What He Said

Ephraim Radner's homily from last Sunday is worth checking out. He was guest preacher at Grace, Colorado Springs--the continuing Grace Church, that is, the group remaining loyal to the Diocese of Colorado, rather than those who have departed for Nigeria.

Do read the whole thing, but here's a teaser:

The Episcopal Church is not an idol, and we must never think it more important than God. But it is being destroyed by bad choices, false choosing from across the theological and political spectrum before God’s address. It is being destroyed by those without patience, willing to create their own churches – churches of innovating doctrine and order, that must have everything now, and cannot work with the Body; churches of immediate purity and conformity to perceived truths, that cannot wait to have their own witness work.and prevail. That is the third point I would make about our future. It’s future in God lies in our patience in God’s patience.

And later:

I repeat Pope John XXIII’s well-known prayer that he said each night: “Dear God: it’s your church. I’m going to bed. Good night”. That’s not an abdication of responsibility for the converted life, the life that chooses in Jesus as the Christ of God. It is rather an acknowledgement that the outcome to such a life and such a choice, and such a following, is not ours to manipulate. And if we understand that, we can embrace the fact that the future of the Episcopal Church and of the Anglican Communion in faith is one where our manipulation disappears.