Sermons 2003-2004

Proper 25C 2004 Luke 18:9-14




There is a modern parable about a young man who, once filled with religious fervor, decided that he wanted to enter a monastery. So he went to the nearest monastery and asked to speak to the abbot. Filled with excitement he knocked on the door to the abbot’s office and living quarters. “Come in,’ said the abbot, “and take tea with me.” The first thing the young man noticed was that there was a small horse on the dining room table where the tea service was laid out. It was a very small horse, and it lay curled up on the table sleeping quietly.




The old abbot and the young man took tea without any mention of the hose on the dining room table. And they talked for several hours without anything said by either about the horse on the dining room table. At the end of two hours, when the tea was finished, the abbot said to the young man, “It is time for you to go and seek your life in the world. You are not yet ready to enter the monastery. When you are ready – and you will know when – come back and take tea with me and we will talk some more.” The young man was shocked at this, and he left with a heavy heart.




This past Monday, the Lambeth Commission, chaired by the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, the Most Reverend Robin Eames, released the Windsor Report. The Lambeth Commission was established by the Archbishop of Canterbury about a year ago to “examine and report to him by 30th September 2004, in preparation for the ensuing meetings of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council, on the legal and theological implications flowing from the decisions of the Episcopal Church (USA) to appoint a priest in a committed same sex
relationship as one of its bishops, and of the Diocese of New Westminster [in the Anglican Church of Canada] to authorise services for use in connection with same sex unions, and [--here is the key part--] specifically on the canonical understandings of communion, impaired and broken communion, and the ways in which provinces of the Anglican Communion may relate to one another in situations where the ecclesiastical authorities of one province feel unable to maintain the fullness of communion with another part of the Anglican Communion.”




I have read the complete Windsor Report. It reflects the practical wisdom of the Archbishop of Armagh whose see includes troubled Northern Ireland and the spiritual and theological wisdom of the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. American Episcopalians have nothing to fear from it, if it is accepted in the spirit of humility in which it was written. And let us be clear – humility and humiliation – are not the same thing. In our gospel for today, it was the hated tax collector who was humble, filled with humility, pleading, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” It was the respected Pharisee who was arrogant, seeking to humiliate the tax collector with his self-righteous comparison.




Those archbishops, bishops, and primates who felt that they had a right to intervene in the dioceses and provinces of the Episcopal Church were taken to task severely by the Windsor. They were sharply asked to stop it, express their regrets for the consequences of their unauthorized and precipitate meddling, and cease and desist. The message was that in the parable for today: walk humbly before the Lord and your fellow humans.




The Episcopal Church was asked to express regrets for the turmoil caused by the action of General Convention – this will mean that a full response cannot be given until General Convention acts upon it in 2006. We were also asked to refrain from further action with regard to consecrations of bishops living in same sex unions and to place a moratorium on development of rites for blessing same sex relationships.




At the same time we were asked to prepare exegetical and interpretive documents on those two subjects as a way to open discussions within the Anglican Communion without eliciting the angry and visceral responses we have witnessed to date, for and against, throughout the Anglican Communion. The Lambeth Commission put it this way:




We particularly request a contribution from the Episcopal Church (USA) which explains, from within the sources of authority that we as Anglicans have received in scripture, the apostolic tradition and reasoned reflection, how a person living in a same gender union may be considered eligible to lead the flock of Christ. As we see it, such a reasoned response, following up the work of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (USA), and taken with recent work undertaken by the Church of England and other provinces of the Communion, will have an important contribution to make to the ongoing discussion.




In its concluding paragraphs, the Windsor report asked everyone to respond to each other in a spirit of generosity and charity. This may be difficult to achieve if the angry response from the Archbishop of Nigeria, who has been the leader of the hue and cry from the African bishops, on the day the Report was made public is any example.




Yet the lesson from Jesus’ parable for today instructs the American Church: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” We need to walk humbly before the Lord, always reminding ourselves that we can not be self righteous, we must not be judgemental toward those who revile us and interfere in our business, constantly reminding ourselves that we as Episcopalians, each and every one of us alone, and all of us together as the Episcopal Church and its institutions, stand in need of God’s grace and mercy and love. Love God and love our neighbors, Jesus told us. And in this global village, the Archbishops of Uganda and Nigeria are surely our neighbors.




So the horse is on the dining room table now, with the Windsor Report, which we ignore at the cost of our inclusion in the Anglican Communion. As for the rest of the story: Twenty years later, the same man, no longer so young, who had wanted to ether monastery and had been told to return to the world had had a successful career in the world and had achieved wealth and fame. But he knew that he was now ready to leave all that behind and enter the monastery. So he climbed the hill to the monastery and asked to speak to the abbot again.




He knocked on the door and the same abbot, also older, invited him to enter and take tea. As the abbot served the first cup of tea, the young man looked over to the dining room table and said, “I see you still have the horse on the dining room table.” At this the abbot picked up the horse and set it outside the room. Turning to the once young man, he said, “Now we don’t need the horse on the dining room table any more. Welcome to the monastery.”




AMEN