QUINQUAGESIMA

February 14, 2010

St. Augustine Anglican Church

“I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”

The Rev. Gerald Parks +

          The great Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, especially as it developed among the English, should remind us of how easy it is to profess allegiance to the teachings of Jesus, but how very hard it is to actually live as He would have us live.  The memories of those turbulent times – the blood and the burnings – have largely faded, as has the consciousness of the blame for them due to both sides of the struggle.  But one thing remains that hasn’t faded from people’s hearts, silent perhaps but persistent, and that is the suspicion and resentment with which Protestants and Catholics view each other, yet today. 

          That the Reformation in England had more to do with politics than it did with religion is surely a matter open to discussion.  The Roman Church was guilty of many abuses, not the least of which was the claim of the Pope in Rome to temporal power.  But the English King Henry VIII, himself a practicing and devout Catholic, and considered a “defender of the faith” by many, demanded from the Pope permission to divorce his wife and remarry.  When that permission was not forthcoming, Henry simply did it anyway, and declared himself supreme head of the Church in England, giving rise not to a new religion so much as to a new direction and center of loyalty to that same religion among the English.

          Tudor England was not an easy place to live for the average citizen who treasured both religion and monarchy.  If you valued your life, you had to be especially sensitive to the changing times: meaning that, depending on the Sovereign, your professed religion could get you into deep trouble.  Henry started it with his takeover of the Church; he was followed by his son, Edward, a fervent Protestant; and he was followed by his sister Mary, a committed Roman Catholic; and she was followed by her sister, Elizabeth, who finally put an end to the affair by a Settlement that said simply that you may believe what you will, but you will attend the Established Church of England, under penalty of law.

          I bring all this up not because any of it is truly relevant to today’s Epistle (1 Cor. 13: 1-13), but because it shows how badly some well meaning people can get carried away by the passions of the moment, and forget the very essence of Christ’s message that we love each another as we love ourselves, and as we love God Himself.  Or, as St. Paul wrote, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” (1 Cor. 13: 13)

          The uneasy truce of the Elizabethan Settlement went a long way in calming the bloody religious struggle in England, but it did little to settle the main problem: the deep religious differences between the several distinct groups calling themselves Protestants, on one side, and those still loyal to the Roman Catholic faith, on the other.  The two sides were formally brought together and forced to coexist under the banner of Reformed Catholicism (or Anglicanism as it is more commonly known), but the resentment was still there, and the struggle continued, as one side and then the other sought and achieved predominance.  And that struggle continued for centuries, a struggle we might call the ebb and flow of “high church” versus “low church.”

          It was only a matter of time (or centuries as we said) until one side completely overpowered the other, and a final split or schism occurred.  And I believe that is what we witnessed during the 1960’s and 70’s, in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA, as ECUSA tore itself apart.  And we are the results of that split, in what now appears to be an irrevocable and possibly fatal separation, for at least one and possibly both sides.  Well, we are still Reformed Catholics, and what at first appeared to be our defeat, now seems to be less so.  But it is clear that we cannot go back to what was; to an edifice that no longer under any circumstances accepts what we have always been.  So, the question is, what do we do next?

          St. Paul wrote, “Though I speak with the tongues of man and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal,” (1 Cor. 13: 1) meaning that without love in our hearts, whatever we say or do has no value.  Currently, we of the Traditional Anglican Communion are being asked to consider whether the time has come to put aside all the resentments and ancient animosities that fill our common Anglican and Roman past, and come together with Christian brethren who share our faith and so much of our history, in reconciliation and the spirit of Christian love.  Many doubts and questions remain as to whether such a reunion is even possible between two such hitherto implacable enemies, and whether we can ever have union with them without also experiencing absorption and the loss of our Anglican heritage and identity.  That some of those doubts and questions will be addressed, I have no doubt, as some of us travel to Quincy, IL, in the near future for a meeting of all the clergy and postulants of the Diocese of the Missouri Valley, with Bishop Strawn.  But there is one thing that is perfectly clear: our future as a Church, whatever that may be, and as Reformed Catholics, lies much more in our future than in the faded glories of our past.

          As we consider the implications of all this, our Lord’s prayer to the Father, “That they all may be one,” should give us pause to ask ourselves whether our pious utterances of love and charity for all men, said in Church, are a sincere expression of our true feelings, or only, as St. Paul termed it, the noise of “sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”

          Jesus prayed, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 17: 21) … “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” (John 17: 23)