wfn.org | The Archbishop of Canterbury's Serm

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org]

August 6, 1997
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

97-1921
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Sermon for the Convention
Eucharist, Saturday, 19 July 1997

(This is not a transcription. The words are from the original printed press
release issued prior to delivery, as audited by Richard Jordan,
Coordinator, Interfaith Partnership for the Environment, UN
Environment Program~who was in attendance at the service.)

     I am so delighted to be with you all at your General Convention.
Thank you for your kind invitation. In terms of history, ECUSA has a
special place in the Anglican Communion and I am pleased to bring you
the greetings of the Church of England. There is so much vital work for
the Episcopal Church to do when it gathers, and the 72nd Convention is
no different in that respect than any of its predecessors. This time,
however, you have not only to think of Ed Browning and his ministry,
but also of the election of a new Presiding Bishop. There is so much to
be done that you may in a very real sense feel the burden of the
responsibility. The enormity of the task reminds me of the Texan farmer
who was speaking with an English farmer. The English farmer had no
idea how huge a ranch the Texan farmer owned. "When I jump in my
car at 6 AM, by noon I am not even half way across the ranch." The
English farmer replied: "Yes, I know how you feel, I once had a car like
that."
      So the Gospel reading for this Eucharist is very relevant to what
you do. "Bend your necks to my yoke and learn from me, for my burden
is easy and my yoke is light." This passage is about transformation. It is
the climax of a long section of Jesus' teaching on mission and leadership
that began with the sending out of the twelve. The mission is clear~go
out and preach, live for me, serve those who are in need, and don't
worry about your own well-being. And the passage is all about a tapestry
of contrasts: sheep among wolves; the wisdom of serpents and the
innocence of doves. "You will be flogged in holy places," Jesus said,
"fathers will betray children, and children will rebel against their parents.
But he who endures until the end will be saved."
     This is the message that Jesus proclaimed to those who are his
disciples. But it is a message that the sophisticated, the learned and the
complacent find not just uncomfortable but also incomprehensible. For he
is turning the values of the world upside down, and in so doing he offers
transformation~not only to those who are cared for or preached to but to
those who are true disciples. "Come to me all who labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest." "The burden you carry is indeed heavy ,
but I am here to take that burden from you. In its place, take my yoke
upon you - learn from me. My yoke is easy and my burden is light."
     My brothers and sisters, is it possible that we can so focus our
lives and ministries on Christ that the burdens we carry as a Church can
be transformed? My brothers and sisters, I also have a great love for
your country, your people, your enormous generosity, and your desire
for freedom. I love your Church, which has made me so very welcome
whenever I come to your country and your dioceses. It fills me with a
profound sense of gratitude. Whatever the challenges, the tensions that
arise from time to time, I know that the Episcopal Church will be there
in the thick of things facing up to it all. So never think that I am one of
those who wants to knock your Church. The Anglican Communion is
reliant upon your energy, your vision and your extraordinary generosity.
It adds a richness to the life of the Anglican Communion that is unique,
and I want you to know how much I appreciate that.
     Let me just quote one or two examples. Last year I visited Los
Angeles and I was struck by the extraordinary and devoted ministry of a
young priest among the most deprived Hispanic community there. I have
seen wonderful work in Chicago, both on the West and south Sides, with
black communities. I have seen recently the magnificent housing project
run by the churches in the South Bronx. You give wonderful support to
the ministry of the Secretary-General of the Anglican  Consultative
Council, and to Bishop James Ottley, our Observer at the United
Nations, and through the Presiding Bishop's fund, extraordinary help to
projects all over the world. In addition, individual parishes, and I think
now of Trinity Church, Wall Street, just celebrating its 300th year of
ministry, and the marvelous support that Virginia Theological Seminary
has given to the Inter-Anglican Doctrinal Commission, and I can go on
and on and on with examples. There is so much more in the life of this
Church for which to give thanks, and that spirit of adventure and
unrestrained joy that infuses so much of your work and worship is truly
life-giving to others.
     But some of you will have come here with heavy hearts. The
burdens of the challenges that are presenting themselves to you are
anything but easy and light. There are those standing in the wings~and
some of them in the media~who have got it into their heads that this
General Convention is somehow going to sound the death-knell either of
the Episcopal Church or of the Anglican Communion or possibly both.
     We know that will not be the case, but, with the Gospel ringing in
our ears, we need too to recognize the nature of our Communion today.
We have become a wonderfully rich and diverse network of Christian
communities in every part of the globe and the challenges faced by our
Communion in the United States or in the United Kingdom are not likely
to die. Our churches are not going to be invaded by security police firing
tear gas, and beating up those at prayer, as happened in Nairobi
Cathedral just 10 days ago. It is highly unlikely that one of our bishops
would lose his dearly-loved wife in a land mine explosion, as happened
to one of our bishops in Northern Uganda last month. But then, some of
our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world do not understand
some of the serious challenges that we face in different contexts.
     So, you see, we face a potential conflict, a paradox that is in
danger of becoming a burden. Anglicanism is flourishing. At its heart is
the principle of freedom. We are not a monolithic Church that dictates to
its members precisely what must be the package of faith. Nor are we
simply a collection of independent Churches. To be Anglican is to be
part of a movement, a movement that is confident in its roots in the
Gospel and historic Christianity, confident in its determination to be a
people on the move, in our desire to remain in relationship with one
another - to be in communion~because of our relationship in Christ. In
itself this suggests a voluntary curtailment of our freedom. Our freedom
is the freedom to love. It is the freedom to serve. It is the freedom from
the shackles of the world that allows us to stand out from the crowd and
to deny ourselves in our service of our Lord Jesus Christ.
     And where is our model for this freedom? It is Christ himself.
John Taylor, former Bishop of Winchester in England, wrote these words
in his book 'The Christ-like God': "When we pray we are in the
presence of a God whose hands are tied by love for us and the
world....To make this recognition concrete, the truest image we can have
in mind of the God of whom we pray is that of the crucified Jesus...."
     My dear friends of ECUSA, allow me to offer you some thoughts
from this Gospel reading as you continue your work. 
     First, there will be no great work done for God if our Christology
is not great. In all the temptations of our world's confusions we are here
to 'lift high the cross' as the hymn puts it. A Church that has an exalted
view of Christ as Savior, as redeemer, and Lord always will be a Church
ever expectant, ever hopeful, ever trustful. And so the Gospel reading
calls upon us never to apologize for saying that "no one knows the Son
but the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son." You see,
this is a ringing call to be confident in our witness and trustful in the
Lord of the Church. The Church continues to change always today.
Believe it and
live it.
     Second, there will be no great work done for our Lord if we are
not prepared to take his yoke upon us. There is an order to our freedom.
Our hand are tied in our love of Christ and of his Body. That yoke may
take many different forms. For all of us it means holiness of life and the
call to a distinctive life pattern of prayer and
devotion. But for some of you it may take the form of suffering
physically. For others it may take the form of sacrificial witness and
prophetic action. Our freedom is
given to us as we take on the yoke of Christ, which is the cross. Have
you noticed in your societies, and I notice it in mine, that we live in
societies that are
fierce to pronounce about 'rights' but seemingly reluctant to talk about
responsibilities. And as Episcopalians we have responsibilities too - to
walk together, to promote peace and harmony, to maintain unity fiercely
as if our own life depended upon it. A communion such as ours is
vulnerable to the pressures of disunity. We are not, and never will be,
please God, the kind of Church that imposes answers from above in
order to defend our unity. Rather, we are a Church, or hope to be a
Church, which strides out from behind our defenses in order to meet and
greet people on their territory. We are a Church that seeks to serve God
by serving, not controlling, people. We are a people who give thanks for
the richness of our faith as we seek to articulate it in our own situation,
and who are always penitent for our abject failures.
     You may know that this past weekend we had our General Synod
in England and the press were there in great force expecting our Church
to tear itself apart on the issue of human sexuality. They were wrong and
it didn't. But one of our national papers had a headline that read
'Vultures gather over the head of George Carey'. Well, surprise,
surprise. I felt like writing to the paper that I am sorry to disappoint
everybody, but I am still alive and so is our Church. It is not a dead
church over which the vultures hover, but a Church passionately
committed to God's truth, committed passionately to making disciples
and to be a Church of growth and committed above all to our Lord Jesus
Christ.
     Third, no great work will be done for our Lord if we are not
obedient to God and at unity with one another. The yoke is a burden that
we carry for Him and for others. Our Lord says in that passage: "Learn
from me..." We must go on learning and listening and praying and
struggling. And make no mistake about it, the great heresy of all is the
failure to live and work together as Christians when we disagree and we
dare not, must not, should not, allow any issue however personally
sacred to each of us to become a matter that divides the Church of God.
How at this point, some of you are looking for any coding. You are
saying: "Ah, at last, here it comes. He is talking about homosexuality!"
"Or is it women priests or bishops?" Well, no. Not necessarily. For
example, my Church in England has for many years been driven by a
troika of three high spirited horses: evangelicals, liberals, and
anglo-catholics. And at times in the past we have been deeply divided
and bitterly entrenched. We have lobbed verses of scripture, like hand
grenades, into one another's camps, and sometimes some verses of
scripture have been lobbed back. Thank God we are learning to live
together better these days. And perhaps God is reminding us through the
deep secularism of Western Europe that our mission is far more
important than the paltry things that divide us. So it is with you and the
future of ECUSA that you carry in the womb of this Convention.
     It is in this spirit~truly a Christlike spirit~that we endeavor to
hold not only to our cherished views and ideas, but to develop stronger
bonds of friendship, loyalty and mutual respect.
     My brothers and sisters in Christ, your responsibilities here in this
Convention are great. You must wrestle with some key issues. In some
you will find agreement, in others disagreement. My plea to you all is to
keep your eyes focused on the God whose hands are tied by his love for
you and for his world. And that same God is made concrete in the
broken figure of his crucified Son. That is the extent of God's love for
each one of us. Remember that no matter how much you think you are
dealing with issues, you are not: you are always dealing with people,
people who wound, people who hurt, people who bleed, people who feel,
and people with whom you disagree who are made in the image of our
Lord. And perhaps we can hold in our hearts and prayers the title of a
well-known book "No Outcasts" by Ed Browning. God does not cast out,
God gathers in. As Ed writes in that book, "Tolerance is a gift from God
we need to exercise and accept. It means taking risks, facing pain and
tension, the contradictions, as we seek to discover and articulate
God-given truth to one another and to the world, that Christ will come to
us and take our burden, to give us rest. If we seek to avoid, if we shy
away from wrestling with the truth, turning in on ourselves and erecting
barriers, then it is Truth that dies in the crossfire."
     Let me end with part of a poem that actually comes from a
French bishop~a dream of how the Church of the future might be:

May she be A Church where it's good to live,
where you can breathe, and say what you think.
A Church of freedom 
A Church which listens before speaking
which welcomes instead of judging,
which forgives without wishing to condemn,
which announces rather than denounces.
A Church of mercy.

A Church where the Holy Spirit
will be able to feel at home
because everything hasn't been foreseen,
settled in advance.
An open Church

A Church of which people will say
not 'see how well-organized they are'
but 'see how they love one another'.

Church of Saint Denis
Church of suburbs and streets and housing estates, you
may still be small
but you're making progress.
You are still fragile,

but you are full of hope.
Lift up your head and look:
The Lord is with you.

     And as that bishop addressed his French diocese, so may I, with
the permission of the Presiding Bishop, address you, my Episcopal
brothers and sisters of the United States, as I do to my brothers and
sisters in England: You~we~are still fragile, but we are full of hope.
Lift up your head and look: the Lord is with you."