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Installation of Wayne Miller as Bishop of the
Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson
September 9, 2007
Isaiah 55:1-11
Psalm 67
I Corinthians 1:18-25
Mark 10: 35-45
Grace to you and peace in the name of our crucified and risen
Christ. Amen.
Wayne, Pam, members and
friends of the Miller family, sisters and brothers in Christ in
the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, churchwide colleagues, and
global and ecumenical guests, it is an honor to participate in
this joyful day.
On behalf of the entire Evangelical Lutheran Church in America I
give thanks to God for the people, ministries, and mission of
this synod. I want to say a special word of gratitude for your
stewardship of mission support that undergirds the work of the
synod, the churchwide expression, ELCA institutions and
agencies, and our ecumenical and global work.
Today I invite you to join me in thanking the people of St.
Mark's in Aurora, who are no doubt experiencing mixed emotions
today as they have given their pastor of 12 years to serve as
this synod's bishop.
I was not able to attend your synod assembly and publicly
express my gratitude and that of this church for the leadership
of Bishop Paul Landahl and your synod staff. I have witnessed
your passion for an inclusive, diverse church, your centeredness
in Word and Sacrament, your willingness to challenge us to
confront racism and to organize people and money for the sake of
justice. God's blessings on each of you in this time of
transition.
Wayne, I imagine the last few weeks have been consumed with
questions──those asked of you by synod assembly voting members
inquiring about your vision for the mission of this synod and
those asked by reporters, although they seem to be interested in
writing about your answer to only one question. You also have
been asking questions about how you will configure the synod
staff, where you and Pam will live, and how to spend your time
the first few weeks in office to not only provide for a smooth
transition, but also begin to shape your leadership.
In a few moments I, too, will ask you questions. I will ask you
about your willingness to assume the office of bishop of the
Metropolitan Chicago Synod and your faithfulness, diligence, and
witness in carrying out this call. I will ask this assembly
about its commitment to receive and support you.
Here is my strong word of advice: do not let your engagement
with the questions end today. In fact, when I asked a member of
this synod what contributed to your being called to synod
bishop, the response was, "Wayne's ability to engage people with
insightful questions that deepen conversation and invite
participation and imagination." May that be a mark of your
ministry as bishop.
Wayne, you have a capacity to invite this synod into holy
imagination, prayerful discernment, and bold prophetic speech
and action as you together wrestle with central questions and
challenge one another not to become consumed with what I would
call distracting questions or easy answers. After all, isn't
that what God's grace in Christ frees us to do? Joseph Sittler
reminded us that grace is the wonder of life, the giftedness of
life that causes us to ask questions that transcend the moment
The readings you have chosen for today provide the basis for
some of the most provocative questions with which we must
continue to wrestle. How can we hear the familiar words from
Isaiah 55 and not be driven to ask once again: Who is welcome
here? Who is invited to the waters, on what terms, and at what
price?
We can reference all kinds of welcoming statements that we have
made as the ELCA churchwide organization, as synods, and as
congregations. Don't get me wrong. It is important that we make
those statements, but we must then go deeper and ask the
searching, hard questions such as: If we are such a welcoming
church, why are we still ninety-seven percent white in our
increasingly and wonderfully diverse society? If we are such an
inviting church, why are we now almost fifteen years older in
average age that the population of the United States? If we are
such a reconciling church, why are discussions of human
sexuality and the full inclusion in ministry of people who are
lesbian or gay still threatening to divide us?
If we believe the radically inclusive invitation of Isaiah, "Ho,
everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,"1
then why the continued economic disparity between those who live
with prosperity and those who live in poverty? If we are who we
claim to be──evangelical Lutherans, an evangelizing people──then
why in God's name are there empty pews in our sanctuaries? Why
are we getting distracted by questions about closing churches
and decreasing mission support? God has placed us in a mission
field of people who thirst for forgiveness and faith, healing
and hope, justice and mercy, living wage jobs, affordable
housing, available healthcare, and for acceptance and purpose.
"Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters."2
Wayne, I recall a brief conversation we had about the
significance of Lake Michigan in your life. With clarity and
vivid imagery you described your driving need to get to the
water. Sometimes it is for solitude at a time of struggle,
sometimes for refreshment in midst of discouragement, sometimes
for cleansing, and sometimes to be in the company of strangers.
I pray that will be a mark of your leadership, too──to challenge
and to model for all the baptized of the Metropolitan Chicago
Synod a life of returning daily to baptismal waters as we are
refreshed by God's grace, joined to Christ's death and
resurrection, and renewed for our life in community and our work
in the world.
What if the daily witness of every member of this synod was
marked by an evangelical persistence inviting others to come to
the waters: the cleansing waters of God's forgiving mercy, the
refreshing, renewing waters of Christ's love, the life-changing
waters of God's justice? That is precisely what Isaiah
describes, "Let the wicked forsake their way, and the
unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he
may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon."3
Wayne, I encourage you to ask over and over again, "Have we lost
trust in God's faithfulness to God's promises? Have we lost the
courage to confront the barriers we erect that stand in the way
of people hearing and heeding the radically inclusive invitation
for all who thirst to come to the waters? Do we believe that the
Holy Spirit is going to show up in our lives and ministries? Do
we gather every Sunday to ask where God has been at work this
week in our personal lives, in our communities, through our
ministries, and in the world? Have we become──as I asked in my churchwide assembly sermon──a church body for which ELCA now
stands for Expectations Low, Climbing Anxiety? Do we believe the
promise that God's word that goes out from our mouths will not
return to us empty, but will accomplish that which God purposes
and succeed in the thing for which God sent it?
I believe the Metropolitan Chicago Synod is leading the ELCA in
challenging us to become a more diverse, inclusive church with
full inclusion of people of color, those whose primary language
is not English, and people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgendered. You also are leading us by challenging us to
confront the white power and privilege woven not only into the
structures and systems, but also the attitudes and actions of
this church and this society. This systemic exclusion means that
all in fact are not welcome to the waters of justice and mercy.
Wayne, model in your leadership the courage of the prophet
Isaiah, who asked hard questions, "Why do you spend your money
for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does
not satisfy?"4
It is a provocative question that drives us to confront the lure
of our consumptive and competitive culture, but it also invites
us into a community of those who thirst for God's mercy and are
committed to pursuing the common good. Perhaps we have yet to
determine whether and to what degree we are willing to be
changed by those who hear and heed the invitation to come to the
waters. For Isaiah it is clear: people we do not know or only
regard as strangers will run to us. The searching question we
must ask is: do we expect the stranger to become like us or will
we be changed by virtue of their presence among us? That
question permeated the life, growth, and conflicts in the early
church and it continues today.
Wayne, there is another question that I hope you will pose
continually: What Gospel are we proclaiming in word and deed?
Can we proclaim that good news without always using the word
"Gospel," which is an insider word whose meaning is known to
some, but
not to all who thirst. As I listen to pastors throughout this
church, I hear about the great pressure many of them experience
to get and hold their share of members in a very
consumer-oriented and competitive religious marketplace. It is
no secret that people look for congregations that meet their
needs, whether for programs for their children or small group
study or a certain style of worship or a charismatic leader. I
remember hearing a quote by a very successful pastor of a large
congregation in Arizona who said he occasionally preaches about
forgiveness, but rarely, if ever, about struggle or sacrifice.
He usually preaches about being happier when we invite Jesus
into our bedroom, board room, and backyard. The temptation is
then to preach a self-help gospel──a "things go better with Jesus
in your heart" gospel, a "Jesus loves me, just don't mess up my
life with that cross" gospel. A self-help gospel then becomes
the prosperity gospel now drawing countless followers all over
the world. Paul is absolutely clear in writing to the
Corinthians, "For the message about the cross is foolishness to
those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the
power of God."5
Wayne, just listen to Paul's provocative questions: "Where is
the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater
of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?"6
Then comes the powerful promise that should be said in every
message, and homily in every pulpit, and written in every
bulletin and on every screen: "God decided, through the
foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe."7
The wisdom of the cross is that through Christ's suffering,
death, and resurrection, God takes us out of our preoccupation
with a wisdom that will satisfy our desires, reduce our
cravings, and make us other-wise. It is wisdom as a feast for
whoever needs nourishment. The wisdom of the cross is that God
does not need our good works to save us, but our neighbor does.
And the creation does. So following the way of the cross in the
power of the Spirit and the promise of Christ's resurrection
means we are set free in Christ to be a gospel proclaiming,
truth-telling, bridge-building, justice-seeking,
neighbor-serving, peacemaking, earth-caring,
invitation-extending, enemy-forgiving, intercessory praying
people.
Wayne, it is clear from your ministry at St. Mark's that you
have marvelous gifts of creativity and communication that enable
you to proclaim that crucified Gospel of Christ with
faithfulness to the tradition and with imagination for our
contemporary context. That is the kind of leadership Jesus
describes in our Gospel reading from Mark. Jesus again asks the
question he was asking from age twelve to his constant
challenging of his disciples to his questioning God in his dying
breath to the risen Christ.
In the Gospel from Mark, Jesus asks a question not unlike you
will ask when you meet with call committees, conflicted
congregations, clergy and rostered leaders who are discerning a
call, or churchwide colleagues. That question is, "What is it
you want me to do for you?"8
When Jesus heard the disciples' answer──give us positions of
power──Jesus was willing to say, "You do not know what you are
asking."9 Then
Jesus turns the question from what they need from him into a
question revealing what God demands of us. He says, "Are you
able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the
baptism that I am baptized with?"10
In other words, Jesus is saying, "You want me to grant you
glory. I want to know: Are you going to go with me through the
valley of suffering, to the cross, and then to the resurrected
life?"
Wayne, I predict that the greatest challenge and the most
important mark of your leadership will be your ability to invite
the people of this synod who believe they are quite clear about
what they need from you first into a conversation about what
God's mission in this Metropolitan Chicago Synod, throughout the
ELCA, and the world needs from us and then to ask what gifts,
power, and relationships we have been given for the sake of that
mission. Our honest struggle with those questions will lead us
into costly servanthood, a joy filled, thoughtful discipleship
that follows the way of the cross in the promise of Christ's
resurrection.
Wayne, trusting in God's faithfulness, God's promises, and in
the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, may your leadership
be marked by unquenchable curiosity, relentless questioning,
imaginative proclamation, and extravagant inviting. Amen.
Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop
1 Isaiah 55:1, NRSV
2 Ibid.
3 Isaiah 55:7,
NRSV
4 Isaiah 55:2,
NRSV
5 I Corinthians
1:18, NRSV
6 I Corinthians
1:20, NRSV
7 I Corinthians
1:21, NRSV
8 Mark 10:36,
NRSV
9 Mark 10:37,
NRSV
10 Mark 10:38,
NRSV
Copyright
2006 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). All rights
reserved. This copyright
notice must appear on all copies and reproductions. Copies may
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