At the service of dedication, Christopher Chornyak acting on behalf of us all, said these words (I quote in part):

On behalf of Bishop Knudsen, I return this bell to the people of Woodland. May its magnificent pealing…call to mind the great magnificence and generosity of the Creator from whom all our blessings flow.

And the bell was rung – and is rung on important occasions. Like at the anniversary remembrance of the attacks of 9/11…

I walked the Way of the Cross on Good Friday through the burned-out downtown of Lincoln, Maine, with the people of St Thomas’ Winn, the next town over.

We prayed at the river, at the paper mill (may there be jobs…), at the hospital… and at the gaping black hole where stores and businesses were wiped out by fire earlier this year. The Cross went before us…composed of two charred planks from burned buildings, lashed together with telephone wire.

The cross stood majestically over us at St. David’s in Kennebunk as we gathered to dedicate the Memorial Garden. A magnificent Carved stone Celtic Cross, over 12 feet high, casting its shadow over departed loved ones commended to their earthly resting place.

Within the stone carving, there’s a "mistake". You can see it if you look carefully. This mistake is a prayer. Only God is perfect.

With oil of Chrism, I mark the newly-confirmed woman’s forehead in the sign of the Cross…"you are marked as Christ’s own forever…". Blessings on the clergy who make it possible for me to spend time with confirmands. I know this woman’s story.

In a moment of tragic and brutal loss, the cross in a hospital chapel captured her soul. "For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his". And so she came to the altar on a sunny Sunday morning…smiling through tears, vowing to follow Christ as Savior and Lord.

The Cross hangs around the neck of a young teen. We are at Believe it or Not (BION) Camp. My annual "day" at BION always includes "hanging out" time – "chilling out time" with the kids. They have come to call it, "Chilling with Chilton" (I love that). This young person, one of our own, tells of being mocked at school …because of the Cross he wears [we so much need to support our kids -- ].

Later, privately, I ask what the Cross means to him. "It’s about how much God loves me, you know? I mean, Jesus gave everything for me…". Touching the cross on his chest…, he says, "I figure the least I can do is live with the hassles. So I am just going to keep on wearing it".

I am not ashamed of the Cross of Christ, St Paul said.

On the night before he was crucified Jesus gathered with his beloved. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. No more is it sufficient to love one another as we love ourselves. The stakes have now been raised. A whole new dimension of love is required of us, to love one another as Jesus loved us.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts the Christian Church can give to the world of today is a re-definition of the word "love". Love is NOT, contrary to popular notions, a feeling. It is not a stamp of approval which we grant to those who are pleasing to us, or easy to get on with or lovable. Love is an orientation of a soul which dwells increasingly in Christ.

Our loving is only possible because we first were loved – are loved – will be loved, by God in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. The nature and depth of that love is plain. It is made plain by nothing less than the Cross. At the heart of everything is extravagant generosity, the self-donation of God upon the Cross.

Love is always about sacrifice…about surrendering ourselves – and what we have – for others.

Love is time given to stock the Food for Life pantry at St Stephen’s Waterboro. Love is adults who give up a whole weekend – or more – to live with teens at BION, sleeping in rustic cabins redolent with "eau de sneaker" on hot summer nights.

Love is table-serving by people at St Peter’s Rockland, or Trinity Jubilee Center in Lewiston, the luncheon program at St Paul’s Brunswick, or the community-wide suppers at St James, Old Town, held at the end of the month when food stamps are gone…or,or,or…there are more examples than we have time to mention.

Love is inscribed in calendars which record commitments to groups, vestries, task forces, Discernment Groups, Diocesan Council, J2A, ALPHA, EFM, Godly Play, Children’s Chapel, diocesan conventions, Search Committees… and the volunteer Mop and Bucket brigades where the budget won’t cover custodian or sexton.

Love is the Daddy-Men at Christ Church Gardiner, who make wonderful music – and promote the vital ministry of fathers in the lives of our children. Love is an elevator, a handicapped ramp, a chairlift – the gifts we give (often matched by others far beyond our borders) so that ALL may be welcome. Love is the grand swap-meet at the Altar Guild gathering – the urge to share, to be good stewards of the table-settings which prepare the Holy Table for our Feast. Love is the diocesan staff who patiently answer each phone call as if it’s the only one they have received all day (and I guarantee you, it isn’t…).

Love heals all that divides us. The love with which we are loved is nothing less than the love between Jesus and the One he called Abba, who, with the Holy Spirit are ONE and yet THREE – united yet wonderfully distinct.

Love is Lutheran and Episcopal clergy standing with me at the altar of redeemer Lutheran Church to celebrate the First Mass of Easter. Love is the Interfaith Group (Children of Abraham Downeast), in which we, because we are ONE, are involved through our representatives… which has met for two years to build bonds – learning to be truly together (which involves not the erasure of our differences but identifying and cherishing them).

Love is generous donations from St Brendan’s Stonington and St Alban’s Cape Elizabeth and Trinity Portland and St Luke’s Cathedral (to name but a few) to St Elizabeth’s…and all the shampoo which people buy or bring home from travelling for the Essentials Pantry.

Love is congregations which contact me to report an unexpected bequest, or a particularly successful summer fair. "Who needs something in our diocese, Bishop? We want to tithe from what we have been given". The first time this happened some years ago, I expressed my delighted surprise – amazement, even. In a kindly, forbearing tone, the church leader gave me some important spiritual direction:

In a community, we all are accountable. We stand under the judgment of The Cross.

The Judgment of the Cross. Yes, indeed, that’s where we stand. Every day. Every minute. It simply isn’t possible to embrace the lavish divine love revealed on the Cross while attempting to sidestep the reality of its judgment upon us. Now, judgment is not a popular concept. It makes us squirm… and all manner of defensiveness rises up within us. But our discomfort with the fact of judgment does not remove the reality of it.

All manner of religious traditions seek to evade this truth (Christianity is fine, they say, but it’s so JUDGMENTAL….).. Let us be clear about the shallowness of this kind of feel-good spirituality. It is always tempting to flee from the Cross. It is hard to stand under the Cross and be broken open – to acknowledge both our own rebelliousness AND the utter self-giving mercy of God. To us, who gather at the foot of the Cross, JUDGMENT is Good News Indeed.

To say that Judgment exists is to give life real joy. Judgment is nothing less than the measure of God’s desire to draw us ever closer, the wild longing of God to break through every door we shut in God’s face, at whatever cost it takes. Judgment is the turning point, when things which need to be changed can begin to change.

Judgment assures that who we are – what we do – how we act – what decisions we make --- are of eternal significance. At last, we become aware of our glorious majesty. Judgment ensures our dignity – our capacity to be shaped by grace into holiness. And that is what really feels good.

Here are two more stories about mercy and judgment…two stories from so many in our midst. Give me an hour or two sometime, and I’ll tell you of even more wondrous things…even more examples of the turning points which judgment inaugurates:

1. Some years ago, the people of Messiah Dexter found that their life together was crumbling. Some blamed poor diocesan strategy. Some blamed folks who they never much liked anyway. But SOME said, "We must come back together, few as we are. This is not God’s will for us". And so, they began to meet again, and Janet McAuley came to celebrate the Eucharist in Frannie Cannon’s living room on Sunday afternoons, while Frannie, on oxygen and in failing health, smiled as the community found new life. Two weeks ago, I celebrated the Eucharist with them, along with two baptisms. Meanwhile, the Universalist Church in town has offered to share its building, and the people of Dover-Foxcroft and Brownville Junction graciously share their priest, Nancy Moore, with Messiah, now joining their namesake in Resurrection. Yes, we give them diocesan assistance – your dollars support this new life. Their deepest urge, as they said to me, is "We want to be part of the Diocese. We want to pay our assessment. And we want to pay something to Janet and Nancy…".
2. At a diocesan youth event, some of the younger ones were acting up badly. They were, in a word, obnoxious. As we so often do, all of us, people began murmuring against the obnoxious ones, drawing away from them. Perhaps they should be sent home. But one group of kids took counsel together and said: It isn’t right for us to exclude these kids. They have to change. Let’s give up some of our free time to mentor them. And they did. And the community was transformed.

Other Maine love stories are on the single sheet I have left on your tables. You’ll see that I have titled it "50 stories". You’ll note that the 50^th story is YOURS – the one that didn’t get included because I wanted to keep this to one page. You’ll read more diocesan love stories in each edition of the NORTHEAST. Love is recorded on dozens of sheets of newsprint from the story-telling/gift sharing which began each of our seven Area Meetings this spring. And in listening to one another. Let’s do that here. Talk to someone you don’t know…ask them to tell you stories. Tell them yours. Under each one of them is sacrifice… hope… and resurrection. We love because we first WERE loved, and the Cross rises over us as the glory of God’s judgment and the generosity of God’s mercy. "In you is my hope", the holy one prayed long ago, "in your will I am at peace".

We live in a dangerous world. No one of us can evade the anxiety which a sniper’s bullet, a floundering economy, terrorist acts, and the weapons of mass destruction press into our hearts. This is not the time for us to shrink back, to seek false safety or to nestle into cocoons of isolation from one another. Love always risks. Love always transforms.

The safest place in the world is in the center of God’s will. And God’s will is expressed in the words and deeds, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. May God’s will, rung forth like a bell from the Cross of judgment and mercy, enfold us as we do our business here at this convention. May we act as people who know – to the marrow of our bones – that we are loved with priceless love.

AS we consider the difficult decisions before us, let us remember that LOVE is the standard, the love made known upon the Cross, under which we gather. The Cross holds us, gathers us, judges us, empowers us. It doesn’t really matter so much what we decide as that we do it in humble awareness of the self-giving love of Christ which defines who we are, the Body of Christ. And from that sacrifice of our Lord comes the very grace we need to love one another sacrificially.