Choral Evensong for Christ the King: 26th November, 1998
All Saints' East St Kilda
The Rev'd Dr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's Eastern Hill
We give thanks to the Father who has made it possible for
you to join the saints and with them to inherit the light.
Because that is what he has done: he has taken us out of the
power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom
of the Son that he loves, and in him, we gain our freedom,
the forgiveness of our sins. Col 1:12-13
We gather for this evensong
within the octave of Christ the King. This solemnity has at
its heart the re-affirmation of the triumph of the cross,
the wonder and power of the resurrection, the glory of the
ascension. Just in case we have missed the point somewhere
along the way, it is all summed up here again. We look
forward too, to the Advent promise that this risen, ascended
and glorified one will come again, in glory, to judge the
living and the dead. At the end of the Church year we hear
again the good news that despite every appearance to the
contrary, the reign of the Christ has already begun. Last
Sunday's readings gave us these texts. The good thief,
hanging on the next cross beside the Lord, suffering
appallingly and facing the end of everything that he knew,
recognised this. "Jesus, remember me, when you come into
your kingdom". "Today", replied the Lord, "you will be with
me in paradise". We too now are called to recognise the
truth when we have it placed before us. We too now are
called to be faithful.
The call to faithfulness in
difficult times is an essential one. The scriptures
include many observations about it being all very well to do
the easy things or the things that everyone else does, even
the pagans. The hard thing is to be able to discern the
right path when things are anything but clear, when
different voices declare quite contrasting positions to be
the only faithful way. Let's face it, we do indeed live in
interesting times. What we are experiencing within the
Church is also being experienced within every other
institution and in every part of our society. Our
situation is by no means unique. But that does not make it
any the easier.
Great events, great
movements, are best distinguished and charted after their
time. If, for example, we had been able to ask a worthy
citizen of Wittenberg on a drizzly All Saints' Day in 1517
how the Reformation was going, it is unlikely that there
would have been a comprehensive reply. Looking back, it is
possible to place things in context, to ascertain which way
the main stream was to flow, to work out winners and losers
- with perhaps more than one side declaring themselves with
certainty to be the faithful. For the people of God living
through these times there is challenge, excitement, pain,
confusion - and the ever-present call to faithfulness, as
can best be discerned.
We are in such a period of
upheaval and turmoil in the Church ourselves. There is no
doubt that in time the late 20th century and beyond will be
ranked in the turmoil stakes right alongside those giants of
the 4th and 16th centuries. We cannot tell whether this is
the beginning, the middle or the end of it all. We have no
way of knowing.
It is in the nature of such
times that, by definition, the signposts are unclear, that
old familiarities are shaken or quite simply destroyed.
Quite diverging responses to this fact of life are taken,
within families and friendship groups. Quite different
future directions are possible - as individuals, as groups,
as parishes, dioceses or Church. Yet that Christ who is
King has called us to unity, to be of one heart and of one
mind, so that the world may believe.
In the face of all this the
question and the challenge remains: how are we to be
faithful, how are we with confidence to express and live
"this hope that we have grasped".
I speak as an Australian
Anglican of catholic persuasion in the pulpit of one of the
great churches of the 19th century catholic revival. We
meet in a diocese that particularly since mid-century has
celebrated its diversity and which has tolerated and indeed
encouraged a variety of approaches to being church. But for
a number of reasons, mostly relating to deep and at times
bitter divisions amongst ourselves in the face of the above
turmoil, Catholic Anglicans cannot meet together in this
diocese in a position of strength, unity or confidence.
There is not even agreement, without qualifying adjectives
such as traditional or liberal, about what or who is
catholic. And this is at a time when this diocese faces a
change of leadership and when the national Church is facing
issues of almost unprecedented seriousness. There is
bridging work to be done.
Our context is a world and a
region in the midst of upheaval, a nation coming up to the
centenary of Federation with some little uncertainty, and a
Church which is still finding its way, finding its place -
or, as some of a gloomier cast of mind would say, busy
setting about losing it.
A particular context here
this evening within our Anglican Church is a preacher, a
place and the majority of the people gathered, pleased to
claim the fruits of the 19th century catholic revival as our
own, pleased to claim and affirm our catholic heritage.
That revival was initiated, nurtured and sustained by
faithful Anglicans, clergy and lay, who loved their Lord and
his Church and who were convinced that the future could and
should be better than the present.
We all know that Keble's
Assize sermon, July 14th 1833 was reckoned as a beginning.
That sermon was about authority and the objection was in
principle to state interference with the boundaries and
endowments of the crumbling rump of the Church of Ireland.
We are told that it "made no vast stir at the time." John
Henry Newman's first Tract for the Times in September of
1833 did ruffle feathers. I wonder how many here 165 years
on have read that first Tract addressed to the clergy? The
agenda was the apostolic succession, the general underlying
contention was that the Church was in total dis-array. An
articulate (and brave) priest rose to challenge the clergy
of the Church of his day. So much flowed from the first Tract. It is worth hearing
again and to hear afresh the passionate concern and love for
the Church. It is a call to involvement, to commitment, to
change. Following is an extract from the Tract.
THOUGHTS
ON
THE MINISTERIAL COMMISSION.
respectfully addressed to the clergy
I am but one of yourselves,- a Presbyter; and therefore I conceal my
name, lest I should take too much on myself by speaking, in
my own person. Yet speak I must; for the times are very
evil, yet no one speaks against them.
Is not this so? Do not we "look one upon another," yet perform nothing? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is come, yet sit
still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and seas
cut off brother from brother? Therefore suffer me, wlile I
try to draw you forth from those pleasant retreats, which it
has been our blessedness hitherto to enjoy, to contemplate
the condiion and prospects of our Holy Mother in a practical
way; So that one and all may unlearn that idle habit, which
has grown upon us, of owning the state of things to be bad,
yet doing nothing to remedy it.
Consider a moment. Is it
fair, is it dutiful, to suffer our Bishops to stand the
brunt of the battle without doing our part to support them?
Upon them comes "the care of all the Churches." This cannot
be helped: indeed it is their glory. Not one of us would
wish the least to deprive them of the duties, the toils, the
responsibilities of their high Office. And, black event as
it would be for the country, yet, (as far as they are
concerned,) we could not wish them a more blessed
termination of their course, than the spoiling of their
goods, and martyrdom.
p>We bave been born, not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of GOD. The LORD Jesus Christ gave His SPIRIT to His
Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should
succeed them; and these again on others; and so the sacred
gift has been handed down to our present Bishops, who have
appointed us as their assistants, and in some sense
representatives.
p>Now every one of us believes
this. I know that some will at first deny they do; still
they do believe it. Only, it is not sufficiently practically
impressed on their minds. They do believe it; for it is the
doctrine of the Ordination Service, which they have
recognised as truth in the most solemn season of their
lives. In order, then, not to prove, but to remind and
impress, I entreat your attention to the words used wheu you
were made Ministers of Christ's Church ...
Therefore, my dear brethren,
act up to your professions. Let it not be said hat you have
neglected a gift; for if you have the Spirit of the Apostles
on you, surely tbis is a great gift. "Stir up the gift of
God which is in you." Make much of it. Show your value of
it. Keep it before your minds as an honourable badge, far
higher than Ihat secular respectability, or cultivation, or
polish, or learning, or rank, which gies you a hearing witb
the many. tell them of your gift. The times will soon drive
you to do this, if you mean to be still any thing. But wait
not for the times. Do not be compelled, by tbe world's
forsaking you, to recur as if unwillingly to the high source
of your authority. Speak out now, before you are forced,
both as glorying in your privilege, not to ensure your
rightful honour from your people. A notion has gone abroad,
that they can take away your power. They think they have
given and can take it away. They think it lies in the Church
property, and they know that they have politically the power
to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a
notion that present palpable usefulness, produceable
results, acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such
like are Ihe test of your Divine commission. Enlighten them
in his matter. Exalt our Holy Fathers, the Bishops, as the
Representative of the Apostle, and the Angels- of the
Churches; and magnify your office, as being ordained by them
to take part in their Ministry.
But, if you will not adopt
my view of the subject, whicb I offer to you, not
doubtingly, yet (I hope) respectfully, at all events, choose
your side. To remain neuter much longer will be itself to
take a part. Choose your side; since side you shortly must,
with one or other party, even though you do nothing. Fear to
be of those, whose line is decided for them by chance
circumstances, and who may perchance find themselve with he
enemies of Christ while they think but to remove themselves
from worldly politics. Such abstinence is impossible in
troublous times. HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME, IS AGAINST ME, AND
HE THAT GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD.
Such a short paper - but it lit a spark.
Five generations have passed
since that call to action. The Church is hugely different
to what it might have been without it and yet, in this
contemporary Church, one hears on all sides that
Anglo-catholicism is a movement that has had its day, that
we have run out of creative energy and spiritual insight,
that we have torn ourselves apart by internal divisions,
particularly those relating to the ordination of women and,
I suppose putting it in a nutshell, that there is no health
in us. So even though the outward signs of the influence of
the catholic revival are to be found in almost every parish
church, the inward victories are less apparent and less
substantial. This is deeply frustrating.
Nearly ten years ago
Francis Penhale painted an unpleasant picture in Catholics
in Crisis. (1989)
The Catholic
revolution begun In Oxford 150 years ago has faltered. But
at a time when life for many people, haunted by the spectres
of economic decline, social collapse and nuclear war, seems
increasingly bleak and empty of meaning, the Catholic faith
continues to offer an alternative hope. This hope was
grasped and acted upon by the Tractarians and their
successors with far-reaching results. It retains a similar
potential today. But genuine renewal involves more than a
defensive obsession with the trivia of liturgy, opposition
to the ordination of women or attacks on the latest liberal
bishop, which merely confirm popular stereotypes of the
essential remoteness and irrelevance of religion. If this is
all that Anglican Catholicism amounts to, it will never be
more than a sect, a visible contradiction of its claim to be
'Catholic'.
For us here tonight this
confronting assault needs an answer. To that author's
'there has got to be something better than this 'charge, we
have to have a clear response that there is indeed more to
our part of the Church than caricature. It could well be
argued, for instance, that developments of a most positive
nature in the last three or four years have changed the
context completely, at least in the English Church. Where
there was despair, there is indeed now hope. Here in
Australia we are only at the very beginning of that
change.
A major cause for hope here
in Australia has come, believe it or not, through the
channels of the general synod. Something very significant
happened at the Adelaide general synod in February of this
year that is to scoffed at or dismissed at our peril. As
one who has attended most of these gatherings over the last
20 years and who has studied them over a much longer period,
I can report that here was just a glimpse of a way forward.
I might add this was followed by a foretaste of a reversion
to old patterns likely in a big way in the next synod in
2001. But there was a glimpse and the results of this are
being worked on now.
Our general synod has
explicitly and clearly acknowledged what is elsewhere called
"the two integrities'. Our general synod has linked the
discussion and the consideration of the consecration or
acceptance of women bishops with the formerly impossible
proposition of alternative episcopal oversight.
Groups represented here
tonight have put submissions before the national working
group formed to assist the Church on this vital matter. By
this time next year one or more detailed proposals,
including the actual possible legislation and a brief
summary of both its theological and ecclesial implications,
will be in circulation, at least a year and a half before
the synod meets. I am one of the 7 members of that working
group. It met for the second time last Monday and will meet
again in February. We have an opportunity here to help
shape a future. There is a genuine desire to meet the
reasonable needs of those who must in conscience dissent.
It remains to be seen just how far this will go.
How far is all this from our
Christ as King? Our lessons through these last weeks of the
year and for the great days of All Saints' and All Souls'
have above all brought us back to the sovereignty of God.
Above and beyond all things, including death itself, there
is God. In Christ, by the power of the Spirit, we seek that
oneness with God in the Church, the blessed company of all
faithful people. Our call is to be faithful and our place
is in this Church, imperfect and divided as it has ever
been. The Lord that we serve, not only with our lips but
with our lives, is Christ the King.
Col 1:13 ... [God] has
created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son that he
loves ...
|
Views is a
publication of
St Peter's Eastern Hill, Melbourne Australia.
|
