Salisbury diocese welcomes Presiding Bishop, Sudanese bishops for pre-Lambeth hospitality initiative
Episcopal News Service. July 13, 2008 [071308-01]
Matthew Davies
As part of the pre-Lambeth Conference Hospitality Initiative, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the bishops of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) are visiting the Church of England's Diocese of Salisbury and participating in the life and ministry of the city's historic cathedral in its 750th anniversary year.
Consecrated in 1258, Salisbury's Cathedral Church of St. Mary boasts the world's tallest medieval spire and is surrounded by water meadows in the southern English county of Wiltshire.
Preaching at two services on July 13 and offering reflections at an 8:10 a.m. morning worship service, broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 and available as an on-demand audio stream here, Jefferts Schori spoke on the themes of planting seeds, growth and abundant life. The Presiding Bishop also preached during a 4 p.m. Choral Evensong, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and available as an on-demand audio stream here.
During the 10:30 a.m. Eucharist, she said that it is surprising how seeds planted on seemingly unsuitable terrain can often "bear good fruit."
"Loosening the soil so that it might be fertile terrain has a great deal to do with softening our own hearts," she said. "When we’re certain that this person or that can’t possibly be a God-bearer, it is our own soil that fills with rocks, or grows massive thorns. It is a particularly religious, and Christian, challenge, for we search endlessly to be certain that we are doing 'the God-thing' right. But when we get too certain about God and God’s judgment, our soil [is] turned over by the surprising love of the gospel and the unexpected nature of divine economics."
The full text of Jefferts Schori's sermon at the 10:30 a.m. morning Eucharist is available here. The full text of her sermon at the 4 p.m. evensong is available here.
The Very Rev. June Osborne, dean of Salisbury Cathedral and one of two women deans in the Church of England, welcomed Jefferts Schori and the Sudanese bishops, including ECS' primate Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, to Salisbury ahead of the 2008 Lambeth Conference, set for July 16-August 3 in Canterbury, England.
Salisbury Cathedral was the first cathedral in England to introduce a girls' choir, breaking a centuries-old tradition of using boy trebles exclusively in choral services. Several other cathedrals in England have since followed Salisbury's example.
The Salisbury Cathedral girls choir joined the gentlemen of the choir -- known in English cathedrals as lay clerks -- at the two morning services, while the boys choir sang during evensong.
Celebrating 35-year partnership
The ECS bishops are visiting Salisbury for a two-week pilgrimage to celebrate their church's 35-year partnership with the diocese.
"This is a defining link and we have been deeply affected by our partnership with the Sudan," said Ramsbury Bishop Stephen Conway, a suffragan bishop of Salisbury, who was participating in the day's liturgy. "Thirty-five years is just the start."
Bishop Anthony Pogo of the Diocese of Kajo Keji said it has been very fruitful to renew the partnership with the Diocese of Salisbury. "This partnership for the last 35 years has been very important for the growth of the Kingdom of God in both Sudan and Salisbury," he said.
Speaking about the Lambeth Conference, Pogo said that he hopes the once-every-decade gathering will "help to maintain the unity of the church. He also hopes that the more than 650 Anglican bishops attending the gathering in southeast England "will talk to each other and listen to each other as we address the challenges that face the Communion. We want to see the Anglican family staying together. When you are in a family you don’t agree on everything, but it is important that we maintain the unity of the family."
Bishop Peter Munde Yacoub, of the Diocese of Yambio in southern Sudan, said that everyone in ECS is grateful for the partnership with the Diocese of Salisbury because "that is the prayer of Christ -- that we may be one."
Bishop Peter Amidi of the Diocese of Lainya, also in southern Sudan, said it is has been a fulfilling experience "to celebrate 35 years of walking together in partnership and, as brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion, praying together in a very difficult time in the history of the Sudan."
Jefferts Schori described the Sudanese as "remarkable examples of the joy that is known in Christianity in incredibly hard circumstances."
Sudan, Africa's largest country by area, has been devastated by two back-to-back civil wars spanning some 40 years. Although that war officially came to an end with the January 2005 signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, a conflict lingers in the Darfur region of western Sudan that has claimed more than 300,000 lives, according to official United Nations figures.
One of the major problems facing post-war Sudan is the return of thousands of refugees, including two million internally displaced persons.
On July 12, a statue of martyred Sudanese Canon Ezra Lawiri was erected outside the west end of Salisbury Cathedral.
Lawiri was a priest of the Moro tribe, "who translated the Bible into his people’s language," Jefferts Schori told the congregation at the 10:30 a.m. Eucharist service. "He was killed in crossfire during the civil war -- on Good Friday in 1991. His witness continues to bear abundant fruit."
"The seeds of the gospel eventually made their way to Sudan, and quickly sprang up," she continued. "The witness of many like Canon Ezra shows evidence of deep soil and fruitful harvest. Yet the links this diocese has had with Sudan over 35 years have brought seed here as well, seed that is beginning to take root in new ways. The fascinating thing is that seed long-dormant in two places has grown up in significantly different expressions, recognizably belonging to the same family. Those seeds continue to invite this diocese and the Episcopal Church of Sudan into far deeper understandings of what it means to be sisters and brothers in Christ."
During each service, prayers were offered for the Lambeth Conference, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Episcopal Church of the Sudan and Salisbury Bishop David Stancliffe, who is recovering from an illness.
During Choral Evensong, the Presiding Bishop preached about John's account of Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well when he asks her for a drink -- an encounter which "violates all sorts of social norms," Jefferts Schori said.
"Jesus is vulnerable enough to ask a religious and racial enemy for the stuff of life, and the encounter becomes abundant life," she added.
Acknowledging the ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem's institutions, Jefferts Schori said that "one sign of abundant life grows out of a century’s work at St. Luke’s Hospital in Nablus…Like the other diocesan hospital in Gaza, St. Luke’s provides care for anyone in need, of whatever faith or creed, 20,000 people a year, whether they can pay or not. When someone comes asking for healing, Jesus’ friends in that hospital respond. Water of abundant life is springing up there, even in the desert of violence."
That violence, Jefferts Schori said, "is born of ancient enmity, out of fear of religious difference and different customs.
"Where have you asked an enemy for water recently? Or listened to the plea of a thirsty foreigner? Jesus seems to discover a friend in his conversation, one who is abundantly interested in slaking her own thirst. What might we all discover in shared vulnerability with the strangers in our midst?"
Earlier in the week, the Sudanese bishops and several Anglicans from around the world participated in a three-day conference in Salisbury to strengthen global partnerships with the Episcopal Church of the Sudan.
On the morning of July 14, Jefferts Schori and Osborne will participate in a news conference at Salisbury Cathedral School. Later in the day, the presiding bishop will meet with the Sudanese bishops as well as join the dean for a question-and-answer session with the cathedral congregation.