The hour is getting late ...

Here is an excerpt from The Rt. Rev'd James Tengatenga's sermon in Dallas yesterday. Bishop Tengatenga, Bishop of Southern Malawi, is the President of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) who was elected to a six-year term at the last AAC meeting in May 2009. Bishop Tengatenga is a visiting Professor at the Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, TX. He was the keynote speaker at the Diocese of Dallas Special Convention. The following is an excerpt from his sermon, given yesterday in Dallas.

My brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion, we have a Gospel to proclaim! All authority is with Jesus Christ and he has charged us with a task. It may be that we believe that in our fractiousness we are doing it but I am convinced there is a better way. Fractiousness is about us and not about God. The Gospel is about God in Christ reconciling the world to himself and through the Holy Spirit empowering us to do the same. Fractiousness and entrenchment in our (as you say in Texas) “hidie hos” of orthodoxy or lack thereof isn’t. I am persuaded that we are in danger of derailing the mission of God in Christ by our behavior and contentiousness and thus doing the opposite of the charge given here in Matthew. The Gospel is at stake. Jesus Christ is at stake. It is not about us!

We are behaving as if “all authority has been given to us and our click” and Jesus no longer features. The mountains are beckoning for those who would rather run. Self-serving holding on to what is understood to be Anglican seems to be what gives comfort to others and for yet others it is political suaveness. Where is Jesus in all this? If only we can focus on Him who was and is and is to come, we may “have a Gospel to proclaim.” This may sound very naïve and too simplistic a solution to our complex struggle. But as Jesus prayed, “Thank you, O God for you have revealed these truths not to the wise but to the children and innocent!”

Back to the Elijah imagery – it was not in the thunder and fireworks that God spoke. Bob Dylan lends his wisdom:

“No reason to get excited” the thief he kindly spoke.
There are many here among us who feel life is but a joke
But you and I have been through that and this is not our fate.
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.

Time for our games is running out. In fact I believe it has run out already! It is time to focus on Jesus and turn to him in repentance saying, “Fighting within and fighting without but O Lamb of God, I come: I come.” Once we have our eyes on Jesus we can preach nothing less. “We have a Gospel to proclaim” and the Lord is with us even “to the end of the age.” “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you,” says he. It is not about you but about Jesus Christ and him crucified!

Tip of the Tinfoil to Doug.



The Diocese of Dallas held a Special Convention yesterday to vote on two resolutions, one concerning the endorsement of the Anglican Covenant and the other to disassociate from certain resolutions of the 76th Annual General Convention.

The first resolution was passed as amended and the second resolution passed as well.The second resolution was referred to the Special Convention by Diocesan Convention in October of 2009 and proposed a disassociation from certain resolutions of the 76th Annual General Convention. This resolution passed as well.

The first resolution "endorses,
adopts
 and
 enters
 into 
the 
Anglican
Covenant
," while the second resolution disassociates the diocese from "The 
4th,
 5th,
 6th,
 and
 7th
 Resolved
 clauses
 of 
Resolution
 D025
 (Commitment
 and
Witness
 to
 Anglican 
Communion),

 
Resolution 
C056 
(Liturgies
 for 
blessings 
and
 Pastoral
 Generosity 
in 
Addressing
 Civil
Marriage).
 


The final resolutions passed by the Diocese of Dallas yesterday are here.