Governance news posted Friday, December 11, 2009

The Message of God's Grace

DIOCESAN CONVENTION ADDRESS
THE DIOCESE OF PENNSYLVANIA 2009

The Right Reverend Rodney R. Michel

The grace of our Lord Jesus the Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. My sisters and brothers, it is my distinct privilege to stand before you as the Assisting Bishop of Pennsylvania on this Feast of the Consecration of Samuel Seabury as the first American Bishop. Curious isn't it? That we in William White's Diocese should be commemorating Samuel Seabury, whose notion of the episcopate was somewhat different from that of William White; but what happened on this day in 1784 really served as the genesis of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and that was ratified in Pennsylvania with the consecration of William White. In our Collect, we thanked God for bestowing upon this Church the gift of the episcopate. I am certain that there have been times in the 225 year history of the Diocese of Pennsylvania [and not just recently] that folks have wondered about "the gift of the episcopate" but we are Episcopalians and our polity includes bishops and at this time you are stuck with this particular Bishop as part of a great team of players that help this diocese live and move and have its being. The other words of the Collect for this day are poignant, as we prayed that "joined together in unity with our bishops and nourished by the Holy Sacraments we may proclaim the Gospel of Redemption with Apostolic Zeal". This gives us a model for the work of the Church and the Kingdom: It is called teamwork and together we can do all things through Jesus the Christ. Together—Bishops, Priests, Deacons, and Laity—working together in this kingdom ministry. Think of the many team members who do the work of this Diocese. That would include the Standing Committee, the Diocesan Council, members of Finance and Property and the Church Foundation, the Deans and the outstanding staff at Church House who work together as a team to support and encourage one another and work together for God's Kingdom and the mission of the Church in this place. This astounding attendance at Diocesan Convention tells us that there is a new breathe of the Holy Spirit blowing across and within this Diocese and that God's People want to be part of getting on with the Mission of Christ and His Church. As we begin our 226th year of history let it be a Year of Mission and new beginnings as we address the many needs of our communities, our world, and the People of God whom we serve and encourage. Your Convention program has wonderful pictures of the Church at work through the People of God in this Diocese and you have seen an ongoing display of photographs of the work and ministry of mission which we hope many more will want to be part of during this Year of Mission. For now, may I invite you to sit back, relax [but not too much] and receive this address to Diocesan Council which will be longer than the usual 12 minute Episcopal sermon but not intolerably long, I assure you.

In our first reading today, from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear Paul preaching to the Christians at Ephesus:

"Now I commend you to God and to the message of His grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified."

"The message of God's grace"—and part of that message of grace is the message of reconciliation. In Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians chapter 5 verses 18 and following, we read:

"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation."

The ministry and message of reconciliation—the message of God's grace. I believe with all my heart that it is God's hope that all people be reconciled; and especially that those who bear the name of his Son be reconciled one with another. It is no secret that peace, harmony and unity do not prevail in our diocese. Unrest, unhappiness, suspicion and parochial isolationism run rampant as the H1N1 virus in the Diocese of Pennsylvania and it keeps us from being messengers of God's grace.

The relentless undertow of anxiety and hostility tears us from our neighbors, from our kin in Christ and from our own deepest reality, drawing us out into the depths of strife, isolation, judgmentalism and condemnation, forgetting about kingdom issues. Part of the kingdom issues that Christ calls us to is to be bearers of reconciliation. Being bearers of reconciliation involves working hard at being one in Christ, overcoming our divisions, and showing Christ to a broken and hurting world. Holy Scripture says that we were made for fellowship with one another, for koinonia, for togetherness. Part of the plan of creation is that we become fully human only in relationship with our fellow humans and with our God - what African believers call "Ubuntu". The Bible is laced through with the story of God's attempt to effect at-one-ment, to bring us back to our intended condition of relatedness. God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to God. Our creator wants to draw us back into an intimate relationship and so bring to unity all that has become disunited, and each of us is called to be an ally of God in this work of reconciliation and restoration. Dorothy Day, who organized the worker movement earlier in the last century wrote:

"We cannot love God unless we love each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet, and life is a banquet too—even with a crust - where there is companionship. We have all known loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community"

My friends, the sins of the fathers and mothers may be visited upon our progeny in the faith if we do not or cannot model reconciliation for them. Do we want the next generation of Episcopal Christians in the Diocese of Pennsylvania to enter adulthood thinking that the way to be the church is the way we have modeled for them of late? The church is not a resort for saints, it is an arena of reconciliation for all of God's people. The church is not a fortress to keep out those whose disagree with us, but an open, available place where all who wander in are offered a seat at our table and are welcomed into our fellowship. As ambassadors of reconciliation we need to remember to keep close to our hearts the gospel of love and acceptance and healing that Jesus lived and died for. Everyone was welcomed into our Lord's life and into His discipleship, and that spirit must be valued and promoted by the church in this era. We are to be Christ's hands and feet and heart and mind and we cannot do that if we assume God's role of judgment. The judge's job is filled. God alone is judge! Those who would be Saviors of the Church and the people in it are also reminded that the Savior's job has been filled. Jesus Christ filled it once for all. Part of being bearers of reconciliation in our particular situation and within the larger church, is to remember that we are Anglican Christians. It is time that we recover our mythic consciousness, and rediscover our Anglican ethos. We need to remember a way of doing theology that honors scripture, reason and tradition as well as the variable of experience. My friends, as Episcopal Christians we are not fundamentalists. Dogmatism is not part of our vocabulary or history or ethos. Is there not still value in our Anglican identity and the vocation of our particular celebration of the gospel? Proclaiming the gospel takes large amounts of the not-so-secret ingredients of patience, forgiveness, responsibility, compassion and diligence. We need to re-learn the meaning of "respectful and loving dialogue" and then practice it. If we are going to be bearers of reconciliation we need to strike the word "winning" from our vocabulary and replace it with "acceptance" and "risk-filled love." You may think my suggestions far too naive and simplistic but for me that is the only way to deal with the sometimes messy and ambiguous, rarely orderly or structured, drama of salvation. Following Jesus as our Lord and Savior is not easy but if the issues and concerns of our present brokenness, if our hopes and our dreams for the church, even our pain and discontent can be marinated in prayer, soaked in the Anglican brine of scripture, tradition and reason then we will be on the road to reconciliation and wholeness. People of faith, it is time to pray fervently for our diocese and for one another. It is time to repent of the ugly hatred and mistrust of one another that has become almost pandemic. It is time to get serious about the business of being bearers of reconciliation and to claim the promise which is ours. Jesus will lead us to a new depth of faith and understanding and good will and peace—with God and with one another.

Please note sisters and brothers that my comments are observations—not judgments. As a Bishop of the Church of God I subscribe to the words of Saint Augustine : "For you I am bishop, but with you I am a Christian; one is an office, accepted; the other is a gift, received. One is danger; the other is safety. If I am happier to be redeemed with you than to be placed over you, then I shall, as the Lord commanded, be more fully your Servant. Remember that little verse we learned as children:

I am the Church
You are the Church
We are the Church together

As the gathered Church we also remember that we have so much to celebrate. We have the wonderful Companion relationship with Guatemala where lives are being changed through the medical mission, the water purification project and gifts of money and human kindness. Our Youth Ministry has blossomed under the capable leadership of Andrew Kellner with City Camp, summer camping, Cathedral nights and a long list of activities and programs for the youth of our Diocese. A wonderful Woman's Ministry conference was held earlier this autumn with Jane Williams and Phoebe Griswold and others inspiring women of our diocese. The DCMM program, while underfunded, is an amazing work of mission and bringing Christ to challenged places through the ministry of our DCMM clergy. We have new hopes and dreams for urban ministry, a beautiful Cathedral with an innovative and exciting liturgical life and plans for outreach and ministry to the neighborhood it serves as well as to the Diocese. The Seamen's Church Institute has an amazing ministry to seafarers from all over the world. So many of our congregations have food pantries, feeding programs, and homeless shelters, and many of our congregations help struggling congregations and people in need in greater Philadelphia and around the world, but the need is so great, and as our Lord said: "the laborers are few." Our streets are filled with people waiting to hear the Good News, to have their wounded bodies and souls bound up, to be visited in the prisons, be fed and encouraged and cheered on the journey—the need is great and we have the message of God's grace to share, if we can but recognize it and then begin to share and live it.

I am the Church
You are the Church
We are the Church together

Now, if only we can begin to believe that and learn to live it more fully.

An old English prayer says: "Take time to laugh... it is the music of the soul."

Pray, work, laugh, all to the glory of God. Allow me to close with one short story.

A senior citizen named Joe lived with his hound, Mace, in a rundown shack on the outskirts of town. He had no family and very few material possessions. Joe had a few tools which he used to do odd jobs in the village and make just enough money for he and Mace to live on. Mace was a normal bloodhound, with one exception, he loved grass. You know some dogs like to eat grass occasionally but Mace ate it all the time and he would lie in the yard grazing away. One sunny day old Joe headed into town to do a plumbing job. It was a big job and he knew it would bring enough money to buy food for a week, so he had a spring in his step and a whistle on his lips. When he got to town he discovered that his pipe wrench was missing: without the wrench he could not do the job, and without the job he couldn't buy food. He explained his dilemma to the woman of the house but she had no compassion on him. He told her he would check at home and return with the wrench. When he arrived there was Mace chewing away on the lawn. When the blood hound saw his master, he came running to greet him. Kneeling beside the hound, old Joe began to pet him. Without money to buy a new wrench, he had no idea what the future held. It was the loneliest, most helpless feeling ever. Then he caught a glimpse of something shining in the grass. It was the wrench. The old man had dropped it on his way out that morning and it would have been lost forever had Mace not eaten the grass around the house. The old man grabbed the dog and gave him a hug and ran into the house. Reaching for a pencil and paper he wrote the following moving tribute to his canine companion. You will recognize the words in part. The old man never did get the credit he deserved, but now you are privileged to hear the opening line of his original poem which began: "A grazing Mace, how sweet the hound that saved a wrench for me."

Remember God's amazing grace. Remember to laugh sisters and brothers. Remember to sing and pray and remember to love one another and all others as together we live into this year of Mission and live out the message of God's Grace and reconciliation in this Diocese, as we build up the Church to the glory and honor of Almighty God and share God's grace with all the world. Amen.

DIOCESAN CONVENTION CLOSING REMARKS
THE DIOCESE OF PENNSYLVANIA 2009

The Right Reverend Rodney R. Michel
Assisting Bishop, Diocese of Pennsylvania

Dear friends, shortly after my Consecration as a Bishop in the Church I attended the General Convention in Philadelphia, in this very building and space. At that Convention we elected The Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold the 25th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, a wise and faithful Primate. In one of his speeches on the subject of "reconciliation" he said: "There is a field far beyond our understanding. I invite you to meet me there. When we arrive we will embrace, take off our shoes, and kneel down. For we will know that we are on holy ground, in the presence of the One who loves us most."

I believe we are standing on holy ground—we have been on holy ground—during our time together today.

Our beloved old Church is beleaguered with challenges on the local level, the national level and the international level. The need for local ministry and mission is so great and there never seems to be enough resources—money or people—to get the work done. The Diocese seems to live in a constant state of tension watching for the sword of Damocles as regards the Bishop Diocesan's case. Our national and international problems are no "walks in the park" either and all sorts of grim prognostications are given about the future of the Church and the Anglican Communion. Add to this the intrusion into our religious world of the Bishop of Rome's invitation for unhappy Anglicans to become part of an Anglican particularate and we could easily sing the words of the old country western tune: "I've got heartaches by the number, troubles by the score." Or in the words of the old spiritual "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows but Jesus."

This we know, fellow believers: This is God's Church and we are but pilgrims on the journey and stewards—caretakers—of the Church and its mysteries; and all God calls us to be—all God asks of us—is to be faithful. We are called to have a fervent faith in the teachings of Christ and the Church and a stubborn hope in the promises that God has set before us now and in the life to come. I hope that each of you can leave this place with that fervent faith and stubborn hope as we go forward into this new year of mission and ministry in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. We can go forth with knowledge of how truly blessed we are in this part of God's vineyard, and despite the great need, that there are many faithful laborers for the harvest—for God's harvest.

I believe one of our greatest tasks and challenges at this time in history is to show the world that the Episcopal Church is one community of faith in which all of us love each other, pray with each other, and live together as a faith community and spiritual family. In a world torn apart by racial and ethnic tensions, political conflicts and theological wars our expression of Christianity attempts to include all of God's children—regardless of how the world classifies and labels them: as women or men, old or young, black or white, gay or straight, conservative or liberal, Catholic or Evangelical—we are ALL God's children and all loved richly and equally by our Creator, saved by Christ our Redeemer and sanctified by the Spirit of God who indwells each of us and the Church.

While we strive to be totally inclusive we also remember the importance of faithfulness to God, to God's Word, and to one another. You know, our expression of Christianity has been praying for and teaching about full inclusion for all people for decades and now that we are trying to live into that understanding there are some who don't seem to comprehend what "all" means. As we sang in the morning hymn at the start of this Convention: "All are welcome, all are welcome." Now can we put those words into action? Can we live into that teaching that "those who sing, pray twice," and make that song our prayer?

One of the important elements about the life of our beloved William White was that he was a both/and thinker. In Bishop White's time the People of God wrestled with the model of a Church that both mirrored the newly discovered freedom and independence of this young nation and the venerability of a Church that was fraught with monarchical roles and rules; but our foremothers and fathers in faith were able to live in that tension and create a model that included bishops, but without the absolute monarchical role. I am confident that Bishop White knew some of that crazy making kind of tension that the Church in the 21st century continues to struggle with but would ask with me today: "Do we love Jesus more than our own personal agenda? Do we love Jesus more than our Committees or treasuries or pet projects or personal needs and aspirations? Do we love Jesus more than our particular brand of orthodoxy? Do we love Jesus enough to be in solidarity with the least, the lost and the left out of our world? Can we learn to speak in words and resolutions that draw people IN rather than shut them OUT? Do we love justice and mercy as much or more than orthodoxy and spiritual correctness?" Dear friends that kind of crazy making tension is where people of faith live and move and have their being—and it is in that tension where we find the Holy Spirit of God and where the Spirit speaks to us.

All are welcome! All are welcome in this Church, in this Diocese, in our common life together and those of us in the tent need to do everything necessary and possible to make room in the tent and at the table for all of God's children. But we can do all that dear friends with fervent faith and stubborn hope and a commitment to walk in the light of God. And so we pray,

"O God, speak to us in the tension, Send your Spirit into the both/and moments and times of our journey and Spirit of the Living God fall fresh on us and speak to us. We ask all this in Jesus' Name."

Now I invite you to stand sing with me the words to that beloved old hymn: "God of grace and God of glory..."