Sermon Preached by the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chatres, Bishop of London

It was a hot day when I climbed the steps of this Cathedral to be consecrated Bishop of Stepney. In my shirt sleeves and Panama hat I must have cut a rather unecclesiastical figure since the man at the door said with exquisite courtesy, "I'm sorry we're not letting the tourists in today".

I am not here as a tourist but as a citizen and a lover of London, first as a Parish Priest in Victoria, then in Stepney and now somewhere in the heart of London.

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." Yet, as Dr Johnson also knew, cities can be hard places where those with jobs and responsibilities experience huge pressures and those without work can have their confidence undermined and their joy in life sapped.

A partner in all these possibilities and tensions, the Church of Jesus Christ serves by preaching the message amidst so much gloom "Choose Life" as in our first lesson but also, and this is a deeper matter, the Church is to communicate joy in life. Put simply - The Church is Communication.

The Church should be true communication. She should not just engage in the business of "getting our message across". The Christian Gospel is not just another ideology or a problem- solving package, it is a communication of the life of God through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ must be lifted up as St John's Gospel says, "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life".

The Church serves true communication first by following Jesus Christ to be a part with His Father in prayer and to breathe air free of the heavy fumes of the collective trance. Any Church that is communicating is contemplating and being educated by silence.

Then true communication with our neighbours involves following Jesus as we see him in a two-way dialogue with a great variety of surprising people. There is certainly a place for instructing those who are open to it in the grammar of the Christian faith. I believe that the Government's Chief Adviser on the National Curriculum is right when he suggests that Britain is fast becoming a "religiously illiterate society" and that in some places we are threatened by, as he puts it, a "moral vacuum".

Every Church must have a concern to support what is happening in Religious Education in our schools but churches ought also to have clear educational strategies themselves for every age group. At the very least the churches in an area together must ensure that together they have made proper provision.

The study of communication in the formation of tomorrow's priests has sometimes been under-emphasised. Although I do remember myself a lecture at my theological college from a venerable Dean who told us to keep our words simple and unambiguous. He said "My grandmother was at a boring dinner party a hundred years ago and the hostess said to the footman - James throw a trifle on the fire - and James picked up a raspberry trifle and threw it on the fire." We need to make sure that the new generation of Christian leaders do not make similar mistakes.

But dialogue goes further than making yourself understood and getting the message across. The Spirit of God is moving today, I believe passionately, in many unexpected places. Yesterday's world view of an impersonal mechanical universe is widely perceived as oppressive and is breaking down under the impact of new discoveries.

There is a growing impetus to articulate a holistic and participatory world view not least in the ecological movement. In nearly ever field there is an impatience with what the London poet Blake called the "mind forg'd manacles" and a search for a more intimate relation with nature and the cosmos. Christians who engage in honest dialogue with their contemporaries will be following the Spirit of God. What we must not do is retreat into any ghetto of piety. The Church of England has the responsibility of equipping itself to communicate in the public realm and to recognise the potential for good in the new media of communication.

It has been difficult to find the right title for this service. Enthronement seems rather grand; installation reminded one friend of putting in a fridge. Perhaps true to my theme it would be right to say that I am now, at this service, "on line".

But words, however well informed, are not enough. Jesus Christ himself was the Word made flesh and the deepest communication goes beyond words. He communicated most profoundly when he was lifted up - on the cross. Likewise, the Church is Communication when she embodies the love of Jesus Christ in very practical ways like the ecumenical employment project on the Frampton Park estate in Hackney, the community centre in Rossmore Road and in hundreds of other similar ventures. There are some things you can say but there are some things that you can only show.

Modern communications are full of images which can sometimes be superficial. By embodying Jesus Christ, the Church serves by offering icons which go beyond images in being full of the radiance of the truth rather than mere reflections.

The Church is Communication; with God in prayer; with neighbours in dialogue; with the embodied Word. The blood of life flows in such a Church.

London and the Bishops of London have lived through many different seasons. We have a glimpse of the 12th Bishop, Restitutus, attending a committee meeting in France in 314 when London was a busy trading centre and part of a united Europe (sounds familiar). Then we see Mellitus, the 17th Bishop, in 604 chanting as he marches up Ludgate Hill to re-enter the pagan Saxon city. The 92nd Bishop, Nicholas Ridley, was burnt at the stake for his faith in the great crisis of the Reformation. The 105th Bishop, William Juxon attended King Charles I on the scaffold. The 123rd Bishop Mandell Creighton was close to the heart of the intellectual convulsions of the 19th century. Now the 132nd Bishop is called to serve as London prepares for the Millennium and the Church is called to remind people whose Millennium it will be.

At the same time so many have the sense that another historical period is passing away. Yeats is often quoted "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold" but it is less frequently remembered that he said in the same poem, "Surely some revelation is at hand". The Church in London goes forward into a new chapter and, no matter what new philosophies or challenges the future might have in store, we believe that the future as the past belongs to God and we shall be stirred up by the Spirit to be a communicating Church sustained by the life, the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the same yesterday today and for ever.