both “sides” go to court to claim property they believe belongs to them. The Archbishop of Canterbury is invited to attend a gathering of all the bishops of the Episcopal Church to listen and learn. Dissenters threaten to leave the gathering as soon as he does and meet on their own to consider next steps to enhancing their own network of churches.

Such is the backdrop for this week’s meeting of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in New Orleans. We only know some of what has been discussed, proposed, shared or disagreed with. The meeting ends Tuesday. Hopefully, we will know more then but my guess is that many more difficult struggles are ahead for all of us. Our own Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefforts Shori, has called once again for us to listen to each other.

But the hard part about doing that and confronting our differences is that we must also learn to live with the tension and the conflict while keeping uppermost in our minds that the true church belongs to God – not to us. We are simply stewards of all that we have – property and buildings but most especially the people who are the church itself. My own personal opinion is that this is our conflict and not God’s and we must find our way through it with God’s help and grace.

Perhaps equally hard is being less concerned with the configuration the church will eventually assume than how we can avoid losing sight of our call to be disciples of the Christ who is the “head of the church.” What God has in store for us is part of the great mystery yet to be revealed. It is only through the workings of the Holy Spirit in our midst that we begin to discern the outlines of what is ahead for us. Exactly how that will look – exactly what shape that will take – is not yet known. We can only live trusting that we are promised an enduring relationship with God. To me, it seems that a time of trial and self-examination lies between this moment and that which is to come.

In that time, perhaps all of us here in Chicago can make a decision as to whether Tracey Lind – or one of the other candidates – should be our next bishop based on their gifts for mission and ministry for this Diocese and not on their sexual orientation or their marital status or other such factors. What caught my attention with the picture in this week’s newspaper was that she was holding up the communion bread broken as a symbol of Christ’s body given for each of us, offered to all the people of the church – God’s children, God’s beloved and chosen ones.

With the image of Archbishop Williams blessing the incense, we might note that this was just prior to a service held in the New Orleans Convention Center, the site where scarcely two years ago thousands gathered in filth and misery, waiting to be rescued from the unthinkable conditions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps that image can be one of smoke carrying our collective prayers to ask that we always keep the needs of others in plain sight and that, working together, we never allow that type of injustice to happen again in this or any other part of the world.

As you are, I am deeply concerned about the future direction of our church. And I am offended, as you are, by the escalated rhetoric and the disrespect shown those on all sides of the issues at hand. I am concerned that in the middle of all this, we run the risk of losing sight of the fundamental worth of every human being as seen through God’s eyes.

Perhaps that is why it was that last image of Archbishop Williams holding the cross that was the most striking. The gift to him was made from the wood and nails of shrimp boats destroyed by Katrina. Out of disaster and ruin, tears and mourning, a symbol for new life, hope and opportunity was crafted. This symbol was presented to him by those who had survived. Perhaps we can use that image as a symbol of our own opportunity for new life and mission – renewed care for who and what we are and will be – after our own time of trial is over.

 As our Collect for the day directs us, we pray:

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure…”

 Lord, hear our prayer.