Sermon for the 19th Sunday after Trinity

Sunday 17th October 2004

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt


There was a man driving his car along the road, when suddenly he saw a policeman with his hand up to stop him! “Excuse me, sir.” said the policeman, “but do you realise that your wife just fell out of your car, a few hundred metres back up the road?” And the man looked at the policeman in utter shock, “Oh, thank God for that!”, he said, “I thought I’d gone deaf!”.

I’m going to be in trouble over that, but that’s life!

It is extraordinary in our reading this morning that persistence wins the day. And what Jesus is saying is that if a Judge who, it says, “neither feared God or cared about men”, if someone like that is going to give the persistent widow justice, how much more will your heavenly Father give to those who ask! ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out’ (or literally ‘give me a black eye’).

It is a direct comment on Jesus’ teaching on prayer as Luke records it in chapter 11. The persistent friend in the middle of the night will get his loaves of bread because, it says, of the man’s ‘boldness’ or ‘shameless persistence’! Or which father would give his son a snake when the son had asked for a fish, or a scorpion when he had asked for an egg? “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” It’s the same kind of scenario.

Over the last number of years, the Church has faced up to an increasing number of issues that the modern world will not let ‘go away’. It seems past history now, but there was a time, and quite recently, that the ordination of women was vehemently opposed by many. Indeed the issue threatened to split the Church in England. The remarriage of divorced persons was a huge issue, and yet now both these issues seem quite normal and acceptable, and many wonder now what all the fuss was about!

Brian isn’t here this morning. Right now he’s on a flight to London! As the Church of Ireland Press Officer, he is with Robin Eames as they take part in a number of planning meetings before Monday, when there is the launch of the ‘Windsor Report’ in St. Paul’s Cathedral at 12 noon. Simultaneously the Report will be published on the Anglican website www.anglicancommunion.org

Archbishop Robin Eames is chairing this ‘Lambeth Commission on Communion’, which is trying to address how diverse and different members of the Anglican Church can still remain within the Communion. A significant part of that diversity is the issue surrounding human sexuality. It is perhaps the issue that concerns us most, or at least, it will be the issue that will get most coverage in the press. It’s not going to be an easy couple of days, and I will let Brian speak to you about it all when he returns to the pulpit next Sunday. If you’re interested, it will be reported on News Bulletins on Monday evening, ‘Newsnight’ on BBC 2 at 10.30pm and on UTV it will feature on ‘Issue’ at 11.00pm. There is a live interview with Robin Eames on ‘World at One’ on Radio 4, pretty well straight after the Launch.

The issue of Human Sexuality and particularly how we deal with same sex relations is another of those issues that will not go away. It needs to be addressed, and I believe that this Commission is a brave attempt to do that.

The point is that the Anglican Communion has been deeply polarised by recent developments in the Canadian Diocese of New Westminster and the Episcopal Church in the USA (ECUSA). Indeed some Anglicans feel quite betrayed by their fellow Anglicans in North America, but not uncharacteristically North America decided to do its own thing at the time, despite the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Commission is to seek ways in which the provinces of the Anglican Communion can, in the words of Robin Eames last July, “find the highest degree of communion possible given this diversity”.

I don’t know what the Windsor Report is going to say, none of us does (although The Times seems to know, according to an article, yesterday). And I do not necessarily want to imply this morning that because it is one of theses ‘persistent’ issues that need facing, that everything is going to be all OK! This morning, I just wanted to tell you about it!

The ‘extremes’ of the debate are fascinating. Do you remember our friend Bishop Michael Hare Duke, grandson of our first Vicar here in Glencraig? Seemingly, he was one of the first to say that same sex relations are all OK, and don’t worry about it! And the other extremists keep quoting the Book of Leviticus at you! So what it is actually going to say is quite intriguing. To add to all of this, I was going to tell you that the Clergy of Down and Dromore are all off to a Clergy Conference in Donegall town tomorrow! And our speaker is Lord George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury. There is talk of cameras and news people following us to Donegall to catch George Carey’s comments. Whether they would actually be bothered is another question!

I haven’t really preached a sermon to you this morning at all. I have simply told you what’s ‘going down’ in the Anglican Church at the moment. But if I may read to you some words from an interview with Robin Eames some months ago, and I’ll end with this: He said, “When the Report is published, I hope that it will be read with prayer and generosity and will provide a basis to help us to face up to any future tensions, and to discern God’s purposes for the Anglican Communion.” Amen!