National & World News
Christmas messages from our presiding bishop and from the archbishop of Canterbury
Presiding Bishop's Christmas message—Eyes to see: Finding Immanuel as immigrant, wanderer, child
[Stay tuned to Episcopal Life Online for a bulletin insert with the presiding bishop's message (available for Sunday, December 23)]
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[Episcopal News Service] In what form will you find the Christ child this year? The fact
of the Incarnation in a weak and helpless babe says something
significant about where we focus our search. I am convinced that
it is part of our call to exercise a "preferential option" on
behalf of the poor, weak, sick, and marginalized. The long arc
of biblical thinking and theologizing has to do with seeing
God's care for those who have no other helper. Indeed, Jesus is
understood as that helper for all who fail, by the world's
terms, to save themselves. More accurately, we understand that
Jesus is that helper for all.
One of the great gifts of the way in which those in our cultural
surroundings celebrate Christmas is the focus on children and on
those who have few human helpers. We delight in the wonder of
children as Christmas approaches, and many of us make an extra
effort to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and care for
the needy. The challenge is to let our seasonal "seeing"
transform the way we meet our neighbors through the rest of the
year, and through all the coming years. How might we begin to
see that child in those around us: strangers and aliens (both
Immanuel and Immigrants); wanderers (Homeless, like Mary and
Joseph, for whom there was no room); widows and orphans (Social
Outcasts); babe born in Bethlehem (Palestinian and Israeli
alike; or the boy babies whom both Pharaoh and Herod sought to
kill); divine feeder of thousands (Soup Kitchen worker); and
savior of the world (Peacemaker, Bringer of Justice for All,
Reconciler, Just and Gracious Lawgiver...). If God comes among
us as a helpless child, then the divine presence is truly all
around us. Where will you meet Jesus this Christmas?
Click here to read the message en español.
Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas message
Also available for podcast.
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ACNS photo |
[ACNS] One of the strangest yet most moving expressions in the New Testament is a verse in the Letter to the Hebrews (11.16): God ‘is not ashamed to be called their God’. The writer is talking about the history of God’s people. When they have been faithful to God, faithful in keeping on moving onwards in faith rather than settling down in self-satisfaction, when they are true pilgrims, then God is content to be known as their God. He declares himself to be the God of pilgrims, of people who know that their lives are incomplete and that they are still journeying towards the fullness of God’s promises. Visiting refugee camps in the Middle East, as I did this October, brings home so powerfully what it is to be literally and absolutely homeless, not able to be confident in any resources, inner or outer. People in these terrible circumstances will never be complacent, they will always be looking for a future. They are in the most obvious way those whom God is not ashamed to be with, people whose God he is happy to be. He is at home with the homeless. But it is also an image of God’s relationship with all those who are homeless or wandering in other ways.
What an odd expression, to say that God is not ‘ashamed’! It’s as though we are being reassured that God, in spite of everything, doesn’t mind being seen in our company. Most of us know the experience of being embarrassed by someone we are with – children are embarrassed by parents, parents by children; I have sometimes found myself walking down the road with someone who is talking loudly or behaving oddly, and wishing I weren’t there. But God is not embarrassed by human company when that company is turning away from self-satisfaction and ready to move on. We might think that God would be ‘ashamed’ of human company that was imperfect, confused, even sinful. But God is happy to be the God of confused and sinful people when they recognise their own confusion and face the truth of their need. That’s what the great parables of Jesus in St Luke’s Gospel are so often about, especially the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
So at Christmas, God shows that he is not ashamed to be with us. He has heard our cries of weakness and self-doubt and unhappy longing, he has seen our wanderings and anxieties, and he is not ashamed to be alongside us in this world, walking with us in our pilgrimage. And because he is content to walk with us, we are challenged about whose company we might be ashamed to share. So easily we decide that we would be ashamed to share the company of the sinful, the doubting or the outcast. But God, it seems, is not ashamed to be seen with such people. If he is ashamed to be called the God of any human group, the text from Hebrews strongly suggests that he is most ‘embarrassed’ by those who think they have arrived at the end of their journey, who think they have already attained perfection (compare St Paul’s angry and scornful words in I Corinthians 4.8 – ‘Already you have become rich!’). And it is clear why God would be ashamed to be the God of such people: they behave and speak as if they didn’t really need God, as if they didn’t really need grace and hope and forgiveness.
God loves the company of those who know their need, and that is why he comes at Christmas to stand with them, to live with them and to die and rise for them. He is the God who blesses the poor – not only those who are materially poor, but those who are without the ‘riches’ of self-satisfaction and complacency, those who know all too well how far they fall short of real and full humanity. And so we are to pass on that blessing to the poor of every sort, those who are without material resources and those who are ‘poor in spirit’ because they know their hunger and need. Let us ask ourselves honestly whose company we are ashamed to be seen in – and then ask where God would be. If he has embraced the failing and fragile world of human beings who know their needs, then we must be there with him.
May God give us every blessing and joy in the Christmas Season.
+Rowan Cantuar
Archbishop of Canterbury's writes Advent Letter to Anglican Communion's primates, moderators
[Episcopal News Service] The Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has written to the Primates of the Anglican
Communion and Moderators of the United Churches reflecting on their
responses to the Joint Standing Committee's analysis of the New Orleans
statement from the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops, and offering some
proposals for the next steps in the lead up to the 2008 Lambeth Conference.
The full text of the archbishop's Advent Letter is available
here.
San Joaquin votes to leave Episcopal Church, realign with Southern Cone
Some delegates vow to "Remain Episcopal"; Presiding Bishop
comments on action
By Pat McCaughan
[Episcopal News Service, Fresno, California] Delegates
attending the 48th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of San
Joaquin on Saturday, December 8, overwhelmingly voted to leave
the Episcopal Church and to align with the Anglican Province of
the Southern Cone.
"The Episcopal Church receives with sadness the news that some
members of this church have made a decision to leave this
church," said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. "We
deeply regret their unwillingness or inability to live within
the historical Anglican understanding of comprehensiveness. We
wish them to know of our prayers for them and their journey. The
Episcopal Church will continue in the Diocese of San Joaquin,
albeit with new leadership."
Read it all. Visit the Episcopal Life Online home page for several related stories.
ERD updates
Episcopal Relief and Development assists people affected by storms in the Pacific Northwest
[Episcopal Relief and Development] Episcopal Relief and Development is providing emergency assistance to communities in the Pacific Northwest battered by powerful winter storms that devastated the region last week. High winds and heavy rains damaged homes and agriculture in large areas of the region, leaving at least eight people dead, hundreds in shelters and tens of thousands without power. More.
Episcopal
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Cuba
[Episcopal Relief and Development] Episcopal Relief and Development is
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flooding in South Dakota and Cuba.
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