Good Lord Deliver Us, The Reverend David R. Williams, Lent I--Year C--Feb. 25, 2007
 
Examine us O God and know our hearts; test us and discover our thoughts, and lead us in the way everlasting.”  Amen
 
This has not been a great PR week for the Episcopal Church.  “Anglicans rebuke U.S. Episcopal Church,” reads one headline in the New York Times.  The quiet murmurs and questions of Episcopalians throughout the land begin to crescendo during weeks like this one.  “What are they talking about?” “What is going on?”  Some people ignore the headlines and we all continue our daily business responsibilities.
 
For the Anglican Communion and, for that matter, the Episcopal Church, it is wilderness season. Let us begin with that image of “wilderness”.  The season of Lent tells of our Lord’s journey into a night of wilderness. The Old Testament lesson from Deuteronomy reflects Moses’ urge to the people of God to never forget the Hebrew people’s journey from the prison of oppression and slavery to a new land flowing with milk and honey.  The wilderness is a place of transition to promise and a new beginning.
 
Jesus faces temptation at a transition time.   Before taking the long walk to the cross, Jesus goes into the wilderness. 
 
“Remember not, Lord Christ, our offenses, nor the offenses of our forefathers; neither reward us according to our sins.  Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou has redeemed with thy most precious blood, and by thy mercy preserve us forever.  Good Lord deliver us.”
 
We stop. We pray. The Great Litany continues to take us to uncomfortable places – wilderness places, “From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice; and from all want of charity.  Good Lord deliver us.”
 
“Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”
 
Imagine yourself in a room with thiry-seven other people – all thirty-seven happen to be the opposite gender to yourself.  The image for me would be thirty-seven high-powered, church leaders – all women. I would be the lone male.  Wilderness!!
 
“The Episcopal Church has been asked to consider the wider body of the Anglican Communion and its needs,” our Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori graciously writes upon her return from a weeklong meeting with thirty-seven other Church leaders (Primates) of Anglican provinces, all thirty-seven of them male.
 
“What is being asked of both parties who disagree with each other is a season of fasting,” Bishop Schori writes. 
 
Let me offer a little background here. 
 
Most of the thirty-eight Provinces of the Anglican Communion are similar in title to their respective countries – Episcopal Church of the United States; Anglican Church of Canada; Anglican Church of Nigeria; Anglican Church of Japan….and so on.  Each has a head Bishop – called Archbishop or Presiding Bishop. These leaders are called Primates.
 
In recent decades, the Primates of the thirty-eight Provinces of the Anglican Communion have scheduled meetings about every two years.  There is neither constitution nor any Canon law binding these provinces together.  The bond is only by tradition and history.  All provincial Churches claim to have grown from the Church of England; thus, the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Bishop Rowan Williams, presides over such meetings.  Bishop Williams has influence but no authority over any of the provinces.
 
In all, there are 77 million Anglicans in the world.  Merely 2.3 million are Episcopalians from the United States.  The most common language of all 77 million is Swahili – a language of many African provinces.  The African churches are growing far faster than the “western” churches, Church of England, Canada, the United States.  Many of the South American and Asian provinces are also growing. 
 
Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, installed as our Presiding Bishop last fall, attended a “Primates Meeting” for her first time.  She sat with 37 other Church Bishops – all male.  The four day meeting took place in Tanzania. 
 
Because of recent resolutions and agreements on issues of sexuality within our own Episcopal Church and because some of the Primates do not recognize ordained women, Bishop Katherine was particularly careful to save public comment until after the meeting at hand.
 
Wilderness. 
 
“From all false doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word and commandment, good Lord deliver us.”
 
As God’s people we are in transition.  We are always learning more about ourselves and our sexuality. We wish to make informed judgments, and we seek to recognize each other as made in God’s hand.
 
However, globally and locally, we disagree with each other.  After being singled out and admonished through a communique because she represented the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katherine returned to this country with a gracious and generous perspective:
 
 “Justice, steadfast love, and mercy always go together in our biblical tradition,” she says.  “None is complete without the others.  While those who seek full inclusion for gay and lesbian Christians, and the equal valuing of their gifts for ministry, do so out of an undeniable passion for justice, to others seek a fidelity to the tradition that cannot understand or countenance the violation of what that tradition says about sexual ethics.  Each is being asked to forbear for a season,” Bishop Shori writes.  Each is invited to fast.
 
Bishop Schori said yesterday in New York to members of her staff, “I fully recognize that this is a heavy time for most of us, but what better way to start Lent?  I think it’s a time for us to slow down, to rest in God-which is the only place we can rest – and to realize that we’re not deciding today.  Whatever we decide, God will continue to be God and this church will continue to be engaged in mission.” 
 
Wilderness.    
 
This sermon merely skims the surface of the issues and events of this past week regarding the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.  I welcome reflections and comments.  Please. Let’s continue the conversation, even as we go about our daily business. And let us remember that even a few individuals speaking on behalf of divine justice of another minority of God’s children is in itself a symbol of hope—as heartening as the image of thirty-eight worldwide Church leaders gathering for Bible study and common prayers of mercy, peace, discernment and compassion.
 
“That it may please thee to give us true repentance; to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances; and to endue us with the grace of thy Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to thy Holy Word, we beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.”
 
The Prayer Book liturgy for Ash Wednesday calls us: “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” 
 
“That it may please thee to grant that, in the fellowship of all the saints, we may attain to thy heavenly kingdom, we beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.”
 
Amen.