swoop
Home
Bishop's Welcome
Communication
Diocesan Life
Event Calendar
Worldwide Church
Resources

 

 

 

Office of the Bishop

Communication

Church Locater

Find a Church

Privacy Policy

Site by Green Bird Media

The Bishop's Address

 

February 13, 2010

36th Convention of the Diocese of San Diego

 

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

La gracia y paz de Dios nuestro Padre y Señor Jesucristo a todos ustedes. 

 

It is hard to believe that this is the fifth time that I have addressed you in convention as your bishop. The last five years have been both challenging and immensely grace-filled. I have had the privilege of ordaining 13 deacons, 14 priests, of presiding at 14 celebrations of new ministry, confirming and receiving hundreds, baptizing others, dedicating and consecrating buildings, making hundreds of visitations, which required well over one hundred thousand miles of travel on the roads of our diocese, and buried some of our brothers and sisters. With you, I have cried in sorrow and laughed until it hurts. As I said in my first address, I say again: it is a privilege to be the Bishop of San Diego. Jesus said to his disciples, “I have called you to be friends.” Indeed, you are my friends in Christ, and I love you, the people of the Diocese of San Diego. I love your passion. I love your faithfulness. I love your – everything.

 

As I pondered what I wanted to say to you this day, my friends, I found myself wanting to avoid cataloging our successes in this past year and setting lofty goals for the coming year.I feared that I might gloat just a little bit too much. Well, maybe I can gloat just a bit. After all, together, we have accomplished a great deal this year:

 

 

I hope that's not bragging too much. If it is, please know that I am really bragging on you.

 

And as for lofty goals, I do worry that if I lay out a bunch of objectives they might simply be my goals and not yours. I am apprehensive that such goals might sound too much like coaxing and prodding rather than leading with you. After all, we do lead this diocese together as friends and companions on the Way.Yet, I do have some ideas of where we are heading and what we might accomplish, and I anticipate that over the next year we will as a community work together to form and work towards that shared future. I heard that desire reflected in the mutual ministry review.

 

Perhaps, because we have just completed the season of Christmas, I found myself thinking about that great Christmas classic, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. I hope you know the film. It is the story of George Bailey, who seems stuck in his hometown of Bedford Falls, running the Bailey Building and Loan Company founded by his late father. George finds himself in a financial crisis, not of his own making.  Seeing no other option, he contemplates taking his own life. The first part of the film is a review of his life for the benefit of an angel, Clarence, who is going to be sent to earth to help George. In a scene right after his wedding, the depression hits Bedford Falls. George and his new wife witness the beginnings of a run on the local bank, and George rushes to his own Building and Loan Company and learns that his uncle has shut the doors to keep customers away who are trying to withdraw their deposits. It is a scene that is a bit foreboding in our shaky times when so many of us worry about our financial futures, our savings and our homes.

 

The fictional fears and apprehensions of the people of Bedford Falls are likely the fears of the people of San Diego, San Marcos, Indio, Temecula, Chula Vista, El Centro, Yuma. And if so, then George Bailey may be speaking to us as he gives an oration that is nothing short of a testament of interconnected community. He points out how the money each person has invested in the building and loan company now resides in their neighbor’s home.

 

George says what we need to hear, “We have to stick together; we have to have faith in each other.”  “Tenemos que tener fe entre nosotros.” That is the core and character of our diocese. The work of our diocese is to support each other. We invest in each other and we enjoy the fruits together of that investment. In the film, the Building and Loan Company represents the force of good by building and bettering the community and the lives of those within it.

 

The real world that we inhabit is not as tidy as a 1940’s film. It is to be sure, a mythological tale. Banks and savings and loans are not altruistic. The film imagines a place that does not exist. But what it imagines is what Jesus claims can exist through the community of Jesus.    

 

And so, in our community, the Diocese of San Diego, we live into a reality dreamed of in Bedford Falls. We see that community tangibly taking form when we work together to build and furnish a new building for St. Thomas of Temecula or gather to launch St. John’s, Fallbrook anew, as they return to their historic church building after a three year absence. We invest in our seminarians, future leaders who will bless the church for years to come. And like that building and loan, ours is a relatively simple operation. We invest and you return that investment through your Mission Share Pledges so that we can invest again. 

 

“We have to stick together; we have to have faith in each other.”  “Tenemos que tener fe entre nosotros.”

 

It is noteworthy that we have succeeded this year in coming to you with a balanced budget for the first time in known memory. This was accomplished by reorganizing the diocesan staff and functions, creating a focused fund development program as another avenue for your investment, and carefully reducing costs. Yet even still, we are investing approximately 26% in our shared ministry by direct grants to missions and aided parishes. The vast majority of the remaining funds are spent in ministry support and providing our diocesan staff which devotes almost all of its efforts in supporting our congregations. It is like investing in our neighbors’ homes.

 

“We have to stick together; we have to have faith in each other.”  “Tenemos que tener fe entre nosotros.”

 

In the film, Old Man Potter represented the forces trying to destabilize the community of Bedford Falls. And there are forces that conspire to try to pull us away from each other. The most powerful is our own fears and tendency to protect our perceived self-interest. As Californians, we are known for our individualism. In some respects, this may be a positive.  But taken too far it is antithetical to the Christian life, the life of the Body. As Paul says so well, “we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” Romans 12:5 And this is why it is so painful, when parts of the body say they have no need of us.That is why we have tried so hard to stay connected to those who struggle with actions of our church with which they disagree.

 

As our chancellor Chuck Dick has told us, we have all but concluded the property disputes. This has been hard to do, and these proceedings do not fit neatly into a Frank Capra film. Yet, they are related to being a mutually accountable community in which we promise to live together in a structure and relationship that has order. It is now our shared work to build up St. Anne’s in Oceanside and Holy Trinity in Ocean Beach, just as we have been doing with St. John’s in Fallbrook.  

 

“We have to stick together; we have to have faith in each other.”  “Tenemos que tener fe entre nosotros.”

 

With a balanced budget, property disputes settled, and a reorganized diocesan staff, we are well positioned to move forward in the years ahead.  We are sort of like that Bailey Brothers Building and Loan. The crisis has been averted, but there is still more work to do. There are still those in our community and congregations that need our shared support. 

 

“We do have to stick together; we do have to have faith in each other.”  “Tenemos que tener fe entre nosotros.”

 

Let me say a bit about how I think our relationship will continue to grow and about my own leadership posture in this time.

 

I have come to believe that the ministry of a bishop seems to fall in five year cycles. As I complete this first cycle, I sense that these past five years have been about our identity and creating stability. By identity, I mean that we have found amongst ourselves what it means to be an Episcopalian in our diocese in our time. You have heard me say it last night: the heart of this identity is that we are an inclusive community of Christians. We come into our ministriesas followers of Jesus in all shapes and sizes. We are male, female, various races and cultures, gay, straight, liberal, conservative, pretty, not so pretty, smart, and a bit slow, and some disabled. And by the way, we are Anglican and orthodox. We are Anglicans in that we are connected to a wider communion of Christians through the Archbishop of Canterbury. As Anglicans, we believe in a thoughtful, comprehensive Christian faith. We tolerate questions, inquiry, and diversity. We are orthodox in that what we say in our worship are the ancient Creeds of the church. This is not to say that every Episcopalian believes everything professed in the Creeds. I am actually quite positive that the opposite is true. Rather, our Church as a collective body believes the Creeds. The Church carries in belief those who struggle with what that belief is as it is articulated.  It is why we say, “We believe...” rather than "I believe..." Yet, to be inclusive, we also must be gentle with each other, and to coin a phrase of Brian McLaren, our orthodoxy must be “generous orthodoxy.”  It is generous in its expansiveness; it is orthodox in its boundaries. We must be so inclusive that our inclusivity permits inclusion of those who struggle with the very breadth of that inclusivity.

 

It is also important to note that this gentleness and generosity does not extend to tolerating behavior which is harmful to the body. And here, I must be perfectly clear. There are those who left the Episcopal Church to begin so-called Anglican Churches. This very action is the most un-Anglican thing that one can do! In doing this, they have used the trust given them by the Episcopal Church and my office to lead individuals out of the Episcopal Church into these new enterprises. This is just plain wrong. Some would suggest that because these folks are Christians just like us, we ought to be able to work with them just as we do with other denominations. My judgment is that these congregational schemes, at least at their inception, were built through a less than charitable and truthful characterization of the Episcopal Church and through bleeding away our own members. The foundation of trust does not exist for formal ecumenical relationships. Some day it may, but it does not at this time. So, as we claim our identity, we honor the identity of those who left. We honor them by remaining respectful and holding friendships where we can, sometimes by being present at weddings and funerals and the like. We greet them on the streets. We keep them on our Christmas card lists. But we don’t permit those who lead these churches to continue to enter our churches with the color of ecclesial authority where they might lead others away from our fellowship. Appropriate boundaries serve our identity well.

 

As we have clarified our identity as Episcopalians in our diocese, we have also been successful at creating a sustainable structure for our common life.  The reorganization of our staff and our budget preparation for this year have been essential components of this work. What has informed both of these interconnected efforts is a belief in our shared life. Now I might be moving to a confessional moment. Part of my learning as your bishop over the last five years is to have faith in you. Through my visitations, through all that we do together, I have come to recognize the incredible giftedness of our congregations, ministries and people of our diocese. I see more and more clearly that what is needed in one place can often be found in another place. Thus, my work and the work of our staff is to serve as connectors. We tease out what is working well in one location and offer it to another. My staff and I have things to offer as well, but the principal experts in ministry are you. The task is to bring those gifts to bear across congregational lines. Again, it is sort of back to the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan.

 

“We have to stick together; we have to have faith in each other.”  “Tenemos que tener fe entre nosotros.”

 

So where do we go from here?  What do the next five years look like for this part of the Body of Christ that we call our Episcopal Diocese of San Diego?  We know that it will be based on a more manageable financial foundation and structure. That will be based on the budget you passed today. We also know that we will be blessed by our diocesan treasurer, Julie Young; our new canon to the ordinary, Suzi Holding; Howard Smith, in a new role as director of development. And they will be assisted by Hannah Miller, in her role as communications coordinator, Isabel Lynne in her new role as assistant to the canon to the ordinary and registrar; Rosa Finney, who has joined us as administrative assistant to the treasurer, and Bobbi Hoff, who continues in her role as the REAL bishop of San Diego. (Gosh that line works well every year.) Our staff takes very seriously its roles as your servants. Our commitment is to be good stewards of your investment in each other, just like George Bailey. 

 

My prayer is that by our giving to each other, by listening and dreaming together, we will become, and I'm borrowing from Brian again, a contagious church. The elements of the contagion will be a yearning to tell the Good News of Jesus in word and deed. As Brian has reminded us, we are more ready than we realize. As Episcopalians, with a generous orthodoxy, this can be our moment when this body grows as those who do not know Christ come to be with us because they have been infected by us. I dream of a church that is legendary on the community grapevine for its servant heart. It is a church that speaks for the voiceless, feeds the hungry, loves the unlovable. I see this church when I am with you. I see it in the community garden in Ramona, when sharing a Thanksgiving meal at Friend-to-Friend Clubhouse, Episcopal Community Services’ amazing ministry to the homeless in San Diego, or at St. Peter’s in their ministry to the homeless, or at the Episcopal Refugee Network’s tutoring program at St. Mark’s and St. Alban’s, playing with the kids at Camp Stevens and watching wonder in their eyes, at Inland (dot) Net, a job networking program developed by St. Bartholomew’s in Poway, at Grace, San Marcos’ baby showers for military families deployed, birthday packages prepared by the folks at Holy Cross in Carlsbad for those who are receiving Meals on Wheels. The list is seemingly endless. For you see, it is not that we need to do things differently. We don't. We simply need to continue this movement, this Episcopal movement of servant ministry. And stay doggedly focused on the promises of our baptismal covenant.

 

 

 

 

And so, as I look forward to the next five years, this is what I feel. I feel richly blessed. We have been through some great challenges together, but we have been there for each other. We are friends, which takes me back to It’s a Wonderful Life. After George Bailey’s life is reviewed up to the point where he is contemplating taking his own life, the angel, Clarence, intervenes. He then shows George what his life would be like if he had never lived. George received the gift of insight with which he can now face his troubles, even the possibility of disgrace and jail, with, well, with joy, and he runs home to his family. You may know the ending. Mary, George’s wife has let it be known that he is in trouble. This is a glimpse of the response. [2:05:11-2:07:36]

 

Well, you now know that I am a sucker for schmaltzy movies, and yes, I cry at the movies, too. But what this movie says is true. Community is what we need and it is what we crave. Because George served those in need, he could be needy. Because he had friends, he was not alone. What you just saw was a picture of mutuality, interconnectedness, and friendship. It is what we are as the church, as the Diocese of San Diego. Jesus has made us friends; we have befriended each other as indispensible parts of the one body. 

 

“We have to stick together; we have to have faith in each other.”  “Tenemos que tener fe entre nosotros.”

 

In this spirit and trust, let us venture into the days ahead not with the assurance that it will be easy, but with the conviction that we will travel together. Mary tells George that the generosity of his friends is a miracle.  Friendship, true friendship, always is. The friendship of Christ and through Christ is the greatest miracle of all. Let us rejoice in that friendship and continue to befriend. It all begins because of our faith in Jesus. It expands because we have faith in each other. Let me thank you all for the rich privilege of being the Bishop of the best diocese in the Episcopal Church, our Diocese of San Diego. 

 

Vayamos juntos; teniendo fe en cada uno de nosotros. “Let’s stick together; let’s have faith in each other.”