Getting Settled In
July 27, 2022
Dear friends,
More than once today, I found my eyes welling up with tears of joy. It was the first official day of the Lambeth Conference, and I want to share something of my experience with all of you.
As we gathered in a single venue for words of welcome and a short orientation led by the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, I was briefly overwhelmed. Well, more than twelve hundred people, from every race and nation, joined their voices in praise and prayer. We learned that the assembled bishops serve dioceses located in about 165 nations, and that the people we serve speak at least 200 different languages. While we are together, speakers will be simultaneously interpreted into nine or more languages. Each of us will wear headsets when we are together, so that we can hear in the language that we understand best.
All of this reminded me of words written by Esau McCauley in his book Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise of Hope. McCauley points to verses from the Book of Revelation as offering an image of the kingdom of heaven.
“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9,10)
The tears in my eyes stopped me briefly as we gathered for our first session. I was reminded of the hope that I have in Jesus for a world beyond the one we experience each day, a world which exceeds my expectations rather than one which too often falls short and disappoints. That simple taste of being together in one place with followers of Jesus from around the globe carried me through the rest of the day.
Later in the afternoon, we connected for the first time in person with bishops with whom we have shared Zoom screens in these last months. In my group today were three bishops serving in England, one in South Sudan, one in Kenya, one in Canada, one at the Anglican Center in Rome and three in the United States. We shared something of the journeys that had led us each to Lambeth and spoke of the joys and sorrows of our work as bishops. As the bishop from South Sudan spoke of his life, he told us that he had been one of his country’s “Lost Boys” and he told us of his conversion to Christian faith and of his call to ordained ministry, I was transported back to the years during which I served as a priest at Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church in London, Ontario. Our congregation hosted a community of Sudanese refugees, and I often joined them for worship, or gathered with them for meals and stories. One evening, a young woman rolled up her jeans and showed us the place in her leg where she had been shot, escaping war in her homeland. Hearing the stories of my colleagues, and particularly those from my Sudanese colleague, brought more quiet tears and I enjoyed the cleansing power of God’s love.
Finally, today, I found much joy in reconnecting with seminary classmates whom I had not seen in many years. There are six of us present at Lambeth who each passed through the halls of Huron College in London, Ontario within a few years of one another as we prepared for ordained ministry. One of them I saw yesterday, and three of them I saw today. There is one more whom I need to find. The others all serve as bishops in the Anglican Church of Canada. I don’t know how many of them ever imagined themselves serving God’s Church as bishops, but it was certainly never something that I imagined!
Forgive me if I have rambled on for too long, but I wanted to try and set the context for you a little, so that you can better understand that the Lambeth Conference is not just another church meeting. Hopefully this will help you to better appreciate things I offer in my future letters from Lambeth, and things I bring home with me when I return from the other side of the Atlantic!
Yours in Christ,
