Erl Purnell Sermon

b7Pentecost 3 ~ June 25, 2006 ~ A sermon preached by The Rev’d Erl G. Purnell at Old St. Andrew’s Church, Bloomfield, CT

Job 38.1-11, 16-18; Psalm 107.1-3, 23-32; 2 Corinthians 5.14-21; Mark 4.35-5.20

On last Sunday at General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church elected a new Presiding Bishop, The Rt. Rev’d Katherine Jefferts Schori, currently the Bishop of Nevada. Bishop Jefferts Schori is a bold choice for a church whose warp and woof are being stretched and, in some cases, torn apart. Perhaps to many she was not a likely choice. But to the Holy Spirit acting in the hearts and minds of our bishops, she’s exactly the right person to lead the Episcopal Church at home and abroad.

The 26^th Presiding Bishop “is a woman of depth, a woman of inclusion, a woman of fairness, a woman of prayer, a woman who knows what it is to gather God’s people together, and we will trust that God will help us to walk together in every way possible,” this according to The Rev’d Margaret Rose, director of women’s ministries for the Episcopal Church. She goes on to comment, “Our men in the House of Bishops made this happen, so we have to thank those men and those prophetic voices that were helping that to happen.”

“This is an historic moment before the church, a wonderful moment before our church,” Bishop Cate Waynick of Indianapolis said from the dais. She praised Jefferts Schori’s leadership as “faithful and articulate.” Bishop Waynick added, “She has the ability to carry the vision and mission and to share it with the church and the world beyond us. My heart is bursting; I hope yours is, too.”

Jefferts Schori was consecrated the ninth Bishop of Nevada on February 24, 2001. She serves a diocese of some 6,000 members in 35 congregations. Prior to being bishop, she “was assistant rector at the Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan in Corvallis, Oregon, where she also served as pastoral associate, dean of the Good Samaritan School of Theology, and, as a person fluent in Spanish, she was priest-in-charge at El Buen Samaritano, in Corvallis.

Bishop Jefferts Schori was ordained deacon and priest in 1994. Prior to ordination, she was a visiting assistant professor in the Oregon State University Department of Religious Studies; a visiting scientist at the Oregon State University Department of Oceanography; and an oceanographer with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle.

She received a B.S. in biology from Stanford University, 1974; an M.S. in Oceanography from Oregon State University, 1977; a Ph.D. from Oregon State University, 1983; an M.Div. from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, 1994; and a Doctor of Divinity from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, 2001.

Jefferts Schori serves the wider church in a number of capacities and is a published author of “When Conflict and Hope Abound” among other materials. And, I particularly appreciate that she is an active, instrument-rated pilot, who has logged more than 500 flight-hours.

Our Presiding Bishop-elect is eminently qualified to sit at the Table with her peers, the primates of the world-wide Anglican Communion. I am proud of the Episcopal Church for choosing a person who happens to be a woman to lead our church. It occurs to me that, just as in the Senate of the United States, women’s leadership brings a fresh perspective to difficult and contentious issues.

Bishop Jefferts Schori was among the bishops and lay delegates who voted in favor of the election of Gene Robinson to serve as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. She also voted for the passage or resolution B033 this past week. Resolution B033 comes in response to the Windsor Report’s suggestion that the Episcopal Church “effect a moratorium on the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same-gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges” (Windsor Report, paragraph 134). Essentially the resolution says that Episcopal bishops will hold to a moratorium on the consecration of gay or lesbian people as bishops in the Episcopal Church.

Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori urged support for the resolution. She compared further strain on the relationship between the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican Communion as similar to separating conjoined twins. “Ethically, one cannot proceed to separate two conjoined twins until one is reasonably certain both can survive on their own and live full lives…My sense is that the original resolution is the best that we’re going to do today.” She went on to say “[I am] fully committed to the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in this church…I certainly don’t understand adopting this resolution as slamming the door. I think if you do pass this resolution you have to be willing to keep working with all your might at finding a common mind in this church. I don’t find this an easy thing to say to you, but I think that is the best we are going to manage at this point in our church’s history.”

This resolution passed both houses at Convention. Its significance is to signal the Anglican Communion that we hear them and take seriously our relationship with the other churches in the Communion.

Commenting on the actions of General Convention, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said, “There is much to appreciate in the hard and devoted work done by General Convention, and before that, by the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, in crafting the resolutions. This and the actions taken today show how strong is their concern to seek reconciliation and conversation with the rest of the Communion.”

Phew! There is so much going on. It’s as if “a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was…being swamped.” And, so the story goes, Jesus’ friends asked, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Of course Jesus cares. His response is commanding: “Peace! Be still!” Though Mark’s Jesus is talking to the storm, he might as well be talking to all of us who call the Anglican Communion our church. We are at a propitious moment in the history of the church. Water is flooding over the gunnels of the boat and the wind is blustery all around. More than perhaps anything else, this is a time for us to take stock, to find the still place in our souls and sit quietly in it, to center on the Peace of God in Jesus Christ that passes all understanding. Isn’t this where reconciliation begins…and ends.

“Peace! Be still! Then the wind ceased, and there was dead calm.”

Amen.

Portions of this sermon were gathered from the Episcopal New Service (episcopalchurch.org/75384_ENG_HTM.htm)