We are now in the season of Advent —a season where we both (1) remember the waiting that happened before Jesus’ Incarnation (his first Advent) even as we (2) wait for his promised Second Coming. Both of these features shape how the Church has historically approached the days leading-up to the celebration of Christ’s birth on Dec. 25.
This year we enter into Advent amidst many great shakings that have rocked the Anglican world. A short list runs as follows:
After the recent election of the newest Archbishop of Canterbury, a massive portion of the global Anglican Communion —led mainly by orthodox Anglicans in the global south— declared their separation from the Church of England and the dawn of a new day for the Communion.
At the same time the our province, the ACNA, one of the groups who has been at the forefront of this “Anglican Realignment”, is concluding a years-long tribunal process on one of its Bishops —a process which has been fraught with painful difficulties.
And, only a few weeks after the declaration, Bishop Derek Jones, who led the jurisdiction which oversaw Anglican chaplains in the US military, refused to submit to the discipline of his brother bishops and left the ACNA.
And, after that, allegations were made public against the ACNA archbishop, Steve Wood; who was then inhibited (suspended from ministry) awaiting further investigation.
“Wow! What a mess!” some may rightly say.
Certainly, it is a weird time to be Anglican. What’s going on?
First, a small theological gloss, then some points of clarity.
I. Theological reflection.
What is going on? Oh that’s easy: God is shaking everything that can be shaken so that the things that cannot be shaken remain (cf. Heb. 12:25-27). It’s troubling, no doubt, but this is what the Living God does.
To be clear: God is not the one “doing” the scandalous things. But He is behind bringing sin to light and shaking things up where there is decay and death.
We can think about the shakings that our occurring in our ACNA-corner of the Anglican Communion as following a similar shape to the mixed multitude who came up with Moses out of Egypt in the Exodus.
God leads his people out of the House of Slavery under Pharaoh and into the wilderness. They’re a strange folk: Hebrews, Ethiopians, Egyptians, other ethnicities, all formerly integrated into the oppressive regime of Egyptian Imperialism, now unified as they walk through walls of standing water under a fiery glory cloud, all now bearing the name “Israel.”
They’ve left Egypt, but then what happens? They march through the hinterlands of the Arab Peninsula for 40 years.
It is not enough for God to take Israel out of Egypt. God needs to take Egypt out of Israel.
So it is with us, I think, today. God has taken us out of the old institutional shell of an Anglicanism which had left the “faith once and for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). But now another kind of deliverance begins. He took us out of The Episcopal Church, but now The Episcopal Church must be taken out of us.
The wilderness is crazy, and it is not without its sorrows and difficulties, but it is where God does deep work. It is where he feeds us with manna and quail, it is where water flows from the Rock, it is where we build the Tabernacle, it is where we learn that man does not live by bread alone but by every Word that comes from the Mouth of God” (Deut 8:3).
God is preparing a generation to enter the promised land.
But there are temptations in the wilderness too: idols made of the gold we plundered when we left Egypt, the longing to go back to Egypt to eat leeks and onions by the Nile, all the plotting tomfool scandals of Balaam. For leaders there is the old Mosaic temptation to throw your hands up and smash the rock twice in fury.
These must be refused out-of-hand. Vade retro Satana!
Instead we should respond to our wilderness like Joshua who spent it preparing to lead faithfully when the wilderness was over.
Moreover, Jesus’ name in Hebrew is Joshua. He is the true and greater Joshua. The true and greater Joshua goes into the wilderness for a 40-fold season too. The Spirit leads him there as it led the Israelites under Moses. There he is tempted just as the Isrealites were tempted. But he emerges victorious.
Both Joshuas leave the wilderness as serpent-crushing, torah-rollicking, heirs of a promise.
They both leave the wandering seasons hopeful in God’s faithfulness. Let us do the same. Let us tarry with the Lord in this wild place as he takes the Egypt out of our hearts and minds.
II. A couple points of practical advice.
And now a couple of pieces that I hope may be of help in walking through this painful season as a Gospel People.
It is common to hear people say something like, “Who would ever want to bring a baby into this messed-up world?” Christmas tells us the answer: Who would ever want to bring a baby into this messed-up world? God. God did just that. And his bringing the baby into the world was precisely in response to how messed-up the world was. And it was our salvation. Seeing the messed-up-ness of our province (the ACNA) we might similar things, “who would ever plant an Anglican church in this messed-up season of our communion?” or “Who would ever trust a pastor in this messed-up world?” or “When everything around us seems to be tearing at the seams, who can have any hope for truth and justice?” The answer is, I think, the same: God. Place your hope on Him.
Per what I wrote above, it is possible to simultaneously place your hope in God’s faithfulness to his Church even while we fight for her purity and justice. Hear me: there are a lot of folks working very hard, most of them unseen and unthanked, to respond in a Gospel-centered way to the brokenness. There is real work being done. It is often slow, unspectacular, and gets little press, and even less thanks. Rarely does quiet faithfulness, or due diligence, or careful adjudication, or wise investigation, make the news. Pay for the folks who are in positions to make real change, who are doing the right thing; pray they are strengthened.
Many are running to open letters, public statements, and grand gestures. Much of this is unhelpful, and some of it is just empty posturing —not too different from making KONY 2012 your facebook profile picture. Avoid getting caught up in that. It can make you feel like you are standing on the pinnacle of the temple being asked to do something sensational before the eyes of Jerusalem’s denizens. Remember, there is something better than angels swooping in to protect your image: not jumping into the digital swarm.
Run to prayer. Pray for the victims. Pray for those whose faith is cast asunder in the wake of scandal. Pray for truth and justice. Pray that God would correct us in every area in which we are in error. Pray, also, for those who are the cause of scandal. Great and terrible things Christ says about those who lead little ones to stray. Show pity in your prayers even as you pray for justice. Think of David when King Saul dies, “Oh how the mighty have fallen…” (2 Sam 1:27). Pray for our church, for its purity and mission. Pray. Pray. Pray. And when you’ve finished doing that: Pray.
Finally, we cannot be a people who are afraid to look circumstances in the eye. There are folks who would like to diminish the pain of scandal. There are also folks who would like to enflame and sensationalize it. We, of all people, must be honest about Reality. Be sober and vigilant, neither naive nor hysterical. The archbishop of our province has been accused of some tragic misconduct. He has been inhibited by his brother bishops. All of this has exposed some severe short-comings in certain parts of the college of bishops. Its a mess. Be honest about that. Don’t render it worse or better than it is. Allow it to be the ugly thing it is which God has called us to address biblically.
We’re in the wilderness waiting upon the Lord —but isn’t that what Advent is all about? This week our college of Bishops is meeting. Join me in praying for them. Pray in particular for our Bishops, Ken and Ben. That God would strengthen them with all power and authority and wisdom.
Come Lord Jesus, we wait upon your appearing in our wild places.