Home is where the heart is.

I started to cry the minute I heard her knock on the Cathedral door.

The Investiture of the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori as the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA was a surprisingly emotional event.

Bishops, male and female, were openly weeping - a fairly uncommon sight in the Episcopal Church. We're not exactly stiff-upper-lip British, but by and large, neither are we Sicilian by nature.

And yet, there we were - all four orders of the baptized - openly weeping for joy.

The tradition of the knock at the Cathedral door is one I've grown fond of, actually. When I first heard it, in 1986, at the Investiture of Presiding Bishop Edmund Browning, I thought it just a tad too theatrical. How silly, I thought. A bishop knocking on the door of his or her own cathedral door!

I've come to understand it as an important act of humility - a gracious way of acknowledging that this is not the bishop's cathedral. Rather, it is the house of God where the children of God gather to offer prayer and praise, hymn and psalm, and together, make Eucharist.

Susan Russell and I always joke about General Convention being rather like a scene in the movie "My Big Fat Anglican Wedding." The Service of Investiture, with far less in attendance, was yet another scene from that same movie. Except, this time, all the crabby, disagreeable relatives stayed home.

Indeed, one of the very touching moments in the service came when all the other candidates for Presiding Bishop joined Bishop Katharine around the baptismal font to bless the water before we were all "sprinkled" in procession.

Conspicuous by his absence was Bishop Jenkins of Louisiana. Never mind. I trust Katharine to win him over, eventually - he and his other disgruntled brothers - with her grace and charm and absolute clarity about the urgency of the mission and ministry of the church.

Or, not. And, they will leave. But, that will be their choice. Not hers.

But first, she will make every effort to live out the reconciliation which is the central message of the cross.

As she noted in her sermon the passage of Ephesians (4:1-8, 11-16) makes it very clear that it is the duty of all Christians to seek healing hand wholeness, “making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

It was her message of “home” however which I believe touched such a deep emotional cord in so many.

She was not talking in the usual terms of the church as our spiritual home. Rather, she was talking about our “natural” spiritual home, which, she said, is “in God.”

In this Octave of All Saints, that was the absolute perfect message to make.

For those who had ears to hear, just underneath that message was the extension of an olive branch – an opportunity for those who have rejected her status as Presiding Bishop and Primate because of her gender and/or her theology - to “return home” to the One God whom we all claim to worship and serve.

“Shalom,” she said. “Come home to the shalom of God, a place where no one goes hungry and everyone is invited to a place at the table.”

Shalom. Come home to the home of God where every human being gets to use every gift.

Shalom. Come home to the home of God where no one enjoys abundance at the expense of another.

Shalom. Come home to the home of God where we are all children of God, siblings at peace with each other.

The perfect image I had of that came just before the service began. The baptismal font was high up on a dais, with carpeted steps leading up to it. A young mother sat on the steps of the baptismal font, nursing her young child.

As I watched that baby resting so peacefully in her mother's arms, some of the words of the prayer of St. Augustine came to me, "our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee, O Lord"

I imagined Jesus coming into that Cathedral, seeing that site and saying, “Today, that prayer is fulfilled in your hearing.”

As I listened to Bishop Katharine’s sermon, I was suddenly overcome with joy – and I realized that it was the deep joy that the apostles knew. Just as suddenly, I understood that this was the emotion that made everyone weep openly. We were weeping, yes, but we were weeping tears of joy.

I think we all knew what the early disciples knew which inspired them to drop their nets and follow this amazing man who had a clear vision of the Kin-dom of God.

Nothing else we are doing – not the issue of human sexuality, not whether or not one’s theology is progressive or orthodox, NOTHING – is as important as following this amazing woman who has a clear vision of the Kin-dom of God.

That Cathedral was filled with people who caught sight of that vision, too. We became “prisoners of hope” filled with an “audacious hope” – enough to drop whatever else we thought was important and follow her home to the shalom of God, which, as she reminded us, is both the destination and the journey.

She ended her sermon with these words: “God has spoken that dream in us, let us rejoice! Let us join the raucous throngs in creation, the sea creatures and the geological features who leap for joy at the vision of all creation restored, restored to proper relationship, to all creation come home at last. May that scripture be fulfilled in our hearing and in our doing.”

”Shalom, chaverim, shalom, my friends, shalom.”

The congregation responded, “Shalom.”

And, let the rest of the church say, “Shalom."

And, "Amen.”