Episcopal New Service March 14, 2007
TEAM: Presiding Bishop tells conference to carry out prophetic witness
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[ENS] At the March 14 closing session of the Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM) conference, which has described itself, in part, as an international conference on prophetic witness, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the participants that they stand in a long line of Jewish and Christian -- including Anglican -- prophets.
A prophet, she said, is ''literally, one who speaks for God -- one like Isaiah or Jeremiah who dares to critique the evils of human systems and also dares to speak a vision for what God believes things should look like -- the godly characteristics to which a human society could and should aspire.''
''The opportunity that is the Anglican Communion is a gift given for a reason, and that reason is the healing of God's creation,'' Jefferts Schori told the conference gathered for its final meal together at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg, near the Johannesburg airport.
''The bonds of affection born and nurtured here in Boksburg are going to continue to transform this larger world for a very long time to come. Because we know our neighbor, and have heard the cries of our brothers and sisters in Burundi or Sudan or South Africa or Nigeria, we can tell that story, and help others in our own contexts to hear those cries in the wilderness. Because we know our neighbor, we have heard the cries of those made captive to consumerist societies, particularly in the wilderness of the developed world and we can tell that story,'' she said. ''We are invited into the prophetic work of claiming our oneness in God, and striving to make God's vision for our oneness more effectively real and complete in this world.''
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
(http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_77743_ENG_HTM.htm), the main focus of the TEAM conference, ''begin with a recognizably prophetic naming of the ways in which God's children suffer,'' Jefferts Schori told the conference.
''We are here talking about the MDGs because we affirm that we are involved with the lives of others, whether they live next door or across the world, whether they are Christian or Anglican or not, and even whether they are currently living or not,'' she said. ''When we say we believe in the communion of the saints, it certainly includes those who have come before us, but it also at some level must include those yet to breathe this air of earth. We are caretakers and caregivers of all of God's creation, both present and yet to come, and that is an important Christian recognition of the eschatological implications of the MDGs.''
Jefferts Schori reminded the participants that Jesus called himself Wisdom's prophet, adding that ''his deeds and words can perhaps be most creatively understood in a prophetic framework.''
''His choice of companions, his parables, his cursing of fig trees and overturning of tables are all ways of speaking for God about the dismal state of the world and the yet unmet possibilities of God's dream for creation,'' she said. ''Even the scandals that we call the incarnation and the resurrection make more sense in a prophetic framework. They are God's response to those who 'cry in the wilderness.'''
Full story:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_83548_ENG_HTM.htm
--The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.
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