Bishop Dabney T. Smith’s Address

Annual Convention Address See, I Make All Things New The Rt. Rev. Dabney T. Smith, Fifth Bishop October 16, 2021 53rd Annual Convention

The following is a transcript of Bishop Dabney Smith’s Annual Convention Address at the 53rd Annual Convention of the Diocese of Southwest Florida. For 2021, the diocese met virtually at DaySpring Episcopal Center, with congregations attending via Zoom.

Good morning my brothers and sisters in Christ in the Diocese of Southwest Florida. I am sorry that we are not assembled together in a great hall for our 53rd convention. Due to the wide variety of logistics involved, planning for a diocesan convention takes months, not weeks. When the renting of a convention center is involved, it is done a year or two in advance, and when the uncertainties of the Coronavirus are added in, holy guesswork becomes part of the work of the Diocesan Council. Our desire is to maintain the safety of our people and to perform the necessary work of the required annual convention. So, here we are again thanking God for technology. We pray, we smile, we Zoom. It is probably not the most important action that I perform and I am certain that no one really even considers it. Most years, though, when it comes to the early stages of Diocesan Convention planning this question comes up, “What is this year’s convention theme?” I noted a couple of conventions ago that it seems to be a modern approach to give a diocesan convention a marketing theme and yet, that is what we do. Over the past 15 years we have considered: Live in the Spirit, Honor Our Tradition~Build for the Future~Mercy in Mission, The Five Marks of Mission, Walk in Love, Come, Holy Spirit, Christ is Made the Sure Foundation, We Have This Treasure, Transformed by Reconciliation, You are the Light of the World. For me, this is a wonderful trip down memory lane. For this 53rd Diocesan Convention I put forward a handful of ideas, and the one that the planning committee galvanized around was God’s statement in the Revelation to John in the 21st chapter, “See, I make all things new.” It is a statement of authority, of plan, of power, of purpose, of promise. I must admit that the more I thought about it the more perplexed I became as I considered this passage as a convention theme, “See, I make all things new.” Perplexed because I have graduated to senior status as a human being, as a bishop, and as the current diocesan bishop and because the new bishop… the next one is coming. The new things are in the next generation. And yet, “See, I make all things new” is not about me or even us. Praise and thank God! Contextually, this Biblical statement is based upon the vision of the Seer seeing a new Heaven and a new Earth, for the old had passed away and the voice from the throne declared, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” And then the one seated on the throne said, “See, I make all things new.” There is no question as to why this remains a favorite text of Holy Scripture for funeral liturgies. And yet in the Bible it is not a funeral liturgy. It is a statement of Hope for Christians who are living. And the Hope is discovered here as God goes on, “It is done! I

am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end…Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.” It shows that the world is ultimately important to God. This newness is not a human achievement but an action of God to fulfill God’s purpose. God does not make all new things but all things new. In the vision, as it continues, heaven is brought into the city, and then the Garden is brought into the city. Remember the garden? It is the place of broken humanity and it is restored into the city. The City represents human community and it is the community of the children of God, and in the New City, all are healed. All life begins and ends in God. The end, by the way, means purpose or goal. “See, I Make All Things New.” Not a bad convention theme. For all of our elections, all of our budgets, church renovations, plans, old bishops and new bishops, this is where we are going. Theologian, Gerald O’ Collins, in his book titled, Christology, put it this way, “Christ’s rising from the dead has inaugurated the end for all things, the beginning of God’s making all things new.” God’s purpose! So that seems worth thinking about! All conventions should at least have that in the back, or perhaps the front, of their minds. I am not resigning yet, but I do want to say some things to this wonderful diocese before the next bishop is elected next year. The Coadjutor process is canonically settled in the Episcopal Church and in the Diocese. One of the interesting realities of this process is that while we await the election of our next bishop, I find out new information at the same time you do. It feels strange after all of these years and yet, this is the process we follow. So, in preparation for this year’s convention, I looked at all of the journals of our diocese from 2007 to the present and noted some marvelous things. In 2007 I spoke about mission as who we are and noted that as I traveled around the diocese, I saw many new neighborhoods under construction. That still feels familiar in 2021. In 2007 there was a line item in the budget for an Assisting bishop, which was seen as a desired idea, but not a decision. Then in 2008, we experienced the emergence of the first of two fragile economies during our 40th Annual Convention. In its midst the diocesan Episcopal Charities Fund was established. The next year the Diocesan Journal began to expand with greater information about our congregations. Our Vision Statement was formed and the Dayspring Endowment Fund was established. And after a full century, St. Andrew’s Boca Grande was received by the diocese as a parish. In 2010, the Dayspring Steering Committee was formed to plan, pray, discuss, and determine a new future for Dayspring. It was through that process that we realized if we ever let DaySpring go, we would never get it back. In addition, Mary Magdalene in Lakewood Ranch became a parish. Fr. Jim Hedman was the first priest that I instituted as Rector before I was even ordained Bishop. Jim is still at Mary Magdalene. I put that on the list of my most lasting work. In 2011, Iona Hope in Fort Myers became a parish and the groundbreaking took place for the Diocesan Office at Dayspring. 2011 also saw the first annual grants for the Episcopal Charities Fund and they have been distributed in the diocese every year since. As I previously mentioned, it had long been the desire of the Diocese to have more help in the Episcopate. That desire finally became a reality in 2011 when Bishop Barry Howe and Bishop Michael Garrison retired and moved into the diocese, whereupon we gratefully invited them to share our lives. Their affirmation began a decade of faithful service in the Diocese of Southwest Florida. I thank you both for bringing your energy and experience and for the giving of yourselves so graciously these past ten years and helping empower our diocese.

In 2011 and 2012, we began to distribute at convention gatherings and on the diocesan website resources for congregational vitality and strategic planning. This dissemination of materials continued with more information in 2013 on leadership development for healthy congregations and healthy habits for good financial practices. We also had the visitation of the 26th Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori. Please know that I am not going to speak about every single year, though I do have a few more memories to highlight. In 2017, Hurricane Irma impacted the entire diocese resulting in 26 of our congregations and the Diocesan Office sustaining various levels of damage. 2017 also saw the inaugural publication of the Dayspring Catalogues, the dedication of the gorgeous new pool and Program Center at Dayspring, and the decision to plant a new congregation in Wesley Chapel. The 50th Anniversary of the Diocese of Southwest Florida was celebrated in 2018 and the 27th Presiding Bishop, Michael B. Curry, was at our convention to help us celebrate. In 2020, we held our first-ever Zoom Convention, which I thought would be our only virtual convention, until this year’s continuation of the Pandemic. The Pandemic continues to create problems and opportunities. For example, next Saturday Mary and I will go to Ormond Beach so that I can officiate at my brother’s funeral who died last December. The Pandemic separated us. And yet…I have been on monthly Zoom meetings with Bishops from Africa, Europe, South, Central, and North America. We all tell similar stories of how the Pandemic, masks and vaccines separate our communities, while at the same time, the Church in our towns and around the globe is the builder of community. God’s community that God makes new. One question emerged from our conversations in the midst of this testing and trial. It is a question that each member of every congregation should reflect on and respond to, “How do you live your Christian faith in the world?” Said another way, “What is the witness of your life as a personal faith in the living Christ Jesus in a world that is often fearful of faith, separated from God’s community, a culture that does not reflect the newness of God’s Spirit.” A question often asked getting to the same point is this, “If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you.” How do you live your Christian faith in the world? We have been through many grand things together and experienced difficulties and hardships. Yet I deeply value our shared journey. I think we give each other hope. I know that our presence is required in the world. I know that is true because it is God’s plan and purpose. It is God’s end. God makes all things new, including us. We are needed to show and share that truth from Heaven. Thank you for being God’s people. God has made us new, so now we can help others in our world.