Sermon at the Investiture of
The Rt. Rev. Kee Sloan, Bishop of Alabama
What a great joy it is to be with you on this very special day! To our presiding bishop—what an honor it is to be asked to preach in your presence. To Bishop Parsley—thank you for your leadership and for taking one very young and inexperienced bishop under your wise wing as mentor some 12 years ago. And to the good and faithful people of Alabama and everybody else who’s here—I want to tell you a story...
Some two decades ago, the people of Mississippi,
in an extraordinary act of faith and generosity, sent a young man,
John McKee Sloan, as a missionary to this exotic world.
Now, the people who had shaped and formed him in Vicksburg, Olive Branch, West Point, Grenada, and Oxford were careful to remind him of his roots. “Young man, remember who you are and where you come from.”
And so adorned with the peculiar charism of his homeland—a land that had produced William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, John Grisham, Will Campbell, and countless other storytellers, this missionary told stories. They were stories of mystery and grace, holiness and joy. They were stories of the fragile nature and brokenness of human beings and the extraordinary presence of God in the ordinariness of their lives. And the stories made people laugh and cry.
Now these stories were magical stories—stories like Jack’s beans that produced an enormous beanstalk. These stories planted seeds that gave birth to remarkable things.
This missionary would tell stories about the people of San Joaquin, Honduras, and soon out of St. Thomas’ (in Huntsville) a medical mission to Honduras sprang, and later another to Haiti. He would tell stories about God’s presence in the lives of those with special needs, and soon summer camps for people with special needs began to grow in this diocese. And as he told the stories, the baptismal prayer became so very real, and the people saw in the words of the prayer the joy and the wonder in all God’s works.
But somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened—
this missionary lost all objectivity and,
how should I say it, “went native.”
“Maroon and White” has become “Crimson.” “Bully” has been transformed into “War Eagle.” Oh, say it ain’t so, my brother! But now, now you have elected him your bishop. The Rubicon has been crossed. The die has been cast.
And despite all of that,
it is truly a joy to be with you on this very special day!
Now much has changed over the two decades since Kee left Mississippi—not just in Mississippi or in Alabama, but throughout our entire country, culture, and Church. Some of those changes are more pronounced in some parts of the country than in others, but every one of us is aware at some level of our consciousness of these changes.
There is a spiritual hunger in this country that is unprecedented—even as the institutional church is seen as a non-option for growing numbers of spiritually hungry young adults. Old models of being the church are increasingly ineffective in being the bearers of the gospel to this hungry and despairing world. Meanness in our national political discourse has spilled over into our own Church conversations, and we have done terrible things to one another in the name of Jesus.
Now, you can made your own list of these dramatic changes, but in calling a storyteller to be your next bishop you have reminded yourself that this Church, for all its brokenness, is at its core the bearer of God’s sacred story of salvation—and through that story, an instrument of God’s grace.
And that salvation story is told in scripture and beyond scripture through the lives of human beings—strong and weak, faithful and disobedient, hope-filled and despairing.
It is the salvation story in Genesis that was read this morning of the Spirit of God moving over the void and chaos of creation—the void and chaos of our lives—bringing order and life, a new creation.
It is the salvation story in the reading from Acts—a story of the early church discovering, through the rigors of repentance, the joy in Jesus.
And it is the salvation story in Mark’s gospel, which was just read, that bears witness to God’s beloved relationship with Jesus, a relationship that is shared with us all in baptism. The sign of the cross on our forehead—as we are “marked as Christ’s forever”—gives us our indelible identity and defines us most fully—who we are, where we have come from, and to what we are called to become.
Now you have made this onetime missionary your own—
and you have called him as your bishop,
as an icon for the Church’s unity and catholicity.
You have called him not because he is perfect—those of us who know who he is and where he has come from can attest to that. No, you have called him because in this very imperfect human being—just like you and me—you glimpse God’s grace and in him there is evidence of those traits that you wish to be reflected in this Church.
As he and I together pondered the election of my predecessor in Mississippi years ago, Kee said to me, “When I’m in a ditch, I want a bishop who can sit with me in that ditch.” (Actually his language was a bit more colorful, but you get the point.) You have called a bishop who will sit in the ditch with you. The question is, can the Church do the same for the world?
Reflecting on the chaos of class registration one semester at Ole Miss in those pre-computer days, watching students stand in line for hours to get a required course, Kee wrote in a newsletter, “Hell is like registration, where everyone wants to know your name, but no one wants to know you.” You have called a bishop who will want to know you and how God is present in your life. Can the Church do the same for a world that cries out to be known?
Kee has taken as his own episcopal blessing the words of my father, “Go forth into the world in peace. Be strong and of good courage. Hold fast to that which is good.” And he has added his own twist: “Sing to the Lord a new song.”
You have called a bishop, you see, who will have both feet planted in the historic witness of the Church—holding fast to that which is good—and who will be open to the Holy Spirit who is ever creating and renewing God’s church, singing to the Lord a new song. Can this Church do the same in a hungry world?
(Kee, please stand.)
The Church in the Diocese of Alabama is vibrant and life giving, touching so many people in so many ways. I am tempted to give you the words of counsel given to a mutual friend of ours, who—after being called to a vibrant and life-giving church in Mississippi—asked for that advice from our bishop. And the bishop very succinctly, looking over this young priest in this very healthy church, said, “Merrill, just don’t screw it up!”
But you know that you have been called to a particular vocation that is absolutely impossible to do. And it will be absolutely impossible to meet all the expectations of all of these good people who elected you. In fact, I think it is safe to say that at one point or another, you will disappoint every one of us—not because you are incompetent or uncaring, but because you are human, just like the imperfect people you are called to serve.
But you have been given gifts for the building up of the people of God. So live in and through those particular and peculiar gifts.
You have been given the grace of humility—so badly needed in a Church that too often has an inflated sense of its own self-importance. My brother, help us to be still and know that God is God—and we’re not.
You have been given the grace of wisdom—so badly needed in an enormously complex world where the old models of spiritual discernment and decision-making in community are increasingly inadequate. My brother, help us to listen more and shout less.
You have been given the grace of laughter—so badly needed in a Church that takes itself far too seriously. Together we once heard Ed Friedman say that the measure of the health of any institution is in its capacity to play together and to laugh at itself. So, my brother, help us to laugh and play.
And you have been given the grace of storytelling. Continue to tell the stories of human foibles and God’s holy and mysterious grace. Tell the stories, my brother, so that the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us.
I am so looking forward to this journey!
Amen.
