Fr. Greg's Anglo-Catholic Rants

This is where I get to post my thoughts about Jesus Christ, the Anglican Communion and the world we live in. All opinions are welcomed. P.S. This is a work in progress. Pax et Bonum

Monday, January 01, 2007

Anglican Communion News Service

    ACNS 4234     |     LAMBETH     |     01 JANUARY 2007

 

Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year Message

 

31st December 2006

 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has said that we need to

feel the same hunger for justice that ended the slave trade if the world is

to be changed for the better. Speaking in his New Year message, broadcast on

BBC Television in the UK on New Year's Eve and repeated on New Year's Day,

he drew on the example of William Wilberforce to urge people to act to

change the world.

 

"Jesus talks about being hungry and thirsty for righteousness, for justice.

And if we hear that in the way it's surely meant, we have to conclude that

he means that we should feel there's something missing in us, something

taken away from us, when another person, near or far away, has to face need

and suffering. We get to be ourselves only when we wake up to them and their

needs."

 

The message was filmed in Holy Trinity Church in Clapham, and the Arndale

Shopping centre in Wandsworth, South London and also featured footage shot

during his visit to World Food projects in Southern Sudan. The reformers, he

said regarded the slave trade as making the whole of humanity less than

human:

 

"People like William Wilberforce and Henry Thornton felt they were made less

human than they should be by the appalling injustice of the slave trade.

They felt a hunger for justice - a sense of being spiritually impoverished -

"undernourished" because of slavery.

 

People, he said, may feel overwhelmed or even bored by constant appeals, but

change could only come if people were moved to act:

 

"When we look at the familiar images of other people's suffering, do we feel

a void inside ourselves, a yearning for something different and a conviction

that it needn't be like this? That's where change begins. And it's one of

the differences that faith can make; faith in God and in people. It's worth

remembering this year those who struggled to do away with the slave trade.

If we lived in a society that tolerated slavery now, wouldn't we feel soiled

and diminished by it? Wouldn't we feel hungry for something different? So

what are the things today that make us feel the same?"

 

ENDS

 

Notes

 

The broadcast was first aired on New Year's Eve on BBC 2 at 20000hrs and

repeated on BBC 1 at 1245 hrs on New Year's Day.

 

The footage from Sudan was shot at two world food programme aid projects in

southern Sudan; a church school project in Malakal feeds around 700 puils

their only solid meal of the day. In nearby Obel, a food distribution point

supports families seeking to re-establish themselves on their farmland,

having been displaced by conflict.

 

The Church featured is Holy Trinity Clapham, the home of the Clapham Sect,

which included reformers William Wilberforce and Henry Thornton.

 

The shopping centre featured is the Arndale Shopping Centre in Wandsworth,

South London.

 

 

 

The full text of the message is below.

 

Here in this London shopping centre - as in towns across the UK - the

January sales are well underway - after a Christmas when many of us probably

spent more than we should and eaten more than we should . It's all in stark

contrast to Sudan where I visited last February.

 

The local church feeds several hundred each day, using its school as the

feeding point where the World Food Programme's supplies can be distributed.

Centres like this are few and far between - and the World Food Programme is

already warning that resources are running out.

 

We all respond as best we can to one emergency appeal after another. And we

feel just a bit guilty as we acknowledge that we're almost bored by yet

another appeal - yet another set of pictures of suffering children in need.

 

It's true that endless appeals lose their impact. Information - statistics,

won't really motivate us; The only thing that makes a difference is if we

get to see those faces and figures as somehow about us - not just Them.

 

It's when the hunger or the homelessness or the loneliness of someone else

becomes something that I feel for myself as an affront - something that

makes me less of a person.

 

In the Bible, Jesus talks about being hungry and thirsty for righteousness,

for justice. And if we hear that in the way it's surely meant, we have to

conclude that he means that we should feel there's something missing in us,

something taken away from us, when another person, near or far away, has to

face need and suffering. We get to be ourselves only when we wake up to them

and their needs.

 

2007 marks two hundred years since the slave trade was abolished. Here at

Holy Trinity Clapham - a group of Christians called the "Clapham Sect" were

at the forefront of the fight to end the slave trade.

 

People like William Wilberforce and Henry Thornton felt they were made less

human than they should be by the appalling injustice of the slave trade.

They felt a hunger for justice - a sense of being spiritually impoverished -

"undernourished" because of slavery.

 

This is what made the difference. When we look at the familiar images of

other people's suffering, do we feel a void inside ourselves, a yearning for

something different and a conviction that it needn't be like this?

 

That's where change begins. And it's one of the differences that faith can

make; faith in God and in people.

 

It's worth remembering this year those who struggled to do away with the

slave trade. If we lived in a society that tolerated slavery now, wouldn't

we feel soiled and diminished by it? Wouldn't we feel hungry for something

different?

 

So what are the things today that make us feel the same?

 

People often speak about the spiritual hunger of our society. But the answer

to that isn't in ideas or spiritual feelings; it's in the decision to act -

to reach out to feed, to heal, to befriend, knowing that this is where we

discover who we're really meant to be.

 

We get the power for that when we believe that there is a divine love that

is waiting eagerly for us to cooperate.

 

And when we do, both physical and spiritual hunger can be met. We find our

nourishment as human beings together, as we really learn to share the world

we've been given to live in.

 

God bless you all in this New Year and help you find the nourishment you

need for spirit and body.

 

Ends

 

© Rowan Williams 2007

 

 

 

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