Presiding Bishop's Homily at Executive Council Meeting in Norfolk, Virginia, January 31, 1994
Episcopal News Service. February 9, 1992 [94024]
We depart just a bit from our pattern, and my address from the chair is in the context of the Eucharist. This, I might add, is also the title of my homily this afternoon. "In the context of the Eucharist."
I pray that our days together, and our actions over the next days in service to Christ's mission -- I pray these will also be in the context of the Eucharist.
Are we not meant to live in the context of the Eucharist, in grateful awareness of the loving gift of God? As St. Augustine wrote: "You are the body of Christ: that is to say in you and through you the work of the Incarnation must go forward. You are meant to incarnate in your lives the theme of your adoration -- you are to be taken, consecrated, broken and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of the Eternal Charity. "
Look around. Who do we see? Executive Council? Staff? Our gracious hosts from this diocese? Yes, all of these, but, at a deeper level, what we see is a eucharistic fellowship.
The Eucharist doesn't just happen here, of course. Our fellowship gathers around the world -- in great cathedrals and under scrubby trees. We break bread. An extraordinarily diverse group. All races and classes. Women and men. Sinners. A sprinkling of saints. We break bread, and we remember.
Since our council meeting last November I have been remembering -- thinking a great deal about "context," about how foundational to our work it is that we pay attention to the multiple and complex levels of our reality. To things "visible and invisible." "Seen and unseen," beginning with the reality of the bread of life.
I wrote recently in Episcopal Life of the need to map the terrain. I would like to share a paragraph with you. "Discerning God's call in the moment is an obligation of the obedient life in Christ. Looking ahead is an act of faith. My faith leads me to believe that the clearer we are about our history, and the more open we are to thoughtful examination of our present realities, the more able we are, then, to move into the future with some measure of wisdom. In other words, our life's task is to keep fitting the smallest events of our lives into the broader context of God's larger plan. Things do not happen in isolation. People do not live in isolation. All of life is one seamless whole, and we are diminished when we see only fragments."
Part of our context, as we gather in Norfolk, is the task we have before us of budget development for the next triennium. This is only one part of the context. The council. This meeting. This task. As we go about our task I would like to sketch out some of the broader context of which we must also be aware.
First, attention to the broader context lets us know we are in God's time as well as our ordinary clock time of discrete events, of fragments. Yes, we prepare for Indianapolis. We plan for the triennium beginning in 1995. Little chunks of clock time. But they are only part of the larger sweep of what God is bringing about. Only at one level are we simply going to Indianapolis, and then Philadelphia. At a deeper level we are moving toward the Kingdom. If we attend properly to that deeper level, our journey will be infinitely richer, much less certain, and -- we hope -- much less confused.
Let us also be aware that we are dealing from the particularity of each of us. Here we sit in our humanity, God's beloved children. Here we sit, with our hopes, our passions, our agendas, our ideas, our complexes, our sense of inadequacy and our vanity, the great swamp of our beings. Some of us may be experiencing a "dark night of the soul" day. To use the language of the Prayer Book, we bring "our cares and occupations," "our manifold sins and wickedness." Who we are is our offering. We each can pray not to be a stumbling block to what God is trying to bring about through us. We are called to be sensitive to our own particular set of gifts and limitations, and to those of others as well.
We are also part of a complex reality that includes the dioceses and their bishops and staffs, and the clergy and people of our congregations. At one level, they are the people who elected us, who sent us here. At another level, God called us to serve them. We have been listening to them over the last year, and we bring them here with us. And, of course, there is no us, no them. We are these people.
I have heard some rather incomplete ideas about the changing relationship between the various entities of the church, namely that our funding and spending policy decisions indicate a shift from an understanding that the parishes and dioceses exist to serve the national church. The new understanding, according to this particular interpretation, is that the national church will exist to serve the dioceses and parishes. Wrong. Something is left out here. Yes, we are trying to focus on helping every Episcopalian respond to the demands of the Gospel. But, the national church doesn't exist to serve the dioceses and parishes, anymore than parishes and dioceses exist to serve some central body. We all exist to serve Christ's mission, and that is a partnership we are called to claim. I believe it was Archbishop William Temple who said that the church is the only organization that exists to serve those who do not belong to it.
Not only are the individual members of the Episcopal Church part of our context, along with the congregations, and the dioceses, we are blessed in being part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Our membership in this broader community brings enormous richness to our lives. Those of us who have visited other provinces of our church, or been to Anglican gatherings can witness to that.
Of course, we can't stop there, we are part of the whole body of Christ. Our lives are also enriched by our ecumenical partnerships.
Broadening the context still further reminds us of our theme for General Convention: By Water and the Holy Spirit -- Proclaiming One God, One Family, One Earth. This theme I don't think could get any more all-embracing, and I don't say that by way of criticism of our choice for a theme. It allows us to look at our sojourn here in this earthly place in a holistic fashion.
This brings me to my final piece of "context" for the afternoon, though the list could go on. We are part of our culture. Our eucharistic fellowship does not exist in a vacuum. We exist in a time of turmoil, uncertainty, war -- 43 wars were going on worldwide as 1994 began. We exist in a time wheretrust is more obvious in its absence than in its presence. We exist in a culture where life is thought cheap and violence is the norm. We are in a time of critical examination of all institutional forms, including the church. We are in a time of isolation, alienation, and of a yearning for community. I could go on. It is a broken world, a hurting world. It is our world. We cannot reject it, nor can we be absorbed by it -- forgetting that we are in the world but not of the world. It is a world in need of transformation. Our efforts may seem feeble, puny. They are all there is. I love the quote from Margaret Mead. It goes something like: "Don't think the effort of a few committed people can't change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
My dear friends, as we work to share with the church our visions and hopes, our sense of the broader context, we have before us an enormous task. Our current reality is full of apparent contradictions, confusion, and the chaos that is part of transformation. For example, we talk about our plans for the next triennium with excitement, in terms of a new vision, our hope for that, our joy. We paint a picture of harmonious cooperation where individuals, congregations, dioceses, our Anglican partners, our ecumenical partners, where all who share Christ's mission help one another to offer the best that is in them.
At the same time we share another vision. We speak of the pain of the changes. We talk about the programs and the people who will not be part of these next years. Surely each and all of us sits here in an awareness of the sadness, sense of loss and grief that those who have been on this journey together are now feeling.
So, we say these are the best of times, and then we turn right around and say that these are the worst of times. Are we guilty of flipping our rose-colored glasses on and off? No. Not at all. We are simply looking through our bifocals, or maybe even our trifocals. We see that it is all true. We do have a vision, and hope and joy about it. We also live in the pain and turmoil of transition, of birth. You and I have a tremendous responsibility to look clearly through our bifocals and then get about the business of sharing our visions with our brothers and sisters all about the church.
Henri Nouwen tells a wonderful story about twins, a brother and sister, who were talking to each other in the womb. The little sister said to her brother: "I believe there is life after birth." The little brother protested vigorously. "Of course there isn't," he said. "This, this place where we are, this is all there is. It is dark and cozy here and all we must do is cling to the cord that feeds us."
The little girl didn't believe her brother, and she insisted: "There must be more than this dark place. There must be something else -- a place where there is light and freedom to move." Still, she could not persuade him.
There was some silence then, but some time later she thought she would try again. After all, there wasn't much else to do there, and no one else to talk to who might be more easily convinced. Rather hesitantly she began: "I have something else to say and I am afraid you won't believe this either, but I'm going to tell you anyway: I think there is a mother."
Her little brother now became furious. "A mother! A mother! What are you talking about? I have never seen a mother and neither have you. Who put that idea in your head? I told you, this place is all we have! Why do you always want more? We have all we need. Forget all this foolishness. This is not such a bad place, so just be content."
The little sister was quite overwhelmed by her brother's outburst and for awhile didn't dare to pursue the conversation. But, she couldn't let go of her thoughts.
One day there was a new sensation and she said to her brother: "There is something else. Don't you feel those squeezes? Here comes another one. Some aren't very nice and some hurt a lot."
"So what," said her brother. "So what's so special about that?"
And she said: "Well it all makes sense to me now. These squeezes are there to get us ready for another place, much more beautiful than this, so glorious, where we will see our mother face to face."
The little brother didn't even respond. He was fed up and decided the best thing to do was ignore his sister. Then, maybe she would leave him alone -- in the womb.
There is life after birth. Some day I feel sure we will see the Mother, the Father, face to face.
I want to focus just a minute on something we haven't talked about too much yet, but it is an issue that we need to keep in the back of our minds as we move toward new ways of being. That is accountability.
I truly believe our national program is highly accountable. I know there are those who say that they can't figure out where the money goes. The members of this council know well where the money goes. There are no hidden pockets. There are no slush funds. Things can get confusing, but every program has the kind of accountability that comes from high visibility and high involvement of great numbers of people.
What is going to happen to our mutual accountability in the new order?
Mutual responsibility and interdependence are values perhaps even in shorter supply today than when Bishop Steven Bayne spoke of them at the Anglican Congress in Toronto in 1963. We need to encourage and support one another in strong missionary efforts at the local level. However, this does not mean everyone should go off and quietly do their own thing without reference to the larger body. Such an approach is decidedly un-Anglican. It won't bring out the best in any of us. It won't serve the mission of the church. It will lead to fragmentation. We need to hold tight to the notions of our mutual responsibility, our interdependence, and our accountability to one another as members of a eucharistic fellowship, as one with another in a community of expectancy.
I will close by telling you a story about someone I will never forget as long as I live. In about 1966, when I was serving as archdeacon in Okinawa, another priest and I went to a little island close to Taiwan. With us was the deacon from the leper colony on Okinawa. We were going to investigate the possibility of the priest and deacon beginning a new mission on the island. While we were there the deacon introduced us to a friend, a young man named Higa San, that he had met some years before. Higa San had at one time been diagnosed with leprosy and gone to the leper colony on Okinawa for treatment. While he was there he had come into the church, and it meant a very great deal to his life, and to his healing. It meant a very great deal to him to be part of the Christian community.
After we had done our work we went back to our hotel room, and we invited Higa San to come with us for dinner. It was a little tatami room with mats on the floor and we sat on the floor and shared our meal. Before Higa San left I said that we were going to celebrate the Eucharist in our room at 8 o'clock in the morning and I asked if he would like to come and join us. He accepted with great joy. Higa San left, and the three of us went soundly to sleep on our mats.
At about 4:30 in the morning the phone rang. It was Higa San. I was very surprised and I asked him where he was. He said: "Well, I'm down in the lobby. I have come for the Eucharist."
By this time we were all fully awake and I thought that we might just as well get up and have our Eucharist. So we did. And it was a wonderful service, with the four of us there in this little room.
After our celebration I said to Higa San I am so pleased that you are here, but I'm just curious. Would you mind if I asked you why you came when you did, why you came so early?"
He said, "Well, I went home and I went to bed but I couldn't sleep. I just tossed and turned all night; I was so excited about receiving the Eucharist.
I got up every hour, and finally I just couldn't do anything but get up and come here. You see, I have not had the Eucharist for two years. And I just didn't think I had to wait any longer."
A sense of great expectancy. The faith of the apostles. The faith of expectancy. The faith perspective that sees Christ's presence in every moment, in every challenge, in every opportunity. A vision. A hope. A joy.
And, we, dear friends, we don't need to wait any longer either. Christ's body, Christ's blood, given for us.