Blessed are You

Good morning. I know many of you, but many of your faces are new to me. I’m Brendan O’Sullivan-Hale, and I serve on Bishop Jennifer’s staff as canon to the ordinary for administration and evangelism. It’s my honor to be with you here at Nativity today.

Today we as a church are going to try to observe three joyful occasions simultaneously, with each given its due regard. Today we welcome three children, Logan, Micah, and Noah, into the household of God through the waters of baptism. Through baptism we bring them into the unity of the church across space and time, life and death, through the communion of all God’s faithful, which we celebrate in the Feast of All Saints. And it is the day this church has chosen as its first Consecration Sunday, when each of you will prayerfully consider renewal of your commitment to God through your gifts of money in this church.

The contemplation of the mystical communion of saints and the sacrament of baptism may seem to be at odds with the contemplation of our bank accounts. But what is baptism but the very means by which the communion of saints is knit together? And what are saints but those who have faithfully used all of the gifts entrusted to them by God to leave a legacy of holiness, and among those gifts was their money? So, church, I’m confident we can do this.

About the saints – I’m going to talk briefly about three of them – none of them lived in poverty, but each lived more modestly than their means would have allowed, out of an obligation to something greater than themselves. Princess Elizabeth of Hungary (a princess!) used the wealth afforded by her position to distribute alms throughout her realm, and after being widowed at the age of 20, used her money to build a hospital. Nicholas of Myra, better known to us as Santa Claus, delivered three young women from the threat of a life of prostitution by anonymously tossing bags of coins over their garden wall, allowing them to better position themselves on the marriage market. Omobono Tucenghi, who you’ve probably never heard of, responded to a call from God to a lucrative career as a cloth merchant, specifically so that he could give his earnings away.

All these things happened nearly a thousand years – or more – ago, but before we talk any more about them, I want to take you back maybe a decade or so. Then, I was invited to a wedding of two students at the Episcopal Campus Ministry at Indiana University. I didn’t know them at all – in fact I wouldn’t even recognize them if they were in the room today (so if you are here – I’m sorry), let alone remember their names. But I had made the guest list because one member of the couple was Chinese, and they wanted one of the lessons to be read in her native language. The campus chaplain, who had baptized me when I was a senior at IU, remembered that Chinese had been my major.

Now in point of fact by that time my Chinese was so rusty that to say I spoke it would have been a lie – but I could still pronounce it. So I wrote the text out phonetically, and at the appointed time in the service, I stood up and recited the gospel in a language most of the congregation – including me – couldn’t understand.

And yet the meaning of the text, I learned, got through. At the reception guests excitedly told me that they had correctly guessed what I was reading. Because it turns out that in whatever language you read the Beatitudes, the repetitive sentence structure Jesus uses pulses like a drumbeat: 有福了, 有福了, 有福了 – blessed, blessed, blessed.

Of course there’s another text with a repetitive sentence structure I could have been reading. But how many of you had the ten commandments read at your wedding? Right, I didn’t think so.

Still, the ten commandments and the Beatitudes are often mentioned in the same breath. Sometimes the Beatitudes are treated as a kinder, gentler catalog of good behavior. But that perspective both misapprehends the grace chiseled into the tablets at Sinai, and misunderstands what the Beatitudes really are.

Because these are not edicts or commands nor even advice for good living. They are assertions that the downtrodden, the meek, the merciful, the mourning, and the persecuted, whatever their misery or sorrow, are beheld, beloved, and blessed, by God. The people who are treated as of little account by the world are infinitely precious to the world’s creator. Most of us can find ourselves in one of the categories Jesus declares blessed some days, if not every day. And among the inventory of injustices and desolations there are indeed some things to strive for – being pure of heart, being one who makes peace and dispenses mercy.

But if we treat the Beatitudes as an alternative 10 commandments – new and improved, and now there are only eight of them! – then that would mean that Jesus wants us to be persecuted or poor in spirit so we can get to the kingdom of heaven, that he wants us to mourn in pursuit of comfort, that he wants us to be reviled as the price of a great reward in heaven.

Friends, Jesus knows we’re going to experience these things, but he doesn’t want that for us. Part of the gift of the incarnation is that God knows what it’s like to be one of us, not only as an idea, but as an experience, and what Jesus is assuring us in these eight great blessings is that there is no high point and even more - no low point, where we are separated from the love of God. Blessed are you, whoever or wherever you are, for God hates nothing that God has made. The Beatitudes aren’t a thing to do, but a statement of who we are, at our best and our worst, the blessed children of God most high. We can walk through the valley of the shadow of death without fear of evil, for Jesus assures us that for those who believe, the kingdom of God is never far.

Among those who believe are the three saints I mentioned earlier – Elizabeth of Hungary, Nicholas of Myra, and Omobono Tucenghi. It is because of what they did with their money that they are remembered as saints by the church – and one of them became a pop cultural icon. What they did is worthy of admiration and emulation, but more important this morning is the question of why they did what they did.

I suppose one possibility is that they were trying to buy God’s favor. But are these saints blessed because they were generous with their money in pursuit of reward – is holiness saintly when it’s transactional?

“See what love [God] has given us,” John writes in the segment of his first letter that we heard this morning, “that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.” True generosity is born of the understanding that as a child of God you have already been richly blessed, and that blessedness compels you to a response. John goes on to write that, “we will be like God, because we will see God as he is.” And part of being like God, who gives us our bodies, our breath, and eternal hope through the life, death and resurrection of God’s son, is to be inspired by God’s generosity to us.

The biblical guidance for that response, at least as far as finances are concerned, is an offering of 10% of your income. Father Ben spoke about that last week, and he also pointed out that there may be good reasons for you to give a greater or lesser percentage. I won’t belabor that point. But in a little while you will receive your pledge cards, make your prayerful financial commitment for the coming year, and bring that commitment to the altar.

Moments after that, as Micah, Logan, and Noah are about to be baptized, you will be asked, “Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?” Presuming you all answer, “We will,” you will be faithful to that assent by being examples of what a life committed to following Jesus looks like. If you’re not sure how to approach fulfilling either of these commitments, you could do far worse than to look to the saints. They don’t have to be the three I’ve listed this morning. Think of your own favorites, in fact, better yet, the saints in your life who have shown you what it is to truly follow Jesus – surely these are numbered among the countless throngs gathered in the presence of God around the heavenly throne.

God’s gift to us in the saints is a spiritual ancestry whose bequest to us is a legacy of prayer, service, study, sacrifice, and even miracles. Above all their legacy to us is the faith in Christ they have passed down through 100 generations, a faith that has traversed wars, famines, disasters, golden ages, busts, and booms, even the agony in the Holy Land today, with the steady assurance passing through all time and into eternity, “Blessed are you.”

--

Preached at the Episcopal Church of the Nativity, Indianapolis

November 5, 2023

Readings: Rev 7:9-17; Ps. 34:1-10, 22; 1 Jn 3:1-3; Matt.5:1-12

Love in the Atlas of Space

Image credit: NASA

Sermon preached on the 26th Sunday after Pentecost (November 18, 2018) at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, Indianapolis.

Readings: 1 Sam. 1:4-20; Ps. 16; Heb. 10:11-25; Mk. 13:1-8

[Audio]

Then Jesus asked, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another. All will be thrown down.”


In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Mother of us all. Amen.


Well good morning, St. Timothy’s! Some of you I know, but many of you I do not. My name is Brendan O’Sullivan-Hale, and I serve on Bishop Jennifer’s staff as Canon to the Ordinary for Administration and Evangelism. I’m very thankful to have been invited by your pledge campaign committee to preach here on this, your first Consecration Sunday.


I have to tell you - there’s an unexpected bonus for me being here today. When I received the worship bulletin, I was thrilled to notice that you’re using Eucharistic Prayer C. You guys, this is my favorite, favorite Eucharistic prayer, like favorite enough that I insisted on it at my wedding, and I haven’t gotten around to filing my funeral plans yet but trust me, it’ll be in there too. And as much as I love my home church of All Saints, if I’ve got one gripe about it, it’s that we use this prayer on exactly one Sunday per year - the Sunday after the Ascension. So the fact that I’ll get to pray this prayer with you today is a special treat.


Now, I could give you all manner of complex theological reasons that I love this prayer - and they would all be true - but let’s get straight to the real reason - the phrase, “The vast expanse of interstellar space.” That phrase is why people who don’t like this prayer - and believe me, there are many - call it “the Star Wars prayer.” But for me, this prayer takes me right back to being a kid. After I went through my dinosaur phase and then through my train phase, I entered my astronomy phase, and that night sky loving geek who still lives inside of me perks up a little bit every time I hear these words.


Let me be clear about exactly what kind of astronomer I was. To earn the astronomy merit badge in Boy Scouts, you had to get up in the middle of the night and point a telescope at particular coordinates so you could see the rings of Saturn or whatever. And are you kidding me? That’s too much work.


No, my kind of astronomy was found in my elementary school library, in the National Geographic Atlas of Space, and in those years before the launch of the Hubble telescope, where images from observatories on earth left off, hand-drawn art picked up. In one segment of that book, there were dramatic images of the various kinds of stars, and among these was the red giant. True to its name, a huge, red starr filled the page, and the caption described it as a luminous, but relatively cool star, and about the way in about 5 billion years our own sun will explode into a red giant, causing it to expand into the earth’s orbit and this whole earth and everything about it we know and love will be burned into a lifeless ashen sphere.


That’s heavy stuff for a ten year old.


That’s heavy stuff for us.


I mean, I know that 5 billion years is a long time off, but still, not matter what we do, if the fate of our world is to be swallowed up in the last gasps of a dying star, what is it all for?


The whole thing was distressing news to a ten year old bookworm astronomer. But it wasn’t news to Jesus. “Do you see these great buildings?” he asks his disciples, about the temple, the very center of their faith. Don’t be too impressed. “Not one stone will be left on another; all will be cast down.”


So what’s it all for, we might ask in the face of far off astronomical eventualities.


So what’s it all for, the disciples might ask about the destruction of the Temple, where for centuries the people of Israel had encountered their God.


And what does our Lord say? “Do not be alarmed.”


And what does our Lord say? “Beware that no one leads you astray.”


[Pause]


“What are the only man-made things in heaven?” Goes a Christian riddle. It’s a question about what difference our efforts here on earth mean ultimately mean to God. And the answer is, “The scars on Jesus’s hands.”


Ok, sure, let’s own that. That’s on us. But in a few minutes we’re going to take a moment to confess all of the ways over the last week our failures have wounded God and each other.


Bet let no one lead you astray friends - that’s not the main reason we’re here - wallowing in sin is not what we’re about today. We will receive forgiveness and do yet greater things.


Let no one lead you astray friends: amid all that is passing away, the nails of the cross are not the only fruit we bear.


There’s a passage of scripture whose reading has become so closely associated with weddings that it’s hard for us to hear it any other way.  But let’s pause for a moment in vulnerable uncertainty, to hear of the other heavenly fruit of our hearts.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never dies. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. (1 Cor. 13:1-8)

Love never dies.


“Do you see these great buildings,” Jesus asks, looking at the Temple from the Mount of Olives. “Not one stone will be left here upon another. All will be cast down”


He was right friends. The Temple is long gone, but we are still here.


But it’s not the Temple that is gone, indeed, one day all things will go. But “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow has troubles enough. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” And for those troubles we have the immortal gift of the love of God to bring us through.


You, St. Timothy’s, are well trained in the ways of love.


Last week you celebrated the veterans among you, those who know that the day of passing away is coming, and yet were willing to speed for themselves for the sake of the love of their country, their loved ones, for millions they will never meet.


Yesterday, at Diocesan Convention, I heard your own Donna Adams speak about St. Timothy’s responds to new people desiring a relationship with Jesus, not by a tight-fisted holding on to the way things have always been, but by being a place willing to change so that St. Timothy’s can belong as much to newcomers as to people who have been here a long time, so that you can all discover Jesus together.


In a moment you’ll have another opportunity to act on that love, by renewing your commitment to God and each other through your financial gifts. Now money is not the same thing as love, exactly, but if you look at your bank statements, your credit card receipts, do you not see something about the affections of your hearts?


The commitment you make today is up to you and to God, but the church gives us some tools to think about it.


St. Augustine, the great early church father, writing on the shores of North Africa, describes the concept of rightly ordered love - that is, the idea that you can love more than one thing, but that there is a proper order to love of God, love of family, love of neighbor, and that all genuine love is the result of the primacy of divine love.


And there is the concept of proportional giving - which we know in the 10% tithe that scripture repeatedly identifies as the standard. And if you hear that number today and you’re like whoa, that’s a lot - focus on the concept….it’s not the amount, but the percentage of what has been given to you that you identify as what it means to place God first in your financial life.


The letting go to be generous isn’t easy, but how great its rewards are! A conscious, deliberate letting go of control of our resources, our money, our control, makes room in our hearts for the eternal thing, the thing that will not pass away, to come in and transform us.


Belove, amid so much that is uncertain we are so blessed. In the dust of the fallen temple, in the dust to which we shall return, there is a “new and living way that Christ opens to us, through the curtain” (Heb. 11:20) of the word made flesh, and that is the path of life, the way of love, that hopes all, things, believes all things, the great love, divine, and human, that belongs to all of us, the love that never dies and at the last will bring us to the “fullness of joy” (Ps. 16:11).

Sermon: The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost (October 23, 2016). 
Readings: Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22; Psalm 84:1-6; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14. 

Nine Resolutions That Won't Rescue the Church

The day after last week's Ascension Day release of "A Memorial to the Church" on the episcopalresurrection.org web site, the Rev. Jonathan Grieser wrote about why he won't be adding his name to the list of the memorial's endorsers:

I want to spend my time and energy in following where the spirit is blowing, into new ways of being church, new ways of encountering Jesus, and new ways of connecting with those who are seeking spiritual meaning. If the institutional church can be transformed to do those things, fine, but I’m not going to be fighting that battle. There’s too much else at stake.

Though I am one of the co-authors of the memorial and resolutions ("editor" or "suggester" may be more accurate terms than "co-author", in my case), I can't begrudge Grieser his position one bit. He writes about the work his church has been doing on the ground in his city, partnering with others both religious and secular to organize against yet another judicial failure in yet another police killing of an unarmed black man. In the face of matters of such import, what's the point of worrying about the institutional church?

While I don't think that means he shouldn't sign on to the memorial, I think the thrust of Grieser's argument is mostly right. In Salt Lake City in June and July, about a thousand lay and clergy Episcopalians will sit in conference rooms and exhibit halls, taking three days longer than it took God to create the world to take a good hard look at The Episcopal Church. But with the exception of the conversations we'll be having around the report from the Task Force on the Study of Marriage, little of what happens there will mean much to church congregations.

That includes these resolutions: even the one on church planting, even the one on congregational revitalization.

That doesn't mean these resolutions aren't worth passing. I wholeheartedly believe they are. Focusing resources on planting churches offers the opportunity for future graduating classes at some of our seminaries to relearn a skill mostly lost in our denomination. Focusing resources on congregational revitalization can expand the exciting work started by the Mission Enterprise Zone grants over the last triennium. But even with the millions of dollars the resolutions suggest deploying for such efforts, they will take many years to bear fruit.

The other resolutions are a lot more technical in nature but in brief they clarify a variety of church governance issues in a way that increases transparency and accountability in our governance, and eliminate one of our church's most opaque governance structures, the provinces. These too are worth passing because they impact the way we as a denomination act collectively. Good governance is part of good stewardship, and it's worth phasing out or reforming practices and structures that no longer serve the church or that engender confusion and distrust.

But the fact is that no piece of legislation, no matter how finely crafted, will save the church. Nor will any memorial or open letter save it, no matter how persuasively its authors make their points. Fortunately we Christians believe that the work of salvation has already been taken care of. Instead our task is to respond as a redeemed people, that is, in the words of the memorial, to:

• Recommit to reading scripture, praying daily, gathering weekly for corporate worship, and giving for the spread of the Kingdom, knowing that engaging in these practices brings personal and corporate transformation;

• Share the Good News of Jesus Christ in word and deed, including learning how to tell the story of how Jesus makes a difference in our lives, even and especially to those who have not experienced true transformation;

• Pray and fast for the Holy Spirit to add day by day to those who come within the reach of Christ’s saving embrace;

• Encounter Jesus Christ through loving service to those in need and through seeking justice and peace among all people.

This is the hard work of discipleship. At the very best the work of General Convention will clear a few obstacles, maybe offer a few new tools - and it should do those things! But the practices the memorial enumerates...General Convention can't make any of those things happen. These are the works of a people with hearts aflame, continuing in the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and the prayers, with God's help.

Oh, by the way! It's not too late to sign your name to the memorial. Just send your name to endorse@episcopalresurrection.org. Please indicate whether you are a bishop, deputy, alternate, member of the official youth presence, or, best of all, an interested Episcopalian.

Sermon: A Special Snowflake

Proper 24 - October 19, 2014.
Readings: Isaiah 45:1-7; Ps. 96; 1 Thess. 1:1-10; Matt. 22:15-22.

Dow Jones ex Machina - Comments on the 2014 Draft Budget of the Diocese of Indianapolis

This article represents solely the opinions of its author and does not reflect the opinions of the Episcopal Church of All Saints or the Diocesan Reimagining Task Force.

2014 Diocese of Indianapolis Draft Budget
2014 Diocese of Indianapolis Draft Budget Narrative

“For to those who have, more will be given, and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.” Luke 8:18

I have been participating in the Diocese’s Bible Challenge since Lent began. With the encouragement of some hardy souls from around the diocese gathering on Facebook, and the peer pressure of a group of faithful readers in my own parish, I have been more or less keeping up with the reading.

That means that I have come across Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s formulations of one of Jesus’s hard, impenetrable teachings multiple times in rather short order. In the context of our faith, so rich with grace, what could this saying, which seems to confirm, not confront, avarice and self-dealing possibly mean?

As a professional in the investment industry, I work with

a number of endowed institutions, some religious, most secular. I am very familiar with the financial blessings and challenges they face. This experience also places me in sympathy with those who are very concerned about the current rate of spending from the endowment, though I am perhaps less concerned than some.

It is appropriate, for instance, that we overspend what is generally accepted as a sustainable spending policy for an endowment in the midst of economic crisis. The endowment can function as a cushion to prevent catastrophic withdrawal of services in response to what may be temporary circumstances. It also allows the church in particular to distinguish itself as a reliable bulwark of support for needs of the wider community. As the economic emergency recedes, the endowment is then able to resume a normal level of spending as the portfolio’s market value recovers.

That is the theory, at any rate. But it has its limits. First, even in the most soundly managed institution, this approach implies that on average, the organization will be spending slightly more than a sustainable rate. That means that periodically the endowment needs to be topped up with a capital campaign or a major gift. This is not a sign of failure. Rather it is a sign that the donor’s original gift has been successful in sustaining the institution and providing a strong foundation for a new generation to build on. The Diocese of Chicago has recently been the recipient of such a major gift. We should be asking ourselves whether our mission is oriented to inspire similar generosity.

Second, this strategy can be sustained for some time in an institution that is structurally financially sound. But an organization that has a significant structural mismatch between revenues and expenses will inevitably run into a wall. The Diocese of Indianapolis fits the latter description today. Our largest single expense, health care, is largely outside our control. Almost half of our parishes receive some form of direct diocesan aid. These two areas of the budget are among the few to receive a significant increase in the current draft of the 2014 budget. Meanwhile, in the areas that the diocese once truly mattered to the community around us, as the visionary organization that founded numerous organizations ministering to prisoners, victims of domestic violence, and the homeless, we are now reduced to a payroll and benefits administrator. It should be a point of pride for us that these organizations are more or less able to stand on their own as independent organizations. But it is to our shame that as we are managing our budget today our diocese looks like it will never do so much good again.

Third, our current approach to the budget, which focuses on keeping up appearances and maintaining the status quo despite our diminishment in finances and numbers, puts us at spiritual peril. Rather than transforming in response to new circumstances, we find ourselves looking for a miracle from that other god, a Dow Jones ex machina, to restore us to our former glory.

Here we are, in the enviable position of being one of the wealthiest dioceses in The Episcopal Church, and year after year we find ourselves entrapped in narrative of diminishment, arguing over what to cut. Do we have little, or do we have a lot? How we approach our resources may prefigure how God will deal with us. For to those who have, more will be given, and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.

We are Christians. By definition, we have hope. And we are blessed to have ample examples of hope within this diocese. We speak often of the struggles of many of our small town parishes. But the vitality and comparatively strong material footing of parishes in places like Lawrenceburg and Bean Blossom among others challenge the notion that demographics dictate a declining church in Indiana’s small communities. We are among the few dioceses left to vigorously fund campus ministries, raising new generations of leaders for the church. Many of our large and small parishes are passionately engaged in local and global mission. For whatever its technical flaws, our diocese’s plans, expressed in the will of the 2011 diocesan convention, to give $500,000 for recovery in the Diocese of Haiti, shows our generous spirit.

Given the available resources and the present set of circumstances, how then might we begin to take steps to reorient our budget toward becoming a more visionary diocese, one whose resources show a greater commitment to loving our neighborhood and faithfulness to the Great Commission? Here are a few specific proposals:

1) Build capacity for stewardship at the parish level. We should take full advantage of our affiliation with The Episcopal Network for Stewardship, an excellent resource provider. My own attendance at their 2010 conference in Indianapolis was transformative in my understanding of a model of stewardship based on generosity rather than guilt. Specifically: The Episcopal Network for Stewardship is having another conference in Salt Lake City in July. While attending the conference is beyond the resources of many, TENS is offering four of its sessions on stewardship basics via webcast at the modest fee of $75. The Executive Council and Mission Strategy should work immediately to identify and recruit current or potential stewardship leaders in parishes needing additional stewardship training, providing scholarships for webcast attendance where needed. It seems this would be a wise investment of the Leadership Development line item in the 2013 budget. A potential approach would be to gather these leaders in a common location by deanery to view the webcasts together, accompanied by one or more proven stewardship leaders from throughout the diocese to facilitate discussion.

The stewardship capacity building could be further supported by structuring a portion of the mission strategy funding as matching funds based on incremental improvement in stewardship results based on Fall 2013 pledge campaigns. Speaking from the experience of All Saints, the availability of matching funds as an incentive for new or increased pledges has been instrumental in a renewed culture of stewardship in a parish not historically known for its affluence.

2) Identify whether we have Mission Strategy parishes ready to take a transformative step. Over the coming triennium The Episcopal Church has budgeted for the creation of 50 Mission Enterprise Zones to fund ministry to underserved populations within the church, to the tune of $20,000 each, structured as a matching grant. Consulting with parishes committed to creative ministry, Mission Strategy should work with parishes to identify opportunities to restructure diocesan funding to qualify for a Mission Enterprise Zone grant. The most obvious candidates for this funding appear to be our parishes doing work with Latino populations and/or in rural areas.

3) Defer increased funding for communications until at least 2015. We must focus on maximizing the use of free or low-cost technologies before committing additional funds. Rather than identifying a way to get print media into parishioners’ hands, we should instead maximize the reach of the Gathered Community, which presently reaches only 400 or so people due to the diocese’s lack of e-mail addresses. Given the historic ability of the diocese to procure mailing addresses for its print communications, devoting similar effort to obtain e-mail addresses would be a worthy project. The weekly mailbag should be opened to a broader audience and should use Constant Contact or a similar tool for distribution. This can be done for under $500 annually. This would dramatically improve this communication’s readability, and also provides the ability to archive the mailbag’s contents. The problems of our web site are well known, and probably do require additional funding at some point. But it is now reasonably functional and not a top priority.

The diocese must comply with the resolution passed at last year’s diocesan convention and engage seriously with social media. Our Facebook group is reasonably active, but functions more like a classic e-mail listserv than an official voice for our diocese. Effective use of social media gives the diocese and other church bodies the unique ability to intrude, for lack of a better term, into where a great many people today are spending a great amount of their time. And in the proliferation of feel-good “spiritual” quotes one may perceive the Athenians’ grasping for their unknown god. Many of our parishes are active and effective users, but by using Facebook ineffectively at the diocesan level, the official voice of our diocese is silent.

4) Reduce the scale of diocesan convention. Our almost-neighbor, the Diocese of Western Michigan, completed their 2013 diocesan convention a few weeks ago within the space of six hours or so on a Saturday. This not only reduces costs, but also broadens the potential base of participation, including to young people and those in professions such as teaching that find taking a Thursday afternoon and Friday off untenable. The legislative calendar could be cut down considerably by recognizing the fact that we are already bound by, not required to assent to, most General Convention legislation, allowing social and workshop time to be available, as well as cutting down the workload of our General Convention deputation. The costly symbolism of holding the convention in various locations throughout the diocese should be dispensed with in favor of using existing diocesan properties with capacity to host a group of our convention’s size.

5) Restore the funding to our cooperating ministries. I understand that it is the desire of some for the diocese to move away from the checkbook philanthropy it has historically practiced with regard to the cooperating ministries. It is true enough that what we have been doing in recent years falls far short of “transforming unjust structures of society”, as we are called in the Five Marks of Mission. This today is the only material way in which our diocese, as a household, contributes to the well-being of the community around us. We misinterpret the message of Jesus if we think that the insufficiency of our actions justifies taking no action at all. As a diocesan household, one of our most exciting possibilities is the ability to do mission on a scale no parish can do alone. We are also shortsighted if we neglect the power of visible service as a tool for evangelism. In the present day, the CROSSWalk initiative against gun violence taken on by the Diocese of Chicago is a prime example. Funding the cooperating ministries the way we have historically may not be the long term way forward for the Diocese of Indianapolis, but until we discern a longer term strategy (and we must), there is no excuse for turning our backs on local mission opportunities. The restoration of this line item can be funded by deferring the funding increase for communications, reduced funding for diocesan convention, and by reductions in Mission Strategy that I have every faith will be obtainable through an intentional focus on stewardship.

This is not a plan for the long term. But this is a nudge to move our diocesan budget back on the right track, a track that reflects the call of Jesus to make disciples and to love our neighbor. A track, that with careful planning and sincere discernment, may cause us to be an apostolic institution worthy of future financial gifts. Through the generosity of today’s stewards and history’s benefactors, God has seen to bless this diocese richly with financial resources. But the attitude with which we view what we have has everything to do with what will happen to it. For to those who have, more will be given, and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.