With a Big Red Exclamation Point, our
Church says Yes. Yes will choose
life. Yes with eyes and hearts wide open
we see and hear that the Holy One, who is always doing a new thing, is walking
among us. We say Yes with our logical
minds and our soaring spirits. We say Yes with all the hope we can muster, that
we will grow and flourish. Yes, the
branches of the vine twist and turn in unexpected directions, toward the Sun so
that the fruit might ripen, and feed the hungry and make hearts glad. We choose to be one humble and joyful
precinct of the Reign of God where the gifts of each and every person are
called out, and where each and every friend of Jesus is sent out join in God’
mission in this world God made and loves from the everlasting depths of the
Sacred Center of the Universe.
Yesterday, the lay and clergy you sent
to this General convention looked around the floor of the House of Deputies and
saw the Beloved Community in the faces of companions in this holy work. The whooping and hollering and the tears of
stunned joy went on and on. For me, the
jubilation that was constrained in Minneapolis
out of loving respect for those whose hearts ached in sorrow, the pent up
jubilation of Minneapolis
and the astonished delight was unstoppable.
Finally, finally we could rejoice together as a church.
Today we return to our work of
reconciliation, our live into our yearning for communion, our willingness to
repent of our trespasses, of our wrongs for things we have done and things we
have left undone. I hope those of us who
know in our hearts that we have said our prayers and made the most faithful
choices we could make and honestly acknowledge the unintended injures, the pain
associated with the impact of our faithful choice. I pray for the strength to be able to bend in
Grace. I pray that we may hold in
respectful love those who disagree with us.
Today we prepare to make our careful and respectful response to our
Brothers and Sisters in the Anglican Communion as expressed through the Windsor
Report, may the Holy Spirit again manifest herself in our midst.
I am holding in mind the words of The
Rt. Rev. Nedi Rivera offered to yesterday’s meeting of the Episcopal Women’s
Caucus: We thought that the caucus was
for us, for the full inclusion of women in the life of the church, and in all
the forms of ministry in the church. And
by the afternoon the whole church had spoken that we will live what we
pray. But, for Bishop Rivera and for me,
we grow to know that that solidarity of women and the men who love us goes far
beyond us. With our sisters who struggle
to feed their grandchildren orphaned by AIDS, with our sisters who try to feed
a family of eight with the bread baked in the night hours and sold on the
streets of Tegucigalpa during the day, earning on a good day $4, with our
little sisters whose greatest dream is to finish primary school, with our
sisters in our global community we say Yes, we will stand with you and share
our lives with you, and share our bread with you.
By the power of God women are blessed.
By the women of God the bread is blessed.
Amen.
