wfn.org | [ENS] In Hiroshima, Presiding Bishop preaches at Resurrection Church

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Sunday, October 23, 2005

In Hiroshima, Presiding Bishop preaches at Resurrection Church

ENS102305-01

[Episcopal News Service]  Visiting at the invitation of Japan's Anglican
Church (Nippon Sei Ko Kai), Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold preached
October 23 during the principal Sunday service at the Church of the
Resurrection in Hiroshima. Griswold's sermon text is reprinted below.

The liturgy immediately followed a visit to Hiroshima's Peace Park
where the Presiding Bishop, accompanied by Japan's Anglican Primate,
the Most Rev.  Joseph Toru Uno, laid a wreath at the memorial to the
more than 200,000 persons who died in when the U.S. atomic bomb leveled
the city on August 6, 1945.

Accompanied by the Presiding Bishop, Uno then placed a wreath at a
nearby memorial honoring the more than 20,000 Koreans who also died
in the attack.  The Primates' prayers at the memorials marked the 60th
anniversary of the end of World War II.

Griswold departed Hiroshima for Seoul, continuing his 14-day visit to
Asia with upcoming stops also scheduled in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei.
[Full coverage of the Presiding Bishop's visit -- including his five-day
itinerary in Japan -- will follow with photographs in subsequent ENS
postings.]

- - -

Church of the Resurrection Hiroshima October 23, 2005 The Most Rev. Frank
T. Griswold Presiding Bishop and Primate The Episcopal Church, USA

Readings:
          Exodus 22:21-27 I Thessalonians 2:1-8 Matthew 22:34-46

Brothers and sisters in Christ: On behalf of my wife Phoebe and my
fellow travelers from the Episcopal Church in the United States, I greet
you. I am deeply grateful to be with your primate and your bishop,
and with all of you on this 23rd Sunday of Pentecost. This morning,
I have been deeply touched by the experience of our visit to the Peace
Park. Words are inadequate to express the depth of remorse and sadness,
even desolation, I experience in seeing the devastation caused by this
horrific event. Surely, the message must be that such a human disaster
must never happen again.

With this message on my heart, I am comforted and challenged by the
Gospel reading this morning. Jesus makes clear that the core of our
faith lived out in the world is our call to love both our creator and our
neighbor. The bombing of Hiroshima does a terrible dishonor to both. I
am deeply grateful that you have maintained this perpetual reminder of
what happened here and in Nagasaki. The memorial invites us never to
forget. And as we in the Christian community are reminded of Christ's
commandment of love, we are called to proclaim to the world there is
another way.

In August I received a statement made by my brother primate, Bishop Uno,
This was issued as a Message of Peace on August 15 as we observed the
60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the bombing of these
two cities.  I knew then that I must come to this place and be with you
today so that we might join hands as two peoples, but of one faith and
community, to proclaim that war and violence keep us from carrying out
the great commandment to love one another. I am so grateful that you
would have us here today, and that your bishop and primate would be
with us also. I reach out and embrace you with the joy that comes from
knowing we are sisters and brothers of one family in Christ.

Our two churches, here in Japan and the United States, are on a journey
of reconciliation. In 1994, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the
end of the war our General Convention -- which is the legislative body
of the Episcopal Church, USA -- called for "liturgical expressions of
sorrow and repentance for the suffering inflicted upon innocent people
as a result of the bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

There were many commemorations around the United States in 1995. Bishop
Joseph Iida of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai preached in Grace Cathedral in
San Francisco, an event that symbolized healing and reconciliation. In
that same year, the Nippon Se Ko Kai held a mission consultation at
Kiyosato. An historic document adopted the following year by your 49th
General Synod has been very positively received. In that statement,
the Nippon Se Ko Kai said it "admits its responsibility and confesses
its sin for having supported and allowed, before and during the war,
the colonial rule and the war of aggression by the State of Japan." This
was an act of great courage and deep humility.

In 1997, Bishops Iida and Nakamura visited our General Convention and
received from my church a formal resolution which expressed "profound
sorrow to the Japanese people for the agony caused by the bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945."

These are the kinds of actions God requires of a faithful people to spread
the word of his love and to make possible reconciliation between us.
Sisters and brothers, in this moment here with you, and in the context
of my visit this morning, I express my own profound sorrow, regret and
repentance for the suffering the citizens of this city bore on August
6, 1945, and those in Nagasaki on August 9th. I further issue a call to
continuing mutual repentance and reconciliation for what our two peoples
inflicted on one another.

I am also aware of the terrible suffering inflicted elsewhere in your
country during that war. The island of Okinawa bears the scars of a battle
that claimed so many lives. The presence there of U.S. military bases that
affect the daily lives of the Okinawan people is a continuing difficulty
that has yet to be resolved. Jesus' commandment to love one another
applied to this situation has practical and political implications.

Perhaps the single most disappointing moment for me as primate of the
American Church is the decision by my government to wage war against
Iraq. I opposed that war before it began and wrote to President Bush in
September of 2002 in which I said in part: "Unilateral military action
would surely inflame the passions of millions, particularly in the Arab
world, setting in motion cycles of violence and retaliation. Such action
would undermine our firm national intent to eradicate global terrorism. As
well, it would further strain tenuous relationships that exist between
the United States and other nations...

"A super power, especially one that declares itself to be "under God,"
must exercise the role of super servant. Our nation has an opportunity
to reflect the values and ideals that we espouse by focusing upon issues
of poverty, disease and despair, not only within our own nation but
throughout the global community of which we are a part." I continue to
stand by these words.

In his statement of August 15, Bishop Uno pointed out that U.S. policy
in the world today is pushing Japan towards a more militaristic posture,
even to being encouraged by my government to move from being a country
under a "Peace Constitution" "into a nation once again capable of making
war." I commend Bishop Uno for his prophetic warnings. And I join him
by once again reminding my own government that the United States must
exercise leadership that heals and reconciles, and avoid policies that
foment violence and revenge.

The Lambeth Conference, that worldwide body of Anglican bishops,
declared in 1930 and again in 1968 that "war as a method of settling
international disputes is incompatible with the teaching and example
of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is the same Jesus Christ who commands
us to love God and one another in today's Gospel. The incompatibility
of war with this commandment convicts us of our collective failure to
live by the great commandment.

Jesus' words are not only a summons and challenge for the Christian
community. They were intended for the whole world. On this day, in this
place, let us proclaim these words for the present generation.

-- To SUBSCRIBE to enslist, send a blank email message, from the address
which you wish subscribed, to: join-enslist@epicom.org

Send QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS to news@episcopalchurch.org

The enslist is published by Episcopal News Service:
  http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ens

--