The Archbishop of Canterbury's Sermon for the Convention Eucharist, Saturday, 19 July 1997
Episcopal News Service. August 6, 1997 [97-1921]
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 hands 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."