Forming Disciples who are Unabashedly Episcopalian

I want to talk to you about our culture and our faith as Episcopalians.

Louis C. K. is an earthy (to say the least) comedian who stars in his own show on Fox television entitled: Louie.  It is for mature audiences only.  He said,

 “I have a lot of beliefs… And I live by none of them. That’s just the way I am. They’re just my beliefs. I just like believing them – I like that part. They’re my little believies. They make me feel good about who I am. But if they get in the way of a thing I want, I [sure as heckfire] do that.”

Let me say that I think we are in a time where you and I have come to known that we (and our people) have received some “little believies.”

And that we are adrift in a sea of competing truth.

Our churches are awash in individualistic, congregational, and local contextual theology which disconnects us from our language of believing, our culture of believing, and our ability to build and sustain a transformational community.

The axial age was a time between 800 and 200 BCE when influences traveled globally thinkers and cultural ideals had a profound influence on future philosophies and religions, identifiable characteristics common to each area emerged[i]

 You have heard we are in an emerging/ent time.  We are in a new axial age.  An age where in there swim competing arguments for truth and for society.

It is also my opinion that in some real way we as Christians, and in particular Episcopalians, have abandoned the field of philosophical discussion, of apologetics, of witness.  We are leaving behind our own inherited theological views in favor of picking up other views from various and sundry traditions that we find interesting.

I think this comes out of the goodness of our own heart to try, in the midst of a great pluralism of discourse, to be relevant.

However, it is exactly by doing this that we leave behind the tradition(s)  (the language and culture of our inherited faith) that may best help us navigate the world in which we live and the conversation that we are having.

This conversation is both an inner with our heart and mind and outer dialog in conversation with community members and in our workplaces and our confusion has become as much an individual confusion as a corporate one – especially for the Episcopal Church.

In an age where everyone can become a specialist about just about anything, we have in point of fact, become specialists about very little.

Baptism and confirmation classes no longer translate the faith of Christianity as received by the Episcopal Church.

Such classes are seen as something to do.  Rather than preparing for people to glorify God in this world and the next; or as our legacy of faith to leave

Robert N. Bellah, emeritus professor of sociology and comparative studies at the University of California, Berkeley, has one view of what has happened.[ii]  

Bellah, describes well the tension between Christianity (Pauline specifically) and pluralism.  Recognizing the challenge of proclaiming the gospel in our Western culture he writes:

…[W]e are getting our wires crossed if we think we can jettison defining beliefs, loyalties and commitments because they are problematic in another context. Reform and re-appropriation are always on the agenda, but to believe that there is some neutral ground from which we can rearrange the defining symbols and commitments of a living community is simply a mistake - a common mistake of modern liberalism. Thus I do not see how Christians can fail to confess, with all the qualifications I have stated, but sincerely and wholeheartedly, that there is salvation in no other name but Jesus.[iii]

The good news of salvation, and the uniqueness of God in Christ Jesus is a Christian belief in which we have (especially as an Episcopal Church) a text, language, liturgy, and culture.

Discipleship in the Episcopal Church is conveying this reality to our covenant community and to the world around us.

A wise statement about our present situation of religious pluralism comes from Herbert Fingarette in his book The Self in Transformation:

It is the special fate of modern man that he has a "choice" of spiritual visions. The paradox is that although each requires complete commitment for complete validity, we can today generate a context in which we see that no one of them is the sole vision.

The reality I find is that many of us here today and many of our parishioners do not hold Christianity as the sole vision.  We have other allegiances, other believies, which we apply to the Christian faith - mutating it.

And, this happens both in the liberal and the traditional church groups who campaign for allegiance.

Fingarette continues:

Thus we must learn to be naïve but undogmatic. That is, we must take the vision as it comes and trust ourselves to it, naïvely, as reality.

In Mark’s gospel we are told to “trust” the good news.

Christians have a “believing” that is part of their community life. 

….One may be a sensitive and seasoned traveler, at ease in many places, but one must have a home. Still, we can be intimate with those we visit, and while we may be only travelers and guests in some domains, there are our hosts who are truly at home. Home is always home for someone; but there is no Absolute Home in general.[iv]

This applies to us in that we cannot divorce our covenant communities from the faith tradition we have received; a tradition which is itself a culture – an Episcopal culture.

We might remember the Athenians who received the gospel from Paul they were concerned that he was simply presenting another foreign deity.

On the contrary, Paul converted them through an understanding of the scriptures presenting a monotheistic God known by the Hebrews, who was at work bringing about salvation history, and this God was THE God who created the very cosmos.[v] 

We say we believe in One God.  The Episcopal Church is not henothieststic church. We do not believe in one God among many.[vi]

If we return to Robert Bellah for a moment we get some help with this notion.  He writes:

To put this in Niebuhrian terms: converting people to Christianity without Paul's background of Hebrew radical monotheism would be converting them to a sort of henotheism, a belief in Jesus as a kind of "guardian spirit."[vii]

Discipleship is about not simply the belief or the transformation alone.  It is rather about belief in connection with a transformed life that then lives in a particular and unique covenant community – with its own culture.

Christians who are Episcopalians are at work discipling others.  This means not making general, superficial or sentimental Christians.

We are at work doing something more than making a choice for a very nice believie.  We are instead inviting people into a relationship with a particular God.  In a particular community, with a particular text, language, liturgy, and social system

Without this work of inducting our current community members and our new community members we are offering a “henotheistic guardian spirit” as opposed to a biblical Christ.

Again, Robert Bellah:

Without such induction the individual decision may be not for the biblical Christ but for a henotheistic guardian spirit. And that is true not only for so-called new Christians, but for many of us in our own allegedly Christian society who do not understand what Paul would have required us as Christians to understand.[viii]

For Christians, and in particular – Episcopalians, the church is home.  The church is the family of God. It is the temple of the Holy Spirit.[ix]

So, what I want to do for you today is to make the case for a stronger doctrine of the church and our Episcopal church specifically.

I want to speak to you about our culture, the particular one into which we are inducting members.  

It is my belief that we, the Episcopal Church, have a common life with a wonderful remembrance of God in Christ Jesus.

That you and I were drawn to choose this church…choose to stay…choose to join

We in our context are the standard bearers.  We [The faithful Episcopalian] are a living sign of the eschatological reconciliation of the world with God.[x]

We might find some indication of this work as it relates to the Episcopal Church in the words of Archbishop William Temple they remain the very best understanding, which was adopted by our General Convention in 1973 in this way:

"The presentation of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in such ways that persons may be led to him as Savior, and follow him as Lord within the fellowship of his Church."

…I would add the assumption at the end of this quote that specifically we are to do so within the fellowship of the Episcopal Church.

We must not shy away from this work.  We must be about discipling Christians as Episcopalians.  And, I would argue that we must evangelize ourselves first.  We have congregations with assumed beliefs and common interests.  We exist as a group of congregations, who have different ideas about our sacraments, discipleship methods for making general Christians, and clubs.

Yet this is not what drew us here together.  This is not the faith we inherited.  Nor the faith we first fell in love with.

I want to encourage you…inspire you to fall in love with the Episcopal Church again!

We have a beautiful and particularly unique faith.  As Episcopalians we know who we are and whose we are.  We were created by God as part of God’s creation and are made in the image of God.  We are free to make choices: to love, create, reason and live within what was created to be a sustainable creation; and to do so with God.

We know that we do not do this.  We don’t make good choices.  We like to put ourselves in the place of God.

And so we know affirm that our salvation and our deliverance, in fact our very life lived in the company of God, is dependent upon God’s grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness.

God has helped us by revealing himself through nature, history, saints and especially the prophets of Israel.  We believe in a God who Jesus called Father.  We believe this is the God who creates.  God looked on creation and said it was very good.  It is so not because of its nature but because of the God who creates it, sustains it, and directs it.  The creation is God’s, belongs to God, all things are God’s, and exist for God’s purpose.

This revelation of who God is has been given to us by the witness of our faithful predecessors – and specifically in the living word of the Old Testament.  God desires to be with us. God is faithful to us. God reaches out for us. God commits to us a binding relationship.  This is expressed through the scriptures and in particular to the people of God – the Abrahamic descendants – Israel.  God, the Father of his people, invites us to be faithful by virtues of love, justice, mercy, and humility.

The Ten Commandments remind us of God’s desire for us in our relationship with himself and with others:

Episcopalians understand that we trust God, and we bring others to know him.

We put nothing in the place of God.

We show God respect in our words and in our actions and in the results of our actions.

We are faithful in worship, prayer and study.

To the other we are to be faithful as well – treating our neighbors with love as we love God and love ourselves; to love, honor, and help our parents and family; to honor those in authority, and to meet their just demands;

We as Episcopalians are to show respect for the life God has given us; to work and pray for peace; to bear no malice, prejudice, or hatred in our hearts; and to be kind to all the creatures of God.

We are to use our bodily desires as God intended for the mutual building up of the family of God.

We are to be honest and fair in our dealings; to seek justice, freedom, and the necessities of life for all people; and to use our talents and possessions as ones who must answer for them to God.

We are to speak the truth, and not to mislead others by our silence.

We are to resist temptations to envy, greed, and jealousy; to rejoice in other people's gifts and graces; and to do our duty for the love of God, who has called us into fellowship with him.

This is what it means in part to follow in our apostolic teaching, to continue the work of a covenant community.

We as Episcopalians hold ourselves accountable to this vision of relationships with God and with one another.  We believe we hold up our lives to this image of our being, word, and deed and can see clearly where we fall short of the hope God has in us and so we repent. We return to God.

As Episcopalians we know that baptism does not make us perfect. We know that we remain sinful and sinning people. That is what we Episcopalians claim - that we follow our own will and not God’s; this really messes up our relationship with God and with other people, and we have managed to make a very real mess of God’s creation.

We recognize we cannot help but do these things, so we understand that we are in need of saving.  We are set free to do this work by creating a community of reconciliation.  We know as Episcopalians, we say in our Eucharistic prayer, that God has tried to call us back to himself…with no real luck.  It is under this weight of sin that God chooses to enter the world.  God comes as Messiah to set us free from the power of sin, so that with the grace of God, live and work as God’s people, with God and with others.

We believe the Messiah, or Christ, is Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son of God.   He is not just another prophet, good guy, wise man or great historic figure.  We believe in the Episcopal Church that Jesus is the only perfect image of the Father, and that he reveals to us and illustrates for us the very true nature of God.  Jesus reveals to us what I have said, and moreover that God is love and that God’s creation is meant to glorify God.  We believe Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that by God's own act, his divine Son received our human nature from the Virgin Mary, his mother.  We believe, what is foolish to man, that God became in Jesus human that we might be adopted as children of God, and be made heirs in the family of Abraham and inherit God's kingdom.

We believe we did what humans do to prophets and we killed Jesus.  God knew this and yet freely walked to the cross in the person of Jesus, that through his death, resurrection and ascension we would be given freedom from the power of sin and be reconciled to God. While the ability to glorify God and live in a covenant community with God was given to us so too was the gift of eternal life. We believe God in the form of the Son descended among the dead and that they receive the benefit of the faithful which is redemption and eternal life.We say and claim that Jesus took our human nature into heaven where he now reigns with the Father and intercedes for us and that we share in this new relationship by means of baptism into this covenant community – wherein we become living members in Christ.

In our covenant community we have a language of faith which directs our conversations and gives meaning to our words; through which we understand we are invited to believe, trust, and keep God’s desire to be in relationship by keeping his commandments.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

We are to love one another as Christ loved us. We believe that God continues with us, as Jesus promised, in the person of The Holy Spirit.  It is the Holy Spirit who gives life, has given life to word and language, and even our own Episcopal vision of Christianity.  The Holy Spirit leads us into truth, and helps us to grow into mature followers of Jesus, to grow into the likeness of Christ.   We believe the Holy Spirit is present when we confess Jesus Christ as Lord and when we live in love and harmony with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation.

We know the Holy Spirit’s movement when we see it in accordance with scripture, creed and reason of the church.  The creeds affirm this teaching of the Christian church, and our Episcopal Church, they are basics of everything I have said.

They are the way Episcopalians remember on any given Sunday the promises of the God we believe in.  As Episcopalians we read the bible. We do so in worship, in daily prayer, and in our study.  We find it a living word and encourage one another to read, mark, and make inward the truth of the living God as revealed within its pages. 

Episcopalians are not fundamentalists, while some fundamentalists may indeed be Episcopalian.  

Our scriptures consist of books written by the people of the Old Covenant, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to show God at work in nature and history. And, those written by the first followers of Jesus, and the first leaders of our church, which set forth the life and teachings of Jesus and to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom for all people.

Episcopalians claim that the Holy Scriptures are the living Word of God because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible.

As part of the protestant reformation we believe all people may seek truth in the scriptures through the work and power of the Holy Spirit, but we also believe that it is the Holy Spirit guiding the Christian Church and the Episcopal Church in the true interpretation.

We believe the Bible should be read with other people. That we should listen to scholars, preachers, and teachers, and that we must work to interpret the Scriptures. It is from the Church, the Episcopal Church in particular, that we as Episcopalians find our meaning and understanding of the Christian faith.

It is one church in the full body of Christ, the community of Jesus, the family of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, which exists in this world and in the world to come.  The Church triumphant and resplendent, the bride of Christ, is described as the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head and of which all baptized persons are members. It is also called the People of God, the New Israel, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, and the pillar and ground of truth. We believe as Episcopalians, and can trace our heritage, to the very nature of this church as one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.  It is our particular mission to do this work as the Episcopal Church.  We do this through our worship, proclamation of the Gospel, working as virtuous citizens of the kingdom of God to create real and permanent good through the power of the Holy Spirit.

All of our work is, like living stones, part of the kingdom God is building even now, even in this world.  We do this work as bishops, priests, and deacons, in relationship with the baptized of the church. 

We believe the ministry of the Episcopalian Christian is:

·         to represent Christ and his Church, specifically the Episcopal Church

·         to bear witness to God in Christ Jesus in the whole of our lives

·         to use our gifts and talents for this work

·         to work towards reconciliation with others and in the world

·         to take our place in life, worship, and governance of the Episcopal Church

In our Church we have bishops; and we have our specific work.  My work is:

·         to represent Christ and his Church, particularly as apostle, chief priest, and pastor of a diocese

·         to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the whole Church

·         to proclaim the Word of God

·         to act in Christ's name for the reconciliation of the world and the building up of the Church

·         and to ordain others to continue Christ's ministry.

The ministry of the priest is:

·         to represent Christ and his Church, particularly as pastor to the people

·         to share with the bishop in the overseeing of the Church

·         to proclaim the Gospel

·         to administer the sacraments

·         and to bless and declare pardon in the name of God.

The ministry of a deacon is:

·         to represent Christ and his Church, particularly as a servant of those in need

·         to assist bishops and priests in the proclamation of the Gospel

·         and the administration of the sacraments.

In the Episcopal Church we have two Gospel Sacraments: Baptism and Eucharist.  These are the two sacraments given to us by Christ.  We are to invite people to Holy Baptism.

It is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ's Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God. It is what God does, not what we do.

It is an invitation, through the water of baptism, for us to say you are God’s. God claims you. You claim God. We make promises for babies so that they can share in this family and we promise to guide and guard them in the Christian faith.  We believe in infant baptism.  We believe it is our responsibility (not the child’s responsibility) to grow up within the Church, to know Christ and be able to follow him.

For the adult is an opportunity to stand and say: I renounce evil, I don’t want to live in sin, I trust in God and in Jesus as my Lord and savior.

It is our altar call….the invitation to be baptized…There is nothing that separates us from God or you.

This is THE way people become members of our Episcopal Church.  A missionary church will have people along the edges who may not be baptized or want their children baptized. This is natural for a missionary community.  However, when we begin to move away from this core teaching, just like any other, we are moving away from being Episcopalian.

There are other churches with other traditions around initiation. This is ours.

The second sacrament is the Holy Eucharist. In the Episcopal tradition this is not a sacrament of initiation.  The Eucharist is food for the journey.  We do it to remind us of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, his judgment and his coming again.We make present, through this act the sacrifice of Christ and we believe it unites us to God.

Through bread and wine, given and received according to Christ's command we receive:

·         are the forgiveness of our sins

·         the strengthening of our union with Christ

·         the strengthening of our life with one another

·         in our union we have a foretaste of the heavenly banquet where God and man and all brothers and sisters in the family of God are united

·         we receive our nourishment that gives us strength and courage to do our work of glorifying God in this world and the next.

It does not require of us right belief, but self-examination, repentance for our sins, love for God, and charity for our brother and sister.

These are the two Gospel and primary sacraments of the Church.

In our Episcopal Church we have five other sacraments created by the Church, revealed through scripture, and built upon tradition, that are for the benefit of her people as a means of grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.

These are: confirmation, ordination, holy matrimony, reconciliation of a penitent, and unction.

While these sacraments (with a little s) are a means of grace, THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH believes they are not necessary for all persons in the same way that Baptism and the Eucharist are.

As Episcopalians we are people of hope, who live with confidence and courage, awaiting God’s judgment.  We believe that we are working with God for the completion of the purposes of creation and unification of all people with their creator through the proclamation of the good news of salvation and the unique witness of God in Christ Jesus.

We believe Christ will come again and will fulfill his promise to make all things new. We believe in heaven where we are united with God in an eternal Eucharistic celebration of God’s love and glory. We believe in hell, eternal death, where those who reject God may be found. Yet we make our cry of hope as all go down to the grave dust to dust, ashes to ashes, praying God to recognize us as a sheep of his own fold, a lamb of his flock and a sinner of his redeeming.

We believe that God will raise us from death in the fullness of our being, that we may live with Christ in the communion of the saints.   And that we shall have a new existence, in which we are united with all the people of God, in the joy of fully knowing and loving God and each other eternally.

Our assurance as Christians, and as Episcopalians, is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is who we are.  This is what it means to believe as an Episcopalian.

Many churches have some of these beliefs, but it the unique and particular manner and combination which makes us Episcopalian.

Bishop Richardson, the 5th bishop diocesan of Texas, said:

The World is in ferment today.  The Church is in ferment today.  Theology is in ferment today. We may mythologize some things surrounding Christ, but we may not mythologize Christ.  His Incarnation is a fact. His redemption of us is a fact. The Church as a redeeming body is a fact.  And Christ is the great fact – God’s fact.  And the Trinity is a fact; you cannot say all that you mean by God until you have said Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  The doctrine of the Trinity is as decisively simple and as simply decisive as that.

In an atomic age, the Church with the Holy Scriptures in her hand must proclaim the sovereignty of the power of God as ultimate. In a world of racial prejudice, and national strife, the Church with the historic creeds upon her lips must stand for the unity of the human race in Christ Jesus with no other alternative.  In a generation of material wealth, the Church with her sacraments must bear witness to the grace of God as the means of salvation.  In a time of great and rapid change and many voices, the Church with her apostolic ministry must speak in no uncertain voice of Him who changeth not and is the Way, the Truth, and the Light.

Two things we need to keep in mind. First, the Lord God reigns.  This is His world and He has a purpose for it. Second, we have come into the world at this time to fulfill His purpose.

When the Old Testament Esther hesitated before the danger she faced, Mordecai pointed out her duty, saying, “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this?”

Written in 1966 and delivered to his first diocesan council, Bishop Richardson’s words could well be spoken today.

We must be about our own formation.  The discipling of ourselves is the first work.

The second is discipling others in the way of Jesus as we follow him in this church.

Discipleship means coming into a relationship.  Wherein we are using the fabric of our Culture as Episcopalians to engage the culture around us and not revising it to make us comfortable

I am not challenging you to come up with your own really cool understanding of our church.

We have a theology.

We have a language.

We have sacramental symbols - signs and worship – liturgy.

We have a teaching.

And, we have a mission to share the Gospel faith we receive.

Which is particular and unique.

I am not challenging you to come up with your own really cool understanding of our church, but rather to choose to form people of every age

To disciple them in the way of the Episcopal Church…to be unabashedly Episcopalian.

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[i] German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term the axial age or axial period (Ger. Achsenzeit, "axis time") to describe the period from 800 to 200 BC, during which, according to Jaspers, similar revolutionary thinking appeared in India, China and the Occident. The period is also sometimes referred to as the axis age.

Jaspers, in his Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (The Origin and Goal of History), identified a number of key axial age thinkers as having had a profound influence on future philosophies and religions, and identified characteristics common to each area from which those thinkers emerged. Jaspers saw in these developments in religion and philosophy a striking parallel without any obvious direct transmission of ideas from one region to the other, having found no recorded proof of any extensive intercommunication between Ancient Greece, the Middle East, India, and China. Jaspers held up this age as unique, and one to which the rest of the history of human thought might be compared. Meister, Chad (2009). Introducing Philosophy of Religion. Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 10. ISBN 0203880021.

[ii] Robert Bellah is author of many books, including The Broken Covenant (Seabury Press 1975) and, with others, Habits of the Heart (U. of California Press, 1996).

[iii] Robert Bella, The Christian Century, April 19, 1995, pp. 423-428

[iv] Fingarette keeps this from becoming stale in mission as the culture of Home comes into contact within new contexts. He writes: Yet we must retain an openness to experience such that the dark shadows deep within one vision are the mute, stubborn messengers waiting to lead us to a new light and a new vision . . . We must not ignore the fact that in this last analysis, commitment to a specific orientation outweighs catholicity of imagery.

[v] Robert Bellah in his essay returns to the work of Paul with the Athenians and offers us a sense of both the difficulty of what we must do and a challenge to reengage our mission: …[I]n order to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified to the biblically illiterate Athenians, Paul must convince them of the fundamentally Jewish notion of a creator God who is Lord of all and who will bring the world to an end in a last judgment. Only in that context does the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ make sense. Even though Paul abrogated the Jewish ritual law for the gentiles, he still, in a critically important sense, had to convert them to Judaism before he could convert them to Christianity. That is as much the case today as ever and is evidenced by the fact that the Hebrew Scriptures are canonical for Christians.

[vi] Henotheism (Greek εἷς θεός heis theos "one god") is the belief and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities.

[vii] Bella article. He also states: It would confirm the suspicion of the Athenian philosophers about Paul: "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities" (Acts 17:18). Indeed, today much missionary work carried on by Americans or Western Europeans in the non-Western world, emphasizing individual salvation rather than a transformed way of life, may be only the proclamation of a foreign divinity.

[viii] Ibid.  Here is the whole quote: As the missionary-theologian Lesslie Newbigin puts it: "A religion of individual salvation had been taught, along with a wholesale rejection and condemnation of traditional culture. The result has been . . . a superficial Christianity with no deep roots and then -later- a reaction to an uncritical and sentimental attachment to everything in the discarded culture."

…Thus it would seem that a nonsuperficial Christianity must be based on something more than an individual decision for Christ, must be based on induction into the Christian cultural-linguistic system. Without such induction the individual decision may be not for the biblical Christ but for a henotheistic guardian spirit. And that is true not only for so-called new Christians, but for many of us in our own allegedly Christian society who do not understand what Paul would have required us as Christians to understand.

[ix] Even still, in a humble way, we do well to remember H. R. Niebuhr’s belief: that while this is true the church is also faithless and disloyal to its cause.

[x] Ibid. Bellah again challenges me in my thinking:  This Trinitarian complex of remembrance of Christ, appeal to the Spirit, and thanksgiving to the Father is not simply one aspect of the church's life; rather, it is the very act of the church's life, the act in which the church's koinonia is realized. The church is that community whose common life is a lively remembrance of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Spirit, to the glory of God the Father. And it is in this way that the communion of the church in history becomes a living sign of the eschatological reconciliation of the world with God.

Failing Forward this Lenten Season

In Mark 10, verse 26 the disciples ask Jesus, “…Who can be saved?” Jesus then says to them, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

This passage has been much on my mind as I have prepared for my own Lenten journey. I reflected on the spiritual work of Lent and realized what a miserable failure I have been when it comes to keeping my Lenten promises. Sure, I have succeeded well enough at times, but for the most part Lent has been and will be, I suspect, an exercise of failure for me. That is, if I continue to see keeping those promises as successful only if I don’t backslide for 40 days pass! For example, can I stop eating pizza and soda for 40 days? I don’t know … I might slip up. Can I stop eating chocolate or drinking wine? Whatever it is that I choose to set aside this Lent – I know I am doomed.

I believe that it is this failure that is the reason many people don’t attempt any Lenten discipline at all. Smart and successful people (people in general – in my estimation) don’t like to fail. In Chris Argyris’ book Teaching Smart People How to Learn, the author describes the stumbling block as: failure. Argyris’ thesis is that smart and successful people stop learning because they stop failing. Success, it seems, breeds an inability to experiment and fail.

Yet, it is in the failing that we learn. I would argue that as a culture we are bent on success to the point that any brush with failure cannot be tolerated. And so it comes to pass that we really don’t see any benefit from the discipline of Lent because we fail at it most times. That is, at least, my hypothesis.

So, where I have arrived on this Lenten Eve, perched at my computer awaiting my promised failure and the day of ashes, is this: failure may in fact be the point of Lent. Our season of preparation is a season in which we are invited to fail, and so be reminded that while perfect piety is as impossible for us as it was for our wandering Aramean ancestors (the Hebrews), such spiritual work is not impossible for God; for in God all things are possible.

Our Ash Wednesday Gospel lesson, and the lesson for the first Sunday in Lent this year, comes from Mark’s Gospel chapter 1, beginning at the ninth verse. In this passage we are given a vision of Jesus as “the Messiah, the Christ to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.” (BCP 306). He is God’s Son, his beloved and God is pleased in him – as he was pleased with the first man, Adam. God’s Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness where he will thirst and hunger, where he will be tempted and where he will not fail. In fact he will burst forth into Galilee, strengthened by his journey and proclaim the good news of salvation; saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Lent is a time of sharing the good news that our salvation rests in the hand of God, in the Grace of God. Our salvation does not depend upon us. Our failing teaches us this. Our failing at Lenten disciplines is exactly what these 40 days are meant to be about. It is in attempting to succeed that we discover our minds and hearts are able to receive the message of “pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.” (Preface to a holy Lent, BCP, 265)

So I encourage you to join me in boldly taking on and setting aside through discipline those things that will challenge us and will eventually bring us to failure. I challenge you to so aim at success that your failure will be outstanding … So that you and I might, as pilgrims, make our way through a holy Lent where we will be reminded that our salvation is not in our hands, but in the hand of God and the Grace of God. It may be that if you are not failing in Lent, you may not be trying hard enough …

Bishop of Texas Address to 163rd Diocesan Council, College Station, Texas

I take as my text Isaiah 55.11: “…My word that goes forth from my mouth: it will not return to me empty. But it will accomplish that for which I have purposed and prosper in that for which I sent it.”

The Living Word of God in Christ Jesus has been present with us and our long history as the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Texas. The Living Word of God is working its purposes out and it does not return to God empty.

I believe that the living Word was present with the Episcopal laity who moved to the Mexican territory and brought with them a longing for the Episcopal Church.

I believe that the living Word was present in 1831 when the Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church and General Convention appointed The Rev. Richard S. Salmon to formally nurture the Church in Texas.

The Word was present as he gathered other Episcopalians who made the difficult journey to Louisiana and then to the emerging republic of Texas.

The living Word was present when Salmon served as chaplain to the first senate in the new republic and as he offered last words at the burial service for Stephen F. Austin.

The Word was present as congregations began to grow; as Christ Church, Matagorda was formed in 1837. …And as the General Convention and the Missionary Society sent more missionaries in 1838.

Fearful of epidemics, and challenged by travel through mud and muck, the first council met on February 1, 1839, and organized into a diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Led by missionary leaders who we remember today: Gillet, Ives, Eaton, Price and Young (Price and Young were later elected bishops in the Episcopal Church); and, the laity Davenport, Perkins, Johnson, and Sartwell. Together they represented people in Matagorda, Galveston, Houston, Brazoria, Washington County, and San Augustine and Nacogdoches.

The Word was present as they wrote in the first hours of the fledgling diocese: we are united, we are formed, we are styled and we are known as the Episcopal Church.

The Word was present in and with our first bishops. Bishop George Washington Freeman, who with funds from the Episcopal Church in the East and in the Church of England bought property, paid missionaries, and built churches.

The Word was present as Bishop Alexander Gregg served through the civil war and though there was bitter division in the state and country, he challenged us to the work of mission and reconciliation, saying: “The middle way, whether in opinion or practice, the surest and safest, is most difficult to be pursued. The work of the ministry, varied in its requirements and weighty in responsibility, brings no exemption from that tendency to excess in almost every particular, to which our nature, in its weakness, is so unhappily prone! Well regulated in its efforts, however, and sincerely intent upon [the] legitimate work [of the mission of God] – what may not the ministry of reconciliation achieve?

Words that today remain part of our mission and vision statements.

The Word was present with Bishop George Herbert Kinsolving, Texas George, who was known for his missionary spirit and zeal. He did not let the diocese divide during the high church/low church battles of his day. Instead he was known, while himself a well-read evangelical and low churchman, as a friend to all. He challenged us to build up the kingdom of God, and not the kingdom of men. The Lordship of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, personality, and focus built a strong stone foundation for a healthy anchor for the Episcopal Church in the South.

The living Word was present during the time of Bishop Clinton S. Quin who was known as The Bishop and who was missionary focused and driven.

He believed that the Episcopal Church should be at the center of the community’s needs. “We should be at work for the good in all men’s lives.”

The Word was present in our diocese during the time of Bishop John E. Hines who challenged us to see that our legacy was one that promised the Good news for all people. He believed our mission was the kingdom of God for all people; and ALL meant ALL.

Under Hines the many missionary outposts of Quin’s era would have buildings. Never before would the Diocese see such numbers in terms of confirmations and new membership. Under his leadership he would start more congregations than any other bishop before him.

The living Word was present in the time of Bishop Milton Richardson who was known as a great preacher, administrator and missionary. It was he who rebuilt the financial missionary dollars of the diocese and focused our attention, like George Washington Freeman, on our missionary imperative to be self-sufficient and healthy.

Together we raised up clergy with a missionary spirit. We funded the buildings and notes from Hines’ era. We prepared again for future growth. We would do all this tremendous work under his steadfast leadership which guided us through an era where we were divided over wars in Korea and Vietnam, where we were divided over segregation and civil rights, and when we began to ordain women and use a new prayer book.

In his final address to Diocesan Council, Bishop Richardson said,

“Courage has been defined as ‘a quality of mind which means danger or opposition with intrepidity, calmness, and firmness.’ But a more adequate definition of courage must strike a deeper note…It is not from the mind but from the heart that courage comes. Let a person’s heart be filled by some sovereign emotion, let him be possessed by a blazing loyalty to some exalted cause, and what might have been a barrier of his timidity is consumed like so much paper before the fire of his intense commitment. It was this way with John the Baptist. It has been this way with Christian after Christian down through the centuries. It ought to be this way with you and with me as we face the future.”

The living Word was present.

The living Word was present with Bishop Benitez as he forged ahead into new areas of church planting, funding for mission, and built up the health of the organization and its churches, and brought a sense of liturgical and spiritual renewal to our diocese.

Bishop Benitez said in his final address to council:

“We can elaborate and explicate on the meaning of being a disciple, but to me, we who are disciples of our Lord are seeking to share our bread with the hungry and the needy and the homeless of this world, and we are, at the same time, seeking to share the Bread of Life, salvation in Christ Jesus, Eternal Life, with every person that we can in the time that we have on this earth! It’s not either/or, but both/and!”

The living Word was present during the tenure of Bishop Payne who refocused our attention on mission rather than on what divides us. He would not let us hide from the reality of a church that once renewed, once expanding, once thriving, was no longer doing so and had begun to decline. We were challenged to remember and to believe in our mission and to expect great things from one another. We were challenged to have “miraculous expectation.” His last words to us as a council were: The glorious legacy which is yours and ours – ours to have, ours to share and ours to use and to celebrate.”

The living Word was present during the tumultuous time of Bishop Wimberly’s tenure. Not unlike Richardson; we paid off debt, insured funding and health for new start congregations. He made way for thinking about new initiatives and encouraged young and innovative thinking. He did this in the midst of great division. At a time when we were more likely to walk apart than together Bishop Wimberly challenged us to, “do not embrace anything less than the vision of working side by side, hand in hand as agents of hope.”

We do not remember these men and their times in order to say they had it right. Each one had their flaws and their successes; as do I. Each had parishes that were happy with them and those that were not; as do I.

We do rehearse this story because it is important to see that regardless of our own sin and brokenness, our own division and strife, we have sought earnestly through these years to proclaim the gospel of God in Christ to the people of Texas. And, despite our shortcomings, and by the Grace of God alone, we have been faithful to God’s mission in this place.

And it is not only to the faith of these men that we turn but as JoAnne and I know, it is the faith of the thousands of clergy and the thousands of lay people, the saints of God, upon whose shoulders we stand. And whose support each bishop has depended.

With faith we look back, at a living word, and we see that no matter what the issue de jour was, regardless of our human desire to sin and seek our own wants over and against unity for the sake of God’s mission, we in the Diocese of Texas have been upheld in our faith and we have remained united, formed, styled and known as the Episcopal Church.

We stand here and we testify that the living Word of God has been present in our diocese. It has come from God, it has gone out, and it has not returned to God empty but has accomplished that which God intended.

Today you and I are called by God, to God’s mission of proclaiming the Good News of Salvation and to make our unique witness to God in Christ Jesus through the Episcopal Church.

Our organization exists for nothing else. You and I are called to carry the missionary banner of God through the witness of the Episcopal Church in our day and in our context.

And we are not, and we will not shrink from this task. Come what may, cost what it will.

The days of gathering at councils and telling the rest of the world how things should be are over. Today you and I stand as a missionary diocese with our hands at the plow of the sowers field. We are working hand in hand with our neighbors and with our friends to bring in the harvest which Jesus says is plentiful if we will but be faithful.

We do not do this because of numbers; though this year we once again had more confirmations that the last, and the Diocese of Texas grew in membership and average Sunday attendance for the first time in five years, and the second time in the last decade.

We do this because we are compelled as sinners who receive a full measure of God’s grace to be about God’s business of proclaiming God’s living Word and to do the work of the evangelist – in word and deed.

In my view our work is clear.

You and I are (through prayer and meditation) are to bring our own lives alongside the scriptures and recognize humbly that we are sinners in need of redeeming.

We are to live our lives out of the belief that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and to shape our lives based upon the Incarnation of God and his presence with us.

Our mission will always be handicapped by our lack of living in relationship with God in Christ Jesus.

We must live our lives under the grace of God who died for our sins. And, with trembling humility seek to serve him in gratitude for his mercy. Our work as missionaries is a response to God’s grace and not in order to gain it.

We must faithfully live in the power of the Holy Spirit who makes us the caretakers and the missionaries in our local context.

We must, as countless generations before us have done, stand up and be counted for the success and failure of our mission. We are the standard carriers today. And, Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and follow him along the way.

I love Jesus Christ, in humble service I stand, because of the Grace of God through the mighty power of his cross, to make my witness through God’s Holy Spirit. And, I do so in the Episcopal Church which I love and will make my unique witness until my dying day.

Only out of a profound sense of faith, and understanding, that we are God’s missionaries may we hope to offer anyone anything of value.

Only by making our witness can we be about the work of generous evangelism. We can generously invite, generously love, generously listen, generously value, generously welcome, and generously bring into the family of God, his lost sheep.

We are to be at work, like the good shepherds, seeking those who have lost their faith in the church and have wondered away yet still love Jesus. And, we are to seek those who are searching, and those who have yet to have someone offer them a glimpse of a church that cares.

We are to be formed as Episcopalians and to be about the business of forming and making more Episcopalians who love Jesus.

We are to make disciples of God in Christ Jesus, and specifically we are to help them live out a life that makes a unique witness to the faith inherited by our church.

This is the living Word in our midst. This is the Living God in our midst. And if we focus on this work and you as individual clergy and laity, and I as your bishop, am faithful to this – then God’s word, in our time, will have accomplished that for which he sent it, and it will not return to him empty.



General Convention

Now I want to make a shift in our conversation and I want to speak to you about a few things of importance in our common life.

This year we will send our deputation to General Convention. General Convention is normally a source of some anxiety for people.

I am not anxious. I am not fearful. I am not concerned. And, the reason is that for me my faith in Jesus Christ, and my belief in the unique witness of the Episcopal Church to offer Good News is not dependent upon General Convention. It just isn’t.

Things will happen there and we will have to deal with what happens there; that is true. I took an oath as bishop and as priest to take my place in the councils of the church and I will do so and I will do so faithfully.

Let me be clear: General Convention will do some things that some of you will like, and General Convention will do some things that some of you will not like.

Let me remind you that your faith in Jesus Christ and your love for this Church and your belief in its worship and witness to Jesus are not going to be changed by an act of General Convention.

At General Convention they will pass a liturgy for same sex blessings. They are going to pass it.

I will vote against this liturgy.

Your deputation will more than likely be divided on the question and in so doing cast a vote against it as well.

We have a task force focused on unity and mission. We are working on a strategy to lead through this decision. Our aim is not to stop General Convention; such an exercise would be one of frustration.

We are working instead on how we will in Texas lead rather than react. And, I am finishing up my paper on marriage which will be out this spring.

Our plan is to publish the task force’s work before General Convention in order to give the diocese time to prepare.

On another topic, the Anglican Covenant will come before General Convention for ratification. I will vote in favor of the Covenant. Your deputation will probably be divided. And, Convention will probably not support it.

I am working in advance with other bishops to propose a way through our division on the Anglican Covenant.

That being said, I will continue in my leadership at the communion level building and strengthening ties with global provinces and diocese. I will continue to support The Archbishop of Canterbury and our friend Bishop James Tengatenga who is the head of the Anglican Consultative Counsel. I will also continue to have healthy relationships with my fellow bishops in the House and with our presiding bishop The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schorri.

There will be other things up for debate at General Convention. I believe the biggest debate will be about the structure of the church; specifically general convention and the church office.

It is my opinion that the structure of the church must change, and that as a body we must stop spending millions of dollars telling others how to be church, and instead put that money towards acting as church in the world in a missionary and impactful way. I don’t think that is a unique stance and I am not alone in my firm belief that now is a time for reform.

How that reform takes place is yet to be decided.

We in Texas continue to work well with our brothers and sisters in the wider church. Where there is work on mission and outreach the Diocese of Texas and our leadership are working hand in hand to change the world with brothers and sisters from across the Episcopal church and the communion. We are bearing much fruit together.

Activities such as Nets for Life, where we have raised some 15,000 nets towards our 27,000 goal show an interest to think differently about changing the world in which we live.

A great example of the countless outreach initiatives being undertaken in our diocese is the outreach of one parish, St Luke’s on Lake, who made 8 trips to Alabama/Louisiana after the devastating tornadoes. Or the people who traveled with Archdeacon Russ Oechsel to do relief work all over the country.

Another congregation doing great work is Calvary, Bastrop where people are building Faith Village (that you will hear more about this morning). This is a faith community gathered to help people rebuild their homes and lives.

We are involved in more than 22 different national and international partnerships for mission. Listen to the countries parishes in the Diocese of Texas are working with:

Honduras, Malawi, Belize, Guatemala, Bolivia, Navajo Nation – Arizona, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Dominican Republic, Nebraska work camp, Tanzania, Kenya, Mexico, Russia, Nepal, Uganda, Dallas, Mississippi, Iowa, Laos, Nigeria, Lakota reservation – North Dakota.





Our work is building a healthy relationship with our church, The Episcopal Church and our Global Communion.

An icon of the health is the increased dollars being sent through our missionary asking to the Episcopal Church; and our global dollars which are also increasing for this work.

Another icon of the health of this relationship is that I have been asked to join the Compass Rose Board.

Furthermore, at home The Diocese of Texas has been asked by the Joint Standing Committee on Planning & Arrangements if we are willing to host the 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church (2018) in the City of Austin, Texas. It will be one of five cities to be considered: Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Kansas City and Knoxville. I asked the Executive Board to consider this and they unanimously consented to hosting if asked. We believe this will be a great time for the rest of the church to see the good work that we are doing in Texas. We will have to wait and see if our offer is selected.

Now, I know you. I know your congregations. I know who you are and I know your stories. And, I suspect that while I am not anxious about General Convention some of you are. And, so I want to say two things to you.

First, as my Canon for Formation often reminds me, the most common command in the Bible is: “Do not be afraid.”

The words do not be afraid are abundant in Scripture because fear is the number one reason that we as humans fail to trust God. Behind every act of disobedience and every failure to trust God -- fear is always lurking.

The problem is that for most of us, fear arrives as an unwelcome guest. Fear can easily become paralyzing instead of motivating, habitual instead of sporadic. The reality is that people who constantly worry have a hard time trusting God. And for this reason, God’s most frequent command is, do not be afraid.

Today we can all be reminded that God really is big enough to take care of us. Today we can all be reminded that we really are safe in God’s hands. Today we can all be reminded that God has acted through the person of Jesus to restore all things to Himself, and that because of God’s initiative we do not need to fend for ourselves. Finally, in light of these truths, we can all be reminded of our God’s most frequent command to His children: Do not be afraid.

Secondly, I want to challenge you to be leaders of this diocese. As we look at the General Convention and the division that may arise, I want you to be challenged to respond by saying, “No, we will not be divided.” We will stand united in our common mission and ministry. We stand united on the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ.

And, as leaders, you and I in this room, must say to the people of our congregation: “NO. We stand as one in the diocese of Texas.” There is no Jew or Greek, no slave nor free, no liberal nor conservative in the church of Texas.

NO, in the church in Texas we are united as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. We will not rise up against one another, Christ’s mission will not fail on our watch, we are one and we shall overcome, and we shall overcome together.

We will not have second class citizens, we will not divide up along party lines, and we will not allow our proclamation of Jesus Christ to be sidelined or to suffer.

We will say there is nothing in this church that will separate us, our people, or the people outside our doors from the love of God. No powers, no principalities, nothing in this world and nothing at General Convention that will separate us.

Sharing our faith Family Reunion

As an icon of our faith and unity we share, we have the opportunity to know one another on a deeper level and to play together.

First, let me invite you to join with me by participating in the Sharing Our Faith Dinners. What is this?

The Dinners are designed for Episcopalians to gather together over a simple meal, get to know each other, and share faith stories based on questions provided on a deck of question cards with a moderated process.

I think it will be a great testimony to our unity if on April 26th people across the diocese joined together and met for dinner and participated in sharing faith with one another.

There are all kinds of ways you can do this and I am hopeful that every congregation will get involved.

You can host a gathering at a pub, in a home, at a Dairy Queen, or at your church. You can feed people pizza or Chick Fil A if you want.

The whole idea is to do something across parish boundaries and throughout our cities prior to General Convention that on the one hand reminds us of our unity; but more importantly reminds us of our unity in Christ.

The Apostle Paul in his letters was constantly offering grace and peace to the people of his congregations. He was always reminding them to see one another “in Christ.” Greet Prisca and Aquilla, Andronicus and Junia, “in Christ”.

The sharing our faith dinners give us an opportunity to greet one another and to see each other as God sees us, and to have an experience of each other as a follower of Christ.

The process of sharing our own personal faith story helps us to deepen our own faith, and hearing others’ stories of God’s presence in their lives brings us into deeper relationship with each other and gives us pause to consider our own journey.

I am hoping every church will have a dinner coordinator to help interested parishioners participate. We are hoping for hosts from each congregation to offer up their homes and we will have moderators to help with the evening.

We have a real opportunity to set aside one night for each other. To say actually we do want to know one another and to know one another’s life in Christ.

You can learn more about this through our website at www.epicenter.org/sharingfaiths and at our booth.

I think this has the potential of being really cool! Imagine if several thousand people all over the diocese did this together. JoAnne and I will be participating and I am inviting you to participate with us.

Another opportunity to come together as the family of the diocese this spring is the Diocese of Texas Family Reunion being held at Camp Allen.

Over the past decade people have wanted to have more fellowship time as a diocese. Thinking about this with the Executive Board we decided not to extend the Diocesan Council for this benefit but rather to seek another opportunity.

I began working with George Dehan and we decided that this year we would hold a Diocesan Family Reunion at Camp Allen. This is an opportunity for us as a diocesan family to gather at Camp Allen for fellowship and fun.

We are going to host a music festival along with activities for the whole diocesan family. Singles, young adults, children, youth, parents, grandparents – music lovers and people looking for an excuse to hang out can join JoAnne and me for our first Diocesan Family Reunion and Music Festival at Camp Allen on May 18-20th.

These are two great events and I hope that we will make the most of them as we seek to remind ourselves of our life giving relationships with one another in the diocese, and our unity in Christ Jesus.

Election of bishop

Bishop Harrison and I have been doing a great deal of visitations on our own this year. Bishops High, Wimberly, Payne, and Duncan also helped to keep up with the need. However, we are suffering without a bishop for East Texas.

I am formally asking you, the 163rd Diocesan Council, to approve the election of a bishop suffragan for the eastern area of our diocese. Pending your approval:

The walkabouts will be held at Camp Allen on May 12 2012.

The election will take place on June 2, 2012 at Christ Church Cathedral.

The candidate will then go to General Convention for approval.

And, the tentative ordination date will be October 6, 2012 in Tyler, Texas.



We have drafted a resolution for your approval that will come out of my address and it has been given to you as part of the pre-council materials. You will have also seen that we have saved and have budgeted for the election and the position.



I must also offer to you, according to the canons a job description.



The Diocese of Texas has set out a clear vision and specific goals. We know God calls us to build the Kingdom of God together through worship, witness and ministry, that we are one Church reconciled by Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. In the Diocese we capitalize on our strengths and resources to become what God intends—a Church that reaches out in our communities to transform and restore. We exhibit exceptional stewardship at both the congregational and diocesan levels with an eye to excellence in everything we do.



In each of our particular settings, we are called to help network people, build healthy partnerships for mission, and support healthy networks between institutions and congregations. The bishop suffragan as a member of the diocesan family and the diocesan staff must be a person who can help form us into a people who know that this is our calling.



The person elected must also have a centered Anglican perspective that is uniquely and unabashedly Episcopalian, set an example of leadership and help us all bear out our unique witness as the Episcopal Diocese of Texas.



The bishop suffragan will work closely with me and share the work of the episcopacy in Texas. The bishop will reside in Tyler, where the diocese has a home, and offices on the All Saints’ School campus. The bishop suffragan will work collaboratively with the diocesan staff to provide resources and support for congregations, especially the 50 plus located in the eastern region. The new bishop suffragan will be the vision bearer and have pastoral oversight for the congregations of this region, helping to bring greater connections with the wider diocese and wider church.



While this person will have a special connection with our diocese’s eastern region, a bishop is always elected for the whole Church and the Anglican Communion. He or she will visit congregations across the diocese and will be active on a number of boards that I will assign. The new bishop will be my representative to Episcopal Church Women, the Little Church Club and Cursillo among other groups, as well as be responsible for the pastoral care of diocesan clergy and their families. I expect to assign additional responsibilities in accordance with the unique giftedness our new bishop suffragan brings to the position.



I trust you and look forward to your discernment for the next bishop suffragan of Texas. I know you will raise up among us a gifted leader, pastor, and teacher to help Bishop Harrison and me shepherd the mission of the diocese.



Conclusion

I recently read Bishop Quin’s fourth year report to council and in it he tells the people of the diocese that he truly enjoys his visitations and time with them. It has been true these many years with all the bishops and it is true for me.

I am constantly looking forward to being with you. Sundays and visitation days are the best days.

I have almost been in all the parishes and will soon complete my task only to begin again; which I will cherish.

I believe that we are doing good work together in the Diocese of Texas.

I believe we truly love one another and are ultimately bound by Christ’s love for us.

We are healthy. We are growing. We are having fun together. We are fearless. We are beautiful. We are faithful. We are worshipful. And, as our founders hoped, we are united, formed, styled and known as the Episcopal Church.

And, I will tell you: you are a great diocese in a great Church.

And you… You are good people. You are good people.

God loves you. God’s mercy shines upon you. And, I see that in my life with you.

It is an honor to bear witness to the fact that God’s living Word is in our midst and it is thriving in our congregations.

God’s word is working its purposes out in your lives as individuals and in your communities.

God’s word does not return to God empty but returns with the missionary blessings of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas.

It is the privilege of my life to stand before as your bishop.

Some Thoughts on the Anglican Ordinariate

January 3, 2011

As many of you may be aware, the Anglican Ordinariate launched nationwide this week and it will be operated out of the Roman Catholic diocesan office in Houston . The Rev. Jeffrey Steenson, a former Episcopal bishop, now a Roman Catholic priest working and teaching in Houston, will oversee the Ordinariate. 

What is an Ordinariate? An ordinariate is a canonical structure within the Roman Catholic Church enabling former Anglicans to maintain their “Anglican” identity and autonomy within the Roman Church.  Its precise nature may be viewed in the Anglicanorum Coetibus of November 4, 2009.  The document states that the goal is "to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared."

This is not a unique event within the Roman Catholic Church.  In the Roman Church there are other Latin rite churches with similar accommodations. One in particular offers a similar structure and governing principles for Eastern Churches that wanted to return to communion with the Holy See (Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches).

This is not a new initiative. The process for the current Ordinariate began in 1977 when the Episcopal Church began ordaining women priests.  A 1980 pastoral provision was granted only for the United States and it directly subjects those former Anglicans to whom it is applied to the governance of the existing local Latin Rite bishops.  In October 2007 the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) presented a petition to the Holy See requesting full union in corporate form, an action that has resulted in the Ordinariate we see in today’s headlines.  This Ordinariate was a topic of discussion at the Diocese of Texas’ Clergy Conference in 2009 when it was initially announced.

The Ordinariate is news within the Roman Catholic Church today because it shows a broadening of the Roman tradition within a Church not known for change.  In the Episcopal Church and Anglican tradition, we regularly welcome and receive members from all denominations. For many years we have had a process by which a person or congregation might affiliate with our Church and become Episcopalian. While our canons have offered this provision for movement for a long time, it remains a novelty for Rome.

Not many people are expected to make a change.  The Rev. Steenson and Cardinal Daniel DiNardo have represented publicly that some 1400 individuals nationally have expressed interest in joining the Roman Church.  Many of these individuals are members of congregations who already have pastoral oversight of regional Latin bishops and are not members of any Episcopal diocese. In the Houston area, Our Lady of Walsingham will be participate in the Ordinariate but the congregation has never been an Episcopal Church.  Other break away congregations may seek to join the Ordinariate.  I know of only one retired clergyman in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas who is considering joining the Roman Church. 

It is also important when speaking about numbers to recognize the small nature of the numbers of individuals interested in the Ordinariate.  In the Episcopal Diocese of Texas alone we welcome more than 200 new members a year from Roman and Orthodox churches.  This number is even larger when you consider numbers received by the Episcopal Church in the continental United States.

Why aren’t more people participating in the Ordinariate? I think it is because to participate in the ordinariate one must professes Roman Catholic principles and doctrines in their entirety and maintain fidelity to the Pope.  Divorce and remarriage alone present particular stumbling blocks for many Episcopalians and worldwide Anglicans.

Is this an ecumenical unification of two Christian denominations? The Ordinariate is not an ecumenical joining of the Anglican Church with the Roman Church.  While friendship and courtesy exist between our two Churches, there remain major doctrinal divisions between the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church.  The Ordinariate is about expanding the definition of who may be considered part of the Roman Church, based upon liturgical use.

Are we, as Anglicans, moving back to into unity with the Roman Catholic Church?  It is true that as of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church have been in dialogue (along with many other denominations).  In these conversations we have agreed that, regarding the historic churches, the essential shape of our language relating to God and Christ Jesus is shared.  We understand that we are a community in relationship with God and with other believers and that the Church, in its broadest sense, is a model for human life together in accordance with God’s purpose and intention. 

In his Willebrands Symposium in 2009, Archbishop Rowan Williams said: “the Church is a community, in which human beings are made sons and daughters of God, and reconciled both with God and one another.  The Church celebrates this through the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion in which God acts upon us to transform us in communion.”  In fact the Trinitarian doctrine and the discourse around the Lord’s Supper are strongly affirmed on all sides of the ecumenical discussion.

All of that being said … there remain major obstacles when we move beyond these common beliefs. Most of the divisions stem from the nature of the Roman Catholic Magisterium.  The magisterium is the teaching authority of the Roman Church.  This authority is rooted solely in the episcopacy, which is the combination of the bishops of the Roman Church in union with the Pope.  According to Roman Catholic doctrine, the Magisterium is able to teach or interpret the truths of the faith, and may do so either non-infallibly or infallibly. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. 1997, pt. 1, sect. 1, ch. 2, art. 2, III [#100])  For example:  "The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him." (ibid) 

One can easily see that issues such as divorce, remarriage, married clergy and women priests are but a few practices that are locally discerned by our Episcopal Church, but remain stumbling blocks for the Roman Church as we pursue greater ecumenical unity.

Our polity and nature as Anglicans does not hold that there is one mechanism or person in the Church that has the clear right to determine for all where the limits of Christian identity and practice reside.  We do not believe the integrity of the Church is dependent upon one single, identifiable ministry or person of unity to which all local ministries are accountable.  But rather that it is the sum total of the Church’s discernment and prayer which guides the teaching practice of the missionary church. (Ibid)  All this is to say that we as Anglicans do not have a Pope or understand the teaching ministries of the Church in the same manner as do our Roman brothers and sisters, and such a divergent opinion is a very real gulf between the two Churches.

As Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, where do I stand regarding the new Roman Catholic Ordinariate?  I have no anxiety and I hope that the Ordinariate will be a place where some who feel spiritually homeless may find a dwelling place; and a place where others may come to a better understanding of their own Anglican heritage. 

In the Bible Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem.  His last teaching to Israel was this, he said, “Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) 

I have chosen to follow God in Christ Jesus through the particular and unique church community of the Episcopal Church. I am unabashedly Episcopalian and I love my church. Furthermore, I embrace and welcome all those who choose to serve Jesus in and through the ministries of this Church.  We in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas are a people in mission and we are focused on the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, such that men and women will be drawn into relationship with him as Savior and follow him as Lord in the specific fellowship of the Episcopal Church; which is part of Christ’s universal and catholic church.

 You may read ENS coverage here.