wfn.org | Sermon for Meeting of Primates

[a.whitefield@quest.org.uk]

March 18, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
The Anglican Communion Office, London, UK
Director of Communications - Canon James M Rosenthal
Tel: [44] (0)171 620-1110   Fax: [44] (0)171 620-1070

97.3.3.3

Sermon for Meeting of Anglican Communion Primates
Sunday, March 16, 1997
The Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning
Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church USA

Preface

I have no intention of repeating the eloquent words of the Archbishop of 
Canterbury on Tuesday evening, when he spoke of the future of Jerusalem, 
this golden city beloved of so many people.  At other times, and in
other places, I have had my say. Today I simply want to place myself
squarely behind the archbishop. You know that you have said something of
consequence when the press attacks you.  The press attacked our
archbishop for being nave and for sticking his nose where he ought not.
We have heard this before. But there is nothing nave about prayer, hope
and vision.  Such things move mountainsQeven mountains of hatred and
violence.  May our archbishopQand all of usQcontinue to meddle in such
things.

        Now is the judgment of this world,
        Now shall the ruler of this world be cast out.
        (John 12:31)

This paradoxical statement of Jesus, capping a week of paradox, must
have seemed stunningly inaccurate at the time.  It certainly did not
look like the ruler of the world was being cast out. It looked like the
ruler of the world was winning a resounding victory.  Certainly it
looked like that to JesusU friends: the end of a dream, the utter
failure of their hope for the kingdom of God on earth. They would not
have said things were finally coming together at that moment They would 
have said that things were coming apart.

        This is the paradox of our faith.  We remember that John wrote
among a people already beginning to experience persecution.  He knew of
their sorrow, of the difficulties of their situation, the terrible
challenges to their faith.  But he also knew ;that God moves most
powerfully in the human situations that seem most hopeless.  When does
the flame of faith burn most brightly in the human heart?  Is it during
the easy times, the times when everything goes along smoothly and
without incident?  Is it not true that we see the face of Jesus Christ
most clearly at the times when we most need to see him?  We look for
Jesus when the world is especially cruel, and he does not fail to reveal
himself to us.  The early church used to say that the blood of its
martyrs was the seed of its growthQand we are here today because what
the early church said was true.  God adds to us the strength that we
need.

The most important thing that we can give those committed to our care is
the example of Christian courage that we set for them.  Let them see
Jesus:  Let them see leaders who value our faith so highly that we are
glad to sacrifice for it, whose hoped is so lively that no power on
earth could wreck it.  If this is your legacy to them, they will have
all that they need to live and grow into the full stature of Christ,
whatever happens to them in the world.

In the lives of our several churches and in our own lives, this is just
the way it is: the life of faith always skates perilously near the edge
of failure and frequently tumbles into the abyss.  The broad avenues of
success and respect are ordinarily not the paths along which God leads
us. We are called to a more dangerous walk, straight into the mouth of
evil, straight into confrontation with the worst that the world can do
to the children of God.  RPray for us now and at the hour of our death,S
we beg the saints, because we know that the moment of danger is a holy
moment, a moment over which the spirit hovers lovingly.  

We are here to witness for peace among people of war, to assert the
claims of life against the merchants of death, to serve the poor in a
world smitten with the rich, to honor the spirit in a world addicted to
the desires of the flesh.  Such a set of values is not a recipe for
world success, and very often the people of God do not succeed.

In our day, we share with our brothers and sisters who taste worldly 
failureQin so many countries where the faith is persecuted in this
century that has seen more religious persecution than all the early
centuries, so famous for their holy martyrs, combined.

If we do not share the pain of worldly failure when it comes to one of
us, if we abandon one another, each to our own local sorrows and
challenges, we lose the gift of paradox which is GodUs primary way of
interacting with the human.  We cannot know the risen Christ if we
shrink from the crucified Christ.  We who work in countries where our
faith is not officially challenged are especially in danger, for the
paradox is often very available to us: if we allow ourselves to remain
in the sunny, complacent meadows of the worldly security our enlightened
national governments protect, security will turn to apathy very soon,
and nothing saps our spiritual strength more efficiently than apathy. 
Nobody is padlocking the doors of American churches to prevent the
faithful from gathering.  Nobody is putting American priests and bishops
and laypeople in jail for witnessing to Christ.  Our lives are not in
danger because we are Christians.  But our souls will grow soft if we do
not engage in the struggle of our brothers and sisters for whom these
things are daily realities.

When the men said, RWe want to see Jesus,S they didnUt know the extent
of the paradox of Jesus.  Of course they wanted to see the healer, the 
wonderful preacher, the famous friend of the poor.  But I am sure that
they didnUt particularly want to see the condemned man struggling along
the road under the instrument of his own death whiled the crowd jeered,
the abandoned man, the convicted criminal.  But Jesus was seamless: you
didnUt get one Jesus without the other. DidnUt then, and donUt today.
There is still only one way to participate in the Resurrection, and it
is by way of the cross.

To Christ crucified, risen and redeeming, who lives and reigns with the
God who created us and the Spirit who sanctified us, be glory now and
forever.  
Amen.