Bishop Greg Rickel Keynote Honoring Bishop Ed and Patti Browning

The Rt. Rev. Edmond Browning is founder and president of Friends of Sabeel--North America.

Episcopal Peace Fellowship Dinner
Keynote Address -- by The Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel, Bishop of Olympia
General Convention 2009 - Anaheim, California

Honoring The Rt. Rev.and Mrs. Edmond Browning

Good evening, I am so very honored to be called on for this very pleasant task tonight of addressing you, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, and on the night when we honor Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning and Patti Browning. It is also a night when I can tell you that the Episcopal Peace Fellowship was the very first Episcopal entity I encountered and became part of, even before walking inside an Episcopal Church. I was a high school United Methodist conscientious objector, and EPF was the only organization which I was referred to in order to help me. It was an old version of what it is today but a very, very important one in my life and I give thanks for it. I have to tell you one of the highlights, in all seriousness of becoming a bishop, especially in Province VIII is being able to participate in the great tradition we have of calling Ed Browning from wherever we are and singing “Home on the Range” to him.

In September of 1985, I was fresh out of college, just married, in graduate school, a new Episcopalian, a youth director at Trinity Cathedral in Little Rock, Arkansas, when the Episcopal Church elected a man from Hawaii to be our Presiding Bishop.

I didn’t know a thing about him but I thought Hawaii was an awful long way from Arkansas!

When I started reading and found he was from Texas, if you know anything about the South, this only made him more suspect! In Arkansas, I was raised to be suspicious of Texans.

Shortly after his election, Bishop Browning said of his vision for the Church, "There are tremendous global issues that face us all. My hope is that the Church can continue to hold these issues before the full membership, as well as society, to bring about some well-being for all. I think the Church has a role in being both prophetic in holding up issues, and using all its influences to try to bring about better conditions for the poor, the hungry, both in this country as well as in the global village."

He later added, "there will be no outcasts in the Church." No outcasts in the church.

I will never forget what one person said in reply to that statement, “What kind of fool believes that?”

Ed Browning became a real hero to me, and he remains so. He held firm convictions, while also honoring the other voice, other beliefs, in a time when it was difficult to do so and so many voices were saying otherwise.

There is a bumper sticker that some of you may have seen, it reads, “Jesus save me from your followers.” Think about that a bit. It is a line packed with so much, the very one we profess came into this world to save us from ourselves and give us eternal life, is being called on to save those outside the Church, from those within it.

Those few words say that the Church, Jesus’ followers, have become the stumbling block to those who so desperately want to find their way to Jesus.

Those few words, come from a generation who want and believe that Jesus can have, and does have, power in their lives, but do not find it in those who so profess this one, Jesus. I have to tell you, I think about that bumper sticker all the time and in this time I would beg us to do it more.

How do we reach those from whom that bumper sticker is the cry from deep within them? Mike Hayes in his book Googling God says this “They come to church with specific longings for mystery or vibrancy in ritual. (I can’t tell you how missing that is in some of the churches I visit) They are looking for a personal relationship with God through experiences that make God a clear entity. They are not necessarily looking for the definitive answer on God, like Google provides them on a regular basis. Faith is not a spectator sport for young adults, they long to integrate it with every fiber of their life, and live that faith unapologetically.

So, tonight, not totally sure what I was called on to do, I decided to look at a few timeless truths which Ed and Patti Browning tried to live out and lead us all into and in so doing point out some of the seismic shifts that seem to be before us right now.

First a shift, from loyalty to authenticity.

I think this continues to be the churches’ problem, that we continually try to emulate what we see working in the world and in other faith traditions, rather than delving into our own tradition to mine it for all it has to offer. In a sense, we have forgotten how to be ourselves.

I think it was Brian McLaren, who will be with us this week also at LA night, who said we Anglicans have all we need to meet the new generations, but we just don’t do it very well anymore, we have forgotten how to be ourselves. He calls it the “Episcopal moment,” right now.

We are trying to invent something new, when in fact, we may just need to rediscover who we are, but we will have to change! Some of you in here have heard me tell you of my favorite tip jar at a coffee shop the reads, “If you fear change, leave it here!” we need to do that.

This past winter I finally took advantage of the mountains, and the snow on those mountains, which are so close to us in Seattle. I had not skied in over 15 years, my wife and son had never done it, so one day we finally had the chance. I took a few lessons and then figured I could conquer the slopes and so I headed for the ski lift.

When I got on, by myself, of course they put you on with someone else, and on with me was a 25 year old snowboarder. And we lived by the approved social contract of the great Northwest. We did not talk to one another. And then all of the sudden the lift stopped, and we were dangly there about 40 feet above the snow, for what lasted a long time. And in our nervousness we began to talk. He asked me where I was from, I told him I live in Seattle but I came from Texas and he asked, Not much snowsking in Texas huh? No, I said. And then he asked the inevitable question, “What do you do?” And I always hate this question quite frankly, you know, I like to avoid it. In the past I have just said, I am in sales! But, I decided, no, I will say it, I am a ski lift for God’s sake, he can’t run away. And so I said, it, I am a bishop. What’s a bishop he asked. I told him I didn’t have a clue but I was trying to figure it out.

And then we had this great conversation. He told me, you know I don’t really have anything against religion. But in my life, I don’t know one person, not in my family, not my friends, who have claimed being religious. Some of them do some great things for the world, but they don’t, any of them I know of, do it in the name of any religion.

Seems like Jesus was a pretty awesome guy, I just don’t see Jesus in those that use that name. Jesus save me from your followers.

We, in our enlightenment mentality have gotten to the point of wringing mystery completely out of our existence. It is either true because the Bible says it is, or because science has proved or disproved it, and there is nothing in between.


The generations preceeding lived in a time when you were to be loyal to one or the other. It was not OK to be unsure or to appear to not have an allegiance. Although I sense this was often the case, it was not wise to articulate it, to go against tradition and the establishment.

The new generations need more, want more, expect more, and crave the authenticity of the Jesus many of them seem to know more about than we do.

Generations before came to church because you were supposed to, loyalty to institutions was expected and revered. Not so now. In fact, we are again suspicious of institutions, but I don’t see the younger generations throwing institutions out simply because they are institutions.

No, they realize there is a good place for such things, but they loathe the propping up of institutions without self reflection and criticism and creativity. I must tell you I visit some churches and walk out wondering if I were not the Bishop, would I go back?

9:30 pm Compline at St. Mark’s Cathedral is an example for me. The first time, after moving to Seattle and becoming Bishop, in actually my first week as Bishop, I was actually able to visit Compline; I had listened many times online, but there I was, dressed like a bishop, sitting in the midst of this mass of 500 to 600 people, mostly very young people, some of them laying in the pews, some up under the altar, their coats strewn around like this was their living room.

I was moved, but I was absolutely shocked, when the Creed came around, without a word of prompting, the whole crowd stood, came to their feet for the Creed, and as soon as it ended they resumed their prior positions. It was one of the holiest, mysterious moments I have ever been privileged to be part of.

This emerging time we encounter now presents us with the huge challenge of changing systems that have existed for quite a while and for which there is so much inertia, human and institutional, to change.

To leave behind a rather domesticated Jesus to discover again the wild, and foolish Jesus which pressed us to the edges. There is no more loyalty without authenticity.

Second, a shift from Authority, in its worst sense, to Leadership

In short, Authority is keeping the organization within the predetermined boundaries set up by the past and the present structure. Leadership is when one is willing to call to task that structure and to even attempt to move beyond it, but that is dangerous. Leadership is dangerous. Ed and Patti Browning and any of God’s fools have found this out along the way. In this sense the new generations are tremendous leaders. They are questioning and moving us beyond the boundaries of where we have been and questioning even what we have called sacred.

Bandy and Easum said years ago in their great book, Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers, the established church must cease worshiping at the altar of control, or perish. We may be seeing this come true. Authority is needed but at its worse it becomes oppressive control, and stifling to the growth and power of the church. We need leadership, and the truth that comes from conviction such as Ed and Patti Browning.

Third, a shift from Attractional to Missional, with my hat off extensively to Reggie McNeal.

The attractional model of church creates a ‘member culture,’ in which people join a particular church and support that organization with their attendance, their money, their prayers, and their talent. The flow is toward the church, which is always at the center of the action, where the big game is being played.

The missional church is made up of missionaries, who are playing the big game every day. They live their lives with the idea that they are on a mission trip. On mission trips, people focus on the work of God around them, alert to the Spirit’s prompting, usually serving people in very tangible ways, often in way that involve some sacrifice or even discomfort. Life on mission is more intentional and more integrated. While the concerns of life (family, work, leisure) are pursued, they are part of a larger story being played out for the missionary.

The member culture views society as a series of silos: politics, business, education, arts, media, technology, health care, social sector, and so forth. All of them are separate. The church culture has developed its own silo; a parallel culture in many respects complete with schools, businesses, educational institutions, health care facilities, sports clubs, travel associations, and social agencies. Positioned as one silo among others, the church works to recruit people and resources from the other domains, vying for attention and money. Its activities serve effectively to take a lamp and put it under a bushel.

The missional church views the church’s position in society very differently. It understands that God has his people his missionaries deployed across all domains of culture. After all, since the mission is redemptive and the world is God’s target, doesn’t it make sense that he would take this approach? Otherwise, how would salt be distributed or light puncture the darkness?

Quotes from Reggie McNeal’s “Missional Renaissance” (Jossey-Bass, February 2009), page 54 & 55.

This is much the same as what Diana Butler-Bass and Phyllis Tickle are now telling us, that difference between establishment, and intentionality, or inherited church, and emerging church.

When I had the great pleasure of seeing and speaking with Bishop Browning in the House of Bishops yesterday about this evening, I asked him about tonight and I asked, what would you like to see come out of tonight’s gathering, what would you like me to say?

He said, that people know that justice and peace are never done, we must work for it always so that perhaps someday we will really have peace.

What kind of fool believes that? Just the kind of fool I want leading my Church. There are many of them out there, they are young, and wild, and foolish, emerging, waiting for us to let them use their gifts, and set them free .

Ed and Patti, you wonderful fools. Thank you, for leading us, and for giving us the permission to be authentically, bravely, God’s fools, fools for Christ. And so let our prayer be, this night, and always, Jesus, help us be the followers you lived and died for so that justice and peace might be truly known.

And I want to end this night with a prayer, prayed in the House of Bishops yesterday at the end of the day when Frank Griswold and Ed Browning were present, that historic day. This prayer was written and delivered by one of our very able chaplains, Carol Wade.

O source of surrender, your whisper of peace is as close as our breath,
yet you have made us with bodies that reach beyond our own skin.
Gazing upon ourselves we are not right,
but in the face of another our eyes do glean hope.
For when we turn from exclusion and into embrace,
you are embodied in the world and the world in your body.
May we cease to put asunder what you have joined together,
for until we give way to your love there will be no peace.


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