wfn.org | ACNS3727 Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year Message

["Anglican Communion News Service" <acnslist@anglicancommunion.org>]

ACNS 3727     |     LAMBETH PALACE     |     3 JANUARY 2004 

Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year Message

[ACNS source: Lambeth Palace] When you find yourself facing a new
challenge, there's quite a lot you have to take on trust. For example,
that despite initial evidence to the contrary - it isn't impossible.
Also, that the person who claims to be trying to help you isn't just
having a joke at your expense...Trust too that, however difficult at the
outset, you will sooner or later be gliding along with the rest of
them...

There's clearly quite a lot to that little word "trust". And the more
you examine it, the more important it becomes to our overall sense of
security - the sense that we really are standing on solid ground.
Sometimes it seems automatic. When a child puts out its hand, completely
confident that mother or father is going to take it, you see trust at
work in a way that looks so natural you wonder how you could ever
question it. Sometimes trust becomes second nature - the basic currency
on which some of us have to rely in order to be able to make our way in
the world.

Trust is so important - yet more and more the talk is of a lack of
trust: in politics, in business, in public life - from policemen to
vicars. Perhaps there is cause - but whatever its roots, our own
cynicism and suspicion can nourish that mistrust - leading us to half
expect failure or cowardice or deceit.

In one way, it's hardly surprising if we find trust hard. The continuing
threat of terrorism makes us constantly fearful. We don't know where the
enemy is - and it is an enemy who is skilful and merciless and willing
to risk everything. We may grumble at the constraints and checks - but
part of us knows just why we move in this atmosphere of suspicion. Once
you see the dreadful results of terrorism at close quarters, you can
begin to appreciate why everyone comes to be viewed with a degree of
mistrust.

But this is where the question suddenly swings round towards us. In a
world of suspicion, how do we prove ourselves worthy of trust - not just
as individuals but as nations and civilisations?

We are warned that famine is on the increase in the world once again;
ground gained in the last twenty years is being lost. This is partly
about natural disasters, but partly about the way the global economy
works. We should not be surprised perhaps if the assumption grows that
the powerful cannot be trusted in a world where too many feel they have
nothing to lose.

One of the things that religious belief tells us is that we are trusted
- by God; a God who trusts us to speak for him and about him, to act for
his sake, who gives us liberty to make mistakes and still gives himself
into our hands for us to share his love and promise with others.

We talk about religious 'faith' - but what we mean in plain English is
of course trust. A real person of faith isn't necessarily a person full
of a particular kind of religious certainty; it's a person who has
become trustworthy because they know that God is to be trusted and that
God has trusted, loved and forgiven them.

Each person's life gives a message of one kind or another, a message
about what kind of world this is. As the New Year starts, perhaps one of
the biggest questions each of us could ask is: "what message does my
life give?" Am I making the world a place where trust makes sense? And,
deeper still, am I confident that even in my failings and my betrayals I
am loved and trusted?

I hope that in the months to come you will find the strength and
imagination to keep alive this sense of being trusted, so that all that
you are will speak of a world where promises can be kept, where needs
can be seen and met, where we really are committed to each other's
humanity.

A very Happy New Year to you all.

(c) Rowan Williams

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