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127th Annual Convention
Diocese of Newark
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Paterson New Jersey
The Rt. Rev. John Palmer Croneberger
Ninth Bishop of Newark
Second Episcopal Address - January 20, 2001
My sisters and brothers, Grace be to you, and Peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ. I bring you
greetings in the third year of my ordination and consecration as a Bishop.
Today, I want to speak to you about Word and Sacrament, and OUR diocese of Newark. Have you noticed in your ecumenical
journeys how some churches are built with the pulpit or lectern or preaching station located front and center,
oft-times on a raised platform –sometimes at a level, which seems to be at least six feet above reproach? The other
furniture and surroundings are much smaller, and the architectural message is clear: "We are about the WORD!
Our central task in worship is to break open the Word, to read the Word, to interpret the Word, to proclaim the
Word, to teach the Word, to pray the Word!"
Other churches are built with an altar or holy table or font front and center, with pulpits and lecterns or other
furniture off to the side or diminished in size. Here the architectural message seems to say, "We are about
Sacrament! Our central task in worship is to celebrate and partake of outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual
grace, given by Christ."
I was taught, and still believe that a saving grace of Anglicanism, indeed perhaps the genius of Anglicanism is
that for us it is not Word or Sacrament – it is Word and Sacrament. It is precisely the Christ who meets us along
the road who, "beginning with Moses and all the prophets interprets to us the things about himself;"
it is Christ crucified about whom we preach, and whose name we proclaim, and through whom we pray. It is this Christ,
who meets us in the Word and prepares us to receive him in the Sacrament, who becomes known and present to us.
You need to know that I actually believe this simple, yet profound, statement of sacramental theology! And so,
in light of such a belief, what does it all mean? What does it mean to call Our Diocese "One Church"?
What will it look like for this One Church, for all of us together as the Body of Christ, to live out our baptismal
promises through BOTH Word and Sacrament? My fellow sojourners, this is the very work Christ has left us to do
in his name.
The WORD? What are we saying when we say that we are to actually BE Word? There may well be healing in the blood,
but believe me there is Power in the WORD. All of us must know by now about the power that words have in our communication
with each other.
A person who taught me something about the power of the Word is Tevye –from Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye is a man
of faith, and a man of tradition. It takes a while, but he finally begins to figure things out on the night before
the wedding of one of his daughters. He looks at his wife, Golde, and says: Hesitating: " Do you love me:
Golde, the first time I met you was on our wedding day. I was scared. Golde: I was shy. Tevye: I was nervous. Golde:
So was I. Tevye: But my father and mother said we'd learn to love each other." Words have the power to promote
violence –or to promote peace. Tevye needed Golde to tell him she loved him...to speak the words... to be the word.
We humans are a funny, sometimes sad lot. Somewhere along the line we decided we are too sophisticated for such
simple words - "I love you" so we sold them to the greeting card companies–and once or twice a year we
buy them back and give them to each other...when is the last time you actually said " I love you" to
someone special in your life...not when is the last time you did something special, or even bought something special
– when is the last time you said – "I love you–". The power of the word.
A few years ago on a Sunday morning, I told a congregation, if you love someone, tell them! Life is too short –
don't miss the opportunity. Two days later I came into my office and found a message in my basket. I opened it,
and read the three words it contained - "I love you." I smiled, and thought, Gee, that's nice – Marilyn
must have been in the building! I went home for lunch that day, and said to Marilyn - I didn't know you stopped
by the church this morning. She replied–"I didn't." Very hesitantly, I explained what happened, and we
proceeded to have an interesting conversation during lunch that day. The following Sunday, Marilyn and I were standing
by the door greeting people as they were leaving, when Bert and Helen Hannah arrived at the door. With a twinkle
in his eye, Bert asked, "Did you get my note?: I said, "Was that you?" and he replied, "You
told us last week, if we love someone, tell them... well, I'm telling you –we love you."
We are a people who believe in the power of the word. We may just be the only Diocese in the Anglican Communion
with a Poet Laureate – and we do this not because we are looking for one more way to be different, but because
as Anglicans we know something about the power of Word. So, from time to time over the past two years, Sandy Zulauf
has created some of the poetry that describes our lives or challenges us in word pictures to see what God may just
be inviting us to see.
We are a people who find the power of the word in a story – God's story about God's covenant with us–and the power
of that word becomes real for us as our story becomes part of God's story.
We are a people who believe the Word of God is found in Holy Scripture. There simply should not be any congregation
in this diocese not engaged in some form of Bible study. The Catechism in our Prayer Book says, "God still
speaks to us through the Bible." Don't leave tradition, reason, or experience at the door, but find a time
and place where you can be together with others to break open the word in Scripture and experience the power that
is there.
We are a people who love to express our selves through both spoken and sung word in our liturgy. More than any
other Christian denomination we speak the Word of God through our liturgies. Last year in my first Episcopal address,
I pointed out that there was a significant gap in the ability of our clergy in their mission stations to do the
pastoral and sacramental work they called into by God. Specifically, we had no (official, authorized liturgies
to sacramentally make real that which is already true in the lives of gay and lesbian persons living in faithful,
committed, monogamous relationships. The Commission on Liturgy and Music has been working on this task for the
past year and now has liturgies available through my office. I have also asked Elizabeth Keaton, Canon Missioner
for the Oasis, to review all the services she has seen come across her desk over the years and to make available
to my office copies of what she believes to be the best of the best. I want to be clear however, that all such
services coming out of my office have my official blessing. If you have a service you have written specifically
for such an occasion, please send it to me with sufficient lead time for me to review it. I have no intention of
making a big fuss over all this... we just need to do it. I firmly believe that in moving in this direction we
are providing for the pastoral ministry to which the church is being called in this Diocese and that these pastoral
liturgies are solidly anchored with Scripture and experience and tradition.
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We are a people who believe that the power of the word becomes clear and compelling as we seek to know Christ by
enriching our minds through study and continued education. At a bare minimum I commit to you that this, our diocese,
be a place where on a regular basis you are offered opportunities to enrich and expand your ministries, lay and
ordained, through continuing education. Last year we provided for two clergy conferences, the second included spouses
and partners, and while I am your bishop I will continue offering these essential times for clergy and their families
to grow together. The John Hines Science and Theology Lectures will continue in this Diocese as well as other lecture
opportunities close at hand. I am also committed to making sure sufficient resources are available so that those
who can't afford these and other forms of continuing education will be able to participate.
There is something very exciting happening in our near future that I want you to be excited about as well. On March
17 our diocese is sponsoring our third "Creating Creative Congregations. The very title congers images of
striving together to be all that God calls us to be as Christian communities bound together by word and sacrament
as the Body of Christ. The first two conference set the foundation for this mega-educational opportunity. On that
Saturday in March we will be offering 90 workshops ranging from topics such as building maintenance to liturgical
dance. It includes is a myriad of educational enrichment workshops on a scale unparalleled in anything we have
tried to do before. So, I urge you to participate in this day of learning. My hope and expectation is that our
smaller congregations will send at least 10 people to these workshops and that our larger congregations will send
at least 15 people. Take an honest look at what is being offered that day. Your congregational life and vitality
will be strengthened by participating on March 17. A team of wonderfully talented inspired group are organizing
this first-of-its kind event to Celebrate Creative Congregations. Don't miss it.
We are a people who discover the power of the word of God in prayer. It could be the still small voice or even
the silence of the presence of God in our individual, personal prayer life; or in the modest murmurings of the
prayer groups that under gird our ministries, or as we " lift our voices to swell the mighty flood, louder
still and louder to praise the precious blood. Surely the one who sings, prays twice.
Yes, we are a people of the Word - called to be word to the world in which we live. But, as Anglicans, we are also
called to be Sacrament. There are two people who said some words we need to hear today...two different ways of
saying the same thing:
In 1969, then Presiding Bishop John Hines wrote these words in his Christmas message to the church.: "Words
are not enough!" That is what we of the world's various "establishments" hear from men and women,
old and young, whose disenchantment with institutionalized forms of human concern is transparent either in open
attack or in indifference. The time is past for words. Only deeds are able to serve. Only action can restore credibility
and resurrect trust. The prophets had spoken. And the angels had sung. But God acted; acted in the person of a
baby who could make sounds, but not words, who could not even sing. But who had within Himself the power to act,
to show forth, to be to live for others, and to die for them as well. In the Christmas baby, God said, "You
do not get peace by talking about it. You get peace by loving others more than you love yourself." Words are
not enough. Only the unlimited engagement of God with life, in un-self-regarding love can bring peace to a broken
world. This is the joyous trumpet with which St. John's Gospel opens, "In the beginning was action. That action
was love. That action is God."
Eliza Doolittle said it more simply: "Words, words, words! I'm sick of words! Is that all you blighters can
do? Don't talk of love...SHOW ME!!! Don't talk of stars burning above!!! If you are in love, SHOW ME!!! Tell me
no dreams filled with desire. If you're on fire, SHOW ME!!!
Someone whose name I lost a long time ago, wrote this review of J.D.Salinger's book, Franny and Zooey:
"The book is about a screwball family in New York City named Glass, where, rarely enough in modern fiction,
the members really love each other. Franny, the daughter in the family, has come home from college in a kind of
nervous breakdown, full of religious mysticism and emotional tension, and simply remains lying on the living room
sofa, refusing to eat or drink, refusing any comfort or conversation. Her mother, Bessie, exhibits the kind of
human focus I'm talking about when she brings her daughter a bowl of chicken soup. Every ten minutes she brings
it, and it's driving her daughter nuts, but it's in a concern of love and Franny knows it. Here her daughter hasn't
eaten in twenty-four hours. What does Franny need? thinks Bessie. She needs a nice hot cup of chicken soup, that's
what she needs. And Bessie gives it even though she won't accept it. And even though she won't admit it, Franny
gets the message.
...the mystery takes place. First the gift, loved and reverenced in its own right, taken up and offered in the
hands of love, offered to the beloved for his sake, for his service; then the mystery, and the material becomes
more than material, the earthly becomes more than earthly, more than of this world. It becomes sacramental, truly
holy, with all the powers of heaven contained within.
This is the pattern of incarnation, the pattern of sacrament, where the things of this world, the common, humble
"secular", physical tings of this world are now suddenly vehicles for a heavenly invasion, with power
to bind up and forgive and accept and make new, power to mediate between God and people, between you and me, power
to give everlasting life. And what was once tasteless water now still remains water, yet also has become the wine
of life.
There's a notable passage in Salinger's book. Franny is still pining away on the sofa in her combined emotional
collapse and religious mysticism., but she listen to the counsel of her older brother Zooey as he bawls her out,
tells her her religion is all wet. He says, "You're missing out on every single religious action that's going
on around this house. You don't even have sense enough to drink when someone brings you a cup of consecrated chicken
soup–which is the only kind of chicken soup Bessie ever brings to anybody around this madhouse..."
I like that image: consecrated chicken soup, chicken soup now made holy, chicken soup participating in the nature
of sacrament. Part of my job among you is to witness to the fact that I have seen this happen; I have seen this
happen." End quote. I have seen the common, humble, everyday things become holy. (Quotes from J.D. Salinger,
Franny and Zooey; and In Defense of Materialism, unknown author.)
Peter Gomes writes in his recent book titled Sermons: "For ultimately and truly and finally, we are meant
to be not simply witnesses to the Epiphany of our Lord in the world, we are his Epiphany." We become manifestations
of the presence of Christ at work in the world. I have seen this happen. Let me share a few examples of how this
is happening within the Mission Stations of this one church - the Diocese of Newark.
On November 30, 2000, I was privileged to participate in the installation of Dr. Miguel Brito as the new head of
St. Philip's Academy in Newark. St. Philip's Academy is one of our 140 mission stations. Dr. Brito is a delightful,
competent, wonderful role model and leader for this school. He spoke eloquently about the joys of discovering green
ketchup - a teachable moment about the discovery that things (or people) that you thought came only in one form
or color –might be just as good in a different form or color. My strongest memory is of the faces of those students
singing joyfully and enthusiastically - their faces filled with hope and promise and determination to make a difference.
A few weeks later a parish priest from our diocese contacted me to talk about a parishioner who wanted to make
a contribution in the area of education. After several conversations, the donor made a decision, and very recently
the Board of St. Philip's Academy received a gift of one million dollars to further the work of the Academy. How
many more children have suddenly been given an opportunity to sing their songs with hope and promise? I have seen
this happen.
On Tuesday morning, January 9, 2001, Paul Hunt and I arrived on 14th Street and Clinton Avenue in Newark to take
part in the christening and commissioning and launching of "Leadie Eddie" – a mobile lead education and
blood lead level testing program featuring a brightly painted and decorated van equipped with necessary equipment
for on-site testing and screening of children, particularly urban children, for high levels of blood lead. This
project began through the concerns raised by the Episcopal Community Development Corporation. The ECD, directed
by Carla Lerman, is one of our 140 mission stations. While buying and re-habbing older homes, particularly in the
South Ward in Newark, ECD discovered an extremely high number of children with lead poisoning. Joining together
with other community-based groups and with particular financial support from St. John's Memorial Church in Ramsey
and Christ Church in Short Hills (two more mission stations) this possibility became a reality. I have seen this
happen.
Thursday evening, January 11, 2001 at Old Bergen Church in Jersey City, I officiated at the graduation exercises
of 37 students completing their 2 ½ year course work at the Christ Hospital School for Nursing. Thirty-one
women and six men comprised the largest graduating class on record in the 105 year of the life of the Nursing School
in Jersey City. Almost all of the residents are from Hudson County and for many of them it is a wonderful opportunity
to provide a desperately needed service to the community, as well as to provide stability and security for themselves
and their families. I returned to Christ Hospital, yet another mission station, that evening for a Pre-Convention
meeting, Frank Cronin, President of the hospital told me that the hospital was working at 100%+ capacity with some
patients in the hallways waiting for beds. He said we could open more beds if we only had more nurses. What a wonderful
outreach opportunity. A $3,000 to $5,000 scholarship established by a church in our Diocese would underwrite the
cost of a 21/2 year nursing education, and make a wonderful witness in the community. I have seen this happen.
As of this writing, there are twelve Community Development Corporations in
operation and an additional six being organized. These mission stations are located throughout the Diocese, from
Paterson to Ringwood, from Chester and to Bayonne, in suburban, urban and rural communities throughout our Diocese.
The CDCs are doing this effective ministry; ministry not just of words but of action. We are at work in the world
about us. We do choose to be Christ's Epiphany and sacramental presence. We do care. We will not be trivialized
or defeated, and we are not going away.
Over the past few decades we have watched, some of us complacently, the decay of our urban centers which comprise
so much of this diocese. We are, for the first time in years in the process of building a new church in Jersey
City. But, that's not enough, it's not good enough for our diocese. We need to re-dedicate our selves to making
a difference in all our communities but, in particular, we must not, we will not be trivialized or defeated in
the city --We are not going away!
While we are currently seeing an expansion of the CDC model of ministry I know that this will not be the right
or best model for everyone. Together, as one church, we must stretch our imaginations. There are models we have
not even begun to consider for how we do God's work in this world. I want to highlight one point that might help
us to recapture some of the imaginative and expansive spirit of the Gospel. Not more than 30 or 40 years church
planting was a primary mindset in most areas of the country -- not just on a diocesan level but on a local level.
I would not hesitate to say that nearly a third of you here today are worshiping in churches that were started
as ministry outposts of a neighboring church - Transfiguration, Towaco was a mission of St. John's Boonton; St.
Luke's, Haworth was a mission of St. Andrew's, Harrington Park. I don't know how it happened but I grieve the loss
of this local missionary spirit. There are not more than one or two vestries in our diocese that has seriously
considered such an outreach project in the last decade. Within our new district structure we need to dream again
such a vision. We will need to bring a 21st century mind-set to the dreaming. When we think of mission outposts
we won't be thinking about middle class neighborhoods looking for a full-fledged gothic structures; we will look
to our current buildings and figure out how they can be used more effectively to proclaim the Word and Sacraments
of God. We will need to figure out how to do more with less. Neither I nor the staff can do this for you. It takes
local initiative and energy and vision. But, I can promise that if, through your district structure, you grasp
a vision I will be with you. I will do what ever is possible to see that the ministries you envision at your local
level are supported and upheld so that God's word will flourish in and through our mission stations.
These are just a few examples of how we are and need to take seriously this call of Christ to be present and responsive
to the needs of the world. I realize that much of what will be possible in the future depends on the strength and
health of our central structure. I want to take this moment to point out that this year we realize in the budget
the second largest increase in giving from our congregations since we instituted 50-50 giving in 1990. I can't
tell you how proud I am of our diocese and our commitment to giving beyond ourselves so much of all that God has
so graciously given to us. In this year's budget, 32%, over $900,000, nearly one third of every dollar coming in
to our diocese will immediately go back to the world around us to do the work to which our common mission calls
us. Many dioceses in this country have attempted to move away from mandatory apportionment to a theology of voluntary
and proportional giving, and most have failed. Clearly for us, our continued support of a sound theology of stewardship
based on voluntary, proportional giving is a sign of strength, not weakness, and a sign of God's Promise. I have
seen this happen.
In the context of voluntary giving, I also want to take a moment of personal privilege. I want to thank all of
you, lay and clergy, who year in and year out, have fought the good fight for stewardship in your vestry or executive
committee. I thank all of you who have had your own lives transformed by the theology of proportional giving and
have then taken that vision and worked so hard to teach and inspire others to follow you on the path laid before
us all. I know and I respect how difficult it may have been at times. I know how difficult it can be for a congregation
giving 18 percent to read or hear that others are giving only 6 percent. I know that this makes your mission harder
not easier. I also know that it is our ability to live in such diversity and tension that makes us such a most
remarkable diocese, that makes us a diocese whose theology of stewardship has been adopted by nothing less than
the national church.
Another way for us to put our words into action will be the support of our Diocese in the Bethzatha Project (John
5:6) - the story of the healing of the man at the pool called Bethzatha with Jesus' question, "Do you want
to be made well?" and the man's response, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water
is stirred up." There are voices around the Diocese asking us to look at our real commitment to respect the
dignity of every human being and to be truly welcoming to those who face their own particular challenges, and challenge
us to offer the radical hospitality of Jesus. This year, I will formally convene a group who have met informally
this past year with the inspiration of Jan Hardy and Elizabeth Kaeton to look at issues of the physically challenged.
And, I will continue to support the work of the Commission to the Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Late-deafened, chaired
by Cathy Deats and Sheila Shuford.
Ten days ago the Diocesan Council approved a diocesan structure with ten districts to function during this next
year. It may not be a perfect design, and some minimal shifting may need to take place after we have lived with
it for a time, but that ought not to be our primary focus. Our real focus needs to be around the possibilities
and opportunities for ministry (within congregations),( between congregations),(within a district)and (between
districts). Some of the preliminary work began this fall when congregations and committees and commissions and
organization's participated in the appreciative inquiry exercises that form our visioning process. That work has
prepared us to participate in the Visioning Convocation next weekend, but it has also helped to initiate conversations
of discovery and recognition about what we do best, and how many of us are active in similar ministry, or challenged
to raise up the ministries we want to carry out together as we join forces in partnership rather than in competition.
After the Visioning Convocation, each District will be asked to gather in February as a District Convocation with
representatives from each congregation and participation by other ministries within each District. In addition
to continuing the conversations begun at the Visioning Convocation, the District Convocations will be asked to
elect one clergy person and one lay person to represent the district on the Diocesan Council. The Diocesan Council
will then re- form itself as the newly elected council in March.
What are we looking for? Hoping for? Plans - organized, well-developed plans that can and will be translated into
action. Plans to strengthen congregational life and outreach in a particular place; plans to begin fresh ministry
possibilities between a healthy congregation and a struggling congregation; plans to strengthen and energize one
District as it connects with a neighboring District. If we can actually see ourselves as one Church with perhaps
140 mission stations, there is no end to the possibilities. We can participate in a strategy that moves the whole
church from maintenance to mission.
The Bishop, the Canon to the Ordinary, and the Congregational Development Officer, will be in the field every Tuesday,
at a minimum, to meet primarily with District clergy groups, and regularly with laity and clergy in District Convocations
to support, encourage, listen, and offer resources. The Diocesan Council will re-organize itself to spend more
of its time developing ways and means to gather and make available the resources needed by the congregations and
districts in order for our visions and dreams to be a reality.
Can this work? Can congregations and districts work together within a diocese in ways that are more than just perfunctory
ways?
Two young boys in a village were plotting to find a way to destroy the credibility of the wise old woman of the
village. One boy said, "I know what to do . We will approach the wise old woman when she next meets with the
villagers in the village square – and I will hold this butterfly in my cupped hands. I will ask her, "wise,
old woman – is this butterfly alive or dead? If she answers - Alive - I will quickly crush it in my hands before
I open them to prove she is wrong. If she answers dead - I will open my hands to allow it to fly away, proving
she is wrong. Either way she will be discredited in front of the villagers."
On the next morning, the villagers gathered around the wise old woman, in the village square, and the two young
boys stood before her – one asking –"Wise, old woman, is this butterfly alive or dead?" The wise old
woman paused for some time, then smiled gently and said softly - "The answer is in your hands."
In some sense whether this all works or not and whether we move ahead with enthusiasm to undertake mutual ministries
within this Diocese is in your hands...But…you see the butterfly is really in God's Hands…and..it's alive.
I have one more thought to share with you.
For some time now the management team has been discussing the pros and cons of individual awards being given at
Diocesan Convention. After much thought and conversation, we decided that for this year, we will make only one
award - for church of the year.
As I read the citation, if you think you know the name of this church, please stand –don't be shy –stand when you
recognize the name of this church.
The church of the year award this year is given to this church because it has a very long history of taking seriously
the three affirmations of belief found in the Baptismal Covenant, as well as the five promises to continue, persevere,
proclaim, seek and serve, and strive. This church celebrates the fullness of the diversity of God's creation. This
church practices strong and deeply-rooted principles of stewardship with a clear commitment to ministries of outreach.
Part of this church's ministry is carried out through a community development corporation model. This church has
a commitment to provide excellent liturgy and music with significant involvement by clergy and laity. The church
of the year offers Sunday and week-day liturgies that preserve the historic tradition of the church, while also
offering liturgies that are contemporary and innovative. This church has a strong adult education program as well
as a full program of ministry to and with young people. This church also has an outstanding church school. The
church of the year has a deep commitment to evangelism, and recognizing and celebrating its diversity, it has developed
Hispanic and Korean ministries. This church has opportunities for Bible Study and prayer and sharing and healing
groups. The church of the year has provided outstanding leadership at the local, diocesan and national levels.
This church has on more than one occasion stood for the full inclusion of all of God's people.
Amen.
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