Address given by the
Canon for International Affairs
at the National Cathedral
on the Occasion of the
Convention of the Diocese of Georgia
Good Shepherd Church, Augusta, Georgia
4 February 2005
At the outset I want to thank Bishop Louttit and those
responsible for planning this convention for asking me
to come to address this Diocesan Convention. I have had
enormous affection and appreciation for this diocese for
many years. While I was Dean of St. George’s College in
Jerusalem we had many from this diocese come to
Jerusalem to take a course at the College or to stand in
solidarity with the Church in Jerusalem. While I was
the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, I
frequently came to the Diocese, either to clergy
conferences or to parishes in the Diocese who supported
the international work of the Communion. It is a great
privilege for me to be at Good Shepherd Church today
because this is a Compass Rose Society parish. I
remember being with Robert Fain at Kanuga for a Bowen
Conference when all the electricity at Kanuga went out
because of a horrific snow storm. One night Robert and
I walked from the Lodge where we were staying to
Kanuga’s Office, about six blocks away, in the snow and
ice so I could send some FAXes. I got to know Robert
well that night as we tried to walk in the car tracks
that kept disappearing! I also want to compliment the
fabulous hospitality that Good Shepherd has extended to
this Convention and to say how beautiful your new
buildings are.
I want to acknowledge Doug Renegar, former Rector of
Christ Church, St. Simon’s Island and now the Executive
Director of the Anglican Communion Office at the United
Nations in New York. Under Doug’s leadership Christ
Church became the only parish in the Anglican Communion
that produced two new members each year for the Compass
Rose Society. As a parish Christ Church became very
involved in global ministry, particularly in Mpwapwa,
Tanzania, Belize, the Congo and in Palestine. I know
all of you join me in praying for Doug and Elizabeth in
Doug’s new ministry, and in particular for Doug’s
health.
I also want to thank Louise Shipps for being such an
important mentor to me in the spirituality of the icon.
I know many of you have benefited from Louise as she has
introduced us to the icon and how the icon can bring us
closer to the Divine. To be able to pray the icon, and
for many of you, to write an icon, has been a gift we
have learned from Louise. To both Louise and to Harry,
who has always been a strong advocate for Oriental
Orthodox and Orthodox relations, my sincere thanks.
Although I will have more to say about Bishop Louttit in
my sermon tomorrow, I want to thank you for the
different opportunities that you gave to me while I was
Secretary General. You have always welcomed me into
your diocese. You have always supported the global
ministry of our church. You have always been faithful
to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. For
that let me say a special word of thanks to you for the
leadership you have given to this diocese over the last
ten years. Thank you for being such a good friend.
The topic that has been assigned for me to address
during this convention is that of the Family. I must
also confess that I have found this speech to be
challenging to write simply because of the vastness of
the subject. As you can easily guess, I have chosen to
look at the Family from a global perspective, reflecting
with you what I have experienced over the last 22 years,
both in the responsibilities I was given in Jerusalem
and in London. Some of you might be thinking, why does
not John deal with the social and economic problems that
we face as a family here in the Diocese of Georgia? In
many ways that is exactly what I am going to do because
I would want to argue what happens in the global family
today impacts our own family here. We simply do not
live in isolation today.
A case in point. Last Thanksgiving I was the Chaplain
at Kanuga’s Guest Period. The job of the chaplain is to
preach a Thanksgiving Day Sermon, do a couple of Evening
Prayer Services, plus the Sunday Sermon for Advent I.
You will be interested to know that Harry Shipps was my
deacon on Thanksgiving Day!
In my Thanksgiving sermon I spoke about the HIV and AIDS
pandemic in Africa and a Drama and Music Program that
has been established in the Diocese of Mpwapwa. In
Mpwapwa, as in many other places in the world (and
possibly in Georgia as well) it is hard for parents to
speak with their children about sexual ethics and safe
sex. Therefore, an outstanding Drama and Music Program
in Mpwapwa has been established that enables these
issues to be discussed via the medium of drama and
music. What these young people have been able to do in
the Drama and Music Program is quite outstanding. In my
sermon, as Harry will attest, I told the story of how
one diocese is trying to communicate to their young
people – in other words how to save lives.
At Kanuga, every participant in the Conference is asked
to fill in a questionnaire and I always like to read the
comments made about my sermons or my chaplain work at
Kanuga. These evaluations always help me to improve
what I am doing. The people are asked to grade on a
scale from 1 (pretty bad) to 5 (excellent). Well, my
sermon received one 1. The reason why one person gave
me a “one” is because I had mentioned the words “safe
sex”. That person thought it was inappropriate for
their children to hear those two words. To be honest
with you, when I read that criticism, I felt sorry for
the children, for if you cannot hear the words “safe
sex” in church, I can guarantee you the children will
learn about sex on the street. I am sure all of you
would agree that, if given an option, you would prefer
the church over the street.
I tell this story, not to engage you in a debate whether
or not it was appropriate for me to mention those two
words in a Thanksgiving Day sermon at Kanuga, but to
illustrate that which impacts a small town in Tanzania,
impacts us as well in the Diocese of Georgia.
This last year the International
Anglican Family Network (and I am going to say more
about that Network later) did a study entitled,
“International Year of the Family: Ten years on –
Problems and Progress”. In the Editorial to that
Newsletter, the editor wrote:
“St. Paul wrote that we are all members of one body and
when one suffers all suffer. This is true of individual
families and of the vast family of the Anglican
Communion. All parts are affected in some way by the
changes of the last ten years and the dramatic pace of
the change can cause confusion and doubt as to the way
forward. But surely it is clear that tackling HIV/AIDS
and the poverty which often underlies its spread, the
problems of many single families and the legacy of
violence should be priorities in the next decade for all
members of the Body of Christ.”
Today there is not one country that is not impacted in
some way by HIV and AIDS. The countries most impacted,
and might I say devastated, by this pandemic, are the
poorest countries in the world. Indeed it is poverty
that “often underlies the spread of AIDS.” The people
who are frequently the innocent victims are women and
children.
At the Lambeth Conference in 1998 one of the Plenary
Sessions was called, “Making Moral Decisions”. It was
Chaired by Bishop Victoria Matthews, now the Diocesan of
Edmonton. One of the Moral Decisions was described by
Gwennie Rukare of Uganda. I will take what Gwennie said
to my grave. She described a true story that one of her
friends experienced. Instead of always saying Gwennie’s
friend, I am going to tell the story by simply saying
Gwennie.
Gwennie’s husband died. In Uganda, like many other
countries around the world, following Old Testament law,
Gwennie was to marry her husband’s oldest brother. The
only problem is that Gwennie’s brother-in-law was HIV
positive. If she married him, Gwennie knew that it
would not be long before she too would be HIV infected.
The problem is that in Uganda there is no social
security, no social net for a person like Gwennie. None
of her husband’s money or property belonged to her.
When her husband died, Gwennie had nothing. Her options
were these: to marry her brother-in-law and become
infected OR literally to live on the street,
dependent on handouts or ultimately being forced to sell
her body. It is important to say that if she did not
marry her brother-in-law, she would be rejected by
family and society.
So at the Lambeth Conference the moral question was
asked.
Because of her social and cultural situation, Gwennie’s
options were not many – and might I say, the enslavement
of women is perpetuated by the church by the
interpretation of Leviticus.
Of course, this only becomes more complicated today
because of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. As I have already
said, it is the women and children who are the innocent
victims.
Last year when I was in the Diocese of the Highveld in
South Africa with the Compass Rose Society, I visited a
center that opens its doors each day to toddlers and
children up to 5 years old. Most of these children were
orphans, living with their granny because in most cases
their parents had both died of AIDS. Granny is
generally old and exhausted so this day care center is
so important. Not one of us had a dry eye when we left
seeing all these children infected with HIV and possibly
AIDS. However, we also received some really good news
that day. Two toddlers who had been HIV infected had a
reversal because of excellent nutrition and effective
drug treatment from that Church day care center.
However, most children face a radically different
outcome.
At the Primates Meeting of the Anglican Communion at
Kanuga in 2001, the Primates declared: “We as a Church
have AIDS.” I would want to argue that this pandemic is
really a plague on our family and on our church. As a
family we are not only called to deal directly with
AIDS, but also, and perhaps most importantly, with the
one reason why AIDS continues to spread so rapidly: that
is, poverty.
While I was Secretary General I had the great privilege
to travel to 33 of the 38 Provinces in the Anglican
Communion. In my travels I have seen indescribable
poverty, poverty in places where one would not expect to
find poverty. We have all heard about the street
children in Brazil in San Paulo and in Rio, but I was
tremendously impacted by what I experienced in Recife,
in an incredible garbage dump there. The year was 1997
and in the morning I had attended the consecration of
the new bishop of that diocese. Let me assure you the
consecration did not prepare me for what I was going to
see in the afternoon when I went to visit the city
garbage dump.
Following the service I was taken to a garbage dump that
was one mile square where literally hundreds of people
live and sleep. I have never seen anything like it in
my life. The conditions of this garbage dump can only
be described as “non-human”. There were rats, dogs and
filth, as people dug through the garbage to find
something to eat or something to sell. But in this
garbage dump the Episcopal Church of Brazil has a
church. Simea is the priest. As the priest, she not
only ministers sacramentally to the people, but she is
also an advocate for them.
When we arrived at the garbage pit we were warmly
welcomed into a home that had been made of scraps found
in the garbage. The home was a single room, which is no
more than 10 x 10 where eight people (believe it or not)
live and sleep. Most of the young boys and girls who
live there, because of their poverty, are victims of the
drug pushers. But we were told that the Church was a
threat to the drug pushers, because the Church was there
to help break the vicious cycle of poverty, and
therefore the young people were much more likely to get
off and stay off the crack.
The stories I was told were incredible. What these
children have to face every single day is incredible.
But out of this poverty I was given a gift made out of
the garbage that the boys and girls had found. They
gave me this cross. In the midst of hunger and an
incredible loss of human dignity the boys and girls made
me this cross from the scraps of paper they found in the
garbage dump. A cross which symbolised for them hope.
A cross which symbolised for them life. A cross which
symbolised for them God’s love. When I receive their
gift, I cried. The only thing I could say to them was
simply, “today I have seen the face of Jesus in you.”
Indeed in the garbage pit in Recife, I saw the face of
Jesus in those young boys, I saw the face of Jesus in
those young girls. I saw the face of Jesus made out of
scrap paper in the form of a cross. No greater tangible
gift have I ever received. When the children of Brazil
suffer … the children of the Diocese of Georgia suffer.
When we think about our children, I always think about
Tanzania. Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in
the world. A large number of its population are
peasants. This creates a real problem for children
because they are needed on the farms and yet Tanzania
has also decreed that any child seven years of age must
go to school. In the International
Anglican Family Network Newsletter (Trinity 2003)
the situation that many children face was described in
this way:
“Many children help their parents on small farms before
they go to school. They wake up early in the morning,
go to a field to dig, then wash their face and rush to
school. Sometimes, they reach schools very tired, and
so learn nothing, but sleep in class. When they come
back from school, they just take a cup of porridge and
go to the field again.
Other children look after cattle. Such children are the
number one victims of the problem of schooling. One
said “I can go to school once or twice a week, the other
days I usually look after my uncle’s cattle.” Normally,
these children cannot understand the result of not going
to school.”
In spite of the new government policy, it is not
uncommon to meet children over nine years old who do not
know how to read or write. Because some children have
to work apart from their families, sexual abuse and
harassment face them and many primary school girls have
had to drop out of school because of early pregnancy.
In some Dioceses in Tanzania the Church is stepping
forward to help set children free from hazardous work,
but also the Church is working to guarantee that
education is a right and one of the basic rights of
children. The Church in Tanzania is working with
parents, guardians and employers to ensure that children
are protected from any kind of work that will interfere
with schooling.
Speaking about child labor, recently I read an article
that causes me not to enjoy what I really love – that is
chocolate. Can’t you tell! Most of us really enjoy a
good piece of chocolate, but things are far from good
for the children on many of the cocoa plantations in
West Africa that produce the chocolate.
I was told this story: “David” (not his real name) was
14 years old when he was forced to work as a slave on a
cocoa plantation in the Ivory Coast. Originally from
neighbouring Mali, David was stolen from his parents,
shipped to the Ivory Coast and sold as a slave to a
cocoa farm. ‘When people eat chocolate, it’s as if they
are eating my flesh’, David cried.
“David earned no money for his work. He stayed on the
plantation in the hope that his long-promised wages
would eventually materialise. He was barely fed and his
back bears the scars from the beating that almost cost
him his life.
“Almost half the world’s cocoa beans are grown in
western Africa and almost half the world’s chocolate
production starts in the Ivory Coast. Most of the
labourers in the industry are teenagers like David.
Like him, they are bought and sold for as little as $40,
having come from poorer countries looking for work.
Most of them will never see their families again.
“David was fortunate. He managed to escape from the
cocoa farm, after several attempts and several
beatings. He forfeited his promised wages but he now
works for a Christian employer who pays him fairly.”
Many people today are taking a stand against the illegal
use of child labor. In many of our churches one can buy
Fair Trade chocolate and it never hurts to write to
chocolate manufacturers telling them you want to buy
clearly labelled products that have not exploited
children in their production. When the children of the
Ivory Coast are exploited, the children of the Diocese
of Georgia are exploited.
Nor will I ever forget the Compass Rose Society’s
Mission visit to Kaduna in Northern Nigeria. Christians
are in the minority in the northern part of Nigeria, in
large part because Islam was already present in the
region when the Christian missionaries first arrived
there. While the Church has grown, tensions remain
between the two faith communities and sadly we often
hear of Kaduna in connection with outbreaks of conflict
between Muslims and Christians. One of the primary
purposes for our visit to the Diocese of Kaduna was to
learn more about the tensions between Muslim and
Christians. That we did, and that could easily be the
address for another Diocesan Convention.
For today, I will limit myself to describing the
experience of spending a few days out in the bush,
seeing first hand the impact of poverty. Once in the
bush we visited a remote village where we found a small
Church totally built out of mudbrick. In this Anglican
Church everything, including the “pews”, was made out of
mudbrick. We arrived at this church mid-afternoon. I
was exhausted. All I wanted to do was pray in quiet, so
I went into the church. Soon the church was packed -
perhaps a standing room crowd of 40 people. Mothers and
their small children abounded. It was a grace-filled
moment. The prayers that were prayed were as powerful
as any prayer prayed at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
in Jerusalem, in Canterbury Cathedral or here at Good
Shepherd Church.
However, there was one major difference. When I left
what I now call, the Mudbrick Cathedral, a doctor
accompanying me gave me some horrendous statistics. All
the children have congested lungs and worms and 60% of
them will die before they are three years old. 9% of
the mothers will die in childbirth. And here in the
bush there was not a single health clinic.
When a member of the Compass Rose Society heard that
there was no clinic in the bush, he asked how much it
would cost to build one. Bob was told $7,000 would
build the clinic. He and his wife Elinor built a health
clinic and today the horrid statistics I quoted have
been dramatically decreased because of their compassion
and generosity. When the people in the Kaduna bush
suffer … the people of the Diocese of Georgia suffer.
When one considers the Family in the context of the
Anglican Communion we are confronted with some pretty
staggering stories. But it is not all gloom. There is
good news in some of the better off developing
countries, where mortality rates are declining and
literacy and health services are improving. This is
what we witnessed in the Diocese of Kaduna. That is
good news!
What has to be said is that we who live in the United
States have a hard time relating to such statistics and
stories because we are a really blessed people. That is
not to say that we do not have acute poverty and social
problems in this country. But I would still ague we are
very blessed. As a Church, if we really believe that we
are a part of a larger global family and that we are all
interdependent, how do we respond to the needs of the
people in Tanzania, in Nigeria, the Sudan? The first
and most important thing for us to do is to make sure
that we are well informed. When we are better informed
we can pray more effectively and we can give our money
more responsibly. I would like to offer some concrete
suggestions about how you as individuals, parishes and
as a diocese can respond.
First, in the Anglican Communion there is a network
called the International Anglican Family
Network. Every four months the Network produces a
study on different family issues. Some of their work I
have used in this Address. The Network considers topics
like, “Children and Work”; “Food and the Family”; “The
Burden of Care”; “Women and the Family”; “Children and
War”; “Education and the Family”; “Single Parent
Families” just to name a few. This Network is obviously
on the “cutting edge” dealing with social and economic
problems that face every family every day in the
Anglican Communion. However, this Anglican Communion
Network has a major problem. It has no money and
literally has to do its work hand to mouth. It
desperately needs your support and I hope that you and
your parish will consider supporting the Family Network
so this vital communications tool on the Family can
continue.
Second, one of the ways you can become informed is to
visit a place of your own interest. This can be done
through the Compass Rose Society, if you yourself are a
member or if your parish is a member, or you can join
one of the upcoming visits that will be offered by the
National Cathedral. These visits are to the local
Church and are far from being sightseeing junkets.
Their purpose is to enable church people to see first
hand the places we have visited today in this Convention
address. Let me assure you, you will not be staying at
Hiltons, but you will see what few people ever see – and
your life will be dramatically changed. One of the
things I have learned as I have visited the poorest of
the poor is that they always give their very best,
always topped off with lots of love.
Third, there is no question about the generosity of the
Episcopal Church. There is no more generous church in
the Anglican Communion than the Episcopal Church. Today
more than ever before, when controversy threatens the
very unity of the Church, we need to hold on to the
words of the Apostle Paul, from the Epistle chosen for
the Eucharist tomorrow. Words which challenge us “to
lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been
called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience,
forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one
body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one
hope of your calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.
One God and Father of all, who is above all and through
all and in all.”
If we take seriously our call to be the Body of Christ,
then we have to take seriously our responsibilities to
the family. In this family there is tremendous
diversity, many different points of view on every
conceivable subject. As in every nuclear family, there
is always a divergence of opinion within the Body. But
that does not mean we are not all one in the Body of
Christ. Indeed, I believe Jesus is unwilling to exclude
anyone from his family. Today in the Church, as in our
nation, we find it easy to exclude someone who does not
agree with our point of view. Not Jesus. “There is one
body and one spirit.” Jesus weeps over our divisions,
particularly when we exclude someone from the Body of
Christ. When we tell the people of Brazil, “I have no
need for you” or the people of Nigeria, “I have no need
for you” we are not uplifting the wholeness of the Body
of Christ. I would want to argue that we need the
Church in Kenya today and the Church of Kenya needs us.
There is no question that the Church in Sri Lanka needs
our support today after the horrific tsunami, but we
equally need the Church in Sri Lanka so we can
understand what pain and grief are all about.
Let us return to the garbage dump in Brazil. That
garbage dump reminds me of the Sixth Station of the
Cross in Jerusalem. The Sixth Station recalls Veronica
coming out of her home to wash the face of Jesus.
Following his scourging and his mocking with a crown of
thorns and his painful journey along the Via Dolorosa,
the face of Jesus is far from attractive. But Veronica
sees through the horror and ugliness to the beauty of
Jesus. Veronica wipes the blood, the sweat and the dust
from Jesus’ face. Veronica was able to see with God’s
eyes, to recognize love and beauty when it is so much
easier to see only ugliness and squalor. As we think
about our Anglican family and our own brothers and
sisters in Christ, might we be able to see them through
God’s eyes and know them as we are known.
‘When I received their gift, I cried. The only thing I
could say to them was: “today I have seen the face of
Jesus in you”’.
God bless you.
John L. Peterson
4 February 2005
*For more information and to find out
how you can support the International Anglican Family
Network, contact the coordinator:
Dr. Sally Thompson
Coordinator
International Anglican Family Network
P.O. Box 54
Minehead, Somerset TA24 7WD
England
Tel/Fax: (+44) 1643 841 500
Email:
mail@iafn.org.uk
Website:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/iafn/
Links to items of interest from the convention
