Thursday Theology: An Appreciation of Bishop Eaton

Co-missioners,  

Bishop Elizabeth Eaton retired last month. I can’t help but pass along an appreciation of her this week. I have fretted a lot about the ELCA in recent years. I’ll fret all the more now that she isn’t there. “Stop it,” she would say.  

 Bishop Eaton’s was and is a voice that needs to be heard in the church. We at Crossings were twice treated to a direct sample of it when she spoke at our conferences. The first time was in January 2014. She was still serving as a synodical bishop when she promised to join our lineup of speakers. Soon after, at the 2013 churchwide assembly, she received her new appointment as Presiding Bishop of the ELCA. I asked at the time if she wanted to step back from her commitment to our conference. She said no. I was grateful in a dumbstruck sort of way. Others were too when they got to hear her so soon after her election. Nine years later, at the start of 2023, she returned for a second visit with us. We who were there couldn’t thank her enough at the time. We still can’t. 

 What we can do is to thank God for this bishop. I hope my own thanks, given below, will help with your thanksgiving too.

Peace and Joy,  

 Jerry Burce, Co-editor, 
for the Crossings Community

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With Thanks to God for Bishop Elizabeth Eaton 

by Jerome Burce

Bishop Elizabeth Eaton of the ELCA. Chicago, IL 2019

On December 2, 2006 I stood on a stage as one of three finalists in a special election for the office of bishop in the ELCA’s Northeastern Ohio Synod. Two ballots later the winner was Elizabeth Eaton. I later came to think of that as my best loss ever. For once the voters got it exactly right. They picked the best bishop we could have had in Northeastern Ohio over the next six+ years. 

These were fraught years, mind you. When Pr. Eaton took office the momentum that would drive the ELCA’s sexuality decisions of 2009 was already starting to surge. It played a role in her election, the pro- party sensing that they could count on her support. When the decisions came down three years later and sentiment was building among those opposed for a quick exit into the new NALC or the older LCMC, they found themselves dealing with a bishop who was gracious and patient, faithfully honoring the intention of the 2009 resolutions to keep everybody together in a big tent with ample room for all. This was not to be, of course. It never is. Did Bishop Eaton try? Without a doubt. 

There are many things that I appreciated about Bishop Eaton’s work as our synod’s chief pastor. I noticed others appreciating them too. Her collegiality stood out for me. She was a shepherd among shepherds, not a boss from above. She was also the shepherd one wants when there are problems to sort out—pastoral misbehavior, for example; she attended promptly and usefully to such things. She was a great presider at synod assemblies and other big meetings. I saw her win the respect of an LCMS counterpart with whom she shared the dais at a joint meeting of Lutheran pastors in the Cleveland area. The poor gentlemen walked in displaying the look of one who expected little to nothing from an ELCA leader and still less (horrors!) from an ordained woman. He went home disabused of his folly on both counts—or so it struck me. 

Speaking of folly, Bishop Eaton punctured a big bubble of my own along the way. It’s the arrogance I share with others in Crossings as an heir, via Seminex, of the old LCMS confessional tradition at its best. Others must find us dreadfully annoying. We tend to expect not much from ELCA peers who passed through other seminaries, and when not-much is what we get we feel smug about it. God and everyone else have mercy on us! 

I’d be in even greater need of mercy had it not been for Bishop Eaton. I was not impressed when I first saw her academic credentials. Harvard Divinity School? Sure, seriously fabulous if you’re going into teaching, but as a Lutheran pastor and preacher, are you kidding? It soon emerged that the Lord was not kidding where his servant Elizabeth was concerned. She more than delivered on the Gospel goods. Better still, in her role as teacher and counsellor for the pastors of the synod she turned us again and again to the cross and the Christ who hung on it as the be-all and end-all, the first and last, of who we are before God and the world and what we get to talk about—what we must be talking about. She reminded us often of the gift we have in the Lutheran Confessions.  

When, in 2013, the Holy Spirit saw fit to snatch his Elizabeth from Northeast Ohio and ensconce her in Chicago, I heard this talk of hers continue. Others did too. Her monthly columns in the Lutheran were a steady reminder of who we are in Christ Jesus and what the Church is fundamentally for. Peace? Justice? Such was the message that was streaming steadily from others among the ELCA’s movers and shakers. It seems to have gained strength in recent years. From Bishop Eaton came (I thought) a steady “yes, but…”, the “but” pointing us again and again to the witness we’re given to bear to God in Christ, the One who was crucified and raised from the dead for the life of the world.   

I’ve often wondered from a distance what reaction this reminder of hers must have provoked among the reorganizing bunch who thought it good to drop the word “mission” from the ELCA’s organizational chart and replace it with “service and justice.” Did eyes roll? It would be cynical of me to suppose as much so I won’t.  

Which reminds me finally of yet another of Bishop Eaton’s gifts. It was a graciousness toward others that she was eager for the rest of us to share. She says as much in her final speech as Presiding Bishop to an ELCA churchwide assembly. This was posted on YouTube. Someone sent me a link a week or so ago. I can’t help but share it with you today on the chance that you won’t have seen it yet. Watch if so—the whole thing if you have time. Or if you’re in a rush today, go to minute 28 in the recording and start watching from there. You’ll catch the bishop’s final reminder to the church she served for twelve years—twelve grueling years, I should think—of who we are and who we get to be and what we’re here for when all is said and done. She says some things I’ve long wanted someone to say and would say myself if I didn’t sound cranky doing it. Bishop Eaton does not sound cranky. She sounds faithful. She also sounds ever so grateful for the One that she and we have the ridiculous privilege of being faithful to.  

Thanks be to God for Elizabeth, our Lord’s servant. Christ grant her a joyful retirement amid the peace that he alone is able to provide.