Sunday, August 3, 2008

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

One of the surprising experiences of this Lambeth Conference has been praying the Lord’s Prayer two to three times a day at Eucharist, morning, midday and/or evening prayer. On each occasion we were invited to pray the prayer that Jesus taught us, in our own language. And each time, especially at Eucharist when some 600 of us were present, the sound of the praying must have sounded like that Pentecost day that gave birth to the Church.

That may well be a parable of this Lambeth conference. So many languages needed to be translated that we each were given mobile head sets to carry in all venues. Bishops and spouses from nearly every corner of the earth came together to pray, worship, sing, tell stories, discuss, debate, struggle, cry and rejoice.

While the streams of expectation and waves of anxiety about this conference have been varied and manifold, the realization of our worse fears and deepest anxieties did not come to be. We didn’t fix all our problems, or more specifically, we didn’t solve the conflicts and differences over homosexuality and the Christian faith.

But we did listen to each other, and we learned from each other. What I’m beginning to call internet inspired stereotypes, have been, in some cases, challenged, and maybe even in a few, overcome. We who are Bishops in the Episcopal Church, I think, sought to faithfully tell the stories of the people we are blessed to serve among. I remain passionately committed to our being a church that is, as our Lord Jesus Christ said, quoting the ancient prophets, “a house of prayer for all people.”

After attending this Lambeth Conference, I am more convinced than ever of the wisdom of the words of then Archbishop Robin Eames, who said that the Windsor Report was the beginning of a process intended to seek genuine healing and reconciliation among us as the Anglican Family of Jesus. In the weeks to come Bishop Gregg, and I will share our experiences with Bishop Marble,who attended the 1998 Lambeth Conference. The three of us look forward to further dialogue with bishops from across the Communion and many other lay and clergy voices, as we all  consider how this conference fits into the great scheme of things. The September issue of the Disciple will share some of our more in depth reflections. Our website (www.episdionc.org) contains links to accurate sources of information.

I can say one thing at this point, however, just a few hours after Bishop Gregg and I have returned from the closing Eucharist at Canterbury Cathedral, and just a few before leaving the Kent University campus and heading for Heathrow at 5:00 a.m. This Lambeth Conference has been a part of that process of healing and reconciliation, long, slow and sometime difficult and painful though it may be. But that healing and reconciliation, which seeks renewal and reconciliation for all of God’s children is nothing short of the redemptive work of God in the world. And, frankly, as a friend of mine used to say, ‘the only thing God can’t do is fail.’

With that faith I commend our Anglican family, our Episcopal Church, and even more importantly, the human family, into the hands of the God who created us, the God came among us in Jesus of Nazareth and who raised Jesus of from the dead, and into the hands of the God who even now is the Holy Spirit who Jesus promised will lead us into all truth. And of that God the old song says: “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” That, I believe!

Keep the faith,
+Michael

Michael B. Curry
Bishop of North Carolina