Inspirational Letter 5th Sunday After Trinity - Archbishops’ Travels

Sarah and Stephen, Archbishops of Canterbury and York, have been reflecting recently on their experiences of pilgrimage. This, in itself, feels like a good thing - pilgrimage providing a particular range of perspectives on faith in the midst of lived and living realities. On pilgrimage we are in learning not teaching mode - open through new encounters and experiences to seeing the world, and so our faith, differently. It is especially encouraging that Archbishop Sarah marked the transition from being Bishop of London to Archbishop of Canterbury by walking the ancient pilgrim route between the two cities.

Both Archbishops have also recently made pilgrimages to the Holy Land, especially spending time with the beleaguered Palestinian Christians in the West Bank; as well as with their Muslim neighbours. They have seen at first hand the rapidly expanding Israeli settlements across the West Bank, illegal in international law as they take land from the indigenous Palestinians, cutting off roads and water supplies and dividing neighbouring communities. They have heard of the growing intimidation and violence meted out by members of these settlement communities, and seen the real life consequences. They have met with those living as refugees in the camps in the West Bank now home to third and fourth generations of peoples displaced when their homes and communities were taken in the post WW2 establishment of the state of Israel.

The Archbishops are aware of and sensitive to the complex layers of history, and wider recent and current political realities behind what they witnessed. This awareness and sensitivity has sharpened their shared desire to speak out and urge the Church of England as a whole to support a growing coalition of faith communities and aid agencies in a campaign called Time to Act.

I encourage you to take time in looking at the campaign focus of Time to Act and adding your own support by becoming a signatory. This week both Cotham and St Paul’s PCCs have unanimously agreed to our support for the campaign as churches, and we’ll be exploring ways we can give expression to this, beyond putting our names to it. As well as the excellent resources on the Time to Act website you can see more on the campaign on the Christian Aid site.

Archbishop Stephen has spoken powerfully of the urgency of the campaign: 

“Time to Act provides us with the opportunity to come together as Christians and to advocate for a just peace in Israel and Palestine – a peace characterised by the active promotion of justice and the nurturing of equitable relationship within and between communities so that everyone can live life in all its fullness. I encourage all Christians to join this campaign and to seek this peace and to pursue it with all the urgency that it requires.”

Meanwhile the Archbishops have also been putting their names to a new Church of England theological statement on the Environment: Hope for all Creation, and written a Foreword to it. The document itself looks very good, and it’s important to have this official theological document to encourage more embedded discussion and action across the whole church. However I was rather disappointed by the opening paragraph of the Archbishops’ Foreword. Again rooted in their experience of pilgrimage they describe:

“The roads and paths we have walked with fellow pilgrims have taken us past parks, gardens, window boxes and woodland, along rivers, through fields and to churches in green churchyards, and to people who live, work and find enjoyment in these places. The experience reminds us that to follow Jesus Christ is to be drawn into renewed relationship, with other people and with the rest of creation, as we are drawn more deeply into the life of God. Indeed, for many, these spaces, and the life that fills them, can be a place of encounter with the God who creates them.”

While all of this is true the Environmental and Ecological crises is in many ways urban in focus and effect, and living sustainably requires a fresh imagination about and engagement with our lives in cities, and an anticipation that we will encounter God in these places too. The gritty realities of their recent Holy Land pilgrimages have been replaced here by rather pastiched chocolate box images of a rural idyll. Pilgrimage in urban places and spaces is one way of deepening our spiritual engagement with the realities all around us; and so I end with an invitation to join us for our Quiet Day on Saturday 19th September where we’ll be exploring and making urban pilgrimage together in and around St Anne’s church and parish in Eastville.

Meanwhile let us pray for our Archbishops as they lead us in our experience of being a Pilgrim Church.

With my love and prayers to all my fellow pilgrims,

David