The Archbishop of Canterbury

St Paul's Cathedral

15th June 2001

Exactly three centuries ago tomorrow the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was created with a Charter granted by William III. One hundred and fifty-six years later, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa was founded in response to an appeal from David Livingstone. In 1965 these two missionary endeavours merged to become USPG - the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. We gather today in this great Cathedral from all parts of the world to celebrate three glorious centuries of witness and to pray for the mission of this society as a fourth century opens up before us.

Isaiah offers us a rich context in which to reflect on our mission together: 'The Lord said to me "you are my servant, Israel, through whom I shall win glory."'

As with Israel - the original recipient of the oracle - we, the Church, are servants of God's glory; vehicles chosen to manifest the grandeur of God and that liberation which only comes through Jesus Christ. As with the mission of the Servant in Isaiah, this great Society, USPG, exists to serve God's glory through a vision captured, through sacrifices made and through service shared.

A vision captured sums up perfectly the origins of the Society. At the heart of all great and successful causes are certain individuals who epitomise a vision and who have the energy to launch it with faith, hope and love. Thomas Bray stands out in the story of this society, as the book Three Centuries of Mission, edited by Daniel O'Connor, so rightly emphasises. Who but Thomas Bray would be prepared to sell his own furniture on his vicarage lawn to finance his trip to Maryland to develop this vision whilst his wife watched in dismay from a bedroom window? He was called 'the Projector' because of the countless ideas he formed of advancing God's mission.

But the story of USPG is of more than one man capturing an exciting vision of an expanding church serving its Lord. Many in the Church at that time glimpsed the urgent need to share the faith with a rapidly changing and a growing new world opening up beyond these shores. They wanted to advance God's glory through lives changed and communities revived. We need to note that few of them thought that they were serving a society or indeed building a society - they believed, quite properly, that they were building the Church of Jesus Christ in communion with the sending Church of this land.

But what kind of world were they going into? Wherever one looked the opportunities and challenges seemed massive. Countries of beauty and abundance with mysterious peoples and cultures lured adventurers who returned home with stories that fortunes could be made overnight through conquest and hard work. Slavery and exploitation resulted as colonisation began. Shocking reports reached home of great abuses of native populations and widespread ignorance of the Christian faith among the new settlers. Something had to be done. It is to the eternal credit of this Society that from the beginning it had a broad view of mission. Very early on it came to see slavery as a great evil and considered education and reform of society as part of its work of bringing the faith of Christ near to others. Bishop Samuel Wilberforce would later state that this Society had been an 'Angel of Mercy' within 'an ungodly colonisation.' And, for me, one of the most powerful symbols of Christian mission appeared in 1873, when the UMCA convinced the Sultan of Zanzibar to abolish the slave trade. The foundation stone of the new cathedral was then laid on the site of the former slave market - transforming that spot from a place of fear and degradation to a place of worship and liberation.

A vision captured - but also God's glory served through sacrifices made. Sacrifice is the offering we all make when we serve the King of Kings - and few more than those sent out to serve Christ, then and now. There were many willing to risk their lives for the sake of the gospel and in compassionate service for others. People like Patrick Gordon, the first SPG missionary whose brief career terminated in death after less than 50 days. Indeed, the records of this society show that so many young men and women like him perished after missionary service which was all too short - sometimes alone but never forsaken by the God they sought to serve.

We celebrate and commemorate today the sacrifice of women whose contribution to the mission of the church has been almost wilfully overlooked: missionaries who went forth as single women - and there were many - and who laboured heroically and devotedly in the service of their Lord; the wives of missionaries whose contribution to mission was no less significant than their husbands; and remarkable women like Priscilla Winter whose pioneering medical work in Delhi is in itself an inspiring tale of devoted service to the very poor of India - inspired, of course, by the love of God.

We also celebrate and commemorate today those early converts of the missionaries who were pivotal in the development of indigenous churches. What about that remarkable leader of the Mohawks, Thayendanegea, whose godly life inspired and deepened the mission among his people? What about that young, uneducated African girl, Manche Masemola - one of the 20th century martyrs commemorated on the West front of Westminster Abbey? She was attracted to Christianity, and at the age of fifteen was beaten to death by her own family for refusing to reject her faith. She said before her death: 'I shall be baptised with my own blood.' Compared to such servants, how costless has commitment to Christ been for most of us!

And then we celebrate and commemorate the courage and bold witness of those who dared to blaze new trails of understanding the faith - even though they were rejected by others.

Should we not today hallow the memory of John Wesley, former SPG missionary whose experiences in Georgia led to his dramatic re-conversion in Aldersgate Street and the formation of what was to become Methodism? Should we not today hallow the memory of Bishop John Colenso - chiefly remembered for his radical views on revelation - but rarely remembered for his real commitment to the culture of Zulus and his great desire to present the Christian faith to them? Largely because of the controversy created by Colenso, Archbishop Longley called the first Lambeth Conference of 1867.

Should we not today hallow the memory of C. F. Andrews, his remarkable friendship with Mahatma Gandhi and his insights into Hindu-Christian dialogue?

Should we not today hallow and celebrate the bold thinking of Roland Allen, his challenge to develop effective ways of evangelising communities and his rejection of imperialism?

Yes, God's glory is served through sacrifices made - and in its 300-year history USPG has witnessed so much glory through the service of mind, heart and spirit.

But what of here and now? Our world is not that of 1701, or even 1857, and it would be foolish to reconstruct it or imagine that our problems and challenges are the same. Great Britain no longer rules the waves and, through Christianity has more followers than any other world religion, it is not the automatic bedrock of thought and action for all those who lead and shape our public life. Furthermore, structures of mission are no longer the same. There is no longer clarity as to who sends and who receives - England today receives Christian missionaries from abroad and mission is enriched by this mutual interchange.

And so my third and final point: God's glory is expressed in shared service. We are celebrating the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel: a Society that is international and inclusive. What might its mission stand for today?

It must stand for a mission anchored in God's yearning love for all. And that means that mission is as much about being as it is doing. 'The church exists for mission as a fire exists by burning' was Emil Brunner's matchless phrase. And if the Church is not naturally engaged in mission, then it is not the Church created by the Holy Spirit in the image of Jesus. Mission today must be about reviving the gospel in the life of the Church. Just as USPG had a remarkable role in the early 18th century in galvanising the church to look outwards, so this society must reclaim its rightful place at the centre of the church's life. The vision of those missionary pioneers was unashamedly to continue the High Church tradition abroad through God's grace conveyed through sacraments as well as through the whole life of the Church. From that spirituality of the love of God flowed a deep commitment to God's world and his people. And such commitment does indeed continue to this day, with USPG playing a leading role in the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s and in the Jubilee 2000 campaign of the late 1990s. That too is worth celebrating.

Mission must also stand for a readiness to respond to new needs and fresh opportunities. The evidence of the global and multi-cultural spread of Christianity does not mean that mission is over. It simply means that we are enriched in the resources we can bring to bear on new challenges. We are more able and willing, I think, to recognise, as C. F. Andrews and John Colenso did in their day, that other cultures and peoples have gifts and insights to bring to our shared mission. We are, equally, more prepared with Roland Allen to question the implicit elitism that sometimes disfigures our structures and life.

In this regard, I must acknowledge the recent 'Venture Fourth' statement issued last week, outlining a vision for the future mission of USPG. The statement identifies five key themes as priorities for the Society: the continuing drive to move beyond colonialism; an increased engagement with interfaith issues and relationships; facing the challenge of globalisation; developing contextual spiritualities; and embracing the Gospel imperative of living on the edge - which has been the call of the missionary in every age.

But the central challenge, as always, remains to see through all the confusing challenges of the world today: abject poverty and rampant consumerism, a degraded environment and explosive urban growth, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the scores of conflicts that scar millions of innocent lives. Though all this, we must see the face of the living Christ, calling us to continue his mission and to promote his glory among the peoples.

'You are my servant, Israel, through whom I shall win glory.'

Indeed,

All we can do is nothing worth unless God blesses the deed:
Vainly we hope for the harvest tide till God gives life to the seed;
Yet, nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be,
When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.