Welcome my dear sisters and brothers to the 181st Annual Council of the Diocese of Mississippi. We believe ourselves called to be “One Church in Mission” a church of invitation, transformation and reconciliation.

 

            Welcome my dear sisters and brothers to the 181st Annual Council of the Diocese of Mississippi. We believe ourselves called to be “One Church in Mission” a church of invitation, transformation and reconciliation. We first claimed that as our diocesan vision 3 years ago in this very convention center. We have chosen to focus this year on the transforming, life-changing power of God. And so we have again gathered in this cradle of our birth as a diocese, Natchez, Mississippi, to celebrate our common life, to conduct the business of this diocese, to make plans for the coming year, and most importantly to renew our common commitment to the Lord who has called us out of darkness into a new life of grace and joy and sends us into His world as instruments of healing and hope.

I bring you greetings from the Rt. Rev. Shannon Johnston, former priest of this diocese and now bishop coadjutor of Virginia who called me just moments ago to say that this council is in his prayers.

            We gather again within the context of the local celebration of Mardi Gras and its distinctive brand of revelry. We began 30 minutes earlier. The parade will begin 30 minutes later. We’ll see if it makes any difference. In such a context it is often hard to distinguish between those who, in St. Paul’s words are “fools for fool’s sake,” and those who are simply fools. I have been called both. Our church throughout its history has been called both. I have always trusted the discerning power of Almighty God to distinguish the difference.

            I am deeply appreciative of the willingness of the people of Trinity Church, Natchez, to host us this year. They were scheduled originally for 2009 but with the delay in the construction of the convention center n Jackson, the good people of Natchez have again offered their hospitality to our church.  Special thanks to the chairs of the planning committee, Ann Siddle and Pat Dickens and the rector of Trinity Church, the Rev. Chip Davis. Our Canon for Finance and Administration, Kathryn W. McCormick is the staff person responsible for Council. Her council work is long, absolutely essential and goes under the radar of most people. I thank you, Kathryn, for all that you do. From the time of our first organizing convention of this diocese held in 1817 here in Natchez until this Council 181 years later, this city has been known for its charm and hospitality to the people of Natchez. We so much appreciate your sharing both with us this weekend.

            As you know I was not with you last year due to the imminent death of my mother-in-law. I so appreciate your understanding of my need to be with Kathy and her family. And I am so grateful for leadership during last year’s Council of the Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky, the President of our Standing Committee.

            There is a lovely little book written by a former parishioner of mine that explores how the teachings of St. Benedict and insights of the Benedictine monastic community dating from the sixth century can be translated into the life and behavior of a full time practicing attorney in a multi-partnered law firm in Memphis, Tennessee. The title stuck me as particularly poignant as I prepared the words that I wish to say to you this night. The book is entitled Always We Begin Again.

            Always we begin again. I am now in my eighth year as a bishop. I will mark my 5th anniversary as your diocesan bishop on March 1. My initial ideas of how I would be your bishop changed dramatically 5 months later after our 2003 General Convention. Always we begin again. 

            After a time spent processing the events of General Convention and what God may have been saying through it all, I began to travel this diocese teaching about the changing mission field in which the church now sits. This is not your (or my) grandfather’s church was what I was trying to show. The challenges of God’s mission in our day were calling us to dream new dreams and allow God to renew our vision as the people of God. That process culminated in our Tent Meeting where more than 2,000 of us sang and danced and cried and heard God calling us to be One Church in Mission: Inviting, Transforming, Reconciling. Always we begin again.

Nine days after the Tent Meeting Katrina came ashore and the lives of those on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and throughout this state will never be the same again. Always we begin again.

            For two and a half years the primary focus of my attention has been on the Gulf Coast. That attention has taken a variety of forms – some helpful, some maybe less so – but this clearly was the primary challenge to which I, as your bishop, had been called.

            I was told the other day that the easiest way to make God laugh was to tell God your plans. If that is true, then there are belly laughs echoing off the walls of heaven as I, as always, seek to begin again.

            God’s providence and human planning are not, of course, necessarily antithetical to one another. In fact, it is precisely in the encounter of human hopes and dreams with the purposes of God that our feeble efforts can be transformed from self-serving grandiosity to instruments of God’s salvation.  Transformation begins to take place when we offer ourselves, our souls, our bodies – our dreams, our visions, our plans – to Almighty God. And as we make our offering we say, not, “here are our plans, bless them;” but, rather, “here are our lives, use them.” And as I’ve tried to say to you it is in that offering that our lives are changed. It is in that offering that weak become strong, the proud become humble, and lives are transformed.

            There are encouraging signs of transformation throughout this diocese. The rebuilding of the Gulf Coast continues – frustratingly slow at times – and the pockets of transformation give hope to the wider community that rebirth is a real possibility. Many congregations from around this diocese responded generously to my special appeal for directed support to our churches on the coast. Some of you increased your diocesan pledge; some sent contributions directly to sister churches. A few made multi-year commitments of extra support. Thank you so very much. We are one church. Each affected congregation has found the courage and will to go forward in faith.

            All six destroyed churches have made significant progress in their rebuilding. St. Peter’s by-the-Sea held their first service in their new nave on Christmas Eve. St. Mark’s will soon follow suit.

            Words can never adequately explain the iconic value of the rebuilding and renewing of our churches to the people on the Gulf Coast. They are signs of hope to a devastated community. They are instruments of transformation both for those within the congregation and to the wider community. The leadership of the clergy and the courage of our people on the coast are an inspiration to us all.

            Work continues in the rebuilding of other aspects of the coast. Lutheran Episcopal Services of Mississippi provides a broad range of services to people on the coast and to those still displaced. I deeply appreciate the leadership of the Rev. Christopher Powell, chairman of the Board of LESM. Under the umbrella of LESM, Camp Coast Care, led by the Rev. Diane Livingston and Mission on the Bay, directed by Mr. Butch Jones, remain a vital part of the rebuilding of the broader community. These particular leaders continue the groundbreaking work of the Rev. Carol Stewart, the Rev. Joe Robinson, Mr. Van Bankston and the Rev. Nick Roberts. Volunteers continue to come to us from throughout this country to offer their time and labor. Sadly, the number of volunteers from this diocese has declined dramatically. Brothers and sisters, we still need you! A reminder: LESM is a member organization, supported in part by member congregations. If your church is not yet a member, please visit the LESM booth n the display area and sing up!

            A major funding stream for LESM has been Episcopal Relief and Development. In addition, ERD has partnered with Hope Credit Union to provide affordable housing to people of low and moderate income. ERD has also funded multiple congregation-based projects for community renewal. The Rev. Bill Livingston, serves the Gulf Coast community in many ways as pastor, church developer, therapist, consultant and friend. His position is also funded by ERD.

            In so many ways this church has been an agent of transformation, an instrument of God’s enduring love and renewal of God’s people. In addition to the work on the coast, we can point to new initiatives that are beginning to take root. Our Center for Formation and Ministry is offering an increasingly wide variety of programs and experiences to shape and form persons for God’s mission in our generation. The Rev. Ann Whitaker, chair of the CFM board and the Rev. Debo Dykes, its staff officer deserve special thanks for bringing this particularly crazy idea of mine to reality. The Bishop’s Mission Corps, now in its second year and mentored by the Rev. Jeff Reich, is looking to deepen its roots into the fertile soil of this diocese, the ongoing ministry with our Sudanese refugees and our ecumenical network of service and advocacy called Congregations for Children are three transformational ministries about which you will be hearing more later.

            We will celebrate the attainment of parish status with the congregation of St. Paul’s, Corinth. Theirs is a remarkable story of transformation. Their decision to move forward in this process even as their vicar who brought them to this point, the Rev. Tim Jones, returned to his native England, speaks to their enduring vision, commitment and faith.

            The renewal of effort, commended by this Diocesan Council last year, to provide ongoing anti-racism training and to require diocesan and local leadership to participate, has the potential for helping us take major strides in the mysterious and debilitating racial divide that is a burden of both our past and future. Academic research, coordinated by Ms. Kathleen Jenkins Bond, Senior Warden at Trinity, Natchez, and carried on by scholars from around this state, has begun on the role of slavery in the Episcopal Church. Our public conversation on this legacy of our past began with papers given at a seminar at Trinity this afternoon just prior to registration. This ongoing research will be a valuable resource for us in walking through our troubled past and into a new and redeemed future.

Our Environmental Stewardship Committee has found new energy after I expressed my deep concerns about global warming. They will become increasingly active in offering to us patterns of living that can become transformational for our very planet.

Our mission to those beyond our borders continues and seeks to expand this year. Our Honduras Medical Mission has so transformed the lives and the community in which we have served for 28 years that the Bishop of Honduras has asked us to move into a new, more needy village. The Panama Medical Mission continues to work closely with our companion Diocese of Panama to serve the indigenous people of that country.

With the visit this fall of the Rt. Rev. Zebedee Masereka and his wife, Stella, from Uganda, we have initiated a relationship with the church in Uganda. I will be traveling to Uganda this summer to explore ways that we can assist Bishop Masereka in his transformational ministry with HIV/AIDS victims and their families.

And as I think about transformational ministries within this diocese I am increasingly reminded of an old friend, the Cursillo Movement, and its profound impact on the life of this diocese. If your image of Cursillo is simply that of a silly weekend with roosters, please listen. Without the Cursillo movement this diocese would be a different place. Without Cursillo there would be no Happening and Vocare programs – experiences that have dramatically touched the lives of so many of our young people; without Cursillo there would be no Kairos ministry in our state prisons; without the transformational ministry of Cursillo, there would be no Honduras Medical Mission; no Panama Medical Mission; without Cursillo there would be no conference facilities at Gray Center. I will be serving on a Cursillo staff for the 6th time in April. I believe in this movement and I invite you to think again about its possibilities for your life and the life of your congregation.

            I could go on and on. From my vantage point I can see so many lives being touched by the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, we face many challenges.

            Because much of my work over the last three years has centered on matters beyond the normal pastoral and administrative responsibilities of the office of bishop – Katrina recovery and Anglican Communion issues to name the two most obvious – much of the oversight, or “episcopos” ministry that is expected and needed from the bishop has been neglected. It is a choice that I made intentionally and for legitimate reasons. However, this choice did cause much of our “in house” work to be neglected. Without going into great detail, let me simply say that in the coming year there will be much more focus on the internal life of this diocese. We will need to do some repair work in several areas soon before the challenges become too unmanageable. One example is that I have chosen, for the coming year, to appoint myself Chair of the Gray Center Board of Managers. Mr. Jerry Hudson of St. George’s, Clarksdale, has done a magnificent job in challenging times. As his term expires I want to say publicly how appreciative I am for his deep passion for and commitment to Gray Center. I take this action in order to work directly with Gray Center’s leadership in focusing on some lingering problems that will impact this extraordinary ministry if not addressed by a partnership of bishop, board and staff. There will be other, less obvious and noticeable, attention to internal detail.  This season of interior inspection and renewal is not unlike that interior movement in our own soul – the journey inward that enables the journey outward. It is a movement that takes us inside ourselves for a season so that we can return again, renewed and restored, for the mission and ministry beyond ourselves. Always we begin again.

            I believe that lives are most often changed and communities more often transformed by people gathered around the altar of their local parish or mission and living out their ministries in the places they know best; I believe that the enabling of such nurture and ministry is one of my chief responsibilities as your bishop and the primary role of my staff. We have taken new initiatives this year to improve the search process for congregations and to improve our work with clergy in new cures as well as recent seminary graduates. The leadership and initiative on these and multiple other congregational development issues comes from our Canon to the Ordinary, David Johnson.

            Our Director of Development, the Rev. Kyle Seage, hired 2 days before Katrina and whose job was dramatically transformed in that tragedy, returns to the original vision and will be offering a planned giving workshop, March 1, to begin again to be a resource for the wider diocese.

            I believe that the role and function of diocesan ministries is to do those things together that we could not do separately – campus ministries, new church starts and the ministry of Gray Center are obvious examples.

            There is much conversation across ecumenical lines about the role of judicatories, or executives in every denomination. My colleague sisters and brothers in Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and, yes, even Roman Catholic churches are wrestling with the same question: “If the real transformational life and ministry takes place locally, then what is the role and function of the administrative or judicatory leadership. That is a conversation that I will ask the Executive Committee to facilitate across the diocese this year. What is needed from your bishop and his staff to enable you to do the work God is calling you to do in Corinth and Clarksdale, in Hollandale and Hattiesburg? Once upon a time these questions were relatively easy to answer in terms of management and supervision. And all denominations, in general, and our Episcopal Church, in particular have institutional structures designed to provide management of resources and maintenance of the institution. In an earlier time these structures were adequate. In our day where faithfulness to God requires a missionary ethos and a mission – driven church, our structures are increasingly inadequate and problematic.

            Recognizing that challenge I proposed at our Tent Meeting a total reorganization of our diocesan structure. Though Katrina delayed the start up of the work, this fall the Task Force for Programatic and Administrative Structures, under the chairmanship of the Rev. Luther Ott, and working with an outside consultant, presented to me their final report with recommendations for a significant reorganization of the structures of our common life. Luther will be reporting on their work tomorrow. These recommendations will become a part of our conversation over the next year. Some copies of the recommendations are available here at Council. They are also available on our diocesan website. Some recommendations are subtle; some are dramatic; some require canonical action; others can be affected by the bishop alone; all point us toward organizing ourselves in transformational ways that will give structure to our diocesan vision of ‘One Church in Mission – Inviting, Transforming, Reconciling.” There are four parts of these recommendations to highlight at this time.

1.         A fresh look at the way the Allin House operates. Acting on recommendations from the task force we have already engaged a consultant who has helped us immeasurably in looking at job descriptions, expectations, decision making, communication and accountability in the diocesan office. Recently, Lauren Auttonberry and Annette Kirkland have taken new positions outside of the diocesan office. We appreciate their faithfulness to our work at the Allin House. The Rev. Scott Lenoir has been appointed editor of The Mississippi Episcopalian and Emily Everett has just begun as our Assistant to the Canons.  Ask diocesan staff to stand so that we can say “thank you.”

2.         Within the recommendations is a movement away from an ethos of  “committee work” and toward the creation of task forces for particular purposes and with particular time limitations.

3.         A recommendation that the Standing Committee, the Executive Committee and the Trustees of the Diocese be combined into a single 12 person Executive Council. The handful of dioceses that have made such a change have found what has been given up in the “checks and balances” of the current structure, has been more than offset by extraordinary synergy and the capacity to move quickly and creatively with significant missionary initiatives.

4.         The creation of a Canon for Mission to be the point person for mission resources for local congregations and to initiate and coordinate the missionary thrust of this diocese.

            I want to speak to this fourth recommendation in some detail. Before he left office Bishop Marble told me that his greatest accomplishment was to grow the diocesan budget to the point where Mississippi could provide for two bishops. He was clear that the job of diocesan bishop, as presently constituted, was impossible for one person. His faithfulness to doing an impossible job by himself came at much cost. He handed over the leadership of this diocese to me with the great joy that I would not have to go it alone as he had for so many years.

            Sadly, the financial challenges we faced after General Convention of 2003 and later, Katrina, required us, as a diocese, to change our priorities. Two bishops would no longer be an option. The silver lining in these challenges is that I began to think in a more systemic way and plan for a day when we might be out of the financial woods and be able to ask where we could get the most bang for our buck as a missionary diocese.

            I am convinced that a Canon for Mission is precisely what is needed. He or she would provide for more direct involvement in our existing ministries that I have been able to do. Long neglected areas such stewardship, evangelism and education could again become vital resources for local congregations.  The canonical role of the bishop is not nearly as problematic as many think. I am renewed by my travel to local congregations and desire to deepen these relationships. Rather, it is the accumulated expectations and responsibilities given to the bishop, and particularly some that this bishop has himself chosen to initiate, that creates serious challenges to my effectiveness and vitality. I do not believe that a bishop suffragan for this diocese is required, but I do want to talk to you in this coming year about what a Canon for Mission would mean for the transformational work in this diocese and ask your support for it as my first priority in 2009.

Always we begin again.

As we look out over the wider church – in this country and throughout our Anglican Communion – we must acknowledge those challenges that face us. There is serious conflict within some dioceses, and the press, both secular and religious, is having a field day with those conflicts that have made their way into civil courts. In regards to the Anglican Communion the work of our House of Bishops in New Orleans has received mixed reviews among the primates of the Anglican Communion with a significant minority suggesting that the Episcopal Church still has work to do in responding to the concerns of certain parts of the communion. Primates and bishops from throughout the world continue to find their way to Mississippi. Just last weekend Archbishop Kolini from Rwanda made another visit to what is being called an Anglican mission in Jackson. I would have appreciated through common courtesy a notice of his visitation, but none has ever been forthcoming.

            The Archbishop of Canterbury has publicly called for such unauthorized visits to cease. I, for one, pay close attention to what Archbishop Williams requests. Such is not always the case for others.

            For five years I have tried to be as clear as I can about what you can expect of me as we negotiate these turbulent waters. As we go forward you need to know these things: I have been invited to participate in the Lambeth Conference this summer. I intend to go. I have been asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury to come prepared to discuss the nature and value of a covenant with the Anglican Communion. I will be prepared so to do. I will be asking for the wisdom, insight and perspectives of many throughout this diocese as I make my preparation for Lambeth’s deliberations.

            As more than one observer has noted, the Anglican Communion is in the process of “becoming” a true communion. Heretofore, this communion has been loosely knit together through a shared legacy of colonialism and Anglophilia. However,  the challenges of our day are transforming us into something dramatically different. We have now been forced to ask those most basic of questions:

            How can we be a world wide Communion, witnessing to the eternal truth in Jesus Christ, in dramatically different cultural contexts, with both the gift and challenge of dispersed authority?

            That is the grand Anglican experiment, unique to us but, I believe, our gift to the church catholic. Roman Catholicism solves the unity issue with central authority. Protestantism solves the autonomy issue with no binding unity. We are faithfully searching for a third way.

            This becoming something new, like birth itself, will require considerable work, labor, if you will, for a long, long time. I think that the evolution into a deeper communion, around a common mission, will take more than a generation. I am reminded that the commitment of our communion in the early 1960s to relationships based on “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence” is only now being lived into and made real. New realities and challenges to finding our unity in the synergy of common, mutually respected mission will take a long time to settle into the fabric of our common life.

            This slow, frustratingly slow for many, process of becoming a communion will have its moments of clarity and seasons of great confusion and distress.  There will be moments of significant public conflict and less visible good faith processes promoting understanding and healing. Two examples to suggest what I’m talking about: Last summer in the middle of our public debate among primates a very large number of African diocesan bishops met with their U.S. companion diocese counterparts in Spain for several days of conversation to strengthen the fabric of their relationships. Those conversations continue – most a long way off the radar screen of the press.

In our own diocese, the visit by Bishop Masereka makes a similar point. His archbishop and primates has been one of the chief critics of the Episcopal Church, but he gave Bishop Masereka his blessing to travel extensively to a wide variety of dioceses to strengthen the bonds of common mission.

I’m not sure I can tell you what the Anglican Communion will look like when this period of wrestling and discernment is over. But I am sure that the fullness of this new thing will not be made clear until long after I have finished being your bishop, and long after many of us have entered into the fullness of God’s Kingdom.

            So the question is what do I do until then? As your bishop, I will continue to be faithful to my ordination vows to be faithful in prayer, to proclaim and interpret the Gospel of Christ; to guard the faith, unity and discipline of the church, to show compassion to the poor and stranger and to defend those who have no helper. Those are the promises I made to God and to you. And as God gives me the strength, I will be that outward and visible symbol in word and deed for the unity that is given to us in baptism and nourished at a common altar.

            As for you, what shall you do until the second coming of the Anglican Communion? Let me suggest as I have tried to do over all these years that there are souls to feed with the good news of Jesus Christ; there are bodies to feed with bread; there are spirits to feed with hope.

            There really is still time. The Lord would have us do nothing less.

            My dear friends, as much as any of you, I get weary when someone or some group says or does something stupid and it travels the world in a micro-second, undoing much of what I’ve been trying to do and leaving me to clean up the mess. Many of you, especially the clergy, can easily identify.

            I, too, get weary, when so much of our time and energy is spent engaged in imagined conspiracies on the left and the right. And, I, too, far too often, find myself singing that old country song, “Make the world go away and get it off of my shoulders.” Say the things you used to say, and make the world go away.”

 But my friends, this is the time, in which we have been given to live. It is the context in which we do our work and the mission field to which we have been called. And yet the evil one stands close at hand offering me a refreshingly bitter cup of cynicism and self-righteousness. And it is so very tempting because to drink of that cup does, at least for a time, take away the agony of living in these very challenging times with an undefended heart.

            I am asked so often these days, “Bishop, how do you know it is all going to work out and be all right?” The certainty that they are asking for, I cannot provide. But then again, how do I know that life itself is not in the words of Macbeth “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?” How do I know anything truly important? The answer is simple, but foundational. I walk by faith. It is not a faith that closes its eyes and pretends that there are not challenges, but a faith that dares to imagine a deeper reality, deeper than the bitterness and conflict; deeper than the distrust and betrayals; deeper than the skepticism and cynicism of our age. I have glimpsed deeper things and I know them to be true.

            I will not forget the love of the Lord Jesus and a commitment to His calling that I have glimpsed from time to time in this crazy, broken, but grace-filled church. I believe those glimpses to be deeper and truer and more real than what too often distorts my vision and tempts me to despair.

            I want to close my remarks by recalling a scene from The Silver Chair, one of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. In this story the witch, Queen of the Underland, has captured Prince Rilian of Narnia and kept him underground. Two children from Narnia and an eccentric Marsh-wiggle named Puddleglum set out to find the prince. But they, too, are captured. Their brief moment of rebellion has been quashed when the Queen uses her most powerful weapon. She convinces the children, as she has Prince Rilian, that the land of Narnia, with all its beauty does not exist. Her power comes from her capacity to convince them all that the underworld – its darkness, dampness and fearfulness is the true reality and Narnia is a dream, an illusion. Even Aslan, that mysterious and powerful lion that rules Narnia is nothing but a tiny kitten. “There is no sun, there is no sky,” the Queen intones. Their memories lost, the children and the Prince have no desire for anything else and have become virtual sleep walkers.

            But Puddleglum (you can imagine his personality) gathers all the strength and courage he has left and speaks to the Queen:

            “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as much like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland.” Call me Puddleglum.

            I have been told that I am hopelessly naïve about the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. In another time I have been told by others that I was hopelessly naïve about the Christian faith. Recently, I was told that I was hopelessly naïve about some comments directed at me.  

            But my friends I will not take that other path. I will not make peace with cynicism and despair. I will not live in Underland. I dare to believe that the empty souls, empty stomachs and empty minds of the people, Christ died to save, are of deeper importance to God than any particular ecclesiastical polity. I dare to imagine a deeper and more mysterious unity that when discovered, will transform our swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.

            I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as much like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. I’m going to live like an Anglican – in respect and forbearance and comprehensiveness – even if there appears to be no Communion.

            And if I have been mistaken I will have enjoyed the journey. I invite you to join me in this journey where God is real, hope is an ever redemptive possibility and the Spirit of the Risen Christ continues to make all things new.

            Always we begin again.