Good Morning, and it is a good morning. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his faithfulness endures from age to age.
I bring you greetings from the Diocese of Olympia, the Pacific Northwest, where despite what you have heard, it does not rain all the time, we say it only rains once, October to April. We don't tan there, we rust, but we love it. It is always good to be in Mississippi, just across the river from where I grew up in Arkansas. It is good to be back where people speak normally. I want to thank my colleague, friend, mentor, Bishop Duncan Gray, III for allowing me to be here, and to Brian and Kyle, my dear friends. It is the greatest honor to be asked to stand here today.
By all appearances, it would seem we have come here with a very specific task today‒to make a bishop. Everyone necessary for that task is here. We gather as a church, the Body of Christ, to make this happen.
By all appearances, all of our focus this day this day is on one person, Brian Richard Seage, and perhaps, unfortunately even some would say, on his family, Kyle, Katie, and Betsy, who will now enter, exponentially, into that mysterious land for which families are taken by us, the ordained, wanted or not. In a sense they get all of the scrutiny, and none of the authority. The microscope is trained all the more on them now. I know enough about you, Mississippi, this Very Special place...do know, I probably don't need to say this but will anyway, be gentle with them.
By all appearances, this diocese, this very special place, this church gathers with a lot of joy and hope in what we are about to do.
By all appearances. Even our readings for today from Scripture seem to narrow in on one person. There is a great temptation to get lost in the euphoria of it all and to begin to think that Brian Seage is that one person. After all this is his day, right? However very important for us to note, that the one person for us is Jesus Christ, not Brian.
And after all you do know Brian, don't you? He is a human being. He is not the Messiah. No one knows this more than he himself.
Well, maybe Kyle knows this more than anyone else.
I remember first meeting Brian, at seminary, a surfer dude from California. There are many good, funny, profound things I will always remember about Brian, but perhaps one that tops the list is this, he introduced me to the word stoked. He was the first person I had been around that would use phrases like, "Greg, did you hear that sermon today in chapel? I am totally stoked man!"
Or I might ask, "Brian, are you and Kyle coming to the BBQ on Friday night?” He would answer, "Yes, and we are totally stoked!"
I am not sure if he still uses it with the force and plenitude with which he used it back then, but it became part of my vocabulary, only, and perhaps exclusively because of Brian. I cannot hear the word without thinking of him.
It would be years later, like last year, when for the first time I surfed. Surf in association with me can be used very loosely. My Facebook picture is me holding a board, not riding one. Many have pointed that out. I can technically say I can do it, but I am nowhere close, nor will I ever be, to Brian's ability. But it is this world, the surfer's world, from whence the word stoked comes.
One of the tangible gifts I am giving Brian this day is a book by Shaun Tomson, a world class surfer, entitled A Surfer's Code: Twelve simple lessons for riding through life. It is really a rather profound book on life, using surfing as its meta story.
One of the chapters centers on this word, Stoked. Tomson writes, "One word defines the essence of surfing better for me than any other - stoke. I do not know how or when the expression was introduced into surf culture, but that image of a fire being stirred up in the pit of one's stomach captures the feeling surfers get when they see good waves or surf a great session."
So, in honor of Brian, and surfers everywhere, today this is a diocese and a church, by all appearances, that is stoked.
Today, we will do a host of things, say some ancient and hallowed prayers, and follow a pattern which has been followed for centuries, keeping alive the lineage of our faith, the continuity of our journey, the soul of our common Body. Technical, yet beautiful. Ancient, yet new.
For such an event, the one task I have, is to preach the Gospel, to Proclaim the Word, to bring the sermon, to rattle on, hopefully saying something that might illuminate this act, of making a bishop.
As I thought about what I might add to all of this today, in this proclamation of the Gospel, one of my favorite cartoons came to mind, of an ancient, wise, robed man with a cane walking down a sidewalk which comes to a fork, and he stands there with a quizzical look, haltingly, wondering which way do I go? Each fork has a sign, one sign reads, "The Meaning of Life" and the other reads, "Wine and Cheese."
That can really be a difficult choice, especially in the Episcopal Church.
I thought of that cartoon as I thought of my task, because the sermon for such a day, could go a lot of different directions. I mean...
I could share with Brian, in front of all of you, the most important bits of bishop wisdom I have received such as, "never pass porcelain" (and you do need to heed that one, as I age it is precious and honored above all things), or what our Presiding Bishop first told me (very wise) "if anyone brings you anything, just kiss it, bless it, and it will go away."
I could regale you with the history of the episcopacy in the world and in the church, but I suspect that will only help some of you catch up on your sleep. And after all what is Wikipedia for anyway?
So, one has to make a choice, and I am making mine, sharing a story that happened to me just a year or so after becoming a bishop. I was on a ski lift at Snoqualmie pass just east of our city, in the Cascades with a total stranger, about 25 years old, a snowboarder.
He and I lived up to the northwest contract, which is that you simply do not talk to one another, in moments like that. Casual contact moments are not for conversation. But, as we were making our way up the slopes the lift rather suddenly stopped, and we were left dangly there above the snow, no escape, and so inevitably we began to speak, and eventually he asked me, that dreaded question, what do you do? I almost resorted to that old standby, I am in sales. It can get you off the hook at times.
But instead I decided to be bold, not to avoid, I am a bishop, I said, in the Episcopal Church. He asked what is a bishop? I told him I had no clue. I told him I was still trying to figure it out myself. Then of course I tried to explain. I told him a lot of things a bishop does. When I look back on it now, it was all about how and what.
He finally lost interest in that, but not in talking. He went on to tell me that he could not think of one person in his family or in his life that was religious, that he really didn't have anything against those who were, he just didn't know much about it. And he finally opined that what he saw of the church didn't seem to match the vision or what he knew of the man, Jesus.
I think of that young man often. I speak of him often. I never got his name, the lift started up again, and we said our goodbyes, and we both went our separate ways in the snow.
It is a good question, especially for today, what is a bishop?
Only recently did I find that Augustine, our ancient Church Father, in the earliest days of Christianity, wondered the same.
In a sermon he asked this question, "Who is the bishop, who is called bishop, named bishop but is not one at heart?” And then he answered his own question, "The person misnamed bishop, is he who rejoices in that honor, rather than the salvation of God's flock, who in that office seeks his own ends, not those of Jesus Christ."
I haven't been the same since hearing that for the first time, and I am challenged by it daily.
I have noticed that there seem to be two ways to go in this office you will now inhabit, and Brian, it is an office you will inhabit, given to you by the church, the people, for life, we will put that mantle on you today, but you will never own it, it belongs to the church still and always. You are a steward of it, a holder of it, but it is not yours.
Anyway, in this office of bishop I have noticed at least two breeds among us, similar to what Augustine said, those who really want to be a bishop, and those who want to grow the church, to spread the word. You will have to decide daily which you will live from. And it will make all the difference in the world as to what your labors bear. But you will never be able to be the judge of which one you are living from.
Because the one in the office cannot, and will never be able, to judge which one they are, only those you serve can do that.
Brian, other than giving Marti and I the word "stoked," you also gave me this great realization that all tasks were important. I remember when we shared the office of sacristan, often rearranging the chairs with you in the chapel at the Seminary of the Southwest, in every season we would completely change the lay out. I remember I once was bemoaning the fact that it had to be done, and us talking as we moved the chairs about. As I complained, you gently shared the view of the importance of the change, and what it would offer those who were there.
You basically smiled and said in the most diplomatic, loving, and yet effective way, Greg you are full of it. This is a skill that will come in handy in your new office.
As sacristans we worked behind the scenes, creating the environment for those we served and loved, and even those we didn't really love, or were finding it very difficult to love, so that they might experience the transforming nature of Jesus Christ in worship.
In the bookstore we worked to create a place for study and refreshment so that those we served might be edified, could learn, and grow. I relish those times.
I remind you of them today because I pray you will live this new office from that place, the servant place because your role and your task is still, quite frankly, exactly the same, with a lot more pomp and circumstance, better clothes, and the great temptation to believe the illusion that you are the boss. But the task is the same, creating the environment, setting up holy spaces and moments for those you serve to be transformed.
You will be a bishop, but please still be the sacristan, the bookstore clerk, the surfer, and even more importantly, father and husband. Living primarily from those, you will be a much better bishop I do believe.
By all appearances, my brother, this day is focused on you.
But, I know you, and I know that actually makes you a bit uncomfortable and I think that is very good and right. I think you ought to own, and keep that feeling very close, because of course it is not about you.
This day, this act, is important. We need to do this. But this day is not really about Brian, or his family. It isn't even, ultimately, about those of us here present.
It is really about that snowboarder, and all like him, who really don't have anything against the church, but wonder why it often looks and acts so differently than this man Jesus.
The reason I am so connected to that moment with that snowboarder is the regret I have about my part in that conversation, so much I would now probably do differently.
When he asked me what is a bishop? I gave him the what and the how. And this is what I think we are often really good at in the church. I believe now that what he was really asking, along with so many like him, is why?
Why do you do these things? believe these things? profess these things? Why?
People of God, despite all appearances, this day is about Jesus Christ and the one Church, the Body of Christ.
Despite all appearances, this day is about our call to steward together that work, that ministry, and to create the environment where the blessed people of God can be transformed for the journey.
Despite all appearances, this day is about that snowboarder and all like him. It is about those not present who have yet to feel or know the love of God, and want to see a people devoted and emulating this man, Jesus.
Today is about the why. It is about this thing we call the Church, the Body of Christ, not a church turned in on itself, but instead turned out to the world.
In the Surfers Code, Tomson makes the point, we may ride waves in waters with different names, but even a child will tell you that if you look at a globe, there is really only one ocean. WE are all joined by one ocean.
We are joined together by one person, Jesus Christ, in one Church, even with our differences, we are bound together by that, we share that, we are united on that.
We, gathered here today are stewards of that, one church. Such is, as Paul reminds us, the confidence we have through Christ, towards God.
Here is my gift to you, the Surfers Code. It has some chapters in it which I believe match very well with the Gospel, and your new role in this Church. Here are a few:
I will take the drop with commitment
I will never fight a rip tide
I will paddle back out
I will watch out for other surfers
There will always be another wave
And one you will like, I will always pass along my personal stoke
Thank you for that, my friend.
At one point, Tomson writes this:
“The path I have chosen is never a destination, which surfers are never concerned with while on a wave, but simply living with passion. I gain an enormous sense of calm knowing that I chose this path not for money or the accolades of others, but for what Yeats terms, ‘A lonely impulse of delight.’”
In the answer to your questions you answered for the bishop's search you wrote:
“MY hope in the Episcopal Church rests in Jesus Christ, whose arms we are called to open wide and embrace the world.”
Turn and face the gathered Church, Brian.
I want to remind you of that today, in front of God and everybody, as you gaze out upon those who will share this journey with you, who will carry the load with you, who will live and share the hard work of love with you in the days and years ahead. Hang on to that. Look at them, and in turn, people, look at him. The greatest gift for you together would be to be blessed with that lonely impulse of delight, to be totally stoked by and for Jesus.
So, my friends, today we come to make a bishop. We do it not just for Brian, not even for the Church, but so that, together, we might more effectively share the Good News of Jesus Christ.
I am here, before you, to testify to the people of this diocese, my firm belief that this person, named Brian, soon to be named bishop, will not be misnamed. I believe that with all my heart.
Brian, be stoked my friend, kindle that fire of passion in the pit of your belly. May this new relationship be rich, and beautiful, and true, so that together you will be a sign to the world, one church, which reflects this man, Jesus, so that all might know, despite what the world might look like, despite all appearances, that the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his faithfulness endures from age to age.
May God bless you and all who live, work, and pray in this Very Special Place called Mississippi.
