23 September 2012 Sermon ~ The Rev. Peter M. Carey ~ St. Paul's Memorial Church

The Rev. Peter M. Carey
Sermon – 23 September 2012
St. Paul’s Memorial Church



Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.



Our Collect today is one of my favorites.  I know all too well the ways that the anxieties of life get in the way of “those that endure.”  The stresses and daily tugs at one’s soul can bring us away from focusing on what is truly enduring and important.  And, our faith is not one of escapism, so we are not really called to just look to the future, or to the heavens, or to some utopian vision of the afterlife, we’re supposed to embrace the ways that the Kingdom of God is breaking into our world, even now.

Holding onto the things that endure, rather than every passing fancy offers me the sense that there is something enduring beyond what I may see in the midst of the comings and goings of my own life.  The daily successes and failures, the weekly stresses and anxieties, the yearly strivings and disappointments, are mere leaves in the river, floating along, while the love of God endures, and is the bedrock on which we can get a firm handhold in the swirling river of life.

However, this is often easier said, than done.


As wonderful as these words are, if you are anything like me, you may want a little flesh on these bones, you may want some supportive concepts and a bit more details to go along with the thesis statement.

And so, we are blessed today with several images that offer up some of the flesh for the bones, some supportive details for the notion that we should turn to the things that endure.

Psalm 1 contrasts the fate of the godly and the fate of the ungodly.  At the start, we learn of the happiness of the godly, they do not live as the ungodly do, rather they study and observe the Mosaic law “day and night,” and their well-being is like trees which are planted by streams of water.  They are prosperous in happiness.

“They are like trees planted by streams of water,

bearing fruit in due season,

with leaves that do not wither;

everything they do shall prosper.”

There was a tree planted near a stream in a field off a dirt road which I drove by dozens of times before I turned onto that road.  The oak tree was humungous, with healthy limbs and huge leaves.  When I finally turned onto the road I could not believe that I hadn’t turned aside before.  I parked the car and walked to the tree.  Laying down beneath it, I could hear the streams of water, and I looked up into those strong branches.  Like a child at the foot of his mother, I looked up and could not fathom the tree’s height or majesty.  There, I fell asleep, beneath the tree planted by streams of water.

And so, when we are anxious about earthly things, we might turn our thoughts to this image of trees planted by streams of water.  Water that provides for the spiritually thirsty, perhaps even the living water that God has given us through Christ.  Trees planted by streams of water, which bear fruit in due season, and with robust leaves that do not wither.  We can turn our thoughts to this image of trees, these ancient living things which often grow longer than we live.  These trees can represent the way that God’s love for us existed before we do, and will be with us always.

“For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.  And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

I was blessed in one of my teaching positions to be given a grant which paid for me to go on an Outward Bound class in North Carolina.  We were educators ranging in age from 25 to 75, and we tromped around the woods, rock climbed, endured several days of nonstop rain, spent time along on our solos, and it was challenging, and also uplifting.  One day, after a long walk through woods full of brambles and sharp thorns, our legs were scratched, we were thirsty, and were tired of the mud and the obstacles in our way.  After this long walk in which we lost our path, we finally emerged from the dark woods to see a golden rolling field, full of an autumn harvest of flowers and grass.  The rolling fields stretched out in front of us, but also awakened the harvest within ourselves, and we rejoiced at the abundant harvest.

James has set out to correct the sin of arrogance, and in the process, he tells his hearers the qualities of wisdom.  His understanding of wisdom is consistent with the Old Testament prophets, and of Paul.  If you are motivated by wisdom, then you will live out a life with gentleness, moderation, courtesy, and humility.  Turning to God, and remembering that life is a gift, not a right, that life emerges from God’s love, not from our own making allows us to tap into the deep wisdom of God.

Here, the image is one of a field full of a harvest of righteousness, but not solely one that we might see as we emerge from woods into a field, but also a harvest of righteousness sown within us.

Merton quote:
When we live superficially … we are always outside ourselves, never quite ‘with’ ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions … we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives.
—Thomas Merton

Our lives are full of the daily grind of things to do, places to be, families to feed, friends to care for, and in so many ways, we don’t really get the time we need to rest.   The prayer from Compline on page 133 reminds us of the ways that God does provide us rest, “we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness.”  In so many ways, we are pulled to and fro, and it can become easy to forget the bedrock that God provides at the center of our lives.    The human condition is one in which we can easily feel separated from each other and from God.  Our condition is characterized by the daily grind rather than the ever-present blessings of our lives.  We are truly “placed among things that are passing away,” but we are also given handholds, footholds in the swirling river of our lives.  God have given us the gift of “those things that endure.”  We have only the need to turn aside, to see the majestic trees on the sideroads of our lives. We have only to endure the brambles and thorns a bit, and we will see the rolling fields full of a harvest of righteousness.

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Word clouds for this week's lessons ~ 23 September 2012

Proverbs 31:10-31




Psalm 1


James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a



Mark 9:30-37

When we live superficially...

When we live superficially … we are always outside ourselves, never quite ‘with’ ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions … we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives.
—Thomas Merton

From Parabola Magazine

"Photograph by Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton. In his twenty-seventh year at Gethsemani Monastery, wrote to his friend novelist John Howard Griffin, in 1968, shortly after he received the gift of a camera: “It is fabulous. What a joy of a thing to work with.The camera is the most eager and helpful of all beings, all full of happy suggestions. Reminding me of things I have overlooked and cooperating in the creation of new worlds. So Simply. This is a Zen camera.”

Send out your light...

Camel's Hump, Vermont, from the East

Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Psalm 43:3

Archbishop of Canterbury succession race begins in earnest ~ from The Guardian (UK)

Archbishop of Canterbury succession race begins in earnest

Rowan Williams's replacement is to be chosen. Who are the candidates to lead the trouble Anglican communion?

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• • Andrew Brown
  • The Guardian, Thursday 20 September 2012 15.40 EDT

The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, steps down at the end of the year and it is up to the Crown Nominations Commission to put two names forward as his successor. Photograph: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

Next Wednesday, four women and 15 men on the Crown Nominations Commission will gather for two days of prayer and horsetrading to replace Rowan Williams as archbishop of Canterbury. We know who they are, and when they will meet – but not where, so they can't be doorstepped.

Only three members of the commission, chaired by the former Conservative arts minister Lord Luce, are bishops. One of the women and two of the men have no vote, but are there to advise. Five, including one of the women, are priests. The rest are lay people. Almost all the parties of the church are represented and there is even Dr Barry Morgan, a Welshman, to represent the rest of the world for the first time in this process. They will pick two names to present to the prime minister, who is bound to choose the first, unless he proves unable to take the job.

The man they choose will have at least five jobs at once in his new post, and very little power in any of them. He is a bishop in Kent. He sits in the House of Lords. He chairs meetings of the bishops of all England. In some very nebulous sense he is also the leader of the Anglican communion, a worldwide body with no agreed doctrine and no discipline, which has rejected all attempts to supply it with either. If the Queen dies, he will crown her successor. When the nation requires religious pageantry, he must supply it and star in it.

"The next man has got to be able to hold together the Anglican communion, and to stare down the loony left and the loony right on sexual questions," says Stephen Kuhrt, a south London vicar who represents centrist evangelical opinion. "There are those who want a split as soon as possible, but the vast majority of Anglicans want a working compromise on sexuality. We need someone who can communicate a bit more on a popular level than Rowan, and is a bit tougher."

This time last year the two main candidates were John Sentamu, the archbishop of York, and Richard Chartres, the bishop of London. Neither filled the church with much enthusiasm. Sentamu wanted the job too obviously. Chartres has refused to ordain women. Both men are in their 60s, and Sentamu is not in perfect health. This matters because if one of the jobs of the archbishop is to run the Anglican communion – well, to head it, since it is not a body coherent enough to run – he must be in shape for the next Lambeth Conference in 2018, when most of the Anglican bishops of the world will come together.

During the Occupy crisis last year, Charters originally wanted the protestors cleared away, but after Giles Fraser resigned the bishop reversed position with blinding speed and conviction. Chartres is hugely experienced, having served as Robert Runcie's chaplain, and he can point to the fact that church attendance in his diocese has grown over the last decade.

Sentamu's qualifications are drive, intelligence and a gift for theatre. As a black African former asylum seeker he is able to praise British patriotism extravagantly. He seems at home as a columnist for the Sun on Sunday, where he writes things such as: "We shouldn't be shy about saying how great our country is." He inspires devotion in his staff but two people separately said to me he will never get the job because he sat on the appointments committee for five years, and some of his former colleagues there are determined that he should not. He has drifted out in the betting.

"John Sentamu is a great public face for Christianity in this country, but not a great manager of people," says Kuhrt. "Of course, in this job you do have to challenge the Captain Mainwarings if you want anything to happen."

Beyond them, candidates are less obvious. Among the younger bishops the bookies early anointed Christopher Cocksworth, bishop of Coventry, as favourite. He is an evangelical, ran a theological college, and he hasn't offended any powerful lobbies. But reports from his diocese suggest that he hasn't offended anyone only because he can't take decisions. Sentiment has quietly but decisively swung away from him.

James Jones, the bishop of Liverpool, who has just chaired the Hillsborough inquiry, is another possible caretaker choice. Although he has a firm evangelical background, he is sympathetic to gay clergy and an enthusiastic green. He had heart surgery last year, and though a fluent speaker, he lacks the star quality possessed in their different ways by both Sentamu and Chartres.

Graham James, the bishop of Norwich, is favourite everywhere of the steady-as-she-goes party. He is widely experienced – he worked in Lambeth Palace under the previous archbishop, Lord Carey – and widely trusted, as well as scholarly. But critics say he has the charisma of a tea cosy and exemplifies the benevolent but out-of-touch quality of a church cut off from the mainstream of English life.

Outsiders include Nick Baines, the newly appointed bishop of Bradford. He is active on Twitter, where journalists notice him, and he is both interested in the media and largely unafraid of it. He is an evangelical, which ticks one important box, but youth (he's 51) and inexperience should tell against him.

Another possible is John Inge, bishop of Worcester, a former public schoolmaster favoured by some centrist evangelicals. He is the author of an unlikely work of theology, Living Love, which takes as its starting point the detective novels of Alexander McCall Smith.

Liberals make wistful noises about Stephen Cottrell, the bishop of Chelmsford. He was the man with briefly the worst job in the church – brought in as the unimpeachably heterosexual bishop of Reading after Williams lost his nerve in the face of a concerted and international evangelical campaign and forced his old friend Jeffrey John, a celibate gay man, to withdraw from the post. That was in many ways the defining catastrophe of Williams's term in office, and his surrender ensured that bitter infighting over gay clergy would continue for the foreseeable future.

"Stephen Cottrell has got nous, native wit, and common sense. It is an impossible job, but we are ready for someone to say, when a crisis comes along, like the banking crisis, 'Look, this is bad' and to do so in a joined up, cogent, and clear way," says Rachel Boulding, deputy editor of the Church Times.

But Cottrell also has limited experience and is too friendly to gay clergy and gay rights to be acceptable to most evangelical opinion.

This leaves the dark horse, whom no one was discussing a year ago, yet now seems to lead the field: Justin Welby, the bishop of Durham. The reason why Welby was never discussed earlier is also the big strike against him. He wasn't even a bishop this time last year, but dean of Liverpool. He was only consecrated as bishop in the new year. This also means that he has made no enemies yet.

Welby is an evangelical; he's also an old Etonian. But people who might be repelled by either or both of these traits tend not to be in practice. He charmed Giles Fraser, for example. He is thoughtful about the Church of England's problems. If these were primarily financial, he would be the outstanding candidate. Not only did he have a successful career as an oil trader before seeking ordination, he turned around the finances of Liverpool Cathedral when he ran it.

None of the candidates will bring comfort to a Tory government. The most establishment candidates are Chartres and Welby. But Chartres is a Prince Charles-type Tory who wants less capitalism and more hierarchy. Welby has been an informed critic of the banks. Sentamu was stopped and searched eight times by the Metropolitan police while he was bishop of Stepney, and served on the Macpherson committee that accused the force of institutionalised racism.

Whoever he is, the next archbishop will face other large problems, even though the issue of female bishops will probably not be among them. It looks as if a form of words has been agreed which both supporters and opponents can accept, so that the first will be consecrated next year.

The struggle over gay clergy will continue for the foreseeable future. Opinion within congregations is slowly shifting as it has shifted in the outside world. But the long stalemate, punctuated by vicious little skirmishes, can only be expected to continue.

There is the slow international fissioning of the Anglican communion, where conservative Africans and Asians have been trying for years to throw out the more liberal churches of North America, with the Church of England caught uneasily between factions. It's difficult to see any compromise there except the peace of exhaustion.

With all these difficulties at home and abroad it's lucky that the Crown Nominations Commission believe in prayer, since prayer will work at least as well as horsetrading when it meets next week to choose its victim.