Each of us on the Bishop’s staff have been asked to prepare an ‘elevator speech’ to share this morning about what our work, our ministry, our piece of the pie, is about. I have come to recognize in myself over my life a distinct tendency to see the grays, the ambiguities, the unspoken possibilities, the unmet difficulties, the unrecognized potentials, rather than the black-and-white, what is in place, the details that are carrying on their back things as they presently are.
As a result, I don’t think there is a building tall enough to contain an elevator speech that I might prepare, that is, a summation of what I am about with others that might be spoken as the lift moves from the basement to the roof.
However, because one is sometime required to do what is not native, and in doing so to be stretched in helpful fashion, here goes:
We live in a moment in many ways marvelous, where and when ever-new technologies and gadgets invite us to interface, associate, relate with, hook up and plug into one another. And yet, in a measure so deep as to be rarely recognized for what it is or dared to be spoken with clarity, we live in a time of profound disconnection with each other, as monads trolling social media ultimately alone, walking darkened virtual streets, companion-less in a way we cannot bear to admit. In this 21st century world, the Mercer School of Theology remains to offer an invitation to information, inspiration, and the possibility of insight by bringing us together into conversation about the gifts of the past, the present, and the possible future. Centered in Jesus Christ, the insight that counts is not the one that we might offer you. The insight that matters is the one that you might discover in our company. Mercer exists to forge connections among persons, and in that discovery to find that we are connected together with God. In that connection. we know ourselves as agents of transformative love.
Or, to put it more briefly: We live in empty fantasy. The Gospel invites us to full and saving reality. Mercer is here to help. Go!
Believe it. 