The Church of England - is there a Church like it?
The English love it and imagine they made it!
It's Archbishop ranks with Pope and Patriarchs.
Puritans and gay activists find cover under its wings.
Feminists and Romanists contend within it.
Christian atheists love its liturgy.
Evangelicals use it to fish for souls.
Charismatics dance down its aisles.
Few churches worldwide get the headlines the Church of England gets - even if they embarrass and shame us!
It calls itself 'the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed', not Roman Catholic or Protestant but a middle way true to the faith of the church through the ages.
Is there a church like it, welcoming honest seekers after truth and the Truth that seeks us in Jesus? Liturgical beauty, community care and thoughtful engagement with a fast changing world?
Long live the Church of England!
I wrote this ode for Horsted Keynes parish magazine years back and it's a good opener for today’s celebration of the church’s birthday.
Yes, the Church of England’s birthday is Pentecost and not 1534 when King Henry VIII declared himself its Supreme Governor. As ‘the ancient church of this land’ we trace back to Whit Sunday. We’re part of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’ even if some things you read in the Church Times might lead you to believe otherwise - that the C of E starts and ends in England! Most of my ministry I’ve contended with those who make our Church less than she is as part of the Church of God in England. On many issues I’ve found myself fighting against what I call ‘the conservative tendency in Anglicanism’ - the tendency to conserve our position in society which has led us more and more distant from our major partners worldwide, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.
The good news of Jesus Christ wasn’t started here - it came to Britain from overseas so that Augustine’s arrival from Rome in 597 and not 1534 is the biggest date for us after the bigger event recorded in today’s first reading which dates from 33 years after the birth of Christ.
The dynamic of the love, truth and power of God’s Spirit flows down to us through 20 centuries bearing fruit in individuals, communities and nations more ready to conform themselves to Christ than conform Christ and his church’s teachings to themselves!
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth Our Lord promises in the Gospel. We heard in the Acts reading how that promise was fulfilled. Later on the priest will lead our exultation on this great feast that according to God’s most true promise the Holy Spirit came down as at this time from heaven with a sudden great sound, as it had been a mighty wind, in the likeness of fiery tongues, lighting upon the Apostles, to teach them and to lead them to all truth; giving them both the gift of divers languages, and also boldness with fervent zeal, constantly to preach the Gospel unto all nations: whereby we have been brought out of darkness and error into the clear light and true knowledge of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ.
Some years back a great preacher captured the essence of the work of the Holy Spirit in two paragraphs. Here are words from Greek Orthodox Archbishop Athenagoras.
Without the Holy Spirit:
God is far away,
Christ stays in the past,
the Gospel is a dead letter,
the Church is simply an organisation, authority is a matter of domination, mission is a matter of propaganda, the liturgy no more than an evocation, Christian living a slave morality.
But in the Holy Spirit:
the risen Christ is there,
the Gospel is the power of life,
the Church shows forth the life of the Trinity, authority is a liberating service,
mission is a Pentecost,
the liturgy is both memorial and anticipation, human action is deified.
‘Without the Holy Spirit the Gospel is a dead letter, the Church is simply an organisation, But in the Holy Spirit the risen Christ is there, the Gospel is the power of life..’ Patriarch Athenagoras’ comment warns how the Gospel and the Church reduce to words, images and structures without the breath of the Lord and Lifegiver.
So it is in our lives as Christians unless we beware. I know a priest who has over his desk, ‘I am a human being, not a human ‘doing". All we do as Christians flows from what we are - this is the powerful reminder of the Feast of Pentecost. For God has made us what we are in Baptism and Confirmation by the Gift of his Spirit. He renews that Gift of his own Life week by week in the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation. This is the great Mystery of our Faith, that God is real and personal and present, so real and personal and present to us and in us that Scripture says that as human beings we ‘live and move and have our being’ in him.
But do we? Do we really recognise in this coming Holy Communion the claim of Christ upon us that should make him central to our life? Open your hearts to the Spirit of God who this day first came upon the Church.
I close with the Pentecost prayer of another Patriarch, this time of the Western rather than the Eastern Church, Pope John XXIII: ‘Holy Spirit renew your wonders in this our day. Give us a new Pentecost!’
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people and kindle in them the fire of Your Love. May Your Life overflow here at St Bartholomew’s so that people will be intrigued, drawn to you by our worship, our words about you, our deeds of service and our love for one another and for Brighton!
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