Presiding Bishop's Address from the Chair to Executive Council of the Episcopal Church Meeting in Toronto, Canada, November 9, 1996
Episcopal News Service. December 5, 1996 [96-1649]
Edmond Browning, Presiding Bishop and Primate
This is one of those moments, so long anticipated, prayed about, worked toward. This is one of those moments when you taste the sweet fruit of an idea whose seed was long ago planted. My dear sisters and brothers of the Anglican Church of Canada and of the Episcopal Church in the United States, right here in this room is partnership expressed, and at its best.
I apologize that I have not been with you from the beginning of this meeting. I just arrived this afternoon from the Diocese of Northern Indiana, where I preached at their annual convention. A change in our meeting dates created a schedule conflict and I certainly couldn't back out of my prior commitment. so, I'll just have to really enjoy the time we have remaining.
One of the aspects I treasure about the partnership between our two churches is the collaboration and consultation, the mutual respect and affection between the two primates. When I grow up I want to be like Michael Peers. I am beginning today and you may have noticed that, even though I am standing up. Normally for this occasion, when I have the privilege of addressing our Executive Council, I wear my clerical clothing, not always a purple shirt but at least a clerical collar. Well, not today. I have taken a cue from our host and this might be the beginning of a new way.
Those who have not met the Presiding Bishop before may wonder if I am the guy they have seen in the photos.
[Life-sized cardboard cutout of Browning is brought out.]
Will the real Presiding Bishop please stand up.
Maybe I should have sent this other fellow to Northern Indiana.
I am especially sorry that I wasn't here for the Archbishop's address. Hearing about his ministry is always an encouragement; we laugh and cry about many of the same things. You may not know that Michael Peers and I have been in office about the same length of time. He was elected six months after I was and I didn't really know Michael at the time of his election. I didn't know what a gift I was about to receive. His ministry is an incredible support to my ministry, and in the way that friendships are mutual, I pray he could say the same thing. You might say he is without peer among our peers and our partnership is a reflection of the partnership between our two churches. It is a privilege for me to be here with Michael and the Council of the General Synod and our Executive Council and to address you this afternoon.
We are moving right up to Advent now, a season when we will prepare not only for Christmas but for the Second Coming of Christ as judge on the last day. We are waiting for the eschaton and living in the now. We have one foot in eternity and the other firmly planted on the soil of this planet. St. John of the Cross said that in the evening of life we will be judged on how we have loved. How did we love one another? How do we love one another? How well? How truly? We will be judged on love because God is love. God so loved the world that he sent his son to show us how to love.
My dear friends, we await that judgement and prepare to celebrate the incarnation, the enfleshment of the Divine in human form. It wasn't a paper cutout that God sent to show his love. God's son came to dwell with us, and nothing has ever been the same since.
Anglicanism, the Anglican Way, is profoundly incarnational in its theology. That is why we are here. We can say we are partners, but talk isn't enough. In our incarnational understanding of it, we act as partners too. Our physical bodies made this trip here, to this room, to be together, to talk together, pray together, and together break eucharistic bread.
Desmond Tutu was once asked what held the provinces of the Anglican Communion together since, after all, we have different Prayer Books, languages, cultures. And he smiled in that wonderful way of his and said: "Well, we meet." There is a profound truth in that, a truth we are living during these days.
I remember Pam Chinnis saying at one Anglican gathering years ago -- and maybe she was planning to say it again this afternoon so its a good thing I am speaking first -- that the Anglican communion is held together by our bonds of affection, and by Wippell's. Those bonds of affection are being strengthened through our time here, and I rejoice in that.
We just had an election in the United States. You may have heard a word or two about it north of the border. There is one thing that I would bet that every U.S. citizen could agree on. Not the outcome of the election. Not that, but the end of the campaign. I don't think there way anyone who wasn't glad to see the campaign end. Political campaigns do not necessarily bring out the best in our human natures. Political campaigns are the incarnation not of partnership, but of us and them. Well, I would rather have a political campaign than a dictatorship. Our democratic system is a blessing, no doubt about it, but our political campaigns are not anything we can feel blessed by.
The church exists not in a vacuum but in a culture, a culture that includes political campaigns. Again, incarnation. We are in the world and not of the world. Waiting for the eschaton and living in the now. All true enough. It is also true that our church has the opportunity to bring the values of our faith, the insights that we are given, the wonderful via media of Anglicanism, to our culture. We have so much to give, and the members of our council have heard me say this before, that it is to our very great diminishment as a church when we adopt the worst aspects of the political model within our own household of faith. Sometimes it does happen.
Though it is important to be good citizens and take part in the life of our national community, our meeting here reminds us that we are part of a much larger community. I think there is quite a line between being patriotic and nationalistic. I don't want to cross that line. I don't want to say: if this is good for the United States, it must be good. I want us to say: Our partnership as.churches is a witness to our search for what is the common good, what is the greatest good for the greatest number, the common good that far transcends any nationalistic world view. Surely, as our faith is in a transcendent reality, we will not limit ourselves in the lives of our churches to dim and partial understandings -- based on national borders or denominational structures. Let our faith show us the way.
Because I am celebrating partnerships this afternoon, I want to rehearse with you just a bit of recent history. In 1963, the Anglican Church of Canada planned and hosted the Anglican Congress. It was an incredible undertaking, and a gift to the Anglican Communion made possible by the vision and the generosity of the Canadian church. this historic gathering was held in Toronto and brought some 1,000 bishops, priests, and lay persons here from virtually every Anglican province. Stephen Bayne, who served as the first Anglican Executive Officer, said that the Toronto meeting was "a turning point in Anglican history." Through the Congress and the meetings held in conjunction with it, our Communion developed a new sense of its unity, its identity and its common mission. You might say that we came of age.
Out of that Congress experience, came the proposal for "Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ." The central principles of which, quoting from Bishop Bayne, are these: "First, we begin... where we are, as we are. Second, obedience to mission each church shows by understanding and facing its own tasks in greater depth and more radical freedom is an essential expression of mutuality and interdependence. Third, the programs of each church are of concern to every other church." bishop Bayne described Mutual Responsibility not simply as a program, but a process. My dear friends, even today, we are being guided by these principles as we order our common life and carry out the mission to which we are all called.
In preparation for this meeting I asked some members of my staff responsible for various aspects of our program to name for me some of the ways our two churches are in partnership. I was even surprised myself at the extent of our cooperation. Let me touch briefly on several aspects of our partnership, so we can celebrate them and also as a means of helping us think about how our partnership can be strengthened, expanded, and be a witness to the oneness we know in Christ Jesus.
The first obvious aspect of our partnership is that we share in one another's meetings as we have been doing since 1990. Everyone here has been the beneficiary of that exchange. Over the last years, the Executive council has been blessed by the presence of Michael Ingham, Duncan Wallace, Diane Maybee, Suzanne Lawson and James Merrett. These partners have been with us on a regular basis. Michael Ingham also served as a chaplain for a retreat meeting of our Council and graced us with his meditations and his presence.
Also, at various times stepping in as substitutes were Karen Evans, Rodney Andrews, Anne Davidson, Jane Fyles, Amy Newell and Clarke Raymond.
Partners to the Canadian Council from Executive Council have been Nell Gibson, Patrick Mauney, Glynnis Clifford, Vernon Hazlewood, Abigail Hamilton -- and Abby is to be credited with putting the idea of a joint meeting before both Council and Synod -- Sally Bucklee, Ran Chase and Diane Porter. I suggest we send our greetings from this meetings to all of those persons not here present and let them know of our appreciation?
It has really be a gift to see ourselves as others see us, through the eyes of our Canadian partners, wise and perceptive Christian brothers and sisters. It isn't only that they have held up a mirror before us, though they have. I think they have also helped us by holding up a plumbline so we could do some measuring of where we are and are going. Their listening to us has been holy listening, and their response to us has been filled with grace.
I have a suggestion I would like to test. When we hear from our partners, both Canadian and Lutheran, what if in addition to their reflections on our meeting, they might give us just a little news about what is happening in their churches? I would like to ask our Council agenda committee to give some thought to this. I believe we all would be enriched by a little snapshot report of whatever our partners chose to share.
An important part of our partnership is that our respective staffs have been in consultation for many years, providing one another with expertise and support. Our House of Bishops have met together for mutually helpful discussion. We are all struggling with similar issues and the interchange has been invaluable for staff, many program committees and bishops.
Chaplains and students from the Anglican Church in Canada participate in our higher education ministries and conferences, and we are going to be using the Canadian church's training materials for ministry with young adolescents. Members of both of our churches are members of the steering committee of the International Anglican Youth Network.
We have had several joint appointments of missionaries in recent years, and much mutual consultation in matters of world mission.
And on that matter I want to share a concern. For many years the Canadian and American churches and the Church in the West Indies cooperated in the Anglican Council of North America and the Caribbean, or ACNAC, as we knew it. Perhaps now, with the autonomy of the Church in Mexico and soon in Central America, perhaps it is time to consider again a mechanism to enable autonomous churches in North and Central America and the Caribbean to enter into an intentional partnership. I believe it would be of great benefit, perhaps not for our Councils to share members but certainly in other venues which could be explored. We need to think how we can expand the circle.
I understand that Archbishop Peers shared with you yesterday something of the work of the Metropolitan Council on Cuba, over which he presides, and noted his disappointment at not being a victim of the Helms Burton Amendment on Cuba. Well, I wouldn't want to see my brother expelled from the United States, but he and I are certainly of a mind on Helms Burton, and I fully share his concerns. When President Clinton signed the bill I wrote to him to ask that he waive the section on suing foreign companies doing business in Cuba. The President has delayed implementation for six months, to a time after the election. So, we will see.
When we talk about the transcendent reality of our faith and what that says about national self interest, we need to remember that the international boundaries were non-existent for the First Nations people of this continent. For instance, the ancestral homelands of the Iroquois nation of the east, the Ojibwa of the central and the Blackfeet of the west were without artificial, invisible lines of demarcation created by latter day map makers.
The First Nations people of the United States and Canada are working together in a variety of creative ways to open doors and transcend the borders, and our two churches are central to this effort. They were part of the founding of the Anglican Indigenous network, which was first conceived at the 1983 General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver. Indigenous peoples who are minority in their own homeland have been meeting every 18 months or so for exchanges on areas of mutual concern, including self-determination, their role within the Anglican Communion and the integration of native symbols into liturgy and worship. Archbishop Peers has sent out invitations to the 6th gathering of the Anglican Indigenous Network to be held in Canada in July, 1997.
These are only a few examples of our partnerships. We have much to celebrate. I think we also have a challenge to deepen our partnerships and to think intentionally about how we can work more closely together.
We are waiting for the eschaton and living in the now. As we celebrate our partnerships in some way we celebrate the incarnational reality of the Divine among us, and we give thanks that everything, everything is shot through with holiness. Our eyes cloud over and we don't see it. We need each other to open our eyes and give us fresh visions.
Henri Nouwen was one of those people who opened my eyes again and again and reminded me of the holiness in the ordinary. When I leave here at the conclusion of this meeting, David Perry, our ecumenical officer, and I are going by car to L'Arche, which you probably know is the community Henri Nouwen lived in until his untimely death this past September.
Henri Nouwen came to our General Convention in 1994 with some members of his community, which includes persons with developmental disabilities. Those of you who were there know that he electrified the Convention with his presentation.
Pam Chinnis and I had decided we wanted very much to have him come to the Philadelphia General Convention. I had invited him, he accepted, and we had a good conversation about it on the telephone. He was on sabbatical and we decided we would talk about it some months hence. Of course, our conversation was not to take place.
I considered Henri a friend and, through his books, he was for me in many ways a spiritual director. I remember when many years ago I read The Wounded Healer and the Genesee Diary and knew that I had a soul friend. Henri Nouwen had a way of speaking his faith and his struggles that enriched my own faith and helped me through my struggles. I'm sorry he isn't in this world with us anymore, though in some ways he is.
I want to close by reading something from what was one of his very last books called Can You Drink This Cup. It is a reflection on community, which I shared with our bishops and the Lutheran bishops at our October meeting. I share it with you as well, as a fitting way to sum up my thoughts on the incarnation and partnership. He is addressing community, and I quote:
"Community is like a large mosaic. Each little piece seems so insignificant. One piece is bright red, another cold blue or dull green, another warm purple, another sharp yellow, another shining gold. Some look precious, others ordinary. Some look valuable, others worthless. Some look gaudy, others delicate. As individual stones, we can do little with them except compare them and judge their beauty and value. When, however, all these little stones are brought together in one big mosaic portraying the face of Christ, who would ever question the importance of any one of them? If one of them, even the least spectacular one, is missing, the face is incomplete. Together in one mosaic, each little stone is indispensable and makes a unique contribution to the glory of God. That's community, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world."
My dear friends, that is who we are, and what we are trying to do. May God bless us in the task.
Edmond Browning
Presiding Bishop and Primate