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Bishop Thomas Ely’s Address to the Diocesan Convention
The Episcopal Diocese of Vermont
November 5, 2004 – Feast day of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury

Tonight I remind us - we are called to be a servant church. The theme of our Diocesan Convention is Stewards of God’s Mission. Tonight I remind us that this is a servant mission, grounded in a radical theology of Incarnation, Resurrection, Reconciliation and Community. My prayer is that the words we have just sung (Hymn # 779 WL&P) will be reflected in the comments I am about to share and the life we will live as a diocese. We are called to be a servant church – indeed, a servant people.

We gather for this 172nd Annual Convention of the Diocese of Vermont (the 213th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Church of Vermont) in the wake of a political season marked by sharp controversy, pointing to deep divisions within our nation. We gather in the midst of the ongoing war in Iraq, the instability of the Middle East, the genocide of the Sudan and the many other places of conflict in the world that weigh heavily on our hearts and minds and spirits.

We gather conscious that our baptismal promises - to seek and serve Christ in all persons - to love our neighbors as ourselves - to strive for justice and peace among all people - and to respect the dignity of every human being (indeed of all creation) – are being tested by the challenges of the environment, unequal education, racism, poverty, inadequate and enormously expensive health care insurance, homelessness, domestic violence, addiction, and other urgent issues.

And, we gather very sensitive to the tension and sharp division within our own Episcopal Church and throughout the Anglican Communion as we struggle to address issues of biblical authority, human sexuality and how decisions are made, while acknowledging the reality of conflicting theologies, national autonomy, and our different cultural contexts.

All of this impacts and affects our understanding of God’s Mission and our capacity to engage in that Mission as a servant church. Yet, to use the Apostle Paul’s words found in today’s reading, we seek to be willing servants “according to the gift of God’s grace” given to us in Baptism.

As always, we also gather as a people seeking to be faithful, a diocesan community with varied gifts and ministries offered in service to God’s reconciling mission in Christ Jesus. We gather as leaders from congregations and institutions committed to the living out of the promises of baptism as we seek to embrace our Diocesan Mission Statement to “Pray the Prayer of Christ, Learn the Mind of Christ and Do the Deeds of Christ.”

We gather as a people of hope and vision, placing before ourselves at this Convention a Strategic Plan for Growth and Ministry, built upon a strong foundation, and intended to move us forward as a diocese in ways that will strengthen our congregations, support our common life and direct our mission ever more strongly into the world God so deeply loves.

We gather in the spirit of William Temple, the 98th Archbishop of Canterbury, whose life and ministry we remember on this day. His voice for peace and social justice, his love of worship, his work in ecumenical and interfaith arenas, and his insistence upon the church’s incarnational engagement with the pressing issues of society, serve as a reminder of our responsibilities as Stewards of God’s Mission – a servant church, indeed a servant people.

The portion of the prologue to John’s Gospel assigned for William Temple’s day in our calendar proclaims the Good News: the Good News of Christ coming into the world, breaking through its darkness; Word made flesh dwelling among us; full of grace and truth, generously dispersing grace upon grace.
Gabriel Marcel Marques, in his book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, writes about a village in Central America. A virus strikes this community and causes a village-wide amnesia. It becomes necessary to hire a person from the outside world to help the inhabitants recover their memory. This person “from away” goes about the village attaching names to everything. The signs remind the villagers that "this is a ceiling," "this is a floor," "this is a table," and all through the village everything has a sign naming what it is. At the village entrance, the outsider places two signs. On one sign is written: "This is the village of Macondo." A sign posted above that reads: "God Exists."

Every celebration of Baptism, every celebration of Eucharist, every gathering of the Body of Christ for worship, learning and service is an occasion for the remembrance of Incarnation, Resurrection, Reconciliation and Community. They are our “signs,” posted to guard against any outbreak of amnesia, any hint of memory loss with regard to our calling and our mission.

Each time a person is baptized it is a sign that God exists. Each time the bread is broken and the cup is shared it is a sign that God exists. Each time the Bible is read, each time people engage in conversation about what its words mean, it is a sign that God exists. And each time God’s incarnation is manifest in our actions it is a sign that God exists.

We celebrate that reality as we gather in Convention. No amnesia, no memory loss for us! We celebrate God’s love for us. We celebrate God’s call to us to be living animators of that incarnate love. And we celebrate the trust God has placed in us to be stewards and servants of a reconciling mission.
In the listening we did in congregations and in clergy and lay leadership groups, and then in the writing of our Diocesan Strategic Plan for Growth and Ministry, five interconnected themes emerged as signs – signs indeed of God’s presence among us and signs pointing us to the reality that God’s Mission is central to everything we are about and where we are heading as a diocese. Those themes are Formation, Liberation, Communication, Connection, and Celebration.They are themes I hope we will turn to over and over as we think and talk, dream and plan, reflect with and more deeply engage one another in our life, mission and ministry as a diocese. Each theme offers a doorway through which we can offer ourselves in service to God’s reconciling mission for the sake of the world. I want to frame the balance of this address around those themes – those signs of God’s existence in our life and mission as a diocese.

Celebration
The theme of Celebration offers a doorway for giving thanks to God for all that God has done and is doing in our midst. I suspect no one is more mindful of and grateful for the abundant blessings of this diocese than your bishop. Day after day I am reminded of the strong foundation upon which this diocese is built. The bishops, clergy and lay leaders who have served this diocese in the past are constant companions in our ministry. We do well to remember their legacy even as we lay the foundation for what we hope will be our legacy to generations yet to come.

The gifts of our Diocesan Institutions, like Rock Point, Brookhaven, Rock Point School, the Cathedral, and the Bishop Booth Conference Center, all testify to a certain vision others embraced long ago in service to Christ’s mission. Past financial gifts and bequests that provide funds for our engagement in God’s mission remind us of our responsibility to be generous in our giving and in our financial legacy to the Church.

Celebration is also the theme that gives expression to what I witness week in and week out in my Sunday visitations. The ministries taking place in the congregations of this diocese are many. The great joy I have as bishop is to see you at your best (most of the time)! Holy worship, engaging study and fruitful service to the community are evident in every corner of our diocese. We have exciting and powerful stories of mission and ministry to celebrate and to tell. Your witness and your local engagement in God’s Mission is the welcome mat of the Episcopal Church in Vermont. I hope we never forget that celebration is a sign that God exists and that celebrating God’s Mission is part of everything we are about and where we are heading as a diocese.

Connection
Connection is the theme I heard more often than any other in the strategic planning process. Often it came in the form of a lament about feeling disconnected, or isolated from one another. It was frequently attributed to geography, but not always. I have come to believe the bishop is called to be a connector of persons, congregations, and ideas. For many, the Bishop is the only direct personal connection people have with the church beyond the local, and that most often limited to a brief encounter on a Sunday morning now and again.

For others, connections beyond the local often come through interaction with members of the Diocesan Ministry Support Team, Diocesan Consultants, members of Diocesan Committees and Commissions, through programs sponsored by the Cathedral, or events held at Rock Point, Mission Farm, or elsewhere in the Diocese. For those involved in leadership roles, in local ecumenical or interfaith work, or those involved in regional, diocesan, provincial or national church ministries, the sense of connection beyond the local is generally much greater.

The members of the Diocesan Ministry Support Team, both those in the field and those working out of the Diocesan Office, are strongly committed to an increased sense of connection throughout our Diocese. I am grateful for their ministry and rejoice in their service to our diocese.

During the last 12 months our three part-time Ministry Developers (Thad, Jeanette and Zeke) had direct involvement in thirty-five (35) of our congregations, through more than one hundred (100) on-site contacts for ministry development and discernment of one form or another. I believe this illustrates a strong commitment to connection. Most often this involved collaborating with one another, or another member of the Ministry Support Team. And those connections don’t include other contacts by the Bishop, Canon Lynn Bates, Connie Saeger-Proctor (Canon for Youth Ministry), or Susan Ohlidal in her role as our Pastoral Enrichment Coordinator.

I am grateful that there is a continuing and growing desire for deeper and more meaningful connection within our diocese, as well as with the larger church and interfaith community. I pledge my very best effort toward that end and ask you to do the same. Connections deepen relationships and relationships foster connections; both strengthen community and our capacity to engage in servant ministry. Holding one another in prayer will go a long way toward deepening connections. Working together to achieve the shared mission and ministry goals identified in the Strategic Plan will likewise bring about a deeper sense of connection.

There is no need to wait for someone else to take the lead in all this. Each person, each faith community has a responsibility for helping us live more fully into this aspect of our common life and mission. Invite one another to your mid-week services, to your educational programs and to join in your ministries of outreach. Ask another Vestry to join yours for a retreat at the Bishop Booth Conference Center. Sponsor a joint Alpha or Via Media Program.

Encourage the young people in your parish to participate in the Rock Point Summer Conferences and in other Diocesan Youth Ministry events. Develop a meaningful focus for your Deanery. The list could go on, but you get the point. Don’t forget - connections happen more by choice than by chance.

One specific connection of particular significance to all of us is our relationship with the rest of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. For Episcopalians and indeed for all Anglicans, our attention is currently focused on the recent Windsor Report from the Lambeth Commission on Communion. This extensive report was released to the public on October 18th. Some of you have already read it. Others are making their way through its 93 pages. It is available through a link on the diocesan web site www.dioceseofvermont.org, along with an initial response from me and other links and resources to assist individuals and congregations in their study of this important document. I encourage you to read, study and be in conversation about the Windsor Report, its recommendations, and its possible implications for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

While certain events are most often pointed to as the “cause” for the discord we are currently experiencing, the “bonds of affection” within the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican Communion have been stretched, strained, and in some cases breached, for some time now. Dramatically different cultural contexts and theological perspectives, along with different approaches to the reading, study, and use of the Bible, various understandings of authority and approaches to decision making, and the reality of globalization have all contributed to the current strain and crisis.

In January 2005, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church will gather as a “community of wisdom” with our Presiding Bishop to discuss this report in advance of his meeting with the other Anglican Primates in February. In that same spirit, I am inviting the people of the Diocese of Vermont to be a “community of wisdom” with regard to this report and my participation in the House of Bishops conversation. There are several ways you can do that.

As individuals you can study the report and share your thoughts with me in writing. As congregations you can gather for conversation using some of the resources available to assist you in that effort, and share those results with me in writing. A third way is to attend one of the gatherings I will hold around the Diocese during the first week in January. More details about these conversations will be available soon. I hope these three vehicles will provide a helpful and welcome way for all who want to be connected to this conversation.

On the occasion of his assuming the office of Archbishop of Canterbury in 1942, William Temple spoke about the Anglican Communion with words that are certainly appropriate today: “So let us set ourselves to gain a deepening loyalty to our Anglican tradition of Catholic order, Evangelical immediacy in our approach to God, and liberal acceptance of new truth made known to us.” I hear a call to connection in his words. Connection is a sign that God exists, and being connected in service to God’s Mission is part of everything we are about and where we are heading as a diocese.

Communication
Communication is another one of the central themes in the Diocesan Strategic Plan for Growth and Ministry and an important sign pointing us to the presence of God in our life and mission as a diocese. When most of us think about communication in this diocese, we think about Anne Brown. Anne’s ministry among us is a blessing and quite frankly I’m not sure what I would do without her!

As a part time member of the Diocesan Ministry Support Team, Anne publishes the Mountain Echo, maintains the diocesan web site, issues media advisories, and reports about events and ministries happening all over our diocese. One recognition of the value of her ministry is how much more of it the Strategic Plan says we want.

To be sure, communication in our day and time is about the use of media and the Internet and all the other vehicles at our disposal for telling our story. And, it is also about the importance of each one of us telling the story of our life in Christ, our faith journey - our relationship with Jesus. However you want to say it, communication is about Evangelism, it is about telling others the Good News of Jesus Christ and inviting them into a relationship of faith with God through the Body of Christ.

We have a great story to tell. Again, no room for amnesia, no room for memory loss here! It is the greatest love story of all time. It is the story of God’s incarnational relationship with all creation. It is the story of unconditional love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, justice and peace. It is the story of the lost being saved, the “outsider” being welcomed in, the wounded being healed, the poor being blessed, the captive being set free, and the brokenhearted being renewed.

We don’t have to make it up – we just have to tell it, and we tell it best by living it. The story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and how that great and powerful Paschal Mystery is present to us, through Word and Sacrament, and in community with one another, is a compelling story and a transforming reality. For God’s sake, tell the story! Live the story! Be living signs of the story! Communication is a vital sign that God exists, and communicating about our participation in God’s Mission is part of everything we are about and where we are heading as a diocese.

Liberation
Liberation is yet another theme and sign of God’s presence contained in our Strategic Plan for Growth and Ministry. Here, William Temple would find great delight in our commitment to engage the principalities and powers of the world with the redeeming love of God in Christ. Here our mission is the mission of Jubilee. Liberation is about Baptismal Ministry in the public square. To use William Temple’s words, it is the confrontation within us and with society over the tension between “justice and comfort.”

William Temple once remarked, “If Christianity has never frightened us, we have not yet learnt what it is.” I suspect it is as we contemplate our own engagement in Outreach and Social Justice that Christianity may frighten us most. And yet, it is precisely there that Jesus lived and moved and had his being.

Post-election reports have pointed to the significance of “moral values” in this year’s presidential election. I am concerned about the interpretation some may attach to this analysis. Any discussion of values, especially when it is associated with religious faith, needs to cover a broad spectrum of social justice issues, including care for the least among us, and not be limited to two issues having to do with human sexuality, namely abortion and gay rights. As our Presiding Bishop noted in his post-election day remarks, “…obedience to God obliges us to look always to the well-being of a world broken and bleeding, which God loves so much that he came among us in the person of Jesus to reconcile to himself and to save. Such obedience obliges us to ground our national policies in much more than self-interest and self-protection.”

This diocese has a long and rich history of engaging in ministries of liberating love for all God’s people. Bishops and other leaders of this diocese have consistently spoken out on matters of social, racial, economic and environmental justice. We have been leaders in the public arena, seeking human rights for all people, not because it was popular, but because we take the promises of the Baptismal Covenant seriously.

William Temple made clear the importance of prophetic Christian witness in the world. This is part of our heritage and part of our formation as God’s people. Liberation is a sign that God exists, and sharing in God’s liberating mission is part of everything we are about and where we are heading as a diocese.

Formation
Formation is the fifth and final theme woven in and through our Strategic Plan for Growth and Ministry. Formation is all about our ongoing need for educational and spiritual growth. It recognizes that each of us is on a journey and that the provisions for this journey need constant replenishment.

We are blessed in this diocese that many possess an eager spirit and a fervent desire to learn and to be nourished for the journey. Those willing to teach and nourish others in the faith bless us all. Ministry Fairs, Convention Workshops, Education For Ministry, the Diocesan Study Program, and the Cathedral Center for Christian Meditation are just a few examples of how I have seen in us a growing readiness and willingness to be a community of learning and spiritual growth.

Drawing on the gifts and talents of the people of this diocese and others with whom we can learn and grow in faith, I believe we are well on the road to becoming a diocese known as a community of learning and spiritual growth, and a diocese committed to the life-long formation of each and every person. In this regard, I believe the newly re-configured Commission on Ministry, brought into being at last year‘s Convention, is a huge step in the right direction. Tomorrow we will hear about some of their plans and commission them for their ministry.

The primary locus of Christian Formation for most people is the local church. Each faith community in this diocese therefore has a responsibility to help deepen each person’s educational and spiritual formation through worship that inspires and shapes us, through study that informs and stretches us, and through service that engages us in mission, and fashions our lives in service to others. This is a challenge and responsibility I hope each community of faith will take to heart, and it is a common responsibility I hope our diocesan budget will maintain as a priority. Formation is a crucial sign that God exists, and being formed for God’s Mission is part of everything we are about and where we are heading as a diocese.

Conclusion
The more deeply and fully we are formed in the image and likeness of Christ, the more prepared we will be to offer God’s liberating love to the world. The more we offer God’s liberating love to the world, the more poignant and powerful will our communication of the Good News of Jesus Christ be. The more poignant and powerful our communication of the Gospel, the more deeply we will find ourselves connected to others. And the more we are connected, one to another in Christ, the more we will have to celebrate.
Being stewards and servants of God’s Mission is not just about putting up signs to remind us of who we are. It is about being signs and living animators of the Divine Word made flesh – Christ Jesus our Savior. Neither is the Christian life and faith simply about gaining and holding onto a heavenly insurance policy. In the words of William Temple, “The life of faith does not earn eternal life: it is eternal life. And Christ is its vehicle.”

Every celebration of Baptism, every celebration of Eucharist, every gathering of the Body of Christ for worship, learning and service is an occasion for the remembrance of Incarnation, Resurrection, Reconciliation and Community. Thus, building on the words of Saint Paul, I remind us: “Of this gospel we have become servants according to the gift of God’s grace given to us by the working of his power.” No room for amnesia, no room for memory loss here!

The closing hymn we are about to sing was chosen because of its connection to William Temple. Apparently, from time to time he would invite congregations to sing one verse of a hymn very softly, to sing a text softly/quietly, as if they really meant it.

James Kiefer tells the story of one such occasion in 1931 at the end of the Oxford Mission (what is known in many Protestant circles as a Revival Meeting), when Temple led a congregation in the University Church, Saint Mary the Virgin, in the singing of the hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” Just before the last stanza, he stopped them and asked them to read the words to themselves. “Now,” he said, “if you mean them with all your heart, sing them as loud as you can. If you don’t mean them at all, keep silent. If you mean them even a little and want to mean them more, sing them very softly.” The organ played, and two thousand voices whispered:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

With that as our refrain, may we be confident stewards and servants of God’s Mission in this Diocese.
+Thomas