The Seventh Sunday after Trinity

18th July 2010: Choral Evensong 6.00 PM

Preacher: The Revd John Chynchen, Cathedral Chaplain

The Collect for Sunday 13th June 2010 read as follows:

Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.

When Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori preached and presided at a Eucharist on that Sunday at Southwark Cathedral in London, she carried her mitre, or bishop's hat, under her arm rather than wear it.

She did so in order to comply with a "statement" from Lambeth Palace, the London home of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, that said "...that I was not to wear a mitre at Southwark Cathedral," ― Jefferts Schori told the USA’s Episcopal Church at a meeting of its Executive Council later that week.

The world is facing global warming, an economic meltdown, massive immigration crises, continued international terrorism, interreligious tensions and warfare, nuclear escalation in the Middle East, poverty, the abuse of women and children, human trafficking, genocide, oppression of LGBT persons, and a massive environmental cataclysm in the Gulf of Mexico ― and the Archbishop of Canterbury is worried about a woman's hat?

In case the Church of England hasn't noticed, this is why people are rejecting Christianity. It isn't because some Christians chose women to lead their churches, ask questions about traditional renderings of theology and the Bible, doubt God's existence, or want their gay and lesbian friends and relatives to be part of their church communities. Western people are rejecting Christianity because ― as noted in a recent survey of young Americans ― Christians are "out of touch with reality."

Worldwide, Anglicans do care about any number of profound social justice issues and are working to make the world a better place in God's name. But if the Archbishop of Canterbury's staff can issue a directive about Bishop Katharine’s headwear, then they have too much time on their hands. Being worried about ecclesiastical millinery while Rome burns certainly counts as being out of touch with reality.

Preaching at Evensong in Southwark Cathedral later that Sunday, the Dean, the Very Revd Colin Slee, began a memorable and significant sermon with these words:

“Some of you will already be aware, and others will be completely unaware, that we had the Presiding Bishop of the USA here to celebrate the Eucharist and preach this morning.  Being an egalitarian culture, in social ranking if not in economic assessment, the Church in the United States does not have an archbishop.  So, in English terms, we had the Archbishop of the USA here this morning.”

On evangelical and ecclesiastically conservative websites the Dean had been denounced during the preceding week for being ‘provocative’ and ‘discourteous to the Archbishop of Canterbury’ for extending the invitation.  The facts were simple; there had been a steady stream of archbishops visiting Southwark to preach during the time since Mr Slee became Dean, and no doubt, well before that.  The archbishops of Brazil, South Africa, Canada, and of course York and Canterbury; Bishops from Zimbabwe, Norway, a woman bishop from the USA, and many others have held the Cathedral’s pulpit.  The invitation to the Presiding Bishop was not at all a novelty for Southwark; the date was fixed in July 2008.  The Dean happened to be at Lambeth Palace on the Friday the before the event and personally collected the Archbishop’s licence for the Presiding Bishop to officiate on the Sunday. He kept Dr Williams informed at all times.

There were several reasons for the fury.  The Presiding Bishop is a woman and some people hate the idea of women as bishops.  The General Synod of the Church of England was about to debate the admission of women as bishops within the Church of England. The Church in the United States has just consecrated an openly lesbian woman as a suffragan bishop in Los Angeles and so they are accused of breaking an embargo on such consecrations.  But it is not as simple as that.

The Dean told his congregation: “It seems to me that love must, by its essential nature, be always unconditional.  We welcome Katharine Jefferts Schori to this pulpit because we love our sisters and brothers in the Episcopal Church of the United States; not because she is female, or a woman bishop ― ahead of us, or has permitted a practising lesbian to become a bishop (As it happens she couldn’t have stopped it after all the legal and proper canonical electoral processes resulted in the election and nomination), we welcome her because she is our sister in Christ.” 

The Dean of Southwark Cathedral continued: “It may be that some Anglicans will decide to walk a separate path.  I believe the Chapter and congregation of this church will walk the same path as the Episcopal Church of America; the links are deep in our history, especially here.  Their actions in recent months have been entirely in accord with the Anglican ways of generosity and breadth.  They have tried to ensure everyone is recognised as a child of God.  They have behaved entirely in accord with their canon laws and their freedom as an independent Province of the Church, not imposing or interfering with others with whom they disagree but proceeding steadily and openly themselves.” 

Dean Colin wound up his sermon with these words: “It is my hope and prayer that Anglicans with different perspectives can continue to recognise their common inheritance in the faith even when they live many miles apart and conduct their churches in divergent ways; I also hope they read the scriptures intelligently.  It is my hope that this is a way that love can continue such that its realisation is in peace.  It is our constant experience that God is discovered when we have the courage to let go, to give freedom to the smallest of things and allow God to work giving the growth, we know not how.” Amen.