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Canterbury Cathedral

ACNS 3148 - ENGLAND - 29 September 2002

Archbishop of Canterbury's final Michaelmas Sermon at Canterbury Cathedral

Sunday 29 September 2002

On this Michaelmas Sunday, exactly 40 years after my ordination as a Deacon
in St Paul's Cathedral, I stand to preach my last sermon as Archbishop of
Canterbury in this similarly awe-inspiring place of worship. It is not a bad
place to say farewell. Farewell to a city that has made Eileen and myself so
welcome during these last eleven and half years. We shall miss the Lord
Mayor's Carols in the Market on Christmas Eve with Christopher Gay, the
former chief Executive, conducting with such aplomb! Thank you to the
successive Mayors with whom we have become good friends.

Farewell and thank you to the Dean and Chapter of this great cathedral - I
will say more of you this evening. To the choristers I pay a special tribute
for their professionalism and yet their fun. I will have no one to play
'Captains on deck' this Christmas Eve! It was one of our grandchildren who
said very innocently a few months ago: 'Mummy, when Granddad gets fired will
we see more of him?' Yes, retire and fire does sound similar - and yes, we
shall see more of them all.

In fact it was the verb 'seeing' that attracted my attention in the gospel
reading we heard just a moment ago and if you were ask me what is the
subject of my sermon this morning I can summarise it easily in a few words:
'Those who spend time in the company of Jesus see new things'. And in that
simple sentence you will find two concepts - community and transformation.

Let's take community. Nathaniel was clearly a good and honorable man - Jesus
was impressed and taken with him when he saw him and said, "Here is an
Israelite worthy of the name. There is nothing false in him!" Nathaniel was
amazed and there follows a conversation which circles around the theme of
vision. The point the writer is making is that when people come into the
company of Jesus, they start to see things differently - even angels.

Eileen and I have just returned from a conference in Hong Kong where we met
a man called Ted who is working with HIV/AIDS sufferers in South Africa.
Believe me, he is dealing with people at the very bottom of the heap. Ted
stirred us all with his description of dying people. Over supper one evening
he told Eileen how he became involved with HIV/AIDS victims. The story began
in 1983 when the virus was beginning to worry people in the US. Ted was then
the vicar of a prosperous church in Dallas, in Texas. One evening a knock at
the door revealed a very sick man - his entire face was covered in the awful
lesions and sores often shown by those dying of AIDS related illness. The
man said simply: 'Will you allow me to come into your church and die?' Ted
did not know what to say but nervously he invited the man in. The sick man
explained that he had been to six churches in Dallas and each had rejected
him - he was simply too awful to look at and the stigma attached to AIDS
made people recoil. It was rumoured that if you drank from a communion cup
that someone from AIDS had supped, then you too would contract the virus.
Ted quickly realised that his understanding of the Christian faith was at
stake here and he said firmly but gently: 'you are welcome at my church'.
The problem was that the majority of his congregation disagreed and they
left in droves. The numbers plummeted to 21 and on one occasion at a main
Eucharist only three people turned up. But Ted persevered and around him
gathered people who began to see what the implications of the gospel are.
Ted found out that when the man asked if he could die in the church, he
really meant he wanted to commit suicide. However, when he realised that Ted
and others actually loved him he began to love others too. He got his wish -
he died in the arms of a caring church a few moments after receiving his
last Holy Communion.

But it was that experience that launched Ted on a ministry in South Africa
where the level of desperation and hopelessness calls for unconditional
communities of hope. Unconditional - the problem with community is that by
definition a community has boundaries. To be sure there is often nothing
wrong in having boundaries and sometimes they are absolutely necessary - but
the embarrassing fact for us Christians is that Jesus Christ is not
generally very keen on them. He was a boundary breaker. He had the habit of
mingling with outcasts and strangers, lepers and tax collectors, women of
dubious reputation and men who sat begging at the city gates.

We hear and read such terrible stories of boundaries these days. The
Archbishop of Adelaide told me of the time some years ago when he was in
Gaza shortly after an incident when a little boy had been shot by an Israeli
soldier. The boy was only six and had been sent by his mother to get some
milk from the store only 50 yards away. Being a typical boy he saw a stick
that looked like a pistol. He picked it up and imagined himself firing it.
At that moment the soldier saw the boy with what he thought was a real gun -
he fired and fatally wounded the boy. Too many of life's tragedies involve
such misperceptions-what we see and what is really happening are quite
different. The mother heard the shot and knew instantly that her boy was in
trouble and flew out of the house just as her boy's body was being lifted
into an Israeli ambulance. She pleaded to go with him - but was pushed away.
A Palestinian was not allowed into an Israeli Military hospital. It was a
boundary that could not be crossed. Her boy died alone when he needed his
mother most of all.

When communities become obsessed with putting rules, convention and
tradition before people they become all too quickly conditional communities.
And Churches are not immune from this tendency - far from it. It is one of
the sadnesses of my ministry as Archbishop that I receive letters from hurt
people who cannot understand why their child is refused baptism or why they
cannot get married in a particular church. To be honest, there are times
when I can't either. The gospel is incorrigibly reckless, irredeemably open
and profligate in its generosity. And that reality leads on to the second
concept I mentioned: after community, transformation-the transforming power
of God's grace and love.

Take Philip a young Episcopal priest in LA. One day his bishop offered him
his first church - he was to work among very poor Mexicans. The problem was
there was no church and no congregation. He had to start one. Furthermore
there was no other support. He was totally alone.

Philip walked around his parish and was overwhelmed by the needs of the
place, the lostness of people; the poverty and unemployment; the drugs being
sold openly. He was warned by the police that the area was very dangerous
and he should avoid the park at all costs.

What could he do and what could he offer? He decided that the only thing he
could offer was the thing God had ordained him to do. So, at midday on his
first day Philip approached the notorious park with a rickety card table. He
put a white tablecloth on it and a cup of wine and some bread. He then
invited people to take communion with him. No conditions were attached -
only come and receive. He did this day after day after day after day.
Gradually he built up a daily congregation; he then started English classes;
established a clinic for the mums and children; he found some jobs for a few
of the men. He created trust and gave people a sense of worth; he showed
people he loved them; he was unconcerned about the risks of becoming a
victim of the drug culture and the gratuitous violence. When I was there I
had the privilege of baptising one of the children of his new congregation
and it was a joy to see that from unconditional, transforming love an
authentic community was growing.

Those who spend time in the company of Jesus see new possibilities. Even
angels. Michaelmas is all about that possibility. I have never seen an angel
but, then again, perhaps I have - because the word 'angel' really means a
messenger. Perhaps that man in the church in Dagenham in Essex who first
mentioned ordination to me over forty years ago was one of God's angels, a
messenger, sent particularly to me. And then again when I was in Islington
finishing my curacy that anonymous person who stuffed fifty pounds in an
envelope - an enormous amount in those days - with the scribbled words 'to
register for your Ph.D' - was an angel of the Lord - even if much later we
found out the donor was the vicar's wife! You must have had similar
experiences of enormous generosity or when someone encouraged or believed in
you.

But if we want transforming communities, hope must be central to them -
there has to be reason for going on. A great cathedral like this cannot
survive for long on memory alone - it has to look forward, it has to have
reason for believing that the best is yet to be. And you Civic leaders, in
the all important work of community building, need to have assurance that
your labour is not in vain. And that is where the message of Michaelmas is
so exciting and liberating. Because when Jesus said to Nathaniel, 'You shall
see greater things than this. You will see heaven open and God's angels
ascending and descending upon the son of man', he was opening Nathaniel's
eyes to look ahead to what God can do. Michaelmas says firmly to us all,
that behind all the trivia that dominates much of our lives there are
realities that make all we do worthwhile; that transform death and give hope
for tomorrow.

As the poem puts it:

"Truth forever on the scaffold
Wrong forever on the throne -
Yet, that scaffold sways the future
And, behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own"

Here is part of the message of Michaelmas and one of the reasons why I am
confident in the future of the Church. The reading from the Apocalypse of St
John tells us that a war is going on between good and evil and that good
will triumph. And you and I have a part to play in that battle - to create
Christian community where all are welcome and where transformation beckons;
where each of us can be a ministering angel for others. Those who spend time
in the company of Jesus see new possibilities. That is the story of my forty
years of ordained ministry. And where Christ is, the barriers come crashing
down and the boundaries are crossed. Brian Wren, the hymn writer puts it
this way:

When Christ was lifted from the earth,
His arms stretched out above,
through every culture, every birth
to draw an answering love.

Where generations, class or race
divide us to our shame,
He sees not labels but a face
a person and a name.

Thus freely loved, though fully known,
May I in Christ be free
to welcome and accept his own as
Christ accepted me.

PHOTOGRAPHS to accompany this article available from
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/:

1 Final Eucharist: Archbishop Carey celebrates the Cathedral Eucharist for
the last time on Michaelmas 2002

2 Archbishop Carey greets ordinands in Old Palace garden just before
presiding at his final ordination service in Canterbury as Archbishop

3 Applause for His Grace from the altar party at the close of the final
Eucharist Archbishop Carey celebrated as Archbishop of Canterbury on
Michaelmas. It was his 40th anniversary of ordination to the diaconate

4 The Most Revd George Carey processes out of Canterbury Cathedral on
Michaelmas after celebrating his final Cathedral Eucharist as Archbishop

Photos: Anglican World/Rosenthal
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