WATCH Celebration 17th July 2010 - Sermon by Bishop John Gladwyn

"But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb”

Waiting for the outcomes from York last weekend I was not sure what we might be preparing for today – a wake or a party! The picture of Mary, in John’s account of the Resurrection morning, weeping outside the tomb is not meant to suggest this should be a wake! This picture speaks to multitudes of experience across the world as well as in the church. Whether we travel in heart and mind to places like Haiti and the burden carried by women in that poverty stricken and devastated nation or to households in our own society where women suffer from violent and emotional abuse or even into churches enduring misogynist ministry – the picture of Mary weeping outside the empty tomb evokes a host of stories in our own time.

Last Sunday you will be interested to know we had absolutely no mention of the General Synod. The Parish Eucharist sailed on in blissful innocence. But we could not fail to hear the Gospel Word from the story of the Good Samaritan. It was Jesus who movingly described the way the one on the outside did the neighbourly thing whilst those caught in the bonds of the institution got it all wrong. The Gospel continually punches holes in the walls of defence we humans create to keep the voices of difference at bay. Throughout the Biblical story God finds the people to carry forward the Good News story who break the mould. Mary is one such person – pointing to a new day and fresh beginning for the community of faith.

It is a basic but deep Gospel truth that we meet our Lord outside the empty tomb. Picking up the images used by Paul and thinking of the Samaritan in Jesus’ story we encounter the redeeming face of the crucified and risen Lord in the life of our neighbour who is different from us. Emmanuel Levinas – a great Jewish/French philosopher of the post war period leads us into the mystery of God whom we discover in the other who faces us in the bond of unconditional love. The key to a truly human community is not similarity but difference. Difference comes to us from the outside.

Here is the Gospel transformation of our fractured and frightened world and divided church. The resurrection journey moves us into a community that values the diversity of the human experience. That moment when Mary stands weeping outside the empty tomb and encounters the risen Lord in the beauty and gentleness of the new life is the sign and symbol of the new community.

I remember, preaching at the 21st Anniversary service in Southwark Cathedral for LGCM pondering the question as to why so many gay and lesbian people gave themselves to the ministry and life of the church in the face of so much hostility from the institution. This experience must bust the notion that the church is in control of its own life and ministry. It can only be the grace of God in the face of Jesus Christ that brings the people outside inside the community of faith. We are all faced by the loving and searching face of Jesus Christ meeting us in our neighbour – and especially the neighbour we are tempted to avoid.

When I was Bishop of Guildford it fell to my lot to go into Chichester Diocese to ordain those women called to the priesthood. I did so at the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury because Bishop Eric would have nothing to do with the process. So I took my passport and dark glasses and crept across the border to meet these women and those who encouraged them and ordain them. What a moving experience to hear their stories of vocations which they had carried in their hearts for decades. Only in recent times had the church caught up with the mystery of the work of divine love in their hearts.

The risen Jesus meets our broken and fractured human life lovingly and beautifully outside that empty tomb. He comes to us in the faces and lives of the excluded. It is from the outside that the life and ministry of the church is transformed by the resurrection experience. It is the life and witness of those who have encountered the mystery of Christ beyond the life and borders of the institution of the church who bring the church on towards the future God has for it and for all humanity.

So the story is about out obedience to what God is doing in the world and in peoples lives. The ministry of the Gospel is not the possession of the church but the gift of God. It arises from that love of God which the world has seen in Jesus. In the face of our caution and even fear God demonstrates a divine freedom. In response to all our efforts at controlling vocation God opens new and surprising opportunities beyond our imagining.

We have gathered today to celebrate the courageous Gospel witness of WATCH and particularly its leaders past and present. As we move into a new chapter for the church and diversify its oversight with the experience of women may that new chapter deepen the capacity of the church to be a community that values and sustains difference and constantly seeks to widen its doors to all whom we so easily exclude.

The Gospel requires no less of us today and in the years to come.