Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Most Revd Rowan Williams' sermon at St Patrick's Cathedral,
Armagh on Tuesday 11 May 2004
Armagh is not the only city with two cathedrals facing each other
from two hills. If you go to Kampala, you'll see exactly the same
phenomenon - the great Anglican cathedral at Namirembe and the
Roman Catholic cathedral on the other side of the city, looking
across at each other a bit suspiciously.
Yet in Kampala the presence
of those two great buildings affirms not only the separation
of two Christian communities but their common origins. For the
Roman
Catholic Church and the Anglican Church in Uganda began their
work at about the same time - and began with one of the most dramatic
and heartrending records of martyrdom in the whole of missionary
history. Several dozen new Christians, mostly young pageboys
from
the royal court, were butchered by the King with every refinement
of cruelty; Catholics and Protestants alike witnessed to their
faith in the most extreme circumstances, dying with joy and courage.
Some of the Anglican martyrs went to be burned alive singing
the hymn, 'Daily, daily, sing the praises Of the city God has made';
and the story is that the night after their deaths, a young man
made his way in secret to the devastated and grieving CMS evangelist,
Mackay, and asked for baptism because he wanted to know how to
die like that. When Pope Paul visited Uganda in 1964 to pronounce the canonisation
of the Catholic martyrs, he generously paid tribute to those
Protestants who had shared their fate, recognising that the
whole Church is
built up by such witness not just one part of it. And so it is
that when you look at the two cathedrals in Kampala, you sense
not only the division but the common roots of faith today. Catholic
or Protestant, it all began in a moment when the cross of Christ
was made contemporary in the witness of these young men, young
in years and in faith, but mature in commitment. Beneath the
tension of the two great institutions (and it has been acute
and violent
at times in the history of Uganda), lies one fact, the cross,
the death of Christ alive and at work in the death and life
of the
martyrs.
The two buildings here in Armagh likewise remind us of a single
origin, the mission of Patrick. We do not have here a dramatic
story of martyrdom, like the Ugandan record; but we do look
to one foundational witness. To put it more vividly, all
Irish Christian
communities were kindled from the one Easter fire that Patrick
lit on the Hill of Slane. Sometimes, in the face of all that
has happened in this country, people will say, 'We must forget
the
past and look forward', and I know why this is said and how
important it is. But there is a past that matters and that
we mustn't forget
- the moment we share, the moment of beginning: the Easter
fire at Slane, the young Ugandans singing; the cross and
the resurrection.
As we meet here at Armagh on this great occasion, we might
well try looking into the depth of the past rather than the
recent
past, looking towards the Easter fire. We're here to celebrate,
among
other things, a new Book of Common Prayer, a new attempt
to give us as Anglicans a shared language for our worship;
and
good worship
always takes us back to the Easter fire, to the single act
of God in Christ which makes us believers and which makes
us one.
When
we pray a 'common prayer', we acknowledge that what God has
done for each of us he has done for all: we never pray as
individuals, and the company of those we pray with is greater
and more surprising
than we could have imagined. And when we begin to hear the
echo
of this great polyphony of response to God's action in someone
who is a stranger, whose very existence seems to threaten
us and whose language we cannot at first understand, we see
hope.
What
did the Protestant and Catholic martyrs of Uganda think as
they looked at each other on the way to their deaths? Did
they think
- and did their missionary teachers think - that the walls
of division were not as immovable as they had thought? That
there
was after
all one crucified Christ, one Easter fire, at the root of
all their lives? It is as if in the heart of a weary and
deadly
combat, your
enemy suddenly and unexpectedly spoke to you, using words
you had learned as a child, words you thought were your own
intimate
property.
And out of such moments trust is born - a trust exemplified
by the shared witness of the two archbishops of this ancient
see,
Robin Eames and Sean Brady. Archbishop Brady, in a powerful
and challenging speech in London last week, spoke of Northern
Ireland
as cursed by distrust and pleaded for all involved, on all
sides, to make those extra gestures that will make trust
possible. But
the deepest learning of trust comes when we recognise the
past we share, the story that is not yours or mine but ours
and
God's - the cross and the Easter fire, the martyrs' blood
and the kindling
of love. Across the valleys of alienation, two communities
can begin then to see in each other the image of the one
Lord - not
the distorted image of their own fears and failures.
For years now, as Archbishop Brady has again reminded us,
this has been the gift that the churches have sought to
bring to
Northern Ireland; and he is right to say, in spite of the
way in which
the conflict has so often been presented in the media,
that without the brave witness of the churches and their
leaders
the conflict
would have been immeasurably worse. Archbishop Robin has
been tireless
in this work, and the courage of his risk-taking for the
common witness of the gospel has been a beacon for countless
others;
as he celebrates forty years of priestly ministry, we celebrate
with
him a history of true and costly priesthood in Christ's
name, a steady faithfulness of mediation and interpretation,
of
patiently helping people listen to each other.
It is because Robin knows how to make people
feel that they are taken seriously that he has so often been
charged
by
the Anglican
Communion with its most thankless jobs; and it is appropriate
that I should express the Communion's gratitude to this
Province for
its generosity in sharing his ministry with all of us.
He is currently guiding the work of a Commission which,
as you
will
know, is seeking
to find what degree of communion we as Anglicans can
share when actions and attitudes across the world differ
so sharply.
We
are praying that the experience here of mediation and
the building of trust will bear fruit for our whole Church,
as we struggle
to
find ways of honouring both the reality of the Body of
Christ and the demands of fidelity to the Bible and the
heritage
of belief.
Please pray for Archbishop Robin and for the Commission,
that ways may be found other in the midst of conflict
for
us to
recognise in each other a language that we share, and
to understand each
other a little better.
Real trust comes when we see in one another something
of the history we share with God as well as with each
other,
when
we see the other
in their relation with the One who is their saviour
and ours. But this is also where the challenge to be converted
to trust
becomes
a real question to each of us. As we discover that
we
stand together before the one Lord, there is a significant
change
in the question
we ask. We may begin by asking, 'Why do they not trust
us?' - a question about the other and their failure
or sin; but
inexorably
the searchlight comes round to us, so that we begin
to ask, 'Why are we not seen as trustworthy?' Growing in
trust involves
the
repentant willingness to look at our own history and
search for the things that intensify fear in others
or that have
generated hurt in others. It is not to deny our own
hurts and fears -
and
I know how terrible those hurts are for so many in
this part of
Northern Ireland alone. But if we want to ask others
to repent and search their past, we must do the same,
and
try to understand
how we are seen and why we are hated or feared. It
is a challenge addressed to us all, and it is the hardest
word
that Christ
can speak to us. We so long to be only the innocent
victim; we so
shrink from seeing that in differing degrees we are
all involved both
in receiving and in causing suffering. From the relations
of individuals to the conflicts in the Holy Land, such
acknowledgement is the
deepest level of conversion; yet without it we are
all still trapped. It is one of the things that the churches
here have
learned to
say with conviction and power, and the Church elsewhere
must be grateful for this hard-won wisdom. In seeing
ourselves through
the eyes of our enemies, we begin to stand where they
stand, to
acquire compassionate understanding. Things are changed
when
we see from within another's experience.
Put like that, this brings us close to some of the
central convictions of our faith. In a situation
where God is
feared and mistrusted
by human beings, God becomes human - to share the
world of those who were his enemies and to risk what they
risk, temptation,
rejection, death. It is as if God says, 'I see the
God you see,
the God who
is distant and hostile or unpredictable; and the
only
way I can show you the truth is by living in your
midst a human
life
of
such reconciled trust that you will see God afresh
and love him.' Our
God has shown himself trustworthy by standing with
us in life and suffering and death.
Now if even the innocent and holy God must deal with
false and hostile perception, must win our trust
by sharing our
life, how
much more is this true for us human creatures, whose
sins and fears have helped to generate those hostile
perceptions?
Scripture
tells
us that God does not stand on his innocence, so to
speak, but humbly accepts the consequence of our
unjust perception,
since
the only
way of changing anything is to make the sacrifice
that is needed for trust to be created by walking
with us
and seeing
with
our eyes. So it is, in a lesser way, in the relation
of one group
of sinful people with another: we must at some point
let go of the
safety of being completely 'innocent' and simply
deal with the consequences of being seen by another
as an
enemy,
as someone who threatens. We must walk with each
other, each
trying to
see
what
the other sees. If we can say it without being too
daring, we have to undertake a kind of 'incarnation'
in each
other's lives
and
experiences. We have to let the fear and suspicion
that another is going through be felt in our own
hearts and
minds; we
have to let the world appear to us as it appears
to them, and to
sense and share the risks they believe they face.
In some degree, this
is the foundation for any human act of reconciliation;
for Christians, it is made possible in a much more
intense and
transforming way
precisely because rival groups of Christians are
still rooted in
the one divine action, in the incarnation and the
cross and the Easter miracle, and baptised into one
Body
where the
fear of
one is the fear of all, the diminishment of one is
an injury to all
and the fulfilment of one is the joy of all. God
has immersed himself in the strange condition of
humanity
so that we
shall learn to
trust and hear him - but also so that we may all
come to live by exchange, by entry into one another's
suffering
and one
another's healing.
Time and again we are returned to risk, it seems
- the risks that church leaders here have repeatedly
taken
by the mere
fact of standing
together, the risks they have taken in speaking
in defence of each other's communities at times of violent
hostility
and ingrained
suspicion, and in denouncing the mafia-like behaviour
of those groups that terrorise so many communities
today, the risks
of working
unseen to keep open communications with paramilitaries
and others committed to violence in order to make
possible
just
a little
more negotiation and flexibility - a point well
made
in
the House of
Lords two weeks ago by my colleague and your countryman,
Bishop George Cassidy. But the very life of our
Christian community
is rooted in the courageous facing of suffering
so that life may be
brought to birth - once again, the little sparks
flying from the one great blaze of Christ's offering
and triumph.
And
when we nerve
ourselves for this, for the risks that bring life,
we proclaim what Christ has done more powerfully
than any
words can
do. On that terrible night at the royal court of
the Baganda in June
1886, a man came to ask how he could learn how
to face death
like that.
Every act of costly witness for Christ's sake,
even the slightest, the most prosaic and local, may prompt
some
small echo of
that question.
One story, then, at the roots of it all, the one
hill of Golgotha reflected in the two hills of
Armagh or
Kampala; a story of
the divine power which alone can equip us to become
strangers to
ourselves in penitence and faith as we seek to
become brothers
and sisters
to those we have considered strangers. So we echo
the prophet's call, 'Tell the nations what he has
done!...Israel's
holy
God is great, and he lives among his people' -
and the apostle's promise,
'The God of peace will be with you'; as we give
God thanks for showing his glory as Christ finishes
his
work in
cross and resurrection.
May his glory be shown among us in this Synod,
in the whole life of our Church and our Communion,
so
that
the world
may believe.
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