Bishop Wright's Sermon at Bishop Sarah Fisher's Ordination and Consecration

This episode is Bishop Rob Wright’s sermon from the ordination and consecration of Bishop Sarah Fisher, ninth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina, given on May 23. 

In his sermon, Bishop Wright answers an important question: what is a bishop for? You’ll hear a clear, memorable vision of Episcopal leadership as itinerant service, scripture-shaped preaching, guarding the faith, and doing “balcony” work that spots patterns and faces the challenges we’d rather avoid. The hat doesn’t make the leader. The work does. 

Transcript

Welcome And Why We’re Here

Producer Easton Davis 0:30

This is For People with Bishop Rob Wright. Welcome to Four People, Bishop Wright's weekly podcast. I'm your producer, Easton Davis, and this week we're sharing Bishop Wright's sermon from the ordination and consecration of Bishop Sarah Fisher, ninth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina, that took place on May 23rd.

Bishop Wright 1:00

It is good to be back in the Diocese of East Carolina. And thanks to the hospitality of the Chestnut family, my family and I have vacationed in this diocese for nearly 25 years. Topsail Beach is where our children first learn to swim in the ocean. So Beth and I are glad to be back with you on such a glad occasion as this. Before I begin, allow me to pause and ask you to join me in giving Rob and Sandy Skirving a rousing round of applause in thanksgiving for their ministry. Yes, yes, yes. No, you stay right there and enjoy. Amen. Our purpose this morning is crystal clear. It is to formalize what the Holy Spirit and the people have already authorized that Sarah Kathleen Fisher is a bishop. And let me and let me say, brothers and sisters and siblings, having been her bishop for a number of years, y'all got a good one. And thank God for Mandy. All that you are and all that you do. Now, let's get to work.

Locked Doors And Resurrection Peace

Bishop Wright 3:10

Think with me for a bit about those five or so lines from the 20th chapter of John's gospel. It's the first evening that Jesus is back from the dead. He's alive, y'all. And the very first act of his resurrection is to launch a search and rescue mission for his disciples, his church. We know three things about this little long-ago congregation. That they're together, that they're afraid, and that they've locked themselves in a room. For them, the world is volatile and violent. Their faith and imaginations have been shrunk by fear. Once a movement, now they've just now they've become just a frightened little meeting. Once an outward-facing group, now exclusively focused on survival. Threat and despair are the dominant organizing principles of this community. And nostalgia is their only brief respite. We're not judging this morning, we're simply observing. The most deadly effect of fear on the followers of Jesus in any millennia is that fear will make you numb to God's new thing. But then John says this here comes Jesus. I said, Here comes Jesus. Jesus steps right in the middle of their fear, Jesus always intervening, Jesus always companioning. We know three things about Jesus. He enters the room, he stands, he speaks. Luke does not explain how Jesus got through those locked doors. We just know somehow he did. And it occurs to me to say this morning the only reason why some of us are sitting here today with thanksgiving on the tips of our tongues is that Jesus has slipped past the scared locked doors of our hearts and made himself known to us. Jesus gently forces his way into this bygone vestry meeting. Some of y'all know what I'm talking about. He's standing upright in consolation, not condemnation. He hasn't come to shame anyone for their past cowardice or infidelities. He's here with an invitation for a future and a hope. A future and hope that an empire can't kill and that scared religious people can't control. Jesus is not on the agenda, but he's got something to say. Here's what he says: he says, peace. Peace, which is a one-word prayer, a daily practice, and a destination. Watch Jesus, this swarthy Palestinian Jew, stand up tall in a room. He's upright because he knows that fear may get a word, but it doesn't get the last word. That's the effect of resurrection. Jesus doesn't avoid or amplify institutional fear. He puts fear to flight with his witness, with his presence, with his peace. He puts fear to flight by showing us that wounds are real, but they just don't have to be consuming.

What A Bishop Is For

Bishop Wright 7:04

Which of course leads me to the question, the question in this grand room today, what even is a bishop? Well, since you've asked, for starters, a bishop is an overdressed church visitor. So very often, an over-caffeinated, overdressed church visitor, can I get an amen? A bishop is not made different at their ordination and consecration, but is afforded a unique opportunity to live out her baptismal promises. A bishop is an itinerant, someone who belongs to everyone but is not the possession of anyone. A bishop is a preacher, preaching the trustworthiness of God in every season. A bishop has unusual fluency with Holy Scripture, privately for their own soul and then publicly for the soul of the diocese in the world. A bishop guards the faith and refuses to allow either the church or the world to steal the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. A bishop is given the ministry of panorama so she can be a good partner to those whose ministry is in a particular place. A bishop will climb to a balcony with stakeholders of the diocese to recognize the patterns of our common life so she can make progress on the challenges, especially the challenges we would prefer to avoid. A bishop understands that discipline is a form of love for the organization. A bishop should remember that assuming the authority of the role and wearing the funny hat does not make you a leader. Only taking up the work of leadership makes you a leader. A bishop remembers Jesus is not an Episcopalian. Or a Lutheran or a Methodist. And while we love our tradition, we must not become its prisoner. The bishop is a sinner who loves sinners. Sarah, to be a bishop at this time, given the complexity and the velocity of the world, is a demanding, exhausting, thrilling, immense privilege. Privilege. Because right now is a great time to be Jesus' church. Right now is a great time to be Jesus' church. A click or a club, good luck. But Jesus' church, the right time.

Peace As Freedom And Shalom

Bishop Wright 10:48

An effective bishop. I said effective is a steward of Jesus' peace, which moves us from locked doors to liberty. The peace Jesus breathes over his friends two times in five verses isn't a trite contentment. And Jesus' peace doesn't require the absence of enity or enemy. Jesus' peace is freedom. That's the best rendering of that word. Peace is freedom, and freedom is shalom. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is free. Free to bring good news to the poor, free to liberate captives, free to say to all would-be emperors, or Wall Street, or Washington, you don't have all the answers, and you don't define all the possibility. That belongs to God. Jesus is free to live God's politics, which are love and justice administered boldly and gently. This is the freedom Jesus embodies and commends. And so since Jesus is free and he is the Lord of our lives and the head of the church, we are free. Nobody can move you from fear to freedom like Jesus. If I was a Baptist, I would say, can I get a witness? But I'm an Episcopalian. And I would say, take time to give that intellectual assent. Nobody can move you from fear to freedom like Jesus. Out of the overflow of his resurrection freedom, Jesus sends his friends out of their dark, scared rooms and back into the world. The world has not changed, but they have changed. Being sent and living the sent life is the only real medicine for fear. Being sent is how we recover our founding spirit, our buoyancy, and our imagination. Someone asked that great American emancipator, Harriet Tubman. Harriet, having freed yourself, you returned to free more than 400 others who were enslaved. Harriet said, Yes, and I would have freed many more if they would have only known they were slaves. Freedom is when your Monday living looks like your Sunday singing. Freedom is when your mind and behind are in line. That is to say, when your faith has actual integrity. Freedom is knowing God loves being dependent on. Freedom is knowing God is bigger than anything you can face. I said anything. Freedom is knowing that in Jesus' eyes you are more than your worst day, your worst deed, or your worst decision. That's freedom. Freedom. Freedom is knowing that even at the grave we make our song. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. So therefore, what actually should I be afraid of? Freedom is remembering that Jesus' answer to wickedness in high places was to mobilize a local unfolding friend-making campaign. Jesus didn't have keyboard courage from the comfort of his home. Y'all quiet. You know what I'm saying. Jesus was a local phenomena, enigmatic and effective. He was just Mary's baby boy, making the words of his Bible real with his flesh. Isn't that what John meant when he penned the words, for God so loved the world? But not only that, freedom is knowing this that the church does not belong to the bishop, or the priest, or the deacon, or the layleader, or the one who gives most of the money, or the one who talks the most. The church belongs to Jesus. It's his church. And the freedom work that we must take up is to actually make the church in every age the organization that bears witness to the one who is the head of it, the author, pioneer, and perfecter of it.

A New Beginning For The Diocese

Bishop Wright 15:46

Today, with this service of ordination, God has created an opportunity in time and space. And we can understand this service as being about one person, or we can accept it for what it actually is: a new beginning, a pivot, and a service of commissioning for the entire diocese. In this room, we are not afraid. A revival of the Holy Spirit in us and among us for the sake of the state, the nation, and the world is what is happening now. There is infinitely, exceedingly, abundantly more life in Christ beyond the doors of the church. Jesus is doing marvelous things in the world. Let us join him. I will bless the Lord at all times. God's praise shall continually be in my mouth. Amen.