Epiphany 3, 24 January 2021

Lectionary Readings for the Third Sunday of Epiphany

Genesis 14: 17-20

After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. He blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him one-tenth of everything.

Psalm 128

Happy is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel!

Revelation 19: 6-10

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your comrades who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

John 2: 1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Epiphany

It’s often been said that an abstract idea doesn’t become real until you experience it yourself. This was certainly true, for me, with The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. My first parish was in Washington, D. C., and the churches of all denominations in my neighborhood, Georgetown, dutifully got together for Good Friday services each year—-this same week—-January 18-25. They did a good job. There were good observances also in San Francisco, my next parish, and then New York, my next. But it wasn’t until I got to Rome that The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity really changed in importance for me—-it really came to matter. All of a sudden, I was in the minority. Among a sea of Roman Catholics, with a few small struggling Protestant congregations, I was not only a junior cleric, but a female one. For a while Mary, my colleague, a former doctor from England, came through training as deacon and then priest with me at All Saints,’ but then, along with me, there were only two other women clergy ministering in all of Rome: an Italian Baptist and a Filipino Methodist, both in Italian-speaking congregations. I tried, one time, to look up the proportion of Protestant-Anglicans to Roman Catholics in Rome, and then gave up. Reliable statistics are hard to come by in Italy, and in the end, it didn’t matter—-we were a distinct minority in every way, and that was clear. In addition to my parish work, I was also a loyal supporter of the Anglican Centre in Rome, where Mary and I were at first servers, then later allowed to preach and celebrate the eucharist on Tuesdays. The Anglican Centre was founded in 1966, when Archbishop Michael Ramsey came to Rome, and Pope Paul VI placed his own ring on the Archbishop’s finger, as a sign of their commitment to growing together in faith. I’d like to read you the beginning lines of the Common Declaration made on that occasion: In this city of Rome, from which Saint Augustine was sent by Saint Gregory to England and there founded the cathedral see of Canterbury, towards which the eyes of all Anglicans now turn as the centre of their Christian Communion, His Holiness Pope Paul VI and His Grace Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, representing the Anglican Communion, have met to exchange fraternal greetings. At the conclusion of their meeting they give thanks to Almighty God Who by the action of the Holy Spirit has in these latter years created a new atmosphere of Christian fellowship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches of the Anglican Communion. This encounter of the 23 March 1966 marks a new stage in the development of fraternal relations, based upon Christian charity, and of sincere efforts to remove the causes of conflict and to re-establish unity. In willing obedience to the command of Christ who bade His disciples love one another, they declare that, with His help, they wish to leave in the hands of the God of mercy all that in the past has been opposed to this precept of charity, and that they make their own the mind of the Apostle which he expressed in these words: ‘Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 3:13-14). They affirm their desire that all those Christians who belong to these two Communions may be animated by these same sentiments of respect, esteem and fraternal love, and in order to help these develop to the full, they intend to inaugurate between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion a serious dialogue which, founded on the Gospels and on the ancient common traditions, may lead to that unity in truth, for which Christ prayed. It was an historic occasion, and recent: 1966—-more than four centuries in coming.

I spent eight and a half years in Rome.

It was there that I changed denominations, having been ordained as a Presbyterian in 1984. It was there that I witnessed a variety of people working together to strengthen the witness of the Christian church by strengthening the bonds of unity that in principle bound us, one with another. Some worked harder than others. One of the senior clerics whom I came to know in Rome during the time that I lived there, 2009-2018, was Monsignor Mark Langham, who died ten days ago, from cancer. He was only 60. Although he didn’t believe in the ordination of women, Mark became a friend of mine in the course of many services to celebrate Christian Unity. Mark graduated from Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School before taking a degree in Classics and History at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1990, serving as a parish priest in Bayswater. In 2001 he served as Administrator at Westminster Cathedral, where he stayed until 2008. Then he left for Rome, appointed to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, responsible for relations with Anglicans and Methodists and also for The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I renewed my friendship with Mark when I acted as temporary chaplain at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2018, as he had preceded me there to be the Roman Catholic chaplain to the University, five years before. When I arrived, I invited him to tea. He brought me a bright yellow flower in a small pot to welcome me to Cambridge. Rome was a tough place to be a priest, from any branch of the church. The experience of church-going is very different there. In my experience, many Roman Catholics regard the profusion of exquisite and historic churches in their city as fixtures, places to drop into for a few minutes’ prayer after lunch on a weekday if you feel like it or have a current crisis in your life, but they are not thought of a place for regular Sunday morning worship—-they are part of the landscape, not places of belonging. I am careful to say Roman Catholic, always, when I refer to that present branch of the Christian church, because I honor the definition of catholic, small “c,” as in both the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed: We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. The word catholic, with a small “c,” as I am very careful to point out in all the confirmation classes I have ever taught, means All-embracing, including all Christians, universal. At the same time, one of the most moving services of worship I have ever had the privilege of taking part in, in all my life, was a service held to commemorate those who died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea—-refugees from North Africa, from Syria—-5,143 that one year of 2016. The vigil was an ecumenical service, so I was invited to sit with other clergy in one of the most beautiful churches in Rome: S. Maria in Trastevere. Organised by the Community of S. Egidio, dedicated to helping the poorest of the poor, we sat while a name was read out and a candle lit, brought forward by a young person, for each person who had died, while the choir chanted continuously, Kyrie eleison. That service takes place each year. I participated in many other services during those years in Rome to affirm the unity that many people feel is critical for the Christian church in our time—-necessary, essential, long overdue—-if the church is to survive in any form at all. I was always made to feel welcome by those who participated in those ecumenical services for The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Those who would not have made me feel welcome didn’t take part. There is another service, in particular, that lingers in my memory, from those Roman Weeks of Prayer for Christian Unity. The invited preacher was Mark Langham. His sermon was a brilliant one. He had a gift for humor, as well as for clear and incisive reflection on the truth entrusted to us. His sermon began with this illustration that I paraphrase: I had to take a long plane trip from Rome to the U. S., and, faced with all those hours, decided to see what the offerings were on the movie channel. In an unthinking moment I selected what seemed to be a Western—-one of those endless variations on the classic Western ground out year after year. Well, this one featured the usual line up of Cowboys vs. Indians. Riding horses, brandishing shotguns and spears, shouting and raising dust. But this particularly bad variation had an intriguing plot twist. Instead of Cowboys wiping out the Indians, or Indians wiping out the Cowboys, this time a new threat appeared on the horizon. Or, to be exact, from the sky. An alien space invader aircraft zoomed down and landed, right in the middle of the skirmish. And, faced with this common enemy, the Cowboys and the Indians united to defeat the foe they both faced. We were all laughing out loud in our pews. What could have illustrated better the task—-the hope—-of The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity? The Christian church has been riven by factions of all kinds in these long centuries past. We have cared more for our distinguishing marks of difference than for the treasure of our inheritance of truth. The Kingdom of God has had a hard time breaking in by our means, because we have veered off the path of truth—-which is, to affirm the saving goodness of God as revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. As in that historic affirmation of Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in 1966, we have the opportunity today, this week and every day of every week, to affirm what it is we believe. What we really believe. That we are, not only in theory but in practice, one holy catholic and apostolic church. There is no time to lose. The common enemies for the church of our time are the loss of knowledge of the Christian tradition—-ignorance and indifference. The manifold distractions of the popular culture. The anxiety and fear of this pandemic and its consequences. The growing inequality of wealth and of opportunity. The threat of environmental catastophe, already taking place. There is no time to lose. Let us affirm what it is that we hold in common with all the other branches of the Christian church—-Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, many sects and sub-sects —-let us affirm what it is we believe, so that the Holy Spirit of God can work through us to restore to wholeness and health all of creation. We can hold a service of worship together as we did on Thursday evening, but let us also, each day, act in such a way that we reach our hands out to others both within and outside our own branch of the church. So may the unity of the church be visible, and our own fellowship broadened, to all the world. Amen!

The Rev’d Dana English

St George’s Anglican Church, Campden Hill, London

January 23, 2021