Not standing still

Quite by accident, as I had not paid attention to the calendar, I reread the biographical book “Benson of Cowley”. I say reread but the last time I looked at it was in Seminary 20 years ago and I cannot have read it very well.

Today is, of course, the commemoration of Fr. Richard Benson, priest of Cowley and founder of The Society of St. John the Evangelist, a religious order of monks in the Anglican Church.

I had assumed Benson to be stuffy and conservative but reading the book again has opened my eyes. Things I take for granted in my own journey were things which he was part of a revolution to bring about. The religious houses especially.

Today, I have just read the report from Lambeth. Unfortunately this was going to happen sooner or later, the Episcopal Church is being put under restrictions, we have stretched the bonds of affection to the point where they are not all that affectionate any more.

Fr. Benson once said that Christ has not promise us a stationery permanence to this Church. I  not sure what he would have made of our modern debates, he was a child of his time, but I think this perspective of change us helpful, especially as it comes from someone firmly rooted in the Catholic Tradition.

It is frightening to think of global bonds shifting and loosening but the end game is, are we following God’s  call in our theology and polity? Are we, with God’s help,  surrounded in prayer and sacrament faithfully following the path which we believe God has set before us? If we can answer yes, if we believe that we are called to this place, however uncomfortable, (and I do) then I have to trust that this is a moment to move forward, carefully and faithfully.

We are not looking, as Fr Benson would record, for a Jesus who lived 2000 years ago but for a Jesus who lives now. We are not reading a historian document in the Bible but the living word of God and our sacraments are a means of real and present grace not a historian reenactment.

In these things, and in these alone are our stability. In Christ through Word and Sacrament we are to know God’s love and make it known. I will listen to that call and no amount of sabre rattling.