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October 28, 2007

A Word from Bishop Marc

Note: The following edited remarks were offered by The Rt. Rev. Marc Handley Andrus, Bishop of California, on the occasion of the Installation of Fr. Mike Spillane as Rector and the Ordination of the Rev. Beth Foote as Deacon, September 15, 2007.

One of the things that I find difficult as a bishop in new calls in ordinations and ministry is the thought that we put people in roles, both lay people and the clergy. It’s very hard for people to move out of those roles, because we make them tighter and tighter, and by so doing we make people less than the full humans that God has created them to be.

So with images of shepherd and sheep. You lay people are always cast as the sheep. The shepherd always have been the clergy, so Beth and Mike are forever in that role. But it’s not really so in the kingdom of God. God has much bigger things in mind.

And in these times of promise and of challenge, as Mike and Beth undertake serving you, with surprises and challenges that neither of them had foreseen, especially Mike and Julie, I want to say that God always gives us to each other. We are given as complete and full gifts to each other.
And so it is that sometimes children are in a position of having to step forward in families and be what they had not thought they had to be. And sometimes parents in the same way must play roles not foreseen in the raising of their children.

And so it is for priests and deacons, rectors and deacons and the people of God. You have been given to each other as full and complete gifts. And I know that you will be this to each other and have been in the weeks that have proceeded this and the weeks that are to come. I am grateful that all of you are committing yourselves to this. Because by so doing you are showing a great light, the light of Christ in this community. So thank you for that.