Lambeth and others
Ordinary Sunday 12: 22nd June, 2008
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
The meeting of the Archbishop in Council this week included a farewell for our bishops who will all be attending the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, which is in July. There would be nothing too unusual about this in any normal Lambeth year. The Lambeth Conference is one of the four so-called instruments of unity of our Anglican Communion. Every ten years or so since 1867, the Archbishop of Canterbury — as the first among equals of all the Anglican bishops and who you need to be in communion with if you are to be Anglican — issues an invitation to bishops from around the world. We have in our pew sheets this morning a prayer card that we are all invited to use at this time — praying for our bishops as they gather. It is the one occasion when all bishops can meet for worship, study and conversation. Archbishops, diocesan, assistant and suffragan bishops are invited. Also invited are bishops from other churches 'in communion' with the Anglican Communion, bishops from United Churches and a number of ecumenical guests.
There is nothing so unusual about any of that except that this time a number of bishops have refused to attend, including in Australia all the Sydney bishops led by Archbishop Peter Jensen, and the bishop of North West Australia. The refusal relates to the attendance at the conference of the bishops from the US and Canada who participated in the consecration in 2003 of the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire. They are not prepared to sit down together with them, even at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This therefore is serious. The Bishop of New Hampshire has not been invited. And neither has the English priest serving in Virginia who has been consecrated bishop by the Archbishop of Nigeria for American dissidents. So Nigeria will not come. In fact at this moment there is an alternative Global Anglican Future conference (GAFCON) going on in Jerusalem, despite as we might remember, the protests of the Bishop of Jerusalem.
David Marr writing in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald two weeks ago memorably declared that:
What's afoot in Jerusalem is the destruction of the Anglican Communion, the worldwide church loosely aligned to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It spread with the empire and has so far survived, despite all its contradictions, for about 450 years, guided by the tart good sense of its founding monarch, Elizabeth I: "There is only one Jesus Christ and all the rest is a dispute over trifles."?
More bluntly, GAFCON is planning to collapse the church into a sort of Balkan confusion in which national branches turn their backs on each other, bishops dabble in one another's territory, and dingo fences cut across the landscape to keep "orthodox" Bible-believing, homosexual-denouncing Anglicans safe on one side of the wire, and "liberals" on the other. If the split comes, it will shatter national churches as well as the international communion. It will be particularly messy for Australia.
Included in those attending GAFCON are a half dozen clergy and laity from this diocese including our own archdeacon, from St Jude's Carlton. There was no mention of this at the Archbishop in Council. They are not representing the diocese. It would be safe to say that this diocese has been doing everything possible to avoid the importation of the severe problems tearing some parts of the Church apart elsewhere. Our policy here at The Hill, while making it clear enough where we stand, has been to try to get on with the tasks before us in being 'a lively and inclusive community of Catholic Anglicans in the City of Melbourne', as we describe ourselves in our vision statement. We may in time be called upon to do more than that.
Meanwhile there is no saying what this 'not the Lambeth conference' will produce, but inevitably it sets a context for Lambeth itself in a few weeks' time, as well as possibly the unfolding of the scenario painted so graphically by David Marr and which attracted so much attention indeed around the world.
Some of the bishops attending GAFCON will also be going to Lambeth. Others, such as those from Sydney, Nigeria and Uganda, will not. So of course there will not be able to be the conversation and discussion, let alone the potential reconciliation, that participation in a two and a half week residential conference could well bring. This is very sad. So our prayers are asked not just for the time of Lambeth, but also for the time following Lambeth, when it remains to be seen what common language might continue to exist to describe our continuing relationships with each other — in our case for instance with the parish next door. It is as close to home as that.
The gospel set for today is the instructions that the Lord gave as the Twelve were initially sent out. They are told to have no fear and to be bold in their proclamation. They are reminded that the task of sharing the good news is a life and death matter. Then comes the image that is so striking: sparrows are worth practically nothing at the market 'yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. Even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.' (Mtt 10:31-32). I think there was a wry smile on the face of the Lord as he said that to the Twelve. Of course we are valued. God notices and cares at this basic level. That is the message they are sent out to convey. That is actually for many a hard message to actually take on board. It does not however say that sparrows will never die or that your hair will not significantly thin. It is saying though that even something this small does not go un-noticed. So if that is the case, then clearly speaking and showing and living out the message and the care of God in this world where we are, will most decidedly not go unnoticed by God. And the reverse. That will go to the heart of our relationship with God and God with us. It is to do with the 'life of the world to come' and something that the twelve had to understand right from that beginning, if they were to be able to do what they were being sent out to do. Jeremiah the prophet was also convinced of that in the first lesson.
The epistle reading from the central part of St Paul's letter to the Romans as well goes to the core of the Christian hope. Paul is speaking of a free gift that is more than able to overwhelm whatever the human context it finds. He puts, as it were, the first sin of Adam into balance with the free gift to us of God in Jesus Christ. 'For if the many died through the one man's trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.' (Rom 5:15). There is a way through here is the promise and we do not have to earn it or to deserve it. It is grace, freely offered, to turn lives around.
All Christians would want to affirm these central teachings.
At the centre of all that will be going on over these next weeks to do with the future of our Anglican Communion is Rowan, Archbishop of Canterbury. He is known to many of us here from his several visits. We know him as preacher, teacher and man of great prayer. The spiritual and inspirational gifts that are so clearly his will be needed in abundance at this time. May Elijah's mantle be his. Family disagreements are often the most bitter, just as civil wars are the hardest to recover from. We join our prayers with those from all round the world, knowing that God is noticing and that the pain of this time is shared.
The Lord be with you.
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