| DIOCESAN NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS November 10, 2007 Episcopal Diocese of Long Island I am honored and delighted to serve as your preacher this morning, by the invitation of your bishop and my brother Orris G. Walker, Jr. I give thanks for the extraordinary kindness and warm welcome that Bishop Walker has shown me. I am honored to count him as a friend and to work with him as a colleague. He is a faithful, wise, strong, loving, kind and generous pastor. He has placed his considerable gifts and talents and leadership in the service not only of this Diocese, but of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. He knows and loves the Lord Jesus Christ. He loves to tell a story, but, more than that, he loves to tell The Story. He has loved and led this Diocese for nearly 20 years as a bishop. He has built a dedicated and remarkable staff. Reliable sources assure me that, on several occasions he has visited outside of the Archdeaconry of Brooklyn! He is a good and godly man. His passion for justice is well known to all. He … (I’m sorry, Jay, but I can’t quite read your handwriting. What was it you wanted me to say now?) ... ... When I learned that your Bishop Diocesan would be calling for a Bishop Coadjutor, I thought of the difference between a Suffragan and a Coadjutor. At the beginning of each work day the Suffragan approaches the Diocesan and says, “What may I do to help you, Sir?” Whereas the Coadjutor asks the Diocesan, “How are you feeling?” I do not advise anyone to take the latter approach. As Bishop Walker told the Province II bishops last winter: “We are in the fourth quarter, but it’s not yet time for the two minute drill.” In 1992 the episcopal search committee in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts began the process leading to the election of a successor to the Rt. Rev. Andrew F. Wissemann. They asked members of the Diocese to return a written form and share their hopes and expectations for the profile of the new bishop. One person submitted a form with just one sentence: “I like the old bishop.” Don’t you? It is right and good that, as you begin the process of discernment leading to the election of a Bishop Coadjutor we reflect on the mission of the Church, as the Proper for this Celebration of the Holy Eucharist calls us to do. Within that reflection, we can glean some vital features of the ministry of a bishop. For a bishop is a leader in a missionary society – the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church. Bishops must be missionaries. Their ministry is many things, but it is not less than to lead and inspire, to cheer and challenge, to direct and uphold a society of missionaries. There are many other dimensions to the episcopate, but a bishop is called to lead the mission of the Church, “to restore all people to God and each other in Christ.” A vital part of that mission is to share the priceless gift of the Episcopal Church. Nothing could be more timely or necessary. We are a denomination in decline. It is very real and we are being very honest about it. The Parochial Report Summary for 2006, submitted to Executive Council last month, shows that membership, average Sunday attendance and other key indicators are all in decline. The only positives are in stewardship. We seem to be able to raise more and more money from fewer and fewer people. Only 16 out of 110 dioceses are growing; none of them in Province II. Our losses are less precipitous than in previous years. Yet that is hardly a rallying cry for mission, is it? “Our losses are less precipitous!” Let me tell you about a more positive approach. My older daughter married a Baptist pastor. He’s my kind of Baptist. His congregation is a “welcoming and affirming” church. Everyone is welcome. One day last spring my daughter was talking with me about her new church home. She said something that is quite unremarkable but has stayed with me: “Dad, I love my church!” I have thought about those words every day since I first heard them. They have become the heart of prayer for the Diocese of New Jersey and for our Church. That is, I am praying that each one of the 50,000 Episcopalians in our 160 churches in New Jersey would tell someone, “I love my church!” That is not obnoxious or offensive or threatening. We feel quite free to tell someone that we love a film or a wine or a sports team. (Some people even love the Yankees!) But we are so reticent to tell the world that we love our church. Our idea of evangelism seems to be like that of someone who places an aquarium at the end of a dock by a lake. And, if any fish want to leap out of the lake and into our aquarium, that would be alright by us. We must do better. We can tell a neighbor or friend or colleague that we love our church. By word and example, we can share the Good News, as we promise in the Baptismal Covenant, in a gentle and simple yet genuine way. And perhaps we will be led, by grace, to say something more. Like, “I love Jesus.” And, “Jesus loves me.” And, “Jesus loves you.” You don’t need permission to do this! You have a story to tell. Tell it, for Christ’s sake. What would Jesus do? Jesus would send us out. That was what he did, according to Luke (10:1-9). Immediately preceding the passage that we just heard, Jesus is dealing with people who say that they want to follow him, but they cannot. Each of them has an excellent excuse (9:57-62). Jesus says simply but firmly that such are not fit for the kingdom. He then turns to seventy others and gives a charge to this apostolic band. First, he gives them a vision: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (10:2). When we look around us, can we see the world as a place of abundance, as our Lord sees the world? Such is our Lord’s gift to those he sends forth – to see the world with his eyes. To love the world, in all of its wretchedness and all of its beauty; to know its joy and its pain; to strive for peace and justice in the face of violence and oppression; to defend and care for the poor and speak truth to power; to raise up those who are cast down; to labor for reconciliation in all times and places; and practice resurrection, our sure and certain hope. But to receive the vision of Jesus we must first be close to Jesus; close enough to listen to Jesus. Bishops are those who lead the community of faith with vision; not by their own bright ideas and opinions and pronouncements and other utterances, huffing and puffing. Bishops preach and live the Gospel and are articulators and guardians of Christ’s vision for the church in the world. To do that, they must live in close relationship with the Lord of the harvest. In his book, In the Name of Jesus (1989), Henri Nouwen writes of the importance of remaining grounded in the Lord: “Christian leaders cannot simply be persons who have well-informed opinions about the burning issues of our time. Their leadership must be rooted in the permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus...Dealing with burning issues easily leads to divisiveness because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject. But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible but not relativistic, convinced without being offensive, gentle, and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.” Years ago, I read an article about prayer as intimacy with our Lord. The author was married woman and she used an illustration out of her marriage. She said that she was confident that, if she were to walk into a crowded room, she could tell if her husband were there, if she only just heard the sound of him, clearing his throat. How could she make that claim? Because she had lived with him so long and knew him so well and loved him so much. She went on to observe that, if she wanted to know God’s presence and God’s will in her life, she likewise was called to intimacy with God. She wanted to live closely with God for a long time; know God deeply and well; and love God so much. We want our bishops to be visionaries who know the Lord of the harvest, not just by hearsay, but in intimate relationship with Jesus. We will only be effective missionaries in the abundance of the world when we are rooted in the abundance of God’s love for us. All of us. The apostles and the apostate. Even for bishops. Secondly, notice that Jesus is clear that doing mission is hazardous duty. “See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” Suddenly, the agricultural metaphor of the harvest shifts to nature, “red in tooth and claw.” Jesus, in his love for the world, calls us missionaries and missionary leaders, to share in the cost of discipleship. Our Lord needs a Church that is mature enough, led by bishops and others who are strong enough to deal faithfully with resistance and conflict. There are plenty of powerful forces that oppose the mission and so the life of the missionary society or any missionary can never be an easy one. My first bishop, the Rt. Rev. Robert C. Rusack, often quoted Samuel Johnson’s observation: “I do not envy the cleric his easy life; not do I envy the cleric who makes it an easy life.” We need to be radically uneasy with the arrangements of this world, for the sake of the kingdom. Conflict is inevitable. Jesus’ gift was to tell the truth. If you go into the world with a mission to look and sound and act like Jesus, the world will treat you just the way it treated Jesus. What would you expect? Peace and security? A slave is not better than a master and a disciple is not above the teacher. He is the leader and those who follow and obey him and become like him will be maligned and mistreated, as he was. Count on it. The cost of discipleship is not reserved for martyrs and saints and other Christian heroes and heroines. It is there from the first step that we take to follow Christ into the world that crucified him. If being a Christian has never cost you anything, never made you uncomfortable, never caused you tension, then quick, examine whom you are following. Is it Christ, or is it culture or convention? Read the Gospel again, review the Baptismal Covenant, then read your daily newspaper and ask yourself how it could ever be easy to follow Jesus Christ in this world. It is not. That is why the most frequent command in the Bible is “Don’t be afraid.” Not love, peace, justice. Not “Don’t touch that.” But, “Don’t be afraid.” In the face of opposition our natural tendency will be to draw back in fear. We will want to form a safe enclave where we can talk our Christian talk and sing our Christian songs and enjoy warm Christian fellowship. This is the entire program that many people want from their local congregation. But this is not what Jesus has in mind. In fact, such a protective posture is the death of the Church. Jesus sends disciples into a hostile world to proclaim and to live the Kingdom out in the open, where we clash with other kingdoms and other gods. Wherever Jesus sends us, we will certainly end up in the neighborhood at the foot of the cross. And bishops must be very familiar with that neighborhood. Every Sunday and on many other occasions Bishops begin the Baptismal or Confirmation liturgy with the acclamation, “There is one Body and one Spirit; There is one hope in God’s call to us. One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; One God and Father of all.” One. One. One. That is Sunday. But much of the ministry of the bishop the rest of the week is spent dealing with the failure of the Church to live and serve as one. Rectors and vestries. Parishioners. Churches and communities. The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. So little unity. So much brokenness and estrangement and distrust and disarray. The turbulence of the times. The seemingly irreconcilable choice between unity and justice. No wonder we pray for the bishop who is called to serve before God, “day and night in the ministry of reconciliation.” But I believe that all that is difficult and challenging about the life of our Church today shows that we are attempting to live faithfully in this world and in this moment in history. It is part of our vocation as a Church to struggle with these issues as we live and serve in the present moment. Along with Canon Diane Porter and others in this Diocese, I have the privilege of serving as a Trustee of The General Theological Seminary in New York. In connection with the development of Chelsea Square, the Seminary is required to seek various certifications and to meet a seemingly endless number of requirements. One such certification interested me. The Seminary was requested to provide proof to the Attorney General’s Office that it was neither a museum nor a historical society! If that were required of your congregation, what would you say? Here is a picture of a Church that is alive. In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the White Witch has turned many of the inhabitants of Narnia into stone. But Aslan, the Christ figure, jumps into the stone courtyard, pouncing on the statues and breathing life into them. The courtyard no longer looked like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. Creatures were running after Aslan and dancing round him till he was almost hidden in the crowd. Instead of all that deadly white the courtyard was now a blaze of colors; … And instead of the deadly silence the whole place rang with the sound of happy roarings, brayings, yelpings, stampings, shoutings, hurrahs, songs and laughter. Don’t you love that? Life! Color! Laughter! A zoo; not a museum! The Christian life is about looking ahead with confidence, not guarding the past with fear. In 1863 the Commissioner of Patents in the United States sent his resignation to President Lincoln. In his letter the man cited his conviction that everything exciting had been invented and patented. There was nothing for him to do except to preserve the past. You and I must resign from any Church whose only mission is to preserve the past. We need more zoos! The third gift of our Lord to his apostolic community is the gift of traveling light: “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road” (10:4). And, later: “Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide…” (10:7). Jesus wants the mission to be clear and the missionaries to be unencumbered so that the Good News is shared undistorted and undistracted by the needs of the missionaries. He sent forth his apostles to live in radical dependence on the grace of God. To live in trust in God’s provision and not in prideful confidence in their own gifts and competencies. As a Jew speaking to Jews, Jesus is challenging the Jewish dietary laws when he says that the 70 should eat what is set before them. They should set aside their need to keep kosher and live precise and tidy lives, in conformity to the Law, for the sake of reaching the world with the Good News. I am put in mind here of a story from World War II. In the Second World War, a group of soldiers was fighting in the rural countryside of France. During an intense battle, one of the American soldiers was killed. His comrades didn’t want to leave his body on the battlefield and decided to give him a Christian burial. They remembered a church a few miles behind the front lines whose grounds included a small cemetery surrounded by a white fence. After receiving permission to take their friend’s body to the cemetery, they set out for the church, arriving just before sunset. They knocked at the door to the rectory and a frail old priest answered. “Our friend was killed in battle,” they blurted out, “and we wanted to give him a church burial.” “I’m sorry,” the priest said, “but we can bury only those of the same faith here. But you can bury him outside the fence.” So the soldiers dug a grave and buried their friend just outside the white fence. They finished after nightfall. The next morning, the entire unit was ordered to move on and the group raced back to the little church for one final goodbye to their friend. When they arrived, they couldn’t find the gravesite. Tired and confused, they knocked on the door of the church. They asked the old priest if he knew where they had buried their friend. “It was dark last night and we were exhausted,” they said. We must have been disoriented.” A smile flashed across the old priest’s face. “After you left last night, I couldn’t sleep. So I went outside early this morning and I moved the fence.” (Adapted from a story in Messy Spirituality, by Michael Yaconelli.) I love the Episcopal Church for many reasons. Not the least of them is that it has given me everything I have in this life. But even more than that, I love it for the reason that we are a Church that is not afraid to move fences. We share a vocation to reorder our lives and customs and practices and we are not afraid to re-examine our traditions, all for the sake of sharing the Gospel with those who have been made to stand outside or sit in the balcony or hide in the closet or be buried outside the fence. And we need not apologize for the conflicts associated with living our vocation to deal seriously with racism and sexism and the place of gays lesbians in the life and ministry of the Church. I love my church! We need bishops and other leaders who are willing tirelessly to look at the life of our Church and to see what unnecessary baggage we are carrying that is more an accretion than the life-giving Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Most of all, we want to be a Church that finds joy in the service of Christ our Lord. This is the promise in the Ordinal, at the Consecration of a Bishop: “Your joy will be to follow him who came, not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” We need to be led by bishops and others who have that joy, even as they sacrifice much for the cause of Christ and for the well being of his Church. I think of a wonderful woman named Betty, who is a leader in the first parish I served as Rector. Her friends once took note of the fact that, whenever they drove by St. George’s, Betty’s car was almost always in the parking lot. “What would that church do without you, Betty?” She said, “The question is: What would I do without my church?” I love my church because it has given me Jesus and has given me to Jesus – in Word and in Sacrament. And I love my church because it called me to ministry, in ways that I would never have sought on my own. So, say your prayers in the days ahead for the leaders and all who will work together to discern your Bishop Coadjutor. Be careful of those who want this ministry too much. Let no one try to be a bishop. Let all pray that the Holy Spirit be so evident in your choice that you will see a bishop in the one whom the Convention chooses. And don’t forget to pray for Bishop Walker and his staff. They will be most directly affected by the election, but they cannot and must not be involved in your process. They need and deserve your care and support. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once told a story about a Sunday School class. The teacher asked the students, “When Jesus came to the river Jordan to be baptized by John, what did John say to Jesus?” There was no answer. So, the teacher called on a little boy. He stood up and offered the following. When Jesus came to be baptized by John, John said to Jesus, “You’re the Son of God. Now, be sure to act like it!” So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. (Ephesians 2:19-21) My brothers and sisters – sons and daughters of the living God – this is who are. Let us go forth to act like it, for Jesus’ sake. Amen. |