Presiding Bishop's Address from the Chair to Executive Council in New York City
Episcopal News Service. November 21, 1994 [94192]
My dear friends, I believe it is graceful timing that we officially begin our life together on this, the morning of All Saints Day. I want to begin by reading again a part of the lesson from Hebrews:
Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.-- Hebrews 12:1-2
In the King James Bible, of the cloud of witnesses it says that "through their faith they subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions." I don't know about the lions, but we certainly can aim for all the rest. This is a magnificent charge Paul lays before our Executive Council! Every phrase is full of significance for us.
The cloud of witnesses are those who inspire us, encourage us, and those to whom we must make an accounting. The sin and weight we are called to lay aside remind us of what we must do to become a community prepared to persevere and run the race. And to look to Jesus, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross: that is our challenge.
The cloud of witnesses is a remarkable gathering: witnesses from ages past, and those still making their witness. Saints who have gone before, and the saints among us. We can look to them for inspiration as we begin to shape our life and ministry as Executive Council. Among them are Gideon, David, Samuel, the prophets. They are the apostles and the women who kept vigil at the foot of the cross. They are the early Christians who followed the way of Jesus at their mortal peril. They are Julian of Norwich and St. Benedict, and Richard Hooker, and William Temple. They are Harriet Tubman and Bishop Oscar Romero and Archbishop Janani Luwum. They are John Walker and Wes Frensdorf, Marian Kelleran and Cynthia Wedell. They are all those people along the way -- mentors, teachers, friends -- who show by word and example just what it means to follow Jesus.
I would like to include in this distinguished company those witnesses who were the 71st General Convention. This church owes a great deal to them for what they were able to accomplish, with God's help, in Indianapolis. My prayers were answered far beyond my expectations. I believe we were truly led by the Spirit, and that we responded. In a remarkably short time, a diverse body of women and men became a strong faith community, and rose above the competing claims of divergent agendas. Their efforts have sent our church boldly into this triennium -- with a great deal of hope, with a great deal of promise, and with much to accomplish.
In 1997, when the 72nd General Convention meets in Philadelphia, this Executive Council will be called to give an accounting of our stewardship, of our faithfulness. Let us embark on these next three years mindful that they will disappear in the twinkling of an eye. Our time together is precious. To do all to which we are called will take the commitment of each and all of us.
I pray we will begin our life together, as Paul suggests, by laying aside the weight and the sin that clings so closely. Just what is it that we are called to lay aside? In what guises do we find "weight and sin"? We each have personal answers, and we reflect on them every time we confess our sins. "Setting aside" is not something we do just once, and that's it. It is the work of a life time.
It is also the work of a community, specifically, the community we are becoming. I spoke to you on Sunday about my sense of the importance of community, and my hopes for this particular community. Now I will ask: what are we called to lay aside in order to become a community and run with perseverance the race that is before us?
Sometimes we say in slang terms that someone has "a lot of baggage." I have never heard this said as a compliment. We aren't praising a sensible traveler, ready for any climate. The baggage is a hindrance. We mean that person is encumbered, loaded down: with inappropriate preconceptions perhaps, with fixed ideas, maybe with an angry heart, or a closed mind.
My dear friends, any baggage we come with, we need to lay behind. We all come with gifts, and with experiences of the church, and of our lives, as we spoke of during our time together on Sunday. So, let us offer with joy and humility all of our gifts and experiences, but let us check our baggage at the door.
Let us set aside all the sin and weight, all that will prevent us from becoming who God is calling us to become.
Let us set aside our fear of the future. For if God be for us who can be against us.
Let us set aside our need to have answers for questions which must be lived before they can be claimed.
Let us give up the need to rush in with premature solutions to complex problems, and instead embrace an uncertain future with patient and trusting hearts.
Let us set aside our view of just one corner of the picture, so that we may embrace a vision of the whole.
Let us set aside the distractions of lesser things, knowing that the discernment of greater things is the task of a life time.
Let us set aside our need to prevail, to be right, which leads to politicizing and polarizing, so we together may discern God's will for us.
Let us set aside smallness, meanness, a sense of scarcity, and embrace the abundant life that God has given us.
Let us set aside definitions of "neighbor" that are based on race, or class, or ethnicity, or physical proximity, so that we may embrace an understanding that our neighborhood is this global village.
Let us set aside the need to make devils of those with whom we disagree, so that the Christ within me can meet the Christ within even people I might find not to my liking.
For nine years I have named what I believe we need to set aside. I have tried very hard to hold up values for our life together. They are the values of the Kingdom. You might say that I have one sermon about how we are to be together: honoring and valuing our diversity, sharing our gifts and our insights, and all of this in the way of the compassionate one who made us, redeemed us, and sustains us.
Thank God, we have made enormous progress. I believe our Indianapolis General Convention showed us a wonderful image of what it is to live as a community of faith, even in the midst of our struggles.
I will serve as Presiding Bishop for three more years, which is both long enough to accomplish a great deal, and short enough so that you know you don't want to waste any time. I feel a real urgency to build on all that we have done and to be about our mission. I say to you: let us not waste one minute of those three years.
Let us together now look to Jesus, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross. The joy, and the cross. The pain and the glory. That is the paradox in which we live. All of our efforts take place in the context of that paradox, and in the shadow of that glorious cross. Suffering and joy are intertwined, in the cross, and Christ is at the center. It is the cross that leads to the transformation, to the resurrection, to life in the kingdom. In this triennium we are called, as we are always called, to take up the cross.
I laid a challenge before the General Convention. It was a challenge to focus our attention on our mission to be the hands and feet of the cosmic Christ. It was a challenge to stretch ourselves, and raise our expectations about what we are able to do in the name of the Lord. I said that the cutbacks in both national and global mission could be named as one thing: lost opportunities, and that those lost opportunities have human faces. My dear friends, Patti and I have just returned from Uganda. We have seen those faces. We have looked into those eyes. We don't want to miss one more opportunity to serve God by serving God's people.
The 71st General Convention accepted the challenge to strengthen our partnerships. They accepted a challenge to support a budget that reflects our baptismal covenant. The dioceses are working at stewardship, at the demands of the gospel. Our General Convention was a sign that they want to do more. This desire was reflected in the discussions about the budget, and in the passage of a budget that will make our mission together a priority throughout the church.
Even before we left Convention, the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania had accepted the challenge figure. Since then, other dioceses have also done so, among them Southern Ohio, Northern Indiana, El Camino Real, Maine, and in so doing they are saying to us: we want to be on mission together. The Diocese of Southwest Florida adopted the higher challenge apportionment, and in a letter from Bishop Rogers Harris he says that their diocese did so in order to make possible greater world and domestic mission. The dioceses are saying yes to mission, yes to partnership. They want and need help in being part of a common mission in Jesus Christ.
I begin these three years with great excitement, and in a spirit of hope. Our church is healthy, and growing, both in numbers, in which we see a gain for the third straight reporting, and in faithfulness. We are in dialogue about issues of importance, and we are committed to keeping the conversation going. We have a greater sense of the value of inclusiveness and we have renewed our commitment to the eradication of racism. We are looking at what changes are needed structurally, and as the President of the House of Deputies told you yesterday, we have charged the Structure Commission with this task.
General Convention gave some strong, clear directions, and set the course for our race with perseverance. It is now up to the Presiding Bishop and staff, the President of the House of Deputies, the Executive Council, to respond to those directions. Others will be responding as well: including the interim bodies that Pam Chinnis and I just appointed.
I note that my staff and I are now working very hard on organizing and focusing ourselves such that we can best carry out our ministry and serve the whole church. Beginning this process we went on a two-day retreat together earlier this fall, and now, continuing with consultant help, we are looking at our working relationships and determining how we might each best serve one another and our church. Leadership in the church means an understanding of servanthood at every level in the church's life, and we continue to work on that.
Between now and General Convention 1997 the Executive Council has oversight of the initiatives for which the Indianapolis Convention voted support through our budget. I don't need to remind any of us that this is an enormous responsibility. A major part of the work of Executive Council will be to determine how best to be in partnership with the dioceses: to stimulate, encourage and, support their stewardship, evangelism, and education efforts for the strengthening of our common mission, locally and globally.
During 1995, the President of the House of Deputies and I plan to head up a team and visit several dioceses. Spending three or four days in each diocese, we will engage in wide conversations with congregations and diocesan leadership. The team might include one or both senior executives, representatives of the Program, Budget and Finance Committee and the program clusters, as well as the linkage person. Our purpose will be to create a greater sense of partnership between the national church and dioceses. These visits will be a means of developing models for partnerships and providing data for ongoing planning and evaluation. This is now in the discussion stages and we look forward to sharing more with you about it.
Also, I am proposing to Planning and Evaluation that they plan a retreat for this Executive Council in February, along with the Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance, as well as persons visiting this country from abroad, to review our last Partners in Mission consultation and prepare for this triennium.
The last Executive Council proposed another round of visitations of Executive Council to the dioceses in 1996, for the purpose of evaluating our programs to determine if they meet the needs as expressed by our partners. I would like the Planning and Evaluation Committee, and then the full Council, to explore this. The visits would be for the purpose of asking: how are we doing? what connections are needed? what emphasis needs to be strengthened? We need to see ourselves in a continuing process of evaluation of which this would be a part.
This is a time for generating ideas. And there are no limits. Let us think boldly and creatively. For example, Administration and Finance might ask: How might we reach out and help dioceses with their stewardship efforts? We have to ask: what is it we are not doing that can help dioceses? And then the question: how can we relate this to what one lone stewardship officer is trying to do?
We are very certain that the dioceses are looking to our national program to be a missionary program. They want support for Volunteers in Mission. They want to send money and people to the places where the needs are the greatest. I am going to encourage as much as I can the companion diocese program. If I hadn't been convinced before of its incredible effectiveness, my visit Uganda would have writ it large. Dioceses here in partnership with dioceses in Uganda are Oklahoma, which has had a relationship of fourteen years, Pennsylvania for six years, and Northern California is just beginning. These relationships are a living witness of the gospel in wonderful ways that are a great gift to both partners. At any given time about half of our dioceses have a companion relationship. It would be my prayer that all of our dioceses would enter into a companionship. We have to get that word out, and let people know that we are ready to help them work it out.
Also in the area of partnerships, just last week I met with the Obispo Maximo of the Philippine Independent Church. He told me that they need more than 1,400 additional clergy, and is hoping for a partnership whereby retired clergy from our church might go there to serve. I mention this by way of saying: the opportunities are limitless!
Over this triennium I plan to speak out for initiatives where I believe we have a clear call to action. World mission concerns is one. Another, and I pray that we will put a real emphasis on this, is our church's response to children at risk. Anyone who heard Marian Wright Edelman in Indianapolis has no question about the enormity of the problem. We look at the horror of what is happening to the most vulnerable among us, and we can either be paralyzed by a sense of helplessness, or galvanized for action. This is one of those times when asking what Jesus would do makes the answer ring in our ears.
I want to share with you some of my efforts toward peace, some efforts in quiet diplomacy. Specifics I might name are efforts I have made to influence the El Salvador peace process, to facilitate the return of President Aristide to Haiti, and to initiate the talks between the government of the republic of the Philippines and the 25-year-old insurgency in the south and north. I am also deeply committed to the struggle for justice for the Palestinians as we support security for Israel. Our partner church in Jerusalem and the Middle East is making a courageous witness, and I am committed to stand with them.
As we speak of the Middle East, I would like to announce that today I am issuing a statement congratulating King Hussein and Prime Minister Rabin on their peace agreement. The statement condemns in the strongest terms the acts of violence against innocent Israelis in an attempt to thwart the peace process through acts of violence. The process is at a difficult place, as the most contentious issue lies ahead, which is the status of Jerusalem. I believe Israel's continuing construction of settlements in violation of international law impedes the hope for a just peace.
I wanted to share these peace efforts with you, and also let you know that in this new triennium I will continue with both quiet diplomacy and public advocacy.
It is possible that I will travel this January to Baghdad as part of an initiative toward resolution of what seems an intractable problem, that of the United Nations sanctions. One million children have died in Iraq since the Persian Gulf war. Standing idly by is not an option. I know that the trip could be viewed by some in a very negative light, as if journeying to Iraq were in some sense taking the side of Saddam Hussein. This a risk, but I think it is a risk worth taking, for the sake of the children. I would be interested in your response.
Further down the road, there is an emerging possibility that I might travel to Burma, where our Anglican partners live under a brutal military regime and are taking risks for peace. We need to stand with them.
The week that we spent in Uganda in early October was full of faces and experiences that we will not soon forget. About nine years ago, after two decades of terrorism and civil war, the nation began to recover slowly under a stable presidency.
To give you some idea of what the problems are, I can say that, out of a population of approximately 17 million persons in a state the size of Oregon, 400,000 are orphans. These children were left alone as a result of the years of war, and of AIDS, which is ravaging the country.
Eighty percent of Ugandans are Christians, and about half of those are Anglicans so the role of the church has been pivotal in rebuilding the nation. The Church of Uganda has made a valiant witness. We can be proud to be their partners.
At one of our stops, a young priest spoke to me, took my hand, and said: "When you go home, please tell your church, please tell them, knowing that you care about us means everything to us. It just means everything to us."
How could I fail to deliver that message?
God calls us to be together, and to love one another, as he loves us. And, that, that, is my charge to you for this, my final triennium. Let us love one another, as God loves us.