Homilies

Back to Homilies menu

Last month I attended our bishops’ debriefing in Richmond Hill on the Lambeth Conference, which met in July.  Colin Johnson told us that the Archbishop of Canterbury had suggested that, in view of the divisions currently plaguing the Anglican Communion, each bishop present should ask the bishop with whom he had the greatest difficulty to pray for him. 
            Colin followed this suggestion: he searched out a bishop, who shall remain nameless, and asked him, “Will you please pray for me?”  After a pause, the other bishop replied, “Yes, I will, and would you please pray for me?” 
            Prayer has the power to reconcile, and it has never been needed more in our church than at the present time. 
            In 16th century England Tudor monarchs sought to keep within a national, independent church those who remained attached to “the old religion.”  Ever since then a fault line has run through Anglicanism, and the ongoing challenge to our church has been to reconcile the irreconcilable. 
            In our own day the issues have been women clergy, liturgical change, and now homosexuality.  Only prayer can reconcile the irreconcilable, and I want to commend to you the Diocesan Conference on Prayer, to be held next week at St. John’s, York Mills. 
            The speaker at this conference is Dr. Harry Robinson, who served in various parishes in our diocese before his retirement, most notably in Little Trinity.  Someone once remarked to me that after he had read Text and Psyche, Dr. Robinson remarked, “Schuyler Brown’s book blew me away!” 
            I have never met the man personally, but I was most encouraged to hear that a leading evangelical, such as Dr. Robinson, would respond positively to my suggestion that, in reading the Bible we move from the head to the heart and allow the power of the text to touch us at a deep level. 
            On October 26 my wife (who is a Jungian analyst) and I will be leading a discussion on “The Spirituality of The Book of Common Prayer.”  In the 16th century the English people had a love affair with the Bible, and it was Thomas Cranmer’s unparalleled genius to turn scripture into liturgy. 
            I too have loved scripture all my life, and this is why I love the Prayer Book, and why I am so grateful to God to have found the Church of the Good Shepherd, after serving for twelve years in a parish where the Prayer Book was suppressed.
            Here at the Good Shepherd the danger is that we take the Prayer Book for granted, since it has never been under threat.  I invite you to spend some time on the 26th to reflect on what the Prayer Book gives to each of you individually.    

October 5, 2008

back to top