Disciple: Change Is a Blessing

By The Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee

A prayer in many Anglican prayer books asks God that “we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness.”

God’s love is eternal and unchanging. But change is characteristic of every life, every relationship and every institution.

We would like it to be different. Once married, we would like our youthful, romantic excitement to remain unchanged. But couples change and grow, and, if that is not recognized and celebrated, they are likely to grow apart. Our nation is changing. White Anglo-Saxons are likely to be a minority by the year 2050. The fear and hostility present in some of our communities in this election season is a reflection of the fear of change and inability to adapt.

I grew up in a parish where the Holy Communion (that’s what we called it then) was celebrated on the first Sunday of the month at the main service and Morning Prayer held on all other Sundays. That has changed as we recognize the Eucharist as the principal act of Christian worship.

Many people grew up in congregations with a full-time, male priest. That’s changed as fewer and fewer parishes can afford a full-time priest. Women in ordained ministry have changed the Church for the better. Most mainline Protestant denominations now include women. I anticipate that even the Roman Catholic Church will evolve one day to accept women in all orders of ministry.

When our General Convention moved in 1976 to change the canon law to approve women’s ordination, the vote was something like three-quarters in favor. A parishioner of mine at the time complained to a local Roman Catholic priest that the vote was not overwhelming. The priest, a friend of mine, told my parishioner that when (not if) the Roman Catholic Church admits women to the priesthood, it will take one vote. Maybe not Pope Francis, but one day the change will come.

Change is difficult. I retired as Bishop of Virginia in 2009, some two years before I began to learn how to use email. I still do not have a smartphone. But change is coming.

Parishes, especially small ones accustomed to a full-time priest, are learning that through baptism all Christians have ministries, and much of what we formerly expected to be done by clergy can be done effectively by lay persons.

Change, then, can be a blessing. I still have much to learn about technology. Our churches have much to learn about the ministry of all the baptized. We can engage in those learnings.

Not all change is good, not all transitions are welcome. But all change and all transitions are part of human life, and therefore, God is present in them all.

As we deal with change and transitions, in our personal lives and in our common and church life, we should remember the serenity prayer of the 20^th-century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference….”

The Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee is the assisting bishop for the Diocese of North Carolina.