wfn.org | [ENS]A word to the Episcopal Church

["Episcopal News Service" <ens@epicom.org>]

ENS 042201-1 

1/22/2004 
 
[Episcopal News Service] My dear brothers and sisters in Christ: 
It has been a little more than six years since my investiture as Presiding
Bishop. Over these last days I have been asked frequently - both in
gatherings of bishops, clergy and lay people, and by reporters - about my
view of the "state of the church."  As I mark the passage of this time, have
thought about our life as a community of faith in this season, and wanted to
write now to share my reflections with you who are the 
Episcopal Church.

Though, to be sure, we face difficulty and deeply challenging issues within
our common life, yet my overall sense is that our church is focused on
mission, understood as the restoration of all people to unity with God and
one another in Christ, as our Prayer Book tells us. Our General Convention
devoted much attention to the commitment to reach beyond ourselves. The
budget developed for these next three years reflects that commitment. The
needs are so great. Hungers of both body and soul are deeply present in our
nation and our world.  We are called to share the good news of Jesus Christ,
which embraces all forms of human need and satisfies the hungers and desires
of all hearts.	Dioceses, congregations, individual Episcopalians, members of
my staff at the Church Center, as well as numerous committees and
commissions, are actively engaged in the fundamental tasks of proclamation,
evangelization, witness and service.

It is also part of the reality of the Episcopal Church that we live with
divergent points of view regarding the interpretation of scripture and
understandings of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church.
Though we believe "the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be
the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation," as it is
stated in the ordination liturgy, there is no neutral reading of scripture,
and we interpret various passages differently while seeking to be faithful to
the mind of Christ.  It is therefore important to recognize that people of
genuine faith can and do differ in their understandings of what we agree is
the "Word of God."

As well, we each have different images of the church. These images often
contain within themselves our own expectations of what the church should be
and hopes of what it might become.  When the church acts in a way that seems
to threaten or overturn our expectations we feel a profound sense of loss.
Something that had seemed dependable and unchanging in the midst of our
ever-changing lives has been taken away.  This sense of loss can lead to
grief and to anger.

Equally, when we see the church as slow or reluctant to change, and our hopes
for what the church might become are not realized, we can become frustrated,
disappointed and angry.

There is a real tension within our community, which in some places is
profound and severe, as some grieve because the church does not seem to meet
their faithful expectation of what it should be, and others are equally
saddened because the church does not seem to meet their faithful expectation
of what we might become.

All of these differences: in our interpretation of scripture, in our
understandings of the work of the Holy Sprit in the life of the church, and
in our images of what the church should be and ought to become, were laid
bare at the time of our General Convention last summer.  For quite some time
we had been living with the paradox of both/and.  We had not been called to
say either/or about some of the questions before us concerning 
homosexuality - which is undeniably a difficult issue for many. 
Nevertheless, at that Convention, our constitution called for diocesan
bishops and the House of Deputies to give consent to the ordination as bishop
of a man living in a committed relationship with a partner of the same sex. 
Since that time, we have been learning a great deal about what it means to
live openly and honestly with differing points of view.  It has not been
easy, and yet we have not drawn back from this necessary, painful and often
grace-filled work.  I live in great hope that through the tension of this
complex season in the life of our church God is leading us more deeply into
who we are called to be as a community of faith.  I have never felt more
privileged to serve this church.

I have heard from many of you that you are now participating in respectful
conversations reaching a deeper level than seemed possible before.  I
continue to be grateful to our bishops, members of the clergy and all 
others who are doing such important work in helping the church to engage in
the costly and demanding discipline of deep conversation about how our faith
is shaped and formed in response to the gospel.

As we go about this work we are blessed by our Anglican tradition.  One of
the distinctive characteristics of Anglicanism across the centuries has been
its ability to make room for difference within a context of common prayer. In
worship our various perspectives and understandings of the gospel are brought
together. Our differences are reconciled not by our cleverness or ability to
compromise but through our common adherence to the risen Christ who meets us
in word and sacrament. It is for this reason that common prayer is
particularly important in our Anglican tradition.  As we gather week by week
in our congregations we are being fed and nurtured in that tradition, and
given the ability to live together in a love worked into us by the 
Holy Spirit which unites us beyond our differences.

In virtue of our baptism into Christ, dimensions of "the truth as in Jesus"
are reflected in each of our lives.  The search for truth is a corporate
undertaking.  As the mind of Christ is formed in us by the Spirit, we are
able to discern Christ in the lives and experiences of one another.  In this
way, the dimensions of truth we share are enlarged.  We grow to maturity in
Christ by encountering one another with our differences, rather than in
spite of them.

God's truth is ever unfolding and the Holy Spirit is still leading us on.
According to Jesus' words in the Gospel of John it is the function of the
Spirit of Truth to lead us ever more deeply into the fullness of truth. Jesus
is speaking to his disciples not individually but collectively as a
community.  He tells them he has many more things to say which they are
unable to bear at the present moment.  He tells them the Spirit will draw
from what is his and make it known to them.  From this we know that the
appropriation of "the truth as in Jesus" is a process of continuing prayer
and discernment which involves us both personally and collectively as a
community of faith.

As I listen to various voices around our church I become ever more aware of
what I call the diverse center:  people, lay and ordained, who share a common
commitment to one another as limbs and members of Christ's risen body, even
as their prayer and reflection and life in Christ have led them to different
points of view.  The diverse center is able to accept the tension caused by
these different points of view.  They are able to see this tension as part of
the reality of being baptized into a community in which difference can be
reckoned as something potentially positive and creative rather than a threat.
 The diverse center can live with difference, knowing that not one of us has
the fullness of truth, and that we each perceive different aspects of truth. 
This is so because, for the Christian, truth ultimately resides in the One
who is the truth, namely the risen Christ.

The Episcopal Church has been energized by a renewed commitment to mission.
This is evident as we reach out to seekers and new generations, as diocese
after diocese commit themselves to giving in support of the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals, and as new Jubilee Centers seek to address the
needs of local communities.  I do not think it is accidental that our sense
of revitalization is coming at the same time as a difficult season of living
with our differences.  Both have to do with what it means faithfully to
proclaim the Good News of God in Christ and therefore with mission.  Prayer
and discernment have led us to a graced confidence that we, shaped by our
Anglican tradition, have much to share with the world in Christ's name.  May
this confidence ground and guide us in the days ahead.	And, may we remember,
as we engage this work - which is nothing less than God's work - that God's
power "working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine."

Please be assured of my prayers for you all as I ask you also to pray for me.

Yours in Christ,

Frank T. Griswold

Presiding Bishop and Primate

The Episcopal Church, USA