Some reflections

How often have you been told or thought or perhaps told or thought that a member of your family had their priorities all wrong. I certainly sometimes think that is true, but in my own life and in the life of the wider church. Our priorities are messed up big time. A prime example of this was the recent primates meeting in Tanzania. The primates of the Anglican Communion gathered together at great expense for five days. And what did they spend the vast majority of their time talking about for those five days? Sex.

Seven of them refused to share communion together due to the presence of our Presiding Bishop. If fact, they couldn’t even agree to get together for a picture! Now some of you might be thinking, so who really cares about the primates or the Anglican Communion anyway, what really interests me is St. Peter’s. After hearing about this meeting I might well agree with you!

Children are dying every day of starvation and of completely treatable diseases. Did they spend five days talking about that? Nope. People are murdering others for what they believe for because of the tribal affiliation or because of their religious belief. Did they talk about that for five days? Nope. Wars are being fought in several places in the world. Did they talk about that for five days? Nope.

I find myself in agreement with Bp. Chane of the Diocese of Washington who said: “I am deeply distressed that the Primates spent so much time discussing the internal life of the Episcopal Church and devoted so little attention to the woeful state of our global community. The Gospel summons us to a unified effort against the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, hunger, poverty, human rights violations, the degradation of women and children and the behavior of corrupt governments. Yet the Primates continue to behave as though quashing dissent on issues of human sexuality were the central calling of the
Christian faith.[1]

It has to be enough to make Jesus weep.

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[1] The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, Bishop of Washington, pastoral letter dated
February 22, 2007

Primates meeting

Well the primates meeting is all done. And there seems to be some weeping on both sides of the issue. This seems to be a situation where no one on either of the extremes will be satisfied. I however am gratified to see that TEC remains a steadfast part of the Anglican Communion not so much because my life depends on it, but because I see it as a triumph for the middle way. Surely Jesus was weeping over the fact that 7 primates felt it ok to boycott communion because our Presiding Bishop was present. That sort of exculsivity is not what Jesus taught. I'm sure he was weeping over those kinds of attitudes.