"A Celebration of the Gospel"

Canterbury Cathedral, Friday 19 September 1997

Let me say first of all how delighted I am to be back in the Diocese and to be here at this Celebration Service.

Soon after I left you at the Diocesan Conference I went to the States, Australia and New Zealand. I must confess that I felt rather like Christopher Columbus must have felt. It was said of him that 'when he set out he did not know where he was going; when he got there he did not know where he was; when he returned home he did not know where he had been!'

I can fully sympathise with that, because I felt like that at times! But in many of those places the sense of joy in sharing together in Augustine's mission was palpable. Whether in ECUSA, Australia or New Zealand, Anglicans there felt that this year was their year of celebration too. A celebration of faith and of a gospel which continues to change lives and do such good.

We join with them in this place to share in the celebration of the good news of Jesus Christ.

But sometimes we add too much sugar to the mixture.

I get uncomfortable when people make promises for the Christian life which cannot be borne out in reality. Our celebration is of a gospel that brings a message of hope to all aspects of human life. The reading we heard brings to our attention astonishing contrasts: glory, death, light and darkness.

Glory. Not the glory of a triumphant Opera such as Aida - something that has to be bigger, brighter, louder and longer. The Christ of John's Gospel is one whose glory is to be found in obedience, humility, struggle, suffering and death.

So you see, I find the glory of Christ - or for that matter, the reflected glory of any Christian a daunting matter. I'm sure that Augustine and his monks must have felt that. They came with no symbols of glory, only what they bore and what they were: the gospels, the cross, the liturgy, perhaps some relics; and themselves; disciples in Christ, frail, trembling humanity.

They came to convince a King that Christianity conveyed real glory, the kind of glory that made sense in a broken, fallen, and oh, so needy world.

And the daunting part of all this was that this would be done through the Glory that is willing to go down into dust and death.

John records that Jesus would reveal the Glory of God by obedience. Following the will of the Father to death on the cross. This wasn't something he just did. He struggled in his heart with his own will and that of God. The glory is in such obedience. Like a seed into the ground Jesus was willing to enter the darkness of the earth.

1400 years on not much has changed. The same obedience is asked of those who follow Christ. The same sacrifice is needed if the Glory of God is to be revealed. It may be that the seed of such discipleship will be buried for long periods as the history of the Church has shown but then the moments of glory as the seed has taken effect, as communities and congregations like plants have reached towards the light.

Our task today is never to be discouraged by the odds, by apathy, by the daunting times we live in, but to recall again that the glory that matters is following a master who calls us to be obedient in living lives of service, self-sacrifice and servanthood.

Perhaps this is a daunting glory that we may struggle with. But Christ did too. He faced similar odds yet overcame them. We are in him so we can overcome and so glorify God in and through our lives of witness.

But I think this glory is also dangerous. What do I mean by that?

It is not simply the case that God's glory takes us down into the soil of the world but it takes us into deep opposition. Jesus says that "his lifting up" means warfare. It means taking on the enemy and fighting against the powers of darkness. These are uncomfortable words. We don't like to hear them because everyone wants a comfortable life. We might think at times wouldn't it be wonderful if life could be a holiday! For some that is a reality; not for any self respecting Christian. There is no unemployment or retirement in the Kingdom of God. All have a part to play. All have a role to play. No one is discarded, ignored, forgotten or useless. We are called to fight; we are called to present Christ in all his attractiveness and to make disciples. We are called to serve and help those in need.

And perhaps Augustine can help us to interpret this challenge. His mission was first and foremost the establishing of a religious community. There are some lessons we can draw from that. First, religious communities remind us of the virtues of chastity, poverty and obedience which are sometimes called 'the evangelical virtues'.

Chastity for us all will broadly mean holiness of life; poverty here means having enough to live on and to share with others. Obedience means living in harmony with God, each other and the created order as one body and one family. They all add up to simplicity of life. Second, religious communities remind us of the importance of prayer - that mission will not succeed if it is not founded upon a true spirituality which puts God first in everything.

That is why I said on so many occasions that religious communities have much to offer because they symbolise the self giving of Christ. And at its best the church challenges the acquisitiveness, materialism and greed that is sadly symptomatic of a great deal of the Western world.

It is a dangerous mission we are engaged in but one in which the panoply of God's armour comes to our aid; the scriptures, prayer, fellowship, righteousness and commitment to Christ.

Last week I came across a wonderful and challenging passage by R H Tawney, the great controversial Anglican and political analyst. Quoting from the Magnificat: "He hath put down the Mighty from their seat; and hath exalted the humble and meek" he went on: "A society which is fortunate enough to possess so revolutionary a basis, a society whose founder was executed as the enemy of law and order, need not seek to soften the materialism of principalities and powers with mild doses of piety administered in an apologetic whisper."

What powerful words and yet how true. We are often apologetic; we are often too soft because we are afraid to offend; our piety is sometimes so mild that people wonder what is the point of being a Christian at all.

And that's what makes this glory so dangerous. We will upset the way things are. We will battle against those who oppose the values and ways of this new kingdom. We will encounter opposition. But the Glory of God can be revealed in no other way.

But hold on, someone will observe, the title of the address here tonight is "A Celebration of the Gospel ." What is there to celebrate in all of this?

A great deal but most of all the glory that reveals itself in darkness and death and through that transforms lives, communities and whole nations.

The glory which called a Mother Teresa as a young girl to give herself completely to God and to take that glory down into the dirt and grim of Calcutta to emerge with a community which shows the power of God's love. Daunting a danger she obeyed and followed. Not to celebrate such a glory would be strange indeed.

It is this glory which still changes the lives of people who are willing to follow. We might not be a modern day 'Mother Teresa' or 'Augustine', but we who follow Christ are all bearers in some way of this glory. This daunting and dangerous glory that will lead us into dark places but which will, through sacrificial living until death, bring in the wonder and marvel of the Kingdom of Light. But a candle in the wind, but a light in the darkness, a light that cannot be extinguished. This is the real glory we celebrate. We celebrate such a Gospel. We celebrate such a God.

We make no apology for it. We remain undaunted for in Him is the Glory.

Amen