wfn.org | 'The past is a reality' Opens Anglican Church General Synod in Canada

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'The past is a reality'

Leanne Larmondin
Website Manager
Waterloo, ON
"Come and see," said the bishop.

And so began General Synod, with a rousing opening worship in a local Roman
Catholic church. The meeting, from July 4-11, is in Waterloo, Ont.

Synod is expected to deal extensively with indigenous issues, including its
residential schools legacy, an update on the church's legal troubles
resulting from that history, and a healing service with native people.

Bishop Steven Charleston, the president and dean of Episcopal Divinity
School in Cambridge, Mass., and former Episcopal bishop of Alaska, said he
guessed he'd been invited to give the opening sermon because he embodied
cross-culturalism: a member of the Choctaw nation of Oklahoma, his mother
was half Cherokee, half Irish.

That cross-cultural background, that experience of building bridges perhaps
offered him a clarity to "enlighten our own eyes", he told the Synod
members. Drawing on the evening's readings and gospel - Isaiah 43: 16-21,
Revelation 21: 1-6 and John 1: 35-42  - he drew out the common theme of the
faithful being asked to "come and see".

"If I were to ask you 'What do you see?', what would you answer?" asked
Bishop Charleston, noting that in his own church, as in the Canadian
church, there are people who say 'We'd rather not see'.

Referring to both churches' troubled history and present with relations
with indigenous people, the bishop said "there are those who prefer not to
know the truth of their own colonial history". There are still others, he
said, who do not wish to look because all they see is darkness or they see
no way out of a bad situation.

He commended the Canadian church. "You are not turning away from your past
... but you are facing the realities of colonialism around the world." He
applauded the church for facing its problems "honestly and with dignity".

"We often do not like to see," he said.

He concluded his remarks with what he called a "prophecy from the Holy
Spirit". He told synod members: "Do not look back with any sense of grief,
with any sense of loss. What has happened in the past is a reality. But
what is about to come into your future is also a reality. And that future
is resplendent with the love, with the grace and the mercy of the Jesus who
died for us all ... though I am a stranger in your midst, I hope I can come
back some day and rejoice and celebrate with you at the rebirth of the
Anglican Church of Canada."

The congregation, some 400 people, had travelled to the service on six
buses and processed into St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church behind four
multicoloured flags. Various parts of the service were delivered in the
languages of the diverse members and partners: acclamations in Oneida,
English, Cree, Russian, Spanish, French, Inuktitut, Swampy Cree and
English; readings in French and English; the Gospel proclaimed in
Gwitch'in; the prayers of the people in French, Shona, Cree, Cantonese,
Inuktitut and English.

The service also featured liturgical dance - four dancers brought forward
the altar cloth, bread and wine for the eucharist and water for the
baptismal font.

After the congregation renewed their baptismal vows, Bishop Charleston, the
Primate, Archbishop Michael Peers, and host diocese of Huron bishop, Bruce
Howe sprinkled those gathered with holy water shaken from juniper branches.
The diocese of Huron is hosting synod.
- 30 -

Link:
Transcript of Bishop Steven Charleston's sermon
<http://www.anglican.ca/news/online/news.html?newsItem=2001-07-05_st.news>

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Leanne Larmondin
Web Manager
Anglican Church of Canada
600 Jarvis St.
Toronto ON  L5E 2G1
(416) 924 9199 ext. 307
ll@anglican.ca
http://www.anglican.ca
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