THE Church cannot solve the world’s problems, but it may model a way of life that rejects a “them and us” narrative, the Archbishop of Wales, the Most Revd Cherry Vann, said in her sermon at her enthronement service.
Addressing the congregation at Newport Cathedral on 8 November, Archbishop Vann, who became the primary woman Primate in an Anglican Church within the UK when she was elected in August (News, 1 August), said: “We live in troubling times. Division and hate, mistrust and disinformation are rife across our world and in our societies here in Wales.
“There appears to be an increasing tendency, an encouragement even (from some at the least) to define ourselves over and against others in ways in which significantly threaten the community cohesion that many have spent many years attempting to construct.”
Speaking of war, community tensions, threats to free speech, climate change, and the fee of living, Archbishop Vann continued: “Whilst the Church cannot solve the world’s problems, we are able to and are called to model a really different way of occurring, which holds out one other way of being and the hope that’s the Kingdom of God.”
She referred to a poem by Chuck Lathrop — “In search of a round table” — which she said had shaped her understanding of ministry and of the Church down the years.
She quoted: “‘It will take some sawing to be roundtabled, Some redefining and redesigning, Such redoing and rebirthing of narrow-long Churching Can painful be for people and tables. . . It would mean no diasing and throning, For but one King is there, He is a foot washer, at table no less. . .’”
The poem refers to ministers who come to take a seat at the top of this table of individuals, only to find that it has been turned around. “They have to be loved into roundness . . . For God has called a People, Not ‘them and us’.”
“And so,” Archbishop Vann said, “in our attitudes and behaviours, in the selections we take and the values we espouse, in the way in which we live and relate to at least one one other, there’s to be no ‘them and us’. . .
“Hard though it could be sometimes, we’re invited by God to have a good time the range of our global humanity, and to embrace it as a present. . . There is to be ‘no diasing and throning’ — somewhat ironic within the context of what is occurring here this afternoon, with a somewhat large throne sitting centre-stage. But the gospel reminds us, as does the poem, that we’re all equal in God’s sight. God shouldn’t be within the business of hierarchies.”
The Church was called to “reach out across the divides” at the danger of “being rejected and ridiculed for our efforts”, she said. “It means staying with and being alongside those that push our buttons and infuriate us beyond measure with grace and charity and an open heart.”
Archbishop Vann was enthroned within the archepiscopal chair in front of the high altar at the beginning of the service. Later, she took the oaths of office using the Monmouth Archbishop’s Bible, which has been used on the enthronement of all previous Bishops of Monmouth who’ve turn into Archbishops: the late Edwin Morris, the late Derek Childs, and, more recently, Lord Williams.
