Excerpt on Mission
from the address, That We All May Be One
108th Diocesan Convention
January 25, 2003

The Rt. Rev. John Bryson Chane

May they all be one, Father, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may see that it was you who sent me."

During the dog days of early August, I was sitting in the Conference Room of Church House, between meetings, reflecting with Canon Paul Cooney about my first 45 days as your bishop. It had been a time of "hitting the ground running," a time of great learning and discernment thanks to many encounters with the clergy and laity of this diocese. Beginning with a conference for clergy and their spouses held at Shrinemont in late April and early May, Paul and I had been "on the road" constantly, often with the able assistance of Loren Mead. We visited with clergy, wardens, parish treasurers, and anyone else who wanted to engage in dialogue.

The meetings of these first three months energized me. I visited every region and many colleague groups at least once, and in some cases multiple times. I also decided to make congregational visits on all but two summer Sundays in order to learn as quickly as possible about congregational life in the diocese.

What I discovered was an excitement and energy level that begged to be engaged. The energy was somewhat amorphous, but there was no mistaking that the diocese and its congregations wanted to get moving in new directions. It was clear that the Search Committee had listened well to what the people of the Diocese of Washington wanted in terms of programs, missional outreach and Episcopal leadership….

The cry of Jesus that we all may be one must be at the very root of all that we claim as a vision for this diocese. We live in very difficult times and it seems on occasion as if the darkness is gaining the power to overcome the light. But I am here to tell you, faithful disciples of Christ, that the powers of darkness, the threat of war, the pandemic spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the world, the threat of schism within Anglicanism and the internecine battles that have raged within the Episcopal Church over the last 20 years can never and will never separate us from the love or Christ or from the light of his presence among us. Nor will they threaten to divide this diocese. And you can take that to the bank!

We are called to live into a unity that respects diversity. We are called, as Christ's own, to respect the dignity and wholeness of every human being. For every person is as precious and valued as God's own son, Jesus. We are called to protect the body of the living Christ here on this earth against the forces that would destroy it. But as members of the Anglican Communion, we must make significant decisions about our future. Will we continue to battle one another incessantly over issues of human sexuality and scriptural authority, as important as these issues are, or will we take seriously the prayer of our Lord that together we will work toward becoming one, as God the creator and Jesus are one?

If we continue to do battle with one another, the needs of the world will continue to go unmet. Locally, nationally and internationally, we must shed the Gospel light on God's suffering and broken people, rather than projecting the darkness of our painful internecine conflicts that have shamefully defined how many in the world see our Church. We as a Church are, more often that not, seen as a dysfunctional family rather than the living, breathing, loving, acting Body of Jesus Christ.

The Rev. Canon Sam Van Culin, who once served in this diocese before moving to England where he spent many years as Secretary General of the Anglican Communion visited with us at Church House not too long ago. Sam retold the story of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey who was once asked how he saw his role as Archbishop and how he understood the work of the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop thought for a long time and then said; "You know, I believe that my job as Archbishop is to be a gatherer…to bring all the diverse elements of the Communion together to work in harmony for the betterment of human kind and in faithfulness to the Gospel."

My vision for this diocese is an emerging one, but I see my work among you as in much the same way. For we are all called to be gatherers, to work tirelessly to bring the diverse elements of this diocese together in ways that we may have resisted, overlooked, or simply not had the time for. As your bishop I envision my leadership and energy being directed to initiating and then engaging in conversation with those in this diocese who have felt for too long now that they have not been heard… not been respected…. not been affirmed…not been trusted…and not been loved. At the same time I envision my ministry among you as an opportunity to claim the place where my heart, my passion, my theology and my sense of mission lead me, and to allow these forces to shape and mold my episcopacy….

The process of "becoming" as a diocese will not occur overnight, and it will require persistence and hard work from all of us. We must take to heart the realities of times that we live in and ask ourselves how we as individuals and our congregations as collective bodies will respond to the core teachings of Jesus Christ at a time when God's people everywhere desperately need to know that there is "good news" to be had and that Christianity is about something greater than the maintenance of parish life. For we are called to reconcile, to become one, not only with our ideological opponents, but also with the suffering and the oppressed, and so I ask you to turn your eyes for a moment to their plight.

The United States is the richest country in the world and yet one out of every six children in this country lives in poverty.

30% of the children in our Nation's Capital live in poverty, a figure identical to the percentage of poor children in Black America. The figure for Latino children is just two points lower. And even during these times of great prosperity in our nation, the number of poor children in working families rose from 3.8 million in 1999 to 4.1 million in 2000. In the District of Columbia 60% of all new births are to unwed mothers, and through out the United States 380 million Americans have no health insurance.

As this nation prepares for war with Iraq, I must urge you as your bishop to pray and work to seek alternatives to armed conflict in resolving international disputes. Pray and work for peace. For war is not only a military matter, it is a moral and ethical matter. A war with Iraq could cost at a conservative estimate, $100 billion, and that does not even take into consideration the priceless loss of military and civilian lives. Such realities will have a tremendous impact on our nation's economy, its domestic policies, the psyche of the American people and our relationship with the global community. Surely Jesus would weep at the prospects that we are facing with Iraq and North Korea. Surely he would weep at the painful and obscene loss of life, liberty and security that has befallen both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We must pray for peace and work with great intensity for justice and freedom for billions of God's creatures who suffer from the real axis of evil: poverty, illiteracy and disease.

Our diocese has a special relationship with the Anglican Church in Honduras, the second poorest country in the western Hemisphere. According to statistics compiled by the United Nations, the World Bank and other organizations, 60 percent of Hondurans have no access to health care. Almost half live without clean drinking water and sanitation facilities. One third of Honduran children have their growth stunted by malnutrition. One quarter of the population is illiterate. The same percentage exists on $1 a day.

Surely Jesus would weep over the conditions of the people of Honduras.
The situation is even bleaker in South Africa, a fact that Karen and I learned firsthand when we visited the country recently as part of a diocesan delegation. Three out of every four persons living with AIDS/HIV resides in southern Africa, a staggering total of 29.4 million people. Approximately 3.5 million new infections occurred there last year, and 2.4 million Africans succumbed to the disease. Many of those were young people. Ten million young people, aged 15-24, have been infected, and almost 3 million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV.
There are 14 million AIDS orphans in the world, 11 million of them in Sub Saharan Africa. Every day in Africa, 15,000 people die of HIV/AIDS and related illnesses. And the impact of the AIDS/HIV pandemic has not yet peaked and is not expected to do so until the end of this decade.

Famine is also a significant crisis. Half of the population of Zimbabwe is in need of emergency food aid. In Lesotho the figure is 30 percent, in Malawi 29 %, in Zambia 26 % and in Swaziland 24%

40 to 50% of Sub Saharan Africans live on less than $1.00 a day, 1/3 of the population of Sub Saharan Africa suffers from malnutrition.

The infant mortality rate is the highest in the world at 93 per 1000.

Surely Jesus would weep over the plight of the children and people of Africa, just as we might be moved to tears-or better yet, to action-by the knowledge that 2 billion people on our planet live on less than $2.00 per day, and one half of those live on less than $1.00 per day.

The Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion must work with renewed vigor to end our own internal struggles and devote our energies and resources to alleviating this misery. Not to do so is to ignore the teachings of Jesus Christ and to demean his sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. It is to ignore the reality of his resurrection and to dismiss the very presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.

In order to think and act globally we must reinvigorate our efforts to engage the good work already begun with the Diocese of Honduras and continue to sustain the courageous work of that diocese's new bishop, Lloyd Allen.

In order to think and act globally we must move forward with our new and emerging relationship with the Province of South Africa, begun during the visit I just spoke of by 11 pilgrims from this diocese. Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, head of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa is not only a good friend of the Diocese of Washington, he is a central leader and key player in the future of the Anglican Church in South Africa. As Africa goes, so will the future of the global community and as Archbishop Ndungane goes, so will the Anglican Church in Africa follow.

In order to think and act globally we must strengthen our church locally by addressing the pressing needs of our own diocese, needs that have too often left us unwilling or unable to live into Christ's desire that we all may be one.

To that end, we will begin gathering and analyzing data from all over the diocese, so that by the 109th Diocesan Convention in 2004, I will be able to submit a clear, concise, inclusive, mission plan for Washington, a plan that will spell out where we must move as a diocese if we are to live fully into the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is not convention rhetoric. In our process of developing a clear mission plan, we will target particular geographic areas and population groups for congregational expansion. This work will also contain a program for the development of existing congregations, including those in areas where the population is stable, based on the truth that every congregation is unique and that "if you've seen one congregation, you've seen one congregation." One size does not fit all is the maxim for congregational development in this diocese.

Given the great racial and ethnic diversity of this diocese, and given the need to address the issue of racism that has too often subtly and not so subtly divided us, I will actively support the work of the Anti-Racism Task Force and others who have worked tirelessly to seek the ways and means of repentance and reconciliation within this diocese. That support will include an effort to develop a theology of reconciliation that will allow our diocese to articulate and develop a much clearer policy on living into reconciliation, first addressing that issue within the staff of Church House and then eventually moving out into the Regions of the Diocese and into our congregations.

Within the next year we will begin the demanding and essential task of working directly with congregations that have been impeded by demographic and financial realities in their efforts to sustain current ministries or develop new ones. I call for this diocese to target the District of Columbia, especially our historic Black Churches and those that are located in areas that have experienced dramatic demographic shifts in their neighborhood's population within the last few years. We must find new ways to do ministry without giving up our churches in critical locations where the Gospel must be preached and experienced and where this Church will reclaim the city for God and the people of God!

"Father, may they be one as we are one," is the vision for this episcopacy that I share with you today…and it will be the vision I will continue to place before this diocese until one day I can stand before you and say "I am the 8th Bishop of The Diocese Washington and although we may be defined by our great diversity and at times significant disagreement, we are one diocese, one body…one people united in Christ where Mercy and Truth Have Met and Justice and Peace have kissed.

Several weeks ago the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church was in Washington to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his installation in this cathedral. His remarks were insightful, and he placed a question to the Episcopal Church and our nation. He asked; "what would happen if God's justice and peace were our hearts desire and the dignity of every human being our deepest concern? He answered his own question by saying, "there would be a revolution, which is precisely what God's work, God's mission, is all about."

For you and me in the Diocese of Washington, let the revolution begin.

The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane
Eighth Bishop of Washington
January 25, 2003