The Bishop of Beverley - Sermon for the Northern Provincial Festival

Sermon Preached at the Forward in Faith National Assembly 2008

As you have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

John 17 v18

Late in 1981, the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission that had produced its Final Report was disbanding. At the conclusion of the meeting the oldest member of the Commission, Bishop Christopher Butler, spoke to the Roman Catholic theologian, Father Jean Tillard, and to the Anglican Evangelical participant, Julian Charley. These two were the youngest participants in the work of ARCIC. Bishop Butler expressed to those two young men what he called his ‘envy’. They, he said, were going to see Unity and sing the Magnificat while he, Bishop Butler would only be able to join in with the angelic choirs. Today, of course, Julian Charley is well into retirement while that great ecumenist, Jean Tillard went to his rest only last year. In one of his lectures, subsequent to those early days of ARCIC, Jean Tillard had already made the observation that: “Alas, everything suggests that on this point dear Bishop Butler was wrong.” Those of us here today, who have listened in recent years to Cardinal Kasper and the shameful responses to him from some significant voices within the Church of England, can only feel that, with hindsight, Father Tillard had been somewhat restrained in his observations.

There is bound to be an understandable degree of frustration and anger among us as we gather together for this National Assembly. For most of us our Christian pilgrimage has been dominated throughout our lifetimes by what has rightly been described as Christ’s great gift to His Church in the Twentieth Century, namely the Ecumenical movement. Never has there been a time when Christ’s High Priestly Prayer that His Church might be one has been so seriously heeded. For those of us who stand within the Catholic tradition of the Church of England there have been ever increasing hopes of reconciliation with the Holy See and with that full Catholic tradition that is firmly rooted in Christ, Himself. And, now you and I have experienced a General Synod that is determined to go against the corporate mind of the Church Catholic. We appear to face a General Synod insistent on removing even the basic Catholic structures that might enable you and me to hold together as loyal members of the Church of England as we seek to remain faithful both to our heritage and to our calling.

There are, thankfully, two challenges of Jesus that stop you and me giving in to that frustration and anger that only, in the end, leads us to spiritual death. Faced with rejection, with both deliberate and accidental misunderstanding, with nothing but a cross ahead of Him, Jesus still surrendered to His Father in that struggle of Gethsemene. There is nothing sinful in you and I arriving at Gethsemene today. We must, though, take serious stock of how we leave this place to which, somehow and for some purpose, God has called us.

As you have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

Jesus tells you and me today not to give in to our own feelings. You and I are put here for the sake of others. You and I are sent into the world. You and I are to be united so that the world might believe. If I might be slightly flippant for a moment, it was not Father Sam Philpott who first called for us to be taken off the battlefield and on to the mission field. It was Jesus Christ in His High Priestly Prayer. It is just that Father Sam is perhaps better at appropriate colloquial translation than parts of the Jerusalem Bible! You and I are in business so that the world might believe in the One who sent us. There is a saying attributed to Father Herbert Kelly of Kelham: You can choose your own cross, you can carry your own cross, you can stretch yourself out on your own cross but, at the end of the day, you have to find someone else to knock the nails in. It may well be that you and I have to witness in today’s world to the One who sent us by facing ridicule and marginalisation both within society and general and the Church in particular. Somehow, like Christ, you and I have to handle that in the hope and trust that it will be redemptive.

You and I are called to perseverance. Yes, of course, that means holding firm to the Faith as the Catholic Church has received it. It may well be that, like me, your heart just sinks as for the umpteenth time you rise to your feet at a synod or PCC meeting patiently to defend what has always been the Faith of the Church. How easy I find it, and, perhaps, you do as well, to cross that fine line and become bigoted, intolerant and dismissive of others. Perseverance for Christians is also about perseverance in moral character. Remember our first reading. S Paul implores people to lead lives worthy of their vocation. We are to be charitable, completely selfless, gentle and patient. You and I may not be able to change other people. You and I can be open to changing ourselves. How often, when we go to confession, we slip into self-justifying arguments, like I was only nasty to him because he treated me badly in the first place. You and I know in our hearts that we follow a Saviour who could even pray forgiveness for those who crucified Him. The world is never going to believe in the One who sent us if, even in our frustration and anger, you and I do not behave decently towards our fellow Anglicans who, at the present time, seem to cause us such immense anguish.

Jesus prays for the unity of His Church as only then will the world believe. That requires that you and I take seriously the bonds of unity we already enjoy with other Christians and do not rush to put them in further jeopardy. There is a very real bond of communion that stems from our common Baptism. Those of us who are familiar with the Roman Catholic-Reformed dialogue will know just how increasingly the implications of this great truth are being pursued. Bonds of unity mean exactly that. You and I are bonded together in Baptism. That bond can never be undone. It pulls at us more and more tightly. The more you and I resist it, the more Baptismal bonds become like ropes that bite into our flesh as we try to escape from them. The bonds of Baptism demand that you and I persevere in seeking an ever fuller degree of Communion even with those Christians who cause us the most pain and difficulty. Remember, the modern ecumenical movement only started because a French Roman Catholic priest, the Abbé Paul Couturier, saw the need to build ever more meaningful and trusting relationships with Protestant and Anglican Christians at a time when his own church saw such people as heretical and quite outside the fold. Whatever painful decisions you and I have to make in these coming months, and sadly I fear there will be many, you and I would never want to become so locked away from those Christians that we regard as so very wrong that one day God has to raise up another Abbé Paul Couturier in order to reopen the lines of communication.

Let the world and the Church, then, know you and me by our perseverance in Catholic truth. Let the world and the Church see in you and me a commitment to love that reflects the love of Christ even when we feel most marginalized and persecuted. Perhaps, above all, let the world see in you, me, and the Christian people with whom we are at such great odds, as those who are literally held by the bonds of Christ in Baptism, determined to hang in there so that the world might believe.

So let a great Anglican from the past, FD Maurice, who I suspect would not be over- sympathetic to some of the claims you and I make today, speak across time to us and remind us of the bonds of Baptismal Communion. Maurice wrote well over a hundred years ago:

[Jesus] prays for them, that they may be one, that they may not make themselves the curses of the world by sharing in all its envies and hatreds, and by pleading God’s name as the excuse for them, when He has sent them into the world to be witnesses that His own Son has declared His love to it, and has gone forth from Him to bring it into the circle of His Love.

So may Jesus, in this Mass draw you and me more and more into His circle of love and keep us ever focused on drawing God’s world in to that great circle.