My dear friends, welcome to the 180th Diocesan Council of the Episcopal Church in Mississippi.
I regret that I cannot be with you. As most of you know by now Kathy's mother is near death in Maryland. I need to be with Kathy in this moment. I trust you will understand.

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We have gathered on the banks of the great river that is our namesake to worship Almighty God in word and sacrament, to renew the fellowship of the Holy Spirit within our common life, to conduct the business of this diocese and to share the faith that has claimed us in Jesus Christ.
We must begin our time together with words of heartfelt thanks to those who have worked so hard to bring this enormous undertaking to the reality that you will enjoy over the weekend. To the churches of Vicksburg and Warren County - St. Mary's, Christ Church, St. Alban's and Holy Trinity - thank you for your many hours of patient preparation. Thanks to the Planning Committee and its chair, Lee Davis Thames. Thanks to your diocesan staff, especially Kathryn Weathersby McCormick, our diocesan Council coordinator, and Annette Kirklin, the liaison from our staff to the local planning committee.
I also want to say a special "thank you" to all of you who have made this weekend a priority for you. The depth of our common life as a diocese, something that is taken for granted by many of us, but is the envy of so many dioceses within this church, doesn't just happen. Relationships in this, or any family, must be worked at in a very intentional way, if the fabric of the family is to survive the inevitable challenges of life. Part of our intentional work is "showing up" for a weekend together. For your presence I give great thanks.
Two years ago we claimed and blessed a vision for our life together. We boldly proclaimed that we are "One Church in Mission: Inviting, Transforming, Reconciling." That vision guided us into the Tent Meeting, provided direction in our response to Hurricane Katrina and is the guiding principle in the ongoing work of the Task Force that I have appointed to offer recommendations for a complete reorganization of the diocesan structure.
Those very few foundational words have begun to take on a life of their own in local congregations. That is, after all, their ultimate usefulness. Several vestries have explored within their local contexts what it means to be one church in mission - a church of invitation, transformation and reconciliation. That vision is beginning to take root beyond the diocesan office as I had most sincerely hoped. It has begun to shape the fabric of our church and give us a point of reference within the cacophony of shrill and discordant voices that too often dominate our common life. It has been the means by which, despite all the pushing and pulling about specific ecclesiological issues, we have tried to keep "the main thing the main thing."
Since the adoption of the diocesan vision in 2005 subsequent Diocesan Councils have and will continue to probe more deeply into the meaning of the vision. As an outward and visible sign of our oneness within the Body of Christ, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward of the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church will address Council tomorrow. Our relationship with our Methodist brothers and sisters has been deepened in a significant way with the approval by both national bodies of an interim agreement for shared Eucharistic fellowship. I have come to value Bishop Ward as a peer, colleague and friend. I know that you will enjoy her presence among you. One church. We welcome also to this council the Right Reverend Ernest Shalita, retired bishop of the Diocese of Muhabura in Uganda who is here as guest of Trinity Church, Hattiesburg. Bishop Shalita represents African Team Ministries and is here to express his thanks for the support of many in this diocese. One church.
We are also most honored to have among us an old friend, the bishop coadjutor-elect of the Diocese of Virginia, the not-quite-Right Reverend Shannon Johnston of All Saints, Tupelo. Once again, as George Woodliff pointed out, an embattled Lee from Northern Virginia looked west for support from a Johnston. Because of the uncertainty of my presence at the Sunday Euharist, I had previously asked Shannon to be our preacher. I trust it is an appropriate send off from this diocese to which he has contributed so much.
Go in peace, my brother. We will miss you deeply, but believe it is the work of the Holy Spirit that sends you forth. One church.
This Council's theme asks us to explore what it means to be a church of invitation. You will spend some time both hearing, and sharing our own stories of faith. More will be said about this tomorrow, but it is sufficient to say tonight that the telling of faith stories has been the means by which the gospel has always spread. If we are to be a church that does not merely welcome, but invites the world in, we must learn to share the claim of Jesus Christ on our lives and the movement of the Holy Spirit within and through our very imperfect responses. Through four faith stories and a shared exercise among table groups we will get a taste of what an inviting church might look and feel like.
For those of you who have just had an enormous knot develop in your stomach, fear not. I invite you to take a small risk and dare to discern how God is working in your life. It is the pearl of great price that you have been given to share with an impoverished world. You will take baby steps tomorrow, but it will be a start.
Let me take this challenge of invitation a step further. To those of our church who are hesitant to invite others into a church that is so full of internal conflict, I ask you to remember the words of Philip, one of Jesus' earliest followers, to his very skeptical friend, Nathaniel. When told by Philip that the Messiah had been found, Nathaniel's caustic response was, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth" Rather than engage in a theological discourse on linage and geography of the Messiah, Philip gently invited Nathaniel with the words, "Come and see."
Can anything good come out of the Episcopal Church, some have wondered. To them I say, "Come and see."
Come and see the transformation of lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (and New Orleans) where the Episcopal Church is a beacon of hope for entire communities as economic and social divisions are being overcome in unprecedented ways.
"Come and see" the extraordinary programming for community children at Trinity Church, Pass Christian.
"Come and see" the leadership of St. Peter's by the Sea in rebuilding the Gulfport feeding program destroyed by Katrina.
"Come and see" the sheetrock ministry of St. John's, Pascagoula where sheetrock is given out, free of charge, wherever there is a need.
"Come and see" Camp Coast Care where hundreds of thousands have been cared for emotionally, physically and spiritually by a small staff and thousands of volunteers who continue to come to us from throughout this country.
The transformation mission of the church is not, of course, limited to the Gulf Coast, or to the larger and more well known congregations.
"Come and see" Good Shepherd, Terry. A ministry to Autumn Light, a residential facility, has grown beyond merely visiting the residents. A sincere invitation to worship has resulted in a large percentage of their Sunday congregation being composed of residents of Autumn Light.
And on and on and on it goes. "Come and see" in congregations across this diocese where the gospel is faithfully preached and the sacraments faithfully administered; where the deep sorrows of life are woven together with life's greatest joys in the Eucharistic fellowship and offered to God by God's people.
"Come and see" congregations where profound disagreements are part of the offering of frail and imperfect people week after week at the altar, and week after week, often in spite of ourselves, grace and healing and hope is experienced and the risen Lord is known in the midst of broken people, just like you and me.
"Come and see."
Last year at this Council I told you that I would be spending major portions of time outside of the diocese telling the story of our post-Katrina needs, sharing our experience of grace within profound brokenness and inviting the wider church to "come and see" and bring your check books. Between the Diocese of Mississippi and Louisiana we have raised close to $2,000,000 in pledges and payments that has gone to assist the churches in rebuilding and to subsidize clergy salaries until the congregations again become self sufficient.
The work of recovery is slow and, so often, discouraging. Our brothers and sisters on the coast deal with its reality day after day, but each of the churches has made major strides in re-imagining their new common life. I will continue to solicit funds throughout this country using a new video that will have its premier tomorrow. One note of warning about the video - like its predecessor, there are parts that are intense. Secondary trauma is very real and those for whom a revisiting of the storm may be difficult, feel free to excuse yourself from tomorrow's viewing.
Camp Coast Care is projected to operate for another six to eight years. Volunteers will be needed for at least that long. The simple math of the recovery indicates that to rebuild all the housing lost in Katrina, 50 new homes would need to be constructed each day for 10 years.
Our partnership with Episcopal Relief and Development remains strong. They have been with us from the very beginning. Two weeks ago it was my great joy to present checks totaling almost $400,000 to fund three locally generated parochial projects. Their commitment to Mississippi is a great source of comfort and support.
While our work on the coast continues we have returned to the 14 initiatives of the Tent Meeting known as the Vision Path. Considerable progress has been made on these and I want to spend some time describing the work thus far and reflecting on our plans for the future for they do reflect our priorities for the foreseeable future.
As you recall these 14 specific initiatives were grouped under the vision words: One church, in mission; inviting, transforming and reconciling. Under the category of one church, I described a new model of visitation by your bishop. First, we would move to an eighteen month visitation schedule. That schedule is now in place. Secondly, I would schedule extended periods of time (7-8 days) within a specific convocation so that I could teach, engage vestries, make pastoral calls and do a variety of things that are impossible with a half a day visitation which has become the norm. This year I have spent extended times in the Tombigbee, Delta, Northern and Coast Convocations. The remaining 3 convocations are scheduled for this year. We will then repeat the cycle over the next two years.
To compensate for some places where confirmation may be delayed for a considerable time I have initiated two diocesan days of celebration at St. Andrew's Cathedral in the spring, near Pentecost, and in the fall near All Saints. My hope is to develop these days into times of fellowship and celebration as a diocesan family, hosted and made possible through the hospitality and support of our diocesan Cathedral.
The second initiative in the Vision Path was to reorganize the entire diocesan structure based on our diocesan vision. A task force, chaired by the Rev. Luther Ott, has worked hard and faithfully over several months and will soon be making their recommendations to me. There will, of course, be ample conversation around the diocese about these proposals before we formally restructure the way we do our ministry in this diocese. Several have asked me about their recommendations concerning a bishop suffragan for the diocese. I have thought long and hard about that possibility and appreciate the intent of the question. But I believe that a more effective use of our resources and, frankly, more help to me personally, would be to find funding for something the Task Force is calling a Canon for Mission. More about that later in the year. But I can say at this point with some clarity, there will be no call for a bishop suffragan.
Under the heading of Mission I called for three new church starts within three years. Katrina has created the need for six church starts, but we have, in addition, launched St. Alexis, in Jackson. St. Alexis was received formally as a mission of the diocese at last year's Council and this past fall moved into their own space in downtown Jackson.
Though it was not a specific Tent Meeting initiative, the launch of the campus ministry at Jackson State University is enormously exciting. This mission to young adults, supported and in cooperation with St. Mark's, Jackson, is also part of our long overdue initiative to young persons of color.
The Bishop's Mission Corps, a second mission initiative, had a very successful first summer session. The Benedictine-based experience for young people is expanding this year. The basic 40 day experience in the summer will again be offered with a follow-up semester of work in Aberdeen. Young people will live in community, structure their common life around the rhythm of four offices of daily prayer and work in various outreach ministries under the direction of the Rev. Tim Jones and the Rev. Jeff Reich. It is a remarkable program that is now drawing interest from across this country.
An annuity program for clergy in small churches, another initiative to encourage longer stays in smaller congregations, will soon be forthcoming.
Initiatives to help us become a more inviting church have begun in this Council and will continue. We have also dramatically increased participation by persons of color at Camp Bratton-Green, but that specific initiative has only just begun.
We initiated the development at Gray Center of the Center for Formation and Mission. Staffed by the Rev. Debo Dykes and directed by an appointed board, this initiative has tapped into the creativity of this diocese and deep hunger for quality adult Christian formation in a setting where serious reflection is encouraged. The success of the Center and your response to its programming is one reason that Gray Center ended this year in the black even as it began to make some progress in retiring some of its long term debt. Another reason Gray Center was in the black was because of a generous gift from St. James', Jackson and increased support from individuals throughout the diocese. This ongoing support will make the conference facility, Gray Center into the vibrant ministry that we have all dreamed of since its construction.
Our initiative to establish an ecumenical network of advocacy called Congregations for Children is beginning to find its footing. We are becoming a voice on a wide variety of children's issues at the State Capitol. We believe that, while we must be seriously non-partisan, we cannot cease to be a participant in the public policy debate that will shape the future of this state and its citizens. Bishop Ward, whom you will hear tomorrow, has been particularly strong colleague in this ministry.
I am also greatly encouraged by the number of congregations who have used this initiative as encouragement to look for ways to address the needs of children within their local communities.
The last initiative where significant progress has been made is the commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. Our diocesan budget reflects our commitment of 0.7% of our budget to fighting global poverty. This year the Executive Committee authorized a grant to the Bishop Masereka Christian Foundation, an organization that works with AIDS orphans to provide housing and education in Kasese, Uganda. It is my hope that this will be the beginning of a long term relationship with this ministry, one whose work is well documented and attested to by many. Not coincidently, Bishop Zebedee Masereka is the now retired and the former bishop of our own William Ndishabandi.
One very sad and disheartening event took place this past year. All Saints' School in Vicksburg, an exceptional educational ministry of the Episcopal Church for 98 years was forced, by the burden of accumulating debt, to close its doors. We are in the process of finding a buyer for this wonderful facility with the hope that Bishop Bratton's vision of an educational ministry to young people can continue in different ways.
While I would love to focus all my energies on this diocese and its proclamation of the gospel in word and deed, I am also a bishop through whom this diocese is related to the wider church. There are challenges that face us throughout the Anglican Communion and we would be remiss to ignore them.
I have tried to be very clear to you on what you can expect of me. First, despite its various imperfections, I believe that the Windsor Report is the best roadmap forward in rebuilding of our common life as Anglicans. I have said to you that our General Convention's response was far more complicated and complex than it first appeared. I have also said to you that our official response was flawed, imperfect, and faithful. I have told you that you could expect me to live fully into the recommendations of Windsor. I believe that is the intention of the vast majority of my colleague bishops. I have also said to you that I will continue to be faithful to the consistent theme of Lambeth resolutions on sexuality, specifically as it relates to listening deeply with an open pastoral spirit to the experiences of gay and lesbian persons within the church, persons who have contributed much for centuries to shaping the unique gifts and ministries of this church.
I have said to you that our relationship with the See of Canterbury, that historic marker of our relationship with the broader communion, is a vital part of our catholicity. I take that relationship as a bishop very seriously and have listened closely to Archbishop Rowan Williams' counsel over these past several years.
I have also pledged my support to Katharine Jefferts Schori, our Presiding Bishop, and have invited her to discover the uniqueness of this church in this region. She will have a very steep learning curve since her experience of the church in this country has been limited to the west and northwest. I have offered, and she has accepted my offer, to serve as a resource to help her broaden her experience, particularly of the church in the deep south.
Two weeks from now Primates from around the Anglican Communion will meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury in Tanzania. Part of their business there will be to discuss our church's response to Windsor and make recommendations to Archbishop Williams. There is considerable speculation on what will transpire and enough rumors to maintain a rumor mill for a decade. Such speculation is futile for it serves neither clarity nor charity. I have chosen to follow the wise and generous council of Archbishop Williams who has asked that we lower the volume and give good people of good faith the necessary time to find a way forward together. Precipitous action, he has advised, will not deepen the bonds of communion.
I have noted at other times the uninvited presence of the Archbishops of Rwanda and Kenya in the Diocese of Mississippi, visits that were intended to establish parallel jurisdictions within this diocese. While I have pledged not to lose too much sleep over this fact, it does suggest a curious lack of good faith for those men to come into the diocese of a bishop who has been faithful to Windsor while justifying their intervention by saying they were acting on behalf of persecuted and oppressed Episcopalians in Mississippi. I have voiced my objections to Canterbury on each occasion, but will not expend further enormous energy fighting this.
My commitment to you as bishop is to be the means by which you are in relationship with the historic See of Canterbury. And my commitment to you as bishop is to be the means by which we are bound together in the unique manifestation of Anglicanism called the Episcopal Church.
I do not believe that those relationships are, or can be, mutually exclusive. The commitment to these two key relationships will require me to go places and be with a wide variety of people. For those who raise eyebrows over who I am seen with, let me offer these words from Brazilian Roman Catholic Bishop Dom Helder Camara that I have tried to live by for nearly 7 years:
The bishop belongs to all.
Let no one be scandalized if I frequent those who are considered unworthy or sinful.
Who is not a sinner?
Let no one be alarmed if I am seen with compromised and dangerous people on the left or the right.
Let no one bind me to a group
My door, my heart must be open to everyone, absolutely everyone.
We have been trapped for far too long in false dichotomies. We have found ourselves far more comfortable with the simplistic characterization of groups and individuals that denies the complexity and mystery of our humanity and God's grace among us.
Are you either liberal or conservative?
Orthodox or heretical?
Are you committed to either unity or justice?
Either God is known in scripture or God is known through the ongoing revelation of the Holy Spirit.
Praise God that our forbearers in the faith did not succumb to such false dichotomies:
Surely Jesus is either God or Man?
Surely this is either bread or Christ's body
Surely God is either transcendent and beyond knowing or present in the most intimate of ways. What if our ancestors in faith had answered these and countless other questions with either/or answers? Our faith would be far less mysterious, compelling and true.
In our present dilemma we have lost the wisdom of St. Paul that God has given various members (groups?) within the church different gifts (dare we say "perspectives") for the common good. We do need each other, because every one of us sees only dimly through a glass darkly, into God's full truth. No one individual, no one group, no one church can hold the full truth.
If there is a middle way through all of this, it is a way that dares to embrace the partial truth that is held by those who seem so profoundly divided. Can we embrace the faith once delivered to the saints and bless those who remind us that we are not free to adjust the essentials of our faith to the convenience of the moment; and at the same time embrace the ongoing revelation of the Holy Spirit that our Lord himself taught (John 14:26)? That work of the Holy Spirit will not change the essentials but will push us to a deeper understanding of those essentials.
This journey that we are being called into in this time requires humility, a gift that is in extraordinarily short supply these days. This journey will require an understanding that we are always temped to make idols of any good thing, including our personal conscience. It will require us from time to time to submit to authority with whom we seriously disagree.
I believe that on some theological and social matters I may be a minority within this church of mine for the rest of my life. One option, of course, is to leave; to take my personal conscience, my clarity of thought and absolute conviction and find a purer expression of the faith. Or, I can bring my very flawed and imperfect gifts - gifts that may not yet be valued - to this church, offering my wisdom, my perspectives, my sacrifice for the building up of Christ's Body, His church.
God will sort all of this out in God's time, but in the meantime I'm willing to risk my integrity for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the mission of His church. I believe my gifts will be used and may, one day, be exactly what the church will need.
I wear the cross of St. Cuthbert as my pectoral cross. Cuthbert was a central figure in Celtic missionary movement that evangelized northern England. Their decentralized, simple, earthy faith inevitably came into conflict with the centralized authority, superior organization and the political power of Rome. There were very serious theological differences as well between the two Christian communities that required arbitration before England could become united under one faith.
At the Council of Whitby in 664 King Oswiu chose to take England into Roman Christianity. Cuthbert remained obedient to the church though he had lost this great theological battle. As a result of his obedience Celtic Christianity, with its deep appreciation for the beauty and rhythms of the natural world and its gentle and humble faith, continues to be a part of the personality of Anglicanism. Dormant for centuries, the Celtic Christianity of Cuthbert has been rediscovered in recent decades as a spiritual and theological resource in the midst of a mechanized culture that exhausts the spirit and threatens to destroy the natural world.
Sometimes gifts will be ignored, even forgotten, until they are rediscovered again for the first time.
This journey will require the gift on long suffering. I am thinking not of a kind of masochistic delight, but an awareness that there are some very important and foundational moments when either/or will not be enough. Someone, some people, must stand in what often seems an abyss between the shrill and certain voices on every side.
The American slaves had a saying that spoke of God's liberating power. When all was lost and there was no place to go, God would "make a way out of no way."
I believe that, even in this present movement, when the doomsayers are having a field day, God will make a way out of no way. I know that my desire and wish is not enough. God the Holy Spirit must teach us anew about the power of God to heal. But I know that my fear and my despair can be a serious obstacle to God's redemptive power.
I do believe that the power of God working in us can do more than we can even ask or imagine.
I do believe in the God of hope who calls us to follow though we are never quite sure where we're going.
I believe in God the creator who calls us all to walk through the rubble of Katrina and promises "I am making all things new."
I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who takes our hands and calls us to walk through the chaos of our personal lives saying, "Fear not. I am with you."
And I believe in God the Holy Spirit who calls us to walk through the confusion of our common life into a newer and fuller sense of communion.
And yes, I still feel the claim of the Lord of my life, who says "I am with you in the hungry; I am with you in the naked; I am with you in the prisoner."
And despite my desire to run from such a claim, I still hear His voice: "go and make disciples, baptize and teach." And when I get a bit discouraged, I am sure I hear Him say:
And church conflict...
and church division...
and church finger pointing...
has never, and will never, be accepted as an excuse!