‘He went on his way Rejoicing’

I am so delighted to be with you for this Festal Evensong. I have rich memories of the times I was able to join you when I was diocesan bishop of Bath and Wells and it is good to be back. I am sure you have had a wonderful time today as you have been stirred by this morning’s celebration, the worship, fellowship and excellent weather. If that is the case, you will be able to identify with a few words that come at the end of the New Testament reading: ‘And he went on his way rejoicing’. That should always be the response when we have met the Lord, either through the sacrament of Bread and wine, or through a personal encounter with him through prayer or silence. Joy, sometimes irrepressible joy, is the outcome.

But what happened to lead that eminent Ethiopian citizen to display such emotion that it is recorded that ‘he went on his way rejoicing’?

Well, the answer is an unusual one- he made a wonderful discovery in of all places, a desert spot. The writer of Acts is anxious to make that clear to us. The road from Jerusalem to Gaza is well known to some of us here. It is hot, lonely and desert. Little grows there and many a traveller have lost their lives there.

God’s mission often takes us into desert places. I am not exaggerating that we live in a kind of desert in the Western world. To be sure, we love our country, its culture, its freedom and its customs but such love should not blind us to the desert within the lives of so many today. We appear to have lost a sense of right and wrong. Perhaps Oscar Wilde spoke of the besetting weakness of every generation when he declared that ‘we know the price of everything but the value of nothing’. The sense of sin is missing but, ironically, sin is so palpably all around us- we have only to pick up tomorrow’s paper to realise that. The result is that a sense of God is missing; a sense of holiness is missing; and a sense of eternity is missing. But something else is going on that is shaking and shaping our societies and that is the changing pattern of relationships. Prof Bauman, a well known sociologist, describes the central character of our modern times as ‘liquid modern’ man or woman who has no permanent bonds but who must form whatever friendships they can to engage with others. None of these bonds is guaranteed to last and they must all be loosely tied so that they can be undone as painlessly as possible. He concludes rather gloomily that the ‘liquidity of modernity’ will generate unprecedented anxiety and insecurity. We are rapidly approaching the point where marriage may no longer be the basic building black of society.

And this ‘liquid society’ is the context of our mission. There can be no talk of the conversion of England unless we realise the hard, lonely and desert place in which our mission is found. Surely, this bleak scenario might make us despair and lead us to pack away our liturgies, our bibles, our robes and our precious relics and join others in the desert. And then we start to think of one of the first missionaries to this land; the Benedictine Monk, Prior Augustine and his forty colleagues, who were not too keen to accept the mission that Pope Gregory the Great had commanded: ‘Go and start a mission in the land of the Angles’. Augustine was terrified. He was called to be a monk not a missionary! But he obeyed. And then, on the way, terror struck home again and he turned back, only to be told by Pope Gregory that ‘if you put your hand to the plough, no soldier of Christ turns back’.

It was when Augustine reached Canterbury that he found something wonderfully true that Philip the evangelist had discovered before him- that God was there already, in the desert place, preparing the hearts of people to receive his Word. When I visited Sudan on my first visit in 1994 I met a remarkable Sudanese Christian, Archdeacon Reuben who, like Philip, was a great evangelist and the human dynamo behind the extraordinary growth of the Church in Sudan. Rueben said: ‘ We didn’t go out to preach Christ as though he wasn’t there before. No. He was already in the hearts of the people and they received his word’. That is what Augustine found in AD 597 because Queen Bertha was already a Christian and many were longing to receive Christ. Deserts then are not to be feared. They can be places of encounter and places of renewal.

How may we then reach to others in the spiritual desert of our communities? Thomas Merton, a notable contemplative who withdrew from the world to serve it more fully, once commented: ‘Without contemplation and interior prayer, the church cannot fulfil the mission to transform and save mankind’. That is true, holiness and spirituality are the seed-beds of mission- but mission must begin with the church. As Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi put it in 1975: ‘The Church is an evangeliser but she begins by being evangelised herself’. We have no right to talk to others unless we put our house in order. As I look at the Church today I am concerned because there is too much quarrelling and not enough praying; too much talk about God and not enough talking to God; too much talk about love and not enough loving. I am totally convinced of the need for the church to be ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic’ but if she is not a loving place of encounter with a holy God, those great words are emptied of significance and meaning. There is today an urgent need for the conversion of the Church and perhaps God is taking us into a desert place to cleanse, refine and renew us- and to meet with him again. The possibility that we are under judgement should not escape us.

But God the Holy Spirit is ever hopeful and ever eager to fulfil the ancient prophecy to ‘put a new spirit within you’. How does he do that today? I believe he does it through obedient people. Philip was willing to leave the city for the desert because God had called him to be there. I know that some of you are labouring in places that are hard, lonely and difficult. In such places it may be puzzling to detect God’s will for you. I remember a CMS missionary to Iran saying one day: ‘I wouldn’t say that I am reaping a harvest; I wouldn’t even say I am sowing the seed- I think I am clearing out the stones’. We never know where we come in the management of God’s garden- but he calls us to be faithful and obedient, wherever he has put us.

But there is one more expectation that our Lord has of us and that is to be expectant. I am sure that Philip went into the desert because he knew God was calling him to be there and something was bound to happen! There was someone waiting for him with hunger in his heart. That will always be the case. I can say with confidence from years of experience that people will always respond to love. There are many in our society who are yearning for a real transformative experience with a holy God and love is the only key that will unlock their resistance and shyness. Forgive me for sharing with you a personal story but my parents, who came from the East End of London, often spoke of the dedicated Anglo-Catholic priests who showed to tough, needy Londoners the fruits of genuine Christian compassion. Little wonder they had such a following that their churches were filled and their names live on.

And what of the convert in the story? He was searching for a hope he had not found at the great feast in Jerusalem and it was a stranger who was able to unpack the mystery of the scriptures and lead him to the waters of baptism. As I look at the story again I am surprised and gratified at the untidiness of it all. Hardly any preparation, no sponsors, no congregation, no liturgy to speak of- just the urgency of the moment and the generosity of spirit that allowed Philip to respond eagerly to the Eunuch’s question: ‘Look, there is water over there. Why shouldn’t I be baptised?’ Thank God for evangelists, priests and people who are willing to take risks of faith.

‘And he went on his way rejoicing’. And so should we. We have had a great day at the Glastonbury Pilgrimage. We have met again and shared in word and sacrament, fun and laughter, in this holy place. We have encouraged one another and we too can go forth on our way rejoicing. It is not for us to convert our nation but we can strengthen the foundations of faith, hope and love that will make it possible. I am convinced that the Church of England needs a strong, confident Anglo-Catholicism to be the Church of the nation. No; we can’t convert the nation, that is God’s work but our part in it should be never to lose hope, never to lose heart and never to lose sight of the God who ‘makes all things new’. So, as our last hymn will bid us:

“Go forth for God; go forth to the world with joy,
To serve Christ’s brethren every day and hour.
And serving Christ, his every gift employ,
Rejoicing in the Holy Spirit’s power”

‘And he went on his way rejoicing’. So shall we.