Archives for posts with tag: Methodists

Talking to the Archbishop

By hughdbryant
September 7, 2023 //
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Sermon for Mattins on 3rd Sept 2023 at All Saints Church, Penarth

Romans 12:9-21

Matthew 16:21-28

https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=560606098

What does it mean to be a Christian? Is it one of those organisations that have a rule book or a constitution which you have to keep to if you are going to be a member? Some people say that they think that what’s really valuable about Christianity is that it provides a moral compass that people can live by, especially today, when even in public life people do things and say things that perhaps in the past we wouldn’t have thought possible.

I won’t try to trace that pattern through recent history, in case I say something wrong about one of your heroes; but I think one could mention in passing things like former President Trump continuing to repeat a patently untrue story about having won the last election, for example: and I think it would be fair enough to have in mind some of the things that former prime ministers of recent years have said as well, as being ‘economical with the actualité’, as somebody once described it. You hear people say, ‘Things are going to the dogs’: ‘The policeman are getting smaller’: ‘Nobody knows the difference between right and wrong any more’.

So it’s interesting to come across what almost looks like a rule book for being a Christian, in what St Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome. ‘Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good’. ‘Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.’ It reminds us of Jesus’s own Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). St Paul says do not repay anyone evil for evil, for example. Live in harmony with one another – and in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says don’t just go tit for tat, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but turn the other cheek; if someone wants your shirt, give him your coat as well. If a ‘man in authority’ makes you go one mile, go with him two. Give when you are asked to give and don’t turn your back on someone who asks for a loan. Jesus and Paul are pretty similar. This is the moral philosophy of Jesus Christ. Saint Paul, writing to the Romans, was probably writing before any of the gospels were written down, so it’s pretty clear that what he was saying reflected what all the early Christians held to by way of their moral beliefs.

I was thinking about that when I started listening to one of those radio programmes where the Archbishop of Canterbury interviews various people. I don’t know whether you’ve come across them, on BBC Radio 4, but I heartily recommend them. They are absolutely fascinating. The interviews are with a very wide variety of people. I think it’s true to say that most of them are top people, leaders, in one way or another, but they’re not necessarily people who would immediately spring to mind as wanting to have a public chat with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

A person like that was a lady called Dr Susan Blackmore, whom I’m sure some of you will know far better than I do: she was certainly a new one on me. It turns out that she is a ‘psychologist who is interested in the paranormal and matters spiritual’, according to the BBC, and who is keen on ‘Zen meditation’.

A lot of the people that Archbishop Justin interviews are not actually believers but are atheists, and Dr Blackmore is one like that. What struck me was that she and Justin Welby both seemed largely to believe in the same moral principles: they would both, I think, have recognised the same things as being good and bad; and if you took the labels off I think that Dr Blackmore would have been quite happy with most of the moral ideas outlined by Saint Paul – and indeed, by Jesus himself. She certainly believes that mankind is capable of altruism, going the extra mile and so on, being generous to strangers, and also, to some extent, in being ultimately generous: ‘greater love hath no man’ and all that, sacrificing oneself for your friend.

Then a very interesting moment in the conversation happened. These two people, who appeared to be identikit decent middle-class English people, with plenty of goodwill towards their fellow men and women, suddenly came to something which clearly stopped both of them in their tracks.

That was this: Dr Blackmore asked the Archbishop, “Hey, look: what would happen if it turned out that you discovered that there was good scientific evidence that the resurrection of Jesus Christ never happened, and that Jesus had died just like any one of us – and stayed dead?” Clearly Dr Blackmore expected him to say that it wouldn’t matter too much; that he had a ‘belief in the round’ and that he would still be a Christian even if it turned out that Jesus was just another bloke, perhaps a prophet, as Muslims believe.

But Archbishop Justin didn’t say that. He said, “Well, if Jesus wasn’t resurrected from the dead, it would be over. All my Christianity would be washed up instantly.” He said that it might be possible, perhaps, that he would revert to a kind of agnostic position about whether there was a God, in the sense of an ultimate creator, but he was quite clear that, just like St Paul, he believes that the whole thing depends on the resurrection of Jesus. In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul says, “If Christ was not raised, then our gospel is null and void” (1 Cor. 15:14).

It isn’t the case that Christians believe in a sort of generalised creator, a creative force, some kind of ill-defined spiritual positive force, what William Paley in the 17th century referred to as the divine watchmaker: a creator, who, sure enough, created the world and everything in it, and just like a watchmaker he had made the mechanism and set it off, and away it went without any further interference from him. That’s not Christianity.

Christianity is about Christ; and that crunch moment is what we see in the story from Saint Matthew’s Gospel, with Saint Peter trying to talk Jesus out of going to suffer and die in Jerusalem. Jesus knew what was waiting for him, and he told the disciples about it. Peter reacted as I think any of us might have reacted if we’d been there. He didn’t want to see this good man, who’d taught him so much and had shown him so many wonderful things, hurt in any way.

But he didn’t get it. Peter acknowledged Jesus as his Messiah, as his heavenly king come on Earth. But he didn’t really know how that worked. He probably had a picture in mind of something more like an earthly king, a King David or a Roman emperor in triumph; and of course, Jesus turned everything upside down, as he always did. The triumph was a triumph over suffering. He had to suffer first, before his triumph, because he wasn’t a king who was above all suffering, but was rather a king who was at the heart of everything, suffering what his people suffered – and worse.

It might be interesting at that point just to look back to the differences between how St Paul saw morality as it affects Christians – and how Jesus himself did ; and to compare it with somebody like Dr Blackmore the psychologist, who denied that there was any such thing as free will, but seemed to be able to recognise good and evil nevertheless. She certainly didn’t acknowledge that there was a God, or that Jesus was in any way divine. I think that, although she didn’t actually say so, she didn’t believe in the resurrection.

But if you say that you don’t believe that people can choose what they do freely, because you’re determined, pre-programmed, so you are fixed by your evolution, your genes and your experience, then is there any real meaning to good and evil? Dr Blackmore is left looking down an empty hole. On the other hand Saint Paul can say, “Hold fast to what is good”, because he can point to what Jesus has said, and through Jesus, in Jesus, Saint Paul recognised ultimate reality, a justification for everything.

Justin Welby said that when he was 19, in his second year at university, a friend had taken him to church and then on to supper, during which the friend had been telling him about the cross and the resurrection of Jesus, and the Archbishop said there was suddenly a ‘sense of presence’ in the room. “I’m not sure how to explain that,” he said, and his friend had apparently said, “What do you want to do now?” The Archbishop had said, “Whatever it is, it is good – and I need to cooperate with it”.

It’s perhaps a bit like John Wesley, walking down Aldersgate Street to a Bible study meeting, to study one of St Paul’s letters, and he said he was feeling a little bit reluctant, perhaps because he had done too much Bible study that day, and then all of a sudden he ‘felt his heart strangely warmed’. He had a strong feeling that Jesus, God, was there and that He did care, personally, for him.

Dr Blackmore by contrast, when she was 19, had one of those out of body experiences – although she did say she was smoking cannabis at the time – but apparently she experienced a very real feeling of going down a tunnel with a light at the end, which is an experience which quite a number of other people have testified to, but which doesn’t necessarily lead you to believe in God.

So what is it that makes you a Christian as opposed to someone who does Zen meditation? The difference is Jesus. The difference is the unique history of Jesus. After this we will say the creed – we’ll say, “I believe”- and there is nothing like it. Maybe there are some bits that you find difficult to understand or even to believe. But taken as a whole it is like the constitutional document for being a Christian.

I believe. I believe in God the father Almighty. I believe in Jesus Christ, who was crucified, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again. There is nothing like it. Frankly we wouldn’t be here, and there wouldn’t be people in church all round the world, if that was some kind of illusion, if it hadn’t happened.

As the Archbishop himself said, there are today about 85 million Anglicans, let alone the other denominations, Roman Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Orthodox, and although in Western Europe and in the northern hemisphere generally, fewer people are coming to Christ, in the world as a whole Christianity it’s still far and away the biggest and fastest-growing religion.

Christ is coming to more and more people. More and more people are being confronted by this amazing story and realising that they can’t make sense of their lives without in some meaningful way coming to terms with it. And they realise that coming to terms with it isn’t necessarily a picnic.

As Jesus himself said, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’. It’s not a prosperity gospel. It can be tough, but once you’ve confronted it – once it’s confronted you – then your life is changed forever. If you do the things that St Paul recommends, your love will be genuine, you will rejoice in hope, you will be patient in your suffering; and, so far as it depends on you, if it is possible, (because Paul is a realist), you will live ‘peaceably’ with all.

That’s a perfect context for this service. What we are doing is celebrating, praising, the God who came to us in the form of a man, went through terrible suffering, died, in the most horrible and undeniable way, and then, on the third day, he rose again. So today we must give him our praise; and we must show our love, love for God and love for each other.

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Trump/Bayes

By hughdbryant
January 8, 2018 //
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Sermon for Evensong on the First Sunday after the Epiphany, 7th January 2018

Isaiah 42:1-9, Ephesians 2:1-10 – see http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=382181977

Paul Bayes, the Bishop of Liverpool, hit the headlines the other day by suggesting that Americans who go to church, but who also support the policies of President Trump, are not really Christians. Or, shall we say, by supporting Trump, they are acting in a way which conflicts with true Christian belief.

He doesn’t see how you can square professing to be a Christian with supporting Donald Trump, in that Donald Trump has shown that he is a womaniser, a xenophobe, a racist and a warmonger. If Christians support Donald Trump, does that in any way compromise their Christianity? The Bishop of Liverpool clearly says, ‘Yes, it does.’

Instead of the President, look for a minute at the leader whom Isaiah was describing in our first Bible reading. This is sometimes called the Song of the Covenant. It is a proclamation, through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, putting God’s words into the mouth of the prophet, describing that chosen leader, the Messiah, leading the people bound by their agreement with God, the covenant with Abraham: ‘He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.’ He is gentle. ‘A bruised reed shall he not break’. Strangely, you might feel, there’s no mention of Twitter.

But interestingly – perhaps a bit paradoxically – this is all in a series of chapters describing God reaching an agreement, a covenant, with his chosen people – it’s not just an agreement between God and the chosen people, the Israelites. Even back in the beginning, in the Old Testament, in Isaiah it says, ‘… he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles’ and ‘I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles’. A light of the Gentiles – the Gentiles were the non-Jews. They were what we are.

So right at the beginning, at the championing of the people of Israel in God’s eyes, there was also more than a look over the shoulder at the people who were not Jewish. The Messiah was going to be a light to them too, a ‘light to the Gentiles’. This is universal. Christ is for all the world, for everyone.

The idea of a private understanding, a covenant, between God and his ‘chosen people’ may seem a bit strange to us now. But in the Methodist Church all over the world this Sunday, the first Sunday of the year, is known as Covenant Sunday, and there is a special service in which the congregation renew their commitment to follow God’s commandments, and John Wesley’s special Covenant prayer is said. I will pray that prayer for us when I lead our prayers in a few minutes.

What the Messiah was going to do had a distinctly revolutionary aspect to it. He would bring the prisoners out of prison and give light to the blind, in a society where, if you were disabled, people thought that was because you had done something wrong and were bad in some way. So in other words the people who had the deal with the Almighty, the chosen, the chosen race, the Israelites, were not chosen so that they could carry all before them and rule the world, they were to be a haven of social justice and reconciliation, where the leader was not a mighty warrior but was a gentle person who would not hurt a fly. Rather different from President Trump.

People who are politically savvy will probably glaze over a bit as I go through this because, they will say, ‘What is the relevance of what happened 2000 years ago – or even earlier, if you are talking about Isaiah?’ There are practical things that you just can’t ignore. ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ I mean, in this country these days, even if in an ideal world we would like to, we just don’t have the money to do all the good things that we would like to do.’

But it is notable that in the Bible there is never any reference to what doing the right thing might cost. It’s just a question whether it’s the right thing to do or not. St Paul’s point in our second lesson from Ephesians is that, given that the Messiah has come, that Jesus has appeared, and in so doing God has renewed his covenant; so there is an effect on the faithful believers. Once they realise that God has taken an interest in them, then, the argument goes, they won’t want to do any bad things in future. It won’t matter what the practicalities are: ‘Teach us, good Lord …. to give, and not to count the cost’. That will be their guiding principle.

But whereas perhaps even in the light of this, all we can do about the godlessness of President Trump is to sigh, and say how much we disapprove, what about things nearer to home? For instance, what about the leader of Windsor borough council?

The leader of the Windsor council has written to the police and crime commissioner local to him, to ask that homeless people be cleared off the streets in time for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding. Now is there any kind of conflict between the Christianity of the wedding and the unsympathetic attitude to homeless people exhibited by the council leader? He has said that he just wanted to do something to help the wedding couple. He has said that he thought that many of the homeless people were not really homeless, because there were places where they could stay. They were begging, making themselves a nuisance.

But what would Jesus say about that? Or indeed Isaiah? The Old Testament has numerous places where the prophets tell people to look after widows and orphans, and ‘the stranger that is in your midst’. That must imply that they are homeless. And in the New Testament, in Jesus’ own words, what about the Great Judgement in Matthew 25:

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

I would suggest that it’s pretty clear that Jesus wouldn’t be sympathetic to the leader of Windsor borough council. I think Jesus would say that it doesn’t matter why someone is homeless, or a beggar. The Good Samaritan didn’t check to see whether the man who had been hurt had in some way been responsible for his plight, to blame for it, had somehow brought his misfortune on himself.

And indeed many of the organisations which work to care for the homeless have challenged the council leader’s reasoning. Thames Valley Police, the ones he asked to clear so-called ‘rough sleepers’ off the streets, didn’t think that would help. It would be more effective, the police said, if the causes of homelessness and destitution were addressed instead. Crisis, the charity for the homeless, said similar things. People don’t choose to be homeless, and they only beg when they are desperate. Shelter and Centrepoint, two other leading charities, have agreed.

I don’t know whether the leader of Windsor and Maidenhead Royal Borough Council goes to church at all. But I think that if he does, he ought to reflect very carefully on what the Bishop of Liverpool has said about whether it’s possible to be a Trump supporter and a Christian at the same time. It applies here on this side of the Atlantic too. If you don’t love your neighbour as yourself, never mind what it costs, you’re not a real Christian.

The Covenant Prayer of John Wesley (1703–1791)

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

Further Bible references: see http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20110203_1.htm

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Must Rhodes Fall?

By hughdbryant
January 22, 2017 //
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Sermon for Evensong on the third Sunday of Epiphany 22nd of January 2017
Ecclesiastes 3:1-11; 1 Peter 1:3-12

I said when I welcomed everyone at the beginning of the service, this is the Sunday in the middle of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It’s particularly nice to have Father Jonathan and some of our friends from Sacred Heart here to worship with us. That of course goes for all our friends from all the other churches, but today I have a particular thing to discuss with our Roman friends.

This morning I preached on Christian unity and tried to reconcile our modern tendency, to elevate our tastes and our wish to be able to choose, with the clear biblical imperative that we should all be one in Christ Jesus.

Tonight I want to be more specific in touching on the fact that this week is not only the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, but also that we are beginning to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, or to be more precise, the 500th anniversary, on 31st October, of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses protesting against various practices in the then Roman Catholic Church; in particular, the sale of ‘indulgences’ in order to shorten one’s time in ‘purgatory’.

In those days, the belief was that, after death, your soul went into a halfway house, purgatory, where it was tested and purified so as to eradicate from it any traces of sin. This could be a lengthy and painful process, which you could shorten by buying indulgences. Without going into the theology involved in Martin Luther’s challenge, I would just point out that this dispute about indulgences was the beginning of the split between the Roman Catholic Church and the churches which are subsequently described as Protestant.

What I am interested in tonight is to some extent influenced by our first lesson from Ecclesiastes, the famous lesson about time, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to get, and a time to lose, and so on. Everything in its season and a season for everything

As some of you may know, I was an undergraduate at Oriel College, Oxford. The College has been in the news recently because it has become the subject of protests by a movement called ‘Rhodes Must Fall’, started originally in South Africa, protesting against memorials to Cecil Rhodes, who, as well as founding the famous Rhodes scholarships, and paying for the building of Rhodes House, where the Rhodes Scholars could meet, gave to my old college, Oriel, enough money to fund the building of a new Rhodes Building which was finished before the First World War and which has just been subject to a complete refurbishment including the building of a new additional top floor with very splendid penthouses for students looking over the rooftops towards the dreaming spires of Oxford.

On the side of the building which faces the High Street there is a large statue of Cecil Rhodes, and the protesters have been demanding that the statue be removed, just as a similar statue in Cape Town has been removed as a result of their protest. The protesters have argued that Cecil Rhodes exploited his workers in his diamond mines, that he had been a racist and colonialist of the worst type, and he should not be remembered favourably in any way.

This has prompted a huge amount of soul-searching in the governing body of the College, who have in their turn consulted the old boys like me – and the old girls; this consultation taking the form of a seminar which took place recently with three distinguished academic speakers and open discussion aimed at placing the heritage of Cecil Rhodes in the appropriate ‘context’.

I have to say that I was rather disappointed that, with the exception of one speaker, none of the discussion concerned the moral question whether or not it was acceptable to judge people by contemporary standards when, at the time they were active, moral judgement would have viewed them differently. Or, if even then Cecil Rhodes was a bad man, was it a good thing to accept gifts, albeit generous ones, from such a bad man?

Then having regard to our lesson today, what difference does time make? If at that time the gifts were made, Cecil Rhodes was not a bad man, according to the standards prevalent at the time, what difference does it make that in time that perception may have changed?

Those sort of perceptions seem to me to affect our view of the Reformation as well. There is a statement from our two archbishops, Justin and John Sentamu, about the Reformation, celebrating the good things that have come from it, the proclamation of the gospel of grace, the availability of the Bible for people to read in their own languages, and the recognition that lay people are called to serve God in addition to those who are ordained. This is an echo of Calvin’s idea of the priesthood of all believers.

At the same time the archbishops express regret, and acknowledge that the time of the Reformation was a time of violence and strife between the Christian people on either side of the Reformation process, all claiming to know the same Lord.

We have been using tonight – as we do every Sunday at St Mary’s at 6 – the Book of Common Prayer, which was originally written by Thomas Cranmer in 1549. It was – and still is – the finest expression of reformed theology in the English language. Even so Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake as a heretic seven years later. The turmoil in the English Church did not really subside until nearly 100 years later. The prayer book which we are using is the 1662 edition.

The Reformation in England claimed many lives. England had see-sawed between Henry VIII’s version of Protestantism, which really was Catholicism minus the Pope, (because of his inconvenient objections to Henry’s desire to obtain a divorce), to the Catholicism of Mary, back to Protestantism under Elizabeth and so on. Until after the Civil War and the death of Charles I, under the reign of Cromwell and the Puritans, extreme Protestants; England had lived out the Reformation for over 100 years. It was a live issue, and unfortunately, an extremely violent time. The poor Roman Catholics suffered a lot.

There has always been a paradox in the area of religious belief and tolerance of other people’s beliefs. Jesus preached a message exclusively of love and caring for one’s neighbour. But at the same time he foresaw that divisions would be caused by his gospel. Matthew 10:34f: ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ But he told them to love their enemies and turn the other cheek.

Unfortunately his followers did not listen, because for them, for someone not to believe what they regarded as being fundamental and true, was sacrilege, blasphemy and had to be completely eradicated, even by killing the person who had expressed the unacceptable view.

Is very difficult for us to understand why people should have been horribly killed like this, for example by being burned at the stake; but of course we do see the same sort of religious violence today, this time between Muslims and other religions including our own, in the Middle East. Converting from the Muslim religion to another religion is regarded in many Islamic countries as a capital offence.

Does Ecclesiastes have anything to say about this? Is it a recipe for moral relativism? It seems to say that at different times, the same thing is both good and bad. We see the same issue in the context of safeguarding and sexual misconduct. Those of us who grew up in the swinging 60s were frankly not terribly shocked by what rock musicians got up to after concerts with adoring groupies.

But now it is recognised that there was a great inequality of bargaining power, if I can put it that way, and great scope for glamorous individuals, usually men, in effect to coerce impressionable young girls. What is it that makes things right and wrong? What is it that makes things right at one time and wrong at another?

I think that among the various Christians here in Cobham there is more that unites us than divides us. We are all looking to follow Jesus’s message of love and care for our neighbours, and that is the standard which we seek to apply to our conduct. Not everything is what it seems at first. Apparently the first student to win a Rhodes Scholarship was a black African.

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Primates, not Gorillas

By hughdbryant
January 17, 2016 //
0

Sermon for Mattins on the Second Sunday of Epiphany, 17th January 2016

1 Corinthians 12:1-11: John 2:1-11
Spiritual gifts, which God created in us, have given us a variety of aptitudes and skills. We are all rather different, but, St Paul’s point is, we are all bound together by being created by the same spirit. That’s appropriate to mention now, because next week is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
I’m sure we could also have a nice time reflecting on the wedding at Cana in Galilee. Did you know that there has been a change in the etiquette of buying somebody a drink? This is as a result of the government’s recent health advice on safe levels of alcohol consumption. The other day, as I found myself entering the ‘Running Mare’ for some reason, as I sometimes do, one of my boon companions greeted me by saying, “Hugh, would you like a unit?” A unit. I responded, as I understand you have to do in the circumstances, “Yes please, make it three”. And accordingly, a pint of the finest Tongham Traditional English Ale, otherwise known as a pint of TEA, was duly produced.
Moderation in all things, μηδέν αγαν; ‘do nothing to excess’. It is not a Christian principle as such. It was the inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi in Classical antiquity. Perhaps discussion of wine, or even TEA, belongs to the jollifications of Christmas, and we really need to move on to more serious things.
Quite often at the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we have discussed the relations between the various churches, have regretted our differences, and prayed for better understanding between the different parts of God’s church, and possibly the coming together of some of the different parts in unity. So for example, we have had a close encounter with the Methodists, and the relations between the Church of England and the Catholic Church have greatly improved.
What I think is more topical, more important for us today, is to discuss the idea of Christian unity not between our church and others, but within the Anglican church in the light of the meeting of Primates, that is, senior bishops (not gorillas), the leaders of the various national Anglican churches, but which has just taken place in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral.
Over 30 senior bishops from all over the world were meeting, at Archbishop Justin’s invitation, to try to sort out their differences over various aspects of human sexuality, in particular, gay marriage and the ordination of openly gay people as ministers. Perhaps after all the wedding at Cana is relevant today – not in its wine, but simply as a wedding. Weddings are the same focus.
There are divisions between those churches which uphold a so-called ‘traditional’ view and those who believe that the spirit of Jesus’ teaching allows them to recognise that the definition of marriage may well have changed or widened to include homosexual people.
It’s probably true also to say that the dividing line is between those who rely on the letter of the Bible and those who allow the Bible to be subject to interpretation. The argument centres around the verses in the 10th chapter of St Mark’s Gospel, ‘God made them male and female’. Coupled with some gruesome prohibitions in the book of Leviticus and the less enlightened parts of Saint Paul’s letters, to the effect that homosexuality is wrong, the traditionalists argue that gay marriage cannot be allowed in church.
Against this, understanding of people’s sexuality from a scientific point of view has advanced in many countries so that there is a recognition that it may well be an oversimplification to say simply that “God made them male and female”.
We now know there are all sorts of, degrees of, maleness and femaleness, up to and including cases where people are literally hermaphroditic, that they have as many male characteristics as female. And there are also people who discover that the body in which they are born doesn’t reflect their true sexuality, so that they may have sex change operations as a result. Some very well-known people have started out as being of a different sex from the one they are now recognised to be. For example the travel writer and historian, Jan Morris, until 1972 was James Morris, who reported for the Times on the first ascent of Everest by Hillary and Tenzing.

Again, within homosexual couples, it is often quite clear that one takes a male role and the other takes a female role within the partnership, notwithstanding the fact that the partners are biologically of the same sex.
Having said all that, it is also true that people who are not gay or bisexual often find the idea of gay or bisexual behaviour physically repulsive. This is presumably a natural instinct aimed at directing us towards those who share the same orientation. Similarly, some homosexuals have a distinct aversion from the opposite sex.
But I am sure that homosexual couples feel the same love, and have the same aspirations towards lifelong commitment and fidelity, that heterosexual couples do in marriage.
The churches within the Anglican communion have adopted different attitudes. The Church of England, our church, will not marry gay people in church, have gay bishops or ordain gay clergymen. Some of the African churches take things much further. Uganda and Nigeria have both either passed or are planning to pass laws which make homosexuality a criminal offence, and their local Anglican churches support this. They are in the same position as was the case in England before the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised homosexuality. On the other hand, the Episcopal Church of the United States of America has consecrated an openly gay bishop, and is willing to marry gay people in church.
Archbishop Justin convened the so-called Primates’ meeting, or conference, because it was beginning to look likely that a number of the national Anglican churches would split away from the worldwide Anglican communion, because of this disagreement on sexual questions.
As you will no doubt have read in the newspaper or heard on the radio, the conference has finished and a communiqué has been issued, to say that, although the bishops regret any hurt which may have been given to homosexuals or LGBTI people, and although the church commits itself to opposing legislation against homosexuality wherever such legislation is introduced throughout the world, nevertheless they have sanctioned the Episcopal Church of United States of America by excluding them from voting rights in the various Anglican communion meetings and consultations for the next three years as punishment for that church changing their doctrine concerning marriage without first obtaining the agreement of the other churches in the Anglican communion.
Archbishop Justin has avoided a split in the church for the time being, but it is at least arguable that he is just putting a lid on a seething cauldron of disagreement which is bound to result in some kind of schism in future.
It’s not my function to tell you how to think. But I think it is legitimate simply to point out, that, from its earliest times, the church has had disagreements about how to interpret the Bible, how to strike a balance between the norms of secular society and Biblical teaching.
It has been pointed out, for example, that right up to the passing of the legislation against it in the middle of the 19th century, the Church of England had nothing against slavery. The slave traders, whose wealth went into the creation of the cities of Liverpool and Bristol, were all devout churchgoers, and the church at that time saw nothing wrong in their activity. The Clapham Sect around William Wilberforce developed their opposition to slavery at their church, Holy Trinity, Clapham Common: and in so doing they were going against the official position of the Church of England at the time.
So I think it may be a little naive to suggest that there is some such thing as “the truth”, which can be discovered simply by reading the Bible. You will, I’m sure, all know of the various ambiguities and internal contradictions in the Bible. If you read the book of Leviticus, chapters 20 and 21, where the bloodcurdling prohibitions against homosexuality are to be found, you will find that not only is homosexuality condemned, but many other things are also slammed, which we might not find particularly objectionable today. But it is only homosexuality whose prohibition is remembered.
Very early on, the church evolved a formula for the interpretation of scripture and the development of the correct doctrine, according to which the Bible was certainly the first source, but it should be understood in the light of tradition and the application of reason. If something doesn’t make sense or is contradictory, then you can use reason to correct it, and it is also relevant to see what the church in its history has believed.
But to me the bottom line seems to be that, in all these discussions, it’s difficult to see how Jesus’ great commandment of love, that ‘thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ is being observed, where the churches’ attitude to the gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is concerned. I find it very difficult to understand how the church can espouse anything as policy which results in such hurt.
We now know much more about how human sexuality works, as a matter of science. It seems to me that we should take advantage of that knowledge, so that in the mixture of scripture, reason and tradition we should give some weight to reason: and where scripture is concerned, we should recognise that some things are more central than others, none more so than Jesus’ new commandment that we love each other. Yes, we should acknowledge that there has been a tradition: but we should weigh this tradition appropriately against the other two factors.
We should give Archbishop Justin credit for keeping the churches in the Anglican communion together in one group and, we hope, keeping them talking to each other. The sad thing is, I can’t imagine that, if I went to a church in Nigeria or in Uganda, it would be very different, (except that it might be more jolly), from a church here or in the United States. There would indeed be ‘diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.’ And ‘differences of administrations, but the same Lord’, as St Paul says.
Let’s hope and pray that the Primates, (who are, after all, not gorillas), will recognise this in future. And then we can stop worrying about sex, and concentrate on all people who really need our compassion and love, like the refugees in Calais as they face a northern winter for the first time.

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