wfn.org | [ENS] Presiding Bishop: A word to the church in the season of Advent

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

Daybook, from Episcopal News Service

December 2, 2005 -- Friday Forum

Presiding Bishop: A word to the church in the season of Advent

December 2005

My dear brothers and sisters:

During these hectic days leading up to Christmas we are invited to pause,
reflect and prepare ourselves to receive anew the One who comes among
us as a newborn child. The readings appointed for the Advent season
have to do with waiting and listening with expectant and hope-filled
hearts for the Prince of Peace. Such waiting and expectation is a sharp
contradiction to much that surrounds us and to the fear and hostility
that abound across our globe. Also at this time, the forces of nature
have conspired to underscore our vulnerability and the impermanence of the
mark we make upon the earth.  This is not an easy season in which to live.

Recently I found myself waiting in an airport, as I often do, and
was caught up in the discrepancy between what I was reading in the
newspaper before me and what I was hearing from a near-by television
set. The subject was the same but the interpretations were completely
different and the language used to defend the positions was fiercely
polarizing. Where did the truth lie?

In this season of Advent, as we make our way toward Bethlehem and ponder
once again the great mystery of the Incarnation, I find myself reflecting
upon the fact that speech or word is the medium of divine self-disclosure:
"the word was made flesh and lived among us." I am also reminded that in
Hebrew dabar, which means word, also can mean event or occurrence. Words
are not only spoken, they happen. In the Book of Genesis God speaks
creation into being, and in the Incarnation God speaks his love into flesh
in the person of Jesus. Divine speech conveys more than information,
it conveys God's ever-creating and self-giving love as an active force
and power.  Words therefore can possess a sacramental value and speaking
can be a sacred act.

Even so, we see and hear around us language increasingly being used to
inflame, mislead, polarize and otherwise divide. This is true not only
in our national life but in some measure in our church as well. This is
not to say that dissent or criticism are unwelcome, or that all voices
should be harmonious, but simply that words matter because words matter
to God and therefore they should not be the means to unholy ends. Words
should not be the product of our fears and hostilities. Holy words
can sometimes cloak unholy sentiments and purposes. As Paul tells us,
Satan is able to masquerade as an angel of light. The language we use
to describe and address those whose opinions differ from our own can
either foster or destroy the possibility of discovering Christ in our
midst beyond or below the level of our disagreements. Therefore, words
should be used in the fullness of their potential to convey something
of God's loving care which embraces the whole creation.

"If I speak with the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not
love," Paul tells us, "I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol." Our
speech may be filled with righteousness yet if it lacks the animating
force of love the words, however noble and true, will have little chance
of revealing Christ.  When we are defensive or threatened it is well to
remember that in such situations, as Jesus tells us, "the Holy Spirit
will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say." Through the
agency of the Spirit, Christ enlivens our speech often by forming in us
words which we had not intended to say: words of grace and healing and
hope which open a way forward such as we had never imagined and catch
us all by surprise. At such moments anger dissipates and is replaced
by mercy, and judgment is transmuted to understanding. I have certainly
been overtaken by such moments and I am sure you have been as well. Such
is the nature of God's grace.

As we contemplate the outpouring of God's self-giving love through which
the Word became flesh in Jesus, we might take a counter cultural step
and attend with greater care to the words we speak and the words we
write. Let us pray our words may carry with them what God most truly
wishes to express.

May Jesus, the Word made flesh, speak his love deep within us. And may
our words be his word of reconciliation which has overcome all division
and gives hope to our needy world.

The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold Presiding Bishop and Primate The Episcopal
Church, USA

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