Take my lips, oh Lord, and speak through them. Take our minds and think with them. And take our hearts and set them on fire through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Please be seated.

Mark’s gospel doesn’t give us much in terms of background on the story of blind Bartimaeus. We don’t know how often he would gather himself together to go and sit beside that road outside of Jericho. We don’t know how long he had been blind or what even caused his blindness. At some point along the way, he lost his eyesight and he learned how to stumble around in the darkness, making his way through life. And so, he was there that day sitting in the dust trying to scrap together maybe a few coins so he could buy something to eat. And then, he hears a crowd coming up the road. And someone utters the name Jesus and he wonders if it’s the same Jesus that he has heard about.

He asked those walking by as the crowd draws nearer. And finally at some point along the way, he learns that it is that Jesus. The carpenter from Nazareth. And so, blind Bartimaeus begin shouting loudly, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me.” Those around him shushed him, telling him to be quiet because they’re trying to hear something that Jesus might be saying. But Bartimaeus gets all the louder. “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me.”

And somehow Jesus hears that cry according to Mark. And so, He stops and asks the people around him to call Bartimaeus. “Take heart,” they say. “He’s calling for you.”

And so, Bart jumps up, throws off his cloak and comes to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” He asks.

“Teacher, let me see again.”

And Jesus simply tells him to go on his way because he’s been made whole.

And in great Markian fashion we read, “Immediately, he regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.”

“What do you want me to do for you?”

“I want to see again.”

In many ways this has been my prayer these past 13 months since I’ve become your bishop. Jesus, I wanna see. I wanna see You. I wanna see the people before me. I wanna see how our Diocese works. I want to, as Canon Cristi Chapman often puts it, “Encounter the way that God has already been present here in these communities that we serve.” I want to understand with the eyes of faith, the eyes of compassion, the eyes of truth.

And what I’ve seen as I’ve traveled around to our congregations, what I’ve seen in meetings with clergy and in conversations with staff, and those on our governing bodies, all of that is really amazing. Dedicated people who boldly love Jesus, who are engaged in reaching out to their neighbors, who want to do more. People who exclaim like those Greeks at the Passover when they come to Philip. “Phil, we wish to see Jesus.” It’s tremendously wonderful for a newish bishop to hear those words.

But I’ve also seen some hurts. Those who have felt disconnected from the Diocese. A phrase I disdain, by the way. Preferring instead our Diocese when referring to the whole of our 95 congregations, or to the Office of the Bishop when you’re talking about the dedicated staff who work here at D-House. We are all of us, you and I, and all of those around us our Diocese.

And I have seen far too often that when I get beyond Metro Seattle, too many congregations feel that they are alone. I’ve heard the word silo used more times than I can count to describe that situation. And I’ve encountered those who worry if I intend to close their churches while sitting in a room with a handful of others, looking at a spreadsheet with the average Sunday attendance and the operating budgets plotted out without inviting them into the conversation.

In these past months, I’ve heard again and again that many want to respond to the rise of Christian nationalism. The horrific wake it is causing, especially for people of color or LGBTQ community and especially the poor.

And I’ve also seen hope. People who encounter Jesus and want to throw off the things that they’ve been holding onto and find wholeness, and follow Jesus on the way.

“Following The Way of Jesus.” That’s the theme for this 115th convention of the Diocese of Olympia. In the 13 months or so that I’ve served as your bishop, I’ve made it no secret that our main priority as a Diocese is to be disciples of Jesus. To follow the way of Jesus as ardently as we can. His life, His teachings, His compassion, and grace and love and mercy. And that work is relational.

As Eugene Peterson puts it in his book, “The Way of Jesus.” He writes, “The ways Jesus goes about loving and saving the world are personal. Nothing disembodied, nothing abstract, nothing impersonal. Instead, it is incarnate. Flesh and blood, relational, particular, local.”

Friends, it is all about our relationships. And those relationships are key to understanding our mission framework. The relationships that we have with God, with each other, and with the natural world. God creating humankind in order that we might be in relationship, and we are called to do the same. It is not surprising to me that Frederick Bakner, when he defined sin, focused on how sin is centrifugal when it comes to relationships. He writes, “When at work in a human life, sin tends to push everything out toward the periphery. Other people, and if you happen to believe, God, or if you happen not to believe, the world, society, nature, whatever you call that greater whole of which we are a part, sin is whatever we do or fail to do that pushes all of that away, that widens the gap between you and them, and also the gaps within your own being. In order to find restoration and renewal and wholeness, we must sacrificially move toward those relationships rather than away from them. We must intentionally make space in our lives for the time that it’s needed to foster those bonds, those ties that we have that nurture and sustain us.”

And this work of deepening our relationships is the key for our diocesan areas of focus. These connections with God, with each other, and the natural world, they frame and they shape the work that we feel called to do together. And that’s been bubbling up for quite some time, long before I arrived here. Our focus begins with discipleship at the very center. Following that way of Jesus. And in so doing, becoming more fully the people that God has created us to be. We are called to put off our old selves with God’s help and move toward Christ’s. And from there we can continue moving forward as we yearn to become flourishing faith communities, connected to God through vital congregational development. Places of worship that can feed our souls and transform us. That connection to God then leads us toward repairing and strengthening our relationships with others by becoming the beloved community. And then in recognizing our complicity and overconsumption as we seek to embrace creation justice. Finally, within our mission framework, these areas are all surrounded by the stewardship of the gifts that we have received to support our mission and our infrastructure. All of it happens when we embark on the way that is set forth by Jesus.

Eugene Peterson says, “To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the one who calls us. To follow Jesus means picking up rhythms and ways of doing things that are often unsaid but always are derived from Jesus, formed by the influence of Jesus.” “To follow Jesus,” he continues, “Means that we cannot separate what Jesus is saying from what Jesus is doing, and the way that He’s doing it. To follow Jesus is as much or maybe even more about our feet as it is about our ears and our eyes.” “And yet,” Peterson cautions, “A way that is depersonalized, carried out without love or intimacy or participation is not, no matter how well we do it, no matter how much good is accomplished, the way of Jesus.”

Friends, we have to stay in relationship and we have to show up because that’s what Jesus did. Given the times that we live in, some are tempted to engage full on in correcting the ills that we see, wanting to address the never ending need, desiring to call out every act of hate, needing to right every single wrong, but at what cost?

Thomas Merton in his book “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander” writes, “There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealists fighting for peace most easily succumbs. Activism and overwork.” He continues, “The rush and pressure of modern life are a form and perhaps the most common form of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone and everything is to succumb to violence.” He goes on to explain this. “Violence destroys our inner capacity for peace and kills the root of our inner wisdom. Thereby negating any sort of work we might be doing.”

Friends, we cannot engage in action without also tending to our own souls through contemplation and prayer. Within the College for Congregational Development, Canon Ivar Hillesland tells us that this is found in the Gather, Transform, Send model. I hope many of you know this. In it we learn the unique purpose and work of a congregation is to gather those who are called by God into Christ’s body, the church. A community of transformation of mind and heart and action, and then to send those same people out into the world, both to be and to act as God’s love and transforming presence. And then, we do it again and again and again and again because we must tend to our own souls and our relationship with God in order then that we might be in relationship with each other and our created worlds. Our congregations must be places where people can come and experience the risen Christ, so that they might be transformed. And sent out into the world to be salt and light because this world of ours desperately needs both seasoning and illumination. That’s the first of those relationships and focus areas. Our connection to God.

And then, that empowers us to move on to that next area in our relationships with each other, with our neighbors. When Jesus was asked about just who exactly was a neighbor, remember that he made it clear that it was everyone. Even those we might despise. Those ones that we wanna overlook or forget or ignore. And it’s easy to do this, of course. To not reckon with an unjust past or to be blind to current injustices. And yet we as a Diocese seek to see as Jesus did and become beloved community to reflect that broad spectrum of diversity that God dreamed up at the very beginning of it all. And again, we do it by showing up and listening.

Recently, our Diocese committed resources to the One Parish One Prisoner Program at the behest of Canon Carla Robinson and Father Jonathan Weldon. The idea is quite simple. There are roughly an equal number of Christian congregations in the state of Washington as there are incarcerated people in our prisons who are nearing the point of release. One Parish One Prisoner or OPOP as it’s called, connects a small group of parishioners from a congregation to a single prisoner who’s gonna be released to a community nearby that church. For two years, there is a journey of deepening relationships, planning for the release, and ensuring the supported reentry for that inmate. And it changes lives of all those involved. Imagine if there were 95 prisoners who had a whole community of parishioners ready to embrace them, to share the love of God with them. And I urge you to consider this in your own congregations and there’ll be more information about that later on today.

It is clear that our climate is in crisis. As I mentioned in the most recent Zimzum Discipleship video, we’re better off to take Brian McLaren’s advice and designate it the Overconsumption Crisis, focusing on the root cause rather than the unwitting victim. This summer, I named Adrienne Elliott as the Canon Missioner for Creation Care and Environmental Justice to help our Diocese live more fully into the call to be in right relationship with our created worlds. Adrian’s work is just beginning and already it is advancing us toward making a difference.

As many of you know, we have a longstanding partnership with Bishop Ernie Moral in the Episcopal Diocese of the Southern Philippines. The covenant that we made with them in 2012 calls for us to learn about and acknowledge our carbon footprints, to mitigate as much as possible our fossil fuel use. And then, for that which we cannot mitigate, to send funds to the Carbon Offset Cooperative Mission Program. With those funds, the Diocese of the Southern Philippines plants trees on our behalf to offset our carbon use. For them, this has become an opportunity for a joy filled liturgy with the establishment of both nurseries to grow seedlings and tracks of land on which to plant those trees. In the course of the last dozen years, we’ve collectively given just over $65,000 to that program. And this year I am directing an additional $10,000 to them as we at Diocesan House determine ways to curb our use of fossil fuels and seek to care for this planet of ours. Again, I urge all of you to take up this important work in your local contexts.

I need to say a word about discipleship and formation. As you have likely noticed in order to present a balanced budget to convention this year, I determined in consultation with staff and our Budget and Finance Committee to reduce our formation ministry expenditures. This was not a choice that was made lightly. And while the position of Canon Missioner for Formation was eliminated, we did keep $40,000 in that area to continue providing important programs this next year, including the confirmation for youth and adults in preparation for Cathedral Day, as well as for retreats or other gatherings. Our plan is to form a task force next year to help us reimagine what faith formation and discipleship looks like in the full expanse of our Diocese. And to hear where the Spirit might be calling us next. And then to determine how to do that vital ministry together.

Further, our Zimzum Discipleship Series will continue. That began earlier this year. Four videos have already been released on different aspects of our call to follow the way of Jesus. And another one is being recorded next week before I head off on vacation. This has become an important aspect of formation for our entire Diocese because we are called to intentionally make space in our own lives, to tend to those vital relationships with God, with our neighbors, with the environment, digging deeper into spiritual community with one another by engaging with Scripture, by doing and embracing spiritual practices that can indeed transform us. If you’ve not yet checked into those videos for small groups or for your Vestries or Bishops’ Committees, I encourage you to do so.

Additionally, this year our Diocese has received a five-year grant from the Seminary of the Southwest in order to expand our Iona School offerings, specifically to increase classes tailored for laypeople and those within our smaller congregation. And my great thanks to Mirabella Maeve Wyatt for leading that charge. The desire is to build on and strengthen the gifts of laity in preaching, leading worship, providing parish oversight, and more. This recognizes, of course, that shared leadership is for all of the baptized. That we do not need to depend solely on those of us who are ordained for the work of Christ to take place. We are so much better when we follow the way of Jesus together in community, each taking our place to offer the gifts that we’ve been given for the betterment of all.

Finally, much groundwork has been done on the Sacred Waters Center for Restoration and Retreat. This sacred place in Union beside the Hood Canal is focused on being a place of healing for our own souls, for our relationships with each other, and for creation. My great thanks to Dan Oberg, long-term director of St. Andrew’s House and interim director of the Sacred Water Center, who has diligently worked this year on bringing up the facilities of this new venture while also sharing leadership with many others from the Circles of Color and others from around our Diocese. Together, they are embracing a newer model of oversight, mission, programming, and planning. Well, newer that is for those of us in a hierarchical system while being the way that leadership has been shared by our Indigenous siblings for generations. This way ensures that we are hearing and respecting the voices of those from many different experiences. And it is providing a far more robust and substantial foundation for this vital new ministry. We still have much to learn from the Circles in our own governance as a Diocese.

At the very end of our gospel story, Bartimaeus makes an extraordinary turn. He’s been made whole and Jesus tells him that he can go back home. But Bartimaeus knows that his life will never be the same. Instead of returning to the familiar, he leaves everything behind and follows Jesus, much as those first disciples did. But what’s even more striking for me is the very next verse. The one that we didn’t hear this morning. You see, as soon as Jesus heals Bartimaeus, we turn the page and Jesus turns his sights towards Jerusalem and the triumphal entry. The very next scene details what the way of Jesus is really like. It is none other than the way of the cross. Even though Bartimaeus is given wholeness, Jesus himself walks toward brokenness. And so, Bartimaeus walks that way too, taking his place behind Jesus when he chooses to follow Him rather than heading home. And friends, it’s the path that we choose as well because this is the way of Jesus.

Eugene Peterson describes it best. He writes, “God means to do something with us and means to do it in community. We are in on what God is doing, and we are in it together. And here is how we are in on it. We become present to what God intends to do with us and for us through worship, becoming presents to God who is present to us.”

“The operating biblical metaphor,” he continues, “the operating biblical metaphor regarding worship is sacrifice. We bring ourselves to the altar and let God do with us whatever God will. We bring ourselves to the Eucharistic table and enter into that grand four-fold shape of the liturgy that shapes us. Taking and blessing and breaking and giving. The life of Jesus is taken and blessed, broken and given. And that Eucharistic life now shapes our lives as we give ourselves Christ in us to be taken and blessed and broken and given in lives of witness and service and justice and healing.”

Because friends, the world needs us to be a Eucharistic people. Gathered together for healing and renewal and restoration. We are called to offer ourselves, to be taken and blessed and broken and shared. To become more like Jesus. That is the call of the Spirit for us at this time on this day. Will we see what is truly before us? Might we lean more fully into discipleship, intentionally making space in our lives for those connections? Are we willing to become a Eucharist for the world? And will we? Will we hear the call of the Spirit and commit ourselves once more to faithfully following the way of Jesus?